Embers (The Slayer Chronicles Book 2)

by Val St. Crowe

  Someone screamed.

  “What?” I turned blindly, scrabbling for my bow.

  But the scream turned into a gurgle and died out.

  “Rose?” whispered Celia.

  And then a burst of flame, illuminating everything.

  There was a dragon with Rose’s lifeless body. Her neck had been slashed and the dragon was gnawing at her arm and shoulder.

  Another dragon was breathing fire just behind it.

  Naelen was coming up the steps. He banged the door shut behind him and gestured at the fire-breathing dragon.

  Its jaws closed.

  The light went off.

  “Go!” Naelen yelled.

  I dove forward. I grabbed the handle of the door to the control room and vaulted inside.

  * * *

  Beepbeepbeep. “Self-destruct in three hours.” Beepbeepbeep.

  “Nothing’s happening,” said Celia. “Why is nothing happening?”

  “Hold on,” said Naelen, who was crouched under a table which held two blank console screens and some unresponsive keyboards.

  No one had said a word about what had happened out there, about the fact that both Shay and Rose were dead. I kept trying to think of something to say, but all that came to mind was, No. Nonononono. Why hadn’t I saved them?

  “Hold on,” said Doyle, who was madly flipping switches on the wall behind him.

  “There’s no power,” said Foster.

  “Hold on,” said Naelen.

  “No,” said Foster. “Someone needs to say it. There’s no power, and the control room is useless without power.”

  “Oh my God, really?” said Celia. “Then we came up here for nothing?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Foster.

  “Foster,” I said in a warning voice. “Hold on. Let them keep trying.”

  “Shay and Rose died for nothing?” said Celia, who was starting to sound hysterical.

  “Oh, keep yourself together,” said Nicole.

  “Leave her alone,” Naelen muttered, coming out from underneath the table. “She’s pregnant. Of course she’s freaked.”

  “That’s not an excuse,” said Nicole. “She’s nothing more than a little slut, and—”

  “Wait,” said Kinsie. “Did you know she was pregnant?”

  “Of course not, not until now,” said Nicole, but there was something about her tone that wasn’t very convincing.

  “That’s motive,” said Kinsie. “You found out that your husband was sleeping with a student, and that he knocked her up, and you went crazy.”

  Nicole sighed. “Oh, please, can we stop accusing each other? This is getting tiresome. We’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

  “Well, we’re all dying, one by one,” said Celia. “We’re not going to make it out of here.”

  “We will, we will,” I said. “We have to think.” I turned to Naelen. “Why are you just sitting there?”

  “Foster’s right,” he said. “There’s no power. This room is useless.”

  “Well, how does the self-destruct have power, then?” I said.

  “There’s an emergency generator,” said Naelen, “but in the case of the self-destruct, the emergency power is all routed there to carry out that command.”

  “And we can’t even turn it off?” I demanded.

  “I… don’t know,” he said.

  “Well, there’s got to be a way,” I said.

  “Did you know about the affair or not, Nicole?” asked Kinsie.

  “What does it matter?” said Nicole.

  “This is all very elaborate,” said Kinsie. “Knowing about the self-destruct, knowing about the emergency power.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Nicole.

  “But Ezra knew,” said Kinsie. “He was your husband. Maybe he told you.”

  “He didn’t,” said Nicole. “Anyway, I never would have killed him. I loved him. He was everything to me.”

  “Sure, sure,” said Kinsie. “He was off having an affair with Celia, so it’s obvious you guys had a perfect marriage.”

  “Shut up,” said Nicole. “How dare you fling that in my face? How dare you?”

  “What can we do?” I said. “How do we get out of this?”

  “I might be able to make this work,” Doyle’s voice cut through.

  “What?” I said.

  “What?” said Naelen.

  “I think that if I used the batteries on the main power switch here, I can force the system to reboot,” said Doyle. “That should hopefully cut off the self-destruct.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Well, then do it.”

  “Okay,” said Doyle. “Uh, Foster, I need someone to keep an eye on this battery and someone to work that console over there.”

  “I can do it,” said Celia.

  “I’ll do the console,” said Foster.

  Nicole flopped down onto a chair in front of the console.

  “I still think we should question everyone,” said Kinsie. “Try to figure out who did this to us.”

  “What’s back here?” said Naelen, pushing on what I had taken for the wall.

  “God, probably tunnel access,” I moaned.

  “No,” said Naelen, “I don’t think so. It’s another room.” He shone his phone’s flashlight around the area. It was a storage closet of sorts.

  I headed over to investigate, Kinsie on my heels.

  The place was full of huge plastic containers, all stacked on metal shelves. There were also some clusters of gallon containers of chemicals, like the other storage room I’d found earlier. And then I spied a pile of arrows down at the end of the room and made a beeline for them. “What the heck are these?”

  “Bring them over here,” said Naelen.

  I did, picking them all up and hauling them over.

  Naelen took one. “They’re arrows.”

  “No shit,” I said. “But they’ve got something on them here.” I pointed. “There’s a little reservoir. Are they tranq arrows, like the ones you had made for me?”

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t have any more of those made. After I knew the truth about rogues, they seemed basically pointless.”

