by Joshua King
“Hayden!” I heard Ty hiss from beneath the window.
The window was too high off the floor for me to look down at him.
“Go to the door,” I called out as quietly as I could.
I heard the metallic sound of the fence shake as Ty climbed back down to the ground, and I headed away from the window further into the room. I could barely see, but I thought of how the building looked from the outside and used that to orient myself. I found a door and turned the knob, pausing before pulling it open. When I didn't hear anything, I opened the door and rushed out. Somewhere deep in the building I thought I heard the rumble of voices, but I didn't hesitate. I followed a narrow hallway and found myself in almost complete darkness as I moved away from the windows and into the center of the building.
All I had left was instinct. Holding my hands out in front of me, I made my way as quickly as I could down another hall and to the top of a set of steps. I followed them down, turned at a landing, and saw a hint of light below me. The double doors were right ahead, only a few more steps to go. I'd made it to the landing and started for the entrance when the door beside me opened.
29
I scrambled back up the steps as quickly as I could and pressed myself to the wall, trying to stay out of sight. I hoped whoever was coming through the door hadn't seen or heard me. My heart was in my throat as I waited. Footsteps started up the stairs and I sank further back into the darkness of the hallway. The shape of someone wearing long robes was barely perceptible at the top of the steps as it paused. I held my breath and pushed even further back against the wall, doing my best to will myself invisible. The figure started walking again, and I listed to the sound of their footsteps to track where in the building they were headed. When the sound faded, I slipped back to the stairs and started toward the front doors again.
My feet had just landed on the floor of the entryway when the door to the side burst open and another figure rushed out at me. I didn't even have a chance to brace myself before it hit me. The person latched their arms around me and slammed me into the ground. I pushed back, jumping to my feet ready to fight. The light from the room gave just enough illumination for me to see who I was fighting. It was a man in long robes similar to what Malakan wore. He didn't say anything as he lunged at me again. I felt like he'd been waiting for me. This was one of the mages here to guard Ashe. That meant he had powers and abilities I didn’t and would have the advantage of knowing the building. All I had was my strength and my speed, but it would be enough. It had to be. Grasping the man by the front of his robes, I dropped down onto the floor and rolled back, flipping him onto the floor behind me. I moved to the opposite side of the entryway, then ran directly toward him with a burst of speed. He reached for me as I approached, but I ducked out of the way, causing him to stumble.
Apparently deciding the physical fight wasn’t going in his favor, he held up one hand and a ball of white and blue light appeared in it. It swirled like the inside of the orbs from the ritual, and I tore my eyes away from it so I wouldn't get lost in whatever might be pulsating within the glow. The light shot out from the mage's hand and hit me in the stomach. The impact was like a gunshot and I fell back against the wall. My body slid down to the floor, and I hadn't even begun to recover from the pain before I felt myself being pulled up. My back dragged against the wall, and in seconds my feet were hanging above the floor. The mage was holding me up with his magic, and I was completely at his mercy.
I wasn't going to accept that. Focusing as hard as I could, I willed the magic away from me. I knew it was something I couldn't fight with my physical strength, but I called that intensity that lurked inside me forward and pushed it out against the force holding me up. In seconds, I felt it lessening. I started to slip down the wall. The mage made an angry sound and stepped up closer. The pressure felt like a hard piece of steel trying to impale my stomach and I started to rise up again. I had to fight harder. I had to use whatever it was he was doing against him. Releasing some of my strength, I let the mage lift me up slightly higher. Then I planted my feet on the wall behind me and kicked out with a burst of power. It was enough to break through his hold and propel me through the air toward him. I hit him in the center of the chest and we crashed to the floor.
“Hayden!” I heard Ty shout from outside the doors.
“Be ready!” I yelled back.
