The Medusa Gambit (Veil Knights Book 6)

by Rowan Casey

  I drew the Colt just as I started to hear the humming. It was loud, enhanced. And entrancing. I could already feel my mind start to float, to disengage. It was only an instant, but an instant was all it took. It was also all I needed.

  I resisted for the couple of seconds that I still could. I put the gun to the side of my head and pulled the trigger.

  The percussion of the report was every bit as jarring as a solid hook to the temple. My skull felt like I’d taken a shovel to the back of it. I staggered, hunched over, and shook it a few times. The inside of my brain was pounding. But it had the intended effect.

  Just to be safe, I groped for my pocket and deposited the Key, then I switched the Colt to my left hand. With the gun next to the other side of my head, I pulled the trigger again.

  Both ears were ringing like an industrial smoke alarm now. I was vaguely aware of some plaster dust sprinkling down on me after that last shot. Two forty-five slugs to the ceiling. Two massive assaults to my eardrums.

  Other than the ringing, I couldn’t hear a thing. It was possible I never would again, given how my ears felt, but at least my plan seemed to be working.

  Winch looked confused and more than a little frightened. My head didn’t want to cooperate, but I forced myself to focus, trying to shake off the weight and fog swishing behind my eyes. I rushed the stage, each bounding step like a knife to my brain.

  As I got there, I realized by the way Winch recoiled in terror that he thought I was going to start plugging him with large caliber bullets. It was tempting, but I was pretty sure he was just an ordinary man. A sorry excuse for one, maybe, but still a man. And I didn’t really want to have a murder on my conscience. I had enough on there as it was.

  Besides, why shoot him when I could do something even more satisfying? He was cringing when I reached him, cowering, really, hands out, covering himself up. I held the Colt out to him, butt first, and nodded for him to take it. He slowly emerged from his protective shell and put out a wary hand. That was enough of an opening for me to land a solid right to his jaw. He went down pretty hard. Not being in a Marquis of Queensbury mood, I kicked him twice in the ribs, breaking more than one for sure, then landed a final one on his face that sent him far off into dreamland.

  I’d like to say it felt good, but my head wasn’t letting me feel much of anything aside from a profound ache. The ringing in my ears had progressed from a sharp, piercing peal to a blunt, tinny note that sounded like an elegy for all the auditory nerves I just sent to their graves. But I didn’t have the luxury of wallowing in pain or self-pity. I turned to Pip, green and blue Pip, who was looking at me with a sense of urgency, mouthing words I couldn’t make out.

  I gestured to her that I couldn’t hear, but that didn’t stop her from trying. I could make out muffled sounds, like someone talking underwater. I moved closer and reached for the net, but stopped when I realized she was screaming.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, pointing to my ear. “I can’t hear anything.” My voice sounded like I was far away in my own head, talking through a pillow. Hers was even less intelligible. A teacher talking to Charlie Brown.

  “Wif wuh wa wool!”

  I shook my head and said “Sorry,” though I didn’t really hear whether the words came out.

  She stuck her finger down at an angle and stabbed it violently. I followed the direction and saw that the ring on the floor was connected to a pole, like a broomstick handle.

  Her words broke through for the first time, “Lift the handle!”

  I nodded and bent to grab the long piece of wood. A surge of something sizzled up my arms and I yanked back. It was like touching a live wire. I looked at Pip again, and she said something it took me three times to understand.

  “Use your jacket!”

  I shrugged off my sports coat and dropped it over the pole, then scooped my fingers beneath it. I managed to get enough of a grip to lift it, even though it was much heavier than I had anticipated. I strained to get it a couple of feet off the ground and Pip dipped down and scooted out from under it, careful to avoid touching the ring.

  Once she was clear, I let it drop and caught my breath. I was suddenly exhausted.

  “Hurry, Sir Regis!”

  I could hear her now, though her voice was distant and faint and sounded like an analog phone call from the other side of the globe, with the speaker holding the receiver to his chest.

