I pushed another soldier aside. “We need him!”
Keene turned and looked at me, his eyes dilated and his face rigid. “No, we don’t. This ends here.” He brought the sword down through Tihalt’s torso, severing it completely.
I looked away in time to see Mari hovering in the hall by the doorway. My grief over Cort turned to an aching numbness as I saw her. She was alive! Mari slipped a knife between the ribs of a soldier at the door and stepped through, her life force burning with welcome. Completely unshielded.
I reached out and shifted next to her, lunging for the panel holding the controls for the room’s electrical field. I slammed my fist into it, and the red web in the room vanished.
All at once, I felt them—more than a hundred life forces crammed into the wide hallway on this floor, locked in the ancient struggle for life.
“So many,” I whispered.
Mari looked at me, her face pale and haunted. Streaks of red ran down her cheeks, and her pants looked as if she’d wiped blood from her hands repeatedly. In her mind, I glimpsed how everything had gone wrong. She’d set off the relays and shifted Ritter and a few of the others into Tihalt’s lab one floor below. They’d fought their way up here, but soldiers already filled this hallway, with more coming behind them. They’d continued their desperate fight, protecting Mari while she shifted more Renegades inside the building. She’d made trip after trip, bringing everyone she could: Ava, members from the New York cell, the thirty-four former prisoners. Those were the life forces that now struggled in the hallway against the Emporium hit teams.
All along, Mari hadn’t known if Keene—or any of us—still lived.
“Keene,” she whispered.
I thought it was a question, but she vanished and appeared across the room, startling two men attacking Keene. In front of them, Ritter and Dimitri stood back to back, battling a ring of Emporium soldiers. Jace was near the couches, once again clashing with Stefan, but another guard was interfering, wearing Jace down. He looked beaten and resigned, and his mind raged with fury and terror.
Don’t think about Cort, I told myself. Focus on Jace. I headed toward him, dodging around the soldiers fighting Ritter, slashing two of their legs as I passed. Stefan turned as I approached, beating me back with his sword.
“Are you really my daughter?” he growled.
“You’ll never know,” I sneered through the numbness encasing my heart, “but I would rather die than have you as a father.”
“I can help with that.” He sliced hard, risking his hands to twist away my sword as he’d done in our earlier bout. This time I held onto it, bringing it down to block him. He lunged for me again, but channeling Mari, I shifted behind him. Both hands on my hilt, I smashed my elbow into his head. He collapsed. I hit him again to make sure he’d stay out.
Jace dispatched the other guard, but two more escaped past Ritter and came up to meet him. There were fewer opposing soldiers standing now, and Ritter and Dimitri were pushing them toward the door. By the time Jace and I managed to fight our way free, they had all disappeared into the dark hallway. Agonized screams and cries met my ears.
I ran to the door and into the hall. It wasn’t as dark as I’d first thought, and my eyes readily adjusted, but it seemed impossible to believe the mounds of bodies clogging up the hallway—far more than the hundred life forces I’d detected earlier. Many were full of bullet holes and only temporarily dead or passed out, still retaining faint life force glows. But far too many had been slaughtered. Permanently dead. One woman I recognized from the New York cell: Francis Bennet, a summoner, who had recently given birth to a baby after we’d freed her from an Emporium prison. Her head lay next to her torn body, her short blond hair askew, her muddy, almond-shaped eyes forever closed.
I also recognized Jonny Carrington, my supposed half brother and Jace’s real half brother. He would no longer have to worry about his short life and not measuring up to those with the full combat ability. He’d never have to mourn again the woman he’d loved who hadn’t survived the forcing experiment.
Seeing the devastation, I didn’t know how anyone could continue fighting. Yet what other choice did we have? Near the elevator, a group of our people led by Ava blocked the stairs and the elevator. More clumps of people fought along the corridor.
A soldier leapt up to confront me, stepping on the pieces of Jonny in his eagerness. Bile filled my throat as I brought up my sword, my feet sticking on the bloodstained floor.
