Unleash the Storm (32 page)

The steel walls were streaked with lines of rust. The air smelled of damp mold as they left the main basement level behind. Stairs appeared, dropping a dozen steps before turning and dropping again, then again. Kiev was so close he was almost stepping on her; Ash probably wasn’t the only draconian who hated being underground. Lyre led them, his light bobbing above his head, his bow and an arrow in his hands.

They came to the bottom of the stairs. A wide metal door blocked their path, lacking any kind of lock or handle.

“Is this the vault?” Piper whispered.

“No.” Lyre stepped up to the steel barricade. “But we’re close.”

Magic vibrated from the door as he approached it. Before he could touch it, glowing green lines appeared across the steel: a huge circle filled with dozens of smaller, interlocking circles containing geometric lines and symbols. As soon as they appeared, they began to move. The large outer circle turned clockwise and the inner circles spun too, some clockwise, some counterclockwise, all moving together like a complex system of gears. The symbol in the center of each circle turned over and over, fast or slow depending on the circle.

At the same time the pattern on the door appeared, a glowing green ring materialized beneath the feet of each person standing in front of the door.

Lyre stepped back, the circle under his feet moving with him. He craned his neck, eyes flashing over the rotating pattern.

“What is—” she began nervously.

He held up a hand, the demand for silence clear. His gaze moved from circle to circle and the veins in his clenched jaw stood out. As he stood staring at it, the green color of the lines gradually shifted to a yellow glow that soon turned orange. The rings under their feet morphed colors at the same rate.

“Why is it changing color?” Kiev whispered to Piper.

“When it turns red, we all die,” Lyre said flatly.

Her eyes shot down to the orange circle surrounding her boots.

“I can figure this out,” he muttered. “I should know—ah!”

Unceremoniously dropping his bow and arrow, he lunged forward and touched a hand to one spinning symbol. It lit green instantly. He stretched out the other hand and laid it on a second symbol. It turned green too.

But the rest of the lines kept darkening, shifting from bright orange to the reddish orange of flames.

“Shit,” Lyre hissed. “Piper!”

She leaped to his side.

“Do you see the small symbol like a starburst by my left knee?”

Heart pounding, she dropped to a crouch, eyes scouring the glowing lines. It was so hard to see with everything moving. She squinted as the color dipped firmly into red territory. There: a tiny starburst in the center of one of the smallest circles.

She pointed. “This one?”

“Yes! Touch it—only the starburst, nothing else.”

Her heart rate kicked up. The lines grew brighter red and hissed ominously as she reached out two fingers and pressed them to the center of the starburst. The hot metal singed her fingertips.

All the spinning stopped and every line flashed back to green before fading away. The rings around their feet disappeared too. Lyre let out a long breath and pushed gently on the door. It swung open a few inches on soundless hinges. He backed up a step, then dropped to a crouch and put both hands over his face, inhaling and exhaling with deliberate precision.

“Lyre?” She crouched beside him, touching his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely from behind his hands. “Just need to breathe for a moment. That was too close for comfort.”

“What was it?”

“A puzzle,” he mumbled, rubbing his face once before lowering his hands. “It shouldn’t have taken me that long to solve it.”

A puzzle for a master weaver, she was betting. Something that only the experts at Chrysalis could solve, effectively keeping everyone else out. She didn’t want to know what the spell would have done to them if Lyre hadn’t solved it in time.

The incubus picked up his discarded bow and arrow, dropped the arrow back into the quiver, and glanced back at the others. “Don’t touch
anything
in this room.”

The draconians nodded fervently, still shaken by Lyre’s reaction to disarming the door and how close they’d come to dying from magic none of them understood. With his free hand, he pushed the door the rest of the way open and walked into the room beyond.

The walls of the giant rectangular space were part rough stone and part steel pillars that disappeared into the darkness. A handful of heavy steel doors lined the walls, but a pair of massive … massive
things
dominated the space. The tower-like devices were twice her height, metal frames with wiring that twisted into thick lines and coils. Bundles of electrical lines ran along the floor, disappearing into the dark back half of the room where the steady rumble of generators echoed.

