Author: Benedict Jacka
Category: Science
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/benedict-jacka/page,19,482328-fallen.html
I don’t know how much I trust this guy, Variam said.
And I don’t want to risk Pyre picking up your light with his magesight and wondering what another fire mage is doing in the building.
Fine.
The stairs went down twenty feet or so. Variam pulled the door closed behind us; silence closed in, broken only by our footsteps. The door ended at another door that Kyle listened at before easing open.
The door opened into a basement, cluttered with junk. The beam of Kyle’s torch passed over furniture, boxes, old weapons, and machinery. I could feel traces of magic from around us. This stuff had probably been Morden’s, left to gather dust once Onyx took over. Distant voices drifted down and Kyle picked up the pace, a new eagerness in his movements. A stairwell at the end of the basement led upwards; Kyle went up the stairs two at a time and came to a stop at the top, against a closed door. As I followed him, I saw that he had one ear pressed against the wood, listening closely. Carefully I moved up behind him and did the same.
The voices from the other side had gone quiet, but by looking into the futures, I could tell that there were two people, both female. As I listened, I heard the soft fwump of a gas stove, followed by the steady hiss of the flame. A cupboard opened and plates clinked.
The door was locked. How’d you get this open last time? I asked Kyle.
Stole the key.
Don’t suppose you’ve still got it?
In answer, there was a flicker of space magic as Kyle opened a tiny gate to his storage space. There was a grating noise, followed by a loud click. We both went still.
Silence. There was the sound of a cupboard door from inside, followed by someone turning on a tap.
I shifted the focus of my dreamstone, broadcasting to Kyle, Luna, and Variam together. It was harder than maintaining a link with only one, but I’d been practising. I count two girls. I’m guessing slaves.
What do they look like? Kyle demanded.
It was an odd question. Or maybe not that odd—when Kyle had told me he wanted a “favour,” I’d had a pretty good idea of what it was. One early twenties, one late twenties. Younger one’s overweight and blond; older one’s thin with dark brown hair. I paused. I recognise the older one. Her name’s Selene.
“Who the hell cooks meals at this hour?” Variam whispered.
“Someone who doesn’t have a choice,” Luna whispered back.
Mental only, I said.
Can we go around? Variam said silently.
We don’t have that kind of time.
Footsteps sounded from the other side of the kitchen. “Hey,” a new voice called. “Selene. Pyre wants chicken wings.”
“All right.” Selene sounded stressed.
“Now. And he wants you to bring them.”
“Wait . . .”
“What?”
“Can you tell him I’m with the others?”
“No, I can’t.” Footsteps started up, fading away.
“Wait!” Selene called.
“What the fuck is your problem?” It was the other girl, the one I’d sensed earlier.
Selene didn’t answer and the other girl spoke again. “Stop acting like you’re better than us, yeah?”
The newcomer’s footsteps had faded away; now there were only two in the kitchen. It was the quietest it was going to get. We have to move, I said.
Let me handle this, Kyle said. He pushed open the door and slipped through.
Wait, Luna asked. What’s he doing?
The kitchens were big, and neither girl noticed Kyle at first. The door was partially blocked by a bulky old-model freezer, its cables preventing the door from opening fully and shielding us from view. I signalled Variam and Luna to stay back and moved around the other side of the freezer.
Kyle had walked up to the right side of the room. Selene was kneeling down, going hurriedly through the cupboards. “Selene,” Kyle said.
Selene jumped to her feet, spinning around, a hand going up to her chest. She stared at Kyle wide-eyed.
“I told you I’d be back,” Kyle said.
The other girl had been by the stoves; now she’d turned and was frowning at Kyle. “Who are you?”
“You okay?” Kyle asked Selene.
“I—” Selene shook her head. If I peered out, I’d be able to see her; a taller-than-average girl with dark brown hair, pretty but with a drawn and miserable look. Her clothes were frayed and dirty. “Don’t.”
“You new or something?” the other girl said.
“Come on,” Kyle said, reaching for Selene’s arm. “I’m getting you out of here.”
Selene flinched back, shaking her head. “No! You can’t—” She took a breath. “Just go.”
“No. This is different from last time.”
“Out of where?” the other girl said. She walked around a table, passing close by my hiding place; she had dirty blond hair, cut short, and she was staring suspiciously at Kyle. “I haven’t seen you . . .” She tailed off, her eyes going wide. “Wait. Kyle?”
“You have to get away,” Selene said. “If someone sees you here . . .”
“I am getting away. With you.” He spared the other girl a glance. “You as well.”
The other girl was still staring at him. “Onyx and Pyre want you dead, mate.”
“I don’t care what they want,” Kyle said, starting to turn back to Selene.
The other girl looked at Kyle for a second more, then I felt the futures settle as she made her decision. She drew in a deep breath for a scream. Kyle’s head snapped back, his eyes going wide.
My stun focus took the girl in the small of the back. Her scream turned into a whoof of breath as she thumped to the ground twitching, eyes rolling up in her head.
Luna and Variam stepped out from behind the freezer. “Saw that one coming,” Luna said.
