Death Blows Read online

  We find the Aikido Studies building, a low-slung structure with a pagoda roof. Inside, students in loose-fitting white clothing are paired off, practicing throws, holds, and strikes. Aikido is particularly well suited to pires; much of the art consists of techniques designed to protect the practitioner from cutting blows to the neck or thrusting attacks to the torso. It’s popular in the Shinto movement because of its emphasis on the integration of spirit with nature, of inner harmony. It’s also one of the most peaceful of all martial arts—the intent of most Aikido techniques is to redirect an opponent’s force without harming him.

  We stand at the back of the room and watch for a while. A bubble of unexpected sadness rises up in me; I haven’t been to a dojo since I came to this world. The familiarity of the outfits, the atmosphere, makes me nostalgic—but only until I see an actual attack and counter. A black female pire who appears to be in her twenties faces off against an Asian woman of indeterminate age. The flurries of blows, feints, and blocks are so quick they’re only a blur; it reinforces my sadness, making me feel like an ex-heavyweight being reminded of his glory days. Ridiculous, of course—pires’ reaction times are simply better than a human being’s.

  All the more reason to get back to the gym. If I run into a pire—or a thrope, for that matter—with any martial arts training at all, I’m so far past toast even charcoal would consider me burnt. I promise myself I’ll start looking for a dojo when we get back to Seattle.

  The melancholy lingers, though. It makes me think of my sensei, a beat-up ex-marine named Duane Dunn; wide grin, thick white handlebar mustache, and more wrinkles than God. His gut makes him look like he spends more time on the couch than the gym, but he’s in better shape than guys I know in their twenties who run marathons. Duane would probably do a lot better here than I am—he loves a challenge more than anything. “The only thing better than winning a fight,” he used to say, “is getting the snot kicked out of you by someone better than you are.”

  “I think that’s him,” Charlie says. “The brother.”

  I look, but only catch a glimpse of someone in baggy black pants and a loose white top vanishing through a doorway. “Come on.”

  We hurry after him. “Did he see us?” I ask.

  “Not sure.” The door leads to a hallway lined with offices. No sign of Julian, and with a pire’s speed he could have reached the end of the hall and turned the corner by now. I curse under my breath and break into a trot. “Check the offices!” I call back over my shoulder. Down the hall, around the bend, down another corridor. At the end, right or left? This place is a maze. I go right. More hallway, more offices. I should stop running, this is pointless, I must have lost him by now. Another branch, go right again. Keep going right in a maze and you’ll always find your way out, but what if he isn’t heading for the exit?

  And then I see the fire door straight ahead me, just clicking shut.

  Doesn’t mean a thing, of course, but I slam into it at full tilt anyway, hitting the bar with my hip and flinging the door open with a bang. Julian Wiebe glances at me in surprise. He’s dressed in loose black trousers and a wraparound white jacket, his wispy blond hair ruffled by the evening breeze, and he’s in the act of handing an envelope to his brother. Helmut, wearing black jeans just as baggy and a puffy jacket just as white, looks like he’s making fun of his sibling’s fashion sense. The look on his face, though, is closer to angry suspicion than mockery.

  “You set me up!” he cries, and bolts down the path.

  I give chase, which means running past Julian—except that he grabs me when I get within reach and does something very quick that leaves my arm locked behind my back. Damn it. “I’m a federal agent,” I snap. “Let me go, now.” I can’t see Julian’s face, but I can hear the conflict in his voice. “I—he’s my brother—”

  “Then don’t make things worse for him—”

  “Too late for that,” a voice says. Helmut marches back into view up the path. He’s got one arm locked behind him, too, and a gleaming silver knife at his throat. His captor is a golem dressed in black jeans, a fringed brown rawhide jacket, and a battered straw cowboy hat with the brim curled up on the sides. His face is a pockmarked bronze, sculpted into a grim expression and hinged at the jaw.

  “Let the lady go,” Silverado says. “Let my brother go.”

  “Don’t think so.” I still have one arm free. I reach for my gun—and Julian puts just enough pressure on my arm to make me gasp and freeze.

