“Right, but that’s gone with the house.”
Hayden nodded. “But it was just a picture of the others. Besides, Wolfe...Sennek is opening a gate. The design will be different.”
“So, how do we find them?”
“Me,” Hayden said. “If I can pull enough from my vision, I can get us to one of the circles.”
“Won’t the police be all over sites of suspected cult activity?”
“Maybe, unless it’s an old site. I can’t see much other choice. With Archon out of the way, Wolfe is free to move. He won’t wait any longer than he has to. Not now.”
“Where do we start?”
“I need somewhere quiet, somewhere he won’t watch. I’ll reach for the vision, and you can just tag along, like last time. Once you’ve seen the gate sigils, you can find them the same way you found me.
“Then you come back here and watch Deckard, and I’ll go tear Wolf’s precious portal apart.”
“Hayden,” Vivian said, shaking her head, “I’m going with you.”
“Viv, you can’t.” He willed her to understand. “You haven’t been trained yet, not for this, and I need someone I trust here while I’m out there.”
“You said there would be multiple sites. Unless you can teleport now, you’ll need me covering at least one of them. Besides, if Wolfe opens the portal to this Worm thing, we’re all dead anyway, right?” She reached up and touched his arm.
“I just found you…” Hayden began.
“We just found each other. Don’t ask me to leave again.”
Hayden had a sour taste in his mouth. He hated putting her in danger again, but she was right. There wasn’t time to get her out of the city, and nowhere was safe from the Worm. “Fine. You win. I don’t have time to argue.”
Vivian squeezed his bicep and let go. “Okay,” she breathed. “What’s the next step?”
“We find someone to watch Deckard, in case one of Wolfe’s cronies makes a play for him here. I have no idea who to trust.”
The door to the hospital room opened without announcement, and both of them looked up as a skinny, balding man walked in accompanied by a burst of cologne. He wore a navy suit a little too big for him and he held up a little leather wallet containing a badge and an ID.
“Hayden Lucas? Detective Pagliano. May I have a word?” He shut the door to the room.
Hayden tensed. Of course the police show up now. Vivian slid to the side, and Hayden stepped forward, placing himself close to Deckard’s bed and between Vivian and the newcomer.
“I’m happy to help you, Detective, but maybe here is not the best place.” He let the beeps from the heart monitor underscore his point.
“I agree, Mr. Lucas,” said Pagliano with a bland smile. He stepped a little closer and leaned down an inch, reducing his voice to a near whisper. “Which is why you can help me by lowering your voice. The walls in this place are paper thin.”
Chapter Forty-One
“You’re sure this is the place?” Hayden asked.
“Reasonably.”
Following his entrance at the hospital, Detective Pagliano had offered a deal: protection for Deckard and a slow-walked investigation of the house arson in exchange for “what the hell was going on” in his city. Faced with a ticking clock and an Atlanta Police detective already halfway in the know, Hayden agreed to the terms.
He hoped he had made the right choice.
The conversation was short. Pagliano had listened, asked the odd incisive question, and then written down a list of addresses.
“Thieves don’t go back to places they’ve just robbed. There’s nothing for them there. If you need a place that Wolfe isn’t watching, it’ll be one of these.”
A quick conference had yielded the nearest location: a lower rent apartment complex near the north edge of Georgia Tech’s campus.
Hayden put the car in park and stared up at the apartment. Unlike the rest of the area around campus, the buildings in Home Park hadn’t been renovated in a few decades. This particular human gerbil box squatted two stories above the pavement. Cracked aluminum siding, long since faded of color, covered buildings pock-marked with window-unit air conditioners that bled rust in lines down the walls. Hayden imagined it sneering down at him and daring him to start something.
“Well, no one wants to know what goes on in this place, so it should do fine.”
He cut the engine, and he and Vivian clambered out of his little Toyota. She shouldered her purse and they shut and locked the doors. Hayden headed up the short cement steps from the curb toward the crime scene, Vivian close behind. They walked up some jangling metal stairs to a concrete walkway running along the second story. Hayden turned sideways to let a tall, chubby Asian kid slide past him on the narrow path, presumably one of the residents. The kid kept his eyes on his feet and trudged past them with a bored expression on his face. Other than the lone student, no one stirred.
