by Kat Cotton
The glass from the doors turned liquid and gushed over the marble floors.
Nice alchemy.
I flung myself out the hole where the door had been. Too easy.
Except, hells.
The glass had dissolved, but there was something there, something stopping me from escaping. An invisible barrier.
Lycra Shorts laughed. “Do you think we’re stupid?”
I didn’t want to answer that.
I turned to Philbert. He shrugged, but shrugging was not nearly good enough. We were fucked. I needed more than a shrug. This glass-dissolving trick had been our secret weapon.
“Clementine, please, do what they say. You can’t escape this situation, and you’re only making things difficult for yourself,” the mayor pleaded. “I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“Get her!” Gone to Seed called to the troopers. “We want her alive. It doesn’t matter so much about the vampire.”
“Hey, you promised me the alchemist.” The mayor didn’t sound nearly so pleady now.
Gone to Seed snorted. “You said you could make the girl cooperate.”
The mayor had said that? About me? He was so full of himself.
As the troopers closed in on us, I knew there was only one way out of this. We had to kill the lot of them. There were only about fifty or so. Normally, I wasn’t so big on killing humans, but this was kill or be killed. Maybe worse than being killed. No time for moral dilemmas. Not with my life on the line.
I grabbed my knife out of my waistband.
About ten troopers came at me.
I rushed forward, trying to keep my footing on the slippery marble floor. I swiped at them, but it’s not so easy killing humans. You think you can do it but something inside you stops the killer instinct. Surely that proved I was human.
As I fought, I saw Nic and Kisho coming through the security gates on the other side of the lobby. Idiots. Why weren’t they with Fleur? This was no place for them. Not here with all these troopers.
Those damn fools risked being killed.
Chapter 45 Battle
DIDN’T PHILBERT HAVE any more tricks? If he did, he wasn’t using them. He did manage to incapacitate a few of those troopers, though. The guy wasn’t all useless air muscles. He could fight. But we needed miracles.
Nic and Kisho flew into action before the troopers could realize they were in the lobby. They took out a few of them.
Then Philbert launched another of his smoke bombs across the lobby. It didn’t have the same surprise factor as the first one, but the smoke made it harder for the troopers to see us. I hit the floor, hoping to crawl through the smoke and make it to the reception desk. Maybe from there we could escape through the security gates and get out of here somehow. In this lobby, we were like fish in a barrel. Way too easy to target.
As I crawled, one of the troopers grabbed my arms. Hell, he had me pinned.
I kicked out, panic rushing through me. I must’ve hit something, because he loosened his grip.
Even if I got free from one of them, there were so many more to take his place. Killing wasn’t an option, damn it. I just couldn’t do it. Maybe Baldy—I could kill him, but not these troopers. And Baldy was nowhere to be seen.
Before the smoke cleared completely, I got up into a squat run, hoping to cover the distance to the desk. At least behind that desk, I’d have some cover and I wouldn’t be so vulnerable.
Two of the troopers swooped at me, one on each side. I tried to hold them off. I’d been trained by the Council, but so had they. I punched, and they ducked. I kicked, and they dodged. They anticipated my moves, and they were bigger and stronger. I couldn’t keep this up for long. What with all the running and hiding earlier today, I wasn’t at full capacity.
But then, I fought dirty, and they didn’t. And I had solid metal cuffs on my wrists. I’d make the Council regret that.
I flung my arm out, smashing the trooper on my left across the face. The cuff hit with a sickening thud. Broken nose? The blood gushing from his face said yes.
My body pumped with adrenaline as I turned to the other trooper. I swung again. He tried to duck, but not fast enough.
Success. He went down, clutching his face.
I only had to put minimal effort into fighting with these cuffs, and those bastards went down. So long as they stayed down, I might have a chance.
Blood covered the marble floor now, mixing with the water. That would be a bitch to clean. I rushed the final steps to the desk, my feet slipping on the floor.
