by B N Miles
She smiled, saluted, and marched back off to her soldiers. She barked orders at them, and her militia company fell into ranks, ready to set off into the desert.
Jared gazed back at the fleet of rented vans that had ferried them to this spot and wondered how much of them would be left at the end to take them back—or if that even mattered, if there would be an end.
“You’re having dark thoughts.” Cassie sidled up next to him and smiled.
He smiled back. “How’d you know?”
“You get a look on your face when you’re thinking about bad things.”
“Guess I can’t help it.”
“Nothing’s going to go wrong, Jared. I promise.
He laughed and kissed her. “I believe you, but I still have to plan for the worst.”
“Eventualities.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course you do.”
“Nobody else will.”
She slipped her hand through his arm and hugged herself against him. He wished he could have left her behind, wished he could have left them all behind, but they refused. He kissed her hair then looked at the others: Jessalene, Lumi, Nikki, Izzy, Penny, and Allie. At least Kerrin had stayed behind in Philadelphia with the Meta girls, since she was willing to admit that she was no good in a fight.
But the rest of his family, they loved him so much they were willing to put themselves through this all over again—or maybe it was because they loved Cassie so much. He had a strange, sudden realization, as he looked down at his beautiful girl and kissed her cheek again, that he wasn’t the center of his own universe.
Cassie was the center. She was the light that drew everyone together, the glue kept everyone in one piece. He never would have had a family like this if it weren’t for her, and he owed her so much he could barely begin to pay off his debts. She was the real hero of his story, and that made him all the more sure that they were doing the right thing.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get moving before Bea gets there first.”
He marched ahead, fingers intertwined with Cassie’s, then released them, fingers trailing down and away. He motioned for the others to fall in and follow, and they struck out into the desert, following a parallel track to the militia.
Nikki joined him at the head and Lumi took the rear.
“Beautiful night,” Nikki said, smiling at him.
“You seem excited, at least.”
“Ah, you know me. Always happy to help.”
He rolled his eyes. “More like always happy to bathe in the blood of your fallen victims.”
“Well, darling, that too, of course. A girl has needs.”
He laughed despite himself. “When this is over, what are you going to do?”
She snorted. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come on, this is going to be done, sooner or later. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It doesn’t seem as though my old job will be waiting for me.”
“Even if it were, would you want to go back to that? After what they did?”
She hesitated then shook her head. “Of course not, but then again, betrayal comes with the territory. To be completely honest, I’ve been expecting something like that to happen for a long time.”
“Vampires are weird.”
She cackled. “Very true. We live a long time, darling, and that means we have to find ways to entertain ourselves.”
Jared went quiet, listening to the sound of footsteps around him. The girls carried backpacks like his own, each stuffed with rations, flashlights, medical kits, and anything else they might need. He wished again, for the thousandth time, that he could’ve left them all at home—but of course that wasn’t realistic, and of course, he wouldn’t have been able to get as far as he had without them.
“I was thinking we could start a family,” he said softly, glancing up at the splatter of stars that gashed across the night sky.
“I thought we already were.”
He glanced at her. “Babies, I mean.”
“Ah.” He expected her to seem angry—but instead, she tilted her head, thoughtful. “I suppose you could get the others pregnant.”
He grinned. “You don’t strike me as the mothering type.”
“Maybe I’m not, but I’d like to find out. Who knows, maybe it’ll be fun after a while. You know, when they’re sleeping, and not feeding constantly.”
“Sounds like you.”
She smiled and leaned against him. “I love you, Jared. I’m glad we met.”
“I love you too.” He had a feeling that she wasn’t thinking about the future because she felt she had none, but he knew that wasn’t true. All of them had a future together, and he was going to make sure it came to fruition.
He’d been picturing what it might look like for a while: babies, home, hearth. He’d open a shelter for runaway Meta girls and help as many as he could. He’d champion their cause, and fight for their protection, and use every scrap of power and knowledge he’d accumulated to keep making sure the Metas of the world weren’t taken advantage of. He realized it was his calling, to help as many as he could.
They continued on, into the desert. Penny watched a small, hand-held GPS device as they moved deeper and deeper into the scrubland. Texas was flat, for the most part, in opposition to Arizona’s unceasing rocky cliffs. Small bushes, cacti, and the occasional lizard creased the ground, but otherwise there was nothing as far as the eye could see. As darkness fell deeper and deeper, the night began to crawl around them.
“Getting close,” Penny announced after a silent trek of twenty minutes. “Bea should be in position by now.”
Jared nodded and squinted into the distance. He couldn’t see her team anymore, but he knew they were out there, finding a flanking position.
They slowed their pace then stopped once they reached the exact coordinates. As far as he could tell, there was nothing around them, no wards, no facility, no nothing, only a riot of stars in the sky, and gnarled, tiny, choked bushes dotting the ground.
“Maybe Waters was messing with us,” Jessalene said, turning in circles. “I don’t see anything.’
“They have to be here.” Jared turned to Lumi. “What do you think?”
