by Wyatt Kane
Judging by the screen, they were right on top of the demoness.
“Where?” Tempest asked.
Ty understood her uncertainty. A building like that could have hundreds of floors. Lilith could have been on any of them.
But Ty had thought of that as well. He tilted the screen, and all of a sudden, the light that was Lilith sprang apart from the other two.
Lilith was a hundred yards away, beneath them.
39: In The Basement
Tempest and Ty hovered in the air with the massive building in front of them. The blonde superhero had glanced at Ty’s tracker and knew what it meant.
“The basement?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Ty replied. When flying, Tempest held onto Ty from behind. He felt her nod and also sensed an increase of tension within her that could have been excitement. This could be their chance, Ty knew, to end this. And that suited him perfectly. He was tired of simply reacting to attacks. He wanted to bring the fight to the Master and have it finished once and for all.
“Are you ready for this?” Tempest asked. It had become her habit to ask him this before doing something dangerous.
Over the past few days, he had been involved in numerous battles against the Master’s men. He had been shot at, tangled up in a net, and attacked by armed mercenaries in his own apartment. Lilith herself had dropped him from a great height, had blinked him out of existence more than once, and knocked him off his feet.
His body still ached as a result of Lilith’s use of her power against him.
Nor was he immune to the danger. Maybe one day he would get used to it, but if so, that day was a long way away. Ty was feeling excited as they hovered in front of the building, but also anxious as well. His heart was starting to pound, and his breathing was shallow.
Ty knew that there might be an entire army waiting for them. But that was why he had upgraded his shield. He wanted to get on with it, to use his nervous energy.
He wanted this to be done.
“Yes. Let’s do this,” he said, and activated his shield in the same breath.
It was all Tempest needed. She swiftly circled the building, looking for an entry, and came in to land around the back next to a loading bay.
As Ty regained his balance, he looked about. But the loading bay was empty, closed for the night, the entrance blocked by a metal security shutter that was padlocked in place. It was unguarded, and if there were security cameras about, he couldn’t see them.
Tempest didn’t even hesitate. She walked up to the security shutter and would have ripped a hole through it. But Ty held out a hand.
“Wait,” he said.
The blonde superhero gave him a puzzled look, but Ty didn’t explain. He wanted to test out his enhancements for real rather than simply accepting the data readouts.
He gave Tempest a grin. First, he tucked his tracking device away in a pocket. Then he peered through the gaps in the security shutter, but could see nothing to worry about within. Finally, he reached down to the heavy padlock that locked the shutter in place.
In one quick movement, he gripped the padlock in his fist and gave it a tug.
Ping!
It was easy. As if the lock was made of plastic rather than steel. He tossed the twisted remnants aside and lifted the shutter up high enough for them both to climb under.
He found Tempest staring at him with an expression of admiration combined with a half-smile.
“Very impressive,” she said. “What else can you do that I don’t know about?” she asked.
Ty just grinned. “I might have another surprise or two hidden away,” he said, grinning broadly.
“Can’t wait to see them,” Tempest replied. Then, “Keep your eyes peeled. We don’t know what we might find.”
With that, she ducked into the building. Ty followed after, lowering the shutter back into place behind him so a casual observer wouldn’t notice anything amiss. Then he brought out his tracker again.
Together, Ty and Tempest made their way into the building. They were in a storage area, complete with mostly office equipment stacked on pallets. Reams of paper, flat-pack furniture, and office chairs that hadn’t been assembled, all sitting beside a small forklift that had probably been used to unload it all from a truck. One of the offices upstairs must have been going through some sort of refurbishment, Ty thought.
Other than that, the place was empty. It was lit by fluorescent tubes that were so old they cast little light and looked yellow. There were no guards. No people at all.
It was late in the evening, but even so, the emptiness worried Ty. This was not what he expected at all. Where were the guards?
Rubio’s Bistro had displayed more signs of a supervillain’s hideout than this.
Ty looked at Tempest, but didn’t say anything, and her expression was also uncertain. Yet they were in the right place. Ty’s tracker showed a strong, steady light, indicating the presence of a device just up ahead.
The discordance between expectation and reality unsettled Ty. He had been expecting mercenaries in full armor coming at them with blasters aimed and ready. Maybe Bain as well. But this emptiness, this nothing–it made Ty nervous, and he worried that they weren’t in the right place at all.
Yet they must have been. His tracker said so.
They reached a heavy metal door set in a concrete wall. “Through here,” Ty said.
Tempest nodded. She seemed focused and serious. Like Ty, she didn’t know what to expect behind the door, but was prepared for the worst.
“I’ll go first,” she said, keeping her voice low. Then she reconsidered. “Unless you have some clever way to bust through steel doors?
“We could just knock,” Ty suggested.
But Tempest shook her head. “Until we know we’re in the wrong place, we should continue to act as if we aren’t. There could be twenty mercenaries behind this door. I don’t want to give them a chance to get organized.”
It made sense. Once again, Ty tucked his tracker away. He drew his blaster and turned it up to maximum power. “Does this count as a clever way to get through?” he asked, grinning broadly.
