“He had black tattoos upon his arms and chest,” I said, “and they moved. They seemed able to heal him, and sometimes they bound together in a sword in his right hand, a sword that could cut through anything. The tattoos were a manifestation of a creature called a Shadowmorph, and it was the Shadowmorph that gave him his abilities.”
“I see,” said Mr. Rojo. He paused to take another sip of his beer. “You are very well informed.”
“In this business, information is valuable,” I said.
“Most true,” said Mr. Rojo.
“He could be making this up,” said another of his bodyguards.
“No,” said Mr. Rojo. “He’s not. We shall not have to fear pursuit of the gems, at least from the High Queen’s servants or Homeland Security or the Policía Federal Ministerial. If a Shadow Hunter kills a target, the Firstborn of the Hunters presents a decree of execution to the authorities. The investigation then is immediately suspended. The Shadow Hunters have that right, granted to them by the High Queen, though of course the Inquisition still kills any Shadow Hunters it can catch.” He offered a thin smile. “Bad blood, it would seem.”
“Of course,” I said, though I hadn’t known that. Corvus, the Shadow Hunter I had met in Milwaukee, had not been forthcoming with information. For all that, he had been a superb fighter. He had been skilled with infiltration. He had also been an excellent kisser…
I shoved that thought right out of my head. A romantic attraction was a liability, a weakness. Morvilind had too much power over me already, and falling in love was an excellent way to lose even more power over myself.
I had learned that one the hard way.
“Then why are you so eager to sell?” said Mr. Rojo. “You could take your time, sell them one at a time for a considerable profit.”
“Because I need the money right now,” I said. I wanted to liquidate the stones a long way from Milwaukee, and I didn’t know how long I had until Morvilind called me back for one of his little errands. “Granted, if you don’t buy them now, that’s fine. It’s not as if I’ll starve to death or I have guys waiting to break my kneecaps if I don’t pay up. I can find another buyer. But I would prefer to deal with the matter now and have done with it.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Rojo. He named a price for the gemstones.
I grinned, but kept the expression from appearing on my Mask.
After that, it was all over but the haggling.
We finally settled on a price four and a half percent higher than what Mr. Rojo had originally offered. He gestured, and one of his associates rose and disappeared into the Silver Dollar’s back room, pausing long enough to smack one of the waitresses on the rump. It was a good reminder of why I Masked myself as a man when dealing with men like Mr. Rojo and his associates.
The bodyguard returned a moment later with an envelope, which he passed to Mr. Rojo. The crime boss thumbed through it, nodded in satisfaction, and handed it over to me. I glanced inside and saw that it was full of worn hundred-dollar bills, the High Queen’s stern face gazing at me from the green paper. I nodded and tucked the envelope away.
“A pleasure, as ever,” I said, “doing business with you.” We rose and shook hands. That was always tricky. I squeezed as hard as I could, and focused the Mask around my hand, making sure he didn’t notice that my hand was considerably smaller than the Mask made it look.
“And you, Mr. West,” said Mr. Rojo. “Always a relief to conduct business with an honest man. Feel free to visit the Silver Dollar at any time if you have an enterprise in mind.”
“I’ll do that,” I said. I smiled and turned to go, trying not to flex my fingers. Good Lord, that man had a strong grip.
I made my way across the bar, weaving my way around the tables and the patrons and the waitresses in their tight skirts. My shoulders itched, and it took all my self-control not to look back. I didn’t think Mr. Rojo was the kind of man who would murder me to reclaim his money, but I had been wrong about people before. For that matter, his associates might not share his scruples, and they knew how much unmarked cash I was carrying. Some random drunk in the bar might have watched the deal, and decide to jump me in the street. If so, he would regret it. I was carrying a little .25 pistol in my jacket, and I had a few magical spells that could make life unpleasant for anyone trying to attack me.
But no one stopped me. I opened the door and started to step into the sidewalk, the dry, hot air of the California night washing over me like sandpaper.
And right then, right at that damned moment, Morvilind decided to summon me.
