Swallowing convulsively, he stepped over them and finally, at last, stood before Kalaes’ door. He let out a hissing breath. Here we go.
He kicked the splintered door in and entered, taking aim.
Two Gultur flanked Kalaes, holding him up by the armpits. Blood painted a crimson mask over one side of his face and dripped from the tips of his braids to the floor. His eyes were shut.
Elei almost doubled over, the breath knocked out of his lungs.
The two guards held their guns to Kalaes’ head, while a third guard, at the side, aimed at Elei. The trajectories of the bullets shone in his mind’s eye, white, simple lines. Two bullets into Kalaes’ bowed head, one into his own chest.
Stalemate. Death. The end.
“Drop your gun,” said the Gultur standing apart, her gaze a cold and furious green. She was beautiful in a clean, surgical way, with her chestnut hair caught in two buns and her wide-set eyes; the symmetry too perfect. He noticed her body, her soft curves. Why was he focusing on them now? His thoughts were oddly distant, as if he weren’t the one standing there with a gun pointed at him.
“Drop your gun,” she said again, voice clipped and dry like a machine’s.
“And if I don’t?” He started at his own words.
She grinned and he knew she wouldn’t mind shooting him and then carving his heart out as a keepsake.
He’d have to break her focus. He lowered his gun and bent to place it on the floor. Poised, his hand still on the gun, his heart booming, he blinked. All color seeped out of the room, the only hue the bright yellow flashing over the Gultur’s booted feet.
Hit her feet, bring her down, distract the others, shoot them.
Exhaling, he placed the gun on the floor and let his second machine gun swing forward. He sent the gun skittering across the floor with a jerk of his hand and threw himself sideways just as the Gultur gasped and fired. The bullet missed him, but another shot cracked and a bullet sliced through his upper arm as he crashed to the floor.
Dazed, he lifted his other gun and shot the Gultur who stood aside. He missed her chest, hitting her instead in the leg, and she went down with a cry. More bullets zipped by, barely missing him, ricocheting off the floor. Sharp pieces of concrete hit his legs. Pushing himself up on his knees, he whipped the gun to his left hand and narrowed his eyes, Rex marking the targets with fiery red.
Time slowed. He shot the other two Gultur in the chest, one after the other, the recoil of the gun jolting him time and again. Blood sprayed, bright red drops hanging still in space before they splashed the floor and walls.
The Gultur guards fell backward, their guns flying through the air, and landed on the floor, twitching. Lakes of crimson spread around them.
Kalaes collapsed to his knees and fell on his side, dark hair spilling on the yellow floor, face slack and streaked with blood.
Gods dammit. Panic crushed Elei’s chest and still he found his feet moving forward. He fell to his knees next to Kalaes and turned him over. Don’t. He swallowed hard. Please don’t be... He couldn’t even think of the word. He thought he saw Albi’s mutilated body, then Pelia dying in a pool of her own blood.
Must check. He pressed a trembling finger to Kalaes’ throat, holding his breath, and a faint pulse leaped beneath the skin.
Alive, Kalaes was alive. Elei slumped over in dizzying relief and fought to gather his wits. His hands shook so badly he almost dropped the gun before slinging it over his shoulder. Something glinted in the belt of one of the Gultur, and he reached over to extract it.
His Rasmus.
He sheathed it. Kalaes’ pendant lay on the floor, bloodied, as if someone had flung it away. He gathered it and got up just as footsteps sounded from outside, somewhere down the corridor, perhaps on the stairs. He grabbed Kalaes under the armpits, debating how to lift him. Clenching his jaw, muscles burning in his arms and legs, Elei grunted as he slung Kalaes over his shoulder.
His knees buckled, tendons trying to pop out of his neck, but he managed to straighten. It wasn’t a small feat; Kalaes surely outweighed him by at least forty pounds. He shouldn’t have been able to lift the older boy, but for Rex.
I owe you one, you bastard.
