Wilde Child 7

by Jenn Stark

  I lifted my brows. “Because Armaeus told them we would?”

  “No.” He stared hard at me. “Because you did.”

  “Oh.” I considered that, but he was right. I’d made that vow to myself, though. How had the Revenants heard me? “Armaeus benefits, though. He knows I believe that Gamon is behind these attacks, and for whatever reason, he’s not one of her fans. The Council can’t act directly to impact the balance of magic, but indirectly….” I gestured to our assembled group. “Here we are.”

  “Not for the first time either,” Ma-Singh interjected. “Madam Soo had developed strong ties to the Magician of the Arcana Council in her final years. She committed our resources twice before on tips the Council provided indirectly, about obscure pockets of Connected souls. Once to protect a deeply hidden monastery in Tibet that had sustained a terrible attack, once to protect an extended coven in Norway.”

  I frowned. “And both of those were being harmed by Gamon?”

  “Madam Soo believed so. We saw no evidence Gamon was behind the attacks, but once our teams were in place, those attacks stopped. We’ve monitored those communities ever since.” He pointed to the screen, where I could see several blue dots winking across a black and green schematic of the world. “We have kept them safe. Now we must keep the Revenants safe as well.”

  I stepped forward to get a better view of the map. “They’re almost exclusively in Europe and a handful in Asia and the Americas. Is that weird?”

  “These are all the ones Jonathan is aware of, communities of at least a dozen, sometimes upwards of several hundred souls. There are outliers, solo travelers, but in terms of communities, the Revenants keep much to themselves.”

  Nikki made a face. “Kind of keeps the dating pool limited.”

  Ma-Singh made a dismissive gesture. “Madam Soo thought the same of the other communities we assisted. The monks receive supplicants every few years, even in their remote location. Those men—and they are exclusively men—are trained and join the monastery, replenishing their numbers. The covens also intermix with local populations, with the lines of power usually moving through the females. Not every child is blessed with the Gift. Those that show promise have the option of entering the community, learning the practice. I suspect with the Revenants, it’s the same.”

  I nodded. These communities had survived for millennia far enough under the radar that they’d been protected from both the mainstream populace and arcane enemies. Clearly, they were doing something right. But any contact they had with the outside world was a risk. Had someone made a poor choice in revealing their location, or was Gamon a Revenant herself, as I thought, exploiting her own kind to advance some new drug?

  Either way, she had to be stopped.

  “Ask Jonathan to compile a list of recent births in the Revenant community involving non-Revenant co-parents, anything in the last ten years,” I told Ma-Singh. “But I want to move forward as if it’s Gamon behind these deaths. Which means we have to determine if it’s a meaningful series of attacks or merely a distraction.”

  “And in either case, why you and why now?” Nikki asked. “This is a very public attack. Last time she did that, she killed Annika Soo. In order to draw Annika out, however, Gamon attacked Swords members. These Revenants, they’re not part of the House of Swords, they’re not your people. And regardless of what Jonathan says, those kids you found aren’t true children. So why does she think you’ll bite on this bait?”

  I sighed, studying the screen. It blinked unhelpfully at me. There was something here I was missing, something important. “We’ll need people to guard these Revenant communities, regardless,” I said. “She won’t strike the same group twice, I don’t think, but the other Revenant communities are at risk.”

  “As you wish, Madam Wilde,” Ma-Singh’s voice remained calm and controlled.

  I pondered the three red blips on the screen. “There’s no pattern, right? To these three locations that have been attacked?”

  “None that we’ve been able to ascertain,” Nigel said.

  “There has to be a reason…” I concentrated more intently, but nothing was coming to me. “I need…” I stopped myself before I could go any further. What I needed was the Council, but I couldn’t trust their help, not entirely.

  Ma-Singh shifted uneasily. “We have…other resources, Madam Wilde, that can assist you.”

  “I know.” I waved him off. The last thing I needed was more bodyguards. “I’m well protected. You’re good there.”

