But that hatchet was about to crack more skulls. Somewhere in the capitol tower, X was fighting for his life, and she would fight for him.
Magnolia speared through the sky in a suicide dive. At three thousand feet, Michael maneuvered into stable falling position, and she did the same.
Moonlight illuminated the airship rooftop with its twenty-millimeter machine-gun nests. The powder keg was open, and a spark would blow the whole damn thing up.
Michael pulled his pilot chute. It hauled the black canopy out, yanking him above Magnolia, or so it looked.
She reached down to her thigh, pulled her pilot chute, and felt as if she, too, were being yanked back up into the sky. Grabbing the toggles, she began homing in on the drop zone.
The two divers sailed over dozens of boats. They were low enough now that she could see armed warriors on the small craft in the glow of their torches. The vessels kept their distance, probably waiting for orders.
But their enemy wasn’t the one she had hoped they would rally to fight. These men and women hadn’t assembled to kill defectors or even the skinwalkers. Some of them—many, probably—wanted the sky people dead.
Muzzle flashes sparked on Renegade’s bow. Several more came from the center of the deck. As she sailed lower, she spotted the two factions. In the center, a group of Cazadores advanced behind metal shields. Another group had formed a wall of shields around a central figure.
She couldn’t tell who was who, even with her night-vision goggles on. Michael dipped down beside her and spiraled toward the command center.
Magnolia tensed up when she saw two figures up there, shooting arrows from longbows onto the deck.
“Oh shit,” she muttered.
Michael saw them, too, but it was too late to change course now.
If she could confirm that these were Carmela’s people, she would have no problem taking both warriors down, but what if they were aligned with the Barracudas?
She had only seconds to decide.
She let go of one toggle to raise the submachine gun slung over her chest, but Michael waved at her to hold her fire.
Grabbing the toggle again, she followed him toward the command center, preparing to do a short two-stage flare. Coming in over the starboard hull, she could see their DZ from the side. They had maybe thirty feet—plenty of room were it not for the two bowmen raining arrows on the deck. Corpses of three comrades lay crumpled near them.
In the final seconds of her descent, a bowman loosed an arrow, and his target’s red cape fluttered as he fell. It was the symbol of the praetorian guards, who had protected Colonel Vargas and other members of the Black Order of Octopus Lords.
The phalanx surrounded a figure with a black cape, and while Magnolia didn’t see a parrot, she knew that it was Carmela.
She grinned, eager to end the scheming woman’s reign.
It appeared that the Barracudas were trying to do the same thing. From the looks of it, they had caught her off guard by climbing aboard.
The two bowmen fired from the higher position while the team on the deck kept advancing, crouching as bullets punched into their thick shields.
Carmela’s team held their ground, popping up from behind their shields to fire in both directions.
Another bowman crumpled from rounds just as Magnolia and Michael touched down. Her boots hit the deck hard, and she had to hop to avoid the downed archer.
Michael lost his balance and rolled, sliding and getting wrapped up in his chute, but she managed to stay on two feet.
The last bowman turned with an arrow nocked.
“We’re friends!” Magnolia shouted. “¡Amigos!”
A bullet punched through his helmet as he lowered his bow.
She reached out, but he toppled over the edge and crashed to the deck. Rounds lanced the air above her, and she dropped to her butt.
Michael had already gotten out of his harness and stuffed the chute. He crouched with his submachine gun while she got free of her harness.
Enraged shouts came from below, along with the clank, clank of advancing shields on the deck.
Keeping low, Magnolia moved over beside Michael to have a look. Twenty-odd praetorian guards had surrounded Carmela with shields and armor against the advancing Barracudas.
Dozens of bodies littered a deck slick with blood and gore.
Michael opened an encrypted line to Captain Mitchells.
“Sir, we’re in position,” he reported, “and it looks like the Barracudas are about to clash with Colonel Moreto’s praetorian guards. Numbers are about even, sir, but we’re about to change that.”
“I’ve got a shot,” Magnolia said. “Just say the word and you’ll never have to hear that damn bird again.”
Magnolia kept Carmela’s helmet in her crosshairs.
Come on, give me the clear, Cap . . .
“X is still alive, and he doesn’t want her dead,” Les said.
“Sir, we both know she’s just waiting for the right time to—”
“Barracudas are dying for the king down here, sir,” Michael said. “Let us help them.”
“Permission to take down the praetorian guard,” Les said, “but do not—I repeat, do not—kill Colonel Moreto. Take her alive, and we’ll let X deal with her.”
Magnolia cursed under her breath.
“Mags, that is a direct order,” Les said.
“Ughhh, fine.”
“Is there a way to announce what’s happened once we do have her?” Michael asked. “I’m worried the troops loyal to her will come to her aid. There’s a whole damn fleet of boats out here.”
“I’ll make sure they don’t,” Les said.
“All right, Captain, leave this to us,” Michael said.
She moved her finger to the trigger and waited for Michael to fire first. The bark came, and Magnolia squeezed off a burst.
All three bullets punched through a soldier’s red cape, dropping him. She fired another burst, killing the next soldier with head and neck shots.
