Welcome to the Dream (A Celeste Cross Book, #1) (28 page)

Jack had brought out his
torch now, considering there were no Yaoguais in the area to light
up their path. Celeste watched carefully as the swaying beam lit up
their surrounds. It was such a strange, surreal way to see the
objects around her, and it made them stick in her mind. She saw an
upturned chair with its legs sticking out at sickening angles. A
bin was spilling over with wrappers, a drink bottle slowly leaking
its sticky green liquid over the floor. There was a table with a
scrunched up napkin and half-eaten food spilled over the melamine
surface.

They continued walking, and
though the smells of food still filled the air, Celeste's stomach
didn't rumble once. Food was the very last thing on her mind right
now. In fact, it felt as if her stomach had shut down. The thought
of food made her sick. Only the prospect of finishing the mission
propelled her forward.

As they walked through the
food court, the bullets and shouts dimmed. In fact, she could
clearly hear the sound of their footfall again, even the scrunch of
Jack's jacket and pants as he walked carefully, legs and arms
stiff.

Jack paused again, pointing
forward, and making some other hand signal that Celeste had never
seen. She found herself wishing she'd played more first person
shooters. Then she might be more prepared for this. That being
said, she doubted that any amount of video games would prepare you
for joining an army incursion into an airport jam-packed with
demons.

They changed direction, and
heading down again, but not towards the shops and corridor that led
to the departure lounge. Instead they walked along a different
corridor, and down to what Celeste remembered was the
arrivals-hall.

Before her, just down the
dead escalator that they all headed down, she could see the baggage
carousels. They weren't moving – they were just dark shadows. She
saw something else too, something that made her give a sharp,
startled breath. Blue lines. There were little, wafting strings of
energy tracing their way through the flaps of one of the baggage
carousels.

She could tell from the
sudden body movements of everyone else in the group that they'd hit
the payload.

Jack motioned them forward
with a quick flick of his wrist. Just as he did, there was a sound
to their left. There were massive electronic doors that lead from
the carousel area to outside the airport, and something was moving
behind them.

Celeste didn't need to
strain her neck too much to see that several quick, darting blue
lines were heading their way. Yaoguai. It looked as if there are
about five of them, then six, then seven. They slammed themselves
into the electronic door, and Celeste couldn't help but shift
forward in surprise at the sudden violent nature of the move.
Gustaf brought his gun up, but Jack snapped at him not to
shoot.

Jack turned to Celeste
sharply, and she knew what it meant.

She hesitated for barely a
second, then pushed herself forward, legs stumbling. By the time
she'd taken several steps, there was no point to going further. The
Yaoguai had stopped slamming themselves into the door, and in fact
had all turned and run off. They were screaming again, yelping,
yowling, and making every noise to indicate that they were
absolutely thoroughly terrified of her.

She slowed down as she
neared the door, coming to rest a couple of meters from it, craning
her neck and watching their darting blue forms until they
disappeared from view. Her heart was rocketing around in her chest.
Even after one of her most severe nightmares, she doubted she'd
ever experienced an adrenaline rush like this.

She didn't care how dry her
mouth was any more, or how much she shivered, or how tight her
muscles felt. All she did was watch those demons run from her with
deep curiosity.

In fact, it took Jack to
walk all the way up to Celeste's side, and roughly whisper in her
ear ‘we have to move’, for her to turn around.

It had been so easy. A task
that she assumed would have taken Squire a great many bullets and
the possibility of loss of life, had taken her nothing but a short
sprint.

Jack motioned Celeste onto
the carousel, behind which the blue lines converged. The lines were
pushing through the small plastic flaps through which the luggage
passed on its endless journey around the carousel. In a moment, it
was clear Jack intended to get down on his hands and knees and
crawl through it. Just as he jumped onto the conveyor belt, his
weight shaking it, she snapped out a hand and latched it on his
arm.

It made no sense for him to go
through first. If there was a Yaoguai on the other side, presumably
it would have no problem in snapping its tail around him and
dragging him off for a light snack. If Celeste went through, on the
other hand, she'd have no such trouble. It wasn't as if there were
any other enemies in the area. There was only the Yaoguais, and
Celeste could deal with them . . .
apparently.

She could feel that Jack's
arm was locked up, the muscles tight under her fingers. He didn't
yank free and tell her to back off.

She didn't bother speaking;
she hoped the message was clear.

Jack paused, but when
Celeste dropped to her knees and began to crawl through the plastic
flaps, he didn't latch a hand on her leg and pull her off the
carousel; he just let her go.

She tried not to splutter as
the plastic flaps banged into her face. She just ignored them,
along with the rough feel of the conveyor underneath her bare
hands.

The room beyond the carousel
wasn't dark. In fact, it was bright enough to read a book in, but
there were no lights. Just those blue lines. The sight of it took
Celeste aback. In fact when she was only halfway through the door,
still on her hands and knees, she pretty much stopped. She'd never
seen anything like it.

On the left side of the
room, past the interconnected conveyor belts that shifted the
luggage around to the correct carousel, was a whole mess of
suitcases. It looked as if somebody had gone absolutely wild,
ripping them off the conveyor belts and throwing them into the
corner in a frenzy. Most of them had burst open, items spewing out
– socks, power adapters, toiletry bags, shirts, and slacks. That
wasn't what caught her eye though. One of the suitcases right at
the top was split right down the middle. It wasn't a fabric case;
it was a very heavy-duty metal case. There were several other metal
cases around it, and then the remains of a box around that
too.

