by Nazri Noor
The only real problem with the Lorica at night was how they never really turned down the lights, those enchanted flames that blinked from out of gleaming candelabras. They were magically-charged, after all: no light bulbs meant no electricity bills, which meant round-the-clock lighting. Save on overhead, and save the planet. Win, win. The Lorica at its best.
But I guess that was more of a non-problem. All the lights meant more shadows for me to sneak through. And sneak I did from my entry point, way past the reception area that was fitted with its complement of traps. My time in HQ meant that I had at least some idea of where my body was supposed to pop out when I shadowstepped into the building, in open space as opposed to the middle of a supply cabinet.
The main lobby and front desk were famously rumored to be warded with destructive fireball traps, or maybe that was all down to Romira, the crazy hot girl who ran reception. And hot in every sense of the word, too: she was stunning, but also incredibly talented at wielding fire magic. She was both an Eye and a Hand, and that lethal combination of being gorgeous and terrifyingly skilled in sorcery put her way, way out of my league. She was always really nice to me, though, so that was a plus. Like, really, really nice. But I was glad she wasn’t there. At least I’d made it past the Lorica’s gates.
The Lorica was quiet that evening. Still, I took precautions to keep myself hidden from any overachieving employees who liked to burn the midnight oil, sometimes literally. The Lorica had a full team of alchemists, and some of them preferred to work alone, or when the office was nearly empty, so that they wouldn’t be bothered by anyone – or, conversely, so they wouldn’t bother anyone else with all the explosions.
And doubtless there were always a few Eyes watching the glowing map of the planet situated in the very heart of the Lorica’s massive building. Fortunately, my stealth was more than slightly augmented by my affinity with the shadows. Spending enough time passing through the Dark Room had given me improved sight in gloomy conditions, but it had also given me the ability to camouflage myself even in our actual world.
If I stood still in a pool of shadow under a tree, I swear you wouldn’t be able to see me. I’m pretty good at it now, and if I walk slowly, carefully enough, you wouldn’t even know that I’d snuck into your kitchen to steal a cookie. It was a useful trick, especially for scaring the living shit out of Asher in the Boneyard’s corridors. We do have fun.
Past the lone alchemist I went, traversing the second floor, my footsteps deadened by the ornate carpet that covered just enough of the ground to still show off its shiny, polished parquet flooring. I ducked behind a bookshelf as sheaves of documents in the shape of an eagle soared overhead. Someone was probably working late in accounting. Finally, at the very end of the building, furthest away from the entrance, I found myself in the Gallery.
“Almost there,” I whispered to myself, and maybe to Vanitas, too, as if he could hear me from within the backpack. Maybe he could, the way he’d sensed the threat to me and Sterling out on Silk Road. But if he heard, he said nothing in response.
I crept towards the center of the Gallery. Herald wasn’t exaggerating. The Gallery really was designed like a great wheel, the rows upon rows of bookshelves, cabinets, and display cases forming its spokes. Multiple paths radiated from the central hub where Herald and the other archivists did their work.
The displays grew thicker and more varied as I approached the center. This was where newly acquired artifacts were brought, studied, and sorted before they were carted off to their new homes among the great wheel’s various spokes.
A plant that shone with a faint purple light rustled softly from its pot, turning its leaves as if watching me pass. Under a glass case, two twigs twined around each other wriggled on a bed of velvet, a kind of living wand. What looked like an abacus sat under its own display case, adorned and held down with arcane chains, probably because its beads were bloodied. I wasn’t going to wait around to find out why.
And then there it was, at the center of the hub, just as Herald said: a seven-sided crystal, every facet a different color of the rainbow, but almost nondescript in comparison to the wonders displayed around it. The crystal’s sharp, finely-cut base was set into the tip of a brass tube that could have passed for an unusual light fixture, one that cast a very faint, iridescent halo.
