I hadn’t been planning to kill Magnus, but if I was honest with myself, the guy was immortal. Short of killing him, what were we going to do, hand him over to courts or law enforcement that the Nine influenced or controlled? Get him put into jail for as long as there was a will to keep him?

There might be a way to do that for 20 years, but what about 1000 or more? He could realistically outlive any government willing to put him away and if he did, he could pick up where he left off, possibly creating a whole new organization built on the immortal loyalists, hidden money, and maybe organizations we didn’t yet know he controlled.

Theoretically, I’d be around to stop him if he got out, assuming Lee and Kee were correct about my potential. Cassie would too and maybe if I were lucky other members of the League or even our descendants. The way Lee talked, it sounded like he’d gotten involved in Stapledon to build an army capable of taking on his fellow Artificers.

That should have given me reason to hope, but I knew that Cassie’s father had died and that I didn’t even know where Lee was right now.

“We’ll tell you,” I said, my boots stepping in the ashes of the destroyed fungus creatures as we stepped through the doorway into another section of the parking garage.

Prime nodded, “Good.”

The room didn’t look much different from the other section or any other parking garage level. If you imagined grey concrete, yellow lines, and parked cars, you had almost the whole thing. The only important differences were that it was almost full of cars, putting the ash all in the lanes and it only had one exit—going downward to the next level.

I also noted that the temperature ticked up two or three degrees as we descended. It wasn’t much, but I’d have expected the opposite.

Of course, life made heat.

I felt a notification from my implant and heard Haley’s voice in my head, “We’re in position. Portal still can’t portal into here. Flame Legion made a legion of herself and they’re escorting Paladin through.”

I checked Haley’s group’s camera feeds. A quick look over them showed another level of the parking garage—which by itself wasn’t exciting at all. The contents of the room made me think think of the cover of a science fiction novel; the kind where the science fiction is an excuse for body horror.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Only the walls and ceiling showed any grey concrete at all. Fungus covered the rest including the lights, but I had no difficulty seeing and it wasn’t because of the cameras. I’d used cameras designed to handle low light conditions, but this room didn’t lack light. The fungus took care of it.

It glowed. I saw greens, blues, reds, yellows, and purples.

After the light, I noticed what the light showed: bodies, many bodies in many shapes. Not all the bodies were human. Four legged fungus monsters prowled the front and sides of the room. Oval-shaped, headless creatures, they had the angled back legs and front forelegs of most mammals, but no obvious inspiration except that they had a predator’s claws.

Other shapes were humanoid. There were prime-clones standing guard while others formed inside bulbous, glowing mounds that reminded me of the Abominator cloning chambers I’d seen.

Similar mounds were scattered all over the room, all of them guarded whether by prime-clones, the headless beasts, or blobbygators.

I found the middle of the room interesting. It appeared to be a fortress.

Around a quarter of the room had been walled off from the rest. Circular except for random bulges, the grey mushroom walls were sprinkled with color in no pattern I could decode. Thick runners expanded from the bottom and top of the walls, connecting the birthing chamber mounds, more mounds without an obvious purpose, and ran out of the room to unseen destinations.

This wasn’t going to be easy. Assuming that the system that prevented teleportation was inside the walls, Portal wouldn’t be teleporting Alex in.

Judging from the position of the cameras, Haley’s group had snuck in and moved to the back on the right side of the room, something only made possible because of Adam’s fairy invisibility.

The moment Alex made it to the room, the fighting would start, and it was impossible that they didn’t have defenses. The mystery mounds existed for a reason. Plus, remembering how the tendril monsters had formed out of fungus on the ceiling made it impossible to miss how fungus was everywhere in the room.

“One more thing,” Haley added, “that I know you’re not going to like because I know I don’t. You know how Kals and Katuk argued about how she couldn’t join in on this? Well, she insisted and Katuk doesn’t have the authority to keep her there if she chooses to ignore his advice. So now they’re with Paladin.”

“Oh,” I said. “Crap. They didn’t bring anyone else, did they?”

I couldn’t see Uncle Steve or my mom or dad joining in, not to mention Haley’s parents, but I’d thought the responsibility of leading a rebellion might cause Kals to stay out of this too.

“Yes,” Haley’s tone could have frozen drinks, “they brought the dog.”

“Huh,” I said, “that might not be good for the dog, but it’s not all bad for them. I just wish our parents had more protection.”

Tiger was bigger than most horses, fast, and tough enough that his kind hunted dinosaur-sized creatures on his home world. I’d made armor for him and we’d included him in team trainings because it seemed inevitable that we’d need him someday.

“I know,” Haley let out a breath and drew it in. “I keep on reminding myself they’re safe, that they’re not alone, and that Guardian can get them out any time he wants.”