I didn’t think it was merely for the satisfaction of watching me die, although that might easily be a consideration. No, there was something else.
Something I was missing.
Luis was watching me. “You all right?”
“Fine,” I said. “And the Wardens?”
“Got them to coordinate something out of New York, but we’re screwed having any Wardens on the ground for this—it’ll be remote attacks at the other locations, but they’ll make it as good as they can. I’ve got them on standby. All you have to do is give me the go.”
“We go now,” I said. “I will give the signal for the attack when we are in position there. Get ready.”
Agent Turner raised his eyebrows, but didn’t respond otherwise; he walked into the tent. A moment later, his superior burst out, looking thunderous. “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded. “I’m not letting you take people in there now. You don’t even have cover of darkness!”
“It wouldn’t matter if I did,” I said. “Either we’ll be able to hide, or we won’t. Light or darkness is irrelevant to her. But if you want to be useful, make a distraction that will draw the attention of her soldiers.”
“What kind of distraction?”
“Mass our people at the chasm. Make it look like you’re going to come across,” Turner supplied, unexpectedly. “Start using the bullhorn. Tell them you want to talk.”
I nodded. I had been frankly thinking of something more violent, but that would work and expose the men and women here to less risk overall. “One hour,” I said. “It will take that long for us to get across the chasm, deal with her countermeasures, and reach the dome.”
“Without being detected,” Sanders said. “Right. Sure.”
It was not a perfect plan. And I knew, knew that I was missing something vital. But my conviction was that I had no time to waste, or this would be intensely worse, very soon.
Chapter 10
KITTING OUT LUIS, TURNER, and me in FBI- issue bulletproof vests—worn beneath my leather jacket, for my part, and with the FBI identification blacked out with tape for Luis—was the work of moments. Turner was freely given one of the compact assault weapons. Luis and I were flatly denied, although Sanders did, in private, slip us sidearms.
I looked at the other two Wardens in silence for a moment, standing on the edge of the chasm, as a light breeze blew across the open space and rustled the trees above us. “This will be dangerous,” I said bluntly. “Very dangerous. If you wish to stop here . . .”
Luis made a rude noise. “Shut up and dance, Cass. Ibby’s over there, right? I want her back. Now.”
I nodded and turned my focus to Turner, who was staring into the distance as if reviewing all the choices that had led him to this somewhat distressing moment. Turner finally shrugged. “I’m in,” he said. “You were right. I may hate what the Wardens stand for these days, but these are kids. Innocent kids. And they need our help.”
That settled, we began to climb down.
Luis and I had agreed to preserve power whenever possible, so the climb was managed the normal human way—hands and feet, carefully placed. Straining muscles. An ever-present, patient threat from gravity, and a fluttering fear that never quite could be brushed aside. Pebbles and dirt rattled constantly, and although I went slowly and carefully, this use of human skills was new to me. I was confident enough on trails, however steep, but this . . . this verticality was different. It looked easier, in theory. In practice, I was out of breath and trembling well before the bottom was close enough to promise a survivable fall.
A small but robust creek ran through the muck at the bottom, and we paused to wash the sweat from our faces and necks. “Don’t drink that,” Luis told me, and tossed me a bottle of water he’d put in a net holster on his belt. I gulped down several mouthfuls and passed it on to Turner. Luis drank last and returned the now half-empty bottle to its carrier. “She could have poisoned the creek,” he told me. “I don’t see any fish or insects down here.”
He was right. The bottom of the chasm seemed eerily devoid of the usual creatures. Just the water, hissing on its way.
“Later,” he said. He knew I was thinking of repairing the damage she’d done, if he was right about the environmental poison. “We’re saving our strength, remember?” I did, but I didn’t like it much. “How are we on time?”
Ben Turner checked his watch. “Twenty minutes,” he said. “That gives us another twenty for the ascent, and twenty to deal with whatever’s at the top and get in position. And you’re sure that’s reasonable, right?”
I wasn’t, but there were no reasonable expectations to be had in any of this. I just faced the upthrusting wall and began to pull myself up, one painful foot at a time.
We were halfway up when I felt a surge of power coming through the aetheric. “Luis!” I called sharply, and he looked up. “Hide us!”
He took a deep breath, and lowered his head. We all froze in place on the rock face, and when I glanced down again, I saw nothing. No men below me, only vaguely man-shaped juts of rock.
Pebbles fell from above as someone leaned over the edge. There was a soft, inaudible report made in a child’s high voice, and then another, adult voice clearly said, “Raise it anyway. It’s good practice for you.”
I rested my forehead against the stone and tried not to interfere with Luis’s concentration. It was, at the moment, all that stood between us and death. We were too high to fall without serious injury, and too far from the top to launch any kind of effective attack. With one of the child-Wardens above us, we couldn’t strike in any case.
Below, I heard something odd. The hissing of the water took on volume, depth, built to a roar. I felt harsh gusts of wind whip up, battering me against the rock, and the cold spray as the stream built in volume, being forced from its underground source at an ever-greater volume. In the distance I heard a sudden boom of thunder, and felt the snap of lightning. Clouds were moving overhead now, driven by the unbelievable fury of Warden magic, clumping and thickening into a storm.
Raise it anyway.
The Warden had been instructed to use wind and water to scrub the entire chasm clean of any potential threats. I assessed our options. There weren’t many.
Luis’s voice suddenly whispered in my ear, in that eerie nonvocal communication. I’m going to lock us all down, he said. It’s the wind that’s a danger. The water won’t come high enough to drown us.
Agreed, I sent back.
Beneath my hands, the rock suddenly softened, flowing around my hands, and I felt the same happening where my boots were jammed into precarious footholds. The rock solidified, trapping hands and feet into secure pockets. I couldn’t fall now.
I also couldn’t move on my own will, without undoing the power Luis had put in place.
The winds rose, whipping through the narrow chasm. At first it felt like shoves, then battering blows. Debris slammed through—lighter things first, then larger pieces of wood, flat rocks, discarded metal. I kept my face down, pressed to the stone, partially protected by my arms. It was all I could do.
Lightning flared in lurid, graceful fans overhead, and just when I felt that the wind would rip my arms out of my sockets with its relentless push, it began to slacken. Rain pounded down, instead, hard and silver, ice cold. I gasped and waited for it to stop.
I rose into the aetheric, anchored by Luis only a few feet away, and watched the glow of the two Wardens standing at the edge of the chasm, above. One—the child—glowed in colors that shouldn’t have been possible, and the damage was awful and obvious in the persona he projected out into the world; a twisted gnome of a boy, scarred and melted. He’d been taught this. Forced into it.