The Black Palace Page 2

  She lifted her helmet from her bike, but she didn’t put it back on just yet. She was running it all through her head, an artifact, an assassination, the message, the Black Palace, all just now. And the sun had only set an hour ago. This was going to be a strange night.

  “I was on the phone,” he continued. “The new President is issuing orders from a plane to Tel Aviv right now. A lot of pieces in play, a lot of pieces. And it’s our role to post up as ordered.”

  A new president could only mean VP Turenbor, a man whom she had never trusted. But she had no time to think about it any longer. The final trucks and SUVs were pulling out of the lot. She had to go now.

  And that was when the screen finally lit up on DiFranco’s wrist. It was from Central Dispatch, and it was orders for a job at new rendezvous coordinates. These coordinates were only a few miles up the road, and not the direction the other Witchfinders were going. A quick zoom on the satellite image showed a little old stone well. It wasn’t enough that she was cut out of the raid on the Black Palace, a chance to get back in there and do things right, maybe even find out for sure, but she also had to be defeated by this commissioner, at exactly the worst time.

  The final truck was pulling away, and Valentine leaned out of his window, giving a smiling, cruel wave goodbye to DiFranco, making sure that it came off worse than an honest middle finger. He had known the commissioner was going to keep her off the raid. He had known the whole time.

  DiFranco tried to cool down, to be the professional that she was. She ran her hands through her hair and popped her neck to release the tension. She said, “So the Haruspex gave you a lead on a stolen artifact, right? Is that what the well is about?”

  “It’s possible,” he said. He looked to the young guy with the valise, who looked back up at him and said nothing. “Did she give you any further intel, Miss DiFranco? I could see that she had started talking again, to you.”

  “Nothing useful.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Mostly gibberish. I made out the mention of a witch’s maidservant in some house, which narrows it down to thousands around the world.” And then she asked the commissioner, “So why did the riddle make you call me? You can at least tell me that. I know it was you who made the call.”

  “The witch indicated a feminine pronoun. You were the only woman agent in district. It was that simple,” he said. “No one is being singled out. You’re not anything unique, Miss DiFranco. You’re an effective Witchfinder like the rest, nothing more. Though it wouldn’t hurt to look the part and lose that feather.”

  There was no point in mentioning the butterfly in the fire, or even that lullaby from her childhood. He would reveal nothing more, not even why they were cutting her out of the raid, her of all people. She had never known exactly what so many of the other Witchfinders held against her. It wasn’t about her sex, or her mixed race; it was something deeper. Maybe they sensed that she didn’t fit and never really had. Yet there was no other world for her to be a part of.

  But this commissioner hadn’t fully beaten her yet. She still had a bike. She could still defy protocol and leave to follow the others. So she said, “And here’s what you think, isn’t it, because you’re all orders? You think I’m just going to go along with orders, even if it means missing out on the raid, no matter what that means to me, don’t you, Mr. Eisenheimer? You’re the kind of guy that thinks everyone else is some rudimentary version of yourself.”

  “I think you always do your part in what needs to be done, Miss DiFranco. Invariably.”

  “You trust personnel files too much.”

  “And you still have blood on your throat,” he said.

  He wouldn’t let her have the edge in the conversation for even a moment. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he was good at it. She wiped at the blood on her throat and found no lacerations on her own skin. “It’s not mine,” she said.

  “Your father was an excellent Witchfinder. He was a pioneer, and the Union is grateful for his sacrifice. But we have all sacrificed,” he said, looking away toward the road. “And tonight you are needed elsewhere.”

  “Just not anywhere important,” she said.

  “To be perfectly honest with you,” Mr. Eisenheimer said. “I do not know how important our orders are, and I was not told, and I do not ask questions. And I definitely did not pick my team for myself tonight. If I had, I would have picked rudimentary versions of myself.”

  DiFranco stared him down, straight in the eyes, to see if maybe he was actually being honest, to see if even he didn’t really know what was going on tonight behind the veil. It was hard to tell.

