The maelogaunt’s true form was about five feet tall and swathed in gray robes that looked wet and greasy. The cowl concealed its face, and the heavy sleeves masked its hands, but Caina saw the ends of glistening tentacles twitch from the sleeves and the hem of the robe. She was glad that she could not see the thing’s face, but she knew it would look like a hideous amalgamation of insect and squid.
The maelogaunt looked around, and Caina remained motionless, concealed behind the door to the office corridor. The creature would have the ability to sense the presence of those around it. Since Caina was a valikarion, that power would not work on her. So long as the creature didn’t see her, it wouldn't realize she was there.
The creature remained motionless for a few minutes, likely sensing the life force of the hospital around it. Caina wondered if it would sense the complete lack of any infants in the maternity wing and retreat to the Shadowlands. For a moment she wondered if she should have had some babies moved here as bait, but she rejected the idea with disgust. She would not use children as bait, not for any reason.
Besides, if she planted her valikon between the maelogaunt’s shoulder blades, that would solve the problem then and there. One hundred and twenty thousand dollars for a night’s work doing something Caina would have done for free anyway.
She waited, and the maelogaunt crossed the lounge and moved towards the patient rooms.
Caina counted to ten in silence, and then glided around the receptionist’s desk and across the lounge, her running shoes making no sound.
She paused and called her valikon, the weapon assembling itself in her hand, and started down the corridor of patient rooms, taking care to make sure her shoes made no sound against the linoleum tiles. The maelogaunt glided ahead of her, wrapped in its Masking spell, pausing to look in each patient room it passed. It seemed to be checking the rooms for victims. Caina adjusted her grip on the valikon, keeping her breathing slow and silent, and drew closer to the maelogaunt.
And as she did, she noticed something odd.
There was another spell on the creature, a cord of silver light that wrapped around it. Caina wasn’t sure, but she thought it was a binding spell. A wizard of sufficient power and skill, whether human or Elven, could summon and bind creatures from the Shadowlands.
It seemed that someone had summoned and bound this maelogaunt.
That was a disturbing thought. Nearly all the Rebels and all the Archons had been destroyed in the battle of New York and the Mage Fall. The key word, of course, was “nearly.” Caina had already dealt with one leftover Archon who had been stranded on Earth, and it was possible that there were others. She thought all the Rebel wizards had burned with Venomhold when Nadia Moran had thrown the Sky Hammer into the Shadowlands, but maybe one had gotten away.
But why summon a maelogaunt and have it prey on newborn babies? That didn’t make sense. A Rebel wizard or an Archon Elf could make trouble in far more effective ways. And if some Rebel diehard wanted to take revenge for Connor’s defeat, results could be had easily and more cheaply with explosives and bullets.
If Caina killed the maelogaunt, maybe it wouldn’t matter.
She took another step closer to the creature, and then a pulse of power went through the binding spell.
The maelogaunt whirled, greasy robes flying around its twisted form, and saw her.
Caina reacted at once, and she lunged, the point of the valikon leading, all her weight and strength behind the blow. The maelogaunt twisted to the side, and the sword point that was aimed at its chest (or what passed as its chest) instead opened a smoking gash along its side. The maelogaunt let out a tearing shriek that made Caina’s bones vibrate inside her flesh, and she slashed again, opening another cut down the creature’s side.
She caught her balance, lifting the sword to finish it off, and the maelogaunt cast a spell.
Caina saw it coming, but the maelogaunt was quick, deadly quick, and if she stood in one place and finished her blow the blast of telekinetic force would collapse her ribcage. She dodged, and the invisible blast hit her left arm and spun her around with shocking force into the wall. The breath exploded from her lungs, and she saw the wounded maelogaunt retreat, casting another spell.
She pushed herself away from the wall, but it was too late. A curtain of gray mist rolled up from the floor and opened into a rift way. Caina caught a glimpse of a place that looked something like a fire-lit cave, and then the maelogaunt threw itself into the gate. The rift way snapped shut a half-second before Caina’s valikon would have found its chest again.
