Whoa, we"re fine. Okay? I"m here with Lucas and Carmine and we"re all armed. I don"t think they even know where we are. We booked it out of the room as soon as I smelled them. But Carmine"s hiding something and I need to know what. I"m going to shut the vault door now, so knock before you come back in.
She took a deep mental breath and calmed. Okay, sorry. I"m just still having nightmares about snakes from the attack last fall. It"ll pa.s.s. I"ll find what I can and get back to you.
I felt a b.u.mp against my shoulder and turned my head before I turned my gun. Sure, it was only Lucas, but still - Getting sloppy, Giodone.
He must have noticed that I was having trouble focusing, because he stopped and waited for a moment. "You back with us? Getting a vision?"
One of the nice things about Lucas is he"s been around seers his whole life, and he was mated up until he turned back human. "Having Sue do some research on her end while we"re getting out of here."
He looked at me for a long moment, likely wondering just what I was having her research, but he didn"t say anything in front of Carmine. Instead, he motioned around the room with his Ruger. "Getting anything?"
I had done a quick scan when we stepped through the hidden door, but did another just to be safe. "All clear ... although there have been snakes down here pretty recently. No more than a week."
Carmine frowned, as well he should. The guys who beat the c.r.a.p out of him were snake shifters. He was d.a.m.ned lucky he wasn"t turning on the moon like me. He"d originally attributed the attack to a South American mafia trying to get back an ancient artifact one of his people stole. Now, it looked like it might be something entirely different. "I just got here a week ago. Think it"s coincidence?"
Lucas and I turned at once and both stared at him. I mean ... duh. "You tell me," I said.
He didn"t respond, but just stared at me, which was weird. Here he"s worried about snakes, who have been in the room recently, and he"s only got my word the room is clear, but he"s not looking around the room, checking out every shadow. That"s very unlike him. He"s even more paranoid than me.
Tony? I"ve got your answer.
Not the warning I asked for, but there isn"t anything critical going on anyway. What"cha got?
There"s a secret tunnel in the boiler room of the Palliser.
Ah! That"s where I remember it. It was in one of those *Secrets of" series of books - strange things about major cities. Okay. Just came down the tunnel. Staircase to the fourth floor, right?
There was a pause. Um ... no. That"s not mentioned. This one is an old laundry tunnel that goes under the railroad tracks and veers east for a few blocks. Seems that years ago, the hotel cleaned all the linens a couple blocks away. It"s sealed off in the boiler room, but the tunnel"s still there.
Little pieces were starting to fall together in my head, but it would require a little private detecting later, when n.o.body was around.
There are a lot of times when the local police are handy to our kind. One of those times is when people ransack rooms looking for things. It was short work to install Carmine at a different hotel and have Babs - my private name for Barbara Herrera, call the hotel and complain that someone with a master key broke into the room and robbed her while she was napping. We got her back up to the room the same way as we got out, long after the snakes were gone. The security cameras would definitely show the door being opened with a key. Apparently, they"d been coming and going through the secret staircase to avoid cameras showing Carmine and Linda out of the country, so as far as the cameras were concerned, they"d never left the room.
Less than two hours after I"d left, I was back in the laundry room.
I didn"t smell anything I hadn"t smelled before and saw no glowing evidence of other Sazi in the room before I slipped inside. But when I felt the cold press of a gun barrel to my temple, I knew I hadn"t been careful enough. I dutifully raised my hands while I was relieved of my weapons. But since she was human, and it was the first night of the moon I still had an advantage.
The thick Russian accent from the woman was a surprise. "Where is the box?"
"Box?" This was news to me.
The question earned me a swipe across the back of the skull with the gun, hard enough to make me realize this was no human. I wound up sprawled face down, spitting blood from kissing the concrete. "Do not toy with me, wolf. Why else would you return to the tunnel?"
She knew I was Sazi? That lowered my brows and made me push off hard from the floor to try to take her feet out from under her. Her reaction was fast enough to avoid my leg sweep. That told me she was either a cat or a spider in her animal form. But it did give me enough time to get my feet under me and face her. She should have an aura, but didn"t. No scent, no magic aura, but a shifter? That was just wrong on so many levels.
We squared off in the small s.p.a.ce, but neither of us attacked. Yes, she could shoot me, but she didn"t seem inclined. Apparently, she thought I had information. Unfortunately, all I had were guesses. I was betting she had actual answers.
