by Krista Walsh
A salt-touched wind blew through Vera’s red hair, sending it dancing around her face. She turned into it, let it tickle her skin, and stared across the water. From here, she could only make out an ominous black shape in the distance. So much trouble for such a small speck.
“Excellent,” Percy said, drawing her attention back to the RV. “Everything looks to be working up here. Let’s go see what we see.”
He climbed down the ladder, followed by Gabe, and the two of them went inside. Allegra and Matthew remained on the roadside with Daphne, but Zach followed them in, with Emmett close behind. Curious to see what Percy had rigged up, Vera followed last, keeping to the wall closest to the door to avoid getting cramped around the computer.
“And we have visual,” Percy said, more excited than perhaps he should have been under the circumstances, but Vera let it go. In the short time she’d known him, she’d learned enough to appreciate that the only subjects Percy tended to get enthusiastic about involved wires and computer chips.
“Where?” Emmett asked. He set the cookie tin on the desk and leaned over Percy’s shoulder, squinting at the scene. “I don’t see anything.”
Vera peered around Zach’s bulk to catch a glimpse of the screen and had no problem making out the blur of the building, though it wasn’t as clear as it had been on the image Gabe had studied. Whatever magic the demons were using to block it from mundane eyes had obviously obscured it from any otherworldly views as well. They were taking no chances.
“Follow the negative space,” Percy said, outlining the border where the details vanished into wasteland. “This will allow us to make contingency plans in case the demons chase you out.” He dragged a bag from under the desk and pulled out a handful of wireless cameras. “Who’s up for giving me some extra pairs of eyes?”
“We should move in twos,” Vera said. “Until we get a better idea of what’s going on here, no one should go anywhere without backup.” She turned toward the open door to where Daphne and Allegra stood outside. “You two take one and go to the corner on the west side. Zach and Emmett, you can take the closest corner here. Gabe, you and I can head east.”
“And I,” Percy said, wheeling back around to his monitor, “will stay safe and sound in here and make sure they’re all working.”
Daphne and Allegra stepped inside as Percy gave everyone a quick rundown on how to set up the cameras, then they each headed for their assigned corners.
“How are you feeling?” Vera asked Gabe as they approached a house where most of the windows had been smashed out.
“Like I’ve been run over by a dump truck that then backed up to hit me again. The fact that it’s not even the closest call we’re sure to have on this trip doesn’t make me feel any better.”
Vera had no words to offer comfort. Instead, she looped her fingers through his and squeezed gently, hoping he realized how much she appreciated all he’d done for them already. Then, leaving Gabe to watch the road, Vera jumped to grab on to the side of the roof and pulled herself up. With Gabe’s direction, she set the camera on the corner to watch the street.
It was the work of a few snaps and button presses to get it into position, then she dangled down the side of the roof, and Gabe caught her as she dropped.
Once he let her go, he turned in a slow circle. “What a sight, isn’t it? Whatever happened to this place, it left nothing.”
“Nothing I care to think about, anyway,” Vera said, holding back from making her own sweep. The deathly silence was enough to raise goosebumps on her flesh.
They headed back to the RV and found the others had already returned.
“All eyes are up,” Percy said. “I’ll move the RV onto one of the side streets after you leave, then Emmett and I will monitor the situation from there. If you’re ready to head in, I’ll leave you with these.”
He handed out the earbuds, and everyone tested theirs as they slipped them in. Vera hated the feel of the plastic pressing into the side of her head and the experience of hearing Percy’s voice as though he were speaking directly into her brain, but she couldn’t deny that the system was effective.
She released a breath and turned to Gabe, who nodded. “All right, everyone. Stay close and stay quiet. Let’s see what they’ve got waiting for us.”
He raised his hand in the air and brought it down toward the ground.
Nothing happened.
Gabe’s brow furrowed, and Vera’s throat tightened as her heart rate sped up. “Try again.”
He did, and again there was no golden glow, no tear in the atmosphere.
“Did you break yourself on that trip?” Zach grumbled. “Or did the orb finally get to you.”
“No,” Gabe said, clenching his teeth. “There’s something blocking me. They must have put a shield up around the island, keeping anyone from getting close.” He shifted on his feet to stare toward the coast and the prison in the distance.
“You’re saying the only way in is by ferry?” Daphne asked. “Shit.”
“That’s not the only problem,” Percy said from inside. “There’s a car coming.”
Zach grumbled, and the skin on the backs of his hands turned red, but before he got any further, a black car appeared in the distance. As a group, they stepped out of sight, closer to the RV. Vera peered around the end to watch what the car would do. There was nowhere for them to go to escape whoever it was, so she crossed her fingers that the driver would simply pass by.
The car began to slow down.
“We’ve got company,” she said.
Daphne held her hands away from her sides as her fingers took on a faint golden glow, and Zach squeezed his hands into fists, a hint of scales bulging out under the surface of his skin. Allegra’s eyes flashed gold and her teeth elongated, but she pressed her lips together to hide them. Vera stepped closer to Gabe, and she could sense his Gorgon rage sizzling in his silence.
The car pulled to a stop behind the RV.
