THE moon rose and set, and the Abbey was finally still, as silent as a tomb. Caretaker sat at her desk, making notes and calculations, calling up books that she needed to consult. She’d taken the vault’s measure in its underground chamber and believed it was meant to open prior to the Midnight Sun, but only by a few weeks. By her rough estimation, the lock would fail when the Nowhere’s outer rim reached the path of the alignment, four months from now. The seal was strong, she doubted she could break it outright, but she was confident that she could at least unthread its perception of time, speeding up its dissolution.
And what does it mean, that the vault was set to open now, in the shadow of the alignment? She sat back in her chair, pinched the bridge of her nose. The collection had a spell to summon Mephisto, a charm that could control him, and a shield that could defend against his favorite method of attack, a blast of Hellfire. Somebody had sealed the items away to call forth Hell’s ruler at a chaotic time of shifting possibilities. To empower him, hand him Earth’s realm? Or to make him a pet to an ascending ruler?
In a way it didn’t matter, but she was frustrated by how much she didn’t know, and curious as to how the Triumvirate had learned about the collection. No one had stumbled across it accidentally; the mirror table still couldn’t find the exact spot, the concealment spell diverting all attention, and the villains were well prepared for their effort—gamma shields to hide behind, booby-trapped lairs, self-destruct mechanisms. The human member of the Triumvirate had to be responsible; neither Satana Hellstrom nor Zarathos were engineers. But what was his goal, and how had he known about the vault?
A descendant of the Mephisto cult, perhaps. There was no Zarathos cult that she was aware of, but humanity believed in all manner of madness; it was possible. Zarathos had reason to hate Mephisto—if he got the Varkath Star he’d presumably dethrone Hell’s ruler… But why would a human care about the reordering of Hell’s power structure?
Theorizing is fine when you’ve got free time, but keep focus on what matters most. They can’t have the Varkath Star. We need it.
Caretaker would fight the Triumvirate no matter the circumstances, but having the Varkath Star, now… She could lay to rest a fear she’d carried for centuries. There were prophecies about the Midnight Sun that could not be allowed to bloom, and an amulet of such power would prevent the worst of them.
She summoned a pot of black tea and went back to work, only marginally aware of the hours slipping by. She already had pieces of more than a dozen strong spells, phrases and intentions that should resolve different parts of the seal, but she wasn’t confident about bringing them all together. Agatha would have known how to take the disparate parts and weave them into a seamless assault, but of course that was another thing that didn’t really matter.
Nico might be able to do it. The girl’s potential was vast. She was barely trained, her work with the finicky Staff of One still inconsistent, but she already had access to energies that had taken Caretaker decades to cultivate. The girl could assist, when it was time.
The time is now. Today. You can’t wait. The Triumvirate would go back to Transia soon. Perhaps they were there now, chipping away at the magic that kept them from the Varkath Star. Satana and Zarathos were both sorcerers, although Caretaker suspected neither was particularly adept; their forceful attack on the vault hadn’t indicated a measured or discerning approach, or that they knew how the seal operated. She hoped she was right. Caretaker went back to her work, forcing herself to focus.
She was researching the possibilities of adding a corruption incantation when there was a light tap on her door. Caretaker looked up, realized the sun had risen. Nestled between cliffs, the Abbey was almost always in shade, but looking through the trio of windows behind her desk, she could clearly see the trees surrounding the grotto. The dawn was well past.
“Yes?”
Blade stepped in. “I got a name connected to that house.”
“Oh?”
The dhampir nodded. “John Doe. He signed a one-year rental agreement about six weeks ago.”
Caretaker wasn’t sure why he looked pleased. “Not a name that will advance our search.”
“No, but it gave me an idea,” Blade said. “I found a storage unit less than an hour north, rented on the same day, under the name Max Mustermann. John Doe in German.”
Caretaker nodded. “That’s something.”
“I’d like to take the Suns with me to check it out,” Blade said. “It won’t take long.”
“Now?”
“Why not? They’re awake, eating breakfast.”
“Take Robbie and Magik,” Caretaker said. “I’d like Nico with me. Ask her to meet me at the forge when she’s finished.”
