Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (76 page)

Two figures lay crumpled on the grass, one perpendicular to the other. Deuce was still tied up and fully clothed. She coughed and blinked up at the sun. At her feet, Marco’s motionless body lay facedown, completely nude, but whole and not a jumble of empty skin.

“Oh my God,” I said. Hope blossomed in my chest. I shoved the door open, ignoring everyone around me except for the one person I never thought I’d see again.

I fell to my knees next to Marco and rolled him onto his back. His eyes were closed, lips slightly parted. I pressed my ear to his bare chest, listening for the elusive heartbeat that would announce partial success. So far away, but it was there—one soft thump, and then another. I sat up, but the cry of victory died on my lips.

No rise and fall. No intake of air.
No, no, no.

“He’s not breathing,” I said.

Twenty-eight

Chessboard

I
held Marco’s hand, offering comfort the only way I could, until the paramedics shouldered me aside. They loaded their gurney into the back of the ambulance, which had arrived relatively quickly after being called. One uniformed girl, who looked too young to be out of high school let alone a practicing paramedic, rhythmically squeezed an Ambu bag. She breathed for Marco, as we’d taken turns breathing for him in the too-long minutes between his separation from Deuce and the ambulance’s arrival. The paramedic was keeping him alive with the faith of someone who’d seen miracles before.

I envied her for her faith.

Ethan went with him, as much for company as to get his own injuries tended. We had supplies at the house, but without the medical knowledge of a trained physician, they were mostly useless, and I was glad to see him finally out of direct harm’s way.

The ambulance tore down the driveway, lights flashing and siren wailing. I watched from the porch, chilled inside
and out. I squashed any lingering threads of hope. A heartbeat was good, but if Marco couldn’t breathe on his own . . . no, no doubts. No more wondering.

It was getting late. At least fifteen minutes had passed since the phone call.

Footsteps behind me. I sensed Noah before he spoke: “Deuce wants to talk to you.”

“Good for her,” I said.

“Dal?” He turned me to face him.

“At least Ethan is away from this,” I said, unable to meet his gaze. “They’ll be safe at the hospital, I think. It’s not City of Angels.”

He fought a small smile at my own black humor. “Do you have a plan?”

“You mean besides getting our people back and trying not to die?” He stroked my cheek with his fingers. My stomach coiled into a knot of . . . something. “What did you mean when you said ‘she’s mine’?”

His fingertips skimmed across my throat, around to cup the back of my neck. “When this is all over and everyone’s safe, I might ask you to forgive me for lying to you. And if you do, I might then ask you out on a date.”

I licked my lips. “Somewhere nicer than Mallory’s Table?”

“Yep. Think you might say yes?”

“Just maybe.”

He drew me closer, and his mouth covered mine in a gentle kiss. Warm and yielding, promising without pushing. Heat burned in my chest. I memorized the curve of his lips and the subtle, sweet taste of him, the soft abrasion of his unshaven
skin on my cheeks. I wanted to savor every detail of our first kiss.

Just in case.

He finished by crushing me in a hug. I rested my chin on his shoulder. Past him, just inside of the porch door, King watched us. He’d abandoned Ortega’s shadow, and his expressionless face gave away nothing. I looked where I supposed his eyes were, and for a moment, I saw him. Saw a man behind the blank slate. A man who’d done terrible things in order to protect his family and the great weight resting on his shoulders.

King turned and disappeared into the shadow of the house. I pulled away from Noah. “We need to get King and Deuce and go,” I said.

“What about Simon and Gage?” Noah asked.

“I’ll take care of them.”

For the second
time today, I tested my ability to draw energy from living people. I found Gage in the War Room, sifting through a stack of files. He looked up when I entered, shifting from concern to curiosity as I stalked right up to him, clamped my hand down on his arm, and held tight.

Heat pulled out of his skin, absorbing through mine and curling into a ball of energy deep in my chest. He paled, stumbled. Tried to say my name. With a question on his lips and fear in his eyes, he passed out. I tried to catch him and break the fall, but only succeeded in getting tugged down to my knees by his weight.

His head lolled to one side, skin ashen and clammy. He had a strong pulse, though. He’d be cold and pissed when he woke up.

“Dahlia? What happened?”

