by John Corwin
"Long story," Shelton said, giving me a narrow-eyed look, clearly indicating I should just shut my mouth.
"Uh, I'm Justin," I said, trying to think up a new fake last name in case he asked. The name Slade was too well known.
Jarrod's eyes shined with recognition anyway. "Justin Slade." His voice was even and neutral, but I could sense something else behind it. "I've wanted to meet you for a while. But after what happened here and in Colombia, you dropped off the map."
"Uh, what makes you think I'm Justin Slade?"
He offered a practiced smile. "Your name and appearance has gained some infamy in Overworld politics. Why, in the last Conclave meeting, the vampires tried to ram through a vote removing Thomas Borathen as commander of the Templars and calling for your arrest for crimes against super-humanity."
"The Conclave can't do squat to the Templars," Shelton said. "Choosing their leaders is an internal matter. And Justin did what the vampires didn't have the balls to do to Maximus."
The Primus folded his arms. "The Daemos are about the only supernatural nation keeping quiet about you. Then again, they prefer subtle manipulations."
"What about the Arcanes?" I said, doing my level best to keep my voice steady and neutral even though I'd never heard anyone summarize the consequences of being me in such a methodical fashion. "What do they have to say about me?"
"Some want to give you a medal for what you did to Maximus. They think it's pretty clear Maximus's organization, Blood Rush, committed the massacres at our schools, not the Red Syndicate." His lips pressed together in a tight line for a moment. "Then again, there are hawks who favor war with the vampires. They claim there's no evidence Maximus had anything to do with the massacres. In fact, they think he was a scapegoat and you were a willing accomplice of the Red Syndicate to frame him."
"They just want blood, pure and simple," Shelton said. "It ain't about justice. It's about revenge."
The Red Syndicate governed the vampire nation. During the Maximus conflict, their ambassador had approached Elyssa, asking her to put him in touch with me. "Do they want me arrested?"
Jarrod shrugged. "It's not clear what they want. But it appears they waited too long to decide."
I pinched my eyebrows. "How so?"
"The Daemos," Shelton said with a sense of grim satisfaction. "The Conclave can't do jack crap to you because you're considered part of the Daemos nation now that your dad had you raised from Castratae to Cenae."
Jarrod made an appreciative sound. "Very good, Harry. I guess you do have political savvy beneath that rough exterior."
"I'm not a snake like you," Shelton growled. "Maybe old man Conroy will finally decide he wants your post. He might be an evil old bastard, but at least he's honest about it."
"Would it make you happy to see me out of office?" his father said.
Shelton's voice went cold. "I don't know that anything would make me happy at this point."
The family drama tightened my stomach like drum. I prayed the sky car would land soon. "Do the Conroys participate in politics?" I asked, hoping to keep Shelton from inflaming the situation.
"No, your grandfather and I have always been at odds," Sager said.
He obviously didn't know my mom was an angel if he thought Jeremiah was my grandfather, but I played along. "Is there anything you don't know about me?"
"Plenty." He cast a sideways glance at his son and turned back to me. "I'd like to sit down with you in a formal setting very soon. We need details on the Vadaemos and Maximus incidents, and we'd like to talk to you about your mother, Alice. She's been seen with the Conroys, but nobody has been in contact with her."
"What do you want with my mom?"
"First of all, she's a very powerful and respected member of the arcane community, but secondly—"
"He's not gonna sit down and give you guys an interview," Shelton said. "So buzz off."
I'd been thinking along similar lines as Shelton but in slightly more diplomatic tones.
"You never learn, do you?" Jarrod said, turning to his son. "You think having a big mouth and a gut full of bravado is going to get you through life, but it's not, boy. You need to use—"
"Manipulation?" Shelton said with a snort. "My attitude's gotten me this far."
His father made a scoffing laugh. "Into your thirties? That's not far."
