American Craftsmen (14 page)

With cracks against steel and thumps against flesh, I worked the cane like a short staff, and tried not to think about how much I hated archaic weapons. Dueling against my grandfather with staves, I had complained, “Thomas Morton wasn’t bloody Little John.” Grandfather had stung me with a quick blow across the shoulders. “We Mortons use whatever means are necessary.”

The Murderer’s wards worked against simple mundane blows, but my blows were not simple, nor simply mundane. With the word
strike
, a touch of craft sped my movements, and guided each hit through M’s aetheric parries.

M’s arms moved slower and wilder.
Knife, throat, fall.
I struck the knife from M’s hand and grabbed him by the throat. With a sweeping kick, I flung M down and held him by the windpipe against the ground.

In execrable Latin, M whispered something like a prayer. He wore talismans around his constricted neck, mostly European in origin—was that a reliquary of the true cross? Why would anybody bring this foreign crap against a Morton? Perhaps M meant to mislead about his employer. The possibilities tired me. “Who are you?”

“I will fear no evil, oath breaker.”

I glanced toward M’s mind, and found it a tar pit. I could interrogate him, but that would take all day to find out that he really didn’t know anything, not even if he worked for Sphinx, the Feds, Endicott, or whoever else controlled the dark force that was stalking me. My enemy wanted me to fall into this tar pit. M had been protected, but feebly, and had no craft strength of his own. No one had expected him to succeed.

Who was M? Only what he had already done. “You’re a cat’s-paw,” I said. “Fine. Your superior wants me to expend my strength on you. But the House and I are done with you. When you see her, tell her to leave me and mine alone. For all I care, if she stays away, she can have the Aquarian apocalypse. I don’t give a shit.”

“You’re letting me go?”

I smiled a little nervous smile. God, it was hard to get good help. “No.” With a quick twist and the word
break
, I broke M’s neck.

It was an exact kill. I had avoided shedding M’s blood, and this abrupt end would send M’s spirit quickly back to his commander instead of forward to another plane. M would moan out the misinformation that I wanted my enemy to stay away, and she might rush her next attack and make mistakes.

I quickly viewed M for any remaining craft aura, any sign of a booby trap set to go off after M’s heart had stopped. Such a destiny seemed likely for such obvious cannon fodder, but I found nothing. I searched M’s person, and found more eclectic religious medals and relics—not inconsistent with working for Sphinx, but not an orgy of evidence either. I left these with the body; I had no use for such stuff.

For now, I didn’t want the body found, so I dragged it into my walk-in closet. That room had masked some of the Mortons’ core treasures for generations; it could handle one lousy corpse.

Give him to us.
The Left Hand was already restive. Not good.

“Later,” I said.

Now.

“You’ll get what I promised,” I said. “And not an ounce of flesh more.”

Damn your flesh!
The Left Hand wailed and gnashed their spectral teeth against the woodwork; the room seemed a little dark for comfort. I opened the shutters and looked down on the courtyard. The setup was going nicely.

“I’m back!” yelled Scherie from two floors below. “What are you doing up there?”

“Just looking at the weather.”

“Is it going to rain?”

“I don’t think so.” I remembered my slashed sleeve, and stepped back from the window. “I’m going to change now.”

Instead, sudden vertigo overtook me, and I crumpled against the wall.
No, no, no.
But then, bitter laughter welled up. The curse’s impact was weak, at worst. The sorcerer had only cared about me fighting Islam. Any concern for universal life and the law of karmic return was my own.

I took off my shirt and wiped up the blood from my arm and body. Then I waved the rag in the air.
Here I am, I’ve been wounded. I’m the staked goat, the chum for the sharks. Come and get me.
A vulgar display of failing power, an open wound that would attract every parasitic craftsperson in New England and beyond.

At least I knew people were coming to my party.

I cleaned the cut on my arm and slapped a patch on it. That just left the oncoming storm. Everyone always complained about New England’s weather; I would do something about it. I would tease the weather over the House to the kind of perfection remembered long after a disaster comes.

