Cloak Games: Last Judge Read online

  Which meant either I could come back here…or Russell and I would be dead.

  Russell descended the stairs with two more suitcases.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  “Do you have everything you need?” I said.

  “I think so,” said Russell.

  “A gun?” said Murdo.

  Russell shook his head. “The only guns in the house are James’s M-99 and Lucy’s pistol. I shouldn’t use any of theirs.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. Russell read my note and left an envelope next to it. “You can use one of mine. I’ve got plenty.”

  “Thanks,” said Russell, and he grabbed his suitcases. “You know, I think this is the first time we’ve ever taken a road trip together.”

  “Yeah, we’re driving to the desert to meet a terrorist mastermind,” I said. “Good times.” I sighed. “You’d better ride with me. If we’re going to live through this, you need to know as much about our enemies as possible, so I’ve got some things to tell you.”

  I took one last look at the Marneys’ house, wondering if I would ever see it again, and then headed for my van.

  ###

  Twenty minutes later we were on I-43 heading southwest.

  We would make our way southwest across Illinois and Iowa until we got to I-80, and then we would follow I-80 for the long drive across the country to Nevada and then to Reno. It was a drive I had done a bunch of times before, both on jobs for Lord Morvilind and during my harassment of the Rebels over the last year, and I knew it was long and boring. At least until you got to the Rocky Mountains, and then it became scenic.

  That was all right. It would give me and Russell time to talk, and I needed to tell him a lot of stuff to get him ready.

  Murdo took the lead in his blue Royal Motors SUV, which looked the worse for wear after our fight with Lorenz. Though it looked better than my poor battered van. I had already mentioned the dent in the back doors, but the fender and the hood were both dented, and there was a spider web crack in the windshield from where the heads of one of Vastarion’s undead had hit the glass. I needed to fix a lot of things, but there hadn’t been time. If we lived through this and I really did manage to extort a million dollars from Nicholas to cover Lorenz’s offenses, I was going to spend some of that money on fixing the van.

  But first, surviving.

  “All right,” I said, my eyes on the freeway as I followed Murdo’s SUV. “There are a lot of things I have to tell you.”

  “I figured,” said Russell. He took a deep breath. “Where do you want to start?”

  “Nicholas Connor.”

  “The Rebel Overseer,” said Russell.

  “That’s him,” I said.

  “You…er, seem to hate him,” said Russell.

  “Yeah.”

  “Not just because he’s your enemy and he threatened to kill me,” said Russell. “Like, you hate him personally.”

  “Come on,” I said. “If someone threatening to kill your family doesn’t make things personal, nothing does.” I sighed. “But you’re right. Okay. You remember about a hundred and sixty-one years ago…”

  Russell blinked.

  “Sorry,” I said. I pointed at the side of my head. “Time sense is all screwed up. Do you remember about three years ago when I went to Los Angeles for a few months?”

  “Yeah,” said Russell. “You said you were on a job for Lord Morvilind. This was back when we were all pretended you worked for him as a web designer.”

  I grimaced. Had I been that transparent? Well, maybe to Russell.

  “Anyway,” I said. “It was a long and complicated job. Morvilind wanted me to steal some ancient Egyptian relics from Duke Wraithmyr’s private estate in Hollywood. Wraithmyr has excellent private security, and I didn’t have the abilities then that I do now. It took me a few months to set everything up, and I ran out of money a couple of times. I had to do some jobs to pay the rent. Jewelry stores, mostly. That was how I met Nicholas. At the time, he was running low on money, so he had the same bright idea.”

  “You teamed up,” said Russell.

  “Uh,” I said. That was one way to put it. “Yeah, we did. I thought he was just a freelance thief. We hit it off right away, because he was smart and fearless and charming, and…”

  “Oh,” said Russell.

  “What?” I said.

  “You, er,” said Russell. He looked out the window, into the back of the van, then out the damaged windshield again. I wondered if he was looking for something and then realized that he didn’t know where to put his eyes. “You…ah, slept together?”

  “How the hell did you know that?” I snapped. “Am I that transparent?”