Nic hurled himself across the space between us, joining me.
“Hey, Clem Starr. Enjoying the fight?”
The two of us stood back-to-back.
“Fleur’s okay?” I asked.
“She’s free.”
A trooper rushed at me. I grabbed the computer chair and rammed it into him. He fell backwards, but that wouldn’t keep him down for long.
I ducked down, assessing the situation from behind the safety of the desk.
Philbert had climbed onto that solid coffee table, grappling with one of the troopers. Baldy might’ve said to kill him, but he hadn’t considered that vampires don’t die that easily. Kisho thrashed in the thick of battle, striking out at the troopers around him so fast, they could barely see him coming. He knocked one to the ground, then spun around, kicking out at another.
Even if we were at risk, I loved watching him fight.
Something crashed. Glass shattered. For a second, everybody froze.
Philbert had flung that huge vase of lilies across the foyer. The vase had smashed on the floor, spraying glass everywhere. Heavy perfume filled the air. I wasn’t sure what his purpose had been, except maybe wanton destruction and giving some of the troopers a bad case of hay fever.
After a collective gasp, the troopers went back to fighting.
Then Philbert did something. I didn’t see what, but all those lily flowers rose up into the air. Each flower grew and twisted, morphing into shapes that were beautiful yet terrifying.
“Look at this,” I said to Nic.
I watched in amazement. The flowers had become enormous, floating in the cavernous space near the ceiling.
Most of the troopers turned their faces upward. They’d never see anything like this again.
Those flowers seemed to dance in the air. Another pretty trick that would do no lasting good, but it was a pretty distraction. Philbert, he might say he was all about the science, but he was no more than a stage magician.
But then the flowers floated back down, opening and closing. As they got closer to the floor, the stamen of each flower began to writhe, reaching out like giant tentacles. Those tentacles searched out the troopers, twisting around their bodies and roping them in. Most of the troopers became bound by the lilies.
A few ran, some hid. About ten remained standing.
Time to split.
But before Nic and I could move, the remaining troopers rushed forward in a mass. All focused on a single target.
Kisho.
He kicked and punched, but there were too many of them. They surrounded him. As he fought one off, more attacked from behind. And Nic and I were too slow to help.
Fuck. We should’ve kept him closer to us.
One of those troopers had a stake, and he held it close to Kisho’s heart.
“Get your hands off my boyfriend,” I screamed.
“Nic! Clem! Run!” Kisho screamed back.
Yeah, like we’d do that.
“We’re stopped playing around, Ms. Starr.” Baldy’s voice echoed from somewhere above me. “You want him back, give yourself up.”
I had no choice. I had to save Kisho.
Chapter 46 Star
NIC GRABBED HOLD OF me. “Kisho can look after himself,” he said.
But we both knew that was a lie. The Council would have no qualms about killing Kisho. He was nothing to them. At least I had something of value. They’d keep me alive.
I shook Nic off and walked out int
o the middle of the room. Around me, the giant lilies fluttered. I wasn’t sure how long they’d hold. It seemed like some of the troopers had gotten loose already. I rushed for Kisho, but the troopers backed away with him.
“Okay,” I said. “But let him go.”
Baldy just laughed. If he double-crossed me, I’d kill him. They were going to do that—I knew it. Bastards. I wanted to kill the lot of them now. Anything for Kisho. But I couldn’t even get near him.
“Focus, Clem,” Philbert said.
Yeah, right. That weird power he kept talking about—that would save me. I didn’t think so. If I had access to powers like that, why hadn’t they shown up at other life-threatening moments?
And how the hell could I focus in the middle of this chaos?
The troopers hadn’t let go of Kisho. More them came at me as they broke free from the lilies. All our fighting, and we’d barely made a dent in their numbers.
“What the hell do you guys want, anyway?” I called out. “Let Kisho free!”
Baldy didn’t answer, but someone—I think it was Gone to Seed—laughed.
