Chapter 28
Muscles bunching, Benedict dragged the heavy metal door open, wincing at the creak of metal on metal.
“Wow,” he whispered as the harsh sound echoed painfully in the dark before us.
The automatic lights clicked on one by one, and we clustered at the threshold, taking in the large building set off from the main facility. There was a vault here—I could feel it.
“This is…huh,” he added, neck craned as he went into the enormous circular space that functioned as one of Biosphere’s two “lungs.” Pluck, in his human shift, went hazy at the edges as he mentally searched the place.
Herm, too, seemed impressed, hands on his hips and mustache bunched as he squinted at the strange ceiling.
The lights did little to alleviate the almost claustrophobic feel of the huge building linked by a long tunnel to the main facility.
I lifted my feet, being careful not to scuff them as Herm’s steps hissed like a hundred snakes.
The huge circular room had a flexible ceiling that moved, inflating and collapsing over the day like a lung when the facility was sealed, giving the warming air a place to go so the pressure wouldn’t break the glass.
Right now, the heavy black material hung like the top of a circus tent attached at the walls and the silver disk at the center.
Underneath our feet was one of the facility’s two vaults built to house the experimental dross created by the eight people living in a closed system.
That Dana wanted to use it to temporarily store the university’s dross made sense.
One vault could be used for active dross, the other for Benedict’s spiky inactive stuff.
The drive was nothing compared to having to truck the stuff out of state.
Herm’s phone hummed, and I jumped. It was embarrassing, but I had a feeling that I could lay the reaction at Pluck’s feet. The shadow was tense, and his anxiety was spilling into me like a cold draft.
“I remember reading about this,” Benedict said, studying a flickering light on the wall. “I had no idea they were testing how to balance dross in a closed system as well as oxygen and food.”
“My dad told me about it.” I kept my voice soft, not liking the hint of an echo it was creating.
“The only reason he knew was because they asked the sweepers’ guild for ideas on how to safely break dross.
” My gaze went to the floor as if I could see the enormous, glass-coated room under it.
“Maybe if they had included a sweeper or Spinner in the personnel mix, things might have gone differently.”
Maybe. But as it was, there would never be a mage in space. Dross was deadly in zero-g. Every. Single. Time.
“It’s not still here, is it?” Benedict’s attention came back from the roof.
“Dross? No.” I hesitated, not sensing any, but who knew how much concrete was between us and Biosphere’s old vault. “Is it?” I asked Pluck, and the shadow fizzed coldly, his agitation swirling through both of us as he stood in his human form, dead center of the huge room with his hands on his hips.
“No.”
Herm made a satisfied noise, gaze on his phone’s screen. “Lev says they have Aasta and are on the way to the grotto.”
It was done. Relief cascaded through me. Pluck, too, seemed to breathe easier, and even Benedict blew his air out in a long, noisy breath. “Marty is going to be okay,” I said. “And Aasta.”
“All the more reason to take care of Thoth.” Herm tucked his phone in a tattered back pocket. “He also said that Dana left about forty minutes ago. She had only one other person with her. He thinks he was a driver, but we might be dealing with two mages.”
“Better than the six she left guarding Aasta,” Pluck said, and Herm started, the man clearly not used to seeing him as a person. His war uniform, I remembered Aasta saying. “I distrust this,” Pluck added, his concern fizzing through me. “If Dana sees your truck, she will call in reinforcements.”
“You want to go wait for her?” I suggested, already knowing the answer, and Pluck nodded. The unseen vault below our feet clearly made him nervous.
Herm looked at the ceiling, running a hand over his bristly chin in thought. “I would appreciate knowing when she gets here,” he said. “How far away can you be and still communicate?”
Pluck hesitated. “We shall find out.” A burst of angst for leaving me lit through both of us, and then his outline went hazy.
In a breath, the image of a man evaporated to an inky swirl glittering with green highlights and flowed to the door.
I could feel a rasping of unequal energy between him and the steel and I shuddered.
“Ah, our reach is pretty good now,” I said, and Pluck fizzed his agreement. He, too, didn’t like the sensation and had slithered to the ceiling to make his way among the pipes.
I will go no farther than I can hear you, twined in my thoughts, and the knot in my gut eased. At least until he added, This air holds a foul phasing.
