Child of Fire: A Twenty Palaces Novel Read online

  And those spells had come from Annalise. I wondered if she could sense them-and me-the way I could sense the ghost knife. I also wondered if my tattoos had been as painful for her to cast as my ghost knife had been for me. When I’d created the ghost knife, channeling all the energy needed to power it had been like dousing myself with gasoline and setting myself on fire.

  It was possible that I’d cast the spell incorrectly, but what if I hadn’t? Annalise might have had to go through that same pain when she’d put these marks on me, and when she created each of the ribbons she carried. I didn’t want to think about that.

  Her abilities went beyond the marks though. Her strength was incredible, and she could heal herself by eating meat, the more raw the better. She also wore that vest full of spells, which was probably back in her room with the fireman’s jacket.

  I wondered what effect all those spells had on her. Was she still human? Would she still be human even if her body changed into something monstrous, as long as she thought like a human? I wondered how much her quest to hunt down and destroy dangerous magic had changed her. I wondered how it would change me, before she put an end to me.

  Of course, the only reason my mind was wandering this way was because I had no one to talk to. Annalise sawed at her food and shoveled it into her mouth, one bite after the other.

  The silence became annoying. I asked Annalise why Harlan was the only one who remembered his kids. She didn’t answer. She didn’t even look up from her plate. I asked her if she thought we’d find someone else like Harlan in town. No answer. I asked her where she grew up.

  She stopped eating and looked up at me. It was not a friendly look. Fine. I dropped the subject. I got a Seattle newspaper off the rack and began to read it.

  Hammer Bay was too far away from the city for Harlan’s shooting to make the paper, but surprise surprise, I found a small mention of me in the local news section.

  It was strange to read about myself in the newspaper. It was like being in a crowded room where everyone else suddenly sat down but I didn’t have a chair. I felt exposed. Maybe that was absurd, but that’s how it felt.

  The article was on the fourth page, and it was barely one and a half column inches. It said, simply and quickly, that Raymond Lilly, convicted felon, had been released from police custody in the matter of the several slayings, followed by a list of the dead. It was quite a laundry list of names. The official reason given for my release was insufficient evidence to charge me with murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking, assault and battery, and breaking and entering. They left out grand theft auto and discharging a weapon within city limits. Maybe they’d been short on space.

  What the article didn’t mention was that certain prominent local citizens claimed that I had saved their lives while those crimes were being committed. It also glossed over the forensics reports that stated the people I had supposedly killed seemed to have been dead for days or weeks before they met me.

  I looked over the list of names again. Some were strangers to me, but there were several I had known all too well. It still made me heartsick to think about them, even after all these months.

  Irena’s name wasn’t on the list. I wondered if her body had been tidied away by the society, and I wondered if they would do that for me when my time came. Would people think I’d left the country or changed my identity? I didn’t have much in the way of family or friends anymore, but I had an aunt who’d opened her home to me when no one else would. I’d hate for her to think I wasn’t grateful or wanted nothing to do with her.

  Annalise finished her meal. I showed her the article, but she didn’t care. I finished my breakfast while she paid the bill. I didn’t feel like eating anymore, but I’d need the fuel later.

  We got back into the van, and Annalise handed me a slip of paper with an address on it. I consulted the ridiculous tourist map and saw that it was near the toy factory.

  We drove there through the mist and drizzle, and I realized that it was the toy factory.

  The factory was actually two buildings. The first was a glass office building, four stories high, with curves instead of corners. If it had been in a corporate campus or an urban downtown, and if it had been ten stories taller, it might have seemed sleek and prosperous. Here it looked rinky-dink.

  The second building was an old warehouse. It stretched from the edge of the office building toward a thick stand of pines and a steep slope that could have been the outer reaches of the Olympic Mountains. The warehouse was three stories tall, although I doubted there were actually floors inside. It was ringed with cars, mostly new, inexpensive models-Kias, Hyundais, that sort of thing.