Where was Ritter? Why couldn’t I feel our connection? He was just . . . gone. The numbness in me spread.
I swung and ducked and swung again. The line of soldiers seemed never to end. My shield took two blows that would have flattened me, if my opponent hadn’t been as weary as I was. I was making stupid mistakes, not ones I should be making still connected to Jace, no matter how thin the thread between us. My muscles screamed with fatigue.
Finally, I spotted Ritter battling two huge men down the corridor. Two more rose up to join the fight against him. Dimitri was nowhere to be seen.
And Cort. Oh, Cort! He was dead. Truly and permanently. I couldn’t wrap my mind or my feelings around that. Had Ritter seen? He would be devastated. Maybe that’s why he was fighting like a maniac, mowing down the enemy like a scythe through wheat.
I slammed aside a soldier and started in Ritter’s direction. But the soldier came back at me, and I had to fight him off again. A cut from his blade told me I’d let my shield drop. I tried to put it back up, but my mind was slow to react.
Then it happened. Over my opponent’s shoulder, I saw a sword from one of Ritter’s assailants slice hard into Ritter. He staggered and fell, taking a bunch of them with him.
“No!” I screamed.
I forced my attacker back with my sword and my mind, which shattered his mental barrier. Taking advantage of the breach, I flashed light into his unprotected mind and he crumpled.
Another took his place. There were too many bodies separating me from Ritter—and far too many swords around Ritter for him to survive. But I had to get to him. I wouldn’t let it end like this. We’d come too far. I reached for Mari, hoping to channel her ability, but I couldn’t find her. I could only feel Jace through our tenuous connection.
Why couldn’t I feel Ritter? I could always recognize his life force—feel him even if our minds weren’t connected. All I felt now was that horrible numbness that seemed to fill my entire body. I wanted to give up, to lie down on the ground and curl into a ball.
Ritter! I screamed silently, searching for him. If I could feel him, I would know it was okay.
Nothing.
I shoved forward, only to be pushed back. I lost my grip on my sword. Then Dimitri was there, touching the man from behind with his healing hands that could also kill. The soldier collapsed. I grabbed for my sword, but there were no new opponents. Standing behind Dimitri were a dozen of our Renegades, some quickly finishing their last battle, while others stared with the same disbelief I felt.
Just like that, it was over. No more Emporium guards came through the stairwell or elevator. No one was still standing except Renegades.
“Ritter?” I asked Dimitri, wilting against him.
He shook his head. “We were separated.”
“I can’t feel him.” Just like I can’t feel Cort.
A hand touched my arm, and I turned to see Ava. I hadn’t even felt her coming. “Erin, this was only their main contingent. Someone down there will be gathering a second wave. We have to go through with the takeover. And fast.”
I remained where I was. Something whispered that if I moved from this hallway, a part of me would stay behind forever, and I’d only be half alive. Was this what happened when a sensing Unbounded lost her mate? Agony finally burst through the numbness, all enveloping. I pushed Ava and Dimitri’s hands away.
“Erin,” Ava said, unyielding. “We haven’t lost this yet, but we have to calm the people below.”
“I have to find Ritter,” I said.
I could see her sadness. The pity for me. But how could she be so calm?
Oh, yes, I knew how. Over the years, she’d buried too many babies, and also husbands she’d loved. She’d lost them and continued living and fighting and loving. So would I.
“Wake Stefan and Ropte,” I said, the words barely audible through clenched teeth. “Get them started. I’ll be right there.”
I staggered on—alone, I thought, until I realized Dimitri was with me. His hand reached out to mine and held on tightly. Warmth tingled through my body as he used his ability to find my wounds and increase the healing process. The horrible ache in my shoulder subsided, but not the agony in my heart.
