Seven. Eight. Sully stopped. His left hand snaked to his pocket and pulled out the transmitter. There was a barely noticeable flick of his thumb. I heard muted thumps behind me in rapid succession. “They’re at our access point.”
“Blow it,” I told him, meaning our duffel, with the charge. It might distract them, give us time to find another way out.
Another flick, a breath, and then a muffled explosion.
“This way.” He grabbed my arm.
We turned and ran past the lab, silent now, past the short corridor on our right with no core-access panel. The next was farther down, around the corridor’s curve, past more locked doors, vacant storerooms. We were still in Blue.
“Option.” I huffed as we ran. “Secondary lift bank in Yellow. We could—”
Four men, armed, appeared around the curve in the corridor in front of us. Not stripers. They were private security, with unknown emblems on their shirts. And pistols in their hands, drawn, targeting.
“Down!” Sully shoved me against the corridor wall.
Laser fire spit through the air.
I landed on my backside, swung my arm, fired. Sully was behind me. Ren was in the middle of the corridor, prone, laser pistol in his hand, answering with fire of his own.
The men jumped sideways, hugged the interior edges of the corridor as we did, utilizing the curve.
Ren! Now! Sully leaned out, sprayed the corridor with fire, covering Ren as he scrambled toward us. He slammed against the wall in front of me.
“You okay?” I asked him.
Yes. Praise the stars.
Laser fire erupted behind us. Sully swung around, the Carver’s high-pitched whine like staccato.
Shit. Where in hell are the stripers? These aren’t—
Burke’s. Sully answered in my mind, following my thoughts as he fired. Star-over-X emblem. Crossley Burke.
So where in hell are the stripers?
Probably putting out a fire somewhere. Diversionary tactics. It’s what I’d have done.
The four to my right popped out again, fired. Shit. I swung around, targeted, missed.
The others were coming closer. Eight of them, Sully had said.
We were trapped. There was no doorway behind us, no short corridor. Across was a vacant storage locker, but that would go nowhere. Even if we could decode the lock in time, it would simply serve as a coffin. Only the gradual curve of the corridor kept us alive.
“Sullivan!” A woman’s voice called out. I identified it as Sully did. Berri Solaria.
I wanted her to step into view around the corridor’s curve. Badly.
“Sullivan!” she called again.
“Blessings of the hour, Sister.” A wicked smile flitted across his mouth. “How may I assist you?”
“Step out. Drop your weapons. You won’t be harmed.”
I couldn’t see her, but at least the four behind us stopped firing.
“Please tell Cousin Hayden I regret I can’t do that.”
“Fool! If your life means nothing to you, then how about the woman? And your demon-spawned friend?”
“Bargaining with me, Berri?”
“Those of us who know our holy mission are always prepared to show mercy.”
“A holy mission that breeds jukors?” Sully glanced up and down the corridor as he spoke, assessing, planning. I knew he was reading her, reading those in her group. Whatever link I had with him and Ren had gone quiet. He was buying time, talking to her, but I had no idea why.
“A holy mission to cleanse the Empire of the filth of soul-stealers. Surely you understand that!”
“Some of my best friends are soul-stealers,” he yelled back to her.
“Bastard!” she shouted. “Infidel!”
Ren touched my arm. Chasidah.
I glanced at him. Glanced past him, past the four men flattened against the corridor walls. And I saw something move, something large and shadowy, behind them. I saw the distinct outline of a Norlack, pointing.
Verno. With a rifle that most eight-foot-tall Takas normally didn’t need.
Praise the stars.
Four short bursts and Sully was suddenly pushing, shoving. “Go! Go!”
I ran backward, firing, spraying cover. Sully did the same.
Berri’s people fired back, but there were four less now, and we had an open passageway.
I could hear Berri screaming behind us. Something about Lazlo. Call Lazlo. Reinforcements. More of their people, more weapons.
“Here!” Sully darted down the inner corridor with core access. Lifts. Cut them off.
Reinforcements would be slow in coming without the lifts.
He slid the panel back. We tumbled through into the darkness.
