Iron Inheritance (24 page)

“Nate, find us a way around.”

“No, we can still go forward. I can do it.” Miranda walked toward the force field with her hands stretched out, her yellow dress stained black at the bottom but otherwise unscathed.

Nate reached for her shoulder to stop her, but missed it as Freddy pulled him back.

“Let her try.”

“We can’t afford any pyrotechnics right now.”

I looked at the glossy, beige tile that stretched ahead and behind us.

“I can do this,” Miranda said and stopped just before the place where Josh got shocked.

“They wouldn’t expect us to be able to go that way,” I admitted.

“Whatever we do, we need to do it quickly,” Nate whispered.

Miranda closed her eyes and put up her palms. My mouth went dry as I remembered what Freddy had told me about Miracles needing to practice over and over to get these things right…and how objects had a tendency to combust when Miranda got it wrong.

She remained motionless for fifteen seconds. Cold, clammy sweat stuck between my fingers. I still didn’t understand how the Miracle talent worked. All the others seem straight forward enough, but Miracles? There were so many different options, so many different things that could go wrong. The light could explode and shower us in sparks. Flames could ride up the walls and collapse the whole building on top of us. A spontaneous inferno could suffocate us before we could scream.

“You can do it,” Ria whispered.

I shook the thoughts out of my head and watched as Miranda twisted her right hand like she was turning a door knob. My eyes scanned the light that powered the force field. There was a small, black box attached to the ceiling right next to it that let out a small click every few seconds now.

Miranda continued to twist her hand slowly until the box dropped as the glue used to hold it had aged into a yellow, crusty dust that sprinkled the air long after the black device hit the tile floor.

Miranda stepped forward. I reached out my hand to stop her, but she just kept walking.

“All done.” She turned back and waved for us to follow.

“You did it,” I said lamely because I couldn’t believe how simple it was.

“I love those ones where you almost can’t tell if it was a miracle or not.” Josh smiled. “Makes you think.”

“Talk later,” said Nate, taking the lead before I could. “Stay next to the wall.”

We continued down the hallway, the hairs on my arms standing up. Something was wrong here. It was the middle of the night, but there still should have been someone here. A janitor. Another guard. Someone.

Then the lights went out.

I sucked in a breath as the chalky darkness dried out my mouth. I tried to focus to see their essence, but it was no use.

Someone pushed me back, and my body pressed up against Josh’s.

At least I think it was him.

No one said anything, but we all stumbled back, a chain of interlocked arms, each of our hands searching for the way back, the way out.

Two gruff voices echoed off the tile behind us, their words indistinguishable from the tribal beat that my heart thumped in my ears.

I spun my head around and glimpsed a thin strand of light flicker under a door. Maybe it had always been on and we’d passed it without even knowing. We might have never known unless the lights went out.

Fate.

God.

At that particular moment it didn’t matter to me because it felt like I was either being saved or led by the nose into a trap.

Someone ahead of me jiggled the handle and swung the door inward. Another someone behind me, probably Nate, pushed me forward until I crossed the threshold and the door was shut with a silent sweep of the carpet.

My eyes didn’t finish adjusting to the new light until the gruff voices in the hallway passed the door outside and continued on without stopping.

I turned around and found myself on a small, semicircular balcony, complete with plush movie theater seating, thick carpet, and red curtains tied to the outer walls. Ria and Miranda already had their chins perched on the railing, staring at the giant movie screen before us. A sexy, voluptuous woman with dark hair and bright eyes who’d made a name for herself as the stupidest person to ever go on a reality show flicked her hair back and forth in an epileptic fit.

Nate nudged me with his foot and jerked his head below. Several rows of luxurious recliners held at least a dozen men in suits; their eyes were fixed on the screen. Further down, just below the reality show preview, a lavish feast that included a whole roasted pig, complete with a red apple stuck in its mouth, sat on a table, untouched.

Typical evil people. Always roasting their pigs whole.

I chanced a better view, raising my gaze a few more inches over the railing. Most of the men were young, tall, muscular. Chiseled jaws. Dark hair. Urban Ken dolls with business degrees.

