by B N Miles
But worse than dying, they might be captured, and everything Jared feared could come to fruition. The bastard Medlar would get to use Cassie for whatever sick experiment they had planned. Nikki would be tortured, despite being an Underlord of a major city, all because she was a Meta. He knew they’d force him to watch, forced to see his family broken to pieces by the Medlar, all because he wasn’t strong enough.
But he had to be. He couldn’t let them down, not right now, not with so many lives at stake. They managed to find Cassie despite the odds, and they’d come this far.
And it wasn’t just Cassie, or Jessalene, or Izzy. He promised Kerrin he’d burn this place down. He promised he’d get these poor, abused, broken women out of here, and he was going to live up to that promise.
“Almost there,” Penny said, her voice coming from the back of the car. It seemed to waver a little bit, thick and heavy with fear. “Just another few seconds.”
“You ready?” Jared asked Lumi, opening his eyes. He leaned down toward her, brushed her hair from her eyes.
She looked up at him and smiled, the pain obvious from the set of her jaw, but she nodded.
“Can’t wait,” she said.
He grinned at her, kissed her cheek, and turned to Nikki. She gave him a nod and accepted his kiss.
“Good luck,” he said.
“Don’t worry, darling,” she said. “I’m a survivor. Always have been.”
“Okay,” Penny said as the car came to a slow, stuttering halt. “We’re here. Doors opening.”
Jared felt the auras of all the Meta girls behind him go wild. Their anxieties pushed at him like wild animals, their fear and indecisions, their horrors and their anger. He felt raindrops, burning lava, sunlight through colored glass, the quiet of a barn covered in snow in winter, the sound of water trickling down a rocky slope. He felt it all but refused to let it rattle him, refused to let it distract him from doing what he needed to do.
He reached for his magic and snapped his shield memgram into place.
Lumi’s staggering strength flooded through her and she let out a little breath as her own shield appeared in front of his own. Jared squeezed her hand and she squeezed back again, this time smiling huge, her hair beginning to float in the air. Her Magi mark was so dark, so purple-black, that he thought there was a hole in her very center.
His Lumi, his beautiful, terrifying Lumi.
The doors slid open with a pleasant ding.
The world exploded in agony and gunfire. Bullets tore against the shields, raining down on them like a swarm of angry, suicidal hornets. He pushed his outer shield away from the door, distantly aware of some of the Meta girls screaming and covering their ears. He made space for them, walking forward with Lumi by his side.
Smoke, plaster, chipped tile, shattered ceiling lights rained down around them. The lobby was obscured by smoke, by noise and chaos and shattered stone and drywall flitting through the air.
He remembered the fountain with its pennies, the gurgle of water, the quiet of the wide open but otherwise empty space. He couldn’t make out the guards as their bullets ripped into the air all around him, but he knew they were out there, close enough to smell.
“Hold tight,” Jared said, dropping his outer shield. Lumi grunted in response as she became the primary defense.
She dumped so much energy into the shield that it seemed to shimmer in the air, changing colors over and over. It gave off heat in waves and Jared felt sweat prickle against his neck as he reached out with his second memgram, searching for the fountain, looking for the water.
He felt it, just dimly beyond the shield, and closed his eyes, breathing deep. He reached for a memgram he hadn’t practiced in a while, but it was there, buried inside the library of his mind.
Light filtered through a cave opening glimmering off a still deep black pool of thick heavy perfect water turning, turning, churning into a frothy wild mess, circling and circling and circling, faster and faster, then exploding out in a thick ocean spray.
He snapped it into place and shaped the priori as it flooded through him. The water in the fountain began to move, to turn counter-clockwise, a tornado of the stuff rising up from its basin. He pushed as much power into it as he could, sucked in more water from the pipes feeding the fountain, then pulled it all into a massive whirlwind.
He heard screams as he smashed the water down. It hit like a hammer, drenching the men, pummeling them to the floor. It wouldn’t kill them, but it would feel like getting hit by a huge wave head-on, knocking them down onto the tile floor. He knew it wouldn’t stop them, but it would distract them long enough to get some space. He lashed out at random with his water, breaking it against men and tile and walls.
The gunfire tapered off. It didn’t stop, but it slowed enough for Lumi to push her shield out even more.
The air began to clear, the dust dissipating just enough, and Jared could see the men arrayed in the lobby around them, crouched behind riot shields, stacked in neat, orderly rows. He counted twenty, thirty, and lost count as more gunfire burst out.
His water beast moved among them, and now that he could see, he began to direct it better, smashing it into groups of guards, knocking them off their feet, sending them sprawling and sliding on the wet, slippery polished tile, bowling them over like Human pins.
The Meta girls spilled out of the elevator behind them as Lumi enlarged her shield and they took more ground. Jared clenched his jaw and pushed his shield out, joining it with Lumi’s own, forming a wide barricade around them. Jared directed his water monster to the left, rolling it through a group of crouched guards and knocking them over.
He felt Nikki press against him.
“My turn,” she whispered in his ear.
She blurred past the edge of his shield and slammed into the guards.
