Chapter 6: We Might Have Missed A Few

Riordan had to push back the passenger seat of his SUV. The last person to sit there had been Nadia, and she was quite a bit shorter than he was. He passed his keys to Nora as she slid behind the steering wheel. She started the engine and pulled into traffic as Riordan drew out his phone and opened his web browser.

It was just as well he had his phone to distract him. Riordan was a conservative driver save for emergencies, which exasperated Nora. She preferred to drive like a rally car racer going for the championship. She also tended to operate the radio while driving one-handed, jumping from song to song until she found one that she liked.

“If you’re not careful, you’re going to wrap my SUV around a lamppost,” said Riordan, typing into his phone.

Nora snorted. “That’s only if I’m not paying attention.”

They had had the same conversation a thousand times by now.

Riordan focused on his phone as Nora drove from Manhattan to Long Island and MacArthur Airport. He started by searching for the ID number he had taken from the RFID tag. That was useless. The number happened to start with the same three digits as an area code in Los Angeles, and so he found several phone numbers that matched it. Most likely that was a coincidence. He tried excluding phone numbers from the search, but none of the results were helpful.

His next search was for the SONGB text string, but that was equally futile. Most of the search results were from random characters in web applications. Riordan did get a few hits from India & Bangladesh, specifically from a website called Song Bangla, which was devoted to the traditional and modern music of the Bengal region, and whose commenters called the site “SongB” while enthusiastically arguing in English, Hindi, and Bengali.

Riordan was reasonably sure that Paul Ricci had never visited India or any part of Asia.

They were on the Long Island Expressway by the time Riordan gave up and put his phone back into his coat pocket.

“Anything?” said Nora. She was currently doing twenty miles over the speed limit. Cautious for her, really.

“A text message from Nadia asking if we need help,” said Riordan. “I told her that I’d call if we do.”

Nora glanced at him. “But you’re not going to.”

“No,” admitted Riordan. “I should be helping her.”

“If she needs help, she’ll ask,” said Nora. “Once we get this wrapped up, you can meet her and find out what her job is all about. Did she say what the High Queen wants her to do?”

“She didn’t,” said Riordan. “We wouldn’t talk about it over text or phone. Too insecure. Only that she thinks there isn’t any danger.”

“I’m sure if she needs help, she’ll call,” said Nora.

Riordan blew out a long breath. That wasn’t true, and they both knew it. Nadia had spent so long working alone for Morvilind that she wasn’t good at asking for help when she needed it. He wondered what the High Queen had instructed Nadia to do. Probably investigating Homeland Security – the High Queen would have doubts about the US national police after several state branches had sided with the Rebels during the battle of New York.

“What are we listening to?” said Riordan to take his mind off the subject. Nadia could look after herself, and Riordan couldn’t help her right now. Brooding about it would only waste energy. “You haven’t changed the station for at least three or four miles now.”

A woman’s voice came from the speakers, singing about a man who had broken her heart. Slow acoustic guitars accompanied her voice at first, but as the lyrics changed to her triumphant declaration of her newfound strength and independence, the accompaniment shifted to electric guitar and rapid drums. Riordan had heard a thousand songs like that over his life. No doubt the songwriter had gone through a bad breakup and then would shift back to writing love songs once she met someone new.

On the other hand, most of his non-Shadow Hunter income came from writing books about historical adventures. Who was he to judge?

Nora’s white grin flashed in her dark face. “Well, I finally found something good on the radio. American music is all right, but not as good as what we have in the UK.”

“Of course,” said Riordan with a straight face.

“But this is pretty good,” said Nora. “Della Sarkany. Ever heard of her?”

“No,” said Riordan. He rarely listened to music, and Nadia never did. “Wait.” Something about the name Sarkany tugged at his mind. He had heard it recently, hadn’t he? In the news, he thought, but he couldn’t recall it.

Then Nora took the exit for MacArthur Airport, and Riordan put it from his mind.

