by E. A. Copen
Before I could tell him to lay off, the lock on the door to the conference room clicked open. A white guy covered in tattoos and wearing a bright orange prison jumpsuit stepped into the room. He wasn’t wearing any restraints and no guards accompanied him.
I shot to my feet as he drew back a fist and punched Littlefox hard enough to knock over the chair with him chained to it. Four more guys ran in, rushing me and Moses with murder in their eyes and I recognized this for what it was. A prison-sanctioned beatdown.
No one was coming to help us.
Chapter Twenty
Instinct and adrenaline kicked in, and I moved before I had a clear plan, putting myself between Moses and the attackers. There were five, each one bigger and stronger than me.
The closest guy was bald with a goatee and several crosses tattooed on his neck. As I pushed Moses back, he picked up another chair. He grimaced, showing rotten front teeth, and lifted the chair above his head as if to throw it.
I lashed out with an unfocused wave of magic. It slashed through the chair, slicing it in half so the top part fell to the table, leaving the inmate gripping only the cross-section with wheels. He swung it at me, but I ducked out of the way. All he hit was the wall.
In a straight fist fight, I had no chance of winning against this guy. Magic was my only hope, but without a focus, I didn’t trust myself not to kill him. Since I didn’t want to do any more time myself, more direct magic was off the table. I dropped to the ground and pushed a little magic into the floor under my fingers. It shook the whole building, throwing the convicts off balance. A hairline crack appeared in the floor. Dammit, I hadn’t meant to do that.
A dark blur shot over where I crouched and slammed into the convict who’d been holding the chair just a moment ago. Another chair, I realized. Moses had tossed it at him. It caught the convict in the chest and pushed him back, making him slam into the guy behind him.
A third guy was busy kicking the crap out of Littlefox while two more worked their way around the table to come at me and Moses from behind. We needed out of that room yesterday, but the only way out was through a door that was presumably still locked. The prison locks were magnetic, and I’d used magic to unlock magnetic locks before. Maybe I could do it again. First, I had to reach the door. And I wasn’t about to just leave Moses and Littlefox for the other prisoners to beat to death.
Moses turned just as one of the convicts rounded the table. He stopped, smiled and pulled something from his jumpsuit. Metal gleamed in his fist. A shank. They really had been sent in here to kill us then.
I turned my back to the two guys still struggling to get up off the floor. “Moses!”
Moses threw a punch, but it barely fazed the prisoner. He grabbed Moses by the shoulder and drove the shank into Moses’ stomach, stabbing him once, twice, half a dozen times before I tackled him. The shank clattered to the floor, covered in shining blood. I slammed his head into the wall by the chin while he frantically tried to grip my arm and twist it.
Something hit me hard in the back of the head, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground with black-soled shoes stomping on my back. The kicks and punches were coming so fast, I didn’t have time to process one flash of pain before another struck. I tried to curl up, to protect my head and face with my hands, but it barely seemed to matter. The one saving grace was how I’d fallen in a corner. At least they couldn’t come at me from that direction.
A loud buzzing filled the air, the same sound prison doors made when they opened and closed, except this sound held much too long. Voices rose outside the room, shouting. Metal clattered against concrete, the sound of tear-gas canisters deploying. But the clouds didn’t fill the little conference room. Whatever fighting was going on, it was outside.
Which meant just getting out of that room wouldn’t be enough. There’d be a fight waiting outside too.
A foot came up to stomp on the side of my face but suddenly jerked away as Moses pulled one of the convicts back. Two more guys turned away from me to take him on. They seemed surprised to see him up, but then so was I. His whole front was covered in dark blood and his face had taken on an ashen color.
Moses gritted his teeth and grabbed a convict by the throat. Magic exploded from him into the prisoner, magic I couldn’t see but could definitely feel. The magic had a sharp, clean feel, unlike anything I’d ever seen. Like the blade of a freshly sharpened sword, it cut into the man Moses held by the throat and left him gagging. The prisoner’s eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp.
