by B N Miles
Wieland sighed. “That’s the Lumi I know. Impulsive and impetuous. If only you’d stop and think about your situation, you’d realize that there’s no good way out of this. Give us Cassie and at least some of you might survive.”
“No,” Jared said. “What you’re talking about, breaking the Accords, that would only cause more suffering, more death. These women have been through enough, and I’m not going to let you do this, Wieland.”
“Very well then,” Wieland said. “I’m sick of this whole thing. I’m tired, a little hungover, and honestly, I just want to get a few hours of sleep. So you have ten seconds to decide, and if you choose to make some stupid, noble stand, I’ll fill you all with lead and be done with this shit.” He turned and walked back toward the line of guards. He gestured and the two guards dragged Wade back with them. Jared stepped forward, a growl on his lips, but stopped as rifles raised to point at his chest.
“Hold on, everyone,” Jared said. “Just hold on.”
He looked back at the others. He saw Nikki hug Cassie tight, saw the fear and anguish in Cassie’s eyes, saw the determination on Nikki’s face. He looked at Izzy, at Penny, at Allie, at all the other Meta girls.
He felt Jessalene step up next to him. “I’m ready,” she said.
She slipped her hand into his. He held it tight, so tight. He wanted to kiss her, to say something.
But instead, he began to draw on his power.
Lumi looked back at him and nodded. He felt her opening the battery, felt the power flow.
“Ready,” she said.
Jared turned back to the guards. Jessalene released his hand and stepped back behind him.
He brought up a shield of hardened air between him and the guards, strong enough to protect the girls from the storm of bullets they were about to unleash. He steadied himself, his palms sweating, but his mind strangely clear.
He was ready. He was prepared for what came next, for the pain and the anger, for the darkness after death. His only regret was that he didn’t get more time with his girls, didn’t get anywhere near enough time.
The guards brought their weapons up, and as they took aim, there was an explosion at the far end of the cavern, and bullets tore through the air.
52
“Get down!” Jared shouted as he stretched his shield as far as it would go, already snapping a second shield into place. The group of Meta girls dropped to the floor as bullets began to slam into the hardened air around them, crackling like fireworks, pinging away and sending shrapnel flying.
“What the hell’s happening?” Lumi asked.
“I don’t know,” Jared said, shaking his head. The guards behind the cars looked as confused as Jared felt, their heads craning upwards, their guns still ready, but silent.
It was the guards on their other side that were screaming and firing, but their backs were turned to Jared and his group. The bullets that pinged off his shields weren’t coming from them, but from whoever was firing at them from the other side of the cavern.
His mind worked, trying to solve their problem. The guards on their rear were distracted, which meant the real threat was the guards up ahead. He could leave one shield to keep stray rounds from catching them, and they could focus on smashing forward
With half of the guards distracted, they’d have a chance.
He dropped his second shield, kept his first in place, and prepared himself.
“Lumi,” Jared said. “We need to make a break for it.”
“Which way?” she asked.
“Forward, through there.” He pointed at the row of cars. “Smash through. Allie will help. I’ll keep the girls shielded.”
“Got it.” He felt Lumi draw on the battery again, pulling power inside of her in thick, heavy ribbons. He felt like he was hurtling down a cliff, or being thrown forward on a roller coaster, his body pressed on all sides by invisible forces.
The ground rumbled as Lumi shaped her magic. The floor cracked and splintered, the runes snapping in several spots. The guards looked around and Jared heard yelling from their lines, but it was too late. Lumi ripped up huge chunks of rocks, boulder-sized jagged stones with dust dropping off them like water, and threw them into the middle of their line. The first rock slammed down on top of a car, crushing it, and rolled to the right, smashing over three guards and pinning two more against another vehicle.
As Lumi worked, Jared shifted his second shield to defend them from the front.
The guards opened up then, blasting in sheer panic. Their bullets hit Jared’s second shield as Lumi threw more rocks down on them. More ripped into the air, tearing ear-splitting chunks from the ground, causing huge craters as she floated them over and dropped them from ten feet up. They fell with a great, booming crash, crushing guards, smashing cars, and breaking their lines.
Some began to retreat. Jared heard more yelling, more screaming, and the room was chaos, all noise and light and dust blasting into the air. He could smell magic in the air, though he wasn’t sure if it was from Lumi or someone else, and he guessed it didn’t matter.
Jared moved over and found Izzy in the pack. “I need you to shield,” he said. “Can you do it?”
She nodded, eyes wild. “What are you going to do?”
“I need to see what’s happening back there.” He pointed behind them. “When Lumi’s done breaking the guards up front, you all press forward, but keep your shields up. Do you hear me?
“Yes,” she said, nodding rapidly.
Jared stood and took deep breaths. “All right,” he said. “Do it.”
Izzy brought her hands together in a clap and closed her eyes. Jared dropped his own shield, pulling it back around himself, as Izzy brought her own up to replace it. He could feel that hers wasn’t as thick or strong, but it would keep the bullets off them for a little while at least.