The praetorian guards turned toward their position faster than she had hoped. She took down a guardsman before he could get off a shot.
A war cry rang out from the Barracudas, who also saw what was happening. Their shields lifted off the deck, and they stormed forward, slamming into the wall of shields around Moreto.
Magnolia spotted, at the back of the Barracudas, a man with a prosthetic leg. He raised a cane into the air, and she thought she heard him yell, “¡Por Rhino!”
She aimed carefully to avoid hitting any Barracudas. Carmela Moreto’s helmet was in her crosshairs again. The woman looked directly up at their position and raised a pistol at Michael, but before Magnolia could take the shot, a shield slammed the colonel, knocking her to the deck.
“Come on,” Michael said.
Magnolia followed him to a ladder that led to another platform below. By the time they got to the deck, Barracudas had surrounded the surviving praetorian guards. Several abandoned their weapons and raised their hands in surrender, but three stood fast with Carmela.
“Put your weapons down,” Michael ordered.
The soldiers either didn’t understand him or weren’t ready to quit. Magnolia flipped her face visor down and aimed her machine gun at them, then walked over to kick Carmela’s pistol away.
“Down!” Magnolia shouted. “Or I shoot you all!”
The man with the prosthetic leg translated as he limped over on his cane. A muscled young warrior with bandages on his tattooed flesh walked beside him, his two swords dripping blood.
After another flurry of shouting, the guardsmen finally put their weapons down. Twelve Barracudas surrounded them and took their swords.
“Thanks for the help,” said the man with the prosthetic leg.
“Who are you two?” Michael asked.
“I’m
Mac, and this is Felipe,” he said, nodding to the muscled young man.
“We swore to fight for el rey Javier, and before Rhino died, I promised him we would protect the king. We recruited these warriors to help us stop Colonel Moreto from taking the throne.”
Carmela took her helmet off and snarled, then spat at them.
Mac just laughed. “She said she was just waiting to make sure King Xavier was okay before heading out to the Iron Reef.”
Magnolia spat right back at Carmela. “If I had a dick, I’d piss on you,” she said. “Mac, will you translate that, por favor?”
The older man laughed again, deep and hard. Magnolia liked him already.
“Sir, we’ve got Colonel Moreto in custody,” Michael said over the comms. “Whatever you’ve got planned, best do it fast before the rest of her friends try anything.”
“Copy that,” Les replied.
Magnolia kept her rifle aimed at Carmela’s face, itching to pull the trigger and erase that smirk. But unlike Ada, she would respect orders. Not that this was even close to that situation. No one would exile Magnolia for giving Carmela a third eye.
A whirring sounded, and all eyes turned to the sky. The first rays of sunrise glinted off the hull of Discovery. Les brought it down until it was directly over the warship.
Speakers on the airship blared for all the boats to hear. Timothy spoke first in Spanish, then repeated it in English.
“Lay down your weapons and return to your homes, by order of King Xavier,” he said. “Anyone who does not heed this order will be considered a traitor and will be executed by the king himself.”
Carmela sneered and said something.
“What’d she say?” Magnolia asked Mac.
“She said, ‘How can he do that with just one arm?’ ” Mac replied. “I’m not sure where she’s getting her information, but that can’t be true . . . can it?”
Magnolia bent closer to Carmela. The message replayed again, and when it stopped, boat motors coughed to life in the distance.
“You hear that?” Magnolia said. “That’s the sound of your amigos going bye-bye. Now you’re all mine.”
Mac interpreted, and Carmela bared her sharpened teeth.
“Get her up,” Magnolia said.
Felipe motioned for two Barracudas to yank the colonel to her feet. She squirmed in their grip, snarling.
Magnolia watched them haul her off to a boat below.
“Good work,” Michael said to Mac, extending a hand.
“It was our honor to uphold our oath to General Rhino and King Xavier,” Mac said.
“Come to the capitol tower so we can thank you properly,” Magnolia said.
“That would also be my honor,” Mac replied.
When the militia arrived, Magnolia climbed into the boat with Michael to head home. They loaded the renegade colonel with the help of Sergeant Wynn and his strike team of four soldiers. Magnolia took a seat, managing her anger on the ride and resisting the urge to kill Carmela.
The boat slapped across small waves as the sun rose above the horizon. An armored speedboat screamed across the water in the distance, sun glinting off its windows.
“Ah shit,” Wynn said. “This could be trouble.”
“That’s Colonel Forge’s personal war boat,” Mac said, rising up.
Heart thumping again, Magnolia unslung her rifle. The fight wasn’t over.
She looked down at Moreto, who wore that infuriating smirk once again. Wynn barked orders into the radio, and several militia boats sped away from the enclosed marina.
“What the hell is Forge thinking?” Magnolia said. The rooftop machine-gun nests and twenty-millimeter cannons were swinging around toward the war boat.
She spotted something else up there in the glow of the sun. Someone stood at the railing, looking down.
If Magnolia wasn’t mistaken, the person had only one arm, and a dog sat by his side.
“It can’t be,” Michael said.