Blade nodded. “When are we going back to Transia?”
Caretaker stood, picking up her pages of notes. “Later today, I expect. Don’t linger in the city.”
Blade nodded again and was gone.
Caretaker started for the forge, stretching her back as she walked, feeling her age. She climbed the wide stone steps and entered the cavernous chamber, the giant round window into the demon’s lair alight, as always. The Sumerian demon slept most of the time but was always burning, lending warmth and light to the wide, shadowy room where the Suns sometimes practiced. The chamber had been formed by elemental magic and still echoed with vibrations of the force used to create it; the bonds that held its demon in place were vital and strong. Both imbued the chamber with a magic-friendly signature of possibility, an excellent environment for creation; the Abbey had produced some of the finest metalwork currently in use by Earth’s greatest fighters. The Sorcerer Supreme was overdue to visit, in fact. He’d promised to help her forge new armor for the team. She’d meant to call him weeks ago…
Why did I think I had more time? The twenty-first century’s alignment had been mapped out since the last Midnight Sun, written and prophesied about for a thousand years… and yet here it was, and she hadn’t gotten around to a hundred vital tasks she’d meant to complete before the rise. Time was the greatest magician, hiding its own passing, casting the illusion that there would always be more.
Caretaker walked to the center of the chamber and sat cross-legged on the bare floor facing the forge’s great window. The flames were low, banked to the bottom half of the glass, the inscriptions circling the round chamber glowing only faintly. When in use, the flames filled the chamber and heated the entire Abbey to an uncomfortable degree.
She took a few breaths, relaxing, and had just retrieved the necessary books from her office when Nico came in. The young witch sat on the floor next to her, reading the titles that Caretaker had assembled, stacked in front of them. She had a small cut under one eye and a bruise on her collarbone but looked much better for her rest, her eyes bright and alert. Caretaker handed her the papers, gave her time to read through them. Transmutation of atomic energy, a spell to induce natural decay, oxidation magic, lines of negation, will of ownership.
“We must create an intention that includes all of these elements,” Caretaker said.
Nico nodded. “What about a thread picker? Like the Virottio?”
The Virottio was an ancient song, sometimes used to create space within established spells. It culled incidental power created by overlapping intentions.
“Yes, good,” Caretaker said. She’d only been thinking of the seal, not the whole. The chant would make an excellent framework. She summoned Songs of Transfiguration from the library and handed it to Nico, adding a line to her notes.
Together, they opened the books and spread them out in a semi-circle, turned to the useful spells. The forge’s firelight splashed across the faded pages, the dusty scent of ink and paper rising into the magic-rich air. Nico retrieved her laptop and made her own notes while they talked over the correct order, the girl both thoughtful and thorough. Agatha had taught her well, guided the bold young witch to the layers of nuance that complex magic required.
If she’d spent more time with Nico and less with Scarlet Witch…
Caretaker pushed the thought from her mind, refusing to follow it. She and Nico would break the seal, the Midnight Suns would vanquish the Triumvirate, and the Varkath Star would ensure that the alignment passed without upsetting the Balance. There could be no other outcome.
* * *
ZARATHOS woke up to confusion and shouting panic.
“Come on, baby, you don’t have to push, I’m totally—ahhh! What the hell is that? What are you doing? Hey! Hey, stop!”
Zarathos opened his eyes and saw the succubus pushing a mortal at him. The man was fighting her, his face a mask of panic, but the succubus easily dragged him to where Zarathos lay, covered by a blanket on a cot in a small room.
“You should eat, my lord,” Satana said, bowing her head while the frightened human flailed in her grasp.
Zarathos grabbed the man and brought him in close, slapping his hand across the vessel’s chest, finding the light there. He cracked his own essence open, exposing his fathomless need, an emptiness inside of him that clawed hungrily for soul energy, eagerly pulling at the distressed human. The mortal shrieked as his soul spilled out of him, an ethereal vapor extruding from his pores, leaking out of his face holes. Zarathos accepted the drift of light, pulling it into himself.
The mortal kept squawking for help, so he twisted its head around and killed it, sucking up the last dregs of its energy before dropping it onto the floor.
