The Hallowed Cure, page 5
Skye Taylor would make sure of that.
I risked another glance at my remaining friends. Reese, Prescott, and Caitlyn all crouched behind what remained of a large cargo palette, with Reese holding Lincoln’s shield between her sister, Prescott, and the mecha with the big missiles. I wondered if that shield could stop a missile.
Mia knelt at my side, of course, crouched with the normal rifle she’d stolen earlier raised. She couldn’t hurt God Armor with that rifle, but it likely made her feel better to point a weapon at something.
It wasn’t like even a Hallowed could just run up and punch a giant mech.
I kept Dismay leveled at Skye and the mecha behind her. “Step aside, Skye.”
“Mister Frost remains alive, Miss Taylor,” Lindsay said through the massive speakers of her god. “If you return now to the lab, of your own accord, I will keep him alive. If you cooperate, I will ensure Mister Frost is treated by the best doctors in Cloud Nine. You will remain together.”
“She’s lying!” I shouted, moving with Mia to get a shot. “She’ll toss you back in a pod and kill Tony in front of you, just to be a bitch!”
Skye matched my movements without turning around. I ground my teeth as Skye kept her body, and her arms, between me and the shot that would end this. Tony struggled futilely with the claw.
“I give you my word,” Lindsay-god said, as sincere and warm as I’d ever heard her. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt Tony.
I want to help you so you can live out your lives together.”
I held the only weapon on this roof that could destroy Lindsay’s God Armor, and I couldn’t fire it without evaporating Skye and frying Tony. It would also make every sacrifice to this point a waste.
Lindsay wasn’t actually in that mecha. She controlled it from deep inside Cloud Nine. All I’d do, unless Skye stepped aside, was fail our rescue mission and destroy a metal puppet.
“Step aside!” I shouted at Skye. “Let me finish it! That’s what Tony wants!”
“Listen to Riven,” Tony rasped from behind her, voice hoarse and rough. “Move aside!”
Skye spun on Lindsay’s God Armor and crept forward, mutant arms spread in an X behind her. The four fingers on each arm clicked together like snapping jaws. Would she pounce? Even as I moved to get a clear shot, Skye skittered into my way and blocked me.
“Enough of this,” Lindsay-god said. Her towering armor raised its arm and Tony. A giant blade snick ed out from the wrist above the claw. That blade stopped a blink from Tony’s neck.
“One button press will decapitate him,” Lindsay-god added. “He cannot regenerate a missing head. Is that what you wish?” Her voice cooled. “Stand down, you beastly creature.”
Movement from the stairwell caught my eye. I spotted Chill, the brown-haired Mortician, crouching in the door. Fresh sweat burst across on my skin, and then the burning started. Chill had targeted us with the microwave emitters embedded in his cybernetic arms.
Mia screamed and fell beside me as my flesh burned. I couldn’t block microwaves, and I sure as hell couldn’t let anyone fry Mia alive. I fired my last Voltage round past Skye, into the open door leading to the roof.
In the instant before the whole thing exploded, I saw Chill’s eyes widen in genuine surprise. He looked almost hurt that I’d choose to murder him, like he’d expected me to simply lie down and be microwaved. The entire stairwell blew apart in a blast of lightning rivaling Inferno’s work.
I dropped as Dismay tumbled from my hands, as paralyzed as if I’d just inhaled a bunch of anti-panacea gas. Yet the burning that had almost killed Mia ceased. Chill, it seemed, was fried.
Lindsay-god audibly clucked her tongue. “You realize I have ten more just like him?”
Her God Armor raised its other arm, the arm not holding Tony.
Panels popped open around her armored wrist to reveal at least six different guns. Mia groaned and rolled on top of me, clanging her metal arms together in a futile attempt to shield us. Pointless as it was, I appreciated her effort.
Yet before Lindsay’s God Armor could riddle Mia and me with bullets, Skye stepped in front of us.
“Step aside, Skye!” Lindsay-god ordered. “Or I will take Tony’s head off.”
I coughed and laughed, twitching on the ground. “You’re fucked, Lindsay.”
