“What are you doing to her?” Kaira demanded.
“Just say the word and I’ll stop her,” Michael told me in a low voice.
“It’s okay,” I muttered, even though it clearly wasn’t. “I’m fine.”
As much as getting my mind torn open by this wacko sucked, I would put up with it if it would get us into Blade’s good graces. We needed her and her army to rescue the slaves. For that, I would put up with just about anything.
Blade dove back into my mind. She dug through my memories so quickly that I couldn’t focus on what was happening outside of my mind anymore. I knew I was standing in the desert in front of Blade, but all I saw were the projections of my memories.
Boring, boring, boring, Blade’s nails-on-chalkboard voice said inside my head.
The images in my head began to flip faster.
I glimpsed the first time Brent had brought Sarah home to meet the family. I felt our collective joy when Lilly was born, and then our despair over the news that she had died.
Ah, Blade’s voice came as a delighted tinkle in my head. This is yummy.
Blade lingered on the memory of Lilly’s funeral, forcing me to relive the darkest day of my life.
Such little shoulders to carry the weight of her whole family’s happiness, Blade crooned. Pretending to be so strong, when you’re so lost.
Blade giggled out loud. Then, before I could catch my breath, she went back for more.
I saw the inside of the mine and the tomb. I saw my hopes for finding Lilly dwindle. I heard my mom’s warning about Sarah not surviving Lilly’s death a second time.
So sweet, Blade crooned.
The images switched to Diego, pinning me against the dresser and kissing me…Diego flying me into the stars.
Well, hello, Blade’s voice said.
Out loud, she said, “We have been a naughty, naughty. Haven’t we?”
“Whatever you’re doing to her, stop,” Graysen ordered.
All at once, Blade’s claw retracted from my mind. I staggered back a step, almost falling into Michael. I gritted my teeth as the worst headache of my life hammered around inside my skull.
“You okay?” Michael asked me.
I realized he was gripping my arm, which was the only reason I was still on my feet.
I tried to nod, but the motion sent a wave of nausea surging through me.
“Okay,” I managed after the worst of the pain had dissipated. “Just…a surprise.”
Blinking to clear my foggy vision, I saw Blade raise her riding crop to Graysen’s face.
“Gray,” Kaira said, but he gave her a small shake of his head. He had clearly made the same calculation I had—that a little thought-thievery was worth getting Blade’s help. That, and there was no point in pissing her off when she had three-hundred soldiers waiting to tear us apart.
Blade drew the tasseled end of her crop across Graysen’s cheek as they locked gazes. Blade’s tongue darted out to lick her scaly lips.
Graysen’s entire body went taut. His eyes were closed, his eyelids twitching as Blade searched through the recesses of his thoughts. Blade’s lips moved, although no sound came out. I got the feeling she was speaking inside Graysen’s head.
Kaira put a hand on his back as she glared daggers at Blade. Blade didn’t notice.
“Awwww.” She let out that horrible high-pitched laugh again. Her milky gaze snapped over to Kaira.
Graysen’s eyes opened. He seemed disoriented for a second, but his attention focused the moment he realized Blade was facing Kaira.
“Sooo precious,” Blade crooned. She placed the tip of her riding crop at Kaira’s throat and dragged it down between her breasts.
Graysen’s hand shot out and grabbed the crop.
“Touch my wife again,” Graysen said on a low growl, “and you’ll regret it.”
“Mmm, possessive, aren’t we?” Blade did that thing with her tongue again, and I had to stop myself from shuddering.
“Enough,” Michael said. “We need your help, and you’re going to give it to us.”
Before coming here, we’d agreed it would be best to get Blade to willingly agree to help us. It was an ethical slippery slope to make other people do what we wanted just because we wanted it, but it was clear Michael was done playing nice with this woman.
“I…don’t want to help you,” Blade said, sounding puzzled.
“Her mind’s really strong,” Michael said without looking away from Blade.
“No one forces Blade’s hand,” the territory ruler said, referring to herself in the third person. Her eyes rolled back in her head, making her look even more unhinged. “Blade is strong. Blade is ruler.”
Michael shook his head. “If I keep trying to influence her mind, I’ll just make her more unstable than she already is. It’s too risky.”
When he broke eye contact, Blade shivered.
“Blade,” Graysen said. His voice was polite, but his gaze was sharp. “You know why we’re here. As I told your lieutenant over the phone, it will be in both of our interests to work together.”
“There are hundreds of children down in that mine,” Kaira said. “We have to get them out safely, and then we can destroy what’s left.”
Blade threw her head back and laughed. Even though her army was too far away to hear what we were saying, their laughter carried over to us, too. They clanked their weapons against each other, making a cacophonous riot of sounds.
When Blade spoke, her lips didn’t move. I heard her voice in my head.
Remwald pays me well. Why should I do anything to hurt his operation?
“Remwald’s dead,” Kaira said, making it clear Blade had spoken telepathically to all of us at once.
