Red reckoning, p.2
Red Reckoning, page 2
“He sold me out,” I said, sounding more than a little like a petulant child in my own ears.
“Hey, idiota,” Ferraro snapped, her glare frosty, “we know what happened. We were there. Do you really think we’d be sitting here, chitchatting with him without a damned good reason?” She crossed her arms and the answer was painfully self-evident.
“Fine,” I mumbled as Levi finally set me down and released me from his Kung Fu Golem death hold. “So, how’s about you fill me in and explain why exactly I shouldn’t punch him in the face anymore.”
“Well, isn’t it obvious, old boy?” James said as Winona gently helped him to his feet. “It’s because I’m on your side. Always have been.”
“I’m all ears,” I replied, narrowing my eyes in suspicion. “But you better start talking, and I mean yesterday.”
“Uhh—hate to ruin the moment,” Sir Gal piped up, “but maybe someone could help get this table off me first?”
The Sitrep
“I SUPPOSE GREG IS RIGHT. I’ll concede that maybe, maybe, I had this coming,” James said, gesturing at his face. He was sitting in a leather club chair, an ice pack pressed up against his bruised and battered mug. The rest of the room had been put to rights—the table hoisted off Sir Gal, the furniture straightened, the papers collected into orderly stacks.
“Yeah, on account of the betrayal,” I growled at him as I headed over to a dark wood liquor cabinet decorated with wine flutes and a variety of frosted glassware.
“Perceived betrayal, old boy,” James said with a sniff. “Although, I feel like I gave you ample warning. This makes us even for Haiti, back in ’76. That’s what I told you. I’m not sure how I could’ve been much clearer, given the circumstances.”
I picked up a decanter filled with something murky and brown, likely bourbon, and carefully popped the stopper. “Yeah, you were about as clear as this goddamned booze,” I said, swirling the liquid with a flourish then pouring out a stiff three fingers. I dropped a couple of chilled cubes into the bottom of my glass with a clink, then took a long pull. Maker’s Mark, and damned good. Everyone was quiet while I recapped the decanter and set it back in its place.
“What did you expect, Yancy?” Sullivan asked. “The ol’ wink wink, nudge nudge? I was working as a covert agent with the Morrigan—ancient Irish deity. Mentioning even what I did could’ve burned my cover.”
I let his words slosh around inside my skull for a moment. As much as I hated to admit it, he wasn’t wrong exactly. Aside from being physically powerful, the Morrigan was also known for being devious and wickedly smart. Trying to get a message across without blowing everything to hell would’ve been damned tricky. I sure as hell couldn’t think of a good way to do it? Dead drop box maybe? No, she would’ve found out about that in a second. His options had been terrible. All of them. It just hurt because I, more than anyone else, had suffered the brunt of the punishment for his charade.
“It wasn’t an easy choice, Yancy,” he said, suddenly serious. “Maybe if I’d known how it would all play out...” He faltered, searching at my face. I had deep scars crisscrossing my cheek and an eye patch covering one eye. “Well, maybe I would’ve made different choices,” he finished with a shrug. “The Morrigan came to me with an opportunity and I took it, knowing we wouldn’t get a better shot at cracking her inner circle. We”—he nodded toward the arch-mage—“knew she’d managed to plant moles inside the Guild, and this was our way to root those traitorous bastards out.”
“But why you?” I asked, some of the hostility leaking away. “I mean, why did she come to you in the first place?”
“Honestly?” he said, lowering the ice pack and arching an eyebrow. “It’s simpler than you think. It’s because she hates you, Yancy. I can’t emphasize exactly how much she hates you. True, I was high placed within the Guild and Lieutenant to the Fist—that certainly helped. But really it was because I could get close to you, and because she relishes the idea of causing you pain. For being so damned evil, she’s remarkably petty. I know how hard it must’ve been for you to go through, but it’s a good thing you did because—”
“Hold, Mage Sullivan,” the arch-mage interjected, one hand raised into the air. “Before we go any further, I think we deserve an accounting of our own. You’ve been gone for nearly a year, Lazarus, and the last time any of us saw you, you were actively possessed by a demon.”
