That would end with me getting executed. Or Morvilind would kill me to keep his secrets from coming to light. I whispered a curse and looked around. There were three Homeland Security officers nearby, but I had no way of telling if they were Rogomil’s Rebels or genuine officers. I couldn’t just make a scene. I had to find someone I could warn, someone who would listen …
The phone in my hand buzzed again.
Alexandra. She would listen to me. I would think up some clever lie. Say that I saw Rogomil handing out Rebel literature or something. If Alexandra warned the Duke or one of the Knights of Inquisition, perhaps they could defuse whatever plan Rogomil had in mind.
Or I could let Rogomil’s plan proceed, and use the chaos to seize the amulet. Yes. That was the best idea. Whatever Rogomil intended would be loud and spectacular and bloody, and I could use it to take the Ringbyrne Amulet…
My stomach twisted with nausea, sweat tricking down my back.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it because I knew what kind of men Nicholas Connor and Sergei Rogomil were, and I knew whatever plan they intended would kill at lot of people. There were thousands of people here, men and women and children.
Some of the women had babies with them.
I didn’t care about any of them. I cared about Russel and the Marneys, and that was it. But I still couldn’t let Rogomil’s plan continue.
I took three steps toward Alexandra, and then the first bomb went off in the crowd.
So much for good intentions.
I was maybe twenty yards away from the explosion. There was a loud pop, so loud it was as if I heard the sound with my entire body rather than just my ears. A plume of white smoke erupted from the crowd. Some of the people nearest to the blast disappeared in sprays of red mist, their bodies ripped apart by whatever had been inside the bomb. Nails, perhaps, or ball bearings. Rogomil had liked to pack his bombs with nasty tricks like that.
For a frozen instant stunned silence gripped the crowd. Duke Carothrace came to a stop in mid-sentence, looking at the plume of smoke with his mouth hanging open. Jarl Rimethur remained impassive, but both his guards and the other Elven nobles began casting warding spells, silver light and blue fire dancing around them. They had all been in combat before, and they knew what a bomb blast looked like.
Right about then everything erupted into motion.
Three more pillars of white smoke exploded from the crowd, the sounds deafening. People began screaming and shouting and shoving, trying to get away from the explosions. A fleeing man slammed into me, and I almost fell, my heels scraping against the pavement. Gunfire erupted, and I glimpsed the muzzle flash from an automatic weapon
It was pointed towards the Capitol steps.
Rogomil and his men were here to assassinate the Jarl.
Spells flared around the frost giants and the Elves. I had shot an anthrophage in Los Angeles, but bullets generally did not work on Elves or creatures from other worlds. Morvilind had explained the reason to me once, but I hadn’t really understood, so I had just nodded along until he stopped talking. Bullets made from Earth’s metals did not work on Elves, but bullets made from the ore of the Shadowlands would kill them just fine. They were stupendously illegal, but Rogomil knew where to find them and how to make them.
A screaming woman shoved past me, running away from the Capitol, and the impact knocked me against the steel barricade, the metal bar digging into my back. I shoved away and looked around, my mind racing. I couldn’t do anything to help the people getting killed around me, and I couldn’t do anything to stop Rogomil.
But I could get the Ringbyrne Amulet. If the Rebels succeeded in killing the Jarl, I might be able to snatch the amulet from his corpse. That would be dangerous in front of so many Elven nobles, but they would be distracted by the chaos. I could snatch the amulet and run, and use my Cloaking and Masking spells to get out of Madison and back to Morvilind.
I heard a whining noise by my right ear, even over the screams and roar of the gunfire, and I realized that a bullet had missed my head by about an inch.
Maybe I had better just run. Getting killed retrieving the amulet would do me no good. I ought…
Alexandra burst from the crowds, her eyes wide. Something had clipped her temple, and blood trickled down the right side of her jaw. Her eyes were huge and frightened, and her face had gone the color of a sheet.
