Orphan of Mythcorp (34 page)

I grabbed his shoulder. Agravaine and Lamorak
each grabbed one of mine. “Listen, we don’t need Officer Graham
anymore. Why don’t you let him go?” I looked back at the Mesmerized
cop who was staring solemnly at his dead partner lying face down on
the floor near the doors and the stunned Montaigne’s.

Ash followed my eyes, shrugged out of my
grip. “No. We may need a hostage.”

“
What!” I gasped. A single beep from my
thermal coincided with my exclamation. My temp was dropping.
“Hostages now? What are you planning on doing, robbing the
city?”

“
What I am planning on,” he said
through a clenched jaw, “is the same thing I’ve been planning since
we met. I’m going to wake the sorcerer, have him lift your curse,
and then together we are going to convince the good people of
Philicity to vote to repeal the Extra Human Ability Restriction
Act. Then we’ll finally be free to work on reopening
Mythcorp.”

“
Why?” another beep from my thermal. I
needed to calm down.

I glanced behind us to the doors where Lexi
and her father stood watching us.

“
Why?” Ash bore into my eyes with his
own white creep shows. “Because we shouldn’t have to hide what we
are. Because our parents were mutilated and murdered just for being
different. Because America needs our gifts. Forty-three
nuclear-armed countries want to blow us off the map and there is no
one but us Morai who might convince them not to.”

He turned and headed up the stairs. “Officer
Graham, you’re up front with me.” He didn’t even wait to see if the
cop would follow him meekly up the steps, which the cop did.

Lamorak and Agravaine shoved me up after
them.

That was when I decided to flee this little
group of insane yahoos—just as soon as my curse was lifted, of
course.

When we reached the third floor landing a
sudden clamor of gunshots erupted from below. Nimrod had found his
prey. Were people dying? Was I culpable? “This is crazy,” I said.
“We have to stop him. Killing people won’t convince anyone to
listen to you.”

“
Calm down.” Ash resumed the upward
trek.

The sun had set by then and so the only light
was that coming from the green EXIT signs hanging over the
emergency doors on every level. If that didn’t make our trek
sinister enough, the echoes in the large stairwell did, repeating
our footsteps and Agravaines’ incessant whispers like ghosts with
speech deficiencies. And I could’ve done without the constant
prodding by my Morai guards.

At the ninth floor landing I stopped, nearly
tripping up Lamorak and Agravaine. “Let’s go, zombie,” the beefy
one said. “No breaks.”

“
Leave him alone,” Ash ordered. After
whispering something into Officer Grahams’ ear, he stepped down to
us. He lifted my arm from the railing and checked my body temp.
“Fifty-eight degrees. That’s low, right?”

I nodded. “My hands . . . and feet are stiff.
I can’t . . . inject myself.”

Ash removed the case from my backpack. As he
loaded a vial into the hypogun, he said, “You should’ve told me. I
would’ve stopped.” He expertly injected the nanites, picking my
neck as the injection point.

“
I didn’t want to . . . interrupt your
quest for fame.” Nice, I could be sarcastic even while
dying.

Ash sighed and shook his head. I couldn’t
help but notice that the Morai were not sweating. I don’t sweat
because my sweat glands don’t work and my body doesn’t produce
sweat. But these guys didn’t even have that excuse. They were
simply immune to the nuisance.

“
You guys go on ahead,” Ash said to the
boys. “I’ll wait with Charlie. When he recovers we’ll catch up and
meet you on twelve.”

“
You sure?” Agravaine asked.

Ash nodded. Within thirty seconds it was just
me and him leaning against the railing. He laughed—an unfortunate
sound that reminded me of crows cawing. “You know, this might be
the last time you need nanites. A few hours from now, maybe a
smidge bit longer, the sorcerer will be awake and busy lifting your
curse. Have you thought about what it’ll be like?”

“
Only every hour of every day for the
last four years,” I answered. But then I had to ask, “What happens
if the sorcerer, er, Crowley, doesn’t want to lift my curse, or
can’t lift it?”

