by Hickory Mack
“You know what? I don’t like your tone, Commander.”
“You’re going to have to get used to it,” Cornick cut in, his voice bland. He couldn’t even be bothered with meeting her eye; he was too busy looking at Frost. “You get to keep your rank because it comes with your demands. However, it is complimentary. You didn’t think we were going to let you take control from those in charge of the project, did you? We can’t have you running around and making demands whenever it pleases you.”
Elsie scowled at them and stood her ground. It was no more than she’d expected. “I’m willing to take direction, Mister Cornick. I’m even willing to be a good little reaper and open your fucking gates for you. But never misunderstand your place. You are nothing. Your only leverage over me is a curse, and there is only so far you can use it to push me around.” She growled and lifted her hand, curling her fingers around the shaft of her spear as it materialized.
“Keep in mind that there isn’t a man among you capable of putting a scratch on me. It would be nothing to send every person in this camp to a hell dimension you’ll never get out of. Mind your fucking tone.” She caught the amused smirk of Security Chief Rand before it disappeared, making her wonder how long he’d waited to hear somebody tell these jerks off.
“That... sounded like a threat,” Commander Grant said slowly. Elsie snickered at him. It amused her to see how disconcerted her words made him.
“That’s because it was,” she replied. “Now, release the wolf as promised, and I’ll go open your gate.”
For the first time, Angus Cornick looked uncomfortable, but he quickly covered it up with a tight-lipped smile. “We cannot grant that request yet. The mages involved with binding the demon to you are not at our immediate disposal. That is to say, we called in several favors to assemble so many of them at one time. Only one of them was under our employ, and—”
“And you killed him,” Commander Grant cut in.
“I wish I could take credit, but I’m not actually sure who killed him,” Elsie lied. “My memory is a bit fuzzy since my focus was on my stab wound at the time. Let’s be honest; he deserved it. How long until you can have a mage capable of unlinking us? You should consider how badly you want this gate open before you answer.”
Cornick and Grant exchanged a look, then turned to their Security Chief. His face went blank for several seconds, and Elsie almost felt for the guy. He wasn’t prepared for this question to be passed off to him.
“Uh, I think we can convince at least one of them to come by this time next week,” he stammered. Elsie narrowed her eyes at him.
“You think or you know?” she demanded.
“We can,” he said a touch more confidently. Elsie looked at Frost, and he gave a dramatic sigh. An angry feeling of acceptance settled down on her shoulders, and if he could speak, she swore he’d spit out an I told you so. She stroked his fur, attempting to comfort him.
“How many of them will be needed to break the chain?” Elsie asked.
“Just one,” Cornick answered immediately. “It took all seven of them to create the link, but only one to break it. The seven were mostly needed to create a strong enough containment spell to force him into the cuff.”
As he spoke, Frost’s lips curled into an ugly snarl, the wrinkles forming up the entirety of his face. Elsie gripped his fur as though she could hold him back if he decided to lunge at the idiot going into way too much detail. It was easy to imagine the sounds Cornick would make as Frost ripped him apart. She smirked, thinking about it, but she couldn’t imagine anything positive coming of the wolf taking a bite out of one of the guys in charge.
“We will concede to allow one week,” Elsie agreed, wondering if this was only the first compromise she’d be forced to accept. “Show me to your gate.”
It wasn’t a long walk. At the far edge of the camp, they came to a large circle where the trees had been torn out from the roots to create a staging area. Elsie frowned at the destruction, but even though it was invisible to the naked eye, she could feel the power of the gate. She didn’t need further instruction from there. They’d used it a lot, going in and out from one dimension to the next.
Gates were easy to open and close once they existed, but someone had to put an insane amount of power and time into creating the thing in the first place. A gate didn’t need a connection point, and it wasn’t a small fissure to be opened and closed at whim. A gate was permanent, and it only had one destination. Creating gates was a next-level magic that Elsie had not yet learned. Though if Wren was right, she’d need to learn it in the future.
“What are we going to find on the other side of this thing?” she asked, staring at the empty space in front of her. Using her magic, she could see the outline of the damned thing, and it was huge.
“This gate leads to the center of our compound. It’s known as Worldbase A, and there is one other gate from Earth to the compound that lets out on the top floor. A third gate on the lowest level opens into Worldbase B,” Cornick explained. “The second base is currently unoccupied.”
“Wow, you guys sure were creative with the names,” Elsie said dryly. “Are those the only gates?”
“There’s a fourth leading from Worldbase B to Earth, but it was only ever used to bring in supplies,” Cornick answered.
“The gate leading to the top floor is strictly closed until we have our demon from the North brought in. There’s a demon town nearby, and we have our uses for it. The only activity we’ve ever engaged in there was building the gate and testing to make sure it worked,” Grant added.
Elsie filed that away in her memory. She’d have access to a demon town. Somewhere to escape to when life among the hunters got to be too much. Perhaps Wren would be willing to stay there while they were apart, though she wasn’t sure that was what she wanted. At least, not with the spirit’s preference for walking around nude. She wasn’t typically a jealous person, but the thought of men leering at her future mate prickled under her skin.
