“Oh, for the love of— If I feed you a doggy treat will you stop talking?” Key yelled. He turned to Rooke. “What were the clues about the passkey?”
Rooke walked closer to the doors. “We’re to enter through the right-hand door and exit out of the left one.” He stepped up to the right-hand door and turned to everyone else. “Everyone, come up here and stand beside me.” They did as they were told, lining up on the top step. “Okay, so we sorta just…kinda…um…” Rooke turned, his forehead furrowed as he concentrated. “On this door, we have some men in a lot of dresses…”
“Robes, Rooke. They’re robes.”
“Uh-huh.” Rooke leaned closer. “Then we’ve got angels, winged animals...”
“They are books of the Bible,” Jin said, pointing to a panel. “Look, there’s the crucifixion of Jesus and…up there is the Archangel Gabriel and Mary.”
Rooke’s face lit up. “You’re right!” He crouched down to inspect the panels closer. As his hand flitted in between the grooves of the etched feathers of a winged bull, he noticed it. In the bottom, right-hand corner was a sculpted panel depicting an Angel sitting atop a stone column, her wings spread wide and her hand over her chest. Yet the real clue lay on the slab of stone across her lap.
Squinting, Rooke could just make out words written in a forgotten language. “Têtê malkuthach,” he murmured under his breath. He wracked his brain for a translation; his knowledge of the old languages was sparse. But as he ran his fingers over the words again, it all but jumped out at him. It was first-century Aramaic, the ancient predecessor of Hebrew. Narrowing his eyes as he fought through the translation, he snapped his fingers when it all fell into place.
Têtêmalkuthach. Your Heavenly Domain approaches.
It was an excerpt from the Lord’s Prayer.
“Here it is!” He spun quickly, reaching for Key first. “Thy Kingdom come!”
Key peered over Rooke’s shoulder. “What would we do without you, you brilliant, brilliant boy?” He turned toward everyone else. “Okay, boys and girls, gather ’round.”
Jon’s lip curled. “What, is it math time again?”
“Wrong. Science,” Key said with a gleam in his eye. “Quantum mechanics and relative state formulation. Mutarian law says that only Mutare have access to this, so you human folk are going to have to hitch a ride with one of us.” He eased around Rooke to grab the back of Jon’s neck. “You need the most supervision, so you come with me.”
“Unhand me, you jackass!”
Key pointed to the other two. “Go on, pick one of them.”
Tahir showed both rows of teeth in a brilliant smile as she turned for Jin, but when Jin looped her arm around Rooke’s shoulders, her smile dropped like a stone. Aiden tipped his head back to laugh at Tahir’s disappointment until he saw Jin’s smile as she and Rooke talked between themselves. Sulking, he turned to the one harboring a crush on his girlfriend and plopped a firm hand on her shoulder, ignoring Tahir’s whine of pain when he squeezed a little too hard.
“Human-people-things,” Key said with slight amusement as he let his gaze touch each of them. “No matter what, do not let go of your angel. In the event that you do let go of your angel, I cannot promise you where you will end up. It could be on the other side of the earth, or it could be somewhere on Asgard. So let’s be mindful of that.”
“Wait,” Jon said slowly. “What do you mean…?” Jon turned toward the doors, eyes wide with apprehension. “Where the hell are we going? What kind of…”
Key ignored him, again. He nodded to Tahir and Rooke to begin, but paused. “Oh, one other thing. This is going to feel really, really…odd. Just a warning.”
Satisfied, he took a step back.
The three angels closed their eyes and tilted their heads back in unison. Their mouths cracked open in a silent scream. The three humans watched in horror as the angels’ lips curled back over their teeth and their jaws elongated with a sickening crunch. Their mouths stretched wide and long, past human capability.
