by W. J. May
“Rob!” Rae screamed, pointing to the gunman. An eagle circling up above dived down like God’s own thunder, ripping the man to pieces with his fierce talons.
But the damage was done. Camille was down, and people were advancing.
Rae straightened, making herself invisible for a split second before mimicking Molly’s tatù. She was able to take out five of them in a single electric blast, snapping the neck of a third as she conjured herself a tire-iron and hit him upside the head. Then a man spun out of nowhere, kicking her hard in her acid-riddled shoulder and sending her flying back into a wall.
From halfway across the factory, Beth took over with a wave of cover fire, trying to get to Camille, taking out one, then two of the men who were moving forward. Rae watched everyone, helpless for the moment. By the time Camille was faced with a third, Beth had problems of her own, and had to turn around and brace against a rabid-looking conjurer.
The feisty Texan lifted her hand to send him flying, but doubled over in pain before she could take the shot, clutching at the wound as a river of blood streamed over her fingers.
The man chuckled darkly as he towered over her, lifting what looked like a serrated baseball bat high in the air. “Sorry, sweetheart, looks like it’s the end of the…” He trailed off curiously, then looked down to see a blade sticking out of his chest.
When he looked back up again, Kraigan peeled himself away from the wall, melting back into living color as he twisted the handle with a smile that made Rae’s blood run cold.
“I’m sorry.” He smirked. “You were saying?”
The man coughed up a mouthful of blood and fell to the ground between them. Kraigan stepped cheerfully over him, before kneeling down beside Camille with what Rae could only describe as an almost gentle smile.
“You’re going to be okay,” he assured her, glancing at the wound. “I’ve been shot around there before. It’s nothing too terrible.”
He’d been shot?! Rae grabbed her attacker’s arm and flipped him over her good shoulder, kicking him squarely upside the head with a sharp crack of her boot. When’d he get shot?!
Camille leaned up against the wall behind her with a brave attempt at a smile. “I’m not going to lie, sugar. It feels pretty terrible.”
Kraigan just flashed her a grin. Then, in a move that was so typically Kraigan it made Rae’s stomach turn, he leaned over the corpse of the man he’d just killed and gave her a quick kiss.
“What was that?” Camille asked breathlessly, clutching her side and looking up at him in shock.
“Just a taste.” His grin grew even wider as he camouflaged back out of sight. “Just a taste of things to come.”
Rae gagged to herself, but before Kraigan could disappear entirely she tossed a handful of rocks to get his attention. “Kraigan!”
He locked eyes with her and nodded deliberately. Then, after dragging Camille out of sight with a quick, “To be continued,” he joined Rae by the steps.
“We need to get moving.”
He nodded. “We’ve got an arch-villain to find.”
She rolled her eyes, but started moving. Both Gabriel and Devon were too far away to hear her call, so she switched into her telepathy, focusing on each one of them in turn with the same message.
Guys! Cromfield. We’ve gotta go.
As one, they stopped what they were doing and whirled around to find her. It was bloody hard to do—literally—but the second they saw her on the stairs they rushed to join her, following her down through a side door and into the winding corridor just beyond.
“He’s just up the next set of stairs, in that tower on the south end,” Rae gasped, leading the trio of men at a sprint. Thanks to Ellie’s boyfriend’s tracking tatù, they might just pull this thing off after all. “Just remember, Kraigan slips in first, then Gabriel, then me and Devon.”
Against Rae’s strong objections, Devon had insisted upon going with her in the attempt to insert the syringe. She’d tried to talk him out of it, but the look in his eyes had told her it was no use. His mind was made up. There was no way he’d let her do something like this alone.
“Got it.”
“Easy as pie,” Gabriel echoed.
Kraigan said nothing. He simply melted into the stones with a dark smile, slipping up ahead and out of sight.
