Game of Cages Read online

  I felt goose bumps run down my neck. The night sky above me was empty, as far as I could see. It gave me the willies to think that the predator might have been above us all along.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I think I don’t want this thing to swoop down on me.”

  “I meant what do you think we should do next.”

  Was this another test? I looked around. By the starlight, I could see trees, underbrush, uneven ground, and far, far down the slope ahead I saw a single burning bluish streetlight. I reminded myself that I was here with an investigator. A peer would have hunted the predator to kill it—a single predator on the loose could, in the long run, lead to the extinction of life on this planet. Investigators, though, collected information for the peers.

  Who would be getting here soon. I hoped.

  “Well,” I said, shrugging, “there’s nothing to be learned wandering around out here. And I definitely don’t want to come up on those gunmen by accident. I say we should check out the house.”

  She half smiled, then led the way back up the slope. For a brief moment I thought the four dead men were gone, having been carried off into the night sky by whatever we were following, or even worse, having gotten up and shambled off. Then I saw that they were just a little farther away than I’d thought.

  No one had come to check on the cars. Catherine didn’t want to drive her Acura any closer to the house, and I agreed. A strange car pulling up at this time of night would attract the worst sort of attention.

  Catherine insisted we hike along the driveway rather than take the direct route across the estate, and after a half mile I was glad of it. The slope was not as smooth as it had appeared. We kept to the shoulder, watching ahead and behind for headlights. We were ready to dive into the trees at the first sign of a car, but none came.

  We rounded a curve in the road and saw the house up close.

  I’d certainly seen bigger. In L.A., all you have to do is drive along a freeway and look up; huge houses are scattered on the hillsides. But this house was huge and isolated and completely out of place. It was three stories tall, with a high, slanted roof and tall, narrow, arched windows like a church. It had chimneys like a porcupine had quills, and I couldn’t imagine the kind of person who would look around at this isolated patch of rain forest and decide it was the place to build a mansion.

  There was a garland in the front windows and nets of tiny multicolored lights draped over the bushes along the front. Someone had made the effort.

  We ducked off the road into the trees, pushing our way through scattered blackberry bushes and scraggly ferns.

  The grounds around the front had been cleared, and the road had been widened into a little parking lot with a wide section at the end, probably to give delivery trucks room to turn around. At the moment, the lot was filled with cars, all pointed toward the gate. I saw another BMW to match the one by the truck, a pair of black Yukons, a black Mercedes, and finally a Passat, of all things. At the far end of the lot the asphalt narrowed again into a path leading to a multicar garage.

  I stared at the cars, searching for movement or a human shape inside. The X6 had to-go coffee lids on the dash, and the Yukons had bright red-and-white cards in the front windows, but otherwise they were empty.

  I moved close to Catherine. “Do we circle around?”

  “To where?” She pointed toward the near side of the house, where there were twenty-five yards of lawn separating the tree line from the building. There appeared to be even more space around back. “Do you see any people?”

  “Yeah.” I pointed toward the door, where a man in a heavy wool coat and a furry Russian hat stood just out of the porch light. I thought he was dressed too warmly for the weather, but I’d been jogging up a long hill and he’d been standing around. Still, bulky coats made me nervous.

  “Crap.” Catherine pulled me back from the edge of the hill to a stand of trees. When we were out of sight, she let go of me quickly, as if she was afraid I’d take it as a gesture of friendship. “We need photos of the license plates.”

  “What if they’re all rentals, like the one down the hill?”

  “I still want them,” she said. “But what’s more, I don’t want to kill anyone. Not everyone we meet is going to be part of some plot to bring predators here to eat our spleens, and I would like to kill as few of them as possible. Can we agree on that?”

  I stared at her. Had the society told her what I’d done? I felt a sudden flush of shame, but not for the people I’d killed. I hadn’t killed any innocent bystanders. At least, I didn’t think I had. Annalise may not have cared about collateral damage, but I had been more careful.

