Gods of Blood and Bone (Seeds of Chaos Book 1)

by Azalea Ellis

  Blaine noticed, and moved over to peer at it. "What is that?"

  "I don't know. I got it in the Intelligence Trial. The Oracle said it would guide my path, and I think it's a puzzle, but I've got no freakin’ idea how to make it work. I need to figure it out, because all this not knowing is dangerous. I hate it."

  He held out a hand. "May I?"

  "Sure." I dropped it into his palm, and he took it to a microscope.

  After a few minutes of silent inspection, during which he turned the links around and examined them from every angle, he sat back and returned the chain to me. "It's a puzzle ring. The bands join together around your finger, designed to come apart when you take it off. This one has minuscule grooves and protrusions, so unless you match all the bands to each other exactly, they won't join. It's quite complicated. Impressively so. You said you got that in the Trial?"

  I nodded, speechless at his quick understanding of something I'd spent many futile hours on already. I bent my head to study the bands, trying to see the imperfections he’d spoken of in their surface.

  "Interesting. I have some ideas about the place you go to when you're transported away..."

  I jerked my head up as I remembered, and interrupted him. "I've got something else you might want to take a look at. It's in my pack. Will you get it from the closet?"

  He brought the pack to me, laid it gently on the table, and opened it.

  The egg lay inside, clearly visible, and as big as a cantaloupe.

  “Good thing it didn’t break in the fall.” I almost shuddered at the thought.

  Blaine removed it reverently, holding it cupped between both hands. “What is it?”

  “It’s a tailos egg. The tailos are…big cats with wings. And I think they’re telepathic. Its mother gave me the egg to protect. It’s probably the last of its kind.”

  He blinked, staring through thick glasses at the heavy, porous, blood-crusted orb. “You brought back an unhatched…Trial monster?”

  “Umm, yeah?” Suddenly the idea seemed questionably dangerous.

  “If I’d known you could bring them back, I’d have had you bring me more. I could be dissecting them right now!” He flicked it with a finger, leaning close to listen.

  “Well, usually the monsters are quite…large. We can only bring back small things, things we can kind of wrap ourselves around. And besides, I don’t even know if they could survive in this world.”

  He sat the egg down on the table and scurried away, then came back with a tube of gel, a stethoscope like device, and a series of small metal hammers.

  “Whoa, you’re not going to try and crack it open. I promised the mother I’d protect it. If it’s still alive, being born prematurely could kill it.”

  “Relax, I’m only going to do a sonogram.”

  He spread the gel over a patch, and then placed the pad at the end of the stethoscope into the gel.

  Some gel ran down into one of the pores, and a tiny but forceful puff of air from inside sprayed it away and onto the table.

  My eyes met Blaine’s, and Sam and Adam joined us at the table as the air filled with a charge of excitement.

  Blaine chose the smallest mallet, and tapped gently on the shell. His eyes widened, and I had to resist the urge to rip the stethoscope-thing’s tips from his ears when he said, “It moved. Something’s alive in there.”

  “Let me,” I said. I put the tips in my own ears, and tapped gently on the shell. A sloshing wriggle came from inside, along with what might have been an irritated squeak.

  My face stretched in a huge grin, and I reluctantly gave up the stethoscope to Adam and Sam.

  Blaine was frowning into the pores, and scratching at the dried blood on the surface. “I wonder if it’s cold. Should we incubate it? What temperature, though, and for how long?”

  I thought back to the tailos hatchery, and slid off my chair, making my way to Blaine’s supply closet while they were too focused to notice me. I grabbed a handful of scalpels, and made my way back. Then I took the stethoscope back from Blaine, put the tips in my ears, and ripped open the packaging of one of the stethoscopes.

  “Whoa. Be careful there. I thought you didn’t want to hurt it,” he said. “Cutting it open isn’t any better than cracking it. And either way, a scalpel isn’t the tool for the job.”

  I ignored him, lifted my left wrist above the egg, and cut a slice into the side, away from my veins, but deep enough so the blood flowed well.