“
The first won’t matter,” Ash said,
getting up. “I’ll make sure of that. As for the second, from what
Nimrod has told me, there’s very little Crowley can’t do. I mean,
he was the one that made Mythcorp possible.” He helped me to my
feet and we resumed our annoying climb up the stairs. My temp was
back up to 61 degrees, about the same as the ambient air
temperature. “Did you know Crowley even created doorways to other
worlds?” Ash said, happily indulging in his subject.

“
No,” I said. “That’s amazing. But . .
. there’s something else that’s been bothering me.”

“
What’s that?”

“
Why was he frozen in the first place?
I mean, I understand the world became frightened and fed up with
Mythcorp, but why would the government spend the energy and money
to preserve the one man who could make it all possible again
someday? I mean, if you’re right about him being cryogenically
preserved up there, then that means the city and the government has
been sending at least some electricity into this building, to power
his life support equipment. Right? And if he is so powerful, how
did they manage to capture Crowley in the first place? It doesn’t
make sense.”

Ash paused for the briefest of moments, his
hand freezing on the railing. I thought he might slug me or
something, but he just stared. “Like I said,” in a whisper, “there
is more going on here than you know.”

Just as we reached the exit to the twelfth
floor, a series of shouts drew my attention. I leaned far out over
the railing. People were stomping up the stairs in a hurry,
screaming at other people chasing them.

“
Look out,” Ash yanked me back from the
railing a moment before a streak of purple lightning sizzled by,
right where my face had been. “Time to go,” he said, drawing me
through the door onto twelve.

Castor/I ducked and pivoted through the hive
of buzzing rounds. I couldn’t control my limbs, but there wasn’t
any pain either, so it was a trade off. The end of the corridor was
a smidge brighter. Castor/I headed for it, convinced that was where
Kana and Malthus had run off to.

Running. Dodging. Cursing.

A few ticks later we reached the end of the
hallway. Flights of stairs ran up on either side, and straight
ahead lay the wide open atrium. It was empty and silent.

‘
What happened to everyone?’ Marie
wondered, hovering in the center of the atrium.

Castor/I scanned the room. Ahead and to the
right lay the body of a police officer on the marble floor; jagged
pieces of some former Mythcorp nick-nack lay strewn about it.
Castor/I tiptoed forwards, heading for the body. Ten feet away the
image resolved. ‘Crispy,’ Castor mused. ‘The brimstorm?’

“
Run!”

At the sound of Kana’s shrill voice Castor/I
turned and ran, heading away from the approaching tiny woman. Kana
had her dirks out. Glimpses behind us revealed the alluring facts
that her tight black spandex pants had been torn to shreds and
she’d lost her over-shirt at some point, leaving only a snug pink
t-shirt to conceal her . . . assets.

“
Don’t stop,” she yelled as Castor/I
paused to take better stock of her revealed hotness.

We’d turned the corner and made our way to
the bottom of the left hand stairway when a crash shook the entire
floor. Even the glass chandelier hanging high overhead clattered.
Nimrod and Malthus flew into the center of the atrium, barreling
right through the railing of the other set of stairs.

Nimrod struggled to his feet, tearing himself
free of the demons’ grasp. Malthus leaned back and kicked the
Hunter in his well-endowed gut, sending him flying across the
floor. He landed on Kana.

The tiny woman grunted and uttered something
that sounded like: “Sething god-slammed kritter, get the fug off
me!” before thrusting him off and into an easel advertising a
Mythicon sale. Castor/I gawked from behind the cast iron railing as
Kana and Malthus circled the Hunter. They looked ready to pounce
when Nimrod ripped a grenade from an inner pocket all whiz-bang
like and tore the pin out, instantly releasing a noxious vapor.
Kana backed away. Castor/I could only guess what the big galoot
Malthus was up to on the other side of the toxic cloud.

“
Stay back,” Kana warned us, holding
out a little girl-sized hand.

As if we were hasty to jump in and face off
against the Mighty Hunter. We weren’t that stupid. We were however
getting ready to stand and see if maybe Malthus had taken care of
business. But just as Kana gave us the hand again, the bullets
started flying.

Kana deflected one that otherwise would have
given me a nose job. The deflected slug ricocheted and struck the
glass of the front door before bouncing to the floor. It didn’t
even make a hairline crack in the glass.

