by Jasmine Walt
Back then, of course, there was a real risk of a war between the universes. Now, the black skyscraper looked out of place amongst the grey tower blocks, more like a tourist attraction than the centre of Earth’s defence against offworld threats. The exterior wasn’t made of regular glass, but adamantine, a rare offworld substance impervious to magic and virtually indestructible, which gleamed black even at night. To most people, it was an eyesore that drew attention to itself rather than hiding in the shadows like Alliance guards were supposed to. But Central was just a front—it was offworld where all the action happened.
As I pulled into a parking space, the beep of a horn and an angry shout drew my attention.
“That was my space, you asshole!”
Killing the engine, I climbed out of my car to face the person who’d yelled. A surly face curtained by long black hair poked out the window of a black van behind me.
“I said, that was my space!”
“I don’t see a name on it,” I said. “Tough shit.” For God’s sake, half the car park was empty. He was just being a dick.
“You must be from the Academy,” said the guy in the van, parking alongside me. “Nice manners. Humans.” He gave a derisive snort.
I blinked at the way he said humans. “But you’re…”
The words stopped as a centaur climbed out of the van. He wore a jacket, shirt and tie, but his back half was that of a tan-coloured horse. Easily six and a half feet tall—well, he towered over me, and I was five eleven. It was reason enough that I’d assumed—and I imagined most people would, for that matter—that the few centaurs on Earth didn’t drive. They could kick up speeds of eighty miles an hour on their own four feet. I mean, hooves. Seriously.
“What’re you staring at?”
The centaur’s back foot kicked up, like he intended to knock me down. I met his eyes, indicating he didn’t scare me. Not entirely true, but he didn’t have to know. Come on. Was I really going to get tackled by a centaur before I even stepped into Central? This was ridiculous, even for me.
The centaur moved back onto all four hooves, and laughed—well, more like a neigh, really.
“You didn’t seriously think I was going to hit you, did you?” he said, snorting with laughter. “Priceless. I don’t give a crap where you park your fancy vehicle.”
“Who the hell are you, the welcoming committee?” I said, all thought of good first impressions going clean out the window. “Which department do you work in?” I turned my back to lock my car. I’d never met a centaur in person before, because—no shit—they hated humans and most never left their homeworld of Aglaia.
“First floor. Same place you’re heading, if I’m not mistaken, Academy kid.”
Kid? If he wanted to piss me off, he was going the right way about it. I made for Central’s front entrance instead of replying, but the centaur tailed me across the car park.
“What?” he said, over the sound of clip-clopping hooves. “You’re trying to picture me in an elevator. Am I right? Humans. Making assumptions because I have two more feet than you do.”
I’d been thinking nothing of the sort. But of course, now he’d mentioned it… how in hell did a centaur get into a lift? I hid a smirk at the mental image.
“Speaking of making assumptions,” I said, pulling my key card from my pocket, “don’t call me Academy kid.”
The centaur laughed. “What would you prefer me to call you?”
“My name’s Kay,” I said, over my shoulder, as I swiped the key card and the glass front doors of Central slid open. “And this conversation is over.”
The centaur laughed. “Direct and to the point. You can call me Markos. And seeing as we’re going to be working on the same floor, Kay, we might as well get acquainted with one another.”
I’d already made a mental note of the layout of the entrance hall. Reception desk on the right staffed by a sleepy-looking blond woman, open booths on the left, three gigantic glass elevators at the far end, stairs leading to the guard offices and cells—and everything sparkled like someone had upended a bucket of glitter all over the place. It felt alien, to say the least. But this was where I’d be spending the majority of my time now. The Alliance was more than a job.
“See?” said Markos, cantering ahead of me into the lift. “These things can carry a full centaur patrol.”
“Is that likely?” I asked, resigned to him following me to the first floor. I hit the button, and the doors slid closed. Slowly, with a screeching sound not unlike a wyvern with its tail caught in a door, the lift began to climb. I turned back to the centaur.