It was time to get to work.

“How should we play this, boss?” said Nora. “There’s a good chance that Ricci’s warehouse will be crawling with Homeland Security officers.”

“Maybe,” said Riordan. “But like you said earlier, maybe not. You might be right. Homeland Security’s still stretched pretty thin after the Sky Hammer battle. And the writ of execution we left behind has already been authenticated, else the Firstborn wouldn’t have authorized our payment. Homeland Security would have removed the bodies, but I doubt they’ll investigate very hard.” He rubbed his jaw. “Drive past, and we’ll see what we can see.”

Nora nodded, and they drove past the airport complex and came to Ricci’s warehouse. The gate to the yard stood open but had been sealed off with yellow crime scene tape. There were no Homeland Security vehicles visible in the street or in the warehouse yard. Riordan’s guess had been right. The writ of execution meant law enforcement had done a cursory overview of the site and hauled away the bodies. No doubt someone would be along to destroy Ricci’s summoning circle and clean up the blood, but that might take weeks.

They would have a few hours to look over the warehouse.

“Park around the block,” said Riordan.

“We’re just going to walk in?” said Nora.

“That’s the plan,” said Riordan.

“Just as well. These shoes do great things for my legs and ass, but I’m not climbing over any fences in them.”

Riordan only grunted as Nora pulled up to the curb and shut the engine off. He got out and looked around. It was a chill October day, the sky gray and overcast with heavy clouds. It wasn’t raining, but the concrete and the asphalt were wet, and the air smelled like both car exhaust and wet dirt.

“Let’s go,” said Riordan.

“Anything in particular we’re looking for?” said Nora as they circled the block.

“Evidence,” said Riordan. “Clues to where Ricci got that copy of the Summoning Codex. You know what this kind of work is like, Nora. We spend most of our time chasing our own tails until we stumble across something.”

“The glam life of the Family,” said Nora. They crossed the street to the warehouse. “Travel the world, see beautiful and exotic locations.”

“I just wish the Firstborn had let us know we would need to do this,” said Riordan. “It would have been a lot easier to go through the warehouse last night before we called Homeland Security.”

“Yeah,” said Nora. “Isn’t that what happened with you and the tigress? You met her in Milwaukee, and had no idea who she was? Then the Firstborn told us to track her down and see if she was working with the Forerunner.”

Riordan nodded. It had taken him and Nora several months of work to find Nadia, and they had only done it by following the movements of the Dark Ones cults who had tried to kill her. Though given that Riordan was now married to Nadia, he was glad it had worked out the way that it had.

He ducked under the yellow crime scene tape, lifted it for Nora, and they walked into the warehouse yard. It looked unremarkable, with no trace of the Shadowlands creatures they had fought last night. Their carcasses would have dissolved by now. The interior of the warehouse had not changed. It was still a gloomy, cavernous space, dim gray radiance leaking through the skylights. To judge from the dampness of the concrete, the roof had a leak or two. Ricci’s summoning circle sat where it had been earlier, along with the table holding documents.

Blood stained the concrete where Ricci and his followers had died.

“Doesn’t look like there’s much here, boss,” said Nora.

“No,” said Riordan. “Let’s start at the table. Put on gloves. We don’t want any fingerprints left behind.”

They crossed to the table and began sorting through the documents. Riordan had taken a cursory look through them last night, but nothing had caught his eye. Mostly they were different sketches for designs of the summoning circle. The standard edition of the Summoning Codex included diagrams for a variety of summoning circles, all designed to bind different creatures of the Shadowlands. Ricci had settled on a circle configured to bind as many different creatures as possible. Likely the maelogaunt had influenced his choice, intending to feed on the resultant carnage.

“Nothing useful here,” said Nora. She held up a sketch of an anthrophage crouched in the summoning circle. “Though he was a good artist.”