  “Sometimes,” said Russell. “You kind of turned a little red.”

  I let out a long breath. “Right. Anyway, I was young and stupid, and I kind of fell in love. I started hanging out with Nicholas and his whole circle of friends. I thought they were a group of freelance thieves. They were, true, but they were stealing to finance their Rebel cell.”

  “How did you find out who they really were?” said Russell.

  “Bit by bit,” I said. “What Nicholas really wanted was to kill Duke Wraithmyr of Los Angeles. Remember what we talked about at the Ducal Mall? Normal bullets don’t really work on Elves, but fire and shock waves work just fine. The Duke was attending some big soccer match. Something between fifty thousand and a hundred thousand people would have been there.” I felt myself getting angry again as I talked about it, even all these years later. “Nicholas was going to blow up the stadium to get at Wraithmyr. Never mind that there would have been tens of thousands of people in the stadium with him. Nicholas said they would have been enemy collaborators and they deserved it.”

  “I think I would have heard about that,” said Russell. “I’m assuming you stopped him.”

  “Good and hard,” I said. “See, Nicholas planned to frame me for the bombing, so he could get away clean.”

  “What a thoughtful boyfriend.”

  I laughed despite myself. “Yeah, so I paid him back in kind. I sent all his plans to the Inquisition – anonymously – and got the hell out of there. Nicholas sent some of his goons to get me, and I avoided them, though I sort of blew up the apartment building where we had been living. The Inquisition took apart his Rebel cell, and I hoped they got Nicholas, too. Guess they didn’t.”

  “That’s why he hates you so much?” said Russell. “Because you dumped him and tried to get him arrested?”

  “It’s kind of more complicated than that,” I said. “Wait, no, actually, it isn’t. I think Nicholas would be delighted to kill me if he could, but he’s too smart for that.”

  “He wasn’t smart enough to stop himself from gloating on the phone to you,” said Russell.

  “There are levels of mistakes,” I said. “Nicholas knows my abilities are unique or at least very rare, and that he has a better chance of finding this Sky Hammer thing with my help than without it. He thinks he can convince me to join him or to coerce me into helping him. Some of his lieutenants disagreed, which is why Lorenz went after you.” I rubbed my face and then put my hand back on the steering wheel. “So that’s Nicky. Be careful around him. He’ll try to push you. Don’t let him.”

  Russell nodded. “I won’t.”

  “You’ll also have to watch out for Nicholas’s lieutenants,” I said. “The most dangerous of them is a man named Martin Corbisher.”

  “Corbisher?” said Russell. “That name sounds familiar. Isn’t it a big company up in Minnesota?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The Corbisher Group. Marty used to be in charge of it, and he was also running for the governor of Minnesota a couple of years ago. And he’s a Rebel Gatekeeper and a Dark Ones cultist. I had to do a job for Lord Morvilind in Minneapolis a while back, and I sort of wrecked Corbisher’s life, and he had to take refuge in Venomhold. Nicholas hates me, but he thinks he can control me. Corbisher really hates me, and he wants to kill me, and he’ll want to kil
l you out of spite. He tried to have me killed twice before, and I’m pretty sure Corbisher gave Lorenz the money to hire all those orcish mercenaries.”

  “What does he do for Connor?” said Russell.

  “He figures out how to pay for everything,” I said. “He’s an asshole, but when it comes to money, he’s a genius. Corbisher has like a billion shell corporations and hidden accounts, that kind of thing. Nicholas is the leader of the Rebels, but Corbisher is the one who finds the money to pay for it all. Oh, when you meet him, don’t stare at his face.”

  “Why, is he ugly or something?”

  “He actually used to be pretty handsome,” I said. “Uh. But when I escaped from Venomhold the first time, I got one of the creatures there mad at me. When I escaped, the bloodrat took it out on Corbisher’s face. Which is yet another reason he hates me.”

  Russell blinked. “You’ve been to Venomhold?”

  “Twice, now,” I said. “Which is twice more than I ever wanted to go. I really don’t recommend it.”

  “Wow.” He shifted in his seat. “I wonder how many other stories like that you’ve got.”