The two tall, narrow contraptions faced each other, and between them ran a thin line of twisting, rippling green light.

She stared at the writhing cord of light and sensation scraped under her skin. It was like the rushing, flowing power of a ley line but … wrong. Just all wrong. She understood what Tenryu had been sensing. How could she not have sensed it sooner? It made every hair on her body stand on end.

“The vaults are over here,” Lyre said, turning toward one of the steel doors. “We’ll take care of the records before we deal with—”

He broke off, spinning to face the twin ley line device.

A man appeared out of the darkness, strolling casually beneath the twisting rope of ley line power. He stopped in front of it, his hands tucked casually in the pockets of his white lab coat. Pale blond hair, golden eyes, gorgeous. If Lyre had been in glamour, this incubus would be his perfect doppelganger—except Lyre’s eyes had never looked so cruel and flat. Dead eyes.

“Welcome back, little brother,” the incubus crooned, his purring voice as cruel as his eyes. He seemed completely unfazed by the five draconians in the room, not even glancing at them. “You do realize that destroying the records won’t erase your past, don’t you?”

“Obviously,” Lyre said, his voice as cold as his sibling’s but lacking that flat note of malevolence. “But destroying you would make me feel better.”

The other incubus smiled. “You are even more delusional than I remember, little brother.”

“No more than usual, Ariose.”

An explosion from somewhere above shook the floor and dust drifted down from the rough stone ceiling. Zwi let out a small whimper. Ariose glanced unconcernedly at the ceiling, then turned to the left post of the ley line device. With a little smile at Lyre, he put his hand inside a gap in the panel.

The beam of green light crackled and both steel towers started to vibrate, humming loudly. The light writhed, little bolts jumping off it like miniature lightning.

“What did you just do?” Lyre half growled.

Ariose’s smile widened as he pulled his hand out. He gestured casually.

With bright flashes of light, a dozen reapers teleported into the room, their blades whirling toward the draconians. Two died immediately, cut down by multiple reapers. Teva and a pair of dragonets transformed as Kiev and the remaining two draconians threw themselves at the reapers.

Piper grabbed Zwi and tossed her toward a dark corner to hide, whipping her sword up as a reaper sprang at her. Their blades crashed together.

Just behind her, Lyre faced Ariose, their eyes locked. Both barely seemed to notice the reapers and draconians battling. Lyre’s vulnerable back was to the reapers. The idiot wasn’t even defending himself.

As the reaper pulled back and swung his scythe at her face, she abandoned caution. Throwing up an arm, she let the blade slam into it. The scythe cut through the black leather but did nothing to the dragon scale she wore underneath it. In that instant when the reaper hesitated, shocked his weapon hadn’t cleaved through her flimsy arm bones, she ran her sword through his diaphragm and up into his heart.

Lyre finally moved, his hand flashing over his shoulder for an arrow. Ariose shed his glamour, a black bow in his hand. He grabbed an arrow and fired an instant after Lyre. The arrows collided midair, exploding in a golden blast that knocked both incubi back a step.

Halfway through rushing to Lyre, Piper stumbled in the wake of the explosion, shocked at the impossible accuracy of Ariose’s shot. The incubus’s eyes, now black instead of gold, flicked to her, catching her gaze.

Her mind blanked, overwhelmed with the need to be near the beautiful creature before her. She didn’t realize she was walking toward him until Lyre grabbed her flying harness and yanked her back so hard she fell. Her ass hit the floor, jarring her to her senses. Ariose’s attention had returned to Lyre but she could still feel the irresistible magnetism emanating off him. Holy shit.

Lyre slung his bow over his shoulder and pulled out his chain of gems. He slid his fingers down the chain, stopping on a stone, somehow selecting it by touch alone. Ariose smiled and shouldered his bow as well, lifting a similar chain of spells from beneath his shirt.

“The reapers, Piper,” Lyre said without taking his eyes off his brother.

Shit. Since she was clearly too female to be of any help against an incubus out of glamour, she scrambled up and spun around to jump back into the fray with the reapers. Kiev and the other two were overwhelmed, scarcely able to stay alive. Magic blasted as their swords flashed in the dim light, and reapers darted and teleported, their scythes seeking an opening.

