Elyssa squeezed me in a happy hug. "Underborn lied. This is the key." She pulled away as a concerned look spread across her features. "But that would mean—"
"He's manipulating us," I said. "Do you really think he'd let you take something so valuable for nothing?"
She sighed and shook her head. "That weasel. I think I know how he's pulling our strings."
I raised an eyebrow. "Enlighten me, because I, for one, don't have a clue."
"What's the quickest way to make someone do something?"
"Uh, take over their brain? Show them your sexy legs?"
She punched me on the shoulder. "Oh, hush. No, the best way is to tell them they can't do it."
"You mean like your parents telling you not to date me?"
Elyssa snorted. "You could say that."
I made a sad face.
"Hey now, remember we started dating way before my parents told me not to." She pecked me on the lips. "Their disapproval has nothing to do with me wanting you. So get that look off your face before I have to do something evil."
"What you're saying is Underborn used reverse psychology on you, telling you that you couldn't have the key, he'd never give it up, and then allowed you to steal it so you'd use the key?" I wrinkled my brow and quirked an eyebrow to leave no doubt how confused I was. "Why not just give the stupid thing to you and then tell you what he wanted you to do?"
"Because then I would question everything about the situation."
"Maybe he was just pissed you actually stole the real key and didn't want to admit you got the better of him." I shrugged. "Men don't like it when a girl beats them at something."
"Oh, I know that all too well." Elyssa sighed. "Maybe I'm just over thinking things. Besides, how I got the key doesn't matter right now. What does matter is figuring out how to use it."
"That should be easy enough," I said, and closed the door. Twisting the knob again, I opened it to…the inside of a toolshed. I closed the door again and reopened it. Same thing.
"Isn't that just the inside of this shed?" Elyssa asked.
I glanced at the garden shears on the wall and sighed. "I imagined the door leading to Atlanta."
"Maybe the key doesn't recognize proper names." She looked at the map. "This thing didn't do anything when I asked for a map of Bogota."
"Show me Atlanta," I said to the map.
Nothing.
"Show me my hometown."
A moment later, the map displayed Decatur, Georgia.
"Show me the city I'm imagining," I said, squeezing my eyes tight and thinking of the Atlanta skyline on a clear spring day.
This time, it drew downtown Atlanta.
"So it figures it out by what you're thinking?" Elyssa said.
"Yeah, brainwaves or something weird like that."
"Oh, I have an idea," Elyssa said. "Map, this city is Atlanta."
We fooled around with the map for several more minutes and figured out that it could show us just about any place we could imagine in detail. I had to pull up images on my arcphone and focus on them if I wanted the map to display that location. Once we told the map a city or location name, it remembered it.
"Show me the door locations in Atlanta," I said.
The map drew a single circle on the east side. When I told it to zoom in, it redrew the area in greater detail, including rows of small rectangles.
"I know that place," Elyssa said.
"What is it? A parking lot?"
She shook her head. "No. A graveyard. It's where we just buried my brother."
I felt surprise light my face. "What kind of bizarre coincidence is that?"
"I don't know if I believe in coincidence anymore after all we've been through." Elyssa touched the map, as if to confirm it was real. "When I was in the Goths, we used to go to that graveyard and scare each other with ghost stories. We were so stupid. I never once thought I'd be burying my brother there. Never thought I'd lose Jack."
I squeezed her shoulder in what I hoped was a reassuring manner. "I'm sorry."
She shook her head as if she could shake off the memory. "Whatever. What's done is done."
"Try the key again?"
Elyssa nodded. Took it and opened the door. Hard-packed earth waited on the other side.
"You've got to be kidding me," I said, kicked at the dirt.
Some of it crumbled, spilling onto the ground, revealing a thick maze of roots and a worm or three.I looked at the map again. "Show me a street view of the door." When that command failed, I tried again. "Show me the view of the door from ground level."
The parchment cleared and redrew the graveyard from a first-person perspective. By the time it was done, I realized what the problem was. The door was fifty feet or more underground. I had the map redraw the scene from different angles.
"There's an old crypt or something beneath the cemetery," Elyssa said. She traced a finger up a ramp. "Looks like it was buried."
