A Despair of Demons (Travelers, Book 1)

by Cassy Campbell

  “The weapons! They’re gone!” the black-haired man cried.

  Connor clucked his tongue. “Man, I hate it when that happens.”

  The dark-haired woman rounded on them with a snarl. “Explain.”

  Jordan said, “We told you, we’re Travelers. We’re not from this world. Without physical contact, our belongings go back where they came from.”

  She stared suspiciously. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Why would we warn you that our weapons were useless to you?” Connor asked. “You already outnumber us, and you haven’t been very hospitable so far.”

  “Hmph.” The woman turned and continued forward, obviously following a route she knew well, since there weren’t any markings on the walls.

  “What is this place? Why are these tunnels here?” Liv asked.

  “They were originally connections between this building and others, so the owner could move in secret from his business offices to his gambling house to his mistress’s apartment. There is also storage. We’ve converted them into our own living space.”

  “Why?” Liv asked.

  “Where is your world?” the woman countered.

  “It’s kind of…alongside this one.”

  “Then perhaps you will understand what happened here.”

  “What did happen here?” Jordan asked.

  “We live underground because we don’t want the demons to find us. If they think no one is left, perhaps they will stop coming to take us away.”

  Liv asked, “How can they take you away? You have to be a Traveler to cross into another world. Or do you mean they’re taking you to another place in this world?”

  “It’s just ahead.” The woman pointed to where light spilled into the corridor.

  They followed her into an open area where several tunnels converged. Groups of people lounged against the walls and on the floor, finishing a meal of bread and soup. Occasionally, someone entered or left through one of the other tunnels, but they only gave the Travelers semi-curious looks. A lot of them huddled with an air of confusion or disbelief, and some wore expressions of shock, as if they thought—or hoped—they were dreaming. They reminded Liv of the survivors in Ganja.

  Their guide sat and invited them to do the same. When they were seated in a circle with the residents arranged on the outside, the woman began to talk.

  “About two cycles ago, we opened a Way into a parallel universe. We thought we were wonderful geniuses. We had been trying to find any means to increase our wealth, our knowledge, our country’s prosperity.

  “I was head of the project, and I worked tirelessly to make those dreams reality; we would gain access to another world and all of its resources would be our own. Perhaps there is an All Mighty Power, because we succeeded, Father help us.

  “The Way we opened led into the world of the demons.”

  Liv glanced at Jordan—his dismay mirrored her own. Connor wore his usual poker face, although the set of his mouth was particularly grim, his eyes riveted on the dark-skinned woman.

  “Instead of allowing us to rape the world we opened, the Way allowed our world to be raped by the demons. It is poetic justice, n’est-ce pas? We fought them with all our weapons and technology, but with a ready-made crossing, they came in droves like locusts. We were defenseless. They took people, food, machines, and we have not seen them since. They come once or twice per moon, and we live in terror of being murdered, stolen, and eaten by the monsters of our nightmares.”

  “Why didn’t you just close the Way?” Connor asked.

  “Do you think we haven’t tried?” She turned on Connor with scorn and despair etched into every line of her face. “We have tried everything! Unsuccessfully. We hide here now because the demons don’t fit into the tunnel with the ladder, and the other openings are sealed by fallen buildings. But we aren’t safe. We are being exterminated.”

  Chapter 12

  Jordan broke the silence. He turned to Liv with a plea in his eyes. “Could you help them?”

  At the moment, she wanted nothing more. She glanced at Connor, who gave silent permission. She turned to the dark-skinned woman. “What’s your name?”

  “Polly. I used to be Dr. Dupont, but we’re more informal now.”

  “Polly, I’m Liv.”

  “I remember.”

  “I’m an expert on parallel worlds. I may be able to help. You have notes, research logs, data on what your team did to open the portal?”

  The woman nodded, a grudging look of hope on her face. “They are at the Institute. You may inspect them there, but first, you may see the Way, if you wish.”

