Council of Peacocks (25 page)

Silence.

Elaine raised a
hand, motioning for them to be silent. Guns drawn, she stepped away
from Jessica and crept forward into the sitting
room.

“
It’s clear,” she
said.

Jessica walked
forward, stumbled and nearly fell. David tightened his grip on
her.

“
Holy. Crap.” David
stopped in his tracks, mouth open. Echo was burning. Blue and pale
green flames streaked up and down her arms, tracing her breasts and
legs without consuming her flesh or clothes. She stood in the
middle of three piles of black ash. Echo looked up from the piles.
David caught Echo’s eye. She flinched. Her pupils shone bright
orange for a moment. Then her eyes cooled to a deep black and the
flames on her arms disappeared.

Everything else in
the room was destroyed. Todd lay on top of a table, legs bent at
the knee and raised so that his feet were flat on the table close
to the base of his spine. Elaine exhaled with relief when Todd
coughed, a harsh wet sound that confirmed he was still alive.
Barely. The table was one of the few pieces of furniture still
intact. The paintings that had given the subterranean apartment a
sense of sophistication were now squares of half-burnt paper, their
surfaces marred by black smears and holes where the canvas had been
burned completely away. Under a long red sofa, upended and
blackened, Elaine glimpsed grey hair. Bethany. Her legs hung out
twisted at an odd angle and she was not moving.

“
Is it safe?”
Jessica asked. The strength was gone from her eyes now. Only the
tears remained.

Echo shook her
head. “No. There’s something else here.” She walked past them and
stood at the mouth of the hallway. “It’s down in my
room.”

Jessica shook her
head. “It doesn’t feel the same way these monsters do. It’s very
powerful. And it’s not alone.”

Echo wiped the
palms of her hands against the sides of her pants. “You’re right.
It feels slimy. This one I know. Elaine, take the others and get
out of here.”

“
That’s not
happening.” Elaine took one step forward then stopped. Once again,
Echo was covered in blue flames.

“
Get them out of
here,” she said.

For a moment no one
moved. Then Elaine let the gun fall against her body and
nodded.

Echo turned and
walked out of their sight.

A dark wind began
to blow.

***

David watched Todd
squirm in pain. He knew they had to move him, knew they
couldn’t.

“
She’s dead, isn’t
she?” Todd said. His face was contorted, eyes squeezed shut, and
lips open to reveal teeth covered in blood. “Bethany’s dead. I
heard her scream for a while, then nothing.”

“
Yes,” David said.
“They broke her back.” He left Jessica and walked over to Todd. He
light squeezed Todd's shoulder in support. “It looks like she
managed to crawl…” David stopped, realizing what he was
saying.

Todd yelped, like a
dog hit by a car. He sobbed, bringing a hand covered in blood to
cover his face.

“
Damn it,” Todd
howled. He let his hand fall away from his face and opened his
eyes. “She was my best friend in the whole world.” He stopped
talking, let his head fall to the side and stared off into the
rubble. “Help me up. I have to see her.”

“
I don’t think….”
David started.

BOOM!

An explosion shook
the walls. A white blur flew down the hallway and crashed into a
wall. It hit with a solid thud and dropped to the floor. Only then
did David realize what the blur was.

“
Echo!” Elaine ran
to where the other woman lay in the dirt.

Before Elaine
reached her, Echo pushed herself to her feet and brushed the dirt
from the lapels of her white jacket. “Damned suit is ruined,” she
said.

“
Echo.” Elaine’s
mouth fell open and she quickly forced it shut, tightening her grip
on the submachine gun. “You’re bleeding.”

“
What?” Echo looked
up and saw blood dripping down over her eyebrows. “Yes, it appears
so. Put the gun away, Elaine. It won’t do any good
here.”

“
Is it one of them?
One of the bastards on the Council?”

“
No, Elaine. Just
an old friend.” Echo’s eyes flashed orange. “I thought I told you
to get them out of here. I’ll meet you in the city
below.”

“
Echo,” Elaine
started. “You can’t.”

“
Don’t presume to
tell me what I can or cannot do, Sweetie. You have a very special
place in Wisdom’s heart, but you are only human to me. Remember
that. Now, get them down to the city. Fast. He’s
coming.”

Pale and shaken,
Elaine nodded. “Grab Todd,” she said to David. Despite the crazed
look in her eyes, her voice was calm. “Help him off the table and
move quickly.”

He nearly toppled
over. David offered him a shoulder for support. Elaine went to help
Jessica. The four of them ran down the spiral
stairs.

“
This is bad,” Todd
said. He grimaced every time his right leg hit the
ground.

David focused on
the worn stone stairs as they descended. Something kept coercing
him to look back. Echo stood there alone, arms outstretched,
enveloped in flames
again. Her hair churned and swirled slowly around her face,
caught in turbulent, heavy wind. Dust devils sucked up sheets of
paper and small clumps of fabric from the rubble, making strange
sounds as they slid through the caves.

Todd tried to look
back but the movement upset his equilibrium. He stumbled and, if
not for David’s support, would have tumbled down the rest of the
steps.

After that, he kept
his eyes forward as they entered the foyer where they had first
entered the underground world. Then they turned and watched Elaine
help Jessica down the steps. The wind gathered strength. It howled
now, an animal sound.

