by John Corwin
I sprang atop the hood. Reared back my monstrous blue fist, and smashed the windshield. A single crack ran down the glass. I punched it again. A web-work of cracks splintered the window.
The driver panicked, swinging the wheel back and forth. My next strike punctured the glass. I gripped the edge of the windshield and jerked hard, pulling it clear, and flinging it away. The driver screamed and pulled hard on the steering wheel. The turn was too much for the vehicle to handle. The trailer went sideways, jackknifing across the highway. I saw terror in the eyes of the Darkwater people stuck to the driver's side of the cab.
"Throw them on top!" Elyssa shouted, her car swerving next to the truck. I swung to the driver door, pulling at the sticky mass holding the Arcanes prisoner. It came loose with a sucking pop, though it still bound them together. I dropped the screaming Arcanes atop the roof of Elyssa's supercar where it held them fast.
I saw one of the two Arcanes on the passenger side cast a spell with his staff, and they jumped, rolling in a transparent ball of what looked like jelly. It bounced off the road and into the woods on the side. Only the driver remained as the trailer, tires smoking, listed to the side.
"Hit the brakes, you idiot!" I called out, my voice deep and guttural.
The man screamed and jammed his foot down.
The trailer jerked. The cab shuddered. The rig shifted left and hurtled into the grass median. A frightened roar burst from my mouth, joining the cries of the truck driver as we barreled across the median and into oncoming traffic. I saw two semi-trucks roaring toward us as we bounced over the shoulder and into the road.
Their tires locked. Rubber screeched. Tortured tires bounced and smoked. I grabbed the driver, saw he was buckled in, and snapped the belt off. I jerked him through the window and leapt. Thankfully, I landed in the grass in the median, skidding on my back with the hysterical driver on top of me.
Metal shrieked, clattered, and groaned as the goliath trucks smacked each other. With a flick of my wrist, I popped the driver in the back of head. His shouts cut off abruptly as he went to la-la land. Before anyone noticed my blue skin, horns, and demonic six-pack abs, I pushed my infernal essence back into its cave until my body returned to normal. I knew I shouldn't have manifested where noms could see me, but the truck driver had left me little choice.
The truck sat in the middle of the northbound lane with the other two big rigs pinned against the cab. The semi-trailer rested nearly perpendicular to the accident. I hoped Mom was okay in there. She was an angel, but this ride had been enough to make even the hardiest supernatural toss their lunch.
Traffic behind the accident snarled. Horns honked, and people sprang from their cars, phones recording the scene. The police would be here soon, and explaining a trailer that couldn't be opened would be impossible. I heard sirens in the distance and realized how little time remained.
I ran to the accident. The drivers of the other two trucks looked okay. They'd slowed enough to avoid more than front-end damage. I heard a thrumming noise to the east, and looked up to see a large black helicopter rise above the tree line. Racing behind the semi-truck cab, I found a box on the side of the trailer, and pulled the lever inside. Air hissed as the rear end of the truck sank from the hydraulics releasing air. I ran to the crank near the front of the trailer, jammed it into place, and spun it as fast as I could until the metal feet of the trailer touched the road. Reaching beneath the trailer toward the hitch, I disengaged the lock.
The truck cab wasn't going anywhere, meaning I had to do this the hard way. Bracing my feet against the trailer and my back against the cab, I pushed with all my might. I feared the cab might bend with the stress, but the reinforced frame held. I heard a click. A grinding noise. The trailer feet slammed onto the asphalt as the hitch came free.
"Holy crap did you see what that kid did?" someone yelled.
I looked down to see one of the other truck drivers staggering from his cab holding a hand to his bleeding forehead. The helicopter hovered overhead. A diamond fiber net harness unfolded from a hatch in the bottom, unfurling down both sides of the trailer. I pulled on the straps, sealing them beneath it. I crawled out, and gave a thumbs-up to the Templar pilot.
