Forsaken By Shadow (14 page)

Adan followed. “How could he let her do this?”

“
With all due respect, there’s no letting Embry do anything, and you know it. What level are we on?”

“
Looks like between 35 and 36. We’ll have to climb up and force the doors.”

His eyes were adjusting to the dark. Shapes were beginning to emerge from the deeper black. It was a start. “I’m guessing we didn’t catch a break with a ladder up the shaft?”

“
Of course not. You still up to pulling yourself up a cable?”

Moving over to the nearest one, Gage wrapped a hand around the thick steel. “I can still outstrip you. The question is, can you climb with that rib?”

“
I’ll do what needs to be done to get to my daughter.”

The faint echo of explosions reached them from above.

“
Up, up, and away then.” Bracing his feet against the wall of the elevator shaft, Gage began to haul himself up the cable.

For a few minutes they said nothing, and the only sound was of scrabbling feet and the creak of cables. Gage could hear the strain in Adan’s breathing with each passing foot. The pop of gunfire got louder as they neared Level 32. He shoved back the terror that crawled through him. As long as they were shooting, she was still alive.

“
Do you know anything about what we’re about to get into? Have you seen much of the base?” he asked.

“
Not enough. I’ve been kept on the detention level along with about two dozen other Mirus,” replied Adan. “If we’re lucky, some of them have gotten loose.”

“
Two dozen?
So much for the Council hoping that they thought you were an aberration.”

“
The Council are fools,” spat Adan. “They’re living in another century. It was only a matter of time before we were discovered. Stop here. The ledge is to your left.”

“
I see it. Not well, but I see it.”

Gage worked his way over, testing for handgrips and footholds. Adan did the same until they were each perched on the narrow ledge. They each dug fingers into the edge of the elevator doors, prepared to force them open.

“
Do you have any kind of plan?” asked Adan.

“
Try not to die. Get Embry out. Other than that, winging it.”

A hand reached out, gripped his shoulder. “Be careful, son.”

“
Always.”

His muscles strained as he hauled to the left, struggling to make just enough gap for their fingers to get a better grip. A narrow band of flickering light appeared. There, then gone again. They pulled again. The gap came back and Adan swore as the doors pinched down on his fingers. But it was enough space for Gage to slide his in. With one more concerted effort, they opened the doors onto Level 32 and stepped into hell.

The main power was clearly out, but the faint red glow of emergency lights illuminated the scene well enough. The shadows were broken by flashes of flame from further down the hall. The corridor was clogged with people. Most were armed. A steady stream of wounded were being passed through the chaos. No one seemed to notice them slipping from the elevator shaft.

Gage could make out a fire hose snaking in the direction of the gunfire and noise, and he signed to Adan.
Can you Walk to her?

His foster father’s hands moved quickly.
I’ll get us as close as I can.
He laid a hand on Gage’s shoulder, and Gage felt the dark wrap around him. Sound muffled and slowed. Before them, a series of narrow black paths criss-crossed the scene. Adan pulled him onto the nearest bridge. Gage felt his body clench in protest, and fought to relax, to give himself up to the shadow.

But the shadow did not want him.

Adan’s hand slipped loose, and Gage dropped down in the middle of a scorched hallway, narrower than the main corridor.

“
What the fuck?” the soldier nearest him exclaimed. Before he could raise his weapon, Gage knocked him out with a well placed elbow strike. His hands closed around the gun, and he came up swinging with it as others noticed him. He fought like a machine, cold, steady, unstoppable. Moving forward, gaining ground.

He was two and three deep with bodies. Dead or unconscious, he didn’t know. Adan had disappeared. Gage hoped like hell that he’d get to Embry and Walk her out of this God forsaken mess. Her survival was all that mattered.

* * *

Embry launched another fireball at the narrow entrance to the generator room. Someone screamed. They returned fire, and she sank back down behind what remained of one of the big turbines. No human could tolerate the residual heat from the explosion, and even Embry was sweating. Her body shook with fatigue. In this real world test of just how far her powers could go, she felt like she was losing. She’d expended too much on the generators themselves. Instead of being able to simply seal off the entrance to the room with a wall of flame, she was reduced to answering their volleys of bullets with fireballs.

She’d killed men. Burned them. But more kept coming, and the siege went on. And on.

She fired off another round, knocking a soldier who’d dared to cross the threshold back into his comrades.

Surely by now she’d drawn the attention and fire of every unit in the base.

Something moved behind her to the left. She led with flames as she whirled to face the threat.

He caught them, tossing the ball of fire from hand to hand like a football, as he gave a familiar, if bloody, lop-sided grin. “Got a light?”

“
Dad!” Relief surged through her, and with it came a welcome surge of hope. She threw herself at him.

He fired off the round and caught her, grunting a little as she squeezed. “Good to see you, Spitfire.”

Embry pulled back, conjuring enough light to survey his injuries. He was covered in soot, sweat, and blood. Scrapes and scratches ran the length of his limbs. One eye was purpled and swollen mostly shut. The rest of his face was mottled with bruising, new and old. He was shirtless, and Embry noted additional splotches of livid purple over his ribs.

