by T. Frohock
Nico took a shuddering breath. “When Jordi succeeded in freeing Samyaza, the Grigori was so grateful, he gave Jordi a tear and fashioned it into a signet. But something in that stone is changing him. Somehow the tear has given the Grigori a hold on Jordi’s mind.”
Rafael glared at Nico. “Jordi seems like he’s in perfect control to me.”
Nico didn’t contradict him. “At times, he is. Samyaza doesn’t influence his every move. He doesn’t want Jordi to suspect that he is being manipulated. It’s hard to explain.”
“Try.” Guillermo’s tone left no room for disobedience.
Nico thought for a moment. “There’s a parasitoid wasp in Costa Rica, it lays its eggs in the abdomen of an orb spider—”
Diago snapped, “We don’t have time for an entomology lesson.”
“We do if it’s a good one.” Guillermo motioned for Nico to continue. “And it better be good.”
After another nervous glance at the door, Nico sped up, talking so fast that, in his agitation, his explanation became a mix of Castilian and Italian. “When the wasp larva is ready to pupate, it injects the spider with a chemical so that the spider builds a new kind of web. The lines aren’t sticky; instead, they’re strong enough to support the larva’s cocoon in the heavy rains. Once the web is built, the larva forces the spider to sit in the center of the web. Then the larva eats the spider.”
“Jesus,” Diago whispered as the implications of the analogy hit him. “He’s using Jordi to build the kind of world he wants.”
Rafael touched the corner of his eye. “I saw something crawl across Jordi’s iris.”
Nico nodded. “The Grigori is some kind of parasite.” He turned to Guillermo. “That’s not your brother anymore.”
“You forget,” Guillermo rumbled. “This is the kind of world my brother wants.”
“No,” Nico insisted, “you forget: Both the spider and the wasp want a web. It’s the nature and function of the web that changes. Jordi wants dominion over the mortals and nefilim.
“Samyaza wants a holocaust.”
Rafael glanced uneasily at Diago and then Guillermo. “There may be something to this. When I touched the ring, I had a vision of ashes falling from the sky.”
“I’ve experienced the same vision when he makes . . .” Nico stopped talking and looked away from them.
When he makes love to you. Diago finished the unspoken sentence without saying it aloud. “Why have you waited so long to run?”
“You were a rogue, Diago. How far do you think I would get? Jordi will never let me leave.” He lowered his voice until he was barely audible. “I know all his secrets.”
In that sentence was both a confession and an offer that wasn’t lost on either Guillermo or Diago. To help Nico meant they would have access to a mother load of information.
“Go on,” Guillermo said.
“When they captured Miquel, I saw a way out. He never said he would help me. I tried to free him anyway, but Samyaza and Jordi didn’t leave for Barcelona as planned. They caught us before I could get out with Miquel.”
Rafael tilted his head in Nico’s direction. “He helped me, Papá. He didn’t have to. And he knows how to get to Miquel and he knows the way out of here. There’s an elevator that leads to the surface. I say we trust him.”
Guillermo put both palms on the desk and leaned forward, pinning Nico with his glare. “If I decide to let you come with us, you have to promise two things.”
“Name them.”
“You stand by us to the bitter end, no running back to Jordi if we’re cornered.”
“I accept that condition.”
“Two. If we get out of here alive, you will submit yourself to me for judgment for your crimes.”
Nico exhaled a shocked laugh. “I have committed no crimes.”
“You enabled Jordi with your actions.”
Nico’s disbelief stretched his voice high. “You’re accusing me as his accomplice?”
“From what you just told me, you were fine with Jordi’s actions until Samyaza came along. I’ve lost countless nefilim to this war.” He touched his chest. “Some are never coming back. You owe me a debt you can never fully repay.”
Nico glanced at Rafael, but the youth pressed his lips together and looked at his boots.
Without missing a beat, the Italian’s gaze bounced to Diago and then back to Guillermo. “I could call them all down on you right now.”
Guillermo called his bluff. “Do it. Raise the alarm.”
