Bastion considered going a few rounds of playing an innocent. He didn’t, though—he didn’t like any amount of Flynn’s focus to be on Selena. Besides, how had Flynn known she was gone?
“I don’t know where she is. I can’t bring her back.”
Flynn leaned back in his seat, his blue eyes trying to slice their way into Bastion’s head. He was unsuccessful. “Our agreement was that in exchange for me bringing you the Ratcliffs, you leave Tremaine’s team alone.”
“As I recall, we walked away from your little détente, so I don’t really give a fuck what you think your takeaway was from that meeting.”
“Don’t you? Do you no longer care about all your beloved regulars?” The doors to the café opened then slammed shut, startling everyone. One person turned from the counter and dropped her cup of hot coffee to grab her head. Pain jumped from her to others in the room. Everyone became alarmed.
Bastion blanketed the shop and those in it with a protective energy, calming them, blocking Flynn’s psychic incursions.
“You used to be trustworthy,” Flynn complained. “You were the one whose moral compass could not be corrupted. I expected you to keep our agreement.”
That statement was a distortion of reality; there wasn’t a man in the Legion whose moral compass was corruptible. “What’s your interest in the girl?”
Flynn’s smile was like a skull’s grin. “She’s a female and a warrior. Such an unusual combination. I want her.”
Bastion had to focus on keeping himself under tight control, something he’d been working on since Selena disappeared. There were other females at the Red Team compound. Yes, they were all spoken for, but that had never stopped Flynn before. One of them, the little pink-haired one, was even a warrior. Why had he chosen Selena? When the hell had he ever even seen her?
Unless that time here at the café…
Bastion leaned back in his seat. “This is the trouble with you taking so long to round up the Ratcliffs. Things change. The team now is one fewer. Take two more weeks and more may vacate the team compound. It’s their business, not mine. I’m not in charge of their staff.”
Rage shot through Flynn’s eyes, an emotion he quickly stamped down. “I do have a lead on her whereabouts. And I will find the Ratcliffs. And I will kill all of them. Our détente is off.”
It was hell for Bastion sitting across from the bastard and having to act civilized while his light was being threatened. He and Flynn both had their own personal protections in place. They could fight, but neither would even get a punch in on the other. Only innocent bystanders would be hurt in a clash between them. Bastion got up and walked away, knowing more—and less—than when he came in.
Flynn still didn’t have a handle on the Ratcliffs. And he wanted Selena with an unwavering lust that made no sense to Bastion. The Matchmaker had selected her for Bastion. So why was Flynn fired up about her?
Had the Matchmaker given her to two mutants?
19
The woman on Merc’s lap wiggled suggestively. The invitation didn’t tempt him. Acier and his female of the night were already occupying the family restroom—not that such a nicety was needed. A mutant could have sex in the middle of a crowded room and no one would even know, if their shields were up.
The woman Merc was holding leaned forward to tongue-fuck his mouth. He tried to pretend it was as pleasurable to him as her deep-throated moans indicated it was for her, a pretense that was more for his own benefit than hers. Acier still enjoyed sex, but Merc didn’t—hadn’t since he was changed. He wanted to believe, as Bastion claimed, that pretending to feel lust was three-quarters of the way to achieving it.
But it wasn’t. Not for Merc. Not now. Not with this female. He slipped a hand behind her head, bringing her mouth to his again. Trying, trying to like it.
Acier came back to the table alone, his energy completely altered from the oppressive hunger he’d been experiencing when he and his female of the moment had left the table.
“My beer’s warm,” Acier growled as he dropped into his seat.
“Well, you were gone longer than usual,” Merc said, gratefully using the convo with Acier to interrupt the woman who kept vying for his complete attention.
Acier gave him a half-grin. “We had a lot of ground to cover.”
Merc grunted something unintelligible. Fortunately, Liege broke into the moment with a mission order.
Acier, Merc, get over to the airfield, Liege said via their mental link. Bastion’s in trouble up at the Tremaine headquarters in Wyoming. The pilot’s already warming up the helicopter.
