Alaskan Fury (10 page)

“What the fuck just happened?”
someone snapped, with a French accent. 
“The wolf vanished off the sensors.”

“You
missed
, you
fucktard,” a man with a German accent snapped.  “She just bolted.  Beeline
through the trees.  No way we’re going to catch her now.”

“That was a direct hit.  No freakin’
way we missed that.  She’s not even showing up on our cameras…”
  And then
Kaashifah wrapped herself in a capsule of magic and
shunted
herself to a
stream she remembered fishing at several miles upriver from the Sleeping Lady,
where salmon settled to rest on their long journey up the Yentna.  ‘Aqrab would
not like it—he never did enjoy the way the bond wrenched him around during her
‘void-walks’—but she was pretty sure that this time, he was not going to
object.

Blackness swallowed her suddenly,
yanking her out of range of her enemies’ whispers and heartbeats, leaving her
hearing nothing but the sound of her own breath in her lungs.  The blackness
was complete except for a blinding blue-white electric cable between her and
her destination.  There were other cables—if she looked too closely,
billions
of cables, all bending and twisting, threatening to tangle her thoughts and
trap her if she examined them for long—but the one she needed was close at
hand.  It was also one of the few she could actually reach, as exhausted and
injured as she was.  Saying a mental prayer, she grabbed it and yanked. 

A few minutes later, she spilled
out onto the cold, half-frozen surface of Carboy Creek, then, with the sudden,
unpleasant sound of breaking glass, fell
through
the ice, into the creek
itself.

The frigid water hit her body in
a sudden wave of shocking cold, and Kaashifah sucked in a huge gasp of air,
struggling to get a hold on the wafer-thin sheet that had held her.  Chunks of
ice broke off easily in her fingers, giving her no purchase to pull herself
from the water.  As she panicked at the center of the creek, her body slipping
almost instantly into a numb paralysis, the wolf within screamed and ranted
against its cage, chipping at the walls she had used to confine it.

Can’t use the wolf
, she
thought, desperate, now.  She had already used it too much that day, and she
knew the more she let it from its cage, the stronger it became.  She conceded
to weave the spell of levitation around her legs, as she clung to the ice,
feeling her body go numb as she concocted the platform to lift herself from the
icy water.  With the energy she had expended and the wounds she had endured, it
took several minutes longer than it should have, and by the time she buoyed
herself out of the creek and slumped to the ground on the opposite side, her
body was numb with cold, and it convulsed with feral shivers. 
Have to light
a fire,
she thought, realizing that the numbness spreading into her mind
was being aided along by the icy fall air.  She twisted slowly, looking at the
nearby shore, seeking a likely source of fuel.

Clumps of frozen marsh grasses
were all that stood nearby.

Deciding they would have to do,
she crawled towards them and focused on them with her mind, narrowing what
remained of her energy to a tight ball, heating the likeliest clump of frozen
green grass into a timid flame.

…A timid flame which quickly went
out.

While immortal, given the right
conditions, a Fury could die a violent death just as any other denizen of the
First realm.  And Kaashifah had been shot, her lifesblood was even then
spilling out upon the ground beneath her, dark against the frozen silt of the
riverbed.  Deciding she needed to use the last of her reserves to stop the
flow, she concentrated on sealing the wounds that the Inquisitors had given her
and left the fire for later.

It took much too long to gain
enough focus to fuse the flesh over the bullets, and by the time she was
finished, the cold air had sapped the rest of her strength, leaving her with
the odd feeling of numb, pleasant warmth.  Groaning, Kaashifah slumped to the
frozen silt of the creek’s swampy bank, in a bed of frosty grass.  After a few
minutes of lying there, she saw the air shimmer near her head. 

“Did you
have
to walk the
Void?” the djinni demanded.  “I’ve
told
you I despise being dragged
through that tangled—”  He stopped, peering down at her oddly.  “Why are you
wet?”  Immediately, his eyes lifted to the jagged hole in the ice of Carboy
Creek, following the trail of water back to where she lay.

