The colors leeched away, leaving everything gray. Elei felt sick. He had to go in right now, stop them, this couldn’t be happening, not to Kalaes. He needed the grenades and then he’d move in—
“Sit.”
Fingers gripped his forearm, and he realized he’d half-risen from his crouch, his hand twitching at his side, faint flashes lighting up the buildings below and ahead.
“I have to rescue him,” he ground out.
“And who’ll rescue you if you go in half-cocked like that and they get you too?” Jek’s voice and words were far too reasonable for a twelve-year-old, dammit.
Reluctantly Elei sank back down. “The more we wait, the more they’ll hurt him.”
Jek nodded. “We need more information before we go in,” he said.
Then again, it wasn’t his friend, his family being tortured. “I’m not letting him suffer more than he has already. I’m going in.”
A soft scuffle sounded from his right and he twisted around, his hand again going to his belt for a weapon he didn’t have. He bit back a curse. Shadows detached from the dark shapes of the parked aircars and skulked toward them, silent and moving in pairs.
“They’re here,” Afia said.
Children, between five and ten, dressed in rags, their faces so filthy they blended with the darkness like those of ghosts. They stopped a few paces away and hunkered down. Only one, a girl with a scarred face, a knife slash down one cheek, moved forward to where Jek crouched.
“Hey, boss,” she muttered, a sneer on her small face that didn’t manage to hide her awe of the older boy. She turned her gaze on Elei and it hardened. “This the guy?”
Elei kept still under the scrutiny and wondered what they’d expected. The girl stared some more, then nodded once, as if satisfied, and turned her attention back to Jek.
“What have you got, Shona?” Jek said in a voice used to commanding, although he kept it soft.
“Top security, like you thought.” She reached out and patted Afia’s shoulder, as if checking the smaller girl was okay. “Three zones secured. The guards are hidden.” He shivered. She tsked. “They think you’re stupid.” That last one was directed to Elei.
If only she knew he’d been about to march right into their hands... Afia glanced his way but said nothing.
“Any gaps, any way to get past?” Jek asked in a tone that suggested they’d been through such drills before, and Elei wondered if Jek had broken others from the clutches of the Gultur in the past.
“Perhaps.” The girl cocked her head to the side. “North. Storehouse side.” She leaned toward Jek and whispered something in his ear.
She didn’t trust him yet and Elei understood that well, but his nerves were raw with tension and Rex made sure he heard everything.
What in the hells was a tatty crock?
“What did she find?” he asked. “Jek, tell me.”
“You can’t make it,” Jek said matter-of-factly, his face blank of expression. “Even with our help.”
“Let me be the judge of that.” Elei clenched and unclenched his fists, his heartbeat racing. “Give me the information.”
“Not even with superhuman abilities—”
Afia shifted closer to Jek, interrupting him. She cupped her hands around her mouth and whispered in Jek’s ear. Her enumeration of Elei’s abilities was of course exaggerated and quite inaccurate, but he wasn’t about to point that out.
Jek shoved her off lightly. “You can’t be serious.” He turned to glare at her. “Afia...”
“But you know it’s him.” She stomped, hands going to her hips. “I told you.”
“Even if it’s him, they’re just rumors.” Jek dismissed her words with a flick of his hand. “Just because he’s a few years older, that doesn’t mean he can do all that.”
Probably not, but this once Elei had to convince Jek he could.
“Shona told you,” Elei pointed at the scowling girl, feeling a matching expression on his own face, “that the northern side has a breach in security, a passage behind something she called a tatty crock, and then Afia” — the girl flinched — “told you that I have a parasite that lets me see in the dark, hear every sound and do much more besides that. So you’ll pissing tell me if there’s anything you can do to help me, or I’m going in, and may the gods help me.”
Jek’s dark blue eyes widened, then nailed Elei, face still unreadable, while Afia sniffed and folded her thin arms across her chest, the haughty expression funny on her small face. Whispers and shuffling feet betrayed the curiosity of the gang, but this was between the three of them — Jek, Afia and himself.