Blade opened up the front of her wrap shirt. I moved, putting myself between the ruler and my friends. Instead of the weapon I’d been expecting, Blade pulled wads of cash out of her bra. She giggled as she let the bills go, watching as the wind picked them up and drew them across the sand.
One of the bills passed me. It was for $1000.
“Holy shit,” Yutika whispered.
There had to be $100,000 worth of cash flying off into the desert. And Blade didn’t care.
“Are you seriously saying you aren’t bothered by child slavery taking place on your land?” Kaira demanded.
Careful. Blade’s telepathic voice had lost the honey. It was all cyanide now. You do not want me as your enemy.
“No, Blade,” Graysen said. “You don’t want us as yours.”
“We’re asking for your help,” Kaira said. “But either way, we’re going to rescue those children and demolish the mine. It’s your choice which side you want to be on.”
“I’m bored.” Blade backed away from us, slapping her riding crop against her leg as she gave us a nasty smile. She kept going until she was halfway between us and her army. Then, she tipped her head back and howled like a wolf.
The three-hundred-or-so members of her army howled back. Then, they raised their weapons.
Yutika passed around bullet-proof vests to everyone except me. She bent down to fit Sir Zachary into his.
“And that concludes negotiations,” A.J. commented.
I raised my fists as Blade’s army surged toward us.
CHAPTER 31
Get back to the plane,” I ordered the others, to which they responded with a simultaneous and emphatic No.
Blade’s army swarmed her as they came for us.
I heard the now-familiar crack of guns being fired. I spread my arms out, trying to make myself as big as possible to intercept the bullets before they struck my friends.
A.J. pulled guns away from the front line of soldiers and turned them on their owners.
Seeing that their guns could be used against them, the Californians dropped their guns and reached for a multitude of other weapons they were carrying on their person…swords, hatchets, and other lethal-looking objects.
“There are too many of them for me to control all of their weapo
ns,” A.J. warned.
I broke into a jog, heading toward the oncoming army. Sir Zachary and Michael kept pace beside me.
“I’ve got Blade,” I told Michael, before veering off to the side, where the territory ruler was surrounded by a mob of her people.
“Stop fighting!” Michael’s voice was a roar that I felt beneath my feet.
The Californians in front obeyed. There were too many people for Michael to Whisper to all of them at once, so he used the ones under his control to form a protective ring around him as he moved deeper into enemy ranks.
My mind cleared of everything except the fight ahead. There was no time to second-guess myself or feel regrets. There was only the enemy standing before me.
I felt the tiniest bit sorry for these guys.
I pushed off the ground and threw my full weight into the front lines of Blade’s defense.
There was a dull, metallic clang as people bashed into my titanium skin and fell limply to the ground. I had no pity for the broken noses and shattered wrists I left in my wake. These Mags were out for blood.
One of them raced toward me with his arms outstretched. His hands had turned to claws, and he was sprouting fangs.
Ew.
He raked his nails across my arm. Aside from shredding my sleeve, the claws had no effect.
“That was a mistake,” I told the Mag. “I liked this shirt.”
I launched myself into the air. I spun, delivering a backward kick to the man. I used my momentum to punch two other soldiers who were trying to get their hands on me. No reason why I couldn’t be efficient.
I barely felt the swords and knives that broke apart against my skin.
I kicked, punched, whirled, and did it all again. All around me, bursts of magic struck my titanium skin and bounced off. The Californians’ war howls turned to fearful whimpers.
“Stay away from the Steel!” I heard Blade’s soldiers cry out to each other. “She’s fuckin’ strong!”
You have no idea.
Beside me, Sir Zachary locked his teeth around a man’s pantleg. Our little dog flicked his head, and the grown man flew into the air. Two more Californians tried to kick Sir Zachary. Before their boots connected, our dog opened his mouth and barked fire.
The Californians screamed and fell all over each other as they tried to retreat. They knocked each other to the ground and trampled the injured. None of them stopped to help their fellow soldiers.
Loyal bunch, these Californians.
The only one on the battlefield the soldiers weren’t abandoning was Blade.
I had left dozens of unconscious bodies in my wake and had almost reached the California leader, when a familiar shout turned my attention back on my friends.
My blood iced over at the sight of Californians encircling all of my friends except Michael, Sir Zachary, and me. Panic had me doubling back for them before I realized that the Californians weren’t attacking my friends; they were defending them.
The question of why was cleared up when I noticed they kept their bodies and gazes angled toward Michael.
Other Californians who weren’t under Michael’s control beat their magic and weapons against their former-allies. The collision between the two was bloody and brutal. Corpses were piling up on the sand.
My friends might not have my Steel strength, but they were holding their own. Kaira was distracting our opponents by changing all of their appearances from illusions of us, to exact replicas of Blade, to hairless cats. I gagged when one of the Californians tried to take a bite out of a live cat…before realizing there was a person under the cat illusion. Then, the Californian bit the person anyway.
A.J. was controlling fifty-or-so weapons in mid-air, turning them to follow various people in the crowd and firing warning shots whenever the Californians got too close to any of the 7.5.
