Lupi 04 - Night Season by authors_sort Page B

please.”
    His bodyguard was startled by the request, but answered promptly. “Baxter’s an asshole, like Seabourne said. Likes to push around anyone who can be pushed. Carter’s okay.”
    â€œThank you. May I say, Mr. Seabourne, I’d like to meet you sometime when you’re in possession of all of your parts. Is the regrowth painful?”
    â€œYou ever had a wound heal to the itching stage?”
    â€œI have.”
    â€œIt doesn’t itch like that all the time. Just most of it. Inside, where I can’t scratch.”
    â€œI see. That could be quite annoying.” He nodded at Lily. “Please bring Mr. Seabourne up to date as briefly as possible.”
    â€œYes, sir.” She looked at Cullen. “We’ve got visitors. They say they came from another realm, and circumstances back that up. They arrived at the node at the Fashion Center mall two hours ago. Just before their arrival Gan showed up, obviously aware they were on their way, though a little confused as to the timing. There are three of them—a gnome, a man who looks human but isn’t, and the third…I don’t know what to call the third one. The gnome won’t give his name—we’re to call him councilor. The one who looks human is Wen of Ekiba, and the other one is called Tash, no surname. They claim they’re here for trade…and for me and Cynna. Gan says they want us to find something, but they’re not talking. Or rather,” she added, “the councilor talks without saying much and they all talk among themselves, but not in English.”
    Cullen’s eyebrows hitched up. “How did they communicate with you at all?”
    â€œThe gnome knows some English, but he won’t discuss anything of substance without a shield. He’s not talking about wards. Cynna asked about that. He claims he knows a shield spell, but can’t use it. His magic isn’t the right kind. That’s why you’re here.”
    Excitement rose and exploded in a dizzy froth. “Real shields,” he repeated carefully. “This gnome is talking about a spell that erects a true shield over a space, not just a person?”
    â€œOne that blocks farseeing and farhearing, apparently, among other things. He was shocked to learn we didn’t know how to make one.”
    Delight widened Cullen’s grin. “How big a space?”
    â€œAsk him.”
    Oh, he would. He’d ask the gnome from another realm—another realm!—a great many things. Cullen couldn’t stop grinning. “I forgive you.”
    â€œI thought you would,” she said dryly.
    Â 
    T HE door at the end of the short hall led to a small, dark, crowded room. Monitors lining the far wall held the rapt attention of three of the four men in the room. The fourth sat at a keyboard to one side, presumably doing tech things connected to the images on the screens. He wore headphones.
    Three of the men were strangers. Cullen knew the fourth one, a beefy fellow with a fine frizz of white hair exploding around his face like an excited dandelion. Cullen rather liked Fagin. The man was a top-notch scholar specializing in pre-Purge history. He was also the head of the Presidential Task Force created at the onset of the Turning.
    Not that any of them mattered. Not with what Cullen saw on those screens.
    For some reason they had the sound turned off. There were five screens; two were dark. The large, central screen showed a room furnished with institutional lack of imagination: a beige sofa and a couple of chairs. The gnome Lily had mentioned sat in one of the chairs. His feet dangled well off the floor. He was talking to a small, bald, orange female who must be Gan; they were roughly the same size. Behind Gan and the gnome stood a gray-skinned…call her a warrior, he decided. Whatever else she was, she carried herself as a fighter.
    The big blade sheathed on her back was a clue, too.
    His gaze