Hayden led Vivian almost down the whole length of the building to the door number 207. Crime scene tape still roped off the apartment door, the edges of the frame sealed with a warning label. Hayden summoned a scalpel in his fingers and slit the seal. A criminal investigation wasn’t likely to do anyone much good.
“Are you going to pick the lock?” Vivian whispered. “I feel like people are staring at me.”
“Just need the right tool for the job,” Hayden replied. He lined the scalpel blade up with the bolt, set his feet, and braced his elbow against his hip. He widened the construct, thickening the point into a thin wedge, then extended the whole thing out. A blade of energy leapt eight inches through metal. The bolt parted with a sound like a car door that hadn’t been oiled in thirty years, making Vivian jump.
Hayden dismissed his impromptu saw and lightly pushed the door open. A chunk of metal, still glowing along the cut edge, fell out of the jamb and tumbled quietly to the beige carpeting. He turned to Vivian and motioned her inside. She gave him an exasperated look but scurried in. Hayden stepped in right behind her and shut the door gently.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. The main section of the apartment was a long rectangular room. Dark paneling and brown carpet immediately sucked away the meager light leaking in through the doorway. A hunter-green-plaid couch hugged the left wall, and a faux-wood entertainment center held a television and a couple gaming consoles on the right. A cheap pressboard coffee table crouched a few feet from the couch. Beyond the couch rested a small table and single chair, also shoved to the edge of the room. A double row of figurines stood at parade rest next to a magnifying glass and a plastic rack of colored paint jars.
“Hayden? Is that what I think it is?”
Vivian pointed at the floor near the kitchen area, and Hayden strode over and hunched down for a closer look. Shadows obscured the stains at first, but as the angle of the light changed, he saw a faint sheen. It was a sorcery circle, alright, and not a nice one. Hayden fought off a flash of remembered panic from his dream-vision of the girl reaching for the scissors.
“Paint,” he declared and nodded over to the little table. “Probably for those.”
Vivian glanced at the table and hugged herself. “Can we get this over with? It’s creepy being here. I feel like we’re invading his space.”
Hayden stood up and gave her a grin. “Werewolves, car chases, evil sorcery, you’re fine. But a dead guy’s house gives you the willies?”
“You’d be freaked out too if you might have a vision of the past of this exact spot.”
Hayden dropped his smirk. “Point taken. Here.” He stepped close and took her hand. “Hold onto me. I’ve never tried this before. Last time was a fluke.”
“Do you have to pull me in? Can’t you just make an image of the memory or share it mentally?”
Hayden shook his head. “I barely see the circle. Sennek is always looking up at the tear in space, then away from it once things go bad, and I’m stuck in his perspective. But if we can view it from the outside, walk around in it, we might be able to
copy the gate sigils. That should be enough to tell us where Wolfe has his new version set up.”
Vivian licked her lips but nodded. “Okay. I’ll try.”
Hayden kissed the back of her hand, then closed his eyes and sought his memory of the fall of Atlantis. He imagined the patter of the warm rain on his head and arms. He sought the crackling noise of the tear in space as the gate energies bloomed, saw the inky darkness well up between the spires. He remembered the copper scent of blood pooling on the steps and dripping from his fingers.
Hatred filled him. He hated this scene, hated his fear of it, the familiar terror of a child’s nightmares. Most of all, he hated the man who forced him to relive it, one more time. Stomach twisting, Hayden reached for the Axiom and stepped into the head of a madman.
Molten fire raced through his bones, funneling to his heart, and the world blinked.
Time congealed. With his left hand, he grasped his brother’s weapon arm and jerked him close. With his right, he formed a spear from the voice of Setuklash-Toth and plunged it through Kess’ stomach.
Kess’ eyes widened in horror and he shuddered, trying to draw breath through his ruined lungs. He smoothed Kess’s dank hair out his face with his left hand and twisted the spear of darkness in his right. Kess jerked.
