by Alyc Helms
But the Conclave had never taken much interest in the real world that I knew of. Why would they start now?
The Mountie’s scarlet coat and gold buttons were a colorful beacon, drawing the knights as surely as La Reina’s flame had drawn me. He’d planted himself between the knights and the support staff that had been on the roof, using a thick, curved beam of pale wood to hold the armored shadow knights at bay. Skyrocket mowed down the back line with a comet-like flyby.
Of Tsung there was no sign.
“Worse trouble?” Abby asked.
“Yes, but at least this trouble is tangible,” I said. The Mountie took Skyrocket’s pass as an opportunity to shove the knights back with his… what was that? A club? Tree?
Whalebone, I realized, recalling the scattering of ribs and vertebrae from before.
Abby drew her gun. “Good.”
We waded into the disoriented rear of the dozen or so knights pressing down on the civilians. I caught one from behind in a choke hold. Living shadow didn’t need to breathe, but the closer it got to life, the more it took on the semblance of it. I’d seen Conclave knights bleed. I’d made Conclave knights bleed.
This one seemed desperate as any living foe to keep breathing. He flailed a gauntleted fist at me. I ducked my head against his back to avoid it, pressed harder until he sagged in my hold, and then forced him into the long shadows covering the grassy rooftop.
Abby had taken out two more knights to my one. I hadn’t heard gunfire, so I assumed cold-cocking them had been her weapon of choice. I’d never met a woman who liked a good brawl more than Abigail Trent.
I sent her downed opponents to join mine across the veil and rose from my knees to face the knights who’d turned to meet us. Abby was locked in a tussle with two of them, which left far too many for me.
A streak of copper and silver landed at my side. “Hey, Old Man. These friends of yours?”
First La Reina and now Tom, assuming I had anything to do with this attack. “My friends have better manners,” I muttered. Nothing about this made sense. If this was Tsung’s doing, then how did he manage to weaken the veil in both the atrium and the rooftop? And if it wasn’t his doing, then where was he?
And either way, what interest did the Conclave have in an exhibition of Argent memorabilia?
“Then I guess we better teach them some,” Tom said, cheerful as always, and waded into the fray.
* * *
Between the four of us, we were able to rout the knights handily – for the most part. While I was subduing the last few, shunting them back into Shadow, two of the remaining knights broke free. They dropped off the far side of the rooftop and escaped into the wilds of Golden Gate Park.
“I got ’em. The rest of you get to safety.” Skyrocket spared a wink for the accountant who’d been swooning over him and launched off the rooftop in pursuit.
I sighed and faced The Mountie, now using his whalebone to usher the civilians down the stairs. “Do you know where Mr Tsung went?”
“The fellow who helped Skyrocket? He was by the railing over there, then he hared out of here. We figured he was going after you and his date.”
“Do you think he had something to do with this?” asked the girl from legal-or-accounting.
I tugged my fedora brim lower. “Get them to the concourse,” I told The Mountie and headed for the rail separating the cement patio from the grassy hills.
Abby followed. “You think they did this.”
They. Not he. Abby had seen my argument with Mei Shen. Damn David Tsung for dragging her into this. The last thing I wanted was for Argent to target my daughter.
“I don’t know.” I searched the railing and information placard with eyes and fingertips, looking for… I wasn’t certain what. My fingers brushed something existentially unsettling on the backside of the placard. It reminded me of reaching blind under a paving stone to find a spare key and instead finding only slime and skittering. I recoiled, cursed, and hopped the rail to better examine the backside of the placard. A line of sigils was painted onto the brushed metal base. The last one smeared. I checked my fingers, and they were smeared as well with the same black paint. Fresh. That last mark had been fresh, as though someone had painted the others beforehand and then returned to complete it just before the attack.
