by P. T. Hylton
He cut slowly and carefully, making as little noise as possible, but even the quiet whir of the blade sounded loud in this dead hallway. The team waited in silence.
When Wesley was just about finished, the locking mechanism slid, then fell, cut free from the door.
Alex froze, dreading both the sound it would make when it hit the floor and the vampires the clang would bring. But Chuck reached out and plucked the lock out of the air.
Alex raised an eyebrow, impressed. “Nice.”
Chuck just smiled.
They stood gathered at the doorway, looking through to the sign over the stairs. It read “20.”
“I take it that means this is the twentieth floor?” Mario asked.
“Looks like,” Alex said. “You got the layout of this place, Owl?”
The pilot pulled her tablet out of her bag and tapped the screen.
“There are three towers. We’re in the westernmost one. There’s a central area that connects all three towers at the base. That’s where we’ll find the stadium.”
“The bottom,” Firefly said. “Of course.”
Alex glanced back down the hallway. “I do like the setup in here. Narrow hallways. Narrow staircases. That’ll help, if we get outnumbered. Hopefully it’ll be the same way below. Let’s head down.”
They descended the stairway quickly, but carefully. With each floor they passed, Alex tried not to think about the layers of sleeping vampires that were likely stacked on top of them.
They reached the doorway to floor one and stopped. Alex looked at the group. “Tight formations. Stay alert, but be damn sure before you fire at anything. The last thing we want to do is wake up any vamps in this place. Chuck, you’re with me. Barton brothers, you’re anchor.”
“And us non-GMT weenies will huddle in the middle,” Firefly muttered.
“I'll be huddling right with you,” Owl said.
On Alex’s signal, Firefly pulled the door open, and she and Chuck went through. They both immediately froze.
She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this.
Their headlights weren’t bright enough to see to the other side of the vast space before them, but they saw enough. Stone columns. Marble sculptures. Spiral staircases that led up beautifully adorned balconies.
“Damn, what the hell was this place?” Patrick asked as he came through the door and joined the group.
“A king lived here,” Ed answered.
Patrick frowned at him. “How do you know that?”
Ed turned, shining his headlamp on a large sign mounted on the wall.
Caesar’s Palace Hotel and Casino.
“Stay quiet,” Alex told them sharply. “Owl? You know where we’re headed?”
The pilot smiled. “I don’t even need my tablet for that.” She pointed to a smaller sign on the wall. It listed a number of locations with arrows next to each of them. The one they were interested in was on the bottom.
The Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace.
“That’s where we’re headed,” Owl confirmed.
“Okay. Team, let’s follow the helpful arrows.”
The group kept in tight formation as they crossed the expansive floor. The area they were passing through was cluttered with rows and rows of metal machines, which limited their visibility. The poor line of sight made Alex nervous; for all she knew there could be vampires huddled behind every one of those metal monstrosities.
They’d been walking for two minutes when Wesley suddenly stopped and spoke in a low voice. “Captain. Two o’clock.”
Alex looked to her right and saw it: a vampire was huddled against one of the machines, sleeping.
She held up a hand, indicating to her team not to engage. Then she started walking again, gun at the ready.
A few minutes later, they made their way through a massive arched hallway. Chuck looked up, illuminating the ceiling, and let out a barely audible whistle.
Alex followed his gaze and saw that the ceiling was painted to resemble a blue sky with a smattering of clouds. She couldn’t believe this place. It was at once awe-inspiring and sickening. To think people had once lived with such extravagance made her both envious of the past and angry at how far humanity had fallen.
She looked around and her headlamp illuminated a window that seemed to lead to some sort of shop. A vampire was sleeping against the glass. She gestured toward it, making sure her team knew it was there, then kept moving.
“This is it,” Owl whispered as they reached a wall with a set of double doors.
Alex pulled them open and led the team inside. The longer they were down here, the more nervous she was becoming. She didn’t want to spend any more time under the sand than they had to.
The feeling of paranoia only increased as they stepped into the Colosseum. It was a massive space filled with stadium seating that led to a large stage at the bottom of the room.
There might be worse places to get into a fight with a large group of vampires, but Alex couldn’t think of one. If a horde attacked them here, it would be all too easy for the vampires to surround the team.
She pushed the thought out of her mind. She didn’t usually think like this, but something about being down here under tons of sand was stoking her nerves.
Owl touched her arm and spoke softly. “Alex, look. It’s everything Brian needs.”
Alex followed her friend’s gaze upward to the impressive lighting system. Owl was right. If the lights were in as good condition as everything else in this palace, they’d make Brian a very happy man.
“Excellent.” She thought for a moment. “Owl, Wesley, Ed, you’re with me. We’re going up to that catwalk to get the lights. The rest of you, hold formation on the stage. Everyone, work as quietly as you can.”
Alex activated her jet pack and shot up toward the catwalk. The jet packs were relatively quiet, but the noise they made seemed amplified in the large, empty room. Still, the four of them made it to the catwalk without bringing any vampires down on them, and they immediately went to work.
