The Gates of Troy (Lopez Time Book 3)

by Phillip S. Power

  “Yep. Human me showed me the way there about a year ago. Nice people, mostly. I was there tending bar about a week back, too. So, I can get there easily enough. Let me hop over and see about that? I don’t know how long it will take. Three minutes?”

  She stuck her tongue out.

  “That one runs hot and cold. Half the time you can leave instantly and the rest you end up staying for hours. They always have something going on there. If it isn’t a television show, it’s a protest or even people getting into fights with each other for our amusement. Great fun. I’m thinking of taking my next vacation there.” The odd thing was that his sweetheart seemed serious about it.

  The base, at least the one he thought that he was going to be headed to, was made of tan brick and held to a rather uninspired aesthetic. The buildings were squares or rectangles, and looked a lot like post office locations, to his eye. That didn't mean that the people there weren’t nice though. None of them had even batted an eyelash on hearing that he was an undead vampire that drank blood.

  It wasn’t even just disbelief, either. They’d accepted he was different, instantly. Then acted like only what he did actually mattered. Sure, that had mainly been tending bar, which he’d nailed, having mad drink pouring and mixing skills like he did. It had still been nice of them.

  Troy, feeling a little tentative, got up and moved toward the candle shop across the way. The reticence was real enough for him. It didn’t have anything to do with the people inside, either. Mages, of course. Candles and More was their embassy, after all. The ones he knew from there, Lisa mainly, since the others had moved on, quitting or taking jobs with their government, were nice enough as far as he’d ever learned. They were just people. Not even angry ones with a chip built into their shoulder like vampires had going on, in general.

  Thinking of that factor, he pasted a smile on his face. Then, remembering what Genesh had taught him, Troy used a bit of magic and the concept of happiness and peace to return that feeling to him. Trying to use it only on himself, and not project it at others. For the time being. It allowed him to smile and mean it, as he got into the shop.

  Which reeked.

  It wasn’t unclean but the chemical scents from the candles and essential oils from the incense tried to burn his nose as he was inundated with it. The inside was dark, compared to the rest of the mall. Light enough to see that there were shelves of candles there. Not all of that stank, thankfully. Using the old vampire survival trick as far as things like that went, Troy concentrated on a single vanilla candle on the shelf. One of their cheaper ones, that didn’t have as much sent to it at all. That one was mainly wax. There was a wick inside of it, which was made of something fake as well. Not hemp or anything like that.

  It used to be, a decade before, that walking into Candles and More would mean that either no one noticed you unless you yelled, or Zack met you and would try to sell you something. Now the kid behind the counter, who was in a nice button up shirt and slacks, smiled at him by reflex. He had light blond hair and rather prominent canine teeth. His face was very thin, and while he was rosy cheeked, he was light enough that a lot of people would think he was a vampire. Except that magical energy swirled around him. That was a surprise, actually.

  Most of the mages had that going on, unless they hid it on purpose. They weren’t that powerful, though. Half of them, for all they were born with the power to, potentially, do almost anything, didn’t really practice magic at all. They knew ten or so spells and that was it. The motivated ones would have something like twice that.

  Zack had pointed out to him that they were, in potential, all capable of becoming greater demons. At least in power levels. Just having that kind of ability wasn’t going to make them amoral or evil. That part was a choice. Really, it should have been for the demons, given that. It was like they just didn’t care to play by the same rules as everyone else in the world.

  Which was a real point. Those gods from the cage were, more or less, probably in the same boat. They played by their own rules, or ones so old that Troy didn’t know about them, which just weren’t going to work with the modern world very well. If they could, well, then he wasn’t going to need to do anything about them. If they were capable of that kind of insight and change then it wouldn’t be needed. Trying to take over the world was a problem.

  Getting a beach house in Florida simply wasn’t.

  In front of him, the boy, and he didn’t look old, looked over his head. Troy had just done the same thing to him, so it was fair. That’s what people did when they were looking at your aura. What his looked like, Troy didn't really know.

  From behind the counter, the boy nodded.

  “Hello! Can I help you with anything today? A…” The boy stopped, clearly trying to work out who and what Troy was. After a few seconds, there was a nod. “Are you the new Assistant Ambassador they’re sending in?”

  Troy had to use his intelligence enhancing magical concept in order to get the idea. Darla had been right on that score. So had the others. He really needed to figure out how to make that part of things permanent. For his part, there was almost no pause though.

  Which got him to smile. He wasn’t all that at magic yet but he was getting there. A few more decades of daily practice and he might even be good at it.

  “Nope. I’m from the vampire side of things? Troy Lopez. Line walker, among other things? Barb asked me to get Vince over to the IPB world for his date or visit. I wasn’t certain on that part of things. Still, I’m between jobs, so why not, right?”

  The boy looked troubled by the words for some reason.

  “I… You aren’t a mage? You’re swirling with magic. I… Sorry, that’s probably rude.” He closed down a bit then.

  Working in an embassy probably meant that being curious had to take a second seat to politeness. In fact, Troy knew that one, having once held a similar position across the mall. It had been frustrating from time to time, seeing strange things and not being able to simply ask what the hell was going on.