“Wards,” she said. “It’s got to be wards. I bet we’ve been walking in circles for the last few minutes without realizing.”
“Like in Arizona?”
She nodded. “But stronger, more sophisticated. And it’s not programmed to let me through.”
“I was worried about that.” Jared gazed around, trying to see through the magic that cloaked the facility, but he knew that was impossible. “This is as good a place as any to get set up then.”
Penny unzipped her bag and took out one of the priori batteries. She gave Jared a look then put it down into the dirt before walking over to Allie, unzipping her bag, and taking out another. She produced four total batteries in all, placing them on the ground at even intervals, then connected each with a simple strand of copper wire.
“Okay then,” she said. “You guys ready for a light show?” She ushered everyone away from the batteries. “Fifty feet, at least, please.”
Jared and Lumi stayed behind, but the rest of them retreated to a safe distance. Penny fretted with the batteries again, but the plan was simple, and it had to work. She retreated and lingered by his side for a moment.
“It’ll be okay,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Trust me.”
She chewed her lip, nodded, and walked off.
Lumi grunted. “This is going to be a mess.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You should’ve warned her.”
“She doesn’t need to worry.” He took a deep breath and began to channel the priori. “Ready to break shit?”
“Hell fucking yeah.” He felt Lumi draw the priori into herself, and together they began to siphon pure, raw magical energy into the batteries.
They glowed like fire. He blinked a
nd the light left ghosts behind his eyelids. He felt Izzy’s magic flare up and solidify into a shield behind him, which was good, they’d need it. He kept channeling, funneling, shoving more power, more and more power, and it flowed from one battery into the next, charging each one until it glowed and gave off heat in waves.
He heard Lumi grunt beside him. Their magic felt so similar, and he remembered when they’d first met, back when she was a Medlar agent, so strange and terrifyingly strong. Now she was as familiar to him as his own hands. They’d trained so hard together that their magical senses were acutely in sync with each other, so much so that he felt as though her signature was the same as his own.
It was odd, but it felt good.
“Hard part now,” he said through gritted teeth. “Gotta overload them.”
“You hang tight. I got this.”
He nodded, releasing the flow into the batteries and reshaping his magic into shields in front of them. She continued dumping power, and the glow got hotter, brighter, more intense. Jared held the shields steady, waiting for the moment—
Lumi let out a surprised gasp and the batteries flared. He felt their energy peak in a riot of sparks and luminescence, and beyond them, ten feet away, he watched the shimmering outline of wards appear.
The magical energies smashed against each other. His breath caught in his throat, and Lumi let out a strangled cheer. She took a step forward, threw her hands backward, then threw them forward again and unleashed a lightning bolt so powerful it made Jared’s teeth chatter. Her magic smashed into the wards, along with the overloading power of the batteries, and he saw its shape warp and roll, bending inward.
“Hold it,” Jared said. “Hold it, Lum.”
She growled something incoherent and pushed her magic harder. He knew she’d be suffering after this, but it didn’t matter. He dropped his shield and joined her, intertwining his own lightning around her own, their energy working together in tandem, burning a hole in the wards, ripping it open—
And just like that, the ward shattered.
“Now,” he barked, holding his power. Lumi stepped forward, swirled air around her, and then ripped it forward in a tiny tornado. She wrapped it around the batteries and carried them into the hole they’d created in the wards. Lumi then placed them down in the gap, released them, and stepped back.
Jared dropped his spell and stared. Lumi didn’t move beside him as the batteries glowed bright, right in the center of the wards. He could see that the hole remained, large enough for them to climb through—and it held, at least for now.
“Batteries should keep it open for a while,” Lumi said. “But we don’t know for how long.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jared said, looking beyond the wards toward a group of buildings beyond.
Their first objective was to drop the wards for Bea’s team. Once they were down, then the real fun could begin.
It was do or die for them.
Lumi grunted and sagged against him. The others came running over, and Lumi was swept up into Jessalene’s arms. Jared smiled and felt the Need clawing at his brain, but he stepped forward, then walked quickly to the wards and the batteries. He stepped over their copper wire, passed through the edge of the magic, and into the realm beyond.
The others followed. They gathered on the other side, Lumi leaning against Jessalene and Izzy for support, and Jared surveyed his beautiful family, and felt so calm, so shockingly calm. He knew this was right.
24
“First thing’s first,” Jared said, looking at his girls with his hands on his hips. “Lumi, strip.”
She blinked up at him with those big eyes. “What are you talking about?”
He dropped his backpack and began to unbuckle his belt. “You’re suffering as badly as I am right now. We need to purge the Need before we go any further.”
Lumi let out a shuddering sigh then detached herself from Cassie to stagger over to him. She stared up into his eyes as they kissed, and he felt other hands on them—Jessalene, Nikki, Penny, Izzy, Allie, Cassie, all of them, and more mouths and bodies, and warmth flooded into the cool night as Lumi smiled at him. She whispered that she loved him, and he whispered it back and heard his voice echoed by the others.
