by Elicia Hyder
With a nod, Iliana started toward him, and Jett followed her. “You’re going to heal him? They tried to kill us,” he said.
“He’s a soldier following orders.” My hand on Jett’s chest held him back. “And yes, she’s going to heal him.” I looked around at the whole group from Claymore. “She’s going to heal all of them.” I was certain, even though I couldn’t see through their armor, that each of them carried the virus.
Iliana started with their leader, dropping to her knees at his injured side. I spread my wings of light behind me, illuminating the scene. The man on the ground was easily in his late thirties. Average height with a warrior’s build. He was black with a clean-shaven jaw and two dark-brown eyes.
Eyes that were currently fighting back tears.
“What’s your name?” Iliana asked gently as she covered his wound with her bright healing light.
Sweat had beaded across his forehead. “Kelvin. Kelvin Holmes.”
“Hi, Kelvin. I’m Iliana.”
After a moment, his shaking began to calm, and surprise replaced the agony on his face. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because not all fairies are evil,” she answered with a wink. “But the one you work for certainly is.”
“Warren…” Cassiel’s voice behind me was weak.
As I turned toward her, she fell to her knees. Anya was closest, and she closed her arms around Cassiel’s shoulders to keep her from face-planting in the grass.
I closed the distance between us with my wings. “Cassiel, what’s the matter?”
She was bent over on Anya’s arm. “I… I don’t know. Pain.” She groaned and spewed blood from her mouth.
“It’s ruptured her stomach or esophagus.” Fury knelt beside us.
“That shouldn’t matter. She should be getting better, not worse. Help me lay her down.”
The three of us eased Cassiel onto the grass. Reuel stood nearby with his wings outstretched to cast light over the area.
“I’m sorry, Cassiel.” With both hands, I grabbed hold of the low-cut collar of her dress. I ripped it down the middle. Black streaks spiderwebbed through the skin surrounding the hole in her stomach. It wasn’t healing. It was getting worse.
Thick black ooze bubbled up from the wound.
“Warren, what is that?” Anya asked, her voice horrified.
I had no idea.
Fury stripped off the zip-up jacket she was wearing and covered Cassiel’s exposed breasts. Bras weren’t a thing in Eden, and Cassiel considered them a curse for women everywhere.
Cassiel’s midsection violently arched off the ground as her bloodcurdling screams echoed through the mountains. Her whole body convulsed.
Iliana ran toward us, collapsing on top of Cassiel with all her healing power. She literally curled Cassiel’s body, letting her light consume them both.
I scrambled backward in horror. Fury’s hands were clamped over her own mouth, her eyes wide with terror. Everyone around us, even the soldiers, were frozen.
Iliana strained. “It isn’t enough.”
Finally, her light went out, and she rolled off Cassiel, panting. Cassiel gasped loudly for air.
I crawled back toward Cassiel as Iliana pushed up onto her knees. “I can’t heal it completely,” Iliana said, trying to catch her breath. “I’ve never seen this before. It’s like something exploded inside her.”
“The bullet.” I grasped my chin and nervously pulled my mouth down. “They planted some kind of bomb or poison inside her.”
She was breathing, but only just.
“Can it kill her spirit? Or just her body?” Fury asked me.
“I can’t imagine anything of this world could kill her spirit, but I wouldn’t bet any of our lives on it. Either way, this is bad news.”
Jett came closer, his mismatched eyes clouded with worry. “Only Angels of Death have ever been able to destroy the bodies of other angels. If whatever this is has the ability to cripple us, then this war just got a whole lot more dangerous.”
Iliana checked Cassiel’s pupils. “Let’s get her inside so I can continue treating her.”
I looked behind me. “Reuel, can you carry Cassiel to Echo-5?”
“Amam.” Reuel knelt down and scooped her up into his massive arms. He started toward the building, but Iliana stayed, staring wide-eyed at his back.
“You OK?” I put my hand on her shoulder.
