Namely, nothing.
I just had to wait. Sooner or later the Elven nobles and Homeland Security would drive out the Rebels and rescue Rimethur from the Capitol. All I had to do was make myself unobtrusive and follow Rimethur when he emerged from the siege. Madison would be on high alert as the Inquisition hunted down Rogomil and anyone who had helped him, and in that chaos, I could get close to the Jarl, steal the amulet, and escape back to Morvilind.
I wouldn’t even have to go back to Grayhold. The Knight might be powerful, but he wasn’t powerful enough to reach outside of his demesne. If I chose, I could never return to Grayhold. The Knight had given me that enspelled bracelet, but I didn’t owe him anything.
And I just had to leave Alexandra to rot.
No one would ever know what had happened to her. Rogomil’s damned bombs had probably killed a lot of people, and Alexandra would be one more victim. The whole thing would be hushed up, and the Inquisition would make sure that anyone discussing it over the Internet would receive a stern warning and then a swift disappearance if they persisted. If I abandoned Alexandra and never returned to Grayhold, I had a far better chance of getting out of this mess clean.
For a moment, I considered doing just that.
Look, I’m not a good person. Maybe I never have been. Or Morvilind never gave me a chance to become one. I’ve done a lot of bad things. I’ve stolen and I’ve killed. I lie constantly and effortlessly, and I have never told the truth to Russell and James and Lucy, and they were probably the only three people I cared about in the world.
Maybe that’s why I got annoyed when the Marneys invited me to church with them. The preacher always talked about the forgiveness of sins, and I had a lot of sins behind me. I didn’t want to be reminded of them.
What was one more? What did I owe Alexandra? Granted, I had gotten her imprisoned in Grayhold, but if I hadn’t taken her to the Shadowlands she would have been killed in one of the explosions. She worked for Duke Carothrace, and might well turn me over to the Inquisition. She had no problem using the Duke’s slaves in her work. And she was kind to everyone she met, even the slaves, and teared up when she talked about her husband, and…
I closed my eyes and sighed, remembering the contempt that had flashed over the Knight’s face when he talked about how I had almost killed Alexandra.
“Damn it,” I muttered, “damn it, damn it, damn it.” I stared at the concrete wall for a moment, and then kicked it in sheer frustration. “Damn it.”
I couldn’t do it. I knew, deep in my bones, that if I got the amulet I would return to Grayhold for Alexandra. I am not a good person, not even a little…but I suck at being ruthless when necessary.
Maybe it was why I was always in so much trouble.
Another distant burst of gunfire snapped me out of my reverie. It would be a grimly amusing death if I was gunned down while agonizing over a moral dilemma. First, I had to get that amulet away from Rimethur. Then I could worry about Alexandra.
I started down the alley. I needed to find a place with a good view of the Capitol. A rooftop? No, that would be too exposed to bullets, and if Homeland Security sent in helicopters, someone might spot me. An upper-story window overlooking the square ought to serve. I could watch for Rimethur’s return, and if anyone stumbled upon me, I could Cloak until they passed by. I would just have to wait until Rimethur emerged from the Capitol.
Or until the Duke’s men-at-arms carried out the Jarl’s corpse.
Either way, I was taking the Ringbyrne Amulet.
I decided to break into the bank and climb to its top floor. From the offices on the top level I would have a good view of the Capitol’s front steps, and likely anyone still in the bank had fled once the shooting and the explosions had started. Maybe I could even find some food to steal. I hadn’t eaten anything today, and after my magical and physical exertions in the Shadowlands, some food would be welcome.
A turned a corner and froze.
Four men in Homeland Security uniforms stood before the bank’s back door, pistols in hand. Before I could react, they all turned, leveling their weapons. I froze, raising my hands and cursing my inattention. I didn’t dare use a spell. I might be able to Cloak or Mask myself, but there were four pistols, and it would only take one bullet in the right place to finish me. If they were Homeland Security, I could probably bluff my way past them.
