by Meg Xuemei X
And the power from the Sealers’ symbol was devouring hers.
“Siren’s in danger!” Lucienne heard frantic shouts from Adam, who was unable to move.
Some of her wounded men fought their ways toward her, but were cut down.
The black sword fended off flying bullets efficiently while continually pursing Lucienne. It would end her any second.
Vladimir, Thaddeus, and Duncan abandoned their foes and struggled to get to her, leaving their backs open to their adversaries.
The black sword shone brightly with a menacing hiss, swinging toward Lucienne’s head for a fatal strike, too fast for her to escape.
“No!” Lucienne heard her warriors’ scream.
Now, she commanded her power.
As if in slow motion, she watched her warriors come to her from all directions, desperation, terror, and rage distorting their faces. None of them could reach her in time.
The black sword, however, was also frozen in slow motion.
Time was on her side. Lucienne flew up and landed on the ridge of the blazing blade. The Captain of the Knight stared up at her, dumbfounded.
Lucienne shook her amputated whip and let it sail toward him. The steel curled in a tight circle around the knight’s neck. “My head is not for you to take, but yours is mine.” She yanked the whip, separating the knight’s head from his neck.
Before she landed, Lucienne kicked the helmeted head—disbelief frozen on its face—toward the knight who was about to stab Thaddeus in the back.
Startled, the knight dodged to avoid his captain’s head, and Thaddeus turned just in time to bury his sword deep into the knight’s side.
Sphinxes’ force eliminated all twelve knights, but, in turn, suffered heavy losses. Seven marines were dead. Adam and two others were wounded. Duncan and Thaddeus had sustained vicious cuts. Vladimir had a slit under his ear.
Lucienne was the only one unscathed, though part of her hair was gone.
Duncan called Finley and Deborah for backup. A marine with manageable injuries was tending to Adam.
Lucienne regarded the bodies of her fallen warriors. She would pay them respect later. As Kian said, “Put your grief in a box and keep it safe.”
She scrambled toward the altar. Vladimir escorted her, his pistol tight in one hand, sanjiegun in the other. Thaddeus went ahead of Lucienne, his sword still dripping blood. Duncan brought up the rear with his rifle lifted before him.
The group reached the top landing.
The winged statue stood seven feet tall in the center of the dais.
“A lift?” Vladimir offered.
“Let Blazek climb first,” Duncan said. “He brought us here. He should know whether there’s hidden danger up there.” He seemed to hold a grudge against the Czech warrior for throwing him at the biggest knight.
“Blazek will go first,” Thaddeus agreed.
“I need a shoulder to stand on,” Vladimir said. “Are you ladies volunteering?”
Lucienne ignored the men’s banter and withdrew from the statue. Duncan and Thaddeus immediately flanked her.
She stopped at the edge of the stairs and ran back toward the altar. Several yards away from it, she jumped, flipping through the air.
Duncan and Thaddeus traded a puzzled look.
“Shall we follow?” Thaddeus asked.
“I never learned that,” Duncan said, sizing up Thaddeus. “And if you try, you’ll drop on your heavy butt.”
After the third flip, Lucienne landed on the left shoulder of the statue and turned to her men, whose mouths were agape. However, they did not admire her acrobatic skill—they were worried.
Thaddeus and Duncan reached Vladimir and lifted him into the air. Half thrown, half leaping, Vladimir anchored himself on the statue’s right shoulder. He had to wrap his arms around its head to keep his footing. He turned to give the other two warriors a glare, evidently blaming them for his awkward touchdown.
Lucienne would have giggled if she weren’t feeling so heavy at the loss of her marines.
She stared up at the glowing tip of the crystal column. Her mark urged her forward, frustrated by this delay, eager to have its last part.
Vladimir craned his neck to look up, too. “It’s at least thirty feet high.”
They traded a glance. They wouldn’t climb the column and risk damaging Nexus Tear.
Lucienne exhaled anxiously. It was so close, yet out of her reach.
“Let’s figure out its mechanism.” Vladimir touched the crystal column, groping for a hidden device.
