Labyrinth, p.5
Labyrinth, page 5
All the shades were drawn. Lights were off, leaving the room in as much darkness as you could get with the streetlights bleeding around the edges of the blinds.
The door rattled again.
Stewey’s enchantments pinged hard in response.
That was what had woken him. Something had hit them hard enough to break a hole in the magical barriers around the building.
Over in Leschi, Stewey had probably just levitated out of his bed with a pistol in one hand and landed clear across the room, looking to shoot an intruder.
Except the intruder wasn’t at Stewey’s apartment.
He was just outside the door from Dan.
Dan considered calling the cops, but he might have a faster response getting a pizza delivered. Too bad nobody allowed pizza delivery folks to carry swords in the real world.
Dan reached down on the floor next to his phone for his knife instead. The one he always had handy, usually in a back pocket if he wasn’t wearing a shell. Usually, it was just a security blanket, but the tool was reasonably proof against fell and eldritch creatures.
Like whatever had just ripped a hole in Stewey’s enchantments and was shaking the door in the frame right now. Your average homeless person wouldn’t even understand why they had chosen not to approach that door, let alone sleep in the area. The magic would quietly convince them to move on.
Dan and Stewey couldn’t solve the homeless problem around here, but they could protect their own building, and it helped the neighbors as well.
Dan rose, pulling the knife from the sheath and holding it with the two-fingered grip Stewey had originally learned from a tiny Philippino woman who understood blades.
The silvered runes along the spine were glowing when he did, but Dan had expected that. What was trying to come in wasn’t human.
Dan had no idea what it might be, but there wasn’t time to do much other than prepare a few spells he always kept handy.
Now would have been a nice time to be able to hurl lightning bolts, like they used to be able to do, if the ancient books were to be believed. Dan wasn’t a bull moose sorcerer. Nor was Stewey.
Iliana probably was the best at that sort of thing, but it was rare, even among the warlocks.
Receding tides of time.
But the blade had been enchanted by Stewey, who happened to be among the best in the business when he could get off his ass and actually work, instead of reading ancient Chinese texts.
The silver glowed brighter as the door stopped rattling.
Dan watched the locks all turn in place with a sound like a bell being rung. One of the big ones that was down at the bass end of the keyboard. Mundanes might not hear it, but it was clear as the noonday sun to Dan.
He set his feet and pulled the knife back to his side like he had been taught, left hand out and open, ready to raise a shield, a magical blur that shifted reality in fuzzy ways.
Not enough to deflect a bullet. Maybe an arrow if you saw the whole flight. Pretty good in close combat, where centimeters counted.
The door flew open.
Dan’s eyes were adjusted to the darkness of the room, but the thing in the doorway was pure shadow.
Man-sized. Man-shaped. Dan could see a pair of bright eyes in the head, but the rest was smoke cast solid.
As conjurings went, Dan was seriously impressed.
And utterly appalled.
He’d never known anybody that could summon a shadow servant larger than a rabbit. This thing was as big as he was.
It entered, popping with sound once as it forced the threshold barrier and was finally inside.
Dan felt the impact when the thing was finally able to see him.
Power.
Raw strength that could shatter diamonds, maybe, if someone wanted to.
The shadow servant took a step forward, long arms coming up almost like a gorilla that wanted a hug.
Dan pushed his blur into place between them. It was bigger than a traditional shield like a Viking might carry. Oval, but almost the size that his favorite Roman Legionaries had carried into battle.
A pilum right now might have gone over well, had Stewey silvered the tip with runes. So would a whole cohort of murderhoboes with silver blades, if he was wishing.
The shadow servant reached out and brushed a hand against the blur.
The air crackled with electricity and the creature finally emitted a sound. Almost a growl of surprise.
Dan stabbed with the knife, thinking mongoose thoughts. In. Out. Back. Quick.
Never make big swings with a blade. They leave you out of position and exposed to a counter.
He missed, and the servant pressed, sliding to its left to try to get around the blur.
The desks stopped it, but only because Stewey was more paranoid that whatever master had managed to raise a monster like this. The thing hit the wood and bounced, instead of just flowing though it like it had obviously planned.
On the desk, a set of sigils lit up angrily. Nothing that could stop a shadow servant from moving when it concentrated, but the surprise had been enough.
Dan hopped forward and bashed at the thing with his blur, again causing a spark of electricity that almost made him pee his pants. He poked at the shadow with the blade.
Contact.
It was like someone had suddenly encased his entire arm in a foot of ice. The runes on the knife were bright enough to read by, had they stopped for tea.
The creature reared back and howled, but Dan was sure the sound was only in his head.
Right arm numb, Dan tried to punch the thing in the face with the blur instead.
Contact.
Sparks. Left hand as hot as the right hand had gone cold.
More howls.
Dan got the impression of surprise, more than anything.
Sure, the damned thing was malevolence incarnate, but shadow servants were creatures from one of the outer planes given form and solidity by a powerful warlock. A conjurer’s creature.
