Divided: The Alliance Series Book Four (12 page)

“Not gonna happen,” I said. “But I do happen to know where Valeria’s research lab is…”

CHAPTER SIX

ADA

Trekking across the swamp was even less fun than I’d imagined. With the Stoneskins close by, I had no chance to talk to the others, and I didn’t dare risk it in case one of them turned on me. The likelihood of a human surviving the swamps of Cethrax was precarious under normal circumstances, let alone in the company of monsters which didn’t care if we lived or died.

Reassuring, Ada.

The one consolation was the swamp seemed to annoy the Stoneskins almost as much as us humans. Though they didn’t have to worry about the flies buzzing around our heads and biting any exposed skin, their stone-coated feet stuck in the thicker patches of mud as much as our human feet did. I didn’t have too much trouble with my waterproof guard boots—though they were unrecognisable coated in mud—but more than a few people lost shoes or sank to their knees in swamp water. The Stoneskin guards were the only people complaining, in low mutters, as they were forced to help each other along the murkier stretches of ground.

If anything, though, that made it worse, because it was so… human.

Were they experimented on? Or created?
My thoughts kept circling back to that. But any attempt to talk to them had met with stony—
very funny, Ada—
silence.

The heat, the stench of the swamp and the buzzing flies got to me so much I almost forgot to be afraid. When we halted at a shallow lake with stepping-stones made entirely of mud, I turned to glare at the nearest Stoneskin.

“Couldn’t your boss take us
around
the swamp?”

A sharp intake of breath: Gervene. The other humans looked away from me and began to cross the swamp without complaint.

“It is not for us to question,” said the Stoneskin. “Nor you, Adamantine.”

“Quit calling me that,” I muttered. Only Nell got to call me by my real name.

“You’re an interesting human.” The Stoneskin tilted his head on one side. I paused, studying him for an instant. His ragged clothes barely contained six feet of stone-like skin, marbled black and grey. But he spoke with an unmistakeable American accent.

“You’re from Earth,” I said, taking my first step onto a ‘stepping stone’ and thankfully not sinking.

By now, the other humans had moved far away from me. Even Aric and Gervene.

I thought I wasn’t going to get an answer, so I concentrated on not falling into the lake. Mud sucked at my shoes, my shirt clung to my back, and I was tempted to take off my jacket, were it not for it being the only thing keeping the flies off me. Not to mention I had my communicator in the pocket. By some miracle, no one had searched me. As long as I had it, I could contact the Alliance… if we ever got within range of a signal.

On the other side of the lake, I shook the mud off my shoes. The Stoneskin man remained alongside me, presumably to stop me running off.

“You’re not going to answer my question? Were you from Earth?”

His cliff-like face was impassive. “A long time ago, it was my homeworld. You, however, aren’t from Earth at all.”

“I’ve lived on Earth all my life.”

“Not
all
your life, if the StoneKing is telling the truth.”

Interesting. So he doesn’t take the leader’s word for it?

“That’s for me to know,” I said. “Not you, or any of your kind. You’re kidnappers, and murderers too, I’m told.”

“We obey the StoneKing.”

“Sounds like tyranny to me,” I said. “Who
is
the StoneKing? Which world is he from? And where are we going?” I clamped my mouth shut before more questions spilled out.

For a moment, I expected him to hit me. His head tilted as a scream tore through the air. It came from up ahead, near the humans at the front of our group.

“What was that?”

The Stoneskin didn’t answer, but the swampy water ahead was rippling oddly, a dark shape shifting under the surface.

My heart sank. I had too much close-up experience with the monsters from Cethrax’s swamp, and none of us were armed except for magic.

A wave of filthy water rose, higher than our heads, higher than a house. I backed up, stumbling in the mud. The wave crashed down, drenching everyone within a ten-metre radius. Spitting out filthy water, I caught glimpses of the others struggling in knee-deep water before agonising pain pierced my eyes.

I bit down to keep from crying out. The water must have got behind my contact lenses. Blinking rapidly, eyes streaming, I half-crawled out of water that suddenly came up to my chest to find the Stoneskins had moved, and there were at least ten of them barring the way between me and the other humans. As I crawled onto the marshy ground, they surrounded me.

They’re going to kill me?
My eyes were a roar of agony, and the world kept breaking up into fragments. Red. White.

Cethrax had a higher magic level than Earth. I couldn’t remove the lenses here in case my magic went haywire and the Stoneskins took advantage.

Water crashed down again, choking me, throwing me against a wall of… rock? No—the Stoneskins had formed a wall from their own bodies, moving close together, leaving no gaps.

And on the other side, a shadowy, lithe shape struck the nearest human. Bloodstained Guy disappeared into the swamp with a choked-off scream.

Dread pulsed through me. That was a selver, a swamp predator. The Stoneskins were protecting
me,
but they’d left the other humans alone and undefended.

“Kill it!” I shouted at them, over the Stoneskins’ heads.

No response. I looked desperately from one marbled face to the next, willing my vision to stop breaking up. Cursing, I dragged my feet away from the wall of Stoneskins, to a twisted husk of a white tree trunk. I climbed onto it, fingers scraping against bark. It was as sturdy as it looked, easily supporting my body weight. I climbed as high as possible, aimed, and shot magic into the air.

My vision broke into flashes of red. I didn’t even see where the magic struck, but a stone-like hand clamped around my arm and lifted me before I fell. I blinked frantically, the world reappearing in segments—the Stoneskins had closed around me again, and behind them, the humans had gathered together, too. The snakelike shadow appeared on the water again, lunging for feet and ankles. I swore, grabbing for magic, but the Stoneskin’s adamantine hand moved to my palm. I couldn’t use magic when he was touching me—when any of them were touching me.

