Asher unlocked the doors. He pulled the grill to one side. "Girl, get your half of the door open."
I struggled with the metal door, but finally pushed it wide enough to get the cart through. Limbs trembling, I crashed onto my knees as Simon and Glynn pushed the cart through the metal gates.
Glynn wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me upright. "How much further?"
"The start of the line is close." Simon's voice wavered as much as my legs.
Asher flashed his gun's green light across the ground.
"There it is." Simon darted to the back of the cart and shouldered it in the direction of the track.
Glynn joined him and both men wriggled the cart to the start of the offshoot track.
Asher prodded Simon in the stomach. "Get back up and bring my men down here with the other cart."
Simon hesitated, then saluted. Please be out of habit. We needed Simon on our side. He disappeared into the darkness.
"Keep your hands where I can see them." Asher pushed me to the ground at his feet. He kept the rifle pointed at Glynn. "Neither of you try anything. I might not kill both of you, but I guarantee I will kill one of you."
On the ground, a fine dust coated my hands and filled my nose. If I could catch my breath, rest for a while, I could try and grab a gun. Then what? Against three with guns?
The strengthening spell had to be spoken aloud, but Asher would never let me get to the end. Even if I found a way to cast it, a second spell so close to the first would have unforeseen consequences, and the crash when it came would be sudden and ugly.
The lift rumbled back down. The soldiers cursed as they manhandled the heavy handcart out of the lift to join us. Desperately, I searched my memory for options.
"Meagan, with me in the first cart. Buckley and the other one, in the second cart." Asher pointed at the two soldiers. "You two split up, one in each cart. One of you is gonna have to do some work."
It would take two to move each vehicle. He wouldn't put the gun down, so he expected me to pump the cart with one of the soldiers.
Glynn must have realized at the same time. He marched to Asher and thumped him in the shoulder. "She can hardly stand. You can't expect her to work the hand pump."
Asher clicked the trigger safety off and pointed the gun at my legs. "I want her alive. But she doesn't need all her body parts. Get back and shut your mouth."
If I used every ounce of energy to physically move the cart, I’d have nothing left to turn the table on Asher and his two soldiers. How on earth was I going to get us out of this mess?
Asher pushed me onto the first cart and climbed into the seat at the back. Simon latched the wheels into place so the cart rolled smoothly into the track lines.
"Up ahead, it merges with two others." Simon still breathed heavily. "They run parallel for a way, then at the major intersection, they split into different directions."
Asher clanged his gun against the metal. "Do your dead people thing girl, and do it damn quick."
I remembered the map spread across the metal table in Echo Den, the train line followed the ley line all the way to Saltpetre Way. "I can find it."
"Meagan." Simon tapped my left foot. "At the front here, a lever switches from one track to another." He shoved my foot hard left as if to make a point.
"I've got it." I reached down and squeezed his shoulder. Neither Asher nor the other soldiers had seen anything.
"Get pumping, people." Asher sounded the happiest I'd heard him.
Once we got a rhythm going, we moved quite quickly through a large and flat tunnel.
Now that I knew how to recognize it, the ley line glimmered like one of the well-lit paths in the protected suburbs, and the track followed it in a straight line. At the intersection, the ley line and the train track to Saltpetre Way veered hard right together.
We weren’t going there. I thrust the lever and moved us hard left. On the map, it curved around and up north. Away from where Asher wanted to be. I had no idea where it led, but it wasn’t anywhere near Saltpetre Way.
The soldier opposite me grunted. The green light from Asher's gun highlighted beads of sweat streaming down his face, but he clutched the handle firmly. Shortly after the intersection, the tunnel narrowed and the ground inclined slowly but steadily upwards.
"How long will this take?" Asher’s foot tapped a rapid beat.
Up ahead a dim gray light grew larger. It looked like the sun hadn't burned through the clouds yet. Bring on the light. No matter how hot it was outside, I'd experienced enough suffocating tunnels to last me a lifetime. The steady climb had my muscles burning. Nothing but sheer willpower kept me going.
