Giantfall (Secret Magent Book 1) Read online

  They would come and go. Some would disappear after ‘portentous’ days, as she called them. Others were regulars. Fanatics.

  Today was one of those special days. The stars peeking through the pockmarked metal roof had aligned. The diabolical grimoires all agreed on the state of the supernatural, and my girlfriend was itching for success.

  Finally. At long last.

  “And you’re going to be the biggest help,” Victoria told me.

  It was the last thing I remembered her saying before I woke up tied up in the middle of the chalk pentagram.

  The ritual was special. Normal sacrifices weren’t going to cut it for this one. The ritualist seeking to make this particular pact needed to offer a rarer dish to the dark powers. A proper, tempting offer.

  Ingredients: Two fingers of chalk for the circle and anchor glyphs. Eighteen candles arranged in three groups of six. Eighteen followers of Victoria’s ‘family’ to perform the incantation, and one (1) loved one. To be offered up in exchange for a pact with the presiding Devil.

  I should have been happy. I always thought keeping my significant other pleased was of the utmost importance. But now, I felt...

  Fear jolted my eyes wide open, my head shook from side to side as a robed figure stepped into the center of the ritual circle. The ninteenth chanter. The pact maker.

  I should have realized she’d been using me for my parents’ money and easily duped feelings all along. I must have been an easy mark for the pretty and charismatic blonde. Pulling back her cowl, dagger in hand, Victoria flashed me a wolfish smile.

  Remorselessness.

  Help me. Please help me. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. I don’t want you to hurt anyone anymore either Vicky. I don’t want to be like this. Please, I’ll do anything. Save me!

  She raised her dagger high into the air and without a moment’s hesitation brought the sharpened point down upon my heart.

  “It’s not gonna work, you know,” spoke a matter-of-fact voice.

  Only slowly did I dare open my eyes. My first love, maniacal grin peeling her face in two, dagger just inches from my naked chest, stood statue still. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred at all.

  I thought she’d changed her mind at the last moment, like I always hoped she would, until the moment I realized the candle lights weren’t moving either.

  “Eh? What?” I managed breathlessly.

  One of the gathered faithful stepped forth from the crowd. Without so much as a thought for the sanctity of the ritual, she kicked aside a trio of candles, laid down right next to me, and folded her hands behind her head. It was surreal. Like time stopped for everyone but me and…

  The woman’s cowl fell back enough to reveal large thoughtful eyes. Black hair mingled with the robe’s pitch darkness so well that I could not tell where one ended and the other began. Whoever she was, I certainly didn’t recognize her from among Victoria’s ‘family’.

  “It won’t work? What are you talking about?” I asked.

  Her eyes focused on me.

  “The ritual,” she replied. “It requires that a loved one be sacrificed, but, well...”

  My heart beat faster, “But what?”

  “But Victoria Abigail Windham never really loved you, did she?” the woman asked.

  The words hit me like a sack of bricks. Tears well up in my eyes and a lump grew in my throat.

  “I know. I know,” I whispered.

  “I think she’s going to kill you,” the woman said.

  “Yeah.”

  “So? Don’t you wanna live?”

  I shook my head. The action seemed to surprise her.

  “You don’t? That’s a pretty interesting conclusion for a high schooler to reach. Why not?”

  “I don’t deserve to live,” I replied, holding back tears. “I’ve done things. Watched terrible things happen and just stood by. Even though it made her happy I knew it was wrong. I was too weak to do anything but sit and stare.”

  The woman sat up and crossed her legs. Jagged eyebrows furrowed in contemplation.

  “Well, when someone steals something from a store and then feels awful about it, what do you think they should they do to get rid of all that pent up guilt?”

  “I dunno,” I replied. ”Return whatever they stole? Say they’re sorry? Make it up to the store guy somehow--”

  “Yes! That’s exactly it. Most mortals overcome guilt by making it up to the ones they’ve wronged. Therefore by that logic, just letting your dear girlfriend kill you would probably be the worst way to deal with this situation.”

  I’d opened my mouth to reply when my nose caught the first hint of brimstone in the air.

