27. Hot and Cold
Hot and Cold
As the sun dipped over the horizon, an aggressively wholesome minivan pulled into a data center parking lot. The sensible family vehicle had a beige interior, stick-figure family decals on the window, and a bumper sticker reading “My Kid is an Honor Student at Meadowbrook Elementary.”
Elias climbed out of the back seat, feeling like he’d just spent three hours inside a Norman Rockwell painting.
“You sure this is the right place?” The father—Brad, cargo shorts, sensible haircut—leaned forward, peering at the anonymous monstrosity through the windshield. “Doesn’t look like much.”
“I’m sure,” Elias said. “Thank you again for the ride.”
“No problem at all!” The mother—Dianne, flowery blouse, bangs in desperate need of a trim—twisted around to beam at him. “Happy to help. You take care now!”
From the back seat, the child—Tyler, Minecraft T-shirt, gap-toothed grin—gave him a thumbs-up. “Hope you find your friend, Mr. Shaw!”
As soon as Elias understood the danger Luna was in, all he wanted was to warn her.
The question was how? The answer arrived in the back seat of the anodyne minivan: when in doubt, ask a ten-year-old.
The kid was so proud to teach him how to search for the Stargazer Inn’s phone number, walking Elias through the whole process with the patience of a seasoned professor.
“See, you just type it in here, and then you press the little phone icon, and then . . .”
The call had barely connected when a woman’s voice—sounding suspiciously like Delilah—cut him off. She listened briefly, then hung up. Trying again, Elias heard the telltale click before he could even speak.
Message received, Delilah.
But frustration coiled in Elias’s gut. The sisters had no idea what they were walking into.
The witches of Oak Haven were planning to throw everything at CastR, and the wards would snap back like mousetraps.
Burke was a mean old man disinclined to defenses; he preferred punishments.
Alas, since Elias had recently proved himself untrustworthy, no one at the Stargazer would take his call.
Which meant this was it. His only shot. If he couldn’t disable the wards himself, Luna would find out the hard way just how vicious Burke could be.
“You’re a good kid, Tyler,” Elias said, and meant it. “Thanks for the help.”
Tyler’s grin widened. “No problem! And remember—don’t trust Endermen. They seem chill, but they’re sneaky.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Elias said, having no idea what an Enderman was.
The minivan pulled away with a cheerful honk, leaving Elias alone in the parking lot, staring at the building that supposedly contained CastR’s brain, to the extent Elias understood it.
No windows. No sign. Just a long, low slab of concrete humming like a mechanical beehive. Vents along the roofline blasted cold air into the July heat. A single door showed only a number: 2847. Elias had robbed banks that looked more inviting.
Buildings in his time had character. Even warehouses had loading docks, company names painted on brick, signs of human activity. This thing looked like someone had poured concrete over a terrible secret.
He smoothed down his suit jacket—wrinkled now from days of travel, but still better than anything these modern yokels wore—and headed for the door.
Last chance to turn around, Shaw.
But he’d already made his choice back at the rest stop. One honest job. Even if it killed him.
Which, judging by the sound coming from inside this building, was looking increasingly likely.
* * *
The “reception area” was a grimy, laminate box with two bored security guards at a desk. Fluorescents hummed, a Ficus wilted, and the beige walls screamed of hospitals, purgatory . . . and the Void.
Huh, he thought. Maybe I’ve got more experience with this place than I realized.
Both guards looked up as he entered. Elias had about three seconds to pick his mark.
The older one had a buzz cut and what appeared to be a permanent scowl.
His ramrod posture shouted military. The younger one had a face like a full moon, the type who’d never met a stranger he didn’t tell his life story to.
Shaw walked straight to the younger guard, letting his shoulders slump just slightly, projecting confused and apologetic in equal measure.
“Afternoon,” he said, adding a touch of exhaustion to his voice. It wasn’t hard, given the circumstances. “I’m here to meet someone from CastR? But I think there’s been some confusion . . .”
The younger guard perked up immediately. “CastR? Oh yeah, you’re in the right place.”
The older guard huffed. “Don’t tell him if he’s in the right place.”
“He already knows, jeez! So uh, you’re one of the consultants?”
“Indeed.” Elias gave him a rueful smile. “I should’ve been met at the front, but . . .” He gestured vaguely, letting the guard fill in the blanks.
“Typical,” the guard said, shaking his head. “Tech people, am I right? Always got their heads in the clouds. Or the servers. Whatever.” He laughed at his own joke.
The older guard grunted, “Need to see some ID.”
This was the moment. Elias reached into his jacket pocket as if he were going for his wallet, patted himself down with increasing concern, then checked the other pocket. Let genuine alarm cross his face.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He looked up at them, stricken.
“My wallet. I must have—” He pressed his hand to his forehead.
“The rest stop. Outside Tulsa. I used the restroom, I must have set it down—” He looked genuinely sick now, again not entirely an act.
“My identification, my cash, everything.”
The younger guard, whose name tag read “DANNY,” winced sympathetically. “Oh man, that’s rough.”
But the older guard—“STEVE”—was not impressed. “No ID, no entrance.”
“Buddy, I’ve been on the road for three days,” Elias let some desperation creep into his voice. “I can’t turn around now. I was told to check everything before the Fourth—” He gestured helplessly. “Maybe you want to call the CastR boys, check it out?”
“At this hour?” Steve looked skeptical. “Even if we could call, good luck getting anyone.”
“Oh, I don’t know, they’re working seven days a week on this launch.” Elias met his eyes. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why they’re paying triple overtime for security through the holiday, right?”
“Right . . .” Danny’s resolve appeared to be weakening. After all, how could this stranger know that detail unless he was actually connected to the project.
Elias pressed his advantage. “Listen, I understand you’ve got your instructions.