Three much older men sat almost directly below the balcony. Two of them were like twin morticians with short gray hair, and the other was bald with a black soul patch under his lower lip, a blinding white smile…

Kovac!

I craned my neck far past the railing to get a good look. It was definitely him. I blinked several times to make sure before Nate pulled me back.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“Kovac is alive.” I mouthed as slowly as possible.

His eyes widened, and he stood next to the side curtain to get a better look. Josh did the same from the opposite side. Both of them looked back at me at the same time, their eyes bulging.

The projector in the wall next to the balcony clicked, and the woman on the screen disappeared. The lights rose very minimally as one of the dolls got up to speak.

“The new line-up this season could be very profitable. We have Kat Heart and Bernie Tuddle. They’ve signed the contract.” He gestured to the screen.

“Ratings in our screen test groups?” the twins’ voices said in unison from under the balcony. There was no way I could risk another glance with the presenter standing at the front. As it was, we all ducked down below the railing.

“8.3, but I expect that will increase with the holidays.”

“What of the girl?” A smooth voice echoed through the chamber. Everyone quieted in an instant. “Well?” Kovac repeated.

I imagined his blindingly white smile plastered on his face as he said it.

“The Gallu’s essence sped back twenty minutes ago,” said the TV show presenter.

I looked sideways at Nate and furrowed my brow in confusion. He stuck up a finger on either side of his head and pretended to charge. I would have laughed under different circumstances.

“And did anyone think to increase security in case she tracked it back here? Perhaps she was the one who just triggered the alarm in the hallway outside.”

The man in front looked genuinely dumbfounded. “We will check, sir.”

A chair under the balcony creaked as someone got up.

“She is of Solomon’s line.” He seemed to think out loud as he sauntered to the side. “We should not underestimated her.”

“Or those willing to die for her,” Urban Ken Doll #4 spoke up from the first row.

The room guffawed.

I grabbed hold of the wrought iron railing to keep my hands from shaking.

Kovac stepped down to the first row, his smile firmly fixed, and strolled toward the comedian like he was bringing a microphone to audience members. “I’d hoped to save Solomon for the end. That’s what he deserved—to watch his only family die. Even after all these years, I’d hoped he would come for her.”

Her?

“You see,” he said, coming into full view now. He didn’t have a scratch on him, not one bruise or a limp or anything. How had he survived?

“Most think if it came down to the greater good, one person should be sacrificed over the many. They’re ok with it. But now ask yourselves if it was your only daughter. What would you say then? If your enemy kidnapped her and threatened to kill her if you didn’t hand over everything that kept thousands upon thousands alive.”

I held my breath.

“Solomon made that decision long ago—and he chose the world over his own blood, his own daughter.”

I shook my head even as my hand clutched at my necklace, the silver wing digging into my palm as my thumb rubbed the broken blue stone.

“I’ve kept her alive this whole time—”

My Mom’s alive!
My heart beat so hard that rational thought couldn’t reach it.
She’s alive. She’s alive.

“— to taunt him and for a few of my own eccentric pleasures.” He raised an eyebrow, and the room erupted in laughter again. He smiled and continued. “I even hoped to add the granddaughter to the mix to see if a little more incentive might work.” He sighed. “But alas, the game is up, and I tire of playing alone. Solomon’s daughter is all but used up. She used to be feisty—”

Another thunderous roar of laughter clapped through the room even as his lips kept moving. I strained my neck to catch even one word, one more word to force me to tear his throat out.

“All in all, I am certainly glad to have reinforced the prison.” He smiled again and sighed. “But since the young granddaughter has proven herself, send another prize her way. Remember though, I want her alive. She should look into her mother’s eyes before I kill her.”

“Why wait? You could just kill the mother now,” said a lean, blond man indignantly. “This is always our mistake. We shouldn’t imbue killing with meaning. It lacks efficiency.”

Kovac’s smile faltered, and he stepped to the side. “See, it’s that type of short-sighted thinking that I’d like us to avoid.” He shook his head and fixed a maniacal smile to his face. “Tell him what he’s won, Johnny!”

