Bring the Fire (The Wisdom's Grave Trilogy Book 3)

by Craig Schaefer

  “I know that you can’t kill an entire neighborhood full of people for what a few of them did.”

  “Hey,” Tricia said, “we gave them twenty-four hours to hand the rebels over. They didn’t. They knew the consequences.”

  “You don’t remember what this world was like,” Nadia said. “Dwindling resources, mass extinction, people starving in the streets. Government by the obscenely wealthy and the obscenely stupid. If I hadn’t taken over, this planet would probably be a smoking cinder by now. Is my rule harsh? Yes. Am I cruel? Yes.”

  “I assume this is the part where you tell me why being harsh and cruel is necessary,” Marie said.

  “No. Now is the part where I point out the well-documented fact that you like it that way.”

  “No,” Marie said.

  “You fell in love with me at first sight—”

  “With Nessa. I fell in love with Nessa. I just met you.”

  “You’re still doing it,” Nadia said. “Still thinking of our incarnations as different people. I am Nessa. Yes, she and I grew up under different circumstances, in different worlds, but nurture cannot change what nature has decreed. Are we really that different, do you think? Really?”

  “Nessa’s never done anything like…” Marie flailed a hand, taking in the throne room. “Like this.”

  “Or she hasn’t yet. Given my resources, my power, and my reach, can you look me in the eye and tell me Nessa wouldn’t do the exact same thing?”

  Nessa’s voice echoed in her ear. Let’s do it. Let’s conquer the entire world.

  “Uh-huh,” Nadia said to Marie’s silence. “That’s what I thought.”

  Seventeen

  Standing in a dark hotel room in the world next door, Nessa had put her lofty ambitions aside for the moment. Tonight she had one mission: find Marie, bring her home, and destroy anyone who stood in her way.

  She studied the vial of Hedy’s elixir, syrupy and translucent. She uncorked it, held her nose and chugged it down. It smelled like apples and tasted like ashes. The sign, Hedy had told her, of a Shadow infection beyond the point of no return. She felt the fire in her veins simmer down as her magic swelled, and then the sudden rush of the stimulant Hedy had added to the formula. One vial down, and one left.

  A knock sounded at the door. Gazelle was outside, waiting.

  “They’re here,” she said.

  “Send them up.”

  Two minutes later, she ushered Janine and Tony into the room, then stood sentry by the door. Janine pulled a rolling suitcase behind her and cradled a tube of thick cardboard, still taped and marked with a Delta Air Lines check-in tag, under one arm.

  “Where is she?” Tony demanded.

  “Right to business,” Nessa said. “Good. You brought the book?”

  Janine started to unzip the suitcase. Tony stopped her with a wave of his hand.

  “Where,” he said, “is my partner? And don’t give us any bull about magic or other worlds or any of that nonsense. Janine might buy that stuff, but I don’t, and I’m not leaving without Marie.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Nessa replied, “so in lieu of gently explaining the true nature of reality to you and hoping some of it sinks in…Clytemnestra, would you kindly lend a hand here?”

  The knife on the kitchenette counter wobbled. Then it burst forth with a stream of sapphire light, motes glittering on the shaft as it projected the woman’s image standing between them.

  “How can I assist?” she asked.

  Tony staggered backward, bumping his hip against the counter. Janine’s mouth fell open and she stared, wide-eyed.

  “Holy cats,” Janine breathed.

  “That’s…that’s a hologram,” Tony said, pointing with his good hand. “Where did you get a hologram?”

  “I don’t know what that is,” Clytemnestra said, “but I’m fairly certain you’re wrong.”

  “That’s not a hologram,” Janine said.

  “It’s like that Amazon thing, an Alexa.” He leaned closer to the projection and spoke slowly, raising his voice and enunciating every word. “Alexa, what movies are playing tonight?”

  Nessa let out an aggravated sigh. “You are a special kind of pigheaded, aren’t you? If Marie wasn’t fond of you, I’d do something creatively terrible right now. But she is, deeply fond of you, which means I have to be nice. More or less. Now give me the damn book.”

