“May the wind be always at your back,” Fang replied with a nod, turning away. “Do not let the sun find you in our land.”
I turned to see that the Dreadwolves had disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.
“That’s odd,” Monty said, absorbing the small sun he held in his hand. “That was much hotter than intended.”
“Excuse me?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Did that orb feel hotter than usual to you?”
“You mean the one that nearly barbecued my face?”
“So it did feel hotter?”
“Hotter than what? Sitting on the surface of the sun? It’s not like I’m measuring the Kelvins of your orbs...that just sounded wrong.”
“It seemed off,” Monty said, pensively. “I didn’t use more energy than usual.”
A roar filled the park behind us.
“Sounds like our cue to get moving again,” I said, jumping into a quick run behind Monty. “What is making that noise, by the way? I’m guessing it’s not a Dreadwolf.”
“You recall the ogres we’ve faced?”
“Do I have to?”
“That sound was made by a similar creature—at least in physiology.”
“That didn’t sound like any ogre we’ve faced,” I said. “It sounded like an Ogre Plus on steroids.”
“That is an apt description,” Monty answered, veering slightly left as we approached the Keep. “It was the sound of a behemoth.”
“Doesn’t sound pleasant.”
“It isn’t,” Monty added. “Behemoths are incredibly intelligent and formidable adversaries. It would be best to avoid them.”
“That’s why you were slowing down?”
“Yes, I placed a few traps to delay some of the more dangerous creatures in the park. The ones that posed the greatest threat.”
“What was the whole thing with the lineage?” I asked. “For a second, I thought you were going to say, ‘I’m Tristan Montague, from the clan Montague. In the end, there can be only one’. Sounded just like Connor McCloud.”
“It sounds like you’re pronouncing it ‘McCloud’ like clouds in the sky,” Monty said. “I would imagine it would sound a little different since it’s spelled ‘MacLeod’. Probably closer to ‘mac loud’, just joined together.”
“Do I look Scottish? You know it?”
“Who is Connor MacLeod?” Monty said, slowing down. “Is this some obscure reference from your movie-saturated brain?”
“Highlander? There can be only one? Are you serious? With the great Sean Connery? Immortals fighting for a prize?”
“Are they?”
“Not that I know of, but this is Highlander.”
“So you’ve said,” Monty said, pacing and looking down. “Is it a movie about immortals?”
“Yes, Connor is from the highlands and he’s taught by Sean Connery.”
“And Sean teaches Connor the ways of the immortals, and how to fight?”
“Well, in the movie, he’s Ramirez—”
“Ramirez? From the NYTF?”
“No,” I said, glaring at him. “His character in the movie is named Ramirez. Sean plays a Spaniard.”
“Let me see if I understand,” Monty said. “You have an Irish Scot playing a Spaniard?”
“Yes, Sean is amazing in it.”
“And he portrays a mentor who prepares the immortal highlander for the end…where there can only be one?” Monty asked. “That about right?”
“Yes! You’ve heard of it, then?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell, sorry. Is it a travel movie about Scotland?”
“Did they ever let you out at the Golden Circle?”
“Of course we went out,” Monty snapped. “We just didn’t go out to the movies… we went out to war.”
“I’ll make sure you watch it when we get back. It’s a classic.”
“I think we have different definitions for the word, ‘classic’,” Monty said, as he stopped and crouched down. “We’re here.”
“The Keep is way over there,” I said, looking across the field. “What are you talking about?”
He placed his hand on the ground and whispered a few words. The area surrounding us exploded with violet runes, delineating a large circle with the Keep in the center.
“Yes,” Monty said, pointing down, “but the entrance is here.”
FOUR
The runes formed a path straight to the now nearby Keep.
“It moved?” I said, looking at the fortress now several hundred feet away. “Teleportation?”
“A more likely explanation is that the distance compressed, like the bellows of an accordion, moving us closer to the Keep.”
“This is what you meant by flexible distance,” I said, looking around. “This doesn’t look inviting in the least.”
“It’s not meant to be.”
We walked the remaining distance to the massive door of the Keep.
It was an impressive, medium-sized fortress, complete with a corner turret and open-air pavilion. It bore a slight resemblance to Belvedere Castle—which existed in my Central Park—except the Hunter’s Keep was squatter, angrier looking, and gave off an air of menace…like a predator ready to pounce.
“Are you sure no one lives here?” I asked, as we followed the path. “B&E sounds like a bad idea in the land of Dreadwolves and worse.”
“We are not breaking and entering,” Monty said. “It’s more like inviting ourselves in.”
“Right,” I said, looking around. “Is that behemoth going to catch up?”
“Not for a while. I added a time component to the trap,” Monty said, approaching the massive door. “It will be stuck in a loop until we are done, unless it was something else.”
