Two words on the map of Nevada, printed in red letters, leaped out to my eye.
LAST JUDGE.
Then the UPLOAD COMPLETE message flashed across the screen, and Nicholas closed the laptop and shoved it into his backpack.
“Nicholas,” said Hailey, her voice trembling with effort. “I can’t hold the Seal much longer.”
“We’re done here,” said Nicholas, getting to his feet. “Let’s get to the helicopter.”
“Let’s run to the helicopter,” I said. “Because I’ve just stolen the second thing of our deal for you.”
Nicholas’s icy eyes met mine. “So you have.”
A cold certainty settled over me. The Forerunner’s deal with Morvilind said that I had to steal three things for Nicholas. Jeremy Shane’s briefcase had been the first. That thumb drive had been the second. I only had to steal one more thing for Nicholas.
And then…
My right hand had curled into a fist before I got my reaction under control.
I only had to steal one more thing for Nicholas, and then I could act without putting Russell at risk. I could move against Nicholas and the Rebels however I chose. I could find Murdo’s girlfriend and free her from captivity. I could stop whatever Nicholas planned to do with these relics from the past, just as I had stopped his plan to kill all those people in Los Angeles.
“For God’s sake, stop flirting you two,” said Lorenz. Both Hailey and Murdo glared at him. “Go!”
“An excellent suggestion,” said Nicholas, and he took a step towards the stairs.
And right then everything went to hell.
Things had gone well, and luck had broken our way, but that was because we had prepared and planned so thoroughly. Every possibility had been explored and contemplated, and we had put in an enormous amount of work to get this far. All that work had meant we had strolled into the vault levels and made off with the thumb drive with little difficulty.
We had prepared for every defense that we knew about…but the Royal Bank of Washington DC had defenses that we hadn’t foreseen.
One of them went off.
A deep, rolling chime echoed through the corridor, so loud that it made my teeth vibrate. A wall of blue-white haze appeared at the far end of the corridor and hurtled towards us with terrific speed. It looked like a wall of mist lit from within by gas flames, but mist didn’t move that fast.
“What the hell is that?” said Hailey, her voice going up half an octave on the final syllable.
I had seen something like it before. Morvilind had sent me to steal the Nihlus Stone from Rosalyn Madero in Venomhold, an artifact capable of breaking any magical spell. The Nihlus Stone had produced an effect like what I saw now, a pulsing ring of blue-white haze that dispelled any spell it touched.
Did the Royal Bank have a Nihlus Stone? No, that couldn’t be it. I could still see the Seals of Unmasking glowing on the floor behind the haze, and the elementals it had touched hadn’t been banished.
It was a magical defense designed to dispel the spells of any magic-using intruders. Likely it had been triggered once the combined force of the elemental blades and the Seals of Binding had activated the trap. The trap, of course, would not touch the fire elementals and the Seals of Unmasking and the golems.
But it shattered the Seals of Binding as it ripped past us.
The wall of haze passed through me and Lorenz and Morelli without harming us, but the haze lingered around Murdo. For an instant, it looked like his left wrist was encircled in a bracelet of blazing silver fire, and then the fire vanished, and the haze passed us.
We stood frozen for an instant.
Then as one, every single fire elemental and golem turned towards us.
“Well,” said Morelli. “Shit.”
“Run!” shouted Nicholas.
We sprinted towards the stairs, and the fire elementals charged towards us. They were fast, terrifyingly fast. The golems moved with the speed of running men, but they were so heavy that the floor shuddered and vibrated as they charged, their steel hands curling into metal fists.
Both the elementals and the golems would reach the door to the stairwell before we did.
“Nick!” I shouted. “Focus on the golems! I’ll deal with the elementals!”
Nicholas nodded. “Hailey!”
Both of them began casting spells, and Lorenz followed suit. Purple-black flames began snarling and twisting around their fingers, and I felt the familiar nauseating aura of dark magic radiating from them. I ignored it and focused on my own spell, calling elemental force together in my mind. Morelli stepped behind me, since he had no weapon that could fight these foes. Murdo moved to my right, and an elemental blade sprang from his fingers. This time, the blade was a ghostly blue fire, a sword of elemental cold, and I felt the chill radiating from the magical weapon.
