"Mr. Slade, I do hope you'll forgive this somewhat rude invitation."
I jerked awake. I peered through bleary eyes to find the source of the polite voice. My head felt as heavy as a bowling ball, mouth hanging open. I tried to lick my lips with a sandpaper tongue. Despite feeling the obvious presence of drool at the corners of my mouth, I was also so thirsty my mouth felt like a desert. "Wa-wa," I said, unable to properly form the word.
"Of course, Mr. Slade," said the voice of someone with an obvious nerd pedigree.
I felt a straw pressed into my mouth, and managed to suck sweet delicious water down my parched throat. I kept drinking until I thought I'd barf.
"Please don't overdo it, Mr. Slade," said the nasal voice.
I blinked a few times as my eyes focused on someone standing in front of me. A face resolved from the blob, and I tried to jump back but failed since I was sitting in a chair apparently attached to the floor.
A gray man looked back at me, smiling. The smile sent the feeling of spiders crawling up my spine, even though it looked amazingly genuine.
"Who are you?" I asked, and tried to stand, even though I fully expected restraints of some kind to hold me down. Much to my surprise, I rose to my feet, albeit with a bit of wobble in my knees.
"I am Lornicus," the golem said. "I apologize for the shoddy way you were treated, but it was imperative I bring you here to talk to my master." He clapped his hands, and the dim light in the room brightened perceptibly.
I felt another shock of confusion as I saw him clearly for the first time. Though he looked exactly like a gray man, his skin boasted a natural peach tone.
Lornicus seemed to sense my confusion, and held out a hand. "My skin is also warm, Mr. Slade, if you wish to see for yourself."
I backed away. "Are you real?"
His lips pursed in thought. "I am real in the sense that I am not illusion. However, the question you are asking is, 'Am I alive?'" He offered a slight smile. "I am not alive in the way you are, because I am a golem." Lornicus folded his hands behind his back. "However, I know you did not mean to engage in philosophy, and it is rather imperative you speak with my master while he's still here. Given that, would you please accompany me?" He motioned toward the door.
I could have played tough guy and refused or demanded more answers, but curiosity—as usual—got the best of me. I shrugged, and said, "After you."
We walked through a long hallway with white tile flooring and equally bland walls and ceiling. The light fixtures looked like ordinary fluorescents, and I noticed electrical outlets with a North American design interspersed along the wall. Evidently, I wasn't in Queens Gate anymore. We passed several closed doors and reached an elevator.
Lornicus pressed the call button. A moment later, it dinged, and the doors opened. The easy-listening version of a song I recognized drifted out. We stepped inside, and the golem pressed the topmost button.
"You're not like the other gray dudes," I said as the doors slid shut.
He shook his head. "No. I am either a success story, or a failure, depending upon the way one might look at it. My creator didn't intend me to appear or act as I do, though I take comfort in the fact he didn't destroy me upon realizing my defect."
I almost told him about Cinder, formerly a gray man who now possessed sentience, though he was completely ignorant of how to act like a real person, unlike Lornicus. The idea seemed like a bad one, though. Despite his friendliness, this golem served someone who'd tried to kill me on numerous occasions. On the bright side, I could ask all the burning questions I wanted once I came face-to-face with this special someone. Not that I anticipated solid answers.
"He is not expecting you," Lornicus said, clearing his throat nervously. "Please allow me to speak with him first in case he decides to kill you."
"Wait a minute," I said, fear gripping my bowels. "Why—what—"
I didn't have a chance to finish the question before the elevator opened into a spacious office overlooking a skyline crowded with skyscrapers. A man sat at a desk, fingers steepled, steely gray eyes staring pensively at the elevator.
He looked exactly like Lornicus and the gray men. More correctly, they looked exactly like him. His lips compressed into a thin line, and anger clouded his face. This man was Seraphim—an angel. He could kill me where I stood.
This man was Mr. Gray.
Chapter 2
Mr. Gray's eyes switched to Lornicus. "I told you no," he said, his baritone voice deadly quiet. "I see my commands no longer hold sway over you, servant."
Lornicus bowed deep. "They do, master. But I am here to serve your greater good. Meeting the Cataclyst, in my estimation, serves you far better than ignoring or killing him."
"Explain," the angel said.
"Foreseeance four, three, one, one has come to pass, sir. The decision has been made. This makes the future uncertain, and I believe Mr. Slade is your best hope for determining what is to come." The golem bowed again. "I am only doing what you created me for, sir."