If they were disguised Rebels…
“Freeze!” snapped one of the officers.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” I said, letting the words come out fast and hysterical. “Please, please, don’t shoot, there was an explosion, and all these men started shooting, and…”
“Wait,” said one of the officers in a cold, flat voice. “It’s her.”
Wait. They knew me?
Then I recognized the officer. He was the middle-aged man who had been manning the checkpoint, the one I thought I had recognized. After seeing Rogomil, I could finally recalled the screener's name. His name was…Anton, I thought, and I had seen him a few times when Rogomil had been meeting with Nicholas Connor.
“You’re right, Anton,” said another Rebel. “It is her. Matches the description. Brown hair, gray eyes, about five foot three…”
“Katrina Stoker,” said Anton. I tried not to flinch. That had been the name I had used when I had been with Nicholas. Thank God I had possessed the wit not to use my real name, despite my infatuation with him. “It’s been a long time since Los Angeles.”
“Only two years,” I said. “Not that long.” I had one advantage. Anton didn’t know that I could use magic. I had never told Nicholas about my magical abilities, had never used magic in front of him or his friends. As far as Nicholas and his Rebel cell had been concerned, I was just a very skilled jewel thief.
“You killed good men in Los Angeles,” said Anton. Even through his sunglasses, I felt his glare.
I shrugged. “They killed themselves. Hey, you know what? If you go around trying to murder innocent people, sooner or later you’re going to get in trouble.”
“They were not innocents,” said Anton. “There are those for the Revolution, and those against the Revolution. By not being for the Revolution, they were against us, and…”
“That’s great logic,” I said. “Chases its own tail like a drunk dog.”
“You should watch your tongue,” said Anton.
“Why?” I said. “Sergei told you to bring me alive and unharmed if you found me, didn’t he? Else you would have just shot me dead here and now.”
“You had better pray that Commander Rogomil does not give you to us when he is finished with you,” said Anton. He jerked his head, and two of the Rebels started forward, pistols still leveled at me. “Else I shall take great pleasure in making you scream.”
“I bet you would,” I said, keeping the fear out of my voice and face. “Commander Rogomil now, is it? I thought he have promoted himself to High General or Grand Admiral or Supreme Poobah or something.”
One of the Rebels snickered. Anton shot a glare at him, and the Rebel shut up.
The four men led me to the back of the sandwich shop next to the bank. The back door had been kicked open, and we walked through a small kitchen and into the shop proper. Various meats and vegetables lay underneath a sneeze guard on the counter, and a dozen Rebels stood at the windows, peering through the shutters. A half-dozen more Rebels in Homeland Security uniforms waited by the door, all of them holding submachine guns of varying types.
Sergei Rogomil waited in their midst, scowling. He was a big man, over six feet, and had to weigh at least two hundred and fifty pounds. Very little of the weight was fat, and his arms bulged against the sleeves of his colonel’s uniform.
He turned as we approached, and his cold, dead black eyes considered me without blinking.
“Commander,” said Anton, saluting. “We found the girl.”
“So I see,” said Rogomil. He had a deep voice, marked with a heavy rasp that I suspected came from an old injury.
“Katrina Stoker.”
“That’s me,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. Showing fear in front of a man like Sergei Rogomil would be like waving raw meat in front of a rabid dog.
“You caused the Revolution a great deal of harm in Los Angeles,” said Rogomil.
“You were planning to murder ten thousand people and have me take the blame,” I said. “So, yeah, I caused you trouble and…”
His expression did not change as he hit me.
If he had punched me, the strength of the blow likely would have killed me, but he only backhanded me. Even that was enough to snap my head to the right and spin me like a top. I lost my balance, fell on a table, rolled off, and landed on the floor.
That hurt. A lot.
Before I recovered, Rogomil stooped down, grabbed the front of my blazer, and lifted me without any apparent difficulty. My feet swung a good two feet off the floor. I tried to kick at him, but I couldn’t get enough leverage, and clawing at his arm was like trying to attack a tree trunk with my fingernails.
“One of Nicholas Connor’s dumb whores,” Rogomil said. He shook his head. “Nicholas is a genius, but I warned him that his womanizing would get us in trouble. The failure of the Los Angeles operation cost the Revolution a great deal.”
