Minutes to Midnight (9 page)

"Will you stop stopping like that?"

"Sorry—I just can't translate it. I think
this is in a dialect I don't know. It says there is a being that
can kill a Djin, but I don't know what it is."

"Only another creature can kill it? There's
no means? Silver? Salt? Bullets?"

I shook my head and continued reading. "The
name issue is the biggest weapon against a Djin. I guess it's the
precursor to the wishes legends. If you know a Djin's real name,
then you use it as the price for a wish, though Rippin' Ja— called
it a hire."

"Well, that's something."

"You can use…iron to paralyze it." Wow.
Interesting. Iron?

"Iron? That's sort of weird and Faerie isn't
it?"

"Yeah, but that thing wasn't a Faerie. Trust
me." Skimming the rest of the text, I shook my head. "Not a lot
there I can translate."

"What about the Peripheral?"

Oh, that was a good question. I flipped
around to the P section and scanned through.

"Nothing. There's not a single mention of
the Peripheral."

"What about the 'Pheral?"

"Yeah…" I looked up at him from the page.
"It says 'Death.'"

I really,
really
wanted another
aspirin.

A NEW PLAYER

Needless to say, I'd missed work that day.
And sword class. Mike had managed to smooth things over with my
boss at Kevin Barry's. My being feverish when Illiana dropped by
helped add a bit to the verisimilitude of the half-lie. She told
them she'd seen me and I was very sick.

Apparently she visited three times before
Mike told her I was doing fine and let her actually step into the
bedroom to see me.

And like all things in my life I didn't have
control of, Mike rescheduled sword class on the same day my boss,
Mark Donovan, scheduled me to work. It all coincided with my return
to the land of the living.

I did not want to go to sword class, and I
wasn't in the mood to kata anything. Yet part of my defense as a
Guardian included wielding a flaming sword that appeared out of—we
assumed—the tattoos in my hands, so…I had to learn a few Obi-Wan
moves so I wouldn't get my ass kicked. Or killed.

Hacking and slashing zombie hands aside.

I wanted to go find Stella. And after a lot
of arguing, Mike sat back and held up his hands. "Where?"

"The Peripheral, where else? That's where
she is."

He glared at me. "So, you got any ideas
where that is? Or how to get there?"

I pursed my lips. "Well…if Alfheim is in the
'Pheral, then wouldn't the gate in that drain in Bonaventure
work?"

"No. I sealed it."

"You shut the door."

"Yeah, and since then, I've gone back to
check. It's closed. It's just a drain now. And no, I don't want to
go find Thomas Rhymer and start that shit again." He stood up.
"Pile on that staph infection after we came through and you were
the sickest I've ever seen you, Dags. Sam and I weren't even
nauseous. You took the brunt of everything. You're not going back
into the Peripheral, or anywhere else until you get better. And you
need practice. We need to work out—well, I need to so I can think
straight."

I agreed to clear my head
and go through a workout,
then
, whether Mike wanted to or not, I
was going to find Thomas. The old carriage driver had gotten us
into Alfheim before.

I was stiff and no amount of
aspirin I consumed was helping the soreness. I'd already had too
many and what remained in my stomach had eaten a hole
through
the lining, which
now churned as we stood off the mat in the dojo and
waited.

Usually Shi-han Shu was already in the dojo,
waiting on us and ready to make fun of me. He had a name for me:
Short-round. Put me up barefoot against Shu and Mike, and I was the
smallest. Maybe it was my girlish figure?

Dressed in a rumpled and wrinkled white gi,
I twitched as my ankle went to sleep and looked around for any sign
of Shi-han. "Maybe I should go in the back and check?"

Mike was the perfect image of calm and
serene with his eyes closed and his hands precisely resting on the
center of his thighs…bastard made me sick. "You remember what
happened last time you went in the back to check?"

I cringed. "Yeah…but Sensei Pam said he got
rid of that."

"I heard it sprang a leak." He shrugged.
"Your funeral."

"I'll be fine." I stood up, not too
gracefully but solidly, and pattered barefoot around the mat to the
farthest door. A curtain hanging from the top and ending at my
chest blocked what was inside from view. And since I already knew
it was a hall leading to a small kitchen, a secondary meditation
room, and the bathrooms, I wasn't that worried or wary.

Should have been more careful.

Something solid clocked me in the back of
the head just past the doorframe. I saw stars and went forward to
the floor. I managed to land on all fours, my shoulder screaming
out at the impact. My vision wavered as I tried really damn hard
not to pass out. A hand grabbed my collar and half-tossed me, half
pushed me forward. I was airborne for a split second and landed on
my back further down the hall. I had enough sense to avoid cracking
my head on the hall's tiled floor. There was concrete underneath
and it didn't do nice things to skulls.

I had no idea who was
attacking me since they continued their attacks from my blind
spots. And I was having a hell of a time just focusing on not
getting killed. For all I knew it was the Djin again, and at any
moment it'd pull me back to the Peripheral. Well, that wasn't going
to happen. The
Grimoire
opened with just the idea I needed, ready to show me the right
spell.

Whoever or whatever it was
came closer from behind. With a small boost of energy I pulled
myself into a sitting position, focused my will behind me and
yelled,
"Usmi amelnakru!"

Light flared and whited out the floor,
ceiling, and walls. The spell was to reveal my enemy. I knew I'd
hit something. I hoped it wasn't one of Shi-han's students.