Shouts. Gultur were coming. He stumbled out of the room and started down the corridor the moment shots rang out behind him. A bullet sliced a burning furrow in his already wounded leg, but the pain faded in the adrenaline pumping furiously through his veins. More bullets slammed into the walls over his head and he expected any moment the shot that would end it all, a bullet in the head, in the back, but it never came. He hoped Kalaes wasn’t hit. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard cries of pain and wondered numbly what was happening behind him.
Not sure how he was supposed to pull this off, past caring, he staggered in the opposite direction of the stairs, worried that Kalaes wasn’t waking, worried he’d drop him, worried he’d screw up. All his focus was on his feet, moving forward, step after step, afraid his legs would fold beneath him, spelling the end for them both. Securing Kalaes with one arm, he kept his other hand on the machine gun, holding it loosely, wondering all the while what in the hells he’d do with it if they were fired upon — use Kalaes as a shield?
A door loomed at the end of the corridor. He didn’t know what lay beyond — stairs, or a locked room. No choice. He made it his goal.
The running steps and voices behind him were getting closer, and several clicks that sounded like bullets sliding into gun chambers told him time was up.
His turned slowly, as if through glue, raising the machine gun one-handed. Ten or so Gultur were approaching, his possessed eye picking out the targets in bright red as they came. He took aim, though his hand shook.
“Elei? Is that you?” The woman’s voice came from his left, startling him. Hard fingers grabbed his arm and dragged him sideways to crash into a door frame, and then farther, into a room, slamming him against a metal cupboard. The gun fell from his numb fingers, clattering to the floor, and Kalaes began to slip from his hold. Elei fought to straighten, his eyes seeking the owner of the voice.
Then the familiarity of the intonation clicked and he knew who it was, though he could barely believe it. “Hera?”
Her eyes were so wide her dark pupils looked like pinpricks in their center. “How can you be up? Yesterday you were barely conscious.” Then her eyes narrowed. “It’s Rex’s doing, is it not?”
Elei nodded.
Hera smiled, her loose hair fanning like black feathers around her face, then she bent and lifted the machine gun from the floor. She gave it to him, raising a fine eyebrow. “I did not know you liked big guns.”
Deep inside his mind a voice laughed drily, but everything else was blank, turning his skull into an empty, echoing space. He slung the machine gun over his shoulder.
“Wait here,” Hera said and her lips pulled in a savage grin. “I’m going to clear the way.”
And she stepped out into the corridor, already firing. The rat-tat-tat of bullets drowned out all other sound, each impact sending vibrations through the floor.
Stay up. Don’t fall. The muscles in Elei’s legs strained, his back cramped, his arm around Kalaes’ legs spasmed. Just a little longer.
He held his breath. Silence rolled down the corridor in a great wave, Hera’s soft steps barely disturbing it. She appeared in the doorway and gestured for him to follow. “Come,” she said, and he realized he was probably staring at her like an idiot.
He stepped out, his eyes drawn to the bodies he knew would be there, wincing at the amount of carnage and turning resolutely the other way. He really hoped Hera had a plan because he’d run out of ideas and the ability to think some time ago. Her long hair swished faintly in the quiet like an owl’s wings as she strode on, her hips swaying ever so slightly, as if she followed the steps of a sacred dance, a ritual she knew well.
“Is he conscious?” she asked and he struggled to make sense of her words. She tugged at his arm and he jerked back.
�
��No.”
Then she stopped at a nondescript door and wrenched it open.
“Nunet’s snakes.” She heaved a long-drawn sigh. “Okay, you’ll pass him down to me in a minute.”
And she stepped out.
Pass him... Taking a step forward, he peered through the door and saw the hazy dawn spread across the sky and the town stretch beyond the enclosure wall. He finally noticed the void and the metal ladder below, and his stomach roiled.
An emergency exit.
Hera was already standing in the yard looking up at him, slender brows knit. She reached up with both hands and beckoned.
Right, pass him down.
Voices, running steps, hells, would this ever end? With a soft groan, Elei bent forward and let Kalaes slide off his numb shoulder. Then he brought around his other arm to ease him lower, wondering in a sort of daze how they could make this work. Kalaes slipped downward, Elei’s hands under his armpits the only thing preventing him from falling to the yard like a sack of stones.