“Yeah,” I rasped. “He should have listened to you.”
Rogomil grunted out a laugh and released me. I landed on my feet, but landing in high heels in a challenge, and my ankle went out from beneath me. I landed hard upon my side, again, and a fresh wave of pain went through me. Rogomil stalked after me, and I scrabbled backward, trying to put together a plan. Maybe he had decided to beat me to death in front of his men.
A flare of purple light caught my eye.
I stopped scrabbling and blinked in surprise.
Black-purple fire flickered around Rogomil’s fingers, the beginnings of a spell.
Rogomil knew how to use magic. Specifically, dark magic drawn from the Void.
What was more, it was the same kind of magic that the anthrophage elder had used in the Shadowlands, that Paul McCade had used in his secret temple beneath his mansion.
How the hell had Rogomil learned to do that?
A frown went over Rogomil’s face, and I realized that I had been staring too hard at his fingers. He didn’t know that I could use magic, and he had no idea that I had seen that kind of magic before. I made myself look properly frightened, which really wasn’t all that hard.
“How…how are you doing that?” I whispered. “You’re not a wizard.”
“I am more than a wizard,” said Rogomil. “I am a Revolutionary. I fight to free mankind from the tyranny of the High Queen.”
“But…you’re doing magic,” I said. “Someone taught you to use magic.”
“The Forerunner has offered his aid to the Revolution,” said Rogomil.
“The Forerunner?” I said. Who was that? “Is that something you worship as a god?”
Rogomil snorted. “Stupid girl. There is no God. There is only the Revolution. We shall overthrow the Elves and the corrupt oppressor classes that rule with them. The oppressed shall be liberated, and all shall be made free and equal in the new world that we shall construct. The Forerunner has shown us the way. Nicholas Connor understood.” He smirked. “Had you been anything other than an amusement to him, perhaps Nicholas would have trusted you with his plans.”
That stung me. It shouldn’t have. I knew what kind of man Nicholas has turned out to be. I knew that I hadn’t meant as much to him as he had meant to me, that he had likely been sleeping with numerous other women while we had been together. It shouldn’t have hurt, because I knew it was true.
Nonetheless, it still stung.
“Commander,” said Anton, “perhaps you shouldn’t tell her all this.”
“Why not?” said Rogomil. “All the world shall soon know the truth of the Revolution. The Forerunner has given us the tools to destroy the High Queen and end her tyranny. Soon the Revolution will remake mankind, and there will be no more rich and poor, no more social classes, no more dissent and division and competition. All shall be equal.”
His dark eyes burned as he made his little speech, and some of the men nodded in agreement. I had seen anthrophages and bloodshed and the grim ruins of Grayhold, but this was still the creepiest thing I had encountered today. Rogomil looked insane. No, that wasn’t quite right. He looked…fanatical. He looked so convinced of his mad vision that he would eagerly, even joyfully, kill as many people as possible to make that vision come true.
It made my skin crawl. I am not a good person, but I’m not a mass murderer either. I had never set off a bomb in a crowded market to disguise one of my thefts. Or burned down a school full of children so I could steal something for Morvilind from the bank across the street.
Or planned to set off a bomb in Los Angeles to kill ten thousand people, as Rogomil and Nicholas had done.
Looking at him I was certain, absolutely certain, that if he had to kill every single man, woman, and child in Madison to take down Rimethur, he would do so without hesitation.
He might start with me.
Which lent itself to an obvious question.
Why hadn’t he started with me?
I carefully, slowly got to my feet, watching Rogomil for any sign of movement.
“So, Grand High Commander Sergei,” I said. His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t hit me again. If he was going to kill me, then by God I was going to insult him a few times before I went. “Are you going to take me captive back to Nicholas?”
“No,” said Rogomil. “Even you, Katrina Stoker, are going to assist the cause of the Revolution.”
“Ah,” I said. “And just how am I going to do that?”
“You are going to open the way for us,” said Rogomil.