  Then I saw why she was urging me to get moving. The Sirens had migrated from their lofty perch. They had microphones in their hands and as soon as I saw them, their mouths began to move.

  Whatever speaker system they were hooked up to, this one went to eleven. Their voices boomed, more than loud enough for their tones to penetrate the mushy numbness of my eardrums. It was a sweet chorus of harmonies, soothing and reassuring and the lizard part of my brain that cared about survival told me I had to start being cold-blooded if I didn’t want my blood to start cooling on its own. I reached for the Colt again, but somewhere along the way I wasn’t at the Club anymore.

  I was on an island, little more than an atoll. I was surrounded by a glistening emerald sea beneath a sky the shade of a robin’s egg. Music filled the air, as did the saccharine scent of perfume. I was holding a wind instrument, crudely but skillfully crafted from a bamboo shoot. The music began to move my hips, and soon my body was joining in, ebbing and swaying with the melody. I lifted the flute, or recorder, or whatever it was, to my lips, knowing what to do, ready to join in.

  Something yanked the instrument away from my mouth and my head snapped to the side as I was cracked across the jaw. I felt myself whipsawed out of my head and I was back in the Club, standing there, Pip with a death grip on one arm, hanging on for dear life. In my hand was the Colt.

  “Sir Regis, let go!”

  The Sirens started over, their voices caressing my mind. I thought I felt the gun slip from my fingers just as I phased into another place, this one a meadow. I was surrounded by flowers, more colors than I knew existed, and butterflies of every hue fluttering over and under each other like WWI biplanes. There was a large butterfly net nearby, lying among a swath of daisies, and that delicious music was letting me know it was for me, that I was supposed to use it to catch them, to save them.

  I moved toward the net, but as I bent to reach it I heard a violent crack of thunder. I paused, and a moment later I heard another, this one even louder. The music stopped. My ears were ringing hard again. I was standing over the net I had lifted for Pip.

  I spun on my heels to see Pip holding the pistol, struggling to keep it steady, using both hands. Smoke slithered out of the barrel and wound its way up. I followed the direction it was pointed and saw a speaker with a hole in the mesh covering and sparks popping out of it.

  Winch was starting to stir a few feet away, pushing himself to his knees, raising one hand off the stage to hold against his jaw. He didn’t appear anxious to join in any fray.

  I could hear a distant sound. I turned to see Pip barely a yard from me. Given how wide her mouth opened and the way her head moved, I took it she was screaming at me.

  “We have to go!”

  The Sirens looked as upset as I’d ever seen them, which meant, not very. A bit frustrated, perhaps, but it was hard to tell. They stood in their threesome, Cassiopeia, the tallest, in the middle, and I got the sense they were humming a tune my ears weren’t quite catching. There was an expectant cast to their gaze. But whatever they had in mind, Pip didn’t act like she wanted to hang around long enough to find out.

  Pip grabbed my arm and with a shaky jump we were off the stage and heading toward the door. I watched the Sirens as we scampered by them, really not liking that look. My head was scrambled, the ringing in my ears making it doubly hard to think on top of the curb-stomping my skull felt like it had endured, but even in that state I could tell something was up.

  Pip was still tugging at me and there was no question she was right about getting out of there. So I kept going, right behind
her, trying to get my head to cooperate. When we were almost past the bar she stopped, seeming to remember something. She pushed me onto a stool and held out a palm to signal that I should stay put, then she ran back to the stage. And I mean, ran. She moved faster than I’d ever seen anyone run. I chalked it up to my head being all spongy.

  Within a few seconds she returned, dragging her rolling bag, brandishing the pistol in the general direction of the Sirens as she passed. They hadn’t moved, still looking on with a mildly amused set of expressions.

  We reached the door, stumbled through it into the night, and after a moment of trying to generate a straight thought, pointed Pip in the direction of my car.

  I was in no condition to drive, but Pip opened the driver’s side door and put me behind the wheel. I fumbled for my keys as she climbed in the other side, started it up, and lurched down the street. I drove aimlessly for several minutes before I remembered where I was going. Where I had no choice but to go.

