Web of Chaos - Chapter 18: Escape

Step Five: get back to the Mirage.

Kalden cycled his battle mana as the newcomers fanned out across the restricted section. Trask headed straight for the row of locked doors while the others scanned the surrounding aisles.

They couldn’t see Kalden’s group through the camouflage device, but Trask was a knowledge artist. He probably had techniques to deal with this exact scenario.

“How much longer?” he asked Arturo.

“We’re close, shoko. Three minutes—maybe five.”

“They’re looking for us.” Akari spoke in a sharp whisper despite the sound suppression Constructs. “How’d they know?”

“Looks empty,” one of Trask’s friends said when they reached the center of the room.

“Or they’re invisible.” Trask’s mouth made a thin line as he scanned the aisles. “Do a full search. And send someone over to the Mirage Nightclub—check if Zeller’s still there.”

Kalden swallowed, and he felt Akari’s unease through their soulbond. Their public display had seemed like overkill before. Now it might not be enough.

Trask stopped at one particular door near the maintenance entrance and scanned his thumb on the keypad. The pad beeped its approval, and the door slid open.

“We must have triggered a trap on our way in,” Kalden said.

“Could’ve been anything,” Arturo said. “Scanner, pressure plate . . .”

Akari rounded on him. “You said you—”

“What’s done is done,” Kalden cut in. “Do we retreat, or do we stay?”

“The copies aren’t done,” Arturo said. “We leave now, we get nothing.”

“So we take the tablets with us,” Akari said.

“They’ll know it was you, shoka. The police will get a warrant and—”

“Who cares?” she interrupted. “They’ll never prove it.”

“They might still expel you.”

“Let them. I need those tablets to advance.”

Kalden tuned them out and considered their other options. Akari might not care about school, but their group couldn’t afford to make too many waves. Ashur Moonfire didn’t see them as a true threat right now, but that could change overnight. At the very least, he could put Kalden’s team under surveillance and catch them using their Aeon techniques against mana beasts. He might even catch them taking a portal to the Solidor’s safe house.

What else?

They had a copy of Glim inside a mana battery, but the Glimbattery weighed several hundred pounds, which was hardly suitable for combat. And it only held enough power for a single Master-level technique. She could probably knock out Trask and wipe his memories, but what about his friends?

“Do you have anymore pocket cells?” he asked Arturo. Those cells had failed to capture Valeria Zantano last spring, but she’d been a Master. They should work just fine on a group of Artisans.

“Sure.” Arturo nodded toward his open bag, and Akari knelt to retrieve them. “Top zipper on the right. But the cameras will see it.”

One of Trask’s friends turned toward their aisle, and Kalden cycled faster.

“So we take out the cameras first,” he asked. “How about an anti-mana pulse?”

“No AMPs,” Akari said at once. “We’ll lose our getaway portal.”

“She’s right, shoko. Plus those cameras run on electricity. Not mana.”

“An EMP, then?”

Arturo glanced up from his work, measuring the room with his eyes. “That’d be close, but it might work.