  There was no guard at the entrance to the campus. I pulled in and found a space at the west end of the lot.

  I climbed out. The ocean lay before me, just within the limits of visibility in the misty weather. It had been a while. To the south I saw the shape of the light house marked on the tourist map. It was also obscured by fog, so I couldn’t see much detail, but it was certainly picturesque.

  Annalise and I walked to the front of the office building. The two spaces closest to the building were reserved. There was a Prius parked in Charles Hammer’s parking spot. He was a man who drove with a conscience. A black S-class Mercedes was parked beside it.

  I opened the door and held it for her. She carried a worn leather satchel like she knew what we were doing; I followed along.

  The lobby was simple and elegant, if a little low-budget. Annalise stalked up to the receptionist, told the woman her name, and said she had a meeting with Charles Hammer.

  The receptionist wore a name tag that read CAROL and had a burning hoop with a squiggle of black lines inside that, at first glance, looked like the sigil on my ghost knife or on Annalise’s ribbons. After a second, I realized it was a stylized HBT, for Hammer Bay Toys. Carol looked at her schedule, then picked up her phone and told the person at the other end of the line that Mr. Hammer’s ten o’clock had arrived. She hung up, smiled at us, and told us it would be just a moment.

  The lobby had a slate floor and walls lined with something stained to look like unweathered cedar. A wide flight of concrete stairs swept up to the next floor. I toyed with the idea of asking the receptionist for a job application. Everyone in town seemed to think I should, so why not? It would certainly annoy Annalise. I was wearing clothes she’d bought, had a belly full of food she’d paid for, and had slept in a room she’d rented. I felt like her personal toy, one she would break at her whim. The urge to annoy her was strong.

  The elevator dinged, interrupting that dangerous train of thought. A man of about sixty walked out. He wore a six-hundred-dollar suit, three-hundred-dollar shoes, and a twelve-dollar haircut. He had a wide, playful smile on his face. His eyes reminded me of twinkling plastic.

  “Ms. Powliss,” he said, extending his hand. There was a little hitch in his smile as he took in Annalise, then his grin redoubled. “I’m Able Katz, vice president of operations. How was your flight?”

  “I drove. I don’t like to have my head in the clouds. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Katz.”

  Able turned to me, waiting for Annalise to introduce us. She didn’t. “I’m Ray Lilly,” I said, to end his discomfort.

  “That’s a familiar name. Have you been to New York?”

  “I haven’t,” I confessed. He shrugged, smile still in place.

  “Shall we?” He stepped toward the elevator. Annalise didn’t order me back to the car, so I followed them.

  We rode to the top floor in the tiny elevator. The cramped space made us all stand slightly too close together, so we said nothing. The elevator dinged again and Able led us out.

  I looked around the office as we walked through it. There were desks everywhere but no cubicle walls. Carts and shelves were packed with stacks of papers, disorganized jumbles of folders, and assorted toys. Many of the toys were posed in various positions of everyday life. Heroic action figures sat around a tiny table holding flowery teacup
s. Barbie-type dolls dressed as Marie Antoinette posed like country-western line dancers. A tiny soldier seemed to be pondering a spreadsheet of sales figures, and another passionately embraced a coffee cup.

  The toys made me smile. In fact, they made me feel damn good. I suppressed the urge to pick one up and put it in my pocket.

  All the employees were middle-aged women. Every few seconds one of them would stop typing or what ever and touch one of the toys-just lay a finger on it or adjust its position slightly-with an absent expression that suggested it was an old habit.

  An action figure dressed as an ancient Greek warrior but mounted on a huge eagle sat on the edge of a file cabinet. I ran my finger along the front edge of its wing and felt a sudden contentment. I could have played with that toy all day.

  Three of the office workers were watching me closely. I left it where it was.

  “I’m afraid my office is a little cluttered right now,” Able said. “But we have a conference room set up.”

  “That’s fine,” Annalise answered.

