Circle of Enemies

collection.”

“Nothing unusual about it?”

“I don’t like it,” he said. “Some of the antiques are gross or disturbing. There’s a room in the upstairs back that has some ugly stuff in it: pictures of lynchings, heads in jars … weird, awful stuff. I enter that room only when the maintenance schedule requires. This statue … I would have put it up there, too, but it fits better where it is.”

That was it. We talked about his friends, whether he thought the statue was put there as a threat, who might want to threaten him, new people he’d met recently, and so on. It was all an excuse to find out if he’d met Wally King, and what he might know about him, but he never mentioned Wally, and with the way Wally looked, he would have. He did admit that he wondered if the statue had been moved to frighten him, because it had worked. He couldn’t imagine who would do that, though.

I thanked him for his time, and he led me out. As I passed the statue, I wondered why it was so heavily enchanted, but really, that was none of my business, was it?

Outside in the car, Annalise was still sitting in the back, with Talbot behind the wheel and Csilla beside him. I had the impression they had been silent for a long time. At least they had air-conditioning.

Talbot pulled into the road before I could buckle up. Annalise turned to me. “Well?”

I almost said I didn’t learn anything, but the way Annalise was staring at me let me know that was a bad idea. And that was the enchantment at work, still controlling me. I didn’t like to be controlled. “Steve Francois has a little statue with a spell on it. Actually, I should say I noticed one statue with a spell—the spell may be on his whole collection. You know I’m no expert, boss, but it seemed really powerful.”

Csilla turned to look at me, then at Annalise. She seemed impressed. Annalise said: “That’s right, but not everyone makes note of it. We’ve known about that statue for years, but there isn’t a lot we can do about it. It can’t be stolen, bought, or given away.”

“How did you get him to talk about it?” Csilla asked.

“It wasn’t too difficult,” I said. “He was nervous about it. Someone had moved it during the break-in.”

Csilla and Annalise looked at each other, and I could tell I’d just said something important.

No one spoke for a while. Csilla seemed to drift off into her own thoughts. Finally, Talbot said: “Where do I go?” No one answered. “Ms. Foldes?”

Csilla didn’t answer him. She just stared at a spot on the dash. Annalise spoke up. “Back to the hotel.”

I stared out the window while we drove. Steve Francois was mixed up in this mess, and I didn’t think he knew it. Just before the gunshots started in Wally’s motel, Arne had said, By the time Luther came to us, his debt was paid in full. I asked him what he’d done, and he took me to the—

Took him where? It had to have been Lino Vela’s house. Before Wally even offered the predators to Arne and the rest, he’d sent Luther into Lino’s house to shut off the video surveillance system, then he’d tried to steal that statue. Tried and failed.

Later, Luther had brought Arne to the house. They probably saw Francois show up in his damn Bugatti to check on the break-in, and Arne, buzzing with the idea that he was about to get a super power, threw away all his usual cautions and went after him.

In the underground hotel parking lot, Talbot had to help Csilla out of the car. She didn’t seem infirm, but she moved like a sleepwalker. Annalise hung back and so did I.

“What’s going on with her?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Annalise said. “Not really. She’s just very old. Peers that survive a long, long time sometimes begin to withdraw from the world. She has lucid moments and can still do magic—I couldn’t have laid golem flesh on you; it’s not in my book and it would have been such a weak spell that it would have been useless. But it’s hard for her to stay engaged. I don’t know if it’s because of the spells or because they’re centuries old, but it happens.”

“Should she even be out here?”

“No. I’d planned to ask her to help clean up Hammer Bay, but now that I look at her …”

Uh-oh. Hammer Bay was the first job Annalise and I had ever gone on. She’d been injured and I’d been forced to leave a huge, scary predator alive, trapped in a circle, because I had no way to kill it. That was nearly a year and a half ago. “Boss, what needs to be cleaned up in Hammer Bay?”

“The predator there is still alive, obviously. No one in the society is quite sure how to kill it without a risk of escape.”

My stomach suddenly felt like it was full of lead. “Really?”

“Really. And that’s not the only one.” She sighed. “The society isn’t what it used to be. Which reminds me: don’t ask Csilla any questions. Be careful around her. If she doesn’t recognize you during one of her bad moments, she might attack. You don’t want that.” Before I could respond, she asked: “How did Talbot do?”

Time to change the subject, apparently. “He’s a smacked ass. I don’t like him and I don’t want him around. He insulted the guy in that house for no reason and almost blew my chance to find out anything.”

“And you kicked him out.”

“Yeah. I was surprised he went, too. I didn’t take him for the type to knuckle under.”

“He’s not, but he’s worried about you. He knows you’re the reason he’s here, and he wants your approval.”

“Um, what’s that again, boss?”

“You, Ray. You’re a wooden man, and you’re still out here fighting.”

I looked away from her. A wooden man was a term the Twenty Palace Society used for low-powered underlings who distract the enemy while peers hit them from behind. We were supposed to have the longevity of an ice cube on a hot desert rock.