I scooted up the stairs and ran around behind the sandbags at the altar, sitting down with my back to them to hide. Sevenoir followed me, although he crouched facing forward, to keep an eye on the entrances.
“Are you ready?” he asked in my ear.
“Let me get my athame.”
I shrugged my pack off my back and set it down behind the sandbags. I dug out my athame and pricked my finger, saying a quick prayer for assistance to Gaia. I wondered briefly if She granted aid when the enemy was Her chosen from another faction.
I looked up at the altar and saw a metallic golden gleam from a sword handle. My right palm tingled as I looked at it. This must be the artifact Dame Julia had mentioned! Someone had surrounded it with candles that weren’t very ancient looking, not that I was an expert. Perhaps the archaeologists digging down here had used them for extra light.
“Why did they leave this down here?” I asked Sevenoir.
He shook his head and shrugged. “The mission report said they had some trouble moving it,” his voice said in my ear. “Which is why we’re here now to defend it.”
“What is it?”
“It’s an ancient sword called the Crocea Mors. Which means ‘yellow death,’ presumably because the hilt of the sword is embellished with gold. According to the mission report, Julius Caesar supposedly lost it to a British prince named Nennius. It was believed to have been buried with Nennius, according to Monmouth’s history, but its presence here in the Roman Mithraeum suggests that was inaccurate, if not an outright fabrication.”
Any chance I had of replying evaporated with the sound of running feet approaching from the hallway. I flipped around and scrambled to peek over the sandbags as the first explosion rang through the stone room and dust trickled down from the ceiling.
An unknown assailant in a blue uniform lay in a crumpled heap courtesy of the proximity mine in the south entrance. I winced at his cry of pain. I was glad he was down, but I didn’t enjoy hurting other people, regardless of their faction. Another Illuminati assailant had made it successfully into the room, but Sevenoir neutralized him with a well-placed burst from his assault rifle.
Three Dragon assailants in green uniforms breached the threshold to the west. The outer mine exploded, but they made it through on their feet. The westernmost turret fired a barrage of bullets. I squeezed my pointer finger on my left hand to get the blood flowing from the place I’d pricked it with my athame, and cast a dread sigil at the three of them. They buckled visibly under the onslaught, but two made it up onto the dais and charged Sevenoir and me where we stood behind the sandbags. The third dove for cover behind a pile of crates near the western archway, and gave his companions covering fire with his pistol.
I shrieked as a bullet buzzed by my ear and stood to hit the attacker nearest me with three quick jabs of chaos distortion. He grabbed his chest and crumbled to the ground. Beside me, Sevenoir hit the other with repeated fireballs to his chest, until he turned and ran back toward the door he’d entered, flames catching on his uniform. The turret on the west side fired once, twice and that attacker dropped to the floor in a heap. With a flash, his body disappeared as he was recalled to an anima well.
The Dragon behind the crates fired his pistol at us again, and I dropped low behind the sandbags for cover.
Horror filled me as I realized that unlike the Stonehenge bout, their faces weren’t masked and I could see every emotion that crossed them as we fought in deadly earnest, the determination, the pain, even the fear.
I sat hunched behind the sandbags, paralyzed. This was awful.
“Get up, Wedd!” Sevenoir’s voice rang in my ear. “They’re coming in from all sides now.”
The turrets started to fire continuously, and a rat, tat, tat boomed off the stone walls, the noise making it hard to think. I could hear mines exploding as well. I took a deep breath and stood back up, gritting my teeth against what I’d see.
“This is what it means to be an agent,” Sevenoir’s voice was strained in my ear. “You don’t have to like it, but you do have to do it.”
Resigned, I looked at the eastern archway and cast dread sigil at the groups of blue attackers as they swarmed in the room. My right ring finger tingled sharply with the action, and I saw the attackers drop to the ground. A sharp stinging pain bloomed in my left arm, and I swung my head around to find the cause. I’d gotten nicked by a stray bullet from the side. Blood trickled down my arm inside the sleeve of my shirt, and I grimaced.
