“It felt like…doom was coming,” I told Malcolm as his cherry-red Mustang swept along the freeway north toward the Gunther Node. “Like Lucia planned to take a step the Wardens couldn’t come back from.”
“It’s past time for it,” Malcolm replied. “So far, we have been reacting to the Mercy’s attacks—the murders of the steel magi, the devastation of South America, even their attempt to create a second oracle. That is not the way to win a war.”
“That’s what I was thinking. So what does it mean?”
“I can only speculate. It’s unlikely Lucia is acting alone, but the Board of Neutralities has traditionally been a policing force, not military. It’s more likely that Lucia proposed a course of action the Board is willing to support.” He frowned. “I wish I knew what she was thinking.”
“She said you’d know soon enough.”
He glanced at me briefly before returning his attention to the wet road. “Only a combined effort by Nicollien and Ambrosite forces can possibly be effective against the Mercy. You know how unlikely that is.”
I scowled. “I know it’s stupid. If a common enemy isn’t enough to make the factions see sense, what is? More magi deaths?”
“Possibly,” Malcolm said. “And as horrifying as this is, I have to say…maybe it would be worth it.”
My mouth fell open. “Malcolm!”
“Better a few lives lost now than thousands later. We have to defeat the Mercy if we are to win the Long War. But that’s the cynical, heartless approach. I hope Lucia has found some way to convince the factions to set aside their differences.”
“So do I,” I said, but I couldn’t help wondering if Malcolm was right, and more death was the only thing that would turn Nicollien and Ambrosite thinking around.
We traveled the rest of the way in silence until we drove up to the airplane hangar that was the entrance to the Gunther Node. At this time of night, there were several of the node’s signature small white vans parked on the gravel surrounding the structure, but no people around.
Malcolm parked at the end of the row, and we got out and crunched through the gravel to the smooth concrete floor. It wasn’t really an airplane hangar, since there were no runways out this way, but it was the right size and it smelled of engine oil and exhaust the way I imagined an airplane hangar would smell. I had never seen a vehicle of any kind inside it. Its only distinguishing features were a plain metal box the size of a shoebox hanging on the back wall and a patterned white circle painted on the floor. It looked like a flower circlet a girl would wear when dancing around a maypole and, I knew from experience, was big enough to fit twenty people standing close together.
Malcolm opened the box to reveal an old-fashioned telephone handset. He picked it up and said into the mouthpiece, “Helena and Malcolm Campbell.” He hung it up without waiting for a response and came to join me in the circle, taking my hand. It was a gesture I never got tired of.
The world blinked. Suddenly, we were elsewhere—a vast concrete chamber with a ceiling a couple of stories tall, filled with people pushing carts laden with glowing purple-blue ore or walking rapidly along one of the many colored lines that made a spaghetti tangle in the middle of the floor. The familiar scent of gardenias came to my nose, an incongruous smell in this hard-edged place. No one seemed to notice our arrival. I hadn’t expected a welcoming committee, but it occurred to me that I didn’t know where I was supposed to go. “He said to ask someone,” I began.
“Mr. Wallach’s department is this way,” Malcolm said, shepherding me along the yellow line. I remembered the first time I’d been to the Gunther Node, how overwhelmed I’d been and how strange it had all seemed. Though that first time, I’d been injured and bleeding and Malcolm had been in handcuffs, so being overwhelmed had probably had little to do with the node itself. Even so, it felt strange to remember that time and compare it to how familiar it all was now.
I nodded and smiled at the few people I recognized, who waved in return. We passed through the yellow door, which was actually a really big opening outlined in yellow, and immediately entered a hallway with a much lower ceiling. The lights seemed to come from inside the walls, which weren’t concrete, but some white spongy-looking substance. Doors set into the walls were recessed and had no knobs or handles. They looked as if they would slide open like patio doors. The whole thing looked so much like a set for a low-budget Star Trek knock-off I half expected to see cameras wheeling down the corridor following us.
Malcolm stopped at a door that looked just like all the others. A plaque with the number 34 embossed on it was set into a recess above the door. Malcolm pressed a button beside the door and waited.
