“No?” Alice asked hopefully.
Told you I was a good bullshitter.
“Nope,” I said. “I just want to see the old psychiatric ward.”
She frowned on the other side of the plastic, hands running through her uneven hair. “But why?”
“Aren’t you curious how the Crusaders survived all these years?”
Alice bit her lip with her stubby fangs. “And you’ll help me.” She looked at the ground. “Maybe with a knife?”
“Thought you didn’t need help.”
“You look like you’ve been through the wringer.”
I gave her a big smile, allowing the annoyance to silently seethe on the inside.
“See? You’re not as hopeless as I thought.”
26
So the maps in the metal box had led Roark to a mana wellspring in the desert. Good thing it had been worth risking my life for. Because this scratchy feeling in my chest was driving me up the wall.
We passed the faded, weather-beaten sign for the Greater Phoenix Psychiatric Palliative Care Ward for the Supernatural. The crumbling structure stood alone on what might have once been a nice piece of land. The fallout had turned the grass into gray dust and the trees into spindly shambles.
I clutched the custom-hacked rebreather to my mouth as we headed into the cul-de-sac. Despite her protestations, Alice had also given me back my clothes, jacket and knife. The needle spitting anti-radiation meds into my bloodstream tugged at my skin as Alice brought the truck to a bouncy halt.
She glanced over and said, “You’re sure about this?”
“Don’t you want to know my secrets?” I reached over and put my finger through her uneven bangs. “Don’t tell me you cut this yourself.”
Alice glared at me from behind her glasses. “It’s stylish.”
I had once argued with my mentor, Pearl, in the same way. Who, ironically, looked like she’d perpetually slept in her car. Despite that, she’d taught me everything I knew about survival. Transforming a print shop girl into a bounty hunter hadn’t been easy.
But whatever I was now, it was because of her.
“First rule,” I said, stepping out into the dusty driveway. “Stop cutting your own hair.”
“What does that have to do with self-defense?”
I looked at her across the truck’s rusted hood. “Any fight you can charm your way out of is a win.”
Ah, Ruby Callaway. Mentor.
Maybe Paradisum was really gonna appear on Earth.
Or Hell was freezing over.
“You saw it,” Alice said, stubby fangs clicking in and out. “Can we go now?”
“So soon?” I gave her a grim smile. “We’re investigating.”
“I’m so not liable for whatever happens to you in there.”
“You’re coming inside,” I said, easing my way up the steps. “And grab the shotgun, would you?”
Alice grumbled as I approached the derelict entrance. A single rusted door with a small broken window stood ajar, dwarfed by the worn industrial facade. I heard Alice race up the steps behind me, the shotgun bouncing off the granite.
“That’s an antique,” I said.
With a heave, Alice got the gun upright, cradling it in both arms. Breathing heavily, glasses fogged from the effort, she wrinkled her nose.
“You could just say thank you,” she said.
A ghostly wail filtered out the rusted door. Alice shook slightly.
With a grimace, I grabbed the shotgun and stepped into the darkness.
This was looking like a bad decision.
But when had I ever made one of those?
27
The psychiatric ward had the ambiance of an abandoned school—if all the pupils had died after being brutally tortured and then gone on to haunt the place for eternity. Although the building was empty, the pain and suffering inflicted within these warped walls would never fade.
Gray light streamed through cracks in the dirty windows, casting shadows down the narrow hallways.
The ghostly wails didn’t subside as Alice and I crept forward in sullen silence, the only other noise the slosh of the canteen filled with anti-radiation meds.
The custom-hacked rebreather ticked down, the hologram disappearing as it announced that I had four hours of time left. Each inhale was a tiny trial and tribulation. Maybe Roark had been right—I needed a week to recover.
But it was Thursday, and tomorrow, Silvia’s bill would come due. I’d waste away as she used my blood for a curse.
All my sick days had run out.
A loud clatter came from the end of the hall, followed by a stifled scream.
Alice whispered, “I’ve seen enough.”
“If you want to head back alone, feel free.”
I heard her stubby fangs click out nervously. “I don’t know why I came.”
“Curiosity.”
“I’m not that curious.”
Glass shattered, coming from the same area as the first noise. I lifted the shotgun as best I could, arms groaning under the weight. Taking lead, the anti-radiation IV shifting in my arm, I took a few silent footsteps forward.
Alice’s were like little gunshots.
There was an open door right before a T-junction where the building split off into east and west wings. Growling rattles came from the darkened room. I gave Alice the stay here look before slipping inside the administrative office.
Or what was left of one.
Dust, mites and roaches had ruined the paperwork and file cabinets, rendering it little more than a hovel. Sensing a strong aura within the small room, I clutched the shotgun tighter.
My intuition, weakened from my injuries, displayed only a few wisps hanging lazily around the floor. So much for supernatural powers. I tensed, listening to a tiny whine that sounded like it was right next to my ear. There was no one here, but something was making all that noise.
In a low voice, I said, “Alice, turn on your phone’s light.”
“It’s neural.”
