11
I stared at the chaos stone, my thoughts spinning as I attempted to puzzle out the mystery of Henry’s involvement in the Atlantea Project. There was no other explanation—the Custodes Veritatis had to have been the driving force behind the project. They must have recognized the composition of the meteor for what it was as soon as it was fished out of the Bering Sea, orichalcum, and they must have encouraged CERN scientists to explore ways that the novel element could be used as a power source.
I glanced over my shoulder, watching Fiona type furiously at the control station near the edge of the lab for a moment, then returned my attention to the chaos stone. The second the EM field was down, we were out of here.
The thing that really confused me about the Order’s involvement in the Atlantea Project was why they would push for the creation of something so dangerous. Something Henry had to have known was dangerous. I hadn’t read through the entirety of the Liber Veritatis, the book that functioned as the abridged compendium of all the Order’s knowledge and history, but I had read enough to know that the Order’s leaders were aware of the general cause of the fall of our people—the Tsakali and their endless hunger for chaos stones. There had to be something I was missing because I could not, for the life of me, figure out why they would purposely risk drawing the Tsakali here.
Suddenly the world seemed to dim, the air becoming uncomfortably fuzzy, and I could no longer sense Fiona behind me or even Meg’s presence hovering on the edges of my mind. For the first time since it had been established, our bond was gone. The absence was as devastating as if I’d lost a limb.
“What the hell?” Fiona grumbled.
“No, no, no . . .” I glanced down at my regulator, not surprised to see that the stone didn’t glow at all—no electric blue, no amber, nothing but a clear, colorless gemstone. The channels running the length of my hoplon suite had gone dark as well. I drew my doru but couldn’t extend the staff to its full length without access to my internal reserves of psychic energy. Only one thing could affect my psychic powers like this—being surrounded by an electromagnetic field.
I spun around. “Fiona, please tell me you did something to the EM field . . .”
Fiona paused her forceful punching of the same key over and over to look at me. Her lips were pressed together in a thin, bloodless line that told me I wasn’t the only one screwed over by the new, larger EM field. “The damn thing froze, and then it just shut off,” she said, her voice rising in pitch with each successive word.
The double doors swung inward, and Fiona ducked down behind the control station as at least a dozen armed soldiers filed into the lab, fanning out along the curved wall. These were no UN guards; these were Custodes Veritatis soldiers, and every single one held an assault rifle that was aimed at me.
I raised my hands over my head, my retracted doru held in a tight grip. Hatred narrowed my eyes to a glare as one final person strolled into the lab, his tailored charcoal suit standing in stark contrast to his soldiers’ armored black tactical gear. Henry Magnusson had joined the party.
I turned all my attention on the douchebag threatening not only the survival of my people but of his own people, as well.
Henry peered around the room, taking in the positions of all his soldiers, and then his stare landed on me, catching me red-handed by the chaos stone. He moved closer, each of his steps echoing around the too-still room but stopped well out of reach. His lips curved into a cruel, closed-mouth smile. “Hello again, ancient one.”
I ground my molars together, fighting the urge to curse at him as my fingers itched to close around his throat. “What did you do?” I ground out.
Henry clasped his hands behind his back. “What needed to be done,” he said, his lilting Scandinavian accent grating on my nerves. “If you and your people don't want to share your technology, we'll find someone else who will.”
“We never said we wouldn’t share our technology,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm and even. “We said we wouldn’t hand over what remains of our people.”
“Tomato, tomato,” Henry said, his eyes sparkling with a challenge. “The Security Council and I are more than willing to negotiate with Hades if he finds himself in a more cooperative mood. If not . . .” Henry shrugged one shoulder. “There are other ways to get what we need.”
“You don’t need alien technology,” I scoffed. “Besides, the Tsakali aren’t going to share theirs with you anyway, you moron. They’re going to destroy you.” I gestured to the chaos stone behind me with a violent jerk of my free hand. “You rang the dinner bell. No turning back now.”
