Twenty Palaces (18 page)

I slipped out of my jacket. The other employees were frozen in horror, their mouths gaping. I vaulted over the desk, snatched a sport coat off the back of a chair and wrapped it around the concierge's head. He screamed and struggled against me. I knew I was suffocating him, but better that for a few seconds than for him to breath in flames.
 

"Call 911!" The woman nearest to me jumped at the sound of my voice and grabbed a phone.
 

I kept beating at the flames, now working on this shoulders and chest. The sport coat began to flare at the edges and heat scorched my fingers.
 

The man's clothes wouldn't go out. I'd smothered the flames on his hair and head, but his clothes kept burning. "I'm sorry," I said. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry."

Someone fired off an extinguisher over my shoulder, and I rolled away. The extinguisher plume doused the flames better than I could have.
 

The concierge kept screaming. Employees flocked around him, all trying to contain his thrashing while they spoke to him in soothing tones. I stood and backed away. The whole lobby stank. A stick-thin woman sprinted across the lobby with her hand over her mouth.

"Thank you," a woman said to me. She was the employee who had picked up the phone. "You may have saved his life. What happened?"

"I don't know." I didn't even have to lie. I couldn't see the man through the crowd of people helping him, but I'd seen enough to know he'd be scarred for life. I tried to picture him here afterward, in that uniform, but I couldn't imagine it. And I had written Annalise's name on the envelope and given it to him, like handing him a bomb. It was my fault.

Annalise grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the front door. "I said let's go."

Outside, she slung one leg over the motorcycle and twisted my arm until I had to climb on behind her. Her mouth was a tight, angry line. She was royally pissed, but I couldn't tell if her anger was directed at Callin or me.

We rode south through the city, once again going too fast. I clung to Annalise's back, praying she wouldn't lose control and lay the bike down. She might have been too tough to be hurt, but I sure as hell wasn't.
 

And now she felt different. I had ridden behind her four times now, and I'd never felt her tiny body this rigid. She leaned forward farther than she had before, angled lower on the turns, and shifted gears sooner.
 

I'd turned them against each other. I hadn't planned it this way when I'd aimed Callin's envelope at Annalise--I couldn't have. But if it was the only way to convince her of the truth, so be it. Better to have her going after the real cause of Jon's troubles rather than Jon himself.
 

I just wish she had opened that damn envelope herself. I couldn't get that man's screams out of my head.

I also couldn't forget my uncle's expression as he told me about everything he'd lost in the fire, or that nameless drug dealer, who was probably no different from the dozens of random assholes I'd met in prison, or that old drunk sleeping one off. And there was Echo, killed and brought back to life as a monster.

And Jon was a victim, too.

I hadn't meant for things to go so far, but I had no way to back out now. Annalise was going to be my weapon. She was going to help me get a counter-spell out of Callin.
 

We reached the warehouse district south of downtown. Annalise braked hard and turned into a narrow side street. I saw her press a button on her handlebars, and a warehouse door ahead of us began to roll upward, opening like the entrance to the bat cave.

She skidded to a halt just inside the door and climbed off the bike. She entered a number into an electronic keypad, shielding the code with her body, then pressed her thumb against a scanner. A light on the keypad switched from red to green and the door began to close.
 

Annalise walked toward the near corner of the warehouse. A couch and a few tables had been placed on a square carpet remnant. As I climbed off the bike, I glanced at the keypad. I didn't recognize it, but car security systems were my thing, not home or building systems. The windows were wired and the rafters were littered with cameras. The security setup must have cost six figures, but the couch looked like it had been dragged out of a thrift shop dumpster.

I walked toward Annalise, unable to figure out what she had here that was worth so much protection. Her life, maybe, or her spell book. I wondered what spells she might have, and how I could get at them.

No. I wasn't here to steal, or to acquire power. I was here for Jon. Still, the idea was tempting. The ghost knife was useful--I'd still be cuffed without it--but walking around with a pocket full of steeled glass spells? Or with whatever it was that made Annalise incredibly strong? I couldn't deny that I wanted it.

