by Jenn Stark
“I’ve heard of you.” As a Connected with my own networks to navigate, I had the benefit of not having to pay too much attention to the non-Connected sociopolitical entities that linked together the financial and intellectual glitterati of the First World countries, but I knew they existed. Each of them was more mysterious than the last, but they all had similar attributes. First, their members were rich. Second, they were mostly titled—or entitled, take your pick. And third, they were almost aggressively not Connected. I knew that because I’d been hired by more than a few of them over the years to find arcane artifacts specifically designed to jump start their psychic skillset And in truth, these men—and they were usually men, although some female members did exist—were not idiots. It was reasonable to assume that there would be psychic ability tucked in the cutlery drawer with all those silver spoons. But it never seemed to be the case. For all their intellectual acumen and keen insight, they weren’t able to make the jump to true Connected ability. I’d been tapped by think tanks, unofficial cabals, even a Bilderberg member or two, and it was always the same.
The Sentinel Group eclipsed them all. Though Henri was clearly taking charge here, they supposedly had no official leader. The Sentinels never met, never conversed, never posted press releases or had conferences. They didn’t have a Wikipedia page, they didn’t have a website, and from all indications, their preferred method of communication was foot courier with messages delivered on silver salvers or wrapped up in parchments sealed with wax.
Yet here they were. “If one of my people get injured because you guys don’t know how to pick up the phone, I’m not going to take it well.”
Henri made a placating gesture. “I apologize for the subterfuge, but you of all people know how easy it is for secrets to be shared unwittingly. The more underground we are, the safer our conversations, and the safer the world at large. Information is our most treasured asset, and we guard it almost as obsessively as we gather it.”
“So explain to me how potentially killing me, killing my people, is supposed to help you? Because I’m not terribly inclined to be generous after a stunt like that.”
“We had to be sure, yes? To be sure we were working with the strongest of the Connecteds. As well as most connected, if you will pardon the humor. It would seem, as you are standing here before us and not prostrate beneath the blades of our associates, that you are as strong and well situated as our intelligence has indicated.”
I opened my mouth to rebut that, but with another typically French gesture, Henri waved me off. “We don’t have much time. I brought you here today because we have access to technology that may be of particular use to you. You are a member of this Council, Yes? The Arcana Council?”
I lifted my brows. While the Arcana Council was fairly well-known within certain segments of the Connected community, it was not a well-known entity otherwise. Which was exactly how they preferred it. Beside me, Kreios stiffened ever so slightly.
When I didn’t respond, Henri continued. “Well, let us say for the sake of argument that you are a member of this Council, or that you know its members well. They are engaged in…ah…what could be called a metaphysical challenge of sorts. It is possible that the technology that we have access to, but have not had the opportunity to fully test, might serve them. We would give them that technology.”
It didn’t take a mind reader to know where this was going. “And in return for your gracious contribution to their efforts?”
Henri spread his hands. “The Arcana Council is not the only organization with unique challenges, no? And it is true that we find ourselves inadequately equipped to face ours in this particular moment of, shall I say, extremity. Should you be able and willing to assist us, it would be our pleasure to provide similar assistance in return, yes?”
Fully knowing that Kreios was listening in, I reached out to Armaeus, only to sense his touch immediately. The Devil hummed with interest as well, providing me with stereo Council feedback. A little unnerving.
“Yes?” I thought.
Yes. That single word conveyed such a wealth of interest that I immediately had to stifle a chuckle. Whether or not the Magician truly needed the help of the Sentinel Group, he was more than fascinated that they thought they could assist him.
Still, I wasn’t in the mood to play anyone’s games right now. “Tell me what it is,” I said flatly. “Give me something to go on, anything, or no deal.”
“Very well,” Henri said, steepling his fingers in the time-honored way of megalomaniacs. “You speak of gods coming to the earth, well… Know that we have a means of containing them.”
I blinked. “You do?”
