by Frank Morin
He did so, and Eirene could only watch. She couldn’t even speak. Her vision began to fade as Quentin settled onto the couch beside Sarah.
“You’re killing them,” Quentin said.
“This I do upon my honor.”
The last thing Eirene saw was Alter’s knife flashing down.
If people understood how much misery they endure so that their rulers can accumulate enough wealth to purchase another life, no government would last more than one generation.
~Gregorios
Chapter Sixty-Nine
As Mai Luan closed the distance between them, Sarah struggled to focus, to will her rune to respond again, but felt none of the telltale numbness radiating from it.
She dropped the axe. She’d never hit Mai Luan with it without the protection of insubstantiability. She wanted to howl with frustration as the Cui Dashi closed. If only she’d learned more about the rune sooner.
She focused, and the short, ugly shotgun Tomas had used outside the safe house in Rome appeared in her hands. She didn’t have to check the two feeder tubes to know they were already loaded with slugs.
She fired the first round when Mai Luan was barely ten feet away. The slug caught Mai Luan in the chest and knocked her back a step.
The second shot missed.
Despite the gaping wound in her chest, Mai Luan dodged.
Sarah twisted and kept firing. Mai Luan continued to dodge, running around Sarah until she reached the wall and jumped off it, back the way she had come.
Sarah anticipated the move and shot Mai Luan out of the air. She charged the slender woman, firing as fast as she could. Somehow she knew that this time the gun wouldn’t run dry of ammo until she blasted the hated woman into pieces that all the king’s horses could never put together again.
Determination to see this evil creature eradicated burned away hesitation and fear. She would finish this once and for all.
Mai Luan rolled across the floor, trying to get a solid footing, but Sarah pursued, shooting her knees and then her head. Mai Luan still healed with impossible speed, but the wounds delayed her just long enough to keep her down.
She shrieked with fury, and hopefully some pain. She’d demonstrated that she wasn’t immune to pain and Sarah kept inflicting as much as she could.
Mai Luan’s look of smug confidence faded under the barrage of lead and Sarah screamed too, pouring out all her rage, all her disgust at what she was forced to do here.
Then the entire room shuddered. The walls shook and the ground trembled.
All of the strength fled from Sarah’s limbs and she dropped to her knees. The shotgun, suddenly too heavy to hold, clattered to the floor at her feet. She could barely hold her head up far enough to watch Mai Luan rise with renewed health. The room solidified again, but every table held a tortured victim. Cries of pain and pleas for mercy filled the room.
Sarah struggled to understand what had happened. She had been so strong. She could have done it.
On the far side of the room, Gregorios had also fallen. Asoka stood over him with a baseball bat, beating on his unmoving form and shouting a stream of profanities, mixed with words from languages Sarah couldn’t understand.
Mai Luan took up the shotgun and pointed it at Sarah’s face. It took all of Sarah’s remaining strength to remain upright on her knees and meet Mai Luan’s gaze.
“You proved a worthy adversary. I wish we had more time for proper torture.”
“Oh well.” Mai Luan shrugged.
And pulled the trigger.
In that instant, strength flowed back into Sarah like a dam had burst, and time seemed to slow. She watched the trigger depress and actually saw the flash of light from the initial blast of powder at the far end of the barrel.
Then the shotgun twisted out of Mai Luan’s hand, tumbling onto a nearby table. The heavy slug passed so close to Sarah’s head, it tore a chunk out of her hair. The booming report of the gunshot echoed painfully in her ears.
Quentin now stood beside Mai Luan, a bulletproof vest over his customary white shirt. He smashed a thirty-pound hammer into Mai Luan’s chest. It shattered ribs and knocked the Cui Dashi off her feet.
Across the room, a renewed Gregorios caught Asoka’s bat and used it to fling the other facetaker into a swarm of monsters. Asoka howled as the monsters tore into him, but he beat at them with a terrible fury.
Quentin offered Sarah a hand up. “Are you all right, my dear?”