Nothing for it. I didn’t take the time to marvel, but I can tell you that it took a massive amount of willpower to resist touching one of the crystal’s other facets, just to find out why the violet or green sections of the Prism were considered that much tamer compared to the red one. You know, the super dangerous one that I had to infiltrate. Alone.
Ah, fuck it. This was hardly the worst thing I’d ever had to do. I pressed three fingers against the cold, flat surface of the Prism’s red face –
Then promptly bit my tongue as a tremendous force yanked me by the sternum. Which is a word I’ve never used in real life but holy hell, imagine a grappling hook pulling you by your ribcage. The brown, orange, and gold of the Lorica blurred in a liquid pool around me, sloughing away until there was nothing left but red. Just all around me: red. The color of blood.
I regained my footing, composing myself as I whirled on the spot, looking for the closest thing to a hiding place I could find. An alcove, as it turned out, a shallow gap in the wall of the red sector, which was designed very much like the inside of an enormous crystal.
My hands looked almost demonic, bathed in the Prism’s crimson pall. I scowled, unsettled by the reddish tint cast over my skin by this unseen source. It almost felt as if all the light within the Prism came from somewhere outside and above it, filtered through a high ceiling that was similarly made of crystal. But that at least gave me one assurance. Light meant shadows, and shadows meant that I could haul ass and retreat if I had to.
I peered out of the alcove, down either direction of the narrow corridor, then back at the point where I’d stumbled into the Prism. A version of the entrance crystal from the hub stood there, with its same metal base, only this crystal was completely red. All right. That meant I could exit the same way I got in.
The entrance hall itself felt like only one section of a large gem, one that, based on the angles of the corridors, consisted of seven sides. Facing towards the center of the Prism, I estimated that its interior, or at least the entirety of the floor the red sector occupied was about the size of a damn house. A huge one, too. Where the hell was I supposed to go?
A minute passed, and I crouched, checking my bearings, listening for guards. Herald had warned me that they had mages doing the rounds, every hour on the hour, and I’d timed my entry to avoid that specifically. I wasn’t interested in running into a Hand, much less two of them. The plan was to get in, find Mona, then get the hell out. The problem was actually tracking her down to begin with.
Though again, perhaps, not a problem after all, as I heard the soft, muted notes of a female voice, sadly humming the bars of a wordless pop song.
And as the siren called, I followed.
Chapter 15
I slid across the wall, my back pressed against the cold, glassy perfection of dead, red crystal. I kept close to the ground, slipping into alcoves where I could, mindful of the chirping, glassy orbs affixed to the peak of every corridor, the Lorica’s creepy version of security cameras, all of which looked like sentient, independent eyeballs. The watchers.
All the while I followed the muffled traces of the siren’s song, what I gradually made out as the melody to “Unfollow My Heart.” Silently I thanked Sterling for getting me hooked enough on Mona’s music. In a twisted kind of way I realized that I wouldn’t have felt so compelled to find her if I hadn’t seen her live in concert.
Something about how her face contorted in terror when she understood what her final song had done spoke volumes of what had happened that night. Someone – or something – had taken control of her mind. The source of the strange silver light. An angel. But did angels really go around possessing supernaturals for the
sheer fun of slaughtering innocents in the hundreds? That sounded way more up the infernals’ alley.
There had to be a reason that Mammon wanted the Tome of Annihilation so badly, and I was pretty sure it didn’t involve some light weekend reading. My heart thumped with the uncertainty. I had to know, and every step that brought me towards Mona only ramped up my curiosity and anxiety.
All around the hollow of the Prism, arranged along its walls, were the individual jail cells. Each couldn’t have been more than ten feet in width and length, separated from the corridors by the same diamond-hard crystal that made up the rest of the crimson prison.