Jared turned from the group and toward the guards with their backs turned to him. He pushed forward, walking slowly, gathering his power inside of him in heavy waves. The guards didn’t notice as he approached, too busy fighting whoever was attacking from the far end of the cavern. Jared couldn’t make out who they were, his line of sight blocked by the mass of black-clad bodies, but he wasn’t about to wait to find out.
The enemy of his enemy was his friend, at least for now.
He gathered his fire memgram, snapped it into place, held his hands out, and began to burn the guards from behind.
They screamed in terror and panic. He watched them struggle, rolling around, trying to put out the flames, but Jared was relentless. He burned them, his fire glowing orange-white and giving off waves of heavy heat.
Several guards turned and tried to fight back, but it was too late, they were caught between two enemies. Jared threw more and more power into his fire, widened its scope, intensified its heat. He dumped streams of burning flames on them, ashing guards into oblivion, melting rifles into heaps of dripping metal and plastic scraps, sending great plumes of smoke and screams into the cavernous air.
He ripped through them like they were paper dolls, like a toddler with a box of matches, and reveled in it, reveled in their deaths, in their misery and pain. He hated them for what they’d done to these women and hated them more for what they planned on doing to Cassie, to the whole damned world.
The line of guards wavered and broke. The guards toward the far end began to run, some of them sprinting for the doors. Jared killed as many as he could, carving a path of burning flesh and melting armor across the cavern, tearing up the floor and blasting fire so hot that it began to bubble the rocks around them.
He marched forward, kicked a guard over, and stepped through the fire. He breathed hard, sweat falling down his skin, half-mad with the Need, half-crazed with anger and bloodlust. He wanted more guards, more death, more magic. He wanted to burn the whole facility to the ground, and he thought he might be able to, if only he could find more targets.
But as he walked through the flames and out to the other side, he pulled up short and
forced himself to get it together.
Deep breaths, deep, calming breaths.
Crouched at the far side of the cavern were Metas, lined up in even ranks, crouched behind riot shields and overturned tables.
He recognized them right away. Beatrice was at their front, wearing body armor and waving her arms, her rifle smoking from the barrel. She still had her two Dwarf companions with her, though the other Meta women that she’d left with were replaced by ten times that number, all of them armed.
There were some male Metas in the group as well: male Plethoaks with their hands outstretched, male Trolls with berserker rage in their eyes, Shifters and Weres and Imps and Goblins. They were gathered in a loose formation, and Jared could see deep grooves in the ground where they’d tossed grenades and used magic to slaughter the guards.
He stepped forward and saw several of the Metas tense, but Beatrice stood and called out. The Metas relaxed as she jogged out to meet him in the center of the battlefield.
“You have no clue how happy I am to see you,” he said.
She beamed up at him. “I guess this makes us even, then.”
“How many did you rescue?”
She looked back at the group. “Broke out hundreds,” she said. “But these were the ones that would fight.”
“Where are the others?”
“Still in there, trying to get out.” She gestured back toward the way they’d come in, toward several pairs of double doors set side by side in the wall like a gymnasium. “We need to turn back and find as many as we can.”
Jared nodded. “Right. We’re breaking out and getting the women to safety. Bring as many as you can through here.”
She hesitated, her eyes scanning the cavern. “What is this place?” she asked, seemingly seeing the runes and the alter for the first time.
“I don’t know,” Jared said. “But we don’t want to stay and find out.”
“Roger that.” She gave him a look then smirked a bit, her head tiled to one side. “You’re not so bad for a Magi, you know that?”
“And you’re not so bad for a Dwarf. Go save some lives.”
She snapped a salute and jogged back to her group.
Jared turned and walked back through the ash and the death. But as he kicked aside another group of burned corpses, he found another deep groove set in the ground at the nexus of some particularly complex rune work. He knelt beside the deep divot, reached in, and felt a battery nestled at the bottom.
It was burning hot from his magic, but he grabbed it anyway, clenching his jaw at the pain in his fingers. He juggled it and wrapped it in his shirt as he hurried back to his group.
The line of cars was shattered. Lumi had dumped more stones on them and had ripped up the cavern floor to do it. Huge chunks were missing, the runes and complicated magical patterns destroyed beyond recognition. Whatever the Medlar had planned on doing in this cavern, it wasn’t going to work now, not anytime soon at least. He guessed they’d just ruined months or even years of planning and spellwork.
Jessalene had the group up and moving. Jared jogged to catch up to them and shoved the battery into Izzy’s backpack. He turned and found Cassie nestled against Nikki, bringing up the rear of the group, her head leaning against the Vampire’s shoulder.
He went to Cassie, unable to help himself. He felt overwhelmed, lightheaded, like he might stumble to the ground. He grabbed her and pulled her against him, feeling her warm body as she hugged him tightly.
“Are you okay?” Cassie asked.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I just needed to see you.”
She looked up into his eyes, a little smile on her lips. “I still remember the first time we met, back in that prisoner transport,” she said. “I thought you were so handsome back then.”
“But not anymore?”
“Oh, I’m too familiar with you now.” She kissed his cheek.
“I’ll never forget that day,” he whispered. “So much changed.”
