Black Dawn

by Andrew Dobell

  This had been a week for revelations it seemed. Seeing Amanda again at the power plant had been a surprise, and as much as she hated the Red Headed bimbo, she couldn’t deny feeling slightly grateful that Amanda hadn’t said anything that might have given her away to Mr Black. If she got her chance, she’d quite like to silence Amanda for good if she could.

  She knew that Yasmin would be unhappy with her if she did, she had already expressed to Angel that Amanda was not to be harmed. Angel might be loyal to Yasmin, but some things just needed doing.

  She doubted that Mr Black would be too happy with her either given the news that she might be his daughter. She had no idea if that was true, but he seemed to believe it, so maybe.

  ‘Today will be another momentous day,’ Mr Black said, addressing the troops. ‘Today we take our first steps to freeing ourselves from the bondage of the Archons. What I am going to ask you to do these next few days will not be easy. You are going to have to do some difficult things, but you must understand that we do this for the greater good. You have all worked with me for a long time. You have all seen things that are not easily explained, and you know the true and very real dangers that lurk out there in the shadows. They want to enslave humanity, they want to bring back their masters and take back the world, but we will not allow them. We will stand in their way and say “no!” We have some of the tools now, we have the two items that will allow us to take the fight to these so called Archons, these Dark Gods worshipped by some of the Magi out there. I have dedicated my life to fighting them and have built this organisation to do just that. I have brought in Magi like these stood next to me who are sympathetic to our cause and will allow us to finish this great work. You have already served me with distinction, but this will be some of the toughest days of your lives, not because you will be fighting against Magi, but because you will have to fight against your own kind, against mortals like you and me. In order to serve the greater good and to end the threat of the Archons and the supernatural, we need tools that are in the hands of governments like the United States of America and are guarded by their highest trained men. But I have trust in you, I have faith in you and I know you will not let me down.’

  Angel blinked, that had been a powerful and rousing speech, aimed perfectly at the people who stood before her, and she could see the dedication in their eyes to Mr Black.

  Echo stepped forward now to address the troops, nodding to Mr Black as she did so.

  ‘I’m sorry we have had to keep things from you until the last moment, the nature of this mission is such that the utmost secrecy was required. We’re currently over the Pacific Ocean, and somewhere ahead of us and below us is an Ohio Class Nuclear Submarine, owned by the United States. Inside that sub is our target, the Warheads it contains. Our mission is to storm that Sub and take control of those warheads. Our fight is not with the Riven men and women aboard that sub, your job is to capture, not kill. Of course, should you be under threat, use your best judgement and do what you need to do. I have here a file for each of you giving you your individual missions as well as all the details you need on the submarine itself and its occupants. You have two hours before we Port down to the U-Boat, use them well,’ she said.

  She then handed out a folder to each soldier and left them to organise themselves. Mr Black, Echo and Isha then moved away from the men, with Angel following suit. Echo then turned to them, handing them a folder each. ‘You’re to give support throughout, use your gifts and help us secure the payload,’ she said. Angel nodded.

  ‘What’s the plan once we have the warheads?’ Angel asked. She had no idea if Echo would fill in the gaps, but it felt like the kind of question she should ask.

  ‘We’ll be headed to a location, an Island that we own, where we will unload the warheads we need and enact the ritual. We will infuse the warheads with Essentia, creating Essentia Nukes, it will take all three of us to do this. The Scroll has the ability to weaken the Null Realm, and pull things through from the Abyss. With the Orb’s ability to enhance the strength and power of the Magi that possess it, or the Scroll, we plan to push the Essentia Nukes into the Abyss and destroy the Archons.’

