Redemption of Light (The Light Trilogy) (54 page)

“Captain,” she called gently as she knelt. Her cloak draped around her in deep blood-colored folds. An expression of anguish creased her beautiful face when she looked down at Tahn.

“Cole,” the woman whispered.

He seemed to rouse at the sound of her voice. He gazed up at her through mystified eyes. “Rachel, what … what are you doing here? How did you—”

“Don’t talk now. Save your strength. We haven’t much time.” Rachel reached out and pulled back Cole’s torn black uniform then gently placed her hand on his wounded shoulder.

He flinched against the pain.

Amirah watched in fascinated disbelief as the wound began to heal. When Rachel removed her hand, Cole’s shoulder bore not the slightest trace of injury. He caught Rachel’s fingers as she tried to pull them back and held them in a death grip. He fixed her with astonished blue-violet eyes.

“How did you do that, Rachel?”

“It’s very simple, really. You just have to refocus the strands of the vortex. Adorn used to do it effortlessly. It took me time to learn.”

“What’s happened to you?”

She smiled as though speaking to a child she knew would not understand. “The Serpent entered my soul.”

“Serpent,” Slothen whispered. His blue face twisted, as though in abrupt understanding.

Rachel got to her feet and turned to peer evilly at General Ornias. He shrieked and fired his pistol wildly. The shot blasted a hole in the wall behind her. Jason lunged. He kicked out brutally, bashing Ornias’ hand and sending his gun clattering across the floor.

Ornias bellowed in agony and grabbed his broken wrist, but his eyes riveted on the strange woman. “Rachel, what are you doing here?” he raged insanely.

Rachel knelt to retrieve the pistol. Amirah silently slid toward Cole. She sat down and felt his shoulder in amazement. His eyes blazed, and when she looked into them Amirah knew that he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do at those controls. Triumph shone. She patted his side proudly, wondering how long they had before the containment vessel exploded?

“I found you, Ornias,” Rachel crooned in a chilling voice. She circled the general, pistol aimed at his chest.

Jason backed away, moving to crouch beside Amirah.

“Rachel … what … what do you want?
What are you!”
The general screamed.

“I’m an old friend, remember? We have long-overdue business to take of.” As though chanting words she’d memorized eons ago, words of horror and power, she lifted her voice.
“I remember, Ornias. I remember the cries of the children buried beneath the mound of dead in the square on Horeb. Children I knew would never see the next sun rise.”

She aimed her pistol with slow precision and fired. Two quick bursts burned out Ornias’ eyes. He shrieked like a mad beast, sprawling across the floor and insanely clawing at his face.

Over his cries, Rachel shouted, The pitiful whimpers of those children still fill my nightmares, Ornias! I hear them crying out to their parents, begging someone, anyone, to hold them.”

She aimed again and slashed off his right arm. The dead meat thudded sickeningly to the floor. Ornias screamed and struggled to pull himself away—but Rachel followed.

“I remember, Ornias. You killed my husband. You destroyed my little girl’s life.”
She tilted her head in a mad, insane gesture and her voice lowered to a whisper.
“You hurt my people.”

With agonizing slowness, Rachel aimed her gun at his chest. Ornias seemed to know. He sobbed and stiffened, preparing for the shot. But she hesitated and clicked her pistol down two notches before firing. Expertly, she cauterized Ornias’ wounds. The blood stopped. The stench of burning human flesh reeked so fetidly in the air that Amirah’s stomach rose into her throat.

“Did you think I’d kill you, Ornias” Rachel asked hoarsely.

He squealed, “Why are you doing this? Tell me what you want! I’ll do anything!”

Rachel pulled on the golden chain that encircled her throat. A brilliantly glowing necklace—just like the one Mastema still held—fell out of her robe. She gripped it lovingly. “I’ve never had any intention of killing you, Ornias. On the contrary, I’ve spent years searching the voids, trying to find just the right home for you. You’ll appreciate it. It’s utterly dark and empty—just like your soul. And timeless. You’ll never die, Ornias.” She smiled. “Never.”

