I delved into my pocket for my phone and looked hopefully at the screen, but there were no bars to speak of. I waved it around like a madman—everyone knows that’s the way to get a signal in a tough situation. But those two irritating words stayed in the top right corner: No signal. It wasn’t even giving me the option of Emergency calls only. Maybe this wasn’t a red-alert emergency, but I could’ve done with a line to the SDC. I just wanted to let the people there know I was alive, if not entirely kicking.
“Human technology don’t work here, son,” Blanche broke in. “It’s designed that way. No mortal interference.”
I raised my hands, ready to try out some magical interference. Blanche’s shaking head stopped me. “What?”
“That won’t work either, if you’re wantin’ to try a communication spell. The monastery don’t want any contact with the outside world.”
What, is it a sulky teenager? I got up, took out my stick of charmed chalk, and scraped it against the wall of the monastery. It didn’t do a damn thing. No chalk line appeared, as if I had tried to write on glass or something.
“No chalk doors, either?” I sighed.
“’Fraid not, son. All travel and communication magic are banned in these parts.” Blanche offered a sympathetic look. “You got folks worrying about you?”
I shrugged. “I just wanted to let them know I arrived safely, you know?” And that I’m not dead, or strung up like a Christmas ham in Erebus’s lair.
Why would Erebus drop me in a place like this, sealed off from the outside world? Had he deliberately put me here so I couldn’t get in touch with the people I cared about? That was definitely his style. Let them worry, let me worry, let us all have a big worry party for his amusement.
More to the point, where had he run off to? Now that he had his human form, why wasn’t he standing on this cliff, waiting to be let into the monastery so he could draw a map to wherever he was looking for?
“What in the name of all that is good and holy is that?” Blanche’s eyes darted skyward.
A shape bombed out of the azure atmosphere like a UFO on a kamikaze mission. A burning ball headed right for us, streaking along faster than a comet.
A bad joke sprang to my mind, as they often did when I entered panic mode: I was wondering why my friend was throwing a frisbee, and then it hit me. Just like this flaming missile would hit us, if we didn’t get out of the way.
“Blanche, get up!” I ran to her and picked her up like a firefighter rescuing a damsel. She tried to bat me away, but we didn’t have time. Even if we ran for our lives, that object looked like it could obliterate the island, and us with it.
Gathering Chaos into my palms, I forged a springboard of Air under my feet and used it to power us upward. We needed to get as far from that thing as possible.
As I took flight, a protesting Blanche in my arms, I smacked into a wall. Not a real wall, but man, did it feel like it as it connected with the top of my head. A ripple of light spread out, revealing a domed shield that was clearly there to protect the island… or keep us from leaving.
I fell back to earth, too stunned to create a pillow of Air to break my fall. Blanche didn’t have that problem—she had me to break her fall. I hit the ground with a thud, staring upward in a daze as the comet grew closer and closer.
Blanche had tried to warn me. This place was completely sealed off from the outside world. It went further than phone signals and magical comms. Now that we were in this bubble, we couldn’t get out.
And that ball of burning light was about to strike.
Two
Finch
The unidentified flying ball of potential death gained speed by the second, glowing faintly blue as it hurtled through the sky. Blanche picked herself up, dusting invisible dirt from the front of her smart navy skirt and mumbling about “foolish heroics” under her breath.
So much for gratitude and helping your elders. Even now, she didn’t seem nearly as concerned as she should’ve. Maybe she knows something I don’t. Maybe the shield will keep it out.
I sat up and crossed every extremity I possessed as the comet made its speedy descent. If the shield held, it’d shatter into smithereens. I braced for an impact that didn’t come. Instead, panic shot through me as the bright ball of light tore through the protective bubble.
I scrambled backward like a weird crab, my ass scraping across the grass in my rush to get away. However, the moment the comet pierced the monastery’s atmosphere, it shrank in size. I’d barely moved out of the way when it crash-landed outside the monastery doors—the ones that refused to open. Sparks of blue light showered the ground.
For a second, nothing happened, and I nearly breathed a sigh of relief. But then, a delayed aftershock exploded outward in a violent pulse that sent me flying. Blanche, too. She lifted her hands and her eyes widened, but it was too late for her to use magic. The shocked look on her face would’ve been comical if I hadn’t worried she would break if she hit something.
I sent out a rapid lasso of Telekinesis, catching Blanche with it and using my other hand to create a wall of Air to stop us from tumbling right off this friggin’ cliff. It buffeted us toward safety.
With another thud, I hit the ground. I managed to keep Blanche in the air long enough to set her down more gently, but fatigue had begun to set in. It ended up being a rougher landing for the old girl than I’d intended. I didn’t entirely know why I had gone out of my way to help this woman, but I supposed I had a soft spot for the older generation. And I didn’t want her losing her shot at El Dorado before she’d even made it through those doors.
“Thank you, Finch. That was mighty kind. My reflexes ain’t what they used to be.” She looked shaky, attempting to fix her elegant up-do. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was a lost cause.
I shrugged. “My pleasure, ma’am.” Those words would never slip easily out of my throat.
Now that Blanche and I were safe from a sudden dip in the Ionian Sea, I turned my attention to the aliens who’d caused this stress. Didn’t they know my sanity already teetered on a knife-edge? Having to think fast wasn’t easy at the moment, after I’d spent a day down a mine tapping all my Chaos resources.
I expected—and, secretly, half-hoped—for little gray men with shiny black eyes. Instead, an absolute beauty and a hulking beast of a man emerged from the small crater they’d made during their landing.
“I told you it wasn’t safe!” Beast muttered. “What if the hull hadn’t held up? This was a terrible idea. Anything could’ve happened to you.”
Beauty shrugged it off. “What’s the use thinking of what might have happened? Everything held up fine. Are we in one piece, or aren’t we?”
“If we’d taken a dinghy from the mainland, we could’ve—” Beast started to protest, but Beauty cut him off.
“We’d never have made it through the shield in a dinghy, Luke. It takes great skill and knowledge to reach this monastery. One does not simply row their way in.”
The young woman was a small, waif-like creature, with wavy, dark hair shot through with strands of bright pink and a set of odd, pale gray eyes. Her clothes looked like she’d had a run-in with a thrift store: wide-legged, silky peach pants that stopped above her ankle and a ruffled white blouse ripped off from the 1800s. She wore a cropped, pink furry jacket over the top, complete with a brightly patterned backpack. Weird, but it suited her.