Twenty Palaces (19 page)

When it was finally over, Annalise released me and let me fall onto the floor. Tears welled in my eyes and when I tried to blink them away they splashed onto my face. I should have been ashamed of them, but the pain was still so fierce I thought it might pinch my head off. It was all I could do to hold myself together.
 

After several minutes, the pain had eased enough to let me stand. I took several deep, steadying breaths, then leaned against a wooden support beam. I slid my hand over the rough texture of it. It helped.

The clock on the wall said it was almost four o'clock. The high windows were dark, so it was a.m. rather than p.m. Annalise brought me here at in the tiny hours of the morning. Had I been out for twenty-six hours or fifty?

The cut orange was face down on the couch. I picked it up and wiped it clean with the side of my hand. I was hungry enough not to care. It was sweet and wonderful in my empty belly.

I noticed an open bathroom door and went inside. The mirror above the sink was almost too small for me to see the tattoos on my neck.
 

They weren't real tattoos, of course--they had been painted onto my skin, not injected beneath it--but if Annalise was to be believed they were just as permanent. The spell on my left side was a swirl with a series of dots down one side. I ran my finger over it, thinking too late that I might smear it. I couldn't detect any difference in the way the protected and unprotected skin felt, except that the unprotected skin could feel my fingertip on it, while the enchanted skin could not.

"Where are you?" Annalise said from the other room.
 

I walked out of the bathroom. Annalise stood by the back door. Irena stood at her shoulder.
 

"Just throwing some water on my face and looking at my new decorations," I said.

Annalise's expression was flat. "It's almost time."

"Tell him," Irena said. Annalise turned to her in surprise. "He should know what is happening and why we are doing this, yes? You know how Callin steals secrets from his enemies, and so does he. He's just undergone a terrible ordeal for us. He deserves it."

Annalise looked at Irena for a few extra seconds, then turned to me. She was scowling, as she motioned me toward the couch. I tried to work out the relationship she had with Irena. Were they teacher and student? Big and little sister? Some mixture of the two?
 

I settled onto the end of the couch and Annalise perched herself on the edge of the rocking chair opposite. She held herself very still. "You asked before what we do."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"This world," she began grudgingly, "every world, is surrounded by predators. They're like ghosts who are always near us and they're always hungry, always searching for living planets to devour."

"I--" I stopped myself from saying
I've seen this from a spell in Callin's book
. Stealing spells from a peer would get me killed. "I think I understand." It sounded lame even to me.

She continued. "Certain magic--summoning magic--calls to these predators and changes them. They become partly physical, partly not, like the worm you saw emerge from that girl's mouth. That's what's inside your friends."

"Can you summon these predators?" I asked, thinking maybe she could summon them out of Jon's body.

"No." Her voice was sharp. "Summoning magic is forbidden. We destroy every summoning spell we can find, as well as anyone who knows the spell and anything they might have summoned." She leaned toward me. "I
destroy
predators. I don't call them to this world."

"So, those worms are... demons?"

She shook her head. "I've never seen a demon. Or an angel. I've never visited heaven or hell, and I've never spoken to God. All I know is that humans are prey and we're surrounded by hunters, that the predators like to be summoned, but hate to be held in place, that--"

"Jon and Callin cast a summoning spell." It sounded so simple when I said it that way. So straightforward.
 

"And now your friend is killing people. He'll keep killing people and summoning more predators--"

"Cousins," I said. "They call each other 'cousins.'"

"Which is why," she continued, as if I hadn't interrupted her, "we have to stop them by any means necessary."

"Do you do this all the time? How often does this happen?"

"You don't need to know that."

"Okay. Tell me more about these predators." She didn't like that question. "Tell me about the first predator you ever destroyed."

She stared at me. I could tell she was doing some kind of calculation about me, but she was unusually hard to read. "I won't do that," she said, "but I will tell you about the second. Did you ever hear about the Torso Killer? The press sometimes called him the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run."
 