Piper jumped into their midst, letting go of all thought and fear. Her sword found a reaper too distracted by Kiev to see her coming. To her left, a dragon screamed its death cry, falling with a scythe buried in its throat, and one of the draconians staggered, his sword falling from his hand. Teva roared and charged the dragon’s killer, fangs ripping into flesh.

Piper ran and sprang onto the shoulders of a reaper heading for the stunned, grief-stricken draconian. The reaper whirled violently, dislodging her. She landed in a crouch and drove her sword into his knee. He staggered back, the motion pulling the hilt from her hand, and flung magic into her face. She shielded and flicked her fingers, sending a whip of magic slicing through his torso.

She put herself in front of the incapacitated draconian as Kiev took out another reaper. Drawing her twin short swords, she looked frantically around the room.

Gold light blasted outward from Lyre and Ariose, the concussive wave knocking everyone in the room off their feet. The ley line devices shook, the line of green light dancing crazily. No sooner did the first spell fade than another spell detonated: golden swirls like a thousand snaking wires. A dome shield erupted from the center of the attack, shoving the wires away. An instant later, a green-veined flash in a strange pattern of twisting lines and symbols expanded fast, glowing brighter and brighter. It broke apart in a red blaze, diffused before the spell could ignite. She couldn’t even see the two incubi among the sizzling, sparkling cloud of incandescence and magic, their attacks and counterattacks going off faster than she could follow.

A hand landed on her shoulder, almost shocking a shriek out of her.

“I’m good now,” the draconian behind her said, his voice haggard. “Protect Lyre.”

He grabbed his sword off the floor and she nodded, leaving him as she dashed away. They were down to six reapers—enough for Kiev and the other two to handle. She dodged past them, running for the haze of magic at the other end of the room. They couldn’t lose Lyre; without him, they couldn’t get into the vault to destroy the records and she had no idea how to safely destroy the ley line devices.

Another explosion erupted from the incubi, throwing her backward. She skidded on the floor. Sucking in a fast breath, she jumped into the swirl of light.

Sizzling magic burned her skin. Within it, Lyre and Ariose stood mere paces away from each other. They weren’t even trying to physically attack each other; it was a battle of magical skill alone, as though they had agreed without words that in this fight, they would prove who was the superior weaver and nothing more.

As she burst into the midst of their contest, two pairs of black eyes flicked toward her. Ariose bared his teeth furiously at the interruption and cast a hand toward her. She called on her magic, surrounding her body in a shield of swirling blue and purple light as she charged straight into the spell. Blades of magic screeched against her shield, orange light erupting all around her as her hybrid magic ate the spell—but it wasn’t enough.

The blades cut through her shield and hot lines of pain scored her body as the spell sliced through her dragon-scale clothing. But the delay of her shield had been enough. She flew through his spell and his eyes widened in fear as she barreled into him.

He caught her wrist with one hand but missed her other arm. She thrust hard as he desperately twisted away. Her short sword cut across his side. Blood splattered the floor. His hand on her wrist clenched and the surge of magic burned her flesh as he conjured a deadly spell.

Lyre’s hand closed on Ariose’s throat and golden magic crackled up his arm. Ariose went rigid, his back arching and head falling back. Then he went limp. His dead eyes stared at nothing as Lyre let him go. His body hit the floor.

She staggered back, vaguely aware of the pain of her injuries. Lurching around, she lifted both swords, intending to help Kiev and the two draconians with the last three reapers. Behind her, the ley line devices crackled and hummed loudly.

An explosion of sound blared through the room. Piper flinched, afraid that the devices had exploded—but they were still vibrating, undamaged. The sound continued, a deep percussive boom that pummeled her eardrums and shook her brain in her skull.

The awful cacophony thundered through the room and all three draconians collapsed to the floor, clutching their heads in agony.

A
s the draconians fell
, their dragons collapsed too, yelping in pain.

“Piper!” Lyre yelled frantically.

She sprang toward the downed draconians, but not fast enough.