“This guy, this ... Kalaes.” Jek’s gaze flicked toward the hospital. “He means a lot to you.”
It hadn’t been a question, but Elei answered anyway. “He does.” Somehow, he felt more was expected as the weight of all the kids’ eyes fell on him. “He saved my life many times. He’s...” He swallowed hard. “He’s my only family.”
There, he’d said it. He’d laid himself bare to the bone and had to hope they’d not see it as a sign of weakness they could exploit. Afia had, after all, only agreed to help on the condition of being paid, and he had no clue where to find money, even if he got out alive.
“Your... powers.” Jek’s left eye twitched. “Are you sure they’ll allow you to go in and get your friend back all alone?”
Hells no. “Yes.”
“Gultur aren’t like us. Their senses are sharp. Sharper than their instruments.”
“I know. I’ll do it.” No matter what.
“We can only distract them outside the perimeter,” Jek said, still sounding dubious, and Elei couldn’t blame him, knowing what Jek saw: a skinny boy with the mark of diseases on his skin and bleeding gunshot wounds on his chest and leg. “Once you get inside, you’re on your own.”
Elei nodded, swallowing past the tight noose of fear around his throat. “Tell me your plan.”
Chapter Four
It was a simple plan.
Simple as death, Elei thought, his head pounding as they circled the hospital, heading to its northern gate. Black spots danced before his eyes.
The wind picked up, ice shards knifing into his thin shirt and pants. For the hundredth time he wondered if he’d gone pissing mad. There was no way he could pull this off on his own, even if he wasn’t feeling so lightheaded and his leg wasn’t ready to fold underneath him with every step — but there was nobody else, no way he could wait for Hera to show up, if she was still alive, and he’d be damned before he’d leave Kalaes stranded.
All my fault. My fault he’s in there.
“Here,” Jek said, eyes narrowing to slits. “You, Jam, Edra and Pattock,” he pointed at three scrawny kids who lingered behind them, “take your people and wait at the western and southern sides until I give the sign to start making noise.”
The kids fell back, waiting, while Jek and Afia shared a nod and led the way into a narrow street, lugging the duffel bag with the weapons between them. The street was flanked by tall storehouses that smelled of rotten fish guts, the stench so powerful Elei’s eyes watered.
The two children moved close to the wall, whispering to each other about surveillance cameras and the best view to the gate, and Elei fell behind. He stopped and leaned against the rough cement facade to catch his breath, then he followed them into a dark doorway that smelled of rat shit, human piss and black mold. He saw both kids climb up a steep set of stairs, their boots treading softly on the concrete, leaving trails of whispers. A mouse scuttled into the hallway and a bird flapped on the roof as he followed them, mingling with thousands and millions of other sounds, clamoring for attention, ricocheting inside his skull.
He climbed up the stairs and stepped into a huge empty room. There were signs of squatters, holed blankets and empty spirit bottles, the remnants of a fire. A big window, broken to the wind and cold, gave a perfect view of the hospital.
“Here.” Afia, standing next to the duffel bag, gestured imperiously for
him to approach, and in spite of it all he grinned as he stepped over broken glass, food wrappers and pools of water and piss.
Jek stood by the window, half-hidden behind a ratty curtain, shoulder-length strands of hair blowing in the wind. He looked like he was about to jump out, and Elei forced his hands from reaching out to stop him.
“Anything interesting?” he asked the kid.
“Come see.”
Boots crunching lightly on the floor, Elei came to stand right behind him and looked over the boy’s shoulder. The hospital squatted like a huge turtle in the midst of narrower buildings. Several windows were lit on every floor. It made no sense for the Gultur to spread their forces like that, so they’d either not evacuated the whole hospital, or had left some lights on to confuse the enemy.
“Where are they?” Elei asked, keeping his voice low even though they were alone.
“There.” Jek exhaled. “Second floor, ninth or tenth window from the left.”
They were lit. Still... “Why do you think they’re there?”
“It’s the only floor where you can see people moving inside, and it’s close to the stairwell.”