“Irina!” she screamed. “Run! Run! For God’s sake run! They’re trying assassinate the Duke!”
Well. That was at least partially true.
“Go!” shouted Alexandra. “Go…”
Something metallic flashed behind her. A bundle of lead pipes, about as long as my forearm and as thick as my thigh, rolled across the pavement. The pipes had been welded closed, and a bundle of wires dangled from the caps.
It was a pipe bomb.
Time seemed to slow down.
We couldn’t run. We couldn’t dodge behind anything. I had no way of knowing how long until the bomb went off. Cloaking or Masking or Occluding myself would be useless. My spells fooled the senses, not shards of explosive-driven metal.
I could only think of one thing to do.
I ducked, snatched some pebbles from the ground, gathering all my magical power as Alexandra stared in horror at the bomb. The courier bag fell from my shoulder, landing with a thump on the pavement. I drew in every bit of magical power I could manage until I seemed to burn with it.
Then I cast a spell. A disk of gray mist swirled in front of me, and then shone with a pale white light. Beyond I saw a dead forest and a bleak, empty sky, ribbons of blue-green fire dancing overhead.
The rift way to the Shadowlands snapped open, and I fell through it.
Alexandra fell with me.
Chapter 4: Useful Lies
I had been to the Shadowlands before, but I had never been there while wearing high heels.
My left foot caught on the uneven ground, and a stab of pain went up my ankle. I staggered forward three or four steps, my arms flailing, and I kept from falling on my face. Behind me the rift way shimmered, showing the chaos before the Capitol, and I released the spell.
I just had time to see a flare of fire, and then the rift way snapped closed before the bomb exploded. A gust of hot air came through the collapsing gate, but none of the explosive force. I let out a sigh, my head aching from the magical effort I had just expended.
“Oh my God,” said Alexandra. She was sitting on the ground a few paces from where the rift way had been, her face bloody, her jacket torn. Her eyes were huge and shocked. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
I looked around, trying to take stock of the situation.
We had escaped the bomb…but considering what might happen to us in the Shadowlands, it might have been better to let the bomb kill us.
We were somewhere in the Shadowlands, somewhere in the dark places between the worlds. The ground was covered in pale, dry grasses that felt smooth and cold where they brushed my calves. Trees stood here and there, their bark black and glossy, strange colorless leaves hanging from the branches. We were in a little valley between hills, and the hills rolled away before us, rising to grim mountains in the distance. The sky was a black, empty vault, and ribbons of blue and green and purple fire danced in silence over the void. I had never seen the aurora borealis while high on hallucinogens, but if I had, I suspected it would look like that.
I didn’t see anyone else, just Alexandra rocking back and forth on the ground.
That wouldn’t last, though. We seemed to have landed in a wild region of the Shadowlands, far from the warded ways that permitted safe (relatively safe, anyway) travel to other worlds. Powerful lords ruled their own demesnes in the Shadowlands, and within their lands they were nearly invincible. I didn’t want to run afoul of one of them. For that matter, there were countless dangerous creatures that lurked in the Shadowlands, and any one of them would make short work of me.
The anthrophages were from the Shadowlands, too.
> I had to get out of the Shadowlands, now. I couldn’t open a rift way right here, though. It would take me back to the Capitol, and with my luck I would pop out right in the middle of the firefight between the Rebels and the Elven nobles. So that meant opening a rift way from the Shadowlands to some other part of Earth. The trouble was, I had no way of knowing where the rift way would go. If I opened a gate in this valley, it would take me back to the Capitol. If I climbed to the top of the nearest hill and opened a rift way, it might go to Milwaukee. Or it might go to Idaho, or Moscow, or the Caliphate, or the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The Shadowlands and Earth were not always congruous.
