Dire Destiny of Ours (2 page)

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I wondered aloud. I'd been testing this strange fourth element, but it apparently did absolutely nothing.

I'd made plenty of use of the other elements. Brilliance, aka destruction, performed as advertised and blew up stuff. Murk—creation—was great for shielding myself from destruction, though I hadn't even come close to tapping its full potential. Stasis, a mix of the other two elements, could literally freeze magical attacks. I wasn't nearly as proficient with it as Fjoeruss, the Seraphim I'd once called Mr. Gray because of his affinity for the gray magic.

All Seraphim had an affinity for Murk or Brilliance. From what Fjoeruss once told me, it was like being left or right handed. You could learn to write with your left hand if you were right handed, but it would take an awful lot of work.

I, on the other hand, had felt no particular affinity for either element, though I'd experienced an overwhelming urge to decide. Instead of selecting one, I'd chosen all of the above. Not only was it a great way to cop out of a difficult decision, but it had also revealed to me that mixing the two primary elements together created the third one—Stasis. To make matters even more confusing, once I blended them into Stasis, I could channel new streams of Murk and Brilliance into Stasis to create a fourth clear element. Why it operated that way, I had no idea. Then again, nobody ever said magic had to make sense.

Since none of the Seraphim I'd asked knew anything about it or what it did, I named it Clarity. What I should have called it was useless. I'd channeled it against magical attacks, but it went right through them. I'd tested it on wood, stone, and even on my pint-sized hellhound, Cutsauce. It hadn't so much as singed a hair on his hide.

I sighed and released the energy. The gray sphere faded away. I'd eventually figure things out. For now, I had something far more pressing to attend.

I sent the La Casona omniarch operator an image of my surroundings. A portal opened a moment later. I stepped through, nodding at the Templar as I left the control room. A few steps later I entered the doors leading into the La Casona pocket dimension and walked the short distance to the healing ward. Nobody stopped me as I marched upstairs to Elyssa's room.

I stared at the still form of my girlfriend. She lay on a small wooden bed, barely more than a cot, beneath what looked like a glass shield. The barrier was part of a preservation spell—the only thing keeping Elyssa alive after Qualan, one of Daelissa's revived Seraphim, had speared her through the chest with a beam of Brilliance.

It had been a week since I'd killed Qualan in an all-out battle with Daelissa's Brightling army. I'd overextended myself and, even now, wasn't back to a hundred percent.

"I'm afraid we can't do anything to help her," Meghan Andretti said from behind me.

Nightliss entered the room and hugged me. "I'm sorry, Justin." Tears spilled from her eyes.

"Science Academy won't be joining us." I wasn't sure what made me say that right then. Maybe it was because I didn't know what else to say. Maybe it was my way of piling more pity on my shoulders. I felt like I was suffocating beneath a massive pile of crap. I felt directionless. We had to stop Daelissa, but we needed more troops. We needed more troops, but nobody else was willing to join us.

The logic took me on a downward spiral to hopelessness.
Elyssa is out of options. The world is out of options.

There was nobody else in Eden who could help us unless we recruited the nom military. Thomas Borathen was firmly against that.

There was one last glimmering jewel of hope, and it wasn't in this realm. Unfortunately, nobody wanted me to risk it. It was time I took the bull by the horns no matter what the others said.

I looked at Nightliss. "I'm going, and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

"It will be too dangerous, Justin!" She gripped my arm as if to keep me from walking away.

I wasn't going anywhere just yet. I freed my arm and pressed my hands to the barrier around Elyssa. The color was already fading from her full red lips, her fair skin necrotizing to a greenish tinge. A fat tear splashed on the barrier and ran down the side. I wiped my eyes and took deep breaths to keep from completely losing it. I felt my chin quivering and looked away.

"Nightliss, I'd like you to come with me." My words sounded hoarse.

Green eyes filled with moisture, she nodded slowly. "It is the only possibility left to us. I do not think you should go, but I know you will not be talked out of it."

"I don't think Elyssa would want you to risk everything for her," Meghan said.

I felt warm wetness streaming down my face. I turned to her and said, "Elyssa
is
my everything. Wouldn't you do the same for Adam?"

Meghan looked uncomfortable at the question. As a healer, she was used to seeing death. She'd been there when my Aunt Vallaena died at the Grand Nexus. She'd nursed my father back to health after he'd taken two shots to the chest intended for me at Thunder Rock. Elyssa was lying here because she'd taken one in the back meant for me.

"That's not a fair question, Justin," Meghan said at last. "I would do everything in my power to save Adam, as I do for all my patients."

Her response seemed cold and I wondered if it was the truth or not. It didn't matter. I couldn't waste another minute doing nothing.

I had to go to the Darkling Empire on Seraphina.

The sight of Elyssa filled me with a sense of purpose. The war with Daelissa could wait. We'd destroyed most of her army in our last battle at the Ranch, the now-deserted Templar Compound. Our army was still licking its wounds after the tough fight. We were in turtle mode. Despite my inability to recruit more allies, the resistance could survive a week without me.

I took one last look at Elyssa. "Pack light, Nightliss. We're leaving today."

The petite Darkling said nothing and simply nodded.

We left the healing ward and stepped into the streets of La Casona. Row houses with terracotta shingles lined the cobblestone road. The pocket dimension housing the city was slightly larger than the Grotto, maybe ten square miles. Elyssa and I had planned to have a date here just before the battle that almost claimed her life. I swallowed hard to fight back the lump forming in my throat.

