Stained Glass: An Alexi Sokolsky Supernatural Thriller (Alexi Sokolsky: Hound of Eden Book 2)

by James Osiris Baldwin

  There was only one peppermint left in the tin. I got it out and split it under my teeth, working the muscles of my jaws as Zane knocked on a closed door, opened it, and motioned me into the lion’s den. I cocked my jaw, rolled my neck, and went inside without a word, every inch the street-hardened wizard.

  GOD-dammit. I really wish I’d had time to buy that gun.

  Chapter 9

  The room beyond looked like a well-managed squat, clean but improvised. I entered into a cloud of mingled cigarette and pipe smoke and a murmur of conversation, which died abruptly as Zane stepped in behind me and closed the door. Talya was there, dressed down in a t-shirt and blue jeans, along with an odd assortment of people who gathered around on sofas and armchairs, dining chairs and bean-bags. By clothing and disposition, I was able to roughly divide the room into four. The Twin Tigers crew were obvious enough in their black leather and denim uniforms. Facing them were a rag-tag collection of suburbanites and cubicle farmers, people who looked as uncomfortable here as I felt. A pair of intense men in different gang colors to the Tigers occupied a small sofa together.

  On the Tigers’ side, I caught the eye of an older Asian woman in a spiked and armored leather jacket that looked like it had come off a Mad Max film set. She leaned nonchalantly against the wall beside a sinewy, tense-looking crewcut bruiser, a man who looked equal part Bruce Willis and Stallone. His hair was graying at the temples, but he had a muscular soldier’s build, that peculiar lock-jawed toughness that only came from protracted military service. Flanking them was a sly, button-faced Latino man with very strong cheekbones and a very weak chin. The President, his old lady, and the Captain, I assumed.

  The two plainclothes cops sat apart from the rest. The Chaplain was a fit, handsome, hard-planed man with a thin moustache, smiling as he rubbed his thumb over his ring finger. Beside him, a powerfully built black woman lounged in a crisp skirtsuit and open-collared white shirt, her hair a short fall of neat rope braids bound back in a high ponytail. She was effortlessly charismatic, with the air of royalty. The Vigiles Agent, I was willing to bet.

  The nervous norms were positioned around the largest armchair, where a small, tawny-skinned man in a cream and white suit was smoking a pipe, one ankle crossed over the other knee. He could have been fifty-six or six hundred: ageless, narrow-jawed, hook-nosed, with small eyes and big lips. He was not attractive, but he commanded his space with the confidence of a leader. As we entered, he looked up at us, but said nothing.

  Talya stood up from her beanbag as silence thickened the small room. She had changed out of her work clothes, but neither she or the man in the big armchair fitted the biker clubhouse vibe. “Rex! You came!”

  “I wouldn’t refuse your call, skvorets.” When she came up to us, I patted her arm and kissed her politely on the cheek. Other Slavs thought my greetings cold and impersonal, so brief as to be rude, but our apparent intimacy made a few of the others in the room sit up uncomfortably. Talya was more demonstrative towards Zane. She hugged him, and he hugged her back hard enough to pick her up off the floor.

  “Hey kitten,” he said. There was real affection in his voice.

  I looked back to the biker crew. The Asian woman in the heavy jacket had stood up from the wall. She was tiny but whip-strung, her dark eyes burning with frenetic energy. Her dry chopped hair and bony hands reminded me of Vera, and a nasty knot formed in the pit of my belly.

  “So, now we are all accounted for.” The man in the armchair spoke up. “Talya, Zane. Can you introduce us?”

  In the pause that followed, one of the young gang-bangers rose to his feet. He was a strikingly handsome man, his skin so dark that it caught white and blue highlights. His hair was braided in tight cornrows, and his voice was surprisingly soft and melodic. “I am Michael and this is Karim. We are Elders of the Pathrunners. I am here to arbitrate this meeting.”

