Maybe I wasn’t as used to having no privacy as I believed. Before Zack and Helori implanted their mental shielding, the demonic lords and their demahnk ptarl could read my every thought, whether they wanted to or not. I’d stopped being pissy about it some time ago since there was nothing they or I could do about it, and staying mad about unintentional voyeurism seemed like a huge waste of mental energy. But clearly, “not being mad” wasn’t the same as “being totally okay with it,” and in my overtired state I’d slapped out at a stressed and exhausted Marco.
I’d already known he had visions, but I hadn’t realized they happened all the time. Or perhaps that was a recent development? I couldn’t imagine how he’d remained a cop for so many years if he was constantly seeing and feeling things about perps and victims and even other cops. Was it getting worse for him? And if so, how long before he cracked?
“Crap,” I sighed. My insensitivity had also lost me the opportunity to learn the flying camera trick. At least that was a low priority. I’d apologize to him later, when we weren’t both so exhausted. Ha! Like that would happen anytime soon.
I pushed to my feet and stretched the worst of the kinks out of my back then checked on Giovanni. He still rested peacefully as if in natural sleep, and so I trudged on to the kitchen. “C’mon, Pellini. Let’s go to the ice cream shop.”
He gave me a narrow look over his laptop screen. “There’s no ice cream at the ice cream shop.”
“I know, and it’s criminal. But there are big shiny crystals there along with a new irregularity that spawned while I was on the nexus.”
Grumbling, he shut the computer. “Fine. But after we save the world again, I want some ice cream.”
“And I want the cats to stop shredding the curtains. I guess we’re both fucked.”
Chapter 11
Though Pellini was right about the dearth of frozen delectables at the ice cream shop, there was something else almost as appealing. Mere minutes after the valve explosion, two six-foot-wide, fifteen-foot-high crystalline shards had materialized in the parking lot in front of Ruthie’s Smoothies. The media had coined the name “Spires” for them, even though in my opinion they were more like Stumps, since they were about fifty feet too short for true spire-ness. But nobody bothered to ask me. Their official DIRT designation was Incursion Zone 212 or IZ-212 for short. Nobody asked me about that either, but at least “IZ-212” was merely boring and forgettable instead of inaccurate.
It was no secret that the Spires were arcane. Anyone with a hint of sensitivity could feel that the crystalline structures carried unearthly resonance. However, it was a secret to everyone except Pellini, Idris, and myself that the Spires were infused with the potency signature of demonic lord Kadir—a.k.a. Creepshow. That wouldn’t mean squat to those new to the concept of demons and lords, but it would to the other DIRT summoners. Since I still had no idea if the Kadir association with the Spires was good or bad, I’d elected not to share that detail with them.
No unauthorized personnel were allowed within a quarter mile of the Spires. A high fence topped with barbed wire marked the boundary of the secure area. Stern-faced soldiers manned the gate and patrolled the perimeter with orders to use extreme prejudice when dealing with anyone foolish enough to ignore the prominent “Restricted Area” signs.
As I pulled up to the gate, a soldier with a rifle slung at his side stepped out of a guard shack and glowered until we came to a full stop. Pellini and I dutifully handed our IDs over. With meticulous care, the soldier compared our faces to our ID photos then scanned our thumbs on a handheld fingerprint reader. Didn’t matter that we were well known to the local DIRT personnel. These guys didn’t take any shortcuts.
At long last the soldier appeared satisfied that we weren’t doppelgängers and called for the gate to be opened. Pellini cursed under his breath as we passed into the IZ-212 compound, and I echoed his sentiments. A couple of months ago, this little strip mall had been a slice of normal, with its karate studio, dry cleaners, and smoothie shop. Now the shops served as headquarters and barracks for the compound, stripped of their non-useful content. The signs were all that remained—a sad reminder of what was lost.