Kalden nodded. “Let’s do it.”

~~~

Zukan stood guard outside the staff bathroom, his broad shoulders blocking the narrow corridor. The music from the dance floor pulsed through the walls, rattling the overhead lights in their sockets.

He checked his watch for the hundredth time. Twelve fifty-seven. They’d been gone for almost an hour now.

“Everything okay?” A young woman tried to squeeze past him. Her polished name tag marked her as a staff member, and she wore a knee-length black dress with her blond hair in a ponytail.

Zukan crossed his arms and put on a blank expression. “Private event.”

She raised an eyebrow, and a nervous chuckle escaped her lips. “In the bathroom?”

“VIPs only,” he added.

The server mumbled something about rich kids and strode off. She was, without a doubt, the bravest staff member he’d seen all night. Dragonborn like Zukan weren’t exactly rare in Koreldon City, but few people actually spoke with them.

This resulted in a lonely life, even among his teammates. They all valued Zukan as a mana artist, but that wasn’t the same.

Although Zukan had to admit, he was partially to blame for this outcome. Even among his own kind, he’d still been an outsider—calm and quiet, while most dragons liked grand displays of emotion.

In some ways, this approach had paid off. While his peers were out socializing, Zukan had immersed himself in his training. He’d become the strongest Apprentice among the Unmarked, and the strongest first-year in the Artegium.

But that was last year. Today, Zukan served as a henchman for Akari and Kalden. It wasn’t that he blamed his teammates or resented his role. Kalden was making him a special version of soulshine with no side effects, and Zukan could practically taste the Artisan realm around the corner.

But Akari and Kalden would be Masters by then. When had Zukan fallen so far behind?

Kyzar wanted him to become the Dragonlord someday. Was that really possible? Even if Zukan managed to defeat Axel Zantano in a duel, would the people of Creta actually follow him?

A commotion near the club’s entrance caught Zukan’s attention. He glanced around the corner and spotted two uniformed officers pushing their way through the crowd. One man was a pale Espirian with short brown hair and a mustache. The other man looked Cadrian, with shorter hair, and a darker complexion.

Zukan’s heart slammed against his ribcage, but he kept his expression blank.

The officers spoke with the bouncer, who pointed them toward the manager’s office. Good. They weren’t coming this way. Not yet, anyway.

His hand drifted to the comm device in his pocket. Should he warn the others? No, not yet. His team already had a tight deadline, so nothing had changed. Better to wait and see what these guys wanted.

The officers emerged from the office a minute later, along with the club manager who wore a dark blazer over his black T-shirt. The middle-aged man looked nervous, even for a human, and he gestured frantically as he spoke.

The group made their way around the dance floor, questioning several of his fellow students along the way. Zukan checked his watch again. One o’three. His team technically had twelve minutes before the wards ran their diagnostic sweep, but twelve minutes might be too long.

Zukan pressed a button on his belt, activating the comm device in his left ear. “We might have a problem.”

“Yeah?” Arturo’s staticy voice echoed from the other end. “What’s up, draco?”

“Police just showed up. I think they’re looking for our team.”

“Shit,” he replied. “How many? What rank?”

“Two Artisans.”

“Stall them,” Arturo said. “They think we’re here, but they have no proof.”

The officers eventually made their way toward the staff bathrooms at the back of the club. They stopped a few paces away from Zukan, and the Espirian man stepped forward, holding up a silver badge in a leather wallet. “Officer Morrow, Koreldon City Police Department. This is Officer Tanaka. We’re looking for Akari Zeller. Is she in there?”

Zukan kept staring at the dance floor as if he hadn’t seen them. It wasn’t hard, since both men only came up to his chest.

“Hey.” Tanaka waved his hand in front of Zukan’s face and repeated the question in Cadrian. He wasn’t a native speaker, judging by his accent and rhythm.

Zukan furrowed his brow and leaned down to their level, cupping a hand to the side of his face. Dragonborn had excellent hearing, but most humans didn’t know that. They just saw heads with no external ear structures.

Tanaka repeated the question a third time and tried to step around him. Zukan shifted his weight, planting his feet more firmly to block the narrow corridor. He positioned one arm against the wall, creating a barrier they couldn’t pass without physical force.

“Why?” he finally asked in Cadrian. Better to have them think he didn’t speak any Espirian. This forced Tanaka to do all the talking, the same way you forced multiple opponents to attack you in a narrow space. As an added bonus, they might reveal something in front of him.

“Police business,” Tanaka said. “Step aside. Now.”

Zukan didn’t budge. “Is Akari Zeller under arrest?”

“No, but we have authority to question her under Section Forty-Seven of the Civil Order Act. Continued obstruction constitutes interference with official police duties, which is a Class C misdemeanor.”

Zukan was no expert on Espirian law, but he knew the Civil Order Act hadn’t actually been passed. Moonfire had tried, but the Senate had blocked him. What’s more, these two still hadn’t given a reason for their rush, and Arturo claimed they had no evidence.

“You can wait,” he told them in a bored tone. “Unless you have a warrant.”

Marrow glanced at the bathroom with a distant look in his eyes. He was probably opening his Silver Sight, but Arturo’s wards should prevent him from seeing the empty room, or the bags they’d left behind.

He turned back to Zukan a second later. “We’re going to ask you one more time to step aside. If you continue to obstruct a police investigation, we’ll be forced to place you under—”

“I’m just doing my job,” Zukan interrupted in Cadrian.

“So are we.” Tanaka’s hand moved toward his belt, and his fingers rested on a restraining device.

Zukan gave an inward sigh. “Then come back with a warrant.” If only he’d advanced by now; they never would have threatened a fellow Artisan this way, even if it was a just bluff in their part.

“Last warning,” Tanaka said. “Step aside or we’ll call for backup and place you under arrest for obstruction.”

Yes . . . definitely a bluff. If they had a right to storm the bathroom, they would have done it by now.

Several of his fellow students had noticed the confrontation, slowing as they passed to watch the standoff. Fortunately, they looked more amused than anything else. They’d all seen Akari and Kalden go in that bathroom, and they exactly knew why Zukan stood guard. Or so they thought.

The two officers exchanged a look, then Marrow stepped back and spoke into his radio. “Unit Fourteen to Dispatch. No visual on Zeller. Subject’s companion is refusing access.”

The radio crackled with static, and Zukan couldn’t hear a word over the din of the nightclub. The officer’s jaw tightened as he listened to the response, then his eyes widened.

“Copy that,” he said, straightening. “We’ll secure the perimeter.”

Marrow returned to where Tanaka stood, still watching Zukan carefully. “They’re sending over the Chief. ETA’s three minutes.”