Chapter 39

  Eric

  A trail of color marked the way to Jimothy Whyte in splashes and splatterings that often looked uncomfortably like blood except for the coloration. They didn’t even need to try Isaac’s idea of triangulation, which, to be fair, had been a pretty clever idea.

  The trail led to the docks, just outside the splash zone of the color-hurricane. Eric and Isaac could tell they were nearing the sea when the sound of the surf washing against the wharfs and the crying of sea birds began to underline the ambient bustle and clamor of the city. Eric thought he could smell it, but given the olfactory extravaganza this city continued to assault him with, that smell might have been anything.

  He peeked around a corner at the building which terminated the trail of color. It was a big, plain cinderblock of a building, aesthetically suitable for use only as a prison, warehouse, or power plant. A few windows and a gaping square aperture on one side lent credence to the warehouse theory. If it was some kind of base of operations for Xeon, and if Xeon were some kind of gang or mafia as the Scottish Muppet had implied, then they sure didn’t seem tight on security. People milled about in the wide street in front, and some of them wandered into the darkness of the loading bay.

  “Is it a front?” he wondered out loud. “Or do they just not give a shit? Isaac what the hell, just tell them no.”

  Isaac, behind him, had his hands up in an effort to fend off a half dozen bright green and blue striped serpents, each four to five feet long, which swam weightlessly through the air. They poked their noses at a floating red cube the size of a fist, nudging it toward Isaac. They wanted to play fetch. Isaac had made the mistake of throwing the cube for them once, three blocks back, and they had been bothering him ever since.

  “No!” said Isaac. He batted away the cube as they pushed it toward him. It was a weak hit, but it sent the cube spinning up at an angle over the street. The snakes became greenish streaks as they darted toward it. They captured it in seconds, writhing and squirming around each other in midair, fighting for possession as they herded it back to Isaac.

  “Isaac. Bro.”

  “It’s not my fault!”

  “Jim’s been grabbed by the mafia and you’re playing fetch? C’mon man.” Eric shook his head in disdain. The snakes interpreted Isaac’s increasingly frantic efforts to get rid of them as part of the game. They only became more animated as he waved his arms.

  Eric turned his attention back to the warehouse. The last visible spot of Jim’s color trail was an angular green splatter right beside a plain, unobtrusive metal door into the building. This splatter was made obvious by the person in a khaki suit and straw hat who squatted down next to it and was trying unsuccessfully to scrub it off. He’d been at it for a few minutes now and was getting frustrated.

  Eric turned back to Isaac. “For real though, we need to…”

  “To what? Fight a bunch of thugs? Is that your plan?” Isaac, really getting annoyed now by the snakes, grabbed the rubbery cube out of the air. Then, just like that, it was gone. The snakes rapidly slowed to a stop, staring at the place it had been. Then, as one, each of them looked in a different direction. They swiveled their heads, scouting for where it could have gone. One of them slithered forward and prodded at the sleeve of Isaac’s black and purple spacesuit, checking for sleight of hand.

  “Nice,” said Eric. “Where’d you put it?”

  Isaac shrugged as the serpent nosed around his upraised forearm.

  “Now we need a plan,” said Eric. “Let’s get a little closer.” They left the puzzled serpents behind. Isaac followed Eric as he threaded through the crowd. Eric took them to a group of bystanders clustered around some merchant directly across the street from the open loading bay of the warehouse.

  “Woah,” said Isaac, “is this where Heidi’s angel bit you?” Eric felt his right wrist grabbed and held up.

  “Yeah,” he said, but the merchant distracted him from elaborating. The merchant, dressed in bright blue, was singing in a way that made him sound like a garbage disposal on auto tune. Eric could have earplugs from mist, but that might draw attention. He hadn’t yet seen anyone else walking around with magic conjuring coasters.

  “Hey,” he said to Isaac. Eric slapped him on the shoulder to break Isaac out of his disbelieving fixation on the music. “Don’t make anything with your coaster. Not where people can see it. We’ll try this low-profile.”

  “Low profile,” muttered Isaac as he craned to see the merchant. “And I was just about to make a periscope to see what the heck that guy’s selling.”

  “Prob’ly a new Christmas album,” said Eric.

  Isaac hacked with laughter, then spread his hands headliner-style. “Banana Quest: the Soundtrack!” He spoke in an old-timey B-movie-narrator voice.

  Now it was Eric’s turn to laugh. But only for a moment. He smacked Isaac again, harder than before. “Serious.”

  “Serious,” agreed Isaac. He regarded at Eric with an expression of utter gravity. It lasted only a second before a smile broke it up and he snickered.

  Eric exercised patience, suppressing the urge to really slug the skinny nerd in front of him. This had always been the way with Isaac.