Asher was the only one of us not gasping for breath and grunting with exertion. He sat at the back of the cart like Attila the Hun going into battle
Simon gasped just as much as the rest of us, sweated the same. But he felt different in a way that mattered to him. Twice I’d promised to help him die, properly dead. If we survived, and I couldn’t persuade him otherwise. A sense of futility hollowed out my body. No matter what it cost me, he deserved for me to honor the commitment I made.
The heat increased as we neared the tunnel exit, but at least the track leveled out. Both carts slowed as we caught our breath in daylight again. Simon wiped sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand. He caught me staring at him. He gave me a small wave, quickly disguised as a rub across his brow.
Asher shouted at us to keep moving. I unfolded the cap Glynn had shoved in my pocket and jammed it on my head. Asher smirked at me. I smirked back. I wasn't beaten yet, and if blood pumped through my veins, there was no way I'd let him torture Glynn, or Simon, or use me to command the dead in his vile experiments.
Somehow, I had to kill him.
26
We’d left the tunnels far behind us. I had no idea of the time or how long I’d clung to this hand pump. The soldier opposite did all the work. Sweat rolled down my face and neck. The uniform stuck to my body. My arms trembled so much it was hard to control them. With my hands sticky with sweat and dirt, I fought to hold on. Thank Haebeth for the clouds. At least I only had to deal with heat not the burning rays of the sun.
Bundling my pain and exhaustion into weapons earlier had been a masterstroke of luck born of necessity. My shoulder was stiff but not throbbing. My ankle no longer twanged. The cut in my head had healed. Poor Glynn was not so lucky, his head must’ve throbbed painfully, his fatigue must’ve ached as heavy as mine.
At some point, we’d arrive at the end of this line and Asher would realize we weren’t in Saltpetre Way.
I still didn't have a plan. He'd be livid. Probably fly off the handle. He'd balk at killing me because I knew where Owen was. If he killed Glynn he'd have nothing to dangle over my head to force me to cooperate. But there was a lot he could do that stopped short of killing us.
In the distance, a train station appeared. We started climbing again, this time steeply and curving steadily to the left.
At the train station, I collapsed over the hand pump, exhausted. The metal poked me painfully in the ribs but I lay there, everything trembling while sweat stung my eyes and my head throbbed from dehydration.
"Get on with it, witch." Asher prodded me with the end of his gun.
"She needs water," Glynn called out.
The second cart holding Glynn and Simon stopped directly behind us. I couldn't move except to crumple to the floor. Paralyzed with powerlessness, every breath took extreme concentration.
Asher smashed his foot against the back of the cart. He cursed and stood, scanned the horizon. "We're heading back to the city. Where are you taking us? I promised you a bullet if you were a bad witch."
"You need her." Glynn's voice was the calmest I'd ever heard it.
"We've had this discussion," Asher said. "She doesn't need her leg. Doesn't need her arms either."
"You need her to pump the cart. Let's rest, find some water."
Asher pulled a pair of handcuffs from his ves
t. "Once she's told me the correct direction, I'll manhandle this thing."
"If you hit a vein, she will bleed out. That's not what you want, is it?" Glynn spoke with authority and urgency.
Glynn’s tone triggered a response in me. The slightest flutter stirred in my belly. Maybe we could take advantage of this stop. I pushed myself onto my knees, grabbed the pump handle, and tried to pull myself upright. Asher would shoot me if he thought he could hurt me without killing me. I didn't doubt it.
"You know me better than that, Buckley. A bullet in her sexy butt will hurt like hell but it sure won't kill her." Asher aimed the gun at me again. "This is your last chance, witch. You can either stand up and pump the cart to where your undead friends are hiding, or I’ll shoot you now." He leaned toward me as if to emphasize the threat. "You will tell me how to get there while you scream in pain."