Her shoes skidded against the floor, and she stumbled and caught her balance.
Silence hung over the deserted maternity ward, and she saw no sign of any magical spells nearby.
“Damn it,” said Caina.
This wasn’t going to be a fun conversation with Andromache tomorrow.
###
Caina spent the night sleeping in one of the hospital beds.
It wasn’t the first time she’d done that, though it was the first time she had ever slept in a hospital bed while uninjured. When eight AM came, Caina got up, washed her face in the sink, and headed to the hospital’s cafeteria. She bought a cup of coffee and headed for Andromache’s office, sipping the coffee as she did.
The personal assistant gave her cargo pants and black T-shirt a dubious look. “Can I help you?”
“Is Ms. Kardamnos here yet?” said Caina. “I have some news she’s going to want to hear right away.”
“One moment,” said the personal assistant, picking up the phone. There was a brief conversation. “Ms. Kardamnos says you’re to go right inside.”
“Thanks,” said Caina, and she walked past the desk and into Andromache’s office.
This time, Andromache was alone, and she was furiously typing into her computer. Today she was wearing a black skirt, a black jacket, and a crimson blouse. Her hair and makeup were perfect as ever, and jewels glinted in her ears and at her throat. She looked up as Caina approached.
“Did you sleep in your clothes?” said Andromache.
“Yeah,” said Caina. “But there are more important things to talk about. The maelogaunt got away.”
A thunderous scowl went over Andromache’s face. “You let it get away…”
“We have a bigger problem,” said Caina. “Someone summoned and bound the maelogaunt and let it loose in the hospital.”
“What?” said Andromache. “How is that possible?”
Caina told her about the binding spell on the maelogaunt. Andromache listened in silence, her fingers tapping on the desk. Her wedding ring made an occasional clang against the glass surface, and Caina wished she would stop.
“I think whoever summoned the maelogaunt sent a command through the binding spell,” said Caina. “The wizard told it to turn around. It was just bad luck that I was standing behind it at the time.”
“You wounded the creature,” said Andromache. “Will it return?”
“Probably,” said Caina. “They can heal quickly. Whoever summoned it will bring it back. Or they’ll just bind a new maelogaunt. I can’t figure out why anyone would summon a maelogaunt and loose it on a bunch of infants. There must be a reason, but I can’t puzzle out what it is.”
“You are a valikarion,” said Andromache. “You will figure it out.”
Caina let out a breath. “I am a valikarion, but I’m the only one. I’m just one woman. Andromache, we’ve…not gotten along well.”
Andromache snorted. “There’s that classic British understatement.”
“But I can’t handle this on my own,” said Caina. “I have to call in help. I understand you want to avoid scandal. But there are a lot of lives on the line. If we don’t figure it out, those infants in the basement are either going to grow up brain-dead, or their minds will shut down from the strain, and they’ll die. I don’t want that on my conscience, and I know you well enough to know that you don’t want that on yours, either.”
They stared at each
other in silence.
“No,” said Andromache at last. Her eyes flicked, almost involuntarily, to the picture of her children on the wall. “No, I would not. So. What do you suggest?”
“The Shadow Hunters, if you’ve got the cash and you want to keep this quiet,” said Caina. “Baron Thronaris would know how to contact them. Otherwise, the Inquisition or the Wizard’s Legion.” She hesitated. “Maybe you should call Kylon. He has rank with the Legion, and he would keep this quiet for your sake.”
Andromache shook her head. “Kylon is not returning my calls. He sends me postcards from time to time, but that’s all. I believe he has just been stationed in Milwaukee, as part of the deputation from the Wizard’s Legion assigned to guard the Great Gate to Kalvarion.”
“Maybe you should call him again,” said Caina. “I know him, and he would not allow those infants to die, either.”