I took off the gloves, both metaphorically and physically. All I had to do was get close enough to touch skin and she was mine. But then the hammer c.o.c.ked back and her eyes narrowed.
"You will put the gloves back on. Now!" I paused and then dropped them to the floor. She backed away. "We have heard of your Sazi mind tricks, seer. I am willing to shoot you if I must and find another way to get the information." She raised the Taurus she"d taken from me and likewise c.o.c.ked the hammer. One gun was aimed at my head now, the other at my chest. Simultaneous shots would put me down permanently. She motioned with the barrel pointed at my heart. "Pick up the gloves and put them back on."
I did as I was told. But as they say, you can"t stop me from thinking bad things.
I threw open the door in my mind. Sue"s consciousness slipped inside of mine seamlessly. I didn"t need to speak. She"d be able to see the guns pointed at me and know instantly where I was. Call Lucas on his cell. Tell him the nice lady with the guns wants some sort of box and thinks I know where it is.
I don"t have to. He"s here with me. Carmine too.
Good. Tell Lucas to lean on him until he spills whatever the h.e.l.l he"s hiding from us. And tell him to hurry.
It was even money that my former boss knew exactly what the Russian was talking about, and I was pretty sure that even as a lowly human, Lucas was tough enough to drag it out of him.
Being in two places at once isn"t all it"s cracked up to be. It"s a lot like trying to hear one person inside a crowded party. It can be done, but it takes concentration. Sue and I were in the same boat. She was listening to Lucas and Carmine argue, and I was trying to hear through her ears. She was also going to try to learn as much as we could from my opponent. "What makes you think I know where it is?"
She laughed. It had a harsh edge that told me she wasn"t buying the stall technique. "You are friends with Leone and came here at his request. We know he has been in the tunnel recently. Either he took something out to give you, or put something in. But the photograph does not show which brick the box is behind."
Ah! That"s what the photo of bricks was - the inside of the tunnel under the hotel. It"s a map of sorts. Take the photo into the tunnel and hold it up until the pipes line up. Then just pick the right brick and there"s a hidey-hole. And it was something his father hid. Interesting.
"You can"t just sniff it out?" I asked the question with a slightly sarcastic tone, just to see how she"d respond. It might tell me what sort of shifter she was. Cats have pretty good noses. Spiders have none at all.
"Do not play dumb, wolf. You know he defeated that by putting his hands on each and every brick in the picture." She motioned with the guns toward a batch of boxes in the corner. "Go. You will show me where it is, or I will give you to my comrades ... for dinner." She paused when I glared instead of begging for my life. "It will be a slow meal."
I shrugged, which made her blink. "Whatever. I"ve been tortured more than once. Snakes, spiders and even a dragon have taken chunks of my hide. I"m getting pretty jaded to threats." She just motioned a second time. At the moment, I was getting more information than I was giving. But I was starting to hear bits of information through Sue"s ears now, so I turned and walked to where she was pointing. I was hoping a doorway would become evident as I got closer, and it did.
The tunnel was dark, but wolves see in the dark really well. Still, the comrade behind me apparently wasn"t willing to risk me disappearing into the blackness, so she turned on a pen light. A quick glance behind revealed it was held in her mouth. d.a.m.n. I was hoping she"d put down one of the guns.
I listened through Sue as I walked and got more nervous as I progressed. It wasn"t just the darkness, but the scents and sounds that came from far ahead of me. There were snakes, all right. Lots of them, and the sounds of whimpers and screams that echoed off the walls. The fact that the lady behind me gave off the citrus scent of happiness with each scream wasn"t the best encouragement for sticking around.
"What do you need from the box? Maybe we can make a deal."
I was surprised when she answered calmly. "We want the virus back, of course. But we shall see what else is inside. No doubt there are other things of value, as well."
The virus? What the h.e.l.l!? Pa.s.s that along, would you? What the h.e.l.l is Carmine up to? I want answers, Sue. Get them however you have to before I reach this box.
I felt her body race for the next room where Lucas had taken Carmine to chat. It annoyed me he wouldn"t let her attend, but he"d always been really protective of Sue. I heard when she told him and heard his swearing when he threw open the bedroom door again and slammed it behind him. I needed a minute to talk to Carmine myself, so I paused and spoke with my back turned.