“No, Kovac, I didn’t—”

Too late. Kovac stabbed his left hand forward just as a jagged black saber appeared in his fist. The darkness went right through the man’s chest.

There was no shriek, no indication that anything at all had happened, but the man’s body went limp, and he fell forward in his seat.

No one raised a finger to help him.

Kovac sighed and held his sword for a moment longer, its jagged, three-tiered blade shimmering in the air like it held a current of electricity.

“Despair breaks the bond between them, it scars the soul. Remember.” He turned and addressed the whole crowd like he was explaining the rules of a game. “You must break them before you kill them. I did so with Solomon, even though I had hoped for a bit more, and now I will do the same with the rest of his line.” He turned and picked up a dinner roll. “Oh, this is delightful. You’ve really outdone yourself, Johnny.”

I can’t believe she’s alive. I can’t believe it. Please let him say where he’s keeping her. Just one more word.

I turned my ear for a more direct path to the table and saw Josh, Miranda, and Freddy doing the same thing.

Then my stomach dropped.

Ria had her hand stretched out over the railing with her phone pointed below.

I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw, seeing it before it happened.

The phone slipped.

I reached out instinctively, and the phone froze in mid-air.

A bubble of air caught in my throat. Am I doing that?

My peripheral vision quickly told me “No” as we were all lunging in the same pose, and only Miranda’s outstretched hand seemed to carry any weight.

It was crushing her.

Her forearm shook with whatever invisible mass represented the phone. Ria’s face was ash white.

The phone reversed directions, and the strain on Miranda seemed to grow. Every second it rose an inch. Sweat poured down her face, and her eyes focused with an unrivaled intensity.

BOOM!

The pink rectangle exploded in a fireball of electronic confetti.

I didn’t look down at Kovac again, but immediately grabbed Ria’s arm and forced her toward the door. “Run!”

The moment we got into the hallway, emergency lights flashed enough to make us all have seizures, and the ring of a fire alarm echoed off the tile. The floor seemed to tilt as we ran, Nate in front of Ria and me, Josh behind Freddy, who carried Miranda in his arms.

My legs carried me forward without thought, my hand not loosening from Ria’s arm until my nose slammed into Nate’s back as he stopped suddenly. Even with my head throbbing I heard why—some kind of otherworldly bark snarled just fifty feet down the hall.

I turned around, and my eyes connected with Josh’s for an instant. His face was void of emotion, and then he was gone.

I blinked repeatedly as my heart dropped into the void. Had he just left us?

“Get in that office!” Nate kicked a door off its hinges and cracked his green whip into existence.

My ears rang as my mind failed to find its way through a fog. How could this happen? How could Josh have just left us like that?

“This way,” announced Josh in a rush of wind, suddenly inside the sparsely furnished office. He glowed red, and the sound of Nate’s whip cracked behind him at the door, followed very closely by a squeal of pain. “Eve, I need you to bust through that wall behind you. Just get a running start and lead with your shoulder.” Josh’s chest heaved, his gaze darting to mine and then away. “Trust me,” he said more urgently.

I swallowed my questions and nodded. I positioned myself near Nate and sucked in a breath, hoping my essence would kick in before my shoulder hit the wall.

I jerked forward, only enough room for quick strides. I closed my eyes and felt a small amount of pressure on my shoulder.

When I opened them, white dust and wood splinters covered my arm.

Josh jogged up next to me even as I ran at full speed. “Turn right in twenty feet. One more wall, and you’re done.”

I nodded, looked back to make sure the rest of them were following, and surged forward with a burst of speed I hadn’t known my legs possessed. This time, I kept my eyes open as I launched my body at the wall like a cannonball. Drywall and wood and the cement exterior crumbled against my limbs with only a small amount of discomfort on my end. Just before I hit the ground on the other side, I rolled forward onto my shoulder and sprang to my feet.

Nate’s Jeep sat below a golden street light just ahead. The street was still deserted, but the hellish barks and the low grunts of the men following us shook the air.