  But I still felt ashamed, because I knew the society was, at the core, vigilantes. I believed they had good reason for doing what they did, but their day-to-day work was finding people and killing them.

  And not only had I taken part, I’d been eager to drop everything to come on this job, eager for the adrenaline rush, and I couldn’t honestly say I didn’t know what we’d be doing.

  And I liked Catherine. Her heart and her head were in the right place, and if she was a little weird and distant with me, well, she was right to be.

  “Agreed,” I said. Standing still in this wind was giving me chills. “Around the side?”

  “Not this side,” she said. “I’d rather enter from the garage, in case there are more plates to photograph there.”

  We circled around the property. The ground near the garage was thick with trees and brambles, which gave us more cover but also slowed us down. And we made more noise than I would have liked. There didn’t seem to be anyone to notice.

  We moved toward the side of the garage. There were no footprints in the mud. There was a single window in the wall, but it was dark. I hoped no one was inside, watching us approach.

  The backyard was even larger and more open than the front. The ground still sloped upward, but it was mostly a gentle rise. A bungalow sat well away from the house, in the middle of the meadow. Heavy black power lines ran out to it from the main building.

  A guesthouse for a home this large? Maybe there was no such thing as “big enough” for some people.

  I led the way toward the back door of the garage. More than one trail of footprints went back and forth from the house, so I couldn’t tell if someone was inside. Fair enough. I turned the knob and pulled the door open.

  Very little light shone through the dirty windows, leaving the inside nearly pitch-black. Catherine handed me her flashlight, and I flicked it on. There were four cars parked here, all packed close. Right beside me was a fifteen-year-old Civic hatchback. Next to that was a white Audi SUV, a Q7, with tinted windows, then a long black Fleetwood—maybe a ’54, but I’m not an expert on vintage cars. Beyond that was a modern sedan, but all I could see was the line of the roof and back windshield. Huh. Maybe the Civic belonged to a servant.

  Catherine took a camera from her bag. She focused on the license plate of the Civic. A little orange light illuminated the back bumper, and she snapped a photo. The flash lit up the room.

  I moved away from her, wishing she had waited—maybe the windows had curtains I could draw or something. I understood her urgency, though. The predator, whatever it was, was on the loose.

  She went around the car to snap a photo of the front plate, too. I walked to the far end of the room. The sedan was a BMW 745i. All of the cars were empty, thank God. There were garden tools along the walls and ladders, canoes, and ski equipment up in the rafters.

  Meanwhile, Catherine snapped the front and back plates of the Audi. I crouched beside the BMW to cut the fuel lines. If we had to run, it would be a huge help if the cars were disabled.

  The back door clicked open. I dropped to the floor.

  “Um, excuse me?” a man said. His voice was high-pitched and gentle. “Who is in here?”

  “Nothing’s getting stolen!” Catherine said, taking an angry tone. The change in her personality was startling. �
�I just have a job to do, so you go ahead and go back where you came from.” She sounded so offended that I half expected him to apologize, but he didn’t.

  “Ma’am, I have to ask you to look at my hands.”

  Catherine’s voice became low. “You put that gun away.”

  “Ma’am,” he said, his voice just as gentle, “I purchased this weapon not knowing whether I would have the chance to use it. Frankly, I find the prospect thrilling.”

  “Now, you just wait a minute …” Catherine sounded less sure of herself.

  I lifted myself off the floor and shifted position, peering under the fender. All I could see of him was a pair of khaki pant legs tucked into rubber boots. This guy wasn’t with the Asian men we’d found out on the hillside, not in that footwear.

  “I will not wait,” he said. His voice was still high and soft, but there was a breath of excitement in it. “If you don’t do exactly as I say, I will shoot you right now. Then I will drag your body into the woods. No one on the premises will care except me, and I will only feel the secret satisfaction of knowing exactly what I am capable of.”