But I’ve got a job to do, and if I don’t get in there and make sure everything’s running properly before the launch .
. .” He shook his head. “You really want to be the guy who explains to Ashton Vex that his big demo failed because security wouldn’t let his consultant through the door? ”
Danny was already pulling out a visitor badge, scribbling on it with a pen. “No problem. I’ll walk you back, make sure you find the right cage. This place is a maze if you don’t know your way around.”
“That’s very kind—”
“I insist!” Danny was already standing, clearly delighted to have something to do besides stare at monitors. “Steve, I’m doing a cage escort. Back in ten.”
Steve grunted again, already returning his attention to his phone.
Danny gestured toward a heavy door to their left. “This way. Fair warning, it’s gonna be loud and cold. Hope you brought a jacket.” To open the door, the young guard had to swipe his badge through a small box and then press his thumb to the surface.
Hold on, is that for fingerprinting?! They have machines for that now?! He had a flash of gratitude that he wouldn’t be spending long as a professional criminal in the twenty-first century.
As he passed through the door, the cold hit first. No polite chill, this.
This was the kind of cold that carried a grudge.
His breath fogged. His ears stung. Elias had once spent the night trapped in a meat locker when a con went wrong, but that was a beach vacation compared to this. His bones made unhappy little comments.
Then the noise.
It wasn’t just about volume. It was pressure. A wall of sound shoved at him from every direction, like standing too close to the elevated train when it screamed past.
Danny shouted something cheerful over the din, but Shaw didn’t catch it. He followed the guard through a corridor into an enormous hall. Hundreds of metal cabinets stood in rigid rows, fading toward a distant wall. In the darkness, countless green and blue lights blinked in no sensible rhythm.
A city of machines.
Everything looked the same—cabinets, lights, aisles repeating into darkness. Like a train yard in fog: rows of identical cars fading into the murk until you were on top of one.
Elias tried to keep his face composed and failed miserably.
“First time in a data center?” Danny yelled, grinning. “A little overwhelming, huh?”
“Little bit,” Elias admitted, which was like saying a hurricane was a touch windy.
They walked on. Something Danny described as a cold aisle on the left, with air blasting like winter wind tunneling through a Chicago alley.
Then a hot aisle on the right, where air shimmered like the stretch of road outside Joliet where the asphalt melted every August. Cages interrupted the rows—chain-link enclosures with stenciled numbers: 4A, 4B, 5A . . .
They stopped at 7B.
Danny unlocked the cage. It swung open with a metallic groan that at least made sense to Elias’s ears.
“You need me to stick around?” Danny asked.
“You’ve been incredibly helpful,” Elias said, which meant get out before you see something that turns your hair white.
Danny saluted and disappeared down the aisle.
As Elias stepped inside the cage, the door clanged shut behind him.
He stood very still, surrounded by humming metal, trying to reconstruct how he’d gotten here.
As he’d followed Danny down the aisles, he’d tried to mentally record the path they’d taken to this particular cage, just in case he had to lam it and return later.
But he couldn’t find a single distinguishing mark; everything looked the same as everything else.
One wrong turn, he’d be lost in here until the next century.
Best leave some breadcrumbs, then.
He loosened his tie—the last civilized relic of his wardrobe—and looped it around the handle of the central cabinet.
The one humming just a shade differently.
The one with cables as thick and busy as the wiring backstage in a vaudeville house.
His tie hung there like a little burgundy flag.
Good. At least he wouldn’t die muttering which blasted cabinet was it?
The next task was to find the sigils. What he’d do about them once he found them, Shaw wasn’t certain.
The racks were labeled with alphanumeric codes that meant nothing to him.
Cables snaked between them in organized chaos.
Everything blinked and hummed and radiated heat.
And somewhere in this mess of technology and magic, Burke had hidden his wards.
He carefully examined the frame. At first he saw nothing worth noting, just cold inscrutable metal.
Then, catching the light at an angle . .
. there. Sigils. Burke’s unmistakable brand of nastiness.
Etched fine as scratches, hidden until you knew to look.
But the malice coming off them was undeniable.
These weren’t protective wards. They were the magical equivalent of bear traps, waiting beneath the leaves for some pretty fool to put a foot wrong.
Shaw focused on one of the simpler markings, the tiny outline of what appeared to be a bird.
He took several deep breaths, in and out, hoping to summon whatever meager powers had enabled him to start digging an escape tunnel back in the Void.
If he could move that wall, even one speck at a time, then surely he could do this.
A light overhead flickered—not the clean electronic wink he’d seen on the walk in, but something obstructed. Shadowed. Wrong.
Elias froze.
The heat shimmer thickened, pulled itself together, and shaped itself into something tall.
Human-like, but too thin. The proportions were off, as if someone had carved a person-shape out of shadow.
Another figure appeared. And another. Three.
Four. Their forms wavered like smoke trying to remember how to be a person.
Their faces blurred. But their eyes . . . Their eyes knew exactly what he was.
“Aw, nuts . . .”
“You do not belong here,” the figure said. The voice echoed strangely, as if spoken down a long tunnel.
He raised his hands slowly. Not in surrender, which he’d never been good at. More in a gambler’s attempt to buy a few more seconds. “Fellas. I realize this looks—”
“You reek of the Void.” The sentinel stepped closer. “You are an intruder.”
The air bent and the blinking lights blurred into streaks. The hum climbed higher, strained, dangerous. The sentinel lifted a hand, its fingers too long, with too many joints.
“Now hold on,” Elias said. “Let’s discuss—”
The hand clenched into a fist, and a burst of power hit Shaw like a flying building.
His knees buckled. Pain detonated, bright and merciless. Through the glare, through the crushing force, one thought flared, stubborn and furious:
Luna. I’m sorry.
Then everything went white.