They were still dumb and cowardly if they ran into something they didn’t understand. Like a guardian who had accidentally been asleep when they went to break in.
Dan punched with the blur again, trying to will his knife hand back awake from all the tingling of falling asleep.
Sparks arced.
The creature howled once and broke, fleeing for the door.
Dan charged after it in a fit of utter madness, trying to pop it on the ass with his blur one more time.
It managed to get through the doorway before he could reach it and then broke out through a gap it had torn in Stewey’s barriers.
Dan slammed the door shut and collapsed to his knees, dropping the knife like it weighed as much as his car, and letting the blur fade. He breathed like a bellows charging a blacksmith’s fire, gasping with effort.
Locks set, Dan turned and sat hard against the inside of the door, letting his ass keep things from opening it again, and letting the wood hold him upright.
Something trilled.
Again.
Phone.
Dan’s phone.
He turned a deadbolt and crawled back to the couch.
Five feet felt like five marathons.
Stewey.
“Yeah?” Dan managed when he got it connected.
“You okay?” Stewey sounded like he was running. Then a truck door opening and closing. Bessie’s engine turning over.
“Yeah,” Dan managed between gasps. “Something just broke in, but I surprised the hell out of it and chased it off.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Stewey said. “What was it?”
“Shadow servant,” Dan said. “My size.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” Dan continued. “Blur and the knife were more than anyone had warned it about. It panicked and fled. Where are you?”
“Blasting over the top of the hill and be there in five minutes,” Stewey said. “You okay?”
“Numb, sore, and tired, depending,” Dan said. “But it never actually touched me. Stabbed it once. That was a dumb idea.”
“Yeah, one that big would be,” Stewey ruminated. “Who the hell could send something like that? Your new girlfriend?”
“She’s got the horsepower, but felt more like a Sorcerer than a Conjurer,” Dan said. “Pretty sure I’ll hear from her tomorrow, one way or the other.”
“No way I can fix my enchantments tonight,” Stewey said. In the background, Dan could hear that old Ford engine howling. “You likely to sleep again?”
“Maybe,” Dan replied. “In July.”
“Yup, about what I thought,” Stewey said. “Let’s get you some food and caffeine. Tomorrow’s already here and you’ll need to power up to face it.”
“See you in five,” Dan said, hanging up and letting the phone pretty much just fall into his lap.
The room was dark again. Colder than he remembered, too. That shadow servant had been the kind they used to talk about in the ancient times, back when the Bible was being compiled, or when some of the Chinese Sages were getting themselves organized into schools of magic.
Nobody summoned things that big anymore.
Except someone had.
And if it wasn’t Khulan, then there was someone else out there at least as powerful as she was.
What the hell had he and Stewey wandered in to?
Chapter
Ten
Dan hadn’t really argued the point. Stewey was Stewey, and he was driving. At this time of night, dropping down to First and running up north had gone pretty quickly, past the SAM and Pike Place, all the way up to Broad before doubling back up the hill to Denny.
Stewey even had the good parking karma tonight and found a spot just as a group of hipsters were pulling out to go home.
Five Star Diner. Home of the serious plate of chicken fried steak and fixings. Eggs Benedict and all the local variations. Coffee by the slice. Bad movies on the screen and a bar on the other side of the building for people not wasting calories on food.
At two on a Thursday morning, the crowds had gone home, leaving the place to the hardcore partiers. Stewey grabbed the table clear at the back, where a pay phone had once apparently resided, and sat himself with a good view of everything and his jacket unzipped.
Dan was facing in, but he didn’t figure anybody was going to sneak up on his friend. Even the waitress had a hard look on her face when she approached.
“All good?” she asked Stewey with the comradery of old acquaintance.
“Buddy nearly got mugged, down in the I.D.,” Stewey said deliberately, referring to the International District on the south edge of downtown. “Gonna put some protein in him now so he can settle. Doubt anybody would bother us clear up here.”
“Gus is working bar side tonight,” she said. “I’ll let him know.”
“Thanks, Maddie,” Stewey said.
Dan wasn’t surprised that they knew Stewey in here. Or that he knew all of them. This was practically his other home. Would probably live closer, if he liked the hipsters and software nerds that were gentrifying the hell out of the neighborhood these days.
She left coffee. Dan supposed you could call it that. They had started with coffee beans, heat, and water.
Dan just didn’t like coffee that charred. Not that he would complain tonight. The raw bitterness of his first sip jolted him enough to add more than the usual amount of honey and cream.
They had talked about it on the drive up here. Stewey had reset a few things, so at least he’d know if the creature came back, but nothing they had between them was tough enough, if someone could summon that.
“Figure it left a signature on the walls, both coming and going,” Stewey said obliquely. “Come sunlight, I’ll see what I can identify. Might be able to fashion a more personal seal for next time.”
“You expecting a shadow servant next round?” Dan asked.
“As opposed to?”
“As opposed to his boss, maybe,” Dan said, sipping.
