Chapter 14

14

Mechanical Menaces

Our first stop was Zephyr,a mage world and home of my friend Ariella. We would find her in Sundrop Loop, a quiet forested paradise far away from the hustle and bustle of the larger cities.

I stood at the foot of a stream, staring into the shadowed forest of red-barked giants. Then I waved at the others to follow me into the woods. It was nearly dusk. The last remnants of sunlight were fading quickly from the sky, and the temperature was dropping quickly.

We walked down a paved path that zigzagged through the forest. Beautifully architected buildings blended amongst the trees; they almost appeared to be part of the grove itself. I knew Ariella liked to walk down this path at night, and sure enough we found her here, beneath the pinecone canopy.

Her violet eyes met mine, and a smile lit up her face. She rushed toward me, moving with a smooth, silky grace. Her feather-light silver-blonde hair crested her face in soft, straight layers. Dressed entirely in black, her hair stood out magnificently against her clothes. Diffused evening light shone through the trees, framing her body in a golden halo.

“Terra,” she said. Her eyes panned across my companions. “You’re keeping interesting company.”

I told her about the vampire conspiracy, the demons, and the missing princes we were going to save.

At the end of it, she said solemnly, “There’s never a dull moment with you, Terra. How can I help?”

“A few months ago, you were looking for Keys,” I said.

“Keys?” Marin asked.

“Keys is a mage scientist,” Silas told her. “I knew him back in my days as a Rosewater guard. Keys was a brilliant—if not somewhat manic—Cipher.”

Ariella nodded. “Six months ago, Keys disappeared while working on a project for King Halo.”

King Halo was my big brother Davin, who’d succeeded Father as high king after we’d been exiled.

“He was running experiments on how to create portals,” Ariella continued. “He disappeared during these experiments. But as he vanished, I caught a few flashes of him, foresights of him in a Hellean city.”

“I remember,” I said.

Ariella had told me. Like me, she was a Prophet. There was nothing like a shared magical gift—and fear of the power that might someday drive you mad—that bound friends together.

“Terra,” Silas said.

I followed his gaze. My father was walking down the path—straight for us. His leather vest was torn, his arms scratched, and…was that blood in his dark bronze hair? I shot him a hard look.

Father’s mouth twitched. “You’re one to talk.”

I glanced down at my own clothes and laughed. I looked like I’d wrestled with a troll.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“Like you, I need Ariella’s help. It seems my missing person has gotten lost in a Hellean city.”

I grinned at him. “Team up?”

Father’s gaze shifted to my comrades and back again. “You’ve accumulated an impressive fighting force. I’d be a fool to say no.” He turned to Jason. “You’re here to protect her?”

“Yes.”

Father nodded. “That’s a tall order. She has a knack for getting into trouble.”

“Hey!” I protested.

They both ignored me.

“Don’t I know it,” Jason said to my father.

I frowned at him. “You cut it out too, Jason. You two are acting like I’m going to wave my hands around to get the Helleans’ attention. And maybe while I’m at it, I’ll ask them if they sold Lady Cassandra tech that allowed her to kill Emperor Selpe and kidnap his sons. And, by the way, would you kindly show me the way to Hayden and Ian?”

Father shrugged. “You do like to talk to people.”

“I’ll have you know that I have a much better plan.”

Father’s eyebrows peaked. “Which is?”

“We’re going to break into one of their cities so Marin can get a good look at their tech. Then we’re going to find Hayden and Ian and get the hell out of there before the Helleans notice that we’re there.”

“Sounds sensible,” said Father.

I sensed a ‘but’ coming.

Jason supplied it. “But their labs are well guarded by nightmarish machines and monsters, the likes of which you’ve never seen before.”

“And you have?” I asked him.

“Yes.”

I smiled at him. “Well, that’s where my impressive fighting force comes in.”

Jason’s face remained impassive. Clearly, he wasn’t impressed by my awesome plan.

“Can you recreate Keys’s portal experiment?” I asked Ariella.

“I guess. I still have his potions. Keys used them to channel a Phantom’s power to create a portal. But I’ll need a Phantom to drink the potion and make the portal.” Her gaze shifted between Jason and Silas.

