Overhead, a news drone flew past us, gathering images for a news crew somewhere. Briefly I considered bringing it down with power, before reconsidering.
This secret was out, and there was little purpose in calling it back. If any of us survived, we'd have to continue our hunt for the Prophet.
He hadn't bothered to show up for this shindig, as Winkler would say. He'd sent his minions, dead and alive, and they were doing a spectacular job all by themselves.
Travis
Mom, Randl says to wait until he sends a signal. I know you want to turn to mist and lop heads, but we ought to wait, I sent.
Mom frowned at my mindspeech, but she remained where she was, although she'd added her shields to Trent's and mine. If the living minions thought to get a shot past that, they ought to think again.
Vik and David had moved forward to flank Mom, though, and continued to fire their weapons at the enemy. Zanfield, on the other hand, had stopped firing and stood still, studying the machines the Prophet had dropped between us and his minions.
At least that's what I thought he was doing.
When he raised his weapon again, he wasn't pointing at the machines. He was pointing at the street. A single ranos shot destroyed the street beneath one wide, metal track, dropping the machine into the gap and leaving it teetering dangerously to one side.
"Holy hells," I shouted and aimed at the street just as Zanfield was doing.
In no time, we'd practically sunk eight of the war machines into the concrete, removing those barriers as protective covering for our enemies. Quickly, they scurried behind another row of machines; those turrets turned long, metal barrels toward us, preparing to fire.
"I got this one," David grinned and fired straight at the barrel. His ranos blast met the cannon blast from the ancient weapon, and we were nearly deafened by the subsequent explosion. The detonation rocked the street, creating wide splits in the concrete, which careened away in all directions from the damage we'd done to it already.
Get ready, Randl's voice sounded in my head. Tell the High Demons to turn now.
I did as he asked, never fully expecting the results I got from my command.
Kooper
Randl let me see through his eyes, and what I saw was a swift journey I never thought I'd take.
Somehow, he'd connected a street in Campiaa to a street in Gungl on Vogeffa II.
A very particular street in Gungl, where I saw a cross-pattern of missing brick in a crumbling infrastructure.
What? I asked.
Randl didn't answer. Suddenly, the portion of the street in Gungl was now a part of the street in front of us—and the army of the dead was now so close I could leap and touch them.
Now, Randl's mental shout included Travis, Trent and anyone else he'd instructed to wait.
I didn't ask—I couldn't. The path to split-time had opened, and the corpse army marched right into it on our end.
Something else was happening on the other end, but I only heard the terrible roars of several High Demons before Randl shut the split-time gate behind us. We were now alone on a deserted world, where three suns bore down on us, nothing grew and hot sand threatened to melt the soles of our boots.
Shields, Bekzi instructed.
I heavily shielded my boots, then cooled the air inside my bubble of protection. The army of the dead continued their journey toward us, firing at us, now, instead of a fleeing crowd.
Randl had made us visible to them. Their shots pinged off our shield, as if they were made of metal instead of power. Whining, ricocheting blasts hit hot sand all around us, lifting fountains of hot grit high into the air.
This planet was very unstable, it appeared.
Where? I interrupted Randl's concentration.
The Great Desert on Tiralia, he replied.
That's when I noticed that the leaders of the corpse army were slowly sinking into the sand, which was swallowing them as if it were dying of thirst and dead bodies would quench it.
Travis
We had three High Demons instead of two. Vik had turned with Lexsi and Kory, and now he roared just as loudly as Kordevik as their flaming High Demons stalked the back end of the dead army.
Several minions had disappeared once the High Demons made their presence known; the rest, unimportant to the Prophet, I suppose, died when they came in contact with any part of the marching High Demons.
Once they reached the back edge of the dead army, Lexsi released her fire while Kory warned the rest of us to stay back.
I'd never seen Lexsi do this. Mom said she could, but I'd never seen it. She gathered fire from Kory and Vik, built it up, drained them of it, and then unleased it in a blast of volcano-hot fire at the dead.
"Get down," Mom shouted as a backdraft of fire bounced our way.
She jerked Zanfield down with the others and threw a shield up so we wouldn't get fried by what a powerful High Demon could do.
Somewhere, I hoped Opal, Kell, Merrill and Gavin were safe, as the Prophet's zombies went up like matchsticks in an inferno.
Founder's Palace
Wyatt
Dad, something's wrong, I sent. He and I followed Quin throughout the hastily set-up triage area, where she treated anything from sprains dealt by a rough landing in the palace ballroom to unsteady hearts, hyperventilation and other maladies.
Quin tended King Devarr's surrogate early on, easing her and making sure the baby was safe enough.
Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that somewhere within these walls, which should be shielded against most anything, something was very decidedly wrong.
I have that feeling too, but I can't tell what it is, Dad replied.
Gran? I sent.
Shields up, she shouted at me as half the ballroom exploded around us.
Great Desert, Tiralia
Kooper
Randl's eyes had turned silver when he gazed at me. I found myself falling through their depths. Not far away, the corpse army was slowly melting into the poisoned, heated sand of a world that had destroyed itself with chemical warfare.