The first few lights went slowly as they figured out how to remove them. To Owl’s delight, the lights were in even better condition than they could have hoped.
Alex, Ed, Wesley, and Owl worked quickly and quietly, communicating with hand signals or whispers when necessary, but mostly just flowing through the job. Before long, they’d each removed twelve of the large lights and lowered them to the floor where Chuck, Shirley, and Henry were organizing them while the others stood guard.
Alex eyed the pile on the floor far below her. They wouldn’t be able to safely carry out much more than what they had. She decided she’d let them each get one more light and then call it.
She was starting toward the next light when she heard Owl gasp. Alex spun, and saw Owl staring down in horror at the light that had just slipped out of her hand and was falling toward the floor.
Chuck saw it too, and he raced for the spot, trying to get under Owl so he could catch the falling light. He stretched out his hands, but he was a good three feet short of the spot.
The light slammed onto the ground with a thunderous crash.
For a moment, the Colosseum was silent. The team waited, no one even daring to breathe.
Then a howl came from the lobby, splitting the air with its piercing cry.
Immediately, the nerves Alex had been wrestling with since they’d entered the tower were gone. The thing she’d most feared had happened. There was no longer any reason for dread. It was time to act.
She shouted down to the team on the stage below. “Eyes on the exits. Form up and watch your lines.”
A door on the north side of the Colosseum burst open, and a vampire charged down the aisle toward the team.
Patrick immediately fired, dropping the charging vampire with his shotgun.
The vampire fell, but no one celebrated. Their headlamps were all pointed toward the now open door, and their lights reflected off dozens of sets of eyes in the darkness be
yond.
17
Alex tore her gaze away from the eyes shining from behind the door and looked up at the ceiling above them.
“Owl! How high up is that?” she asked.
Owl shot her a confused looked.
“How high’s the ceiling? Your best guess.”
The pilot shifted her gaze upward. “Over one hundred feet. Maybe one twenty.”
Alex nodded. That was about what she’d figured, too. She’d just wanted someone to give her a sanity check before she risked all their lives. She hurried across the catwalk to Wesley, addressing the team as she went.
“Make sure nothing gets through those doors. We have them bottlenecked now, but that won’t last. Hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” came the chorus of replies.
By that point, she’d found what she’d needed in Wesley’s pack. “Good. Then light ‘em up.”
She took one last look at the domed ceiling, trying to decide whether what she was about to do was crazy. The answer wasn’t hard to come by; of course, it was crazy. But there was no way they were getting out of this room the way they’d come in. This was their only shot.
She activated her jet pack and rocketed upward.
As she flew, she kept one eye on the team working below. Owl, Wesley, and Ed had taken sniper positions at various spots in the rafters and were methodically picking off the vampires that squeezed through the doors. Patrick and Chuck were making their way closer to the doors, giving themselves a better position from which to attack. Firefly had his people in tight formation around him on the west side of the stage, waiting to take out any vampires that came from that direction.
Another set of doors burst open, and two dozen vampires piled into the doorway, all fighting to get through to their prey.
Patrick and Chuck opened fire, sending a barrage of ammunition tearing through the vampires squeezing past their brethren and into the Colosseum.
Yet another set of doors burst open, these ones on Firefly’s side of the auditorium. Two vampires immediately fell, victims of precise headshots by Ed and Wesley. Firefly’s recruits went to work on the rest.
Despite everything that was happening, Alex flushed as a rush of pride hit her. This was her team, taking care of business. This wasn’t just some collection of fresh recruits with potential—not anymore. This was the GMT. They were staring overwhelming odds in the face and never flinching.
Still, a few vampires were breaking through. Only one or two at a time now, but that wouldn’t last long. Which was why Alex needed to finish her work as quickly as possible.
“Alex, we need you down here,” Owl called up to her. “There are too many of them."
“Just finishing up,” Alex said. Another moment, and she was ready to join in the fray. And none too soon.
She dropped down from the ceiling, using a small burst from the jet pack to control her fall. She held her pistol in one hand and a detonator in the other.
“Wesley, Ed, Chuck!” she shouted. “Get on the ground.”
They obeyed her order without hesitation, immediately leaping off the rafters and gliding to the floor.
Alex touched down just as three vampires rushed at Firefly’s right flank. He didn’t see them, but that was all right. She did.
She sprinted toward them, weapon raised. Three shots and three kills. In the chaos, Firefly didn’t even know she’d saved his life.
With those three taken care of, she spun back toward the door, and what she saw made her heart sink. Vampires were pouring in by the dozens now, through six different sets of doors. There was no fighting them off. It was time.
She looked at her team, and time seemed to stop. She couldn’t have been prouder of them. And now she was either going to end their lives or save them. She took a deep breath, held it for just a moment, then pressed the detonator.
The force of the blast hit her like a punch to the chest even though the explosion was a hundred feet over her head. She was knocked back and landed on her ass. As she pulled herself to her feet, she looked up and saw that her plan had worked.
