Alaskan Fury (45 page)

Thunderbird blinked and glanced
out the door.  “What bird?”

“
Leave
the wolf and I will
leave
your
hoard
,” the djinni snapped back.

The dragon began to bristle.  “I
do not want to be involved in this.  There are those to the north that will
help you.  Get out.  All of you.”

“Did I ask you to speak, lizard?”
Thunderbird demanded.

“This is
my cave
!”  The
dragon’s roar made the stone vibrate.  Flaring his wings, the dragon lowered
his head and started to stalk towards the Thunderbird, who sighed nonchalantly
got back to his feet.  The air in the room began to sizzle as the two magi
stared each other down, and Kaashifah began backing away and throwing up
shields.

“The Ballad of the Unicorn’s
Horn,” the djinni cried, stepping between the two First-Landers, “Begins with a
virgin.”

Both the dragon and the
Thunderbird hesitated, then slowly, their gazes broke from each other and
flickered to the djinni.  “A virgin?” the dragon muttered. 

“A
buxom
virgin,” the
djinni agreed.

The dragon twitched.  “…buxom.”

“Very.  A unicorn girl.  But very
sheltered.”  The djinni grinned.  “She quests to discover why her mother tells
her all men have horns.”

“…horns…”  The dragon’s lips
twitched slightly before he twisted to scowl at Thunderbird again.

“It’s quite funny,” Thunderbird
said.  He settled back to the floor and stretched out on the blanket, propped
up by an elbow.  As he idly started picking at grapes, it was quite apparent
that he wasn’t going anywhere.

Again, the dragon’s hackles
started to raise.

“
Magic
horns,” the djinni
interrupted.

The dragon snorted and turned
back to glare at the Fourthlander.  For a long moment, he only scowled.  But
there was an undercurrent of curiosity to the dragon’s sniff of disdain.  “I
suppose
I could stay and listen to you caterwaul, djinni.  It’s not like I’m going to
leave my home to an avian fop who missed his twelve-o-clock appointment with
his beautician.”

Thunderbird frowned, mid-grape. 
“I did?”

“The
virgin
,” the djinni
continued, “had never before felt the touch of a man.”

“Oh
come on
!” Kaashifah
screamed.  “I have
heard
this before.”

“Silence, cockroach,” the dragon
said, at the same time the Thunderbird glanced at her and said around a
mouthful of dates, “You should find new meaning in this one, wench.”

Fuming, Kaashifah slumped down on
the floor, as far away from the djinni as she could get, and tried to figure
out how she was going to entice the dragon to remove her curse.  

Chapter
17: A Handful of Snow

Herr Drescher landed the
helicopter and Jacquot came running out the back door of the compound, head
low.  Imelda pulled her pistol from her belt, checked the chamber, and flung
her door wide.

Jacquot came to a wary halt when
he saw the gun.

Imelda didn’t pause.  She strode
up, lifted the gun, and, as Jacquot stumbled backwards, nonchalantly dropped it
into his startled hands.  “Take that to the armory to get it cleaned,” she
said, as she went by.

“Herr Drescher was
grounded
,
Inquisitrice,” Jacquot called behind her, still rooted in place on the helo
pad.

“I un-grounded him,” Imelda said,
without stopping.  “What news on the dragons?”

For a long moment, Jacquot didn’t
follow her, and Imelda could almost
feel
the barrel of her gun, aimed at
her back.  Then she heard his footsteps crunching on the snow as he hurried to
catch up.  “They found nothing,” Jacquot said, jogging up behind her.  “I’m
sorry, ma mie, it’s looking like your hunch with the dragons is proving
futile.  What were you doing with the German?  You were gone most of the day.” 
He eyed the brown paper sack she carried under her arms.

“We went out drinking,” Imelda
said.  “Had some beers, saw a movie.  Since you were out on business…”  She
handed him the brown paper sack.  As she walked, Jacquot warily looked into the
sack at the nice Bordeaux that she had picked up when the German had landed
them in the parking-lot of a Brown Jug on the way back.  “My favorite,” Jacquot
said, sounding surprised.  “You…um…used a helicopter to go drinking, ma mie?”

She gave him a frown.  “I’m an
Inquisidora.  They are for my use.  Why?  Are you uninterested?  Do you want me
to give Drescher the wine?  He insists he hasn’t had enough.”

To his credit, Drescher stumbled
off the tarmac and hit the side of the compound wall with a thud that shook the
foyer, then slid down into the bench, reeking of alcohol.  He waved at them
with a big grin as they walked by.

Jacquot’s face twisted in
disgust.  “Drescher should not be flying a helicopter in his condition, ma
mie.  If the American authorities had caught him…  You should have called me. 
I would have come to get you.”