  Talya bobbed her head anxiously as Michael sat down. “So, yes… Rex is the man who did me the reading. Rex, this is John Spotted Elk, head of the Four Fires Community,” Talya motioned to the man in the armchair, who lifted a hand in greeting. “And this is Jenner, the Twin Tigers-”

  “Twin Tigers Motorcycle Club President,” the woman in the spiked jacket interrupted her, pushing off from the wall. Her voice was hard, loud, with a strong Californian accent. She strode over to me, extending a hand. “Jenny Tran, but call me Jenner. Nice to meet you, Rex. This here is my Road Captain, Mason, and my other Sarge, Duke. You already met Zane.”

  “I have.” I shook, and found she had a pleasantly strong, confident grip. Something here was odd. A female leader in the biker community wasn’t just rare: it was impossible. With the exception of lesbian separatists, motorcycle clubs were notoriously sexist.

  I swept back over the room, settling on the pair of cops. They didn’t look nearly as happy to see me. “Thank you. I admit I wasn’t expecting a convocation.”

  An uncomfortable pause followed. Then Talya spoke up, her voice high and over-bright. “So, that’s all I had to contribute to this tonight. Rex is a sorcerer, maybe. Any questions?”

  “Many,” I replied.

  “No doubt. Let me start with one, Rex.” The man she had introduced as head of the Four Fires, whatever that was, waved his hand like a magician. John Spotted Elk was a little effete, I thought, as unlikely a leader as Jenny Tran. His body was soft, his voice was reedy, a little too high-pitched for synesthetic comfort, and heavily accented. He was nut-brown and had the kind of stereotypically hawkish face I associated with Plains Indians. His accent wasn’t like any accent I’d ever heard before, almost affected. “You may be a street mage… but are you a Phitometrist?”

  A small thrill passed down the back of my neck, and I turned to face him. “Yes.”

  “Do you know what that means?” He arched an eyebrow.

  “A mage who has undergone Shevirah,” I replied. “Though your terminology may vary, Mister Spotted-Elk.”

  He laughed. “Either call me John or call me Spotted Elk. I get enough Mister-this and Mister-that at the museum. Your answer’s good, though. What does he know about our dilemma already, Talya?”

  “Hardly anything,” Talya replied. She was fidgeting, still standing close to Zane. “I didn’t think you’d, ah, want me to say anything much.”

  “Yes, so it would be very nice if you could enlighten me.” My accent bled through again. With nothing but natural light to guide my cycles and far less coffee than what I’d drunk at home, I was used to sleeping with the sunset and rising with the dawn. It was way past bed time.

  “Wait.” The black woman leaned forwards, hands planted palm-down on her open knees. “John, we agreed to screen an operative together. Who the fuck is this guy?”

  “’This guy’ has a name.” I crossed my arms and looked back at her. “And is listening to you talk about him like he’s not here.”

  Spotted Elk sighed. “Ayashe-”

  “We agreed to hire a freelancer, not someone one of our youngest decided to pull off the street. I want references.” Ayashe thrust her jaw out as she spoke. This lady had a mean, dark eye.

  “Sure thing. The last guy we chose by committee did just great,” Mason said. His voice was deep and raspy. “The one that fucking disappeared.”

  Ayashe’s flare faded into sullen embers. She sat back, scowling. Mason and Jenner both smirked, squinting their eyes like smug cats. Wonderful. They couldn’t even agree amongst themselves.

  “Everyone, please,” Michael said.

  I crossed my arms, and jerked my head towards the door. “Look. I didn’t come here to be kicked around like a football. Either you people give me the short of it, or I’m walking out of here.”

  Spotted Elk held up a hand before anyone else could say anything. The room simmered down to a reluctant silence. “Rex, did you read about the Wolf Grove Group Home in the papers? Two murders and a mass kidnapping, nearly two weeks ago to the day. The eighth, to be precise.”

  I had read about it, in passing, on
my daily scrounged copy of the Times. Even by New York standards, it had been a big deal: a wealthy couple murdered in their beds up in the nice part of north New York, and all the children at the home were unaccounted for. It hadn’t meant much to me at the time. “I remember.”

  “Mmph.” Spotted Elk drew on his pipe. “Wolf Grove was run by Dru and Lily Ross. They were esteemed and valued members of our communities, and united us across our various cultural, ethical and moral divisions. I suppose you wonder exactly what it is we do?”

