Game of Cages

by Harry Connolly

  “The sapphire dog isn’t killing anyone—just making them crazy.”

  He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “But you want to put your pride above all of that, don’t you? You want respect.” He gave me a thin smile. I’d seen that look before. It was a cop’s expression—a look of superiority so complete he would never think to question it.

  “Sure, sure,” I said. “The stakes are so high you get to do whatever you want and I have to take it. Let me give you an update so you can make your big exit.”

  I gave him a quick rundown of everything that had happened since Catherine and I rented the cars. I described the predator, the way the victims had looked, and how it seemed to split apart when threatened. He asked what I had threatened it with, and I told him Steve’s gun; I wasn’t going to tell this jerk about my ghost knife.

  When I started telling him about the cellphone and the kidnapping call, he lost interest. When I got to “… then I opened the door and was insulted by you,” he was already walking out.

  He stopped in the hall and smirked. “You’re done. Run along home now, if you can.” He left.

  There was a moment when I could have booted him in the ass, but I let it pass. If Pratt was anything like my boss, he could have pinched my head off with one hand. Peers were strong and tough—they had to be to face predators. And the guy killed for a living.

  I checked my pockets to make sure I still had everything, then went outside to the Neon. I didn’t know the names of any of the streets in Washaway, but I knew how to get in and out. I followed the road to the bridge, drove by the burned-out Breakley farm, then kept going. I passed the Wilburs’ black iron gate and finally reached a shopping center. A road sign promised to connect me with a state route just down the hill, but I didn’t see the road.

  The Grable was set in the back corner of the shopping center. All that was visible of it was a cinder-block wall painted the same color as the field house and an entry arch with a sign at the top. The NO VACANCY sign was lit.

  As I cruised by, I saw an open courtyard/parking lot with just enough space for cars to drive down the center and angle park in front of the units on either side. In fact, there were three BMW X6’s in there now, all parked in front of units at the far end of the lot. The Maybach was in the last slot.

  There was no possibility of getting in the front way without being exposed to every unit. I drove across the lot.

  The shopping center was laid out in the shape of a U. At one end was a drugstore. At the other was a supermarket. In between was a variety of little shops and storefronts—a small bookstore, a pitch-dark bar, a dentist, a drive-up burger joint, a teriyaki restaurant, a Subway, and several darkened windows with FOR LEASE signs in them. All were one story tall, except the drugstore and supermarket, which had peaked roofs. The Grable sat in the back corner of the U.

  All the windows were papered with sale prices, garlands, and religious displays. There was a huge inflatable Santa and reindeer on the roof.

  Santa gave me an idea. I parked beside the drugstore and went inside. I bought a newspaper, a lighter, and a votive candle with Fat Guy’s money, then went around the back of the building.

  The alley was strewn with trash and smelled like old piss. It was wide enough for a trash truck to squeeze through. The paint on the buildings was peeling, while the guardrail on the other side of the alley, where the ground dropped away to a nettle-ridden slope, was dented and rusty.

  At the far end of the alley, I came to more white cinder block. I’d found the edge of the Grable. I stepped onto the guardrail but couldn’t see over the wall. I could see the broken glass cemented into the top, however. The Grable had been built for privacy.

  Turning around, I saw a young woman in the doorway, puffing on a cigarette and watching me. Her hair was a dull, fake black that she brushed into her raccoon-dark eyes. She was positioned beside the Dumpster, and I’d been so intent on the motel grounds that I hadn’t noticed her.

  “Uh …,” I said, trying to think up a plausible lie. She rolled her eyes, stubbed out her cigarette on the scarred edge of the Dumpster, and turned her back on me. She couldn’t have cared less.

  After she went inside, I laid a wooden pallet against the building and, with a running start, used it to jump up and get a grip on the edge of the roof. Thankfully, there was no broken glass here.

  I pulled myself up and lay across the tarred paper. If I made too much noise, stood too high, or walked onto a section that couldn’t support me, I was going to spend the night in jail. At best. I kept low, crawling on my hands and knees toward the edge of the building and the white wall of the motel.