Two reapers slashed with their scythes, ripping one of the draconians open in the chest and stomach simultaneously. His dragon screamed and transformed back into a dragonet in a rush of black fire.

The reaper standing over Kiev raised his scythe and the blade flashed down. Piper ran, knowing she was too slow, knowing she couldn’t make it.

Kiev threw himself to the side. The blade caught his shoulder, cutting deep as he wrenched away. Then Piper crashed sword-first into the reaper’s back, driving the daemon into the floor. The last reaper sliced open the third draconian’s thigh a second before Lyre fired an arrow through his throat.

Piper knelt, grabbing Kiev’s arm and pulling him half up. He clutched his head, hands pressed over his ears, heedless of the blood running from his shoulder.

“What’s wrong with him?” she yelled over the reverberating boom.

“It’s the sound!” Lyre shouted unhelpfully. He grabbed her arm, yanking her away from Kiev and spinning her to face him. “It’s like the Gaians’ little ultrasound speaker, but it’s a large field of sound instead. The sonic shockwaves are brutalizing their inner ears.”

“No,” she gasped in horror.

The sound was hurting her ears too but she wasn’t writhing on the floor. The draconians, with their sensitive inner ears for flying in the dark, couldn’t tolerate it.

“The shockwaves will incapacitate all the draconians so the reapers can slaughter them—including Ash and Tenryu.” He pointed at the ley line device. “Look!”

She jerked her head toward the contraption and saw the line of the green light pulsing in time to the sonic shockwaves, while the towers vibrated even more obviously, like running engines.

“See how the line is oscillating? The ley lines must be powering the amplification spells.”

Her eyes popped in horror. “You have to shut it down!”

“I don’t know how! Can’t you feel how unstable it is? One mistake and I could blow up the whole estate.” His fingers dug into her shoulders. “The amplification spell is somewhere else. There might be more than one, and they’ll be big. You have to find them and destroy them!”

She pushed his hands off her. “I’m on it. Try to shut down that machine.”

Not waiting for his agreement, she scooped her swords up and jammed the bloody blades back into their sheaths. Kiev staggered to his feet, shaking his head blurrily. If he was up, then the sonic shockwaves weren’t as debilitating as the ultrasound speaker the Gaians had used on Ash—theirs had caused him to seizure and lose consciousness. But this one was bad enough. Even if the draconians could endure it and stay on their feet, there was no way they could fight effectively.

As she spun for the doorway, Zwi ran out of the shadows and jumped onto her back with a pained wail. Piper sprinted out of the room with Zwi, leaving Lyre with the ley line machines, not knowing if there was any chance he could shut down the device without his brother’s knowledge—now permanently inaccessible.

She bolted up the dark stairs and into the main basement, then up more stairs toward the foyer. As she ran, not even shading could hold back her panic. How could they have forgotten about the draconians’ only real caste weakness? The Gaians had been the first ones to use their sensitive hearing against them, but back then, she and Ash hadn’t known that all the Gaians’ anti-daemon weapons had come from Samael. She
should
have made the connection! Why hadn’t she considered that Samael would implement a similar defensive strategy in his estate?

She charged across the reception room, leaping over bodies of unfamiliar daemons and black-clad draconians without pause. A few draconians clustered near the front doors, holding their heads as the sound pounded through the room.

“Piper!” one of them yelled.

She didn’t—couldn’t—stop. She crossed the room at full tilt and slammed through the door and into the stairwell they’d come down. At the top, she burst out into a white hallway and followed their path in reverse until she reached the giant, still-smoking hole in the ceiling. She leaped and grabbed the blackened edges. Using a piece of steel rebar as a handle, she hauled herself onto the rooftop. Rain poured down on her head as she spun in a wild circle.

Smoke boiled into the sky from buildings on every side and flames leaped chaotically beneath the rain, red and orange light glowing from the fires all across Asphodel. Blue light lit the sky, making her spin. Near the military quadrant, Ash and Tenryu wheeled in the sky, fire bursting off them. She saw their target: one of the squat black towers they’d noticed on their way to the estate.

