The Last Archon

by Richard Watts

  Vivian stood slowly, stretching. How long had she been sitting there? The light seemed different, but without a clear view outside, it was hard to tell. She glanced at her watch and gaped.

  Two hours? How could… The clouds. Wolfe wasn’t an idiot. Of course he’d put some kind of protective enchantment in place to stop someone looking for the gates. She was on the right track, but she wasn’t strong enough to get past whatever defense he’d put in place.

  Vivian took a step toward the couch, reaching out to wake Hayden, then paused. How was Hayden going to help her? He’d said himself he didn’t have much talent in this area. Besides, he needed to have all his strength for when they found the gates. Vivian thought back to the night of the car chase. There was a way through this, some path that got them clear. She just had to find it.

  She paced, considering. She’d made two quick trips across the width of the living room when her eyes fell on her purse where it leaned against the coffee table. A terrible thought occurred to her. What if strength wasn’t enough? Hayden had been able to see some of what Wolfe was doing, had been able to summon up a vision of the original gate, because he and Wolfe were connected, somehow. What if that was all the Axiom needed, a closer connection to the thing she hoped to find?

  Vivian rushed to her purse and reached inside. She withdrew a simple, polished wood box. A tiny, tear-shaped ruby flashed in a setting above the clasp. She’d heard of Shard before, from classmates or television. Supposedly, it gave Primes more power. Vivian was also pretty certain, given what she’d seen in the past couple of weeks, that it was connected directly to the Worm.

  She’d forgotten all about the box in the rush of the attacks. Neither Hayden nor Deckard had asked her about it, so it had taken her a while to make the connection, but she’d finally put two and two together after her accidental vision of Mandy at the restaurant.

  Vivian glanced at Hayden. What would he think? Would he warn her off, tell her it was too dangerous? Or would he understand? She studied his face. He’d trusted her from the start, leaping to defend the very man they needed to destroy. He’d thrown himself between her and harm every time. He faced down that monster in his dreams every night and woke up every day ready to face new ones. Hayden was the bravest person Vivian had ever met.

  She knew what she had to do. She undid the clasp on the box with trembling fingers and opened it, bracing for the wormling to leap out. Instead, she found a collection of tiny black pearls resting in a velvet lined depression. Tentatively, she selected one and plucked it from the box. The sphere was softer than she expected, giving slightly against her pinched fingers.

  Before she had too much time to think, Vivian popped the pill in her mouth. It had no taste, but stuck to her throat, forcing her to swallow several times to get it down. She snapped the box shut and shoved it back into her purse, then seated herself on the carpet again. She pressed a hand to her stomach and tried to suppress the butterflies. If this didn’t work…

  Vivian pushed that thought aside and called up the Axiom. It came, just like before. She wasted no time in gathering a new pool of power, calling up her seeking. A familiar sense of flight and in moments she had returned to the tumbling cloud wall. She stood on nothing and brandished the glowing energy in her hand, raising it high, pulling as much power as she dared through the spell.

  The clouds rumbled and lightning flashed within them. The flares of light revealed shapes in the storm, vague shadows swimming toward her.

  No. Panic rose, and Vivian clamped down on it. I’m not a threat. I’m just one of you, see? Just let me through. The shadow sharks circled, tightening their gyre and making the cloud-sea swirl faster.

  “Don’t! Just let me through.” The shapes blackened the sky, swimming close enough that she could reach her hand into the cloudwall and touch them.

  “Just let me through!” she shouted. The Axiom amplified her voice, sending a pulse of terror and anger echoing through the ether. Underneath her quavering command boiled a roar, somewhere between whalesong and a rabid bear. Vivian recognized it as the sound the Worm made as it was driven back in Hayden’s vision.

  The shadow sharks shuddered as that roar touched them, their effortless glide juddering to a momentary halt as though they had been hit by an electric current. They scattered, and the clouds rolled after them, parting to reveal the city laid out beneath her.

  Vivian hung still, panting. The terror faded, and elation drew her mouth into a wide grin. She’d done it. She peered into the silver-blue light of the Axiom in her palm.

