by B N Miles
His head exploded backwards. Shards of his skull and brains splattered against the floor.
She pulled her hand away and wiped it on her pants. She stared down at the corpse of her cousin then shook her head and turned to Jared. “We better go.”
He nodded, and for a second he thought he should comfort her. She’d just killed a member of her family, and no matter how much she hated him, that still wasn’t an easy thing. But they had more immediate things to get through. He could make sure she was okay later.
He turned and began jogging back the way they came.
“I’ll look for more girls,” Nikki said. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Nikki, you can’t survive an explosion like this,” Jared said. “Not even a Vampire can withstand it. You’ll be torn to pieces.”
“I’ll be okay.” She blurred, disappearing through a side door.
“Shit,” Lumi said.
“Come on. We have to make sure Cassie and Jessalene are out.” He ran, head spinning. He couldn’t let Nikki sacrifice herself for the people in this facility, but then again, he didn’t want to leave a single Meta behind to die in the explosion. There had to be some way to stop it, some way to break the flow—but he knew it was too late.
They ran as fast as they could back to the first jail area. It was empty, aside from the corpses of the guards, which was a relief. They moved on, backtracking until they stepped outside, and found evidence of more fighting—and more dead guards.
“Go make sure they’re okay,” Jared said, pushing Lumi toward the trees. “I’m going back for Nikki.”
She grabbed his wrist. “Absolutely not. You’re coming with me.”
“Lumi—”
“She made her choice.” Lumi’s grip tightened on his wrist. “I’m not about to lose you, damn it.”
He stared at her and felt his face go numb. He didn’t want to walk away from Lumi, but Nikki was still in there. He couldn’t risk losing any of them, not Nikki, not Lumi, not a single one of his family, and yet he knew she must feel the same way about him. He didn’t know what would happen to everyone if he died—they’d probably manage fine without him, if he was honest with himself. Bea would step up and take command, and maybe Lumi or Cassie would take on a bigger role, and they’d move on.
But without one of them, without Nikki or Lumi, Jared didn’t know what the hell they’d do.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away. “I have to go back for her.”
Lumi stared at him. “You can’t leave your whole family for one person,” she said. “I love Nikki too, but this is her choice. If she wants to get herself killed, that’s on her.”
He tightened his hands into fists. “I’d go back for you if you were in there.”
“And I hope Nikki would stop you.” She stepped forward again and touched his arm. “You can’t go back, Jared. Too many people depend on you.”
He stared at the facility and felt like he might break in half. He knew Lumi was right, but he also couldn’t imagine leaving Nikki in there. He was the kind of person that ran back into the fire, damn the consequences, but this—there didn’t seem like a good solution.
Lumi tightened her grip on his arm. “Please,” she whispered. “If anyone can get out in time, it’s Nikki.”
The facility began to rumble. Jared took a few steps back as the ground beneath them shook. He realized it was too late, that the magic had made his decision for him—even if he made it inside, he wouldn’t make it back out. He wasn’t fast enough.
He had to trust Nikki. She could get out in time if she had to. She was fast, and smart, and understood the risks.
“Damn it, Nikki,” he whispered but turned away, back toward Lumi.
She gave him a nod, then turned and began to run.
He followed her, sprinting to the fence and out through the slit they’d made earlier. The rumbling intensified until they reached the trees and plunged deeper into the forest.
He heard a noise and saw Cassie step out from behind a tree. Relief flooded him as he ran to her and swooped her up in a hug.
“What’s going on back there?” she asked. “It sounds like—”
“The place is about to explode,” he said. “We have to get away, as far as we can.”
Her eyes went wide, but she nodded, not arguing. She turned and started yelling, and Jared saw more people appear in the night—all the Meta girls from that jail and then some, more than he’d thought there’d be. They materialized from behind trees, from behind bushes, and Lumi and Cassie herded them away as fast as they could.
The ground shook like an earthquake. Trees creaked and groaned and several cracked and fell over. They were midway through the valley’s forest when a light so bright it turned the night to day overtook them. A horrible booming blast followed, accompanied by a rush of air so powerful it nearly knocked Jared over. He pulled up his shields, made them as strong and as large as he could, and he felt the impact from the explosion rock them. Lumi’s magic joined his own, and together they held back the blast as the forest around them smashed into pieces. Trees were incinerated and wood splinters bashed off the shields in a chaos of splintered shards.
It felt like standing in the middle of an oven. The temperature around them spiked, and sweat beaded Jared’s skin. Meta girls screamed and cowered, but Jared couldn’t do much more than concentrate on pumping more power into his shields. His Need rose like a devil on his shoulder, and his teeth chattered, his muscles clenched—and as soon as it started, it suddenly ended.
Quiet fell around them.
Jared fell to one knee, his fist against the ashy earth, and breathed hard. He felt exhausted, like he’d just ran a marathon then got punched in the face multiple times at the finish. He stared around him at the devastation, the forest nothing more than a group of matchstick trees, some still smoldering. Lumi came to him and knelt at his side, throwing her arms around him.
“Barely held on,” she said.
“That was close.” He leaned against her.
“Nikki—” she started, then stopped herself.
