Force (An Alex Warren Novel)

by Logue, Shawna

  Peri said nothing, either not noticing the tension, or choosing not to comment on it. I was grateful for her silence. I followed her to Nic’s office. The door was shut, but it didn’t stop her. Morgan was rubbing her temples, staring out at nothing. Her glass eye looked like a milky pool, swirling in multiple directions. Nic was watching her, unblinking. Peri didn’t seem to notice their intensity. She skipped up to Nic, kissing him on his cheek. He smiled, bringing one finger to his lips while motioning at Morgan with his other hand. She got the message, and was motionless, not wanting to break Morgan’s concentration.

  I stood in the doorway, watching the scene before me, and couldn’t help but shake my head. A large part of me still hadn’t accepted the world I now belonged to. The three people in front of me were each centuries old. It’s no wonder everyone treated me as a child: I was one, compared to them at least.

  Morgan released her temples and I saw her glass eye once again had an iris. Her other eye focused on Nic. “What Dermot told you on the phone this morning was right. The storm was a trap. The second she released all that energy they knew where to find her. They’re there right now, ransacking the house.” She paused, and then added, “They’re going to destroy it.”

  Peri and Nic’s eyes widened as they heard the last part. “I’m glad we got everyone out,” Nic mumbled.

  While I recognized the tragedy that Connor’s was about to lose his house, I couldn’t help but wonder how no one else caught another vital piece of information.

  “Who’s they?” I asked. “I thought it was just Casper.”

  They all turned to me, and I got the impression they had forgotten I was there. Morgan was the first to speak.

  “There was someone else there, besides Casper, but I can’t tell you who that could be. As I was only looking for Casper, he was all I could see. If I knew who was with him I would be able to see them too, but I’m afraid I have no idea. It’s someone familiar though, I can tell you that. It’s an odd sensation, kind of like déjà vu.” She sighed, “I wish I could tell you more.”

  “Is it Paul?” I asked worriedly.

  “No, that much I know. I looked for Paul earlier this morning. He is on his way back here as we speak.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief at this news.

  “Nic,” Morgan continued, “They couldn’t find her, and so they are coming here. They’re going for the stone. We have to prepare for a fight.”

  “How much time?” he asked.

  “Two days. We won’t be fighting here, though. The area was unfamiliar. It was near the ocean, but the beach was flat sandstone.”

  “That sounds like Botanical Beach. That’s hours from here. Why would the battle take place so far away?”

  “I’m not sure, but there were a lot of people fighting, Nic. I don’t know how Casper could have managed such a large group of followers. He must have someone bigger with him. Someone with enough power to assemble such an army. I suspect that person will betray Casper, in the end. Who could possibly motivate enough people if their sole purpose was to help Casper? He can be so stupid sometimes. He only ever sees himself, not the big picture.” She sounded exasperated.

  “Can you see the outcome?”

  Her glass eye searched for something invisible in front of her, but she shook her head. “No. Something’s preventing me from seeing the battle. I’m being blocked. I can only see blurry shapes.”

  Nic nodded thoughtfully. He did not seem worried, though Peri was tense. He turned to his wife. “Peri, please go fill Connor in and get him to brief his people. There is little time to get ready.” She nodded, and flitted out the door.

  “Alexis, I need to ask you a favor, and after hearing about what happened to you last night, it’s not going to be an easy task for you.”

  I nodded, wondering what I could possibly do that he couldn’t.

  He turned to Morgan. “Can you excuse us?” She nodded and exited the room. It was polite of him to ask, but I figured that if she really wanted to know what was about to happen she could find out.

  He motioned for me to get the door, which I pulled shut gently and made my way over to him.

  “Please sit,” he motioned. I sat across from him in the chair vacated by Morgan. “Alex, you are aware of the stone’s location, no?”

  “In Bob, right?”