“Too bad he wasted the talent,” said Riordan, looking around. “Let’s check that office.” At the far side of the warehouse, a flight of metal stairs led up to a door with a window. Likely that had once been the administrative area for the warehouse, or where the security guard had sat and watched cameras. “Maybe we’ll find something there.”

They crossed the concrete floor and climbed the metal stairs. Nora cursed the metal grillwork roundly, taking care to keep her heels from getting stuck. The door was unlocked, and Riordan swung it open. The office was shabby and decrepit, with obvious water damage on the floor and walls. Four metal desks had been shoved against the walls, rusted chairs sitting before them. Three of the desks were empty, but the one nearest the door looked as if it had been used recently. An untidy mess of paper lay atop the desk.

“Well, well,” said Nora. “What have we here?”

She picked up a piece of paper. It was a bill for some artwork. The first page of the bill was missing, but it looked as if Ricci Food Services had purchased a large quantity of artwork from an antique store, probably for decorating Ricci’s Italian Restaurant. Riordan scanned the numbers, wondering idly why Ricci had spent so much on artwork…

“Wait,” he said, pointing at one of the items. “Look. That number.” He pulled out his phone and double-checked. “That’s the number from the book’s RFID tag.”

Nora snorted. “It’s described as ‘antique book, decorative.’”

“I wonder if the seller knew what he had,” said Riordan, sifting through the papers. “See if you can find the rest of the bill…says it was page 2 of 4. If we can find an address, we have our next link in the chain.”

They sorted through the rest of the papers. Nora found page 3 of 4, but the rest of the documents were either orders for restaurant supplies or more sketches of summoning circles. Riordan straightened up with a grimace, thinking. It was easy enough to see how Ricci had been entrapped. He had bought the antiques to decorate his restaurant and had happened to page through the book. Ricci had realized the book was the Summoning Codex and had taken it here to page through it. Maybe to try out one or two of the spells, to see if they could give him an advantage in the cutthroat world of the restaurant business.

Then he had managed to summon a maelogaunt, and he had been ensnared.

Damned fool.

“I think we’re going to have to break into Ricci’s office again,” said Riordan. “We’ve got an invoice number, but no address. If we can pull the invoice number out of his accounting software, we’ll know where he got his Summoning Codex. Hopefully, it’s just some clueless antique dealer who had no idea what he sold.”

“That would be nice,” said Nora. She opened the top drawer, closed it, and then opened the bottom drawer. “It would…whoa. What’s this?”

She lifted a folded piece of paper from the bottom drawer and set it on the desk.

Riordan frowned.

The document was in Russian. The page was thick and yellowing, and the fold had been pressed deep into the paper. The ink was faded, and it looked like a typed summary of some kind, with a list of bullet points followed by Cyrillic characters.

“I think that was folded up inside a book,” said Riordan.

“The Summoning Codex?” said Nora.

“Maybe.”

She shrugged. “I don’t speak Russian.”

“Neither do I,” said Riordan, drawing out his phone, “but there’s another way.”

He fired up the translation app on his phone and held the camera lens over the paper. The app ground away for a moment, and then spat out a rough translation.

“It looks like a medical or lab report,” said Riordan, parsing the badly translated English. “It’s talking about a lab, and five subjects who…entered containment? Or hibernation? The app isn’t sure, the words keep changing. And all five subjects entered containment on…”

His frown deepened.

“What is it?” said Nora.

“All five subjects entered containment on July 12th, Conquest Year 109,” said Riordan.

They looked at each other, and then at the yellowing lab report.

“That’s over two hundred years ago,” said Nora.

“And apparently,” said Riordan, “this document was folded up inside Ricci’s copy of the Codex.”

“So why was a two-hundred-year-old Russian lab report inside a copy of the Summoning Codex?” said Nora.

“I have no idea,” said Riordan.

“Bloody hell,” said Nora with a shake of her head. “I hate mysteries. Absolutely hate them. Give me a sodding row of anthrophages and an M-99 carbine any day. Not some goddamned mystery.”