There might be more than one, and they’ll be big
. Of course, the towers! Her eyes shot across the skyline of the estate, picking out the other three towers silhouetted against the glow of multiple fires.

As her eyes darted back toward Tenryu, he released a mighty blast of blue fire. The flames cascaded off an invisible barrier floating above the tower. It was shielded—shielded so powerfully that Tenryu’s inferno magic couldn’t break through.

The booming shockwave battered painfully at her ears, as distracting as the racing urgency she felt.

Tenryu banked around to attack again, but a sudden volley of what looked like red cannon balls shot toward him from multiple directions. They exploded against him and he careened toward the ground.

“No!” she screamed.

Too late. He disappeared below the rooftops. Blue light and flames blazed toward the sky. He and Ash were alive and fighting, but for how much longer? How long could any of the draconians keep defending themselves with the sonic shockwaves causing them so much pain? Every second she wasted led to more draconians dying.

She couldn’t wait any longer.

With a trembling hand, she pulled the gem-encased Sahar from her belt pouch. Clenching her hand around it, she called on her magic to break the protective casing. If this wasn’t the worst of the worst-case scenarios, she didn’t know what was. It was time to find out if she was as strong as she hoped.

In the instant before she broke the amethyst casing, she imagined sealing her mind in a steel barrier of willpower. She would not succumb to Natania. She would not lose control.

The casing shattered in her hand.

The Sahar’s magic rushed through her in a swirling storm of lightning and rage. And right behind it came Natania.

This time she felt the strike against her mind. The force of the attack shook her inside and out, and she wobbled where she stood. Holding her imagined barrier in place with every ounce of will she had, she lifted her fist, Sahar clenched tight, and focused on the nearest tower. The power inside her built, searing her nerves, already agonizing. She brought her fist down in a violent gesture.

Power blasted down on the tower. Silver light flashed, almost blinding her.

The light faded and her heart jumped into her throat. The tower was still standing. It wasn’t even damaged.

No! Even the Sahar’s power wasn’t enough? That ley line machine had to be fueling the shield too. No barrier had ever withstood the Sahar.

She needed more. Clenching her teeth, she summoned more magic. It raged through her, lightning in her blood that fast turned to agony. Natania struck again, driving her mind into Piper’s with crushing force. She gasped, hunching as she fought both Natania and the torment of the building power.

“No!” she choked.

She raised her hand, ignoring the way it trembled. Burning agony. Madness and fury. She focused not on the tower in front of her, but on all four. She gathered them in her mind, laying mental targets across each one. The power in her swelled, intensifying more and more.

To destroy the ward over Asphodel, they’d had to attack multiple watchtowers on both sides at the same time. Since all four towers were fueled by the same source, the shields had to be connected. Maybe hitting all of them together would be enough. She had to try.

As she drew even more power into her, she could feel the ripping, tearing sensation of the magic breaking her. Then another battering-ram attack struck her mind, almost crushing her sanity in a single stroke. She cried out, fighting to hold herself and the Sahar’s power together as Natania struck again and again, not letting up.

Trembling head to toe, she raised her hand, pulling the raging maelstrom of power within her under control. She focused on the towers, solidifying her targets. The shockwaves boomed like a never-ending explosion, pulsing in her head.

She inhaled, preparing to unleash her attack.

Natania slammed into her mind one more time, tearing through her concentration and defenses like a torpedo. Piper’s mind ripped open and darkness sucked her down.

A
gony
. Twisting, pulling, falling. Fighting.

Inside her mind, in a strange, distant darkness, she and Natania battled for control. There was no thought, no strategy. Somehow, those things had dissolved when their minds had violently collided. Now, it was just a fierce, instinctive battle for control.

She was inside Natania’s mind but Natania was also within hers—both twisted together, tangled until their memories and emotions mixed.

Beneath the ferocity of their battle, she could feel flashes of Natania’s self rushing through her. Heartbeats of emotion—of pain honed over centuries, of loneliness and loss so profound they had taken on a life of their own, of desperation and vicious, poisonous bitterness. Five hundred years of hate had forged her mind into a lethal weapon.

