Circle of Enemies

“I don’t mean why you’re in Los Angeles.” Wally sounded annoyed. “I mean why you’re here in this house. Surrounded by all this crap.”

“Because I knew Ty was coming here, and I needed to find these guys.”

“You’re a liar and you’re not even good at it.” He reached out to the head-chopping statue, wrapped his hand around it as though he was going to pick it up, then let it go. “You’re here for the same reason I am, for the same reason your boss is. For the same reason your own secret society pays the people across the street to keep video security cameras pointed at this house at all times.”

Lino glanced up at that. “What?”

Wally liked being the focus of attention. He kept talking. “Georges Francois, the owner’s great-great- something-grandfather, had a real spell book. One of the three originals. And when he vanished, he left behind this collection.”

If he was talking, he wasn’t killing me. I gave him a prompt. “A collection that can’t be broken up.”

“Nobody can break apart this collection. I have some wild and weird outsiders in here with me, but not even they can resist the compulsion to leave it all alone. You think the sapphire dog sold for a high price? This stuff would bring treasure beyond imagining at auction. At least five of the richest men in the world would literally give everything they own for it.”

“Beyond imagining?” Ty asked. He looked around the room.

“Try to steal something,” Wally said. “See how far you get. Anyway, the real point is that Francois—the original—had one of the three most powerful magical items in the world, and it’s been missing and presumed lost for over two hundred years.

Ty tried to pick up an old candlestick shaped like a gas-lamp post but apparently decided against it. His hand fell to his side. He tried to touch it again, didn’t, then shrugged and walked away. The compulsion was strong.

“But this,” Wally continued, waving his arms around. “This is a clue farm right here. I think Georges Francois hid the Book of Oceans, and I think this unbreakable collection contains the clues we need to find it. What’s more, I think this head-chopped statue is the key to the mystery.”

I stared at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s true, man! I’m sure of it! It’s how these people think! They want to pass their power to someone who’s earned it. And I’m not the first person to believe this, let me tell you. Not by a long shot.”

“Why would he hide it and leave clues? You said he vanished, right? How do you know it didn’t vanish with him?”

“Then why would he create this collection, huh?”

“Because he was an egotistical asshole.” I turned to Fidel, Summer, and the others. “You’re signing on with this guy?”

They looked dubious. “Apparently,” Fidel admitted.

“Ray, don’t doubt me.” Wally shuffled his bulk into the center of the room. “I know you think you’re hot shit, but I gotta tell you, I haven’t seen it. Neither have these guys. I have no idea how you got this rep as a badass killer, but I suspect you’re just a front.

“And I admit, I’m not really big on thinking up plans. But you know what? I don’t have to be. I am damn good at finding out secrets. I solved every version of Myst without ever looking at a walk-through.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed at him.

He smirked and shrugged. “Go ahead, buddy. Have a chuckle. But I’m telling you, I see things in ways you can’t understand. These objects are all bound together, and they’re all connected to him.” Wally waved a hand at Lino. “I know a little desert retreat that’s going to be abandoned soon, and I was going to ask you to join me while I worked this out. Why should you be killing all these people for the Twenty Palace Society when you could be killing for an old friend? Huh?” He sounded almost hurt. “I was hoping that, if nothing else, your rep would keep some of those assholes off my back while I figured these clues.”

“Why would you think I’d help you?”

“The King Book of Oceans,” he said. “The Lilly Book of Motes.” He moved toward the statue, his expression blank.

“No.”

“I know. It’s too late for that anyway. Kill him.”

I held up my empty hands, thinking my old friends might hesitate to kill me in cold blood.

Summer raised her gun.

I reached for the ghost knife and it zipped out of my back pocket. Summer sighted on my chest and fired two quick shots. Then I had my spell in my hand.

I whipped my arm down as I lunged at her, slashing the ghost knife through the barrel of her gun. It cut at an angle, slicing it close to her hand but not touching her. The silencer and front end of the barrel thunked to the floor, then the slide shot toward me and bounced off my leg.

Summer gaped at the ruined weapon in her hand, then at the two holes in my shirt.

I spun on Wally. He stepped backward, passing through the wall like a phantom. I threw my spell at him.

The ghost knife plunged through the plasterboard after him, zipping right between the head-chopping statue and a brass cow rearing up like a lion. It couldn’t have missed, I was sure, and a moment later I was proven right when a jet of flame burst through the wall, blasting plaster, wood splinters, and knickknacks toward me.

I stumbled, struck something with my heel, and fell backward onto jagged wood and broken plaster. Lino was on the floor next to me, curled up on his hands and knees and covering his head.

Wally screamed as the flames roared out of him and through the hole in the wall. I must have hit one of his