  “I know what bikers do,” I replied. “And I know what goes on in museums and police stations, but I’m more wondering what you all are.”

  The small sounds of the room quieted, like spooked birds falling still in a forest clearing. Jenner glanced at Mason, then at Zane. He shrugged.

  Spotted Elk raised a brow. “Was that a guess or an inference?”

  “A deduction. Phitometry isn’t a word I often hear thrown around. I didn’t know anything about it until I met something very personal and very ancient.” Tiny details of Spotted Elk's body language fit together into a strange whole. His nostrils were flaring like a deer’s. His neck was long and slender, and there was something in his mannerisms that made my teeth ache and my mouth water. Strange feelings to have, in the presence of a man one has only just met… but then again, I hadn’t killed anyone for a while.

  “Fair enough.” Spotted Elk spread his hands. “I’ll come clean, ay? We’re shapeshifters. Every man and woman in this room, save for Aaron.”

  His flippant reveal hung over the room for a moment. Talya cleared her throat in the silence.

  “I see,” I replied, after a few seconds of digestion. “As in, werewolves?”

  A few people grimaced in distaste, except for Jenner and Duke. They grinned.

  “The wolves are not here tonight. This murdered couple, they were from our circle. They were Pathrunners.” Karim spoke up this time, a proud cant to his head and an arrogant look in his heavy-lidded eyes. He had a strong French accent, clay-brown skin, and designs shaved into his hair and through the thick stubble on his cheeks.

  “You make it sound more significant than I understand it to be.” I turned to look at them both – really look at them. Maybe it was my own ideas about what a shapeshifter should be, but I was searching for the animal in each of them now.

  “Pathrunners are the keepers of law in our communities,” Michael said. “Our members are the rats, raccoons, birds, and other small animals… those who live quickly and die often. Our Ka run ahead to guide all other creatures, learning much from each brief lifetime.”

  “I don’t know anything about your Art or your traditions,” I said. “So start from the beginning.”

  “We will not give you much,” Michael replied. “Our laws are our own.”

  “We’re not Phitometrists, if that’s what you mean,” Spotted Elk said. “Weeders – shapeshifters – have a human face and an animal face. Ib and Ka-Bah, to borrow the Pathrunners’ preferred Egyptian terms. Human heart and body, animal soul. Two sides of a coin.”

  “The human changes,” Karim said. “The animal remains the same from life to life. It is not the human who turns into the Ka. The Ka takes human form.”

  There was a brooding heaviness over the room as these men spoke. I had the distinct impression that if I rejected this knowledge, the lot of them weren’t going to let me out of the room alive. I doubted anyone would find the body.

  “Our children are born at random,” Spotted Elk said. “Across cultures and states, often to families who don’t understand them. There are different… approaches to the way we live our lives. The Pathrunners are our law-givers, and they arbitrate between our communities and gangs and packs. They find and gather children, raise them in the understanding of our ways, and then the children decide where their hearts lie. Some of them join outlaws like Jenner and Mason. Some of them join wolf packs, or lion prides, or flocks. Others throw in their lot with the likes of me when they come of age.”

  “Some of them change their minds.” A young man with a chicken neck and a beaky, pointed face muttered, glancing at Talya. She was still pressed against Zane’s arm. If anyone else heard, there was no sign of it.

  “So the murdered couple and the missing kids were all shapeshifters?” The surrounding threat was palpable, but dangerous knowledge and interesting knowledge were often the same thing. “I thought the government was rounding up all the supernatural elements nowadays.”

  “’Rounding up’ isn’t the point,” Ayashe said. “The Vigiles is trying to bring supernatural elements under law. Wolf Grove worked with the NYPD and the Northern Supernatural Support Unit. Pastor Aaron here is the SSU chaplain and caseworker for magically gifted kids. I’m supporting the Unit as a specialist in shapeshifters, part of the deal I negotiated with them when the Vigiles was formed. The Jammies and Blanks were… are all registered for adoption and training. The Weeder kids are in the system, but they have to be of age to choose their affiliation. A few of them stay here, but Lily and Dru send them to a school in Texas and a lot of them end up living there by choice. We have to let them decide. That’s the tradition and the law.”