At his touch, the crystal vibrated, then white light charged from inside. The wave knocked him off the statue. He hit the dais on his back and cursed in Czech.
“Vlad?” Lucienne called.
“I’m okay,” Vladimir said with a groan as he pushed himself up on his elbows. “My ribs hurt. That’s all.”
Duncan laughed, and Thaddeus bumped knuckles with him. They stopped when Lucienne’s hard stare reminded them of their fallen team members. A shamed, sorrowful look replaced the amusement in their eyes.
Lucienne turned back to the pillar as a fragmented memory sparked in her mind. It is an ancient bio machine. It will recognize the Siren’s scion. She unfurled her fingers and pressed her palm against the pillar.
The warriors quickly moved to the dais, in positions to catch Lucienne.
The crystal column pulsed. White light blasted. Ancient words whispered within it. Then the column lowered until its top was beneath Lucienne’s eyes, revealing a basin of fire opal carved with runes.
There wasn’t time to decode the runes. All Lucienne wanted was the item inside the aquamarine vial at the bottom of the basin—a drop of thick, half-flowing liquid.
Her heart pounded and her hands shook as she lifted the vial. An hourglass was attached to it. Lucienne impatiently turned and twisted the vial to break their connection. Before she placed the hourglass back, she saw at the bottom of the basin—an arrow piercing through an all-seeing eye.
A chill sank in her bones. Did her enemy intend to convey a message? Fire opal could mean revenge, aquamarine represented unfinished business, and the hourglass was a warning of running out of time. The Sealers’ symbol at the bottom of the basin concluded a death threat.
Lucienne sneered, shaking off an ill-fated feeling. Didn’t her warriors and she destroy the knights that bore the Sealers’ symbol?
Lucienne tilted the vial. The liquid was red as blood. The drop rolled to the lower side.
“Nexus Tear,” she whispered.
Her Siren’s mark prickled, growing warm with desperate want; her blood hummed in her veins. Then a primal fear she hadn’t known also ascended in her.
“Lucia,” Vladimir called from under the altar, “is it it?”
She turned to him with a dazed smile, drunk with longing, fear, and an unreal feeling that a long-lost piece to her Siren’s mark was finally in her hands.
“Take it,” he said, his hazel eyes ablaze with love and anticipation.
His joy filled her heart with gratitude and tenderness. He’d been with her all the way—from obtaining the second scroll to reaping the Eye of Time—and now to recovering Nexus Tear.
He had been holding such a high hope that once she had all five fundamental forces, they would have a chance to be together. The lingering dread in her vanished like a veil of mist under the bright sun.
“Turn around,” she ordered. “All of you.”
The men obeyed.
Lucienne brushed her midnight hair aside and exposed the eye-shaped gold chip in her nape. Her implant resembled flowing liquid but was in solid form. Four ancient elements inside were waiting for the fifth and the last.
Lucienne angled the vial, leaned it against her mark, and tipped it over.
The tear drop rolled toward her mark and seeped into it like water falling into a dry patch of land.
She waited for a phenomenal sensation to overcome her, but none came.
Lucienne dropped beside Vladimir in
a crouch, one hand on the ground, graceful and powerful like a leopardess. “It’s done,” she said.
Vladimir spun toward her with a proud, doting smile and extended a hand to her. She accepted it.
“Finley and the back-up team will get here in ten minutes,” Duncan reported, “to bring home our fallen men.”
Grief returned. Lucienne went to check the wounded first. She squatted in front of Adam, her hand on his shoulder. “You’ll be the first to leave after the medics patch you up.”
“I can still accompany you,” Adam said in a ragged breath. “I just need a minute.”
“You’ll have all the minutes after you’re healed, Lieutenant,” she said before moving to a dead young marine.
While she was saying a prayer for him, a shockwave spiked down her spine. Lucienne arched backwards with a cry. The transcendence she expected had finally caught up with her.
“Lucia!” Vladimir bolted to her side.
All the warriors sped toward her. She raised a hand to stop them.
Nexus Tear was merging with the other fundamental forces. The power of their coming together was like a web of liquid lightning hitting the notes in her every cell.