  “A bunch,” I said. “The third Rebel you’ve got to watch out for is Hailey Adams.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “Nicholas’s girlfriend,” I said. She was blonder, bustier, and (worst of all) taller than me, something I found irrationally irritating even though I hated Nicholas. “And she thinks she’s his only girlfriend.”

  “Heh.”

  “She’s also a Gatekeeper, which means she’s a wizard and murdered someone to get a Dark One inside her skull to fuel her magic,” I said. “She’s good with something called the mindtouch spell, which lets her look into someone’s thoughts and dig around inside their skulls. Nicholas uses her for interrogations or for when he needs to make sure that someone isn’t lying to him.”

  “And…I guess she hates your guts, too?” said Russell.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Partly because she thinks I want to steal Nicholas back, and partly because I humiliated her in front of the others on the day we met. She tried to dig through my head with the mindtouch spell, and it didn’t go well for her.” I thought for a moment. “Someone else you need to watch out for is Mitchell Swathe. He’s a former Homeland Security officer, and now he’s the head of security for Nicholas. He really hates me, because he tried to bully me, and I made it blow up in his face.”

  The day we had met, in fact, he had ordered me to strip naked before he would let me into Nicholas’s base. For reasons of security, no doubt. I had responded by Cloaking, walking unseen through his guards and cameras, and strolling right into Nicholas’s office. Swathe hadn’t forgiven me for that.

  Or all the many times I had insulted him.

  “That never seems to work well for them,” said Russell.

  I snorted. “I’ve been bullied by Morvilind the Magebreaker himself. Compared to him, anyone else is small potatoes.” I thought for a minute. “Those four are the ones you really have to watch out for, the ones who will try to screw with you because you’re my brother. They’ll probably threaten and bully you, but don’t let them push you. They know that if they hurt you, I’m going to blow up the building with them inside it, so they can only go so far. Oh, and watch out for Enzo Morelli.”

  “Who?”

  “He’s a former officer from the Security Directorate of the European Union,” I said. “At least that was his day job. His real career was serving as an enforcer for the Italian mafia.”

  “Wow.”

  “He might be the most dangerous one in the group, even more dangerous than Nicholas,” I said. “He’s the most competent of Nicholas’s lieutenants, and he’s calm, efficient, and always professional…and if he decides to come after me, he’ll just shoot me in the back without any warning. Definitely be careful around him, too.” I shook my head. “He wouldn’t have made the mistake that Nicholas just made. If Lorenz had sent Morelli that email, he wouldn’t have told me about it. Morelli would have waited a few weeks until my guard was down, and then he would have grabbed you.”

  “What should we do when we meet them?” said Russell.

  “Let me and Rory do the talking,” I said. “They’ll try to get under your skin, try to get you to do something stupid…”

  “Like bullies,” said Russell. I wondered if he had ever been bullied at school because of his white hair and frostfever. Hell, who am I kidding? Knowing the cesspit of human nature, it would have been more surprising if he hadn’t been bullied. Then again, knowing Russell, he had probably dealt with it in his own way.

  “Yeah, but with way more guns,” I said. “I don’t think they’ll try to hurt you or kill you. If they do, they know all bets are off. But stay close to Rory and me, and be careful. Don’t let them get you alone, and don’t eat or drink anything they give you. I wouldn’t put it past Nicholas to drug you.”

  “Okay,” said Russell. “I have a question.”

  I braced myself. “All right.” I half-expected him to ask why I had been stupid enough to sleep with someone like Nicholas Connor. God knows that was a question I had asked myself many times.

  “You should really call Riordan,” said Russell.

  I frowned. “That was a statement, not a question.”

  “True,” said Russell. “So why don’t you call Riordan?”

  I scowled. “You know why I can’t call Riordan. I was really nasty to him when I broke up with him. It was for his own protection so he would stay away from me because I’m dangerous. But what am I supposed to say? I spent a hundred and fifty-eight years in an Eternity Crucible, but I’m sorry I said mean things to you, please come back?”

  Because that was what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell Riordan how sorry I was.

