by Voss Foster
"Pull the plug? I'm not an idiot." He clucked his tongue, looking back up into the sky. "My reputation is on the line, and the OPA is as close as we have to a rogue office in the FBI. I've had politicians banging on my door, telling me I needed to get a handle on the whole lot of you since before I sat down in my throne to push papers. And it got three times as bad after that snake bullshit in New York."
"Did they not appreciate what we did?"
"You thought you could please a politician by saving the human race? You're still a greenhorn." His lips quirked into the slightest, bitterest smile I think I'd ever seen, and suddenly my truce with Svenson felt a lot less begrudging. "Both sides of the aisle came together to rip me a new asshole because so many people died in those attacks. It was heavily insinuated that someone with the ear of the president was going to work on getting me fired and charged with some sort of crime unless I performed an internal investigation of the OPA to ferret out whatever was wrong with all of you."
Oh. His job—his life—was on the line. "You could have come clean with us."
"Could have, sure. But if that got out, it would have looked like me colluding to protect you. So I had to be a hardass. For appearances and to make sure things didn't get any worse. And I took it too far."
Well that was a hell of an admission on his part. Lots of people in lots of positions of power would never admit they'd made a mistake. "Why single me out as your inside man?" If he was being candid, may as well get the story.
"You were new. It was convenient. I don't regret it. But I nearly shit myself just trying to step through your portal, and you do that every day. All of you." He sighed. "Your call was completely unprofessional, and the OPA is still practically its own office, but having to face up to all this was a hell of a wake-up call for me. Gilded throne and all."
That hung in the silence. I didn't know where we stood, really. Sounded like the OPA was still a major thorn in the FBI's side. Or at least in the FBI Director's side. The politicians definitely didn't seem like big fans. But we'd had enough of a heart-to-heart.
Gutt cleared his throat. "Are we copacetic?"
Svenson nodded curtly. "Let's end this."
Gutt smiled that big, terrifying grin. "Yes, sir." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little wooden circle. He passed his hand over it and the whole thing lit up gold and green, sparkling even more than the sand around us. "Do we have any leads to the north?"
An awful, partially screechy voice came from the circle. "There are ruins beneath me right now. I've swept low and didn't see anything, but you'll have a better idea. It's about two hundred yards north from the old palace."
"All right. We'll be there." In one sweep of his arm, Gutt closed off the communication and opened a portal. "Likely too close, but we'll check. Keep straight when you go through. No turning or you'll end up somewhere in the Mundane with no way back."
Svenson nodded and we walked through, but once we were out, he launched back into a new line of questioning. "Are most of your jobs this much guesswork and frustration?"
I couldn't help laughing at that. "You're already frustrated? As far as any of us knew, the people kidnapping the children were mythical and probably didn't exist."
"Oh. Well…good work for all of you, then."
We walked for about ten minutes, the sun bearing down heavy and god damn scorching, before the ruins came into view. They, like every other thing in the Kingdoms, were brilliant. Singular standing arches and low, eroded walls of pastel green and neon pink. It was probably incredibly gaudy when it was standing, just like it was gaudy as it stood there mostly destroyed in the middle of the desert.
Gutt strode in first, hands held out in front of him. The glow around the ruins…dissipated. I actually stopped dead in my tracks right there, because I'd never seen him do anything like that before. The light from the ruins balled up around his hands, making tight, swirling masses of color.
Finally, when he was in the middle and the light from the sand was starting to creep upward, I had to ask. "Gutt, what are you doing?"
"Old magic. Dangerous enemies." His voice strained, and he was actually a little pale, the muscles in his face, neck, and shoulders taut. "Disabled it. Looking for traps." He released the light in a rush, and soon everything glowed again. "It's safe as far as I can tell." He nodded. "On the other hand, I'm not feeling anything that could be an opening, but we should check through for footprints or anything like that. That aren't mine. A natural opening would likely be in some sort of natural formation. A cave, a gully, a quicksand pit. But it may not be. So finding some sort of tracks would be most beneficial."