“I could kiss you.”
“Perhaps after we leave this unpleasant location,” he said with a wink.
“Perhaps never,” Mai Luan shouted, leaping to her feet even though her shattered chest was still healing. She grabbed a torture table and threw it.
Quentin pushed Sarah aside, and the table barely missed her. The chivalrous move delayed him and the table caught him squarely, knocking him sprawling.
The table landed atop him, and he didn’t move.
“Enough of this!” Mai Luan shouted.
Instead of attacking Sarah again, she rushed with her inhuman speed across the room toward Gregorios.
“Look out!” Sarah shouted.
Gregorios spun, but Mai Luan raced past, snatching him off his feet and dragging him along by the throat. She moved so fast, his body flew behind her, not even dragging on the floor.
Sarah gave chase, but Mai Luan moved so fast, she had no hope of ever catching her. The wall that divided the torture chamber from the well room dissolved, and Mai Luan rushed to the pile of soul coffins. She kicked the coffins aside and snapped open the lid of the bottom one, extracting a dispossessed soul mask.
Gregorios beat at her without effect, then kicked her knee, almost knocking her down. She shook him until his teeth clacked and he hung stunned in her grasp.
She turned to the pit and placed the soulmask in Gregorios’ hand. “Enough play time.”
She knocked the soulmask from his hand.
I’ve lived long enough to see governments rise and fall. Most day-to-day worries that seem so important mean nothing in the long term. Perhaps once in each generation I find a person who stands above the rest, whose soul has the depth to matter.
Sarah is such a person.
~Tomas
Chapter Seventy
Eirene crouched on one knee behind Gregorios, exhausted, but once more under control.
Alter knelt beside her, head bowed, sweat pouring down his strong, young face. His right hand still held her throat and she could feel his arm trembling under the strain. The rune he had carved across his hand and onto her collarbone burned with a blue purity she had rarely seen.
The boy was truly gifted. His blood leaked onto her skin and bound the two of them together. He had added his own life force to help fuel the machine.
He was taking the brunt of the load. Mortals, even those with such a strong rounon gift, should not be able to merge the force of their souls with hers like this. She was not sure how much longer he could hold, but she leaned her forehead against his and whispered to him.
“Hold on, dear boy. You can do it.”
Sarah met Gregorios’ gaze, and despite the thirty feet that separated them, she read the fear in his eyes. He tried to kick the soulmask as it fell into the pit, but Mai Luan pulled him back and shook him again.
He didn’t want the soulmask to fall in there. In a flash, Sarah realized what it must mean. This was the pivotal moment.
She ran for the pit, knowing she’d never arrive in time to help.
The roof of the bunker faded to reveal the sky filled with billowing clouds of black smoke. A complex symbol appeared in the air directly above them, back-lit by exploding bombs as it hung suspended above the doomed city, burning with white-hot fire.
Silence blanketed everything, and Sarah slowed to a stop. The monsters faded to mist and left them all standing as mute witnesses of the master rune. Sarah had felt drawn to runes since the very first one Tomas drew in blood on his side. Runes felt right, they made sense.
&n
bsp; This one nearly overwhelmed her ability to comprehend it.
Its flaming lines consumed her vision and filled her with joy so bright she felt like she could fly. It assaulted her senses like nothing she’d ever experienced. It smelled like a crisp winter morning, and it sounded like a mighty chorus of brass instruments. It felt like silk against her cheek or the soft fur of a puppy under her fingers. Its twisting, complex pattern burned into her eyes and her mind. It sealed itself to her heart like a living brand.
It became a part of her, a piece she could never forget, no matter how many years might pass. The master rune took command of all of her senses for seven long heartbeats before it began to fade.
The roof snapped back into place above them and Sarah reeled as her senses returned. The room smelled of blood, and gunpowder, and sweat. Her ears rang from too many gunshots, and her eyes burned from the acrid smoke.
She held out her hand and the heavy axe Mai Luan had thrown at her earlier appeared in it.
