The Twisted Path, a Twenty Palaces Novella Read online

  The Twisted Path

  Harry Connolly

  Copyright © 2017 Harry Connolly

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover photo copyright © 2015 MaryAnn Kuchera

  Cover design by Harry Connolly V

  ALSO BY HARRY CONNOLLY

  The Twenty Palaces Series:

  Twenty Palaces

  Child of Fire

  Game of Cages

  Circle of Enemies

  The Great Way Trilogy:

  The Way into Chaos

  The Way into Magic

  The Way into Darkness

  Standalone Works:

  A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark

  Bad Little Girls Die Horrible Deaths,

  and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy

  Spirit of the Century Presents: King Khan

  For every fan of Ray and Annalise.

  Thank you.

  After:

  I laid my clammy, sweating hand on the door lever and pushed. It was a good door, made of dark wood with a tight grain that suggested strength born of tough years. The door’s recessed panels were like windows without panes and the lever was the color of gold…or maybe it was actual gold. I had no way to tell.

  Be casual. I stepped through and let the door swing shut on the leather chairs and plush carpeting of that room. The hall was as bleak and depressing as an old high school but more cramped. The floor was bare concrete, pitted and stained by decades of neglect. The ceiling was coated with something that looked like it had been chewed by wasps.

  Along one wall were more doors, each as fancy as the one I’d just walked through. The other side held the sole source of light: large, clouded windows that let in the afternoon sun without letting anyone see in or out.

  I was inside the First Palace, headquarters of the Twenty Palace Society, and I was in trouble.

  Standing midway down the hall, staring at the glass as though she had X-ray vision, was Annalise, my boss. One of the peers of the society, she’d brought me in under complicated circumstances, and she’d cast most of the spells currently tattooed onto my body.

  Whatever power they gave me, hers dwarfed it.

  She glanced at me as I approached, then turned back toward the window. A crack in the sill let in a shaft of daylight, and I stood beside her for a moment, watching sunlight shine into the room and swirling dust motes get sucked out.

  “Boss,” I said, “we should get the fuck out of here. I’m pretty sure you have a predator inside the society.”

  Before:

  There’s a guy out there in the world with the same name as me, and he’s a real asshole. He’s broken into houses, burned down buildings and killed people. He’s killed a lot of people.

  Every time a cop runs my ID, the asshole’s name pops up, and I end up looking down the barrel of a gun. Once everything gets straightened out, it’s all Sorry, Mr. Lilly, but I’m sure you understand. And I do. I really do. The guy they confuse me with has done terrible shit.

  Then they look me over one more time. They look over my boss. They check out our tattoos, her ragged clothes, and the expressions on our faces. They have second thoughts. For a moment or two, anyway. Could it really be a mixup? Finally, they shake their heads and walk away.

  So far, none of them have pulled the trigger. So far.

  But if one of those cops does, finally, put a bullet in my brain, I can’t exactly say it’d be unfair. That asshole with my name who’s done all those shitty things? That’s me.

  My name is Raymond Lilly, and I’m on the twisted path.

  And according to Annalise, the next step on that path was to get on an international flight. Somehow.

  But first Annalise wanted to see Atlanta again, so Atlanta it was. I didn’t mind. I liked driving, and the long hours spent riding from LA to the east coast—not including the little job we did in Vegas—was my idea of relaxation. It was a chance to get my head straight.

  I needed it. Like I said, I’ve killed people. Some were friends.

  We parked her van in the garage of a little house on the outskirts of Macon sometime before midnight. The place smelled as though the windows had been shuttered for months, but if it bothered Annalise, she didn’t show it. We took turns showering. The back bedroom had a suitcase full of clothes in my size. Somebody in the society knew my inseam, which was creepy as hell. In the morning, we rode a Greyhound to Atlanta. My boss retrieved an envelope from a bus terminal locker and we took a cab to the airport.

  The envelope contained a pair of passports. Annalise looked at me, looked at the cabbie, then looked at me again. I got the message: Take this and shut the fuck up.

  The birthday was the same as mine but the address was local to Macon. I memorized it. The name was Raymond Rose. I hated it.

  It was worth twenty-five years of federal time to get busted with a fake passport, but the society’s fake paper passed scrutiny. We flew to New York, then London, then Lisbon in the fading day.

  Apparently, the other peers of the Twenty Palace Society wanted a look at me. And when they snapped their fingers, I hopped.

  From the air, Lisbon looked like a sprawl of orange roofs atop white walls, but from the ground, it looked like any other city at night. Except for the fucking sidewalks.

  We spent the night in the Hotel Roma, which didn’t look all that Roman but what the hell. The bed was huge but Annalise pointed me at the couch. At five foot nothing, she could have fit on the couch easily, but she was the boss and I was the one laying cushions on the floor.

  When I woke, I went onto the green-tiled balcony and looked at the city in the morning light.

  Fucking Europe, man.

