Welcome to the Dream (A Celeste Cross Book, #1) (27 page)

Gustaf gave a soft chuckle,
and Jack could see Celeste was starting to turn pink.

‘
Just try to tug at it,’ Jack
suggested, through a quick cough, because damn if this wasn't
awkward.

She pressed her lips and looked
at him, but tried to tug at it nonetheless. She winced, lips
puckering and crumpling. ‘How about no. Do I really have to wear
this? Honestly, the Yaoguai aren't going to shoot me.’

‘
Yes, you have to wear it,’ Jack
said, his voice a little shaky. He was trying very hard not to look
like he was staring at her chest, even though that was where the
problem was. ‘Just do it up as best you can,’ he suggested through
an embarrassed cough.

She did, and she sat back
down.

Cindy was glaring at her,
Gustaf was still chuckling, and Ami didn't seem to care.

‘
We've got about 15 minutes until
we land, so we'd better talk about strategy,’ Jack pushed his mind
away from her ill-fitting vest and onto the situation at
hand.

Through the rest of the
conversation, even though Celeste tried to look like she
understood, and occasionally asked questions, it was clear she was
lost.

She probably couldn't
understand the terminology. What was more, she wouldn’t be able to
visualize what the battlefield would really be like.

He was starting to wonder
whether it was a good idea to take her along. Yes, she could be an
incredible asset, but she could also be a liability. They didn't
know why the Yaoguais were scared of her. For all he knew, they
could snap their little clawed fingers, get over their fear, and
swarm all over her. ‘You'll need someone by your side at all
times,’ Jack stated flatly as he realized it. ‘Celeste, we'll have
a team deployed with you.’

‘
Okay,’ she said, shrugging
easily. Though her move suggested her calm, he could read between
the lines. Her eyes were wide, and she was starting to look
lost.

He continued trying to brief
her, but the more he did, the more he realized she simply didn't
have the background information to understand. She was doing her
best though.

The closer they got to the
airport, the more Jack regretted his decision to bring her along,
almost to the point where he wanted to tell the chopper to turn
around and take her back to base after they dropped Squire at the
airport.

They never got that
opportunity.

Because Harley International
Airport was a war zone.

Chapter 16

Celeste Cross

She'd never seen anything
like it, not even in a video game. The airport was completely dark,
no lights, no landing strips, not even a single lamp was on in the
massive main building that held the terminal.

Their helicopter landed on
one of the runways, far enough away from the main building that she
had to strain to see it in the dark.

Jack's plan was to have her
deployed near whatever building needed the most protection. If they
could find the relics, then she could move in with a team and it
would be very easy to destroy the Yaoguai threat.

So that was the plan, all
the teams on the ground were to search for the relics, and once
found, she was going to move there and then allow them to be shut
down in peace. As Jack had told her though, their operational
parameters needed to be flexible. If it appeared that the Yaoguai
were heading towards the city, or intended to escape the airport,
then she would move to block off that escape. It really sounded
like corralling sheep, except dangerous demon sheep that kind of
wanted to absorb the energy of every single human being they came
across.

She could tell that Jack was
regretting taking her along; he kept glancing her way, expression
dense with concern. It was too late though – she was here
now.

She tried to look as
controlled as she could, and attempted to keep up with
Squire.

She'd never been one for
running, a fact she was now seriously regretting.

If she couldn't keep up
with the team, then she really would be a liability. If they had to
keep turning to check where she was, presumably Yaoguai
would
nonchalantly
walk
over and snap them up without a fight.

For an airport that was as
busy as Harley, she noticed that she couldn't hear any traffic
around it whatsoever. It was clear that whatever tale Knight had
spun to the local news stations, they'd done a damn good job, and
they'd been sure to give enough clearance around the airport that
no passing motorist could stare out of their window and clap eyes
on the Yaoguai.

As they made their way
towards the terminal, Celeste found herself hoping that everyone
would find the relics as soon as they could. It wasn't that she was
terrified already; it was that she wanted this to be over as soon
as it could be. She could see how something like this could easily
get out of hand. The kind of enemy they were dealing with wasn't
the usual flesh and blood variety. From the little she understood
of Yaoguai now, she could appreciate how canny an enemy they could
be, especially when there was more than one of them.

According to Jack, the
Yaoguai always worked together. If a team of soldiers attacked one
Yaoguai's relic, the others would dart in to protect it. That
effect was magnified when there was a large group of them, and
Celeste had heard over Jack's radio that reports suggested there
were more than 20 in the airport. That sounded impossible – more
than 20 demons running around so close to a city. If Celeste
weren’t living it, she wouldn't believe it.

As they neared the airport
terminal, she heard the shooting.

The bullets made it seem
very real. Even the darting vision of the Yaoguai in the distance
didn't hammer it home as much as the sound of gunfire. Because
gunfire, more than anything, symbolized danger, death. You didn't
use a gun for anything else other than to bring down an opponent or
game.

The terminal now loomed
before her, just a giant dark shape illuminated with the occasional
fitful light. Here and there she could see scooting blue forms, and
there was only one thing they could be – the Yaoguai.

She could sense that the
rest of the group were getting tense around her. She was in the
middle of them, Jack at the front, someone she didn't recognize
immediately behind him, and then Gustaf, Ami, and Cindy at the
rear.