The four other prisoners were stunned and confused but didn’t halt their attack. They were entirely focused on him, however, finally giving me an opening.
I called up my Vision but immediately had to shut it off against the blinding glow coming from Moses. His soul shone so bright, everything else looked like a shadow in comparison. I couldn’t even look at it without my eyes aching.
I don’t have a choice. Angel or not, he can’t take on four guys by himself and make it out. He was already struggling with the two that had him while the other two waited for an opening. I was sure Moses could take them all if he took the gloves off, but he was trying not to kill them. Even when he was being brutally attacked, Moses was a nice guy.
I wasn’t.
I turned the Vision back on and fought my body’s demands that I close my eyes against the blinding light, focusing on the dimmer souls hovering nearby. My hand shot out, closing around the closest one, and ripping it free. Another shifted as the inmate turned toward me. I let the first soul fall from my grasp and grabbed his, yanking it out. Both bodies collapsed, convulsing.
Moses got in a good right hook on the inmate he was wrestling with. The strike dropped him to the floor, moaning. Moses shook out his hand. One man remained. Moses looked at him, and he raised his hands, dropping to the ground and putting his hands behind his head. Smart move.
The bright light emanating from Moses seemed to swell and overtake everything else in the room, turning my vision white for a flash, before it went dark.
Fear rose in my throat. My hands went straight to my eyes, expecting to find them melting out of their sockets. My face was wet, but my eyes still seemed to be in place.
“Lazarus?” Moses’ familiar hand gripped my shoulder.
“I can’t see.” My voice came out strained and shaky.
“We need to get out of here.” He took his hand away.
I panicked and stuck my hands out, feeling for anything and coming up empty. My foot slid forward and struck something soft and fleshy. A body. One prisoner probably. I tried to feel my way over him with my foot, but stumbled, falling into an overturned chair. At least, I thought that’s what it was.
“Who let you in here?” Moses demanded off to my right. That was where the last prisoner had surrendered. He must’ve been questioning him.
“I-I don’t remember,” the prisoner stammered. “I wasn’t doin’ nothin’. I was in the yard, man. I got no idea how I got here!”
I stumbled toward the voices, hands outstretched, working hard to keep calm.
“It’s the Terror,” rasped Littlefox from the other direction. He wasn’t dead. That was good.
“Ikelos,” I echoed, finally feeling the cool texture of the wall under my fingers. I grabbed onto it like a man drowning. “He can control people. Though this is the first time I’ve seen him grab more than one guy at once.”
“He’s getting stronger,” Littlefox grunted. I imagined him pulling himself up. He must’ve been covered in blood. Everything smelled like blood.
More shouts rang outside the door followed by gunshots. They’d be rubber bullets. Only the guards in the outside towers would have live bullets. Rubber bullets would still sting like hell and hopefully keep the rioting inmates at bay. I hoped Ikelos only had control of the prisoners. If he grabbed the guards too, we’d be screwed.
“He’s trying to stop you,” Littlefox continued. “You’ll never make it off the prison grounds alive. He’s too strong.
”
“I think you underestimate us,” Moses said. His finger closed around my arm. “You okay?”
I sucked in a breath to calm myself. “Can’t see a thing.”
“All right. Don’t panic, now. We’ll get out and get those eyes looked at. Could be temporary.” He was trying to be hopeful, but I heard the doubt in his voice, and my heart sank.
Moses led me around the table and warned me to step over something. I tripped slightly on whatever it was—maybe the bottom half of an overturned chair. Once we were past that, he put one of my hands on the wall and tugged me along with the other.
The smell of sweat and blood filled the air suddenly around me and I suddenly felt crowded.
“How are you alive, old man?” Littlefox. He must’ve been standing right next to me.
“Are we going to have a problem?”
Littlefox must’ve been in Moses’ way. Or maybe I was just misinterpreting the whole situation. Without being able to see, there was no way to tell. God, I hoped Moses was right and this vision loss was temporary.