The first day I had met Morvilind fifteen years ago, he had taken a vial of blood from my heart. With that vial, his magic could locate me anywhere, and he could summon me from anywhere.
He could also kill me from anywhere.
I had stolen all kinds of valuable things for Morvilind, and if Homeland Security or the Inquisition (or the Policía Federal Ministerial in Mexico, I suppose) captured me, I could tell them a great many things that would get Morvilind into hot water. Elven nobles could do as they wished, but Morvilind had crossed too many lines. If I was captured and interrogated, he could get into a lot of trouble. The vial of my heart’s blood was his insurance. With it, he could kill me from any distance, making sure his secrets died with me.
Right now, though, he used it to summon me. Morvilind always made sure that I noticed his summons.
He made sure they hurt.
Pain exploded through me, sharp and hot, like burning oil had been injected into my veins. I staggered forward with a strangled gasp, grabbing at the doorframe to keep myself from falling over. It didn’t work, and I pitched over and landed hard on my knees, shivering with pain. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, which was just as well, because if I had, I would have thrown up all over my legs. I pushed my left hand against the concrete, trying to stop my head from spinning.
My Mask. Damn it, my Mask. I concentrated, trying to hold it in place.
“Are you all right?”
I blinked and looked up. A thin man in a double-breasted black suit stood on the sidewalk outside, the streetlamp throwing a long shadow behind him. He was pale and sharp-featured, his black hair oiled and slicked back. He could have been anywhere from twenty to fifty years of age, depending on how the light hit him. His mouth was a thin, tight slash, and his black eyes glittered like obsidian.
I straightened up, pushing against the open door as I got my balance back. The pain of Morvilind’s summons was fading, and I focused my will on my Mask. I was sure I had lost at least some control during my fit, which meant anyone looking at me would have seen an odd shimmer, or maybe my limbs change size and shape.
Since I had fallen over in such a dramatic fashion, probably quite a few people had been looking at me.
Damn it.
“Fine,” I muttered. “I’m fine.” I had to get out of here now.
“Mr. West?” I heard Mr. Rojo call out from inside the Silver Dollar. “Are you all right?” It would be bad for business if I keeled over and died in the bar.
“Yep,” I called back. “Just lost my balance.” I had parked my van in a public lot across the street. A short jog and I would be there, though maybe it would be best to hide until I was sure I was not followed.
I stepped onto the sidewalk, the door swinging shut behind me. The pain from the summoning spell had mostly passed. I would have to text Rusk, Morvilind’s butler, and let him know that I was coming. Otherwise Morvilind would simply repeat the summoning spell every hour, increasing the pain with every casting until I responded or I showed up on his doorstep.
“Are you sure you are all right?” said the thin man, his voice flat and toneless.
“Yes, I’m fine, I drank too much, I'm walking home now,” I said. I didn’t have time to deal with this. I started to walk away.
“You have offended the Dark Ones.”
The words froze me in my tracks.
I turned and saw the thin man standing beneath the s
treet lamp, the shadows making his gaunt face look like a skull. He reached into his coat and drew out a small golden medallion on a chain. A strange symbol marked the medallion, a stylized nine-pointed star surrounding a spiked sphere in the center. It looked a bit like a squid with nine tentacles drawing its victims towards a fanged mouth.
I had seen that symbol once before, in the cellar of a rich man in Milwaukee. It was the symbol of the Dark Ones, the alien creatures that dwelled in the Void beyond the Shadowlands. The High Queen had forbidden their worship, but there were secret cults among the human nations that worshipped them. I had seen the symbol during a job that had gone bad, and the high priest of that particular cult had gotten killed in the process.
Apparently my involvement in his death had been noticed.
The cult of the Dark Ones had sent someone to kill me.
“You have offended the Dark Ones,” said the man, and something like shadow and dark fire started to fill his free hand as he cast a spell, “and for your crimes, you shall perish…”
I drew my .25 and shot him three times in the forehead.
