"You're correct, wise maker. I was a fool," Alan replied smoothly. Reshi gave an expertly timed scoff of disbelief, reeling on the revenant.
"Don’t mistake this for trust. If you really can help us, then good, but if not…" Her eyes narrowed to slits and her ears pressed flat against her head as she gave a little hiss. "I will tear you apart, no matter who you’re related to."
This was so far from what I was expecting. Guards, I’d anticipated. Alan? My mind reeled in disbelief and frustration. My feet felt glued to the ground.
Zach nervously eyed the door. "Maybe we should consider it, Lyra. He did get the guards to go away. We need to move."
I marched up to the revenant, glaring into her lifeless eyes. "Promise that you'll help us. This plan better be good, or else we'll force you to tell us about everything you’ve seen in this awful place. We’ve got more warriors than you have revenants."
"I promise." Despite the revenant's vocal straining, that utterance sounded the most like Alan.
I sighed. It was time to get on with it. We filed behind the revenants as they moved into the hallway. From the corner of the revenant’s mouth, Alan spoke. "My lovely prison is just above us. No guards bother coming through there."
I glared but said nothing. He hadn't turned us in, but what if he was setting us up for an even more elaborate trap? What if he’d called the guards himself, so he could send them away and earn our trust? Then again… if anyone could have managed to weasel useful information out of a situation to destroy his enemies, it was Alan. The revenants led us up a narrow staircase hidden in the wall. Little light drifted in here. I kept my hands on the knife at my belt, eyeing the revenant's neck as we walked up the steep staircase.
"These are the servant stairs," Chaka muttered, sounding a shade impressed.
"I've taken in a lot of information since my capture," Alan said through his revenant. “The patrols won’t think to come this way. They said they were headed to the ground floor, but I suspect they have several groups sweeping the area.” The patrols were either incompetent, to ignore the servant stairs, or busy with their lockdown. Perhaps they had trusted the revenant forces under Alan’s guard over here to stop anyone unauthorized from using this route. We exited into an understated hallway of black stone. The revenants led us to a heavy-looking metal door that was oddly undecorated with glamorous elements, unlike the rest of the building.
What if it's not even Alan? My pulse raced as the revenant pulled the door open using an elaborate, vault-like lock in the center of the door. It swung open to reveal a dreary study fashioned into a makeshift prison cell. The room was made from green glass and black stone. Iron bars covered the large window, letting in a stream of light that fell over two desks and glinted off heavy chains attached to said desks.
The growl of four maker guards make me jump. They stood by the door, anxiously looking at Alan for confirmation. Somewhere nearby, a patrol was walking. Boots clanked against the stone floor. I surveyed the area quickly, drawing my knife.
Alan sat at a desk. Or rather, he was chained to a desk, with one cuff around his left arm. He looked far different than I remembered. He wore a pair of old trousers cut at the knee. Shock struck me as I saw that his wounded leg was gone. A metal prosthetic joined his skin at the knee, although it looked bulky and uncomfortable. A gem anklet sparked on it. One of his eyes had been replaced by a red crystal. Half of his face looked burned and pasted over in a lazy attempt at fixing it, with a skin graft that was literally wired to him. Metal glinted in his teeth when he opened his mouth. He gave us a sad, bitter smile. It was the look of a broken man, but I reminded myself that Alan was crafty. He would win no sympathy from me with his injuries—he’d wanted to do far worse to Dorian’s entire species.
"I got injured on the journey here. My body didn't adjust well to the Immortal Plane, at first," he muttered in halfhearted explanation. "And I had a scuffle with a guard who was merciless. The Immortal Council gave me a passing fix, since they thought I might still be useful.”
