Baleful Betrayal (6 page)

The scouts took turns marking the maps with a mind-numbing array of patrol routes, soldier counts, and more. I dozed off, only to be shaken awake by Elyssa some time later. The holographic map hovered in the air behind her, covered with more symbols and lines of attack than a football playbook.

I cracked a yawn and stood. "Figure it out?"

"I hope so." She tried to answer, but a yawn interrupted her. "I hope you enjoyed your catnap."

"How long was I out?"

"A couple of hours." Elyssa slipped her arm through mine and started walking. "Nailan and his scouts left to place crucibles so they'll be ready for the attack tomorrow night." She led me around a curve in the cave tunnel and into a corridor lined with doors.

"How do the numbers look?" I was almost afraid to ask.

"A hundred and three of us against seventy-two ground forces and somewhere between thirty and forty fliers."

"Yikes!" I felt her arm stiffen against mine. "I hope they take the bait."

Elyssa stopped in front of a slab of ultraviolet crystal and motioned at the small blue gem on the rock face next to it. "Do they use gems for everything here?"

"Pretty much." I zapped the gem with a small charge of Murk. The door misted and we stepped through it and into a nicely furnished room. Another jolt of Murk in the gem on the other side solidified the door. "Under normal circumstances, everyone wears a gem and it records everything around them and acts like a smartphone."

Elyssa frowned. "You can browse the web with it?"

"It's how all citizens download their angel porn." I flashed a grin. "Remember when I told you about my demon rampage my last time here?"

She nodded. "Yeah, you said it broadcast all across the city."

"On individual gems." I shivered. "It was like being on the nightly news."

"In other words, you got internet famous a few hours after arriving." She tutted. "You just had to make a name for yourself."

"More like infamous," I muttered.

Elyssa covered her mouth as another yawn broke free. "Where's the bed?"

I pointed out a slab of crystalized Murk in the corner. "Right there."

Her face fell. "It doesn't even have a mattress?"

"They don't use those here." I found a blue gem at the base of the bed and hoped it did what I thought it did. When activated, the Murk diffused into a white cottony cloud.

Elyssa's tentatively poked it with a finger and her eyes went wide. "It's so fluffy!"

"Try laying on it," I suggested.

She gingerly sat on the edge, as if afraid she'd fall through what looked like insubstantial mist. When it supported her, she lay back and moaned with pleasure. "This is the most comfortable bed I've ever been in. It's like sleeping on air."

I stripped off my Nightingale armor and slid into a pair of silky shorts left for me by our hosts. Elyssa slipped into a shimmering nighty.

"I miss my boyshorts," she said with a sigh.

I grinned. "You know, there's something I'm dying to try on this cloud bed."

Elyssa lowered a strap on the nightgown. "Oh? Did you want to jump up and down on it?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes." It turned out the cloud bed worked out very well for what I had in mind.

"I'll bet Shelton is cussing up a storm," I told Elyssa over breakfast the next morning. "We're supposed to attend his rehearsal dinner tonight."

"He shouldn't have scheduled it the day before an interdimensional covert operation," she replied as she peeled open a glurk. "I'm sure he'll understand."

"Yeah," I replied half-heartedly. "I really hate to miss it." Of course nothing had gone to plan, and instead of destroying the crystoid and escaping back through the sky portal in under two hours, we were stranded with our backs to the wall.

Elyssa's forehead pinched into a sad look. She reached over and patted my hand. "I'm sorry, babe. I know how much it means to you."

"I'm even gonna miss out on the bachelor party."

Her sympathetic expression faded. "Oh, really? What, pray tell, did you have in mind for him?"

I shrugged. "Cinder was planning it."

"Cinder?" A full-blown snort erupted. "Please tell me you're kidding. How would an emotionally challenged golem know what to plan for a bachelor party?"

"Adam and Ryland were helping him, I think." My voice sounded a bit defensive, but she was right. Cinder might be a sentient golem that looked human, but he didn't have a handle on emotions just yet. "It's not like we planned to go to a strip club or anything."

"If Ryland is helping him plan, you'll probably end up at a shifter strip club."