A wicked grin curved Henry’s thin lips. “Didn’t you ever wonder why the Tsakali were so hellbent on destroying the Olympians?”
“They want our chaos stones,” I said, my voice cold. “They need them to survive, and they don’t know how to make them themselves.”
Henry narrowed his eyes and raised one hand, tapping his index finger against his lips. “Ah,” he mused, “but if that were true wouldn't it have made more sense for the Tsakali to bargain with the Olympians instead of destroying them? To strike a deal wherein Olympus was turned into a chaos stone factory? To enslave their enemy into serving their needs?”
I was quiet for a long moment as my mind worked through the possible implications of his questions. “The Tsakali don't make deals,” I told him. “All they care about is consuming. Possessing. Destroying.”
“They don’t make deals at all?” Henry asked, cocking his head to the side. The amusement sparkling in his eyes told me I was playing right into his hand.
I clenched my jaw.
“Or do they only not make deals with Olympians?” Henry continued, frowning. His exaggerated expression told me not only that he found this question immensely fascinating, but that he already knew the answer. “Ask Hades about it, why don't you?”
He turned and started slowly pacing around the lab, stopping when he reached the opposite side of the column holding the suspended chaos stone. “It is truly wondrous, is it not?” he asked, gazing at the writhing, glowing mass of energy. “Too bad you can't get to it. How does it feel to be powerless, like the rest of us?” His focus shifted past the chaos stone to me. “We embedded an EM field generator into the walls just for you, you know. What an honor.”
I let out a hollow, bitter laugh. “You think stripping me of my psychic abilities makes me powerless?” I smirked. “That’s adorable.”
Without warning, I chucked my doru at a soldier standing across the lab, momentarily directing the attention of the room away from me, then dove for the nearest soldier, using his body as a shield when the others opened fire on me. The hoplon suit would still protect me from the brunt of the force of the bullets, but without psychic energy reinforcing the armored fabric, it was no longer impenetrable. I felt a twinge of guilt for taking the soldier’s life, but he had chosen this path. Besides, what was one life when compared to the fate of everyone, Earth-born and Olympian, residing on this planet?
The sound of all the gunfire in the enclosed space was deafening, but my human shield proved most effective. I took out five more soldiers with his rifle, and two fell victim to friendly fire, before one tackled me into the wall. The borrowed assault rifle flew from my hands and slid across the floor, well out of reach. The endless gunfire had stopped, and the four remaining soldiers were taking a more cautious, strategic approach to subduing me.
I grappled with the soldier who had tackled me, my main focus keeping his body between me and the remaining rifles, or I would have had him disarmed and disabled in a matter of seconds, adrenaline making up for whatever I still lacked in stamina and strength. I managed to drag the soldier up to his feet and back myself against the wall, holding him in front of me with the length of his assault rifle pressed across his throat, cutting off his air supply. Another soldier guarded Henry with his body on the far side of the central column, another slowly snuck closer to me along the wall, and the last—
I shot
a panicked look around the room. I had lost track of the fourth remaining soldier.
She popped up from behind the control station, dragging a clawing and kicking Fiona with her. The soldier drew her sidearm and pressed it against Fiona’s temple, and my friend instantly fell still.
I stared at the pair, breathing hard as the struggles of the soldier in my arms weakened. “Leave her alone,” I demanded.
“Such weakness,” Henry said, tutting. “And such predictability.” He strode out from behind the column and the soldier protecting him. “Surrender, or the girl dies.”
I looked from Henry to Fiona and back. And then I released my hold on the assault rifle and let the soldier drop to his knees in front of me, retching and gasping for breath. Completely unarmed, I raised my hands over my head and stepped over the soldier on the floor. The sneaking soldier straightened and pulled a zip tie out from one of the many pockets in her pants, and I lowered my arms, pressing my wrists together behind my back and turning away from her. After the first zip tie was secured, she added two more for good measure.