This was no good. Standing behind the sandbags was keeping me from using the bulk of my chaos spells and leaving me an easy target to anyone fighting at range. I kicked off my shoes, leaped over the barrier, and ran out into the melee of the battle in the center of the room, and started throwing barrel kicks, hitting the assailants within my reach and creating turmoil wherever I could. I cast pandemonium and threw several blue uniforms to the ground. Behind me I felt I sword slash the back of my legs, burning as it scored my skin. I turned and hit my attacker with small bursts of chaos, creating a pocket of distortion in reality. Three singularities opened under my feet.
I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out the Electromagnet Stabilizer gadget that I carried around to purge singularities, and my attacker was knocked on her back as they exploded in a cascade of light. I felt a swell of healing anima energy suffuse me as a wellness enigma, released by the purged singularity, activated. I jumped up and, with a yell, fractured reality then watched as purple and green cracks covered the floor. The Illuminati attackers still trying to stand from pandemonium screamed as the chaos energy sucked at their anima.
There were at least a dozen assailants in the room now.
“Julia, where are our backups?” Sevenoir’s voice blurted over the general cacophony in the room. “It’s 12 to 2 down here!”
“They’re on their way,” she responded over the com. “Just hold out a while longer.”
I tried to get my bearings in the room and realized that the Dragon assailants were having a lot more success staying alive. I listened through the background noise of the turrets firing and the screams and grunts of combat. From behind the sandbag barricade near the archway, I heard the faint twang of fist weapons being sharpened.
“The Dragon has a healer!” I cried aloud.
Sevenoir grabbed his ear. “Subvocalize, Wedd! You just about blasted out my eardrum, not to mention you just told everyone in the room,” came his voice in my ear.
Oh, shit.
“Sorry,” I mouthed.
Sevenoir fired a three-round burst at a Dragon attacking from the west, then cast a spell to overload the floor with electricity. Bright bolts ran across the floor, zapping the assailants and throwing them back to the ground. One Illuminati elemental fighter cast a fire manifestation behind the sandbags, and Sevenoir rolled over the top of the bags, across the raised front area of the dais, beating the flames out of the pant legs of his uniform. I could hear his groan of pain across the room. The wooden crates of boxes went up with a whoosh and flames leaped in front of the altar where the artifact was laying.
Damn it! The artifact was the whole reason we were down here. I spun on my heel and ran for the altar area. I had to reach the sword and get it out of the inferno burning there. I ran around the west side of the dais, ducking as bullets flew over my head, chipping into the stone pillars at the sides of the altars. The air was smoky and full of dust, both from the bullets chipping away at the stone and from the steady stream of dust coming down from the ceiling because of the exploding mines. I tried to grab the blade of the sword, but couldn’t get a decent grip that would allow me to pull it toward me.
My white blouse was starting to smoke with the heat, and the hair on my forearms sizzled and stung me as they burned away where I’d rolled up my sleeves. Fire again. I cringed with the memory of my previous burns, and my palm ached with the need to have the blade in my hand. This wasn’t working. I needed to try from the other side where I could get a grip on the pommel.
> I ran back down the dais onto the west side of the floor where I got a glimpse of the short, dark hair of the Dragon healer, hidden behind a sandbag barricade to the right of the archway that had been set up for the defense of the room. I knew a healer was hiding there!
“What are you doing?” Sevenoir’s urgent voice came across the headset. “I need help here.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Ordeal
Sevenoir was on his back in the middle portion of the dais, his uniform pants in tatters from the flames, and he was trying to get to his feet as he was attacked by two blue and a green assailant. I spun on my foot and sprinted up on the dais, casting pandemonium as I went. The spell grabbed the assailants and threw them to the ground. I heard a snap, and one of the Illuminati agents on the left stayed down, his body slumped across the western stairs of the dais, his neck at an odd angle. A golden light flared, and his body disappeared.