Fabric rustled. I imagined Littlefox stepping out of the way.
The shouting on the other side of the door escalated. Wet thumps, the sound of fists meeting flesh, filtered through the door against panicked yelling and the occasional gunshot. It sounded like we were about to walk into a war zone.
Moses grabbed me by the hand. “You ready?”
“I could do with a drink first,” I quipped, my throat dry. My back and side ached like I’d been hit by a truck. The side of my face burned near my eye and my arm throbbed. I was still able to move everything, which I hoped meant nothing was seriously broken. Even if it was, I had no choice. Escape was the only option.
“We’ll stick to the wall. Keep low. Sounds like there’s fighting in the hall. Probably bullets and gas too. Don’t want to get hit by any stray bullets.”
“We’re not in orange,” I pointed out.
“Bad idea to take chances. We’d best avoid everyone. No telling who this Titan has control of.” He moved my hand to the door handle. “Give it a good blast through the lock.”
I didn’t know if I could do magic without seeing. My eyes told me where things were, how the world worked. Without them, my brain was a scrambled mess of panic and strange sensations. I could feel my magic there, lurking below the surface where it normally was, but there were so many other things pulling my attention away. Grabbing onto it was like feeling for a snake’s tail in the dark.
I tried twice and failed. Fear threatened to overtake me. Maybe I’d lost more than just my eyesight.
Moses’ hand tightened on my shoulder. “Easy. I ain’t gonna let anything happen to you, Laz. You can do this. Like riding a bike.” Calm spread out from his hand, leaking into my body.
My shoulders relaxed. I swallowed the fear gathering on my tongue and nodded, trying again. A rush of magic exploded from my hand and struck the lock. Metal twisted under my hand and tiny splinters of wood struck my wrist.
“Good work.” Moses patted my shoulder and pulled my hand away. “Now, stay with me.”
He pulled me into chaos.
The smell in the hall was awful; like someone had stuffed an old gym sock with rubber and set it on fire right before someone tried to dump snot and bleach all over it. Panicked voices echoed from every direction, bouncing off the walls. Something in the air stung my eyes and made my nose run. When I breathed it in, it stung all the way down to my lungs and made me double over, coughing.
Moses jerked me down and to the left until my shoulder hit a wall. Something struck the wall above my head, and tiny splinters of brick rained down over my shoulders, sliding down the back of my neck. The rain of brick continued as he pulled me along. Both of us were coughing and gasping.
Someone off to the right grunted while something wet thudded into him. Metal clanged against concrete. Shoes squeaked. The buzzing noise of the alarm became a distant sound, covered by a thousand other, smaller sounds.
“Be right back,” Moses said, and suddenly let go of me.
My heart pounded in my ears. I put my other hand on the wall, leaning against it as if it was the only thing keeping me upright. The world felt tilted.
Sounds of a fight off to my right drew my attention. Whoever was duking it out, they weren’t far from me. They might even be able to see me from where I was, making me a target. Should I move? Go toward the door? What if Moses wasn’t coming back? What if he was getting the shit beat out of him or if the officers had shot him? I was an easy target, just standing there. But if I moved, he might not find me again.
“Go on,” said Morningstar’s voice as if he were right in front of me. “You don’t need him to find your way out of here. He’s the one that left you anyway.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to will myself not to hear him.
“You know, even if you make it out of this building, you still have to make it to the prison gates.” Morningstar sounded amused. Bastard was having a laugh at my expense, and he wasn’t even real. “How far do you think you’ll get? A hundred yards? Two? You can’t outrun a Titan, Lazarus.”
While I wrestled with the choice, a hand clamped down on my bicep. I jerked my arm away and spun to throw a blind punch, one that Moses easily dodged.
“Whoa, now. It’s me.”
“Where’d you go?” My voice sounded tight. Panicked. Not at all like me.
“Just to clear the way. Door’s over here. Almost there.” He pulled me along.