Gears whirred and pistons hissed as Lindsay’s God Armor took another step across the roof, trying to get a clear shot. Skye matched it, keeping herself between us and its weapons. I didn’t know what Skye was thinking, but I had to hope she had a plan. I was fresh out.
“You’re bluffing,” I said, knowing Skye was listening as well. “If you kill Tony, Skye will rip that tin soldier apart. You can’t get Skye back. There’s no way you keep her.”
“I will kill him,” Lindsay-god growled. “And then, Skye, I will send more armor to acquire you.”
“If she had more armor, she’d have sent it!” I shouted to Skye.
“Tony tore her army to shreds! She’s got nothing left or it’d be here right now! Take her down and save Tony!”
I doubted Skye would save Tony. In fact, I was almost certain Lindsay would decapitate Tony the moment Skye leapt for them, but
then, at least, I wouldn’t be the one killing Tony. After Skye got done ripping that God Armor apart, she’d have no reason to kill us.
“Do it, Skye!” I shouted. “Get her!”
Lindsay’s God Armor went stiff, like someone had electrocuted it, then slumped. As I watched in disbelief, the God Armor’s knees folded and the whole machine sagged, like a tired man sitting down after a hard day. I saw Prescott leap over the metal barrier out of the corner of my eye, with Caitlyn.
“Caitlyn took it down!” Prescott shouted. “But Lindsay will reboot it soon! Free Tony!”
Caitlyn had hacked Lindsay’s God Armor? Caitlyn had hacked Lindsay’s God Armor! I realized, then, how useful it was to have someone who likely had a back door to every system in Cloud Nine.
Skye sprinted forward and gripped the God Armor’s claw with two mutant arms. She pried it open with a screech of protesting metal, and her two other mutant arms caught Tony as she fell. Skye cradled Tony’s body as her very human hands stroked his hair and face.
Mia rolled off me and coughed. “They look so cute together,” she rasped.
Reese reached me before anyone else and helped me sit up. I batted at her hands and pointed. “Help Mia. She’s microwaved.”
“We’re both microwaved,” Mia said from my side. “You idiot.”
Servos whirred and pistons clomped. Lindsay’s God Armor stirred. It was already rebooting? I forced myself up one elbow, but I couldn’t even raise Dismay. Godhammer blasted a smoking chunk of armor out of the God’s side, but it’d take thirty more shots like that to even start to damage it.
“Take the armor down, Skye!” I shouted. “Before it reboots!”
Skye looked between me and Tony, still crumpled in her arms.
“Now!” I shouted. “Or we all die!”
Prescott reached Skye, arms extended. “I’ve got him! Get that armored fucker!”
Gingerly, Skye settled a groaning Tony in Prescott’s arms. She clicked dangerously and turned. Lindsay’s God Armor had just stood up when Skye slammed into it with the power of four mutant arms.
The armor likely weighed a couple of tons, yet Skye still knocked it clean off its feet.
Yet instead of crashing to the roof, the armor rocketed upwards, round Barghest feet spewing flame. Skye leapt as well, effortlessly snatching one foot with a mutant arm, and scaled the mecha. Three mutant arms gripped a foot, blackening in flames as the armor looked down on us. Just as the square missile boxes on the God Armor’s shoulders opened, Skye popped off its rocket foot.
The mecha rocketed backward, out of control. Missiles spewed upward and outward in a rain. I found just enough energy to throw myself across Mia, shielding her as hell rained down from above. I waited to die and didn’t, and when I finally gathered enough energy to roll off Mia, back burning with tiny stings, I found myself somehow alive.
Belatedly, a massive crash sounded in the street, followed by an explosion. Given its magnitude, I suspected that was Lindsay’s God Armor impacting the street below. The rooftop to my left was a wreck of flames and twisted metal, and all around me, shattered rooftop burned. So far as I could see, Lindsay’s last missile strike had blown huge chunks out of the surrounding apartment buildings.
I wondered, numbly, how many innocent people Lindsay Griffyn had just killed.
Yet as I pushed up to check on Mia, another deafening screech penetrated the ringing in my ears. I looked up just in time to see Skye halfway off the roof, held there by two mutant arms, with her human arms extended beseechingly. I looked again at the wreckage of roof beside me, and there, beside a badly burned and motionless Kiara Prescott, I saw Tony Frost—or what was left of him.
