Warbound: Book Three of the Grimnoir Chronicles (17 page)

Whatever had attacked Toru hadn’t made a move against the rest of them yet. Sullivan’s eyes darted back and forth, checking every corner for threats. It kept his mind occupied enough to not dwell on the thought that not only was the Pathfinder already here, but also it was somehow already spread throughout the entire Imperium with nobody knowing.
Survive first, deal with that later
.

He froze when he saw the footprint made of blood. “What the hell?” It might not have gotten his attention if it had been shaped like a human’s, but this one was all twisted up and wrong. Sullivan held up one hand to stop the line of knights. He glanced back and spotted Ian Wright, and signaled for the Summoner to come forward. Pointing at the blood, Sullivan asked, “One of yours?”

The Summoner shook his head. “I don’t know what that is.”

Sullivan lifted his rife. That meant the thing had gotten ahead of them. “It’s here—”

There was a long scream, which echoed down the halls. It came from the direction of the entrance and it certainly didn’t sound like it had come from a human being. Then there was another scream, this one entirely too human and filled with unmistakable pain. There was a gunshot, and another, and then a rattling barrage of automatic weapons fire.

He set off at a run. Sullivan was fast for a Heavy, especially when driven by the thought that his men were counting on him. Several knights were right behind him.

But they were too late.

Diamond had called the entrance an airlock. Whatever it was, the room had been built tight, with solid doors to keep the cold out and the feeble warmth in. Now, that heavy door had been ripped from its hinges and was lying on the floor in pieces. The room had been painted red, floor to dripping ceiling. The crumpled lumps of winter clothing were all that were left of their wounded knights and their Healer. A haze made of particulate blood and bits of shredded goose down hung in the air. And in the center of the room, a thing made out of nightmares turned and hissed at them.

In the dim light, it could be mistaken for a person.
Briefly.
As it turned, wet muscles rolled beneath a thin, translucent covering. There were bullet holes puckered across its torso, weeping black, but it didn’t seem to notice. It dropped the severed leg it had been gnawing on when it heard Sullivan’s heavy footfalls, and when it turned and opened its jagged face to scream at them again with that horrific banshee wail, Sullivan let the thing have it.

Gravity shifted, magnified a dozen times, hurling the creature back and crushing it into the wall. It screeched and tried to push away, struggling to reach for him with long, pointed fingers. Sullivan aimed the BAR at its heart and squeezed the trigger.

Chapter 7

Healing the sick, walking through walls? Sure, that’s neat an’ all, but I met this one brother who could play bagpipes you could swing to. Now that’s real magic.

—Duke Ellington,

Interview,
1927

Paris, France

Faye was waiting
for Jacques Montand to arrive at the little café, rather patiently, she might add, when she realized that she was being watched. She had spotted the man on the sidewalk that morning. Then when she’d caught a glimpse of his reflection in a window a few blocks later, she’d gotten suspicious. Taking a seat in the front of the same café ten minutes after Faye had arrived had been the final straw.

He was a fairly average-looking fellow, tall, lean, older than her, but not by more than ten years at the most. His overcoat and fedora were dark, nothing that would stand out on the street, and he was pretty good at looking like he wasn’t watching her from behind the newspaper he was pretending to read.

A quick, focused check of her head map confirmed that the man had magic. He was an Active. She tried not to feel smug as she congratulated herself on picking out the tail. Lance had called that sort of thing
field craft
, which made sense, since, like hunting, it was all about paying attention. Faye’s initial reaction to suspicious men following her around was to greet them, preferably with sudden, overwhelming violence, but today she refrained. If he was Imperium, he’d show it soon enough.

But what if the stranger was using her to find Jacques? There were all sorts of nefarious groups that wanted to murder the leaders of the Grimnoir. Mr. Browning had tried to warn her about that many times. But everybody thought she was dead, so using her to find them didn’t make much sense either.

Well, if he was an Imperium spy sent to find the Grimnoir elders, it would serve Jacques right for not helping her find a place to stay where she wouldn’t have to worry about being spotted and followed. She’d been forced to get a hotel room. Which was annoying, both because she didn’t know her way around Paris at all and didn’t understand a word of the language, except that a lot of the words sounded like mumbly versions of Portuguese words, and also because hotel rooms in this part of town were expensive, and she had only
borrowed
one stack of money from Francis’ walk-in safe before she’d left America. To be fair, all of Francis’ money stacks tended to be really thick and made entirely out of large denominations, so she was in no danger of running out anytime soon, but it was more the principle of the matter.

