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For once in my life, I was completely at a loss. I looked up at the boarded-up storefront again, smelled decay and that strange, indecipherable scent.
CM? Christabel Moorcock?
"Christabel?" I said, tentatively, my voice echoing against the soggy shredded interior of the abandoned store.
No answer. Except the memory of the scraping awful scream—remember, remember. The lilac smell of terror clinging to pale-pink paper as Christabel wrote her last message. The memory of her bed, neatly made; her bookshelves religiously dusted, her kitchen and bathroom spotless… Everything in its place.
In all my years of dealing with Power and the strange logic of magick, I had never come across anything even remotely like this. I held up the lighter. Swallowed dryly.
Then I slipped the lighter in the breast pocket of Jace's coat. There's a circle being closed here. Just like a Greater Work of magick.
It was vaguely comforting. It meant some other agency might be working with me to bring Mirovitch and Keller down. Maybe Christabel was helping out another Necromance. Who knew?
Or perhaps it meant I was to be offered as a sacrifice. That was a little less comforting. I blew out a long breath between my teeth, a tuneless whistle that fell flat on the foggy air. I backed away from the store, finally hopping down from the sidewalk and into the street. I decided to go up the Hill and—
"Valentine! Hey, Valentine!" A girl's voice, light and young, and the patter of quick, light, ru
I gasped, whirling, my hair fa
A perfect place to hide.
My own voice caught me by surprise. "Christabel?" Okay, that's it. I have had enough of this. Everyone out of the swimtank. No more voices, no more illusions, no more delaying. I straightened, my jaw set, my right hand cramped around the hilt of my sword. When I could walk without staggering, I continued up the middle of the street in defiance of any streetside hovertraffic, my bootheels clicking on the pavement. Winter had come early here up on the Hill, and frost rimed the darker places where the sun didn't reach during the day. Under trees and in shadowy corners, winter was creeping in without the benefit of the rest of autumn.
I continued up Sommersby and turned right onto Harlow. At the end of Harlow the gates rose up, wrought-iron with plasilica panels, an R done in gothic script on one half, an H on the other. On the top of the gates, dagger-shaped finials lengthened up like claws.
I stopped in the shelter of a doorway, looking at the gates. Be careful, Da
"You don't need to tell me that," I muttered.
The first illegal job I'd gone on had been as a result of Jace's tutelage, a few months into our relationship during a dry period. I'd complained that I didn't have enough to make my mortgage even with the apparitions and bounties I worked on, and he'd looked at me, his head propped on the headboard of my bed, and said, How would you like to make some real money, baby?
I'd done bounties and I'd tracked down stolen objects, but I'd never done corporate espionage or thieving before. I'd never even thought of doing mercenary work, but the money was good and Jace and I were a fantastic team. At the time I hadn't wondered at it, but no doubt Jace's Mob Family co
The memory was strangely fuzzy, even the sharp sword of pain at the thought of Jace was oddly muted. I stared at the gate I'd seen for years in my nightmares, and my hand tightened on the scabbard once more. My heart thundered in my chest.
"Okay, Christabel," I murmured. "You're still leading the dance. Let's go."
Chapter Thirty-three
I wondered why the geography of a place I'd tried so hard to forget was burned so deeply into me that I had no trouble calling up a mental map of the entire complex. Behind the gate, the driveway would curve up the gentle hill, the pond to the right, the shack of the boathouse just visible on the other side. The main house, with classrooms, the cafeteria, and the gymnasium, would rear up in front of the driveway. An ancillary road would curve off to the left, leading to the four Halls, each one shock-shielded and stocked with supplies for practicing the standard Magi disciplines, intranet security and an automatic fail-safe on each one.
Behind the main building were the dormitories, two for girls, one for boys (since the X chromosome carries Talent far more often than the Y) and the fencing salle/dojo, the swimtank building, and, in the very back, the Headmaster's House. Further up the hill and also to the left was the Morrow building, containing the Library, more classrooms, and a fully stocked alchemical lab, as well as hothouses for the Skinlin trainees closed around a courtyard that held a co-op garden for the Skinlins and hedgewitches.
The only thing missing was the stink of childrens' fear—and, of course, the tang of Power as well as the glimmer of a security net: deepscan, magscan, and a full battery of defensive measures. Not to mention the chain-link fence, six foot tall and topped with razor wire Mirovitch had erected inside the older, more aesthetically pleasing brick wall.
Who did that to you, Da
"Jace," I whispered to the empty, foggy street. "I don't want to go in there again."
Whether I was caught in some magick of Fate or just too stubbornly, exhaustedly determined for my own good, I was called upon to finish it. And who, after all, was left to finish it if I couldn't?
My right hand throbbed and ached. I dropped it, touched the pocket holding the spade necklaces. If I was right—and I goddamn well hoped I was—Keller would be tracking me now. I would draw him like a lodestone draws iron filings, like a broken-down hover in the Tank District draws techstrippers. Like a fight in Rio draws the organ harvesters.
Thinking of this, I reached down into my pocket and drew out four necklaces, leaving one behind. I cupped them in my palm, examining them closely. There was no thread of Power I could detect. But of course, if it was only a passive charm keyed to Keller I might not be able to see it at all, even with a demon's acuity. When it came to tracking spells, passive usually meant weak, but it also usually meant invisible.
I closed my right hand into a fist, the sharp pricks of the spade charms digging into my skin. The trickle of Power slid down my wrist like a razor, heat welling up under my skin. It pooled in my palm, melting, swirling, straining to escape.
I stared at my hand, the trickle of superheated Power making my fingernails glow.
Memory rose.
Crack. The worst thing about the whip is not the first strike, laid hot against the back. For the first few microseconds it is almost painless—but then the red-hot fléchette, fueled with Power, scorchsplits open every nerve, and the entire body becomes the back. Not just the back, but the entire world becomes the lash of agony. The scream rises up out of the deepest layers of the body, impossible to deny. No matter how much the will nerves itself not to scream, the body betrays begging, pleading, breaking.