Tony must have thrown himself into Prescott, to knock her clear, as a missile came down. Just like Skye, he’d used his life to save someone else. That left Prescott alive and Tony in half a dozen pieces, pieces that had lost the last of their ability to regenerate.
Hallowed could endure a lot, but even an indirect hit from an anti-aircraft missile was enough to kill us, just like with Amber. Fuck. Tony Frost deserved better too.
Skye rushed across the roof like a giant crab, propelled entirely by her mutant arms. She scooped all that was left of Tony—his head, part of his chest and one arm—and clutched it close. She threw back her human head and shrieked loud enough to shatter windows in all directions.
So there was the trauma Ethan Gambleswitch had been so worried about.
[ 5 ]
OH, MY BEAUTIFUL OMPLEXION
“Reese?” I coughed. “Where’s Caitlyn?”
Reese hopped up. “Gotta go!” She rushed off.
I craned my neck just in time to see Reese join Caitlyn by Prescott, who remained quite badly burned. Caitlyn knelt beside her now. Her lips moved as she pressed hands to Prescott, eyes closed.
What was Caitlyn doing? Some prayer? Prescott wasn’t religious.
Skye dropped to her knees, clutching Tony’s head and chest. Her body trembled as tears coursed down her cheeks, tears that looked incredibly human. I wished I’d been able to do anything else for her.
Yet we had a chance now. Lindsay Griffyn didn’t have any more God Armor. I remembered how we’d gotten here.
“Helo,” I rasped. “We can get out on the supply helo.”
Skye dropped Tony’s torso and head on the roof, then fell to her hands and knees. The shriek she uttered rattled the rooftop and tore through my already aching eardrums. All four of her arms went straight up, trembling as if magnifying the noise. She screamed again, and again.
I was scarcely aware of a smoking supply helo cruising overhead, already on fire. As it flew over, Hahna Sato dropped from the burning aircraft. As Hahna descended Despair gleamed red, caught in the light of the setting sun. I tried to shout a warning to Skye, but barely hissed.
Two of Skye’s mutant arms intercepted Hahna’s descending blade. And instead of getting chopped off, they glowed green. The
tips of Skye’s mutant arms, or specifically, the small holes at the center of her diamond-shaped hands, pulsed with energy just like that which powered our Hallowed weapons.
So Skye’s four alien limbs were Hallowed weapons.
The green glow blocked Despair’s strike. Hahna landed with a grunt as another mutant arm swept around to smack her. She brought Despair close to parry, and did so, but only at the cost of being knocked off her feet. She flew backward through the air.
The burning supply helo that had brought Hahna in smashed into the tower atop Cloud Nine, causing yet another massive explosion.
Hahna landed just beside me, on her feet, and skidded backwards a few steps. It was the first time I’d seen her look genuinely surprised.
She glanced down at me, and Mia, and frowned. “I told you this would happen.” She charged off toward Skye, who now faced her with all four mutant limbs glowing green.
“Get fucked,” I whispered after her, as Mia helped me to my feet.
With not one, but two flaming wrecks on the roof, I had more than enough light to see the latest battle unfolding on the roof. I’d expected to watch Skye Taylor die, and instead, I watched Captain Hahna Sato actually being unable to kill something. I’d never seen that.
The green energy at the end of Skye’s four mutant arms seemed more than a match for each swing of Despair. While Hahna ducked and dodged Skye’s strikes, she only managed that by keeping her distance. Skye, for her part, looked all alien now. Her expression was entirely flat.
Skye had just lost the only person on this roof she wanted to be human for, and now another human—or close—was trying to kill her.
She was going to murder all of us.
“Help me up,” I rasped. “We have to stop them.”
Mia pushed up, trembling, and pulled me with her despite much of her skin still being blistered and red. She was already regenerating from Chill’s microwaves. I hung off Mia as we stumbled together.
“Captain Sato, stop!” Mia shouted. “Skye’s not our enemy!”
The building shook like an earthquake had hit it, throwing Hahna off balance. That gave Skye just enough of an opening to strike Hahna’s blade with one arm, knock Hahna off balance with the other, knock Hahna’s legs out from under her with the third arm, and rip Despair away with the fourth.