I jumped, startled when Benedict bumped into me, his smile faint and forced. “So now we wait. Probably a good idea you didn’t bring a stick. Dana would likely try to take it.”
“Yeah.” He was right, but I missed it all the same. “She’s not going to go for this, but I have to try.” I turned to Herm. “Thank you for coming with us.”
“No need,” Herm said gruffly. “I have a few things I want to say when I know I’m not being recorded.” His wandering gaze came to me. “And you never know. If you play on her ego enough, you might convince her to help catch him.”
“Thoth has done a good job setting you up for the fall, though.” Benedict eyed the single rickety chair set against the wall by an electrical panel. “You got to give the shadow props. Waiting until you were at the records building and the hospital before cracking the vaults.”
“But I’ve publicly stated we need a source of containment until we find a new balance,” I said softly. “Why does everyone believe her?”
“Because like most people, she doesn’t want a balance.
She wants a return to normal.” Herm shifted his weight as he settled in beside us, his gaze on the door over my shoulder.
It was the only way in or out. “I’m getting too old to stay off-grid and remain healthy.
I’ll bring her around.” His attention remained over my shoulder.
“Even if I have to draw a picture for her and color it in.”
“An airologist could put Thoth in a bottle without forcing him to evaporate,” Benedict said, his brow furrowed in worry. “Shadow spit. I’m going to have to be nice to her. After she lied and put me in jail.”
“And you all wonder why I don’t go to the university parties,” Herm grumbled. “Ben, you’ve been eyeing that chair since we got here. Either sit in it or bring it over here for me to sit in it.”
Benedict pushed into motion, feet making hardly any sound.
“Welcome to my world,” I said, but I wasn’t sure I could let go of the fact that Dana had put both Pluck and Aasta into a bottle and threatened to burn them if I didn’t do what she wanted. The same bottle that we were going to put Thoth into.
Don’t feel pity for him, fizzed through me. He has destroyed many shadows and an entire demographic of people who loved them. If I could sunder his bonds and scatter his energy to the edges of the universe, I would.
I stifled a shudder, jumping when Benedict dropped the chair beside Herm.
“Thanks, Ben.” Herm’s cheeks puffed out as he shifted the rickety thing to face the door and sat in it, as happy as a clam at high tide. “I’ll keep watch if you two want to relax.”
Benedict nodded, shoulders rounded as he came to stand with me. “I suppose we could lean against the wall,” he said dryly, and I chuckled.
Dana is here. Pluck’s thought came clear in mine, and I froze. She’s not happy. It’s likely she knows Aasta has been liberated, though that it wasn’t me might still be unknown. I also think she knows you are here. She’s heading your way.
Thank you, Pluck. Missing my lodestone, I took Benedict’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
Try to convince her, but we don’t need mage Dana. Pluck’s thoughts came clear, his hatred obvious. We have the sticks. Thoth goes into a bottle and the truth will out. We don’t need a lodestone to do it, either.
Shuddering, I pulled from Pluck’s thoughts to find Benedict staring at me as if he had heard them, too. “Um, she’s on her way. Pluck is following her.”
“Benedict, be ready.” Herm shifted on the chair and made it groan. “Dana will want to arrest you both, probably even after we demonstrate that’s not going to happen.”
The mage blinked as if trying to place himself, then glanced at his lodestone ring on his hand, clasped with mine.
“I’m good.” He shifted his weight, then leaned toward me, whispering, “If we fail to catch Thoth, it won’t be because of you.
” His smile held love. “I think I was in Pluck’s thoughts just then. You’ve got this, Petra.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I nodded, my focus blurring when a wave of sensation tripped over me.
It was Herm’s field, its spiderweb feel sparking as it lifted through and past me.
The old Spinner held his lodestone as he sent his awareness out to look for threats and possibilities.
I’d always been impressed at how he managed to stay one step ahead of any capture.
Sensing his class-five field push out past the room and into the desert, I was even more so.
Herm could have done anything with his abilities, and he had chosen to use them to hide me. Keep me safe.
He still was.
Herm’s field reversed and pulled back over me, the weft and weave tighter than before.
“She’s close,” he said, his expression holding concern, persuasion, and hard refusal all in one as he tugged his worn shirt straight.
I could hear Dana’s heels in the tunnel, her sure pace definitive and loud. “Here we go.”