They moved stealthily and in complete silence. Compared to the noise below, they probably wouldn’t have been heard anyway. With each step, Rae grew more terrified and angrier. How dare Cromfield force them to fight again their own kind! How dare he persuade and condition people to believe that what he was doing was right!
The hallways ended too quickly. Once they were outside the final corridor with the wooden door at the end, the trio waited a moment, panting silently as they waited for Kraigan to get into position. There was no part of them that had escaped the battle raging outside. Splashes of dried blood and scorched fabric clung to their skin, and despite Rae’s ability to heal, her body had been forced into such a state of constant readiness that she was in just as bad a shape as the others.
“Are you alright?” Devon asked quietly, noticing her shoulder for the first time.
She flinched automatically, but nodded her head. Then she remembered the poison dust and turned to him with wide eyes. “Are you? That was a really close call before—”
“Yeah, fine,” he dismissed.
Gabriel shot them a look, before gesturing up to the door. “I’m heading in to see the old man.”
“Good luck,” Rae whispered as Devon nodded solemnly behind.
He slipped away noiselessly into the darkness, and the pair fell silent, counting the seconds until they were to join him. With every passing moment, Rae waited for a crash, or a scream, or some other sound that would confirm the worst of her fears—that Gabriel was gone.
Except there was nothing but silence coming from the room at the end of the corridor. So far so good. And only seconds to go.
“Rae?”
She glanced over to see Devon looking at her in the dark. “Yeah?”
“I have something…weird to ask.” Even in the dim light, she could see a rush of color flush his cheeks. “Before we go in there,” he pulled something out of his pocket, “will you put this on?”
The diamond ring sparkled in the air between them, sending little rays of light dancing across the stone walls.
Rae’s eyes met his, and in a moment of clarity she understood.
There was no more putting it off. No more time to wait. They were about to walk into a room with absolutely no idea what was going to happen when they got to the other side.
If there was ever a time to declare their undying love, now would be it.
Without a word, Rae took the ring from him and slipped it onto her finger. Then she grabbed him suddenly by the shirt and pulled him in for a passionate kiss.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I’ll love you forever. Nothing can ever change that.”
He bowed his head, wincing slightly at the word ‘forever.’ But when he looked back up, his eyes were twinkling with a tender smile. “I love you, too, Rae Kerrigan.” Then he glanced down at his watch. “Time’s up.”
With an ominous chill they flew silently down the rest of the hallway, and paused on the other side of the door. All was strangely quiet. No screaming, but no talking either.
Rae flashed Devon a quick frown, and then threw the door open with a loud bang.
It was then that she realized why.
Jonathon Cromfield was standing in the middle of the room…
…with his hand around Gabriel’s throat.
Chapter 14
“Darling. You made it!”
Cromfield sounded just as charming as Rae remembered. First on the phone, and later on the park bench outside her apartment. There was a lilting affectation that gave the appearance of something close to affection. This from a man who was slowly strangling her friend.
“Gabriel,” she gasped, eyes locking on his pale face.
Cromfield was holding him in such a way that he couldn’t pass out, but he was barely staying conscious. He hovered in that fateful in between, growing exponentially weaker by the second.
“Yes.” Cromfield smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I forget you already met my rebellious boy, Gabriel.” He shifted his hand slightly, tightening his fingers. “That rebellion didn’t start until you, you know? No, Gabriel was always the perfect soldier. From the time he was five years old.” He chuckled, digging in his nails and watching as the blood ran slowly down Gabriel’s neck. “Then one day, he meets Rae Kerrigan, and a lifetime’s worth of dedication goes up in smoke. It’s like he fell in love you. Like he loved you almost as much as I do.”
A salty tear ran down Rae’s face before she could stop it. How much longer could he stay like that, frozen in that nightmarish hell? What were they supposed to do now that Cromfield was on his guard and fully able to take out Kraigan before he could get close enough to strike?
