Baxter ran straight at the closest ghoul, his wrench raised and his pistol already firing. The ghoul jerked back with each shot, then fell to the ground when the wrench smacked his skull.
Baxter readied himself for the next ghoul when a strong hand grabbed his wrist. Susannah tugged him out of the way of harm and toward the clear edge of the fight. “Forget them,” she urged. “Don’t take out the pawns when you need to kill the queen.”
Baxter turned back to the crowd, then nodded and followed Susannah. They skirted the battle, cleared the path as a handful of ghouls blocked their way, and darted back into the tunnels, unable to recognize the interior after the collapse.
Chapter Seventy-Three
Richmond, Virginia, USA
Every step closer brought Jennie more pain.
She was swimming in her nausea, swirling in the eddies of the Dreadnought’s filth. If she’d thought that latching onto ghouls was bad, it was nothing compared to being in the presence of the vile creature.
What had Susannah done to him?
She slowed as she neared the end of a tunnel, her bearings lost. She had been running and focusing on not throwing up, and she’d had no energy to spare to keep her direction. She gasped for air, hoping each breath would bring her relief, but the opposite happened.
She was getting close, she knew that much. They were ahead of her in the tunnels. She could hear them arguing. Their shadows flickered in the light from an abandoned torch on the ground. They were fighting, the great dark shape of the Dreadnought in combat with Jiao. She screamed, the sound traveling to Jennie and disturbing the ceiling.
No more screaming. No more collapses.
Jennie clutched her stomach with both hands, hugging herself to try to ease the pain. She raised heavy feet as she pressed onward, hoping she could use this moment of distraction to get the drop on them both.
She peered around the corner and found Jiao and the Dreadnought facing off against each other. The Dreadnought’s eyes flashed, his spectral body a gaseous cloud of darkness and corruption. He was taller than Jiao and towered over her, but he could not get what he was after.
“Yield your body to me,” the Dreadnought barked. “You are mine.”
“I belong to no one,” Jiao returned, scowling. Her face looked nothing like the sweet angelic woman Jennie’s comrades had rescued from the Dragon’s tower. She held out her hand and her rings flashed, keeping the Dreadnought at bay. “You promised a partnership, yet what value have you added to this arrangement? None. I’ve got bands of followers in New York, the Seven were mine to command, and you’ve destroyed all chances of domination with your petty ego. Couldn’t handle them arguing back, so you squashed them—”
“Like the bugs they are!” The Dreadnought glowered. “Now, give me your power and allow us to join in union. Together we can rule as one solid entity. A demon and a Dragon, combined to give us power like no other.”
Jiao smirked. “You think I’m stupid enough to believe that? Do you really think I will fall to your whimsy like that bitch you left hollow and dead? No. Show me the way out of here and we are done. Our arrangement is off.”
The Dreadnought’s nostrils flared. “Then you are no more use to me.”
He roared, the sound rocking the tunnels. Then he glanced upward and tore into the earthen ceiling above.
Jennie ran into the sight of Jiao, catching her gaze for the merest of moments before she latched onto the Dreadnought and became immaterial. She rode his coattails, driving through the mud and dirt, her body whipped from sight. Her stomach flipped over and she struggled to hold in her vomit. Everything around her went black, and she wondered then if she had made the biggest mistake of her life.
* * *
Kurt Rogers couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so alive.
The two sides clashed, and he was in the center of the skirmish. The thug in front raised his weapon, but Rogers was too quick. Even with the rain dripping down his face, he was focused and his aim was true. The bullet found the center of his target’s forehead, then exploded out the back and hit the man behind.
He skirted the fallen enemy and took another shot, hyperaware that in a few seconds, firearms would be useless. When the two crowds collided and close-range combat ensued, it would be too risky to fire aimlessly into the crowd.
His reflexes were fast, and he dodged a blow from a suited woman. He twisted around her arm and retaliated with a headbutt to her temple. Her eyes rolled and she wobbled sideways, receiving a second blow from an agent to his right.
A fist caught his shoulder, and he spun and hooked a right. Someone tried to grab his throat from behind, but he wedged his free hand between the crook of the guy’s elbow and the flesh of his neck. With a quick twist, he doubled over and threw the man over him, finishing him off with a stomp to the face.
It was amazing how it had all stayed with him. Years of sitting in the office had done little to degrade his combat skills. Like a pianist remembering the finger work to his favorite concerto decades after he last played it, his muscle memory did the job for him. There was a gleam in his eyes, a gleeful smirk on his face. He didn’t care about the bruises he received; it felt good to be back on the front line again.
Fighting for justice.
* * *
Sturgeon was tired, but the second wave of adrenaline pushed her on.
The rain made things more difficult. The wet ground was slippery, and they had to be careful to keep their footing. She was acutely aware of agents wrestling with enemies and falling into the mud around her. The rain was a relentless force, and she wasn’t sure if the weather was working in their favor or not. She could only see in a ten-foot radius around her, which made the numbers of both good and bad feel endless.
