Anthem's Fall (48 page)

One thing was certain: if Pral Nerol was alive and on Filgaia, he was going to pay dearly for the slaughter he unleashed upon Vengelis’s people and proceeded to flee from. There was no choice; Vengelis knew he had to investigate this at once. He turned and looked to Kristen and Madison, who each looked troubled by the sudden severity of his expression.

“I have to leave for a moment,” Vengelis said, his voice distant.

“What?” Kristen asked.

“Something has come to my attention. I need to check on it immediately.”

Kristen’s gaze flickered momentarily to the shattered windows and street beyond. Vengelis glared at her, guessing her intentions of escaping the moment he was not there to hold her and the rest of the convention.

“If you try to escape and slip into the evacuation out of this city, my solution will be to indiscriminately slaughter the migrating masses. Do you understand me, Kristen Jordan? If you choose to take your chances and flee from this room, you will be gambling with millions of lives—including your own.”

Vengelis reached out and pulled Kristen close to him by the collar of her shirt. “That means
stay
. It’s a command a dog can follow. Let’s hope a scientist can, too.”

“Fine,” Kristen said, straining her head away from him in disdain. “God! I’m not going anywhere!”

“Where are you going?” Madison asked.

“I need to check on something,” Vengelis looked out the windows and began to walk toward the empty panes. “You have no excuse not to be here when I return. If the doors to this room are pried open and you two are ordered to evacuate the building by some sort of authority, refuse them. This ballroom is in the only safe building in the city, and—for now—I would like to keep the both of you alive. If you leave, your lives will be in jeopardy. I should be back in a minute.”

With that, Vengelis turned from them and accelerated through one of the tall window frames and into the open air and sunlight of the street. There were crowds raging everywhere along the avenue. With all routes off Manhattan destroyed, the would-be evacuating masses were festering and boiling over. Under the imposing overhead displays depicting a decimated Chicago, chaos alone reigned.

Floating over the street, Vengelis stared at the screen of his
Harbinger I
remote and tracked the linked remotes of his Lord General and Royal Guard. Darien’s was not being detected anywhere, but Hoff’s was blinking from several blocks to the north. The dot of the Lord General’s remote remained ominously stationary as Vengelis stared at it indecisively. He ignored the multitudes on the streets and flew north a few hundred feet above the avenue, periodically looking down as he moved toward the flashing location of Hoff’s remote. Vengelis did not know which was more concerning, the stillness of Hoff’s blinking dot or the total absence of Darien’s.

Vengelis soared past a lofty office tower, his lithe reflection moving swiftly across the darkly mirrored windows. A peculiar sight met him from below, and he straightened as he looked down upon the scene of the street ahead. There was a crowd of people huddled around a shadowed mass on the pavement. Vengelis looked back to the monitor in his hand. The flashing location of Hoff’s remote was directly where the circle of people had gathered. He glared and cautiously moved forward, his attention darting about the surroundings.

Men and women pressed and crowded around the motionless mass, and as Vengelis neared, he saw it was a prostrate body. With a stunned breath he recognized the unmistakable glint of Imperial First Class armor. It was the lifeless body of Alegant Hoff. Someone had killed his Lord General. Vengelis glared down at his fallen subordinate before quickly raising his vision and squinting sharply into the bright skies all around him. There were just clouds, steel spires, and the wind. The attacker had left in a hurry, whoever it was.

Nerol. Why had Hoff said it was Nerol?

Vengelis descended and touched down on the pavement beside the bruised and bloodied corpse of his highest-ranked general. There was an upsurge of screams and trampling of feet behind him as the men and women watched him descend from the sky. Vengelis stood beside Hoff and looked at him expressionlessly for a long moment, unable to keep his wits afloat in the growing confusion. He glared at the giant’s battered backside as he kneeled down to his motionless body and saw the Lord General’s armor was cracked and broken in places. Someone had fractured his ribs. Vengelis ran his fingers down Hoff’s back and saw evidence of a brutal liver strike—the killing blow. He frowned and let his hand rest on Hoff’s lower back. Whoever assaulted him had done so with technical and practiced precision.

