Alaskan Fury (21 page)

A magus.  Her vision of an
angel—had been a magus’s illusion.  Imelda felt her face flush hot at that
thought.  To have been tricked by a
magus
…  It was utterly unforgivable,
and it was entirely her pride that was at fault.  She would have to serve
penance.

She thought briefly of the bloody
stone in her backpack and had to resist the urge to dig it out and toss it into
the snow.  The idea of carrying a magus’s blood with her was as unnerving as
having the red dot of a targeting laser appearing on her chest.  If the magus
ever figured out she carried it, things could get…bad.

Imelda knew that a wise woman
would have tugged the stone from her pack right then and left it in the cave. 
Yet Imelda’s instincts stayed her hand.  While she wasn’t about to try and
scrye on a magus with her own blood, there might be other, less savory
applications…

She grimaced at the idea of
consulting Zenaida, however, and quickly pushed the thought from her mind.  She
would try other alternatives, first.

Crawling back out of the hole,
she brushed snow from her gloves and said, “We need to expand our search to the
north.  These two have a destination in mind.” 

“These…two?” Jacquot asked.  “We
only ever saw the one, ma mie.”

Imelda took a steadying breath,
then admitted, “The wolf isn’t dead.  I never put the bullets in her brain. 
The…apparition…distracted me.”

Jacquot’s face went slack with
understanding and he crossed himself.

Grimly, Imelda said, “They have a
destination in mind.  Mark their path on a map and they’re more or less running
from us in a straight line.  As I am beginning to believe that neither of these
creatures is stupid, it leads me to believe they have a goal.  I am tired of
chasing smoke.  We will find them by finding their goal.”

She went back to the helicopter
and told Herr Drescher to take her back to Eklutna.  There was someone at the
compound who would have the answers she sought.

‘Aqrab was huddled under the
circular ‘tent’ of the base of one of the last spruce trees on the first
mountain slope of their journey, the chilly sub-alpine air making his skin
crawl, arguing with his magus about the intelligence of trying to cross the
Alaska Range at the beginning of winter.

“There are no trees up there to
shelter us,” he growled, gesturing at the scraggly clumps of willow and,
further up, the rocky outcroppings of granite.  They had decided to stop
following the Yentna River, as it had become obvious that their pursuers were
using it as a highway through the wilderness.  “The snow stays year-round.”

“Only on McKinley.  We can go
around McKinley,” his magus said, obviously getting agitated.  As if
he
were being the unreasonable one.”

“How are we going to avoid being
seen wandering across
that
?” he demanded, waving his hand up at the open,
snow-swept slope of the mountain above them, a slope that his mistress had
picked, at random, from the Alaska Range as the best ‘pass’ to get to the other
side and the Brooks Range beyond.  Unlike the lower elevations of the river
valley around the Yentna, the snow was already a couple feet deep, and the cold
wind was highly uncomfortable, despite his mistress’s shield, which he had
strung upon a silver chain around his neck.  “I’m going to leave a trail three
feet wide of melted snow, mon Dhi’b.  Tell me…how will we hide
that
?”

“You just don’t want me to hand
you over to the dragons, once we get to the other side,” she snapped.

“Of course I don’t,” ‘Aqrab said,
as reasonably as he could manage.  “But there
must
be a better way to do
this.  It’s
cold
up there, mon Dhi’b.”

She laughed at him—
laughed
—and
said, “Put on a coat, ‘Aqrab.  Once we get over the mountains, the flatlands
beyond will reach temperatures where your spit will freeze before it hits the
ground, should we be caught in them in the dead of winter.”

‘Aqrab snorted in disgust.  “A
djinni does not wear a ‘coat,’ mon Dhi’b.  That’s ridiculous.”

His magus shrugged and started
walking up the slope.

Damn
her stubbornness. 
Reluctantly—and only because the tether was about to snap taut, ‘Aqrab followed
her, carving, as he had warned, a three-foot path through the snow as he opened
himself to the Fourth Lands for warmth against the chill.

