Beside Pelinor, the Caryatid's face had turned grave. "So the Sparks can't produce electricity. Whatever they use it for will stop working." Her hands gripped the guard rail tightly, as if she wanted to crush the metal in her fingers. "For some reason, I keep picturing a thousand shapeshifters like Jode held captive in an electric cage. The Sparks lock Lucifers there whenever they catch one… and the Keepers of Holy Lightning maintain the generator turbines to make sure the power never goes out. Is that possible, Phil?"
"An electric cage?" I thought about it… and I recalled the violet glow surrounding Dreamsinger's armor: a vicious energy barrier that could melt bullets. The armor's force field kept things out, but the same technology could surely lock captives in. "It's very possible," I said. "Is this just some scary notion that popped into your head? Or is it another sort of a prophecy kind of thing?"
"I don't know." The Caryatid's voice was weak and distant. "It's not my usual kind of premonition… but the image won't go away."
Pelinor took her hand and patted it. The rest of us averted our eyes to give them some privacy. Impervia muttered to Annah and me, "Much as I respect the Caryatid's premonitions, I have my doubts about this one. Spark Royal doesn't jail its enemies; it executes them. Keeping Lucifers alive is foolish, no matter how carefully you lock them up."
"But maybe," I said, "Spark Royal needs Lucifers for something. Or maybe the Sparks' alien masters don't want the Lucifers killed. If so, you couldn't keep a shapeshifter in a normal prison — you'd have to build some kind of energy confinement field."
"And everything else," murmured Annah, "the lights and music in this city — it's just a cover. The Sparks realized they couldn't keep the power station a secret: local people would know the place was in use. If nothing else, the intake sluices and outflow pipes must need maintenance from time to time; and you can't hide a bunch of workers playing around with giant underground plumbing. The Sparks pump a small ration of power to the public so people think they know what the generators are doing. But the real purpose of this station is to imprison Lucifers."
"Except," I said, "now the river is shut off." I waved toward the nearest streetlamp, still bright and undimmed. "There'll be power until the plant uses up the water in the intake pipes. Beyond that… if the Sparks are smart, their electric cage has emergency batteries to deal with a short power outage; but if the cage normally soaks up most of the energy from Niagara, it's going to burn out its batteries fast. Then the Lucifers will escape, and there'll be hell to pay."
"And we know who created that blasted dam," Impervia muttered.
"Sebastian and Jode," Pelinor said.
I thought he was answering Impervia; but when I glanced his way, he was looking down the road that led back to the center of town.
Two figures were walking toward us: a teenage boy and girl.
They walked hand in hand — bare hands, no gloves or mittens. The air around Sebastian must have been warming itself for his comfort. As for Jode, the Lucifer didn't seem bothered by anything so paltry as a late-winter chill.
Jode looked exactly like Rosalind; and I found it disquieting to watch the girl cuddle up to Sebastian when I'd seen her corpse the previous night. Appalling how lively she appeared — more animated than I'd ever seen the real Rosalind. This version was laughing at something Sebastian said, slapping his arm in mock offense, then nuzzling and kissing his ear.
Nothing like the melancholy girl I'd known.
It amazed me Sebastian couldn't sense something wrong. Every gesture this Rosalind made seemed false: the touching, the giggling, the giddy flirtation. Jode was laying it on thick; yet Sebastian returned every kiss and whisper. No matter how strong he might be with psionics — powerful enough to stop Niagara Falls — Sebastian was nothing more than a sixteen-year-old who could be exploited by his hormones. Jode had wedded him, bedded him, then brought the boy to the power station before the post-nuptial euphoria wore off.
They hadn't noticed us yet. Our group looked no different from other tourist parties, staring blankly into the gorge and wondering where the Falls went. We were also bundled up in coats, hats, and scarves, which would make us difficult to recognize in the dark. Jode was watching for trouble — in between attentive pats and snuggles, the faux Rosalind found excuses to turn her head this way and that, keeping a constant lookout — but even the Lucifer couldn't have guessed how many forces had converged on Niagara: Dreamsinger, the Ring of Knives, and of course, a small but determined band of teachers.
Not that we teachers amounted to much. We'd never even discussed a strategy for dealing with this situation. Violence certainly wouldn't work; if, for example, Impervia attacked Jode, Sebastian would immediately use his powers to protect his "Rosalind."
Our best hope was talking sense to the boy — and not just saying, "She isn't Rosalind." We had to prove Jode was evil.
A good place to start would be pointing out how destructive that big dam was. Whatever story Jode had invented, we could make Sebastian realize that his wall across the river would cause severe flooding. Upstream of the dam, water must be accumulating at a fearsome rate, spilling over the banks, deluging inhabited land. We had to make Sebastian care about the possibility of drowning people, animals, houses, farms; but at the moment, he was too busy kissing his beloved "Rosalind" to picture the consequences of what he'd done.
"I'll talk to Sebastian," I told the others in a low voice. "I know him best." I took a step toward the boy, but Pelinor grabbed my arm.
"Better let me do this," he said. "You're no fighter, Phil, and Jode might try some tricks."
"Then I should go," Impervia said.
Pelinor smiled. "Sorry, old girl, but you're not quite the right person for tactful discussion."
"And you are the right person?"
"I'm a knight," he said. "Fighting the foe and parlaying honorably. What I was born to do."
Without giving anyone else a chance to speak, he moved out into the roadway.
Pelinor planted himself directly in Sebastian's path. "Fine night, isn't it?" he said in a hearty voice. "Bit quiet all of a sudden."
Sebastian and Jode were ten paces away from the knight: twenty paces from the rest of us. The newlyweds stopped and stared; Sebastian just gaped, astonished that someone from the academy had tracked him down… but the Lucifer's eyes filled with hatred. Jode obviously knew who Pelinor was. As I'd suspected, the shapeshifter must have spied on our school, getting to know Sebastian and his teachers.
"We have to talk," Pelinor said. He kept his eyes on the boy, not even glancing at Jode. "Your girlfriend isn't—"
Jode screamed: drowning out the rest of Pelinor's words. The next moment the Lucifer hurtled forward — faster than the real Rosalind ever ran in her life. Metal flickered in the lamplight and I shouted, "Blade!" Jode had whipped out a sword from a sheath at its hip: a rapier, one of the weapons missing from the case in Sebastian's room. The weapon's point came up with inhuman speed, aiming for Pelinor's heart as the alien sprinted to close the gap.
If I'd been in Pelinor's place, I would have been skewered: caught flat-footed, numbly staring at the incoming blade. Even Pelinor didn't have time to draw a weapon of his own — but knight or border-guard, Pelinor was no stranger to sneak attacks. He twisted aside at the last instant, batting away the lethal tip of the rapier with his arm. Cloth ripped as the sword-point slit his coat-sleeve… but now he was inside the arc of the blade and relatively safe from being stabbed. The rapier was purely a piercing weapon, with no cutting edge to harm opponents close in.