Amirah’s mind reeled. She could imagine Ornias crawling blindly through cold darkness for eternity, groping with his one arm, seeking a way out and never finding it.

Horror twisted Ornias’ bloody face until he looked like a ghoul risen from a fresh grave.
“Rachel, no! Not that! Anything
…”

She lifted a hand and a gaping black maw spun into existence behind Ornias. He must have felt the brush of icy wind, for he desperately leaned back to grab for the steadying wall even as he fell.

His hideous scream echoed endlessly.

In the foray, Arnirah crept on her hands and knees to the place by the door where she and Jason had dropped their guns. She retrieved hers and shouted, “Woloc!” then tossed him his. Jason fell into a defensive crouch.

No one breathed.

The maw spun closed and Rachel turned to give Slothen and Mastema frigid looks. “And as for you, Magistrates.” She strolled toward Slothen. “You’ve tormented Gamants for millennia.” She lifted her pistol again.

“Wait!”
Slothen demanded. He threw out a trembling arm. “Are you …
are you the promised Mashiah?”

Rachel stared into that blue alien face and laughed condescendingly. “It depends on your perspective.”

And without even changing the half-amused expression on her face, she fired at Mastema, slicing through his breast. The Master Magistrate let out a small gasp before slumping to the floor. Blue blood pooled around him on the carpet. Rachel knelt and in a fearful gesture grabbed the
Mea
from the dead Giclasian’s contorted hand.

Amirah got to her feet, watching in dread as Rachel swept across the room, her carmine cloak fluttering out behind her—
to hand the
Mea
to Amirah.

Rachel extended it farther, until the gray globe swung over Amirah’s heart. Eloel’s eyes gleamed frighteningly. “Take it, Captain Jossel. For today, it belongs to Mikael Calas, but there will come a time when it will be your duty to pass it down to his son.”

Amirah glanced oddly at Cole. He’d gotten weakly to his feet and stood with a hand braced against the back of the command chair. “What’s she talking about, Tahn? I don’t—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Take it, Amirah.”

She complied, accepting the device and slipping it around her neck. “But how can she know what the future holds?”

Slothen stepped out of the shadows, his lavender eyes wide and horrified.
“Because she’s the Mashiah!”

Rachel laughed, a low, cold-blooded sound and glowered at him over her shoulder. “You know so little about Gamants—”

“Mashiah!”
Slothen hissed. He took another step and extended two of his arms, pointing at Rachel.
“That means serpent in the Gamant language, Amirah. Yes, do you understand? Serpent. Serpent!”

Amirah gasped as a white-hot pain lanced her. She dropped to the floor on her knees. The earthquake began, shuddering through the floor, tossing her around like a rag doll.
The final battle!
The lights went out.

Smoke. She smelted smoke!
She had to get out of here!

Amirah reeled to her feet. In the jet black corners of the room Darkness swelled. She could sense the hot breath of the Creature on her face. And outside, in the hall, Gamant voices spun an eerie web of horror. Terror gripped her by the throat. She screamed,
“Grandmama! Where are you? I can’t see you in the smoke! Where are you?”

Cole lunged off the dais and ran for her. “Woloc! Get her gun! She’s—”

Jason dove for Amirah, knocking her to the floor. They struggled against each other, rolling over and over, fighting for the pistol. Cole screamed,
“Amirah! Stop it! Slothen’s doing this to you! AMIRAH, DON’T!”

Only the fiery azure glow of Rachel’s
Mea
lit the room. As Rachel stumbled to keep her balance, it wavered over the walls and consoles like blue windblown flames. Cole threw himself into the struggle, trying to lock down Amirah’s legs.

“Now, Amirah!”
Slothen commanded.
“Hurry! They’re all serpents, Amirah! Serpents!”

Amirah screamed and fell into wild sobs, struggling with all her might against Cole and Jason. Cole tried to grab for her flailing pistol hand, but she jerked it out of his grip and aimed with deadly accuracy at Jason Woloc. The lieutenant opened his mouth to shout, but Amirah fired.

