I emerged from the platform at a dead sprint. I didn’t have time for things like subtlety or tact, I didn’t have time for politeness or excuse me’s. I needed to find someone. Anyone. I headed for the Professor’s house because he was the closest to the platform, and the Dean was probably being distracted as we spoke.
My mad dash wasn’t made easier by the fact that none of these people seemed aware anything was going on. A few people had come off the platform as I had, and the news was starting to trickle out, but the muttering hadn’t really penetrated the consciousness of the crowd yet. I was fighting back against a sea of people that thought it was a normal afternoon, and it was really slowing me down.
I dropped Astaroth’s seeming, since it wasn’t helping much here and hurried down the road toward the run down house where Professor Hawkins both lived and worked. When I arrived, I started pounding on the door, desperately trying to get the attention of anyone inside.
That lasted about ten seconds, before the door was flung open and my Professor glared up at me in annoyance. “Shane? What the hell are you doing at my house? Why didn’t you just call?”
“No connection,” I panted. I was more exhausted from the mental effort and the worry than the physical toll of the run, admittedly. “Bad news.” I filled him in on our search, what we’d found, and the fact that we’d been too late.
He grit his teeth. “Shit,” he spat. “I TOLD Harper it was stupid to keep that thing. But no, big bad Overgod always knows better. “He even claimed to have tightened security after we mentioned your concerns.” His eyes narrowed. “Damn it. That made it worse. It’s an unsealing not a jailbreak, the sealing energy is part of the ritual. Increasing the pressure would feedback into the counterforce and ramp up the power.”
“That was my guess,” I admitted. “I figure the Overgod was counting on resistance to its escape. I’m glad to know we weren’t ignored though, I thought you guys just wrote us off.”
“We’re not idiots,” he scoffed. “When warned of a potential issue, we don’t just hope for it to go away. You just didn’t need to be involved in the security modifications. We were trying to keep as many people as possible out of the loop.”
I grimaced. “Well it didn’t work. Someone with the authority to redirect security was involved. Someone who was able to sandbag the Deans, who knew their schedules and how to distract them. At least I assume, since when I left they hadn’t arrived to stop the ritual. Though now that I think about it-”
“Trying to stop or slow it is the worst possible response,” he confirmed. “If its a feedback loop like I suspect, derailing it will only empower it. Our best bet is to arrange for the Deans to surround it and launch an ambush as it emerges. Unfortunately, we have an even bigger problem.”
“Which is?” I asked, following him as he gestured me inside and stalked down the hall to throw open a closet. He knelt down and pulled out a large duffel bag, pulling things off the closet shelves and shoving them into the bag one by one.
“Security isn’t departmental,” he spat. “It’s a free floating independent collective that only answers to two command structures. The internal leadership, and the Deans. The internal leadership runs the place by committee, which means that unless there are MULTIPLE traitors in the organization…”
My eyes widened in horror. “It turned one of the Deans,” I whispered. “But WHY? What possible reason would an Overgod have to work with a monster like that? The Void uses power as a lure, but what could it offer someone that powerful?”
He shook his head. “Not all Overgods are created equal,” he said sadly. “Nothing about Ascension is fair. Look at you, or your vampire friend. Some people are just stronger at every rank. And those advantages compound. People like my teacher are monsters that can fight other Overgods ten to one.”
“Does that mean he can beat the Void Child?” I said hopefully.
Another head shake. “Unlikely. You need to understand that the kind of monster my teacher is? Harper is that same kind of beast. He’s called the Monstrosity for a reason. Harper tells the story about beating that Void Child like it's a cute little anecdote, but he neglects to mention that his particular forte is durability and regeneration. Harper is a physical apocalypse. An unrelenting storm of horror made flesh. He basically CAN’T die.”
“So you’re saying that the fact that it took a hundred years was because he was barely strong enough to keep up with it?” I asked in horror.
“I’m saying it took a hundred years for the damned thing to exhaust itself butchering him on repeat a hundred times a day,” he said bluntly. “Harper didn’t BEAT that Void Child. He SURVIVED it. That’s why he’s so obsessed with that damned project. He’ll never admit it but he considers that fight a loss. He wants to take everything special about the Void Child and make it a part of himself.”
I swallowed. “So…all of the other Deans together-”
“Might not be enough,” he admitted. “At least not alone. Harper isn’t just the most durable, he’s the STRONGEST. He does more damage than any of the others. If he couldn’t hurt it, most of them can’t either. But they do have tricks he can’t match. My teacher and his wife are an incredible duo. More than that, this is a research university. The Deans all have their pet projects, not just Harper. Even I don’t know what most of them are.”