  “Whoa, now,” Catherine said. “I’m unarmed! The Times sent me.”

  “Put the camera down,” the man said. I heard something being set gently on the trunk of the car. “Turn around.”

  It wasn’t doing any good to look at this guy’s shoes. I kept my feet in place to avoid scuffling against the concrete floor and walked my hands backward until I was in a crouch. I peeked through the windows of the BMW and the Cadillac. Catherine was moving very slowly. Behind her, I saw a man in an orange parka so thick it looked like it had been inflated.

  I took out my ghost knife and held it across my body like a Frisbee. “I’m a journalist,” Catherine said. “That’s all. No need to freak out. I’m just a woman doing a job.”

  The man leaned her against the back of the SUV the way a cop would, but he didn’t make her spread her stance. He stepped forward and patted her down, moving behind the blind spot by the Cadillac’s back window.

  Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a pair of handcuffs.

  “You’re not putting those on me,” Catherine said, her voice rising in panic.

  “Stay calm,” the man whispered.

  “You’re not putting those on me!”

  I had to step in whether I was ready or not. I stood. The man in the orange coat started to turn toward me as I threw my ghost knife. He raised his pistol. At the last moment, the ghost knife swerved into it, cutting through the metal and the gunman’s hand.

  He gasped and staggered against the wall. Tools rattled as he bumped into them. The pieces of the gun fell to the floor. I reached for the ghost knife again, calling it back to me. It flew into my hand as I came around the back of the BMW. Before I could get there, Catherine spun and hit him with an elbow just below his ear.

  The man staggered but didn’t fall. I hissed at Catherine to make her stop. She did. A moment later I was beside the man, examining his hand. As usual, there were no cuts or blood—the ghost knife hadn’t cut him physically.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. His high, soft voice was full of regret. “Holding that weapon—I should never have let that power go to my head. How awful for you, ma’am.”

  Good. The ghost knife had done its job. All his hostility and willpower had been cut out of him. The effect was only temporary, but there was a lot I didn’t know about it—such as whether a beating would bring him back to himself.

  “I’m tremendously sorry,” he said again.

  Catherine looked at me in disbelief. She shifted her stance, bumping something metal with her foot. I shined the flashlight on it, confirming that it was half of the gun. It looked like an old .45. She stared at it, then back at me. Guess she had never seen a ghost knife at work before.

  “You can make it right,” I told the man. “Start by lying down and spreading your arms. And tell me your name.”

  “Okay,” he said as he did it. He didn’t even sound afraid. Only contrite. “My name is Mr. Alex.”

  I searched him. His wallet gave his full name as Horace Alex and listed an address in New York State. He was a long way from home. He had keys to a rental car, house keys, a small backup gun, a fat Swiss Army knife, a cellphone, a little paperback book written by somebody named Zola, a spare clip for his .45, and a pack of gum. I dropped all of it into a plastic bucket.

  He wasn’t local, and he certainly wasn’t working for the man with the Maybach. Now it was time to find out who he was.

  “What are you doing here, Horace?” Damn if I was going to call this guy Mr. anything.

  “I saw the camera flash and came to investigate.”

  “Why are you here, though, so far from home?”

  “Several of the Fellows put together a kitty for the auction, but it wasn’t enough.” The way he said Fellows made it sound like a title, not a group of friends. “The bidding topped forty-two million very quickly, and we were left behind.”

  Catherine leaned down toward him. “What were you bidding on?” Her manner had changed again. Her voice was low and friendly, and her body language mirrored Horace’s. She had become a different person.

  “Some sort of creature from the Deeps. Only Professor Solorov was allowed to go up the hill to see it.”

  “The professor’s full name?”

  “Elisabeta Solorov.”

  “What about the other bidders?” Her voice was soft; it invited answers.

  “I’m sorry, but there were no introductions, formal or otherwise. There was a Chinese fellow who spoke Cantonese. He won the auction and left a short while ago. There was also a fat, scruffy-looking Silicon Valley man who looked completely out of place. Finally, there was an extremely unpleasant old man who spoke German. That’s all I know about them.”

