“Who is Delphi?” Alistair asked, the answer dawning in his eyes even as he spoke. “You personify your protocol? Oh, that is just too precious! You are far too precious to live.”
Alistair took aim and pulled the trigger, but Maxim was already moving, and he did not even feel the bullet that tore most of his left ear off, though the sound of the shot deafened him. Maxim wrapped his arms around Alistair’s leg and twisted with everything he had, wrenching his knee. Alistair tottered as Maxim took hold of his shoulder and wrist. The gun discharged, and Maxim felt a bullet embed in his chest protector, halted just short of the flesh by layers of Kevlar. Another shot punched into the top of his right shoulder, emerging from his armpit. Delphi reassured him that the artery was intact while suppressing the messages of pain and shock that his nervous system was desperate to convey.
Maxim heaved, and Alistair fell to the ground, the pistol tumbling from his fingers. Maxim scrambled into a tenuous mount, where his fists and elbows could get into play, Delphi struggling with Alistair’s protocol all the while.
Planting his fist firmly in the dust where he had thought Alistair’s head to be, Maxim reflected that perhaps ‘struggle’ was overselling it. Delphi was nearly helpless against Alistair’s prodigious telepathic gifts, just barely able to secure his own mind against full-scale intrusion. In the meantime, illusion and misdirection kept him from getting a hand solidly on Alistair, his knuckles scraping raw against the sand. Alistair popped him in the chin, briefly dazing him, and then followed that up with an elbow that snapped Maxim’s jaws shut. Alistair used the opportunity to free himself.
Alistair picked up the gun casually, taking the time to dust himself off and smirk.
“Don’t feel bad,” he said. “You both did really well, for…”
Maxim tried to stand, and Alistair put another bullet in his chest plate, knocking him back down. The Anathema aimed the pistol at his head and pulled the trigger, the hammer falling on an empty chamber. Alistair swore and ejected the casings, reaching for an ammo pouch at his belt.
Delphi, beleaguered and half-beaten, saw a tiny opening and attacked, sliding in beneath Alistair’s perception.
The Anathema’s fingers fumbled at the pouch’s fastener.
Maxim drew his own pistol and fired from the hip, letting Delphi handle the precise mechanics of aiming.
Maxim emptied the gun. Alistair reloaded calmly as rounds whizzed by him. Alistair grinned as Maxim fired off his final round, a puff of dust rising from between Alistair’s feet as he charged the pistol.
“Are we all done?” Alistair asked, putting a bullet through Maxim’s hand and sending his pistol flying. “You’ve been fun, but I have more important things to deal with at the bottom of the hill.”
Delphi screamed, but Maxim just stood and waited for the bullet, for the shot that he would likely never hear.
Alistair’s hand wavered slightly, then he sighed and glanced at Gabby, who had put a hand on his arm.
“A fucking empath,” he sighed. “How wonderful.”
“You don’t need to kill Maxim,” Gabby said. “He’s a nice guy.”
“Is he?” Alistair shot Maxim in his left knee, aiming low to avoid his ballistic armor. Delphi could only do such much to mute the pain as the bullet tore through his tendons, toppling him over. “Okay, why not? It’s not like he matters to me at all.”
Maxim, even in the grips of agony, felt something like a light breeze on his face.
Alistair swore as he stared at what remained of the gun in his hand. It had been crudely torn in half, the muzzle and slide crumpled and tossed on the ground. A woman wearing blue trainers and white sneakers stood between Maxim and Alistair, her fingernails extruded like a big cat’s claws.
“Sorry, old boss,” the woman said, tossing her blonde hair. “We have an issue.”
“Leigh Feld?” Alistair looked bewildered. “What in the hell are you doing? You work for me!”
“I quit. Did I forget to tell you?” Leigh shrugged. “You are boring and kind of sleazy, and I got a better offer. I’m not even really Anathema, you know.”
“Yes, I remember. You’re a cannibal vampire,” Alistair snapped. “A very important distinction. Who are you working for?”
