One corner of Carlos’s mouth quirked up in an ironic expression.
Quinton saw it and shook his head. “No. You wouldn’t.”
“I have. And much worse.” Carlos glanced at me and back to Quinton, adding, “But I am not what I was.”
“Yes, but . . . what do they want her bones for? What is my father up to?”
“Your father may know nothing of their purpose, or he may have convinced himself that such a sacrifice is necessary for a greater good. Either way, the Kostní Mágové are not known for subtlety. If they require the bones of a young child of the family as their price for whatever agreement they have with your father, their goal is nothing short of catastrophic. They will build something of those bones, something of magic and horrors. I don’t yet know what, though the appearance of drachen may be telling. Whatever it is, it shall be devastating.”
“How are we going to get her back and stop them?”
“Those are two separate goals. In depriving them of your niece, we will only redirect their plans, but it will buy us time to discover what they intend.”
“But how?” Quinton yelled, pounding one fist into the top of the delicate antique desk so hard it creaked under the blow.
“We attack the weakest link—we confront Maggie Griffin.”
“It’s not going to be that easy to get Soraia back.”
“No, but Griffin has the child and we have no other choices. The sooner we find your niece, the better the chance that she’ll be alive. As I presume that is your preference, we must move tonight.”
Over his shoulder, for only a moment, Amélia appeared and vanished again.
TWELVE
It was nearly midnight when we reached the head of Alta da Eira. Carlos had been busy in his tower while Quinton and I had eaten a desultory supper, done research, and talked about the problem of what to do once we’d recovered Soraia. Just sending her back home with Sam wasn’t safe. Sam and her kids would have to be hidden until this was over and with that in mind, I had called the Danzigers.
Mara answered the phone, and it took a minute or so of excited exclamations and inquiries before I could talk to her about the situation.
“So,” she said, “you’re wanting Ben and Brian and me to drive to Lisbon immediately and help you hide a little girl and her mother from a band of villains? It sounds like old times!”
“I know,” I said, “and I’m sorry about that. I didn’t want to put you in the middle again, but we both thought you would understand this better than most people. Sam isn’t very comfortable with the magic angle, but she and the kids are going to need to be in hiding until the danger’s past or Purlis will just snatch them all.”
Mara gave a short, harsh laugh. “Oh, he won’t be doing that—I’ll make sure of it. And don’t tear yourself down over asking for help—we’re pleased as anything to do it. And it’ll be good to see you both again.”
“We are working with Carlos . . .” I added.
She made a speculative sound. “I might even be glad to see him, if the child’s all right.”
“She’d better be,” I replied in a grim voice.
I made the arrangements and told them where we’d meet them to hand over Soraia, Martim, and Sam for safekeeping. Then Quinton had called Sam and went through much the same thing with her. There would be a lag between the time Sam and Martim arrived and whenever the Danzigers got here, but that couldn’t be helped. We’d have to be vigilant during that period, but once the Danzigers took charge of Sam’s family, I felt reasonably sure they’d be safe. All of them.
We had borrowed a car from the house management company to drive up to Penha de França and now left it at the bend of the road among a lot of other cars parked on the streets around the blocks of apartments that dominated the area, crowded together like convicts in a prison movie. I’d reclaimed my jeans for this job, since they seemed more practical than a skirt, and now we three, dressed in dark clothes, stood in the shadows, facing a long stretch of open nothing between the end of the road and the beginning of the L-shaped group of buildings that housed the car repair. We moved forward with great care, certain that there would be guards, alarms, or charms to keep us at bay. There was a strange, low sound in the air, as of some dread music heard from a great distance.
The sound seemed to attract a pack of dogs that loped toward us from the hillside, cutting off the most direct path to the buildings. There was nothing paranormal about the dogs, but their presence was threatening enough by itself. They barked and yipped when they spotted us, then fell silent as they spread out in an attempt to herd us into a good position for an attack, the ones on the center snarling and yipping to draw our attention away from those moving toward our flanks.
As the dogs spread out, a bright beam of light fell from the lone, square building that stood facing the crook of the L, but no one emerged.
“Motion sensor,” Quinton whispered as the light extinguished again. “They aren’t very worried about scaring off anything more troublesome than a dog. Either the locals know better than to come up here, or there’s something pretty terrible inside.”
I was tempted to drop into the Grey to see what I could spot, but that would take me away from the steadily encroaching dogs. I reminded myself that I didn’t need to go anywhere with Carlos nearby, since he could detect auras of the living or undead as well as I could without withdrawing from the normal world. “How many people in the buildings?” I asked.
“Five,” Carlos replied, puzzled. “I see one with no touch of magic, and the rest are much brighter. There are other things within, however, not living, but not precisely undead. Constructs.”
“Are they all in that little building?”
“Yes. The rest are empty of life, though there may be other things there that aren’t alive.”
“It’s not going to be as easy to approach as it looks. There must be perimeter or door alarms at least. No matter how badass they are, they wouldn’t want anyone just walking in,” Quinton said, watching the dogs as they edged closer. “Once we’re past these dogs, we may have no margin of time to make a surprise entrance.”
Carlos chuckled. “It’s not so difficult if we don’t care that they see us coming.”
“Don’t we? What if they hurt Soraia?”
“They cannot risk doing her any serious harm outside the ceremonial circle—it would taint the bones with fear and pain. If they wished for that, they’d have started already and we’d have heard her screaming by now.”
Quinton shuddered. “You’re just a bundle of joy, aren’t you, Carlos?”
“Not since I was an infant, and likely not then, either.”
“You two can stop now, and do something about these dogs,” I said.
The dogs were only a body length away in front of us, the dog on each side even closer, poised to lunge. The obvious pack leader crouched just a few inches ahead of the rest, teeth bared and a low snarl issuing from its mouth. None of us wanted to resort to Quinton’s gun and the unmistakable noise it would make, but that left us with no other weapons.
Carlos knelt and bowed his head, murmuring and putting his hands near the ground. For a moment, the dogs seemed confused and then the leader leapt.
Carlos spat a word and slammed his palms against the earth. A flame front roared up around us in a flash of light and rushed outward. The dogs yelped and howled, turning and running from the fire that was already dying out.
Carlos rose again to his feet as Quinton muttered, “I think we blew our chance to do this stealthily.”
The door of the little square building in the crook of the L opened and a figure in dark clothes was silhouetted against eerie, flickering light from indoors for just a moment before closing the door and stepping into darkness.
I looked sideways through the Grey to see the man’s energy corona, but there was nothing to see beyond tangles of darkness. “Don’t bother with the gun—whatever that was, it’s not alive.”