by Mary Fan
It occurred to him that in the paralyzed moments of terror that had followed his being black-bagged, he hadn’t fully appreciated how wrong it was that the Triumvirate was using dark magic and creatures of the Underworld to torture and kill people. He’d known of the possibility—everyone had heard the rumors—but witnessing the horror made it seem so much worse. He hadn’t needed another reason to despise the Triumvirate, but the government seemed boundless in its perversities. If only there were real freedom fighters somewhere, rather than the violent anarchists led by the murderous Tydeus Storm.
Whatever happened next, Flynn didn’t regret what he’d done. If nothing else, he’d taken a swing at the Triumvirate, which beat sitting still and accepting their blows—or so he had to keep telling himself.
The cell’s light cut out, leaving Flynn in total blackness.
Standing at the edge of a cemetery, Storm stared out into the starry night. Though hours had passed since Flynn Nightsider had unknowingly summoned him into Klaus Everett’s office by throwing his picture into a Nether Candle, his head still ached with a dull pain. The candles were intended to contact the spirits of the dead from the Netherworld but could be used on the living as well. Having one’s spirit ripped out of one’s body, as Nether Candles did when someone burned the picture of a living person, was never a pleasant experience.
Despite the discomfort, Storm felt fortunate, since that meant he’d witnessed what had happened in Everett’s office. If young Nightsider hadn’t been as foolishly hotheaded as his mother, Storm would never have realized how significant the boy was. And to think, he was once my godchild. If I hadn’t behaved so rashly all those years ago, Vivian would never have cut ties with me, and the boy would be as good as mine. Funny how this universe works. I went rogue to fight for a greater cause, and because I did, the boy who could undo all my work is in enemy hands.
Storm walked along the gravestones, wondering how he could get to Nightsider. He couldn’t let the boy stay in the hands of the Triumvirate, but he couldn’t let the Rising, the other major rebel faction, get to him either. And the Rising was doubtlessly plotting to break him out.
While the Triumvirate saw the Rising in the same light as the Defiants, Storm knew he was actually in the midst of a three-way war. It wasn’t a simple case of the government fighting rebels. Each side had two distinct enemies, and Storm’s were both the corrupt Triumvirate, whom he’d once served, and the Rising, whose rebellion threatened everything he’d worked for. He’d spent years ensuring that their fight never got past a few scuffles with the authorities.
But Nightsider’s existence could destroy everything.
“Storm!” A woman’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
He turned.
Leto Sayare, his second-in-command among the Defiants, rushed toward him, her short dark-brown hair whipping across her lined forehead. She stopped before him and met his gaze with dark eyes whose slight tilt hinted at her East Asian ancestry. “We got the Orb. Our Academy insider just arrived.”
I didn’t authorize that mission. Storm kept his expression blank to keep his confusion from showing. The last thing he needed was for Sayare to doubt him further after the Day of Glory debacle. “Very good.”
At least the Orb was in the Defiants’ hands. Though keeping it away from the Rising meant, in a sense, protecting the Triumvirate, he would rather the Triumvirs continue their rule than allow the Rising to take power. A victory by the Rising would undo everything he’d spent a lifetime working for.
Chapter 7
A New Mission
Aurelia slammed her heel into the side of the heavy black bag. A resounding thud reverberated through the training room. It was a wide, circular space with practice weapons lining the chipped white walls, cylindrical bags and circular targets along the edges, and a single window revealing the night sky outside the Scarlet Citadel—the secret base of the Rising, which she’d joined after running away from the Academy of Supernatural Defense a year before. Though the large, multistory building had once been a grand monument to the Sentinels’ power, it now looked abandoned and destroyed from the outside, thanks to the protective enchantments guarding it. The training room occupied the lone tower crowning its center.