  Liv was incredibly curious about what the rip between worlds looked like. Plus, a visual might help her grasp what they had actually done, and hopefully give her some ideas on how to fix it. “I think I should.”

  “Mallet,” Polly said, gesturing imperiously. A young man with curly auburn hair stepped forward. Polly continued, “This is my senior assistant. He knows the answers to the questions you will have. He will take you to the Way.”

  Mallet smiled brightly. “Shall we go then?”

  The team and Mallet headed back to the exit tunnel. Connor took point up the ladder. He called “Clear” as he emerged into the room above.

  Liv followed Mallet out, and when Jordan emerged through the trap door, Mallet turned and shut it carefully, making sure it was sealed. He led them to the doorway of the room where he flicked a hidden switch. A hum of machinery proved to be a concealed fan; dust blew up from the floor and swirled around the room. Mallet flicked the switch back off, and the dust slowly settled.

  “Camouflage,” he explained. He continued casually, “How did you find our trapdoor?”

  Connor glanced at Jordan. “Some of us are just that good.”

  Jordan beamed at the rare compliment.

  Mallet nodded good-naturedly. “This way.”

  They passed through the front door, hurried down the steps, and followed Mallet into the street.

  “Where are we heading?” Connor asked.

  “To the Test Center. That’s where all the labs are. And where the Way materialized.”

  “Where exactly is it? I need to call the rest of my team.”

  “How many of you are here?”

  “Six.”

  Mallet recited nearby landmarks, and Connor clicked his radio. “Trent, come in.”

  “Where the hell have you been?” Ben sounded as mad as Liv had ever heard him. “We’ve been trying to raise you for the last twenty minutes.”

  “It’s a long story,” Connor answered. “Have you found anything?”

  “Uh, yeah. I don’t think I want to discuss it on the air. You?”

  “Yeah, we’ll fill you in when we meet you at the Test Center.” He gave Ben the directions that Mallet had given him.

  “Connor, you just described our location.”

  “Really. Then we’ll meet you there.”

  “Out.”

  Connor turned to Mallet. “When was the last time the demons came through?”

  “About a week ago. They shouldn’t be back for another week or two. They’ve been raiding steadily, but there’s not much left for them to take. Now, they often burst out of the Way and disappear for hours or days. Although we have no way of knowing, we think they’ve raided our whole world by now.”

  A short while later, Mallet led them into a street that ended at a large building with broad marble stairs, towering columns, and a soaring façade.

  “The Experimental Institute,” Mallet said reverently. Liv heard the capitals in his voice when he spoke. “It houses the Test Center, but also the Departments of Physical and Psychological Testing.”

  As they got closer, Liv saw that the street didn’t end at the Institute but made a ninety-degree turn, which they followed past the building.

  “I thought the Way was in the Institute,” Liv said.

  Mallet laughed. “Thank the Father it isn’t. It would have destroyed everything.”
/>   Now they were heading toward a mountain of rubble with a weird shimmer in the air above it.

  Trent, Gin, and Ben came bounding down the heap as Connor’s group got closer, and they met at the bottom of the rubble hill. Liv decided it was the remains of a building. At the very base of the hill, Mallet stopped and turned one hundred eighty degrees. He gestured the others to do the same. Liv turned and froze.

  In front of them was a black hole.

  “It’s a black hole,” Connor said.

  “That’s what I said!” Ben, on her left, stared at the anomaly as if he hadn’t already seen it.

  “It can’t be,” Liv protested. “It has no gravitational field.”

  “It’s enormous,” Jordan said from her right, craning his neck to see the top of the giant black disc.

  “I didn’t mean a real black hole,” Connor said dryly.

  Liv craned her neck too. Connor’s black hole was at least a hundred feet high, its lower edge sitting only a few feet above the ground. She walked toward it, watching the disc narrow, narrow, narrow, and then disappear. She back-tracked, and it was a thin black line. Took a step forward, and it was gone.