  Troy, still holding a happy feeling, told him. It wasn’t a secret or anything.

  “I’ve been working on magic for the last month or so. It’s useful, if you use it. You wouldn’t be Vince, would you?”

  “I am. Is it really okay, getting you to take me in? I have a message to pass but it’s from our leader, Eric Weise. I can’t really afford to pay for it. It’s kind of hard, having a girl in a different world like this.” He shook his head a bit sadly.

  As if to say that it would probably be what ended his relationship, instead of it being that he was young and early relationships didn’t normally last that long. Avery had basically ordered him to date that Bridget girl after all. That wasn’t actually a great sign, as for long term continuity that way.

  “Have you tried learning to line walk on your own? It’s hard to learn but you go into the void all the time, so that shouldn’t be scary for you. I mean, you travel with Barb, so you can obviously handle being inside. She can take years to get things done.”

  The idea hit him then, that the power the kid was showing probably had to do with that factor. If he’d been going into the void for five years at a time, two or three times a week for nearly a year, the kid wasn’t one really. Probably being at least five hundred or so. Most of that time spent in meditation. Inside of nothingness.

  Troy smiled then.

  “We’ll do that now? Even if you tried before and failed, I can teach you how to do it. Line walking isn’t hard for a person like you. Honestly, I bet you can do it today. I’ll bet you…” He thought for a moment, then smiled. “No, I’ll give you one million dollars, if you can get to your date on time on your own. One million dollars. That isn’t a joke or anything. I can have that sent to you within a week. More, I’ll show you how to get it. You can’t beat that kind of a prize, can you?” He tried to seem silly on the last bit.

  After all, it wasn’t a real risk for him. Vince either did it, which he could, most likely, or he didn’t.
Troy won either way. Seriously, the idea of taking people inside for a few years at a time, over and again, had come up before. No one had done it, other than Barb. That one might not have been on purpose, just being how Barb did things but it still should work.

  “I don’t know. It sounds… Impossible really.”

  Troy played that one off instantly. Self-doubt was a killer for a lot of things. You didn't try if you figured that failure was the only real option.

  “For a mage? I doubt that. Most of you can learn to do this. It’s in your nature. Really, it’s one of the reasons we hide that from your people. So keep that quiet for a bit? That way you can be the cool new line walking mage for this world. When are we going?” He was willing to just take the kid that night.

  He hadn’t planned on learning to line walk that day, at a guess.

  “Now? Let me…” The kid walked out from behind the counter. “Lisa? I’m headed out now. Troy Lopez is going to teach me to be a line walker, so I expect a raise when we get back.”

  There was a bit of a clatter then, and a smiling face popped out from behind the wall, through the open door they were headed for.

  “Hey, Troy. What’s this now? We finally get our own line walker here? Is that so you can get out of taking us around next Saturday?”

  That one got a nod, since the woman was being friendly. They weren’t close really. They’d met though and knew each other, after a fashion.

  “Exactly. It’s a bit shameful that you haven’t learned how to do it already, Lisa. We’re planning to go around you on this one and set our guy here up with extra powers so that he can take over. Also, so he can get to his dates on time. It’s mainly about the dates.” Then he winked, feeling like he wanted to hug the mage woman. Not in a sexy way either. He was just overwhelmed by a sense of being loving.

  Moving forward, he did it.

  Lisa chuckled a bit but did it back. Not scared or worried about it. Probably because his field passed to her on contact, making her happier. She seemed fine at the moment that way. It hadn’t always been like that.

  “Well, darn. If Vince learns to do that kind of thing, he’ll abandon me and I’ll be stuck here alone again.”

  Troy shook his head.

  “Nope. He’s in for the long haul here. Right, Vince? We’re going to get him in real magic lessons. He has the concentration needed to learn that too. Come on… Hey, what’s your last name?” Troy let the mage lady go. She didn’t look ancient but was about fifty or so. Her face had some lines on it, which was ridiculous, given her natural abilities.

  Still, him seeing that didn't mean she was willing to put in the work needed. Most weren’t going to be.

  “Riddenhour, sir.” The blond boy, his eyes a nice blue, seemed extra polite, suddenly.

  “Troy. I’m calling you Vince, after all. Anyway, you’ve done this before, so come on? We’ll go through the node. This time. Where we’re going, we don’t need nodes.”

  Lisa laughed, clearly thinking that it was a joke, even if that didn’t make a lot of sense. True, most people that tried line walking failed but they hadn’t spent centuries in the void already. That was the hard part for most people. Yes, some couldn’t figure out how to open up space using focus. Others could do that but not find the right place to come out, making the ability useless.

  The big stopping point was going nuts in the nothingness. This kid was resistant to that. The rest was all about learning the right skills as best he could.

  “When we get inside, I’ll wrap myself around you. Keep pulling yourself in, as you meditate. When you get that for a few years in a row without messing up too much, I’ll let you go. Then, when you can do that part, I’ll walk you through opening up nodes. It isn’t hard. You just have to want the specific place and focus on it hard enough. That will be coming back here, since home is the easiest thing to find. Then we’ll go to the IPB world, with you taking me in. Easy. One million dollars. Fifteen minutes external time. Ready?” He grinned. After all, it was different than what anyone else had ever done.

