Council of Peacocks (22 page)

***

There is an old saying that a wise man knows
much but says little. So it took more than a little arrogance to
portray oneself as the embodiment of Wisdom. It was not the name
he’d been given at birth, but he had been known as Wyndam Wisdom
for at least the last three thousand years.

Of course, there is a second part to that old
saying: a fool knows little but says much. Wisdom had to admit now
how foolish he’d been. Since gaining his freedom he had been
reckless and brash, conceited and short sighted. If he’d thought
things through with the foresight his name implied, Echo would
still be alive.

Wait.

“Echo still
is
alive.” Wisdom shook
his head and opened his eyes. He’d fallen asleep on the leather
sofa in his office, something he never did. It seemed like a very
long time since he’d slept anywhere at all. “Still alive,” he
repeated: a mantra. If he wanted her to stay that way he couldn’t
afford to sleep. Maybe if he tracked down this off-worlder he could
alter events enough to prevent the murder of the only woman he
truly cared for.

He spent the next hour and a half making
phone calls and signing papers experience told him could not wait.
He returned to his living quarters and changed into a well-cut Sean
John suit in shades of crimson and scarlet. Then he called Elaine
in Hong Kong and told her what he planned to do.

“You know this is insane, right?” Her voice
came in clearly over the speakerphone.

“No more insane than time travel.” Wisdom
smiled and ate a Turtle from a second tray of chocolates Shirley
had just brought in.

“But isn’t this different? When you traveled
back in time, you knew what was going to happen. You knew all the
players. Wisdom, you know nothing about this guy or the planet he
comes from.”

“That’s precisely why I’m going.”

“What if he hurts you? Or kills you? What
happens to Echo and us if you’re not here to stop Propates?”

The smiled dropped from Wisdom’s face. “Trust
me when I say this, Elaine. I’ve tried everything else. Everything.
Obviously the Council of Peacocks has been working on levels I
never even conceived of. Turns out I only thought I knew my enemy.
I don’t even know what battle I’m in. How the hell can I win the
war?”

“You're not taking anyone with you, are you?
Not even me?”

Wisdom shook his head. “No. You’re going to
be needed here. Echo will come for you soon. She won't want your
help but she’ll need it. When you see them you'll know why. Just
know I tried to save them. I made a choice. They lost.”

“See whom, Wisdom?”

With a sigh, Wisdom turned to the window.
“Just know I’m sorry. If everything goes well, I should see you in
a few days.”

“And if things don’t go well?” Elaine did a
masterful job of hiding the tremor in her voice, but Wisdom had
known her too long to be fooled.

“I can’t believe you need to ask,” he said.
“You have seen me, haven’t you? Big man, big muscles, major voodoo?
I can take care of myself. Just don’t sleep with him this time,
okay?”

The other side of the phone connection went
silent for a moment. “Sleep with whom? Wisdom, I…”

Wisdom cleared his throat. “Forget I
mentioned it. Maybe it’ll be better if you do bed him, anyway.”

Wisdom hung up the phone, stood and walked to
the center of his living room. With a gliding wrist motion, he
distorted space-time. A glowing oval of light appeared beside him
and he stepped through the portal.

***

He emerged in a vacant hotel room in Niagara
Falls. It was the same one he had confronted Propates in, back in a
future he hoped no longer existed. It seemed the only logical place
for him to start his search for the off-worlder. At least here, he
could catch the scent.

After he left the hotel, it didn’t take him
long to find the alley where he’d seen the glint of gold and the
moving shadow. He stretched out his consciousness, seeing layer
upon layer of reality with his mind. There was no physical trace of
the off-worlder. Fortunately, being here was enough for Wisdom to
reawaken the sensation of being watched. He held the sensation, and
breathed in. He had the scent. Now all he had to do was follow it
back to the source.

Wisdom warped space-time again and stepped
through a disc of light. He traveled from Niagara Falls to Ojibway
Park in Windsor. It was late summer, the trees still at the height
of strength and beauty. He breathed in the rich oxygen of the woods
and tried to remember how long it had been since his last visit to
a natural area. Unable to do so, he closed the teleportation field
and stretched out his senses.

“Where are you?” He spun in a slow circle
trying to pinpoint where the scent of the outlander was strongest.
Presumably, it had been many years since the stranger had made an
appearance here. To Wisdom’s sense, time was only a thin barrier.
Beneath the tranquility he originally felt, there was deep anger in
the woods. He stopped spinning and unbuttoned his suit jacket.
Something was very wrong with these woods. The trees screamed out
with rage. The underbrush murmured secret plots to the ground. The
air tasted of sulfur and burning coal.

He cursed under his breath and withdrew his
senses. He clenched his fists and slowly walked to a clearing 100
yards away. In the sunlight, it was difficult to see the figure at
first. Thankfully, Wisdom knew how to see the invisible. Before
him, standing fourteen feet tall, was a bipedal incarnation of
fire. Thick legs like tree trunks and bulging muscular arms gave
the figure an undeniable impression of menace. His flesh curled and
flickered in slow flame, like superheated gases or the shimmering
of an oasis in the distance. Despite being translucent, the figure
implied solidness. His presence was over-towering, like a mountain.
The look of pity on his face was enough to shake Wisdom's
resolve.

“What are you here for, father?”

“Oh, it’s not what I want that matters.” His
father spoke in a voice like static and the burning of tree sap.
“You came here looking for something. What was it?”

“Not you. Go back to your Hell. I’m more
powerful than you remember, and I don’t have time for this.”

The figure laughed lightly. “The way you’ve
been jumping back and forth through time tells me you have all the
time in the world. Tell me, do you honestly think you can change
what has already been written? Creation is like a painting. If you
try to erase what’s on the canvas, you improve nothing and ruin
everything. Just let her die and be done with this nonsense.”

