We were too damned far away from the Tower, falling too fast, and it was more than a little bit terrifying. For me, at least.
Alton, on the other hand, seemed to be having the time of his life.
“You do remember we’re not killing people, right?” I sent, a little perturbed at how light—and maybe even happy—my partner’s mind felt in the midst of a two mile free fall straight toward an entire tower full of people who wanted to kill us.
“Aye, Commander,” he sent, his tone the epitome of sarcasm, and his irritation flowing clearly through our mental link. “One terminal velocity, non-lethal landing, coming right up.”
For a second, I almost felt bad for disturbing him from his creepy raknoth happy place. I wasn’t even rightly sure why I cared so much that we didn’t kill anyone, aside from the fact that it would play terribly in the reels. The Onyx Guard sure as scud wouldn’t be showing us any similar mercy, after all. Not unless the High Cleric managed to explicitly tell them to before it was all over. But I didn’t have time to think about all this again.
The Tower was rising up to meet us at an alarming rate now, leaving no doubt in my mind that we were going to hit.
A thousand feet.
There. The wide, curved window we were shooting for. I wrapped my mind around us, gathering my energy and biting down on the primal urge to scream for dear life.
Five-hundred.
Too high. Too fast. I gave us a careful nudge. Too much.
Panic spiked through my chest.
One-hundred.
Heart thundering, vision down to a pinprick, I drew the energy and launched us forward as hard as I could, forming a spearhead of telekinetic force to head our charge.
My breath caught at the speed of the approaching wall of reinforced duraglass. Too much. My eyes snapped shut. Duraglass shattered. We hit. Alton first, some part of me knew. But I couldn’t have guessed it for the way the world exploded around me. We hit again, and again—a brutal whirlwind of impacts and jolting rolls, too fast to pick out any pertinent details, other than that we were moving, and fast. I sank into my extended senses, relying on them to keep me grounded through the chaos. Grounded enough that I felt the first weapons being raised, anyway.
The response time was every bit as impressive as I’d expected. Which was the only reason I had my barrier ready in time to catch the first barrage of gunfire.
The Onyx Guard weren’t gropping around.
I fumbled for the springhook connecting me to Alton, floating on a hot bed of pain and light-headed nausea between the telekinesis and the crash landing. Luckily, he managed to contain himself until I yanked the hook free. The moment I did, though, Alton launched from the ground with inhuman speed and promptly put the no killing rule to the test. I saw him smack two Onyx Guard clear across the High Cleric’s ridiculously posh lounge room before I was distracted by the feeling of three Onyx Guard closing in on me from behind. And fast.
I spun around, rolling to my feet even as I swept their legs out with telekinesis.
That didn’t stop one of them from chucking a dark dagger at me, and another from trying another burst of gunfire—all perfectly aimed, even as they fell. I caught the blade and the slugs, and drove a hard kick into the third man’s dark faceplate. He bounced back to his feet like getting kicked in the face was his idea of a polite handshake, and his two partners were right there with him.
They came at me with dark blades and without hesitation, apparently recognizing that their slugs wouldn’t do the trick, and that I was not to be given time to collect myself. If they were dismayed to find that my barrier could stop daggers, too, they didn’t show it—just kept hammering away with a kind of emotionless brutality that was somehow more terrifying than the animal ferocity of a raknoth or a hybrid.
I felt each and every blow slamming into my barrier. Felt them too much. I backpedaled, needing to buy a moment, but they followed with mechanical persistence, refusing to allow it. I diverted enough from my barrier to hit one with a blast of telekinesis even as I caught another in a crisp hip throw and reached out to shut the third down with telepathy.
His mind resisted. More than any non-telepath had business resisting.
I didn’t have time to be properly surprised before he lunged forward with his dagger. I spun clear of the blade, ducked the next dark fist sailing toward my head, and leapt straight into a high aerial at the warning scream of my extended senses. Or tried to, at least.
