by R. L. King
“Who are you?” Stone demanded.
“Come with me,” it urged. Its voice was low and odd—it was impossible to determine if it was male or female. “I know another way out.”
“Over here!” yet another voice shouted. “They’re here!”
“We have to go!” Errin hissed, grabbing Stone’s arm and pointing with the gun. “They’re coming!”
Three long-coated figures were heading toward them, their hands wreathed in magical energy. Before Stone could extend his shield around the hooded figure, one of them lashed out. The figure cried out in pain and staggered, almost falling.
Stone roared and threw his own spell at the group. From the other side, one of the mages he’d seen working on one of the fighting constructs cast one at the same time, and both spells flowered around the invaders’ shields. One shield flared and dropped, its owner falling.
“Come!” the hooded figure cried, its voice shaking with pain now. It was barely standing, a darker stain appearing against its dark cloak. All around them the screams and yells and smoke and dust persisted as the raiders continued to swarm. “We don’t—have long.”
Stone glanced at Errin fast. “Should we trust him?”
“No other choice now,” she said grimly. Then, to the figure: “Okay. Go.”
Immediately, the hooded figure turned and started to head toward the restrooms, but made it only a couple steps before staggering again and dropping to its knees. “I—can’t—”
“I’ve got you.” Stone struggled to maintain the shield spell as he bent to scoop up the fallen figure, thankful that his accelerated workouts had built his strength. He barely noticed the slight weight—whoever this person was, they were small and thin under their cloak. “Errin—I can’t cast—”
“I’ve got this. Go!” Errin squeezed off two more shots from her odd-looking gun, dropping another of their pursuers. She pulled something from her multi-pocketed vest and flung it back toward them. Instantly, billowing black smoke rose, quickly filling the area behind them.
“Nice trick,” Stone said, shifting the figure to one arm.
“Even better—it interferes with magical sight.” She caught up to him and hurried through the doorway. “Men’s or women’s?”
“Women’s,” the figure said. Its voice was weak, shaking with pain. “Stall closest to the wall.”
“Just hold on,” Stone said, feeling the slim body tremble in his grasp. “We’ll sort you out when we get out of here.” He hoped their rescuer didn’t die before they could get him or her to someone with better healing skills than he had. He pulled up another disregarding spell, hoping their pursuers wouldn’t get through the smoke before they’d disappeared into to women’s bathroom.
Errin shoved the door open and held it for them. “Hurry.”
Stone surged through, ignoring three terrified women who’d taken refuge in the small space. “Stall by the wall.”
Errin ran ahead and flung open the door. “It just looks like a normal stall!”
“Push…the dispenser…left…” the figure breathed.
Stone relayed that, and a second later Errin whooped in triumph. “Come on in!”
When he reached the stall doorway, he saw she’d swung open a panel in the wall, revealing a passageway. “Go! Go!” He glanced back at the three frightened women. “You lot! Come in here. Close the panel behind you. Wait before you follow us, though. I don’t trust anybody right now.” Without waiting for an answer, he shoved through the panel into the passageway.
There were no lights, but Errin pulled a flashlight from another pocket in her vest, illuminating a narrow wooden hallway that veered off to the right. The passageway smelled like rotting wood and old food.
“What about the truck?” Stone asked. “Can we get back to it?”
“Don’t want to,” Errin said, pushing ahead. “They’ll be all over it by now. This was planned.”
“It was that aide of Rovenna’s,” Stone said. “He had a bomb in his satchel. Somebody passed it off to him.” A sudden thought gripped him, sending a lance of icewater down his back. “Wait!”
“Why?” Errin sounded impatient. “We’ve got to—”
“He didn’t have the bomb when he headed to the bathroom. He must have got it here. What if the others—” He glared at the figure, tightening his hold on it. “How did you know about the secret exit? Are you one of them? Answer me!” He shook the thin body.
The hood fell away, and he gaped in shock.