“That’s why we make the big bucks,” said Riordan.

“You make the big bucks, Mr. Famous Writer,” said Nora. “You’ve written a few mysteries, you probably love this stuff.”

“It’s more fun to write about than to experience firsthand,” said Riordan. He started checking the remaining desks. A formality, most likely, but it had to be done. “It’s easier to write mysteries set in the pre-Conquest era than the contemporary one. The Department of Education doesn’t let anything even remotely critical of Homeland Security get published.”

Nora snorted. “Yes, we wouldn’t want to accidentally tell the truth, now would we?”

Riordan closed the last drawer and straightened up. “Let’s go. We’ll need to head for Ricci’s restaurant.”

Nora fell in next to him as they left the office. “Going to just walk right in?”

“Something like that.”

They descended the stairs (Nora taking care in her heels) and returned to the SUV. Riordan half-expected to see Homeland Security vehicles arrive, but the street was deserted. The combination of the writ of execution and Homeland Security’s overwhelming case load meant that the scene of Ricci’s death would receive only the most minimal scrutiny. Some desk drone in Homeland Security’s New York headquarters was probably typing up the final report even now.

Nora drove them back to Manhattan, and another Della Sarkany song came on the radio, much to Nora’s immense satisfaction. This one seemed to be a sad song about a woman watching her husband go to war as an Elven noble’s man-at-arms. Riordan ignored the music and spent the drive working with his phone’s translation app, trying to get a better English rendering of the old Russian document he had found.

Riordan got the sense that the document was either a lab report or a medical report. It talked about five subjects and claimed that all five subjects had successfully entered hibernation, or stasis, or had been put to sleep. The translation app seemed unable to make up its mind as to which definition was correct. There were several references in the document to a laboratory with an incorporated catalyst, but Riordan had no idea what that meant.

“I think we might need someone who actually speaks Russian to translate that, boss,” said Nora, flipping through the radio stations after Della Sarkany’s song ended. “Those translation apps are always dodgy. I think a couple of the blokes at the Sanctuary know Russian.”

“Yeah,” said Riordan, giving up and putting his phone away. “McGrath and Konstantin both speak Russian. And Yerin’s Russian.”

“Want to send it to one of them?” said Nora.

Riordan hesitated and then shook his head, his distrust of telecommunications technology coming to the forefront. “No. Too insecure. Whatever this lab report is, I don’t want it floating around the Internet until we know what it is.”

"Isn't the translation app cloud-based?"

"I have the offline version. More secure."

“Might be something innocuous,” said Nora. “Some Russian doctor’s lab report from two hundred years ago that someone decided to use as a bookmark.”

“Maybe,” said Riordan. “But I want to know for sure first.”

About a half-hour later they reached Manhattan and headed for Ricci’s Italian Restaurant. Nora managed to find metered street parking two blocks from the restaurant, and Riordan fed two hours’ worth of quarters into the meter. He wasn’t sure how long this would take, but he definitely did not want his SUV towed or booted when they returned.

“So, what’s the plan?” said Nora. “We’re just going to walk right in?”

“Yes,” said Riordan. He took a few things he might need from the back of the SUV and then crossed the street, Nora following him. “I think we can manage it.”

It was about one in the afternoon, and the restaurant was full of people. Riordan circled around the restaurant and into the alley, coming to the door for Ricci Food Services’ offices. The door was closed, and a small sign had been taped to it, saying that RFS had been closed for the next few days due to unexpected circumstances.

Nora snorted. “Fancy way of saying their owner and CEO got killed for summoning up creatures from the Shadowlands.”

“The fewer people who know the truth, the better,” said Riordan. “Gloves.” He and Nora both donned their gloves, and Riordan drew out the lockpick gun he had taken from his SUV. In the US, it was illegal for anyone but Homeland Security and the men-at-arms of Elven nobles to own one, but Riordan had gotten a great deal of use out of the little device over the years.

