“Can you? Have you ever been close?”
“Yes, I can,” I said, thinking about the power of Darkspirit. I’d only tapped in to a fraction of its power. “My sword is more powerful than I imagined.”
“You ever been close to losing it? I mean besides that time you cratered 6th Avenue?”
“That wasn’t my fault. Yes,” I said. No sense in sugarcoating shit. It doesn’t change the fact that it stinks. “Today, dealing with the rummogres, the sword…tried to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“But you said no, right?” Koda asked. “I mean, we wouldn’t be having this discussion if you had accepted the offer.”
“No, we wouldn’t. It was a close—” I started.
“You beat it,” she said, cutting me off, using my words. “Like you said, we don’t have time for a pity party. Next time it makes you that offer, kick its ass…again.”
“I promise,” I said more to myself than to Koda. “If I ever do lose it out there, I’ll end it before I hurt anyone.”
“Whoa, that’s very samurai seppuku of you,” she scoffed. “I don’t mean to harsh your serious ‘superhero sacrificial vibe,’ but how about you learn to control the sword instead of the nuclear option?”
“Are you always such a smart-ass?”
“You still have to ask? Seems you aren’t paying attention. I have advanced degrees in interpersonal smart-assery. Working on my doctorate in snarkasm.”
“I’m sure there’s a button around here”—I searched the dashboard—“where I could eject passengers who have overstayed their welcome.”
“In your dreams,” she said, and I saw the hint of a smile. “You’re no Bond, and this isn’t an Aston Martin.”
“Not even close,” I said, patting the dash. “The Beast would snack on an Aston Martin. Can you read that?”
I pointed at the card I gave her. I sped down the Henry Hudson without trying to attract the NYTF. The last thing I needed was Ramirez on my ass for endangering the welfare of the driving public.
“Ronin gave this to you?” she asked, looking at both sides.
I knew she’d be able to see the runes and translate them into digits. Her abilities as a cipher encouraged Hades to have her extensively trained in runic languages. With an emphasis on magic and runes, both common and obscure.
“What do those numbers mean to you?”
She focused on the digits. “Either that’s one long-ass phone number…wait,” she said, pointing. “This top part can be a number, but this part down here, these look like coordinates.”
“Coordinates?”
“Don’t know where to, but I’m pretty sure. I used to get jobs for Hades like this. No addresses, just coordinates and a target.”
“Which part would be the coordinates?” I asked, not familiar with the method. “Just looks like some crazy, international number.”
“This part here. Coordinates are always latitude and longitude.”
“That much I know.”
“These numbers make more sense as latitude and longitude. If we break them up it would read: latitude 40.6994748 and longitude -74.0395587.”
“Do you know where that is?”
“Really, old man? Google is your friend.”
“I thought with that prodigious brain of yours, you’d be able to just see the number and BOOM—this is the location.”
“BOOM—this is the location? Something is seriously damaged with you. Are you sure you didn’t hit that tree head first?”
“I’m sure,” I answered with an internal shudder. “Barely felt it.”
“Head first really makes sense now. Anyway, this was how Hades gave us target sites.”
Made sense. Less room for error with coordinates.
“Why would Ronin give me coordinates?”
“Maybe he wants to meet.”
I remembered Ronin’s words: “When it looks like you’re walking into a trap and you don’t know who to trust—use the number.”
I told her what he said.
“You said Aria was a trap,” Koda said. “And right now, the amount of people you can trust is down to the fingers on one hand.”
“How did he know?”
“Maybe you should give him a call and find out?” she asked. “Ask him why he’s trying to get you killed?”
“What I’d like to do is shoot him a few times. He and that book he gave me are the reason the Light Council is out to erase us.”
“Technically,” she said, raising a finger, “they already wanted to erase you. Or do you mean they want to erase you even more than before?”
“Yes, more than before, and now my apprentice too.”
“Do Night Wardens get hazard pay?” she asked. “This job should come with a warning label.”
“So should ciphers.”
“Warning,” she said, extending an arm with a wince, moving it horizontally in front of her, “patrolling the streets of the city with the Night Wardens can result in one or more of the following: premature death, loss of limbs, death, lethal wounds, encounters with creatures that will require years of therapy…for your therapist, death, trauma—both physical and emotional, and lastly—death.”
“Sounds about right,” I said, turning on 42nd Street and heading across town. It was still early enough to miss the traffic. “Being a warden isn’t a job for the weak-willed. You have to be able to face down an enemy knowing you may not walk away, and keep going anyway.”
“No,” Koda said, shaking her head. “What you just described was Seal Team Six. Night Wardens take that to the next level, the next several levels. Blast past duty and kamikaze right into ‘it’s our obligation to stop this world-ending monster—we’re Night Wardens!’ We eat bullets and drink acid…get ready to throw down.”
I nodded. “Not too far from the truth.”