  Janine produced it from the suitcase. Pages yellowed, cover barely holding on by a strip of spinal glue, it had spent years in Marie’s eager hands, soaked in her imagination. Nessa stroked the glossy art, her fingers trailing along the raised bumps of the title. She could feel her there. Before a pang of heartache could distract her, she held it out to Clytemnestra.

  “Will this do?”

  A translucent hand passed over the book, then through it, her image distorting like a TV with bad reception before it snapped back into focus.

  “Absolutely,” Clytemnestra said. “I can feel the thread tying her essence to the pages. We can follow it to her, wherever she’s been taken.”

  Janine hoisted the cardboard tube and thumped her knuckles on it.

  “I also brought her sword. I mean, it’s not a good sword. She bought it off the Home Shopping Network one night after we got blitzed on cheap chardonnay, and I don’t think it’s even sharp…but it’s hers. Knight needs to have her sword.”

  “Perhaps,” Nessa said. “Hang on to that for her. Keep it safe for her return. She will be returning tonight.”

  Three quick, sharp raps sounded at the door. Gazelle opened it and let Daniel in. He barely broke his stride to the heart of the hotel room as he looked Tony up and down.

  “What’s with the cop?”

  “Marie’s partner,” Nessa said.

  “Hold up,” Tony said. “How do you know I’m a cop?”

  “Because you’re a cop.” Daniel pointed at him, looking to Nessa. “Is he clued-in?”

  “Oh, I’ve been trying. Janine, Tony, this is Daniel. He does card tricks and steals things. He’s with the Mafia.”

  Janine’s eyes darted back and forth between Daniel and the glowing, solemn image of Clytemnestra beside him.

  “That’s cool. I’m totally cool and not freaking out about any of this right now.” She nodded to Daniel. “I do crimes myself. Lots of crimes.”

  “Uh-huh,” Daniel said. He turned back to Nessa. “So here’s the deal. The Monaco, just down the street, is under heavy renovation. The entire top three floors are closed off right now, and the director of security over there owes me a favor. I kicked a ghost out of his penthouse once, long story. Anyway, we’ve got an all-access pass and the green light to use the roof. But we’ve got to clear out by morning when the construction crews come back to work. Is that do-able?”

  “Cutting a doorway won’t take long at all,” Clytemnestra told him. “Our return is not guaranteed.”

  “You mean the time of your return, or…”

  “Marie could be stranded in any of a thousand possible alternate realities, many of which are inhabited by horrors beyond your mortal imagination. Your eyes would burst at the sight of them, while your blood froze inside your veins. If you were very, very fortunate, you would die quickly.”

  “Okay,” Daniel said, “you ladies have fun with that.”

  * * *

  Alton Roth was back at work, glad-handing his way across the ivory-and-beige kaleidoscope carpet of the Hotel Palomar. It was his first fundraiser since his son’s murder, and Washington’s well-to-do were showering him with compassion and discreet sealed envelopes.

  He thought back to what Vanessa had said at Richard’s funeral. This should be good for a few sympathy votes. If he hadn’t been focused on wearing his mask of stoic dignity, he would have cracked a smile. After all, she wasn’t wrong.

  And according to the text he just got from Rosales, payback was imminent.

  Nyx and her team had touched down at an airstrip outside Vegas, armed with Talon’s gear and a shor
t list of hotels. By sunrise, his son’s killers would be dead and buried. One less thing to worry about.

  “You concerned about collateral damage?” Rosales had asked him.

  “Madam,” he replied with mock gravitas, “I am a senator from the great state of Nevada. Am I concerned about an outburst of sudden, shocking violence at the heart of Las Vegas? Of course I am. After all, such an event would thrust me into the national spotlight, where my swift response and bold initiative would be witnessed by the American people. They’ll see that I’m a man of action, and exactly the sort of leader they need at the helm in times of trouble.”

  It was the first time he’d ever seen her blink, lashes fluttering across her turquoise eyes.

  “I have the blood of a murder god in my veins,” Rosales said. “I have literally eaten people, and you make me look like a decent human being. I mean, you’re a real piece of shit. You do know that, right?”