She hit them hard and dove into their midst, taking advantage of their momentary distraction, tearing and breaking their bodies like dolls. She wasn’t playing, she wasn’t having fun, she was a cold and calculated murder-machine.
Jared turned his water back toward another group and slammed down onto them, knocking some to the floor, soaking and staggering the others. His water spout was losing form and shape with each attack, but he gathered what he could and pulled it back together, rolling and directing it.
The guards screamed at each other, trying to gather back into orderly ranks as Nikki continued to kill. Jared noticed some of the men had blue helmets, just like the Captain back in the basement. Those men were trying to get the guards organized, trying to form them into ranks, screaming for them to get up off the slippery, soaked floor and keep firing.
“We have to move,” Jared said. “Across the lobby.”
Lumi gestured in response and pushed forward, marching like she was shoving a car up a mud-slicked hill. Her shield glided through the air, soaking up the sporadic gunfire, and began to push outward as Nikki danced and ducked and slid through groups of guards, smashing faces with stolen rifles and snapping necks with her bare hands.
Blood mixed with water, turning it pink at their feet.
Jared release his waterspout and let it smash against a Captain that was trying to rally some of the men toward the back. It didn’t do much more than stagger him, but Jared got a strange sense of satisfaction from it.
He reached for his lightning memgram next and snapped it into place, dropping his shield and lancing it out in a shimmering arc of death. It slammed into a group of guards that were standing in two-inch deep water and their bodies began to sizzle and convulse wildly, steam rising from their skin.
Then he heard a scream, but not of pain or anguish. It was a wild scream of rage, a scream of anger. Several of the Meta girls charged forward, two Plethoaks with their hands outstretched and lightning arcing through the air, two Weres that shifted mid-air into huge wolves, and the Demon girl, seeming to float a few inches off the ground, her mouth pulled into a wild smile as she fell onto a group of guards.
The Metas bega
n to tear through the men. The guards fell back and returned fire, trying to keep their formation even as Nikki and the other Meta girls attacked. One of the Werewolves fell under a hail of bullets, but the Demon girl was there, fingers outstretched, pumping strange, black-shimmering fire through the air in thin streams. The guards began to scream and throw down their weapons, clawing at their own eyes as boils appeared on their skin, grotesque and weeping. They fell to the ground, writhing and screaming, as their skin covered them with foul pestilence, tumors blooming and bursting in sprays of pus and blood, until they stopped screaming and remained still.
The Demon girl whipped her hair as she looked around for more targets.
“Follow me,” Jared said to the rest of the cowering Metas, waving his arms and nudging Lumi in the right direction.
Jessalene wrangled the girls, pushed and prodded them. Cassie was in their midst, gently moving the few Metas that seemed too afraid to walk on their own. Penny and Izzy stuck close to the group, and he could read the fear in their eyes, though Izzy moved from woman to woman, touching them briefly, her hands glowing, healing small wounds from stray shrapnel.
Nikki did her work, killing cold and fast, while the Plethoaks, the Demon, and the remaining Were tore through the other flank of guards. Jared lobbed balls of fire, but he focused and brought his shield back up as they ran through the lobby and toward the doors that led into the research area.
They were halfway across the room, most of the guards either dead or scattered, when the floor began to shake violently. Jared stumbled and managed to catch himself, but some of the Meta girls slipped. They went down in a jumble of flailing arms and grabbing hands.
The doors leading to the research facilities burst open and two people came through. One was a man wearing a button-down shirt, his sleeves rolled up to reveal intricate tattoos on his forearms, the shirt tucked into a pair of black dress slacks. His dark hair was disheveled and he had a scowl on his face, his nose wrinkled like he smelled something horrible.
A woman came up behind him, wearing a baggy sweater that read HARVARD and a pair of ratty ripped jeans, her hair cut close to the scalp, her bright blue eyes almost glowing.
“Children,” the man said, his voice unnaturally loud and booming. “You shouldn’t have left your cages.”
He gestured as the remaining Werewolf girl launched herself at him. She screamed as flames burst all over her skin. He gestured again and an invisible force slammed her to the floor, pinning her there as the flames burned her skin to ash.
“Magi,” Lumi said. “Both of them strong. They’re both Medlar, Jared.”
Jared grunted in reply and saw the Plethoaks advance, hands outstretched, mouths open in defiant screams. They threw lighting, which the male Magi countered with a flat palm outstretched. He knocked it away and brought his other hand up, lancing his own bolt back in their direction. It hit the ground at their feet and threw them both into the air, scattering them away, their bodies hitting the watery tiles with a horrible crunch.
The Demon floated toward the Magi, her hands out, but the female Magi stepped up, arms crossed in front of her. The Demon’s magic hit her, but seemed to slough off around the female Magi as she parted the effects in the air, black fire rolling down along her body and eating holes in the ground like acid. The Demon grimaced, her smile turning into rage, as she poured more black flame at the Magi girl, who only laughed and continued to divert it all into the floor.
Nikki appeared at the Demon’s side and yanked her away just as another bolt of lightning arced out from the male Magi’s hands, barely missing the two of them.
“Penny,” Jared said, looking back at the group. “Another exit.”