“I don’t blame him, of course,” Cromfield continued practically. “You have an extraordinary effect on people, you have to know that. Then again,” his hand tightened impossibly more, and Gabriel drew in a jagged gasp, “it’s not like I can let it continue either.”
“Wait!” Rae cried as he moved to end it once and for all. There was a pause as Cromfield looked at her curiously. “Put him down, please. For me. We’re here—I’m…I’m here. You don’t need to kill him. You don’t need to kill any of them.”
The plan was unravelling faster than any one of them could save it. How in the world had they even believed it would work? For the life of her, Rae couldn’t take her eyes off Gabriel dangling helplessly in the air, his eyes fluttering open and shut.
Cromfield shot her a smile that was both indulgent, and stern. “No, my dear. You were right the first time. We are here. You brought all your friends with you. All those people I told you that you had the option to save. All those people are fighting to stay alive, even as we speak. You did that, not me.”
Rae’s eyes flicked up to the ceiling, as if she could see the bloody battle unfold. Armed with Devon’s tatù, she could still hear the muffled screams, even so far below ground.
“Just…put him down,” she said desperately. “Please.”
Cromfield cocked his head curiously to the side. “You think I’m cruel, don’t you? That I would have to be cruel to do such a thing to someone I’ve known so long.”
Rae just bit her lip. Bit it so hard that she tasted blood.
“This was never about Gabriel,” he continued earnestly, trying to make her understand reason. “Gabriel was just a means to an end, nothing more. He knows that. His life had value only in the service of bringing me to you. Now that said service is finished, there’s no more use for him.”
In the dim light, Rae could have sworn she saw a single tear slid down Gabriel’s face.
“Just like there’s no longer any use for your boyfriend,” Cromfield continued a bit louder, eyeing Devon up and down with a flicker of hatred deep in his eyes. “Yes, I’m afraid your temporary relationship with this mortal has come to an end.”
“Go to hell,” Devon growled, taking a step forward.
Cromfield merely laughed, still holding Gabriel effortlessly in the air. “Oh…such spirit! I have to admit I was surprised the two of you lasted even this long. What with the impossible obstacle standing between you.”
There was a blur of speed as Devon pointed a gun directly at Cromfield’s face. “The only obstacle I see here is you. And that can be remedied shortly enough.”
“Devon, no,” Rae whispered.
But again, Cromfield simply smiled.
“The obstacle I was referring to, my dear boy, was Rae’s immortality. I honestly don’t understand how the two of you have been deluding yourselves to…” His voice trailed off suddenly as his eyes locked on Rae’s hand. There was a momentary pause, one during which the entire world seemed to stop, then he dropped Gabriel with a careless thud to the ground.
“What…” For the first time, he struggled to control his temper. “What is that?”
Rae’s eyes flashed as she lifted the diamond between them. It shone out like a beacon, a sliver of light in a world so perpetually prone to darkness and despair. “This is my promise,” she said quietly, but with pure determination.
Out of the corner of her eye, Gabriel was pulled discreetly out of harm’s way by something that looked like a cabinet, but in reality was probably her little brother. Fortunately, the distraction they’d been looking for—that moment of opportunity for them to strike—she’d just found it.
“It’s a sign of my everlasting feeling,” she continued, stepping boldly forward. “My immortal love for this man.” She kept going until she was standing face to face with Cromfield, before ending with a little smirk. “And you thought we had obstacles.”
A scream, raw with rage, erupted from Cromfield, and the next thing she knew Rae was flying back into a wall. She hit the stone with a force she didn’t know existed in the world—a force that knocked all the air right out of her as she fell in a heap to the floor.
But Cromfield wasn’t the only all-powerful immortal in the room. As Rae picked herself up off the ground, there was a fire blazing in her eyes. A fire that couldn’t be contained.
“Devon,” she murmured with a little smile, “get down.”
As one, Devon and Kraigan dropped to the floor as a wave of blue fire swept out over the little room, incinerating everything in sight. It was a sight the likes of which her mother would have been proud. In fact, if they had been standing in the training field, Rae was certain she would have hit the tree.
