Lady of Blades

by Saje Williams

  "Well, we never learned how to do that,” she said, pointing at the air around Jaz's head. “That's for damn sure. It's ... impressive.” She added the last word with obvious reluctance. She hardly wanted to admit anything of the sort to Jaz.

  Jaz grinned back at her. “That's not half of it. You know my imp?"

  "The little blue guy with the big attitude? No, never heard of him."

  Jaz chuckled. “Well ... I know how to manifest other beings now. Nothing as ... independent as Quickfingers, thankfully, but fairly handy nonetheless."

  "Maybe even handier,” Athena replied, voice low and contemplative. “What kinds of beings are we talking about here?"

  "Well, for starters, how'd you like to be able to fly? All you have to do is weave a wind-sprite. And that's not all. Imagine being able to summon a creature to drive a boat, or create a ball of fire the exact temperature you want. Or move earth, for that matter."

  "Damn. I don't suppose..."

  "I could teach this to everyone? Hell, Athena, I'm not a teacher. If Deryk was a mage, I might be able to teach him, and he could certainly teach everyone else, but that's not the case. You know as well as I do that he wants nothing to do with magic."

  "Not directly, anyway.” Athena nodded. “Okay. So what do you propose?"

  "Sending small groups of agents and immortals to the people who trained me."

  "And Bast will be okay with that?"

  Jaz winced. “Well, I hadn't actually discussed it with her. But it's the best solution I can think of."

  "I suggest you do so,” Athena said, “before you make any commitments you can't honor. Is that all?” She spat this last question out as if it tasted bad. Maybe it did.

  Is that all? Sheesh. “For now. I'll contact Bast and see if I can get that moving. I assume everyone else can be found at the same place?"

  "More or less. Loki's at his lab, or down at the Coyote. Shea's a couple of floors away. The teams are out in the field right now—we've got a double threat going on, metas and monsters in Sacramento.

  "Your buddy Chaz moved out of the basement and is actually toying with the idea of starting his own company. Wants to call it Magitech."

  "Chaz? His own gig? That's great! I'll have to look him up. Where's his place?"

  "He's moved out to Port Orchard ... says he's tired of the city.” She shrugged. “What's to be tired of? You can probably just e-mail him—he's using the same addy."

  "I'll do that.” She got up and opened the door. “Thanks."

  "No problem. We'll talk later."

  She threw a thread at the door and slammed it behind Jaz as she stepped through the threshold. Well. That went better than expected. Maybe I'll actually survive this homecoming.

  She caught the elevator to the Shea Industries offices and spent a few minutes tracking down her former mentor. It didn't take long. She walked into Shea's office as he was lining up for a putt on a ridiculous looking apparatus set up on his office floor, shirt sleeves rolled up around his elbows. “Golf? Since when?"

  He grinned at her over his shoulder. “Jaz! Where have you been? Your imp said you were safe, but...” He shrugged. “How are you?” He turned, leaning the golf club against his desk, and regarded her with open curiosity.

  "Much better,” she replied. “You?"

  "Silly question. Like I ever change. Have you had lunch?"

  "No. I flew straight here."

  "Flew?” His eyebrows shot skyward. “You took a plane?"

  She shook her head. “No. You said something about lunch?"

  He laughed. “Yeah, I'm hungry, too.” He quickly unrolled his sleeves and grabbed his black suit jacket from the coat-rack by the door. “Any preference?"

  "Mexican."

  "I know just the place. Within walking distance, even."

  * * * *

  "That makes no sense.” Shea put down his fork and took a drink of his beer, leaning forward slightly and resting his elbows on the table. “Why in the hell would Thoth do that?"

  "I don't know. I was hoping you'd have some idea."

  Shea shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe we should ask Loki."

  She pulled a face. “I haven't seen him since..."

  "Since you killed Thanatos. I know. He's asked about you more than once. Renee calls or drops by at least once a week to see if I've heard from you."

  "Sorry, Deryk. I needed some time."

  "And some training, apparently. So you managed to convince Athena something was wrong without a big song and dance? Amazing."