  “Looks like we have us a situation,” Silverado says. “ ’Cept you ain’t no killer, Mr. High Priest. And a broken arm don’t mean much to a thrope.”

  True, but despite Silverado’s best guess that’s not what I am. Broken arms do heal, though… I wonder if I should go for my gun anyway. As long as I can ignore the blinding pain, I should be able to shoot him. Of course, I didn’t really come here to turn one of the school’s educators into a pile of smoking dust.

  “You don’t know who you’re messing with,” Helmut growls. “Show him, Jules.”

  “Let. Him. Go,” Julian says, and extends one hand, palm up and fingers spread, toward his brother.

  The area we’re standing in is a little wooded park, with two benches and a waterfall trickling over a boulder and into a rock-edged pool. At Julian’s gesture, the waterfall’s trickle becomes a gush, a cascade—and then the flow of water bends in midair, as if an invisible drainpipe has just been stuck under the flow. It surges toward Julian and Silverado, splashes at their feet, then winds around their legs like a watery anaconda.

  “Lems don’t need to breathe any more’n pires do,” Silverado says calmly.

  “Water can do more than drown,” Julian answers.

  He’s right. The stream of water that’s curling around them redirects itself so that it’s only wrapped around Silverado’s body. Then it condenses, looking more like a silvery blue tube than a torrent of liquid. I hear metal creak, and think of submarines at the bottom of the ocean. I have no doubt Julian has enough power to crush Silverado’s metal shell like an egg.

  “And silver can cut more than meat,” the lem says. He slashes downward with the big, bowie-style knife at one of the aquatic loops coiled around him, and cuts it in two.

  Julian bellows in pain as the snake bursts like a water balloon, releasing me as he collapses. Helmut, the knife no longer at his throat, breaks free and lunges forward. I try to stop him and get a quick lesson in pire versus human strength, as I go from being one Wiebe’s captive to another. Julian is facedown on the path, knocked out by some kind of psychic backlash.

  “I’m not as subtle as my brother,” Helmut snarls. “Let me go or I’ll just rip her head off.” He’s got me around the throat with one arm, his fingers hooked around my upper teeth with the other. I don’t know if he’s actually strong enough to do that, but I smell the acrid stink of Cloven on his fingers and know he’s crazed enough to try.

  Silverado holds the knife by the blade, handle up. I can tell from his stance he’s getting ready to throw, and I really don’t think he can take Helmut out with me in the way.

  “Don’t do it,” Charlie says.

  Helmut whirls to the side, taking me with him. I can taste dirt and nicotine on his fingers. Charlie’s just come through the fire door, and his own throwing arm is cocked. He’s got one of the iron-cored, silvercoated ball bearings he favors in one hand, and I know from experience he can bull’s-eye a beer can at a hundred feet.

  The bounty hunter and my partner study each other, me stuck in the middle. This should be fun… “Either of you moves,” Helmut warns, “and she goes topless.” He’s standing sideways, Charlie to the left, Silverado to the right.

  Both of them ignore him. “Don’t much care about the drug-runner,” Charlie says. “Don’t much care about the lady,” Silverado replies. “She’s my partner.”

  “He’s my paycheck.” I pull out my gun and jam it in Helmut’s ribs. “Lef me go, ooh muvvafugga,” I manage. He glances down, but otherwise igno
res me. Lovely. “A shooter,” Silverado says. “Interestin’. Prefer she didn’t use it, though.”

  “Understandable. How about we do this so neither of them gets too banged up?”

  “Works for me.” Silver flashes red in the last rays of twilight. Twin impacts sound, so close together they merge into one: half meaty thunk, half loud crack. Helmut screams, in a much higher pitch than his brother did, and both his arms go limp. Charlie’s shattered the elbow on the arm that was around my throat, while Silverado’s knife now juts from the meaty part of Helmut’s other forearm. I dive forward, out of his grasp, and resist the urge to shoot him just for good measure.

  “You still got legs,” Silverado tells him. “You wanna keep on usin’ em, I wouldn’t run.”

  I spit, trying to get the taste of unwashed pire out of my mouth, and holster my pointless gun. “Jace Valcheck,” I say to Silverado, and pull out my ID. “And this is Charlie Aleph. NSA.”