Kaashifah’s body now only
suffered mild shivers, and she felt the nagging urge to close her eyes,
exhaustion finally setting in.  She had expended much of her energy just trying
to survive the jaunt through the Fourth Lands, and after a blood-rite with the
djinni
and
exhausting herself controlling the Third Lander in her blood,
followed by a
void-walk
, she was teetering on the edge of
consciousness.  And now she carried two lumps of silver like cysts under the
skin, weeping poison into her system in hot waves, aggravating the Third
Lander, making him even more frenzied at the back of her mind. 

…Yet through it all, it had never
even occurred to her to use the djinni’s boon to kill.

Too long had she been bound by
the djinni’s curse, she realized in tired disgust.  Running, it seemed, had
become second nature to her.

‘Aqrab fell into a kneeling
position beside her, a black mountain in the darkness, and the heat
intensified, suddenly warming her face and side.  “I see blood, but no wounds,
mon Dhi’b,” he said, concern in his violet eyes.  “How many times did they hit
you?”

Kaashifah tried to tell him, but
her words must not have been loud enough, for the djinni grabbed her by the
shoulders and shook her violently.  “Mon Dhi’b.”  His voice was a warning, but
there was panic in his eyes.  “How many times, and where?”

“Just let me sleep,” Kaashifah
said.  And closed her eyes again.  This time, she was blessedly lost to the
void before he could wake her again.

Chapter 5:
By the Blood of the Wolf

Imelda Nieve squatted over the
blood-spatters marring the pebbled beach.  The bare footprint of a flame demon
stood out as clear as day beside the tiny child-sized boot-prints of the wolf. 
They’d searched entire hours away for the two beasts, but both had eluded them
as if they’d simply disappeared.  The djinni, she could understand.  He could
simply twist to the firelands and be gone.  But the
wolf
?  Imelda picked
up a blood-covered stone and twisted it in the glare of her flashlight. 

A blood rite.  She would have bet
her job on it.

What kind of moon-cursed demonkin
dealt in djinni and blood-rites?

And how could a wolf simply
vanish?  They’d had every instrument available trained on the beast—
six
entire acquisition teams
converging at once—and the monster had simply
vanished, leaving only a spattering of blood behind to taunt them.

Had it used a wish, then?  A wish
to escape?  Imelda had been one of the closest at hand when the sniper had
botched his first shot, and she personally didn’t think that the wolf had been
given enough
time
to make a wish.  The beast had simply changed…and run.

That
also bothered her. 
Why would a wolf run?  Every possessed soul she’d ever encountered went on the
attack the moment the Third Lander took control.  It was their natures.  The
malicious, ravenous beasts of the Third Realm simply did not have the mental
restraint to work out such things as plans and strategy.  They were vicious
predators, crafted into cruel and brutal killers by the cold and violence of
the frostlands.  They didn’t
understand
retreat.

Something wasn’t adding up.   Imelda’s
co-leader of this mission, Segunda Inquisidora Zenaida, thought that the djinni
was bound to the possessed woman’s pendant, but Imelda couldn’t understand how
a
wolf
could have
disappeared
.  Even with a djinni’s help.  Wolves
were bottom-tier.  Barely more than savages.  Certainly that would have taken a
wish, for the Fourth Lander magics to have enough sway to change the tides of
history in such a way.  The wolf had been
theirs
.  Imelda had reviewed
the video footage repeatedly.  The djinni had lit up like a flare on the
screen, as opposed to the warm reds and oranges of the wolf and her pursuers. 
The wolf had disappeared first, and the djinni had begun moving at horrendous
speeds through the forest before he had simply vanished with her.

The vibrating buzz of her phone
interrupted her thoughts.   Switching hands on her flashlight, Imelda pulled
the slim instrument from her front chest pocket.   Flipping it open, she put it
to her ear.  “Diga.” 

On the other end, Inquisitor
Zenaida’s deceptively soft voice said,
“Have you found the djinni and its
pendant yet, Imelda?”
  As always, the Segunda Inquisidora used Imelda’s
common name, instead of her rightful ‘Segunda Inquisidora Nieve’.  The same rank,
on paper, as Zenaida, though Zenaida maintained several decades of seniority. 
Zenaida, Imelda knew, didn’t like the fact that there was only time-in-service
between her own job and Imelda’s, and the woman took every opportunity to try
and increase the distance.

Imelda narrowed her eyes and
replied, “There is no sign of the wolf, Inquisidora.”