Eventually, a voice said, “Who is it?” It sounded raspy and far away.
“Um. Helena Campbell? Mr. Wallach is expecting me?” I hadn’t meant to sound uncertain, but I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from, couldn’t see a speaker grille or anything, and it was unsettling.
“Oh. Hang on.” The voice went silent. After about ten seconds that felt like ten hours, the door whooshed open with a pneumatic hiss. Hesitantly, I stepped inside.
The room looked like the one where they held the Damerel rites for making someone a magus, something I remembered clearly from having witnessed Malcolm go through it last year, except it didn’t have an operating table in the middle. Glass-fronted cabinets lined the walls, each containing things I couldn’t make out because the glass was smoky instead of clear. The white vinyl floor squares were scuffed from much use, and wheel marks showed where heavy carts had passed.
Across the room, another of the sliding doors stood, this one with a small glass window in its upper half. “Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked Malcolm, but before he could answer, the second door slid open, and Darius Wallach stepped through, gathering his snowy hair back from his face into a pouf at the back of his head. He wore black scrubs with tiny skulls printed on them, not a look that inspired confidence, and extended a hand to me.
“Thank you for coming, Mrs. Campbell,” he said. “Mr. Campbell.” Wallach checked the giant watch he wore on his left wrist. “Mrs. Campbell, if you’d come this way? I’ll have to ask Mr. Campbell to wait here.”
I glanced at Malcolm, who didn’t seem perturbed by this. “Sure,” I said, following Wallach into the next room.
It was, if anything, barer and more sterile than the first room. It was perfectly round, with no furnishings or cabinets, and the walls curved inward, making it feel like I was inside a ceramic pot. Softly glowing lights circled the ceiling, filling the room with white light. Wallach touched the wall next to the door, and the door swished shut. Malcolm’s face appeared in the little window. I smiled at him, then turned my attention to Wallach, who’d crossed the room to another door. This one was low to the ground and had a handle. Wallach squatted and took hold of the handle. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. He pulled the door open, releasing a whiff of paint thinner.
Something big and black and chitinous leapt from the opening. I screamed as the invader flung itself toward me, all its hundreds of clawed legs scrabbling to attack me.
Behind me, I heard Malcolm shouting and pounding on the door, but his words were muffled by the glass. I turned and sped for the door, mashing the unseen button as hard as I could. Nothing happened. I spun around just in time to see the thing launch itself at my eyes, and screamed again, pressing myself into the door like I could pass through it by will alone.
The invader didn’t touch me. It rebounded off what seemed like an invisible wall, doing a backflip in the air and landing hard on its back several feet away. It got to its hundreds of feet and shook itself for all the world like a dog coming out of deep water, then ran at me again. This time, I was ready for it, and kicked it across the room with a perfect punt my Pee Wee soccer coach would have been proud of. “Get it away from me!” I shrieked.
Wallach stood and held up a black fob, pressing its single button. Instantly the invader drew in on itself, its legs all quivering with pent-up energy. Now I could see a silver harness constraining its torso. A bound familiar, not a free invader. The smell should have given it away.
Wallach walked over to it and picked it up. It was only the size of a cat, after all. “Excellent,” he said.
“What the hell was that?” I shouted. Malcolm was still pounding on the door, which shook under his blows. “Why did you sic a familiar on me? Don’t you know how custodians attract them?”
“Of course I do,” Wallach said. He put the familiar back in the wall cubby and closed the door. “That was the point, establishing a baseline.”
Something cracked behind me, and the door wheezed open with a pained cry. “What the hell were you thinking?” Malcolm said, putting his arms around me and holding me tight.
Wallach blinked at us. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “Mrs. Campbell was in no danger. While it’s true invaders, both wild and captive, are drawn to custodians, the binding on a familiar prevents it from hurting a human unless ordered to do so. Even a custodian. You both should know this.”
“It sure didn’t feel safe,” I said, trying to control my breathing.
“You had no right to involve Helena in that experiment, if you can call it that,” Malcolm said, his voice low and furious.
