Shadowstrut

by Orlando A. Sanchez

  It just so happened that every time I saw a Transporter, they triggered my Jade memories. It felt almost intentional—a thought I kept to myself. I was bold, but not that bold. The bass notes around the Transporter let me know I was dealing with ‘out of my league’ power. Even with Darkspirit, this ‘old woman’ could probably blink me out of this plane with a thought. Not a theory I felt like testing.

  She wagged her finger at me and narrowed her eyes.

  “If you keep this darkness too close to your heart, it will spread to everything you touch, everyone you know,” she said. “You need to let it go.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was referring to my memory of Jade, the darkness, or Darkspirit. The last thing I was about to do was ask her to explain what she meant. That wasn’t how these things ever worked. I was left to figure out the meaning on my own—it was part of the design.

  “Can you help me, grandmother?” I asked. “It’s important.”

  “Where does your friend need to go?”

  “I need him safe.” I probably should’ve given Aria a heads-up about the incoming unstable mage. I’d let her kill me later. “Please send him to Aria at the Wordweavers.”

  The Transporter closed her eyes. I didn’t know if she was tired, taking a nap, or triangulating angles of deflection. After a few seconds, she nodded.

  “Do you have something for me?” she asked expectantly.

  I reached in my pocket and pulled out four boxes of La Madeline au Truffle from Knipschildt. Transporters didn’t accept money as payment. A trinket of some kind could work if you needed a short shift. For something like this, I needed the heavy hitters.

  “Will this do?” I asked. “It’s all I have.”

  It was always best to play the humble card with Transporters. I’d heard stories about them refusing to interact if you made it seem like what you were giving them was off the charts. Granted, La Madeline au Truffle clocked in at $250 a box, but this was Street. A grand in chocolate to keep him safe was a price I was willing to pay.

  I extended the boxes to her. She took a moment to open and smell the truffles and an enormous smile crossed her lips. The smell of chocolate and cinnamon filled the air. The next second, the boxes were gone. I don’t know where or how, but being masters of teleportation, I assumed moving chocolate was simplicity itself.

  The smile remained on her face as she shuffled over, away from the stairs.

  “Yes, that will be adequate,” she said. “Your friend is the mage in the train car. His name is Street, is it not?”

  “Yes,” I said, not surprised she knew this information. “That’s him.”

  “He seems a bit unstable.” She gestured. “That should calm him.”

  “He’s had a rough life,” I said. “I promised I would look after him.”

  “Despite the darkness in and around you, Grey Stryder, you still possess much light.”

  I wasn’t about to argue that my heart was as black as they came. If she saw light in the nooks and crannies, I’d take it.

  She spread her hands apart, and a large runic circle formed under my feet. It transitioned from red to green to blue in a loop of bright colors.

  “What are you doing?” I said, looking down at the circle. “The shift is for him, not me.”

  “I know,” she said, still smiling. “You are going home, to repay your generosity.”

  “Home?” I asked, suddenly confused. “What home?”

  “You have more than one?”

  She must’ve meant The Dive—which was currently occupied with the Light Council. The same Light Council that wanted me dead. This was going to be bad.

  “Are you prepared?” she asked. “Your friend will go to the Wordweavers, the mage-lizard and the phantom girl will go home with you.”

  “Prepared? No. Prepared for what? What are you talking about? I can’t go home. There are people there waiting to inflict maximum damage.”

  “Not anymore,” she said. “Now, listen closely, Warden. This teleport requires you to listen to my instructions and not deviate. Do you understand?”

  “No?”

  “Good,” she said with a chuckle. “Now, take a jump to the left!”

  I complied, jumping over to the left. I looked at the ground, thinking I had to dodge something.

  “Very good, Warden.” The air around her began to take on a golden hue. “Now, a step to the right.”

  I stepped to the right but noticed there was nothing on the ground beneath me.

  “Excellent, the cast is going well,” she said, chuckling even more. “A few more steps. Please place both hands on your hips.”