“Well yeah but—” I started, but she cut me off with a frosty glare.
“You grew horns, crushed Black Jack’s head like a melon, then dropped Agent Ferraro, Judge Drukiski, and myself through a portal and into the Turkish countryside. It seems only proper that we know you are in your right mind and working on our side before we disclose any new information to you.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, feeling the weight of every eye on me. It was easy to blame James for his act of treason, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that the same accusation could easily be hurled at me. I’d cut a deal with a demonic asshole. I’d had my reasons—to save my friends, to stop that douchenozzle the Savage Prophet from winning, to punish Black Jack for his betrayal—but it wasn’t hard to see why they might have some issues trusting me.
“She’s right, Yancy,” Ferraro said. She sounded distant and more than a little jaded. “We deserve some sort of explanation. You disappeared. No warning. No heads-up. Just gone. For months. We all assumed you were dead. That or worse. No one had any idea what happened, until suddenly we got word through the mystic pipeline that someone with Azazel’s description was running around in Pandæmonium offing dukes and duchesses of Hell. And even that was a wild rumor. We sent Levi after you, chasing down the lead, but that was months ago. We need something. Throw us a bone here.”
Although she said we I knew in my gut she really meant her. She needed more. Why hadn’t I reached out? Why hadn’t I tried to get in touch with her? To let her know that I was okay? Me and her, we weren’t serious exactly, but we were definitely something.
I grimaced, letting the silence envelop me as I studied her. She had a scowl tattooed on her face, nose crinkled, forehead scrunching, eyes imploring me for answers. Those little details only served to remind me how drop-dead gorgeous she was. Tall, just shy of six feet, with strong features, a Mediterranean complexion, chestnut eyes that were sharp as daggers, and enough athletic muscle to give me pause. Her black hair was longer than I remembered, though it was still tied back into a tight ponytail, which was how I remembered her wearing it.
There were a few other differences, though.
A few more wrinkles at the corners of her mouth. A couple strands of silver lining her hair. Dark purple bags loitering beneath her eyes. It’d been less than a year since I’d last seen her, but she looked like she’d aged five years during that time. I’d hurt her—maybe not physically, but emotionally.
I deflated a little under her gaze. I’d stormed in here and let loose with self-righteous indignation, attacking my friends and making a total jackass outta myself. Shit.
I cleared my throat and ran a hand through my hair. “I’m sorry. And you’re right. Even you, Arch-Mage,” I conceded with a grunt. The look of shock on the arch-mage’s face was almost worth the admission. “I let my temper get the better of me. I’m sorry. And for the record, you all deserve to know what happened—though let me start off by saying there are some serious gaps in my memory.
“Truth be told,” I said, “you all probably know about as much as me. After Ong...” I took a deep breath then let it out in a tremendous sigh. “It’s all black. Right up until I woke up in a shit-stained bathroom, half-dead, covered in tattoos, as the most wanted man in Hell. As for what happened after I came to,” I mumbled under my breath, “now that’s a wild ride from start to finish.”
Carefully, I pulled back one of the sleeves on my tight-fitting shirt, showing off my right arm.
“Finally decided to hit the gym?” Greg asked. “It only took going to Hell to get you to take your health seriously.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Not the muscles, asshole,” I said. Though, in his defense, they were new and pretty damned snazzy. Even during my Marine Corps days, I’d never been bulky, and no one in their right mind would ever describe me as a gym rat or a health nut. Thanks to Azazel’s time in the driver seat of the ol’ Lazarus body mobile, however, I was in better shape than I’d ever been.
“The tattoos,” I said, turning my arm this way then that, showing off flesh covered from shoulder to wrist in colorful tribal swirls, pulsing neon glyphs, and otherworldly seals of power. Those markings burned with an earthy light. A power that was neither truly Vis or Nox. It was something else. Something different. Energy derived from the inexplicable ichor flowing through Levi’s veins, generated by a mystical artifact that I’d believed to be a rumor no more than two weeks ago: a Philosopher’s stone.