Copy that, Merc responded. Both men stood and downed their beers. “Apologies,” Merc said to the female whom he’d just set down. “We have an appointment we have to keep.”
Acier paid their tab. As they walked down the block to their SUV, Merc looked at Acier, taking in his super-relaxed vibe. “I envy you.”
Acier flashed at grin. “Why?”
“’Cause fucking still feels like something for you.”
Acier’s grin widened. “Yes, it does.”
“I wonder what’s different between your mods and mine?”
Acier pulled up the open cuff of his leather jacket, exposing the lower part of his arm. “You’re welcome to open a vein and find out.”
Merc sighed. “Maybe when we find the researchers we’ve been looking for, I will—though I doubt learning the secret to your sex drive will be tops on their list.”
They reached the SUV. Merc got behind the wheel.
“Truth is,” Acier said, “I’m more jealous of you than you are of me.”
“Why’s that?”
“You and the others were changed in the same mutant camp. You guys have a bond I’ll never really be part of.”
Merc paused, his hands on the wheel. “Bullshit. Liege has accepted you as one of us.” He looked at his friend, whose illusion of pale skin and dark hair made him appear like a black-and-white photo—except for those piercing blue eyes. They held their color even in the heavy night shadows. “Once he takes you in, you’re as good as blood with him.”
Acier leaned against the headrest. “But I feel separate.”
“Yeah. Well, I feel like I could use a royal fuckfest. Feeling’s a bitch, so don’t do it, mate.” He pulled into traffic. “Let’s go save Bastion’s ass.”
Hurry, Bastion, Liege said. Ghouls are inside your protective boundaries at the Tremaine compound.
Bastion floored his Jeep’s accelerator and made a fast turn onto the property. He’d only just left Flynn in town. Now he understood what Flynn had meant by giving him fair warning.
Bastion drove into one of the ghouls, tossing its body twenty feet off the drive, though probably not delivering a lethal blow to it. He parked in a grassy area in front of the main house and camouflaged his car and himself. He had no idea how many of the beasts were here, but better they come at him than at the regulars who lived inside the mansion.
Fucking Flynn.
I guess he wasn’t happy with my answers just now, Bastion said to Liege.
What’s his interest in your light? Liege asked. He didn’t care about any of the team’s other women.
They’re all taken.
So’s Selena.
But he may not know that, Bastion said. Not that he ever cared about a female’s relationship status before.
Merc and Acier are on their way up there.
Bien. Don’t let the regulars go after the ghouls. I’ll keep the ghouls from going inside.
Done.
The ghouls came at Bastion one by one and three by three. He used his sai to dispatch them. A pause in the onslaught gave him a chance to breathe…and think.
Liege, what if Flynn’s found Selena and he’s pinning us down here so he can get to her?
It’s possible. Anything is possible. But we still don’t know where she is. There are only two people at the compound who do—Owen and Greer. Find them and press them for answers.
Bastion h
ad to put two more ghouls down before he got to the bunker entrance on the far southern side of the house. He kept himself and his energy hidden as best he could from the ghouls as he disappeared into the shrubs covering the bunker entrance.
Inside, he paused, mentally preparing himself. How had the fiends gotten through his protection to venture so close to the house? Normally only those who had been approved could come and go as they pleased. Obviously, Bastion had never approved Flynn or his ghouls to cross his protections.
How they did it, he didn’t know, but discoveries like this new behavior weren’t unheard of. They were all developing new traits and skills—Flynn too, Bastion supposed. Somehow, he’d figured out a way in.
Bastion still didn’t know what Flynn’s interest in Selena was about. Or maybe it was just that Flynn wanted to destroy something Bastion cared about. Maybe this onslaught tonight was revenge against the human fighters who were slowly dismantling the Omni World Order? The warriors quartered in the mansion were strong, disciplined, and capable fighters, but they were still only regulars. No regular could win against a mutant, much less a pack of bloodthirsty fiends like Flynn’s creatures.