Militia boats surrounded the war boat as it coasted to a stop. Three soldiers stood on the deck. One wore a black cape.
It was Colonel Forge, and he wasn’t holding a weapon; he was holding a box. He held it up at the capitol tower rooftop, where X stood looking down.
Wynn lowered the radio and said, “My people are saying it’s medicine—some nanotech gel or something.”
Magnolia couldn’t believe it. Forge was coming to offer the king the advanced healing technology they had run out of.
X remained at the railing.
“I can’t believe he’s out there,” Michael said.
“Why do you think the other Cazador boats fled?” said another militia soldier.
Magnolia and Michael looked out over the water and the departing boats returning to their rigs.
It wasn’t just the warning from the airship that had scattered the Cazadores.
The king had come outside to show everyone that he was still alive. Now Forge was bringing him something to help him heal.
Even Carmela stared up in apparent disbelief.
“How do you say ‘immortal’ in Spanish?” Magnolia asked. “Someone tell this bird lady that she’s about to see one.”
ELEVEN
Several days after Dr. Huff lopped his arm off, X left his quarters for the second time with Miles. An escort of guards, led by Lieutenant Sloan, accompanied him up the short walk from his quarters to the command center on the capitol tower.
The five-minute jaunt took him three times that, and he had to stop three times to catch his breath. It wasn’t all from fatigue and injuries—he had a wicked hangover.
“You’re sure about this?” Sloan said for a second time.
He shot her a glare.
“Okay, boss,” she said.
He led the way, trying not to puke. The night of his surgery, Sloan had practically carried him out to the rooftop to look over the rigs. Much of that night was hazy, but he grinned at what he could recall.
“Dr. Huff just saved your life, and now you’re going to kill yourself?” she had yelled. “He can’t bring you back to life again!”
X would have laughed if laughing didn’t hurt. The stump where his arm had been connected still burned, and the scabs from his many wounds were soft from days in bed.
On top of that, his head was in constant fog, as if storm clouds had settled in his brain. It wasn’t all from the shine and wine. Everything since the Purple Pearl seemed like a bad dream. The flesh-eating bacteria, the fever dreams of Ada in the wastes, the losses incurred in Rio de Janeiro, and Colonel Moreto’s betrayal. But for the Barracudas, she would have stormed the capitol tower and the Hive to slaughter his people.
General Rhino’s spirit had watched over him that night. His former team of Barracudas, led by Mac and Felipe, had recruited a team to attack Carmela. With an assist from Michael and Magnolia, they had captured her and scotched a coup d’état.
“Here we are,” Sloan said.
Miles trotted toward the command center hatch, where Victor and Ton stood sentry.
“King Xavier,” Victor said in his thick accent.
The dusky warrior and his comrade both came to attention. It was the first time they had seen him in days.
“Evenin’, fellas,” X said.
Sloan switched on a light over stacks of maps and books on the table. His requested bottle of wine sat in the center. He poured himself a glass. Just the thing for a shine hangover.
“I’ll come back in a bit,” said Sloan. “Got some stuff to check on.”
X started his briefing on everything he had missed over the past week. Miles went under the table and conked out at his feet.
When Sloan returned, he had gone through the reports on the militia’s defensive positions, along with two more glasses of wine.
Sloan picked up the bottle,
now over half empty, and asked, “How many glasses have you had?”
“This is my second,” he lied. “These are small glasses.”
Her lazy eye watched him take another drink.
“Sir, I just think you should try to stay sober before our meeting.”
X snickered. “You don’t think I’m sober? You clearly haven’t seen me drunk.”
“Actually, I have, sir, but I was just a kid. It was before a dive when you brought back nuclear fuel cells. Not everyone came back.”
All trace of jocularity vanished with the memory. The dive had cost him his entire team, including his best friend and Michael’s father, Aaron.
Grabbing the bottle, he filled the glass to the brim, ready to drown the memories.
A rap came on the hatch, and Dr. Huff walked in, breathing heavily.
“Oh, great,” X muttered.
“I rushed here when I heard you left your bed again,” Huff said. “Xavier, what am I going to do with you?”
“Hopefully not chop off my other arm.”
Sloan did smirk at that.
Huff’s eyes narrowed, forming crow’s-feet around the edges.
“I’m kidding, Doc,” X said. “In hindsight, I’m glad you did it.”
“After you came out of surgery, you said you were going to rip my arms off and beat me to death with them.”
“I’m sorry, Doc, truly.” X raised his glass, almost sloshing the wine. “Thank you for bringing me back from the brink.”
Huff’s eyes narrowed again. “Is that alcohol?”
Sloan nodded. “His third or fourth glass, if I had to guess.”
“I need it for the pain,” X said. “Now, can we get this checkup over with? The rest of the team will be here shortly.”
Huff snorted, and Miles let out a low growl. X scratched the dog’s head while the doc checked his vitals and took off the bandage.
“You’re healing ten times as fast, thanks to this,” Huff said, smearing on the nanotech gel Colonel Forge had gifted them with. “As long as you rest, you’ll make a full recovery.”
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