“Los Lobos,” one of the Gray Devils said with disdain. “You’re outgunned, so slink back the way you came before you get hurt. Mira Toombs is Gray Devils business.”
The Lobos members stared back defiantly, and made no move to leave. “Outgunned, maybe,” Cesar replied with an equal amount of scorn. “But never outmatched, especially by gray and white. Toombs owes us more than she can repay. Try to take her, if you wanna bleed for it.”
Holt started pulling Mira back and away to where Zoey must be. If there wasn’t an exit through that curtain, they were all in a lot of trouble.
“Fine,” the Gray Devil leader said casually. “You wanna die and give us your Points, that works for me. But let’s stop standing around talking about it.”
The tension lasted a few seconds more … and then the Gray Devils charged forward with yells of fury. So did Los Lobos.
Gunfire erupted everywhere, and bullets sparked along the walls and floor. The two sides slammed full-speed into each other, knives and clubs swinging, the groups clawing and kicking, trying to kill and maim.
Holt grabbed Mira and ran toward the curtain. But before they reached it, Mira screamed as more gunfire flashed behind them. They flinched as bullets streaked past.
Holt pulled Mira behind a table for protection as more bullets flew.
Six or so Lobos were running for them, Holt saw. Frustration washed over him as he realized there was nothing he could do. When they reached him, he fought anyway. He took out two of them before the others jumped him, and even landed a few punches in on a third.
From somewhere far away, he heard Mira scream as they pummeled him.
Just as the black began to push in around Holt’s vision, they started dragging him. He felt Mira struggling above him, being carried as well, away from the teaching area, back toward the lift platform. Holt tried to struggle, but there wasn’t much left in him now.
He heard the faint sounds of gunfire and screams. Through blurred vision, Holt saw four Gray Devils racing toward them, guns and knives ready. He heard Mira scream again.…
“Stop!” a small voice yelled from somewhere close by. Even though it was small, it carried through the large, empty space loud enough to draw everyone’s attention.
Holt craned his neck and saw Zoey standing in the study area. Max was next to her, growling low.
Zoey’s face was unreadable, neither alarmed nor frightened.
And then a voice echoed all around them, from nowhere in particular, filling the giant cavern. “Tell me what you saw, girl. Did you see the Tower?” It was the Librarian’s voice, and it halted the chaotic battle in place.
Zoey looked at the blank air around her and nodded.
“You were there when it happened, then? When the Strange Lands formed?” the voice asked eagerly, echoing off the walls of the Vault.
“Yes,” Zoey replied. “And I think I’ll be there again soon.”
There was a bright flash as the curtain of energy parted once more, and the Librarian stepped through. He looked at Zoey and nodded, and his shoulders seemed to sag in relief, as if a great tension had released. “Then you understand. Good.”
From his belt, he pulled a large, red encased artifact wrapped in silver chain, and then pushed a set of quarters down like buttons. When they clicked into place, the artifact began to glow and hum.
“Hey!” Cesar shouted. “Get that thing away from him!”
But the kids didn’t move. None of them were eager to rush the old man.
“I won’t let you harm the girl or her friends,” the Librarian said, and his voice was amplified again, filling the chamber, bouncing powerfully off the walls. The Lobos took a step back. “They all have much to do, more than any of them know.” His gaze focused on Mira, and she stared back at him. “Zoey is the Apex, Mira. The one I knew existed.”
Holt had no idea what that meant, but Mira’s eyes widened in absolute shock at the words.
“I know it’s hard to believe.” The red and silver artifact in his hands continued to glow and hum, as if it were building power. “But she will convince you on her own, I think. Protect and trust her, both of you. There is nothing more important in this world. And Mira…” He trailed off as his look turned poignant and deep. “You were always my favorite. Do not lament, girl. There’s no time for it.”
The Librarian tossed his artifact forward, and it sailed like a ball of flashing lights and colors through the air and disappeared into the depths of the pit.