Something slammed into my lower half as I left the ground, and then strong arms were clamping around my legs, dragging me down, and more were joining them. I’d barely hit the floor before a dark boot stomped into my diaphragm, leaving me coughing for air as they descended on me. I was reaching to blast them all off with telekinesis when something struck my head hard enough to send the world spinning, even through the helmet. My visor was cracked. My arms pinned. Then they yanked the helmet free, and kicked me hard enough to knock the entire world out of focus.
When my senses returned, I was being hauled to my knees, my hands already bound behind my back, multiple guns and daggers all pressed to my head and throat. The door to the hallway outside had been thrown open, and gold-armored Sanctum Guard were pouring into the room, weapons ready.
“Enough,” called a firm, level voice from somewhere above. “That’s quite enough.”
The High Cleric had appeared at the ornate railing of his loft, looking down on the commotion.
“What do we have here?” he asked. Rhetorically, I had to assume. Especially with me decidedly secured in the hands of at least three cold, hard killers, and Alton collapsed in a pile of splintered darkwood furniture ahead, surrounded by five more Onyx Guard, who were still pelting him with stun bolts with the same methodical, emotionless violence they’d used on me.
To say that we were caught would’ve seemed a gross understatement. And the High Cleric didn’t seem particularly surprised by any part of it. Nor did he see any need to issue commands to the Sanctum Guard rushing in with chains and pulse cannons that looked more than equal to the task of ending a raknoth.
They’d been prepared. Just like we’d expected. But that was okay. An acceptable part of the plan.
Right up until I reached out to establish telepathic contact with Alton, and my head erupted in a fiery torrent of pain.
I gasped for breath, coming back to my physical senses, cold, sickly dread filling my stomach.
A scorcher.
I’d never forget that pain—the same pain that had left me helplessly incapacitated leading up to my first Sanctum execution, when Franco had managed to convince Barbara Sanders to remove the thing and save my life. And Alpha be damned, they had another one.
Only this time, there was no Barbara Sanders coming to save me.
Panic swelled in my chest, blazing up through my sinuses and leaving me choking on too-shallow breaths from my burning lungs.
We weren’t just caught. We were trapped. Helpless and gropping trapped.
“I must admit, Haldin,” the High Cleric called, descending the spiral stairs from his loft with one hand—the only hand he had left, after Five had gotten hold of him back at Adam and Enid’s execution—on the banister. “Even for you, this is rather unexpected. Did you think to kill me as I slept? Or perhaps...”
He looked over to Alton Parker, who was currently being chained to the gills while they kept him subdued with a steady barrage of stunner bolts. They’d already fitted him with a pendant too—one of the pendants, I recognized with a sickened feeling, that I’d created myself, to help Glenbark and everyone else deal with the raknoth threat.
“... Perhaps you came to let your friend here wrest control of the Sanctum back into the hands of your unholy ilk?” the High Cleric finished.
“Honestly,” I wheezed from my burning lungs, trying not to let the panic show. “I just wanted to talk.”
The High Cleric looked pointedly from us to the jagged hole we’d just breached through his impressively expansive wi
ndow.
“Something told me you might not take my call,” I explained.
By the look on the High Cleric’s face as he turned to his Onyx Guard, I knew immediately that I was playing with fire.
“I have something to show you,” I added, before he could give any hasty orders. “I have proof.”
He paused, and I could see the conflict in him. He wanted to kill us. Wanted to be done with it.
I caught Alton’s eye, and he gave me the faintest nod.
“Proof of what, exactly?” the High Cleric finally asked.
“You’re not going to like it. But it’s...” I took a deliberate breath, gathering what dignity I could. It burned. “You need to understand where we came from before you condemn any more people to die in the name of Alpha. And I have proof that will show you.”
“Proof,” the High Cleric echoed, like the word was dirty. “We have all the proof we need, Demon. It is in Alpha’s ever-present light just as clearly as it is in our written records. Perhaps you knew that once, before you abandoned the path. Perhaps not. Regardless, there is no proof that could dissuade me of the depths from whence you came.”
“Then it won’t hurt to see what I’ve brought you,” I said, holding his disgusted gaze evenly.