She stared at me for a few seconds. “And you wonder why there aren’t many of you left? Why not give him a call and find out why he set you up…then shoot him.”
“I like that plan,” I said. “We need a secure line. Even more secure than our comms. He has that sophisticated hi-tech that can probably trace our location.”
“I think I know the place. Upper West Side, not far from the park.”
“Who lives on the Upper West Side, not far from the park?”
“No one right now,” she answered as I made a right at Grand Central and jumped on Park Avenue. “I’ve only lived here my entire life, but I could swear that building back there is Grand Central Terminal.”
“We aren’t going to Grand Central.”
“But Frank said Street was there,” she said, glancing back. “Where are we going?”
“What don’t you see? Think, we’re starting the morning rush hour. What’s missing?”
She looked out the window and took in the scene. She wasn’t a mage, at least not in the conventional sense, but she had heightened abilities and the reflexes to go with them. It didn’t take her long.
“Street hasn’t been taken over by the Tenebrous.”
“How do you know?”
“If he had,” she said, still looking around, “this whole area and Grand Central would be in full panic mode. That thing feeds off fear.”
“What does that mean, then?”
“Frank found Street and relocated him to this Track 61 you mentioned.”
I nodded. “There’s hope for you yet, my young apprentice.”
“I am not a Sith, ugh.”
We parked on the corner of 50th Street, right off Park Avenue, around the corner from the entrance to the Waldorf-Astoria. The Beast was fully outfitted with the proper plates and tags to prevent any sort of towing in the city. More than that, there hadn’t been a tow-truck driver brave enough to attempt a tow of the Beast.
I headed over to the pair of brass doors near the corner.
“You feel a need to go to the Waldorf all of a sudden?” Koda asked. “I mean, it’s a nice hot
el, a little over the top, but still nice.”
I pointed at the brass doors on ground level. The sign on one of the doors read “Metro North Emergency Exit 8” and went on to instruct FDNY personnel on what the proper procedure was in case of a fire.
I placed my hand on the left-hand side door, and red runes appeared on the surface. The lock clicked, and the door opened slightly. I was grateful I didn’t need to cast, considering I was still recovering from my dance with Fluffy and the rummogres.
We headed down a wide corridor where a large freight elevator waited for us. This elevator was created to carry FDR’s car when he used to visit. It was easily large enough to fit the Beast inside. I didn’t want to take the chance with the runes inside the building and the ones Cecil had put on the Beast. Every so often, runed items could cause magical explosions due to the runes in question having excess volatility.
The Beast was runed with symbols and designs I could barely understand. It felt wise to keep it away from an underground station covered in runes. Even though the Waldorf-Astoria officially denied using Track 61, unofficially, the Dark Council, Hellfire, and other assorted magical groups used the secret entrance for meetings within the lower levels of the hotel.
I wasn’t interested in any of that. My only focus was getting to Roosevelt’s armored train car. Sitting at the end of Track 61, designated MNCX 002, was the heavily armored and runed train car. I could see the runes giving off a faint blue glow as we approached. Every few seconds, a white flash would erupt from inside the car.
The smell of coffee and honey filled my lungs, with a tinge of chlorine. I heard the low bass of strong magic resonate throughout the station.
“What is that?” Koda asked warily. “That thing looks like a relic.”
“It is,” I said while I admired it. “When those doors are closed, that train car is nearly impossible to breach. You’d need the equivalent of a runic nuclear blast to make a dent in those runes.”
“Is that where…?”
“Yes, he’s in there,” Frank said from behind us. “Did you bring the exit strategy?”
“I’m going to get one now.”
“Enjoy that trip down memory lane,” Frank said. “Lockpick, you’d better let him go solo on this one. Transporters are a twitchy bunch, but they like him for some reason. Also, the price of admission is steep. Grey is a masochist, I think.”
Koda looked at me. “You going to be okay down here, old man?” she asked. “You didn’t bring your glasses, so you may end up lost, wandering around the tracks. Would hate to have to mount a search-and-rescue for your old ass.”
“I don’t wear glasses.”
“That’s called denial. Lack of use does not imply you don’t need them.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, heading back down the tracks, away from the armored car. “If I’m not back in twenty—get inside and seal the doors.”
“No way,” Frank answered and spat, flicking his tail nervously. “Get your ass back here in ten. Rummers were all over Street. We lost them, but they’ll find him again.”
“What happens if we seal the car?” Koda asked.
“If that car is sealed,” Frank said as I walked away, “it’s so damn old, it’ll take an Arch Mage to open it again. They had names for these kinds of spaces during the war.”
“What did they call them?” Koda asked, her voice getting fainter with each step.
“Tombs.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
As powerful as Frank was, there was no way he was going to breach the Cloister’s defenses. Neither was Fluffy, for that matter. In order to get Street to Aria in one piece, I needed a Transporter.