The words têtêmalkuthach ghosted through the air at an eerily stinging pitch, high and sharp enough to make the three humans wince. An accompanying, lower- pitched hum began to vibrate in their ears. The Great West Doors fractured as the angels continued to speak, and a glow seeped through the widening cracks of the door, growing brighter and brighter before it exploded in giant chunks of bronze. Before the three humans could open their mouths to scream, the flying pieces of door froze and the glow imploded, sucking them into it.
In the blink of an eye, they were gone.
Chapter Forty-Six
Jin was waiting for a moment when she felt brave enough to crack open an eyelid, and that moment hadn’t come yet. Instead, she tightened her grip on Rooke’s hand. He yelped and yanked it out of her grip. She pitched forward and her eyes flew open. What she saw had her breath stuttering to a stop.
The last thing she’d seen were hunks of the bronze flying at her. Now she stood on a dirt pathway hedged by tall grass in the middle of a lively green bamboo forest. The air was heavy with fog, and thunder rumbled in the distance. When they had approached the Great West Doors it had been late morning. Wherever they were now was dark, the last sliver of a setting sun filtering through the bamboo, the colors surreal and brilliantly vibrant even with the darkening sky. Lanterns hovered in the air among the rustling bamboo, placed with no pattern Jin could see. She let her fingers graze the thin, oiled rice paper covering of one. The light inside flared brightly before withering down.
Jin reached out for Rooke’s hand again, surprising him when her hand landed on his shoulder. He tugged her closer. “Where are we?” she whispered.
“The Arcus,” Rooke said, not looking away from Key, who was walking ahead of them.
“That’s neat-o and everything, but where are we?”
Rooke stepped over a large puddle and guided her around it. “It’s an intermediary realm that connects Earth to Caeli and other realms. Some call it purgatory. We call it a passageway.”
Jin pouted. She honestly didn’t know why she kept asking questions.
“Look.”
Jin followed Rooke’s outstretched finger to the end of the path. Emerging out of the fog were the fire-red columns and coal-colored slates of a huge torii gate. A long piece of rope looped around each column, and right above them was a Japanese character Jin couldn’t read. As the six of them stood in front of it, the roof reached out and over them. The wide opening was bookended on both sides with a set of nine-tailed fox statues.
Key turned to look at Jin, Aiden, and Jon. “This is the Praesidium,” he explained, sweeping his hand forward. Beyond the red gate lay an impossibly long rope bridge, lit every few feet by the same floating lanterns as the path through the bamboo. “It looks dangerous, and it can be, but we can promise you safe passage across it. One foot in front of the other until you are to the other side. Keep your mind clear. Meditation techniques will help, or imagine a silent, white room. As long as you keep your mind free of distractions, we can focus on keeping the bridge intact.”
Jin mentally counted down from ten until she hit one, smirking as Jon played his role as the voice of discontent.
“You said ‘keep it intact’ as if there is a possibility of it being unintact.” He shook his head hard. “I’m not stepping a damn foot on that bridge.”
“Ah! A volunteer!” Key wound a hand into Jon’s collar and hoisted him off the ground with it. “I’m glad you are so eager to be the first of your friends to cross!” He threw Jon toward the gate, smiling nastily when Jon glared up at him in shock. “Surprised? We’re in my realm now, baby.”
“Rooke and Jin, you guys are next,” Tahir said. “Once Key and Jon are halfway, you’ll cross. Once your team hits halfway, we’ll follow.”
Key took a confident but slow first step onto the bridge, his hands wrapping around the thick braided rope that served as a railing and guide. “Remember to clear your mind, Jon.”
“You remember to clear
your mind, pal,” Jon said childishly as he inspected the rope bridge from behind Key.
From under the safety of the red torii gate, Jin watched as Jon and Key easily crossed half the length of the bridge. She peered over the edge of the bluff and swallowed harshly. The sides of the ground crumbled away to a straight drop, and the rough edges of rock disappeared into a thicket of fog below them.
