“Authorization granted. You are authorized to go down there, gain entry to the facility, neutralize any hostiles you encounter, and retrieve any civilians you find. Do not screw with anything in the labs. Don’t touch anything, don’t drink anything, don’t put anything in your mouth.”
Leon looked like he was about to speak. I made the no face at him.
“Follow me,” Linus ordered. “And cheer up. We’re about to embark on a killing spree accompanied by massive property damage. Try to have fun.”
The facial shield darkened. Leon grinned and gave Linus two thumbs-up.
The exosuit started down the hill. Mom climbed onto Brick’s roof with her sniper rifle. Grandma Frida took a picnic basket out of the vehicle and perched on a grassy spot. The rest of us followed Linus.
“So, do we have a plan?” Runa asked.
“We go inside, Leon and I try to find your sister and Alessandro, and you and Arabella kill everyone you see. Try not to die.”
“That’s it?”
“The best plans are simple,” Leon said.
Ahead of us a barrel on the exosuit’s right shoulder spat out thunder. A missile streaked through the air and smashed into the wall. Concrete exploded, huge chunks hurtling into the air. Sirens wailed, reaching a hysterical pitch.
Linus continued his advance, the exosuit stomping forward, boom, boom, boom.
“Well, I’m off,” Arabella said.
“Give me a few minutes before you start on the building,” I told her.
“It’s not my first time.”
Leon grinned. “Remember, try to have fun.”
My sister smiled. “I always do.”
She sprinted after the exosuit. Her body tore, the transformation so fast, it seemed almost instant. An enormous shaggy beast spilled out of my sister, towering sixty feet above us. Arabella raised her head with two curved horns, opened her maw, baring a forest of fangs, and bellowed.
Runa jumped back. “That’s the Beast of Cologne!”
“Yes, it is,” I told her.
“How?”
“Long story,” I told her.
The monster that was Arabella charged to the left, circling the lab, and cleared the wall in a single leap. Gunfire erupted. She screamed in rage, grabbed a vehicle, and threw it at the building.
In front of us Linus broke into a run. The barrels on his shoulders spat more missiles, trailing smoke in their wake, and for a moment he had wings of smoke. The missiles flew through the gap in the wall. Explosions blossomed, yellow and orange. Linus charged into the gap, the turrets on his arms sending death into the air.
I stopped. Leon sat on the grass next to me and whistled. Runa stared at the two of us. “Shouldn’t we go in?”
“Not yet.”
“You have to let the big kids have their fun,” Leon said.
Arabella had gotten ahold of a semi-truck and was pummeling something with it.
Seconds ticked by, dragging minutes behind them. Waiting was torture.
Please stay alive. I’m almost there.
The sound of explosions receded, moving deeper toward the building and into it.
“Now we go in.” I ran for the gap.
The inside of the wall was chaos. People ran back and forth, equipment and vehicles burned, broken bodies slumped everywhere. Thick, oily smoke poured out of what once might have been a truck and was now an unrecognizable clump of metal. Small firearms crackled. Somewhere a turret was going, spitting out a staccato of bullets. I turned toward the tower.
The doors no longer existed. I jogged inside, Runa and Leon following me. The inside of the tower was hollow. A bank of glass elevators waited in the center of the room. Each floor resembled a wheel with a central narrow hallway and individual rooms radiating from it like spokes. If I rode that transparent elevator, I could see the entirety of the lab.
A woman with a gun stepped out from behind the elevator. Leon’s gun barked and she collapsed.
“Don’t shoot the next one,” I said. “We need a guide.”
“No promises,” Leon said.
I closed my eyes, looking for the nearest mind. Someone was hiding behind the counter to our right. I turned and started humming. “Mary had a little lamb; its fleece was white as snow . . .”
The mind under the counter responded to the tendrils of my power. A chair rolled to the side, and an older white man in a lab coat stood up and smiled at me. His name tag said “Chad Rawlins.”
“Hello, Chad,” I said, sinking power into my voice.
“Hi.” He waved at me.
“Come stand by me.”