I grasped Verno’s arm. “How—”
“I knew. When she hated Ren, I knew.”
That was all we had time to say. Voices, loud and angry, trumpeted in from the corridor.
“Red’s that way!” Lights flickered as the main lifts moved up and down. I pushed past Sully and skittered down the rampway just as the access panel slid open again. Berri’s people, following us.
Sully turned and fired. “Split up!” Ren and Verno were on the other side. “Lift controls. Shut them down!”
They headed toward Yellow. We pounded toward Red.
32
I moved by memory, by touch, not by sight, other than what was illuminated by the flickering glimmer of lights that signaled the main lift bank. Three lifts jutted out into the core, narrow rampways between them. The emergency control panel was set in the middle. Shut them down. Had to shut them down. Then it was only us against Berri and her seven followers. And I knew the core.
Up. We could go up. The darkness and the latticework of ramps and ladders offered many more possibilities than the open corridors. We could exit, hit the corridors, then enter the core again. Move up.
Somehow I felt if we got to the commercial sector we’d make it. That’s where the shuttle bays were, back to the terminal. That’s where the shops were on the promenade. More people. Stripers.
I heard Sully breathing hard behind me, felt his light contact with Ren. Ren was at an advantage but a disadvantage. The darkness didn’t hamper him. The narrowness of the rampways, and the fact he couldn’t sense them, did.
Watch Verno, watch Verno. Sully sent caution wrapped in encouragement. He sent to Ren what the panel would look like, what to do to disable the secondary lift bank. Only one lift there. Not the three we had.
The station rumbled slightly, jarring me sideways. A small tremor, but I knew what it was. Sully had set off the explosives in the lab. A final parting gesture.
We crossed into Red, Berri’s people grunting, careening behind us. They weren’t used to the core, as I was. They fired occasionally, but off the mark.
We didn’t return fire. It would only give away our location.
The core groaned, clanked, pinged as if to protect us. Machinery squealed on, whined off. I ignored the sounds, well used to them. I doubted Berri and her people were.
“Sullivan!” Berri’s voice echoed. “You can’t escape. Your ship’s marked. We’ll take her.”
I hoped Gregor was smarter than that. I might not like the man, but I never thought he was stupid. At least not stupid enough to let the Karn be taken. Dorsie was on board. I still had hopes for her and Ren.
We got to the main lifts before Verno and Ren reached the secondary. A lift whizzed by, buffeting us with a sharp wind, plunging us into darkness. Then we were in the light leaking in from the corridor, silhouetted. Laser fire burst through the air. I ducked down as Sully did, his hand on my arm.
Chasidah!
I’m okay. I’m trained for this, remember? And I was. I was back in Fleet mode again. Moving. Focused. Singular.
He squeezed my arm. I’m going to try for the panel. Cover me.
I swung the Stinger out in a two-handed grip, locked on where I’d last heard Berri’s voice, moved up from that. Fired. A harsh groan, a half scre
am. Not a kill. But it gave them something to think about. And, I knew, it also gave them a need to search for a med-kit.
I saw and heard more movement. Berri’s people had split up too. Some followed us. Some followed Verno and Ren.
Shit. I should’ve gone with Verno, and Sully with Ren. But things had happened too fast. It didn’t break that way. Just like cards when dealt. Only this time, they were more in Sully’s favor than Ren’s.
The lifts behind me shuddered and groaned just as Sully’s Got it! echoed in my thoughts. Nothing behind us but endless thin stripes of light. Nothing in front of us but the gaping maw of the core.
And Verno and Ren just now reaching the secondary lifts, with Berri’s people closer, firing again. As unfamiliar with the core as they were, they could move faster than Verno and Ren. The closest exit into the corridor was still ten, twenty feet farther in front of them. They’d never make it. They’d—
The light of the lift behind them approached, slowly. Their silhouettes disappeared.
I threw images and words, and prayed Ren would understand. On the lift. Top. It’s stopping. Handholds. Clear space. Ride up!
I felt Sully grab my thoughts. His hand clamped hard on my shoulder as he rose halfway. His other lifted the Carver, laying down cover fire, drawing attention to us. Not Verno and Ren.