Looking for footprints in the sand. Fun fun fun.
We visited four different sites spread across the desert, and the sun was straight above. I wanted nothing more than to take off my damn shirt and get out of my sweat-soaked clothing for a minute, but that was stupid on at least ten levels. Probably more.
We were now in number five, a large basin. It wasn't like normal sand dunes, with their sweeping curves and waves across the desert. The walls here were almost straight down, and there was a puddle of slightly dirty water at the bottom. However, it was steaming in the heat, so I left that well enough alone once we figured out the portal wasn't stuck underneath that.
"Gutt. Rourke." Svenson was down about ten yards from me, standing against one of the steeply angled walls.
We both walked over, and I immediately saw what he was calling us for. An opening in the wall. It was tight, maybe three feet high…but it was there. It wasn't buried in the sand, so much as hidden by a consistent waterfall of sand. You wouldn't see it from afar. You certainly wouldn't see it if you were just swooping down to look at the giant hole stuck into the middle of the desert. But up close, it was honestly pretty obvious.
Gutt held his hands out. When he gathered up some glow from the sand, it stopped flowing. "This was purposeful. I can't say how long it's been here, who did it, why they did it, but someone did a…frankly, not a wonderful job. It could have been hidden to look like a part of this wall. It was left in such a state that it could be found again."
I couldn't help getting excited. Just a little. We had a closed in space, far north of the palace, that someone went to the trouble of hiding behind magic. "What are the odds?"
"We're over a mile out from the old palace. Moving with a line of prisoners, exclusively on foot…it's as close to possible as we've come across yet." Gutt released the little glow of magic he'd gathered and the sand started back up. "I hate to point out the obvious, but I won't be fitting in that hole." He gestured to his torso. "I wouldn't get in, and if I did I wouldn't get back out."
I looked to Svenson, already knowing this wasn't falling in my favor. But it was fun to find out the specifics. "I'm approaching fifty. You wouldn't send an old man with no experience in the OPA into that cavern would you?"
"Of course not." I judged the outside dimensions of the hole, then slid off my bulletproof vest. This was already going to be tight, and not only was the thing bulky, it was restrictive. I also pulled out my Glock so I could try to keep that ready, for whatever good it would do. I got down on my hands and knees, sinking just slightly in the burning hot sand, and looked up at Director Svenson. "When the dragon or manticore or evil sand worm eats me for poking it in the eye in a few minutes, I expect a plaque."
"I'll take it out of your paycheck."
"I wouldn't ask for anything else." And I started in. Gutt, thankfully, stopped the flow of the sand waterfall long enough for me to get in. Because it was the Kingdoms, the tunnel was illuminated. It was made of ivory bricks and a black, gritty mortar. This had, at the very least, been shored up, if not manufactured entirely. The black didn't glow, but the ivory cast a pale, attractive light all over the tunnel, and the grit in that mortar reflected that light, meaking it look like streaks of starlight sky peeking through the bricks. It was most definitely a tight fit—damn my mother's broad, manly shoulders—but I was able to shimmy along,
only scraping myself up a little.
I was a bit nervous when it curved around to the right. I'd probably gone twenty yards now, and the air was feeling a little thinner than I would have liked, but I carried on. Hopefully they'd send someone to get me if I was stupid and didn't turn around in time to stay conscious.
As I got deeper in, moving past the bend, the tunnel actually widened out. I had space. Not air, but space enough that I could get off my hands and knees and sort of crouch. Unfortunately, there was less light here, fewer bricks and more sandstone. Sure, the sandstone glowed, too, but it was a dimmer light, dappled with the few ivory bricks that still sat around in the larger space.
But there was something more here. Not just the bigger space that was easier to work with, but something particular about the walls. They weren't just stone or sand or brick. I pulled out my cell phone and flicked on the flashlight. The weirdness on the walls was chains. Old chains, pitted and worn, lined the walls like a creepy-ass spiderweb. I followed them across the ceiling and across the walls, all back to a single point opposite of where the tunnel let out into this space in the first place. They were anchored somewhere inside that wall, and around that point where they stabbed through the wall were concentric rings carved with symbols I didn't recognize.