The slider—disguised as a military helicopter—strained upward, the extra weight of the trailer obviously dragging it down. I didn't know how much weight the levitation spell could bear, but somehow the slider managed to rise while bystanders gawked at the spectacle. It struggled to stay level and rose straight up until the trailer cleared the trees then glided away.
A thundering noise echoed in the south. The silhouettes of more aircraft appeared on the horizon. Probably news choppers or cops. I raced across the road where Elyssa waited. She'd popped a Lancer dart in each of the Darkwater Arcanes formerly glued to her roof, freed them from the sticky mass, and situated them on the median. I spotted the other Arcanes who'd abandoned ship before the crash pointing at us and running our way.
Elyssa hit them with darts, and they unceremoniously face-planted into the grass. "Let's go," she said, extending driving gloves from her nightingale armor as she slid into the driver seat. Elyssa pulled a U-turn, tires wailing against pavement, and shot off the road, down the embankment to avoid the traffic. We skidded on the grass. Elyssa flicked a switch and the tires found purchase, spinning up dirt and grass behind us.
We met the road, dodged between stopped cars, and jetted across the median to the northbound side, which was clear thanks to the accident. I looked through the rear window and saw two small black helicopters charging our way.
"I don't think those are police," I said.
"Must be Darkwater reinforcements," Elyssa muttered, looking in the rearview mirror and jamming the gearshift down.
I hoped our chopper had gotten away before they'd seen it. The other Darkwater Arcanes shouldn't have had time to report it. Traffic thickened ahead. Elyssa threaded through, but it cost us speed, and the choppers were closing. The touchscreen interface in the console blinked at me and dinged.
Aether batteries low. Please connect to a charger.
"Crap," Elyssa said through her teeth.
"If this things runs out, will we be dead in the water?"
She shook her head. "The engine runs on gasoline, but levitation and super boost rely on aether." She glanced at the GPS in the center of the dash. "We need to find cover. Look for a route with trees."
I flicked my fingers across the screen. Georgia had no shortage of roads with trees, and we were close to the northern lakes. "Take the next exit," I said. "Then turn left."
She swung across the lane, rode the shoulder, and steered up the exit ramp. Elyssa ran the red light, and narrowly missed colliding with two cars. We crossed an overpass. The road dipped and rose, crossing a lake.
I directed her through several more turns. "Into the park," I said, pointing out a state park entrance.
We zoomed past a parking permit booth and down a road covered by trees. We followed the winding asphalt for a distance. I heard the choppers thundering behind. The thrum of rotors abruptly stopped.
"They're running silent," Elyssa said.
Tension built in my chest. "They could be anywhere."
She pulled off the road and into a picnic area shaded by trees. Turned off the engine. Crickets chirped. A bird twittered nearby, and squirrels rustled in the leaves. I heard a whoosh of air as something swooped past overhead.
"They're here," she whispered.
"How do you charge the batteries on this thing?" I asked.
"We have aether stations for it," she said. "But an Arcane could do it, given enough time."
"How? Where?"
She popped the hood. We got out, and she pointed to a chunk of glowing crystal. "There."
I closed my eyes and flicked into incubus mode. When I opened them, I saw aether pulsing through tiny ley lines in the ground, and puffs of it floating in the air. I extended a tendril and, with a deep breath, drew it in. I touched the tendril to the crystal and will
ed it to push energy inside. Nothing seemed to happen. I heard the sound of feet crushing leaves nearby. The rustling seemed to come from several directions at once.
"Tracking this way," someone whispered from somewhere down the road.
Fill it up! A slight tug pulled at my insides. The crystal glowed a little brighter. Faster! I willed it with all my might. It didn't seem to help. In frustration, I pressed my bare hand to the crystal.
Charge!
I felt energy flow through my hand in a hot rush. The crystal flared bright as a star. I heard the console inside ding. Elyssa ducked into the car.
"It's full," she said, eyes glowing with pride. "You're a rock star, baby."
Two men in the black robes of the brotherhood appeared at the side of the road.
Elyssa shut her door as pulses of light splashed against it. I jumped in. Elyssa started the car, revved the engine, and peeled out, charging straight at the men. They leapt aside at the last minute.