Zarathos sat up on the rickety cot, trying to remember everything. Green light came from a box in the dusty corner of the little room. The seal, our enemies… Had they traveled in an automobile?
“Bring me more,” he rumbled, and Satana bowed her head again.
“Of course, my lord.” She pulled a slim device from her tight pocket and tapped at it. “They deliver themselves now. Isn’t that amazing? I only had to put up my picture and they come here. Well, Fenn has me meet them on the corner, but that’s no hardship. It’s a great time saver.”
“What of the vault? Our enemies?”
“Vault’s still sealed—Fenn says it’s on a timer—and our enemies have retreated for now.” Satana turned toward the corridor, raised her voice. “Hey boys, a little help in here?”
A pair of fresh soulless entered the room, turned their servile eyes to the succubus. She motioned at the dead man.
“Take this away. Put it the room with all the boxes.”
Her servants nodded, promptly set to work. As they carried the body out, Fenn sidled around them and walked in.
He bowed deeply. “Your Excellency.”
“What timer do you speak of? The vault is sealed by time?”
“Yes, master. That is why your brilliant show of incredible might was unsuccessful. I have researched the seal’s magic. It will open very soon, before the alignment.” The red-headed mortal smiled, a sly smile. “And I believe our enemies will assist us. They have sorcerers of their own and will try to open the lock themselves. We won’t have to wait long.”
“We will go now to secure the vault,” Zarathos said. A time lock. He had sensed some complexity to the vault’s seal and ignored it, certain that his power would blow it apart.
“You and Satana must regain your strength first,” Fenn said. “I’ll know if the chamber is breached. We need not hurry, only be ready to move in and claim the amulet when the seal is broken.”
“Who are these enemies?” Zarathos asked. “I saw the Ghost Rider, and the Mistress of Limbo. The old woman was Blood.”
“Another was Blade, a vampire slayer,” Fenn said. “He is half vampire himself, a fighter of some renown. The staff-bearer is a witch, Nico Minoru. They came for us last night, but we easily escaped. I believe I may have injured some of them; there were no bodies discovered, but they wouldn’t have walked away unscathed. These Midnight Suns are no match against my machines. They cannot compete with your strength, Your Highness, or Satana’s clever guile.”
The Midnight Suns. Demon fighters. Zarathos had fought against the Midnight Suns long ago, but the members were not the same.
Zarathos stretched his arms. He was tired but so much better than when he’d escaped Mephisto’s prison, his body strong. He had produced his breaking spell using power taken from the succubus, who was weak; the vault only remained sealed because of this, and because the nature of the enchantment was unusual. It was no reflection on him that he had overextended himself on borrowed power. If anything, it proved he could dominate his limitations by force of will.
A light flashed on one of Fenn’s arm decorations. He frowned.
“Someone has found one of my storage units.”
Satana brightened. “Right now? Where? I’ll go.”
“Unnecessary, Your Glory. It is only old equipment, nothing we can’t afford to lose—”
“I will go,” Satana said, clearly, and Fenn’s head bobbed.
“Of course, mistress. I’ll get the address. Only you mustn’t lead anyone here, or reveal your presence to them.”
“Do you think I was born yesterday?” Satana asked. “Come on, chop chop!”
Fenn hurried out. Satana walked to the side of Zarathos’s cot and gifted him a smile.
“You will have your fill of souls when I return, Dark Lord,” she said. “You will bathe in mortal essence and stand ready for your rule.”
“And you will have your realm doubled, when I hold the Varkath Star,” Zarathos allowed. She was weak, Fenn was weak, but Zarathos could not be fastidious in his condition. He should have waited before. The Varkath Star would have been his by now if he’d been able to rely on his own power to attain it.
“I care only that you will be my master,” Satana breathed, the warmth and admiration in her gaze unmistakable. “I care only to be at your side when the vault opens, to witness your ascension.”
Zarathos lifted his chin. His subjects were loyal, as was his due.
Fenn returned with instructions, and Satana disappeared in a pulse of pink light. Fenn backed out of the room, bowing, apologizing for the coarse environment, re-pledging his fealty.
Alone once more, Zarathos leaned back on the creaking cot and drifted into a healing sleep.