Hera climbed on the first rung of the ladder to reach him, and the running steps were now close behind Elei, too close, sharp smell of burnt dakron and the cadence of death. The muscles in his arm were numb to the wrist and his fingers dug weakly into Kalaes’ body, barely keeping him from falling.
“Hera,” he hissed, his hold beginning to slip. His other arm burned with the effort, tendons and muscles pulling in his wrist; the bone felt about to pop out of its joint. “Hurry.”
“Release him.”
Her words took a moment to register, but by then Elei didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t feel his fingers anymore. His breath hitched as Kalaes fell from his grip, dropping for a heart-stopping moment toward the ground.
Then Hera caught him, halting his descent. She stumbled backward, cradling Kalaes, then she looked up, her mouth pressed in an annoyed line.
“You hurry, boy,” she commanded. “They’re coming.”
Caught between relief and panic, he gripped the ladder in shaking hands and climbed down. His feet had barely touched the concrete when Hera bent her knees and lifted Kalaes over her shoulder.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Wondering why she was giving him such a funny look, a cross between worry, fear and annoyance, he waved Hera forward and stumbled after her. Streaks of color and light went by — walls, doors, graffiti, a bench — his breathing echoing hollowly in his head, his legs not moving fast enough. His thigh burned, and his pants were wet with blood when he touched them. His foot dragged on the ground.
Hera turned the corner of the building, slowing, then picked up the pace and crossed between the hospital and a watchtower, heading to the side gate. The image of Kalaes’ dark head and arms flopping on her back was unreal.
Not realizing when she’d stopped, he almost plowed into her. He bent over, trying to catch his breath, when he saw the other woman. A visored Gultur, her gun leveled on them and blocking their way, one of those huge dogs standing behind her. The dog growled, baring its sharp teeth.
He expected colors to flare around him, but instead blackness encroached on his vision. Maybe his reserves were at long last running out and not even Rex could pump him for more. His heart had been hammering for way too long.
“Hera?” asked the Gultur, her voice muffled by her visor, and he felt Hera stiffen next to him.
The dog growled again, straining against a leash tied to a pole in the ground. The Gultur said something in a stern voice, in a language Elei didn’t understand, and the animal whined and fell silent.
“Who are you?” Hera asked flatly.
The Gultur guard pushed up her visor, her sandy ponytail falling over one shoulder. Her face was more angular than Hera’s, paler, her eyes a clear gray.
“Sacmis.” Hera took a deep, shuddering breath. “Are you going to kill us?”
The Gultur hefted her gun, lips pursed, and Elei waited for the gunshot, for the impact.
It never came.
“Hera,” muttered the Gultur. “I need to talk to you.”
What?
“Talk to me?” Hera drew out the words, as if not understanding their meaning.
Sacmis nodded at Elei. “Is he the one?”
Hera’s breathing caught, then became faster. “Sacmis, I—”
“I must kill him.” The Gultur raised her longgun, pointed it at Elei. His breath caught and he stared, paralyzed, at the gun mouth.
Hera stepped between them. “No, you must not. What’s going on?”
Sacmis’ face twisted with some strong emotion Elei couldn’t name. “It’s Rex. The results from the lab arrived. You’re in danger.”
This took a moment to sink in. Elei frowned. “Am I infectious?”
Sacmis’ aim didn’t waver. “Only to those carrying a pathogenic fungus, like Regina, and then only by swallowing your blood. But that is not it. Rex wants Regina.”
As if that was any news.
“Really, Sacmis,” Hera said, her tone light and mocking. “If you want to kill the host of the only parasite that can control Regina and bring down the system, why are you trying to justify it? What’s the matter, is your conscience bothering you today?”
“Just be careful. He’s dangerous to you. Hera, please... Sobek.” Sacmis stiffened, and threw a backward glance. Then she lowered her visor again, hiding all expression. “You need to move along.”
Hera shifted Kalaes on her shoulder. “Will you explain?”
“Go!” snapped Sacmis. “They’re coming. Hurry. I’ll try to find you.”