“Stop that,” I said. “I’m not gonna let them die out here.”

“You are valuable to us,” said the Stoneskin. “We would not have you waste your magic here.”

“What do you mean, ‘waste’ it?” I said, trying to tug my hand free.

The selver’s shadowy head lunged, and a burst of magic exploded from somewhere in the group. Everyone ducked as sparks flew, but the wall of Stoneskins stopped any from reaching me. The magic fizzled out as it touched them. Like when I’d been hit by high level magic. They absorbed all of it.

A final flash of magic, and the selver lay face-down in the water, unmoving. The others had killed it.

I breathed out.
I need to get rid of these lenses.
I had a spare pair in my pocket for emergencies, but the filthy swamp water stung like a bitch. And like hell was I letting these bastards see my real eyes.

The Stoneskin let go of me. My fist automatically clenched, but hitting him would do more harm to me than him. “Thanks for nothing,” I snarled. “Can I have some space now?”

The Stoneskin soldiers were already moving to allow me to walk forward, forming a guard either side of me. None of them said a word to me, though the one I’d been speaking to shot me a glare. So much for allies.

We’d walked ten more minutes before they moved completely away from me, letting me re-join the other human prisoners. I didn’t know what to say to them. There was no way I could have saved all of them even if I hadn’t had a wall of Stoneskin warriors between me and the enemy. At least Gervene was still alive. And Aric, though his fists were clenched with anger. My heart sank as he cast a furious look at me, but he didn’t speak.

My eyes burned with pain by now. I had to bite the inside of my cheek, hoping the swamp water hadn’t given me an infection or damaged my eyesight permanently. White flashes kept permeating my vision, and I didn’t know if it was down to magic or not. For once, I hoped it was.

Then came a sight I’d both hoped for and dreaded: a slice of the world had been cut away. On the other side was a familiar blue-lit tunnel. The Stoneskins ahead of the group had already passed through it.

But the Passage wasn’t a tunnel but more of a small corridor, bordered either side by shimmering walls. Nowhere to run either side. I stopped, letting the other humans pass in front of me. Three Stoneskins walked at the back of the group, to make sure no one ran away. I looked wildly from side to side, the impulse to run stronger than ever.

My heart stopped in my chest.

At the edge of the doorway, on Cethrax’s side, a line of symbols had been cut into a large rock.

A familiar group of symbols. But that was
impossible.
The code my brothers and I had invented couldn’t be here—not in the middle of nowhere, in another world entirely.

But the words read:
I’m coming, Ada. I promise.

“What are you doing, Adamantine?” I recognised the speaker as the Stoneskin who’d confronted me at first, in the Passages. Who’d kidnapped me.

“Are we in the Passages?” I demanded.

“This is our area,” said the Stoneskin, “and you shouldn’t stay here.” He took my arm and steered me alongside him. I dragged my gaze away from the code and forced myself to follow the Stoneskins through the doorway. As I turned back, the last Stoneskin held out some kind of device, and the walls either side of the Passage fell away.

That was the hidden Passage. They’d somehow sealed an area of it to use as a tunnel… but so no one could get away.

I glanced sideways at the Stoneskin to make sure he wasn’t looking, dug in the pocket of my now-swamp-water-soaked guard trousers, wishing I’d left a trail of breadcrumbs or something. As it was, all I had was a Valerian bottle cap. But it would do. I dropped it on the floor, kicking it into the Passage. If I couldn’t run, I could leave a clue… if anyone even came this way.

The Stoneskin pulled me over the opposite threshold, onto scorched ground under a dark red sky. Another wasteland. The Stoneskin let go as the other two used the devices in their hands to seal the doorway behind us. Nothing remained but unbroken, burnt ground, and a crescent moon in the sky like a curved claw.

But my mind raced. Someone had left a message. Only Jeth and Alber knew that code, but they couldn’t have known I might possibly be on Cethrax. One person might have guessed. Someone who thought of everything.

My heart lifted, and even the dark sky seemed to brighten.

Kay was alive.

CHAPTER SEVEN

KAY

“You sure about this?” said Simon, as we climbed off the locomotive on the city’s west side. I’d been here before, though not for a while, and it was close to one of the doorways to Earth. There were also a ton of Alliance guards around, but at least none of them knew me.

“Positive,” I said. “I can get us both into the building. It’s not high-security.”

If it was, I’d use the invisibility, though that would mean Simon waiting outside. But Mr Helm wouldn’t be particularly enthused to talk to me if I broke into the lab through the window. Better to use the front door if possible.

A silver sign made up of foot-high letters proclaimed the building to be the “KimaroTech Research Centre.” The building itself was relatively small for Valeria, but ten storeys high and made of the same reflective metal as its neighbours, so I couldn’t see in through any of the windows.

“Wait,” said Simon. “Doesn’t your family own this building?”

Damn. I’d hoped he wouldn’t remember that particular detail from our Academy classes on Valeria’s landmarks.

“Yeah, but I’ve never been here.” Neither had my father, as far as I knew. The Walker family had ties in so many industries in so many universes even I didn’t know all of them. The lab was an outpost of the KimaroTech Institute on Klathica, a company my grandfather had founded. Unifying Klathica and Valeria, two worlds which had nearly ended up on opposite sides of a war. His shining achievement. Not that Lawrence Walker gave a crap, since it didn’t involve him directly.

Two security guys dressed in the same shell-like gear as the Enforcement Squads confronted us at the doors. The whole building was far more guarded than I expected, considering—the Campbells’ place had hardly been under guard at all, but here, every inch was covered by men and women wielding Valerian-style laser guns, the sort only law enforcement were allowed to carry. Simon shifted uneasily.