“There now,” Henry said, wandering closer, exuding haughty pleasantness. “That wasn't so hard, was it?” He stopped just out of arm’s reach. I still could have taken him out, but not without risking Fiona’s life, and that was something I wasn’t willing to do.
I glared at Henry, imagining wrapping my legs around his head and snapping his neck with a twisting jerk of my body.
Henry gestured to the double doors and raised his eyebrows in invitation. “Shall we?”
The woman who had secured my restraints took hold of my elbow and pushed me toward the doors. The soldier detaining Fiona had shifted her sidearm to Fiona’s back in preparation for following us out.
“Sorry,” Fiona mouthed as I passed her.
I shook my head, flashing her a weak smile. This wasn’t over. There was still a way. There was still Meg.
As soon as I passed through the double doors, the fuzzy quality to the air vanished, and the channels running the length of my hoplon suit flared amber. My regulator, too, was alight with a subtle amber glow, and Meg’s presence flared to life in my mind. My psychic gifts were suppressed, but at least they were there. It was a far cry better than the psychic void created by the EM field.
Stay hidden, I told Meg, not that she needed the direction. I could sense her lurking around the corner of the hallway, hiding under an illusion of invisibility.
The soldier restraining me guided me up the hallway, around the security terminal, and back out into the lobby, the others following behind us. When we emerged through the main door to the outside, she pulled me off to the side of the walkway to wait for Henry, giving me a chance to take in the altered scene surrounding the Atlantea Project.
A veritable army of Order soldiers spread out around the building, and a tank idled on the edge of the parking lot, the gun aimed at the building’s main door. I watched as the gun slowly adjusted to the right, following me.
Fiona and her detainer exited next, followed by the remaining two soldiers who had survived the encounter in the lab, the man I had nearly choked to death with his own rifle looking the worse for wear. Henry emerged last, his expression all smug satisfaction.
My lip curled in a silent snarl, and I pulled at my restraints, wanting nothing more than to claw my nails across his face.
A loud thwump snapped my attention out to the parking lot. A moment later, the tank exploded, sending the soldiers who had been stationed nearest the war machine flying and forcing those around me to the ground. I felt the concussion, but thanks to my hoplon suit, it didn’t knock me down. My ears rang from the massive boom though, and I blinked to clear the smoke and dust from my eyes as debris rained down all around me.
Heartbeats later, when the smoke cleared, I spotted my mom out in the parking lot, about halfway between the remains of the demolished tank and our cloaked ship. She was down on one knee, reloading an honest-to-god rocket launcher, channeling her inner Sarah Connor. I had never been happier to see her in my life.
Raiden and Emi stood off to one side of my mom, Hades to the other. They were armed to the teeth with an array of human and Olympian weapons, ranging from assault rifles to laser pistols. Every single weapon was trained on Henry, who was just climbing to his feet after being knocked down by the blast.
“Let them go, Henry,” my mom said as she finished reloading the rocket launcher and aimed the devastating weapon at her archnemesis. “Maybe your people could take out one or two of us, but you won't get us all before we get you.”
Taking advantage of the attention being off me, for the moment, I gritted my teeth and wrenched my arms backward and up, dislocating my left shoulder. I hissed in a breath, pushing through the searing pain, and pulled my zip-tied wrists over my head. Thankfully, my shoulder joint popped back into place as soon as my arms were in front of me. Hastily, I deactivated my regulator, and my psychic gifts flared to life.
“Sir!” the soldier who had restrained me cried out, but she was too late.
With a single, focused thought, I raised my bound wrists, wincing at the sharp pain in my injured shoulder, and jerked my hands closer to me, seizing all the weapons held by Order soldiers and ripping them from their grasps. My shoulder screamed in pain, but I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t, not until we were free and the chaos stone was ours. A hoarse scream burst from my chest as I dug deep into my reserves of psychic energy and tore the weapons apart.