He was still as sharp as ever in the mind. The same could be not be said for his companion. Elena Bradley, the once-formidable woman with nerves of steel and long dark hair, looked like a shell of her former self. Her hair had been pulled out by her own hands, judging from the odd bald patches. She muttered to herself, rocking back and forth. She sat at her own desk, but chains held down both her arms, so she couldn't leave it. I’m not sure she even would, at this point. Whatever they had done to her had destroyed her, although she had few visible changes, besides the wild hair and a line of stitches on her bruised left cheek. Her eyes darted back and forth, focusing on nothing in particular. The third escaped board member was nowhere in sight. It was just these two in this awful place, with his guards, the zombie-like revenants, and us.
Alan gestured toward my group. “Let’s talk.”
The footsteps of the oncoming patrol grew louder. The door quickly, but quietly, shut behind us. We were trapped. I stared at the maker guards, who made no move to attack us but held their weapons at the ready. They wore startled expressions as they glanced toward Alan. They were waiting on him since they couldn’t see us. They hesitated, but their eyes told me they were ready to fight.
A sinking feeling of dread wrapped around my stomach. Did I just lead my team into a trap?
20
Lyra
Alan lifted his free wrist, which had a silver device latched onto it, and spoke into the machine.
"Alan here. We sensed a threat. I've directed the revenants to chase off a group that was trying to invade the palace. They didn't make it past our walls." He set it down, clicking a button to shut it off. His voice sounded as self-assured as I remembered. An unsettled sensation crawled over me. I felt greasy just hearing him talk, and yet, there was little choice in the matter. He was currently the only thing between us and capture.
“I’ve bought you some time,” he announced evenly, as if things weren’t completely insane at the moment. “Does that give you some piece of mind?”
My hands curled into fists at my sides. So, he wanted to play the good guy. I narrowed my eyes, searching for any sign of deception. He bought us some time, he says. It was always transactional with Alan, which begged the question, what did he want in return?
My eyes darted around the room to his companions. My group could take them. It would be loud, but we could do it.
“Why shouldn’t we kill every person in this room—including you?” I asked, my voice as warm as a sheet of ice. One of Alan's maker guards snarled at me, his sharp, yellowed teeth flashing. Alan lifted a hand. It was incredible how much power he managed to wield, even in these circumstances. The guard listened to his command and fell back. When I entered, I assumed these guards were here to police the prisoners, not follow their orders. I wondered how long it had taken Alan to manipulate them, and how he’d done it.
"I'll have one of the guards take off my radio device. If you can turn off your invisibility shield to show some trust for my guards, Marek can show you," Alan said calmly. I removed the necklace begrudgingly, my team following suit. Alan lifted his hand, and one of the maker guards came up to the desk. His wary eyes remained on us while he pried the device off Alan's wrist. The guard marched over to Reshi to present it to her. She snatched it from his hand and examined it with a close eye.
"It's off," she confirmed. "I sense no magic on it." Her brow puckered as she strode forward to examine Alan up close. My mind thought of Sempre's awful, stitched-together body, brought back from near death. Was this truly Alan? If Irrikus had somehow brought him back to be used as a servant like Sempre, it might’ve made Alan into something more menacing… something beyond himself. Maybe he could even be controlled, just like a revenant.
"Anything unusual?" I asked. Part of me expected a fleet of palace guards to pour out of a hiding spot at any moment. If Irrikus and his forces could reconstruct Sempre and obtain invisibility powers, then anything was possible. This Alan could be a clever
clone, if Irrikus wanted to use the energy for it. He already knew of my connection to Alan. This idea was dashed when Reshi's strong hands made contact with Alan for a moment as she grabbed his chained arm. His movements were smooth, completely unlike Sempre’s jerking body. The maker guards assigned to Alan stiffened, but she refused to release her grip until she was satisfied.
Reshi shook her head. "He's only got the modifications that we can see. They did a number on your face." She said the last to Alan without an ounce of sympathy and took a step back. Chaka leaned over Elena and swept an evaluating look over her. The crazed woman muttered to herself repeatedly, whispering about red lights.
"This one has no spells either," Chaka muttered, and shook his head. "They left you in here like this? Irrikus shows little mercy to his tools." He doesn’t know what the board members did. I held my tongue, not wanting to give Alan the satisfaction of knowing how badly his betrayal affected me.