“Emily Muir,” Leigh said, cracking her knuckles. “She told me to tell you that, by the way.”
“I thought you were smarter than this,” Alistair said, taking a knife from his belt, the metal powder-coated a dull black. “I thought Emily was smarter than this! I know exactly how tough you are, physically, but let’s be honest. You won’t be able to lift a finger against my protocol.”
Gabby backed away, looking more amused than anything.
“That would be true if someone else hadn’t built my shielding,” Leigh agreed. “Lucky for me that someone did.”
Alistair smiled, and his protocol activated, triggering a telepathic assault that crashed against Leigh’s mental shields like a tsunami.
Leigh grinned and waited. Alistair stared in disbelief.
“Who built those shields?” Alistair’s eyes narrowed. “Emily Muir? It couldn’t be. She’s barely even a telepath!”
“You really should keep up with current affairs if you want to act like a bigshot. I’m embarrassed for you.” The vampire smiled, like she’d just thought of something funny, and perhaps a little distasteful. “Not the first time.”
“Like I said,” Alistair said, tossing the knife between his hands. “Fucking empaths.”
Alistair slashed at Leigh’s face and she leaned back, the blade catching only a few stray blonde hairs. She feinted and moved inside, catching his wrist. Alistair pivoted, kicking Leigh in the midsection, his shin connecting solidly with her belly. Leigh grunted and bent forward, allowing Alistair to land an uppercut on her protruding chin with his off hand, snapping her head back.
Leigh rubbed her jaw and spat out a small pink chunk of her tongue.
Alistair adjusted his grip on the knife, and they resumed circling.
Leigh moved first, but Alistair’s counter was so rapid that he slashed a bright red line down her arm before the vampire had even fully extended it, the tips of her claws tearing his shirt as he spun around her. The knife opened cuts on Leigh’s side and on the back of her neck, and then Alistair leapt back, the vampire grasping at air.
“They are nice shields,” Alistair admitted, switching his grip. “Doesn’t stop me from reading your intentions before you put them into action, though. You might be able to hold out against my telepathy for a while, but I promise that you’ll never lay a hand on me.”
Daniel Gao appeared behind Alistair on the slope, his pistol at the ready, and started shooting.
Alistair ducked and rolled while Leigh flinched, bringing her arms up to protect her face. Bullets whistled through the air and brought up puffs of dust from the hillside as Daniel emptied the magazine.
“You missed,” Alistair crowed, dusting himself off. “Not even a scratch!”
Daniel Gao just shrugged and holstered the gun, giving Maxim a pitying glance before he blinked out of existence.
Leigh attacked Alistair, leaping across the road to tackle him as if it were no distance at all.
Gabby disappeared into the brush not far from where Maxim was trying desperately to apply a tourniquet to his injured leg before he passed out, bullets tearing into the leaves around her. The gunfire came from just over his head, and the empty magazine ejected onto the dirt his blood was leaking into.
“You should have killed her when you had the chance,” thin air admonished Maxim. “Taking a Thule girl prisoner. What were you thinking?”
Maxim groaned and tried to pull himself closer, but the pain was too great, and he was far too slow. Alistair fought free of Leigh’s grasp, cutting her across the abdomen for her trouble.
Maxim groaned and fell back to the ground, too weak to even crawl.
Alistair lunged at Leigh, his knife stained a dull red, and the vampire parried frantically.
A tourniquet was synched tight above his knee, and then a moment later, a trauma bandage was slapped across the exit wounds.
“The Mistress would not want you dead,” Daniel said, out of the empty air. “Try and stay alive long enough for Simeon to rescue you.”
The world was spinning around Maxim like a centrifuge, and he could not so much as lift his head off the ground. His head rolled to the side until his cheek rested on the dirt, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Alistair and Leigh Feld fighting.
Daniel Gao appeared out of nowhere above Gabby’s body, machete in hand. He bent to sever her head as a prize for their Mistress, but was forced to retreat when Alistair snatched a gun from the ground and opened fire.