“You never know. Wait.” He frowned at my name badge, pinned to the front of my shirt—yeah, enough people worked at Central to make those badges an unfortunate necessity. “Walker? You’re his son—well, that explains it.”
Damn. Should have known even an offworlder would make the connection sooner or later, though no Walker had set foot in Central for over twelve years.
I looked at him will well-practiced blankness. “Is there a problem?”
The centaur gave a self-satisfied nod. “Ha. Now I get it, Academy kid. Nepotism wins every time, even at the Alliance…”
“About not making assumptions,” I said. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
Nepotism? Seriously? At twenty-one, I might have been the youngest in my year, but like the Academy, the Alliance didn’t play favourites. I’d—naively, it seemed—assumed everyone knew that. I was more annoyed with myself than with the centaur.
Markos gave me an appraising look. “Tell me what to assume, then, Academy kid.”
Either he had some issue with the Walker family, or he just wanted to start an argument. “How about we assume that I had my own reasons to join the Alliance?”
“Well, your diplomatic skills leave much to be desired.”
“I don’t pretend to be diplomatic before coffee,” I said. There was a pause, and then he laughed.
The lift stopped without a sound, the glass doors sliding open. In contrast to the glittering entrance hall, the first floor had the appearance of a modern office divided into booths with separate rooms for senior staff. “Office Fifteen” covered one section of the floor, and a sign pointed the way to Mr Sebastian Clark’s office. My new boss had seemed amiable but absent-minded when he’d interviewed me, but at least he hadn’t called me Mr Walker or even commented on the name. Nepotism indeed. Like I wanted everyone to look at me like they’d looked at him, before he’d relocated to another world to help with peace negotiations. They must have had a hell of a long negotiation, because that was five years ago.
“Kay Walker,” said Mr Clark, as I knocked on the half-open office door. He spoke loud enough that everyone in the vicinity turned in my direction. They all knew who I was, all right. Stupid of me to think even for an instant that I could walk in here and not be recognised, name badge or none. Still. It was unlikely that any of them would have spoken to the old council, and the exact same thing had happened at the Academy when I’d first joined. I could handle it.
Mr Clark peered at me from behind a wall of paper, glasses sliding down his nose. “It’s lucky you’re here early. I have something I need to get from the archives, but I can’t really leave the office. I’m expecting a phone call.
“Sure,” I said. “That’s the fifth floor, right?”
“It is.” He disappeared entirely behind the stack of papers. “I need a document on the properties of bloodrock. It should be somewhere in the seventh section, I think. Markos knows the archives backwards. He’ll be able to take you to the right place. There he is.” And sure enough, the centaur appeared behind me, waving at Mr Clark. Guess things were casual in Office Fifteen.
“This should be fun,” said Markos. “I have coffee, by the way.” He handed me a paper cup.
What game was he playing now? I settled for saying, “Thanks”. I wasn’t complaining.
“What’s he got you looking for in the archives?” Markos asked as we rode the elevator to
the fifth floor.
“Something on bloodrock. What even is that?”
“I have no idea. Odd. Clark is an odd one, though.”
“You’re one to talk,” I said, downing the rest of the coffee and crumpling the cup in my hand. Through the glass doors, I glimpsed more offices, all identical-looking—the Alliance liked everything to be uniform, apparently. Deceptive in its ordinariness. In those offices, the Law Division resolved offworld issues, the technology department worked on top-secret Alliance-only technologies from simulator tech to weaponry, and the council made statements that swept the Multiverse. But I sure as hell didn’t intend to stay in an office forever.
“It’s fun to wind up you Academy kids,” he said, earning a glare from me. “You are kids,” he said. “I suppose being a Walker would help, but… that reminds me. I’m intrigued to know your thoughts on the Alliance’s current noninterference stance on the war in the Enzarian Empire?”