I wrinkled my nose. "You mean, lycans and felycans stripping?"

"You haven't seen anything until you've seen a naked woman with a wolf head."

I shuddered. "Eww, are you serious? Have you actually seen that before?"

Elyssa finished peeling her glurk and regarded me with a serious arch of her eyebrow. "Babe, I'm a Templar. I've seen it all."

"I can only imagine." I popped a quinto in my mouth and savored the sour bite. "I've witnessed a lot of awful stuff, but I've rarely seen the seedy underbelly of the Overworld."

"Maybe when this is over I'll give you the grand tour." She winked and took a sip of juice.

"When this is all over," I muttered. "It's never all over. There's always another bad guy climbing out of a toilet to rain poop on our parade."

"Despite the crystoid-induced tsunami, I still enjoyed our time in Thailand," Elyssa said. "Cephus might think he's a badass, but we've been through worse."

"Except it's not just Cephus," I said. "Frankenberg said Serena is involved, and you know how shifty she can be."

"I can be shifty too." Elyssa spooned glurk paste in her mouth. "And you also have that aether pack so you can use your abilities."

"True." I didn't know how much power it held, but it was better than nothing.

Elyssa recalled everyone after lunch for status updates. Nailan reported that his people had finished placing the crucibles and the route to the western crystoid had been scouted.

Elyssa's comment during brunch about the aether pack had given me food for thought, so once everyone finished their status reports, I brought up an idea I expected to get shot down immediately. "We have three aether packs," I said. "That means three of us with magic versus any of their fliers and ground troops who remain behind to guard the crystoid during the diversion. I think we should track down another of their patrols and steal their aether packs. Not only is that fewer soldiers we have to worry about, but more magic for us."

"How large are their patrols?" Elyssa asked.

Nailan responded. "They usually fly in packs of four."

"Justin has aether," Flava said. "He could surely bring a squad of fliers to their knees."

Elyssa tapped a finger to her chin. "Four more with aether on our side would be a big help."

It took a moment for me to realize they were seriously considering my proposal. "My idea is pretty straightforward," I said. "So long as their patrols aren't larger than four or five, we can easily handle them."

Elyssa checked the time. "We have ten hours before mission go. That means seven hours before we need to report back here and move into position."

"Plenty of time for what we need to do." Flava looked at me. "What is your plan?"

"Just walk around until a flier squad finds us," I said.

"We'll need an ambush," Elyssa said. "Nailan, can you show me some good places to do that?"

The seraph nodded. "Of course."

With our simple plan fleshed out, our small group set off to the northeast. Lanaeia wore one of the three aether packs. Flava and I wore the other two.

The scout leader vanished ahead into the empty streets for minutes at a time, reappearing to let us know what lay ahead, and scaring the crap out of me each time he unexpectedly popped from behind a corner. Elyssa seemed to be the only one who knew when he was about to make an appearance, but she enjoyed seeing me flinch too much to let me know in advance.

Deeper into the city, Nailan leapt from the branches of a tree and landed right in front of me. I leapt five feet straight up and nearly hit the branch he'd dropped from. As usual, he remained straight-faced, though I suspected he got a kick out of my reaction.

"Now I know you're doing it on purpose!" I hissed.

"There is a four-man patrol flying south one street over," Nailan said. "I believe this is our best chance."

Elyssa nodded at me. "Get in position."

I slid the rocket stick from its sheath and twisted the handle. The seat unfolded and the fins popped out of the rear section. "I'm going to drop a flier on you," I told Nailan.

He raised an eyebrow as if he had no idea why I would do such a thing. "Just don't damage the aether pack."

Elyssa pecked my cheek. "Be careful."

"Hey, I'm always careful," I said, hopping on the rocket stick. I hit the accelerator too hard and nearly rammed the tree, screeching to a halt just in time. I gave Elyssa a sheepish grin and jetted upward before she could sigh and roll her eyes. Rocket stick nearly vertical, I climbed steadily, the polished surface of a crimson skyscraper flashing past beneath me.

