Gloom Rising (The Book Wielder Saga 1) (16 page)

To say that her mission in Imperia City had been a failure would have been an enormous understatement. It had started so well. She had felt so proud and powerful storming the World GOVT building, arresting and interrogating the wicked non-believers, sending the obviously guilty ones to the work camps indefinitely. It was like cutting the head off the evil snake of corruption coiled around Imperia. But the interrogations soon dried up after the weak willed ones were weeded out. Even after a severe beating and a bit of torture, some of their main suspects still would not confess, which meant they were more afraid of them than us. Records had been torched and hard drives wiped as the shock troopers were storming the building. And the worst part was that the Governor had escaped. They had followed every lead but he was nowhere to be found. She was sure he was in the Hotel Noir, but the search had turned up nothing out of the ordinary. Now she wondered just how thorough her Inquisitors had been, or had some of the evil that she’d witnessed been at work there?

To make matters worse, the Military Peace Keeping forces were even less cooperative than she had anticipated. They were rude and arrogant, used to getting everything their way, and had absolutely no faith whatsoever. Records were not accurately kept, discipline was beyond a joke, and trying to find one that wasn’t crooked was like searching for a needle in a haystack. They were continually disobedient, disrespectful, and didn’t give a damn about serving the greater good of the Imperian world order because they only cared about themselves. Fights had broken out between her people and theirs, equipment had been sabotaged, some Inquisitors had even been violently attacked by MPK’s, and she had executed the offenders herself by shooting them in the head with her pistol. The Inquisition had the technical edge, but they didn’t have the numbers to police the police too.

Alice and her forces had been sent to the Capital primarily to purge the World GOVT building, but also to investigate and pressure the ever growing gang problem. What they’d found was something else entirely. Reports of gunfire in the industrial area had come into the MPK HQ. She’d assigned an Inquisitor Captain to oversee them, and they’d dispatched an airship and troop squad to intervene and hopefully capture a few suspects to squeeze for information. The Airship had been downed and the squad was missing in action, and after reviewing the data that had been transmitted wirelessly from the Airship’s cameras and shock troopers’ helmets, they were obviously dead or worse. She wondered if all the gangs were actually run, consisted of, or were influenced by these evil forces.

The footage that she now had on her HCD was mind-blowing, reality shattering stuff. She had heard all sorts of stories from the seriously injured soldiers treated at Central Isle when she was little, stories about Vampires jumping from plane to plane, Werewolves knocking over tanks, and Mages that could do things that made bombs and artillery shells look tame. But she’d never given them much credit – no one had. The nurses had said they were just crazy ramblings due to post traumatic stress disorder. But now she had seen for herself that these foul creatures of the night were a deadly reality. She had videos of people shooting magic from their hands at the airship and the poor shock troopers, insanely fast people wielding swords and pistols with deadly efficiency, big terrifying Werewolves and ultra-quick ones on all fours. The thing that haunted her thoughts the most was the helmet-feed close ups of the big puppet-man with his wide grin of golden teeth, cold black inhumane eyes and startling resilience. He had thrown them all together and dragged them off to a distortion that the cameras couldn’t pick up. Their vital displays had transmitted that they were still barely alive at that point but she didn’t hold up an ounce of hope that that was still the case.

Alice had personally investigated the scene of the disaster with some of her finest people and come up empty handed. All they had to go on was a trashed factory and warehouse complex, a ruined iron fence, and the mostly melted back half of a cargo container. She wondered why it had been a site of interest to these creatures, something worth battling over so fiercely; all that the Inquisition had found was unhealthy snack food. No money, no drugs, no weapons. Just an ordinary candy factory. It was now under observation, but apart from an extensive rebuild operation nothing of interest was going on there.

Somehow she had to convince the Autocrat that these dark forces were real, but she was worried that he’d have her committed her for insanity or worse. She had the evidence on her HCD, but would it be enough? He had ordered her back to Central Isle before she had the chance to request an audience when she had spoken to him over the radio network. She’d only had time to say that something unbelievably bad had happened before he’d cut her off.

