by Jasmine Walt
“Either way, I decided that the lives of children and animals were worth more than my own, so I built a flaw into the prototype to try and sabotage the project.”
“Oh, so what they have doesn’t work?” Rylan asked, sounding relieved.
“Well, no.” Noria’s shoulders slumped. “They found me out pretty quick. The director came to inspect my work personally, and he’s got a sharp eye. Not long after that, Annia was captured.” Noria’s voice hitched. “When they first brought her in, I didn’t know it was her. She was disguised as a Resistance soldier I’d seen around at the other camp, but when she was strip-searched, they removed some kind of bracelet, and the disguise failed. Has she been following me the whole time, or did she just impersonate that soldier?”
“She’s been following you the whole time,” Rylan said quietly. “Your sister loves you.”
“I know.” Tears filled Noria’s eyes, and she blinked them away rapidly. “The director noticed the family resemblance between us right away, and is using her as leverage against me. If I don’t complete the prototype, they’ll torture and kill Annia.” Noria’s lower lip trembled a little, and she braced herself against the bed. “The one time I was allowed to see her, Annia told me not to listen to them, that her life wasn’t as important as keeping the Federation safe. But I’m not willing to sacrifice my only sister.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you won’t have to.” Rylan came over to Noria and slid an arm around her shoulder. “We’ll get your sister out, kid, safe and sound. And we’ll get those shifter kids out too.” He hugged her tight against him, and my chest ached. I wanted to be there for Noria, to put my arms around her, hug her, and tell her everything was going to be okay. But I couldn’t, and I was grateful that Rylan was doing it in my stead.
“I don’t see how,” Noria said, wiping her tears. “They’re all locked up in the lower level, and heavily guarded. The doors and elevators can only be accessed with a special key.”
“Yeah, but I’m the night watch captain, remember?” Rylan told her, and I could hear the grin in his voice. “If the keys aren’t on this fat ring I carry, I’m sure they’re in my office.”
“Sunaya,” Iannis said, breaking my focus, and then he spoke a Word. My surroundings vanished, replaced by the campsite. Darkness had settled over the woods, the only light source the moonbeams filtering through the canopy of trees. Iannis sat next to me, his hand on my shoulder, while Fenris and Elnos sat on the two logs across from the fire pit, watching me intently.
“Why did you do that?” I cried, shrugging off Iannis’s hand. “I need to be there with them!”
“I need your full attention for a moment,” Iannis said simply. “I decided to eavesdrop directly on your conversation so that I wouldn’t have to interrupt you. I know that you and your friends want to rescue the shifter children. But if we are to rescue anyone, we must first disable the wards.”
“Right.” I let out a long sigh. “Any ideas on how to do that? You said something about an object being tied to the spell?”
“Yes, the achor,” Iannis said. “Though it won’t literally look like one. It can be any sort of object.”
“I wish I was in there,” I muttered, looking up at the hill that separated us from the compound. “I could use my nose to sniff it out.”
“You do have Rylan to do that for you,” Iannis said. “Can you ask him if he’s scented anything magical during his rounds?”
“Hey Rylan,” I called—thankfully, I could still communicate via mindspeak even if I couldn’t see what he was doing. “Did you smell any magic anywhere during your rounds?”
“Actually, I think I did,” Rylan said. “There’s a guest wing of sorts around here, and when I was passing one of the rooms, I thought I caught a whiff.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I had other things on my mind,” Rylan retorted. “But you’re right; I probably should have mentioned it. Aside from the wards, there shouldn’t be anything else magical in here.”
I relayed the information to Iannis, who nodded. “Tell Rylan to leave Noria and get to that guest room. It shouldn’t be hard for him to locate the anchor, using his shifter senses.”
“Leave Noria!” I exclaimed. “But what if something happens to her in the meantime? We just found her.”
“I understand your fears,” Iannis said gently, squeezing my hand. “But it will be much more difficult for Rylan to do this if he has Noria with him. I doubt that the director will take too kindly to Noria running around the compound late at night, when she is already under suspicion.”