Bingo. Simon darted into the room and dropped to his knees on the other side of Gage’s prone form. Dark smudges colored the skin beneath Simon’s eyes, stark as black eye shadow against the pallor of his face. The pull of his thin lips evidenced the strain he’d felt while separating Deuce from Marco. I hated to hurt him more.

“I’m sorry, Simon,” I said.

His eyebrows furrowed. “For what?”

I grabbed his wrist. Seconds later, he collapsed on top of Gage. The energy from Simon was somehow stronger than Gage’s, more powerful. It roiled and spun, heating my insides. It gave me strength and fueled my determination. I rolled Simon over so he wouldn’t wake up in a compromising (and uniquely embarrassing) position.

Noah came with blankets, and we covered them.

Deuce was still tied up in the courtyard; she glared as we approached. “About time, Dahlia,” she snapped.

“Shut up,” I said. She blinked. “Your sister is the pyro, right? She can control fire?”

“Yes.”

Good. Barring any more accelerant poisoning, I could absorb huge amounts of regular fire. “What about you, Deuce? You control earth?”

“Yes.”

“If I untie you, are you going to smash me into the ground?”

“No.”

She seemed sincere, but I’d have preferred Gage verifying my opinion. “Are you going to behave until we get to the warehouse? Play on our side, since we helped you out with your multiple-personality disorder?”

“As long as you don’t hurt my sister, you have my word. I don’t want to kill you, but I won’t let her die, either.”

A little bit of hurt was necessary in subduing Queen, I had no doubt. I could always settle it by knocking Deuce out, too. One less potential enemy to worry about. The only thing stopping me was Queen’s reaction if her sister appeared injured. Queen could take it out on one of her hostages.

“Then let’s go,” I said.

I parked a
block away from our destination, and we walked the rest of the way. My entire body thrummed with energy and anticipation, dread and terror. Noah walked next to me, his hand grasping mine in a death grip. Behind us, King led Deuce by the forearm, not seeming to care that his mannequin-like face made him stick out from the crowd. The street was pretty quiet, and we’d not seen another car in two blocks.

Yellow police tape still cordoned off the ruined warehouse and its narrow parking lot. The exterior walls remained intact, bricks blackened and cracked. The interior gaped like a monster’s maw, dark and wide and treacherous.
The site hadn’t been cleaned up. Debris lay scattered around the perimeter of the building. Chunks of scorched boards and cement, shattered glass and bent beams, all seasoned with the suffocating odors of burnt wood and metal.

The distant rumblings of a train broke the oppressive silence, chugging toward us along the tracks that ran behind the warehouse. It seemed so different now. Less angry, less dangerous.

We slipped beneath the police tape, making no sound as we crossed the parking lot. My eyes never stopped moving. Watching. The side entrance doors were busted down, allowing us easy access through the blackened frame, into a dim room. Overturned filing cabinets spilled burned paper and water-soaked folders across soiled industrial carpeting, which even two days later squished wetly beneath my feet.

I stopped to listen, but heard nothing. No subtle clues or hints. Noah squeezed my hand. I returned the gesture and released him, moving forward on my own. Sunlight sparkled beyond a doorless entryway, hinting at an open area ahead. I stepped over a fallen support beam. Froze.

Somewhere ahead, soft and far away, someone was crying. I maneuvered through the narrow hall, toward the shaft of light. At the end of the pathway, as suspected, the hall opened into the main warehouse.

Blue sky and sunlight glared down, illuminating the rubble-strewn main floor. Overturned metal shelving lay in twisted piles, half melted and misshapen. Heaps of ash sat quietly, undisturbed by the still air. Four central support pillars
stood like sentinels, reaching four stories into the sky and touching nothing. Visibility was bad, my view constantly marred by the wreckage.

Something pricked at the back of my mind. A small voice, whispering.

“Jimmy,” Noah said.

“I hear him, too,” I replied. The crying had stopped and even small noises resounded like a shotgun report. “Stay behind me.”

Each step forward was a deliberate action. I hated leaving the safety of the hallway for the open jungle of the warehouse. Attack could come from any direction. The air around me crackled, raising the short hairs on the back of my neck. A quick check over my shoulder revealed Noah as the source. He walked with eyes half-lidded, mouth twisted in concentration. Some sort of telekinetic shield, I guessed.

