Midnight City (44 page)

Lenore moved forward with a slow, predatory walk, her eyes holding Mira’s. Mira, for her part, glared right back, refusing to look away. When Lenore reached her, she smiled thinly, gently ran her hand down Mira’s cheek.

“My Mira,” Lenore said softly. Mira tried to squirm away, but the kids all around her held her in place. “I don’t think I can ever hurt you like you’ve hurt me.” The gentle, almost tender caress of Lenore’s hand shifted as she slapped Mira hard across the face. “But I’m going to try all the same.”

Fury roared to life inside Holt. “Touch her again, bitch, and I’ll
kill
you!” he shouted at Lenore maliciously, pulling and struggling against his captors. His anger was so intense, he didn’t even notice the first in a series of punches that finally got him in line.

Lenore never looked at him. “I’ll touch her, Outsider,” the woman replied drawing a knife from her belt in a smooth, patient gesture. The blade gleamed, as it moved toward Mira’s face. “Touch her, and much more. Make him keep his eyes on this. I want him to watch.”

Mira screamed a muffled cry, pulled against the hands holding her. Holt struggled violently, but it was no use. The hands on him were too strong. The knife approached …

… and then the entire cavern shook.

Debris and rock fell from the ceiling and the buildings, crashing to the ground and spraying splinters of sediment. From outside came a strange rumbling.

Everyone in the hall, even Lenore, looked up in alarm.

The room shook again, more intense this time, and sounds filtered in from the surface. Deep, percussive booms that could be only one thing: explosions.

Alarm horns began sounding throughout the city, echoing loudly against the thick cavern walls.

The crowd went stock-still, their eyes wide. Whatever those horns meant, very few had ever heard them, and judging by the looks on their faces, they had never expected to.

But Holt didn’t need to know what the horns meant. He’d heard enough plasma explosions in his life to recognize an Assembly attack when one was happening.

The kids all around him panicked as the horns continued to sound. Holt felt the hands holding him disappear. As everyone fled one way or another.

In the chaos that consumed the huge room, Holt saw Lenore knocked backwards and away, disappearing into a crowd of stampeding people.

Holt hit the floor as Mira and Zoey dropped, too.

He moved for them, but now the crowd was a completely different obstacle. It wasn’t fixed in place anymore. Instead, it was spilling in a panic in every conceivable direction, and Holt yelled out as feet stepped on his arms and legs and chest.

He had to claw his way to his feet and push with all his strength against being swept away in the frothing, manic crowd.

“Holt!” he heard Zoey shout from somewhere up ahead, but everything had blended into a sea of desperate, running kids.

“Zoey!” he yelled back, trying to find her, trying to push toward her.

“Holt, here!” he heard her shout to his right, and he moved, punching and kicking his way through until he saw the little girl huddled on the floor, covering her head with her arms. He yanked her up onto his shoulders.

“It’s all my fault,” Zoey said into his ear. “When I was with the Oracle, they sensed me. I felt them. I think they felt me, too.”

Holt gripped her leg encouragingly. “Don’t worry about it, kiddo,” he said, pushing through the crowd. “Probably the only time I’ve ever been happy to see the Assembly.”

Holt heard barking to his left and saw Max dodging and weaving his way toward them through the crowd. The dog seemed no worse for the wear, and Holt nodded in relief. There was only one person left to find, and he looked out over the tops of all the bobbing heads around him, a hurricane of panicking people stretching in every direction.

But there was no sign of Mira. She was gone, buried in the crowd somewhere.

“She’s that way,” Zoey said, pointing ahead and to the left. Holt instantly started moving and yelled for Max. The dog followed after them as they all pushed through the desperate, pulsing crowd of people.

*   *   *

DOZENS OF BLUE AND
white walkers, Spiders and Mantises, swarmed toward the dam, marching through the floodplain at its base, plasma cannons flashing and hammering the giant structure as they moved. Fire burst out from its side, spraying plumes of concrete everywhere. Flights of Raptors roared by above, circling the action, providing cover for Osprey dropships to touch down and unload even more walkers onto the field.