  Isaac took a deep breath, calming himself. Then, as if by magic, he really was serious. “So. Jim.”

  “Yeah. Jim. Pretty sure he’s in there.” Eric was careful not to nod or gesture toward the warehouse. They were in clear view of anyone who might be watching. Isaac, however, glanced over at it when Eric spoke. “Don’t look at it,” Eric whispered through clenched teeth.

  “Bro, lots of people are looking at it.”

  “Whatever. What’s the plan?” Eric hated to admit it, but Isaac had always been the one with the plan. The one with too many plans, most of the time.

  “Well,” said Isaac as he readjusted the helmet under his arm, “he might not be there. That place might just be the entrance to an underground tunnel. Or maybe he left out the back. We haven’t seen the back.”

  “But we know he went in,” said Eric.

  “Right. But he could be, like, anywhere. Without Hazel or any of our angels, our best bet is probably to try to find out from someone in there.”

  “Wonder where the hell they went,” said Eric. He feigned nonchalance, but secretly he was worried. What if little Frisby, mission accomplished, disappeared forever?

  Isaac, who didn’t seem to have as much attachment to his own angel, just shrugged.

  Eric nodded slowly. “So…”

  “So I’ll go in there,” said Isaac, “and ask. Who knows? Maybe they’ll have something to say. We still don’t know why they took him, right? We need to get an idea about that first of all. And if that doesn’t work, I just walk away and we’ll think of something else. I can see some of them right inside that door, right in the open, so it should be pretty safe. And if they do turn out, uh, unfriendly, then you come make a distraction and we’ll make like a banana and split.”

  “Make like a tree and get the fuck out of there,” said Eric. He thought for a moment. “Okay,” he said, “but it’ll be me going in there, not you.”

  “Why?”

  “‘Cause you’ll fuck it up. And you’ll be better at distracting them if things go south.”

  Isaac didn’t argue. Instead, he reached out and took something from the air that hadn’t been there the second before. It was the red cube. “Huh,” he said in surprise. “So that’s where it was.”

  “Where?”

  “On the Void Station,” said Isaac. He frowned at it. It was gone, as abruptly as it had come. He held up the helmet that he’d been awkwardly cradling under his other arm for the past few minutes, and it vanished as well. “Yeah,” he said with a growing smile, “I think I can come up with a distraction or two.” He looked down at Eric. “Got any time powers?”

  Eric tapped the headphones around his neck. “Only with music playing. Kind-of. So far.”

  “Music?”

  “Yeah I can like, change the tempo and shit. Of myself. Or everything else. I just visualize a metronome.” He shrugged. “Heartbeats.”

  “Don’t worry bro,” said Isaac. “I bet you’ll figure it out…in time.”

  “Okay, I think we’re done here.”

  “I second that.”

  “C’mon bro, that was so fucking weak it hurt.”

  “Now’s hour chance. Hehe. Oh.” Isaac looked above and behind Eric. “That’s what he’s selling.”

  Eric turned to follow Isaac’s gaze. A huge dragonfly two feet long, its gleaming iridescent carapace glinting in the cloudlight, buzzed overhead. It was carrying something, a trained giant dragonfly doing tricks or something, responding to the god-awful singing that Eric had been ignoring for the past couple of minutes. It zigged and zagged in the air with sporadic precision. And somehow, though the term ‘dragonfly’ had never been anything more than a random nickname, it reminded him of Leah.

  A hand fell on his shoulder. He tensed before realizing it must be Isaac. “Uh, you know…” said Isaac. Eric knew that tone. Isaac was trying to be for-real serious about something. A rare occasion, and one which warranted attention. He kept his eyes on the darting dragonfly, but listened. Isaac took his time, but at last he just said, “You don’t have to catch them alone.” The hand left his shoulder after that.

  Classic Isaac, with the fucking cheeseball one-liners. Trying to be a writer. Well. That one hadn’t been too bad, actually. In spite of himself, Eric felt a warmth in his chest at the thought of someone else in that dream of his, helping to catch the falling kids.

  “You’re getting some muscle, you know that?” said Isaac. “You been working out?”

  Eric shrugged. Again, classic Isaac. Ruining the moment.

  “Is it because of Liz?” asked Isaac.

  Eric turned to the warehouse without looking at Isaac. “I’m going in. You know what to do.”

  “Yeah, yeah. And if you die…”

  “Die with honor,” Eric muttered. He shrugged again, this time in order to feel the sword resting against his sweaty back. The old silliness about dying with honor didn’t seem like such a funny joke anymore. He set out across the street to the warehouse.

  He walked naturally. This was just another street in Chicago. Those were just some regular people he had questions for. Had they seen that shit with the colors? Crazy. Knew anything about that? How about some distracted kid with a cane and probably paint all over himself? Like that. Nice and casual.