  “Probably not? I’ll try?”

  “Good enough. Come on, my new little buddy.”

  Taking the boy by his thin arm, he went into the void with him. Troy expected him to fail, to be honest. That or at least struggle to hold himself together. The thing was, he clearly knew how to do that part already. Troy still waited for ten years but the boy did it perfectly. When he was let go, to fend for himself, there was no sense of struggling at all.

  Then, moving in and bumping his essence into the other man, Troy passed the data about what he had planned. As a concept. It was how you communicated there. That part took some time for Vince to get. About a decade. Once he had it, Troy used raw information to show him the way out and how to do it.

  Ending up back in Candles and More. In their decent and tidy back room. It had a silver inlay in the floor, which was imbued with magical power. That was meant to keep unwanted things out. The problem was that it was full of holes that anyone able to walk the lines would just be able to move around without issue.

  Vince stepped out right behind him. Almost on top of him, earning a smile.

  “Not bad. Good. Now we’re going on tour, I’ll think of a place to go and touch your arm to pass it along. We’ll do five, then… Head to your date. We need to hurry. You have something like thirteen real world minutes left to win that money.” Technically he was already getting it.

  Not that it would be needed, now.

  The kid, who was a great guy really, just did it. There was a bit of fumbling on picking up locations, since he needed to learn to be more sensitive to basic concepts. That was, he thought, the real issue. The better you were at connecting with the subconscious mind, the easier line travel, and magic, were. That he might be kind of good at things like that personally hadn’t really occurred to him before.

  When they got to the IPB base, they came out in a small red box. It was a mobile node point, created by magic, then given a physical form. Really, it was an advanced bridge, that allowed travel to thousands of other places, with the push of a button. Well, a glowing mark on the back wall.

  The front of it opened, with a tap on a small star by the left side. That made the red wall vanish instantly. It didn’t fade or anything like that. Vince grabbed his arm and pulled him along, which was friendlier than they’d been a few minutes before.

  Then, they’d been in the void with each other for a long time. Their information had been held close together for decades, meaning they were either lovers or family now. Close friends at the very least. The contact didn’t even bug him. Which probably meant that Barb felt even closer to the guy. She hadn’t dated him exclusively or anything but it was clear that Vince had gotten his share of hugs and cuddles from her.

  It could have left him feeling jealous but it didn’t. It made sense to him, now. He’d never done that kind of thing with another person. Teaching them to line walk. It wasn’t that hard, though he’d clearly cherry picked the easy one for his first time. He’d come pre-trained in a lot of what was needed.

  The rest of it, holding concepts and things like that would probably be best trained first, if possible. Doing it in the void, when you didn't have a choice did lend toward a certain urgency for the whole thing but it also hampered at least some of the people that otherwise might have made the leap and become walkers in their own right. Really, they needed a training and conditioning program for that kind of thing, instead of just dumping people inside of nothingness like they had been.

  They were going around the building, his arm still being held, even if they were both already going in the same direction. Troy had come back into place with a sense of happiness in place, though he wasn’t using actual magic for it at the moment. Just a very clear concept of what he wanted to feel like.

  “You can let go now. I won’t run. Honest.”

  Vincent, a bit abstractly, looked at his hand, then gently let go of it. There was no apology. People often tended to be a bi
t out of it the first few times after a long stay in the void. Twenty or thirty years wasn’t that long, so there was an actual smile, after a moment.

  “Things look funny. Swirling energies all over the place. It’s interesting. A little distracting. Except I don’t feel that way. Was this always here?”

  “Yep. You always had the ability to see it, too. Now it’s just something that you’re bothering to notice. I imagine that you would have if you’d taken LSD, as well. Not that I recommend that now. It would either do nothing or end up with space and time being melted all around you. That can’t be a good plan, you know?”

  “Right. Anyway, we should check in. Ms. Turner, the Director here, she likes for everyone to sign in and meet with her, if possible. It… Seems to be about noon? Time is a little different here than back home. Not a lot. I think they run about two percent faster than we do? You only notice it if you have a watch. Over time things get out of phase then kind of go back in, slowly.”

  Troy smiled, meaning it.

  After all, it had been a better day than he’d figured on having, after the night before.

  Chapter nine

  The trip into the office, the command center, according the sign over the front door to the place, didn’t take that long. The whole thing felt official, and probably a bit military, not that Troy was up on things like that. He’d never served or even really considered it. Oddly enough, it hadn’t really been something anyone had ever offered him, when he was alive. Other kids in high school had been approached to join up, but not him, for some reason.

  Unlike the last time he’d met these people, at a party where he was tending bar and they were mainly drinking, the clothing was staid and a bit boring to look at. He was still in a nice suit, made by his fiancée, Avery. That part felt funny to think still. She was nice but it seemed like cheating to him, having a whole Barb on the side before they even started anything. That was a known thing though, and not him being bad. Focusing for a bit, he killed off the feelings around it. He was playing by human rules, not those that vampires had to live by. That needed to stop.