  "Tell me about it. But, unless she was bullshitting me, she believed me. Didn't like it either."

  "Can you blame her?"

  "Not really. We need to get to the bottom of this."

  Shea took a couple more bites and another sip of beer. “When we're done here, we'll go talk to Loki. But I have to stop back at the office for a minute."

  Jaz shrugged. “Works for me."

  She finished off her last bite and shoved the huge oval plate to the outside of the table. She waited as Shea leaned over and paid with a combination retina/fingerprint scan on the reader-pad at the other end of the table.

  They walked down the street, talking about incidentals, until they reached the courtyard of the Shea Building. “Go ahead and grab what you need ... I'll wait for you out here."

  He lifted a brow and smiled. “Still not comfortable in there, are you?"

  She didn't say anything, instead motioning him toward the entrance. “Hurry up."

  He chuckled, turned, and trotted toward the building.

  She felt a sudden tingle to her right and jerked her head around just in time to see a van pulling up to the curb, the side door sliding open, and a long tube emerging from inside its dark interior.

  She leaped forward, heart hammering as she raced toward the vehicle. She knew she'd never reach it in time. “Deryk! Look out!"

  A roar shook the van as a missile the size of Jaz's leg shot from the mouth of the extended tube, its ass end spewing flames as it accelerated toward Shea.

  Alerted by her yell, he'd already turned toward it. Rather than trying to dodge, he leapt toward it in an act of something that, in anyone else, she would've called suicidal stupidity.

  She bit down on her lower lip, felt warm blood spurt over her chin. Shea reached out and grabbed the missile, pivoting aside at the last minute and wrapping his arms around it. Together the man and the missile roared across the plaza, through the glass doors, and into the building's lobby.

  She closed her eyes, waiting for an explosion that never came. What did he do? How— The thought cut off abruptly as she heard the van's doors slam shut. With screeching tires, it lurched into the street, veering across traffic and cutting off a cab that smashed into another vehicle on the opposite side of the street.

  It careened down the street, rear end skipping, tagging vehicles on both sides as the driver struggled to get it under control. She shot a look at the building which, thankfully, still hadn't blown up.

  Jaz didn't stop to think. She took off running after the van, grabbing threads in passing and weaving them together without once breaking stride. Within seconds, she was airborne and in hot pursuit.

  The van took the next corner and slowed, the driver now attempting to blend in with the ordinary downtown traffic. It headed up to Pacific Avenue and turned right. She stayed in the shadow of the buildings along the way and followed as it cut another right and jumped onto 705.

  A couple of police vehicles came roaring down Pacific, heading the wrong direction. Jaz swore under her breath. She'd given up her Personal Communication Device when she'd left the agency, so she had no real way to communicate with them.

  Of course, she didn't really expect to end up chasing a missile-shooting van down highway 705 on her first day back. If she had, she might've asked for a PCD from either Athena or Shea before leaving the building. That'll teach me not to think ahead, she thought wryly. It's Freak City—I should be expecting trouble all the time.

&
nbsp; For the first time she actually considered the possibility that she'd paid a price she hadn't expected for living on the island for a year. Was it possible she'd lost her edge? Hell of a time to be worrying about that, Jaz, she chided herself.

  She continued chasing the van, noticing a State Police cruiser emerge from the 38th Street interchange and begin moving up on it through the press of traffic. She suddenly didn't feel so alone, though she wasn't too sure how safe the State Trooper would be if their quarry decided to haul out the big guns again.

  Oddly enough, a police cruiser was a probably a lot more vulnerable than Shea. As were the hundreds of other vehicles on the road. Her mind scrambled to come up with a way to stop the van without putting innocent civilians in the crossfire. The spells in her web were either useless in this situation, or far too risky to engage.

  The trooper hit his lights and siren, pulling up beside the van. Oh, the stupid son of a— she snarled inwardly. Well, I guess this doesn't leave me much choice unless I want the bastard to start firing into traffic. I know the drivers aren't smart enough to pull out of the way just because a cop's flashing his lights.