Kyle stared at the unconscious girl, then at me. “Why—?”
I put my stun focus back in my pocket and began channelling a thread of power into it. It would take several minutes to recharge. “For someone who works for a Dark mage, you’re way too trusting.” I nodded down at her. “Make sure she doesn’t wake up in the next ten minutes.”
Kyle shook himself and knelt by the girl’s side, pulling out a syringe. Selene was looking from me to Variam to Luna, wide-eyed. “What are you doing here?”
“They’re with me,” Kyle said.
Selene’s eyes passed over Variam and Luna, then settled on me with recognition. “You’re Verus, aren’t you? It was after you got Morden arrested that everything went wrong.”
“Yeah, well, he’s making up for it now,” Kyle said, shooting me a glare. “Take those stairs down to the basement. There’s a staircase up at the end that’ll lead you out. We’ll meet you there when we’re done.”
“I can’t,” Selene said.
“She can’t,” I said at the same time.
“Yes, she can!” Kyle snapped at me.
“No, because—”
“Shut up!” Kyle stood, the syringe clenched in one hand. “You said you owed me a favour. Well, this is it. You make sure she gets out safely, right now. You’ve done enough to mess up our lives already, don’t you fucking dare back out now.”
“You should have let me finish,” I told Kyle, my voice level. “She can’t run out of here because if she does, then as soon as Onyx notices she’s missing, he’ll kill her with that bracelet on her wrist.”
We all turned to Selene. She dropped her eyes, pulling on her sleeve to cover up the black metal bracelet that had just been visible. The movement revealed bruises on her other wrist. “Oh yeah,” Variam said. “Death magic focus, right?”
Kyle stared at the bracelet. “Well . . . you can take it off, right?” He turned to me. “Deactivate it? There must be some way—”
“Guys?” Lun
a broke in. “Maybe think about having this argument later?”
“Yes,” I said, and addressed Kyle. “And yes, I can deactivate it. With two hands and time, neither of which I have. We pull this off, then I’ll do everything I can to help her. You have my word.”
Kyle looked from me to Selene, torn, the internal struggle written on his face. “But . . .”
Variam was already moving, and he patted Kyle on the back as he passed. “Yeah, I know, you want to be the hero. Just trust him. If he says he’ll do it, he’ll do it.”
Luna followed him with a sympathetic glance at Selene. Kyle took a deep breath and looked at Selene. “I’ll be back.” He turned towards the door.
“Get out of here and find a place to hide,” I told Selene.
Selene’s eyes were full of fear, but she nodded. I walked past her to the door.
* * *
Onyx’s mansion was big and full of corridors, but the layout hadn’t changed since Kyle had last seen the place, and I had my divination to guide us. We moved quickly and quietly along the halls. Shouts and laughter echoed down from above, but all the activity seemed to be in the upper bedrooms; the ground floor was empty. In under a minute, we were turning into the crossroads I’d marked on my map. The door at the end was locked. Kyle produced another key and we were inside.
The storeroom was old and dusty, piled with all sorts of junk, everything from stepladders to fishing rods. Someone had ransacked it a few times and not bothered to put stuff back where they’d found it; several crates were broken open with their contents scattered around. I could sense dozens of magical auras, but most were minor, the kind you get from items that are too old, broken, or weak for mages to care about. Except the statue in the middle. That aura wasn’t weak at all.
The statue was of a man, bearded and dressed in ceremonial robes, maybe sixty years old. His right hand held a wand, while his left was extended in front of him, palm up. His expression was confident and proud; the sculptor had done a good job of capturing his features. His name was Abithriax, and very soon I was going to be meeting him.
All right, you bastard. Let’s see how well you do this time.
Variam and Luna moved into the room. “It’s not going to summon an elemental this time, right?” Luna asked.
“This time?” Kyle said.
“Council deactivated that ward when they moved it,” I said.
“They didn’t deactivate that,” Variam said, pointing sharply at the statue. “You see it?”
I frowned, focusing. My magesight showed me a lattice of space magic surrounding the statue, tied into the local environment somehow. “Gate ward?” I said doubtfully. It didn’t look quite right . . .
“Sink ward,” Variam said.
“Shit.”
“What’s a sink ward?” Luna asked.
“Redirects gates,” Variam said. “And the focal point is this room.”
“Which means that if we try to gate out of the bubble realm, we won’t end up in the middle of nowhere,” I said, my thoughts racing. “We’ll end up here.”
Kyle frowned. “Abort?”
I hesitated for only a moment before shaking my head. “Change of plan. You three evac with Starbreeze once the gate’s open. I’ll go in alone.”
“What?” Luna asked. “No. You need—”
“I can survive coming out into a room full of people with guns. You can’t.” Movement in the futures caught my attention. “We’re out of time.”
From somewhere in the direction of the kitchens, a shout went up. “Damn it,” Luna muttered. She shot me a look. “This does not mean I’m agreeing with you.” She turned, pulling the cube from her bag, and slotted it into the statue’s hand.
