New Dominion

by C. G Harris

  Nick waved as we went out the door. “I will.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Ian? Are you serious?”

  I managed to hold my tongue until we got outside. But now that we were, I had to let it out, or I was in real danger of exploding.

  “How could Nick allow a douche knuckle like that within a lightyear of his company?”

  Alex peered up, seemingly oblivious to my tirade. “Did you check the weather report before we left?”

  “Of course, I did. Clear skies. No rain. Don’t change the subject.”

  She kept one eye glued on the sky while she turned about ten percent of her brain power to acknowledge me.

  “I don’t know. Who cares? Why would Ian want the company? He’s Ryan’s guardian.” She paused and pointed up. “We need to hurry. Those clouds do not look friendly.”

  Rainwater was one of the few things that could hurt us while we remained Topside. By hurt us, I mean melt us down like the Wicked Witch of the West after Dorothy’s bucket bath. It was something about the way The Nine was put together. Rainwater did the same thing to Woebegone down under. Getting caught with a single drop of the stuff was akin to hauling an ICBM around in your knapsack. That and holy water were about the deadliest items known to the underworld.

  “Relax, forecast said there is a zero percent chance of showers. How often are they wrong about that?”

  Alex eyed me without saying a word.

  “Okay, so maybe we should hurry a little.”

  “Or maybe we should hurry a lot.”

  We picked up the pace and turned down an alley, shortcutting a few streets.

  “I can’t believe you’re shrugging off the whole Ian thing. He has the power to take over this whole operation.”

  I couldn’t explain everything. I wanted to tell her about the Catastropher and how Ian seemed to fit the personality profile to a tee. I wanted to tell her how I thought the Council of Seven had sent a Whisper Wraith to assassinate Nick, had forced an innocent man to take a swan dive, then had used Alex like a remote-controlled gun turret to try to kill me, but I couldn’t say any of those things. I had to stick with a vanilla conspiracy theory that held about as much water as a noodle strainer.

  “Ian may be a little ...” Alex paused and searched for a word. “Slimy, but I don’t think he has the nerve or the brains to pull off what will likely be a multibillion-dollar coup. You heard what Nick said. If anything happens to him, control of the company will go to a board of directors.”

  “No,” I corrected. “He said the company would be run by a board of directors. Control of the company would go to the primary shareholder, which would be Ryan, and by proxy, Ian—the guy who guards his bank accounts, remember? He could just fire them and ...”

  “And what, use his superior business savvy to run his new fortune five hundred company? I don’t think so. He’s a backyard crook at best. I don’t know how he managed to position himself as Ryan’s guardian, but that’s all he is.”

  I grumbled with frustration. “Then why did that guy try to knock Nick off at the seminar? Was that just a coincidence?”

  Alex stopped and glared daggers at me. “No offense, but I’m not buying your assassination story. Why hasn’t anyone else said something? Why hasn’t it come out in the news? Nick didn’t even mention anything in his office, and I’m sure he would know.”

  I nodded. “Maybe, but did you see his face when I asked who would take over if something happened to him? He looked like I had taken a shot at him myself. He knows something, but he’s covering it up. Maybe he doesn’t want the bad publicity.”

  Alex rolled her eyes and started walking again. “Or maybe it’s none of our business. Can we hurry up? I want to make it to the Splice point before we’re turned to sludge.”

  She sped up, and I had to skip-walk to keep up, using my bad leg.

  “While we’re talking about fun filled injuries, I thought we were supposed to heal instantly up here. Why do I still look like a three-month-old banana?”

  “Your little—accident—happened in The Nine. We only heal from injuries inflicted Topside. Any sadomasochistic holdovers from down under heal just as slow as anything else.”

  “So much for cheating the system.” I sighed and glanced over at an open door as we passed by. It was an old, barn style sliding job with worn red paint and a rusty hasp that looked to be about a hundred years old. The sign on the door, hung by rough twine, read Voodoo Arts and Mystic Spells.