Anyone flying overhead is
going to see this,
‘Aqrab thought, glancing behind him warily.  In places,
his footsteps had melted entirely to the ground beneath, leaving little patches
of red-orange mountain grasses and shrubberies bared to the sun.  “Mon Dhi’b,”
he muttered, “I
really
don’t think this is a good idea.  Perhaps you
could walk the Void and take us to the other side.”

“I don’t have the
energy
to walk the Void again,” she snapped back at him.  “The last one was too
close.  I’ve lost too much blood.  We’ve already discussed this.  I try it
again before I recuperate and I’m probably going to get us both killed.”

Considering how
miserable
the
next few weeks were about to be for him—and the magus’s plans for him, on the
other side—‘Aqrab was willing to take that chance.  He told the magus so.

“Just slip to the Fourth Lands if
it bothers you,” she growled.  “I’ll summon you once I’ve made it across.”

“Unfortunately,” ‘Aqrab growled,
“the talisman you made for me will not survive a sustained trip to my
homeland.”

“Then we’ll have to make a
bargain for another one.”  The insufferable wench shrugged and plowed on.  Wretchedly,
‘Aqrab wrapped his arms around his chest and followed her.  He knew she was
going to make the bargain completely ridiculous now that she
knew
he
wanted it.  Frustrated, he began singing of his complaints.

“Do you
have
to sing?” she
cried, after an hour, turning on him.

Peering down at his little wolf
impassively, ‘Aqrab was halfway through saying, “It’s about the only thing
keeping me warm, considering the qybah I’m tied to is forcing me to cross a
ice-covered mountainside in broad daylight,” when the snow around them erupted
in puffs of powder and a strafe of small metal nuggets slammed to a halt in the
air in front of him, across his chest, followed by the booming retort of
rifles.

“Get behind me, djinni,” the Fury
snarled, half-changing to the grotesque, hunched form of the wolf and stepping
into their backtrail.

Seeing the helicopter rise over
the downward slope of the hill, tracing their path like a hunting lion, ‘Aqrab
was happy to oblige her.  He took it a step further and slipped into the half-realm
as another rain of high-powered
gold
bullets slammed through the air where
he’d been standing.

“I am
tired
of playing
games
!”
his magus snarled up at the helicopter.  She reached to one side, yanked a
boulder from the frozen ground, and hurled it at the machine.  The pilot of the
craft tipped the helicopter to the side just in time to avoid the rock from
crashing through the glass of the cockpit…only to take the boulder through the
rotor, instead.

With a howling screech of metal,
the massive stone cut through the blades, snapping them off in a rain of
sparks, rock chips, and pulverized stone.  Engine screaming, suddenly without
any resistance from its blades, the craft went down, twisting and flailing like
a dying thing.

Then the Fury was hurling down
the mountainside after them, screaming battle curses in her native tongue.

‘Aqrab stayed well out of sight
of the massacre he knew was to follow.  He let the tether drag him down the
slope, but no further.  Wincing, he turned his back and listened to men scream,
followed by the gurgling death-rattles, and wished he could, in fact, twist to
the Fourth Realm without losing his magus’s pendant.  He’d always disdained
violence.  It was so…crude.

His Fury came back about an hour
later, covered in gore.

No,
painted
in it.  Her
eyes were wide, her face flushed, like she’d reveled in every moment. 
Grimacing, ‘Aqrab tried not to be sick.

“There were two feylords trapped
in the machine,” she said, wiping blood from her cheek with the borrowed coat
of one of her victims as she came to stand beside him.  “I released them, but
they were in no condition to help us.  They’re headed for the nearest rift.” 
She continued to use the black enemy jacket to wipe crimson from her hands.

“Was that wise, mon Dhi’b?” 
‘Aqrab was studying the mountainside carefully to avoid watching the blood
dribble into the snow at her feet. 

“They were elitist pricks,” his
magus said, as she delicately wiped more blood from her wrists and forearms.  “But
no more unreasonable than any other feylord I’ve dealt with.  If anything, they
were nicer.”

“No,” ‘Aqrab muttered.  “
Killing
them, mon Dhi’b.  We have no way to hide
that
from the casual
passerby.”  He gestured at the blood-drenched helicopter she had left stranded
on the hillside below.  The crimson swath of snow seemed to cover a hundred
yards in any direction.