  “You misunderstand.” Ma-Singh regarded me soberly, and I refocused on him. The Mongolian’s eyes seemed more distant. “You recall the trainer in Las Vegas, the sword master.”

  “Kunh Lee,” Nikki supplied, and I winced.

  “Yeah, no,” I said. “That’s not the kind—”

  Ma-Singh lifted a hand to stop my rebuttal. “We have resources for the body, and for the mind. Madam Soo was a diligent student of both.”

  Something in his tone made me pause. Nigel was regarding him as well. “I didn’t know about this,” he said stiffly.

  “Madam Soo did not share it with most of the House. The training she received was very specialized. Her mental abilities were never what she wished them to be, except for a very brief time after her relationship began with the Council. But through her studies, she was able to enhance her natural intuition and sensitivity.” He paused and turned to me. “Given that you have more native ability, it could benefit you. But it is an arduous path of seeking.”

  My sense of trepidation had been growing throughout his little speech, and I seized on this last bit as validation for my reaction. “Time isn’t really on our side here, Ma-Singh. And I know, I know—I get it. Speed and distraction is the enemy of the noble mind, but we can’t take a time-out so I can get all Zen.”

  If anything, the general’s scowl grew deeper. “But you have the potential to outstrip Madam Soo as a leader by relying on your abilities more than she ever could. As the head of the House of Swords, you must surely wish to use your skills to the best of their ability.”

  “Time, Ma-Singh,” I said again, pointing to the screen. “I don’t want to come back from my sojourn up the mountain and find fifteen more red flashing lights here.”

  “But it will take us days to mobilize forces. You could use that time to your advantage,” the general pressed.

  “I don’t think Zen mastery is something you can grab in a drive-through.” I tried to temper my voice, but enough was enough. “It’s a great idea, just not a great idea now.”

  “The challenge that lies before us will require mastery, but you remain a novice of your own mind willfully?”

  The tone of rebuke in Ma-Singh’s voice and face was unlike him, but he wasn’t wrong. Nigel and Nikki, generally two of my strongest advocates, were remaining unhelpfully mute on the subject. Which also annoyed me.

  “Fine,” I snapped at length, just to move off this point. “If you know someone who can pump me up in the time it takes us to scramble our people to cover these other Revenant communities, great. And that doesn’t mean technoceuticals either. For that matter, we need to start targeting the primary labs for the newest drugs on the market, find out which ones are using human tissue in their manufacturing process.” I grimaced. “Specifically, heart tissue. If there’s a lab that specializes in such harvesting…”

  I let my words trail off, but Nikki finished the thought for me. “Then they’ve been using tissue from straight-up Connecteds. Powerful, maybe, but still mainstream. Heart tissue from a Revenant might kick things up to a totally new level.”

  Ma-Singh’s phone chirped from its position at the side of the table, and he picked it up, his face tightening as he read the screen. “Another attack, this one at a temple site. Two children missing.” He slanted me a glance. “True children, only appear to be around ten or twelve years old.”

  “Where?” Nikki and Nigel were on their feet now, and my own heart surged in my chest. Two more children! This w
as becoming an epidemic. As soon as we reached one site and stabilized it, another one would blow up.

  “Tokyo,” he said. “They’re asking for you specifically, Madam Wilde, to find them—in person, not…” He hesitated, “as a wraith.”

  I smiled. It would take time for the general to get used to my ability to astral travel, but that was okay. I wasn’t a fan of it either.

  “I’ll go with you,” Ma-Singh said staunchly.

  “We’ll all go,” Nigel echoed.

  “No.” I shook my head. “You and Nikki have to stay on call if there’s another attack here in Barcelona. If there are more children to find.”

  “Dollface, I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I’m not you,” Nikki objected.

  “You don’t have to be. You’re a cop, and you’ve got those instincts. And you’re Connected. Which is a skill we have in short supply.” Something about that bothered me too, but now wasn’t the time to revamp the House of Swords’ recruiting policies.