Maybe Bastion was to blame for their change in behavior tonight; his desperation to find and secure Selena had doubtless been broadcast far and wide, energy that was easy for any mutant to pick up. It was his own fault for losing his self-control when she first went missing. He knew better than to do that. Flynn loved strong emotion, especially fear, which had seeped from Bastion’s every pore in that moment—not for his own welfare, but for Selena’s.
Twigs snapped close to Bastion. A ghoul was near. He could smell it. Flynn’s monsters were an unholy blend of human and animal DNA. The human host was destroyed in the mutation process, leaving only a primal lizard brain, one easily controlled by a master manipulator like Flynn, who had developed these fiends for one purpose—harvesting his enemies.
This one smelled like hell—woods, mud, rotting flesh and blood. It came into sight, climbing on all fours over the boulders at the bunker entrance. It had the height of a grizzly and the frame of a man, but with long forearms and powerful thighs. Its hands and feet were weaponized with bearlike claws. Its face was distorted with its long snout. Thick canines pressed against the skin covering its lower jaw. There was nothing natural in its eyes, not human, not animal.
It sensed Bastion’s presence and came closer, poking the air near where he stood with its snout, sniffing for him. Not being able to see or hear him, the mutant beast left him alone and continued his prowl.
Bastion wondered if Flynn was shielding his monsters from the tech that monitored the property. Had they been detected, the fighters inside the mansion would have mobilized—and been slaughtered.
Flynn’s new boldness made Bastion even more panicked about finding Selena. Was she facing the same surge of ghouls?
Bastion turned and stepped into the wide cave entrance of the bunker. Team vehicles were parked in the big space here in the front. A wide tunnel led from the cave to the entrance to the team’s bunker below the mansion.
Motion lights came on as Bastion moved deeper into the tunnel. He saw two fighters standing a few yards ahead. Bastion didn’t try to hide himself. He was done being invisible. It was time to deal with the Red Team in person.
He recognized the men in front of him—Greer and Max were their names, the team’s tech nerds.
Bastion stopped only feet from them. “Where is she?” he asked. He knew they knew exactly who he was asking about; Selena was the only fighter missing from the premises.
“She’s gone,” Greer said.
“Where?”
“She’s not your concern,” Max said.
Bastion’s eyes changed to a glowing orange, the color of his anger, as he turned his attention to Max. “I will end you and everyone in this house, soul by soul, until I learn where she’s gone.”
“Not true.” Greer waved that off. “You’re a soldier, like us. You follow orders. If you’d been ordered to kill us, we’d already be dead, given your abilities. So what’s your interest in her?”
Bastion’s burning eyes turned to Greer, the energy of his anger emitting a dangerous pulse. Greer winced and looked over at Max. Bastion could feel their pain as the energy he was creating became a deep, terrible sound, like something just at the edges of a sonic boom.
Max hit his knees.
“Enough!” Greer shouted as he bent over. “Enough!”
Bastion severed his connection with them, breaking the pulsing pain he’d been sending their way.
Greer gasped at the reprieve. Still holding his knees, he looked up at Bastion. “If there’s something you want, meet with us. Let’s talk about it.”
“You took my woman,” Bastion said through clenched teeth.
Max shook his head and slowly straightened. “She’s ours, not yours.” He and Greer moved back a step.
Bastion stepped forward. Something with knifelike teeth clamped onto his leg mid-shin. The pain was worse than what he’d just pushed on the two men. He looked down to see the steel teeth of a bear trap digging into his leg. He staggered forward, slipping into the jagged teeth of a second trap.
A howl ripped from him. The sound merged with his telekinetic abilities, sending a sonic punch into the two men in front of him, knocking them off their feet. They landed several yards back and lay unmoving.
He didn’t know if they were alive or dead.
He didn’t care.
Pain coursed through him in waves of hot and cold, stealing his breath.
Bastion. What is it? What’s happened? Liege asked via their mental link.
