CHAPTER 4
The van took us on a winding path across Midcity. Despite my fear, severe exhaustion took its toll and the rocking motion put me to sleep after just five minutes. I woke up when Hilde shook me. I raised my head and stared at her through bleary eyes.
“Oh man, I feel like I got hit by a train.”
“We’ve stopped.” Her fearful whisper snapped me back to reality. I sat up straight and tested my legs. The short rest had done my body a little good, though I still felt far weaker than normal.
“Okay,” I said, “here’s the plan—”
The back doors burst open. The dark woman stood there staring in at us. Her thin eye mask was gone. She shoved the doors wide open and gestured roughly. “Out.” When we hesitated, she narrowed her sharp eyes in warning, and I decided to play along to keep her from getting mean with Hilde.
I slid toward the edge and stepped out, managing to find my feet just in time to keep from toppling over. Hilde slid out after me.
The false breeze, the dark cavern ceiling overhead, and the faint smell of mechanic oil drifting on the wind told me we were still in Midcity, and it was still nighttime. But the side wall of the cavern loomed right up close, just a few hundred yards away. I’d never been so close to one of the walls before and wondered what district we were in. Being so far from my home district sank my stomach to my shoes.
“Where the rust have you taken us?”
Mia appeared from around the side of the van. She smiled disarmingly at my question, but Hilde still shifted to stand closer behind me. “We’re in District Nineteen. It’s about an hour by vehicle, but there’s a bullet train not far from here that will get you home in a snap when we’re finished.”
“And what does being ‘finished’ look like?” Despite her gentle demeanor, I had no intention of trusting her until I knew what these people wanted with Hilde, let alone what they intended to do to me as Jonathan’s replacement. They didn’t see how he died. Will they blame me for his death?
Mia kept her beaming smile pointed right at me as if she could read my mind. “We’ll be finished when you’ve got the answers you need and decide what you want to do.” She beckoned for us to follow her, then pointed at a spot hidden behind the van’s door. “See that?”
I shuffled past the dark woman, eyeing her warily, and looked where Mia was pointing. My breath left me in a rush for the second time that night. Hilde gasped behind me. I turned to Mia with my eyes wide. “Is that a real castle?”
She nodded, her eyes sparkling with amusement.
At the base of the cavern wall stood a monumental fortress straight from one of Evie’s movies. Enormous carved stones wedged seamlessly together created an impenetrable outer wall wrapped around a courtyard. The inner keep rose in great blocky spires from the hill’s peak. Piles of rusted scrap and broken vehicle parts littered the surrounding slopes like a great junkyard. I turned to look out over the city and saw that we stood at one of the highest points in Midcity, a cluster of rolling hills which gazed down upon the shantytowns and slums.
“We’ll call a team to carry Jonathan.” Mia strode up a winding concrete path toward the tall oak doors in the castle’s outer wall. The dark woman followed close behind her. Mia turned and beckoned again for us to follow, and with little alternative and a growing curiosity surging within my breast, I did. Hilde scurried after me, close enough to grab hold of my shirt with her fingertips.
The enormous oak doors were lined in steel and looked far too heavy to move, but the dark woman pressed one with her hand and it swung open easily. The four of us slipped through and she closed it behind us, exerting no obvious effort in doing so. The fortress looked even more intimidating as it loomed over us from up close. Mia led us across an empty courtyard to a flight of steps leading up to another set of smaller oak doors in a recessed alcove on the front of the imposing castle.
The inner doors bore fancy silver scrollwork shaped like a range of fantastical beasts I recognized from some of Hilde’s books on old lore. She was a fantasy novel junkie at heart, and a few of the creatures on the door looked like things I’d seen on her book covers.
These inner doors opened without us touching them. At first I thought they might be haunted, like in some of Evie’s horror films, but a distinguished elder gentleman in a black suit with long tails appeared behind the door and bowed at the waist. He was utterly ripped, his fancy suit straining over powerful shoulders and a bulging chest, but his gray mustache and hair were perfectly waxed and coiffed.