  “Show me where he hid it.”

  Columns of electric blue energy fountained from the skyline far below. Vivian drew a mental map, exulting in her success.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Hayden woke up with a crick in his neck. He sat up on the couch and rubbed the soreness in his shoulder. Vivian still sat on the carpet, legs bent into lotus position. The shadows in the room seemed deeper somehow.

  He didn’t remember dreaming at all, which was a pleasure he hadn’t experienced in months. Most days he woke up after dying horribly. How long had he been asleep? Hayden looked at his watch. Nearly five hours had passed. It was afternoon.

  “Crap.” Too much time wasted. Holding onto the vision must have hit him harder than he realized.

  He looked at Vivian again, her eyes still closed, hands in her lap. Should he wake her? He had no way to know. She could be moments from the information they needed.

  Heavy footsteps clanged on the iron steps outside. Hayden looked toward the noise and realized that the door hung ever-so-slightly ajar. Without the bolt to hold it in place, the old latch wouldn’t stay caught.

  Cursing, Hayden rolled to his feet. He summoned his armor and raced to the edge of the doorframe, moving as quietly as he could manage. Someone clomped down the walkway toward his hiding spot. The sounds stopped just outside, and a shadow darkened the doorway.

  “Dispatch, this is Officer Smythe. Code 32, possible B and E.,” a woman said quietly. “Door seal has been broken, and the lock is cut. I’m clearing now.”

  Hayden recognized the name. “Oh, come on,” he whispered to himself. He crossed his arms and waited. A booted foot kicked the door open, and Officer Smythe swept in, clearing the room the way cops seem to do in every television show. Hayden found a matte-black pistol pointed at his chest from two feet away.

  “APD!” Smythe shouted, then froze. “Arclite?”

  “Afternoon, officer.” He smiled amiably. Smythe’s eyes hardened.

  “Inside. Hands on your head.” She gestured with her head, but the gun stayed rock steady on his sternum. Hayden sighed and placed his hands on his head. He moved a few paces into the room.

  “Step away from the coffee table.” Hayden smirked, but took one long, deliberate step to the side.

  “Walk over by the girl and get on your knees.”

  “Officer Smythe, I’m already in a relationship, so…”

  “On. Your. Knees.” Smythe repeated through clenched teeth.

  Hayden slowly turned around and lowered his hands. “I can’t do that, officer.”

  “The hell you can’t!”

  “This city is about to come under terrorist attack. If my friend here doesn’t find what we’re looking for before that happens, everyone in the city is dead.”

  Smythe blinked once and licked her lips, but her brow furrowed again. “Why should I believe you?”

  “Can you think of a better motive for breaking in here?”

  “Maybe you’re looking for more Shard to steal.”

  “Oooh, didn’t consider that one,” Hayden admitted. “Look…”

  “Or maybe you and the girl just get your rocks off this way. I don’t care. You’re tampering with a crime scene and impeding a police investigation. Now get those hands up!”

  “Hayden!” Vivian shouted in triumph. “I got it!” She stood up and spun around with a bright smile, which winked out as she found herself looking at the business end of Officer
Smythe’s weapon.

  “Stop!” Smythe commanded. “Back on your knees.” Vivian complied, slowly.

  “Hayden? What’s going on?” Hayden groaned inwardly at hearing his real name.

  “‘Hayden’?” asked Smythe with a raised eyebrow. He smiled with feigned confidence.

  “Hayden Archibald Arclite IV. Delphi, this is Officer Smythe. Officer Smythe, Delphi. Now that we’ve introduced ourselves, would you mind putting the gun away?”

  Smythe shook her head. “No way. You two stay put until the next car arrives. Then we’ll all take a nice, calm ride to the station, and you can explain yourselves.”

  “We don’t have time!” Vivian exclaimed. She looked up at Hayden. “He knows we’re here.”

  Panic flared in Hayden’s chest. “How?”

  “Who knows? Who’s ‘he’ ?” asked Smythe. Vivian ignored her question.

  “There’s a ward of some kind. Underside of the coffee table.” She nodded her head.

