Vesik 04 - This Broken World (5 page)

Sam and Dad settled onto the couch after a few minutes. She curled up beside him, almost like Vicky had curled up beside me with the pack. I took a seat on the hideous, yet remarkably comfortable, leather recliner and Mom sat on the other side of Sam. All we were missing was a game of Solarquest, a bad movie, and Dad’s godforsaken “pizza popcorn”—which was simply popcorn drowned in seasoned salt—and I could have fallen backwards into my childhood.

“There is one other bit of unpleasantness,” I said.

“What?” Mom asked. Her voice was steady and confident. She could deal with some craziness when she had to.

“What can you tell me about Hinrik Vesik?”

“Your great …” Dad paused and reconsidered. “Great great great? However many greats, grandfather?”

I nodded.

“Well, I know he was a magician of some sort. He was supposed to be a psychic or something along those lines.”

“No …” Mom said. She looked up at me. “He was supposed to be a medium. Was he like you?”

I nodded. “Yes.” Yes was the easy answer. It wouldn’t give my parents any sort of comfort to know the debate about Hinrik being either a dark necromancer or a hero. Or both.

“You used to talk to Koda about him, when you were very small.” Mom wrung her hands together. “I don’t think I’ve heard you mention him since then.”

“Koda?” I said, unable to keep the surprise from edging into my voice.

“That’s right,” Dad said. “You used to say Koda talked about the dark manwich.”

I laughed. “The what?”

Dad shrugged. “Who knows?

As soon as I thought about it, I knew what I’d meant when I was a kid. Koda didn’t talk about a dark, delicious sloppy joe. Koda talked about a dark necromancer. Hinrik. Koda had avoided talking about my great grandfather when we last met. I was going to have to track Koda down.

***

“Oh my God, Damian,” Sam said as we pulled out of the driveway. “Dad apologized
again.
I did not see that coming.”

“I didn’t either,” I said. “Stubborn old bastard.”

“That was an amazing, horrible, amazing afternoon.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that pretty much sums it up.”

“You’re going to find Koda, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “How’d you guess?” I gave Sam a sideways glance.

“When the mood changed from family bonding awfulness, I was pretty sure. Hell, Demon, I don’t think you spoke another sentence longer than two words before we made it out of the house.”

I laughed. “You’re not wrong. I haven’t talked to him in a while. Since he gave me that manuscript.”

“That wasn’t long after Cassie …” Sam grew quiet and her gaze wandered to the passenger window.

We’d lost Cassie in a fight with an Old God. Gurges, god of steam and wind.

“You really think Glenn is going to start a war over Cassie?”

“Maybe he would,” I said. “Cassie was a very old friend to him. She was a loss to us all, but don’t forget Ezekiel killed nearly an entire city of Fae. Almost ten thousand dead, all told. There aren’t many people who wouldn’t go to war after that.”

“They are
gods,
Damian.” Her gaze swung back to me. “What’s going to happen?”

I glanced at Sam and took a deep breath. “I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s going to suck.”

“It scares me. The world at large isn’t ready to see two gods tearing each other apart. If they’re freaking out about that crappy video, what’s going to happen when they get some real footage? A witch hunt with nuclear arms?” She crossed her arms and her head thumped against the window. “Ow.”

I normally would have laughed, but my brain was following Sam’s train of thought. Commoners weren’t known for their compassion for and understanding of things that go bump in the night. They were already assembling a task force. If they had a task force, they probably had a strike force. What would they do when the things that haunt their nightmares came at them, guns blazing?

We drove the rest of the way to the Pit in silence.

CHAPTER SIX

M
y quiet steps on the wooden stairs fell away to nothing as I reached the carpet on the second floor of Death’s Door. I took a deep breath, letting the smell of the old books settle around me like a mantle of security. I knew I probably wouldn’t be back for a while, so I might as well drink my fill.

I didn’t waste any time, but I savored the walk between the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Ancient grimoires, interspersed with manuscripts and books on the history of more magical creatures than I could ever hope to memorize, stretched to the ceiling far above.

