The Conclave of Shadow (16 page)

I sighed “Yeah. Well, I can't seem to avoid getting embroiled in that mess. Might as well do it for the right reasons.”

“How do you propose to gather the energy of Alam al-Jinn?”

That, at least, I had an answer for. “What do you know about the Djinn and their ability to travel through unalloyed metal?”

A
s it turned out
, the Lady knew very little about the Djinn. No surprise, really. But she did have a wealth of ideas about how to connect a new network of Alam al-Jinn attuned nodes to the existing mishmash of wards.

“– and that point would act as a terminus, creating a synergy between my vanguard, the Red Gate, the Shadow Dragon's shrine, and the Conclave's Citadel.”

She placed markers – bottle caps from a jar that had been stuffed between the greaves of the suit of armor – on a cheesy cartoon map of the city that we had spread across the carpet. She had strange names for some familiar places, but with the map, I was able to follow most of them.

“Right, so we need a node at Land's End to connect what you have along the coast with the Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown, and Alcatraz.” I scanned the map. Seven locations, aligning with the seven hills, with additional terminus nodes at the lighthouse on Alcatraz and the labyrinth at Land's End.

Nine. I liked nine. Nine was a number I was vastly comfortable invoking in a ritual. “Is that it? Do we actually have a workable plan?” I stifled the urge to laugh. To point out it was too easy. To point out that something was bound to go wrong.

“There are still many details to be worked out. The shadow sigils will need to be paired with Djinn markings. We will need to acquire these nodes of yours. Any impurities will eventually create blockages that must be corrected. We will need to devise some sort of ritual to align and awaken them. And of course, we will need to subvert the Conclave's hold on the lighthouse and divert it to our use.”

“Right. Details.” I yawned as I again traced the lightning bolt path from the lighthouse to Land's End. Terminus to terminus. For the next steps, I'd need a phone and a prayer in hell that I could avoid Lao Hu's notice while I connected the people who needed to be connected.

I yawned again and glanced at an old windup alarm clock I'd dug out from the Lady's hoard. It was the kind with two bells on top that I could have sworn only existed in cartoons. I'd ballparked the time when I set it, and I was confident that David's delivery driver would wait all night if he had to, but I didn't want to put him out. Besides, the sooner I met up with him, the sooner I could crash out and sleep for… oh, days, at least.

“I need to go out again,” I told the Lady, rising and stretching. Walking all day the day before and then spending a chunk of the afternoon kneeling over the map made my legs creak.

“Then I will go with you,” the Lady said, rising as well.

I gave myself a few moments to come up with a response more diplomatic than “the hell you will.”

“Um. Are you sure that's… you stand out, a bit. And there will still be a decent number of hikers around to notice you.”

“I do not need to stand out. I am able to walk the light realms without drawing notice.” She lifted my mended coat from the chair, a mad patchwork of shreds and silver threads now, and slipped it on.

Great. Just peachy. But I was too tired to argue, so I just shrugged and led the way back to the spot where I'd met Templeton.

I was not too tired to raise a protest when the Lady and I stepped into the real world and I realized I was facing a doppelganger of myself.

“Holy, what the everloving – ack!” In my stumble backwards, my feet found a helpful log and I tumbled over it. The ferns rustled as I displaced them, and the ground squelched soggily under my ass.

“Is this not adequate?” The Lady… my twin… reached down a hand to help me. Now that I could take a moment to look, there were subtle differences. Her hair was a darker red than mine and didn't catch the light. The hollows beneath her eyes and cheekbones seemed more sunken, more shadowed. And of course, the coat she wore looked like some ragged custom fairy version of the original.

Great. She wasn't just my twin. She was my evil, gothy twin.

“That's uncanny as shit is what that is.” I reluctantly let her help me up. Her fingers still had that overlong, double-jointed quality, which didn't help at all with the uncanny. “Can you just… at least change the rest of the clothes up? We're only going to attract more attention with the Doublemint Twins bit.”

After some coaching, the Lady was able to shift her clothing so that we were more complementary than identical, and her features, which was unnerving enough for me that I had to look away. But eventually, we got her sorted. Exhaustion was forming a sort of buffer around my reactions. I just couldn't seem to sustain the will to care about anything for longer than a few minutes. We hiked down to the visitors' center and parking lot, the Lady taking in the world outside the Shadow Realms with the same wide-eyed wonder that she'd explored my apartment. I guess she didn't get out much.