But he wouldn’t. Diago saw the defeat in Nico’s eyes, knew it was there before Guillermo spoke. He’s never been held accountable before in his life.
Nico’s lips trembled, then he blurted, “Pass judgment on me now.”
Guillermo shrugged as if the timing were no matter to him. “Fine. If we get out of here, then you’ll swear an oath to me that you will stay with Los Nefilim. You will take my sigil and obey my commands to fix this goddamn mess you helped create.”
“And after that?”
“I’ll think about it.”
For a moment, Nico looked as if he might balk. Diago didn’t envy him. He recalled weighing the advantages versus the disadvantages of belonging to Los Nefilim long ago when his son was barely six. Rogues possessed unlimited freedom, but that autonomy also left them at the mercy of more powerful nefilim. Without the protection and networks of the Inner Guard, Nico stood no chance of evading Jordi or his agents.
Nico bowed his head. “I accept your sentence.”
Guillermo nodded. “We’ll make it formal later. Right now we need a plan.”
Nico reached into the desk’s drawer and withdrew a piece of paper. He quickly sketched the area. “We’re here, and we’ve got to go here.”
Back past the guard in the alcove.
Nico checked his watch. “You came from that direction. Did you see a set of stairs going down toward a metal door?”
They nodded.
“Those are the interrogation rooms. That’s where Miquel is now. There are four guards: the one in the alcove, another behind that metal door, and two down in the pit.”
Rafael traced his finger to the end of the hall. “The entrance to the pit is here.”
Guillermo withdrew his lighter and flicked the lid. “Diago, that spell you worked on the ridge . . .”
Diago cut him off before he could complete the thought. “No. That’s out of the question. I’d risk bringing the entire structure down on us all.”
Guillermo cleared his throat and reconsidered the issue. “Okay, plan B: We take out the guard in the alcove. Nico, you and Rafael will stay above and keep watch. Diago and I will take the guard at the interrogation level. I’ll cover the pit so we won’t get surprised from the rear while Diago frees Miquel. Once we’re back to the alcove, we’re going to . . .” He looked to Nico.
“This is the only level where the elevator doesn’t stop. So we go up. I can take us through several adjacent passages where we won’t be seen, and I’ll get us to the elevator.”
Diago frowned. “Which goes right into the belly of the beast.” They’d be in the middle of a compound filled with checkpoints and Nationalists. “Why can’t we go through the Paris portal?”
Nico shook his head. “The portals are unstable. Jimenez is having a hard time keeping the choruses going. It’s comprised of volunteers, but they can only sing so long before they either lose their voices entirely or die.”
How casually he expresses it. Diago thought of the dead boy hanging in the choral room and looked away.
Nico didn’t notice Diago’s revulsion. “Once we’re on the tracks we’d be lucky if we could activate the glyph.”
Guillermo stared at the sketch. “The clock is ticking, gentlemen, and it’s not in our favor. We’ll go with our surest bet and take the elevator.” He met their gazes one by one. “Any questions?”
Rafael stepped forward. “May I have a moment with my papá?”
“A quick one.” Guillermo turned his at
tention to the guns.
Rafael took Diago’s arm and led him to a corner. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I wanted to help Doña Juanita and Ysa. I just wanted to prove to them that I could be a valuable part of Los Nefilim, and I messed up. I disobeyed Doña Juanita and followed Carlos. This is my fault.”
Diago winced as he realized he’d given his son more than green eyes. That was my lament for so many years, and my son took it as his own song. He forced himself to face Rafael’s shame. He knew it well, having seen it reflected back at him by far too many mirrors.
“Well,” Diago whispered, “you were wrong to disobey Doña Juanita, but all of this is not your fault.”
There are so many things I want to say to him. Except there wasn’t time. So say the things that matter. And those were simply the words he’d always yearned to hear from his own father.
Looking his son in the eye, he said, “I love you. And more than that, I’m proud of you. Never forget either of those things. Not once have I regretted bringing you into my life. You have a place in my heart, and I will always keep you there, close to me.”
