“Undoubtedly,” said Morvilind. He tapped a key, and the left screen shifted to show the image of a proud black-haired Elven noble in a long coat of red and gold. “The High Queen has chosen Duke Carothrace of Madison for the honor of receiving the frost giant ambassador.”
Madison? That was the state capital of Wisconsin, only about ninety miles west of Milwaukee. I could get there in an hour and a half. Maybe less, if I took my motorcycle and ignored the speed limit.
The alarm in my gut got tighter.
Madison was close, which meant whatever Morvilind wanted me to do, he wanted me to do soon. The worst jobs I had ever gotten from him had come with a time limit. The less time I had, the less time I had to prepare, to plan, to make backups. The less time I had, the more likely it was that something to go seriously wrong. The last job with a time limit Morvilind had given me had been Paul McCade’s mansion last month.
A lot of things had gone wrong during that job, and I had barely gotten out alive.
“This,” said Morvilind, oblivious or indifferent to my alarm, “is the frost giant ambassador, the Jarl Rimethur.”
He tapped a key, and an image of a strange, alien creature appeared upon the central monitor. At first glance, the Elves looked human, but the second glance removed that impression. You couldn’t miss the pointed ears, the sharper features, the larger eyes that gave them a distinctly alien look.
There was no way anyone could mistake the creature on the screen for a human.
For one thing, he was nine feet tall, maybe ten. His skin was a peculiar silvery-blue color, and a human couldn’t have skin that color without dying from oxygen deprivation. His hair was the color of gray ice, and his eyes glowed with a peculiar harsh white light, like the sun shining through a blizzard wind. He wore elaborate silvery armor, and a long black cloak lined with some kind of fur. From his neck hung an amulet upon a chain, a silvery disc inscribed with odd symbols. In its center rested a crystal like a pale blue eye, and it too gave off an odd light. In his right hand rested a sword wreathed with a cold blue mist. It was the sword of a frost giant, capable of inflicting frostfever from its wounds.
A weapon like that had killed my father.
“That is Jarl Rimethur?” I said aloud.
“Correct,” said Morvilind. “Note the amulet about his neck. It is a relic called the Ringbyrne Amulet, and it has been in the possession of the frost giants for millennia.”
The dread in my mind snapped into focus, and with cold clarity I knew what Morvilind intended me to do.
“You want me to steal the Ringbyrne Amulet,” I said.
“You deduce correctly,” said Morvilind. “Today’s date is August 3rd. Rimethur and his retainers will arrive from the Shadowlands in Madison on August 13th, in the three hundred and fourteenth year of the Conquest. Or August 13th, 2327, according to the old calendar.”
“Ten days,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “You want me to steal a magical relic from a frost giant noble with only ten days to prepare.”
“Your window of opportunity is brief,” said Morvilind. “According to his official schedule, Rimethur will only stay as a guest of Duke Carothrace for three days. Then his party will travel by car to Washington DC, where he shall meet the President and the other useless puppets that staff the government of the United States. After that, he will go to the Red Palace of the High Queen to discuss the actual terms of the treaty. Once he is in the Red Palace, you will have no chance of stealing the amulet. I suggest you do so while he is in Madison.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t do it.”
Morvilind lifted his eyebrows, and I felt the cold weight of his gaze sink.
“You are disobeying me?” he said, his voice mild.
“No, my lord, of course not,” I said. “I’m saying that I physically can’t do this, no more than I could breathe underwater. He’s a frost giant, which means he has powerful magic of his own. He’ll be surrounded by Elven nobles the entire time he is here, and probably a few Knights of the Inquisition, which means I can’t use my spells around him because they’ll sense it. If I had more than ten days, I might be able to pull something off, but I can’t.”
“You are naturally immune to frostfever,” said Morvilind. “That will give you an advantage, since many of the frost giants’ spells employ that effect.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I can’t do this.”
