Eerie stared at Lóa, fascinated by the glow emanating from just beneath the hardened tissue of her skull. The hue was a few shades brighter than the one that pulsed above Gaul’s spine.
Lóa Thule had received an implant, Eerie realized, and was using it to download protocols. She was probably interfering in the psychic battle, too.
They had prepared for Gaul alone.
Eerie felt a strange tingle down her back, her skin breaking out in goosebumps.
That had never happened. Not in any of her memories of the future.
“Are you still determined to stand with Emily Muir?” Hope asked. “The Thule Cartel is in much better position to protect you from the Church of Sleep, you understand. We could even protect your friend Alex, if you wanted us to.”
“Thanks for the offer,” Eerie said. “Me and my club will take care of it. It’s kind of our thing.”
“I respect your integrity, but I worry for your lack of self-regard,” Hope said. “There are dungeons beneath this place. A maze. I’ve been down there myself, in the dark, in the water. It’s a family tradition, apparently, and it changes you.” Hope glanced away modestly. “Trust me, you don’t want to end your life down there.”
“What will come will come,” Eerie said. “What do you want with me?”
“We want you to join us,” Hope said. “We want to help you. The Church is just as much our enemy as it is yours.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“Please, give it some thought. I hate to think what might happen to you, Eerie, left on your own with such powerful enemies.”
“I feel bad for you, too,” Eerie said. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I appreciate the thought,” Hope said. “Though I doubt the necessity of it.”
“You aren’t a Thule. Couldn’t you just leave?”
“I certainly could,” Hope said, raising one heavily plucked eyebrow. “Why would I?”
“It isn’t safe.”
“Where is, these days?”
“Not like this,” Eerie said, lowering her voice. “Bad things happen here.”
“They do? Or they will?”
“Both,” Eerie said, turning her attention to the window. “You should go, Hope. You too, Benji.”
Outside the window, the bewildering impasse continued.
“You don’t understand,” Hope said. “I’ve bathed in the waters below this estate, Eerie, and I’ve seen the secrets they keep there. I’ve been changed.”
“I thought so,” Eerie said. “You have that look about you. Like Emily.”
“Oh, my!” Hope chuckled and poured herself more tea. “I do believe that’s meant to be a very big secret.”
I need to get out there, Eerie thought, looking again at the guards at the door. They need my help.
She turned back to the window, feeling helpless and ill.
Eerie squinted and caught her breath, pressing her forehead against the window.
There was someone else, outside. Someone that none of the rest of them could see, standing like uncanny statuary around the entrance to the manor.
“What is happening out there?”
“Nothing to worry over,” Hope said, beckoning to the Changeling. “Come, Eerie. We need to talk.”
Eerie shook her head. One of the guards took a step forward, and Hope stopped him with a glance. The guard returned to his position reluctantly, giving Eerie a look she did not like at all.
She turned her attention back to the window.
The person that no one could see had snuck up right behind Gaul Thule.
***
Alex waited until he heard the hammer fall on an empty chamber, and then he charged, activating his protocol as he ran. He opened a multitude of pinpoint breaches to the Ether, scattered about in the direction of the gunfire.
He ran toward the manor, tentatively optimistic that it had worked.
He made it halfway across the courtyard, and vaulted the dormant fountain, nearly losing his footing in the gravel on the other side.
He flinched at the sound of the gunshot, his hands going automatically to his torso.
It took him a moment to realize that he was fine.
Gaul Thule was slumped over, clutching his shoulder.
An unfamiliar young man with Black Sun face paint was somehow standing behind Gaul at point-blank range, a revolver in his hand. He continued to fire as he backed away, his shots going entirely wide.
“You’re in my head,” the Black Sun Operator observed, holstering his revolver. “I didn’t know that you could do that.”
Lóa grinned, leaning heavily on her remaining crutch.
“Daniel Gao, right? I’ve read about you,” Lóa said. “You did very well. I only noticed you at the very last moment.”
