“Oh. Oh shiiitttt.”
“Adam?” I hissed into my mike. “Adam, what happened?”
Adam started to answer, but Charlotte’s high-pitched voice interrupted.
“There’s something seriously wrong with this guy,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “He looks like he has the Plague or something.”
“I seriously doubt that,” Smith said. “But my dad can heal you if he does have something communicable.”
“Maybe he has cancer,” Adam suggested. “There’s this tube hanging out the back of his neck. It looks like the one my grandma had in her chest when she was going through chemo.”
“Chemo ports don’t go in the back of a person’s neck,” Smith said.
“Well, this one is,” Adam said.
“He smells funny,” Charlotte observed.
“Like he’s sick?” Graysen asked.
“I don’t think so,” Charlotte replied uncertainly. “He’s got too much magic. I’ll have to get closer to know for sure.”
“Alright,” Graysen said. “Adam, knock him out. Whatever’s going on with him, we’ll figure it out later.”
“Um.” Adam let out a nervous little laugh. “Sir Z kind of just torched the Energy Manipulator.”
“Is he dead?” Kaira asked.
“Oh yeah. Like, really, really dead. Sir Z, you’re a beast.”
He’d barely finished speaking when magic flooded back into my system.
I staggered from the force of my power coming back all at once. If Diego hadn’t caught me, I would have been sprawled on the ground.
Slaves were running every which way, shouting to each other as the message spread that they were getting out.
“We’ve got a problem,” Yutika’s voice said over my earpiece. “There’s a door blocking all the important parts of Level 1. We’re not going to be able to get to the supply shaft to get the kids out.”
“I’ll break down the door as soon as I’m done with Diego,” I said.
“I’m not sure you’re going to be able to,” Yutika said uncertainly. “The door looks really thick.”
We’d see about that.
“Oh crap,” Yutika squeaked. “Some of those creepy Mags in cloaks are heading this way.”
“Don’t panic,” Kaira said firmly. “Come back down to Level 5. We’ll just have to use the train. It’ll take longer, but at least we won’t have to deal with the Californians.”
That was going to be a problem, since only twenty-or-so people could fit on the train at once. It was going to take way longer to empty the mine than it would have if we could have transported the kids out all at once. And that meant we had to keep a low profile for longer than we’d hoped.
The Seven were good at a lot of things. Keeping a low profile wasn’t one of them.
“No sign of Felix Remwald,” one of the crew guys announced. “If the guy actually exists, we’ve seen no sign of him.”
I chewed on my lip. Right now, the question of who was actually in charge of the mine was at the bottom of my list of concerns. In fact, aside from finding Lilly, I had no concerns at the moment.
“Kaira and Graysen,” Yutika said. “I’m sending the first batch of slaves your way.”
“We’re ready,” Graysen replied.
“I’ve got the train fired up and ready to go,” Smith said. “I think we can fit at least twenty-five of them in here at a time.”
“Okay?” Diego asked me, his lips brushing my ear.
“Yeah.” I sucked in a breath. “Let’s go.”
Diego tugged me onto an elevator that was occupied by a couple of kids with carts full of Agent S crystals. We pressed ourselves against the far handrail and kept silent so we wouldn’t be noticed.
The elevator went up to Level 2, where I’d witnessed a woman be burned alive by Agent S. The kids pushed their carts off the elevator, leaving Diego and me alone.
Alchemists and slaves were back at work, transforming solid chunks of Agent S into the usable—and deadly—liquid form. At the far end of the room, I caught sight of the titanium vault Diego had described.
Diego shifted slightly. The rough material of the huge, empty duffel bag on his shoulder brushed against me.
“How do you want to do this?” I whispered.
I could break into the vault without a problem, but as soon as I did, no amount of camouflage would hide the fact that there was thievery in progress.
Diego didn’t say anything. His breathing had gone ragged, and his hand was cold and clammy in mine.
“You’re going to have to let me get me closer if you want me to actually get the vault open,” I said irritably.
Diego swore quietly to himself in Spanish. He was holding my hand tightly enough that if I hadn’t been titanium, he’d be crushing my bones.
“Diego, what?” I demanded.
Kids with empty carts were heading toward the open elevator. If we didn’t get off now, we’d be stuck going back down with the slaves.
“I can’t do this,” he said.
“What can’t you do?” I demanded, having to raise my voice to be heard over the squeal of the elevator cables.
“I was wrong to use your niece against you to get what I wanted,” Diego said. “I’m sorry, Bri.”
I opened and closed my mouth, too startled to form a response.
“Atta boy, Diego,” A.J. said into my ear, even though Diego wouldn’t be able to hear him.
“That’s a step in the right direction, anyway,” Kaira muttered.
I asked Diego, “Aren’t you afraid I’ll go back on my word again?”
I felt his shrug. “I’m going to trust you not to dick me over. Now, let’s go get Lilly.”
“Thank you,” I managed in a choked voice.
Diego hit the button on the elevator that would bring us to Level 1. This was the only level I hadn’t been to yet. We passed through a narrow, empty hallway before we came up against a floor-to-ceiling titanium door. The door blocked me from seeing whatever was on the other side.
