"Another Angel Down," Chapter 5, pt. 25, 354 words

The young woman was alive, but I doubted she was well. The blanket covered her up to her shoulders, with a gown underneath, but that didn't obscure the thin tracery of livid red marks that ran over her face and neck. Most of the marks ran up along her cheeks, curving around her eyes and flowing together to retreat up past the woman's hairline. Some arched across her nose, or went to either corner of her closed eyes, or swept back to curl along her ears.

One of her arms lay over top the blanket as well, with an IV drip plugged into her. The tubing went up to a tree-stand, split to accommodate two different bags of some clear fluids. The same red lines traced up and down her exposed limb.

As I got closer, I saw that these thread-like lines branched off constantly into even thinner lines, and on and on in some intricate network. Like some infinitely regressing spiderweb, or cracked glass crazing in some fractal pattern until it collapsed into dust.

I'd seen these kinds of markings before. I don't know where they found the time, but Varis or someone else had done an almost complete overhaul of her peripheral nervous system. It was done to help a person adjust to severe bodily reconstruction, when a good chunk of the body had to be replaced by magical prostheses because it was so messed up otherwise. The marks would fade in time, but... what had been done to her?

This close, the resemblance between Mitsuko and the unconscious woman was unmistakable. Aside from the obvious fact of their nationality, there was something strikingly similar in their faces, features passed down from one parent or the other. The same small nose and too-wide mouth, and something in the set of her brows reminded me of the few moments I'd seen Mitsuko at any kind of rest. But where Mitsuko had an athlete's slender build, the woman just looked half-starved lying there in the hospital bed. Still, they were unquestionably related.

“Yomi,” Mitsuko whispered, her voice tight.

The unconscious young woman stirred.

"Another Angel Down," Chapter 5, pt. 24, 366 words

“I think,” she said, “they remind me of the doors to an ICU or operating room. Or maybe a convenience store.”

“Well, let's hope for the first,” I suggested, slinging the escape plan higher on my back and approaching the door. “Though I wouldn't mind a hot cup of coffee right about now, either.”

The doors slid open at our approach, and for the first time in more than half an hour, we were bathed in the blinding radiance of sufficient lighting. I had to stop and shield my eyes, letting my flames go out, and advanced cautiously. Mitsuko exhaled sharply through her teeth, but kept up beside me.

The room design was taken directly out of a modern hospital's isolation ward. We stood in a small airlock chamber, with the distorted view of a patient room through translucent glass. The inner airlock door slid open, and we were treated to a puff of air and a sudden distinct pressure change from inside the ward. Positive pressure, to help keep airborne contaminants out. Mitsuko rushed forward as soon as the door was open wide enough to admit her.

Inside was a patient suite designed to prevent any occupant's immediate need to leave. A bathroom off to the side, door wide open. A small table and a few chairs on the other side of the room, a pitcher full of crystal-clear water and a couple glass cups. A mini-fridge was set into a niche in the wall nearby, and a microwave on a shelf over top of it. A wardrobe with hooks for hanging clothes on the side. But for the bed surrounded by medical equipment, it could have been a modest hotel room.

A hospital bed dominated the center of the room. A young Japanese woman, barely out of her teens, lay covered by a thin blanket, and if it wasn't for the beeping heart monitor I wouldn't have been able to tell if she was alive or not. Mitsuko was at her side in an instant, putting a hand to her shoulder. In a move that was clearly uncontrolled impulse, she leaned down and pecked the woman quickly on the lips.

"Another Angel Down," Chapter 5, pt. 23, 390 words

We avoided most cross-corridors, turning only with the hall or when doubling back from dead ends. Still, we tried to keep going the same general direction, figuring that the more important, secure rooms would be farthest from the entrance. And if we ran into the other side of the complex, then at least we had some boundaries to work within.

The complex was definitely larger than the city block above. Given Varis's avowed love of the Bond movies, it was hard not to imagine a secret lair transplanted from within a tropical island's volcano. Though for all I knew, the complex was operating under some strong space-distortion magics that made it bigger on the inside than the outside.

“Oh great,” I muttered, “we're inside the Master's TARDIS.”

“What?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Just talking to myself.”

All right, so while Milton and Dante get a lot of recognition in this world, so do the Doctor, Hari Seldon, and Hagbard Celine. Science fiction, fantasy, and counterculture works are popular in the City because a lot of these authors “get it” – or at least sound like they do. The good ones think big and differently, so that even if they're wrong, they at least inspire the useful kinds of thinking. After all, how flexible is your magic going to be if you only think in terms of sitcoms, murder mysteries, or romance novels?