  She nodded at the young man still standing behind Mr. Eisenheimer and said, “How about him? Does he have what it takes to sit and stare at a well with us all night?”

  Mr. Eisenheimer said, “He’s from Research and Antiquities.”

  “Paranormal architecture,” the young man said, offering his hand to her. “My specialization. I’m Mr. January.”

  They shook. Her hand was tacky from the blood, and he tried not to notice.

  Then he wiped his palm down his coat and said, “But everyone calls me Jan, so you can just call me Jan if you want. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Miss DiFranco. Your father, we have a section in the Vault of just his acquisitions. Some of us are big fans. Conradicals. It’s silly, I know. But for what it’s worth, as far as field records go, I think you’re the better one. God, I hope that didn’t sound bad. I didn’t mean it bad. I didn’t plan on saying it like that. I just mean that I think you’re a really good Witchfinder, Miss DiFranco.”

  “Just DiFranco,” she said.

  “Right. Got it. DiFranco.”

  She said to Mr. Eisenheimer, “I’m guessing you’ll deny knowledge of why they sent a paranormal architect from R and A as the third field agent on our team. This must be some impressive well.”

  “Not an architect,” Jan said. “I specialize in paranormal architectural studies. I’m a scholar, not so much a field agent.”

  “Do you have a gun on you?” DiFranco said.

  He patted his coat as if he had forgotten the answer for a moment. “Yes,” he said.

  “Then you’re not a scholar tonight, Witchfinder. You’re a field agent.”

  “He’s along as an expert,” Mr. Eisenheimer said. “Not as our third field agent.”

  “Then who is?”

  “They didn’t tell you?” Jan said. He was excited. Any of the earlier fear in his face was long gone now.

  DiFranco said, “In case you haven’t noticed, Jan, they don’t tell me anything.”

  Mr. Eisenheimer said, “He should have already arrived. He’s going on twelve minutes late. But...” He turned his ear to listen to the road, talking absently again. “I suspect that he is nearly here, DiFranco.”

  “It’s Miss DiFranco,” she said to him.

  They heard it clearly now, roaring their way. And then they saw its lights. And then they smelled it. The three of them stood and watched.

  A smoke-chucking van came barreling around the bend and into the lot. The thing looked like it had driven through a volcano in the ’70s, the windshield fractured in spider webs, the bumper hanging like a slack lip, the body knocked with dents worthy of cannonballs. The front license plate read EX 22 18, meaning of course the verse, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” The van rocked to a stop in front of them but stayed idling, and the engine—some customized high-volume gas-hog—growled and popped as it sat, the chassis keeping a steady shudder.

  DiFranco said, “Oh, shit.”

  “I’ve only read about him until now,” Jan said. “Never thought I would meet him. He’s a legend.”

  The door swung open. The driver leaned off-board then swung a stiff leg down to catch himself. He stood there in the lot with his back to the three of them. “You kids need a ride?” he said.

  “Sledge,” DiFranco said. “I thought you retired.”

  He finished off the last shred of fried chi
cken from a drumstick and turned toward her with that snarling smile of his. “DiFranco? Is that you?” He squinted at her. “Well I’ll be damned. You haven’t changed a bit. What brought you back?”

  “I was about to ask you the same.” She nodded to the hinged brace he wore. “How’s the knee?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Sledge said.

  “I removed the teeth and field dressed it myself, stitches to splint,” she said. “I have a right to know how my work held up.”

  “You did good work. I’m not complaining.”

  Jan said, “Teeth in his knee? Whose teeth?”

  “Never caught his name,” DiFranco said.

  “Me either.”

  “You two can play catch-up on your own time,” Mr. Eisenheimer said. “We’re all here now, and we’re all running late. So if you three would kindly join me, immediately.” He went to his SUV.

  “Who’s this asshole?” Sledge said.

  Mr. Eisenheimer apparently pretended not to hear him.

