The Gates of Winter (14 page)

Not that it made a difference. After the robbery at the motel, he didn't have the money for a cab ride, let alone a trip on a bus or airplane. Nor was getting a job to earn more money an option. Thanks to the new security contract, every business in Denver was required to screen new employees using Duratek's systems.

The plan crumbled in Travis's mind. Wracking his brain, he tried to concoct an alternative, but he came up with nothing. He couldn't use the Stones to destroy the gate if he couldn't get to it. And tempting as the thought was, he couldn't use the Imsari to return to Eldh, because that would only make it easier for the Pale King to gain them and surrender them to Mohg.

As the days passed, it grew increasingly difficult to think about how to destroy the gate and stop Duratek, and his thoughts became occupied instead with more basic concerns, like keeping warm, and wondering how he could get some food in his aching stomach, and where he could find shelter when blue night fell over the city. Duratek wasn't his only enemy now. So were cold, and hunger, and the danger of living on the street.

And those enemies were winning.

Inside the restaurant, the technician pulled a stylus from the tablet and began writing on its screen as he spoke to the clerk behind the counter. There would be no going into the burger place now. The technician wouldn't be so caught up in his work that he wouldn't notice a homeless man come in, and Travis had no doubt his photo and description—as well as Grace's—had been distributed to every employee who worked for Duratek Corporation. Much as he wanted to, he couldn't believe they had given up searching for him. What would they do if they found him and the two Stones in his pocket?

Travis had no desire to find out. Despite his growling stomach, he turned and hurried away down the street.

17.

Half an hour later, cold and stiff from walking, Travis pushed through the door of a bar in an industrial neighborhood just far enough from downtown to have rebuffed any encroaching gentrification. The air was sour with smoke and disinfectant, and the decor was not so much cozy as claustrophobic. However, the establishment had one compelling feature; on the bar, rather than a sleek computer unit, was a cash register that looked like it hadn't been wiped off once in its decade-spanning history. This bar didn't use Duratek systems, and that was why Travis came here from time to time.

That, and the fact that the beer was cheap and they served free peanuts.

The place was all but deserted, and what few patrons there were seemed more intent on their glasses than on Travis. He sat at the bar, showed his money to the bartender, and ordered a beer. The man plunked down a glass in front of him, pale brew slopping over the edge and onto the scarred wood of the bar. In this place, they didn't bother with niceties like cocktail napkins.

The bartender halfheartedly dabbed at the spill with a grimy rag, then started to turn away.

Travis cleared his throat. “Peanuts?”

The bartender glared at him, then grabbed a big bowl from behind the bar and pushed it across the bar. “Only as long as you're drinking.”

Travis nodded. He could drink slowly.

He took a sip of the beer—it was none too fresh—then shelled and ate boiled peanuts with deliberate motions. It wasn't much of a meal, but it was better than nothing, and better than he had gotten some days. When the bartender wasn't looking, he shoved a handful of peanuts into a coat pocket.

I must say, this is absolute madness, Travis,
Jack's voice spoke in his mind.
You shouldn't be here, scrounging for crumbs. You're a runelord, by Olrig—you should be back on Eldh, standing with Queen Grace against the Pale King.

These words pricked at Travis's heart; he hated feeling like he had abandoned Grace to face her fate alone. However, Jack was wrong. Eldh was Grace's world; she belonged there. But this was his world, and if it was up to her to fight the Pale King on Eldh, then it was up to him to stop Duratek here on Earth.

Only he didn't see how he could. Even after everything he had learned since returning to Denver, up until tonight he had still clung to a fragment of hope. However, it was as if being forced to run from the burger joint had leeched the last drops of resolve from him. He was tired and cold and trapped, and if he couldn't get out of Denver, there was nothing he could do to stop Duratek.

Yet that didn't mean there was nothing at all he could do. Maybe he could help Grace and Eldh after all. Because if Plan A wasn't going to work, there was always Plan B. . . .

What are you intending, Travis?
An anxious note sounded in Jack's voice.
You're not hiding something from me, are you? I gather that destroying Duratek's gate was your Plan A. So what in the world is this Plan B?

