by John Corwin
"Exactly. The operator at the other end will initiate the final sequence by raising his modulus." Tuttle shrugged. "It prevents accidents, you know—in case someone at the other end just exited the gate, we wouldn't want to start it back up while they're still inside the traversion zone."
"That's the area inside the big circle?" I said.
"Yes." He nodded approvingly. "You're familiar with traversion arches, then?"
More than I want to be, buddy. The terrifying journey from a broken arch in Thunder Rock across what appeared to be several alternate realities and ending up in the dead city of El Dorado came to mind. "A little. I think it's interesting."
The modulus blazed to life, and a thin beam of light sparked and pulsed from Atlanta to Queens Gate. Tuttle glanced up. "Better get ready to travel."
"Thanks, pal," Shelton said, and we trotted outside and across the black-and-yellow-striped caution circle to step inside the traversion zone. The space in the middle of the Obsidian Arch flickered white, black, and gray, blinking faster and faster in time with the thrum of energy that seemed to vibrate the very air itself. A clap of thunder rolled across the chamber. The area inside the arch shimmered to clarity, revealing a similar chamber on the other side. I'd been through the Grotto arch before, though it'd been on official Templar business for Bogota, Colombia, but the experience never failed to amaze me.
"This is so cool!" I said as we stepped through the opening. The scenery ahead blurred, warping like the inside of a fishbowl, and popped back to normal within an instant.
As we left the arch behind, the air next to me cracked like glass on the verge of shattering.
Shelton's eyes went wide. "Run!"
Because I couldn't remember a time when someone screaming that word meant anything but horrific death if I paused to ask questions or scratch my head like a dimwit, I snatched Shelton under one arm without so much as blinking. I sprinted for the edge of the silver circle. A cracking noise grated my ears. I felt a blast of freezing air hit my back an instant before an invisible force washed against my body like the outgoing ocean tide, pulling me backward. I strained, but my feet slipped little-by-little on the smooth surface. The edge of the circle was only inches away. I strained with everything I had, but it wasn't enough. I glanced over my shoulder and felt my eyes widen in horror. Multiple fractures lined the space around the arch. One shattered, leaving a gaping hole to a gray void. I knew without asking exactly what it was.
The Gloom.
Shelton shouted something, but I couldn't hear him over the roar of wind…and something else. A voice. I turned my ear toward it. It spoke in low rumbling tones. The meaning of its words hovered at the tip of my brain, but I couldn't understand them. Something primal within urged me to seek out that voice. To answer its call. I slowed my struggle. Shelton yelled something incoherent, wriggling, but unable to move his arms since I'd pinned them to his sides when I grabbed him.
The voice called again. I turned toward the void. My feet skidded across the floor, squeaking as the rubber soles resisted.
Something stung my arm. I looked and saw Shelton biting my arm. He said, "What the hell are you doing?"
I looked from Shelton to the void, and my brain freaked. "What the hell am I doing?" I shouted.
The voice from the other side spoke again, faster, more urgent. I spun away from it and back toward the outer ring. Once past that line, we would be safe. But it was further away now, maybe twenty feet. I leaned forward against the tremendous roar of wind and strained with everything I had to move my foot forward. Lifting my foot, I soon found, was futile. The moment I picked it up off the floor, the gale-force wind jerked back, and I was barely able to get it back down again.
"My friggin wand!" Shelton yelled.
I adjusted my hold to free his arms. The extra wind drag was all it took. The air current jerked my feet out from under me. My chin cracked against the floor. I dropped Shelton, and we slid toward the gaping portal of doom.
Shelton rolled onto his back and struggled to extract his wand from his inside jacket pocket. But at the rate we were sliding, I didn't see what he could do to stop us in time. Panic throttled me. Casting my gaze around for something, anything to grab hold of, I spotted the arch to our left. In my peripheral vision, I saw a worker-bee Arcane desperately flicking his wand at us with no effect.
