Cloak Games: Thief Trap (13 page)

“I don’t think these have been used for a long time,” I said. 

“No,” said Corvus. “Whatever was in those cages preferred to eat raw meat.” 

“Right,” I said “So. Why are the cages empty now?” 

Corvus shrugged. “Maybe McCade let them circulate among the guests.” 

“Wouldn’t a thing that eats raw meat be a little obvious in a room full of rich jerks and Homeland Security officers?” I said. 

Corvus shrugged again. “They’re predators. I assume another kind of predator would fit right in.”

“I can’t tell if that was a joke or not,” I said. There was another steel door at the far end of the. I cast the spell to sense the presence of magic again. There were no spells or magical traps upon the door, but the auras of power I had sensed before felt closer. “Whatever magical items McCade has hidden away are close. We should…”

Corvus took three quick steps back. 

I spun. “What is it? Is…”

A sheet of white mist rolled across the floor, splitting into two separate flows. I feared that we had triggered some kind of trap, that poison gas was pouring into the kitchen. Except gas didn’t act like that. The stream of mist split into two columns that seemed to thicken and harden and solidify. It was a bit like watching winter sleet condense into ice. 

“Brace yourself,” said Corvus. “Do you have any weapons?”

“Weapons?” I said. “No. Why? What’s…”

The mist vanished, and it its place appeared…

I blinked. 

Two creatures out of a nightmare appeared in the place of the mist.

They looked vaguely like wolves, albeit larger and far more muscular than normal wolves. Strange bony armor covered their long bodies and their heads, making it look as if they wore a second skeleton over their hides. Their fur was ragged and stringy, and their eyes burned with a peculiar intelligence. 

“Wraithwolves,” I said. “Goddamn it, he summoned wraithwolves.” 

I had never seen a wraithwolf before, but I knew what they were. The creatures were things of the Shadowlands, the strange parallel realm that connected the worlds, the home to the Warded Ways that the High Queen and her Elven nobles had used to leave their homeworld and reach Earth. When the High Queen’s human armies fought against her various enemies in the misty realms of the Shadowlands, the wraithwolves prowled after the carnage of the battlefield, feasting upon the wounded and the stragglers. 

James sometimes told me about the things he had seen in the battles of the Shadowlands. But he had only told me of the wraithwolves once during one of our late-night cigarettes, how they had had hunted him after he had taken his leg wound, how he had barely escaped. After telling that story he had smoked four cigarettes and gone to bed, and he had never spoken of the wraithwolves again. I don’t think he had even told Lucy that story. 

Seeing the wraithwolves up close, their rank, rotting smell filling my nostrils, their glowing eyes digging into me, I understood why James never wanted to speak of them. 

“Have you ever fought a wraithwolf?” murmured Corvus in a quiet voice. The wraithwolf to my left looked him, its eyes unblinking. 

“Never even seen them,” I said. “Heard of them, though. They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?” 

“They’ll try,” he said. “McCade must have summoned them and bound them as guardians. They’re from the Shadowlands, so bullets won’t hurt them.”

“I don’t have a gun,” I said. I wondered why the wraithwolves hadn’t attacked yet. 

“Neither do I,” said Corvus, opening and closing his right fist. “We need…”

The creatures shot forward in a blur. Corvus thrust out his left hand, and a brilliant ball of crackling blue-white lightning shot from his palm and struck the nearest wraithwolf in the chest. The creature rocked back with a tearing howl of pain as fingers of lightning stabbed up and down its limbs. 

The second wraithwolf pivoted towards me, every muscle tensing as it prepared to spring. I didn’t have any weapons. I didn’t have any spells with the power of the lightning globe Corvus had just cast into the other wraithwolf.

But I could Cloak, so I did that instead. 

I had the distinct pleasure of seeing the wraithwolf come to a halt, something like confusion come over its hideous face. The creature’s eyes jerked back and forth, its nostrils flaring as it tried to pick up my scent, but the Cloak would baffle its sense of smell. 

It hesitated for an instant, and then wheeled, springing towards Corvus in a smooth arc. I couldn’t warn him, couldn’t even move without releasing my Cloak. Fortunately, Corvus had no need of any warning. He dodged the wraithwolf’s lunge, looking as calm and relaxed as he had upon the dance floor, but his eyes had turned solid black again. 

