One soldier turned his gun on me, and I popped him in the arm, causing him to spin and hit the vehicle he had just stepped out of. Another came around the front of a vehicle, gun already trailed on me. The mouth of his gun began to flash. I dropped to the floor, and shot him in the shin, dropping him immediately. Then I rolled, and shot the guy coming up behind me with a baton in his hand. He, like the others, also fell, clutching his bleeding wound.
With a graceful kick of the legs, I was on my feet again, sprinting toward the lead vehicle—where the person running this show was probably sitting. I watched the Ace fly low overhead and heard the clap of bullets as they fell out of Jamie’s rifle. When the Ace turned, I saw the gleam of Abel’s rifle and then caught the muzzle flash as his gun also went off, dropping another soldier. An instant later, Aisha leapt out of the Ace, hit the ground with a roll, and let her mask fall, becoming the burning, scaly creature I had seen the first time the Faction had attacked us, only now, in the light, she didn’t look terrifying—she looked righteous, and powerful; like a dragon should.
Men wearing coats cowed away from her, holding their hands up against her and falling over their own feet. One soldier turned his gun on her and poured bullets into her, but they bounced off of the light scales covering her body. The man, horrified, turned to run, but Aisha opened her mouth and blew a jet of fire into his back, sending him screaming to the ground.
Finally, when the Ace was only a few feet off the ground, Jamie and Charles stepped out, each of them firing their guns at soldiers still trying to form some kind of defense against our surprise attack. The Ace immediately pulled up, with Abel still in its door, his back against the wall, coolly taking shots from his long rifle.
We had this under control; this whole situation was ours.
That was until the lead vehicle opened its rear door, and Roman Tanner came barging out like a lion from a cage in a gladiator’s ring. I didn’t stop running. Instead, I put my head down, roared, and ran faster, arms pumping, legs pushing as hard as they could go. Roman braced himself for me, readying a right hook. I feigned as if I was going to leap on him, or over him, and instead went under him, sliding between his legs and aiming my guns right into his face. I squeezed the triggers, but Roman was much faster than my bullets. In an instant he was four feet away, but staggering and off balance.
I kicked up and got on my feet, then turned to look at him.
“I’m gonna kill you this time, Cartwright,” Roman said.
I slipped my guns back into their holsters. “Really?” I asked, “Because you couldn’t kill me the first time.”
“You got lucky.”
“Or maybe you’re not as good as you think.” I tightened my gloves around my hands. “So how about we settle this?”
“I’m going to enjoy kicking the shit out of you.”
“I’m right here.”
Roman took a deep breath, then charged, swinging heavy with his fist. I ducked under it and jabbed him in the stomach, pushing magic into my fist to make the blow crunch bone, but Roman only grunted. It would take more than that to break this mammoth’s bones. He turned and went to grab my hair, but I was out from under him faster than he could close his fists around even a single strand, and then I blinked, putting myself a few feet on the other side of him.
By the time he had turned around again, I was on him, my foot connecting with his jaw. Roman staggered, and I hit him again, once in the stomach, and once in the cheek, each of my blows sounding like thunderclaps on a rainy night. This time, when Roman stumbled away from me, I saw his lip was bleeding.
He brushed the blood away and grinned, then he clenched his right fist into a ball and brought his magic up, causing his fist to erupt into a ball of blood red fire.
“C’mon,” I said, “What are you waiting for?”
Roman charged, winding back his fiery hand, and when he threw it at me it wasn’t a punch that came toward me, but a shockwave that split the air apart and made the ground crack beneath it. I put my hands up to protect myself, but the shockwave hit me hard and knocked the wind out of my lungs before it picked me up and threw me several feet away.
My chest and arms hurt, and I was having trouble catching my breath, but I had to get up and fight. I couldn’t stay down, no matter how much that had hurt. So, I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and stared at him from where I stood. A breeze rushed between us, tugging my hair around. Bullets clapped, the Ace’s engines whirred in and out of range of my hearing, and nearby, the Seelie portal crackled from within the machine the Faction had undoubtedly built around it. That thing needed to come down before we would be done with our mission, but right now there was Roman to worry about.