  “Well, they came in handy a few times,” I said, “but you’re right. I don’t see any reason to tranquilize a dragon.”

  Naelen poked the reservoir. “I think they explode.”

  “Seriously?” I said, looking at them with wonder. “That’s freaking awesome.”

  “I do remember talking to the designer of the tranq arrows about that idea. He said I might want some exploding arrows, and I said that I didn’t want to blow up my sister. Maybe he made them anyway.”

  “I wish someone would have told me about these,” I said, shoving them all into my quiver. “This is going to make things so much easier.”

  “Hey Clarke?” called Doyle from the other room.

  I darted out into that room, leaving Naelen and Kinsie behind. “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “Can you flip that switch over there?” Doyle pointed.

  “Where Nicole is?” I said.

  “No, she’s got the other switch,” said Doyle. “On the other side of that console.”

  I saw it. “Okay, sure.” I went over and flipped the switch.

  “Not yet,” said Doyle. “On my mark, okay? Flip it back.”

  I flipped it back.

  “Okay,” said Doyle, “Nicole, both you and Clarke at the same time, all right?”

  “All right,” I said.

  “On the count of three,” he said. “One… two… three.”

  Nicole and I both flipped our switches.

  Nothing happened.

  “Damn it,” said Doyle.

  “What?” I said.

  “I guess it’s not that,” he said. “Not those switches. Huh. I need to think about this.”

  “You need me for anything else?” I asked.

  “Nah,” he said, sounding preoccupied.

  I headed back into the storage room. I didn’t see Naelen and
Kinsie right away, but then I spied them. They were at the back of the room, between two metal shelves. Kinsie stood in front of him. They were talking in quiet voices.

  “…with that Clarke woman, right?” Kinsie was saying.

  “Why do you ask?” said Naelen, sounding amused.

  “Well, she’s kind of… I mean, she’s not very feminine, is she? You seem like the kind of guy who really likes lace and ribbons.”

  “I do?” He was laughing.

  Kinsie’s voice grew more sultry. “You seem like the kind of guy who wouldn’t want a woman to order him around. Seems like you’d do the ordering.”

  I clenched my hands into fists. What the hell did she think she was doing? I thought about making a lot of noise and interrupting them, but I didn’t.

  I didn’t like the way Naelen was laughing. He claimed he’d given up other women, but had he really? If I thought he was even flirting with them behind my back, I’d never be able to handle it.

  So, I waited to hear what he had to say.

  “Actually, I don’t mind being ordered around,” Naelen said, chuckling.

  “Really?” said Kinsie.

  “Really,” he said.

  “So, if we get out of this alive, you think you might want to… hang out sometime? Or should I order you to do something right now?”

  “Wait… what?” Now Naelen only sounded confused.

  Kinsie advanced on him, her voice breathy. “It’s been a long time for me, and we’re in fear for our lives here, so maybe if you wanted to shut that door and do something quick and dirty…?”

  Naelen cleared his throat and lifted both of his hands, as if to ward her off. “I’m sorry, you’ve gotten the wrong impression from me somehow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s very flattering,” said Naelen. “And you seem like a very, uh, nice girl and all, but I am not really… That is to say, thank you very much, but no, I’m not interested.” He started to step around her.

  I grinned.

  And then I realized he’d see me and know I had been listening, and I didn’t want that, so I ducked back inside the control room.

  I stood there, out of sight, feeling extremely happy for some reason.

  “Clarke,” said Naelen, coming out of the storage closet, “there you are. I think I’ll come back out here now.”

  I smiled at him.

  He smiled back. “You seem exceptionally cheery given the situation.”

  “I have exploding arrows,” I said.

  “Ah,” he said. “Well, now I know what to get you for your birthday.”

  * * *

  “Damn it,” said Doyle again.

  We’d been in the control room for nearly forty-five minutes, and nothing seemed to be happening.

  “This isn’t working,” said Doyle. “No matter what I do, I can’t get the damned system back on. Maybe these batteries simply don’t have enough juice.”

  “Great,” said Kinsie. “Of course, we can’t be sure if you didn’t manufacture all of this just to waste time so that we’d all die.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re meeting Jameson and sneaking out through the tunnels,” said Foster.

  “I thought you couldn’t get out through the tunnels,” I said.

  “Well, you’d have to tunnel through probably ten feet of snow,” said Doyle. “But hell, who knows if that wouldn’t be preferable to being blown up in this place. And for the last time, Jameson’s dead.”

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s say we did that. Let’s say we tunneled through the snow and ended up at the top of the mountain. Could we reach someone to come and pick us up? Say by helicopter?”

  “If it’s still coming down out there the way it was predicted, then no way,” said Doyle. “No one can fly in that kind of a storm.”

  “So, we’d have to walk,” I said.

  “No, we’d all die out there,” said Foster.

  “Great,” said Kinsie. “We’re dead either way then.”

  “We can freeze to death or we can blow up,” said Naelen quietly.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I guess the other entrance is the same deal?”

  “Maybe we should revisit the snowmobile idea?” said Kinsie. “Even if we couldn’t get help, we could at least get some of us out of here. How many could fit on each one?”