Mr. Gray regarded Lornicus silently for a moment before switching his unnerving gaze to me. He motioned toward a leather chair in front of his desk. "Please have a seat, Mr. Slade." He looked back at the golem. "Lornicus, leave us. I will decide what to do with you later."
"By your command, sir." The golem gave me a curious look before getting back into the elevator and disappearing behind the closing doors.
Deciding to see where this went and hoping desperately it didn't end with a horrible demise, I took the proffered seat and met Mr. Gray's eyes. "It's nice to finally meet the man who's been trying to kill me," I said, somehow managing to keep my voice friendly, and my lips from curling into a snarl. His gray men had attacked me and Elyssa in the Grotto as we tracked down an assassin who'd marked my father for death. His golems had tried to run me over with a garbage truck not long after. Seeing the puppeteer behind the attacks felt surreal. Controlling his surrogates in their attempts to kill me must have been like one big video game for this man. Except he had infinite lives to lose, and I had only one.
He regarded me for a moment more before speaking. "You are a dangerous force in any equation, Mr. Slade. Time and time again, you have outdone my greatest expectations, and lived up to my worst fears."
To hear that he, of all people, feared me bolstered me slightly, though it should have scared the ever-loving poo out of me. "You and your angel comrades want Armageddon," I said. "It sounds like a really bad deal for the billions of people in this world."
A smile crept over his face. "Your assumption is incorrect." He folded his hands atop the large executive desk. "True, I once enjoyed the fruits of enslaving the people of this world. I once commanded armies of humans, created legions of my minions, and reveled in the art of war." His eyes seemed to look into the past. "It was all a game. A meaningless way to pass the time." His unnerving gaze found me once more as he leaned forward. "I learned better."
I flinched in surprise. "Meaning, you don't want to take over the world again?"
He waved a hand toward the skyline visible through the huge windows. "In a way, I already have. I own businesses, which span the world. I employ thousands of humans, driving their daily lives with commerce. I revel in the battle of business, of outthinking my opponents and crushing them with wits." He flicked his hand, as if dismissing it. "I do not wish to see this mortal realm destroyed any more than you."
"Why try to kill me then?" I asked, even more puzzled. "It's not like I'm threatening your employees' health benefits."
He smiled and leaned back. "No. You represent chaos. You represent uncertainty. Quite simply, you are a force which could tip the precarious balance of the future."
I felt an eyebrow rise at his statement. "Um, and Daelissa doesn't? She's hell-bent on repairing the Grand Nexus and letting in the rest of your buddies. I'm just trying to stop her."
He seemed to mull that over for a moment, his figure growing still. "You have proven useful in delaying her plans. While her attempts at throwing the Overworld"—he paused, a corner of his mouth lifting in obvious amusement—"into disarray have been childish and ill-considered, I have agents working to undo her feeble manipulations. Though you have done well in thwarting her, you are more like a bull in a china shop, wrecking everything with brute force. My subtle tugs on the threads would have been more than enough to undo her damage."
My nose wrinkled. "Wait a minute—are you blaming me for letting her get the rune?"
He lifted an eyebrow. "Your ignorance only compounds the problem, young man. She does not possess the rune and will not. At least not until I deem it time to set the wheels in motion which will create an absolute stalemate. I will create the balance I desire, and she will be undone."
The man was so full of himself he reminded me a lot of Underborn, the most notorious assassin in the Overworld and a great lover of manipulation. It raised a suspicion in me that Underborn might be the human version of Mr. Gray. Or maybe—"Do you employ Underborn?"
Surprise flickered across his face for the briefest second before disappearing into his poker face. "My business dealings are none of your concern—"
"Ah, so you do," I said, leaning forward with a grin. "It makes perfect sense for one big manipulator to use another." A smug feeling bolstered my grin. "Perfect balance between the dark and the light. I guess that's why they call you Mr. Gray."
"An apt description, Mr. Slade. You are, however, still woefully ignorant."
"Dude, I'm only eighteen. You're like eighteen-zillion years old. I would hope you know a lot more than me." I crossed a leg, attempting to give the impression I was more in control of the situation than I was. "Fill me in, then. Maybe I'll agree with you and let things with Daelissa and the Conroys go. I'd like nothing better than to relax without wondering when the next wave of creeps is about to beat the crap out of me."