“It sounds like Medea’s crazy endgame of unleashing chaos on the world, but she’s dead. Frankly, an underground war among witches, wizards, monster hunters, and all the various Paran races wouldn’t raise much concern among mainstream humanity except in obscure chat rooms on the Internet,” I said, pointing at the ground to emphasize my point. “But… doing all that plus escalating political instability in already-unstable regions would. I asked Sarah to help me with some unique ballistics this assassin used. You’ve got to try to calm everyone down before something breaks loose and we end up with wars between and among every race, group, and creature on this planet, and I gotta find this asshole. And we need to do all that fast.”
“Indeed. I will do what I can,” Athena replied. “I’m sorry about dragging Agent Wright back into your world, but it is wiser for us to work through her than for us to communicate directly. She is a simple mortal and probably off the fae radar because of it. As always, I will inform you of any relevant developments whenever possible.”
An intense shock of cold built in my chest and then climbed up my back and neck as she walked back into the darkened corner. When the shadows lifted, Athena was gone.
Chapter 17
“So why didn’t Miss High and Mighty come to save your sorry ass?” Duma asked, stepping out from behind a minivan. “And who the hell drives these things?” He glared at the squat vehicle as if it were gum on the bottom of his shoe.
“She won’t confront anyone directly like that,” I said. “That kind of thing is usually my specialty.”
“Look where that’s gotten you.” He snickered.
I glanced down at the phone then at the tattered remains of my vest Duma carried over one shoulder. I knew he hadn’t meant it as an insult, but to some extent, he was right. Such was my life. But so be it. If not me, then who? And better me than someone less prepared.
“So then, what do we do next?” He leaned against the sedan next to me, folding his arms.
“No clue.” I shook my head, pointing at my vest. “I need to change out my gear and grab some more ammo. Beyond that, I’m open to suggestions.”
“That’s not much of a plan, my friend,” he replied with a derisive snort. “But if that’s the next step, then my nearest weapons cache is in Atlanta.”
We made the jump to a park on the west side of Atlanta then walked to a rather upscale warehouse surrounded by a ten-foot-high chain-link fence topped with razor wire in a subdued old neighborhood along a set of railroad tracks. The lock on the gate was some sort of digital keypad that paled in complexity to the one at the office door. Two oversized garage bay doors took up the rest of the front façade of the aluminum-siding-clad building. The inside was one contiguous space taken up by half a dozen cars under covers, a row of five-foot-tall mechanic’s tool chests against one wall, and a pair of hydraulic car lifts in the center. As the ballasts for the fluorescent lighting popped to life, I could see the place was spotless.
“Yeah, I don’t need a car. I need weapons.” I turned, trying to locate the stores of weapons I knew he’d have around somewhere.
Duma glared at me as he walked over to one of the giant red tool chests, opened the top drawer, and reached in. A loud metallic thunk echoed through the garage, and the metal grate underneath one of the hydraulic lifts popped open at one end. An electronic whirring noise began increasing in volume, and the metal grate began to rise on one end, revealing the entrance to an underground space.
“Oh ye of little faith.” He smiled.
I took my time locating what I wanted from Duma’s stores. I needed to add a few things and replenish what I’d lost, destroyed, or used. I replaced the vest over my cuirass then gathered up ammunition for my sidearms. I grabbed an FN SCAR-H Mk 17 Mod 0 assault rifle, a flash suppressor, and six twenty-round magazines for the weapon. I was loading for bear.
I took a few minutes to strip all my firearms and do a quick check to make sure they functioned properly, but somewhere in the back of my head during the mindless process, I kept going back to the idea of the half-breed. Half Blud, half Succubus. There had to be some way to use that.