“That wasn’t the experiment, that was the baseline,” Wallach said. “The experiment is to determine why invaders are drawn to custodians and to see if we can turn that into a weapon against the Mercy.”
I stopped shaking. “You can do that?”
“Probably,” Wallach said. “Did you bring your underwear?”
The abrupt change of subject made me want to laugh. “A T-shirt. It hasn’t been washed.” I handed him a bulging manila envelope.
“That should work. Go ahead and—” Wallach noticed the door for the first time. “What did you do to my door?”
Malcolm didn’t budge. “I’m not leaving Helena alone again.”
“I don’t need her for this part. You can wait in the antechamber, if you can get the door to shut.”
It took Malcolm and me pushing together to get the damaged door to close. We watched through the little window as Wallach shook my T-shirt out of the envelope without touching it to make a puddle of cloth on the floor. He opened the small door and let the familiar out. “What does it look like to you?” I asked, whispering, though I didn’t know why.
“A mastiff,” Malcolm said. “I’ve never seen a familiar go after a human before. That was terrifying.”
“You have no idea,” I said.
This time, the familiar crept on all its horrible little legs, as if uncertain of what it faced. It paced the confines of the room, ignoring Wallach and my T-shirt, sniffing once or twice at the seam where the door met the wall but not appearing to notice me peering through the glass. After about ten minutes, Wallach used the fob again and returned the familiar to its cage. “You can come back in,” he said.
Malcolm manhandled the door open as Wallach looked on, grimacing. “That’s going to be a bitch to get repaired,” he muttered. “Maintenance is always busy this time of year.”
“I feel no urge to apologize,” Malcolm said. “Did you learn anything?”
“That it’s not your scent it responds to, Mrs. Campbell,” Wallach said. “That’s excellent news. Altering a familiar’s scent receptors would be virtually impossible and certainly an impractical solution.”
“Did you really need me here for that?” I asked.
Wallach made an impatient noise. “This room is equipped with recording devices both magical and mundane,” he said. “It took down every possible measurement when the familiar attacked you, including the ambient temperature and your body mass. I’ll use that in the rest of the experiments. Don’t worry, you won’t be exposed to the familiar again, but I’ll need to meet with you occasionally to test my theories.”
“Mr. Wallach,” Malcolm growled.
“I assure you Mrs. Campbell will be in no danger.” Wallach had his attention on me despite Malcolm’s palpable menace. “It may all mean nothing, but I’m convinced learning why invaders react to custodians the way they do is key to understanding more about them. And if I’m right, it will lead to turning them against the Mercy.”
“You could ask Lucia,” I said weakly. I really didn’t want to go near that familiar again, no matter what Wallach said.
Wallach scowled. “Lucia is busy,” he said. “And she used some very foul language when I proposed the plan. It’s you or no one, Mrs. Campbell.”
I let out a deep breath. “All right. But no more familiars, all right? And I’d better have plenty of warning before you pull a stunt like that again.”
“That’s fair. Now, just a few questions.” He dropped the fob into the pocket of his scrubs and retrieved a small voice recorder of a kind I’d thought went out of style ten years ago. “Do all invaders, captive and free, react to you the same way?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever been bitten by one?”
“Yes.” I suppressed a shudder, and Malcolm’s arms tightened on me.
“And your reaction was idiosyncratic?”
“Yes, it leaves me euphoric, but I don’t think it was because I’m a custodian, because I saw another custodian killed by a familiar and it looked agonizing.”
“That’s all right, I have a theory about that.” He didn’t elaborate. “You can see through illusions?”
“Yes.” His questions seemed to have nothing to do with familiars, and I grew impatient. “Does that matter?”
“I don’t know yet. How long have you been a custodian?”
“Um…twenty-eight months almost exactly.”
“But your ability to see through illusions predates that.”
I nodded. “It seems so.”
“Hmm.” Wallach clicked off the recorder. “I’d like to perform one more test—don’t worry, it’s non-invasive. No familiars involved.”
I eyed him warily. Malcolm said, “What test?”