Good thinking.

A dozen or so yards through the maze of wreckage, the floor opened up. Uneven streaks in the floor’s ash coating indicated someone had manually shoved aside the trash and debris to create an open floor space roughly fifty feet in diameter, right in the middle of the central pillars, like a gladiator arena of yesteryear. We found the edge by the southernmost pillar. I held up my hands, keeping my companions back.

“She’s here,” Deuce said, keeping her voice low.

I nodded.

“Send out Deuce!” Queen shouted. Her voice boomed around the room, vibrating and echoing, making the source impossible to locate.

“Not until I see my friends,” I yelled right back, wincing at the result. The acoustics in there were insane.

Queen laughed. “Take a look around, Dahlia. You’ll see them.”

I inched forward and took a moment to examine the perimeter of the arena. Gazed over piles of wood and metal and cement blocks, charred and broken and strewn about. Nothing to indicate the presence of other people, but there were dozens of holes and breaks. Perfect hiding places.

“Holy shit,” Noah said. His hand rose into my peripheral vision, pointing up and to the left.

I followed his direction to the pillar farthest from our position. Ten feet from the ground, Jimmy was bound to the pillar, arms and legs secured by thick ropes. Mouth gagged, eyes open, he struggled against his bonds. Blood stained his sandy-brown hair and coated one side of his face.

Don’t trust her!
Jimmy shouted, his voice searing through my head. Noah inhaled sharply; he’d heard it, too.

The next pillar over, diagonal from our position, was a man I’d seen only in photographs. Aaron Scott, pale as death, hung limply, similarly secured with rope. He had no outward injuries I could see from a distance. He wasn’t conscious and could easily have been dead.

He’s alive, but he’s hurt,
Jimmy said.

“Can you talk back to him?” I asked Noah. He nodded. “Ask him about Teresa and Queen.”

Noah squinted. Concentrated. From somewhere in the wreckage below the pillar, the twin prongs of a taser sprung
upward and attached to Jimmy’s leg. He shrieked, shook, and went limp.

I grabbed Noah around the waist before he could blindly bolt out into the open area. “Don’t! It’s what she wants.”

“I’ll kill her for that,” he growled.

Deuce grunted. The ground began to rumble and groan.
Uh-oh.

I whirled, but was too slow to stop Deuce from bashing a chunk of cement block into the back of King’s head. He fell like a stone. Blood trickled from the fresh wound in his skull.

Noah raised his hand and splayed his fingers. The air seemed to condense and wave. It pushed forward like a living thing. The invisible force slammed Deuce in the chest and propelled her backward. She hit a wooden beam, cracked it in half, and lay still.

He crouched next to King. “He’s alive,” he said. “Dammit, I didn’t think—”

“Too late now,” I said, turning back to the arena’s entrance. A figure had emerged from the wreckage beneath Jimmy’s pillar. She wore a gray gown that contrasted with the fine purple strands of her hair and coloration of her face. She wobbled, took a step, and stumbled two more. Twenty feet away and moving closer.

Teresa.

I held my breath. She raised her head and our eyes met. Pain, relief, and determination sparkled there. Another step. She swayed. Fell. Shrieked in pain when she hit the ground on her wounded side. Panic squeezed my heart. I raced to
her, heedless of my very exposed position, and skidded to a slippery stop by her side.

Thick ash coated her arms and legs. I gently rolled her over. She blinked up at me, tears streaking her cheeks. Fresh blood stained the bandages on her chest, peeking through the smudges of gray ash. Her pained grimace twisted up into an agonized smile. And then to just a smile.

A warning hammered in my head.

Teresa’s grin became a leer. “Stupid girl,” she said in Queen’s distinct voice.

A glamour.

Shit.

From beneath the gown, she produced a handgun, pressed it against my abdomen, and fired.

Twenty-nine

Checkmate

W
hite-hot agony exploded in my stomach. Metallic heat filled my mouth. I smelled scorched cloth. Ozone. The world tilted, and then I was looking up at the sky. The overwhelming pain calmed to a faint numbness. I couldn’t feel my legs. Couldn’t sit up.

Oh God, this is it.

Energy crackled around me. Someone screamed. Female. A thud and then a second shout—my name this time.