“I know,” she spat.
“You do?”
“Yeah. After they brought me to the bunker, Marlon said he was locking me in the sanctuary until I calmed down,” she said. “But he never did—he brought me here. Said he’d made some kind of deal with their leader that if he turned me over, they’d leave the rest of the pack alone. He wouldn’t listen when I told him they were lying.”
I rubbed her shoulder. “For what it’s worth, he tried to save Elara and the other younger ones. Then Reese pumped him full of lead.”
“Is that the leader’s name?” Her features twisted. “He’s a sick fuck.”
“Unfortunately, he’s also smart. Come on.” I grabbed her hand and led her out to the corridor between the cell blocks. “I can get these guys out, but I’d rather they don’t try to kill me when I do,” I said.
Sadie nodded and walked up to the middle of the unit, gesturing for me to follow. The cell she stopped in front of contained her father. “This is Gideon,” she said, raising her voice slightly. “He’s a friend, and he’s going to help us. Don’t even think about hurting him, understand?”
“He smells like Fae,” Silas growled. “And human.”
“That’s because he is, Dad.”
“Is he the one who killed my wife? I know it was someone in the city.”
Sadie shivered. “No. It wasn’t him.”
“Then who was it?” he rasped. “No human could’ve done it. Fae are the enemy. You know that, girl. And you call him friend?”
“I swear to God—”
“Oh. You’re swearing to God, now?”
“Dad! This is not the time!” Sadie loosed an exasperated sigh and looked at me. “It’s fine. They won’t do anything.”
“Er. Yeah.” I glanced around again. Six fully shacked werewolves behind cell doors was a total of thirty locks. Opening them one by one would take more time than we could probably afford to use. But I thought, if I pumped enough power into the spell, I might be able to get them all at once. “You might want to stand back,” I murmured to Sadie.
Her brow lifted, and she backed away slowly.
I closed my eyes and held my hands out to the sides. My spark wasn’t the bright fire it had been while I was under all that simulated moonlight, because I’d been using it almost constantly since I escaped the lab—but I knew how to sense it now. How to wield it, instead of just use it. I channeled the magic through my arms and pushed it out in all directions.
“Oscaihl!”
A flurry of clicking sounded out. Chains shivered and clanked on metal floors.
When I opened my eyes, Sadie’s pack was emerging from their cells, staring at me with something like awe. Or terror.
I decided to skip the introductions for now. “Okay, here’s the plan,” I said. “You guys all go wolf and tear through as many of these assholes as you can. We get the rest of your family out, and then get the hell out of this compound.”
Silas snorted. “There are too many of them. Besides, the full moon isn’t until tomorrow night, and they took the moonstaff.”
I assumed that was the thing they’d used to change at the mountain path. “I’ve got the moon thing covered,” I said. “And don’t worry about—”
Before I could finish my statement, the lights dimmed suddenly…and came back flashing red. A short, buzzing sound repeated over and over from the hall outside the containment unit.
Time was up. They knew.
I grabbed one of the vials from the pocket of the SWAT jacket and started filling a syringe. Really wasn’t looking forward to this. But Silas was right—even with all of them in full werewolf mode, we were hopelessly outnumbered.
I could even the odds. I’d felt the answer in the arena.
All I had to do was suppress my human side, and let my Fae half take control.
Sadie grabbed my wrist, staring at me with a horrified expression. “What are you doing?” she gasped.
I drew a shaking breath, then pried her hand away and shoved the jacket off my shoulder. “I’m removing the filter,” I said.
And plunged the needle into my arm.
CHAPTER 39
It took less than a minute for Compound 23 to take effect. When it did, my world changed.
I could see better. Hear better. I sensed the presence of the werewolves in the room, knew where they were without looking. Something instinctive, almost primal, made me view them with vague contempt. The feeling was close to arrogance without the smug, self-satisfied overtones. I finally realized it was confidence—the simple, cold knowledge that I was more powerful than them.