He and Mira held their gaze a few moments more … and then, from below, came an angry, furious howl that ripped the air like thunder. Everyone in the cavern was blown off their feet as torrents of wind suddenly ripped past them, sucking them into the bottom of the pit like it was a whirlpool.
The two factions screamed as they flew backwards, dragged across the ground, disappearing over the edge and into the dark below.
The Librarian, however, stood still, letting the winds rip him from the cavern floor and fling him into the pit, where he plummeted out of sight.
“No!” Mira screamed in anguish, watching the old man fall and disappear, gone forever.
Zoey grabbed a howling Max with one hand and held on to the solid leg of a workbench with the other, struggling to keep them both from being yanked away.
“Holt! The lifts!” Mira shouted as the maelstrom of air yanked everyone on the platform backwards.
Mira managed to grab on to the door of one as she flew past, dragging herself inside. Holt did the same, Lobos yelling in terror as they flew past him in the air.
Holt groaned as he started pulling himself inside the lift …
… and then another figure flew through its door and slammed into the back wall.
Cesar.
He and Holt glared at each other, and then the Lobos leader sneered and lunged toward him as the wind howled everywhere outside. It was so powerful, the lifts began to slide back on the platform toward the sheer drop on the other side of the ledge.
Cesar clamped on to Holt’s fingers, started prying them loose from the edge.
As Holt struggled with him, he looked the boy in the eyes. “Al mal paso, darle prisa,” Holt said. “Take bad steps quickly.” Cesar hesitated. Holt smiled. “It’s good advice.” He grabbed Cesar by the hair and yanked as hard as he could. The wind blowing through the cavern filled the lift enough to make the kid buoyant, and he flew through the door and fell screaming into the long drop below.
Holt pulled himself into the lift as it bucked and spun in the tumultuous winds. And then, finally, it all died down. The lifts slid back to their original position. The angry howl silenced. Everything was eerily quiet.
Holt and Mira crawled weakly out. There were six or seven Lobos and Gray Devils warriors left, but they were too exhausted for the moment to do anything.
Holt instinctively looked up to find—
Max rammed into him, licking and rubbing against him, and Holt sighed in relief. Zoey was running up behind the dog. “Holt!” she yelled.
Holt and Mira pushed to their feet, grabbed Zoey, and ran, heading for the tunnel back to the Shrine. Holt stared at it with intensity. They could make it if they hurried. They could make it.…
But behind them, what was left of the factions began to stir.
45. BATTLE OF MIDNIGHT CITY
HOLT AND THE OTHERS DASHED into Midnight City’s main hall, the haphazard buildings climbing up the black rock above them on either side of the underground street. They moved fast toward the Lost Knights compound, which lay on the northern end, on the other side of the Scorewall. The secret exit was their only hope of escape, and time was running out.
People all around Holt gasped as they recognized Mira. Holt kept moving, but the crowd thickened and pushed in on them, everyone trying to get a look or stopping to point, hundreds of them. It was getting tough to shove through it all.
“Move it, come on!” Holt yelled as he pushed to the front, trying to clear a path, taking Mira and Zoey’s hands. He wa
s frantic, could feel their window of opportunity closing, in spite of all they had achieved. Getting Mira’s artifact. Escaping the Vault. Most important, Zoey had apparently found what she had come here for. Maybe she could heal Mira now, Holt thought with hope. Maybe everything was finally in his grasp. But the only way to find out was to get out of this cursed place.
His stomach twisted into knots as it always did when a goal was in sight. The last few steps were always the most precarious, the most dangerous, the point at which everything could be lost. And the feeling of Mira’s hand in his reminded him that he, for better or worse, once again had a lot to lose. The thought spurred him onward, and he pushed through all the people, dragging Mira and Zoey with him.
They were almost through. They were almost—
Shouts rang out from behind them. “Stop them! Stop Mira Toombs!”
Holt and Mira looked behind them … and saw dozens of kids dressed in gray and white pushing after them. At the front ran Lenore, a purplish red bruise on the side of her head where Holt had knocked her out. She glared at Mira with burning eyes. The rage that radiated from Lenore was enough to easily part the crowd before her. He felt Mira’s grip on his hand tighten.
