American Craftsmen (15 page)

“Are you tired of living, Roman?”

Roman held up his hands. “I’m not your enemy.”

“My friends don’t show up uninvited.”

“Pardon the rudeness,” said Roman. “I came because I thought you were hurt.”

“You smelled the blood and came running.” Like a Gideon. Here on the House grounds, I could see a chameleon-like aura I had missed before. “You’re a craftsman.”

“A
charivnyk
, yes,” said Roman.

“You hid this from me?” Only the shock at such a thorough deception restrained me from doing something fatal to both of us.

“My talent is for hiding,” said Roman, “even from other practitioners.”

“Then why show yourself?” I asked. “You saw I wasn’t hurt.”

“Worth the risk,” said Roman. “It’s our last chance to speak the truth.”

“Worth
your
risk to fuck me up,” I said. “How do I explain that my Russian gangster—”

“Ukrainian.”

“Goddamn me if I care,” I spat. I gave my guests a once over. “Lots of people watching us right now.”

“They’re hearing something else for a minute,” said Roman. Still, he spoke low. “You want to leave. We can get you out of the country, but it has to be tonight.”

I asked, “Who do you work for?”

“Ukraine,” said Roman.

“Yes, but what do you call yourselves now?”

Roman said, “We’re the Baba Yagas.”

“Scary name.”

“Scary world,” said Roman. “You come with me?”

I shook my head. “That offer ever work on a Morton before?”

Roman sighed. “Some might be better off if it had. Please, do not be angry at me for trying.”

“I’m not angry,” I said, unclenching my fist. “You’re just acting in your best interest. Fewer people get hurt when they’re clear about that.”

Roman looked around at the party. “Things are not so clear here. I act first as a fellow magus. Still, you stay. I understand. I too would prefer to die at home.”

“Who said anything about dying?” Roman had guessed too much.

“What about the woman?” asked Roman.

“None of your goddamned business,” I said.

Despite the craft protection, Roman lowered his voice. “She won’t be hurt when you … do whatever you’re going to do?”

I brushed some lint off Roman’s lapel. With quiet menace, I asked, “Is there something wrong with her documents?”

“No,” said Roman. “They’re perfect. I swear as a magus.”

“And my documents?”

“They’re in the car,” said Roman. “I drove it here myself. I plan on appearing too drunk to drive when I leave.”

“Then we’ll all be safe.” Or, in my case perhaps, safely dead. “Though your new bosses won’t pay as well as I have.”

“Money is only everything when you’ve got nothing else,” said Roman. “You expect a Sphinx to answer your riddles. I do not like her. She could have given Kiev an early spring; she did nothing. Still, the world is not always as we think.”

I was about to respond to this unhelpful wisdom when someone else touched my arm—a bold move by the muscle spook. “May I have a word with you?”

“I’m saying good-bye to my guest,” I said. I readied a few quick spells in case this spook attacked.

“Don’t you think you’ve said enough?” said the muscle.

I was going to protest, but Roman was gone. I couldn’t see him anywhere. Damn, he really was good at hiding. “I think
you’ve
said enough,” I said to the spook.

“I agree,” said the muscle. Peepshow spooks used magic to make themselves forgettable, and they disguised certain biometrical details to make ID difficult. This particular spook wore deep brown colored contacts and dyed his hair black. He wore a quasi-Masonic “eye in pyramid” lapel pin. He wasn’t trying to hide
what
he was, just
who
he was.

“And what’s your name, my new friend?” I asked.

Muscle had the nerve to actually think about it for a moment. He placed a hand over his chest. “Call me Eddy.”

“Are you going to keep me from talking to all my guests tonight, Eddy?”

“No, not all of them,” said Eddy. “Just the ones I hear continuously repeating the ingredients to Ukrainian soup.”

“I thought you guys just liked to watch,” I said. But the old saw didn’t cut. “Why the interference?”

“You can ask my boss.”

“Your boss?” I asked.

“She’ll be here soon.”

“Great, another uninvited guest.” I reined in my anticipation of this prospective crasher’s identity. Sphinx herself was almost too much to hope for. “Meantime, try the shrimp,” I said. “It’s fresh.”

As I spoke, Roman became briefly visible as he stumbled drunkenly across the courtyard’s threshold. As a final salute, he mimed cutting his own throat. I got the message: not a personal threat, but the army sign for “danger area.”

