by Joshua King
The cars in front of us were the most common style I’d seen driven by the Shades. Hulking black SUVs carried them like they were on the field trip of the damned, avoiding the need for a dozen smaller cars to glide around the streets. I could imagine it would be difficult to keep a caravan together through the congested streets of New York, even when it wasn’t actually New York.
“Are you sure we should go to the bar?” Aurora asked as we made our way toward the cars.
“Why?” I asked.
We stopped, gathering into a tight cluster in the center of the sidewalk. The position let each of us look in a slightly different direction so we could monitor what was happening around us.
“When Darian figures out he can’t track us anymore and that we aren’t in the Tower, he’s going to want to find us. The first place he’ll have them look is the Fang.”
“How many more Shades could there be?” I asked. The seemingly never-ending stream of guards was frustrating me. “We’ve already wiped out countless of the sunglass-wearing fuckers. How do they keep showing up?”
“There is never a shortage of Shades,” Aurora said. “There never has been. No matter how many are destroyed, there are always more.”
“Where do they come from?” I asked.
“Some are marked from the time they are very young, like Jaxxim. Others are recruited when they are older if Darian sees some sort of potential in them. As for the rest…” Her voice trailed off.
“What?” I asked. “What about the rest?”
“Nobody really knows. Men will just show up at the palace ready to serve, and no one is sure where they come from or where they were trained. They don’t participate in the training programs at the palace or live in the Shade quarters, but when they show up for the next mission, they are fully prepared and uniformed. If they survive the mission, they go back to the palace and take up the spot of a guard who didn’t.”
“Does that happen frequently?” I asked.
“Shade guards had a much better life expectancy before you showed up,” Jaxxim said.
I grinned.
“All right. Well, there’s nothing we can do to stop the Shades from showing up if Darian sends them after us. The Fang is familiar to us and it’s central. We’ll be able to go wherever we need to go from there. Besides, Ty is there. We can update him and find out if he knows anything. If the guards show up, we fight.”
They nodded their agreement and we made our way to the largest of the vehicles. It just fit the eight of us, though it was obvious the manufacturer wasn’t intending for people quite as large as Jaxxim to be accounted in that eight-passenger design. I jumped behind the wheel and started for the bar.
“Have the guards always shown up out of nowhere?” I asked.
“Not always,” Aurora said. “My father always had a set army and they would live, train, and fight together. Everything was done as a unit within each rank. The hierarchy was clear and stringent. No one moved outside the boundaries of their rank, but each man was always striving to be recognized and promoted. Getting higher in the ranks meant getting more power and privilege and gave more control over the other guards.”
“So, they never fully trust each other,” Bugs said.
“Why do you say that?” Jaxxim asked.
“Power,” Bugs said. “Control. That’s what everyone really wants. Even if they don’t say it. Even if you would never expect it. Everyone wants to be important and feel like they’re special. No matter what you’re doing or what you’re a part of, no one really wants to blend in and be like everyone else. You want to be recognized. Take that same concept and put it with people whose entire existence is about fighting and protecting someone who is notoriously elusive.”
“He’s right,” Bex said. “The Prime is a mystery. He creates this image of being the leader of the people and caring so much about everyone, but few actually know him or what he does. He’s manipulative and goes behind everyone’s back no matter what he’s doing, which means even those who think they are closer to him always question what he’s saying to others.”
“Always,” Jaxxim said.
“That’s what it felt like?” I asked.
He nodded, but his eyes didn’t move away from where they were transfixed on the windshield ahead of him.
“All of us tried to get the Prime’s attention. Of course, we had to do it in subtle ways. We were expected to be in control and disciplined, so doing anything too blatant would end up looking bad rather than getting us the recognition we wanted. Each of us would push harder in training, try to run faster, lift more weight, be more intense. We’d put ourselves through unimaginable things just to prove we were better than the people beside us, the people we were supposed to look at as brothers. Sometimes Darian would choose one of us to do a special task or go on a mission with guards above our rank. He knew how divisive it was, and that’s exactly why he did it. The man who was chosen immediately felt like he was being recognized as more important and was going to have the chance to move up through the ranks soon, which meant even when he returned to his usual rank, he looked down on the others. The men of his rank thought he was getting unfair attention and they were being ignored, which meant when he returned, they ostracized him.”
“There was always the expectation that some were being used as moles,” Aurora said.
Jaxxim nodded again.
“We fight as a unit because we have to and you never want the man beside you to think you are questioning him or suspecting him of anything, because you don’t know what he’s been told by the Prime, or what he’s going to bring back to him.”
“So, he’s introducing other Shades who haven’t gone through the same training and are strangers to further the divisions,” I said.
“And because he wants more,” Aurora said.
“But where is he getting them? Where is he training them?”
The car fell silent.