  She guided the ‘sprite lower until they were zipping over the traffic at about the height of a semi trailer. The van accelerated, cutting across two lanes in an attempt to put some distance between it and the pursuing cruiser. An ‘18 Volkswagen Bug swerved to avoid it and dashed itself to pieces against the median. She was relieved to note the deployment of its Safe-T-Foam, but she hesitated a moment until she saw the thing wasn't about to explode or something. Hydrogen vehicles were engineered to protect the fuel cells from damage, but in a crash like that one could never be sure. The body of the car practically disintegrated, leaving only the frame and engine compartment intact and driver and passengers immersed in impact-reduction gel.

  The van cut the other direction suddenly, sending half a dozen cars into power slides and racking up at least a dozen more accidents as it veered across traffic and made the hairpin turn to exit onto south 56th. It nearly tipped, but quick thinking on the part of the driver kept it on the square as it merged with the westbound traffic.

  The police cruiser, caught in the snarl of the traffic on the freeway below, was left cursing as he watched his quarry vanish into the midst of the midday rush. She saw him on his PCD and knew the suspect's location and direction of travel would be communicated to the police net. In the meantime, however, it was up to Jaz to keep an eye on him until the cops could get a bead on him again.

  Jaz ascended a couple hundred feet, trusting her enhanced immortal vision to pick the van out of the crowd. She flew westward, keeping it in sight until it turned north onto a side road and began weaving its way back through the city on the surface streets.

  That might have worked if not for her eye-in-the-sky approach. She stayed within visual range, but high enough not to attract too much attention from the ground. When the van pulled into the driveway of a small, single story Lincoln District house and inched into the garage, she grinned broadly and commanded the ‘sprite to descend.

  She slipped up beside the house and listened as the driver of the van exited the garage into the house, and made his way into the kitchen. She heard him curse a few times in Arabic, unable to shake the feeling that she recognized the voice. Only one way to find out.

  She created a small transit tube and stepped through the wall, emerging into a dining room adjacent to a small, rustic kitchen. A single door across the dining room led to what she assumed was a bedroom or bathroom. The sounds she could hear emanating from within made it clear her quarry was within that room. She allowed herself a smile of triumph and padded silently across the tile to a position beside the door.

  She waited, somewhat impatiently, for a few minutes, until she heard the footsteps approach the door and jiggle the knob. It opened with a loud creak, almost a groan, and her prey stepped past her into the dining room.

  She grabbed him up by the back of his shirt, spun him around, and planted a wicked punch in his gut. He folded like a card table, dropping to his knees and retching violently. Gee, you think maybe I hit him too hard?

  He turned his face toward her and she froze. Despite all the evidence of time's passage, she recognized this man. His face was burned forever on the pathways of her mind. “You!"

  Her Uncle Saqr stared up at her, still gasping for breath, as she bit down on the urge to kick his head through the nearest wall. It would be too easy, and too merciful. He deserved a much worse fate than that.

  She meant to see that he got exactly what he had coming to him.

  He muttered something in Arabic—something about a ‘dirty whore’ but she ignored the insult. Her Arabic was rusty as hell and she didn't want to go off on him too soon because she misinterpreted something. “Who are you?” he asked, between choking gulps of breath.

  "What—don't you recognize your little angel, Uncle?” she snarled down at him. “No. Don't move. Stay where you are. I like you on your knees in front of me. It's such a reversal of fortunes."

  "Bitch!” He started to rise. She stepped forward just slightly and brought the edge of her balled fist down on the top of his skull. He sagged back down and nearly toppled over, throwing his hands to the tile to balance him. “Oh, don't get up,” she crooned. “I prefer you on the floor."

  He snarled, muscles tensing as if he meant to surge back off the floor again. “I wouldn't recommend it, Uncle. I don't want you too severely injured when I drag you to see Deryk Shea. And I'm not sure I could restrain myself."

  "What are you doing here?"

  She lifted her foot and damn near kicked him in the face before she could stop herself. “I was chasing a terrorist and—surprise!—guess who I found."

  "I'm no terrorist,” he hissed up at her. “I do not target innocents."