  He paused at the huge square aperture in the side of the building to get a look at what lay within. A warehouse indeed, mostly empty, the size of a basketball court. This space looked like it took up only a third of the building. Stacks of crates rose in one corner, a pile of sacks in another. Skylights lit the interior, filtering the light from outside. Most of the dirt floor was empty save for scattered boxes, broken pallets, random bottles, scraps of paper. A couple guys moved crates around in the back and a few more people who had clearly wandered in off the street were talking to someone about the sacks. That left a furry sleeping creature that Eric thought might have been a mongoose, some small bluish ratlike animals skittering fearlessly around on the dirt, and a group of men seated in the dust in the middle of the room. Six of them, it looked like, and ‘men’ might not have been the most accurate term for them. ‘Human’ fell pretty damn short too, in some cases. They were drinking, smoking, laughing, and–piquing Eric’s interest–focused on a game of cards. They were variously armed, but their demeanor was not threatening. They were relaxed. Just chilling. And as Isaac had said, they were in clear view of the busy street outside. He edged closer to observe their game, trying to look like a curious bystander, just some kind of tourist.

  Jacob had told him about the cards used here, which was cool because Eric liked card games. They had a style that he approved of. A deck of cards here came in six suits of twelve. The suits were hearts, blooms, brushes, ways, boxes, snow. Each suit had numbers one through ten, plus a lady and a lord. Seventy-two. Each suit also had a fool, which was not always used in games, bringing the total to seventy-eight. The thing about the fools was that they always looked different from the other cards, even on the back. In a game where you had a private hand, there was no hiding the fact that you held a fool.

  The fools featured prominently in the game these six were playing. Eric watched as they took turns asking the others whether they had a certain card. If the answer was no, they traded two cards of the questioner’s choice. It soon became clear to Eric that he would not comprehend the goal of this game unless someone told him, so instead he noted the players. Two of them looked human from what he could tell: a skinny black man who squinted at everything through coke-bottle glasses that enlarged his eyes, and a pale heavyset man who kept stroking his long scraggly goatee and who wore what looked like a yellow firefighter’s coat in defiance of the heat. The black man took periodic swigs from a flask at his side, and the goatee man puffed on a red cigar, the crimson smoke of which smelled musky and sweet. The young woman with a knit green beanie had fine yellow scales instead of skin; her slit golden eyes flickered around between the other players, never still. The smallest player looked like a two-foot-tall haystack made of sticky notes, little more than a pile of blank fragments of brightly colored paper. Eric only assumed it was a player because a hand of cards levitated in front of it, the others addressed it with familiar disinterest, and it spoke in hoarse whisper when making its own demands. (“Keppeth…seven of snow…”) That left the hulking brute of a creature that looked like a seven-foot blue Godzilla with four arms, and the tall, lean man with a head that looked exactly like an entire living crab just sitting there on top of a classy pink and white pinstripe suit while white-gloved hands deftly alternated between handling cards and lazily spinning a dagger between its fingers.

  They were betting something called drops, which looked like jagged pieces of glass the size of marbles. A heap of drops lay in the center. Eric was trying to figure out how a game of complicated go-fish could be betting matter when it suddenly came to a resolution.

  “A great day for fools, I suppose,” said the scaly woman. They all nodded and grunted in assent. Eric noticed that each of them had one of the six fools in their hand. The complex geometric patterns on the back of the fool cards were red rather than blue-green like the rest.

  “Fools!” the scaly woman declared. Her slit eyes darted wildly. “I stood on a mountain beneath the dark moon.” With these words, she slapped half of her hand down onto the dust. Everyone else leaned over to get a look as she carefully placed her fool (the fool of boxes) halfway over one of the seven cards.

  “Ha!” said Godzilla, his voice a deep rumble. “Fool. I watched silver seas crawl under a blood sky.” He laid his own cards down and positioned his fool, all while idly scoring deep grooves in the hard-packed dirt with the claws on his two extra hands.

  Goatee man groaned. He dropped his whole hand facedown onto the dirt. “Gods damn me for a fool.” He chewed on the red cigar in frustration and puffed a nimbus of smoke down at his inadequate cards.

  The skinny man with the glasses was next. “By de ten, yer a fool,” he declared as he slapped down his hand with such force that a shockwave of dust rose. “I came fer de drink and stayed fer yer mother!” He cackled with laughter, displaying a mouthful of berry-blue teeth, and several of the others joined in with his burst of merriment. He took a celebratory gulp from his flask.

  The pile of paper fluttered and sighed, a sound like wind through dry leaves. The cards in its hand came together, then drifted to the ground in a neat stack, face-down. “I’m a fool,” it said.

