City of Fire (City Trilogy (Mass Market)) (10 page)

Bayang trembled with rage and frustration as she watched her enemy escape. Her hatred for Badik was so deep, she felt it in the very marrow of her bones.

Get a hold of yourself, she scolded herself fiercely. Mindless fury won’t help your people. Badik is gone so think about what to do about the remaining target
.

She took several deep breaths, rejecting all emotion and focusing on the hard facts as she had trained herself to do.

Her prey had saved her, a complete stranger, and later had been so heartbroken when his bodyguard had died. These were not the actions of a heartless monster who murdered brutally and wrecked so many innocent lives. Instead, he had shown a hatchlinglike trust when he had turned his back on her. She found it touching
that, despite all his hardships, he still had the same kind of faith of the young: simple but deep.

Many believed that a person could improve with each new lifetime. She found herself hoping that was what had happened to her prey—the cycle of deaths and rebirths slowly washing away the callous murderer from his soul like dirt stains from a shirt. If that was true and she killed him, who would be the real monster then?

As she wound the discarded chain around her waist, she looked about the wreckage, searching for her prey. She saw him sitting on the floor with his friend and the bossy little Kushan hatchling. They were all looking very scared but also very determined about something.

The bossy little Kushan noticed Bayang at the same time. “When my mother wakes up,” she called to Bayang, “please tell her that I’ve gone after the dragon.”

The dragon?
Bayang stared at the hatchlings skeptically.
Had they all taken knocks to their heads during the battle?
Then she noticed the rug for the first time. Its edges were rippling, curling, and then straightening out as if it were alive. The Kushan hatchling must be of the Old Blood and either she or her griffin could read the Old Tongue.

Bayang had thought there was only one flying carpet left in the world and she had flown on it several times while on a mission in disguise in the New Persian Empire. The secret of their creation had been lost centuries in the past, and since then no one had been able to figure out the complicated process of simultaneously casting the complex spells as the threads were woven.

This one might have flown when it was new, but slashed from its golden frame and lying on the floor, the threadbare rug looked more like trash than a valuable antique. She was sure that it would fall apart at the first attempt at flight, but even if it held together by some miracle, these hatchlings had no idea of the trouble they were getting themselves into. Carpet flying was not for amateurs.

Of course, one way or another that would eliminate her prey and solve her problem. However, Bayang prided herself that when she carried out a mission, no harm came to bystanders even if they might be as obnoxious as the Kushan hatchling.

She strode over to them, gesturing for them to stand up. “That old antique won’t take the strain of a chase. It’ll fall apart in no time.” She deliberately added, “
Little
girl.”

The young Kushan’s head jerked up as if Bayang had poked her with a sharp stick. “I fought just as hard as you did.” She paused as irritation and manners warred with one another. In the end, politeness won out. “But thank you for distracting that monster.” The Kushan hatchling’s shrewd eyes studied Bayang. “San Francisco certainly breeds muscular little old ladies.”

Her prey nodded. “You swung that chain like a piece of rope.”

Bayang took a breath and fought down her panic. The important thing was to keep her actual identity from her target.

“My name is Bayang Naga,” Bayang said. “I’m with the Pinkerton Agency, Special Operator for the Magical Division.” Somehow her purse had managed to stay strapped to her shoulder. She snapped it open now and took out her wallet, flipping it open to show the fake badge.

It was a magical object that became whatever she needed. If she had called herself a Canadian Mountie, the badge would have become that. She could also have been an Interpol detective, a chicken inspector, or any one of a dozen other professions and with an equal number of false identities. However, since she didn’t expect to be with the children long, she used her own name since that would reduce possible mistakes.

Together, the hatchlings stared at the shiny gold badge and then her prey’s friend swung his gaze up toward her. “So you’re in disguise.”

“That’s right,” Bayang said, relieved that the fake badge seemed to be holding up.

“The Pinkertons have a magical division?” the Kushan hatchling asked.

“We don’t operate openly, but then usually neither do magical criminals, so we like to operate behind the scenes,” Bayang explained. “I was sent here as backup.”

“How come no one warned the consular staff?” the Kushan hatchling demanded.

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask whoever hired the agency,” Bayang ad-libbed quickly.

The Kushan upstart gave an amused sniff. “Well, I’ll repay you somehow after we get back.”

Bayang opened her mouth in astonishment, unable to believe any hatchling could be so mad. “I’m trying to save your life again. Only an idiot would try to fly this”—she waved a hand as she tried to find the right term—”this overgrown rag.”

The little twit stuck out her chin defiantly. “They hurt my mother and killed my sister. The carpet only has to hold together long enough to let me get even. So I don’t have any use for advice like yours if it’s just excuses to do nothing.”

