CHAPTER 5
I DROPPED THE PHONE AND DASHED DOWN THE stairs, slapping the door shut in the poodle’s face. I cleared six flights of stairs in seconds, sprinted across the parking lot, unlocked my garage, got Marigold out, mounted, and we thundered out of the parking lot.
We turned up the street, nearly plowing into a cart. Marigold thudded up the wooden ramp onto the highway. The ruined city dashed by me, a long smudge of wrecked buildings and overcast sky.
The Mercenary Guild occupied a converted Sheraton Hotel on the edge of Buckhead. I brought Marigold to a halt before the thick iron gates, jumped down, grabbing a canteen of kerosene I used to obliterate my blood, and took off, praying that whatever disease the magic hit man induced wouldn’t go active.
I dashed through the gates into the lobby and nearly collided with the Clerk. A huge red welt marked his face and his left eye was rapidly swelling shut. “Inner hall!” he yelled.
“Did you call Biohazard?”
“Yes!”
The inner door hung crooked on its hinges. I ran through the doorway and into the inner hall.
The Sheraton was built as a hollow tower. In its other life, the inner hall housed an on-the-premises restaurant, a coffee shop, and a happy hour area, raised on a platform above the main floor, and a gift shop. The old photographs showed a small stream winding through it all, flanked by carefully selected plants, its waters sheltering huge surly koi. At the far wall, an elevator shaft of transparent plastic rose up to the fourth floor.
The happy hour platform now held the job board, the gift shop contained one of the numerous armories, and the restaurant had been converted into a mess hall, where tired mercs filled their stomachs between jobs. The elevator no longer worked, the plants, stream, and koi had vanished years ago, and the main floor lay bare.
The first thing I saw was the body of Solomon Red, pinned to the elevator shaft by a spear through his throat.
Three mercs rapidly drew a chalk warding semicircle around the body. Another dozen hugged the walls. I grabbed the first warm body. “Where is he?”
“Gone,” the merc woman told me. “About five minutes ago.”
Damn. I was too late.
Solomon’s body swelled, expanding.
“Back up!” I barked, in tune with two other voices.
The mercs scattered.
A flood of blood and feces drenched the clear plastic, gushing to the floor to form a wide puddle. The stench hit us. People gagged.
The body shriveled, drying up right before my eyes like some sort of mummy. I didn’t need Patrice to diagnose that for me. I’ve seen that before. It had the same name in English, Spanish, and Russian—cholera. Only this one was on magic steroids.
The foul puddle turned black. A shiver ran along the surface. The liquid slithered, testing the chalk edge of the ward circle, and rolled right over it, heading right. I glanced in that direction and saw an old drain in the floor, a remnant of the koi brook. Cholera spread through water.
“It’s going for the drain!” I sprinted before it, pouring kerosene across the tile. Behind me, Bob Carver struck a match, setting the fuel stream on fire.
The puddle reached the flame, recoiled, and rolled to the left.
Ivera, a tall, large woman, folded her hands together, let out a piercing screech, and jerked her hands apart, palms outward. Magic snapped. Twin jets of flame rolled from Ivera’s hands and licked the puddle. It shrank back, to the half-moon of burning kerosene. I poured more, trying to corral it.
Ivera’s arms shuddered. She gasped. The flame vanished and she stumbled back, her nose bleeding.
The puddle oozed out of the flaming trap.
I took a deep breath, bracing myself for the pain of a power word. I didn’t know if a power word would stop it, but I was out of options.
A chant rose from behind the mercs, a low soft voice murmuring Chinese words in a practiced singsong melody. A long scaled ribbon slipped past the mercs—a snake. The snake tasted the air with her tongue and stopped, swaying slightly in tune with the chant. Ronnie Ma emerged into the open. His real name was Ma Rui Ning, but everyone called him Ronnie. Ancient, wizened, Ronnie was one of those rare and endangered mercs who’d managed to reach retirement. He’d done his twenty years and got his pension. His house was only a minute away and he spent most of his time hanging out in the Guild, sipping tea and nodding at the crowd with a small smile.
He circled the puddle, carrying several small sacks, the chant rolling from his lips.
The puddle made a beeline for the drain. Somehow Ronnie got there first, reached into his sack, and lowered something to the floor. A scorpion. The arachnid danced in place, curling its tail. The puddle shrank away.
Ronnie dropped the sack on the floor and moved on. A few more steps, and he reached into another sack, and deposited a large toad.
Flanked on three sides by animals, the puddle reversed its course and almost ran into the fourth creature, a long twisting millipede, just as Ronnie dropped her on the ground. A few more steps, and the old man emptied the last sack on the floor, revealing a large spider.
The creatures swayed in tandem with his voice. The puddle hovered in the center, caught. Ronnie took a small canister from his waist and walked up to the puddle. His fingers flickered, very fast, and he pulled a small yellow piece of paper from his sleeve. The paper fluttered onto the puddle, a small Chinese symbol written in red lying faceup. Ronnie uncorked the canister and poured its contents onto the paper in a vermillion stream.
A dark miasma surged up from the puddle and vanished, as if burned off. The nasty fluid lay placid.
Ronnie Ma smiled.
“IT’S AN ANCIENT CHINESE RITUAL,” PATRICE SAID as two medtechs fumigated me with mugwort smoke while I stood behind the salt line drawn on the floor. “Five poisonous creatures to hold the disease at bay. We know it because it was part of the Fifth Moon Festival. The Festival fell over summer solstice and coincided with hot, humid weather and a spike in infections.”
“What did he pour on the cholera?”
“If I had to take a guess, wine with cinnabar.” Patrice glanced at Ronnie Ma, still smiling serenely as two techs unsuccessfully tried to get him to exhale at the diagnostic flower. “We’ve been looking forever for someone who knows how to perform it. Do you think he would come to work for me?”
“I’d say yes. Mr. Ma enjoys being useful. Can I go? I feel fine, no pain, no discomfort.”
Patrice put her hand onto my forehead. Magic struck me. Circles swam in my eyes. My skin felt on fire. I sucked in a breath and shook my head, trying to clear it.
“Now you can go,” Patrice told me.
“Was I infected?”
“No. Just a precautionary measure. Five poisonous creatures,” she said, nodding at the five animals still sitting in their places. “They put all disease to sleep. But once away from them, it will wake up and I don’t want to take chances.”
Good to know.
I stepped over the chalk line. Around me a controlled chaos reigned as the Biohazard team swept the scene, examining two dozen mercs and taking samples of the puddle.
I leaned toward Patrice. “That puddle went straight for the drain. That implies intelligence or instinct. Either it knew the drain would lead to water or it sensed the moisture. How can a disease sense anything?”
Patrice shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m not suggesting you’re wrong. I just have no answers. I can tell you that it’s instinct rather than intellect. The organisms that caused both diseases are simply too primitive to develop intelligence. There are limits even to magic. And in this case, my guess would be physics.” She pointed to the floor. “It slopes toward the drain. The puddle may have simply tried to take the path of least resistance.”