I entered the second house on the left. A familiar female Templar looked up from a book on sword fighting and smiled.

"Justin!" Katie Johnson gripped me in a tight hug and kissed my cheek.

I returned the hug and backed away. Katie wasted no time hugging Nightliss and then backed away with an uncertain expression.

"Is it okay to hug the Clarion of the Templars?" Katie asked.

Nightliss smiled. "Life would be unbearable without hugs."

Katie laughed. The smiled faded as she turned back to me. "You look so sad. Are you okay?"

I disregarded the question. "What are you doing in La Casona?"

"I'm part of the nom recruitment team." Her chin rose like a proud kid who'd just made her first poo-poo in the potty. "You wouldn't believe how many volunteers we have for the Darklings to feed from now."

"That's great." I tried to muster more enthusiasm, but I'd really just come to get my own serving of human soul essence to help speed my recovery and amplify my Seraphim abilities.

Katie seemed to sense that and touched a pendant on the collar of her Templar uniform. "Please send in two volunteers."

"Confirmed," someone replied from the other end of the communicator.

A door opened a few seconds later. A man and woman entered.

"I am Beatrice, and this is Horace," the woman said in a Spanish accent. She stood about a head shorter than Horace.

"Would you prefer to sit?" Horace motioned toward several leather divans that were set up to face each other for easier feeding.

"Sure." I sat down in the closest chair. Beatrice sat down across from me while Nightliss paired up with Horace.

Nightliss magically adhered a pyramid-shaped prism in her right hand. "Thank you for volunteering, Horace." She held out her hands. Horace's rose to meet hers. An oily smoke-like substance drifted from his left hand into hers while a thin trickle of milky white drifted from his right hand and into hers.

"I should be thanking you," Horace said as he looked with interest at the soul essence pouring from his fingers. "I was dying from terminal cancer, but your healers cured me."

Beatrice's eyes flashed wide as I began feeding from her. "I knew you looked familiar. You are Justin Slade."

I forced a smile. "Yes."

"I heard about Elyssa Borathen." She looked as if she wanted to gesture with her hands, but the feeding process locked them into place. Instead, she motioned in the direction of the healing ward with her head. "How is she doing?"

From the corner of my eye, I saw Nightliss give me a troubled look. "She'll be better soon." I wasn't lying. I would make the Darkling healers in Seraphina help.

Katie's hand rested on my shoulder. "I just know they'll figure out a way to patch her up."

I changed the subject. "How are Ash and Nyte?"

"They're helping recruit noms." Katie stood behind Beatrice and leaned on the divan. "A man named Abe has been taking them around to veteran hospitals with a couple of healers."

"I know Abe." I'd met him in El Dorado. "How many new volunteers have we gotten so far?"

"Two hundred and twenty," Katie said. "The batch of revived Darklings from a few days ago are already looking like teenagers."

"And Melea?" I asked.

Katie flinched at the name of Fjoeruss's sister. "She's aging more quickly."

Melea wasn't Seraphim. She was what I referred to as a siren, a member of the race we theorized built the arches and possibly the pocket dimensions. Fjoeruss had agreed to ally with us if we revived his sister. What he hadn't told us was that she was his adopted sister. She'd been the one to cause the Desecration during the first war against the Seraphim by removing the Chalon from the Grand Nexus without properly attuning it.

I felt a slight change in the quality of the soul essence coming from Beatrice and knew I was nearing her limit. I stopped feeding. "Thanks, Beatrice."

She beamed a smile at me. "No problem at all."

Nightliss finished feeding from Horace a moment later and thanked him with a kiss on the cheek.

He blushed furiously. "It is a pleasure to be kissed by a beautiful woman. Please call on me anytime you desire."

Nightliss smiled. "Goodbye for now."

After the volunteers left the room, I hugged Katie. "We've got to go. I really appreciate everything you've done with recruiting."

Her arms tightened around my waist. "Justin, be careful. I know you've backed Daelissa into a corner, but that might just make her more dangerous than ever." Katie released me and stepped back. "And if you ever need a friend to talk to—I know this sounds crazy"—she put her thumb and finger to her ear and mouth like a phone—"but call me, maybe?"

I managed a smile. "I will."

Nightliss and I headed back outside and went right. We went about a block to where the street ended in a large set of double doors. We opened them and stepped through to the La Casona way station. An Obsidian Arch loomed in the middle of a huge warehouse. Minders, creatures that looked like floating brains with long tentacles, drifted around the interior, keeping guard. I followed the left wall and entered a door to the main control room.

A huge world map spanned the slab of carved rock forming the front wall. A raised pedestal ran the length of the map. In the middle sat a pedestal with a large gray orb called a modulus, the control device for the Obsidian Arch.

We walked across the raised platform and turned left to view rows upon rows of small black arches with Cyrinthian numbers imprinted on the floor in front of them. Across a wide aisle to the right stood several slightly larger arches without numbers of any kind. Three of them were marked with green paint to indicate they worked. A Templar operator manned each one. We called them omniarches because they could open a portal to anywhere without requiring an arch at the exit.

A group of blue-robed Arcanes, Blue Cloaks, stepped through a portal in the first omniarch while a column of Templars vanished inside a portal between the columns of the middle arch as they headed to parts unknown. Nightliss and I dodged around the line of Templars and went to the last omniarch.