It looked a lot like magic to my dumb Mundane ass. I scoured over the area, even got down on my belly to check the floor so I didn't need to run back in here to gather more information. I ran my hand along the wall, carefully avoiding touching the actual chains or the actual symbols, just in case.
And my fucking thumb disappeared, right at the floor line. It sank through the wall until it was completely gone. After the initial jolt of panic subsided—that harsh breathing probably used a lot more of the air in this place, too—my brain clicked into gear. This was a portal, and a shapeshifter could definitely fit through that space to get out.
I pulled my thumb free, turned around, and started out. But I stopped myself. I went to camera on the phone and snapped pictures. It wasn't my place to make complete judgment calls. So I got pictures of the chains, and of the circular symbols, and even braved sticking my thumb back through the wall to get a picture of that. Then I turned and booked it back through the tunnel. I didn't even wait for Gutt to stop the sand waterfall, just pushed straight through it and got myself back out. "It's here."
Gutt's eyebrows jumped up. "You're sure?"
"I'm not sure about anything." I brushed the sand and dust off myself. "But you can't fit in there, and Bancroft's not about to go crawling on his hands and knees." I slipped my phone back out of my pocket and showed Gutt the pictures. "It's definitely not a random, naturally occurring tunnel in the middle of the desert."
"Shit." Gutt shook his head. It's not that he never cussed, but he never just cussed. Gutt was a god damn wordy, loquacious troll. Well-educated. To leave the 'shit' hanging like that…it was not normal or good or comforting, that was for damn sure. "This is bizarre, old magic. You'd think they would have mentioned this in the record if they were going to mention anything at all." He shook his head and handed me my phone back. "The natural connection was sealed off by the land of Al-Sekar. It's tied and chained into the actual bedrock of the Kingdom." He rubbed a hand up and down his face. "I've seen it before, in some of the older prisons, but it's not a commonplace thing anymore, obviously. It would be simple enough to weaken, given enough time. I'm assuming your finger going through the wall wasn't just a hole?"
I shook my head, pocketing my phone. "Straight into the wall, and I assume into the shapeshifters' Kingdom."
Gutt nodded. "It's honestly better than I was expecting. Someone with some actual magical experience will need to get in and look at it, but if it's what it looks like at first glance, it might not be too hard to break the seals."
I sucked in what felt like the first real breath I'd taken all day. "Do we actually have something that might resemble good news in this case?"
Once more, Gutt nodded. "It looks that way. There's obviously something here, and it seems unlikely there would be such a specifically sealed area this far out for no good reason."
I looked to Svenson and shrugged. "Congratulations. Looks like you found what we were looking for, sir."
He opened his mouth to respond, but then the sand stopped. The falling sand in front of the tunnel entrance ended, and a wave of silence passed through the basin, followed by an immediate chill.
I turned to get clear of Gutt and Svenson, then drew my Glock. That's when something tightened around my throat. I swallowed a gasp of panic and reached down to try and pry off whatever was strangling me. I made just enough headway to see a slightly yellow, waxy finger grasped in my hands. And enough to see it swell like a balloon, stretch my fists painfully apart until I finally lost my grip. My gun fell into the sand.
I glanced to the sides and saw Svenson and Gutt were tackling the same issues. A shapeshifter had Gutt firmly in its grasp, hands easily expanded to the size of fucking watermelons, and from what I could tell, it looked like Svenson and I were being attacked by the same shapeshifter, one of us in each fist.
I thrashed and tried to kick backward. Hard. I definitely felt my heel land a few times, but what I hit wasn't hard. It didn't resist enough to bruise or hurt either of us. Unlike the hand choking me out, the rest of the shapeshifter seemed to be…malleable.
A shot of electric panic shot through me as darkness crept in. I struggled again, clawing at the fingers strangling me. My heart was a solid mass. Like a bomb. Movement, pressure, blood pounding fast. But completely held in so it would inevitably explode. My whole body washed cold in spite of the burning sun. My vision was shrinking steadily as my brain stopped working properly.