The Fury narrowed her eyes at
him.  “You think you want to teach me about love, djinni?  Then I will teach
you about combat.”  She finished wiping her face, then tossed the rag into the
snow.  “These fools have opened up Pandora’s box, and they are about to see
what happens when a Fury goes to war.”

Imelda thrust the map away from
her and held her temples as she tried to think.  Her room, normally clean and
tidy, was still a whirlwind of clutter from when she had arrived home from a
quick trip to the pharmacy to find her room ransacked, with Zenaida the culprit,
and no reason given.  Imelda had filed a formal complaint, but several days
later, she still hadn’t had time to clean up the mess.  She knew the woman had
been after the pendant, which meant that someone—probably a technician—had
talked.  Not for the first time, Imelda was glad she’d left the object with
Padre Vega for safekeeping.  Until she figured out its mysteries, the
last
thing she wanted was Zenaida getting her hands on it, because if she did,
Imelda knew she would never see it again.

Trying to rub the pounding from
her head, Imelda ducked her face to the desk and tried to concentrate on her
job.  She had to assume her prey were capable of a void-walk.  There were just
too many coincidences to believe otherwise.  Yet, if that were the case, why
were they running north on
foot
?  Why not simply hop the Void to
whichever corner of the world they wanted to go and simply disappear?

Maddening, this is maddening.

They had to have a goal, but
what?   Her research had suggested that a magus had trouble walking the Void if
wounded or tired, or if the destination was unknown to the traveler.  Three
things, she suspected, were probably working in Imelda’s favor.  And, as long
as she could keep the pressure on her fugitives, she believed it could probably
stay that way.  But why would they be heading north?  What was
north
but
more mountains?  Every shape-changing demonkin she’d ever run into had
immediately headed for big cities once they had been ousted, to blend in and
get lost in the wash of humanity, to take sanctuary in the awareness of the
masses.  Chasing their prey through crowded streets filled with police and
federal agents was a hundred times more challenging for an Inquisitor than
scouring the Alaskan wilderness with high-tech helicopters.  Here, there was no
red tape, no politics, no hoops to jump through, no precautions to take to
avoid a capture from going public.  There was just wilderness.  Granted, it was
a
big
wilderness, but at least there were no witnesses. 

So what was their goal?  A gate? 
A nexus?  Some place to slip realms?  Would a magus even
need
a place to
slip realms?  Just what sorts of things could a magus
do
?  Once again, so
many of her questions could be answered if she simply broke down and asked
Zenaida, but after coming home and finding her room ripped apart, every aspect
of her personal life violated, with even her underwear drawer ransacked and
spread across her floor, Zenaida could rot.

Saint Gemma, but my head
hurts.
  Imelda unconsciously reached up to touch the tiny enameled
photograph of Saint Gemma, where it shared space upon her neck with the cross,
and whispered a quick prayer.  If the patron saint of migraines and headaches
heard her plea, however, she offered no relief.

Imelda dropped her hand and
closed her eyes, holding herself up with fingers splayed across her temple. 
She had been pushing herself too hard, she knew, too desperate to catch the
djinni before he slipped from their grasp.  As such, she’d been in a
near-constant mental agony for the last three days, and she had trouble keeping
anything down, even coffee.  What was usually just a jagged, pounding fuzz at
the edge of her awareness was now blotting out part of her forward vision,
making it difficult to stay upright, let alone concentrate.

While it was easier to hunt them
without interference in the forest, Imelda’s job was far from easy.  She was
trying to find two creatures that didn’t want to be found in an area three
times the size of Spain, without a road system to speak of, and with the rivers
rapidly freezing to the point where they were no longer passable by boat, while
facing the very-real possibility that they not only had the ability to walk the
Void, but every other innate trick of a magus, such as barriers that could stop
bullets and the ability to render themselves invisible.

Imelda was just about to get up
and try for another cup of coffee when a loud knock came at her bedroom door. 
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Inquisitrice.”  It was Jacquot, and his voice was
rushed in panic.  “We just lost a helicopter at the edge of the Alaska Range.”