  Sledge grabbed his gear pack out of his van and shoulder-bumped his door shut without locking it, and he limped casually toward the SUV.

  Jan was already in the back seat.

  By that point, DiFranco had paused too long. The moment was already gone for her to disobey orders and speed on her bike toward the raid. It felt as though, since she had arrived, her slumbering past had come racing at her from every direction, but she could do nothing about it. It made her angry. She would have to find a way to do something drastic, to assert who she was, whoever she was. Until then, she just had to do her job. So she resigned herself to retrieving her field pack, securing a lock on the disc brake of her bike, and finally getting into the SUV with them.

  “About time,” Sledge said to her. “You’re late. We’re all just sitting on our asses waiting on you.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” she said like a reflex. She wished she had said nothing.

  He laughed. “There’s some of that spunk I remember. I knew you weren’t cut out for civilian life.”

  “You don’t know anything about it,” she said. “I tried.”

  “Like hell,” he said. “I could have told you from the first moment I saw you. At the range on base, scrawny little fifteen-year-old shredding a target cottage with an M-60, right alongside the big boys.”

  “I’ve changed a lot since then.”

  “Nah, you haven’t changed a bit.”

  “Well I sure hope you have,” she said, trying to make it sound sharp. She had put Sledge out of her mind so long ago, it seemed, that she had forgotten her decision to never work with him again. It was coming back to her now.

  Mr. Eisenheimer drove, and he already had them on the road, flooring to get past the speed limit.

  “You hope I changed?” he said, acting hurt. “Why? What’s wrong with me?”

  Jan tried politely interrupting, saying, “I think Mr. Sledge was just joking with you, DiFranco. I don’t think he meant anything.”

  “I meant it,” she said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? I thought I was a fine figure of a man.” Sledge scratched his beard and leaned to look back at Jan. “What do you think, kid? Don’t you think I’m a fine figure of a man?”

  “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” Jan said, offering his hand over Sledge’s shoulder. “I’ve read a lot about you. My favorite was that brood you got with the construction crane.”

  “The one in Saint Louis?” Sledge shook Jan’s fingers and said, “See, DiFranco? He likes me.”

  “Only because he hasn’t worked with you yet,” she said. “He’ll get over it.”

  Sledge was caught silent at that.

  Maybe directing her anger at him wasn’t fully merited, but that didn’t mean he was suddenly a reliable teammate. Sure, he was a legend in the Witchfinders Union. Sure, everyone knew of his work, from the sky-cursers in the ridges along parallel 61 down to the white horse attacks in Legrasse Lake. But she had long since cured herself of being star-struck by him, for she knew that behind each of those stories of heroics were things that could have gone differently, other Witchfinders who could have come home alive or at least accounted for, if not for his wild and bullheaded carelessness, his doing whatever it took to keep himself in the center of those stories. This was the first she had seen of him since the service that the Union had held for her father. Sledge had been one of the Witchfinders there with her too, that night, across the threshold of the Black Palace, when things had gone so wrong.

  “You know what your problem is, DiFranco?” Sledge said, having taken a moment to dare himself in this direction.

  “Tell me,” she said. “What’s my problem?”

  Mr. Eisenheimer said, “We’ll be at the site in just a moment. I would prefer silence unless it directly pertains to the job at hand.”

  “Fuck you, fella,” Sledge said to him. “You tell me to shut up again, and I’ll be feeding you that stupid tie of yours.”

  “Hey, guys,” Jan said. “Maybe we should take it down a little.”

  “You’re just a retiree to me, Mr. Sledge,” Mr. Eisenheimer said. “If I were in charge, which now might happen sooner than later, you’d be called back into the Witchfinders Union for no other reason than to clean the lavatories.”

  “Lavatories?” Sledge said. “You mean the shitter? If you’re trying to say the shitter, just say the shitter.”

  Mr. Eisenheimer furrowed his brow. He didn’t seem to know how to respond to that.