Silence stretched. Too long. It stretched until I was sure that I’d lost him for good, and that he’d order us killed with his next breath. But then he finally roused from his internal debate, and I saw it there: the faintest spark of intractable curiosity. He wanted to know what forbidden secrets I was hiding. Needed to know, even, somewhere deep down. Somewhere even he might not recognize or understand.
I could’ve danced when I saw that spark.
Quickly as it shone, though, he covered it up and turned to his troops with his usual holy dignity fully intact.
“You may retire to the hall with your men, Captain.”
Relief flooded through me.
The one who wore the golden cape of a Sanctum Guard captain, on the other hand, went perfectly rigid. “Your Holiness, I—”
“I will call if we need you,” the High Cleric said, waving him away. “Go, now.”
Even with his features hidden behind the golden faceplate, the captain’s lingering hesitation was clear enough. But he didn’t dare question His Holiness for a second time. After a moment, he turned to his squad, issued a few hand signals, and turned to march out alongside them.
“What is it, then?” the High Cleric finally asked, when the door was closed, and it was just us and his Onyx Guard. “More of your Emmútari propaganda? You truly believe the simple fact of their predating Sarentus’ revelations grants them clemency from the unholy pacts they entered to channel their demonic power? The same power you now twist to your will?”
“This isn’t about the Emmútari,” I said, glancing at Alton. He gave me another nod. “It’s about Sarentus. It’s about where all of this began.”
The spark returned briefly to the High Cleric’s eyes. He masked it with an expression of practiced skepticism. “You think to drag our own prophet through the mud with you now, Demon?”
“Just play the vid on my palmlight,” I said, finally allowing myself to drop his gaze, allowing the defeat to show on my face.
It was too much for our holy inquisitor to resist. He gestured to one of the men behind me. The Onyx Guard stepped forward and handed him my device, having apparently already stripped it from my wrist when I’d been too busy having my head kicked in to notice.
“And what will I find,” the High Cleric asked, turning my palmlight over in his hands, “if I play this little game of yours?”
I glanced at Alton. This was it.
“You will find the truth, High Cleric,” Alton said, speaking for the first time.
The High Cleric frowned, looking suspiciously between the two of us, then back to the palmlight.
“Check them again,” he said after a moment’s thought. “Deep scan for recording devices.”
I had to give it to him, His Holiness was not a stupid man. I didn’t have time to open my mouth before dark hands clamped it shut and hauled me up, up and over to where two of the Onyx Guard had already broken out the hand scanners and were getting started on the raknoth. My escorts tossed me to the floor like a common gear bag, and one of the men split off from Alton to begin scanning every square inch of my body. Not that he had to look far.
It only took him a few seconds to find the first of the many microcams embedded in my jumpsuit. He made a quick hand signal to one of his teammates, who ghosted forward to confer with the High Cleric while he kept scanning.
Among the many rumors about the Onyx Guard, I’d heard it said that they were all mute. Some even went so far as to claim the Onyx Guard had their tongues cut out as part of their initiation. I knew it was all bullscud, but I was still a little mesmerized as the Onyx Guard leaned his dark faceplate close to the High Cleric’s ear. I faintly thought I even heard the word, “transmitting,” but maybe that was only because I knew exactly what they’d found.
The High Cleric nodded at whatever the man said, not looking surprised as he glanced our way. “Well, I think we all see where this was headed. Propaganda begets more propaganda, yes?” He turned back to his Onyx Guard. “Destroy the devices. All of them.”
No sooner had he spoken the words than a series of tingling shocks began rippling through my body from the sweeping hand scanners, sending light spasms through my muscles wherever they touched. I tried to look over to see how Alton was faring beside me, but strong hands kept my head pinned the other way on the floor. Between the two of us, I knew we had a couple dozen microcams hidden away. But I also knew the Onyx Guard were more than equal to the task.
Thorough didn’t even begin to describe it.