He didn’t expect that. I had noticed that wizards, especially human wizards, relied so much on their magic that they sometimes overlooked more mundane means of defense. This man was no different. The bullets drilled into his forehead and exploded out the back of his skull, and…
And I realized that he wasn’t a man at all.
Black slime leaked from the wound, sizzling and hissing as it spattered against the concrete. The man’s features changed as he collapsed, his skin turning gray and pallid, his eyes becoming venomous yellow pits, his nose becoming a triangular crater. Claws burst from his fingers and toes (destroying his shiny shoes in the process), and he fell motionless to the sidewalk.
I started at the creature, shocked.
“Holy shit,” I said, smoke curling from the barrel of my gun, “it’s an anthrophage, a…”
I shut up, my mind kicking into overdrive. I had encountered the anthrophages once before. Corvus, the Shadow Hunter who had killed the high priest of the Dark One cult, had said the anthrophages were creatures of the Shadowlands, creatures that hunted through scent. That meant a wizard had summoned the anthrophage to Earth and set it upon my trail.
That was bad.
Shouting came from inside the Silver Dollar, and I realized I had a more immediate problem. The .25 wasn’t a loud gun, but the shots would have been audible inside the bar. Mr. Rojo and his enforcers were about to come boiling out of the bar, and they would find me standing with a smoking gun over some inhuman horror from the Shadowlands.
They might assume that I had summoned it, and if they did, they would shoot me dead on the spot. The High Queen’s law forbade humans from summoning creatures from the Shadowlands, and that law had the enthusiastic support of most of the population. Too many veterans had seen the nightmarish creatures of the Shadowlands that stretched between the worlds.
And too many people had lived through Rebel terrorist attacks that had opened gates to the Shadowlands.
I had only one choice left.
First, I grabbed the amulet with the sigil of the Dark Ones. It might come in handy later, and I wanted to examine the thing.
I jammed the medallion and the gun into my pocket (making sure to put the safety back on, of course), put my back to the wall, and released my Mask. The guise of “Mr. West” disappeared, and my true form appeared – a short, pale woman of twenty, with long brown hair and gray eyes, clad in jeans and boots and a ragged denim jacket. I concentrated, gathering the magical power I needed to work a potent spell. The shouting from inside the Silver Dollar got louder, and I heard the siren of a Homeland Security patrol car in the distance. All of that threatened to break my concentration, but I ignored it, silver light flaring around my fingers as I cast the spell.
The silver light washed over me, and I Cloaked.
The Cloaking spell was the most powerful spell Morvilind had taught me. With the Cloaking spell, I turned completely invisible, undetectable to sight and magic and smell. Granted, someone could blunder into me by accident, but I didn’t take up that much space. Also, the spell had limitations. I couldn’t change position while Cloaked. Maintaining the Cloak also took the entirety of my concentration, and I couldn’t cast any other spells while using it.
Nevertheless, it was a powerful spell.
Because of the Cloak, Mr. Rojo and his enforcers didn’t notice me when they burst from the Silver Dollar. The thugs spread around their boss, guns in hand as their eyes swept the street. For a moment they were motionless.
Then, as one, they noticed the dead anthrophage with the pool of black slime spreading beneath its shattered skull.
“Mother of God,” croaked one of the bodyguards, leveling his weapon at the creature. His gun was a lot bigger than my .25 pistol. “What the hell is that?”
“Anthrophage,” growled Mr. Rojo. “Saw them when I was in Duke Raithmyr’s levy. Nasty things from the Shadowlands. More vicious than the wraithwolves or the bloodrats, and smarter than both. They can pretend to be human when they feel like it.”
Useful little fact, that.
“A thing from the Shadowlands?” said the bodyguard. “What the hell is it doing here?”
“Someone must have summoned it,” said Mr. Rojo. “Some wizard. That’s the only way things from the Shadowlands can come here. Rebel wizards do it sometimes to cause trouble.”
“Shit,” said a second bodyguard, looking around the street. “A Rebel cell here?”
“Goddamn it,” said the first bodyguard. “We can bribe Homeland Security, but the Inquisition will show up for Rebels. They’ll kill everyone they can find.”