Aurelia regarded the bag’s new indentation with satisfaction. If that had been someone’s head, she would have knocked them out. Strands of dark, wavy hair clung to her sweaty face. She brushed them away and flicked her thick ponytail over her shoulder. Her knuckles stung from where she’d split them, but she didn’t care. She’d faced off with more monsters in her sixteen years than most people would in their lifetimes, and she was well aware that hand-to-hand combat wasn’t very useful if one’s adversaries had teeth, claws, and supernatural powers. Nevertheless, Aurelia liked knowing that if she were ever caught without a weapon, she had at least a few moves up her sleeve. Also, throwing a whirlwind of fists at a bag was loads of fun.
“Firedragon!” Tamerlane entered the room, holding his orange wand. Aurelia always found it funny that his magic Enchanter stick was the same color as his floppy hair, which had probably come from a Scottish ancestor or two. Though he was about half a foot taller than her five feet and six inches, she was pretty sure she weighed more than his wiry butt. With his narrow face and bookish demeanor, he looked more like an academic than a rebel, which was fitting, since he’d been a university student before joining the Rising. He was only three years older than her, but worry lines were already starting to etch themselves into his freckled face.
Aurelia approached him, swinging her arms to loosen up. She wanted to make yet another quip about his ridiculous skinniness but reminded herself he didn’t find such things funny. “What’s up?”
“Time for a mission.” Tamerlane motioned at the door. “C’mon.”
“Please tell me we’re sticking it to the Triumvirate and not going on some boring supply run.”
“We’re rescuing someone, though I don’t know who yet. Calhoun will tell us at the meeting. Everyone at the Citadel’s gathering there in fifteen minutes.”
“Everyone?” Aurelia quickened her pace. Must be a big deal, whoever we’re saving.
Tamerlane glanced at her hands and winced. “Ouch! Why don’t you ever wear gloves?”
“If I had to knock someone out for real, they wouldn’t wait for me to put on gloves. Besides, you can wave your magic stick and fix ’em, right?” Aurelia held up her hands with a grin.
“Sure.” Tamerlane held up his wand. “Cutem emendat.”
A beam of pale-green light shot out of the wand’s tip. Aurelia’s knuckles tingled. A second later, they looked as good as new.
She grimaced at Tamerlane, annoyed that he still used Latin for his hocus-pocus when he’d been with the Rising for well over a year. “Are you ever going to switch to English? It’s not like there are Sentinels here to fine you.”
Tamerlane shrugged. “Old habits are hard to break. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks. Anyway, let’s go!” Aurelia sprinted toward the staircase then stopped when she realized Tamerlane wasn’t following. “What’re you waiting for?”
“Normal people walk when there’s no rush.” He approached at an amble. “And it’s not a good idea to run indoors if you can help it.”
Aurelia rolled her eyes as she waited for him to catch up. Stick in the mud.
By the time she and Tamerlane reached the assembly room, a little over a dozen fellow Risers were already seated inside. Nice turnout.
Aurelia plopped down in a chair facing the low platform at the front. Calhoun, the Rising’s leader, was nowhere in sight. “How long until we get started?”
Tamerlane glanced at his watch. “About eight minutes.”
“You’re kidding!” She tapped her foot with impatience.
Someone nudged her shoulder from behind. “Would you quit that?”
A
urelia turned. Nossiter’s dark-brown eyes glared at her from a subtly lined face. Though the woman’s broad cheeks, full lips, and hickory complexion indicated African ancestry, she was about as close to those roots as Aurelia was to her East Asian heritage—not at all. Such things didn’t really matter in the Triumvirate, especially since the borders had been closed for almost a century.
Nossiter’s no-nonsense attitude had always annoyed Aurelia. The fact that she was a long-time rebel—and basically the Rising’s second-in-command—should have put her in Cool Old Lady territory, but she was so cranky. Just to bug her, Aurelia kept tapping.
Nossiter scowled and stood, her long black braids swaying across her back. As she walked away, she muttered something about “childish behavior.” Aurelia didn’t care. The other Risers treated her, the youngest full-time member, like a kid anyway, so she’d decided a while back that she might as well have fun with them. They could complain about her all they wanted. She was still the legendary Firedragon, and she’d done more for the Rising in the year since she’d left the Academy than most of them had in three.