Rooke gave her a calm nod as he stepped out onto the bridge. “Just keep looking straight ahead and never look down.” Inhaling deeply, Jin followed, willing her mind to be as blank as possible.
The bridge swayed in the wind ricocheting off the face of the rocks, and Jin wrapped her hand tighter around the rope as she took another step. Rooke walked steadily in front of her, and she followed his movements as if they were her lifeline. As they crossed the halfway point, the wind picked up again, and the bridge groaned as the wood planks twisted. Jin stuttered and stumbled but managed to regain her balance.
A quiet whisper filled the air, flowing around Jin from all sides. She couldn’t make out the words because they were scrambled and diluted. Confused, she called out to Rooke. “D-do you hear that?”
Rooke looked over his shoulder with a raised brow, his forehead slick with a sheen of sweat as he put a finger to his lips. “I need to concentrate, Jin,” he whispered.
Gritting her teeth, she refocused her thoughts, again trying to think of nothing as they made their way across. Jin looked ahead at Jon and Key, a whoop clearing the air as Jon took his last step off the bridge and onto solid land. She now knew it was possible to get to the other side, regardless of what the whispers were saying.
Whatifyoufall
Hasanyoneeverfallen
Theywillfall
Theyhavefallen
She took another step, and another, and another, fighting against the words filling her head. They began to scream at her. Jin put a hand to her head and squeezed her eyes closed. But she couldn’t close the whispers out. She opened her mouth to scream, and the voices fell away. Then a single thought—as loud as it was silent—rang out.
Whatifyoufell?
For a single moment, she was weightless, the wind whipping her curly hair around until it danced in the current. She couldn’t feel the rough texture of the rope under her hand or the thick planks of wood beneath her feet.
She was floating.
What if you fell?
She screamed as she dropped.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Key had heard the whispers once. It was on his fifth or sixth Causatum crossing, right after they’d just barely managed to complete their mission, and his brain had been scattered and unfocused. The voices only affected distracted minds, but his leader, Song Qian, the Black Fox, was able to read his face and help him find a level of meditation to silence the noise.
So Key’s instructions on how to cross unscathed were sharp as a razor because he was aware of the consequences if someone crossed the Praesidium with an unclear mind. So, as the bridge gave way and disappeared, Key knew that one of them hadn’t listened to his words.
Key groaned. “Son of a…”
To Key’s right, Jon was frozen as he watched Aiden and Jin—along with Tahir and Rooke—disappear into the fog. But there was no time to address Jon’s panic, only for decisive action. Securing his sword across his back, Key looked over the lip of the bluff one last time before locking hands with a shocked Jon and leaping into the fog.
They were airborne for maybe two seconds before he saw the realization hit Jon. The realization that Key had actually yanked him off solid ground, and that they were plunging toward the bottom of the gorge at breakneck speed. He winced as Jon’s scream echoed against the rock cliffs.
“We’re going to diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!”
Even with the wind whipping across his face, Key managed to roll his eyes heavenward. “You’re not going to die!” Key grabbed a handful of his hair and made Jon look at him. “Do you trust me?”
“Trust you?” Jon screamed. “Who do you think you are? Aladdin?”
“No, you stupid moron! Hurry up and answer. We are running out of time!”
“Well, I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“Good!” Key locked his legs around Jon’s. “Grab onto me. We’ll have to speed up to break through.”
“To break through what?”
“The ground,” Key yelled as he streamlined their bodies. “We go too slow and splat!”
Jon’s answer was a pitiful whimper.
“Try not to move!” With their bodies locked in a vertical position, Key knew the moment they hit terminal velocity and concentrated on keeping completely still. The bottom would be approaching soon. Jon looked down and opened his mouth, and Key yelled out, “Take a breath and close your eyes!”
Just as Jon slammed his eyes shut, they hit the ground with a resounding boom, the terrain rippling on impact. As they breached the thin mantle crust, Key would swear the ground liquefied—and the world flipped.
