Avalanche: Book Five in the Secret World Chronicle

by Lackey, Mercedes

  She bit her lip as she watched him, and realized she was trembling. His skin had turned a pale sallow color, like that of a corpse. She had given him all she could. If only he would breathe…

  His lips parted, and with a gasp, Red’s eyes flew open as he took in a long, deep breath.

  “Oh, dear lord,” Vickie cried, and drew him close. “You have got to stop dying on me.”

  “Told…you…” Red croaked. “I told you, you had this.”

  “But how were you so sure?”

  Red chuckled, and rapped a knuckle on his head. “Little slips, threads, memories of the future, they get jarred loose at the darndest of times…”

  “I think your brain is still cooked…” she said with concern, putting a hand alongside his face, and checking his temperature. “What are you talking about?”

  “Ask me again later,” he said, still chuckling, and held her close.

  * * *

  “Eight!” Bella snapped. “What in hell is going on?”

  “One of the Thulian Masters, the one called Barron, has triggered a…Vickie calls it a ‘doomsday device,’” Eight said, its serene voice at odds with its message.

  “What?” Bella cried.

  “Vickie and the Red Djinni are dealing with the situation. I am confident they will prevail,” Eight continued.

  “Vickie and—wait, what?” Bella was having trouble wrapping her mind about that. Vickie wasn’t even supposed to be in the bowels of the ship, she was supposed to be guarding the kid. And Red Djinni? What the hell?

  “The Thulian Masters are now fleeing…as they are all heading for a single spot, at least according to my calculations…excuse me, I need all my processing power to help Vickie.”

  The channel fell silent.

  “Wait, where are the Masters going? Eight? Eight!”

  “They’re fleeing…” Bull mused. “My guess is that they’re in full retreat. It stands to reason there is an escape module in this fortress. If they have initiated a doomsday protocol, they will gather there and leave as soon as they are able.”

  “Like hell they will!” Bella snarled. “Not until we get some answers! Not until we make sure they don’t pull this crap on anyone ever again! Wherever they’re heading, we need to get there! Eight! Answer me, dammit! Eight!” She glanced at Bull, and stopped. “Are you…Bull, are you laughing?”

  “The Djinni,” Bull said, chuckling. “Red’s alive.” He doubled over, unable to control the laughter.

  “And why is that funny?” Bella demanded.

  “Because…” Bull said, struggling to choke out the words. “Because it’s Red!” With an effort he composed himself. “He’s just never where he’s supposed to be.”

  Bella stared at him for a long moment, then…choked on something like a laugh. “Including in Hell, I suppose…but—doomsday device?”

  Bull laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’s the Djinni. I have learned never to bet against him—or Vickie. So what are we going to do?”

  “Go after those bastards,” she snarled, instantly making up her mind. “Eight!”

  But it was Sam Colt who answered. “Mister Eight handed over field survey, ma’am. I got what he had when he handed over. Incoming to your HUD.”

  It was an overlay of the entire double saucer. There were about a hundred dotted red lines converging on a point not that far distant from where Sam had helpfully indicated they were. A green dotted line outlined a small ovoid section. “Eight reckoned that was an escape ship, or maybe the original ship the bastards started with,” he added.

  “Can you map out the most direct route?” Bella asked.

  “Uh, maybe you misheard me, ma’am,” Sam said. “There’s about a hundred Masters…”

  “I don’t care if there’s a thousand of them armed with automated arm cannons and flanked by scores of giant, rabid wolverines!” Bella yelled. “They think they can come down here and unleash hell on Earth and then just leave when things don’t go their way? Not on my watch! Get me there, Sam, now!”

  “Understood, Commander,” Sam answered sharply, as a glowing path lit up on Bella’s HUD. She was off like a shot, following the twists and turns of the bizarre corridors, guided by Sam’s map. Bull kept pace with her. She glanced at him and noted an odd smirk playing on his lips.

  “Maybe that should be your battle cry,” he said lightly.

  “Get me there, Sam?”

  Bull chuckled, again. Even now, in the midst of her fury and her fear, Bella fought back a smile. It was nice to hear the big man laugh.