She blinked a few times. “I’ve never failed to heal anyone before. Human or angel.”
“I think you healed her more than you know.” Anya visibly swallowed hard. “You may have just saved her life.”
Fury stood and offered Iliana her hand. “Come on. You’ll need to get us in the building.”
The three women set off after Reuel, but Jett raised a hand to stop me. “What the hell was that, Warren?”
I shook my head, afraid to voice my fears aloud.
Behind him, Kane, Nash, and Cruz were guarding the soldiers. My eyes fell to the leader Iliana had healed. He was inspecting the bloody hole in his uniform. I walked over to him and knelt down, keeping my wings just bright enough so we could see the area. “What’s in those magazines?”
He hesitated, and Kane raised the barrel of the man’s own rifle toward his chest. “Maybe we shoot him with another round. This time in the stomach.”
Fear flashed across the soldier’s face. “I’ll tell you.” His voice broke with emotion. “Please don’t shoot me.”
Interesting. Zero loyalty to Claymore.
Kane lowered the rifle.
“It’s called a 5.56 Yahweh.”
“Yahweh?” Jett asked. “That’s the name for God in Hebrew.”
The man was shaking. “I don’t know about all that. I just know they’re fairy killers.”
“Angel killers,” I corrected him. “Kane, hand me one.” I heard a click followed by metal sliding against metal as he removed the magazine.
“It’s a hollow-point.” He handed it over my shoulder.
Hollow-point bullets expand as they tear through a target. The expansion slows the bullet down. In a human, there would still likely be an exit wound—a violent one, like the soldier’s mangled shoulder. But in an angel? The bullet would be trapped inside.
I rolled it around across my palm. 5.56-YWH was imprinted on the bottom, encircling the primer.
“Inside the bullet is a poison pellet. When the membrane ruptures inside the body, it’s lethal to your kind,” he said.
“Lethal how?” Jett asked.
The man was trembling. “I don’t know.”
“He’s telling the truth. He just shoots what they give him.” I held the round between my thumb and index finger. “Is this the same bullet that hit you?”
“Yeah,” the man answered.
“So humans can be healed but angels can’t,” I said, almost to myself. “Is all of Claymore packing these now?”
He shook his head so hard I was sure his brain rattled against his skull. “Only those of us in Legion Nine carry them.”
“Legion Nine, is that your angel-fighting army now?” Kane asked.
“Yes, sir.” He tapped a patch on his shoulder. A skull with wings. It was the same patch the guards had worn at Claymore’s armory prison.
“How many soldiers are in Legion Nine?” I asked.
“Around nine hundred.”
I gulped, suddenly remembering the current scope of Claymore Worldwide Security.
“All of them armed with bullets lethal to both humans and angels.” Kane slipped the magazine back into the rifle. He jammed it into place harder than the rifle required.
“How do we find out what that poison is?” Jett asked.
I stood, the cartilage grinding between my joints. “These guys won’t be able to help us.”
Kane sighed. “Too bad Cassiel’s out of commission. She’s the one good at figuring out answers.”
A single light was now shining inside Echo-5. I started toward it. “Come on. Let’s lock these guys up in the bunker. W
e need to focus on Cassiel.”
Jett double-stepped to catch up with me. “Warren, what if that poison has the power to destroy her spirit?”
I’d been worried about the same thing.
“Then this whole war just changed.”
Chapter Thirteen
Echo-5 was dark and stuffy.
“Threat Level Five puts everyone underground and kills the internet and power to the building,” Kane explained as we crossed the first floor, which was lit only with security lights. Two of the detained soldiers were with us. “I hope you don’t mind stairs. The bunker is a hundred feet underground.”
He opened a door that once led to a closet, if my memory served me correctly. Inside was an elevator and a door to a stairwell. “Start walking,” he told the two men in front of us.
“I don’t remember a prison on the original blueprints,” I said as we followed them down.