  “Silverado, bail enforcement agent. But that probably don’t come as much of a surprise.” He’s already got Helmut in cuffs, and yanks his knife casually out of the pire’s arm as he hauls him to his feet. He wipes the blood off on Helmet’s jacket, then slides the knife into a leather bandolier across his chest that holds half a dozen more.

  “We know who you are,” Charlie says. He picks up the ball bearing from the ground, clicks it back into its spring-loaded holster up his sleeve.

  I nudge Julian with my foot, but he’s still out. “Nasty kick that knife of yours has.” Silverado regards me, expressionless—or rather, with the one expression he has. “Magic don’t like silver much, Shinto or not.”

  “You don’t disrupt an animist spell of that power by sticking it with a shiny piece of metal,” I say. “Not even high-grade silver.” Two months ago I wouldn’t have known that, but I learn from my mistakes.

  Charlie crosses his arms. “Not unless the blades have a little magic in them, too.”

  “Everything’s got a little magic in it,” Silverado says. “That’s what magic’s all about—that bit of spirit in each and every thing. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Or in your case,” said Charlie, “seven things.”

  The bounty hunter pauses. “Uh-huh. I can see you folks want to talk. How about I secure my commission here and we do this somewhere civilized?”

  “I’ll go with you,” Charlie says. “Wouldn’t want you to get lost.”

  “And I’ll deal with Mr. Wet N’ Wild,” I say. “I think he’ll be a lot more reasonable when he comes to with a headache and his brother gone.”

  “I need a doctor!” Helmet abruptly wails. “I’m wounded!”

  “Relax,” Silverado says. “I got some first-aid supplies in my car—I ain’t about to let you bleed all over my seats, anyway. And you’re a pire, ain’t you? Just pretend you dropped your tray at the buffet or somethin’.” He leads his prisoner away, Charlie following close behind. “I’ll call you when we’re squared away,” Charlie says.

  I nod, then kneel beside the comatose Shinto priest. I hope he’s in a better mood when he wakes up. He is—better being a relative term, of course. For instance, he’s in a better mood than a mother grizzly who’s watching you use one of her cubs as a soccer ball. He’s even in a marginally better mood than he was when Silverado short-circuited his brain. A good mood being in, he is not. “Where is my brother?” he thunders at me. Literally; lightning bolts are dancing around his skull, arcing from eye to eye behind his head like an electric halo that was put on too loose and slipped down.

  I stare at him coolly, my arms crossed. “On his way back to prison, where he belongs. You can join him, if you like—I don’t think your little April showers routine will impress them much at Stanhope.” He glowers at me, but after a moment he takes a deep breath and then lets it out. The lightning fades.

  He looks more sad than angry now. “Look,” I say. “I understand you were only looking out for family. You weren’t actually harboring him, and you attacked me before I’d clearly identified myself. All that is forgivable—unless I find out you and your brother were in business together.”

  Now he looks more shocked than shocking. “Absolutely not! I begged him to change his life—even got him accepted at the school! And then he was arrested for making that poison …” He looks away, ashamed.

  I nod. “Okay. But if it turns out you’re lying to me, and you and your brother wanted to turn this campus into your own private pharmaceutical outlet, my partner and I will be back. Count on it.”

  He doesn’t reply, just hangs his head. Pretty convincing, but I’m the cynical sort. I’ll have Gretch go over his history with a microscope, see if he holds up. “I’ll be in touch,” I say, and walk away down the path.

  By the time I find the parking lot where we stashed the car, I’ve persuaded myself that Julian Wiebe is on the up-and-up. Not because I have any faith in the honesty of the religious establishment, but because magic’s involved. Shinto is all about connecting to nature, and there’s no way the introduction of an artificial element like Cloven into the environment could go unnoticed by the other high-level shamans running the place.

  I’ve been waiting in the car for about five minutes when my cell rings. Charlie gives me directions to a diner on the outskirt of Granite Falls, where he and Silverado will meet me.

  There are only three vehicles parked at the diner when I pull in: a white minivan with a car seat and a BABY ON BOARD sticker, a flashy two-door Honda sports car, and a dusty black ’68 Mustang with a loud thumping noise coming from the trunk. Guess I know where Silverado stashed his paycheck.