  I tried to study her face to see if she was drawn to the toys, too, but I couldn’t get enough of a glimpse to tell. Able Katz seemed to be perfectly fine, and the workers around us seemed basically normal. One woman burst out laughing as we walked past. Able glanced over and saw that she was looking at a toy train with hands that were holding a jump rope. Suddenly, all the women began to handle the toys and smile.

  Able grinned. That was just what he wanted to see.

  He opened a glass door and stepped aside to let Annalise and me into the conference room. The windows were large and scrupulously clean. I couldn’t see the ocean from here, but I could see the town. Hammer Bay spread out before me, stretching north toward the hills.

  “I was surprised to hear from Jimmy Larson,” Able said. “I haven’t spoken to him since we were at Mattel. How do you know him?”

  “Excuse me for one moment,” Annalise said. She drew the scrap wood out of her satchel and held it so that only she and I could see the moving design. The lines seemed to be moving more quickly than usual. It wasn’t a big difference, but it was there. She turned to Able Katz and said: “Will Charles Hammer be joining us? My meeting was with him.”

  “Mr. Hammer was unavoidably detained,” Able responded. For an absurd moment, I thought he meant that he’d been arrested. “When one of his creative jags comes on, he goes into seclusion to work out the new toy.”

  “I’m disappointed,” Annalise said.

  “I understand. I’m sorry. However, I can pass to him any information you give me here.”

  “Before we do that,” Annalise said. “I’d like you to indulge me in one favor. Hold your hand out, as if you were stopping traffic.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “Because I’m rich and eccentric and I’m asking you to.”

  Able looked at us for a moment, then shrugged. He held out his hand, fingers pointing toward the ceiling and palm facing us. Annalise laid the scrap wood against him. The moving design didn’t change. She scowled and returned the scrap to her satchel. “Thank you.”

  Able laughed. “Jimmy warned me you would be a creative type. In this business, you get used to odd things.”

  “It’s funny Jimmy would say that about me. He’s never met me. And I’m not creative at all. What I am is an activist.”

  “Okay. What cause?”

  “Human survival.”

  “I can get behind that,” Able said. He snuck a glance at his watch. “But I don’t know why you’ve come to me.”

  Annalise began her pitch then. It was about the clothes they made and sold for some of their fashion dolls. Annalise knew they made them locally, and she had a company in Africa that could do the work cheaper and where the people needed the wages more. She was calm and articulate, and I’d had no idea she could string so many words together at once.

  “I wish I’d known this was what our meeting would be about. I could have saved you the trouble. Mr. Hammer is adamant about sending work overseas. He won’t do it under any circumstances. He started this company, in part, to revitalize Hammer Bay. See, he’s also an activist, but his sole cause is the survival of the town his great-grandfather founded.”

  Annalise pressed him. She knew he had more orders than he could fill, and that he’d turned buyers away at the last toy fair. The company-

  Able interrupted her. He understood and respected her passion for her cause. He’d had her checked out before the meeting, but if he’d known this was what she wanted, he would have saved her the trip. Mr. Hammer would rather burn the company to the ground than outsource the work.

  Able looked at his watch again. I could see it was a lost cause. The absent Mr. Hammer had made his feelings known, and Able Katz didn’t have the authority to make this decision and didn’t want it. He just wanted to get on with his workday.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have another meeting to prepare for. I sympathize with you, I really do, but I can’t help. Here.” He took a pen from inside his jacket and wrote on the back of a business card. Then he passed the card to Annalise. “Chuck is an old friend from New York. Talk to him about the problems he’s been having with the clothes for his snow ninja line. Okay?”

  Annalise took the card from him. “I still want to talk to Charles Hammer.”

  Able’s smile faltered. Not even a thank-you from her. “He’s in seclusion working on a new line. He can’t be disturbed.” He stood to show us out.

  We stood, too. “You’re protective of him,” I said.

  Able turned toward me. His smile was a little strained. “Absolutely,” he said. “He’s earned it.”