  Everyone looked at Crab-head. If his expression was readable, Eric had no clue in hell what it might be. The well-dressed crustacean took pleasure in drawing out the suspense. The yellow-scaled woman and the black man leaned close. Finally, the crab spoke in a smooth, polished, faintly British voice. “You lot are a mangy pack of thrice-cursed fools.” It flicked the dagger high up into the air without a glance. “I heard the stones laugh on a sunny day.” Its gloved hands smoothly spread its cards on the dirt. As soon as it placed its fool, with fastidious precision, the dagger came down and struck that card directly through, pinning it to the earth.

  The others, after a moment of evaluating Crab-head’s hand, groaned and dropped the rest of their cards in front of them. Eric wasn’t close enough to see exactly what that hand was, but he spotted a few face cards. Crab-head shoveled the heap of glassy drops toward him with satisfaction. Yellow-scales clapped him on the back in a show of sportsmanship, while the huge pale man with the goatee protested about one of his cards having a dagger-hole in it. (“It’s only a fool,” Crab-head replied.)

  “You there,” grumbled the Godzilla like a distant volcanic eruption. “Come for a game?” Eric realized with a start that it was speaking to him.

  “Five drop buy-in,” rasped the pile of paper.

  “Eh, give ‘im a break, eh? ‘e’s a right young gennelman!” said the black man. He adjusted his glasses and squinted through them at Eric. “Make it tree. By de gods, make it free.” He chuckled, showing his blue smile.

  “You are ten pints of crazy in a one-pint cup,” said yellow-scales, glaring at him with slit eyes, “if you think we’ll let an outsider take your place on the fourth round.”

  “Already got six,” muttered the pale man in the fireman’s jacket as he examined the wounded card. The mongoose-thing Eric had seen earlier climbed onto his shoulder. He reached up to scratch it. “Who’s dropping out? Or shall we try it with seven?”

  The black man rocked back, laughing. “Let us try!”

  “Not in a red million, godseeker,” protested Yellow-scales, almost shouting. She leaned forward as though ready to leap to her feet.

  “Now, now,” said Crab-head, finally finished safely stowing his drops in a drawstring bag. “Let the lad speak.” He stood smoothly, turned as though on a swivel, and stepped forward to lay a hand on Eric’s shoulder. “What are you here for, boy? Surely not to play cards with a pack of fools?”

  Eric could only stare at the stalk-eyes, the twitching crab legs, the flat crustacean-shell of a head, and swallow. “Uh…” How in the hell was this guy speaking?

  The yellow-scaled woman was watching him with her big golden eyes. She might have been pretty if she hadn’t looked so pissed-off. Her scales gave him the spark of an idea.

  “I’m looking for a dragon,” he said. “Just a little one. White. Goes by ‘Frisby.’ Seen him?”

  He had their attention now. The word ‘dragon’ had stopped them all, and now they watched him curiously. The Godzilla glanced around as if expecting to find such a dragon in the immediate vicinity. So they were curious about a dragon, but not alarmed enough for him to have said something really stupid. Good.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Frisby?” asked the pile of colored paper. It stirred, fluttered, ascended in a rapidly spinning column, and took the shape of a hollow papier - maché mannequin about the size of Heidi.

  “Yeah,” said Eric, a little surprised and impressed by how he suddenly felt confidence rushing through him. He could do this. “And there was a kid with him. About my age.” He paused on the verge of naming Jimothy. If he knew Jim’s name, and if they had taken him prisoner of hostage or whatever, it could implicate him, make him a target. But if he was simply looking for that kid with the cane, out of mere curiosity… “This kid, he had, like, a cane. And there was a dog too.”

  Goatee-man made the cards vanish and stroked his goatee, then said, “He must be referring to Niri’s abductor.” The Godzilla growled in response, possibly in anger.

  “Wasn’t he one of the six Heroes?” asked Yellow-scales.

  “Bit of a mistake there, from what I heard,” said Crab-head.

  “Ain’ dat why de whole market district awash wit colors like de Laughing God himself step on it?” asked Blue-teeth with a hoot of laughter.

  “Do we know he took her?” said Yellow-scales.

  “I was there,” rumbled the Godzilla. “Saw it.”

  “Sarissa has confirmed she is dead,” added the humanoid pi?ata.

  “It matter?” asked Blue-teeth. “We be fucked for sure if Lord Fierce come down on us.” At these words Yellow-scales shivered and bit her lip with sharp teeth, and Goatee man nervously adjusted the collar of his fireman’s jacket.

  “So, uh, you’ve seen him?” asked Eric. “You know where he is? The dragon, I mean.” He kept himself from flinching as they all turned back to him.

  “Haven’t seen any dragon,” said Crab-head. “But if you’re looking for the boy, you’d better speak to the Lockbreaker.”

  “He in?” asked Blue-teeth. Crab-head nodded in response.