Then a mob of fire elementals and golems rushed us, and I cast my spell.
I hurled a lance of ice as long as my forearm at the nearest elemental. The spear of ice plunged into the panther-shaped creature, and it let out a roar that sounded like a forest fire. The creature winked out of existence, banished back to the Shadowlands by the competing magical elements, and I cast spells as fast as I could, hurling lance after lance of ice. Even with my powerful magic, I could not stop all the elementals, but Murdo kept them from reaching me.
God, but he was a brilliant swordsman! The blade of elemental ice flashed and spun in his grasp, tearing through the panther-like elementals. They tried to surround him in the corridor, but their claws and jaws of flame missed him by mere inches. I wondered if all the men of the Wizard’s Legion learned to fight like that, or if Murdo was just exceptional.
Nicholas, Hailey, and Lorenz proved effective against the golems. They cast spells of dark magic, hurling tight shafts of purple-black fire. I had seen Nicholas use spells like that before. The spell’s power was drawn from the Dark One in his flesh, and it drained away the life and energy from whatever it touched. The shafts of dark fire slashed across the golems, and while they did nothing against the metal, the spells made the symbols upon the golems’ metal bodies flicker and pulse.
The golems slowed as the black fire washed over them.
But they didn’t stop, not entirely. The magic upon them was too powerful for the black fire of the Dark Ones to drain away entirely.
I destroyed the last elemental, but five golems staggered towards us. Nicholas, Hailey, and Lorenz hurled volley after volley of black fire at the golems, but still, they limped towards us, their metal fists drawn back to strike. I didn’t know how strong the golems were, but I was pretty sure a single punch from one of those metal fists would cave in my ribcage.
Fire wouldn’t slow them, nor would ice. But what about lightning? They were made of metal.
An idea came to me.
“Nick!” I shouted, casting the spell to call lightning globes. “Hit them with everything you have! Let’s see if lightning can slow them down!”
Nicholas gave a sharp nod. “Do as she says! Strike when I give the word!”
Hailey and Lorenz followed suit, casting spells and calling more purple-black fire to their hands. The golems shuddered and began moving forward, gaining speed with every step. They were only about ten yards away, and at full speed they could cover that distance in about three or four seconds.
“Now!” said Nicholas.
The three Rebels cast their spells, hurling shafts of black fire at the golems. The steel figures shuddered, slowing as the dark magic leeched away their strength. I finished my spell, and six lightning globes whirled into existence around me. I thrust out my hands, and the globes hurtled down the corridor and struck the five golems.
The results were impressive.
At full strength, I think the golems could have shrugged off my spell without much effort. But Nicholas’s attack had weakened their defenses, and a body made of steel was a good conductor for magical lightning. The golems went into a thrashing, wild dance, hammering their fists
and feet with enough force to dig concrete chips from the floor.
But I couldn’t destroy them. In short order, I suspected, the golems would be after us again.
“Go!” I said. “Before they recover!”
We sprinted forward, heading for the stairs. I dodged past a thrashing golem by half an inch, and by some miracle, we all got past the golems without getting crushed by their flailing limbs. I whirled and cast another spell. White mist filled the corridor in a wall, and as I focused my will, it hardened into a two-foot thick wall of ice that sealed off the corridor. I didn’t know how long it would slow down the golems, but anything was better than nothing.
“Good thinking,” said Nicholas. “To the roof! Quickly!”
He reached the stairwell door, wrenching it open, and as he did, something else went wrong.
The ice wall exploded in a spray of glistening shards, the pieces clinking and clattering off the concrete walls and steel bars. The five steel golems we had seen earlier strode forward, fully recovered from our attacks.
But they were not the ones who had broken the ice wall.
With them came a new kind of golem, one that I had not seen during my earlier reconnaissance of the Bank.