  “If you want,” said Russell, unruffled by my anger. “But I think you should call him and ask for help. He’s a Shadow Hunter, right? They do assassinations for bounties. And I bet Nicholas Connor has a huge bounty on his head.” He spread his hands as if cradling a watermelon. “Like, enormous.”

  “Probably,” I said. “But I can’t call the Shadow Hunters, not yet. If I do it before I steal the third thing, it counts as breaking the deal. Lord Morvilind stops casting his cure spells, and you die. Or I’ve got three weeks to find a dragon pearl before you die. Look, I’ll compromise. If we’re still alive after the final theft, I’ll call Riordan and point him at Nicholas. I’m going to call the Inquisition at that point anyway, so why not Riordan and the Shadow Hunters?”

  “Good,” said Russell. “Because I think you really should call him. You might be pleasantly surprised.”

  “I already said I’d call him if we live through the third theft,” I said. “Don’t push it.”

  “All right,” he said. I knew that tone of voice. He had no intention of letting it go and would bring it up later when he thought he could change my mind. “Another question. What do you think Connor wants you to steal now?”

  I let him change the topic. “Best guess is that it has something to do with Operation Sky Hammer.”

  “Operation Sky Hammer?” said Russell. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t really know,” I said. “Operation Sky Hammer was something that the old federal government was working on in the last few years before the Conquest. Some kind of weapon or something. I know that in school they teach you that the Elves took over Earth on Conquest Day, but it really took them a couple of decades to get complete control.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” said Russell. “Things are never as tidy as they are on TV, are they?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Anyway, one of the people fighting the Elves was a guy named Jeremy Shane. He was the last Secretary of Defense, the guy in charge of the old American military, and he was going to use the Sky Hammer weapon against the High Queen. Except his own people got impatient and assassinated him before he could activate the weapon, and they tried to fight the High Queen on their own. They took over Chicago, Baltimore, and S
t. Louis. You can guess what the High Queen did then.”

  “Yeah,” said Russell. “Connor is after the Sky Hammer weapon?”

  “Looks that way,” I said. “This deal had three thefts. The first one was in Chicago. Nicholas had me find Shane’s tomb. Shane was buried with a briefcase that held a bunch of documents about the Sky Hammer. The second theft was a safe deposit box in the Royal Bank of Washington DC. I found this old, old flash drive from before the Conquest that had a bunch of information about the Sky Hammer and a place called Last Judge Mountain in Nevada.”

  Russell blinked. “You got out of Chicago and the Royal Bank alive?”

  “Yep,” I said. “And it was a real pain in the ass, too. I could write a book about. Two, even. So, whatever the third theft is, I bet it has something to do with the Sky Hammer.”

  “No,” said Russell. I blinked and glanced at him. His face was tight. “It has to be the Sky Hammer itself. Connor knows he can only use you for one more theft, right? And you’re the best thief he’s ever going to get working for him, and he can only make you help him once more. So he’s going to use you to get the Sky Hammer for him.”

  I checked Russell’s logic over and couldn’t find any holes in it.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Nadia, this is really bad,” said Russell.

  “Yeah,” I said again. “Look, this is a nasty game we’re playing. I think you’re right. Nicky’s going to send me to…”

  “Nicky?” said Russell.

  “It’s what I call Nicholas when I’m trying to rile him up,” I said. Or when I was frightened and trying not to show it. “Anyway, I think Nicky’s going to send me to get the Sky Hammer for him. He’s probably figured out where it is by now. And the minute he has the weapon, I’ll have fulfilled Morvilind’s deal with the Forerunner…and then Nicholas’s going to try to kill us both.”

  “And Mr. Murdo, too, I bet,” said Russell.

  “Murdo, too,” I agreed. Given how much time Rory Murdo had spent helping me…he no longer had Nicholas’s trust, and Murdo needed my help to rescue his girlfriend from the Rebels. “So. We know that Nicholas is coming after us the minute I get the Sky Hammer for him. Nicholas knows that I’m going to be ready for him. I guess whichever one of us is readier to kill the other is going to win.”