“This is Levi’s handiwork,” I said, hooking a thumb toward the golem. He was no longer in his true form, a hulking creature of gray clay and shifting mud. Rather, he looked like a dumpy, bespectacled man in his mid-forties with terrible posture and a pooching potbelly. He was mostly bald and had a creepy red molester ’stache above too-thin lips; he sported thick denim pants, a plaid button up, and a beige Carhartt jacket.
“Ancient Kabbalistic wards,” Levi said. “They bind the demonic entities inside Lazarus. They’re not gone, those monsters, but those wards will keep ’em in line. Mostly. They aren’t a permanent fix, but they’re a pretty good start.”
“But Azazel is still inside you, yes?” the arch-mage asked coolly.
Underneath the words and her steely exterior, I could sense a tremor of fear. Understandable, considering just how scary Azazel could be. Shit, I had him under lock and key and I was still scared of him.
“Yes,” I replied with a nod. “I think he’s gonna be stuck with me until I get rid of this friggin’ seal,” I said softly. “And, unfortunately, he ain’t alone. Now I’ve got Buné, the Horseman of Death, to deal with as well. But with these things in place”—I waggled my arm—“I can draw on the Nox without burning myself out completely or turning over the reins to either one of those demonic shitheads.”
In fits and starts, I explained what had happened from there.
The deadly Flesh Eaters. Working with the Succubus Queen to depose that shit-licker Asmodeus from the Flesh-Palace Throne. I told them about the demonic goddess of war, Tezrian, and battling my way through the Roller Nation, strapped to a roller-skating Levi. About Heckabe and our ploy to infiltrate the colosseum with the help of the Bone Collector, then busting out and into the land of Arawn the Horned, Protector of the Unfettered Fae.
Everyone listened raptly, with Ferraro stopping me occasionally, asking questions at all the right places, her FBI mind already working away at the possibilities and the implications of what I was telling her.
“So what you’re saying is that you actually have a way to kill immortals,” she said when I told her about going head-to-head with the Frankenstein Derby Girls to get back Buné’s scythe. She sighed and reached up a shaky hand, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Well, I guess that proves Sullivan isn’t completely full of crap. Though the fact that he might be telling the truth is even scarier.”
I looked a question at her.
“That’s why I broke cover,” Sullivan answered for her. “Believe me, I didn’t want to. I was as close to being inside her inner circle as they come, and the information I was able to leak to what remained of the Council was invaluable, but I knew there was no one who could handle something of this magnitude.”
“We’ve taken a lot of casualties since the New Wave pulled their little stunt and took over Moorchester,” Ferraro said, crossing her arms. Moorchester was a sleepy little village tucked deep in the ass end of the Gloucestershire boonies. The whole place looked like it belonged on some English travel brochure. There wasn’t much but sheep, grass, and rain, but every building, every shop, and every street in Moorchester was owned and operated by the Guild in one form or another, and only those in the know ever ventured there.
At least that’s how it had been until Black Jack and his cronies staged a coup and overthrew the Elder Council.
“That’s what they’re calling themselves, by the way,” James said flatly. “The New Wave. Utterly tacky if you ask me.”
“The name may be tacky, but they’ve done a daggon good job of whittling us down,” Greg added. “We only have Sixteen Venántium cells still in operation, seven Judges in the field. After the raid on Moorchester, the Savage Prophet tossed every other surviving Judge into the Tullianum. We have a handful of deep cover S2 operatives. But that’s everything, Yancy. Worldwide. Even worse, Lady Luck has gone missing, which cut off the bulk of our intel. We think maybe the Morrigan has her locked up somewhere. Sir Gal”—he nodded to the knight—“has been trying his best to fill in for her, but it ain’t the same.”
“What do you mean she’s missing?” I screwed up my brow in disbelief. “She can’t just be missing. She’s a deity. Lady Luck. The right hand of the Wyrd.”
“But she is,” Gal said with an apologetic shrug. “Happened not long after you disappeared into Hell. My Lady knows she isn’t dead, since her power hasn’t yet returned to her, but she is gone. Which is baffling. I’ve been doing my best to fill her role, but she could do things I just can’t.” He shrugged apologetically.
