by Jenn Stark
“Let go,” I tried again, and while I felt some give in Lucien’s hands, it wasn’t enough—not nearly enough. There was too much pride and pain and desire in the air between us, I could feel it like a physical thing, Lucien so drunk on the strength of his newfound toys that his gluttony seemed like it would never be slaked. He was glorying in the agony of these spikes as much as in the havoc they wrought, and that was a more powerful, headier pull than anything I could produce.
Even now, Lucien’s eyes widened at whatever carnage I was inflicting, then his expression cleared and he refocused sharply on me.
“You,” he snarled, or almost snarled, his tongue lashing out like he was some fell mythological creature—
Just as I head-butted him between the eyes.
“Mine!” An ancient, primal surge of power thrust up within me, demanding my due. I had found these spikes, I had earned them, they were the Gods’ Nails and they were—
The spikes slipped free of Lucien’s wrists with a sucking pop, shucking him off like the husk from an ear of corn.
I stumbled back, wiping the dripping strips of primordial bone across my hoodie and pants. There was no way I was going to get all of Lucien’s blood off the tips, but there was nothing for it, I didn’t have time! More people surged into the tents, and my sword-wielding ninjas were going to be outnumbered if I didn’t stop this now.
I sank the nails into the base of my palms, then roared with equal parts pain and outrage.
A fireball burst forth—no, not a fireball, but a blast of power just the same, as forceful as a sonic boom. Anyone wielding the mark of the House of Swords was battered back in the conflagration, but their opponents fared worse, screaming, crumpling, collapsing. My own eyes widened as the wave of power flowed out and snapped back just as quickly, rocking me on my heels.
And then there was nothing.
Total silence.
The whole thing had taken barely five seconds, but devastation lay all around us. Devastation…and something more.
Mercault.
Collapsed in the center of the room, surrounded with feathers, the Frenchman stared at me with shock and something approaching horror in his eyes. Fury roiled through me, and I stalked up to him, lifting one of my deadly bone shards and angling it just below his chin.
“Who are you working for, you bastard?” I seethed. “Who paid you to gut me?” I knew the answer. Of course I knew the answer. But I still wanted to hear him say it.
His mouth opened and shut like a fish, but he couldn’t seem to make words. I twitched my hand forward, and a bright bead of blood appeared on his liver-spotted neck. His eyes bulged. Around me, a knot of my House’s warriors stepped closer, swords at the ready.
“Who is it?” I repeated.
“You’re such a fool,” he spat, finally remembering how to get his mad on. “You think you are operating in a vacuum, that you can move through the world carrying all the Connected children on your back, protecting them from all comers. You are being laughed at, Sara Wilde. Laughed at by all of us in power. You are no head of the House of Swords. Soo must have lost her mind to give you that right.”
He leaned forward, pressing himself against the edge of the nail, not seeming to mind the pain. “You speak of me as an ally, but an ally has something to give that I’m interested in having…and wants something I can give. Soo understood that. She gave me leeway, and I paid her for the privilege. You can’t be bothered with the way the real world works. You’re not paying attention.”
I stiffened. There’d been a time not too long ago when the Hanged Man of the Arcana Council had instructed me to pay more attention too. Was this what he’d been talking about?
“I’ve been a little busy, Mercault.”
“Yes, you have.” He smiled bitterly, like a sullen boy excluded from the ball game. “You’ve been busy saving everyone but those who could be in a position to help you, if you were smart. That kind of mindset is a dangerous one. You are no ally of mine, Mademoiselle Wilde. I’ve cast my lot with another House.”
I scowled at him, but despite my better judgment, I couldn’t hold my tongue. “The Houses should work together, Mercault, not separately. We’ll never be strong apart.”
“You should have thought of that before Gamon made her offer,” he sneered.
That did catch me up short. I’d thought Gamon was behind this, but…no. Surely not. It took me another second for all the dots to connect, but even when they did, I couldn’t believe it. I had to be mistaken.