Yutika had been right. This door was too big and heavy for me to easily muscle through. I would attract every bad guy in the place if I tried.
Diego pressed his hand to mine. I felt the shape of a key between our palms.
“Had to steal it from one of those cloaked Mags,” he explained. “He’s a Spider and lives at the top of the elevator shaft, so I really wasn’t lying when I said I was the only one who could help you reach Lilly.”
My hand was shaking so badly Diego had to help me fit the key into the lock. We turned the key together, and the door swung inward.
I went motionless at what I saw on the other side. We were standing in a nursery.
Everything was metal, from the cradles and tiny beds, to the few toys scattered across the floor. The oldest child in the room couldn’t have been more than seven, and yet the kids who were big enough to walk were clearly in charge of caring for the babies.
The older children moved up and down the rows of metal cradles, reaching up on tiptoes to hold bottles to the babies’ mouths and change diapers. The room was oddly quiet. None of the babies cried. They had probably learned it was pointless to do so.
A few of the children looked up when the door opened. When they saw no one, they went back to work.
I whispered into my mike, “The first level is full of babies and toddlers. We’re going to need help getting them out.”
“Roger that,” Kaira replied. “We’ll be up as soon as we get the rest of the slaves on Level 5 onto the train.”
The silence in the nursery was broken when one of the kids looked down at himself. He tapped his arm, his forehead puckered in confusion. He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, and then tapped his skin again.
“Where’s my magic?” he whispered.
Now that the Energy Manipulator was gone, the rules of magic were back in play. Since I was the strongest Steel in the place, my magic cancelled out everyone else’s in the vicinity.
The other
children were trying to access their magic, to no avail. Their dirty cheeks turned red from the effort of calling on magic that wouldn’t come. Some of them made little whimpering sounds when their skin didn’t turn to metal. They didn’t understand what had happened to them, and they were terrified.
The kids all looked so distraught that I almost asked Diego to take away my camouflage so I could explain it to them. I didn’t say anything, though, because I didn’t want my presence to freak them out even more.
My friends’ chatter continued across my earpiece, but I didn’t hear a word they said. Because I had caught sight of a familiar set of hazel eyes.
I’d found Lilly.
CHAPTER 39
Lilly,” I whispered.
I almost lost my footing because my legs had turned to mush. Diego steadied me with a firm grip around my waist.
My niece had Sarah’s curly brown hair and Hammond hazel eyes. She was standing next to one of the cribs, trying to summon her magic like the rest of the older children.
“Let her see me,” I told Diego without taking my eyes off Lilly.
There was a flicker of color, and then my camouflage was gone.
The children stopped furiously tapping their non-metal skin as they noticed me. My heart stuttered at the expressions in all of their too-wide eyes. They were afraid of me.
“It’s okay,” I said quickly, wishing Michael was here to calm the kids down. Some of their faces were turning purple from how hard they were trying to reach their magic.
I locked gazes with my niece.
“Lilly,” I said, my voice breaking.
She looked at me, but not with any recognition at the sound of her own name. I saw the same fear on her face that all the other children wore. I hadn’t expected her to come running into my arms, but it was still a kick in the gut to look her in the eye and know that all she saw in me was another adult who might hurt her.
“Please,” I said, trying to hold back my emotions so I didn’t scare her any more. “We’re here to help you.”
“You’re not in trouble,” Diego said, appearing beside me.
The kids cringed away from the two of us, huddling behind metal cribs and against the metal walls.
I crouched down to make myself less threatening. When that didn’t seem to help, I blew on my fists until my magic retracted. I reached out a shaking hand toward my niece.
“Lilly,” I tried again. I pointed to my eyes and tried to give her a smile that wouldn’t terrify her. I kept my movements slow and careful, when all I wanted to do was pull her into my arms and never let go.
“I’m your family,” I told her, not sure if she would understand the words aunt or niece. “I’m going to take you home.”
It was that last word that undid me. A strangled sob escaped me.
Diego knelt beside me. At the same time, Lilly took a hesitant step closer. She pointed at my face and then tapped her tiny index finger beneath her eye.
“Yes.” A choked laugh bubbled up from my throat. Tears rolled down my cheeks, but I didn’t try to wipe them away. “Come here, love.”
Lilly took two more steps toward me and stopped. She glanced down at the floor and then back at me. The fear was back in her eyes as she hopped back.
“No, wait,” I began.
There was a soft sound of metal moving back on well-greased hinges. I followed Lilly’s gaze to an almost-invisible seam in the floor. Two metal panels slid back, revealing a hole in the ground that led to the level below.
A sleek, mechanical platform rose up from the lower level. The platform stopped once it was perfectly aligned with the floor of the nursery. All the children pressed themselves away from the center of the room as three people stepped off the platform.
The room filled with magic…far more than three Mags should have between them.
Two of the Mags were wearing cloaks like the Energy Manipulator. Their faces were shadowed, and there was a strange wrongness to their magic. It felt slimy.
The man standing between the two cloaked figures wore a black suit, black shirt and tie, and black patent leather shoes. The only part of his attire that wasn’t black was a silver chain around his neck. Three keys dangled from the chain and stood out against his solid black shirt. His hair and goatee were pure white, but other than his hair color, he was a dead ringer for the photo Smith had plastered on our wall.