The arch remained too far away for me to grab, and besides, it was too thick to wrap my arms around. The floor of polished obsidian was too slick to find a handhold. I briefly gave thought to manifesting my demon form and clawing into the floor. But that would take time, and I had no control once fully spawned. For all I knew, I'd kill Shelton and, if I escaped, kill anyone else who got in my way.
If only I had a rope!
The answer hit me like a cinder block. Thinking back to my lessons, I quickly settled on the arch as my best solution. I blinked my eyes. My vision flickered to incubus mode, revealing a glowing maelstrom of aether swirling around me as the Gloom rift sucked it in.
I sucked in a breath and drew in magic. Concentrating on the arch, I shouted, "Shoryuken!" Glowing strands of power jetted from my fingertips, wrapping around the base of the arch like spider webs. Twisting my fingers into a fist, I caught the strands, flung out my other hand, and grabbed the collar of Shelton's leather duster. We jerked to a stop barely a foot away from the rift. Shelton fumbled his wand and shouted a word.
A large blob of energy coalesced at the end of his wand, undulating like water in zero gravity. He flicked the rod, and the mass floated lazily toward the rift, seeming to ignore the incredible suction. It splatted against one edge, creeping over the glasslike cracks in the air, clogging the portal. With a high-pitched whistle, the last hole closed. The inexorable drag vanished. Shelton pumped a fist in the air and whooped.
I heard another cracking noise. My eyes flicked toward the noise in time to see another of the fractures straining the fabric of reality. Without another thought, I released the glowing strands from my fist, scooped Shelton under my arm, and blurred out of the ring, nearly plowing into a group of spectators who were snapping photos and taking videos of the event with their arcphones.
I set Shelton down and bent over, panting like dying dog while the tremendous hum of the Obsidian Arch wound down. As it powered off, the fractures mended, sealing themselves until nothing remained but clear air.
"Are you okay?" said a utility Arcane.
I nodded even as my knees buckled.
"Holy bulls in a blender," Shelton said, straightening and wiping at his forehead. "Good thinking, kid."
"Good thinking?" said an older man in a long gray robe, his accent that of a proper British gentleman. "I'd say that was exceptional." He tilted his head and regarded me. "Which academy did you graduate from, young man?"
Technically, I hadn't even graduated from high school, much less an arcane academy. I hadn't even been back to school for months after Maximus's attempts to draft high school students into the vampire corps had turned several into the zombie-like vamplings and incited a bloodbath that had claimed the principal, football coach, and other unsavory characters. "I haven't graduated," I said, wincing.
"Ah, of course, you're coming to the university for orientation or a prep course, aren't you?"
"I'm here for the assessment," I said.
Shelton's upper lip curled in distaste as he took in the man. "He's a bloomer."
The man's eyes narrowed. "Surely, you're joking."
My friend made a non-committal gesture. "Nope. The kid hasn't had any formal training, but he's pretty good, isn't he?"
At this, the man's attitude changed completely. "I believe you'll find there's no place for his kind at the university."
Shelton's lips curled into a feral grin. "Yeah? Well, tough, buddy. 'Cause he's already in."
"Perhaps you don't recognize me," the man said, raising his nose to lofty heights. He directed a severe gaze down its length at Shelton. "I am Andrew Buckley, Dean of Admissions, and I am the
judge of who we admit and who we don't."
"Oh, so that's why lycans and other supernaturals can attend the university?" Shelton said. He snapped his fingers. "Oh, yeah, that's right. The Overworld Conclave found the exclusion of others in violation of the Covenant."
Dean Buckley's jaw tightened. "The filth should stay at the Science Academy where they belong." He spun on his heel and strode toward a set of large ornate doors which presumably led into the pocket dimension of Queens Gate.
A mob of people with signs stood in a roped-off area to the right of the doors, shouting slogans and waving at a long line of people who appeared to be waiting for admittance through the doors. The dean strode past the line and the shouting mob without looking. Two men in what looked like the big puffy hats and red uniforms of Buckingham Palace guards opened the door for him. Beyond lay a shimmering green vista with snow-topped mountains. The guards closed the doors and took up positions again.
