Aetherial Annihilation (18 page)

"Kick some ass!" Ivy yelled.

Mom put a hand over my sister's mouth. "Language, young lady."

"One problem," Shelton said. "We need Seraphim to channel Stasis into the crystoids. The only ones here in Eden are Justin, Ivy, and Alysea, and Nightliss."

"Fjoeruss is still around," I said. "Presumably, he's still running his companies."

"I've already tried tracking him down," Mom said. "He's apparently made himself unavailable. I don't think we can count on his help."

Fjoeruss, aka, Mr. Gray, was the master of Stasis. Without his assistance, our task would be all the more difficult.

"Will the four of you be enough?" Elyssa said.

I shrugged. "Maybe we can go to Seraphina and recruit a few able bodies."

"There's a problem with that," Elyssa said. "While you were asleep, we watched the footage and figured out it was Cephus, so I called my father and asked him send someone through the Alabaster Arch at the Three Sisters in Australia."

I nodded. "And?"

"He couldn't get through," she said. "A portal won't open in the Three Sisters. Not even the Obsidian Arch there responded."

"The arch in the Three Sisters is the only one that opens near Pjurna," I said. More specifically, it opened on a skylet, a floating island of land, some distance off the shore of the Darkling nation. The capital city of Pjurna, Tarissa, was several hours away by the cloud paths called skyways.

"Given what we know," Adam said, "The skyway from the arch probably isn't working due to the crystoids on the other side. So even if we got the Alabaster Arch to work, we'd be stuck on the skylet."

"We are blocked at every angle," Nightliss said.

I tried to pace, but the room was too cramped. "Fine. We'll make do with what we have."

"You know I can help," Ivy declared.

I patted her shoulder. "You're going to be a big help." It would take everything we had to shut down the crystoids, especially with many of them in nom hands. I looked around the room. "Where are we anyway?"

"Inside a house in the Grotto," Elyssa said. "A pocket dimension seemed the best place to go since magic works here."

"Shelton, do you have a map of the crystoids?" I asked.

"Yup." He turned off the ASE, flicked the screen on his arcphone, and projected a holographic globe with glowing red and green dots. "I wish I knew the radius these things affected."

"It's uneven since some are tapped directly into ley lines," Adam said. He pointed out a green dot. "We control the green ones. The noms have the red ones." He rotated the globe and indicated a yellow one just off the coast of Iceland. "No one has direct access to that one since it's underwater."

"There's a hundred and twenty-one of these damned things," Shelton growled. "We only have direct access to eleven of them."

"How did you compile such a thorough list?" Elyssa asked.

"George Walker and his crew recovered critical ASEs and plotted all the impact sites we didn't know about." Adam pointed to the green dot in North Dakota. "I suggest we start there."

"I want to go first," Ivy proclaimed.

Mom shook her head. "I'll do the first one just in case."

I gave her an uneasy look. "I hope it's no worse than the small crystoid." I described how it jerked me forward. "For all we know, the big one will be even worse."

"She'll need anchors," Dad said. "I'll hold her in place."

I opened my mouth to volunteer, but Elyssa shook her head. "No, Justin. You need to recover."

"Fine." I puffed a breath through my lips. "Let's do this."

"I have not fed since returning," Nightliss said. "I will gladly help, but first, I should replenish myself."

I nodded. "Have you rested since your journey?"

She shook her head. "Not very well. The world is a dangerous place, especially for a woman traveling alone." Her lips peeled back from her teeth. "Many found their graves when they tried to take advantage of me."

Ivy's mouth dropped open. "Wow, Nightliss, you've changed."

The Darkling looked down. "Yes. I am quicker to violence, less forgiving, and more willing to see the evil in people." She shivered. "I feel I have lost faith."

Mom hugged her and kissed the top of her head. "You're turning back into your old self."

Nightliss flinched. "What do you mean?"

"The Desecration nearly killed you." Mom's face paled. "It took your memories and powers from you for centuries. I suspect there are parts of your personality that will never come back."

"Are you saying Nightliss wasn't always a sweet person?" I asked, shocked by my mother's assertion otherwise.

Mom touched my hand. "She was a battle-hardened warrior who despised Daelissa with an unholy passion."

