Blood And Stone: A Novel in The Atalante Chronicles Page 16

  Sharp barks from a pair of handguns came from the hallway. The cop closest to the door fell back against the wall and slumped to the floor. His partner didn’t react, except to turn his gun away from me and fire off two shots in quick succession at the wall. I heard someone cry out, but I couldn’t tell who’d made the sound.

  Gathering from the crystal’s power in my body, I locked my gaze on the assassin still standing. Without my cane, my focus wouldn’t be nearly as clean, but I didn’t give a damn at that moment. For the second day in a row, someone I knew had been shot. Angela was a righteous pain in the ass sometimes, but she was good police. Lester had been a friend when those were in short supply. Barely surviving death together had made me trust him in a way I didn’t think I was capable of.

  The cop turned his attention back to me just as I dropped the shield. He ejected the spent cartridge and raised the shotgun to fire another round. I cupped my hands together in front of me and said, “Adigo.”

  My spell was a green burst of concussive force that hit the rogue cop square in the chest. He hit the wall behind him only to go through it. Luckily for him, the trailer in front of Dave’s place had much sturdier walls. The cop hit that trailer with a satisfying thunk and fell to the ground.

  I dropped to one knee. My sides exploded with pain. I was breathing deeply for several seconds. The cop who’d been shot started stirring. Grabbing my cane, I walked over and brought it down across his cheek, knocking him back into dream land.

  Ezekiel cowered where I’d left him, unable to do anything but shake uncontrollably. I went to him and picked him up by his filthy t-shirt. “Lester? Angela? All clear out here,” I said.

  “Nico, get back here,” Angela said. “Lester’s been hit.”

  I dragged Ezekiel to the hallway. Lester and Angela had scrambled down the hallway when the cops burst in, taking refuge in the bathroom. The shower was filled with tied-off trash bags. The roaches in the room seemed to be standing around, indignant that we were violating their private space.

  Lester had propped himself against the wall, his right leg wrapped in surprisingly clean towels. Blood had already soaked through the towel Angela was pressing against his thigh. He shot me a half-smile. His face had gone a shade lighter than normal.

  “How bad?” I asked.

  “Coulda been worse,” said Lester. “Didn’t hit the artery.”

  I pulled Ezekiel down to the floor. “You keep pressure on the wound,” I told him. “Angela, call this in.”

  Angela nodded, giving her sergeant a concerned look. Lester gave her his best reassuring smile. Ezekiel knelt down and kept both hands pressed down on the wounds in Lester’s leg. With some creative maneuvering, Angela was out of the bathroom and on the phone in a few seconds.

  “Tail?” asked Lester. He winced and tried to make himself more comfortable.

  “Had to be,” I said. “Majester must have put them on me this afternoon.”

  “You kill the other one?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t think so. But he’s gonna be hurting tomorrow.”

  “They’re bent cops.”

  I considered that possibility for a moment and then shook my head. “I don’t think so,” I said. “I think they’ve been whammied.”

  “Whammied?” asked Lester.

  “It’s a magical term,” I said. I tried to smile, but I must have looked like some nervous teenager meeting his date’s dad for the first time.

  “What makes you think they’ve been whammied?”

  “Their faces,” I said. “Cop gets shot down, any cop still standing becomes John McClane.”

  Lester nodded his understanding. He looked up when Angela returned.

  “County deputies will be here soon. Ambulance too,” she said. The color had drained from her face. She smeared the blood on her hands onto her jeans.

  I stood up, letting Angela take my place next to Lester. Moving with purpose, I went to the cop laid out against the wall in the front room. My hands groped through his pockets until I found his wallet and a set of car keys. His ID told me he was Sergeant Lance Kidder from Plant City police. A glint of gold caught the light from the street. Kidder had a bracelet with a wrapped chain design and a gold plate.

  “Gotcha,” I said. My hand hovered over the chain and I allowed my magical senses to stretch over to the bracelet. There weren’t any traps I could sense. Perhaps Majester wasn’t smart enough to add booby-traps to his toys. I snatched the bracelet off the cop’s wrist and pocketed it.