“No. I don’t think he did this,” I lied. I didn’t want to think he’d done this, or that Mei Shen had been a part of it, but who else could have? I cleaned my fingers on the grass and stood. “We need to get someone up here with paint thinner. Have them check the displays in the atrium for similar markings. I need to find…”
I broke off, heading for the stairwell. I’d discovered the how of the attack, but I still didn’t know the who or the why. It couldn’t have been Tsung. Or at least, he couldn’t have been working alone. Whoever had done this had access to the Academy in the days leading up to the exhibit. They had to have set up the sigils beforehand throughout the building, had to have known which grid to target to take out the lights, allowing the shadows free rein. It screamed inside job.
I stopped at the second-level exit, recalling the paranoia that had overcome me when I spoke with Mei Shen. I’d been sensing the rending of the veil somewhere close by, and I hadn’t recognized it for what it was.
At least I could alibi my daughter. That still left Tsung. Or… several other someones?
“Masters?” Abby lowered her phone – she’d been relaying my instructions to the people who could actually do something – and paused a step above me. “What is it?”
I pulled out my own phone, cupping it in my palm. “Who besides you was involved in making the exhibit?” I asked. I quietly pushed open the access door and peered out. Down one direction was the bridge that crossed above the atrium. La Reina’s light had been replaced by more conventional floodlights.
The other direction led through a darkened gallery. I spied movement in the shadows.
I held my finger to my lips to silence Abby’s response and cocked my head in the direction of the movement. She nodded, darkened her cell phone, and drew her gun.
We slipped out of the stairwell, each taking one wall of the corridor. Soft sounds came from the other end of the gallery – the scrape of metal on metal and the creak of hinges. I reached out with my senses, but aside from the lingering unease that came with a thinned veil, I sensed nothing of living shadow. Whatever moved in the darkened gallery wasn’t a shadow creature.
I nodded at Abby and we both came round the door frame, cell phones blazing light. I tossed mine on the floor in case I needed my hands free. Abby held hers atop the stock of her gun as a police officer might hold gun-and-flashlight in a film.
The double glow of phone screens illuminated a woman standing before an open case. No, a line of open cases with scattered pottery and display cards knocked askew. The woman’s left hip swelled with the misshapen bulge of a duffel bag. The contents shifted with the hollow sound of pottery knocking into pottery as she turned to face us. She held her hands high, her braid swinging just above her ass.
I gaped. I knew her.
“Hello, Abby,” she said.
My companion cursed. “Asha. I should have fucking known.”
“Should you have? Because large-scale coordinated attacks are so my style.” Except for the incongruous duffel bag, Asha was dressed as one might expect of a cat burglar – black, form-fitting, many pockets, right down to the tailored gloves, save that these gloves were fingerless. She’d worn something similar the night we first met. I recalled that even after so many years. As well I should recall. That was the night I met Abby. That was the night Abby shot me. That was the night I decided to go to China.
“Hands where I can see them, bag on the ground,” Abby said when Asha reached over to close the display case that hung half-open between us. Asha sighed, rolled her eyes like a bored teenager, and let the duffel strap slide off her shoulder. It hit the floor with another grating shift of fired clay against clay. She lifted her hands ag
ain.
Abby nodded. “Masters, you have anything you could use to bind her hands?”
I began unbuckling my belt. “You mean her wrists?”
“No. Hands. What’s that buckle made of? Forget it, use your scarf. I want as little of her skin exposed as possible.”
“So dramatic.”
“You shut up. The only thing I want to hear from you is where you put those sigil things so that we can stop the shadow creatures from coming in.”
I slid my scarf from my neck and approached Asha from the side so as not to obscure Abby’s line of fire. I’d gotten between these two once before, and I’d come away bleeding and self-doubting. The past two decades of my life had been shaped by that night. Be damned sure I was going to be more careful this time.
“I told you, I’ve nothing to do with the rest of this. I’m merely taking advantage of the distraction to do some window shopping.” She let me take one hand and wrap it in silk. I knotted it in place with the end of the opera scarf.
“So you knew there was going to be an attack.”
