Twisted Sister of Mine (Overworld Chronicles) by John Corwin Page B

arch in the dead city of El Dorado in the far southern reaches of Colombia.
    The operator's explanation shed new light on what exactly had happened to me. The arch I'd taken must have malfunctioned for some reason, leaving cracks in the traversion tunnel and allowing me to fall into different realities for a span of seconds before sucking me back in and finally depositing me at the other end. I'd been very lucky. Otherwise, I might have been trapped forever in a hellish nightmare of a realm. One of them had been filled with cherubs. It wouldn't have taken long before they'd sucked me dry and turned me into a shadow person.
    "A special arch?" Shelton said, ignoring the man's concerns about the tunnels. "I wasn't told anything about that."
    "Probably because you're there to secure the area, not work on sensitive magical equipment," the first operator said, his nose elevating to a condescending angle.
    "I know that, but securing the area means I gotta know the layout. I need to know what's high priority and where we can fall back if things get ugly."
    The second operator sighed. "Battle mages think they're such badasses."
    Shelton smirked. "We do our job just like you do yours. Now, you want to be safe, or do you want to keep things from me and make my job more difficult?"
    The first operator considered it for a moment and shrugged. "The layout of the control room is supposedly very similar to this one with one major exception."
    "And that is?" Shelton prodded.
    "The special arch we're supposed to work on looks like a half-sized version of an Obsidian Arch, except that,well"—he looked at the other operator—"it's white and black."
    My mind flashed back to the information Miles had given us. The arch the Seraphim had used to invade our realm the last time was the same exact color combination.
    Jeremiah Conroy intended to fix it.

Chapter 10
     
    Shelton and I exchanged troubled glances, before he recovered and turned back to the man. "I'll need a diagram with the layout of the control room."
    The men exchanged confused looks. "We don't have one," the first said. "Nobody's ever documented it to the best of our knowledge."
    "Then how does Jeremiah Conroy know there's even control room there, much less this special arch?"
    "How does he know anything?" the man replied, as if it were the stupidest question he'd ever heard.
    "I hear he has demons who work for him," the second said in a conspiratorial whisper. "And not the small ones either."
    "He's insanely powerful," the first said, nodding his head vigorously.
    "He told us to expect a similar layout to this one, but that's about it, other than our engineers will be working on the white and black arch."
    "What the hell?" Shelton said. "What does an arch like that do?"
    The operators shrugged in unison.
    Shelton leaned forward. "It's important I know."
    The first operator shook his head. "He didn't tell us. His engineering crew was supposed to be here tonight to help us with the arches."
    "With the Obsidian Arch shut down, how are they gonna get here?"
    "He might have to fly them over the old-fashioned way," the first said.
    "All right." Shelton motioned me to follow him. "We're gonna look around and base our information off this room. If you find out anything else, let us know."
    We walked down the rows of small arches. Each one stood about ten feet tall with a silver ring embedded in polished obsidian at the base. Straight aisles ran between the arches, wide enough for several people to walk abreast of each other. Shelton ran his hand along the twisting architecture of one arch, his brow wrinkling.
    "What is this stuff anyway?" He shook his head. "It feels like rock, but it doesn't."
    I touched the slick surface, my hand following the odd spiraling design. "No idea."
    "Tell me again how you used the arch in Thunder Rock."
    Looking around the room, I spotted a row of arches separated from the others by a slightly wider aisle and led Shelton there. From here we could see the travel