Wallach put the recorder away and beckoned to me to follow him. With Malcolm’s hand in mine, I passed through the broken door and the antechamber and went out into the hallway behind Wallach. The elderly Warden led us down the hall following the three stripes painted on the center of the floor, yellow, magenta, and black. After about half a minute, the magenta line branched off to the right, and Wallach turned that way. The new hall had a higher ceiling, but the same spongy white walls and recessed doors. I saw no other people, and couldn’t help imagining a post-apocalyptic world in which we three were the only survivors, exploring a deserted scientific compound.
Wallach stopped outside a door numbered 5 and pressed his thumb to a spot beside it that didn’t look any different from the rest of the wall. The door swooshed open, and a second later, lights bloomed within. Wallach said, “In here, Mrs. Campbell, Mr. Campbell.”
I stepped inside and halted abruptly enough that Malcolm bumped into me. Silver metal crates ranging in size from filing box to refrigerator lined the walls, stacked so haphazardly I couldn’t imagine they were easy to access. They made the room look like a miser’s storage locker, though an unexpectedly space-age miser.
But what had made me stop was the chair in the middle of the room. The chair itself looked just like the one in my dentist’s office, beige and bland and possibly older than me. But spidery arms holding a multitude of terrifying tools sprang from the base, some pointed, others like narrow silver spatulas, a few with serrated edges like tiny saws. There were three magnifying glasses of different sizes, arranged for easy access by whatever maniac was torturing the poor victim in the chair. A yard-wide black glass disc hung facedown over the contraption, blurrily reflecting the chair and the implements of torture.
“Oh, no,” I said. “No way.”
Wallach was already standing next to the chair, bending the long, flexible arms to point away from it. “We don’t need any of this,” he said impatiently. “Just the disc.”
To my surprise, Malcolm put his arm around me reassuringly. “But Helena can’t be a magus,” he said to Wallach. “What is the point of this?”
“Maybe nothing,” Wallach said. “Mrs. Campbell, have a seat, and relax. This doesn’t hurt.”
“It really doesn’t,” Malcolm said. “This is a scanning device that is part of the preparation for the Damerel rites. It looks for hidden weaknesses that might make the rites fail. Though I’ve never seen these…things.” He prodded one of the arms, which bobbed up and down in response.
“You don’t want to know,” Wallach said. “Mrs. Campbell?”
I gingerly climbed into the seat and tried to relax. Malcolm pulled one of the larger boxes over beside the chair and settled in next to me. The box was either empty or not very full, because it sagged slightly under his weight.
Wallach shoved another couple of boxes to one side, revealing a control panel set into the wall opposite the chair. It looked even older than the chair, with rows of toggles below pairs of colored light bulbs, blue and gold. “Just a minute,” he said, with an abstracted air as if his attention was more on the panel than on me. I waited. Nothing happened. The arms didn’t suddenly spring to life and attack me. I looked up at the glass disc and gasped. It reflected the chair, but not me. I raised a hand and waved at the disc—still nothing.
Malcolm followed my gaze and said, “I don’t know why it does that, but as far as I know it reflects nothing organic at all.”
“It’s unsettling,” I said. “As if I’d been erased.” I looked at my hands for reassurance.
Malcolm chuckled. “I think everyone feels that way.”
A loud thump drew my attention to Wallach, who’d pounded the control panel with his fist. He beat on it again, harder, and the panel lit up like an old-fashioned switchboard, the blue and gold lights making an interesting pattern against the white wall. “Hah,” he said with satisfaction. “Nothing like percussive maintenance to show these things who’s boss.”
The room wasn’t cold, but my face suddenly felt warm. The glass disc now glowed with a soft golden light, similar to how the oracle glowed when I performed an augury in the dark. The warmth soothed me, and I relaxed—not much, because the torture implements still had me on edge, but enough that I could unclench my fists and wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans.
Wallach flicked a couple of toggles, changing their light from blue to gold, glanced over his shoulder at me—no, at the disc—and flicked a few more. The disc’s glow increased, though it didn’t get any warmer. Wallach pressed a spot below the panel, and a flap popped open, revealing a dark space I was too far away to see clearly. He pulled a coiled cable, skinny like earbud wires, from a hidden pocket and plugged one end into the wall, then plugged the other end into a battered smartphone with a cracked screen. Why he hadn’t used that to record my answers, I didn’t know, but I hoped he had a reason.