The driver was late, because of course he was. I sat on a bench at the parking lot dropoff while the Lady wandered, peering at cars, poking at tourists – or maybe that was the other way around. I struggled to keep my eyes open, waved at the hikers who were meandering back to their cars. The golden afternoon sunlight streaming through the canopy mellowed and dimmed as the sun dipped below the tree line, and still no driver. My shoulders hunched higher and higher at having my back exposed to a mountain's worth of trees and ferns. Exactly the sort of terrain Lao Hu was suited for. Even the squirrels were making me jumpy by the time a familiar blue Fit looped around the passenger dropoff zone and pulled into one of the short-term spaces near the front of the lot.

“Shimizu?” I hopped up from my bench, torn between irritation and relief. I'd been expecting a stranger. I shouldn't be this happy to see a friend. “I'm going to kill Mei Shen for letting you put yourself in danger like this,” I shouted, even as I hurried around the front of the car to hug her as she climbed out.

She squeezed back just as hard. “Like I gave her a choice. It was me or Jack, and I won the rochambeau.”

I giggled. “Nothing beats rock?”

“You know it. Here, before I forget.” She snagged the strap of an overnight duffel sitting in the passenger seat and passed it to me. “The suit bag and hatbox are in the back. And I hear you might need some stitches?”

I lifted my bound arm, digging out a toothbrush one-handed. “It's fine. You are the best.”

“Yeah, you can – holy fuckballs!”

I looked behind me to see the Lady approaching, groaned and rested my head against the doorframe. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

“Is… how is… I… need to sit.”

I shut the car door and escorted her to the bench. The Lady loomed above us, looking vaguely bemused. Also, vaguely threatening.

“She looks like you.”

“Really? I don't see the resemblance at all.”

They both glared at me. Apparently, sleep deprivation made me think I was more hilarious than I actually was.

“I am the Lady. You are Missy's companion.”

“Er… friend. Roommate,” I clarified.

“Yeah, we're not together or anything,” Shimizu said. Her focus bounced back and forth between us like we were playing tennis. “You're the one who took Estelle, and now you're using her to hold back the Nothing,” she said, then, to me, “Mei Shen brought me up to date.”

“I am. Would you like to see Estelle?” the Lady asked.

I put my hand on Shimizu's arm. It was dangerous enough her being here. I was not dragging her into the Shadow Realms, even if there was a headless ghostly bride at the end of that gothy rainbow. “No.”

“But–”

“There's mold.”

“Er…”

“Slimy black mold covering
everything
.”

Shimizu shuddered. “Okay. That's a big nope.”

“You should really head back. The Lady came to protect me, but it isn't safe with Lao Hu on the prowl.” I gave her another hug, one-armed this time. “But thank you for coming and bringing all this. You are the best of friends. Even if you take stupid risks.”

She stood and palmed her car keys. A dozen charms dangled from them – bunnies and foxes and waving cats. I noticed the Lady eying them hungrily. “Well, we all have to do our part to save the world. Do you have a plan? You know, to save the world? Mei Shen seemed to think this Voidlands thing was pretty bad. Maybe even worse than the Tiger thing. Cause. You know. Earthquakes.”

“Pretty bad. Getting worse.” I smiled at the Lady. “And I think we do have a plan. I'll just have to work around the whole Tiger thing.”

“You know, if you need me to do anything...”

I considered. It would be a lot easier if I had a pair of trusted boots on the ground. Someone who could wrangle the cats – er, people – while I was in hiding. “I might. This is going to be hard enough to pull off without bringing in Argent.”

“You're not going back to them?”

“They want their tech. I suspect they'll look on the rest of this as not their circus, not their monkeys. And honestly, after what went down at the Academy of Sciences, I'm not sure how much I trust them.”

“Not even Skyrocket?”

I laughed. “I wish he was involved. He would have put a stop to that whole debacle with Asha.” Maybe that should be my new ethical compass – what would Tom do?

Shimizu's frown dampened my amusement. “He's not involved? Not even in some, I don't know, top secret capacity where you say ‘I can neither confirm nor deny' but we both know what you really mean?”

I shivered. The evening was growing chilly and the Lady had stolen my coat. “I haven't seen him since the initial attack on the Academy. Why?”

Shimizu shook her head. “It's probably nothing. Just… he hasn't been doing the talk shows, and he always does the PR after something like this. And then… he canceled on the Oskaloosa Founders Day parade this year.”

