by Lee Dignam
The city itself was a glimmer of glittering lights with an orange night sky visible in the near distance. The only sounds were the lapping of gentle waves and the faint rustle of the wind. The smell of seawater floated in on the evening breeze—seawater that had been polluted by many years of detritus, gasoline, and muck that had been accumulating on the shore.
Isaac Moreau stood with his back to the warehouses, staring out at the ocean. He could see the ghosts of ships, barely more than illuminated impressions against the night fog. To the left, a lighthouse blinked as it spun, casting its powerful beam of light over the sea. To the right, the skeleton of the Resplendent Hotel, a once posh, magnificent building, now stood like the ghost of a woman mourning a lover lost at sea. Above it all and far, far away, the distant crackle of inaudible lightning lit the clouds in wild, sporadic bursts.
“How much longer?” asked a voice from behind.
“Not long now,” Isaac said.
The man in Isaac’s company stepped up next to him and also cast his eyes across the ocean. Silver was younger than Isaac, in his twenties, but he had an old soul—and an even older Guardian; Sonia’s Guardian, in fact. After Bazor, the monster with the Glasgow smile, had appeared to Isaac at his apartment, he feared the creature would soon die, but the Good Doctor was able to save it, and together with Isaac’s help they were able to help it choose a new mage.
That mage was Silver.
Blessed with a pair of jade eyes that sparkled against the moonlight, and hair the color of the darkest night, Isaac supposed he was the kind of guy any man wouldn’t want around his girlfriend, and any father wouldn’t want around his daughter. Isaac gave Silver a sidelong glance, which was soon returned. The younger man’s face was stern, and ready for anything; one of the qualities Isaac both enjoyed and disliked about his new student.
“Something about this doesn’t feel right,” Silver said.
“You can feel it too, then?”
Silver nodded. “Ever since we got here.”
“It isn’t all around us, which tells me they didn’t spend any time looking for a way in. They knew where to go and what to do.”
“An inside job?”
“It’s possible. We shouldn’t rule it out.”
“What do you think the magistrate will do?”
“I don’t know. The first thing is for Jim to step inside and see…” Isaac trailed off.
“See what?” Silver asked.
Isaac shook his head. “Jim will know if anything has been destroyed and what exactly is missing.”
“If someone took the time to break past the wards, they took something; probably cleaned the place out.”
“You’re probably right. Still, we can’t make assumptions about what did and didn’t happen.”
“That means we also can’t assume there isn’t someone still inside.”
“That isn’t an assumption; it’s a calculated guess. Whoever broke in must have known the moment the wards were breached that someone would find out about what had happened here and respond.”
Silver’s lip curled into a grin. The beam of light from the lighthouse caught his eyes and they sparkled, almost maliciously. He reached over his right shoulder and grasped the hilt of the sword strapped to his back; the sword Isaac had once displayed at his museum—the sword Nyx had touched. “We can’t assume,” he said.
“With any luck we won’t need that.”
“I wouldn’t call that luck, exactly,” Silver said, releasing the sword.
“I know you’re eager to try your magic in a live environment, but we have to exercise patience. Right now it’s the only card we can play.”
A distant grumble stole Isaac’s attention. Thunder? No, too close to the ground. He looked toward the only serviceable road leading in to this particular section of the harbor and waited. A moment later he saw a glow, that turned into a headlight, that then turned into a motorcycle. Silver spun around when he heard the noise. Isaac, knowing who was on the bike, stepped into view and watched the bike pull up from behind a smaller warehouse.
Cameron drew his Harley to a slow stop at Isaac’s feet and flicked the engine off. The headlight died instantly.
“What did I miss?” he asked, smiling brightly.
“Nothing,” Isaac said. “We’re waiting for the others to arrive. Jim is collecting one of the praetors, but they will be getting here by car. No magic.”
“Makes sense. Gotta keep this place safe and all.”
“As safe as possible, in any case. Where’s Alice?”
“I left her with a friend. She said she wouldn’t be long—had something to take care of.” Cameron kicked the bike’s kickstand and dismounted. He cracked his neck and stretched. “So, what’s this about? Isn’t every day I get called out to this site.”
“We’ve had a break-in,” Silver said.
“Shit,” Cameron said, his face suddenly tightening with concern. “Here? At the vault? I thought this place was top security.”
“It is,” Isaac said, “Whoever got in bypassed all of our security systems. We only found out because of the spell I put on this place to let me know if anyone tried something like this.”
“You’re not thinking—”
“It’s too early to say,” Isaac said, “We need more information. But this so far being the only data point we have, one can only assume Nyx is involved.”
Cameron stared up at the large warehouse building immediately to his left. A gentle breeze washing in from the ocean carried on it the tinkling sound of a buoy bobbing off the shore.
“Have you gone inside?” Cameron asked.
“No,” Isaac said, “I could have bypassed the wards and gone to look, but I wanted backup, and we need Jim. If anything’s been done to the vault, he’s the one to tell us.”