  Adam gasped, and then slapped the scalpel out of my hand while the others were still gaping at me.

  He clamped a large hand around my bleeding wrist, and pulled it up to elevate the cut. “Get some blood-clotter and some bandages. Wait. Sam, just heal her.”

  Sam moved to obey, but I pulled weakly at Adam’s restraints, and scowled. “Stop it, you two. The tailos eggs drink blood. I was just giving it some. Look.”

  The blood that had made it down into the pores was being sucked up, and when it was gone, I heard more wriggling from inside, and a definite squeaky sound.

  I pulled my arm away from Adam, and let more blood drip onto the egg.

  It continued to suck up the liquid until Sam put his hand on my wrist and stopped the bleeding.

  “You just lost a crazy amount of blood. Now is not the time to be slicing open a vein to feed some cat egg,” Adam said.

  I laughed, and then realized that I did feel a little lightheaded. “Yeah. You’re right.” I nodded to Sam. “Thanks.”

  Sam nodded, and the slice healed to a raw pink patch of skin before my eyes.

  Blaine had watched the whole exchange in avid silence. “It drinks blood. And you said the adults are telepathic?”

  “Yeah,” Sam responded. “They don’t use words, but it’s like they push sensory input and feeling right into your brain.”

  “And they’re good. I mean, they’re pretty vicious, but they don’t attack any and all humans indiscriminately, and they have families and…a culture,” I added.

  Blaine blinked owlishly. “You guys realize what this means, right? There’s a sentient, communicating race in these Trials. One that’s never been seen on Earth.”

  “Well, at least not for a long time, right? What if…have you guys ever heard of a gryphon?” I said. “They’re not the same, but…what if there’s some sort of connection? And some of the places we’ve gone, it’s like an ancient city of ruins. I mean, what about that energy cartridge, Adam? There’s something…more, going on here. There’s something missing, something we don’t understand.”

  Blaine sighed wistfully. “I wish I had access to the Trial world. I’d love to get my hands on everything you guys keep telling me about. The technology of a futuristic society…it’s incredibly exciting.”

  “No,” I said. “You don’t wish that. If any of these speculations are true, then it’s pretty damn amazing. But that doesn’t negate the fact that the lifespan of a Player bears some resemblance to the lifespan of a fruit fly. It’s short. I’d give up all the ‘excitement’ in a second, to live an ordinary, miserable life here on present-day Earth till I was old and pollution-wrinkled.”

  There was a silence, and then Blaine handed me a bundle of unopened syringes. “At least don’t cut yourself open. Use these instead.”

  Adam snatched the syringes away, glaring at him, and I left the boys to bicker and went back to sleep.

  * * *

  --WE’LL BE READY--

  -Adam-

  I nodded to Adam’s reassurance, though I knew he couldn’t see me, and packed another box into the back of the huge transport pod my mother had rented. My back twinged with the movement, but I was careful to keep any hint of pain off my face.

  Zed stared at me not-quite-secretly from the corner of his eye as we passed each other, as he’d been doing for the last few days.

  “What?” I snapped. I was hungry, tired, sweaty, and stressed out about both getting my family to safety and the team’s plan for NIX that evening. Needless to say, my level of patie
nce had taken a flogging. “You’re irritating the hell out of me.”

  “I’m irritating you?” his eyebrows raised, then lowered into a scowl. “I’m worried about you, Eve.”

  “Well, stop. I’m fine! Better than fine.”

  “What happened to you the other night? You disappeared without even saying anything.”

  “Didn’t Mom tell you? I messaged her. I stayed the night at my friend’s house. And what does it matter? I don’t have to report my every move to you.”

  His fingers squeezed dents into the box in his arms and he glared at me silently for a few moments. “Why are you so freaking obstinate?”

  “I’m not the obstinate one. You don’t have to be involved in every aspect of my life, Zed. Stop thinking something has to be wrong just because my life is changing for the better. I’m getting tired of having this same conversation over and over.”

