Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
“I know it doesn’t look like much, but this is the Black Blade.” He weighted those words with special emphasis and looked at me as if to say, Pretty amazing, right?
“Should I know what that is?”
He looked briefly crestfallen. “Oh. I thought you might have researched—It doesn’t matter. The Black Blade was forged from metal brought here from another world. Records from Egypt’s Fourth Dynasty say that a woman named Hetepheres used this to slay an Abomination.”
I leaned in to peer at it more closely. “Really? I’m not sure it could slay a sick pigeon.”
“It’s more powerful than it looks. This is one of the oldest artifacts the Conclave possesses, and the only thing they know of that can end this threat permanently.
” Wrapping up the knife again, he extended it to me, expression serious.
“I’m just a boy, standing in front of another boy, asking him to take this arcane dagger and give it to his boss so they can use it to kill an Abomination. ”
My lips twitched before I could stop them. “You had me at ‘arcane dagger.’ ” I took the bundle from him. “Thanks.”
“Do you think your boss will accept it?”
“Maybe. But I’m not going to give it to her.”
He stared at me. “What do you mean?”
“Management is playing Their own game, and I’m afraid They’re preparing to sacrifice the executive board. So I’m going to use this knife myself.”
Blinking several times, Eric said, “You’re…what now?”
“I’m going to use it myself,” I repeated, enunciating each word. “You know, to save the world. And when I do, I’ll have my pick of any job I want in Dark Enterprises.”
“Colin, that’s not—”
“I think I have a decent shot, actually,” I interrupted, “what with the cunning plan we’ve devised.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
I gestured to Amira and Lex, standing a short ways down the sidewalk. “Us.”
“Uh-huh.” He paused. “The three of you are going to save the world from an unbound Abomination.”
“Yup.”
“By yourselves.”
“Absolutely.”
“Without dying.”
“Fingers crossed.”
“And your plan is…cunning?”
“The cunningest.”
His eyes searched mine. “Will you let me help?” he asked abruptly.
That gave me pause. “I don’t know,” I said eventually. “Can I trust you? Especially after you brought those two goons along?”
Grimacing, Eric glanced back down the sidewalk at Ivan and Corrine.
“They’ve been watching my apartment. Once they heard from the Conclave that something is happening tomorrow, they latched on to me and won’t go away.
” He shrugged wearily. “I’m stuck with them, at least for the moment, but I’ll keep them in line.
And they really can be useful. They’ve fought supernatural entities before. ”
Weighing our options, I said at last, “Okay. Dark Enterprises is locked down as the board prepares for their ritual—by the way, that’s happening tomorrow at four forty-three p.m., somewhere onsite.
We have research to do, so we’re going to sneak in and hunker down. Do you have someplace safe to go?”
“We’ll be fine,” he assured me. “Are you going to tell me what this cunning plan is?”
“We’re going to re-create the magicks that Management used to bind the Abominations back in the old days.”
His eyebrows went up. “That’s some serious power.”
“Yeah, well, Lex and Amira are both, like, geniuses or whatever.”
Eric touched my hand and a pleasurable little frisson shivered through me.
“I want to give you something else.” With his other hand, he held out a small golden disc.
“This is linked to my amulet. If you hold it and speak my name, I’ll hear you.
We can use it to keep in touch.” As I took it from him, he added, “I’ve masked its magicks, so getting it into your building shouldn’t be a problem. ”
“Thanks,” I said quietly as I held his gaze. Then, awkwardly, I murmured, “Well. We’d better get going.”
Eric nodded, and together we walked back to the others. “Be safe,” he told me softly before joining Ivan and Corrine. Then the three of them disappeared back into the alley.
“Colin, Lex has been telling me some insane things.” Amira looked a little dazed as she reached for my arm. “Like…magic? Abominations?”
I pulled her close. “The learning curve for this stuff is very steep.”
“But it can’t be real,” she insisted. “There’s a rational explanation for what’s happening.”
“There totally is,” Lex agreed. “It just includes variables that you wouldn’t normally consider.”
Amira shook her head so vehemently that her curls whipped across her face. “That would mean that everything we know about the universe is wrong! It would invalidate every fundamental assumption held by modern science!”
Lex smiled, which I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen before. “Everything you know about the universe isn’t wrong. It’s just incomplete. And isn’t that where science gets really interesting?”