“Clem, you need to focus.” Philbert wasn’t helping, and, to be honest, he shouldn’t be calling attention to himself. The Council wanted him too.
“I have no focus,” I said. “I have a whole lot of nothing.”’
“Go into that nothing,” he said. “I’ll hold them back, but I can only do it for a minute or so.”
That was why the troopers hadn’t grabbed me. It was like a force field formed around me. Everything became quiet, frozen. There was only Philbert’s voice.
“Relax. Inhale.”
Was the dude a freakin’’ yoga instructor? Next thing he’d have me doing the lotus position in the middle of this battle.
“Free yourself from those thoughts, Clem. Let them wash through you. Stop resisting.”
I wasn’t resisting.
Oh, hell, yeah, I was. Everything in me resisted what he said. I clung onto the threads of my human life. I never wanted to let go of them, but as the calm words washed over me, those threads slipped through my fingers. I couldn’t cling to them, as much as I wanted to.
Was he thralling me? Hypnotizing me, maybe?
Those thoughts flowed away with the rest of it.
No one had explained exactly what these special powers were. I had no idea what to even expect. But I felt it. The power within me. It wasn’t a violent surge, like when I’d borrowed the Vampire King’s powers. A shimmery nothingness poured through me, an energy, but it wasn’t intense or strange. It had always been there, but I’d tamped it down. The sensation seemed like the fragments I sometimes remembered when waking from a dream.
It felt… nice.
Then something rumbled. Around me, the air swirled and churned and grew thicker. Not like regular air, but a gas. A whirling gas.
I recoiled, and the swirling stopped.
“Focus, Clem. I can’t hold them much longer.”
The warm feeling flooded back. I could do this. I wasn’t sure what this was, but I could do it.
The air swirled again. The rumbling increased. I needed to put all my focus on Kisho. I’d get him away from those troopers.
The walls of the building rattled as though an earthquake rocked the ground. Philbert’s power wavered. The forcefield couldn’t hold. But I no longer needed it. I had something stronger.
The troopers moved, but I drew Kisho to me. Nic too. We all needed to get out of here before the building collapsed. I wasn’t sure how I was doing it, but the swirling air wrapped around them, sweeping the troopers away. Holding everything back but Nic and Kisho.
Nic grabbed hold of my hand. “We need to run. Now.”
That was stating the obvious.
I might be controlling this, but I wasn’t sure how long it would last or what the consequences would be.
The lights flickered.
“Get them!” Baldy bellowed.
They couldn’t get me.
Alarms rang out through the building. The barrier that had prevented us from getting out the doors crumbled. As we ran through the lobby, the sprinklers in the ceiling went off, spraying the room with water.
We made it out of the building and onto the street. Philbert followed close behind us.
The façade of the Council building began to crack, but even if that building crumbled, it wouldn’t stop them from hunting us down. It might give them bigger things to worry about for a while, though.
We pelted down the streets, weaving around people. Not even the smell of cake in the air swayed me. I nearly knocked down a girl taking a selfie, sending her and her stupid selfie stick flying. I rushed through a couple of group photos. A stupid couple walking arm-in-arm got in my way. I shot around them. Yikes, too many tourists, too many people selling dumb shit. My feet slammed against the cobblestones. I couldn’t run much more.
“You can do it,” Philbert said. “Dig deeper.”
I’d dig him deeper. But as he said it, a weight lifted. I picked up my pace.
“The fruit shop,” he said.
We ran to the fruit shop. Philbert lead us now, rushing through the shop as fruit tumbled to the ground behind us. The owner screamed curses at us, but Philbert opened a back door and rushed down a flight of narrow stairs. We were back in the underground passages.
Maybe we’d make it.
Chapter 47 Fleeing
“YOU ARE DEFINITELY not human, Clem Starr,” Nic said as we ran through the passageway.