  “Jammies?” I arched an eyebrow.

  “Children with magical potential.” The Chaplain added. “As in, they’re still sleeping… and so they’re in their pajamas.”

  “So what you’re saying is that these missing children were part of a tag and release program.” The nape of my neck crawled. I had been born before the Vigiles, in a time when the only special interest groups for magi had been the various organized religions, a range of secret societies, and the street. As of 1985, they’d begun screening kids reported to churches and doctors for the common signs of magical talent. Poltergeist activity, apparent possession, talking to ghosts, minor psychokinetics, injured pets spontaneously healing or reviving. Back in the day, they called those miracles or hauntings. Now, the government was hunting for it. Where the children went… who knew?

  Ayashe sighed. “If you want to get cynical about it. The two adults are dead and twenty-one kids are missing. Of those, fifteen of them were Weeder kids. The other six… two Blanks, four Jammies.”

  “Right.” I rubbed my jaw, scruffing the palm of my glove over the stubble. “It is safe to assume the police are handling the murder.”

  “They’re trying, but this is way over the head of the local SSU.” Ayashe said. She sounded tired now, a little guttural. Somehow, I doubted she got much sleep. “Even with the V.M. on site, it’s not going anywhere. We know that someone somehow managed to pull off a mass kidnapping and a double murder and get away clean. There’s no physical evidence we can use beyond some basic shit. Besides some drawings and weird symbols, there wasn’t any arcane evidence left behind. The NYPD went stomping around in the house and shifted anything that might have been useful to our medium. She didn’t find no resonance, no tracers, no nothing.”

  “Why do you think a Spook can do anything that the police can’t?”

  “There were occult elements to the murders,” Spotted Elk replied. “The murderer… took some things. There were some demonic symbols left in the house, acts of blasphemy and desecration. Lily and Dru were both religious people. Devout, modest people. That’s what brought them together in the first place, and that’s why we and all the other stakeholders of New York agreed to let them care for our young.”

  I had visions of a church home where these elders and gang-leaders went to fish for recruits. Maybe it was good, maybe it wasn’t, but the whole thing made my skin crawl. “You said the murderer took some things. What did they steal?”

  An uncomfortable silence hung over the room until Ayashe finally spoke. “Body parts.”

  I rubbed my face again, frustrated. Even with open questions, it was like wringing blood from a stone. “Right. And what kinds of animal did they transform into?”

  Jenner laughed, harsh and crow-like. Talya grimaced. Zane’s face froze into a pleasant mask. I’d stepped on a
landmine.

  “That is a vulgar question,” Michael said. “All matters related to the Ka are private unless the person desires to share it. Even the dead.”

  “It’s important to know.” I jerked my shoulders, trying and failing to read faces. “The organs and body parts of various animals are used in specific magic rituals. If I know what animals we are talking about, then I can probably tell you more about who would have done this.”

  Jenner didn’t seem to be nearly as annoyed as the rest of them. She planted her hands on her hips. “What kind of magic?”

  “Magic like the rituals in the Liber Virtutis Animalium,” I said, focusing on her. “A lot of medieval spells used the body parts of particular animals for various things. The hearts of dogs were used in love spells, bulls’ hearts were used to gain strength. This kind of magic was popular in esoteric Church rituals. Catholic and Protestant.”

  Aaron shifted in place, but he didn’t deny it.

  I continued on. “Different organs have different applications, so if I knew what their alternate forms were…”

  “Fair enough.” Even Spotted Elk sounded a little stiff. “Michael? Karim?”

  “Lily was Hyena.” Michael grunted, after a reluctant pause. “Dru was Hoopoe.”

  Oh – now that was interesting. I nodded. “Both hyenas and hoopoes have a powerful connection to medieval church magic. Let me assume that they had taken Lily’s right hand, and Dru’s brain, heart, and blood?”

  That made a few people sit up. Michael averted his eyes, as did Aaron. Jenner snorted, a mingled sound of disgust and amusement. One of the nameless silent observers in the Four Fires quarter had gone very pale, and other people had linked their arms around her shoulders. There was a uniform niceness to the people on Spotted Elk’s side… maybe all of them had been rescues at some point in their lives.