  I returned to the trio just as Lester had stopped speaking. His words had caused Angela’s face to flush crimson.

  “Why the hell does he get to go?” asked Angela.

  “Majester will use any excuse to lock him up,” said Lester. He stared hard at Angela, which caused her gaze to drop to the floor, her shoulders slumped. “You need to cover Zeke. Get his statement. Get a warrant.” Lester turned his attention to me. The mixture of authority and pain in eyes nearly made me avert my gaze. “Take the bastard down.”

  I gripped the bracelet in my hand tight enough to embed the gold in my skin. All I could do was nod. My eyes fell on Angela, who looked back up at me. We both gave the other a curt nod. I didn’t like leaving Lester here wounded. Angela wanted to go after Majester. But we both respected Lester’s call.

  I placed the knot end of my cane on Ezekiel’s shoulder right next to his ear. He was shivering like a frightened puppy, but he dutifully kept pressure on Lester’s wounds.

  “Numbnuts,” I said. The runes in my cane flared to life once more. “Make any trouble for her and you’ll wish these assholes had succeeded.”

  If Ezekiel had nodded any more vigorously, I’m sure his head would have tumbled right off. My ears twitched when the distant wail of a siren reached us. Giving everyone a last nod, I left out the trailer’s back door and made my way through the car graveyard. By the time I reached the front of the auto parts store, the lights of an ambulance and a few Plant City police cars were already fading from the trailer park’s entrance.

  Take the bastard down. Majester had already arranged a pair of hit squads to take me out — me, and everyone helping me. His magic and mindset were squarely focused on overwhelming offense. My gut told me he’d probably have an ace or two up his sleeve. If it was me, I would keep at least one spell in reserve for tight spots. As I got behind the wheel of my truck and started driving away, I couldn’t help but feel I had underestimated this sorcerer.

  Arrogance is a common fault among wizards. Like I said, being able to tap into the fabric of reality and manipulate it on a whim does not lead a person to humble thinking. We rely on tricks and trinkets, scrying and spellcraft, and forget that magic is a toolkit. It’s a damn useful toolkit. It’s a connection to the universe that few people can ever understand or experience. But that power, ultimately, was just another way to get things done.

  Majester had subverted those tools and turned them into weapons of slaughter. It’s absurdly simple to kill with magic. It’s like pointing a gun and pulling the trigger. You could use a ritual and never get your hands dirty. Or you could be there, with flame or ice or earth, and watch your handiwork up close. Majester had tried the indirect approach twice. The next time, I was sure, I would get his full attention.

  That was fine by me. I was in a better position to defend myself than Angela or Lester. They were good cops, good to have when the chips were down. But against someone who can throw around condensed napalm, they simply weren’t equipped.

  I arrived home without incident. I’d been checking the rearview mirror constantly on the drive back, hoping there weren’t any more surprises. I didn’t want to get out and open the gate. It would have been much more comfortable just laying out in the cab and letting the morning sun wake me up.

  Instead I went through my normal routine and parked my truck out back. On entering my home, I laid down my things, reset the protective seals around my house, and sank into my office chair.

  “Corvix, I need y
ou,” I said.

  My familiar flew in from the kitchen, flapping loudly. He rested on his perch on the desk and stared at me. “Yes?” he asked, drawing out the “s” longer than was necessary.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bracelet. “This has magic on it,” I said. “I didn’t sense any traps. You pick up anything?”

  The spirit-crow stared intently at the bracelet for several seconds. The hairs on my arms stood up as a steady pulse of magical energy washed over my hand. When he finally turned his attention back to me, he said, “None.”

  “Any ways to know what spells are on it?”

  Corvix pondered my question for a few minutes. “Not without putting it on,” he said.

  I exhaled sharply. “I was afraid you were gonna say that.”