I blinked. Was this some kind of test? “Enzar’s been off radar for twenty years,” I said. “The council think the war’s none of Earth’s business—we don’t have the resources to interfere in magical warfare.” That was the official statement, signed by one Lawrence Walker. Maybe that was the centaur’s issue? Though Aglaians in general didn’t take an interest in offworld affairs.
“Yes, but I want to know what your opinion is.”
“I’m not intending to be a voice on the council, if that’s what you’re implying,” I said. No way in hell. “But I’d have put out a call for offworld aid, at the very least. With all the magic they’re throwing around, there’s bound to be backlash on the Balance, too. I’d send people—magic-wielders, of course—to try for a peace treaty. That’s what the Alliance is for, right?”
Markos nodded, brow furrowed, like he was trying to figure out why I’d said the stark opposite of my father’s statement. Let him think on that one.
“Okay. Well, that’s an unusual position.”
“Idealistic, maybe,” I admitted. “Any particular reason you wanted to know?” The high-magic worlds were usually kept under close scrutiny, but Enzar was a mystery. Even in the Alliance’s information files logged into my new communicator, that area was glossed over, save for the statement that the Alliance had withdrawn all involvement with that particular world. Seeing as magic was involved, it wasn’t surprising.
“Just curiosity. It’s the one world no one knows anything about, even here, and I’ve worked at Central for ten years.” Well, that explained his fluency in English and familiarity with all things Earth. Centaurs weren’t generally known to adapt to human customs. They stayed well away from humans on their homeworld.
The lift finally dinged to a stop at the archives, and the sound of Markos’s clip-clopping hooves followed me through the aisles. It turned out there was one file on bloodrock, and it was two pages thick.
“What does he want this for?” I said, on the way back down. “Bloodrock. I’m not familiar with the term.” It had to be classified, then.
“When it comes to Clark, I’d assume it’s a whim. Things are pretty quiet at the moment. He’s probably bored and needs something to amuse himself with. Most of the admin supervisors in the past have complained that the novices get to have all the fun, but he doesn’t seem to mind that he doesn’t have to run dangers in the Passages.”
“Hmm.” Not an Academy graduate, though I’d guessed as much. Most tended to want something a little more exciting than admin. Like Alliance Ambassadors, who had free run of the Multiverse when they weren’t on missions. Give it a few months and I’d be there. For now, chasing monsters seemed a decent alternative.
“You, on the other hand… I’m taking a wild guess that’s what you’re thinking of right now.”
He’d got me. “The Passages are where it all happens,” I said.
“So they say. They always put the Academy kids on the late-night shift in the lower levels. Savage creatures down there, or so I’m told. Chalder voxes… the odd wyvern or two… ever been face-to-face with a wyvern?”
“I have, actually,” I said, and then wondered why I’d risen to his bait. It wasn’t something I went around shouting about, though everyone at the Academy had known about the infamous wyvern incident.
Markos raised an eyebrow. “You’re lying.”
“Nope.”
“Prove it.”
Typical. Once centaurs fixated on something, they never let it drop—the phrase “stubborn as a mule” came to mind, not that I’d be saying that aloud unless I had the sudden desire to become part of the interior decorating. Centaurs weren’t easily freaked out, but maybe this would deter him from asking any more questions. I pushed up my shirtsleeve to show the tip of the claw mark scar across the back of my forearm then flipped it over to show the identical mark on the other side.
“Damn,” he said. “Well, that could have come from a wyvern… or a really vicious stinging nettle.”
We reached the first floor, sparing me from having to reply. File in hand, I approached the open door to Mr Clark’s office. Behind all the papers, I saw he was on the phone, so I laid the file down and backed out of the room just as someone else passed by.
“Hey—you’re new here? I’m Ellen.” She read my name badge. “Kay…Walker?”
“Just Kay,” I said.
“Nice to meet you, then, Kay,” said Ellen, brushing dark blond hair from her eyes and smiling at me. “Wait—someone was just talking about you. Aric Conner.”
I stared. “Aric Conner… from the Academy?”
