Kailyn kept the television on channels displaying the scene in Chicago. The cameramen seemed particularly interested in following our people, which was good. They showed our method of dealing with the Bloodless—cure rather than kill, at least in all possible cases. If we were the IBSI, we would have done something rash like bomb the area, regardless of whatever innocent humans still remained hiding in their homes from the Bloodless.
Atticus became unexpectedly quiet. I glanced back at him, frowning and wondering what was going through his head.
I didn’t know how long we’d be able to keep him locked up in here before security personnel figured out that something was odd—probably noticing the camera in Atticus’ office had gone blank. I moved instinctively to the door and made sure it was closed firmly.
We had less than two hours to camp out in here, but that was a long time to keep a hostage like Atticus cooped up.
I pushed his chair closer to the television so that I myself could be closer to it without constantly checking on him over my shoulder.
Once we hit the one-hour mark, it was hard to keep hoping. Even in spite of our diligence, our small group in Chicago was still struggling to get a handle on the Bloodless. The area was just so massive, making the dozens of streets we had managed to clear seem insignificant. Many Bloodless had simply migrated to other parts of the ravaged city, and there were still countless families trapped in their homes or being preyed upon at this very moment by the monsters.
By now, we had brought along every single person from The Shade capable of helping us with this mission, and yet we desperately needed more people.
The dragons would be tempted to take a similar approach to that of the IBSI—release storms of fire and burn out the monsters. But we could not. We had to do this right, every step of the way, if we wanted to stand a chance of distinguishing ourselves from the IBSI and striking a chord in the hearts of the public. They needed to want us to rise to authority, rather than simply accepting us because they had no other choice, as was the case with the IBSI’s reign for the past few decades.
Then came the announcement that I had feared would come—Los Angeles had fallen. Atticus had not been bluffing when he said that his colleague was ready to pull the trigger. Now we had three cities to contend with. I found it hard to believe that the government would be able to stall granting Atticus’s wish much longer, though all channels still remained active. It seemed that the authorities really were desperate for an alternative to the IBSI.
The second hour came upon us and began to pass at a frighteningly fast pace.
The minutes were punctuated by flashes of nightmares from the cities. Even the channel that had been focusing on Chicago began to switch to the newly invaded LA. It was hard to keep watching, witnessing so starkly just how outnumbered we were.
“He’s not going to arrive in time,” Kailyn whispered, apparently forgetting that Atticus was still present with us. I gritted my teeth. I did not want to give him the satisfaction of my response, or for him to guess whom, exactly, Kailyn had meant by “he”.
A loud ringing shrilled through Atticus’s office, snapping our attention to the door. The ringing was Atticus’s front doorbell. Some concerned colleagues, no doubt, had come to see if he was all right.
“You see,” Atticus said calmly, his cold eyes traveling from the office door to Kailyn and me, “I suspected that all of this was out of your league, excuse the pun. Best to leave these matters to us in the future—not that you will have any choice anyway.”
The ringing became more intense, more impatient, and turned to loud banging and crashing against the front door. The final minutes passed more rapidly than ever. I couldn’t help but entertain the doubt that perhaps Atticus was right.
We’ve missed the deadline, as Lawrence and I feared we would.
My father has not managed to save the day.
Lawrence
I fumbled in my pocket for the phone I'd requested from the government official before leaving the aircraft. Two hours were up, but I had to at least attempt to wrangle some more time. We were making some progress—that much had been broadcast to the world by the reporters hovering over the scene. I was sure that the authorities were watching every moment of it. But we had failed to make the impact that was required to actually solve this problem. We hadn’t gotten anywhere close.
I dialed the official’s number. He picked up after a few rings. “It’s Lawrence,” I said, yelling into the phone beneath the blare of the rotors above me. “Please, give us some more time. You can see what we’re capable of—we’re just waiting for—”
“I’m sorry,” he replied sharply. “We were overly generous with two hours. You’ve had your chance to shine. Now we must hand everything back to the IBSI. We are in the process of carrying out your father’s request.”
“No!” I shouted, my right hand gripping the phone so tightly it felt that it might crack beneath the pressure. “Please, listen to me!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Conway. I cannot speak with you anymore.”
With that, the phone hung up.
Clenching my fists together, I brought them smashing against the wall of a nearby building. Dammit!
Given that Ben had not returned from the base, I could only assume that he had managed to find my father and was holding him captive. But that did not matter now. His commanders would take over issuing orders if he was still not able to.
I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but as the press helicopters began to withdraw from the scene, I knew that I had to warn everyone. With the IBSI back in the saddle, it was dangerous for us to be here any longer. They would’ve witnessed our work, and something told me that this area was going to be their first, most vicious target.
I gazed around at the heaps of recovering humans we had managed to gather. I feared that all of them were at risk now. All of them.
I yelled to TSL members as I raced down the streets. “The IBSI are going to begin closing in! We need to get everyone we saved out of here while we can. And then, if we’re able to, come back for the rest.”
Somehow, I doubted the likelihood of the latter once the IBSI sank their claws into this land. I feared what it would become. The lengths they would go to in an effort to “restore order”.