I frowned and spat out some blood. “The way?” Did he know about my magical abilities after all? Or…
“Oh,” I said as understanding came to me. “Oh. Oh.” I laughed. “The glorious Revolution outsmarted itself, didn’t it?”
Rogomil’s eyes narrowed. “You tread on dangerous ground.”
“Me?” I said. “I’m not the one who just tried to assassinate a frost giant ambassador. See, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You hate the High Queen, but so do the Archons. The frost giants were content to wage war on the High Queen, but then your buddies the Archons had to go piss off the frost giants. So that drove the frost giants into the High Queen’s waiting arms, and the Rebels don’t want that. Maybe with the help of the frost giants, the High Queen will have more time and resources to go Rebel hunting.” I pointed at Anton. “I bet his head would look nice stuff and mounted on the High Queen’s wall. Maybe with a silly little hat or something.”
Anton’s lips thinned. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, but if Rogomil hadn’t been there, I knew he would have killed me on the spot.
“So you can make deductions,” said Rogomil. “Hardly impressive.”
“You like deductions?” I said. “Here’s another one.” I paused to wipe the blood from my lips onto my sleeve. No one stopped me, which I decided to take as a good sign. “You can’t get to Rimethur. See, the Duke greeted him on the steps of the Capitol. Madison’s been burned and blown up a few times since the Conquest, but the Capitol’s still here. Which means that it’s been rebuilt a few times, hasn’t it?” Rogomil’s eyes narrowed. “And the Elven nobles, they’re real careful about their own skins. Duke Carothrace does all sorts of ceremonies in front of the State Capitol, and I bet he built extra defenses into the Capitol. Like, oh…if the Capitol came under terrorist attack during one of his events? He…”
“We,” snarled one of the younger Rebel soldiers, leveling his gun at me, “are not terrorists! We are freedom fighters! We are liberators! We…”
“That so?” I said. “Tell that to all the people you killed with your bombs. Bet they feel all kinds of liberated.”
“Thieving bitch,” snarled the Rebel, “we…”
>
“I might be a thief,” I said, “but at least I don’t lie to myself.”
The Rebel stepped closer, snarling.
“Shut up,” said Rogomil, and the young Rebel subsided. “So, my clever thief, what do we want of you?”
“You want me to break into the Capitol,” I said.
Rogomil inclined his head.
“Why don’t you just blast your way inside?” I said.
“Because,” said Rogomil, “the interior of the walls are fitted with four inches of steel plate. We do not have adequate weapons to break through. Once our attack began, Carothrace sent Rimethur into the Capitol and then withdrew with his nobles and his guests.”
“Then you had better run like hell,” I said. “He’s gone to commandeer the Madison branch of Homeland Security.”
A thin smile spread over Rogomil’s hard face. “He can’t. We have coopted the Madison branches of the Department of Homeland Security. The men who are not loyal to the glorious cause of the Revolution have been executed.”
“You didn’t get all his men-at-arms, though,” I said. “Or the men-at-arms of the other nobles. Or the Homeland Security branch of, say, Milwaukee or Des Moines. Every last one of them are heading here. All those Elven nobles know a spell or two, and they’re probably pretty ticked at you.”
“Then we will act now,” said Rogomil. “After all, you are a most talented jewel thief. You said so yourself. You’re going to open the doors to the Capitol for us, and then we shall kill Rimethur to further the cause of the Revolution.”
“And if I don’t help you?” I said.
Rogomil let out a contented sigh. “Then I will shoot you in the head right now, which would give me very great pleasure.”
I said nothing. Helping the Rebels was idiotic. If I failed, they would shoot me. If I was with them when Duke Carothrace returned with his men and the Inquisition, I would get shot along with Rogomil’s men. If I opened the doors into the Capitol, I would get killed in the battle between the Rebels and the frost giants.
Or, more likely, Rogomil would shoot me the minute I had the door open.
But it was the best chance I would have to get my hands on the amulet. If I could snatch it away in the middle of a battle, I could open a rift way and the Knight’s bracelet would carry me back to Grayhold. With luck, any witnesses would get killed in the fighting.
Cloak Games: Omnibus One Page 27