Gaul knelt nearby, looking groggy, blood trickling steadily from his wounded shoulder. Alex headed directly for him, the Absolute Protocol already spinning up in his head.
Leigh beat him there, or she would have. Egill batted the vampire aside at the last moment, her claws clattering across an invisible telekinetic wall that knocked her from her feet. Egill gestured with both hands before she could stand, and Leigh went flying, smashing through the estate wall and tearing a furrow through the muddy field outside. A flick of Egill’s hand toppled the wall onto her, burying Leigh in tons of stone.
Daniel lunged at Lóa, swinging his tomahawk at her head, but the axe burst into flames in his hand, and he cried out and dropped it. His armor and clothing began to smolder, and Daniel frantically tried to pull it all off before it ignited.
Hayley stumbled, her face turning pale as she reached for her throat. Lóa grinned as the Auditor dropped to her knees, her breath gurgling through a telekinetically obstructed throat.
Egill blinked into existence in front of Alex, so close that he nearly ran into him.
“Hello, Alex. That’s an impressive ability,” Egill said. “Mind if I borrow it?”
“Yes,” Alex said, backing away. “I do.”
“Too bad,” Egill said, grabbing for him.
Alex evaded his grasp and retreated, circling and hunting for an opening.
Lóa smirked at Hayley’s desperate writhing, and then turned her attention to Emily, who was watching the melee calmly with a smile on her face, as if the conversation had never ended.
“Your turn, Emily,” Lóa said. “I hate to see you standing around doing nothing while friends die.”
“I’ve been keeping quite busy, thank you very much,” Emily said. “I’m nearly finished now. This is all a bit of a bore, to be honest.”
Daniel burned.
Hayley suffocated.
Alex circled.
***
Eerie counted to five, and then stood and marched over to the door.
“I need to go outside,” Eerie said, planting her feet in front of the guards and balling her fists. “Please get out of my way.”
The guards exchanged a look. The male guard shrugged, and then the female guard grinned.
She stepped forward, and then drove her fist into Eerie’s stomach.
Eerie doubled over, holding her stomach and retching.
“There’s no need for that sort of thing,” Hope said, rising halfway from her chair. “Leave the girl be, won’t you?”
The woman seized Eerie by her hair. Eerie howled as she was dragged to her feet, still clutching her middle.
“I’m sorry, Miss Loring,” the male guard said laconically. “We have our orders, and you have no authority.”
“You aren’t going anywhere,” the other guard said, shaking Eerie’s head back and forth, pulling agonizingly on her hair. “You should have listened to Miss Loring when you had the chance.”
The woman grabbed Eerie’s shoulder and flipped the Changeling, smashing her into the floor. The Changeling rolled into a ball and wheezed, her eyes screwed shut and her face streaked with tears.
“You will not so much as look at the door,” the woman said, giving Eerie a kick to the
small of the back. “Do you understand?”
Eerie gasped and sobbed on the floor.
The guard shared a grin with her coworker as she took her place beside the door.
“This is too cruel,” Hope said. “Please stop.”
“Your empathy won’t work as long as Benji is here, Miss Loring,” the guard replied. “Just stay quiet if you know what’s good for you.”
“The Thule Cartel is in a transitional phase,” Hope said, hurrying to the Changeling’s side. “It’s unfortunate, but temporary.” Hope bent to help the Changeling up from the floor. “Are you all right, Eerie? Come and sit down with me.”
“No!” Eerie brushed off Hope’s hands, still unable to stand up straight, one hand clamped over her belly, the other at the small of her back. “Alex needs me! I have to go!”
The guards let her run past them this time, but as Eerie took her first step into the hallway, the male guard seized her by her hair and pulled her back into the room, wrenching her neck violently.
“Now you’ve upset me,” the female guard said, grinning as she grabbed Eerie’s hand. “That was stupid of you.”
She twisted Eerie’s wrist, and then bent her fingers back until Eerie cried out and wept.
