by Nazri Noor
She punctuated her incanting with a curse. I strained to listen, but I hated that I couldn’t recognize whether it was Thea’s voice. Had it really been that long since we’d defeated her in the battle at the square?
“Deal with them,” she said, her voice muffled by the clamor of fighting, and the pitiful sounds that the man on the floor – let’s call him Wrist – was making. “Protect the Codex.” I averted my eyes as the room filled with a flash of brilliance. She disappeared.
The woman had teleported away. Gone, like the last time, right out of the clutches of the Lorica, and now, right out of our grasp. I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve dreamed of the things I would have done to her in exchange for murdering me, for planting the seed of corruption I still didn’t understand in my heart. I don’t know how many nights I’ve struggled with the guilt of even thinking of doing that, but I’ve never wanted to hurt someone more.
For now we had to handle the idiots she left behind. I had to focus. One cultist down, and three more to deal with. I was about ready to step into the room – that guy with the ponytail and the glasses, I could do the old Sneaky Dustin Special. Just shadowstep behind him, and smash him in the back of the head. As I weighed my options, a mist started to rise from the floor. That decided for me. I knew on instinct to stay the hell out.
It wasn’t a trap set by the Viridian Dawn, though, judging by the pale orange tinge of the vapors. Carver, wherever he was, was trying to put these guys to sleep again. I guess I appreciated his non-violent approach to suppressing threats, but something about knowing what these people had done, and had in store, made me feel a little less reserved about hurting them. That and the fact that they were almost very likely working for Thea.
The mist rose, and I had to admit, I was glad that we’d be able to end things quickly. The only thing more dangerous than a hostile mage was a bunch of normals in possession of lethal artifacts. Thea – no, it couldn’t have been her – their leader had equipped them with a host of magical items. I might have mentioned this before, but that’s about as responsible as handing a grenade to a small child.
One of them was already hurriedly reading out loud from a scrap of notebook paper by the light of his cellphone. I guess you couldn’t cast spells directly from a notes app – something which shattered my grand fantasy of sending someone a fireball as an email attachment – but there were more immediate problems to worry about. If there was one thing I remembered from working with the Lorica, it’s that the vehicle for magic didn’t matter, only the intent. That notebook paper was a scroll, and something super shitty was about to happen.
The scrap of paper vanished in a puff of flame, and the cultists’ bodies became awash in faint light. They watched, eyes wide in terror, as the mist rose, licking at their clothes, probing at their mouths – but nothing happened. Whatever was on that scroll had countered Carver’s spell. The guy with the notebook paper – the one with the ponytail and glasses, let’s call him Scrolls – smiled and reached into his pocket for another piece of paper.
“There’s three of them,” Scrolls said, the lens of his glasses gleaming as he thrust his finger into empty space. Wait – those were enchanted too. He’d spotted Carver.
One of the men, a shuddering mess, pulled out what looked like a tiny pebble, and hurled it at the patch of empty space Scrolls had indicated. It sailed through the air harmlessly, comically – and then grew by several magnitudes into a boulder. Something in the room cracked, and snapped. Carver screamed. Pebbles thrust his fist in the air, triumphant, doubtless glad that he’d scored and had unwittingly taken down a supremely powerful sorcerer with a rock. But he didn’t expect Sterling to react so quickly.
No one could have. In a blur of black hair and leather, Sterling shot through the darkness, teeth bared and hand outstretched. Sterling’s momentum and his unholy strength slammed Pebbles into the opposite wall. The man-boy cried out in fear and pain as the impact cratered the wall and sent up a shower of broken plaster. With his other hand, Sterling forced Pebbles’s jaw upward, and he began to feed. The boy yelped, then whimpered, writhing and struggling. I looked away.
Gil growled and charged directly for the largest of the men, this huge wall of confused but sturdy muscle my mind immediately labeled as Chunk. Gil’s talons slashed in a crescent, the sweep of his claws leaving a trail of black blood. With his chest cut open, Chunk screamed.