She’d blown a thirty-foot hole in the ceiling of the Colosseum.
The edges of the hole bent under the pressure as sand poured into the room. Hitting the center of the stage in an unceasing cascade, it began to pile up, filling the air with dust.
Alex cursed herself for not anticipating that. She’d made sure her team was far enough from the stage to avoid being buried, but she hadn’t considered what the influx of sand would do to the air.
She touched her radio and shouted into her headset. “Gas masks! Now!”
She pulled on her own mask, then scanned the room for her teammates. It was difficult to see through the dusty air, but she spotted a few of them straight away. She also spotted the vampires.
To her amazement, they appeared to be gathering together near the doors. It was like they were regrouping, considering how to continue their assault.
The GMT didn’t give them time. As one, the team resumed their attack, firing on the gathered vampires, taking them down and whittling away at the horde, even as more vampires poured through the doors to join it.
Alex felt something touch her ankle as she downed another vampire, and she spun toward it, expecting to see a hostile clawing at her leg. But it wasn’t a vampire; it was the sand. She gazed at the stage in awe, shocked at how massive the pile of sand had become and how far it had spread.
Then it happened, the thing she’d been hoping for since she’d thought of blowing a hole in the ceiling—the sun broke through the dust and sand, bathing the Colosseum in daylight.
The vampires began to shriek and jump back toward the doors. The sand coming through the hole had slowed to a dribble from just the right side, now.
“Team, form up!” Alex shouted.
They gathered below the edge of the stage, well within the safety of the light.
“Holy shit, Captain,” Patrick said, his voice gleeful. “That was awesome.”
Alex scanned the group. Her entire team was accounted for and uninjured. Most of them were laughing as the combination of adrenaline and the euphoria of having survived such a close brush with death overtook them. Even Firefly was smiling. As were Henry and Mario.
Then it hit her. “Firefly! Where’s Shirley?”
Firefly blinked hard. “I… I don’t know.”
The team stood in shocked silence for a long moment.
Then Henry pointed to a large pile of sand on the west side of the auditorium near the stage. “She was standing over there.”
“Come on.” Alex marched toward the spot and immediately started digging. The rest of the team quickly joined her.
Firefly was the only one who held back. “Alex, you don’t know what that exposition might have done to the structural integrity of this place. We can’t stay here long. If Shirley got covered in the rush of sand, there’s no way—”
She whirled toward him, her teeth bared. “Shut up and dig.”
He stared at her in disbelief, and for a moment she thought he was going to argue. But then he nodded and got to work.
“Here!” Ed shouted. “I’ve got something!”
Alex rushed over, and sure enough, he’d uncovered a hand, the fingers opening and closing frantically, grasping at the sand as she futilely tried to pull herself out.
The team converged on that spot, quickly uncovered her arm, then her torso before finally pulling her free.
Shirley’s eyes were filled with confusion and wide with terror. She immediately stood up, then stumbled forward and fell on her face in the sand.
Alex dropped to her knees and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. Lay here a moment and just breathe.”
Firefly kneeled next to her. “Alex, thank you. If you hadn’t—”
“Don’t talk to me right now, Captain,” she said, spitting out his title like a curse.
As angry as she was with him, she had to admit that he hadn’t been wron
g. There was no telling whether this room was safe, and they shouldn’t dawdle.
But they had the lights. They had jet packs and there was a hole in the ceiling. Most importantly, they were all alive.
It was time to go home.
“You boys have a good sleep?” Toby asked Aaron and Mark.
Aaron nodded. “That, we did. You?”
“No worse than last night, and no better than the night before that.”
Aaron suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Toby was full of dumb sayings like that, things that were needlessly confusing and barely made sense once you’d untangled them. It reminded him of the way his grandfather had talked. He supposed that made sense, though Toby had been born a couple hundred years earlier than Aaron’s grandfather.
For a while, the way Toby talked had nearly driven Aaron crazy, but now he’d come to terms with it. In fact, everything seemed a little easier to deal with, now that they had their key cards.
Jaden had presented them to Mark and Aaron himself three days ago, two little squares of plastic that meant the difference between captivity and freedom in Agartha.
They hadn’t used them yet except when they were required for their job duties—that would have been foolish. Aaron had instructed Mark to do his best to forget he even had it. They would only use the key cards without authorization one time: when they made their move. And they were still waiting for that opportunity.
“I hope you don’t mind a little variety,” Toby said. “You’re going to have to run the storeroom without me tonight.”
Aaron could practically feel Mark looking at him, but he willed himself to keep his eyes focused on Toby. In as casual a voice as he could manage, he said, “That so?”
Toby nodded. “Jaden’s taking a scavenging crew out tonight. That means the rest of us get temporarily bumped up one slot. Robert is in charge. My boss is handling Robert’s usual duties. That means I have to handle his.”
“And we have to handle yours,” Mark said. “I think we can manage.”
“Good.” Toby pulled the radio off his belt and held it up. “You know how to reach me if you need me.” With that, he walked out the door, and they were alone.