“You will,” said Morvilind, calm as ever. “Your brother has only six more restorative spells before his frostfever is cured. It would be tragic if you failed and he died when we were that close to his final cure.”
A wave of hate went through me, and I wanted more than anything to seize his neck and sink my fingers into his throat until he stopped breathing. But I couldn’t do that. The vial of my heart’s blood he carried permitted him to kill me with magic at any time. Not that he needed it. He could kill me with magic a dozen different ways before I could even raise my arms.
And if I died, if I failed, he would stop casting the cure spells, and Russell would die in agony as the frostfever wracked his body.
Morvilind had me boxed in so perfectly, so thoroughly, that there was no way out.
Wait, that was wrong. He had made sure there was just one way out.
To do what he wanted and steal that damned amulet without getting caught or killed.
“I am confident you will find a way,” said Morvilind. He smiled briefly, which made him look about as warm as a January wind in Wisconsin. “I suggest you depart. You have a great deal to do, and very little time in which to do it.”
“Yes, my lord,” I managed to say.
I left his mansion without another word.
Chapter 2: An Unexpected Cancellation
I climbed in my van and drove back to Milwaukee proper, furious and terrified at the same time.
I had done dangerous jobs before. I had stolen items from powerful Elven nobles, from the vaults of banks guarded by armed men. Yet Morvilind had never sent me to steal an item under such heavy security before, and it would definitely be under heavy security. Rimethur was an ambassador, so he would have his own guards, to say nothing of whatever magic the frost giant himself wielded. Duke Carothrace and his chief vassals would be there, and most Elven nobles could work at least some magic. Probably Duke Tamirlas of Milwaukee would attend as well, along with at some of the other American Elven nobles, and the High Queen might even send some of her household from the Red Palace. There would be armed Homeland Security officers. Earth-manufactured bullets didn’t work very well against Elves and frost giants, but they worked just fine against any Rebels who tried to make trouble.
More importantly, they would work just fine against me.
How the hell was I supposed to pull this off?
I stopped at a storage unit I rented at the edge of the city proper, a place I used to store equipment and items I didn’t want to keep in my apartment. I cleaned up the van, making it ready for the next time I would need it, and then swapped the van for my motorcycle, a Royal Engines NX-9 sportbike with a six cylinder engine.
I liked that bike. It could go fast.
I rode home, breaking the speed limit and weaving in and out of traffic. The bike’s speed and power gave me a sense of freedom, even if it was only an illusion. The rational part of my mind pointed out that I was scared and angry, and getting pulled over by some Homeland Security patroller would not help anything. For that matter, losing control on a turn and splattering my brains all over the inside of my helmet would not help anyone.
I got my temper under control and slowed down.
My apartment was in the basement of an old building on the edge of Wauwatosa, not far from the medical college. Thanks to forged documentation, my landlord thought that I was a medical student. So long as I paid my rent on time, I don’t think he bothered to check too closely.
I never had guests, so I had converted the living room and dining area of my apartment into a combined gym and wo
rkroom, with weights, a treadmill, a computer desk, and a workbench for various tools. I dumped my bags by the door, unpacked, and changed into workout clothes.
Then I busied myself with exercise for the next two hours. I did weights – deadlifts, bench presses, and squats. I ran eight and a half miles on my treadmill, stopping only when I was drenched with sweat and starting to see little black spots.
Excessive exercise can be dangerous, but I needed a release, and it was better than drugs or booze. Or seducing some random stranger.
After, I showered off and collapsed into my bed. It was nice to sleep in a proper bed again. My old Caravanserai van is many things, but comfortable isn’t one of them.
I fell asleep at once. If I had any dreams, I didn’t remember them.
When I woke up, I was stiff, sore, and had a headache.
I also had the beginnings of a plan.
A mob of dignitaries would descend upon Madison for Rimethur’s arrival, both Elven nobles and human politicians and businessmen. Dignitaries meant there would be security, bodyguards, and Homeland Security officers. It also meant there would be a reception, which in turn required catering, music, janitorial services, and all the other things that went into a big party.
