Angels of Darkness (27 page)

She crouched by the body and began going through the man's pockets. “I can do this alone.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He picked up the man's machine gun and handed it to her. “Safety here.” He flipped a small switch. “Point and pull the trigger. Your instinct will tell you to keep clenching it. Don't. Count to three in your head and let go of the trigger. Short bursts.”

Karina took the gun and raised it. It was heavy like a cement block. “You do realize that I can kill you with this.” She didn't mean to say it. It just came out.

“Yes.” He turned his back to her and went out of the vault. A pair of jeans and a sweatshirt lay by the door. Lucas pulled on the clothes and started down the hallway. She followed him. He moved like a cat, soundless on bare feet.

They came to the end of the hallway. Lucas leaned against the wall, glanced around the corner, and looked at her. “Point and pull the trigger,” he whispered.

“Count to three,” she whispered back.

He nodded.

There were people at the end of that hallway. People she would have to kill.
It's them or us.
Kill or be killed.

She took a deep breath, stepped into the hallway, and pulled the trigger. The gun spat thunder. Bullets ripped into four distant shadows. She thought there would be blood, but no. They just jerked and went down, screaming. She pounded the bullets into the bodies for another long breath and let go. Lucas moved next to her.

It was a test, she realized. He had to know if he could rely on her. Well, he could. She'd kill every one of them to get to Emily.

“What happened to letting go on three?”

“There were four of them,” she said. Movies and books told her she should be throwing up now, but she didn't feel queasy. Her mouth was dry. It would probably hit her later, but now only Emily mattered. “I decided to take two extra seconds.”

K
arina followed Lucas through the dark passageways as fast as she could. She was squeezing everything she had out of her exhausted body. Now that the first flush of adrenaline had worn off, fatigue set in. She didn't walk, she dragged herself forward, shot when Lucas shot, stopped when he stopped. Only the next step mattered and she gritted her teeth and managed it again and again.

They made it to a small door. Lucas punched a code into the lock, the door snapped open, and they went through onto a concrete landing. Lucas punched the lock and the small square light in its corner turned red.

“We rest,” he said. “Two minutes.”

Karina sank down to the concrete and he sprawled next to her. The grimy floor was like heaven.

“Why are you helping me?”

His voice was a quiet growl. “Because I like you. And your little girl.”

She closed her eyes, feeling the cold concrete under her cheek. That wasn't it. Lucas was making up for his past sins, but that wasn't all of it, either. She knew the true answer. She could read it in his worn-out face. He wanted to save her, because he wanted her to stop flinching when she looked at him.

“Thank you,” she told him. “Thank you for helping me.”

“Time to get up.” He rose.

She cried out as he pulled her off the floor and followed him down the stairs. An odd sensation clenched her, almost like some internal spring had compressed inside her and now begged to be released. She stumbled, and it vanished.

One floor. The landing. They were midway down the next flight of stairs when the door below swung open.

An icy presence clenched her mind in a hard grip. It shut her off, trapping her. She couldn't move; she couldn't speak. Time slowed to a crawl.

The door kept opening, wider and wider. She saw inside it; she saw armed people pour out onto the landing. She knew she had to fire. Instead she just stood there, disconnected from her body.

And then Lucas shoved her down and sprayed the landing with bullets.

The presence gripped her mind and squeezed. She couldn't even scream.

Orange sparks flared on Lucas's gun. It died.

More people spilled into the landing over the bodies. Lucas leaped into the attackers. He smashed one out of the way, cracking the man's skull against concrete like a walnut. The man slid down, leaving a bright red stain on the wall. Lucas ripped a woman's throat out with his hand, backhanded another man down the stairs, and shuddered as a handgun barked. Red spray shot out of Lucas's side. He lunged forward and broke the gunman like a twig and dived into the doorway.

The sound faded. She was completely disconnected from her body now. Only her vision worked.

Lucas emerged from the door, bloody, his eyes furious. He must've jerked her up, because her view changed and suddenly he was directly above her. He barked something, angry. The world shook. He dived down. His lips closed on hers. She felt nothing. He jerked back up and rocked back and forth, screaming again.

Henry,
she read his lips calling.
Henry.

He kissed her again and rocked, his face jerking up and down. His hands pushed on her chest. She saw the muscles on his arms flex, but felt nothing. The red stain on his sweatshirt spread wider. Was he doing CPR? Was she dying?

The ice cracked. She heard a distant female scream somewhere impossibly far. Warmth flooded into her. Something popped inside her mind and she saw a radiant light, bright and glorious.

She's gone now,
Henry's voice said in her mind.
She won't bother you again. You're free. Breathe, Karina. Breathe.

The world snapped back to its normal speed, jerking her back into her body. She felt everything at once: pain, the hardness of the stair under her back, and the rhythmic push of Lucas's hands on her chest. She gasped. He pulled her up, into his arms.

“Mind Bender attack,” he told her. “Up. Keep moving.”

The scent of heated metal rising from Lucas was so thick, she almost choked. He wasn't just hurt. He had to be close to dying. If he died, she would be free, but in this moment she didn't care. She just wanted him to survive. “You've been shot.”

“We must move,” he told her and pulled her up to her feet. “Faster!”