“Please stop this,” Hope pleaded. “Do you not realize I am attempting to recruit her for our cause?”
“I don’t care,” the guard said, twisting Eerie’s pinkie away from the rest of her fingers. “You’ll stay out of this if you know what’s good for you.”
The guard bent her pinkie until it snapped like a twig beneath the pressure. Eerie wailed and begged her to let go, while the other guard grinned and recorded the whole thing on his cell phone.
“They only told us not to kill you,” he said. “You understand?”
Eerie writhed in pain as the woman manipulated her broken finger. The man knelt beside the Changeling to capture her tearful, contorted face on video.
“Say you’re sorry for being bad,” he suggested. “Beg her to stop.”
“No!” Eerie shouted, her eyes shut tight. “Let me go!”
“Lord Thule promised that Eerie would be under his protection,” Hope said, her voice shaking. “He will not be pleased to find that his orders were disregarded, and his guest abused.”
The guard glanced up from his phone to smirk at Hope. He put his boot on the back of Eerie’s neck, forcing her head down and pushing her face into the floorboards.
“Egill said otherwise,” the woman guard said, finally releasing Eerie’s hand, which the Changeling promptly clutched to her chest. “Stay out of this. I’m not going to warn you again.”
The two guards exchanged a look. The woman rolled her eyes and laughed.
“All right, kid,” she said, touching the back of Benjamin’s chair. “You wait outside. Stay right outside the door. Keeping doing your thing and don’t go anywhere. This won’t take long.”
The boy rose and left obediently, not offering the young women as much as a look on his way out.
The guard shut the door to the hall behind him, and then latched it.
Eerie scrambled away until her back met the wall. Hope stood back from the table nervously.
The guards crowded the Changeling, who tried to press herself into the wall.
Eerie wiped the tears from her cheeks, and then looked at the guards with such undisguised loathing that the woman took a small step backward.
“I don’t have time for this,” Eerie said. “I wish you told me sooner. This could have been so much easier.”
There was a moment of silence, as the guards shared an uneasy look.
“They told us you were crazy,” the female guard said. “They never said anything about you being stupid, too.”
She reached for Eerie and stumbled. She grabbed for the table for balance and tripped over her own feet, crashing into the table and sending place settings flying. She crashed into the floorboards along with the cutlery, teacups and saucers shattering on impact.
The other guard took a step in her direction, his skin flushed strawberry red, and the bloody, bitten end of his tongue protruding from between his lips, foam leaking from the corners of his mouth and dribbling down his chin. He reached for the wall, swaying as if he were on high seas, or being buffeted by gale winds, and then he toppled.
Hope turned the same color of red as the guard, spending perhaps half a minute fighting to keep her eyes open, her neck slowly bending, as if yielding to a great weight. Her forehead finally reached the table, and then her eyes rolled back into her head, her mouth tumbling open, spit pooling on the tablecloth.
Eerie walked across the room, giving the dying guards a wide berth.
She touched Hope’s shoulder apologetically as she passed her, and the empath grabbed her arm.
They struggled and fell over, landing in a tangle among the broken crockery.
“Let me go, Eerie!” Hope struggled to free herself from the Changeling. “Don’t do this!”
“I have to,” Eerie said, tying the bigger woman up with her arms and legs to prevent her from standing. “I’m sorry! I was trying…”
“Eerie, why?” Hope tried to break Eerie’s grip, but her strength was quickly fading. Her skin was reddening, and hot wherever Eerie touched her. “Why are you—?”
“It’s not on purpose!” Eerie insisted, holding Hope down. “I tried to do it by contact, but they had gloves and it was taking too long and they were hurting me! You saw it! You saw what they were doing.”
Hope made no reply. The last of the fight went out of her all at once, her energy draining like the water from a bathtub. She rolled onto her back, and Eerie followed her, leaning on her shoulders in case she recovered enough to go for the window again.
