Dread Nemesis of Mine

chapter 3

It was Elyssa's turn to stop dead in her tracks. She flicked her gaze to the innocent-looking sky overhead.

"Freaky, right?" I said.

She nodded slowly, eyes never leaving the clouds, as if waiting for a host of angels to burst from behind them and yell, "Surprise!"

"If the environment we see outside the Grotto really belongs to their world, it must look a lot like our own," I said.

Elyssa recovered and motioned me to follow her. "Even if we are partly in their plane, the Grotto is barricaded off from it. I read the history of the place. Looked at images with only the original buildings here. When you get to the edges of the Grotto, there's endless water to the north side, and thick forest on the others. A magical barrier won't let you go any further. The Arcanes tried for years and never succeeded. They ended up using an obfuscation spell so gray mist hides most of the view, supposedly to keep people with more curiosity than brains from trying to break through."

"Or to keep anything on the other side of the barrier from looking in? You said this place is a nexus, like a bubble in between." I imagined it as a full-scale snow globe with alien eyes peering in at us.

She looked inside a dress shop as we walked past it, her eyes settling on one of the complicated Victorian era dresses inside. "I guess it's like a pocket dimension. Maybe this place isn't even visible from the other side."

"Or maybe the sky and everything else is illusion. For all we know, we might be on the moon."

She chuckled. "I guess we're safe then."

"So there's no danger of an invasion sweeping through here?"

"Not unless they built in a back door we don't know about." She shrugged. "Anything is possible, I guess."

I grimaced, imagining an army of insane blonde women like Daelissa lining up to raid the Grotto. "The other thing that occurs to me is how you called this place a nexus. Didn't you tell me Daelissa blamed the destruction of the Grand Nexus for turning her people into those creepy cherub things and stranding her here?"

Elyssa threw up a hand as if warding the memories away. "Ugh. I really don't want to talk about the husks, cherubs, whatever you want to call those nasty little things."

The husks—or cherubs as I called them—were the creepy infantile remains of the angels caught up in the destruction of the Grand Nexus, according to Vadaemos. They wobbled around on nubby feet, like toddlers with oversized, ungainly heads and little T-rex arms. But the shiny pitch black skin and nearly featureless head hid horrors beneath. Sometimes when they shrieked, the outline of a face seemed to appear beneath the surface.

I shook my head to clear the images of our last encounter with the cherubs and found my way back to the point I wanted to make. "What makes this place different than Thunder Rock or El Dorado? Was it not connected to this Grand Nexus of theirs? And what about La Casona and the other functioning relics?"

Elyssa quirked an eyebrow. "I have no idea." She tapped a finger to her chin. "But I have a feeling we should pump Nightliss for answers the next time we see her. After all, Foreseeance Forty-Three Eleven says our former rulers were going to come through the Gloom."

We entered an alley and skidded to a halt. In this very alley, we'd had our first encounter with gray men, the creepy golems used by a man we called Mr. Gray for obvious reasons. I'd discovered a large mural of him down in El Dorado and concluded he must be an angel like Nightliss and Daelissa. He apparently wanted me dead or captured, judging from my every encounter with his minions.

"Uh, why don't we take the scenic route?" I backed up a step, remembering the ambush all too clearly. "Not that I'm scared or anything." Yeah, right.

"Let's go down another block," Elyssa said, mouth set in a grim line.

We walked down the street a little further and entered a large marble-paved roundabout. A lush, green park sprawled in the center of the huge space. Hardwood trees swayed gently in the breeze, their tops reaching toward the sky. Intricately shaped hedges adorned strategic places inside the park, next to benches and statue fountains.

We continued through the park. My gaze slid over the bizarre buildings surrounding us—one seemingly made from snow-white plastic with shiny stainless-steel balconies, and another patterned in the crosshatch black used in so many carbon fiber designs.

"Why are we always in a hurry to do something when we come here?" I complained. "I'd really like to take you on a real date for once."

Elyssa squeezed my hand. "How about after your magic lessons today?"

"Don't you have Templar duties?"

She shook her head. "I'm still on recovery leave."

"Dinner and a show?" I'd seen a cool Chinese restaurant the first time I'd been here, and Shelton had mentioned a live-action theater he liked to visit.

"How about dancing instead?

Dancing wasn't exactly my forte, but so long as it was with Elyssa, I was willing to give it a shot. "You got it, babe."

A bright smile lit her face. "It's a date."