  He half-smiled at my casual mention of his name, but was immediately serious again. “Yes, in Bob. When the time comes, I will need to get the stone down. Normally, this would take a week or so to remove the enchantments, but we don’t have the time,” he spoke with unwavering calm. “I need you to release the bonds holding him up. You’re the only one who can see them, so it will be quicker and easier.”

  “That seems easy enough,” I shrugged.

  “Alexis,” he warned, “there is a lot of power there, and there is a great risk to you if we don’t do this properly. It is going to be very difficult. Plus, he’s going to be cranky when he wakes up.”

  For some reason, I wasn’t surprised at his words. “Of course he will be.” I shook my head. Of course the massive dinosaur skeleton in the lobby was alive. Why not?

  Nic raised an eyebrow at me. “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “Nic, at this point, I’m suspending what little grip on reality I have left and just going with it. It’s easier not to doubt everything. Doubting makes my head hurt.” He seemed amused by this. “When do we start?”

  “We have a couple days before we make a move. Once it’s free from its shield, Casper and whomever he’s with will be able to feel its energy almost instantly. Hopefully we can somehow draw them away from here, so that Connor’s team can stand up and fight. In the meantime, I’ll have to get the stone away from here as fast as possible. We won’t have much time.” I nodded. “Are you sure you can handle this?”

  “To be honest, no. But I don’t see any other choice. Besides, isn’t this why you hired me?” I winked.

  He smiled. “Indeed it is, but it is, and always will be, your choice.”

  I thought again at the implications of what he had asked, and also remembered all that had happened the last few days. “I’m in.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  As Nic went over what was involved with releasing Bob from his bonds, I couldn’t help but feel excited.

  “Why are you smiling so much?” Nic asked.

  “Since getting this job, this is the first time that I have felt useful. It’s kinda nice, you know, despite the situation.”

  He smiled, then turned serious, “Alex, you have to realize the gravity of the situation. Many things could go wrong. For example, when Ananta Boga wakes up, one of two things will happen. He’ll either erupt with anger, and take off with the stone, most likely destroying the building, or a large part of it, or he’ll pause long enough to listen to me before taking off and destroying the building. I suspect he’ll do the first, but I’m hoping for the second.”

  “Ananta Boga?”

  He laughed. “You didn’t think that Bob was actually his name? Ananta Boga is a bit of a mouthful though, so I’ve been calling him Bob while he’s in stasis. He doesn’t know any different.”

  I thought about all the times I had stared at Bob, reveling in the complexity of his frame. Ananta Boga, I thought to myself. The name rang a bell, like from something I had read in school, but I shrugged it off, having too many questions brewing to let myself get lost in thought.

  “So why store it in him in the first place if it’s so hard to get it out?” I asked.

  Nic huffed at me humourously. “Well, for one, I hadn’t meant for Ananta Boga to swallow it. That was an accident. But, I couldn’t have him running around with the stone in his belly, so I had several sorcerers put him in stasis. It was quite a task, believe me, and he was not happy. I suspect my actions have destroyed our friendship.”

  “Weren’t you worried the sorcerers would see the stone? Or rather that anyone would see it?”

  “The stone had been camouflaged for
some time, which is partly how he swallowed it. He just happened to open his mouth at the exact right place. It was somewhat amusing when we realized what had happened. Ananta didn’t quite know what was going on, just that something rattled when he moved. We told him we would get it out, which is how we tricked him into staying still long enough to bind him in place.”

  “How did regular people not notice him?”

  “You’d be surprised what the general public doesn’t see. He could stare someone right in the face and they would be oblivious.”

  “And he’s been here ever since?”

  “No, this was done many years ago, in Indonesia. Every time we move, we have to take him as apart. It takes months and a lot of effort. Thankfully, Peri and I have only had to move him twice, and we’ve become quite adept at putting all the pieces back together. He packs up quite nicely.”

  “But if he’s so easy to take apart, why not take the stone out the first time?”