I parked in my designated spot in front of large block letters that announced “3 shirts cleaned for price of 2!” Pellini and I checked that our weapons were locked and loaded, then we climbed out and approached the giant crystal shards. Clear as glass, they each had eleven sides and stood about fifteen feet apart. They also had intrinsic arcane protections with a strong aversion and amnesiac effect. Anyone who got within arm’s length would wander off in the opposite direction without a clue where they’d been going in the first place.
Except for Pellini and me. So far it seemed that we were the only people who could touch the things, and I suspected it was because we each had a unique connection to the strange and creepy Lord Kadir.
Needless to say, the powers-that-be had tried their damndest to find a way around the protections, using everything from drugs to hypnosis in their attempts to subvert the mental effects, with zero success. Even robots and drones proved useless, since their inner workings went up in sparks within about ten feet of the shards, no matter how much arcane shielding they had.
“The crystals are still humming,” Pellini said once we were out of earshot of any of the soldiers. “But can you hear the chimes? That’s new. Except it’s not sound.”
I moved to the nearest Spire then held my hand an inch from the surface, assessing. “It’s like it’s in a register that doesn’t actually exist.”
Pellini frowned. “Kara, look.”
I followed his gaze to the tops of the Spires where rippling patterns flickered like a net of pale blue lightning. “Whoa.” I pulled my hand away from the crystal and retreated a step. “Something woke up.”
“A strategic retreat would be a pretty smart move right about now,” Pellini said, watching as the flickering net spread downward to cover the Spires.
“Sure would be,” I murmured as the rippling increased. Neither of us budged. Shouts of alarm told us the light show wasn’t going unnoticed. “Screw it,” I growled and pressed my hand to the surface an instant before Pellini did the same.
My awareness spread into the shard and beyond, to a space that was neither Earth nor the demon realm. There, potency rotated like an eleven-sided glass planet. At its core, ugly, tangled energy strands writhed. “Sonofabitch.”
“It’s awake, all right,” Pellini said, “but its wires are all crossed up. Maybe we can untangle that—”
“No!” The word burst from me before my brain could engage. “I mean . . . wait.” I licked dry lips. Even when I’d had the nexus resources at my disposal to help me untangle the pre-anomaly, I screwed it up. If not for Rhyzkahl’s guidance, I’d have caused a planet-wide cataclysm on Earth. Here at the Spires, I had only my othersight and my shaky arcane skills.
I shifted my stance and felt the weight of the sidearms that were strapped to each thigh. A faint smile pulled at my mouth. Silly woman. My resources went far beyond my abilities. Bryce had helped me find the best tactical holsters to fit my needs. I’d asked for his help because he knew all about that shit. He was a resource. Right now I had Pellini, along with the crystals and their inherent potency. This tangle probably wasn’t a pre-anomaly, so I could stop freaking out about destroying the world. A little.
That said, even if it wasn’t as nasty as a pre-anomaly, I had a gut feeling it would wreck the crystals if it broke loose. However, my options were to trust myself and Pellini, or risk losing the opportunity to figure out the purpose of the Spires.
With any luck, they weren’t a doomsday device that would vaporize the Earth once activated. That would kind of suck.
“That loop needs to be untangled without disturbing the glassy planet thing,” I said, “but don’t tug on any of the pulsing strands. I made that mistake once already.”
Pel
lini’s eyes unfocused as he pressed both hands to the shard surface. “Gotcha. Pull from the middle then?”
“Sort of.” Pellini and I had worked together enough that I trusted him to understand my directions. I hoped. “Need to find the strands with the least amount of energy and then shunt power to them from the pulsing strands.”
He mulled that over for several seconds. “So I’m making a new connection to bleed off power, and that will make it a cinch to untangle?”
I breathed a sigh of relief that he’d grasped it so easily. “Exactly.”
For the next ten minutes, I located suitable strands while Pellini did the shunting and power-bleeding. With every success, the tangle loosened.
“Okay, last one, you little fucker,” Pellini growled. “Not you, Kara. I mean, not at this moment.”
“Har har,” I said with a grin. “C’mon, get it done.”