Tempest nodded. “Works for me. If we are in the wrong place, we can apologize later.”
With his heart beating loudly with anticipation, Ty took aim at the door from close up and glanced at Tempest. When she nodded, he pulled the trigger and just hoped it was the right thing to do.
A burst of concussive green fire erupted from the blaster. It was loud and smelled of ozone, reminding Ty of Lilith as she teleported. At this distance, the blast was hot enough and powerful enough to melt the metal, leaving a hole that took up more than half the door.
Tempest launched herself through the hole with enthusiasm, ignoring the molten edges as if they didn’t exist. Ty hesitated for half a moment, then tried to follow.
He made it most of the way through but caught his foot on the molten edge of the hole and his blaster went flying. He brought his hands up to protect himself, but instead of smacking his face on the floor, he floated gently downward, cursing under his breath all the while.
He regained his feet as soon as he could and looked around.
What he saw confirmed everything he’d suspected. They were in a small room filled with random papers and pizza boxes from Hobgood’s, as well as an entertainment screen, but little else. There were a couple of mercenaries sitting at the desk, but they were no threat at all. Neither of them had reached for their weapons, and both were staring at Tempest open mouthed, completely shocked that anyone would be there.
Ty felt enormous relief that there were any mercenaries there at all. He’d feared that his tracker had locked on to something innocuous.
And yet, this was obviously not the Master’s primary location, and for that, Ty was profoundly disappointed.
Tempest stood before the men with her hands on her hips. “Talk,” she demanded as Ty came up beside her.
One of the men was foolish enough to draw his weapon. Tempest
didn’t even flinch as the man shot at her from close range. Yet his actions angered Ty beyond reason. He stepped past the blonde superhero, and the man turned his blaster on him instead.
With Ty’s shield, the blaster was no more effective than a plastic toy. The bolts of plasma it fired did nothing at all.
Ty hadn’t yet retrieved his own blaster, so he grabbed the man by the throat and lifted him up him into the air, reveling in the new power his technology upgrade gave him. This was what Tempest and Bain could do, and now Ty could do it as well. He could pick men up and fling them about as if they were nothing.
The mercenary squealed and kicked out with his legs, but Ty was too strong. He could have crushed the man’s throat in an instant. Instead, he gritted his teeth and glared at him.
“Drop your weapon!” he said.
The man had little choice. He gave a strangled cry and did as Ty asked.
Ty considered throwing him through the entertainment screen or breaking his neck. Instead he simply let him go. The man collapsed into a heap on the floor, and Ty turned his attention to his colleague.
“The lady asked you to talk,” he said.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ty could see Tempest trying not to laugh. He didn’t understand the humor, but it seemed like a positive thing.
The man sitting at the desk didn’t share the humor. He started to babble. “I don’t know anything,” he said. “What do you want?”
Ty looked at Tempest.
“Lilith,” Tempest said. She had reined in her amusement and was no longer smiling.
The terrified mercenary bobbed his head. “Lilith,” he said. “Yes. She’s in the back.” He indicated a door on the far wall.
Ty didn’t even check with Tempest. He simply assumed she would watch the two mercenaries and headed to the door.
40: Darkness And Chains
This door was also metal although it didn’t look as substantial as the one Ty had blasted through. Just like at Ty’s apartment and most doors in New Lincoln, it could be unlocked via a palm scanner.
Ty didn’t hesitate.
“Unlock it!” he said over his shoulder, then stood aside as the mercenary lurched out of his chair toward him. Neither Ty nor Tempest had relieved the mercenary of his weapons, and that fact hadn’t gone unnoticed. Yet Ty was more than up to the threat.
He glared at the mercenary as the man approached.
“If you’re thinking of trying something, remember that your hand doesn’t need to be attached to your wrist,” Ty snarled at him. As he spoke, he thought about how much he had changed over the last few days. Before he had stumbled across Bain and Zach fighting in the alley, he would never have dreamed of using that tone of voice to anyone, let alone an armored, military man.
Before, Ty would have been no match for him. Now it was the other way around.
The mercenary couldn’t hold his eye. He looked down and nodded, and at the same time palmed the lock on the door.
“Back to your seat,” Ty said.
As the mercenary followed his command, Ty drew a deep breath. It appeared that they wouldn’t be able to confront the Master this evening. But at least they could remove Lilith from within his grasp, and that would have to suffice.
With that thought firmly in mind, Ty wrenched the door open.
Inside was nothing but darkness. Ty stood in the entrance for a few seconds until his eyes adjusted. When they did, what he saw shocked him.
He had opened the door to a cell that was so small he would have struggled to lie flat on the floor. The walls were unyielding concrete, and the only furnishing was a steel toilet down one end. There was no bed, not even a bunk, and nothing to sit on except for the floor.
Which was where Lilith was, with her back against the wall. She wore an iron manacle around the wrist without her device, and that manacle was connected to a metal loop on the floor by a heavy chain. As well, she wore a blackened hood over her head that she couldn’t take off. It was padlocked around her neck.