My goal was the knot of men sprawled in the hallway where Ritter had gone down. I could see a few life forces glowing, though so dimly as to be almost nonexistent. Other lumps showed no glow. We found Ritter lying on two unconscious men, the neck of one clamped tightly under his arm and his legs scissoring the other. Three others were on top of him, two bleeding from knife wounds to the heart.
Dimitri and I each pulled off a man. I gave a strangled gasp of relief.
Ritter’s life force was one of those still glowing, despite the ugly gash severing a fourth of his torso. His head was still firmly attached. However, I still couldn’t feel the essence that was him. Had someone damaged him mentally?
Tears stinging my eyes, I pulled off the remaining soldier and lay next to Ritter, reaching my mind toward his. There he was. I could feel him now that I was touching him, even through the emotions that threatened to crush my heart.
While Dimitri held his hands against Ritter’s wound, I fumbled through Ritter’s pockets to find his emergency curequick. “This is bad,” Dimitri commented.
I didn’t know how Ritter had survived here alone, until I looked at the last soldier I’d pulled off Ritter. His face was different now, slowly morphing from an Emporium soldier into Oliver. Our illusionist wasn’t much of a fighter, but he had fought, and he certainly had chosen a great disguise.
“Oliver?” Dimitri asked, keeping his hands on Ritter. “Looks like he managed to hold onto the illusion for a time even after losing consciousness. I’m impressed.”
“Don’t tell him,” I said. “He’ll never let us forget it.”
Dimitri chuckled. “Maybe you should get back to Ava. Ritter’s breathing, but it might be a while before he awakes.”
Ritter’s eyes suddenly came open as he growled, “Cut the racket, would you? I was just taking a little break.”
The lights chose that moment to come back on, so either Mari had reset the relay switches, or someone below had broken into the transfer boxes and fixed them.
I gave a laugh that might have sounded more like a sob. “No time for rest,” I told Ritter. “We have a takeover to finish.”
BY THE TIME WE GOT Oliver squared away and Ritter doctored enough to get back to the conference room, all the Emporium dead in the room had been cleared. Only Tihalt and two unfortunate mortal Emporium soldiers had been permanently killed in that conference room. The other twenty Emporium soldiers who had fought there would recover, including Edgel. Lew and Jeane would also survive, but something had happened when Lew shot Jeane. His shields had vanished, and his mind was now empty. Ava didn’t know if he’d ever recover.
The New York Renegades and the former prisoners were now clearing the corridor, using the other meeting rooms on this floor as makeshift hospitals. So far, forty-one mortal Emporium soldiers and twenty-three Emporium Unbounded had been permanently killed in that hallway, but at least sixty more would survive.
The Renegades had suffered far less damage overall, due in large part to Ritter’s strategy and Mari’s shifting. We’d permanently lost three Renegades from the New York cell, including Tenika’s second-in-command, Li Yuan-Xin, whose combat ability had been legendary and who had always been kind to me. Five more had fallen from the thirty-four former prisoners who’d fought with us.
And Cort.
Cort, whose passing had numbed my heart so deeply that I still couldn’t feel my connection with Ritter unless I touched him. In fact, I could no longer detect anyone’s thoughts without touching them, except Jace, to whom I still clung.
“You’ll recover once the shock is over,” Dimitri said, his hand on my shoulder still sending healing into my body. “Losing someone this way, and then that scare you had seeing Ritter go down . . . it’s too much.” His voice became so thick, I could barely understand the words. “It’s too much for all of us.”
“I don’t want to forget Cort.”
“You won’t. We never forget.” He opened a large vial of curequick and added, “Drink this. The faster you heal, the faster your shock will wear off.” I gulped down the sweet mixture, welcoming the buzz that chased down my throat and slowly spread throughout my body.
Feeling Ritter’s stare, I looked down at him where he sat on the couch by the wall of swords, swathed in bandages, his eyes burning with a hurt that dug into me as deeply as my own. That he didn’t reach out his hand told me he understood our shared grief was a burden neither of us could take right now.
“Let’s finish this,” he said.
I nodded. “Okay.”