“Then you are not looking hard
enough.  Search to the south.  That’s the direction the djinni was headed
before it disappeared.  They were likely headed towards Anchorage.”

Imelda fought a surge of anger at
Zenaida’s command. 
As if she is the Holy Matron herself,
she thought,
irritated.
 
Restraining herself from saying something she would regret,
she replied with a curt, “There is nothing to suggest they went south.”

“There’s a
city
to the
south.  What better way to lose our Hunters than to mingle their scent with
those of thousands?  Go to Anchorage.  You’ll find them there.
”

“There is no
trail
,
Inquisidora,” Imelda said, fighting frustration.  “The blood simply vanishes.”

“Then scrye the blood, you
fool.”

Imelda’s fingers tightened on the
phone.  The last thing she wanted to do was enact a scrying spell.  If the
beast was what she suspected, that spell would work both ways.  She said as
much.

“A
magus
?”
  Inquisidora
Zenaida snorted as if she’d suggested the Pope was possessed of a Third Lander. 
“It’s not.  I would have sensed as much.”
  She could
hear
the
woman’s sneer as she added,
“Besides.  All of my kind died over a thousand
years ago.”

“Regardless, I have evidence of a
blood-rite, Inquisidora,” Imelda growled.  “They had exchanged some sort of
pact before we got into position.”

“Then you have the beast’s
blood,”
Zenaida said, undaunted.
  “Use it and find it.  That djinni could
change
everything
.”

Imelda made a face and threw the
bloody rock she held back to the ground, though she was careful to keep from
transmitting her frustration.  She took several moments to collect herself
before biting out,
“If you are wrong, Inquisidora, and we are dealing with a
magus and not a wolf, then we might be doing more damage than good.”

Inquisidora Zenaida had the
audacity to laugh over the link. 
“Just because
you
do not understand
the magics and see their weaves, Imelda, does not mean that others share your
weakness.  I looked upon the wolf and I saw nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Yes, but—” Imelda started.

Zenaida, as was her habit, didn’t
allow her to finish.  In a patronizing sneer, she said,
“I shook her
hand
,
Imelda.  It’s just a wolf.  Confirmed by the scent of moon-magics and the shift
we caught on camera.  Scrye her out, kill her, and bring back the talisman. 
You shall be given no other mission until this one is complete.”
  With
that, the line went dead.

 “Arrogant Coño!” Imelda snarled,
lunging from her squat beside the bloodied sands.  She angrily snapped the
phone shut and shoved it back to the pocket in her chest. 
She saw a few
decades of demon-hunting and she believes she’s God’s gift to the Order.
 
Angrily, Imelda paced downriver, following the djinni’s light stride—at easily
seven feet tall, the flamekin only weighed a fraction of the tiny Third Lander
wolf, and by the light impressions in the soil, she guessed that his gross
total was probably somewhere around a hundred pounds, perhaps less.  The
weights added up—a much-too-heavy Third Lander wolf, and a much-too-light
Fourth Lander flamekin—but still her gut was telling her something was off,
that it wasn’t as simple as it appeared.

Still irritated at her superior’s
conceit, Imelda followed the oddly-juxtaposed tracks, considering her
predicament.  As of that conversation, she had been effectively assigned to the
djinni.  The djinni, however, had disappeared, and if Imelda wanted to take
part in the historic, momentous cleansing of the rest of this contaminated
land, she had to find him.

She shook her head.  Inquisidora
Zenaida had been a Segunda Inquisidora for at least a couple decades, yet still
hadn’t moved up to the next rung in the Order, a Grande Inquisidora.  Imelda,
only thirty-three, had gained all but the last two ranks within her short
lifetime, without the aid of magic or ancient bloodlines.  For this, she was
sure, Zenaida despised her.

Imelda stopped, once again
peering down at the spatters of blood upon the stones at her feet.  She knew
how
to scrye, and carried the proper instrument to form a link, but aside from the
obvious potential for problems if she linked to the wrong victim, it was
distasteful to her.  She reviled the thought of drinking blood tainted with
wolf, not only because she had the nagging fear that their possession was
contagious, but because the last thing she wanted to do was enter the mind of a
monster, however temporary.  She had been forced to do so in the past, while
hunting vampire clans in Poland, and the mental sickness that had carried over
the link had left Imelda reeling for weeks.

