There was no sign of Thayen or his crew yet, but I still dared hope for the best. The same could be said for Isabelle, Viola, Richard, Chantal and Voss, who also remained missing. The island and its extensions had been combed repeatedly, with no sign of them. It only reinforced our suspicions that they’d ended up in whatever foreign realm the clones had come from. We had no way of helping them yet, but we were actively working toward a solution.
Derek and I stood outside the reconstructed Great Dome, the redwood forest rising around us with its giant trunks and thick, deep green canopy. It seemed peaceful again, the woods whispering their usual song in the nocturnal breeze. But it was empty. Without Thayen and the others, it felt bare and lifeless and worthless. I felt awful for thinking such things, since everyone else was safe, including our first two children and their families.
This was the downside to motherhood. I loved all my children, and when one of them was hurt or had vanished… I crumbled on the inside. I broke down, and the world was simply the worst place. These emotions would pass, I knew that, too. But instead of resisting these emotions, I let them run me over. It got easier with each hour that passed, but it would not be better until I saw Thayen again. I could almost imagine him in some unknown realm, not sure where he was or what to do next.
“He’s strong, you know,” Derek said, noticing my heavy silence.
I gave him a curious glance. “Thayen?”
“Mhm. He’s strong. He’s the curious type, too. I imagine he’s turning the whole place inside out, wherever he might be.” My husband chuckled lightly, but I could see the pain in his eyes. He was just as miserable as I was—and just as hopeful.
“When are Rose and Ben coming back?” I asked him, since he’d been the last to liaise with GASP’s executive branch. There wasn’t much left for us, the “retirees,” to do in these trying times since the federation was so well put together, but we still stuck around, asking questions, checking on the others, making sure everything was running smoothly. We couldn’t help ourselves. We were of no use to anyone if we stayed back at our treehouse, pacing around the living room like wounded lions.
“They’re still in the Vale, retracing the kids’ steps,” he said. “We’re manning the fort here. Corrine and Ibrahim are with the other witches and warlocks doing their own magical investigations. Everybody is doing something, poor Phoenix included. I can imagine his state of mind right now, with both Viola and Astra missing.”
I sighed, settling one arm around his waist. “Astra is incredibly capable. In some ways, I think she even surpasses her mother.”
“Might be the sentry genes,” Derek replied, slightly amused. “We’ve always theorized that hybrids could sometimes be stronger than both parents put together. Astra is clearly one such extraordinary exception. Usually, one’s supernatural abilities are passed down genetically. Look at Jericho, for example. Half dragon, half fae. He’s nowhere near as big or fiery as Blaze, and not as strong as Caia, either. He’s got a little bit of both, and he’s exceptionally talented, but power-wise, I think we can both agree he falls somewhere between his parents.”
“I agree,” I said.
“Astra, on the other hand, is half Daughter, half sentry. You’d expect the genetic package to be similar to Jericho’s. Half of the Daughter powers, and half of the sentry. Yet Astra is a weird mix of both but at a higher intensity than other hybrids. While she may not have all of Phoenix’s sentry abilities, she’s obviously doing better on the Daughter side.”
I felt my head move with a soft nod. “I see where you’re going with this.”
“Right now, she’s teamed up with Thayen, who is on a different level of his own. Soph, who’s as much a warrior as her father, the daemon king. Dafne, a rare gem as well. And Jericho. They’ve got an excellent crew against an unknown domain,” Derek said. A muscle ticked in his jaw. He wanted to believe what he was telling me, but I understood that he wasn’t saying it solely for my sake. He was also comforting himself with this idea that our son was in the best of company—that was the truth. We only had to hope it would be enough to get them through whatever nightmare they might be battling. “I have faith in our son.”
“As do I, my love.”