  “Oddly enough, that wouldn’t be worse than some of your previous attempts. Try again.”

  “Not on my watch?” she said.

  “It’s got a nice ring to it,” Bull rumbled. “You’re the boss here. Let them know where they stand.”

  They ran up a set of stairs and emerged into what had been buildings and weird red vegetation. The vegetation was dying, the buildings very much the worse for the bombardment. “Sam?” Bella said.

  “I’ve waved off artillery on your position, ma’am. Also the fighter bombers and anything else.”

  “UX—” Bull began with alarm. But Bella was already sprinting and leaping across the devastated landscape before he could finish. “—Bs!” He shrugged and caught up with her.

  “I think I got the head honcho, ma’am,” Sam said, as she tried not to think too hard about the fact that her body felt it was running on flat land while her eyes told her she was running up a slope. “Got him here. He isn’t moving.”

  “How do you know it’s the Big Bad?” Bella asked.

  “His readings are a bit strange,” Sam answered. “He’s larger, for one thing, and the others are heading to his coordinates and forming around him. I’m pinging him now on your HUD. He’s your target.”

  Bella glanced at her display. One of the red dots had turned green, and was blinking.

  “That’s it then,” she said, dodging around some debris. “Keep us locked on him, Sam.”

  “You got a plan?” Bull asked. The big man was starting to get winded.

  “We take him out,” Bella said, ignoring the rising burn in her arms and legs. “We take him, and we end this.”

  * * *

  “Vickie!”

  Vickie groaned. She was exhausted. And that didn’t matter. This wasn’t done yet. She couldn’t rest until it was. “Go, Eight,” she replied, lifting her head from Red’s chest and blinking to clear her eyes,

  “Status report. Commanders Blue and Bulwark are converging on the remaining Masters, who have massed together in what I calculate is the area of the original ship, which may still be their escape module. Sam Colt tells me they intend to confront the chief of the Masters.”

  “How many of them?” Vickie asked.

  “Approximately one hundred.”

  “How many?”

  “Doesn’t matter…” Red groaned. Vickie turned to him, confused.

  “What doesn’t matter?” she asked.

  “Their numbers,” Red replied. Vickie still looked confused. Gently, he tapped her ear. “I can hear Eight through your piece. It doesn’t matter how many there are. Besides Barron, they’re frail, not a real fighter amongst them. There’s only one Bella and Bull need to worry about. Problem is, I only know so much about him.”

  “Hold a sec. Eight, pick up and rebroadcast this to Bella and Bull,” Vickie interrupted, and nodded for him to continue.

  “His name is Gero,” the Djinni said. “Grand Poobah of this entire stinking mess. You won’t be able to miss him. He fancies himself a god, and has the ego that goes with the job.”

  “What can he do?” Vickie asked.

  “That’s the thing,” Red shrugged. “He orders his underlings about, and he never has to get his hands dirty, so all I’ve got is what Karoline knew, and that wasn’t much. Never got around him, myself. I couldn’t risk it.”

  “What? Why?”

  “He’s a mind-reader, Vix. Strong one, too. Karoline was car
eful to let him feel her fear of him. I had to stay dormant while she was awake. Couldn’t risk him, or her, getting a whiff of me, or that might’ve been it. Everything I did had to be done while she slept, and only in the safety of her quarters.”

  “Just how powerful is he?” Bella asked, breathless. “Can I take him?”

  “Not sure,” Red answered. “Everyone on this ship is deathly afraid of him, though. They make a point of giving him a wide berth. You’re running into unknown territory, Blue. There’s just no intel on him. Trust me, I’ve looked.”

  There was a long, long pause. “And if we let him go…they’ll be back. And ready for us. Not an option, Red. This is one message that has to be sent.”

  “Listen to me, you stubborn, overgrown smurf!” Red hissed. “You don’t know what he’s capable of! At least wait for backup!”

  “Well, at least we know it’s the real Djinni,” they heard Bulwark mutter.

  “Missed you too, big guy,” Red chuckled.