  I wondered how Catherine had been caught. They probably staked out the only place where we could have rented replacement cars. I should have tried to look more interesting; maybe they would have taken me instead.

  The top of the motel wall was even with the drugstore roof. I swept the ghost knife through the glass shards, slid belly-down over the wall, and dropped between it and the nearest unit. There wasn’t even enough space for me to turn all the way around. I edged toward the back of the building.

  Each unit had a small window at the back that would have shown nothing but wall. Maybe it had once offered a view of the forest. I knew that peeking in a window with a big white background was a good way to be spotted. I peeked anyway.

  The walls inside the unit were yellow and the bed-sheets a slightly darker yellow. It looked like an invalid’s room. At the far end, a slender, dark-haired man in a black suit sat in a chair. He hunched forward to peer through a crack in the curtains into the courtyard. He had a Glock in his hand.

  I ducked down and hurried to the next room. This one was empty. There were two more units in the row, but only the end unit was occupied.

  I went back to the first empty room, cut the window out of the wall, and climbed through.

  I took a towel from the bathroom and set it on the bed with the candle, newspaper, and lighter. One of the things people don’t realize about prison is that it’s vo-tech for criminals. The trick I was about to set up had been taught to me by a college kid who liked fire a little too much. I’d never tried it myself, but I remembered his instructions. At least, I hoped I did.

  I set things up and climbed out the window, then used the narrow space between the end unit and the wall to scramble back over to the drugstore roof. Night was falling.

  My hour was up. I lowered myself into the Dumpster alley and hustled around the buildings. The cellphone in my pocket vibrated. I didn’t answer. The motel entrance was just ahead of me, and they could talk to me in person in a minute.

  I paused at the arched entrance and slid my ghost knife into the stone. The only evidence that it was there was a paper-thin slot in the cinder block. No one would find it, and maybe it would be close enough for me to call if I needed it.

  In the front office, the clerk looked up at me in surprise. He looked like he would appear surprised by the arrival of lunchtime.

  “Which room is Mr. Yin’s?” I asked.

  A newspaper rustled behind me. A short, athletic Chinese man stood, stepped toward me, and dropped a comics section onto the floor. He didn’t pull out a gun, but he did gesture toward the door with a slight bow and a polite smile.

  We walked through the courtyard. Mr. Yin, of course, was staying in the room farthest from the entrance. It was a well-defended spot, but it didn’t leave him an escape route—not unless he had a pogo stick that could bounce him over a ten-foot wall.

  Drivers inside the BMWs and the Maybach started the engines and drove out of the lot.

  My guide knocked on the door and led me inside. This one had a genuine painting on the wall. It showed a man in robes sitting on a hill between some twisted trees. It had been painted on something thinner than canvas, but I didn’t know enough to identify it. The painting obviously didn’t come with the room.

  “Ah!” a middle-aged man said. He stood at the far end of the room, six bodyguards standing near hi
m. This had to be Mr. Yin. He had a thick neck, a black suit, a placid smile, and a gold ring on every finger. His eyes were wide, almost bulging out of his head, as though he was studying everything around him. This was a billionaire?

  A dark-skinned woman in a gray suit stood beside him. By the way she had wrapped up her hair in a bun, I figured she was Well-Spoken Woman.

  I glanced over at the painting again. Maybe he took it with him everywhere. “You have an eye for quality!” Yin said. “Your attention goes directly to the most arresting object in the room. Excellent.”

  His English was better than mine. “Where’s Catherine?”

  “Close by,” Mr. Yin said, “but not so close that you could kill us all and take her away unharmed.” He was smiling at me. What the hell was he talking about?

  He turned to the woman beside him. “Well?”

  She was staring at the backs of my hands where my tattoos were most visible. Her eyes were shining, and she looked like a pirate who’d found buried treasure. “Mowbray Book of Oceans, I’d say. I’d need to see more to be certain.”