  Two years ago, I was an ex-con from LA, a former runaway trying to put a life of stealing cars behind me. Even before I met Annalise, I was the sort of idiot who didn’t expect to live to thirty. I never thought of myself as a guy who would go to Europe.

  And maybe I hadn’t. Raymond Rose was standing in a hotel in Portugal, not Ray Lilly.

  We left the hotel without breakfast. In the daylight, the city looked a little less like the cities I was used to. It was disorienting to see all the store and street signs in Portuguese. Every jumble of letters was like a lock I couldn’t pick. I wondered if it had been like this for Fidel Robles’s parents when they snuck into California on the back of a truck.

  Poor Robbie. I missed him. He’d tried to murder me, but I missed him.

  Annalise walked like she knew where she was going, so I tagged along. For once, I was glad she didn’t expect me to drive, not when every traffic sign was like a secret code.

  I had no idea where we were going, and not too long ago, that would have annoyed the shit out of me. Annalise wasn’t the type to explain herself. I used to think it was because she hated me—and she did, once—but now I suspected it was because she’d spent so many years operating in secret that it would never occur to her to talk about her plans. Even something like Let’s grab a sandwich at this place I like would feel like a dangerous habit.

  After a little less than half an hour, we turned off the street and climbed a flight of worn stone steps. So many people had stepped in this same place that they had reshaped square-edged granite—or whatever these stairs were made of—into something that looked like melting butter. My boots were scraping a thin layer of molecules off the top, just like thousands of others before me. It made me feel small and temporary, and I guess that was the poin
t.

  “This is an English-language bookstore,” Annalise said as we reached the top step and turned a corner. “Which is a fine excuse for visitors from different countries to stay a long time.”

  Except the shop was closed. Maybe we should have walked slower.

  A smiling man pushed off from the wall and came toward us. “You are here! I have been waiting. I waited yesterday, too, but—”

  “Fuck off,” Annalise said.

  “Please!” he said, clasping his hands like a beggar. “Just hear me out. This is a perfect job for you. Very dangerous people.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you?” Annalise said. “You know who to call.”

  “I have called!” He was distressed but still smiling. “I promise you.”

  Then he turned his attention to me.

  I turned up my palms. “Talk to my boss.”

  He waved his hand as though clearing away a bad odor. “Yes, yes. A wooden man, correct? I know who you are. Many people are learning your name.”

  I didn’t like that, but I did like him. There was no reason for it, but I did. He was a few inches shorter than me, and slender, with dark hair and a generically handsome face. His smile was broad and gave every appearance of being genuine.

  But there was a tiny black sigil at the corner of his left eye. I didn’t know enough about magic to know what it did just by looking at it, but I could feel a slight pressure against the protective iron gate spell below my collarbone. Maybe it was some sort of charm spell, but if so, it was weak.

  “How do you like Lisboa so far?” He pronounced it Lish-boo-uh. “Have you toured the castle? Seen the tile work? What do you think?”

  “Mixed signals,” I answered. He seemed surprised, so I pointed down the length of the street. “Take a look. It’s street, curb, sidewalk, buildings. Like, a wall of buildings three stories high that come right up to the edge of the sidewalk. No space in between them. No alleys behind. Just one huge thing that stretches from one end of the block to the other. The whole city looks like this so far. The shops, the apartment buildings—that one across the street that looks abandoned—it’s everywhere. With graffiti.

  “In some parts of the US, that’s how poor people live. Boxy apartment buildings with shit spray-painted on the side… Poor people. But then I look around. Everyone coming out the front doors is dressed for office work.” I nodded toward a man in a blue suit. “Briefcases.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I lived two years in Colorado. Americans like lawns. And distance from each other. Quite different.”

  “And these sidewalks.” I looked down. Instead of the American idea of a sidewalk—smooth ribbons of cement with evenly spaced grooves—we were standing on little yellow diamond-shaped stones—all identical—with narrow gaps between them. This sidewalk didn’t crack and buckle. It sagged and rolled like an ocean frozen in time. I hated it without any real idea why I should. “This is everywhere. And it’s clear this is part of the culture, right? Part of the history. It’s probably expensive.”

  “Calçada, it is called. In some places, it is like a mosaic. Very traditional and beautiful.”

  “Where I come from, sidewalks are only uneven like this because of neglect. That, again, suggests this is a place for the poor, but again, it’s not.”

  “Mixed signals. It’s true! Things are different here, but there are many beautiful… How about this: I will show you Lisboa. You and your peer both, perhaps. The beautiful old buildings, the shopping, the cruise ships. Americans like to see old places, don’t they? Tiles, plazas, the castle…all of it. Ancient churches. Great shopping. All I ask is that we talk about a predator”—he said the last word at a whisper—“that the society has overlooked. Take my card and text me. You will not regret it.”

  I accepted his card. The only thing on it that I could read was his number.

  He glanced at the black marks on the backs of my hands. They looked like random shapes but in fact they were spells, like my iron gate and twisted path. “I will expect to hear from you,” the guy said as he retreated down to the stairs, “tomorrow. Or tonight! Please, this is too important to miss!”

