Shadows of Divinity

by Luke Mitchell

  “I don’t know what’s… I have to help them. Kublich couldn’t have—”

  “Kublich killed my parents, Johnny. I watched him do it with his own hands. He tried to kill me. And, I promise you, he’s the one controlling those things out there. I need your help, Johnny. We need to get our people out of here. Help me get them out, and I’ll stay here. I’ll fight beside you for Sanctuary.”

  “Hal…” Elise whispered.

  “We can’t let him take this base,” I said, not dropping Johnny’s gaze. “Help me. Please.”

  “I thought you were dead, man,” he said finally, like he was just now seeing me for the first time since we’d dropped in. “Even after the stories started. I knew if you were out there, you wouldn’t let me go on thinking you’d…”

  He shook his head, looking away. There was pain on his face. Deep, genuine pain like I’d never seen from Johnny.

  I’d known he was upset—and understandably so—but seeing him like this… It hurt.

  “I’m sorry, Johnny. I didn’t—It wasn’t safe for me to contact you. I swear I thought about doing it anyway, dozens of times. But I couldn’t.”

  “And now you’re just dropping in to casually ask me to commit some light treason.”

  I flinched. “Yeah. Pretty much.” I tried to force a smile. “Aren’t you glad to have me back?”

  I didn’t mention the part where the regime I was asking him to commit treason against might well facilitate his being turned into food at some point if we didn’t do anything about it.

  “Dammit.” Johnny said, curling and uncurling his fists. Then, in his mimicry voice, “Ours is not to ask, children. Don’t mind the fire. Don’t mind the—Gropping son of a—” He kicked a chair, anger flashing for a split second before he finally looked up to meet my eyes, shaking his head. “Man, if I hadn’t already been questioning everything from the High Cleric to my own mother, I would have shot you back at ‘You got brigged?’”

  “Not my finest first line,” I said. “That mean you’re in?”

  He glanced at Elise, a familiar grin spreading across his face. “She’s coming, right?”

  And just like that, the first little crack was forming in the wall between us, and I found myself chuckling despite everything. “Yeah, Johnny. She’s coming.”

  He wagged his eyebrows at Elise. “Well, totally worth some light treason, then.”

  “Elise, meet my best friend, Johnathan Wingard.”

  “Pleased as sunny petals,” she said. “Now can we please find my dad and get out of here?”

  “Straight to business, then,” Johnny said, going to one of the displays and flicking through a few menus. “Alpha save my soul. Names?”

  Elise was just beginning to say “Franco” when Johnny waved her off.

  “Kidding. Just checking patrols.” He grabbed a riot gun from the rack by the door. “I know exactly who you’re looking for. Kind of hard to miss.”

  Elise stared at him incredulously.

  “What?” Johnny gave an innocent shrug, sliding a stunner into the riot gun’s chamber. “You know how it is. Gotta keep an eye on us terrorist types.”

  36

  Prisoners

  “Hal, Hal, Hal,” Johnny said as we jogged down the stairs to the brig’s bottom level. “What in the name of Alpha’s shriveled old man bits have you gotten me into this time?”

  “You know,” I said. “Saving Enochia. Finishing what my dad started. Just another day in the Legion, really.”

  “Hey, at least it’ll be a good story when we’re side by side at the gallows. You guys forced this onto the emergency broadcast channel?” he added, pointing at one of the amps that was still projecting Therese Brown’s story through the building.

  “Our friends saw to it.”

  “Sweet Alpha, you guys aren’t gropping around, are you?”

  At the bottom of the stairs, Johnny reached for the access panel to the heavy hardsteel door and paused. “Two of our guys are down here. Let’s take it easy if the talking turns ugly, yeah?”

  We agreed. He palmed the access panel, which lit green. Another tap, and the door gave a sharp clack and hissed open on its tracks. I cradled the riot gun I’d taken from the guard room and swept in on Johnny’s heels.

  The door hissed shut behind us, an acute reminder that there was one and exactly one way out of this level. Elise pressed a hand to my back, experiencing a similar unease by the look of it.