What now? I could take us to the middle track. But how close was it to Saltpetre Way? I'd have to trust when we got there, and Asher realized I still hadn't taken him to the correct place, Glynn would stop him. I wobbled to my feet with coarse breaths shaking my chest and gripped onto the handle with reserves of strength I didn't know I had. I rubbed my stinging eyes. Asher still glowered at me, a vicious coldness in his stare.
I started at a sudden movement behind us.
Simon grappled with the soldier in his cart and knocked him off-balance. Leaping across the small gap he jumped next to me. I crashed into the soldier opposite. We all crumpled to the floor. Asher fired, and Simon's body jerked with a thud of bullet into flesh. Asher bared his teeth and roared. He swung his arm wildly, fired repeatedly into the station. My ears rang from the deafening noise. All I knew was the booming pain in my ears, Simon's cold body on top of me, and my sticky blood-coated hands.
Simon wanted to die, but surely not like this.
I wriggled Simon's body off me. He lay on a bottle of water. The world spun slowly around me. Dear Haebeth, he’d died to bring me water. I grabbed it and gulped it down before anyone could take it off me.
Dear Simon. I cradled his head in my lap. Tears welled, and one dropped from my chin to his face.
Asher casually reloaded a new magazine. Seventeen cartridges clicked into place with slow methodical precision. In the cart behind us, Glynn punched the soldier in the chest. They wrestled with one another until Glynn landed a punch on the man's head. Glynn grabbed the soldier’s gun as his body fell in a heap.
Asher aimed at the second cart. Bullets pinged against its metal front. I wrapped my hands around my ears, but the noise still deafened me. I drooped over Simon’s body, too exhausted to pull in death power to help. We were too far from the ley line for it to help me. It must only have been seconds since Simon died, but time had slowed to a crawl.
Glynn grabbed the semi-conscious soldier, twisted his arms behind his back, and used him as a human shield as he leapt from the cart. Asher fired into the soldier's body as if he was at target practice. I tried to ignore the ringing in my ears, tried to pull in energy from the dead men. I knew I was hyperventilating, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Glynn ducked around the cart, all the time firing back at Asher. Bits of rust zoomed into the air then drifted back down. Bullets embedded themselves in the wooden frame. A splinter hit me in the face and I tasted blood. The soldier opposite me wobbled to his feet and raised his gun to shoot. Glynn fired at him. The man grunted as a bullet smashed into his neck. His gun dropped to the floor with a clatter. My nostrils reeked with the smell of blood and death.
Death energy swirled in my belly. It wouldn't last long. I had to use it as best I could. My muscles tightened in readiness, I pushed Simon's body out of the way. As I stood, Asher and Glynn pointed guns at one another as if they thought they were the stars at an Old West shoot out.
This couldn’t be happening.
My ears still buzzed, my heart pounded hard against my chest. Asher grinned like a maniac.
They both fired at one another.
Glynn tripped backward. He stumbled a few steps, crashed to his knees, and toppled over.
He lay on his back, completely still on the gravel between the tracks.
27
I clutched my arms around myself as pressure built in my chest, until I gasped for breath. Someone screamed like a banshee. Not someone—it was me.
I'd lost him, just like I feared I would.
The agony of losing him ripped a hole in my heart.
Asher laughed. He laughed so hard his eyes filled with tears.
He glanced back at me and bellowed. "Just you and me, witch. Let’s make sure of it."
He scrubbed the tears from his eyes and aimed the gun at Glynn again.
No time for sobbing. No time for magic. Too weak to take advantage of the death energy swirling around me. I grabbed the handgun from the floor and clenched the muscles in my thighs to steady myself. I aimed at the center of Asher's back where I thought his heart would be, and pulled the trigger.
The shot jerked me backward. The bullet entered the back of his head and blood, bits of brain and bone exploded out of the exit wound. Spatters of blood hit my face and chest. His head jerked forward, and his body drooped over the seat. The ringing in my ears reached a new crescendo of pain.
When he first shoved a gun in my hand, Glynn had made me imitate his stance. He told me, ‘if you take aim be prepared to kill’. He’d told me to expect recoil, and my ears ringing for hours. I wanted Asher dead to stop him from hurting Owen and his people, to stop him from hurting Glynn. Now, tears rolled down my cheeks. Shaking, I dropped the gun and sagged to my heels.