Then there was only them and their bodies. He took Lumi deep, felt her warmth wrap around him and she shivered, moaned and bucked, as Cassie straddled his face, Nikki and Izzy teased each other, Allie and Jessalene and Penny kissed. He lost track of them all, their bodies, perfect and lithe and glowing in the bright white moonlight, the long lines of their legs and muscles, their hard, muscular backs, breasts with small pink nipples and mouths and lips and tongues, all of them his, and all of him for all of them. Lumi rode him, faster, sliding along his shaft as he groaned, feeling the spiritual energy of their family reaching a crescendo—
All of them sweating, together, in the moment, in the singular moment before the end of all moments, the little death, the perfection. He hung there suspended with his girls, a smile on his face as Lumi threw her hair back and cried out, coming. A smile spread across her face, their magic exploding out between them, her Need draining away, and he saw Cassie smile at him in ecstasy, saw Nikki, saw Izzy and Jessalene and Penny and Allie, he watched them touch each other with the same tender fondness he felt, the same loving intensity. He knew that they’d built something lasting, something worthwhile in this otherwise bleak world, in this universe that had done nothing but take a boot and ground it down into the faces of people like him, people like his girls.
He came, filling Lumi with light, felt himself explode outward in bodiless joy, all of them together, and his Need drained away beneath the sky, the magic wrapping itself around all of them, driving each of them wild in their own personal shell, but wild together, and he touched them, fingertips on skin, on nipples, on teeth and lips, and pulled their hair and kissed them, one after the next, again and again, until they lay finished in the dust.
They had only moments to rest before bright lights in the distance pulled Jared back to his feet.
“Do you see that?” he asked nobody in particular, buckling his belt again, hefting his pack. The others were dressing, and Cassie took a few steps toward it, squinting.
“I see,” she said. “What the hell?”
“It’s the facility,” Nikki said. She drifted in that direction, like a pale ghost. Allie followed her, keeping a few steps back. “Their floodlights are on. I think—I think they know we’re here.”
“How?” Jared felt his heart start to race, and the almost mystical calm that had fallen over him a moment ago faded away.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head and looked back at him. “But they’re on high alert now.”
“Come on,” Cassie said. “We need to get moving.”
They spent another few minutes getting dressed and prepared. The batteries remained on the ground, holding open their little gate in case they needed to use it. Always have an escape plan, Jared figured, as they fell into line and marched toward the light.
Their plan was straightforward: find the battery system that kept the wards up, take them down, and let Bea and the fighters into the compound. Then they’d storm the place, kill as many as they could, free the Metas, and find Wade.
That was how it normally went, at least. But as they got closer to the facility, Jared had to pull up a magic cloak of darkness around them, aided by Izzy and Lumi.
The place was a storm of light. It was like a professional sports stadium, so bright it seemed to glow into the heavens. The building itself was a three-story megaplex that looked like an office park with multiple windows and boring, nondescript architecture, no more than a big box. Vehicles were parked all around it, vaguely military, clearly meant for driving long distances in the desert, and men patrolled between them with body armor and long rifles. Jared called a halt about a quarter mile off behind a small patchwork of rocks and bushes. He scanned the area with binoculars and shook his head.
“It’s swarming with g
uards,” he said.
“There might be another way on the other side,” Jessalene said.
“I’m not so sure.” He tapped a finger against the rock formation. “Something’s going on in there. I’ve never seen so much security before.”
“Waters must have sent us to the right place,” Lumi said, sounding dire. “We might have to go in the front.”
“We’ll never make it through.”
“There’s another way.” Nikki stepped forward, staring out into the distance.
“What are you doing?” Jared asked, but she was already walking. “Nikki, stop.”
She looked back over her shoulder and smiled. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m going to provide a distraction.”
“Nikki—”
But she was already gone, blurring as she moved, disappearing into the night. Jared stood there, completely shocked, and stared at where she was only moments before.
“She’ll be okay,” Izzy said. “She can handle herself.”
“More than handle herself,” Allie added. “That one’s a Vampire queen. She’ll slaughter a thousand before they manage to bring her down.”
But Jared wasn’t so sure. He stared out toward the facility, toward the army of men swarming the place, and he tried to imagine what Nikki could do amidst all that firepower. They knew she was coming and they’d be ready for her.
He couldn’t do anything about it now though. They waited, nestled behind the rocks, until the sound of gunfire reached them, staccato and sporadic, then getting louder, more intense.
“That’s our cue,” Jared said, vaulting the rock and running.
The girls followed. Their footsteps made a crunching noise over the sandy dirt. He ran hard, breathing steady, not bothering to hide their approach with magic. The men out front were gathering into teams, and he saw more of them run off to the left, toward the front side of the facility. Jared was tempted to charge into their midst and begin killing, but they had an objective, and he wouldn’t squander whatever Nikki had done.
An explosion rocked the air, and more shouting reached a fever pitch.