by Jenn Stark
“She died because of me,” I snapped, yanking my hands away. “It doesn’t matter who she really was.” I missed the contact with him, but held on to my focus. “Viktor killed her and blew up my house to frighten me away. And I saw Llyr, aka the Council’s ancient dragon enemy of doom, hello, in the midst of that explosion. Is Viktor on the side of that thing? Because if so, shouldn’t that get him kicked off the Council?”
“Not necessarily,” Armaeus said, but his eyes fairly glowed as his mind grappled with the possibilities. “Llyr’s magic is primeval and strong, and his ability to enter this world is governed entirely by the veil that exists between the worlds. That veil is attuned to the power of the Connected community.”
I frowned. “Good power or bad?”
“Either. Hence the need for balance. If any one being or group becomes too strong, their reach truly would exceed their grasp.”
As I tried to understand the ramifications of that little bomb, Armaeus pressed his fingertips together, focusing. “If Viktor used significant psychic ability in the course of hurting you and your caretaker, the veil would have been weakened to the point that Llyr could have seen through, if he was looking. Or if someone else was.” He shook his head and turned abruptly to the computer screen, waving his hand over the surface. A full complement of missing persons posters gleamed to life. “These are the children that Viktor took, you believe?”
“Where did you get those?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “You created that from my mind?”
“Not necessary. Detective Rooks was gracious enough to take digital photographs of the signage that you recovered from the construction zone. We have direct feeds from all law enforcement agencies around the world. It comes in remarkably handy.” He gestured again to the images. “The children?”
“Those three I know for sure,” I said, pointing at the last set, then shifting direction to the earlier images. “Those three were taken in the weeks before, from other cities in the general region. I have to assume they were psychic too, but we didn’t know about them. I had nothing on them, Armaeus. Nothing.”
He shrugged. “Look back at the files. I suspect you had more than you believed, as you did with the Emperor. But you weren’t willing to see it.”
Irritation knifed through me again. I knew what I’d seen and what I hadn’t. “What about this?” I jabbed my finger at the age-progressed shots. “Those don’t look like computer simulations. Those look like real people in real settings. If that’s the case, it means they’re alive, right?”
Armaeus gazed dispassionately at the images. “Alive, possibly. But you have no idea what state they’re in. Or what dimension.”
I lifted my hand and squeezed the bridge of my nose, feeling the headache coming on. “Dimension. You seriously just said dimension. What, a secret island stronghold wouldn’t do it? Some supervillain hangout in the Andes, that’s not enough for you people?”
Armaeus’s smile was arctic. “Every mortal on this plane emits a light energy, Miss Wilde, via the images taken of them, the words written about them, items they have touched, places they have been. Even if I cannot fully identify the source location of that energy, I can sense its existence.” He tapped the surface of the table. “There are seven posters, of seven apparently living mortals. But only one of these image pairings emits any light energy. Yours. If those children still exist, it is not in this world.”
Before I could respond to that, he sat down next to me, swiveling toward the table. “I’ll have Simon look at the poster images and map them against facial identification software. He’ll be able to tell if they’re computer-generated simulations or actual teenagers.”
“Let’s assume that they are actual teenagers.” I drew in a deep breath. “I want them back, Armaeus. If they’re alive or if they’re dead. As long as Viktor hasn’t turned them into something that isn’t human, something that would be more horrible than them staying missing would be, I want them back from wherever he stuck them. How do I make that happen?”
His gaze shifted to me. “The purpose of the Council is not to interfere in the actions of man.”
“Viktor’s not a man. He’s one of you!” I erupted, smacking the table. The images on the surface started scrolling swiftly. “You weren’t policing him ten years ago and he took those children. I don’t know why, and I also don’t know if he’s taken anyone else. But he definitely took these six kids and you’re going to help me get them back. And then—only then—can we talk about your precious balance. Because the Council broke the balance. Not man. The Council has to make it right.”
Armaeus’s stare didn’t waver. “If Viktor has moved them to another dimension, that is a very ancient magic. Not something to be taken lightly.”
“I’ve taken nothing lightly since I’ve met you.” I jabbed my finger at the screen. “How do we get it done?”
He shook his head. “If the children are being held in another plane, you’ll need a particular set of weapons to release them. Weapons forged specifically for use in other dimensions, and created by a people who lived when the veil between the worlds did not exist. I don’t have those weapons here.”
Gather your weapons, the Valkyries had said. Now we were getting somewhere. “Fine.” I nodded. “Where can I get them?”
He flashed his hand over the screen once again, and a map of the world appeared. He pointed to an area between two continents, awash in a deep, unrelenting blue.
“For what you seek, Miss Wilde, you must go to Atlantis.”
Chapter Seven
“Atlantis,” I echoed flatly. “You say that like you expect me to believe you.”
“I do.” Armaeus expanded the computerized image, and it still looked like water. A lot of water. He shifted to topographical view, and it changed to water mixed in with a fair amount of mist.
“This isn’t really helping me, Armaeus. Is this place under the ocean’s surface? That’s going to make finding those weapons a little difficult.”
“Not exactly, no.” He zeroed in further, and there was yet more mist. I scowled at him.