Drinking, apparently. The mug was already three-quarters empty.
And Maddie had expected that. She was already at his elbow with more.
Dan made a note to actually drink this cup, rather than inhaling it.
They were alone again.
“We big enough to draw that sort of attention?” Stewey asked. “Can’t think of anyone we’ve pissed off lately.”
“I’m still betting on that house with the stepping disk,” Dan said. “Nothing for the longest time, then we’re suddenly neck deep in magical gators around here. Something was going on with that house or the man who owned it.”
“So do we sell the bronze?” Stewey asked. “Melt it down and recast all that power into something else instead? Break them and bleed it out all over the place?”
“I don’t need a unicorn roaming the Arboretum, thank you,” Dan sniped.
He started to say something else when his phone chirped with a text message.
Wasn’t a tone he had programmed, and apparently the Do Not Disturb function had been broken again. He hated buying new phones. You spent weeks getting everything turned on and off right.
Dan pulled it out and studied the message. Made no sense, so he opened it all the way.
That wasn’t me. Khulan
Lovely.
The sourness must have been evident, or he was talking under his breath.
“Who?” Stewey asked carefully.
Dan turned the face around for him to read.
Stewey muttered several profanities under his breath.
Dan agreed.
Who, then? he typed back and hit send.
Why the hell not? She had his number from his business card. And had known something had happened, so she had at least one divination thread linked to him.
Dan was feeling grumpy.
Ignorance might be better. she replied.
Dan growled under his breath.
Maddie walked up at that moment, and they ordered.
Felt like a stupidly ugly day coming, so Dan matched Stewey with the chicken fried steak, eggs over easy, English muffin, and jojos. Slathered over with gravy and cheese. And gravy and cheese.
Bring it.
Who’s trying to kill me? Dan sent.
Easier to explain in person.
Sure. Cap a perfect evening. Or ruin a perfectly good morning.
Whatever.
He showed Stewey the screen again, ranting quietly under his breath.
“Better than her showing up at our door in the morning,” Stewey sighed. “Or waiting on yours when you get home.”
That was the bitch of it. Stewey was right.
Only the awakened were at any serious risk of magic. Harming a mundane was almost impossible these days, although the ancient legends said otherwise.
You’d have to have something like a shadow servant handy, one who could affect the material world for you.
“Where are the cash?” Dan looked at his friend. “Right this moment.”
“Under a rock in my back yard,” his friend said. “In the box with my zombie bug-out kit.”
So, the safest place Stewey could put something, on the off-chance that all those zombie movies and television shows were on to something and the world ended in a plague. The kind that only mostly killed you and left you hungry.
Dead of night. Zombies.
Could it get much worse?
But Dan didn’t even think that too loud, afraid the gods and powers of the universe would see that as a challenge.
Join us for breakfast? Dan typed and sent.
Okay.
Then nothing. Like she didn’t need to ask where they were.
Dan really didn’t like those implications.
Was he about to invite the monster into his living room? Or the slayer?
Chapter
Eleven
Khulan was still getting used to the modern world. Or rather, the chain of beings that she had bonded to stretched so far back that they still remembered the spread of iron technology that brought humanity up from the Bronze Age, a little over three thousand years ago.
Cellular communications were a novel thing, allowing her to remain in touch with everyone on the planet so blessed with such technology, rather than calling spirits to do her bidding and laboriously sending them to talk to others.
She could text a person via a modern device that was almost magical in nature, at least as far as most people were concerned. Fly on aircraft that could take her around the world in days, rather than months.
Travel from Krasnoyarsk to Seattle, although she had had to do that the hard way, since the disk she might have used had been disrupted by the very man she was visiting.
This was a modern city, with none of the hangover that had plagued her former acolyte. Khulan was just the latest to assume the mantle and could access all those memories.
Memories of Soviet Siberia under the commissars. The camps that were meant to punish people into forswearing the old ways. The terrible things that might happen to those unbelievers if they pushed too deep into her forests.
Farther back, to the arrival of the tsars, inheritors of the Golden Horde’s power that had once stretched from the Pacific to the very gates of Europe.
Khulan drew strength from all her ancestors, bound up in her flesh, as she stepped through the door into an American diner.
She had chosen to dress as a Westerner for this. Blue jeans of the American style, even down to the labels. Inner shirt covered over with a looser flannel one, under a light jacket in black that wasn’t leather, but had the waterproof nature.
Even her boots were American in style, mimicking Doc Martens to let her blend in better with the local populace.
Seattle was an international city. One of the hubs of the modern technology that had so undermined the old ways.
Her ways.
She had sat in a different restaurant earlier this evening and counted eleven different languages being spoken. It had brought a smile to her face.
Dan Holt sat at the back of the room, turned sideways to her in the row of tables opposite the heavy, wooden bar at which a few patrons drank alcoholic beverages.
Stewey Ogden sat across from Holt with his back set exactly into the angle of the corner of the room, and his eyes roaming like hungry wolves.
