Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming by Van Allen Plexico

of his head. “You need to work on your landings, I think.” He surveyed the sandscape once more. “Where are we?”
    “My tropical paradise,” I announced, grinning. “Well, actually, one of my secret refuges, from before the war.”
    The humans looked around. They saw the surrounding blue sea stretching to the horizon in every direction. They saw the slight rise of the island behind me, with its small cluster of palm trees at the summit. They saw… well, there was not much else to see, actually. They turned to me and laughed, every one of them.
    “What?”
    “Lucian…” Evelyn shook her head in amusement. “This… this is like a cartoon of a tropical island. It…” She laughed again. “It doesn’t seem real.”
    “It is real enough,” I said defensively. “Besides, you have not seen all of it.”
    “I think we have,” she replied, still laughing, “and that’s pretty much the problem.”
    “Not at all,” I said. “Follow me.”
    Up the sandy hillside we trudged, Kim limping slightly. The gulls called again, and I idly wondered where they had come from, since I did not recall seeing them on previous visits.
    Reaching the top, I led the humans into the grove of palm trees and then into a circular clearing, about fifty yards wide, that lay at the very center of the grove, and of the island itself.
    “It just gets more and more impressive,” Evelyn said.
    I noted that Kim had said nothing in quite a while, and filed that somewhat troubling fact away.
    Walking in a tight circle, I inspected each of the trees, looking for the telltale mark. It was not there. Frowning, I walked back to the center of the clearing and, hands on hips, kicked at the sand.
    “I’m not quite sure what you’re up to,” Cassidy remarked then, “but it doesn’t seem to be helping us a great deal.”
    Ignoring him, I began to walk in an expanding spiral pattern, studying the sand at my feet. I had traveled about half a lap around the clearing when I saw a small, gray shape visible within a low point in the dunes. Kicking at the sand, I uncovered perhaps nine square feet of a larger, flat, metallic panel.
    The others came over, looking down at it.
    “Get back,” I said.
    As they moved away, blue lightning flashed from my fingertips, striking the panel with sufficient force to blow much of the sand away.
    I had revealed what was clearly a hatch, a doorway in the sand. Folding my arms across my chest, I eyed the others.
    “Now you have me intrigued,” Cassidy said. He knelt beside the door, running his fingers along the edge. “So—what’s under it?”
    Smiling, I grasped the side and lifted up. It exhibited unexpected resistance, and I had to exert considerable strength before it came free of the remaining sand and swung upward.
    The hole that was revealed contained naught but darkness. I grew more concerned; this lack of lighting, along with the lack of a guide marker among the trees, constituted two bad signs too many.
    Creating a small globe of blue light, I released it over the hole, and it floated slowly down into the blackness. What it revealed—or failed to reveal—drove a wedge of fear through my heart: A sizeable chamber, enclosed by bare concrete walls, and filled with row after row of shelves and racks and tables. Very empty shelves and racks and tables.
    Cassidy squinted at what had been revealed, then squinted at me.
    “So,” he said. “You’ve been operating some sort of used furniture warehouse, then?”
    “And this is supposed to help us how?” Kim growled.
    “No,” I whispered. “No no no no no.” Grasping the edge of the opening, I swung over and down, dangling by my fingertips for a second before releasing and dropping down to the hard slab floor.
    The empty racks and shelves seemed to mock me with their pale, reflected glow. I sighed deeply. It was gone. All of it.
    “What’s that?” Evelyn called down, some moments later, and I turned to see where she was pointing.
    On a table in the