“Two minutes,” Wallach said. “You don’t have to hold perfectly still, but don’t get off the chair or it will interrupt the readings.”
That made me want to freeze in place. Malcolm said, “What readings?”
“It wouldn’t mean anything to you. No offense,” Wallach said. His attention was on the phone screen, which flickered with a blue glow like an old television set playing a black and white movie.
Malcolm grimaced, but said nothing more. I wanted to hold his hand, for reassurance if nothing else, but I was afraid it might mess up Wallach’s reading. So instead I watched Wallach, how the bluish light turned his dark skin purple in places, and wondered how two minutes could feel like an eternity just because I had nothing to do.
“I invited Mike for dinner tomorrow night,” Malcolm said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.” I wished I dared bring up my suspicions about Judy and Mike, but that felt weird, like I would be invading Judy’s privacy. And it wasn’t as if I knew anything for sure. “He’s settled in all right, hasn’t he?”
Malcolm shifted his weight, making the box creak. “I think so. He’s not as carefree as I remember him being, but he’s been through a lot, so maybe that’s not so unusual. I wish he weren’t so isolated. I don’t think he’s dated anyone since moving to Portland.”
I really wanted to speak now. “It’s only been two months. Maybe he’s seeing someone and just hasn’t made a big deal about it.”
“Mike?” Malcolm chuckled. “He’s the woman in every port type. If he were seeing someone, I’d know about it.”
That went a long way toward dispelling my suspicions, except I knew Judy too well to be completely convinced. Though, suppose Judy’s relationship with Mike, whatever it was, mattered more to her than to him? I suddenly felt angry on Judy’s behalf. “Well, I hope he’s happy,” I managed. “Do you want to do anything special tomorrow? Other than dinner, I mean?”
“That’s it,” Wallach said abruptly, and Malcolm and I both looked at him. He unplugged the phone and the cable and flipped several more switches. The disc stopped glowing. “You can get up now,” Wallach said, walking toward me. I stood and stretched.
“I don’t suppose you are willing to explain yourself now?” Malcolm said, a little sarcastically. Wallach didn’t react.
“Just one…ah, there it is,” Wallach said. His head was down over the phone’s cracked screen again, but he was smiling broadly. “I shouldn’t be so pleased, because this is going to mean paperwork, and I hate paperwork.”
“What is?” I exclaimed.
Wallach looked at me, still smiling. “You’re a genetic sport, Mrs. Campbell.”
I gaped. I knew what a sport was—an individual that was dramatically different in some way on a genetic level. It was a polite term for “mutant.” But I still said, “What are you talking about?”
“Well, a sport is—”
“I know what a sport is,” I interrupted him, “but what kind of mutation is it? Not something harmful, right?”
Wallach shook his head. “I’ll have to analyze the data,” he said, tapping the smartphone screen, “but my initial assessment is that you’re capable of tapping into your own magic the way someone with an aegis does. In a very limited fashion, of course. In your case, it manifests as your ability to see through illusions.”
“I’ve…heard about sports in the magical world.” Mike Conti had told me about it a few months ago. “I assumed that’s what I was. Mike made it sound like it was…not well-known, but not a secret.”
“And nobody bothered to mention it to me,” Wallach said irritably. “Wonderful. The important thing is not that you are a sport. It’s that your reaction to being bitten by an invader is certainly related to being one. I’d guess, based on the data, that the reaction is a side effect of you being immune to having your magic drained by an invader.”
“I’m—what?” I exclaimed. I felt pummeled by all the revelations.
“Hah. So you don’t know everything,” Wallach said. “I don’t know the mechanism, but you could think of it as being insulated.” He was as calm as if we were discussing the weather. “Though I wouldn’t suggest testing it. Invaders have more weapons than just their ability to drain magic.”