  “Well then,” said Eric with a smile. “Guess I’ll have to talk to the Lockbreaker. That cool?”

  “You are new here,” said Crab-head. “Do you even know to whom you speak?”

  “…no,” Eric admitted, suddenly cautious.

  “We are of Xeon,” said Crab-head. “We do not generally–”

  “What dat sword you got dere?” interrupted Blue-teeth. He squinted through the thick lenses of his glasses, his dark eyes comically enlarged.

  Sword? Eric reached a hand back up to touch the hilt of the sword sticking up from his back.

  “Please, Jalek,” said the Crab-head. “Your habit of interru–”

  “It do look like de–”

  Jalek himself was interrupted by a floating red cube that came spinning in from somewhere off to the side. It cut off Blue-teeth’s sentence as it tumbled through the air over their cards and bumped into Pi?ata-man, where it rebounded. There was a moment of general befuddlement before the flying serpents came. There were more of them now, as many as a dozen, all squirming through the air as they fought over the red cube.

  “What’re these bastards doing here?” muttered Goatee-man. “Go on! Shoo!” But the cube bobbed around in the air, dodging the serpents. His small furry pet scuttled around on his broad shoulders and hissed at the serpentine newcomers.

  Jalek laughed and took another swig from his bottle. Yellow-scales cast her gaze about warily, ignoring the serpents. Crab-head simply watched, his expression unreadable. The Godzilla waved away the snakes in his face as though shooing off annoying flies. The paper man watched the cube, and Eric realized that he was the one moving it, keeping it from the snakes.

  Water abruptly poured down from above. It came not like rain, but as a solid column that dropped and struck the ground with such force that the splash washed Yellow-scales and Blue-teeth right off their asses. They tumbled away several feet, carried by the ongoing torrent. Blue Godzilla sat unmoved, and the water parted around Pi?ata-man as though striking invisible walls. The water kept pouring, a cascade several feet across, enough volume that it would fill the warehouse within a minute if the place were sealed tight. The noise of it was at least as shocking as its sudden appearance. Bright yellow fish tumbled down in the dozens and flopped desperately when the spreading water had carried them far enough that they could no longer swim. Some of the snakes, startled by the column of water, abandoned the cube to investigate the helpless fish.

  The surprise appearance of this mysterious deluge caught everyone off-guard. Eric stood far enough away that the water merely washed over his shoes, and like everyone else, he gaped in bewilderment. But only for a moment. Eric realized with a start that this must be Isaac’s distraction. What the fuck? They’d just been talking! But maybe Isaac knew something Eric didn’t. These card-players had confirmed one thing: the Lockbreaker led to Jim, and the Lockbreaker was here.

  It was no problem at all to hurry to one of the side doors that led deeper into the warehouse and slip through while Crab-head and the others were distracted. He heard a voice as he was leaving–Isaac’s voice, somehow amplified. “Water you doing down there? Hope you’re not all washed up!” God dammit, Isaac.

  Eric hurried through the mostly empty corridors, his shoes sloshing with each step. He checked every room as he passed. Office, locker room, storage, storage, restroom, computerized security, office…

  Almost nothing was locked, and everything looked empty. Eric got the impression that this place was a front. Security seemed nonexistent, and he saw no one. If this Xeon were a gang in the traditional sense, then there was no way this was anything like a real headquarters. Hell, this was probably a regular old warehouse that they just rented some storage from.

  He opened a door, looked in, began to close it again out of habit, then paused. He stepped into the room and tried to understand what he was seeing. This room had stuff in it: a couch, a desk, a bookshelf, a pile of rubble dividing it in two. But the walls were all painted.

  “Oh, hey Eric! Hi!” The voice was Jimothy’s, but it took Eric a moment to locate him. This was because Jimothy was up by the ceiling, facing it at a distance of a few feet, lying on his back on some kind of narrow platform like a stretcher. His head hung down to look upside down at Eric. He had a big grin on his face. That grin caused a wave of relief to wash over Eric.

  “Jim. Bro. What up?” Eric peered up at the stretcher holding Jim close to the ceiling. “For real, though. What are you doing up there?”

  “Uh. Just painting.” The stretcher lowered Jimothy to the floor, where it tipped up and set Jimothy upright before vanishing. Jimothy almost fell, naturally, but steadied himself on a glowing light in the air that also disappeared after a moment. Most of Jimothy was splattered with something black. And he just stood there with his innocent grin.

  “What…” So many questions. Eric availed himself of the nearest chair and sat in it to pull off his soaked shoes and socks while he decided what question to lead with. “What are you doing here? We thought you’d been kidnapped or some shit.” He wrung out his socks into the dusty red carpet.

  “Well, I guess I was,” said Jimothy. He looked uncomfortable. “And maybe I kind-of deserved it. But they were really nice to me after I talked to Leo.”

