Invincible (20 page)

“Did you get what you need?” Inq asked politely.

Stef's frown deepened. He glared at Kurt. “No.”

“Ah well,” Inq chirped. “Stubborn to the last. Nothing to be done, then, so you'd best be going.” She shooed Joy toward Ink and tucked herself next to Kurt, a kitten curled against his side. “We'll notify you as soon as the frog deigns to call.” She looked up at her lover. “Those were his instructions, correct?”

Kurt said nothing. Inq took his silence for assent.

“Well, then,” she said. “Off you go. You were interrupting our private playtime.”

Dmitri looked like he might say something, but Stef ushered him out the door with Joy and Ink's prompting. They filed out in a tight cluster.

“Until then,” Ink said. Kurt barely nodded and shut the door.

Stef sighed angrily. “Well, that was pointless.”

Ink turned to Joy. “Do you have it?”

She nodded. “Yep.”

Ink scanned the street, confirming the coast was clear. “Good.”

Dmitri raised a finger. “Wait a minute. What?”

“Kurt cannot act against the Bailiwick's orders, but we Scribes have no such restrictions. He is our employer, not our master,” Ink said, acknowledging Joy's success with Inq. “Are you ready?”

“What, right now?” Joy said.

Ink glanced at Stef and Dmitri. “We cannot afford to delay.”

Joy took a shuddery breath. “Okay.” She removed the dowsing rod, the scalpel and the syringe. She tucked the blade into her pocket, grabbed the rod by the handle and flipped the needle point-down. Dmitri pointed at her collection of odd objects.

“Isn't that...?”

“Yes.”

Stef frowned. “Do I want to know?”

Both Joy and Dmitri answered, “No.” She held the dowsing rod level to the ground. “Everybody needs to hold on. When I say the word, it'll pull us straight to Graus Claude. Ink can cut a series of doors to get us there, but we have to keep running, so don't slow down and
don't
let go.” She swallowed. “It's a lot like being pulled by a tracker, and Kestrel didn't make it easy. This thing doesn't even come with a leash.” She glanced around. “Everybody ready?” They all nodded and fastened their hands on the Y-shaped wood. “Okay,” she said. “Hold it still.”

She uncapped the syringe and squeezed a dark bead into the divot above the bifurcated branch. It wobbled for a moment with surface tension, then sank, absorbed into the wood. Joy almost forgot to speak as she stared.

“Anvesana,” she said quickly. “Take us to Graus Claude.”

A familiar shiver buzzed under her palm, shaking her wrist and shuddering up her bones. She gripped tighter, feeling the others do likewise. Her feet moved without permission as the magic dragged them forward.

“Hang on!” she said as Ink slid his straight razor free, opening a gateway through the world, a trapdoor of nothingness perfumed in limes.

Together, they stumbled through the torn air, gone.

SEVENTEEN

THE AIR WAS BALMY,
and the pavement wet and sticky with liquid pooling under the nearby heaps of trash. The gray stone alley smelled of fish and cigarettes. Paper lanterns trailed red tassels that spun lazily in the wind and the bustling sound of many people was right around the corner. Joy glanced behind them and up the rusty fire escape running along the back of the nearest building, craning her neck to look up at the mismatched rooftops and their crisscrossing telephone wires. Dmitri had a strange expression, half amazed, half cowed, his brown eyes wide in a pensive face. It made him look vulnerable, innocent and childlike. Joy, ever the performer, hoped that might work in their favor when they encountered the King and Queen.

But they had to find Graus Claude first.

“This is it?” Joy asked. “Is he here?” The dowsing rod still quivered, but it was locked solidly in place as if held by an invisible fist in midair. Ink tapped his boot against the curb. An ornate Chinese character flared.

“He is here, beyond the ward.” Ink examined the length of the enchanted line without letting go. He nodded at Joy. “We will find him. But we will have to do so without any
mana
disturbance.” He put his thumb into the divot and pressed down. Purple liquid squirted across the wood. The dowsing rod went still.

“So where is he?” Stef asked, popping his knuckles. “It's not like you can easily hide a giant, four-armed frog.”

Ink crept out of the alley into the busy street. The others soon followed. It was a shock of color and noise, people and honking traffic, hawking to one another in a babble of languages Joy didn't recognize; the signs were all Chinese or English, sometimes both, and the streets were festooned with lanterns and flags and red banners with yellow writing flapping in the wind. A flicker of orange made Joy jump, but it was just a traffic cone on the curb.