“They were going to kill you no matter what,” Eerie insisted, as Hope fought for her breath. “You don’t mind, right? If it was going to happen anyway?”
Hope gurgled and shook, her fingers curling back to her palms and her eyelids fluttering.
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Eerie leaned back, no longer concerned that Hope might revive. “Empaths are always so difficult. I don’t mean to be judgmental, but it just isn’t nice, the way you manipulate people. I know I’m not one to talk, but I still think it’s true.”
Hope was the only one, aside from Eerie, that was still breathing, but the sound of her taxed respiration was wet and awful.
“You’d do the same in my position, wouldn’t you?” Eerie asked, wrapping her injured finger with a napkin. “I think it’s normal. You would do just about anything to avoid what’s happening right now, right? Joining the Church would be worse. So, so much worse. Just understand that I had to do it.”
Hope breathed once more, a long exhale that sounded like a sigh of exasperation, and then she went silent. Her chest tried to rise once or twice more, then she was still.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I just had to.” Eerie hugged her knees to her chest in the quiet room. “I don’t want to be selfish, but I want to stay myself, and I want to be with Alex, and to do club activities and stuff.”
She sniffled, and then wiped her nose on the tablecloth.
“I have friends now. Important friends, and I want to keep them safe.” She blew her nose noisily into the tablecloth. “I’m the president of a club! A club with other people! I’ve worked so hard. I just…it can’t end here. I can’t let that happen. I’m so sorry!”
Eerie stood and dusted herself off.
She patted Hope’s head, and then made for the door, stepping carefully over the guards’ bodies on the way.
“Alex needs my help. He’s not a bad guy or anything, but he gets in a lot of trouble,” Eerie said, pausing at the door, but not looking back. “I have to protect him. I can’t let anyone get in my way.”
She turned off the lights and reached to shut the door, only to have an unfamiliar girl catch her wrist with a smile.
Eerie meant to twist her arm free, but she froze when she saw
who was standing beside the new arrival, grinning obscenely.
“Dear, dear,” Alistair said, glancing at the room and tutting. “You’ve done it again, haven’t you, Eerie? Just like before, with Steve and Charles, back at the Academy.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Eerie protested, trying to pull herself free of the girl’s grasp. “I need to go!”
“Calm down, Eerie. There’s no reason to be worried. My name is Gabby,” the girl said. “I’d like to talk and be friends, if that’s okay with you.”
“I can’t stay,” Eerie whimpered, trying to peel Gabriela’s fingers from her wrist. “Alex needs me!”
“It’s a shame that a promising recruit like Hope Loring had to die. It doesn’t look like she died a very nice death, does it?” Alistair gestured at the room. “What do you think might happen if everyone found about that? What if Alex were to find out? What do you think—?"
“Now, now. Let’s all be friends and not fight over silly things like a room full of people who obviously died at the hands of awful old Alistair here,” Gabriela said, keeping her hold on Eerie’s wrist, but modulating the grip to something more affectionate. “That’s a better way to look at things, isn’t it?”
Eerie studied them in turn, in evident confusion.
“Yes, that would be better,” Eerie said, trembling slightly. “But I don’t trust him, and I don’t like him.”
“There is no good reason for any young woman to put faith in him,” Gabriela said. “Alistair is a vile and indecent human being. Don’t worry, though, I won’t even let him talk to you. It’ll just be you and I. Girl-talk. It will be great! Please? You don’t mind, do you?”
Alistair leaned against the wall and watched with a grin.
“I don’t know,” Eerie said. “What do you want?”
“I want to take you on a little walk and show you something we keep downstairs, and also tell you a few things that you probably don’t know,” Gabriela said. “You can decide to do whatever you want. I won’t stop you, and I won’t let Alistair do anything. We will tell everyone that Alistair killed Hope and the guards, and no one will ever be the wiser.” She gave the Changeling’s hand an encouraging little shake. “That’s nice, isn’t it? Well? What do you say?”
The Church of Sleep (Central Series Book 5) Page 71