He flicked his right wrist, his fingers opening…and suddenly a sword appeared in his hand.

At least, it resembled a sword. If shadows could have been collected and gathered into a blade, they would have looked like the weapon that Corvus had called into existence. It was a shaft of utter darkness that extended three feet from his hand, its edges flickering and gauzy. Even as the wraithwolf turned, Corvus wheeled, slashing the sword of shadows across the creature’s flank. The dark sword parted hide and muscle as easily as if they had been paper, and the wraithwolf staggered with a scream of pain. Corvus brought the sword down, and his next stroke severed the wraithwolf’s head, its black blood spurting across the concrete floor. 

He started to straighten up, his eyes still filled with shadow, and the second wraithwolf slammed into him. Its weight drove him to the floor, its forepaws raking at his chest, its jaws clamped around his right forearm. Corvus couldn’t get his sword arm free to strike, and he couldn’t cast a spell of lightning at the creature, since the power would conduct through both of them. 

A cold voice in my head pointed out that the time had come to abandon him. 

If I fled now, the wraithwolf would kill him. Likely the creature would be too busy devouring his corpse to pursue me. If I was quick, I could enter McCade’s inner sanctum, make off with the tablet, and escape before the wraithwolf finished its meal. If Corvus had been planning to betray me, his death would tie off that loose end nicely. For that matter, if I tried to help him, the wraithwolf might kill me, and if I died Russell would die. Russell’s life mattered far more than Corvus’s.

All this flashed through my mind in a heartbeat. 

I prepared to sprint for the door on the far end of the kitchen…and I couldn’t. 

I just couldn’t. 

To this day I am not entirely sure why. It wasn’t a pang of conscience – I didn’t really have much of one left. Maybe I feared that Russell would one day learn all the illegal things I had done to save his life, and I didn’t want to add leaving a man to die to the list.

Hell. Maybe I’m just an idiot.

I released my Cloak and began another spell, thrusting my hands towards the wraithwolf perched atop Corvus. My magical education had been very specific, with Morvilind focusing on spells he thought I might need as a thief and a general outline of magical theory. He had not given me much training in the elemental forms of magic, and very little in the way of battle spells. Likely he didn’t want to arm me with any spells I might use against him, though compared to his magical power, I was a candle flame next to his inferno. 

That said, he had taught me the basics, and I called elemental fire.

It was a simple spell, but I couldn’t control it well. Someone like Morvilind or a veteran wizard of the Legion could have unleashed a tight sphere of flame that would have shot through the wraithwolf’s skull like a superheated bullet. I only managed a cone of fire that washed over the wraithwolf’s hindquarters. The beast reared back with a startled yip of pain and surprise, and for an absurd moment it sounded like a startled puppy. 

The resemblance to a puppy vanished when the wraithwolf whirled to face me, its eyes ablaze with fury. The thing was going to tear me apart. I was a lot smaller than Corvus, and it could bite my head off with one twist of those massive jaws. 

The beast started to spring, and I Cloaked again. The wraithwolf stumbled, head jerking back and forth as it tried to find me, and in that moment of hesitation Corvus rolled to one knee and brought his sword down. The blade sliced into the wraithwolf’s neck, and the beast went into a spastic, jerking dance. I dropped my Cloak and dodged as the wraithwolf staggered past me, slammed into the side of the counter, and went limp, black slime pooling beneath it. 

I let out a long breath and looked at Corvus. 

“Damned things,” muttered Corvus. His white dress shirt had been shredded and stained with blood. “Always hated them. Almost as bad as anthrophages. I…”

He wobbled a bit, the black sword vanishing, and had to put one hand on the nearby freezer to stay upright. I moved closer, peering at his wounds. Trying to save his life might have been a wasted effort. Depending on how badly the wraithwolf had bitten him, he might bleed out right now. If I escaped with the tablet, leaving behind a mauled corpse would definitely complicate things…

As I stepped closer to Corvus, his black eyes fell upon me like a physical weight, and I noticed three things at once. 

First, with his shirt shredded, I saw his chest and stomach, and he was…well, let’s just say he was impressively muscled. There was a reason that tuxedo fit him so well. If he ever wanted female attention, he could just take his shirt off and walk about in a confident manner. 

