Blood and Whispers, page 29
But at the moment I finally needed it, it had gone silent. Maybe I’d lost too much blood, couldn’t concentrate hard enough. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t find the fire. I had nothing left.
I opened my eyes again and looked the sprite. His eyes were as blank as his face. Patiently waiting for my fear. I did the only thing I could do.
“Fuck you,” I whispered with the last of my energy.
He shrugged. “You will be afraid soon enough. Once the pain starts.” He raised the skinning knife in his right hand and bent to take the dagger out of my chest with his left.
His hand grasped the hilt and a searing pain lanced through my torso and down my spine as he started to pull it out. Then I heard a deafening bang and my ears started ringing. The pain eased as the knife stopped moving. I vaguely heard another two bangs, but they were much quieter than the first, almost background noise behind the tinnitus. When I felt the floor shake as if a heavy weight had dropped right next to me, I was momentarily confused and turned my head to see what it was.
The Faerie had collapsed, his face a mangled mess. I saw blood starting to pool out below him, and my confused brain struggled to make sense of what had just happened. The loud bangs had been gunshots. Someone had shot him while he was distracted, focusing on removing the dagger so he could begin his task.
I was still confused. I lay there wondering who could have shot him for a second before I heard footsteps and shouting. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but someone was very excited. Or angry. Definitely one of those two, given the yelling. I wanted to close my eyes, but curiosity kept them open as I waited to see who was coming towards me.
My vision was blurry, especially around the edges. I tried to focus and see who had just leaned over my face. They were shouting something. Queen, maybe? I didn’t know why they’d be shouting about a queen at a time like this, but that was the best my brain could do at the moment. She looked familiar, like I’d seen her somewhere. But before I could figure it out, I drifted into sleep, leaving the pain and confusion behind.
Chapter 29
I woke up confused about where I was and took a few seconds to get my bearings. Sterile odor, white, too much background noise, must be a hospital. I was lying on my back under a blanket, both hands and feet wrapped in bandages, tubes going into both arms. My throat was sore as hell.
I tried to look around, and discovered I was still rather bleary-eyed. There was someone in the room with me, but it took several blinks before I could see her clearly.
Connors looked concerned. “Don’t move, Quinn. You’re beat up pretty bad. What do you want?”
“Water,” I croaked. She nodded and grabbed a cup off the stand next to my bed, filled it from a bottle, and put it to my lips. The sensation of the cool liquid in my dry mouth and throat was heavenly, despite the pain of swallowing. I closed my eyes for a long second to savor it.
“What…happened?” I managed to ask.
She chuckled. “Thought you might ask that. Short version, after they went in the front door, I heard a bunch of gunfire for a minute, then everything went quiet. You weren’t responding on the radio. So after a few minutes of worrying, I called Rachel to tell her what was going on like you wanted. But she wasn’t going to be able to respond for at least another half hour, so I went in to check it out. By myself—I didn’t want to risk a whole tactical team against sorcerers.” She put her hands up, as if to ward off an interruption. Like I was in any state to interrupt.
“Stupid, I know. And against the plan, I know. But everything was quiet, and the door was unlocked—either they forgot to block the door like Sam did, or the block must have faded when you killed their leader. So I went in and found their intended sacrifice tied up in a duffel bag by the front door, got him outside, and headed back in to look for you. I shot that short bastard as he was about to go to town on you with his skinning knife. You’d lost a lot of blood, and still had a giant knife in your chest, so you got rushed into emergency surgery. They cracked your chest, repaired the lung as best they could, and sewed you back up. You’ve spent a couple days in the ICU with a breathing tube down your throat and a drainage tube sticking out of your ribs. You got transferred here a few hours ago when the docs decided you were probably stable enough not to die on them.”
I contemplated this in silence for a few moments. Partly because it was a lot to take in—I remembered only bits and flashes about what had happened upstairs. Partly because talking hurt my throat. I put it off and thought about what I’d just heard while I gathered my strength to respond. Not just about how close I’d come to death, but about what Connors had done.
One ordinary person, armed only with a small pistol, going into a house that she knew contained up to six hostile magical beings who had already killed multiple people. Knowing exactly what they were capable of, knowing everything she’d learned over the previous week, she still went into the house. Stupid, yes. Profoundly stupid. She could have waited for Rachel. That was the plan, after all. But if she had, I’d be dead, and the world would be facing possible destruction. Instead, she’d gone in. That was a hell of a thing to do. One of the bravest things I’d ever heard of.
I also thought about what I could remember from the bedroom upstairs. Why I hadn’t just burned the damn house down around me. I struggled to put together the hazy memories, when sudden recall flashed through me. I remembered the exact moment when I’d tried to end the whole thing and burn the house, and my tormentor, to the ground around me. When I’d failed. When I’d given up. I knew I should think hard about that. I even knew who I should talk to about it. But I didn’t want to. Not right then. Not in front of Connors, when she was waiting for an answer, something, anything, to let her know she’d done the right thing. I’d have plenty of time to reflect on my own failures later. I always did.