“Is it floating in the air? I saw the city that showed up over China, the one they thought was proof of aliens or secret space technology or some combination of the two. Is that what we’re talking here?”
“Also not exactly. You’re not looking with your full senses, Miss Wilde.” He reached for my hand and covered it again with his, drawing me to my feet. He stood as well, turning me to face the table.
Where his fingers touched me, electricity arced out, making my heart race and stalling the breath in my lungs. I blinked, and my sight snarled up as well, everything around me becoming shooting beams of light instead of table, floor, and walls. I braced myself against the table, dizzy from the glare. “Um, you could simply have explained with your word, words.”
“This is far more effective,” he murmured, and he dropped his hands over my shoulders and down the length of my arms. Everything on my body that had the capacity to tingle lined up for tingling duty. He lifted my hands, and the surface of the table seemed to lift as well, the image moving off the static map to a three-dimensional whirl of spinning pixels.
“Whoa.”
“See and explore, Miss Wilde. This time, with all your senses.”
As he spoke the words next to my ear, I could feel the sudden pressure in my forehead, the whirring blink of my third eye awakening. It wasn’t a change in view so much as a richness of perspective, and I drew in a startled gasp as the scene before me filled in with robust colors and sharply defined lines. What I saw wasn’t an island so much as a platform with no defined base, a swirl of colors that could represent land or sea or air or maybe a bed of flame, but definitely something distinctly unsolid, dissolving and recreating itself anew.
Above that shifting base, however, was a city.
I’d read enough about the Platonic description of Atlantis to know I wasn’t the first person ever to see this vista. The city was built as a series of concentric ci
rcles leading to a central tower, and it was surrounded by rich farmlands, vineyards, and fields, the perfect utopian center. “That’s how it looks today? Or how it looked before all hell broke loose?”
“That would be before. Today the island is shrouded with what literature tells us is ‘impenetrable seas and currents.’ I can’t pierce the mist surrounding it, but it exists. It merely has been broken and rebroken, no stone remaining untouched.”
“You can’t…” I tried to bend my mind around the idea of something Armaeus couldn’t do. I’d seen him rebuild streets in a blink, blast power around the world with a thought. What truly lay under all that mist, I wondered, that was strong enough to hold even the Magician at bay?
Armaeus took his hands away, and the screen faded, but he didn’t move from his position, rendering me effectively trapped between his body and the table. I focused on the empty space where the image had been.
“So what’s the point in me going there, if the place has been blasted to bits?”
“Because though all has been broken, nothing has been removed, to our knowledge.” His words tumbled soft and warm across my neck. “Atlantis is forbidden to us.”
And suddenly, I got it. “You guys can’t go there, can you? You need a non-Council member to do it.” I broke free of the cage of his arms, turning to face him. “And you do want to go there. You’ve been sitting around waiting for someone to send, and that someone is me.”
He said nothing.
A new realization struck. “Are there truly weapons that can help me get those children back? Or are you simply manipulating me to get more trinkets for your collection?”
Armaeus regarded me with no emotion. “The weapons you seek should be within the central tower of Atlantis. In addition to assisting you, they will also prove instrumental in the larger war on magic. As I said, they were forged when the power that swept the world was far greater than it is today.”
“Uh-huh.” I crossed my arms and leaned against the table. “And how does that work, exactly?”
“Anything forged in Atlantis’s fires will aid us. The merest cup could nourish a multitude, if held by the right practitioner. The slightest blade or spear…”
Armaeus gestured again. Below us on the table, a more traditional schematic appeared with illustrations. There was a dagger, a hatchet, and several star-shaped blades.
I glanced back at him. “Please tell me I’m not supposed to actually use those. I’m a little rusty on my hatchet throwing.”
“The downfall of Atlantis was not that it grew beyond its military prowess, but that it bent and manipulated that prowess into magical form. Its wars were won not solely by might, but by the magic that powered its weapons. These pieces are all nondescript blades. In the hands of the Unconnected, they are simple tools. But in the hands of someone with psychic ability, they become far deadlier.” He tapped the screen. “A shield can protect an entire army, a dagger can serve as the focal point for laser rays. Seas can be split with a staff.”
“You’re scaring me here with the biblical overtones.”
“The greatest stories ever told often have their root in yet older stories, Miss Wilde. You more than most should know that.”
“Okay, but…when was Atlantis officially destroyed? How long ago?”
“That is a subject of much debate. The artifacts of the civilization resemble those of ancient Greece and Rome, but its date of destruction is considered far earlier. Far, far earlier. Too early to make sense of the artifacts we have recovered, artifacts which made their way to friendlier shores before Atlantis’s fall. Those pieces date to the golden age of antiquity, yet the records we have of Atlantis’s fall date well before that time. As if it was destroyed before it could have existed.”
I blinked at him, and he stood back to allow me space, but didn’t move far enough for me to break our intimate connection, not completely. “You’re saying it was shoved back in time somehow? That’s why it can’t be found? It was put back to a time when the island didn’t technically exist?”
He smiled. I’d seen Armaeus smile lots of times, but this one seemed…fiercer. Stronger. More dangerous.