Forget the Council’s interest in this man; now he’d garnered my attention. My third eye flicked open, and I reached my mind forward. I might not be able to read the man’s mind, but his energy was rich, vibrant, and supercharged. He also did not contain even the slightest ounce of Connected ability.
And from everything I sensed, he wasn’t lying.
“We do. You’re familiar with the Strategic Defense Initiative from the 1980s, I suspect.”
I scrunched up my face. “Sure…” I said, though Kreios had now gone very still beside me.
“An idea whose time had not yet come, unfortunately. A collection of disparate missile systems designed to cover the globe in a glittering net, dormant but ever watchful. When it was first suggested, the technology was nowhere near ready. Now, however…”
“Now you have the ability to deploy that net for real,” I said, suddenly getting it. “You’ve got the tools to make a weaponized veil.”
“Yes. We’d need the Council to arm the missiles with the proper deterrents, of course, but—the technology is there. And it can be yours.”
Armaeus was determinedly radio silent, but I didn’t need him to tell me how much we needed a new veil. The one designed by the original Council was well past its expiration date. If the Sentinel Group had that kind of technology…
“Fine,” I said abruptly, not missing Henri’s expression of unadulterated glee. “What do you need me to do in return?”
“Oh, that!” He snapped his fingers. “It is but nothing, a mere trifle for someone of your skills. When the current matter facing you and the Council is resolved, I would ask you to set yourself against a contender of our choosing in the most minor of competitions.”
I peered at him, scowling. “You’re challenging me to a dance-off?”
Henri furrowed his brow in confusion. Beside me, Kreios merely grinned, but in my head, Armaeus’s voice took on a harsher tone. “Agree, Miss Wilde, if you would. It’s starting.”
Ummm…what’s starting?
But there was no immediate response. “Yes,” I said quickly. “I’ll take the, ah, challenge. In return, we’ll take your technology.”
As I spoke, Kreios disappeared—despite the fact that he was supposed to be my escort. The men of the Sentinel Group fell back in surprise at his sudden disappearance, but I only had focus for the Magician. What’s starting? I demanded again.
“The first wave of war, Miss Wilde.”
Henri started toward me, but I flung up a hand, and he stopped at the faint flicker of fire that played around my fingers, which was all I could manage to generate. “Back off,” I growled, “I’ll get to your competition, or whatever, when I get to it.”
Then I was out the door.
I thought we had three days! I protested.
To my surprise, Armaeus was still with me. “It would appear the rules of our engagement have changed. Go prepare your House.”
Chapter Nineteen
I was out of breath by the time I ran all the way back to the front of the casino, only to find…nothing out of place. The casino still whirred and shuddered with the sounds of the faithful, music blaring and lights flashing, and the coffee shop still looked remarkably abandoned. I raced up to the entryway and saw the forms inside, still unmoving, but the moment I crossed the threshold, everyone burst once more to life
—or at least, the good guys did.
“What the hell?” Brody shoved a frozen man’s arms off him, while Nikki crawled out from beneath a knife arcing toward her nose, her face contorting into a wild grimace as she wriggled out of her dire predicament. Impressively, her cascade of long dark brown locks stayed firmly in place, which had to be a superpower all its own.
It was all I could do not to burst out my warnings about the world about to end, but it wasn’t ending at this exact moment, according to Armaeus, so I about chewed off my own tongue to stay quiet.
Nikki and Brody turned to help Marguerite and Roland to their feet. The Interpol agents stared, aghast, at the still-life tableau of their attackers. Their guard hadn’t fared quite as well, and Nikki stepped over to him, muttering an apology over his anguished scream as she brutally popped his dislocated shoulder back into place.
“We’re gonna get you a medic, big guy,” she said, patting him on his other shoulder as he stared dazedly at her Wonder Woman outfit, tears leaking from his eyes. She glanced back to Brody. “Whaddya think, 911? Or LVMPD?”