Shaking the feeling off, she pushed ethereal magic into the staff, and the scythe’s blade slipped into place, glowing with power. Frida chose that moment to jump down from Frost’s shoulders and show off a little, changing into her alebrije form. She stretched her wings and shook out her tail, strutting toward the gate before looking over her shoulder at Elsie as if to ask what was taking her so long.
“What on Earth is that?” Cornick asked in awe, but Elsie ignored him. He’d probably never seen a cat capable of what Frida could do, but it didn’t matter. The creep wasn’t going to be getting his gross hands on her spirit guide, no matter what he said or did.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, feeling out where the gate led. When she could see it clearly in her mind, she opened her eyes and waved a hand, palm out, in the direction of the gate. A massive frame appeared where nothing had been before. It was like she’d wiped away a protective illusion hiding the frame from view.
An excited humming came from the camp as people talked over one another while Elsie chewed on the inside of her lip. She wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing. Everything in her was telling her to walk away, and she didn’t typically ignore her instincts. But this was what both Saint and Wren wanted her to do.
Twirling her scythe, she slashed through the air. The gate came to life with a crackle of power, looking like a glowing pool of water standing between them and the other side. It rippled and crackled with streaks of light until it stabilized.
“You did it,” Cornick said in a hushed tone, almost as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Get the exploratory squads in there,” Rand commanded, already in motion. “We need to get a head count of who’s still alive, then get the medical teams moving.”
“Why do you think people are dead?” Elsie asked, noting the grim looks on those marching forward to cross through. They were so heavily armed it looked like they were heading to war. “How long has the gate been closed?”
“Three months,”
Cornick answered.
“Were they not given enough supplies to last that long?” Elsie asked, disgusted.
“It isn’t the supplies we’re worried about,” Commander Grant said. “It’s the things in there that could cause a problem.”
“What kind of things?” Elsie asked, the feeling that she shouldn’t have opened the gate only intensifying.
“Cornick has a penchant for collecting the most dangerous creatures he can find. Most people find them repellant. He finds them charming.”
“Why?” she questioned.
“We all have our little hobbies.” Cornick shrugged, but Elsie noted the gleam of amusement in his eyes.
“Cornick likes taking things apart and finding out what makes them work,” Grant said, but there was clear discontent in his voice. Something about Cornick’s collection didn’t sit right with the commander.
“I’m not even going to ask,” Elsie sighed. “If you were so worried about them, why didn’t you put a barrier on the gate? If the things in there are really that dangerous, couldn’t they have gotten out?”
Rand’s head slowly swiveled toward Cornick and Grant, a look of horror on his face. Elsie set the tip of her spear on the ground and frowned. For a security chief, this guy was terrible at maintaining a poker face. He wore his every thought in his expression for anyone to see.
“There was a barrier on the gate. There was a barrier on all of them,” Rand stated. Elsie nodded her head toward the gate, where soldiers were filing into the other dimension.
“There isn’t anymore,” she said.
“What if the shades got loose?” Rand asked, his face pale. Frost sneezed, a throaty grunt coming from him, and Elsie tossed an elbow into his fur. He was right though. It was too big of a coincidence.
“Any chance the team you sent after me spent time here recently?” Elsie asked.
“Well, obviously nobody has been able to get into the compound, but they were in the encampment last week,” Commander Grant answered.
“Why?” Cornick questioned suspiciously.
“We ran into a shade on the West Coast, not far from the mage village. They’re incredibly rare. I’d say the chances are pretty astronomical they’d run into one out in the wild when you’ve got some locked up here, wouldn’t you?” she taunted. What kind of loon not only decided to start collecting magical creatures, but included shades in their freaky hobby?
“Let’s hope you’re wrong,” Cornick said tightly, his skin gone a bit gray.
“How many did you have in there?” Elsie asked.
“There were nine,” Rand answered, earning himself a sour look from both Cornick and Grant.
“I think it’s time you join the rest of our security team in sweeping the compound,” Commander Grant said. “If you happen to come across General Mark while you’re in there, let him know we look forward to seeing him soon.”
“Yes, sir,” Rand agreed. He went into the tent and returned a moment later with a pistol strapped to his hip.
“You guys use firearms?” Elsie snickered. Only rookies used firearms. Those with experience used expertly forged steel. For the kinds of demons she encountered, bullets were too slow.
Cornick smirked at her. “We can’t all be legendary killers, Chantraine. Security Chief Rand is not a field agent. His work does not generally bring him into direct contact with species that would require much physical strain. He deals more in surveillance and tactical intelligence.”
“Right.” Elsie rolled her eyes. “So… Am I supposed to stand around here and wait until you want this thing closed?”
“If you’d like to go inside to familiarize yourself with the compound, you may. Stay on this level so we can find you when it’s time. After it’s closed, we can show you to your suite. You will, of course, be among the other officers. We’ll talk business tomorrow. I’m sure you must be tired after all your travel,” Cornick said. He was well practiced at sounding like a genuinely caring individual, but only when he wanted to.