“
You look like shit.”

“
Well, Gage had to make it look convincing.”

“
Gage?
He fought you?” Before he could respond, her brain kicked into gear. “You. You were his opponent for the exhibition match.”

A spray of bullets whizzed above her head. She and her father answered with a volley that drove the front line back a good ten feet into the hall to escape the heat.

“
Where is he?” she asked.

“
Somewhere back there. I tried to Walk us both through, but the shadows couldn’t hold him. I dropped him in the middle of the fighting in the hall and came straight to check on you.”

Embry felt her blood run cold as she imagined him, defenseless by Mirus standards, fighting amid the dozens of soldiers with guns and knives and who knew what. Steeling herself, she resumed a defensive stance. “My position is stable. I’m not going anywhere, but they can’t come in either. He needs your help. He doesn’t have any of his abilities.”

“
We need backup,” said Adan.

“
So tell me something I don’t know. Unless you’ve got a small army hiding out here… Wait. The other prisoners. Would they fight?”

“
Most of them probably would,” he said.

“
Can you get down to the detention level to release them? I don’t know if anybody got out when I took out the power.”

“
I don’t want to leave you.”

“
I can hold my own,” she insisted. “We’re not gonna get out of here without help. See what you can do to snag Gage and get him out of harm’s way, then go release the cavalry. And pray to God they’ve got something here that can walk through iron walls or teleport.”

He embraced her again. “Be careful.”

“
You too.”

In an instant he was gone, swallowed up by the shadows.

Time ticked past, measured by the syncopated rhythm of gunfire and explosions, punctuated by screams. From time to time, she ceased fire to draw the next line of soldiers in, hoping to draw more of them to her, to give Gage a chance.

Please, dear God, let Dad have gotten to him in time.

Her father’s words echoed through her head.
The shadows couldn’t hold him.
What if her father couldn’t carry Gage away from danger? Why the hell couldn’t the shadows hold him? The only creatures that couldn’t be carried in sustained shadow were of the light. Creatures like her elemental mother. Gage was a Shadow Walker. Or at the very least human.

She flashed back to the night before, lying sated in his arms, feeling the beat of his heart and of her flame inside him.

Oh God.

Rising up, she sent out a stream of flame to heat up the guns the front line men held.

In her mind, she saw the dojo, saw the stream of her power shooting inside him.
What have I done?

The guns glowed a vicious red. Palms blistered, the men dropped their weapons just before the rounds inside exploded. The shrapnel drove them back. And for a moment no more soldiers came to take their place.

What the hell?
They can’t be falling back.

Embry crept forward to the remains of the next generator to get a better look. A series of unsteady tremors rocked the facility. Almost like… footsteps? Men screamed. More soldiers took position in the doorway, but not before she saw two others fly into the wall at the junction down the hall. The men in the doorway looked over their shoulders, and Embry took advantage of their distraction to knock them back.

Something roared, a high, vibrating screech somewhere between a T-rex and a banshee.

No way. Not possible.
Surely the human military hadn’t managed to find and imprison one of the Drakyn. The dragon-shifters had gone deep underground during the modern era. There hadn’t been a reported sighting in over a century.

But something big kept coming, and whatever it was, it was drawing fire away from her. The cavalry, such as it was, had apparently arrived. She’d take all the help she could get.

With a spark of hope freshly lit in her chest, Embry stood to let off another volley of fire. And she saw him.

Emerging from around the bend in the hall, Gage fought amid a half dozen armed soldiers. He was bloody, favoring his left side as he systematically disarmed them with fists, feet, elbows. One went down a victim of the butt of his own gun. Two more were distracted by another roar of the Drakyn, but the remaining three converged on him at once.

Embry fired off a quick succession of charges, but not before one of them managed to dislocate Gage’s shoulder. He didn’t make a sound as he went down to his knees. He scissored his legs, dropping his assailant to the ground. Gage swarmed over him, using his one good arm to get the guy in a choke hold. As his face purpled, his hands clawing frantically at Gage’s arm, the others took aim.

“
No!” Panicked terror had her stepping out from cover, fire flying from her hands, rippling over the rest of her body as the rage took her.

No one would take him from her again. Not like this.

The fireball hit the three soldiers. When the smoke cleared moments later, nothing remained but the blackened stumps of their legs. But more were coming. The endless stream of soldiers always kept coming.

Gage was on his feet again, already swinging. But he was slowing down. With no opportunity to reseat his shoulder, how much longer could he last? Without his abilities as a Shadow Walker, what chance did he have to escape? She had to fix this. She had to undo the botched attempt at protection she’d made a decade before so the shadows would take him back.

She lifted her hands, focused on the pulse of energy she could feel inside him. It beat like a second heart, calling to her.

She hesitated. What if it didn’t work?

She generated energy. Expelled it. Unlike other firecasters, unlike her father, she didn’t draw from sources outside herself. She was too much elemental for that. But what was inside him originated with her. It was still a part of her, so shouldn’t she be able to control it?

There were no rules, no guidelines, no training for this. She’d never heard of another case like his. What if she did more harm than good?
What if I kill him for real this time?