Which left just Scrolls, and with Carver out of commission that meant that it was up to me to take him down. I shut my eyes and willed myself into the ethers. I was spoiled for choice with the entire house thrust into darkness, but I figured my best destination was my old standby: right behind Scrolls. I could grab the lamp off a side table, then beat him in the back of the head with it. Excellent.
The jaunt through the Dark Room went quick and easy, and the shift in temperature after exiting its gloom signaled that I was back in our reality, just a short distance away from Scrolls. I reached behind me, careful not to make a sound as I grabbed the lamp –
And was promptly met with a fist to the jaw. I grunted and stumbled, eyes tearing with pain, a faint tang of blood in my mouth from having bitten my tongue.
“Can’t get the jump on me,” Scrolls said, smug and self-congratulatory, except that I could hear his voice shaking. His fingers trembled as he struggled to unfurl another sheet of notebook paper. “I’ll dodge you every time.”
“That fucking hurt,” I said, spitting out blood.
He kept muttering, squinting, eyes frantically scanning the spell in his hands. I drew a deep breath, flush with the impending pleasure of beating the shit out of him. My mind whirred through the possibilities. Everything in the room was a shadow, meaning that everything was a surface for me to work with, to emerge from.
I allowed myself to melt into the ground, sinking soundlessly into the darkness, never breaking eye contact with Scrolls.
“Dodge this, motherfucker.”
He stammered long enough to interrupt his spellcasting, looking wildly about to see where I was going to appear next.
He wasn’t expecting the ceiling.
I aimed my foot at his face as I dropped, relishing the crack his bones made when my shoe made contact with his jaw. I landed heavily on the ground, rolling to take the strain off my legs and avoid injury. Scrolls yowled as he slumped to the floor, clutching his face.
Sprays of dark, wet droplets burst from his mouth as he sputtered, mixed with bright white shards of his teeth. His enchanted spectacles were a mess of twisted metal and broken glass. Smashing an artifact was just the kind of thing that would have given Herald a heart attack, but it gave me the greatest surge of satisfaction in that moment. I sucked on my tongue, flush with adrenaline, and maybe a grim sense of accomplishment.
All four of the Dawn’s final defenders were down for the count. Scrolls was picking broken glass out of his face and groping around the floor for his teeth. Wrist was still clutching his hand and moaning. Chunk had somehow disappeared, driven to sheer terror by Gil’s claws, or to find some way to mend his gaping wounds, or both, and Pebbles was writhing on the floor, pale, possibly bloodless, but alive.
Maybe I should have felt some sliver of remorse, but I steeled myself with the reminder that these people were responsible for at least twelve deaths that we knew of. Given time to accumulate more artifacts and power they would have ruined even more lives. There was also the niggling matter of them being the reason I had a tattoo counting down my impending death.
Collecting myself, I went to help Sterling and Gil move the boulder off of our invisible employer, but I should have known that my presence was unnecessary. They lifted the stone easily, Gil cursing as its enchantment disappeared the moment they took it off the ground, reverting to the size of a pebble. Carver blinked back into existence, groaning as Sterling helped him to his feet.
“That was – inconvenient,” Carver said, somehow none the worse for wear apart from the creases in his suit. I didn’t know what it would
have taken to kill him, but apparently it involved much more than being crushed under several hundred pounds of rock.
I shrugged. “You couldn’t have, I don’t know, destroyed the boulder? I’ve seen you do it to a knife.”
He scowled, brushing at his suit. “Disintegrating something as tiny as a knife takes significantly less ability than an entire boulder, Mr. Graves. And who knows if this fight is even over? I’ll need enough power to transport us home, after all. Also for this.”
Carver waved his hand again, and this time the amber mist didn’t take its time traveling across the room. It snaked across the floor, slipping into three pairs of nostrils, finally driving the remaining cultists into silence and stillness.
“Better,” Carver said.
“Yeah,” Sterling said. “The bitching and moaning was really getting to me.”
“Now. To the Codex.” Carver scanned the room, pointing to a door at the far end of the hall. “There. The three of you best be on your guard. I don’t sense anything beyond the artifact, but as we’ve seen, these idiots are just full of surprises.”
