Hammer of Darkness (Veil Knights Book 8) Read online

  Cynthia taught me things. Things about brewing and blending, about identifying plants and their properties. It wasn’t a subject that normally drew me, my nature experience tends to be more gut level, but she was very much into it and, for a while, I was very much into her.

  I looted the apothecary desk for what I needed. I saw the pretty red and yellow cone shaped flowers of the Bullseye plant and quickly mashed them up with several Sichuan buttons. I didn’t have a lot of time so I made up for imprecision with quantity.

  Maria began rousing as I came back over and shoved the mash into her mouth. It made her gag and the corresponding fear adrenaline brought her around quickly. I straddled her and forced her mouth shut, pinching her nose until she swallowed.

  Once she had I got off her lap and pulled over another chair. I watched her try and spit out some of the residue paste. Her lips and tongue were already numb so, since I hated the murderous bitch, I found her struggles amusing.

  “You feel that?” I asked.

  She glared at me.

  “That numbness in your mouth and spreading down your throat? That’s Nightshade, Atropa Belladonna, ironically, often called ‘devil’s berries.”

  She didn’t say anything, but I had her undivided attention.

  “I don’t have time to play games, so I’m taking a gamble,” I told her. “I just poisoned you. I have to know where Erica has gone, but if I don’t find out in time it doesn’t matter anymore. So you’re about to die. Tell me where she is and I give you the antidote, don’t, and you die, and I leave not knowing anything, but assuming you weren’t going to give me any information in time to help anyway.”

  She opened her mouth to talk and I held up my finger.

  “If any part of what you’re about to say includes phrases such as ‘kill me and you never find where she is,’ then let me gently reemphasise how if you don’t talk quickly you might as well be dead.”

  She closed her mouth.

  The Sichuan buttons cause an almost electrocution like effect when eaten. She was feeling the effects, the very strong effects, of what I’d forced down her gullet. She was already dripping with sweat.

  “I’m going to sit here and watch you die,” I said. “I have time for that. Not to question you all night, mind you, but time enough to watch you die.”

  She tried staring me down but her obvious fear ruined the effect. She struggled against the tape, it was useless. Here’s the thing about selfish people; they’re selfish. You can always count on that.

  “Give me the antidote,” she said. Her voice was ragged.

  “You mean pilocarpine?” I asked. I smiled. “I do have it.” I paused then clarified, “Cynthia has it in her supplies.”

  “Give it to me!” Her words were slurred.

  “No.”

  She screamed, or tried to scream, but her throat was numb to the point it affected the larynx, and it wasn’t much of an attempt. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it, I laughed.

  “Hurry,” I suggested.

  She struggled with some concept of honor and bravery then. The conflict lasted all of fifteen seconds. She talked, but at first it didn’t make any sense.

  “Cantre’r Gwaelod,” she said.

  “Impossible,” I snapped. “That’s like saying ‘Atlantis.’ Even if it did exist it’s now underwater. “Also,” I added. “I’m pretty sure it’s in Wales. Is Erica on a plane right now? With SCUBA gear?”

  She tried a mocking smile but it made her numbed face look like unshapen clay. I was getting a little worried I’d used too much.

  Her words were definitely slurred now. “I don’t know about any of that,” she said. “I only know she made the deal with the cortège to go there.”

  Now that made more sense. I stood and turned, mind shifting through various implications. Euryale claims dominion over the thin spot of the Veil in San Francisco. Manipulated correctly, it could be used to do what Maria was saying.

  “The antidote!” she cried out. The sound was really more of a strangled squawk at this point.

  I waved a hand at her over my shoulder. “I gave you toothache plant and some Sichuan Buttons for zing. You’ll be fine.” I turned back to her. “Well, not fine, you’re life as you know it is over.” I smiled. “But you’ll live.”

  Chapter 19

  I found some men's clothes in the bottom of an old cedar chest in Cynthia's bedroom and dressed. They weren’t mine, not some artifacts of a time when I'd kept "a drawer" here and had my own key to the place or something, but they fit well enough, whomever they belonged to.

