by Tim Waggoner
Despite its outward appearance, the Rookery is thoroughly modern inside, and the Shadow Watch’s level looks like a standard corporate office. The only anachronistic touch is the stone column in the center of the level which houses the building’s elevators.
The first time you enter the Rookery, it’s actually more than a little disappointing, considering how much more… colorful the rest of Nod is. Normally, it’s a beehive of activity, but now it was deathly quiet. Emphasis on death. Bodies of both Incubi and humans were scattered throughout the area. Some still sat at their desks, while others lay on the floor, struck down where they’d stood. Some of the people held trancers or M-blades, while others looked like they’d been trying to flee. Patrol officers or support staff, none had been spared.
The air had a faint sickly-sweet odor to it, like rotting apples. It was nauseating, and my stomach gave a lurch.
“Wow!” Shocktooth said as she gazed upon the bodies. She was obviously thrilled to see so many members of the Shadow Watch dead.
The sight of so many bodies was so overwhelming that I didn’t feel anything at first, not even shock. As a mental defense, I went into professional mode and began logically assessing the scene.
“We need to check for survivors,” I said. My voice was strong, my tone commanding. I sounded calm and confident, but inside I was screaming in despair.
“They’re not dead,” Jinx said.
“We’ll need to split up,” I continued. “Jinx, you take the left side of this level, I’ll take the right, and Russell, you and Bloodshedder take the middle.”
“They’re not dead,” Jinx repeated.
I went on. “If you find a survivor, call out. Any questions?”
Jinx placed Cuthbert Junior on a nearby desk, then pulled a rubber chicken from one of his pockets. With a swift motion, he wacked me in the side of the head with it.
My head started throbbing again, and anger welled up inside me. I pointed my new M-blade at him and took a step forward. “Why the hell did–” And then I realized what Jinx had been trying to tell me.
“They’re not dead?”
“Not even a little,” he said, tucking the rubber chicken away. “They’re sleeping.”
“All of them?”
“Well, that’s what Bloodshedder says,” Jinx added.
“You can understand her?”
“Sure. Can’t you?”
I looked at Bloodshedder. “Is that true? They’re just asleep?”
She barked once and wagged her spiked tail.
“Well, shit,” Shocktooth said. “That sucks.”
Jinx’s rubber chicken made a fast reappearance, only now a large rectangular object lodged in its bulging belly. Jinx smashed the chicken into Shocktooth’s head, and there was a loud crunching sound as the brick inside the chicken shattered. With the negator wrapped around her wrists, Shocktooth was no stronger or tougher than a human. Her eyes rolled white, and she collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Grinning, Jinx put the chicken away once more.
I was relieved no one had died, but I needed to be sure. I checked a couple of the bodies and found they both had pulses. I tried to rouse them, shaking their shoulders, lightly patting their cheeks, but nothing worked. I know everyone who works for the Shadow Watch, and although most of them are more acquaintances than friends, I was happy they were all alive and apparently unharmed. But my relief quickly gave way to puzzlement.
“Wait a minute. Incubi and Ideators can’t sleep!”
“Looks like someone found a way to make them,” Russell said.
Bloodshedder suddenly ran off, nose to the floor. She weaved between several desks, and then came trotting back, carrying a small object in her mouth. She dropped it in Russell’s outstretched hand, and he patted her head. He then held up the object to examine it. It was round, about the size of a tennis ball, and its silver surface was shot through with multicolored threads of M-energy. A small nozzle protruded from the sphere. Russell looked at it closely, but he was too smart to touch it.
“It looks like some sort of grenade,” I said.
“Designed to release a gas of some kind,” Russell said. “If we look around, we’ll probably find more. A lot more.”
Gas. That explained the strange smell in the air.
“The Lords of Misrule,” I said.
“Perchance to Dream,” Jinx put in. “Advanced Sleep Solutions, remember?” He gestured at the unconscious Incubi and humans all around us. “I’d say this qualifies as pretty damn advanced, wouldn’t you?”