Instead I opened my eyes and realized Connors had taken my hand. I struggled to smile up at her.
“Good job, Adrienne,” I slowly and painfully croaked. “I fucked up. You…you saved the day. Hell…you…maybe saved the world. I…doubt you’ll get a medal for it, but I’d call it…a win.”
She chuckled. “The captain said something pretty similar. After yelling at me for ten minutes about how stupid it was to go into the house in the first place.”
I cracked a wry smile as best I could. After another couple sips of water, my raw throat was better lubricated, and I sounded halfway human despite the hoarseness.
“He’s right, you know. You…” My voice faltered and I motioned for another sip. “You continue to surprise me, Adrienne Connors. I misjudged you when we first met, in so many ways.”
Something struck me.
“How’s Henri?” If I’d been in the hospital for almost three days, then he’d been here for almost a week.
“He’s doing alright,” she answered. “He’s been out of the ICU for days now. Physically, he’ll make a full recovery apart from the arm. And mentally, he’s tough. He knows it’s not going to be easy, but he’ll make it through this.”
I nodded. It was going to be a rough road for the big man. He’d have a great deal of adjusting to do to life without a left arm. It was probably the end of his police career. From what the Avartagh had said about his family, why he’d become a police officer in the first place, that could be a tough pill to swallow. It would be easy for him to retreat into self-pity and anger—to crawl into a bottle, or maybe worse. Like I had so many years before.
But Connors knew him better than I did, and he’d clearly overcome plenty of adversity before in his life. If she thought he’d make it, I’d trust her judgment.
I resolved to go visit him as soon as I was physically able, however. Not just because I’d never taken that bracelet back, meaning he was still technically under my protection. No, I owed him. Just like his partner, he’d charged into a building, knowing he’d be going up against sorcerers and possibly even the Fae, to try to help me. To try to save me. And he’d gotten hurt in the process. The least I could do was help him deal with that injury as best I could.
More than that, I realized I’d actually come to care about Henri Lajoie. He and his partner had earned my respect through their actions, and I could no longer think of them as mere allies, partners in helping me stop the Tamesis. No, I’d come to consider them friends—the first human friends I’d had in a very long time. It was a strange feeling, caring about people again. But I did, whether I wanted to or not.
Connors stayed for a bit to make sure I was alright, but she eventually had to go do real work. Normally closing a case is fairly straightforward: fill out a report, file any evidence, make sure everything’s set for the prosecutors if there’s a trial to worry about. But this case was different. She and Captain Paulson had agreed that, for obvious reasons, they couldn’t put everything in the report.
I could just imagine what that report would sound like. I almost chuckled at the thought.
Instead, they would be working late developing a plausible lie that would satisfy both their superiors in the department and the dogged curiosity of the press. Journalists love a good macabre serial killer, and the occult theme of the murders had apparently fueled general interest in the story. Adrienne and the captain had their work cut out for them figuring out how to spin the story without jeopardizing either of their careers. I was glad that was their problem and not mine. At this point, I’d probably have just told the reporters the truth and dared them to believe me.
Instead, I planned on getting plenty of rest in the near future. A couple more days in the hospital at least until the doctors were willing to let me go home, and then I’d keep the shop closed for a while until I had healed. As far as I was concerned, my job was over until I was back on my feet.
We still didn’t know who’d been behind the whole thing. My Faerie tormentor gave me a lead to start following—Aengus or Bran might know who the sprite was, and that could lead me to whoever was giving the orders—and there was still plenty of work to do. But the Tamesis itself had been interrupted, so I’d at least have some time to recuperate before trying to figure it all out.
I eventually drifted off to sleep, in no hurry to throw myself back into detective work.
That night I woke up in the dark. It was a hospital, so it was never completely dark, but the light from the hallway shining under the heavy wooden door of my private room didn’t do much to illuminate my surroundings. And yet I immediately knew I wasn’t alone. I sensed a presence. Not merely a fellow sorcerer, but some sort of magical being. A Faerie?
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
“Johannes?” I asked, recognizing his voice. “You know visiting hours are over, right?”
The Immortal had come to see me in the hospital. What was he doing here? He could easily have waited until morning to check on me.
“Please, Thomas,” he said, “I can practically hear the wheels in your brain spinning at top speed, trying to figure it out. So why don’t I make it easy, and just tell you why I’m here?”
He walked over to the chair next to my bed and sat down.
“Simply put, I’m the one you’re looking for.”
I struggled to sit up in bed, my eyes adjusting to the dim room.
“What?” I asked, not understanding.
“When you came to see me, and asked for my help,” he shrugged, “I told you no lies, but I’m afraid I also didn’t tell you the whole truth. You know me as Johannes the Immortal. What I’ve never told you is that before taking that name, the Romans knew me as Janus, their god of beginnings and endings, of time, and transitions, the master of the veil, of the future and the past. Janus, Johannes, how obvious do I have to be, boy? When I told you Janus was a suspect, that was true. When I told you I learned everything I know about the Great Cycle from Janus, that was also true. I am the one behind the Tamesis. I always have been.”
