* * *
Sydel’s head struck the doorframe. She felt her brow split open as she crumbled to the floor.
Overhead, the bare bulb flickered on. They were in a cell on the third floor. And Keller was closing the door.
“You’re one of them,” he was saying. “You were there that day. Tell me who you really are.”
Sydel pushed herself up onto her elbows, glaring at Keller from under her tangled hair. “I’m Sydel,” she panted. “I am not - ”
A burst of white pain, this time across her cheekbone. Warm blood trickled onto her cheek. Her eye socket began to swell.
Don’t black out, Sydel begged her body. Stay awake.
“When I saw you,” she heard Keller mutter over the rush in her ears. “I knew your face. I knew your eyes. You might have tricked that old woman, you might have bewitched that boy, but I remember you. I was the fool to let this go on so long. Everything is ruined. But you’re going to tell me everything now.”
His hand shot out, grabbing her by the collar, yanking Sydel to her feet. His opposite hand wrapped around her throat, gripping with enough force to lift her off the ground. Sydel writhed, frantic to wrestle away from his grip, but Keller slammed her back into the wall. She gasped at the shock of pain in her spine.
Then he let go. As she dropped, she barely had time to gulp for air before he grasped her chin in his hand.
“Tell me,” he whispered, his face an inch from hers. “Just tell me the truth. You recognize me, don’t you? I was only a little boy then, but I bet you do. I bet you were the one who left my father brain-dead and drove my mother to throw herself off these domes.”
Keller’s other hand slid up her throat. His thumb caressed her larynx, gentle as a lover.
“Oh, Sydel,” he breathed. “I like to see that you bleed. I wondered for years if there was blood in a NINE’s veins.”
Then Keller lined up his thumbs on either side of her airway and squeezed.
Sydel clawed at his wrists. Black spots danced in her vision. She was going to pass out. Maybe die of asphyxiation. If he let her die. Flickering images, memories, bits of melody ran through her brain: the same pattern, faster and faster. A fire was building in her core.
No. No, stop.
But it was already consuming her: her eyes burned, her mouth burned, every organ engulfed with fire, burning from the inside out.
Over the din of the flames, Sydel could hear Keller’s confused noises.
Then one of his index fingers lifted from her throat. Keller stared, spellbound as the finger slowly arched back.
Then the bone snapped. A scream of pain.
His hands dropped from her throat. But Sydel remained where she was, engulfed and out of control, barely cognizant of Keller’s screams as each of his fingers snapped backwards, one after another, and more bones followed.
Too late. Too late. Too late.
VII.
From the sound of it, every one of Huma’s minions was firing a gun. The hallway was riddled with dents, the floor covered with casings. Cohen crouched by the doorframe, gripping his Vacarro firearm, but Phaira could tell how terrified he was. Every few seconds, Phaira fired her Calis around the edge, just to keep them from advancing. In-between shots, she debated whether to surge forward and shoot Huma through the head. Phaira savored the image of a shocked Huma with a perfectly round bullet hole smoking in the center of her forehead, grey wisps, just floating away…
Despite the fantasy, there was an easier way. As evolved as they might be, Huma and those hounds didn’t know what they were doing. And they certainly weren’t paying attention to how many rounds were left in the chamber.
Sure enough, the cacophony of gunfire began to lessen, replaced by the sounds of panic.
Then Phaira’s ears pricked at the sound of rumbling. She placed her hand on the doorframe. It was vibrating. Cohen felt it too, judging by his puzzled expression.
Huma’s gasp filled the space.
Then the floor plunged into white.
Phaira’s body lifted, soared and slammed into the opposite wall. Bright light swept through the floor, again and again. Over the roaring sonic waves, there was the sound of screaming. Despite her pain and blindness, Phaira managed to scoot her body into one of the cells and into a corner, covering her head with one hand, searching for Cohen with the other.
There he was, to her left; she yanked on his sleeve until he slid next to her. They huddled together, shielding themselves from the light. Phaira could barely suck in breath; her temporary flight had bruised her right ribs, by the feel of it. She fumbled with the strap of her torso armor to try and support the bones. The white flares seemed to go on forever. Her ears felt like they were bleeding from the strain.
Then, as quickly as it began, the light was gone. Phaira couldn’t see. Was that some kind of advanced flash grenade? She fumbled for her dropped Calis, blinking to force her eyes to adjust. Cohen was a blur next to her, slowly coming into focus. He was on his knees, holding his head and crawling into the hallway.