I never liked to read the newspapers. "Sorry. Never heard of it."

"He wasn't an 'it'. A man did all those killings. A man with crooked teeth and big round drinker's nose. Don't ask his name because I killed him and burned down his place without asking for it. But he had a predator in his little place. It was hard to see unless it had sopped up human blood... and who knows what else. Some kind of little sponge, I think."

"And this guy was feeding it like a pet?"

"He was."

"Why?"

"I have no idea. It was doing something for him--all these assholes get some kind of power or gift or knowledge for all the killing they do, but I wasn't there to chat with him about it. I was there to start the fire that burned man and predator both to cinders."

There was something more to be said about that story, I could see it in her face. Then she looked at her watch and the moment was gone. "Time to pay Callin a visit."

The three of us did not go to Callin's hotel on the back of Annalise's motorcycle, thank God. Instead we piled into a battered Dodge Sprinter and rumbled through out into the city.

Annalise drove. Irena sat in the passenger seat. I crouched on the floor beside Annalise's BMW, which was locked into a clever little mounting system bolted to the floor. On the other side of the motorcycle lay a small stack of Irena's luggage.

"Do not open them, handsome boy," she said to me. "The tricks inside are dangerous, and not for you."

"Gotcha," I said, letting the
boy
remark go. I'd sat on the floor of Jon's van, too, but it had been nicer than this one, even with the fast food wrappers. I was again reminded of sitting in the back of Arne's Expedition while we went out to "work." We'd cruise around looking for cars to boost, with Arne dropping one of us off when he'd spotted something worthwhile. Afterwards, he'd drive back to the yard and wait for us to bring in the cars. Then it was back into the Expedition for another round.

I was struck by how much this was like those trips--The tension, the feeling that I was risking myself for a big score. At least Annalise and Irena weren't pounding beers or snorting lines, although Arne would have been furious about the tattoos. He never worked with criminals who wanted to advertise their profession.

Annalise parked on the street. Callin's hotel was just across the street.
 

"Raymond," Irena said, "please climb out through the front." I moved away from her suitcases and followed her through the passenger door. Sunrise was still an hour away.

Annalise yanked open the back doors of the van and Irena unzipped an outside pocket of her suitcase. She removed a medallion and placed it in Annalise's hand.
 

"This should allow us to approach him undetected."

"Should?" I asked as she hung one around my neck.

"Callin has been around a long time," Annalise said. Her tone suggested she was phrasing that carefully to avoid saying something I shouldn't know. "He's older than all of us put together."

"And he knows many tricks," Irena said. She hung a medallion around her own neck.

Annalise walked away from us, toward the intersection. She stared up at the top of the hotel.

"Hold this for me," Irena said. I accepted a long canvas gym bag and held the mouth open. Irena took four harpoons from a suitcase and slid them into the bag. I noticed a tiny sigil on each blade. "So, you are Annalise's new wooden man?" she asked without looking at me.

I suddenly felt like a new boyfriend getting the once-over from the best friend. The idea gave me a perverse thrill. "Apparently."

She looked at me sharply. Should I have sounded more enthusiastic?

"So then, you are a former soldier?"

"No,"
 

"A policeman?"

"Hell, no." My tone was sharper than I'd intended.
 

Irena frowned. She seemed to understand perfectly. "A criminal, then. That foolish girl." Irena silently put a small leather case in the gym bag, then a belt of knives, then a coil of rope.

She took an ice pick from a box and, instead of dropping it into the bag, waved it under my nose. "Listen to me, my handsome criminal. Annalise is a very good friend to me, and I have tried to counsel her as best I could. Now she has taken a wooden man, and she has flown in the face of all I have tried to teach her. So be it. Each of us must learn in our own way. But if you betray her, there will be no place on this Earth from which you can hide from me." She dropped the ice pick into the bag.
 

I'd already betrayed her, of course. I'd written her name on the envelope, fabricating the evidence that persuaded her to make this little attack. It was too late to turn back now. "I hear you."
 