I never thought to set foot on it—or survive if I did so.
"What now?" I heard my own words, but they sounded distant—as if someone else had uttered them.
The vision that came to me then made me drop to my knees.
Someone—or several someones among those rescued from the Sandswept, had carried trouble away with them.
They'd held onto the wooden balls—in pockets or comp-vid bags. I wanted to weep and curse at the same time—at their foolishness, and the ability of the Prophet to hide those infernal bombs from the powerful.
I caught the flash of wings, then.
White wings, glittering with gold, filled my mind before the vision was cut off.
"Stand up, Director," Randl commanded. He and Bekzi lifted me to my feet.
"Last of Prophet's dead drowns," Bekzi sighed.
"Please take me back," I begged.
"Of course, Director."
I found myself standing on the back lawn of the Founder's Palace with Bekzi. A hole large enough to fit a hover-bus gaped on one side, while smoke filtered into the air to join other smoke from still-burning casinos down the way.
"Where's Randl?" I asked, feeling dazed.
"He be back. Come. Go inside. Help Zaria."
I walked on unsteady legs toward the back entrance, while two guards opened the door to allow us inside.
Travis
David had several scrapes on his face from hitting the street when the fire blast came at us. Zanfield had rolled his ankle and twisted a knee in the same circumstances. I was surprised that one of the wealthiest men in either Alliance wasn't complaining.
Instead, he was blotting blood from David's face with a silk handkerchief he'd pulled from a pocket.
"I'm fine," David complained.
"I've had medical training," Zanfield snapped. "This needs to be looked at by someone better at it than I."
Mom, though, stood with he
r arms crossed, waiting for Kory, Lexsi and Vik to return. They'd become humanoid again, but Lexsi didn't want to be seen naked by the rest of our bunch, so she'd skipped away for some clothing.
Dressing afterward had taken a few minutes, so they were now walking back to us, Lexsi flanked on one side by her husband Kory and by Vik on the other.
Mom waited for them without saying anything. I couldn't read the look in her eye, however, and decided to wait with her, to see what was about to go down.
"Lexsi, honey, that was amazing," Mom said when the three High Demons reached us. "Kory, good job." Mom hugged Lexsi and Kory, while Vik hung back.
"Now." Mom sighed and allowed her shoulders to droop. Suddenly, she was wiping tears away.
"Baby, I thought I'd never see you again," she wept as she held her arms out to Vik.
"What the hell?" Trent now stood beside me as we watched Mom hugging Vik as if she knew him.
"It's your brother," Randl stepped up beside me. "Zaria and Quin—well, they saw to it."
"Tory?" Trent's eyes were huge as he turned toward me and mouthed our dead brother's name.
"You'll sort it out," Randl clapped both of us on the back. "I have to get to the Founder's Palace. There's something else I need to do, there."
Founder's Palace
Wyatt
Today, Zaria was a winged Larentii. Tall, blue, calm, efficient. She wasn't Changing What Was for all those who'd died.
She made her selections carefully.
I noticed she hadn't brought back the three who'd brought the wooden balls with them, or anyone from the Northon contingency. Several others she chose to leave where they lay, too.
Those bodies would be identified later, and word sent to the corresponding worlds. Dad was upstairs, talking with Jett and preparing to hold a news conference concerning the attack, intending to name it an act of war.
Soon enough, both Alliances would name the Prophet as their number one enemy, and offer a huge reward for information leading to his whereabouts.
He'd almost taken all of us down. The streets were still littered with thousands who'd died in the attack.
No casino was left standing. Many more had died in the blasts that took down those structures. As yet, there wasn't even an unofficial body count. Scores of Jett's agents had perished, too, in addition to many of Kooper's people, caught up in the attack.
Far above the planet, many ships on both sides were either crippled or destroyed. We waited for word on those, too, although the attacking ships had disappeared like smoke in the wind once the corpse army was defeated.
That didn't include the zombies that had exploded when fired upon—I had no idea whether any survivors were now infected with the Prophet's disease.
I have Charla, her guards and Jewl at the mountain retreat under guard, Opal informed me.
I didn't say what I wanted to say—that those four had been rescued, when so many others who were more deserving hadn't been saved.
Thank you, I sent. I'll let Dad know.
"Wyatt?" Quin and Zaria now stood beside me.
"Huh?" I turned quickly, startled by their sudden appearance.
"I'm finished. You can call in a forensics team—I suggest getting some from other worlds—you'll need them," Zaria sounded grim and weary.
"I will." I felt numb, as if the full impact of what happened hadn't settled in and wouldn't for a while.
"Wyatt?" Jayna appeared with Randl. She'd been with Travis at the other end of the bay. I could see she had a story to tell me, when we had time for ourselves again.
With all the trouble that now lay at our feet, I had no idea when that might be. Smoke blew in and out of the gaping hole in Dad's ballroom. Blood spattered walls around that hole. Burned and bloody corpses, whole and in pieces, were strewn across the floor as guards and servants pulled the living out of the ballroom toward private rooms in the palace.