  Moving methodically, I removed the ceremonial paraphernalia from around Cynthia’s body and placed the icon of the Mother in her hands, now folded over her heart.

  "She will meet you in the clearing beyond the woods," I told her corpse. "She has never had a truer daughter." I believed this with all my heart.

  I covered her nudity with a sheet, and began searching Cynthia's apartment. It had that sharply nostalgic feel of traveling back in time, of reentering memories left dormant.

  Cynthia had been easy to be with. After Erica, her lack of drama had been like reincarnation for me. She liked to drink tea on rainy mornings, make love by candlelight, delighted in low level cantrips, and treating her cat, Thomas, a creature that positively detested me, as if it were her familiar.

  Her thaumaturgic strength was limited, forcing her down the ceremonial paths of magick. She hadn't minded, not really, she was the sort who made lists just to check things off, who kept scrapbooks of photos, and could waste an afternoon lost in a crossword puzzle or Sudoku. The ritual and precision of Enochian ceremonies appealed to her materialistic sense of order and tidiness.

  She had her fun side, of course. She had a laugh that could make you forget murder. She believed all herbs were a gift of the Mother, and could have out smoked Snoop Dogg if the mood struck her.

  She cared about things, animals, people, and she collected strays until they filled her life. Her coven was filled with members of personal diasporas who'd washed up outside her door. She loved who she loved, regardless of race or gender. In the end she wound up sleeping with the enemy and it had gotten her killed.

  "I'm sorry, Cyn," I told the body under the sheet.

  I remembered where most of the things I needed were, including the gun. Cynthia didn't, hadn't, done change for change's sake. She valued consistency, which is probably what went so far to break us up, such as we were. Normally, she didn’t believe in firearms, but the Sig Saur held nine silver and inscribed fey-killing bullets, just like the ones in my now lost Beretta 93-R. She also had a magazine of regular rounds and I took those as well.

  As much as ceremony, she'd enjoyed her alchemy. She'd learned her talent for it right here in the Haight. During the Summer of Love, she learned to cook not only speed, but the much more technically difficult LSD. When she found the Mother she repented her actions, but her love affair with bubbling cauldrons and numinous ingredients continued.

  I found her apothecary table just off her kitchen. There, in bottles and crystal philters, sat her tinctures and elixirs, a multitude of embrocations and potions. Seeing them there, so ordered and precise, my breath caught in my throat and something unhitched high in my chest. I stood for a moment fighting the burning in my eyes. Cynthia hadn't been 'the one.' She hadn't even been one of 'the ones,' but she'd been strong enough to cling to after the storm of Erica and the darkness of Euryale. My sense of gratitude was as eternal as it was endless.

  I sighed hard, like a gasp and reached for the bottles. Cynthia was going to heal me one more time.

  Outside the apartment I used the burner to call my new good friend, Officer Hennessy. He picked up and I spoke into the cell. “You know my voice?” I asked.

  He paused a beat then said, “Yes. I really didn’t expect to hear from you again so soon.”

  “You remember what we faced in the alley?”

  “How could I forget?”

  I gave him the address to the Spell
Book. “There’s a murder scene inside. The victim is the owner, the killer her is her lover who happens to be duct taped to a kitchen chair.”

  “Another person placed at the scene can complicate things,” he said. “That’s not my precinct, I don’t have a lot of contacts if your name comes up.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I told him. “There should be enough to wrap up the rather obvious situation. The victim fought hard, there’s DNA under her nails at the very least.”

  “If it’s like the alley then how’d you…?” he let the question trail off.

  “She’s still a baby, compared to what we faced” I told him. “But the responding units need to be heads up when they go to make the arrest. Things could go sideways if they underestimate her.”

  “Understood,” he said.

  I hung up.

  I holed up and waited out the day, healing, until night fell, and then grew deep. Then, for the magical third and final time, I entered Euryale's, invoking the Reconciliation in Grimm's name. By the way the doorman smirked at me, I guessed my demotion to plaything was common knowledge.