Pellini pulled the final strand into place. The loop resolved into a perfect chartreuse Möbius band sigil with a pinpoint streak of potency running along it in a never ending circuit. Before I had time to gawk at its beauty, it expanded to fill the confines of the rotating glass planet. Power thrummed through the crystals, shaking my bones.
“Is that good or bad?” Pellini said through gritted teeth. “It doesn’t feel good.”
“Hold on.” Arms numb to the shoulder, I splayed my hands and pressed harder. “There’s something else. I can almost sense it. Just on the verge of . . .” A whisper like wind through leaves passed through me, and a feather touch fluttered across my lower back. I laughed as I realized the simple clarity of it. “I see it! It has eleven. Needs to be twelve.”
“I can’t hold this much longer! What has eleven? Twelve what?”
Eleven lords plus one. It was so obvious. “Faces. On the glass planet thing. It has eleven. Need to merge it with the loop to make a twelfth face.”
“Got it.” Pellini cocooned the polyhedron with a blanket of potency, then drew the loop outward to meld with it. Power flashed white hot, and we both yanked our hands away and retreated. The Spires flickered with lightning as their tones rose to a crescendo, then they went silent and dark.
Panting, I bent to brace my hands on my thighs. “Well, we didn’t destroy the world,” I said once I’d caught my breath. “But I still don’t understand what it . . .” I trailed off and straightened. Standing between the Spires was a wide-eyed young man—Hispanic, with a slight build, and dressed in demon realm clothing.
“Paul?!” Paul Ortiz was an incredibly gifted hacker who’d nearly died from accidental arcane damage inflicted by Mzatal during the Farouche Plantation conflict. It was only through Kadir’s efforts that Paul survived.
Paul spun toward me, confusion melting into relief. “Kara!” He started my way then stopped at shouts from the barricade, smile vanishing. I turned to see half a dozen soldiers running up, weapons trained on Paul. Beyond them, the compound seethed like a stirred-up anthill.
Shouted commands rattled the air. “Get on the ground!” “Keep your hands where we can see them!” “Get down NOW!”
“Stand down!” I yelled at the soldiers, pissed when they completely ignored me and continued to fling orders at Paul. He stood frozen in place, face paling. I jumped in front of him, spread my arms and glared at the weapons pointed my way. “He’s a friendly! Stand the fuck down!”
I might as well have been speaking Greek for all the good it did me. Pellini gave the soldiers a black scowl and joined my human shield. Paul shamelessly huddled behind us while the soldiers kept their weapons trained in his direction as if we weren’t even there.
“Great to see you, Paul,” I murmured over my shoulder, “but how the hell are you here?”
“Accident,” he replied in a hoarse whisper. “I was at the gate in Kadir’s realm when it activated just a minute ago.”
The squad leader barked into his radio, “We have a confirmed intruder at location alpha niner.”
“Hold that thought,” I said to Paul then turned my best commanding look on the squad leader. “Sergeant White, I outrank you, and I’m ordering you and your men to stand down!”
“With all due respect, ma’am, my orders come from General Starr. All intruders are to be taken into immediate custody, and any resistance is cause for—”
“He’s not resisting,” I snapped. “I am! I suggest you take a fucking pause and let your higher-ups know that this man is under my protection.”
White’s glare could have burned a hole through the Spires, but he gritted out an order that had the soldiers easing fingers off triggers, though they kept weapons aimed at us. White pulled out an arcane-shielded satellite phone, probably to call someone who could give him the okay to shoot my annoying ass.
That settled for the moment, I shifted to look at Paul. “A gate? Like, a way to travel between the realms? That’s what these crystals are?”
He flashed a nervous smile. “Considering I was in the demon realm a few minutes ago, I’d say yes.” He looked up at the two crystalline shards with naked awe. “This is one of the Earthgates from the first age.”
The first age of the demonic lords, over twenty-five hundred years ago, when there were open pathways to the demon realm. Before summoning was necessary.
I flicked a quick glance at the soldiers. They were still merely aiming at us, but I noted that all the military personnel in the area were on high alert, with weapons in hand and ready. The ones wearing rank were on phones or radios. Trusting that Pellini would warn me of any status changes, I returned my full attention to Paul. “But weren’t there more Earthgates?”
