James Baldwin - Stained Glass

Spotted Elk nodded. “The important takeaway – for you – is that episodes like Duke’s are not the exception: they are the rule. The animals we channel are furious, intelligent spirits of the broken Glass Land who want to do nothing else except hunt down and kill the Morphorde in every shape it takes. Problem is, it can take all kinds of forms. The Ka doesn’t just hate demons and unspeakable creatures, or evil sorcerers and shamans. Evil can be in normal people who have good intentions and make mistakes.

“Precisely.” Michael reached up to finger the ankh he wore over his heart. “If we let the Ka rule us, all we do is kill, and kill, and kill. Duke could not help himself when he smelled the evil of the Morphorde and his Ka overrode him, and that is because he doesn’t care about working within the law. He does not want to control himself. You understand?”

“I certainly understand the need for control,” I replied.

“I know, because you’re a predator. Anyone could tell that.” Spotted Elk leaned in over his desk a little. “I created the Four Fires for the same reason that Michael continues the legacy of the Pathwalkers. If we have to face an army one day, we can’t be a disorganized rabble. We must raise an army to fight an army.”

I mulled that over. “I understand. But while we’re on the subject, Lily and Dru were almost certainly not as virtuous as you make them out to be. I found delivery instructions for a very large quantity of heroin that was to be delivered to their address.”

Michael stiffened in place. Spotted Elk reared back in alarm, paling as his face settled into deep, hard lines. “Do you have proof of this?”

I unzipped my jacket and took the folder out from its place under my shirt, flipping through it until I reached the correct page. “We were able to rescue this from the apartment. It’s a—”

The office door opened behind us, and I turned to see Ayashe stalk into the room. She was still wearing her badge, and she did not look pleased to see me.

“You,” she said to me. “You have a whole lot of explaining to do.”

“Ah, Ayashe. Just in time.” Spotted Elk stood up to greet her.

Ayashe circled around his desk and slammed her hand down on the desktop as she leaned down to stare me in the eyes. “So. ‘Kostya Kalikov’? Is that your real name, or am I going to have to keep digging until I reach the bottom of the pile of bullshit?”

“I don’t know a Kostya Kalikov,” I said, scratching my familiar’s head. Binah stretched and yawned in my lap, and then curled back into an indolent ball.

“Don’t fuck with me, Rex,” she said. “People were killed last night. Witnesses say they saw you and Jenny-fucking-Tran in a big blue car that just happens to match the description of Duke’s Buick. You don’t think I’d know this shit?”

“You’re a Federal Investigator who is currently only cleared to advise the Bronx SSU on one particular case, and even if it were your business, it is currently out of your jurisdiction.” I held her furious gaze with my calm one. “I notice things, too, Agent.”

Ayashe stood, straight-backed. “I’ve got more than enough circumstantial evidence to detain your ass right here and now under RICO.”

“You don’t have anything you can arrest me for.” I forced myself to sit back. No point in looking nervous. “So what do you want to hear first? Do you want to know that the people who nearly killed me and hounded me out of my house are dabbling in child pornography with the Wolf Grove children, or you want to hear about how your exemplary Pathfinders were ordering large shipments of heroin from those same people?”

The agent’s expression went from cold hostility to hot intensity in a split second. “Prove it.”

I set the file down on Spotted Elk’s desk, and pointed at the relevant lines. “That handwriting belongs to the current Authority of Brighton Beach. It outlines the delivery instructions for ten kilos of black-tar heroin to dealers for distribution in exchange for an unnamed trade. Usually, deliveries like this one are sent to the head of a street gang. In this case, it was direct to Wolf Grove.”

Ayashe fumbled back, pushing her jacket aside to reveal a gun in a holster and a small black pouch. She pulled a pair of latex gloves from it and picked up the file herself. “That’s a lot of information you’re getting from a little writing.”

“Rumor has it the Avtoritet writes his directives in Russian military code.” I shrugged. “But the address is clear enough. It is dated for the 30th August.”

“It’s not possible,” Spotted Elk said. “Neither of them would do anything like this.”

“I agree. This is out of turn.” Michael’s voice was deeper now, more forceful.

I didn’t like the way the room felt, so I picked up Binah and joined them on their feet. “What does initiation entail that makes you so sure? Because the evidence to the contrary is quite literally sitting on your desk.”

“I have known them for years,” Michael said. “They were initiated eleven years ago, long before they became invested in their religion. They always honored the Ib-Int above all things . ”

Ayashe shot me a dark look as she picked up the folder and riffled through it. John Spotted Elk regarded me with a similar expression to the one I had worn before: the tight-lipped reluctance of someone being asked to betray an entrenched secret.

“I told you about my encounter with the Stallion, Dust,” he said, haltingly. “Eight hundred years ago, he gifted me an elixir to induce awareness in Weeders on the cusp of sentience so that they might have control of themselves in combat. I have hidden that substance at the end every life I have lived, and recovered it on the next. One drop of it is enough to purge the Morphord’s influence. I gave it to them when I gave them honorary membership in my organization.”

I sighed. “Trafficking in drugs doesn’t necessarily mean they were doing anything related to Morphorde. Just that they might have angered someone enough for them to take revenge.”

“What purpose would revenge over such a petty thing serve?” Michael frowned.

“I have heard from my friends that a bratva man stabbed someone because they beat up his friend at a club,” I replied. “Knifed him in the gut. His brother wasn’t even that badly hurt… but in that culture, if someone hurts your friend, it is as if they had hurt you ten times more.”

Ayashe turned to look at me again. “Okay, so you got your hands on some instructions. Ten kilos of girl, I’ll take your word on it. Does any of this mention the children or the murder?”

“No.”

She reached back into her jacket and drew the pistol, and she was fast. It was in her hands and aimed before I’d done anything more than put the chair between her and me. “Then I’m arresting you under suspicion of trafficking narcotics and being involved in organized criminal activity,” she said. “You have the right to remain—”

“Ayashe!” Michael barked, moving around the desk. “What are you doing?”

“Hey. What’s all the shouting about?” Jenner’s voice rang out from the threshold of the doorway. She, Mason and Talya formed a wall just inside the room, blocking entry and exit. “I get nervous when someone screams and I’m not around. You won’t like me when I’m nervous.”

“You can hold the litany, musor . You have no grounds to arrest me,” I said. “A file without any of my handwriting, without my fingerprints, that points to the murdered couple you’re investigating? The problem lies with your vaunted Elders – I’m just the messenger, and you know it.”

“Get down on the fucking floor.” Ayashe swelled up on her feet, her lips peeling back in a silent snarl. I retreated as she advanced, holding Binah close to my chest.