Page 46 of Elixir of Strife
But the electricity never came. This wasn’t a variant of lightning magic. No entrapment, either, the constriction and restraint of an enchanted net. I stood up straight, opened my eyes, and blinked into the darkness.
Goosebumps rose all over my skin. It was colder, much colder than the air-conditioned interiors of the bar. And the light was all wrong, a distant pale green that came from the far edges of this room, if it could even be called that. There were no walls, for one thing. The same ghostly light emanated from the ceiling, and yet this place had no ceiling, either.
I raised my head, and kept raising it, my eyes going wider, my mouth falling open as I tried to find the source of the jade light. Dangling from the unseen ceiling were great streamers of billowing cloth and threads, like sheets and lengths of silk. Everywhere, from the darkest corners, from all around us, came a constant, quiet skittering.
A hand tugged on the sleeve of my jacket. “Um, Max?” Leon asked. “Where are we?”
The Jade Spider had hurled us into another dimension.
19
LEON
The dark dimension slowly filled with the murmur of confusion. No one wanted to be in this place, but no one knew how to get back out, either. Divina, of course, was the loudest of all. She spun in a circle, glaring around the chamber frantically.
“Let me out of here. I demand that you let me out of here!”
Max shook his head and tutted. “That was why Vera sent us here in the first place. A pocket dimension. A safe space for doing not-so-safe things. Someone was about to blow a gasket back at the bar.” He cracked his knuckles, a threat he could easily back up, but one meant to nip the aggression in the bud. “Is anyone still feeling up for a scrap?”
Divina’s heels clicked as she stumbled toward him. “You shut up, Maximo. You shut up right now.”
Okay, so the bud-nipping clearly didn’t work. I slid between them, shielding him with my body. I could feel his gaze burning through the back of my head.
“You lay a single finger on him,” I told her, “and you’ll regret it. Go ahead and try. You’ve seen inside my head. You know what I can do.”
She stumbled backward, eyes darting. “Then I’ll just command one of these others.” Divina waved vaguely at said others. “These — whoever you are.”
Edel rapped the side of her head with her knuckles, making a wooden knock. “Good luck getting in there.”
Flora pulled a perfume bottle out of her purse, this one cylindrical. For some reason, it reminded me of a can of pepper spray.
It was probably something much worse.
“You get within spitting distance?” Flora shook the bottle, raised it to face level. “I will put you into a coma.”
Oh, yeah. Much worse.
“Then him,” Divina said, pointing at Daniel. “He’s the most malleable of all of you.”
Daniel opened his mouth to protest, then shrugged in agreement. At least he knew his own weaknesses.
“Please, Divina. Enough of this.” Max stepped up to my side, kneading his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “Before you end up hurting someone. Or yourself.”
“Or what about him?”
Divina pointed at yet another man. My muscles tensed, my blood turning cold.
What other man?
I did a quick headcount, scanning the strange chamber. Oh, fuck. Oh, no.
Max looped his fingers around my wrist, pulling me back. “The Quartz Spider.”
“Brendan Shum,” I growled.
He was outfitted in the stealthy, shimmery blacks he wore to help him move unseen in the shadows. The head of salt and pepper hair was unmistakable, so prematurely grayed for such a young face. But how did he get here? And what was he smiling about?
I’d destroyed his mask and goggles the last time we encountered him, using the might of Tiamat’s dragonfire. But Brendan Shum struck me as someone who was resourceful, who could easily steal replacements for his gear if not purchase them outright. He probably had a perfectly functional set sitting around somewhere.