“Sssshhhh. It’s okay, brother.” Pity welled up in him. Kess couldn’t understand. “I promise I can save you. I’ll save them all.” Kess coughed and a warm mist touched his face. He smiled as the light of the Axiom in Kess’s eyes flickered.
A roar challenged the night, and the sky exploded into light. The Worm screeched and its emotion thrummed through Sennek’s own being, filling him with...fear? No, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t possible.
He tried to turn to see what was happening, but Kess held him pinned. Blood bubbled from Kess’ lips. His brother’s voice was a raspy wheeze, completely drowned in the screaming sky and the roaring god, but he could read the word in the growing light.
Burn.
Kess’s body ignited into a man-shaped fire. The spear skewering him hardened, and the blazing light of the Axiom traveled up it and into him. The Setuklash-Toth part of him spasmed in agony. He screamed in terror. In frustration. He was so close! He was so close!
“Hayden?”
Vivian’s voice called faintly, lost in a sea of pain and noise. He clung to it like a life raft. She was here. It had worked. The vision froze in place, halted by the sliver of him that reached out for her.
The pain kept going. Axiom seared his spirit, a spear of crystal agony pierced his body, and the wet, putrid touch of Setuklash-Toth flexed and wriggled in his mind. It was all he could do to shape a groan.
“Hurry!”
Time. Meaningless. The thought wasn’t his, didn’t feel like Sennek’s. Hayden’s muscles twitched and spasmed. The twin spears of Kess and the Worm tore into him further with every twitch. Two universes attempted to occupy his space at the same time.
Space. Meaningless. Fear swept up Hayden’s back and stole his breath. “Hurry!” he mouthed, but all that came out was a last whistle of air.
His skin charred from the fury of the Axiom, cracking his mortal shell into pieces. The Worm stirred those pieces, stitching and unstitching them in random, cancerous patterns. Where they met, Hayden vibrated with the screaming rage of the chaos god, thwarted and consumed by the substance of primal order.
Hayden’s field of view narrowed, eaten away by flaring light and glaring darkness. He wanted it to end, but he held on anyway, pure stubborn spite fueling his grasp of the Axiom.
Death. Meaningless. He tried to scream, but only gaped wordlessly, breathlessly. He tried to run, but the vision held him. He tried to remember why he was here, but thought was crushed by another mind.
Escape. Meaningless. Hayden’s left arm moved on its own, twisting and reshaping as it rose. A single, threadlike strand of jet black lifted free of his skin and shrieked in a tiny, high pitched whistle.
“Hayden! Let it go!” Vivian shouted at him.
The world grew brighter. Hayden’s vision faded to white as he let go of the vision and time resumed. Sennek screamed with his throat, the terror of the Worm invaded his head, the heat of the approaching wave of Axiom from Deckard’s spell on seared his back.
Meaningless. A tide of fire washed over him and tore him apart.
Hayden hit the carpet with a thud, shuddering. Everything hurt. Something touched his face and he flinched away, instinctively raising his arms to protect himself.
“Hayden, it’s me. It’s Vivian.” She ran soft, cool hands over his arms, his neck. The tension melted out of him. The phantom pains receded, leaving behind a dull, ragged ache. Hayden buried his face in his arms and stifled the sobs that bubbled up. He struggled to breathe, to bring his emotions under control. He kept reliving the slimy touch of the Worm crawling inside him, its sepulchral voice booming in his head with the authority of a prophet.
“Meaningless.”
No, he snarled at himself. That’s how the Worm had gotten Wolfe. He’d convinced him the fight was meaningless, that loss was inevitable. Hayden would be damned before he became anything like that coward.
He made himself open his eyes and look up at Vivian, who knelt beside him smoothing his hair softly. He sniffed and scrubbed at his eyes.
“Just tell me you got it,” he rasped.
Vivian gave him a weak, worried smile. “I think so.”
“Good.” Hayden shoved himself to his feet, trembling. His muscles informed him they’d like to be left alone for a year.