“The parade?”

Shimizu waved her hands, keys and charms jangling. “It's silly, I know. Everyone is trying to be understanding–”

“The parade that Skyrocket hasn't missed since Tom's grandfather first strapped on a rocket pack and managed to
not
burn off his own ass?” I clarified.

“Well. Yeah.”

“Fuck.” I shoved off the bench and yanked open Shimizu's passenger door, tossing the duffel in the seat well. “Lady, I'm sorry. I need to go back to the city.”

“I do not think–”

“Missy, what are you–”

“I know where the Conclave has been getting its intel on the secret Argent facilities. I know what they took at the Academy,” I said. “They have Skyrocket.”

I climbed in and slammed the door. Abby was going to answer for not telling me sooner. Stolen fucking tech my ass.

T
he Lady argued – vociferously
– against my leaving, but the confrontation I needed to have with Abby wasn't the sort of thing that could be conducted by phone. When I wouldn't relent, she snaked into Shimizu's back seat and refused to budge. “I have given my word to the rat. I will not go back on it.”

Fair enough. It was an awkward, mostly silent ride back to the city. I dug a legal pad out of my care duffel and wrote out my findings and plans in a car-shaken hand, everything we'd discovered over the past several days. The Lady's tension eased somewhat once the sun had set. She pressed her cheek to the back window in open-mouthed wonder when we crossed over the Golden Gate Bridge.

“It is one of the great workings,” she murmured, and I didn't think she was talking about technological achievement. I chanced a glimpse across the veil into the Shadow Realms, and just as quickly looked away when I sensed the Voidlands shoving up to the span like an overconfident tech bro at a queer-friendly bar.

I had Shimizu drop us at a boutique hotel just off Market. The Mark Twain was the sort of place where the refreshed Victorian decor struggled to deserve the high prices. I wasn't worried about the money. David had included a credit card in my care duffel. I just had to hope the Conclave wasn't tech savvy enough to track my passport.

Abby responded almost immediately to my vaguely worded text requesting a meeting the following morning. I keyed the Lady and myself into our room, dumped my duffel next to the door, and collapsed face first onto one of the double beds.

“Wake me in the never,” I mumbled into the duvet.

The mattress depressed. The Lady, sitting at my side. I turned my face and barely missed burying my nose into her thigh.

“It occurs to me that I may be of more use than mere warding. If Lao Hu seeks you, then let us give him something to seek.”

“Bfhuh?” I asked, the duvet taking the brunt of my question.

“If you allow me command of them, I may take your swarm of scarabs and lay trails through this city that would confuse even the hunter among hunters.”

I opened one eye and craned my neck so that I could see her face. My face. Sort of. “Templeton must be the greatest spy of all time.”

She looked away, rose and left the bed for other parts of the room. “He… has been very loyal.”

I was an ass. Being tired made me an ass. I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead into the duvet once again. “Sorry. What I meant to say was yes, please and thank you.”

“Very well. You call them the Blood-Dimmed Tide, yes?”

I mumbled assent into the bed. I was already regretting that one. It had seemed an appropriate name at the time.

“Then I will use that to summon them and begin anon.” I heard her puttering about – warding the room, maybe, or possibly setting aside things to steal later. Just as I was drifting off, I felt her stroke my hair. “Sleep now, child.”

Later, I thought muzzily. Later we could have a chat about boundaries. And I could worry about why the Queen of Air and Darkness seemed to be hitting on me.

Later didn't arrive with morning. The Lady was absent when I woke. Hoping she'd been around the real world enough to know how to take care of herself, I showered, dressed in my suit and hat, and headed out to ream Abby a new one.

The legal pad I'd used to make my notes made a satisfying slap when I tossed it on Abby's desk. The bullish expression she'd worn when I entered her office faltered. She lifted the pad, skimming the first page of spidery writing. “I thought you were out, Old Man. What's this?”

I closed her door, threw the bolt, before sitting. “Everything I've learned about the Conclave and their operations over the past few days. In the spirit of an open sharing of information. Now why don't
you
tell
me
about Skyrocket?”

Abby lowered the pad slowly, lips slack in surprise. I watched them as she attempted to shape and then discarded several replies.

“Better yet,” I continued softly when she remained at a loss. “Why didn't you tell me about Skyrocket?”

She finally settled on, “How did you find out about that?”