In the distance, a green-roofed gateway flanked the main street. People slipped between cars and skirted the crowded sidewalks, hurrying to get wherever they were going with shopping bags and cell phones and backpacks and rolling carts. Storefronts full of plastic-wrapped clothes and china figurines and paper goods spilled into the street along with trays of fruits and nuts, herbs and plastic souvenirs. Postcard towers turned above racks of silk wallets. Figurines of Betty Boop and Homer Simpson stood over big-eyed dinosaurs and small-mouthed cats. Halved piglets and chickens hung next to whole roasted ducks dangling by their necks under red-gold heat lamps. And people were absolutely everywhere, pushing strollers and hand trucks, bicycles and walkers, jostling wheels and carts and mostly each other. They gathered around whole fish on crushed ice and lucky bamboo in water-filled pails.

The foot traffic parted easily around them, unconsciously moved by the invisible Scribe.

“Oh my God,” Joy breathed. “We're in Chinatown.”

“San Francisco,” Stef said. “I don't believe it.”

“We know the Bailiwick is nearby,” Ink said, pointing at the carved glyph in the sidewalk. “He's somewhere inside the wards, which are preventing unexpected visitors from barging in unannounced.”

“So what do we do?” Dmitri said, watching a couple of teenage schoolgirls bounce past, arm in arm.

Ink checked the storefront with a sweeping gaze, a familiar gesture Joy recognized as he took in sigils, seals, glyphs and other magics. He blinked. “We announce ourselves,” he said. “Politely.” He walked inside, and the others followed him through the door.

The narrow aisles were full of vases and pottery, round fat cats and porcelain boats painted with blue dragons. Paper parasols crowded the ceiling and wooden planter stands cluttered the floor. Ink led the way past the display cases of jewelry and bits of jade on black velvet toward a beaded curtain near the back door.

“Can I help you?” asked a saleswoman as they passed.

“No, thank you,” Joy said. “Just looking.” She was careful not to bump anything and to keep her head down. A security camera in the corner pointed directly at them. It was no doubt recording her and Stef walking in alone.

Joy felt the sizzle as they got closer, the shiver of a spell crackling between the beads. It was something like the curtain separating Ladybird's drug den from the rest of the building in East New York, but it was stronger, more powerful. It tickled the hairs in her nose.

She sneezed.

When her eyes cleared, Filly was standing in the doorway. The beaded curtain did not so much as twitch behind her.

“Took you long enough,” she said over crossed arms, her vambraces flashing in the cold fluorescent light. She tossed her head. The tight net of blond braids at her nape didn't budge. “I told him that not telling you where he was outright would be much the same as laying out a welcome mat and setting fire to the sky. But would he listen? Not likely!” She sniffed. “Stubborn old toad.”

Joy didn't dare speak since, to everyone else in the store, she'd appear to be addressing empty air. She pretended to look at the framed pictures on the wall. Stef checked his phone. Dmitri tugged the strings of his hoodie over his head.

“Will you escort us in to see him?” Ink asked.

“No,” Filly said. “Afraid not. I'm not to allow anyone inside.”

Joy's heart sank. It wasn't as if they could fight Filly—not only was she a seasoned warrior, but they were hemmed in on all sides; it would be like letting loose a blond bull in a Chinese china shop. Joy glanced behind them, but it was as if everyone in the store was too preoccupied to notice anything unusual.

Ink considered the young Valkyrie with a tilt of his head. “It is quite important.”

“I've no doubt,” Filly said agreeably. “When is it not, when it involves the mighty Joy Malone?” Joy felt her face flush. Filly winked. “You surpass my every expectation. We'll make a warrior of you yet!” She glanced around at every breakable thing in the store with ill-disguised relish, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth. Stef picked up a pen near the credit card machine, ready to draw combat spells on his skin. He held the ballpoint tip to his wrist like a dare. Filly nodded with a grin. “But not today,” she said to Stef. “Today, I must perform my duties.”

Joy spoke quietly into her collar so as not be heard by the store owners. “Please?”

Filly snorted and tugged her horse head pendant. Her leather armor creaked as she bent slightly at the waist as if to whisper in Joy's ear.

“Make me.”

Joy heard the
clink
of Ink's wallet chain, saw Stef draw something on his inner wrist and suspected that Dmitri had just picked up something heavy. Joy held out a hand to stay them and hissed out of the corner of her mouth. “If you don't let us in to see him
right now
, I'll tell him about that little under-the-table fix-up I did for you at Dover Mill. I'm sure he'd forgive the fee, but I'm not so certain that he'd forgive the slight.” She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. “He's got this thing about etiquette and decorum, and an awfully long memory, so unless you have another Amanya spell handy, I'd suggest you let us in.”

Filly smiled slowly, looking only a little bit disappointed. “Ah. I see they've made you into a politician first.” She sighed dramatically, lifted her chin and called over their heads. “Very well, then. Follow me.”

She pushed the curtain aside for Joy and Ink, Stef and Dmitri. Joy wasn't sure what anyone saw, but no one moved to stop them as they disappeared behind the clack and clatter of beads. Of course, the noise might have been made by Filly's short cape of finger bones. The sounds were eerily similar.