  “Both hands on my what?”

  “Did I stutter, young man?”

  “No, grandmother,” I said, placing both hands on my hips. “This is ridiculous.”

  “Oh, are you the Transporter all of a sudden? Do you know how to execute a mass teleport of allies and enemies from a location? Sight unseen, without killing anyone?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said under my breath. The light around her grew brighter still.

  “Correct, you can’t,” she said, shuffling around behind me. “Now, bring your knees in tight.”

  “My what?”

  “Knees, in tight,” she said, adjusting my legs and pushing my lower back, forcing my pelvis forward. “Don’t forget the pelvic thrust.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Yes, I am, Night Warden,” she said. “Stop taking yourself so seriously.”

  At this point she was cackling, and I was certain I looked entirely foolish. That’s when I knew. Transporters were just old ladies who had lost their minds. Wonderful.

  “I don’t understand this at all,” I said, pulling on my duster and straightening out.

  “I know,” she said with a nod. “It will be clear—or it won’t be.”

  The glow surrounding her was too bright to look at directly.

  A transporter shift violated most of Ziller’s known laws of time and space. Rather than teleporting you where you wanted to go, it warped time, space, and gravity around you so that the place you wanted to go aligned to your location. The one time that Professor Ziller had put this on a test, several mages had to be carried out of the classroom. Apparently, their brains had seized.

  When you were aligned, the Transporter would give you the equivalent of a runic kick and send you down the bridge she created. No mage in history had been able to teleport using this method. In all my studies, I’d never read or heard where it required such strange body motions.

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Exactly,” she said. “I will speak to you soon, Night Warden. Thank you for the exquisite chocolate. I hope my gift was worthy of yours.”

  I closed my eyes against the light and felt the world tilt sideways.

  TWENTY-NINE

  When I opened my eyes, I stared into the face of a thorny dragon.

  “If you spit on me, I’m going to shoot you.”

  The familiar smell of honey, coffee, and cinnamon filled my lungs.

  “He’s alive,” Frank said, moving off my chest. “Told you it would take more than that to kill him. He’s like a roach…indestructible.”

  “Don’t sound so excited,” I said, sitting up slowly as the floor stopped its tilting. “Where are we?”

  “The Dive, I think,” Koda said, looking around. “How did we get here? We were just at Track 61.”

  “Track 61,” I said. “Street.”

  “Aria just called,” Cole said. “He’s there in stasis and in a null unit. At least until you deal with whatever is after him.”

  I breathed out a sigh of relief. I noticed The Dive was empty. This in and of itself wasn’t odd. I checked the time. It was still morning.

  “How long have I been gone?” I asked. “When was the last time you saw me?”

  Cole gave me a look, shook his head, and started pouring coffee.

  “Two years ago, to the day. You and Koda disappeared. We’d lo
st hope, but now…now you’re back and you can set things right.”

  “You know I can see the calendar behind you, right?”

  “Shit, I knew I forgot something. What’s wrong with you? You left here last night. Do I need to get your bed at Haven prepped?”

  “I don’t have a bed at Haven.”

  “You should,” Cole said, heading to the back room. “Whatever or whoever dropped you guys off, removed everyone from The Dive except me. We are going to have some pissed-off customers later.”

  “And an even more pissed-off Light Council, “I said with a small smile. “Serves them right.”

  I thought back to the Transporter and started laughing. She was right, of course. Damn Time Warp. Don’t know how I missed it.

  Koda looked at Frank.

  “Does he usually do this?” Koda asked nervously. “I’ve never seen him laugh before. Is he going to hurt himself?”

  “Laugh?” Frank asked as he stepped close. “He laughs all the time.”

  “Really?” Koda asked, stepping away from me. “All the time?”

  “In fact, back in the day, they used to call him Grey, the Jolly Night Warden,” Frank scoffed. “Of course not. It’s clear he’s suffered some kind of psychotic break. A little shock therapy should straighten him right out.”

