Chapter 12 #2
Ah, it sounds like Tish has found people who think just like him.
The whole bit about one of his brethren being dead worries me, though.
Dead how? Fighting David’s combat sorcerers, maybe?
Portals would explain how Tish managed to cross the country without us knowing. But who are these portal people?
I sneak a quick glance around. The room is pretty plain.
It’s about twenty feet square and seems to be constructed entirely of the same green stone, with a solid wood door and no windows.
There are some lightballs hovering up near the ceiling to provide illumination, and the only furniture is a wood bench against the wall beside the door.
The lightballs are interesting, because they look almost exactly like the ones I create.
Sorcerers can weave light, but the end result looks a little different.
I can’t explain how—you have to see it. Although, now that I think about it, Andrew said he couldn’t tell the difference between my lightballs and what David wove.
Maybe David and I could see the difference because we wield the power?
The same way Andrew can identify blood type by the scent of it, whereas everyone non-vampire needs to use a microscope and know what the fuck they’re doing.
Not important right now. What matters is that those lightballs look a lot like mine, which means someone here can manipulate existential magic.
Is purple-glow guy human? Could I glow too if I knew how?
I sneak another look at him while Tish argues about how they couldn’t possibly have known I would be there and that what happened at the ambush wasn’t his fault. I keep listening—“ambush” worries me—but soak in as much detail of purple-glow guy as I can.
He’s not human. Not unless he’s one of those die-hard Lord of the Rings fans who have surgery to change the shape of their ears.
Can you say pointy? There’s also something other about the shape of his browbone and eye sockets.
At first I thought it was the shape of his eyes and the way they were set, but it’s the bone structure itself.
In fact, he looks pretty much like every movie depiction of an elf ever, only shorter.
The high-cheekboned, hollow-cheeked, slender look never really did it for me, but I can’t deny he has a certain magnetism.
This close, he smells kind of… summery. Too bad I’m going to rip off his leg and shove it up his ass if he nudges me with his foot one more time.
Whatever species he is, I can’t reject the possibility that he can manipulate existential magic just like I can.
Does that mean he can sense when I do it?
Whatever he was doing to the ward before wasn’t something I felt, and those lightballs aren’t pinging on my magic radar either.
Which could mean that people who use the magic can’t feel/see each other using it, or it could mean that he’s not using the magic.
I have no answers, but I do have a slight headache from trying to reason this out.
Drawing the magic more tightly around me, I try again to send a message to Percy.
I’m fine . I need to come up with a plan, because I am not staying a prisoner of Tish for a second longer than I have to.
The biggest issue is that I don’t know where I am.
What if that portal took us to a different continent and landed us in the middle of a jungle?
Or Antarctica? I can probably use the magic to fight my way out—as long as there aren’t a hundred guards outside that door—but then I have to find a way to survive and get home, and me against Antarctica is not going to go well for me.
I do like penguins, though.
The other issue is that if I use my magic against Tish, he’ll know I have it.
I’m not sure yet if either of the hellhound goons has mentioned the fireballs, but I’m positive I was far enough up the hallway that he didn’t see them himself.
We do not want Tish to realize that humans can manipulate existential magic.
Fuck only knows what he’d do with that knowledge, but it would be bad for humankind and the community.
So for now, I need to be patient and gather some information. And hope Tish doesn’t know who I am.
As if on cue, a hand grabs my upper arm and hauls me to my feet. I pretend to stumble and stomp hard on the foot of the hellhound holding me. Just because.
“Noah Cage,” Tish says, looming forward, eyes taking in every single inch of me.
My skin crawls, and I look away, doing a quick assessment of the group.
The sorcerers and purple-glow guy are gone, leaving only Tish and the hellhounds.
“You’re supposed to be dead. I had paperwork confirming you were euthanized and cremated.
It was signed off by my senior lab techs. ”
I shrug but say nothing.
“How are you still alive, Noah?”
“Your lab techs always were sloppy,” I say in a bored tone. I can’t let him guess about the magic. It’s my one advantage, and it’s only good if I’m conscious. If they decide to knock me out, I’m done for.
I will not let Tish win. I’m stronger than him.
He tilts his head, still studying me in that creepy way. “That would take sloppiness to extremes,” he muses. “I suppose the guards at the compound were equally sloppy, to let you escape?”
Relief hits me like a truck. He doesn’t know I was stuck in that place for a year. I can make this work for me.
“That was just good luck for me. They happened to get distracted right when I was trying to work out how to get past them.” I mean, the distraction was Gideon and about a million enforcement agents raiding the place, and it was after I’d been wandering through the compound for months, but still.
“It helped that everyone thought all we humans were dead by then. Nobody expected anyone would be trying to get out.” Shut up, Noah . Don’t babble. Keep cool.
Purple-glow guy comes back in. “We need to free this room for others,” he says. “Come.”
Tish turns away and follows him out. I’m eager to see what’s on the other side of the door and would happily have walked out after them, but my hellhound guards have decided that carrying me is their preferred option.
They stand on either side of me and grab my arms and lift.
These guys are definitely not CSG trained—they’ve left my legs free to kick at them and potentially trip them, and they’ve also not thought about how we’ll get through the door three abreast like this.
If I wasn’t so keen to see what’s outside this room, I could do quite a bit of damage to them.
I’ve been training with Andrew and the team a lot lately, and they’re teaching me and Sam hand-to-hand fighting.
I’m not good enough to take down trained professionals, but these guys?
And with the magic to back me up? I’m confident I’d at least have a shot.
If I’d known this back at the office, I’d have put up more of a fight.
Sure enough, we get all tangled up at the door, and they have to put me down and let me walk through. Outside is a corridor, still made from the same green stone and completely bare. These people have clearly not got any kind of flair for interior decorating. Andrew would hate this place.