Skye tossed Despair like a toothpick. It gleamed alternately red and white before landing, point first, in the roof at the edge of the building, too far away for Hahna to retrieve it. For a terrifying moment, Skye the Class Zero Mute towered over Hahna, screaming at her, with all four mutant arms splayed out behind her back like a furious spider.
Yet instead of tearing Hahna’s head off, Skye turned away. She scampered for the rooftop edge. Before I could say anything else, she leapt off.
“Go!” I coughed at Mia. “After her!”
I caught a vague glimpse of Caitlyn tending a slightly-less charred Prescott as Reese stood guard with Pokey raised. Hahna, now without her sword, flipped to her feet. Mia and I hurried over to the edge of the roof, and Hahna, moving at an easy jog, reached it at the same time we did.
As I glanced over the edge, vertigo gripped me, but that was far from the worst. The lobby of Cloud Nine remained wrecked, but there was something coming out of it now that was not human. A half-block mass of arms and hands and flesh. A Class One Mute.
As it wriggled into the open street, Skye leapt from the side of the building. She landed on top of the Class One. She shrieked again, a sound that reverberated through Hatten, as the Class One writhed off with her riding it like an animal. A horde of Mutes streamed out behind her, many of them Class Fours but some Class Threes, and several rather obvious Class Twos.
“Where’d they come from?” I managed.
Hahna frowned at the retreating Mute army. “If we’d just killed her when we had the chance, this never would have happened.
Everyone who dies next didn’t need to.”
I glowered at her. “Lindsay caused this when she killed Tony.”
Hahna stared at me like I was an idiot. “I’ll be sure to tell everyone whose families are eaten by that horde who’s to blame. I’m sure it’ll make them feel much better.”
“I don’t understand!” Mia shouted. “Where’d all those Mutes come from?”
“The lab,” Caitlyn said grimly from behind us. “Look at this.”
I didn’t. I glanced at Hahna instead, yet she looked to have no intention of attacking us. With a Mute army now out there, I had no question about what we’d do next.
We’d be fighting Mutes together, just like in the Hallowed War, regardless of our disagreements about strategy or lingering grudges.
Lindsay Griffyn had forced our hands. Having recovered just enough strength to walk, I eased myself off Mia and looked to Caitlyn. “What is it?”
Behind Caitlyn, a still-burned Prescott stood once more. She leaned heavily on Reese. Lincoln wasn’t up, yet, but he looked to be slumbering peacefully in his Hallowed trance. The missiles had missed him completely as he just ... slept through the whole fight.
Lucky guy.
Caitlyn pointed at what looked to be a manifest, though I couldn’t easily read it from here. “Cloud Nine retained all the Mutes we captured in the war. A few have died since, but they’ve experimented on the rest of them for years. If they weren’t ready to devour Dios before now, two years of underground torture has likely driven them quite mad.”
Of course they had. “And the Class One?” I managed. “We blew it up.”
“It’s new,” Caitlyn said. “I just retrieved a video from their underground lab. Watch.”
She tapped the tablet, still facing us. A still image displayed of a pristine white lab. It had huge rooms with walls that looked transparent, but were likely meter-thick plastic. Inside one of those big rooms, a horde of Mutes waited. More Mutes waited in another.
The building shook. Plaster fell. “This is when Skye shrieked,”
Caitlyn said.
As I watched in mounting disbelief, the horde of Mutes trapped in the first big chamber all clustered together. At first, it looked like they were hugging, but soon, it grew clear they were merging. Flesh sloughed and arms swayed as what had once been thirty to forty Mutes merged into one giant flesh mass of arms and hands and flesh.
Huh. So that was how a Class One Mute was made. Fuck me sideways.
The new monstrosity battered the transparent walls. In the foreground, people fled. More metal and plaster fell, and then the plastic wall broke. The big Class One hit the wall again and again, shattering it further. Then, the monstrosity burst through the wall—
and the image faded to static.
“Why didn’t they use AP gas?” I asked.
“They did,” Caitlyn said. “It seems the Mutes held their breath until they escaped.”
That ... actually made sense. Hallowed could last a good ten minutes without breathing, and I’d bet Mutes were even better at it.
