by T. Mikita
The gesture was strangely intimate, and weird, given that Merrick was twenty-one and his aunt was in her late forties, but the moment was gone as quick as it happened, and Asher was left wondering if he imagined the closeness. He shifted back into the confines of the closet.
In the next moment, Niles raised his hands again and spoke a single word, the strange thick feeling of the air vanished and Asher only realized that it was there because now it was gone.
“Pleasant dreams,” his aunt said to Niles and she left, presumably to find her own bed.
Merrick stayed a moment more surveying the room. He looked directly at the closet and Asher froze praying that the man would mind his own business and be on his way. After a moment, he too left the room.
“Fuck,” Asher muttered. “He was late for his meeting with Lacey.”
25
The Gate
Asher exited the Legacy Wing at a quick jog passing into the building that housed the bulk of the living quarters. He knew the Gate was north of the school, but he didn’t know exactly where it was. It wasn’t like the school took students on field trips there. He headed North, thinking to take the bridge to the admin building and through the main atrium, but it was locked. He went around, cutting across the lawn, always moving north.
The campus itself was laid out in a massive Templar Cross. The bulk of the classrooms were in the larger stone buildings to the North and South. The dorms and recreational buildings as well as the gym and the fighting dome were east and west respectively, with the main admin building and the library taking the rather large chunk at the center. Bridges and covered walkways connected most of the buildings, but it was sometimes shorter to walk across the lawn between them, depending on which floor you were on.
When Asher reached the North-end of the grounds, he found an iron gate in the outer wall that surrounded the campus. There was a path beyond it winding through the trees. The gate was locked, but it made little difference. After all that was required of the students in the physical training classes, scaling a wall was child’s play. The moment Asher’s feet touched the ground on the other side, he felt his stomach lurch, as if he had just gone around a rollercoaster loop. Strange. But it was too late to turn back now.
He followed the path, surer with each step that this was the way to the Gate. The trees were thick and the night was pitch black. Asher began to wish he had brought a flashlight and then the sheltered path opened up onto a clearing.
Asher gasped. He saw what could only be described as a hole in the universe. It was darker than the air around it yet is seemed to glow. He paused for a moment thinking, mundanes couldn’t see this? How on earth could they not see it, or at least feel it? The hairs on his arms raised with the power. It felt like standing too close to a live wire. He shivered and rubbed his hands over his arms.
It was immediately apparent Lacey wasn’t here. He hadn’t bothered to show up. The question was, did Lacey report him, like Galina suggested they should do to Lacey?
Asher contemplated this for all of a second. He turned, intending to go back, but the Gate stole all of his attention. It was strange, radiating magic so strongly, he could almost taste it in the air. Asher swallowed roughly. His throat totally dry.
As he walked nearer to the Gate, Asher realized there were stones, not standing stones, but stones nonetheless, marking the open area around the Gate. He paused a moment before he stepped over the barrier.
Magic bludgeoned him and he tried to take a step back. Power pulsed through him. He could hear it now, a faint humming. All of the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and it was hard to breathe.
The gate rolled with an agitated energy. It felt wrong. Dire. Like a wound in the universe.
“What is it?” Asher said aloud, his voice echoing loudly in the clearing. He answered his own question: magic, wild and untamable. A black hole, he supposed, and the realization of his nightmares. The darkness that swallowed his father. It looked just like it had in his dreams.
It seemed to pull at him and call him closer. He wanted to run. He could not tear himself away. Inexplicably he stepped forward, towards the Gate.
“What do you want?” Asher whispered.
There was no answer, but the humming whir of the floating portal. Asher suddenly felt he could hear the whispered grumblings of whatever waited on the opposing side. His stomach rolled. He felt them, beyond. There were so many of them. It made his skin crawl. Like looking at a tiger at the zoo, and realizing that the bars were made of paper… and there was more than one tiger. So many tigers, growling and hungry. They were deadly, yet somehow beautiful.
He had to get just a little closer. He could almost hear their whisperings, but he could not quite make out what they were saying. Asher edged closer, peering inside the swirling portal, like a child sneaking a look at some forbidden image. This was forbidden, he reminded himself. His aunt had said so. A part of him now realized why, but he did not care. The hunger to see and to know increased, washing over him, filling him up.
A gasp escaped him. He brought a hand to his mouth to silence the urge to scream. This was death, and yet Asher had never felt more alive.
Inside of the astral window was a sea of portals that looked similar to the first one. They multiplied within each other streaking out into infinity. Each were different shapes and sizes. For as far as he could see, they draped like curtains of eternity for countless miles. From each singular ring emerged hundreds of monstrous roars. Here were the lost dragons and the dinosaurs. Here were the monsters of all time. A part of him was terrified. A part of him wanted to test his strength against their might. All the while, the Gate shined like gossamer wings of dark flame, and he was the moth.
Sparkling.
Spinning.
Shattering.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, watching it roll like an infinite ocean or a lake. A lake with a lady, a beautiful lady, holding a sword, his father’s sword, shining out in the distance like a forbidden sun. He reached out, his fingers itching for the magic, and for an instant he thought his fingers touched the steel.