Amira stared at them, mouth opening and then closing slowly.
“You just watched Eric pull a burning sword out of thin air,” I reminded her.
“And I think even you would be hard-pressed to find a scientific explanation for countless thousands of people vanishing without a trace.” I gave her a quick squeeze.
“Let’s get inside, okay? We’ll have time to unpack all of this once we’re in a safe place. ”
With a reluctant nod, Amira allowed herself to be drawn across the street. “What did Eric give you?”
I glanced down at the cloth bundle in my free hand. “He called it the Black Blade. Someone used it to kill an Abomination, like, a million years ago.”
“Handy,” Lex observed. “If we can trust those Conclave assholes.”
Pushing aside thoughts of Eric and his goons, I stopped to peer through the tinted glass walls of Dark Enterprises. Someone was sitting behind the reception desk in the middle of the lobby. “I’ve got this,” I said with an attempt at confidence as I moved to the revolving doors. “Follow my lead.”
The receptionist was a young woman with short red hair who seemingly never left her desk.
She was always there, day or night. For all I knew, she was attached to the floor, or perhaps an organic extension of the desk itself.
Looking up at our approach, she fixed us with a repressive stare and said, “Access to this building is restricted.”
Time to switch on the ol’ Harris charm. “Hi there,” I said in a friendly tone, giving her a big smile. “It’s Carrie, right?”
“My name is Skye.”
“Oh, right. Hi, Skye. I’m Colin.” Adopting a casual pose, I placed a hand on the chilly granite surface of the desk and leaned in a little. “You might recognize me. I work on thirteen.”
Her blank stare conveyed without words that she neither knew who I was nor cared to converse any longer than absolutely necessary. “You all work on the thirteenth floor?” she asked, gaze flicking over my shoulder to Lex and Amira.
“I work in the Repository,” Lex said.
“And this is Dr. Davis,” I added, motioning to Amira. “She’s working with us as an outside consultant. We’re here by special request. Top secret executive project. Essential employees. You know the drill.” I punctuated this with my most winning smile.
“All of you are on the authorized list?” Skye inquired icily. Her hand inched toward her keyboard.
I hadn’t realized such a list existed, and I needed to stop her from checking it. “Do you know who Ms. Crenshaw is?” I inquired, keeping my voice light but allowing my smile to fade.
Skye blinked once. “Of course.”
“Great. Do you want me to call her right now and let her know that you’ve prevented two essential employees and a key consultant from entering the building during a Level 5 emergency?
” Skye opened her mouth to reply and I added in a slightly harder tone, “Do you really think the CEO forgot to put our names on the list?”
“I—”
“You know what? I’m going to call her.” I pulled my phone from my pocket.
“That won’t be necessary,” the receptionist assured me, her cool facade cracking ever so slightly.
“If Ms. Crenshaw arranged things herself, then of course you can enter.” She touched something next to her keyboard.
“I’ve unlocked the elevators, and I’ll issue Dr. Davis a temporary ID so that she’s not incinerated. ”
Amira made a strangled sound behind me.
Taking the temporary ID from Skye, I murmured, “Wonderful. You have a great evening.” I rapped my knuckles on the desk in a brisk farewell before turning toward the elevators, the others’ footsteps following me as we crossed the lobby.
I could feel the receptionist watching, and it took real effort not to run.
Lex muttered, “Wow, you’ve really mastered the ‘condescending prick’ part of being an executive assistant.”
I gave them a look as I passed the ID badge to Amira. “It worked, didn’t it? I doubt she’ll dare to check with Ms. Crenshaw. Everyone is a little on edge after all those people died yesterday.”
“Wait a minute,” Amira started to say, “what—?”
I interrupted hastily, “Oh look, here’s the elevator!”
Lex had suggested that we squirrel ourselves away in the Repository, since it was filled with obscure nooks and crannies where no one would notice us.
When we arrived, we found it eerily empty, our echoing footsteps the only noise.
Amira kept stopping every two or three paces to stare around in amazement, goggling at the massive atrium rising overhead.
“This shouldn’t be possible,” she said in a hushed voice as she looked up at the vaulted ceiling.
Then she punched me in the arm, hard. “I can’t believe you kept all this from me! ”
“Ow,” I complained. “Why is everyone punching me today?”