Penny helped a Dryad girl to her feet then stared with her eyes wide, darting around the lobby. Jared could see the panic begin to take hold, but Izzy appeared at Penny’s side and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Come on, Penny,” Izzy said. “You can do it. We need another exit.”
“Through there,” Penny said, pointing to a set of plain gray double doors twenty feet to their right. There was a bright red NO EXIT sign above them.
“Where’s it lead?” Jared asked.
“Main chamber. Maybe we can—”
A bolt of lightning snapped through the air, slamming into Lumi’s shield. It sizzled and the air smelled like hot ozone, the shield itself barely holding shape.
“Come on,” Jared said, running to the doors. “Everyone out through here.”
He reached the doors as Lumi held her shield up, taking more hits from lightning, and walking backwards, sweat pouring down her forehead. The female Magi joined in the fun, ripping up tiles with her power and lobbing them at the group. Jared knocked those from the air with his fire, breaking them apart before they could slam into the defenseless Metas behind him.
Jessalene threw open the doors and held them, herding the girls through. Nikki and the Demon lingered, Nikki barely holding the horned-girl back.
“You can’t take them both, darling,” Nikki said. “But together we might—”
“I don’t do together,” the Demon hissed. “Now let me go, Vampire.”
“Just trying to save your life,” Nikki said. “Now come on, get it together and get through those doors.”
The Demon growled but let Nikki pull her through. Jessalene grabbed Cassie by the wrist and wrenched her into the room behind, and Izzy was the last of the group to make it in.
Jared looked at Lumi. “Your turn,” he said.
“I should stay,” she said. “Hold them off.”
“No,” Jared said. “No heroics, damn it, Lumi. We’re not doing that. You’re too exhausted to take them both, and the others need us.”
“I can do it,” she said. “I can—”
Lightning smashed into her shield, punching a hole through her magic, shattering the hardened air. Lumi screamed in rage and pain.
Jared grabbed her, pulled her back, and threw her through the doorway.
He ran in after her, slamming the doors shut and welding them closed with a burst of flame just as a barrage of tiles slammed up against the wall, shaking him down to his core.
50
“Are you okay?” Jared grabbed at an exhausted Lumi. She slumped up against him, breathing hard, sweat beaded on her skin. She looked up and her eyes were wide with Need.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m delightful. Just totally great.”
He let out a frustrated grunt and held her arms tight, supporting some of her weight, as he turned back to the rest of the group.
They stood in an enormous cavern. The ceiling was at least fifty feet high, if not more. It looked like a domed sports stadium, except everything was hewn from rough rock. The ground was stone, though smoothed and flattened, but the walls and the roof above retained its uneven texture.
The great, enormous green metal doors loomed off to their left, maybe a hundred yards away, and the far wall was another hundred yards to their right. The only thing that broke up the otherwise smooth expanse was a small platform at the very center of the room, maybe five feet off the ground and large enough for two people. There was nothing else in the space, no boxes or construction vehicles or support beams, just a smooth floor, wide and open and empty, with enormous lights dangling from the roof above.
“Uh, Jared?” Izzy came toward him. The rest of the group gathered close together. He could hear their soft, anxious chatter.
“What is it?” he asked as more tiles slammed against the doors behind them. He knew they wouldn’t hold, not for long, and he wasn’t sure Lumi could handle another barrage.
“The floor,” Izzy said, pointing. “Look at the floor.”
He followed her outstretched finger and stared. At first, it looked like white lines painted on the ground, the kind of lines that would direct traffic. He frowned, tilted his head, and began to follow them with his eyes.
Soon the lines began to morph into a pattern in his brain, the pattern into shapes, the shape
s into something intelligible.
“Are those enormous runes?” he asked.
Lumi sucked in a breath and pushed herself off Jared. She stumbled from him, following a set of lines, walking along them and tracing the shape they made.
“I recognize this,” she said. “Syrian aleph glyph. It’s not just painted on, but carved into the rock and filled with paint.”
“What the hell?” Jared asked, looking around the room.
The shapes on the floor spread out all around them in intricate, tight script. Some were enormous, as big as a car or two, and some were tiny, the size of normal writing. The runes were incredibly complex, and as he tried to follow their logic, he got lost in twists and turns and definitions within definitions. The conditions were all over the place, defining everything from the rate of light to how mass functions in a vacuum, and that was just the stretch of floor Jared could see.
“What the hell is all this?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Lumi said. “But look over here.”
Jared followed her and they stood over a deep grooved bowl notched into the floor. Sitting at the bottom of the bowl was a round object, burnished silver and copper, ridged in intricate patterns with tiny runes carved along the ridges. It seemed to give off a dull, pale glow, pulsing with an invisible beat.
“It’s a battery,” Jared said.
“What the hell is it doing in here?” Lumi asked.
Before he could answer, another bang shook the room. The doors bent inward, nearly broken in half.
“Jessalene,” Jared said. “Get everyone toward the far doors.”
“How are we going to get those open?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But we have to try. Get moving, hurry up.”
Jessalene nodded, her face tense with anxiety, and began to shepherd the women toward the far, enormous double doors. They moved at a slow trot and looked like they were barely making any progress across the enormous open cavern.