A moment’s pause, then a presence, cold and looming and massive. Words reared up like a towering wave. GET OUT.
The wave crashed over me and I was hurled back to my body, the connection fraying and snapping. I staggered, caught myself. I was alone in the control room.
chapter 17
The dreamstone was dark and silent. From outside, I could hear muffled voices, and I was distantly aware that the battle between Onyx and the Crusaders must be over. They were about to break into the control room, and this time I wouldn’t be able to stop them. Somehow, it didn’t seem important. Whatever that thing was that had thrown me out of Anne’s head, it had felt like claiming territory. I needed to get to her.
I scanned the futures, then tapped a command into the computer, pulled out my gun, and fired into the computer bank. With a whirr most of the remaining screens went black. I moved to the back door, watching the lights on the panel. What I’d just done wouldn’t keep the Crusaders out; the systems had redundancies. They could override the controls. But to do that, they’d have to cancel the lockdown, which meant . . .
The lights on the panel went green. I pulled the back door open and stepped through just an instant before the Crusaders came in the front. I was free.
I ran towards the vaults. The Crusaders had the control room, and it wouldn’t take them long to get the cameras back up, and once that happened, they’d know the location of everyone in the facility, including me. I needed to make it there before that happened.
After the earlier battle, the corridors felt eerily silent, my footsteps echoing off the walls. I passed a clump of bodies, cut sideways through an access corridor, then slowed as I drew close to the entrance to the main vault. It was the same door that I’d guided Vihaela through, and it was occupied. I stopped one turning away, listening.
“. . . don’t have time for this!” someone was saying. “Send your men in!” It was the lightning mage, Zilean, and he sounded agitated. So he’s still alive, I thought coldly. Pity.
“No,” another voice replied, this one older and steadier. “We’re holding for Jarnaff.”
“It’s one girl!”
“Whatever that thing was, it was not a girl.”
“She’s using some Dark mage trick. If you’d committed—”
“That trick just fucking ate three of my men in as many seconds. While you turned and ran.”
“I’ll have you sent—” Zilean’s voice sharpened. “Wait. Someone’s here!”
I was already turning the corner, breaking into a sprint. I didn’t know what I was going to find behind those doors, but Zilean seemed convinced that Anne was still alive and that was good enough for me. I had a brief confused image of the Crusaders clustered around the shattered vault door—Zilean was there, and so was Lightbringer—then I threw a condenser right into the middle of them and they disappeared in a bank of mist.
Shouts broke out, three different people trying to give orders at once, but the Crusaders hadn’t been prepared for someone behind them and in the confusion I ran straight through their ranks. Shapes loomed up in the mist, then I was through.
I don’t remember much about that last mad dash. The corridors between the door and the vault proper held the final security measures that Vihaela and Anne had fought their way past, but I didn’t have time to stop and look. I saw a monstrous shape, clawed and fanged, lying dead against the wall, and shattered constructs piled in the first room. Something hissed and snatched at my ankles, but I dodged and kept going, and came out at last into the main storage vault.
My first impression was of size; I hadn’t realised just how big the place was. The ceiling was arched stone, and it looked ancient, as though it had been here for a long, long time. Wooden cabinets were tucked into alcoves, and pedestals held boxes and stasis cases. Most were open, broken by the Dark mages in their looting. A couple of the cabinets to the right were smoking and burnt, and a section of wall had been shattered as though by some great force, but my eyes were only for Anne, lying against one of the pillars. Her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving.
I rushed to her side, kneeling down to touch her neck. Anne didn’t seem hurt—her pulse was steady and she was breathing—but she wasn’t getting up either, and as I looked through the futures, I saw that she wasn’t going to. Her hand was clutched around something that looked like a signet ring, the fingers locked tight. There was no sign of the “thing” that the Crusaders had been talking about, nor of the missing men. Briefly I wondered what had happened here, then put it out of my mind. I pulled out Vihaela’s communicator. “Cinder, this is Verus.”
A pause, then Cinder replied. “Verus? We’re bailing. Crusaders brought in reinforcements. Get to the east wing.”
The east wing was most of the way across the facility. I thought about my chances of making it all the way there, through the Crusaders, while carrying Anne’s unconscious body. “Can’t.”
“Where are you?”
“Main vault.”
There was a moment’s silence. “Can’t get to you.”
I paused. “Anything you can give me?”
“That focus Vihaela used still running?”
I’d already checked. “No.”
There was another pause. “Got nothing,” Cinder said at last. “Sorry.”
“Yeah,” I said. There was danger in the futures, coming closer. The Crusaders had recovered from their surprise. “Guess we’ll have to catch up another time.”
“You make it out, I’ll do what I can for cover,” Cinder said. “If not . . . take a few of the bastards with you.”
I switched off the communicator and looked into the futures. The Crusaders were going to be here in less than thirty seconds. I heaved Anne up in my arms; she felt lighter than I remembered from the last time I’d had to do this. There was a partition halfway across the vault which blocked off the view of the back of the room and I carried her behind it, setting her down gently to rest against the wall.
Voices sounded from the other side of the partition. I looked to the right, towards where Vihaela’s Dark mages had opened that gate. The focus they’d used to do it was gone and I was pretty sure they’d taken it with them. In theory, they could still use it to come back for us. I knew they wouldn’t.
More voices, cautious footsteps. I held still. There was a chance that the Crusaders wouldn’t find us. Sure, they were mages, but not every mage has a spell that makes it impossible to hide from them. Okay, so life and death mages can find you through walls, and mind and charm mages can pick up your thoughts and your feelings, and air mages can feel you breathe, and fire mages can follow the trail of your body heat, and earth mages can sense the vibration of your footsteps, but it was possible that the Crusader group didn’t have any of those, right?
A voice sounded from the direction of the entrance. “We are here under the authority of the Council. Come out where we can see you.”
I didn’t move. Maybe they’re bluffing.
“We can see you hiding behind that partition. You’ve got ten seconds before we blow it down on top of you.”
I sighed. Not bluffing. I walked out into the open.
The group of mages standing at the entrance was like a Who’s Who of Light mages that I did not want to meet. Zilean was there, his eyes narrowing as he saw me, and flanking him was Lightbringer, his face stolid and expressionless as he held a shield of glowing energy in one hand and a blade of light in the other. There were two other mages I didn’t recognise, one surrounded by a shield of flame, the other with eddies of air magic swirling around him. Six men with guns were spread out around the mages; two were watching the back, while the other four were covering me. Unlike the men who’d been defending the facility, they didn’t wear the garb of Council security. They looked more like mercenaries, or worse. And at the front, wearing battle armour with his shaven head bare, was Jarnaff, my old friend from the War Rooms. “Verus,” he said with a tight smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”