“Something else?” I asked, concerned. “Care to elaborate?”
“Not particularly. Professor Ziller’s treatise was far from conclusive. This is an entirely different plane. I doubt he could catalogue all of its denizens. Some of his research assistants never made it back from this plane.”
“That’s encouraging,” I said, glancing back again. “Maybe we should hurry up?”
“This process can’t be rushed,” Monty said. “I have to examine the entrance first.”
“So whatever made that noise could be a behemoth or something worse?”
“It’s refreshing to see you’re paying attention…for once.”
“I’m not really enjoying this trip,” I said, looking behind us. “Are you sure we can’t do this test of yours on our home plane?”
“Quite,” Monty said, touching the door and nodding. “There is a sequence. It’s ancient, but functional.”
“You seem to know plenty about this place,” I said, looking around. “When was the last time you were here?”
“Uncle Dex brought me here during my first shift,” Monty said, running his hand lightly over the door. “I don’t remember much of it. My shift had rendered me mostly unconscious.”
“Mostly…unconscious?” I said. “Maybe we should contact Dex, who I hope was fully conscious at the time?”
“He’s busy at the Golden Circle, and we don’t have that kind of time,” Monty answered, focusing on the door. “You heard Fang, we are on a schedule, a limited one.”
“We are not on a ‘shedyul’,” I corrected. “It’s ‘skedyul’.”
“If we are here when the sun rises, it won’t matter how it’s pronounced,” Monty said. “Even though ‘shedyul’ is the correct pronunciation.”
“Why? What happens at sunrise? Do the reverse vampires flood the park?”
Monty just stared at me for a few seconds.
“Your brain is a disturbing place,” he said and resumed examining the door. “At daybreak, the safe passage Fang extended expires.”
“Shit,” I said. “That sounds bad.”
“The Dreadwolves will be the first to attack, followed by other sorts of elements from this plane,” Monty said. “Before you ask, no, we can’t teleport insid
e the wards surrounding the Keep. We have to physically be outside of the circle of wards to cast.”
“Sounds like poor planning,” I said. “I’m sure the hunter people had tunnels, or some other way to get out.”
“Unlikely,” Monty said, shaking his head. “A way out is also a way in.”
“Good point. I wouldn’t want to have another entrance to guard in this place,” I said. “Did anyone inform these hunters that putting a base in enemy territory is a bad idea?”
“I think it was making a statement.”
“What? Come and kill us?”
“We don’t fear you, and we are dangerous enough to place our base of operations in your front yard.”
I took a step back and admired the Hunters’ Keep again. It did have a ‘we are such badasses, we dare you to come knocking’ feel to it. Still, it was foolish to put your HQ in the middle of hostile territory. It usually meant a short life span, no matter the statement being made.
“I can see the badassery of it, right up to the moment they get stormed and wiped out,” I said. “By the way, what happened to the Hunters, if this place is empty?”
“My uncle is more knowledgeable on that subject,” Monty answered, and placed a hand flat on the door. “I’m pretty certain I can figure this sequence out.”
Monty positioned his face close to his hand, as if he were listening to a secret the door was sharing. I was hoping it was telling him to go home.
“‘Pretty certain’ doesn’t give me much confidence in your ability to figure out an ancient set of runes,” I said. “Why don’t we just go back and visit Roxanne? Maybe she can find out what’s wrong with me?”
“We will,” Monty answered, with his head still against the door. “Right after we conduct the test.”
“The words ‘guinea pig’ are coming to mind,” I said. “Are you sure you don’t just want to experiment on a phasing immortal?”
“I wouldn’t undertake this test lightly,” Monty answered, looking at me. “It would be dishonest to say I wasn’t interested in the results. However, my first priority is to help you.”
“Right, spoken like a true mad scientist or mad mage in this case,” I said. “Can you open that door before we get visitors who’d like to shred us?”
“If I weren’t being distracted, this would be easier,” Monty said, without turning to me. “Take in the architecture: a Keep of this age is a fascinating structure.”
“Thanks, Frank Lloyd. I’m going to pass on the sightseeing if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t, but I would prefer some quiet while I figure this out.”
My hellhound had just hit me with a deep zen moment, and he was right. Time to try out the hellhound zen on the grumpy mage.
“Monty, why don’t we call it a day…or night in this case?” I asked. “I mean, can’t we go to Haven, let Roxanne run a few tests and deal with whatever it is?”
“We will do that.”
“But you have to run your super dangerous test first, right?”
“Did you see my orb?”
“That sounds a little personal,” I said. “I’m not paying attention to your orbs.”
“Stop being foolish,” he snapped. “The orb I cast earlier was affected by something other than my control.”
