“Fertilizer?” She craned her neck to take in the tallest of the nearby towers, anchored with heavy cables, and saw bold green text at the top: Mother Earth Corp. “This is a pretty elaborate front just to hide the Gaians’ base of operations, don’t you think?”
Mona stopped in front of the gate. “It’s not a front at all. Mother Earth Corp. is the largest fertilizer manufacturer in the region. They provide quality fertilizer to thousands of farms.”
Piper blinked. “But why are the Gaians here then?”
“The company is the public arm of the Gaians, though of course that connection is restricted knowledge. Much of the profits go to support our cause, and the facility serves many other useful functions, including acting as our headquarters. Almost all of the Command Staff are involved in the company, as it would otherwise be very suspicious for so many powerful people to be meeting all the time.”
Though Mona was trying to suppress it, Piper heard the note of pride in her mother’s voice. She knew her mother wasn’t entirely stable, but she was committed to their task. Seeing her mother focused and decisive gave her hope that she wasn’t as far gone as her father believed. Maybe if Piper could get Mona away from the Gaians for a while, she would continue to improve.
Two men stepped out of a large security booth on the other side of the fence. They wore identical uniforms similar to police officers. Each had a large handgun on his hip.
The taller man frowned, rubbing a hand over his stubbled jaw. “Ms. Santo, should we have been expecting you?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Mona said, that authoritative tone returning to her voice, “but it’s quite urgent. If you’d kindly bring us inside, we’ll wait while you work out the details.”
The man hesitated, glancing at his partner. He pulled a handheld radio from his belt and muttered into it. It crackled loudly for a moment, then a distorted voice told him to wait. Another crackle.
“Is she alone?” the voice on the other end demanded.
“Accompanied by another female,” the man replied, trying to speak quietly enough that they wouldn’t hear.
“My daughter,” Mona informed them.
The man repeated this into the radio. Static crackled from the speaker, and Piper shifted nervously as the seconds dragged into a minute and then longer.
“Bring them in,” the radio barked.
The man gave his partner a nod and returned to the booth he’d come out of. A second later, a loud buzz erupted above their heads and the lock on the gate clanked loudly. The second guard opened it and Mona gestured for Piper to go in ahead of her. Her mother followed, securing the gate behind her. Piper glanced both ways, uncomfortably noting that the barbed-wire-topped fence continued for as far as she could see in both directions, presumably circling the entire grounds of the plant. At each distant corner, a tall lookout post stood like a wooden sentry. As she passed the security booth, she peeked inside and glimpsed an additional four guards and what looked like a rack of rifles.
“This way,” the second guard said, gesturing for them to follow.
Piper trailed after her mother and the guard, her eyes darting left and right, heart pounding. Phase one—getting in—was complete. Now for the hard part.
CHAPTER 23
TOGETHER, Piper, her mother, and the guard walked into the depths of the plant. The long, tangled lines of piping closed in around them, some disappearing into the ground, others twisting around tall towers lined with catwalks. They passed a row of round metal vessels that towered over three stories high, a single lonely catwalk circling each one. At the top of the third one, three workers in blue overalls and white hardhats were examining something.
The rumble of an engine sounded behind them and a deep-toned horn blared briefly. They moved aside as a tanker truck rolled slowly by, the Mother Earth Corp. logo on its side. Following it around the bend in the road, Piper craned her neck as a huge storage building sprawling over half a city block of real estate came into view, its steel siding weeping rust from the roofline toward the ground. Three semi-trailers were backed up to the row of loading bays, and two blue-clad workers stood in front of one, discussing something on the clipboard between them.
Piper pressed her lips into a thin line. How many black jeeps and rocket launchers could that building hide? No wonder the Gaians used this plant as their base. Between the high security for “safety” that kept everyone out and the massive expanse of buildings and machinery, they could hide a small army on the grounds.