Rafael’s mouth twisted the way it always did when he fought against the urge to cry. “Papá.”
“It’s okay.” Diago kissed his cheeks and tasted the salt of his sweat. “We’ll work all this out when we get home. Okay?” He pushed a magazine into Rafael’s hand. “You don’t have unlimited ammunition. Make every shot count.”
Guillermo tapped the desk and pushed three extra magazines to Rafael. “Remember, when you reload that pistol you push in the magazine firmly. Make sure it seats.” He patted the youth’s shoulder. “I said my goodbyes to my family in Spain. If you make it out and I don’t, you watch over my Ysa.”
“I will, Don Guillermo.”
Nico lifted one of two syringes. “I’ll be able to get close enough to the first guard to use this.” He offered the second one to Diago. “For the one guarding the interrogation room.”
Diago shook his head and lifted an ugly knife. “I’ve got the only syringe I need.”
Guillermo tapped his watch. “Nico?”
The doctor checked the time and nodded. “Shift change should be over.”
Guillermo went to the door. “Okay, gentlemen, nice and easy. Nico is in the lead, I’ll be behind him, then Rafael. Diago will form our rear guard. Ready?”
Without waiting for an answer, he opened the door.
19
Miquel huddled over the notebook and waited for his nausea to pass. His muscles ached. Sweat blurred his vision. He ripped the torn sleeves from his shirt and used them to wipe his face.
With one shaking hand, he formed a protective ward and opened Carme’s notebook. Sigils squirmed across the pages in a profusion of colors and shapes, forming chromatic aberrations that caused Miquel to close his eyes until another wave of nausea receded.
When he opened his eyes again, he distinguished individual sigils amid the various shades. The colors vibrated around one another, forming the symbols for clefs, rolled chords, glissandi, portamenti, and ghost notes. Lift one and risk triggering another. The right move revealed the glyphs below; the wrong move led to death.
Carme layered them so the threads of light were entwined. They pulsated like the rhythm of a complex song. A starburst of azure generated lines of teal that led to indigo before darkening to black.
Miquel exhaled through parted lips and began at the top right-hand corner of the page. He worked right to left, using the pencil to nudge the sigils apart so he could judge the ward’s intent. Line by laborious line, he moved down the sheet.
Turning the page, he began the process again. Halfway through the glyphs, he used the tip of his pencil to lift the symbol for a tremolo. The sigil beneath it flew at his face.
He flinched. His protective ward absorbed the blow, sending the glyph back onto the paper, where it bounced forward again. Three times the sigil struck his ward before it finally died, cascading onto the page in a shower of sparks.
When the last of the color expired, Miquel glimpsed another huge sigil. A staccato chord vibrated against his eardrums. The intensity of the sound grew louder, as if thunder clapped within his ears.
Four times the vibrations slammed against him, sending an onslaught of bass tones roaring through his head. He cried out. His protective ward surged and then fluttered beneath the assault. If it collapsed, Carme’s song would strike him like blows.
He sang a hard note to reinforce his glyph. The shield held. But barely.
Minutes passed before Carme’s song diminished and then faded. Panting, Miquel closed his eyes and rocked his torso until his jitters subsided. His ears rang. A drop of blood seeped from his nose. He wiped it away and turned the page.
Losing himself among the colors, he began again. All the while, an internal clock ticked in the back of his brain. How much time had passed? An hour? Or two?
He had no way to know. With Carme’s deadly glyphs dancing before his eyes, he navigated through eight more pages. At the ninth, a sigil flared like a flashbulb, temporarily blinding him. Unlike the others, the ward itself was harmless—more like a poke in the eye than an actual blow. He shut his watering eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Thanks, Carme. Sniffling, he waited until the white dots evaporated from behind his closed lids.
Cautiously, he reopened his eyes. Black specks filled the room. He blinked and the dots fell from the air to burrow into the floor. They coalesced into a pool of darkness by one corner. Swirling together, the spots formed the contours of the canvas hood.
