Three seconds.
Mitsuru feinted weakly at the vampire’s chest with her good leg, but the vampire brushed the strike aside, driving her claws into Mitsuru’s other shoulder. This time there was no pain, only a faint awareness of the tissue and nerves being severed.
Two seconds.
The vampire reared her head back briefly, her eyes gleaming savagely.
One.
Leigh bit down on Mitsuru’s neck, and Mitsuru’s vision blurred in a red haze as she struggled weakly. When her vision cleared, Leigh was kneeling atop of her, a chunk of the skin and muscle torn from Mitsuru’s neck dangling from her mouth. The protocol pressed against the edges of Mitsuru’s mind, driving out room for all other concerns. Leigh moved in for the kill, while Mitsuru released it into the open air.
Shining Cloud.
***
The fall passed before his eyes like a series of still photos arranged in a slideshow: the catwalk tilted at an impossible angle; Katya reaching for his outstretched hand but falling away faster than she could move, obvious fear in her eyes; the faint green aura of Min-jun’s protocol distorting the air around him as he went into freefall, the odd exhilaration of the fall and the surprising pain of impact. Then for a brief moment, there was nothing at all.
When he woke, he was looking up at the sky where the ceiling should have been, Haley’s astral form hovering over him in obvious concern. Alex shook his head to clear it, which was a painful mistake, and then sat up, which was an equally bad decision. He was forced to wait until his back muscles relaxed before he attempted any further movement.
“Alex?” Haley’s voice was a ghostly whisper – and it took a moment before his sluggish brain remembered that it was supposed to be like that. “Are you okay?”
“I’m alive,” he muttered, standing up slowly. “That’ll have to do.”
It was true, if a bit dramatic. Nothing was broken, and if he was bleeding from anywhere, then he didn’t notice it in a brief self-inspection. Alex surveyed his surroundings, noting with worry that he could see a number of partially obscured bodies beneath the rubble around him, caught beneath the falling catwalk or the more sizable bulk of the ceiling. None of the bits and pieces he could see looked familiar, so he took a certain amount of encouragement from that. Their fall must have ruptured a fuel tank, or something of the sort, because the ruins to his right were part of a quickly growing fire. Nearby, Min-jun was sprawled out across an intact meter or so of the catwalk, apparently intact. Alex hurried over.
“Haley,” Alex said, crouching beside Min-jun and checking him for injuries. “Do you see Katya or Mitsuru?”
He didn’t like the way that Min-jun’s arm was trapped behind him, the angle of his shoulder making him vaguely queasy, but he appeared to be intact otherwise, though unconscious. Alex took hold of him by his collar and belt buckle, then slid him across the catwalk, freeing his obviously broken arm. If Min-jun’s neck wasn’t broken, then that probably constituted a minor miracle.
“No,” Haley said, floating up cautiously for a better view. “I don’t see anyone.”
Alex slapped Min-jun across his face, and shouted his name a couple of times, with no obvious result.
“What about telepathy?” Alex asked, glancing over at Haley. “Why can’t I feel you in my head?”
Haley’s form swirled and flickered.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, clearly on the point of tears. “It’s all I can do to keep projecting. There’s some sort of interference isolating us.”
“Great,” Alex said, pausing to control his breathing. “That’s fucking perfect. Listen, Haley – can you scout around a little? Maybe figure out where we are?”
“Don’t have to,” Haley said, pointing over his head. “It’s pretty obvious.”
Alex followed her arm, and then noticed the horrible bulk of the World Tree looming over them, no more than twenty meters distant, apparently unaffected by the metal wreckage that had cascaded down all around it.
“Okay.” Alex steadied himself beside Min-jun, trying to figure out the best way to lift him. “Then I guess we know what to do.”
He hoisted Min-jun up and across his shoulders in the fireman’s carry he learned in the Program, groaning beneath the weight. It would have been better for his neck and back to drag him, but the protruding metal ruins on the ground made that a bad proposition. In any case, the fire was increasing at an alarming pace, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he could drag Min-jun clear of it in time.
“What about Mitsuru? And Katya? Shouldn’t we try to find them?”
“Katya can handle herself,” Alex said, with a bravado that he absolutely did not feel. “And frankly, I feel sorry for anyone Mitsuru happened to land on. They’ll be fine. We’ll probably find them on the way. Anyway, the sooner we get to the thing and call Chike to blow it up, the sooner we can get out of here.”
Haley swirled around him in a series of quick revolutions, like a startled fish in an aquarium.
“But how will we contact Chike? I can’t even seem to find Mitsuru, and she must be nearby...”
“One thing at a time,” Alex said through gritted teeth, and his took his first few painful steps, barely able to move between his body being injured in the fall and the weight of the slight Korean boy on his shoulders. “Let’s get there, first.”
Haley nodded, hovering just in front of him.
“Find me a way through this mess, okay?”
“Sure. One second.”
The girl blurred and disappeared from his vision, while Alex focused on breathing and continuing to move, putting one foot in front of the other despite the way his back screamed at him. He made it perhaps two meters in what seemed like an eternity before Haley reappeared, looking slightly less worried.