She picked up a telephone and dialed a long number, then pointed to the couch. "Sit."
 

I almost told her what she could do with herself, but I held it in. I could swallow my pride to help my friend. I sat like an obedient dog. She held the phone to her ear for a few moments, then, said: "I need you here. It's Lima all over again." After a little pause, she set the phone in the cradle.

"Who was that?" I asked. She didn't like hearing me ask a question, and apparently I wasn't as willing to swallow my pride as I thought because I kept talking. "Because you need to stick a hello or a goodbye on your phone conversations. Manners aren't just for the table."

"Shut up," Annalise said. "Callin just tried to kill me with one of his damn envelopes. That gives your story a little more weight."

I nodded. I didn't mind framing a guilty man. "No shit. But if you hadn't destroyed those pages, we might've had a way to help my friend."

"I'd have destroyed them anyway. Callin and I are peers in the society, and stealing spells from other peers is a capital crime."

That seemed pretty stupid to me. If they all shared all of their spells, not only would they do away with the "unequal peers" Callin mentioned, but they'd know when one of them had a spell that did something stupid and dangerous, like summon "cousins."

Annalise was staring at me. Hard. I didn't like it. "What?"
 

"You tried to save that man," she said.
 

I watched her closely. Behind her anger at Callin, she was feeling something else. "And you forgot to give a shit," I said. "What does this society of yours do? Because you're not about helping people."

"We help people," she said, sounding almost defensive. "If your friend is left alone, he'll never stop killing. I'm here to prevent that."

"We have to cure them."

Annalise shook her head. "I doubt a cure exists for this."
 

"No." It was time to push her as far as I could. "You don't get to shrug and say
This was easier
again. You say that too often. It was one of your own that made the mess, and you better step up and fix things. Not destroy the problem. Not kill people. Fix it. We have to make Callin undo the spell."

"'We' can't make Callin do anything," Annalise said. "But when help arrives...." Her voice trailed off doubtfully.

I had to keep pushing her to stand against Callin. "I want in," I said. "I want to help you against Callin."

Annalise gave me a funny look. It made me nervous. "Will you be my wooden man?"

There was that term again. I didn't know what a
wooden man
was, but I was ready to find out. "To help my friend, I'd team up with the devil himself."

Annalise stood and shrugged out of her fireman's jacket. "Obviously," she said. She draped the coat over me.

I felt a sudden, tremendous pressure, as though my soul was being squeezed out of my body, then everything went dark.

#

I opened my eyes and saw that the room was still dark. I sat bolt upright, fully awake in an instant. Just as it had with Payton, Annalise's jacket had pushed the consciousness out of me. At least, that's how it had seemed. I felt rested, though, as if I'd enjoyed a long night's sleep. I sat up. My mouth was dry, my stomach grumbling and my legs and back were sore, but I felt pretty good, considering the state of the couch I'd crashed on. It was chilly, though.

I noticed something on the back of my hand. It was covered with tattoos just like Annalise's. They ran over my wrist and up the outside of my forearm to my elbow. I realized that my shirt was missing and that my chest and stomach were also covered with weird black marks.

"He wakes!" A woman's voice said. "Good morning, handsome!"

A dark-skinned woman with a strong Brazilian accent walked toward me. She was somewhere in the prime of her forties, and I could tell, from just a glance at her bright eyes, that she was enjoying them very well. She cut an orange in half with a very large fighting knife and offered half to me.

After a moment's hesitation, I accepted it. "What did you do to me?" I held up my tattooed hand. I tried not to sound angry, but it was there in my voice anyway.

"I have done nothing. She protected you. See?" She grabbed my hand and laid the knife blade against my arm. I dropped my orange half and tried to pull away, but like Annalise, she was too strong. She slashed.

Nothing. No cut, no pain. The knife couldn't penetrate the tattoo.
 

