Keystone (Gatewalkers) Read online

  Maelyn straightened, her gaze returning to the Keystone. If she opened a Gate, she could grab Isil and be through in the space of a heartbeat.

  So could the vampire.

  Maelyn blocked William’s face from her mind.

  Maelyn reached out and lifted the Keystone from the casket. Light kindled at its heart, answering her touch. Warmth flowed down her arms, and with it came strength. She could tear apart the fabric of the world if she wished to. It frightened her.

  With one arm Maelyn swept the remaining food off the table onto the floor. She set the Stone on the table, but even when her fingers left its surface she felt the phantom warmth of power.

  “Which Gate do you want opened?” Maelyn said, her voice perfectly steady.

  Isil gasped. “Maelyn, you mustn’t!”

  Maelyn gestured for her to be silent, her eyes never parting from the vampire.

  The Blood Prince tilted his head slightly, measuring. “Any that you please,” he said.

  Maelyn nodded shortly. She turned to the blue skinned Karunda lingering in the doorway and held out her hand. “I need a sword.”

  Scowling, the creature looked to its master.

  Maelyn let out a hissing breath. “I have only done this once. I dare not deviate from what my father taught me.”

  The vampire inclined his head, and the Karunda grudgingly drew a slim silver blade from its sheath. He handed it to Maelyn, grip first.

  She hefted it to get a feel for its weight and balance. It seemed well made. She could only hope it was strong enough. Maelyn took a deep breath, centering her focus on the Keystone. It answered.

  Maelyn could feel the Great Gates; dozens of worlds just outside the reach of her fingertips. She felt the heat of summer and the icy cold of winter, saw the light of moons and suns. She focused on the white-hot heart of the Keystone.

  Maelyn tightened her grip on the sword. She could barely sense it still in her hand. Please let this work. Maelyn raised it high and brought it slicing down into the heart of the Keystone to destroy it.

  She felt the blade meet the Stone. A thundering crack split the air, slamming her backwards. The immense power sealed in the stone roared out, ripping through the Gates. Ripping them open.

  No! Maelyn tried to scream. She only meant to break the Stone. To keep its power from ever being used again.

  Maelyn felt the power wildly seeking outlets, searching out the weak places between the worlds. She reached out and grasped it. The power flailed against her, seeking to wriggle free of her. Searing her. Tearing through her. Maelyn forced it back into the shattered pieces of the Keystone, frantically trying to seal it away again. It swallowed her in colors and blackness.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Fairyland

  Several Days Later, Worlds Away

  The opening of the Gate was like the ripple on a lake when a fish swims close to the surface - a flash of silver motion, then gone. So fast that if someone had been in the deserted alley they would have doubted their eyes. But no one saw it open. No one saw the two fist-sized balls of light emerge, one pink, one turquoise. No one noticed as they hesitated, taking in the strange new world around them.

  The pink ball of light darted into the air, to and fro, examining a fire escape, a window planter, and the whiskers of a scruffy alley cat lazing in a tiny patch of sun. She lifted the lid on a dumpster only to drop it quickly, reeling from the smell. A small, tinny laugh emerged from the turquoise ball.

  A passing human carelessly flung a cup into the alley, drenching the turquoise light with cold coffee. He buzzed angrily as the pink light pealed with laughter.

  The turquoise light vanished, reappearing on the careless human’s foot. She suddenly stumbled flat onto her face, taking a pair of other humans down with her. She tried to get up again, only to find incredulously that her shoelaces had been tied together mid-stride.

  Both balls of light broke into their high-pitched laughs, unheard by the oblivious humans. They flitted down the sidewalk, the pink one fluttering to and fro examining faces, the turquoise one periodically vanishing to reappear further along.

  A sudden gust of hot air from a vent sent the pink light flying into a dizzy spiral. She fought to regain her equilibrium, making small noises of distress, fluttering into the road where the wake of passing cars threw her into a further muddle. Making distressed noises himself, the turquoise light popped in and out, in and out, scrambling to follow her across the road while dodging deadly car tires.