“One for each lord,” he said with a nod. “Though they’ve all been dormant for thousands of years.”
That took a few seconds to process. “So how did this one wake up?”
“There’s a pair of crystals in Kadir’s realm that look exactly like these.” He traced his fingers over a zigzag ridge on the shard. “Back when the valve exploded, they appeared and started humming. Lord Kadir stabilized them, and since then I’ve spent a lot of time in their potency flows.” A smile lit his face. “My god, you should have seen the arcane polyhedron awesomeness between the columns. For a month, there were two cubes, then those merged and morphed into a hendecahedron with primeval strands inside.”
Pellini and I exchanged a glance.
“It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever felt,” Paul continued, oblivious. “You know how the effulgent binaries usually have opposite rotation to their associated quaternaries? These were—”
I held up my hand. “I want to hear all about it, but for now, you’d better skip to what happened today, before these guys crash our party.” I jerked my head toward the soldiers.
Paul flushed. “Oh. Right. Sorry. A few hours ago, the hum changed to this awful clanging. Kadir balanced the potency and harmonized the tones, but as soon as he did, the strands in the center tangled and started pulsing. Before Kadir could sort them out, a huge anomaly formed over the valve crater in Rhyzkahl’s realm, and he had to go deal with it. I stayed behind to monitor the gate.”
Pellini frowned. “A few hours ago?” At Paul’s nod he turned the frown on me. “That’s when you were doing the nexus shit.”
“That’s not a coincidence,” I said with a wince. “Neither is the giant demon realm anomaly.” My actions with the pre-anomaly on the nexus had obviously bled over to the demon realm and caused big problems. I quickly explained to Paul about the pre-anomaly and the various Earthside fallout. By the time I finished, Paul looked as if he’d eaten bad shrimp.
“God, Kara,” he said with a shudder. “That could have gone really badly.”
“Yeah, thanks for the reminder,” I said with a snort. “Lucky for everyone I managed to avoid destroying the known universe, and I even hit the ‘on’ button for an interdimensional gate. And here I thought this was a regular old Monday.” I cocked my
head. “Let me guess the next bit. About five minutes ago, the tangle turned into a pretty Möbius band, expanded as if it was going to explode, then merged with the eleven-sided shape and turned it into a twelve-sided shape.”
Paul’s eyes widened. “Yes! Then the gate glowed, and bam, I was here. How did you know?”
“Pellini and I sort of, uh, fixed that hendeca-doohicky problem from this side. Had no clue about this being a gate, though.” I gave Paul a careful once-over. “You seem to have made it in one piece. Did it hurt? Summonings sure do. Feels like being dragged over broken glass.”
“Didn’t feel a thing except cold and an odd spinning.” He darted a distressed gaze around. “The lords and demahnk haven’t sealed that anomaly yet. I need to go back. I should be there in case Lord Ka—”
“Stand down,” a gruff voice ordered. The soldiers lowered their weapons as a man in captain’s bars strode up. His pressed fatigues bore the nametag “Hornak.” I wasn’t looking down a rifle barrel anymore, but I knew we weren’t out of the woods yet.
Captain Hornak gave me a thin smile as he approached. I didn’t recognize him, which meant he must have been assigned here within the past week, but I had little doubt he knew exactly who I was.
“Arcane Commander Gillian, I hope you have an explanation for what just happened and can tell us who this intruder is.” His sharp eyes flicked to the Spires, to Paul and his unusual clothing, then to Pellini and me. “Because it sure looked as if this fellow appeared out of thin air.”
“He’s not an intruder.” I gave Paul’s shoulder a firm squeeze, surprised to feel him trembling. Face pale, he continued to scan almost desperately, like a kid searching for his lost dog. “He’s an ally,” I continued, “and we’re still not exactly sure how he got here.” I kept my hand on Paul, not only for reassurance, but also in case he tried to make a dash through the gate.