Except the fire only incapacitated Cromfield for a few short seconds. The second he’d blinked it from his eyes, he countered with a tatù of his own, a wave of what felt like jagged liquid ice.
It flew out in serrated shards without a word of warning, and this time not everyone was so lucky. There was a quiet cry as Devon was lifted off of his feet and thrown into the wall behind them, a crystalized dagger of ice sticking out of his ribs.
“Devon!” Rae gasped, pulling herself up off the floor. She could still hear his heartbeat, but it was faint, and fading fast. They’d have to do something now or—
“Give it up, my dear.”
She looked up to see Cromfield towering over her, the look on his face both triumphant and cold. He reached out a hand to help her up, but she recoiled, caught in a full-body tremble.
“He’ll never be what you need. He’ll never last as long as you need. There’s only one person on the entire planet who can.” When she backed even further away, he grabbed her hand, closing his fingers tightly over her ring. “This doesn’t have to be an end for you. It will be a beginning. Don’t you understand that?” As his voice rose in passion, he crushed her fingers unintentionally around the ring, tainting the diamond a crimson red. “You and I can—”
He cut off suddenly and stared down at his hand, his face screwing up in shock. At the same time, Rae was able to yank herself free of his iron grip and scramble breathlessly to her feet.
“How predictable,” a new voice echoed in the room. One that positively dripped with sarcastic malevolence. “A monologue.”
Before Cromfield could turn around, Rae pulled out the vial of Angel’s blood and plunged it deep into his chest, pressing down on the plunger with all her might. There was gasp of surprise as the paralytic slowly took hold. At the same time, Kraigan shimmered suddenly into view.
Armed now with super-strength, he stepped forward and punched Cromfield as hard as he could right in the face. There was a muffled snap as bone fractured beneath his hand.
“That was for my mother,” he said quietly. “And this one’s for my dad.” He hit Cromfield again.
“Your dad?” Cromfield breathed, jerking his head down in surprise as the drug coursed through his system. “I—”
“No one wants to hear it, Jonathon,” Rae interrupted, stepping back with
a look of cold triumph. “Consider this an end, dickhead! Not a beginning.” She turned on her heel to race to Devon, but before she could get there a gust of wind slammed her up into the ceiling before dropping her on the floor. She hit the ground with a hard gasp, before whirling around. “What—” Another wave sent her flying, and a rush of blood splashed out of her mouth as she landed on the hard stone.
I can’t believe it. After all this time. All our plans…
The freakin’ drug can’t hold him!
With a look of complete mortification, Rae dragged herself gingerly to her feet. Sure enough, the paralytic was already beginning to wear off and Kraigan was having a hard time holding him. Yes, he’d been able to remove the wind, but the second he did, Cromfield had used another super-strength tatù and sent him flying.
Kraigan hit the wall with a sharp cry, landing on all fours as he tried to catch his breath. But before he could even get up, Cromfield lifted him to his feet and punched him full in the face. There was another sickening crunch as a stream of blood poured down Kraigan’s face.
“You should know,” Cromfield sneered as he dropped him, “I don’t even know who the hell your mother is.”
With a shaking hand, Kraigan reached out to steal the ink again, but Cromfield stomped down on his hand before he was able, breaking all of his fingers in one fell swoop.
“Rae—” Kraigan started.
“I know.” She was on her feet the next moment, switching back into Jennifer’s tatù—the most powerful one she had—before leaping upon his back.
It was a battle for the ages. A literal whirlwind of curses, punches, and kicks. But in the end, Cromfield’s experience was simply greater than her own. As Rae went crashing against the rocks once more, he thundered towards her.
“I can see now, you’re going to take a bit more convincing,” he growled, picking her up by the throat and dangling her in the air, as he had Gabriel. “No matter. I have nothing but time.”
At that moment, he suddenly dropped her.