Two tall figures scrambled onto the stopped car that was innocently, conveniently disgorging its passengers from the other side into the corridor. Passengers who had no idea a life-and-death struggle waged behind them.
Kneel! Handholds on the floor! Grab them! I’d ridden lift cars hundreds of time as a teenager. A game of betcha-can’t, betcha-I-can.
The lift moved, surging upward, two forms hunched at its top. I felt Ren’s slight trickle of amazement. Water moving upstream.
Berri’s people fired but Ren and Verno rose, moving too quickly. Safe. Gone.
That left only Sully and myself.
Berri and her armed associates knew that too. Sully was who she and Hayden Burke were really after. Lots of money rested behind that wicked, wicked Sully smile.
I wondered if Berri realized how expendable she was as well. Hayden Crossley Burke didn’t strike me as someone willing to share, his charitable works notwithstanding.
My thoughts exactly, angel.
Sully!
Where to? This is your backyard.
Up. I sent images of the crowded corridors on Levels 12 to 15. Shops, bars, hotels. We could play a serious game of hide and seek, aided by stripers whose presence would be an impediment to Berri’s armed thugs. Sully’s ability to link with Ren guaranteed we’d find him again.
Up it is. We broke in a low run toward Green. Boot steps resounded toward us and behind us, hoping to converge on us before we hit a ladder.
They didn’t. We did, upleveling to 27, then 26. I was sucking air, my lungs burning. Level 26 dead-ended. We had to go left to pick up the next ladder, our pursuers close on our heels.
I searched for the double red light, saw it, lunged for it, my hands hitting the cold metal of the ladder. Pulled, pulled, pulled, hearing Sully breathing hard behind me.
Laser fire burned around us. I zagged, zigged on instinct. Through it all, I blessed my boot-camp instructor, Maguire. Regretted the day I’d ever called her an ignorant slut. She’d taught me well.
Level 25, 24. We hit another dead end, the uplevel ladder far to our right this time. We had to cross over the now-dead main-lift banks in Red. We’d be open, exposed on both sides, with angry, armed religious fanatics on a holy mission right behind us.
I jogged to the right, stumbling on an uneven section of rampway. Sully caught me under the armpits and pushed me on. His brief touch was warm, reassuring, but contained a flare of need, desperation, encouragement.
“We’ll make it,” I gasped.
Don’t talk. Save your air. Think.
Got it.
Suddenly there was more movement on the rampways, more boot sounds, more shouts. I’d caught a flash of light moments before, but hadn’t put it together. An access had opened. Berri’s reinforcements had arrived on Level 24.
Three. Only three.
But it was three too many, too close to Sully and myself, momentarily stopped at the lift banks, with stripes of light from the closed corridor doors glowing dimly behind us. Laser fire arced again. I spun, crouching, and fired.
I wasn’t so lucky this time. No groans responded, no med-kit seemed to be required.
Sully fired in the other direction. Berri’s people were between us and any ladders uplevel. We’d killed the lifts. We couldn’t use them, like Ren and Verno. We’d be too exposed in the time it would take to reactivate them. Plus, there was no guarantee one would stop so we could climb on.
I stayed in my crouch, watching our three new players approach. They were our best chance. Only three. Still six on the other side, gaining rapidly. We had to get by these three. Had to get to the next ladder—
Chasidah.
What?
Two things. First, trust me. Second, under no circumstances scream.
What?
Sully rose up quickly beside me, pulling me with him.
Arms around my neck, now.
What?
Do it!
He yanked me against him. My arms coiled automatically over his shoulders. Instinctively, I tightened my grip on my gun. He raised his boot to the railing. I didn’t like this position. There was nowhere to go but down. And down, in the middle of the core, was a deadly location.
“Sully—”
“Sullivan!” Berri was close. The rampway vibrated as feet pounded in approach.
He grasped me, tight, hard, locking my body against his as he pushed off from the rampway, pushed away from the rampway. We dropped backward into the center of the core, where there was nothing but darkness, but emptiness, but falling—
Don’t scream.