Another group appeared ahead. She swung down a small dirt road. Ahead, I saw nothing but water.
"Hang on," Elyssa said as we hit the end of the road.
The car dropped like a rock. Just before we plunged into the lake, Elyssa flicked a switch. The vehicle lurched upward and glided just over the water, spraying a plume behind us. She hit the red button, and the car roared forward. We shot beneath a bridge. Following the bend of the lake, she threaded between two boats with startled fishermen, hooked a right, and shot up a boat ramp. The car dropped to the road, tires chirping. A squirrel racing across the road froze in our path.
"Ahh!" Elyssa shouted, hitting the levitation switch again.
I looked behind us to see the frightened rodent dash back into the woods.
"Stupid squirrels," Elyssa grumbled.
"It was just a squirrel," I said.
Leaving the levitation on, Elyssa activated camouflage. The hood of the car flickered, matching with the surrounding terrain. She pulled the steering wheel toward her chest like the control in an airplane; the car flew higher, narrowly clearing trees, and zooming over the green canopy of pine trees. I looked back and saw the choppers hovering over the bridge, but not moving to pursue.
"When I was first learning to drive, I took my brother Jack for a ride," Elyssa said. "I was so proud of myself. And then just when I was pulling into the driveway at the ranch, a squirrel ran across my path. I couldn't stop in time and hit it." She sighed. "I just sat there and cried while Jack tried to console me."
I touched her arm. "You're a ninja with a soft heart," I said.
She smiled. "I'm such a dork sometimes. I knew so many ways to hurt or even kill someone by the time I learned to drive, and yet, I cried over a squirrel."
"I love my beautiful dork," I said, and pecked her on the cheek.
She giggled.
We sped south toward the city with no signs of pursuit. Thirty minutes later, Elyssa landed on an empty stretch of road near the Templar compound as the console dinged with another low battery warning.
"Camouflage drains aether fast," she explained, steering down the long drive to the compound, her gaze sweeping the environs, presumably for squirrels. At the end of the driveway, she turned toward a large red barn. She drove through an illusionary stack of hay bales in the back and down the hidden ramp to a large underground garage. Rows of Custodian sedans like the one we rode in lined parking slots. Chopper-shaped sliders sat atop circular landing zones beneath large doors sliding doors allowing for quick deployment.
Ahead, I saw Shelton and the others waiting around the semi-trailer we'd liberated. I leapt from the car, ignoring the celebratory cheers, and ran to it. I pressed an ear to the side. "Mom? Are you in there?"
"We couldn't open it," Shelton said.
I pounded on the side. "Mom?"
I heard a faint voice. "Justin?"
Hot tears sprang into my eyes. She was in there. We'd done it. "We're going to get you out," I said.
Somehow, I would find a way.
Chapter 27
"Justin, do you know the man whose blood sealed me in here?" Mom said.
"Maulin Kassus," I said, my voice low and angry. She remained silent for a moment, and I wondered if she was still ok.
"Don't go after him, Justin." She sounded so tired and weary. "He's too dangerous."
"Dangerous?" I heard myself laugh. "I've encountered nothing but danger since you left. Do you have any idea what we went through to get you here?"
"You've done too much already," she said. "Now that he knows you have me, it will be even harder."
For some reason, I felt annoyed and even angry at her warnings. "Too much?" I said in a scoffing tone. "Maybe if you hadn't abandoned me without explanation, or maybe if you'd informed me about your grand scheme, or maybe, just maybe, if you'd trusted me with the truth, you wouldn't be in this mess right now!" The last sentence came out in an angry yell.
Elyssa placed a hand on my shoulder. "You can't change the past, Justin."
"No, he's right," Mom said, her voice sounding hollow from within the container. "In the beginning, when I thought you had a chance at a normal life, it felt like the right decision. But once you came into your own powers, David and I should have told you more. There was a lot we couldn't tell you because the information was too important to fall into the wrong hands. We had nightmares about our enemies kidnapping and torturing you for information. When your father decided to return to House Slade, we thought you'd go with him."
