Distant Star (12 page)

Aaron hauled himself up, his pale
face splotched with high spots of red, and whimpered. “Then we are both dead
men.”

“You’re not even a little bit
happy to see me?”

“Ha!” He shuffled around his shop
while he wrung his hands and laughed nervously. “Happy to see you? I’d
convinced myself you were dead. You may as well have been. Declan Hale, the
harbinger of Degradation itself, exiled from Forget forever under pain of
death—and for any who would dare stand with him! No, Hale, no. I am not
happy to see you.”

“Give me a hug, big guy.”

Aaron ceased his shuffling and
exhaled a long burst of air—the sigh of the long suffering. He took a
moment to try to compose himself and then burst into tears. “I always knew I’d
see you again, in this life or the next.” He wrapped his thick, bear-like arms
around me and squeezed. He smelt like Old Spice—wood shavings, sawdust,
and probably the 1960s all rolled into one. “You won’t live another day, but it
is good to see you.”

“Do you still have the chest I
left?”

“Of course I do. And I know
what’s in it, too.”

“You didn’t open—?”

“No, I did not. But it started
growing
, Declan. I spend half my week
gardening in the basement of the villa on Lake Delgado because of that damn
thing. White roses, everywhere! Everlasting save me, I wouldn’t dare open it.”

“Well, all good then. Not that
you could use it, but it’s a relief to know no one else has either.” I tapped
my chin. “After all, who’s going to look for Forget’s greatest treasure in your
basement?”

*~*~*~*

Aaron and I did not have to wait
long. Just long enough to become reacquainted. The years fell away, as they
only could with old friends. We shared a cup of honeyed tea and savored the
calm before the storm.

No more than fifteen minutes into
my surprise visit, we were descended upon by what was possibly every Knight in
the city. Ten squads of ten, a hundred adept men and women, looking resplendent
in their dress uniforms, filled the street outside. Five older Knights,
veterans of the Tome Wars with medals on their chests to prove it, barged into
the store with Infernal blades drawn and expressions of forbidding death on
their faces… and a little something that might have been fear.

I was placed under
arrest—hands bound behind my back with metal cuffs and everything. Aaron
was ordered to accompany me and the Knights. He remained unrestrained but no
longer as free as he’d been a quarter hour ago. Surrounded by the guard, smoky
trails of luminescent silver light cupped in every one of their palms, I was
marched through the streets. Half the squad ran ahead and cleared the way to a
waiting… machine. Well, the object looked like a helicopter without the blades,
and it hovered a few inches from the ground, in a wide plaza at the end of the
row.

On closer inspection, I knew it
to be a troop carrier, fitted with fusion engines, capable of swift,
low-altitude flight. I was familiar with the older models that had been used in
the wars, contraptions held together with duct tape and good intentions. The
carrier in front of me looked to be a newer model—flashier. Jon Faraday
had been disturbingly busy.

Oh well, I suppose Ascension City
was nice from above.

We took flight and hastily cut a
track through the air, toward the monolithic palace in the centre of town. The
skyways must have been cleared in advance for us, for the ride was a smooth,
uninterrupted run over the maze of streets below.

“You know they’re probably
burning my shop to the ground right now,” Aaron said, rather glumly. “You
couldn’t wait until nightfall, could you, Declan? Snuck back under the cover of
darkness? Oh no, no, no. Not you, not Declan
bloody
Hale.”

I chuckled. “You know I own a
shop myself these days, back on Earth.”

Aaron blinked. “Oh?”

“I sell books.”

He opened and closed his mouth a
few times, like a goldfish bobbing for air. “That is… absurd. Are you
intentionally trying to piss off King Faraday?”

“Quiet,” grumbled one of the
grizzled old Knights. He had a slick, nasty-looking revolver rested on his knee
and pointed at my heart. “One more word, Hale. Just one.”

We landed on the very summit of
the palace, a mile above the city, on a helipad next to a twenty-foot-high
flaming torch of white light. The Knights spilled out of the cruiser, then
clustered themselves around Aaron and me. We didn’t so much walk as were
dragged across the landing pad and into a large, lavish elevator cut into the
side of the obsidian stone. At this point most of the guard left us, save for
the five older Knights who had stormed Aaron’s shop.

The elevator was a tight fit. We
descended one hundred floors, entirely bypassing the throne room, the courts,
and the Academy levels of the palace. If memory served me, and it did, we were
being escorted to the suite levels close to the ground floor. The doors
binged
open and revealed a hallway that
would not have looked out of place in a five-star hotel.

One could almost forget one was
in a mile-high palace carved from a single piece of mountainous stone.

I wasn’t thrown into a dark and
dank cell, which was something, but a cage is a cage is a cage. Aloysius Jade
would have had something to say on the matter, I was sure. Aaron and I were
shown to separate rooms. He cast an unhappy glance over his shoulder and
disappeared around a bend in the tower.

“Sit,” ordered my
revolver-wielding guard, once I was tucked away in my room. I sat. “Your
restraints should be along shortly.”

The guard stayed with me until a
set of shiny star cuffs were brought up from the Collections. While we waited,
his two lackeys stripped and searched me—thoroughly.

“Any one of you handsome bastards
could’ve bought me dinner first,” I quipped.

My clothes were seized. Standing
naked and unashamed, my body a roadmap of old scars, I didn’t resist the Will
suppressing manacles as they closed around my wrists, but I did begrudge how
tight they were drawn.

Then the guards withdrew, locking
the heavy wooden door behind them. None of them had spoken more than two words
to me. Orders against it, most likely. A pitcher of cool water sat on the
dresser, across from a large double bed. I poured myself a glass and turned to
the large square window, which offered a twilit sky and an impressive view of
Ascension City.

