About five minutes later, the Rebels got the vault open.
Even through the closed door, the noise was shocking. A massive ringing clang filled the air, and I felt the floor vibrate even beneath the thick carpet. The echoes went on and on, almost like the reverberations of a giant bell, and at last, they faded away.
“See?” I said. “Definitely hard to miss that.”
“Clearly,” said Caina. “Shall we…wait.” She looked to the side, her eyes narrowed. “Someone in the trophy room just cast a spell.”
“What kind?” I said.
“Summoning spell,” said Caina. “Pulling creatures out of the Shadowlands and binding them. Quick and dirty. It won’t last long.”
“Maybe they want to use the creatures for free labor,” I said. “Have them carry stuff from the vault.”
“Probably,” said Caina. “Ready?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s get into the hallway, and then I’ll Cloak us.”
Caina nodded, and I opened the door and stepped into the corridor.
And right away I saw that I had made a serious mistake.
The hallway was no longer deserted.
Something like twenty anthrophages headed towards the trophy room. Anthrophages were creatures of the Shadowlands, summoned from Earth’s umbra in that strange realm. They were roughly human-shaped, but gaunt and gray-skinned, with venomous yellow eyes and black craters for noses. Black fangs filled their mouths, and black claws jutted from their fingers and toes.
I had been killed by anthrophages every day for decades in the Eternity Crucible.
A wave of loathing and fear and pure molten hatred blazed through me.
The anthrophages stopped, turned, looked at me.
“Well, shit,” I said.
The anthrophages charged, and the fight was on.
I raised my hand and cast a spell, calling elemental fire to my fingers. Caina snapped up her AK-47 and started shooting, the muzzle flashes bright in the dim corridor. A sphere of fire the size of my thumb leaped from my hand and hurtled into the anthrophages. It zipped back and forth, drilling tunnels through the skulls of the anthrophages, and sent the creatures to the floor. My sphere killed seven of them before its power ran out. Caina shot down four of the anthrophages in that time.
But the rest of the creatures surged over the carcasses and attacked, and I cast another spell. Caina dropped her rifle, the weapon bouncing against its strap, and held out her hand as she summoned her valikon. The ancient sword assembled itself out of shards of silver light in her hand. It looked as if it had been made from silver, but it was something harder and lighter than steel, and Elven hieroglyphs glowed along the flat of the blade. She attacked with the sword and cut down two anthrophages in quick succession, the sword glowing with white fire.
As she did that, I finished my spell and hurled a volley of lightning globes. Six whirling, spitting spheres of blue-white lightning leaped from my hand and slammed into the anthrophages. I killed three of them, and the lightning stunned three more long enough that Caina cut them down with her valikon. I was afraid her sword would conduct the lightning into her arm, but the valikon was immune to magic.
More anthrophages charged towards us, and in the trophy room, I saw a half-dozen Rebels rushing towards the door, raising their rifles. The narrow corridor would become a shooting range, and with their guns set on full auto, they would have no trouble ventilating us with bullets.
I cast another spell, and a thick curtain of white mist rose up before us. It hardened into a foot-thick wall of glittering ice that sealed off the corridor. Mr. Vander, the Elven bloodcaster who had healed Russell’s frostfever, had been dubious that an ice wall was useful for blocking bullets, and I had done it less since he had taught me the Shield spell. But the foot of rock-hard ice stopped the bullets, and it did keep the remaining anthrophages from charging at us. But I heard the snapping sound as the AK-47s tore into the ice wall, and saw the cracks begin to spread through the ice.
It was holding, but it wouldn’t hold for much longer.
“Those Rebels have grenades,” said Caina, dismissing her valikon and taking her rifle in both hands once more.
“My ice wall won’t hold up against that,” I said. “We’d better move.”
Caina nodded, and we turned and ran further down the corridor. It came to a right-angle turn, and we followed it. Ahead I saw a dim blue light, and a sudden sharp chemical smell came to my nostrils. Chlorine, that was it. Did Kaldmask have a chemical weapons laboratory down here? Chemical weapons wouldn’t be as dangerous as something like the Sky Hammer or the Quantum Nihlus Stone, but they would still be devastating in the wrong hands, and Gabriel Navarre’s hands were definitely the wrong ones.