"Let me see the photo. I need to orient myself. I"ve never actually been here without a guide. By the way, do you have a name?"
h.e.l.l, I hadn"t been here at all, so I was actually doing pretty good so far. I felt a barrel press into my spine and kept my hands in the air. She didn"t speak, but there was a fumbling with my back pocket and when the metal left my shirt, I reached back. There was the photo I"d seen.
"My name isn"t important. Now, orient yourself and let us finish this."
I had a feeling that finish this didn"t just mean getting the box. Clearly, I"d seen too much to live.
While I held up the photo and stared, I slipped into Sue"s mind. I"d only done this a couple of times before, but it was time I got some answers from Carmine.
The bedroom door was locked, but it wasn"t a high end hotel. It would only be a hollow core door with a flimsy lock. I pushed into her further, almost too much. I nearly dropped the photo. Stepping this way and that, all with the light trained beyond me into the darkness, I stepped forward in one body and kicked outward in another. The door to the bedroom slammed open and Sue caught Lucas with both hands clutching Carmine"s shirt, mid-threat.
It was Sue"s voice speaking, but my words. "G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Leone! I"ve got a gun pointed at my head and another at my heart, and if you don"t spill what the h.e.l.l this is about, I swear to G.o.d that I"m going to rip your chest open and shove your beating heart up your a.s.s!" He"d be able to see Sue"s eyes glowing blue. They always did when I slipped into her body.
I advanced threateningly toward the bed and Lucas backed up a little in surprise. He probably knew I was subject to Sue"s physical limitation as a human, but those limitations had extended somewhat recently, ever since she"d done a magic ritual that saved her life. n.o.body was really sure what we were capable of together. I didn"t want to find out right this second, but n.o.body else had to know that. Trouble was, I was starting to feel hot, and that wasn"t a good thing. On the first night of the moon, I may or may not shift, and have no control over the process.
Carmine scrambled backwards on the bed, apparently believing whatever he saw. I didn"t want to look in the mirror to see what that was. "Okay, okay! Fine, Tony. I"ll talk."
"Be quick about it. I"ve only got a few more minutes to stall here."
I slipped back into my own body and stepped forward a few paces, then zig-zagged and pointed for the woman to aim the light at the ceiling where the pipes were. "This would be a lot easier with more light."
"Just keep walking. We have time."
The scent of snakes was getting stronger, and I was liking this less and less. I slipped back into Sue. "How do I find the box? I won"t turn it over if I can avoid it, but I need to know what I"m looking for."
Carmine sighed. "Right wall, six rows up, and look for a thumbprint in the mortar."
"Tell me about the virus. What the h.e.l.l, Carmine? When did you get involved in bioweapons?"
I couldn"t really smell through Sue"s nose, but he actually looked contrite. "It wasn"t intentional. We raided a warehouse to get hold of an ammo shipment we heard was being stockpiled. It was in a briefcase that was handcuffed to the wrist of a guy with a Russian diplomatic pa.s.sport. We couldn"t figure out what he was doing there, but decided it needed to be in safekeeping while I decided what to do with it."
The logic escaped me. "Uh, turn it in to the CDC maybe? Why would you keep it? Jesus, Leone. Are you insane? What kind of virus is it?"
He shrugged and stood up before starting to pace back and forth. "I don"t know. I really don"t, Tony. That whole situation put me in a h.e.l.l of a bind. There was stuff in that warehouse that I don"t want, but also don"t want anyone else to get hold of." He paused and stared right at me through the eyes of my wife. "Not even our government. Y"know? Stuff that ought to not exist at all. So, I put it in the box my dad started. He called it his ace in the hole box. It started out with a bunch of gold coins. He"d been transporting them from Capone"s vault to a new location, when the Feds started moving in. While he was en route, Capone was arrested and the place Dad was going to was raided. So, he headed north and wound up here in Calgary. Over the years, he put in other things that made life easier - blackmail photos, audio tapes of corrupt politicians and cops, and anything he fenced for people that was too hot to handle for a while. By the time Dad died, I was already doing well enough that I didn"t need to raid the gold." He shrugged. "I"ve added to it a few times. It keeps life ... comfortable."
Yeah, I"ll just bet it does. I know a dozen people who would love to get their hands on that box. I was smelling Carmine"s cologne in the tunnel now and understood what my Russian captor meant about him spreading his scent. It was everywhere. He must have brought down a bottle of cologne and sprayed it across every brick. I"ll bet Babs taught him that. It was quickly burning out my nose.