  “Let’s get your family back,” I whispered.

  She looked more apprehensive than ever, like, now that we were so close, it was only natural we’d find out that we’d made some critical error and that all hope was in fact lost.

  The hallway was wide and brightly lit, spanning most of the length of the building. Rows of viridian cell doors lined each side, and after every block of cells, smaller hallways branched perpendicularly from the main passage.

  The two guards Johnny had mentioned were nowhere in sight.

  We prowled down the hallway, Johnny on point, Therese’s voice ringing off the hardsteel cell doors in a grainy treble. I doubted it would be much longer before the troops broke through whatever surprises Carlisle had left for them and shut the transmission down.

  Hopefully the world was paying attention.

  I was beginning to worry about where those guards were when Johnny slowed his pace and called, “Hey, goodfellas? I have something to tell you, but I need you to promise to take it easy for a minute.”

  Elise and I froze.

  Ahead, a stout legionnaire rounded into view from a side hall, engrossed in his tablet. “I don’t know,” he called over his shoulder to someone else, “I’m just gonna go check.”

  “Let it be said that I really can’t stress the take it easy part enough,” Johnny called.

  The guard looked up. “What is it Win—”

  He caught sight of me and Elise and went rigid, eyes darting back and forth between me and Johnny a good dozen times in the space of two seconds.

  Johnny raised his hands, his riot gun held to the side in an unthreatening manner. “Easy. Eeeasy, Benny…”

  Benny didn’t take it easy.

  The stout man dropped his tablet to the floor with a clatter and made a desperate grab for his sidearm. “It’s Raish!” he cried.

  Johnny whipped his riot gun into position and fired a heavy stunner into Benny’s chest with crisp precision. It was only as Benny flopped to the ground that Johnny seemed to process what he’d done.

  “Dammit, Benny! Look what you made me do!”

  A muttered curse from around the corner marked the location of Benny’s partner.

  I pointed to the spot, but Johnny was already marching forward ahead of us, sliding another stunner home with authority. “How ‘bout you, Bucky?” he called. “Care to talk for a second?”

  A ripple of surprise shot through me. Bucky was only a year older than us. I’d trained with him for years.

  Apparently that didn’t mean much now.

  As we stacked in behind Johnny at the corner, two warning shots thundered, teeth-jarringly loud in the enclosed space, and kicked spouts of permacrete from the wall opposite us.

  “C’mon, man!” Johnny called. “We all know something strange has been going on lately. You know Hal, for the love of Alpha! He’s not a terrorist.”

  Another gunshot. Followed by Bucky’s wavering voice. “I always had a bad feeling about both of you scud heads!”

  Johnny turned back to me with a wide-eyed expression that was part indignant, part amused surprise. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a bit narrow minded, Buckster?”

  As he spoke, he signaled a plan to me.

  I nodded my acknowledgment, and before Bairn “Bucky” Bucksworth had a chance to reply, Johnny threw himself across the mouth of the hallway and rolled for the far corner. I rounded the corner, riot gun held left-handed so I could take aim without leaving cover. Not that it mattered.

  As expected, Bucky was tracking Johnny’s wild
roll, which gave me plenty of time to take aim and squeeze the trigger.

  The stunner knocked him back against the wall before he crumpled.

  Something itched at the edge of my senses.

  “Johnny, down!” I shouted, just as a third guard sprang out further down the main hallway, her weapon raised.

  Johnny scrambled for cover in Bucky’s hallway. The first shot cracked, and my stomach wrenched as Johnny cried out. I swept my gun for the new target.

  Elise blurred past me and hurled her staff javelin style at the shooter before I could fire.

  The staff struck the guard square in the chest. She fell to her rear with an audible whoosh of air evacuating pummeled lungs, wheezing and clutching at her chest. I drew my sidearm and tagged her with a stun round, feeling none too proud about it.

  “Agh!” Johnny cried, pulling himself up against the wall he’d flopped behind. “Son of a bitch, Brie!”