A hand caught his wrist.
“What in the name of all that is holy are you doing here?” snapped his aunt. “I thought, I was abundantly clear that the Gate is off limits.”
“I’m sorry,“ Asher blurted, his eyes still on the dark majesty of the Gate, but it’s pull was broken. The lovely lady and the sword were gone. His aunt dragged him away.
When they were what she considered a reasonable distance from the Gate, his aunt shook him. Literally, shook him by the shoulders, and he looked at her wide-eyed. “You will tell me what lured you to the Gate this night,” she demanded.
“Nothing.”
Evelyn furrowed her brow. “What called you? Did you dream something?”
“No. Nothing,” Asher said. What did she know of his nightmares? What explanation could he use to justify why he was at the Gate after curfew? He wracked his brain for an excuse. Nothing was forthcoming. His feud with Lacey seemed extremely petty in lieu of what Asher was now pretty sure could have killed him. At least his friends were back at the dorm, he told himself.
“If you wish to be believed, Asher, you will have to learn to lie better than that,” his Aunt Evelyn spat.
“I’m not lying,” Asher said. “I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to see it. I wanted to see the Gate.” He didn’t know why he was protecting Lacey, but he was. He supposed it was some perverted sense of honor.
“And what did you see?” Evelyn asked, as his eyes strayed back to the darkness.
“Nothing…I…”
“What did you see in the Gate?” She shouted.
“Nothing.”
His aunt’s voice was laden with fury. Asher didn’t think he had ever seen her so angry. “So, you wandered out here alone, which is the first rule broken. Then you ventured dangerously close to the Gate, for no good reason? Did I not make myself clear? The Gate is off limits! Was that ambiguous?”
<
br /> “No.”
“Then, has it slipped your mind that your father, my brother, was only just killed? And we have not found his killer? Has it slipped your mind that someone created an undead puppet specifically to kill you? And you decided on a whim to take a midnight stroll beyond the boundary of the school’s protective wards? Think Asher!”
Asher paled. “I didn’t think that…” Asher began, but his aunt cut him off.
“No, you didn’t. You didn’t think at all.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it. Sorry doesn’t make you not dead. I did not think I had to explain it to you, but obviously you are too thick to figure out for yourself that you are in danger. Even though you are literally the one who told me that a dead thing tried to kill you.” She poked a finger in his chest. “That the sorcerer, the one that killed Michael, is likely a necromancer.”
“I don’t really know what that means.” Asher grumbled. He only knew about necromancers from stories and Dungeons and Dragons.
“Of course, you don’t,” his aunt raged. “Because my brother didn’t bother to teach you anything. It means, he would have no qualms, killing you, putting the pieces back together and sending the resulting monstrosity after me, and all of the children at this school, including your friends. You told me you valued friendship. Think of what it would feel like for one of your friends to have to behead something that looks just like you. Their friend. Or would you rather they have to set it on fire to destroy it? Because make no mistake that is what they would have to do. You would no longer be you. You would be dead. But in their eyes, you would have to die again, and by their hands.”
Asher stared at her.
Evelyn seemed to have yelled herself out. Her voice lowered and she looked pale in the light of the moon.
“You are supremely lucky that whatever rose that night was only one of the sorcerer’s minions instead of your mundane step-mother. I assume my brother took precautions against such things. Thank God he did.”
Asher’s hand went to his mouth. He felt sick. Was that what the sorcerer had tried to do to Sharon?
“Aunt Evelyn, I am really sorry I worried you,” Asher said at last, his throat was tight. “I didn’t mean…” He shrugged unsure of what to say. “Whatever punishment you think…”
“Right now, if I could lock you in a dungeon for indeterminate amount of time I would do so,” she said.
Asher nodded. His aunt’s anger was nothing in the grand scheme of things.
“I…” Evelyn broke off, as if distracted. She reached into her pocket and brought out a small book. She opened it, reading quickly and her whole demeanor changed.
She wrote in the book with a stylus, and said abruptly, “There has been a development. Your punishment will have to wait.” She started to walk back down the path.
Asher took one last glance back at the Gate, but its rolling energy seemed to have quieted. He followed his aunt back towards the school.
26
Those Left Behind
Asher nearly had to jog to keep up with his aunt’s fast pace. He wondered what could have happened at this time of the night, but it was clear from his aunt’s sudden shift of focus, that something was wrong.
“What’s happened?” Asher asked.
Evelyn hesitated.
“What has your little book told you?” Asher gestured, thinking it must be somewhat like magical text messages.
“There has been… an unforeseen development,” Evelyn said. “With Julianna Martin.”
Asher’s stomach dropped to his feet. “What’s happened, to Jules?” He demanded.
“There’s been an attack,” his aunt said at last.
“Is she okay?” Asher asked already picturing her lifeless body, his heart in his throat.
His aunt was looking at her book. She wrote again with the stylus.
When did this happen? She scribbled.
About an hour ago. Came the response, in flowing silvery writing.
