Finn Fancy Necromancy (42 page)

Lucky for us, love was as deep as the ocean, wide as the sea, powerful as the tides, and all that sappy stuff.

A rattling knock on the downstairs slider door frames made me jump. Everyone else in the room did the same.

“That's for me,” I whispered. “I think. Be ready to run for the car if not.” I stood and crept down the stairs.

Priapus stood waiting outside the shattered glass door with arms crossed, his muscles bulging.

“It's okay,” I called back up the stairs, then proceeded down to face the gnome over the line of salt and now-glowing line of wards we'd cobbled together on the floor.

“Ya wanna make a bargain?” the gnome asked. “Because I gotta tell ya, buddy, after the last few days it's gonna cost ya big-time.”

“I got you into the EMP.”

“Yeah. And every frickin' artifact in the room had security spells on 'em.”

“I didn't think that was a problem for you guys.”

“It ain't. But it takes time. And magic. And ta not have half the frickin' enforcers in the world bustin' inta the joint while we're doing it, see?”

“Sorry. It's not like I told them you were there, though. Did you at least get a dead wizard's sock like you wanted?”

“Don't worry 'bout what we got. If we hadn't gotten nothing of worth, buddy, you'd be a foot shorter about now. But like I said, you wanna make another deal with my family, it's gonna cost,
capiche
?”

“Actually,” I said. “How'd you like to get a little revenge?”

28

Down Under

Zeke, Pete, and I waited in the Undertown Wine and Coffee bar, a café built in Port Townsend's underground world of Shanghai tunnels and funky basements. At 4
A.M.
, the place was filled with feybloods and arcana night owls enjoying coffee, tea, pig's blood, Danishes, and other delicacies mundane and magical before the place opened to the mundy morning crowd.

Reggie entered the café followed by his young sidekick Jo, wearing their black and white federal agent suits. They had their game faces on—nobody who looked in their eyes would waste their time with small talk, or bragging, or talking about last night's dream.

I felt for the gun in my jacket pocket.

“Zekiel,” Reggie said as he stopped in front of Zeke, ignoring Pete and me. “About time you called me.”

Zeke shrugged. “I just didn't want to bother you with my problems 'less I had to.”

“And I didn't want to have to hunt you down like a criminal. But Gramaraye's time is up, and the ARC's looking for you now too. Situation's not good, man. What you said on the phone, about Vee being captured by whoever attacked your transfer, you're sure about this?”

“Deadly sure.”

Reggie stared unmoving at Zeke for a second, then flipped the edge of Zeke's white jacket. “Looking good, old man.”

“It still gets the job done,” Zeke replied.

“Long as you're wearing it, I don't doubt it,” Reggie said, and handed Zeke a small foil bag labeled
PEANUT BRITTLE
. “Brought this, by the way. Hope it meets your need.”

“Thanks. Hopefully I won't need it. Look, Rege,” Zeke said, his tone serious as he tucked the bag inside his jacket. “What we're about to do, it ain't official enforcer business. And it's gonna be dangerous. I don't want to see you guys lose your positions, or be exiled like I was.”

Reggie put his hand on Zeke's shoulder. “We're not here as enforcers, Zekiel, otherwise you'd be arrested already. We're here as friends. How they treated you before, that was wrong. You just did what the ARC wouldn't. I'd have done the same, especially for little Vee, and now's my chance. So, give me the details. Who's the bad guy here?”

Zeke glanced at me. I stood up. “A group of arcana bent on starting another Fey-Arcana war kidnapped Vee and the others, and they want Zeke dead,” I said. “And they may have sasquatch and waerwolf mercenaries with them.”

Jo raised a single eyebrow. “Is this guy serious, Zeke?”

“He likes to make with the jokes, but this ain't one of them,” Zeke said.

“Rogue feybloods are one thing. Rogue arcana—” Reggie shook his head. “I wish we could bring in the ARC on this one. Does this group of yours have a name?”

“Arcanites,” I said.

Reggie grunted. “Nasty group. Works from the shadows. We hear rumors, but can't ever prove anything.”