“Gamon,” I said flatly, and Mercault’s eyes glittered as he realized the truth.
“You didn’t know, did you?” His smile was almost gleeful, as if this was a present he hadn’t expected to receive. “You didn’t know, and here I’ve gone and ruined her surprise.”
“Gamon is the head of the House of…” The words died in my throat momentarily, my mind whirling in confusion.
Nigel hadn’t warned me. And he should have. He should have known. He served Cups as well as Swords so he should have….
I swallowed. The Aces of the Houses did not always know their masters, granted, the legitimacy of their orders ensured by specially encoded protocols, but how could he not have...Still, there was no way he’d known and hidden it from me. No way. Not after seeing firsthand Gamon’s utter lack of regard for anyone and anything. Surely…
“Cups,” I finally finished. “Gamon is the head of the House of Cups.”
In the deck of Tarot, Cups stood for relationships and contracts. The ties that bound. Or in Gamon’s case, the ties that choked the life out of you.
“Cups, yes,” Mercault’s lips twisted. “Really, I thought more of your vaunted skills of deduction, Sara. It was out there plainly if you wanted to look.”
“Only I wasn’t paying attention,” I repeated.
“Not these past few weeks, no.” He read my surprise and his beady eyes lit with another surge of feral delight. “Oh, yes. She hasn’t long been in power. In fact, most don’t even realize that the change has occurred. She gutted the former Head of the House of Cups most effectively, though. Even sent me a video.” With this last admission, the Frenchman finally paled. I could only imagine what atrocities Gamon had committed to impress him.
While my mind was churning, there was nothing wrong with my hands. I kept the razor-like tip against Mercault’s throat and refocused. “How much did she pay you to bind me?”
His eyes turned crafty. “Why?”
“How much, Mercault? I want to know your price.”
“It’s not like that, exactly.” His gaze flashed with the barest hint of panic, then steadied again.
“She said she’d leave you alone, didn’t she?” My lips curled with derision. “You thought she’d be another Soo. Let you play in your little corner of the world without supervision, making your money off the backs of the foolish and the weak.”
His wavering smirk told me I was right.
“It’s you who isn’t paying attention, Mercault. She’ll gut you like a fish the moment you’ve given her what she wants. And if you don’t give her what she wants, well…” My smile twisted further. “You’ll get a taste of what her disappointment feels like, I’m sure.”
“She won’t be disappointed.” Mercault showed a flare of bravado. “This wasn’t a test, it was a bonus. She knew you’d come to her, bound or unbound.”
“Everything’s a test, Mercault. You think I’m lying, go to wherever you were supposed to lay your head down tonight, whether you were successful or if you weren’t. See what’s waiting for you.” When understanding flashed in his eyes, I nodded. “And when this is done, completely done, you come to me in Vegas, and we’ll talk terms.”
“Terms.” He fairly choked on the word, laughter contorting his face, the abrupt jerking of his body creating another slice in his neck. “You won’t be alive to honor them.”
I leaned into him. “You aren’t going to like the fact that I’m paying attention, Mercault, but you’d better get u
sed to it. The Houses need to stand together, or we will all fall. If Gamon doesn’t see it, then she’s not fit to rule. If the head of the House of Wands doesn’t see it, then he or she isn’t either. But when this is done, you will come to Vegas and we will discuss the terms of our working arrangement. Swords and Pents, Cups and Wands. We will stand together, or we will all die apart.”
“Hardly,” he sneered again. “The House of Wands hasn’t shown the face of its leader in five hundred years. They’re not about to start now.”
“They are, and so will you.” I stepped back from the man then, and a woman glided forward to my side, her face an expressionless mask. Another man stood to Mercault’s right. Still others flowed around him, a barrier of silent scowls from the House of Swords. My House.