  It took another hour of logistics and arguing before Ma-Singh and I finally left the hotel, and another sixteen hours to get to Japan. Along the way, as I’d feared, another Revenant community got hit, this one in Warsaw. No immediate deaths or missing persons reported, but the mounting hysteria was clear. Eventually, someone was going to pick up on the pattern of these reclusive communities getting attacked, even if they didn’t know anything about the Revenants’ true nature.

  If any whiff of that got out…

  The thought struck me so quickly I nearly gasped. I turned to Ma-Singh, who was studying multiple screens and muttering in Mongolian into his headset mic.

  “Who is Gamon afraid of?” I asked, so loud he blinked up in confusion.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s flying under the radar, killing and kidnapping in such a way that we know what she’s doing, but no one else does. Why? No way she’s afraid of the police or Interpol. So who?”

  Ma-Singh tightened his jaw. “To my knowledge, there is nothing and no one that she fears.”

  “But that’s not true,” I said. “She’s being selective—very selective. She wants to draw me out, we got that part. But she’s moving fast—quick hits, different parts of the globe… No one knows who she’s going to target next. And in two places now, she’s taken hostages. Not even hostages: victims. Why so many, and why now? She’s acting like someone who’s about to get shut down.”

  “Possibly.” I could see Ma-Singh wasn’t buying it, and to be fair, he knew Gamon and her practices better than I did. “Or she’s got an order to fill.”

  That stopped me. “An order.”

  He gestured to the screens. “You ask why Gamon would move fast. The answer is that there must be a window of opportunity that is only open for a short period of time. If someone needed product, and needed it in a hurry, Gamon would scramble. If they needed prime donor tissue, then she’d have to go to the top of what was available. She clearly knows about the Revenant communities, so much about them that it’s likely she’s been gathering intel over time. Now she’s electing to use that information. Not because of fear of traditional authorities, I don’t think. She would laugh at that suggestion. But she’s either afraid of some nontraditional authority that she is beholden to, or she has to fulfill a black market deal that requires an increase in her production. And to do that, she needs you distracted.”

  “So she’s throwing missing children in my path,” I said. “Nice.”

  “You must track her with equal duplicity.” Ma-Singh scowled at me. “You cannot rely on traditional means here.”

  Not more of this. “Ma-Singh,” I began, but it was his turn to hold up a hand.

  “Hear me out,” he insisted. “You are Connected, Madam Wilde. You were chosen to lead this House by the revered Madam Soo not only because of your strong heart and mind, but because of what you bring to us. Not fighting skill, though your courage is fierce. Not tactical prowess, though you are resourceful.”

  I frowned. “Well, when you put it like that…”

  In truth, I’d never understood why Annika Soo had chosen me. I’d recovered family treasure for her, nothing more. It’d been a complex job, but it’d just been one job. Thrusting the reins of a multinational syndicate into my hands on her deathbed had baffled everyone. Including me. Still did. Probably always would.

  Ma-Singh watched me closely. “You know why. It is because in you she saw that which she could never be. What she wanted more than anything for her people.”

  “I’m a Tarot reader—”

  “You’re not. You’re much more.” Ma-Singh’s implacable intensity was beginning to show in his fierce, lined face. “Madam Soo consulted her own teachers after she first encountered you. Teachers in Japan. I didn’t realize it at the time, but since her death, I have pieced together a timeline. She told no one, not even me, I suspect not her closest allies in the House either.

  “All we knew is that she had hired you to find her mother’s missing amulet. But it is now clear that she intended more for you from the start. Perhaps not quite so quickly—Madam Soo could not have predicted her own death, or she would have arranged her people so that there were fewer fatalities. But she knew you would be an asset to the House of Swords. To know that, she would have had to be told, and told by someone she trusted implicitly.” He glared at me. “She would not have entrusted her House to a mere card reader, Madam Wilde. Deep down, you know this is true.”