That’s when the light bulb in my head went off: Succubi were descendants of the fallen angel Na’amah, sister of Lilith, the primordial Strigoi. And I knew a few people that really knew fallen angels and their demon brethren. Thankfully, one of them was a Guardian, like me, only much younger. His name was Ditaolane, or Deeta, the avatar for Uhlanga, known to me as Artemis. And for the last fifty years, Deeta had specialized in hunting fallen creatures. If anyone knew how to find the half-breed, it was him. All I had to do was find him—and that, I could do.
“Duma!” I shouted from the underground bunker. “Where are you?”
“France. Where the hell do you think I am? What’s up?” he shouted back.
“Find a modern world map and get me your scrying pendulum, fast,” I said.
A few minutes later, Duma climbed down the stairs, unfolding a recent world map. I laid it on a worktable while he dangled a black crystal hanging from an intricately carved chain made of bone in front of me. It was stronger than it appeared, and unless examined closely, it was impossible to tell the chain was even bone. I ripped a small piece off the corner of the map, hurriedly scribbled something onto the scrap, wrapped it around the black stone, and secured it with a rubber band that was lying on the table.
Duma’s mouth dropped open, and his eyebrows climbed high on his forehead. He stared at me like that for what felt like an eternity.
“What?” I asked, frowning at him.
“Humans,” he replied, shaking his head. “First, that’s a black diamond, and you smeared your greasy human fingerprints all over it. Second”—he held up my rubber-band-secured mess, pointing at it and scowling—“are you kidding me?”
“Duma, we’re in a hurry…” I said.
“Pendulum scrying don’t know from hurry. Besides, you rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles,” he said, imitating Billy Crystal from The Princess Bride. “The energy you put into the ritual helps make the ritual. You put fakakta energy into this thing, and you’ll be searching for this person on the moon.”
“Duma—”
“Back off, dipstick. Let me do this right,” he said, holding up his other hand to stop me. “Is the person’s name on this piece of paper?”
“Yes,” I replied, rolling my eyes and sighing heavily. I knew he was right.
“Full and complete name, the way they spell it?” Duma asked, eyebrows raised and his voice soft, as if he were speaking to a child.
“Of course. I’m not a total idiot.”
My statement earned me a reproachful glower. He shooed me back a few steps then undid my haphazard preparation. He carefully cleaned the black stone while I flattened the paper scrap with the name on it and folded it three times. After wrapping the folded paper smoothly around the diamond—which had to be close to eighty carats—he took a small piece of twine from the workstation and tied it around the paper, securing it to the diamond. The pendulum suspended over the map, he began the tedious process of entering a trancelike state.
The process always amazed and bored me at the same time. For those who could use magic—or more accurately, manipulate ambient energy—scrying required an effort of will to harness energy to make a link between the object in hand and what’s being searched for. To help focus that energy, I used conjuring circles, rituals, or ritual objects. Fae, on the other hand, were so intrinsically bound to the Earth and its energies that for them, it was like logging on to the Internet. Their focus, or so Duma and Ab have told me, helped them weed through the mass of energy they get bombarded with when they tap into it. It just takes too damn long.
I had long ago resigned myself to the fact that for me, scrying was nothing short of a miracle to pull off. Not only did I lack the patience, but the energy I was
best at focusing came from rage, which was not useful for delicate work like scrying. I had to fight not to check my watch every few seconds. I wondered about Deeta. He was a good kid, but I hadn’t seen him in a few years. Not since his inexperience in dealing with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn almost landed him on their shit list. Thankfully, he still owed me for that one, and I was about to cash it in.
Once the pendulum came to a complete and utter stop several long minutes later, he opened his eyes again. I knew he was just getting started, though. Few creatures could hold so still that it was positively creepy. He continued his statue imitation for a full five minutes more before the pendulum began to waver as if being pulled. It moved slowly but steadily from the southeastern part of the United States, where we were, across the Atlantic toward the Mediterranean. Eventually, it settled in Libya. I took a step closer to see the precise location when Duma blinked rapidly and looked down. The stone’s point was resting on the city of Sirte.