“Hayden, you should rest. I know that took a lot out of you.”
“I won’t be getting much sleep for a while, but I’ll be fine.”
“But…”
“Just do it!” Hayden yelled as his frustration and fear boiled over. Vivian’s shocked face cut him off and looked he down, weary, ashamed. He reached out and gently took Vivian’s hand. “Find him for me, Vivian. Please. I need to return some nightmares.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Vivian made Hayden agree to lay down on the couch. He did so, though she could read the reluctance in his face. Despite his protests, exhaustion won out, and he fell asleep in minutes. Vivian recalled the haunted look in his eyes when he’d returned from the vision and prayed he was too tired to dream.
Not that she looked forward to revisiting that hellish scene herself. She seated herself on the carpet a few feet from the little workbench full of miniatures and took a steadying breath. “Okay, V. Time to shine.”
Once more, she reached out for the shores of the river and plunged her hand into the flow. Peering into the splash of Axiom in her cupped hands, she placed her memory of the gate into it.
Rain hung in the air, motionless drops reflecting and refracting the blue-white lightning dancing over the carved marble platform and lining the edges of the gate. Off to her left, a winged figure of bronze-gold fire burned against the darkness. To her right, the Worm raged ten stories tall in glistening black, studded with gnashing, screaming bone-white mouths. Between them hung a silhouette, harshly outlined against the light of the blazing figure and unraveling into tendrils of shadowy mist that spiraled into the Worm’s multi-faceted jaws.
Vivian suppressed a shudder. Even the memory of that night filled her with dread. How could Hayden stand reliving it every night? The image wavered, shimmering with a heat-haze.
Focus, V. She had to hurry. With a thought, the imaged flashed closer, bringing the gate sigils into sharp relief. It also brought the Worm within touching distance. A fresh wave of terror inundated her as that twisting shadow loomed.
Vivian didn’t bother fighting it. She let the fear wash over her, branding the strange Atlantean writing into her mind. She spun the image slowly, walking a counter-clockwise path around the gate. Her eyes flicked away from the bodies, the blood, the shattered armor. Bile rose in the back of her mouth.
The gate. Focus on the gate. Vivian completed her circle and carved back the other way.
She made a second circuit, finding it easier to focus as the shock wore off, then a third. Satisfied that she knew the gate as well as she could, she pushed the hideous memory of Hayden’s vision aside and returned to the shores of the Axiom. She let the gathered power drip through her fingers.
Weariness weighed her soul down, but she gazed out over the endless waters and drank in the stillness of that beautiful expanse. Vivian knelt and trailed the tips of her fingers in the river, causing a cascade of effulgent ripples. She caught flashes of her own life in them, every memory a moment of peace and calm. Smiling as the pressure on her spirit lightened, it shifted inside of her to something manageable. She could do this.
Scooping up another handful of that clean magic, Vivian stood and pictured the runes of the gate. She painted them in electric blue against empty black and poured her fear and will into the image, just like before. After a moment’s hesitation, she added the Worm, the sense of it, the radiating terror, the filthy power scratching at the door to the world. She covered her droplet of possibility with her other hand, containing it and claiming it at the same time.
“Find it,” she said. Her words echoed in that empty place, in the darkness above the waters. She didn’t know who she spoke to, but intuition drew the words from her. “Help us stop it.”
The Axiom flared with light and wind rushed past Vivian’s face as she soared up through the earth and the streets to fly over the city, carried along like a leaf. No sooner did the elation of flying touch her than the rushing current halted. The sky filled instantly with boiling grey fog spinning her about, sending her eddying listlessly with no up or down, no perspective of any kind. She pulled more energy through her bubble of power, but the clouds growled angry thunder and darkened with menace.
Stymied, Vivian released her will and dropped the seeking spell. Nothing happened. She hung in limbo, utterly lost for a moment, before the world flickered into existence once again. Blinking, she found herself sitting on the carpet of the dead man’s apartment with her knees stiff and back sore. Hayden snored softly on the couch.
The Last Archon Page 18