I'm not sure how, but the empty sterility of the place managed to become even more oppressive as we explored. The dim lighting and monotonous repetition wore on, to the point I nearly cheered at the sight of something unusual: a pair of double doors without an IR port beside them. They had huge glass panels that dominated their upper halves, though the glass was that translucent, marbly kind that looked like it had been pieced together from thousands of tiny fragments, bending and distorting the light that went through it so much in so many different ways that there was no way to get a clear view of the other side. Above the doors, a small ovoid of glossy black plastic had been set in the wall. A motion sensor.

“What do you think,” I asked Mitsuko, unable to keep an edge of interest and excitement out of my voice.

"Another Angel Down," Chapter 5, pt. 22, 359 words

“How hot can your flames burn?”

I shook my head, knowing where she was going. “Iron's melting point is a little over 1500 Celsius. I can just about manage tin, given enough time and focus, and that's around 230 C. So... no, these doors are staying closed, unless you really do think you can hack them open.” I glanced over my shoulder at Mitsuko.

She frowned. “No. As you said before, it would be rather loud, if I could manage it. And it would take time. It wouldn't do us much good to waste so much time on a single door when we might find another way to open them in that same time.”

Getting to my feet, I blew out an exasperated little breath. “Verne would be really useful right about now. I'm sure she has some gadget that could fool these locks easy. And if she didn't, it'd only take her about three minutes and a paperclip.” Mitsuko made a quiet, noncommittal noise, and we continued onward.

The complex was confusing, if only because we didn't feel free to make a careful survey of it. Each corridor looked exactly like the next, with no way to know if we were bypassing labs full of arcane secrets and foul abominations, or the break room. The only readily apparent fact was that this place had been meant to be staffed by dozens of people.

So where were all these dozens? Why the signs of disuse? More and more signs pointing to a cult that had fallen apart over some doctrinal difference or another, but that would just make this place incredibly insecure. If Varis really was working on his own, he was vulnerable to any faction of his former cult that still had access to this place.

Every once in a while, a loud hum of machinery issued forth from behind some door. Usually it reminded me of massive turbines, though one was like a rhythmic thump-thump-thump of some mighty engine. I paused to put a hand on that door, and could feel the steady beat vibrate the door ever so slightly in its housing.

"Another Angel Down," Chapter 5, pt. 21, 401 words

This door had an identical card reader to the other one, with the same magnetic lock. Well. If this room was a choke point and trap, it made sense that it'd be locked from the inside, if only to slow people down more than an unlocked door would. No matter. I slid the knife blade through, and the lock opened. The slime on the floor had started to congeal in the cool air, and so it was swept aside by the door and only slowly flowed back into place. The door locked behind us, and the slime was mostly trapped back in the room.

The complex beyond was more complicated, but had a musty air of disuse. The outer hall hadn't been real, I understood now. It was more a show, to keep intruders interested long enough to funnel them down to the trap room, instead of retreating and coming back later with reinforcements. Sinister and a little twisty, just like Varis.

No, now we were in his true lair. For knowing all of that, though, I still wasn't sure whether we should expect more overt traps, or fewer.

Fewer, I hoped. After all, what if he tripped his own traps? Each additional one increased that possibility.

Still, the place looked just about empty. The halls were built like a higher class of science fiction starship: steel panels repeating endlessly, interrupted occasionally with automatic doors flanked not by keypads nor retinal scanners but small round infrared ports, vaguely reminiscent of HAL-9000's glaring red eye gone dormant. More steel panels, fitted seamlessly together, made up the floor underfoot.

But unlike your standard higher class of starship, the floor and walls were covered in a fine layer of dust. Not as bad as in the outer halls, so light as to almost be unnoticeable. In fact, I only noticed it because I had paused to look at one of the IR ports, which was coated. A quick swipe of fingers across wall confirmed that the same held true for the whole complex around us.

Crouching down, I frowned at an IR port. “These are going to be a problem,” I muttered. “No more of that trick with the card reader, and no punching in a code found by chance. Probably anyone who wants in has a little security token or fob to use, like a mini-remote control to access the door.”

