Skybuilders (Sorcery and Science Book 4) (18 page)

Silas leapt around the corner, blood sprinkled across his face like warpaint. An assassin in black followed, launching a tiny disc at him. Silas dodged, and the disc clinked against the wall behind him and exploded. Hopping over a cascade of concrete chunks, he thrust out with a fierce jagged-edged blade. The assassin blocked, but nearly fell to his knees from the impact of Silas’s forceful strike. Without pause, Silas kicked the man hard in the stomach. The assassin fell flat on his back, and before he could stir, Silas cut his throat.

He met Marin’s horrified face with a feral grin and called back down the tunnel, “They’re here. Come on.”

Leonidas and Ariella stepped around the corner, stopping on either side of Silas. Leonidas’s silver suit was stained with splotches of red, and blood dripped from the Elitions’ blades.

And Marin didn’t care. She climbed over the barricade and ran forward, slamming straight into them to give them a gigantic hug. They'd come for her. They'd actually come for her. She clung to them desperately, afraid they would vanish before her eyes, leaving her alone in that forlorn tunnel. Tears streamed down her muddy, sweaty cheeks.

Ariella smiled, Silas snickered, and Leonidas grew very still. He didn’t even punch her in the arm or mock her for getting herself into this situation to begin with. Wow, he must have been genuinely worried about her.

As Marin turned to look back at Hayden and Ian, metal screamed and the ceiling quaked, showering down concrete dust. Her eyes burning with tiny particles, Marin shifted her gaze to the shaft they'd all taken down into the tunnels. The shaft had split open, more than doubling in diameter. Its lip was smooth and dipped precariously, like the solidified wax edge of a used candle. The liquified remains of the ladder had reformed as a jumble of fractured rungs inside an indistinct metallic bulge on the floor.

Before she could even consider what might be capable of instantly melting a reinforced shaft of steel and concrete, something whistled down. A golem. It landed in the pile of parts illuminated by the sunlight streaming in from the newly expanded hole in the ceiling. Compared to the golems of the frozen field, this one was miniature, hardly larger than an average man. Silas was actually bigger than it. But Silas’s eyes didn’t glow blood red, and despite his many powers, as far as Marin knew he could not melt metal or concrete.

The golem turned those eyes her way now, and she could have sworn she saw the red darken further before Silas locked his arms around her and jumped out of the way. A burning river of flames, extending half the height of the tunnel, shot past them, only narrowly missing the barricade shielding Hayden and Ian.

“Get the boys to safety!” Silas shouted at Ariella, nudging Marin toward her as he darted around the golem.

He needn’t have bothered. The golem was ignoring everyone but him, the Selpe brothers included. It had obviously honed in on him as the biggest threat, and it was already turning to track him.

Silas danced a crisp, efficient circle behind the golem, and struck out with his blade to cut at an opening in its neck. A colorful blur of skin and steel, he moved with inhuman speed—but the golem was not human.

It matched Silas’s movements, raising an armored arm to block his attack. Metal toned like an old clock tower, and Silas hopped back to shake out his arm. His eyes glowing white, he shot a menacing sneer at the golem. Marin would have told him such things only worked on living beings, not machines, but it was unlikely he'd hear her. Not over the deafening staccato of striking metal—Silas’s sword against the golem’s massive outer shell. It was so loud that she could hardly hear her own thoughts.

They continued their deadly dance, drifting further down the hall. Silas might not have been doing much damage, but he was managing to push the golem away from everyone else. Marin glanced away from the fight just long enough to meet Hayden’s eyes and give him a reassuring nod. Everything would be ok. Silas was here, and he would keep them safe.

She was ripped from this disillusion by a pained grunt of expelled air. She whipped her head around, honing in on Silas: a crumpled heap against a wall splattered with his blood. His back rose and fell in erratic hiccups. He was alive, but he didn't get up.
Oh why didn’t he get up?!
Marin hadn’t thought anything could keep Silas down. A shiver crept down her spine. How badly was he hurt?

The golem was advancing slowly on him, taking its time. It oozed toward him as though it were savoring the anticipation of his death. It seemed to have already written him off, but still it didn't seek out a new threat. Silas needed a few minutes, just a few minutes and he'd be strong again. He had always boasted that of all Elitions, Phantoms healed fastest.