  She shook her head, returning to her position next to Jordan while still scrutinizing the disc. Now she noticed slow swirls of purple and green on its surface, like colors in an oil-slicked puddle. As she watched, a bird flew into the hole and vanished with no sound.

  “Why is it swirling like that?” Gin had joined them on Ben’s other side.

  Liv shook her head. She didn’t know—yet. She turned to Mallet. “Did you have any control over the size?”

  Mallet shook his head. “No, nor the location. As you can see—” he gestured to the rubble mound, “—it exists where an office building once stood. Luckily, we decided to experiment at night. Less protest. The building was empty.

  “It was rather awe-inspiring, actually,” he continued. “We were standing at the proposed event site, on the other side of the Institute but within visual distance of this spot, and nothing was happening. Someone shouted and pointed this way, and we all ran over.”

  Liv held up her electrical probe as she listened, watching the energy output readings, then held up her radiation scanner. Zero radiation.

  Mallet continued, “A shimmer only about five meters in diameter had appeared in front of this office building, but then it started to expand. First, the building’s wall bowed in as if it was being melted and forming to the Way, then it just imploded as the Way burst outward.”

  She pulled out the scanner she thought of as the Other-Energy reader, which registered non-visible light, radio waves, and particle emissions of non-radioactive types. The readouts fluctuated as the swirls of color moved in hypnotic patterns even though the air was still.

  Jordan asked, “How long did it take for the demons to come through?”

  Mallet answered, “Actually, some of us went through first. We drew the demons to the tear in the barrier between universes. Then we couldn’t close the Way. Once the demons found how unresisting we were, it was as if they had declared us free sport.”

  “This is seriously messed up,” Gin said. “I saw a Twilight Zone episode once where there was this monster in town, and it sucked everyone in until there was just this one girl. She ran down the street screaming and yelling for help, but she was the only one left alive.”

  “Thanks for that, Gin,” Ben said. “That’s nice. Real helpful.”

  Jordan turned to Liv. “I think we’d better start looking for a way to fix it.”

  Liv tore her eyes away from the swirling disc. “Yes. Can I see your research now, Mallet?”

  Mallet nodded, gesturing toward the Institute. Liv and the rest of the team followed him back to the marble stairs. The Experimental Institute was unaffected by the turmoil in the rest of the city: there was no debris on the outside walks and stairs, and the façade was still smooth and clean.

  Gin said, “You guys must have had one hell of a cleanup party. What did you do, sweep the sidewalks and wash the walls?”

  “Yes,” Mallet said.

  Liv and Gin exchanged a glance, and Gin mouthed, Oh. Liv bit her lip to keep from laughing. Apparently, they took their Institute seriously.

  Mallet stepped up to the ornate double doors, opened a concealed keypad and punched in a code.

  The doors whooshed open, and Liv nearly jumped back. “You still have power?”

  Mallet nodded proudly. “Reserve power from the city generator, to the Institute and the Seat of the Federation Building. The Institute must remain sealed.”

  Liv stepped through the doors into a room free of dust and debris. She realized he had meant sealed, with air locks and positive pressure and who knew what else.

  Ben asked, “How did this building escape the destruction?”

  Mallet answered, “It was built to stand against shockwaves in case of terrorist attack. Advanced microbe and dust protection systems keep contaminants out of the labs. There was nothing here the demons wanted, so they didn’t try to break through security. Not that they could.”

  Jordan asked, “Why don’t you live in this building instead of underground? It’s better protected, and must have better accommodations.”

  “We couldn’t possibly! It would be…that would…it’s sacrilegious!”

  “So logical,” Connor said under his breath, and Ben snickered. Jordan frowned. Liv agreed with Connor on principle; she saw no point in these people’s sacrifice in the name of some sacred devotion to scientific research. But long association with Jordan’s open-mindedness had made her more tolerant to differing beliefs.