Father Paolo, pt. 3, 576 words

One fight caught his eye. A pirate, better trained than the others, and the watch officer, over near the warning bell. The pirate fought with a saber in his right hand, a parrying dagger in the left. He moved fast, an easy match for the watch officer, though he defended better than he attacked. His motions with the dagger were swift and sure, while his blows with the saber were clumsy and often overextended. His easy facility with the dagger saved his life more than a few times as the pirate and the officer traded blows. Finally, though, the pirate caught the officer's own blade and knocked it aside, and ran the poor man through. He turned to look for a new fight, and caught the priest standing there, alone.

Indecision struck. It would be a small thing to use his Gift to blast the pirate where he stood... But that's why Father Paolo held back. Because it would be a small thing. Had been a small thing, before, entirely too often. He had not always been a priest.

Before he could make up his mind, the pirate came close and held his blade up. He grinned, showing a few missing teeth, and said, "Hoy there! Cap'n says we're not to kill any priests, so it's your lucky day. But he didn' say anything about not robbing 'em!"

Father Paolo spread his hands out to his sides. "I'm sorry, my good man, but I've nothing of value on me. I am a priest, not a merchant."

The pirate snorted in derision. "Everyone knows the Church's got scads of money. I've seen the fancy clothes and jewelry brought out on holy days, so I know you're gonna have somethin' of the like on ya. So hand it over!"

Paolo sighed. True, the high clergy's formal attire and symbols of office could be rather expensive, but... He was an itinerant. What did the pirate expect, a silver amulet carried at all times to help perform blessings over births and deaths? A gold knife for ceremonies to represent the cutting away of old sins? How absurd, out in the Sky. Silver tarnished and gold was heavy. But this one wouldn't listen to such things. He tried a different tack.

"Tell me, my son, when you first learned the saber, did your teacher smack you for taking the blade up in your left hand? Force you to use your right?"

"Huh? What of it? Stop trying to distract me, holy man."

"Oh, very well." He shrugged, and reached into his robe. "Let me get my purse, then," he said, and ran a silent prayer through his head, asking for forgiveness for the lie. Instead, he grabbed a hold of the saber at his side, curling his hand around the grip. He stepped closer to the pirate, as if ready to hand something over -- and rammed the sword's pommel and his fist up into the pirate's chin, catching him by surprise.

The pirate's teeth clacked together audibly, and Father Paolo would not have been surprised if he had bit his tongue or cracked a tooth. The pirate went down swearing, and looked up at the priest with an expression of utter malice. He started to climb to his feet, grabbing for his dropped blade, and Father Paolo casually cracked the saber's guard against the man's temple. The pirate collapsed.

"You should have fought left-handed," he suggested to his prone foe.

Father Paolo, pt. 2, 431 words

Paolo strode calmly out of the cabin, and went to the steep, short set of stairs that led up to deck. The same winds that blew the pirate ship their way, descending like a raptor out of the Sky above, whipped across the deck. The priest folded his arms against the chill, and waited, watching aft as the pirates closed. Their ship was swift, sleek compared to the overladen tub that was the Lily.

Crewmen and women took up guns and manned the cannons. A couple rangefinding shots fell well short, ball plummeting to the distant Blue below. They waited nervously, priming the cannons once more as the pirates approached inexorably.

Tentatively, the priest raised a hand and tested out his Gift. He was a little rusty from lack of use, but the familiar power came to him, and he fought the wind with his will. The Thunderbird wasn't with him, that day, however, or perhaps the winds were just too strong against them. The pirate ship closed no matter how he fought to take the wind out of their sails. Nor was there much he could do to push the Lily any faster; its sails already strained near to breaking in the gusty winds.

And then the pirates were upon them. Chainshot clipped the Lily's mainmast, tearing the sail down with it. Men in wingcloaks flitted out from the other ship, most flipping and swooping on the breezes to dodge the hail of musket fire that met them. While the wingmen stooped down upon the Lily, the pirate ship drew up and fired off grapples. Between one breath and the next, the Lily was boarded.

The crew formed a fighting front line, but were pushed back as the pirates swarmed over. The pirate ship must have been overloaded with men, many only half-trained thugs there to soak up the losses yet leave the pirates still able to fly after the fight. The fighting was too close, too many men packed together for the priest to safely use the other aspects of his Gift, so he helped pull wounded men back and tie strips of fabric over the worst of their wounds, offering a small prayer before sending them back into the fight.

But the line could not hold. There were simply too many of the foe, too few of their own. The concerted effort became a series of skirmishes across the deck, and the priest retreated. He felt more than a little shame at such, but a rout was a rout. No matter where he turned, men fought and died.