The mage and I grappled a few seconds more before I ducked away and ran for the doors. They opened outward, so they couldn’t be kicked in from the outside, but from the inside they were vulnerable, and all it took was the force of my boots at the juncture of where the two doors met for them to splinter. The chains resisted, but the wood was destroyed enough for Ty to break through and come into the building.
We faced off against the mage. He lifted his hand again, but Ty grabbed him from behind to prevent him from moving and locked him in a chokehold. Soon the mage lay unconscious at my feet. I took off my belt and looped it tightly around the man's wrists to bind them behind his back. Ty kicked him to the side so he lay in the shadows beyond the light of the room.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Where do we go now?” he asked.
“Upstairs,” I told him. “I saw another one of them go up there. They were probably going to where they have Ashe.”
We ran up the stairs and followed in the direction I had heard the footsteps go. I wanted to take my phone out of my pocket and use the flashlight, but I didn't want to call any more attention to ourselves than we already had. The hallway wasn't as tight as the tunnels going through the cliff had been, but somehow, they felt even more suffocating. I kept my hands to the sides to feel the walls as we went, and when they dipped into the recess of a door, we tried it. The latch was locked.
“Should we break it?” Ty asked.
“No,” I said. “It's too small. Ashe is in a sanctuary. The doors will be bigger.”
We continued on until Ty stopped.
“I think I found it,” he said.
I felt the wall in front of where he was standing. I could tell there were two large doors. Knowing there was no way we were going to get out of this without the mage guards noticing anyway, I pulled out my phone. The light showed dark wooden double doors, but there didn't appear to be a lock or anything to keep them closed. I glanced at Ty, and we each grabbed onto a handle. I had expected to see the elaborate sanctuary when the doors opened, but I hadn't expected it to be completely empty. Dark and almost oppressively quiet, the space didn't have anything like what I'd seen in the vision except for the rows of pews. They hunkered like corpses. There were no candles burning along the walls, and the altar stretched cold and empty at the end of the room.
“She's not here,” I said. “How is that possible? This is the place. I know it is. But she's not here.”
“Could they have moved her?” Ty asked.
“No,” I said. “I don't think so. The way they had her hanging wasn't temporary. It looked like a rig they had built into the ceiling.” I ran down the aisle toward the altar. It was a platform, just like I'd seen in my vision, but the moonlight filtering through the stained-glass windows showed a thick layer of dust on the top. “There's no carving,” I said. “The dragon with the moon. The crest was carved into the altar underneath Ashe.” Something suddenly occurred to me. “The stained glass,” I said.
“What about it?” Ty asked.
“The vision was supposed to be the present, right? That means it was happening at the same time I was seeing it. It was already dark when I went through the ritual, which means it should have been dark when I was seeing Ashe. But it wasn't. It was light enough to see the patterns in the windows and the details of the sanctuary. I thought it was because of all the candles, but that wouldn't be enough to light up the windows all the way to the top. There was light on the other side of the glass.”
“There has to be another sanctuary,” Ty said. “This one is here to throw people off. If anyone happened to get through the door and int
o the church, they would find this and it would still look abandoned.”
“Right. The Dragon left this one just as it was when they took over the building, and then added their own somewhere. If they are working closely with the mages, it's possible there's one that's been mirrored, but it would have to be inside another room in order for the light to shine through like that.”
“How are we going to find it?”
“The Dragon aren't humble people,” I said. “You know that.”
“Yes,” Ty said.
There was more bitterness in that word than I'd ever heard put into a single word before.
“I can't see them going to extremes to put protections on their temple. They wouldn't just leave it unguarded and accessible by anyone who happened to wander by, but they are just arrogant enough to believe their simple protections were enough. They need a lot of space for their private gatherings and rituals. They aren’t going to waste all of it with false rooms and traps.”
“What are you thinking?”
I walked across the altar toward what looked like a large cabinet at the back of the room.