  “Eve, I know—”

  My mom stepped around the pod and dusted off her manicured hands, which had somehow managed to stay perfect through the packing and loading of almost our entire house.

  Zed cut off whatever he was about to say.

  “All done now, children. I’m going to make a last pass through the house. Say bye to your sister and get in the pod, Zed. You’re driving this one.” She tossed him the keys.

  She and Zed were moving to the new location ahead of me. I’d be following them soon, I hoped, and we could resume our mostly normal lives. Free from the Game and NIX, though I knew I’d feel the need to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

  I sighed and softened my expression. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’ve got everything handled, I promise.” I stared into his eyes, trying to make him believe.

  He said nothing, but after a few long moments, his own stubborn expression morphed to something I couldn’t quite read, and he gave me a hug.

  My mother came back down, satisfied the only things left were mine, and they left for the safety of the new home and life I’d created for them with Blaine’s help. A life away from NIX and its influence.

  Chapter 26

  Who overcomes

  By force, hath overcome but half his foe.

  — John Milton

  I crouched just outside the line of NIX's security, with my team behind me. I was tense and sick with fear. I wished we could wait, but NIX implemented a shift rotation every couple weeks, and it was the best time to slip in unnoticed. If I could have waited till the next rotation, I would have. An operation like this should be the work of weeks or even months, not a couple weeks. But in another four days, we'd be going back to the Trials, and I wasn’t sure we’d all live till the next shift rotation. Plus, by working day and night on almost no sleep, we'd somehow managed to get everything ready. No matter what happened tonight, we’d all be leaving the city in less than twenty-four hours.

  Even if I hadn't given the go-ahead, China would never have waited. Her whole focus was on saving her sister, and she would be there that night whether I wanted her to or not. I'd tried to at least convince her to stay behind to carry out our plan B, but she'd found a way around that, too. I had to admit her sonar-like senses would be invaluable to us on the inside, if she could focus on the mission at hand and not just her sister.

  I motioned with my hand, and we crept around to the side of a large military transport pod, properly keeping to the path of disabled motion sensors and cameras that Jacky had created, with Adam's guidance. Once behind the pod, we stood up, and strode forward with Adam at the front, as if we knew perfectly where we were going and had every right to be there.

  My hands felt cold with sweat, and I hoped the uniforms we'd mimicked held up to casual inspection. We had no guns, because they were too strictly regulated in our country, and though Blaine had the money to get pretty much anything off the black market, there wasn’t time to prepare them. In addition to that, China was too small to be a guard, so we'd put her in a different type of uniform. A uniform of the Players NIX kept, probably for experimentation. I only hoped that she wouldn't rouse suspicion, as long as she was with us, and had instructed Sam to keep a firm grip on her at all times, as if she was a prisoner under our guard. If things got complicated, she would be our backup access key to the captives. Bunny hadn't contacted any of us in a few days, probably because of the last accusing conversation I'd had with him.

  We moved to one of the doors, and Adam held up a little device to the security pad there. After only a few seconds, it beeped, the pad flashed green, and a click announced that the door had unlocked itself. Adam opened the door and threw a grin over his shoulder. "Got that little trick from an online acquaintance. Quite useful."

  We stepped through the doorway into a well-lit hallway, with small cameras positioned at regular intervals. We wore military caps, like many of the other guards, but the real protection was a little powder Blaine had given us in gleeful excitement, like a kid unbearably eager to have their gift opened. The powder gave off only the slightest sheen to the naked eye, and could be disguised as the shimmer of a woman's foundation, or a light misting of sweat. But to a camera, our faces looked like a thousand beaming facets of light, and completely unrecognizable.

  Blaine hadn’t been idle for a moment, working like a crazy man to meet all my demands.

