Authors: Wayne Batson
“Enough,” I muttered, chiding myself back into Earthveil. Painting a bull’s eye on one’s self was not wise when one is surrounded by guided missiles.
Shades loved to hang out in cemeteries. It was a place where they could do their most insidious kinds of damage. After all, broken, hurting people came with great frequency to cemeteries. It was a place where Shades could torment and terrify; one place where Shades would be so bold as to appear to the living.
Heartless, cruel miscreants,
I thought, grinding my teeth. Some Shades even went so far as to masquerade as the deceased. Pain, terror, and false hope were equally effective tools for the gouging of Soulmarks. Far too many agonized mourners arrived at a cemetery alone and departed with an invisible, malevolent hitchhiker. Or more than one.
The road forked half a dozen times, and I followed the path in my memory. The cemetery grounds became less open and sprawling, and thickets of spruce and pine took more territory. Grave sites became more grandiose and more secluded.
I slowed the car and waited for a bunch of pure white geese to waddle across the road in front of me. That gave me a moment to notice how the road curved wickedly ahead and disappeared as it climbed a wooded hill.
This was the place.
I followed the path, found the dead end I remembered, and parked. A slightly jarring symphony of frogs and crickets awaited me when I got out of the car. The tree cover overhead cast a night-like darkness over the hill. Here and there, a forlorn firefly blinked to life and extinguished.
At the top of the hill, in the deepest shadow, stood a single cylindrical mausoleum. It was tall, maybe thirty feet, and domed, supported by austere ionic columns. The widest gap in the columns opened to a seldom trodden path that ended at the dead end where I’d parked.
I took the path to the Waypoint of Anthriel.
Shadows cloaked me as I came. The crickets and frogs muted their music. I approached the columns and stepped over the threshold. If I had been just a visitor to the cemetery…maybe, in my grief, wandering aimlessly until I found myself curious about this structure, I would have discovered a shadowy vault with a very high ceiling. I would see seven evenly spaced statues standing in their private recesses in the walls. I would find bronzed placards beneath each statue with long messages engraved in an ornate foreign language that I wouldn’t recognize. And I would feel as if all seven of the statues were staring down at me, their weighty, empty gaze urging me to leave this place. And I would have departed as quickly as my legs could carry me…only to forget the entire event just moments later.
If I had been an enemy and crossed that threshold, I would have suddenly found licks of hungry, white fire climbing over every inch of me, burning and tearing at my flesh until my mind and body were incinerated.
Thankfully, I was neither a stranger nor an enemy. I was on the right team. Nothing happened to me. I went forward, and found an impossibly long hallway rising on a slow but relentless incline. Antique lamps and strange, gilded oil paintings adorned both sides of the hall. I would never forget this hallway. The paintings were a test.
A test I had failed miserably the first time.
This time, I refused to so much as glance at the paintings. I actually do learn from my mistakes…sometimes.
As I neared the end of the hall, I felt the weight of the scroll in my coat pocket. Maybe six ounces, but it felt like a metric ton.
At the very end of the hall, a massive curtain fell from high ceiling to floor. I waited to be summoned.
“Come, Horseman!” came a voice from beyond the curtain.
Horseman
. I hadn’t been called by that name for a very long time. I didn’t much care for the name. It was a derogatory misnomer based on the kind of missions to which I am called. And, in a way, it was a slight to those who rightfully bear that name. For they are as far above Anthriel’s pay grade as Anthriel was to me.
There was no throne room or mighty chair for Anthriel. He wasn’t that type. Just maps. Great, vast, detailed maps—they were posted on the concave walls; they were strewn across half-a-dozen strategically placed tables; and many more were still rolled, at the ready, in designated barrels beside each table.
Anthriel was not garbed in armor—though I knew that, with a thought, he could be. Today, he wore fatigues like a commando. But the many pockets on his shirt and in his pants and in the belts across his shoulders and waist did not hold clips of ammunition or grenades. His pockets were filled with a variety of writing implements—and figurines.