  At this point, the lights in the store switched on and a middle-aged woman moved about inside, but she didn’t turn the lock on the door. I tried to peer in to see what was on the shelves. I’d bought a paperback in Hartsfield in Atlanta and I needed a new one.

  Annalise was watching me. “Are you going to call him?”

  “I don’t know. What the fuck was he talking about? Shopping?”

  “Tourists like to shop, Ray.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” The last time I took a trip for fun was years ago, before I went to prison for the first time. I’d gone for girls and drinks, not commemorative mugs or fridge magnets. “But it sounds like he has a job for us.” Annalise rolled her eyes. “That guy’s an ally, isn’t he?”

  The Twenty Palace Society divided spellcasters into three categories. First there were the rogues, people who cast dangerous magic—especially summoning magic. They were a threat to every living thing on earth, down to the smallest flu germ. In other words: assholes.

  Then there were the peers of the society, like Annalise, who hunted them down. But even though the peers fought to protect all of us, you couldn’t really call them “good guys.” Their job was killing, and they weren’t super careful about it. That made them a better class of asshole, but still assholes.

  Finally, there were the allies, low-level spellcasters who abided by the society’s rules and helped out on occasion, but who didn’t have the power or temperament to be full peers. As long as they did as they were told, they were allowed to live.

  I’d never met an ally before, so it was too early to tell what grade asshole this guy was.

  Annalise glanced up at me, then checked to see who was near enough to hear. “Yeah, he’s an ally. He’s also a fucking pest. Are you going to meet him?”

  “I can’t read anything on this card except the number. I don’t even know his name.”

  “Let me see.” I handed it to her. “See this? This is his name.” The text she pointed to said JOÃO FONTE COSTA. “That first name is the Portuguese version of John. If you pronounce it shoo-ow, you’ll be close enough to flatter a guy like him.”

  The woman in the shop threw back the deadbolt and switched the sign to open. We filed in. The shopkeeper must have known my boss pretty well, because she didn’t make an effort to be pleasant.

  It was a small shop, which was not a surprise. I tried to move toward the mystery section to replace my airport book, but Annalise caught my elbow and led me toward a circular staircase. It led down.

  Annalise had black marks on her skin too—lots of them—and they were more powerful than mine. I’d seen her tear car doors off their hinges. I’d seen bullets bounce off her skin. Her grip on my arm was like a steel handcuff and I let myself be shoved toward the stairs.

  I had to do what I was told too.

  Annalise was a vigilante, but not the kind you find in comic books. She killed rogues and dealt with the predators they summoned. We met when she was hunting an old friend of mine. Some asshole had summoned up a predator and put it into him. I did everything I could to save my friend, but in the end, I had to help her put him down.

  Now she was my boss, and the two of us have been traveling the western US, chasing down bad magic. From what she told me, we’d been successful enough that people were starting to notice.

  Actually, what they’d noticed was me. As Annalise’s assistant—her wooden man—I’m supposed to have the lifespan of a fruit fly. The peers of the society don’t know how I could survive so many jobs, and I dragged my ass across the Atlantic so they could ask me in person.

  It was a long way to travel to meet a bunch of assholes I was pretty sure I’d hate.

  At the bottom of the circular stair was a comfortable little room with a cheap foam couch and a pressure-board bookshelf. Annalise slid the shelf aside. There was a keyp
ad on the wall. She looked at me. I turned my back while she entered the code.

  She may not have wanted to kill me anymore, but she still didn’t trust me. I doubted she trusted anyone. She was smart like that.

  A latch released and hinges creaked. I turned and saw a stone tunnel with an arched roof.

  I followed her inside. She pulled the door shut. The air was damp and smelled musty as hell. The walls were slick with nasty-looking water, and I wouldn’t have touched them for a hundred bucks. Still: a secret passageway. “This is fucking cool.”

  “Ray, I want you to meet with the pest. Find out about this job he’s supposed to have, and the predator, too. Assuming the peers don’t murder you.”

  After:

  João wanted to meet the next morning in a cafe across the city. Since I wasn’t planning to return to the First Palace, I ate breakfast in the basement of the hotel, which was a buffet of industrial scrambled eggs, Vienna sausages, and two dozen different kinds of baked good. Afterward, Annalise pressed a few colorful bills into my hands and told me she was keeping the hotel room, but that I wasn’t to let anyone follow me there. She also told me to keep my fucking mouth shut about the society and the unhappy conversation we’d had yesterday in the hall.

  Finding the cafe was more difficult than I expected, even with João’s directions. The street and place names looked like a jumble of random letters and wouldn’t stay in my memory. Worse, I had no sense of the way the city was laid out.

  Luckily, random people were kind enough to help me buy a subway pass out of a machine, then they pointed me at the train I needed. I stood in the crowded rush-hour car, watching the names of the stations appearing on the digital display. I tried to guess how the automated announcer would pronounce them, but I was wrong every time.