  This was not going as I’d expected. These were the nicest kidnappers I’d ever met. And that remark about killing them all …

  Of course.

  I sighed and chuckled, mostly to buy myself time to reset my body language and tone. “I’m not here to play games,” I said. “And I’m sure as hell not here to strip for you. I have a predator to kill. Give me my investigator, and I’ll let you all get into your cars and drive away.”

  One of the gunmen drew his pistol and aimed it at me. It gave me goose bumps, but I kept my smile in place. Mr. Yin said something to him in Chinese. I couldn’t understand the words, but the tone said Don’t bother.

  Yin thought I was a peer, which meant he also thought I was damn near bulletproof. I’d hate for his bodyguard to prove him wrong all over the cheap carpet.

  “You must understand,” Mr. Yin said. “I spent a hundred twenty-eight million dollars last night for the rights to that unusual creature. Then someone shot at us, allowing it to escape. I can’t allow you to kill my dog, Mr. Lilly.”

  “You know it’s making people murder each other. Parents have killed their own children. Do you really want to bring that thing into your house?”

  “Ah, but these people are bumpkins, and Americans, too. I will exert more control.”

  His body language was still utterly self-assured, although he was wary of me, too. I knew my body language wasn’t as confident as his, and I knew he’d noticed that.

  I looked over at the man who had drawn his gun. He hadn’t put it away. “What do you want for Catherine?”

  The gunman and I looked at each other. He wasn’t impressed with me, and I wanted to punch him right in his stupid smirk. I hate to be afraid.

  “I propose a trade,” Mr. Yin said. “I will return to you the woman, unharmed, if you will give me everything you brought with you for this mission: your computer, your files, your research books, and any enchanted artifacts you have on you.”

  He wanted my ghost knife. “You have to be kidding me.”

  “I also want safe passage out of the country and your personal assurance that you will not try to kill me or any of my descendants, ever.”

  “Do you want my left foot, too?”

  “If your left foot is of value, then yes, I want it. I want everything a man can want.”

  He smiled, waiting for my answer. I didn’t have any research books, of course. I didn’t own a computer and I didn’t have any files.

  And my ghost knife was a part of me. I couldn’t give it up, not even for Catherine.

  Mr. Yin fussed with the lapel of his jacket. “You appear distressed,” he said.

  “Because you’re wasting my time with this MBA negotiating crap. This isn’t a boardroom where you ask for a long list of things you know you’re not going to get so we can whittle all the way down to what you actually want. You’re not getting away with the sapphire dog. The mayor has already asked the state police to block off the only two roads out of town.”

  Two of the gunmen seemed nervous about that—he had only brought two English-speakers. Yin wasn’t nervous at all. “Another thing,” I said. “You’re not the only one out there looking for it. While we’re chitchatting, one of the other bidders could be capturing it right now.”

  Suddenly Yin didn’t seem so smug. “The sapphire dog is mine. I paid for it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Keep telling yourself that, because I’m sure if one of the others had won the auction and then let the creature get away, you’d totally return it to them. Let’s cut the crap and get to what you really want for my friend.”

  Yin smiled again. His contentment was like a suit of armor. “Your computer, your files, your research materials, your enchanted artifacts, your assurance of safety for my descendants and for me.”

  Annalise would have already started killing. “Here’s my counteroffer: your life, and the lives of all your people, for as long as it takes me to have a turkey and ham at the Subway. I’m in the mood for pepperoncini. No guarantees after that.”

  He turned his lapel over. There was a patch of white fabric pinned to the other side, and it had a sigil on it.

  I blinked. For some reason I was staring at the carpet from just a foot away. My iron gate felt as though someone was pushing a needle through it.

  I was on my knees. Yin had hit me with a spell, and like an idiot, I had fallen for it.

  I felt hands patting me down. They were searching me very thoroughly. Two men grabbed my wrists and cuffed my hands behind my back. I was too woozy to resist.