The guard led them to a door near the left corner of the towering steel wall beside the loading bays. He unclipped a security card from his breast pocket and slapped it against a black panel beside the door. A loud beep was followed by the click of a lock. He pulled the door open and held it for them. Piper walked in and stopped, her wide eyes lifting toward the corrugated steel ceiling five stories above her head. A hundred wooden crates, supposedly holding fertilizer, were stacked in the open space in front of the loading bays. The Gaians could easily drive jeeps from inside the building, out the loading doors, and into the back of a trailer with no one outside the wiser.
The space she could see was barely a fifth of the entire warehouse, but it still echoed loudly with her footsteps. A huge pipe large enough that Piper could have walked upright inside it ran along the back wall. In the center, a strange contraption of pipes and different sized steel cylinders was half sunk into the floor. Several doors broke up the inner wall to her right, but by far the most conspicuous was the one in the center, protected by two well-armed soldiers.
Their guide led them toward the door with the guards. Piper followed nervously, eyes darting from one unfamiliar piece of metal and machinery to the next. Fertilizer was explosive, wasn’t it? She supposed even an entirely legit company would need strict safety measures for a plant like this. Her eyes lifted to the ceiling again. How would Ash find her in this place even if she did use the summons spell? The huge space she was standing in was only a small part of the warehouse, and the warehouse was only a fraction of the overall grounds.
A siren blared overhead. Piper started violently, half-tripping before catching herself.
“What’s that?” she demanded.
The guard’s face paled. He yanked his radio off his belt while gesturing for Mona and Piper to keep walking.
“Hurry up,” he snapped.
He approached the guards at the door and said something, his words lost under the sound of the alarm. They nodded. Their guide did an about-face and strode away without even glancing at them. Piper blinked after him, then turned to the guards at the door. One of them put his radio to his mouth and muttered into it.
The door buzzed. One of the guards grabbed it and pulled it open, nodding to Mona.
Her mother confidently strode inside and Piper trailed after her into a long corridor that ended at another door. It opened before they reached it. Passing between two more soldiers, they entered the command center of the Gaians.
The room was large, though tiny in proportion to the rest of the warehouse, and sunken several feet into the ground with walls made of heavy concrete blocks. On either side, rows of small monitors lined the walls. Long desks ran beneath the rows of screens, manned by several soldiers with headsets. The back wall was dominated by a huge screen, and beneath it, a rectangular table was surrounded by six chairs on either side.
Each seat was occupied by a Gaian commander—ten men and two women. With silver hair and stern, lined faces, they were all old enough to be Piper’s grandparents. Behind her, one of the guards closed and bolted the door shut again. There were eight soldiers total, four at this door and four at the door at the opposite end. The alarm outside was still blaring, though the thick walls muffled the sound.
Mona started down the steps to the sunken floor. Piper advanced more slowly, her gaze darting over the walls of monitors. Each displayed a different black and white view from a security camera. She quickly spotted one displaying the front gates, where she and Mona had
come in, as well as the door they’d just come through. The giant screen behind the command table showed a stretch of empty road lined on one side by the fence surrounding the facility. In the corner of the view, several soldiers were crouched behind the edge of a building, weapons in their hands.
One of the women at the table turned away from the monitor.
“Mona, welcome,” she said in a prim, imperious voice.
“What are you doing here? You were not summoned,” a man on the left side of the table barked, barely glancing at them. He slapped a hand against the table. “Get me the right camera, Wilson!”
“Yes, sir,” one of the men at the desk said hastily.
The image on the large screen flashed to the feed from a different camera: a section of fence that had been torn apart. Smoke was still rising from the charred ground around the remains of the fence.
“Bloody hell,” the man snarled.
“What’s going on?” Mona asked worriedly.
“Perimeter breach,” the woman answered. She didn’t sound concerned. “Wilson, do we have a location on the intruders?”
“Camera 36 by the north stack went down shortly after the breach, ma’am. Alpha team is already approaching the area.”