“I found a path I think will go through. Follow me.”
Alex nodded, too involved in his struggle to speak, following after Haley’s ephemeral form. To his surprise, it actually got a little bit easier, the further they went. His back still complained with every step, and his calves and thighs burned with exertion, but the dizziness and feeling as if he were going to pass out slowly receded. The smoke gradually diminished as they left the fire behind them, and it was easier to breathe.
They passed piles of wreckage and twisted metal, sometimes with bodies beneath. Often he couldn’t see more than an arm or a leg protruding from beneath, but none of them appeared to be anyone he knew. Haley dashed about wildly, checking each of them, watching his back and sides for him, which was mildly reassuring.
“Anything?”
“No. I don’t see anyone.”
That was good and bad. Good, because Alex didn’t feel up for much fighting at the moment; bad, because he would really have liked to have Katya around to tell him what to do right about now. Alex would have felt much safer at the particular moment if Katya had been walking with him, giving him shit and distracting him from the realities of what was very obviously a blown mission. He had to give Haley credit – despite the direness of their circumstances, she remained focused and effective, monitoring their perimeter and finding a relatively unobstructed path. Of course, she wasn’t actually physically present, so that probably made it a little bit easier.
“Are you sure you should be carrying Min-jun? We could leave him somewhere safe, and then come back for him.”
“Where would be safe? We have to assume some of the Anathema survived.” Alex groaned as he shifted Min-jun’s weight to a slightly more comfortable position, his lower back throbbing with the effort. “Plus, that fire is getting big. I’m not gonna leave him to burn.”
Haley glanced back at the steadily growing blaze behind them.
“You’re right.”
“You have any luck with the link?”
Haley shook her head.
“No. Something is interfering with my telepathy...”
They were interrupted by the sound of a woman clearing her throat. Haley dashed around him, pointlessly positio
ning herself between Alex and the new arrivals, while Alex turned slowly and with great difficulty.
A man and woman were emerging from the wreckage. The man was large and heavily tattooed, carrying a rifle, while the woman would have been pretty, if there hadn’t been something wrong with her head. Alex didn’t recognize them, which meant that they must have been Anathema.
“I believe I might be responsible for that,” the woman said, with a self-congratulatory tone. “So sorry.”
“You don’t sound sorry,” Alex observed, moaning with pain as he set Min-jun carefully aside. “You sound like a bitch. No offense.”
“Be hard not to take offense.” The man punctuated the statement by spitting tobacco juice on the splintered I-beam nearby.
“Yes,” the woman agreed, with a smirk. “Who taught you children such terrible language?”
“Stay away,” Haley said, shimmering between them. “I’m warning you.”
“And what are you going to do, I wonder?” The woman smiled at Haley. “I don’t think you are really even here.”
Alex had to admit she had a point. It didn’t matter though. He didn’t have the time or patience to deal with this, and he had lost his weapons during the fall, which limited his options severely.
“In fact,” the woman continued, a strange aura glimmering around her head, “why don’t you just leave?”
She stared at Haley, hard, and Haley screamed. Her scream was brief, though, because she was gone in an instant.
“Any reason not to kill these brats?” The man asked, bringing the rifle to his shoulder. “Alistair want them alive?”
“He didn’t say so.”
“Well, then...”
“Wait,” Alex said, holding up a hand. “You,” he said, pointing at the woman with the oddly shaped forehead. “You said you’re the one messing with our telepathy, right?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, smiling indulgently. “Why?”
“Just wanted to make sure,” Alex said, opening the Black Door wide.
***
Alice collided with the wall so forcefully that she bounced off the concrete, curling reflexively into a ball around newly shattered ribs. The back of her head hit the ground with a muffled thud and sharp, immediate pain. When she looked up at the small crowd of Anathema arrayed in front of her, her vision was doubled and blurry.
“Poor Alice,” Alistair offered solicitously, dumping brass from his Smith & Wesson revolver to the ground, the clattering sound ringing through her aching skull. “Waits decades for a chance to be Chief Auditor, then has it all unravel in a matter of months. Aren’t you tired of taking beatings on Gaul’s behalf? Tired of being outnumbered and betrayed? It must be frustrating to be stuck with so many problems that you didn’t create...”
Alice grinned while she struggled to her feet, her immaculate teeth stained pink from biting her tongue. Her legs trembled uncontrollably, and she had to lean her back against the wall to avoid falling over, hugging her injured side with one arm.
“Problems? What are you talking about?” Alice asked cheerfully, pausing briefly to spit blood before resuming her unnerving smile. “I’m about to kill my old boss with my bare hands. I don’t have any problems. I’m living the goddamn American Dream.”
She wasn’t sure who the bravado was for – herself, or her audience of Anathema. Alice was reeling from a thorough and professionally administered beating, and was rapidly running out of ideas for rectifying the situation.
Everything had started the way she had planned – Michael and Xia had laid waste to the bulk of the security forces before they even knew exactly what was happening, and she apported from target to target, killing guards and technicians until the barrel of her USAS-12 was too hot to touch. Alice had moved to a safe distance while the Anathema were still in disarray to replace her expended magazine when everything had gone sideways.