Most of the cells were empty. Here and there I’d find signs of life: a pair of slippers laid out on the floor, the silhouette of someone seated on the edge of their bed. Imprisoned within the safety of one cell, a hulking shape far larger than a man kept slamming against its crystal barrier. Not as a reaction to my presence, I was sure of that. The thing had been hammering against the wall long before I came, its thumping like a low, steady bass accompaniment to Mona’s mournful song, and to the pounding of my heart in my ears.
I turned the corner, and there she was, unmistakable, the shape of her hair stark against the red crystal of her prison, a thin shadow encased in cold ruby. I sifted through my backpack for one of the implements Carver gave me, hearing a distant grunt in the back of my head when I nudged Vanitas by accident.
Ah, there it was. The gem’s ambient warmth helped me find it. It was globular and bright orange, like many of the amber and citrine jewels Carver liked to wear and enchant. This stone wasn’t set in a ring or an amulet, just a loose gem that had a series of minuscule carvings etched into its surface.
I rubbed the gem as Carver had instructed, then skidded it across the floor until it hit the base of Mona’s wall. The mystic eyeball up in the corner wasn’t focused on her prison just then, whirring as it turned its dead gaze down the opposite corridor.
Carver’s jewel cracked open with a faint hiss, plumes of pale fire rising from the fissures on its surface, slowly consuming the wall that contained the siren. I watched as her silhouette faltered, then backed further into the safety of her prison.
The gem served to dispel the enchantments keeping Mona in her cell. Theoretically, I could have shadowstepped in, but Carver correctly assumed that I would need to destroy more and more wards as I penetrated the Prism. Better safe than shredded into a thousand tiny pieces mid-shadowstep, right?
I pulled out two more of the tools Carver had laid out for my safety, chewing on my lower lip as I remembered his instructions.
“These go in your ears,” he’d said.
“So they’ve got like a silence charm cast over them?”
They looked like ordinary old earplugs to me, those squishy ones made out of silicone or foam that conform to your ear canals to stay in place. Turns out they were regular earplugs, as Carver explained with a wry grin.
“Good enough to protect you from sirens, I can assure you. Though you may find a different use for them considering your destination.”
That was a dilemma, for sure. I was infiltrating to rescue Mona, but I couldn’t very well listen to what she had to say if my ears were blocked up, could I?
I watched from the darkness of the alcove as Mona pressed her back against the far wall of her cell. She was dressed in a gray smock, likely something the Lorica assigned to all its prisoners. She looked relatively normal, almost the same as the night of the concert – except gaunter, perhaps. Afraid. And I didn’t like what I was about to do next, but it was a necessary step.
Literally. As the watching eye whirred and swiveled back down our chunk of the corridor, I shadowstepped, sinking into the Dark Room, tethering my mind to a spot just a few feet away. From our angle, the watcher couldn’t see that the prison wall was missing. We had time to talk, for as long as none of the guards walked by.
Well, and as long as Mona didn’t start screaming her head off. I popped up in a shadow as far away from her as possible, my hands raised in placation. I grimaced as she took a deep breath, poised to shriek, but I took several tentative steps towards her, one finger going to my lips, another chopping in the air across my neck.
“Please,” I hissed. I pulled out my earplugs. “Don’t. I’m only here to talk. I’m here to help you.”
Mona’s fists unclenched, the air going out of her in a slow huff. She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing. “Wait. I know you. You’re the guy from the concert, the one who climbed the railing.”
I nodded hurriedly, glad that we were past me having to restrain or silence her.
“You tried to get up on stage. When you saw what was happening.” She looked down at her hands. “When you saw what I’d done.”
I held up my hands as I approached, showing that I meant her no harm. “I don’t think you did that yourself, Mona. Let’s be honest. Something took over you.”
“Then you believe me,” she said, her eyes filling with tears again. “I haven’t done anything to hurt anyone. I didn’t even hurt you, tonight.” She held out her hands, uncurling her fingers, trembling. “Look at me and tell me I’m a murderer.”
“You aren’t,” I said, as firmly as I could. “I believe you.”
