Page 136 of The Light Within

Julien couldn’t look away. This was motetech, certainly, but motetech unlike he’d ever seen.

The air around theMachina Tenebriscrackled with a faint hum. Its subtle vibration passed into the ground, thrumming beneath his feet.

“It almost seems… alive,” Julien murmured to himself. Like it was a living, breathing entity.

“Doesn’t it?”

The reply in French made him jump. His two security guards still clasped his shoulders, but Julien didn’t need to turn. His father’s voicewas unmistakable, carrying that smooth, self-assured lilt that always seemed to mock him, even in rare moments of sincerity.

Instead, Julien’s gaze remained fixed on the machine. A part of it caught his attention. An odd-shaped contraption protruded from the side of the machine—a cluster of metal appendages, each tipped with sharp, needle-like ports, bristling like the legs of some mechanical insect. This part of the machine looked different, as if crudely attached by a child.

A cool sickness spread throughout Julien as he stared at it. He didn’t know what he was looking at, not exactly. But it wasn’t good.

His father’s voice broke Julien’s horror-struck stare. “Bring him closer,” he ordered in English, with a casualness that suggested he was asking for a cup of tea. He walked past Julien to stand near the machine.

Julien’s heart hammered as he resisted, trying to plant his feet, throwing his weight back. “Fuck off,” he hissed, straining against the men’s grip.

But the men didn’t relent, dragging him inexorably forward, the cold prongs of the stone floor scraping against his feet as the machine loomed ever closer.

“This has all worked out rather conveniently, wouldn’t you agree?” his father said, his tone light, almost amused. “You see, acquiring Cinnamon Saunders was proving to be quite the tiresome endeavour.”

At Cinn’s name, a white-hot fury surged through Julien, threatening to boil over.Don’t give him the satisfaction. His hands clenched involuntarily, nails biting into his palms as he struggled to tamp down the anger rising with the bile in his throat.

“When word reached me about the little… mishap with my men in that hotel room, I must admit, I found myself rather intrigued.”

Putain. Julien should have tried harder to ensure that the third man on the balcony didn’t live to tell the tale.

“It wasn’t until that priest started spilling his secrets”—his father grimaced with disdain—“or should I say,yoursecrets, that things took a most intriguing turn.”

Julien’s heart sank faster than a treasure dropped in the Seine.

The secret he’d closely guarded since his childhood was no more.

“Father Gérard just… told you everything?” Julien blurted out. He couldn’t imagine it.

“Not at first.” He fiddled with a part of the machine Julien couldn’t see. “I had to be rather persuasive. People can be quite cooperative when their loved ones are at stake, don’t you think?”

Julien clenched his jaw so hard, his teeth ached with the effort. “Is that a threat?”

A loud laugh echoed off the catacomb walls. “In fact, your loved ones will be quite safe now, thanks to your efforts. As I explained to the priest, this resolves everything.”

Part of Julien didn’t want to encourage him to continue, but a larger part demanded answers. “What?” he spat. “Enough with the games, just tell me.”

“We knew—Jonathan and I—that we couldn’t continue like this forever.” Tapping the metal surface ofMachina Tenebris,his father sighed, looking at the machine mournfully. “We knew we had to find a solution.”

“So… you knew that this…thing”—Julien jerked his head at the machine—“was behind the recent calamities… the umbraphages, even, and you didn’t pull the plug on it?”

“Not immediately. It only became undeniable in the last eighteen months or so, when our increased output directly correlated to the increase in such events.”

Julien’s gaze drifted upwards to where the machine fed into the catacomb ceiling. Where did it go, exactly? To HorizonTech’s motecellproduction site? It was on the other side of Paris, but the catacombs did stretch that far…

“Once we grasped what we were dealing with, we set about finding a solution.”

There was that word again, making Julien’s blood run cold.

“The very night Viktor Sturmhart caught wind of the possible existence of a shadowslipper, he contacted Jonathan. And so began the second phase of our project.” He lifted up the cluster of metal appendages, marvelling at them. “To find a suitable, sustainable source of power. We originally thought only a shadowslipper would do.”

“Would do…” Julien repeated, staring at the contraption.

---