Imelda, who had been fighting
that weird, split-duality of her dream-vision all day, was rapidly finding her
thoughts building into another headache.  “Are you insane?  He flies much
better
drunk.”  She sighed.  “I am in need of my medication, a hot bath, and a hot
meal.  I’ll want my gun cleaned by tomorrow afternoon.  Drescher convinced me
to go down to the range for some practice and the slide started sticking.”

Jacquot frowned at her.  “I
thought you went out for beer and a movie.”

“That, too.”  Taking off her
outer coat inside the front door, she hung it on a peg and headed toward her
room.

Behind her, Jacquot had hesitated
in the doorway.  “Are we going to leave the fool out on the bench?  He seems to
have…fallen asleep.”

Imelda laughed and waved a
dismissive hand as she walked.  “He’s got Nordic blood.  It’s barely below
freezing.  He’ll be fine.  Is Zenaida around here?”

“She’s downstairs,” Jacquot said,
after giving the German one last, dubious look through the foyer window and
hurrying after her.

Imelda fought a flutter of fury
in her gut.  Feeling that strange half-step-behind sensation, she said, “Tell
her I have some news that’s developed on the djinni front regarding the wolf. 
I got its name, and I figured out how the damn thing evaded the exterminations
in the fourth century.”

Jacquot hesitated, his eyes widening. 
“You
did
?  How?”

Inwardly, Imelda narrowed her
eyes.  Zenaida must have been telling Jacquot much more than she’d been leaking
to the rest of the Order.  After all,
angels
couldn’t have survived
mass
exterminations
in the fourth century, because
angels
belonged to
God
. 
As far as she knew, no one else had made the connection between angels and
Furies, and to even do so was, according to Church doctrine, pagan blasphemy.

…yet Jacquot had accepted it
without even blinking.  A good thing to note.

“I’m off to shower and get a bite
to eat.  Tell La Inquisidora she can catch me in the cafeteria in half an hour,
before Vespers.  After that, I will want to talk to
you
about proving
there’s dragons up north.  The technician found nothing at all?”

“Nothing, ma mie,” Jacquot said,
mournfully.  “We’ve wasted many weeks on drones and satellite.”

Imelda made a dismissive wave of
her hand.  “We’ll find something.  But for now, I’m afraid that Drescher’s
skills of persuasion have gotten the best of me.  I needed a break, and I’m not
in my best head.  Can’t believe the idiot Americans let us onto the range.  I
could barely hit the paper, though Drescher’s aim seemed to have improve with
drink, much like his flying.”

“I’ve heard that,” Jacquot said
with a grimace toward the foyer.  “Are you
sure
he will be all right out
there?  He might try to get back into the helicopter…”

Imelda dangled a set of keys
between them and then stuffed them back into her pocket, grinning.  “Already
thought of it, my good man.”  Then she hesitated, seemingly considering.  “Have
you heard from Padre Vega recently?  He said he was going to come down and
borrow a few books from the library, but I haven’t seen him.  Hmmm.  I suppose
I should have used the opportunity to stop by his place today, but he wasn’t
answering his phone.  Certainly would have been a better use of my time than
drinking Drescher under the table.  For a German, the man can’t hold his liquor
worth a damn.”

There was that startled flicker
in Jacquot’s eyes, and Imelda knew.  The three mugs at her Padre’s house.  Jacquot
had
been
there.  Jacquot had taken Zenaida to her Padre.  Jacquot, who
had been invited into Padre Vega’s living room to share coffee with her a
hundred times, had led Zenaida to him.  Realizing that, a carnal surge of
hatred made her have to clench her fists, lest she reach for his throat.  Had
Zenaida disguised herself with a Second Lander illusion?  A vision of Imelda,
or someone familiar to him?  Had they lulled him into talking about the pendant,
let him incriminate himself with talk of Jefferson and Fates before they finally
dropped the charade and led him to the rack? 

So strong was the welling of fury
that she didn’t even hear the excuse Jacquot gave.  He had
helped
her. 
He had probably been on the same damn run that had brought her Padre to the
compound.  But how long ago?  What if he had already been
killed
? 
Imelda had to fight the impulse to reach out, grab the wiry Frenchman by the
front of his vest, and throw him against the wall.  Or at least grab him.  She
doubted she had the strength to throw a
child
right now, much less a
hale and physically powerful man like Jacquot, but she was angry enough to try.

Instead, she forced a grunt. 
“Yes, well, I’ll have to get someone to fly me out there tomorrow.  I’ll be in
the shower.  Make sure that gun gets cleaned, and that Zenaida knows I’ve had a
breakthrough with the wolf.” 

“I could just…relay…the
information, ma mie,” Jacquot offered.

Imelda laughed.  “I wish you
could, Jacquot, seeing how I’d rather not waste my breath on the vile woman,
but I’ve finally got something big—something we’ve been missing
all
this
time—and I want to see if the stupid concha has any ideas she’ll give me before
she figures out I’m not telling her anything important.”

