Atlanta was hardly ever dark. Sure, there were plenty of shadowy alleys and places where an enterprising mugger might lie in wait for unsuspecting tourists. But Atlanta was his city, his stomping ground. Plus, he’d never really been alone, not since he’d come back from Melthalin. Fae magic wasn’t so much a thing as it was a living, breathing force of nature. Even though Pip and Jas and any of the other fae he called upon hadn’t been with him most of the time, he had always been able to feel the same life-giving energy that they were made of. And with that energy gone, he felt like he was walking around half-blind, or missing a limb, or some other melodramatic metaphor that could never actually describe the piercing emptiness he felt.
Man, he needed to get a life.
Searching for something constructive to do, he decided to give his aunt an update and dug in his pocket for the porthole. His fingers found the magic detection charm first. Its surface was cool from proximity to his various artifacts, but not nearly as frigid as it had been in Aunt B’s house. He took that to mean that there were no fancy wards or spying spells in the woods above the Mega Cavern’s entrance, which was good since he hadn’t even thought to check when they’d first picked the spot to wait. The outside air was cold enough that he couldn’t detect minor changes in the charm’s temperature without holding it in his hand. He hoped the air would be warmer down in the cavern.
Replacing the charm, he then dug out the porthole, opened it, and whispered the words Aunt B had taught him. Just as it had done the previous times, the porthole grew warm and the inside of the top turned pitch black—obviously the closed inside of Aunt B’s porthole. He did not have to wait long before a crack of light appeared, and then the darkness parted to reveal his aunt’s face.
“Good evening, nephew. Are you safe?”
“As safe as possible, at the moment,” he replied, speaking softly. “I’m waiting while Mallory and Kip do some scouting. Just called to give you an update.”
“Good. Have you located John Faust?”
“Not yet, but we spotted one of Roger’s witches and Kip followed him inside the mine. Hopefully once Kip gets back, he’ll be able to lead us right to them.”
“Excellent.”
“Oh, and we captured Oculus.”
“LeFay’s construct? How in the world did you manage that without magic?”
Sebastian grinned in the darkness. He doubted his aunt had any idea what a paintball gun was. “Mallory shot him down. I can fill you in on the details later.”
“Hm. Well, that is fortunate, but we must assume such an action has given LeFay forewarning of our approach. Even if the spells for listening and seeing on it were disabled, the very lack of information will be information in and of itself.”
Sebastian shrugged. “We figured that, but if we didn’t take it out it would have just followed us around, giving Mr. Fancypants a front row seat to whatever we did. At least this way he doesn’t know what’s coming.”
“It will have to be enough.”
“What about you? Have you all left yet?”
“No, I’m afraid not. We are still awaiting news from a few more people before we can embark. But it will not be long.”
“Okay, no problem,” Sebastian said, but inside his heart sank. It had taken them a good eight hours to reach Louisville, what with inevitable construction and rush-hour delays along the way. Though it was only a few hours after nightfall, even if Aunt B and the rest left soon and drove through the night, they still wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow morning. The idea of leaving Lily in John Faust’s clutches for even one more night made his fists clench and jaw lock in a painful grimace.
“Sebastian, all will be well.”
His aunt’s quiet voice made him realize he’d been glaring at the porthole without really seeing it. He took a deep breath and tried to relax. “You can’t know that.”
“Perhaps not. But to stand against the malevolence and uncertainties we face every day, we need something to anchor us. Remember, hope is more powerful than fear.”
“Don’t give me that crap, not right now.” The bite in Sebastian’s voice made his aunt purse her lips, but she didn’t interrupt him as he continued. “Warm, squishy feelings don’t change a darn thing. If one of even a hundred things goes wrong, Lily is dead. I can have all the hope I want, but it doesn’t change the fact that the odds are stacked against us, not to mention that I’m a pretty lame excuse for a rescue party these days.”
“For someone who has spent the last decade trusting in the unseen forces around us, you seem oddly opposed to the idea at present.”
“Fae magic and abstract ideas about feelings are two completely different things,” he said, now thoroughly annoyed.
“And yet you believe in love? Trust in it, even?”
“That—that’s not the same. I don’t trust in a feeling. I trust in people.”
“That is good to hear,” his aunt replied, and Sebastian flushed at her exceedingly dry tone—he and trust in any form had never gotten along well.
“Yet,” the old wizard continued, “we both know there is more to this world than what the eye can see. The mysteries of existence are much larger than you or I, and the ways of providence are no less real for their hiddenness. As is often the case in life, if you look for something, you will eventually find it. So, look for hope, Sebastian. If you seek despair, you will find it. Then, all will be lost.”
Eyes prickling uncomfortably, Sebastian looked away from the porthole. He didn’t want hope, because if he had hope, it could be taken away. He knew from experience how painful that was. A part of him wondered why he was even here if it was safer to never have hope in the first place. Why not just go crawl into a hole and die?
Because he’d been down that road before...and he knew where it led.
“I won’t give up,” Sebastian said through clenched teeth, aiming his words at the darkness that seemed so much closer and thicker around him than it had been a few minutes ago.