We left the park and crossed the marble street to the Orange store, bearing a stark white sign with a partially peeled orange emblazoned on it. The building consisted of a similar white material lined with liquid glass, rippling like the surface of a crystalline lake. Across the road from Orange, almost all three stories of the MagicSoft store were made entirely of the liquid glass. I wondered if the floors were too. Unlike the last time we'd been here, there were few people inside either store. We walked up the glowing white stairs, passing a poster which declared, Now you can compare Apples to Oranges!

About a half-hour later, we emerged from the store, my shiny new arcphone in hand. Apparently, smartphones were considered dumbphones by Overworld citizens since they couldn't use magic and were limited to traditional cell towers. Arcphones could make use of just about any nom cell signal and the magical cell network. My new toy was wafer thin and no larger than a credit card. I dragged my thumb across the glowing Orange logo on the screen, peeling the fruit and revealing a list of apps. I tapped one of them to reveal a slider and slid it up. The phone expanded until the edge-to-edge screen was nearly seven inches. I pulled the slider down, shrinking the phone to five inches, then three, and back up again.

"Will you stop playing with that thing?" Elyssa said, an amused grin on her face.

"How did I survive all these years without one of these?" I rubbed the smooth, polished surface of the device like a pet. "Nookli, I love you."

"You are the wind beneath my wings," the phone replied in a mellifluous voice.

I laughed. "Awesome!"

Elyssa rolled her eyes.

I played with my phone as we weaved our way back through the Grotto to the parking garage. Despite the magical origins of the new arcphone, it interfaced perfectly with my nom email, and the salesperson had even ported all my saved texts, pictures, and old phone number. I flicked through the few texts in the list. Katie Johnson, my former crush, had texted me several times over the past few days. Ash and Nyte, two Goth guys who, along with Elyssa, had befriended me at an especially low point in my life, had also tried to reach me.

At first, the messages showed up in typical text lingo, with all the associated abbreviations and bad grammar. Then the words shimmered and morphed into something resembling normal sentences with proper punctuation. It was all I could do not to kiss Nookli. What a smart little phone!

I felt guilty about not replying to any of my non-supernatural friends since returning from Colombia, but with the forces of darkness out to kill me, I didn't want to put them in any danger. They couldn't deal with vampires, fallen angels, or hellhounds. I'd barely held my own against most of the threats I'd faced, and I was half demon spawn. Still, didn't my friends deserve at least some small reply? Or would I put them in harm's way somehow?

For what must have been the fifth time, I pulled up Ash's texts and read through them again.

Dude, you still alive?

Seriously, man, holla back.

Katie says you're okay. Me and Nyte gotta show you something cool!

Nyte's texts were similar, going on and on about how he and Ash really wanted to show me some cool new thing—probably a new nose ring or something Goth and gross. Katie's texts were a bit more somber.

Are you alive? Answer me!

Your dad said you're okay. Thank god.

Ash and Nyte keep asking about you. I told them you're okay.

Please, please, please call me when you can. We need to talk!

She'd talked to my dad? How in the hell had she managed that? I wasn't exactly on talking terms with him right now, given his decision to betray Mom and marry a succubus by the name of Kassallandra. My finger hovered over Katie's number. If I could contact anyone, it would be her. She knew about me and the Overworld, thanks to bad timing on her part and a pack of overachieving hellhounds who'd chased Elyssa, Dad, Katie, and me all the way to downtown Atlanta. Maybe it would be okay to call her and ask about my other friends. On the other hand, what if Mr. Gray or one of my other enemies found out about my normal friends and used them against me?

I tucked the phone in my pocket and decided to think about it.

"Don't look now, but we're being followed," Elyssa said, using the shiny surface of her phone like a mirror.

Despite the warning, I almost glanced behind us before turning the motion into a casual stretch of my arms. "How do you know?" Though the walkways weren't teeming with people, they were congested enough to hide any followers.

"I took us through a few side streets we didn't need to use, but the chubby guy with the long black coat and bowler hat is still following us."

I sighed. "We can't have whoever it is trailing us back to Shelton's hideout. How long has he been following?"

"Since we left the Orange store."

"Any idea what kind of super he is?"

She shrugged. "Only one way to tell."

My mind rifled through several plans—run, turn and confront, or act casual. Between Elyssa and me, we could handle most threats short of an angel or manifested demon spawn. Using a nearby shop window as a mirror, I spotted the unkempt form of a chubby man close to my height as he regarded us. His expression verged on boredom.