It was a terrifying show of force. Clearly, the Assembly planned to overpower Midnight City quickly.

But the city wasn’t without its defenses. Kids wearing the colors of many different factions, differences forgotten now, ran to and from the cannon emplacements on the walls—old artillery and other human weapons, new guns that fired large, compacted balls of scrap metal, and one or two repurposed Assembly cannon. The weapons exploded to life, returning fire, flinging shrapnel and plasma bolts down toward the invading army.

Explosions flared up and rocked the ground of the floodplain, and the river valley was quickly a battle zone.

But the Assembly pushed through it easily. For every one walker Midnight City managed to drop, four more were unloaded from Ospreys behind it. The walkers’ cannons and missile batteries opened up, flinging death upward through the sky.

More explosions rocked the dam, kids went flying everywhere, cannons burst apart and crumpled.

The Raptor gunships opened fire as well, hammering the defenses from above. Metallic claws from Vultures shot down from the sky, grabbed and yanked the defenders from their positions, screaming as they were ripped up and away.

The Mantises swarmed ahead of the Spiders, headed for the main entrances to the city. They were small enough to fit in and through the tunnels that connected to the main hall. If they got inside … it would all be over. And quick.

Orders and commands were yelled into the air, and some of the defenders began abandoning their posts, running for the entrances, readying to man the tunnel defenses to slow down the Assembly attack.

*   *   *

MIRA AND LENORE CLAWED
at each other as they rolled on the floor. The crowd was all around them, a chaotic tempest of stomping feet and legs. Mira’s pack tore loose and fell away from her just as Lenore pinned her down. She tried to squirm free, to find a defense, but Lenore had locked her in place.

The woman’s hands slipped around Mira’s throat and began to squeeze. “All of this,” Lenore sneered, squeezing tight, “
all
of it is
your
fault.”

Mira looked around for anything that might save her, anything that could—

Next to her, just within arm’s reach, was her pack, torn and ripped open.

For a moment, she forgot about Lenore’s hands choking her life away, forgot the pain. All she knew was that there was a way out of this, and it lay within reach. She knew it was something she had sworn never to use. But she had things to live for. Things to make right and people to see again, people she cared about. She would do what she had to do, even if it sickened her. Even if it damned her.

Her hand stretched out for the pack, she frantically dug around inside it with her fingers.

Lenore didn’t notice; she was too focused on Mira’s face. “Do you know what hurts the most, Mira?”

Mira was seeing stars, her vision was blackening, her lungs burned. Her hands found what she was looking for inside the pack, struggled to hold on to it, lost it … then found it again.

“What you’ve done wipes away our past,” she said, her fingers digging in. “All the memories of us, all our times together, how much you meant to me—it’s all ruined now. You killed it. Like you’ve killed this place.”

Mira’s hand pulled free of her pack, holding something tightly.

“Like I’m going to kill
you,
” Lenore spat, gripping harder.

And with the last of her strength, Mira shoved her artifact—the one that both repulsed and frightened her—in front of Lenore and snapped open the casing of the brass stopwatch.

Black light flared out from the watch’s interior in a cone of pulsing, bright shadows that seemed to squirm and contort like it was made of millions of dark, putrid worms.

Lenore shrieked as the light hit her, and her grip loosened automatically. She tried to pull back, but the beam of darkness held her in place, leaving her to scream and shake.

And Mira screamed with her. While the full force of the artifact had hit Lenore, the bleed effect from it sprayed outward and struck her as well.

Her mind filled with the static and whispers and hisses of the Tone, but in a way she had only felt one other time. It was almost tangible, like some kind of slimy, oily, pestilent energy working through her mind. And it hurt. A lot. More than she remembered.

Above her, Lenore continued to shriek. With horror, Mira watched as Lenore’s previously clear green eyes—eyes that had looked so much like her own—filled in with spidering, black, veinlike fingers. She watched until the black solidified, until the woman’s eyes were completely black, watched until what was left of her grip on Mira’s throat released, and the person who used to be Lenore rolled off her.

Mira forced every bit of concentration she could muster on closing the watch. And slowly, painfully, she somehow did it.