  I ignored him. The fight coming was all that mattered. Killing the bastard would gain me nothing. But I decided to put it on my ‘to do,’ list so I felt better. I was ushered before Euryale where she lounged, having her nails done by a flock of Eastern European looking males with shirts off and petulant, resentful looks plastered across their beautiful faces. They looked like unwrapped candy treats for the boys on cell block C.

  "I wish to strike a bargain." I said without preamble.

  "Back so soon?" she asked.

  "Do you rule the Narrows or not?" I demanded.

  The Narrows don’t exist to civilians. The influence of the Narrows is what makes the areas it touches such dangerous places within the city, but they are as much a miasma as they are streets and avenues, alleys and buildings. The thinness of the Veil forms the Narrows, the Narrows, in turn, morph the streets.

  Her eyes became slits at the hint of challenge to her power. She was the Lady in Black, and she was a jealous god.

  "You know that I do," she said.

  "A ruler has to rule," I pointed out.

  "Make yourself clear, kine," she warned.

  "A coven works to open a doorway into the Veil in the very heart of your enclave and sway."

  She smiled. "Your little friend Erica and her plaything paid the price for passage through my door. There is nothing more. How easily you must think me manipulated." She ran her tongue over her lip. "Tell me your enemies threaten me, and then have me kill them for you."

  "It's true," I nodded. "They are my enemies, and I seek aid in their slaughter." I looked at her eyes. The abyss staring back into me from out of those dark orbs made Maria's abysmal gaze seem like shallow potholes. "But unless you wish LaVey to secure more of a beachhead within your sway than she already has, you will listen to me."

  At the mention of LaVey’s name Euryale hissed out loud, like a cat. This wasn't a metaphor, or a simile for that matter. Euryale and LaVey are of a type that the other recognizes; ones who don’t share power.

  I pushed on. "Allow that witch to return with the item she seeks to collect and there is no telling the manner of things that will enter into this realm. Do you feel like fighting for dominance with the gods of the Canaanites and Philistines?" This was not a bluff. Once I played the stick, I tried adding a carrot. "Let me pass through the rend you control, as you did the witch. I will do the heavy lifting."

  She looked at me for a moment, but I knew the hook was set. I’d played on her insecurities. This was pretty much the engine that powered her. She rose, the temptress seductress gone, the warrior-queen emerged.

  "Fine, favored pet," she said. "I will, as I always do, indulge you." Her face was a mask as she made her demand. "Name me your mistress," she purred. "My ears wish to hear the sweet sound."

  I balked, though at this point it was only a matter of pride. The cortège looked on, eager to see my humiliation.

  "But if I need you to come and get me, you will" I said, finally.

  Her eyes narrowed again, this time in approval. She liked haggling.

  "Very well," she said. She had little trouble making her acquiescence sound like a regal decree. "Now your contrition," she said.

  I gritted my teeth and her audience looked on. Slowly I sank down to one knee before her and bowed my head. The cortège erupted in mocking howls of approval but she silenced them.

  Her voice was soft, gentle, gleeful. "Lower," she murmured.

  I felt rage shoot through me in a quick, hot burst, threatening to boil over. But I suppressed it. Instead, I lowered my other knee to the floor and genuflected before the Lady in Black.

  "Mistress," I said.

  Euryale smiled and her retinue exploded in jeers.

  Chapter 20

  The staircase plunged downward into a seeming endless abyss, ancient wooden scaffolding dubiously attached to walls of raw earth. I got the feeling it might have been a mine at one time. The steps groaned and shuddered underneath my feet and exposed wiring ran to naked bulbs hanging at each landing. The trip became a repetition of passing from these yellow pools of light into the deepening shadow of the stairs and then back again.

  Euryale was in no hurry, she enjoyed my company and mostly as a rule, she preferred languid motions, unless feeding. I didn’t think to be curious about how deep we were actually going until we’d descended so far I’d already lost count of the levels.