Michael had engaged an Anathema who employed a light manipulation protocol, which should have been fine, given his extraordinary energy absorption modifications, but when he tried to finish the job with his fists, all he succeed in doing was knocking the Anathema backward, and throwing off his aim. The beam of light was focused like a high-powered laser, and it tore effortlessly through the catwalk in two separate places, taking a chunk of the ceiling along with it. There had been no time to attempt a telepathic warning or an apport rescue before Mitsuru’s team tumbled to the factory floor. In the absence of contrary evidence, Alice had to assume they had all been killed, which left the destruction of the World Tree to her and whatever surviving forces she could muster.
Scanning the wreckage, she located Xia, locked in a struggle with three or four Anathema. Before she could apport close, he went nova, filling the air around him with a ball of flame that obscured her vision, bursting the propane tanks that powered the machinery the Anathema had assembled. The explosion knocked her senseless – Alice wasn’t sure how long she lay there. But when she had come to, she found herself surrounded by ten or so Anathema, with Alistair at the head of the group. Even that hadn’t worried her, until she realized that one of them, a bearded man that Alistair called Martin, had somehow disabled her protocol, leaving her only a single gun and her hands and feet.
She took two of them before they got the upper hand and disarmed her. Since then, she had received an extended and somewhat humiliating beating, and the best she could do was to stumble from one set of fists to the other. A bullet had taken a chunk of flesh from just above her hip. A knife had been driven into her shoulder, and another had been used to cut a wound across the length of her back. Alice had lost track of the number of times she had been hit and kicked, but judging from the way her body screamed at her, she figured it was plenty.
“Alice, my dear,” Alistair said, laughing. “Your confidence remains unshakable, even in the face of unavoidable defeat. I always hated that about you.”
He took aim and pulled the trigger. Alice tried to apport, and failed. She was too tired and injured to even consider dodging. The bullet passed cleanly through her left hand, leaving behind a grotesque hole and earning howls of laughter from the assembled Anathema. Alice fell to her knees again, uncertain whether she still had the strength to stand.
“Enough.” Alistair holstered the pistol and turned from her, gesturing at the group, half of whom split off to follow him. “We have other priorities. Martin, I leave Alice to you. Do what you like, but remember – Parson wants her alive. Short of death, anything is fine.”
The Anathema gave her an oily grin while Alistair disappeared. She tried to apport after him, away, anywhere, but her protocol remained dormant.
“Sounds good.”
They watched and laughed while Alice fought her way back to standing. It took a long time.
“He only left five of you?” Alice asked with a smile. “I’m insulted.”
***
The Black Door opened, and Alex punched breaches to the void around the Anathema. The water in the air crystallized as the temperature plummeted. The man with the rifle scrambled away, but the woman never had the opportunity. Alex aimed squarely for her head, opening a hole in reality the size of his fist below her hairline. She toppled to the ground, her frozen cranium shattering on impact, sending shards of icy blood and bone skittering across the factory floor.
The man with the rifle stared in shock. Alex dropped to his knees, the world around him wavering.
“Haley? If you can hear me, now would be a good time to intervene.”
The man grimaced and turned his rifle in Alex’s direction, aiming from the hip. In the stillness of the moment, Alex saw the muscles in his forearm flex as he pulled the trigger. The first shot went wide, the bullet passing close enough that Alex felt the wind on his arm.
Then the rifle clattered to the ground, the man clutching at his throat as he fell, coughing blood and staring with wide, horrified eyes. Katya emerged from behind him, one hand filled with needles.
“Sorry,” Katya apologized, ducking u
nder his arm to support Alex. “No word from the ghost girl. Take second best?”
***
Gaul stared out the window, the overwhelming weight of potential futures and their waning and waxing probabilities resting heavily on his shoulders, when there was a gentle knock at his door. This was odd, because Mrs. Barrett never knocked, and in any case, none of the many futures that he contemplated included a visitor at this particular juncture.
“Come in.”
It was a pity there was no time to take a seat behind his desk. He would have felt better, sitting in an obvious position of authority, when he had to cope with the extremely rare and disconcerting reality of an unanticipated situation. Lóa walked into the room, her carefully retouched eye makeup threatened by wet eyes. Gaul adjusted the position of his glasses to cover his shock and dismay, while Lóa hurried across the room, not bothering to remove her fur-lined coat, and stood before him, her hand extended. In her palm, the ring that he hadn’t seen in decades rested, looking every bit as modest and dignified as he remembered it.
“Uncle,” Lóa said, her voice quavering.
“Don’t call me that,” Gaul snapped, stunned by his own lack of self-control. “I have many suitable titles. That is not one of them, Lóa Thule.”
She shook her head slowly, her curly hair unruly.
“I am sorry, Uncle. Circumstances leave me no choice.”
Gaul was struck dumb by the import of her words, the implication of what she had not said. In the confines of his head, he cursed the limitations of his protocol.
The Far Shores (The Central Series) Page 54