Wicked War of Mine (Overworld Chronicles Book 9) (20 page)

Elyssa's eyes flashed surprise. "I'm surprised there are so many."

I spotted Stacey walking across from the lycans to her fellow felycans. Even with her preggers bulge, she still managed to walk in the most seductive way, hips swaying, her body moving with liquid, feline grace. She even captivated the eyes of a few Templars. Stacey clapped her hands and got the attention of her kitty comrades. I couldn't make out what she said thanks to distance and the general hubbub of activity, but whatever it was seemed to galvanize the felycans.

Some of them roared like lions even in human form, causing some lycans to howl in response.

I elbowed Elyssa in the ribs. "Brings a whole new meaning to cat calls, doesn't it?"

She groaned. "Maybe you can defeat Daelissa with bad jokes."

"If only."

A trumpet sounded. There was a flurry of activity and suddenly the mass of Templars melted into neat formations. The lycans and felycans were a lot less organized, but an OCD Templar had thoughtfully marked the floors where those two groups should line up, making it a paint-by-numbers exercise.

A klaxon sounded and a low hum filled the cavern as the Obsidian Arch powered on. The space between the towering arch columns flickered between white, gray, and black. The humming noise wound higher and higher until, with a loud crackle, the air within the arch split open. Three platoons of gray men appeared on the other side.

Without a shout of command, the perfectly aligned formations marched through.

The first platoon was comprised of golems in their standard gray business outfits complete with dark sunglasses and slicked-back silvery hair. They merged into a double-file line at a position marked by Templar organizers.

Elyssa breathed a sigh of relief. "I guess your Mom's contract held up."

A knot of pressure in my chest loosened a little at the sudden appearance of Fjoeruss's forces. "Thank god." I felt my forehead wrinkle as the next group of gray men marched through.

The golems in this platoon wore gray trench coats and matching fedoras. Their clothing glittered as if coated with sequins. Futuristic guns hung from leather holsters at their waists.

"What the heck are they supposed to be?" I said. "Disco cowboys?"

Elyssa squinted. "I think their clothing is made of diamond fiber."

"Ah." I magnified my vision. "They must be the anti-Arcane golems."

"Those guns sure look weird." She looked at me. "Looks like something from one of your space movies."

"More like something from a black-and-white sci-fi movie from the fifties." I was really curious to see what they did.

The members of the third and last platoon emerged from the arch portal. These golems wore gray leather outfits with burgundy lightning symbols on the sleeves. Black leather gloves and tall matching jackboots completed the outfit. Curved sabers with sparkling hilt guards hung from both sides of their sword belts.

"Diamond fiber sabers," Elyssa murmured. "Wow. I can't imagine how expensive and difficult it was to make those."

"More difficult than making the trench coats?" I asked.

She nodded. "Diamond fiber is almost indestructible, so you can't sharpen it. You have to layer the blade, and even then, it's nearly impossible to give it a sharp edge before the spell resistance kicks in."

I'd seen diamond fiber used in all sorts of capacities. Unfortunately, the magical resistance that made it so strong also made it somewhat useless for people who used spells because it interfered with magic. I assumed the anti-Arcane golems could wear the diamond fiber clothing because they didn't use magic.

"I have a feeling Fjoeruss might be into cowboys and pirates." I suspected if I could make golems like he did, I might build armies of my own toy soldiers.

Elyssa chuckled. "They're like full-sized dolls for grown men."

Fjoeruss flew through the arch on a large carpet. He saw us and glided to our position as the Obsidian Arch powered down with a low hum. "Is the assault ready to commence?"

"Better almost late than never, huh?" I said.

"I am a very busy person," Fjoeruss said. "It behooves me to be efficient with my time."

A voice boomed across the cavern. "Leadership, take positions."

"Guess that's us," I said, giving Fjoeruss a pointed look.

He didn't seem the least bit fazed. "I will follow your lead, Mr. Slade."

I directed our carpet over the heads of the troops and took us through the control room door. Most control room doors were hidden by illusion and only wide enough for two people to walk through side-by-side. In advance of this operation, Commander Salazar's people had remodeled the doorway so an elephant could fit through the thing. I swooped through easily and zipped down the center aisle to a niche filled with omniarches.