I whistled through my teeth. Holy shit this was bad. Lady Fate gone. The Council pretty much obliterated. Hell, we were basically down to the dregs. Sixteen Venántium cells? That was less than two hundred operatives to police every supernatural baddy in the world. And those were regular rube folks. Really, anything that needed heavy supernatural muscle to handle would require a Judge, and there were only seven left.
“Yeah, it’s bad,” Ferraro said flatly.
“And it’s going to get worse,” Sullivan said. “So far at least most of the supernatural heavy hitters have continued to abide by the treaties. But not for much longer, I fear. As unbelievable as it may sound, I believe she’s planning another coup. One of unprecedented scope. Of course, that shouldn’t come as a shock considering that the Morrigan is almost always planning something—but this is different.”
“How so?” I asked, though I had a feeling I knew.
“I believe she’s planning a coup that could be the death of humanity.”
The Plan
“HYPERBOLIC MUCH?” I asked, rolling my eyes. It was always the fate of humanity with him.
“God’s honest truth,” he said, holding up his fingers like a boy scout. “If she carries through with her plan, it’ll change everything. She’s planning to clean house, Yancy. Gyre-Carlin, Queen of Winter, King Oberon and Queen Titania of Summer. Freyr the Green Man. Shruisthia, Ruler of Autumn. Even that mad bastard, Arwan. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Anyone who has ever slighted Old Man Winter or has advocated for peace with humanity. She’s undoing all of it.”
I squinted and twirled my glass, watching the bourbon swirl and the whiskey cube tink along the bottom of the lowball glass. “How the hell would she even do that?” I said after a second. “The Morrigan ain’t no slouch, but you’re talking about the ancient fae rulers of every elemental court. They’re not just gonna roll over and let someone else take the throne.”
“They can’t resist if they aren’t alive,” Sullivan said, the words like a mule kick to the gut.
“Bullshit,” came my knee-jerk reaction. Everyone knew you couldn’t kill immortals—it was in the name, for Pete’s sake. Then, my mind flashed back to Hell and to the list of demonic royals Azazel had managed to murder horrendously, despite the fact that they too were immortal creatures. The Seal of Death. Of course. How had I not seen this before? But I had the Seal now and the Scythe—and as far as I knew, I had no plans to go on a fae murder spree anytime in the near future.
“You really think she’s planning to assassinate them?” I asked in a strangled voice.
“I don’t think it,” he said, shaking his head. “I know it. It was clear from early on that taking out the High Fae was always a part of her plan. The fact that you got the Fourth Seal threw a serious monkey wrench into her plans. Well done, by the way”—he inclined his head toward me—“but you know the Morrigan. She won’t let something as small as not having an Angelic Seal of the Apocalypse stop her.”
“Yeah, but how in the hell do you kill a bunch of immortals?”
“Ah. Now there the details get a little bit fuzzy. She’s cagey, but I am fairly confident that whatever she plans to do will come to fruition in the next few days.” He dropped one hand to his pocket and fished out a folded sheet of creamy paper. He tossed it to me, summoning the slightest gust of conjured wind, floating the folded note perfectly into my outstretched hand. I unfolded the slip of paper and read over the details.
Not a note at all, but an invitation. One for some sort of fancy party taking place in a few days. The neat scrawl was obviously done by the Morrigan’s hand, but other than that it seemed fairly innocuous.
“So she’s throwing a dinner party?” I asked. “That hardly seems like concrete proof of anything.”
“Come now, Yancy,” he admonished, “you know better than that. This isn’t just a dinner party. This will be her coup de grace and inauguration all rolled into one. Everyone who is anyone will be there, including the head of every fae court, along with their nobles and entourage.”
“Bullshit,” I said, hastily cramming the invitation into my pocket. “There’s no way they’d all agree to be in the same place at the same time like that. That kind of concentration of power hasn’t happened in—”
“Since the Dark Ages,” the arch-mage chimed in as I struggled to remember. “During the Seelie Compact of King Arthur’s Court. Back when the Council was first formed and our rules of engagement were so carefully laid out.”