* * *
THE storage unit was at one of those sprawling, empty complexes of tiny orange and white garages outside of Kingston, manned by a bored clerk in a small front office. Robbie went to find out the unit’s number while Blade and Magik waited in the shade outside, between two rows of garages. There was a lone security guard sitting in a golf cart next to the office, reading a paperback and eating a breakfast sandwich out of a bag.
Robbie joined them a minute later. “337D,” he said, and pointed northwest.
They started walking, keeping to the shade. The morning sun was bright, the air redolent of exhaust fumes from the nearby expressway. “How’d you get the number?” Blade asked.
“I told him Uncle Max had a stroke and couldn’t remember whether or not he’d rented a unit.”
Blade nodded. Clever. “Did the clerk remember Mustermann?”
“He never saw him. It was an online thing. He said he mailed the key out to a post-office box in Long Island a month and a half ago.”
They walked to the end of the row and turned left, past a couple of dumpsters crammed with broken-down boxes. There were a few people visiting their stuff or unloading more, but only a smattering.
Unit 337D was in the last row of units near the back corner, lifeless except for a few flies buzzing around an empty soda can on the ground. Blade glanced around—no cameras—and grabbed the handle to the sliding garage door. He felt the lock snap when he lifted it, a brief squeal of metal that was hidden by the rattle of movement.
Machines and pieces of machines sticking out of boxes. Blade took a deep breath, hunting for chemical smells, hints of explosive materials, but there was nothing. No magic, either.
Old metal. Broken things.
“What is all this stuff?” Robbie asked. He touched what looked like a photo enlarger on an umbrella stand.
Blade shook his head. The unit was stacked with bizarre-looking equipment—boxes of switches with panels hanging open, mismatched metals soldered together and decorated with wires. Some of the pieces looked like expensive stereo equipment, sleek and well designed; more of it looked like science-fair robotics, homemade and unrecognizable.
The three of them started looking through the unit. Besides the unknown machinery, there were some unopened boxes of parts—small lights and circuit boards, mostly. Robbie came up with an engine block from a V-8 in a box of scrap metal and Magik found a hologram projector with a busted lens, but Blade couldn’t even guess at what most of the junk was. Nothing appeared to be in working order. There were no personal items at all, no papers or photos or receipts.
Blade turned around, hands on his hips, frustrated. It was corroboration that their John Doe had built the gamma shields, but he’d already assumed as much. Demons weren’t generally big on mechanics.
“Oh, hey,” Robbie said, and lifted a moth-eaten canvas duffel bag out of box. The side was emblazoned with a faded red symbol, so dirty it was barely visible, but Blade recognized it instantly. A red skull atop six curling tentacles, bleached to a murky pink.
“That’s Hydra,” he said, and reached for the bag. Was the Triumvirate’s human member associated with Hydra? The organization had been laying low since the Avengers blew up their command a few years back, but the fascist group had deep, ugly roots. Hydra had existed in some form or another since the rise of Homo sapiens.
Blade dumped the bag’s contents on the cement floor, and a thousand assorted screws rattled out. Nothing. They dug around for a few more minutes, but the duffel was the only Hydra-related item they could find.
“You think Hydra’s backing the Triumvirate?” Robbie asked.
Blade shook his head. “Not really their style anymore, is it? They’re nation-building and buying politicians, making bank. Plus, the gamma generators are partly magical, and Hydra hasn’t used mystics in decades. If John Doe has a connection, I don’t think it’s current.”
“It’s a place to look, perhaps,” Magik said. “Inventors or engineers once associated with Hydra?”
That’s a long list. “Maybe,” Blade agreed, but he thought it was a dead end. Every other villain on Earth had a connection to Hydra; they were like a boot camp for egomaniacal lunatics. Not much of a lead, but we could reach out to Captain America, see if he—
Blade cut himself off. A burst of mystical energy had flared close by, there and gone before he could analyze it. Gone or hidden?
“We should go,” he said, backing up a step from the open door. He hadn’t seen any kind of alarm or sensor, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. He turned to look at Magik—
—and Zarathos stood in her place, towering over the boxes of junk, his giant red skull wreathed in flame. His piggy white eyes glowed with malice. Sour brimstone filled the air.