He must have lost consciousness briefly, because it seemed to Maxim that he blinked, and Leigh Feld was covered in blood, gasping for air and bleeding from a dozen different wounds, while Alistair circled and gloated.
They entangled with the frantic eagerness of new lovers. There was a confusion of limbs and grips, and then Alistair went sailing, slapping the dirt road as he hit and neatly rolling back to his feet.
Maxim blinked again, and there was shouting and more noise, gunshots and cries, and then a strange light and a feeling of pressurization.
He felt like there had been new arrivals, but his vision was too blurred to be certain.
A barrier, he thought, watching the flames surround them with a detached fascination.
Maxim closed his eyes, and wished that all of them, Leigh and Alistair and whoever else, would just be quiet. He was very tired, and even the pain in his knee was not enough to keep him awake.
Eleven
Day Three
Alex showered quickly, the empty locker room making him nervous. He glanced at Katya’s locker as he toweled off, one of several left intact from the inconsistent attentions of the looters, feeling guilty and anxious.
He should have talked to her before she left to meet Emily for their mysterious appointment, he thought, lacing his boots. He should have told Katya everything and gotten her advice. That would have been the safe thing to do.
He should have asked Katya to come along, Alex thought, pulling his ballistic harness out of the pile of dirty clothing at the bottom of his locker. That would have been the best idea.
Emily seemed much less dangerous when Katya was around.
He should have at least asked Eerie about all of it, but she was still half-awake when he left bed that morning, wrapped in blankets and with a pillow clamped firmly over her head.
She had not been happy, after the dinner, so he had simply held her while she wept quietly. He was not entirely certain whether she was upset because of Renton’s bullying, or if she was upset because he was set to spend the day with Emily, but he was afraid to ask.
He yawned as he slid the aramid plates into the harness and yawned some more as he finished getting dressed. By the time he had his kit together, his jaw was aching, and his eyelids were heavy.
He did a couple jumping jacks to get his heart going, then he went to go check the weapons vault the Auditors had maintained in the building.
The secured door that protected the vault had been broken in, and the vault itself was wide open.
Eerie had not wanted him to go, Alex reflected, resignedly inspecting the empty vault.
He returned to the locker room and finished organizing his things, not sure why he bothered, except that if he had stopped moving, he might have fallen asleep on the spot.
They had not quarreled, exactly, after the uncomfortable dinner, but it had been a tense conversation. He had expected her to suspect Emily’s motivations in asking for another favor, but Eerie seemed to be above those sorts of petty considerations, even in her mature form.
Mature sounded bad, Alex thought, reminding himself not to say that aloud.
How else to describe the Changeling’s transformation? Evolved, maybe? It was as if he had not seen her in years, she had changed so much in the weeks they had been apart. It was…eerie.
Alex laughed as he left the locker room, the broken door toppling into the hallway at a touch.
Honestly, he hadn’t wanted to go, himself. He wanted to return to his room, where Eerie probably was right now, wrapped in coarse institutional sheets that he wished he had washed more regularly. He wanted to lay beside her, to sleep with his arms around her, her back pressed to his stomach, the way he held her before dinner, the sweat slowly drying on their skin.
Eerie did not want to be apart again, after so much separation, and Alex agreed.
There just did not seem to him to be another way.
It really didn’t make sense. After the World Tree and the Source Well, could he really still be in Emily’s debt?
What was his life worth? What was Eerie worth to him?
Emily had saved both.
They needed Emily’s help, too, to locate Rebecca and the Auditors, assuming any of them were still alive, to confront the Anathema – Alistair in particular, he thought, grinding his teeth – and to deal with…what had Eerie called it? The thing she said would be coming after her?
The Church of Sleep.
Right, Alex thought, striding into the muggy warmth of the early evening at the Far Shores.
Whatever that was, or whoever.
How many people was he expected to kill, Alex wondered, just to earn some time with his girlfriend?