  “It’s only politics,” he told her.

  Now he was moving and shaking like old times. He was so busy squeezing a promise of cash out of a blue-haired heiress, parroting her own positions back at her like he was born to agree, that he didn’t notice Calypso steaming through the crowd.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “It can wait,” Alton said. “The Petersens just got here, and they’re always good for—”

  Calypso’s fingers closed on his arm like a steel vise. The sudden bone-grinding pressure stole the words from Alton’s mouth.

  “Now,” Calypso said.

  He marched Alton out of the ballroom, up the hall, and into the men’s room, pausing just long enough to wave over one of the event security guards.

  “Nobody comes in until we come out,” Calypso told him.

  Calypso kicked open the bathroom stalls one by one, making sure they were alone. Alton suddenly felt a rush of heat he couldn’t blame on the hard fluorescent lights, his skin going clammy and a pool of sweat dampening the back of his shirt.

  “I just had a word with Nyx,” Calypso said.

  “And?”

  Calypso loomed over him. Now Alton realized where the heat was coming from. It was rising from Calypso’s skin, his anger rippling out like waves of invisible fire.

  “You went behind my back.”

  “And?” Alton repeated.

  He slid one foot to the side, squaring his stance, keeping his chin high. The two prime laws of politics echoed through his mind as he fought to keep his nerve: never apologize, always double down.

  “I called in the bounty on your daughter-in-law and Detective Reinhart,” Calypso said. “I am responsible for what happens. Do you understand that?”

  “What’s the problem? Nyx and her crew obviously needed a little help to get the job done. So I helped. Isn’t this what we both want?”

  “What I want,” Calypso said, “is to resolve this situation quietly and cleanly. You reached out to an agent of the Network—”

  “Other way around.”

  “—you took aid and assistance from a daughter of the King of Wolves, and you sent Nyx into a situation that’s probably going to end in a civilian bloodbath.”

  “In my home state,” Alton said. “We can use this. It’s win-win. Again, what’s the damn problem?”

  Alton stared as Calypso paced back and forth across the pristine tile, too furious to speak. No, he realized. Worried. He thought back to the conversation on the jet, him and that Scottish redhead, and the bits and pieces he’d been able to overhear.

  “The bounty,” Alton said. “You shouldn’t have called it in at all, am I right? You broke some kind of infernal rule, and now you’re afraid your people are going to notice. And the more noise Nyx makes, the more eyes are going to be on her. And you.”

  “That’s one problem. You sent Nyx to Las Vegas. Vegas, of all the places you could have—”

  “That’s where Vanessa and her whore are. What should I have done?”

  “You should have let me handle it!” Calypso roared, rounding on him. “If they’re in Vegas, they’re with a man named Daniel Faust. You remember Caitlin, that woman who was waiting on your plane? She’s the right hand of Prince Sitri, one of the most powerful rulers of hell. She also knows what I did. Daniel is her consort. Nyx wants to kill Daniel, and if he’s with Vanessa and Marie, she has a perfect excuse. Can you connect the lines from there, or do I have to draw you a goddamn map?”

  Alton was sweating hard now. Calypso’s naked fury turned the bathroom into a sauna as his voice whip-cracked off the tiled walls. Beads of moisture broke out on Alton’s forehead and trickled down. He brushed the back of his hand across his face and stood his ground. If Alton was anything at all, he was a born opportunist, and a new opportunity was unfolding right before his eyes.

  “So what you’re saying is, if you get found out or if this Caitlin turns you in, your own people are going to…what? Something bad, right? Something real bad. Kill you, maybe?” Now Alton couldn’t keep the slow, sly smile from his lips. “Which means, if I understand right, our contract is null and void. So I get my soul back. And everything you’ve done for me, I get it all for free. I play my cards right, I could probably make it the rest of the way to the White House on my own. I’d be the man who sold his soul, won it back, and got everything he ever wanted. Sundae with a cherry on top.”

  Calypso’s voice dropped to a panther growl.