I remembered the wonder drug Perchance to Dream had developed. “Do you think they used Torporian, maybe found a way to deliver it as a gas? But why would they attack the Rookery? What could they–” I broke off as a horrible realization came to me. “The Unwakened!”
I started running toward the elevators, weaving through the mass of unconscious bodies and, when necessary, leaping over them. I was dimly aware of Russell shouting to me, wanting to know what was wrong. I thought maybe he and Bloodshedder followed after me, but I wasn’t sure.
I knew Jinx was close behind me, not only because I could hear his gigantic bare feet slapping the floor, but because I could feel his presence in a way I never had before. Something had happened between us. I wasn’t sure when or how it had occurred, but it seemed Jinx and I were more closely connected now. It wasn’t as if we could read each other’s thoughts, but we were more aware of one another in a way that’s hard to describe. It’s kind of like how you’re aware of one of your arms. You just know it’s there and what’s more, you know what it’s capable of.
When I reached the elevator, I stabbed the UP button and the door slid open with a ding. The car had been sitting on the ground floor. Without waiting for Russell, I ran in and hit the button for the Bower. I knew Jinx would slip inside before the door could close, and he did.
The Bower – where the Unwakened sleep and dream – is located on the top level of the Rookery. If something bad had happened to the Unwakened, it could prove cataclysmic, if not downright apocalyptic for Nod.
For all we knew, the Unwakened had been neutralized – I couldn’t bring myself to think the word killed – in which case even now, the Canopy could be on the verge of collapse, and the Maelstrom would rush in like a variegated tsunami to engulf the city, breaking down its substance, along with everyone and everything in it, absorbing all that energy into itself until nothing and no one was left.
The elevator stopped at the top level, but the door didn’t open immediately. No one could enter the Bower without authorization, and there was a keypad next to the elevator buttons on which to input an access code. Hardly anyone at the Rookery possessed the code. Sanderson did, along with the members of the Nightclad Council. As a lowly officer, I didn’t have the code, but I did have something just as good. I had Jinx.
“Your move,” I told him.
I had no idea how he could get the door to open, but he’s a master of destructive mayhem, and I was confident he’d find a way. I just hoped I survived it.
He examined the keypad for a moment, his fingers tightening on Cuthbert Junior’s handle. I thought he might swing the hammer into the keypad and destroy it, but instead he handed it to me, and then in the blink of an eye, he vanished. I’d never seen him do that before, and for a second I worried that something bad had happened to him. But I could still feel his presence through our new link, and I knew he was OK, wherever he was. A few moments later, sparks flew from the control panel, and Jinx sprang back into existence. An instant later, the elevator door opened with a soft ding.
Jinx reached out for his hammer, and I returned it to him.
“I got small and hopped inside the panel,” he explained. Then he grinned. “I broke it.”
“Um… you can shrink?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Sure. All clowns can. How do you think we fit so many of us into those little cars?”
“Good to know,” I said.
I tightened my grip on my M-blade, Jinx s
queezed Cuthbert Junior’s handle, and we stepped out of the elevator, ready for whatever we’d find.
The Bower is protected by thick layers of stone threaded with solidified M-energy. The only access to it was via a gleaming white corridor lit by fluorescent ceiling lights. The corridor was lined with security cameras and alarm sensors, all of which appeared intact, as far as I could tell from where we stood. We moved down the corridor quickly but cautiously.
I listened, and I heard the sound of soft, gentle music coming from the other end of the corridor. I’d never been to the Bower before – as far as I knew, no officer had – but I’d heard that soothing music was played nonstop in the Bower to help the Unwakened remain asleep. In the old days, live singers and musicians had performed for the master dreamers, but now the music’s recorded. Light classical and smooth jazz, from what I’d heard.
