The operatives around us tested the barrier, nothing more. They didn’t try to knock it down.
I was drawing magic from Jean-Pierre. I could feel it coming from a distance, and wondered just how much weaker he was growing. I didn’t have any idea how he was going to end up back with the other vampires. I was abandoning him to the shifters.
I had the wand, but I was trying to hold off on using it for now. I didn’t want to draw power through it yet, not wanting to reveal we had access to any more power.
But then, if we were captured now, it wouldn’t even matter. I reached for the wand, but Charles shook his head. “I don’t think that’s necessary just yet.”
“Why not?”
“They haven’t done anything to attack,” he said.
“I realize that, but it won’t take long before they decide to do so.”
“I’m not so sure. Look at them.” He looked out at them knowingly.
I stared out at the operatives, and as I did, I tried to figure out what Charles was getting at. They were there, and there was a sense of magic, but there was nothing else beyond that. And that was surprising. The more I thought about it, the more I understood what Charles was getting at. We had come to the organization, and had presented ourselves with some power, and we had been surrounded the moment we crossed over. That was surprising enough, but even more surprising was the fact that they weren’t attacking us.
“They aren’t here,” I said.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” John Adams said.
I focused on the operatives around us. “None of them are real. They’re an illusion.” And a powerful illusion at that. If they were able to create an illusion which made it look like there were a dozen operatives around us, then it would be incredibly powerful for anyone who tried to break into the organization. I could imagine anyone reacting as I had, throwing up a barrier, standing and waiting, trying to decide what they were going to do. And in doing so, it was a delaying tactic.
I turned my attention to John Adams. “Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“Did you know what were going to encounter?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” he said.
I stared out at the operatives. I ignored John Adams, focusing on Charles. “Can you tell they aren’t real?”
“As I focus on them, the more certain I am there isn’t anything there. The illusion is impressive, but it’s just that. It’s an illusion.”
As I stared, and as I focused outward, I couldn’t help but tell that aspects of it shimmered. The people seemed solid enough, but it was nothing more than illusion. And it was a skilled illusion. I could only imagine how Barden would react to something like this. It was the kind of spell he would want. I probed outward, sending a hint of power away from me, and in doing so, I came across a spell. It was faint, subtle, and I pushed power through one of my spell coins, exploding what I detected. As soon as I did, the twelve operatives across from us flickered and then disappeared.
I breathed out heavily. The inside of the organization had changed as well. No longer was it an office complex, not the way it had appeared at first. It was dimly lit. It was a narrow hallway, not a massive entrance. All of it was an illusion.
“Why wouldn’t you have warned us about this?”
“It wasn’t necessary,” John Adams said.
I grunted, turning my attention to everything around us, holding onto the barrier for a moment more. I wasn’t sure if we were going to find a new threat, though it was possible. And if there was a new threat, then I would have to wonder why John Adams wouldn’t warn us.
“You were just going to hold us here? As far as I understand, you aren’t necessarily welcome within the organization, either.”
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“I understand well enough. I might have to leave you here.” I didn’t like the idea of doing that, because with everything we might have to face, I thought having someone like him, with his knowledge, would be beneficial, but I also didn’t want to have to worry about the possibility of another attack.
“We are going to have to draw others of the organization in,” he said.
“Why?”
“In order for us to find what we want, we are going to have to get answers from somebody high enough within the organization to provide them.”
“You aren’t going to be able to help us find that?”
“I am no longer a part of the organization,” he said.
“You would have access to it.”
“The moment I departed was the moment my access was revoked. Anything I might have been able to get us is gone.”
“You didn’t think that would be helpful for us to know before coming here?”
“You’re the one who was determined to make this journey, Dr. Stone. You wanted to come. You thought you might be able to find something to help stop the attack.”
I glared at him. I hated that he was right, but he was telling the truth. This had been my idea, and the longer we were here, the more I became certain I was right in coming here, if only to find out what the organization might know. Anything they might know would be used by Matt and the other Shara in order to complete their attack. “So you wanted us to be caught?”
“Not necessarily caught, but they needed to know we are here. We need to draw them out.”
“And what happens when we draw them out?”
“Then we will have to hold them.”
“You want me to attack the organization?”
I glanced over to Charles, before turning my attention to John Adams. I had a pouch full of coins, but this was a place where they trained others in that fighting style, and I had no intention to bring the attack to them. I had no belief I could even be successful, if it came down to it.
“We don’t have to attack all of the organization, only a few of them. We need to get someone who has access to power. The more we work at this, the more certain I am you will be able to do it. Besides, didn’t Barden give you a trinket to help?”
“If you try to take it from me –“
John Adams raised his hands. “I have no interest in taking it from you, Dr. Stone, but I understand what Barden has given you, and that it will grant you considerable strength. Probably more than most of the people here. Using that, combining it with one of your spells, you should be able to hold someone.”
