Exalted (9 page)

The door led to another hall, this one clearly ascending;
it had rough stone floors and walls that were decorated with the funky
ruby-colored glowing stuff that seemed to be everywhere. Leave it to The Three
to use creeptastic glowing mold to light their lair.

After a few minutes on the hall, they heard definite
footfall—lots of it. Several people were walking toward them.

Shit!

Meredith looked over her shoulder, but Carlin tugged her
forward, into a run.

The footsteps grew louder, and soon there were voices. They
sounded angry, and Meredith was sure she heard Nathan's name.

Something about “...pompous asshole."

Then Dizzy's squeaky croak. “I'd like to kill them, one by
one.”

The footfall had slowed, but the three friends were
struggling to stay ahead of it without making noises of their own. Drew tugged
Carlin, who tugged Meredith again, hard, and she almost tripped. She swallowed
back a “humph!” and kept her legs moving, realizing, with frustration, that
their path was still slanting up, probably back toward the commons.

They turned a corner, and waiting for them were Thierry and
Adam.

“Did you idiots forget about Catalina?” Adam asked.

Carlin shrieked, and Drew threw out his arm in front of her
and Mer, as Meredith's stomach bottomed out.

Thierry smiled. “She found you without any problem, even
when you were on the protected level.”

He took a step forward, and Meredith looked over her
shoulder, behind her, where Dizzy's voice was growing louder.

“You should have stayed where Nathan put you,” Adam said.

“He put us there to protect us from crazies like you! You
assholes need to leave us alone!” Meredith snapped.

But Adam's dark eyes were hard; he looked grave, and
Thierry looked energized.

“How ya doing, Drew?” Thierry reached for Drew, and Carlin
jerked him back, out of Thierry's arm's length.
 
"I'd rather take my chances with
Dizzy," she cried, and they dashed back the way they'd come.

Drew, Carlin, and Meredith spun and started running back
down the hall, toward Dizzy and whoever else. At least they couldn't spirit
anyone away, Meredith thought.

They had only gotten a few steps when Drew stopped. Carlin
screamed, but Drew was pressing against a stone like he expected it to move.
All of a sudden the wall opened, fog misted up from the floor, and Drew was
jerking the two of them inside. Not knowing what else to do, Meredith clung to
Carlin, and the three of them were in free fall.

They landed hard, in what looked to be some kind of grain
silo. Carlin was still screaming. Drew was panting.

Meredith's mouth had been scared shut.

She reached out and cupped the stuff they were sitting in.
Was it grain or something else?

“Oh God!” Carlin cried. “Drew!” She shoved him.

“I saw us falling in a vision, right before I touched the
wall.”

“Thank you.” Meredith threw her arms around him.

“I don't think I necessarily deserve that,” Drew said
wryly, “but I am glad to be free of them. And, it seems, a few floors lower.”

“Hells, yeah,” Mer said. “Maybe we're closer to Julia.”

She tried to “feel” for her friend, but couldn't get a
sense of Julia. She did, however, feel a kind of buzzing feeling—like she'd
downed a Red Bull and then watched a horror movie; inexplicable fear bubbled up
inside her chest.

“This is a grain silo?” Drew said.

“Grain,” Carlin said. “I think so.”

There was barely room between the top of the massive grain
pile and the room's ceiling for them to stand, but Meredith did it anyway, at
least for a few seconds before she spotted a door and realized they could
simply crawl to it.

“I want to get out of here,” she moaned.

The door opened to a crosshatched metal floor, probably
designed to catch the grain as it spilled out. Meredith walked over it, finding
herself inside what looked like an octagon, with a low-lying dirt ceiling, a
dirt floor, and a stone door on each wall. The place reminded her of some kind
of haunted dormitory.

Torch light flickered crazily from three torches, but
instead of regular fire, they were lit by blue fire. On the other side of the
small room, there was another mystery hall, and—heck yeah!—it looked like it
slanted down.

“Drew! Car! Come this way,” she said, sticking her head
back through the doorway of the grain silo. "There's another hall through
here. I think it goes down!"

"How did you get out so quickly," Drew grumbled;
he was struggling through the sand like a horse in mud. Carlin wasn't much
faster.