"I've ah, asked for forensics teams from sixteen of the closest worlds," Kooper said when he joined our small group. "All medical teams are already on the street, recording images and preparing to identify and move the dead," he added.
"Director, I wish to add troops from Cloudsong to hunt this monster," King Devarr said when he approached us. "I have learned the value of strength in numbers," he added. "I do not want my child born into the same universe that holds such evil."
"Neither do I," Kooper said. "I will send recruiters soon. The pay is decent, and your people will receive the best of training."
Randl
He saw this, you know, I sent to Kooper. Until the big explosion, that is.
How? he asked.
The wooden spheres.
"Fuck."
"I feel the same," I said. "Will you walk with me, Director?"
"I did before. I can't argue with the outcome."
"Good. Shield yourself, it'll be cold where we're going." I transported us high up the mountain, not far from where Vik and I had gone to talk privately before.
Before.
Before so many terrible things happened. I should have expected what came, but I hadn't seen or guessed at much of it.
As the Prophet likely hadn't seen much of what I'd do in return. It was a real game of Irzu we played, with worlds as game pieces instead of colored stones.
"How high are we?" Kooper asked as I settled on the rock outcropping near the mountain's summit.
"High enough," I said, before drawing the wooden ball that I'd shielded heavily from a pocket. I didn't miss Kooper's intake of breath when he saw what I held.
"What?" he began.
"I'm going to remove the shield in a moment," I replied. "I'll have to split time again to use it, and I only have a small window to do that in. Place a strong shield about yourself, Director, and then another around me, in case this goes wrong."
Kooper stared at me in shock before closing his eyes and turning his face away. Finally, he nodded his acceptance. "I'll hope for the best," he whispered.
"Good." I waited for him to place both shields before I removed the one I held around the ball.
As I imagined, once the Prophet could sense it again, he sent power to make it explode.
I cast my energy to split time.
Who knew which of us would win this race?
Chapter Twenty-One
P'loxett
V'dar
I'd been pacing and fuming at the destruction of my army, although the mounting numbers of the dead across Campiaa were rising beautifully. Soon, I'd take stock of how many survivors I could call to my will.
The release of a thick shield around one of my devices hit me like an arrow to my brain. Without thinking and purely on reflex, I sent power to it, to detonate it.
That brief moment hung in the air for a lifetime. I saw the blast, and then it changed. Morphed into something else.
An object cleaved the distance between the sphere and me. An image caused my mind to reel with the intensity of six suns.
He was on the other end.
Randl Gage.
My sworn enemy.
I ramped up the power to increase the blast.
It hung there, balanced on the head of the smallest and sharpest of pins.
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Whispered into my mind. It was a voice I didn't recognize—a female voice. Time had stopped—I had no idea how.
I see you. Randl's voice.
V'dar.
He had my name.
I spent more power, attempting to destroy this aberrant thorn in my heel.
Time resumed.
The wooden sphere hit me in the head before detonating. I was late erecting a shield. Pain blossomed and then darkness claimed me.
Founder's Palace, Campiaa
Queen Lissa
"I can't believe it," Teeg sighed.
"I wouldn't have recognized him, except for his Thifilathi," I said. "Lexsi knows. He asked her not to tell Reah."
"How?" Teeg, who would always be my son, Gavril, asked.
/>
"Randl says Zaria and Quin did this miracle. I hadn't revisited those memories in years—they were just too painful," I admitted. "Now, when I look back on it, the circumstances are much different."
"He didn't die?"
"He was mortally wounded by his father," I sighed and tossed out a hand in confusion. "Zaria and Quin saved him."
"You still won't say his name, will you?"
"No. That name no longer exists for me." Torevik's father had gone mad at the end, and he'd committed terrible crimes as a result.
"What does Tory want to do?"
"He wants us to call him Vik. He likes his job with the ASD, so he'll keep it. He didn't ask for anything else."
"So family dinners are out of the question?"
"He didn't say that. I think we can sneak some in now and then. I haven't told Ry yet. That's where I'm going next, when we get some of this shit sorted."
"I have another press conference in a few," Teeg admitted. I could hear in his voice how much he loathed those things.
"Get Tybus to do it and come with me," I said. "Ry was hit the hardest by what happened to Tory in the past. I don't know how he'll take this."
"Dormas," Teeg said, knowing his ancient vampire assistant would hear him through several walls.
"Teeg?" Dormas poked his head in the door.
"Have Tybus handle the press conference. I have business with my mother."
"Of course." Dormas' head disappeared quickly.
"How's Randl?" Teeg asked.
"Still unconscious, although Quin and Karzac say he just doesn't want to wake up yet."
"So, no lasting damage?"
"I can't say that for certain. Word has it that he saw the Prophet clearly during that exchange, and may even know his name."
"Who gave you that information?"
"Kooper. Randl was connected with him during the entire ordeal, and Kooper is still trying to figure out exactly what happened."
"The Prophet still lives?"
"Kooper says yes, although he may have taken some damage in the exchange."
"Too bad. That would be too easy, I guess," Teeg sighed.
"Nothing has ever been easy where evil is concerned," I agreed.
MindMage: BlackWing Pirates, Book 2 Page 28