I stood again on the iron plate, focused my mind, and spoke four words in the plain language of the Founders:
dry and cool air.
The storm would part at my house; the day’s heat would evaporate as if my large, primeval leafy oaks had soaked it up.

I stacked nature’s deck with practiced ease, and the necessary energy came from the House itself.

I descended the stairs to find the other caterers.
Oath breaker
. What oath? Hutch had released me from my oath not to practice craft, and I didn’t think M had been talking about my discharge agreement with the government. The only other oath I had taken was to defend the Constitution.

But the Left-Hand Mortons had once sworn an oath, in terrible words and deeds that could bind even the utterly amoral. They had sworn in the name of the Morton Family and the House of Morton to defend each other against all other Families and to never cease in their war against death. From the Left-Hand view, I was a descendant of the great oath breaker, Joshua. So M, or more likely M’s masters, had wanted me to believe he had been acting in the name of the living Left Hand.

Bullshit. I refused to believe.

The caterers were setting up the pig roast; a sow spitted over an open fire. The scene brought up several unpleasant memories at once. I would eat very little; from generation to generation, PTSD hit the Morton stomach hard.

To ensure that the caterers wouldn’t look for ex-M, I slammed them with preternatural suasion. “
I sent that tattooed man home. He was rude to my family. Will you need other help?
”

The head caterer shook his head. “No, he was extra, last minute.”

That dealt with M. Now, my enemies—Sphinx, her spooks, or the third parties manipulating them all—would come in among the guests. They could be anyone, a stranger or an old friend. But M’s attempt had assured me on one point: they would come.

Searching again for hostile activity, I saw that my courtyard walls had a night-vision glow in all directions. The neutral color probably meant that the Pentagon’s people were stationed outside to stop my supposed bolt for the border. I hoped for their sakes that they kept their asses put, and that that bastard Endicott wasn’t with them. I didn’t think my enemy would use someone so obvious, but I might want to hurt Endicott anyway.

*   *   *

In a heavily wooded patch of Rock Creek Park near the District line, Sakakawea conferred with Bumppo and Carson. The two men had to look up to speak with Sakakawea, whose long thin limbs were muscle anatomy lessons.

“Is the body ready?” asked Sakakawea.

“Yes,” said Bumppo.

“Any ID features?” asked Sakakawea.

“Clean,” said Carson.

“Outstanding,” said Sakakawea. She opened the cell phone and dialed Major Endicott. “Sir, I’ve found her,” she said. “Dead. Looks ritual. Looks Left-Hand. Looks horrible.” A pause. “Yes, I’m sure.” Another pause. “Yes sir, we’ll remain on alert.”

She hung up, then dialed her commander.

“The advance man is dead,” he said.

“The masque has started,” she said.

*   *   *

Like a social Normandy, the invited men and women arrived in loud, backslapping, cheek-kissing waves. Chuck O’Neill, my roommate from West Point, pushed forward in a screaming tropical shirt of a southern posting. He shook to crush my hand in his enormous paw. “I really appreciate your coming.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” said Chuck. “You leaving the military, that’s huge. Now, where you hiding the poison?”

Give him to us
, murmured the Left Hand.

“Right this way,” I said.

I steered Chuck toward one of the very prominent outdoor bars. Other guests arrived, with the international set forming an overdressed black-and-white contrast to Chuck and the Day-Glo Americans. People had traveled far for this show. Funny how everyone knew this party mattered, even if they couldn’t say why. A good thing they couldn’t. Most of the guests were here as mere tactical feints, as props to convince my enemy that this was a farewell party and not a distraction or last stand. I rationalized this. Tonight’s battle could be vital to the U.S. and the world, and, worst case, I asked from them nothing more than I would certainly give. I rationalized, but looked away from Chuck’s broad grinning face.

As the invited guests and their booming voices accumulated, I waited for the crashers to make quieter entrances. I played the spider, feeling for the vibration along my web. Patience was difficult. Perhaps I was the insect, soon to be consumed.

The courtyard walls hummed. There, that was one. And another. And two more. Their small eccentricities—male ponytails and female chrome domes, pentagram bolos and Masonic broaches—these they covered in the beige social attire of certain Northern Virginian suburbs. Soon, nearly as many spies as invitees roamed the House and grounds. Which ones had come to kill me, which ones just wanted to watch?

