by Laney McMann
“There’s been talk of some activity in Great Britain. Some talk elsewhere as well. I’ll be gone for a while. I came back to tell ya.”
Cole sat up straight.
“Uh, uh.” Heru waved an ebony finger in the air. “I’m not telling ya this for ya to sit up like a trained attack dog. Ya need to stay here.”
“But—“
“No. When ya need me, ya’ll know how to find me, where I am.” He tapped Cole’s throat over his falcon wings. “I didn’t want ya to worry when ya found the shop closed.”
Cole nodded, slightly dazed that activity had been found in Great Britain. Everything there had been silent since the last Araneum attack three years ago. When his dad had been killed.
Heru stared into Cole’s eyes with piercing blue ones. “Cole, ya understand? Stay here. Yar orders come from the Warden not from me.”
“Does the Warden know about this?”
Heru’s eyes shifted away.
“He doesn’t.” Cole let out a breath. “Does anyone know?”
The man patted Cole’s shoulder. “Keep the girl hidden and under watch.”
Cole tried to shake away the odd sensation climbing up his spine. “So, this is some covert operation?” He was on his feet.
Heru grinned, the skin at the corners of his eyes creasing. “Ya forget my jurisdiction has never fallen under your grandfather, child.” He patted Cole again. “Do what I’m telling ya. Keep the girl safe and in yar sights.”
Cole nodded and started to pace.
“I mean it.” The man opened his hand and thrust it to the side. A rush of bluish purple energy spewed from the floor between them.
“I will, you know I will, but … this is my job,” Cole said. “You’re retired from the Ward.”
“Not when my great, great, too many greats to name, nephew is involved in something as big as this. I’m not retired then.”
Danny let out an audible breath from the door.
Cole bowed his head, but didn’t glance over his shoulder to see Danny’s expression at the revelation. “But …” The choke in his throat wasn’t contained.
Heru lifted Cole’s chin and looked into his watering eyes. “I’m stronger than yar father was. Ya know that. I’m not leaving ya. Okay?” He pressed his forehead against Cole’s before stepping into the shimmering geyser of energy, streams of purple-blue rising up around his body.
“I’ll find you if I need you,” Cole said, voice cracking.
“Ya find me when ya need me.” Heru stepped into the Leygate. “Or I’ll call for ya. When, Cole, not if.”
Taking a deep, settling breath, Cole nodded, and Heru stepped into the Leygate and vanished from view. With a “pop,” the Leygate disappeared.
“The ancient, crazy man with all the tattoos is your uncle? How many more secrets are you keeping?” Danny moved away from the front door of the shop.
“Does it matter?” Cole snapped, turning to face him, his veins hot and buzzing with energy.
“Hell yes, it matters. Lives are at stake.”
Cole advanced on his friend. “Lives could not be in safer or better hands than they are in. Including yours. And secrets are in place to keep people safe. Ever thought of that? People close to us can become targets.”
Danny opened his mouth, closed it again, and gave a curt nod. “Fair enough.”
Turning away from him, Cole walked out the front door of the shop. “We have work to do.”
“Shouldn’t you lock up or something?” Danny followed him.
“The shop locks itself.”
“Okay …” Danny jogged to keep pace on the sidewalk outside. “What work?”
“You heard Heru—there’s been talk.”
“I heard him. He wasn’t all that specific.”
“Add ‘there’s been talk’ to whatever was in the shaft before, and I think, now more than ever, we stumbled onto something big underneath Bangerang and Crystalline.”
“Okay.” Danny heaved a breath. “What’s the plan now? We can’t exactly show up in Great Britain searching for the Araneum with Heru wandering around over there.”
“Let’s check this out first and go from there.” Cole turned off the sidewalk a few yards away from the tattoo shop and took a right down the alley between store fronts. “We’re going underground.” He stopped in the center of the alley and stomped his foot. A hollow sound emitted back. Bending down, he lifted a partially hidden manhole cover from the dirty street and tossed it to the side.
“Oh, no.” Danny shook his head. “The sewer system? You want to go into the sewer system?”