  Sledge turned to her again. “Your problem, DiFranco, is that everything’s not all black and white like you think it is. Nothing’s clean cut like that, and you can’t stay so uptight about it. You always tried so hard to prove something to everybody, like everything is always your responsibility. What you need to do is tell the whole world to fuck off for once. Do your own thing, just like me. The world doesn’t need you to save it, you know.”

  “Who says I’m the one trying to save the world? You, of all people?”

  “Yeah, me,” Sledge said. “I know better. And you can take it from me, honey: the world ain’t worth saving. It’s already down the shitter, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. Things go to shit, people die, and you just have to go with it.”

  “That’s what my problem is, is it?” DiFranco said. She felt herself clinching her teeth.

  “Yeah. It is. You know, DiFranco, I’ve lost people too. You just have to roll with it. It’s not your fault what happened to your dad in there.”

  “You don’t know what happened to him in there, except that he got left,” DiFranco said. “I left him. I’ve accepted the truth of that. But you left him too.”

  “Oh, I left him, did I?” Sledge said, raising his voice.

  Jan said, “Okay, guys. Let’s take a breather, okay? Mr. Eisenheimer, do you maybe want to turn on the radio or something?”

  “We’re almost there,” Mr. Eisenheimer said.

  “And you know what you are?” DiFranco said to Sledge.

  “What am I?”

  “You’re a liability.”

  “A liability?” he said.

  “You’re a fucking liability,” she said. “I used to think you were brave, and then I thought maybe you were just bull-headed, but the truth is you’ve got a death wish. You’d ride a bomb straight into hell if you had the chance, just so you could die like a big American hero, just so everybody would keep talking about how awesome you were. But you don’t care who else you take down with you when you do. You don’t care who gets left behind and who dies. You don’t give a damn about your partners, Sledge.”

  “Oh, I don’t give a damn about my partners?”

  “No, you don’t, not really. And you know it.”

  Sledge was furious and was now saying nothing.

  DiFranco was furious and was now saying nothing.

  Jan kept trying to get everyone’s attention by repeating, “Hey, guys?”

  Mr. Eisenheimer stopped the vehicle. “We’re here,” h
e said. “But something’s not right.” He checked the map on the tablet he took from Jan’s valise, and he kept zooming and swiping and refreshing it.

  “Hey, guys?” Jan was saying.

  DiFranco looked around and said, “So where’s this water-well we’re supposed to guard?”

  They were all four looking through the windshield at a steep three-story house. The siding was old cedar.

  “It’s supposed to be right there,” Mr. Eisenheimer said. “And this is not on the satellite images. This isn’t supposed to be here.”

  Sledge said vaguely, “I think I know that house.”

  “Hey, guys?” Jan was saying.

  In an upper-story window of the house, at the curtain, in some weak candlelight, there was movement. DiFranco concentrated on it and said shush to them to see if she could tell what it was.

  “Hey, guys,” Jan said. “I hate to tell you this, but that’s a Vihns. You can tell. That’s one of the Ardo Vihns houses.”

  “Which would mean what?” Mr. Eisenheimer said.

  Jan said, “It means that it’s not going to be a normal house.”

  DiFranco could tell clearly now what the movement was. The curtain had pulled back, and the white hand that drew it open had shut it just as quickly. DiFranco had seen the figure: the deep hood of a bonnet, no face but darkness, the rest of the dress the color of blood, the traditional garb they had used all over the world for centuries. DiFranco said, “That was a maidservant, and we just got ourselves spotted, Witchfinders. We need to move in, now!”

  She left the vehicle and rushed for the front door, gun drawn, so the others followed.

  Chapter 2

  Under the portico, at the door of the house, where they paused for just an instant, DiFranco looked back at the other three and said, “Hydra formation?”

  Sledge and Mr. Eisenheimer looked to be in agreement.

  “Jan, you know it?” she said.

  “I’m ranked at salt. I’m good.”