"My name is Irena," the woman said. She bit a piece of orange. Juice ran down her hand and over her wrist.
 

"Hello, Irena. I'm Ray." I liked the way she smiled and wondered what she'd be like in bed.
Not now
, I thought. I touched the tattoos on my arm. "I can't feel
anything
here. It's like...."

"Like armor," Annalise said as she entered the room. "Like a shell."

She had taken off her fireman's jacket, her vest and a couple other layers of clothing until all she was wearing was a sleeveless T-shirt and heavy canvas pants. She was even smaller than I'd realized. And the tattoos on her hands continued up her arms over her shoulders and under her clothes. I could see the black sigils through her threadbare shirt.

Like a shell. I'd seen her glow like a star in the parking lot of the sports bar and I'd figured there were more tattoos under her clothes, but I hadn't thought she'd be completely covered. How much of her skin was like dead flesh--completely numb to the touch?

Christ. No wonder she was so screwed up.

I stood and examined myself. The tattoos covered my chest, stomach and outer forearms. As far as I could tell, there was nothing below the waist or above my collarbones.

"I didn't do your back," Annalise said. "When we fight, you'll be protected if you face the danger. If you try to run away...."

"I get it," I said. "Is it permanent?"
 

"Yes. They'll last as long as you do."

I considered them again. The marks were intricate, meaningless and ugly. I was moving further and further from the seat-belt life I'd hoped for, but it was too late now. I had gone this far and couldn't back out now.
 

And damn if it didn't feel good. All these marks had
power
. While Annalise and Irena looked over a sheet of paper, I reached out and grabbed a metal table lamp in my left hand. I couldn't squeeze it like tissue paper. Ah well. No super-strength for me.
 

The bandage Callin had placed on my neck finally lost so much of its glue that it fell partly off and lay against my shoulder. I peeled it away and saw there were two spots of blood on it. "Right here," I said, tapping the spot where Callin had bit me. "I want more on my neck. Both sides."

Annalise and Irena looked at each other. "We move against Callin soon," Annalise said. "We don't have time to put you out again."

Irena pursed her lips. "The process is painful, Raymond."

"Please," I said. "He drank my blood."

Annalise shrugged and took a small paint brush from an end table drawer.

"You will be awake for this?" Irena clucked her tongue and shook her head. "Brave."

Annalise pointed me to the floor and I lay down. She turned me onto my side and knelt beside my back, then wrapped her left arm across my chest, trapping both of my arms. "Take his legs, please."
 

And I knew this was going to be bad. Irena took hold of my legs and held them tightly. With her forearm, Annalise trapped my head against her knee.
 

Any enjoyment I might have gotten from the touch of two women--any two--was quashed by the knowledge that something terrible was about to happen. My arms spasmed, wanting to be free, but struggling against Annalise was like pushing against a brick wall.

I couldn't see Annalise's face but I wondered what she was waiting for. Maybe she was concentrating, making sure she got it right. That was cool by me.
 

Then she touched the tip of the paint brush against my skin and a jet of sizzling black steam blasted out of me.

I screamed. The pain was worse than anything I'd ever felt in my life. Worse that the fire in the library, worse than the beatings in prison, worse than anything. The magic clung to my skin like a living creature and chewed at me. A spider web of pain ran through my whole body like a spreading infection.

I knew a flaw in the spell she was creating might kill me and I tried not to struggle, but my body couldn't be controlled. It bucked and shuddered no matter how much I tried to take deep breaths and relax. There was no Zen meditation for this shit. This was torture.

The women held me in place. I felt woozy and thought I might pass out, but the magic was in my head, keeping me awake and aware as it transformed me.

Then she lifted the brush. It was over. The pain eased but didn't vanish completely. I had never felt anything so terrible in my life.

"Other side," I said between gasps. "Do the other side."

Annalise turned my head the other way and pressed it into place. Irena shook her head and looked down as the pain took hold again. And I screamed. It was all I could do, and I did it with every ounce of energy I had.