A patter on the stairs behind them and a shuffle, and Elei bent and grabbed a broken piece of glass from the floor, wishing he had something better. Why wasn’t Rex reacting?
The sound was light, too light for a person, he realized as he spun about, and a gray cat entered and rubbed itself on the doorframe.
“Damned cat.” He shook his head and found Afia’s eyes lit with amusement. “Glad I’m entertaining you,” he muttered and she giggled.
Ignoring the stupid animal, he turned back to his scrutiny of the hospital. “So, supposing they’re where you say, how do I get inside?”
“See the surrounding wall and the northern gate? Okay.” Jek pointed. “See the graffiti that says ‘Bread and water for all’? In blue.”
Elei squinted. “I see it.”
“The trash container. Behind it, there’s a hole in the wall. Shona found it. The rats checked the whole perimeter, inch by inch.”
“Cameras?”
“Of course.” He looked Elei up and down, a brow lifting. “Why, are you saying your super abilities don’t include invisibility?”
Elei snorted. The cat mewled, coming to butt its head against his legs. He resisted the urge to kick the animal away and instead shoved it to the side. “Unless Rex surprises me in a good way, which rarely happens, I don’t think I can make myself disappear, no. I don’t suppose you’ve got a dark shirt to lend me?”
Jek looked down at his own scrawny, short frame and shrugged.
Okay. Improvise. Elei strode to the charred remains of a cardboard box and a few gnawed bones. He grabbed the blackened pieces and rubbed them over his shirt, his face, neck and hands.
“What else?” he asked.
Afia’s face was bemused but also curious, her eyes huge as she watched him. “You look like a big piece of coal.” She snickered.
“That’s the idea.” Elei shrugged. “As long as I don’t catch fire...”
“When you’re ready to go in, I’ll tell the kids to provide a distraction on the other side,” Jek said. “That’ll draw the attention of the guards, hopefully long enough for you to slip into the building.”
Where locks, alarms, cameras, machine guns and longguns would await him. Pissing fantastic.
“Give me the weapons.” He rubbed his sooty fingers over his ears, the back of his neck, buried them into the roots of his hair as Jek knelt by the bag and pulled out the grenades.
“Here. They’re already loaded.” He gave Elei two machine guns and four of the six cartridges. “We keep the other gun to cover you if need be.”
Storm the Gultur stronghold with two machine guns and five grenades. Elei closed his eyes, drew a deep breath and picked everything up. The grenades he hung on his belt, and he slung the two machine guns across his back.
It was real. He was going in. Colors flashed around the room, picking organic, then metal objects. His heart began to pound.
“Have you used a machine gun before?” Afia asked.
No, though he knew how — in theory. “Don’t worry.”
“And have you stormed a building before?” Jek asked.
Elei rolled his eyes. “Every day before breakfast,” he said and caught a surprised flicker in Jek’s eyes. “Keeps the doctors away,” he continued and turned toward the door, scowling.
A plan, he needed a plan that went farther than just crawling through the hole in the wall and across a yard where he’d present a perfect target. No matter the distraction the other street rats provided, he was sure the Gultur wouldn’t leave their main posts at the entrances.
He twisted to look at Jek. “What else can you tell me? What did Shona see inside? Anything to help me reach the building entrance?”
Jek shrugged, a brief rolling of bony shoulders, arms folded over his chest, and the gesture was so reminiscent of Kalaes it made Elei’s chest ache.
“The hole in the wall leads to an open park lot, about sixty feet from the northern entrance of the building.” He cocked his head to the side, dark blond hair hiding his eyes. He pushed out his lower lip and puffed. “Shona said she saw an info-pole more or less half way through to the building. That’s a good forty feet run in the open you’ve got there, fe.” He looked away. “I hope that parasite of yours can work miracles.”
Right. “Thanks. Now go back to your gang and make sure nobody’s hurt, okay?”
“You kidding me?” Jek snorted. “We’re going to cover your ass from here.” He hefted the rifle. “I’m a good shot.”