  Outwardly, Angel kept her face neutral and nodded along to Echo’s words, but so much of what she said didn’t really add up. The Orb’s main power did seem to be that it enhanced the Magic of whoever possessed it, whether it would enhance the Magic of the scroll, however, was another question. The Lazarus Scroll seemed to be a more diverse item, with a range of effects attributed to it. But passing into the Abyss did not seem to be one of them. It could pull things out, under the right conditions as had been evidenced by Dust bringing Horlack back from the Abyss, but given the desperation of many Nomads to make the Magnus Transitus, the Great Crossing into the Abyss to meet their masters, if the Scroll could do that, she felt sure that more would know about it. Things didn’t add up. It seemed to her that Mr Black and Echo were looking at the known effects and then almost randomly trying to put things together to try and make them work as they wanted them too. Also, the Abyss was known to be at least as vast as the earth, and most likely bigger by at least double. How could they guarantee to get the Nukes to dread Tartarus where the Archons slept? She couldn’t voice these opinions, though, it would give her away and she needed to remain close, but she couldn’t help but prod at this a bit.

  ‘Are you sure this will work?’ Angel asked.

  ‘It’s a long shot, we know that, but we feel it’s a worthwhile risk, and we’re taking safeguards,’ Echo said.

  ‘What kind of safeguards,’ Isha said. Angel felt a sense of relief that Isha had asked the question, she didn’t want to be the only one questioning things.

  ‘That I cannot divulge at this point, but you will see soon enough,’ Echo said.

  Angel sat back and nodded her satisfaction at Echo’s answers, opening her folder to look inside. Isha sat next to her and did the same.

  ‘This is exciting no?’ Isha whispered to her.

  ‘It certainly is,’ she answered. That was one word for it, she thought, another would be idiotic or maybe suicidal.

  Angel spent most of the next two hours in silence, looking through the document, swapping the occasional comment with Isha, but mostly she sat waiting, itching to see how this would play out.

  She also knew she needed to contact Yasmin the first chance she got, but she needed to be away from Echo and Isha to do it, so it would need to wait for now.

  At the end of the two hours, Angel stood with the team in the center of the plane as Echo concentrated, working her Magic and looking at the submarine beneath them. The plane flew in a circle, banking around the location of the sub as directed by Echo, and as Angel watched, suddenly Echo’s eyes opened and her Magic unfurled.

  ‘Now,’ she said, and with a series of whip-cracks of air, groups of men and women disappeared over the course of about three seconds until Angel found herself wrapped in Echo’s Magic and being Ported to the Sub. She appeared in a corridor between two groups of Mr Backs forces who were shouting at the submarine's crew. She remembered her directions and the map and set off down the corridor, she didn’t need to do much, they thought she was a fairly weak Magi so her mission was of little consequence, which suited her just fine. She walked along the cramped corridor, ducking through bulkheads and passing empty rooms already cleared by the group ahead of her.

  As she moved she could hear gunfire in other parts of the sub where the resistance appeared to be more concentrated, but as Mr Blacks group swept the boat, the resistance died away and the crew were steadily herded into a handful of rooms away from the vital areas of the sub such as the officers berthing and dry storage.

  Eventually, Angel found herself stood on the Sub’s bridge with Mr Black, Echo, Isha and a couple of Mr Blacks troops who flanked the captain of the ship.

  ‘I don’t care who you are, but you won’t get away with this sir,’ the Captain said with hate and bile in his voice.

  ‘Captain Reed, I apprecia
te your viewpoint and how stressful this must be for you, but I assure you, I will get away with this, in fact, I already have, the boat is mine and you are powerless to do anything.’

  Angel’s keen senses picked up on the approach of an armed sailor in the corridor behind her long before he reached the room, so casually she positioned herself where she needed to be, and as he burst into the room, roaring his defiance, she moved like lightning, disarming the man and bringing him to his knees with his arm locked behind him in a painful position.

  Angel looked up to see Mr Black, Echo and Isha staring at her and looking somewhat surprised by her actions.