“Darling, I make it my business to know about things like this. And then I take advantage of them. Free agent, remember? Doesn’t mean I had a hand in planning it. This has the stink of the Conclave all over it. But I will tell you what I did have a hand in.” She proffered her other hand for me to wrap and bind. Flinched when I grasped her wrist a little too roughly at the mention of the Conclave.
“What?” Abby asked.
“The party favors.” Asha twisted her wrist neatly out of my grip. I lifted my arm to block a strike, but she came under my guard and brushed my lapel with her bare fingers.
“Fuck!” The light swung as Abby rushed forward. “Masters, I am going to kill you!”
I stumbled as the woman I was holding collapsed into a shapeless column of smoke. The smoke hit my chest and seemed to be flooding into me. I fell back against a display case, batting at it, trying to shove it back into the Shadow Realms as I would a creature of shadow. But though it pulsed with magic, it was like no shadow creature I’d ever encountered.
Abby grabbed a handful of my suit and ripped something away. “This! You approached her wearing this!” She shoved something pale and flashing right before my nose. The silver Kestrel pin I’d received on entry, along with every other guest.
“I…” I choked on nothing to say. How had Asha done that? Why hadn’t Abby warned me she might do that? “What… how did she–”
“Oh my fucking god.” Abby shoved away from me, pacing back and forth as though looking for something to hit. “I really am going to shoot you again and have Argent cover it up.”
“Professor Trent?” A squad of four Argent suits clustered at the end of the gallery, likely drawn by Abby’s shouting and the bouncing light from her phone screen. “Is… is the situation contained up here?”
“No. It’s not. Agent Fuller, take Mr Mystic into custody.” She shoved past the startled agents. “The mastermind behind all this? He just helped her escape.”
Four
The Morning After
I didn’t fight the agents Abby set on me, but after several interminable hours of Argent custody, I was beginning to wish I had. They’d escorted me out of the Academy via a back way and bustled me into a black Lexus with smoke-tinted windows. That didn’t keep me from tracking our progress through the city, past the stadium, and down into China Basin. Inside one of the newly constructed office buildings that were springing up like high-tech mushrooms, another agent not among my original escort moved to search me.
I stopped him with a hand. “I have been pleasant up to this point. Please do not give me reason to become unpleasant.”
Ah, the wonders of a British accent and a well-cultivated reputation. The agents led me, unmolested, to a windowless room with painted cinderblock walls. I was left with a table, cot, chair, and adjoining bath, and little else to do but wait.
And wait.
I contemplated leaving via shadow, but that would negate any goodwill I’d won by being cooperative. And besides, the Shadow Realms were invariably dangerous. Best to leave them as an option of last resort.
Instead, I fumed over Abby’s accusation. She had to know I wasn’t involved. I’d only attended the exhibit opening because she’d cozened me into it. And I understood she was furious that for the second time I’d unwittingly let her nemesis get away, but how was I to know the woman could escape via a damned lapel pin? I’d only vague recollections of my first encounter with Asha and Abby – most of them dominated by the remembered pain of being shot – but that time, hadn’t Asha smoked herself into a banister?
What the hell was she, besides Abby’s nemesis? What had she been doing at the Academy, assuming she really was an opportunist taking advantage of someone else’s attack? And what connection, if any, did she have with the Conclave?
And what was I going to say when – if – someone came for me?
By the time the door opened, I had an answer to the last question, at least. I stood, covering my anger with icy civility. “What time is it, how long do you intend to keep me, and should I be asking for my lawyer?” I studied the young woman in front of me: dark tailored suit, bundle tucked under one arm, and neatly draped hijab. “And who are you?”
“Mr Masters. Thank you for your patience while we sorted matters out. I am operative Sadakat. I specialize in advising Argent Corporation on matters of the arcane.” Her accent was soft, sitting mostly in the w’s and th’s. German, likely of Turkish descent, given her coloring and the hijab. Argent prided itself on being a global corporation.