  The diner’s one of those places with lots of fake log paneling and deer heads on the walls, rows of booths down either wall and skinny little tables for two people at a time in the middle. I spot Silverado and Charlie at a booth in the far corner, two cups of coffee cooling in front of them. Lems don’t eat or drink; their server must have made them order something. I slide into the booth beside Charlie and grab his—no sense letting it go to waste.

  Silverado watches me without saying a word. He’s taken his straw hat off, revealing something I haven’t seen before: a lem with hair. It’s short and curly, made of copper wire fine enough that it’s been used for his eyebrows, too. His eyes are silver, his bronze features molded into permanent sternness. From this close, I can see that not only is his jaw hinged, but his lips are made of painted rubber. The paint is peeling, making them look chapped.

  “Nice little mobile hoosegow you got out there,” I say.

  “Gets the job done.”

  The waiter, a pale, tubby pire with a combover, shuffles over and asks me if I’d like to order.

  “Already have, thanks. But you only had to bring one coffee.” I push the other one over to him. “This one’s a mistake. Take it back.”

  Tubby blinks and says, “These two ordered those.”

  “I think you’re confused,” I say pleasantly. “That makes no sense. Here’s what makes sense: My two friends came in to wait. They ordered a coffee for me, because they’re considerate and thoughtful. You brought two by mistake, but they were far too polite to mention that. Then I showed up.”

  I put that special little edge in my voice that every law enforcement professional knows. “But I am not a polite person. I’m a cop. And I’m telling you that only one coffee should appear on our bill, not two. You following me?”

  “Uh, yeah.” He swallows. “You—you want anything else?”

  “No, thank you.” He grabs the coffee and turns tail, scuttling back to the kitchen where he can regale the cook with tales of his horrifying experience and how those people shouldn’t be allowed in here. “Mr. Silverado,” I say. “Thank you for agreeing to talk to us.”

  “Talk’s cheap. So is coffee, for that matter.” He sounds more amused than impressed by my little blow for golem rights, but I don’t care—it makes me crazy when people don’t treat Charlie like a person. “Silver isn’t. Especially not enchanted silver—like the S
even Teeth of the Moon.”

  “Uh-huh. Or Excalibur, I guess. Or maybe that big mallet Thor uses for croquet when he ain’t whipping up hurricanes.”

  “The Seven Teeth aren’t myths, Silverado. You’ve got them right there on that bandolier.” He hasn’t moved anything other than his lips; even though I’m used to Charlie, the bounty hunter’s complete stillness is a little unnerving. “Let me save you some time,” he says. “First off, the only magic these here blades have in ’em are what sharpness spells I can afford on a bounty hunter’s wage. And second, they ain’t for sale.” He pauses. “Sentimental value.”

  “Right,” Charlie says. “You seem like a real sentimental guy.”

  “I cry at the movies.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie says levelly. “Me, too.”

  “We’re not interested in your knives. We’re here to talk about the Bravo Brigade.”

  “That so.” I resist the urge to say yep. “Doctor Transe is dead.” He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but I have no idea what he’s thinking. “That’s a shame,” he says at last. “What’s it to do with me?”

  “You fought alongside him. Don’t you care?”

  “I’m just an old lem trying to make a living. I don’t know about—”

  “Stop. You’re the Quicksilver Kid and we both know it. Talk to me straight or I’ll make sure no law enforcement agency ever works with you again.” Another pause. He turns his head slightly to look at Charlie. “She any good?”

  “Best I’ve worked with,” Charlie says. “You’re still young. Me, I’ve worked with legends. But then, I guess you two know that.” He looks back at me. “And I’d kind of like to keep on working. So ask me what you’re here to ask me.” I ask him where he was on the night of the murder; he tells me he was here, trying to pin down Helmut Wiebe. I ask him if he can prove it and he produces gas receipts from a battered leather wallet. Not conclusive, of course—he didn’t stay in a motel, and Seattle’s an hour’s drive away. “Transe was killed with something sharp and silver,” I say. “Sound familiar?”