Jacques arrived fifteen minutes late with a briefcase in hand. He smiled at the pretty young waitress, asked for something in French, and then took his time strolling across the room. She discreetly kept an eye on the stranger while Jacques took a seat across from her. The stranger’s eyes flicked over toward them briefly, and then back to the newspaper.

You’re pretty good, buddy, but I’m better.
If he so much as twitched wrong, Faye would Travel him up to the top of that big funny-looking metal tower with the funny name and drop him off it.

“Good morning, my dear. You appear rather enthusiastic.”

She was always enthusiastic when she was thinking about how to take care of bad guys. Faye kept her voice a whisper. “The man by the window, he’s been watching me.”

Jacques didn’t even bother to look. “Well, you are a rather pretty young lady, Faye.”

Faye didn’t think of herself as pretty, but the compliment made her blush. “That’s not what I meant. He tailed me here.”

The senior Grimnoir nodded. “I see.” The waitress brought Jacques one of the fancy coffees and a plate of intricate little pastries.
“Merci.”

“You ain’t worried?”

“Do you believe I should be?”

“What with all of the assassinating and whatnot, yeah, probably.”

Jacques’ eyes twinkled when he smiled. He cleared his throat loudly. The stranger looked up, Jacques looked over and nodded at him once. The stranger folded his newspaper, got up, tipped his hat at Faye, and walked out.

“He’s one of yours?”

“Of course,” Jacques said as he popped a pastry in his mouth.

“You were having me tailed?”

He finished chewing first. It would have been impolite to talk with his mouth full. “Only for your own safety. There are many international elements within this city that would be very interested in someone with your reputation.”

Faye snorted. “I don’t need protecting. I spotted him no problem.”

“Yes. You did. Did you spot the other three I sent, though?”

Faye looked around the room. None of these people seemed familiar in the slightest. “No . . .” He might have just been making it up to mess with her, but now she would be on the lookout just in case. “Way to go, Jacques. You know I was pretending to be dead.”

“No need to fear. These knights are as loyal to me as your friends are to John Browning or General Pershing before him. They will not say a word to anyone, especially the other elders, because I have asked them not to. I merely wanted to keep an eye on you. I’m curious to see if you will be able to spot the others now. They are compatriots of Whisper’s, and if I may be so bold as to say so, extremely talented individuals. That should prove to be an amusing challenge for you, no? So, are you ready to continue your lessons?” He did not wait for his response, but rather opened his briefcase and began shuffling through papers. “We will start with a small test.”

“What? Why?”

“Something you said before intrigued me.” Jacques placed a piece of paper and a pencil before her. A complicated maze filled the page. “Solve this.”

“What?”

“You have never solved a maze before? It is a children’s game.”

The whole thing seemed stupid to Faye. “No. Why would I have?”

“I forget myself, your upbringing was rather harsh on the frontier. I would imagine that any papers you had were saved for the outhouse.”

Faye’s eyes narrowed dangerously as she picked up the pencil. She contemplated stabbing Jacques with it.

“I joke. Please forgive my impertinence . . . It is simple. There is an entrance and there is an exit. Draw a line from one to the other. I wish to see how long it takes you.”

“This is dumb.” Faye folded the paper in half so that the two ends were touching, and then jabbed the pencil through. Problem solved. “There.”

“Heh . . . Just like a Traveler.” Jacques shook his head. “No. Not like that.
Through
the maze. Those are walls. You must not cross any of the existing lines.”

“Why?”

He thought about it for a moment, and then laughed. “The rest of us have to put up with walls. Please, just humor an old man and do it again.”

Faye studied the map. It was too easy. She put the lead down. “Why are you wasting my time on this stuff?” Back and forth, up and down, twenty-seven separate turns, and done. She passed it back. Jacques’ mouth was agape. “You’ve got that surprised look again, Jacques.”

“Fascinating . . . Here, do another.”