  The crow watched me intently as I stood, removing my jacket before tossing it on a coat rack and sitting down again. “You used another stone, didn’t you?” he asked.

  I grunted, which I thought was sufficient.

  “A shot of magic espresso,” he said, shaking his head. “Putting that on is not a good idea.”

  “Any better ideas?”

  My familiar shook his head.

  I placed the bracelet around my wrist. Before locking the clasp in place, I asked, “Can you remove this thing?”

  Corvix jumped over and examined the chain closely. He pecked at the hook clasp with his beak. “If my beak doesn’t work, I know a spell that might,” he said.

  That was about as good as it was going to get, I figured. I clasped the bracelet on my left wrist. Soft warmth spread up my left arm, as if I were submerging my limb in a pleasant bath.

  “I guess it needs to be acti— “, I began to say. Pressure formed at the base of my skull and moved forward until I felt like my head was stuck in a vice. I squeezed the armrests of my chair. I barely made out the sound of wood cracking. My mouth opened in a silent scream.

  And then I wasn’t seated anymore. I was standing in a blank, black space.

  The Red King faced me.

  Chapter 18

  The black space in my head...wobbled. That’s the best way I can describe it. The walls, if that’s the word for it, looked like they were undulating, as if some great unheard sound waves were vibrating everything. The pressure in my head became firm as a vice. I felt my skull could crack open at any moment. This was the empty space in my mind, the blank state before reaching into the further recesses of consciousness.

  One of the first lessons my father taught me was to protect my mind. All wizards are taught psiomancy to some extent. My father taught me by sending psychic attacks at me. Nightmarish images of otherworldly horrors were a particular favorite of his. I wouldn’t sleep the night after a lesson. While there is a law about wizards not using magic on other wizards, it doesn’t stop some from using subtle magic on a rival... or a father from using it to train his son.

  The black space was a projection, a compartment set off from the rest of my mind. It was the only spell I could activate when the bracelet’s connection opened. The tabula rasa spell was a cantrip, a spell that took little effort to cast. I guessed the wobbling on the walls was from the Red King trying to break out and pillage my mind.

  “It... won’t...work...” I muttered.

  Majester’s mental projection paid me little attention. I closed my eyes, channeled what power I could. I pushed back against the pressure. It abated slowly in fits and starts. Majester’s head snapped to look at me.

  “Not so easy on a wizard, is it?” I asked, the corner of my mouth curling into a half-smile. “Ingenious idea. The bracelets, I mean.”

  The pressure of Majester’s presence increased again, pushing against my defenses like floodwaters against a dam. My concentration wavered as the night’s misadventures caught up with me. I heard laughter. It was a rough, oily sound.

  “Laugh now, bastard,” I said through gritted teeth. I decided to change my strategy. Staying on the defensive wouldn’t work for long. I was too tired and had channeled too much power in the fight earlier. The bracelet allowed the Red King to enter my mind. What Majester had forgotten is that a door goes both ways.

  Pulling what power I had left in my body, I concentrated on the bracelet and his magic in it. That magic served as a connection to Majester. I used that image like a fishing reel to pull the Red King’s mind to me. The rough laughter stopped and I heard a gasp. The black space stopped undulating. It shifted into a tunnel. Majester and I were off our feet a moment later, following an unseen current back to his mind.

  A collage of images rolled past us, memories and feelings of recent events. I could feel Majester’s sick glee as each of his victims was vivisected. The heavy iron smell of fresh blood filled my nostrils. I watched each face contort in terrifying screams as their lives came to an end. Sometimes when you look on the face of the dead, there’s a peaceful calmness that is never present in life, not even when they sleep. There was nothing like that on these faces. Waves of orgasmic joy washed over me as I touched each thread of memory in the cascading tunnel.

  The Red King screamed, his voice filled with rage. The journey through the tunnel slowed. I felt his presence slipping away from me. His projection pulled farther and farther away from me. The images slowly dissolved and the black space was catching up to me.