“That was ridiculously tough,” he said, dropping the chain and rubbing his face with his hands. “I don’t get it, but it was hard to pinpoint his energy.”
“Yeah, Guardians, we’re a slippery bunch. What can I tell you?”
He reached down to grab the scrying stone, and I caught his hand and took the paper off the stone with my free hand. “Nope,” I said, wadding the paper and shoving it in my mouth. I trusted Duma with my life, but I had no right to give someone else’s information to him. And a Guardian’s true name would be worth an untold fortune.
“Gross,” Duma said. “Well, at least tell me who we’re trying to find.”
“Ditaolane, a fellow Guardian who specializes in demon hunting.”
“Gotcha. This the guy you call Deeta who almost got himself blown up by an Adeptus Exemptus of the Hermetic Order?” he asked as he put away his scrying pendulum.
“Yep. Now, what’s the fastest way to Sirte in Libya?”
Chapter 18
Duma and I were on our way back to the entrance to the Ways when I began to think about Deeta. One of few remaining Guardians, he was the youngest. I’d first encountered him in 1961 during the Angolan War of Independence, right after he had become a Guardian. He was chasing an Abiku that was killing children orphaned by the ongoing rebellion against the Portuguese as they fought against forced labor in cotton fields. I was after a Mbwiri that had possessed the brutal Portuguese warden of São Paulo Prison. We’d ended up helping each other and become fast friends.
I found out sometime later that Ditaolane’s mother had survived a demon attack on her village when she was pregnant with him by hiding in a dung pile. His Basuto tribe in Lesotho said it was the reason he could sense demons and evil spirits even before he became a Guardian. The goddess Uhlanga chose him because he always chose to defend those who couldn’t fight for themselves, despite the fact he wasn’t the biggest or strongest kid around. I anticipated seeing him again, even if it was under such dire conditions.
Our passage through the Ways took us three jumps, but as we approached our final destination, I could feel the temperature rise, as well as a nearly overwhelming sensation of anarchy, fear, anger, and confusion. We exited into the middle of Martyr’s Square in the center of Sirte amid what I could only describe as a redneck parade on the first day of hunting season. I hadn’t been there since my days with the Teams almost twenty years ago. The atmosphere was so tumultuous that no one even noticed us walk out of thin air. Among the war-ravaged and devastated buildings and rubble around the edge of the park were throngs of armed men dressed in everything from jungle camouflage to T-shirts, all firing every kind of gun imaginable in random directions, including straight up. They were gathered around a variety of technicals—pickup trucks they had converted into makeshift mobile weapons platforms mounted with heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, and even howitzers.
Watching these would-be soldiers made up of citizens tired of Gaddafi’s dictatorship, I began to realize that they were mostly firing west, toward the Old City. Most of the whitewashed multistory apartment buildings still standing around the park were little more than shells, missing outer walls or half destroyed. Many were effectively piles of rubble. Every wall still intact was riddled with bullet holes from heavy machine-gun fire. Not a single structure within view had escaped damage. Thankfully, it was clear that noncombatant civilians had abandoned the area.
I pulled my assault rifle around into a low ready position and waved my hand in a quick chopping motion across the park, indicating the completely out-of-place Assembly building that resembled the Space Mountain ride at Disneyland. Remarkably, the odd structure was largely undamaged. I had no idea where in Sirte to find Deeta, but as a Guardian, he would be where the action was heaviest. I wished I had his uncanny ability to follow any creature over any surface.
Duma and I began leap-frogging down side streets that were less congested, taking cover among the rubble and burned-out vehicles. The farther west we went, the closer we got to the center of the action. In case things weren’t bad enough already, the streets in the Old City were flooded to about knee deep. Trying to reassess our heading, we sheltered in a blown-out building during a lull in the almost-random artillery and mortar fire.
“We gotta get someplace high. I need to get a lay of the land,” I said to Duma as a particularly heavy barrage obliterated a building next to us.