“
Go!” Elaine
shouted. She waved with her free hand, motioning them toward one of
the unblocked corridors. The floor was smooth and the lights down
here were all intact; otherwise, David was sure they would have
tripped.

The hollowed-out
passage was ten feet tall and thirty feet wide. They rushed down
the corridor until they hit a doorway half-blocked by a giant stone
wheel. One by one they crept through the small opening next to the
wheel, not risking the time it would take to move the massive
stone. Behind the slab of stone another rough-cut staircase crafted
a spiral path down to a still-deeper level of the caves. When David
and Todd reached the bottom, they barely stopped to look around
before they each dropped to the ground. The others arrived seconds
later.

Jessica sank down
next to them. “What do we do now?”

“
We wait for Echo,”
Elaine said. She reloaded her handguns. “She can get us out of
here.”

There was another
explosion, this one much louder than the last. The air flashed red
and yellow. Jagged pieces of rock flew through the air. One shard
hit David on his broken nose and he screamed. He fell, closed his
eyes and waited for the sound of falling shrapnel to stop. When he
opened his eyes again, he couldn’t see anything past the top of the
staircase. The small opening was filled with dirt, small rocks and
large fragments of the stone wheel.

“
Cave-in.” Todd’s
voice was cold.

Elaine crossed her
arms and rubbed her biceps. As she brushed the dirt from her face,
David heard her thoughts. ‘This isn’t supposed to be happening.
Wisdom said it would be over by the time Echo brought me to the
caves.’

“
What do you mean
‘this isn’t supposed to be happening?’” David asked. When he saw
the look of outrage and shame play on Elaine’s face, he realized
he’d read her thoughts. “What do you know?”

Elaine grabbed him
by the collar of his shirt. “Stay out of my head!” Her voice was
low and steeled.

“
Whoa.”

Everyone turned to
face Todd. He stood at the edge of a cliff a few feet away, his
back to them. Jessica limped over to him. Within seconds, David
followed her to see what Todd was talking
about.

“
What the hell is
this place?” Jessica asked.

Todd shook his
head.

They stood on a
ten-foot wide ledge that ran around the edge of a colossal cavern.
Far below them, several hundred stone buildings formed a city.
Despite no visible form of illumination, the entire city was
well-lit and visible. It was hard to discern any real description
of the buildings from this far up. They were several stories tall
and strictly functional, void of unnecessary ornamentation. In
between the buildings were roadways defined by light grey bricks.
Above them, the ceiling rose until it disappeared into darkness,
the top invisible to their eyes.

“
I know this
place,” David said. “I had a sort of dream about
it.”

“
This can’t be
real,” Todd said. “Did Echo build this place?”

Elaine shook her
head. “I don’t think so. We have to look for a way down. We’re too
open up here. Fish in a barrel. We have to hide until Echo or
Wisdom can get to us.”

“
What if…?” David
stopped when Elaine turned to stare him down. She lifted her chin,
daring him to finish the thought. David opened his mouth but could
not speak.

“
She’s not dead.”
Jessica said.

“
Can you feel her?”
Todd asked.

Jessica looked back
toward the cave-in at the top of the stairs. After a moment, she
shook her head. “But I don’t always feel her.”

“
She’s hiding.”
David looked at the top of the stairs now. His head buzzed as he
tried to look past the stone. “I see what you’re saying, Jessica.
You don’t think she is dead because you can’t see her in any way.
If she was dead you would see some of her. The ghost of
her.”

Elaine sighed with
relief. “You may come in useful after all, Mr. Ross. Come on. Let’s
find a way down.”

Chapter Nineteen

Josh Wilkinson was
blind. With the lights out and no windows nearby, the hallway was
utterly dark, like an underground cavern. He kept his right hand on
the wall as they walked. His fingertips brushed over the smooth,
cool surface to keep walking in a straight line. Twice already he’d
tripped over dead bodies. The stench of blood and gunfire was
putrid.

Occasional bursts
of gunfire broke the otherwise oppressive silence. Behind him, he
heard two distinct sets of soft breathing: one slow and steady, the
other quick and short. They comforted him, reminding him he wasn’t
alone.

“
Does the security
staff have nightvision?” Although he whispered, the words cut
through the air like shards of glass.

“
No,” Garnet
whispered. “They’re human.”

Josh rolled his
eyes. “I mean do they have nightvision goggles? Haven’t you ever
seen a movie with the army in it?”

“
Oh.” Garnet’s
voice seemed very close to his ear now. “Maybe. Believe it or not,
this sort of thing doesn’t happen very often.”

“
What about you?”
He swallowed; his throat seemed very thick and heavy. “Can you see
in the dark?”

“
Sorry. I’m human,
too. Same with Jared. However, I am starting to
think
you
can see in the
dark. Where are we going?”

“
I memorized the
layout days ago. It’s a little trick my dad taught
me.”

His hand hit
emptiness. He stopped and stretched his arm back until he found the
wall again. It was slightly cooler than air temperature. Slowly, he
dragged his fingertips forward until he found the edge of the wall.
He caressed the sharp angle and folded his hand around the corner.
No trim. That meant it was likely not just a door. With his left
hand, he reached back until he touched warm fabric. He caught a
whiff of sweet perfume.

Garnet’s voice was
barely a whisper. “Watch the hand.”