“All right.” I let out a hefty sigh. “Can you get me back into the scry-eye now?”
“Very well,” Iannis said. “But I’m coming with you this time.”
“What?” I asked, momentarily nonplussed before I understood. “Oh. You want to do that weird thing where you put yourself inside me.”
“Is that some kind of sex joke?” Elnos asked, and I choked on a laugh.
“No,” Iannis said, unruffled even as color spread to my cheeks. He didn’t bother to explain himself further—apparently, the skill was something that came from his Tua heritage, which he kept a secret. “Are you ready, then?” he asked me.
“Yes.”
Iannis reactivated the spell, and I was back in Rylan’s head again, looking through his eyes and ears. He and Noria were still sitting on the bed, going through possible options on how to rescue Annia and the shifter children.
“Hey, pause for a sec,” I told Rylan. “I just finished talking with Iannis and the others. We’ve got to switch gears for a moment.”
“You’re talking about finding the anchor?”
“Yes.” I sucked in a breath as magic surged within me. Suddenly, Iannis’s consciousness was inside mine, a foreign presence that sent a pleasant, though completely inappropriate, thrill through me.
“Are you all right?” Rylan asked, sensing the change in my mood.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, trying not to sound flustered. “Iannis just cast a spell so that he could watch and listen too.”
“A bunch of voyeurs, the lot of you,” Rylan teased, before growing serious. “So what’s the plan?”
“Tell Noria you are going to have to leave her for a bit to disable the wards,” I said, ignoring the guilty feeling squirming in my stomach. “And that as soon as they’re down, I’m coming in for her.”
Rylan relayed the message, and Noria’s face tightened. “I’d rather have her come for Annia,” she said. “I went into this willingly, but Annia doesn’t deserve what’s happened to her.”
“We’re getting both of you out,” Rylan said firmly, standing. “Just sit tight here, okay? I’ll be back for you.”
Noria only nodded, her eyes filling with exhaustion. Rylan left her sitting on the bed, and my stomach sank as he quietly slipped back out into the hall. He nodded at the guard stationed at the corner, then made his way to the guest wing.
“She will be fine,” Iannis said, trying to reassure me. “Noria is a strong, capable young woman.”
“I know,” I said, but the knowledge didn’t make me feel better.
The guest wing was a little nicer than the staff quarters—the carpet runner was a soft, lush green, the walls papered in cream with gold designs, and the wall sconces were brass instead of cast iron. The doors were all made of dark wood instead of thin metal, and I watched silently as Rylan tracked the scent to the proper door.
“This one,” he said, resting his hand on a doorknob. He tried turning it, but it was locked. “I can smell it strongest here.”
Rylan pulled the captain’s key ring from his pocket, then made an educated guess as to which key to use. Thankfully, he got it right on the second try, and the door swung open to reveal an elegantly furnished guest room.
“This must be where Thorgana or her emissaries stay when they come to visit,” I said, looking at the thick carpeting and hand-carved furnishings. The room was nicely appointed,
but lacked any sort of personal effects, suggesting that no one was currently occupying it.
“The scent is strongest over there,” Rylan said, crossing to the opposite wall where a desk and chair sat. He picked up the writing implements and paper that sat atop the varnished surface, sniffing.
“It’s the clock,” Iannis told me. “I can see the magic surrounding it.”
“I think it’s this clock,” Rylan said before I could relay the message. He reached up to grab the round brass object, which hung over the desk.
“Wait!” Iannis cried, and my heart rate shot up at the alarm in his voice.
But it was too late. Rylan’s fingers curled around the clock, and he brought it down with a tug. As it separated from the wall, a strange red glow burst from the face, and bolts of energy struck Rylan in the chest.
“No!” I shrieked as Rylan let out a cry of pain. He toppled backward, and everything went black.
18
“Rylan!” I screamed as the campsite came back into view around me. I’d been unceremoniously knocked out of his head when he lost consciousness, and I had no idea what was going on. My palms were sweaty, my heart pounding with fear for my cousin. Had the shock killed him?