  Pip was saying things. I knew, because there were murmurs getting through the constant liquid drone and buzz in my ears. I couldn’t understand any of it and really didn’t have the energy to try. She seemed upset, though, and I figured it was because she knew where I was heading.

  When we got there, police cars, fire trucks, and emergency personnel were blocking the road. As foggy as my head still was, I knew the moment I saw them what my discombobulated brain had been trying to get a grip on as we were leaving the Club, what it had read in the looks on the Sirens’ faces.

  No confirmation was necessary, but I got it anyway. Unlike my wrecked eardrums, my nose was just fine. The charred, sooty smell was unmistakable. I coasted up as close as the cops would let me. One hose was still going, dousing from the exterior, while firefighters were moving in and out of the front doors.

  The outside walls were there, as was the roof, but from the looks of it, the rest of the museum was as good as up in smoke.

  13

  I slept for five hours, maybe six. I hadn’t checked the time when I crashed.

  My head felt like I’d snorted an IED and held my nose and mouth shut while it went off. I sat up on the couch in my office, my glutes low and my knees high due to the sagging middle, and rubbed my face. When I opened my eyes, a glass of water was in front of them, attached to some green fingers.

  “Take these,” she said, handing me a pair of pills as I took the glass. “Ibuprofen. I read it is what people take for headaches.”

  I nodded, popping them into my mouth and taking a swallow of water. “I’ll take another couple, if you got ‘em.”

  My ears were still ringing, but I could hear. There was a dullness to everything, a muffle, like I had water or wax in them, but sounds were audible. The opening to each felt weird, and when I rubbed a finger against one of them, it came back coated in dried blood.

  “Sir Regis, we need to talk.”

  I swallowed two more pills she gave me, let out a sigh as the water cleared my throat. “Let me guess. It’s not me, it’s you.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. There’s nothing to talk about. Unless you’ve got some other revelation that you’ve been keeping secret from me, manipulating me with magic so I wouldn’t find out, I’m fine.”

  “Please, Sir Regis. I would like to explain.”

  “Look, knock it off with the ‘Sir Regis’ crap, okay? I mean, it was cute at first. Fun even; a bit of an ego boost. But now it just seems… phony.”

  “But Sir Regis, it’s not—”

  I showed her a palm. “My name is Rex. I only got called Regis when I was in trouble. And the only people I’ve ever heard call me ‘Sir’ other than you are cops during traffic stops.”

  She breathed in, held it for a moment, then let the air out like a surrender.

  “Rex,” she said, trying it on for size, uncertain of how it fit. “I’m sorry. Please, please forgive me.”

  Now that my head was semi-functioning and I had the time to look without my adrenaline jackhammering my heart in a fight-or-flight sort of situation, I noticed that Pip, green skin and blue hair and ears that seemed to come almost to a point, was actually, well, beautiful. And I mean, like, wow. Probably not the most enlightened thought to have during that conversation, but there it was. Before, when I’d seen her as a freckled, diminutive redhead, she looked cute. Attractive, but in a plain, vanilla, girl-next-door sort of way. This was different. What had Winch said? That royalty in centuries past had hunted her kind? Something about the pleasures of the victor getting the spoils? That sure seemed believable. She was small, green, blue-haired, pointy eared, and yet, somehow, in a way I couldn’t quite articulate, flawless.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, waving the idea off with a flutter of my hand. It was hard to keep my anger directed at her. But I was definitely still angry. “You weren’t the one calling the shots. Let me tell you, though, Dante is going to get more than an earful over this. He’ll be lucky if I don’t break his jaw.”

  “Sir Reg… Rex…”

  “The nerve of that son of a bitch! How many other things is he keeping from me? From all of us he roped into this mess? Now that I think of it, I should find the others, start comparing notes.”

