Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
Caolan
I didn’t think I could feel worse, but Sam’s words send panic and dread rushing through my veins.
“What?” The word explodes from Lucifer Percy. “How?”
“Blunt force. They took advantage of our—and everyone’s—distraction and rushed the vault room with dozens of assailants. Just now—not fifteen minutes ago.”
“The wards,” David says. “How did they get through the wards to the actual vault?”
“With a dozen dead elves. Kirsch didn’t have the full explanation, but that’s apparently what the elf sergeant on site said.
They came through a portal, overwhelmed the guards on duty, then held their ground against the reinforcements for long enough for some of the elves to do something that had them literally drop dead before they grabbed the seal and left through the portal.
They were there for no more than ten minutes. ”
Nausea swirls in my gut. Is there no end to éibhear’s evil?
“This changes everything,” David is saying. “We assumed the wards gave us some protection, especially now that we’ve been able to reinforce them with elven magic. But if they can just… just cut through them—”
“They can’t,” Brandt says, his voice croaky. For the first time in my recollection, he seems old and frail. “They won’t be doing that again. They don’t have the numbers to sacrifice them thus.”
“I don’t understand,” Lucifer Percy says, and the king shakes his head.
“Blunt force. Sam said it before. But blunt force is not just physical. If you throw enough power at any ward, it will break, yes?”
“Yes,” Percy concedes. “But no one person has that much power, to punch through so quickly. That’s why we weave alarms into our wards—by the time the intruder can break through the ward, backup has arrived.
And while a dozen people could all throw all their power at a ward, the way wards are woven means they respond to each energy individually.
Eventually, that kind of assault would bring a ward down, but not as fast as this. ”
This time, the king nods. “What éibhear has done is use an old and long-forbidden spell. It allows a single elf to draw power from a group of others and use it as their own. The wards would react as though it was a single energy, but the force would be that of many.”
The horror I’m feeling is suddenly reflected on the faces of my Earth friends. But the king isn’t finished.
“The problem with the spell is that once initiated, it cannot be ended until those it draws energy from have none left to give, not even that generated by the pumping of their heart. The only survivor is the channeler. This is why the spell was forbidden so long ago. Most don’t even know it exists. ”
“So… would the elves involved have known what it did? That it was a suicide mission?” Noah’s voice is shaky.
The king spreads his hands. “I don’t know the finer details of the spell. It requires each elf to speak a line and link in, but whether they must first know the outcome…” He trails off.
Noah nods. “Excuse me.” He walks out of the office, brushing past Sam, and a moment later, we hear a clatter and the sound of retching.
Andrew strides toward the door, muttering, “I’ll just…”
Lucifer Percy draws in a deep breath, then wrinkles his nose and gives a little cough.
Oh—he can probably smell Noah’s vomit. A negative of the shifter enhanced sense of smell.
“We can’t do anything for those elves now, except hope their souls have passed to the spiritual plane.
Our focus has to be on getting the seal back—or at the very least, stopping éibhear and Tish from using it. ”
“Gideon’s gone to the vault to talk to the survivors. Are there any elves there who can do the portal-tracing thing?” Sam asks, and I force my fractured mind to come together and think.
“There is someone with the ability to create portals on every shift,” I affirm. We made sure of that. “They should be working on it already.”
“Negative,” Elinor says, coming to stand beside Sam. “The portal elf was one of the ones killed in the first rush.”
I start toward them. “I’ll go. Warn Gideon I’m coming.” The last thing we all need is for someone to see a portal opening and get jumpy.
“Will do.” Sam lifts his phone.
As I pass through the antechamber, where the smell of vomit permeates the air, I hear Elinor say, “Andrew wanted Noah to go home and rest, but he nixed that. They’re going to coordinate intelligence reports with Kirsch. Alistair’s prepping a strike team and has put a full assault force on standby.”
I break into a jog, heading for the unwarded reception so I can open a portal.
There aren’t many people in the halls, but the few I pass are edgy and moving quickly.
In reception, Candice is talking on the phone while the sound of another line ringing fills the air.
She looks shocked and flustered, and it takes only a few seconds of listening for me to realize she’s being inundated with calls about the effect of the king’s spell.