“Please tell me you have a handset or something.” She crashed into the office like an overeager puppy, desperate not to be alone. The ghostly beam swung over the ruined interior, finally resting where I was pointing.
The floor had corroded from time and pests, revealing a small hole in the tile.
Getting on my knees, I put my eye up close to the inch-wide crack.
A sickly, yellow eye slammed against the floor, eyelashes almost touching mine. The beast hissed on the other side of the hole.
Alice screamed, “Oh shit,” and dropped the light. I scrambled backward in the darkness, trying to get the shotgun in the right position. After I unleashed several blasts at the floor, the wailing stopped. A final, almost satisfied groan came from beneath the ruined tile.
Then nothing.
Ears and heart pounding, I brushed myself off and reloaded. The rebreather and needle had miraculously stayed in place, despite my thrashing. Chest burning from the exertion, I stared through the wider hole I’d created.
The aura grew stronger, enveloping the dingy office.
“You feel that?” I had to shout to hear myself over the ringing.
Alice yelled back, “It’s really powerful.”
I beckoned her closer to the hole, which was now a foot and a half wide thanks to the gunfire. She picked up the handset. Swinging the light downward revealed a man—or what had once been a man—in a bloodied lab coat, his sunken skin covered in a viscous fluid. A half-split, upside down cross glowed on his chest, marking him as a Crusader.
“Hold this.” I pushed the shotgun back and slid my arm through the hole to search his pockets. A crinkled paper, this one not ruined by vermin, met my grasp. I pulled it up, feeling my arm buzz with magical energy.
Alice’s light swept over the yellowed memo.
I squinted to read the words.
“Supernatural forces of great potential discovered in the sands. Enough to save our Great Crusading Prophet.”
Head swimming, the pieces clicked together.
I was sitting atop a mana wellspring. The same one that had saved Donovan Martin’s life back in 1923.
And, just maybe, had even made him immortal.
28
Had that been all the news we’d uncovered, it still would’ve been big. Indeed, the Crusaders’ claims were becoming less nutty by the second. Find enough mana wellsprings—which, quite frankly, I had believed were dried and gone—and one could harness enough power to do anything.
Revive Pan, God of Arcadia?
I still had my doubts.
But with that type of power under your control, there were other ways of creating Paradisum.
After combing through the facility, we’d found enough scraps of paper to figure out that the Crusaders had set up shop here after I’d dealt Donovan Martin a chest full of essence-laced buckshot. It’d taken years for him and the organization to recover—a turn of events only made possible by the spring’s immense power.
Of course, even as they’d marshaled their strength, the Crusaders hadn’t rested on their laurels. They’d devised a program to test the limits of the mana’s power.
Some creatures seeking “palliative” care at this facility were outright euthanized. They were fortunate, for the others were subjected to barbaric experiments not unlike MagiTekk’s essence suppression trials.
Except these had occurred a century ago.
The Crusaders had experimented with suppressing a creature’s traits, accelerating and magnifying others. Now I had my explanation for why Donovan’s henchmen had no aura: they’d been stripped of their essence.
Alice’s hands still shook as the truck made a right turn. The midday light seemed extra bright after the shadowy psych ward. “What was that thing?”
“Like a fossil preserved in amber,” I said. “Or mana, I guess.”
Pure essence was powerful stuff.
“That place was so creepy.”
A bad taste formed in my mouth as I reflected on our discoveries. I’d found at least one link between MagiTekk and Donovan’s cult. “The Crusaders must’ve given MagiTekk the essence suppression tech that’s rolling out on Friday.”
“You really think they’d work with sinners?” Alice asked. Someone had been doing their research.
“If MagiTekk knows the locations of other mana wellsprings, then yeah.” I scratched my forehead, coming away with dusty streaks. “They must’ve traded the info.”
“Like the one beneath the Cathedral of St. Peter,” Alice said.
I turned my head slowly and said, “Excuse me?”
“I looked into it while you were sleeping. It’s just a hunch.”
“Based on?”
“Satellite activity. Power draw. Geography in comparison to the other wellsprings.”
“Thought Roark didn’t tell you where they were,” I said.
“Maybe I’m a better liar than you think.” Alice pushed her glasses up her nose and brushed her uneven bangs out of her eyes.
“Guess so,” I said. “Must be a big one if they built a cathedral to hide it.”
“Huge.”
Historical significance my ass. There was just a keg of untapped powder sitting beneath that cathedral, just waiting to be unloaded at the right time. Probably the biggest wellspring of them all. MagiTekk had everyone all twisted up—the FBI, the Crusaders, when really everyone was working on the same side.
And which side was that?
The one where the supernatural gained a little edge in this war they were losing.
The kind of edge only wellsprings of mana could provide.
Which was the kind of power and sudden turn of events that would make MagiTekk’s essence suppression serum a very attractive purchase, indeed.
Blood into gold.
I said, “We need to find Roark.”
“You promised we would just go to the ward.” Alice’s voice was whiny.
“I made no such promises,” I said, with faux indignation.
“We can’t get over the wall, anyway,” Alice said, piloting the ancient truck through the graveyard of vehicles lining the street. “I don’t know what else you want me to do.”