"You guys," Meredith moaned. She took a few steps
toward the hall, antsy to escape a room with so many doors, when she heard what
sounded like a girl's sigh. A second later she saw the girl—pretty with dark
pigtails. Meredith's heart fell when the girl cried, "Nathan."

Catalina rushed ahead, arms out, saying, “Meredith! I'm so
sorry!”

Carlin gasped, and Drew, who had just escaped the silo,
began trying the doors, though they were all locked. Plus, it was pointless—Catalina
could locate them anywhere.

She reached Meredith, grabbing her wrist. “Mer, I'm so sorry!
I didn't mean to put you guys in danger! When Theirry and Adam asked… I didn't
know!”

But Meredith didn't care what the younger girl was saying.
Her gaze had locked with Nathan's. Drew and Carlin were scrambling back into the
silo, screaming for her to follow, but Meredith's mind was on Nathan, and she
was a second too slow.

She shrieked as strong hands grabbed her by the waist,
pressing her against soft fabric that stretched across a warm, familiar chest.

“Nathan!”

Without letting go of her, he clicked on a flashlight,
illuminating his face like a ghoul in a Halloween haunted house. He was wearing
a tired smile, jeans, and a charcoal Polo, and he looked rueful. “Meredith.” He
pressed his face into her hair. “We have a lot to talk about.”

“Hell no we don't!”

“We do.” He gripped her gently but firmly, opening the door
to the silo where Drew and Carlin were trying to climb back up.

Meredith heard more than saw them gasp as he stuck his head
inside. “CARLIN, DREW, MEREDITH, FOLLOW ME,” he ordered. “CATALINA, YOU MAY
RETURN TO YOUR ROOM.”

Meredith had never heard Nathan issue a stronger command.
Against her will, she stuck beside him as he turned away. She felt Drew and
Carlin close behind her.

Chapter Thirteen

Shock.

It
was the first thing that registered.

Then
disbelief. Then shock again. Then pain.

As
her spinning mind awakened, her battered thoughts circled around Cayne. She had
dreamed of him, a dream that felt like more. He was being tortured, just like
her. By The Adversary. His father.

Her
throat tightened as if invisible hands were squeezing it. Her eyes pricked with
the need for tears, but Julia didn’t think she could still cry. Her chest felt
like a block of ice, but somewhere inside, the ice was cracking, leaving her
wanting… Wanting Cayne. So badly.

Almost
blessedly, she felt pain—pain all over. It was in ready supply, always with
her. She tried to think about her friends—outrageous Meredith, opinionated
Carlin, honorable Drew. She could only think of them in attributes. The same
with Harry and Suzanne, although they were fuller characters in her mind.

Cayne
was the easiest to think about, although she didn’t want to. Julia felt like
she was betraying him, but thinking about him hurt, and she hurt too much
already.

She
shut her eyes, struggling with her fate even after many hours lying still while
Methuselah worked on her, filling her with dark magic, stretching her body and
mind while chipping away at something vital that she couldn’t quite define.

Her
head, her face, her eyes, her neck… All pulsed with what she’d come to
recognize as Celestial power. It made her ache and burn; it made her heavy,
like her body had been filled with radioactive lead, from her bones all the way
up to her skin.

A
moan escaped her throat, and Julia tried to lift her hand to cover her mouth.
It trembled so much she could barely get it to her chin.

What
had happened to make her so weak? What awful thing had he done to her last, she
wondered—and immediately wished she hadn’t.

Swatches
of memory cut into her psyche like nails. Methuselah’s face, so blank and cold.
That cruelly perfect face, its blue eyes hard as ice as he bent over her,
fingers to her temples, palms over her chest, making sure her body could be
used.

That
concept was singularly disturbing.
  

She
rolled over on her side, letting out a pitiful sob as she tried to pull her
knees to her chest.

Again,
her mind cried out for Cayne. Again, pain eclipsed her longing. Gritting her
teeth so hard her jaw crunched, she tried to force her eyes to focus. She was
lying on the makeshift stretcher. Canvas straps crossed her hips, but her arms
and legs were free.

With
herculean effort, she held her arms out, expecting to see oozing welts, finding
them unblemished. She lowered them to her sides and gritted her teeth as she
curled her fingers around the strap pinning her to the stretcher.