I risked another glance at my remaining friends. Reese, Prescott, and Caitlyn all crouched behind what remained of a large cargo palette, with Reese holding Lincoln’s shield between her sister, Prescott, and the mecha with the big missiles. I wondered if that shield could stop a missile.
Mia knelt at my side, of course, crouched with the normal rifle she’d stolen earlier raised. She couldn’t hurt God Armor with that rifle, but it likely made her feel better to point a weapon at something.
It wasn’t like even a Hallowed could just run up and punch a giant mech.
I kept Dismay leveled at Skye and the mecha behind her. “Step aside, Skye.”
“Mister Frost remains alive, Miss Taylor,” Lindsay said through the massive speakers of her god. “If you return now to the lab, of your own accord, I will keep him alive. If you cooperate, I will ensure Mister Frost is treated by the best doctors in Cloud Nine. You will remain together.”
“She’s lying!” I shouted, moving with Mia to get a shot. “She’ll toss you back in a pod and kill Tony in front of you, just to be a bitch!”
Skye matched my movements without turning around. I ground my teeth as Skye kept her body, and her arms, between me and the shot that would end this. Tony struggled futilely with the claw.
“I give you my word,” Lindsay-god said, as sincere and warm as I’d ever heard her. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt Tony.
I want to help you so you can live out your lives together.”
I held the only weapon on this roof that could destroy Lindsay’s God Armor, and I couldn’t fire it without evaporating Skye and frying Tony. It would also make every sacrifice to this point a waste.
Lindsay wasn’t actually in that mecha. She controlled it from deep inside Cloud Nine. All I’d do, unless Skye stepped aside, was fail our rescue mission and destroy a metal puppet.
“Step aside!” I shouted at Skye. “Let me finish it! That’s what Tony wants!”
“Listen to Riven,” Tony rasped from behind her, voice hoarse and rough. “Move aside!”
Skye spun on Lindsay’s God Armor and crept forward, mutant arms spread in an X behind her. The four fingers on each arm clicked together like snapping jaws. Would she pounce? Even as I moved to get a clear shot, Skye skittered into my way and blocked me.
“Enough of this,” Lindsay-god said. Her towering armor raised its arm and Tony. A giant blade snick ed out from the wrist above the claw. That blade stopped a blink from Tony’s neck.
“One button press will decapitate him,” Lindsay-god added. “He cannot regenerate a missing head. Is that what you wish?” Her voice cooled. “Stand down, you beastly creature.”
Movement from the stairwell caught my eye. I spotted Chill, the brown-haired Mortician, crouching in the door. Fresh sweat burst across on my skin, and then the burning started. Chill had targeted us with the microwave emitters embedded in his cybernetic arms.
Mia screamed and fell beside me as my flesh burned. I couldn’t block microwaves, and I sure as hell couldn’t let anyone fry Mia alive. I fired my last Voltage round past Skye, into the open door leading to the roof.
In the instant before the whole thing exploded, I saw Chill’s eyes widen in genuine surprise. He looked almost hurt that I’d choose to murder him, like he’d expected me to simply lie down and be microwaved. The entire stairwell blew apart in a blast of lightning rivaling Inferno’s work.
I dropped as Dismay tumbled from my hands, as paralyzed as if I’d just inhaled a bunch of anti-panacea gas. Yet the burning that had almost killed Mia ceased. Chill, it seemed, was fried.
Lindsay-god audibly clucked her tongue. “You realize I have ten more just like him?”
Her God Armor raised its other arm, the arm not holding Tony.
Panels popped open around her armored wrist to reveal at least six different guns. Mia groaned and rolled on top of me, clanging her metal arms together in a futile attempt to shield us. Pointless as it was, I appreciated her effort.
Yet before Lindsay’s God Armor could riddle Mia and me with bullets, Skye stepped in front of us.
“Step aside, Skye!” Lindsay-god ordered. “Or I will take Tony’s head off.”
I coughed and laughed, twitching on the ground. “You’re fucked, Lindsay.”
Gears whirred and pistons hissed as Lindsay’s God Armor took another step across the roof, trying to get a clear shot. Skye matched it, keeping herself between us and its weapons. I didn’t know what Skye was thinking, but I had to hope she had a plan. I was fresh out.