The enemy fired a shot and caught the man in front of her in the back of the head. She jerked out of reach of his fist and he flopped forward, landing in the mud with a wet slap. She relieved him of his weapon and returned fire, knowing she wouldn’t escape again so easily. It was easy to identify the person who’d fired the shot since he was lining up again for round two.
Sturgeon took aim, strafed left, then fired. The bullet flew into the man’s open mouth and his head exploded. Sturgeon sensed the woman to her left about to strike and whipped around, using the butt of the gun as a bludgeon. She caught the woman on the nose but was unable to avoid her left hook.
The punch turned her face, but the woman was also knocked back. By the time Sturgeon came back around, the woman was nowhere to be seen. The mammoth figure of Roman was blocking the way, a trunk-like arm swinging to take out the advancing enemies.
“Thanks, big guy,” Sturgeon stated.
Roman didn’t bother to acknowledge her statement. He barreled into the crowd, wading through as though the enemy were ants.
Sturgeon blocked a punch and delivered an uppercut to a scrawny man, her mind still on Roman. At his height, he was an easy target. She only hoped the enemy wouldn’t take advantage of that and fire when the opportunity presented itself.
* * *
The tunnels did not exist anymore. All that was left for Baxter and Susannah to follow was the debris left following the devastation.
There was a slight difference between the undisturbed packed earth and the collapsed tunnels. Pockets of air space gave some indication of where they were going, although it was tough since they could only see a foot in front of them.
“This way, I think,” Baxter commented. “Was this the first chamber?”
Susannah remained close, holding his wrist as she determinedly drove forward. While Baxter second-guessed every turn, Susannah didn’t look back once. The expression on her face was one of determination, and Baxter knew better than to argue with that level of focus.
The journey seemed to take forever. This far into the darkness and underground, Baxter wondered if Jennie was even alive. The farther they went, the more he expected to come across her body trapped under a rock. Or maybe she would be eviscerated
by the Dreadnought’s powers. He had seen what the Dreadnought could do to mortals. How he could inhabit them and destroy them from the inside. How easy would it be to…
Baxter pushed the traitorous thoughts away. Jennie’s not mortal. Jennie’s a whole other breed.
Still, he couldn’t shake off that lingering sense of dread that she was already gone, either a victim to the Dreadnought or buried under rock. After all, her spectral power cells could only last so long, and he was almost certain she wouldn’t be stupid enough to latch onto the Dreadnought.
* * *
Jennie opened her eyes and felt the world spinning around her. The sky was dark, the rain pelting her as if it held a grudge. While the water was somewhat soothing, her stomach felt as though someone had folded it into the shape of a crane.
She was lying in an inch-deep puddle of mud, her hearing muted by the filthy water. At some point on her journey to the surface, she had blacked out, unable to take the dizzying pain of holding onto the Dreadnought.
But now she was…where? On the surface? Miles from her friends?
She pushed herself uneasily to her feet and discovered she was in the center of a field. Deep grooves in the dirt told of the tractors and machines that cultivated the land. She couldn’t see beyond the sheet of torrential rain. The only thing of note came in the form of the darkened figure sitting patiently on a large boulder six feet away from where she lay.
The Dreadnought.
In spectral form, the Dreadnought reflected no shimmer from the rain. He stared at her with ink-black eyes, his body a thick arrangement of dense gray smog. A dizzy spell came over Jennie just from looking at him, and the whole world rocked like a ship in stormy seas.
“You are powerful, yes?” the Dreadnought spoke in a neutral tone.
Jennie pushed herself uneasily to her feet. It took everything within her to stand up straight and fight her legs, which seemed determined to wobble beneath her. “I am.”
The Dreadnought cocked his head, losing himself in his thoughts. “I’ve never met anyone like you, a person who can tread the thin line between life and death. I would be doing myself a disservice not to question whether someone with your talents would be interested in joining me.” He grinned. “We could do great things together.”
Jennie glanced at the ground beneath them. Somewhere down there, Jiao was trapped. A mortal lost in the tunnels beneath the earth, already in her grave. “I’ve seen what you do to your friends.”
The Dreadnought’s eyes were unblinking. “I don’t have friends.”
Lightning struck in the distance, the sky pulsing with white-hot light. Thunder crashed.
“You know, I think I’m going to have to take the alternative,” Jennie replied. “Considering all the problems you’ve caused for this city.”
That predatory grin returned. “What is that alternative?”
Jennie drew the Big Bitch. “I’m going to have to destroy you.”
The Dreadnought lowered his head. “I thought you might say that. Very well. Have it your way.”
In the blink of an eye, he attacked.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Richmond, Virginia, USA
The gaseous cloud of corruption streamed toward Jennie. She had no time to think, no time to react. It flooded her vision and dived straight at her. One minute all she could see was gray; the next it was gone.
A beat of quiet passed; even the pummeling rain was muted. Then almighty pain came from inside Jennie.
She closed her eyes and fell to her knees. All she could see was the Dreadnought as he writhed inside her and wrestled for control. If the nausea she had felt before was dizzying, it was nothing to how she felt now. She had never experienced anything like this—a constant sickening swirl of pain as the world revolved around her.