  “Don’t even think about touching that furniture!” Officer Smythe shouted.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, “ Hayden replied. He closed his eyes and flexed his hand open, fingers splayed. He reached for the Axiom, just a whisper of flaming power. It seared his palm painfully, but he gritted his teeth and released a slow, quiet pulse of invisible energy into the room.

  Vivian gasped as the raw sorcery rolled over her. Hayden knew from experience it jolted like sticking a pin in an electrical outlet. He opened his eyes as the wave touched the coffee table. The current he’d created eddied there, on the underside between the legs of the table. Through the Axiom, he could brush the contours of a ward.

  Deckard had tried to teach him how to pick it apart, circumvent a warding without destroying it. It took control and patience. Hayden had little of either.

  Instead, he unleashed a torrent of sorcery straight at the ward, directing the Axiom like a firehose of energy. A gout of green-tinged flame billowed up from the underside of the coffee table, startling Smythe, who spun around to see similar wards burst over the door, the windows.

  “That may have shorted the warding net. He’ll know we found it though,” Hayden said. He looked at Vivian. “You’re sure you got it?”

  She nodded. “Positive.”

  “We all need to leave right now.” He turned back to Smythe. “Officer, you have to let us go. He’s only after us. You’ll be safe once we’re out of sight.”

  “Like hell! I am bringing you both in. Magic tricks aren’t going to change a thing.”

  Only a monumental effort kept Hayden from cursing. “You know what, fine. You’re right. You’re an idiot, and magic can’t change that. Delphi, we’re leaving. If Officer Smythe wants to stop us, she can just shoot us.”

  Vivian stood slowly, eyes wide. She mouthed “I’m sorry” at the officer and shuffled over to her purse. Hayden waited, arms crossed and glowering until Vivian passed behind him. Then he turned and strode after her toward the door, circling well away from the policewoman.

  “Stop!” Shouted Smythe. Hayden ignored her. At the doorway, Hayden put a hand on Vivian’s shoulder to stop her. He slid a little past her and stuck his head out to check for waiting assailants. When nothing leapt out, he stepped across the threshold.

  The bullet took him in the chest.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The bullet struck him an inch below his right collar bone, ricocheting off the warded armor with a dull metallic peal to strike the door itself. The impact twisted him sideways and flung him down and back. Hayden stumbled to the floor. A second bullet buried itself in the carpet by his head. Vivian shrieked.

  Hayden rolled out of the doorway and scrambled to his feet. He crouched with his back to the front wall beside the door. His right arm throbbed, half numb from the hit he’d taken. Liquid Axiom energy steamed up from the now-visible wards on the right half of his armor and leaked from cracks in the pauldron and chest plate. Even reinforced with sorcery, his armor couldn’t take more than a couple shots like that. Hayden cursed and summoned a shield in the same breath, filling the open doorway with a wall of light.

  “Are you okay?” Vivian asked. She had one hand by her mouth, and Hayden could see the whites of her eyes, even backlit as she was by the tiny front window. She reached out to touch his shoulder. Smythe tackled Vivian to the carpet just before the window shattered inward.

  “Delphi!” Hayden expanded his barrier with a thought, and light raced to cover the whole front wall. Two more bullets struck the shield as it filled the window. Smythe pushed herself up to a crouch and helped Vivian sit up.

  “Are you hit?” Smythe asked her. Vivian swallowed, eyes wide like a startled deer.

  “No, just...just winded.” Vivian grabbed Smythe’s hand. “Thank you.”

  “Stay down.” Smythe drew her weapon again and moved toward the back of the apartment, reaching for her radio. Hayden helped Vivian stand and pulled her close in a quick, fierce hug.

  “You alright?” Trembling, Vivian nodded.

  “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

  Smythe came back from peeking out the back windows. “I don’t see any other shooters out back. I’ve called in shots fired, so we need to hold here for about two minutes.”

  Hayden released Vivian. “That’s what the guy out there wants. He doesn’t have to kill us, just keep us penned in until the police arrive. Once they’re here, they won’t let us leave. We go into custody, Wolfe does the ritual, Atlanta dies.”