  “You are not a peer,” Yin said. His voice had a little twist of contempt. “At best, you are an apprentice, hm?” He kicked me in the shoulder, but my tattoos blunted the impact. “You dare try to bluff me? I admire your courage, but it will cost you your life.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay.” I tried to lift my head, but any movement at all made me dizzy. Instead, I pressed my forehead against the carpet and dragged my knees under me. With my hands cuffed, it was a struggle to keep from falling over. Still, I managed it.

  It was the perfect position for one of these assholes to put a bullet in the back of my head. Just the thought made my guts watery. “Okay,” I said again, looking up at Yin. “A sandwich and some chips. That’s my final offer.”

  Instead of ordering his men to shoot me, he laughed. He said something in Chinese, and I was hauled into the bathroom.

  Someone was already in there, sitting on the toilet. It was one of his own men, bound and gagged. Thank God his pants were up.

  They spun me around and shoved me into the tub. They made a special effort to tear Nicholas’s shirt.

  I tripped over the rim and toppled back, smacking my head against the tile. I saw stars and the pain made tears well up. Damn, those tears made me furious. I was not going to let these bastards think—

  “Mr. Lilly,” Yin said. “See? This is the spot where your friend would be, if I actually had her. It seems we were both bluffing!” He laughed with a high, girlish giggle.

  I blinked the tears away. Yin was waiting for a response. “You’re full of shit,” I said. “You had her phone. Where did you hide her?”

  “I do have her phone, but not her. She is a clever woman. Your society has more wit left to it than I’d heard.” He kicked the bottom of my foot. “Not in you, though. This fellow here”—he gestured to the man on the toilet—“is the one who let her escape, so he has taken her place.

  “In many ways,” Yin continued, “I am an innocent in this world. I’m merely a financier with a mania for collecting. Without my collection, I would have no use for my money or these good, brave men. And I would have no use for torture.”

  His tone was still calm and friendly. Nothing worried him at the moment. “Still,” he continued, “we can hardly employ such methods here. But I have other options.” He leaned close, wide-eyed and smiling. “I brought some of my collection with me.”
>
  He turned toward the door. Well-Spoken handed him something wrapped in a black cloth. It was smaller than a T-ball bat. He unwrapped it with reverence.

  It was a long knife, or maybe a short sword. I don’t know the difference and I don’t care. The scabbard was black and gleaming like polished stone. Yin drew it with a sudden motion, then held it up to admire it. The blade was straight, and as wide as two thumb widths. It had been honed and polished, and it looked like an antique. Yin held it up to the light as though he was about to discuss its history, then he turned and stabbed the bound man through the throat.

  I shouted something inane like “Hey!” Bound didn’t have time to gasp. He froze, a grimace on his face. He looked around the room, finally stopping on me, and I thought how brutally unfair it was that I would be the last thing this stupid bastard ever saw.

  Yin pushed the sword downward through his breastbone and stomach all the way to his belly button. He had to put his weight behind it, but it was not as difficult to cut through the bones as it should have been. Then he pulled the sword free. There was no blood, no cut, no wound at all. I stared at Bound, waiting for the blood.

  Yin yanked off the man’s gag. Bound looked up meekly and said something in Chinese. Yin seemed amused. “He has just apologized to me.”

  It’s an illusion, I thought. Yin had a trick sword, and Bound was playing along.

  But I had no idea why they would bother; I was already in cuffs and at their mercy. I looked back at Bound and realized I needed to change his nickname. The ropes he’d been tied with were lying on the floor in pieces. His clothes were cut open, too. I’d been so focused on looking for blood that I hadn’t even noticed.

  Bound slid down to his knees and hung his head.

  “Do you see?” Yin asked, showing me the blade. There was a small sigil engraved near the hilt. “This mark is from the Ketrivisky Book of Oceans. This is a soul sword. It does not leave a mark on his flesh, but his will now belongs to me.”

  The bastard had a ghost knife of his own.