Even thinking the word made him grin, remembering the afternoon, the way she smiled at him when he pinned her wrists above her head. Then he remembered Emily taunting him, before dinner, and his mood soured again.
Gotta stop thinking about that stuff, Alex thought, shaking his head. He had already let Emily get to him once that day. He did not want to make the same mistake twice.
Turning his mind to anything else just opened the way to worry.
Eerie had argued with him even as her eyes drifted closed, back in the bedroom, and he had felt his own doing the same. A cold shower provided brief respite, but he could not stop yawning as he crossed the grassy quad at the heart of the Far Shores, aiming for one of the former science buildings.
How many times had he used his protocol in the past few days?
He had slept all night, but he did not feel rested. He had no idea when the consequences would come, or why he was not already asleep. How much time would he lose, this time, once it finally happened?
Weeks or months, at least, Alex thought grimly. Even years. He had no real idea of how great the cost of his Black Protocol could be. There was no doubt that since his awakening in the Outer Dark, he had used the Absolute Protocol more than he ever had previously. And he wasn’t likely to be done yet.
Not with Alistair still out there. Maybe that Parson guy. Possibly even Gaul Thule, from what he had been hearing.
And the Church of Sleep, of course.
Eerie had told him they had some time on that one, a few days. Which meant he had to stay awake and ready at least that long.
Long enough to deal with Alistair, too.
Alex’s cheeks burned with fury when he recalled the story Katya had told him about Alistair confronting Eerie bathing in the Outer Dark. He had terrorized her, hurt her.
Alistair would answer for that, Alex resolved, pushing the swinging door open and entering the science building. Which meant using his protocol.
Last time, he had lost most of a winter.
There was nothing to do about it, Alex thought, straightening his shoulders. He had to push on, stay awake, and do whatever was required of him. No more of his friends were going to die, he had already decided. He had let Eerie down before. That was not going to happen again.
The science building was empty, his footsteps echoing down brightly lit hallways.
In the distance, Alex heard barking.
He paused for a moment,
and then hurried down the corridor, toward the sound of the dogs.
A security door took him outside, where a large kennel had been constructed over a patch of poorly maintained crabgrass. He propped the door open behind him, and then went over to the large wooden shed in the corner of the pen that served as a doghouse.
Three dogs greeted him, nearly bowling him over in their eagerness. Alex counted two pit mixes and a Doberman, all frantic for attention. He could never remember the names of Hayley’s dogs, because they were all weird.
Alex petted and scratched them until they calmed down. He did a quick check of their surroundings, pleased to see their water dishes were full and the dogs appeared fed.
Alex picked the oldest and calmest of the pit mixes, grey coming in along his drool-spattered muzzle, and crouched before the dog. He sunk his fingers into the loose skin behind the ears, and gently manipulated the dog’s head until they were looking directly into each other’s eyes.
“I’m not sure how this works,” Alex said, slightly self-conscious. “I’m not sure if you can hear me, or…I think you said, once, that you were permanently bonded to these guys. If that’s true, if you can hear me, then…”
Alex hesitated, not entirely sure what he wanted to say.
“…then you guys need to get back to Central. Things are bad here, and they are about to get worse. There’s a thing coming – I don’t really understand it – but Eerie says this is the safest place, for people like us, Operators or whatever. I don’t know. I’m here, at the Far Shores. Eerie and Katya are with me, and…”
He paused again, considering.
“…and Emily Muir, too. She’s got people with her, Vivik from class, and some guy from Processing, and an Anathema vampire, and…”
Alex took a deep breath, sighed.
“…I don’t know. I think maybe she’s running the place, now, or something like that. Like I said, everything is crazy here. Central is burning. We could really use some Auditors, if there are any of you…I mean, if you guys are okay. Anyway, I guess…hurry. It’s not safe, out there, for you, and…I could really use the help. I’m doing my best, but I’m not really sure what…”
The Church of Sleep (Central Series Book 5) Page 29
