Twenty Palaces: A Prequel

by Harry Connolly

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The chunk of cinderblock wall slammed into the asphalt only a moment before I did. My whole body jolted and slapped against the broken cinderblocks with terrifying, irresistible force.

  Then I sat up. I felt fine. No pain, no injuries. I couldn't see the steeled glass inside the folder but I could feel the magic draining out of it like a water rushing out of a punctured bottle.

  I rolled to my feet and wrapped my arms around my chest, hiding the cuffs behind the sleeves of my shirt. Two uniformed police officers ran across the parking lot with their hands on their weapons.

  "Did you see that?" I asked as I hurried away from the pile of rubble, getting as far from the building as I could. "Those bricks nearly fell on me!"

  The older cop drew his weapon. "Let me see your hands."

  "Bob?" the younger cop said. They both looked up.

  Callin had stepped through the hole in the wall. He leaned out.

  "Sir!" The young cop said. "Don't jump!"

  Callin released his hold on the cinderblocks and plummeted six stories into the pile of rubble. The two cops looked away.

  Callin's body made a surprising amount of noise when he hit the ground. "Let this one go," I said to the older cop. I had no love for the police, but I didn't want to see them killed. "Let this guy walk away."

  Before the older cop could respond, Callin stood up and started brushing concrete dust off his clothes.

  "What the hell?" the younger cop said. "Bob, what the hell is going on?"

  "You stay right there," the older cop said to me. He turned to Callin. "Don't move!"

  They moved toward Callin, both weapons drawn. Callin reached inside his coat.

  I turned and ran like hell to get away from the gunshots. Once around the corner of the building I used the ghost knife to slice off the broken cuffs. The gunfire had already stopped but I had no idea who had come out on top. Not that it mattered, really. The police and the peers were after me, and once I started running I wasn't going to stop.

  I tried not to think about that. I needed a new backpack to replace the one the cops had taken and I needed to do it before it started raining again. That was something I could focus on without losing my mind.

  I sprinted across the intersection, leaving the cuffs in the gutter. This late at night, there were no pedestrians and no lights in any of the shop windows. There were parking garages all through this neighborhood. Even at this hour, I should be able to steal a car...

  I rounded a corner and stumbled headlong into Annalise. She staggered and caught my wrist, making me drop the manila folder. She spun me against the wall and plucked the ghost knife from my hand. Then she kicked my legs out from beneath me.

  I landed hard on my knees. Now that I was closer to her level, she wrapped her arms around my head. "Be still," she said. "I'll make this quick."

  "Callin did it!" I shouted before she could break my neck. "Callin cast the spell on my friends!"

  I felt her muscles tense but she didn't kill me. I'd startled her. "Callin? Bullshit."

  "I can prove it. Get me out of here before he kills me."

  After a moment's delay, she let me go. I didn't like the way she was looking at me, but it was better than having her twist my head off. She picked up the folder and looked inside. I didn't think there was any way she could have looked more unhappy, but she managed it.

  "Let's go," she said.

  She slid a gray ribbon into my pocket, then frog-marched me to her motorcycle. A patrol car screamed down the block, sirens blaring, but they passed us by as if we weren't there.

  Once again, Annalise slung me on the back of her motorcycle. She revved the engine and raced down the street, leaving Callin far behind.

  Not that I was actually safe. My head and face still tingled where Annalise had held it. How quickly would I have died if she had twisted? In the movies it was like a light switching off, but I suspected it would take a while. Maybe I would have lain on the sidewalk, unable to move as my life drained away.

  My hands shifted their grip on the back of Annalise's jacket, and she immediately pulled over to the curb.

  "Hold on to me," she said in her weird, childish voice, "Don't shift around and don't try to get away. If you do, I'm going to tear off one of your fingers." She took my hand in hers. God, she was strong. "Now, how are you going to prove Callin is summoning predators."

  Suddenly, I saw a path ahead, a way to help Jon and protect us all from the creatures in the Empty Spaces.