I let out a long, slow breath. I
was back—home, for all that mattered, breathing the air of my favorite
world once more. I retrieved a towel from the en suite bathroom and wrapped it
around my waist with some difficulty, given the restraints. The star cuffs
sapped my strength and blanketed me in a shroud of fatigue. I tried to conjure
a ball of pure energy but couldn’t. Well, no sense in fighting the weariness.
After the day I’d had, the bed looked more than inviting.

I was asleep as soon as my head
hit the pillow.

That night I dreamed of Tal and
distant stars. She stole my shadow, wrapped it in light, and cast it spinning
across the Void.
‘Oblivion is watching…’
she whispered. Her eyes were the color of heart’s blood.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Punk in
Drublic

I awoke with a strangled start
just after two in the morning, according to the clock on the wall. Days and
nights here in Forget mirrored the cycle back on Earth. My mind was foggy and
dull, and I struggled to sit up. The cuffs pressed their diabolical runes
against my flesh, locked the door to my Will, and left me feeling as if I
hadn’t slept at all.

Yawning, I fell back and decided
a few more hours’ rest was priority
uno
.

Something bright exploded just
outside the window.
Fireworks
, I
thought dully. The spinning wheel of color grew until it eclipsed the night
sky.
Wait…

A blast shattered my window in an impressive display of
electric-blue lightning and orange fire. The impact sent me hurtling
ass-over-head across the bed and onto the floor.

Needless to say, half a heartbeat later I was wide awake and on my
feet, diving for cover. The towel fell from my waist, and I stood behind an
armchair, as naked as the day I was born.

Two creatures of Forgetful hell’s spawn, pulled straight from old
nightmares—or, more likely, from the Degradation—stood on the
writing desk by the window. Flames licked at the polished oak and blazed across
the walls and carpet.

“Hello, boys,” I snarled, flexing the star cuffs. If I broke my
thumbs perhaps I could slip free…

Both demons folded identical pairs of near-transparent wings into
the thick, rotten hide on their backs.
They were thin creatures, of wasted leathery skin stretched over
elongated bones.
The grey skin around their mouths pulled tautly across two rows of
sharp fangs which dripped viscous yellow pus. It stank to high-heaven, and I
was across the room.

“Your betrayal ends tonight, Hale,” said the one on my left,
Tweedledum. Its voice was worse than screeching harpies. The sound ran down my
spine.

I scoffed. During the height of the Tome Wars, I’d wiped the floor
with demonic dipshits twice as ugly as these two. Will or not, I was unafraid.

Tweedledee roared, its grip tightening around a familiar sword.
The hilt was wrapped in leather, the blade sharp, cruelly curved, and imbued
with unknown enchanted strengths. I’d burnt a layer of flesh off my hand once,
touching a sword like that.

“Calm down,” I said, somewhat reasonably. Smoke gathered in the
air as the flames consumed the walls. “Who, or what, sent you?”

Two pairs of eyes, lifeless black orbs, stared at me with what
could have been mirth, if the matching grins that stretched their jaws even
wider were any indication. Small spirals of dead Void light shone within those
orbs.

“We were sent by one who has taken you seriously.”

I took a few slow steps away from the corner of the room, toward
the door. Both demons tensed as if they were about to strike. Despite my best
efforts, my damned thumbs wouldn’t snap. The door had to be locked—I was
a prisoner, after all. Where were my jailers?

“Give me a name so I know who to track down and gut like a fish.”

“You have been judged accountable, Shadowless.”

That was about as useful as a… “You know what? I don’t even care.”
I raised my voice. “I sure hope that the Knights guarding my room don’t come in
here anytime soon!”

Nothing.
Nada.

The smoke finally triggered the fire alarms, and the sprinklers
overhead burst to life in a rain of cold water accompanied by a piercing siren.
Perfect.

I saw my chance. I turned and ran at the door and, wonder of
wonders, the knob turned in my hand. Dripping wet and without a towel, I threw
the door open as if my life depended on it and
 
hurled
 
myself into the hallway.

Anticipating the worst I stayed low, which saved my life as bolts
of blue fire
punched
 
through the wall in a spray of plaster and wood, striking
with all the ferocity of a lightning storm. Shrieks rose in untamed fury from
within the room and drowned even the fire alarm.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee were going for the kill. They were
slower than I thought they’d be, but I decided that was good and not to
question what little good fortune came my way. The energy coursed through the
wall, setting alight the hallway and blowing to bits various pieces of
furniture, flower vases, and hanging paintings.

I stumbled forward, tripped over a handful of corpses, and fell
flat on my face.

The Knights guarding my room had been slaughtered, which explained
their lack of reaction to my distress call and the explosions. The bodies were
warm, the throats slit only minutes ago. Whoever had done it hadn’t hung
around. Was I dealing with an enemy or a misguided ally? Who had unlocked my
room?

I was less than a day
back in town and already three dead
.

I scuttled across the carpeted floor on my elbows and knees. A
steady rain from the sprinklers chilled my bare skin as bolt after bolt of
sizzling energy threatened to run me through. Miraculously, I avoided
death-by-lightning and rose shakily to my feet, having cleared the edge of the
storm.

What’s the plan, Dec?
 
Options were somewhat limited.
Run. Run quickly.

Other palace guests were emerging from their rooms. Blurry eyes
heavy with sleep opened up wide as I ran past, naked. No sign of Aaron. I was
about halfway to the elevators when behind me my room exploded in a deadly
barrage of flying shrapnel. Tweedledum and Tweedledee emerged from within the
dust and the flames, wailing for my head.

Fighting the fatigue, I reached the elevator and slammed my fist
into the call button, hoping and praying the car wasn’t a hundred floors above
me. The thin chain of the star cuffs bounced back and forth, perilously close
to my manhood. I held up my arms to avoid any debilitating mishaps.