The
room was empty. He hadn’t left her in the dark again, and she could lift her
head just enough to see that he had gone. If she could just release some blue
fire…

She
felt a burst of pain and moaned. She tried to remember it, the fire, how she
had to reach inside herself to summon it. She had to focus on it.

But
she couldn't. She couldn't do anything. Isn't that what he'd told her? She was
pathetic. Unwanted. Nothing. She was practically created to be a tool. A
vessel. No one.
 

Maybe
she was, she thought with surprising anger. But she still had her desires. Her
feelings. Her wishes. Her wants. She had them, and she was tired of having them
taken away.

She
pressed her fingertips against the straps that bound her and felt heat bloom in
her fingertips. She heard a roaring in her head and knew that she could do it.
She could burn through the binds. Blow up the room. She could do…anything.
Anything she wanted. She had Methuselah’s power, but it wasn’t
all
his.
It felt exactly like she had that day at the Raysons’ house, in the backyard,
when Billy had been torturing the cat.

Julia
saw a warm blue glow beyond the shadow of her lashes, felt her fingers sting as
heat flared on her belly. She felt a shot of hope; Methuselah had lied to her.

She
wasn't 'no one'. She was powerful. Maybe even his most powerful descendant. The
thought was like a balm to her soul, and as soon as she had it, she felt the
air around her shift.

Out
of the darkness, something flew at her: a fist to her face. Or was that energy?

Never
mind.

Things
spun.

It
didn’t matter if he'd lied. He would still win.

                                                         
***

Andrew kept his mouth shut, but as he followed Nathan,
Meredith, and Carlin down the hall that branched off from the octagonal room,
he wanted to scream.

Damn Nathan’s gift of persuasion. Damn Nathan himself.
Andrew knew Super Shepherd better than Meredith or Carlin did. He knew when
Nathan made up his mind, it couldn’t be changed.

And he knew what that meant for Julia. If Nathan thought
she had a duty to fulfill, he would do whatever he could to make sure she
fulfilled it. And if Jacquie and the others at St. Moritz were right about her
fate, even a little... Andrew didn't want to think it.

Nathan kept a brisk pace, moving from one dark hallway to
the next. Occasionally he’d pause, and his three captives would pause with him,
waiting dutifully until either he reoriented himself or decided the coast was clear—Andrew
didn’t know which. He couldn’t help but follow Nathan; even if he didn’t want
to, Nathan’s voice was more powerful than Andrew remembered. But he could sock
Nathan in the eye, and he planned to do just that.

Except as soon as he was able to make a fist, Nathan closed
them off in a small square room and pulled Meredith into a crushing hug. “I’m
so sorry.”

Andrew must have been losing his mind, because it sounded
like Nathan’s voice cracked on the “sorry”.

Meredith’s wide, dark eyes met Andrew’s. She was clearly
confused.

Carlin said, “Nathan, whatever you are—”

Meredith interrupted with a “Shh!” She pushed against
Nathan, who looked at her and nodded. She was reading his feelings, and after a
second she wrapped an arm around him. She cast a surprised but confident look
at Andrew and Carlin.

Nathan looked from Carlin to Andrew and spoke in a
shockingly shaky voice. “I made a terrible mistake. About Julia.”

“No shit,” Carlin said.

“I didn’t know they were like this.”

“Who was like what?” Meredith asked, now pulling away from
him a little.

“M-Methusaleh. I didn't know The Three would do the
things...”

“If you’ve got a point, get to it,” Andrew snapped. They
were wasting time, and Nathan was terrifying him.

“They've always appeared to be judicious leaders.” His
lower lip trembled as he spoke. “I trusted them. I've trusted them since I was
a child.” Nathan's brown eyes widened. “He’s hurting Julia. I heard her
screaming.”

Sound erupted all at once in the room, most of it from
Carlin and in Spanish.

“Quiet!” Andrew barked.

“What was he doing?” Meredith gasped.

“I don’t know,” Nathan said. “I didn’t see. I heard her
through a door.”

“That you didn't open?” Andrew snapped.

“Then how do you know?!” Carlin demanded.