“I’m not going to hurt her.” Luis kept his voice low, and as gentle as possible. “I’m not going to hurt any of you. You can all come with us.”
“Why, so you can cut into our heads? Make us zombies?” The boy’s grip on Ibby’s shoulder must have hurt; I saw her wince. “That’s what you do, we know all about it. You take us away to your hospital and you cut us up and you lock us up. We’re not going to let you do that to us. Or to anyone else, ever again. We’re going to stop you.”
They thought they were the heroes.
Worse, there was a grain of truth in what the boy was saying, like all successful lies. The Wardens did operate on those whose powers were too dangerous, too uncontrollable. Some didn’t survive. Some survived grievously damaged. Pearl knew that.
She had twisted it in their minds, made it their inevitable fate. Made us all evil, predatory villains.
They’d fight, all right. Fight to the death, because they were the brightest, the strongest, the most courageous.
She was turning our future heroes against us.
“Ibby,” I coughed, and rolled up to my hands and knees. “Ibby, please don’t. Let us help you.”
“No,” the boy said, when Isabel tried to pull free. He shoved her behind him, and slapped his palms together again, driving a wall of force toward us. I collapsed to the floor this time before it hit me, presenting as little target as possible; even so, the impact almost drove me into unconsciousness.
It blew Luis backwards, sliding him ten feet down the hall with a yelp of pain.
“No!” Isabel shouted, and turned on the boy, shoving him back. “No, don’t hurt him!”
“That’s your enemy, dummy!” he yelled back, and shoved in turn. “How weak are you? Didn’t you learn anything? It’s probably not even him!”
“It is,” Isabel said, and turned toward Luis. “It is him.”
As she started toward us, the boy tried to grab her, but this time, Ibby was ready, and she slipped out of his hands and ran past me, toward her uncle. Luis rose, staggering a little, and she leaped into his arms.
He was driven back a step, but held on to her; there was a flash of pain on his face, quickly buried by waves of relief. He kissed her shining dark hair, hugged her, and murmured rapid calming phrases in Spanish, only half of which I could hear. Promising he loved her. Promising he would protect her.
I hoped that was true.
“The lady lied,” I managed to say to Isabel, and to the other children still facing us. “She lied to you. Do you understand? She’s trying to make you hurt innocent people. I know you don’t want to do that. You’re better than that.”
One looked horror-stricken, and backed up. He was clearly questioning everything he’d been shown, everything he’d been told; there was real doubt in his face, real pain. He was just a bit younger than the Weather Warden boy.
I saw no such doubts on that one’s face. He was a fanatic. A true believer, as was the girl next to him.
“You’re the ones who lie!” the girl shouted, and I felt a fearfully strong Earth power ripping at me, trying to clutch its fingers around my heart and crush. I batted the attack away and lurched to my feet, wiping blood from my mouth. Earth powers, I could defend against. The boy who was backing away was Fire.
The Weather Warden boy was still the real danger. He was willing to kill. Eager to. He was just trying to find the right moment, and to avoid hurting Ibby in the process—though I wasn’t at all sure he would flinch from it, if he thought it necessary.
“Get her out,” I said to Luis. “Go. Go now.”
He hesitated. Isabel turned her luminous, too-adult eyes to me, and I saw the shadow in them, the adult understanding. The power.
Pearl had made the child old far beyond her years. Forced her to see and do things that would have damaged someone far more experienced in this world.
I wasn’t sure, suddenly, that we hadn’t been manipulated, once more, but really, what choice was there? Leave Ibby here, to suffer more? No. Not possible. We had to try, or there was no point to any of it.
“Take her,” I said. “You have to save her or none of this will mean anything. Just go, Luis. Go.”
He nodded and began to back away, up the tunnel. Agent Ben Turner stepped in to fill his place, standing with feet spread wide apart, blocking any possible pursuit that might have gone after Luis and Ibby. He looked tired and bruised, but also focused and very capable. Between the two of us, we could cover two avenues of attack.
But neither of us could defend against a Weather attack.
Lightning arced from all sides of the tunnel, like a net of energy, striking at both of us. It mostly missed me as I dove forward, but it struck Turner squarely, and he froze, galvanized by the force, but absorbing it into fire energy. Transforming it. Lightning and fire were close cousins, and although it hurt him, it didn’t kill him. He staggered, fell against the curving wall of the tunnel, and stripped off his FBI Windbreaker, which had burns and melted fabric dripping in syrupy streams down the sleeves.
I hit the smooth wall of the tunnel, planted my feet, and adjusted my trajectory, adding Earth Warden speed to my movements, burning energy at a rapid rate now. Lightning continued to fill the tunnel, but I sped up my reflexes and reaction time, and although it brushed close, it never stabbed home.
The children retreated. The boy changed his attack again, pushing me back with a wave of hot wind, and the Earth child darted forward to slam a fist into my chest.
It hit with the overwhelming force of a freight train. It took years for an Earth Warden to build up that kind of force, yet this child pulled it in an instant, and I felt it blow through me, damaging everything in its path—ribs, lungs, barely missing my heart. I choked, gasped, and felt a burst of pain bloom like a flower made of knives in my chest.
“Cassiel!” Turner yelled, and sent a burst of fire rolling past me, forcing the Earth Warden child back just as she tried to summon up a second, killing blow. “Jesus, get back!”
I couldn’t. I was already wounded, and if I didn’t finish this quickly, they would.
I ignored the agony. I rolled forward over my right shoulder, came up in a crouch, hands outstretched, slammed both palms against the foreheads of the two children, and sent a jolt of power into them that overloaded their brains, instantly sending them unconscious.
In theory.
One went down.
The one I’d held my metallic left hand to, the Weather Warden, staggered, but as I’d feared, the metal had failed to conduct aetheric power in the same way that flesh did.
It was a fatal moment to learn that for a fact.
The boy had no more hesitation or mercy than the girl at his side, who was already falling to the ground in sleep. He struck me point blank with an invisible blade of hardened air, punching it deep inside me. It was an old form of attack, one that the Wardens had long since abandoned; Weather Wardens didn’t engage in close-quarters fighting, and when they did, they tried to avoid fatal wounds.
This was . . . very close to fatal. Very, very close.
I fell forward, reaching out with my right hand as I did, and slapped it against his forehead. He was a sweet-faced child, Asian in ancestry, with silky black hair cut in a careless shag around his face.
I had just enough focus left to send the pulse of power into him, and he collapsed before I fell on top of him.
I was bleeding. Unable to breathe.
“Cassiel!” A distant voice, shouting. I felt something tugging at me, but it was very remote.
It felt peaceful suddenly.
Someone rolled me over, grabbed the two unconscious children, and hustled them away. I lay there watching the red pool of my blood spread outward across the clean pale floor.
I felt the hunger of the place stir. It liked blood. It loved mine.