  “Better check the fine print, baby. If that’s how it all went down? Maybe. But right now, you’re still on the hook. And in violation. Contract says if you deliberately do anything that could endanger my efforts on your behalf, or if you go against me, I can punch your ticket on the spot. Go directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars or much of anything else on your way to eternal damnation.”

  Alton had always been a gambler. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. Now he stood on the doorstep of the biggest gamble of his life.

  “Do it,” he said.

  Calypso stared at him, uncomprehending.

  “Do it,” Alton repeated. “Right here. Right now. Kill me. Kill me and send me straight to hell. You’re right. Contract says you can. So do it.”

  Calypso held his silence. The waves of heat rippled and broke, leaving Alton caked in sweat gone cold as ice.

  “Little lesson for you,” Alton said. “When you go to the negotiating table, never let the other side know how badly you want to make a deal. You do that, they’ll bend you right over a barrel.”

  “That so,” Calypso rumbled.

  “You tipped your hand long ago. You’ve got everything riding on getting me into the White House. Your name, your reputation, you staked it all. And we’ve come way too far for you to back out now. Sure, you can punch my ticket. But you won’t. And we both know you won’t. I just called your bluff; I’ve got aces high and you’ve got nothing. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a fundraiser to get back to.”

  He turned away, toward the bathroom mirror, and yanked a paper towel from the chrome dispenser by the sink. He dabbed it at his face, mopping up the stray beads of sweat, and crumpled it in his hand. For the first time since his son died, he felt like he was back in control. Everything was going to work out just fine.

  “This isn’t over,” Calypso said to his reflection.

  Alton tossed the wadded-up paper towel to the floor at Calypso’s feet. It bounced off the polished toe of his shoe. Alton turned his back and headed for the door.

  “Just do your damn job,” he said. “Opportunity’s about to start knocking again. Be ready.”

  Eighteen

  Darkness fell like a cloak over Las Vegas. The skyline erupted in vivid light, a neon carnival where the shadows danced. And the storm rolled in. The rains only came to kiss the desert a few times every year. When they did, they made up for lost time.

  On a red rock bluff outside the city, just far enough that the urban sprawl shrank to a razor-thin glow of white light, the first traces of rain dotted the dusty stone. A ragged
white hem swayed as the Mourner shook a rattle made of stretched hide and bone, her spine twisting like a rope as she bent her body forward and back. Dora stood near her, face and open hands lifted to the black sky, raindrops pooling in her amber eyes. She had a song on her lips, something ancient, something keening, with words made of forgotten vowels.

  A shape emerged from the dark, taking on form and scarlet hue. The Lady in Red wore a secret smile, and the antique key at her throat glistened cold and wet.

  “Did I not say, when this all began, where we would meet again?” she asked.

  “In a storm of our own brewing,” the Mourner replied.

  “Before the battle’s won,” Dora added. “And tonight?”

  “You hardly need my magic to prophesy what happens tonight,” the Lady said. “You hardly need magic at all for that.”

  “Sure. Some heads are gonna roll. But what about after that? Does Nessa really have a chance of pulling this off? The whole universe is going to be turned against her by this time tomorrow, if she makes it that far. Hell, she’s up against her. And Nadia literally wrote the book on what Nessa’s capable of.”

  “Can you keep a secret?” asked the Lady.

  “That’s what we do.”

  “Yes,” the Lady replied with a wink. “It is. Let us focus on the here and the now and the night at hand. My daughters have a difficult doorway to open, and a long journey ahead. We should ease their passage a bit.”

  She raised one elegant hand, her slender finger pointing toward the black and turbulent sky.

  “Shake the rattle and strike the drum. Let’s dance down a storm. One to remember.”

  * * *

  Hedy came back to Nessa’s hotel room with a plastic bag that read Las Vegas Pawn and Collectibles. She lugged it in, cradling the bottom of the bag like it could burst at any moment, and dumped it out on the bed. A spill of antique silver and gold, coins ranging from the size of a thumbnail to heavy medallions, tumbled across the pink bedspread.

  “Butterfly and Mantis did well,” she said. “These should do for the trip. Where’s Clytemnestra?”