Luna’s cube is an imbued item. It’s powerful, but single-minded: it seems to care about Abithriax’s prison, and nothing more. It’s the only thing that can open the gate to that bubble realm, and Luna’s the only one who can use it. As it touched the statue, light sprang up around the statue’s hand, thin white beams reaching into the cube’s depths. The cube responded slowly, red beams moving to answer.
“Crap,” Variam said, staring at the statue. “You weren’t kidding, were you?”
The light show was impressive even to normal vision. To magesight, it glowed like the sun. I could have pointed to it with my eyes closed from a hundred feet away. “It’s going slower than last time,” Luna said, tension in her voice.
“You told us three minutes,” Kyle said.
I was moving to the doorway, laying down a pair of gold discs into the corridor, one by each wall. “Last time it was three minutes,” Luna said.
“Argue later,” I said curtly. I glanced over at the back of the storeroom. The second entrance was sealed off . . . probably, but there was no time to check. “We’ve got incoming.”
Luna, Variam, and Kyle took cover, hiding behind crates and in the corners. I stepped behind the statue. I could hear shouts and running footsteps echoing through the mansion; they weren’t converging on us quite yet, but they were getting louder.
I rested a hand on the chestpiece of my armour. My armour is plate-and-mesh, an imbued item that’s alive in its own way. It had been a gift from Arachne many years ago, and since then it had grown with me, adjusting itself in response to our battles. I’d put it on before leaving the Hollow. I’m going to be counting on you, I said through the dreamstone. The armour seemed to pulse in response.
Hurrying footsteps came down the corridor, slowing as they reached the door. From the futures where I looked out, I could see a boy in his twenties stop in the doorway, staring openmouthed at the light show. “What the f—”
Kyle shot him with a Taser. The adept went down, jerking. Kyle moved in with another syringe full of sedative. “Movement,” Vari said.
“Hey!” a voice shouted from down the corridor. “Someone’s here! Hey!”
“Yo, Alex,” Variam called. “Weapons free?”
“Knock yourself out.”
There was a takatakatak as someone opened up with an assault rifle. Bullets slammed into the statue, ricochetting into the walls and floor. I stayed crouched, searching through the futures. He’s twenty feet down the corridor with an AK, I told Variam through the dreamstone. Two of them at the moment but more coming.
Got it.
The shooting stopped. In the sudden quiet, I could hear more footsteps converging, along with the sound of muffled voices. He’s going to advance, I told Variam. Five seconds.
A pause, then the guy with the assault rifle appeared down the corridor. Through the futures I could see him, maybe twenty or so with a round face, eyes bulging a little in concentration as he advanced with his gun forward.
Variam leant around the corner and hit him with a burst of focused heat. The boy’s blackened corpse hit the floor with a thump, and hot air rolled into the room, carrying the nauseating smell of burnt flesh.
Luna wrinkled her nose but didn’t say anything. Running footsteps sounded down the corridor, followed by more shouts. Guessing they won’t try that again, Variam said.
Not after seeing that, I said. I reached out to Luna and Kyle as well. Keep your heads down, they’re going to keep up fire—
Another assault rifle opened up, along with a handgun this time. Bullets whined and chips of stone flew from the statue. I wondered what would happen if a lucky shot hit the cube, and decided I didn’t want to find out. Vari, can you tell them to stop that?
In answer, Variam chucked a fireball around the corner. I saw the red flash flicker on the ceiling; there was a yell and the gunfire cut off.
Silence fell. From down the corridor and around the junction, I could hear someone swearing, their voice muffled. Someone else was calling for backup. What do you see? Variam asked.
I looked through the futures where I went out and down the corridor. I think they got the message. There
was only one guy in view, a kid of maybe twenty, dressed in combats and a leather jerkin. He was holding a handgun that looked too big for him, and was peering around the corner down the corridor at the storeroom. I remembered him from my last visit: his name was Trey. They’re holding.
Alex, Luna said. You can hear?
Yes.
Something’s wrong. Luna sounded worried. I think when Onyx and his guys stole the statue, they damaged it.
I glanced up. The red-and-white lights were just visible from behind the statue, the magical signature still shouting out to everyone in range that something big was happening. I couldn’t feel any sign of a gate. Is it working?
I don’t know, Luna said. I’m going to give it some help. “Vari,” she called. “Cover me.” She moved out to the statue, putting herself in full view of anyone down the corridor.
I heard Trey shout something, but before he could raise his gun, Variam stepped out. Trey leapt for cover as Variam scorched the intersection.
“Thanks,” Luna said over her shoulder.
I got to my feet. Luna was studying the cube, frowning. The beams of light were still playing over it, but while some had matched, the others hadn’t. “Almost,” she said, half to herself. “Just a little push . . .” She laid one hand on the cube, the silver mist of her curse turning to gold.
I watched uneasily. I didn’t like Luna having her back to the door like that. “Make it quick.”
“Don’t rush me,” Luna said absently.
Golden mist seeped into the crystal. One of the beams wavered, then intersected, becoming a solid line linking the cube to the statue. A second followed. “There,” Luna said.
“Movement,” Variam said, not taking his eyes off the corridor.
“Luna, move,” I said.
“I said don’t—”