She blinked slowly, her huge eyes wet, one hand looped around the wrist of the other in a tightening, uncertain circle.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“A friend,” I said. “Someone who believes you’re innocent.”
She scoffed. “Tell that to the Lorica. Tell that to the bastard who comes here every night to try and break me.”
I frowned. Everything I’d known of the Lorica pointed towards justice, towards doing the right thing. Would they truly stoop to torture?
“Did they – did they hurt you, Mona?”
She shook her head. “Not in a conventional sense, no. But that man, he’d come every night, whispering, trying to poke around inside my head. And he won’t stop. Not until he gets what he wants to hear.” Tears filled her eyes, threatening to break the dam of her lashes. “But I swear he won’t find more answers. I already told him everything I know.”
“He’s looking for something they can use, something to go on.” I placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. “You have to think, Mona. You have to remember. There was a silver light behind you. I thought that was just part of the show. Do you remember the light?”
She sniffed, wiping under her eye. “I do, but that was the last thing I remember happening. The stage flooded with silver light, and then my mouth opened, and I began to sing. Only – it wasn’t me. I didn’t even know that song. I didn’t know the melody. I couldn’t sing it for you now if you threatened to break my neck. I was in my body – but I was somewhere else.” She wiped angrily at one eye. “Gods but it doesn’t make sense. Who would even believe me?”
“I do,” I said. That look on Mona’s face that night – hell, her face in the prison, she’d have to be a damn good actress to pull that off. Either that, or she was warping my brain with her words. I should have confirmed with the others whether sirens needed to sing to manipulate humans. “But is there really nothing else you remember? Anything about the light that was strange at all?”
She sniffled. “I thought I might have heard something. A voice. ‘Sing,’ it said. And later, I thought I heard something about a culling. The culling? But it could have been anyone. It could have been one of the sound guys, or the DJ. I told Royce everything, and he still won’t let me go.”
One word, and silver light. “Sing,” the voice had told her. And out on Silk Road, “Filth,” it said, when it tried to destroy Sterling. But what kind of celestial being does that? What avenging angel had come to Valero to kill and slaughter so indiscriminately? And what was the culling?
I clutched Mona by the shoulder again, staring into her eyes. “Listen to me. We can talk more about this later, but for now, we’re going to get you out of here. Okay? They’re not going to keep you here forever.”
Her hand clutched at mine, her face twisting with anger. “You’re damn right about that. I’m not staying a minute longer.”
“Right,” I said. “Okay. So all we need to do is – ”
My mind began whirling with the sheer impossibility of smuggling an entire other person with me back out through Lorica HQ. Fuck. I hadn’t thought this part through. At least I could shadowstep. How was Mona going to pass through walls?
But damn it, I’d improvised enough times in the past. I was sure we could overcome something as insane as this obstacle, too.
“Come on,” I said. “We’ll figure something out.”
“Thank you.” She pulled herself closer to me, heaving in relief, burying her face in my shoulder. “Gods, thank you. I – didn’t catch your name. I’m – well, you already know. But my real name is Desdemona.”
“Dust,” I said, pulling her towards the corridor, prepared to take out the watcher with a well-placed fireball. “It’s Dust. And I’m going to get you out of here. Take you somewhere safe.”
“Commendable, but wrong,” a gruff voice called out from the corridor.
Mona whimpered, clinging even tighter to my back. “It’s him,” she whispered.
Royce – part Mouth, part Wing, all Scion – barred the way to freedom, his arms folded, his presence filling the very corridor.
“Neither one of you is leaving the Prism. Not now. Not ever.”
Chapter 16
“Did you really think you were going to break in that easy, Graves? Were you really so confident that you’d get in without being noticed? We knew you were here the very second you materialized in the building.”
Damn it. A trap. I should have known.
Royce leveled me with a narrowed gaze, the corner of his lip turning up in a sneer. “Really, I should have taken our intel on you more seriously. You’re even more arrogant than I thought.”