“It is one of the more intriguing theories, I suspect you’ll agree?”
“You suspect correctly.” A curious buzzing sounded in my head, and I squinted at him. “Something’s different about you, isn’t it? Something important.”
Rather than answer me, Armaeus leaned close.
I stiffened. “What are you doing?”
“See with all your senses, Miss Wilde. Then tell me what is different.”
He bent down to kiss me, and it was the most natural thing in the world for me to match the movement. As his lips brushed mine, I sensed the undeniable surge of power filling me up, almost lifting me off my toes. He placed his hands on my lower back, drawing me into his body, and I let him do it too, which was so shocking that my senses pricked, telling me that something was wrong with this, something was off…and yet so, so on.
“What’s happening here?” I murmured against his lips. “Why am I not afraid of you?”
“You should never have feared me.” As he spoke, whorls of sensation skittered along my nerve endings. “Perhaps you’re simply realizing that.” Then he moved his mouth from my lips to trail a scorching line up to my ear, where his warm breath sent a surge of need through me, a mini whirlwind with nowhere to touch down. “You must prepare for your journey to Atlantis if you mean to go, Miss Wilde. The way is not an easy one. You will need to be strong.”
“My…what?”
Armaeus’s rumble of laughter sent shivers through me, and suddenly I couldn’t think of anything but taking my clothes off, right there in the conference room. There was none of the usual panic that accompanied his touch, no resistance, nothing but a knee-buckling want that made my mouth water and my blood burn with need. I sighed against him, allowing myself to sink into the magic of his body, so sure, so perfect, so right that it made me wonder why I’d ever felt anything other than the incredible need to be with this man, to allow myself to—
The doors of the penthouse conference room opened with a bang, and Armaeus was suddenly five feet away from me.
Literally, five feet away, looking cool and unmussed as the Fool of the Arcana Council burst into the room with a laptop and a pile of printouts bristling in his grasp.
“I dove in as soon as I got your message,” Simon said. He grinned at me as he strode forward. “How’d the hairpin work out for you in Germany?”
“Perfectly,” I said. I could do cool. I could do unmussed. “How about five more of them?”
“I can do that.” He beamed as he dumped his materials on the conference room and spread them out. Today he was wearing his usual knit cap, this one decorated with Day of the Dead skulls adorned with fat pink roses. Beneath, his wiry hair stuck out in all directions around his lean, pale face. He’d poured his slender body into a knit hoodie, ragged-hemmed jeans and Chucks, and he fairly bounced with energy. “Went low-tech to do the research on this one. It seemed…I don’t know, less rude. Given they’re kids and all.”
I recovered and looked down at where he was pointing. The posters had been recreated with exacting detail, all of them except mine. Six children stared at me from the table with their camera-happy faces. Beneath each, Simon dropped blown-up photographs of the age-progressed images.
“A few anomalies right off the bat. As you noticed, that’s not a computer-generated background behind these kids, and they haven’t been Photoshopped onto other images. These are all complete photos. And they’re photos, not computer graphics. The lighting shifts in each of them, and the quality is flawed in nonstandard areas, suggesting a snapshot. Their expressions match that theory as well.”
“So where are they?” I squinted, trying to get anything from the painted concrete wall behind the faces. “Someone simply lined them up and took their pictures? That’s a pretty basic wall. For all we know, they could be in a prison somewhere.”
> “Maybe, but if they are, they don’t know it.” Simon tapped keys on his laptop and hit return. The image on his screen reappeared on the table in front of us. It was the face of the youngest girl, Mary, reimagined as if she was Pinhead from Hellraiser. “The human face is a map of trackable muscle movements connected to emotional expression. Even faking a smile maps to a highly specific series of muscle movements and skin tone reactions that are significantly different from those affected by a natural smile.” He moved his cursor, and the pinpoints went away, leaving the smiling face of the older Mary Degnan, aged approximately seventeen. “This girl is smiling naturally. Her eyes are warm and engaging, her teeth are slightly mismatched, her face is turned slightly off center. She’s not posed. If I had to guess, I would say she was caught leaning against a wall, talking to her friends, and was called to attention for a quick camera shot.”
“She’s real, in other words,” I said.
“As real as can be.” He lined up two more photos as well. One of a boy, the other a girl, both of them tilted slightly toward the other. I hadn’t noticed that before. “The camera angle is such that the movement is cut off, but these two almost certainly had their arms over each other’s shoulders, looking out toward the camera as a unit. Though they aren’t looking at each other, their smiles mimic each other’s, implying either a romantic relationship or a longtime friendship. A sibling relationship could also be indicated, and though the subjects aren’t related, forced proximity for ten years could result in that kind of a bond.”
I winced. “Okay, this is getting a little Flowers in the Attic for me.”
“But notice again, there’s no shame—not a hint of sadness. Nor the scars of long-term depression, which you’d find in sallowness of skin, discoloration here—or here.” Simon pointed to the faces in quick succession. “These children all went through a devastating experience ten years ago, but the result of that experience appears to have been almost fully expunged from their features. It’s fascinating, really.”