Jacquot’s eyes narrowed almost
imperceptibly and he said, “I’ll let her know.”

I’m sure you will,
Imelda
thought.  She nodded and unlocked the door to her room. 

Seeing the interior, she froze. 
The light was off in her bathroom.

“Actually, on second thought,”
she said, closing the door again, “The liquor is not sitting well on an empty
stomach.  I think I’ll go straight to the cafeteria, instead.  Tell Zenaida to
catch me there if she wants to talk to me tonight.”

Jacquot, the snake, looked
disappointed as she re-locked her door.

A surprise awaits me inside,
then,
Imelda thought, with a grimace.  She tried not to think about what
sort of gift that Zenaida’s thugs had left for her in her absence.  With the
spell on the medicine foiled—and all of its contents flushed down the
sewer—Zenaida would know that Imelda knew that she was trying to kill her…  And
would plan her next surprise accordingly.

Feeling the increasing pounding
in her head, Imelda decided she would deal with it later, once she’d had a
chance to chat with Zenaida.

Ignoring Jacquot’s look of
disappointment, she went to the cafeteria, filled a plate, then sat in a corner
and pretended to read a newspaper while she picked at her food.

Zenaida came to find her five
minutes later, her fellow Sister wearing a tight set of black jeans and a
short, dark green tanktop that showed her flat, muscular stomach.  At her hips,
her turquoise belt glittered gold in the cafeteria light.  At her neck, the
winged sword brazenly shared space upon her neck with the cross.  Her thick
blonde hair had been braided in a heavy rope that had been clipped and bound at
the back of her knees.  Hair that was, now that Imelda thought about it, much
too thick to be human.

“So,” Zenaida said, settling into
the seat across from her, her stone-gray eyes looking amused, “I hear you have
made some progress on the fallen angel.”  The woman picked up a pepper-shaker
in too-perfect hands and started fiddling with it.

Immortal’s hands,
Imelda
thought, watching the light dance off of the glass between her elegant
fingers.  In fact, every line of Zenaida’s face, every curve of her body held
that same agelessness as a vampire, the same timelessness as a fey.  Why had
she never seen this before?

“All right,” Imelda said,
carefully closing her newspaper and setting it aside.  “You and I can agree
that we don’t like each other, correct?”

Zenaida snorted as if she found
that amusing.  “I suppose.”

“I think it’s time we start
working together.  I have some breakthroughs, and I know you probably have a
few you could share, as well.  It’s time we stopped squabbling and pooled our
resources to bring down a common enemy.  This angel with the djinni.  I went to
meet her.”

Zenaida’s fingers stopped moving
on the glass.  Very slowly, the woman looked up, and the coldness in her stone
gray eyes left Imelda with chills.  “If you’re going to waste my time with
lies, I have better things I could be doing.”

“I went and spoke with them,”
Imelda insisted.  “Reconnaissance, if you will.”

Disbelief shone in Zenaida’s
eyes.  “How did you find her?”

Imelda wasn’t about to tell the
woman that only an
idiot
wouldn’t have been able to find the two, given
the conditions, but from what Herr Drescher had told her, that’s exactly what
Zenaida had been trying to do, with
all
of their teams, and failing
miserably.

Probably, Imelda thought, looking
into the bubbling anger in Zenaida’s eyes, because the woman had been relying entirely
on magic, instead of common sense.  “It wasn’t difficult,” she said.  “I went
in backed by Drescher.  Asked her a few questions, then left.  She is, indeed,
a fallen angel.  Spoke of being tossed from heaven by her fellow angels, and
keeping the company of serpents.”

Zenaida’s lips curled slightly in
a smile and she seemed to relax.  “And she was bitten by a wolf.  She lost her
power.”

“So it seems,” Imelda said. 

“You said she told you her name?”
Zenaida asked, much too casually.

Imelda gave her a long look. 
“What do
you
know of her?”

Zenaida gave her a sly smile, and
her fingers started working the pepper shaker again.  “Just how much would you
like to know?”

“You’re like her,” Imelda said. 
“It doesn’t take much to figure that out.”

If Zenaida was surprised, she
gave no sign.  Instead, her cunning smile spread.  “That’s where you’re wrong. 
They never cast me out.”

Imelda felt something click into
place for her, amidst the glass shards in her brain.  When asked the same
question, the djinni’s angel had become infuriated and defensive and told her a
story of being cast down by her sisters—but not of losing her lord’s favor. 
Zenaida,
completely on her own
, had offered up the fact that she had
never been thrown from the temples—but said nothing of her lord’s favor. 
Imelda glanced again at the pendant around Zenaida’s neck.  It didn’t seem to
have the
age
of the other one.  The lines were sharper.  And, now that
she was looking, there was a minor detail missing, at the pommel of the sword,
a flange that went upwards, instead of down…