I walked, one hand planted firmly on the wall, unwilling to stray from it even with Moses’ guidance.
Footsteps swept up beside me, moving casually. “I just had a curious thought.” Morningstar again.
“Keep it to yourself,” I mumbled.
Moses paused. “What?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head and we continued.
“Just how much do you trust the man leading you right now?” Morningstar went on. “The lobby was rather small, and it’s taking you an awful long time to get there. I’m mapping it out in my head, you know. Shouldn’t you have taken a right when you came out of the room?”
Should we have? I couldn’t remember. Left seemed right, and Moses was sure. He might’ve lied to me before, but it was for a good reason. I trusted him.
Breath tickled my ear as Morningstar leaned in to whisper, “Do you ever wonder what would happen if a Titan like Ikelos took control of an angel like Moses? That’s a lot of power. A lot of magic, all right there for the taking.”
“No.” I pulled my hand away from Moses and stood my ground, an island in the middle of a black emptiness.
“No what?” Moses snapped. “We don’t have time for this, Lazarus! You’re going to get us killed.”
“Funny thing for an angel to worry about. You got stabbed half a dozen times and you’re still standing.”
“What’s gotten into you? We’re almost there!”
“Almost where?” I stepped back. “How do I know you’re leading me the right way? Hell, how do I even know you’re you? For all I know, you’re being controlled by the Titan!”
Moses gripped my shoulders tight, too tight for me to pull away again. Jesus, the guy had a vice grip. “Listen to me now, Lazarus. You start down that road, doubting everything and everyone, you’re letting that thing win. You know me well enough, don’t you? Now listen to my voice and tell me if I’m trying to hurt you or help you.”
I considered his words carefully. Somewhere deep in my mind, I knew he was right. The Titan had used Morningstar to crawl into my mind and hit me where it hurt, making me doubt my friends. In the last year, I’d lost so much that it was easy. Odette had lied to me. Pony, too. Just discovering there was more to the world than I thought had been shocking enough in its own right. Even through all of that, I knew better than to expect people to betray me and lie. Moses was a friend, someone I’d always said I trusted with my life. That he was a supernatural entity in hiding didn’t change who he was, or how much he’d he
lped me. I owed him a little literal blind trust.
I swallowed the fear threatening to choke me and nodded. “Let’s get out of here. Please.”
Moses gripped my hand and led me forward.
We made it ten or fifteen steps before a voice boomed, “Get on the ground!”
I dropped without even thinking and laced my fingers together behind my head. When you’ve done time, you learn to recognize a certain tone of voice, the one the correctional officers use only when they're deadly serious. Deadly force was justified during a riot. The officers would shoot first and apologize later, and right now they didn’t know me from an inmate doing two consecutive life sentences for murder.
Shoes scraped over gravel as the armed officers closed in. “Got two civilians here. Jesus, is that all blood? Someone get them to medical!”
I called out for Moses as they jerked me to my feet and pulled me away, but I couldn’t hear him answer over the sounds of gunfire and fighting.
Chapter Twenty-One
They took me to the edge of the prison compound and put me in a squad. I couldn’t tell if the riot was quieting down or not while they strapped me to a gurney, but the gunshots had become less frequent, and I could pick out individual voices in the shouting. It sounded as if the officers had regained control.
Strapped in and staring at shadows of the black and red nothingness that was now my vision, I spent the first part of the ride trying to work out exactly what’d happened while they went through my vitals. Five guys had attacked us directly. Someone had opened the door for them. Probably more than one door, considering where we were in the prison. The fighting had broken out all over at about the same time, and no one seemed to try to get out, so this wasn’t a large-scale escape attempt. It didn’t feel like a typical prison gang move either. No, this was chaos. Coordinated chaos, but for what purpose?
If Ikelos just wanted me dead, why have the fighting break out all over? And why not take control of the officers and prisoners alike? Either he was too weak still and had to concentrate his efforts, or he was after something I couldn’t see. Something that would help him break through.
