Hilda screamed and ran to her daughter, snatching her limp hand off the floor along with a few stray petals. “Mira, baby! Speak to me! Speak to me!”
Madam Otis quickly recalled herself, grimacing deeply as her two halves reconnected. She sat hunched over for a good thirty seconds before straightening. The expression on her face when she finally lifted it made me shudder. I recognized it. Had seen it on a few of my foes when they thought they had me cornered. Pure evil triumph.
“She’s my child now, Hilda. Get out of this house before I decide she needs to strangle you.” She fixed Mira’s mother with a malevolent glare, one that made Hilda shiver and sit back on her heels. But she wasn’t ready to give up. Not when her darling had finally reopened her lovely blue eyes. Even if they were, well, vacant.
“Mira, mine. Come home now. We’ve got so much to do.”
But Mira, the part that mattered, had already gone home. The bit that remained marched to the drum of a new master. That part opened its mouth wide, sank its teeth into Hilda’s wrist. And chewed. Hilda screamed, shoving at Mira’s forehead, trying to get her to release her hold as blood began to spurt from her deepening wound.
Mira growled with irritation as Hilda pushed her away, shoving her half off her tasty treat. She released the wrist but snapped right back to target. Hilda recoiled, but not fast enough. This time Mira had her by the hand. I glanced down at my own hands, marked forever by the talons of a pissed-off reaver. And that’s when I really began rooting for the underdog. After a brief tug-of-war backed by Mira’s growls, Hilda’s screams, and Madame Otis’s delighted cackles, Hilda finally broke free. She ran out of the cottage, trailing blood as she went. Again the picture faded.
“From then on I spent all my time researching necromancy,” Hilda’s robotic voice informed us. “I discovered that the truly dead can be reanimated by the energies of the necromancer, but she must be choosy. Because though the soul has left the body something remains. A shadow that can become difficult to manipulate depending on how the person lived. Children and those who were obsessed or fixated in life are the easiest to control in this way, as long as the necromancer keeps visual contact with her subjects. I have just discovered there may be another, more insidious method of controlling the dead. But it requires much more sacrifice on the part of the necromancer, because the soul is trapped inside the victim’s body. Therefore this method is rarely used.” A new, more energetic voice suddenly replaced Hilda’s. “Before Hilda could complete her research she was killed. See eyewitness account by Letitia Greeley.” But when Cassandra tried to reference that account, the Enkyklios simply offered up a name — Sister Doshomi.
“What’s that mean?” asked Cole as he popped a blue bubble.
“The Letitia Greeley story is in her Enkyklios,” said Cassandra. “I’ll have to contact her and see if she can send me a copy.”
“Seriously?” marveled Cole. “There’s more than one of these out there? I mean, I thought yours was, you know, the database.”
Cassandra shook her head. “Even the Enkyklios is limited in what it can hold. If we were to lose one, we certainly would be devastated if we had no backups. And despite what you may think, it isn’t easy, or even recommended, for one person with one Enkyklios to travel the world recording stories. And so” — she shrugged — “sometimes we find we must still share information the old-fashioned way.”
“By telephone?” Cole ventured.
Cassandra rolled her eyes. “No, silly, by e-mail.”
But Sister Doshomi had proven hard to pin down. In fact, she’d been mountain climbing when Cassandra tried to contact her and wasn’t expected back until after we left Ohio. While we’d begun the mission with an incomplete view of raising the dead, at least the Spec Ops guys had given us solid information regarding a meeting our necromancer would be attending. They knew the time, location — they’d even snagged a picture of their nemesis. The first ever and quite a coup for Dave’s group. He’d probably still be basking in the glory if he hadn’t simultaneously discovered his unit had a mole. The only one who suspected, Dave had tried to hand off the meeting coordinates, along with the job of exterminating the Wizard, to another unit. Instead SOCOM, with the direct support of the DOD, had requested that we team with them. They knew the CIA had a consultant on staff with insider knowledge of the Wizard. They’d heard our particular department fronted a team of assassins that had never failed to nail its target. And they felt only outsiders like us could ferret out a mole while leaving the rest of a highly trained, incredibly valuable fighting element intact. Problem was, these guys were tight. I could see them resenting our presence, especially since we’d been called in to finish the job they’d started. If we did this wrong, if Bergman pulled an attitude or Cassandra freaked somebody with one of her visions or Cole made a joke nobody laughed at . . . Hell, so many things could go wrong that if we got through this mission without crossing the path of any “friendly” fire I’d be amazed.
I played it absolutely straight and hoped that was how everybody in the room would take it. Meeting my brother’s green eyes, the only part of him that made me feel I was looking in a mirror, I said gravely, “I know you’re a lot more surprised to see me than I am you. But then, that’s how the Agency works sometimes. Secrecy is the key to success. You know that.”
He paled slightly and I mentally slapped myself. I’d been reunited with him less than ten minutes and already managed to remind him of the most painful tragedy of our lives. Because it had nearly destroyed our relationship, we’d never been able to confront it head-on. That’s something I can manage with limited contact. Not so much up close and personal. I’d have to step lightly if I still wanted a brother when this mission was over.
Dammit, all this tiptoeing is already making my arches sore.
“Anyway, about eight months ago, I teamed up with Vayl.”
“So . . . you’re an assassin?” Dave asked incredulously.
“Why do I feel like you’d have used the same tone if I’d just confessed to being a stripper?” I demanded.
“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m just a little surprised, is all.”
“I’m very good at what I do.”
Dave nodded, then shrugged. “They said they were sending the best.”
“Well, then.” My entire crew had gathered around me as I spoke, Vayl by my right side, Cole at my left, Cassandra and Bergman behind us in the gaps our shoulders made. I didn’t like the formation. It looked too much like a defensive barrier. But that’s how people break themselves down in any new situation. Get with the herd until you know the lions aren’t going to pounce.
Dave’s group, superior to ours in both numbers and weaponry, felt free to stay scattered across the room, though every one of them remained alert to our conversation, even the wounded. The medic, a sturdy, dark-skinned brunette with strong, capable hands, had patched two of her charges and was threading a needle for another while a fourth held a bandage to his bicep to help control the bleeding. That fourth, the same giant who’d saved me during the battle, gave me a considering look, cocked his head to one side, grinned, and winked. I couldn’t help it. I kinda thought we were going to be friends.
I didn’t have time to check out the other half of Dave’s unit. He’d found yet another unhappy thought. At this rate, even a whole pouchful of Tinker Bell’s magic dust would never get him flying. “There’s something weird about this whole deal. Two people who’ve barely spoken to each other in over a year —”