“Give me the potion,” both Phantoms said in unison.

Jason’s eyes darkened. “I am the Elite Phantom.”

“What you are is inexperienced,” Silas told him.

Jason stepped forward. Silas shifted his weight, his leather clothing creaking. Jason’s eyes phased obsidian. Silas’s phased white.

I dropped my face to my hands. “Here we go again.”

* * *

After much glaring,the two Phantoms finally agreed that Silas would be the one to take the potion. Jason had decided that standing guard by my side was more important than flexing his magic muscles. I guess I should have been flattered that he’d chosen me over proving what a badass he was, but I was still too annoyed with him.

Ariella handed Silas the potion she’d grabbed from her room while the two Phantoms were busy glaring at each other. A medley of swirling smells wafted up from the vial. I could pick out Winter’s Mint, spiced honey, and something that smelled an awful lot like blood.

“What’s in there?” Silas asked.

“I have no idea,” Ariella admitted.

Silas gave the vial a long, hard look, then drank it down. I really hoped it wouldn’t kill him. I didn’t think it would. Phantoms drank poison for fun. It was called Phantom’s Bite, and they consumed it in oversized shot glasses as they stared their own mortality in the face with gleeful abandon.

Even before Silas had drained the last drop of potion, the effect was obvious. A vibrant orange sheen slid up his spiked hair, swallowing it in flames. His hair swirled and popped with an edgy Phantom energy, an energy also reflected in his eyes. They sizzled the color of white flames. As he set down the vial, a blast of invisible energy shot outward, throwing us all flat on our backs.

Silas was glowing. His eyes, his hair, his skin—they were illuminated by an unseen light source. The glow was coming from within, where the serum was burning a bonfire of explosive Phantom energy. Phantom tendrils slithered out from him. I could feel them tingling against my skin, probing my magic.

Ariella muttered something, words blocked out by the hum of energy radiating from Silas. He stepped forward, arms outstretched and eyes closed. He stopped abruptly, and as his lids snapped open, the trees around us began to sway back and forth, as though bending to the force of a hurricane wind. Slender cyclones of twirling leaves formed in the openings between the trunks, whistling a forlorn song. There was a thunderous crack, and an energy enveloped us all.

Vertigo crushed me. I nearly fell to the ground, but Jason’s hands caught me. I closed my eyes, and the spinning stopped. I waited a few seconds, then opened them again.

We were no longer standing under the pinecone canopy. The red-barked giants had been replaced by tropical trees. The air was humid, muggy and heavy. An unknown rainforest stretched on as far as I could see.

“Where are we?” I asked. “This can’t be a Hellean city.”

“It is,” Jason told me. “The Helleans have entire ecosystems in their cities. Their only tropical forest is inside the city of Oasis. That’s where we are.”

Father pulled a device out of his backpack. It looked like a cross between a really ugly telephone and the really ugly radios used by the military.

“What’s that?” I asked as he fiddled with the controls.

“The Helleans tag their prisoners,” Father replied. “I can use this Tracker to find them.”

“Where did you get the Tracker?”

“I borrowed it from a pair of Helleans.”

“And these Helleans,” I said. “They didn’t happen to have a fire-breathing dragon as a pet, did they?”

“They had two dragons.”

Silas perked up. “How big?”

“About ten meters long each,” Father told him.

I shook my head. “You’re a father. Aren’t you supposed to be setting a good example for your sweet, impressionable daughter?”

“You?” he chuckled. “Impressionable?”

Silas snorted.

Jason coughed.

And I frowned at the lot of them.

“I did set a good example,” Father told me. “I fought two full-grown, fire-breathing dragons, and I survived. You can’t be a better role model than that.”

“I once fought a Sapphire Dragon,” Silas said, his eyes twinkling with nostalgia. “She was glorious. One of the best battles I ever had. There’s nothing like a good dragon fight to really get the blood pumping.”

“And boiling?” I said.

He grinned at me. “Yes.”

I shook my head. “Phantoms.”

Silas continued to electrocute me with his smile. Even Jason looked amused.

“Can you use that thing to find Hayden and Ian?” I asked Father.