My reading sanctuary waited for me at the end of the aisle. A small shelf of my randomly stacked, current reading material was above the chairs. Yellowed manuscript pages and leather-bound tomes debating the innocuousness—or undiluted evil—of soularts were the flavor of the week. Koda, one of the wisest men ever to lead the Society of Flame, had me questioning what was right and wrong. He’d lived and died in times when dark necromancers were one of the worst plagues upon the world, but still he debated their alignments. Whatever I believed, it was a dangerous road either way.

I slid the old trunk out from its nook in the wall behind the leather chair. Wards were carved deeply into the dark wood, concealing the trunk from most of the world. Zola said they could prevent anything contained within it from being tracked. It had been a gift from the man known only as Ward, a celebration of Zola gaining the right to vote. My hand trailed along the gouges in the wood and the old iron that formed the metalwork along the corners.

Zola had dealt with the worst humanity had to offer in her lifetime … slavery, war, betrayal, oppression. My thoughts shifted to Hugh. The loss his people had incurred was immeasurable. Would his involvement with me drag the entire pack into a fool’s war? I ground my teeth together. There was nothing I could do about the past, but I might have a chance to help the future. My hand curled into a fist and I closed my eyes briefly.

The lid opened smoothly, the hinges whisper quiet. I had an assortment of my most dangerous manuscripts and a few artifacts tucked away in the trunk. The Key of the Dead glinted in the dim lamplight. On top of it all sat a tube of black linen.

I grumbled as I reached in and picked it up. The hand of glory was heavier than one might suspect. The old flesh hadn’t decayed, but it certainly hadn’t stayed fresh either.

I started to close the lid, and then reached in to grab Philip’s journal before heading downstairs to search for my backpack. It was only then that I realized there’d been a distinct lack of claws, tongues, and bristly green fur. I tapped my foot at the base of the now-enormous hole in the wall where Bubbles and Peanut liked to sleep.

Nothing.

“Huh,” I said, raising my eyebrows. I shrugged it off and turned my attention to the junk shelves. They were … organized. “What have you done, Frank? What have you done?” I slid the backpack off the top shelf and nothing else rained down on my head. It was just … wrong.

I tucked everything into the backpack as I walked through the saloon-style doors and out into the front of the shop. I was rearranging the hand of glory when someone spoke.

“Whatcha got?” Her voice was lighter, more like she used to be. It made me smile as I turned around to find Ashley standing behind me. Her piercing green eyes smiled up at me just as much as her lips. A basket with the Double D logo printed on the side was filled with clear packets of herbs and an extraordinary amount of scrap amber.

I did a double take at the basket as I leaned down to look more closely. “That’s cool,” I said. “When did we get those?”

“Damian!” Frank jumped out of the chair behind the register. “When did you get here?”

“Hey, Frank! Just a couple minutes ago. I think you were in the bathroom. When did you get these?” I asked, pointing at Ashley’s basket.

“Just yesterday,” he said. He came close enough to reach out and shake my hand. His gray hair was cut short, almost military. His face looked even thinner than when I’d seen him last week. He’d hardened in many ways since he started working with me at Death’s Door.

Ashley pointed at him. “You’re fading away, Frank.”

“Not likely,” I said. Frank was scary ripped. I could see a few leftover stretch marks on his upper arms from when he’d weighed a hell of a lot more, but his workout regimen was turning him into rock.

“You might be wrapped up in that cloak now,” I said, “but we’ve seen you leather clad and fighting a blood mage. In fact, I think I might have seen a video of it.”

Ashley’s blush was damn near instantaneous.

“How’d the coven take your ascension to being a Power?” I asked.

“Some of them are okay with it,” Ashley said. She tried to keep her voice steady, but instead spoke in a near-whisper. “A few left.”

“The people who stayed are your real friends,” Frank said. “Anyone who leaves because you change one small piece of yourself was never a friend in the first place.”

This time Ashley did reach out and squeeze his forearm.

“Truer words,” I said. “Truer words.”

“Thank you.” She walked over to the counter and set her basket down. Frank followed her and started unpacking everything. “Do you really think it’s going to be a war?”

“I have it on good information it’s already a war,” I said. “We just don’t know it yet, although we kind of do know it.”