  “Leo?”

  “The Lockbreaker. He said there was a mistake. So he put me in here and told me to wait.” Jim spread his hands to indicate the walls and half-painted ceiling. “So I’ve been painting!”

  Eric stood and scanned the walls. He saw no paint anywhere, not even on Jim’s hands, and the color on the walls, though vibrant and fresh, was not wet. One of the murals showed Heidi back-to-back with a tall pale man in a broad hat. Heidi had a weird gun of some kind and the other guy had two revolvers that–now wait just a fucking minute. Was that Abraham Black? (eyes smokestacks, skin blistered candlewax) Eric thought back to what he and Heidi had seen in the Museum. The painting on the wall looked…sort of like him? Black and Heidi stood in a place of red and purple angles and dark shadows. They both had their own shadows, cast by some pink lighting. Heidi’s was a many-legged serpentine form. Black’s was–oh, there. That was the monster Eric had seen in the vision. There it was, a shadow somehow made of deeper darkness, a darkness that piled up thick and heavy, that made the surrounding shadows bright and fragile by comparison. Heidi and Black were aiming their weapons at something unseen beyond the scope of the mural. A blood-red snake curled and twisted around their feet as though tying them together.

  Eric wanted to ask what the fuck this painting meant, but he already knew Jim wouldn’t be able to tell him. Thinking that he might not have time to survey them all, Eric slid his phone out of his pocket and photographed every mural in sight. Heidi and Abraham Black. Another mural showed five bizarre figures seated on equally strange chairs, and Eric at once recognized Lord Fool. Another showed a huge wolf taller than the trees, all colorless save for something purple staining the wolf’s claws. The part of the ceiling that Jim had painted showed something he’d seen before: a world with six moons. Beyond the moons, two other worlds, black and white. Beyond those, the stars like colorful gems.

  “Remarkable,” said a voice behind him. That voice was like black oil, rich and smooth and dark. It was a voice that would be set for life as a voice actor on Earth, even if it only read nutrition labels.

  The newcomer was a shadow, a vaguely humanoid haze of gloom that stood just inside the door. It was a large shape, tall and broad, and it seemed to wear a hat, though that too was only a greasy haze like a smudge on Eric’s vision. The figure was insubstantial enough that Eric could see part of the doorframe behind it as it stepped noiselessly into the room. Behind it came a slender figure in a matte-black jumpsuit and a shiny dark helmet that reflected everything like an eerie eye. There was something a little dangerous about that one. It–wait. Fuck, that was just Isaac. When had Isaac started looking even remotely cool?

  A couple more shapes entered after Isaac, apparently too cool for the third dimension. They slid along the walls, literal shadows independent of a light source to create them. Yet it was obvious whose shadows they were.

  “Leocanto,” said the vague dark haze in the air. That voice came from the shadows on the walls as well as the figure itself in an unnerving stereo effect. “They also call me the Lockbreaker. I respond to either.” God damn, that voice. It was the ultimate evolution of masculine suavity, rendered in basso profundo. It was unnatural. It was almost a physical pressure.

  Eric’s own shadow was under his feet, but Isaac’s was against the wall. One of the independent shadows that had entered the room moved through Isaac’s shadow, and Eric saw Isaac lean to one side as though a pressure had been applied against him. Then Isaac shivered violently. His helmet hissed, unlatched, and he took it off his head. It promptly vanished.

  “Isaac!” said Jim.

  “Please,” said the smoldering molasses voice of Leocanto Lockbreaker. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

  Jimothy obediently did as he was told and took a seat on the couch. Eric hesitated only a moment. The aura of don’t-fuck-with-me was mighty strong with the Lockbreaker. He paused to brush some debris off the couch before sitting down beside Jim. Isaac came to stand by them a moment later.

  “I see you have taken certain architectural liberties with my warehouse,” said the Lockbreaker, observing the pile of rubble. There had been a wall there at some point. One of the living shadows stepped over to have a look. The other distractedly tapped the shadow of a vase that sat on the desk. The vase itself wobbled. Eric swallowed, but tried not to make it obvious.

  “Sorry,” said Jimothy. “I…uh, I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Indeed.” There was a trace of amusement in the Lockbreaker’s voice. “What cell could we have put you in, I wonder, had we actually desired to detain you?” He paused for a moment. “You are Eric Walker and Isaac Milton,” he said. It was almost, but not quite, a question. “It seems that Xeon, which is to say, that I, have made a mistake.”

  Eric swallowed again. “Please explain,” he said. He could not put any composure, defiance, or aloofness in his tone. In fact, his voice cracked. He didn’t fucking care. He wanted to get the hell away from this shadow man as soon as possible.

