“What’s the code?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Only two people in this building are authorized to know it, people with the highest-level security clearances.” Brisco pointed to himself and to Willard.
I stepped aside and gestured for him to come forward and enter the code.
“3-6-3-2-9-9-8-7-2,” he said.
“Way to defend national security,” Willard told him.
“We can change it later. After we’re sure the DNA in my balls doesn’t get bent out of shape.”
“It’s magic, not radiation.” I asked him to repeat the code and punched it in.
As he’d described earlier, a thunk sounded, as if the code had been accepted, but when I used Chopper to try to open the lever, the door didn’t budge. I risked touching a finger to the metal surface. I didn’t get zapped with magical energy, but it was hot enough that I jerked my hand back.
“It’s toasty warm,” I said. “Hopefully, that’s a byproduct of the magic, not an indication that the artifacts room is on fire.”
“There’s not much in there that could burn,” Brisco said. “Aside from the artifacts and weapons, it’s all metal and cement.”
I covered my hand with my sleeve and tried pulling on the latch. Nothing. Not the slightest bit of give.
“Not the byproduct,” Willard said. “The magic must be intentionally heating the door.”
I released the latch, the heat unpleasant even through my sleeve. “Why?”
“Go get a fire extinguisher, Captain,” Willard said.
“Uh, all right. But if there was a fire inside, we would have seen flames or smoke on the camera.”
“Not to put out a fire, to cool off the door with the carbon dioxide. It’s probably not opening because it’s heated enough to have expanded against the jamb.”
“Ah, right.” Brisco jogged for the stairs.
“Nobody reads science books anymore,” Willard lamented.
“Not even your intel agents?”
“They’re all about cryptanalysis and linguistics.”
“I might be able to cool off the door. Chopper has three magical powers that I know how to access. And probably a lot more that I don’t.” I rested the flat of the blade against the door and whispered, “Keyk.”
The blade’s blue glow shifted to an icy white. It might not be as effective as spraying the whole door down, but I tried to use my magic to will the sword to radiate its chill into the metal. Whether that would work or not, I didn’t know. Magic was still new to me, and my half-sister Freysha had mostly taught me things that fell under her specialty of forest magic. Still, I’d managed to do a few other things by simply willing the magic in my blood to work. From what I’d seen, most magic was done by learning mental tricks to harness the magic in one’s blood.
Footsteps sounded as Brisco tramped back down the stairs. The metal didn’t seem to be radiating heat anymore, so I lowered Chopper and tried the lever again. This time, the door opened.
Brisco snorted and hefted a fire extinguisher the size of a SCUBA tank. “I’ll just keep this in case we need to club someone.”
“We might.” My senses crawled as I peered inside, the interior hazy with something that looked like smoke but didn’t smell like it. Fog? Mist? It didn’t have a smell, at least nothing that I could distinguish from the mingling scents of bleach and musty books. “There’s magic in there.”
“There’s a lot of magic in there,” Willard said, “unless she stole all of our artifacts.”
“It’s something in addition to them.” I could feel the cacophony of magical auras from hundreds of artifacts clashing against each other, as I always did when I walked into this room, but there was something else, something emanating from the back corner.
And had that fog grown denser since I’d opened the door? Shouldn’t it have been the other way around? Whatever it was didn’t flow out into the hallway like smoke would have.
Something about the fog or the magic made my chest tighten. I grimaced. My asthma had been better lately, since Zav irradiated the mold in our house, but it still reared its head when I got tense or emotional—or walked into a place with noxious air. My attempts to learn to meditate properly and ease my tension had not been successful.
Keeping my back to the others, I slipped my inhaler out and took a puff. Even though I hated using it in front of others—having anyone see that annoying weakness that I’d only developed in the last year—I’d learned not to put it off.