“I think I should go inside,” Silver said, “If there’s someone still in there, I want to find them.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Isaac said, “If there is someone inside and you’re caught on your own—”
“Then all that training you’ve given me will come in handy, right?”
“Kid’s got a point,” Cameron said.
“You’re both needed out here,” Isaac said, “We don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with yet.”
“You said it yourself,” Silver said, “We’re dealing with Nyx.”
“I said it was a distinct possibility, yes.”
“Then you need to utilize my skills. You need to let me do the job you’ve asked me to do.”
Isaac looked at Cameron, and then at Silver. He could send his student into the vault, but doing that was dangerous on its own. For one, the wards around the vault were still intact and would not be easily overcome without the praetor’s key. Silver could cloak himself with the power of the Void and circumvent the majority of the wards, but there was still the risk that he wouldn’t use the power correctly or that the wards would catch him, and hurt him, anyway. And even if he did get inside, he would be cut off from help if there was anyone in there waiting for a stray mage to venture into Ashwood’s magic vault.
Keeping him on the sidelines, however, was surely a recipe for disaster. Silver was ready and eager, and he had proved his prowess as a detective and as a swordsman. Isaac couldn’t in good conscience say that Silver wasn’t ready to face Nyx and her ilk, but… but.
“I need you to create a safe perimeter,” Isaac said, “When the praetor arrives, they will want to know the area is secure.”
“You want me to go on patrol?” Silver asked, cocking his head to the side and regarding Isaac like he had just been told to scrub toilets with a toothbrush.
“Yes. Take a walk around the warehouses, check for any signs of Void activity, and report back to us if you run into any trouble.”
“Who am I going to run into trouble with out here? This place is deserted.”
“Just do it,” Isaac said, adding power to his voice.
Silver took a deep breath and seemed like he was
going to throw up another counter argument, but he nodded, turned, and started to walk along the shorter end of the adjacent warehouse. A moment later, he was gone.
“That was tough,” Cameron said. “He reminds me of me when I was still new at this.”
“He isn’t exactly new,” Isaac said. “But I still don’t think he’s ready.”
“I’ve seen the trials you’ve put in front of that kid and he’s blown through them like a wrecking ball. So, what gives? I’m not one to question your methods or anything, but it sounds like you need to let the bird fly the nest.”
Isaac sighed. “This is something for me to deal with, Cam. I don’t mean to shut you out, but there’s a lot going on right now and I don’t think I can deal with talking about Silver’s apprenticeship.”
“Suit yourself,” Cameron said, “But you’re going to have to give the kid a little rope sooner or later. I know what it’s like to want to impress your dad.”
“I’m not his father.”
“No, but you’re his mentor and he’s an orphan. Can’t blame him for feeling the way he does. You Brits always sound like disappointed parents.”
Isaac struggled to contain the smile. “That’s absurd,” he said, “I don’t sound like a parent.”
“Take it from someone who listens to you on a daily basis. You’ve got this kind of voice that makes people pay attention. Makes people want to sound smarter than they are, more capable.”
“Even you?”
“Even me.”
Across the way, Isaac spotted Silver stepping out from behind one of the warehouses. They locked eyes for a moment, and then Silver looked away and disappeared behind another warehouse. Isaac couldn’t think about how he had shut his student down right now. Nyx had made her first appearance since the night at the graveyard. Down in the vault, Isaac suspected, they would know what piece of the chessboard she had moved.
Isaac only hoped he was a better chess player than she was.
CHAPTER 4
Hell's Toliet
The Ashwood city streets were cold and wet tonight. Single cars hissed by, their rear tires kicking a thin mist up from the asphalt. Crows sat quietly on overhead cables, shrugging flecks of rain from their backs. Humans, blissfully ignorant to the perils all around them, shuffled along with their hoodies or their umbrellas up and their eyes down. Ashwood was alive at night, always full of activity and life, but this was life that wanted nothing to do with anyone else.
Alice pulled the Mustang out of the brightly lit Warwick district and into the Gladstone projects. Crossing into the projects was like stepping over the threshold from one dimension into another. Mountains of garbage spilled out of too-full dumpsters creating an ecosystem of flies and rats, every second or third street light was busted, and the strays had a feral, rabid look about them—the look of animals desperate for any kind of food.
The same look many of the humans here had, only it wasn’t food they wanted; it was vice.
Alice’s shiny, well-kept Mustang drew a lot of unwanted attention. Whole gangs of eyes followed her as she purred along the neighborhood, like jackals sizing up the lonely lion who dared enter their domain. The building she needed was here somewhere, in this district. An instinct she had long ago learned to trust told her to shut the radio off, and she did. The car fell silent save for the low grumble of the engine and the rolling of its wheels on the wet road.
She made a turn onto a long stretch of street and stopped at a red light. On the right were three blocks of low-rise residential buildings. Some of the shops on ground level were still open, and people in puffy jackets were gathered. On the left, stretching an equivalent distance, was a dark behemoth of a building. All of the lights were off in this building as were the street lights on its side of the street. Many of the ground floor windows were boarded up. White sheets hung from some of the open windows on the upper sheets, flapping with the evening breeze.