My brain noted indelibly that I had just used lethal amounts of damage on a man that I didn’t know and had never met except in combat. I didn’t have time to think about it right now, but I was certain it would feature in my dreams for many nights to come.
I reached down my hand to Sevenoir and dragged him to his feet. His face was pained, and he limped, unable to put any weight on his left leg, which had gotten the bulk of the burns.
Behind us, the flames continued to consume the wood of the crates and had jumped to the cloth of the sandbags. Black smoke gusted from the bags as they ignited. I could see at least six attackers still able to fight, although a couple of Dragon had begun to engage a hammer-wielding Illuminati. And that didn’t take into account the concealed Dragon healer.
I looked at the two turrets, which had been helping defend our position. Both were tipped to the side, out of bullets and out of commission. It was just Sevenoir and I against all of them. The two remaining attackers at our feet began to move, rolling away and picking up their weapons to advance again.
Sevenoir still needed a moment to recover, so I began throwing barrel kicks again at the two attackers nearest us. I slammed the floor with my palm fracturing reality, damaging the stone of the dais. The attacker on the right fell and cracked her head on the stone floor.
“Stay down,” I muttered to her angrily under my breath. I needed to get that sword off the altar before it was irrevocably damaged.
This was a colossal mess and attackers were still swarming in the door. The Dragon and the Illuminati were apparently pulling out the stops to get their hands on the Crocea Mors, which would likely be a puddle of iron and gold on the altar by the time I got back to it.
Where was the backup Dame Julia had promised? I knew the Templars were short on available agents right now, but surely the “standing army” Richard Sonnac had touted had a few soldiers running around who could help!
As if my angry thought had summoned them, I heard shouts and feet running toward us. A swarm of Templar soldiers in red uniforms ran in through the central archway and began to engage the Illuminati and Dragon attackers fighting among themselves. I hit the remaining blue suited attacker standing on the dais with a punch of chaos energy to the chest, sending him flying off the stairs, and turned and sprinted to the east side of the altar. The front of the stone was blackened with soot from the flames.
I took a deep breath. This was going to hurt. I reached into the stone opening and put my right palm on the pommel of the sword. It scalded my hand as the blade’s grip touched the scarred skin there.
I was filled with a sense of rightness and the pommel, though hot, fit my hand like a glove. I pulled the sword off the burning altar, the blade ringing like a bell, and brandished it over my head.
“This is Templar ground, and you are trespassing!”
Sevenoir groaned and grabbed his ear, but I ignored it, filled with righteous anger that the attackers would dare attempt to steal the sword. I needed to get rid of that healer so we could get the remaining attackers under control.
I jumped down the stairs and landed in a crouch, then stood and sprinted across the room toward the western entrance to the sandbag barricade where the Dragon healer was concealed. He stood as I approached and I brought the gold-pommeled sword to his throat.
Time stopped.
The Dragon healer looked at me, his eyes widening.
I looked back.
His olive green uniform stretched across his broad shoulders, the golden scarf around his throat embroidered with red dragons accenting the uniform and highlighting the gold in his green eyes.
I… I knew those green eyes. I had looked into them over many cups of coffee in the Faculty Lounge. I had missed them, since leaving Innsmouth Academy. I had dreamed about them. I had wondered if I’d ever see them again.
The Dragon healer in front of me was Renee Laveau, the man I had hoped would try to find me in London. My mouth opened and closed wordlessly.
“Run, Hadad!” One of the Dragon assailants called from across the room.
Hadad? Memories of the Stonehenge match swamped me. Hadad was Renee? I dropped the sword from his throat, unable to use it.
In return, he raised his pistol and pointed it at my head.
No! My heart broke into a thousand pieces, and tears welled up in my eyes as I watched him fight a battle within himself over whether to shoot me.
His brow furrowed and he got a look of pain on his face as he held the gun to my forehead and I could see his finger tighten on the trigger.