  “Why didn’t you leave when the auction winner left?” I asked.

  “The rules state he gets a two-hour head start, then the rest of us can go.”

  “Does anyone know you’ve come in here?”

  “No.”

  Catherine wasn’t finished with him. “Did you hear anything about the creature? Was it big, small, furry, scaly?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Professor Solorov will certainly tell us about it privately, but we haven’t had a private moment yet.”

  “Fair enough. How many people are inside?”

  Horace turned thoughtful. “Each bidder was supposed to come with no more than five people, but our party consisted of seven. Several Fellows refused to contribute to the kitty if they couldn’t come along. I thought it was bad form to bring so many, but the gentleman from Hong Kong brought twelve. The German brought only two employees, and the fat Californian brought a single bodyguard. The hostess has only one servant that I saw and, of course, the handler. Plus the hired security men in those brown uniforms.”

  Catherine and I looked at each other. We hadn’t seen any security. If we didn’t count uniformed guards or the winning bidder, there were fourteen people, with the possibility of more servants. Great. I didn’t care how big the house was, that was too many people for us to go wandering around the grounds. Someone was bound to look out a window and spot us.

  I picked up the handcuffs. Catherine put her hand near my elbow but didn’t touch me. “How did you find out about this auction?”

  “Professor Solorov met with a man while she was in Los Angeles. Not the fat Silicon Valley person. He told her about the auction, and she brought the news to us. We were very excited. Forty-two million dollars is a lot of money for our group. Too bad it wasn’t enough.”

  “What group?” Catherine asked.

  “We call each other ‘Fellows’ but don’t have a name,” Horace answered. “We don’t even have a charter. We’re a social group with a common interest.”

  “Interest in what?” Catherine asked before I could jump in with the most likely guess.

  “Magic.”

  That would have been my guess. Before I could respond, Catherin
e asked another question. “Do you have spell books? Artifacts?”

  She was deliberately blocking my questions. What the hell. She was the investigator. I backed off to let her do her thing.

  “No,” Horace answered. “None. All we ever do is read magic theory and case reports. None of us have seen a creature of the Deeps, and we certainly haven’t done any magic.”

  “Theory? What books?”

  Horace began to recite a long list of titles. I couldn’t follow them, but Catherine seemed intensely interested. She had her cellphone in hand. She was probably recording him. “There are some others I’m forgetting,” he finally said.

  Catherine asked where the books were kept, and he gave an address in a town I hadn’t heard of. Then, at her request, he listed the other Fellows. They were just names to me, and I couldn’t remember them.

  When that was over, I looked at Catherine to see if she was finished. She only shrugged. “Okay, Horace,” I said. “On your feet.” I lifted him and handcuffed him behind his back.

  The rear door of the Caddy was unlocked, and the seat was spacious. I loaded Horace inside, then emptied his backup revolver and tossed it into the nose of a canoe in the rafters. I slid the tip of the ghost knife through his ankle and told him to get some sleep. He thanked me and closed his eyes.

  When I turned away from him, Catherine was standing very close. “What do you have there?”

  I slipped the ghost knife into my pocket. “A spell.”

  “It made him answer all our questions. He didn’t hesitate at all.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He also didn’t want to kill us anymore.”

  She laughed a little. “That’s a good thing, too. Okay. I think you should give that to me.” She held out her hand.

  “Um, what?”

  “That spell. You should give it to me and show me how it works. I’m the investigator here, and that thing could really help me with my job.”

  “This is my spell,” I said. “I cast it.”

  “I understand.” She didn’t pull back her open palm. “But you can see that this would be for the best.”

  I was surprised that she would even ask this of me. “It’s my spell,” I said again with more emphasis. “I cast it myself. It’s pretty much a part of me. You might as well ask for my thumb.”