We held position on our carpet, hovering across the aisle from the omniarches. Fjoeruss stopped to our left. Commander Salazar arrived a moment later on his rug and was followed by a carpet bearing Colin McCloud. Stacey and Ryland appeared on a carpet of their own a moment later.

I waved at my friends. "How in the world did you get felycans to help?" I asked Stacey.

Ryland barked a laugh. "Might wanna wait and hear that story later."

"A bloody nightmare," Stacey said, gracing us with a smile. "I believe it will be worth it."

"Mutants," Fjoeruss said under his breath.

My super hearing, however, heard it just fine. "I don't appreciate you calling my friends names."

"Simply an observation," Fjoeruss said without a hint of shame. "Though we Brightlings were responsible for creating vampires, it is interesting how humans mutated into magical beings on their own."

"Call it what you will," Stacey said. "I consider it evolution."

Another trumpet echoed in the main way station outside. Templars activated each of the three functioning omniarches across the aisle. Portals winked on. Through the gateways, I saw a cavernous hallway lined with ornate marble arches and a black marble floor veined with white. A massive statue loomed in the center of the corridor. The middle portal looked upon the front of the statue while the other two portals viewed it from diagonal angles.

"I think it's rather ironic we used Daelissa's statue as a reference for our portals," Elyssa said.

Fjoeruss grunted. "I suppose it is rather poetic."

"Forward troops advance," boomed the voice of the head coordinator.

Templar troops swarmed into the control room in ranks six soldiers across. As the line reached the first portal, the first two columns veered into it. The middle two columns entered the center portal while the last columns entered the portal to my left. Within minutes, the Templar force was through.

The coordinator sounded another command. "Leadership, advance!"

I took us through the portal. My vision warped as if looking from inside a fishbowl for a split instant as we entered the traversion tunnel and just as quickly snapped back to normal as we reached the other side thousands of miles away. Fjoeruss emerged from a portal thirty yards to our left while the other carpets came through the right portal.

Climbing higher, I took us to a position twenty feet above the troops. Looking at the arched ceiling hundreds of feet overhead, I felt like a Lilliputian might while walking into the house of a giant. Even the massive statue of Daelissa reached only halfway to the ceiling. The corridor was at least a couple hundred yards wide, and far too long for me to even guess its length. Other large statues lined the hallway. My eyes caught on one that bore a striking likeness to Fjoeruss.

As I gaped like a tourist, I spotted scouts racing ahead while, far behind us, Templars in the rear ranks set up pedestals with symbols on them and transmitted the pictures to our troops located around the world. Portals blinked open in front of each of the paintings. Blue Cloaks streamed through one, while other Arcanes came through another. A sortie of flying carpets zipped through another portal and hovered above the Blue Cloaks. I saw Shelton and Bella on one of them.

After the Blue Cloaks were through, my father and Aunt Vallaena led the Houses of Daemos into the corridor. Kassallandra, Domitia, Godric, Yuuki, and the other leaders followed in order of power. Each house head carried a flying carpet.

I took us over to Dad and Vallaena and landed the carpet on the floor. "Ready for this?" I asked him.

He walked between me and Elyssa, wrapping an arm around our shoulders and squeezing. "You bet." He surveyed the crowd. "I gotta say, this is pretty damned amazing, son. I'm proud of you."

Vallaena smiled at me. "You have come so far, nephew."

I grinned. "Seems like just yesterday you were chasing me down with your hellhounds at Arcane University."

Her eyes almost seemed to mist at the memory. Vallaena leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.

I gave her a surprised look. "What was that for?"

"For rising to the challenge and proving your worth." She looked at Elyssa. "I must also admit that this young woman has done more for you than I thought possible." She squeezed my hand. "I know I have been somewhat overbearing in the past, but it was necessary."

I saw battle coordinators on flying carpets flashing the signal that indicated we would be marching forward soon and realized just how big and dangerous this operation would be. I gripped Vallaena in a tight hug and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Thank you," I said. "Stay safe."

Vallaena's lips curled into a smile. She turned to Dad. "I told you he likes me."