  “We thought about that, but he seemed to be better than a vault when it came to disguising the stone’s location. You see, the stone, like force lines, emits an energy field. It draws people to it, if they go looking for it that is. A pleasant side effect of keeping the stone inside Ananta is his natural dampening field. The stone remains undetectable to everyone, at least, until you came along.”

  I shrugged. “I guess if I wasn’t so perceptive, none of this would be happening.”

  “Don’t start that,” he said, shaking his finger at me.

  I moved on. “So Bob could wake up and destroy the building, taking the stone with him. What other things could go wrong?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Earlier. You said “many things could go wrong”. It seems to me like that one was pretty major. What else could there be?”

  He sighed. “Alex, you will have drained a great deal of energy in a short span of time. You will need to release it somewhere, and I worry about the danger that puts you in.”

  “Do you think I will get burnt again?” I asked, rubbing the tender skin on my hand.

  “No, I believe that your burns were caused directly from Casper. When he overloaded, he transferred some of the power back to you, and it acted like an electric shock. Your hand took the most of the damage it because it was in direct contact with the force line.”

  “So I need to figure out how to control the power until I can release it safely?”

  “Yes. And I’m afraid I have no experience in that matter. I wish I could teach you somehow.”

  “I’ll be okay; it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out, now that I have some understanding of how this works.” I tried to sound reassuring, even though I didn’t believe it myself.

  “I just worry about you is all,” he said quietly, trailing off. He seemed so paternal, and I found myself wondering if he and Peri had ever had children. I suspected he thought of the people at Mobius as his children. I reached forward and gave him a hug, amused at how I was the one doing the comforting, and not the other way around.

  “Nic?” I said, as I pulled away from the hug. He did seem reassured by my actions, which helped. “I wouldn’t mind some time to think. Do you mind if I go?”

  “Of course not,” he smiled. “But please don’t leave the building,” he pleaded. “I had wards put up to keep people from getting in, but they do not stop people from getting out.”

  I nodded. “I’ll be in my office, so don’t worry.” I headed back to the elevator, my mind buzzing with both excitement and fear.

  Chapter Twenty

  The floor was buzzing with activity. My coworkers, who I had never paid much attention to before, all stood out now as I saw them through new eyes. Directly in front of me, a petite woman with delicate, translucent wings argued with a man twice her size. No, he wasn’t a man; he was a troll, perhaps? He was kind of lumpy, and his face looked a little bit Cro-Magnon. His hair was black and somewhat wiry. Overall he was quite intimidating, but it was quite clear that the little faerie woman was winning the argument as he shrank away from her shrill voice.

  As I looked around, I could see that most of my coworkers were clearly non-human. In one glance, I saw two more faeries, a satyr, three women who had all the appearance of traditional witches, and about a dozen pixie-like things flying about carrying messages from one cubicle to another. I found it amusing that I didn’t react to the scene; for some reason this all seemed normal.

  I headed back into my office and started pacing. My main concern was how on earth I was going to control the massive amount of energy I was going to have to drain from Bob. I shuddered as I thought about the split cedar tree and the mangled wreckage of the car. How could I prevent that from happening again? I sat down and drummed my fingers anxiously on my desk while I waited for my computer to power up, all the while laughing to myself. What did I expect to find on the internet? A “How To” guide on draining magical power outlets? I sighed, tilting back in my chair as the screen blinked to life. I didn’t bother checking my email; what could they possibly say?

  Opening the browser, I searched for “Force Lines” on a whim. Google was not cooperative. The first few results brought up all said the same thing: Lines of force are not real. They are imaginary lines, used to indicate the direction of a magnetic field etc. I sat there for a moment, hands hovering over the keyboard. Hesitating, I typed in “Ananta Boga” and the corresponding results reminded where I had heard the name before.

  I had taken an Art History elective at university where we studied Indonesian culture. Ananta Boga was the dragon believed to guard the land of the dead. He was depicted in many ancient paintings and sculpture, and apparently, now he hung in the lobby of Mobius.