“When I’m gone, go with him to wherever his residence is. Make sure nothing’s waiting for him he’s not expecting,” I said as Mercault watched me warily. I glanced at him. “Whatever she was going to pay you, I would have met those terms and more, Mercault. I have no interest in protecting my back from my allies as well as my enemies.”
I raised my voice, calling out in the now-silent space. My people had their feet on the throats of assassins and finders, but hopefully the ears of my erstwhile peers still worked.
“Mercault’s bounty has been nullified,” I said. “If he reinstates it, I’ll pay double against whatever wager he makes. There are plenty of clients who are not of the Houses who can pay for your services. Make your money there. Should you ally yourself against Swords, against any of the Houses of Magic, you’ll pay a premium for your poor choice. There will be no amount of money worth the price the Houses will exact from you.”
I turned then, sharply, and took in the faces of my own black-clad warriors. Who’d summoned them to me? Ma-Singh? Armaeus? Either way, I was in their debt. More than that, I was their leader.
I bowed to them. They bowed in return, then straightened, returning to their tasks.
While I exited what remained of the tent, stepping out into the darkness.
The market alleyway was all but deserted, which surprised me momentarily, before I recalled the chaos of a few short minutes ago. I moved into the velvety night, my eyes trained on the distant lights until I could acclimate myself to the gloom.
“Martine?” I whispered, but there was no response. A shiver of dread swept over me. “Martine,” I said more firmly.
For one long, sickening moment, silence reigned in the alleyway, and a thousand thoughts crashed through me, foremost among them: He’s been taken.
Then a soft rustling came from a patch of shadow a fraction blacker than the spaces around it, the sound of a blanket being shifted aside.
I tensed, my fingers curling instinctively around their center blade, but a moment later, the small figure of a boy stepped out into the gloom. His eyes glistened in the night, his smile quick.
“You got your weapons,” Martine said happily. “We can go now. Put them away.”
I grimaced as I looked down at the spikes protruding in the center of my hands, between my fingers. “It’s not that easy. They’re…sort of stuck this way.”
“Stuck inside you?” He frowned, leaning close, and I opened my hands, showing him the path of the nails as they seated themselves in my bones.
“But how?” he asked, his voice aghast. “Why?”
“How’s not so important. Why does count, though. These things really, really want to be sure that I don’t let go of them this time. They don’t like being lost.”
“You can’t take them out?”
“I can—but I’m not good at it. You could help me, though, if you wanted.”
“Me?”
“Uh-huh.” It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Armaeus and his idea for how to get the spikes to release. It was that I didn’t think I would do it properly. And when it came to getting large spikes out of my skeleton, I didn’t want to have to try more than once. “Get that blanket you just dropped. Wrap your hands in it—then pull them out.”
He picked up the blanket, but doubt still showed in his eyes.
“I trust you,” I said, focusing on him in the dim light. And the thing was, I did trust Martine. I in particular trusted him not to want the nails for himself.
Hesitantly, the boy twisted the towel around his hands. Then he reached out for the nails and grabbed the ends of the bony protrusions. “They’re warm!” he whispered, clearly surprised.
I was surprised as well. “Just pull your hands back, and they should—”
The spikes slid free of my wrists.
“Oh!” I slumped to the ground, more relieved than I would have expected. Martine bundled the nails in the blanket and clutched them to his chest. Behind us in the bullet-riddled tents of the Birdhouse, voices finally sounded, layered over with Mercault’s fastidious snap. How had I misjudged the man so severely? I hadn’t thought him a friend, necessarily, but I had saved his life. That really should have counted for something.
Then again, I hadn’t misjudged him. Sara Wilde, the new head of the House of Swords, had. Apparently, there was a difference, and that difference mattered more than I’d realized to Mercault. Gamon too, it would seem.
Gamon. Head of the House of Cups. I knew nothing about that House. How much did Armaeus know about her and her involvement with House magic? Something I resolved to ask him, right after I’d made sure she never cast so much as a wish on a falling star going forward.