I stopped short in front of Corrine. She had whirled around to look at me, hands on hips, beads of sweat lining her forehead. “We can’t retreat,” she said, looking at me as though I’d gone mad.
Other TSL members who were not immediately occupied with the Bloodless also began to surround me. “Maybe not us,” I said. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the people of The Shade were expecting to stay to the bitter end. “But the humans we’ve turned—we must get them out of here. Back to The Shade, anywhere but here.”
Corrine swallowed, and turned to our jinn and witches. “Okay,” she called to them, “Start working on transporting humans, and turning humans, back to The Shade … But the rest of us must stay. We can’t let the IBSI think we can be defeated so easily.”
I admired the bravery of the witch, and all the other men and women I’d been fighting alongside for the past several hours. I just hoped that we were ready for this. Because once the IBSI hit, they would be taking no prisoners.
Lawrence
The witches and jinn cooperated to transport the piles of humans and turning-humans back to the island, and returned swiftly. My eyes kept flitting up to the sky, even as we continued to search the city for survivors. I was expecting a cloud of black helicopters to descend on us from the direction of the base at any moment. For a storm of mutants to come rushing our way.
The mutants came first.
Their arrival announced by a painful symphony of screeches, hundreds of them became visible in the murky sky.
The mutants were like bloodhounds for Bloodless. I should know. I’d witnessed them being trained on several occasions.
The witches and jinn hurried to transfer the final batch of humans, while the
rest of us rushed together in a huddle before the mutants reached us. We gathered with the dragons, who were carrying the bulk of our weapons. I slid my swords into the sheaths on either side of my belt before picking up a machine gun. Then everyone quickly mounted the dragons.
I opted for Lethe, the only ice dragon among us, since he was close to me. I climbed onto his sleek blue-scaled back and settled myself behind his neck, even as his heavy wings spread and beat. We lifted into the sky along with the fire dragons. I double-checked the gun was loaded and fired to verify that it was all in order. Then my eyes set straight ahead, on the army of mutants. They were almost upon us now, and I could make out IBSI members riding on their backs, dressed in dark heat-resistant clothing and equipped with heavy firearms.
If they had been after the Bloodless alone, there would’ve been no need for so many humans among the mutants. The mutants were well trained to go sniffing for Bloodless and eradicating them. No. It was clear that their first priority was to come after us.
Our dragons were larger and more powerful than the mutants, but the mutants grossly outnumbered them. They were also tough and sturdy, with high pain tolerance levels. They didn’t have natural armor as thick as the dragons’ though.
The fire dragons unleashed billows of flames in anticipation, creating a massive wall of fire in front of us. Of course, in a sense, having so many humans among them worked to our advantage. Although the humans wore protection, the mutants could not be quite so ruthless in their attack as they would have been without their masters.
I was not sure exactly what role Lethe was going to play in all of this. He was an ice dragon. But as the fire dragons continued to unleash their fire—fierce enough to have blazed up from Hell itself—Lethe flew upward with me, as if to avoid it.
“You can’t take the heat well?” I commented.
“No,” he said, his voice tight. “I cannot.”
This was going to be a battle he’d need to be careful in, then. At least he could fly around and give me a vantage point.
The fire dragons maintained their wall of fire, but as the mutants closed the final distance, they began flying around it, over it and beneath it. Then the hunters began firing bullets. I cursed as I gazed down at our group. The witches and jinn hadn’t returned yet. They’d better hurry up!
We had brought armor with us from The Shade in anticipation, which many had donned, but that didn’t stop me from being afraid that we might suffer some fallen soldiers, especially the vampires. The hunters wouldn’t have arrived without their special UV-ray guns.
“Careful, guys!” I roared down, my stomach clenching with nervousness.
The dragons swirled and switched directions suddenly, sending fire shooting in all directions, which only caused poor Lethe to fly higher in the sky. I began firing down bullets at hunters. Although they wore protection, they still had vulnerabilities. Just as even our dragons did. I managed to topple three hunters from the initial surge, sending them tumbling to the ground, their mutants left abandoned.
“Can you fly a bit higher still?” I asked Lethe.
He was happy to oblige. He soared upward over what was becoming an increasingly difficult scene to watch. So much smoke was emanating from the flames and firearms—including grenades, which our army were beginning to chuck— it became a scorching blur of fire and chaos.
I looked eastward to see a group of helicopters hovering in the air. Press reporters. Some stray ones hadn’t abandoned us yet. Perhaps they were even recording, though now that the IBSI had come back into power, there was no way they’d be allowed to broadcast that. At least not yet.
I tried to use my height and the smoky atmosphere to my advantage, taking out several more hunters from above. The machine gun rattled in my hands, sending tremors rolling up my arms and through my body. I was barely even registering that I was killing people. Men and women, probably most around my age. In this battle, it was kill or be killed. They had chosen their side, and I’d chosen mine.
My grip tightened around my gun. It was my father and all the other IBSI puppeteers who should be out here on the front line. Not these brainwashed young men and women.