  A dragon. Of course. That explained the wing-like protrusions that I was sure couldn’t support the weight of a dinosaur. Dragons were built for flight, so his bones must be more like a bird’s. I laughed out loud at the absurdity of my realizations, but at the same time, I knew I was right.

  I had to go see Bob again, now that I knew who or what he was. I jumped from my chair, racing to the elevator, unsure of what my hurry was. As the elevator sped me down to the lobby I watched the majestic frame zip past. I know who you are, I thought, feeling rather smug about figuring something out on my own for a change.

  No one was in the lobby when I arrived. The emptiness echoed every sound I made as I walked up to him. I looked up, clearly noticing the wings, wondering how I had so easily overlooked them before. I circled around him once, finishing in line with his gigantic head. I couldn’t help but see sadness echoing in the hollow sockets of his eyes.

  I felt an urge to reach out and touch him, though I was sure that I wasn’t supposed to. Looking around, I could see that the lobby was still empty. I glanced up to see if anyone was looking down from above, and as far as I could tell, there was no one. Slowly, I reached my hand as high as it would go, and very softly placed my palm against the tip of his nose.

  I heard myself whispering softly. “You’ll be free soon.” I hadn’t expected a response, so I was surprised when I felt the tiniest nudge against my hand. I couldn’t be sure if I had imagined it, and it was another minute before I spoke again.

  “Can you understand me?” I whispered skeptically. Again, a nudge. Reflexively I jerked my hand away, but after a moment, I put it back. I felt a bit silly but also intrigued.

  “Bo- er, Ananta Boga,” I began, wondering how one was to address a god, “my name is Alex.” A nudge. I took a deep breath and continued. “In a few days, I will release you from the bonds keeping you here.” I took a deep breath before continuing. “I just want to ask you, please don’t hurt us.” I waited for a response, but there was none, so I continued. “I know you have all the reason to hate Nic for what he did to you, and he probably acted quite irrationally at the time, but right now, someone is trying to get to the stone, the stone inside you. This will probably mean destroying you to get it.” I felt a small tremble under my hands, but I did not pause. “And if they can’t get the s
tone from you,” I added speaking quieter than before, “then they will come after me.” My voice was shaky as I spoke. “And they will kill me.” The dragon did not respond, so I took my hand away, feeling a bit foolish with myself.

  I stared at the beast for another minute before shaking my head and heading back to the elevator. Despite all the fantasy I was starting to believe, it was easy to convince myself that I had imagined Bob responding to me. I think in the past few days I had indulged my imagination to such a degree that it responded to anything it could. I forced myself not to look out at him as the elevator took me back to my office.

  It was a bit of a challenge to dodge the pixies as I walked from the elevator back to my office. They were fast, and it didn’t seem like they really watched where they were going. One collided with my chest, startling me. I watched it hover for a moment, stunned before she looked up and scowled at me, like it was my fault that she crashed. She didn’t give me time to react though as she was off in a flash a second later. I nearly collided with another one before I was safe at my desk. It seemed that everyone knew something big was going on, though I didn’t expect that they knew the full magnitude of the situation.

  My computer was still on when I sat down so I decided to check my neglected email. I was relieved when I saw there were only seven; after having to deal with the massive amount of messages on my first day I had feared there would be more. The first was the Wellness Department telling everyone that the gym had reopened, and had a small list reminding everyone of proper gym etiquette. I scanned it, then hit delete. There were two from the IT department, talking about upgrades and system maintenance. I deleted them both without reading them too deeply.

  Nic had sent me an email, and despite its brevity I could sense the sincerity in his text. He was apologetic at first about my being so displaced, and informed me that there would be a room set up for me on the thirteenth floor, and that there was a kitchen stocked with food on that floor as well. Peri would be buying me some more clothes, seeing as returning to Connor’s was not an option, and that Maria still thought I was in London.