“No. I don’t know their tracking codes.” He kept adjusting the controls on the Tracker.

I turned to Jason. “Can you find Hayden and Ian?”

“Of course,” he replied. Like it wasn’t even a question. His gaze went unfocused as magic sizzled across his eyes. “I see snow. Ice.” He blinked, then met my eyes. “They are in the Hellean city of Blizzard’s Point.”

“So is my guy,” said Father. “Blizzard’s Point.”

I smirked at him. “My Tracker is faster than your Tracker.”

“Indeed he is,” Father laughed, his gaze sliding across to Jason. “Have you ever considered joining the PI business?”

“I make too much money killing people.”

The cold, emotionless way that he said it chilled me. I’d have to remember this exact moment the next time he tried to kiss me—so I could remember why I shouldn’t be kissing him back.

“Anyone know how to get to Blizzard’s Point?” I asked the group.

“The Hellean cities are connected to one another by portals,” said Jason. “Portals made with science, not sorcery.”

Marin perked up, intrigued. “Oh?”

“Can you see these portals?” I asked Jason.

“I can feel them. Follow me.”

Thick, unbroken forest stretched out as far as the eye could see. Jason set down the twisting narrow path of mud between the trees, the only thing remotely resembling a trail. We all followed him.

A streak of white behind the green foliage caught my eye. Goosebumps popped up across my skin. Leaves rustled like chimes, and a creature emerged from the trees. Delicate tufts of silken white hair hugged golden hooves that stepped with majestic grace over caked mud. The creature’s tail, white highlighted throughout with strands of real gold, whisked in time with each tap of a hoof, and its matching mane cascaded down its snow-white back. A horn of solid gold protruded from its forehead. It was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.

“A unicorn,” Jason declared. His tone was clinical, not betraying any of the wonder that I felt.

Leonidas gaped at the creature. “A unicorn?”

“Yes.”

The spy shook his head in disbelief, as though he were caught in a dream. I couldn’t blame him. Up until a few seconds ago, I hadn’t thought unicorns were real either. The unicorn found a patch of grass in the mud and began munching, a purr of contentment rumbling in its chest.

“I’ve never seen a unicorn before,” I commented as Ariella and I reached out to it.

The creature licked our fingers with its rough tongue, shooting tingles of magical energy down my arms. Something rustled inside the woods. The unicorn’s muscles tensed, and it dashed away through an opening in the trees.

“It left,” Ariella said, her voice breaking.

I swallowed hard, consumed by a feeling of profound loss. “I know.”

We hugged each other.

“What’s the matter with them?” Leonidas asked.

“It’s the unicorn. They are highly magical creatures,” Silas explained. “They have a special bond with young women.” His eyes danced as they fell upon me and Ariella. “Especially maidens.”

We both blushed.

“Don’t worry. They’ll both be back to slaying fiends before you know it,” Silas said, patting each of us hard on the shoulder.

My bones creaked. Ouch. I tried not to cringe.

I cleared my throat. “So, let’s just get moving again,” I said, pushing through the foliage.

I made it about five steps before a bird perched on a nearby branch screeched into my ear. I turned to give it a menacing glare and did a double take when I noticed its two heads. Green and blue, the bird generally resembled a peacock—well, if you could get past the two heads. Which I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. All I could do was gape at the peculiar bird.

“What’s that?” Leonidas asked, walking up beside me.

The spy pointed at the two-headed peacock, which stretched forward and tried to bite him. He quickly retracted his hand and took a step back. It was a good thing his reflexes were so fast. Inside the bird’s beak were two rows of tiny pointed teeth. A two-headed carnivorous peacock. Every time I thought I’d seen everything, the universe spat out something new.

“Odd,” Silas commented, coming in for a closer look at the bird.

It stared at him with green eyes, its neck stretching forward. Silas phased his eyes white, and the bird cringed back, reconsidering its plan. Maybe it thought Silas would bite back. It was probably right.

“Do you recognize this creature?” I asked him.

“No.”

I looked at Jason.

“No,” he replied, to my surprise. “It must be new. It seems mostly harmless, but let’s walk around it anyway.”