“Nine-one-one—shit. No. Everyone knows we were here. Lemme call it in.” Brody looked around and scowled. “Are these guys on a timer, or what?” He quickly went through and pulled up masks, using his phone to shoot pictures of faces as he went. Then he turned to the Interpol agents. “You know who these jackwits are?”
“No—no.” It was Marguerite who spoke, of course. She confined her distress to continually smoothing back her hair, while Roland could do little more than look around in utter disbelief, lifting a hand to touch a frozen elbow, then jerking it away as if he were afraid of disrupting a Jenga game. “We were told specifically to set up the meeting with you, at Aria, and to bring only one security guard. If we had known…” She shook her head. “There’s no way I would have sat through that without security at the ready if I’d known it was coming.”
I believed her, and Brody nodded as well. “When you found out that we were changing locations, who did you tell?” I asked.
Marguerite paused, and I could tell she was deciding how much she wanted to share. Or how much she was even allowed to share. I nodded at Nikki. I understood orders. Even those that might get me killed.
“It’s okay, sweet thing, you don’t have to tell us if you can’t,” Nikki said, patting Marguerite on the shoulder. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No—no,” she said, smoothing down her suit for good measure. By the time she lifted her face again, she’d worked out her lie. “We told our security detail, the local police assigned to us, but nobody else. There wasn’t time…” Her voice faded at the end of the sentence, and she glanced away, looking credibly disoriented, but I didn’t need to look at Nikki to know that she’d already gotten the truth out of Marguerite without her realizing it. It was one of Nikki’s favorite tricks, reading the memories of those she touched, and she worked it like a ninja.
“Got a second, love chop?” Nikki asked Brody. He scowled at her, clearly ready to pop off with another retort, but something in her hard smile convinced him otherwise. The two of them skirted a pair of leaping warriors caught midair, leaving me alone with Marguerite.
Marguerite, who kept staring at me like I was going to spontaneously sprout a second head.
“Yo, I didn’t do this,” I said, lifting my hands. “I’m good…but I’m not that good.”
Even as I said the words, I recognized them as a lie. Kreios had seemed pretty convinced that there were limits to my power, that there needed to be limits to my abilities, and I wanted to believe him. But there were some things that I innately knew I could do eventually, even if I had no clue how right now. Reading people’s minds, sadly, had been an all-too-brief brief skill of mine, and one I didn’t think I could recapture. Now, freezing people in place? That seemed much more within the realms of possibility. Which made no sense, but then again, I needed to stop expecting it to. My insistence on logic was seriously getting in the way.
Marguerite’s mouth worked, but for a moment, no words came out. “Who are you—what are you?” she finally managed. “I thought I knew. I thought I understood. You are…an intuitive. You can understand things, see things that other people can't. But what happened in London…what just happened here…”
“Seriously, that wasn’t me.” Well, this wasn’t me. London was a little more of a gray area. But I’d been acting with the power of the Arcana Council then, the Council and the Houses of Magic. And that tended to amp up a girl pretty good.
If anything, my admission seemed to make her feel even worse. “How many of you are there? These…Connecteds we keep hearing about. What are you?”
“Okay, we’re totally straying into X-Men territory here, and you need to cut it out,” I said, the words coming out a little more harshly than I intended. There was that whole thing with the world ending I needed to get back to, though. I could be excused. “I’m put together exactly the same way you are, and so is most every other Connected out there.” There was a wealth of subtlety in that word most. “We’re no more a freak of nature than LeBron James is. We just have a different way of showing it when we’re at the top of our game.”
Marguerite nodded, but I could tell she still wasn’t fully processing. That was okay, considering there were still a half-dozen men and women hanging in midair around us. That was proving a little distracting.
Brody and Nikki pushed their way back through the frozen attackers.
“Sara and I gotta bounce, love chop,” Nikki said to Brody. “You gonna be okay without us?”