That was what I respected about TSL. They weren’t leaders watching from ivory towers. They were on the ground as foot soldiers, always the first into battle. They did whatever was required. Though perhaps I couldn’t fault my father too severely for that. He was a tough man, and getting his hands dirty certainly wasn’t beneath him, given how much he believed in his cause. Maybe we would see him yet, if Ben ever let him go.
As I continued raining down bullets on the army, I sprayed both mutants and hunters, attempting to weaken as much of their cavalry as possible.
Six hunters banded together and began rising with their mutants, fed up with the nuisance I was causing. They rose swiftly above the smoke.
I expected Lethe to use his supernatural speed and strength to surge upward, but instead, he drew in a deep breath and breathed out a storm of ice shards.
The mutants screeched at the unexpected winter storm. The hunters looked shocked too. Either they didn’t know Lethe was an ice dragon, or they’d never come across one before. The mutants staggered in the air, falling backward as the shards dug into their bodies. Lethe’s powerful breath battered the humans, although they tried to duck behind the mutants’ heads for protection.
The mutants retreated a dozen feet, while Lethe remained on the offense. He breathed down more ice, and more, until the mutants had dropped back down into the heat of the battle.
I patted the back of the dragon’s neck with one hand. “Good going.”
My feeling of accomplishment didn’t last long. The hunters we’d beaten down gathered more mutants—there must have been twenty in total—and came flying at us again.
Anticipating Lethe’s ice, they began to breathe out flames in advance, so that by the time they reached within ten feet of us they had created a substantial sea of flames above them as protection. This proved to be problematic for Lethe. He attempted to shoot down more ice, but the fire, so close to him, appeared to be weakening him. He managed only a small gust before he retreated higher into the sky. Now, it seemed that we had no choice but to switch to defense. Slotting my feet firmly into the gaps of Lethe’s scales, I twisted around and leaned my back against his neck so that I could rain down bullets. I shot them down blindly though, due to the smoke the flames were creating. My eyes stung and watered, blurring my vision further.
Lethe climbed higher to reach clean air. Clutching his scales with one hand, I rose to my feet while leaning against his neck for a better view. The vicious creatures were still chasing after us. We had aggravated them and their owners, and they weren’t going to let us off easily.
They blazed more fire toward us, and to my horror, I realized that Lethe was beginning to slow down.
“What’s going on?” I called into his right ear. “You need to keep going!”
Lethe at his full speed was faster than the mutants, but they were not to be underestimated. They still possessed supernatural speed, and they were small and agile, able to switch directions faster than a dragon. Lethe’s breathing was becoming labored.
“I know,” he wheezed.
“It’s the heat?” I shouted over the screeching of the mutants.
He grunted.
The prolonged exposure to heat. Even now, the mutants were continuing to breathe fire, and we could feel it from a distance.
“Okay,” I said, trying to maintain my calm. “We’ve got to shake them off.” I glanced at them over my shoulder. Clenching my teeth, I doused them with more bullets.
The hunters shot back through the flames this time, and I was forced to duck down, shield myself behind Lethe’s scales to avoid being hit.
“Lethe, listen to me,” I said. His pace was continuing to lag. “You need to take a sharp dive, when I say.” I repositioned myself on his back, making sure that I was holding on tight enough. “Three. Two. One. Dive!”
> He dove abruptly, and diagonally, missing the mutants’ flames. The combination of gravity and Lethe continuing to beat his wings allowed us to move faster, even if our direction was back down to the ground. I was too preoccupied with holding on to check behind me, but I could hear the mutants had also changed direction and were following us. Lethe wasn’t the only one for whom gravity worked as an advantage. I felt the dragon’s body vibrate as he let out an anguished groan.
I felt a sudden surge of heat, so close to me, it practically scorched my back.
I twisted my neck. Damn. One of the mutants had reached closer than I’d imagined. His fire had scorched Lethe’s tail. In our freefall, I couldn’t maintain enough balance to hold on to Lethe’s back and shoot at the same time.
I was running out of ideas. And we had almost reached the ground. At least we had swerved around the brunt of the battle, where the air was cooler. But it wouldn’t remain cool for long with these mutants on our literal tail.
Lethe grunted again. As I looked back this time, I caught sight of the fire climbing up his tail. His flight became unsteady. We careened toward the roof of a skyscraper.
“No!” I yelled into his ear. “You’ve got to keep flying! Don’t touch down!” They would scorch the two of us alive.
The rest of the mutants caught up. And although Lethe valiantly continued his attempts to remain aloft, it seemed as though with each beat of his wings he grew weaker. His scales were strong against many things, but not heat.
One more blaze of fire, and I was sure that he would fall. As the mutants screeched together, their chests sucking in, I braced myself for a fatal tsunami of fire.
But instead, a violent gust of wind rushed over our heads. It had come from the opposite direction of the mutants. Although Lethe and I were not in its direct path to receive the brunt of it, it caused him to stagger in the air. And as for the mutants who were in its direct path, they were sucked backward, away from us, as if being pulled by a vacuum cleaner.
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