The same sort of figurines that were spread in clumps across the map Anthriel labored over now. His hair was long and, because he was leaning over the map, it hung over his face so that I could not see his eyes. That hair was white as cream but, here and there, was striated by ribbons of amber wheat. It curled devilishly at the ends. Another interesting irony.
“It is not often that one of your…cadre…graces me with a visit,” Anthriel said without looking up. “You are not under my command, directly, and I have no need of your particular skill set. I trust you have ample reason for intruding upon my plotting?”
I scanned the map in front of Anthriel. It might have been a map of Florida, but the border was irregular and stretched over large bodies of water. There was also a peculiar translucent territory seemingly hovering just above the main. And scattered across its entirety, were hundreds of the figurines. Some were silver. Some were black. Many were shaped like arrowheads. Others like tripods. And still others looked more or less like small shields.
It looked like an otherworldly game of Risk, but I knew the players and the stakes were much more serious.
Anthriel looked up at last, and his silver eyes fixed me with pulsing intensity. “Well?”
I bowed slightly and then said, “I apologize for the trouble, but I bear a message.”
“We have couriers for such things,” Anthriel replied, his eyes glinting, orbs of silver fire, as they shifted restlessly across the map.
“The source of the message,” I said, “is a little unconventional. On my current mission, I found myself at the mercy of Forneus the Felriven.”
The Knightshade’s name, when I spoke the words, came out flat and brittle like thin, impure metal that, when struck with a hammer, would shatter into a thousand jagged shards. And the hammer fell.
“FORNEUS FELRIVEN!” Anthriel’s pale skin flared white-hot, like a light bulb pushed beyond its wattage. He slammed a fist down onto the map and two things happened: dozens of the tiny figurines, both silver and black, went flying; and Anthriel’s garb flickered, the many-pocketed fatigues blinking intermittently with hard plate armor. He seemed to master himself because his skin returned to its less smoldering color, and any sign of his armor vanished. He asked, “What mission could possibly put you into contact with one of the Highfallen?”
Great,
I thought.
Time to beat myself up all over again.
“It wasn’t exactly part of my mission. I was trying to piece together a theory, and I staked out an abortion clinic. I witnessed some rather disturbing events there, lost control of my rage, and went ballistic.”
Anthriel surprised me then. Rather than castigate me for foolishness or loss of control, he said, “I hope you dismembered every Shade in that vile place and sent them in agony to the Abyss.”
I blinked. Anthriel and I would never hit the town and shoot pool together, but he’d just risen fifty spots on my respect meter. “I took out my fair share,” I said. “But, when I went inside the stronghold, thinking it would be just a random Knighshade, I found Forneus instead. He could have ended me—probably would have except he mistook me for a Guardian. He released me with the condition that I deliver a message to you and to you only. He took my tools as collateral.”
“That seems a shame.”
“I’m touched by your empathy,” I said.
“What?” Anthriel thundered, his skin flaring. “Careful, Horseman, you forget yourself.”
He was right, of course. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I get glib when I’m frightened.”
That seemed to amuse Anthriel. He went back to his map and began putting the tiny figurines back into their places. “And what was the message?” he asked.
“I don’t actually know,” I said, reaching into my pocket and removing the scroll. “He didn’t tell me the message. He wrote it on this.” I held it up.
Anthriel froze. “You brought a handwritten message from Forneus Felriven into a Waypoint? You realize the threshold might have ended you for even having such on your person?”
“I actually hadn’t thought of that,” I muttered. “Glad they let me pass. May I?”
He gestured for me to approach, and I handed him the scroll. He started to pull at the parchment seam, cracking the seal of black wax. “Uh, wait a minute, please…sir.”
“What is it?”
“Look, sir,” I said. “You know this level of business far better than I do, but even I can tell Forneus is up to something. There’s a gravity to it that feels…well, epic. Like opening this scroll is going to set wheels in motion that will change things.”