In that detached inner world, Piper could feel her own self, flashes of what drove her onward: desperation, fear, need, urgency. Natania’s ferocious hatred cut through them all. But deep in the core of her self, of her soul, her heart held strong. Love was like a bright flame within her, her need to survive, to return to Ash, to Lyre, to her father, her uncle, her friends. She wouldn’t fail them. She couldn’t.

Their minds tangled as they cut and slashed at the other’s every weakness until all that was left was Natania’s bitter need to inflict pain and Piper’s frantic need to not fail her loved ones. They crashed together, agonizing fire and slicing pain as they tore apart on the blades of each other’s emotions.

Let me in!
Natania screamed from somewhere inside her head.
You can’t win!

Piper held against the onslaught of the woman’s hatred. Again she felt it—the pain and loneliness, the loss and desperation, endless years passing as madness lurked in her, growing stronger and stronger. Her soul bound to a lifeless stone. Her lovers’ betrayals, playing over and over in her prison, her only company, her only companionship. Twisting her. Torturing her. Alone. Alone for so, so long.

Sympathy welled in Piper, flowing through her mind.

Don’t you dare pity me
, Natania shrieked furiously.
Get out! This body is mine now!

Piper should have felt fear, fury, even hatred for the woman who was trying to destroy her. But with the threads of Natania’s soul mixing with hers, she couldn’t. All she could feel was a shared pain and compassion for her. All the terrible things Natania had done were still not as vile as what Maahes and Nyrtaroth had done to her.

No!
Natania howled.
Stop it!

Loneliness. A hundred years of loneliness while locked in her prison. Another hundred. And another. Nothing but isolation, but unbearable pain and growing madness that would never,
could
never end. Empathy rose through Piper, saturating her spinning, torn mind. Natania hurt so much. She hadn’t deserved what they’d done and she didn’t deserve Piper’s hate.

From deep in her core, love rose behind empathy: her love for Ash and her friends and family—emotion that Natania’s hate and rage couldn’t touch. With strength born from that love, she cut through the woman’s defenses, straight into her core self and, without thought or consciousness, she offered unspoken compassion for Natania’s pain.

In the strange dark space within their twisted, tangled minds, Natania screamed in agony and despair. Then her will to fight broke, and the writhing struggle between them went still and silent.

N
atania was crying
.

Kneeling on soft mats, Piper held the woman to her. They were sitting in a corner of the sparring room in the Griffiths Consulate. The nearest wall was lined with weapons of all shapes and sizes, while the far wall was decorated with practice equipment, targets, and man-shaped dummies.

She gazed around the room as she hugged Natania. This had been one of her retreats as an apprentice, a quiet spot where she would hide when things went badly—the room where she’d always felt strongest and the most in control, the place where she truly excelled. It didn’t exist anymore outside her memory.

That’s what this was: a memory.
Her
memory. She and Natania were inside her mind instead of Natania pulling Piper into hers.

She rubbed Natania’s shoulder gently as the woman sobbed harshly, her whole body shaking. She could feel everything in Natania’s mind and soul, and it broke her heart. Tears streamed down her face, dripping off her chin.

“Why,” Natania choked hoarsely. “Why did you have to be so goddamn soft?”

Piper continued to rub her shoulder. “How could I hate you?”

“You hated me before.”

“I didn’t understand before. I couldn’t comprehend it.”

“I could have won,” Natania wept. “If you hadn’t …” She choked wordlessly. “I
loved
them. Why did they do this to me?”

She held Natania more tightly. The haemon woman had loved Maahes and Nyrtaroth with all her heart and all she’d wanted was for one of them to love her back. They’d loved the idea of her—a strong, confident woman brave enough to draw them both in—but they hadn’t truly loved
her
. She’d been a toy, a prize. They’d cared—but not enough. They hadn’t loved her.

Piper hadn’t been thinking of any of that when she’d let go of her negative emotions and extended her compassion to Natania. She’d just wanted to do something, anything, to ease a little of the woman’s pain. She hadn’t expected the gesture to break Natania’s will to fight. She hadn’t expected anything, to be honest.