"I'm twenty-six, Dad." Shelton said the last word with what seemed to be unholy hatred. "But if I make it into my thirties, I'll be more than happy to invite you to my next birthday party. We can wear party hats and watch family movies. Me and you and Mom and Martin—oh wait, that's right. Martin is dead. Guess my brother won't be able to make it after all."
I felt my eyebrows rise. Guess I'm not the only one with daddy issues.
Sager's face went pale at the mention of the name. I remembered the signature on the painting in Shelton's bathroom. Martin must be—have been—Shelton's brother.
The sky car bumped onto the ground, and the doors opened. Shelton grabbed me by the sleeve and literally dragged me after him while his dad stood there in white-faced anger, or shock. I couldn't tell which and didn't want to know. My own mind had gone numb at his words. In the last ten minutes I'd learned more about Shelton than I had in the past several months.
Shelton released my sleeve and walked in brooding silence to the doors leading back to the arch chamber. When we entered, it was obvious something was wrong. A group of grim-faced people stood inside the silver band circling the traversion zone of the Obsidian Arch. The arch appeared to be off, but a very familiar crack in the fabric of reality glowed within. Two women, staffs planted firmly on the polished floor, held hands and directed beams of light from the tips of their staffs into the rift. It appeared the light acted as a clamp to hold the rift open.
Wind howled inside the zone, whipping at the Arcanes' hair and robes. The other people inside appeared to be Templars wearing the skin-tight armor they usually favored, though it was bright red instead of the customary black. They formed a human chain, connected by what looked like diamond fiber rope tied to a huge anvil-shaped chunk of metal which apparently kept them anchored.
Unable to look away, despite knowing Shelton's father was probably standing somewhere behind us, I watched as a large gloved hand gripping the rope emerged from the rift. The other Templars hauled on the line. Seconds stretched to minutes, and finally the Templars helped a large man climb out of the rift, a young boy strapped to his back. Moments later, another Templar emerged with a woman strapped down to her back.
The Arcanes rapped their staffs against the floor, and the beams of light vanished. The sides of the rift collapsed with a thunderous boom.
"Oh, that was bloody close," muttered someone nearby.
I turned and saw the vampires with their protest signs watching the drama unfold, their protests forgotten for the moment.
A man shouted in joy and rushed inside the silver circle, gripping the woman and boy in tight hugs after the Templars unstrapped them. His tears glistened in the light. The security man who'd questioned me and Shelton earlier eclipsed the happy reunion by standing in front of the crowd and holding out his hands for silence.
"Until the cause of the Gloom rifts can be determined, the arch is closed," he said.
A chorus of groans went up from the crowd, and a few people shouted angry comments.
"I'm sorry," the man said. "But the risk is too high." He made eye contact with me and Shelton. "As I'm sure you are aware."
Shelton and I growled in unison.
I was dying to see Elyssa after the hard day, and to top things off, neither of us had packed a suitcase. At the very least, I wanted clean underwear and a toothbrush. I stepped away from the crowd and took out my arcphone. "Nookli, dial Elyssa."
"Dialing," my phone replied in a mellifluous voice.
It rang several times before she answered and said in a low whisper. "Justin, I can't talk. The trial started, and I'm in a very serious situation right now."
"Sorry," I whispere
d back. "I'm stuck at Queens Gate. I just—"
"Are you okay?" she said, her whisper sounding concerned. "The virus isn't—"
"No, I'm fine, sweetie. Um, kick ass, okay?"
"You're sure? I'll abandon this and come right now if you want me to."
"No, don't!" I said. "Really, everything is great."
I heard shouts in her background and a tremendous roar. "Uh-oh," Elyssa said. "Guess they heard me." She made a smooching noise. "I love you, Justin. Call me immediately if you need me." Another roar sounded, and the line went dead.
A frantic knot of worry bowled up my throat. What the hell had roared at her? What terrible things were the Templars doing to her? I took deep breaths, somehow managing to quell my rising panic. Elyssa was a total badass. She could take care of herself—I hoped.