The arch operator asked us a dozen more times if we were okay and begged us not to tell Eliza Conroy about the incident. "I've never seen so many Gloom fractures," he said, staring with disbelief at the quiet arch. "We might have to shut down operations until we find out what went wrong."
The people at the front of the departures line groaned when they heard the operator's words. One man demanded they let him through the arch so he'd be home in time for dinner. The operator held up his hands and waved them at the line of disgruntled travelers. From the corner of my eye, I saw a minder drifting our way. I turned and saw several more on approach, their ghostly tentacles flailing with what looked like excitement.
Shelton's lips curled. He grabbed my sleeve and pulled me well away from the creepy mind twisters.
"I take it you don't like Dean Buckley?" I asked.
He chuckled. "That jackass is not only in charge of educating kids, but he's one of the old bigots on the Arcane Council."
Thinking of Dean Buckley reminded me of the term Shelton had used to turn the dean from an admirer into a total hater. "What, pray tell, is a bloomer, besides an old style of women's underwear?"
Shelton gave me a sideways glance. "It means something different to everybody, but to the elitists, it means you never had formal training and came into your powers late." He shrugged. "There are plenty of nom kids in the world who have abilities, but don't even know it."
"Uh, I don't mean to be nitpicky, but I'm not human, so I was never a nom at any point in my life." It felt strange to say that aloud, but it was true. Supers called normal humans "noms", not only because of their normality, but because to supers like vampires, normal humans were nom-noms—self-aware snack packs.
"Yeah, well there's a reason I told him that."
"Because you want me to be an outcast?"
He shook his head. "I don't want people like him getting their hooks into you, or taking an interest." Shelton's eyes narrowed. "Believe me, when those kind of people are interested in you, it's usually gonna end up bad."
I rolled my eyes. "You're one of the most anti-social, anti-establishment people I have ever met."
"If you knew about my past, you'd understand."
My curiosity lit up like a beacon. "I'd love to hear that story."
He snorted. "Maybe someday."
Judging from how my every day went, I'd likely be dead before someday ever arrived.
Chapter 7
I took in the scene near the door to Queens Gate—the dwindling line of people entering and the roped-off crowd to the right. I read one of the signs someone waved in the air. "We have the right!" it exclaimed in red letters. Another read, "Arcanes Don't Own Queens Gate!"
"What in the world is this about?" I said as Shelton and I stopped next to the rat maze of ropes designed to herd people through the line to the entrance. Thankfully, the line had shrunk considerably since our arrival. A man in a dark suit inspected papers given to him by an older gentleman. He ran his wand along the older man, grunted, and tapped the wand to the papers before waving the man toward the doors.
The man in the suit looked us up and down. Raised an eyebrow. "You have business here?"
Shelton's jaw went tight. "Yeah. What's it to you?"
The man's eyebrow went up a notch. "The Arcane Council is restricting access to all relics dominated by Arcane school zones. As you may or may not know"—he sniffed as if we were complete idiots—"vampires attacked two novice schools." He held up a wand. "Therefore, you must be screened and approved for entry."
"You've got to be kidding me," Shelton said. "Why not set up an automated screening ward outside the entrance?"
The man shrugged. "The council plans to, but the Overworld Conclave is balking." He sighed and looked at the crowd of protesters. "The bloody vampires think they own the place."
I thought back to the last time I'd actually walked the cobblestoned streets of the Grotto. I'd seen plenty of vampires there, though I hadn't been through any of the Arcane school zones. I assumed they considered the entirety of Queens Gate a school zone. "So you're not letting any vampires through at all?"
"No. We're not taking any chances." He held up his wand. "Who's first?"
I shrugged. "Me, I guess."
The man said a magic phrase sounding suspiciously like "Scabadee Scoo" and ran the wand up and down my body. He frowned as results floated in the air before us. "You're spawn."
"Daemos," I said, deciding I'd suffered enough discrimination for the day.