  I told her about the spells, the blue legal paper, and that Jon had cast the spell again. She didn't like that last part at all, but I explained that it was the only way to keep them from putting a creature in me.

  "Show me."

  I rubbed my hands together to warm them, but what I really wanted was a second to fish my key ring out of my pocket. I grabbed Annalise's jacket, the ring now looped over my index finger. It had a single key on it, but the lock it went to had been destroyed in the fire.

  We drove out into the city, with me shouting directions to Macy and Echo's house. Annalise had a lot of trouble with Echo when they fought the first time; I didn't think she could handle all four of them at once.

  We puttered past the house, then rode a circuit of the block just as Arne used to do when he had to visit to someone he didn't like. Everything was quiet. Annalise parked on the corner, then frog-marched me down the sidewalk.

  As we approached the house, I threw the key ring as hard as I could, smashing the unbroken downstairs window. Annalise began to run, holding me in front of her.

  She kicked open the front door and shoved me inside. I fell onto the couch, smearing cold pizza sauce on my hands and face. Annalise charged in behind me, a ribbon in each hand.

  Silence. If Jon and the others were sleeping, surely that would have woken them up. But there was no response. Annalise stalked into the dining room, returned a moment later and raced up the stairs. When she came back down, she was walking.

  "They're gone," she said. "But they were here once, so at least that much of your story is true."

  Jon and the others had already moved on. It meant they wouldn't be taking care of Annalise for me, but at least I wouldn't have to explain why I'd brought the peer to the house.

  Annalise went back into the dining room, and I followed her. The body lay in the corner.

  It wasn't the first time I'd seen a corpse but I'd never seen anything like this.

  The body looked like it had been flayed open. There was nothing left but congealed blood, bone, and torn clothing. The only reason I could tell this was a guy was because of the shoes in the corner.

  I moved closer, taking care not to step into the blood. There was a glass vial on the floor with tiny white rocks inside.

  "Drug dealer," I said.

  "That's how they start," Annalise said. "It won't take long before they're killing anyone at all, but when they start out they hunt people they think deserve it. It soothes their consciences while they're still human enough to have them."

  I looked her in the eye, angry at her for sounding so casual, as though she knew exactly what she was talking about. "What's your excuse?" I asked.

  "Where's this proof?"

  "Right here." I pulled back the sideboard and was relieved to see the sheet of blue paper was still there. I gave it to her.

  She held it up and compared it to the design on the floor then crumpled it into a ball.

  "It's one of my own blue pages," I said. Annalise opened the folder. "Look, you need four people to cast the spell on a fifth person. There are only four of them."

  "Plus you."

  "Plus Callin. I was still in prison when they cast this the first time. You can check. See that paper? Jon helped me pick up these photocopied spells last night. He must have seen the cure spell--"

  "It's not a cure."

  "Whatever. He saw it among my pages and pocketed it. He got the spell from me and I got it from Callin. Callin to me to them."


  Annalise scowled at the crumpled paper. "And the first time Callin cast the spell on them directly."

  There was something in her expression I didn't trust. "You already suspect him, don't you?"

  Annalise plucked a red ribbon from her vest and threw it against the base of the stairs. It burst into flame, and the fire quickly spread up the banister and across the sigil painted on the floor.

  Then she pitched my folder full of blue pages into the fire.

  "No, I don't," she said, as though she was trying to convince herself. "Where are your other copies?"

  We went back outside to the motorcycle. She didn't have to frog-march me this time, but she stayed close enough to knock me silly if I tried anything. We climbed on the motorcycle again and sped off.

  The next stop was the neighborhood post office where I'd rented a box. This time Annalise parked right in front of the building. I felt conspicuous to be walking around on empty streets at night less than an hour after I'd escaped from police custody. Maybe that gray ribbon made it safe. All the rules had changed. We entered the post office lobby.

