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She nodded once, brandished the ax, and turned to continue down the tu
"Which is why they tend to run in packs of twenty," I added, a couple of steps later.
Gard stopped and gave me a glare.
"That's called sharing information," I said. I gestured at the wall. "These are territorial markings for the local pack. Malks are stronger than natural animals, quick, almost invisible when they want to be, and their claws are sharper and harder than surgical steel. I once saw a malk shred an aluminum baseball bat to slivers. And if that wasn't enough, they're sentient. Smarter than some people I know."
"Od's bodkin," Gard swore quietly. "Can you handle them?"
"They don't like fire," I said. "But in an enclosed space like this, I don't like it much, either."
Gard nodded once. "Can we treat with them?" she asked. "Buy passage?"
"They'll keep their word, like any fae," I said. "If you can get them to give it in the first place. But think of how cats enjoy hunting, even when they aren't hungry. Think about how they toy with their prey sometimes. Then distill that joyful little killer instinct out of every cat in Chicago and pour it all into one malk. They're to cats what Ha
"Negotiation isn't an option, then."
I shook my head. "I don't think we have anything to offer them that they'll want more than our screams and meat, no."
Gard nodded, frowning. "Best if they never notice us at all, then."
"Nice thought," I said. "But these things have a cat's senses. I could probably hide us from their sight or hearing, but not both. And they could still smell us."
Gard frowned. She reached into her coat pocket and drew out a slim box of aged, pale ivory. She opened it and began gingerly sorting through a number of small ivory squares.
"Scrabble tiles?" I asked. "I don't want to play with malks. They're really bad about using plurals and proper names."
"They're runes," Gard said quietly. She found the one she was after, took a steadying breath, and then removed a single square from the ivory box with the same cautious reverence I'd seen soldiers use with military explosives. She closed the box and put it back in her pocket, holding the single ivory chit carefully in front of her on her palm.
I was familiar with Norse runes. The rune on the ivory square in her hand was totally unknown to me. "Um. What's that?" I asked.
"A rune of Routine," she said quietly. "You said you were skilled with illusion magic. If you can make us look like them, even for a few moments, it should allow us to pass through them u
Technically, I had told Gard that I was familiar with illusion magic, not skilled. Truth be told, it was probably my weakest skill set. Nobody's good at everything, right? I'm good with the ka-boom magic. My actual use of illusion hadn't passed much beyond the craft's equivalent of painting a few portraits of fruit bowls.
But I'd just have to hope that what Gard didn't know wouldn't get us both killed. Elizabeth didn't have much time, and I didn't have many options. Besides, what did we have to lose? If the bid to sneak by failed, we could always fall back on negotiating or slugging it out.
Mouse gave me a sober look.
"Groovy," I said. "Let's do it."
A GOOD ILLUSION IS ALL ABOUT IMAGINATION, YOU create a picture in your mind, imagining every detail, imagining so hard that the image in your head becomes nearly tangible, almost real. You have to be able to see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, smell it, to engage all your senses in its (theoretical) reality. If you can do that, if you can really believe in your fake version of reality, then you can pour energy into it and create it in the minds and senses of everyone looking at it.
For the record, it's also how all the best liars do business—by making their imagined version of things so coherent that they almost believe it themselves.
I'm not a terribly good liar, but I knew the basics of how to make an illusion work, and I had two secret weapons. The first was the tuft of hair from an actual malk, which I could use to aid in the accuracy of my illusion. The second was a buddy of mine, a big gray tomcat named Mister who deigned to share his apartment with Mouse and me. Mister didn't come with me on cases, being above such trivial matters, but he found me pleasant company when I was at home and not moving around too much, except when he didn't, in which case he went rambling.
I closed my eyes once I'd drawn my chalk circle, gripped the malk hair in my hand, started my image on a model of Mister. I'd seen malks a couple of times, and most of them bore the same kinds of battle scars Mister proudly wore. They didn't look exactly like cats, though. Their heads were shaped differently, and their fur was rougher, stiffer. The paws had one too many digits on them too, and were wider than a cat's—but the motion as they moved was precisely the same.
"Noctus ex illuminus," I murmured, once the image was firmly fixed in my thoughts, that of three ugly, lean, battle-marked malks walking through on their own calm business. I sent out the energy that would power the glamour and broke the circle with a slow, careful motion.
"Is it working?" Gard asked quietly.
"Yeah," I said, my eyes still closed, focused on the illusion. I fumbled about until I found Mouse's broad back, and rested one hand on his fur. "Stop distracting me. Walk."
"Very well." She drew in a short breath, said something, and then there was a snapping sound and a flash of light. "The rune is active," she said. She put her hand on my shoulder. The malks weren't using any light sources, and if a group of apparent-malks tried to walk through with one, it would kind of spoil the effect we were trying to achieve. So we'd have to make the walk in the dark. "We have perhaps five minutes."
I grunted, touched my dog, and we all started walking, trusting Mouse to guide our steps. Even though it was dark, I didn't dare open my eyes. Any distraction from the image in my head would cause it to disintegrate like toilet paper in a hurricane. So I walked, concentrating, and hoped like hell it worked.
I couldn't spare any brain-time for counting, but we walked for what felt like half an hour, and I was getting set to ask Gard if we were through yet when an inhuman voice not a foot from my left ear said, in plain English, "More of these new claws arrive every day. We are hungry. We should shred the ape and have done."
I nearly fell on my ass, it startled me so much, but I held on to the image in my head. I'd heard malks speak before, with their odd inflections and unsettling intonations, and the sound only reinforced the image in my head.
A round of both supporting and disparaging comments rose from all around me, all in lazy, malk-inflected English. There were more than twenty of them. There was a small horde.
"Patience," said another malk. The tone of its voice somehow suggested that this was a conversation that had repeated itself a million times. "Let the ape think it has cowed us into acting as its door wardens. It hunts in the wizard's territory. The wizard will come to face it. The Erlking will give us great favor when we bring the wizard's head."
Gosh. I felt famous.
"I'm weary of waiting," said another malk. "Let us kill the ape and its prey and then hunt the wizard down."
"Patience, hunters. He will come to us," the first one said. "The ape's turn will come, after we have brought down the wizard." There was an unmistakable note of pleasure in its voice. "And his little dog too."
Mouse made another subvocal rumble in his chest. I could, just barely, feel it in his back. He kept walking, though, and we passed through the stretch of tu