Baleful Betrayal (24 page)

I struggled for an excuse. "I had to tell them who you were. They had to know they could trust you."

Cora's stony gaze held mine. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes."

"Do they trust you?" she asked.

I'm an idiot.
My throat went dry. "Yes."

"Apparently, I can no longer trust you." Cora shook her head slowly like a disappointed mother. "I do not think the Mzodi should help someone untrustworthy."

"No, please reconsider, Cora." My voice trembled with desperation. "Your crew won't find out from my people, I promise. I really didn't think—"

"That much is obvious," she said, icicles dangling from every word. "We will complete work on the skyway and part ways."

"Is there anything I can do to change your mind?" I asked. "Please, let me earn back your trust."

"Good luck in your endeavors, Justin." She turned and stalked toward the portal zones.

My heart thudded like a timpani drum and my chest felt hollow. I looked at Victus and felt rage building inside. It was almost as if he'd done it on purpose, but why would he sabotage the war effort?

Victus looked at me with some alarm in his eyes. As Cora passed him, he stepped in her way and bowed his head ever so slightly. "My son would dearly love to see your ship. May we come visit it?"

Cora's gaze snapped toward Cumberbatch and the boy as they waited on a portal to open. She stared so long, Victus seemed to wonder if she'd gone catatonic. At last she answered. "Only you and your son may visit. I will be available tomorrow evening."

Delectra raised an eyebrow. "What about me?"

Cora tilted her head slightly as if realizing the other woman was still there. "What about you?"

"Thank you," Victus said quickly, bowing again. "I'm sure Conrad will love it."

"Yes," Cora said faintly. "Perhaps." She snapped her gaze away from Conrad and headed to the open portal leading to the Three Sisters way station, Delectra staring after her with open contempt.

Shelton got in Victus's face. "You're a real calculating jackass, you know that?"

"Step away from my husband," Delectra growled. "Or I will throw you away."

Victus feigned innocence. "I didn't realize you weren't authorized to tell anyone her secret, Justin."

"You knew better," I said, "but you're always looking for an angle, Victus." I had a feeling visiting Cora with his son was another angle.

"We agreed to declassify anything regarding the Glimmer, so long as it didn't involve Cora," he said. "I thought it was fine to ask her for more information."

"Or maybe you asked to declassify it so you could piss her off," I hissed. "What do you have to gain from this?"

"Apologies, Justin." Victus held out his hands in supplication. "I spoke before thinking."

"Yeah, right," Shelton said. "That was premeditated as hell." He grabbed my arm. "Let's go eat before this jackass makes me lose my appetite."

Victus managed a troubled look, though Delectra ruined it by casting murderous glares at Shelton.

"What am I going to do?" I said in a pitiful voice. "They were going to help us, damn it! Now we have to use the skyway. By the time it's fixed, Cephus will have opened a portal to the Void."

"We'll figure out something," Shelton said. "If they're staying to repair the skyway, we have time to change her mind."

"How?" I threw up my hands. "I have nothing she wants."

"Flowers and chocolate always work," Shelton said. He grinned. "C'mon, man, chin up. We've faced tougher odds before. How hard can it be to change a woman's mind?" He frowned. "Never mind. I think we're screwed on this one."

I groaned. "What will I tell the others?"

"Just tell them she decided not to help."

"No." I shook my head. "I'll tell them. Maybe Elyssa or Thomas can figure out something."

"Maybe so." Shelton crossed his arms. "Now, for more important issues—what are we gonna eat?"

I pushed away the troubled thoughts and headed toward the row of dark sedans parked along the back wall.

"I've got half a mind to run against Victus in the next election," Shelton said. "You'd endorse me, right?"

"Yeah, if you can change Cora's mind." I mustered a wan smile.

He snorted. "I'd have more luck pulling a rabbit out of my ass."

The car on the end was one Elyssa and I used on a regular basis. The door opened when I touched it, and a fake engine noise thrummed to life. Though the automobile was designed to blend in, it could camouflage itself and even fly if necessary. Though I wasn't looking forward to Atlanta traffic, I decided to enjoy a nice normal drive through the outside world.