“You’re bluffing,” I said, knowing Skye was listening as well. “If you kill Tony, Skye will rip that tin soldier apart. You can’t get Skye back. There’s no way you keep her.”
“I will kill him,” Lindsay-god growled. “And then, Skye, I will send more armor to acquire you.”
“If she had more armor, she’d have sent it!” I shouted to Skye.
“Tony tore her army to shreds! She’s got nothing left or it’d be here right now! Take her down and save Tony!”
I doubted Skye would save Tony. In fact, I was almost certain Lindsay would decapitate Tony the moment Skye leapt for them, but
then, at least, I wouldn’t be the one killing Tony. After Skye got done ripping that God Armor apart, she’d have no reason to kill us.
“Do it, Skye!” I shouted. “Get her!”
Lindsay’s God Armor went stiff, like someone had electrocuted it, then slumped. As I watched in disbelief, the God Armor’s knees folded and the whole machine sagged, like a tired man sitting down after a hard day. I saw Prescott leap over the metal barrier out of the corner of my eye, with Caitlyn.
“Caitlyn took it down!” Prescott shouted. “But Lindsay will reboot it soon! Free Tony!”
Caitlyn had hacked Lindsay’s God Armor? Caitlyn had hacked Lindsay’s God Armor! I realized, then, how useful it was to have someone who likely had a back door to every system in Cloud Nine.
Skye sprinted forward and gripped the God Armor’s claw with two mutant arms. She pried it open with a screech of protesting metal, and her two other mutant arms caught Tony as she fell. Skye cradled Tony’s body as her very human hands stroked his hair and face.
Mia rolled off me and coughed. “They look so cute together,” she rasped.
Reese reached me before anyone else and helped me sit up. I batted at her hands and pointed. “Help Mia. She’s microwaved.”
“We’re both microwaved,” Mia said from my side. “You idiot.”
Servos whirred and pistons clomped. Lindsay’s God Armor stirred. It was already rebooting? I forced myself up one elbow, but I couldn’t even raise Dismay. Godhammer blasted a smoking chunk of armor out of the God’s side, but it’d take thirty more shots like that to even start to damage it.
“Take the armor down, Skye!” I shouted. “Before it reboots!”
Skye looked between me and Tony, still crumpled in her arms.
“Now!” I shouted. “Or we all die!”
Prescott reached Skye, arms extended. “I’ve got him! Get that armored fucker!”
Gingerly, Skye settled a groaning Tony in Prescott’s arms. She clicked dangerously and turned. Lindsay’s God Armor had just stood up when Skye slammed into it with the power of four mutant arms.
The armor likely weighed a couple of tons, yet Skye still knocked it clean off its feet.
Yet instead of crashing to the roof, the armor rocketed upwards, round Barghest feet spewing flame. Skye leapt as well, effortlessly snatching one foot with a mutant arm, and scaled the mecha. Three mutant arms gripped a foot, blackening in flames as the armor looked down on us. Just as the square missile boxes on the God Armor’s shoulders opened, Skye popped off its rocket foot.
The mecha rocketed backward, out of control. Missiles spewed upward and outward in a rain. I found just enough energy to throw myself across Mia, shielding her as hell rained down from above. I waited to die and didn’t, and when I finally gathered enough energy to roll off Mia, back burning with tiny stings, I found myself somehow alive.
Belatedly, a massive crash sounded in the street, followed by an explosion. Given its magnitude, I suspected that was Lindsay’s God Armor impacting the street below. The rooftop to my left was a wreck of flames and twisted metal, and all around me, shattered rooftop burned. So far as I could see, Lindsay’s last missile strike had blown huge chunks out of the surrounding apartment buildings.
I wondered, numbly, how many innocent people Lindsay Griffyn had just killed.
Yet as I pushed up to check on Mia, another deafening screech penetrated the ringing in my ears. I looked up just in time to see Skye halfway off the roof, held there by two mutant arms, with her human arms extended beseechingly. I looked again at the wreckage of roof beside me, and there, beside a badly burned and motionless Kiara Prescott, I saw Tony Frost—or what was left of him.