“I work in here,” Lex pointed out casually, and puffed out their chest a little when Amira looked at them with an admiring gaze.
“It must be amazing.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty great,” Lex agreed. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were preening under her scrutiny. Then, clearing their throat, they added, “We should get moving. The safest place to camp out is the Obsolete section. No one ever goes there.”
It took us almost fifteen minutes of walking to reach the highest level of the Repository and then back through a seemingly endless series of bookshelves.
The air grew mustier as we went along, and I noticed a thin film of dust coating the books and scrolls we passed.
Lex changed course a couple of times until we reached a corner where two towering walls of bookshelves met.
A couple of grimy, neglected tables sat nearby.
“Okay.” Lex wriggled out from under their backpack and the tablet inside, then set it down with a sigh. “We should be good. I don’t think anyone has been back here in years.” They ran a finger along the cracked spine of a book and left a clear swath in the thick layer of dust.
“You said this is the Obsolete section?” Amira asked as she drifted closer to a shelf and tilted her head to read the titles there.
“Yeah. It’s where we store the materials no one wants or needs anymore. Everything here has been debunked or supplanted or revealed to be fake.”
“So why do you keep this stuff if it’s useless?” I asked as I set my messenger bag on the beige carpet.
“We don’t destroy books, Colin,” Lex said in a scandalized tone.
Shrugging, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the seal. “Remember this? You said it’s what Management used to focus Their binding. Could you use it to do the same thing?”
Lex turned it over in their fingers, squinting at the sigils incised on its surface. “I’d forgotten you had this, but yeah, this should be super useful.”
I beamed.
“So I’m on translation duty,” Lex went on, “and Amira is taking care of the math. What are you going to do?”
Placing my hands on my hips, I stared dramatically into the middle distance. “I have an idea so crazy it might just work.” Pausing for effect, I then proclaimed, “I intend to master the most powerful of arcane arts!”
Lex sighed. “What?”
I relaxed my dramatic pose. “Look, I don’t want to brag, but in college I got my elven wizard Sepharius the Splendiferous to level twenty in Castles & Chimeras. So I think I know a little something about magic.”
Lex closed their eyes and took several deep breaths through their nose.
“Colin, do I need to explain to you that Syphilis the Who-Gives-a-Shit is not a real person? Or that Castles & Chimeras, while invented by our company as a way to ensnare the minds and souls of vulnerable young people, is not an accurate representation of magic?”
“Of course it isn’t. But you don’t become a level twenty wizard without learning how to choose your spells strategically.
You need to anticipate what will be useful and prepare accordingly.
I don’t have to master the fundamental tenets of sorcery, I just have to find one or two pieces of crazy-powerful magic and then figure out how to do them. ” I shrugged. “How hard can it be?”
Lex started massaging their temples as if they felt a headache coming on.
“Wait a minute,” Amira chimed in, “your company created C&C?”
I nodded. “Oh, yeah. It was part of their big push in the 1980s to indoctrinate the American heartland. They engineered the whole Satanic Panic, too. Nothing got teenagers more interested in evil than everyone from their parents to their teachers to their pastors telling them to avoid it. Hell saw a real big bump in profits after that.”
“Hell,” she repeated. “Like, as in actual Hell? It’s a real place?”
I laughed nervously. “Uh. You know what? Let’s table the discussion about other realms of existence until after we save this one.”
“I have so many questions, though! How can this space exist inside the building we entered? What even is an Abomination? Plus, you’re talking about learning sorcery! Am I hallucinating?”
“How about this?” Lex suggested. “You ask me whatever you want while we go looking for the materials we need. As much as I’d love to sit down and answer a million questions, we only have twenty-four hours to put this ritual together.”
Taking a deep breath, Amira nodded. “Okay. Deal. I feel like my head is about to explode.”
“You get used to it,” I told her. Putting out my hand, palm down, I waited for them to place theirs on top of mine so I could say something inspiring followed by “Go team!” But they just stared blankly at me, so, with a disappointed sigh, I prepared to trek all the way back down to the Repository’s catalog and begin my tutelage in the darkest of dark arts.
Soon enough, I’d bend the cosmos to my will and strike fear in the twisted hearts of Abominations everywhere.
And then? Then I’d take whatever I wanted—from Dark Enterprises, from the world, from everything and everyone.
My laughter echoed through the stacks as I set out to realize my nefarious plans.