For a few moments, there was no movement. The windshield was tinted, preventing them from seeing anything inside, but an uneasy familiarity swept over Vera.
It’s not possible.
She’d lost count of the number of times she’d made that claim in the last few months, and when the driver and passenger side doors opened, she swore she’d never say it again. In this life, anything was possible.
Three figures dressed in black climbed out of the car. Vera hissed through her teeth, and Gabe grabbed her hand. She squeezed his fingers so tightly she was sure she might break bones, but she couldn’t relax her grip.
The black robes fluttered in the wind, and Vera’s gaze trailed along the red sash that draped around the shoulders of the woman who walked in front, then jumped to the one green sash and the one set of unadorned robes. The strange square hats, like graduation caps, were perched on their heads, one with a gold ribbon pressed onto the top, the other two with green.
Two of the gaunt, sallow faces were familiar, the third was not, but Vera had no doubt this new one would be just as enigmatic and stubborn as the other two.
“Fendal Coil,” Vera greeted, spewing the name like a curse.
The last time Vera had seen her had been a few moments after she and her fellow Collegiate members had set fire to Vera’s shop. Fendal had been the one to strike the match that caught Vera’s precious books with some sort of enchanted flame, destroying all of her family history and years of work within minutes. All in the name of some perverse sense of justice. Vera ran her thumb over her mother’s wedding bands on her right ring finger, as though they were a talisman against anything else these women might inflict.
“You were ordered to keep away,” Fendal said, coming to a halt a few feet in front of the group. Her two acolytes flanked her.
“What are you doing here?” Zach snarled. He seemed to be directing his question to the woman with the unadorned robes.
“Tracking you, of course,” the woman replied. “We sensed the rift open nearby, and we never stopped keeping an
eye on either of you.”
“We didn’t trust that you would obey our commands,” Fendal said.
Vera glowered at them. Only her knowledge that they could still prove to be powerful allies against this threat kept her from turning her back on them and storming off. She didn’t think she’d ever disliked anyone as much as these representatives of the Gnosis Collegiate. With the exception of Lozak and his gang, of course.
The world had done just fine without the Collegiate since the demon wars, when they’d been trapped in their College, protecting the lore and history they’d gathered since the otherworldly arrived in this dimension. She didn’t see why they couldn’t have just stayed there.
But she knew it wasn’t as simple as that. If the Collegiate hadn’t been tracking the Book of Universes, no one would have known this threat to the otherworld was coming. They’d observed what had passed in Jermaine’s locked room through their mirrors and put together what Vera and the others had missed. They’d manipulated the six survivors, drawing them more tightly together, turning Jermaine’s facetious ‘invisible entente’ into an actual alliance.
Without them, she and the others wouldn’t be here right now, prepared to break into Tartarus prison to save the world.
Without them, Lozak and his leaders might have swept through this dimension without warning, leaving nothing but devastation in their wake.
Vera understood all of this, but she still wished these women would trip on their robes and break their noses.
“There is an innocent girl being held prisoner inside Tartarus,” Zach said. “I’m not about to stand aside and let that happen.”
“Silence,” Fendal ordered, casting her scathing glance on him. Her wrinkled cheeks stretched long with her frown. “You were told to leave New Haven, daemelus. The fact that you chose to remain for your own selfish motivations does not make you a hero. It makes you reckless.”
Vera shot Zach a speculative glance. They’d never had a chance to talk about his conversation with the Collegiate, but apparently it had gone as well as hers.
“Who are these fashion-deprived ghouls?” Allegra demanded. “And why should they choose to involve themselves in our business?”
“Why?” Fendal asked, turning her attention to the succubus. “Because if not for us, you would have no idea what was coming. You would be off gallivanting across the world, ignoring the dangers you’d left behind, instead of being here where you could make a difference.” She crossed her arms. “At least, that was the intention when we bound you to New Haven. At the time, we believed the six of you could actually prevent the situation from growing as dire as it has. Unfortunate that we only learned how incompetent you are when it was too late.”
As she spoke, Allegra had gone so still she might as well have been turned to stone under Gabe’s gaze. Her caramel-hued cheeks had paled to a sickly pallor, and her hands hung slack at her sides.
“You did this to me?” she asked. “These nightmares…this cage?” She spat the final word, her shock wearing off under the heat of her anger.
Vera watched her closely. From experience, she knew the women of the Collegiate weren’t defenseless. If Allegra attacked, she would be injured, and right now they couldn’t afford to have any of them down for the count.
“The visions began as an explanation for why you needed to be here,” said the woman to Fendal’s right. Nadeen, Vera recalled. “Someone needed to know what was coming when we were unable to warn you in person.”
“We used you. We had no other choice. Now that we’re free, the six of you are only succeeding in getting in our way,” said the woman Vera didn’t know.
Allegra released a screech of fury so piercing that Vera flinched. She launched herself at the woman, but Vera was ready. She grabbed the succubus’s arm and wrenched her back, even as Zach stepped between them, cutting Allegra off.
Allegra struggled in Vera’s grip, but Vera’s demigoddess strength was more than enough to keep her in place.