A pulse of fear washed over him.
Nikki hadn’t been behind his shields, and he was pretty sure that anyone not within their bubble of protection was dead. There was no way someone survived a blast like that, not even his Vampire queen.
He stood slowly, unsteadily. “She had to have made it out.”
Lumi grunted in response. Cassie ran over and gently touched his face, staring up at him. “Are you okay?”
He nodded once, biting back the Need. “I’m fine.”
Jessalene checked on Lumi, and the Meta girls gathered into a small group, many of them looking even more traumatized than they already were—but they were alive, at least fifty of them, maybe more.
“We have to get moving,” Lumi said, struggling to her feet with Jessalene’s help.
“There’s nothing out here anymore,” Jared said. “Nothing to come after us.”
“You don’t know that,” Lumi said, shaking her head.
Jared met her eye and nodded once. She was right, even if that blast had destroyed the Medlar and everyone inside it, there still might be others drawn to the scene of the explosion, and he wasn’t in good enough shape for a fight.
He led them away from the facility and toward the cars. He kept thinking about Nikki, about her going back inside. He knew he shouldn’t have let her. He should’ve fought harder, pushed harder to make her stay. It was foolish and reckless, but Jared couldn’t imagine a world without Nikki. Even a nuclear explosion didn’t feel like enough to destroy her.
She was their rock. She was the center of everything, using her skills as an administrator for the Vampire hierarchy to coordinate all their needs. She set up regular food deliveries, created schedules for the girls to follow, set up battle plans, bought supplies and weapons and whatever else was needed. She wasn’t only a pretty face and a terrifying monster at night—she was brilliant, a capable bureaucrat and diplomat, and Jared di
dn’t know what the hell they would do without her.
A sudden wave of sorrow hit him so hard he staggered and had to stop. He gasped for breath, clutching at his chest.
Nikki couldn’t be gone, god damn it.
Lumi stopped next to him. He looked at her and she must have seen it in his eyes—the wild denial, the rage, the sorrow so deep he thought he might drop on the spot. The only thing holding him together was the knowledge that he had a group of Meta girls to save, but later, when they got back home, he knew he’d crumble.
Not his Nikki. Not their Nikki.
Lumi leaned against him and he hugged her tight. She let one rough sob escape her before pulling herself together. They continued on, holding hands, staggering side by side while Jessalene and Cassie corralled the girls up ahead. They reached a break in the forest and found their vehicles parked end to end—
And Nikki, standing with her arms crossed over her chest, looking bored.
“What took so long?” she asked, sounding slightly annoyed.
Jared walked to her, feeling joy explode in his chest. “I thought— you went back in and— the explosion—” He gaped at her, barely able to form sentences from the shock, but it was her, it was her, and she was alive.
She grinned at him, head tilted. “You thought I died, didn’t you?”
“Nikki, how the hell did you get out?”
She shrugged. “I outran the explosion.”
“You did what?” He stopped in front of her, staring with shock.
“I realized it was about to happen, and I outran it.”
“That’s impossible,” Lumi said.
Nikki shrugged again and gestured at herself.
Jared laughed. He couldn’t help himself. Some of the Meta girls gave him an odd look, but he laughed, the relief so intense, so physically palpable. He leaned into Nikki and hugged her, then Lumi joined, followed by Cassie and Jessalene, and their little group laughed, hugged their Vampire queen and kissed her.
“Okay, okay, enough,” Nikki said, struggling out of their grip. “Goddess, you all really thought I was dead. I’m not sure if I should be insulted or what.”
Jared shook his head, grinning like an idiot. “I’ll never underestimate you again.”
“Better not.” She put her hands on her hips. “Now, we have a bunch of scared, traumatized women to transport, and only two cars.”
“I’ll call Bea,” Jessalene said. “She can get some vans out here soon.”
“In the meantime, we should check them for injuries and get them settled,” Cassie said.
Nikki nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
Jared gave her another look, still smiling, then turned to face the bombed-out forest, smoke rolling up into the sky. His face darkened as he thought of Wieland, so deep in his Need and his addiction that he could barely feel a wall of flame scorching his back. He killed himself and everyone in that facility, and Jared didn’t want to think about how many innocent lives were lost.
At least they’d saved as many girls as they could. That would have to be enough for now.
16
The girls filed into the new house across the street while Allie and Kerrin helped them get settled. Jared leaned against the stoop and watched them with a tight smile on his face. He felt exposed, even though he knew there were snipers on the roofs, each backed up with a magi ready to rain fire and brimstone down on any attackers—and still, he kept thinking about the explosion, about nearly losing Nikki.
After returning from their last expedition, Jared spent the next couple of weeks buying up the rest of the neighborhood. Most of the houses were somewhat old and out of date, so they’d have a lot of renovating to do—but at least one was ready to go as soon as they closed. It cost him a shit load of money, but that didn’t matter much to him anymore.
Now they owned both sides of their little street, and maybe one day he’d expand further, but for now they had plenty of space. Some of the girls moved into the houses that had been broken into apartments, eager to get a little privacy and space, but most of them opted to stay where they were, which surprised him. Jared figured more girls would’ve wanted to get their own house—but apparently, they enjoyed living in one big communal space.
