Death Blows Read online

  I’m holding on to my wounded arm with my other hand, squeezing the wrist as tightly as I can to keep from bleeding to death.

  I stare at the Solar Centurion. He stares back—or at least I think he does; I can’t actually look him full in the face without going temporarily blind myself. My skin feels like I just stepped onto the beach in Tahiti.

  And then, without a word, he turns ands walks away.

  “Hey!” I call out, stumbling after him. “You can’t just—”

  The light radiating from his body abruptly flares.

  When my vision clears, he’s gone. I grab my gun and get out of there myself before the pires recover—though I suspect most of them will be blind for at least a day or two. I’ve already got two punctures, and don’t really want to risk any more.

  I get half a block away, hesitate, then go back and shoot the skinny one in the hand. It seems like the least I can do.

  I go to the hospital. It’s my first exposure to this world’s brand of institutional medicine, and it’s an eye-opener.

  When I first got to this world, Dr. Pete took care of me in a little NSA clinic called the St. Francis Infirmary, and I’ve had checkups at his office since. I don’t want to go to either place now, not until I’ve had a chance to investigate some of the claims Tair made.

  The building’s a lot smaller than most of the hospitals I’ve been to—pires and thropes rarely need medical attention. The waiting room is tiny, and there are only two other people in it: a middle-aged, balding pire who seems to have a cold and a thrope in half-were form with his detached right arm sitting in his lap. It twitches spasmodically from time to time.

  They both study me curiously. “Why don’t you just pull it out?” the pire asks, his voice stuffy.

  “I don’t want to bleed to death.”

  “It doesn’t look that bad. Can’t be silver.”

  “It is silver,” I manage through gritted teeth. The thrope sniffs in my direction, then nods.

  “Can’t be,” the pire says reasonably. “If it were, you wouldn’t just be sitting there; the wound would be smoking and sizzling and incredibly painful—”

  “Please. Shut. Up.”

  “Maybe it’s painted wood. That can hurt just as bad as silver, but it doesn’t smoke. Lucky for me, I guess.” He sneezes explosively, leaving a fine mist of red in the air. “Sawdust,” he explains. “Got a bunch in my lungs. Taking its time to work its way out, too. Wife says I should be more careful.”

  I know I shouldn’t ask, but I can’t resist. “How’d you manage to get sawdust in your lungs?”

  “Oh, I was doing a little home renovation. They say you should use a mask, but I thought, Hey, I don’t breathe, what do I need a mask for? Turns out pires do breathe, kind of. We use air when we talk. Guess I talk too much, huh?” He laughs at his own joke, which turns into a fit of coughing.

  The thrope is over at the nurse’s station, trying to get her attention. He can’t sign with only one hand, so he’s waving his detached limb around like he’s trying to hail a cab. I guess having it sewn back on is faster than waiting to grow a new one.

  I’m finally shown to an examination room, which looks pretty much like an examination room should. The tongue depressors are made of plastic. A pire doctor shows up, dressed in a suit as opposed to scrubs, and examines my arm carefully before grabbing the cross and yanking it out. I stifle a scream and the urge to punch him in the face. He seems surprised and a little fascinated by how much blood is pumping out, but he gets a tourniquet applied and then produces a suture kit. No anesthetic, just some amateur needlework—I wonder if this guy has ever stitched up anything he didn’t wear afterward.

  I ask him for some painkillers when he’s done. He frowns, tells me he isn’t sure they have anything “appropriate” in stock, then looks thoughtful and tells me he’ll be right back.

  I spend the next twenty minutes gritting my teeth and watching blood seep through my bandage. When he finally comes back, he has a small brown glass bottle in one hand. The label reads: LAUDANUM. FOR HUMAN USE. DO NOT EXCEED MORE THAN THREE DOSES PER DAY.

  I grab the bottle and stuff it in my pocket, thank Dr. Jekyll, and head for home. On the way there, I pick up a bottle of extremely strong whiskey—partly for the pain, partly for disinfection. Some of the doc’s instruments looked dusty.

  I keep the Blood Cross. Never know when something like that might come in handy.