He drove her down the stairs, through the door, and along the narrow hallway. They dashed past a row of offices. Lucas rammed a door head-on and they burst into a small conference room. Henry lay slumped in the corner, his back pressed against a wall that was mirrored floor to ceiling. His cracked glasses sat slightly askew on his blood-smeared face. Emily was curled in the crook of his arm.

Karina cleared the room in a desperate sprint and dropped to her knees. “Is she okay?”

“She's fine,” Henry said softly. “She woke up a little when I had to help you, but now she's sleeping again.”

Karina hugged her, cradling Emily's small body. Finally.

Lucas shoved the table against the door and landed next to them.

“I see you're bleeding, too, cousin.” Henry smiled. “Nice of you to join me.”

“Where are the others?” Lucas growled.

“I don't know. We were hit two minutes after you went into the vault. It was a concentrated assault. They came prepared. The seventeenth floor fell within ten minutes. We were retreating, when I got cut off. I went into cloak almost immediately. Our people may have evacuated.”

“Without us?” Karina stared at them.

“Arthur probably thought I fed,” Lucas said. “Your blood would give me enough of a boost to either get Henry and me clear or to hide.”

“They are surrounding us,” Henry said. “What's the plan?”

“You and I go. They stay,” Lucas said.

“Ah.” Henry nodded. “I thought it might be something like that.”

“What are you talking about?” Karina gathered Emily closer.

“We're going to open that door,” Lucas said. “Henry and I will take off. Henry will make sure they concentrate on us and I will make sure to keep them busy. They will follow us. You will wait here for three minutes, then you will take Emily, go out into the hallway, and turn right. You will come to an intersection. Turn right again. That will get you to the stairs. Shoot anyone you see. Then you get the hell out. If you make it out of the building, Arthur won't look for you right away, since I'll be dead and he won't need a donor immediately. Don't use credit cards, don't stay twice in the same—”

“They will kill you!” No, that was not how this would go. The spring of tension inside her shivered, compressing.

“It was never about me surviving,” Lucas said. “I died when we opened the vault.”

“He's right,” Henry said.

God, he pissed her off. “No.” She shook her head, trying to keep a lid on her anger. “We go to the stairs together and fight our way down. Together.”

Lucas grabbed her, jerking her close. “You will do as you're told.”

“No,” she said into his snarl. “I won't. We go together.”

The pressure inside her built.

“This isn't a democracy!”

“Lucas, I can't carry Emily and shoot at the same time. I can barely hold this stupid gun with two hands. Do you think I'm Rambo? It's suicide for me, Emily,
and
you.”

“She has a point,” Henry said.

“See? They will kill me and your grand sacrifice will be wasted. I don't want you to die for nothing. I don't want you to die at all.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I care if you live or die! My God, you are a moron! We fight our way to the stairs together. We have a better chance that way.”

He shook her. “I'm trying to save your daughter, you idiot! I've been doing this a long time and I am telling you, if we go out there, we'll all die.”

“He also has a point,” Henry said.

Karina exhaled. Emily's life was all that mattered. “Then drink my blood and get her out of here.”

“I would have to drain you dry. I'm barely conscious!”

“Do it.” Karina told him, furious. “You have the best chance of getting out of here with Emily alive. Drain me.”

“No!” he snarled.

“Do it, Lucas!”

“That's nice,” Henry said. “But the Ordinators are coming.”

“Drain me or we go to the stairs,” Karina said.

“No, we'll do this my way.”

“Your way, I die, you die, Emily dies!”

“There is no time,” Henry said calmly. “You missed your opportunity. We are all about to die. Don't let them take you alive. You will regret it.”

The back wall of the conference room shuddered. Cracks crisscrossed the wood. It shattered and rained down in a waterfall of tiny splinters. People stood behind it, people with automatic weapons and dark helmets shielding their faces. In front of them a tall man with pale hair down to his waist slowly lowered his hand, smiling. She looked into his face and saw her own death there.

It hit her like a punch. Emily, she, Lucas, and Henry—the four of them really were about to die.

For nothing. They would die for nothing.

Lucas surged to his feet, trying to shield her.

No. No, this was not happening. She was tired and scared and pissed off and she was done with this shit.

Fuck them all.

The coiled spring inside her snapped free. Fiery power surged through her in a glorious cascade. It was time to set things right.

The smile slid off the blond Ordinator's face. He opened his mouth.

The power surged from her, up and over her shoulders in twin streams.

She looked right into his eyes and said, “Die!”

His face turned green, as if dusted with emerald powder. He crumpled and fell to the floor. She stared at the men behind him and they collapsed like rag dolls.

Two others burst into her view from the left. She turned and
looked
at them and watched them die in midstep.

“Anybody else?” she called out. Her voice rang through the building. “Does anybody else want some? Because I've got plenty!”

Nobody answered. She marched out into the hallway, turned the corner, and saw a hallway full of people.

They collapsed as one.

They wanted to exterminate humanity. They had declared a war. Fine. If the Ordinators wanted a war, she would introduce them to one.

Karina turned. Lucas was staring at her, his mouth hanging open. Next to him Henry stood, blinking as if he hoped that one of the times when he reopened his eyes he would see something different.

Karina looked above them and saw her own reflection in the mirror wall. Twin streams of green lightning spread out from her shoulders in two radiant green wings. Like Arthur's red ones.