Dad snorted. "At least somebody does." He gave me and Elyssa another quick hug. "Stay safe, kiddos. I guess we need to get into position."

I saw Godric floating on his flying carpet. He gave me a cold look before turning away.

"We'll see you soon," I told Dad and Vallaena. I took the flying carpet bearing Elyssa and me back into the air and headed for the command positions.

"There's your mother," Elyssa said, pointing toward a carpet with Mom and Ivy on it. They were hovering next to Joss and Otaleon. Nightliss stood on a carpet of her own with a worried expression on her face.

"What's wrong?" I asked the petite Darkling.

Nightliss frowned. "Nothing in particular. I believe I am suffering flashbacks."

Mom nodded. "It's like déjà vu all over again."

"The outcome will be different," I said, projecting a confident smile.

Ivy wrinkled her nose as she looked at the army beneath us. "This place stinks. All the body odor drifts up here."

"Probably not body odor," I said. "Just a lot of nervous farts."

Ivy grimaced. "Eww!"

The battle coordinators flashed another symbol and the back half of the army responded by marching backward to make more room as lycans arrived from La Casona. Instead of forming columns and rows, they pooled into smaller packs, as did the felycans and moggies who came through shortly after.

I scanned the corridor. "I'm really surprised there's no response from the enemy yet."

"It is a bit strange." Elyssa peered through a set of magnifying spectacles. "I know we're being quiet, but moving so many soldiers makes enough noise to alert anyone with one ear."

The gray men were the last to arrive. They formed neat square formations on the eastern side of the corridor.

The south corridor was filled for hundreds of yards in either direction by our army. Even with so many soldiers, there was still a wide aisle down the middle of our forces in case we needed to shuffle their order for any reason. The Daemos and Blue Cloaks were in the rear to the west and east, respectively. The shifters—lycans and felycans—were in front of the Blue Cloaks while the gray men stood before the Daemos. Templar soldiers and Arcanes were at the forefront.

The battle coordinators flashed the symbol to advance. The front ranks of Templars marched toward the entrance to the nexus way station several hundred yards down the corridor.

I looked at Fjoeruss and nodded my head toward the statue in his likeness. "I love what you guys did with the place. Makes me want to drop to my knees and do some worshipping."

He cast a sour look at the statue. "I did not request a sculpture raised, but Daelissa felt the desire to decorate after these annexes were built."

"How long did it take to build the corridors?"

"Not as long as you might think." He glanced at Nightliss. "We had a large workforce of Darklings build the corridors and the hub. It took several decades for the basic structure, and several more to embellish them."

Nightliss's lips peeled back. "It was the building of this place that caused my people to revolt. Little did Daelissa know that she built the very Darkling army that opposed her."

"Indeed." Fjoeruss looked unimpressed. "Your sister has never appreciated irony, so I doubt she ever blamed her own lack of foresight for the war."

"Though my memories may never again be complete, I now remember the day Daelissa enslaved me and brought me here to help build this grand monument." Nightliss jabbed a finger toward the huge statue of her sister. "If I could, I would topple it over on her."

Elyssa's eyes flashed wide. "Ouch. I've heard of sibling rivalry, but it doesn't sound like you and Daelissa ever got along."

Nightliss shook her head vehemently. "Daelissa discovered her affinity a day before mine came to me. Even before then we had never been close. Our parents always spoiled her. It was no secret they preferred the blonde hair and fair skin she shared with our mother."

Fjoeruss looked at her appraisingly. "It will be interesting to see if you have it in you to kill your own sister, should the opportunity arise."

More symbols flashed as our troops neared the entrance to the nexus.

"It's time for us to advance," I said and moved my arm forward.

"I'm nervous," Joss said as we flew over the moving troops. He touched his stomach.

Fjoeruss stared at Joss. "You've been feeding from both essences, I see."

"How do you know that?" Joss asked.

"The eyes," Fjoeruss replied.

Otaleon narrowed his gaze. "I know you from somewhere."

"I'm sure you do." Fjoeruss turned to me. "They just flashed the symbol for my troops to move out. It is best I accompany them." Before I could answer, he flew away.