Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,118
across his forehead, brushing a wayward lock of black hair out of his eyes. In the brief respite afforded him by the felling of his most recent opponent, this one a much-hated Apex, Jarrod scanned the strange area, taking quick stock.
It was the most bizarre dimension Jarrod had ever had the dizzying misfortune to step into. But given that it was an encapsulated pocket of space and time developed by and for the chaos god himself, that wasn’t surprising. It was just uncomfortable.
The area itself was more or less designed as a room, albeit a very large and empty room with no discernible walls and columns running through it. It appeared a little like a much larger version of the Parthenon or the Temple of Hephaestus in that respect. If anyone had taken a photograph of the enormous room with a camera set at a fast shutter speed, the room would have appeared utterly normal, if not overwhelmingly large.
However, it wasn’t in its construction that the room was strange; it was in the highly unsettling effect of its colors, and in the way that it moved.
The ceiling was composed of fog. That was the only way he could have described it. And that’s essentially what it was, because it was out of this “fog” that the monstrosities attacking him and the others had appeared and continued to do so. The room’s columns were simple enough, an off-white of plain marble. But he could swear they were moving. He would pass one, count on its being there for a specific tactic or on it not being there when he was backing up, only to find that it had shifted over several feet. Most unsettling of all however was the floor.
It was Vantablack, or rather the chaos-god-magically-created equivalent to the blacker-than-black man-made substance. Vantablack was a material that absorbed nearly all light, essentially rendering three-dimensional figures into two-dimensional shapes. And that’s what the floor beneath Jarrod’s feet was doing. To his perception, it wasn’t so much a floor as it was an endless drop into the vast cosmos of space.
More than a few times in the last few minutes, Jarrod had experienced the stomach-rising sensation that he was falling, even though he could still feel the solidness of the floor pressing against the soles of his shoes. It was disorienting, which was obviously the point.
And he hated it.
After Antares Mace absconded with Annaleia Faith on Sixth, Jarrod and Cain had… talked. Okay, Jarrod had talked. At least at first. He was pretty sure he didn’t have a choice. But then he’d actually listened, because as luck would have it, Cain for some reason felt it was important that Jarrod be filled in on what was transpiring.
Thank the gods.
It was during that discussion that he learned of Randall Price’s designs on Annaleia – and of the grotesque serial killings. Jarrod became emotionally torn. On the one hand, if Anna was with the dragon, she was probably a lot safer from Price. On the other hand, if she was with the dragon, she was with the dragon.
And she also wasn’t with Jarrod.
In the end, Jarrod offered his assistance. He would help however he possibly could. He wanted to keep Annaleia safe, obviously. But he also couldn’t help wondering whether his vision had anything to do with those killings. Cain was surprisingly not surprised that Jarrod wanted to help. And the Nightmare Warlock wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Didn’t Cain know about Jarrod’s reputation? Wasn’t the whole world convinced that Sterling was nothing but a rake, a thief, and a single supernatural being with the power of three and therefore far too dangerous to be trusted?
Because if he did, he sure didn’t show it. Instead, the Monsters clan head patted Jarrod on the back – hard – and immediately got to work with the others on formulating a plan.
Jarrod remained involved in all of it, again not only to help Anna, but because of that vision. It had been so very strange – as strange as the damn room he was currently fighting in. It was the only vision he’d ever had in which he could not see the victim’s face. He just couldn’t. He could hear people in distress, and he could feel a pain in his chest as if he were desperately hurting, aching. Everything about it was so real.
He simply could not tell who it was that was lying on the floor, dying. That part was a blur.