Unless…
My blazer had a little pocket on the left side, and I had stuck some of Alexandra’s business cards there. They were a physical object from the Duke’s offices, which meant they would link back to that location. I could use them to both trace the way back to the Duke’s office building and find the location in the Shadowlands that would let me open a rift way to Alexandra’s office. It might only be a few miles away.
Or it might be ten thousand miles away.
“Oh my God,” said Alexandra. She was starting to hyperventilate. “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God…” Her words blended together into a constant moan of fear. I wondered if she had ever seen violence before, if she had ever seen a man shot.
I had. More than once.
I cast the spell, focusing my mind and magic upon the business cards. The Shadowlands were the source of magic, so magic was easier to summon here, but the effort to control it was all the greater. I gritted my teeth, ignoring Alexandra’s sobbing, and focused my will.
And to my surprise, the results were good. I felt the tugging of the spell against my thoughts, like a compass pointing towards a magnet. The Shadowlands would touch upon the Duke’s office building about…six miles from here, I thought. Granted, most Elven nobles had wards around their residences that prevented rift ways from opening within them, but that would just bounce my rift way to the street outside. Or maybe Duke Carothrace didn’t bother with protecting his human employees. If that was true, my rift way would open right inside Alexandra’s office.
Then I could go back to figuring out a way to steal that damned amulet.
One problem at a time. First I had to actually reach the location that would lead back to Annarah’s office. It was only six miles or so, but it would take an hour and a half, maybe two hours, to walk that distance. I had best start now…
Alexandra’s moaning cut into my thoughts.
First, I had to figure out what to do about Alexandra.
“Alexandra,” I said. “Stand up. We have to get moving.”
She did not seem to hear me, rocking back and forth, her eyes wide.
“Alexandra,” I said, stepping closer to her, a cold feeling settling over me.
She had seen me use magic. Humans were not supposed to know the spell to create rift ways. She worked for Duke Carothrace, and the Inquisition would question everyone who had witnessed the attack. If she told an Inquisitor, or even a Homeland Security officer, about my abilities, then I was dead. Russell was dead.
She kept rocking back and forth. Even if I could get her to stand, I might not be able to get her to shut up. Dangerous predators filled the Shadowlands, and the noise she was making might draw them.
The cold feeling sharpened.
Maybe I ought to just kill her now. It seemed the safest course.
I didn’t have a gun, but it wouldn’t have worked in the Shadowlands anyway. Instead, I had a spell to conjure a globe of lightning. I wasn’t very good with the spell, but I had practiced. And if I cast the globe at Alexandra’s neck, at the base of her skull, the lightning would fry her brain and brain stem, and she would be dead before she hit the ground.
Quick and painless. I could then make my way across the Shadowlands, and my secrets would be safe.
All I had to do was murder a woman who had been kind to me.
I stared at her, my left hand opening and closing again and again. That kindness had been an illusion. If she had known what I really was, she wouldn’t have been kind. She would have gotten me arrested and executed. I had to remember that, and I cursed myself for my weakness. Waiting would not make this any easier, and remaining motionless in the Shadowlands was a bad idea.
Alexandra shifted, shivering a little, and her blouse fell open. The fall must have torn the buttons on the blouse.
I blinked in utter astonishment.
“Why the hell,” I heard myself say, “are you wearing that ridiculous underwear?”
Because it was ridiculous. Beneath her torn blouse and jacket she wore a lacy red push-up bra. It looked mighty uncomfortable, and straps connected it to a translucent nightie. It was the sort of thing suitable for a hotel room, not for a woman who planned to spend eighteen hours straight on her feet.
Alexandra blinked at me and tugged her jacket closed.
“Because,” she whispered, “because Robert was coming home on leave after the reception.”
A sick feeling twisted at my gut.
“He was going to be part of the Jarl’s honor guard,” Alexandra said. “So I wanted to…you know, surprise him. Welcome him home. Show him how much I had missed him.” Tears filled her eyes. “Maybe this time we would get a baby. We’ve been trying, but he’s gone so often, and…and…”
She closed her eyes and rubbed the heels of her hands against her forehead.