  My hand was a blur as I drew Fatebringer and brought the muzzle to Frank’s head.

  “If I feel so much as a twinge of static electricity heading my way, there’s going to be a lizard motif all over the wall.”

  “Look at that,” Frank said, stepping back slowly. “Instant cure. Damn, I’m good.”

  I got to my feet and made my way to the bar…and the coffee.

  “Beast?” I growled.

  “Outside,” Cole said, “scaring neighbors as usual. If you can get whoever delivered you to handle some of the inventory shipments, I’d pay extra for that service.”

  I took a long sip of coffee.

  “Koda,” I said, waving her over, “Upper West Side. Elaborate.”

  “It’s a pretty high-end address. One of Hades’ places.”

  “Hades owns half the city. Be a little more specific.”

  “His wife, Persephone, keeps a place uptown, which is why we had an observation post nearby.”

  “He spies on his wife?”

  “Spies? No. We were the security detail. She knew we were there and invited us over all the time,” Koda answered. “She’s not a helpless waif, you know. She’s a goddess.”

  “I’m kind of over goddesses right about now,” I said, thinking about Izanami.

  “She just wanted her own space. She liked her alone-time, so she and Hades compromised. She could be alone as long as we were close.”

  “So, you’re telling me you…what, camped outside?”

  She glared at me. “You sure you weren’t teleported minus the brain? We stayed in the tower adjacent to hers, in another apartment. We were literally five seconds away with the portal system Hades set up.

  “Where was this, again?”

  “The Eldorado.”

  “That’s where we’re going to make the call to Ronin,” I said. “Get ready. Can you still get into this apartment?”

  “I can get into any apartment,” she said smugly. “Hasn’t been a door built that can stop me.”

  “Not if it’s in the Central Archive,” I said, heading up the stairs. “Their security seems to be cipher-proof.”

  Her face darkened, and Frank chuckled.

  “Ouch,” Frank said from the bar. “Burned by the ancient Night Warden. I guess some ciphers must operate under a limited warranty.”

  Frank disappeared a second later with a crack of lightning. A fan nearly sliced him in half.

  “Keep it up, lizard,” Koda said as the fan returned to her hand. “I’m going to cut you down to size.”

  “Her aim is shit too,” Frank yelled upstairs. “I think this cipher is defective. Can we return her, Grey?”

  “I’ll give you defective,” Koda yelled, followed by glass breaking.

  I closed the door to my room and took a breath. I was going to have to call another mage, and this call needed to be private. I activated all the runes and fail-safes. These were actually Koda-proof and would stop her with a nasty jolt if she tried to get past them and into my room.

  I sat in my circle and centered my breathing. The Tenebrous was still out there somewhere. Even though Street was safe, other mages were still in danger. Redrum X was still flooding the streets, and I wasn’t any closer to the supplier. I couldn’t make a move against the Redrum X distribution until I dealt with Fluffy.

  I didn’t know the status of the Cloisters, but I had to operate under the premise that they were compromised somehow. So, I had to make the call. There were two reasons for this. One was to get more information on the soulblaze, and the other was to facilitate getting a warden bag. This mage wasn’t dark, but he didn’t exactly follow rules.

  I pressed my comm. “Dexter,” I said, “global acquisition.”

  The comm would reach out anywhere on the planet, boosted by the circle I sat in. If Dexter was on this plane, it would locate him. After a few seconds, a voice spoke into my ear.

  “Aye, this had better be good or you’ll have an angry Morrigan to deal with.”

  “Hello, Dex,” I said with a sigh. “Please extend my apologies to the Morrigan.”

  “Grey! It’s been a dog’s age,” he yelled. “What cataclysm are you ass deep in this time?”

  “I need a soulblaze to destroy a Tenebrous.”

  “Oh, shite,” he said. “I’ll be right over.”

  THIRTY

  Poindexter Montague was a fearsome mage of questionable repute.