The sound of footsteps caught her attention. Knowing it had to be Calhoun arriving, she spun to face the door. Naturally, she was right. The skinny old white guy hardly looked like a fervent revolutionary—more like someone’s eccentric grandpa—but he was tougher than he appeared. In fact, he was probably the toughest guy she knew. Before she’d joined, she’d imagined the leader of the Rising to be some unsmiling old grump like Nossiter. Calhoun was old all right, and he could get pretty grumpy, but something about his attitude made him inherently awesome, especially since he was a Norm like her, yet led plenty of Enchanters in rebellion.
“So, what’re we up to?” she said.
An amused look crinkled Calhoun’s pale, weathered face. “Always the patient one, aren’t you?” He stepped onto the platform. “I’m early, but since everyone except Williams is here anyway, I’ll go ahead and get started.”
Calhoun raised his arms to call everyone’s attention, glancing around with his sharp, ice-blue eyes. The enchanted lights bobbing near the high ceiling glinted off his snowy head. Aurelia realized she was still tapping her foot and immediately stopped. The last thing she wanted was for Calhoun to think she was disrespecting him.
Calhoun lowered his arms. “First of all, I want to thank everyone for coming on such short notice. Believe me, I wasn’t expecting anything to go down tonight either.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a piece of paper, and unfolded it, revealing the image of a young man with blue eyes and hair somewhere between dark blond and light brown. Whoever he was, he couldn’t be very important, since he’d been photographed with an ordinary camera and not the enchanted kind that produced three-dimensional images.
Calhoun held the portrait out in front of him. “This is Flynn Nightsider. Take a good look, guys, because he’s the one we’re rescuing.” He folded the paper. “The Triumvirate caught this kid breaking into Klaus Everett’s office at the Academy of Supernatural Defense, and they black-bagged him for it. He’s headed for the Palace of Concord in the morning.” Calhoun lifted his thin lips into a knowing smirk. “Unfortunately for the Gold Triumvir, he’s not going to make it there.”
Aurelia found herself smirking along with Calhoun. Whatever made this Flynn guy of interest to Calhoun, she was happy to nab him from the Triumvirate.
“Excuse me.” Nossiter rose from her seat across the room. “People get black-bagged for no good reason all the time, but we can’t rescue them all. Why’s this Nightsider special?”
Much as Aurelia disliked Nossiter, she had to agree with the question.
Calhoun nodded. “Glad you asked. While the kid was in that office, he messed with some hocus-pocus he wasn’t familiar with, and something he did made everything go boom. Williams showed up right after it happened, and according to him, you could scarcely breathe for all the fumes. Get this, though: young Mr. Nightsider was completely unharmed and didn’t even seem to notice the enchanted smoke. All that noxious abracadabra knocked his friend out but didn’t so much as touch him.”
Is he saying what I think he’s saying? Aurelia edged forward in her seat. If she’d understood Calhoun correctly, the Rising stood to strike a huge blow against the Triumvirate. A murmur ran through the Risers. She wasn’t the only one who was excited.
Calhoun’s pale eyes glinted. “I can tell by your faces that you know what I’m talking about. This boy could be the key to overthrowing the government, and you can bet the Triumvirs know it.”
Holy crap! Aurelia blinked, stunned. I can’t believe we actually found him. I can’t believe he actually exists!
Nossiter sat back down and crossed her arms. “What’s your plan of action?”
Calhoun put his hands behind his back. “Lucky for us, the Triumvirate still thinks Williams is loyal to them, and they let him get his hands on the itinerary of the transport that will be taking Flynn to the Palace. We’ll go with our favorite modus operandi: big diversion, small operation. One person will break into the transport and get Flynn while everyone else creates a ruckus in the streets.”