  “Mortals?” I asked.

  Shivers crawled up my spine and my skin broke out in goosebumps. The woman’s face lit up in a horrible fanged grin. Mirth danced in molten bronze eyes.

  “Oops,” she declared. “My tongue slipped.”

  “Oh my god,” I whispered, panic seeping into me. “She did it. She finally did it she summoned one you’re a... Y-you’re a--”

  “That’s right Charles Montgomery Locke,” the fiend said with a shrug and a sigh, “I admit it. I confess. I’m… Your very own Guardian Angel. Now, do you want to live or not?”

  In the end, survival instinct trumped shame. I nodded.

  The moment I did, a scream fled my throat as my whole body erupted in an inferno of hungry flames.

  Chapter 22

  I woke up in a sweat, gasping for air like I’d been choked to within an inch of my life. The room was empty except for Lis, who was staring down meaningfully at me. Like she knew.

  “What?” I demanded after a pause.

  “Oh, nothing. You just look like you saw a ghost.”

  “More like a Devil in a nightmare,” I muttered.

  Lis literally gasped. “Aww, you were dreaming about me?”

  “Emphasis on nightmare.”

  “Still counts! Speaking of, you got your little female plaything to do a head count of her surviving friends, right?”

  “She has a name.”

  “It’s slipped my mind, but let’s not get off track here. Should she really be the only one doing a head count, Charlie? If not for the sake of determining allies, then at least for the sake of determining enemies?”

  “Enemies?” I echoed.

  What was she talking about?

  The only ‘friends’ I could contact would be Nine Towers, but for all intents and purposes I’d become a renegade in their eyes. Kill on sight. Besides, the places mentioned on Brigitte’s Urd disk weren’t hit by Rurik’s thugs, which means they’re…

  My eyes widened to the size of saucers as Lis tilted her head at an angle, eyes piercing through me.

  Which means they’d be just fine, had all heard the news of Jotunheim’s fall, and would surely interpret the false information I handed them as--

  The safe house door was blown wide open by a pale red fireball before I could finish the thought. In burst a short man clad in black leathers that would have been fashionable at a renaissance fair and a tall brunette woman in SWAT gear that looked like it belonged on the set of a science fiction movie.

  “Treachery!” roared the man. “Uncovered at last. Charles Locke, for the crime of willfully misleading and impeding a sanctioned Nine Towers investigation, you are hereby found guilty. Say your prayers, you mongrel renegade.”

  “Cazador. You’ll forgive me if I don’t get up,” I replied wryly.

  Cazador was the guy’s ‘stage name’. He wasn’t a true warlock but came from magical nobility, so to speak. Rumor had it that Cazador was so eager to be sent on dangerous missions and incinerate evil doers that he willingly forsook his noble blood to become a warlock. Supposedly his ancestry can be traced back to genuine inquisitors that lead the Reconquista.

  In case you couldn’t tell, he was also kind of a dick.

  “Smith?” Cazador intoned.

  “Roger,” the brunette replied, befo
re drawing an immense gun from the guitar case strapped to her back.

  I remembered her too. And not just because of her ample bust either. Sibyl Smith was an American woman, and the strong silent type. She had precious few words detailing her in the files and official reports. However, there were really only two words needed to describe her.

  Gun mage.

  Smith’s carbon fiber forged rifle, a custom job replete with a medium sized grimoire's worth of ritual circles humming dully along its length, was currently pointed down at my chest.

  “We should talk about this,” I offered in as neutral a tone as I could summon.

  “And all it takes to make you play nice with others is an anti material rifle pointed at your chest from point blank range. Noted for later,” Lis cheerfully chipped in.

  The moment she did, both the Cazador and Smith seemed to note her presence for the first time. Fiery hands and rifle focused upon her in a split second.

  “She’s just--”

  “His chauffeur,” Lis finished for me with a placid smile upon her face.

  She was never going to let me live that down.

  “Ah. All right,” the two agents replied in unison, before turning back to me.