  He wasn’t exactly a dark mage, more like a gray mage. His semi-tarnished reputation was attributed mostly to whom he chose as a partner. Something I could now strangely identify with.

  Dex was currently involved in a serious relationship with the Morrigan. She was the Celtic goddess of Death and War. This wasn’t a symbiotic situation like Izanami and me. He really cared for her and, it seemed—surprisingly, she had actual feelings for him. I didn’t know how it worked, just that it did. Honestly, I didn’t want the details, but I was certain Dex would share anyway.

  I felt the pressure of the room shift and smelled fresh-cut grass as a green circle formed in the center of the room. The high-pitched sound of a wind chime tinkled throughout my room as a portal formed, and Dex stepped in. Usually, when I was in the presence of serious magical power, I’d hear the foghorn of doom. Wind chimes meant I was in the presence of power several magnitudes greater.

  At least this time he was dressed. Well, at least partially dressed. He wore a kilt and not much else. His gray hair was disheveled and longer than usual, and he was traveling sans raven.

  “Hope you don’t mind the attire,” he said, looking around with a chuckle. “Sounded like a bit of an emergency. You have anything to eat? I’m feeling a bit peckish. That woman, I swear, she’s going to wear me down to a nub if she keeps this up.”

  I took in the sight and smiled despite myself.

  “Maybe you ought to slow down a bit, pace yourself?”

  “She’s a goddess, lad,” Dex said, looking around again. “There’s no slowing down with her. Where’s the lizard?”

  “Frank?”

  “Yes, I owe him a right blast of energy for his last prank,” he said with a chuckle. “Devious little dragon. Wait until I see him. He’s going to be tickled pink.”

  I didn’t know what the prank was, and I didn’t want to know. A prank for Frank could be as simple as electrifying some mage’s house, or as complicated as having the same mage hit by a bolt of lightning when he opened the door to his home. What I did know was that it wasn’t happening in The Dive.

  A few, meaning the more powerful ones, thought Frank was funny in a twisted way. Most everyone else wanted to shred him and, by default, me, for some reason. And people wondered why I had no friends.
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  “Frank is downstairs being his usual. I need your help now.”

  “I’ll leave a special thank you for him at the bar downstairs,” Dex said with an evil grin. “Please make sure he gets it. You’re going to need this.”

  He handed me a small card with a short set of runes.

  “Will it explode The Dive?”

  “Absolutely not,” Dex said.

  “Will it explode Frank?”

  “I can honestly say it will not explode your bar or the lizard, but it will make your dragon fuchsia for a week. Unless you cast that reversal spell.”

  “Only for a week?” I asked. “He’s going to be pissed… I love it.”

  Dex laughed. “He’s naturally paranoid, so you’re going to have to sell it.”

  “I can sell it, trust me,” I said. “You don’t have a shirt? Really?”

  “Ach, my manly physique intimidates you. I understand,” Dex said, flexing his pecs. “The Morrigan loves me topless. I have to say…I return the sentiment.”

  “No, you don’t have to say, but thanks.”

  I tossed him one of my shirts to cover the runes.

  His upper body was a mosaic of scars, or at least it looked that way from a distance. Unlike my photo-reactive ink runes, which appeared invisible until hit with certain light, and under the right conditions, Dex had runes etched directly into his skin in a process closely resembling scarification.

  That, plus his immense magical knowledge in several disciplines, made him a dangerous adversary and a powerful ally. You don’t get to be over a thousand years old as a mage by being mediocre.

  Two lines of text surrounded by more runes were tattooed on each of his forearms. My Latin was rusty, but I still remembered enough to decipher his ink. One read dum spiro spero, ‘While I breathe, I hope.’ On the other it read deponite omnes spes, ‘Abandon all hope.’ Those two lines pretty much summed up Dex. He gave you hope when things seemed hopeless.

  “I’ll have Cole bring up some food.”

  “No need,” he said with a sly grin. “I just ate.”

  “Really?” I asked, shaking my head. “Does the Morrigan know you speak like this?”