  Alcohol on this world is usually laced with magic; necessary for beings normally immune to any kind of poison. The nonalchemical stuff is available to those who just want to enjoy the flavor, but in my exhausted and injured state I grabbed the wrong kind. I only had one drink after I got home, but it hit me hard—magicked-up booze isn’t any stronger percentage-wise, but it always seems to get you drunk in some epic sort of way. You know, the call your high school boyfriend at 3:00 AM, pick a fight with the bouncer, tell your boss what you really think of him kind of way. Me, I just pass out in the bathtub fully clothed.

  My cell phone wakes me up. I’m sore, I’m cold, my arm feels like it still has a piece of metal stuck in it, and my head hurts. “Hello?” I croak.

  “Jace.” It’s my boss. Oh, joy. “Where are you? Charlie says you left the office hours ago and he hasn’t seen you since.”

  “Home. Had a minor problem to deal with.”

  “I need to talk to you. Get over here as soon as you can.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Be right there.” He hangs up.

  I clean myself up, change the dressing, put on some clothes that aren’t covered in blood. Food can wait, but caffeine is a must; I put on a pot before my shower and slam back a mug on my way out the door. Ah, the glamorous life of a crimebuster.

  Cassius is waiting for me in his office. He looks mildly perturbed, which could mean anything; Cassius is a master of projecting whatever emotion he thinks is useful in a given situation. Like they say in show business, the secret to success is sincerity—when you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

  He’s sitting behind his desk, and motions me to take a chair. “Jace. I need to know how the Aquitaine investigation is coming along.”

  “Slowly. When were you planning on telling me—”

  “That Aquitaine was one of the Bravo Brigade? I wasn’t—because I just found out myself.” His voice is brisk. “The Bravo Brigade operation was highly compartmentalized. The operators we used—the Bravos themselves—were all powerful and secretive people. None of them was interested in becoming a public figure, and they only agreed to co-operate under the condition they be allowed to vanish afterward. Their actual identities were concealed at all times.”

  I nod. It makes my head ache. “You must have suspected something when you saw him in that costume, though—”

  He shakes his head impatiently. “I had no idea. Comic books—there haven’t been any since the Seduction murders, and apparently this Flash character doesn’t exist in this reality even as fiction. All I was thinking of was Gretchen’s welfare, not the possibility that the victim was some long-forgotten crimefighter.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She acts as if nothing’s wrong at all. Her spine could be used to shore up bridges.”

  “How about on the intelligence front? Information on the Brigade is pretty thin, and I really need to talk to these people.”

  “That’s—not a good idea, Jace.” He meets my eyes levelly. Pires don’t actually have to blink—though most do as a simple reflex—and when Cassius wants to unnerve someone he deliberately stops himself from doing so. It’s a good trick, but it’s more effective when Anthony Hopkins does it as Hannibal Lecter—he at least looks like a psychopath, while Cassius bears a closer resemblance to a California surfer boy barely out of his teens. “For one thing, most of the files on the Brigade were destroyed—it was a precondition they insisted on. For another—well, let’s just say that many of the arrangements the NSA works under rely on mutual cooperation and trust. We don’t go back on our word, e
ver—it’s a matter of credibility.”

  I understand. Cassius is saying that if he’d known the Bravo Brigade was involved, he’d never have asked me to investigate in the first place—there are too many skeletons rattling around in too many closets, and just because one of them has fallen out wearing scarlet spandex doesn’t mean I should go around yanking open doors. All that would have been fine with me… except for Gretchen.

  “So you’re just going to leave her twisting in the wind?” I ask. “Too bad your baby’s father is dead, government secrets involved, stiff upper lip?”

  “No. I won’t do that to Gretchen. I don’t abandon my people.”

  “So you can’t help me—but you don’t want me to stop investigating.”

  “That’s correct.” He regards me calmly.

  I rub my temples with my index fingers. “Sure. Yeah. No problem. Did I happen to mention I ran into the Solar Centurion yesterday?”

  He raises his eyebrows. “I wondered if he was still alive. What did he say?”

  “Nothing. Just showed up to spread a little sunshine in my life, I guess. Disappeared before I could talk to him.”