Once more, I was surprised to meet another person without a face mask in the presence of strangers. I wondered who’d be crazy enough to risk contagion, then remembered these people were so used to slaying ogres they didn’t even bother to comment on the killing.
“Welcome home, Mistress Mallozzi,” the gentleman said with a nod to Mia before he turned to the dark woman, “and Mistress Kurosawa. And greetings to you, our new guests.” He nodded at Hilde and me, and despite my misgivings I found myself nodding right back. Anything less than proper decorum seemed a grave insult to such good manners. And anyway, I’d never been bowed to before.
Mia and the dark woman, apparently named Kurosawa, walked past the greeter and turned to watch Hilde and I enter the castle. My nose tickled at the faint smell of sweet citrus drifting through the air. Inside was a square hall with slate tile floors covered sparingly with plush carpets and lined with hundred-foot-long walls crafted from more perfectly fitted stones. The whole place echoed comfortingly with our heavy footsteps. Several archways led off from the perimeter of the entry hall into hallways lit by antique electric wall sconces. Electric chandeliers hung from high rafters in the vaulted ceiling and spilled bright light over the whole room, casting charming shadows over the framed painted portraits and landscapes intermingled with suits of antique armor and stone gargoyles which gave the hall an archaic feel.
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The gentleman eased the door shut behind us as Mia gestured to him. “This is Niles Belvedere, our butler. He oversees the entire castle and keeps us running. He also welcomes us home after every mission and makes us feel missed.” She beamed at the older man, and he inclined his head to her with a small smile.
“I’m Edgar,” I said through my mask. “Edgar Salt.” I held out my hand in the traditional Midcity greeting, a loose fist with the palm facing toward me and the back facing toward Niles. I belatedly realized this would present him with the silver scale, but it was too late to retract the gesture without giving offense.
The old man smiled warmly, pressed the back of his fist against my own, and held it there for three seconds, a show of trust and respect in our contaminated city. “Well met, Master Salt. If you don’t mind my saying so, I notice you bear the silver scale. Does that mean Master Jones is…?”
I nodded, lowering my hand. “He fell out of the sky right at my feet, but he’d already passed. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“He’s out in the van,” Mia murmured.
Niles’ eyes crinkled with sadness, but his gorilla shoulders straightened quickly. “We shall mourn at the appropriate time. I’ll send a team to bear him home. For now, I am pleased to be allowed to greet you myself.” He turned to Hilde with another bow. “And you, lady?”
Hilde hid behind me and blushed over the top of her mask at being addressed so formally. “I’m Hildegard Becker.” She gave a quick little bow in return that made Niles smile again.
“She just manifested a flame gift,” Mia told Niles.
The older man’s eyes grew wide and he clapped his hands. “Wonderful news, Mistress Becker.”
Hilde furrowed her brows uncertainly. “Is it?”
“Indeed.” The old man kept his hands clasped as he nodded, the ends of his gray mustache bobbing. “With adequate training provided here by our staff, I’m certain you’ll learn to control your new ability. Have no fear, you are in the very best of hands.”
“And what hands are those, exactly?” I eyed all three of them. For all their smiles, I didn’t trust these murderous kidnappers. Well, Niles and Mia were all smiles. Kurosawa had a perpetual stormy expression. Looking at her was like staring down a foreboding alley. “Who are you people?”
“We’ll get to that real soon,” Mia promised with another wink.
I decided to just ask what had been on my mind since I saw Kurosawa in the alley. “You folks aren’t wearing breathing masks, even outside. Are you insane? Ogres and magic powers and bizarre armor is bad enough, but what kind of lunatic doesn’t wear a mask in Midcity? Aren’t you afraid of the deeplung?”
Mia laughed, a throaty chuckle that felt infectious. Almost as infectious as not wearing a mask outside and expelling excess air through laughter in close company. Even with our masks on, Hilde and I took a step back.
Niles look aggrieved at our worry. “Fear not, honored guests. Our filters run at triple the recommended code.”