“No, I’m not going to be okay,” Brody said irritably, but more to himself than her. I was pretty sure they’d already worked out this little narrative before they’d approached us. “You’re going to have to make a—”
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll be back to make a statement. Don’t get your kittens in a caboodle.” She patted him heartily on the shoulder, then turned to eye Marguerite and Roland. “You two good?”
“Does that lasso actually work?” The moment the words were out of Roland’s mouth, you could tell he regretted them. His eyes widened, and his face flooded with color.
Nikki, being Nikki, took it in stride. “Only for those true of heart, sweet lips,” she said, reattaching her lasso to a hook on her belt. Then she held out her hand to Roland. “It’s been a pleasure.”
The inborn politeness of the French took over, and Roland seamlessly stuck out his own hand to clasp Nikki’s. There was no indication of foul play other than Nikki’s smile going a little wider, but she broke off contact with Roland before he could notice, and turned back to me.
“Probably need to find wheels,” she said.
“I think we’ll manage.”
I didn’t even bother calling Ma-Singh, because, sure enough, the Devil had a sleek black limo waiting for us at the front door of the casino when we finally emerged.
“Whoa, Nelly, that sun is hot today,” Nikki muttered, and I noticed the limo driver did not stand holding the car door open, but held a folded handkerchief in his hand, clearly for use as some sort of automotive hot pad. “Don’t touch anything metal, dollface. I’m surprised my makeup doesn’t slide right off my face.”
Despite my ratcheting panic at Armaeus’s threats regarding the end of the world, I chuckled. A moment later, we both slipped into the cool confines of the limo.
“Spill,” we both said, and Nikki grinned at me. The driver started away from the Flamingo without asking for directions, of course. Kreios had already prepped him on where to take us.
“Since you outrank me, I’ll go first,” Nikki said. “Marguerite, to the surprise of no one, is completely full of shit. After Brody changed the location of our little chat, she made a phone call to her superiors and filled them in. She does not know where the information went from there, but it very clearly went somewhere and in an awful hurry. Roland is a trickier one. I keep thinking he puts the junior in junior partner, but there’s something not quite lining up with him. I t
hink he may know more then he’s letting on, more than I was able to pull out of his head with just a quick handshake, but he bears watching. I think the aw-shucks act is mostly that. An act.”
“Really.” I had a hard time with that, not because I didn’t believe that Roland could be duplicitous, but because he really did seem dumb. Kudos to him for pulling off such an impressive impression of idiocy. “To what end?”
“All I got was that he was constantly watching. Marguerite genuinely does fear you, in her uptight way, but Roland is much more pragmatic. You’re an asset, an asset that he believes can be used to the benefit of…” She frowned. “Well, Interpol, I guess. I didn’t sense derision or animosity of any sort, exactly, but I wasn’t feeling any warm and tingly vibes from him either.”
“That’s probably fair. We haven’t exactly made life easy on them,” I said.
Nikki’s phone chirped. She pulled it free of her bustier and glanced down at it, cracking a smile. “The Cirque du Soleil act finally ended. Not a moment too soon either. Brody reports that first responders were in the building by the time the flying monkeys crashed to the ground. Fortunately, they’re all pretty disoriented as well, or doing a good job of acting that way. Brody’s getting them in cuffs now and will keep us posted if he finds out whose payroll they’re on.”
I grimaced. “Don’t let on to Brody, but we don’t actually need him for that information.”
Nikki straightened in her seat. “Oh? Do tell.”
“This little meet and greet may have been set up by Interpol, but it was orchestrated by the Sentinel Group.” At Nikki’s blank look, I continued. “Think Bilderberg without the training wheels. Old money, old power, old influence, all getting together to rub shoulders and plot global domination. None of it out in the open. Most of it, I’m sure, skirting whatever applicable laws they can. But they heard about the little problem that the Arcana Council was about to face with the end of the world coming, and they offered their help.”