"You had better." Irena dropped a set of chains into the bag, then took it from me. The bag had gotten heavy, but she hefted it as if it weighed no more than a loaf of bread. "Will this be enough?" she murmured to herself. "I don't think this will be enough." She climbed back into the van.
 

I had been dismissed. I walked toward Annalise, who was still staring up at the top of the hotel. If she was going to get cold feet, now was the time.

But when I came up beside her, I saw that her face was grim and determined. Apparently, she wasn't the type to back out. She turned and looked up at me. "Has she given you the once over?"

"She doesn't approve."

Annalise looked away. "Neither do I, but you've met the targets, have seen the inside of the rooms, and your appearance might throw him off, so you're in. You won't be much help, but we'll take every little bit we can get."

I nodded again. It occurred to me that she expected me to die in Callin's hotel room.

Of course, she knew better than I did what we were about to face. If I was going to get cold feet, this was the time for me, too. What if I died trying to find a way to undo what had happened to Jon?

The thought should have frightened me but it didn't. It's not like I had something better to do, and I owed Jon whatever I could give him. What's more, I didn't figure my life was worth all that much anyway.

The thought settled my nerves and brought clarity. It was better to decide now that I'd go all the way than it was to wait and wonder how far would suddenly be too far.
 

"How are you holding up?" Annalise asked.

I looked at her again. She was almost pretty, despite the tattoos and scrawny body and tattered clothes and nearly-shaved head....
 

Christ. I'd been in prison for too long. "I'm not sure I know how to be ready for this, but I'm in. Whatever comes up, I'm in one hundred percent."

"Good."

"One thing."

She looked up at me. "What is it?"

"No matter what happens, I want you to try to find a way to undo the spell Callin put on Jon." She frowned and looked away. I pressed on. "I know you don't think there is one. I don't care. I want you to try. Jon is one of the victims here, and I want you to help him if you can."

"Yes," she said. The expression on her pale face seemed to be full of meaning but I couldn't make it out. That made me nervous. "No guarantees, but I'll try."

I couldn't hope for better than that. "Thank you."

We stood in silence for a few minutes, feeling the chill night air while Irena fussed and muttered to herself in the back of the van.

Finally, I said: "This society I just joined...?"

"It's called the Twenty Palace Society."

"It's named after the twenty guys who started it? After their big houses, I mean?"

"Exactly," Annalise said. "They had big houses."
 

"And I'm a wooden man, now. Is there a story behind that term?"

"Yes."

"Would it scare the crap out of me?"

"Oh, yes."

"Thought so."

Irena slammed the van doors. "There!" she said. "I am ready." Her gym bag bulged but she carried it with ease.

As Annalise turned toward the other woman, she glanced up at me. I saw, in that single unguarded moment, a tiny smile on her face. It was only a flicker, but it was there; I was winning her over, and every step we took closer to Callin's hotel ensured that we were going there for my reasons, not for hers.

I felt a twinge of uneasiness. Yes, she was my enemy, and Jon's enemy, too. She was also a killer. I needed her to get the counter spell for Jon, and I didn't owe her a single thing. But frankly, underneath everything, I was starting to like her.

I shook that off. That had to be my loneliness talking. That, and my hunger for the spells she wore. "Are we ready?" I asked.

Annalise opened her jacket, revealing the ribbons clipped to her vest. Her clothes were thick with them. "No," she answered. "Let's get going."

We approached the hotel from behind. I was glad that we weren't going to walk through that lobby again. Annalise hadn't given me another gray ribbon, but I did have Irena's medallion. Maybe it did the same thing. Maybe it was even better. I didn't know and I doubted anyone was going to fill me in.

Two men lounging at the valet parking station eyed us as we entered but they didn't challenge us. Apathy among low-wage employees was the usually weakest link in any security system.

We entered through a glass door and passed a lounge on the right. On the left was a marble stairway. Annalise sprang lightly up them and I followed.