A few minutes later we pulled up at the bar and poured out onto the sidewalk. Ashe led the way into the Fang and I could see she was glad to be back. This was her bar and being away from it wasn't easy for her. It was obvious she felt comfortable and at home when she was back. I wasn't too surprised to see the bar nearly empty when we stepped inside. Rumors about the brutal, deadly fights that had been occurring over the last few days must have spread, and people were no longer as willing to gather in the space that seemed to be the center of it all. A bartender I didn't recognize took up the space Ashe usually filled behind the bar. He leaned back against the rail, running a towel across a glass that he'd probably been cleaning for far longer than it ever needed to be cleaned. He looked surprised when we walked in and he saw Ashe.
“You’re back,” he said.
She shook her head.
“Not for long. Have any Shades come around here recently?”
He nodded.
“A few days ago.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I didn’t have anything to tell them. I have no idea where you’ve been.”
“Good.”
The man looked confused but nodded. “Can I get you anything?”
“No. Where’s Ty?”
“Ty? I’m guessing he’s down in the basement with the portal.”
We rushed across the bar and down the stairs. The corner where my former trainer’s corpse had lain had been cleaned up and everything put back in order. It was like nothing had ever happened. Ty met us in the room before the portal and immediately gathered Ashe in a tight hug.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Why are you here?”
“We have a lot we need to tell you,” Ashe said.
Ty put a temporary seal on the portal and we went into a room of the basement I’d never seen before. As many times as I’d been down here, I knew there was a rather large and complex network of rooms and alcoves, but I hadn’t explored many of them. This room was small and dark, but filled with cushions and low furniture illuminated by a fire that burst to life i
n a fireplace at the far end of the room as soon as we stepped in.
“That’s a fancy trick,” I commented.
“The man I bought the bar from did that,” Ashe said. “This was his favorite room. He used to meet with his closest friends down here and they would talk about whatever it is old men talk about.”
“He could use magic?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“No. But he was very close to a warlock. He liked to have a fire when they were down here, but Andrew, the vampire I bought it from, wasn’t good at building fires. It was apparently a big joke with all his friends. I’m not sure what’s so funny about it. Maybe things were funnier centuries ago. But anyway, he wasn’t good at building fires and so his warlock friend created an enchantment that would start a fire whenever people came in the room and extinguish it when they left.
“Convenient.”
We settled down onto the cushions and I quickly filled Ty in on what was happening. His face went pale and he swallowed hard when he heard about the tracker.
“Did you know?” Aurora asked. “You were getting high in the ranks. Did you know about the trackers?”
“No,” Ty said forcefully. “If I knew about them, don’t you think I would have told you?”
“What matters is they can’t control any of you, and any of us, anymore. Bugs deactivated the program.”
“What if Darian puts it back together?”
“It would take him the next century to do that,” Bugs said. “I deactivated each piece of the program, rearranged them inside the computer, and then hid a few little surprises of my own. They look like the other pieces, but if someone opens them, they unravel any progress that has been done on the larger program. He would have to find all the original pieces in the correct sequence and reprogram them without ever finding one of those.”
“Good job,” I said.
He beamed, but I couldn’t help but still wonder what else was behind those eyes. There was more to his story he hadn’t offered us yet.
“I haven’t heard about Darian from anyone,” Ty said. “He completely disappeared.”
“What are we going to do next?” Aurora asked.
“We have to get back on track,” I said. “The key to this is still Malakan, and that means we need to find him. He had us on the right path and we just have to get back on it.”
“There’s no way,” Stephana said. “We can’t go through all that again. It took far too long to travel through the woods and on the train to get to the hotel. We can’t take another week to follow all those steps again.”
“Besides, Ryu will be waiting,” Brielle said. “He’s not going to just forget what you did. If you walk back into that forest, he’s going to come after you.”
“Don’t forget the train,” Jaxxim said. “That didn’t exactly go smoothly. I doubt the regular rail is up and running again.”
“I heard about that,” Ty said. “That was you? What the fuck was that all about?”
“Okay,” I said, holding up my hands to stop them. “I got it. We can’t go back to the beginning and follow Malakan’s little scavenger hunt again. But we have to get back to the hotel. The portal he wanted us to go through is there, and now that the tracker chip has been deactivated, Darian isn’t going to be able to transport us back to Nakatomi Tower. We need to get back there so we can use the portal again and go where it was supposed to bring us in the first place.”
“Then how are you going to get there?” Ty asked. “The only way any of you know how to get to that hotel is through the forest.”
“Maybe not,” I said, a thought running through my mind.
“What do you mean?”
“I might have just thought of another way.” I looked at each of them. “That hotel, at least that village, means something to Malakan, right? We talked about how he used to go there and that he was leading us there for a reason.”
“Right,” Aurora said.
“Well, I can’t imagine him traveling for days at a time just to get to that hotel. There has to be another way he would get there. He sent us the way he did because he wanted us to stop by the cabin first and gather the supplies he left for us. He wanted us in the forest. But that’s not how he would get there.”
“How do you think he would?” Ty asked.
“The stone chambers,” I said.
“The stone chambers?” Aurora asked, sounding confused.
“Yes,” I said. “Think about the last time we were in the mirrored place where he had his house. Do you remember when we walked around the edge and I found that tunnel?”