Duma pointed at a five-story building past another small park that was little more than ruins. Unfortunately, the sounds of gunfire were also more consistent from that direction.
“Let’s go, flat out. Roof of that building,” I said. “Southwest corner. Move!”
Duma took off, and I followed. There were no doors or windows left on the first floor—only gaping holes. In a blur, Duma headed straight through one and up the stairs, bounding over a dead rebel soldier partially covered by rubble. As I reached the doorway, the artillery started up again, impacting something beyond the building. The bombardment was so haphazard that most deaths probably came by accident rather than design.
I made it almost to the roof without a problem, only to find Duma hunkered inside the access way to the roof, holding a finger over his lips. He held up two fingers and gestured toward the door and then to the left.
He pulled two wicked thin-bladed dirks from his bandolier and gave me an impish grin. I grabbed his arm and shook my head. I pulled one knife from his hand and spun it over so the pommel faced up. His grin faded to confusion then utter disappointment. I swear, you can take the fae out of the wilderness, but you can’t take the wilderness out of the fae. I slapped him lightly on the side of the face, and he took off out the door. A few seconds later, I kicked the door open, rifle at the ready, and Duma was kneeling over two prone rebel soldiers. Putting his dirks away, he eyed me as I walked up.
“They’ll live,” he said, frowning.
I crouched as I approached the side of the roof. Poking my head up enough to see, I spotted rebel snipers on half a dozen of the surrounding rooftops. Below, the bodies of half a dozen rebels and at least that many uniformed soldiers lay where they’d fallen in the streets and inside blown-out buildings. I continued scanning the city for spots of particularly intense fighting. One area definitely stood out a few blocks south of our position, right on the edge of town.
“That’s where we need to be.” I pointed in the direction of the heaviest artillery barrages.
“What’s with you always running toward crap that’s being destroyed? I swear…” He shook his head.
“If Deeta’s here, then whatever he’s chasing is likely to be there, too. It’s a Guardian thing. If there’s a pile of shit somewhere, you can bet we’ll be knee deep in it.” I laughed. “Listen, one group is lined up along the main road there to the east, while the other group is holed up over there near those buildings to the west. This road below us is a no-man’s land that runs right between them,” I said,
pointing at the partially flooded street that ran from where we were, almost due south through the city.
As I spoke, a rocket-propelled grenade took down part of a building a few blocks down our intended path, followed by a sustained volley of heavy gunfire in the same area. Duma glared at me. I smiled in return then squat-walked back to the stairs.
Still partially obscured by smoke and dust from the rocket’s impact, things were much more claustrophobic down the abandoned, flooded street from ground level. That dust would help keep us concealed as we ran, but it also kept us from seeing potential threats clearly. I’d traversed similar situations on numerous occasions as a SEAL, but not having to hold back or worry about my teammates somehow made the situation seem less dangerous. I didn’t even have to say anything, and Duma was off, heading down the street in a red-and-black blur. I tried to do my best imitation, but my instinct to stop at good cover proved hard to overcome.
By the time I made it halfway down the street, another RPG hammered the building that had just been hit, and I was less than thirty yards beyond it. The concussion knocked me flat on my stomach in the flooded street as I got pelted with rocks, bits of mortar, and stucco. Instinctively, I curled up and covered my head until the rain of debris stopped. Luckily, I was at the outside edge of the most dangerous part of the blast radius. Before I could uncover my head, someone grabbed my vest and started pulling me up. I couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in my ears, but it was Duma trying to urge me along.
For a moment, everything moved in slow motion as I tried to understand what he was yelling. Then something hit me hard in the lower back, knocking me off balance. Then Duma ducked as large-caliber bullets tore gaping holes into the wall to our right. Adrenaline kicked in, and the world sped up again. I dove for cover inside the closest doorway, and Duma lurched around the corner as heavy machine-gun fire raked the building. Somebody clearly believed we were the opposition.
Chaos Unbound (The Metis Files Book 2) Page 14