"Well ain't this dandy," Shelton said. "Guess we're stuck here."
To keep myself from pouting about Elyssa, I forced myself to think about something else. "I wonder what's causing these Gloom cracks to appear all of a sudden."
Shelton looked toward the stables. The layout of Queens Gate station looked very similar to the one at the Grotto, so I knew what he was thinking before he even said anything.
"The operator might know," I said.
Shelton nodded. "I wonder if it has something to do with this Darkwater project of the Conroys."
We headed toward the control room, passing by the Templars and Arcanes who'd rescued the mother and son from the Gloom, and headed around the back of the stables. The control room door here at Queens Gate was hidden in about the same spot as the one in the Grotto. Shelton opened it and found two operators immersed in an intense conversation.
"I'm with Darkwater," Shelton said without preamble. "Mind telling me what the hell is going on with the arches?"
I had to admire how ballsy Shelton was with this subterfuge. Then again, he probably used it all the time with his bounty hunting.
The two operators glanced over at Shelton. One of them spoke. "I explained matters to Mr. Conroy. These sorts of anomalies are to be expected. We haven't used these arches in centuries because they're unstable," he said, waving a hand toward the rows of smaller black arches identical to the ones I'd seen at the Grotto.
The other man stepped forward. "We told him there must be damage at the other end. Thunder Rock was abandoned for a reason and trying to use one of these arches to get there might be more dangerous than sending an expedition in a more conventional manner."
My chest went cold at the thought of anyone wanting to wade through the horrors lurking in the water and caves in that accursed place, but I held back the next question begging to escape my lips, namely, why in the world did Jeremiah Conroy want to go to Thunder Rock? If I asked such a question, the operators would know we had nothing to do with Darkwater.
Shelton was a step ahead of me already. "What I don't get is what the old man expects once we get there."
The operators paused, glancing at each other as if wondering how we wouldn't know. They seemed to shrug off the doubt, though, and one of them spoke. "All he told us was there's a special arch there that he wants the arcane engineers to get working." The operator shrugged. "He won't tell us anything else."
"The long and short of this bloody mess is this," the second man said. "Something is breaching the traversion tunnels created by the arches. This means anyone who goes through one of these arches could drop out in a completely random place—maybe another realm, maybe the Gloom." He threw up his hands. "I have no bloody idea. The other problem is these cracks in the traversion tunnel are wreaking havoc with the Obsidian Arch network. We still don't fully understand the magic behind these things even though our people have studied them for centuries."
I thought back to the tunnels of light depicted on the global map in the control room while an arch was in use. The magical pipes carried people from one point to another. If one had leaks in it—my mind flashed to the terrifying journey I'd taken from the small arch in Thunder Rock to El Dorado. It had dropped me into several different places, some of which were most definitely not of this earth before depositing me where I'd wanted to go. At the time, I'd been trying to get back to Elyssa after cherubs had separated us in the depths of Thunder Rock. But a strange bubble in reality had prevented me from reaching her, and I'd been sucked back in and dropped through a broken arch in the dead city of El Dorado in the far southern reaches of Colombia.
The operator's explanation shed new light on what exactly had happened to me. The arch I'd taken must have malfunctioned for some reason, leaving cracks in the traversion tunnel and allowing me to fall into different realities for a span of seconds before sucking me back in and finally depositing me at the other end. I'd been very lucky. Otherwise, I might have been trapped forever in a hellish nightmare of a realm. One of them had been filled with cherubs. It wouldn't have taken long before they'd sucked me dry and turned me into a shadow person.
"A special arch?" Shelton said, ignoring the man's concerns about the tunnels. "I wasn't told anything about that."
"Probably because you're there to secure the area, not work on sensitive magical equipment," the first operator said, his nose elevating to a condescending angle.
"I know that, but securing the area means I gotta know the layout. I need to know what's high priority and where we can fall back if things get ugly."
The second operator sighed. "Battle mages think they're such badasses."