Alan inhaled evenly, a spark of real anger flaring in his normal eye. "You're right about that." He turned toward me, and for a moment, I was transfixed by the red gem in his eye socket. "But I do control some things. I'm in charge of these three revenants. The maker guards around you are my confederates against Irrikus. They have reasons to want to conspire against the Immortal Council, reasons that align quite nicely with yours.”
I bristled under Alan's gaze as he added, "I'm glad to see that you've realized we can work together on this." Anger rose at his assumption. I resented the way he was always pushing and pushing to get his way, reaching for more than he’d been given.
"Who said that we've agreed?" I returned.
Alan's face, although scarred, remained composed. "I understand," he said. “You're still doubtful. Well, I can tell you right now that you might as well turn off your invisibility charms if you see a revenant. It's clever, but with the newer upgrades, the red crystals in the revenants' foreheads allow them to sense magic."
Reshi grunted but gave everyone a reluctant command to power the necklaces off. We only had so much energy to go around. She crossed her top set of arms and scrutinized Alan, who sighed.
"It's my priority to stop Irrikus and take down the Immortal Council. I'd like to tell you my side of the story, if you're open to it," Alan explained. His gaze flickered back and forth between Zach and me. I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say, but common sense prevailed. If he was talking, then he couldn't call guards.
I gave him a hard look. For the first time, I saw the dark, puffy circles beneath his human eye. He looked puffy, bruised, and worn out, like a rag gone through the wash too many times. When I saw Alan in boardrooms, he’d possessed a commanding presence, an impeccable posture, and a charm that told you to trust him but never to cross him. Now, he sat slightly hunched due to his position at the desk, his back sloped as if it were made like that. How long had he been there? I hated that I was curious, but more information never hurt. I needed to stall, so I could come up with a way out of this mess.
Zach jerked his thumb at the guards. "Well, the least you could do is have your maker guards lower their weapons."
Alan gave the four maker guards a warning look, as if to say they should stand down. The makers lowered their swords warily.
"Go ahead," I told Alan flatly. "Talk." As I spoke, my comm sparked to life. Dorian came onto the line, giving a breathless update on the aerial attack. They were holding steady. A bead of nervous sweat trickled down the back of my neck.
Another voice came on the line, interrupting Dorian. Oz sucked in a frantic breath. It sounded like he'd been sprinting. "All teams be advised: Inkarri has escaped from the camp with Sonia."
It took everything in me to keep my face straight. This was the worst possible timing. Frustration and betrayal swarmed inside me. I should've locked up Sonia with Inkarri. Leaving Sike in charge wasn’t enough. They must’ve done something to distract him.
Alan bowed his head in thanks for my previous approval to tell his part of his tale. He hadn't noticed the comms at all. It was the only glimmer of luck that I had in this moment.
"I'm sorry for what happened. Truly, I am. When the Bureau first got involved, I thought there was no way someone could outsmart me, but I've seen the error of my ways. After everything I've witnessed in the Immortal Plane, I realized the terrible danger the tear represents, and that Irrikus is a genocidal maniac who had great fun manipulating the old board. He caught me like a bug in his web." He inclined his head gently to Elena. "When the other Bureau board members and I were recaptured by the revenants, they ferried us from Scotland on a private plane arranged by some of the other board members, who are still at large. They brought us to the Immortal Plane through the tear, taking us on the back of beasts I’d never seen before. Lightning struck me, causing my first facial injury. The fight with the palace guard was just icing on the cake."
That explained his injuries and bolstered the idea that Irrikus had made no attempt to be gentle with his human prisoners. From the corner of my eye, I watched his maker guards. They appeared to relax a fraction while Alan spun his monologue. They truly looked sympathetic to his cause. He’d somehow won them over wholeheartedly.
"And yet, you're alive," I pointed out. Clearly, he still served a purpose for Irrikus.