  Cassius nods. “Then it appears you’re on the right track. Keep me apprised.”

  That seems to signal the conversation is over, so I pull myself to my feet and try not to look as if my arm’s about to fall off.

  “One more thing,” Cassius says. “I have a charity event I’m supposed to attend on Wednesday and I’d rather not go alone—are you available?”

  I frown. “Pretty sure my calendar is open. Do I have to dress up?”

  “A dress would appropriate, yes. Bill it to the Agency if you don’t have one.”

  Never say no to a government handout. “Yeah, sure. As long as the case doesn’t catch fire.”

  “Good. See you then.”

  As I leave the office, my slightly befuddled brain asks me if I realize my boss just asked me out on a date. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I mutter to myself as I go in search of more coffee. Probably just did it to keep me off balance—bastard always has at least three strategies going at the same time.

  Which leads me to wonder—considering the conversation we just had, exactly what does he want me off balance about?

  SIX

  “Think I got something for you,” Charlie says, strolling up to me in the little kitchenette the office staff uses as a break room. “Parole officer in Topeka told me about a skip tracer named Silverado. Might just be the Quicksilver Kid.”

  “Topeka?”

  “What, you don’t have one in your world?”

  “We do. That’s why I sounded so enthusiastic.”

  “And here I thought it was my new suit.” Charlie’s wearing a charcoal-gray number, double-breasted, with matching hat and lizard-skin spats. He looks like he’s on his way to a Mickey Spillane convention. “Anyway, Silverado isn’t in Topeka. He’s currently in our neck of the woods.”

  “Which neck, exactly?”

  Charlie studies me for a second before replying. “Forget about necks. What’s wrong with your arm?” Damn. I’m wearing a long-sleeved jacket, but he must have noticed I’m favoring my wounded flipper; not much gets by Charlie. “Had a little accident with a sharp implement. Us clumsy humans, we’re always damaging ourselves—”

  He reaches over and grabs my wrist—not hard, just firmly. I instinctively try to yank free, and even more instinctively yelp with pain as I put pressure on my stitches. He lets go and frowns. “Let’s see it, Valchek.”

  I surrender to the inevitable and roll up my sleeve. “It’s just a scratch.”

  “Peel back the bandage.” I do. He inspects the stitches with the practiced eye of a battlefield veteran, which he is. “Hmmm. Kind of sloppy. Do it yourself?”

  “I don’t do needlepoint.”

  “Neither does whoever sewed you up. What happened?”

  “This.” I pull the Blood Cross from my pocket and toss it on the desk. “Got into a little disagreement with some wrappers. He tossed this and I cleverly caught it with my forearm.” Charlie picks up the cross, gives it a quick once-over, then slips it into his pocket. “Hey! Find your own damn war souvenir!”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of it.” His voice is as hard and cold as a January sidewalk. “Right until I return it to its owner.” The situations I encounter in my job can produce the most eclectic combination of emotions, and Charlie’s statement is a prime example: I feel touched by his loyalty but a little afraid of the controlled fury in his voice. I forget sometimes that Charlie is more than my partner; he’s my enforcer, a living weapon whose job is to protect me and damage anyone who gets in my way. Having Charlie around is like being shadowed by a hit man with a chip on his shoulder and a crush on you. “Easy, sandman. The pire in question won’t be hurling anything for a while, not unless he’s ambidextrous.”

  “Details.” I give him the rundown on the confrontation and what Tair told me about Dr. Pete, ending with the appearance of the Solar Centurion. Charlie frowns. “He was following you.”

  “Unless those wrappers actually worship Ra the sun god, I’m inclined to agree. But he intervened on my behalf—not the actions of a guilty man trying to impede an investigation.”

  “Unless he’s trying to mislead you.”

  “Could be. If and when he shows up again, I’ll ask him. In the meantime we have a skip tracer to trace.”

  “Maybe we should look into Dr. Pete first.” I narrow my eyes. “No. We have an active case, and that’s the priority. My accidental involvement with some half-assed gangsters spouting a wild story is not important. Now—where are we off to?”

