Authors: Andrew Ball
"My history teacher," Daniel said, "was named was Mrs. Faldey. Eliza Faldey. I saw
her disappear."
Rachel looked at him. "What do you
mean?"
"When I first got my powers," Daniel
said, "I knocked the spawn off my brother
and killed it. After, Xik told me to lay low
because I was too weak to take on an
extractor. I knew he was probably right, so I
did. The next time I went to school, she was
one of those fake shells." He let his hand
drop from her hair. "I didn’t know what do,
just that I wanted to do something. So when
she asked, I went over to her house and
mowed her lawn. And I cleaned her gutters.
Fixed things up. And over the course of the
week, everyone forgot her. She even started
forgetting herself.
"I was the only one that remembered on
the last day. I was the only one that showed
up for class. Then she vanished. That was
when it was real for me, I think. That
moment." He looked at her. "If that happened to you, I wouldn’t be able to live with
myself. Please be careful. Please."
Rachel rubbed his arm. "I will. I
promise."
****
When the sun hung low, Daniel walked
her out to the parking lot. The evening light
winked off the edge of the black limo.
Eleanor was waiting for them.
Daniel didn’t want to stretch out the
goodbye too long. That would make it feel
permanent. He kissed Rachel briefly, then
opened the door for her. She gave him one
last smile and hopped in. He closed it behind
her.
Daniel walked to the other end of the
limo. Eleanor was standing there, looking up
at the edge of the buildings where the sky
was pink and orange. He stopped there for a
moment, joining her in watching the sunset.
"So," Eleanor said. "Now you know."
"Now I know."
"You don’t seem very surprised."
"It makes a few things at the party make
sense," Daniel said. "Madame Flemmet
calling me mundane, for example. Glad I got
my shots in while I could. Who the hell calls
themselves madame, anyway?"
"She’s our envoy to the European order,
actually," Eleanor said. "The French heritage helps. You insulted one of the most important
people in the Dawn."
"Huh. Imagine that." Daniel looked at
her. "Take care of Rachel."
"I’ve a spotless record on that front
before we ever met you, Daniel."
"That’s what worries me."
Her lips thinned, but then, she relaxed.
Her eyes drifted. "Perhaps there’s something
to that. I’ll watch out for her. As her friend."
"Thank you," Daniel said.
"Keep yourself safe. If anything
happened to you, she would die." Eleanor
sidled up to him. "Allow me to steal
something from you. Just once."
He frowned. "What?"
She brushed her lips against his. The
contact was brief, a feather’s kiss, then gone.
"Stay safe."
Eleanor walked around the limo, opened
the door for herself, and scooted inside.
Daniel took a few steps back as it pulled out.
The guard house at the end of the parking lot
opened its gate. The car vanished around a
corner and into the winding streets of
Boston.
Daniel sighed and scratched the back of
his head. He’d never understand women.
****
Rachel was glad to stretch her legs. It
was the morning after their trip from Boston,
and it felt like they’d been in cars all night.
The base was a flurry of activity.
Troops of soldiers jogged up and down the
airfield. Their limo looked out of place
amongst the military jeeps and covered
personnel carriers. Supplies were stacked
high under hastily erected awnings.
Mitchel Air Force Base was closed in
the early sixties. With the Vorid threat
pressing on New York City, the Ivory Dawn
decided to make it their temporary
headquarters. It would be the focal point for
the push into the city when the dome
dropped.
The old runway wasn’t in shape for jets;
almost all of those were in aircraft carriers a
few miles off the cost. Instead, the field had
become a massive parking lot for
helicopters. Shiny rows of propellers were
lined up across the grass and concrete.
Rachel could see members of the Ivory
Dawn with their white-gold tabards mixed
between the grey and blue of air force
camouflage. They were preparing the
vehicles for fighting in time-stopped space.
That included spells on the vehicles
themselves, and on any ammunition. Every
single bullet fired in the domes needed its
own sigil. That was the limiting factor in
how much mundane force they could use in
the coming fight.
Rachel and Eleanor were led into the
main compound. Henry was on the phone,
talking animatedly about shifting Dawn
members from their southern contingent up to
the northeast. He waved at them once before
finishing up, and they exchanged hugs.
"Who was that?" Eleanor asked.
"Matthew Aiken," Henry said. "He’ll be joining us tomorrow."
Eleanor cringed slightly. "Did it have to
be him?"
"You know what happened in Atlanta.
He’s the successor to his faction of the Dawn
whether you like it or not."
"I don’t contest his ascent, only his
personality."
Henry rubbed his forehead. "Right now,
we need him. Play nice."
"Yes, father."
"That’s what I want to hear." He put his
hands together. "I want you both helping to
shield every vehicle they have and inspecting
what we’ve already done. Grunt work, but if
the enchantments fail in the dome, the
mundane soldiers will be helpless."
"Is it going to be the same as before?"
Rachel asked. "How do we even know
there’ll be a dome?"
"Xikanthus."
Rachel frowned. She’d never met the
alien named Xik. Eleanor had a distinct
dislike of him. Daniel described him as a
spindly thin man with a frog’s head. He wore
odd suits, top hats, carried a cane, and never
shut up. It sounded a little too surreal for her.
"The Klide bother me," Eleanor said.
"You’re not the only one." Henry looked
out the window at the gathered helicopters.
"He comes to inform us of an attack. He
assists us in helping with the enchantment to
puncture the time magic. Just enough so that
we can scrape by. Just enough to survive.