Alan’s scarred face tightened. "I was experimented on." He moved his clunky new leg. "But I knew I had to survive. I made myself useful by giving up information about the Mortal Plane.”
We suspected they’d leaked information to the Immortal Council to help the revenants target hidden Bureau HQs in the Mortal Plane. Alan would’ve known where the LA Bureau HQ was located, among other things.
“It's not a fact that lends me much respectability, but I had to play to Irrikus's immense arrogance,” Alan continued. “He was slow to trust me, but he gradually gave me more responsibilities. He and his council taught me about magic. My guards were kind enough to fill in the gaps on what Irrikus clearly thought I shouldn't know. I can help you with the information I’ve gained. I can help you with the revenants."
A brief flutter of satisfaction passed through me. After he escaped, I assumed his conditions had improved, but Irrikus had been an unkind captor. Alan had gotten the short end of the stick this time, something I hadn't expected. I stared hard, studying the broken lines of Alan's face. He was a man undone, holding on to the last tethers of power.
But did he truly mean to help us? I had serious doubts. I shifted my gaze to seek out Zach’s reaction. He was staring at Alan, strong distrust mixed with a faint glimmer of pity in those brown eyes.
I sucked in a sharp breath, knowing that we needed to be smart about this. Alan knew how we felt about him. There was too much bad history between us. Doubt crackled like a fire within my mind. He’d used us for his own selfish goals when he was with the old board. He could say it was about eradicating vampires as much as he wanted, but Alan’s problem was he loved power. Even in the Immortal Plane, he was a prisoner with some influence, even if it was only over revenants. He controlled them through magic, something I imagined he’d wished he had when he was still head of the Bureau’s old board. His obsession with power makes him a snake.
"You've done so much to us," I said, my voice quivering with anger. My team watched me. I couldn't help the emotions slipping out. If we were back in the Higher Plane, I could've easily sent a gust of wind or a tornado to gobble Alan up. But here, I needed to save that emotional energy.
"Lyra," Zach said gently. He took a step toward me, almost putting out a hand. "I don't trust him either, but he could be useful if he can give us information about the revenants." It was typical of my brother to lobby for us to compromise by trusting Alan, but this time… he was right. And what choice did we have, after all? Alan had loyal maker guards and presumably would alert the palace guards as soon as we left him. If we killed them all, the noise would attract the attention of the guards regardless. The only way we could potentially get out of here was by bringing him along. But that didn’t mean
I had to like it.
I narrowed my eyes, unable to soothe the frustration and helplessness coursing through me. "Tell me why you want to help—why you really want to help—or I refuse." Zach gritted his teeth. Even underneath all his own disbelief, he still held a palpable fear of our uncle within him. He had to see why I needed Alan to answer and strip away the niceties. I wanted the blunt truth rather than the diplomatic message.
“I can control the revenants for you, and I’m more than willing to kill the rulers.” Alan looked me square in the face. "I want my own revenge against Irrikus." It was a blunt, honest reply, and I respected it, even if I loathed the sight of Alan. It was hard to look at him and consider him a potential ally. I was too emotionally invested in this decision, and that bias made me second-guess myself. What if we needed him, and we failed in our mission because I’d turned down his help out of blind hatred?
"No matter what's happened, even if we don't believe him or trust him, we need his information and power," Zach whispered gently to me. It was so soft that I wasn't even sure Alan heard it. "If there's anything I learned about diplomacy from that firecracker Morag, it’s that we need to take our opportunities where we can get them. And as of right now, the only person in this palace looking to help us take down the Immortal Council is sitting right in front of us."
Reshi stood beside us. Her ears twitched as she twisted her lips with resignation. "As much as I hate to admit it, I think you're right. A revenant controller, even a weak one, is invaluable. Especially if they let us examine the spells on them."
Rivo scowled. "He's still got plenty of darkness inside him." His voice was tinged with warning. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I glanced at Alan, who dropped his gaze to the ground.
Darklight 7: Darkfall Page 20