I realized Malcolm had his arm around me, supporting me, and I needed it. “But I’ve been drained before,” I said. “Not a lot, but an invader’s bite—”
“Whatever you felt when you were bitten, it wasn’t being drained. The readings are conclusive,” Wallach said. He held the phone face-out toward me. I stared at the squiggly lines, blue and gold and white, that crossed the screen in every direction, shivering with pent-up energy. They meant nothing to me. Wallach seemed to realize this after a few seconds. “You’ll have to take my word for it. Basically, you have an underlying genetic difference that makes you immune to an invader’s bite, and its side effects are that idiosyncratic reaction to being bitten and the ability to see through illusions. It would likely also make the Damerel rites lethal to you, but that’s not really an issue, since you’re a custodian.”
I looked up at Malcolm. I had no idea what expression was on my face, but his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed as if he were concerned. “This is all a lot to take in at once,” he said. “I think Helena should go home.”
“Of course. There’s no more I can tell you now, anyway,” Wallach said. He put the phone in one of his pockets—the scrubs seemed to have an unlimited supply—and added, “Don’t be distressed, Mrs. Campbell. This doesn’t change anything for you any more than heterochromia or freckles would. Less, because it’s not a visible effect. Think of it as having an interesting difference.”
I was afraid to ask what heterochromia was. “It’s true my being able to see through illusions isn’t some kind of super power,” I said. “And I avoid invaders and familiars.”
“That’s the spirit. I’ll call you soon to schedule another session. I don’t anticipate this taking very long.” Wallach opened the door and gestured for us to exit, then walked away down the hall without saying goodbye.
Malcolm put his arms around me and hugged me. “You’re shivering,” he said.
“I feel so strange. Like there’s something living beneath my skin, waiting to erupt.”
He laughed. “I can understand that, but Mr. Wallach is right. You’re not suddenly an invader-fighting machine. You just have naturally what I had to get from my aegis.”
“That’s true, I guess. And it’s not like I’m the only one. Mangesh can see through illusions, too, and there are all those other people I found in my research—don’t you think they’re likely to be sports, too?” Mangesh Kapoor was the only other Warden I knew of who shared my ability. Mangesh—I gasped. “But Mangesh is a stone magus, and Mr. Wallach said he thought someone with my abilities would die if they went through the Damerel rites!” I detached myself from Malcolm’s embrace and started to follow Wallach, but Malcolm grabbed my arm and brought me to a halt.
“Later,” he said. “You need to rest. You’ve had a shock, and I don’t like how pale you are. Let’s go home, and you can make a list of questions to ask Mr. Wallach.” He put his arm across my shoulders and steered me back the way we’d come. “He’ll need to know that you’ve identified others like you, even if they’re not Wardens.”
We emerged from the Star Trek hallway into the vast central chamber and walked rapidly in what to me was a random direction. Malcolm waved down a black-clad tech. “Two to return,” he told her.
We followed the woman to a smaller version of the airplane hangar transportation circle and in an instant were outside, breathing in the cold, damp air that smelled of oil and exhaust. The car waited patiently for us at the end of the gravel drive, gray in the dim light. Malcolm started the car, sending a blast of welcome warm air my way.
I drew my legs up and tried to forget the sight of a terrifying creature doing its best to claw my eyes out. My hands, clasping my knees, looked just the same as always. If I had never applied for the job at Abernathy’s, would I have gone through life never knowing I was different? I’d been sincere when I’d said it wasn’t a super power. I’d lived almost twenty-two years before discovering I could see through illusions, and that had only happened because I’d been gathered into the magical world.
I glanced at Malcolm, who had his eyes on the road, and some of my tension disappeared. If I was special at all, it wasn’t because of some genetic mutation, it was because I’d become Abernathy’s custodian. That mattered far more than any weird abilities I was born with. And I’d met Malcolm, which had changed my life even more. “Life is so strange,” I murmured.
Malcolm looked my way and smiled. “Strange and wonderful,” he said.
“Definitely that.” I looked out the window at the rain sheeting past and the spray thrown up by the car’s wheels. It made a hissing noise just audible over the sound of the engine. Comforted by the twin sounds, I rested my head against the window and relaxed into sleep.