Stunned stares followed me as I hurried over to Fiona, who was still huddled on the ground, and helped her up to her feet. Huddled together, we followed the path leading from the building to the parking lot, and not a single Order soldier tried to stop us.
“You can kill us all,” Henry called after us, “but we will never drop the EM field, and you'll never get your precious chaos stone.” I could practically hear the spittle flying from his lips.
“Keep them distracted,” I told my mom when we reached her and the others.
My mom nodded, the corner of her mouth lifting. She sucked in a breath to hurtle taunts Henry’s way, feeding fuel into his manic tirade.
Raiden pulled a combat knife from the sheath strapped to his thigh and cut through the ties on my wrist. “How’s your shoulder?”
“I’ll heal,” I said, compartmentalizing the pain.
I crouched down, planting my right hand on the asphalt and closing my eyes, seeking out the lines of electricity feeding power into the Atlantea Project building. Once I found them, I sought out the backup generators in the basement level. Digging deep, I severed the lines that connected the building to all its power sources. The EM field couldn’t operate without power.
Psychic energy surged out of me, draining me completely, and I fell forward onto my hands and knees, my head hanging. My shoulder screamed in pain.
A supportive arm curved around my middle, keeping me from collapsing completely. Raiden. A tiny smile curved my lips. He was always there when I needed him most.
I opened my eyes and raised my head just in time to see Meg walk out of the building behind Henry, the chaos stone hovering between her outstretched hands in front of her.
Henry’s mouth fell open, and he stumbled out of the way as Meg passed him.
I grinned, drawing in a ragged breath. “Checkmate, asshole.”
12
We hurried back to the Argo and raised the loading ramp as soon as everyone was inside the ship. Injured arm tucked close to my body, I activated my regulator, suppressing my psychic senses, and watched the chaos unfolding in front of the Atlantea Project building until the opening at the back of the ship was too small to see much of anything. My last view of Henry was of him gesturing wildly and shouting at the soldiers around him.
Smiling to myself, I turned away from the loading ramp. Hushed but expectant silence filled the space. My mom, Raiden, Emi, and Fiona stood off to the left, huddled together as they watched Hades and Meg on the opposite side of the ship. Hades was holding open a one-foot sq
uare orichalcum containment cube while Meg carefully lowered the volatile chaos stone into the compartment. The cube was made for this specific purpose, the inner lining emitting a self-contained EM field that would cradle the chaos stone in a safe environment during transport.
Hades closed the lid on the containment cube, and it let out a hiss of air as it sealed. He placed the cube in a storage compartment under the floor, sent a quick glance my way, then headed up to the seats at the front and reclaimed his place at the helm. I followed him but didn’t sit; instead, I leaned as far forward as possible without smooshing my face against the windshield to watch more of the scene outside.
Within a matter of seconds, we were in the air, and I stared out the window until the Atlantea Project building was so small that it looked like a toy and the individual people were impossible to see.
At the sound of laughter, light and bubbly, I turned around, leaning my hip against the side of the empty seat.
Fiona slapped a hand over her mouth, but the laughter burst out anyway. “I’m sorry!” she exclaimed, doubling over, one arm hugging her middle, the other propped against the side of the ship.
My mom’s lips twitched, and a chuckle tickled my chest. Raiden grinned like a goofball, Meg’s shoulders shook with silent laughter, and even serious, stoic Emi wore a tight-lipped smile. Hades glanced over his shoulder, his expression telling me he thought we were all nuts.
“We’re alive!” Fiona gasped between bouts of uncontrollable laughter. She snorted, waving a hand in front of her as she tried to catch her breath, then collapsed onto the bench seat lining the left side of the ship. “I almost can’t believe it,” she said once her laughter had died down. She wiped under her eyes, looking my way. “I thought for sure we were goners when you surrendered . . .”
I crossed the ship and sank onto the bench seat to sit beside her. I shook my head, laughing under my breath. It had been close. Once I had seen the army Henry had gathered, I had feared we were done for, too.
Dreams of the Damned Page 8