Indestructible (Indestructible Trilogy Book 1) (14 page)

But she’s right. I get the knack quickly. A chalk-drawn diagram of a fiend on the wall is my target, and every knife hits it in a fatal spot. Buzzing with energy, I turn to Val to find that she’s wandered away to check on someone else.

I didn’t ask her how these knives are so much stronger than normal ones, but now I start to notice a strange quality in the metal. Some of the older knives are slightly scratched and beneath the metallic exterior, they’re rust-red in colour.

I waylay Val as she walks past to ask her about it.

“Well,” she says. “You know we’re stronger and faster than regular people, and our enemies are also unnaturally strong. No weapons can harm them, not even bullets. But it’s natural that we want to use something other than our own fists to defend ourselves, and the Pyros have a long tradition of weapon-making, using our own ashes as the basis.”

“W
hat?”
My eyes travel from the dagger in my hand, to Val. “As in… dead people?”

“The bodies of our fallen warriors. Pyros are strong, and the same goes for our blood and our bones. If we fall, we can still help one another this way. It probably seems odd to you.”

Yeah. Definitely odd. And a reminder that I don’t feel completely in place here. The younger Pyros seem so ordinary, almost a relic of the world we lost, but at times like this I get a glimpse of a much older world, steeped in strange traditions and unfamiliar ideas.

I sense someone watching from behind, and turn to see Nolan crossing the room towards me.

“Hey, Leah,” he says.

“Hi,” I say.

“Are you done here? Murray wants to see you.”

“Sure,” I say, as Val nods, and winks at me, for some reason.

I walk alongside Nolan, wondering what that was about.

“How’re you getting on?” he asks me.

“Pretty good,” I say.

“Looks like you were having fun with those daggers.” He grins at me.

“I guess,” I say. “At least until I learned what they were made of.”

“Ah.” He grimaces. “I know, it’s not pleasant. But it’s just something we do. Well, Murray does.”

“Is that what he wants to see me about?” I grin.

“No, of course not—” He realises I’m joking. “No, he actually needs your help with a mission.”

My heart leaps. “Really?”

“Really.” He smiles. “Usually we get one practise mission. You’ll be with three or four more experienced fighters, to get a taste of what it’s like outside. I’m not sure what he’s playing at; he knows you’ve had more than enough experience of the world out there.”

Val,
I think. Did she persuade him, like she said she would?

I still can’t quite believe I’ve been here almost a month. In the caves, time’s organised into hours, days and weeks, like part of the world we left behind. But before I came here, I wouldn’t have known two years had passed if Randy hadn’t kept track. Time blurred without routine, and I couldn’t remember individual days.

I can’t decide how I feel about going outside again. I imagine the open, star-dotted sky—but also the danger. The cries of fiends, never far away.

Murray’s waiting outside his office with Cas and Elle. The former looks bored, the latter worried, bouncing on her heels.

“There you are,” says Murray. “Sorry for the short-notice. I take it Nolan told you what this is about?”

“Yeah. What’s the mission, exactly?”

Cas makes a disparaging noise.
What? It’s not a stupid question.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing. I just don’t see why we have to bring someone who has no experience in combat.”

“No experience?” I half-laugh. “Two years surviving in the wilderness isn’t enough?”

“You don’t know anything,” he says.

Well, that’s friendly.
“Enlighten me. I’ve been here a month, I reckon I’ve picked up a thing or two.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “We’re going to the divide. I don’t reckon you’ve seen anything like
that
before.”

“The divide? That’s nowhere near here, is it?”

“The world has changed,” says Murray. “Look here.” He unfolds a hand-drawn map. It shows a collection of islands, bisected by a thick line from north-east to south-west, where it cuts off the top part of the map just below a circle drawn in black marker.

Goose bumps spring up on my arms. I know what it is. The United Kingdom. The line is the divide, and the circle is where we are.

If I close my eyes, I can still see the form of the UK as it used to be, imprinted in my memory by all the maps I saw when I was younger, on classroom walls and worksheets and even our own living room. This hand-drawn map is proof of the irrecoverable nature of change.
Stupid. Did you really think it could ever be the same?

I blink, averting my eyes from Cas to hide the flicker of a tear.

“So we’re going to the divide… why?”

“We need information,” says Murray. “There is an old research station to the south of the divide, and with everything happening, I haven’t had the chance to send in a team. It was once one of our research bases. It’s only a few hours’ travel, and I assumed it had been destroyed, but we’ve recently learned that part of it survived.”

Cas says, “If it’s so simple, I could go alone. Why do there have to be three of us?”

“You know why.” Murray gives him a stern look. “You’ll be safer with three of you, and you’ve worked together before. You’ll leave first thing tomorrow. Is that understood?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

We set out early the following morning, and the sunlight is jarring after so many days living under artificial lights. I’m glad for my hat, which keeps the worst of the heat off my face. Cas is as stoic and uncommunicative as ever, but Nolan and I talk during the less steep parts of the climb down the mountain. He wants to know how I’m finding life these days. We discuss fighting strategies for a bit, but something’s bothering me until the question slips out.

“Don’t the fiends live in the divide?” I ask him. “What if they attack us?”

The image from the news the day London fell comes to mind. The monsters pulling themselves out of the earth in spurts of fire, tearing roads apart and sending cars and people flying, crashing through buildings with their stone-like fists.

“Not this close to the sea,” says Nolan.