I sat up straighter and scanned the alleyway, noting where it emptied into a parking lot. Given the carnage inside the Birdhouse at the moment, I had my pick of vehicles.
“Which one do you want?” I asked Martine, and he stared back at me, eyes wide.
“You can take any of them?” he asked, wide-eyed. “Don’t you need keys?”
“Not if you know what you’re doing.”
He swiveled his head and peered toward the parking lot. “That one,” he whispered.
I squinted down the line of vehicles, then nodded. “Okay, then we should go.” I stood and reclaimed the nails from him, sticking them back into my jacket and dropping the blanket. “And where are we going, exactly?”
“To the…” He stopped and went almost preternaturally still. When he turned back to look at me, I was ready for the milky-white eyes, but it didn’t make them any easier to bear. “To the north and east,” he whispered. “To the sun.”
I frowned. The east was where the sun would come up, most assuredly, but it was dark now and would be for some time. And the sun never rose in the north, I was nearly certain of that.
“The sun, huh?” I asked, reaching for his hand self-consciously, unreasonably glad when he slipped his small fingers into mine. “So we should wait until morning.”
“No, not the morning and not the night,” Martine said firmly. “Sunset.” He frowned, then darted a glance at me, apologetic. “We are too late tonight. But it must be sunset. The voice in the stones will only call out then.”
“Fair enough,” I said easily, hiding my grimace at this new piece of crazy. Voice in the stones? The boy was becoming overwrought, which I should have anticipated. I wasn’t exactly up on my child psychology skills, however. Where was Father Jerome when I needed him? “Maybe we go now and scout our, uh, destination out, then we’ll be there at sunset?”
“No,” Martine said. “In the daytime, everyone will be awake. You can’t be seen when you go inside, or they’ll try to stop you, I know they will.”
I resisted the urge to comfort him. No matter what, I would probably be seen by Gamon, and at some point, I’d probably be stopped.
What happened after that, however, was what mattered.
Chapter Twenty-Six
We reached the car without incident, and after assuring Martine I wouldn’t go anywhere close to the location he couldn’t identify before it was time, I picked a major thoroughfare, and we headed northeast. I had walled my mind off from Armaeus again. Not that I didn’t appreciate his GPS skills, but I was sti
ll taken aback about Mercault’s news flash regarding Gamon. I needed time to process.
My brain churned faster the farther we drove, while Martine drowsed in the seat beside me and street signs in Spanish flashed by. Had she always been the head of the House, or had she recently overpowered the current owner? That would make at least some sense. She’d been trying to gain control of the House of Swords for some time, and there was no reason to think she wouldn’t go after Wands too, whoever they were. Clearly, Mercault hadn’t been worth overthrowing, not when he so quickly went down on bended knee to her.
Asshat.
A gaudy billboard rose to the right of the road, showing an enormous Aztec ruin, like a third of the billboards I’d seen on this stretch of road. Apparently this highway eventually intersected with some archeological site named Teotihuacan, and there were ruins there. Awesome ruins. Good to know.
“Too soon now, too soon,” moaned Martine, huddled in the seat beside me. I frowned down at him.
“We’re not going all the way there, buddy,” I said, but suddenly I had a queasy feeling. I needed to find someplace for this child to sleep, didn’t I? I could sleep in the car, but this boy was only ten years old. Granted, he’d made it all the way from Mexico to Vegas relying only on the kindness of strangers, but what was I, some kind of barbarian? I had to stop, find a hotel or…something. And food. At the very least, I should get him to a bathroom. Children had to pee all the time, I was nearly certain of it.
Sure, I could’ve called Ma-Singh and had the House of Swords swoop in and hustle us off to some five-star hotel in Mexico City, but Gamon would have every bed-for-rent under surveillance. Better to let her goons spin their wheels wondering where I’d gone while keeping my people safe from an unnecessary skirmish. Granted, the solo approach hadn’t worked out so great before, but…I glanced at the nails. This time they weren’t going to get away from me.