“I’m never going to see him again, am I?” whispered Alexandra.
The sick feeling got worse.
Cold reason told me that I ought to kill her to protect my secret. At the very least, I ought to leave her behind and keep going. I didn’t owe her anything. If she knew the truth about me, she would turn me over to Homeland Security.
It was logical. I ought to do it. And I couldn’t do it.
“Damn it,” I muttered. “Listen to me.”
Alexandra said nothing, her eyes still closed.
I reached down, pulled her hands away from her face, and tilted her head to look at me. “Listen to me.”
She blinked, her eyes swimming with tears.
“Listen. To. Me,” I said. “I can get you home again. I can take you back so you can see your husband again. But you have to do exactly what I say without hesitation, do you understand? And there is one other condition.”
“Who…who are you?” said Alexandra.
“That’s my one condition,” I said. “I can get you home again, but you can’t ask who I am, and you can never, ever tell anyone about what you’ve seen today. No one. Not the Duke, not your husband, not Homeland Security, not the Inquisition. If I get you home, you’re going to forget all about me, and you’ll never tell anyone about me for the rest of your life. Do you understand?”
Alexandra nodded, frightened.
“Say it,” I said.
“I understand,” said Alexandra. “I…I promise.”
So the die was cast, then.
“All right,” I said. I gripped her hand and pulled Alexandra to her feet. “Let’s go.”
“What…what are you?” said Alexandra. “You’re not a florist, I can tell that much.” She flexed her hand with a wince. “Florists don’t have a grip like that.”
“I’m trouble,” I said.
She blinked. “You’re…an agent of the Inquisition, aren’t you? Oh my God. Robert told me that the Inquisition had human agents, but I never really believed it.”
“I told you to stop asking,” I said, trying to sound stern and annoyed, but her incorrect deduction pleased me. If she thought I was a spy for the Inquisition, she would be all the more likely to obey me and keep her mouth shut if we lived through this.
Alexandra swallowed and nodded. “Okay. Um.” She looked around. “Ah…where are we? Is this…this is the Shadowlands, isn’t it?”
“Start walking,” I said, taking her elbow and turning her around. “We’ve got about six miles to cover, and we’ve got to do it quickly. You can
ask me questions as we walk, and I will answer them if I can.” Hopefully that would help keep Alexandra’s mind off her terror. “Quietly, though. I don’t want to draw attention. And for God’s sake watch your step. If you snap an ankle in those heels, we’re finished.” I glanced back at her. “You had to stand up all day. Why are you wearing heels like that?”
Alexandra’s face got a little redder. “My husband, well, he…likes them. They were going to be part of the surprise…”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Please stop there. I don’t want to know. Anyway. You had questions.”
We stared up the nearest hill, moving in the direction my spell had indicated. The pale grasses rustled and whispered in the cold wind, and wild shadows danced around the black trees, thrown by the dancing ribbons of fire. Alexandra had no trouble keeping up with me. She might have never dealt with a crisis like this before, but at least she was in good shape. When we had gone to the gym together (provided by Duke Carothrace, no doubt to keep his worker drones fighting fit), she had run three miles in twenty-one minutes, and then cooled off by running another two miles in sixteen minutes.
“Then this is the Shadowlands?” said Alexandra, shivering a little. It was much colder here than it had been in Madison, and she held her torn blouse and jacket closed with one hand.
“Yup,” I said.
“How…how did we get here?” she said. She frowned. “Why are we here?”
“I didn’t have any other choice,” I said, taking a moment to catch my balance before reaching the crest of the hill. “One of the bombs landed right at our feet. There wasn’t time to get away, so we went here instead.”
“Then you brought us to the Shadowlands,” said Alexandra.
“Yep,” I said. “It was that or get shredded by a pipe bomb.”
Cloak Games: Omnibus One Page 22