Safira came out of the woods. She was alone. I’d seen her walking away with her sisters a couple of hours ago. They were supposed to work on a method for detecting the shimmering portals, so seeing her on her own didn’t sit well with me.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“It is. We have figured something out,” Safira said as she reached us, wearing a confident smile. “My sisters and I have spread across the island. I’m at the center of it, while they’ve taken key points along the shores.”
“Why?” Derek asked, slightly confused.
She looked at him. “To implement a spell. It took some discussion and some testing of theories, but I believe we have found a way to detect any shimmering portal, past and present alike.”
“Oh. Please, tell us,” I said, almost breathless. My heart was skipping beats already.
“It’s a veil of sorts,” Safira replied. “Once my sisters and I cast it over The Shade, it will reveal every portal that was ever opened in your world. We’re tapping into the very fabric of the universe for this, and it’s a delicate work of elemental magic, but I believe we can do it, especially since the witches have agreed to feed it with their own energy in order to help it. They’ve made no headway on their own, so they were glad to hear we had something that might work.”
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. It was a chuckle of pure relief, light as a feather as I let it out. Then I threw my arms around Safira and hugged her tight. “You never cease to amaze me.”
“I’ll do everything to get my niece and sister back,” Safira declared sternly, though I could see the grief in her purplish eyes. The Daughters had had issues with Viola before, then Nova, both during the fight with Azazel. But that had been nowhere near as scary as not knowing anything about a Daughter’s whereabouts. This was a new and troubling situation for all of us, and the Daughters of Eritopia were no exception.
Safira stepped away from us, closing her eyes for a long moment. She stood like that for a while. Derek and I watched her. There wasn’t much else we could do, but if the Daughters could, in fact, pull this off, then we could scramble some teams together and have them ready to be teleported wherever a new shimmering portal would open next.
Suddenly, Safira sucked in a breath, throwing her head back. “Yes! I can hear you, sisters!” she shouted, a pink glow swelling from within. She became a bright pillar of fuchsia light, the magic inside her brightening until we could no longer look at her directly. I covered my eyes while holding my husband tight, and we listened to her voice as she spoke to the other Daughters through some form of telepathy. “Yes. I hear you. I hear you. I feel you. We are one… Let it go. Let the spell flow…”
The blinding light seemed to dim, so I slowly eased my eyes open just in time to see a spray of pink mist shoot from Safira’s hands. It burst toward the night sky, growing and stretching beyond the treetops until it covered the entire night sky. It swallowed the stars and the moon.
Derek took my hand and we jumped onto the nearest redwood. We climbed all the way to the top, where the air was colder and the wind had stopped blowing. The mist was a blanket that now covered the entire island. From east to west and south to north, it glazed every inch of the island as it slowly descended, shimmering like pink ruby powder.
This was the magic the Daughters had come up with, and it was incredible. As it reached the ground beneath the trees and over the hills and mountains, shimmering gashes appeared. They sparkled in a variety of colors, from white to red and everything in between. I was speechless.
“That’s a lot of portals,” Derek murmured.
“Five hundred,” Safira replied, appearing on a branch close to us. She startled me, and I needed a few deep breaths to stop myself from reprimanding her.
“Fiv
e hundred portals?” I asked. She nodded once, giving me a concerned look.
“That means the clones have been here five hundred times. Look over there,” she said, pointing to the nearest shimmering portal, mere yards from the Great Dome. “The white gash… it’s old. At least a few months.”
Derek frowned. “More than two months?”
“Yes. If I’m reading this mist correctly, the white ones are at least four to six months old,” Safira replied. “The pink and red ones are most recent. I reckon the one by the Port will be the reddest and the last to have appeared.”
My stomach churned. “That is a lot of portals.”
The entire island was littered with them, like sparkling reminders of the troubles that had plagued our world. Technically speaking, the troubles were still here, somewhere beyond our reach. The mist seeped into the ground, but the portal memories remained. “They’ll stay like that until we end the spell,” Safira said. “And yes, that is indeed a large number of portals. The clones have been coming and going for up to six months, not just the two months Isabelle’s double spoke of.”