It must have been held in reserve to respond to any incursions into the vaults. It was roughly human shaped, but it looked as if it had been made from mercury instead of steel. It rippled and flowed as it ran after us, and I saw that its hands had taken the shape of giant hammers. Likely that was how it had punched through my wall of ice. Its hands were melting and reshaping themselves into giant mirrored blades. If the mercury golem had been strong enough to punch through two feet of ice with a single blow, one slash from those mirrored blades would cut any one of us in half.
“Go!” shouted Nicholas, and the others raced up the stairs. I was the last one through the door, and I paused long enough to cast another ice wall over the door, sealing it into its frame and layering it with two feet of ice. That wouldn’t slow the golems down for long, but hopefully long enough for us to make it to the rooftop and Turner’s helicopter.
“Katrina!” said Murdo, grabbing my shoulder. “Let’s go!”
“Yeah,” I said, looking up as blue light flared in the gloom of the stairwell. While I had been sealing the door, Nicholas, Morelli, Hailey, and Lorenz had kept running. In fact, to judge from the position of the light that Lorenz had conjured, they were already a good four or five floors above the lobby. I wasn’t at all surprised that they were willing to leave me behind to make their escape.
Murdo, however, had waited for me.
“Don’t want to miss our flight!” I said.
We sprinted up the stairs, following Lorenz’s receding light. It was increasingly hard to see, so I called my own light, the blue glow falling over us.
We had reached the landing outside the door to the lobby when the frozen door exploded open. I looked down and glimpsed the steel golems thundering up the stairs in pursuit, and I saw the mercury golem leap past them like a grasshopper. It had taken a form that sort of looked like an ambulatory octopus, and two long, thin tentacles whipped out from its mirrored body, lashing at us.
I flinched back, but the tentacles hadn’t been aimed at us.
Instead, they sliced through the concrete stairs overhead as easily as if the steps and their steel supports had been made of butter. About three stories worth of stairs collapsed in a roar, debris filling the stairwell with a billowing cloud of concrete dust.
And as the stairs collapsed, I realized two things.
One, Murdo and I were stuck down here. I supposed I could levitate up to the intact section of the stairs or use telekinetic force to haul myself up, but in the time it took me to do that, the mercury golem would cut me to pieces.
Second, the rubble wasn’t slowing the golems down at all.
The steel golems clambered over the broken concrete with ease, and the mercury golem flowed over the wreckage, reforming itself back into a human shape, bladed arms drawn back to strike.
Chapter 14: Ice Games
“Lobby!” barked Murdo.
We whirled, shoved through the door into the lobby, and came upon a scene of organized chaos.
It was brighter than it had been, but it was still gloomy. Several of the Elves, commoners and nobles both, had been stationed throughout the vast space, balls of magical light spinning above their heads. Homeland Security officers had taken charge and were escorting the guests to the main doors and through the fire doors in an organized fashion. Duke Maelaeyar stood on the stage, barking orders to his staff and vassals as they hurried to carry out his wishes.
“Bandana,” said Murdo as we walked forward, yanking his own down to cover his face. That was a good idea, so I followed suit. And as I did, a way to escape came to me. There had been dozens of Seals of Unmasking in the vault levels, but there were none up here.
“Take my hand,” I said.
Murdo blinked, nodded, and grasped my left hand. His hand was much larger than mine, the fingers thick and heavy with the sort of calluses that come from extensive physical training. As he grasped my hand, I summoned magical power for a spell.
Then I Cloaked us both.
Cloaking myself was always a strain, but I was used to it. However, Murdo was a foot taller and at least eighty or ninety pounds heavier than I was, so Cloaking both of us at the same time was much harder. But I did it. Fear was an excellent motivator, and I held the spell over us.
“Follow me,” I said. “Walk fast, but don’t run. I can’t run and hold the spell over both of us.”
Murdo squeezed my hand in acknowledgment. Odd that it felt nice. I took one more deep breath and led us forward.
We had just passed the gate in the counter when the golems emerged from the door to the stairs. There were seven steel golems, led by that strange quicksilver golem, and for an awful moment, I was sure the magical automatons could see us through the Cloak spell.