Yet Ty knew without doubt that it was her. The wings, tail and demon hooves were unmistakable, as was the device she wore on her wrist.
Despite the hood, she’d turned toward the door when Ty opened it.
“Lilith?” Ty said.
At the sound of his voice, the woman flinched and let out a whimper of anxiety. It was almost too much. Ty couldn’t imagine what it must be like for her. The fear and torment of being trapped in the cell, knowing that she could likely escape at any time but being prevented from doing so.
Without conscious thought, he stepped toward her, and she reacted by holding her hands in front of her and trying to squirm away.
“Lilith, it’s okay. It’s me, Ty. I’m here with Tempest. We’re here to rescue you,” Ty said.
At this, the demon woman paused in her squirming. “Ty?” she repeated.
“Yes. It’s me.”
The sense of relief in her voice was undeniable. “Get me out of here!” she said.
It was all the invitation Ty needed. He reached for the lock at her throat and tore it to pieces, then moved to the manacle on her wrist. That was more challenging because it fit her so snugly. He chose instead to break the chain. Then he removed her hood.
Once again, Ty was struck by the beauty of Lilith’s features. Even in the dim light, he could see how perfect her skin was, how open and innocent she looked. But as ever, the natural set of her features was contradicted by her expression. Where before, she had appeared determined and afraid, now she looked relieved but still anxious as well.
“How can you be here? How did you find me?” she asked. But before Ty could answer, she asked the most important question of all. “Where is my father?”
It was then that Ty recognized the flaw in what he and Tempest had done. They had assumed that where Lilith would be, they would find the Master as well. And probably Bain, and anyone else associated with them. They had assumed that if they could rescue Lilith, they could rescue her stepfather as well.
But that was not the case. There were no other rooms in this basement space. It was just an out-of-the-way place where the Master could keep a dangerous pet.
Which meant Lilith’s stepfather was still in danger.
“I don’t know,” Ty said.
“You don’t know?” Lilith repeated. Another half dozen emotions flickered over the woman’s face. “You don’t know?” she said, much louder, her expression settling on anger.
All at once, she surged to her feet, and while Ty was no longer afraid of mercenaries and would even back himself against Bain, he took an involuntary step away from Lilith.
“Then why have you come?” she shouted. “Why have you put my father at risk?”
Ty had a sinking feeling. Lilith was right, and he knew it. He had been so focused on rescuing the demon woman herself that he had forgotten what might happen if they couldn’t rescue her stepfather at the same time. He had been intent on hitting back at the Master and hadn’t thought about the consequences.
He realized now that just because he could do something didn’t mean that he should.
“We thought–we thought he would be here as well,” Ty began, but even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t enough.
Instead of bursting into this basement room, he and Tempest should have taken the time to learn what they were up against. Perhaps they should have installed surveillance equipment and made use of Dinah’s abilities to figure out what was really happening.
Yet he wasn’t ready to give up hope entirely.
“Maybe the guards know something,” Ty suggested. Lilith’s green eyes flashed in anger and she looked at him with something akin to disdain.
“Get out of the way!” she demanded, and Ty had no choice. The demon woman pushed past him into the main room, and an instant later, it felt as if the whole building was starting to shake.
It was all Ty could do to stay on his feet. He turned to follow Lilith as she rounded on the mercenaries.
“Where is he
?” she bellowed. “Where are you keeping my father?”
As she shouted, she unfurled her wings in what may have been an unconscious gesture of rage. The impression she gave was that of a powerful demon unleashing her strength. The force of her anger was like an earthquake, and Ty feared for the building’s structural integrity. Yet he wasn’t about to do anything to stop her. The demon woman was right. He and Tempest had blown it, and this might have been her only chance to get answers.
She was a figure of power looming above the mercenary at the desk, and Ty could see the terror on the man’s face. He didn’t understand what was happening, but knew in his soul that Lilith was dangerous.
Not even Tempest tried to stand in her way. She understood as well as Ty did that they’d made an error. The expression on her face as she stood aside was one of acceptance.
If the building collapsed on them that was the price they had to pay. Perhaps Tempest would even be able to survive it, and maybe Ty could as well, with his shield. But even then, they would be trapped under tons of rubble.
“WHERE IS HE?” the demoness bellowed, and cracks started to appear in the walls.
The mercenary finally found his voice. “I don’t know! I just do what they tell me! But Gavin–he might know!”
Lilith let out a shriek of rage that was all but incoherent. Perhaps she was responding to the mercenary not knowing. Or maybe she was simply scared for her father’s safety.
Tempest was more in control. “Who is Gavin?” she asked.
The mercenary at the desk was literally shaking in fear. The blood had drained from his face and he was staring at Lilith as if she was an apparition of doom. Yet he managed an answer. He indicated the other mercenary, the man still crumpled on the floor.
“Him,” he said.
And that was enough. Tempest reached down and picked the other mercenary up. Ty’s treatment of the man had left him incoherent, but he was at least partially conscious. Tempest shook him to wake him more fully.