“Redirect bravo team to assist them.” She swiveled in her chair toward Mona and Piper. “And who is this, Mona? Could it be your elusive daughter?”
Mona put her arm around Piper’s waist and drew her toward the table. “Yes, this is Piper. Piper, this is Colonel Jennings.”
“Welcome,” Jennings said. She folded her hands on the table, sitting straight and proper in her business suit. Its cut was distinctly militaristic, while at the same time it looked more expensive than her father’s entire wardrobe put together.
“What brings you here, Piper?” Jennings asked. “We had heard you were not inclined to join our cause.”
“Um, well, these are special circumstances,” she replied awkwardly. She glanced around the room as the siren continued to blare. “Is this a bad time?”
Jennings waved a dismissive hand. “We are more than prepared for a minor security breach. Mona said you’ve come about an urgent matter. Please continue.”
Piper cleared her throat, hoping she wouldn’t stumble over the words she’d prepared overnight. “After witnessing an altercation with a Gaian squad in Brinford, I became suspicious about the weapons they were using. The weapons appeared too advanced for haemon magic and I began to suspect daemon involvement—which didn’t make sense, of course. I went to Fairglen to discuss this with my mother, and while there, we discovered something that you needed to see immediately.”
She stepped up to the table and pulled the disc out of her pocket. Unwrapping it from the white cloth she’d stolen from the hotel to muffle the glow, she set it on the table. The attention of the rest of the commanders, still focused on the large screen, immediately turned to the disc. They all leaned forward to look at it.
“I found this on the body of a reaper agent disguised as a haemon. We uncovered him among the Fairglen Gaians. He had insinuated himself over the last three years and held a great deal of influence with the leadership there.”
Glancing at Mona, Piper stepped back, letting her mother take her place.
“As some of you may be aware,” Mona said with solemn gravity, “I trained extensively in daemon languages as a Consul. Although much of the missive was—”
“Camera 52 just went down,” another of the soldiers at the desk announced. “They’re on the move. Redirecting bravo team to intercept.”
Mona glanced at Jennings, who nodded for her to continue.
“The missive,” Mona continued, “appears to be in response to Hades intelligence that the Ra family has assumed control of the Consulates—”
“What?” one of the commanders roared, shooting to his feet. “The Consulates are under the control of the Ra family?”
Mona nodded and gestured to the glowing symbols surrounding the disc. “The spy was ordered to lead a Gaian attack on the Brinford Ra embassy. His instructions were to eliminate any opposition from local leadership in order to complete this operation.”
The angry commander pressed his hands to the tabletop and looked across to his colleagues. Their responding looks were grim. The soldiers at the desks snuck glances at them as they worked.
“You understand the gravity of the situation,” Mona said in her best Consul voice. “Before you is proof that Samael Hades has been interfering directly with our operations. That also brings into question the source of our weapons, which are likely daemon-constructed. It’s possible that Samael is also supplying our weapons to increase his influence.”
Silence fell over the room. All the commanders were watching Mona and Piper, their expressions indecipherable but distinctly forbidding.
“We have visual,” Wilson suddenly announced.
The large screen flashed to static for a moment, then to a new feed. The camera was positioned at some high point, looking down on a stretch of road and cylindrical tanks. Distant dark figures darted from tank to tank, too small to make out in any detail. Piper tried to count them—at least twenty. As they sped toward some point out of view of the camera, white light flashed over the screen from one of the huge tanks.
A moment later, the boom of the explosion rattled the entire building. The picture returned, showing a white ball of fire pouring black smoke from the remains of the tank.
“Wilson, where is bravo team?” the angry commander snapped, dropping back into his chair. He slashed a look at Jennings.
Jennings leaned back in her seat and folded her hands. “Mona, Piper, thank you for bringing this to our attention.” She looked over at the soldiers manning the desk. “Why don’t we have radio communication with our teams?”