“At the risk of sounding clichéd, I am asking the questions here. The Conclave knights drew him off and took him during the Academy attack, yes? He was always the target. They've been using him to get information on the other Argent facilities so that they can steal more of Argent's power technology, like the tech that fuels Skyrocket's jetpack. Have I missed anything?”

Abby stood and looked out the window behind her desk. She'd cleared away the boxes that had been blocking it. Most of the shelves were now filled with books. The wooden blinds painted her in stripes of light and shadow. I glanced uneasily behind me at the locked door. The reminder of Lao Hu was the last thing my nerves needed just now.

“That about covers it. And I didn't tell you because I couldn't. I keep your secrets. Argent has their secrets, too.”

“It would have helped me to know.”

“Helped you before or after you walked out on us?”

I rose to my feet, torn between storming out and storming over to shake her. “I might not have walked out if I'd known Tom needed my help.”

Dust puffed off the blinds when she snorted. “Someone's ethics are pretty damned pliable.” She ran a finger along the blind. Dusting it off on her khakis, she turned to me, palms up in apology. “Sorry. Look. We haven't had much progress since you left. I get why you left. Hell, I even maybe respect it a bit. But does this mean you're back?” She tapped the notepad and raised her brows in a positively plaintive look. On anyone else, I'd have said it was begging.

Well, she was working with her obnoxious, estranged half sister, her judgmental and disapproving ex-lover, and a devout Muslim theurge who likely viewed both Abby and Asha as shayatin. Unclean, at best.

“No,” I said, for the slightly vindictive pleasure of watching her slump. “You have a leak. Someone set those sigils at the Academy. Someone who was on site at the time of the attack. I don't trust Argent.” I took my seat again and nudged the legal pad towards her. “However, I am putting together my own rescue mission. You, La Reina, Asha, and Sadakat would be a welcome addition. The rest of Argent is on need-to-know status.”

Abby took the pad and began reading my notes more carefully. “Oh, Dunbarton is going to love that.”

O
nce I'd walked
through the issues and my solution with Abby, I left her to explain it to her companions and requisition what we needed from Argent. I spent the rest of the day in my hotel room, making calls, making plans, talking myself hoarse, explaining again and again until I had my patter down cold.

That evening, I gathered my rosebuds in the board room of Tsung Investment Capital, a more unlikely group of allies than I'd ever thought to see in one room.

David and Mei Shen sat together on one side of the long, oval table, and beside them, Johnny Cho. David managed to maintain the bland expression of a corporate executive as his receptionist escorted the Argent contingent into the conference room. Mei Shen was his opposite, staring unabashedly at La Reina – who, for her part, regarded Mei Shen with a similar intensity of fascination. Johnny kept passing his hand over his mouth. I suspected he was working hard to keep from busting a gut.

The Argent crew settled at the opposite side of the table, La Reina shifting uncomfortably in an executive chair that had not been designed to fit someone with a full set of angel's wings. A few murmured words from David to his wide-eyed assistant, and a backless typing stool was rolled in for La Reina's comfort. Asha, like Johnny, seemed to be fighting to hold back her laughter. Abby, in a perhaps unconscious reflection of my mood, looked half-ready to smack upside the head the first person who gave in to situationally inappropriate levity.

Neither of us need have worried. Any urge to levity was banished when Jack and Shimizu arrived, and behind them, the Lady, looking like a gothed-out version of Missy Masters.

Johnny leaned far back in his chair, absently ruffling his hand through his red-tipped purple spikes, as though checking to make sure his brains hadn't escaped while he wasn't paying attention. After a moment of puzzlement, Mei Shen whispered a soft “aaaah” and leaned over to whisper in David's ear. Abby ping-ponged looks between the Lady and myself, rubbing her jaw and muttering, “Now that's just plain uncanny.”

Next to Abby, Asha's smile had drained away, her warm, dark skin paling to a putty shade, but it wasn't me that she turned her look of dawning horror on. It was La Reina.

La Reina, who was already rising off her rolling stool, wings raising, vanes taking on a soft, threatening glow that made my belly flip with fear and hunger.

“What is
that
doing here?” La Reina spat, a growl of mixed fury and disgust. The Lady watched her, transfixed.

For my part, I had difficulty finding my voice around the yearning to reach out and embrace the implement of my destruction. “Sit down,” I whispered, clutching the back of my chair.