  Finally they reached the sidewalk on the other side. The pink light wearily dropped to the concrete, and the turquoise light joined her to make a small purple huddle.

  “This is a dangerous world,” the pink pixie said to her other half.

  He wrapped a comforting tendril of light around her. “All of these humans, walking back and forth without even looking at each other. Not very friendly. Perhaps we should go back through the Gate. There are plenty of heroes in our own world to choose from.”

  The pink pixie pulled away from him, rising several inches off the ground to where he could not reach her. “We will find a hero here,” she said stubbornly. Here was where the Great Gate led them. Here they would find a hero to rescue Princess Maelyn and save the worlds.

  The turquoise pixie gave a gloomy sigh. “Then let us find our hero quickly. What about that one?” He pointed out a young woman sitting at a cafe terrace, quietly sipping her drink while she read a book. She had dark blue hair that fell to her shoulders, matching her knitted vest and fingerless gloves.

  The pink pixie examined her closely. The young woman looked sweet and quiet, her face lost in dreamy contemplation. But she never looked up as people passed by, her shoulders hunched against the world’s intrusion.

  “Too quiet,” the pink pixie said. “She would not speak up when needed. She looks too far inward.”

  The turquoise pixie turned a sour shade of green. “Quiet ones can still be brave.”

  “Yes, but Seinne Sonne needs a hero who is more than brave.”

  The pink pixie’s interest pricked, catching the tail of conversation between two boys sharing a bench nearby.

  “…But I’m thinking if we add another good tank or two to the guild we can take on the Lord of Death in next week’s raid,” one boy said proudly to the other. He looked no more than perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old, with a crooked grin and green hair like a wood elf’s.

  The pink pixie’s eyes grew wide. Guild? Raid? This beardless boy planned to do battle with Ard Ri, Lord of Death?

  The other boy, a gangly youth with a profusion of freckles and ears like a mouse that stuck out from his orange hair, wrinkled his nose. “Maybe. I really want to level my mage first. He’s still barely taking on vampires.”

  The green haired boy shrugged. “So train him up today. I’ll party with you.”

  The pink pixie darted back over to the turquoise. “Did you hear? This boy is training vampire hunters!”

  The freckled boy nodded. “All right, so long as we don’t hit the Factory. If I never see the Factory again it’ll be too soon.”

  “Bus,” the first boy said, looking over the other boy’s shoulder. At that strange signal, both boys stood and faced down the street.

  A big blue city bus slowed to a halt in front of the boys, the folding doors sliding open with a hiss of air. The boys climbed aboard, now chattering about “stats” and “builds” and training grounds.

  Training grounds! “Come! Come!” the pink pixie cried. She chased after the boys and tucked herself into the pocket on the side of the freckled boy’s pack.

  The turquoise pixie vanished to reappear on the green haired boy’s shoe, clinging to the laces for all he was worth.

  The boys trooped down the center aisle to plunk into a pair of hard, bright orange chairs that almost matched the freckled boy’s hair. They compared the strengths and weaknesses of knights versus mages, the pink pixie listening in delight.

  If even the children of this world trained t
o fight dragons, orcs, vampires and even the forces of Ard Ri himself, then surely there would be a hero among them who would be willing to return with them to Seinne Sonne to rescue the princess and restore the Keystone. The pink pixie hummed contentedly.

  ***

  It was one of those days.

  Charlie knew it from the start. First it was Saturday, and Saturday was always the Virtual Reality Arcade’s busiest day. Second, she had worked evening shift the day before, which meant that she hadn’t gotten back to her little corner room at her sister’s place until midnight. That meant she could only get five hours of sleep before she had to be up and out the door. Six if she pushed it.

  She had gotten seven.

  Charlie managed to rush in and get her pre-opening duties finished in record time, only to open the doors and find Mr. Patchett and his great-grandson Jared “Frodo” Patchett already waiting.

  “Dragon Lady!” Mr. Patchett exclaimed as Charlie slid up the grating across the cade’s entrance.

