by K. Gorman
By the way he studied her, she guessed he wasn’t buying that last part of her story.
In a movement that was both slow and sure, his right hand reached behind him and fiddled with something at his back.
When it came back into sight, the knife he held turned its blade out and locked with a subtle click that set her nerves on edge.
“Oh, holy shit—” She scrambled back, ignoring her scraped hands, eyes widening at the blade even as she registered his action—and the way he hadn’t needed to pull the blade out.
Gravity knife. Those are illegal.
“Where is the Fire girl?” he asked. “Where is she going? Tell me, and I won’t hurt you.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, I don’t know! Seriously! She went into the mall, last I saw, was going to run through the tunnels in there or something.” Her shoulder bumped into the wall behind her, and she hissed with pain as her scraped hands found something wet on the ground, never taking her eyes off him.
She couldn’t outrun him. Even if she could, she’d have to scramble up before she could sprint. In the position she was in now, she wouldn’t make it two steps before he’d shove her down again—and this time, he had a knife.
He took a step forward, and she flinched.
“Seriously! I don’t know! I think she was headed back to the Fire Mage’s place.”
Hopefully, Meese would be far enough away that he couldn’t touch her. Hopefully, she’d found safety.
Even if she hadn’t, she expected that this guy’s chances of finding her were next to zero. She’d seen that mall—it was enormous. And Chris, Roger, and Meese had all mentioned the tunnels that led away from it.
Unfortunately, that didn’t bode well for her current situation. This man wasn’t stupid. If the mall really was as enormous as she thought, and if the tunnels really were as warren-like as she imagined, then he knew the odds.
The pause lengthened between them.
Then, from behind her, came a series of sprinting footsteps. The light fluctuated. He jerked his head up, locked his eyes on whoever was coming over, then snapped back with a step to brace himself, knife rising to meet the attacker.
A large man bowled into him, sending them both scuffling down the alley.
Robin only caught a brief glance at the newcomer. Between one breath and the next, she had twisted back on her feet and was sprinting away.
But she didn’t go far. Only to the next block. There, she put her shoulder to the wall and watched.
The man with the knife was not winning. In fact, the knife lay in the middle of the alley, visible only because its black handle made a handy silhouette that her eye caught against the gray concrete, and he was pinned to the wall, engaged in a strength hold with the other man whose face she could not see.
After a moment, they broke apart with a pair of grunts. The man who’d had the knife took a swing, and missed. The second man danced out of range, waited a beat as the knife man moved off-balance, and hammered his arms hard into his head and neck.
Knife Man staggered away.
Robin saw him stop, look back, then keep going.
He vanished out of sight a second later, ducking down one of the alleyways with a hitch in his stride that hadn’t been there when he’d been chasing her.
She stared at the newcomer, who was just coming out of fighting stance, his hands lowering as he sank back off the balls of his feet.
When he turned her way, she staggered back, trailing her fingers on the building beside her to keep her balance.
He stopped and lifted his hands, palms flat toward her in a calming gesture. “Whoa, whoa, hang on—are you Robin Smith?”
The muscles of her jaw locked as she registered his words. Okay, so he knows my last name.
“And if I am?” she asked.
That seemed to make him relax. He lowered his hands, dropping his shoulders, too. “My name is Ian. Roger asked me to find you. You’re Mieshka Renaud’s friend, right?”
“Maybe.” Robin paused, then cleared her throat. “Is she okay?”
Ian pulled out a phone and started poking at its screen. “No. She’s been abducted. We’re trying to find her.”
Abducted? Does that mean she didn’t get away? She started forward. “There was this huge mob after us. I could maybe describe some of them.”
He frowned up at her. Then, comprehension flooded over his face. “Ah. You haven’t heard. She got away from them. She was taken with the Fire Mage, likely by the same people who took the other two.”
“I… what?” Robin stuttered, thoughts flicking through her head too fast to process. “She got away, and then got grabbed?”
“Yep.”
“By people who could take out three Mages?”
“Yep.” After giving her a quick glance-over, he put his phone away and started forward. “They took the crystals, too, so I’m pretty sure the shield is down.”
Robin watched him approach, a dull realization coming over her. “My mom is above-ground.”
“As is most of the city.”
As he drew even with her, he paused, one hand reaching out hesitantly. When she didn’t react, he reached for her closest hand, the movement slow and steady, and tilted it over to examine the wound.
He clicked his tongue. “Not too bad. Someone can patch you up once we get back.”
She pulled her hand away from him, hiding the blood. “I’m fine. Just give me some alcohol, and I’ll be good.”
He gave her a sideways look.
“Rubbing alcohol,” she said, starting up the alleyway—he’d been leaning this way, so she assumed it was the right way. Besides, the lights above were leading that way. “Jesus. Let’s go.”
Chapter 26
Prison boxes were not fun. Specifically made to capture powerful, rogue Mages—such as himself—they were something Aiden had hoped had been left with his old world.
So… who the fuck had thought to bring one over?