Give them to us; we’ll sort them out
, whispered the Left Hand.

“Grandpa, any of these Sphinx?”

Grandpa appeared at my side in an old Hawaiian shirt, a tropical drink in his hand. “Bali Hai!” he said. Not all here, but that was OK. None of these intruders looked old enough to be the woman that Grandpa had found at Woodstock. No sign of the Gideons either. If Sphinx or any major enemy showed, I wasn’t going anywhere.

One by one, the crashers failed to avoid Scherie, who guided them to the drinks. She had a knack for this work, and staying busy meant that we didn’t have to discuss last night. During a break in the arrivals, Scherie said, “A lot more spies than I expected.”

“Me too,” I said, quite honestly. “But better that they’re right here than outside.”

“That old man in the loud shirt looked like a relative.”

Shit, she had seen Grandpa. What the hell did that mean? Had sex opened her eyes to the Morton ghosts? That hadn’t worked with other women. “Yeah, he’s a distant relative.” As distant from the living as he could get. Scherie’s mouth dropped open, so I added, “One of the good relatives.”

“Good. Heard enough about those crazy ones. Oh, there’s another spy to greet.”

In front of the bar table, Scherie guided another of the shadowy crashers through the drink options. The big spook was ramrodded into his Company suit; unlike most Peepshow, he might also be muscle. “We have fine bourbons and American whiskeys,” said Scherie, “moonshine from the jug, and microbrews from around the country.” The connection of craft and spirits went deep. “But excuse me for a moment, I’m needed in the kitchen.” She retreated, as I had told her, to initiate a pattern of disappearance, so her final departure wouldn’t attract notice.

The muscle spook’s eyes shamelessly followed Scherie’s departure. Fine. If he read her like a billboard, he would only see the information I had posted.

But now the muscle studied me, trying to see what I had on my mind. I feigned unconcern and readied a simple defense. When someone was eavesdropping, turn up the music.

Like using an UZI to trim the hedges, I aimed my modified universal remote toward the stereo, pressed “01” and pushed up the volume. Certain songs worked best; Talking Heads, Steely Dan, Soul Coughing, and Warren Zevon knew how to confuse the fictional and real demimondes. An extension of my nerves, the remote itched in my palm for its main work. Later.

I moved near the main doorway to the House, where the smoky fresh air and loud babel of the courtyard blended with the concentrated smoke and low noise of the inside. Craftsmen couldn’t cure cancer, but they sure acted like they could. I was impatient for the crash of force against force.
Let’s get on with this.

As if in response, a shadow fell over the setting sun, like that moment in a poem of battle when the warrior’s fate has found him. My primary adversary was circling outside my property, drawing closer, with an obsessive, mathematical precision.

The House thrummed again and again, signaling four more uninvited guests. Two glowed with the colors of the craft specialties, while the other two were just muscle. They all looked military; they all looked Endicott’s type. They scattered to keep me loosely between them, formation relaxed because there was backup outside. Their commander wouldn’t be far, probably in some communications van on the street.

From inside the House, the Left Hand whispered:
Give them to us
.

No
, I said. Or at least, not yet.

*   *   *

As I mixed about the courtyard again, an overdressed crasher managed to step into my way, sparking with his nation’s distinctive craft signature as he tried to recruit me. “Just a word, Mr. Morton.”

“
Nein
,” I said.

“You know I’m German?”

“We Mortons know Germans.” Petty, but Dieters got on my Morton nerves.

“Just a word,” insisted the German.

“He said
nyet
.” A familiar voice over my shoulder. The German turned tail.

“Roman.” I continued to face forward, smile stapled on my face, teeth clenched. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m leaving too,” said Roman, accent abruptly diminished. “You should come with me.”

I spun around to face him. Like an updated devil from a Slavic folk story, Roman had neatly trimmed his beard into the goatee I had always imagined for it. Like the international set, he was overdressed, and smelled of better cologne.

Roman nodded toward Scherie at the bar, who nodded back at him. “Your woman, she is charming. And very devoted to you.”