“You’re fast,” he said, “But weak.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Roman came at me, magic hand burning, eyes filled with nothing but venom and contempt. I took a step back, drew one of my guns, and threw a bullet at him, but he waved it away with his magic and sent it harmlessly aside. I drew my second gun and began firing as fast as I could, emptying the clips, but none of the bullets touched him. Before he got to me, I slipped the guns back into their holsters, turned, and ran toward the nearest truck, but Roman was breathing down my neck by the time I got to it.
He reached out to grab me just as I went for the door, and he caught my hair and tugged so hard my scalp burned. I went flying again, hitting the ground on my back. When he came for me, groping to find my collar and pick me up, I kicked him in the face and sent him into the side of the truck, and then a stray bullet struck him in the thigh and forced him to one knee with a scream that rent the air.
That hadn’t been a random bullet—it had been one of Abel’s.
But Roman wasn’t about to give up. I watched him try to stand, gritting his teeth against the pain a bullet the size of the one Abel just put into him must have caused. If it hadn’t been for the armor he was wearing, the bullet may have torn his leg in two. Still, he had fight in him, but I took it out of him with a quick punch to the jaw. Thunder rolled after I had hit him, and he went down hard, and cold.
When I turned my head up and saw the Ace circling me, Abel gave me a two-fingered salute, and I returned it.
Looking around I saw many injured Faction soldiers and surrendered workers, each kneeling in a line in front of Jamie with their hands behind their heads. Aisha dragged a soldier into the line of workers and forced him to kneel. Charles joined them, stuffing his gun into its holster. We were all alive, none of us had been hurt, and we had won. Relief filled me, and I let myself breathe deeply, but when I turned around to grab Roman by his collar, he was gone.
Fear seized my gut and caused my heart to start pounding. I turned in a wide circle, looking for him. He was injured and bleeding, but where was he? Where the fuck had he gone.
“Max!” Jamie called out, “I think this is all of them.”
I looked at him and nodded, then walked over to where he was. Spider brought the Ace down to land, and Abel stepped out and joined us in front of the line of surrendered Faction workers. “Good job, Cartwright,” Abel said.
“This was all of us,” I said, “We all did this.” I looked at Charles. “We should have a medic look at the wounded.”
“The Order is already on its way,” Charles said. He stepped up to one of the surrendered men, squatted in front of him, and said, “We aren’t going to kill you, and we will heal your wounded, but I need you to tell me what that thing is and how we can shut it down.”
Jamie found my eyes, and his carried the question are you okay? I nodded, then smiled, brushing my wild hair out of my face, and before he could come over to where I stood, I turned toward the Ace, and started sprinting, running right past the spot where Abel was standing.
“Hey!” Jamie called out, “Where are you going?”
“Get to the rendezvous point,” I yelled.
“What? Max! What are you doing?”
“What I have to do. Just go!”
I le
apt into the Ace, and without Spider needing a cue, he took off, causing the people on the ground to shrink until they were no more than dots, and eventually not even that. I walked into the cockpit, sat down, and strapped myself in. Spider looked at me, and I looked at him, but we didn’t say anything to each other. We couldn’t celebrate yet. Not until we had done what we still had left to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Last chance to turn around,” Spider said, “I’m going to be taking the Ace over the heart of the city before we get to this place. They’re gonna see us, so we can expect company.”
“We aren’t turning around,” I said, “We can do this.”
“What’s changed your mind? You were sure bringing the shield down could kill everyone in the city.”
“That might still happen, but could you live knowing these beings are trapped there? Is their freedom worth less than the lives of the people who live happily at their expense?”
“Yeah, but the people living in the city don’t know anything about the Guardians.”