“Did you not realize my quarters are shielded to prevent unauthorized transmissions?” the High Cleric asked as they worked. He made a tut-tut sound, shaking his head as he turned his focus back to my palmlight. “And what do we have here, then, that you intended to incriminate me with? Another rousing monologue, perhaps? Or maybe a dark confession from one of my wayward Seekers?”
The Onyx Guard hauled me back to my knees beside Alton, facing me toward the High Cleric, who was looking to me for an answer. I dropped my gaze back to the floor, not trusting myself not to give anything away.
“Very well, then.” He looked to his Onyx Guard, and must’ve gotten the all-clear sign. “Let us see this proof of which you speak.”
He touched a few commands on the palmlight display, then swiped the output up onto to the wide display hanging over the elaborate darkstone fireplace. “Ahh,” he said, clearly satisfied by his own predictive prowess, when Adam Drove’s face appeared on the display, and the ex-Seeker known as Four began the short but rather disturbing testimony we’d recorded from him before leaving Oasis.
On the display, Adam had barely made it past “—took me from the streets and shaped me into a killer,” before the High Cleric paused the vid.
“Do you truly think the people would care if they found out we’d used demons to hunt other demons?” He turned a condescending frown my way. “Sparing the lives of good men by using these fallen spirits to combat the evils roaming our planet? They would celebrate the idea, you foolish boy.”
I said nothing. I didn’t need to. The High Cleric was already turning back to the display to continue skipping through Adam’s confession. Then Enid’s. Then Garrett’s, and Siren’s. He was just about to wave the display off for good when Siren’s segment ended, and the vid cut to the scene of a lush clearing, well-forested on its perimeters, and oddly foreign in a way that wasn’t easy to immediately identify.
I sat silently beside Alton, watching the vid we’d spent the past few hours so carefully recording straight from his memories with a combination of modern tech and the ancient Emmútari headpiece I’d borrowed from Omelius’ collection.
The High Cleric watched too, a permanent scowl of disbelief resting across his brow. But that didn�
�t matter. Because he wasn’t skipping through the footage anymore. Not as the raknoth known as Nan’Sarentus boarded the now familiar raknoth ship beside his fellows. Not as the one named Zar’Faenor returned with the news that the transplant had been successful, and that he’d left two of their kin, Valen and Sarentus to oversee the humans’ adaptation to their new world. The world he called Enochia.
The High Cleric didn’t even blink when the vid cut to the footage of the mountain-sized dragon, Kul’Naga, descending on an army of ice-dwelling giants and bringing a savage and bloody end to their entire clan. He just stared at the display until it had gone blank, then he stared for a while longer before finally turning to us.
His expression was as blank as the display. So blank that, for a second, I actually thought that maybe we’d reached him, that maybe some part of the impossible truths contained in the vid had actually sunk through. Then his eyes narrowed, and I watched that scrap of hope go up in flames.
“This is your proof?” he asked quietly, glaring down at us. “This is what you wish to show the world? A storyvid you worked up with your underground terrorists?”
“It’s not a storyvid,” I said. “It’s a recording. A recording from someone who was there.”
He blew out a derisive snort. “You honestly expect me to believe that?”
“The raknoth have been around much longer than any of us might’ve thought to believe,” I said, looking to Alton. “And he can prove it to you, if you’ll listen.”
“Gag him,” the High Cleric snapped, as Alton opened his mouth to speak.
The Onyx Guard complied with brutal efficiency while, ahead, the High Cleric let out a heavy breath and pinched at the bridge of his nose, like he’d only just realized he’d been dealing with immature children this whole time.
“I know this all sounds crazy,” I started slowly, “but if you look at—”
The High Cleric gave a flick of his fingers, and something slammed into the side of my head, hard enough that I was confused when I found myself sprawled across the floor in front of Alton, head throbbing with amber waves of pain. The Onyx Guard hauled me back up beside Alton before I could get my bearings. Hauled me up against Alton. Our sides touching. That seemed important for some reason that my thrice-rattled brain couldn’t seem to pick out right then.
Children of Enochia Page 34