“You’re losing control?” I asked, warily. “What do you mean, exactly?”
“It was stronger than it should have been,” he continued, “yet I didn’t expend any additional energy.”
“Maybe this place has extra ambient energy? It does have a certain je ne sais quoi of imminent destruction in the air.”
“The runes back at the Moscow on my uncle’s door, do you remember?”
“Yes, they were pulsing, I remember them.”
“They never do that,” Monty said, now staring at me. “Not in all the time that that door has contained runes have they pulsed like that.”
“Are you saying the runes are broken?”
“They started pulsing when we got close,” Monty answered, slowly as if thinking it through. “When you got close.”
“What are you trying to say?” I asked, defensively. “Are you saying I broke the runes?”
“You can’t ‘break’ runes by your mere presence,” Monty replied. “You’re not nearly that powerful. But it’s possible that whatever is happening with your signature is responsible.”
“Great,” I said, throwing up a hand. “Now you’re saying I’m runically radioactive?”
“I won’t know for certain until I run the test. Please stand back,” he said, waving me away from the door. “If something goes wrong—”
“Make it so nothing goes wrong.”
“Don’t be naive, Simon,” he said. “If something can go wrong, it usually does. This door has an ancient rune set I’m trying to decipher under a time constraint. The odds of something going wrong are astronomically high.”
“If something goes wrong,” I said, “we’ll deal with it like we always do.”
“This is different,” Monty said, keeping his voice low. “If I get this wrong, we could drop the wards around the Keep, or set off a failsafe that incinerates us where we stand. Both of those would be undesirable.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“I’m a mage, Simon,” Monty said. “Mages don’t do upbeat or”—he waved a hand—“motivational. We’re realists. To be otherwise is delusional.”
“It’s not delusional to be optimistic once in a while,” I countered. “Not everything is doom and gloom.”
“We’re standing in an alternate plane under the imminent threat of death,” Monty replied. “Have you considered that you may not be immortal in this plane?”
“Excuse me?”
“The curse that ensures you remain alive after suffering some deadly attack may not function here,” he said. “I don’t know if Kali’s influence extends to this or any other plane besides our own. We may very likely die here. That optimistic enough for you?”
“Montague Motivational Mornings,” I said. “If you ever get tired of saving the world, you could start a course on how to get people to start their days. Feeling sluggish? Just imagine: your house could’ve blown up last night. Now go tackle the day!”
He stared at me for a few seconds and shook his head. I seem to have that effect on people.
“Just take a step over there…to the right,” he said, pointing. “Stay out of the direct path of the door.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said serious. “If I see anything weird, I’ll react fast, maybe even take a jump to the left?”
“If you continue, I’ll feed you to the Dreadwolves myself.”
“Fine,” I said, raising my hands in surrender and stepping over to the left, just so Monty understood I made my own choices, and away from the door. “Just bringing some much-needed humor.”
“Your idea of humor gives me a migraine. Now let me focus.”
He
manipulated some of the runes, touching them in sequence. After a minute of careful selections, it looked like he was almost done.
“Did you crack it?”
“I believe so,” Monty said. “This is the last rune in the sequence.”
“You ready?” I asked, clearly not ready. “Are you sure?”
“No,” Monty answered. “But when has that stopped us in the past?”
“Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
“Indeed,” Monty said, pressing the last rune in the sequence. “That should do it.”
Nothing happened.
“Did you break the door?” I asked, looking at the now dormant runes. “It seems to have stopped working.”
“I’m pretty certain the sequence was”—he looked down—“bloody hell.”
“The sequence was bloody hell? Since when did you start naming them?”
“The sequence was wrong,” he said, angrily. “I somehow managed to bollocks it up.”
That’s when I knew we were in trouble. Monty rarely cursed, but when he did, it meant the situation had sailed past dire, and ended up squarely in ‘oh shit’ territory.
“What are you talking about?” I said, following his gaze to the ground. All of the ward runes that were previously violet had become black with a tinge of red. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that is not the desired effect?”
“Not in the least,” Monty said, as he began gesturing. “The wards around the Keep have been inverted.”
“Inverted? You mean—?”
“Instead of keeping everything out,” he said, pointing to the ground. “These wards are now a beacon for everything in this park to head our way.”
Howls and roars filled the night.
“Oh, shit.”
FIVE
There was a stark border where the wards ended around the Keep.
“When you say ‘everything’, what exactly—?”
“I mean everything,” Monty said. “Starting with the Dreadwolves.”
I drew Grim Whisper. I didn’t materialize Ebonsoul because I didn’t know what we were going to face. Plus, Ebonsoul required proximity. I had a feeling keeping my distance from whatever was coming, was going to be important.
Dark Glass: A Montague and Strong Detective Agency Novel Page 3