“This is West’s fault,” said the second bodyguard. “He must have summoned up this thing. If we catch him, we can hand him over to the Inquisition.”
“If he summoned up the monster,” said the first bodyguard, “where did he go?”
“Maybe it ate him.”
“And then he shot it?” said the second guard, gesturing at the anthrophage’s shattered skull. “After it ate him?”
I wished that they would make up their minds already. Keeping the Cloak in place around myself was hard, and it got harder with every passing minute. It was a bit like holding a barbell in place over my head. It started out hard, and got harder until I was too exhausted to continue.
“Shut up,” said Mr. Rojo. His voice was calm, but the bodyguards fell silent at once. “Let me think for a minute. Stand around the body.” He looked at the street. “I don’t want any passing cars to see it.”
The bodyguards obeyed, standing around the dead anthrophage as if taking a smoke break. A few of them actually produced cigarettes and lit up. Cigarettes were only legally available to men-at-arms who had completed an honorable term of service in the army of an Elven lord. Though no doubt Mr. Rojo could get whatever he wanted through the black market.
I waited, starting to tremble a bit from the effort of the Cloak.
“All right,” said Mr. Rojo. “We have some barrels of lye in the shed. Take it out back and stuff it one of the barrels. After a few days it will dissolve, and we can dump what’s left in the desert. Let the coyotes have it.”
“That’ll kill a coyote,” mumbled one of the bodyguards.
“So long as it doesn’t kill anyone here,” said Mr. Rojo. “Get moving.”
The bodyguards holstered their weapons and gripped the dead anthrophage by the ankles and the wrists. I had never seen a man carry a dead anthrophage while smoking a cigarette, but all of the bodyguards managed it. Mr. Rojo led the way, and the bodyguards disappeared into the alley. The entire procedure took less than fifteen seconds. I suspected this was not the first time Mr. Rojo and his associates had needed to make a dead body disappear in a hurry.
The sidewalk was deserted once more.
I released my Cloak and became visible. Relief flooded through me, but I couldn’t take the time to rest. I took a deep, ragged breath, sum
moned magical power, and cast a Masking spell around myself. I made myself look like one of Mr. Rojo’s bodyguards, a middle-aged, grizzled Hispanic man with graying hair and a close-cropped beard. If anyone saw me, they would assume I was with Rojo’s organization and leave me alone.
Unless the bodyguard I had copied saw me. Then I would have trouble.
Best to be gone by then.
I crossed the street and walked into the parking lot. Half of the street lamps were out, and the freeway passed over the lot, the constant rumble of traffic echoing off the massive concrete pillars. Groups of young men stood in the shadows, speaking to each other in loud voices. Homeland Security did regular sweeps through this neighborhood, and anyone not under the protection of Mr. Rojo and his bribes to the local commander would find themselves getting flogged on a Punishment Day video. A few of the men glanced my way, but I held the Mask in place, and they left me alone. No one wanted to get on Mr. Rojo’s bad side.
My battered van sat beneath one of the functioning lamps. It was a big old Royal Motors Caravanserai model, designed to hold fifteen people, painted a dull beige with 200,000 miles on the odometer, but it worked quite well when I need to travel cross-country. I could have taken the train or the zeppelin, but that left records, and records were bad things for someone in my line of work. It was safer to drive anonymously across the country than to fly or take the train.
I unlocked the driver’s side door and climbed in, making sure to lock it behind me. I wanted to drop the Mask, close my eyes, and rest, but that would have been suicidal. Instead I glanced at the golden medallion I had taken from the dead anthrophage. I was sure there was a spell of some kind on it, but I could investigate the thing later. I tossed it into the back of the van and started the old Caravanserai. The engine rumbled to life, and I backed out and put the vehicle into drive, rolling my way down the aisles of cars.
I turned around one of the massive concrete pillars, and a surge of fear went through me.
A gaunt man walked down the center of the aisle, clad in a trim black suit, his hair-close cropped.
Cloak Games: Omnibus One Page 17