"Where's Cinder?" I asked as I steered us toward downtown. The thought of pizza helped me swallow the lump of regret in my throat. Shelton was right—we'd faced tougher obstacles before.
I can fix this.

"The minute he found out you were back, he said he had some finishing touches to put on my bachelor party." An apologetic grin crossed his face. "I know it's probably gonna be the worst one in history, but at least we can hang out one more time before the big day."

I barked a laugh. "I'm actually curious to see what he's got in mind."

"Dude, this is Cinder we're talking about." Shelton shook his head. "This is the same golem who thought he could build himself a golem girlfriend."

"Well, at least he cares enough to try."

Shelton hissed air between his teeth. "Yeah. I think he sort of understands how to care."

I circled back to my original reason for asking about Cinder. "I need you to call him for me."

"Right now?" Shelton looked out the window as Antico's Pizza appeared.

"Yeah, no time to waste." I gave him a conspiratorial look. "I think he's our best hope for pulling out the big guns. We need to find Fjoeruss."

Chapter 22

I pulled into the parking lot and saw two open slots. Before I could get there, a shiny black BMW whipped in and double-parked right over the white line. A man in a black suit with a red power tie got out.

Shelton leaned out the car window. "Hey, buddy, how about parking in between the lines?"

"And risk getting my new car scratched?" the man said. "No way."

"Don't make me do it myself," Shelton said.

"You touch my car and we'll have a problem," the man replied. "I'm a lawyer and I'll sue your ass back to the Dark Ages."

"You mother fu—"

"Hey!" I grabbed Shelton and jerked him back inside the car.

"But—"

"Just hush, okay?" I told him.

The lawyer smirked. "That's what I thought."

I clenched my teeth and got out of the car. "How about I make this easy for you." I walked over to his car and gave it a nice firm shove. Rubber squealed and smoked as the car slid to the left, positioning it right between the lines as god intended it.

"What—how?" the lawyer gibbered. "That's impossible!"

Shelton slid into the driver seat and piloted our car into the now-open parking spot.

I wiped my hands together and grinned at the lawyer. "Next time you park like that, I'll wad your car up into a ball and shove it up your ass, okay?"

Shelton roared with laughter. "That's a good one, man."

The lawyer pulled out a phone. "I'm calling the cops!"

Shelton discreetly slid out his wand and flicked it. The phone sparked and smoke poured through cracks in the screen. "Aww, man, this just isn't your day, is it?"

"My new phone!" the lawyer wailed.

We left him crying in the parking lot and ordered pizza at the counter.

Shelton called Cinder while we waited on the pizza and asked him to meet us. The brick ovens in the community seating area made the room several degrees warmer, but not enough to be uncomfortable. We found a couple of chairs at the table closest to the door and waited on the food.

"I feel a little guilty for shoving that guy's car," I told Shelton when he ended the call. "I should know better than to exhibit my abilities in front of noms."

"Meh." Shelton waved it off. "That guy was a grade-A douchebag. Even if he tells anyone, who's gonna believe him?"

A man with slicked back blonde hair and a friendly grin stepped into the seating area. I did a double-take because he looked exactly like—"Cinder, is that you?"

He stepped up to the table and extended a hand. "Hello, Justin, it's been a while. I took an omniarch portal directly here since Shelton said you needed to speak with me."

I shook his hand and marveled at how warm it felt. "It's been less than a week since I saw you."

"Whoa, I like the new look, buddy." Shelton slapped Cinder on the back. "You still hitting up the night clubs?"

Cinder stood stiffly at the end of the table. "Indeed. The patrons are intriguing, and I've learned a great deal about human mating rituals."

"Uh, sounds a bit creepy," I said. "How did you make your skin warmer?"

"I have been experimenting with methods Fjoeruss told me about." Cinder turned to Shelton. "I assume the wedding will proceed as planned?"

"Yep." Shelton took a sip of his beer. "Rehearsal dinner tonight, wedding tomorrow."

"Man, we're really cramming it in, aren't we?" I said.

"There will be a great deal of cramming in," Cinder said. "Tonight we will be cramming at the bachelor party."

Shelton snorted. "What are you going to be cramming, Cinder? Strippers?"