  The Cazador opened his mouth and was about to say something self righteous again, when something strange happened. Smith’s blue eyes focused, like she’d just remembered she’d left the stove on back in her apartment, and with all speed turned her gun back towards Lis and pulled the trigger.

  Rifles like those don’t make little plinky sounds. When they fire it sounds like God slamming the car door. The sudden escalation was enough to jolt me to a sitting position and nearly send Cazador sprawling.

  I turned my gaze in horror to see Lis, in perfect health, sitting calmly with a bullet hole behind where her head had been an instant before.

  “Careful,” Lis said. “A gun like that’s going to end up getting someone hurt.”

  Smith managed to cry out, “Cazador--” before I verbally stepped between them.

  “Lis, enough,” I demanded.

  The she-devil understood my meaning perfectly. She shrugged in response. “I wasn’t planning on killing them. Completely unfounded paranoia.”

  The inquisitor finally managed to recover his powers of speech. “You dare openly consort with the infernal powers?”

  “You dare fire at an unarmed woman who posed no threat to either of you?” I retorted.

  “Insolent wretch!” he spat back.

  “Cazador, Smith,” I began, my voice low and deadly. “Let me emphasize just one thing. Your business is with me. If you try to drag Lis into this mess once more, I swear to you she will be the least of your worries.”

  They both hesitated, their attention firmly rooted on me once more. Their hardened gazes and grand entrance made a terrible thought finally surface in my mind. They didn’t come here for an explanation.

  They came here to kill me in cold blood.

  A wave of anger nearly overtook me at the thought, my fists balling tightly at my sides.

  “Those two certainly didn’t come to talk over tea, Charles. Don’t you think it awfully evil of them to throw you under the bus like this?” Lis asked, her words oozing into my ear.

  “Muttering threats will not stay our hand, warlock. Because of your treasonous acts, the entire Norse sphere of influence has been thrown into disarray. Did you really think you could get away with it?” The Cazador demanded.

  “Cmon,” Lis whispered. “Are you really going to let them get away with this? Such arrogance. Such eagerness to turn on the one who actually tried to set things right. They’re pawns. Expendable ones at that. You know what you could do, right?”

  Make an example of them, my mind supplied. Cut their throats. Riddle their bodies with shards of arcana. Make sure that Nine Towers understands that I will not deal with rabid dogs snapping at me while I do my work. My heart raced, my mind sharpened into a dagger's point.

  Then I blinked and slowly exhaled my breath.

  “You’re wrong,” I replied.

  “What?” Lis and the Cazador replied in unison.

  “Fear. Uncertainty. That is why it has come to this. I’d think the same damn thing if the roles were reversed.”

  Lis’ smile faltered, molten yellow eyes trembled with an emotion I couldn’t recognize.

  “This isn’t a negotiation, scum!” the Cazador bellowed.

  I shook my head. “The information I gave you I’d received directly from a NORN agent. We were both deceived by a man named Rurik. He’s the one pulling the strings. We need to work together. Now more than ever.”

  Silence reigned. I caught a Cheshire cat sized smile slowly widening on Lis’ lips. Too close. She was too close to winning our cat and mouse game this time.

  Cazador was the first to break the silence. “Ridiculous. You want us to believe that some Mundane man born in the boonies and flying under the radar for years could do all of this? He’s a lieutenant at most. A distraction! And you’re not off the hook. Where is this supposed NORN agent that--”

  “Right here,” Brigitte replied, stepping in from the snow covered street.

  Chapter 23

  The Cazador made a face like he’d just been walked in on by his grandmother while he was in his boxer shorts. Smith’s blue eyes wavered with uncertainty.

  Brigitte calmly sat down at my bed side, brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face and said, “Welcome to my safe house agents of Nine Towers. Now get out.”

  “NORN agent? Her? She’s a Human,” Cazador said.

  Brigitte sighed, rose up to her feet, and cast off her glamour with a wave of her hand. Cazador and Smith had to take a step back as the Giantess towered over them.

  “Any more questions?” Brigitte asked.

  “Yes,” I answered. “Did you manage to get a hold of your contacts?”