My skin tingled as I stepped into the doorway and the hazy air touched my skin. A strange feeling came over me, as if someone dangerous waited inside, and my heart rate quickened, pulse beating in my ears. It had grown so quiet that I had no trouble hearing its rapid thumps. The magic permeating the big storage room made me want to step back and close and lock the door.
“Hold on.” I lifted a hand, aware of Willard a step behind me, her pistol drawn and pointed toward the ceiling, ready to bring to bear if we ran into the thief—or, more likely, a booby trap she’d left. If she’d been there, I would have sensed her. Unless she had a camouflaging charm similar to mine. That was possible, I realized. Even likely. The doors to the building were monitored, so the thief shouldn’t have been able to saunter in during broad daylight. “I’m calling for back up.”
“Zav?” Willard asked.
“He’s still not on Earth.” I touched the feline-shaped charm on the leather thong around my neck and summoned Sindari. “Think furrier.”
The great silver tiger formed beside me in the doorway, a tight fit since he was over seven hundred pounds and his head came up to my shoulder. His green eyes closed to thoughtful slits, and he sniffed.
Where are we? He’d been in the building before but not in the windowless basement.
“Willard’s office,” I responded aloud.
It feels like a cursed shaman burial ground on the haunted world of Nagnortha.
“Sindari likes what you’ve done with the place,” I told Willard, who knew Sindari could communicate telepathically with me.
“I bet. Are we going in?” Since Willard was mundane, she couldn’t sense magic, but she ought to be able to see the fog and wonder what it meant.
“Is closing the door and forgetting this room exists an option?” I wasn’t one to shirk from duty or hide from bad guys, but the thief had clearly set this up for me—how she’d known I was here, I didn’t know—and it seemed dumb to stroll into a trap.
Maybe Willard thought so, too, for she considered her answer for a few seconds before replying. “We need to know what she took, and if she’s still around, we need to capture her. She’s been stealing a lot of priceless artifacts, magical and mundane, and she broke into a government facility and got a bunch of sensitive data off the hard drives there. Since she’s believed to be from a rival nation, that’s got my higher-ups twitchy. I can go in first.” She tapped my shoulder. “If you think there’s a trap set specifically for you.”
I grimaced at the idea of a trap set for me going off and killing Willard. “Sindari and I will check it out. You and Brisco stay in the hallway.”
I sense entities inside, Sindari told me.
Living beings? I stepped in and flicked the light switch. The fluorescents mounted on the ceiling remained dark. Naturally. I thought about activating my night-vision charm, but with the light flowing in from the hallway behind me, it would be too bright and hurt my eyes. Chopper’s glow would guide me.
No, he said. Malevolent entities.
Like what? I remembered his comment about a haunted world. Ghosts?
Your language may not have an exact term, but along those lines, yes.
As I walked down the first aisle, Willard and Brisco stepped into the room behind me, both with weapons pointed into the darkness to the sides. So much for my suggestion that they stay in the hallway. Willard also wasn’t the type to hide from bad guys. I trusted they were professionals and wouldn’t shoot me.
Something brushed my cheek, and
I swatted at it. Nothing was there. I kept walking, wanting to check out the strange magic coming from the back corner of the room. Thanks to the floor-to-ceiling shelving units, most full of items of all sizes, I couldn’t see over there yet.
Another something brushed my forehead. Again, I found nothing when I probed my face with my fingers.
Sindari shook his head, as if a bug had flown in his ear.
Feels like cobwebs, I observed silently.
Yes. He sounded annoyed and prowled ahead of me, turning toward the corner when he reached the aisle running parallel to the back wall.
“That’s the spot where she was standing when the video went out.” Brisco pointed toward the shelves beside me while looking at a camera mounted on the back wall. Its power indicator light was on, and it appeared normal.
Though I wanted to stick with Sindari, I paused to examine the nearby shelves. They were stacked with old books written in languages like elven, gnomish, and dwarven.
“You’ll have to come see if any are missing. I can’t tell.”
Trouble! Sindari barked into my mind. A growl emanated from the corner.