Transporters were magic-users with one specific ability: they were master teleporters. No mage could match a transporter’s speed, level of precision, or power.
“Not what, who,” I said. “And I’m not speaking to you.”
“You tried to go psychosword on me,” I said. “What the hell?”
“That’s exactly what I don’t want to imagine.”
“I’m humbled by the power you contain,” I said. “Unleashing all of you? I don’t trust anyone with that much power, starting with myself.”
“Wait a minute…are you scared?”
“In the body of a sword. What happens if the sword is destroyed, I wonder?”
“That, I know. What I want to know is, what would happen to you?”
“But you can’t do that on your own,” I said, letting my senses expand throughout the tracks. “Hades had to give you to me this time.”
“Oh, so now you’re not talking to me? What happened to ‘ludicrous, we are bonded—one’?”
Silence.
“Well, at least I know how to get you to be silent for a while.”
I wasn’t in any condition to cast after my skirmish with Fluffy. I was counting on my energy signature being the bait for the nearest Transporter. If I broke out the truffles, they would rush me and take the chocolate and then vanish. Transporters did not play when it came to chocolate.
I wasn’t looking forward to this. In order for a Transporter to interact with you, they needed to ‘know’ you. No, not in the Biblical sense. This went beyond the physical.
Transporters needed to ‘read’ your runic signature before they would shift you to where you wanted to go. Your deepest emotions would be exposed and raw. It was about as pleasant as it sounded. I was never a fan of raw, exposed emotions, but if I didn’t get Street out of here, Fluffy would take over his body and kill him—or worse, use him to kill others, which meant I would have to ghost Street.
I let my senses expand and felt out the station. My range was much shorter underground, at most eighty meters or so, if I pushed it. I jumped down off one of the platforms and walked farther onto the tracks.
Every station usually had one Transporter, you just had to know where to find them. Sometimes they lurked on the platforms, but most often they stayed on the tracks between stations.
A hub like Penn or Grand Central had about a dozen Transporters strategically situated throughout the station to handle the flow of teleportation. Because Track 61 wasn’t officially a part of the subway, I had to walk some distance before the subtly sweet sensation hit me. I felt her energy signature between stations, approaching slowly. I let my energy flow even stronger, giving her plenty of notice as to my presence. They didn’t like to be startled.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I saw her sitting on some abandoned stairs that led nowhere. She sat hunkered down as if battling a bitter frost. She looked up at the sound of my footsteps. I deliberately made some noise on my approach. Not that it mattered. You couldn’t really sneak up on a Transporter.
She smiled and narrowed her eyes when she saw me, waving me closer. I could never tell them apart. Every Transporter looked the same.
Once, while studying the phenomena of Transporters in a Quantum Runic class, a junior professor Ziller once posited the theory that there was only one Transporter, existing at different points in time, simultaneously encountering all the different versions of ‘you’ across your timeline. I’d failed that class.
That junior professor went on to chair the department, melting young mage brains with regularity for y
ears afterward. I could argue that it was his book that had set off the chain of events I currently found myself in. I was sure he would argue otherwise and proceed to undo what little hold I had on reality.
The Transporter appeared to be an old woman wrapped in too many layers. It was the perfect camouflage in the city. I was never able to determine what race they belonged to. I just knew they weren’t human. I don’t know how she wasn’t melting down here in this infernal heat. If it wasn’t because the duster had saved my ass more times than I could count, I would have left it with Frank and Koda.
Sweat formed on my brow. Wiping it away was as effective as trying to mop up the ocean. It was just too hot down here. I stepped close and crouched down.
“Hello, grandmother,” I said as she placed a hand on my cheek. It was cool to the touch and I felt my sweat evaporate. Suddenly it wasn’t so hot. “I need a shift.”
“Do you now?” she asked, her voice resonating throughout the space.
“It’s not for me,” I said. “I have a friend in danger, and I need him moved somewhere safe, somewhere far from here that’s protected.”
“There is no place closed to me.” She outstretched a hand. I sighed, bracing myself for the inevitable chastising, placing my hand in hers. She shook her head, tutting at me. “You’ve stepped over to the dark side, boy, haven’t you?”
My first thought was I stepped into the dark the day I’d ended Jade’s life. That’s when it started.
“Yes, I stepped over,” I said. “If it means I can stop someone else from taking my path, then yes, I embrace the dark.”
She shook her head again and looked up at me.
“You need to let her go, my child,” she said. “She’s gone. Nothing you can do will return her to you. No good will come of holding her in your heart like this.”
“No,” I said, my voice hard. I pulled my hand gently out of hers. “In my heart is the only place I can see her as she was. I need her to stay there a little longer, at least until I’m done.”
Arguing with a Transporter was probably not the wisest course of action. Especially when it was documented that they were immensely powerful beings of unknown origin.
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