Pain stole Bastion’s ability to answer. Merde, he couldn’t even breathe yet. He slumped to the ground and pressed the sides of the trap on his right leg, releasing it, gasping as another wave of pain ripped through him.
Movement of any kind made the lower part of his shins feel as if they were being ripped from his body. A scream cut its way up his throat. He clenched his teeth, but it spilled from his mouth anyway. The pain was draining his strength.
Talk to us, Bastion, Liege ordered him.
The bones in his right leg had been shattered. He bent his left knee and brought that trap close enough that he could release it. Both legs were bleeding profusely. His left leg didn’t feel broken, but it couldn’t support his weight.
He had to get out of the bunker’s tunnel; the ghouls were coming. He didn’t want to fight them here, so close to the house.
He had to pause and breathe slowly. The pain was nauseating. He didn’t respond to his team lead—he couldn’t put a coherent thought together.
On the heels of that thought came an easing of the pain as a warm calmness slipped inside him. Guerre, the team’s healer, was helping him. His efforts slowed the bleeding and intercepted the pain—the abrupt lack of which was nearly as stunning as its sudden onset. Bastion collapsed on his back in the loose dirt. The only thing he could console himself with was the knowledge that she wasn’t here. Hopefully that meant she was safe from the ghouls, wherever she was.
You must move, Liege said. They are near.
Bastion rolled to his stomach. Protect Selena’s team, Liege. They cannot fight the ghouls and win. They don’t know how.
Done. Get out of there. Merc and Acier are almost there.
Going on instinct alone, Bastion rolled to his stomach then got to his hands and knees and began crawling down the wide dirt tunnel, something he could not have done without Guerre’s assistance with the pain.
With each inch toward the bunker entrance, the exit seemed even farther away. Time and space became distorted.
He paused, head hanging low, to draw a few fortifying breaths, then looked back at the men he’d blasted. He could see them lying prone in the dirt. Maybe they were dead. He hoped not.
He crawled a few more feet, wanting to put as much distance between himself and the other fighters before the ghouls came. The rest of Selena’s team would shortly c
ome looking for them. Bastion had to get as far as he could before that happened.
He tried setting an illusion to cover his tracks, but he was too weak to sustain it.
Liege, Bastion said, connecting with his team lead, aidez-moi!
We got you, Liege said. I’ve hidden your trail and shielded you. Keep making your way to the end of the tunnel. When you get to the parking area ahead, hole up there and wait for us. The guys will be onsite soon.
Bastion didn’t have the strength to respond, but he knew Liege was in his mind and didn’t need a response. He resumed crawling out of the dark space. It was slow going. He was tired. He leaned against the dirt wall of the tunnel and shut his eyes, slowly slumping to the dirt floor of the tunnel.
Something warm was dripping onto his face. Bastion slowly opened his eyes and looked up—into the gaping maw of a ghoul. It couldn’t see him, but it smelled him.
Bastion pulled his sai from his waist. Holding the long spike against his forearm, he pounded the flat end of the handle against the corner of the ghoul’s open jaw, then flipped the sai forward and shoved the long spike into its ear, through its head and out the other side.
He yanked it free.
Rolling onto his stomach, he forced himself to keep heading toward the entrance. What little mental reserves he had left, he spent keeping himself hidden from the perception of the ghouls and the Red Team. His tracks were there, but no one had the ability to see through the slug trail of energy Liege was using to obscure them.
The Red Team. They weren’t enhanced. They were just regulars. They were supposed to be as helpless as infants against his kind. And yet they’d gotten the drop on him.
Bitterly cold night air spilled over him as he neared the end of the tunnel. He dragged himself between two of the vehicles parked there. Cold sweat stuck to his face from his exertion. If he passed out, he’d not be able to maintain the energetic cover that hid him.
Liege. Aidez-moi. His mind was too foggy for him to remember to speak English.
Just let go, Liege said. I’ve got you covered. Hole up where you are. The guys are almost there.
Bastion: O-Men: Liege’s Legion Page 17