Nightliss put a hand to her heart. "Goodness. I don't remember feeling that way."

I put an arm over her shoulder. "It doesn't matter. To me, you'll always be the cute little cat I rescued from a stray dog."

She laughed. "And I will always be your fallen angel."

"More like guardian angel," I said. I squeezed her. "Go feed and join us when you're rested, okay?"

Nightliss nodded. "I will."

The rest of us left the house and headed back to the pocket dimension exit. In the eerily quiet way station, we walked right and entered the control room. The portal leading to North Dakota was still open. I noticed another portal open next to it and saw the huge forms of Altash and Lulu on the other side.

The huge red dragon cracked an eyelid.
Thank you
, he said in my mind.

"Glad you're feeling better," I said, a bit concerned by how weak his voice sounded.

His eyelid closed.

"Good job with the portals," I told Shelton.

He shrugged. "It ain't no thing."

Mom stepped through the portal to North Dakota and onto the platform over the crystoid. Except for Dad, the rest of us remained behind, a few steps and over a thousand miles between Atlanta and North Dakota.

"I'm ready, David," Mom said, touching a crystal prism strapped to her hand that allowed her to channel both Murk and Brilliance almost equally. Unlike me, most Seraphim had an affinity to Murk or Brilliance and couldn't easily channel the opposite.

Dad nodded and gripped her waist. "I got you, love."

She looked down at the crystoid. Flicked open her hands. Orbs of ultraviolet Murk and white Brilliance coalesced in either palm. She threaded the elements into a globe of Stasis, took a deep breath. "Here goes."

A gray beam shot forward. I stood near the portal and peered through as it struck the crystoid. Mom's arms yanked forward. She cried out with surprise, but Dad held her in place.

"Gotcha," he said.

She nodded and leaned her head forward. Stasis slowly crept down the shards. Aether arced like electricity across the crystalline tines. Shimmering motes of magic burst from the crystoid, spreading like fairy dust.

"It's so much," Mom said in a strained voice. Her shoulders slumped, then stiffened. "Die, you infernal creation!"

Dad opened his mouth, probably to make a smart remark about the crystoid actually being an angelic creation, but gave me a wink and kept quiet.

Minutes ticked past. Once the outer shards were completely gray, the color rapidly expanded to the main body of the crystoid, as if Mom had breached a barrier. The intense flow of aether from it subsided. The crystal cracked.

I braced, ready to throw up a Murk barrier if it exploded.

Instead, it shattered like a vase and crumbled to dust.

"The little crystoid didn't do that," Shelton muttered.

"Probably didn't have much aether in it," Adam replied.

Mom slumped and breathed a sigh of relief. "It is done."

"Yay!" Ivy jumped up and clapped her hands. "We did it!"

One down. A hundred and twenty to go.

Chapter 15

Mom gave me a tired smile when she turned and came back through the portal. "I feel a bit weak, but I'll be ready to go after I rest."

"I'm up next," Ivy said.

Mom and Dad looked at each other. Dad turned to my sister. "All right, kiddo. You get the next one."

"I'll go tell Pixie and the others the good news," Shelton said. "I'm sure they're eager to come home."

"A splendid idea," Bella said. "We'll be back soon."

"Please thank Ann and Viola for the delicious food," Elyssa said.

Shelton tipped his hat. "Will do." He and Bella walked through the portal and stepped out of view.

"You know he only volunteered so he could eat more brownies," Adam said with a grin.

I chuckled. "Ain't that the truth."

Elyssa called her father and gave him the good news. She grinned and nodded as they spoke, but a frown drew down the corners of her mouth. She ended the call and gave me a grim look. "Four crystoids exploded over the past twenty four hours. One in Greenland, another two in separate parts of the Middle East, and one in Morocco."

"Yikes." Shelton grimaced. "Casualties?"

"Collectively, about a thousand noms." She shook her head. "My father says two of them exploded when the noms tried to remove them with construction equipment. The other two were destroyed with explosives in firefights against robots."

"Robots again?" The fact perplexed me. "Didn't we theorize the robots came through the sky portals?"

"Hmm, I see where you're going with this," Adam said. "Why would Cephus use technology like robots?"

My mind hit a wall. "It doesn't make sense."