Come on girl. I slapped my thighs.
Glynn might be injured not dead. I still had my healing wand. If it took the last ounce of my strength, maybe I could save him.
Glynn still lay motionless on the tracks. I leapt from the cart, ran to him, and ripped open his bloody shirt.
The blood on his clothing wasn't his own—the bullet hadn't hit him.
Tears welled. I blinked them back. His breaths came in shallow gulps.
His breaths.
He was unconscious, not dead. I sat back on my heels and explored his body with both hands. The bullet nicked his amulet. It must've ricocheted off. It didn't pierce him. Maybe the force of it pushed him backward and he banged his head and knocked himself out. I felt the back of his head, where a lump the size of an egg had already formed. My hand came away clean. He wasn't bleeding from the wound.
I hadn't even told him I loved him.
I kissed his forehead, then his mouth. No point in trying to hold back the tears now. Droplets trickled onto his cheeks and rolled into the corners of his mouth. Blubbering incoherently, I begged him to wake up.
He half opened his eyes. He blinked a couple of times and pushed himself into a crouch. His mouth moved but I heard nothing over the thundering in my ears.
"It's a train station." I touched my ear. "You banged your head. Everyone else is dead."
He wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug. I slumped against his body, pressed so close I felt his heart hammering next to mine.
Too soon, he released me. He kissed me quickly, pushed me behind him and stepped to the body of the soldier he'd used as shield. The man's torso was riddled with bullets, his eyes open and lifeless. Asher's body still hung over the back of the cart, the gaping wound on the top of his head still dripping blood. We walked to the cart hand in hand, and Glynn confirmed both Simon and the other soldier were dead. He pulled Asher’s body back onto the seat.
"Who shot him? You or Simon?" Glynn spoke slowly, articulating each word close to my ear.
"Me." A quiver started in my abdomen and shook up to my shoulders.
Glynn hugged me again. "You saved my life. Don't feel bad about taking his."
"I'm not sure I feel anything now." Except my teeth chattering, the movement rattled my jaw and shook my whole face.
"You'll be okay." He gently kissed my forehead. "Will they all come back to life?"
I shrugged. We’d moved away from the ley line, but not everyone at Echo Den had died next to the ley.
Glynn rubbed the back of his head and grimaced. "We need water. Should be a working fountain on the station platform."
He holstered the gun, grabbed the water bottle Simon had delivered to me and led me to the station. He gave me a leg-up to the platform and climbed up after me. I wanted to wake up and discover everything had been part of an intense, irrational nightmare, but my ears still rang with the sound of gunshots. Glynn led me to a seat under a shelter and left me to find a water fountain. I slumped my head into my hands and sobbed.
He returned with water, and a wet handkerchief. He let me gulp most of the water from the bottle, and then used the handkerchief to gently wipe dried blood from my face.
"Hold still while I pull a small splinter out. Might sting a bit babe, I'm sorry."
I didn't feel a thing. My whole body had gone numb.
Sitting next to me, he raked his arm around my waist. "First gunfight is always terrifying. You never really get used to it. Just learn to force your body into professional mode." He fingered the amulet.
"It's damaged now." Talking was difficult. I pointed at the crystal, the pointed end shattered and cracked. "I'll make you a new one."
"I don't want a new one." He kissed the top of my head. "This one saved my life."
I pressed into his chest and held on tight. Tears bubbled behind my eyes again, the memory of almost losing him too real, too raw. I squeezed them back, we still had work to do. "I don't know if any of them will turn into living dead."
"Asher has no brains left. It's hard to imagine him coming back."
"I shot him. Did I already tell you?"
He rubbed his hand along my arm. "Yes. You did what you had to do. I'm sorry."
"You've nothing to be sorry for."
"I should have got him. It would have spared you some pain."
Heroines and Hellions: a Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection Page 147
