robert Charrette - Arthur 02 - A King Beneath the Mountain (41 page)

The iron links writhed like a serpent as they struck the ground. Angry orange rust spread along their length. All around them, the woodland creatures peered from their hiding places to watch the thrashing fetters. The Queen of Pentacles rose from the mud to stand tall again.

"Abita,"
she said.

The manacles crumbled into flakes of rust. The Hierophant was gone, but the Black wizard remained. He glared at her.

"If I cannot possess you, I must destroy you."

Her world became fire.

CHAPTER

22

John and Bennett emerged from the otherworld in the small parklike promenade. Despite all the greenery around them and the pond before them, they were not at ground level; John could tell that from looking at the neighboring buildings. They stood in a multiacre park bounded by yard-high concrete walls. In front of them, four towers rose into the sky. A smaller, glassed-in structure stood in the center of the square demarked by the towers. Through the windows of the central building, John could see a lounge or lobby of some kind and the top of an escalator system. The whole arrangement was a little disorienting; they'd been on the crest of a small hill in the otherworld.

The towers and lobby arrangement were, he supposed, their destination, the Hartford Nikko Hotel.

"The northwest tower," said Bennett, pointing out the one he meant.

There was an elevator car ascending through the tube on the lobby side of the tower. The bottom of the tube joined an enclosed gallery connecting the tower and the glassed-in structure containing the lobby. There was a door to the garden in the gallery. Bennett led him toward it.

"The elevator opens directly to the common room of her suite on 42," Bennett said as they entered the gallery; it was deserted, not surprising given the hour. "The access code is 42 pause 7723. Not very imaginative. 42—S-P-A-E."

"How do you know the code?"

"I have connections." Bennett pointed at the elevator. "Hurry, there's little time."

That had been Bennett's refrain for the entire trip here. John punched the call button and turned to try—once more—to convince Bennett to come along. The elf was gone, vanished.

Leaving John to do the dirty work?

The door—a transparent cylinder operating within the transparent cylinder sandwich of the car—rotated open, and John entered the car.

"Welcome to the Nikko," it said in a pleasant, feminine voice. "What floor do you wish to visit, please?"

"Forty-two."

"I'm sorry," it said with no real emotion. The door cylinder rotated shut, sealing him in a glass jar. "There is no visitor acceptance on file for forty-two. Please state your name and the name of the guest you wish to visit and I will confer with the desk."

And call the cops, too, he expected. There was probably an intruder light flashing in the security office already. John didn't really want to meet hotel security, and he wasn't about to state his name. He punched the "open door" button without cffect. No good. He punched Bennett's code into the control panel, hoping it would override the expert system controlling the elevator.

"Thank you," the elevator said.

John was thankful himself, thankful that whoever had designed the Nikko software hadn't been a paranoid.

The car rose slowly. His first thought was that he hadn't fooled it after all and it was just going slowly to give security time to get ready for him, but then he remembered that the car had been moving slowly when he'd seen it from the outside. To give the guests a good view of the city, he supposed. It was too slow for him; he wanted to get this over with. After an interminable time, the elevator announced, "Forty-two."

The building side of the car was a mirror, reflecting the sky and cityscape behind him and giving a momentary sense of floating in space. The mirror parted as the car's door cylinder began to rotate open, revealing an entryway.

John heard the screaming at once.

He shoved at the cylinder, trying to make it open faster.

It jammed.

He shoved harder, but it didn't give. There was only a narrow opening, but he pressed himself through it. It was a tight scrape but he squeezed through, thankful that he was so slim.

When he saw what was going on in the suite, he had second thoughts about being thankful.

It was Dr. Spae's suite, all right. She was here, writhing on the floor. She was the one doing the screaming.

Standing above Dr. Spae like some kind of human vulture was a tall guy in a weird robe. The robe looked as if it was made of translucent feathers, strengthening the vulture image. Rustling dryly with every move the guy made, the robe draped from his shoulders to the floor, flaring out in a circle that shadowed the doctor. Not that he moved much; he seemed intent on Dr. Spae's struggles.

"Hey!" John yelled. "Let her go!"

The vulture man raised his head and looked in John's direction. His face was a serene and vacant mask of gold, its placidity totally alien to the violent emotions roiling through the room. The man said nothing and returned his attention to Dr. Spae, apparently dismissing John's presence as irrelevant.

John didn't care to be dismissed. The guy was tall, but not as tall as John. He had a little weight on John, maybe, but he was standing still. John charged forward, planning on knocking the guy away from the doctor.

He hit what felt like a wall. But it was a wall with teeth; his nerves screamed as he hit, for a moment adding his anguish to the emotions flooding the room. The next thing he knew he was sitting on the floor, ten feet away.

Some kind of magic jolt.

If John had been a mage, he could have tossed a fireball or fried Dr. Spae's attacker with a lightning bolt. Really taken care of the guy. But John didn't have real power despite what the el veil knight had said, and even if the knight had been light about John's being able to do magic, John wasn't trained; he didn't know any spells.

John had to do something. Distract the guy at least. Then maybe he could get past the wall, or Dr. Spae could help herself, or something. If Bennett had been here, he could have i lone something. Even the elven knight could have—

Magic! The knight! The knight had shown him how to make a flame. It wasn't much, but it could be a distraction. The vulture guy's robe looked awfully flammable, it would be a distraction. In that moment when he'd been in contact with the doctor's attacker, John had sensed that Dr. Spae was l ighting him. A distraction might buy her a chance.