  I realized I'd left the key in my apartment. I'd planned to add it to my ring but never go around to it. It was probably a blob of melted metal right now.

  But Annalise didn't need a key. When I pointed out my box, she glanced around to make sure the lobby was empty, then threw three right crosses against the door until the lock burst.

  My second stack of blue pages was inside.

  "Is this it?" she asked.

  "That's my last backup copy. You burned the one in my apartment."

  Annalise studied my face. I was better at spotting lies than telling them, but maybe I'd get lucky. Finally, she exhaled. The tension went out of her shoulders, and I knew she believed me.

  "You need to look through these pages," I said. "I could only skim them, but there was a lot I didn't understand. Maybe you can find a way to undo the spell Callin put on Jon and--"

  Annalise threw a tiny streamer onto the pages. They turned gray, curled up and crumbled to ashes.

  "Dammit!" My voice was louder than I'd expected. "What I needed could have been right there! Right there!"

  "Quit your crying," Annalise said. "It's done."

  "They were my last chance to find a cure for my friend!" My voice broke as I said it. Of course I did have another copy of Callin's spell book but I couldn't get it from Duncan before Jon killed again. Hell, it would take days for it to arrive in Maine.

  "You can't cure your friend," Annalise said.

  "Callin must have a way to undo the curse he put on Jon," I said. I had no reason to believe it except that, if it wasn't true, there was no hope, and that was unacceptable. "What can we do?"

  "Next we're going to talk to Callin."

  Annalise led me out of the post office and plucked the gray ribbon from my pocket. She climbed on her motorcycle and motioned for me to get on back.

  I didn't want to. Callin would kill me on sight but refusing to climb on meant Annalise would probably kill me immediately. Did I want to live long enough for one more ride through the city and a quick trip on an elevator? I got on the bike.

  Minutes later we were marching by the front desk of Callin's fancy hotel toward the elevators. I touched the bandage under my ear and shivered. I was being led to my own execution.

  "Ms. Powliss?"

  Annalise stopped and turned toward the hotel desk. The snooty concierge came out from behind it and approached us.

  "What is it?" Annalise asked.

  "I have an envelope for you." The man held out a long white envelope. Her name was written on the front, and I was bewildered when I saw that the handwriting was mine.

  Oops. I'd forgotten about that. I also hadn't planned to be here when she received that slip of paper. I stepped back but so did Annalise.

  "An envelope?" she asked. She stared at the man suspiciously.

  The concierge glanced at me but I didn't want to take part in the conversation. The man sighed and said: "Mr. Friedrich left it for you." He made it sound as if Annalise was exhausting him.

  Annalise drew her hand from her pocket. I flinched, but she wasn't holding one of her ribbons. She offered the concierge a twenty dollar bill. "Read it to me."

  The bill vanished into his pocket. He tore open the envelope and removed the sheet of paper. I could see the faint outline of a glyph written on the other side.

  Annalise jumped back quickly, bumping into me.

  The concierge glanced at the paper and burst into flames.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Flames covered him from his belt to the top of his head and the paper in his hand went up like a flare. He screamed, his voice high, horrible, and choked by fire. The sound echoed in the marble lobby and stunned everyone who heard it. The burning man fell backwards onto the floor.

  Annalise grabbed the lapel of my jacket. "Let's go." She began dragging me toward the front door.

  I slipped out of my jacket. The other employees were frozen in horror, their mouths gaping. I vaulted over the desk, snatched a sport coat off the back of a chair and wrapped it around the concierge's head. He screamed and struggled against me. I knew I was suffocating him, but better that for a few seconds than for him to breath in flames.

  "Call 911!" The woman nearest to me jumped at the sound of my voice and grabbed a phone.

  I kept beating at the flames, now working on this shoulders and chest. The sport coat began to flare at the edges and heat scorched my fingers.

  The man's clothes wouldn't go out. I'd smothered the flames on his hair and head, but his clothes kept burning. "I'm sorry," I said. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry."

