A muscle ticked in Harm’s jaw.
Ian knew the gun was loaded. Knew he didn’t like this part of the charade, though she wore Kevlar beneath her hoodie. He stepped forward, gently setting Marley aside. “This is between me and your father. Assuming he’s willing to settle this like a man instead of hiding behind innocent people? How about it? A fair fight. Just you and me. No weapons. If I best you, these people walk away.”
Cocking his head in acceptance, Harm lifted the nose of the gun. “Fine. Have it your way. But a fair fight means no dematerializing, no slipping into shadow.”
He tossed an anchor cuff. Ian caught it in midair. The real deal. He didn’t like it, but he’d make it work. He strapped it on.
“You’ll have to put down the detonator too,” Ian pointed out.
Harm’s smile was an icy blade. “You’ll have to be careful I don’t press it accidentally, won’t you?”
Everyone watched as he laid down the gun.
Number five stepped out of the dark behind Marley. Ian was already turning as the Hunter reached for her, but he wasn’t fast enough. Hands snagged her, yanking her back, a knife pressed to her throat.
“No!” Ian shouted. He tried to dematerialize, his heart slamming into his ribs as nothing happened. The goddamned anchor cuff. Ian started to leap for them, to intervene, but the squad chose that moment to act, bursting free of the shadows.
Bullets ricocheted off of concrete pillars. Two squad members flanked Ian, cutting him off. The other two engaged with the false guards. Someone was shouting at Harm to drop the detonator. But he only had eyes for Marley, and those eyes had gone feline. He leapt for the Hunter, claws out.
Ian lost control of the illusion as Harm connected. Terror exploded through him, but the knife was knocked away from Marley’s throat. Still, the Hunter didn’t let go, and the three of them struggled in a deadly dance across the floor. Harm propelled them into a column hard enough that fresh concrete dust puffed up at the impact, but the Hunter still held fast, spinning away toward the far wall.
Shit, shit, shit. Everything’s going sideways.
Ian struck out at the nearest Shadow Walker, feigning a body shot and following up with a punch to the man’s jaw that snapped him back, careening into a column. All around him, fighting continued. The illusion hadn’t collapsed, it had taken on a life of its own, fueled by his memories of that nightmare mission. More illusory fighters poured out of the shadows, rushing the squad with kamikaze screams. Shots were fired. Ian felt his own body jerk as the bullets connected with the constructs and fell.
He had to pull the illusion back, regain control, but his mind was blunted with terror for Marley as she was jerked and dragged along in the Hunter’s wake.
Too much distance. Too much interference. Get the goddamn anchor off.
Struggling one-handed to remove the cuff, he fought his way to the nearest pillar. With focused intensity, he bashed the anchor against it, bruising his wrist. The damned thing didn’t budge.
Across the room, Harm buried his claws in the Hunter’s arm and yanked. Blood spurted and the Hunter roared as the arm gripping Marley was very nearly severed. Before she could pull free, tendrils of muscles shot out and the arm knit back together.
Fuck. It would be a Chamael. The goddamned lizard shifters regenerated faster than most people could kill them.
He couldn’t take the time to remove the anchor. He had to get to Marley, had to back up Harm. Whirling, spinning, jabbing, Ian no longer cared whether his opponent was real or fiction. Bodies fell and rose again, a seemingly unending tide of obstacles. And always, always, his goal seemed just out of reach.
Marley screamed, a high terrified sound that cut through the chaos and had everyone jerking their attention in her direction just in time to see her, Harm, and the Hunter, still locked in combat, go tumbling down the open elevator shaft. Ian lashed out at the nearest gun, jabbed an elbow into the face of its owner as her scream finished in a horrible, crunching thud.
Then silence.
“No!”
~*~
Terror squeezed its icy fist around Marley’s heart as she plummeted into the unending blackness. Her scream echoed in the shaft, bouncing off the walls, giving no clue how many more seconds she had before impact. Life didn’t flash before her eyes. There was no room for regrets. There was only the fear and the dark.
Pain sliced white hot through her calf and the sudden stop cut off her air supply and her scream. Something crashed far below, a sickening crunch of bone and sinew. But not her.
“Hang on, hang on, I’ve gotcha.” Her father’s voice, low and strained.
His claws dug into her ankle, holding her dangling some distance from the bottom of the shaft. Blood coursed down her leg. The agony of shredded muscle pulsed against her mind, threatening to drag her into unconsciousness. She had no idea what her father had managed to snag on the way down. She didn’t care. All she could do, as the blood continued to rush to her head, was listen in horror at the faint scrape and rustle of the Hunter at the bottom of the shaft as he slowly got up like the not quite beaten level boss of a video game.
Far above she could hear Ian screaming, an agonized sound of grief and pain that morphed into a battle cry.
Please don’t do anything stupid, she prayed.
Below, the Hunter’s eyes gleamed in the dark of the shaft and he began to climb.