The gun caught the lock’s tumblers on the fourth try, and Riordan eased the door open.

He looked up the stairwell and spotted the security camera mounted to the ceiling. Magic flowed through him as he focused his will, and he gestured and cast a spell. A small globe of lightning leaped from his hand and struck the camera. It was too weak to kill or even badly injure a man, but it was strong enough to damage electrical equipment. There was a flash and a spray of sparks, and Riordan was certain his spell had fried the camera’s electronics.

“Nice trick,” murmured Nora.

“Thanks,” said Riordan, and he slipped through the door, Nora following.

The offices were deserted, no doubt closed while the employees tried to figure out what to do since the company’s owner had died unexpectedly. Riordan used his lockpick gun to open the door to Ricci’s office and stepped inside. As he expected, the office was in disarray, with papers stacked everywhere. Nadia had said it was a mess, and the office gave the impression of an orderly mind that had started decaying. Like its owner had developed a drinking problem or a drug habit.

Or had summoned a maelogaunt and fallen under its malefic influence.

“Keep an eye on the hallway, please,” said Riordan, and he seated himself at Ricci’s computer. Nora nodded and stood in the doorway, watching both the office and the hallway at the same time. Riordan drew a thumb drive from his interior coat pocket and slid it into one of the computer’s ports. The drive was loaded with malware designed to bypass computer password protection and encryption, another toy illegal for anyone but Homeland Security to possess. The programs on the drive could be blocked, but only with specialized software and knowledge, and Riordan was betting that Ricci hadn’t bothered.

His guess proved right. The malware unlocked the computer in about two minutes, and Ricci’s desktop appeared. Riordan pulled up the accounting program and opened the books for Ricci Food Services, looking at the orderly rows of invoices, payments, and expenses.

Part of his mind noted that Nadia would have gotten in and out of the building with the information already. She had a talent for this kind of covert work, a talent enhanced to a razor edge by Morvilind’s brutal training and her own harsh experiences. For that matter, she had mastered the Cloak and Mask spells to a degree that virtually no humans and only a few Elves had ever done, and that turned her from a master thief and into a ghost. There were very few secured facilities where she could not simply stroll inside, take what she wanted, and vanish again without leaving any trace that she had ever been there.

A talent nearly unmatched anywhere in the world.

No wonder the High Queen had recruited her. That kind of power would be a threat to Tarlia anywhere except under her direct control. But the High Queen was far more devious than Morvilind had been. Morvilind had ruled his shadow agents through force and fear. Tarlia had healed Nadia’s brother and given Russell the exclusive license to import fruit from Kalvarion. The stick was still there, of course – but Tarlia covered it with a generous carrot.

Riordan pushed the thought aside as unproductive. Nadia wasn’t here, though he could never quite put aside his worries for her. The worry came with loving a woman, especially one who had already suffered as much as Nadia had.

Besides, while Nadia might have been the best at this sort of covert work, Riordan was still pretty good at it.

They had found only two of the four pages of the invoice in Ricci’s warehouse, but Riordan located the complete document in the accounting program.

“Got it,” he said with satisfaction.

“You do?” said Nora.

“In August, Ricci bought the Summoning Codex, several other antique books, and some paintings from a store called Songstress Books & Antiques in Queens,” said Riordan. “Songstress Books. That would be the SONGB from the RFID tag. It must be the code for their inventory system.”

“Hell,” said Nora. “I’d never have guessed that.”

Riordan drew out his phone, opened the web browser, and searched for Songstress Books & Antiques. He found its web page at once, a minimal site that looked like a standard template with the basic business information filled out. The site claimed that Songstress Books & Antiques was owned by a man named Anthony Watkins. The description included a picture of Watkins, a white-haired, white-bearded man with a belligerent glower. Riordan was suddenly struck by a recollection of his youth in rural Texas, of small-town business owners who got annoyed when customers actually had the temerity to come into the shop.

“That’s our next stop?” said Nora.