That question was easy, at least. The same smart, power-hungry people that most of Lür’s Bildanese people, including him, had been raised as—ones who’d seen the advantages and opportunities in the Transition’s world-ending chaos.
He should have thought of it himself.
But then, there hadn’t been much time to prepare. A side-trip to the police station had not popped into his mind. Not when he’d been busier with other, more necessary things.
Technically, Michael had been right when he’d first caught sight of the crystals in Aiden’s possession. They had been stolen.
So, perhaps, it was a fitting twist of Fate that landed him in the very criminal storage box they would have used on him on Lür.
He didn’t feel. He didn’t see, didn’t smell, didn’t hear. The darkness of his surroundings came, he remembered, from the color of the box’s casing. The same depthless black of his ship and every other piece of Lost Technology.
He was ash and air. The box had taken his Element and consumed him with it. Then, it had condensed him into the spatial paradox inside the box and closed the lid.
It was very neat.
It was a nightmare.
How long had he been here? Time was impossible to tell in this place. It consumed itself, and yet, it was infinite. An Ouroboros Construct, they’d called it, after the snake that ate its own tail, though Sophia had a different name for it, and a different fable to equate it to.
Aiden felt sick.
Clunk.
The sound came from everywhere. He heard it as if through water.
Had someone dropped the thing? Even then, he shouldn’t have felt—
Everything tipped. Light and fire blazed around him. Briefly.
He glimpsed a small black room before falling gracelessly to the hard stone floor. Pain smashed up his elbow and hip, and his back wrenched. The fire guttered out beside him, and a hiss sounded to his left. Aiden looked up in time to see a square-shaped hole slide closed in the wall.
He fought his nausea and won. Barely. The
stone floor felt warm under his palms. Muggy air stuck on to his tongue.
And, on second glance, he realized that he wasn’t alone.
“Please tell me you have a plan.”
He craned his neck back. Sophia stood behind him, along with Michael, and, at his current perspective, a toilet. Against the black walls, the pale porcelain contrasted enough to make him dizzy again.
He fought another wave of nausea, sorting out his senses. After being absent from them, they had come back out of order. His head throbbed.
“Nice to see you, too,” he said.
“Plan?” Sophia’s boot tapped.
He pushed himself up further, sliding his butt under him. His fingers felt along the floor, his attention drawn to its warmth.
His heart shrank.
“Is this—?”
“Pre-exposed Maanai,” Sophia said. “Plan?”
She looked down on him, her usually neat hair scraggly and unkempt. A sheen of sweat and oil covered her face. Red shot through her eyes.
Then, her words registered in his head: Maanai. Pre-exposed. His head hurt more.
“You haven’t been throwing magic at it, have you?”
“We’re not stupid.”
All Lost Technology was, technically, made from Maanai. Maanai was a hybrid stone that could channel magic. If exposed to certain strains of energy, it became programmable and immune to mutation—perfect for gadgets such as magic detectors and prison boxes. Even the ships were made from it.
Raw Maanai was trouble. Throw enough magic at it, and it grew an appetite.
The more it ate, the more it grew. The more it grew, the hungrier it became.
Given enough time, it could grow hungry enough to eat a world.
That was why the Mages had left their last one.
“Lovely,” he said.
“Plan?” she asked.
She was not in a good mood, was she? Aiden put a hand to his head, rubbing his scalp. “The plan was for my apprentice to absorb the Phoenix crystal and track the other two.”
“Apprentice?”
Michael, this time. Grizzled stubble roughened his chin and neck. Dark bags under his eyes reflected the ghosts that haunted his grief. He had been on the frontlines when the Maanai had mutated.
“Yeah. New kid, funny magic. Give her a power source, and she can channel it.”
“And you’re giving her Lenn’s Phoenix?” Michael scowled.
Lenn Glavinstone had been Aiden’s thesis advisor—a doctor of crystal-energy relations—and had grown the crystals as an experiment. When the mutated Maanai had come knocking, he’d taken his expertise to the front with him.
Like many others, Lenn was dead.
“Lenn won’t mind.” Aiden shrugged. “And the bird likes her.”
Sophia sighed. “And the shield?”
Aiden winced.
“Down. Unless they didn’t take the crystal from the engine. Maybe they forgot.”
“We’re doomed.”
Ignoring the warmth rising from the black stone, Aiden laid his head against the wall. The light grating above glared past his eyelids.
Maybe he’d messed up. Probably, he should have transferred immediately—ignored the calculations and safeguards his engine had been computing and simply risked going to the ship. She could have handled it. Today had proven how tough she was.
He opened his eyes again. No changing it now. What was done was done. Spots colored his vision, making him squint in an attempt to clear it, and he stifled a yawn.
At least, he could get some sleep in here.
Michael grumbled to himself. Aiden ignored him, shifting his numb butt. He glanced between the toilet, the sink, the Mages, and the conspicuously blank black space in the wall where the hole had disappeared, and his stomach rumbled loud enough for the room to hear.
“So,” he said. “When’s dinner?”