“Well, it is a start. I suppose sheer stubbornness will have to do for the moment.”
Aunt B’s voice startled him. He’d forgotten she was there.
“Look, I’ll let you know when we find anything worth knowing. Just...just be here as soon as you can.”
“We shall.”
“Great. Bye.” And with that, he shut the porthole.
It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate his aunt’s efforts. But all the emotional baggage and bad memories that her advice had dredged up made it hard to think about what she was actually saying. He couldn’t even claim she had no idea what he was going through—not anymore. In his naïve teenage years he’d used that accusation as an excuse to ignore her. But you couldn’t live for over a century in this messed-up world and not collect a whole army of scars. Hers might be different from his, but who was he to say they weren’t just as bad? And yet, despite them, she had still managed to find something worth believing in.
Woohoo for her.
All he knew was that he’d screwed up a lot, and he was trying to put it right as best he could—a knight with new armor and all that. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t.
A sudden tightness gripped his lungs at the thought. Maybe it won’t work. Maybe Lily will die. And I won’t be able to do anything to stop it.
In that moment, he realized he could no longer fool himself. He already had hope, whether he wanted it or not. Lily was his hope. As long as he’d pushed her away and kept a wall between them, he’d thought he could protect himself from the pain of losing her—of losing hope.
Again.
But it was too late now. What they had was still small and uncertain, a bud just beginning to bloom. Yet even something as little as that made his heart sing and his bones sigh in relief, like the frozen ground sighs when the first touch of spring breaks winter’s hold. To belong, to be loved...he had not been loved by anybody for so, so long. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like.
How could he possess this beautiful, fragile hope
without being overwhelmed by the terrible fear of losing it? To love was to make yourself vulnerable, and he had no freaking idea how to deal with being vulnerable.
So what the heck was he supposed to do?
“Where’s Kip when I need him?” Sebastian growled and surged to his feet. He couldn’t sit still any longer. He began pacing again and focused on the task ahead. What did he know about what they would face? What were the likely scenarios? What resources did he have and how could he use them?
He paced. He planned. He did some cautious stretches, trying to ease the soreness in his abused body. He practiced Mallory’s moves and his draw technique with his revolver. Then he did it all again. And again.
An hour later, when Mallory finally returned accompanied by Sir Kipling’s gray shadow, his manic energy had exhausted itself. He gladly sat on the leaf-strewn ground as they discussed their findings and what to do about them.
In the end, they came up with a plan. Since they were constrained by time, and resources—namely that they didn’t have a wizard there to do any fancy stuff—it wasn’t the most foolproof plan, but it was straightforward. They couldn’t get started until the dead of night, however, which meant they had a few more hours to kill. Sebastian argued with Mallory about who would keep watch, until Sir Kipling shot them both down, pointing out that he’d slept almost the entire drive up and was, after all, nocturnal.
Eventually, they both shut up and let the cat have his way.
***
Sebastian hadn’t thought he would get a wink of sleep, curled up on the leaves and in the cold with his head pillowed on his arm. Had he mentioned it was cold? But he must have been more tired than he’d thought, because all of a sudden a soft pawing on his face jolted him awake.
“W-what time is it?”
“One in the morning,” Mallory’s whispered voice answered. “Time to go.”
Sebastian took a moment to stretch—sleeping on the hard, frigid ground was about as fun as plucking your eyebrows out one hair at a time.
“You know, we could have just slept in the car,” he grumbled in Mallory’s general direction.
“With a murderous raven tied up in the trunk? Thanks, but I think we’re better off letting it stew and wonder where we are rather than giving it a big, fat, easy target.”
“Do you know how annoying you are when you’re right? No, don’t answer that, it was rhetorical.” Sebastian gave one last stretch and groan. “Come on, let’s get this over with,” he said, then rotated the band on his Ring of Cacophony. He would remain silenced for the duration of their journey into the mine.
Quiet as ever, even without a magical ring, Mallory led the way.
Instead of trying to navigate the woods in the dark, she took them to the edge of the trees, where they skirted the businesses along Taylor Avenue, staying just out of the glow of the streetlights. Everything in their vicinity was quiet except for the low hum of each building’s heating systems and the distant noise of cars from Interstate 264.
Taylor Avenue curled inward as it slowly dropped toward the mine entrance. After about five minutes of furtive walking, they left behind the last building bordering the road before the street ended at a large gate and chain link fence. Beyond the fence, manicured grass and bushes were replaced by the wild growth of untended trees and brush. They followed the Mega Cavern entrance road past the fence until it eventually came out from between the trees and into an expansive parking lot that had probably once been the mine’s staging area. Sebastian could just imagine rows of huge trucks carting limestone out of the gaping, thirty-foot-high entrances blasted through the solid cliff face. The parking lot was well-illuminated, but there was a little strip of wilderness between the parking lot border fence and the limestone walls towering around it. Along this strip the three of them crept, staying crouched behind the fence as much as possible to stay hidden from the security cameras perched atop several light poles.