“I couldn’t stay here either,” her prey said, sitting down behind her. “They murdered my friend.”

“And me, I’m just a fool,” Koko said, plopping down on the rug.

Bayang made a frustrated sound at the back of her throat. Why did the Kushan and her prey have to remind her about debts?

Until she had repaid her prey for saving her life, she would have to accompany him. Anyway, it suited her own purposes to pursue Badik, as well. If she saved her prey’s life during the hunt, well, she would wait until that happened before she worried about what to do about him.

Motioning the hatchlings to back away from the head of the carpet, Bayang said, “All right then, move back. I owe the boy my life.”

The Kushan hatchling stayed where she was. “Are you of the Old Blood?”

“No,” Bayang said, “and I know only a smattering of the Old Tongue. But that’s enough to provide something that you’ll really need.”

Scirye

“Touch there,” the little elderly woman commanded. Her shoulders were no longer stooped and her back hunched. Instead she was standing as straight as a Pippal with a fierce look in her eyes.

“Why?” Scirye demanded suspiciously.

The woman raised one eyebrow in a superior attitude. “Have you thought about how you’re going to hold on when you’re maneuvering that rag hundreds of feet above the ground?”

Scirye hesitated, reluctant to give this Miss Know-It-All any satisfaction, but Kles tapped her. “Go ahead. It’s better to damage your pride rather than your head.”

Doubtfully, Scirye squeezed her finger until a drop of blood balled on its tip, then traced an ornate curlicue woven into the carpet’s design.

“Now say this word.” The woman spoke a word far more ancient than the Old Tongue.
“Dherkik’.’

“Dherkik”
Scirye repeated, and gasped as the curlicue rose in a loop. Reaching down, the woman tugged at it. “Good. The threads are still strong. They should hold our weight.”

Scirye reluctantly had to admit that this woman might really know what she was talking about, so she and the stranger paced about the carpet, raising more loops, each of which the woman tested carefully.

“Before we leave the ground, hook your ankles through these straps,” the woman instructed, “and hold onto the others.”

“How do you know that?” Scirye asked.

“Oh, I’ve learned a few things in my travels,” the woman said, bumping into Scirye when they both tried to sit at the head of the carpet.

Scirye didn’t like how the stranger was assuming command of
her
expedition. “It’s my carpet.” The girl glowered.

The woman put an exasperated fist on her hip. “But I’ve actually flown one. Have you?”

Kles tugged at her ear. “Let her try. She’s proved she’s on our side, and she knew about the loops.”

Reluctantly, Scirye stepped back and plopped down on Leech’s left. The woman supervised them as they set their ankles through a pair of loops and gripped the long steering loops like the reins of a horse.

From the epic poems Scirye had read, she knew it was only proper to introduce herself to her fighting companions. As scared and angry as she was, she also felt a little thrill at having her own adventure.

“My name is Scirye and this is Kles, my lap griffin,” Scirye began, nodding to Kles, who sat on her shoulder.

“Oh,” Koko said, “is that what that thing is.”

Kles bristled. “I am not a thing, you fat toad.”

Scirye pulled at his leg. “You’re the one who’s always reminding me to mind my manners,” she scolded.

“My name’s Leech,” the smaller boy said and jerked a thumb at the bigger, chubbier boy. “And this is Koko.”

“He’s the brawn and I’m the brains,” Koko added.

“We’ll need both before we’re done,” the woman said curtly. “Say the spell.”

Kles haltingly read the long forgotten words. But at first nothing happened.

Relieved, Koko began to slip his ankle from a loop. “See, the sign was right—Hey!”

The front of the carpet jerked into the air and then lowered itself again. Kles read the spell more confidently now. This time the carpet rose, bucking and twisting like a living thing, tossing Scirye and the others against the straps.

“Easy,” Koko yelped, hastily securing his ankle.

“It’s not like I’m flying a dirigible, you know,” Bayang shot back. “Carpets have wills of their own.”

She strained at the steering loops as they almost crashed into a wall, banking sharply to the left.

Scirye had had her doubts about the ankle loops, which she expected to be as weak and frayed as much of the carpet, so she was grateful that they felt as strong they still were.

She watched the opposite wall rushing toward them, but in the last few seconds, the woman managed to level the carpet off and sent it circling the gallery.

“See, there’s nothing to it,” Bayang declared triumphantly.

As if annoyed, the carpet suddenly sagged in the middle so that Scirye bumped against Leech.

Angrily, Bayang grabbed the fringe of the rug as if it were hair. “Behave yourself,” she commanded the carpet, “or I’ll hand you over to the moths.”

The carpet flattened out—though it rippled defiantly when they least expected it.

With a tug at the steering loops, Bayang sent the carpet spiraling upward toward the jagged hole in the skylight.

Bayang