Cole didn’t say anything, just zipped his jacket up to his throat, checked for his telums on the inside of his jacket sleeves, and dropped into the darkness of the manhole, disappearing from view.
Danny stood there for a few seconds before he followed.
The thing no one says, because very few people actually know, is that except for the awful smell, sewer systems are kind of cool. Not the trash or the disgusting reality of what’s down in them, but the tunnels themselves. They are a vast network of interconnecting concrete tube systems that run underneath almost every city in the world, and some are hundreds and hundreds of years old. They are literally under everyone’s feet. And since no one besides the occasional utility worker ever goes down into them, they make the perfect nesting grounds for Daemoneum. Not that Danny wanted to hang out in the sewer.
He climbed down the iron ladder from the manhole in the street and stood next to Cole in a massive underground concrete tube. A flood of brown water flowed like a small river in front of them with an echoing roar. It wound and twisted through several other tunnels in both directions leading to god only knew where. He lifted the collar of his shirt over his mouth and nose, blocking some of the smell. Cole had already done the same. The odor was suffocating.
“So?” Danny said with a muffle through the T-shirt fabric. “Which way?”
Cole stood, shoulders tense, gaze focused, and Danny hated what he thought might be coming next.
“I’m not jumping in,” he said. “Just making that clear.”
Cole placed his hand on the curved concrete wall at his back, not answering. Danny did the same. No thumping, no bass or vibration that might be a sign of overcharged energy fields or Leylines. No detectable Daemoneum activity. Only stillness and the loud echoing gush of water licking all around them. Cole headed down the concrete bank in the direction of the flowing brown current. Three tunnels divided the water in different directions and disappeared into the bowels of the sewer. Several overhead manhole covers emitted tiny pinholes of light that shone onto the ground at their feet. Metal ladders bolted into the wall led up to each of the manholes and the street above their heads. Easy way out, at least, Danny thought.
“We’re a block away from Crystalline,” Cole said. “One of those tunnels,” he pointed at the three access tubes, “will lead us, possibly, to where we were yesterday when we investigated the shaft with Lindsey. I think she was right when she said it was a busted sewer line. It was too deep of a pit to be anything else.”
“Oh, hell no.” Danny shook his head. “Hell. No. Not happening. Let’s drive and go back in the same way we did before.”
“Dan—whatever was down here before won’t suspect us coming at them from this location. We can’t go in the same way we did before.”
Danny knew they were thinking the same thing: Dracon was down here somewhere. Danny hadn’t been able to shake the odd sensation—or the reptilian smell— since they’d left the pit underneath the hollow sidewalk the day before. “We have no backup, Lindsey isn’t with us this time, and whatever the Nefarius was guarding in that abyss or shaft we found wasn’t playing around.”
“Do the Daemoneum ever play around?” Cole cocked his eyebrows up the way he always did when he thought Danny was being stupid.
“You know that’s not what I mean—it wasn’t, whatever it was, wasn’t like anything I’ve ever felt before. Didn’t you feel it? It was some kind o
f energy . . . I don’t know.”
Cole stared at him, silent for a few beats. “We’re going in.”
“I’ll go back in that shaft,” Danny said, “you know that, but we need more Primordial first. We can’t protect Kade if we’re both dead—we have no idea what we’re facing at this point. And now with Heru saying there’s activity in Great Britain? We need to plan this out. Too many variables.”
“You think it's Dracon,” Cole said, walking toward the three concrete tubes of rushing water at the other end of the sewer line. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
Cole nodded. “And you think we should just leave him to his own devices if he’s down here somewhere?” He ran his hand across the wall at his side, coming to a stop.
The embankment they were standing on sloped straight down like a small waterfall into the depths of the sewer, brown nasty water and all.
“You know that’s not what I’m saying.” Danny watched the water rush by, droplets splashing up on both of them. Disgusting.