Elei wondered if he’d heard correctly, but Hera jerked as if she’d been whipped and took a step forward. Sacmis moved aside, lifting her gun, her eyes glaring behind her visor, and they stumbled past.
Who is she? he wanted to shout the question at Hera, but his leg hurt too much to think, and gravity was a chain wrapped around his neck, pulling him to the ground. He fought it. Not yet.
Dazed, he limped after Hera through the gate. He thought he saw a body lying along the wall, splashed with blood, but couldn’t be sure. A smell of burnt dakron clung to the air, close, too close, and then he heard running footsteps from his right.
“Hera...” He winced at the sound of his hoarse voice. He took another step and his leg betrayed him, sending him down to all fours, colorful graffiti swimming in his eyes. We won’t make it. The thought rang inside his head, deafening, as waves of pain washed through him. His stomach roiled and he thought he might be sick.
A hand grabbed his arm, lifted him and shoved him against the wall. He gasped, groping for purchase against his assailant.
“Elei.” It was Hera. She shook him lightly. “Someone is here.”
No shit. But the smell wasn’t that of Gultur and he stiffened. Human. “Who—”
“I think it’s our side.”
Our side?
In silence they watched, Hera’s hand a steel clamp on his forearm, as silhouettes moved out of the side streets — four armed, hooded persons. One of them, a man if his wide set of his shoulders was anything to go by, hurried toward them, while the others covered him with their assault-rifles.
The man nodded at Hera, dark eyes worried, then he reached out and easily lifted Kalaes from her hold. He threw him over his shoulder as if Kalaes weighed nothing and started back toward the street he’d come from.
Elei pushed Hera off, lurched after them, he didn’t know these people, had to make sure Kalaes was okay—
“Sh...” Hera clasped his shoulder, unwittingly digging into fresh wounds and robbing Elei of breath. She pulled him off the wall and forced him to fall in step behind the others. “They’re with us. They finally came.”
The word hung in the air, unspoken, a harbinger of hope.
The resistance. Undercurrent.
***
Elei couldn’t gauge how long they’d been walking, but morning had broken over the town, illuminating the clear sky. Hera was silent, pulling him along, and he stumbled every few steps, losing balance and orie
ntation. His leg was practically dead weight and his head felt screwed on wrong. Gray buildings, streets and sky swam in his eyes. A skinny child crossed the street ahead, scurrying like a rat, and Elei halted, digging in his heels when Hera tugged on his arm.
Something nagged at his memory. “Hera. Kids. The kids.”
“Have you banged your head?” Hera snarled. “What kids?”
“Street kids.” He pulled his arm back but her grip never weakened. “They helped me. They were the distraction.”
“Distraction?” Hera’s eyes flashed. “Damn. Come.”
“No, I have to make sure they—”
“I’ll take care of it. Come on.”
He glanced around but the child crossing the street was long gone and he wasn’t sure he could take another step; Hera left him no choice, yanking on his arm. The burning pain cleared his head enough to get his body into working order. He marched his feet forward.
A cat meowed after him and the image of a horde of cats attacking flashed through his mind, so he had to wonder if he’d dreamed it up. Odd nightmare. Ahead, the resistance group turned into a narrow street and Hera lengthened her stride, dragging him along. His leg gave way, her strong grip saving him from going face down, and he staggered on like a drunk. Hera slowed down. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
“Come on, Elei. You can make it.”
Then she clearly knew something he didn’t, because ice was spreading through his body, numbing his spine. He could barely feel his feet and, boy, did that make walking a tricky business.
They turned into the street the Undercurrent people had taken and entered an arcade. It was made of steel with regular openings in the roof through which pale light slanted, flashing on pools of broken glass. The glass shards liquefied and swirled in eddies as they passed by, and he craned his neck to look at them. He thought he saw in them his reflection, mocking him, he thought the glass turned into blood, thick, congealing and dark that sucked at his feet, sucked him under. The darkness closed in, pouring into his mouth, sealing his eyes and he struggled against it but couldn’t move, couldn’t break through.
Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) Page 30