It was a strange experience,
but the closer she got to the terminal, the more she wanted to see
a Yaoguai up close. She was starting to get powerfully curious
about them. Why on earth were they so afraid of her? She was just a
blasted programmer, she wasn't some incredibly built soldier with a
great deal of combat training and a nasty gun. What reason did they
have to be frightened of her?

She wasn't about to walk off
on her own to find one, and what was more, she was sure that Jack
would never let her.

As soon as they got to the
terminal, it seemed like all hell had broken loose. If she'd
thought there'd been a great deal of gunfire out on the tarmac,
she'd been wrong. It sounded like a war zone in here.

She stiffened, feeling like
her spine had been replaced by a continuous metal rod. Her hands
were so sweaty that she kept compulsively wiping them against her
pants. What was worse, her throat felt too dry to swallow
properly.

Everyone kept pressing
forward, so Celeste couldn't stop. If the rest of Squire was as
frightened by the situation as she was, they weren't showing it.
Step by step, the entire group wended its way into the
terminal.

The building was dark, not a
single light shining anywhere. It was a testament to how much the
Government wanted to keep this secret. If they kept the airport
well lit, it would presumably be easier for people to pick up what
was going on. Or maybe the Yaoguai had done it. Maybe they were
cleverer than she realized, and they'd taken out the power
generators or the lights, or something like that.

Could they do that? Could
the Yaoguai actually understand and manipulate human
technology?

It was a harrowing thought –
could they identify a strategic target and eliminate it? If they
could, it suggested those demons could plan ahead, that they were
capable of complex thought processes. That they were more than
simple monsters.

They entered through the
ground floor. A flick of her eyes up to the wall above her told
Celeste that the massive electronic boards that signaled departure
and arrival times were only meters away. They were all
dead.

She was very much aware of
how loud her footfall was, even though with every single step she
tried to make it as light as possible. No matter how careful she
was, it seemed that her boots squeaked like an entire army of
mice.

She'd been to Harley
International Airport many times. After all, it was the biggest
airport in the State, and the one you usually connected to when you
were travelling overseas. She remembered there were security doors
before them would lead into a large open area that had two floors –
a mezzanine level with a food court, and a section of shops that
led on to the departure lounges.

There was a mad scrabbling
coming from down stairs.

Jack snapped
forward.

The scratching continued,
but now it was accompanied by a heavy whine, unmistakably the sound
of a distressed animal. It sent such a shiver along Celeste's back,
down her arms and down her legs, that she stumbled forward a
bit.

It was so strange knowing
that the creature down there, the Yaoguai, was far more afraid of
her than she would ever be of it.

She didn't have time to
pause and really absorb that fact; Jack pushed forward, and with a
sharp wave of his hand, it was clear they all had to
follow.

Though the airport was dark,
it was still lit up enough to see. The light of the Yaoguai alone
gave a dim enough illumination to make it safely through the
terminal, not to mention the rapid flash of torch light punctuating
the scene as other Knight teams wound their way around. As Jack had
explained to her on the helicopter, unfortunately with the light
interference of the Yaoguai, night-vision goggles weren't an
option. When fighting one or two, maybe they were, but when your
entire airport terminal was infested with them, those bright
creatures would render the goggles as useless as sunglasses in a
movie theatre.

They each had torches, but
as Jack had snapped at them, they were only to use them when
necessary, as he didn't want any torch beams to give their team
away.

As soon as she looked down
from the mezzanine level, her side pressed up against the wall of a
fresh juice stall, she heard desperate scampering from downstairs.
In a flash, she saw something move, a quick streak of blue light
ran into what looked like a chocolate shop downstairs.

Her whole body
was tense, her muscles tight and ready for action. As someone who'd
never done a lot of exercise, and who wasn't that fond of sport, it
was a strange and novel feeling. To have her whole body ready for
the fight
 . . . it was something Celeste had never
previously felt.

Rather than tell them to
head down the dead escalator and after the Yaoguai, Jack stopped
the team with a hand gesture, waited for a second, pressed his
fingers into his ear, and then pointed further along the food
court.

Maybe some other team had
finally found the relics, and maybe that was where Jack was heading
now.

As the group slowly walked
through the food court, with Celeste still in the middle, her heart
started to race. It was when she wasn't seeing their blue streaks
of light that she was more afraid of them. It was when she knew
they were running around the airport, somewhere out of her sight,
that her imagination started to run wild. When one was right in
front of her – when a Yaoguai was in touching distance – then the
mystery disappeared.

It's just like
a monster from my dreams.
She thought as she followed Jack as quietly as she
could.
It's
when you turn around and let them chase you that you get
frightened.

She wasn't about to stop the
group, run down to the mezzanine level, and find the Yaoguai in
order just to face it. That wasn't the point of the mission. She
may have spent a lifetime facing her monsters, but now they were
real, she needed to have more tact and strategy.

It was strange walking
through the food court and seeing every restaurant and stall closed
down. An airport as big as Harley International never closed, not
at night, not on any single holiday. People always travelled, no
matter the time of day or year. In fact, this was probably the
first time the airport had been closed in a decade.

As she walked through the
food court, she could still smell the food. She could even
distinguish some of the different cuisines as she passed each
stall. One smelled like a burger joint, another smelled like
Italian, there was the smell of Mexican, and a little heated sesame
oil to her left reminded her of Chinese. It made her appreciate
just how quickly the airport must have been closed down; all the
shops still had food in their
bain-maries
or sitting on their benches. Cakes, sandwiches,
ragout, and curries. She could see and smell them
all.