“Rylan, wake up!”
“I think he’s alive,” Iannis said quietly. His violet eyes were heavy with concern, but he didn’t seem nearly as worried as I was. “That booby trap might have been strong enough to kill a human, but not a healthy young shifter. I do hope he doesn’t stay unconscious for long. We need him to destroy the clock, and if someone were to happen upon him before he wakes, we could lose our only chance of getting inside.”
“Fuck.” I jumped up and began circling the fire pit, agitation in every step. “Why didn’t you see the booby trap sooner?” I asked, unable to keep the accusation from my voice.
“Sunaya…” Fenris began, his eyes narrowing. But Iannis shook his head, and he subsided.
“Without actually being present, it wasn’t possible for me to detect the trap,” Iannis told me. “I was able to see the magic, but not what sort of magic it was. In my elation at spotting the key, I didn’t think to warn Rylan about the possibility of a trap until it was too late.”
“Crap.” I kicked at a rock, and it went shooting up the hillside. Dammit, but I needed to get over there! “Rylan!” I shouted again, as loudly as I could, hoping that my mental voice would wake him.
“I’m… here….” Rylan’s voice echoed faintly in my head. My knees went weak as relief surged through me, and I braced my hand against a tree to steady myself.
“Thank Magorah,” I said, my voice a little shaky. “Are you okay?”
“I feel like I’ve been hit by lightning, but I’ll live,” he grumbled.
“Can you stand?”
“I’m getting to my feet now.”
“Good. Iannis says that you need to destroy the clock.”
“Hell no,” Rylan growled. “I’m not touching that thing again. I don’t think I could survive another hit like that.”
“The trap should no longer be active,” Iannis said—he was still joined with me, so he could hear Rylan. “I believe it was a one-shot spell.”
“You believe?” I said testily. “Are you willing to risk my cousin’s life on that?”
“If he does not destroy the clock, then everyone inside will be destroyed when Lord Logar arrives with his mages,” Iannis said sternly. “There is no choice in the matter.”
“Fuck.” Why did I keep finding myself in these impossible situations? “Rylan, Iannis says the spell’s deactivated. You have to destroy the clock or we won’t be able to get you all out.”
“Fine,” Rylan said. “But you owe me a bottle of teca.”
“Done.”
“We should get up the hill,” Elnos said. “That way we’ll be able to see if the wards come down.”
We scrambled up the hill, my heart beating a rapid tattoo against my chest as anxiety chewed my gut. Was Rylan going to be able to destroy the clock? Or would it hit him with that spell again? What if he did destroy the clock, but the wards didn’t come down? What would we do then?
“I smashed the fucking thing to bits,” Rylan said, no small amount of relish in his voice. “Is there anything else I need to do?”
“The wards are down,” Elnos said, his voice bubbling with excitement. “We can get in now!”
“Yes!” I crowed, a grin spreading across my face even as a strident alarm pealed across the open air from the direction of the bunker, assaulting my sensitive ears. “We’re good to go. Get out of there and go grab Noria. We’re coming in.”
Our plan was to go around to the back of the bunker, where Annia had been captured, and blast our way through the metal hatch. But as we began descending the hill, the garage doors opened, and guards raced outside with guns held ready. Their single-minded rush reminded me of a suddenly disturbed anthill. My eardrums vibrated at the high-pitched whistle of several steam engines starting up from within the garage.
“They’re evacuating,” Fenris growled. “They must have trained for this in case the ward ever fails.”
“We have to stop them,” Iannis said, changing course.
“Wait!” I grabbed the sleeve of his robe and pulled him to a stop. “I can’t go with you. I have to get to Rylan and Noria.”
“I can’t let you go off—”
“Rylan says that he has keys to the lower levels,” I said, cutting him off. “Knowing him and Noria, they’ll already be rushing down there. I can’t let them do this alone.”
“Fine.” Frustration glimmered in Iannis’s eyes, but he relented. “Take Elnos with you. And Sunaya?” he added, grabbing my arm even as I made to turn away.