It took a while for me to realize that my hand was slowly making its way to the flap of my backpack. He said to be careful, and judging from what we’d seen out here, it wouldn’t have been a stretch to think that the Viridian Dawn had other, more exotic defenses in place. Hell, the door could have been warded, for all we knew.
Without warning, Sterling smashed his shoulder into the door, breaking it into so many shattered fragments. Gil groaned.
“What the hell, man?” I hissed.
“Elegant as always,” Carver sighed, drifting languidly in the wake of splinters and Sterling’s palpable arrogance.
Maybe I expected another room of people, except that our boys would have warned us with their keen senses. Or maybe I expected the room to be filled with trip wires attached to grenades and explosives, or whatever the mystical equivalent of that was. Fireball traps, if these people played by the same rules as the Lorica. The last thing I expected was a boy huddling in the corner of what looked like a shabby bedroom.
Who knows when I’ll ever get used to his ridiculous speed, but Sterling streaked to the boy in a flash. He had the kid cornered, clutching him by the throat. Sterling bared his teeth and snarled. His lips were still wet with blood.
“Where’s the Codex?”
“Get the fuck off me. I – I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I was inclined to believe the kid. His eyes were wide with terror, but he was making a spirited attempt to fight Sterling off. Knowing the vampire’s strength, that was like beating a steel girder with limp spaghetti.
Carver raised a hand, his rings glowing a menacing umber in the darkness. “Sterling. Put him down.”
“So he can defend himself like those morons we beat up, or run away like their master did? Not a chance. We came for the Codex, and we aren’t leaving without it.”
“I said put him down,” Carver said, very softly, his voice lined with menace. He extended a finger. “That’s what we came for.”
I followed the line of Carver’s finger. He was pointing at the boy.
The Genesis Codex was a human boy.
Chapter 17
“You mean inside, him, right?” Sterling lifted the boy to his feet by the collar. “I’ll cut it out of him.”
“You idiot,” Carver snarled. “I said what I said. The boy is the Codex.”
I scratched the back of my neck. What the hell was going on? “So you’re saying he’s an artifact?”
“He isn’t an artifact, you moron,” Carver hissed. “Clearly the Viridian Dawn perpetuated that rumor to obfuscate the fact that he was a mage all along.”
Ooh. Carver was breaking out the big words. He was either pissed, or excited. Maybe both. I knew it was time to bite my tongue. But you know me. When do I ever shut up?
“But you’re like one of the Eyes at the Lorica,” I said. “Hell, that’s what your fake eye is for, isn’t it? The one you gave to Amaterasu, and the replacement you’re wearing now? And you couldn’t sense him at all?”
“I couldn’t,” Carver muttered, but it was clear that this news wasn’t distressing to him. If anything, he seemed fascinated.
“And between all the magic-sniffing noses and eyes and shit between us, none of you picked up on it?”
Gil shook his head. “Nothing. It’s like he wasn’t here.” Sterling shook his head as well, still pinning the kid to the wall with one hand.
“They did something to the room,” the boy said. “Someone mentioned something about wards. They made it so no one could find me.”
Carver intoned a single phrase. A globe of light flickered into existence, allowing the boy to see the four of us at last. He scrabbled against the wall, his eyes shifting, alternately defiant and frightened.
“Then they’ve held you here this whole time?” Carver’s voice was gentle, and calming.
The boy nodded. “Yes. Deirdre was the one who found me. Deirdre Calloway. She said she would keep me safe. But all they’ve done was keep me locked up.”
Deirdre? The woman who disappeared? It wasn’t Thea after all, then. I felt a swelling mix of relief, and disappointment. Her being out of the picture meant that these cultists were nowhere nearly as dangerous or insane as I’d expected, but it also meant that we were nowhere nearer to bringing her and her madness to justice.
“We aren’t here to harm you,” Carver said. Something about his demeanor was so changed, the aura of menace about him discarded as readily as a paper mask. I couldn’t tell if it was more illusory magic, or just his charisma at work. “My name is Carver.”
