The Forever Gate - By Isaac Hooke Page 0,1

ask. He didn't want the other prisoners to hear. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he said, "Say sorry to Cora for me."

Briar frowned, and he turned away. In moments he was a featureless silhouette among the shadows.

Hoodwink felt the jailer's eyes on him.

"What are you looking at gol?" He pulled the neck of his jail-issue robe tight. His upper chest was blistered from the morning's flames.

Jobe didn't blink. "I am on guard duty, krub."

Hoodwink scrunched up his face. "Don't you have something better to do than stare at me all day?"

"I am on guard duty, krub." Spoken exactly the same way. Jobe unexpectedly clouted the bars with his baton.

Hoodwink leapt back.

Jobe broke into a stupid grin, and moaned mindlessly.

Hoodwink limped over to the cell's only mat. "Damn gols." They really were degenerating.

Not only was Hoodwink's chest badly burned, but he'd hurt his ankle something nasty this morning during the capture. He'd given the Gate guards quite the chase, that's for sure. If he hadn't stopped to roll in the snow and douse the flames on his person, he might've made it.

Lying on the mat, he lifted one hand to his face. The guttering torches whipped shadows across his knuckles. He made a fist. He could almost feel the electricity within, the power that was shielded away by the collar at his neck. If only he could get the damn thing off. For the ten-thousandth time in his life, he brought his hands to his neck and squeezed his fingers beneath the rim, digging into the flesh of his throat, and pulled. He clenched his teeth and fought against the bronze, but the metal didn't yield.

He gave up. It was impossible. In a contest between flesh and bronze, bronze always won.

The gols had bitched him when he was fifteen, just when he'd started to develop his powers, like all the other humans who came of age. Bitched for twenty years.

"Your trial is tonight?" Jobe said. "Ahead of the murderers? Rapists? What did you do?"

Hoodwink ignored the gol, who was still staring at him.

Jobe wiped a batch of slobber from his lips. "Tonight your head goes bounce-bounce."

Hoodwink blinked, and a smile flitted across his face.

They'd have to break through the collar to make his head go bounce-bounce.

CHAPTER TWO

Hoodwink sat behind a desk at the front of the courthouse, his back to the stands. He was shivering from the cold, and nervousness, and the shackles around his hands rattled quietly. One word repeated again and again in his mind. Lightning lightning lightning. Lightning lightning lightning. LIGHTNING.

Behind him, the courthouse was packed. He'd been stunned by the sheer number of people who'd turned out to watch his public trial and execution. He didn't think he was that important. And he wasn't. The fact was, he hadn't been to an execution in a long time, and he'd simply forgotten what a draw the bloodsport could be. It seemed somehow fitting that the last execution he'd attend would be his own.

"This court has heard the witnesses." The judge wore an ermineskin cloak over a black gown that was stamped with the red gavel of his profession. The long white curls of a wig spilled over his forehead and down his back. He was one of the most lucid gols Hoodwink had conversed with in months. "The evidence is overwhelming. You have been placed by multiple observers at the scene, and caught committing the most horrendous act of terrorism this city has known in years. What do you have to say to all of this, krub Hoodwink Cooper?"

That I'm glad, he thought. So damn glad none of them saw her.

Instead: "I'm guilty, oh honorable gol." Hoodwink's breath misted.

Murmurs rippled through the crowd.

The judge eyed him critically. "So you admit that you attacked the Forever Gate?"

"I thoroughly admit this, your honor."

"That you defied our most ancient and sacred law?"

"Defied? Defiled might be a better word. Raped in the arse." Hoodwink shot the audience the biggest shit-eating grin he could manage. One old woman gasped.

The judge slammed his gavel onto the sounding block of his desk, and Hoodwinked jumped, actually jumped. That thud had a certain finality to it. An end of ends.

The judge leaned forward in his chair. "Do you admit to belonging to the terror organization known as the Users?"

"I do." He nodded toward the envelope on the desk in front of him. "You'll find a full confession in there. Along with names." All fake, of course. He didn't even know a