So strange—it’s been only a few minutes, but with the new problem, I’d almost forgotten about that.
I take the time to pull out my phone and call David.
“Are you there?” he asks in greeting, and from the rush of sound in the background, I can tell he’s moving.
“No—still in reception. Candice needs help with the phones.”
He swears. “We need the interns here. Uh… tell her she has my permission to route most of the lines to the finance department. I’ll call the manager and let her know.”
I barely have time to make a sound of agreement before he ends the call.
“Candice?” I cross to her in two long strides. She looks up but keeps talking, her expression a mute plea for help. I gently remove her earpiece/microphone combination and hold it up to my ear. The woman on the other end is shrieking about the world ending.
“Madam, the world is fine. Please relax. Have a nice day.” I pull the earpiece away and look at it as the woman squawks.
“How do I end the call?” I ask Candice. Mutely, she pushes a button on the panel in front of her, which has four flashing lights on it.
The ringing continues. “David said to route most of the lines to the finance department.”
Relief crosses her face. “Really? Because I can handle one call at a time. Even two.”
I nod, and she immediately taps some buttons on her panel. Two of the flashing lights stop. “Thanks, Caolan.”
I want to ask if she’s okay, but I’ve already delayed too long. “Take care of yourself,” I say as a compromise, then turn away and open a portal.
When I step through into the antechamber outside the vault room, I get only a few glances.
“Sir.” The sergeant in charge of the elf unit on guard here steps forward but doesn’t waste my time.
“Their portal was here.” He gestures to an area in the middle of the room blocked off from passing traffic by random paraphernalia—two chairs, an umbrella, and a few shoes.
A quick glance around shows me which guards volunteered their footwear for crime scene duty.
I would have known where it was even without the help, the tingle of residual energy brushing up against me.
This portal was a work of art, but something about it makes me want to back away from the residue.
I’m fairly certain it was created by éibhear.
There aren’t many old enough and with so much practice at opening portals to create something this beautifully detailed—and the basic evil of him would account for the creepy feeling.
Making myself concentrate, I pull out my phone and open the maps app. It takes me only a few moments to narrow down the location of origin. Gideon comes out of the vault room to join me.
“Anything?” he asks, and I nod.
“I can’t give you a town name, though. There isn’t anything.” I zoom the map out again slightly, trying to find a landmark. Gideon peers at the screen.
“Wait,” he says, then slides the map over a bit. “Okay, that’s Argentina. Somewhere in the Patagonia National Park.” He taps a contact on his own phone and puts it on speaker.
“Yeah?” Sam answers. “Anything?”
“South America,” Gideon says. “In the middle of nowhere. I can give you coordinates.”
“Wait,” David says, and I realize Sam must have his phone on speaker too. “Is it Argentina? In the national park?”
“Yeah. Significant?” Gideon and I exchange glances.
“There was a large community settlement there that was wiped out by humans during the species wars. It’s considered one of the biggest atrocities that was committed—the settlement dated back about six thousand years and was, according to history, a center of learning and culture. We abandoned it after that.”
“That’s where they are,” I murmur. I can feel the truth of it.
Gideon slides the map around a bit more. “Are you sure? It seems a bit remote for a settlement. Especially given the lack of transport back then.”
“Says the demon who can teleport,” David points out. He rattles off some coordinates. “I just looked it up. Is that it?”
Grimly, Gideon says, “To within half a mile.”
“Was this place in any of our intelligence briefings?” I ask, trying to remember. I’m sure someone would have mentioned a historic abandoned settlement.
“Nope,” Sam says. “This is an entirely new site for us. I’m pulling satellite pics now. It looks like there are some recent ones for that area, so we might be able to get some solid intel.”
“We’ll start prepping,” David says. “Are you nearly finished there?”
“I need to see the dead attackers, then we’ll be back,” I promise.
“Is Garin there? Remind him that the dragons may be of use for this kind of assault.” A remote area with no allies or civilians nearby?
Dragons are perfect for this situation. If worse comes to worst, they can just raze the whole settlement with their flame, leaving behind only barbequed enemies.