This one had twice as many lines inked on it. Faye sighed as she took it in. It took longer to actually draw her way through it than it did to analyze it. Sixty-eight changes of direction, and she was done.

“You did not backtrack once, not a single mistake.”

“Why would I? Jeez, is this what normal folks do for fun?”

Jacques’ eyes were opened a bit too wide. He was flabbergasted but trying not to show it. He skipped several other papers and went to the bottom part of his stack. “Try this one.”

This page was absolutely full of twists and turns, not just square edges. Faye simply put the pencil down and drew the path through it, seventy-four turns and eighteen points where she had to choose from divergent paths, but she could instantly see which ones were dead ends, so she just skipped those. Dead ends were for suckers. “Really, Jacques. When do we get to the part where I master magic?” And by the time she said that, she was done.

He took it from her and traced his finger over the pencil line. “Unbelievable.”

“You French folks must be entertained super easy. In America we’ve got this thing called radio . . .”

“One more.” Jacques handed her the very bottom sheet from his stack. She’d thought the last one had been as full as possible, but this one was absolutely filled with tiny corridors. It must have taken hours to draw. The paper was actually heavy with ink.

Her eyes flicked over it once. “I can’t. Not your boring, normal walk-around-stuff way, at least. It’s all blocked.”

Jacques took the paper back slowly and sat it on the table in front of him. He stared at it for a long time.

“You trying to figure it out, because trust me, I already—”

“No. I know it is, but you figured that out in a second . . . There are hundreds of possible paths there.”

“Yeah, but when you know what you are looking for, some stuff fits, and some stuff don’t. It’s not hard to figure out.”

He was still looking at the maze with a funny look on his face. “How does the world appear through your strange grey eyes?”

Faye didn’t know how to answer that, other than seeing a little bit better in the dark than most folks she knew, Faye didn’t think her eyes were any big deal. They made it so she had to wear dark-lensed sunglasses out in public to keep people from recognizing her as a Traveler, but other than that, no big deal. “I just see stuff normal, same as anybody. I just think about how it all goes together better, I guess. I’ve got this map in my head—”

“Yes. You’ve mentioned that, but in other Travelers, it is more of an instinct. For you, it is something more.” Jacques seemed distant, distracted. “Very few Travelers live long enough to get very good at their peculiar form of magic. This thing in your mind, it is really like a map?”

She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live without a head map, or even worse, how terribly limiting it would be, not having the freedom to Travel. “Well, that’s the best way to explain it I guess.”

Jacques was quiet for a really long time. She thought about asking him another question, but he seemed to be thinking really hard about something. Whatever it was, something must have clicked, because he started talking, all while still staring at that maze.

“Whisper confirmed for me that you were not born with grey eyes. All Travelers are born with grey eyes, but you were born with blue eyes. Your eyes turned grey on September 18th, 1918, the day we killed the last Spellbound.”

“I don’t remember . . .” As far as Faye knew, she’d always been a Traveler.

“Yes, you were far too little. He was named Anand Sivaram. What do you know of him, Faye?”

“Just what Whisper told me. He was a real bad man. He was a Traveler, but real smart.”

“Smart is an understatement. He was an astonishingly brilliant man, perhaps one of the greatest minds of our time.”

“It sounds like you respected him.”

Jacques chuckled. “How could you not? One must give respect to those who deserve it because of what they are capable of, even as you despise them for how they use their capabilities. Sivaram was born in one of the poorest slums in a very poor nation, with a rare form of magic that everyone around him saw as a malicious curse.”

“I know the feeling.”

“The parallel had not escaped me. Sivaram mastered teleportation, Traveling, as you are fond of calling it. As you are well aware, most Travelers do not live to adulthood. It is a form of Power most unforgiving of mistakes. Perhaps it was the complicated and dangerous nature of his Power that honed his curiosity so, but Sivaram embarked on a lifelong quest to understand magic. He was one of the first to discover that you could fashion spells and bind bits of the Power to them in order to create various effects. He went on to invent many of the spells we take for granted today, such as using the Power as a method of long-distance communication. He fashioned many others, great and marvelous spells that have since been lost to us. It was his greatest spell that pushed him over the edge into madness and murder. His notes have since been scattered around the world, but I sought out every last piece I could in order to better understand him.”