She was home. And for the first time, she felt complete.
Sight, sound, and smell were amplified around her. She turned to Vladimir—he had never looked more wildly beautiful than now. She touched his face in wonder.
“Láska,” he whispered, awed by her awe.
She stood up and scanned the room.
Everything looked clearer. She could see through the texture and dimension of the time/space continuum that normal humans couldn’t see.
The power continued rippling inside her, tide after tide.
When aether joined the rest and closed the circle, the mark’s genetic memory became whole.
Forbidden Glory. That was her mark’s true name. The five fundamental forces were stolen from the heavens at the beginning of time.
Then she heard the twang of an archer’s bow before an arrow flew her way. Her hand caught it, its arrowhead two inches from her eye.
Vladimir barely had time to rise, his face pale, his eyes furious.
The warriors shouted in warning and rage. Vladimir, Duncan, and Thaddeus immediately formed a protective circle around Lucienne, their rifles raised before them.
Lucienne tossed the arrow aside. Then she heard an electric hum. A bad omen surged through her.
“Impressive, sister,” a voice singsonged from across the altar. “I’ve practiced that shot for ten years.”
Lucienne spun toward the sinister voice.
Vladimir and Duncan immediately fired their weapons at a figure in an impeccable suit standing on a second-floor balcony that wasn’t there a second ago. The bullets bounced at the foot of the stairs that led to the balcony and dropped in hard shells.
“Force field,” Vladimir cursed under his breath.
An electric cage—that was the eerie sound Lucienne had heard.
“Hauk Lam!” With a furious shout, Thaddeus charged, cutting the air with his Samurai sword all the way to the edge of the staircase. As soon as the tip of his blade thrust into the unseen force field, electricity burst through the blade and struck him. Thaddeus screamed and writhed on the ground, the sword flying from his hand.
Duncan and a marine rushed toward him, half-carrying and half-dragging him back to the rank.
“I can’t tell whether you’re brave or foolish, cousin.” Hauk looked down at Thaddeus. “But I can tell you that you’ve chosen the wrong side.” He clapped his hands and the temple’s stone walls moved. Platforms stretched out from the walls in seven layers, encompassing the force field. On every platform, three heavily armed militants pointed their machine guns at Lucienne and her men.
“The Temple of Lemuria isn’t just any temple,” Hauk said. “It’s an undersea fortress equipped with ancient technology, like cloaking devices and a force field.”
Lucienne saw Vladimir’s face turning paler with regret and fear before going purple with rage. He had delivered her right into the beast’s belly.
She fixed her attention on her half brother. She hadn’t seen him for nine years. He was twenty-six now. He had the same thin face and very red lips. His black eyes were as cold as she remembered.
“I’ll never pick you,” Thaddeus struggled up. “You aren’t worthy to lick the ground the Siren walks.”
“Unworthy?” Hauk leaned forward, his hands relaxing on the rail. “See how superior you are? You, my sister, and her brave companions are all trapped in my net like feeble birds.” The bow he shot Lucienne with dangled around his pinkie. “Or do you prefer I call you caged animals?”
Lucienne sprang toward the force field. She needed to test if the Forbidden Glory could break it. Her warriors darted after her, but she had lashed out her whip.
Bring it down! she commanded her power.
As soon as the severed tip of her whip connected to the force filed, a current surfed toward her. She jolted back, trembling in pain. The whip dropped from her hand.
Lucienne bit her inner cheek to prevent a whimper, drawing blood.
Vladimir had caught her before she fell. For a moment, she remained limp in his arms, her fingers curled like claws, unable to stretch straight.
“Let her go,” Vladimir shouted at Hauk as he held Lucienne. “Or the Elder Immanuel Thorn will make your life worse than death when I blow his only daughter to pieces.”
Lucienne swallowed. Wasn’t Bayrose his friend and source?
Her Czech boyfriend’s glare fixed on Hauk. “I injected liquid explosives into Bayrose Thorn for insurance,” he said. “She has only six hours. Only I have the antidote.”
A second figure stepped out of the shadow and appeared beside Hauk. It was Schmidt. He still wore the helmet.
