It didn't matter the state or city the worn highway cut through, the homogeneous sprawl of the northeastern United States blurred through the window. The beauty of untamed nature was a scarcity. Old trees thick with moss and the pleasant chirping of birds had been replaced by spires of metal and the sound of car horns. Housing developments sat in a sea of chemically treated weeds and carefully placed pruned bushes. Trees rarely chose their homes in these places or how their branches tangled or grew. Society kept that which was wild firmly pressed under its heavy steel-toed boot.
The truck pulled off the highway and passed over the Delaware River, into the City of Brotherly Love. Most of the city had begun long ago to crumble under the weight of itself. Though, it still had a touch of colonial charm, like the parts of Boston that Callen had the privilege of seeing a few times. Many wondered what would become of these things if the corporate purchase of the city came to pass and given the mixed results of these types of deals throughout the world, there were many unanswered questions.
The skyscrapers of Center City grew closer as they passed teenagers that were wrapped in gaudy colored clothes plastered with logos loitering on the streets. Desperate and displaced homeless begged for change at most of the stoplights. Passing Businessmen and women ignored the homeless. They were all captured in the electronic glow of their handheld slave collars. They didn't even take the time to look up from them as a group of hoodlums began abusing a hapless veteran in a wheelchair holding a sign begging for aid.
They made their last turn into an underground garage, passing a man preaching about the end of the world being near and some cultist peddling his form of Christian heresy to an apathetic crowd.
The cracked cement walls inside the garage dripped with dirty water that ran slowly over the vulgar graffiti. The garage's throat was lined with tiny stalactites hanging from the aging concrete. Modern cars sat between fading yellow lines like teeth encrusted with plaque.
On the bottom level, they pulled towards a collection of old cars parked in the farthest corner. One car had a boot and several tickets crammed between its wiper and windshield and the others just looked old. Despite the boot and a lack of a driver, the center car backed up and the truck drove through the now empty parking space.
Callen awoke in a haze of restlessness as the truck paused to wait for a chunk of the concrete wall to sink into the floor revealing a mechanic's elevator. The truck pulled in. Behind the truck, the booted car rolled back into place, hiding the entrance. The wall rumbled closed sealing the truck off from the garage.
He rubbed his eyes and blinked twice. He had expected to wake up back in his room in Boston and that those monsters were nothing more than a bad dream. He turned towards his grandfather. This was no dream. He was in an elevator shaft hidden behind the walls of the world as if he had just joined the stage crew for the greatest theater performance the world had ever known.
The elevator creaked and moved them up through tarnished and slightly rusted building support beams. It came to rest in a mechanic's garage; dirty from years of constant exposure to all things auto and perhaps much more.
The concrete floor was stained with oil around the toolboxes, workbenches, welding gear, and electronic mechanic tools that crowded the room. Metal shavings from machines used to cut metal lined the creases between the floor and the equipment. Shelves were stacked with plastic containers filled an assortment of car parts.
A few dwarves dressed in medieval Catholic robes, marking them as members of the Order of Saint Augustine, entered through a far door. Two carried a stretcher and two others carried medical supplies. None of the dwarves shared Corth's weathered Native American features. Two were fair in complexion, as if their heritage came from Northern Europe, and the others were from Latin America. Some had mighty beards, while others kept themselves clean-shaven. All of them wore rosaries and heavy leather belts over their robes.
"More strays?”, a regal looking dwarf with a pruned beard said as Corth and the children climbed out of the car. He was an older dwarf with kind eyes.
"No, Brother. Not strays. Me grandchildren." Corth opened the back door. "And me daughter."
He looked shocked. "My God! Eve, The Hand?! I didn't realize..." The regal monk's voice trembled with panic. "The doc just said you had wounded."
Corth nodded. "But God had nothing to do with this."
The regal dwarf swallowed hard. "What was it?" He began to check Callen's cut.
"Lad, I can't even comment." Corth sighed. "And if I could, I'm sure yeh wouldn't even want to know."
The other three dwarves carefully moved Eve out of the truck onto the stretcher and immediately hooked up an I.V. "She's still alive." One said. He held up a strange electronic device that flashed light over her body. "The gels are at their limit. Let's get her to the infirmary, ASAP."
"We'll make sure she gets to the doc without any unwanted eyes on her. She'll be fine." The Regal dwarf paused from cleaning Callen's cut and looked at Ania. "Welcome, children. I know it's under undesirable circumstances, to say the least, but...welcome. I'll make sure you both have rooms in our church's rectory. I am Father Kenton Greftar."
"Hello." Callen winced as Father Kenton returned to working on cleaning out the beginnings of a crusty scab on his cheek. It stung, but the pain quickly ended with the hiss of aerosol and a cool blue gel filling the cut.
"Unfortunately, that's gonna scar." Father Kenton sighed.
"Can we go with mom?" Ania asked with panic in her voice. "I don't want to leave her."
"Lass, the doc will do his job. If yeh go while he is doing his work, you'll just get in the way. Besides, we just drove for the last five hours, I bet yeh both be hungry."
The monks carried Eve out of the garage and the children followed their grandfather through a different door into an old narrow stairwell. It led up into the a restaurant's overstuffed stock room. Corth glanced at his wrist device and wall covered the stairwell once they exited before leading the children through the maze of wine racks, kegs, food, and brewing supplies.
"What is this place?" Callen asked.
"Lad, this be one o' those places that legends are written about." Corth's beard wrinkled as if he was smiling. "Come along now."