Evelyn quickly wrote something else in the book, and closed it before Asher could see it. She kept walking swiftly back towards the school buildings.
“Is Jules okay?” Asher asked again. “Is she alive?” Panic assailed him and he mentally berated himself for not being more insistent that his aunt bring her to the school. He had stupidly thought she was safer where she was.
His aunt took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said. “She was taken to the hospital.”
“Will she be alright?” he asked anxiously.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Aunt Evelyn. We have to save her,” Asher insisted. “Please.”
His aunt was shaking her head, even now denying the danger Jules was in. “I don’t know what happened yet. Knights do not rush in helter-skelter.”
Asher thought that was exactly what they did. “I can’t just sit here. The Guardians protect people, right? Isn’t that what you have been training us for?”
His aunt nodded her agreement as they entered the main building. “It is, but in a controlled effort.”
Asher’s eyes narrowed. “Jules is my best friend,” he said carefully. “If anything happens to her…” What he meant, was if she dies, but he could not say the words.
Niles met them outside of his aunt’s office as if he knew they were coming.
“What are you doing here?” Asher muttered, but the man did not grace him with even a look. His dark gaze remained on Asher’s aunt. Did the man even sleep, Asher wondered?
“You know what this is, Evie,” Niles said laying a hand on her arm.
“I know,” his aunt answered.
“You should not leave the Gate,” Niles said. “I will go.”
“No. You are forbidden to leave the grounds,” his aunt said.
“Do you think I give a damn what the Council demands of me?” Niles barked.
Something in what she said gave Niles pause.
“I need you here,” his aunt said. “The Gate will be active tonight. This is not an isolated event.”
“I’m aware,” Niles said.
His aunt turned to him. “Asher, do you have your holy water, and the blessed dagger?”
“In my room…”
She hissed at him. “And you were at the Gate without them? Go, get it, then. Hurry up.”
Asher stared at her.
“It seems you are going to get your wish,” she said. “We will have to bring your friend here. But first we need to discover what has attacked her.”
Asher’s heart leapt. He would have been excited, but he knew that this was the very last way he had wanted Jules to be brought to Whitehall.
“We will find out what has caused this,” Evelyn continued.
“I told you she was in danger,” Asher snapped.
“She shouldn’t have been. She should have been beneath the Otherworlders’ notice. Hurry. Retrieve your weapon. We should leave immediately,” she said.
There was a tap on the office door and Oliver Mackenzie appeared. “Did you need me, Lady Pendragon?” he asked Aunt Evelyn.
“Yes,” she said. “We are going to the city. Ready my car and notify a security team. They will be following us to the hospital. We leave in twenty minutes.” Evelyn instructed as she moved to her desk and wrote in her little book.
“Right away,” Oliver said.
Asher caught the name Versha on the page, and realized she was addressing Dame Stellanovich. As well as someone named Fred, but Asher could not read the entire message before she snapped the book closed and put it into her pocket.
Asher left the study at a jog and returned to his room where he frantically searched for the dagger his aunt had given him. It was around here somewhere. He stood running his hands through his hair and shaking his head, and then he found it, right where he had put it: near the bottom of his steamer trunk. They had started to use weapons in combat class, but mostly it was practice blades. It wasn’t like he used the dagger to fight. Asher had not even fully beli
eved it was enchanted when his aunt had given it to him. He did now. He strapped the thing into his wrist sheath.
It was less than twenty minutes later that Evelyn Pendragon’s black SUV pulled out of the large compound. Oliver was behind the wheel, but the friendly driver didn’t even smile at Asher. He was all business tonight.
Several men and women followed in a second vehicle.
Asher noticed that all of the guards carried swords and various magical items. They looked as if they could hold off a small army if need be. They were dressed in modern clothing but they all bore an embossed Order crest. The fire power told Asher more than anything that these men were not all magically endowed. They were quite obviously body guards.
When Evelyn strapped her own delicate blade to her back, Asher remembered the sword in his father’s hands at his death. He wished he had his own sword right about now. It wouldn’t hurt if it was magical, but they were all pretty conspicuous carrying a Medieval arsenal. Asher frowned at his aunt.
“Shouldn’t they be carrying some modern weapons or something less conspicuous?” he asked, “We are going to a hospital. They don’t generally allow weapons.”
Evelyn looked at him as if distracted. She signaled to Oliver and Asher commented under his breath that he was surprised the school didn’t have a helicopter.
Asher did not his aunt to hear his muttered comment, but she looked at him for a blank moment as she held her phone to her ear and said, “The community hospital doesn’t have a helipad available for our use.”
He stared at her. “Anyway, in cases like these a little magic will get us there faster than filing a flight plan.” She smiled grimly. It did not reach her eyes.
Who was this woman who was his aunt? Sharon had called her crazy, but she didn’t look crazy to him. Lady Pendragon was in her element and it was almost scary. Everyone here hurried to do as she asked.
Asher found he couldn’t help but admire her. He didn’t like her, and he was angry at her, but he couldn’t argue that this was her world and she was in full control of it.