Whatever he held in his arms was a humanoid female—but she didn’t look like any human he’d ever seen. Her pale skin was gray, her shaggy, silvery hair shining with a greenish overlay. Her eyes, crinkled with pain, were solid black.
“Bloody hell…” he whispered. “What are you?”
Errin, who’d been some distance ahead, came back and peered around Stone’s shoulder. “She’s a Traveler,” she whispered, looking as shocked as Stone did.
“What’s a Traveler?” The figure moaned again, and he adjusted his hold on her. “Can we trust her?”
“Remember I told you about them when you first got here? The nomads who live in the Wastes?”
Stone vaguely recalled something about that. He checked the hallway again in both directions—so far no one seemed to be following them. “What’s she doing here?”
“They come into the cities sometimes—the non-magical cities—to trade. They hate the Talented.”
“So she couldn’t be the one who passed off the bomb to Rovenna’s aide?”
“No way—they’re virulently anti-technology.” She grabbed Stone’s arm. “Come on—we’ve got to get back to the teleporter before they find us. We can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous on our own, even with your magic.”
“What about Harrison?”
“He said he’d follow us?”
“Yes. He was in bad shape when I saw him, though.”
She looked grim. “He’s hard to kill. They’ll never hold him.”
Stone remembered how quickly he’d recovered from a point-blank, mortal gunshot wound. “You’re sure? We can’t just leave him—”
“We have to,” she said, looking even more grim. “He knew the risk when he decided to do this. And he doesn’t need a teleport pad to get back.”
Stone looked down at the pale figure in his arms. Whatever she was, she was going to die if she didn’t get medical attention soon. He made a decision, even though he felt as if he was betraying Harrison by leaving him here. “All right. Let’s go.”
Behind them, back toward the Underground venue, voices sounded.
“Bugger! They’ve found the panel!” Stone snapped. “Have you got any more of those smoke grenades?”
Errin pulled another from her vest and chucked it down the hallway. “Come on. I don’t know where this lets out. We’ve got to get back to the pad.”
Clearly the Traveler wouldn’t be any more help in getting them out. She lolled in Stone’s arms; he couldn’t tell if the gray of her skin was natural or a sign she was gravely injured. He tightened his hold on her and followed Errin, glancing back over his shoulder periodically.
Errin moved fast but with care, keeping her gun and flashlight both pointed forward, scanning the narrow passage ahead of them for threats. Behind her, Stone switched back and forth between magical and normal sight, sure more of the Talented must be lurking invisibly ahead, waiting to ambush them. He kept the shield up around all three of them, pleased at how little it tired him to do so. He could get to like the magic level on this world, if it weren’t for so many of its residents who were determined to kill him.
The voices behind them had faded—either the smoke had slowed them sufficiently that they lost the trail, or else they were following more silently.
No one approached, though. Eventually, after several more heart-pounding minutes and three changes of direction, they reached a narrow metal stairway leading upward to a low wooden door. They stopped and exchanged glances.
“Anyt
hing could be out there,” Stone murmured. “They could be waiting for us.” He shifted the Traveler woman, carefully propping her against the wall at the stairway’s foot. “Let me take a look—”
“Let me,” Errin said. “You don’t know your way around town. I need to figure out where the teleporter is from here.”
“Wait,” he said, realizing something now that they weren’t running for their lives. “Should we take it? Shouldn’t we stay here and try to figure out where they took Harrison?”
“It will be easier to do that back at the Nexus,” she said, already mounting the staircase. “They won’t be able to hide it—we’ve got friends in some pretty high places.”
“Are you sure they’re not in on this?”
“Not…completely,” she admitted. “But we’ve got no chance of finding him from here. And she needs help,” she added, pointing at the Traveler.
Stone reluctantly had to admit she was right. They’d probably taken Harrison to Temolan, and they had no way to get there. “Go,” he said. “Let me scan the area first, though.”