  "Matter of opinion, jackass. The Shea Building houses several hundred offices, many of them only marginally connected with Shea Industries or the PAC. And there's a daycare on the third floor, chock full of innocents."

  "And it is run by demons!"

  "Demons? Who the hell told you that, you psycho? The voices in your head?"

  "An angel,” he spat. “Not that you would know if you saw one ... you have given yourself over to that evil and it is consuming you from the inside."

  "The only ‘evil’ I've ever ‘given myself over to',” she said, grinding her teeth so her voice came out in a harsh rasp, “was you. Get up. Don't think about trying anything. I'd love nothing more than an excuse to kick your ass all over your house—this is your house, is it not?—but I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to stop myself. I want answers more than I want your blood."

  "I have nothing to say,” he said, slowly rising and affixing her with a deathly glare.

  She smiled, a casual movement of her face that didn't rise to fill her eyes. “You will."

  * * * *

  Quickfingers deposited them in the plaza in front of the Shea Industries building, aiming one last curious stare at the defiant man Jaz threw to the ground as soon as they arrived. Jaz shot him a dark look and he silently vanished.

  Probably lurking here invisible, she thought. She couldn't blame him for being curious, but she wasn't about to say anything in front of her uncle. At this point the more nervous he got, the better. Anything that would diminish that would diminish her chances of getting useful information out of him.

  She snagged a slender thread and sent one end up to Shea's office, speaking into the near end. “Deryk! Come down to the plaza!"

  Her voice traveled through the thread and, presumably, reached Shea's ear. A couple of minutes later he emerged through the door and strode up to her, barely sparing a glance to her prisoner. His expensive silk suit was clean and pressed, as usual, but it was a different color than the one he'd worn to lunch. And she could see an assortment of tiny scrapes on his face and neck, and a few patches of hair torn from his scalp. “Wasted your other suit, didn't you?"

  Shea nodded irritably. “This the as
shole who fired the missile?"

  "Yep. Deryk Shea, meet Saqr, missile man at large. Well, no longer at large."

  Saqr struggled to his feet, cursing in Arabic. He lurched at Jaz, who slipped aside and snagged his shirt sleeve, then kicked his foot out from under him. He crashed back to the ground, landing on his shoulder with bone-jarring force.

  He rolled over, kicking out at them furiously, and struggled back to his feet while they watched. “Determined, isn't he?"

  "A little mono-maniacal, I'd say."

  He ducked his head and tried to charge past, only to be caught by a chest-high clothesline from one of Shea's massive arms. He sprawled on the concrete, repeating the same curse over and over again. Shea scowled down at him. “Why does he keep saying ‘dirty whore?’”

  "His asshole button's stuck,” Jaz replied with a snarl. “Shut up, Saqr, before I really give you something to bitch about."

  Shea shot her a glance, then looked back at the guy on the ground, squirming around to roll back up onto his knees. His hands were tied behind his back by invisible cords, compliments of Jaz's magic, but she had no problem leaving the rest of him free. More chances to get a couple of good shots in as he tried to escape.

  She hadn't done that deliberately, but now that she realized it, it suited her just fine.

  "Saqr? Hey, wait a minute. Do you know who this guy is?"

  "Better than most.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?"

  "This is Colonel Saqr of the Egyptian Air Force. He's here on some diplomatic mission."

  "The hell he is. He's here to destroy the PAC. Anything else is a smokescreen."

  Shea shook his head. “This isn't good, Jaz. We can't restrain him—he's got diplomatic immunity."

  "Who gives a crap? I don't care if he's got the President in his back pocket ... I got him fair and square and I'm not letting him go.” She wheeled around just as Saqr regained his feet. She snatched a spell from her web and hurled it at him. A scintillating mist leaped between them and, suddenly, as if he'd been standing on water, he dropped through the surface of the concrete so swiftly that he ended up neck deep before he realized what was happening. He gave an inarticulate cry and clawed at the air as the cement froze in place around him, leaving nothing but his head and two grasping hands sticking up out of the white expanse.