Free Game Of Cages (2010) by Harry Connolly Page B

forgetting the professor's threat. "I just spoke with Mr. Yin ten minutes ago, and they are en route without incident. He must have been trying to trick you." The contempt she held for Ursula was clear.
    "What did he look like?" Frail asked.
    "He was a little over six feet tall. Slender and handsome with a knife scar on his cheek. He was wearing a stolen servant's uniform. And he had tattoos on the backs of his hands."
    The old man spoke up, his voice raw and low. "What sort of tattoos?"
    "Like his." Ursula pointed at Tattoo.
    They fell silent.
    "What?" Stephanie asked. "What does that mean?"
    The old man turned toward Frail and spoke in a soft grumble of German. Frail rushed away on an errand, then exchanged a meaningful look with Tattoo. "Professor Solorov," the old man called. "Bring your people back to the house, please. This is something I will have to take care of, I think."
    I heard a cellphone being dialed. "Come back to the house" was all she said. I heard the phone snap shut.
    Then I heard her say in a low voice: "Tell me why those tattoos might be important."
    The voice that answered was Kripke's. "I thought you people knew--"
    "I do know, Mr. Kripke. Now you have to impress me with what you know."
    "Well, the tattoos are spells. The part that shows, anyway. Most are probably protection spells."
    "So far you haven't impressed me."
    "For instance," Kripke continued, emphasizing the words to show his annoyance at being interrupted. "That one there, on the German muscle's forehead, that's the guiding hand. It's supposed to make others feel something, depending on the little variations. A really common version makes people attracted to you. Sexually, I mean. His is a little different, but judging by how I feel every time I look at him, I suspect it's supposed to intimidate people."
    There was a brief pause. Finally, Solorov spoke in a low, urgent, dangerous voice. "You will turn over your spell book to me, along with all copies, or I--"
    "I don't have a spell book," Kripke snapped.
    "--or I will kill you and everyone in your family. I'll burn their houses down while they sleep at night. Do you understand me?" Her voice was urgent and, unlike the others in her group, completely free of oh boy I get to be naughty breathlessness. She was fierce and cold and sharp.
    "I don't have a spell book," Kripke said. "I really don't. If I did, I'd be a badass like them. I wouldn't be letting you hold a gun on me."
    "Then where did you get this level of information? Or are you fabricating it?"
    Kripke sighed. "A guy dropped by the server uninvited. He baited his way in, but before we could ban him, he offered up good information--very good."
    "What good information did he give you?"
    "It's too complicated to go into it now. Honest. We can review that later, if you want, but one of the things he gave us was a write-up of a couple of dozen spells and the outward glyphs that go with them. Mostly, they were protection spells like golem flesh and iron gate, but he also included odd things like the twisted path and the second word. No summoning spells. He listed the things the spells could do when they were fresh and when they weren't."
    "I want to see that."
    "Okay."
    "And everything else you have."
    Kripke sighed again. "Okay. It goes against our TOA, but okay. Another thing: I know where the security guards went. I saw Mr. Yin approach the one at the front door, the lead. Yin flashed ID and ordered them to leave. The guard called someone, and after a couple of seconds, he shrugged and ordered all his men into their Expeditions."
    "The harpy hired one of Mr. Yin's companies to provide security?" Solorov sounded amused.
    "More likely Yin found out who she hired and bought them out. He's really, really rich."
    The old man's assistant returned. Everyone stopped talking. He handed a metal bar to the old man, who shuffled out onto the lawn.
    I wondered who had given Kripke his information. I knew the society would be interested in that. I also