A chill raced up Alice’s back and she shuddered.
“Damn,” she said, understanding why Jinx wouldn’t have wanted to set foot in there. Sometimes it was easy to forget Jinx was only eighteen years old.
Alice pulled the car into a spot on the side of the road closest to the decrepit old building. The car’s black and chrome body blended perfectly with its surroundings, and it was far enough away from the people on this street that they wouldn’t have noticed her shiny Mustang. She pressed her hand against the dashboard, closed her eyes, and called on the shadows themselves to congregate around her car and keep it hidden from the attention of humans; a trick she had learned from Cameron.
She stepped outside with her backpack slung over her shoulder, shut the car door, and locked it. Then, like David squaring up to Goliath, she walked on, her eyes never leaving the empty building rising out of the ground like an ancient beast, looming over the shorter, surrounding neighborhood. The distant sky shimmered with shades of purple and blue. Alice reached the plaque at the front of the building before the sound of thunder reached her ears.
City General Hospital, est. 1902. Underneath the plaque someone had sprayed over the words City General Hospital and had replaced them with the words Hell’s Toilet.
The building was surrounded by a chain link fence, the gate of which was run through with a padlock the size of a brick and a chain to boot. But someone had gotten past the chain link to spray the plaque on the other side, so there had to be a way through.
Alice walked along the section of chain link closest to the plaque, keeping her eyes where the fence met the earth until she found a slight dip in the dirt. The fence looked warped here, too. Bingo, she thought. Alice pulled the fence back, slipped beneath it, and released it to spring back into place once she was through. She scanned the immediate area, but no one was there. She then looked across toward the lit-up section of the street. No one had seen her step in.
“Alright,” she said, patting herself down, “That wasn’t so bad,” and she continued to walk along the cracked concrete path leading from the street to the mouth of the hospital building. When she got there and looked up, it was as if in the minute or so it had taken for her to close the gap between the street and the building, it had gained six extra floors worth of height.
Alice’s skin began to crawl at the sight of the sunken windows, flapping curtains, and decapitated, stone statues of saints. This building made her feel small and insignificant, like a bug easily squashed beneath a boot. Maybe the building itself had been designed this way, like many other, old buildings were—especially those built to house the sick of body and mind. But the way Alice’s skin had started to crawl, she was beginning to think something else was at work here.
Something dark, and sinister: a force that didn’t want her coming anywhere near this place.
Alice climbed the few steps up toward the door of the building and tried it. Locked. Figures, she thought. She backed up and scanned the rest of the lower level. Many of the windows here were boarded up with a single, square sheet of wood nailed into the window frame. One of them wasn’t. For some reason, this window had been boarded up with four rectangular pieces of wood as opposed to one large one, and two or three of the boards were missing.
She approached and peeked inside. The building was dark, but ambient light from the outside was throwing two rectangles of light onto the floor just beyond the opening. Alice saw empty bottles and bits of masonry scattered around the floor. There was mud on the ground too, and footprints. Old this building may have been—abandoned it was not.
Alice let her bag slip off her shoulder, grasped the strap, and gently lowered it through the open window. She then hoisted herself onto the window frame and, feet first, climbed through. Her feet touched down on uneven, crunchy ground, and she grabbed her backpack to prevent it from getting covered in whatever had been tracked in here. The wet, brown stuff on the floor looked like mud, but this place smelled like shit.
And booze, and sweat, and piss.
She quickly pulled her shirt collar out
of her jacket and slipped it over her nose. It didn’t do much for the smell and wearing it like this was awkward, but the last thing she wanted to do was inhale asbestos or whatever else was floating around in here.
“Hello?” she said from inside her shirt. Her muffled voice carried in the empty room and seemed to go racing down the corridors in all directions, as if her voice were looking for someone to reach.
No reply.
Alice swung her backpack around, reached into the front pocket, and produced a flashlight. She clicked it on and shone it around the room. The light from the beam sent shadows scurrying away wherever it landed, allowing Alice to get a general sense of the room. This was a foyer. A reception area. In the center of the room was a large, circular desk. There were many benches here, some were bolted down while others had been flipped on their sides. The ceiling panels had long since fallen, exposing long rows of rotting pipes, many of which had also broken loose of their joints and fallen to the floor below.
She walked carefully, her boots crunching with every step, and made her way around the circular reception desk. Her heart was starting to race. This place wasn’t just dark, and creepy, and smelly; it was also claustrophobic. The darkness itself seemed to press around her like a boa constrictor enveloping its victim. Though the room was large, the debris made it difficult for her to step anywhere with ease. And the cold… this place was like a meat locker with nothing in it. Alice could see puffs of her own breath condensing in front of her lips.
“Hello?” she asked again, “Is anyone in here?”
No reply.
Satisfied that there was no one, at least, within earshot, Alice took another cursory glance of the reception area. She heard a sound and her flashlight fell on the source of the sound lightning-quick. A pair of rats scurried out of a pile of debris and crawled into a hole in the reception desk. She stepped away from it and took a deep breath to calm herself, but then she heard another sound. This time louder, more forceful.