I could infiltrate any one of those things.
Elves thought themselves superior to humans, but they shared one big blind spot with rich humans. They often failed to see the hired help (or slaves, for some of the Elven nobles) as real people, just as sort of part of the backdrop. Elves and rich humans expected the hired hands to pour drinks and serve shrimp puffs. They did not expect the help to do something audacious, like steal an amulet from a frost giant ambassador. It was a psychological flaw I had exploited before.
Maybe I could exploit it again.
I put on a bathrobe, made a pot of coffee, sat at my computer desk, and got to work.
In my line of work, using the Internet is dangerous. The Inquisition, the High Queen’s secret police, keeps track of Internet traffic and cell phone calls. Most people don’t even notice. They check their messages, browse the official news sites, watch videos, use social media, and view the Punishment Day clips of convicted criminals. But criticize an Elven noble on social media or in an email, and a Homeland Security SWAT team might kick down your door, and you’ll find yourself in a Punishment Day clip getting fined and flogged for the crime of elfophobia. Plot against the High Queen or the Elven nobles over the Internet, and you would find the Inquisition coming for you.
So I was careful. There were ways to avoid the Inquisition’s electronic eye. Encryption, rerouting the connection through a dozen different countries’ Internet pipelines, hardware scramblers, and a few other illegalities. I used them all, and I routed my connection through a burner phone I fished out of my closet. My connection speed slowed to a crawl, and I would have to destroy the phone when I was done, but it let me browse more or less anonymously.
So long was I was careful.
I visited the website of Duke Carothrace of Madison. Of course, the Duke had likely had never seen his own website. He had minions to do that sort of thing for him. Still, the minions had done a good job with the website. There was lots of stuff about the Duke’s role as the benevolent protector of humanity against the dangers of the Shadowlands, blah blah blah. There was a gallery of pictures of the Duke’s men-at-arms who had died fighting in the Shadowlands campaigns.
Quite a lot of pictures, actually.
I found the news page. The Duke and his guests would greet Rimethur and his attendants in the square before the Wisconsin State Capitol. They would then proceed to Battle Hall across the street, a convention hall built to commemorate an Archon attack on Madison a hundred years ago. The page displayed a long list of businesses providing food and drink and other services for the reception.
I got out a notebook and started writing, taking down addresses and phone numbers. Easier to destroy a notebook than a phone if I needed to cover my tracks. I found the office of the Duke’s event coordinator, a woman named Alexandra Ross. The picture above her contact information showed a smiling, blond woman of about thirty with blue eyes and teeth so white they were the result of either expensive dental work or photo retouching.
I wrote down her phone number and office address, and then scrolled back through the businesses providing goods and services for the reception. I needed something important, preferably not something too expensive, but something the reception needed. Something that the perfectly coiffed event coordinator I had seen on the Duke’s web site would refuse to do without…
There.
A company called Gail’s Greenhouse Arrangements would provide the centerpieces for the tables at the reception. I went to their website, wrote down the details, and started packing my bags, my plan coming together in my mind.
I was a little annoyed that I had already dropped off my van. I was going to need the stupid thing again.
Once I was ready, I took my motorcycle back to the storage unit, loaded up the Caravanserai, and headed west along Interstate 94. From what I had read, the ancient pre-Conquest Presidents had built the Interstates to provide landing strips for aircraft in case of nuclear war with the Russians, and the High Queen had maintained the Interstates to allow her men-at-arms to travel quickly in response to any incursion from the Shadowlands. I saw a convoy of a dozen troop trucks, all of them bearing the colors of the Duke of Madison, each truck loaded with men-at-arms in steel and carbon weave armor, swords on their belts, spears in their hands, and crossbows and automatic rifles over their shoulders. I made sure not to pass the convoy. Homeland Security patrolled the Interstates much more diligently than the back roads, and I didn’t want to get pulled over. I had all sorts of things in the van that I didn’t want to explain.