Tony must have thrown himself into Prescott, to knock her clear, as a missile came down. Just like Skye, he’d used his life to save someone else. That left Prescott alive and Tony in half a dozen pieces, pieces that had lost the last of their ability to regenerate.
Hallowed could endure a lot, but even an indirect hit from an anti-aircraft missile was enough to kill us, just like with Amber. Fuck. Tony Frost deserved better too.
Skye rushed across the roof like a giant crab, propelled entirely by her mutant arms. She scooped all that was left of Tony—his head, part of his chest and one arm—and clutched it close. She threw back her human head and shrieked loud enough to shatter windows in all directions.
So there was the trauma Ethan Gambleswitch had been so worried about.
[ 5 ]
OH, MY BEAUTIFUL OMPLEXION
“Reese?” I coughed. “Where’s Caitlyn?”
Reese hopped up. “Gotta go!” She rushed off.
I craned my neck just in time to see Reese join Caitlyn by Prescott, who remained quite badly burned. Caitlyn knelt beside her now. Her lips moved as she pressed hands to Prescott, eyes closed.
What was Caitlyn doing? Some prayer? Prescott wasn’t religious.
Skye dropped to her knees, clutching Tony’s head and chest. Her body trembled as tears coursed down her cheeks, tears that looked incredibly human. I wished I’d been able to do anything else for her.
Yet we had a chance now. Lindsay Griffyn didn’t have any more God Armor. I remembered how we’d gotten here.
“Helo,” I rasped. “We can get out on the supply helo.”
Skye dropped Tony’s torso and head on the roof, then fell to her hands and knees. The shriek she uttered rattled the rooftop and tore through my already aching eardrums. All four of her arms went straight up, trembling as if magnifying the noise. She screamed again, and again.
I was scarcely aware of a smoking supply helo cruising overhead, already on fire. As it flew over, Hahna Sato dropped from the burning aircraft. As Hahna descended Despair gleamed red, caught in the light of the setting sun. I tried to shout a warning to Skye, but barely hissed.
Two of Skye’s mutant arms intercepted Hahna’s descending blade. And instead of getting chopped off, they glowed green. The
tips of Skye’s mutant arms, or specifically, the small holes at the center of her diamond-shaped hands, pulsed with energy just like that which powered our Hallowed weapons.
So Skye’s four alien limbs were Hallowed weapons.
The green glow blocked Despair’s strike. Hahna landed with a grunt as another mutant arm swept around to smack her. She brought Despair close to parry, and did so, but only at the cost of being knocked off her feet. She flew backward through the air.
The burning supply helo that had brought Hahna in smashed into the tower atop Cloud Nine, causing yet another massive explosion.
Hahna landed just beside me, on her feet, and skidded backwards a few steps. It was the first time I’d seen her look genuinely surprised.
She glanced down at me, and Mia, and frowned. “I told you this would happen.” She charged off toward Skye, who now faced her with all four mutant limbs glowing green.
“Get fucked,” I whispered after her, as Mia helped me to my feet.
With not one, but two flaming wrecks on the roof, I had more than enough light to see the latest battle unfolding on the roof. I’d expected to watch Skye Taylor die, and instead, I watched Captain Hahna Sato actually being unable to kill something. I’d never seen that.
The green energy at the end of Skye’s four mutant arms seemed more than a match for each swing of Despair. While Hahna ducked and dodged Skye’s strikes, she only managed that by keeping her distance. Skye, for her part, looked all alien now. Her expression was entirely flat.
Skye had just lost the only person on this roof she wanted to be human for, and now another human—or close—was trying to kill her.
She was going to murder all of us.
“Help me up,” I rasped. “We have to stop them.”
Mia pushed up, trembling, and pulled me with her despite much of her skin still being blistered and red. She was already regenerating from Chill’s microwaves. I hung off Mia as we stumbled together.
“Captain Sato, stop!” Mia shouted. “Skye’s not our enemy!”
The building shook like an earthquake had hit it, throwing Hahna off balance. That gave Skye just enough of an opening to strike Hahna’s blade with one arm, knock Hahna off balance with the other, knock Hahna’s legs out from under her with the third arm, and rip Despair away with the fourth.