“Wha—” I began, but the word was cut off as Iannis crushed me against him and kissed me, hard. His arms banded around my waist, pressing my curves against the ridges of hard muscle that hid beneath his flowing robes. My anger melted away beneath his touch, and I sank my hands into his long hair and kissed him back just as hard. I doubted this was going to be the last time I ever saw him, but then again, we were going into battle.
“Love you too,” I said breathlessly, tearing my lips from his before I lost myself completely. I broke out of his grip and briefly flung my arms around Fenris. “If there are any children in there, don’t let them get away.”
“I won’t,” Fenris said, returning my hug briefly.
“Great.” I locked eyes with Elnos, who was standing by, impatience sparking in his eyes. “Let’s go.”
Iannis and Fenris dashed for the front of the compound, and Elnos and I sprinted for the back entrance. Mercifully, the alarm had stopped ringing—I guess it was set to automatically shut off after a certain amount of time had passed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw large, steam-powered vehicles rolling out of the garages, a hazard symbol painted on the sides. I imagined they carried the top scientists as well as their records and samples, and hoped that Iannis would be able to stop them. I wished I could see to it personally, but Annia and Noria were my main mission, and I had to trust Iannis to take care of it.
A bullet grazed my shoulder as we crashed through the trees, and I cried out as the scent of my own blood filled the air.
“Dammit!” Elnos swore, throwing out his hands. He spoke a series of Words so fast they came out almost as gibberish, and a green energy shield flared to life in front of us. More gunfire sounded from ahead, but, this time, the bullets bounced harmlessly off the shield.
“Bastards,” I hissed as the trees began to thin out and the back of the bunker came into view. There were six guards lined up outside the rear entrance of the bunker, all firing rifles in our direction. Their eyes widened as we closed the distance despite the hail of bullets. Before they could run, I withdrew a chakram from my left pouch and flung it. The circular blade sliced cleanly through the neck of the first soldier, then hit the second one in his right arm at an angle. The injured man let out a bone-chilling shriek as his comrade toppled to the gro
und, and the other three men turned tail and ran. Elnos flung some kind of black energy bolt at the one furthest away, and it hit him square in the back. The soldier writhed and screamed in pain, and to my amazement, crumbled into a pile of ash.
“Alchemical magic,” Elnos said, answering the momentary look of shock on my face.
“Yeah, well, maybe you can use that to get the door open.” I yanked my chakram from the body of the injured man, who had sunk to his knees, whimpering in pain. “I’ll take care of the rest of these guys.” I couldn’t allow any of them to live, not if it meant they might smuggle dangerous biochemical weapons out of this forsaken place.
“No, please—” the guard babbled as I drew one of my crescent knives from the holster on my right leg. I grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back, then sliced his neck cleanly. His death gurgle echoed in my ears as I dashed up the hill and after the other soldiers, but I refused to let it bother me.
After all, these men had no mercy for me, or for my country. I would have no mercy for them.
When I came back down the hill, Elnos was standing in front of the rear entrance. The heavy door had been melted down into a hunk of glowing metal, leaving the dark tunnel entrance exposed.
“You all right?” Elnos asked, eyeing the blood staining my hair and pants.
“I’m fine.” I wiped my crescent knife on my pant leg one last time, then gestured to the entrance with it. “Let’s get going.”
Since I now had inside knowledge of the compound, I led the way. The light filtering in from the entrance behind us illuminated the tunnel enough that I could see, but Elnos conjured a glowing ball of light anyway. The tunnel was less than a hundred yards long, and curved around the compound rather than going straight into it. My nose detected no other lurking guards, and I imagined that the rest were either in the deeper parts of the bunker, or above as they prepared to help evacuate the scientists.
“Rylan?” I called mentally as I opened a door at the end of the tunnel and stepped into a blue-carpeted hall. We were in the staff quarters. All the doors were flung wide open, the beds within them empty and unmade as the residents had hastily fled. A guard lay dead in the middle of the hall, blood seeping from a head wound into the carpet and congealing there. Rylan had probably killed him in his haste to get Noria away from the evacuation.