Aurelia jumped up. “I’ll do it!” That sounded like just her kind of mission, and she always liked being part of the main action rather than the diversion. Calhoun would have picked her even if she hadn’t volunteered. No one in the world was as fast as her, and when it came to missions where a lot of crap could go wrong, it helped to have someone who could anticipate trouble before it came.
Calhoun pointed at her. “Job’s yours, kiddo.” He put his arm down. “Nossiter, you’re in charge of the rest.”
“Yes, sir.” Nossiter craned her neck back toward Aurelia. “Is our little Firedragon going to wait for my signal before rushing in?”
Aurelia stuck out her tongue.
“Firedragon!” Calhoun gave her a stern look, but his eyes twinkled. “That’s a very important point. Do not act before Nossiter gives you the go signal.”
“I know.” Aurelia plopped back down in her seat. “I’m impatient, not stupid. Haven’t failed you yet, have I?”
Gold light flashed beside Calhoun on the platform, and Williams appeared, holding a small green crystal in one hand and his wand in the other. “Apologies for my tardiness. Unlocking the itinerary took a little more effort than expected.” He turned to Calhoun. “May I begin?”
Calhoun stepped back. “The floor’s all yours.”
Williams pointed his wand at the crystal. “Activate.” The crystal glowed, and a three-dimensional map of the Capital appeared in front of it in green mist. A glowing yellow line, which indicated the transport’s route, snaked down its streets toward the Palace of Concord at the center of the city.
Aurelia listened carefully as Williams described the plans, not wanting to miss a single detail.
Aurelia threw open the door to the armory, the thrill of a new mission buzzing in her head. Though she’d had a few hours to rest between the meeting and the mission, she’d scarcely been able to sleep. The Scarlet Citadel had accumulated a decent collection of weapons over the years. She scanned the wide room for the ones she’d need, panning her gaze across austere metal shelves where everything from blades and firearms to magical devices and powerful potions stood like soldiers waiting to be called to action. Dawn’s light spilled past the cracked window frame and sharpened the shadows of the walls’ crumbling plaster.
Spotting the tranquilizer guns she was looking for, Aurelia ran up to the shelf and snatched them. She tucked them into her belt then looked around for the Lockpicker—an enchanted device that would allow her to open any lock or door, including that of the vehicle holding Flynn.
She wished she could summon them the way an Enchanter could instead of having to hunt for them among the crowded shelves. But being a Norm had never slowed her down. In fact, she was the deadliest person any monster had ever encountered—deadlier than any wand-waving pansy
for sure. Not that she disliked Enchanters. In fact, her best friend back at the Academy had been one. And Tamerlane was cool, of course. She’d just hated the way most had looked down their noses at her back at the Academy. But things were different since she’d joined the Rising. Here, people respected you for what you could do, not for what you were born as. And here, Enchanters who wielded powerful magic deferred to their Norm leader, Frank Calhoun, and his Norm second-in-command, Fiona Nossiter, because they had the sharpest brains among them. That was how it should be everywhere, and that was how it would be once the Rising overthrew the corrupt government.
Finding the small blue-green crescent that was the Lockpicker, she tucked it into her pocket.
A flash of gold light appeared before her, and she squinted against its glare.
When it faded, Tamerlane stood before her. “Ready to go?”
“One sec.” Aurelia ran over to the other side of the room and grabbed her short twin swords, which sat on a shelf in their black sheaths. She probably wouldn’t need them, but she’d feel empty-handed without them. They were the only weapons she was certain she could count on if she ran into any monster trouble. That was unlikely, but better safe than dead.
She strapped to the swords to her back. “All right, let’s go.”
Tamerlane cocked his head. “Won’t all those weapons make you stand out?”
“Our entry point’s in the Defenders’ zone, remember?” Aurelia resisted the urge to make a jab at him for having lived a sheltered Enchanter life before he’d joined the Rising. “Defenders spend their lives facing off with monsters at a moment’s notice, which means all this”—she gestured up and down to indicate the weapons she had on her—“is normal on their turf. Anyway, let’s go!”