“I don't know how many churches you've been inside or what details you paid attention to, but for me it's about three, and almost none of them. One time when I was trying to date a girl who went to church a lot, she brought me along. Anyway, I totally checked out during the talking, but I got really fixated on the thing at the back of the altar.” I gestured toward the cabinet. “It looked like this. After the service, I asked her what it was, and she explained it was where the clergy kept the relics and the items used for the church rituals. She pointed out that in some churches the cabinet actually connects to a room or even a series of rooms in the back of the building where elders or members of the clergy meet, work, and sometimes even live. I'd never heard of that. I thought she might be making it up.”
“But what if she wasn't?”
“Now you're following me. Should we see?”
A tiny hook secured the doors and I flipped it open. I was pulling the doors forward when a crash made us turn. Three more mages ran into the sanctuary toward us. Ty rushed onto the altar and I threw the doors open, running in before I even looked to see what waited for me inside. At first, I thought I might have horribly miscalculated and we really had just climbed into a cabinet. Then I noticed another narrow door in the wall. I opened it and we squeezed through. We found ourselves in a short hall with two doors, one on either side, and a third at the end. Hearing the shouts and heavy footsteps of the mages behind us, I ran for the one at the end of the hall and grabbed the handle. It was hot enough to sear my skin and I hissed as I pulled my hand away.
“I guess they did use one more protection,” I said through gritted teeth.
The mages were already in the cabinet passage, and I grabbed the handle again. Forcing myself through the pain, I opened the door and ran into the room. Ty slammed the door shut behind me and slid a large piece of wood that acted as a brace into place. It wouldn't hold them forever, but it was enough for now.
The room glowed with the light of the candles and I saw the stained-glass windows rising up on either side. Soft light was coming through them. I'd been right. The mages had used this space to mirror the sanctuary.
“Ashe,” I said, gasping when my eyes found her.
Just like I'd seen in my vision, she was dangling above the altar. Her hands were gripping a chain and leather straps wrapped around her wrists. I could see that her grip wasn't as strong as it had been when I had seen the vision. I ran to her, afraid of what I'd find when I got there. The sound of my footsteps joined the pounding of the mages against the door, and Ashe groaned weakly. She was still alive.
“I'm here,” I said. “I'm going to get you out of here.”
“Hayden,” she murmured.
She was hanging high above the platform. I would need to get up higher to be able to release the strap from her wrists. Ty ran down the aisle and was nearly knocked to the ground by the doors splintering as they burst open. He dropped to his knees, but rebounded, and jumped onto the altar with us.
“We need to get her down,” I said, grabbing her around the legs to support her and provide some relief for her wrists.
Ty looked around, then ran to a podium that was pushed to the side of the altar. He brought it over, and I climbed onto it. The wood was barely strong enough to support me, but it only needed to last until I got her down.
“What do you think you're doing?” one of the mages demanded as they approached.
“Take care of them,” I said to Ty.
He climbed down from the altar and grabbed up a large piece of wood from the splintered door to use as a weapon. My fingers worked at the hooks that secured the leather around Ashe's wrists as I tried to ignore the brutal sounds of the fight below me. Finally, I got the strap loose and she collapsed onto me. A flash of bright red light burst around us, and the podium exploded under my feet. I held Ashe tightly to me to protect her as we fell. She landed on top of me. I heard her let out a slightly strained laugh.
“Haven't we been in this position before?” she asked.
I grinned at her.
“I'm glad you still have your sense of humor,” I said.
Ty ran up onto the altar with us again, and I noticed his clothes were torn. A gash along his side was starting to heal, but one on his leg looked fresh.
“How are we going to get out of here?” he asked.
“Take care of Ashe,” I said. “As soon as you see the chance to run, go. Don't wait for me.”
“Hayden,” Ashe started to protest.
“Just get out as fast as you can. Get into Ty's car. I'll be right behind you.”