I stared at him, unmoving. Where my mind had previously been racing, it had been stunned into silence.
“But you’re not Fae,” I finally managed to whisper.
He nodded. “Correct. The Olympians took me in as one of their own. Together we raised the Romans from a humble village to the masters of the world.”
I considered that, then asked the obvious question.
“Why?”
“An excellent question,” he replied. Then he paused, as if figuring out how to phrase his next words.
“I suppose we should start at the beginning. I told you how I became an immortal, from the magical cataclysm caused by the union of this world and the Otherworld. What I neglected to mention is that I am not the only one of my kind left. While most have passed on, five of us remain. We are the last Immortals, who have watched the advancement of humanity—our offspring—from mud huts in the African rift valley to landing on the moon. We have borne witness to every war, every plague, every empire, and every poet the human race has ever produced. And we are so very tired of it all.”
“Tired?”
He nodded. “Exhausted. So over two thousand years ago, we began experimenting with a better way.”
“Rome,” I said in sudden realization.
“Very good, Thomas. I’m glad that knock on the head hasn’t damaged your wits. Yes,” he nodded again, “Rome was my attempt to build a better world, by manipulating human society from the shadows alongside the Olympians. We tried to guide the Roman civilization to establish peace and prosperity for all. The Pax Romana, it was called. My brothers and sisters had their own experiments in China, in India, in Persia, and so on. But we all failed, eventually.”
I cocked my head. “And you decided the apocalypse was a better solution?”
He chuckled mirthlessly. “Not quite. You see, I realized that in order to form our more perfect society—one free from humanity’s petty foibles—it would be necessary to leave the shadows and take control, to break the endless cycle of greed and destruction. Armed with the wisdom of the ages, our insight into humanity’s nature, and the power of the magic that courses through our very being, we—the Immortals—are the only ones who could successfully build such a society. But our earlier efforts to do so as guiding lights and gods had been hobbled by our self-imposed constraints. To succeed, we needed to be overt.”
Suddenly it made sense. “But after the Treaty of Tara, too many people had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The five of you couldn’t take on the whole Arcanum and the Aes Sidhe and their allies. Hence the Tamesis.”
“Precisely,” he nodded. “Powerful as we are—and you know better than anyone how powerful we are, Thomas—we still could not prevail against the rest of the magical world. That is why my brothers and sisters decided not to support my plan, preferring to continue their hidden efforts—a waste of time and energy, but they refused even to consider openly confronting the Arcanum at its full strength.” He paused briefly, as if remembering something from long ago.
“But,” he continued, “no one knows the nature of the magical cycles linking our worlds like we who were there at the beginning. I realized that I could use my knowledge to break that link, severing the alliance between the Arcane Court and the Faerie Court, banishing the Fae back to the Otherworld where they belong and simultaneously depriving the Arcanum’s sorcerers of the source of their greatest power, the ley-lines. With the Arcanum and their allies out of the way, we Immortals would finally be able to do what is necessary.” He paused for a second.
“I used a mad Faerie as my patsy in the first, tentative experiments—the creature you know as the Avartagh. He knew me only as Janus the Olympian, and I carefully guided him toward the critical point in the Great Cycle which could shift it to the necessary equilibrium to change the structure of the magical links between the worlds. I led him to believe the rites were intended only to destroy the ley-lines, letting his people triumph over the Arcanum at long last. He did not know that it would also sever our two realms.
“But I miscalculated: he was sloppy, and the Arcanum too organized and effective. I saw that I needed first to weaken the Arcane Court from within. I needed an ally—someone inside the Arcanum, someone powerful enough to become my weapon to destroy it.”
My heart began racing as he stood up, then continued while looking down at me.
“I have been alive a very long time. What’s another eight hundred years when you’ve been waiting so many millennia? So I set to work, making careful, limited, unnoticed moves, cultivating specific bloodlines in the directions I needed. An injection of my own blood—I produced an heir, for the first time in thousands of years, and then guided her descendants from the shadows for centuries. Over several generations, I’d finally produced someone with the potential strength needed to harness the wellspring of magic. Then it became a matter of shaping him to my plan. Of pushing him ever so slowly away from the Arcane Court, without severing the connection entirely. Of leading him to see the darkness and pointlessness of humanity’s petty concerns. Priming him to understand the righteousness of my cause.”
Here he paused once more, then reached out a hand and lightly placed it on my shoulder. I looked up at him, standing over me, already knowing what he was going to say next.
“Me,” I whispered. He nodded.
“Of course, my dear Thomas. You are my direct heir, my great-great-great-grandson. That blood, combined with several other powerful families, is why you have the potential to be the greatest sorcerer since Hermes Trismegistus himself—my nephew, as it happens. It is why you, and you alone of mortal humans, have the capacity to touch and wield the heart of magic, the wellspring, as I taught you decades ago. That is why I took you in when you felt you had lost your way—I was waiting for such a moment. You were ready to learn, and just needed a final push to complete your disillusionment, your cynicism. I’d prepared your skills but needed to prepare you to join me.”