“We’ll fly,” Cole said, like he didn’t hear a word Dan said. Likely, he didn’t care. Lifting his arms above his head, the ceiling of the concrete tube was only a couple inches above the tips of his fingers. “It’ll be tight. Looks like there’s only a few feet between the surface of the water and the ceiling from this point on. I don't see any walkways.”
Danny groaned. He’d take coal mines twenty to one over sewers any day. “Fine. We have no idea where we're going, but fine.”
“We’ll stay low to the water, go slow. A simple search mission.”
“Simple search my ass.” Danny let out a breath, hands on his hips, staring at random pieces of floating things in the brown water. He didn’t want to know what they were. “You first, my liege.”
On a breath, Cole dove headfirst off the walkway toward the water and shifted seconds before he hit the surface, falcon wings wide, the bird gliding effortlessly with all the arrogant agility of human Cole.
Danny cursed him and shifted into the hawk, following suit.
Staying close to Cole, the sewer tunnel they followed ended up connecting with and splitting off from countless other tunnels so many times, Danny thought they were getting lost in a literal maze. Even flying slowly, with the keen eyes of a hawk, everything looked the same with every turn they took. Same nasty water, same concrete tubes, same echoing rush. Every now and then, pin holes of sunlight cast through the ceiling alerting him that they were, at least, just underneath the streets of Boulder and not lost in the depths of the abyss.
Still, nothing looked anything like the hollow sidewalk they’d traveled down the day before with Lindsey that ended up in a massive dark pit—the place they assumed Dracon might be.
“Are we just going to fly in circles or what?” he asked, getting annoyed.
“Does it just go on forever like this?” Cole said, sounding like he was talking to himself.
“I'd rather not fly to Denver before we finally realize the answer to that question is yes.”
Cole lowered his head with a defeated sigh. “Fine. We’ll let Warden Caelius know there’s something happening underneath Bangerang and Crystalline, alert Plumb, see if they will assign some Principals to investigate with us.” He tilted his body and turned, flying in the direction they'd come from.
“Finally, you’re talking some sense.” Danny followed, hoping Cole had somehow memorized the route so they didn’t end up having to get out of the sewer through a manhole miles away from their car.
On a pass through another converging set of tunnels, Cole slowed, hovering above the water before circling back, and back again. Danny felt it, too. The energy was suddenly palpable, crackling around them. In the tight tube, the electric current popped off the surface of the water like someone had submerged a live wire.
“Up,” Cole said, immediately shifting his trajectory toward the highest point in the tunnel, which was only about four feet off the water.
Danny remained suspended beside him, both of them silent. A second surge of energy sizzled, and with it the telltale screams of Nefarius.
“At least we didn’t waste our time.” Cole took off like lightning toward the sound. Careening into a tunnel they hadn’t traveled down, Danny stayed as close as he could, but was once again reminded that Cole was a Rubeum—which meant his energy field, or corona—was red. The fastest, most powerful, and rarest corona color a Primordial could have. Red light streaked in Cole’s wake, as he hauled ass ahead, always faster than Dan had ever been.
Taking a second sharp turn, Cole’s wide wing span on full tilt ahead of Danny, he heard the shrieks again, much closer, ricocheting off the enclosed walls, and the sewer lines suddenly opened up into nothing. Darkness consumed them.
“We found the pit,” Danny said, just as the silver glint of Shadows emerged from the depths of the space Cole and Danny had found the day before. Maybe it wasn’t hell, like Cole had said, but it was damn close. The onslaught of a metallic, copper odor assaulted him, followed by the vomit-inducing smell of reptiles.
"Why aren’t they coming up?” Cole doubled back, hovering next to Dan. “They don't see us.” He sounded stunned, but Danny knew he was right. They hadn’t been seen.
“Plan?”
“Let’s move along the wall. Maybe we can get close enough to figure out what they’re guarding.” Cole shifted his wings and glided soundlessly downward .
Dan eased into the depths at his back, shrieks from the Nefarius deafening, and almost ran into Cole as he came to an abrupt stop. “What are you doing?”
“Look.”