He joined her at the top of the stairs, cracked the door open a couple inches, and peered out using magical sight. Outside, the earlier light rain had increased to a steady fall; he saw no signs of auras on the darkened street.
He pulled back. “I think it’s all right. Just—hurry.”
“No problem.” She slipped out and jogged into the street, while Stone kept an eye on her from the doorway. In less than two minutes she was back, shaking rainwater from her hair.
“We’re in luck. The passage took us closer to where the teleporter is. We’re only a couple blocks away, on the other side from where we left.”
“So we just walk from here?” He glanced at the Traveler again. “She needs help.”
“Let me take a look. Watch the hallway.”
“I’ll do better than that.” Stone pressed his back against the wall and used magical sight to make sure nobody was coming. Then he wove an illusion a few feet back, reveling once again at how easily the magic came to him. “There. Anyone coming this way will see a dead-end wall. Hurry up, though—I can’t hold this forever.”
“Yeah. Nice job.” She crouched next to the Traveler woman, pulling aside her cloak to reveal a bloody, uneven wound on her left side. “Damn, this looks bad. We’ve got to move. Illona back home can fix this up, but we need to get to her fast.” She probed the wound, and the Traveler woman moaned and opened her eyes. “Sorry…” she said gently. “What’s your name?”
“J-Jeritha,” the woman whispered.
“Okay, Jeritha. Can you do anything to help yourself? We’re going to get you help, but we still have to get to our teleporter.”
“I will…try…” She took a deep breath and her gaze fuzzed out again.
Stone shifted his attention between her and the illusion, watching her with magical sight. Her odd, jagged green aura smoothed out a little, overlaid with a shaky gold. “She’s trying, but I think she’s too out of it to manage much. We’ve got to go.” He bent to pick her up, trying to be as gentle as he can. She seemed to be unconscious again, or else in some kind of trance. “Let’s go. I’ll follow you, but stay close so I can keep us shielded.”
One more check out the door revealed no one approaching. Errin exited first, keeping low and ducking behind a parked vehicle. Stone followed, trying to jostle Jeritha as little as possible. He kept the shield up and continued to scan the area with magical sight, but so far luck seemed to be favoring him. The only aura he saw was the faint green one of some small animal that dashed away as soon as it spotted them.
The shield didn’t stop the rain, so by the time they reached the ramshackle building that was their destination, all three of them were soaked. Stone pulled Jeritha’s hood over her head to protect her from as much of it as possible, but it didn’t do much good. She’d already begun to shiver.
They crept around the building, and now the surroundings looked more familiar. Stone still spotted no sign of pursuers as Errin opened the door to the garage where they’d gotten the truck, and stood aside to let him and Jeritha in. The door swung slowly shut behind them. They crossed to the other door and hurried down the deceptively broken-looking staircase.
“Okay,” Errin said, opening the door to the room where they’d left the teleporter. “We—”
If Stone hadn’t had magical sight up, and hadn’t thought to check the space behind them at that moment, he’d have missed it. When he saw the glitch on the staircase, he didn’t stop to analyze it or ask questions. Instead, he gathered magic and flung a wide-spectrum concussion blast forward. If he was wrong he’d look like an idiot, but if he wasn’t—
Three figures shimmered into existence, flung backward by Stone’s spell. They tumbled over each other, shouting and cursing. “Get them!” one yelled as all three struggled to disentangle themselves.
Another raised a glowing hand and threw another spell. The wall next to Stone splintered and exploded, sending chunks slamming into the shield.
“Run!” Errin yelled.
“You first! I’ll hold them off!” Stone poured more power into the shield, directing a bolt of magical energy at one of their pursuers, who barely dived out of the way.
The other two pointed glowing hands at him as, behind him, he heard the door open. “Time to go,” he muttered, shifting Jeritha in his grip again. He filled the space in front of him with another wide concussion spell, sacrificing power for spread, and then slipped backward through the door and slammed it shut.
“Hurry!” Errin yelled.
“Do you have to prepare it?”