I hurried to the back wall, but something much stronger than the earlier cobwebs clawed at my torso. An image flashed in my mind of skeletal fingers trying to pull me into a grave.
Instinctively, I spun and slashed at them with Chopper. I didn’t expect to hit anything, but the blade flared bright and met with resistance as it cut through something. Whatever it was, I still couldn’t see it, but the fact that something was there had my heart racing. A lot of somethings. I whipped my arms about as fast as I could in an effort to break all the holds on my body.
Again and again, Chopper’s blade met resistance. A faint clatter sounded as something I’d cut hit the cement floor. But as soon as I broke one hold, two more latched on to me, invisible grasping fingers seeming to grow out of the shelves.
More clatters sounded as a half-dozen more of whatever I was slashing at hit the floor. I spun, tearing free from their grips as I sliced at the threats all about me. Finally, the air around me was empty, and nothing more clawed at me.
I’d turned around several times and ended up facing Willard and Brisco with my sword aloft. They were staring at me as if I had gone crazy.
“You heard them hit the ground, right?” I asked.
They exchanged long looks. That meant no. All they’d seen was me fencing with an enemy they couldn’t see.
Another growl floated back from Sindari, then escalated into a snarl. Something crashed to the floor.
“I heard that,” Willard said. “Is your tiger breaking artifacts?”
Shaking my head, I ran around the corner at the end of the aisle and charged into the darkness to help Sindari. More invisible fingers grasped at me, almost tugging my duster off my shoulders as they strove to keep me from reaching my ally.
I wanted to ignore them and rush through—up ahead, Sindari’s silver tail stuck out from an aisle along the far wall, swishing as he faced something—but the fingers clamped down even harder. Once again, I slashed all around myself, slicing rapidly to break the invisible grips.
Something grabbed my braid and yanked backward, jerking my neck painfully. Roaring with anger and frustration, I whirled and swung. For an instant, as Chopper’s tip scraped the wall and tore out a chunk of cement, I saw something. A dark wraith-like figure in the hazy air. Then my blade bit into its torso, and a scream filled my ears. The figure disappeared, and so did the grip on my braid.
A crash came from the aisle where Sindari was fighting. One of the shelving units toppled toward him.
“Look out!” I yelled, running to help.
The unit slammed into the wall, clanks and shattering noises echoing through the room. Sindari roared and lunged, his tail disappearing from sight.
I intended to join him against whatever foe he fought, but a black box with its lid open came into view ahead of me, a purple glow emanating from within. It sat on the floor in the corner of the chamber. A second ago, it hadn’t been there—or I hadn’t been able to see it.
Barely visible shadows wafted out of it, and I halted several feet away. The impulse to slam Chopper into it flooded me, but I resisted, memories of my face-off with the fae artifact in the bog still fresh in my mind. Instead, I crept closer, thinking to kick the lid shut.
When I was a few feet away, fingers wrapped around my neck and squeezed. Pain shot down my spine, and as I whirled once again, with Chopper raised to slash, the fingers tightened instead of letting go.
Fear flooded me. I kicked and swung with Chopper at the same time, guessing at where the body and the arms attached to those invisible fingers would be.
Again, my blade sliced through something, but there were too damn many of those somethings. Even as I severed one of two grips on my neck, more fingers wrapped around my ankle. With a swift, powerful tug, they pulled me off my feet.
I braced myself to land on my back, but I never hit the floor. Instead, my momentum halted two feet above it, and the fingers pulled me toward the box. The purple light brightened, and I envisioned some creature waiting to eat me if I was sucked into it.
Now horizontal in the air, I kept swinging. The positioning was awkward, but desperation gave me extra strength. Chopper sliced through the entity that still had a grip on my neck. I gasped in air and lunged into a sitting position so I could swing toward the thing pulling me by the ankle. My toes were inches from the box now.
“Thorvald!” Willard barked from behind me. “What do I shoot at? I can’t see what has you.”