Skye tossed Despair like a toothpick. It gleamed alternately red and white before landing, point first, in the roof at the edge of the building, too far away for Hahna to retrieve it. For a terrifying moment, Skye the Class Zero Mute towered over Hahna, screaming at her, with all four mutant arms splayed out behind her back like a furious spider.
Yet instead of tearing Hahna’s head off, Skye turned away. She scampered for the rooftop edge. Before I could say anything else, she leapt off.
“Go!” I coughed at Mia. “After her!”
I caught a vague glimpse of Caitlyn tending a slightly-less charred Prescott as Reese stood guard with Pokey raised. Hahna, now without her sword, flipped to her feet. Mia and I hurried over to the edge of the roof, and Hahna, moving at an easy jog, reached it at the same time we did.
As I glanced over the edge, vertigo gripped me, but that was far from the worst. The lobby of Cloud Nine remained wrecked, but there was something coming out of it now that was not human. A half-block mass of arms and hands and flesh. A Class One Mute.
As it wriggled into the open street, Skye leapt from the side of the building. She landed on top of the Class One. She shrieked again, a sound that reverberated through Hatten, as the Class One writhed off with her riding it like an animal. A horde of Mutes streamed out behind her, many of them Class Fours but some Class Threes, and several rather obvious Class Twos.
“Where’d they come from?” I managed.
Hahna frowned at the retreating Mute army. “If we’d just killed her when we had the chance, this never would have happened.
Everyone who dies next didn’t need to.”
I glowered at her. “Lindsay caused this when she killed Tony.”
Hahna stared at me like I was an idiot. “I’ll be sure to tell everyone whose families are eaten by that horde who’s to blame. I’m sure it’ll make them feel much better.”
“I don’t understand!” Mia shouted. “Where’d all those Mutes come from?”
“The lab,” Caitlyn said grimly from behind us. “Look at this.”
I didn’t. I glanced at Hahna instead, yet she looked to have no intention of attacking us. With a Mute army now out there, I had no question about what we’d do next.
We’d be fighting Mutes together, just like in the Hallowed War, regardless of our disagreements about strategy or lingering grudges.
Lindsay Griffyn had forced our hands. Having recovered just enough strength to walk, I eased myself off Mia and looked to Caitlyn. “What is it?”
Behind Caitlyn, a still-burned Prescott stood once more. She leaned heavily on Reese. Lincoln wasn’t up, yet, but he looked to be slumbering peacefully in his Hallowed trance. The missiles had missed him completely as he just ... slept through the whole fight.
Lucky guy.
Caitlyn pointed at what looked to be a manifest, though I couldn’t easily read it from here. “Cloud Nine retained all the Mutes we captured in the war. A few have died since, but they’ve experimented on the rest of them for years. If they weren’t ready to devour Dios before now, two years of underground torture has likely driven them quite mad.”
Of course they had. “And the Class One?” I managed. “We blew it up.”
“It’s new,” Caitlyn said. “I just retrieved a video from their underground lab. Watch.”
She tapped the tablet, still facing us. A still image displayed of a pristine white lab. It had huge rooms with walls that looked transparent, but were likely meter-thick plastic. Inside one of those big rooms, a horde of Mutes waited. More Mutes waited in another.
The building shook. Plaster fell. “This is when Skye shrieked,”
Caitlyn said.
As I watched in mounting disbelief, the horde of Mutes trapped in the first big chamber all clustered together. At first, it looked like they were hugging, but soon, it grew clear they were merging. Flesh sloughed and arms swayed as what had once been thirty to forty Mutes merged into one giant flesh mass of arms and hands and flesh.
Huh. So that was how a Class One Mute was made. Fuck me sideways.
The new monstrosity battered the transparent walls. In the foreground, people fled. More metal and plaster fell, and then the plastic wall broke. The big Class One hit the wall again and again, shattering it further. Then, the monstrosity burst through the wall—
and the image faded to static.
“Why didn’t they use AP gas?” I asked.
“They did,” Caitlyn said. “It seems the Mutes held their breath until they escaped.”
That ... actually made sense. Hallowed could last a good ten minutes without breathing, and I’d bet Mutes were even better at it.