“A little lip gloss wouldn’t hurt.”
The wisps around her dusty hair turned momentarily red. “That’s not really my thing.”
“I guess dying alone is more your thing.”
“You haven’t taught me shit.” Alice hung a hard right, and I slammed against the arm rest. Fluff from the seat puffed into the air, settling into my lap. “I just wanted to learn how to use a knife.”
“Tough love worked for me just fine.” Mentoring wasn’t my forte.
“Because you’re such a shining example of happiness.”
I bit my tongue before I retorted with something mean. Cutting down her confidence would be cruel and unhelpful. There was a fine line between being cold and being firm. Pearl had known how to walk that line—albeit often venturing into asshole territory.
Still, she’d kept me alive all this time. Her guiding voice remained with me. Now that I could pass a sliver of that education along, it felt worth doing.
I didn’t know why.
I wasn’t the sentimental type.
Could’ve been the IV drip. I swore there was a mild sedative in it, clouding my judgment.
I stared at the looming steel gate, hovering like a menace over the Fallout Zone. The district was hemmed in on all the other sides by seamless skyscrapers, making it feel like being trapped inside a box with the flaps propped up vertically.
“Second lesson,” I said, reaching over to pinch her cheeks.
“Ow, don’t do that.”
“You’re a little pale.” I watched the color flood into her skin. “See, that’s better.”
Alice glanced in the rearview. “Why do you need to see Colton so bad right now, anyway?”
“Because he’s going to die if you don’t get us through the gate.” If he wasn’t toast already. The bastard hadn’t been by to see me in two days.
Either he was really busy, or really in trouble. Stepping right into the center of a three-way battlefield was a good way to get cut down in the crossfire.
We had to find him.
The bear he was poking was liable to eat him alive.
“We could just, um, call him,” Alice said.
I stared at Alice’s bespectacled eyes and said, “My phone melted in the blaze.”
She held her hand up to her ear and dialed. Neural. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to that. A minute later, she swallowed hard.
“He didn’t answer.”
“He does that sometimes,” I said as we approached the looming gate. “Time to turn on the charm, Miss Conway.”
“Can’t you do it?”
“I look half-dead,” I said, catching my reflection in the rearview. The hacked rebreather made me look part cyborg. “That’s not a turn-on.”
“I meant stab him.”
“Don’t shoot or kill anything you need to.” I tried to smile. “Catch more flies with honey.”
“Or maybe you just attract bees.”
Alice looked terrified. Put her behind a computer and she was fearless, flipping everyone the bird from the safety of her office chair. Out here, however, she was like a mouse peeking from its hidey-hole, hoping that the cat wasn’t lurking nearby.
I took her glasses off and folded them in my pocket.
“I can’t see without those!”
“You’ll figure it out.” We narrowly missed clipping a mailbox, but she righted the truck soon enough. “There a comb in here somewhere?”
“Don’t touch that—”
Too late. I opened the glovebox, and a laptop computer and a bunch of wires tumbled out.
“This stuff is older than you,” I said.
“I like old tech.”
“You’re more hopeless than I thought,” I said. “New rule.”
“I don’t want any more rules.”
�
��Rules are what keep you alive,” I said. “But you know that already.”
After all, the mouse had survived in the Fallout Zone for nineteen years. That took chops.
The truck engine choked as we made another turn. We were now only a few hundred yards away from the gate. Mess up, and I knew the Elite Guard would cut us down in a blaze of turreted gunfire.
Better impart this lesson quickly.
“Now or never, Ruby,” Alice said, a jitter in her voice as the gate swallowed up the horizon.
“Play to your strengths.” I licked my thumb and put it through her eyebrows, streamlining the stray hairs. Not a wax, but it would do to the stimulant-addled brain of an Elite Guard. She shook me off like a dog trying to get out of a bath.
“But being myself—”
“Not the same thing,” I said. “You can be interested in the tech, know about it, but it can’t be your identity. The tech doesn’t own you. The hacking doesn’t own you.” Pearl’s words channeled through me, through the sands of time. “You own it.”
“You’re weird,” Alice said.
“And you’re going to charm the hell out of this motherfucker,” I said, although the words felt empty. Then again, I had no playbook for getting past the Fallout Zone’s gate. Desperate times, desperate measures.
Although this was like betting your entire stack on a 2 and a 7. Not the best of hands, but you played the cards you were dealt.
“What if I mess up?”
“Then duck.” I nudged the shotgun beneath the seat. If this old beater had one advantage, it was the ample legroom. “Ready?”
“I played something like this in VR once—”
“Yeah, don’t start with that.”
The engine idled as we waited. After a few minutes, the Elite Guard lumbered out, realizing that our old junker didn’t have a holographic nav console with which he could communicate wirelessly.
The Elite Guard’s metal exoskeleton scraped against the rough asphalt. Alice rolled down the window, giving me a nervous glance. I nodded, indicating I was ready.
“You can’t come through here.” His black visor dissolved into a clear pane, displaying his pinned, crazed eyes. I wondered if they just pumped the stimulant straight into his neck. “Turn around.”
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