I hurried to keep pace with Jason. A line of six creatures covered in sparkling emerald scales—the biggest no larger than a house cat—toddled across our path.

“Baby dragons,” Jason said.

I watched them disappear through the curtain of trees, the scent of sulfur trailing them. “They’re so cute!”

“Unicorns, two-headed birds, and baby dragons. It’s like a depository for magical creatures here,” commented Ariella.

“Indeed,” said Silas.

“The portal,” Jason said, pointing.

About five meters down the trail, a subtle ripple distorted the air.

“Let’s go,” he said, leading the way.

As we stepped into the portal, its power pushed down on my shoulders, grinding me into the ground. The dirt beneath my boots cracked. Just as I thought the earth would split open from the pressure, the rainforest dissolved, slowly replaced by indigo skies and golden cliffs. Traces of sulfur and the scent of tropical trees still lingered in the air.

“The next portal is that way.” Jason pointed up the rocky trail.

Father and Silas followed him, then Marin and Leonidas. Ariella and I took up the rear.

Calculation shone in her eyes. “Now that we’re alone, are you going to tell me what’s going on between you and Jason?”

Ariella and I had been friends before I’d lost my crown. But in the last two years, she’d become my new best friend. We spent a lot of time together. Ok, most of that time was just us chatting while I was filling out my endlessly respawning stack of paperwork. There weren’t enough hours in the day—on any planet.

“Things between me and Jason are…complicated,” I told her.

“Love always is.”

“Ladies,” a voice said from behind, making us jump.

I turned around to find Silas.

“How did you get back there?” I asked.

“I dropped down behind you to cover the rear. Your boyfriend was concerned for your safety.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Silas rolled back his shoulders in an easy shrug. “Whatever you say, Princess.”

“You know, Silas,” Ariella said. “It’s not nice to sneak up on people.”

Thank you, Ariella, for changing the subject.

“The way you sneak about, you could give an assassin a run for his money,” she continued. “Or just give him a heart attack.”

Silas scowled. “I don’t sneak.”

Ariella nodded, the smile wide on her face.

“I’m big and impervious.”

“The biggest,” I said, joining in.

“Meant to be noticed,” he continued. “I stand out.”

“Like a stone fortress.”

“Like a bodyguard,” he said, his voice ringing with pride.

Ariella snapped her fingers. “Ok, I’ve got it. We’ll just put a bell around your neck.”

Silas’s eyes glowed white. “You two aren’t taking this seriously.”

A snort escaped Ariella’s mouth, followed by a parade of chuckles.

“No, we’re not,” I agreed, laughing too.

He leveled a hard look at us. “Then start.”

“Sorry.” I sighed and patted his arm. “I suppose the sneaking is not your fault. Your kind are called Phantoms after all.”

The crack of exploding rock shot down from above, followed by gunfire.

“Why don’t you come down where I can get to you, you flying heap of metal!” Leonidas’s voice boomed.

We all exchanged heavy glances, then we sprinted up the path to join the others.

Silver skeletal eagles circled overhead, screeching so loudly that instinct compelled me to cover my ears. It was a primal cry—one that had been seared irreparably into every animal’s consciousness since birds of prey had first appeared in the skies.

“Five,” Silas said, counting the targets.

Five rippled silver bodies gleamed as they glided on air, their extended wings tipped with feathers as sharp as daggers. Like their bodies, their feathers were made of forged metal.

Beside me, Ariella groaned. “Mechanical menaces.”

Ever since she and I had encountered a nasty army of machines last year, Ariella had been afraid of robots and other machines. She called them mechanical menaces.

“What ever happened to good, old normal monsters made of flesh?” she continued. “I have no idea how to take out a machine.”

“If you hit anything hard enough, it won’t get up again,” Silas told her.

Ariella’s jaw dropped.

“Tearing off the head typically works as well on machines as beasts.”

The silence was so encompassing, I could hear water slush against the rocks below.

Ariella opened and closed her mouth a few times, but only a faint pop came out. Finally, she managed to speak. “Silas, I can’t even begin to imagine the things you’ve seen.” She paused, paling. “Or done.”

Silas shrugged his massive shoulders. “Living through a whole lot of bizarre stuff is the reward of a long life.”