“Serpents!”
Slothen hissed. “All of them!”

In the sudden purple flash Cole couldn’t see anything but the spinning blue aura around Rachel. He threw himself atop Amirah as she swung right and aimed at it. Her pistol flared twice—quick bursts.

Cole cried out in shock as Rachel crumpled like a silk scarf to lie in the tumbled heap of her carmine cloak.
Chest shot…

The station juddered violently beneath them, but Amirah had gone limp. Cole pushed up on shaking arms to stare at her. She lay on her side, gazing in horror from Woloc’s wide dead eyes to her pistol. Jason’s face had twisted miserably.

“Oh, my dear God,” Amirah whimpered. She weakly got to her knees and crawled over to Jason. She lifted his hand and pressed it to her cheek. Silent sobs racked her.

Cole wiped his dirty sleeve over his sweating forehead and took in the room. Slothen stiffened when Cole’s icy gaze landed on him. The Magistrate took a step toward Amirah.

“You forgot one, Captain,”
Slothen whispered insidiously. He extended a blue arm toward Tahn.
“This one! Serpent! Kill him!”

Cole dove for the floor as Amirah picked up her pistol and leveled it again …

But this time at Slothen.

Tears streaked her swollen face. “Magistrate,” she informed in a husky voice. “You’ve persecuted your last Gamant.”

Slothen thrust out four hands and screamed,
“No! Amirah, don’t you see? We had to do it. If there really was a Mashiah we had to take precautions. We couldn’t—”

“You made me kill my grandmother!” Amirah raged. “I remember now, Slothen!
I remember!

She fired and fired—and kept firing until nothing moved. A ghastly purple halo engulfed the room. Blue gouts spurted from the Magistrate’s severed head and mangled body, falling in huge spatters across Rachel’s legs.

Cole scrambled on all fours for Rachel. Blood bubbled at her lips, but her chest still rose and fell.
Alive.’

He tenderly brushed the tangled strands of black away from her pale face and glanced at the chronometer that barely glowed the control console. “Go!” he shouted agonizingly at Amirah. “Get out, if you can! You’ve got three minutes!”

Amirah shook her head wearily. “No. I’m staying with you.”

“Get out of here!” Cole commanded as he worked his way to the console and slumped down into the chair. He glanced hurriedly at the readings. The holes had reached maximum charge, Zohar verged on perihelion, Palaia’s containment vessel was breaking up.

With unnerving calmness, Amirah said, “I’m staying, Cole. There’s nothing left for me out there. You go!”

Cole spun around in his chair. “Don’t be ridiculous! I’m the singularity expert. Only I—”

As though in a dream, Cole suddenly felt like he was floating—the shudder of the station ceased—he smelted the sweet scent of roses. He shook himself and spun around in his chair. Amirah leaned against the wall by the door, watching a huge maw of black whirl over Rachel’s tumbled form.

A man of crystalline magnificence appeared, wearing a blue velvet cloak with the hood pulled up. He knelt gracefully at Rachel’s side and anguish twisted his glorious face. He stroked Rachel’s bloody cheek lovingly.

Cole couldn’t move. Carey’d told him stories … about the bridge of the
Hoyer
just before the fiery apocalypse over Tikkun … an angel had descended, she’d said.
It was the angel who talked Dannon into taking the weapons console, Cole. It was the angel who saved me and what was left of the Underground fleet.

When the crystalline being looked up at Cole, he felt the sorrow and despair in those kind eyes like a blow in his stomach.

The angel gracefully walked across the room to gaze down at Cole. “Captain Tahn. I’ll give you as much time as I can, but you must go now. Hurry.” He glanced forlornly back at Eloel. “Rachel spent a great deal of time preparing a place for you … I won’t stop you from going.”

“What place?”

“A good place. It may even stay that way. I don’t know. The chaotic patterns are fluctuating too wildly for me to guess. If I have the chance, I’ll try to—”

The shudder in the floor built to a crashing crescendo that made Cole’s heart go cold and still.

The angel’s amber eyes flamed.
“Get out, Captain. Now!”