When it shut, the vile, black, squirming energy vanished away, and Mira slumped on her side, barely conscious.

The Tone continued to sound in her mind, raging and whispering and filling her, and she knew, even though she had been only partially hit by the beam, in her advanced state, it was enough to finish the job.

She wasn’t scared. She felt calm, in fact, could hear the whispers more clearly now, could tell what they meant, could make out their insistent rambling for the first time.

Come,
they seemed to say.
Walk. Follow. Belong. Surrender.
The words repeated. Over and over, gaining power and momentum. And slowly, she could feel herself starting to give in to them.…

She noticed a familiar presence above her suddenly, a presence she loved, and it almost pushed through the crushing darkness. Almost.

The presence held her; she felt his arms circle her. Her mind was slowly shutting down, but she knew he must be sad, knew he must be tortured.

But it was too late now. She had gotten what she deserved.

*   *   *

HOLT HELD MIRA IN
his arms, staring into her nearly black eyes, watching her on the verge of fading away, just like Emily.

Lenore lay comatose and Succumbed next to them, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling of the main hall. Mira wasn’t in much better shape, but she was still herself, still conscious. Barely. He saw Mira’s artifact lying on the floor next to her hand. She must have used it to save herself from Lenore, but it had affected her as well.

“Zoey!” Holt shouted. “Grab Mira’s stuff quick!”

The little girl grabbed the awful thing with its tarnished pocket watch face and stuffed it into Mira’s pack as the mad crowd churned and frothed around them. Explosions continued to push into the city, louder, closer. Holt knew it was only a matter of time before the Assembly burst in.

“Mira!” he yelled, shaking her hard, trying to break through the fog in her mind. He was
not
going to lose her, not now—“Mira! Wake up. You can do it, focus on my voice!”

“Holt…,” she whispered, staring up at him. Her eyes were so black, he couldn’t tell if she was even looking at him. “I used it … I used it.…”

“I know,” Holt said, looking around, trying to find an avenue of escape. “I know. It’s okay.”

“It’s not…,” she replied weakly. “Said … I never would…” The strain in her voice, the obvious effort it took her even to speak now, ripped Holt’s heart in half. He
had
to get them out of here.

“Leave me…,” she managed to say, and Holt felt his blood run cold. “Out of time … what I deserve … leave me … get Zoey to—”

Holt shook her as he spoke, this time with ferocity. “Don’t you
ever
tell me that!” he yelled. “I will
never
leave you! Do you understand, Mira? And you aren’t going to leave me! You will
not
!”

Mira slumped in his arms, but he kept shaking her regardless. Shook her until she finally responded. “Okay … Holt…,” she said weakly. “Won’t … leave…”

“Damn right you won’t,” he said, pulling her up. He hefted her over his shoulder, fighting off the panicking, seething crowd as he stood.

He saw the Scorewall room ahead of them, but there were hundreds of panicked people in between. It was going to take a lot of energy to—

Screams filled the interior of the main hall. Holt looked behind them and saw the gates of the city burst open, and dozens of Mantis walkers erupt inside, plasma cannons firing and decimating everything. People were being cut down, falling or blown backwards.

The Assembly had penetrated the interior of the city. It was all but over now. And they would be looking for Zoey, Holt knew.

46.
CHANCE GENERATOR

PLASMA BOLTS SEARED THROUGH THE AIR
as more and more Mantises pushed inside the city. Holt watched as panels opened up on the sides of the walkers and small, deadly, buzzing objects sparked and hovered to life, rising up into the air, dozens and dozens of them.

They were about the size of soccer balls, with small turbine engines underneath that held them aloft. Survivors called them Seekers, small machines that could squeeze into tight spaces where the larger walkers couldn’t go. Their plasma cannons were small, but no less lethal, and they had the nasty ability to blow themselves apart at will.

Holt had seen one of them take out a dozen kids that way, inside the drainage pit of some city ruin. It wasn’t something he liked to think about much.

Max barked as the Seekers rose up and buzzed forward, raining down heated death from above. The Mantises pushed into the crowd, stomping through the people, sending them flying.