She fought for control, sensing him doing things to her that she wouldn’t have dreamed were possible. Her arm belonged to him, and it stretched out and wriggled its fingers, testing the flex of the muscles. The fingers on her other hand did the same shortly after, and with a growing sense of panic, Jennie realized he was winning.
He was taking control.
Jennie’s mouth was a permanent O as she struggled to take in air. She turned inward and looked for the power inside her, focusing her attention on identifying what he was doing and looking for a way to fix it. To stop him.
One eye opened with no trace of white, only the permeating darkness of the Dreadnought. She fought for control of the other while staving off the urge to vomit. She was beyond that now. Her throat was dry and raspy, her stomach a bag of needles rocked and disturbed on the back of a pickup truck speeding down an uneven road.
Jennie gasped at the surge of power from the Dreadnought, and her vision went black.
She waited for a few seconds, afraid to move in case more pain came. When she opened her eyes, she was not in this world, but on a plane that was entirely white. She stood upright, staring at a projection of herself. The Dreadnought examined the fingers and legs of his new body, exploring and playing with Jennie’s power.
She stood two feet behind him, frozen to the spot. She had never had an out-of-body experience and had wondered what it would be like. Not in a million years had she envisioned something like this.
“You have a gift,” a voice called from somewhere in the room.
Jennie studied the Dreadnought, wondering if it was him, then sensed someone moving behind her. She pivoted on the spot and looked into the faces of two people she hadn’t seen in years.
“Dad?” Jennie breathed.
Jennie’s father smiled, his face creasing as he did. Beside him stood Jennie’s mother, the pair of them wearing clothes of brilliant white, their auras serene.
Her father continued. “You have a gift, Genevieve. Something you have been blessed with since birth.”
“We’ve always known you were special,” her mother added. “We just didn’t know how special.” She reached forward and cupped Jennie’s cheek in her hand. Her skin was soft. “You’ve done amazing things. More than we ever could have imagined. This is not where your journey has to end.”
Jennie’s brows knitted, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Isn’t this the end? Isn’t this death? Life beyond the abyss? The great white light so many people have spoken about throughout history? I mean…” She let out a small chuckle. “You’re both here.”
Her father looked at her mother in the way he used to when Jennie was a child and had said something both ignorant and adorable.
“We’re here because we live inside you,” her father replied. “Where do you think all your power is drawn from? You think we vanished without a trace and wouldn’t watch you on your journey?”
Jennie’s mouth fluttered open and closed. “How…”
“A story for another time.” Her mother nodded toward the Dreadnought. “You know what you’ve got to do.”
Jennie turned back to the Dreadnought, who was now moving in slow motion. One hand reached for the sky, the other flexed her fingers and slowly began to beat her chest.
“It’s too much,” Jennie managed at last. “It hurts. I can’t…”
When she turned back to her parents, they were gone.
Jennie looked at the Dreadnought and took a steadying breath. She had never felt so violated, having someone block her from controlling her own body. She recovered, savoring the moments she had when the poison had been expelled from her body and she felt okay once more.
Soon that would fade, and she would enter one of the toughest battles she had ever faced.
* * *
Hendrick had given up on his glasses ages ago.
The rain created a never-ending veil of liquid over the lenses. Despite his persistent wiping, he couldn’t fight off the downpour. His clothes were soaked and clung to his skin, and every footstep had been heavy since he’d climbed out of the cab and walked the remainder of the way out of the city.
He squinted down at the object in his hands. It didn’t
matter which way he thought he should go, this object would guide him. All he needed to focus on was the direction the tiny spectral fish was swimming as it pulled him onward toward the source of spectral power.
The rain beat down, an endless drone of sloshing liquid around him. On a few occasions his feet had caught in the muddy puddles around him, and he had lost one of his shoes along the way. A lone figure, shuffling through the curtain of rain, drawn by the instinctual sense that something was happening out there, and Jennie needed him.
Was he afraid to be walking into a potential war zone? Not really. Anything is survivable when you have a weapon to use.
And that weapon glowed neatly at his side.
* * *
From the moment Jennie latched onto the Dreadnought, her whole world rocked.
The white-washed world vanished in an instant, replaced with the reality that she was trapped inside her own body, and she had no control over it whatsoever. She felt like an invader in her own skin, a parasite or leech trying to wrestle control from a much stronger soul.
The Dreadnought’s voice came from her lips. “I see you’ve grown bold. That should make victory all the sweeter.”
A pulsing wave of nausea hit her, and in the absence of a physical mouth to throw up from, Jennie’s head pounded with pain. Her skull felt fit to split, the Dreadnought’s laughter echoing inside of her as though she were standing next to the speakers at the world’s loudest concert.
Jennie gritted her spectral teeth and a growling roar came from her throat. It grew until she was screaming, an endless stream of rage coming from her mouth. She closed her eyes and explored the connection she held with the Dreadnought, unearthing years of darkness within his memory banks. She saw glimpses of his past, his treading across the city and burning everything in his path, the destruction of the townsfolk after he’d forced them to bow to him.
Agents, Agreements and Aggravations: In Her Paranormal Majesty’s Secret Service™ Book Three Page 55