Jesus Christ. Taeral had to feel like this all the time.
I had no idea how long this stuff would last, and no time to get used to it. I turned to the werewolves, pulling the moonstone free, and held it up. “The stairs at the end of this hall lead to the ground level,” I said, even as something in me recoiled at the hollow, threatening boom my voice had become. “Take them out. De’àrsahd.”
Light poured from the pendant, stronger than I’d ever seen it. Growls and snarls filled the blinding white haze as the werewolves transformed.
I extinguished the stone and blasted the steel door to the containment unit open with a thought. Furred shapes streaked past me into the hallway, headed for the stairs.
When I stepped out and followed them, I could hear faint sounds from the level above. Shouted orders, marching feet. The dry crack of gunfire. I took the stairs quickly and headed for Wing B, passing a few scuffles along the way. Most of them involved angry werewolves and dead or nearly-dead soldiers.
Just as I spotted the double doors leading to the rest of the weres, a unit of four soldiers emerged into the hallway, fifty feet or so beyond the doors. They immediately spread out and started firing.
Bullets whizzed past me. One grazed my arm, but I barely noticed the pain through my instinctive and powerful contempt for the humans. Compared even to the lesser werewolves, they were insects. Annoyances.
They were nothing.
“I don’t think so,” I said, sweeping an arm out. “Mahrú à dionadth.”
A shield of solid air blasted toward them, crashed into them. And drove the soldiers back, crushing them into the far wall at the end of the corridor. Spatters of blood decorated the shimmering translucence of the shield for a moment before it winked out and left a heap of crumpled bodies in its wake.
I started to laugh.
Somewhere inside, a tiny sliver of me was horrified by my actions. I’d just murdered four people at once. Crushed them like the bugs I perceived them as, without a single second of hesitation. But that small awareness was drowned out by the overwhelming rush of power thundering through me.
This was what Sadie had fought—and lost against, the first time they injected her.
I was losing, too. Badly.
Still laughing with a helpless kind of desperation, I turned to the doors of Wing B and blew them open. One of them slammed back hard enough to crack the wall. The other teetered briefly on its hinges and crashed to the floor.
Two armed soldiers took aim at me from inside the wing. I rushed them, grabbing one to smash him into the other while I took his gun. Then I shot each of them in the head.
I felt nothing. No remorse. And it terrified the small, cowering part that was still me.
I walked down the long room, opening cage doors as I passed, taking little notice of their occupants’ reactions. Another soldier tried to shoot me when I reached the far end.
I broke his arm, and then his neck.
As expected, there was a small terminal past the cages, similar to the one in Wing A. I grabbed it with both hands. “Dhuunad sios’na.”
There was a vast, winding hum as all the power in the compound went out.
Apparently they had a generator somewhere, because a handful of emergency lights turned on to soften the complete darkness. I wouldn’t bother looking for it. Obviously, it didn’t generate enough to run everything, and I didn’t wan
t to waste time.
I moved back through the room, toward the group of captives who’d climbed out of their cages and huddled together to stare at me in silent fear. “Where is Taeral?” I said.
Tate stepped forward cautiously. “They never brought him back in,” he grated. “Gideon…what’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” I held the moonstone up. “Change. Kill them.”
“Wait—”
“De’àrsahd.”
A brilliant glow smothered the room. The werewolves turned.
When I deactivated the pendant, they ran from me.
The small, protesting part of me let out a horrified scream. I’d just forced them all to change without asking if they wanted to, if they were even in any kind of shape to fight. And I felt nothing but a cold sense of determination. In terms of sheer logic, it was the right thing to do—but it was wrong in every other sense. And I couldn’t stop.
Grimly resigned, I went to find my brother.
CHAPTER 40
The moonlight hit me like a jolt from a cattle prod, spiking the power that flowed through me to new levels.