People were shouting, though Vengelis was so lost he took no notice of the insurgence encompassing him. With both hands, he reached down and rolled Hoff over on the pavement, pushing the giant Lord General onto his back. Below the thick bristles of Hoff’s heavy moustache, a streak of red-brown blood spread across his wide chin and neck. The Lord General’s lifeless eyes stared vacantly into the sky.

“Nerol couldn’t have done this,” Vengelis murmured under his breath and shook his head. Whoever did it was strong, very strong, and certainly not an old man.

A prickly feeling rose on the back of his neck and Vengelis turned, once more searching the brilliant sky above him. He half expected to see the grim outline of a woman floating between the two tall buildings and smiling down at him with blonde hair and blue glowing eyes. Vengelis quickly shook the notion of Felixes from his mind and grabbed hold of Hoff’s enormous forearm, pulling the Lord General onto his own shoulder and easily lifting off the ground and ascending gracefully to the top of an adjacent building. He let Hoff’s body rest against the backside of a stone ledge. One more Primus life claimed without any semblance of validity or commemoration by this nameless struggle. The last Epsilon placed a hand on his Lord General’s shoulder and allowed himself a moment’s silence before lifting back into the sky.

Vengelis was actually surprised at the anger he felt over this crime. He tore off the rooftop and flew high into the air over the city, scanning the entire surrounding area. His gaze traced the horizons of endless blue ocean to the east and flat meadowlands to the west. The bright roof of the world was dotted only with the scattering of thin clouds. He looked into the expansive and empty horizons and decided that whatever killed Hoff was surely still in the city, so he brought his gaze back to the rooftops of Manhattan.

Vengelis found himself in a dilemma.

On the one hand, it was his desire—no, his responsibility—to determine what killed Hoff and where Darien was. On the other, it was unbelievably dangerous to leave the one and only sliver of a hope he had at defeating the Felixes, Kristen Jordan, unattended to. He looked down and carefully scanned up and down each avenue and street below. Noxious black smoke rose from one intersection, where the mangled wreck of a helicopter smoldered into the pavement. Where the hell was Darien? Surely he had fought alongside Hoff against their enemy? Vengelis pulled out his
Harbinger I
remote again and scanned for a location on Darien’s remote. The monitor flashed,
no readings in proximity
.

As Vengelis glared at the message, something caught his attention momentarily above the city to the south. It had been nothing more than a dark dot against the light blue backdrop of the sky. He snapped his head up and stared intently in the direction of the movement, hair blowing across his forehead in the breeze. In his peripheral vision he had seen something soar above the buildings and rooftops.

Without another moment’s consideration, Vengelis pocketed his remote and erupted toward the collection of skyscrapers to the southwest.

F
loating against the strong winds blowing above the rooftops of Manhattan, Gravitas Nerol carefully scrutinized the streets and avenues of Midtown for any sign of the incapacitated Royal Guard. Gravitas was certain he had seen Darien fall somewhere into this nest of towers, though he was quickly realizing it would be impossible to discern the giant amid the raging disorder and floundering mobs far below. The wounded giant was probably resting in an alley, or perhaps hiding within an office building, his arm hanging maimed and loose at his side.

Gravitas had no doubt the Royal Guard would be calling for reinforcements, though after the slaying of the Lord General, the city would be swarming with Imperial First Class ranks within minutes, regardless of one Royal Guard’s call for help. But the fear of more giant soldiers was not anywhere near the culmination of Gravitas’s trepidations. The notion of an Epsilon in the city was a larger concern than even a hundred members of the Imperial First Class or Royal Guard ranks. Gravitas could not bring himself to believe what the huge Lord General had told him with that snide and gloating smirk.

The son of Emperor Faris could not be in New York City.