“You think that tunnel goes all the way to the village?” Ty asked. “That would be a seriously long tunnel.”
“No, not all the way. But what if it leads to another portal? We have to try.”
“You can’t,” Bugs said. “Remember, the tunnel behind Malakan’s door is sealed. It’s not even there anymore.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
“We can still get in,” Aurora said. “My father and I used to visit Malakan all the time.”
“I remember seeing you there,” I said. “You walked out of the tunnel.”
She nodded.
“That time we did. Sometimes we would drive to Final View, but not always. If the stone chambers and the mirrored realm are still there, we can get there. But it will mean going to the palace.”
I drew in a breath.
“If that’s what we’re going to have to do, then that’s what we’re going to have to do. Let’s go.”
8
Ty promised to let us know if anything changed or he heard from Darian, and we left the bar. We piled back into the SUV, intending to drive it part of the distance to the palace and then walk the rest of the way so we would be less easily detected. Something about the fight at the Tower was still in the back of my mind and I couldn’t resist mentioning it.
“Bugs, did you know that Shade?”
He looked at me questioningly.
“What Shade?”
“The one in the office. He got in there during the fight and seemed to recognize you. Did you know him?”
“I didn’t know him,” Bugs said, “but he knew me.”
“I’m not following you.”
He blinked, glanced behind his shoulder, and then looked back at me.
“I know that, Hayden. You’re in front of me.”
A long breath helped me to keep myself together.
“What do you mean you don’t know him, but he knows you?” I clarified.
“Oh. Well, when I got here to the Underworld, I didn’t really know anybody. It’s not like there’s a welcoming committee. I mean, there is now, but that’s because I decided there needed to be.”
“I think I was your welcoming committee,” Aurora teased me.
“You are horrible at welcomes,” I said.
She leaned across the car and gave my neck a playful nip before kissing it.
“There were already a few people living under the bridge. It didn’t have a name or anything yet, but the community was starting up. It just so happened that pretty soon after I got here, Darian showed up. I guess he’d come to visit Malakan, but I didn’t know who anyone was at the time. For some reason, he took a liking to me and started getting to know me. After a little while, he asked if I’d be interested in coming to his palace and using my unique talents for a specialized group of his.”
“He tried to recruit you into the Shades,” I said.
Bugs nodded.
“Yes, he did. But I refused. There was something about him I just couldn’t trust, and I didn’t like the idea of being someone else’s lackey. I’d already done that gig and it hadn’t worked out well for me.”
“If you refused, why did that guy seem so mad to see you?”
“When I said I didn’t want to join up, apparently the Prime didn’t take it too well. Something tells me he’s not used to people telling him no and not getting what he wants. So, he started sending Shades to Fi
nal View to talk to me and try to convince me to come along with them. Of course, this was hard on Philip, and I didn’t like to see him so upset. It only confirmed that these people weren’t who I wanted to be spending time with. That’s when I decided I was going to stick to my own place and not go away from Final View if I didn’t absolutely have to.”
“Does that mean you’re a vampire?”
Bugs laughed.
“No. I’m not a vampire.”
“What are you?”
“Something else.”
He didn’t elaborate any further.
“Good talk, Bugs.”
We had gotten close to the palace and I pulled the car to the side of the road in a spot close to where we had stopped the last time we were here. Taking everything with us, we climbed out of the car and started across the sprawling grounds. The surroundings seemed nearly abandoned, like no one suspected we would have the guts to venture this close to the palace again when it was so obvious Darian had his watchdogs after us. We moved across the grass fairly quickly and Aurora led us around to an entrance on the side of the building that dipped down into one of the lower floors. It was damp and cold, and I didn’t want to think about what types of things might go on in this area of the palace when no one had an eye on Darian.
“We need to check as many rooms as we can for Darian,” I said.
“For Darian?” Ashe asked. “He disappeared. No one knows where he is. You seriously think he might be hiding here?”
“It seems too obvious, but that’s why we need to do it. You never know with him. You said yourself he modified the palace and added his own rooms. He could have created a little panic cave all his own and could be hiding in it.”
We followed Aurora as she led us through a tight passage and up a narrow, steep flight of steps Jaxxim had to take on sideways. All around us, the palace was quiet. I would have felt better if there was some noise, a voice, someone cooking, splashing from servants taking advantage of the pool while Darian was off being missing, anything. Any noise to break up the stillness that made me feel like I was walking through a painting and into a trap. Time ticked past us as we checked every room and nook we encountered and found nothing out of place. There was no sign of Darian being there or that he had been there recently. We’d gotten to a set of stairs leading to another floor when the silence broke with the hushed sound of whispered voices. Our group rushed to stuff ourselves in the shadowy alcove beneath the curve of the stairs, pulling a tapestry over us. I felt like an utter dumbass, but there was really no other option for keeping us concealed. Hopefully, whoever was talking wouldn’t notice the tapestry moving on its own as the eight of us tried to find the most comfortable and least awkward way to fill the shallow space.
