Circle of Enemies

primary and the source: Smith Book of Oceans or Jones Book of Grooves.

I’d seen one of those secondary books. Well, in truth I’d stolen it. I’d cast my ghost knife out of it and nearly died in the attempt. Annalise had taken it back, but I had a copy hidden away. In fact, it was so well hidden that I hadn’t gone near it since.

When a second person laid hands on the Jones Book of Whatever, that person became a “secondary.” The third person became a “tertiary.” Every time a book of spells passed from one hand to the next, the spells became weaker, because each new person was further and further from the original vision. It didn’t take many generations for them to become useless.

That’s why sorcerers guarded their spell books so carefully, because sharing them made them decay. Unfortunately, the spells that held on to their potency the longest were summoning spells.

I knew the society was losing power as their sorcerers died and their spell books were handed down, but it didn’t really matter to me. That was long-term thinking. I was in this game for the short-term fight. I was here for this enemy, and this danger. Someone else would have to worry about the next few centuries.

Wally watched my face, waiting. For a moment, I thought he might try to sell me something.

I said: “You’re not telling me anything new.”

“You’re the first real threat they’ve been able to put into the field in decades.”

I looked away. Annalise, my boss, was ten times more dangerous than I was. She could tear my head off with one hand, and she wasn’t the most powerful member of the society by any means. I was a guppy in a shark tank. “That’s bullshit and bullshit won’t work on me.”

He laughed. “You would think so, dude, but I’m one hundred percent serious. You killed Ansel Zahn, man!” The rail-thin old woman at the next table looked up from her book at that, but Wally was oblivious. “You killed the last of the Hammers. You took out a whole swarm of cousins, too. And those were just the top-of-the-marquee names. Do you understand how badass that is?”

I glanced at the woman beside us. She watched us warily and looked about to bolt from her seat. “He’s talking about videogames,” I said. She sighed and returned to her book.

Wally grinned at me with his gray smile. “And then there are all the regular folks. I didn’t know you had it in you. I tried to get my hands on the police report—”

“Shut up.”

“No, really! I wanted to find out how many bystanders you killed in Washa—”

“Shut up.” I wanted to hit him so bad I could barely breathe, but I didn’t know what would happen to the people around me. They would be just like the people I’d killed in Washaway, innocent victims—only this time it wouldn’t be self-defense, it would be sloppiness.

Luckily, Wally wasn’t interested in pushing me. “Okay, dude. Be cool. I’m just saying it’s like I went to grade school with the Seahawks’ quarterback. People are talking about you.”

That, I didn’t like. “Tell me about the ‘thing’ Melly was supposed to help you with.”

“Why else would you want an invisible person? I wanted to steal something that’s moderately well guarded.”

“A puzzle,” I prompted. He smiled and shrugged. “But you couldn’t get it.” His gaze became a little distracted, as if I was boring him. Either he didn’t want to talk about it or there wasn’t anything to say. “You’re TheLastKing,’ right? That was you last Christmas in Washaway, right?”

He focused on me. I had his attention again. “I was never in Washaway.”

“But you were the one feeding information to …” The faces of dead people came back to my memory, and I stopped talking. I couldn’t say the names of those dead men out loud.

Wally held up his hand, his thumb and index finger almost touching. “Teeny, teeny bits of information, but it was enough to get them running out there with their checkbooks and shotguns. They didn’t matter, though. Not really. They were in the way.”

“Wally, tell me about the thing you’re planning. What part did Caramella have in it?”

He laughed. “Forget about the thing. I wish I could. Anyway, she already did her part.”

“You …” I’d almost said killed her, but the woman with the book was still too close. “The drape already took her, and it almost got me, too.”

“That’s the risk we face when we call these things,” Wally said, absentmindedly touching a lump on his chin. “But wait, what did you call it?”

I shrugged, feeling vaguely embarrassed. “I had to call them something, so I’ve been thinking of them as drapes.”

“Hah! In the book, they’re called Wings of Air and Hunger, but I like your name better. Less ridiculous.”

The word book pushed one of my buttons. “Wally, I want you to turn over your spell book and all copies—”

“Ray! I can’t believe you’d try that shit with me.”

“Excuse me,” the waitress said. She set a plate in front of Wally and a cup in front of me. “You can’t use that language in here. If you do it again, you’ll have to leave.”

Wally beamed up at her with his sickly face. It was a nasty smile. “I hear you.”

She left. Wally picked up a hard-boiled egg and popped it into his mouth—he didn’t even peel the shell off first —then gulped it down like a snake. “Ray,” he said, as he cut his sausage patties in quarters and stacked them. “Don’t try that ‘turn over your books’ crap with me, okay? It’s insulting. First of all, I’m not one of the power-crazy jagoffs you’re used to dealing with. I’m trying to do some good here.”

“Tell that to Caramella.”