John tried to remember what the knight had told him. It wasn't hard; he had repeated the scene many times in his mind since he'd returned from his first trip to the otherworld. I le hadn't had much success in conjuring a flame before, but there was magic here. Maybe here—

He pictured the flame. Felt the heat. Smelled the burning. That part was easy, the room already smelled scorched. Light, heat, odor.
Flame.

There was fire.

John pictured it nibbling on the edge of the vulture man's feathers. The tiny flame nearly died.

No!

Fire! Burn! Eat the cloak!

The flame rallied, growing. With a startling suddenness, it flared, engulfing the feathered cloak. The vulture man howled.

He sounded more surprised and angry than hurt.

The feathered robe was gone. The golden mask, too. Vanished. But the vulture man was still there, only he wasn't a vulture man anymore. He was a Black guy in a slick suit who fitted Bennett's description of Quetzal, the guy John was supposed to be warning Dr. Spae against. John couldn't imagine it was a coincidence.

Quetzal looked pissed.

It was one thing to jump from the pan into the fire, but when you'd set the fire yourself...

John felt more than a little queasy with Quetzal looking in his direction. This time there was no dismissal of his presence. Quetzal came toward him.

"What do you want, meddler? Who are you?"

John didn't want to give the guy his name. He kept his mouth shut.

Quetzal reached down and grabbed John's shoulder. It was a light grip, but it kept him from scuttling away as he wanted to. Quetzal's hand might have been hot iron, the way it burned. John could only squirm under its heat.

"How do you hide from my sight?" Quetzal demanded.

What was the guy talking about? It was plain he could see John.

"Dice,"
Quetzal said commandingly.

John didn't want to talk, but he could see Dr. Spae starting to gather herself back together. He had to buy her time; she was their only chance. If he could keep Quetzal talking, the guy might forget about the doctor until it was too late.

"Hey, I'm not hiding. I'm right here."

Pain shocked through John.

Quetzal sneered at him. "I am in no mood for insolence. Speak, and I may only make you a slave."

"Maybe I'd rather take another option," John said. He thought he was ready for the pain this time, but it still took his breath away and left him sobbing.

"I would call you a fool, if I did not know you were hiding something. Perhaps you
are
a fool. I intend to know."

The pain stabbed into John's brain this time.

Before he could scream, it was gone. Gone, too, was the burning in his shoulder. Quetzal had released his physical grip. John could move, but only slowly and with great effort.

"A soulless one!" the mage exclaimed with loathing."What brings you into this, elf?"

Without the subtle mental push to cooperate, John wasn't about to tell Quetzal anything. At least not anything useful. But he needed to keep the guy's attention; Dr. Spae still wasn't up.

Quetzal seemed to know he was an elf. Maybe he could use that.

"We order you to leave Dr. Spae alone!"

"Order?' Quetzal laughed.

Well,
that
wasn't it.

The mage reached for him again. The memory of the pain gave John the strength to shift to his left. The movement surprised Quetzal. He hesitated. When he did, the thick, heavy air around John relaxed. John surged against it, gaining his knees. His shoulder drove into Quetzal's hip. The mage stumbled back a step and fell, landing hard.

John got to his feet, wanting to run, but knowing there was no place to go.

Quetzal rose, rage in his eyes. Energy crackled around him, sparking in tongues of flame around his hands.

John swallowed hard.

Wrong move again.

"Hey, shithead!" Dr. Spae shouted at Quetzal. She was finally on her feet. She held her walking stick like a quarter-staff; the metal ends sparked blue lightning like static generators. "I'm not half-asleep now."

She raised her staff as Quetzal turned to her.

The lightning crackled from the ends of her staff, joining into a single bolt that arced toward Quetzal. He raised his hand defensively as the bolt struck. A flash! A thunderous crack boomed. John smelled ozone.

When John could see again, the dark-skinned mage was running for the window. The pane shattered outward as he neared it. He leaped to the sill and turned to face them.

"I have marked you," he screamed as he stepped into the air. "I have marked you both!"

"Mark this!" Dr. Spae yelled back at him.

Another bolt leaped toward him. Again the flash dazzled John, and the thunder assaulted his ears. This time, when he could see again, Quetzal was gone.

Dr. Spae approached the window cautiously, peering up and down and to both sides before stepping close. She repeated the scan when she reached the sill.

"He's gone," she announced.

John joined her at the window. He looked down. There was no body sprawled in the garden below. Had she vaporized Quetzal? John wasn't about to ask.

Dr. Spae was shivering; not surprising given the cold air and the light weight of her nightshirt. She left the window and went into the kitchenette. From one of the cabinets she took a bottle of liquor, and from another, a pair of glasses. The glasses rang in her hands. The doctor tried to pour herself a drink, but her hands were shaking too hard; she poured most of the liquid onto the counter.

John took the bottle from her and poured an inch or so into one of the glasses.

"What the hell are you doing here, Reddy?" she asked.

Handing her the glass, he said, "I came to warn you about Quetzal."

"You're a little late."

"Maybe you'd rather I never showed up."

She drained her glass and held it out for him to refill. "How the hell did you find out about him?"

"Bennett told me."

"Bennett, huh?"

He nodded.

"Something tells me that we've got a lot of catching up to do."

CHAPTER

23

Going after the mage Spae had been a mistake. Had he left her alone, he would not have suffered such an ignominy. But retreat had been wise. For truth, in the light of intervention by the soulless ones, retreat was the only prudent course at the time.