  ‘Thank you, Angel,’ Mr Black said, nodding his approval before returning his attention to the Captain. It had been a calculated move, no Magic had been involved and she had potentially just saved Mr Black from injury. She hoped it would engender a little more trust in her. Echo’s gaze lingered on her a touch longer than everyone elses. Did she suspect anything? She wasn’t sure, so she just smiled at Echo, who nodded back to her and went back to the matter at hand.

  The sub was theirs now, and they were soon underway to this island, where ever that might be. Angel wasn’t really privy to any further events on the bridge, instead, she and Isha were now tasked with infusing seven of the warheads with as much Essentia as possible in the time allotted to them. The work soon become boring and she found herself counting the hours until something interesting happened.

  Angel stood on the hot tropical beach sand of an isolated atoll somewhere in the middle of the Pacific. Keeping such a place private and off the maps created by corporations such as Google would be one hell of a task, but it seemed like Mr Black had done the impossible.

  The circle of sandy Islands surrounding the bright blue lagoon in the center of the atoll looked like a mini paradise with its palm trees, endless sapphire seas and azure skies were breathtaking to experience. They must be near the equator given the intense heat of the noon sun and the burning sand beneath her stockinged feet. Angel held her stilettos in her hand, enjoying not wearing them and feeling the beach under her toes.

  Anchored in the lagoon, creating a black eyesore in the middle of this heavenly setting, sat the submarine. Half submerged with several of its missile tubes open, Mr Black’s soldiers were extracting the warheads they needed to bring to shore for the ritual.

  Nearby, Mr Black, his coat off and his shirt-sleeves rolled half way up his liver-spotted arms, supervised the operation of bringing them ashore. Nearby stood Echo, Isha and even more of Mr Black Forces that had been here already, waiting for them. Including a few more Magi and Scions and also Mr Blacks personal assistant, Roxanne.

  Ideally it would have been easier to Port the Warheads over to the beach from the sub, but that had proved to be impossible due to an energy field that emanated from this, the largest island in the atoll ring. She had only seen this kind of effect once before in person, and that had been around the Golden book on the French train the last time she had encountered Amanda. Now, working undercover within the Syndicate, she’d come across it again today. Something must be generating that field, so as Mr Black and Echo walked with the first of the Nukes, Angel followed heading towards the huge rock that jutted out of the center of the Island like a mini mountain. Upon reaching the base of the rock, the bulk of it towering above her, she watched as Echo brushed away the vines and undergrowth from the wall of rock before them, revealing an intricate chrome door that shimmered in the light. Angel got a sense of something magical about this door, but she wasn’t sure what it was due to how faint it seemed until Mr Black stepped forward, and taking a key on a chain from around his neck, unlocked and opened the door with the press of a button on the side.

  With a hiss of air, the door sank back before sliding up and out of the way. As it opened, Angel could almost physically feel the powerful Magic that crashed out of the doorway and over her from inside.

  Angel recognised that Magic right away and instantly felt a good deal more nervous. The Magic that spilt out of here was Temporal Magic or Time Magic.

  As everyone else stepped inside through the doorway, Angel paused. Like most Magi and nearly all Nomads, Angel was not terribly keen on anything to do with Temporal Magic. The Weavers were the ultimate culprit for her fear, they were merciless in their hunt for those who violated the timeline, with what seemed like a particular hate for the Nomads.

  Through the door, Angel could see hidden lights had faded up and filled the space with a diffuse light while Mr Black, Echo, Isha, and Roxanne, looked around inside. Gingerly, feeling more nervous than she had done in a long time, she stepped forward and through the doorway, the metal feeling cool and refreshing against her feet. She found herself in a large circular room with curved walls, shaped like a cheese wheel. In the center of the room, a circular raised dais about four meters across dominated the space. The room itself must have been maybe eight or nine meters wide, and made entirely out of polished metal. The walls, floor and ceiling were covered in holes and apertures cut into the metal that displayed some of the inner workings of the device, which seemed to be mainly cogs and levers, very much like the inside of a watch. The incredibly powerful Time Magic she could feel and see with her Magical sight came from this room, clearly generated from this device.