I groaned. "Didn't you say the map could be used to make new connections for the key?"
"According to Underborn, yes."
We fiddled with the map, trying to get it to connect a door in an abandoned warehouse near Elyssa's house, aka the Templar compound known as Big Creek Ranch, or The Ranch for short. The map ignored our pleas. We tried different doors, all to no avail, and finally gave up. I searched the interwebz on my phone for more information about the map, but came up with zilch. Either Underborn had lied about the name, or it was so old, it had already passed from legend, to myth, to oblivion.
"The only person who might tell us how to work this thing is the last person I want to know about the map," I said. "And I don't plan on giving Underborn the key. That leaves one option."
"We dig?" Elyssa said.
I nodded. "We dig."
"Justin, may I help?" Cinder said from behind us.
I almost jumped out of my skin. "Geez, dude, do you have to sneak up on me all the time?"
"My apologies," the golem said. "I had no intention of a stealthy approach, Justin."
"Can you use a shovel?" Elyssa asked.
Cinder's eyes went distant. "If you show me how, I am certain it is within my grasp."
Elyssa closed the shed door and reopened it without the key. She went in, grabbed a couple of shovels, an axe, and a few other items, then stepped back out. Shoved the key in the lock and reopened it to the wall of dirt.
"It's easy," she said, demonstrating. "Just shove the tip in hard, wiggle it around, and then pull out a load."
"That's what she said." I said with a wide grin.
She threw a clod of dirt at me.
Cinder took to the task without another word.
"I'll go tell Thomas," Elyssa said. "Why don't you round up the gang?"
Within twenty minutes I returned to the shed with Bella and Katie in tow. Adam and Meghan promised they'd be over soon. A crowd of Templars stood near the shed watching Cinder work. The door was a little wider than a normal one but didn't offer much room for more than one person. As Cinder worked his way forward, Templars formed a chain, using wheelbarrows and buckets to move dirt.
"This is amazing," Bella said, looking at the map. "This isn't the first magic key or map I've heard of, but one that can transport you from one side of the planet to the other is simply unheard of."
"You couldn't figure out how to make it open to another door?" Katie asked.
"No. Maybe it requires some magic words or sacrificing small animals, for all I know."
"Does Nightliss know?" Bella asked, her eyes wandering toward the cabin.
"She's still unconscious," I said.
Meghan and Adam appeared around the corner of the cabin. The blonde Arcane waved me over, so I excused myself and jogged to them.
"Nightliss is awake," Meghan said. "She's asking for you."
I sped back inside. The petite angel still looked sickly, her cheeks gaunt, eyes hollow.
"Feeling better?" I asked as I sat on the side of the bed, thinking she looked worse than ever.
She smiled. "A little."
"Have you ever heard of the Key or Map of Juranthemon?" I asked, before giving her a chance to get out another word. I pulled them out and showed her how the map worked.
She gazed with wonder at the map. "This is amazing."
"That's what Bella said."
"I have never seen these before." She inspected the key. "And you say it can create portals between doors?"
I nodded. "Yeah." I told her about the first time I'd seen it used by Phissilinth, one of Underborn's henchmen. "Well, that stinks. I was hoping you could tell me how to connect another door."
She handed me the key, an uncertain look on her face. "Justin, my people have made many wondrous things. The arches are one of our greatest achievements. If this map and key can do what you say they can, this is magic on another scale altogether."
My mouth dropped open at this new information. "You're saying this is even more powerful than what angels can do?"
"Unless I've forgotten something, the map and key are not something my people created." She shrugged. "The Obsidian Arches require a great deal of magical power to operate. From the way you describe it, this key requires none of that."
"I'll bet the Arcanes who charge a bundle to travel via arch would be ticked if something like this were available for general use," I said.
"Indeed." A wracking cough hit her, shaking her frail form until she lay back against the pillows, exhausted. "It appears my recovery will take longer than I thought." A weak smile glimmered on her face.
"Why did you want to see me?" I asked.
"Remember when you told me how others have seen me around the world, but sometimes they saw a blonde angel?"