  Inside walls, shelves, and glass displays brimmed with all types of jars, loose objects, and wild, colorful articles. I had to go in.

  “Maybe they’ll have something to fix me up. I bet they stock some seriously off-market aspirin at least.”

  I turned to take a step into the shop, but a hand wrapped around my wrist and jerked me back like a chihuahua on a choke collar. Alex had all but dislocated my sore shoulder, but the sheer panic in her eyes cut off any retort I was about to make.

  “You can’t go in there.”

  I glanced into the shop and grinned. “You afraid of a little witchery? This stuff is nothing but card tricks and rubber chickens.”

  Alex shook her head, taking a cautious sideways glance into the shop herself. “With everything you’ve seen, you still believe this kind of stuff isn’t real?”

  I let out a laugh. “Are you telling me Merlin, Gandalf, and Sabrina the witch are all real?”

  Alex finally let go of my arm and glared at me. “Of course not. Those stories are like sparkly vampires. Voodoo is something else. You mess with the dark parts of that religion, and you are messing with your soul. Some spirit will be joyriding in his brand-new Gabe suit while you’re stuffed inside a dirty bottle on a shelf.”

  I grinned at Alex and let out a little laugh, but the sound had little enthusiasm behind it. “They’re tourist trinkets and toys. What can it hurt to ...”?

  “Is there something I can help you find?” I let out a little screech and spun around to see a stout looking woman standing behind me. She wore a white dress and had beads woven into her dark hair. Her face was serious and severe despite a manic grin, and there was something about her eyes. They were dark, bloodshot, and bulged out of her head as if she saw through your body right into your soul.

  “You are different.” She sniffed the air around me and peered at my chest trying to see ... I had no idea what she tried to see. Not unless she knew I was ...

  “Sorry, ma’am,” I said. “We’re in a bit of a hurry. Maybe we can come back later.”

  I went to step away, but the woman snatched my arm and pulled me into her shop like a floundering trout. “Come with me, now. I have something for you in here.”

  She never let go, dragging me deeper into the crowded stacks of tinctures, drying herbs, and unmarked jars. All I kept picturing was my soul being sucked into some old coke bottle like a reverse genie in a lamp. I risked a glance behind me and saw Alex follow us in, marching like an angry mother. I wasn’t sure if that anger was for me or the Voodoo Princess. Either way, I was glad she hadn’t turned tail and left me alone.

  Voodoo Princess browsed her shelves as we went, touching this, smelling that, but never quite finding what she wanted. She still had a vice grip on my arm, making me feel like a toddler riding along in the freakiest shopping spree ever.

  “You need healing, boy. Stand here. Let me look at you.”

  Voodoo Princess let go and eyed me up and down as Alex caught up to stand behind me in the narrow aisle.

  “If you have some aspirin or something that would be great, but I don’t really want any of this ...”

  Alex smacked me in the back of the head so hard my vision bobbed.

  Voodoo Princess fixed me with a hard stare, and my blood ran so cold I wondered if my veins had turned to ice. “Aspirin is for non-believers. You a non-believer? You be wantin’ proof of my power? That it?”

  “No, ma’am.” Alex chimed in louder than necessary. “We don’t require any proof. He’s an
idiot, and we’re in a hurry so ...”

  Voodoo Princess narrowed her eyes. “Does the idiot have a name?”

  “Yeah, I’m Gabriel, but-”

  Alex slapped a hand over my mouth but slumped in defeat when she didn’t get there fast enough to stop me. Even I had to wonder why I had given her my formal name rather telling her Gabe, like I told everyone else.

  “Gabriel.” She drew the name out long and slow as her lips widened into a smile. “A name straight from the heavens. You an angel Gabriel or maybe sometin else?”

  She had no idea how right she was.

  Voodoo Princess switched her gaze to Alex and then looked back to me again. “Lady friend knows there is power in a name, especially when spoken by the owner. You make a name your own with accents and inflections. You should listen to your lady friend before someone less ... understanding takes advantage of a child like you.