“Early in the construction process, Azrael converted the business center into a high-security prison block. It was meant to house up to four humans and one angel, so these guys will be a little cramped, but they won’t be dead.”
One of the men smirked. The same man who’d shot Cassiel.
I wanted to punch him.
“What was supposed to be a theater is now an office, and there’s an armory, a gym, a huge commercial kitchen, and an infirmary.”
On the fourth or fifth landing, I looked over the railing. We still had a long way to go. “Everyone is down below?”
“They’re supposed to be. All the staff bedrooms are Lower Level One, and the private apartments are on Lower Level Two.”
“Did you move into Enzo’s house that connects to the bunker?” I asked.
“No, sir. A garage went up over the escape hatch instead. The plans for the house were scrapped when—” Kane froze and looked at me.
“When Fury and I never came back?”
“That was the beginning of all the changes, sir. Things really fell apart when Azrael began losing his memories. We all made necessary adjustments to adapt. Me and the guys live in the staff quarters of the bunker.”
“I’m sorry, Kane. I’m sure that sucks after all those years living in barracks.”
“Not to worry. My life has been perfectly fulfilling. I lived at the command center in your old house for quite some time, so I was quite comfortable.”
Kane and several of the others had given their entire lives to Azrael and Claymore. Kane had been with my father since before I even knew Azrael existed. He and Enzo had trained me when I first joined the company, and he’d been part of every mission we’d been on since.
I couldn’t imagine how the current state of things must’ve affected him. How it had affected all of SF-12. And now that we were back, Enzo’s absence was glaring. He’d been more dedicated than any of them.
“When did Enzo jump ship?” I asked.
“A long time ago. Even before Iliana came of age.”
“He just left?”
“He wasn’t happy about it, but he said it was an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
“Sounds very Godfather-ish.”
Kane lifted a shoulder. “It kind of was. It always felt like he was forced into it.”
“You think the Morning Star had something to do with it?”
“Jett was with us around the time Enzo left. He was just a kid then, but he could see power the way Fury can. He said Enzo wasn’t being controlled.”
“Huh. Maybe the government pays really well these days.”
He cut his eyes toward me. “More than Claymore?”
“Good point.”
“And you never hear from him?”
“Not a single word.”
“Damn.”
When we finally reached the bottom, a long, dark concrete hallway glowed green from security lights, and the sound of our footsteps echoed off the walls.
At the end of the hall, Kane waved to a tiny red light above a large steel door.
A buzzer sounded, and a lock tumbled.
“There’s power down here?” I asked as he opened the door.
“Yes. I’ll explain later.” Kane’s head tipped toward our prisoners.
He led us past a couple of decontamination showers and through two more massive double doors. On the other side was an open lobby where my old friend Lex was half-asleep behind a security desk.
“Warren.” He jumped up and came around the table to greet me with a firm handshake. “Welcome back from the dead.”
I pulled him into a one-armed hug. “Thank you. You’re still here?”
“Of course I am.” He looked at Kane. “Where else would we go?”
I smiled. “I appreciate you taking care of my family.” I split a glance between Lex and Kane.
Kane shook his head. “We’re protecting a whole lot more than just your family.”
He was right. As personal as the war felt, it was much bigger than any one of us or even our whole group collectively.
“Is Iliana in the infirmary?” Kane asked him.
“They just came in. What happened to Cassiel?”
“We’re not sure,” I said with a sorrowful sigh.
Lex looked at the two soldiers with us. “Is this part of the band of misfits who’s been sitting on our driveway all night?”
“Claymore’s finest,” Kane replied with an eye roll. “Cruz and Nash are coming down with a few more. Six total.”
Lex started toward an interior wooden door with a narrow vertical window above the handle. “Well, let’s show them to their accommodations.”
We walked down a long, narrow hallway, passing a large living area on the right, the kitchen and dining room on the left, then a long glass wall marked with a medical cross.