*   *   *

Eddy rejoined his three Peepshow pals near the bar. Their disguises couldn’t hide the self-importance that common foot soldiers never had. When would they strike?

Floating around Eddy’s party cruisers were a couple of turned foreigners, a beautiful woman of unclear origin too twitchy to spring her honey trap, and a corn-fed Midwestern PhD turned analyst along for the ride. I ignored them all. I followed Eddy’s eyes, waiting for them to betray his boss.

The House rang like a gong, Eddy’s eyes flashed, Grandpa’s jaw dropped.

I turned to see the most perversely flattering thing in my life. Incredibly alone, a small woman walked up the steps of the tiered garden, long braided gray hair appearing first, then a waiflike figure in a little black dress, and finally Doc Martin boots. The crasher strode through the threshold protections like they didn’t exist.

She entered the courtyard. She wore glasses oversized for her fine long nose, appropriate eyewear for the most powerful oracle in the United States.

Looking nervous, one of the H-ring men subvocalled into a hidden transmitter, not caring who saw him do it. He mouthed the same code name over and over again. I didn’t need to read lips or minds to know this was Eddy’s boss. But Grandpa said the name anyway. “Sphinx.”

Beyond all hope, my trap had worked. She had come. If I succeeded, neither of us would leave this place alive.

CHAPTER

TEN

“Sphinx is here, Major,” said the technician. He tried to keep his voice neutral, though he was surprised, and surprises made him unhappy.

“I’m going in,” said Endicott, opening the sliding door of the van. “Keep communications open.” And he left. That at least was good news. Now, the technician could prepare his weapons in peace.

He sat down on a coffin-sized army green box at the back of the van. Poetic that, after so many years of wandering, he was back where his conquest of death had begun. But he would not go into that House himself ever again. One of his weapons was already in place, awaiting activation. If that necessary abomination failed, the other (and he tapped the box) would go in to finish the job.

Then, all threat gone, maybe he would cease to dream of the woman with dark hair and olive skin offering him pomegranate seeds. The dream’s message made no sense. He had conquered death, and no god remained to reimpose mortality and justice. Oracles of death were for others.

*   *   *

Sphinx looked toward Grandpa as if she had heard him and smiled cold as a Sargent painting, a smile that killed Grandpa all over again. “Try the shrimp,” she said, “It’s fresh.” She’d been farlistening. Then she veered away from me toward the food table. So much for flattery.

My death followed with her. The dark magic encircled the block and the grounds of the estate. Waiting for her to attack would gain nothing, and perhaps lose everything. Eliminating her at once would keep the House and Left-Hand spirits out of it. But I had one other person to take care of first.

“Scherie.” She came away from the bar table; I put an arm around her and spoke into her ear. “Could you see about the amontillado?”

She frowned. “But it’s only nine o’clock.”

“Opportunity waits for no one. Go.” She hesitated, then strode away with sad efficiency and no sashay. I did not say good-bye. Sometimes silence is a lie.

I readied my craft. Two corpses would be ample distraction for Scherie’s escape. I’d get close to Sphinx. Close enough to confirm her crimes. Close enough to kill her. Any spooks I left standing would kill me, but taking Sphinx down and protecting my country and Scherie from her would be enough for this life.

Scherie would be downstairs before any screams. Even if she heard something, she would know to keep going.

The chill of a ghost hand on my shoulder. “Don’t do it, Dale,” said Grandpa. I slipped his grasp, and his cold fingers passed through me.

I pressed “06” and the fast-forward button on the remote. The time sense of Sphinx’s bodyguards slowed as I moved between them with craft-enhanced speed. Sphinx spun on her heel to face me. She adjusted time’s rush with the ease that flowed from its constant observation. She exactly matched my speed, two blurs in a land of statues. “Hello, Casper,” she said.

The guards were reacting now, reaching for me and for their hidden weapons. Eddy crouched for some crazy leap. Sphinx held up a hand to restrain them. She smiled again, baring her terrible, brown-stained teeth. “Are you ready to die?”

A crackle of craft sparked between us, a whiff of astral ozone burned my nose. I saw a nonsin vision: a piece of my death clung to Sphinx, like a twitching piece of lint. All the evidence I needed.