  “Wolfe? The lawyer guy?” Smythe asked.

  Hayden grimaced. “Detective Anthony Pagliano. When this is all over, find him. He’ll fill you in. Right now, we have to get out of here, and that means stopping the shooter or distracting him long enough for the get-away.”

  “How?”

  Hayden stepped to the door and called up narrow talons on his fingertips. He pried the misshapen bullet free of the wood, bouncing the warm metal in his palm.

  “Delphi, you think you can find the gun this came from?” He tossed the bullet to Vivian, who snatched it from the air. She tossed it back and forth in her bare hands a few times, glaring at Hayden, but was finally able to study it.

  “I think so.”

  “What if there are more of them?”

  Hayden smiled as the plan crystallized in his head. “I think I can handle it, but I need one important thing from you, Officer Smythe.”

  “Sanity?”

  Hayden smiled wider. “Keys.”

  “Excellent. Keep them there.” Marcus Wolfe smiled to himself as he ended the call and returned his phone to a pocket. He stared out over the silver glare of the pool at the Atlanta skyline, wind brushing at his face and tugging at the open collar of his shirt. The sun had begun its descent behind the buildings to his left, but the elevation of the penthouse suite meant it would be some time before it met the horizon. The view stirred many of the same feelings he’d had watching the sun sink into the ocean from the western portico of the Academy.

  “It seems Mr. Lucas made it out of the wreckage of Tarran’s house and is still trying to find answers.”

  “Isn’t that a bad thing?” Mandy Alvarez asked. Wolfe turned toward the door to his home. The short woman leaned against the doorway a few feet from him, wearing a simple green evening gown and holding a glass of dark wine. She sipped calmly from the glass, but nervousness remained in her wide brown eyes.

  “Not at all. He’s lost, purposeless. He knows the man who trained him is a liar and a monster. He needs to know who he is, what he’s for. When the time comes, he’ll join us.”

  “What about the girl?”

  “After tonight, she won’t have a choice.” Wolfe smiled slightly and stepped closer. “We both know that’s not the real question.” He took her free hand in one of his and held it to his heart. “Just ask it.”

  Mandy stared up at him. Hope and fear warred on her face. “Can you really save him?”

  Wolfe smiled and leaned down a touch, looking directly into her eyes. “Yes, I re
ally can. Once the ritual is complete, we can use the Axiom to rewrite reality. We can heal David. We can end sickness, even undo death. We can, together.” He brushed her hair back with his free hand, touching her face. As he did so, he let a trickle of power slide into her mind, connecting this moment with her feelings for her sons and feeding her hope, nudging her toward the right frame of mind.

  Tears dripped from Mandy’s eyes, but she shook her head. “What if the Lucas boy refuses? What if he still tries to do what Archon would? What if the girl sees?”

  Wolfe snickered and stood back up. “Then let her see.”

  He turned to face the view of the city. Electric lights began to gleam as the shadows stretched, and darkness crept over the earth. People hugged their dim, fickle candles to ward off the fear of what lay behind that darkness, to put it out of mind. This would be the last night the world went to sleep without the light of Atlantis to watch over them.

  Wolfe reached out his hand over the white tiles of the pool deck and spoke a word. Brilliant blue light bloomed from a rune the size of a plate. The light spread slowly as energy funneled into the spell-like water in a channel, revealing an intricate series of sigils running in a teardrop pattern around the pool. Additional runes woke along the length of the six Corinthian columns on either side of the pool. As the energy reached the tip of the teardrop, lightning erupted from the pillars to strike a point a few feet over the pool. The water splashed and leapt, disturbed by an invisible force.

  The web of lightnings tightened and pulled back an inch. Barely visible, buried under the bright glare, a drop of absolute black hung suspended against the dying light.

  “Let them all see,” Sennek whispered.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  “Everyone clear on the plan?” Hayden asked.

  Vivian nodded, biting her lip. She held her arms crossed tightly over her stomach. Smythe grimaced like she’d swallowed a lemon, but she gave Hayden a sharp nod and a grunt of assent.