The music increased in volume as we made our way down the corridor, which opened on a domed chamber. The floor was stone, but the walls and ceiling were fashioned from some sort of crystalline substance I was unfamiliar with. It was cloudy and seemed to pulse softly with an inner light. The Unwakened slumbered on narrow beds encased in rounded glass boxes. There were twenty of them, all humans of different races and ethnicities, all extremely old, all dressed in white robes, hands clasped over their chests. Their biers lined the circumference of the Bower, their feet pointed toward the wall, their heads toward each other.
Jinx and I walked into the middle of the chamber. None of the cases appeared to have been tampered with, and there were no signs that anyone besides us had been here recently.
I relaxed a little. “I guess they’re OK.”
“How can you tell?” Jinx asked. “They all look like they’re dead.”
He had a point. I walked to the nearest case, which contained a woman with long white hair splayed out on her equally white pillow, and examined her closely. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing, but I could see her eyes moving behind her eyelids as she dreamed.
I let out a relieved sigh. It seemed that Nod wasn’t in danger of being destroyed anytime soon.
“Come on,” I told Jinx. “We need to check on Sanderson.”
We left the Bower and headed back down the corridor to the elevator. Sanderson’s office was located on Level Two, in Central Administration. Jinx’s shorting out the security keypad hadn’t affected the elevator’s other functions, and when I pressed the button for Level Two, the door slid closed and the car descended. I hoped that we’d find Sanderson asleep like the others downstairs, but I feared we’d find him injured or dead. There had to be a reason for the attack on the Rookery, and if it hadn’t been to go after the Unwakened, the only other target I could think of was Sanderson.
When the door opened, we headed down a curving hallway that wouldn’t have been out of place in a modern office building on Earth. Just as we’d done in the Bower, we moved swiftly and silently, our motions perfectly synchronized. When we reached Sanderson’s office, we found the door closed. I gave Jinx a nod, he grinned, and smashed the door down with Cuthbert Junior. I jumped into the room, blade in hand, ready for trouble.
But Sanderson wasn’t in his office. Damon and Eklips were, though. Damon’s throat had been cut and a large pool of blood had spread out around him. A pair of M-blades had been thrust into Eklips’ eye sockets and into her brain. She’d bled, too, although not nearly as much as her partner. Incubi are hard to kill, but a pair of M-blades in the brain will do the job.
“Well,” Jinx said. “Looks like the case is ours again.”
ELEVEN
A half hour later, we had the situation at the Rookery under a rough semblance of control. I’d gone to Dispatch and put out a call for all available officers in the city to come in, and six teams – three Incubi and their Ideators – showed up. They regarded Russell and Bloodshedder with suspicion at first, but I’d vouched for the pair, and the officers accepted my word, if grudgingly.
Now two officers stood guard at the main gate, while the rest were checking the vital signs of the sleepers and doing their best to arrange their bodies in comfortable positions – which basically meant stretching them out on the floor. Jinx, Russell, Bloodshedder, and I made a quick search of the building, but we found no other casualties, only a lot more sleepers. And, as Russell had surmised, a lot more empty torporian grenades. We didn’t find any sign of whoever had mounted the attack on the Rookery, though.
I hated to leave Damon and Eklips lying where they’d fallen, but I didn’t know what else to do with them. Normally, forensic M-gineers would’ve examined the bodies for evidence, but – like everyone else who’d been in the Rookery during the attack – they were all sleeping. I decided we’d just have to preserve the crime scene for the time being and worry about it later. Damon and Eklips had been officers. They would’ve understood.
We might not have known who killed them, but we had a good idea how it had been done. Once Damon and Eklips had been knocked out by torporian gas, it would’ve been child’s play to kill them. They wouldn’t have been able to put up even token resistance. The cold-blooded nature of their murders filled me with rage and disgust, and I vowed to bring their killers to justice – or better yet, let Jinx have his fun with them.
We put Shocktooth, who by this time had regained consciousness, into a holding cell in Detention, and Jinx and I picked up new trancers and wispers from the Armory. Russell let me keep my new M-blade, which I appreciated. Jinx and I were also able to clean up a bit and put on a fresh change of clothes. The latter entailed “borrowing” uniforms from a pair of sleeping officers. Not one of my prouder moments on the force, I must admit. Jinx also somehow managed to find – or more likely generate – a new boutonnière and a pair of oversized shoes.
