A narrow triangle of flame emerged from the boy’s chest. He stood still for a moment, then the light seemed to go out of his eyes, the black shield vanished, and he crumpled to the floor.
Variam looked down at the body, his sword still burning in one hand. “He getting up?”
I shook my head.
“Rest are dissipating,” Ilmarin called down from above.
I looked around to see that the battle was over. Little’s men had stopped firing and I could hear them calling out to one another, checking to see that the area was clear. “Verus to Little,” I said over the com. “That should be all of them, but sweep the area. Make sure we’re secure.”
“Understood.”
I took a last look down at the boy’s body and walked across the gantry and down the stairs to check on the wounded. I passed several of Little’s men as I did so, spreading out to search the corners of the room. Back at the entrance, two of the men were lying up against the wall, with Anne checking over them and with two others standing by looking outwards on alert. There was a lot of blood, but both of the men had their eyes open and were obviously alive.
“Nowy and Peterson, isn’t it?” I asked. “How are you holding up?”
“Could be worse, sir,” Peterson said.
“Skurwysyn,” Nowy said, and coughed. “I am good.”
“He’ll be fine,” Anne said reassuringly. She was kneeling next to Nowy, fingers laid on his throat. Despite the blood spattered all over it and across his clothes, the skin beneath was whole and smooth. She gave the security man a smile. “Don’t worry, Nowy, it hasn’t spoiled your good looks.”
Nowy tried to laugh, but he was obviously shaken. From the looks of it his artery had been opened; if Anne hadn’t been there, he would have been dead within a minute. Instead there wasn’t even a scar, and with a few days’ rest he’d be as good as new.
“Room’s clear,” Little said, walking back to me. “That should be the whole facility.”
I nodded, but Little didn’t leave. “Something else?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t mind knowing what those things were.”
“Now?”
“Intel briefing was to expect Dark mages, adepts, and armed security.” Little shifted his stance, feet shoulder width and hands behind his back. “Nothing about summoned monsters. With respect to Mage Walker”—he nodded to Anne—“we were pretty close to losing men on this. Would appreciate knowing how likely this is to happen again.”
I became aware that a lot of the security contingent were close by, hanging around the general area. Not all were looking at me, but they were clearly listening. Variam and Ilmarin were out of earshot in the corner of the room, looking through the notes on the table. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that Little was asking this now, and I’d also noticed that he wasn’t calling me sir. Council security tend not to get told much, and he was asking me to give him something.
“All right,” I said. “Be aware that some of this is going to be guesswork. Also, while none of it is technically classified, you might want to avoid repeating it around.”
There were several nods, including from Little. “That boy we just fought was possessed by a creature called a jinn. Otherwise known as genies. Wishes out of a lamp and stuff like that. The stories are true but they leave out a lot. For one thing, jinn didn’t used to be bound inside lamps. Mages did that. So like a lot of magical creatures, they’ve got good reason to dislike humans.”
“So where’s the lamp?” one of the security men said.
“Jinn don’t have to possess lamps. People work too, though the jinn normally have to be invited in first. Either way, if they’ve got a human to work through, they can use their powers. As for what they’re doing here . . .” I looked around, feeling Anne’s presence behind me. She was still tending to Nowy, but I knew she was listening very closely. “We’ve known for a while that Richard Drakh has taken a particular interest in jinn. They have an enormous amount of power, but there are two problems. First problem is that the power they can use is limited by the relationship they have with the human that’s directing them. Being bound into an item cuts down on that power a lot. Probably Drakh’s cabal were trying to access a jinn’s full power by binding it directly into a host. Unfortunately for them, it looks like in doing so they ran into the second problem, which is that jinn hate humans. If they’re granting wishes, they’ll try to make sure they turn out as badly for the wisher as possible. If they’re freed from their binding item and allowed to possess a human directly, they can cut out the middle-man. My best guess is that they tried to keep control of the jinn, failed, and after seeing how it turned out, they decided to cut their losses.”
“What about the bloody teleporters?” one of the other men asked.
“There were several orders of jinn,” I said. “The one possessing the boy was probably middle rank. The lesser ones were called jann. They weren’t bound into items in the way that the greater ones were—not powerful enough. Somehow the greater jinn seem to be able to call them up.”
“That balls-up at San Vittore last year,” another man said. “Were those the things that attacked the place?”
“Yes,” I said carefully. Now we were getting into really dangerous territory. “I haven’t run into any more since then.”
“Can we expect to run into more?” Little asked.
“That depends on whether Drakh’s cabal are still going ahead with their jinn project,” I said. “Maybe what happened here was enough to set them back. Otherwise . . .” I shrugged.
There were a few mutters, but no one asked any more questions. There was the sound of movement, and looking up, I saw Ilmarin and Variam walking over. Little turned to one side and started talking into his com, and the other security men began to drift away.
It was just as well that Little’s men had stopped asking questions. As I’d said, the attack on San Vittore last summer had been carried out by jinn—lots of weak ones and one very powerful one. What I hadn’t said was that the bearer of that very powerful jinn had been Anne. If anyone on the Council ever found that out, Anne and I would be sentenced to death in a heartbeat, and that possibility had hung over us both like a shadow for the past year.
“It was her,” Variam said as he reached me.
“Crystal?” I asked.
“Not in so many words,” Ilmarin said. “But several of the notes make reference to a ‘Dr. Marianne,’ an alias of hers. There are also references to ‘conditioning’ that sound very much like applications of mind magic.”
“So she’s promoted herself to doctor now,” I said. “Any clearer idea as to what happened here?”
“Not many specifics, but we can guess,” Ilmarin said. “There are mentions of a subject who I suspect is the boy we just fought. Given those holding cells at the back, he probably wasn’t here voluntarily. Presumably, Crystal was there to attempt to maintain control of him after they bonded him to a jinn. It seems they succeeded at the second part but not the first.”
“Doesn’t say what happened,” Variam said.
“Yeah, I imagine that by that point they weren’t really in a position to sit around and take notes,” I said. “But from the sound of it, Crystal’s long gone.”
Ilmarin nodded. “The last date I can find on the notes is eight days ago. If they haven’t returned since then, I suspect they’re not going to.”
Which meant that we were no closer to catching Crystal than before. Damn.
“Stakeout?” Variam asked. He didn’t sound hopeful.
“Crystal hasn’t stayed hidden from the Council for this long by being stupid,” I said. “We can place a remote sensor, but I’m not expecting much.”
Ilmarin stretched, looking around. “And so ends another raid, I suppose. At least we didn’t lose anyone.” He glanced around. “I wonder how many other facilities Drakh has hidden away.”