Elsie walked forward without a word in reply, Frida trying to bat at the fringe of Frost’s tail as he walked at her side. For his part, the wolf ignored the alebrije completely.
She paused at the gate, admiring its construction. If Muriel had built this, she had to give her sister credit. It was beautiful. Elsie touched the runes embedded in the frame. They held their own magic, so the gate was self-sustained, pulling magic from the ether itself rather than the practitioner. Once the gate was opened, it needed no further magic from her to stay open.
She circled around to the other side, studying the basics of the structure holding everything together. She’d have to spend more time with it before coming up with a way to embed a barrier into the gate itself. If the gate was going to be her responsibility for the foreseeable future, the barrier had to be hers as well. She couldn’t abide having to work with another witch every time they wanted her to open the damned thing.
Elsie didn’t give a single fuck about Angus Cornick losing some creatures from his precious collection, but she did care about the havoc that would occur if certain beasties were to escape en masse. Part of her was hoping the other shades had already escaped. If they’d scattered to the wind, she wouldn’t feel the need to look over her shoulder everytime she rounded a corner in the compound.
The other part of her hoped they were still locked up tight. Only an asshole would wish for those monsters to be unleashed all at once. They were a creature that shouldn’t exist.
Standing directly in front of the gate, Elsie looked back into the woods, hoping to catch a glimpse of Wren, but the spirit was nowhere to be found. She grasped the pendant around her neck and motioned to Frida, catching the cat when she jumped up into her arms.
“Stay close, Precious,” she said to the wolf. “We don’t know what we’re going to find in there. All I know is I already hate it.”
Amusement pressed down around her, and then a feeling of hunger almost made her double over. The image of Security Chief Rand under Frost’s paws as he chewed on one of the soldier’s legs flashed across her eyes.
“I don’t think they’ll appreciate it too much if you start eating their underlings,” she scolded. “You only have to put up with these people for another week. The gods only know how long I’m going to be stuck with them. Try not to make my life anymore miserable than it needs to be.”
He let out a long affected sigh, then bent down and nudged her forward with his nose. The big chicken wanted her to go first. She stuck her tongue out at him over her shoulder and crossed through the gate, back into hunter territory, as one of them.
Chapter 22
The space inside was large enough to be capable of receiving shipments. There was even a shipping dock against the far wall, which Elsie found astounding. She had noticed the trucks outside of the encampment, but it always shocked her to see evidence of how many resources the hunters were allowed to claim as their own. There must be an entire team of people dedicated to the mechanics of keeping those trucks running. Not to mention clearing the way for them to make it through the terrain.
It was just like any other hunter installation Elsie had ever been inside. The walls were whitewashed brick, with cheap flooring polished to a high shine. If she raised her voice, it would echo back at her. The familiar and almost comforting smells of bleach and astringents filled the far-too-cold air.
Their facilities were maintained at a temperature barely above freezing. It wasn’t cold enough to see your breath in the air, but it was certainly an incentive to walk a little faster to keep your body warm. Frida’s paws beat in a quick tattoo of steps, trying to keep them off the cold floor.
Frost had his teeth on display, and though everyone around them was busy with their own tasks, they all found time to take the extra steps to avoid him. She wasn’t seeing any loose demons running amok, but she wasn’t seeing a deluge of humans or hunters, either.
The soldiers were disappearing through a door on the far wall, and Elsie followed t
hem at a leisurely pace, taking out her dagger to fiddle with as she walked. It was a surreal experience, being back in a place like this. As much as she disdained the hunters and the way they persecuted anything not like them, it kind of felt like a return home. She was surrounded by the familiar, and it was so comforting she found it disconcerting. Everything—from the bright red exit sign to the click of her steps on the floor—was like stepping into a memory.
Another group of people came in behind her, but Elsie ignored them. She walked through the door the soldiers had gone through, but the room inside was empty except for a desk and another door leading to a hallway. Typical. Hunters loved having everything set up progressively. The desk would be where visitors would have to sign in before being allowed to continue.
Elsie leaned over the clipboard with names and ranks scrawled across it, verifying her assumption. Frost squeezed in, and the next round of soldiers came to a halt outside, unwilling to enter the room while the wolf occupied the majority of space. Eventually, another man approached and let himself inside.
“First Commander Chantraine, Mister Cornick says it will take several hours to survey the entire base. I am to show you around and make sure you’re comfortable. If you’re hungry or need a rest, I will make sure you are accommodated,” the man said, his dark eyes sweeping the length of her body, and Elsie barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. It wasn’t like her robe magically plastered itself to her every curve for him to peruse.
“What’s your name?” she asked, twirling the dagger between her fingers.
“Thomas, ma’am,” he answered quickly. He was young with a good face. Elsie assumed he was on the receiving end of attention from potential lovers of all orientations, but he looked too much like a man she’d once known to trust him. Doctor Pax wasn’t the kind of man to be easily forgotten, and as a child, he’d intimidated her. She didn’t want to think about a guy like that having a kid running around out here in the wild.