Before she could think better of it, Marin scooped up a handful of concrete chunks and chucked them at the golem. They bounced off its smooth metal body, not making a dent. The golem continued to advance on Silas as though nothing had happened.

Marin was looking around for something harder to throw, when a streak of black and silver rushed past her. Ariella. The Elition swung her sword back, then struck hard at the golem’s leg. It sank in behind the knee. She quickly repeated the motion with the other leg. Golem ground against concrete as the monstrous machine dropped to its knees. As it fell, it swung out a massive arm, backhanding Ariella so hard that she flew past Marin and collided with Leonidas. They both tumbled to the ground.

Ariella disentangled herself from him and was on her feet the next instant. She wiped the blood from her lip with the back of her hand and glared at the golem. Her stare didn’t seem to have any more of an effect on it than Silas’s had. The machine rose to its feet, quickly closing the distance to Silas. Then it lifted its arm, readying itself to slam a metal fist into his head, like it planned to crack it open like a coconut.

Silas threw his head back and glowered at the golem with eyes of icy fury. It stumbled forward, but before it fell, it shot back, colliding with the wall behind it. Several seconds passed, and the golem stayed down.

Silas braced his hands against the wall and rose to his feet. He'd made it only two steps before the groan of abused metal signaled the rise of his foe.

“Damn thing doesn’t know when to die,” he grumbled, spinning around to fight again.

But the golem didn't come to him. It turned and headed down the tunnel past the gaping hole in the ceiling. It bent over one of the fallen assassins and, clamping a hand around his waist, lifted the man from the ground.

Between spikes of hair thickly coated with bloody dust, Marin could just make out a few untainted locks of silver. Paler even than Ariella’s, the Elition’s hair was closer to white than blond. He had a massive muscular form second only to Silas’s, the sort that was definitely built to deal damage—and yet inside the golem’s iron clasp, he drooped as limply as a rag doll, his head flopping from one side to the other as he was carried toward Silas. The man coughed, and blood trickled down his lips. Marin could only stare in horror. He was still alive. Broken and bloody, but alive.

The golem lifted the Elition over his head and threw him hard at the wall, right over Silas’s head. Marin turned her eyes away, but that did not block out the telltale crunch of bone as a soft body met hard concrete.

Silas looked from the assassin to the golem and said, “Your aim sucks.”

The golem remained motionless, its red eyes fixed.

“As does your plan,” he continued. “You can’t just toss bodies at me, you walking scrap pile. Not even other Phantoms. I don’t break so easily.”

The golem turned around and tromped back down the way it had come in. When it reached the opening, it squatted down into its knees, then leapt out of the tunnel in a single bound, disappearing from sight.

Marin looked at Leonidas, who was standing at her right side. He shrugged.

“I've no idea what that tantrum was all about,” he said. “Aren’t you the machine doctor?”

Marin opened her lips to answer but paused as a cold wind gusted down the hallway, cutting through her body like a thousand glacial daggers. A subtle visual distortion appeared in the air behind the boys, cracking and sizzling.

“Another portal,” Ariella commented.

The faint blue-silver glow of this distortion made it the most visible so far. It was also…different. Somehow. Marin shivered. She was freezing her tail off just standing in the same hall with it.

“Where do you think it goes?” asked Leonidas.

“Let’s not find out,” Ariella decided. “Everyone, take a few steps back.”

Hayden and Ian had come to the same conclusion. They were already climbing over the barricade. Marin caught a flash of movement in the shadows behind them. She shook her head. She was so shaken up that she was imagining things. The only thing back there was a dead man.

Silas thought otherwise. He launched two throwing knives over the boys’ heads. A grunt answered the attack, and Hayden and Ian were yanked back over the barrier. A second later a bloody face popped up and white teeth grinned at them. Marin’s mouth fell open. There was no way that man could still been alive. Half of his ribs were sticking through his chest. Silas’s knives were buried in his shoulders.

“Elition healing,” Silas told her, as though he'd read the thoughts from her mind. He threw another two knives, but the man ducked back down before they could hit.

