I leaned in toward Cassius. “What’s happening?”
“They’re conferring.”
Long seconds passed, and then Lianel opened his eyes. “It is agreed that considering our predicament and your offer of aid, you will be privy to classified information. You are already aware that the divine abdicated his role here a long time ago. But he left writings, ramblings that held secrets, and in them was mentioned a power to rival his own hidden in the Underealm. You have seventy-two hours to retrieve that power source. Once the time elapses, we will drain what is left of the power in the Beyond to propel our departure from this plane of existence.”
It was real. There was hope. “Where is it?”
Lianel’s expression was grave, almost as if he was imparting a death sentence. “A place they call Limbo.”
Limbo? The no-man’s land filled with ancient spirits that the Beyond had decided to forfeit.
“I know it. We can leave now.” I looked up at Cassius, who nodded curtly.
“You misunderstand,” Lianel said. “The Beyond has its plan, which we will execute in seventy-two hours. The potential of a power source is too slim for us to expend any resources on it.”
Wait, was he saying what I thought he was saying? “You expect me to do this alone?”
“We do not expect you to do anything. You wished to have an opportunity to save your world, and this is it.”
My world. Not theirs. Mentally, they’d already left.
“Lianel,” Cassius said. “If we send a team then—”
“Silence!” Lianel’s voice was a boom. “You will follow your orders, Cassius. You will prepare the Flagship.”
Cassius inclined his head stiffly. “Lianel.”
“Seventy-two hours’ grace,” Lianel said to me. “That is all we are willing to give you.”
Cassius’s jaw ticked, and then he grabbed my arm and tugged me from the room. The door closed behind us, and he towered over me, eyes blazing.
“Are you sure you wish to do this?” he asked.
My stomach trembled, but I raised my chin. “I have to.”
He clenched his teeth. “For the first time in eons, the desire to ignore orders is a burn in my veins. This feels wrong.”
It wasn’t the only thing that was wrong. I needed to tell him about the Edge, and I needed answers about Uriel. “Cassius, I wasn’t able to save the core souls. I didn’t have access to retrieve them from the librarian.”
He frowned. “Was I wrong to assume that you have Uriel?”
“He didn’t make it into the Edge.”
“You were allowed admittance to the Edge alone?” He looked confused. “The system must be glitching. Only pure celestials can command the librarian.”
Which was why he’d told me to take Uriel with me. Made sense now. Shit, I hadn’t even considered that when I’d leaped into the shimmer.
“Uriel would have been able to access the core souls,” Cassius said. “Why did you not take him into the Edge?”
“We were attacked by malignant, and he stayed to fend them off, and when I was ejected from the Edge, Uriel was possessed.” I studied his expression, noting the confusion clouding his eyes.
“That’s impossible. A pure celestial can’t be tainted by malignant.”
“I know, but he was, which means…”
“No. That can’t be right. Our celestials are pure, born of divine light.”
“Right, okay, maybe, but there’s something different about Uriel. There has to be, or a malignant wouldn’t have been able to take control of him. He deserves answers.”
Cassius placed his large hand on my shoulder. “Succeed in your mission, and I’ll get you the information you want.” His eyes narrowed. “I promise you.”
I believed him. “Thank you.”
He nodded curtly. “In the meantime, I’ll do what I can to stall Lianel and give you a few extra hours. I can’t ignore orders, but I can take my time executing them.” He smiled, and it transformed his somber face. “Good luck, Seraphina Dawn.”
I was going to Limbo.
And I’d be doing it alone.
Chapter Nine
Cora
The Magiguard offices are in Central Necro masquerading as a generic office building. The streets are buzzing with people as I cross the road and head for the main doors.
Dayna warned me I may not get past the reception desk. The masquerade is real, and Magiguard security is top-notch, but I promised Fee I’d take care of this, and I don’t intend to let her down.
I pass a young couple on the way to the entrance. They stand with their heads together, poring over a piece of paper.
“They’re paying for blood donations,” the woman says.
“There’s no address,” the guy says.
“There’s a phone number.”
The door to the building is the thick glass kind with a metallic vertical bar to be used as a handle. I push it open and stride into the foyer. My heels clip on the tiled floor as I make my way to reception with a huge smile on my face.