“Never mind, Jack,” Travis said.

The bartender shot him a dark look, then turned up the sound on the television above the bar. The local news was on—the usual parade of unrest, violence, and disaster.

Travis ignored it, gazing down at his hands. A thin scar that ran across the back of his right hand—the only trace left of the wound through which a drop of the scarab's blood had entered. The power of blood sorcery flowed in him now, along with the power of rune magic. Travis didn't know what that meant, only that there had to be a way to use that power. Blood sorcery had its source in the
morndari
, the ravenous, bodiless spirits who inhabited the Void between worlds. Their power was that of consuming, of destruction; he had learned that when he faced the demon—one of the
morndari
bound in rock—in the Etherion. Could there be a way to use sorcery to do what he intended?

“—and her report on more rumored disappearances among the homeless,” blared a tinny male voice.

Travis glanced up. The bartender had turned up the volume on the TV another notch. Doe-eyed local reporter Anna Ferraro was on-screen, standing in front of Union Station downtown. Travis had noticed before how men tended to stop and stare vacantly every time Anna Ferraro appeared on TV, though he couldn't quite understand the attraction. She was pretty in a thin and fawnish way, but there was something about her—a calculating air—that left him cold. She reported about death and disaster with a glint in her eye, as if she could see the ratings going up even as she spoke. The bartender remained fixated on the screen, and Travis took the opportunity to sneak another handful of peanuts into his coat pocket, cleaning out the bowl.

On the TV, Anna Ferraro launched into her report with apparent relish. “That's right, Dirk. I'm here in downtown Denver tonight, where I've been speaking with people who don't have homes as you or I do, and who actually live on the streets.” She wrinkled her nose in an expression that was at once sympathetic and repulsed. “But it's not just the cold that these men and woman are worrying about tonight. Many of the homeless are telling stories about how others who live on the street have vanished without a trace in recent days. There are unconfirmed reports of at least seven missing, and the number may be higher. However, the Denver police have yet to take any action.”

She lowered her microphone and looked out of the TV expectantly. After an awkwardly long moment, the report cut to videotape of a police officer—a Sergeant Otero, according to the text at the bottom of the screen—standing outside the Denver police station, a microphone jammed in his face. “—and we're not taking action because no official missing person reports have been filed,” he said.

A cutaway to Anna Ferraro, a coy expression on her heavily madeup face. “But isn't it true that an address and telephone number are required to file such a report? And homeless people, as I'm sure you know, don't have addresses.”

The sergeant squinted, obviously annoyed. “We take all reports seriously. However, right now there is no evidence that anyone is actually missing—”

From the way his lips moved, the sergeant had gone on to say something more, but his words were muted, and the scene cut back to Anna Ferraro in front of Union Station.

“There you have it,” she said triumphantly. “Right now the police are refusing to help in this matter, so the homeless of Denver can do nothing but wonder tonight.” She gave the camera a long look. “And fear. This is Anna Ferraro reporting in downtown Denver. Back to you at the station, Dirk.”

Dirk the anchorman looked startled, then smiled blankly at the camera. “Thanks for that fascinating report, Anna. Coming up next, we have an exclusive interview with Denver's deputy mayor. She's going to tell us how the test of the new security program, launched last month in association with Duratek Corporation, is making our city safer than ever. After that, we've got the latest weather forecast. It looks like it's going to be cold, cold, cold over the next few days, so—”

The bartender turned the sound back down. He turned around and gave the empty bowl of peanuts in front of Travis a suspicious look, then swapped it out with a full one. Travis smiled and took another sip of his tasteless beer.

He didn't know if the reports of disappearances among the homeless had any truth to them. At the shelter the other day, he had overheard a group of men talking in whispers about others who had vanished, but the stories were second- and third-hand. Whether the rumors were true or not, one thing Travis did know was that he wasn't safe in Denver. Nobody was.

Every day the newspaper headlines blared word of the latest shootings, wars, and biological scares. People were constantly afraid—afraid of anything and anyone that was at all strange or unfamiliar. When people were afraid, they were all too willing to give up their freedom in exchange for the illusion of feeling safe. Just as the people of Denver had done by inking that contract with Duratek. They believed they were safe from the monsters now, but they were wrong. They had locked the monster in the room with them.