Quentin flanked her, his hammer again in hand. Blood matted his hair and he walked with a limp, but his expression was determined.
Mai Luan flung Gregorios into the back wall. Then she drew a knife and began carving into her own cheek.
Sarah gasped as the shape became clear.
She was branding herself with the master rune.
Tomas hung from a rope attached to the roof, feet braced against the wall just above the top of the huge council room window. After his quick ascent up the wall with the spiderman wall climber, he’d lowered ropes that allowed his men to follow using fast winches. They’d planted explosives along both sides of the council room window, as well as the window to the next room on the fourth floor.
Now Tomas and two enforcers waited in position above the council room window, with the other two members of the team above the other one.
“Status?” Tomas spoke into his throat mike.
“All teams in position,” Anaru reported.
“Show me the video feed on Mai Luan.”
The tiny screen on his left sleeve came to life, showing Mai Luan in her chair beside Asoka. Asoka looked worse than last time, covered with cuts and what looked like claw marks and teeth wounds. Despite the extra support the enchanter was providing with those soulmasks, Gregorios must still be holding his own.
Then glowing lines began appearing on Mai Luan’s face. Within seconds, a complex rune began to take shape.
“What’s happening in there?” Domenico asked. “I’ve never seen a rune like that.”
“Turn off that feed,” Tomas ordered. “And delete the cached files associated with this one. No on records that rune.”
“What does it mean?” Anaru asked.
“It means we’re going in now,” Tomas said. Gregorios had failed. Hopefully he still lived, but Tomas needed to move before Mai Luan awakened as an unstoppable force. “All teams, engage on my command. Now, now, now!”
Tomas triggered the detonator. The explosives pressed into the wall along both sides of the council chamber window detonated. The glass was made of high quality bulletproof material, but the blasts ripped huge holes in the walls. The glass, still intact but spider-webbed with cracks, fell away amid the cascade of splintered stone.
He kicked off the wall and rappelled down and into the window, landing in the room and unhooking his harness with a practiced twist.
The heka security Mai Luan had brought with her responded with remarkable speed. Even as Shahrokh and the surprised councilwomen were still reeling from the blast, the heka raised weapons toward Tomas.
Tomas shot the first man, while his three enforcers embedded in the medical team tackled others. He moved into the room, his IWI Tavor bullpup carbine at his shoulder. The suppressed rifle chattered as he dropped two more heka. The other men of his team landed in the room behind him and opened fire.
“We’re the Tenth,” he shouted. “Eagles, stand down!”
Three of Behram’s enforcers were in the room. Two of them pulled Shahrokh down out of the line of fire, but did not engage, so Tomas left them alone. The third one fired at an enforcer who had been disguised as a medical tech. The bullet caught the man in the side and he fell with a scream.
Tomas shot the Eagle in the shoulder, hoping the man stayed down. He hated to kill enforcers, but he would if he had to. One of Tomas’ men, an enforcer named Isagani, a Filipino who was routinely underestimated because of his slight build, moved around the table to cover the fallen Eagle.
The tall enchanter had fled the room even as Tomas landed. Sounds of gunfire echoed in from the hall through the open door. Anaru and Domenico and their teams were engaging. Hopefully they’d recognize the enchanter and take him alive.
Three more heka rushed into the room from where they had been stationed outside, already firing before they could identify valid targets. One of them shot a fellow heka in the back. Another shot one of the real doctors on the medical team.
Tomas dropped one of them with a double-tap to the head. His men shot the other two. Tomas let them check the fallen to make sure they were really dead.
His eyes were drawn to Tereza, who was snapping a photo of the rune on Mai Luan’s cheek with her phone. She glanced in his direction, then bolted out the door. Tomas was tempted to shoot her, but executing facetakers was a right jealously guarded by the council. He decided not to cross that line yet. She couldn’t escape past Anaru and Domenico.
He needed to confiscate that phone, though.