That they can’t provide more aid than that is
frustrating in the extreme. And suspicious."
"But they have," Rachel said.
"What do you mean?" Eleanor asked.
"The contractors."
"Contractors," Henry said.
"Mercenaries. They’re vampires to boot, and
they’re beholden to no one. They’re
mundanes that know nothing of our history,
our struggle." Henry shook his head. "It’s just another problem on our backs, not aid. When
you suddenly give a normal person a huge
amount of power like that, with no training,
no discipline, there’s no telling how they’ll
develop, how they’ll react. Jack Killiney
was a perfect example of that. Xik is trying
to turn humans into weapons. As long as he
bloodies the hands of the Vorid as they reach
for us, he doesn’t care about the
repercussions."
"But what if that really is the only thing
he can do?" Rachel leaned on the wall.
"What if that’s it? What if that’s the only real weapon we have? Shouldn’t we be using it?"
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely,"
Henry said. "We can’t trust them with it any
more than we can trust ourselves with it."
"But…" Rachel thought for a moment.
She didn’t like going against Henry, but she
had to lay her case on the table. She’d had
plenty of time to think it out on the ride
down. If she might be able to help Daniel,
she had to try. "There’s the two in Boston,"
she said. "The one we caught—Jack—was a
murderer. But we found him fighting the
other contractor in the armor not just once,
but twice. A lot of spawn disappeared by
themselves while we were hunting. And then,
when we fought the overseer, he came and
helped us."
"What are you saying?" Eleanor asked.
"I’m saying there’s a lot of evidence to
say he’s on our side," Rachel said, "doing
the right thing, fighting the Vorid, using his
power as responsibly as possible. We can’t
condone making more, or ignore the ones
committing crimes, but if we put them all in
the same category we’ll distance the ones
that could make a huge difference in the
war."
"Assuming that using them in the war
isn’t a bigger risk altogether," Eleanor said.
"Standing by principle is great and all,
but people are dying."
"What’s gotten into you?"
Rachel clenched her fists. "Over 500
million people are dead and I feel like this is
the first time we’re actually doing what we
should have done from the start! How many
more are going to die before we get off the
high horse and use every option we have?"
Rachel met Eleanor’s gaze. "Or are you
going to be the one to take responsibility for
half the planet?"
Eleanor looked at Henry, then back at
Rachel. "It’s not that I disagree. But there are other forces in play besides us and the Vorid.
It’s not that simple."
"Seems simple to me."
Henry folded his arms behind his back.
He took a breath. "I understand your
frustration, Rachel. I do. But the past has
taught us some very hard lessons. This is not
the first time the earth has been on the brink
of destruction. Or worse. It is the third. And
in the first two, the root cause was the
vampiric enchantment. In a way, it’s the
cause of this one as well. The Vorid are
gathering up souls in a similar manner,
concentrating power beyond what is
naturally appointed by the universe."
"But if the contractor in Boston was on
our side -"
"But we don’t know that," Henry said.
"Not for sure. We don’t know his intentions,
or Xikanthus’s intentions. The contractors
might—might—grant us a chance at base
survival. That doesn’t matter much if it also
ushers in the end of civilization as we know
it. What happens at the end of this war, when
we have dozens of superhuman standing
around, millions dead, and a massive power
vacuum? I am the leader of the Ivory Dawn,
and in many ways, the leader of this fight.
You have a good point, Rachel, but I have to
think not just about what happens tomorrow,
but what happens a year, ten years out. I
won’t save the earth by condemning it to
slavery."
Rachel’s sudden mental image of Daniel
as a power-mad dictator was so ridiculous it
was laughable. Daniel didn’t want his
powers. He didn’t want the responsibility.
He didn’t want to save the world. He just
wanted to be left alone.
But he did have it in him to fight. That
part of him was what made him study to be a
prosecutor. It was what made him remember
his teacher that had vanished. It was what
made him put his brother first, even if that
meant sacrificing his humanity.
It was what made her love him so much.
She hadn’t spoken for a moment. Henry
took her silence as assent. He gave her
shoulder a pat. "It’s natural to have doubts
when conflict is beating down your door.
Don’t worry. We’re going to win, and we
don’t need Xikanthus to do it." He turned to
Eleanor. "I need to get moving. Rothschild is
waiting for me to call. I’ll send Nicholas up
to coordinate with you shortly."
He walked out of the room. They stood a
moment in silence. Rachel shifted. The
floorboards creaked under her feet. "What do
you think?" she asked.
"About the contractors?"
"Yeah."
"…I don’t know," Eleanor said.
"You told me that Xik said we couldn’t
stand against the Vorid," Rachel said. "If
he’s the one who’s right, then we’re losing
already."
"…if it came down to it…as long as
someone lived, there’d be hope." Eleanor
nodded. "Even if it was slavery, at least
there’d be life—some chance to start over
and be free again, one day."
"It’s not a matter of making them
ourselves," Rachel added. "Contractors are
already out there right now. We can make
them allies, or enemies."
"The weight of lives is a terrible thing,"
Eleanor said. "For now, we have to trust in
my father’s decision."
Rachel bit her lip. Maybe, with time,
she could convince Eleanor. Henry wasn’t
budging. But if they knew it was Daniel—if
they just knew, maybe they’d see. Maybe that
would make the difference.
It was too risky to tell them outright. She
had to keep at it, convince them that