The Shadow Watch keeps med kits around for its human officers, and I grabbed some pain pills and swallowed them with some lukewarm coffee I found in the break room. My head didn’t hurt as much as it had when we arrived, but I didn’t want any distractions. Plus, I needed the caffeine badly. So much so that I downed the rest of the pot.
I told the other officers to stay behind, guard the Unwakened, and wait for everyone else to come out of their torporian-induced comas. I wasn’t a senior officer, and I couldn’t order them, but they agreed, probably because the situation was such a clusterfuck, they didn’t know what else to do. Afterward, Jinx, Russell, Bloodshedder and I hauled ass out of there.
The four of us hurried through the streets of Oldtown, looking for a Door. Not just any Door, though. We needed one that would take us back to Chicago. Actually, only Jinx and Bloodshedder were searching for a Door. Russell and I, with only our dull human senses to guide us, were just along for the ride.
“Sanderson could be anywhere,” Russell said as we jogged after our Incubi. “In Nod or on Earth.” He paused. “Unless he wasn’t abducted at all.”
I frowned. “Are you implying that Sanderson was behind the attack on the Rookery? That he’s an ally of the Lords of Misrule?”
“Or a full-fledged member. How much do you – or anyone at the Shadow Watch, for that matter – know about him?”
I wanted to defend Sanderson, but Russell was right. I knew next to nothing about the man who was my commander. Hell, I didn’t even know if he was human, Incubus, or something else altogether.
“Until I find out otherwise, I’m going to assume Sanderson was abducted, and I’m going to do everything I can to find him. If you’ve got a problem with that, you’re free to go back to your mysterious employers – whoever they may be – and see if they have any other errands for you to run.”
Russell gave me a hurt, angry look, but he said nothing more.
We’d come to Hearthstone, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Oldtown, little more than a collection of wattle-and-daub huts with thatched roofs. What light there was here came primarily from Espial above, although there were cook fires burning outside some of the huts. The Incubi here dressed in coarsely woven plain tunics and dresses, and
they eyed us with suspicion as we passed. Most of the elder Incubi had long ago moved to the Aerie or to Newtown, but these were the diehards – the Incubi determined to live exactly as they had during their time on Earth – and they didn’t take too kindly to outsiders.
Bloodshedder let out a yip, and Jinx groaned. “You found one? All right, you win.”
Bloodshedder wagged her tail in victory as she bounded forward, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. I had to admit, she was kind of cute in a terrifying way. She ran to a hut, sniffed at the simple wooden door, snorted, then ran around to the side. We followed, and although we only had Espial’s light to see by, the outline of a Door was clearly visible in the outer wall. It was a modern door, with a chrome frame and square panes of glass. Nothing was visible behind the glass, only darkness, as if the panes were coated with thick layers of black paint. The Door had a vertical metal handle.
Jinx looked at Bloodshedder. “Better leave this to someone with opposable thumbs.” He stuck his tongue out at her, then stepped forward, took hold of the anachronistic handle, and opened the Door to reveal black Nothingness.
Jinx grinned at me and made a sweeping gesture to the open doorway and the darkness that lay beyond. “After you, Audra.”
Not Mommy.
Despite my discomfort at traveling between dimensions, I returned Jinx’s smile.
“Thank you, good sir.”
I took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway. I experienced the same sensations I always do – the long period of floating in a lightless limbo, the dizziness, the nausea… And I heard the same eerie whispers. Only now, I thought I was able to make out what they were saying. It sounded like Hurry, hurry, hurry…
And then I stepped through another Door and into the Chicago night. A breeze was blowing – big surprise – and I could smell Lake Michigan. As the others came through behind me, I tried to get my bearings. Narrow streets, small buildings, fast food joints, convenience stores… I recognized this area. We weren’t that far from the Lincoln Park Zoo.