Elyssa led me through a wide alley. We emerged in Founder's Square. Towering effigies of the supernatural founders of the Overworld bordered the sprawling plaza. The massive statue of a demon spawn drew my eye to it and its neighbor, an angel with outstretched wings, hands held low to the sides as though in welcome.

Something seemed off about the two statues. I'd only been to this place once, but the sight had etched itself firmly into memory. "Wait a minute," I said. "The demon spawn statue doesn't have horns anymore, and the angel's wings aren't curled up."

"And the statue of Ezzek Moore is now raising his staff in the air," Elyssa said, pointing out the statue of a man in robes. "These are life statues. They actually move into different positions over time, depending on how the Arcanes charmed them to pose."

"Can they walk?" I imagined turning the Statue of Liberty into a life statue and freaking out the noms.

She nodded. "Sure, I guess."

A crystal-sheathed representation of Earth hovered in the center of the square, rotating slowly. I looked up at the house-sized globe as we passed beneath it, then used the chance to steal a glance back. The man was still following us, not even bothering or trying to hide. Something very strange was going on. Groups of people sparsely populated the wide boundaries of Founder's Square. Enough so if the man were hostile, we could call for help if need be.

I touched Elyssa's arm to stop her and turned to face our stalker. His face never changed expression, nor did he break his ambling stride, walking right up to us and holding out a white marble to me. His irises were so pale as to be almost pink, and his pale skin seemed doughy in spots and rubbery in others. I glanced uneasily at his unnatural-looking fingers and decided I didn't want to touch them.

"That's an ASE," Elyssa said, her brow furrowing.

"A what?"

"An all-seeing eye. Templars use them for holo-recording."

I fixed a stern gaze on the large man, but made no move to take his offering. "Who are you and what do you want?"

The man removed his hat to reveal a shock of bristly white hair, and bowed. "Miss Ivy done sent me, Your Grace," he said in a rough cockney accent.

A hot flush raced through my body. Ivy had sent him? I reached for the all-seeing eye.

Elyssa gripped my arm. "Wait, Justin. It might be a trap."

"It ain't no trap, milady," the man said. He sniggered and flipped his hat several feet into the air. It landed at a jaunty angle on his head as he turned to me. "Truly, Your Excellence, it ain't no trap."

"Then why did you laugh?"

"I'm sorry, Magnificence, but I'm a bit overwhelmed by your presence." His lips curled up ever so slightly as if he were enjoying a big joke at my expense.

I wanted to punch him. "Why do you keep calling me stupid crap like that? Justin will do just fine."

"Whatever pleases you, Your Holiness."

Heat flared in my face in a violent wave of anger. I bared my teeth at him and growled lower than humanly possible. I spoke in deep guttural tones, words in another language. Words I somehow understood. Do not mock me, filth.

The man backed up a step, his pale eyes widening ever so slightly. Elyssa jumped back from me, a shocked expression on her face. I looked uneasily at the two of them, unsure what had just happened. I tried to speak the words again, but failed to recall exactly what they were.

"What's your name?" I said, breaking the stunned silence.

The man narrowed his eyes, his lips curling back up with amusement. "If it please Your—you, Justin, my name is Mr. Bigglesworth."

This was the man Ivy had mentioned! "Are you the one who brought me this?" I held out the slip of blank paper from the graveyard.

"Aye, I put it out for you to find."

"Good lord, she really did visit you," Elyssa said.

"Fine, I'll take the ASE," I said, holding out a hand for it and hoping I didn't have to touch Bigglesworth's icky skin.

He dropped it into my palm. A smiled crossed his lips briefly before he straightened them. "It's real urgent, sir."

I tucked it into a pocket, unwilling to view it here where everyone could see it. "Where's my sister? What are the Conroys doing to her?"

He shook his head. "It ain't for me to say, no sir. Miss Ivy tells me what to do and I does it, no questions asked."

I stepped toward him, tempted to grab him by the collar despite his revolting skin. "Where do the Conroys keep her?"

Again, he shook his head. "I've done my duty, sir and I can't do no more." He tipped his hat. "G'day to you both." He winked at Elyssa and smirked. Turned on his heel and headed back toward the alley we'd come through a few minutes earlier.

I started after him. "Oh, no, you don't."

The chubby man increased his pace. I jogged after him, not wanting to make a scene. When he reached the alley, Bigglesworth turned. Tipped his cap at me and chortled. His body, clothes, everything, melted into a puddle of pale goop. Elyssa gasped behind me. I watched in utter disgust as the goop funneled into a drainage grating on the side of the alley floor and vanished inside.