Ropte and Stefan were conscious and seated on separate couches to keep them from attacking each other. Someone had found them clean shirts and roughly bandaged their wounds.
“Just don’t let Ropte touch you,” Catrina warned, walking over from the minibar where she’d begun setting up a makeshift office. “That’s how he can change memories. It’s the only way, though, because he’s a raider, not a mnemo.”
I remembered how she’d handed me the coffee when I was about to shake Ropte’s hand. She was being equally helpful now, making sure Ava had every access to the computers and the Triad’s passwords—a good thing because I didn’t know if I could enter an unblocked mind, much less force my way through any shields.
“Why are you helping us?” I asked her.
She smiled, her eyes straying to Jace, whose wounds were being sewn up by Keene. “Because I saw in your brother’s mind that everything my family has heard about the Renegades is true. I grew up watching the Emporium use my family’s abilities in the name of good, and I wanted to believe, but when I Changed I learned the truth about the corruption that drove those lofty goals. When my mother tried to leave, Delia and Stefan killed her. Today I am finally taking steps to avenge her and every Emporium agent who has ever believed the lie.”
“You’re a traitor!” Ropte spat.
Catrina’s head turned in his direction, slowly and deliberately. “Not to the human race, I’m not. And I might be Unbounded, but I’m still every bit human. Besides, you’re the one who stole Stefan’s memories. The one who planned to steal Erin’s memories and place her in the Triad in Stefan’s place as your puppet. You and Tihalt planned it together. I saw it in his mind.”
During most of Catrina’s conversation, Stefan had remained expressionless, but now his face twisted with hate toward Ropte. “So that’s why he’d never give me the laser weapon,” he snarled. “He was planning a coup.”
Ropte shrugged. “We needed it to subdue your soldiers.”
“And I suppose he helped you go against my orders to kill those senators. This is all your fault!”
“Those senators were resistant to me.”
“You’re just not that good, are you?” Stefan mocked.
“I made you forget your supposed daughter.”
“I told you killing them would draw too much attention.”
Ropte sneered. “Your way took too long.”
“My way didn’t make Renegades interfere. I would have put you in the White House.”
“And then I still would have killed you!”<
br />
Stefan tried to launch from his couch at Ropte, straining at his bonds, but Ava shoved him back down. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s over. You’ll sign the documents passing your share of the Triad and all your Emporium holdings to Jace. Ropte, you’ll do the same for Jeane.”
“Actually,”—Catrina waved the tablet she was holding—“Stella’s been able to get into Ropte’s Emporium database with the codes I took from his mind, and it looks like Jeane is already his successor.”
“She’s the best you could do?” Stefan mocked Ropte. “An infertile woman? What a great legacy. How is she going to find a successor?”
Ropte stared him down. “It was only until I found someone better. At least I knew she wasn’t going to stab me in the back.”
“I guess altering memories has its advantages.”
Ava cleared her throat. “If you two are quite finished,” she said, “I’d like to get started.”
Stefan shifted his gaze to Ava, his eyes telling everyone how much he’d love to wrap his fingers around her neck. “What about Tihalt?”
“You know how it works better than I do. You and Ropte will both sign an agreement saying that he wanted his newly returned son to fill his place.” Ava’s voice skipped on the word son, and I knew she was thinking of Tihalt’s other son. The one we didn’t yet have time to mourn. “If Tihalt’s real successor shows up, we’ll deal with him then. We may not be able to change memories, but we can remove them.”
“It’ll never work,” Stefan growled.
Keene looked up from where he was finishing a last stitch on Jace’s arm. “Tihalt never made public appearances. At least he never did when I knew him. He left all that to Stefan. He even communicates mostly over email with his department. So maybe for now, we can pretend he’s still alive, and I’ll start showing myself around here to get people used to seeing me again before we publicly transfer the title. That way we won’t have three new Triad members at once.”
Ava thought about it. “That’s sounds reasonable.”
The Takeover Page 29