Imelda got up quickly—almost too
quickly, since she lost her balance under the intensity of her headache—and
yanked the door open to face her scout.  “Where are they?  I want a full—”

The look on Jacquot’s face was
enough to know that she wouldn’t be getting a report.  Imelda felt her throat
close up and her eyes start to burn.  “Which team?” she whispered, suddenly
finding it hard to breathe.

  “Second team, Inquisitrice,”
Jacquot said softly.  “All dead.  Torn apart.”

Second Team,
she thought,
listing out names in her mind. 
Angus, Mory, Aquila, Kate, Tanner,
Elisabeth. 
“Six of them?” she asked, naming the dead.

Jacquot’s eyes widened as he
listened, and then cleared his throat.  “Not Aquila.”  He hesitated.  “Giuseppe,
ma mie.  He decided to stay out another rotation, instead of come back with
Herr Drescher.  The German was…provoking…him.”

Imelda took the news like a
blow.  “Giuseppe is…dead?”  The man had been her even-tempered driver and bodyguard
since she’d first earned the rank of Inquisidora.

Jacquot ducked his head.  “I’m
sorry, Inquisitrice.  We’re sure it was the djinni, though.  The fool left a
swath of melted snow as he left the crash site, as plain as day going up over
the mountain—”

“Do
not
follow it.”  Anger
was beginning to bubble up from within, and Imelda stepped into the hall,
slamming the door shut behind her.  “If they could do it once, they could do it
again, and I’m not willing to risk my people like that.  Gather the teams
together and set up an ambush on the other side.  They obviously want to cross
the Range.  We’ll let them do it.  Until then…”  She brushed past Jacquot,
heading down the hall and towards the pass-coded stairs leading to the
basement.

“Inquisitrice?” Jacquot asked
softly, watching her.

Imelda paused to look up at him
as she stopped at the basement door and entered in her code.  “I’m going to go
find out what we’re dealing with.”  She yanked the heavy, titanium-reinforced door
open and stepped onto the metal staircase.

The first thing she noticed was
the smell of blood.  Grimacing, Imelda yanked the door shut behind her and
jogged down the stairs and into the basement. 

Cages and racks filled three
square acres of underground labyrinth, with those prisoners who were conscious
enough to lift their heads warily following her progress with their eyes as she
marched across to the far end of the hall. 

The phoenix was locked into a
cage barely big enough to hold her fetal form, one arm bound to the cage wall
in bands of gold, an IV hanging from a rack nearby.  Her other arm was
similarly affixed to the opposite wall of the cage, with a small needle jutting
from the top of her hand, dribbling crimson blood into a basin below.  She was,
thanks to the IV, unconscious.

A few yards further down the line
of cages, the wereverine snarled and cursed, naked, hanging from a rack bolted
into the wall.  He was collared in silver, just as the phoenix wore gold, but
he still shook the rack dangerously as Imelda approached. 

“I am going to
tear out your
heart and piss in it
,” the wereverine snarled, in welcome.  Even with the
silver circling him, he still showed fur and fang.  Beneath him, a basin of
blood rippled, and Imelda realized that he, too, had a tiny needle taped into
the top of one foot, allowing a slow drain into the basin.

Fighting down an instant of
revulsion, Imelda walked right up to him, no longer willing to play games. 
“Your friends,” she snapped, jabbing a finger into the Third Lander’s exposed
chest and holding it there while he snarled at her.  “Tell me what they are and
I will give you a quick death.”

The wereverine stilled and looked
at her with slitted green eyes that glowed with demonic malice.  “In your
dreams, Sister.” 

Imelda returned his scowl with
flat indifference.  “How long can you survive like that?  A year?  Two?  Down
the hall is a room packed with saline and intravenous lines.  Zenaida can keep
you alive indefinitely, producing blood.  Answer my questions, and I’ll make
that much, much shorter.”