Silas sprinted forward, closing the distance to the barricade in half a second. He was half a second too late. The bloody Elition shoved Hayden and Ian roughly through the portal, then collapsed, face hard to the floor. The portal began to flicker, the crackling buzz becoming more erratic. Silas looked at the portal, then nodded to Ariella.

“It’s going out,” he said. “This portal isn't like the others. And it won't open again.”

“How do you know?” Ariella asked.

“I know.”

Ariella nodded back to him. “I understand.”

And so did Marin. Silas was going to follow them through. He knew it was a one-way trip, and he was going anyway. Marin wanted to shout at him, to tell him not to go. There was no knowing where that thing led. Or if he would ever find a way back. She didn’t want him to leave.

Her lips cracked open to tell him so, but he had already moved into the portal. His body faded slowly from sight, and then he was just gone. He and the portal. A painful knot formed in Marin’s chest and she began to fall.

Leonidas caught her. She tried to struggle, to push free, but he just held her, his unyielding arms locked around her. body She wanted to punch him, but her arms were like jelly. She wanted to scream at him, but she didn’t even have the strength to do that.

Ariella tore the barricade down, and her violet eyes blazed as she honed in on the bloody man. “Where does that portal go?”

The man peeled his face just far enough off the rippled concrete to throw a demented smile at her. Then, his eyes rolled up and his head smacked against the floor.

Ariella pressed a hand to his neck. “Dead.” She wiped the man’s blood off her fingers on a dry corner of his own shirt. “Check the others.”

“Can’t you just give her a minute?” Leonidas said, his arms still around Marin.

“The portal disappeared. Hayden and Ian Selpe are gone.
Silas
is gone. We need to figure out who hired the Crescent Order and how they—” She swung her sword at the camera mounted on the ceiling, splitting it in two. “—are involved in all of this. To do that we need to question one of the assassins. Even if any survived the massive damage Silas was dealing out, it’s unlikely they'll stay alive long. So, no, I can’t just give her a minute.”

His jaw tightening, Leonidas lifted Marin into his arms, then followed Ariella down the hall to scan for survivors. Marin closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see any more death—death that Silas had caused. Blind as she knew she was when it came to him, even she'd read the brutal determination on his face as he tore his opponents apart. She didn't want to remember him as a monster.

“I think this one is still alive,” Leonidas called out. “But not for much longer. He does not look good.”

The horrified disgust in his tone made Marin glad she still had her eyes closed. Leonidas had seen enough brutality to not be startled easily. Marin tried to distract her mind with other thoughts. Like how one could construct a structure the size of a city and still keep it up in the air. Or how much battery power a golem needed, or computational power, or memory…

“Who hired you? Selpes? Avans?” Ariella demanded.

Marin heard the man spit in response. She hoped it wasn’t blood. Something cracked, and the man groaned. Ariella repeated the question.

“Selpe lady…tall…dark curls…white gloves,” he croaked out.

“Lady Cassandra,” Leonidas said. “She sure didn’t waste any time.”

“No, she didn’t,” Ariella agreed. “But are you really surprised?”

“No. I can’t say that I am.”

“How are the Helleans involved?”

From the harsh edge that had return to Ariella’s voice, Marin assumed she was talking to the assassin again.

“Hired too.”

Before the ordeal of the past week, Marin would have been surprised. Sure, everyone claimed the Helleans’ neutrality was nothing but clever marketing, a way to advertise that they would sell to anyone who could meet their price, but Marin hadn't considered that their eager entrepreneurism extended beyond airships and the most innocuous of their gadgets.

“To what end?” Ariella asked.

“We had to chase the Selpe boys…make sure they went through portals…to portal here.” A fit of coughs gurgled out.

“And the Helleans?” Ariella prompted.

“They…provided environments…"

"What are these environments?" Ariella asked.

"Don't…know."

"What else?"

"They provided portals…also supposed to…clean up the mess.”

“Mess?” Ariella asked.

“Any evidence or witnesses,” Leonidas told her. “Dead assassins.” He paused. “Us.”

“So we should expect company. Lovely.” She sounded positively grim. “Where did that portal take them?”

The man muttered something Marin couldn’t make out.