He kissed her, unable to help himself. The Need was deafening and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could go without taking care of it. He broke off the kiss and touched her face for a long second, looking into her eyes, before dropping his hand. Cassie rejoined Nikki as he surveyed the girls.
He found Lumi standing among the rubble of the cars, the wrecked flesh of the guards, and the broken ground. Blood seeped into the grooves where the runes were painted, turning the white to reddish black.
“Where’s Wieland?” he asked.
“Gone,” she said. “Along with Wade. I don’t know where.”
“Shit.” He looked around at the devastation. “You heard what he said, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I heard it.”
“The Accords, Lumi. That can’t be serious, can it?”
“I don’t know.” She took a deep breath, trembling slightly with the strain from using all that magic. “But I know my family, Jared. I don’t think they’d go through all this trouble if they didn’t mean it.”
Jared stared at the corpses, at the intricate spellwork, and back at the altar, standing untouched in the center of the vast space, overlooking the destruction. Dust and smoke trickled through the air, played through the morning light that streamed in through the open doors just ahead of them. It was almost beautiful, if it weren’t for the piles of corpses and the smell of blood and burned flesh.
“Come on,” he said. “We have to get out of here. Who knows how many guards are left and when Wieland will come back with reinforcements.”
Lumi nodded then held a hand out toward the cars. She gestured, and several boulders slid aside, making a clear path.
Jared turned and began to hustle his group through. The large garage-sized doors on either side of the enormous main doors remained open to the desert morning. It was crisp and the sun was climbing higher into the sky as Jared made sure everyone got outside. Jessalene and Lumi led them through, with Penny, Izzy, Allie, Kerrin, and Cassie helping out. Jared lingered just inside, staring out across the cavern toward the altar that sat in its center, and for a moment he thought he could see its use.
For a moment, he thought he could see Cassie tied to its center, magic tearing her into pieces.
He turned away and left it behind.
Outside, they marched through the construction site, stopping only to break into a trailer. He stole bottles of water and a few bags of beef jerky from a supply closet before they began their march in earnest, back through the desert, back toward the containment line.
As he went, he counted their little group. There were fourteen Meta women in all, including Allie and Kerrin. Most of them looked disheveled and upset, but none of them were openly injured, at least as far as he could tell. Izzy went around checking in on them, laying her hands on them to heal minor aches and pains where she could, but otherwise making sure they were all holding together.
Jared watched the group with some strange sense of pride as they put distance between them and the research facility.
Cassie and Nikki joined him as he fell behind the main group. They walked in silence for a while, and he could tell Nikki was particularly disturbed, her eyes hard and staring at the dusty ground with an intensity he’d never seen before. Normally she seemed so light-hearted, like nothing could shake her calm. But now she seemed to roil with unspoken worries, and that made Jared more nervous than anything else so far.
“What are we going to do now?” Cassie asked, her voice soft. “We can’t just leave Wade with them.”
“We can’t go back,” Jared said. “My first priority is to get you all free of here.”
“But the Medlar have plans for him,” Nikki said. “Big plans, if we can believe what that man said.”
“I know,” Jared said. “But I’m hoping we set them back for a while. We took two batteries from whatever that thing was in there, and half that magical array got smashed in the fighting.”
“It won’t stop them,” Nikki said.
“And we still need to save Wad
e,” Cassie said.
“You’re both right.” He rubbed his face and let out a breath. “Shit, I can barely think right now.”
Cassie moved closer, laced her hand through his arm, and held it tight. “We’ll fix you,” she said, her voice soft. “And then we’ll figure something out.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice barely a grunt. “Yeah, we’ll figure something out.”
They reached the protective barrier as the sun continued its steady climb. Lumi tested the boundary first, but found that it wasn’t functioning anymore. Everyone continued on like it had never existed, though Jared could still see the runes marked on the ground.
“Batteries,” Lumi said. “I think it needed all the batteries.”
“Or we just damaged the spellwork in the fighting,” he said, shaking his head. “Who knows.”
As they continued on, there was a deafening sound behind them, the kind of boom that sent a shiver down Jared’s spine and made his eardrums shake.
The group stopped and looked back at the mountain. A phosphorescent flash lit up the morning, so bright Jared had to look away. The others shielded their eyes, groaning. When it dimmed, he looked again, heard a whip-crack, sharp and loud and echoing through his chest.
The mountain itself seemed to quiver, like a heat mirage rolling in waves along its side. The group stood and stared, and Jared took a few steps closer to it, his eyes wide in horror.
An enormous chunk on the right side of the mountain splintered and slid down, smashing into the ground and making the earth tremble. It looked like a piece of cake, gliding down onto a plate. Huge clouds of dust kicked up into the air and shards of rock and earth flew all around in wild spraying patterns.
Moments later, they heard another boom, and the earth rumbled again.
“Holy shit,” Kerrin said. “What the fuck was that?”
“Beatrice,” Jared said. “If I had to guess.”
The splintered-off chunk of mountain rolled forward and smashed down to the earth, breaking into pieces. They smashed what was left of the construction site, flattening trailers and diggers and piles of materials.