  “There’s no time for backup!” Bella barked. “They’re in full retreat. If that thing is a getaway ship, Bull and I might be our only shot at ending this!”

  The floor shuddered and bucked for a moment as if the ship was suffering an earthquake. Metal groaned, and something in the distance broke with an explosive crack. Vickie’s hands clenched reflexively. She knew what was going on. She felt it. The ship was dying.

  “Bella, look around!” Vickie exclaimed. “This whole structure is coming apart! They’re beat, we might have even crippled them! We’ve won! You don’t know what he can do! It’s time to book!”

  “Forget it!” Bella answered. “They are not getting away! Not while there’s a chance in hell they might come back! Don’t you guys get it? This is it! We’ve got one shot here, one shot to make it clear, not just to them, but to anyone else out there, that coming after Earth is going to cost them more than they can imagine. One shot to make sure this never happens to this planet again. This isn’t for revenge. It’s for protection.”

  Vickie swore under her breath in four languages. “She’s right,” she said. “We’ve got to end this, Red. This has to stop.”

  Red stood up, pulling Vickie up with him. She started to protest, because while she was exhausted, he’d nearly been cooked alive by all the magic coursing through him, but he seemed fine now.

  He looked down at Vickie, and nodded.

  “Godspeed, you two,” he said. “Do what you have to. Then get the hell out of there.”

  “We will,” Bulwark replied. “That goes for you, too. Get off this sinking mess ASAP. That’s an order.”

  “What he said. I can’t do my job and worry about you two. Get!”

  Vickie tried to rise to her feet, fell over, and swore; tried again, managed to stand erect, staggered two paces in the direction of Bella and Bull, and fell again. “We can’t leave them,” she panted.

  “You’re stealing my shtick,” the Djinni said, gently picking her up in his arms. “Disobeying orders is my job. And I don’t think we’re in any position to, not this time. You can barely walk. I need to get you off this boat.”

  “No.” Vickie replied, trying unsuccessfully to squirm away. “Bella’s rushing into the lion’s den. There has to be some way we can help her! I’m not leaving until we’re all able to get off.”

  “I’ve told you I love you, right?”

  Vickie sighed, and gave Red a wary look.

  “Yeah, you have. And?”

  “Just checking. It’s important you know that, so that you’ll understand the full weight of what I’m about to say.” He cleared his throat, and shouted at her. “GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS, WOMAN! WE NEED TO BOOK!”

  She stared fearlessly into his eyes, kissed him lightly, and managed some sort of twisting move that ended with her back on the floor. “If it was just us, I’d agree with that. But it’s not. And you know better.” Once again she staggered to her feet, but this time she wobbled over to where her armor was lying in a puddle, and pulled something out of the pile. A belt. Like a utility belt, full of pockets. She strapped it on over her bare hips. “We’re here and we’re still breathing, so we can help. I’m not leaving my best friends to go up against another alien god-wannabe just so I can exit stage right.” With a look of determination, Vickie took a deep breath and began to march.

  With the first step, she wobbled, and fell into Red’s waiting arms.

  “Fine,” she seethed. “You can carry me. Just get me closer to them.”

  * * *

  Bella coughed, waved her hand to clear the smoke from burning alien World Ship out of her eyes and peered through more smoke to the edge of the bowl. Which, from where she stood, was up a slope, with what she was looking at looming over her as if it was about to fall on her. Twice, they had almost been intercepted by groups of Thulians—when another group of Thulians had appeared out of nowhere, cut down their own kind, and kept going. It looked as if her reprogramming had worked.

  That isn’t going to stop all that mass from falling on our heads if the artificial gravity suddenly fails. I’m insane to be here.

  The ship looked like a multistory version of one of those futuristic California cliffside saucer-shaped homes that used to be all over LA until mudslides made it abundantly clear that building your house halfway out of a cliff was a generally bad idea. There was a tube leading from the bottom to the ground, and what looked like beads moving up the tube. Except they weren’t beads, they were Thulian Masters. There were more of them clustered around the bottom of the tube, and in the front, was one who stood out from all the others. He was very shiny. The others all wore armor, or spacesuits, or space armor or something. His version was bigger, adorned with multicolored medals that appeared gaudy in their brilliance. His unarmored head stuck out of the shoulders of the suit, looking absurdly tiny, as if his orange head was the size of a golf ball. Bella had a good idea who this was.

