“Their enemy, who Dust was very adamant was male, was clever,” Michael continued. “The Morphord observed the inhabitants of the AZN, and when he realized that he was going to lose to AZN’s Man-shaped host, he drew all of his soldiers and their victims back in to himself, and with their mass, created a form for himself for the first time. This form agonized him, because it was against his nature to take a shape, and so it was of the largest and strongest Man-shape he, in his great narcissism, could conceive of. He was thirty thousand miles tall, when he stomped a foot down on the White Land, he shattered the entirety of the shell protecting GOD, ending The First War and mixing himself into Creation forever in the process.”
I listened in heavy silence, the coffee steaming on the desk in front of me.
Michael closed his eyes. “The destruction of the White Land caused the formation of strata of different sorts, with the first being that of the Wra-Tha, who Dust referred to as ‘The PusLickers’, followed by HuMans, and then us: The Ka-Bat, or animal spirits, who bonded with some of the first HuMans even as Dust’s people and allies engaged the Morphorde again in The Second War. The very oldest of us came to consciousness as the whole of GOD writhed in agony from its wounds. The Ka remembers this anguish, Rex. Even the youngest of us remember bits and pieces, and with that memory, clear or faint, every Ka-Bah responds to the presence of illness and corruption in the world. They may accept the call or reject it, but those who choose to serve find allies, while the outcasts remain alone and weak. The Ib-Int is formed around this concept and is built around gathering like-minded Ka-Bat to rejoin the current War, the Third War, to fight the corruption imposed on Creation.”
Spotted Elk nodded. “The important takeaway – for you – is that episodes like Duke’s are not the exception: they are the rule. The animals we channel are furious, intelligent spirits of the broken Glass Land who want to do nothing else except hunt down and kill the Morphorde in every shape it takes. Problem is, it can take all kinds of forms. The Ka doesn’t just hate demons and unspeakable creatures, or evil sorcerers and shamans. Evil can be in normal people who have good intentions and make mistakes.
“Precisely.” Michael reached up to finger the ankh he wore over his heart. “If we let the Ka rule us, all we do is kill, and kill, and kill. Duke could not help himself when he smelled the evil of the Morphorde and his Ka overrode him, and that is because he doesn’t care about working within the law. He does not want to control himself. You understand?”
“I certainly understand the need for control,” I replied.
“I know, because you’re a predator. Anyone could tell that.” Spotted Elk leaned in over his desk a little. “I created the Four Fires for the same reason that Michael continues the legacy of the Pathwalkers. If we have to face an army one day, we can’t be a disorganized rabble. We must raise an army to fight an army.”
I mulled that over. “I understand. But while we’re on the subject, Lily and Dru were almost certainly not as virtuous as you make them out to be. I found delivery instructions for a very large quantity of heroin that was to be delivered to their address.”
Michael stiffened in place. Spotted Elk reared back in alarm, paling as his face settled into deep, hard lines. “Do you have proof of this?”
I unzipped my jacket and took the folder out from its place under my shirt, flipping through it until I reached the correct page. “We were able to rescue this from the apartment. It’s a—”
The office door opened behind us, and I turned to see Ayashe stalk into the room. She was still wearing her badge, and she did not look pleased to see me.
“You,” she said to me. “You have a whole lot of explaining to do.”
“Ah, Ayashe. Just in time.” Spotted Elk stood up to greet her.
Ayashe circled around his desk and slammed her hand down on the desktop as she leaned down to stare me in the eyes. “So. ‘Kostya Kalikov’? Is that your real name, or am I going to have to keep digging until I reach the bottom of the pile of bullshit?”
“I don’t know a Kostya Kalikov,” I said, scratching my familiar’s head. Binah stretched and yawned in my lap, and then curled back into an indolent ball.
“Don’t fuck with me, Rex,” she said. “People were killed last night. Witnesses say they saw you and Jenny-fucking-Tran in a big blue car that just happens to match the description of Duke’s Buick. You don’t think I’d know this shit?”
“You’re a Federal Investigator who is currently only cleared to advise the Bronx SSU on one particular case, and even if it were your business, it is currently out of your jurisdiction.” I held her furious gaze with my calm one. “I notice things, too, Agent.”
Ayashe stood, straight-backed. “I’ve got more than enough circumstantial evidence to detain your ass right here and now under RICO.”
“You don’t have anything you can arrest me for.” I forced myself to sit back. No point in looking nervous. “So what do you want to hear first? Do you want to know that the people who nearly killed me and hounded me out of my house are dabbling in child pornography with the Wolf Grove children, or you want to hear about how your exemplary Pathfinders were ordering large shipments of heroin from those same people?”
The agent’s expression went from cold hostility to hot intensity in a split second. “Prove it.”
I set the file down on Spotted Elk’s desk, and pointed at the relevant lines. “That handwriting belongs to the current Authority of Brighton Beach. It outlines the delivery instructions for ten kilos of black-tar heroin to dealers for distribution in exchange for an unnamed trade. Usually, deliveries like this one are sent to the head of a street gang. In this case, it was direct to Wolf Grove.”
Ayashe fumbled back, pushing her jacket aside to reveal a gun in a holster and a small black pouch. She pulled a pair of latex gloves from it and picked up the file herself. “That’s a lot of information you’re getting from a little writing.”
“Rumor has it the Avtoritet writes his directives in Russian military code.” I shrugged. “But the address is clear enough. It is dated for the 30th August.”
“It’s not possible,” Spotted Elk said. “Neither of them would do anything like this.”
“I agree. This is out of turn.” Michael’s voice was deeper now, more forceful.
I didn’t like the way the room felt, so I picked up Binah and joined them on their feet. “What does initiation entail that makes you so sure? Because the evidence to the contrary is quite literally sitting on your desk.”
“I have known them for years,” Michael said. “They were initiated eleven years ago, long before they became invested in their religion. They always honored the Ib-Int above all things.”
Ayashe shot me a dark look as she picked up the folder and riffled through it. John Spotted Elk regarded me with a similar expression to the one I had worn before: the tight-lipped reluctance of someone being asked to betray an entrenched secret.
“I told you about my encounter with the Stallion, Dust,” he said, haltingly. “Eight hundred years ago, he gifted me an elixir to induce awareness in Weeders on the cusp of sentience so that they might have control of themselves in combat. I have hidden that substance at the end every life I have lived, and recovered it on the next. One drop of it is enough to purge the Morphord’s influence. I gave it to them when I gave them honorary membership in my organization.”
I sighed. “Trafficking in drugs doesn’t necessarily mean they were doing anything related to Morphorde. Just that they might have angered someone enough for them to take revenge.”