Anthriel’s silvery gaze flickered from me to the scroll and back. “I feel it also,” he said quietly. He glanced down at his map. “It is not merely that the pieces are in motion. The pieces are always in motion. But now, it feels as if the board itself is about to shift.”
“There’s one other thing,” I went on. “Forneus told me not to deliver the message to anyone but you. That, if I did, that recipient would feel compelled to end me.”
Anthriel seemed to weigh that information for a while. “It was wise of you to bring it directly to me,” he said. “But I think I will wait until you have departed to read the message. Just in case.”
“No argument there,” I said. If the message put Anthriel in a rage, he could end me with a sneeze.
“You’ll have to return to Sintryst, you know,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“Or go without my tools.”
Anthriel looked off to the side, seemingly deep in thought. “If you return, he will most likely end you.”
“Most likely,” I said. “He bears a Soulcleaver.”
“Does he?” Anthriel asked, his voice still distant with thought. “Then, he has risen within his order. I wonder at this.”
I bowed slightly, turned, and began to walk away.
“Be careful out there, Horseman,” Anthriel called after me. “As I said, there are many pieces in motion. Some of them are pursuing you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll be as careful as I can.”
As I stepped back over the threshold and left the Waypoint, I considered Anthriel’s warning. I thought I understood it. I thought he’d meant the FBI or La Familia.
I was wrong.
Chapter 26
Agent Deanna Rezvani felt like she was trapped in one of those time-lapsed movie scenes where a whole day’s worth of activity buzzed around her at high speed while she stood still.
The FBI had commandeered a recently built office building in Pensacola. Most of the Jacksonville Field Office’s personnel and a third of Mobile’s manpower occupied the office now. Deputy Director Barnes ran the Smiling Jack Task Force like an orchestra conductor…if said conductor used a sledgehammer rather than a baton.
Barnes didn’t micromanage. He macromanaged. His philosophy was simply:
Know your job, do your job, don’t screw up, and stay out of my way.
And for a composite built from two field offices, the Task Force seemed to be living up to Barnes’ maxim. Everyone had something to do, and everyone seemed feverishly bent on completing their tasks. Everyone except Agent Rezvani.
She stared at her computer screen, continued to squeeze the pencil she’d broken, and clenched her teeth. Bad habit #209, she thought. Each and every teeth cleaning, her dentist told her the same thing: You’re a grinder. You’re wearing down your teeth.
And the recommendation was always the same.
Heck with that,
she thought.
They’ll be selling snow cones on the sun before I wear one of those overnight mouth guards.
She’d tried that exactly once, and her breath the next morning had laid waste to her potted plants. Not like the overnight guard would do much good anyway. Most of her teeth-grinding was on the job. Like today.
Except today, she’d been grinding so hard for so long that it had blossomed into a magnitude 6.5 tension headache. The muscles at the base of her neck stiffened, and a rod of pain lanced up into the back of her skull. Not content to cause manageable agony, the throbbing ache blossomed out to her temples like electrified moose antlers. Rez clamped her eyes shut and rubbed her temples, but earned precious little respite. She went to her purse and found the prescription strength ibuprofen her doctor had given her. It usually worked…to a degree…and not right away. But it was better than nothing.
She popped a pill, downed it with Diet Dr. Pepper, and went back to thinking. Or, at least she tried.
“Headache?” came a broadcast-quality male voice from behind her.
Rez spun around and found a Ken doll in a well-tailored, dark suit standing a little too close for comfort.
“Can I help you?” Rez asked, lacing her tone with a little,
Back off, loser. I bite.
“Actually, I might be able to help you,” he said, jutting out a hand. “I’m Ted Klingler, top cop from Mobile, well in my division anyway.”
Klingler,
Rez thought. She’d heard the name. He’d been pivotal in solving a few high-profile cases in the last year. Against her better instincts, she shook his hand. She regretted it immediately. Klingler’s hand was feverishly hot, like he’d been holding onto a light bulb.
“I saw you shrugging your shoulders and neck,” he said. “Tension headache?”