The first mine opening was no more than a hundred yards from the parking lot entrance. Once they’d reached it, it wasn’t hard to scramble—or vault, in Mallory’s case—over the chest-high gate blocking unauthorized vehicles from trundling into the mine’s depths. Still keeping low, they crept into the mine, staying close to the rocky walls, until the light from the parking lot was almost gone and they risked stumbling in the dark. While Mallory took off her backpack to get out the gear they would need, Sebastian swallowed down the nervous jitters in his stomach. Even though the Ring of Cacophony protected him from demonic influence much the same way Thiriel’s fae tattoo had, it had still been only a few days since he’d been painfully reminded of what it felt like to be without such protection. The nightmare of it was fresh in his mind, and the mine’s thick, ominous darkness wasn’t helping.
Of all the wretched places John Faust could have picked to hide out, he just had to have picked a freaking mine.
Sebastian supposed he should be grateful—Mr. Fancypants could have gone to Antarctica. At least the mine wasn’t freezing. They’d only had to go a few dozen yards inside the entrance before the air had started to feel warmer. Underground caverns, he had learned from Mallory, maintained a steady temperature throughout the year regardless of the cold or hot weather outside.
With a nudge, Mallory handed him the night-vision goggles she’d pulled from her backpack. He put them on the way she’d shown him earlier, while she took off the head wrap masking her face before donning her own goggles. Regular night-vision devices didn’t do you much good in complete blackness, but these had built-in infrared emitters that lit your way as well as any flashlight would have—without betraying your position. With the goggles on, they could easily discern the dips and rises in the floor and contours of the walls. Thus equipped, they set out into the darkness.
Fortunately for their safety, they wouldn’t be venturing into the unused depths of the mine’s far corners where the limestone caverns dove deep below the surface and everything was covered in rubble. As Mallory had informed him when describing what they would face, limestone was usually found in massive quantities laid down in thick, uniform deposits, and so the original mining operation had left vast, empty caverns interspersed with regular pillars of towering unmined rock to support the ceiling. After the mine had closed and was purchased by investors, they had used it as a depository for tons upon tons of recycled construction materials—rock, dirt, brick, even concrete. That enabled them to raise the level of the floor and create internal roads, turning the dangerous depths into usable space. Whether the several million square feet of mine would ever be fully reclaimed depended on the demand for space, but for now barely a quarter of it was in regular use. In order to reach the commercial storage section from the back—where, in theory, it was less secure—Sebastian and his allies had to creep along the outside limits of the reclaimed portion of the mine. Any normal intruder who tried to sneak in the same way they were ran the risk of getting hopelessly lost wandering among the massive empty spaces where each mined-out room looked identical to the last.
They, of course, weren’t normal: they had a cat.
After Sir Kipling had snuck into the back of the witch’s truck, he’d ridden it deep into the mine to the very last warehouse. The cat had waited for the witch to leave his vehicle, and once the coast was clear, had carefully followed him—only to find an empty warehouse. Unable to locate his quarry, but certain that Lily was somehow near, the cat had gone exploring. That was how he’d eventually found a back way out, going deep into parts of the mine closed off to customers and employees alike. Now, with his uncanny sense of smell and touch, he led them faithfully through the pitch-black maze.
The mine was absolutely silent, and their furtive footfalls in the dusty earth sounded loud in the stillness. The air was cool and, beyond the smell of dirt and stone, strangely fresh, as if invisible air currents brought in crisp winter air from the outside. They walked in single file: Sir Kipling in the lead, then Sebastian, and finally Mallory bringing up the rear, her ever-vig
ilant gaze sweeping around and behind them.
It took them many minutes of slow, careful maneuvering to reach the warehouses. Somehow, their intrepid feline explorer had a sense of where the security cameras were, and so he led them in a wide circle to avoid the ways that were watched. Sebastian doubted they could entirely escape being recorded at some point or another, but with so many cameras it was doubtful every single feed was watched one hundred percent of the time. Sir Kipling had reported that the security guard at the front entrance had left once the bay doors were closed for the night, though the cat had seen several maintenance personnel in various parts of the building after the last of the tourists had been shown out. Sebastian had asked Mallory if she couldn’t just hack into the system and doctor the camera feed like people did in the movies. The look she’d given him in reply was extra special, one she probably reserved for slugs, tapeworms, and morons who believed what they saw on TV.
They finally arrived at a door set into a sheetrock wall that had been built across the opening between two limestone pillars. The wall marked the edge of the “wild” section of the mine, and was likely an effective barrier against any burglar who braved the blackness in hopes of bypassing the security checkpoint at the main entrance. Luckily for Sebastian and Mallory, no security specialist could anticipate the phenomena of a literal cat burglar, especially not one who had a grudge against locked doors. Sir Kipling did his “Cat Magic,” then slipped through the unlocked door to go trigger the motion-sensitive lights in the corridor beyond and see if anyone came running. Meanwhile, Sebastian disengaged his ring’s silencing effect, and he and Mallory packed away their night-vision gear. Since the coast remained clear, they strolled casually through the door and across the huge corridor to the last warehouse door—there was no need to act guilty and attract unnecessary attention.
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Identity Page 27