Graysen, Smith, and Yutika were wielding baseball bats, which they were using against anyone who got near them. Every now and then, I saw a burst of fire as Sir Zachary took care of a whole swath of our enemies.
Michael and I were working our way around the sides of the army, respectively turning them against their own comrades and knocking them unconscious. Blade kept retreating deeper behind her soldiers, but everywhere I went, I heard her horrible laughter.
My friends and I were stronger than anyone else on this field, but we were outnumbered forty-to-one, and we weren’t the only ones with magic.
All around us, sinkholes were forming in the sand. We had to stay on the move to keep from being sucked underground.
A terrible, unnatural wind gusted up around only the 7.5. Sand particles sliced across our skin so ferociously that my friends’ faces were raw and bleeding.
There had to be a high-level Animalist in the group, because we were swarmed by scorpions, coyotes, turkey vultures, and tiny bats with fangs.
I abandoned my hunt for Blade, wrestling the animals that bounded toward the Seven. All the while, I heard A.J.’s voice in my head begging me not to hurt them.
Sir Zachary sprinted between and around the Californians. He barked all-consuming fire and flung full-grown men dozens of yards away.
I had just caught sight of Blade again, when a deafening sound blocked out everything else. I looked up to see four helicopters heading our way.
Someone—Kaira, I thought—screamed.
A missile shot out from the first helicopter. It was coming straight toward us.
Panic lanced through me. A.J. waved one hand in the air in a frantic motion. The missile slowed, but it didn’t change course. With all the other weapons A.J. was controlling, it was a miracle he was able to have any effect at all.
I ran toward the missile, not really having a plan other than needing to get to it before it got to us.
Clearly, Blade didn’t care that her missile was going to kill her people along with mine. I could hear her maniacal laughter from somewhere nearby, even though I wasn’t looking at anything except the missile.
It came closer. Closer still.
Come on.
I stretched up my hands and reached the missile’s tip. Using my palms, I pushed against the missile’s nose with every ounce of my strength.
If it hit the ground, we were done for.
The force of its propulsion dragged at me. Sweat streamed into my upturned eyes as the missile fought to go downward.
My arms trembled. I was losing this battle. The missile was going to explode.
With a stuttering gasp, I did the only thing I could. I said a little prayer and put everything I had into redirecting the missile back upward.
The sky rippled as the missile exploded overhead. My ears rang.
Debris hurtled back down. Burning chunks of the missile hit the ground. Fireballs and splinters of metal exploded all around me. I covered Sir Zachary’s body with mine to protect him.
All around me, Californians were writhing in the sand. They screamed at the sight of their bloody, burnt skin.
I didn’t have time to feel sorry for them or grateful for my titanium skin. The helicopters were releasing more missiles. Four of them were heading for the ground.
I couldn’t get to all of them.
One seemed to be heading for Michael and A.J. Another was coming toward me and Sir Zachary. One was for Kaira and Graysen, and the last was targeted at Smith and Yutika.
For the first time in my life, I was paralyzed by fear during a fight. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw A.J. collapse from the effort of trying to slow them down.
I screamed his name and started for him, even as a missile rocketed straight toward me.
I hadn’t even made it a step when all of the missiles halted in mid-air. They stayed poised for several seconds, and then they shot straight up.
Tiny bursts of flames went off so high in the sky I could barely see them.
“My missiles, now,” Smith shouted.
I didn’t have time to be relieved. I raced for A.J., who was just getting to his feet.
“Now
I’m annoyed,” A.J. declared as soon as I was near enough to hear him. All of the knives and guns he’d been controlling flung themselves far out of the Californians’ reach. A.J. stretched both hands up toward the sky. He closed his fists around air, and then yanked his arms down.
The helicopters squealed in protest as they followed the motion of A.J.’s fists.
The Californians on the ground screamed and tripped over each other in their haste to get away. All four of the helicopters hit the sand at the same time. The ground rocked with so much force that we were all thrown several feet.
“Back on the plane!” I shouted to my friends.
Sir Zachary continued to bark fire at the Californians as we sprinted for our ride out of there.
I was at the back of our group, so I heard Blade before I saw her. Her laughter raised the hairs on my arms.
We were almost to the plane when Yutika screamed.
We all skidded to a stop. Blade and two of her people were blocking the entrance to our plane. And each one of them held a gun to one of my friend’s heads.
CHAPTER 32
Blade had the muzzle of her gun pressed to Michael’s forehead. The giant of a man on her right was digging his gun under A.J.’s jaw. And the third had his gun pointed at the back of Graysen’s skull.
Kaira’s mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out. Yutika took a step forward. She froze when all three Californians curled their fingers around the triggers.
A.J.’s eyes were wild as he looked from one gun to another. I knew the silent calculation he was making. He wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to get full control of the weapons before the triggers were pulled. It was too risky.
The helicopter engines still rumbled, even as the metallic beasts lay crumpled in the sand. The sound was loud enough to keep Michael from Whispering or for any of us to try talking Blade down. Not that she looked like she was in the mood to negotiate.
Steel for 5 (Mags & Nats Book 3) Page 22