“Yeah,” said Riordan. He closed the accounting program and removed the thumb drive. Ricci’s computer locked itself, and there would be no trace that Riordan had ever been there.

Nora shook her head and stepped to the side as Riordan closed and locked the office door behind him. “We’re going to wind up driving in a circle through New York today, aren’t we?”

“Like tourists, but with more guns,” said Riordan.

He led the way down the corridor and the stairs to the alley. Nora closed the door behind her, and Riordan shot a quick look to the left and the right. The alley was still deserted, and no one seemed to have noticed their presence.

“This…” started Nora.

The attack came with blinding speed.

The gray clouds had gotten heavier, and the early afternoon light was dim and bleary. It looked like it was going to start raining at any minute. Yet it wasn’t a misty day, which meant that the thick current of mist that flowed across the ground was out of place. Puzzlement gripped Riordan for a moment, and then his mind recognized the sight.

“Wraithwolves!” he shouted, extending his right hand.

Even as the word left his mouth, the ribbon of mist hardened into a wraithwolf.

The wraithwolf was big, nearly the size of a pony, its body covered by bony plates of black armor. Its eyes burned like dying coals, and the wraithwolf lunged at Riordan, its jaws opening wide. The jaws of a wraithwolf could bite through a steel pipe without any difficulty whatsoever. Riordan’s flesh and bone would not slow it down in the slightest.

Fortunately, he was ready.

He called his Shadowmorph, and the symbiont manifested itself as a sword of dark force, so black it seemed like a hole cut into the air. Riordan lunged, and the dark sword stabbed into the wraithwolf’s yawning jaws and slashed into its brain. The creature shuddered, its claws scraping against the asphalt, and then went limp.

Nora’s grunt of effort came to his ears, and Riordan whirled just in time to see her attack a second wraithwolf. Her Shadowmorph blade slashed through its head and into its chest, and the wraithwolf went motionless. She lifted her blade and turned, seeking more creatures, but there were none left.

Riordan looked back and forth, feeling the strength pour into him. His Shadowmorph had fed on the life force of the slain wraithwolf and transferred some of that energy to him as strength and stamina. It was a euphoric feeling and could become addictive. Which was one of the reasons why so few potential Shadow Hunters ever survived the Test. If a Shadow Hunter let himself become addicted to stolen life force, murderous madness quickly followed.

As he had seen firsthand with Sasha.

Nothing else moved in the alley, and Riordan dismissed his Shadowmorph blade.

“What the hell?” said Nora. “Where did they come from?”

“I don’t know,” said Riordan, looking at the dead wraithwolves. “Help me get them out of sight. That will keep anyone from stumbling across them until the bodies dissolve.”

Nora nodded and dismissed her own blade, and together they dragged the first wraithwolf behind the nearby dumpster. Riordan supposed the sight of a man in a suit and a woman in a skirt and high heels dragging the carcass of a dead wraithwolf was a strange one, but fortunately, there was no one around to see it.

“They must have been left over from Ricci’s warehouse,” said Nora, straightening up with a grunt after they dragged the second wraithwolf behind the dumpster. “Or maybe from the Sky Hammer battle.”

“No,” said Riordan. “Why did they only attack us after we entered Ricci’s building? We were standing in front of the door for a couple of minutes while I was using the lockpick gun. That would have been a perfect time to attack.”

Nora frowned. “You think they were looking for us?”

“I think they were guarding the building,” said Riordan. “I think whoever summoned the wraithwolves set them to watch Ricci’s restaurant and to attack anyone leaving the RFS offices.”

Nora let out a long breath. “Hell. Then Ricci wasn’t the only summoner.”

“Either we missed one of the members of his little cult,” said Riordan, “or he has a rival.”

“I think we had better head to this Songstress Books & Antiques place and have a friendly little chat with Anthony Watkins,” said Nora.

“I agree completely,” said Riordan, and they headed back to the SUV.

***