Fuck, I hope he never has to see it.
Down the hall we go, and into another room.
This one is about three times the size of the other, fully furnished as a sitting room, and has a massive bank of windows on one wall.
Windows that draw my attention immediately as I search for any clue to give away my location and help me come up with a plan.
I’m fucked.
Like… “there’s no hope” kind of fucked.
Unless you know of somewhere on Earth where the sky is purple and grass is orange? Anywhere? No?
So, yeah… fucked.
Could I be on the spiritual plane? Is that even possible? I didn’t think they had things like grass and buildings there, but… I pinch myself, but my body feels solid to me. Just to check, I pinch the hellhound gripping my arm.
“Ow! What the fuck is wrong with you?” he bellows, drawing everyone’s attention to us. I widen my eyes as far as they’ll go and bite my lower lip like I’m trying not to cry.
“You’re hurting me,” I whisper.
He raises a fist. “I’ll show you hurt, you little human scum.”
“That’s enough,” Tish orders. “Don’t damage him; I’ll need him.”
Great. What a lovely and reassuring thought.
The hellhound shoves me into a chair that’s surprisingly comfortable, but I sniffle and wince like I’m in pain.
“So, Noah,” Tish begins somewhat pleasantly. “You were going to tell me what you’ve been doing since you left my compound.”
I sniffle again. “Data management.” I have to be really careful how I answer his questions.
I know hellhounds can smell changes in physiology that can indicate a lie.
Not all of them are trained to recognize it for what it is, and I’ve been through so much shit tonight that I probably stink of adrenaline and other body chemicals already, but I can’t take any risks.
“Data management?” He sounds skeptical.
I nod. “After I got away, I met some people in the woods who wanted to know everything I could tell them about you and the labs. As a thank you, they helped me find an apartment and gave me a job doing data management.”
The next few hours are tiring. Tish asks question after question about my health, from weight changes to dietary and sleep habits.
He wants to know if I’ve been for any medical tests.
If I’ve developed any extrasensory abilities.
How’s my sight? My hearing? My sense of smell?
He even has one of his hellhounds cut himself to see if I react to the blood.
Clearly he remembers enough about my file to know I have a vampire ancestor.
Then he turns his questions to Percy and the others, and I make myself give the most evasive, inane answers I can. I have to stall him while I come up with a plan, and if I refuse to answer and he tortures me, I’m screwed.
“Why were you in the CSG offices tonight?” he finally asks, after getting nowhere trying to pump me for security information.
“Working,” I say promptly.
His eyes narrow. “After the ward was activated? How were you going to get out? For that matter, how did you breach the ward?”
Crap, I’m going to have to tell an outright lie. Keep cool. I pull on the magic just a tiny bit, trying to make it understand that I want to seem like I’m telling the truth. “I threw my phone at it,” I say blandly. “Did you happen to grab it? I really need to make some calls.”
“I didn’t see a phone,” Tish says suspiciously.
“So you didn’t bring it along, then?” Holy Jesus fuck, I need to stop sweating.
It’s going to give me away. I pull just a bit more of the magic, wishing I knew more about this kind of biology and how to stop the chemical cocktail brewing in my body.
I need to be calm is all I can think, but thankfully, that’s enough for the magic to do its work, and most of my tension eases.
He chortles. “Even if I had, it would be useless to you here.” He seems like he’s about to continue his interrogation, but the door opens right then, and purple-glow guy comes in.
“My lord will see you now.”
Annoyance flashes over Tish’s face. “I’m in the middle of debriefing the human.”
Elf man’s gaze turns glacial. “My lord will see you now .”
Tish hesitates an instant longer, then capitulates. “Fine, but I need somewhere secure to put the human.”
Purple-glow elf man nods. “There’s a linen closet with a lock on the way to my lord’s chambers. Your animals can stand guard also.”
The hellhounds scoop me out of my chair while I’m still processing that. A linen closet with a lock? What the fuck? Who locks a linen closet?
Sure enough, about a mile of hallway and six turns later, I’m standing in a small closet lined with shelves while the purple elf closes the door. A second later, the lock clicks.
Huh. I guess it’s better than a dungeon?
There’s no light in here, but it takes me only a second to conjure a lightball and start searching for anything that might help me. No luck—the shelves are stacked with sheets, towels, and blankets, but nothing else. Who keeps only linen in a linen closet?
I sit on the floor and think about my options.
It’s pretty clear that wherever I am, it’s not on Earth.
Theoretically, there’s no reason why those portals couldn’t lead to other planets.
I could be galaxies away from my home right now, which is a really awful thought and one I push to the side.
So… if I’m not on Earth, I definitely can’t count on a teleporting demon to rescue me.
They’d have no reference point to teleport to.
Even if I escaped Tish, I’m at a severe disadvantage—and there’s no way for me to know if I could find someone friendly who would—or could—open a portal home for me.
Maybe the purple elf is the only one with that ability.
That leaves me with waiting until Tish decides to use me as a hostage or pawn and takes me back to Earth— if he doesn’t decide to just kill me—or…
Or what?
There’s really only one option if I want to take control of this situation. Of course, it might kill me, but I’ll probably end up dead anyway if I stay with Tish.
I swallow hard. The last time I tried teleportation, it was a small bowl over a distance of twenty feet, and it left me in pain and exhausted for days.
I lost muscle mass. Teleporting my whole body over a distance I probably couldn’t comprehend even if I did know it…
well, I might not make it. I probably won’t.
But I have to try.
I draw the magic around me, as much as I can, as close as I can. I send another message to Percy: I’m coming. Be ready. I open myself to the magic, letting it take me over in a way I never really thought possible. And I concentrate on going home.