I rolled left and straightened out before I reached the top of the building and flew into plain sight of the mutant squad. Gliding serenely over the street, blazing wings spread wide, they noticed me, but seemed to take a moment to register I was an enemy. They wore spiffier outfits than their comrades I'd encountered yesterday—shiny black armor with the white and black of the Void emblazoned on their chests. The leader of their V formation veered my way without a gesture or a shout and the rest of his brainwashed minions followed.

I let them close within firing range then spun and plunged back down a perpendicular street. They dove after me, beams of Murk blasting from their fists. I pulled out of my dive just a few feet off the crystalline street and dodged back and forth like a drunken three-legged dog in a mosh pit as the pursuers did their best to hammer me into mush. Fist-sized balls exploded against the street, leaving divots and spraying shards into the air.

The plan was working brilliantly except for one major thing. The mutants weren't flying low enough, instead maintaining altitude about twenty feet above me, probably because firing from greater height gave them an advantage. Just a couple blocks away, two statues rose on either side of the street where my comrades lay in wait. I had to do something fast. The next building rose to my left. Sparing a bit of juice from the aether pack, I channeled a ramrod and blew a hole through the window.

Devoid of furnishings, the spare interior gave me plenty of room to maneuver. I paused inside a large room stretching from one side of the building to the other and glanced back. The mutants zipped inside, flowing from a V to a straight line without pause, and firing away the second they spotted me.

It worked!

Now I just had to make it outside without dying. The rocket stick proved nimble enough, and the enemy attacks plowed an opening through the opposite windows so I didn't have to use precious aether. I zipped outside and veered hard right to line up with the narrow strait between the statues.

My pursuers maintained low altitude and continued the chase. The statues whooshed past. I continued another thirty yards and spun just as the fliers streaked through. Elyssa and the others waiting on the other side struck.

Silvery darts sprayed from the wrist-mounted lancer Elyssa wore. One struck an enemy in the neck, finding the space between the helmet and the shoulder armor, and the Seraphim went limp. His body bounced along the street and came to a halt. Laneia creamed the last flier with a well-timed blast of Murk. Joss and Otaleon threw shimmering nets and caught one more, but the lead flier climbed upward toward escape.

"He'll warn the others!" Elyssa shouted. "Get him, Justin!"

"Already on it," I called, urging the rocket stick to full speed.

The soldier flung crystal shards of Murk at me, too many to dodge, so I used more aether and threw up a shield. His wings began to shimmer and his momentum faltered. Either he was running out of aether, or tiring from the chase. I flung a dense sphere of Murk and nailed him in the back of the head. The armor clunked with impact and the flier slammed into the building in front of him.

He hung suspended for a moment and then his wings flickered away. I caught him around the waist before he fell. The rocket stick's engine whirred loudly as it struggled to keep both of us aloft. I eased back the throttle and descended as gently as I could. Elyssa and the others held up their arms and I dropped the unconscious mutant the remaining ten feet so they could catch him.

We did it.
I prayed these aether packs gave us the edge we desperately needed.

Chapter 6

Breathing a sigh of relief, I landed and folded the rocket fins and seat of the rocket stick back into compact form and shoved it in its sheath. The odor of overheated electronics stung my nostrils and I hoped I hadn't burned it out. Shelton had assured me it could carry two hundred pounds, albeit slowly. I wished Elyssa's hadn't been destroyed, because it would've come in handy.

Flava and the others began stripping the armor from the fliers. Flava shuddered when she revealed the mutilated face of the first soldier.

"What this stuff made of?" Elyssa asked, knocking her knuckles against one of the helmets.

Flava pressed her fingers to it and closed her eyes. "Highly concentrated Murk threaded with Brilliance."

"It's so concentrated that it's black?" I asked.

She opened her eyes and nodded. "Something so dense could not be channeled without the assistance of powerful gems."

"Cephus and his ministry are fully capable of such feats," Nailan said.

"They made a mistake by not padding the helmet." Elyssa showed everyone the inside of it. "When Justin conked that last soldier, his head ricocheted."

"Like a marble in a, uh, bucket," I finished lamely, unable to conjure a suitable analogy.