  “The Physical Dislocation Lab is this way.” Mallet led them down a maze of corridors and into the lab. There, he went directly to a filing cabinet on the wall. Gin wandered over to a computer console mounted on the wall while the rest of the team tried to stand out of the way. There wasn’t enough room for that, so they crowded behind Mallet and Liv instead.

  “The computer files were corrupted when the power supply backsurged during one of the attacks, and our backups are in a secure location cut off from this building. There is no power there. But the hard copies are here.” Mallet drew out several thick manila folders, handing them one by one to Liv.

  She felt the excitement of impending discovery, and glanced at Jordan standing next to her. He just looked dismayed by the amount of information they would have to wade through. She flipped through some of the folders, anticipation making her buoyant.

  Gin, meanwhile, had sat down at the computer terminal and was starting to poke at the unfamiliar keyboard. The monitor hummed to life. “The computers still work?”

  Mallet turned to her. “Of course, but don’t touch that!”

  Gin smiled. “I can get your corrupted files back.”

  Mallet’s expression changed instantly from outrage to hope. “Really? That would help us so much!”

  “Yeah, us too,” Jordan said, still eyeing the folders.

  Gin grinned at Connor, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He nodded. “Do it. Meanwhile, Liv, get going on those files.”

  She turned back to the files. A preliminary scan of the data had already turned up several technical diagrams detailing the machine’s workings. “I’ll need Trent to help me figure out the machine. And Jordan might find something useful on the demons or this world’s culture.”

  Connor nodded. “Go.”

  She glanced around the crowded room, which held no desks. “Uh, we could use a little more space.”

  “Yeah,” Gin agreed. “I need another terminal to parallel to this one, and I need room for my own to sit in the same general space.”

  Mallet brightened. “While I cannot allow you to remove any of the documents—they are our only copies, and they mustn’t leave the sealed environment of the Institute—we have large labs as well.”

  “With multiple computers?” Gin asked.

  “Certainly. This way.”

  They followed him to
a room with several white molded chairs scattered around a white cutout cube that served as a table. Other tables lined the walls, a bank of computers occupying the ones to the left.

  Although it reminded her a little of Medical with all the white, Liv nodded. “Perfect.”

  She, Trent, and Jordan took the main table, and Liv spread Mallet’s folders across its surface. Jordan reached for one, Trent another, and Liv a third.

  Gin occupied herself with turning all the computers on, then whipped out her laptop, a compact but thick little machine with gray casing that had weird ridges and designs patterned on its outer surface. Closed, it was about the size of a hardcover book. When she folded it open, it hummed to life, and she quickly connected several cables between it and the Demon Rift machines.

  Connor sighed. “You guys do what you do. Ben and I are going to report back to General Mace. Since we’re here, we’ll retrieve our weapons first.”

  “Cool,” Liv said. She didn’t look up.

  “See you soon,” Ben said.

  Liv had barely started reading when Gin crowed, “I’m in! Now let’s get us some information!”

  Liv immediately left the technical diagrams to Trent and pulled up a chair alongside Gin’s. “Can you do a search?”

  “Please. Can a fish breathe underwater?”

  “Technically, they don’t breathe,” Trent said from behind them, “so no.”

  Gin sighed theatrically. “Ninjas take the fun out of everything. What do you want to search for?”

  Liv grinned. “Try ‘demon.’”

  Gin typed it in. “Zero search results.”

  “Try ‘Way.’”

  Gin looked sideways at her. “You’re kidding, right? We might as well search for ‘the.’”

  “Right.” Liv tried to think of something more specific.

  Jordan said, “How about ‘Advanced Particle Acceleration Laser.’”

  Liv turned to him. “Where did that come from?”

  “From this page right here.” He held up a sheaf of papers.

  Gin typed it in and a search bar showed on the screen. They waited. And waited. Liv looked at Gin, and Gin looked at her and shrugged. Liv was about to go back to the paper documents when the screen changed.