  Charlie’s stubborn, but he knows better than to lock horns with me. “Granite Falls. It’s about an hour away, in the foothills of the Cascades.”

  “Okay. Why is Silverado there—got a cabin in the woods or something?”

  “He’s working. On the trail of a guy named Helmut Wiebe, indicted for running a Cloven lab. Wiebe’s from the area and is supposedly hiding out there.”

  “Got it. Let’s go—I’ll get Gretch to forward me the files while we’re on the road.” I slap my laptop closed, trying not to wince as I do so. Charlie watches me carefully, but doesn’t say anything.

  Granite Falls is a foothills town of about thirty thousand people. It’s also the site of the Tsubaki Grand Shrine School, a major Shinto center where acolytes go to study. Like any college town, it has a drug problem, and since Shinto seems to attract pires that drug is Cloven, or Devil’s Hoof: methamphetamine cut with garlic, just as nasty and addictive as good old regular meth is in my world. The difference between a hoofer and a crankhead is that a wired hemovore is just as likely to disembowel you to play with your intestines as he is to go into a laughing jag at the sight of his own.

  Wiebe’s file indicates he was a fairly major player in the area, cooking up high-quality product for the local market and even a little for export. He got into trouble when one of his rivals informed on him, shutting down his operation at a time he was financially overextended; he was forced to use a bail bondsman to get out of jail, then decided it was cheaper to forfeit the bond than risk going to prison.

  Gretchen dug up plenty on Wiebe, but the pickings are extremely slim on Silverado. Licensed bail enforcement agent, but his license doesn’t list his date of birth—or in a lem’s case, date of activation. His home address is a post office box, his phone number a cell. Obviously, Mr. Silverado is a golem who appreciates his privacy; our best chance of tracking him down is to track down Wiebe first.

  Which could be tricky. Wiebe is from Granite Falls, and his brother, Julian, is one of the priests at Tsubaki. If Julian is protecting his brother, we could be in for some major headaches, both political and supernatural. A Shinto priest is Gandalfian on the wizard scale.

  Granite Falls lies at the beginning of the Mountain Loop Highway, a scenic route that winds through the Western Cascades and over the Barlow Pass to Darlington—too bad we’re not going th
at way. We get on the I-5 to Everett and go east, taking Highway 2 then switching to the 204. The landscape is nice, lots of tall green pine and spruce lining the roads. After we pass through West Lake Stevens the countryside becomes a little more rural, cattle ranches or the occasional farm interrupting the tree line. A row of black Angus beef-on-the-hoof stare at me blankly as we drive past, chewing their cuds and thinking moody cow thoughts. I know how they feel.

  At Frontier Village we head north on Highway 9, then onto the Granite Falls Highway. We turn off at Crooked Man Road, which leads to the massive red tori, the distinctive Japanese portal, of the school’s entrance. We’ve timed our arrival to coincide with sunset—the school’s alumni are mainly pires, and this is the beginning of their day.

  The school is large and sprawling, the layout very organic and non-institutional. We find a parking lot almost completely hidden by trees and get out of the car.

  “Where do you want to start?” Charlie asks me.

  “Wiebe’s brother is head of the Aikido Department. Let’s go see if he’s in.”

  I take a deep breath of air, enjoy the heady aroma of pine. I’m a city gal, but I can appreciate natural—or in this case, carefully tended—splendor as much as the next person. We stroll through a Japanese garden of elegant plants and night-blooming flowers, over an arched wooden bridge and past clusters of students hurrying to classes. Ages vary widely; I see women with 1940s hair-dos and polka-dot skirts alongside men in kimonos and teenagers wearing jeans and sweatshirts. There are also more thropes than I expected, many of them in full were form, loping along with book bags strapped to their backs. I remark on this to Charlie.

  “Not so surprising,” he says. “Lot of hemovores are into Shinto, but the Northwest has more thropes than pires. Lot of thropes from the Midwest come here to study, too. Like the climate, I guess.”

  Makes sense. There are plenty of Asian faces, but lots of non-Asian ones, too—Shinto is a global belief system now, vying with African witchcraft for popularity.