Like that medallion adorned with the symbol of the Dark Ones, for instance.
I had kept it in the van because I didn’t know what else to do with the damned thing. There had been no way I would tell Morvilind about it. The one time I had mentioned the Dark Ones to him, he had inflicted crippling agony on me and threatened to kill me if I ever brought up the subject again. I didn’t know what interest he had in the Dark Ones, the creatures from the Void beyond the Shadowlands, but he had sent me to steal an artifact associated with them last month.
So what did the anthrophages want with me?
More importantly, how had they found me? Los Angeles was a long way from Milwaukee. I had the peculiar sense that the anthrophages had been smelling me, that they followed my scent, but that was ridiculous. It was a fifteen hundred mile drive across the country from LA to Milwaukee, over deserts and mountains and plains and the Mississippi River. Nothing could follow a scent like that. It had to be some kind of magic.
I didn’t know how they had tracked me, and more importantly, I didn’t know why. The anthrophage I had killed carried that medallion with the sign of the Dark Ones, and I was willing to bet the creature I had run over with the van had carried one as well, though God knew I wasn’t about to go back and look. Yet no one knew what I had done at Paul McCade’s mansion. Corvus and I had left no witnesses behind. Briefly I wondered if Corvus himself had sent the anthrophages after me, but that made no sense. He was a Shadow Hunter, and the Shadow Hunters were the enemies of the Dark Ones. McCade himself had said so before he tried to kill us.
I didn’t know why the anthrophages had come after me, and I didn’t know how they had found me.
I really, really didn’t like not knowing.
I couldn’t worry about it now. I had nine days before Jarl Rimethur arrived, and I had that long to figure out how I was going to steal his Ringbyrne Amulet without getting killed in the process. Assuming I survived the experience, I could worry about the Dark Ones then.
I’m really good at compartmentalizing. Maybe that’s why I get into so much trouble. I always worried that all the little compartments of my life that didn’t know about each other would blunder together in a horrible mess that would get me killed.
But not today. Today, I had nine days left to figure out how to steal a magical artifact.
And to do that, I was going to buy a whole lot of wedding centerpieces.
It took me two hours to drive from Milwaukee to Gail’s Greenhouse Arrangements on the west side of Madison. About a hundred thousand people live in Madison, with another hundred thousand scattered around the city proper. From what I understood, Madison had been destroyed during the Conquest, rebuilt, and then destroyed again during an Archon attack a century past. It had been rebuilt again, but that had done nothing for the road system, and it took me forever to get through the surface streets to Gail’s Greenhouse Arrangements.
Gail’s Greenhouse Arrangements did indeed have a greenhouse. It had six of them, in fact, arranged in a neat row, with a gravel parking lot and a metal trailer that served as an office. I circled the block, noting the location of the buildings, and then parked at a gas station a few blocks away. Unmarked vans draw unwelcome attention when you park them on a residential street, but at the gas station it was just one more battered service vehicle.
I bought a cup of aggressively mediocre coffee from a bored clerk inside the gas station. The TVs behind the counter repeated news about Rimethur’s upcoming visit, emphasizing the honor Madison would receive from the assemblage of so many Elven nobles. I wanted to roll my eyes, but I didn’t. The surly clerk looked like exactly the sort of man who would call Homeland Security to report elfophobia, and there were portraits of the High Queen and Duke Carothrace on the wall below the TV.
Coffee in hand, I retreated to my van and sat in the back. I plugged a burner phone into my laptop, fired up an illegal program, and called Gail’s Greenhouse Arrangements. The program on my laptop spoofed the phone number, making it seem as if I had called from Alexandra Ross’s office at Duke Carothrace’s headquarters.
“This is Alexandra Ross’s office calling,” I said in the prim, cool voice of a professional assistant. “I regret to inform you that we have to cancel our order of the centerpieces.”
Cloak Games: Omnibus One Page 19