“Home should be on the horizon soon, General,” the pilot said.

“Thank you pilot,” she replied. She knew most of the Inquisition by name from growing up with them in the orphanages, but they’d been taught from a young age to put duty and formality first.

The tall Central Tower rose above the horizon first, with its floor to ceiling windows glowing with reflected sunlight. To Alice it was like a beacon of hope and purity rising out of the murky world. Then followed the tall black rockets that consisted of the Research and Development team’s space project, using a supersized version of the Deep Vein Oil missile that was used against Tropica during the war to force their surrender. Following the recent discovery of the plasma energy they were spending most of their time retrofitting them to accommodate for the superior energy source. Soon most of the isle was in full view. Most of the sleek modern buildings, research centres, stonework cathedral, barracks, and airship landing platforms were all enclosed by the ruins of the ancient amphitheatre that predated recorded history. The harbour, docks, and some other smaller structures were dotted around outside its perimeter, becoming their own towns and villages. The island had expanded beyond the ruined amphitheatre, just like the Capital had spilled out beyond its walls.

The pilot brought the airship down to land on the large landing platform. It was a big black-floored square structure that was raised high above the ground. Designated spaces were marked with white circles and contained automatic refuelling and reloading mechanisms that activated upon docking. Most of the pads were empty, as Alice and her two other Inquisitor General counterparts had taken them for their joint mission. She wondered if they had experienced similar debacles in Industria and Tropica. H
ad they been exposed to the same kind of evil creatures that her troopers had?

Alice was immediately met by a squad of troopers who saluted and greeted her warmly. They would escort her to the tower, a formality for her rank, but she couldn’t help wondering if they’d soon be escorting her back to a cell after her audience. They took a large lift down to the ground and led her to a smart black car and troop truck. A driver took her on the short journey to the tower and the others followed in the truck. When they arrived, the troops followed her inside through the sliding glass double doors. Inquisition banners hung proudly, and staff saluted and greeted her warmly. She returned the salutes but couldn’t even bring herself to smile back. She wasn’t known as the chirpiest of people anyway.

She got in the elevator, which was mostly glass, and called for it to be opaque so she could be alone to collect her thoughts before the audience. She placed her hand on the touch screen interface and it chimed: ‘Alice Eve, Inquisitor General, top level security clearance confirmed, please select your desired floor’. She tapped the top floor and the elevator whizzed her up to the top of the tower.

The elevator slid open, and two heavily armoured and heavily armed Autocrat Guardians stood to attention in a small corridor either side of a set of metal double doors. There were other smaller metal doors that led to different rooms, but the Guardians were standing watch outside the Autocrat’s study that took up most of the top floor. Their heavy power armour and guns were jet black with elegant gold filigree around all of the seams and edges. They wore face-obscuring helms in the style of the ancient Imperian legionnaires with long red plumes, and they had the red and black World Banner hanging from their shoulder plates as cloaks.

“The Autocrat is expecting you Inquisitor General, you may enter.”

Alice nodded and stood by the metal doors as they slid open. They were almost as thick as blast doors.

      
The Autocrat, Edgar Aurelius II, sat behind a fine mahogany desk in the centre of the room. He was the spitting image of his father when he was middle-aged with his eye length blonde curtained hair, light blue eyes, stern strong face with a solid jaw, and warrior’s physique. He was dressed in a modern black suit but looked like he should’ve been packed in armour. Small square spectacles rested on his nose as he tapped away at a large computer screen placed on the desk. Around him were three floor-to-ceiling windows, and bookshelves and display cases lined the wall that Alice had entered through, along with a suit of white and gold power armour, a portrait of Edgar I in his prime, and an old silver war hammer that had been passed down through the Aurelius family line since ancient times. Apart from a few big plants, knee height tables, old mahogany chairs by the desk, and both Inquisition and World Banners, the rest of the room was rather Spartan.