Chad moved over on trembling legs. “I’m very scared right now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
An explosion burst above our heads. The building shook. Chad cringed.
“Do you know where they’re holding Halle Etterson?” I asked. “She’s my friend. I want to find her. It would make me very happy.”
He nodded. “She’s on the seventh floor. Room 713. Can we go? We shouldn’t be here. It’s very dangerous.”
Runa ran to the elevator and mashed the call button. Stairs would be safer, but I wasn’t sure I could make it. My magic was replenishing, but my body was still exhausted and getting more so by the minute.
“What about the prisoner they teleported in this morning? Where is he?”
Chad blinked. “I don’t know about a prisoner.”
Leon nudged me. “Ask him where Benedict is.”
“Is Benedict De Lacy here?”
Chad nodded. “He’s on the top floor.”
Of course he was. Benedict would never pass up a chance for a penthouse. If Alessandro was here, Benedict would keep him close. They hated each other, and Alessandro made a valuable hostage.
“Tell me about the top floor where Benedict stays.”
“I don’t go up there. I don’t know what’s up there, except that you can’t bring any weapons up there. He’s got an automated turret pointed at the elevator. The elevator opens in this little room that scans you and he won’t let you exit it with a gun.”
Fuck.
“You can go,” I told Chad.
He started toward the hole where the doors used to be, then turned. “But what about you?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I think I should stay with you. Just in case.”
Leon sighed and reached for his gun. I put my hand over his. “Chad, do me a favor. Go outside and check to see if it’s safe for me to escape.”
“I’ll do that. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”
He took off for the door and the three of us ducked into the elevator. Runa had pressed the button for the seventh floor. I reached over and pushed the top button.
“What are you doing?” Runa asked.
“Leon will go with you. He’ll get you and Halle out.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” Runa growled. “You can’t go up against Benedict by yourself.”
“That was always the deal,” Leon said. “You’re the client. We’re here to save your sister.”
The elevator doors opened. Leon thrust his arm out to keep them open.
“We get Halle and we go after Benedict together,” Runa said.
“No,” I told her. “That would put you and her into additional danger. Save your sister, Runa. Please.”
“Come on,” Leon said. “Halle is waiting.”
He took Runa’s arm and pulled her out of the elevator. The doors shut and the cabin sped upward. The elevator climbed through what I had thought to be the ceiling and kept going, the shaft no longer transparent, but dark.
Linus’ priority was the research and retrieving the serum. Runa’s priority was her sister. In the grand scheme of things both Alessandro and Benedict mattered very little. But Alessandro meant everything to me.
I took out my Beretta and placed it on the floor of the elevator. I would never get through that room with it.
The doors whispered open. A small room waited for me, complete with an X-ray arch. A security camera stared at me from the ceiling just above a turret facing me.
I pulled out my gladius and jammed it in the elevator door.
“Entertaining but futile,” Benedict’s voice said.
I stepped out of the elevator. The door behind me tried to close but my sword kept it open. I stepped into the X-ray, letting the beam of the scanner dance over me.
There was a pause, then the door in front of me opened. A big room lay past the doorway, the entirety of it taken up by an arcane circle of dizzying complexity, its lines glowing with pale light. In the center of the circle Alessandro paced, nude, his face furious.
“Welcome to my parlor,” Benedict said.
I took the chalk out of my pocket, palmed it, and walked through the doorway.
Time slowed and I saw everything at once, as if my mind was a camera flashing to capture the details: Alessandro, his magic flaring around him; Benedict to the side standing in a separate circle connected to the larger one; a windowless round room, a cupola above us; a large screen on the wall showing the elevator still trying to close; the body of a woman, crumpled at the far wall; and the bigger circle itself, a seemingly chaotic array of circles and lines.
The glowing patterns snapped together in my head. Alessandro was trapped in the center, able to use his magic, but cut off from the rest of the room and the building by the power of the circle. He couldn’t manifest any weapons because his magic didn’t work past the arcane boundary. Benedict, on the other hand, was free to use his magic, and the circle allowed him to attack at will. The lines would channel his power and unleash it on whoever was trapped in the center.