I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. “I know, okay? This is already hard enough as it is, and I’ve already pissed Charles off. I just need to talk to them again. I need to know what freeing them will do to the city.”
“And you think they can tell you?”
“If they’re the ones powering the shield, then maybe they can look outside of it too.”
“That’s a big if. What if you go inside and the Guardians can’t help us?”
I turned to look at him, eyes narrowed. “Two hours ago, you were totally on board with this plan. What changed?”
He glanced at me, then turned his eyes forward. In front of us, New Seattle’s tallest buildings shone dimly beneath an overcast sky, while life went on at their feet. Droplets of water began hitting the Ace’s windshield. I watched them zip towards the sides of the craft, pushed by the wind.
“We have the trucks,” Spider said, “We could leave.”
“No, we can’t. We have the trucks, but the Faction knows what we’ve done. They’ve probably already upped security at the checkpoint so hard we’d never get out, not even if we had rocket launchers. Charles just doesn’t understand that.”
“So, the only way we get out is if the shield comes down.”
I nodded. “And it’s only coming down if one of those Guardians can convince me that doing so won’t immediately vaporize everyone in the city.” I reached for his shoulder. “You’re with me, right?”
Spider looked at me again, and nodded. “Of course,” he said, “Besides, you can’t fly this thing. How are you gonna get home when we’re done?”
A grin spread across my face, filling me with warmth and comfort. What I was going to do was crazy, but I had someone with me, I had backup, and as much as Jamie had already been to the facility, and putting aside the fact that I wanted him with me, I didn’t think Jamie would have agreed to what I was about to do, and that was the reason why I hadn’t told him this plan.
That was why he couldn’t be here now.
I hadn’t asked him to go against his father’s wishes, but he had done so once before. I wasn’t going to put him in that position again. Better for Spider and I to get in and get out, do this quick, maybe even save the day—or ruin it for a lot of people, depending on what I was going to find down at the facility.
Spider pulled the Ace up, into the low-hanging clouds, and followed the display in front of him instead of navigating by sight, waiting until the last moment before dropping down from the clouds right in the middle of a cluster of skyscrapers. I held on tight, feeling my stomach twist as the Ace gracefully weaved and dodged between buildings at breakneck speed before bearing down on the familiar looking generating station with the three smokestacks.
“Alright,” Spider said, “Time to touchdown fifteen seconds, get ready.”
I got up from the co-pilot seat, moved to the back of the craft, and pulled the door open. Droplets of water came howling into the Ace, along with a powerful gust of wind. The engines whirred and whined, and beneath me the scenery whizzed past. I watched as the Ace circled around the facility, getting a good look at it before Spider brought the aircraft down onto the building’s mostly flat roof.
The Ace shuddered as it came close to touching down, but it didn’t touch the roof. Instead it hovered a few feet above, enough for me to let myself fall from the aircraft and start running toward the only entrance I could find. I turned around when I hit the door and watched the Ace begin to lift again, feeling the wind pick up around me.
Max, can you hear me? Spider said, reaching into my mind.
Loud and clear, Spider, I replied, how are we looking up there?
I’m not picking up any Faction patrols just yet, they’re probably still reeling from the kicking we just gave them, but we don’t have long.
Fifteen minutes, that’s all I need.
Make it ten.
I gave Spider a two-finger salute as the Ace rose high into the clouds to eventually disappear into the gray mantle. I had ten minutes; ten minutes to get into the depths of this thing, speak to the Guardians, and come back up. There was only one way I was going to make that happen; I was going to have to go in loud and hot. The time for cloak and dagger tactics was done.
I freed one of my guns from its holster, then clenched my other fist tightly and willed my magic to blaze into existence. Blue fire engulfed my hand, bringing with it a familiar warm vibration that set my heart pumping, and also a second, less familiar feeling that filled me with something like urgency, or anxiety. I felt like a prisoner rooting for her savior, excited at the idea of being released back into the world.