I’d followed the sounds of fighting to the arena. The large panel lights that simulated the moon were dark, except for small emergency bulbs at the corners of each one. But the actual moon, one night from full, shone brightly above. The cold brilliance of it surged through my veins.
There was something else, too. A sense of building pressure, like the power was a physical thing threatening to burst its container.
That container being me.
Most of the fighting seemed to be concentrated here. Soldiers and werewolves ranged all over the bleachers and the field—firing and taking cover, attacking and falling back. Whole sections of the circular fence had been torn down or crushed aside, and parts of the wall in front of the bleachers were torn to splinters, leaving ragged gaps.
There were bodies strewn across the ground. Blood soaked into the hard-packed dirt, enough of it to create patches of thick, disturbingly dark mud. Boots and paws tramped through the patches and spread the bloody mess.
A few of the werewolves were down, reverted to their human forms and not moving.
I searched the place for Taeral. Didn’t see him, but I spotted a group of around a dozen soldiers moving toward me from the side with weapons drawn. I whirled on them and grinned.
A large part of me thrilled as they recoiled.
In the seconds it took them to rally again, I cast a handful of glamour spells that changed the appearance of about half of them to very surprised werewolves. The group immediately broke apart and started firing at each other.
Through the chaos, I spotted Sadie.
She was on the opposite side of the arena, past the center fence that split the field. She’d turned back to human form and was staggering naked along the wall at the bottom of the bleachers, one bloodstained hand holding her stomach. Headed for the body of a fallen soldier—probably to take his weapon.
Two soldiers above her in the stands took notice and started toward her, moving at a crouch. They paused, stowed their guns in holsters and drew different guns from their jackets.
I had to assume the second guns were loaded with silver bullets.
“Sadie!” I called, running toward her. She couldn’t hear me over the distance and noise. I pushed past skirmishes, knocked away lone soldiers. Snatched weapons and fired at will, going for anything that moved.
When I passed through the twisted open gate of the center fence, a tight knot of Milus Dei barreled toward me, raining a hail of bullets, and I lost sight of her.
It pissed me off.
I gestured at them and shouted a phrase I’d never used before, the shape of my thoughts when I blasted the steel door open. “Ahmac àn beahlac!”
The soldiers scattered like bowling pins. And the pressure inside me ramped up another notch.
I ran in Sadie’s direction. The soldiers in the stands were almost on her, but I was still too far away. They’d fire before I could stop them. And if they were using silver bullets, they would probably kill her.
Just then, a shape streaked from the opposite direction, headed straight for Sadie. It collided with her, knocked her back several feet to crash into the fence. And the soldiers emptied their guns into her savior.
Marlon.
I reached the fence seconds too late. Furious, I smashed through the chain link and threw a shield spell at the two humans. It crushed them against the bleachers. Snapped them almost in half.
Sadie had managed to crawl to her fallen brother. I hung back to give them space as she pulled him up and turned him over gently. He was in human form. Naked and covered with bleeding wounds, the edges of the skin black around the gaping holes. Alive, but barely.
“Marlon?” Sadie’s voice trembled. “What…”
“Silver.” His voice was a wisp of sound. “Dying.”
“No! We’ll save you.” She sent a panicked glance over her shoulder at me. “Gideon can take the bullets out. You’ll be okay.”
He gave a wet cough. Blood ran from his mouth and streaked down the sides of his face. “Sadie…forgive me. Please. I thought…”
“Don’t talk. I know,” she said softly. “You were trying to protect the pack, and I wasn’t part of it anymore. You idiot.” There was an edge to the last word that was almost affection. “I forgive you.”
He shuddered and stilled.
Sadie allowed herself another moment, and then struggled to her feet. She looked from me to the broken, lifeless bodies on the bleachers. “You did that?” she ground out.
I didn’t have time for an ethical debate. The pressure in me was still building, and I knew something very bad was going to happen when it burst. If we didn’t win before then, we never would. “Where’s Taeral?” I said.
