the job.'
'You're right. Once she no longer needs Bitterwood and Hex, she'll kill them.' He offered her the orb.
She shook her head. 'This is the last part of the future they told me. They said you would carry them through the gate.'
Shay frowned. If the fortune-telling ghosts had seen that he would be taking them through the gate, had they seen Jazz possessing Jandra? If so, why hadn't Zeeky warned him? All of this might have been avoided. But, he decided it was the wrong moment to confront Zeeky on this. He placed the orb into the last bag he carried, Jandra's backpack, resting it on top of her coat. He ran his finger along the silky fabric. Though it was smudged with soot from their work digging up Jazz's heart, it still had the smell of the crystal clear pool beneath the waterfall.
His heart caught in his throat at the memory.
He willed the sword to bright yellow flame once more and held it toward the portal. The void within the rainbow devoured the light, revealing nothing, not even shadows. He breathed in slowly through his nostrils, staring into the darkness. Even his bones felt cold, despite the heat of the sword.
Leaping into the unknown was the job of heroes. He was only a skinny former slave with an aching heart and unusually crisp handwriting. It was just as well he didn't know the future. Closing his eyes, he leapt. The last thing he heard before the void swallowed him was Skitter clattering at his heels.
CHAPTER THIRTY:
PARLOR TRICKS
HAVING BEEN THROUGH an underspace portal before, Hex was braced for the disturbing sensation of nothingness that enveloped him as he stepped into the gate. Blasphet's description of death as feeling as if he was falling from his own body echoed the experience, though not fully. For the briefest flicker of time, Hex simply ceased to exist, and all his senses ended.
When he emerged on the other side, the first sense to return was touch. He stepped into air that was positively balmy. It was night; he stood in a well-manicured garden full of statues, male and female nudes of exquisite perfection, their skin and hair crafted from precious metals, gold and platinum and palladium. Bright pink and white flowers filled large terra-cotta pots, lending a sweet scent above the sea breeze that swirled gently around him. In the center of the garden was a fountain made of glass with a central spike taller than Hex. Water poured from a large golden disk atop the spike in an unbroken circle and fell in a shimmering column to the pool below. Goldfish that looked crafted from actual gold darted about in the softly lit pool.
Beside him, Bitterwood tilted his head upward, then higher, then higher still. They were surrounded by towers that rose until they vanished among the stars that shimmered in the cloudless sky.
When he looked down, he found Vendevorex and Jandra standing on the broad glass rim of the pool. She said, 'Gentlemen, if you're done gawking at the architecture, we need to get to work. The second I start construction of the antenna, the city mind will know something is happening. We need to get you ready for the fight.'
'I'm as ready as I'll ever be,' said Bitterwood.
Jandra smirked. 'Your thorn-tipped shafts aren't going to scratch the guards here in Atlantis. You need an upgrade. Draw an arrow.'
Bitterwood frowned. Hex sensed that the hunter didn't like being ordered around so brusquely. Bitterwood was here for the same reason he was; not to fight the city, but to stay close to Jandra. He was almost certain that Jazz was the controlling personality within her. That last sliver of almost was enough to keep him from lunging out and snapping her skull between his jaws while he still had the strength. On his empty stomach, he felt every muscle in his body trembling.
Bitterwood drew an arrow from his quiver and stared at the tip, perplexed. The shaft now ended in a tiny rainbow, with an almost invisible spot of black at the point.
'Now when you draw an arrow from the quiver, it will be capped with an electromagnetic field encompassing an underspace gate only a millimeter across,' Jandra explained. 'This tip can carve through any matter it encounters and send it on a one way trip to the Mare Ingenii.'
'Where's that?' asked Bitterwood.
'The far side of the moon. There's a city there now. If you shot Hex with that arrow, some moon man would no doubt be mystified as to why a long spaghetti-shaped strip of dragon entrails had fallen on him.'
'Spaghetti?' asked Bitterwood.
'Moving on,' said Jandra, turning to Hex. 'You've suffered brain damage. It's slowing you down, and I don't have time to fix it. Luckily, I have a sort of whole body crutch you'll find useful.'
Hex shook his head. Jandra might be about to put underspace gates on the tips of his teeth, a prospect he found worrisome. 'No thank you. I've fought with more severe injuries than this.' He hadn't.
'This really isn't a situation where you get to choose to accept my help or not,' said Jandra, casting her gaze toward the statues. Suddenly, the gold that coated them began to drip to the ground, exposing naked flesh beneath. Around the garden, men and women fell to their hands and knees gasping as the nanite shells that supported them flowed into a large golden river that snaked toward Hex. Hex flapped his wings and hopped backwards, avoiding the liquid metal.
He landed in an even larger pool of gold. Flecks of the cold metal splashed onto his belly and wings. Instantly, they began to slither and expand, coating his scales. He flicked his wings sharply to fling the metal off, to no avail. The gold crept upward. He craned his neck and held his breath as it reached his jaws. He instinctively closed his eyes as the liquid metal washed over his face. When he opened his eyes, he was completely encased in a flawless sheet of gold.
'Gold seems ill-suited for armor, daughter,' said Vendevorex. 'It's too soft, and too heavy to allow him to move freely.'
'Gold is merely an aesthetic component,' said Jandra. 'The armor actually incorporates several different elements, including titanium. There aren't many things that are going to be able to cut through it. The added weight is offset by the exoskeleton's power, which will multiply Hex's strength by a factor of ten.'
Hex spread his wings. She was telling the truth. He didn't notice any additional weight. He still didn't feel good, but he no longer felt as if he were about to collapse.
He looked around at the score of men and women who lay on the ground, groaning in agony. Some of the statues still stood, unaffected by Jandra's spell.
'Were they prisoners of the shells?' he asked.
'No. The statue act is a kind of art. They stand out here for years at a time. Visitors to the garden try to figure out the real statues from the living ones. They're like very, very, very slow and focused mimes.'
'Why are they in pain?'
'Severe nanite withdrawal,' said Jandra. 'The city knows we're here by the way. Heads up.'
Hex looked toward the sky. The stars were blotted out by an army of onrushing angels.
'Keep them out of my hair,' said Jandra. 'I've got an antenna to build.'
BITTERWOOD KNEW HE was being manipulated into this fight. He pondered Zeeky's counsel that Jandra could be saved. He placed his new arrow against his bowstring. If the shafts were as powerful as Jazz said they were, would they slay even her?
Unfortunately, this wasn't a moment for contemplation. A throng of marble angels swooped toward him. Despite their wings, they were objects explicitly out of place in the sky. They appeared carved from polished marble, too heavy to do anything but plummet.
If these creatures were like Gabriel or Hezekiah, the danger they represented through their sheer numbers made them more of a threat than the goddess for the moment. Yet, the angels weren't bearing any obvious weapons. Their faces were placid, devoid of emotion. They looked as if they were here to investigate, not to fight.
Yet, against foes this powerful, the element of surprise was something Bitterwood couldn't afford to lose. As so often happened in his battles, he would draw first blood… though he doubted they had blood. A rainbow-tipped arrow launched from his bowstring in a glowing streak, punching into the brow of the nearest angel. The winged