That was the Guardians’ doing. They were aware of my presence, and if they could sense me from within their chamber, then maybe they also had the answer I wanted.
I tried the roof-access door. Locked. Of course. “Alright,” I said, “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Taking a step back, and willing magic to harden my bones and invigorate my muscles, I launched my foot into the metal door so hard it collapsed inwards, then fell off its hinges, the brick and mortar around it cracking from the strength of the impact. The door clanged loudly when it hit the opposite wall, then finally came to rest at an angle on the stairs. As I stepped through the broken doorway, I surrounded myself with magic and thought of Stanley, plucking his likeness out of the ether and wearing it like a second skin. When I was him, I dashed down the stairs, keeping an eye out for any familiar signs pointing to the hallway that would take me to the chamber where the Guardians were being kept.
Two minutes had passed before I found the spiral staircase, and another thirty seconds went by as I went dashing from the stairs toward the vault-door with the retinal scanner. Stopping just short of the door, I keyed in Stanley’s code, then looked into the scanner itself, waiting for the beep, repeating the words please turn green in my mind over, and over.
The panel bleeped and lit up. Green. When the door opened, the two guys sitting in the control room turned around to look at me, entirely shocked to see their buddy stepping into the room wearing a tactical harness, with a gun in one hand, and blue fire in the other.
“S-Stan?” Adam asked.
Dramatically, I shook my head hard enough to let the magic disguise fall, revealing myself to them. “Nope,” I said.
“Shit!” Adam went to grab his gun, but I put a bullet in his arm before he could reach it. He spun from the force of the bullet, sending a spray of blood all over the monitors, and before he could recover I was on him again, pulling his gun out from its holster and tossing it across the room. Nicky went to stand, but instead of shooting him I grabbed his collar with my blazing hand and pinned him against the monitor wall.
“You know why I’m here, right?” I asked.
Nick nodded, swallowed, and then nodded again. “Y-yes,” he said.
“You shot me!” Adam cried.
“Then you know what door I want you to open, right?” I a
sked, ignoring Adam’s sobs.
He nodded again.
“Do it,” I said, “Then you take your friend and you get out of here. He won’t bleed out if you put pressure on the wound, but you have four minutes and fifty seconds before Adam loses too much blood. Tick tock.”
Nick turned around and started hitting keys. I watched, keeping my eyes peeled for any potential alarms he may have been sounding, not that he needed to. The Faction knew I was here, and I had less than six minutes to get topside before thing got tricky. Finally, Nicky walked over to the inner door, triggered the facial recognition to activate, and then got out of the way to help his downed friend.
“You’re making a big mistake,” Adam said through gritted teeth.
I headed for the door, then stopped. “Oh, and just in case either of you has the genius idea to lock that door while I’m inside; know that I will get out, and I will kill you both.”
The look on Nicky’s face told me he would sooner shoot his friend than allow him to lock the door. Taking that as good enough, I turned around and headed through the now open side door, down the corridor, and into the almost blindingly bright chamber where, surrounded by cables, machines, and four huge clamps, the Guardians’ shimmering dome prison sat.
Immediately I felt the familiar buildup of emotion begin to bubble. Sadness, rage, frustration, longing, each emotion trying to claw its way into me, and I allowed these emotions to affect me, to cause my chest to tighten, to make my hands shake, my eyes sting with tears. Anything to let them get closer, anything that’d help them connect with me.
“I’m here,” I said, looking at the dome, “I need you to reach out to me, I need to talk to you again.”
Distantly, I wasn’t sure if this took place in my mind or if I had actually heard it, chains rattled. Someone whispered. I took a tentative step toward the dome, then another, and another, getting so close I could see the shimmering white mist inside and what I thought was a floating orb dancing within it. I stretched my hand, fingertips reaching for the outer shell of the dome, hand alight with blue fire, then something tugged at me, and I found myself pulled into the dome itself, just like last time. Only, like last time, I wasn’t really in the dome—only my mind was.
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