What little resolve he’d mustered dissipated.
Were any of his actions a secret? “If you know about the time
traveling, you must also know I’ve killed you before. Just stay out
of my way, you old bastard, and I won’t do it again.”

The towering figure of smokeless fire took a
step back and shook his head. “You killed me? Really. How
interesting. Well, that would explain why the future is unclear to
me. Partly. You should know, as a Djinn I don’t fear death. I exist
outside of time as the humans see it. If you destroy this body,
this incarnation, I simply return to the Mother Flame from which
all our kind are made. If you had been born in Kaz you would
understand that. But look at you. You’re useless and lazy. You were
given amazing talents and what do you do with them? Petty intrigues
and capitalism. You’ve always been a disappointment to me,
Akushula.”

“My name is Wisdom.” He clenched his fists
and felt old angers stir up the fire in him. “You’re no one to talk
about wasting gifts. Especially to me. I’ve made a difference with
my life. Each day, because of me, people’s lives are better. Over a
thousand people work for me directly. I teach the Anomalies to live
with their demonic nature. If not for me, every one of them would
have succumbed to their darkest nature by now. So, don’t you dare
say I’m wasting my life!”

“But you could have been so much more
if…”

“If what? If I’d been more like you? What do
you do with your life? You watch. That’s it. You bathe yourself in
the narcotics of voyeurism while I’m actually in the world making a
difference. Just because you’ve wasted your life doesn’t mean I’m
wasting mine.”

The Djinn took a step forward, the heat of
his body pushing Wisdom back. “If you had spent more time watching
and less time doing, you would understand why I withdrew from the
world. Something is coming, Wisdom. Something far beyond anything
you can handle. The only reason I’m here is to take you back where
you belong. For once, live up to the name you’ve chosen and come
with me. You can’t be here when the end game starts.”

“I am where I belong. And I’m not going
anywhere. I remember what you did to my mother. You raped her.
Tried to murder her.”

The Djinn sighed. “I apologized for that.
What more can I say?”

“What more can you say? It’s not something
you can apologize for! It pretty much puts you under the bad guy
column for all time. Growing up, you beat me, treated me like a
slave. So now you’re old and you want me to forgive all your sins?
Well, sorry. I do not forgive!”

For a moment, the clearing crackled with
unseen energy, a tension on the verge of breaking. The Djinn shook
his head and sighed again. “Fine. Have it your way. I’ve tried to
be reasonable but you’re still weak, short-sighted. A complete
waste of life. If you won’t come home willingly, I will beat you
into submission.”

Wisdom called forth the hellfire. “Old man,
that’s not going to work anymore.”

And the battle began.

Chapter Sixteen

August
6
^th

“
I won again,”
Jared said.

By 11:00 p.m., the
common room in London was deserted. Most of the refugees from
Toronto chose the isolation of their private quarters over the
threat of conversation with others. Small talk inevitably led back
to the attack, which made everyone
uncomfortable.

“
Give her a break.”
Josh took the controller from Garnet as Jared did his happy dance.
For the third night in a row, the three of them had
played
Mortal
Kombat
after supper.
“She’s getting better. At least this time she landed a
punch.”

“
Bite me,” Garnet
said as she ran her fingers through her hair. “Some of us haven’t
wasted our lives mastering video games.”

“
Your loss,” Jared
said. Then he put his controller down, no longer smiling.
“Something’s very wrong, isn’t it?”

“
D’ya think?”
Garnet rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. She looked several
years older than she had when Josh had first met her. “Wisdom
disappeared again and no one seems to know where the rest of the
Anomalies are. I’m glad to see those psychic powers of yours aren’t
going to waste, bud.”

Jared rolled his
eyes. “You know what I mean. It’s worse than anyone is letting on.
There’s way more security than normal. Since when does Wisdom need
security, anyway?”

Josh raised his
hand. “If we’re taking votes I’m all in favor of enhanced security.
Maybe Wisdom just realizes that, whatever he is, he’s not
immortal.”

“
He’s close
enough.” Garnet frowned and went to the window. Late at night, the
city was lit with street lamps and illuminated rectangles from
office buildings.

“
You can’t be
serious,” Josh snorted.

“
Of course I’m
serious. I’m telling you, I’ve seen the things he’s capable of.
Unbelievable things. You’ve seen the way he travels. How is that
even possible? The physics are mind-numbing. Nothing our scientists
know about reality today can explain it, and I’ve done the
research. Aside from that, do you have any idea old he
is?”

“
No,” Jared said,
returning to his game. “And neither do you.”

“
Well, not exactly.
But I have a pretty good idea. I know for a fact he was alive
during the Inquisition.”

“
Bull,” Josh said.
He returned to the game but it was difficult to concentrate.
Pressure kept building up at the base of his neck. His head started
to spin.

“
Scout’s honor.”
Garnet put her hand on the window. She squinted her eyes as if
trying to focus on something down on the street. “In fact, I’d put
money on him being over a thousand years old.”

“
You’re on drugs.”
Josh threw the controller down on the couch and pressed the heels
of his hands against his forehead. The pressure was
unbearable.

“
Every chance I
get, but that doesn’t change the facts.” Garnet leaned back. “He’s
definitely not human.”

“
So, if he’s not
human, what is he, then?”

Jared slowly
lowered his controller and turned toward the
window.

“
A
demon.”

“
What?” Josh almost
choked on his own tongue.

Jared stood and
shook his head. “Not Wisdom. Out there. I can feel it. A demon is
heading up the street. I think it’s coming
here.”

Garnet backed away
from the window. She walked over to the phone and dialed an
extension.