They followed Filly into the back room, past cartons and crates of stock and supplies to a set of spiral stairs, going down.

“You're kidding, right?” Stef said as Filly began the descent.

Joy shrugged. She was used to back rooms being something more; she'd had enough experience with Mr. Vinh's not to be surprised. Finding a set of spiral stairs winding deep underground was something that bordered on normal. At least there weren't any sharp teeth.

“No big deal,” Joy said. “We go in. Convince the King and Queen to Return. Get out. Go home. Eat pizza. Everyone's happy.”

Stef turned back on the first step. “Do you do this a lot?” Joy hesitated. Her brother frowned. “Never mind. I don't want to know.”

“I sure hope you know what you're doing,” Dmitri muttered as the stairs grew steep.

“Yeah,” Joy said, holding on to the railing. “Me, too.”

* * *

The stairwell corkscrewed beneath the store, the sidewalk, the busy street, past what might be considered a basement level, a cellar, a storeroom and possibly the sewers. There was a chill that came from being far underground, and a smell of moisture and minerals. Joy felt the weight of the world pressing against her skin from all directions, goose pimples glossing all over her arms. Surrounded by the earth...was this a chrysalis? Could it trigger the change? Panic skittered like the heartbeat she no longer had. She grabbed Ink's hand in the semidarkness.

A splash below them made Joy's knees weak, and the
eelet
in her ear translated a bubbling, low rumble under the burble of water, an amphibious burr that could only belong to one person she knew. Filly looked smug as they filed through the doorway into the massive chamber beneath Chinatown. She stepped aside with a flourish.

It was like an underground football field framed in multicolored tiles and gold leaf trim. Stone frescoes lined the walls depicting dragons and phoenixes, rams and tigers, koi fish and cranes, and a key-shaped swimming pool dominated the floor. The design on the deep end depicted two crowned peacocks twined with lilies and flowers and spiraling fish. Soft underwater illumination reflected playful cobwebs of light. Wide, red columns stood in militant rows, and painted scrolls hung from ceiling to floor. The crossbeams were painted in cyans and blues, molded with yellow-gold dragons, yin-yang circles and plum blossom boughs. The room was an impossible montage of green and gold and red and cream, hand-carved wood and hand-cut tiles, mother of pearl and inlaid stones. Ceramic urns flanked the entrance. Painted screens curled around lounge chairs, low tables and
pièces d'art
. A fountain sat in a corner, a waterfall trickling from the mouth of a giant frog into a shallow pool thick with lilies.

Attendants—human attendants, including a young woman and two old men—waited by piles of towels, trays of food and an elaborate, plumed fan mounted on a long pole. Joy kept turning and seeing more intricacies, more details, more wealth, more impossible, elaborate beauty straining to be contained by four subterranean walls. And in the middle of it all, a large shape swam through the water, leaving a strong ripple in its wake; a great beast propelling itself with six strong strokes.

The eyes broke the water first, the rest of the head rising in dramatic disapproval. Water coursed over the ridges and crags, accentuated by the underwater light and the piercing gaze of its icy blue eyes. The frowning mouth opened just enough to show its many rows of pointy, shark-like teeth. Naked and uplit, Graus Claude emerged from the depths like an ancient monster, a demon, a god.

“Ah. Miss Malone, Master Ink.” Graus Claude's voice echoed off the chamber walls. “I was looking forward to the time when I would next delight in your presence, which I'd
naïve
ly assumed would be at my discretion.” His tone dropped several degrees. “And you've brought...
guests
.”

Ink bowed. Joy did likewise, realizing that they were performing for the attendants who obviously held Graus Claude in high esteem—higher than even that of the Bailiwick of the Twixt. Joy didn't need Ink to remind her.
Respect him. Always.

“Please forgive us for the interruption,” Joy said smoothly.

“Not at all, not at all,” he said as he emerged, dripping, from the water. Two handmaidens drifted forward, holding a long scroll of thick cotton towel between them, wrapping the great amphibian efficiently and discreetly in an elaborate dance of tucks, folds and knots. Joy averted her eyes out of politeness, but she'd noticed his
signatura
, emblazoned on his belly—an elegant lotus of crackling blue fire.

He waddled forward and eased himself down in stages, stretching his legs out on one of the sloping benches, the curvature perfectly matching the rolling architecture of his spine. Two hands folded over his chest as the other two clutched the armrests beside him. The handmaidens knelt wordlessly and began clipping, buffing and polishing his claws with tiny instruments and rough bits of cloth. Graus Claude settled in to their ministrations, looking archly at those before him as if daring them to question his right to be pampered. No one did. Joy watched his gaze settle on the unfamiliar pair of young men.

“Bailiwick, sir, you have met my brother, Stef,” Joy said. “And this is his friend Dmitri.”