“No, it’ll respond to our bracelets.” She pointed at Jeritha. “She’ll have to grab yours, though.”
Stone shook Jeritha, fearful of injuring her. “Jeritha. Wake up.” He glanced toward the door again, knowing they’d only have seconds.
The Traveler woman moaned and cracked her eyes open. “Mm…what?” she mumbled.
He shoved his arm next to her hand. “Grab my arm,” he ordered. “Touch the bracelet. Quickly!”
Some of his urgency must have gotten through to her, because her hand fluttered and her slim fingers settled around his wrist. Her grip was weaker than a child’s.
“There! Go!” he called to Errin.
She leaped onto the tattered rug, and Stone hurried to join her.
The door shattered into pieces. The three mages poured through the opening.
Heat flared around the shield. Stone’s last sight before the tiny room shimmered from view was a fireball the size of his head streaking toward their location.
35
Stone dropped to his knees as reality reformed and they reappeared in the Nexus’s teleporter room. He lowered Jeritha carefully down and looked around for Errin.
She was already scrambling off the pad and hurrying to a nearby console. “Do what you can for her—I’ll call Illona and have Anzo bring a gurney.”
Stone took off his jacket, folded it into a pillow, and slipped it under Jeritha’s head. “Hurry. I can’t do much.”
While they waited for help to arrive, he tried using his minimal healing skills to stabilize the unconscious Traveler woman. He concentrated on the ragged wound on her side, fearing she’d already lost too much blood.
The door flew open and a woman swept in, followed by Anzo pulling a mobile version of the magical healing machine in Stone’s suite. “I’ll take care of her,” the woman said, motioning Stone out of the way.
Stone got up and watched as the woman—he remembered seeing her before, but had never met her—carefully levitated Jeritha onto the machine’s narrow surface as she delivered crisp orders to Anzo. Without another word to Errin or Stone, they departed as quickly as they came, Illona already weaving spells as she went.
And then the room was filled with sudden silence, and just as suddenly fatigue settled over Stone as the events of the night caught up with him. He slumped against the railing surrounding the teleporter pad and let hi
s breath out, finally feeling his racing heart begin to slow. “Bloody hell…” he murmured.
“Yeah.” Errin looked as tired as Stone felt, her face smudged with dust, her dripping hair in a wild tangle. “Are you all right? That was a lot of magic you were throwing around, so soon after getting it back.”
He swiped his arm across his brow. “Tired. I’d love a nice hot shower and a long session with the healing machine—but not yet. We’ve got things to sort out.” He glanced up at her. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She clenched her fists and began to pace, her face darkening with anger. “Somebody betrayed us.”
“Yes, that’s obvious—whoever that aide was.”
“Maybe. But I think it went deeper than that.”
“Why?”
“Come on—we need to find Kira.” Errin headed for the door.
Stone caught up with her. “Why do you think it went deeper?”
“Trevor said Rovenna’s decision to join us was sudden. You said she was killed?”
“Yes. I saw her—that bomb blew her to hell. She was at ground zero when it went off.”
“That’s—hard to believe,” Errin said. “Especially since it took out Trevor too.”
“Why do you say that? He’s powerful, sure, but he’s not invulnerable. And he can’t anticipate everything.”
“No. He can’t. But he knew this meet could be dangerous. He’d have had his shields up, and I’ve seen those hold up to a lot more than a bomb that’d fit in a bag.”
“Well…” Stone said, “if he didn’t know the aide was the assassin, could he have had him inside his shield, along with himself and Rovenna?”
“That’s true,” Errin admitted. “Did you see the aide’s body?”
“No. But I couldn’t see very well—it was dark, and there was a lot of smoke and confusion.” He frowned as something else occurred to him. “One other thing I thought was odd, though I didn’t have time to think anything of it before. When the bomb went off, everything went white for a second. I heard a loud noise, but there was something else, too. A sort of—wrenching sensation. Then my shield went down and I had to focus on putting it back up again.”