Every blue line came from
that case.

Celeste couldn't see
everything, but it looked as if it was filled with different kinds
of trinkets. 20 or more bright blue, flickering electric lines all
emanated from them. The lines wafted and twisted around like puffs
of smoke caught in the wind.

Finally Celeste pushed
herself forward all the way into the room.

She snapped up to her feet,
then turned sharply, looking down at the hole she'd come through,
waiting for Jack.

He didn't immediately push
his face through, jump to his feet, and start shooting at those
blue lines.

In fact, it took Celeste a
heart-pounding five seconds before she began to hear noises
outside.

By the time she grabbed the
plastic aside and shoved her face through, it was too
late.

Jack West

He'd been surprised when
she'd stopped him, pushed him out of the way, and had gone in
first. She really was turning out to be braver than he would have
given her credit for. She was right too; it made perfect sense for
to her go first. If there was a Yaoguai in that room, it wouldn't
hesitate to attack Jack, but it would probably twist itself into
knots trying to get away from her.

The second she disappeared
through that carousel, was the second all hell broke
loose.

There was a slight almost
silent shuddering noise from behind him, and Jack turned, just in
time to see several Yaoguais jump off from the top of the
escalator, landing right on top of one of the carousels, about 10
meters away, their claws digging into the metal. They looked like
vultures, heads snapping to the side in quick, twitched moves of
interest.

His team didn't even have
time to raise their guns and start shooting – the Yaoguai
pounced

One snagged at his ankle,
pulling him off the carousel faster than any human should
move.

He slammed against the
ground, breath pushing out his lungs with a horrible
splutter.

In another moment, there was
an enormous crashing sound from his left, and he didn't need to
look over there to realize that the large electronic doors had just
shattered in a shower of glass and metal.

There were screams from
outside, and a hail of bullets slammed into the wall opposite
him.

It was chaos.

He pushed himself to his
feet, and dodged as the Yaoguai that had attacked him levelled its
claws at his chest. Though he managed to dart to the side in time,
the sharp flick of its tail snagged the fabric of his trousers and
pulled him forwards.

He was dragged along the
ground, body thumping, limbs twisting at awkward angles, but he
kept on trying to grab his gun, bring it up, and direct it at the
Yaoguai.

In the chaos, he saw that
his team had acted, and they ran after him, trying to get a clean
shot at the Yaoguai, but failing.

In another second he was
outside, his leg banging against the broken remains of the door, a
shard of glass slicing through his pants and sinking into the flesh
just below his knee.

He hardly had time to give
out a sharp cry of pain before the Yaoguai skidded to the side, its
tail finally ripping free of his clothes.

As quick as Jack could, he
got to his feet, brought his rifle round, and tried to track it. He
didn't have time; the other Yaoguai that had been in the arrival
lounge came streaming through the door. Now his entire team was
outside. They were being pushed back, with zero hope of getting
through those doors again.

Even if he wanted to get
back to Celeste, he'd have to fight his way through an army of
Yaoguai to do it.

They kept on pushing
forward, and those demons were organized and painfully
canny.

Suddenly there was a massive
crash from behind him, and he twisted his neck to see another team
engaging the Yaoguais further down at the bus terminal.

Jack suddenly analyzed the
situation.

From his vantage point, he
could see the Yaoguai pressing forward, and he could see the team
at the bus terminal had zero hope of getting out of
there.

He had to make a
decision.

Celeste or the
team.

Though it was harrowing, and
almost freaking impossible, he flicked his hand forward, indicating
the bus terminal. He'd made his decision.

If he didn't get to that
team, they'd be dead within seconds.

Celeste could hopefully look
after herself.

Celeste,
Celeste please be okay
.
He thought quickly as he ran forward, settling his assault rifle
into the crook of his arm, and firing as he ran.

Celeste Cross

By the time she'd made it
outside, it was to an incredible scene. A terribly confusing one at
that.

There was so much flickering
blue light that she now had a fantastic view of most of the
airport. What she saw was horrendous. There was a group of soldiers
at what looked like a bus terminal about 50 meters to her left, and
when she looked up, she could see other groups in the multi-storey
car park above, and more on the tarmac just beyond.

They all looked as if they
had swirling blue masses of Yaoguai pressing in on their
positions.

Celeste didn't need to be an
expert on anything to realize that the battle wasn't going well.
She just needed to hear the desperate screams that echoed around
her, almost paralyzing her spine with their insistence and
fear.

She could help, she could
run towards the bus terminal to her left, but she doubted she could
get all the way up to the multi-storey car park in time, or back
out into the terminal. There just wasn't time to help everyone. She
had no idea where Jack was too. After she'd pushed her head out of
the carousel door, there had been such chaos that she hadn't been
able to ascertain who anyone was. She'd scared several Yaoguai off,
but by the time she'd made it to those broken doors, it was to the
sight of soldiers running off.

In that moment, Celeste
realized she had to make a decision. It took barely a second to do
it. Rather than run towards the bus terminal close to her, she
turned and went back into the arrivals lounge.

There was only one way to
end this, Jack had told her that. She had to get to the relics.
There were too many Yaoguais and they were too clever to allow the
soldiers out there to sever any of those blue energy
anchors.

That wouldn't be a problem
for Celeste; she knew exactly where those relics were, and no
Yaoguai was going to disturb her.