“Felix Remwald,” I said. “So, you didn’t die in that Detroit massacre then, did you?”
My friends’ voices filled my earpiece, but I tuned them out. All of my attention was focused on the three people standing between me and Lilly.
“I’ve kept that secret from everyone except my inner circle for fifteen years,” Felix said, his voice disturbingly similar to his actually-dead brother’s. He gave me a curious look. “How did you figure it out?”
Beside me, Diego blurred out of sight. There was a whoosh of air, and then Felix was stumbling backward.
I took that as my cue. I darted around the group.
“Lilly,” I called, as the children cowered deeper into their corner. Before I made it another step, something lashed out at me.
I dove, but the barbed, metallic rope followed me. It fastened around my waist and yanked me back with so much force I slammed into the metal door.
I leapt to my feet in time to see that what I’d thought was a rope made out of metal was actually a tail. It shot out of one cloaked figure’s backside, expanding and retracting.
That was some messed up magic. I blew on my fists and got ready to brawl.
The tail snapped back across the room, curling around a spot directly in front of Felix. Diego shimmered back into view, groaning as he struggled in vain against the metal tail. Blood dripped onto the floor as the barbs cut into his skin.
“Let him go,” I shouted, throwing the full force of my body at the Mag with a tail.
As we collided, the wrongness of his magic washed over me again. I shoved him with all of my strength. His tail unwound from Diego as the Mag sailed away from me. The Mag crashed through the open doorway. He let out a bloodcurdling screech as his momentum carried him into the empty elevator shaft.
“Get Lilly,” I ordered Diego as I ran to meet the next obstacle in my path.
“Bri.” Diego caught my arm. “They’re like me. They’re Super Mags.”
I didn’t give a shit what they were.
“Lilly,” I told him. And then I attacked the other cloaked Mag.
Instead of coming up against flesh and bone, my fist struck…water.
The man’s chest rippled and dissolved at the place where my fist had connected.
What the—
I didn’t have a chance to finish the thought. The cloaked man transformed into a puddle on the flood, sucking me down with him.
I had no idea what kind of magic this was, but I was helpless against it. I plunged head-first into inky water that surrounded and engulfed me. It rose up around me, rippling and undulating. No matter which direction I tried to move, the water just clung to me.
There was no surface, no bottom to push up from, and no way out of the darkness.
I was drowning.
My lungs were burning. If the water hadn’t already been pitch-black, my vision would be going dark. I was going to die here.
Strong, solid arms closed around me, drawing me up and out of the watery depths.
I coughed and blinked water from my eyes.
“Breath, cariño.”
Diego.
“Get Lilly,” I choked.
We were hovering near the ceiling, looking down as the puddle of black water reformed into a cloaked man.
“That is enough.” Felix’s cold voice cut through the room like a knife. He snapped his fingers at the children, who were whimpering. They fell silent. Even the babies in their cribs stopped wriggling.
I saw red.
“Don’t,” Diego said, wrapping his arms around my waist.
I wrenched free, my mind empty of e
verything except Lilly. But Felix knew where I was heading and got there first. A soft cry came from me as Felix strode over to Lilly. He yanked her roughly to her feet.
“No,” I gasped.
“You look too young to be her mother.” Felix offered me a cruel smile as he held Lilly. “An older sister, perhaps?”
“My niece, asshole.”
I wanted nothing more than to tear her away from him at that very second, but he had both his arms wrapped around her, and his water Super Mag was standing between us. There was no way Diego or I could get to Lilly faster than Felix could hurt her.
“I am not cruel without purpose,” Felix told me, his shrewd gaze tracking my every move. “So long as you never return to the mine or reveal my existence to anyone, your niece will survive.”
A harsh laugh barked out of me. “What about all those children you buried in the tomb? Did you promise to keep them alive, too?”
“I did not,” Felix replied. “With the difficult nature of the work here, deaths are inevitable. I would use adults if I could, but to my deepest regret, infant Steels are easiest to disappear from the world above without prompting questions.”
I took a step closer. The water Mag moved with me. His cloaked arms turned to rippling water and split off into tendrils that hovered menacingly in front of my niece.
Lilly closed her eyes and turned her face into Felix’s sleeve.
“Okay.” I put up my hands in surrender and backed up.
The rest of the Seven had to be on their way. They could hear everything that was happening through my mike. Where were they?
“You look familiar,” Felix said.
I stiffened, but he wasn’t talking to me. His attention was fixed on Diego.
“Can’t imagine why,” Diego said cautiously, like he was expecting some kind of trap.
Felix shrugged, like it didn’t matter to him either way. He kept Lilly firmly against him as he backed up. With the hand that he didn’t have locked on Lilly’s arm, he fumbled at the wall. He pressed some invisible button, and then a panel was sliding back.
“No,” I began, as Felix disappeared behind the wall with my niece. Felix barked out a harsh command, and then the rest of the Steel children who were big enough to walk followed. The wall panel slid back into place behind them.
Steel for 5 (Mags & Nats Book 3) Page 27