Penny strode over toward him, her short, dark hair bouncing with each purposeful step. Her eyes narrowed as she stepped onto the sidewalk and crossed her arms over her chest. Jared hadn’t seen much of her lately—she was always down in her little basement lab working on new magic-infused technology, and he figured he shouldn’t interrupt her work.
“Batteries are in place,” she said. “Installed where you said, but I’m not sure it’s going to work.”
“It’ll work,” he said.
“The schematic—”
“It’ll work.” He walked over to her and kissed her cheek. “Thanks for your help.”
That got a little blush out of her. “Yeah, sure, no problem.”
“How’s your research coming along?”
She smiled and gestured expansively. “Oh, you know, solving the mysteries of the universe. I think I have some pretty cool breakthroughs on the horizon.”
“That’s awesome, I’m excited to see what you come up with.”
She beamed and nodded. “Soon, really soon, I promise.”
Of course, that’s what she’d been saying since she joined the family, but Jared wasn’t going to push her. She was brilliant, but she was all over the place—as soon as she seemed to make progress on one thing, she was off doing ten more.
Lumi poked her head out of a window in a house across the street and whistled.
“Duty calls,” he said, and jogged over to where Lumi dangled out, staring down at him.
“You ready?” she asked.
“Gotta get in position, but yeah, give me a second.”
“Are the batteries in place?”
“They’re set up. Penny thinks it won’t work.”
Lumi flipped her off. Penny waved in response.
“It’ll work. Get your ass on the roof.”
Jared saluted, turned, and jogged back to his house. Penny rolled her eyes and gave him a look as he passed.
The stairs creaked under his weight as he ran up to the roof deck. He walked to the edge and spotted Lumi across the way, her arms waving. Beyond her, scattered across the other roofs, were all the other Magi they’d hired. Izzy stood at the very front of the street, her hair up in a bun.
They formed a network of power, each Magi like a little node. This was a new spell, and the work was pretty complicated. He’d been up late for days, ironing out the theory with Lumi while Izzy and the other Independents offered their advice. Some of them were pretty smart, and soon they had a workable diagram. Penny thought it was all bullshit, of course, but Penny didn’t understand magic, not yet. She still looked at it like science, but magic wasn’t science, not exactly—it relied too much on Human emotion and will.
He saw the all-clear sign from Izzy and started the ritual. Jared closed his eyes and placed his hands on a spot marked out on the low brick wall, curling his hands around the edges, feeling the rough texture on his skin. He pulled up as much power as he could without overwhelming himself and pictured a simple memgram—an invisible funnel through which grains of sand tumbled over and over into darkness—and snapped it into place. The priori flowed through him like a sieve and into the concrete, then deeper into the interconnected layers of the spell, plugging him into the network.
It felt strange as each of the other magi on all the surrounding roofs plugged in too. He recognized Lumi and Izzy’s power, could almost taste their strength—Lumi was like a sledgehammer while Izzy was like a warm tidal wave. Then others joined, the Independents he didn’t know, and slowly each person locked into the spellwork, assailing him with unfamiliar sensations. One was like the ocean receding from a shoreline, another was like ice freezing hard enough to crack pavement, another was wild, like a tornado ripping through an orchard. Combined, the power swirled and w
ormed its way into the spellwork, filling the cracks in the ritual, building up toward a crescendo.
Jared wrangled the energy and shaped it the best he could. He felt the batteries kick into gear, sucking in most of the power but leaving him enough to work with. He formed a wide, high, impenetrable dome around the street, flowed it down the backs of their buildings, and cut it off at the end of the block. He felt Lumi weave illusion work into his blunt instrument, making it so that anyone approaching their block would see road work ahead, masking tape closing the sidewalk, and turn away. It was subtle and powerful stuff, and he felt a few of the others make adjustments, strengthening his warded dome, adding depth and subtlety to Lumi’s illusion.
It was masterful work, and when it was finished, Jared had to admit that he’d never seen anything like it before. The wards around the Arizona facility had been powerful and deep, but this might’ve been more intense, more pervasive. He couldn’t imagine Vampires ever breaking through—but if they did, they’d find themselves under a hailstorm of metal slugs from Bea’s snipers and magical power from the Independents.
Finally, the whole ward snapped into place. Jared stepped back from the wall with a gasp and felt the hum of the magic deep inside his chest. The ward appeared above him like a milky film in the sky, dimming the sun ever so slightly. He waved toward Izzy then at Lumi, and they both waved back: all good on their end.
He took the stairs slowly. The Need was rough, but not too bad.
“How’d it go?” Jessalene asked him as he reached the front door.
“I think it worked. Not sure how the batteries will hold up.”
She let out a breath and nodded. He stepped outside, went down the stoop, and met with Lumi, Izzy, and a couple of the contractors in the middle of the street. Penny came running up from a house toward the front of the block, a big smile on her face.
“I take it that worked,” Jared said as she approached.
“Batteries are plugged in and humming along,” she said.
He let out a sigh of relief. “So all we need to do is keep the batteries charged and the wards won’t ever drop.”