For once, I didn’t want to punch him. He was right: I wasn’t completely human. I had to accept that. Something huge had shifted inside of me. I’d need to process that at some point, but not now. Not while we were running for our lives.
We followed Philbert. It didn’t take long. There’d been no doors to open. We’d had to leave his rooms in this underground world open so that Fleur and the others could get back in.
I just had to get these cuffs off, and I could flee this city. I had no idea where we’d go or what we’d do, but the future could take care of itself. The main thing was to escape the Council.
My heart lightened. The end was in sight.
The first step was to get to Fleur. Fleur had all the answers. She could remove these damn cuffs, and then I’d really be free.
We got to that cozy room. Fleur laid on the sofa. Fern sat by her side, holding her hand. One look at Fleur was enough to know that she didn’t have the strength to help. If she’d looked drained when I tried to free her from the lab, that was nothing compared to how she looked now.
The damn Council—what had they done to her? She’d aged twenty years in just the short time she’d been in their power.
Fern pressed a glass of water to Fleur’s lips, but Fleur couldn’t even manage to drink, and most of the water ran down her chin. Tarragon handed Fern a handkerchief.
Fern looked up at me, about to say something. I only needed one glance at the unshed tears in her eyes. I waved my hand. She could save talking for later. She had to focus all her efforts on Fleur.
“What did you actually do, there?” Kisho asked.
“You think I know? I just focused, like Philbert said, and things went a bit crazy. I don’t know how. All I know is that we got out of there. It’s never happened to me before.”
Nic grinned. “It was pretty cool. All that swirling, and the pretty lights.”
Pretty lights? I hadn’t seen any pretty lights.
“How long will this cuff thing work, anyway?” I asked Philbert.
“I honestly don’t know. Not long enough.”
“But they can’t track me down here, can they? Before, the cuffs didn’t work underground. There’s something that blocks them, right?”
Philbert scratched his head. “I’m not really sure about that. I didn’t want to say too much, but I think that could’ve been you.”
That wasn’t what he’d said before.
“Huh? No way. If I could do that, I’d have done it all along. You think I l
et them zap me because I liked it?”
“Not so much. When you were escaping from the Council, you had a singular focus. You didn’t have room in your mind for anything but running. You were in complete darkness. It’s a funny thing, the human mind. We haven’t even begun to tap the potential.”
Yeah, I had the potential to tune out his boring talk. I didn’t want the science of this. I wanted to get these cuffs off. And I needed that done before Philbert’s magic wore off.
I paced the tiny room. I couldn’t sit down and relax. We all seemed piled on top of each other in a way too small space.
“Can the Council get in here?” I asked. “Can they get underground? There were all those locks and thing. I needed to use the ring…”
“Most of the locks have been reclosed, but, unfortunately, even I don’t know the full extent of these tunnels. There might be other entrances.”
“But the Council don’t know them, right? They couldn’t get in here until I opened the entrance with the ring. What I’m saying, Philbert, is are we sitting ducks in this little room? Are they going to swarm down here and fuck our shit up?”
“It’s unlikely.”
“‘Unlikely’ isn’t the odds I want.”
I didn’t want to say the words, but I needed to ask how long it’d be before Fleur had the strength to remove my cuffs. I didn’t want to look insensitive to her suffering, but would it be hours? Days? Weeks?
She barely had the energy to blink. There had to be something that would give her strength. Iron supplements, chicken soup, something. Couldn’t Philbert use his philosopher’s stone magic?
I looked at my wrists. I wanted to smash those cuffs against the wall. I couldn’t come this far only to be reeled back in by the Council.
Fleur coughed, and I looked at Nic. I still didn’t say anything, but I bit into my bottom lip, trying to contain my frustration.
“It’s too late,” Fern said, her voice thin and drawn out.
Huh? Too late for what?
Then Fern gave an ungodly wail. That wail cut through me. Philbert rushed to Fleur’s side and grabbed her wrist, checking her pulse.