She shook out the bundle – my trench coat – and handed it to me. “Your phone is in the pocket.” She flipped open a tablet, speaking as she tabbed through screens. “You are welcome to contact your lawyer if you would like, but the confusion about your involvement in last night’s attack has been resolved.”
Last night’s attack? I checked the time on my phone. Sure enough, morning had come and gone while I waited in my windowless room. I dropped my phone back in the pocket and bundled my trench coat under my arm. I wouldn’t keep either, not when Argent had had their way with them for several hours. I could dump them after Argent let me go.
“I am glad your confusion is cleared up, Ms Sadakat,” I said. Clipped. Bordering on rude. “Mine is still in full force.”
“Then perhaps we can be of assistance to each other. Do you recognize these?” She showed me the tablet screen, swiping through a series of close-ups of the same sigils I’d seen on the underside of the placard the night before. These came from a half dozen different locations. I recognized a seat bottom in the planetarium, one of the ribs framing the rainforest dome, the lip leading down into Claude the albino alligator’s exhibit. All places easily accessed, just as easily overlooked.
“They’re the same sigils as those on the rooftop placard.” The ones that David Tsung had discovered, that had set him rushing off to who knew where. “I believe they’re meant to weaken the veil between the Shadow Realms and the real world. Professor Trent should be able to corroborate that I had nothing to do with putting any of them in place.”
Sadakat lowered her eyes, tilted her head as though in apology. “I should have been more clear. We are aware of what they do, and that you had nothing to do with them. My question is whether you’ve seen such like this before. I am schooled in several traditions, but these match none of those. La Reina and Professor Trent are equally puzzled as to their origin.”
“Let me see those again.” I took the tablet, swiped through the pictures. The markings were hard to focus on, as though they were trying to twist away from being captured in pixelated light. Not bothering to hide what I was about, I forwarded them to Jack with instructions to forward them to me for further study. “The traditions you’ve been trained in, they’re all human traditions from the real world?”
She nodded. “Mostly Abrahamic mysticisms, yes.”
I handed her the tablet. “That explains it, then. W
hatever that writing is, it isn’t from around here. It originated in the Shadow Realms.”
She held the tablet at arm’s length. “Ah. That explains… La Reina said they…” Sadakat pursed her lips and shut the tablet down.
“What?”
“She… said the writing had an infernal look to it.” She held up a hand in apology. “You must understand, the creatures you deal with to her seem very like–”
“Demons. I know.” It wasn’t the first time I’d heard them referred to as such. “So whoever – whatever – was behind this has an even deeper knowledge of the Shadow Realms than I do. Does Argent have any notion as to whom it might be, or what they might have wanted?”
“Our investigation is still preliminary.” She fought a smile at my snort. “We are very eager to speak with your friend Mr Tsung. I understand from Skyrocket’s China report that he might also have some experience with these Shadow Realms. And of course, the young woman who accompanied him. She was last seen in the company of Mr Long’s delegation.”
My gut clenched at the mention of Mei Shen, and I was grateful for the perpetual shadows dragged across my face. “Then surely she can’t be a suspect. I understand Mr Long was the one to warn you of the impending attack.”
“So he was. And we are understandably grateful.”
Grateful. Sylvia Dunbarton didn’t do grateful, and I suspected she looked on favors with suspicion. So now I got to worry about both of my children falling under Argent’s scrutiny. Lovely.
I draped my trench coat over my arm. I’d wasted enough of the day sitting around. “I will do what I can to assist in tracking down Mr Tsung.”
“You have our thanks for that. We took the liberty of retrieving your motorcycle. It is awaiting you outside.” She stepped out of the doorway, leading me through an open plan office with thick cement columns, vaulted ceilings with exposed ductwork, and a general feel that important innovation was being accomplished, this despite the fact that everyone we passed seemed to be staring at me rather than working. I focused on the drape of Sadakat’s hijab and ignored the stares until we achieved the lift.