The blue light got brighter, and Caina and I ran into a large rectangular room.
I saw that the source of the chlorine smell was a swimming pool. It was a good-sized pool, maybe a hundred feet long and forty wide, and it was full of rippling water. Blue lights in the ceiling illuminated the pool room, and there was maybe twenty feet of concrete floor between the wall and the water of the pool. On the far side of the pool was a lounge area with deck chairs, a small wet bar, and several dozen bottles of expensive-looking alcohol.
Kaldmask had a private underground pool.
And, of course, the walls were covered with more pornographic artwork of naked Elves.
“God,” I said, scowling at the murals. “No wonder it smells like chlorine in here. He probably needs a tanker truck of it to sanitize the place after his private parties.”
“A distressing thought,” said Caina. “You should probably seal off the corridor if you have enough strength left for another ice wall spell.”
“Good idea,” I said, and I turned and cast the spell again. White mist rolled over the mouth of the corridor, and it hardened into another glittering ice wall. That would give us ample warning before anyone broke into the pool room since it’s impossible to shoot at a giant block of ice without making a lot of noise.
“I think we should head into the corner,” said Caina, “on the other side of the pool. When the Rebels break into here, you can Cloak us, and we can wait until they withdraw. They’re on a tight schedule, and I don’t think they will waste time searching the entire pool area.” She gestured to the right, where more doors opened into what were probably locker and changing rooms. “They could waste an hour searching this place.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But we’re on a tight schedule, too. Maybe when the Rebels break into the pool room, we should just follow them back to the vault. If we wait too long in here, they’ll have taken the weapon to the truck.” Come to think of it, they might already be loading the weapon into the freight elevator.
“That makes sense,” said Caina. “Are you sure you’re up for using the Cloak spell for that long?”
“I’ll manage,” I said. I was starting to feel the fatigue tugging at my mind. I had used a lot of magic in the last few hours and maintaining a Cloak spell around myself and someone else was a drain on my stamina. But I had felt much, much worse, and I could force myself to keep going. “We…”
I frowned, looking at the pool.
The water had started steaming.
“Is that actually a hot tub?” said Caina.
“No,” I said. “No, it’s too cold in here.” The steam became a thick white mist that blanketed the water of the pool. The sheet of fog rippled and split up into a dozen rippling fingers of mist that crawled out of the water and onto the concrete. “And that’s not steam. That’s…”
The fingers of mist hardened into corporeal shapes.
“Wraithwolves,” said Caina, dropping her rifle and summoning her valikon.
“Shit!” I said and began casting a spell.
The mist hardened into wraithwolves, and the creatures sprang towards us. They looked like wolves but were much larger, and their bodies were covered by bony plates of armor. Their eyes burned like coals, and a row of spines ran down their
backs. Like anthrophages, wraithwolves were creatures of the Shadowlands. Unlike anthrophages, wraithwolves came from the deep Shadowlands, the wild places between the umbrae of the different worlds, and that meant they were immune to normal bullets. You needed magic to permanently hurt or kill a wraithwolf, though fire and massive amounts of kinetic force would do the trick.
So would a valikon.
I hurled fire and lightning, driving the wraithwolves back. Caina took her valikon’s hilt in both hands and attacked, slashing her blade into the creatures. Soon a ring of dead wraithwolves surrounded us, but more of the damned things coalesced from the mist and charged.
A wraithwolf slammed into Caina and knocked her to the floor, the breath exploding from her lungs with a grunted wheeze. I whirled and cast a spell, sheathing my right hand in a gauntlet of telekinetic force, and I punched the wraithwolf. Normally, that would have been useless, since the wraithwolf was heavier than I was. But the telekinetic gauntlet added a lot of force to my blow, and the wraithwolf flipped off Caina and slammed into the wall. She scrambled back to her feet and swung her valikon, catching another wraithwolf behind the neck.