  Charlie smiled at him and inwardly sighed. She’d been hoping for a quiet moment to breathe before business started. “Good morning, Mr. Patchett.” His granddaughter, Jared’s mother, worked at mall security, and when she couldn’t find a sitter for her “boys” she dropped them off at the cade.

  For the entire year and a half since Charlie started working the cade, Mr. Patchett hadn’t remembered her name once. For him, Charlie was now and forever “Dragon Lady.”

  Charlie wore a pewter dragon pendant she’d had since high school. When Mr. Patchett first saw it, he had pointed to it and tried to ask if it was a particular dragon, like “something from dragons and something.” She had politely told him no, it was just a dragon. But the association stuck.

  At the cade, the rules didn’t allow employees to personalize their name tag or lariats. No pins, no stickers, no nothing. They hadn’t even let her use “Charlie” instead of “Charlotte.” Wearing her dragon pendant had become her small rebellion against becoming one of the faceless uniformed masses of the world. Like she had been in high school. Like she had been in college. Like she was determined not to be for the rest of her life.

  But her grades hadn’t been stellar, and her college wasn’t prestigious, so here she was. Working the cade a year and a half after graduation, and beginning to wonder if she’d ever manage to move on.

  Life had turned into a holding pattern. The same story day in and day out, with no relief in sight. The trouble was, Charlie had nowhere else to go.

  It felt like she’d always been the epitome of average: average height, average build, not skinny, not chubby, with brown eyes and naturally brown hair that she dyed dark magenta and kept shoulder length so she could manage it. Charlie liked to think she wasn’t ugly, but she couldn’t really be called pretty either, with a wide forehead and narrow chin. She had good cheekbones, but her nose was too small.

  Pretty enough to get her hit on by the cade’s regular creeps who had nothing better to do with their time, but apparently not enough to catch the attention of someone decent. Ah, well; she had resigned herself to singleness after a few failed relationships in college anyway. More or less.

  Charlie wore the cade’s khaki pants/white t-shirt/sneakers uniform with the cade’s name splashed across the back of the shirt in colors that could make eyes bleed under the black lights, and that was virtually guaranteed to make people overlook her face.

  “Age of Destiny today, Frodo?” Charlie ruffled Jared’s hair as he led his great-grandfather to a chair in front of one of the game screens rigged up to look like jukeboxes. Mr. Patchett gleefully swiped his ID card through the reader and pulled up solitaire. Kendra, Jared’s mother, paid the cade’s monthly rate to let him play as much as he wanted.

  The game screens (jukeboxes, spaceships, and Dracula castles) took up one wall of the cade. The opposite wall held the glass cases with the home edition games for sale, while the counter/desk with the monitor for the cade’s master computer sat parallel to the back wall. Behind the desk, out of general view, was the bank of monitors that showed the running games in the VR rooms, all of them blank for the moment. A little hall at the back led to the actual VR rooms, its wall space covered with flashing ads and splashed with black light paint that glowed in neon colors.

  “Maybe.” Jared shrugged. He was the cutest kid, slightly chubby with sandy blond hair and brown eyes like Charlie’s. Kendra didn’t let him get his hair colored. He’d confessed once that he’d been teased about it in school, so Charlie started calling it his “magic” hair because no one could resist ruffling it. And who would want to color magic hair?

  “Anything new this week?” Jared asked hopefully.

  Charlie rattled off the week’s newest games: a standard alien shoot ‘em up, two new puzzle games, and a fashion game geared for preteen girls.

  Jared wrinkled his nose, as Charlie knew he would. “Age of Destiny.” It was his favorite game, a sword and sorcery. It was one of those games that could last forever because there was a quest behind every corner and a dungeon in every hill. Every so often the game designers added another expansion with splashy new graphics, exotic locales, and new super powered weapons and abilities.

  Charlie ruffled his hair again. “Age of Destiny it is.” She went behind the back counter and swiped his ID card to log him into the system. Being the first customer in the cade meant he had his choice of the single player VR rooms and no waiting period.