Shelton and Bella returned and we told them the news about the exploding crystoids and the robots.

Shelton projected the map with the crystoid locations and put a slash through the ones in question. "At least that's four less we have to deal with."

Elyssa narrowed her gaze. "People died, Shelton. Show some respect."

He held up his hands defensively. "Hey, I wasn't dissing them. I'm sorry people died, but we've got to find the silver lining in all this too."

She nodded and took a deep breath. "Sorry. I just hate this."

"We all do," Bella said in a calm voice. "Let's try to get through this without more needless death."

"We've got to find the link between the robots and Cephus," Adam said.

Shelton took off his hat and scratched his head. "I'm beginning to think there might be a Science Academy angle to all this."

"Yeah," Adam said in a grim tone. "I agree."

Elyssa looked at her arcphone. "My father sent Templars to the crystoid in Atlanta. They were able to infiltrate the site and take pictures so we can open an omniarch there."

"First, I want to check something." I stepped past Mom and through the portal. At the bottom of the platform, I switched to demon vision and looked around. A large cloud of aether drifted lazily where the crystoid had been. I looked at the ground and saw weak glowing lines pulsing brighter with every passing second.

"What do you see?" Elyssa asked from behind.

"The ley lines are recovering." I felt a grin spread across my face. "We just returned magic to the great white north—or at least part of it."

Elyssa kissed me. "We're going to save the world."

I nodded. "One crystoid at a time."

We went back up the platform stairs and through the portal to give the good news.

Shelton whooped and slapped Adam on the back. "Nobody messes with Team Justin!"

"Team Justin?" Elyssa rolled her eyes.

Dad squeezed my shoulder. "Glad to be a part of the team."

Ivy pumped her fist. "Team Justin! Whoop!"

Mom and Elyssa groaned.

I clapped my hands together. "What do you say we disable the Atlanta crystoid next?"

"Mine, all mine," Ivy sang. "I'm gonna be your wrecking ball."

Shelton snorted. "You get 'em, Ivy."

Elyssa closed the portal to North Dakota and took out her phone. "Give me some space, please."

Everyone cleared the circle around the omniarch. Using the image sent by her father, she opened a new portal above the crystoid we'd visited. As with the first time opening the portal to North Dakota, it took a moment for the gateway to split open.

Since there was no platform on the other side, and a twenty-foot drop to the ground, Ivy had to stand in front of the portal. Elyssa stepped outside the silver band, and Dad braced Ivy around the waist.

"Ready, honey?" he asked.

She nodded eagerly. "Let's do it, Pops."

Ivy channeled Stasis in about half the time it took Mom and me and unleashed it on the crystoid. Like Mom, it tried to jerk her forward, but Dad kept her firmly anchored. It took Ivy far less time to encase the crystoid in Stasis. With a similar light show to the last one, it finally succumbed, shattering to pieces.

Shouts rose from somewhere on the other side of the portal.

"The soldiers must have heard it," I said. "Close the portal fast."

A group of camouflaged soldiers rushed into view. One of them looked up and gasped at the sight of Ivy standing at the edge of a gateway suspended in the air. Just as he pointed, Ivy waved and closed the portal.

She giggled. "I'll bet his friends are gonna think he's crazy."

"How do you feel?" Mom asked.

"I'm totally ready to do another." Ivy's eyes brightened. "Can I, can I, huh?"

I nodded. "If you're up for it."

"I was born up for it." She looked at Elyssa. "Do we have pictures of the other ones the Templars control?"

"Yes." Elyssa gave Mom a questioning look. "You sure she's not tired?"

"I'm not tired even an eensy weensy little bit," Ivy protested.

My sister was crazy strong when it came to channeling Brilliance—far stronger than even me. She'd obviously gained strength channeling Murk as well. I noticed she wasn't wearing a prism. "How did you channel Murk without a prism?"

"Well, I just practiced a lot." She shrugged. "I stopped using the prism because I didn't need it."

Considering how quickly she'd disabled the crystoid, I imagined all of her Seraphim powers probably outclassed mine. On the other hand, she didn't share the demonic abilities I'd inherited from Dad—at least as far as I knew.

"Cool," I said. "Let's go to the next one."