One of the more modern and arabesque buildings under his feet abruptly caught Gravitas’s attention. Unlike the main entrances to the other skyscrapers, the pale stone sidewalk outside the front of this glass tower was absolutely deserted. Not a single person was entering or leaving through the huge central doors. Instead, the ant-sized shoulders of suits and blouses were pouring out of a few constricted emergency exits on the side of the building in single file lines. Gravitas glared suspiciously at the incongruity of the bare sidewalk in front of the building. The slow and congested evacuation through the emergency exits contrasted greatly with the torrent of evacuees pouring out of the main entrances in other office buildings. The workers were unmistakably avoiding the main foyer of the building, and there were very few logical explanations.

Gravitas dived down through the open air, passing floors of the surrounding buildings as the sidewalk grew larger and larger in his vision. He landed with a sharp thud and briskly pushed one of the heavy glass doors open and stepped into a huge domed lobby.

The awareness that he was in the abandoned foyer of a national bank barely registered to him as Gravitas surveyed his surroundings. The entire lobby, from the floor to the high ceiling, was carved out of pearly white luxurious marble. To each side there were rows of golden elevator doors, and before him a magnificent sprawling stairway led to the floors above. The big reception desk stood unattended, and several phones were off their hooks repeating faint busy signals. Gentle violin music traveled through the near silence around him, and yet rising over its placid ambiance Gravitas could hear the labored breathing and strained wheezing he had been expecting. The painful moaning and whimpering of an overgrown giant was coming from behind the reception desk. Gravitas paced forward unhurriedly, his steps echoing across the polished marble. He walked around the desk and looked down at the source of the heavy baritone panting.

“So this is the storied courage of a Royal Guard?” Gravitas said to Darien.

The giant soldier was sitting down behind the desk and cradling his limp right arm in his left hand. Beside the Royal Guard were several bodies of people who had been unfortunate enough to be behind the desk when he had burst into the lobby. The giant soldier rolled his head to the side and looked up at Gravitas with a sudden start, beads of fevered sweat covering his face.

“Leave me alone!” Darien cried out and recoiled away from him against a file cabinet.

“Not a chance,” Gravitas said coolly.

The massive soldier actually began to plea, looking up at Gravitas from the marble floor. He begged between pathetic sobs. “I was only following orders. What was I supposed to do? The emperor himself ordered me. Please, show mercy! You were in the Imperial Army once! You know that commands have to be followed.”

“Not always,” Gravitas said, his eyes tired.

“Please!” Darien moaned in agony and hugged his injured arm against his chest. His forearm was hanging loose, attached by nothing but skin. The effect gave his arm an odd rubbery quality. At last Darien fell silent and let his chin fall to his chest. “Then just
kill
me and get it over with, you goddamn traitor.”

“You call me a traitor as if it were an insult,” Gravitas said.

Darien made a repulsively disapproving face and let out a hacking cough, though no intelligible words came from his mouth.

“Let’s go.” Gravitas reached out and grabbed him by the nape of the neck, dragging him on his back across the floor. Darien bellowed in pain, and lashed out with his good arm and his mammoth legs. His heels came down and connected with the floor, cracking the solid marble loudly. He kicked straight through the reception desk, sending sundered marble along with folders and papers across the lobby. Gravitas ignored his struggle as he easily pulled Darien, flailing and sliding with a squeaky sound of skin on the polished floor, across the lobby and out the main entrance.

A gathering of onlookers formed almost immediately as an odd-looking young man pulled a gigantic man out of the investment banking building by the scruff of his neck.

The display of weakness by the Imperial First Class warrior within his grasp only added to Gravitas’s wrath. Here in Darien was a man so imperceptive that he had never even considered being on the other end of the equation. Here was a person so convinced in both his omnipotence and his perspectives, that to perceive of anything else resulted in the childlike transformation these people were now witness to. There was, perhaps, a time and place where Gravitas would have given Darien clemency, but not today. This day the wounds of this villain’s intrusion ran too deep; today Gravitas was begrudgingly answering the roll call of executioner. Darien was too dangerous to be left alive among these people, and there were others like him to hunt down before the day was through.

“I’ll do whatever you want! Please!” Darien begged and sobbed.

Gravitas cast him down on the sidewalk. Disbelieving people watched from all around. Some had seen the images on the news of the two deadly giants. Many were pulling cell phones out of their pockets to take a video of the bizarre scene unfolding before their eyes.