“Yes,” I said. I would remind them never to allow a craftsman near the president. I was close enough to synchronize Sphinx’s heartbeat to mine, then stop them both.
Stop, in three … two … one …

Smack! My cheek burned with the impact of Sphinx’s slap. She giggled, her face smiley beautiful, the simplicity of a cherub with a bad dental plan. “Wake up, sleepy boy.”

I gaped at her; I saw her sins. She showed no murders, no guilt of any kind. Her bright pink letters were the confused jumble of the only perfect human innocence.

Sphinx, the world’s most powerful oracle, was insane.

She could still be part of the problem, but in no respect was she responsible for it. I couldn’t kill her.
Shit, if it isn’t her, who?

I stammered as the craft energies cooled around me. “You’re not … the person I was expecting.”

“The dark man in the woods, papa?” She spoke like a little girl dressed as an old hippie, a little girl who had lived too much Hawthorne. Her eyes darted like she was in a waking dream.

In a flash, I made my default decision: save the fool. “You’ve got to get out of here,” I said. “Something’s coming for me.”

Eddy stood next to us, his presence pressing me back a few inches. “Easy, Morton. Don’t feed her your delusions.”

I was about to argue, to plead, to beg to get this poor woman away from my craft ground zero, when another person joined our tête-à-tête. Scherie.

My heart raced. I had faced enemy fire so many times I’d lost count, but now was the first time I’d felt close to panic. “Dear, I asked you to get the amontillado.”

Scherie smiled, a tense thing that fit some minor domestic dispute. “Yes, I thought you were going to make an announcement first.”

I opened my mouth to say some crypto-nonsense about going before the “announcement.” But the dread on Sphinx’s face made me falter. Sphinx grabbed Scherie’s arm in a talon of jingling Nepalese bracelets. “Get her out of here!” she croaked.

Scherie pulled the hand off. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

Then Sphinx broke into a grin and giggled. “Go. Now. And stay. Nothing else matters.”

“Excuse us a moment,” I said. I grabbed Scherie’s arm where Sphinx had, and we walked into the House.

*   *   *

“She seems a little off,” said Scherie, shaking off my grip.

“An old friend of the family’s,” I said. “Why are you still here?”

“Your friend’s friends were ready to kill you. Here and now.” She had seen.

“They were ready to try,” I said. “And that would have been a fine distraction.”

“So what do I do now?”

How much time was left? My now unknown enemy was on the grounds but not yet daring the inner spirit stones. The dark magic dimmed the illumination that came to me from my land and House. My death approached like the tenth plague in
The Ten Commandments
: a slowly flowing fog and mist.

“There’s still time,” I said. “But you’ve really got to leave.”

“What about the distraction?” asked Scherie.

“That’s already started. I’ll improvise the rest.”

“You’ll get yourself killed,” she said.

“Ah, this is nothing.” The biggest lie yet. “Now go. I’ll see you soon.”

“You’d better.” With a shock, I heard her meaning:
love you.
No lie.

“Yeah.” I felt weak in ways I couldn’t afford. I nodded toward the cellar entrance. “Please. For me.”

To my relief, she didn’t hesitate, but pivoted and walked away. One casualty averted.

*   *   *

Outside, Grandpa and Chuck were both hovering around Sphinx. With his unerring sense of the worst thing to do, Chuck was trying to speak with her. “Are you a friend of Dale’s?”

“Friends don’t let friends die drunk.”

“Would you like something to drink?” asked Chuck.

“Some herbal tea. No, fuck it.” She pointed at Grandpa’s tropical drink. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

“What who’s having?” asked Chuck, bewildered. I was puzzled too. Sphinx shouldn’t be able to see my dead without an introduction. But then I remembered her connection to Grandpa, and wondered again about its extent.

Sphinx giggled like a very high schoolgirl. “Dirty old man. Pussy got your tongue?”

“No one here but us, ma’am,” said Chuck.

“Call me Dare,” she said. She started fumbling to take her dress off. “Dirty. It’ll just get dirty.” Grandpa and Chuck went wide-eyed. But then she looked at her watch and lost track of what she was doing. Eddy tried to keep his secret service–style poker face on, but he couldn’t hide his embarrassment.

“Hey babe, let’s party,” said Chuck.

“I solemnly assure you,” said Sphinx, “this very night, we’ll party together in hell. Unless our square host kills the buzz.”