“I don’t know. Gideon—”
“Find somewhere safe. And stay there.”
She glared at me. “You sound like your brother.”
“Yeah. I know.” I’m sorry, I wanted to add, but it wouldn’t come out.
Finally, I sensed a flash of magic and knew it had to be him. I spotted him across the arena on this side of the middle fence, defending two forms huddled against the bleachers behind him from a small wave of soldiers. Elara and Mars.
“Sadie, get to safety. Please,” I said, shocked at my reluctance to say that last word.
She hesitated, seemed about to say something. But at last, she went.
I plunged back into the fray and made my way across the bloody field.
CHAPTER 41
Reese got to Taeral first.
By the time I saw him rising from the bleachers just behind the group, he’d already taken aim and fired twice. Both bullets hit Taeral in the back. He wavered and fell to his knees, and his eyes met mine, filling with shock as I pushed my way through the remaining soldiers.
“Gideon…what have you done?” he rasped.
“What I had to.” I turned a furious gaze to Reese. “You, I’m not going to feel bad about killing,” I said. “Every part of me is on board with that idea. What did you shoot him with, you son of a bitch?”
Incredibly, Reese grinned. “I suppose you’ll have to guess.”
“How about I kill you, and then ask you again?”
“You’re not the DeathSpeaker,” Reese said. “I don’t know how you managed all this, but I will find out. And then I’ll destroy you.”
My jaw clenched. Before I could think of a response, the door to the right leading into the stadium from the research building crashed open. Column after column of soldiers marched out and formed ranks between me and Reese. They stood with one hand on the shoulder of the man next to them, and the other extended and holding a gun.
I sent a blast of glamour at them, turning random soldiers to werewolves. The effort cost me. It felt like something cracked inside me, and I staggered with the force of it. A thin stream of blood ran from one nostril.
But none of the soldiers moved.
<
br /> “Do you really think we don’t know how to deal with Fae glamour?” Reese called over the silent sea of men in black. “They’ve been trained for this. You can make them look like their own dead mothers, and they’ll know it’s an illusion. Seeing is not believing when you ground yourself with what you can touch, Mr. Black.” He stepped to a lower bleacher. “Take him down. Standard ammo—I want him alive.”
At least forty guns went off at once.
I felt multiple bullets hit me. Just as quickly, my body began to heal. As I staggered back, the columns advanced in lockstep, firing again and again. Even as they blew fresh holes in me, the buildup of power inside and the bathing rays of the moon kept healing the wounds, an endless loop of pain and relief—but the pressure had nearly reached the breaking point.
I laughed. Harsh, wild, and completely uncontrolled.
Blood ran from my nose and ears. Something hot and wet streaked from my eyes, too thick for tears. I swiped at it and found more blood.
If I was going down, these bastards were coming with me.
“Mahrú à dionadth!” I pushed a hand at them, forming a shield that swiped a cluster of soldiers from the corner of the formation and crushed them against the chain link fence.
The remaining group froze, and I pumped another spell at them. “Ahmac àn beahlac.”
They scattered. Some flew into the air, others dropped, and still more scrambled back, trying to avoid the impact of their falling brothers.
More than a few took off running.
I advanced on them and cast another shield, mangling three of them beneath it. My steps faltered as I released the spell. There were still quite a few holes in me, and the automatic healing had stopped.
Only a handful of soldiers stood their ground. I managed to remain on my feet, but I was draining fast. I’d almost completely exhausted my spark…and the injection was wearing off, the weight of what I’d done attempting to crush me.
I still had one trick left, though.
“De’àrsahd,” I whispered to the moonstone, and it pulsed with a comforting glow. It wouldn’t give me more magic, but it would enhance my spark. What was left of it. I held my hands toward the remaining soldiers and gasped out, “Beith na cohdal.”
Fields of Blood (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 2) Page 18