“So you guys in or what?” Zeke asked.

Reggie glanced at Jo and nodded. “Yeah, we're in, Zekiel. So what's the plan?”

“We go in, kill the bad guys, and save the girls,” I said.

Reggie chuckled. “I like it. Simple. It's been a while since things were simple.”

“I hope you're just joking,” Jo said. “We need to capture these people, interrogate them. If—”

Reggie put a hand on her arm. “This isn't an arrest, Rook. This is old-school us versus them. If someone attacks you, put them down hard, or they might get back up and hit one of us from behind, got it?”

She gave a single sharp nod.

“Shall we get moving, then?” I motioned toward the door.

We left the café and moved to the far shadowy corner of the tunnel. I touched the wall and said,
“Aperire Ostium!”

Reggie grabbed my arm. “Are you certain it's wise to use the tunnels? The feybloods have little love of our kind.”

“We have safe passage,” I assured him. “I made a deal with the local gnome family. It's the best way to get close to the Legion undetected.”

“You ain't chicken, are ya?” Zeke asked.

“I've learned to be cautious,” Reggie said. “Things aren't like in the old days, Zeke. And there's a lot of tension right now between us and the feybloods.”

The doorway opened, and we marched single file into the dank and musty tunnel beyond.

We traveled through the tunnels, led by Pete, with Jo at his side “taking point.” There were marker stones, but the gnomes and other feybloods who used the tunnels were known to switch or alter the markers at times to mislead intruders. Pete wasn't fooled for long, though. Even though we were underground, his uncanny sense of direction quickly warned him when we'd taken a wrong turn.

He also began sniffing at the air. And once, when he glanced back at me, I swear his eyes flashed yellow briefly.

I shivered. The worst thing that could happen was for Pete to have his first transformation in the middle of this mission. Bad enough that we had two enforcers with us, but Zeke hated waer creatures and disliked Pete regardless.

As we marched, I gave Reggie the basics of what had happened the last few days, though I left out the EMP and any other bits of possibly incriminating information. Then I joined Pete up front with Jo, sensing that Zeke and Reggie wanted to talk. The two men lagged behind.

After a minute, Reggie said, “I'm sorry I haven't been to see you yet, outside of work.” He clearly meant his low voice for Zeke's ears only, but the tunnel's acoustics carried his words forward.

“Don't need to apologize,” Zeke said. “You moved on, got a new partner. I've been gone a long time. I get it.”

“Zekiel, that's not fair. I've been busy with work, and well, you've never exactly been easy to talk to, damn it. Especially about us.”

“Well, this sure ain't the place to talk about it,” Zeke said.

“You know, a lot has changed since you left. There are women enforcers in the field, obviously. And, well, there isn't the same pressure for us guy enforcers to be all, you know—”

“Rege, drop it. I mean it.”

“Fine. But when this is all done, I expect to finish this talk.”

The tunnels led us up a slow but steady incline, until we reached a dead end with footholds carved into the wall. A round door of stone rested in the ceiling above. Pete pushed up on the door, and it swung up and open. “We're here,” he said.

We climbed one by one out of the grassy Fort Worden hillside beside Alexander's castle.

Alexander's castle wasn't so much a castle as a square brick tower with a cottage at its base. The tower had crenellated battlements like a castle, though, and I knew for a fact that brownies liked to perch atop it and fire their minuscule arrows at passersby, laughing as tourists slapped at nonexistent mosquitoes. It stood in a grassy field dotted with the occasional tree or bush, on a bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Once we were all out of the tunnel we sprinted across the moonlit field to the tree line.

The dock and Marine Science Center were almost directly below us, beyond a narrow band of grass and rocky beach. “Our enemy is hiding beneath that building,” I said.

Reggie grunted. “Crossing that dock unseen won't be easy even with our camouflage.”

“That's why we wait here,” I said.

“And what exactly are we waiting for?” Reggie asked. “An invitation?”

I took a deep breath. “The Króls. They hate us, but they have reason to hate the Legion even more. I requested a truce, and offered them the location of the ones responsible for killing their kin.”