  I blew out a long breath. There was no way Soo could have known about my true capabilities—not when I didn’t know what they were. Heck, the depth of my weird continued to flummox Armaeus, which was no small feat.

  “Let’s say you’re correct,” I ceded, unable to resist the ferocity of his belief in me. “What does that get us?”

  “It gets me the satisfaction of you taking up your mantle.” He thumped his chest. “It gets you the honor of taking another step on your path. When we are finished in Tokyo at the site of the attack, you will meet with Soo’s teacher. She will give you the instruction you need.”

  “Right.” I looked out the window. “I think you’re coming out on the better end of this deal. You get to keep doing what you’re doing, and not suddenly have to change your ways.”

  He chuckled. “I am coming out on the better end, yes,” he said. “Because I have you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Tokyo site was a disaster, but not in the way that Barcelona had been. Tucked into a collection of houses on the edge of the Meiji Jingu forest, the Revenants had sustained no damage to their residences. There hadn’t even been a bomb set off, though the shell-shocked expressions on the elders’ faces made believing that difficult. Instead, the children had been stolen from their teachers in plain sight, during a ceremony at the Meiji Jingu shrine in the heart of the forest.

  Ma-Singh stood at respectful attention as I met with the three eldest of the community in a hushed walled garden, the beautiful space traced over with crushed-rock pathways. In the midst of all the screaming activity of Tokyo, the oasis inspired contemplation, especially as it lay so near the vast green space of the park. The elders murmured their answers to my questions, with Ma-Singh serving as a translator.

  “There was a wedding preparation underway at the shrine, maidens and priests in traditional wear, very beautiful,” the Mongolian general said now, his expression stiff in the face of the elders’ anguish. “The children were there, then they were not. There was no fire, no attack. They simply vanished.”

  “Chips?”

  Ma-Singh shook his head. “They honor the old traditions, not the new. None of the community has received any tracking device nor mark of any kind to mar the body.”

  I considered this, taking in the stooped figures before me. These men must be extremely old, by Revenant standards. More surprising, they were Japanese in appearance, with long, thick white hair, richly toned skin, and bright, ageless eyes set into their wizened faces. They were dressed in somber black suits, hand
s folded over each other, and they regarded me with a kind of fatalism that was unnerving.

  “They don’t think I’ll be able to find the children, do they?”

  Ma-Singh hesitated, then shook his head, translating for the old men. They in turn shook their heads, and the sadness in their eyes was overwhelming. “They do not. They called you more as witness to assist you in finding other children. Their own are gone. They know this in their hearts.”

  “How?”

  Another pause. Then Ma-Singh spoke again, more gently this time. “They are students of the same teacher who instructed Madam Soo. Sensei Chichiro is very wise, and all-seeing. She told them their greatest fears had been made manifest.”

  “Their greatest fears.” I frowned as Ma-Singh explained to the elders what he had just told me. As the men spoke in another flurry of Japanese, I stared around the serene garden. They lived here, on the edge of an enormous green space, truly in the world but not of it. Their greatest fear was that one of their own would be thrust into that world without protection, forced to confront its barbarity and pain.

  I refocused on the elders. “How long have they lived in this place?”

  Ma-Singh interpreted their soft volley of words. “Since before the shrine was built. They’ve maintained their lodgings here since the early 1900s. Before that, they lived in the mountains, but it is in some ways easier to lose oneself in a city than in the country.”

  “How do they stay hidden now?” I shifted my gaze to Ma-Singh. “I ask because someone had to know about them, in order to find them at all. Someone had to see…” I frowned. Gamon had skills, Gamon was Connected. She could astral travel as I did. But she still had to have some idea of where these people lived. Tokyo was enormous, and it was only one of dozens of locations worldwide. To know specifically when and how to strike, to slip in unawares and spirit away a couple of boisterous boys—that took more than planning. That took the kind of knowledge that kept a person six steps ahead of everyone else.