Three more wraithwolves came at me, and I cast the lightning globe spell. A volley of six globes erupted from my hand, and two globes slammed into each of the three wraithwolves. That was enough to kill the creatures, electrocuting them within their bony armor. But five more rushed towards me from behind the dead ones, and I pulled together more magic for a spell.
Then a dark shape burst from the door to the locker rooms.
My first thought was that it was another creature from the Shadowlands, something else that Kaldmask or the Rebels had summoned.
But I saw the dark blur of a Shadowmorph blade, and two of the wraithwolves fell in pieces to the floor.
Riordan charged into them, his Shadowmorph sword snapping right and left. I was so glad to see him that I wanted to run to him, but there were still wraithwolves trying to kill me, so I threw spells at the creatures with new vigor.
Between my magic, Caina’s valikon, and Riordan’s Shadowmorph blade, we disposed of the remaining wraithwolves in short order. The carcasses began dissolving into pools of slime, which would soon evaporate into nothingness. The chlorine smell from the pool did a good job of covering up the stink.
“Nadia,” said Riordan, his Shadowmorph blade dissolving as it crawled back up his arm. He looked rather the worse for wear. The left sleeve of his jacket had been shredded, and there was soot on his face. He had lost his tie, or taken it off himself since a tie was a liability in hand to hand combat.
“Riordan,” I said, and I smiled. “I’m really glad to see you.”
***
Chapter 7: A Little Money On The Side
Caina lowered her valikon, breathing hard, sweat stinging in her eyes.
Her chest ached damnably, but the wraithwolf’s impact hadn’t broken the skin, thanks to her tactical vest, and it didn’t feel like she had cracked any ribs.
“How the hell did you find us?” said Nadia.
Caina took a deep breath, ignoring the ache in her chest, and turned her attention to Nadia and Riordan.
“Dumb luck, I’m afraid,” said Riordan. He looked as grim and stoic as ever, but Caina could see the relief in his dark eyes. “After those bombs went off in the dining hall, Markus and I were near one of the corridors to the Baron’s private quarters. Markus wanted to escape and notify Homeland Security.”
“He did,” said Nadia. “There are a couple hundred Homeland Security officers outside right now, and Duke Mythrender is on his way. When he gets here, they’re going to storm the mansion.”
“But I wasn’t going to leave until I found you,” said Riordan. “I couldn’t see you in the dining hall, and Navarre started summoning Shadowlands creatures. I had to retreat into the Baron’s private wing. I found a secret elevator, and I wound up coming down here.” He grimaced and gestured at the locker room door. “Kaldmask has an entire secret complex. Trophy rooms, armories, a summoning chamber, and what I am reasonably sure was a room dedicated to orgies.”
“Oh, he has several rooms dedicated to orgies,” Nadia said. “Caina and I were hiding out in one. I’m not sure if Kaldmask’s taste in art is grotesque or tacky.”
“Why not both?” said Caina, watching the ice wall blocking the corridor. She would have expected the Rebels to show themselves by now. Maybe they didn’t feel like chasing enemies deeper into the complex.
“Miss Amalas,” said Riordan. “I’m grateful you helped Nadia…but how did you end up here? Did the High Queen summon you as well?”
“No,” said Caina. “It was just bad luck. I only showed up so Ghost Securities wouldn’t offend the Baron by our absence. Instead, I find myself getting shot at by Rebels.”
“Hell of a party,” said Nadia.
“How did you end up here?” said Riordan.
“Yeah, about that,” said Nadia. “I think we’ve figured out what Navarre is planning.”
“Navarre?” said Riordan. “As in Gabriel Navarre? The Rebel Gatekeeper?”
“Yup,” said Nadia. “Looks like he wasn’t in Venomhold when the Sky Hammer went off. He’s got someone negotiating with Homeland Security about the hostages, but that’s just a bluff. He’s really after whatever Kaldmask has locked in his secret vault. Some kind of magical weapon, I think.”
“The vault,” said Riordan, his frown deepening. “Was that the crash I heard earlier? The vault door?”