  “Eight?” Bella snapped.

  “I believe the one in the front must be the commander, Gero,” Eight confirmed.

  “Then that’s who we want.” Bella grabbed Bulwark’s hand and squeezed it briefly. “We’re going in.” She glanced over at Bulwark. “I don’t suppose you have any strategy for getting me in touching distance of this guy?”

  “Only the usual,” Bull admitted, frowning. “I don’t like this. We know nothing about him.”

  Increased movement caught her eye. “Eight, give me a magnified view,” she ordered. Eight must have maneuvered one of the drones that he was using in place of spy-eyes; a moment later her HUD showed her the milling crowd behind Gero. “I don’t think we have anything to worry about from the mob,” she said. “Look at them! They’re terrified. They can’t get into that elevator fast enough.” And indeed, now the Thulian Masters were shoving and kicking each other in a panic, trying to get into the escape ship.

  She turned her attention to Gero. Close up, he looked even more absurd, as if a baby had donned Silent Knight’s mecha-suit. If his head was anything to go on, he was frail, delicate, which might be why he wore that suit in the first place. As she studied him, she suddenly realized those strange orange eyes were staring at her.

  What the—She got a cold feeling all over, as she realized that there was something probing her psionic shields. The glare from those orange eyes intensified. And then her shields rang with the most intense psychic blow she had ever felt in her life. She staggered, then brought her head back up, glaring right back at him. “Confirmed, Bull,” she said flatly. “He’s a psychic.”

  “You don’t say,” Bulwark said.

  Not just the words…but the way he said it, flat and uninflected, sent all her internal alarm bells going. She whirled to face him, just in time to see his fist coming straight for her chin. She ducked to the side, avoiding getting pasted, but he hit her shoulder with a bone-bruising blow, knocking her to the ground. She scrambled backwards to her feet. The despair in Bull’s eyes told her everything she needed to know.

  Gero
was in control.

  Shit. This is so not good. Could she drive Gero out of Bull if she got in physical contact with him? As she skipped and evaded, using everything Djinni had taught her of Parkour and everything she’d learned from the ECHO martial arts instructors, she had the distinct feeling that would be a bad idea. “Gairdner!” she hissed, using his name as a way to try to help him focus. “You can fight this! You’re the most stubborn man I know! Don’t let him do this!”

  Bella recoiled as, for the second time that day, Bulwark began to laugh. Only this sounded…tortured. Then he grinned. A horrible, manic grin. “Gairdner doesn’t live here anymore,” he rasped. “This one is your lover, his thoughts stink of you. I can see how these hands have touched you. With trembling anticipation. With wanton lust. They have given you pleasure, little, little blue girl. Did you ever think that one day, they might crush the very life from your fragile body?”

  “For godsake, Bull!” Bella screamed. “Are you going to let him spout that repulsive crap from your own lips?”

  “His will is strong, for a human, but really…” Bull’s smile grew, if possible, even wider. “Soon, he’ll be with us. If it’s any consolation to you, I find his thoughts rather interesting, perhaps even worth keeping. He might just live through this, maybe even forever. Would you like that, blue girl? Would that please you?”

  If Gero was hoping to distract her with a war of words, he didn’t get his wish. He’s lived decades with everyone afraid of him, everyone terrified he’s going to get into their heads. To hell with that. He’s not getting Bull.

  So instead of backing away and cowering, she grabbed Bull’s biceps. “Bite me,” she snarled, throwing her mind against Gero’s, “You don’t get him.” Behind her own heavy shields, however, this was a feint. This was an Aikido move. Gero probably only understood force against force. If she could get him to mentally bull-rush her, she might be able to flip and use his own power and hers to boot him out of Bull’s head. She steeled herself for the attack, ready to dodge and redirect the force of Gero’s mind.