  “I shall.” At this point, two more people entered the room. One was Crab-head, his pinstripe pants almost completely soaked. His literally-just-an-entire-crab head was dripping wet as well, but he probably didn’t mind that. He was twirling a knife in his gloved fingers, making it dance with unnerving ease. The other newcomer was a tall creature with pale, scaly skin and delicate lines of purple and blue all over her body. There was something about her that made Eric think of her as a female, though she wore no shirt and had no discernible feminine features. Maybe it was her long silver hair. Her lower jaw was golden, her eyes were solid silver, and she looked pissed as all hell. Another shadow slid along the wall after them and closed the door. It mockingly saluted one of the other shadows across the room, which gave an elaborate bow in response. The third shadow had moved somewhere behind Eric, and he had to forcibly control himself to not turn around and try to locate it.

  “Your friend Jimothy took our young adept Niri to his world, where she met an untimely demise,” said the Lockbreaker in his mesmerizing voice. “From what we can tell, your friend is hardly at fault.” The hazy Lockbreaker gestured vaguely at the mural on the wall showing the giant wolf. The lady with the pale skin hissed softly in anger.

  “We…borrowed him to ascertain the truth of this matter,” the shadow continued. “We were not involved with that mess in the market square. And should any of the Lords or Ladies inquire, you shall inform them that Xeon treated the Heroes with the utmost courtesy. Is it not so, Jimothy Whyte?”

  Jimothy nodded with a smile, by all appearances utterly unfazed by the palpable aura of danger around the Lockbreaker that made sweat bead on Eric’s neck and palms. “Yeah,” said Jim. A faint growl came from the silver-haired creature.

  “We have no wish to incur their wrath,” continued that hypnotic voice. “And besides, we have no love either for the Dark World. And I know well your task. In fact, the time may come when Xeon aids you in it.”

  Silver-hair opened her mouth to speak in evident anger, but the Lockbreaker cut her off. “I am aware of your feelings on this matter, Sarissa. Your daughter’s fate is regrettable. But it was the work of a Guardian.” Again he made a vague gesture toward the painting of the wolf. The purple stain on its claws suddenly took on a new meaning for Eric; he recalled Jim alluding to someone dying in the group chat. One of the moving shadows was investigating the painting. It reached out and traced a slender finger along the wolf’s nose, then carefully sniffed the finger.

  “I will say this to our young friends–friends, Sarissa, to ease you.” The shadow stepped in closer to the three of them, and Eric felt the menace of his presence press in stronger than ever. “Should you knowingly harm another member of Xeon…well. The possibilities of a rather substantial creativity still my clumsy tongue. Yet I can assure you, Lady Shadows will be–” The hazy form of Leocanto Lockbreaker turned to the door. The ground beneath their feet shook faintly.

  Eric felt that he had to say something, so he said, “We understand.” His voice was dry.

  “Good,” said the Lockbreaker, but he was not paying attention. Another second, and a man burst through the door, panting. He looked every bit the normal middle-aged human in plain business clothes. He bowed swiftly to the Lockbreaker and then spoke in a rush.

  “Darkworld agents, sir. South side. Numbers unknown. Rank unknown. But they’re a strike force. Here for the Hero, I think.” He glanced at Jim.

  “That was swift indeed,” said the Lockbreaker. “Stall the agents; identify them if possible. I will be there shortly.” The man rushed off. The floor shook again, more violently. Some dust sifted down from the broken wall. Distant shouting sounded faintly.

  “How did they know?” wondered the Lockbreaker out loud. “Who could have…Ah. Sarissa.” He turned to the pale-skinned creature. His two shadows walked casually over to hers. One of the shadows playfully tipped a hat; the other jived to some beat as it walked, snapping silent fingers. “Could you truly be so foolish?”

  Crab-head started to move toward her, but the third shadow was there next to his, placing a hand on the shoulder of Crab-head’s shadow, stilling him.

  Sarissa bared her teeth, though they weren’t very tooth-like. “Where is the Leo I knew?” she hissed at him. “The vengeance of the Lockbreaker was feared once.”

  The Lockbreaker sighed. One of his shadows twisted its arm. The shadow hand became a sharp point, and with a simple thrust it shoved this point through the chest of Sarissa’s shadow. Sarissa gasped and doubled over, silver eyes wide. The wound appeared in her stomach as though she had been stabbed by an invisible spear.

  “No need to waste breath on argument,” muttered the smooth, rich voice of the Lockbreaker. “A pity, though.” Sarissa twitched and fell to the floor. A purplish stain began to mar the red carpet beneath her. The watching shadow, the one without a deadly arm, doffed its hat and held it melodramatically to its chest as though in mourning. Eric tore his gaze from the dying creature and turned to Jim, who was watching in horror, eyes wide, mouth open.

  “Don’t look, Jim,” muttered Isaac.