  We hurried to him, but he held up a hand to silence our worried questions. “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

  He showed us the back of his right arm, where a neat trail was torn through his gray brigs tunic. The sleeve was stained scarlet where the slug had grazed his arm, but it didn’t look serious.

  “Say, Hal, did I ever tell you about the time alliteration nearly killed me? Forgot Brie was down here. Buncha bitter, belligerent bastards.” He peered around the corner at Brie’s unmoving form, then to the staff, then to Elise.

  For maybe the first time in his life, Johnny refrained from saying anything at all. He simply gave Elise an appreciative nod and a look that said, Not bad.

  She smiled and offered him a hand, which he gratefully took, and we continued on. Now that the shooting had ended and my nerves were coming back down, I noticed the thumping sounds all around us.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  The prisoners, I realized, pounding against their cell doors, probably wondering what in demons’ depths the commotion was all about. It just reminded me what was happening to Sanctuary outside.

  We took the rest of the main hallway at a run. As soon as Johnny gave the all clear sign and guided us down the second to last side hall on the left, Elise rushed past us.

  “Dad? Dad?!”

  Tears were welling in her eyes as she spun, looking around at the doors on either side of her, five to each side.

  It was only then, seeing the desperation in her eyes, that it truly hit me how much raw emotion she’d been holding down since Franco and Phineas had been taken. The fear and helplessness must have nearly crushed her, and yet she’d manifested the willpower to stick patiently to the plan and to not come running and screaming for Franco as soon as we’d set foot in Sanctuary. I wasn’t sure I could’ve handled myself so well, had I been in her position.

  For a terrible moment, there was nothing but the echo of her voice.

  Then, “Elise? Sweetheart, is that you?”

  A muffled voice. Frail. But definitely Franco’s.

  Thank Alpha.

  “Dad!” she cried, lunging for the door the voice had come from. “It’s us! We’re gonna get you out!”

  She shot Johnny an expectant look at the last part.

  Franco’s muffled voice came through the door again, but I couldn’t make out what he said.

  Johnny palmed the panel by the door, which flashed green. He punched an additional command, and the door unlocked with a heavy click that resounded down the hallway.

  Elise ripped the hardsteel door open with frantic energy. Hinges groaned in mournful protest, and then there was Franco, crumpled to his knees at the cell’s threshold. His face was bruised and grimy. He wore a tattered, blue-gray jumpsuit and a look of exhausted defeat.

  Until he saw Elise.

  At the sight of his daughter, Franco’s eyes lit up, and something between a laugh and a weary moan escaped his throat. He struggled to his feet. She grabbed him and pulled him up forcefully enough that they almost toppled into the doorframe together. Neither of them seemed to particularly care.

  Elise clung desperately to her father, and from the look on Franco’s face, he might have been under the impression that he’d in fact moved on to the afterlife.

  After a long moment, though, he came back to the sight of us standing there, and he sobered. He took in Johnny’s Legion tunic suspiciously, then Elise’s staff and the rest of her gear.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice hoarse. He gave me a hard look. “How could you bring her here?”

  Elise fired back before I could open my mouth. “I’m rescuing my dad. And I wasn’t brought here like a piece of cargo. I fought my way in, just like Hal.”

  “She did,” I agreed, failing to suppress a smile of admiration. “She really saved our asses just now.”

  Franco’s studied Elise as I spoke, his brows fighting to meet. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “You know how I worry. You just… You really are your mother’s daughter. She would have been so proud of you. Just like I am.” He pulled her into another hug.

  “Touched as I am to hear it,” Elise said, drawing back, “we need to get out of here.”

  Johnny, probably painfully aware of our pressing time constraints, had already moved surreptitiously to the next cell.

  “Let’s see what’s behind door number two,” he muttered to himself. “Maybe Johnny gets a hug this time… ‘Hey, Johnny! Thanks for turning on the Legion for us terrorist sorts at a moment’s notice. It was a really swell move and all.’ Oh, yeah… No sweat. Totally. Anytime!”

  I smiled at Johnny’s monologue.

  Franco was staring after him with a confused frown.

  “He’s an old friend,” I said, as if that should explain everything.