  Age of Destiny was popular enough she didn’t need to run a search for it on the computer; it was one of those on the sidebar shortcut menu. Charlie loaded it onto a data key.

  Charlie saw Jared into the VR room and popped the data key in the reader. “Two hours,” she reminded him. After two hours, officially Jared had to get back in line and wait until a new room opened up. Larger groups could schedule ahead for more time. If it wasn’t a busy day Charlie usually let Jared have a little extra time, since they were on the monthly rate. Perks of being a regular. Magic hair never hurt.

  Jared nodded and Charlie closed the door. Moments later she could faintly hear the Age of Destiny intro music as the VR projectors started up.

  It marked her last quiet moment.

  As more customers – mainly teens and preteens with parents grateful to be rid of them for the day – poured into the shop, it kept Charlie busy swiping IDs, setting up VR sessions, selling the home edition games, monitoring the screens to make sure no one was using inappropriate cheat codes, kicking out of the VR rooms those whose time was up, chewing out those that brought in food and drink without sealed containers, cleaning up spills when said food and drink items spilled, and not giving in to the old “but my mom/dad said I am allowed to play it” despite the rating that clearly said they were too young.

  Yeah. It was one of those days.

  “Dragon Lady,” Mr. Patchett called plaintively.

  Charlie looked up from sopping up a sticky soda mess in the back hall. “Just a moment,” she called out. Eliza was due to arrive to back her up any moment, and it would not be a moment too soon.

  Charlie gathered up the sodden paper towels on the floor and threw them in the trash bin, taking a fresh sheet to get the worst of it off her fingers. “What’s the problem, Mr. Patchett?” Charlie said, coming to peer over his shoulder at the game screen. He probably just forgot how to open a new game. He did that every once in a while.

  “Look,” he said, and clicked to open a new game. A notice appeared.

  Time allowance exceeded.

  To purchase more time

  Charlie didn’t read the rest of the message; she didn’t need to. Frowning at the screen, Charlie held out her hand. “May I see your card, Mr. Patchett?”

  The old man handed it to her and she swiped it again to ensure he hadn’t accidentally logged out. He had done that before, too. But no, trying to open a new game met with the same results.

  Charlie pulled up the account history. It should have been working fine; Kendra had already paid in full for t
he month, but…. Charlie scowled. Since when did the monthly cade fee have a time limit?

  Charlie considered quickly, fiddling with her dragon pendant. She cleared the screen and logged him out. Just this once…. Charlie dug her ID card out of her pocket and swiped it. She pulled up a new game. “There you go,” she said, handing Mr. Patchett back his own ID. “That should fix it for now. I’ll see if I can find out what went wrong, ok?”

  Beaming, the old man went back to his solitaire.

  Charlie went back and finished mopping up the sticky soda mess, reluctantly coming to the conclusion that there was a call she needed to make.

  Going to the main desk, Charlie first checked to make sure no one’s time in the VR rooms would be up soon, then called the general manager. The blue “connecting” wheel spun for several long moments before the blank screen was replaced by her boss’s pointy face. Jason Snyder’s black and white striped hair was gathered back into a slick ponytail.

  “What’s up, Magenta?” Snyder said, his face projecting boredom.

  Every time he called her ‘Magenta,’ she was sooooo tempted to call him ‘Skunk.’ “I think there’s been a computer glitch. I have a customer here who opted for the monthly rates, but it’s saying he’s run out of playing time.”

  As she spoke, his expression dropped from boredom to irritation. “So? What’s the glitch?”

  “So, it is saying he ran out of playing time,” Charlie reiterated. “On the monthly plan.”

  “If he’s expended his time, he’s expended his time. He’s got to buy more just like everyone else. Hard times, economy, all that. Didn’t you read the dailies?”

  The dailies were the daily updates. Usually Charlie read them even when she didn’t need to, though they were boring as dirt; it never hurt to stay up to date. But not this morning, she hadn’t.

  “I’ll go look them over again,” Charlie said, her face flushing.