  “Child?”

  Alex’s hand went up to my mouth again. “Children are so difficult sometimes.”

  Both women laughed at that. How had this whole thing turned around on me?

  Voodoo Princess pulled a large tin off a shelf next to her and slid it across the counter toward me. “You know how to dig a hole, Child?”

  I thought about snapping off a witty retort, but Alex still had her hand on my mouth, so I nodded instead.

  “Take a bath with the powder in this tin. Don’t worry about the tingle. Just means the magic’s working. When you’re done, dry off real good, and stuff the towel into this here tin and seal the top real tight, understand? Then you bury it deep in the ground.”

  I nodded again and pulled Alex’s hand away. “And what will that do?”

  Voodoo Princess eyed me. “Sometin’s wrong with your soul, child. It be infected. Here ... but not here. Get it right, or spirits be comin’ to call. Take your body over and shove your soul into a bottle, like them.” She jabbed her finger toward a row of corked bottles high on a shelf.

  “Okay ...” I stepped away, and I half expected Alex to shove me right back into the Voodoo lady’s grasp out of spite. “We really need to go.” I picked up the tin, scared at what Voodoo Princess would do if I tried to leave it, and backed all the way out of the shop, never taking my gaze off Voodoo Princess and her bold, soul gazing stare. Part of me wanted to reveal the fact that she eyed a Woebegone dead forty years, but something told me she might stock a can full of powder for that too, and that one might not include a spa day with a fluffy towel.

  “Thanks for your help. If we’re ever in the area again ....”

  I turned as soon as I stepped out the door and saw Alex jogging up the street. I sprinted off after her, not willing to finish the erroneous statement.

  “Card tricks and rubber chickens, huh?” Alex barely stifled a laugh.

  “I don’t want any part of her chicken. Mom was right. Never take a shortcut down a dark alley. You never know what you’re going to find.” I tossed the tin into an open dumpster on the way by and swore off Voodoo shops for the rest of the millennium.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I changed into my 501’s and t-shirt back at the Judas Agency locker room and headed out the door, ready to call it an early day. Alex must have had other ideas.

  “You know, I’ve been in enough fights to recognize someone who has come out on the wrong end of one. You can stick with your scooter crash story if you want to, but I recall an agreement to work this partnership above boards.”

  My gaze fell to my feet, and I nodded. She waited out the silence while I sorted my thoughts, then I sighed and gave her the true story, every bit of it.

  “You’re lucky you got away in one piece.”

  I shrugged. “If it weren’t for Zoe, Meg, and Jazzy, there’s no way I would have.”

  “What’s so important about that locket? I mean, even if the set-up wasn’t obvious, which it was, you risked a lot for some old piece of jewelry.”

  She paused for a second then narrowed her eyes.

  “Don’t tell me this was some sort of macho thing about them having your stuff.”

  I groaned and looked away from her again. We had just talked about secrets and how we were supposed to trust each other. It was bad enough that I had to keep the Denarii Division a secret. Now I had to keep this one too? I could play the macho card, but she would see through it. The only reason she offered it up was to see if I would bite on the excuse.

  Alex threw up her hands and started to walk away. I reached out and caught her arm.

  “Hold on.” I risked a punch to the solar plexus by grabbing her, but I didn’t care. If I didn’t give her something in the next half second, I would do irreparable damage to the trust in this partnership.

  “Truth is, I’m not sure why the locket’s so valuable.”

  Alex screwed up her face in an expression that said my answer was no answer at all. She was right of course. I had to trust her. If not, who else could I trust?

  “I acquired the locket in a deal a long time ago. It was ... Well, let’s just say I wasn’t always looking to atone for my sins. When I realized The Nine was my new armpit away from home, I became bitter. I worked my black-market shop for my own benefit, not others.”

  Alex relaxed a little and turned to face me, her face softening into something more understanding.