  As we walked, I started using the Game interface. “Bunny, I said. “Stay still, and listen to me. Don’t make any indication that we’re talking. Check your map for my location.” Before he had the time to send a response, I continued. “You’re going to keep silent and let me do what I need to do. If we get caught, I’m going to know whose fault it is. And I’m going to come for you. I know where you are. I’m watching you, just like you’ve been watching us.” That last part was a bluff. Blaine’s tracking of our chip data only showed direction and distance from the person we were messaging; I didn’t have access to any cameras.

  “When they go crazy trying to figure out what happened, you’re going to keep all of this a secret, because you’re part of it. If you say anything, they will wonder why you never reported us earlier, when we were planning all of this. And if you try to say you didn’t know what we were doing, they might wonder what use they have of someone so incompetent. By now, I hope you’ve grown a better understanding of exactly how much mercy NIX has.”

  WHAT R U DOING, EVE?

  —Bunny—

  “I’m escaping. If you interfere with that, your employers won’t be your only problem. So you’d better sit tight and pretend you’re clueless.”

  Jacky knocked out the first lone guard we saw with a chop to the back of the neck, took his ID sheath, and locked him in the supply closet that Adam located with the map he took from said ID sheath.

  Then we were on our way properly. Largely due to the obsessive reconnaissance China had been doing, we had a good idea where everything was already, but the detailed map of the inside was necessary to move within the maze-like compound. We passed other guards, but none paid much attention to us or our ward, China.

  A few minutes later, Adam held up a hand at an extra-securely locked doorway. It still stood no chance against Adam's little gadget, and after a few tense moments when China notified us of footsteps coming our way, we slipped in to the unlit room.

  It was a room full of glass-circuit servers, stacked one atop the other on shelves that reached from the ceiling to the floor and stretched the span of the room.

  Adam set up his computer and connected it to a random port. "We're in!" he said.

  Jacky had just given a triumphant chuckle when the room lit up, light shining from the all the glass, into every shadow.

  I jumped about a foot, I'm not ashamed to admit.

  And I wasn't the only one.

  Adam looked up quickly, but then back down to the keyboard his fingers were literally blurring over. "It's just an acknowledgment of access. And...uploading."

  The glass-circuits and screens on the walls started to give off a beautiful light show that almost looked li
ke splashes and beams of light fighting against each other.

  Adam grunted almost as if he was in pain, and moved his hands from the keyboard to the sides of his computer, where he’d modified it to have holes to the inside just the size of his fingers. He closed his eyes and let the sparks start to jump from his skin, communicating directly with the computer.

  China was biting her nails, looking between Adam and the hallway outside through the window cut into the door.

  Sam said, "I don't mean to interrupt, but is everything going okay?"

  Adam snarled at the computer. "It's freakin' fighting me. It's adaptable. Every time I get past it, it tries to push me out again. If I get kicked out even once, it'll be too late. So please let me concentrate." He took a deep breath, and let it out, and I knew he was activating his Hyper-Focus Skill. His sparks jumped even faster, and the sound turned into the buzzing of a live wire, each zap indistinguishable from the others. His curly hair rose around the sides of his cap eerily, static making it twist and turn as if it was alive.

  "The lights are visible," China said.

  My heart gave one sick thump in my chest, and I whipped around to the door, which had a window to the outside running right through the top half of it, just as the handle turned.

  It swung open as if in slow motion, and Jacky, who'd been next to the door, stepped quickly behind it, putting the metal as a barrier between herself and the guard.

  The guard. His eyes took in all of us, in the mainframe computer room, one frantically buzzing with electricity.

  * * *

  I tried to relax, and leaned against the shelves behind me. "Hi. Doing some testing in here. Hope we didn't alarm you."

  He frowned. "No one's authorized to be in here."

  I nodded. "Yeah. That's what we're testing. The security system's resistance to intrusion during a nonauthorized time frame. You weren't notified of this?"

  He shook his head.

  I sighed and lifted my face to the ceiling. "How many times do I have to send out notification to get anything official done around here? This is ridiculous. Your C.O. probably has the memo somewhere in his computer, unopened. What happened to compliance training? God."