  Brigitte cast a sidelong glare at Cazador and Smith before I nodded at her. I didn’t mind those two hearing what she had to say. Hell, they might even try and help if they got their heads out of their asses.

  “It was just as you suggested, Charles. Rurik blew through the gates, secured the hill fort with a host of Goblin troops armed to the fangs, and has since just sat there doing nothing.”

  “Just sat there?” I asked.

  “No attacks. No purges. No attempts to quell the rest of the city. The Vettir have been swamping districts, but they’re...”

  “Disorganized?”

  I noticed jagged brows rise in surprise just out of the corner of my eye. The she-devil must have sensed the same thing I had. Weakness.

  “Rurik’s not leading them anymore. His attention must have shifted elsewhere,” I spoke. “NORN. What defense forces do they have? Numbers, locations, details. Goddammit, we might just have a chance after all.”

  “Yes, NORN linked up with Aesir intelligence agents. It seems they want to blow off some steam killing Vettir.”

  Mist you magnificent, short fused Amazoness.

  “The Jotun?”

  “Partisans shaped up. Morale is low but they’re grim and determined.”

  Famous Norse stoicism.

  “What about the woods? Any Vettir lying in wait?”

  “No. But there have been reports of--”

  “Wolves?”

  Brigitte blinked. “How did you know?”

  I made a mental note to buy Grafmir a slab of bacon.

  “Stop. Stop, what are you two saying?” the Cazador cut in. “Wolves? Aesir? Are you two deluded? The Aesir are likely the ones behind all of this.”

  Brigitte perked an eyebrow in my direction. I shrugged.

  “Not many people know this, Cazador, but there’s a lot of overlap between the Jotun and the Aesir. Most of the Norse Gods had Jotun relatives. Many of the Jotun even played pranks and drank cheerfully besides the Gods.”

  “They’re not adversaries, agents. They’re family we don’t always get along with,” Brigitte added.

  The Cazador rais
ed a hand to his forehead, pacing the room. “You lied to us. You cannot be trusted. This is a trick. Never trust a demon monger.”

  “Rurik fooled me. He leaked false information on purpose to make it impossible to defend against his ploy. To turn us against each other.”

  “Lodri says--”

  “Lodri is pushing pencils and making calls from a ritzy bar’s VIP lounge,” I shot back. “He’s an arm chair philosopher who thinks his patterns point to the Aesir even though all actual evidence does not. Rurik isn’t a small fry. He knows the higher ups would think what Lodri thought. He’s using their complacency against them.”

  “He’s a Human,” Smith spoke up. “There’s no way this Rurik would think that far ahead. He’s a pawn just like the Vetti. He has to be.”

  When it comes to mages, the nigh omnipotent conduits of cosmic forces beyond the ken of mortal man and many supernatural beings alike, believing that a normal Human can outsmart us is almost unthinkable.

  Beliefs like those of Smith and Cazador were common place. It’s easy to assume a supernatural explanation. Mages would often go to great lengths to dress it as such, rather than to simply admit the fact that maybe, just maybe, there were unscrupulous Machiavellis hidden among the cloying crowds of sheeple. Just like the Mundanes do when they’re presented with a clearly supernatural crime or event.

  “He’s a clever old man,” I said. “One cool customer. I don’t know what experience he has or what circles he’s belonged to. Hell, I don’t know a damn thing about Rurik. But I swear to you, I will figure this out or die trying.”

  The words weighed heavily on all those gathered. While they digested the words, I gathered my thoughts together. We had a chance to set things right. We were down, but if we played our cards right and had a dash of devilish luck, we might just set things right.

  “I need your help,” I said, the words enough to get odd looks from all present. “Fire support. Intel. Whatever we need to get this done. Cazador. Smith. This is bigger than just following NT’s orders. Bigger than having a perfect boy scout record with the guys holding our leashes. Can I count on you two?”

  Smith looked surprised. Maybe she thought I’d be too proud to ask for help. Maybe she thought it was all an act. All still an act. She turned her ocean blue eyes to Cazador.