My God. He was committing suicide and taking me with him.
I buried my face against his shoulder but didn’t scream. It didn’t matter. Terror washed through me. Terror and wind rushing, gravity grabbing, bodies plummeting …
Up.
We were going—inexplicably—up.
Wind rushed against my face as I raised it, wet with tears.
Wind, and a hushed sound.
I knew the sound. I’d heard it every time I’d imagined that nebulous haze of gray fuzzy soft. We were in gray fuzzy soft now. It was brighter than I remembered, almost blinding. But no, brighter only along Sully’s shoulders, his arm … through slitted eyes I could see one arm raised, light streaming from it, flowing outward. It seemed to cone around us like the glow surrounding the winged demons in the Englarian paintings. Unholy light, a fatal silvery translucence …
Impossible. That would mean Sully was—
My thoughts halted abruptly as I felt a jolt. His boots hit something solid. My boots found purchase on the rampway. I snatched my arms away, feeling frightened and confused. More frightened than when I thought we were going to die.
I lurched backward, slamming against the wall. My knees were suddenly rubbery and refusing to cooperate. My breath came in long, hard gasps. My eyes focused on the silvery, illumined form standing before me.
Light flared, settled, like a long cape. A hazy surge of energy—
Don’t look. Those were the words he’d always said to me in gray fuzzy soft. Sully’s hands, touching me, caressing me. Sully, making love to me. But don’t look. Don’t look at what’s touching you. At what’s making love to you.
But that had been in my mind. My imagination. I’d never seen light glowing from a human before. Only in the Englarian paintings. And those demons were anything but human.
My knees gave way. I collapsed onto the gridded rampway with a thud. My gun slid under my bent legs.
Chasidah.
I cringed and sucked in a sob. He was in my mind. He’d been in my body. And I didn’t even know what he was. Oh, God.
The light fa
ded as he knelt down slowly, a rustle of fabric. My fingers coiled through the latticed gridwork, hard. Painful. I hung on to the flooring for no rational reason, other than I could.
“Chasidah.” He said my name out loud this time. It was Sully’s voice. But in the dark, his face was in dim outline. I didn’t know if it was Sully’s form or the scaly demon from the painting. “We have to find Ren. Verno.”
You go find them. I’ll stay here. It’s nice. Quiet. Dark.
I can’t do that. Warmth flowed, trying to reach me, trying to tell me things words could not. Angel, it’s not what it seems.
My gaze flashed to his face, even though I didn’t want it to. And I saw Sully. Just Sully, now that he was close. But I didn’t know what he’d looked like minutes before.
“What are you?” My voice broke, hoarse.
“Someone who loves you.” He sounded almost as hoarse, but his words were soft. “Someone who can’t change what he is. Someone who doesn’t want to believe those two things are incompatible.”
I stared at him, part of me intensely aware that we had to find Ren. Verno. Berri and Hayden’s people still pursued us. We had to get off Marker alive. But all I could feel was a pain lacing through me, searing me. Pain of my own doing. I recognized it. I’d felt it before, with every step I’d taken with Gabriel Ross Sullivan.
Mercenary. No, not just mercenary. Empath. No, not just empath. Ragkiril. Memory-wipes. Mind-deaths. Then Gabriel Ross Sullivan, in my mind. Harsh. Intrusive. Unwanted.
Loving, reaching, caressing. Becoming part of me.
All the while, ask no questions, though I clearly remembered his question to me: Can you accept me as I am, now, on faith? With what you know, and nothing more?
Explain faith to me. Explain goddamned faith. Explain why I’m the one scared, hurting, alone. Ignorant. Every goddamned time. Explain that to me, damn you!
I waited for an answer, but heard nothing. At least, not from him.
But another voice, one I knew as Chasidah’s but for a moment sounded almost like Amaris’s, spoke to me. And it told me I was still alive. It told me that I was still alive because of the man—one of Abbot Eng’s soul-stealers—kneeling before me.
There’d been no other way off that rampway. We were surrounded. It was either death, or up.
Gabriel's Ghost Page 31