The shock of the impact stunned him for a second. The cool water kissed his skin, and he opened his eyes and realized Jon was nowhere to be found. He scanned the dark blue-green world around him in panic, but found locating Jon was as easy as following the cloud of angry bubbles. Cutting through the water to reach him, Key got a hand under Jon’s arm and swam for the surface.
Jon’s scream broke the surface before he did, his flailing from earlier returning as he splashed around. Key sluiced the water from his face only to receive another face full of it as Jon swam frantically for the shore, as if he knew what direction the shore was in.
Key treaded water and glanced at the tree-lined hills in the distance with dawning trepidation, raising his eyes to the snow-capped mountains beyond them. He didn’t have his guide, but he knew where they were. “Keep it down! You’re going to get both of us killed!”
Jon sputtered as Key began to swim in the opposite direction. “I’m going to get us killed? I’m going to get us killed? Me?”
“Stop talking and swim. We don’t have much time. And for the love of God, try to be quiet!”
The swim across the lake was a short one. Sloshing onto the shore of a densely forested island, Key groaned at the black torii gate visible in a clearing. He turned toward Jon, who was kissing the ground, with an uneasy look. “I need you to listen to me. Once we pass through that gate, you must keep as quiet as possible. We don’t want to attract any unnecessary attention.”
Jon looked up from where he was making out with the sand with a frown. “From…?”
Key scratched the back of his head as he walked toward the gate. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
The moment they crossed the threshold, Key slid his tactical wakizashi from its sheath, settling the hilt of the short sword securely against his palm. They walked deeper into the forest, and came across a large circular brick enclosure with a massive stone arch. Just beyond it were long diagonal rows of crypts stretching farther than Key could see. They padded along quietly, and Key peered between each row, more on guard than he’d ever been in his life. His sense of foreboding rose the farther they walked, but he came to a standstill when he finally saw what he was looking for. Shooting straight up into the sky was a single beam of blue light.
Key tapped Jon on the shoulder and pointed toward the beacon. Silently, they raced through the crypts until they reached the light source.
Huddled around the beacon were the others. Aiden was wrapped around a shivering but quickly drying Jin, and Rooke and Tahir were bent over looking through a small, tattered booklet.
When Tahir looked up, Key held out his hands, flashing out six fingers, at which Tahir shook her head. They continued to talk through signals, neither daring to say a single word as they mapped a route from their current position to the mausoleum at the very center of the crypt grounds—their way out—a route that, hopefully, allowed them to reach their goal without being caught.
Key had seen enough in his lifetime to not be scared of too many
things. But the Nonpareils? No, dealing with them was not something he particularly cared to experience.
He looked to the sky and envisioned the bridge they’d fallen from. The Arcus was a way home, and although it was a trial each and every time they had to cross it, it was a necessary evil. He’d made twelve thousand trips across it, and not once had he experienced Antris, their current location. Not too many Mutare had, either. Like all things in his world, it was older than he was, and so were the ones who guarded it.
The six of them crept deeper into the maze of crypts, following Tahir’s silent signals. The ground shook, and Tahir held up her fist for everyone to stop but they were already frozen in place. Seconds felt like hours as they stood still. Tahir lowered her fist, signaled the okay, and they continued walking. Minutes passed. Then the ground shook again, this time hard enough that everyone stumbled.
“Damn it.” Key cursed under his breath and walked faster. A third quake rolled through ground, strong enough to knock them off their feet. As he moved to his feet, Key took off. “To the mausoleum,” Key screamed.
The three angels took off, racing up the rows and in between crypts with the three humans on their heels. They didn’t stop until they reached a cobblestoned clearing at the bottom of a limestone bluff. A steep flight of steps led to the entrance of a stately mausoleum built into the face of the bluff. Key was the first to sprint into the clearing, pounding towards the stairs, knowing that if just one of them made it inside, the rest of them would be safe.
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