  After a while the earth became more raw, less packed, the smell of it more dank. From somewhere below us I heard water dripping and my tattoos, already warm in the presence of the abomination that was Euryale, grew warmer still. I have said San Francisco is a place where the Veil grows thin. At the moment it felt as though only gossamer strands separated me from some other, darker reality.

  After a moment we came to the bottom landing. It was a pocket cavern with a small pool in the center. The dark water seemed to drink any light that fell upon it.

  A step ahead of me, Euryale stopped before a massive hatch large as an SUV. A single industrial bulb burned dimly above it, shedding a cone of weak illumination on a steel wheel lock. In the center of the spokes sat a keyhole. From a hook on the wall Euryale retrieved a black iron skeleton key. The implement reeked of power.

  “You just leave the key to the door on a hook down here?” I asked.

  She turned and cocked an eyebrow at me. “No one is getting down here.” She turned back to the door. “Besides, on general principle,” she added. “I’m less worried about keeping things out than I am letting things in.”

  The key turned smoothly in the lock and I repressed a shudder of both revulsion and unwilling desire at the honey bourbon sound of her voice. I concentrated on the sound of the bolts recessing as she turned the spindle and worked the locking mechanism.

  “This opens into the Veil?” I asked.

  She held out a flat hand and wobbled it back and forth slightly. “Let’s say, Veil-ish.”

  “A place in between places?”

  “Yes. That coven bitch of yours used this to access Cantre’r Gwaelod. I don’t know precisely how. You’ll have to figure out that part for yourself, I imagine the path won’t reset until the next traveller who wishes to go somewhere else decides it should.”

  “You’ve never gone through?” I asked.

  She stepped back from the door and looked at me. “Never, not once.”

  “And you didn’t have any qualms about letting Erica through? You know what she’s trying to get.”

  “She negotiated a deal,” Euryale said.

  It was a maddeningly vague reason, and utterly in keeping with her and her ilk. Deals, bargains, transactions. I can only imagine what deal Erica offered to cross the territory of cortège. Vampires have a limited idea of currency.

  “So you don’t know anything about the city?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What do you know?”

  �
��I know that when the city sank, thanks to Mwys Gywenddo Garanir, it came here.”

  She used the old gaelic term for the Hamper. The Hamper, or basket, itself, had a peculiar, if slightly mundane primary power. Put food for one man in it, close the lid, and, when you opened it again, there was food enough for a hundred.

  It had an obvious use for keeping an army on the march fed, but that wasn’t what made it important to the aspects of the Keys. That dweomer energy, when married to the other pieces of the Caeg Dimre, formed a thaumaturgic power source. It was the very battery to the device that could rip the Veil asunder.

  “You never wanted the basket for yourself?” I asked.

  “Dear heart of mine,” she said. “I may not have ever entered the Veil, but I know very well what it guards against. As a rule I do not like competition.”

  She swung the vault hatch open and I entered.

  The hatch closed behind me and the bolts slid home with all the finality of a guillotine falling. Hesitant, I stepped forward. I have walked in the places between the places before. Whatever I might have been expecting, total womb like, darkness was not it.

  I knelt and touched the ground. I felt cool, dusty stone beneath my fingertips. I was in a structure of some kind and not a cavern. I pulled the bag I’d taken from Cynthia’s around and placed it in front of me. I left my, her, pistol in its holster, if I needed the handgun, it would be easier to draw it then search the ground blindly.

  Moving by touch, I opened the flap on the pouch and felt inside. My fingers moved slowly among the phials and glass bottles I’d liberated from her stores. It was like trying to read braille, a skill I did not possess. I used my sense of touch to create an impression in my mind. From the impression I tried to match shapes to my memories.

  I muttered a curse. There was every chance that whatever system Cynthia used during our time together had changed in the intervening years. Still, what choice did I have?

  From out of the darkness something rustled softly. It was a dry, raspy sound, but slight. A whisper of sound. I looked up, saw only blackness before me. The dark was impenetrable. My heart beat faster.