I watched him. “You don’t want me to just hold anyone. You have someone in mind.”
He smiled darkly. “What would give you that idea?”
“Because I know you. What do you intend?”
“I intend for you to use your power to help us hold the person who can get us the answers we need.”
I took a deep breath, looking around. What answers were we going to get from here? This was a strange space, the flickering lights dim, and trapped in the barrier as I was, I wasn’t able to detect anything else. There was a sense of power, though it was faint and subtle, and I didn’t know how much of that power was real and how much imagined. The more I listened to it, I wondered if I would even be able to detect the coming power. It was possible they had a way of hiding their connection to magic.
I lowered the barrier. There was no point in holding it up. At this point, the only thing the barrier was doing was limiting me. As we looked around, the flickering lights made me question everything again. What if this was all an illusion as well?
I probed outward, sending a hint of magic, listening for the sense of it all around. As I did, I searched for anything which might help me explain what was out there. The sense of it was there, though it was faint, subtle. The more I focused, the more certain I became that I wasn’t detecting anything with nearly the clarity I needed. It was almost as if my ability to detect magic was limited, masked by whatever was out there.
Pushing more power outward from me, I probed outward, searching for the signs of magic I knew had to be there. Then I found it.
It was
fainter than the last one, though the sense of it was clear now I was aware of it. As it came to me, I focused on it, and used another spell coin, pushing the hint of power through that, bursting that spell. It was interesting that I was able to do it from a distance. If I were able to do so, then I wondered if I could continue to trigger spells I was able to detect from afar. It wasn’t anything I had ever tried before. Now I was here, this close to those spells and within the organization, I had to wonder if doing so would be beneficial or if it would raise more challenges for me.
“What did you just do?” John Adams asked.
“I just triggered another spell.”
“You need to be careful here. Some of the spells are dangerous.”
“If they’re so dangerous, then how do you navigate through here without getting harmed?”
“We have tokens. I believe you’ve seen something similar?”
I remembered the strange home John Adams had shown me, and within that building had been a series of protections he had placed which were tied to him. Because of that, he was safe navigating through there, but I wasn’t. Had I gone through alone, I would have been attacked by the power of the spells, and they were dangerous and violent spells. Here it would be something similar.
Then again, at the time, I had used my trigger coin in order to trip all of those spells. I could do something similar. I had several of the trigger coins now, and was able to use them if need be, but I also had a better understanding of my power now. Because of that, I was more equipped for the possibility I might have to use it and trigger magic. I was better able to draw upon power I hadn’t been able to do at the time.
I continued to push, sending more power out, searching for another spell, anything to help me understand if there was anything to be worried about out there. I didn’t find anything. Nothing in the hallway changed. Regardless of what I had detected, there was no further illusion. All of this was real.
“Where is the organization?” I asked John Adams.
“It’s a difficult place to reach. Only those who are brought here by others in the know are able to find it.”
“Obviously, but where is it?”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
I started forward, when Charles grabbed my wrist. “Careful, Dr. Stone.”
“Why?”
Despite my misgivings about having Charles with us, he had been the one to recognize that the operatives had been nothing more than illusion. Maybe he did have a better understanding of magic than I gave him credit for. With someone like him, with his knowledge and understanding of runes and their magic, maybe he would help alert us to the dangers out there.
“There could be layers of runes.”
“What do you mean by layers?”
“There are patterns that can form around patterns.” He crouched down on the ground, and traced a form. It was one I recognized, having seen it on the car, and then around that, he traced a surrounding pattern.
By adding those patterns, I recognized there would be increasing power from them. By the cumulative nature of that power, there was considerable energy which would be generated. I didn’t even have to know anything about the runes in order to recognize that power was there.
“What’s the purpose of that?” I asked.
“The purpose of this one is to detract from this one,” he said, pointing from the outer pattern to the inner one. “And if you added another layer, you could accomplish something even greater.”
I hadn’t even considered the possibility there would be overlapping runes. And if there were, and if they used them to trap spells, then triggering one could only leave us open to the other ones. It would be dangerous, and the more I looked around, the more I felt that danger, the more certain I was we were in trouble. “I don’t detect anything here,” I said.
“You might not,” Charles said.
I reached into my pocket, tapping the wand, debating whether or not I even wanted to use it. I was trying to hold out until it became absolutely necessary, but I had to think now was that time. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that having an understanding of the patterns here, ensuring we weren’t trapped, was the best way of ensuring our safety.
Whispering a brief apology to the people I was about to draw power from, I focused on the wand. Pulling power was easy to do, and it surged through me, adding strength that filled me. It reminded me of Barden’s wand, only this one was different. There was strength within it, but it was a swirling energy, and it flowed up from a deep place, and it filled me. I pushed outward with a sense of power. Doing so allowed me to send that magic sweeping around us.