He took his time and then looked up from what he was doing, peering over the top of his glasses. “Alice, it is good to see you. Please take a seat.”

“Thank you sir,” she said, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice. She took a seat and began to speak. “Sir, there is something I need to tell you but I’m not sure you’ll believe me at first...”

He cut her off midsentence. “You’ve seen them, haven’t you?”

She was stunned silent for a moment but finally managed to regain her composure. “Yes sir, I have prepared video clips on my HCD.”

The Autocrat took the HCD out of her hands and watched the videos that had been haunting her for days, calmly and without a hint of surprise. He just nodded along sadly. Towards the end of the clips he looked perplexed. “This puppet-thing,” he said, showing Alice, “that isn’t meant to be here.”

“Are any of those creatures meant to be here?” she asked shakily.

“Well no, but that thing is from a different dimension.”

Alice’s nerve finally broke and stood up. “How do you know all this? What are these wicked fiends, and what in the name of the Goddesses is going on?” She sat back down quickly, embarrassed that she had made a scene. “I’m sorry Sir, please forgive my outburst!”

The Autocrat took off his spectacles and cleaned them with a cloth. “It’s quite alright Alice, and please call me Edgar. Believe you me, I was quite shocked myself when I learned the truth. My father left me a video message in addition to his written will, but I was hasty to put the world right again and dispatched you all out to the three continents before I had listened to what he had to say.” Edgar shook his head sadly. “For years I thought my father weak and pathetic, to claim the world so gloriously and then leave it to grow wild and untamed. But the truth is those foul evil creatures killed my mother and threatened to kill me next unless he did so. Ironically, the same creatures, Supernaturals as they call themselves, helped my father take the world, but nonetheless their ruling body still had the audacity to harm my family. And now we won’t rest until they are all dead.”

Alice was stunned silly. “So your father knew all that time?”

“Yes. He wouldn’t act against them knowing that it might harm me, but he didn’t sit as idle as everyone thought. Firstly he made sure that we were all raised pure, just, and unyielding here on the isle, laying the foundation of our organisation that I then modelled on the witch hunters’ inquisition of old. Secondly, his actions helped turn this island into the technologically advanced masterpiece that it is today. All of this you already know, of course. What you don’t know, and what I didn’t until I watched my father’s message, was that he created an underground facility dedicated to gathering knowledge and defeating the Supernatural threat.”

“I thought we had full control of Central Isle. How is it that we missed an underground facility?” Alice couldn’t believe how little she actually knew about the world around her.

“The computer network was made to look as if I was in full control, but my father’s video contained a code that gave me true access to everything. The secret facility is under this very building. I do find it embarrassing that we missed my father’s trusted men coming and going every day.”

Alice’s head was bursting with questions and she didn’t know what to ask first, so she just picked one. “Why didn’t you tell me about these Supernaturals until now?” She couldn’t help but wonder if her men would still be alive if they had been prepared.

Edgar sighed. “It was said that the witch hunters had powers and abilities that rivalled those of the Supernaturals. I had the childish notion that some of you would develop these same gifts and defeat the evil creatures with ease, but sadly I was very mistaken. It was only this morning that I discovered an extract of writing from the witch hunts written by a Supernatural, describing it from their perspective of the Shadow War. It appears that the gifted witch hunters were actually Mages with powers, anti-Supernatural abilities. The witch hunters discovered this and killed many of them in their sleep. Any witch hunter Mages that survived defected and joined the united Supernaturals known as the Trinity. The inquisition turned in on itself, fell to pieces, and the Supernaturals immerged victorious. My father has a library full of these books in the facility.”

She tried hard to focus on her duty. “What is our course of action in light of these developments?”

“Suffice to say we must be reliant on our technology to win the day, but I think it’s best if I give you the tour first,” he said as he rose from the desk. “Your clearance has been upped to the same as mine.”