"He's marrying another woman, Mom!" I took a deep breath to calm myself.
"Are you with people you can trust?" she said. "People who can know the truth?"
I looked around at the faces of people who'd been with me since the beginning, and those I'd accumulated along the way—Shelton, Bella, Adam, Meghan, Stacey, Ryland—I trusted each and every one with my life. "I'm with my family," I said, gripping Elyssa's hand. "Because, unlike my parents, they've stayed by my side."
I heard a faint sobbing noise from within. "I understand," Mom said. "I won't make excuses for myself or your father."
"Tell me the truth," I said. "No more vague evasions."
"Very well," she said. "My name is Alysea, and I was the first Seraphim to step foot on your world."
"I know," I said, the impact of hearing it from her own lips making my knees go weak. A part of me still couldn't believe the truth.
"How do you know?" she asked.
"It's not important," I said. "Are you one of the originals who ravaged our world?"
"No," she said. "But I am directly responsible, because I showed my best friend the way."
All of a sudden, I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the truth.
"The arches on our world had long been a mystery," Mom said. "Like this realm, we also have Obsidian Arches, and started using them even before I was born. But the Alabaster Arches were decreed too dangerous to use by our governing council." She paused. "I broke the decree and studied the Grand Nexus in secrecy. After decades, I discovered something quite startling. The Grand Nexus is like a tuning fork, Justin. If you adjust the pitch, it alters the destination."
"How long ago was this?" I asked, grasping at a timeline.
"Thousands of years ago."
I shivered at the thought. "Tell me more."
"The Cyrinthian Rune tunes the nexus, but it requires the user to attune the rune to themself. Previous attempts to use the nexus had nearly loosed horrific creatures from other realms on our world. But I had an edge others did not."
I held back a smart remark. "And that is?"
"I was a musical prodigy. I can hear perfect pitch. For some reason, this enabled me to feel the tuning of the Cyrinthian Rune. It allowed me to sense what lay on the other side of the portal if I allowed it to open. That was how I discovered the mortal realm."
I saw wonder on the faces of my companions, and felt it spread across my own as well. My mom had discovered the way to this realm. It sounded as if there were many more realms than the ones I'd hea
rd about. "So, what happened?"
"I showed my best friend this amazing discovery," Mom said, her voice trembling. "We came through the Grand Nexus. When she discovered how weak the humans were, how she could feed from them, she began to toy with them, to exploit them. On our world, she had long sought power, but never attained it. In this world, she had more power than she could have ever dreamed."
I grimaced. "How in the hell could Daelissa be your best friend?"
"She wasn't always like this," Mom said. "She was once a leader for reform, but failure and disappointment jaded her. Turned her bitter."
"Why didn't you stop her?"
"I tried, Justin. I tried so hard." She sounded miserable. "At first I was just like her. I enjoyed the power and the way it made me feel. Then I realized these people were so much like us, but helpless against our abilities. By then, others knew about the mortal realm, even though I'd told her to keep it secret."
I thought back to my conversation with Mr. Gray. "What about your government? Why didn't they step in?"
"Feeding from humans gave us so much more power. Because the Grand Nexus was a secret very few of us knew about, Daelissa and the others were able to leverage this new power and overthrew our government. They invited allies to create their own kingdoms in the mortal realm."
"Like Methuselah?" I said.
"His real name is Fjoeruss," she said. "He used the name Methuselah in the mortal realm. Others used names you would find quite familiar as well."
Mr. Gray is Fjoeruss? "How did the war with the Darklings start?" I asked.
"Daelissa's twin sister," she said.
Despite the difference in hair color and skin tone, I already knew who that was as well. "Nightliss."
"Yes. The Darklings were oppressed, considered second-class citizens. I sought Nightliss's help. She saw the mortal realm as a new world for the Darklings to settle in. She wished to create peace."
"That didn't turn out so well," I said dryly.