The birds dove at us. The explosive crack of a gun boomed, echoing off the golden cliffs, as Leonidas fired at the nearest bird. The force of the impact threw the metal eagle back, but besides infuriating the creature, it seemed to accomplish little. The bullet merely bounced off its metal breastplate, leaving not so much as a scratch.

“It’s no use,” Silas told him. “Their bodies are completely armored. Normal bullets won’t go through.”

“What do you suggest?” Leonidas asked.

“Decapitation?” I said.

Leonidas looked at me, then at the bird. “They’re too far away.”

“No, they’re not,” Silas said. “You need something with more power.”

“Like a tank?” the spy asked.

“Like me.”

The gunshots had made the eagles scatter, but they were circling lower now. Silas jumped up at a bird as it glided over his head, capturing it in his hands. Before it could fly away, he closed one hand around its neck and the other across its belly. He’d chosen safe surfaces, free of blades or spikes. The metallic bird thrashed about, as though it knew what was coming. Clamping down his fingers, Silas tugged each hand in the opposite direction. The bird split in two, exposing innards of rapidly blinking lights and splintered wires. Silas tossed both halves over the ledge.

I gaped at him in shock. Silas grinned back, his expression slightly manic.

A silver blade, similar in design to a throwing knife, landed in front of Silas’s foot. He gave the birds an irate glare, but they didn’t cower and fly away. He jumped at them again, this time grabbing two. He smashed them together, then tossed them over the edge of the cliff.

A hailstorm of knives rained down from the remaining two birds. We flattened ourselves against the rock wall. Silas glared up at the birds, who continued to shoot their razor-sharp feathers at us. Surely, they should have run out of them by now. I stole a quick glance around the corner and saw that another six birds had joined the flock.

Jason jumped out from the wall and pushed his hands forward, hitting the birds with a mind blast. All eight froze midair, suspended. His magic tore them apart, peeling the metal off their bodies, layer by layer, like he was peeling an onion.

Then when their armor was gone, Jason’s magic released them. Their skeletal bodies collided in one massive impact. With no armor to protect them, they burst into thousands of tiny metal pieces that rained down on the lake like silver tears.

Jason met my eyes, and my jaw just dropped. Holy shit.

A screech sounded on the horizon.

“They just don’t give up,” Leonidas said as a new swarm circled around us. Four birds this time.

The spy opened his hand. A small metal disc rested on his palm. About the size of a grape, its black brushed metal surface was free of text or markings of any kind, save the slender slit that bisected it.

“It looks like a Micro-24 Butcher Bomb,” I said.

Leonidas’s thin lips stretched into a smile, and his brown eyes glazed over with delight. “Oh, no. Nothing as innocuous as that.”

Innocuous? The Micro-24 Butcher Bomb, a Selpe bomb, was designed to make lots and lots of big holes—in human flesh. It had been designed with a single purpose in mind: to kill. Painfully.

Marin glanced at the bomb in his hand. “Hey, those are my bombs. Where did you get them?”

“I might have liberated them from your desk when I paid you a visit a few months ago.”

She chewed on her lower lip. “I’d wondered where they went.”

Leonidas pulled out a second bomb, handing it to her. “Care to test them on something real?”

Excitement sparkled in her eyes. “You bet.”

They hurled the bombs into the cluster of eagles. Two birds exploded. As shrapnel struck the other machines in the flock, shredding them to pieces, all four eagles dropped out of the sky. Broken birds and metal debris showered down, hitting the water in a clamor of heavy splashes.

Silas watched the metal chunks sink beneath the surface, then he looked at Leonidas. “Innocuous,” he repeated, clearly impressed. “I like them.” A calculating glow swirled inside Silas’s pale eyes. “How many more of those bombs do you have?”

“Five.”

“That won’t be enough.”

“I know.”

“I don’t believe it,” Ariella said. Metal scraped smoothly as she sheathed her sword.

I followed her gaze up to the cliffs above us. A man was lying on his stomach, his greasy navy-black hair drooping along the sides of his pale, emaciated face. He was peering down at us.

“It’s Keys,” Ariella muttered. “We’ve found him.”