I felt another spell. This one was farther from us, though there was something within it striking me as dangerous. I tripped it, adding a hint of a destructive spell to it, and in doing so, the power fizzled out, exploding. And then we were plunged into bright light.
The walls changed again, shimmering around us, and we stood within what appeared to be an enormous warehouse. I wondered if this was an illusion as well. I looked over to John Adams, but couldn’t see anything from him to answer that. When I had come to the organization before, we had gone straight up an elevator, to John Adams’s office, and now I couldn’t help but wonder if even that had been real. Maybe it had been nothing more than an illusion, and Matt had not known about the nature of the illusion. If that were the case, then I thought we would be able to overpower him.
“None of this was here,” John Adams said.
“What do you mean?”
“The first layer of protection was here, but this was not.”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“Someone has come here and changed these protections,” he said.
“Someone?” Fear trembled within me. Someone meant Matt. Someone meant the Shara. Someone meant we had revealed ourselves. I dropped another barrier coin, surging around us.
It was almost a moment too late. Power swept along the hallway, and it struck the barrier, electrifying it with streaks of blue and white light. I pushed more power to the barrier, then reached for another one, dropping it and powering it as well.
Using as many barrier coins as I already had was worrisome. I had a pocket full of them, and could keep us safe, but for how long? It was going to involve me drawing upon increasing power in order to keep us safe. And so far, we hadn’t even gone far into the organization. We were barely a few steps inside.
“Any suggestions?” I asked.
“I think it’s time for me to transport us to my office,” John Adams said. He reached for us, and power squeezed around me, swirling, and then it exploded.
As it swept over me, crushing me, I tried to fight against it, trying to hold my eyes open, wanting to focus on where he was guiding us. I held out, trying to push against the pressure, worried about what he was doing, but I knew I didn’t need to. There was no reason for me to fear. The power John Adams was holding, the way he was squeezing it, was considerable, but it also wasn’t meant to harm me.
The only problem was that this transport was different to the kind I used. The nature of it was more painful, an agonizing sensation. I suspected it had to do with where he was taking us, and the resistance he had to go through, but it was almost more than I could withstand.
As I strained against the energy, I retreated, afraid if I continued to push I might overwhelm what he was doing. And then the transport washed over me. With a burst of power, we squeezed through, completing the process.
But when we stepped forward, we weren’t alone.
15
At first, I wondered if this might be another illusion, but the more I focused on it, the more certain I was that somebody was there. Power began to build, and I dropped a barrier coin, summoning strength through it, surging it outward from us, and it exploded, filling the room. In doing so, there was another sense of energy.
I didn’t recognize the dark-haired woman sitting across from us. She had a sharp
nose, high cheekbones, and full lips. Her eyes were nearly black, and she was dressed in jeans and a short sleeve T-shirt. She could have been any teenager or college-age person I encountered on a day-to-day basis.
“Don’t do this, Rebecca,” John Adams said.
Power crackled from her, and I watched as she flung a coin toward the barrier. I pushed more power into it, ready for what was going to happen, but I wasn’t prepared for the way that her magic would sweep along the barrier, destroying it. I was thrown back, out of the barrier, and I reacted the only way I knew how.
I triggered.
She had spell coins on her, and though they were in a protective pouch, I still could feel them. That was new. I pushed outward. Spell upon spell was fired, triggering within her pouch, and she was tossed backward, the same way we had been. John Adams ran forward, and he traced a circle around her, pushing his own power through it. It was weaker than I would have expected, and I realized he had used far more energy than I expected to get us here.
She got to her feet, trying to fight through the barrier, but she didn’t have any way of doing so.
“Did you incapacitate her spells?” John Adams asked, without looking toward me.
“As much as I could,” I said. I breathed out, trying to slow my heart rate. I looked around the office. It looked similar to when I had been here before. There was a desk, but no computer. There were shelves with items on them, and I knew some of the items were powerful, items which would contain magical artifacts, relics John Adams had collected over the years.
“She might have something within her.”
I frowned, but I understood. It was the same thing John Adams had when I first encountered him. He had a filling which had essentially been a rune, and in triggering it, I had managed to incapacitate him. Could I do the same thing with her?
I focused on her, and sent a wave of power surging through her, but she fought it. Rather than struggling against her, I continued to focus on the way she was holding onto power, and I pushed more and more energy into her. I drew through the wand, only a trickle, but it was enough to overpower her resistance. And as I did, there came another sense of the spell. It was a tattoo on one shoulder. Not just one tattoo. She had a series of them. They were powerful, and they twisted along her arm, augmenting her in a way that even John Adams hadn’t been, previously.
End Stage Page 15