That"s when I spotted the thumbprint. I tried to give no sign of it, but scuffed my foot sideways, like I had tripped, and caught myself against the tunnel wall. Hopefully I"d be able to find it again. Once I was another dozen feet further down the tunnel, I stopped again and held up the picture. Apparently, Lady Russia was getting antsy, because a moment later I heard her let out an annoyed sound and then her voice rang out into the darkness. "Boris! Andrei, come here! I have the wolf seer, and he"s stalling. I think we will have to cut some ... pieces ... off him to get the location."
Great. Just great. Well, I had what I needed from Carmine. I turned Sue"s head toward Lucas. "However you need to do it, you need to get back to the Palliser and give me a hand. I"m about to be overrun with Russian and South American snake shifters. I"ll do what I can, but bring enough ammo for an army."
That was all the time I had to talk, because the moon had finally reached full height in the sky and we must have been just barely under the street, because it cut through me like a laser. I"m pretty sure I screamed. I definitely dropped to the floor of the tunnel like a puppet with its strings cut. "Get up!" She shouted at me, but it wasn"t like I had a choice.
I tried to choke out words, because I knew her fingers were getting itchy on the triggers. "If you did your research, you must know I"m a three-day. You want the box, you need to shield the moon."
She swore in Russian and tucked one of the guns in her waistband. Only the very best alpha shifters can shield a lesser animal from a distance. Most need direct touch to control a shift. She reached out to grab my sleeve and at the last second, I pulled off my glove and grabbed her hand.
The moon faded with her power and I latched onto her mind in a hindsight. Her eyes glazed over as she slipped into her own past. I dragged her backwards with me and extinguished the light. I could hear the footsteps ahead of me increase in speed and a bright flash of light told me someone else had shifted. The low buzzing sound that resulted said there was at least one rattler among the snakes.
Terrific.
Once I was back at the spot where I"d stumbled, it wasn"t hard to find the place where Marco"s thumb had dug into soft mortar. As I suspected, the brick was loose in the wall. It would be tricky to pull it out with one hand, but I couldn"t afford to let go of the Russian babe to use both. I did, however, take back my gun, and hers to boot, before yanking the brick loose to let it drop to the ground. The sound echoed and the voices, boots and scales moved faster still. The snakes sounded big.
The box was just behind the brick and had a handle on front that made me think of a safe deposit box. Maybe it was. All I knew is that I only had time to drop Natasha, grab the handle, and take off running. I couldn"t risk that box staying here, even if there was only a slim chance of them finding it before we could get back to retrieve it.
The moment I let go and started to run, I felt the moon slice through my skin once more. Just to be safe, I put the handle of the box in my teeth. It was a good thing I did, too, because it wasn"t more than a dozen feet before I couldn"t stand the pressure anymore. The howl that tried to leave my mouth was forced to escape through locked jaws and then I was running on four legs instead of two, pulling behind the tattered remains of my clothing as I ran.
Bullets started to ricochet off the brick and I felt a flash of pain in my ribs. There were shouts behind and the scent of rotten cantaloupe enveloping me as I made one final leap through the door of the boiler room, tearing at least two leg muscles in the process.
But I was luckier than my pursuer. The giant snake ran fang first into the boiler I barely missed and cold-c.o.c.ked himself. Lucas and two wolves I"d never seen before rushed past me into the tunnel shouting for everybody to give themselves up, as I crawled under the ma.s.sive machine with my prize.
A week later I was still nursing an ACL tear and broken collarbone from a bullet, which had felt like my ribs at the time. As a three-day, I don"t heal very fast. But I"d be back on my feet a lot faster than a full human.
Even Lucas hadn"t been able to get the box away from me that night. He said he"d have had to break my jaw to unlock it. We went through it together the next morning. There was lots of interesting reading. Most of the blackmail evidence was destroyed, but Lucas saw no reason not to give the gold back to Carmine. Anyone it might have belonged to was long dead now and he"d need money to pay his legal bills for being out of the country. Turns out the Feds were watching him closer than we"d imagined. The RCMP picked him up at the hotel while we were all out, to deliver him to the Feds. I"ll be laying low for some time to come because it turns out I was caught on film as well. Since I was supposed to be dead, and now I"m not, I"ll probably need a make-over so I don"t wind up in the cell next door. However, Lucas is going to see what he can arrange for us to get a clean bill - a full pardon from the President for both me and Carmine, owing to us turning over the weapons cache and virus we discovered and the terrorist spies ... at least the full human ones. The others? Well, the snake attackers who I was able to finger through the hindsight on Carmine will never see trial. Not only is Carmine watched by the Sazi now, he"ll be protected by them. At least, so long as he"s not breaking the law.