  “How?” I asked. “I don’t mean to pry, but I’m really curious. Why did you leave New York to come to Hammer Bay, Washington?”

  Able shrugged. “Four years ago I was bringing down six figures with my own marketing-and-consulting firm. We designed ad campaigns for promo toys and ran the best focus groups in the business. When I saw the Hammer Bay Toys exhibit at the toy fair, I thought they were a joke. Everything about them was wrong, according to the conventional thinking.”

  Able opened the door and led us back into the main office. “I mean, fashion dolls from the seventeenth century? What little girl would buy Marie Antoinette outfits? Every toy fair has a couple of exhibitors that seem a little wacky. We were all snickering at Charles behind his back.”

  We slowly walked across the office toward the elevator. Able was on a roll. There was a light in his eye and a note of desperation in his voice. He sounded like a convict who’d found Jesus and wanted you to understand why.

  “But we were wrong and he was right. Those old-fashioned dolls flew off the shelves as fast as he could make them, even though the price point was too high, and the profit margin was nearly non ex is tent. I was supposed to be the expert, and as far as I knew, kids just didn’t want that sort of thing.

  “By the next year, when he came out with the Eagle Riders, Robo-Zombies, and Helping Hand Trains, I didn’t know what to think. The toys were still all wrong and they were priced too high, but this time I was drawn to them. I wanted them, just like all those kids did.”

  I noticed a woman walking the length of the office toward us.

  “So I left New York and my six-figure job to work for someone who believes in ideas instead of focus groups. With every new line we release, I expect the company to come apart. But it doesn’t happen. Every knockoff line out of Mattel or Hasbro flops, even though their prices are lower and they can fill the shelves. I can’t explain it, but it’s been an amazing ride. And this year we’re releasing more toy lines than ever.”

  He pushed the elevator button. The woman reached us. “Excuse me, Able,” she said. “Charles is ready to meet with you now.” We looked across the office. A tall, angular young man with a thick head of dark hair stood at the far end of the row of desks. He watched us, apparently waiting for Able.

  It only took me a moment to recognize him as one of the f
our who had met with Emmett Dubois beside the van. He was the one who’d had the seizure.

  Annalise turned and looked at me. Her face was blank. It was the same expression I’d seen on her face dozens of times, but at that moment goose bumps ran down my back. The elevator dinged and the door opened.

  Annalise casually pushed Able and the woman aside. “Stay,” she said, and walked toward the dark-haired man.

  I guessed she’d found the person she’d come to kill.

  Able didn’t stay. “Excuse me,” he said. There was anger in his voice. “Excuse me, but that area is off-limits.”

  He started after her. I grabbed his arms from behind. He tried to shake me off. I shoved him at a desk, and he fell into the lap of a woman with a stack of files in her hands.

  “She told us to stay,” I told him. Able didn’t understand how dangerous it was to cross Annalise. The woman dropped the papers she was holding and grabbed on to him to keep him between her and me.

  Annalise was halfway down the rows of desks. “Charles Hammer?” she asked.

  “Yes?” he said. I couldn’t see Annalise’s face, but I guessed that something in her expression made him uneasy.

  A woman at the desk at the end of the row stood and stepped in Annalise’s path. She was a big woman and she looked like she was used to getting her way. She grabbed Annalise’s shoulder. Annalise smacked the woman’s arm away. The woman gasped and grabbed her elbow, holding it as though her arm was broken.

  Annalise grabbed Charles Hammer’s left hand and laid the scrap wood on his palm. A shower of dull gray sparks and a jet of black steam blasted from the design toward the ceiling.

  Everyone gasped. Hammer tried to pull away, but Annalise didn’t release him. She tucked the scrap under her arm. “Your spell book,” she said. “Give it to me.”

  “I’m sorry, what was that?”

  Annalise sighed, then tore off his index finger with as much effort as it would take me to break a stalk of celery. She tossed the bloody digit over her shoulder.