“Yeah, he started this week, too.” She gave me a puzzled look. “You know him?”
Well enough that I’d like to string him up and use him for target practice. “We were in the same class. That’s all.”
Oh, I wished that was all. I’d thought he’d gone to join his sister at London’s West Office, and good riddance, but it seemed the universe wasn’t done screwing with me yet. If ever anyone deserved to be trampled by a wyvern on the first night shift, it was the bastard responsible for the incident which had almost got me and two other students killed. And he’d got away with it.
My communicator buzzed in my pocket.
“That’ll be the patrol rota,” said Ellen. “I’ll see you around, okay?”
“Sure thing,” I said, skimming down the touch-screen. The rota said I was up tonight. Now that was more like it.
And then I saw Markos’s name next to mine—and Aric’s.
Yeah. The universe definitely wasn’t done screwing with me.
3
Ada
Morning brought the smell of hot chocolate and a certainty that I’d slept through my shift. A glance at my alarm clock confirmed it. Ten thirty. My shift had started two hours ago.
Groaning, I rolled out of bed and gave my clock a shake. Oops, I’d forgotten to set it before I left for the Passages last night. Way to go, Ada.
I unplugged my phone from its charger, trying to think of an excuse I hadn’t already used to text my supervisor. I settled for, “Sorry, I thought I had an afternoon shift”, which would probably have got me fired from any other job. My boss was known for being lenient, even if reliability was not listed on my CV.
I dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved top, leaving my combat boots by the door. I pulled out my dagger from the sheath and put it back with the other knives I’d acquired, stacked on the bedside table. My room was little bigger than a cupboard, a problem when you hoarded the way I did. Books were stacked creatively on every surface, often with trophies from various martial arts classes balanced on top, and “souvenirs” Delta had given me from offworld. When I was twelve, I’d fetched a ladder and painted the ceiling with stars. Not representing the actual stars outside, but the worlds in the Multiverse. Like the doors in the Passages. Close, but distant. Untouchable.
The aroma of hot chocolate beckoned. My legs were stiff from yesterday, but I could still feel the electric tingle of magic in my blood. My bad mood cleared. The lingering aftereffect of
using magic meant I’d be able to use it on Earth, at least for a short time. Today was going to be good.
Nell was in the kitchen, washing up. She looked like an innocuous housewife from the back—and people had been known to regret making that assumption. “You must be Ada’s clone, seeing as she’s at work,” she said.
“Ha ha,” I said. “Guess I was more tired than I thought.”
Nell turned around. “Have they fired you yet?”
“They won’t fire me. They like me.” I gave her my most innocent smile.
Nell made a disparaging sound. “Can’t imagine why.”
“Nice to know you care. Is that hot chocolate I smell?”
“On the table. Don’t say I don’t spoil you.”
So it was, and also a stack of toast. I shoved half a slice in my mouth. “You’re amazing,” I said, my voice muffled.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. You’re lucky Jeth and Alber aren’t around.”
I swallowed the mouthful of toast. “Alber’s not up yet?”
“Hangover. His own fault.”
I grinned. “Hey, you let him go out.” Unlike me, my seventeen-year-old brother Alber fitted in fine with people his own age. He’d got a handle on the double life better than I did.
“And Jeth’s at work.”
Here we go. I could sense a work-related lecture coming a mile off. Jeth was two years older than me, twenty-three, had a ‘real’ job in IT, and was saving to move into his own place. In other words, exactly what Nell wanted me to do. Well, it wasn’t like there was an abundance of affordable flats in London, much less for someone young, single, broke, and who kept a collection of knives in their room. A conventional landlord would kick me out.
“Ada,” said Nell. “The real world won’t go away if you ignore it.”
I glanced up at the flickering light. “I’m not ignoring it. I’m helping people. Same as you.” Okay, I’d left my adult card behind today. But I was tired, and kind of ashamed at myself for sleeping through my shift. As well as being the first time I’d done that in a while, it was a reminder that a double life came with a price.