  “A Woebegone gave me the necklace in return for some hellion grade weapons. At first, I told him he was crazy, but he told me to check it out, so I did. I asked around, talked to my contacts on the really dark side of hell, and they said the locket was an origin artifact.”

  Alex shoved me back into the wall and covered my mouth with her hand. She looked up and down the wide hall, and even kicked in the locker room door to be sure no one hid on the other side before she allowed me to speak again.

  “Have you lost your mind? Do you have any idea how powerful an origin artifact can be? They would hang you up by your innards if anyone found out. The last one showed up thousands of years ago and gifted us the Gnashing Fields. Why would you want something like that? Why would you even tell me about this?”

  I threw out my hands in frustration. “What was I supposed to do, lie after you hit me with the whole truth in partnership speech? And hang me up by my innards? Could you think of something more graphic?”

  She took one step back, still staring at me in shock.

  “I realize ... some of these items have been troubling in the past, but if they’re all evil, why hide their existence? You would think a Woebegone would be rewarded for finding a ... you know … not hung upside down over boiling vats of yak urine.”

  Alex slumped against the wall next to me, looking like someone had told her she was pregnant with sextuplets.

  “So, what does this thing do?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “No idea.”

  Alex backhanded me in the midsection. I had gotten used to her less than placid reactionary style, but after my bout with Charlie, everything still hurt.

  “Great. You own an origin artifact, and you have no idea what it does. You could be holding endless showers of molten acid or an infinite number of those little barking dogs they sell at toy stores. An item that powerful could bring about unspeakable tortures.”

  “There isn’t exactly a section at the local library on origin artifacts. As long as I have it, we won’t be overrun by toy dogs.” I shuddered. “That would be way worse than the acid, by the way.”

  Alex nodded in agreement. “But why keep it at all? Why not dispose if it?”

  “Like I said, if I have it, no one else can use it. Plus ...”

  Alex looked up at me. “Oh no. You think it does something good.”

  “Why else would they keep these things such a secret?”

  Alex wrapped her hands around her head and paced back and forth in front of me. “How many times do we need to go over this? You work for the Judas Agency. Stop trying to save the world. Your job is to destroy it—or at least muck it up a little somehow. Definitely not save it, muc
h less all the lost souls down here.”

  I nodded but didn’t say anything else. What could I say? She was right. Holding out hope that some loose piece of jewelry would somehow save us all was not only ridiculous, it was heresy.

  “Well, you asked, and now you know. If nothing else, I’m keeping it out of any hands that could bring about the yipping apocalypse.”

  Alex laughed. “Fine. Keep it. In the meantime, you need to come with me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the gym. If you are going to be the guardian of the yipping dogs, you need to learn how to fight.”

  “I know how to ...”

  Alex turned a dangerous eye on me. Somehow, I knew I was about one word from proving I knew nothing of the sort.

  “All right. But take it easy on me,” I said. “I’m broken.”

  “Not my fault you volunteered as a punching bag.”

  Something told me the irony in that statement was about to come around and hit me in the face with a 10oz boxing glove.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Judas Agency workout area was one part training area, two parts spectator area, and six parts gladiator torture arena. There was a small section set aside where agents practiced their fighting techniques on a regular mat made of some sort of bamboo-like material, but the rest of the room was an enormous crisscross of paths laced with spiked plants, boiling pools, and wicked pitfalls that promised a painful death to anyone who so much as glanced at them.

  I had seen Alex go to work in this maze once. She had opened up the floor to any takers and schooled them all, including her old master. It did not bode well that my big mouth was the reason she had decided to open the copious portion of whoop ass that day. I almost volunteered my body as a punching bag in retribution, but I had been spared by circumstance. The memory sent a chill into my bones.

  I changed and went out to meet Alex by the mat. The torture chamber seemed to be closed for aromatherapy or something, except for my partner practicing her kata on the only innocuous space in the room. Seeing her move brought a whole new mix of emotions.