"After watching numerous movies based on bachelor parties, I determined including strippers would be a poor decision." The corners of his mouth tugged down into a gruesome frown. "It seems they usually end up in car trunks or buried in the desert."

Shelton buried his face in his hands in a vain attempt to muffle his laughter.

"No strippers is probably a good idea," I agreed, barely able to keep the grin off my face. Before he could reply, I quickly changed subjects. "Speaking of Fjoeruss, do you know how I can contact him?"

"I apologize if it sounded like I spoke with him recently, Justin." Cinder managed a stiff shrug. "I have not directly heard from him for months."

"What about indirectly?" Shelton asked.

"In exchange for letting him study how I achieved consciousness, he agreed to share his secrets for creating gray men." Cinder stepped back as a server delivered the pizza, though his eyes never left Shelton. "After I fulfilled my part, he assigned one of his gray men to contact me on occasion with information."

"He didn't just hand over the entire recipe?" I asked.

Cinder shook his head. "Fjoeruss is rarely straightforward. His methods are puzzling, but interesting."

"Delegating one of his golems to contact you doesn't sound that puzzling," Shelton said.

"You would be correct," Cinder replied, "but to learn the secret of changing skin color, I had to find the golem hidden in a field of tulips in Holland. For answers to making realistic skin, I had to wrestle women in a mud pit at a bar in Nevada."

My jaw dropped. "Are you kidding me? How does any of that help?"

"I believe he wished to show me by example," Cinder said.

"Next time you have to mud wrestle women, let me know," Shelton said. "I've got to get a video of that."

I pressed my lips together to repress a smile. "The important question is, did you win?"

"I was told to lose," Cinder said. "Afterward, the golem with my answers emerged from the crowd and gave me instructions."

I hated to derail the amusing conversation, but we could talk about the adventures of Cinder at the bachelor party. "Getting back to Fjoeruss, can you think of any way to contact him?"

"The last gray man I spoke with is still in my lab," Cinder said. "Once I have gathered all useful information from him, he will presumably return to Fjoeruss. Perhaps I could ask the golem to pass along a message."

"I hope that works," Shelton said.

"May I deliver the message to the golem?" I asked.

Cinder nodded. "Of course."

"Why don't we just follow the golem?" Shelton said.

"I doubt the golem will return to Fjoeruss's current location," I said. "Besides, you know how picky he is about people just dropping by."

Shelton wolfed down a slice of pizza. "Yeah, wouldn't want to get dropped by his elite golems."

After lunch we took the car back to the ranch and from there traveled through an omniarch portal to the underground mansion in Queens Gate. A new one was being built aboveground where the old one had once stood before Daelissa's forces destroyed it and murdered Jeremiah Conroy. The underground one was almost an exact replica and had more or less been my home ever since the war started.

The omniarch sat in a small round cavern. The stairs leading up to the old cellar had been cleared of rubble and were even now being worked on by crews. We went the opposite way, out a door, through a wide corridor and into a large gauntlet room used for practicing magic. Cinder had set aside a portion of the room for his lab.

The gray man sat in a chair, face expressionless, eyes staring straight ahead. Aside from slicked back silver hair and the gray cast to its skin, the golem looked the spitting image of Cinder. Then again, so did all the gray men. Forged in the likeness of their creator, Fjoeruss, they were some of the creepiest creations I'd ever seen—aside from Cinder.

"Never understood why Fjoeruss likes having an army of clones," Shelton grumbled.

"Oh, he has plenty of other ones," I said. "When Mom and I tracked him down at his headquarters last time, I found out the janitorial staff were all golems."

"Four-oh-five, I have need of your service," Cinder said to the motionless golem.

The thing stood and turned its unnerving stone gaze to him.

"I need you to deliver a message to Fjoeruss," Cinder said, seemingly oblivious to how creepy the other golem was. "Justin Slade will give you the message." Cinder stepped back.

"Tell Fjoeruss that unless we have his help, another crystal meteor event could occur," I said. "Even worse, Cephus may open a portal to the void with a new arch he's constructed. We need help breaching a Murk barrier protecting Cephus, the one who attacked Eden."

The golem replied in a dull monotone. "You will receive help by tomorrow."