Chapter 27
The elevator opened with a distinguished whir, and Mieshka squinted her eyes against the glare of light that came in. Outside, clean white walls met with an even cleaner white floor, all illuminated by the kind of sterile, all-spectrum lighting she’d seen in expensive medical clinics and cosmetics stores. Black baseboards separated the two, giving the entire place an almost comic-book-like framing effect at the bottom of every wall and around every doorframe.
According to the elevator, this was Basement Level Three.
Gerard pushed a finger into her shoulder. She limped forward, handcuffs clicking with each step.
As the cool air engulfed her, the anger she’d felt guttered into a cold, subservient fear.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Thought I’d toss you with the other three. Any more of you magic freaks running around?”
Freaks. Nice. But if he was referring to the Mages, tossing her in with them at least meant that he had to open a door. Theoretically, that would give the Mages a chance to fight back.
But she doubted that had any chance of happening. They appeared to have this all figured out, and since neither Michael nor Sophia had managed to escape their prison, they must have a good Mage containment system.
Either that, or they were keeping them incapacitated.
She repressed a shiver.
“Oh, tons.” An image of Roger appeared in the forefront of her mind.
She wished he was here. Or that, at some point, Gerard would run into him. Or his knife. She wasn’t doing such a good job of representing the ‘magic freaks.’
To be fair, she’d only been at it for a day.
“I suppose they’re going to bomb us, too?”
She could feel Gerard’s sneer looking down at her, giving her a squirming feeling in the middle of her back.
She straightened her shoulders and tilted her head up. “Of course.”
Gerard wasn’t even looking at her. Instead, he’d pulled out his phone.
Guess the Swarzgard military had a loose social media policy.
She rubbed the back of her hand with her other thumb, trying to get rid of the tingle that occasionally prickled across it. She hadn’t had a chance to twist around enough to look at it since she’d been in the office, but she guessed that the telepath was wandering around, triggering it occasionally—either that, or it was psychosomatic. Even if she was channeling the telepath, she doubted she could do much at all with his powers. She had no idea how to use them, first of all. The fire had, at least, been straightforward and visible. Intuitive, even, as if a part of her had already been prepared for it.
She couldn’t even wrap her head around the telepath’s powers. What had Aiden said? That they could skim thoughts and create illusions only visible to a select person? With her luck, she’d probably just make herself hallucinate.
She frowned.
It would be nice to see Mom again.
Without looking up from his phone, Gerard guided her around the next corner, his hand anchored to her right shoulder. Another hallway stretched ahead of her, the same white and black as before.
She let out a slow breath.
Yeah, there’d be no escaping this, no matter how incredible or lucky Aiden thought she was.
But, just as the thought passed through her mind, movement caught her eye up the hall—a shadow that shouldn’t be there.
She gulped back a quick breath.
Speak of the Devil, and he shall come.
Roger’s clothes had somehow blended in with the black trim near the door on the corner, with the effect that it looked like he’d simply manifested out of it. She stuttered to a stop as a knife flashed in his hand, her eyes widening. He caught her gaze and gave his head a jerk, telling her to move.
She lunged to the right, staggering into the other wall with her shoulder as she overbalanced. The knife flew past.
Krsch!
Warmth sprayed onto her cheek. She flinched and closed her eyes, locking her jaw shut—Oh, God, that’s blood, isn’t it? The toe of her shoe caught on the floor, and she stumbled acro
ss the next step.
Gerard’s phone clattered to the ground. She held her breath as his body fell, flinching at the wet-sounding grunt that came a half-second later.
As the gurgle turned into silence and his body settled behind her, she kept her eyes squeezed tight. In her head, she counted, focusing on the numbers.
At ten, she let her breath tremble out of her. Slowly, she opened her eyes and turned, surveying Gerard’s half-hunched corpse on the floor. His eyes were open and staring, but unfocused. Not glassy—not yet—but not conscious anymore. Roger’s knife had buried itself in his neck, and blood had shot an admirable distance from his body, which explained how she’d managed to get a spray of it.
The human carotid artery had enough pressure to spray an incredible distance, depending on the cut. Vaguely, an image of her biology teacher in Terremain floated into her mind, his head angled to the side, hand jerking out from his neck in demonstration.
She stared down at Gerard’s corpse.
What the actual fuck?
“Hello, Mieshka.”
She spun, her handcuffs hitting the wall with a clunk that sent a bite of pain through her wrists, and stared at the man approaching her from up the hall.
“Roger?”
This can’t be real. This can’t be fucking real. She couldn’t tell if her hand was still tingling, but this had to be an illusion. No fucking way this could be real.
Even if, by some miracle on high, Roger had managed to find the building that had collected his boss and murder his way into it when neither Sophia nor Aiden had been able to find it, it had been—what, an hour? Less than that?—since she and Aiden had been taken. Theoretically closer to two and a half since she’d last set eyes on Roger.
No way he was actually here.
Which begged the question—what the hell were they putting her in a murder-spree illusion for?
And, if the telepath were indeed responsible for this, why wasn’t he now picking up the doubt in her mind? Aiden said they were able to skim memories and stuff.