This isn’t happening. The hiss of sand through the hood sent a chill through him. Glaring at the apparition, he shaped a protective sigil and hissed, “You have no power over me anymore. Begone.”
The hood disappeared.
His weak glyph faded.
Miquel released a shaky sigh. A small victory, but a triumph nonetheless. I’ll take whatever I can get.
Turning his attention back to the notebook, he frowned at the profusion of sigils writhing over the page.
He formed another protective glyph. The shield’s pearlescent hues wavered. Small holes appeared in the buffer.
Even with the Pervitin, I’m getting too weak. After so many hours on the brick-lined floor of his former cell, the pallet beneath him felt like a feather mattress. To rest invited sleep, but unconsciousness knew no clock. He couldn’t risk closing his eyes . . . not for a moment.
The sound waves of his shield fluttered, snapping him out of his drifting thoughts and back to the job at hand. One of Carme’s stronger wards would easily pierce his fragile spell.
Then be careful.
A drop of sweat fell from his brow to the page, blotting the ink beneath the churning colors. A teal clef carried an indigo ghost note across the page. The lines twisted together. He tried to separate them. The tremors returned to rattle his hands.
He needed a caesura—the two diagonal slashes that indicated a brief, silent pause—to insert between Carme’s raucous notes. Using his own voice, he hummed until he formed enough blue sound waves to create the caesura. With the pencil, he tried to push the slash marks beneath the teal clef. His hand shook as if palsied. The pencil missed the gap between the clef and the indigo ghost note. On the second try, he caught both lines together and had to let them go. The third attempt brought him success. Peeling back the clef, he found the ghost note’s true image. He sucked his breath between his teeth.
Finally. He’d found the sigil for the bomb.
His hand trembled, as much with excitement as with the tremors from the drug. The pencil jittered from his fingers and rolled across the floor. His caesura disappeared, and the teal clef resumed its dominance over the underlying ghost note. The page blurred again.
Clasping his hands together to stop the shakes, he rocked himself back and forth. Anyone looking through the cell’s peephole would think he was praying.
His only invocation came from his heart to his love. He thought of Diago. He
lp me, my star. Lend me your strength. Help me save our son.
From somewhere outside his cell, he heard the slam of a heavy door. A new prisoner? Or are they coming to check on me?
He had to hurry.
A quick glance told him the pencil was out of reach. It doesn’t matter. He could use his fingers to insert the caesura between the clef and ghost note, and then, while the rhythm paused, he would have to pluck the ghost note from the page.
Once it was free, he would be able to transfer the glyph to the cell’s floor. From there, it was a matter of strengthening its lines without drawing his jailers’ notice and then using the Pervitin to intensify his own song.
Of course, to drop or lose the ghost note before securing it to the floor might set off the bomb prematurely.
Miquel gauged the movement of the patterns and licked his lips. So don’t fuck up.
Forming another caesura with his voice, he created the twin diagonal lines and watched the teal clef. When it shifted to the left, he pushed the caesura between the clef and ghost note. The caesura floated over the clef and disappeared into the sigil.
I missed. Damn it, damn it . . .
“Damn it,” he whispered.
The cuff’s chain dangled and swayed, destabilizing what little steadiness he had left. Grabbing the chain with his left hand, he slid the cuff past his wrist and onto his forearm.
Lifting his hand, he ignored the clink of the chain and shaped a new caesura with the pearlescent hues of his song. Carefully, he guided the twin slash marks between the clef and the ghost note again.
This time he succeeded. Plucking at the threads of light, as if picking a guitar string, he pulled the ghost note’s indigo hues upward and froze.
Beneath the ghost note was the symbol for an arpeggiated chord. The broken chord. And here lay the true glyph for the bomb. I should have known. A ghost chord doesn’t carry the sound needed for a bomb.
All of which meant he’d misjudged the layers and fallen into Carme’s trap. His caesura wouldn’t hold much longer.
And when it fails, all three notes will fall together and explode.