Elei shuddered and turned back toward the stairs. “Whatever. Just make sure you don’t shoot me. Stay here and don’t fire unless you have to,” he said with as much firmness and authority as he could muster, his vision reduced to flashing colors, his head throbbing to the speed of his racing heart. He splashed through a puddle and strode toward the stairs.
What in the hells am I doing? How am I ever going to make it?
Something stopped his advance, and it took him some time to realize it was thin arms wrapped around his waist. “What?” he growled, his whole body buzzing.
“Be careful,” Afia whispered and let go.
***
Hera took one last look at the rendezvous point — a metal bench outside a fish shop where she’d hoped to hide in the steady stream of customers — and turned away. The bench was empty. She did not know what had delayed the Undercurrent, or whether they simply had not received her emergency alert. The connection of the data processor she’d used in a dirty call shop had been sort of patchy, though she’d thought the message went through.
The fact was she’d lost too much time waiting already. She needed to break the boys out of that hospital before they were damaged beyond repair.
Damaged. The image of Elei’s bloody body kept flashing before her eyes, Kalaes’ pale face, splattered with crimson. She’d sworn to herself she’d save them, protect them.
Hera checked her longgun, took a deep breath and started walking. She knew what she had to do.
Break into the hospital, alone with her longgun and her anger. Wreak havoc. Fight her sisters, and save her friends.
***
Elei exited the storehouse and took three steps toward the hospital before the pain hit. It cut through his focus like a blade, throwing him to his knees. White-hot agony traveled down his spine, exploring every wound, wrenching a muffled cry from his lips.
Get up. The two kids were watching from the window, and the Gultur may be observing from the gate. On your feet, dammit! He thought he heard Afia call his name and he gritted his teeth, trying to move.
“What in the hells do you want?” he asked Rex, not expecting an answer. Why was the parasite hurting him when he most needed its help?
With a groan, he carefully pushed himself up.
Pain bit into his chest and down his leg, and a tremble went through his body. The pain intensif
ied, sharp teeth of fire digging into every limb, under his ribs, inside his head. His back arched, then bent, and he curled in a ball, breathless, terrified, his breath coming in harsh pants — and still the pain went on, relentless, pointless.
“What do you want, damn you!” His cry shred the silence and he knew for sure he was about to die. Someone must’ve heard, must’ve seen him.
Rex didn’t want him to go into the hospital. It knew Elei may die in his mission to save Kalaes and was trying to prevent him from going.
Well, isn’t this touching? Knowledge brought clarity. With a snarl, Elei uncurled and got to his unsteady feet, rushing before Rex hit again.
“You know what?” he muttered, gathering his scattered thoughts and shaking limbs to march toward the hospital wall, “you can’t do whatever you want all the time. You can’t control me, pest. I’m—”
Rex tore through him with a massive shot of pain, and he staggered. Damned parasite was controlling parts of his brain and sending pain down his nerves. I’ll get rid of you. He limped toward the hospital wall as fast as he could, breath rattling in his chest, blackness framing his vision. I’ll find a way.
His breathing echoed in his ears, counterpoint to his heartbeat booming in his eardrums, drowning out all other sound. Fresh waves of pain washed through him, almost throwing him back down.
Almost. But not quite.
If he got inside, then Rex would have no choice but to help him, to make sure he survived. If he died, Rex would die with him. Right? He stumbled on. He had to hurry. Breaking cover, he emerged from the shadows, coming up against the wall surrounding the hospital. It was made of concrete blocks where patches of mold had created abstract designs in yellow and black. A graffiti read, ‘Screw the authorities.’
Oh, he wished.
He glanced right and left at the crumpling buildings. The northern gate of the hospital loomed on his left — a metal door with a watchtower where a Gultur stood guard. Thank the gods he didn’t have to pass through there, and — lightning pain through his muscles, his bones, his head, his legs — just hold on, hold on. He spotted the graffiti and the trash container Jek had shown him and forced his legs to carry him there.
Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) Page 28