Second, he had scars. A lot of scars. Sword scars, and other scars that looked like claw marks. The livid red gashes from the wraithwolf’s claws formed cross-hatches with his old scars. One scar on his belly, just below his ribs, looked as if it had been made by a large-caliber bullet, and I suspected it had left a nasty exit wound in his back. 

But the scars and the muscles were not at the forefront of my attention. 

His tattoos were.

Specifically, his moving tattoos. 

Spiraling black lines marked his torso and stomach, and as I watched the tattoos moved, writhing and flowing over his skin like…like…

Like shadows. 

I looked at the blackness that filled his eyes, as if they had become spheres made of shadow.

I looked at his right hand, and saw the lines of black tattoos retreating from his wrist and up his damaged forearm. I knew then, with utter certainty, that when he had called that dark sword into existence, the tattoos had flowed up his arm and coalesced into his hand to form the sword. 

And that meant…

A wave of fear rolled through me, more intense than any I had felt since beginning this enterprise. 

“Oh, hell,” I whispered. “You’re a Shadow Hunter.”

Oh, God. I had kissed a Shadow Hunter. If I died in the next few minutes, they could inscribe “NADIA MORAN, IDIOT” upon my tombstone. 

“See?” said Corvus, his voice a hard rasp. “Told you I wasn’t a vampire.” 

“Think I would have preferred that,” I said. “You’re an assassin.” 

“No,” said Corvus. “No. I am not. We are executioners, not assassins.” 

“Oh, there’s a fine distinction,” I said, my mind racing. 

I knew about the Shadow Hunters. Everyone did. They were a legendary organization of assassins, and according to the stories, they gained superhuman powers from symbiosis with a Shadowmorph, a creature of some kind from the Shadowlands. The Shadow Hunters turned up in a lot of movies and books, though the Inquisition always made sure the fictional Shadow Hunters killed traitors to the High Queen, Rebels, and corrupt businessmen. I had asked Morvilind once if the Shadow Hunters were real, and he had answered that if I valued my life, I would make sure to stay well away from the Shadow Hunters. 

“It is,” said Corvus, taking deep breaths. “We are not assassins. We only kill those who have earned execution.” 

“And you feed on them,” I said. According to the tales, a Shadowmorph drank the life of its victims, transferring that power back to its host. 

“Yes,” said Corvus, and his shadow-filled eyes opened again. “Please do not stand so close to me just now. You are young and pretty and I’m…a bit hungry at the moment.”

I took several hasty steps back, my eyes fixed on him. 

“Hungry,” I said. “Goddamn it. A Shadow Hunter.” 

“And what about you?” said Corvus, wincing as he closed his eyes. 

“What about me?” I said. “I’m not a Shadow Hunter.”

“Are you a half-elf?” said Corvus. His eyes darted back and forth behind closed lids, the black lines of the Shadowmorph skittering over his skin. “Or are you an Elven noble in disguise?”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “I’m not an Elf, and my mother didn’t sleep with one.” 

“You cast an illusion spell,” said Corvus. “A…Cloak spell, I believe it is called. You vanished so thoroughly that not even the Shadowmorph could sense you. Humans are forbidden to learn illusion magic, and the Inquisition kills any Elves that teach illusion or mind magic to humans. So what are you?”

That put an idea into my head. Maybe I could report Morvilind to the Inquisition for teaching me illusion magic. Of course, if I did that, he would use the vial of heart’s blood to kill me. If he killed me before he cured Russell, then the frostfever would kill Russell. A wave of bitter anger went through me. Morvilind didn’t need chains or brands or drugs to control me the way McCade controlled his borrowed slaves. He had built a perfect box around me, a box from which I could not escape. 

Though the wounded Shadow Hunter in front of me was a bit more dangerous at the moment. 

“What I am,” I said, “is concerned that you’re going to bleed to death unless you get something on those cuts.” The gashes across his chest and stomach were bad enough. His right forearm was a mangled mess beneath the torn sleeve of his coat. Unless he saw a doctor or a wizard with a powerful Healing spell within the next few hours, he was probably going to lose the arm. Or die of blood loss. 

“No,” said Corvus, shaking his head. “Just keep watch for a moment, will you?”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll stand here and watch you bleed to death.” 

“You won’t,” said Corvus, rolling his shoulders. The movement had to pain him…but then I saw something astonishing.