Gabe stepped forward. “Ms. Goodall just protected you out of a sense of diplomacy. I think that deserves an apology for burning down her shop, don’t you?”
Fendal glared at him, her nose wrinkling as though she smelled something unpleasant.
Daphne stared between them all, her hands raised with a ball of magic hovering over her palms. By the expression on her face, she had no idea whether these women were friend or foe.
Vera offered her a nod, and she stood down, although her magic remained close to the surface.
“How did you get here so quickly?” Gabe asked, crossing his arms. “We only arrived twenty minutes ago.”
“If you think we would be far from the source of the problem, then you are even more foolish than you look, Gorgon-Fae,” Fendal said. “By tracking the girl, we made the connection with Tartarus, and we have been watching the fortress.”
“And what do you plan to do about it?” Zach asked. “Watch until the world ends?”
“We plan to destroy the prison.”
Vera’s heart stopped. The silence that descended on the people around her was so heavy, she expected them all to collapse from the weight.
“You can’t do that,” she said, the words tight and forced. She thrust her finger in the direction of the prison. “You just said you know Molly is inside. The Book of Universes is still in there.”
“Sacrifices must be made for the future of the world,” Fendal said. “It’s a shame about the girl, but we assessed the risk. Getting her out would be impossible, and any attempt would waste time we cannot afford. As for the book” — she looked down her nose at Vera — “while it is a devastating blow to the history of the otherworld to lose that text, the fault of its loss remains solely on you, Ms. Goodall.”
Allegra jerked free of Vera’s distracted grip and turned to Vera with a frown. “I realize the difficulty in making such a decision, but I believe we must consider the option they’ve provided to us. The loss of the girl would be tragic, but if it means the salvation of the otherworld, their argument cannot be discounted.”
“At least one of you shows some sense,” said the woman on the left.
Fury grabbed hold of Vera’s muscles, but Zach got there first. His fists burst red with molten scales, and a white light surrounded him. “If you make one move to destroy the prison with Molly still inside, Chiron, I swear I will track down your College and do the same to it without mercy.”
Chiron widened her eyes. “Your power has developed well, Zachariel, but don’t presume to think you could defeat us in a fight. And while impressive, your strength is not sufficient to take down these demons on your own.”
Zach didn’t seem to hear her. The shoulders of his coat strained as he heaved increasingly deep breaths. Something shifted between his shoulders, pressed out against the leather, and Vera suspected that in another few moments it would tear.
She stretched her arm out in front of Emmett and Percy, who had crept closer to the door of the RV to watch what was happening. If Zach was going to snap, she didn’t want them being caught in his wrath.
Daphne approached him with her hand outstretched, though she made no direct contact. “Calm down, Zach. There’s no point losing it in front of these bitches. They’re clearly not going to listen.”
“How about we strike a balance,” Gabe suggested. He’d tensed during the standoff, his arms stiff at his sides. “Give us time to try to get Molly and the book. Give us a chance to stop this. If we succeed, you can do whatever you want with the building after we’re out. If we don’t,” he shrugged, “you’ll know.”
“Unacceptable,” Fendal said. “The magic around the prison is growing denser, the defenses stronger by the day. If we wait any longer, nothing we do will have an effect.”
“Blowing up the building won’t guarantee the problem is solved,” Percy spoke up. Gabe cringed, and Vera stiffened. It probably wasn’t wise for him to be saying anything, but there was no point trying to keep him quiet now. “I was never able to t
rack the software they stole from me. It’s possible the source of the theft isn’t here, but somewhere off-site. We won’t know that until we go in.”
“Software?” Nadeen asked, one gray eyebrow arched.
Gabe scowled at Percy, who didn’t drop his gaze. Instead, he pressed on. “What if some of them escape? They’ll know you’re on to them and go even deeper underground. And next time, you might not have the foreknowledge to stop them.”
Grabbing on to where Percy was headed, Vera jumped in, drawing the Collegiate’s attention back to herself. “It would be smarter to go in quietly. If we go in as discreetly as possible, we could take down one problem at a time — maybe before they’re even aware we’re there.”
“We could make sure the issue is resolved for good,” Daphne said. Her narrow jaw was squared, her green eyes piercing. The first time Vera had met the sorceress, Daphne had come across as nothing more than a whiny woman with more power than she knew what to do with. The woman standing beside her now had come into her strength. Her confidence and power wafted off of her, causing the energy in the air to spark.
Fendal turned first to Nadeen, then to Chiron. In silent communication, they seemed to be discussing the situation. Vera prayed they would see sense and go along with Gabe’s idea. If not, she couldn’t be certain they’d be able to stop Zach a second time. Despite Daphne’s attempt to calm him, he was still steaming, the white light pulsing softly around his large black-clad frame highlighting the glow of heat shining between the scales on the backs of his hands. Signs of yet more scales appeared under the collar of his shirt. Based on Chiron’s exclamation, Zach was new to this side of his power, and Vera wondered how much control he would have over it if he slipped too far.
After what felt like too long, Fendal returned her attention to them and clasped her hands in front of her. “We agree to your compromise. While the life of one human makes no real difference in the future of the world, it would be better if we achieved our aim with no mundane losses.”