The man behind the counter glances up at me and does a double-take. Yeah, I have a million-dollar smile when I decide to use it.
He puts down his pen and blinks at me. “And how may I help you today?”
“I’m here to see Ursula Mann.”
His expression smooths out, and he rakes me over. “I think you have the wrong building. We don’t have anyone by that name here.”
Dayna warned me about this. The Magiguard run a front business with real human employees, but this guy is Magiguard, and he knows every other Magiguard by sight.
I’m not one of them, and I’m not an entity known to them, which makes my knowing Ursula’s name a red flag.
“Look, my name is Cora Dawn. I’m a friend of Seraphina Dawn, who’s a Dominus. Tell Ursula we got her message to Azazel. Can you do that? Please?”
He shrugs, impassive. “Like I said, we have no one by that name here.”
Oh, bloody hell. “Fine, then you can chase up on your missing humans issue yourself because all the Dominus are tied up on other matters.”
He stares at me levelly, unmoved.
I throw up my hands. “I tried.”
I turn and head for the door. There’s nothing else to be done here. At least I managed to get a message to Keon at the Academy. Not a total failure then. The crisp midday air slaps me in the face, and the smell of coffee and bacon fills my nostrils. My stomach rumbles. I need food, and there, like a beacon beaming at me from across the street, is a greasy spoon café.
“Cora?”
I pause at the curb and look over my shoulder to see a slender woman standing behind me.
She smiles thinly. “I believe you wanted to see me?”
I polish off my bacon sarnie while Ursula watches. The greasy spoon café does excellent bacon sarnies, and the coffee is pretty good too.
I wipe my hands on a napkin. “You sure you don’t want one? They’re delicious.”
She smiles thinly. “I’m not hungry, but thanks. You said all the Dominus are busy.” She gives me a skeptical look.
At least she’s waited till I finish eating. Polite of her, which means having to lie to her will probably make me feel a little bad.
Okay, no, it won’t. “Yep, all busy doing very boring Dominus type things.”
The Dominion have been clear about us keeping the whole world-ending thing under wraps. There is nothing anyone could do to stop it. Only a power source can do that, and Fee is already on the case.
The Underealm issues are nothing to do with the Magiguard. My job is to deal with business as usual and make sure Fee doesn’t come back to a shit load of jobs in need of completion, because with Azazel in the Underealm looking for Lilith, all the Dominus shit falls on her.
“And Azazel asked you to take over his role?” The skeptical look hasn’t left Ursula’s face.
I sigh. “Look, if you don’t want the assist, then that’s fine. I have other things to be getting on with. You can explain to Az why you didn’t let me help when he gets back.”
Her brow pinches slightly. “No. That’s fine. I know you’re Fee’s best friend and honestly, we need the help. Magiguard aren’t exactly inconspicuous in the outlier community. They see us and they clam up. It’s why we only show up when the crime has been committed and nab the perpetrator. Investigations are handled by Azazel and his team.” She frowns. “Where did you say his team was?”
Ha, trying to catch me out, huh? “I didn’t. They’re working on Underealm business right now, hence the reason I’m here.” She looks as if she wants to ask more questions, so I forge on quickly. “Tell me about these missing humans?”
The drop in her shoulders tells me she’s conceded that it’s me or nothing. “The Magiguard keep tabs on human crimes and assess to make sure the crimes aren’t supernatural in nature. We intervene where need be. There are wards set up all over Necro to alert us to outlier crimes against humans. Over the last few days, those alarms have been tripped several times, but every time we arrive on the scene, there’s no evidence of any crime.”
“Okay…maybe your wards are glitching?”
“That’s what we thought, but then we ran a check through the human police case files and came across a spate of missing persons reports that roughly coincide with our wards being tripped.”
“You think the missing people are victims of an outlier kidnapping?”
“We suspect as much. So far, human law enforcement has no leads. These people just upped and vanished. The only time that ever happens is if Mouths are involved, but we keep track of Mouth activity separately, and right now, the creatures seem to have gone underground.” She sips her tea again. “Strange.”
Not really, considering their masters, the Dread, have either fled to the Beyond or been slaughtered trying. But that’s another thing I can’t tell Ursula, not without bringing the Beyond into it and inviting a shit load of questions I won’t be able to answer.