“You did not say your help came in this form, or I should never have agreed to this. Do you even know what that is? I would be doing the world a favor if I banished it back to the plane from whence it came.”

The Lady reached a long-fingered hand towards La Reina's growing light – I hoped it was only my imagination, the smoke rising from her skin. The sight of my dark reflection reaching so eagerly for that light broke my paralysis.

“La Reina de Los Angeles,” I barked. Several of the others jumped. La Reina didn't so much as blink. “The Lady is my guest. I did not invite her here to put her in danger. You will sit down and dampen your wings, or I will banish
you
back to the plane from whence you came.”

It was an empty threat. I didn't know if such a thing could even be done, let alone how to do it. I prayed that she didn't know that.

La Reina's wings dimmed and drooped. There was something almost like fear in the look she gave me. “… You wouldn't.”

“Try me,” I snapped.

After a moment's more hesitation, she shrugged. The remaining light snuffed out, and her wings relaxed against her back, a tawny feathered cape once more. She resumed her seat, and Sadakat leaned close to whisper to her, much as Mei Shen had whispered to David.

I turned to the Lady, who was blinking as though waking from a slumber. I gave her an abbreviated bow. “My apologies, Lady.”

She pressed her scorched fingers together, open and closed. “Fascinating,” she murmured, and sat.

I took a moment to collect myself. I'd missed my calling as a cat herder. Before the silence could get any more uncomfortable, I unfolded two maps – the city and the island – and spread them across the table.

“I've already explained to each of you that we are facing a set of interrelated issues. The Conclave's abduction of Skyrocket,” I nodded to Abby's crew, “and the expansion of the Voidlands, which also happens to be the reason the Conclave wanted Skyrocket.”

“And Lao Hu,” Mei Shen said. “Do not forget him.”

As if I could. “Lao Hu's vendetta is against me. I would rather it not expand to the rest of you. The Lady has been kind enough to leave false trails throughout the city today. Let us hope that's enough to distract him.” I refrained from elucidating. If La Reina had issues with the Lady, then I suspected her feelings regarding my blood-scarab army wouldn't be that much more welcoming.

I allowed myself a small smile at that thought, unseen by the others, thanks to the shadows pulled over my face. “Once we receive word that Lao Hu has left to hunt for me, Mr Wentworth and Ms Shimizu will head to Alcatraz to deliver the first terminus node and set the sigils that will allow us to pass the wards surrounding the island. The Lady will lead her people in a feint while Mr Tsung collects the node and primes it at the lighthouse. Asha and myself will free Skyrocket, meet Mr Tsung at the lighthouse, and the four of us will escape via the node.”

“The rat believes your man is being held in the northernmost part of the citadel. Here.” The Lady's finger ticked against the Alcatraz map.

“The Model Industries Building,” Asha said, nodding. “Shouldn't be a problem. In, out, and then I'm done.”

“Asha,” Abby snarled.

“Those are the terms of my contract. I get him off that island, I'm done.” The smile she gave Abby was sickly sweet. “Perhaps you should have asked for my help nicely.”

“Bitch,” Abby muttered. She crossed her arms. Mules could take lessons from that jutted jaw. “I'm going to Alcatraz with you.”

“No,” I said.

“I didn't ask, Old Man–”

“And I didn't offer you a choice, Professor Trent. I need you elsewhere.”

“Argent's interest ends at Skyrocket.”

Sadakat placed a hand on Abby's arm before she could rise to face off with me. “There I must disagree, Professor Trent. These Voidlands are a grave danger. Grave enough that if the Conclave had not made us their enemies, Argent might have considered working with them. As it is, we must accept… other allies.” Her worried frown encompassed not just the Lady, but David and myself.

La Reina's wings rustled, but she kept to her tight-lipped glaring. Only Johnny and Mei Shen escaped her stinkeye.

Abby's glares were all for me. “Fine. Where do you want me?”

“You – all the rest of you – will wait at the terminus nodes we are setting up around the city. Once the lighthouse node has been attuned, Asha will take us through to Rincon Hill, where Professor Trent will be waiting to help us attune that node.”

“You expect us to attune the others?” Sadakat asked, frowning at the map, and then at our motley assembly. “Many here do not have the power or the skill…”

“I will be handing over my name to each of you,” the Lady said softly. “So that you may summon me to the next point and the next.” She tapped each hill in turn. “I will be the one to activate the nodes and attune them to Shadow.”