Shattered (Alchemy Series Book #3) (26 page)

"One
gun," Cormac said and reached for his holster to give him his.

Before he took
it out, I laid a hand on his. "He can take mine," I said. I pulled it from the holster at my ankle that Cormac had insisted I wore. I'd hated the bulky nuisance from the second I'd put it on. I handed it to Lizard Man. "It wasn't much more than a prop anyway."

The Lizard Man
tucked it into one of the zippered pouches on his pants and I wondered who had tailored them for his new form.

"Thisss wayss
s," he said.

I tried to act natural when he got on all fours with his shortened limbs and started to move like a lizard.
I didn't think I pulled it off too well, so I was just grateful he was in front of us.

As we got closer to the tornado wall, I could make out the different individual cells within the massive dust they kicked up. I could see the lightning
bolts striking the ground. The roar of the storms, which had been just background din before, was deafening.

Lizard Man held up a hand, signaling for us to wait. He moved along the sand, his tongue darting out continuously. Pausing for a minute, he appeared to be zooming
in on one spot. Then he started burrowing into the sand at a rapid pace, sand being kicked behind him and piling up. An opening of about five feet by five feet emerged in the sand. 

Looking at it,
I already felt claustrophobic, even though I was standing in the middle of the wide-open desert. He stopped digging and waved us over before he disappeared into the tunnel.

Colleen grabbed my hand. Figured
that she'd need support now. I was much better equipped to handle the gore in the courtyard but she was all miss independent then. I squeezed her hand with an assurance that I didn't feel.

Cormac stepped in first
, almost bent at the waist, trying to accommodate his height. Dark dropped onto all fours and loped over with enough grace to make me realize he was quite versatile in this form. Katie, Evan and Sharon followed next. Colleen and I took the rear, with me ushering her in front so I could keep her going.

The noises
subdued quickly as we entered and it was so dark I couldn't see Cormac in the distance, only black. Trying to keep my own abnormal breathing under control made me more aware of Colleen's. I placed a hand on her shoulder and she gripped it tightly a second later.

"Use your lightning. It will help y
ou see and make you feel better," I whispered to her.

"I don't want to look weak." She spo
ke so quietly that I didn't have the heart to tell her Cormac and Dark heard her anyway.

"Colleen," Cormac yelled from way ahead of us. "Can you light this place up a bit so the humans can move easier?"

The corners of my mouth tugged up. He'd never admit it but these people, the ones who lived in his casino, were becoming his people too. He could fight and deny it all day long, but I saw the signs.

"Be careful not to touch me when I do this," Colleen said. "I'm not sure if my whole body gets charged and I don't want to hurt you."
Her voice already sounded better just from gaining some modicum of control over her situation.

I didn't see anything
and I started to worry that she couldn't do it. And then she spread her fingers in front of her and it looked like she held a sparkler, except it was the tip of her finger.

"That's pretty,"
I remarked, never having seen that version. Normally, she would toss a ball of lightning back and forth in between both hands.

"Thanks. It's a n
ew version I've been working on, but it's a bit harder to control." And would keep her mind more focused on something other than the dirt tunnel we walked through.

It was small but it gave off a lot of l
ight and I could see at least another three miles of tunnel stretched out ahead of us. Now to distract
myself
from the feeling of being buried alive.

"Mr.
Lizard?" I called ahead, not knowing what else to call him.

"It'sss
Sam," he replied.

"Did you dig this out by
yourself?" I asked, looking at the claw marks along the walls of the circular tunnel.

"Yesss
, I like to dig now."

"Where does it let out?"

"Safe placesss. Turnsss left here."

I looked up to the left to realize there wasn't just one tunnel but an entire labyrinth. We twisted and turned as we went and the true genius of it became very clear. Even if you could find the entrance, you might never find your way out without him.
The knowledge didn't do much to help my nerves.

He had said three miles and at
about twelve minutes a mile…nope, too long. Don't think about that.

Deep yoga breaths, one foot after another, just keep going
. On the plus side, the longer we were under, the less I cared about what was waiting for us.

It seemed like an eternity before the Lizard Man spoke
again. "Staysss back, mustsss dig us outsss," he said finally.

It was amazing to watch him dig. He looked just like a lizard would, or what they looked like on the nature channels.
His arms worked in a flurry as the dirt kicked up and he burrowed through and then widened the hole.

"Shhhhh," he said as he waved his hand at us in a quick motion.

My hair was matted with dirt and I'd never felt grimier when we emerged from the hole. The tornado wall was far enough away to not feel like we'd be swooped off our feet at any moment but masked our sounds quite nicely.

Trying to get my bearings, I looked around quickly.
A town sat in the distance, and I wondered if before the change, it might have been joined with the border town on the other side of the wall. Even though it was in rubble, there were dim lights. There were patches of plywood and tarps covering what I imagined were gaping holes in the roofs below.

From what I could see, there was only an occasional person or pair walking the streets
, but they were out and about. That said more than anything else. They felt safe from the rippers at night here. Was that the senator's control, or were they just more confident of the tornado wall keeping them at bay?

"Samesss time tomorrowsss nite?" Sam asked.

"No, wait. We plan on returning tonight," Cormac instructed.