The wereverine’s anger cracked
and his eyes flickered too-quickly to the phoenix, then back again, and for a
moment, she saw fear, there.  Obviously summoning more courage than he had, he
said, “You can go fuck yoursel—”

“I
despise
this place,”
Imelda interrupted, more vehemently than she had intended.  At the wereverine’s
startled look, she nonetheless blundered on, “You want death?  I’ll give it to you. 
Both of you.  Happily.  Just answer my damn questions.  Why does a woman
carrying the curse of the Third Lands have the capability of a magus?  It is
mutually-exclusive.”

The wereverine chuckled at her
then.  “There’s your answer, bitch.”

She frowned at him, thinking he
was just being difficult, but she saw the sincerity in his eyes, the wariness. 
Carefully, she said, “What is the wolf?”

“Hell if I know,” the wereverine
growled.  “Not a fucking wolf.  That’s for sure.  Couple times I got a
whiff…smells like a fucking angel.”

Imelda started to get the tingles
of dread prickling her back like icewater, remembering the apparition by the
wolf’s side. 
Mutally-exclusive.
  The Pact of the Realms.  Instinctively
afraid to pry much deeper, she quickly changed tactics.  “Why do they head to
the north?” Imelda demanded.  “What is there for them in the north?”

He gave her a vicious grin.  “Oh,
about a couple hundred dragons.”

Furious that he was toying with
her, Imelda slammed her finger back into his breastbone.  “I just lost six men
to that beast!  You will
tell
me what I want to
know
, or I will
rip out Zenaida’s child’s-play and show you
real
pain.”

“Wish I could, Sister,” he said
lazily.  “But that would spoil the surprise.”  Feral insanity showed in his
slitted eyes, and for a moment, Imelda wondered if the Third Lander was in
charge. 

Then she realized the
intelligence in the glowing gaze and she hesitated.  “You’re an ancient.”

“Old enough to know you ain’t a
fucking Sister,” he snarled.  “What, is the whole fucking Inquisition filled
with hypocrites nowadays?” 

Imelda frowned.  “Hypocrites?”

He wrinkled his nose as if he
smelled something rank.  “That Zenaida bitch.  She’s a—”

“She’s sorry she’s late,”
Zenaida’s silky voice interrupted, as the beautiful blonde Segunda Inquisidora
strode up to join them, clad in red and black, her flat stomach showing in a
very un-holy way, displayed proudly above the gold-and-turquoise belt that she
never seemed to take off. 

As Zenaida spoke, she pulled ebony
doeskin gloves from her hands and tucked them into her belt, revealing
red-lacquered nails that were obviously meant to compliment the red tanktop. 
She smiled at Imelda, though her ageless face contained no amusement.  “You
were given specific orders not to come down here without an escort,
Inquisidora.  You are too…new…at this, and this place is much too hazardous for
a neophyte to wander alone.”  There was a dangerous gleam in her steel-gray
eyes, however, and Imelda got the distinct feeling she was being threatened.

Imelda frowned at the way the
wereverine had fallen into a cold silence.  If she had thought she’d seen
hatred in his eyes before, now she saw
loathing
.  Loathing…and fear. 
Slowly, she turned to face Zenaida…

…and froze when she saw the
pendant hanging at the woman’s neck.

A winged sword.

“How did you…” Imelda began,
frowning.  Then she realized the lines were much too new, the silver much less
worn than the one she had given her Padre.  It was the difference between an
artifact unearthed in the basement of a Klondike Gold Rush homestead, and one
dug out of a Paleolithic cave.

That
was where she had
seen it before, she realized, stunned.  Around Zenaida’s neck, where there
should have been a cross.

  Zenaida’s smile cracked, and
for an instant, Imelda saw a hint of something terrifying before it was
hidden.  “How did I what, Imelda?”

Imelda swallowed down the
tinglings of dread that were even then uncurling from deep within her stomach. 
“How did you justify entering my room like a petty thief?” she said, straightening
with the indignance she had been feeling, ever since returning to Eklutna and
finding that Zenaida had torn her room apart.  “Jacquot said you ‘cleaned’ it
for me when I was out, and now I can’t even find my migraine medication.” 
A
magus,
her mind screamed, adding up the facts. 
Zenaida is a magus.