Blade snatched a pair of knives off his chest harness, but Robbie was already Ghost Rider, already whipping a chain at the giant.
Zarathos bellowed as the burning links wrapped around him and he whipped out a glittering longsword, smashing the chain to the ground. He stumbled backward, knocking over a stack of boxes.
“Emam ane es ianquin!” The demon shrieked, his baritone shaking the walls.
Blade flipped his knives at the demon’s gut, one-two, but Zarathos was fast, striking them down with his sword, still gabbling furiously. Blade launched two more with the same result. The demon was an expert swordsman, as good as—
“Wait!” Blade shouted, but Robbie had already launched to tackle the demon, howling, and they crashed into more boxes, metal clanging to the ground.
Blade lunged forward and grabbed Ghost Rider’s shoulders, jerking him back, but not before Robbie got a few punches in, hammering the demon’s crimson skull. Robbie and his Spirit fought against the restraint, hard, and Blade struggled to hang on. Ghost Rider was violently strong. Zarathos backed against the metal wall of the unit and held his sword defensively, more nonsense thundering out of his lipless fanged jaws.
Ghost Rider broke Blade’s hold but didn’t attack again; Zarathos stayed in his defensive position.
“Magik?” Blade asked. He put up his hands, palms out.
“Es tu uru an!” Zarathos said. He sounded angry, threatening, but he lowered his sword slightly.
“We see Zarathos,” Blade said, hoping she could understand, that the illusion was only one way. Agatha had taught him a spell that could melt glamour, but it took time and they needed to get gone, now. They’d been attacked by someone he couldn’t sense at all. “Make a portal.”
Blade mimed holding a sword and cutting a portal, not daring to draw his own katana. Zarathos glared at them, then sliced the air in front of him. Blade saw nothing, but felt the opening’s magic, could smell Limbo’s light air breeze into the stuffy little garage.
The giant demon put a foot forward, and the portal snapped into view. His massive, muscular frame wavered and then melted like cotton candy in water, dissolving, revealing Magik’s slight form underneath. The smell of brimstone disappeared, replaced by the smell of burnt flesh; there were a dozen red weals across Magik’s upper arms and the tops of her thighs from Robbie’s chain, several blistering. Purple swellings rose along her jaw and her lower lip was split. Her gaze flicked back and forth between Blade and Ghost Rider, her teeth tightly clenched. She looked fully prepared to kill them both.
“We couldn’t see you,” Blade said. “Or smell you, or hear you. I’m so sorry, but we have to go right now.”
Magik nodded but gestured for them to step through the portal first. Blade didn’t blame her; if he’d been jumped like that, he wouldn’t feel great about turning his back on his teammates right away, either.
As soon as they were all on the stone bridge, Robbie let go of the Spirit of Vengeance and started apologizing profusely. Blade felt bad, too. The glamour had been note-perfect. He’d only recognized Magik by her sword work.
If I hadn’t… It didn’t bear considering. They’d been seconds from tragedy.
Magik kept them on the bridge for a moment before cutting a door back to the Abbey, her wounds fading to bruises and pink burn spots by Limbo’s thin orange light as Robbie continued to apologize. She stood with her eyes closed, her shoulders relaxing as the swellings and cuts healed.
“I’m just really so, so sorry,” Robbie repeated, and finally stopped to take a breath. Magik hadn’t said a word.
“If I had seen Zarathos, I would have attacked him,” she said, finally, and Blade felt his chest loosen up.
“Your sword work was impeccable,” Blade said, and Magik opened her eyes to look at him.
“Better than my knife throwing,” he added. “If you’d gone on offense, you probably could have taken both of us.”
Magik made direct eye contact. “Probably?”
Robbie and Blade both grinned and she smiled very slightly, the cut on her lip only a thin scratch as she turned to open a portal. Blade fervently hoped that the trauma of being attacked suddenly by two of her friends would fade as quickly.
The Triumvirate was racking up quite the list of offenses. Blade wondered if they knew how much trouble they were in. They’d pissed off all the Midnight Suns, and Blade for one wouldn’t rest until they were very, very sorry.