"Isss wait insss tunnel. Yousss stomp here whensss ready."

He moved to a spot about ten feet from the opening and stomped his foot on the sandy ground. It didn't make a sound from where we stood but you couldn't hear much over the storms.

We watched him bury himself back under
the ground, disguising any opening had existed. Dark and Cormac scoured the area, trying to pick up a scent of them.

"Her scent is here but it disappears after a few feet," Cormac said.

"That's the most obvious place to start," I said and looking at the town in the distance.

"We
'll go scout ahead," Cormac pointed between the two of us, "the rest of you stay here, out of sight. If we aren't back in the hour, you go back through the tunnel."

They agreed
and we headed in to scope out the town.

Cormac and I stayed
to the shadows whenever possible, working our way toward the closest house. Crouching by a nearby overgrown shrub, we peered into the window of a mostly intact colonial, built during the Mc Mansion explosion.

A woman and a man were sitting down at their dining room table with a girl toddler. It would have been the picture of domestic bl
iss if the man didn't have lobster claws for hands and the woman's skin wasn't an odd shade of green. The child was the only normal human in the room but odds were that she wasn't either. A regular young man walked in and placed plates down in front of the family and left the room, appearing to be a servant.

Cormac grabbed my arm, tugging me after him. We worked our way around to the side of the house that gave us a better view of what looked like the main drag of the town. Still hidden by shrubs, we watched as people
walked about here and there, but the thing that caught my eye the most was a cluster of ten humans working in the center. Two men in fatigues stood nearby with whips in their hands as the men looked to be clearing debris out of a park. One of the men laboring stumbled to his knees under the weight of a large piece of concrete he was carrying. The larger of the two men in fatigues walked over and violently whipped him until he rose.

Every single one of the workers
appeared to be a normal human.

What the hell was going on here? I turned to Cormac and gave him a look. He nodded in agreement, thinking the same thing I was. The
changed
here were making slaves of the regular humans. It didn't make sense, though. They were only ten percent of the population. Even with powers, they could be overwhelmed by the humans without too much trouble.

"I want to go see what's in that building over there," he said, pointing to what looked like it might be a town hall. The building was out in
the open and was going to be hard to approach.

"
You go," I said, knowing he had a better shot of checking it out on his own. "I'll wait here. You'll draw less attention alone."

My eyes went immediately back to the group working
, once Cormac left, wondering if there was some way to help them before we left.

"Hello, Jo."

It was the
senator's voice. I knew it by heart because I'd heard it over and over again every evening in my nightmares. I stood up from my kneeling position on the ground and dusted myself off leisurely before I turned around.

He
stood about fifteen feet away and was as attractive as he had been last time, all blond and golden, dressed in a dark pin striped suit. He seemed more comfortable in his skin now, not that it had been that long since I last saw him.

About twenty military men stood around him, Crash among them.
I briefly caught his gaze and saw the apology there, not that it mattered to me. My thoughts didn't linger on him long as I saw rippers slowly making their way over toward where we were. They were moving closer and closer, their numbers swelling as I watched.

"What can I do for you?" the senator
asked, seeming supremely confident in his position.

I closed the distance between us by five feet and watched his face. He kept
his fake grin in place but I could see him watch every step I took in his direction, annoyed I wasn't cowering. I wasn't going to let him think I was scared of him.

I stopped walking and picked the spot where I'd stand my groun
d. "My people are over here. I've come to collect them."

"Did you not like
the terms Oslo delivered?" His eyebrows arched. The smugness of his delivery grated on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard.

The
rippers were gathering behind him in a way that demonstrated he had quite a bit of control over them. If he told them to attack me, would I be able to stop it?

"I think we need to discuss terms that would be more agreeable to both of us." That sounded diplomatic. I could swing this. I didn't
have
to be a hot head.

The bastard smiled full force now
, as if he'd taken my measure. I got the sense that because I didn't go on the offensive, he thought I was powerless.

"No, I'd rather not
negotiate with the likes of you," he replied, confirming my impression. He lifted his hand; dark smoke sprang from his palm and started to twirl around. "Take her down."

I initially thought that he was going to send the smoke for me like he had
the last time but that would've been stupid. I'd beaten him at that game before. Then the rippers took a step forward. The dark smoke could control them, just like mine.

There had to be ove
r a hundred rippers gathered by now, who were all suddenly fixated on me alone. They started to hiss and click, the sounds I associated with their attacks. I didn't know if I'd be able to keep them all at bay or what range I'd have, so I waited for them to edge in closer. I knew my emotions were churning close to the surface and I hoped the magic wouldn't be an issue.

Four feet, three feet…
"Stop!" I screamed, white smoke was pouring out of me so thickly I was surprised I didn't choke on it. Truth was, I wouldn't have even known it was there if I didn't see it floating in front of my face. The rippers instantly froze.

Do
I press it and try to turn the rippers back on him? It could fail. I couldn't risk failing in front of him and showing him a weakness. I decided to try something easier that I was confident I could pull off.

"Back up a few feet, you're in my space." The rippers pressed back almost instantly, shoving at the ones behind them.

I kept my eyes trained on the senator so I could watch as he lost some of his cocky attitude. He looked more pissed, now. Good.