He tutted. "Yes, yes, whatever." His nose wrinkled, but apparently there was no edict preventing my kind from entering. "There's something very strange about these readings," he said, looking back at them. I suspected it had to do with the big red word blinking at him beneath the breakdown of my supernatural lineage. Even though the words floated in the air in reverse before the man, I read Daemos, UNKNOWN, AP-ERROR.
"It doesn't say vampire, does it?"
He grudgingly shook his head. "I suppose not." The man looked at Shelton. "And now for you."
Shelton seemed to go through a fistfight with his conscience before growling assent. "Fine."
This time, the results came back as Human, AP-17. The security officer's eyes flashed wide. He looked Shelton up and down and muttered, "Unbelievable." After a long-suffering sigh, he gave a signal to the guards and motioned us inside. "Please enjoy your visit." His tone seemed to indicate he actually hoped otherwise.
If we ran into more bungholes like him and Dean Buckley, our visit certainly would suck.
"What's the 'AP' stand for?" I asked Shelton as the guards closed the doors behind us.
"Just some classification crap they like to throw around."
I guessed Shelton didn't care much for being classified, and I had to admit it was a bit hard to pin him with any designation except the "jackass who likes to keep everybody guessing."
We stood on a wide yellow brick road which wound its way toward a city nestled in a valley between two towering mountains. An adorable little cottage sat to one side of the yellow brick road, and something that looked like a shiny rocket ship from a nineteen fifties sci-fi movie sat to our right.
I took in the steep rocky summits on either side of the town. The base of each mountain started as gentle green slopes which gave the valley a bowl shape. A cityscape like something from Victorian-era London stretched between the two mountains. Tudor-style houses dotted the green landscape up to the perimeter of the city where lines of antiquated row-houses stretched the expanse. A huge clock tower rose above the rest of the city, flanked on either side by the tops of domed buildings.
At the edge of the valley bowl, mountainsides turned to craggy cliffs tufted with bits of grass and tenacious bushes, climbing toward the sky until they ended in plateaus, with one mountain terminating slightly higher than the other. At the other end of the valley, I saw where the mountains joined into one steep cliff.
"Amazing," I breathed.
"It's a sight, all right," Shelton said.
"Is the university up there?" I asked.
/> "Yep. We'll take the sky car," Shelton said, pointing toward the cottage. He led me around the side to a bright red cable car sitting atop a slab of polished obsidian.
I looked up the steep cliffs to either side of us and glanced back. The doors from the archway station were built into a solid rock wall which rose at a ninety-degree angle from the floor of the valley. It seemed hewn from the side of another mountain, which joined with the others to box in the valley. I gazed at the plateaus atop the mountains, but the university and academy were hidden from sight. Another thing I did not see was a single cable designed to allow a cable car to ascend those heights.
Then again, who needed cables when you had magic? "What's up with the rocket ship?" I asked.
Shelton grinned and led me to it. "The techies take this to Science Academy." He opened a hatch on the side of the vessel. Inside were shiny chrome bench seats occupied by several students—a young man with a backpack, a girl with geek chic glasses playing on an arctablet, and several others who looked like any other college students I'd ever seen.
A chrome-plated robot with a clear glass globe for a head stood at the front of the ship. Its torso pivoted a hundred and eighty degrees to face us. "Greetings, Earthlings," it said in a robotic monotone while multi-colored lights in the shape of a mouth blinked with each word. "Please take a seat if you are bound for the academy. We will depart momentarily."
I looked around the cabin and whistled. "It's like a budget science fiction film."
Shelton laughed. "Yeah. I'll say this for the techies—they have style."
We closed the hatch and headed back for the cottage with the cable car. A moment later, the rocket ship rumbled. Long flames licked from the nacelles, though I noted they didn't burn the grass.
"Fake flames?" I asked.
Shelton nodded. "That thing's way past using rocket propulsion. It's got some anti-grav stuff."
"What?" The sheer shock in my voice seemed to surprise Shelton. "You mean advanced scientific locomotion? Why don't the noms have this technology?"