“They have been studying us,” Derek muttered, his jaw clenched once more. “They have been spying on us. It must be how they managed to get away with it for so long. It’s one thing to make themselves look like us, but to act like us, too—that takes observation and patience. Jeez, six months…”
The realization was deeply horrifying. It further reinforced our earlier suspicion that the clones coming out now had been part of their plan all along. They had spent a long time watching us, stealing our DNA and who knows what other intel, and now they’d returned to attack and confuse us. And we’d been oblivious to their presence all along.
The clones had played us like fiddles. And now our son could be trapped in their world. Our friends, too.
“The witches have been summoned to the Great Dome,” Safira said. “You may begin to organize and prepare yourselves for future shimmering portals. My sisters and I will move on to the next stage of this portal project—that is, to make sure that every Daughter within the mist will feel them opening. I will let you know if we succeed. In the meantime, keep a witch or a jinni in every team, so you and your people can get to any portal in a matter of seconds, should we manage to find a way to detect one opening.”
“Thank you for this, Safira,” I replied. “We will never forget it.”
“Neither will we,” she sighed. “Someone is trying to kill our niece. They have Viola. I doubt the other Daughters are safe even while in The Shade, but we will not leave. We will stay here until we get everyone back. An attack on a Shadian is an affront to all of us.”
Her words gave me new strength. The thought of the portal-detecting mist filled me with fresh and crackling energy. We had a way to get to our abducted people now. I wasn’t sure when the next gateway would open, but I wouldn’t despair. We’d come too far despite knowing very little about the enemy.
Derek gave me a faint smile, and I found the hope I’d nearly lost just moments ago. Our son needed us. Maybe he was okay over there, wherever “there” was… But we had to find our way to him. He and the others needed all the help they could get, and the clones deserved a monumental ass-kicking for the trouble they had caused.
Thayen
The armory was less than a mile away, and the redwood forest had begun to thin as we drew closer to the Great Dome. There was more movement, as well—clones moving around the area, carrying bags and carts of supplies across the fake Shade.
Apparently, they had to feed according to whichever species they had been copied after. I could see the bottles of fresh blood stacked on top of one another in two of the carts. There were baskets filled with apples, pears, peaches, figs, melons, and oranges plucked from the eastern orchards, plus crates loaded with cucumbers, potatoes, turnips, carrots, cabbages, and a slew of other vegetables collected from the northern gardens. There were stacked bags of rice and flour, sugar, and various other pantry items. The clones had organized an effective distribution system that covered this entire alternate Shade, based on what we’d seen so far.
Some of the areas were self-sufficient, with gardens and fountains of their own, but others relied on this distribution network of goods. It reminded me of our island’s early days, accounts of which I’d heard from my parents over the years. Before there were workable land plots in each region of the island, the Shadians had relied on what the Vale and the sanctuary’s gardeners were able to grow during the year. What we were seeing here was much like that. This fake Shade was populated, but certainly not as densely as ours. Either they were still producing copies, or they simply didn’t need more people than those they’d already made.
The fighters had clearly been prioritized, with multiple clones of specific individuals having already invaded our home. The commoners seemed about as useful as the worker bees, providing their overlords with all the nourishment and comforts they required.
“We have to wait for these guys to pass,” Jericho muttered as we lowered ourselves beneath a thick layer of ferns and spiky shrubs. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was necessary. Thorns kept poking my ears, but I gritted my teeth and put up with it while we watched the convoy move down the forest path. They were headed south. I’d counted twelve carts and about forty other men and women with baskets filled with food and household supplies.
“It will get busier as we get closer to the Dome,” Astra said, sighing. “I can’t think of a better route, though. There’s a lot of activity at this hour, so it will be hard to get past them.”
“We need a better home base,” Dafne whispered. “A place to go back to in case crap hits the fan. The cave is too far away from this location. And every single point of interest for us is in this region, not back there.”