Cold chills broke out on my body. I couldn’t believe it. He was going to shoot me. I stood frozen, unable to move, my heart beat echoing loudly in my ear.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
“Fuck!” he yelled, then flipped on the safety and slapped my sword arm away, dropping the pistol. He lunged toward me and grabbed my shoulders. From there he moved inside my guard and twisted.
Off-balance in every sense of the word, I cried out in pain as he grabbed my left arm, pulling it across his shoulder and reopening the stinging bullet scrape there. He squatted, lifting me onto his back and slammed me from hip height onto the stone floor. My right hand hit the floor and opened reflexively, dropping the blade, which clanked and skittered out of reach, sliding into the sandbags of the barrier.
I hit the ground with a thump, and the air whooshed out of my lungs. I wheezed, trying to draw in oxygen, the muscles of my back constricting. He reached down and pressed on my windpipe with his right hand, the blades of his fist weapon perilously close to my throat, and readied a punch with his left hand. Black spots filled my vision as I struggled for air, but he continued to push.
Helplessly, I thrashed, trying to push back against him so I could breathe as the seconds ticked by, but his arms were longer than mine. Finally, I stopped struggling, my eyes wide, pleading with him to let me go.
Hadad grimaced and released me. My lungs heaved, and I dragged in a huge breath of air, which burned raw down my throat. His eyes scoured the floor for the sword that I’d dropped, and he turned away from me, bending down to the pile of sandbags to grab it.
I couldn’t let him get the blade! I lifted my leg and with all my strength, kicked at the side of his right kneecap, grunting loudly. He shouted in pain as his knee buckled, and he pitched forward, scrambling to get his balance, dropping the blade. I rolled over to my side and grabbed his right leg, trying to keep him from getting away.
He kicked backward at me, but his injured knee wouldn’t cooperate, and the kick had no force. I scrambled to all fours and leaped toward the blade. Hadad lurched to his feet, but I slammed into him, knocking him forward. I righted myself and grabbed the sword from where it had landed. He rolled onto his back and grabbed his pistol, firing it at me.
The shot rang out, loud in the stone room despite the cacophony around us. I froze, blade in hand, waiting for the bloom of pain to let me know where I was hit.
It didn’t come. The bullet had gone wide and missed me.
He rolled to his feet, favoring his right knee, watching me cl
osely as I stood, hunched over, the golden pommel of the blade in my right hand, panting. As I stared back, I realized he also had a golden-pommeled sword in his hand.
“It’s the job, Wedd. I have to finish the mission.”
Outrage filled me, and my vision narrowed to red. What trickery was this? Were the Dragon attempting to plant a decoy in the confusion of the fight? My palm tingled and itched at the sword in my grip, and I calmed down a little. I was sure I had the Crocea Mors. He could take the fake, the chimera back to his masters.
Hadad sprang toward the western archway, limping away as fast as he could on his bad knee. Woozy, I stumbled backward, tripping. My legs buckled beneath me and I fell back hard again to the stone floor.
Around me, the chaos of the fight continued. I lay there on the floor, my ears ringing and my lungs laboring for breath a second time in as many minutes. I looked up at the stone of the ceiling, trying to process what had just happened.
“Get up, Wedd,” Sevenoir’s voice buzzed urgently in my ear. “Get up. The fight’s not over.”
Dazed and emotionally raw, I climbed to my feet, dragging the sword up with me. My head was swimming as I looked around the room.
Red uniforms had closed in with the remaining blue and green in the room, and I moved back to the right of the dais where Sevenoir had propped himself against crates stacked in a pile so he could remain upright. His legs were a mess. I could see raw red burns through the tatters of his uniform pants. Despite the pain he must have been in, he was still firing on the remaining Illuminati and Dragon agents when he could get a clear shot as they struggled with the red-uniformed Templar soldiers.
I cast a few half-hearted blood sigils at the attackers and climbed back up on the dais with the sword in my hand to survey the room.
London Underground: An Unofficial Legend of The Secret World (Unofficial Legends of The Secret World Book 2) Page 20