I got down off the altar and looked toward the mages. One was on the ground between two pews, but was shifting around, trying to get up. The other two closed in on me, and I knew what was coming. One didn't even lift his hand before the jolts of magic came toward me. They felt like bands of steel wrapping around me, tightening until I couldn't breathe. I squeezed my eyes closed and focused on my strength. I imagined it surrounding me and blocking the magic from getting to me. It was all I could think of to do in that moment, and as I did it, I realized it seemed to be working. The mages started groaning and grunting as they forced more of their magic toward me, and I continued to fight to hold it at bay. When it felt like they had relented enough, I opened my eyes and ran for the nearest candelabra. Several feet tall, it had six arms, each holding a flaming ivory pillar. I took hold of the stand and threw it at the men. The stumbled back, but the flames had caught their robes. Their screams rose up in the sanctuary and I checked over my shoulder to make sure Ty and Ashe were gone as I crawled over the first several pews. When I was past the mages, I jumped into the aisle and ran back through the first sanctuary, through the church, and out into the thin night air. Ashe threw open the back door to Ty's car and I leapt in beside her. The door was barely closed behind me when the tires squealed and spun, and Ty sped out of the parking lot.
“Are you alright?” I asked Ashe.
I brushed her hair back from her face and searched her eyes. She looked tired and worn, but stable.
“I'll be fine,” she said.
I gave her a fierce kiss, then gathered her into a tight hug. I held her to me as I watched the first hints of morning light touch the horizon ahead.
30
“What happened?” Ty asked. “How did you end up there?”
“I don't really know,” Ashe said.” I was at The Foundry with Hayden and we were waiting for you. We'd been sitting at the bar, watching everybody dance. I decided to order a drink, but the bartender wasn't paying any attention to us. He looked our way twice the entire time we were sitting there and wouldn't even come over to me so I could order anything. I told Hayden I would be right back, got up, and walked over to bartender. That's where things start to get a little fuzzy.”
“What do you mean fuzzy?” I asked.
“I'm just not sure. I know I ord
ered the drink. I remember, because the bartender was trying to hit on me using the names of various cocktails. I guess he thought it would make him seem funny and charming.”
“When I went and asked the bartender where you were, he said he brought you your drink, but you weren't there,” I said. “He told me you ordered, but then he said he came back with it and you were gone. So, he put it on the bar and you just never came back. What do you remember after you ordered the drink?”
“I turned back around to say something to you,” Ashe said. “But you weren't there, either.”
“The Dragon came for me,” I said. “I tried to get them to wait for you, so you could come with me, but they wouldn't.”
“Come with you where? Through that door?”
I explained about moving through the shadows to the octagonal room and my conversation with the Dragon.
“When they decided they were done with me, they sent me out to the alley. That's when I found out you were gone.”
“The shadow,” she said. “That's what happened. I had just ordered my drink, and I looked over to where we'd been sitting at the bar. You weren't there, but I walked over to wait for you. I figured if I could make the effort to go over to the bartender because he was ignoring me, then he could come over to me once he made my drink. When I got there, I looked at the door, thinking you might have decided to try to battle the guard to get through again. It was darker over there than it had been. The shadows were even deeper. Something moved, and I thought it was you. I thought you were trying to get me to come back there to you. I walked over to them, then everything went dark.”
“They grabbed you,” I said.
“They must have done something to knock me out. Everything else is just flashes. I remember being in a car. I remember seeing the outside of the church, but I wasn't even sure I was actually seeing it. It seemed like a dream. Then I was out again for a while, and when I was aware again, they were hoisting me up over the altar. I have no idea what they did to me. There was blood all over the floor, and I felt horrible. Like I could barely breathe, I had so little energy. I don't even know if they realized I was awake. I wanted to fight them off and try to escape, but they already had the leather around my wrists and there was no way I was going to be strong enough to break free. Whatever they did to me, it took so much out of me. All I could do was hang in there. I drifted in and out consciousness, and I tried to take in as much as I could, so I could try to escape if I got the chance, but there was nothing I could do.”