But they couldn’t find us. The armored helmets of the steel golems turned back and forth as they sought us, and the mercury golem flowed forward a few feet, its body rippling. But even the mercury golem seemed unable to see us.
I quickened my pace as much as I was able, heading towards the least crowded of the fire doors.
The golems couldn’t see us…but the Duke could see the golems.
I saw him frown as he glimpsed the mercury golem, and I saw the understanding come over his face. He was the Governor of the Bank, which meant he would be familiar with its security systems. If the golems were charging into the lobby, that meant they were in pursuit of thieves. If they couldn’t see the thieves, that in turn meant the thieves had made themselves invisible, which meant they had Cloak spells.
“Elves of the High Queen!” shouted the Duke, beginning a spell. “Cast spells of dispelling! There are unseen foes among us! Spells of dispelling! Now!”
“Aw, crap,” I said.
Every single Elf, dozens of them at once, began casting spells. Murdo and I hurried towards the fire door. My instincts screamed for me to run, but if I did, the Cloak would collapse, and the golems would spot us. In the shadowy lobby filled with frightened people, Murdo and I could probably hide from the Elves, but the golems would spot us at once.
Should I just drop the Cloak and tell Murdo to run for it? If I got outside, away from the influence of the warding stones in the Bank’s walls, I could open a rift way to the Shadowlands. Granted, whatever waited inside the Shadowlands might be nastier than the magical wrath of several dozen angry Elven nobles and a mob of Homeland Security officers, but it was better than staying here to get killed. And if Nicholas’s blueprints had been right, the circumference of the wardstones in the walls extended for three hundred yards beyond the Bank itself. The golems could easily run us down in that distance.
An idea came to me, a memory of the time I had escaped from Sergei Rogomil in Madison.
I came to a stop.
“Rory,” I said. “Close your eyes. I’m goi
ng to do something clever, and I need your eyes to work. When I say run, run for the window by the fire door. Got it?”
“Yes,” said Murdo, and the Elves finished their dispelling spells. Pulses of blue light washed through the lobby in overlapping rings of blue haze, and the edge of one of the spells caught me. My Cloak collapsed, and Murdo and I snapped back into visibility.
None of the Elves or the confused guests saw us, but all eight golems turned towards us in perfect unison. It was kind of eerie to see. The mercury golem sprang over the counter like a jet of mirrored water, resumed its humanoid form, and strode towards us.
“Behold!” I roared at the top of my lungs. “I am the herald of the Revolution, and I shall throw down the Elves and their corrupt High Queen!”
That got their attention.
Every single Elf and human in the lobby whirled to face me. The Elves looked angry. Most of the humans looked…affronted. Like I had just insulted their mothers or something. The patriotic fervor for the High Queen runs deep.
Fortunately, I had already started my spell, and I finished it just as every eye in the lobby fell upon me at once.
I Masked myself.
Specifically, I Masked myself as the sun.
It was a neat trick, and one I had first used against Sergei Rogomil and his thugs back in Madison. It wouldn’t hurt anyone since the spell didn’t use real light, just magic. But for an instant, everyone in the lobby except for Murdo was looking directly into the sun. Cries of dismay filled my ears, and both the Elves and the humans flinched, shielding their eyes from the light.
The golems didn’t slow down at all. Whatever method they used to perceive us didn’t rely on normal light. I hadn’t thought that the Mask would fool them…but it would distract the Elves and the security men and the guests long enough for us to get the hell out of the Bank.
“Run!” I said.
Murdo didn’t hesitate. He whirled, and together we sprinted for the window next to the fire door.
It would have been easier to take the fire door, but it was clogged with people recovering from my trick with the Mask. The window made a better target. It was big and wide, and ran from the high ceiling to only about six feet above the floor. I cast a spell as I ran, focusing my will and power, and thrust my hand. I hurled a telekinetic push into the window, and the lower panes of glass exploded into the street, the open frame wrenched by the spell. I cast another spell as I ran, seizing the stone windowsill with a telekinetic grip, and I pulled myself with telekinetic force as I jumped.
Cloak Games: Hammer Break Page 22