“Out of the way!” Holt yelled in despair, turning back to the crowd in front of him. They were almost through.…
But the crowd reached for them. Max barked viciously, lunging and driving them back, but it wasn’t enough.
“Holt!” Zoey yelled in fear behind him. But there was nothing he could do.
Holt felt dozens of hands on him, grabbing and tearing and punching. He felt searing pain in his head and ribs, and most horribly, he felt Mira and Zoey’s hands ripped out of his, heard their screams over the yells of the Midnight City mob, heard Max growl as two kids kicked him out of sight.
Holt struggled, but there were just too many hands on him, too many people to fight off.
The crowd calmed and suddenly parted, and the Gray Devils pushed into view, led by Lenore. Holt saw Zoey and Mira, both struggling, held in place by groups of kids, hands clamped over their mouths.
Lenore moved forward with a slow, predatory walk, her eyes holding Mira’s. Mira, for her part, glared right back, refusing to look away. When Lenore reached her, she smiled thinly, gently ran her hand down Mira’s cheek.
“My Mira,” Lenore said softly. Mira tried to squirm away, but the kids all around her held her in place. “I don’t think I can ever hurt you like you’ve hurt me.” The gentle, almost tender caress of Lenore’s hand shifted as she slapped Mira hard across the face. “But I’m going to try all the same.”
Fury roared to life inside Holt. “Touch her again, bitch, and I’ll kill you!” he shouted at Lenore maliciously, pulling and struggling against his captors. His anger was so intense, he didn’t even notice the first in a series of punches that finally got him in line.
Lenore never looked at him. “I’ll touch her, Outsider,” the woman replied drawing a knife from her belt in a smooth, patient gesture. The blade gleamed, as it moved toward Mira’s face. “Touch her, and much more. Make him keep his eyes on this. I want him to watch.”
Mira screamed a muffled cry, pulled against the hands holding her. Holt struggled violently, but it was no use. The hands on him were too strong. The knife approached …
… and then the entire cavern shook.
Debris and rock fell from the ceiling and the buildings, crashing to the ground and spraying splinters of sediment. From outside came a strange rumbling.
Everyone in the hall, even Lenore, looked up in alarm.
The room shook again, more intense this time, and sounds filtered in from the surface. Deep, percussive booms that could be only one thing: explosions.
Alarm horns began sounding throughout the city, echoing loudly against the thick cavern walls.
The crowd went stock-still, their eyes wide. Whatever those horns meant, very few had ever heard them, and judging by the looks on their faces, they had never expected to.
But Holt didn’t need to know what the horns meant. He’d heard enough plasma explosions in his life to recognize an Assembly attack when one was happening.
The kids all around him panicked as the horns continued to sound. Holt felt the hands holding him disappear. As everyone fled one way or another.
In the chaos that consumed the huge room, Holt saw Lenore knocked backwards and away, disappearing into a crowd of stampeding people.
Holt hit the floor as Mira and Zoey dropped, too.
He moved for them, but now the crowd was a completely different obstacle. It wasn’t fixed in place anymore. Instead, it was spilling in a panic in every conceivable direction, and Holt yelled out as feet stepped on his arms and legs and chest.
He had to claw his way to his feet and push with all his strength against being swept away in the frothing, manic crowd.
“Holt!” he heard Zoey shout from somewhere up ahead, but everything had blended into a sea of desperate, running kids.
“Zoey!” he yelled back, trying to find her, trying to push toward her.
“Holt, here!” he heard her shout to his right, and he moved, punching and kicking his way through until he saw the little girl huddled on the floor, covering her head with her arms. He yanked her up onto his shoulders.
“It’s all my fault,” Zoey said into his ear. “When I was with the Oracle, they sensed me. I felt them. I think they felt me, too.”
Holt gripped her leg encouragingly. “Don’t worry about it, kiddo,” he said, pushing through the crowd. “Probably the only time I’ve ever been happy to see the Assembly.”