“Yes, you know him,” said Andromache, her eyes flashing, “and I suspect you wanted to know him even…” She grimaced, closed her eyes, and squeezed the bridge of her nose. “No. I apologize. Snapping at each other will accomplish nothing.”
Andromache was the one who had snapped at her, but Caina decided not to point that out.
“Why isn’t Kylon returning your calls?” said Caina.
Andromache let out a long breath. “Isn’t it obvious? He blames me for what happened at his wedding. You know I pushed him into it. Maena’s family owned the largest shipping company in Britain. A tie between our families would have been invaluable. Kylon resisted the idea, but I talked him into it. He started spending time with Maena, fell in love with her…and all the while Maena was plotting mass murder to help that wretched Maglarion ascend to godhood.” Her smile was hard. “Didn’t work out for Maglarion, though, did it?”
“No,” said Caina. She didn’t like to think about that day. They had been victorious, but Corwin and Halfdan both had been killed, and Caina had been expelled from the UK.
Andromache sighed. “My brother is a romantic. I am not. I love my husband, yes…but I am not sentimental about him. He’s had a mistress or two, but so long as he keeps things quiet and there are no ‘surprises’ in diapers, I have no objection to it.”
Caina frowned. “That’s a hard way to live.”
“For you, maybe,” said Andromache. “Not for me. But you’re a romantic, too. The valikarion trying to right wrongs with her magic sword. Maybe that’s why Kylon liked you so much.”
“I’ve seen too much to be a romantic,” said Caina. “But as a valikarion with a magic sword, I’m telling you this. We need help.”
“I am not a romantic,” said Andromache, leaning forward, her eyes blazing, “but nothing is more important to me than my family, Caina Amalas. Nothing. There is nothing I would not do for them.” She gestured at the hospital grounds behind her. “All of this? I built this. I built this as a monument to my mother and father. They were murdered by scum, so I built this place in their memory. And if someone is trying to profane that memory, I am going to destroy them. So. You have as many contacts with magical skill as I do. Do you know anyone who can help while keeping their mouths shut?”
Caina hesitated, her mind flashing back to the incident with Congressman Sulzer (the late Congressman Sulzer, anyway) and the woman she had met. She remembered Nadia Moran’s gray eyes, how they had gone flat and full of rage when she had seen the room of Sulzer’s victims.
A storm. Nadia’s eyes had looked like gray thunderheads then.
“I might know someone,” said Caina.
***
Chapter 4: An Invitation
After her meeting with Andromache, Caina drove home.
She had an apartment in the nicer part of Queens, overlooking the East River, but she didn’t go there all that often. Part of it was that she had never really settled in after leaving the UK two and a half years earlier, and the apartment felt barren and sterile. Part of it was that it made her think about the flat she had shared with Corwin in London, how they had talked about settling down.
If she thought about that for too long, she would get upset.
But that was becoming an old, familiar ache by now, and Caina wanted to get away from the Ghost Securities office for a little while so she could think.
She parked her car in the subterranean parking garage, took the elevator up to the fifteenth floor, and entered her apartment. It was sparsely furnished, with a couch and two chairs in the living room, a table and four chairs in the dining room, a bed and a dresser in the bedroom, and nothing else. There were no decorations since everything she had owned before coming to the US had been destroyed when Maglarion’s disciples had burned her flat. Still, she had everything she needed here, and a full set of clothes in the closet (along with numerous concealed weapons).
Caina needed to think, and she needed to clear her head.
She changed to exercise clothes and did bodyweight exercises in the living room – pushups and planks and the various maneuvers of unarmed combat she had learned when Alexander Halfdan had recruited her to Ghost Securities. Not that unarmed combat was a substitute for a good handgun or her valikon, of course, but it had saved her life numerous times, and it was a hell of a good workout when she didn’t have any other equipment available.
When she was finished, she was covered in sweat and breathing hard, and her mind was clear and cold.
Caina knew what she had to do.
She made herself a cup of coffee, put a towel on the couch so she wouldn’t get sweat stains on the upholstery, picked up her phone, and called Nadia Moran.