  “One of the Ladies has arrived,” said the faintly British voice of Crab-head, apparently undisturbed by the stabbing. “Lady Chains, I believe.”

  “By the Ten,” said the Lockbreaker. The entire room shook violently. Plaster fell as the ceiling cracked; the vase fell from the desk and paused in midair as one of the shadows deftly caught its shade.

  “Yes, I believe that’s Lady Chains,” said Crab-head.

  “At least it’s not Lord Fierce, eh?” asked the Lockbreaker with a hint of mirth. He turned back to the three of them. “Go,” he said. “We’ll hold them off. For a while.” With these words, he strode silently from the room, followed by Crab-head and the shadows. One of the shadows paused long enough to point at them, then indicate the other direction, away from the distant tumult. Another shadow cheerfully waved goodbye. The third took the lamp, which floated out the door, trailing its cord. They left the door open.

  “Holy shit,” breathed Eric. Then he steadied himself. They could talk later. For now, they needed to do as the Lockbreaker said. “Isaac,” he said. His voice cracked. He cleared it and tried again. “Can you just, like, move us out?” His voice sounded thin and tinny in his ears after hearing the smooth dark voice of the Lockbreaker. Eric’s own voice, and everybody’s voice, was a weak imitation. Poor sound quality. Shitty headphones.

  Isaac shook his head. “I don’t want to try. Not yet.”

  Jimothy stood up, his eyes still wide. He turned to face the far wall, the direction the shadow had pointed. Light flashed, and a door-shaped part of the wall fell outward, its edges cut clean through. The grey wolf lost its entire back half. The three of them hurried through this opening into an empty storage room, dark and dusty. Light somehow filled the room as they entered, its source unseen.

  “Oh,” said Jim, his voice weak. “Up. Right. Hang on.”

  A translucent white sphere enveloped the three of them and rose into the air. It bore them aloft, along with a circular section of the floor they were standing on. When it reached the ceiling, the top of their bubble pushed through without slowing, though wood splintered and wiring snapped. Up into another dark room, then up again through the next ceiling, which again put up as much resistance as tissue paper.

  And then they were out. They stood on a circular section of carpeted floor, inside a bubble that rose into the darkness of a twilight sky.

  “Huh,” said Isaac. “It was broad daylight like ten minutes ago.”

  Stars moved overhead, and as Eric gained elevation he saw the clouds on the horizons, crimson beyond the blue. Up there, among the stars, a white moon hung high in the sky. Elsewhere up there, a gray moon also drifted. Was that Pyrrhus?

  The warehouse below was a mass of fire and smoke. Pedestrians ran screaming in the streets. Part of the warehouse collapsed. The noise reached them, still loud though they were already maybe eighty feet up.

  “Let’s get out of here, Jim,” said Eric. “We can talk in a minute, okay?”

  Their bubble drifted rapidly away from the conflict at the warehouse, over the rooftops and streets that sparkled with the lights of evening.

  Isaac looked more or less fine, exhilarated by their flight and their escape from danger. Jimothy looked troubled. He held something in his hands, which he glanced at for a moment before releasing it and letting it fade to mist. It had been a canvas, and he’d painted something on it. Eric only got a glimpse before it vanished, but it looked like a smaller version of the creature that Leocanto Lockbreaker had just killed. What did they say her name was? Niri?

  “Isaac,” Eric asked, “why did you interrupt? With the water. I had ‘em on the ropes.”

  Isaac didn’t take his eyes off the city. “You were reaching for your sword.”

  “Huh. Damn. Well, where’d you get the water from?” That trick with the water had been pretty good.

  “There was just a big tank down the street.” He shrugged. “Full of fish.”

  “And how’d you get caught?”

  “It was, uh, the shadows. Something just grabbed me, something I couldn’t see, right when it started getting dark. It dragged me in. It was like being dragged by a machine. Then it took me to Leocanto, and he figured it all out pretty quick. We should remember that guy. He might be able to help us.”

  “You think I could fucking forget?” And as for his help…yeah, Eric thought he could pass on that.

  “Woah, look!” said Isaac. He pointed, but there was no need. In the darkening twilight, huge moth-like creatures fluttered toward them. Which made sense. They were riding in a glowing white bubble, and moths will be moths. These were as big as people, though. There were three of them, and they danced around the sphere when they got close.

  “Hello!” said Jimothy, waving, his troubles forgotten just like that in the face of some new wonder.

  “Greetings,” the moths replied. One of them discovered that it could settle itself atop their drifting orb. It did so and peered down at them with its bizarre moth face. “Might you by chance,” it asked as it settled itself there, “be the Child of Lights?”

  “Um…” said Jim.

  Something clicked in Eric’s memory. Butterfly people. But Isaac was ahead of him: “You wouldn’t be Theians, would you?”