Taking a deep breath, I forced my heart to calm. “What about Dean Desmons?” I asked, trying to keep my tone calm. “I sent Callie to find him…”
“Simon Desmond is the most irritating Overgod in all creation, according to my teacher,” he reassured me. “While Harper might be the most unkillable, Desmond is the most elusive. Harper won’t stay down, Desmond won’t stay STILL. Next to him is about the safest place a person could be in a crisis like this. He is ALSO able to come and go throughout the academy at will. He can collect the other Deans instantly if need be.”
I nodded, because…that hadn’t occurred to me. I knew the Deans were powerful, and I had assumed that meant they could travel vast distances instantly. But that wasn’t how it worked. I mean yes, they were probably stupid fast physically, but who knew how far apart the different campuses were.
Some ascendants had travel based powers, some didn’t. Like back during our military training, I’d been attacked by an A-ranked Duke of the empire. Because his powers involved long distance travel, he’d shown up when I was undefended, and only Zeke’s desperate gambit of forcing himself to break through to A-rank had saved me. This was the same thing at a higher level. Despite them having MORE powers, they still had specific KINDS of power.
“But what if Desmond is the traitor?” I asked in a horrified moment of realization. “He’d be perfectly placed to-”
“To break that damned thing out himself,” he said with a snort. “Trust me, it’s not Desmond. I’d believe it was HARPER before I believed it was Desmond.” He saw me tense and rolled his eyes. “And it’s not Harper. Aside from the fact that he would gut himself before freeing that monster, he also wouldn’t have needed to go through all the trouble. He could have just sabotaged the restraints himself. He did design them.”
I chuckled in relief. “Well, at least that’s two down,” I said wryly. “I’m guessing Dean Gibbons is out because trying to stop him from freeing it would be basically impossible.”
He nodded. “And Dean Windermere. As scary as Harper and my teacher are, Sela Windermere is infinitely more terrifying. If she wanted that thing free, she could have just broken it out by force. No, it must be one of the weaker Deans. Not the crafters, they’re too busy to bother. They have everything they need.” He continued shoving things into the bag, which was obviously spatially expanded because it should have been full five minutes ago.
“So who do you think it is?” I asked anxiously as I waited for him to finish packing and DO something.
“My guess would be Clara Temple, the Stargazer, Wendy Keller, the Merchant of Mirrors, or Kell Drave, the Silent Seeker.” He said absently. “Temple is a little off, always listening to celestial voices, Keller will do almost anything for a profit, and Drave…well, his department isn’t exactly the biggest resource focus. Where the hell is that Ralfjun Compressor? I swear I left it right…oh, there it is.” He snagged a strange inverted looping crystalline construct, shoving it in the bag. “Alright, that’s all of it. I needed a few things just in case we run into problems. Those cultists are embedded deeper than expected if they turned a Dean. Any given department head has unfettered access to their professors. No telling which ones might have been subverted.”
He slipped the bag over a shoulder, adjusting the strap. “For now, we need to head to my teacher’s house. I wouldn’t be surprised if they cut the lines of communication temporarily to delay their response. Desmond will be able to help if your wife can get to him quickly, but with one of the Deans compromised, we need as many angles of attack as possible.”
There was a bang at the door, and he strode over, opening it up to reveal…”Elonwy?” I asked in surprise. “How did you know to come here?”
“Your communicator might be out of synch,” Hawkins said dryly. “But I have my own methods for reaching my TA. I contacted her when you arrived, she’s going to be out transport to my teacher’s place. That ridiculous car of hers is the perfect vehicle to shuttle us between the different majors. After we pick up the Dean, we’ll swing by the spatial department and get your wife and Desmond.”
“My car is not ridiculous,” she said acidly. “You’re just salty about the fact that it’s a dual major thesis.” She shot me a smug grin. “He can’t stand the fact that I consulted the spatial department when I was developing the mechanism.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “That’s a funny way to say ‘please professor, make me administer the practical lab makeup exams next month’ but if that’s what you really want.”
“NO!” she almost screamed. “Please don’t, I’ll do anything. Only idiots and lunatics fail those practicals, people DIE hosting those exams.” They were still bickering as we headed out and climbed into the car. As I buckled in she held up a warning finger. “Don’t wrinkle any of my notes. I’m pretty sure some of them are important.”
We pulled out, and I closed my eyes, knowing what was coming. There was a slight lurch and then BAM, we were pulling to a stop. I opened my eyes to find the car rolling to a stop outside the Dean’s house. I whistled. “Ok, yeah, that IS really cool. Let’s go get him, I’m worried about Callie and the others.”
We climbed out, hurrying to the door of the house. This time it was Hawkins that was banging on the door, but it didn’t take even a minute for it to open. In fact, his knuckles had barely brushed the wood when the door flung open to reveal Deans Windermere and GIbbons, standing in their front hall wearing jackets and gloves, clearly having just finished getting ready to go out. Dean Gibbons raised an imperious brow. “You certainly took your time, didn’t you? Come along then, we need to go.” I wasn’t sure if the fact that he knew we were coming inspired confidence or annoyance, but either way, it was definitely comforting.