###
I was walking on the treadmill in Riordan’s home gym when Caina Amalas called me.
Well, I say Riordan’s gym, but as he liked to remind me, we were married now, so it was technically our gym. Our treadmill. But he’d owned this condo for years before he had ever met me, so it still felt like it was more his than mine, like I was staying in his space. Not that I minded. I liked his space. Still, we were talking about buying a place in Milwaukee, partly because I had family there, and partly because the Great Gate to Kalvarion was there.
Which meant both of our jobs would take us to Milwaukee on a regular basis. Because Riordan was a member of the Family of Shadow Hunters, and I was a shadow agent of the High Queen.
But at the moment, the High Queen didn’t have a job for me, and the Shadow Hunters didn’t have a task for Riordan.
Which was nice. We hadn’t been married all that long, and right after we had gotten back from our honeymoon, Riordan had to fly to the UK to deal with something for the Shadow Hunters. I had stayed here in his condo, and it had been lonely without him.
I didn’t like sleeping without him. Too many nightmares.
But I’d kept myself occupied by bringing down a corrupt Congressman for the High Queen. That had been unpleasant, but at least it hadn’t been boring. And it had been important work. Sulzer had deserved his fate at my hands and Caina’s hands.
The morning of September 19th, I had gone for a seven-mile run on Riordan’s treadmill, while he sat in the living room and typed on his laptop. That was what he did when he wasn’t carrying out writs of execution for the Shadow Hunters. He wrote historical novels under the pen name of Malcolm Lock, and apparently, he made a lot of money doing it. Like, I knew he had money, but I hadn’t realized how much money.
I really had to read one of his books one of these days. I knew Riordan didn’t care, but I felt like it was a wife thing, you know? He was my husband, and I ought to read at least one of his books.
Maybe one of the shorter ones.
That was my train of thought when my phone rang.
It was resting on the treadmill’s console, and I was on my cool-down walk, my breathing back under control. I was thinking about calling my brother Russell, seeing how things were going with the business he was setting up. My first thought was that Russell had decided to call me, but then I saw the number.
A little chill of alarm went down my spine.
>
It wasn’t Russell. It wasn’t the Marneys.
It was Caina Amalas.
Remember that Congressman I mentioned? Caina was the one who helped me take him out. Or maybe I helped her. It was sort of a joint credit kind of situation. She was another shadow agent of the High Queen, and if she was calling me, it wasn’t just to chat or to invite me to coffee.
Something was up.
I picked up the phone. “Bob’s Toner Supplies. You print ‘em, we fill ‘em.”
There was a long, slightly awkward pause.
“You’ve gone into the office supply business, Nadia?” said Caina Amalas. She was using her native accent, posh upper-class Brit. I think they called it “received pronunciation” or something. “I don’t think it’s a good investment.”
“No, it’s really not,” I said. I shut down the treadmill and walked into the living room. It was a big room, with high windows looking into Manhattan. It had a couple of couches upholstered in brown leather, and a long row of bookcases loaded with books. Riordan sat on one of the couches, wearing trousers and a black T-shirt, and was typing on a laptop. The T-shirt strained against his upper arms and chest. He was such a large man that it always seemed incongruous to see him typing on a laptop. Though I had seen him lifting weights, and that never looked incongruous at all.
“I’m glad you realized that,” said Caina. “Are you still in New York?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Riordan glanced up at me, saw that I was on the phone, and then closed his laptop.
“That’s good,” said Caina. “I may need to ask a favor.”
I tensed. “What kind of favor?”
“You’re familiar with Kardamnos Memorial Hospital?” said Caina.
I had to think. “Um…yeah. Hospital in Queens, isn’t it? That one rich lady founded it?”
“More or less,” said Caina. “There’s something of a problem there, and I’ve been hired to deal with it. I think I would need your assistance for that, and I would be happy to split the fee with you.”
Cloak & Ghost: Lost Gate Page 5