Jo spat into the predawn gray night. “You'd deal with blood witches? And you still expect us to believe you're not a dark necromancer?”

“I'm using my enemies against each other,” I said.

Reggie rubbed at his bald head. “Assuming these Króls really are here, what exactly are they going to do?”

“I don't know. But whatever it is, I'm hoping it will create enough of a distraction that we can slip in and get to the girls quick and easy. And if not, the Króls should at least trip any alarms or traps before we do.” All that role-playing experience had come in handy after all.

Movement. I squinted. Two figures slunk along the rocky shoreline to the edge of the pier. One looked back over his shoulder, scanning the park, the moon reflecting off pale skin.

The Króls. They'd received my message from the gnomes.

“They're here,” I said.

The Króls stopped, and it looked as though one of them played a bone like a flute. After a minute, the ground darkened, and rippled. I squinted. What—?

“Rats,” Jo said.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“No, rats. The Króls have summoned a swarm of rats.”

The image of the shiny, writhing mass was disturbing but not half as disturbing as seeing just how many rats were within range of the Króls' call.

The Króls sprinted across the dock, and the swarm of rats writhed around them, fanning out behind them in a train of seething darkness. The Króls entered the Marine Center building, and the rats disappeared after them like oil draining down a funnel.

“Let's go,” Zeke said.

We hurried down a steep path to the park below, tree branches and berry vines snagging at us as we propelled ourselves down the slope. Pete bumped into me as everyone stopped and gathered at the bottom of the trail, then we sprinted across the open area to the dock. The concrete planks and soft lapping of water beneath us absorbed the sound of our footfalls, and we reached the building without incident. The door stood wide open.

“Wait here,” Zeke whispered. He and the other enforcers slipped inside. After a few seconds, Zeke reappeared. “All clear.”

We entered the main room of the Marine Science Center. Glass aquariums and imitation tide pools made of concrete and fake rock held starfish, octopuses, and other colorful sea creatures.

Zeke pulled back his sleeve and began tapping on his calculator watch. Jo put a hand on Zeke's wrist. “It's okay, old timer. There's an app for that.”

She pulled out a mobile phone, plugged a tiny crystal into the end of it, tapped on the screen, and held it up. I could see that it showed the room on its tiny screen as if on a video monitor, but overlaid on the image were a series of colored lines and text.

“Looks like there's alarms and wards all over the place, but they've all been tripped already. And there's a door hidden … there.” She pointed to a nearby tide pool.

She crossed to the tide pool, and tapped on the phone some more, then swiped her finger across it.

The tide pool wavered like a heat mirage. A glamour. The water and sea life inside it disappeared, replaced by a narrow stairwell leading down into darkness.

A roar of pain sounded from the darkness below.

Jo put away her phone. Reggie moved beside her. “Sounds like we'd better hurry or the Króls' distraction will be over.” He leaped over the small wall and descended the stairs, drawing his two batons and snapping them out to full extension. Zeke hopped the wall and followed after, with Jo close behind.

A wolf howl echoed up from below. Pete growled.

“You okay?” I asked him, drawing the pistol from my jacket pocket.

In response he leaped after the enforcers.

“Okay, then,” I muttered. “Ready or not, here we come.” I moved to the wall and heard a scratch behind me. I spun around and raised the revolver, waited a minute in frozen silence, but saw nothing. Probably a seagull outside. I hopped over the low wall and descended the narrow stairs, the cold of the ocean seeping through the concrete walls that pressed in on either side.

The stairs dumped out into a featureless gray room, unremarkable except for a pair of ancient diving suits, the kind with the big round metal helmets. These particular suits, however, had metal claws extending from the gloved hands like talons, and lay on the floor, stabbing at their own bodies and twitching as if in pain.

The dark writhing shapes of rats pressed against the inside of the helmets' windows.

Moving on.

I hurried through the single door and emerged into a long hallway just in time to see Pete sprint through a door at the far end. Two more doors stood opposite each other at the center of the hall. The entire length of the hallway was littered with rat bodies, and bits of rat bodies, and lots of rat blood, interspersed with scorch marks and chunks of blasted wall.