  I could hear shouting that sounded like it was coming from me, but the words were dulled. Before the black spaced enveloped me again, I saw one last image. It was James, chained to the floor. Streaks of crimson covered his bare upper body. His head was turned upward in a scream as swirling arcs of red mist formed around him.

  And then darkness came over me.

  When my eyes opened again, daylight streamed through the high windows of the living room. I was laid out on the floor beside my desk. My eyes slowly adjusted. I saw the bracelet on the floor. The gold plate and chain had turned black as if baked in soot.

  I rose to my feet, using the desk as support. Bones cracked in my knees and back as I stood. Corvix greeted me, perched on his usual spot on my desk. The feathers of his breast were singed just under his neck. I could see scorched flesh under his abdomen. One of his wings was missing feathers.

  “Next time,” Corvix said with a satisfied chirping sound, “I want a longer pass.”

  I smiled weakly and sat down in my chair. “How long have I been out?”

  “It’s afternoon already.” Corvix used his beak to point at my wrist. “You’ll need to treat that.”

  My eyes wandered to the wrist where I’d worn the bracelet. The hair around the area was gone. A patchwork ring of reddened and scorched skin had started to scab over. A few unburst blisters had formed over the day.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You went rigid,” replied my familiar. “Completely unresponsive.”

  “Did you try poking me?”

  Corvix shot me a glare. “Yes, I tried poking you,” he said. “No response.”

  “Could you get the clasp?”

  “When you slumped to the floor, I tried.”

  I brought a hand to my face and massaged my temples. My head felt the same as my ribs, which flared with pain now that I was conscious.

  “I used an unbinding spell,” he said. “The chain broke but it caught fire. I managed to get it off you and put out the flames.”

  “Thank you, Corvix. I don’t say that nearly enough.” I took a deep breath. “Majester’s using the bracelets as mind control devices. That’s why the cops attacked us last night.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  The image of James being ritually sacrificed rose to my mind.

  “I saw something I have to stop,” I said.

  I rose and went to my bathroom upstairs. I treated the burn on my wrist as quickly as I could. The blisters burst on their own, which caused no small amount of painful grunting. After that, I changed clothes and went downstairs to the phone. Corvix had been right about the time. It was mid-afternoon. I hoped James had gotten home f
rom school. I phoned his mother’s house.

  The phone rang for several long seconds before it clicked. “Hello?” asked a woman’s voice.

  “Patricia?”

  “Nico,” she said. She sounded relieved. “Nico, James is gone. He’s been taken.”

  My stomach fell into my shoes.

  “Who took him?”

  “I...I... I was in the kitchen. A man in a mask...” she tried to say. Her voice broke.

  “Patricia, stay there,” I said. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  “Okay,” she said. Her voice was barely a whisper.

  I rushed through gathering my things, including my gun and a few extra magazines. I snatched up the last phylactery I’d created and put it in one of the pockets. Passing out isn’t a good substitute for actual sleep, but I felt somewhat rested. I dry-swallowed some pain meds and hoped they would make my ribs feel less like cracked glass.

  I focused on my connection to the world around me, breathing in the natural flow of the magical power. It pulsed slowly, like a light bulb with a weakened current. I would need to focus my spells better tonight if I had a chance to save James.

  Because fighting a blood sorcerer in his place of power wasn’t difficult enough.

  Putting my trench coat on, I went to the phone and called Lester’s office. I got a desk clerk who was short on courtesy. It took a few minutes, but I got the number I needed. Another phone call got me Angela.

  “Blackwell,” she said.

  “Angela. I need backup tonight.”

  “What about Zeke?” she asked.

  “Anywhere you can stash him?” I said.

  “He’s with some officers now. Should have enough for a warrant in a half-hour.”

  I gave her the rundown of James’ abduction and the address for the home. “Can you meet me there?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line for a few moments. “I’ll be there, Nico,” she said.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Speak to Lester yet?” I asked.

  “He’s good. Laid up in the hospital, but good.”

  “Good.” A thought occurred to me. “You driving Lester’s SUV?”