  Franco gave a slow nod, and Elise smiled.

  “Don’t everyone thank me at once,” Johnny added as he tapped a command and the next cell clicked open.

  Sadly, I didn’t expect there’d be a hug waiting for Johnny behind door number two.

  “Uh, thank you…” Franco started.

  “Johnny,” I provided.

  “Thank you, Johnny,” Franco said.

  Johnny gave a wave and pulled open the cell door.

  “I see you went ahead with the rest of the plan in our absence,” Franco added, gesturing toward the amps still rattling our program.

  “Yeah,” I said, “not sure how long that part’s—”

  Amp Therese’s voice abruptly cut off, replaced by a squeal of feedback, then a sharp click.

  “—gonna last,” I finished. “Guess we’ll see how much good that did.”

  In the silence that followed, I heard the distant sounds of fighting above ground.

  “Uh, guys?” Johnny said from the doorway of Phineas’ cell.

  I went to join him and immediately saw the problem.

  Phineas’ prosthetic limbs were missing. Emphasis on the plural.

  I hadn’t even realized one of Phineas’ legs was a prosthetic, but there he lay on a rough cot with only his right leg and his right arm, which was currently draped over his face, hiding it from sight.

  He momentarily peered out from underneath as I walked in.

  “Get the others out, kid,” he said quietly. “You can’t afford to be dragging me along.”

  “Get up, Phineas,” Franco said behind me before I could respond.

  He brushed past me and offered his right hand to Phineas. “You know we’re going to drag you out of here whether you want us to or not. Just like you would do if it were any one of us.”

  Phineas regarded the hand for a few long moments, then finally sighed and reached up to clasp it. “Whatever gets you moving, you old fool.”

  With Phineas’ leg hanging over the edge of the cot, Franco bent down, laboriously pulled the larger man over his shoulder, and stood back up.

  “Not to rub your nose in it,” Franco said, “but you’re certainly lighter without the extras.”

  “Just give me a gun so I can cover your back,” Phineas grumbled.

&n
bsp; I drew my pulse gun and handed it to Franco as Elise offered her own sidearm to Phineas.

  “What are you going to do if we run into trouble?” Franco protested.

  Elise hefted her staff pointedly, and I waved my riot gun.

  Franco nodded reluctantly, and I fell in by Johnny leading the others back the way we’d come, praying the proper Legion forces were holding their own against Kublich’s hybrids out there.

  Either way, it was time.

  I keyed my earpiece. “We’ve got the goods, guys. We can be outside in three minutes. Do we have a ride?”

  “Do we have a ride?” Johnny half-muttered, half-cackled under his breath. “Alpha be sweet…”

  I was too worried at the silence on the comm line to acknowledge his razzing.

  Finally, though, as we passed the unconscious form of guard Benny, Carlisle’s voice crackled in my earpiece. “Sorry. It’s… quite hectic out here. We have a transport. I think it’s wise we leave immediately.”

  I let out a relieved breath and was about to tell the others when a metallic click resounded down the hallway.

  “Ah scud biscuits,” Johnny said.

  And, like that, the flicker of relief kindling in my chest was drowned out by a wash of cold dread. The same dread I’d felt when we’d been caught underground at Vantage.

  Only this time, Carlisle wasn’t there to pull me out.

  At the end of the hall, the one and only door to the stairs hissed open in its tracks.

  My breath caught, the dread in my stomach deepening, spilling over first into panic, then to dark rage.

  “Well grop me twelve ways to the sun,” Johnny mumbled.

  There, in the doorway, eyes ablaze with scarlet demon fire, stood High General Adrian Kublich.

  For a long moment, no one moved. For others, it might have been the surprise. The fear. For me, it was simply that every muscle in my body was too tightly clenched at the sight of my parents’ killer. The sight of the creature who’d ruined my life, who’d started all of this, standing right there. Watching me. Waiting.

  Smiling like he’d already won.

  I couldn’t think. My world shrank to that hallway. I wanted to charge straight in, grab him by the throat, and see how those blazing red eyes of his would handle a knife stab.