Piper blinked. Was that it? Conversation over?
Another explosion shook the floor, closer this time. Piper’s eyes shot to the ceiling as dust sifted down.
Jennings tapped a finger on the table. “Wilson, deploy delta team immediately. We need—”
All at once, every monitor dissolved into static.
“What the hell?” the angry commander bellowed.
“I’ve got nothing,” Wilson half shouted, his fingers flying urgently over his keyboard. “Someone must have cut the lines!”
Something outside the door banged loudly. The nearest guards swiftly backed away, raising their weapons.
The door exploded. Golden light burst out in a blinding flash. Piper flinched back, throwing an arm over her eyes. Rapid thwack sounds erupted, followed instantly by thuds and cries of pain. She dropped her arm, squinting against the spots in her vision.
The guards at the door were already on the floor with crossbow bolts protruding from their bodies. Six daemons in red uniforms stood in a line on one side of the door, six on the other side. Each one held a crossbow in his hands, fresh arrows already loaded.
In the center of the row of daemons soldiers, a woman stood, taller than average, regal, composed. Her knee-length blond hair was braided down her back, woven through with strips of red silk. A topaz jewel hung in the center of her forehead, glittering in the harsh light of the command room. Her lean body was clad in red leather with a heavy gold belt wrapped around her hips, holding the sheath of a delicate, but certainly deadly sword.
She surveyed the room with yellow eyes, her stare cutting through each commander before drifting over Piper and her mother.
The tiniest click from the left side of the room—and then the thwack of a Ra soldier’s crossbow firing. Piper jerked, head snapping over in time to see the radio fall out of Wilson’s hand as he slumped sideways, tumbling out of his chair.
“Now, now,” the woman said, her musical voice chiming like bells of ice, “we don’t need any heroes today.”
Obeying commands from the Ra daemons, the Gaians at the computers backed away from their desks, holding their hands in the air. Piper glanced back and saw that the four guards at the back door had been
shot too. Another distant explosion shook the floor.
The woman’s cat-like eyes slid back to Piper. “A pleasure to finally meet you, Piper. Do you know who I am?”
“Maasehet,” she replied, apprehension churning through her. Even without her regal bearing and clear leadership position, the woman’s family resemblance to Miysis told Piper all she needed to know. This woman was the heir to the Ra family’s ruling seat and the one who had tried to sell Seiya and Lyre to Samael.
Maasehet smiled—a smile as barren of warmth as the desert was of water. “I have heard much about you from my brother.”
“Have you?” she said weakly. She shifted her weight but didn’t dare move—not with those crossbows pointed toward her and the table of commanders behind her. This was bad, bad, bad. “What are you doing here?”
Maasehet tilted her head and caressed the hilt of her sword. “I would ask you the same, but I believe the answer is sitting on the table.”
Piper glanced back at the glowing disc in plain view on the tabletop.
“Hades tools are so recognizable,” Maasehet purred. “So little subtlety. Though I admit this particular secret was very well hidden.”
A surge of motion came from behind Piper and the Ra soldier beside Maasehet fired his crossbow, the arrow glowing gold with what was sure to be a deadly spell, followed by the thud of the arrow connecting. She spun around and saw one of the commanders keel over, the light of a spell in his hand sputtering out.
Piper turned back to Maasehet, who flicked a strand of her golden hair in annoyance as though the dead commander were a fly she’d been trying to swat.
“How—how did you know about this place?” Piper asked, trying hard to sound calm.
If she could keep Maasehet talking, maybe there was a chance—however tiny—that she could prevent the coming massacre. She didn’t have high hopes for her and her mother’s survival if Maasehet decided to eliminate the Command Staff. Her thoughts jumped to the summons spell under her armguard but she didn’t dare use it. Despite her promise, she refused to summon Ash into this death trap.
Reap the Shadows (Steel & Stone Book 4) Page 26