“Triple?” I whistled in appreciation. “That must cost a fortune.”
“Indeed.” Niles gave another small bow. “The lord of this place spares no expense to ensure the wellbeing of his guests. As for the conduct of these two mistresses…”
Mia chuckled, but she had the presence of mind to cover her mouth discreetly with her hand this time. She pointed at her left bicep. “We’ve been vacced.”
I shook my head. “No way. Vaccines are rationed carefully. And then only to Topsiders. I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff tonight, but there’s no way I’ll believe a story like that.”
Mia pulled her left arm out of her jacket, pulled up her white blouse sleeve, and showed me a small blue ring of scar tissue in her left bicep, a blessed mark I’d heard tales about since I was old enough to toddle around my father’s restaurant.
Hilde’s breathing hitched in her throat with a strangled sound.
My eyes bugged right out of my head. I half-expected I’d need to pick them up off the ground later. “How?”
“Just one perk of the job.” Mia dropped a hand on her hip and shot me a thumbs-up with the other. “Totally immune to the viruses down here. If you guys join us, you’ll get the same.”
Hilde and I exchanged stunned glances.
“We’re inside with filters,” I said slowly to Hilde, “and if what they say is true, they’re completely immune. Chance it?”
Hilde’s eyes looked nervous over the top of her mask, but she slowly nodded. We both reached up and pulled down our masks to our throats, so they looked like normal turtlenecks. I turned back to Mia. “The viruses are only half the problem. How do you guys deal with breathing the pollution?”
Niles cleared his throat. “I might answer that one, Master Salt. All employees are given monthly sessions with a cleaning device designed to ensure the health of one’s lungs. This is cutting-edge technology designed by one of our own employees and not yet widely available for use.”
Mia cupped one hand over her mouth and stage-whispered, “Too expensive just yet. Still refining the design.” She nudged Kurosawa with her elbow. “Right, Kagura?”
Kurosawa, or apparently Kagura, looked just as dour as usual and gazed back at Mia without comment.
I rocked back on my heels. “Your group has solutions to the two deadliest problems Midcity dwellers face, and you waste your perfect health fighting against… what was that ogre, exactly? An escaped corporate experiment?”
Mia grimaced. “Not… exactly. That’s gonna take some more finesse to explain, and I’ll leave it to our leader. In fact, I called ahead and explained the situation, so he’s probably waiting for us. Follow me.” She turned and walked slowly away down the hall toward one of the larger archways leading deeper into the castle, looking back at us expectantly. Kagura strode ahead of her, walking much faster without regard to whether we followed or not.
I turned to follow, but stopped when Hilde bowed her head politely to Niles. “It was a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
Niles returned her grace with another bow. “The pleasure was mine, Mistress Becker. I shall hope for a long acquaintance between us.” He smiled, and his eyes looked really happy to have met us. I couldn’t help but like him. Something in the old man just gave off a vibe of sincerity.
I nodded to him. “I hope the same. Catch you on the way out?”
“Indeed, Master Salt. I shall be at your service.”
Hilde and I followed Mia and Kagura down the wide hallway, which was decorated in the same lavish antique style as the main hall, with several polished oak doors branching off on each side. We passed two maids in black dresses with white aprons dusting the paintings and buffet tables, but they were professionals and paid us no mind as we passed. We walked to the end of the hall and went through the wider oak door at the end which led to a grand staircase spiraling both upward into the keep and down into the earth.
A security guard in a blue suit and tie looked up at us from his ornate mahogany desk along one wall, yanked his booted feet off the desk, and rose to salute with his fist over his heart. His black hair lay slicked back on his head and a tattooed eastern dragon wound around his right slanted eye and cheek. I spotted a sheathed broadsword resting on the desk, not an ornate piece but practical with a leather hilt worn from use.
Mia and Kagura returned the salute and took the stairs down. With growing unease, I followed them and descended into the hill beneath the castle, Hilde hot on my heels.