Beyond the glass, Reuel covered Cassiel with a blanket, and Iliana held her hands over Cassiel’s midsection. Bright light pulsed between them.
Fury caught my eye and excused herself.
Kane and Lex continued on with the soldiers, but I waited as Fury walked toward the door.
“We’ll be through the last door on the left,” Kane said over his shoulder.
“I’ll be right behind you.” I reached for Fury when she walked through the electric sliding double doors. “How is she?”
“She’s still unconscious. Iliana is doing all she can, but I’m worried. Cassiel’s skin is gray and ice-cold.”
“She’s losing blood.”
“A lot of it, I’m afraid.”
“Will you stay with her? I want to help them secure these prisoners, and then I need to search for answers.”
Fury nodded. “I won’t leave her side.”
I touched her cheek, then kissed her.
Jett entered the hallway, holding two more of the soldiers by their elbows.
“Go,” she said. “I’ll let you know if there’s any change.”
“Thank you.”
Fury returned to the infirmary, and I waited and fell in step with Jett. “We need to get in touch with someone on the inside at Claymore. We need to find out what’s inside those bullets.”
“I’m hoping your friend who’s on the inside can help us. If he works at the armory, he should know something about this.”
Jett was talking about Huffman, and I was thankful he didn’t say his name out loud in front of the prisoners.
“Why would the Morning Star keep our friend around, given our history with him?” I asked.
Jett shrugged. “I’ve heard he was never on payroll as part of SF-12. It’s likely the Morning Star simply doesn’t know.”
It was hard to imagine the Morning Star not knowing something, but Cassiel had once told me, as smart as he was, he wasn’t omniscient. And Huffman would keep his mouth shut about the connection, so maybe—hopefully—Jett was right.
“We’ll see what info Kane can find out,” Jett said.
“Info about what?” Kane asked when we entered the doorway. Inside were four narrow metal cages, two on each side. Each cell had a cot and a meta
l toilet.
Across the room was another metal door with a small window at my eye level.
Kane had put Kelvin into the first cell and had locked the door. He put the second soldier in the cell beside him.
“Have you been able to make contact with Huffman?” Jett asked, loud and clear for all to hear.
My eyes doubled, and I turned toward him.
“What?” he asked with an oblivious shrug.
“You know Huffman?” Kelvin grasped the bars of his cell.
“Great.” I held a hand toward the soldier, glaring at Jett. “Now we’re going to have to kill this guy.”
Kelvin stepped back. “Kill me?”
“Kill all of you, actually,” Kane said, locking the last cell door.
We couldn’t risk a Claymore soldier getting away knowing that we had connections on the inside. It was a matter of life or death for our friend—something Jett wouldn’t understand as an immortal angel.
But for now, the cat was way out of the bag. Might as well use our mutual connection to get as much information as possible. “You know Huffman too?” I asked the guy.
“For a very long time.”
Not surprising. Huffman was a friendly and funny guy. Everyone liked him, and he’d been with the company for longer than I even knew.
“Is he still working at the armory?” I asked.
“Yes. I talked to him yesterday.”
I blinked. “Yesterday?”
He nodded.
I looked back at Kane as he put the other two soldiers in the cells behind me. “You haven’t had time to contact him, have you?”
“Not yet, sir. And once I do, it will probably be a while before we hear back. The only way to make contact outside Claymore’s network is through an old online forum that’s basically defunct now. A few of us have fake accounts, but we don’t check them often.”
“I could get a message to him for you.” Kelvin gripped the bars again. “Tell him to check that forum.”
Kane and I exchanged a worried glance. “Why would you do that?” Kane asked.
Kelvin lowered his voice. “Because maybe you’ll let me live if I help you.”
My eyes narrowed. “I’m not buying it.” I remembered how quickly he’d cracked on the battlefield. “You want out, don’t you?”
His eyes darted around the room. The other soldiers were silent, but I knew what Kelvin was thinking. These were his men, and what he was talking about doing could get them all killed by Claymore.