“I worry about the people that left,” Ashley said as she looked up at me. “They have no one Damian. What if there’s a new witch hunt? Most of us have no true power. It’s one of the reasons I took up the Blade of the Stone.”

“Speaking of which,” I said, “Koda’s book had some vague references to it. I think that is some seriously dangerous shit.”

Frank chuckled. “You think? I was pretty sure it was dangerous after it dissolved a car and ate away half the street.”

“Point to Frank.” I pointed at him. “Where are the pooches?” I glanced at the back room.

“Pooches?” Frank raised his caterpillar-like eyebrows at the word.

I held my hand out at my waist. “You know, about so high. Eat everything? Like to bite?”

Frank nodded and continued ringing up Ashley’s goods. “They left with Foster and Aideen.”

“Really?” I said with the surprise plain in my voice. “Cara said to bring them to the Concilium Belli. I kind of thought she was joking.”

“The
what?”
Ashley said, her voice rising sharply.

I took a deep breath and met her eyes. Her focus shifted from my left eye to my right and back. “Ashley,” I said. “Faerie is going to open war against Ezekiel and those who would support him.”

“No, they can’t.” She looked through me, and I could almost see the thoughts churning in her mind. “Look at the damage that video is doing. An open war will reveal even more of our world, or confirm its existence to everyone who witnesses it.”

“I know.”

“Can’t you stop it?” she asked.

“No one can stop it,” Frank said. “War is war. Human, werewolf, Fae … there will always be war.”

I looked at Frank as he scanned the items in from Ashley’s basket. Something dark crept within his words. I had a feeling I knew what it was. He’d not had an easy life. The family gunrunning business hadn’t panned out so well in the end. At some level, I knew he spoke from experience.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Ashley asked.

He finished scanning the last few pieces of amber. “I’m good, thanks.”

Ashley nodded and paid before she turned back to me.

I watched Frank start bagging her items in some Double D branded shopping bags. Nice reusable cloth ones. I was impressed with us.

“Damian,” Ashley said.

My gaze shifted to the priestess.

“You’ll tell me when things start to happen, won’t you?”

“Yes.” I slid the sleek black phone out of my pocket. “Sam made sure I had your number loaded up. And about fifty others.” I swiped the screen to unlock it and pulled up my texts. “We have an emergency group set up and you’re on it. If something really bad happens, you’ll know right away.”

“Thank you,” she said, picking up her bags. She turned to leave, and then paused. She took a couple steps and hugged me instead. “Thank you.”

“Saving the Wiccans,” I said. “It’s what we do.”

She laughed and smiled before heading out.

“You okay?”

Frank blew out a breath. “I was just thinking there’s a lot of ways to die in a war.”

I nodded. He didn’t need to say more. His dad had been gunned down in an arms deal gone south. Frank had a unique, and terrible, perspective on war.

 “Keep an eye on Sam for me,” I said.

“I will, Damian. Have a safe trip. Try not to let the Old Man kill you.”

“Yeah,” I said with a laugh. “No shit.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

F
rankly, I assumed training with the Old Man was going to be nothing short of absolute brutality. To postpone things a bit, I stopped off for some comfort food on the way south. Fried catfish at the Catfish Kettle in Farmington … words escape me.

I practically inhaled a hushpuppy and took a big drink of water. Slightly crunchy, slightly greasy, deep-fried cornbread. I smiled and thought of the time Zola had brought me to this place so many years ago.

The server dropped off a water refill. I nodded and continued chewing. An older, petite server near the hostess stand pointed at me. I didn’t think much of it until she started walking toward me.

“You’re him, aren’t you?”

I swallowed and looked up at her. “Umm, maybe?”

“You’re the all-you-can-eat kid. I just know it.”

“I’m the who?”

“Come with me,” she said before walking away.

I grabbed the last two pieces of catfish, shrugged, and followed her toward the front of the restaurant.

“You’re him!” She motioned to the black and white, eight by ten photo on the wall.

I squinted and leaned down to get a better look. “Oh. My. God.”

“I knew it!”

The photo showed me, with Zola, and a tower of empty baskets on the table. I looked absolutely sick, my hands folded over my stomach. It had to be at least ten years old. Maybe even fifteen?