  Someone fired off an extinguisher over my shoulder, and I rolled away. The extinguisher plume doused the flames better than I could have.

  The concierge kept screaming. Employees flocked around him, all trying to contain his thrashing while they spoke to him in soothing tones. I stood and backed away. The whole lobby stank. A stick-thin woman sprinted across the lobby with her hand over her mouth.

  "Thank you," a woman said to me. She was the employee who had picked up the phone. "You may have saved his life. What happened?"

  "I don't know." I didn't even have to lie. I couldn't see the man through the crowd of people helping him, but I'd seen enough to know he'd be scarred for life. I tried to picture him here afterward, in that uniform, but I couldn't imagine it. And I had written Annalise's name on the envelope and given it to him, like handing him a bomb. It was my fault.

  Annalise grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the front door. "I said let's go."

  Outside, she slung one leg over the motorcycle and twisted my arm until I had to climb on behind her. Her mouth was a tight, angry line. She was royally pissed, but I couldn't tell if her anger was directed at Callin or me.

  We rode south through the city, once again going too fast. I clung to Annalise's back, praying she wouldn't lose control and lay the bike down. She might have been too tough to be hurt, but I sure as hell wasn't.

  And now she felt different. I had ridden behind her four times now, and I'd never felt her tiny body this rigid. She leaned forward farther than she had before, angled lower on the turns, and shifted gears sooner.

  I'd turned them against each other. I hadn't planned it this way when I'd aimed Callin's envelope at Annalise--I couldn't have. But if it was the only way to convince her of the truth, so be it. Better to have her going after the real cause of Jon's troubles rather than Jon himself.

  I just wish she had opened that damn envelope herself. I couldn't get that man's screams out of my head.

  I also couldn't forget my uncle's expression as he told me about everything he'd lost in the fire, or that nameless drug dealer, who was probably no different from the dozens of random assholes I'd met in prison, or that old drunk sleeping one off. And there was Echo, killed and brought back to life as a monster.

  And Jon was a victim, too.

  I hadn't meant for things to go so f
ar, but I had no way to back out now. Annalise was going to be my weapon. She was going to help me get a counter-spell out of Callin.

  We reached the warehouse district south of downtown. Annalise braked hard and turned into a narrow side street. I saw her press a button on her handlebars, and a warehouse door ahead of us began to roll upward, opening like the entrance to the bat cave.

  She skidded to a halt just inside the door and climbed off the bike. She entered a number into an electronic keypad, shielding the code with her body, then pressed her thumb against a scanner. A light on the keypad switched from red to green and the door began to close.

  Annalise walked toward the near corner of the warehouse. A couch and a few tables had been placed on a square carpet remnant. As I climbed off the bike, I glanced at the keypad. I didn't recognize it, but car security systems were my thing, not home or building systems. The windows were wired and the rafters were littered with cameras. The security setup must have cost six figures, but the couch looked like it had been dragged out of a thrift shop dumpster.

  I walked toward Annalise, unable to figure out what she had here that was worth so much protection. Her life, maybe, or her spell book. I wondered what spells she might have, and how I could get at them.

  No. I wasn't here to steal, or to acquire power. I was here for Jon. Still, the idea was tempting. The ghost knife was useful--I'd still be cuffed without it--but walking around with a pocket full of steeled glass spells? Or with whatever it was that made Annalise incredibly strong? I couldn't deny that I wanted it.

  She picked up a telephone and dialed a long number, then pointed to the couch. "Sit."

  I almost told her what she could do with herself, but I held it in. I could swallow my pride to help my friend. I sat like an obedient dog. She held the phone to her ear for a few moments, then, said: "I need you here. It's Lima all over again." After a little pause, she set the phone in the cradle.

  "Who was that?" I asked. She didn't like hearing me ask a question, and apparently I wasn't as willing to swallow my pride as I thought because I kept talking. "Because you need to stick a hello or a goodbye on your phone conversations. Manners aren't just for the table."