That"s Wolven law enforcement, and it"s why I stick around.
C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp are real people with slightly twisted minds who write strange fiction for fun. They are happily the award-winning, USA Today bestselling authors of the "Tales of the Sazi" and "Thrall" series for Tor Books. They are also now writing urban fantasy as "Cat Adams" and released a new series, "The Blood Singer" in June, 2010. Both C.T. and Cathy spend their days working in a law office in central Texas, which is what many claim warped their brains. They share a website at www.ciecatrunpubs.com Tony Giodone"s skill as a hit man has resulted in a stack of cold case files in the homicide divisions of a number of major cities. Even before he was attacked and turned into a werewolf, if you met Tony in a dark alley, he"d be walking back into the light alone. Although still an a.s.sa.s.sin, he"s now working for Wolven, the police force of the Sazi council - in other words, the good guys.
h.e.l.l Bound: A h.e.l.l on Earth Story.
by Jackie Kessler.
"Stupid f.u.c.king name." The incubus Daunuan shook his head. "Why do so many human magicians pick stupid f.u.c.king names?"
"Aw, sweetie," I said. "Don"t be like that. They"re just being creative. They think it makes them sound exotic."
"It makes them sound like a.s.sholes."
"Not everyone can have a name like yours, Don Juan," I said with a wink, emphasizing the human p.r.o.nunciation. The demonic version was more sensual, called for more use of the tongue and lips. We creatures of l.u.s.t were nothing if not sensual. And all about the tongue and lips. "Besides," I said, " *Noel Le Noir" isn"t the worst name I"ve ever heard."
"No, but it is hopelessly cheesy."
"I like my men hopelessly cheesy."
"You like your men, period." Daun smiled. "And your women."
"I"m an equal-opportunity succubus," I agreed happily. Whatever the gender, whatever the form, I loved humans. To death. Speaking of which...
From our secluded table in the corner, I gazed at my new client, who was sipping a drink all by his lonesome at the bar. To look at him, you"d never guess that Noel Le Noir - born Leon Siegal - was a Satanist (which put him on my side) and a master magician (which did not). At first glance, he looked bookish and plump, with a weak chin and acne scars. And talk about overkill on the black: silk shirt, slacks, shoes, socks, dyed hair. A gaudy silver necklace with a pentacle dangling point-side down hung around his fleshy neck. He looked like he"d tried going Goth when he"d hit 35 and didn"t quite make it.
Based on his reputation Below, I"d expected to feel his magical power teasing his flesh like foreplay. One didn"t become a master of the dark arts without radiating a little menace, or at least seeming like the sort who"d go out of his way to kick puppies and drown kittens. This guy? He radiated as much power as a limp d.i.c.k. Maybe someone was fooling around Downstairs and mislabeled Noel"s file as that of an actual mage, instead of a wannabe who chanted his "Hail Satan"s" and pretended his rod of power was something other than what lay between his legs.
He didn"t need magic, however, to score a one-way ticket to h.e.l.l, even without the Satanism. Noel Le Noir was personally responsible for nineteen human sacrifices and too many animal killings to count, to say nothing of all the pain and suffering he"d caused others over the past dozen years or so. He was a serial killer with the face of a nebbish.
Yum.
"I still don"t understand why you scored this a.s.signment," Daun said, casting a dark look at Noel.
"What"s to understand? Queen Lillith gave it to me personally." And never mind how she"d gloated as she"d handed me the paperwork. "Besides, I haven"t eaten a magician in centuries. And the last one was a charlatan."
"This guy"s supposed to be the real deal, babes."
"Even if he is" -which I seriously doubted- "I can take him. The queen wouldn"t have given me the a.s.signment if I couldn"t."
"I"m sorry, I think you"ve mistaken your queen for someone who"s on Team Jezebel." Daun leaned in close. "She"s making it known far and wide that you intend to corral an evil magician"s soul down to the Pit, and that it wasn"t sanctioned by l.u.s.t."