Hatred burned in Lucienne, but she was careful not to show it. The psychopath loved to see her reactions, especially fear and hate. Managing to stand firm, she gently pushed Vladimir away.
“Uh, that,” Schmidt said with an amused smile, “we’ve taken care of. You forgot the Brotherhood has me. I was playing with poisons, chemicals, and bombs before you were born, pretty boy.” He raised a finger in the air in a gesture to calm Vladimir’s fury. “However, if it’s any comfort to you, Miss Thorn didn’t completely betray you. You used her first, but she’s better at it. She knew you never truly cared about her. You’d hurt any girl for your one true love.” Schmidt chuckled. “We’re very much alike.”
Vladimir spat. “We’re nothing alike, pig.”
“We knew my daughter would come. It’s all written in the last scroll.” A third person, who wore a brown cowboy hat, stalked out and stood at Hauk’s other side. “We’ve been waiting for her.”
Lucienne’s heart skipped a beat as she realized that this man was her father, Jimmy Lam. He had the same narrow face as Hauk. He was in his mid-forties, yet he looked ten years older, like a man who had been alcohol’s best friend for too long.
I look nothing like him, thank God, she thought. I must have taken after my mother.
Vladimir held her hand tightly. Thaddeus shot her a sideways glance and moved protectively close. Lucienne, however, wore an expressionless mask.
“Yes, we know you’ve been looking for it,” Jimmy said, studying his daughter, “but the Brotherhood has it. The elders have decoded part of its prophecy. We’re three steps ahead of you and your grandfather—my father.”
Vladimir narrowed his eyes. “Are you going to throw your own daughter to the wolves?”
“I’m merely siding with my son,” said Jimmy.
“Lucienne is your blood, too!” Vladimir said.
She knew Vladimir was trying to work on her father to get her out, but begging the father who sold her when she was a baby was the last thing she wanted. However, she couldn’t utter a word while the five elements still melded and coursed through her.
“My daughter?” Jimmy laughed, eyes never leaving Lucienne. “Have you e
ver called me ‘Father?’ Did you even try to restore me to the Red Mansion when you came to power? No, you left me living in shame, in exile, just like my father. And both of you exiled my son, too, forcing him to live in the shadows. He had to hide from you and your minions to stay alive.”
“Not anymore,” Hauk hissed.
Lucienne extracted her hand from Vladimir’s, not wanting him to feel her shaking.
“And just looking at you, Daughter,” Jimmy continued, “I can tell I’m nothing to you, as I was nothing to the old man. And I was nothing to your mother.”
Lucienne blinked.
“Oh, yes,” Jimmy said, clearly satisfied with Lucienne’s first reaction, “the conniving Russian whore. I started putting things together after you were crowned Siren. She used me as a stallion to breed a female Siren. Everyone knew the Sirens’ line couldn’t reproduce a female offspring. She did something to me. She might have even mutated me.” He grounded his teeth. “I’m a one-time trash bag to all of you. But the Sealers offered me and my son leadership positions.”
How did her mother manipulate their genes? Who was that woman really? Lucienne took a deep breath. Before her captain died, Marloes asked her to find Jekaterina, who vanished right after her birth. And why didn’t Ashburn have the memories of her mother in his databank?
“You’re a bigger fool than I thought,” Vladimir said, “if you haven’t realized you’re merely a tool to the Sealers. They’ll cast you away as soon as you run out of use. But if you save your daughter, you’ll have a real future. You’ll be a hero. And you’ll be abundantly rewarded in Sphinxes and by my family as well.”
Do not make a deal. Do not make me a fool. Lucienne opened her mouth, but her tongue was still bound, as the power travelled inside her like the solar wind. She glared at Vladimir, but he refused to look at her.
Despite how humiliating and futile his effort was, he was a drowning man desperate to save her life.
“Will you reward me, Daughter?” Jimmy asked.
Lucienne opened her mouth again, but still couldn’t speak. Fear flickered in her eyes. Did the power of the Forbidden Glory make her mute? This was the worst time to be voiceless. If she couldn’t control her power, then it was useless to her.