Then it shrank out of existence completely.
Chapter Fourteen
Slowly, reality crept back in. I was somewhere. I was breathing. No…yes…somewhere cold. Slightly moist earth under me.
I sat bolt upright, instinctively going for my throat. I knew I wasn't being strangled anymore, and I knew I wasn't in the giant sweeping desert of Al-Sekar. That was obvious. But still…I'd been strangled by a shapeshifter. I was alive. I was alive. Alive was better than the alternative.
I didn't feel any undue tenderness. It wasn't like my windpipe was completely crushed down. I didn't bother trying to speak to test and see if there was anything weird going on. Not knowing where I was, where Gutt or Svenson were, or where the shapeshifters were. I couldn't see much beyond incredibly vague, blobby shapes in the dark.
I checked myself over. I was dressed. I didn't feel any pain or discomfort, other than being slightly damp and my back being slightly sore from lying on the ground. I also didn't feel my gun, or my wallet, or my phone. They were smart enough to clean me out of anything that I could try to use.
I finally shifted to get to my feet, moving slowly so I didn't bash my head into some mysterious, low-hanging ceiling.
As soon as I stood up to my full height—arms straight up above my head I still couldn’t touch the ceiling—and took a couple steps, I slipped and fell on my ass, making a nice grunt and splat combination.
"Hello?" I heard a particularly meek, wispy voice somewhere in the dark. A clearing of the throat, then again, stronger and more familiar. "Hello? Gutt? Rourke?"
It was Svenson. I got myself sitting up and, honestly, I just scooted over on my butt because it was a lot farther to fall if I was actually standing. The earth under me wasn't just moist. There were slick patches, like moss on stone. Where the hell were we?
A blast of light flew out, nearly blinding me. I blinked a few times against the assault of the bright white, floating about fifteen feet in the air. It was a collection of spheres, orbiting around each other like a tiny model of the solar system.
Finally my eyes adjusted, and there was Gutt. Of course there was Gutt. He looked at me and nodded. "They didn't bother to bind my magic. I should feel better about that than I do."
"No, you shouldn't." He should feel at lea
st somewhat terrified by that. It was unlikely they knew him by reputation, but they had no way of knowing he wasn't a Class-A practitioner or a specialized killer for shapeshifters. He was, at the very least, considerably more intimidating than Svenson or myself. But they'd left him free to use any magic he had at his disposal, which meant they weren't afraid of him.
And anyone not afraid of Gutt wasn't good news for the likes of myself or Svenson.
I took this chance to assess the space. There was mold and moss, roots poking through the walls. There was a door off to the left. The spots I felt myself slipping on were, in fact, stones covered in some sort of slimy moss or lichen or something like that.
I skipped around those and got Svenson to his feet, then led him back over to Gutt. "All right, what the hell?"
"It looks like a root cellar." Svenson spun in place, taking in the surroundings. "With one door, which means that's how we get out."
Gutt nodded. "I don't like our odds."
I didn't either. "You have the binding magic."
"I might have the binding magic. Or it might be thoroughly useless against a shapeshifter." He scrubbed one hand over his face, but just for a second. "But it's our option, isn't it?"
"Unless you think you can really quietly blow a hole in the wall without them ever noticing."
"Can't you just use one of those portals and get us out of here?" asked Svenson.
It was honestly a good idea. One point for our illustrious director. But Gutt shook his head, pointing to the door. "I'd know the seals anywhere. They block remote transport. Simple, basic magic. It's the first thing put into any prison. An extra layer of security."
"Okay. Then it's the door." Svenson, to his credit, marched over there and put his fingers around the handle. "Are we doing this or not?"
Gutt walked over, already summoning the blue light around his hands. He stayed a few feet back from the door and grounded himself as well as the soft earth would allow, then grimaced back at me. "You two…will need to be a distraction. I can get one, but I'll need a few seconds if they have more than a single guard out there. Just keep them occupied."
