he was here, he’d have reinforcements, and they’d make sure Liuz never completed his plans.
“My comrades in arms in the other dimension have been using the Detention Center to hide criminals who are sympathetic to our cause.” Stefan stooped to avoid a low-hanging protrusion. “I set things up with a couple of friends before I used the rift to escape the law all those years ago. I didn’t know technology in this dimension would be so primitive. Our people are long lived in the other dimension, but not immortal. So I am now working with the next generation. The sons and daughters of my original friends. Children who were raised to believe in the cause.”
Keira didn’t respond, willing to let him continue his delusional ranting so she could gather the information she needed.
He seemed happy she was hanging on to his every word. The more he talked, the more full of himself he grew. On her part, she became more and more alarmed at how insane he was.
As they reached a widening of the tunnel, Stefan swept out his arms and said, “Here it is.”
Keira stepped around him and stopped to stare at the machine in front of her. It was larger than she’d expected, nearly van size, gunmetal in color with something that looked like an antenna array on one end. Lots of knobs and dials took up the side she could see. Lights blinked, yellow and green, and one button gleamed red.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Admiration colored Stefan’s tones in broad strokes.
“I’ve never really thought of machines as being beautiful,” Keira replied. “Though I do think my car is pretty,” she allowed.
He laughed. “See? You do think they can be beautiful.” He crossed his arms and stared at the rift machine like a proud papa. “This thing is the key to my plan. It will keep the rift open for as long as it’s running. My comrades on the other side have assured me that there is quadruple the number of prets ready to come through the rift.” He glanced at her. “Right now preternaturals are only about three percent of the population in the U.S. According to my comrades’ records, every seventy-three years approximately twenty thousand people are stripped of their bodies and sent through the rift.”
Those were not exactly staggering numbers. “Three percent of the population is something like…” She did a rough calculation in her head. “A little over nine million?”
“Right.” He looked impressed with her mathematical skills. “Imagine with this Influx that we can multiply that number by four. That puts us up to ten percent.” He stepped closer to the machine and ran his hand over the metal. “As soon as my friends have more preternaturals ready, we can activate this machine and open the rift on our own, any time we need to. Any time we want to.”
Keira walked a little closer, too. “Does the rift work both ways?”
Puzzlement dropped his brows low over his eyes.
“I mean, can you fix it so entities can be sent from this dimension to the other one?” Maybe one way to help save humanity would be to send the entities from the other dimension right back to where they’d come from. Perhaps the souls could be salvaged without lasting damage, letting humans continue to live out their lives as they were meant to.
He cocked his head. “I suppose it could be done to make the rift available to either side. But we don’t have the technology available for the body-stripping process,” he said. “And, besides, why would any of us want to go back? There we would grow old and die. Here, once our essence combines with our human hosts, we can live forever.” He stroked his hand across the machine again. “It won’t be long before we outnumber humans, or at least aren’t as much of a minority. Then we’ll see who has the power.”
Keira turned around and made a pretense out of studying the rest of the roomlike structure they were in. As soon as she was able to get out of here, she had to contact Caladh and let him know the location of this mine. She also had to make it clear to him that, whatever happened, Finn was not to be hurt. As long as she stuck close to him she might be able to keep him out of harm’s way. With everything they’d been through, it had to count for something.
One thing was certain. Stefan must not be allowed to succeed.
Chapter