  “Rex…”

  “I mean, seriously. How insane do you have to be to do the stuff I’ve been doing these past few days?” The more I heard my own words, the angrier I became. I pushed myself off the couch and started to pace, working my knuckles. “For him to lie like that…”

  “Rex…”

  “For him to use you that way, for him to be so damn manipulative, it’s—”

  “REX!”

  I stopped and looked at her. She was staring at me with ice-blue eyes that blazed with intensity. They hadn’t been that color a moment ago, I was sure of it.

  Now that she had my attention, she took a settling breath and lowered her voice.

  “It wasn’t Mr. Grimm’s doing. It was mine.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sure he pressured you—”

  “No, Rex. He agreed that it would be best for the first time we met, to avoid a shock or misunderstanding. But he wanted to tell you, wanted to have me tell you, soon after. I resisted. When he began to press, I begged him until he relented.”

  She lowered her head.

  I ran my fingers through my hair and scratched my scalp. “Why?”

  She looked at me, then her eyes changed focus a bit, her gaze shifting past me, as if she had never really contemplated the question before.

  “Do you remember the day after we met?”

  “The first day you came to my office? The morning after you kept Veronica from carving me up with a butcher knife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, sure,” I said. “But not in detail.”

  “You were still overwhelmed. We sat and talked and you thanked me and told me about her.”

  “Veronica?”

  “Yes. You said how you should have known something was up, that she was too nice and how that should have made you suspicious. Then you looked at me and smiled and said that you didn’t mean you preferred mean women. You told me you were grateful for me showing up and also grateful that I was nice—so nice there was no chance you’d risk asking me out, so I didn’t have to worry, and that you were sure Mr. Grimm wouldn’t allow it, anyway.”

  “Pip, that was just me goofing, I didn’t—”

  “Then you said, ‘besides, if you’re really going to be my squire, that means we’ll be partners. And partners,’ you said, ‘need to be able to trust each other.’”

  “Pip…”

  “No, let me finish. I need to get this out.” She brought her gaze back to my eyes. “You know I’m an Imp, but you don’t know what that means.”

  That certainly was true. I leaned against my desk. “Go on.”

  “We’re nature spirits. We were…bred, for lack of a better term, to be familiars.”

  “Familiars?”

  “To witches. Wizards. Sorcerers. We w
ere intended to be helpers. Assistants.”

  “Squires.”

  “Yes. Not as such, but the same idea. The magic that created us, that forged us out of human ancestors through spells and rituals and things I would rather not mention, that magic also made us naturally loyal and companionable. And craving a human friendship few like me would ever have.”

  I started to tell her I was still her friend, but she cut me off with a shake of her head.

  “We were woodland spirits, back then. Witches would venture into a forest to find a good spot and engage in an elaborate spell to summon one of us. That is how it worked for centuries. But what that Siren said was true. We were also hunted. The females. We had gained a reputation, because of our tendency to bond, and our ability to…please. Most of it was probably the magic that courses through us, creating a mystical experience. But regardless of why, we were pets for the few who could catch us. Mr. Grimm rescued me from such a fate.”

  That raised dozens of questions immediately, but I held my tongue.

  “I have been hunted, I have been captured, and I have been freed, only to volunteer as repayment of a huge debt to help stop something horrible from happening. But what I have never been, not until I met you, is trusted.”

  “Pip, I’m sure Dante trusts you.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “He doesn’t distrust me, but that’s not the same thing. To make me unsusceptible to magic, he cloaked me with a warding spell. Imps have magic as the fiber of who we are, so spells we agree to can be enhanced far beyond their normal effectiveness. He also had me rendered invisible to people. All except you.”

  I thought of Melusina. How she sensed the magic, even asked if I’d brought an Imp with me. “How did they catch you, then? The Sirens, that is.”

  “They sensed my presence, guessed that I’d be going into the museum with you. They set an Imp trap. They spray painted symbols on the asphalt in black, in front of the entrance. They knew they wouldn’t be noticeable in the dark. When I walked over them, I became visible. They threw the net over me and hustled me away. To get to you.”