Within five seconds of triggering the explosives, his team gained control of the room. Tomas left his men to tie up the wounded heka while he pursued Tereza.
The hallway directly outside the council chambers was empty. The men stationed there had either entered the room, or had moved to support Behram, who had been stationed on the east side of the building, close to the stairwell.
Behram had retreated down the central hall that ran east to west through the building, driven by Anaru and Domenico. The teams had tossed a dozen flash-bang grenades in the initial assault, and the entire floor was filled with smoke.
The assault was faltering as Behram’s Eagles and the remaining heka security forces moved into the offices and smaller conference rooms lining the central hall. Anaru and Domenico would win through eventually, but it might take a few more minutes.
To Tomas’ right, the two enforcers who had entered through the window in the office next to the council room lay groaning on the floor. Tereza was just stepping over them and slipping into the room.
Tomas rushed to his men. “What happened?”
“Tall guy,” one enforcer said through bleeding lips. “Shot him twice, but didn’t stop him.”
“Protective rune,” Tomas guessed. In the video feed, the enchanter had drawn complex runes fast over the soulmasks. Protective runes were difficult and time consuming, and only the most powerful heka could usually manage them.
He really needed to interview that guy.
Tomas helped his men back to their feet and ordered them to flank him. Under most circumstances, he’d wait for heavier weapons, but he needed that phone.
The door was locked, so he kicked it open.
Tereza and the enchanter stood inside, near the window. She was tugging on the rope the enforcers had rappelled in with, clearly considering a climb to the roof to escape. The ropes wouldn’t reach the ground, but from the roof she’d gain access to the ropes some of the men had used in their ascent.
Tomas shot her in the torso several times. At least one bullet struck her heart, and two others her lungs. She stumbled under the onslaught and nearly fell out the window. The enchanter grabbed her and pulled her back in.
Tomas shot him in the head.
The bullet ricocheted away, not even leaving a scratch.
“That’s a good rune you’ve got there,” Tomas said, advancing slowly into the room.
“Indeed,” the man said. He spoke with a Chinese accent. “You would be Tomas.”
“And what do I call yo
u?”
Tomas couldn’t see the phone. It was probably in Tereza’s pocket, but he didn’t dare approach any closer. Protective runes were hard to breach while powered directly by a soulmask, and Tomas suspected the enchanter possessed several. The downside of such runes was that they were very specific. A rune that shielded from physical damage probably wouldn’t provide any assistance against getting tied up. Together, he and his men could probably subdue the enchanter, even if they couldn’t directly harm him.
Tereza’s soulmask suddenly became visible as she abandoned the dying host. The skin of her face sloughed away, allowing her translucent soulmask to slip free.
“You may call me Zhu,” the enchanter said as he scooped up the soulmask.
“Well, Zhu, why don’t you drop to your knees and place your hands on your head?”
Zhu laughed. “Because you have no power over me, enforcer.”
He began drawing a rune right onto Tereza’s soulmask with a finger. Few things affected soulmasks unless they struck with enough force to shatter them, but his finger trailed a glowing mark on its surface.
Not good.
Tomas rushed the man, planning to kick his legs out from under him, but Zhu hopped the sweep and lashed out, palm-striking Tomas in the chest. The blow knocked him back a step.
The two enforcers flanking Tomas opened fire, but their bullets ricocheted away, doing no harm.
“Cease fire,” Tomas ordered. “We’ll have to do this the hard way.”
Zhu completed the new rune with a flourish. It was a complex rune, one Tomas didn’t recognize. “Too late for that.”
Tomas took a step forward as the rune blazed with blue-white intensity. Tereza’s high-pitched whisper voice screamed.
Before Tomas could close on Zhu, the building shook, and the room filled with silver mist. Instantly, Tomas’ energy drained away. His enhancement runes burned against his skin, but the strength he normally enjoyed faded and he stumbled to one knee. The other two enforcers followed suit, and the sound of distant gunfire faded to silence.