Then Phaira heard her little brother gasp.
“What is it?” Phaira whispered, terrified.
Cohen stumbled to his feet and ran past her. Phaira forced her body upright, ignoring the blast of pain from her ribs, and hobbled into the corridor.
In the open space, it was a massacre. The six followers were scattered across the white floor. Some had hit walls and slid down to the floor, their limbs twisted behind them. Some had blood coming out of their ears or mouths, their eyes staring at the ceiling. In the center was Huma: her white hair streaked with pink, her body in a crumpled heap. Unmoving.
As Cohen stepped through the wreckage, his active HALO blinked at Phaira from across the room. In a burst of gratitude, Phaira silently thanked Theron for those strange devices; she didn’t know what just happened, but she felt certain they would have been dead without them.
“Phair!” Cohen called.
Holding her ribs with one arm, Phaira stepped over Huma’s body and another man’s twisted corpse. Cohen examined a door, the same door as the others in this underground base, but this one had beads of cooling metal running down its edges. Heat radiated from the doorframe.
The blast had come from in there. Anything could be behind that door. It could be radioactive.
But before she could warn him, Cohen yanked on the door handle. It opened with a long, loud groan.
A burst of scalding air hit Phaira’s face, followed by the rush of cool desert wind.
Inside was a square cell, with a cot overturned in the corner. Blue sky and red rock glistened through a small hole blasted in the far wall. Someone was huddled next to the opening, shaking, her long brown hair covering her face. And there was a man sprawled on the floor, face down in a pool of blood. Black hair. Scars on the back of his hands, the fingers snapped and deformed.
Phaira recognized the corpse in an instant. Keller Sava.
Cohen didn’t seem to care about the body, hopping over the splatter. “Syd!”
Sydel didn’t respond. Under the matted nest of her hair, Phaira could see the girl’s fingernails digging into the scalp.
“Sydel?” Cohen tried again. He put a hand on her shoulder. Sydel jerked away. The cell filled with the sound of hissing. It was Sydel, Phaira realized; the girl whispered something in a steady stream of breath. A curse? A spell?
“Phair?” Cohen pleaded.
Phaira glanced at Keller’s mangled body. Her impulse was to grab Cohen and run as far away as possible.
Instead, Phaira made her way across the room. Sydel didn’t look up at her approach. Did the girl even know where she was? Or who they were? Maybe the HALOs were interfering. Reaching back, Phaira unclipped her HALO and set it on the floor. No change in the girl.
Holding her ribs, Phaira knelt down on the floor. Then she shifted to sit next to Sydel. The girl’s scorching body heat hit Phaira. Smelling of blood and sweat, Sydel shuddered hard with every breat
h.
Phaira leaned over so her shoulder brushed the girl’s. Then she spoke very quietly: “Sydel.”
Sydel’s grip on her head loosened, just a little.
Phaira craned her neck to peer under the bedraggled mess of hair.
“Sydel,” she said, more firmly this time.
Sydel’s hands dropped to the floor. Her head rose and turned, and her face was exposed. Eyes ringed with red. Angry purple bruises on her throat and jaw. Smears of blood on her face from a cut lip, eyebrow and cheekbone. Phaira grimaced. What a mess.
“You’re here,” Sydel croaked. Her brown eyes filled with tears. “You’re really here. You found me. I knew you would.”
“Do you know where you are?” Phaira asked. “Do you know what just happened?”
Sydel’s eyes flicked to the left, just the tiniest movement, but Phaira caught it. She knows.
The room shuddered. Phaira’s free arm shot out to brace Sydel against the wall, even as pain screamed through her body. A crunching noise echoed across the ceiling. Then the whole floor dropped down a foot. Sydel yelped, and Cohen let out a shout. They all looked up to where the wall met the ceiling. The metal buckled in the corners. Dust funneled through the blown tunnel. Phaira swiveled to peer through the open door. The bodies hadn’t moved, but a thin layer of dust now covered them.
Something warm spread under Phaira’s arm. Was she bleeding? Confused, Phaira lifted her right arm to check, but nothing was there.
Then she froze. She could lift her arm. No more pain.
Next to her, Sydel lowered her hand. Her voice drifted into Phaira’s head. Huma is still alive. You need to confront her.