  “Maybe two people per snowmobile,” said Doyle. “So, that’s only four of us.”

  “How would we decide who gets to go?” said Celia.

  No one said anything.

  Nicole spoke up. “Look, it’s a blizzard out there. Driving one of those things in a whiteout isn’t easy.”

  I massaged the bridge of my nose. “Fine, then. We need to get the power back on. Then we can turn off the self-destruct, right?”

  “Theoretically,” said Naelen. “But none of us is entirely sure how to do it.”

  “It’s our best bet for survival,” I said. “It’s plan A. And if it doesn’t work, then you guys can draw straws for the snowmobiles.” If I couldn’t save all of them, I’d save some of them. I wasn’t sure how Naelen and I would get out, but we’d figure out something. I surveyed the rest of them. “Any objections?”

  No one said anything.

  “All right,” I said. “Now, if I wanted to turn off all the power, how would I do that?”

  “Probably at the fuse box,” said Doyle.

  “Right,” I said. “Makes sense. So where’s the fuse box?”

  “It’s on the lowest level,” said Naelen.

  “What?” I said. “In what universe does that make any sense? Why wouldn’t you put the fuse box up here, next to the damned control room? Naelen, what kind of idiot designed this place? You better promise me you blacklist that asshole.”

  He let out a short laugh. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “All right, well, I guess there’s no point in trying to tell some people to stay up here while I take Naelen to find the fuse box?”

  “Forget it,” said Kinsie. “We stick together.”

  “Sticking together is what got Shay and Rose killed,” I said.

  “We don’t know that we wouldn’t all be dead if we’d stayed in that stairwell,” Kinsie said.

  “Fine,” I said. “We stick together.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Going back down the stairs was hard, especially going past the body of Shay, which was still smoking.

  Earlier, we didn’t see Rose’s body, but we weren’t looking for it. Anyway, the dragon who had it had probably dragged her off, as horrible as it was to think about it.

  But we made it to the recreation floor without incident.

  Then we had to go back down the dark hallway to get to the next set of steps. We all walked together, hands linked in the darkness, a chain of us. As before, I took the lead and Naelen brought up the rear.

  As we walked, I thought of another bone to pick I had with this designer. Why not put the stairs all in one long stairwell with landings at each floor, like it usually was in big buildings? Then we wouldn’t have had to go into these freaking hallways.

  But we made it to the stairs and no sign of dragons anywhere.

  I pushed that door open, and we started down the steps.

  A snarl from above us and a dragon descended in a flutter of wings and smoke.

  I yanked out one of the exploding arrows. “Stand back,” I yelled and let it loose.

  I heard the sound of the arrow hitting flesh and steeled myself for the explosion, which made me wonder if it was a good idea to do this in a stairwell in the first place and maybe I was going to get us all killed because the explosion would be big and get us all and wait a second, why wasn’t anything exploding?

  “The arrow didn’t explode, Naelen!” I yelled.

  A flash of flame from the dragon, and—in the firelight—I could see that I’d only hit the dragon in the leg.

  “Maybe it was a dud?” he called back.

  The dragon lunged
and it slashed its claws over Doyle’s throat.

  Doyle’s neck gushed blood. He fell to his knees, his eyes bulging.

  I shot the dragon again.

  No explosion.

  And this time I got it in the shoulder. It squealed, rounding on me. I felt for another arrow. Why hadn’t I grabbed three at once? I thought one damned explosion would be adequate, I guess.

  The dragon blew out more flame.

  I let my arrow go.

  The flame hit Kinsie directly in the face. She let out an inhuman shriek, her hands going to her face. They caught flame too. The fire was spreading to her hair—her clothes—her face was burning. I could see her teeth going all the way back to her jaw as she screamed.

  My arrow landed in the dragon’s skull and the dragon toppled over and rolled down the stairs.

  Kinsie’s shrieks faded as she tumbled after it.

  I looked away, trembling all over.

  * * *

  I was beginning to waver in my confidence. It seemed as if all of my ideas were doing nothing except getting more and more people killed. Now, there were only five of us.

  Naelen, Nicole, Celia, Foster, and me.

  We hurried through the hallway on the laboratory level, heading for the last staircase, which would take us down to the lowest level, where we might find the fuse box.

  I’d taken this job to help people. To save people. I’d told Logan that I had to come because people were dying. But I wasn’t sure if I’d done any good at all.

  I couldn’t let anyone else die. No more arguments about sticking together. I would ensconce the rest of them someplace safe, and I wouldn’t let them out unless I knew there was no more danger.

  I hadn’t faced it thus far. All the death. I think I was too focused on trying to get us out to let it sink in, but watching Kinsie’s face burn away like that…

  Oh, God. I couldn’t hide from the reality. We were all dying.

  And I didn’t even have any exploding arrows.

  Finally, we got to the final stairway. I pushed open the door and let everyone inside.

  And then I turned on my flashlight and shone it all over, looking for dragons.

  Clear.

  “What the hell are you doing?” said Nicole. “One of those things could have seen us.”

  “You three are staying in here,” I said. “We’ll lock you in. I can’t let anyone else die.”