Dafne made sense. But no good safe spot crossed my mind. Of course, if there were other structures here that didn’t exist in our realm, there was a chance we might find something good for sheltering. However, without a guide or someone who knew the area well, our odds weren’t great. The convoy kept moving, and the last in line were about to leave us behind. I was already bracing myself for a swift trek between the scarcer trees when another pack of clones came down the road.
“Damn,” I muttered. “Another convoy.”
“Not another convoy,” Jericho replied. “Check out their uniforms.”
There were forty of them, all clad in black GASP uniforms. They were led by Rose’s clone, her gaze cold and fierce as she watched the narrow road ahead. Vampires, werewolves, sentries—all of them people I’d grown up with. I’d sparred and broken bread with some. I’d trained and traveled beyond The Shade with others. These were my friends… Well, insanely accurate copies of my friends. The thought sickened me.
Astra looked around, trying to see as much as she could from our difficult positions, while we listened to the rhythmic drumming of boots coming down the beaten path. Left, right, left, right. They operated in unison, like a hive mind, each step perfectly synchronized with the others, with Rose’s clone dictating the march. I would’ve hated to go up against them. They were driven and relentless. I didn’t know what motivated them to be such good soldiers, but it had to be important. It had to be worth it.
“Thayen…” Astra whispered, catching my attention. I gave her a quick glance. She was staring at something in the distance, somewhere far behind us. “Remember that figure I mentioned? Who guided us to the cave?”
“Mhm,” I mumbled.
“There he is again. Pointing somewhere else.”
Careful not to make a single sound, I gradually shifted and moved closer to Astra beneath the shrubs, while Jericho, Dafne, and Soph held their breaths. The boots on the ground kept thudding, louder as they passed by our hidden spot. I froze as I followed Astra’s gaze and saw him. He was barely a silhouette between the redwoods about two hundred yards away, faintly visible and motionless. But I could see him, and I could see his extended arm, one finger pointing to his left. The woods th
ickened again in that area, though it would take us about a quarter of a mile farther away from the Dome.
“Are you sure it’s him?” I asked, my voice barely audible.
The platoon marched past us, the ground shaking slightly as they moved. I couldn’t let a breath out until the sound of their trotting began to fade. The air was so heavy and thick and my temples hurt, but I refused to give in. They would not get the better of us. They would not win.
Astra nodded slowly. “I know it in my bones… It’s hard to explain.”
“Do you think he’s trying to help us again?” Jericho asked, inching closer to us, his turquoise eyes beaming with curiosity and excitement. We needed something better than our current situation, for sure. We needed a better angle for that armory too. It wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped, especially since there were so many of them and barely a handful of us.
I offered a faint shrug. “He hasn’t steered us wrong yet, whoever he is.”
“Should we follow his lead?” Soph asked. “Leave the armory for later?”
“I think so,” Astra said. “There are more clones coming down this road. If we keep going like this, it will be a matter of time before one of them spots us. You saw how they reacted last time.”
We were in agreement. It wasn’t what we had originally planned, but this was simply one of those situations where a sudden change could very well make or break us, and I was hoping for the former, not the latter. Astra was right. The road ahead was increasingly perilous, and I had begun to doubt whether we’d actually make it to the armory like this. The clones were significantly more active around these hours. We’d have to wait this period out and start moving again once they had moved away or were resting.
This wasn’t a good place to stop, however. Clearly, a better safe spot was key.
Astra moved first, crouching as she left the shrubbery behind and headed toward the dark figure. The guy wasn’t Haldor—it was an indisputable fact. His frame was slender, nowhere near as bulky as the shadow-master. I took comfort in that thought as I followed Astra and the rest of the group to put some distance between us and the forest path. Within minutes another convoy of GASP doppelgangers passed through, but we’d already left them far behind.
A Shade of Vampire 89: A Sanctuary of Foes Page 9