Travis's gaze focused back on the television. The news was over, and now the image on the screen was that of a man in a white suit. His black hair swept up from his forehead, shellacked into a glistening wave. The volume was too low to hear what he was saying, but he prowled back and forth on the stage, gesticulating with stiff energy. A choir of bland-faced young men and women was arranged behind him, though they weren't singing.

The scene cut to a shot of a rapt audience. Mouths hung open, and tears streamed down faces. The camera panned across the seated crowd, and Travis saw glass and sculpted metal soaring to a ceiling so dizzying it made him think of the Dome of the Etherion in Tarras.

So it was the Steel Cathedral, only seen from the inside. Travis hadn't realized just how big it really was. There must have been two thousand people in that audience. The scene cut back to the man onstage, pulling in so tight that Travis could see the way his pancake makeup cracked as he spoke. The man seemed at once excited, angry, and exultant. A computer-generated title appeared at the bottom of the screen:

Sage Carson, Pastor of the Steel Cathedral

In a way, the pastor reminded Travis of Brother Cy. Both were tall, edging toward lanky, and both obviously knew how to hold an audience in thrall. However, Sage Carson's white attire was modern and well tailored, unlike Brother Cy's dusty black coffin suit. And while Brother Cy's angry preaching had always been softened by sorrow, even without being able to hear him, Travis could tell this Sage Carson exuded only do-as-I-say-or-be-damned righteousness. By the looks on their faces, the audience was eating it up. But then, deep down, most people liked being told what to do. It was so much easier than thinking.

“So are you going to buy another round or not?” The bartender's growling voice startled Travis.

“No, sorry,” he muttered.

His glass was empty. He must have finished the last sip without thinking. He stood and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. A stray peanut fell out, and the bartender glared at him. Travis hurried toward the door.

“Don't come back, you hear?” the bartender called out after him.

Travis headed out into the frigid night. The door of the bar shut behind him: one more way that was barred to him.

But the way's not barred, Travis. You could go back to Eldh. All you have to do is use the Stones. They have the power to take you there. Jack said they do.

For a moment he let the image of Calavere's great hall fill him. He imagined Grace smiling, drawing him close to the fire, handing him a cup of spiced wine.

Then a different vision rose up within him, blotting out the image of friends and fire like a black cloud: the sun went dark, the ground shook and cracked apart, the walls of Calavere came tumbling down, and darkness swallowed the world.

No, he wouldn't let that happen. Maybe he couldn't get to Duratek, but he would keep Mohg from getting the Great Stones. He gripped the iron box in his pocket and headed into the frosty night.

Ten minutes later, he stood at the top of an embankment. Below, the half-frozen waters of the Platte River oozed among small islands of sand and gravel. There was no place in downtown where it was safe to start a fire; lighting one was guaranteed to bring the police—along with fingerprint scanners networked to Duratek databases. However, there were a pair of cement-and-steel viaducts here. If he started a fire underneath one of the viaducts, no one would be able to see it from above.

He climbed over a cement barrier and half walked, half slid down the weed-covered embankment. As he reached the bottom, the sounds of the city receded, and the sluggish murmur of water rose on the air. Gravel and ice crunched under his sneakers as he walked toward one of the viaducts. The space under the bridge was veiled by a curtain of shadow even his preternaturally sensitive eyes could not penetrate.

That was good; if there wasn't already a fire beneath the viaduct, it meant no one else had already staked out the place. Hands clamped under his armpits, he trudged across weeds and gravel, then passed into the darkness beneath the viaduct.

The darkness moved. Before Travis could react, an arm coiled around his throat, and a hand clamped over his mouth, muffling his cry of surprise as well as any runes he might have spoken. He reached up, to try to pull away the hands of his unseen attacker, then froze as something glinted in front of his face.

It was a knife, gleaming in a stray beam of moonlight.

“You don't belong here,” hissed a man's voice, and the arm tightened around his neck as the knife moved closer.