Or Shi-han.

That would be bad.

Sticking around would be bad, too, so I
scrambled to my feet, experienced a nasty bout of dizziness, and
started down the hall away from the main matt to the back room. A
gunshot preceded something whizzing by my ear, giving my mop of
hair a nice trim before it struck the drywall of the hall. My blast
hadn't hurt them much if they could still shoot that close—or I'd
missed. I had a list of spells I rotated through, so once I reached
the end of that, I'd panic. Right now, I just hoped Mike had heard
the gunshot and was on his way.

The words and mathematics of another spell
came as the book stirred in my chest. I turned and held out my
hands. A large pentagram appeared between me and an approaching
shadow. It glowed bright white, a neon "back off" sign hanging in
the air.

"
Batiltu
."

A feminine voice cried out as the shadow
disappeared and in its place stood a woman in a black gi. She had a
gun in her hand, a large one. Not as large as Mike's Desert Eagles,
but still big. She stood frozen in mid-run, suspended in a cloud of
twinkling light. Her face was a mask of rage and her eyes darted
around in their sockets. She looked panicked.

I heard Mike's footsteps down the hall
before I saw him. He stopped behind the frozen woman, his own eyes
wide. "What the hell?"

"She attacked me and then shot at me."

"So you froze her?"

"Yeah…" I didn't know how long she'd stay
frozen, so I stepped forward and pulled the gun from her hand, then
reached around her elbow to give it to Mike.

Her hand moved fast, and she had hold of my
forearm before Mike could get to the gun. But the rest of her
didn't move, so I figured she could only free that much of herself.
Which, unfortunately, was enough.

Mike took the gun from my hand and pressed
the barrel to her head. "I suggest you let him go before I make a
nice splatter pattern on that wall."

She didn't let go. Not at first. And her
grip hurt. When she did release me, I stumbled back and held onto
my bruising arm. Feeling returned to my fingers and I wiggled
them.

"That's good. Now, let's start with who the
fuck you are and why you went after my friend?" Mike said.

I didn't think she'd answer at first, and I
felt her pushing at the spell holding her so I released enough of
it so she could speak, pretty much the same way I'd released Darius
that morning in front of The Night Pub.

I wasn't real sure how the magic worked most
of the time. There were kinetic spells as well as what I called
weaving spells. The kinetics were short bursts of energy with
purpose, like the one I'd used earlier in the day. One and done.
Like fire. The one I was using on her now was a weaving one, which
meant I was still putting energy into it as the spell wove around
her physical form and kept her in position.

Which, translated, meant I was getting tired
because doing that depleted my own reserves. And the more she
pushed, the more energy was used to keep her still. So I leaned
against the wall and watched her. "Look, you can answer or we can
just leave you here until the spell dissipates. Either way, until
it does, you're vulnerable."

She was looking at me. Dark brown eyes that,
as I watched, went black. The pupil expanded out toward the iris
and then filled the white. I'd only seen that happen with one type
of Dark creature.

A Revenant.

When she spoke, I heard the duel tone as the
First Born inside of her spoke through the voice of its host. "You
really think you can continue feeding energy into this spell,
little Djin? Sooner or later—sooner, I'd guess, from the dark
circles under your eyes—you'll tire and when you do, I will finish
you."

There were several things wrong with that
sentence, but I focused on the reference to a Djin, and the fact
she thought I was one. Mike pushed the gun harder against her
temple, actually making her tilt her head to the side. "Lady, I
think you got your facts wrong. He's not a Djin."

She laughed. "I'm not stupid, you little
monkey. I can smell it on him."

"Smell what?" Mike said.

"The 'Pheral. That's a reek that never goes
away. And that's where it belongs."

I continued leaning against the wall and
cleared my throat. "First off, I'm not a Djin. There's no essence
like that possessing me. You are a Revenant. But not one I
recognize, so that means you're not part of Mephistopheles' little
family. You know about the Peripheral, and that's more than I've
ever heard from the others, so that makes you interesting."

I don't know which part of what I said got
to her, but her facial features visibly relaxed as her grimace of
anger faded. Mike kept the gun pressed against her. "Dags, I don't
think we need to keep antagonizing it. This girl might have that
damn Djin in her."

"Rippin' Ja—?" I shook my head. "Nah, he's
not in there. She is possessed, though—just not by a Djin."

"You should keep your tongue silent, boy,"
she said in a low voice. "Mortals do not need to know of us."

"Mike's my best friend. And he's ready to
blow your brains out until you tell us why you attacked me."

"I told you. You're possessed of a Djin. It
is my right to hunt you and put you down."

"I am not a Djin. I fought a Djin and lost.
But it's not inside of me."

"I smell it on you. I feel power around
you."

"How can I prove to you I'm
not what you think?" But I already knew the answer. To a Revenant,
the blood held the answers. It fed the First Born, strengthened the
human host, and gave power to the bond. And from tasting blood, a
Revenant could possibly know that individual's truth if they wanted
to see. Most often, a Revenant didn't look when it fed. Having a
human host meant a soul, and a soul wouldn't be able to accept its
new life bonded to a Daemon
if
it could know the secrets of another before it
killed it.

Her red lips pulled up in a wide smile as
her teeth descended over her lower lip.

DEAD MAN'S PARTY