“The box!” I slashed at the air an inch from my boot but didn’t connect with anything. The fingers had me from underneath. I twisted and stabbed.
My thrust drove Chopper’s tip into the side of the box, and purple sparks flew. The blade didn’t dig in or otherwise damage it.
“I can’t see a box.” Willard sounded like she was only a few feet away.
I had no idea how to ask her to help. Then Sindari charged in from the side, roaring as he swiped at the box. Claws screeched against metal. He rammed the box with his shoulder, and the lid fell shut. The purple light disappeared.
Finally, I slashed through what held me, and I crashed to the floor. I sprang to my feet, whipping my blade through the air around me, certain more fingers would grab me. This time, I connected with nothing, but nothing else grabbed me either. Dare I hope that Sindari closing the lid had been all it took?
Willard stood a few feet away, a hand up, as if she’d wanted to grab me but couldn’t with me swinging Chopper around like a loon.
Sindari growled, and I turned to find purple mist forming all around the box. I leaped back, almost crashing into Willard, and pointed Chopper at it. For the encore, the cursed thing might explode.
Sindari lifted a paw, ready to take another swipe at it, though all his first attack had done was close the lid. The box faded before my eyes, much as Sindari did when he disappeared from this realm, and then it was gone.
3
“What the hell is going on?” I demanded to the empty air where the box had been. The shadows had also disappeared, and the sensation of magic crawling over my skin slowly faded.
Sindari shook his head, as if driving out the memories of his battle. I assumed he’d also been dealing with invisible hands grabbing him. Had they knocked over the shelving unit, or had he backed into it?
As I said, this place reminds me of the haunted world. Sindari sat on his haunches, eyeing the corner where the box had been.
“You tell me,” Willard said. “It looked like you were shadow boxing. If we hadn’t seen something yank you into the air and pull you toward the corner, we would have thought you’d gone crazy.”
“I suppose I should be reassured you don’t already think I’m crazy.” As the fog disappeared, I lowered Chopper.
“I do have questions about that, but you’re already seeing a therapist, so she can work on your issues and medicate you as needed.”
“Ha ha. We talk about my relationships with people and dragons, not my sanity.” I poked the air where the box had been.
“I’m surprised that doesn’t come up.”
The lights flickered, then came back on. The artifacts room once again looked and felt like the normal basement storage area that I remembered.
“I’ll get the inventory list and see what’s missing,” Brisco said.
“Wait.” Willard gripped his arm, then pointed toward a spot where the ceiling met another corner. A camera was pointed in our direction. “Is that one of ours?”
Brisco eyed the compact black unit. Two other cameras were visible, larger cameras with wiring that disappeared into conduits running along the wall and up through the ceiling. This one didn’t match those.
“No.” He strode toward it.
“You’re going to have to tell me more about this haunted world,” I told Sindari.
“Haunted world?” Willard asked. “Nagnortha? The burial realm?”
That is its name, Sindari told me.
“Or you’re going to have to tell me more about it.” I pointed at Willard.
“It’s referenced in a lot of books and scrolls we’ve gained access to over the years,” she said. “The dragons found it first but decided that the underworld taint—as the scrolls called it—made it an unappealing place to hunt. Eventually, trolls, ogres, and orcs learned to make portals to Nagnortha and used it as a burial ground. They believed the magic of the place granted power to those interred there, so they could survive the dangers of the afterworld. Some say that the dead exist close to reality there and that deals may be struck with them. If you would like to be turned into a zombie lord, that’s the place to go.”
“I bet that’s a big selling point in the tourism brochures.”
I have been to Nagnortha, Sindari told me as Brisco found a crate to stand on so he could reach the camera. It is a wild world with much to hunt, but it is also very strange. Some say that its dimensional anchor is weak and that it slips in and out of its place in time and space. If you are there when that happens, you might be lost forever.
Secrets of the Sword 2 (Death Before Dragons Book 8) Page 2