Shelton smirked. "We do our job just like you do yours. Now, you want to be safe, or do you want to keep things from me and make my job more difficult?"
The first operator considered it for a moment and shrugged. "The layout of the control room is supposedly very similar to this one with one major exception."
"And that is?" Shelton prodded.
"The special arch we're supposed to work on looks like a half-sized version of an Obsidian Arch, except that,well"—he looked at the other operator—"it's white and black."
My mind flashed back to the information Miles had given us. The arch the Seraphim had used to invade our realm the last time was the same exact color combination.
Jeremiah Conroy intended to fix it.
Chapter 10
Shelton and I exchanged troubled glances, before he recovered and turned back to the man. "I'll need a diagram with the layout of the control room."
The men exchanged confused looks. "We don't have one," the first said. "Nobody's ever documented it to the best of our knowledge."
"Then how does Jeremiah Conroy know there's even control room there, much less this special arch?"
"How does he know anything?" the man replied, as if it were the stupidest question he'd ever heard.
"I hear he has demons who work for him," the second said in a conspiratorial whisper. "And not the small ones either."
"He's insanely powerful," the first said, nodding his head vigorously.
"He told us to expect a similar layout to this one, but that's about it, other than our engineers will be working on the white and black arch."
"What the hell?" Shelton said. "What does an arch like that do?"
The operators shrugged in unison.
Shelton leaned forward. "It's important I know."
The first operator shook his head. "He didn't tell us. His engineering crew was supposed to be here tonight to help us with the arches."
"With the Obsidian Arch shut down, how are they gonna get here?"
"He might have to fly them over the old-fashioned way," the first said.
"All right." Shelton motioned me to follow him. "We're gonna look around and base our information off this room. If you find out anything else, let us know."
We walked down the rows of small arches. Each one stood about ten feet tall with a silver ring embedded in polished obsidian at the base. Straight aisles ran between the arches, wide enough for several people to walk abreast of each other. Shelton ran his hand along the twisting architecture of one arch, his brow wrinkling.
>
"What is this stuff anyway?" He shook his head. "It feels like rock, but it doesn't."
I touched the slick surface, my hand following the odd spiraling design. "No idea."
"Tell me again how you used the arch in Thunder Rock."
Looking around the room, I spotted a row of arches separated from the others by a slightly wider aisle and led Shelton there. From here we could see the travel map on the wall. I pointed out the symbols next to the map and the symbols on the floor in front of some of the other arches.
"At the time, I didn't know enough about Cyrinthian to have a clue what those meant. Now I know those are numbers, each one corresponding to an arch. You touch the button, the arch lights up. Then I think you select a destination from the map, step through, and end up at the corresponding arch at your destination."
"That easy, huh?"
I shrugged. "It's just a guess. A cherub was trying to devour my soul at the time, so I only had a few pants-wetting minutes to figure out how the arches worked."
"But from what you told us, it didn't go down like that." Shelton nodded at the symbols on the floor in front of the separate row of arches. Each one consisted of a circle with multiple lines crisscrossing it, each line extending past the edges.
"Yeah, most of the numbered arches were broken, and the cherubs cornered me at an arch like this one." I knelt and touched the symbol on the floor. "I looked that symbol up the first chance I had. It means omni."
"Like omnidirectional?"
"More precisely, it means all." I rubbed a hand over the slick metallic substance. "I didn't need to indicate on the map where I wanted to go. I just closed the circle and willed it to take me home."
"And we saw how that turned out," Shelton said with a wry chuckle.
"I get the feeling these arches are more advanced. Like maybe these were added separately from the others." I stood up. "Just look at the layout."
Shelton stood back and looked at the room. "I think you're right. Notice how the map is centered on the other arches, but this row juts out to the side?"
I followed his gaze and saw what he meant. "When I thought of home, the arch flashed through the images of a bunch of places—my old house was one of those—before finding Elyssa. But you want to know what's really strange about it, now that I think back?"