Phaira’s hand shot to the nape of her neck. She didn’t have the HALO on.
You don’t need it. Sydel’s voice was eerily clear. You know what to do.
“Hey, are we getting out of here or what?” Cohen asked, bracing his hands on both walls, as if to hold them up.
Phaira slowly got to her feet, part of her desperate for the pain of her ribs to come back. But there was no trace of it.
“Stay with her,” Phaira told Cohen, working to keep her voice even. “Don’t come after me.”
In the open space, the lights flickered like a warning. No sign of life among the sea of bodies and shell casings.
But Huma was gone. Phaira stepped through the wreckage, searching the shadows.
And then she felt it. The prickle of cold, starting in her left side of her brain.
She quickened her step, heading for the corridor with the tiny bedrooms. Every room she looked in was empty. More shadows crept in.
Then Phaira’s heart stopped for one long moment, followed by another.
Those icy fingers were snaking into a new section, she realized.
The hall began to turn sideways. She put her hand on a doorframe to steady herself. She had to resist: shut down her brain, deaden her senses, push down the panic.
No, she remembered, as her body started to shake. Feel the fear. Let it go.
Swarms of imagery coursed through her head: death and desertion and mind-rape, ice and burning blood. The sudden flood of adrenaline blinded Phaira, but the cold in her brain was receding, her legs were pumping fast, flinging her body through the fire, into the final room. And through the haze, Huma came into view, her mouth open with shock.
Phaira shoved Huma against the wall, one hand entangled in that silver hair, the other twisting the older woman’s right arm behind her back. The impulse to slam Huma’s forehead into the wall, again and again, was ravenous. The adrenaline was clouding her judgment, logically, she knew that, but the memory of the look on Huma’s face: that sneering, superior look as Phaira screamed in pain, it was overpowering….
A thread of sound made its way into her roaring ears: Huma whimpering into the wall. Phaira’s senses began to return. She felt her fingers digging into the woman’s fleshy wrist, smelled the sweat in the woman’s scalp. Then the adrenaline cooled, and her mind began to clear. She let go of Huma. The woman sank to her knees, her hands in her lap upturned, helpless.
“They weren’t strong enough,” Huma sobbed into the wall. “They couldn’t shield themselves. I didn’t teach them how. I didn’t know she could do such things.”
Disturbed, Phaira stepped back. So that blast, whatever it was, Sydel generated it?
“Phaira, please.” Huma stared up at her, her face pink, and wet with tears. “You have to help me, protect me from Sydel. If you take me with you - ”
The floor shook again. Screeching metal mixed with the crash of falling rock. Phaira jumped as the door marked 3 buckled. The stairwell was collapsing. Whatever Sydel did, there could be enough structural damage to make the whole place come down.
“Phaira, please.” The older woman’s fingers brushed her wrist.
Phaira jerked away. “Don’t ask me for anything,” she snapped. “Save yourself.”
Her journey back down the corridor, punctuated by Huma’s fading cries for mercy, was longer than any in Phaira’s recent memory.
“Close the entryway,” she told Cohen when she caught sight of him. “The stairs are gone.”
Cohen threw his weight into the half-melted door. It groaned and buckled back into the frame. Collapsing against the wall, Phaira pressed the heel of her hands into her eyes, working to slow her ragged breath. Cohen’s heavy footsteps passed. Phaira peered through her fingers. Sydel stood by the blown-open hole, peering through the rocky tunnel. Cohen was next to her, his hand on her lower back, speaking to her in a low, worried voice.
A living bomb. Sydel was a living bomb. Did she mean to kill everyone on the floor? Should she incapacitate Sydel? Could she, even?
“Phair.”
Trying not to shudder, Phaira came at Cohen’s beckoning, and squeezed past the two to look into the blast opening. It was clean through, the hole narrowing in diameter with only a foot of light at its end. They’d have to widen it to get out. But she could at least get her hand outside.
Phaira crawled into the space, coughing from the rising dust. It took some time, but with some shifting and wiggling, her head cocked in a painful angle, Phaira was finally able to get her arm through.
Her hand went cold in the wind. Her fingers scratched along the edges of the hole, feeling for a ledge. There: a tiny crevice in the cliff-face, wide enough to jam one end of her solar tracker in, the rest exposed to the sun.