“Yes,” said Nadia. “They had a plasma torch and high-powered electromagnets. Cut the hinges and pulled the door open.” She scowled. “Morvilind never bought me toys like that.”
“He was too cheap for it,” said Riordan. “He just taught you the Mask spell. Then you could Mask yourself as a bank employee and walk right into the vault.”
“Well, that’s quieter, at least,” said Nadia. “Navarre’s got his people taking the weapon up the freight elevator to the truck dock. Then we think he’s going to drive a short distance away, bring the truck into the Shadowlands, and then escape with the weapon.”
“He’s taking a huge risk,” said Riordan. “The men upstairs in the dining hall…that must be all that’s left of Connor’s Rebel organization. The Sky Hammer killed most of them, and the Elven nobles hunted down nearly all the rest.”
“Which means that he’s desperate enough to take that risk,” said Caina.
“It would seem so,” said Riordan. “What did you intend to do?”
“Nadia was going to Cloak us, and we would follow the Rebels to the truck dock,” said Caina. “Then we planned to steal Navarre’s truck and give him a call.” She tapped the radio handset at her belt. “We’d taunt him into following us, and Homeland Security could wipe out his men as they chase us.”
“That’s a good plan,” said Riordan. “What went wrong?”
Nadia scowled. “I made a mistake. I should have Cloaked us before we left Kaldmask’s orgy room. We ran right into a band of anthrophages, and we had to retreat here. Then some wraithwolves attacked.”
Riordan nodded. “I killed enough of Navarre’s men that he’s summoned up a lot of Shadowlands creatures and sent them prowling through the mansion to find me. And if this weapon is heavy enough, he might have dispatched the anthrophages to help carry it.” He frowned. “Those are Homeland Security-issue armor vests and radios.”
“Yep,” said Nadia. “We got out of the mansion, and then came back. Turns out Caina knows the local commander of Homeland Security. Surprisingly reasonable guy for a Homeland Security goon.”
“You know General Dorius?” said Riordan.
“I do,” said Caina. “He’s waiting for us to contact him once we’re clear of the jamming.”
“Why did you come back into the mansion?” said Riordan. “You had gotten clear.”
“We couldn’t leave without finding the weapon,” said Caina. “That’s our best chance of saving as many hostages possible, by drawing off Navarre’s men in a cha
se.”
“You’re right,” said Riordan, voice grim. “The Elves don’t negotiate with Rebels, not ever. Even if Navarre is keeping the Baron himself captive. The nobles won’t try to kill the hostages, but they won’t let fear for the hostages’ safety stop them, either. If Mythrender storms the mansion, a couple thousand people are probably going to die.”
“I know,” said Caina. “Which means we need to move now.”
Nadia nodded. “I can Cloak us and get us back into the trophy room.”
“All three of us?” said Riordan. “That would be a strain even for you.”
“I can manage it,” said Nadia. “We’ll just have to walk quickly.”
“It might be better to fight,” said Riordan.
“There are only three of us,” said Caina.
“True,” said Riordan “but the three of us are a Shadow Hunter, a valikarion, and one of the most powerful human wizards on Earth.” Nadia grimaced at that. “If anyone is going to stop Navarre, we’re the best ones to do it.”
“Great,” said Nadia, rolling her shoulders. “Just like Lost Gate all over again.”
“We did win that fight,” said Caina.
“Barely,” said Nadia. “But it could work. You took that AK-47 from a dead Rebel?”
“Yes,” said Riordan, hefting the rifle slung over his shoulder. “Along with some grenades and a good supply of ammunition.” He opened his damaged jacket, and Caina saw that he had a magazine stuffed into the interior pocket and more in his trouser pockets.
“Pockets,” muttered Nadia. “Why do men’s dress clothes always have pockets and women’s do not?” She sighed. “All right, this is how we should play it. You two go first. The corridor is narrow enough that I can cover all of us with the Shield spell. You gun down any Rebels, and I’ll keep them from shooting us.”
Cloak & Ghost: Rebel Cell Page 9