The boy watched him warily, eyes flitting across each of our faces. He swallowed, then spoke. “Asher. My name is Asher.”
Carver nodded. “These men are my colleagues. The hairy one is Gil. The spindly one is Dustin.” I looked down at myself, wondering whether to be flattered or insulted. “And the one with all the teeth is Sterling.”
“Pleasure,” Sterling mumbled, finally releasing his death-grip on Asher’s shirt.
“Will you come with us? Somewhere more interesting. I can promise you safety.” Carver gestured around the room. “And windows.”
Carver offered his hand, and Asher reached out and took it. Something passed between them, like an unseen, unheard agreement had been made, a contract signed, and what made it all the more resonant was my recognition of the scene. This was almost exactly how Carver had gotten me to agree to work with him.
It was fascinating to watch it from the outside, and whatever else Carver was, he took care of us. We were fed, watered, and sheltered, and the kid’s – Asher’s living conditions would certainly be far better compared to this.
“Quickly now,” Carver said, hurrying Asher along as he gathered up the few objects that counted as his belongings. Asher collected some books, a few clothes, and a notebook. He stuffed them all in a duffle bag, then we filed out of the dilapidated bedroom and down the stairs.
A sense of urgency permeated the air, and I shouldn’t have wondered why. We’d expended magic in many different ways in such a small span of time, and anyone who cared to be listening or watching the ethers closely enough would have caught a whiff of the action. The last thing we needed was a gang of Wings from the Lorica pouncing on our asses, with maybe a few Hands thrown in for good measure.
We busted out onto the lawn, the air gone surprisingly cooler because of the darkness. Asher shut his eyes and breathed in deeply, taking in the smell of the garden and the outside world. I felt a stab of pity for the poor kid. But his eyes flickered open, and he looked around himself.
“Wait. Isn’t it supposed to be like two in the afternoon? What’s going on?”
“Dustin,” Carver said. “The mirror. Return the sun. I’ll work on sending us home.” He gestured with his fingers and began to incant.
“Check,” I said, reaching into my pocket for Amaterasu’s mirror. But a change came over the sky, or somewher
e closer still. There was a strange quality to the air, a visual shift that looked like – wait. Was that the gleam of glass?
“Oh, fuck,” I shouted. “Look out!”
Too late. We missed the signs, and another force field had already been dropped around us. We were locked into another one of these infernal domes.
The pale flames that had gathered around Carver’s feet as he prepared the sending spell vanished, and he cursed. “Someone – something is stopping us from leaving.”
“The Lorica,” I said. “They’re here.”
Sterling groaned. “Not this shit again.”
Gil, to my surprise, hardly looked shaken. Maybe he even seemed excited. He ran a hand through his hair and smoothed the creases out of his jacket. When our eyes met, he looked away and coughed.
Sterling flew off his feet before anyone had a chance to react, not that we could even tell where the attack was coming from. The air whistled as he rocketed across the lawn and slammed headlong into the force field. There was a crack. Several cracks, actually.
“Holy shit,” Asher cried. He ducked behind Carver. Smart move.
“Fuuuck,” Sterling groaned, a twitching puddle of torn muscle and broken bone. “Not this shit again.”
“Did you miss me?” Bastion’s voice trilled as he appeared from around the side of the house. “I got you good, didn’t I, you bloodsucking piece of shit.”
Sterling twitched. “Gimme a minute and I’ll tear your balls out through your throat. Just gimme a – ”
He screamed again, the sound of it cut off by the cacophonous screech and clank of metal as a car dropped on top of him. An entire fucking car. Bastion wasn’t playing around.
“Jesus Christ,” Asher screamed. “You killed him.”
“And those are the good guys,” Carver said. “Or so they claim.”
A blue glow emanated from the other side of the house. So Prudence was here. How many did they bring? Surely she wasn’t brazen enough to show up with just Bastion. Then again, they’d already disabled one of us. I looked over at the car. Check that. Maybe Sterling was even dead. Oh, shit.