Waves of silver energy split the darkness like jail bars. From as high over his head as he could see, to as far underneath him into the depths of the pit, was a grid of crackling electricity. Someone had rerouted over a hundred Leylines, and they all converged at different points to create an impassable barrier.
“Damnnn,” Cole breathed. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” He flew forward, just close enough to see it better, but not too close to touch. “Do you know what kind of skill it takes,” he said, “for someone to do this?”
Danny shook his head. He could only imagine, and if Cole was impressed, then the thing was likely impregnable. “Can you shut it down?”
Cole laughed. “Hell, no. In this form I wouldn’t even attempt it. In my human form, I would try if there was somewhere for me to stand. But we’re in midair.” He glided over to Dan. “This is brilliant. I mean … whatever the Nefarius are protecting is precious to them. I don’t see a way to infiltrate it as an avian, and it’s clear that was the intent. The only way to get down here is to fly. Whoever created this knew that, and they also knew only a Primordial in human form could attempt to shut it down.” Danny rarely heard Cole in awe. He wasn't impressed by much.
“So, what now?”
Cole was still staring at the energy field. “Head back, let the Warden know. We’re going to have to figure out a way to break it, and it'll take a lot of us to do it since it’s airborne.” He flew past Danny, toward the sewer tunnel they’d entered from. Cole led him through the series of tubes, which Dan was glad to see Cole had indeed memorized, and a few minutes later they were standing on the concrete bank below the manhole ladder they’d climbed down.
Cole stood, hands on his hips, staring at the rushing brown water, but didn’t say anything.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He started walking and stopped. “Do you … what you felt before …what you thought was Dracon …” Cole touched the wings on the side of his neck. “Something’s wrong, Dan.” He let his hand drop and headed to the base of the ladder. “It’s too quiet and … something’s … I can feel something.”
“Um, yeah, that’s Dracon. Something’s definitely wrong. The Daemoneum have all but disappeared besides whatever the hell the Nefarius have going on down here. I’d say there’s definitely something wrong.”
“It’s not just that.” Cole climbed the ladder and pushed himself
out of the manhole and onto the road overhead. “That’s a problem, obviously, but that’s not what I mean.”
“Then explain.” Danny hoisted himself out of the sewer and into the alley.
“If Dracon is still alive, he still couldn't have created that Leyline grid. There are so few Primordial, let alone Daemoneum—if any—who have that kind of knowledge. It was hundreds of Leylines, Dan. All blacked. Hundreds.” He rubbed his neck, shaking his head.
“I saw.”
“Harnessing that kind of power ... I mean, it’s immense. It doesn’t make sense. It's brilliant, but I can't figure out how it got there.” His cell phone dinged. He retrieved it and looked down, closing out the screen. “I have to go meet Plumb. She wants to see me and Kade in her office.”
“For what?”
Cole shoved his phone in his pocket and shrugged. “Her text didn’t say.”
Kade got the text from Cole about meeting Plumb just as she finished her American History homework. She was still slightly giddy from the meeting with Warden Caelius. The fact that he was Cole’s grandfather made so much sense, and the fact that he’d taken Kade under his wing made her happier than she’d been in a long time. Everything was finally falling into place.
“Hey, G?” she yelled across the bunker apartment. “I’ve gotta go meet Plumb for a minute. I’ll be right back.” Kade slipped her shoes on.
“Okay,” Giselle shouted.
The access door Kade had to use to get to Plumb’s office was hidden in the hallway that ran underneath the Brotherhood common house. From an outsider’s perspective, there was no door at all, only a wall intermittently lit with sconces, but Kade knew the precise place to press her hand a few paces down from her apartment. It was just underneath the sixth sconce on the left.
The back of Plumb’s bookcase came into view as the wall slid to the side, illuminating the concrete floor at Kade’s feet. Pushing the bookcase, it swung open, and Cole stood in front of Plumb’s desk, a sweet smile on his beautiful face. Plumb, on the other hand, stood near the roaring fireplace, with a not so sweet expression.
Kade entered the office as the wall of bookcases slid soundlessly into place behind her. “Everything okay?”