Which was, of course, probably
exactly why Zenaida wanted her to cement such a bond.  They were on the verge
of clearing out the last major pocket of corruption on the face of the planet,
a festering pustule of rot, the massive extent of which they were only now
beginning to fully understand, and she was doing everything in her power to put
Imelda out of the center of operations, to handicap her as they made history.

And, while Imelda and Zenaida did
technically wear the same rank, the rash, arrogant magus carried the seniority,
and a djinni was certainly considered a great enough prize to devote the full
attentions of a Segunda Inquisidora to his capture.  Thus, Zenaida
did
have the power to keep Imelda from the forefront of the battle, if she could
not complete this mission.  And both Imelda and Zenaida knew it would be all
but impossible to pin down a Fourth Lander who could slip Realms as easily as
breathing.  The djinni was a wild goose-chase, Zenaida’s attempt to keep Imelda
out of the action, and it infuriated her. 

But then again, Imelda thought,
as she looked down at the blood-spatters, perhaps Zenaida’s plan was not as
foolproof as it seemed.  After all, if Imelda were to bring in a
djinni
,
she could hardly be ignored when the time came for the Order to name a new
Grande Inquisidor.  As far as she knew, the Djinn were all dead, and not
one
had ever been taken into custody.

Reluctantly, she squatted and
trained her flashlight on the old blood once more.  The wolf had wounded
itself
—what
else could that be other than a blood-rite?  Gingerly, she selected a small
stone that was relatively clean except for its brown crust.  Cradling it in her
palm, she peered down at it, debating. 

Imelda had a nagging suspicion
that Zenaida was wrong about the wolf.  What kind of
moon-cursed
dealt
in
blood-pacts
?  That was a
magus’s
stock and trade, and the magi
were dead.  Over a thousand
years
dead.  Or so Zenaida claimed.

God, but her head hurt.  While migraines
had bothered Imelda for as long as she could remember, in the last few weeks,
in preparation for taking the phoenix, the pressure had increased almost
exponentially.  It was now a glassy fuzz at the edges of her vision, one that
did not appreciate the too-bright light of her flashlight.  Powered by the glow
of a fey stardancer, it had no LED or bulb to break, had no batteries to
change, could cast a light for miles, if desired, and weighed no more than a
pencil.

Imelda closed her eyes, took a
deep breath, then let it out between her teeth.  Daughter of the ghetto, raised
to become a Sister of the Order, now a slayer of demons.  Zenaida’s station as
a Segunda Inquisidora—one of the very evil-doers they were attempting to
eradicate—had not been the least of her surprises upon taking that coveted
black uniform.  Before taking her vows, she had never even suspected that the
Church would deal in the very powers and poisons and possessions it fought to
destroy.  That literally every
mechanism
of the Order was powered by the
beasts they captured had left her in tears for weeks.  It had been a shock,
but, as her Padre had assured her with an unhappy shake of his head, she had
finally come to understand that to fight fire, one must sometimes use matches.

Still, she found it distasteful. 
That Zenaida flagrantly
flaunted
her magics, in
public
, and
condemned those who did not have them, made her gut twist all the more.  A
magus.  Working within the Order as if she had every right to be there.  At
least, she thought her Padre had the right of things when he had confessed to
her that Zenaida, with all of her seniority and decades of experience, would
never make Grande Inquisidora on that single fact alone.  Zenaida was, after
all, one of the very things the Order hunted. 

Often, Imelda wondered
which
,
and how Zenaida had gained her powers, so long after the magi were supposedly
extinct.  Zenaida’s record was sealed in the archives, and while Father Vega
confessed to her that he had known about Zenaida, during his time in the Order,
fifty years ago, no one seemed to be able to remember when she had joined.

At least the Order recognized a
limit.  If Zenaida hadn’t taken the title in five decades, she would never make
Grande Inquisidora.  On the other hand, Imelda, as mud-born and as human as the
Pope himself, only had a few short years before she took that coveted title and
moved to Rome, leaving Zenaida with her precious decades of seniority over some
other misfortunate Segunda.  From there, if she worked hard and stayed devout
to the cause, she would eventually take Holy Matron of the Order.  Her Padre, a
man quietly gifted with the Sight, had Seen it.