Holt heard barking to his left and saw Max dodging and weaving his way toward them through the crowd. The dog seemed no worse for the wear, and Holt nodded in relief. There was only one person left to find, and he looked out over the tops of all the bobbing heads around him, a hurricane of panicking people stretching in every direction.
But there was no sign of Mira. She was gone, buried in the crowd somewhere.
“She’s that way,” Zoey said, pointing ahead and to the left. Holt instantly started moving and yelled for Max. The dog followed after them as they all pushed through the desperate, pulsing crowd of people.
* * *
DOZENS OF BLUE AND white walkers, Spiders and Mantises, swarmed toward the dam, marching through the floodplain at its base, plasma cannons flashing and hammering the giant structure as they moved. Fire burst out from its side, spraying plumes of concrete everywhere. Flights of Raptors roared by above, circling the action, providing cover for Osprey dropships to touch down and unload even more walkers onto the field.
It was a terrifying show of force. Clearly, the Assembly planned to overpower Midnight City quickly.
But the city wasn’t without its defenses. Kids wearing the colors of many different factions, differences forgotten now, ran to and from the cannon emplacements on the walls—old artillery and other human weapons, new guns that fired large, compacted balls of scrap metal, and one or two repurposed Assembly cannon. The weapons exploded to life, returning fire, flinging shrapnel and plasma bolts down toward the invading army.
Explosions flared up and rocked the ground of the floodplain, and the river valley was quickly a battle zone.
But the Assembly pushed through it easily. For every one walker Midnight City managed to drop, four more were unloaded from Ospreys behind it. The walkers’ cannons and missile batteries opened up, flinging death upward through the sky.
More explosions rocked the dam, kids went flying everywhere, cannons burst apart and crumpled.
The Raptor gunships opened fire as well, hammering the defenses from above. Metallic claws from Vultures shot down from the sky, grabbed and yanked the defenders from their positions, screaming as they were ripped up and away.
The Mantises swarmed ahead of the Spiders, headed for the main entrances to the city. They were small enough to fit in and through the tunnels that connected to the main hall. If they got inside … it would all be o
ver. And quick.
Orders and commands were yelled into the air, and some of the defenders began abandoning their posts, running for the entrances, readying to man the tunnel defenses to slow down the Assembly attack.
* * *
MIRA AND LENORE CLAWED at each other as they rolled on the floor. The crowd was all around them, a chaotic tempest of stomping feet and legs. Mira’s pack tore loose and fell away from her just as Lenore pinned her down. She tried to squirm free, to find a defense, but Lenore had locked her in place.
The woman’s hands slipped around Mira’s throat and began to squeeze. “All of this,” Lenore sneered, squeezing tight, “all of it is your fault.”
Mira looked around for anything that might save her, anything that could—
Next to her, just within arm’s reach, was her pack, torn and ripped open.
For a moment, she forgot about Lenore’s hands choking her life away, forgot the pain. All she knew was that there was a way out of this, and it lay within reach. She knew it was something she had sworn never to use. But she had things to live for. Things to make right and people to see again, people she cared about. She would do what she had to do, even if it sickened her. Even if it damned her.
Her hand stretched out for the pack, she frantically dug around inside it with her fingers.
Lenore didn’t notice; she was too focused on Mira’s face. “Do you know what hurts the most, Mira?”
Mira was seeing stars, her vision was blackening, her lungs burned. Her hands found what she was looking for inside the pack, struggled to hold on to it, lost it … then found it again.
“What you’ve done wipes away our past,” she said, her fingers digging in. “All the memories of us, all our times together, how much you meant to me—it’s all ruined now. You killed it. Like you’ve killed this place.”
Mira’s hand pulled free of her pack, holding something tightly.
“Like I’m going to kill you,” Lenore spat, gripping harder.
And with the last of her strength, Mira shoved her artifact—the one that both repulsed and frightened her—in front of Lenore and snapped open the casing of the brass stopwatch.
Midnight City: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) Page 34