The bullets were really flying now, in every
frigging direction. It was all Kana could do to keep them from
ripping us all kinds of new holes, her dirks whizzing round in
impossible arcs. Meanwhile Malthus was growling and using a bust of
Alexander to protect his face as he rushed the Hunter. But no one
could get close for the lingering vapor that wrinkled the nose even
from fifteen feet away.

Without warning, Castor thrust us up
and forward,
towards
the
reeking death cloud. On the way someone body-checked us and we
smacked face-first to the floor. “Stay down!” Kana
shouted.

We stayed down, but Castor thrust our arm out
and, just as Kana redirected a bullet, pressed the no-no button on
the back of the crow-head. Purple lightning shot out, pierced the
vaporous cloud and grappled with the baddie inside.

The barrage ended in the same instant that
the cane emitted its final energy arc.

As the cloud slowly dissipated, Castor/I rose
to our feet. Kana approached the evaporating fog, dirks raised. She
reminded me of Andraste, the Romano-Celtic warrior goddess we’d
been learning about in History class. Malthus, on the other hand,
looming in the cloud, reminded me of some awful Goya painting. I
pitied Nimrod.

My pity was premature.

A dart whizzed out of the cloud and sank into
the meat of Kana’s neck. She paused, head tilted, before toppling
backwards. Castor/I caught her in the nick of time. In response to
this assault, Malthus leaped into the air, landing with a sickening
crunch.

He landed on an empty floor.

Leaning over, searching for his foe, Malthus
abruptly crumpled as Nimrod dropped onto his back. Lying flat, a
hiss escaped the demon’s mouth. Castor/I shrieked (I think it was
mostly Castor who screamed) and tried to drag the unconscious Kana
away.

But we didn’t have the strength.

Nimrod looked over at us from his position
atop Malthus. He grinned. I didn’t cringe at the gruesome sight,
but only because I didn’t have control over my faculties. As
Malthus struggled beneath the fatty-patty, Nimrod reached around,
withdrew a six-inch serrated stiletto. He raised it and plunged it
into Malthus’ left cheek (face, not butt).

Malthus growled and writhed like a bear in a
trap.

“
Give me a second here, boy,” Nimrod
sneered. “I’ll get to you soon enough.”

We tried the no-no button one more time, but
the reserves were empty. All that came out was a pathetic fizzle,
maybe two volts worth of electricity. We left Kana and Malthus, I
am ashamed to say, and ran, up the stairs, slipping every so often
in our haste to flee the Mighty Hunter.

We just kept climbing, until we’d lost
track of what floor we were on.
Finally
, I thought to Castor,
It’s
time
.
Get
out
of
me
.

For three ticks it felt like someone
was ripping my organs out through my pores, and then I was free of
my spook. I crumpled against the railing. Across from me was an
exit. The door had a big fat black number
7
painted on it. “Seven floors,” I
panted.

‘
Look,’ Marie said, panic creeping into
her voice.

“
Oh man, what now?” I whined. “I can
hardly move my fingers.” But I followed Marie’s direction. The
stairwell was remarkably broad, and in the center was a two-foot
wide gap through which you could look up or down. It was up through
this gap that I stood peering.

On the nearby stairwell, maybe two flights
up, a smattering of ragged spooks was loitering.

“
Sanson,” I whispered. “They are
already here, then. Keep a watch on them, Marie.”

The spook looked petrified at the thought,
but ascended anyway.

‘
Quit your yammering,’ Castor ordered.
‘We’re not out of the game yet. The sorcerer won’t fall as easily
to that pipsqueak Morai as Ash thinks. But if you don’t get up off
your lazy ass and beat them to the cryonics lab, then you might as
well toss your sorry sack over that railing right now.’

The scarred spook was bent over at the waist,
looking as spent as I felt—which gave me a warm feeling inside.
Spook/human merging seems to wipe out both parties equally.

I dug inside my front jeans pocket for a
B-drop. My fingers had just brushed the wrapper of the last
righteous lovely, when I heard footsteps. They were coming from the
hall outside the exit. I raised my cane and put my finger to the
no-no button. This act was becoming reflex.