Still, something about this situation is unnerving. To me, the outside world means the fiends. Mostly I want to know where we’re going, and what we hope to find there. But that question goes out of my head when we reach the foot of the hill and the stepping stones are waiting, mossy and slippery. Cas strides ahead, casually, and I follow, trying to ignore my fast-beating heart.

Nolan steps up behind me and says, quietly, “I won’t let you fall in, okay?”

I nod my gratitude and take my first step.

It’s over quicker this time, and despite only one heart-stopping moment where I almost slip, I’m relieved to make it to the other side. At least I’m wearing my sturdy hiking boots. It’s the first time I’ve gone outside in my new uniform, too. I catch a blurred glimpse of my reflection in the water—the long dark-red coat, the short dark hair just starting to grow back—and nothing looks like me. Maybe I still haven’t let go of the image of myself at fifteen, before everything went to hell.

But I’m someone else now. I just wish I knew who.

Once on flat ground, Cas leads the way through fields, in the opposite direction to the way we came. Our path follows the coastline, where cliffs hang over dark waters. I understand how people in a pre-technological age must have felt, starting out at the vast unknown world of the ocean. It seems like anything could be waiting out there, and there’s no way of knowing. Images of dark shapes swimming beneath the surface taunt me, and I keep my eyes firmly on the path ahead.

Then, sooner than I expect, we see the divide.

At first, I think it’s a row of rolling hills, stretching across the horizon. But the line doesn’t stop where the cliff meets the sea. The water moves strangely around that area, and though it’s been years since I went near the coast, I don’t remember the water only flowing in one direction.

As the hill draws closer, I start to see that there’s something not right about it. The yellow grass of the field is cut away, coming to an abrupt halt where the ground is scorched red, like the beginning of a Burned Spot. But the divide lies across the surface like a jagged, ropy scar, as far as the eye can see. It’s barely two metres across, but how deep, I have no idea.

“There it is,” Nolan murmurs, pointing. My eyes move from the divide to a small, ramshackle building near the gap. Its blank windows glare back.

“What are we looking for in there?”

“Information, like Murray said. Some of our group once used it as a research base, it’s only just been confirmed safe enough for us to go back.”

Still, being so close to the place the fiends came from makes me uneasy, and the feeling grows as we approach. Cas is so far ahead he’s already inside the building by the time we reach it.

The door hangs from its hinges, the entryway in shadow. Ominous creaking sounds suggest the building’s on the verge of collapse, but that’s the least of my worries right now. The creeping feeling of being watched hangs over me like the loose ceiling tiles, and my hand rests on the hilt of the knife in my belt. I picked the weapon I got on best with in practise, but any would do to take on the fiends.

I’d rather avoid a fight, but I can’t help thinking there’s something else I should be doing when I spend hours in training exercises. All the old building seems to contain are rooms full of what look like hospital beds, and a sterile smell that even the burning stench from the divide hasn’t erased.

Then we enter the laboratory. That’s the word that springs to mind, anyway, and the hairs on my arms stand up. It’s cold in here, as well as dark and dusty. Cas shines a torch around, revealing a collection of empty glass tanks and the once-white walls, now stained rust-red. My insides lurch.
Is that blood?

Nolan grimaces. “Oh no. Not—it wasn’t here?”

“What?” I ask, instinct telling me to get the hell out of here. But morbid curiosity prevails. As I look around, I see stacks of papers on a desk, also stained red. Cas picks one up with no inhibition, his eyes scanning it.

“This one.”

Nolan takes it from him. Though the paper faces away from me, I see the symbol through the transparent sheet.

It’s that symbol again. Like a flame.

“Is no one going to tell me what’s going on?” I step forwards to look at the paper, but he moves it out of my line of sight. “What’s the problem?”

“I told you.” Cas glances over his shoulder. “Murray should have just sent the two of us alone.”

“You know the rules,” says Nolan, with a guilty expression that irks me even more.

“So I just came here as an extra?” I glare at both of them. “Thanks a lot. You know, I’m not completely useless. I’d be happy to help if you give me a clue as to what the hell all this is about.”

“Murray doesn’t like us discussing his research,” says Cas. “Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass. If you really want to know, this station was originally to research the process by which one of the Pyros might become Transcendent.”

Transcendent. That’s what Val said I might be. Something more than a Pyro, but what?

“What exactly
is
a Transcendent?” I ask. “No evading the question. You owe me an answer.”

“I’m sorry,” says Nolan. “I didn’t want to keep you in the dark, but—”

“We’re wasting time,” says Cas, picking up a stack of papers. “This is what we’re looking for. Unless…” He approaches another door at the end of the room. A broken, cobwebbed window shows another room similar to this one, filled with empty glass tanks. It gives me a sinister feeling. A faint dripping sound reaches my ears.

I push the door open to find Cas in the act of stabbing his knife through the locks on a cabinet. In the eerie half-light, the metal of his blade gleams red, like blood shaped into a weapon.

The locks crumple like they’re made of fabric. That’s one impressive weapon.

“Nothing,” he mutters. “Damn. I thought they might have left something behind, seeing as they obviously left in a hurry.”

“Who even lived here?” I ask.

“Scientists,” says Nolan from behind me.

“What, from our group?”

“Kind of. It’s complicated. Murray’s family weren’t all Pyros, but they helped with research. This base was one of many, but it was abandoned when the fiends came.”

Cas swings his knife. The blade begins to glow, like the flicker of a flame. My eyes follow its path.

“What’s with that?” I ask him directly.

“A knife.”

“Hilarious,” I say. “I meant, why’s it glowing?”

“Because it’s made of our alien blood.”

“Are you going to stop taking the piss out of me and give me a straight answer?”