  Mr Black stood at the far side of the raised disc and watched everyone as they entered, he seemed mildly amused by their reactions, but waited for everyone to take it all in. As everyone’s attention drifted back to him, he smiled.

  ‘As you have no doubt guessed, the Magi amongst you at least anyway, this is a Magical item we now stand within. A very specific one. This is my Time Device, a Time Machine, but a very specific one.’

  Angel had thought as much when she had first felt that wash of Magic pass over her. If Mr Black's madness had ever been in doubt, this must surely cement it for most Magi and anyone else who knew about Magic and how it worked. Angel stood within a Magical item that he might as well have called a Weaver Magnet. What was this man thinking using such a thing and why on earth would he risk everything for a way to travel through time? Beyond that were the questions of who built this for him and how crazy or desperate were they in order to create such a thing?

  ‘You don’t need to know the details of how it works or what it does, the important thing for us today is that the Magical shielding in here is so powerful, you could detonate a full complement of Nukes from that sub in here, stand right outside the closed door, and it would not affect you in the least. Because of this, and because I have no desire to harm anyone other than the Archon’s, we will enact the ritual inside this device, so that, should the ritual fail, we will be protected.’

  ‘So, we’re not using the Time Device to travel in time?’ Isha asked. He also looked a little wide-eyed and worried by the device he stood within.

  ‘No. The device has been used once before and will not be used again.’

  He had already used it? Angel felt intensely curious as to how it had been used and for what? She really wanted to use her Magic and reach inside Mr Blacks mind to discover the secret of this device, but she couldn’t, not yet at least. Maybe another time.

  ‘So we’re just using it for protection,’ Isha stated.

  ‘Correct,’ Mr Black said.

  Angel felt relieved to hear this, and how adamant Mr Black seemed that this thing not be used again.

  ‘Now, if there are no further questions, we must move quickly to get the remaining Nukes inside here. Thank you,’ Mr Black said.

  Hours had passed and finally Angel found a moment to slip away. She managed to get outside the Magic dampening effect that the Time Device created and instantly Ported away in as discrete a manner as possible, preferring to be as far away from Echo and Isha as she could realistically be to speak with Yasmin. She appeared on the deserted beach of another Island and opened the link to Yasmin. Moments passed, and eventually, Yasmin opened the connection in her mind and Angel felt the powerful presence of Yasmin Link with her
.

  ‘My Baal, I have news for you,’ she sent.

  The Archons, no one is really sure who or what they are or once were, and very few if any are alive today who have actually encountered one. Millennia ago, they left the Material world that they had ruled over as gods, disappeared into the Aetheric Realm and a Barrier was put in place to bar entry into the Spirit world.

  No one knows if they went willingly by themselves, or if they were forced or tricked into their imprisonment within the fortress known as Tartarus deep within the Aetheric Realm.

  Before they left, the Aetheric Realm had been known as Arcadia, but the corrupting influence of the Archons has twisted the once beautiful Spirit World into a Hellish Landscape filled with monstrous creatures.

  Most scholars of Nomadic history believe the evidence points to the Archons being forced or tricked into their imprisonment, as they seem to want to continue their corruption of humanity and direct their followers, the Nomads, to corrupt and kill as many Riven Mortals as possible.

  The Prophecy of Helene also seems to confirm that they wish to return to the world of man one day.

  Here’s a brief rundown of the seven known Archons.

  Lilitu - The Beautiful, the Night Demon, the Mother of Succubi. She spawned the Vampire bloodline of Scions.

  Tiamat - The Dragon, the shaper of life, the dweller in the deep. She spawned the blood line of Scions we know as Cthonic Old Ones.

  Enkidu, The Savage, the beast of the wastes. He spawned the Were Creature bloodline of Scions.

  Leviathan - The Monstrous, the Twisted, the Coiled. He spawned a bloodline of Sea monsters and Merfolk.