Indestructible (Indestructible Trilogy Book 1) (17 page)

“And he says I have a death wish,” I mutter.

“Cas hasn’t got a normal sense of what constitutes danger,” says Nolan. “Murray says he’s a born Pyro soldier, but sometimes I get the feeling he doesn’t know how to be a normal
person.”

I’ve been getting the same impression. Except those few times I detected a joke hidden in one of his barbed comments, I felt like I talked to someone with a one-track mind focused only on killing. But I can’t help being curious as to how Cas ended up like that. Everyone suffered through the same tragedy, after all, and Nolan’s still friendly, Murray’s still welcoming, and Elle is the most innocent of anyone I’ve met in this new world. But maybe I’m overthinking it. If Cas has no intention of letting anyone in, is there any point in me wondering?

We finally reach the cave entrance into the mountain. Murray stands waiting for us, his face creased in worry.

“Where’s Cas?” is the first thing he asks.

“Didn’t he come in? He was just ahead of us,” says Nolan.

Murray shakes his head. “What happened?”

“I’ll explain,” I say, shooting Nolan a silencing look. If there’s anything else he and Cas didn’t tell me, now’s my chance to get answers. I quickly tell Murray what we saw, including the fiend. Before I can get to the part about what I did, we reach his office. Elle runs out, sees me, and throws herself at me. It takes me by surprise, so I stumble back.

“Are you okay?” Her voice is high with worry. “You were gone
ages.
I thought you wouldn’t make it by sunset.”

“We just beat it,” I say. Nolan’s warning about not spreading information comes back, and I decide to ask Murray about Transcendence when we’re alone. Maybe then he’ll be straight with me.

“What happened?” Elle repeats Murray’s question.

“Found the lab, Nolan and Cas picked up some papers. And a fiend attacked us from the divide. We killed it.” I don’t know how much I’m allowed to tell her. Nolan, meanwhile, hands over the papers. The one with the flame symbol isn’t there—Cas must have it.

Murray’s face is grave. “It’s happening,” he says. “They’ve got an advantage over us now. I’ll send out some more patrols tomorrow to make sure none survived the attack the other week. We can’t afford to risk any being near the base. Not now we have this information.”

“What, you think they’re going to steal it?” I ask. “What if they already saw it? That lab was right next to the divide, right?”

Those fiends were close by. If they’re really close to human intelligence, surely they’d searched the place.

All eyes turn to me.

“She has a point,” Nolan says. “I admit, I thought it would be gone.”

“And yet there were no signs of the enemy, aside from the one fiend?”

“None.”

“That’s perplexing,” says Murray. “Fine. I’ll spread the information and organise tomorrow’s patrols. But we need to be careful.”

“Some of us need to be more careful than others.” Nolan glances at me.

“What?” I say. “I didn’t take anywhere near as many risks as Cas did.”

“Cas is a special case,” says Murray.

“So everyone keeps telling me.” An inexplicable feeling of anger clenches my muscles. “He said I’d damage your reputation if I go outside again.”

“He said what?” Murray blinks at me, shocked.

“Oh, quit your whining,” says a voice. Cas appears behind us, his face a hard mask.

“Cas,” says Murray, in relief. “There you are.”

“Yes, and I have something you may find useful.” He hands over the piece of paper with that flame-like symbol on the back. Perhaps it’s my imagination, but it seems to flicker in the light. Like fire.

Murray hisses out a breath. Elle blinks, looking confused.

“That’s all we got,” says Cas. “But I can go back and look for more tomorrow.”

“Not if there are more of those fiends around,” says Nolan.

Cas glares at him.

Murray sighs. “You’re not invincible. Even you.”

“I beg to differ.” Cas absently runs his hand over the edge of the blade at his waist.
Pyro ashes and blood.

Heat rushes up my arms and fire dances to the surface of my skin. The distant sound of a drumbeat echoes in my ears, and I feel the hint of a vibration beneath my feet. My hand’s on my own weapon before I even realise it’s moved.

What the hell is happening?

“Stop that,” I say.

Cas turns on me, hand dropping to his side. “What’s your problem?”

“Didn’t you feel that?”

“Feel what?” He sheathes the blade.

“That,” I whisper, holding a trembling hand out. The curl of a flame still hovers near the surface of my palm.

“You need to learn to control yourself,” he says, curtly, and walks away.

I turn back to Murray. “Did you see that?”

His face is ghostly pale. He saw, all right. His head jerks in a nod.

“It happened when the fiend touched me,” I say, watching his expression carefully. “There was this… vibration, in the air, and a light, and the fiend—it fell to pieces. I did that.” My voice lowers with every sentence, and the anger drains out of me at the memory. What if it
did
happen again?

“It’s a defence mechanism,” says Murray. Is it just me, or is his voice shaking? “You’re—well, awakening.”

“What?” I blink. “As a Pyro? Or—or a Transcendent?” I’m conscious of Elle and Nolan watching, but desperate enough not to care.

“Maybe both.” Apparently, it doesn’t come as a surprise to him that I know what a Transcendent is. “Can you leave us?” Murray asks Nolan and Elle. “I want to talk to Leah alone.”

Nolan gives me a concerned look and Elle hangs back, biting her lip, but they leave the office.

I turn back to Murray. “Please tell me you meant what you said about it being a defence mechanism. I don’t want to
kill
Cas.”

Or maybe some part of me did. But that’s no laughing matter at all.

“It shouldn’t activate around other Pyros,” says Murray, a frown spreading across his face.

“Did the other Transcendent tell you that? How much do you know? I’m the only one, right?”

He nods tightly. “I suspected your case was an odd one, but I didn’t want to speak to you until I was sure. The last Transcendent died—I don’t know if Nolan told you that.”

“He did,” I say. “He said she died on the front lines during the invasion.”

“She did,” Murray says, heavily. “The important thing is establishing how extensive your powers are, but we can’t test the energy blast in an enclosed place like this.”

I guess he’s warning me not to go practising on my own. As if I would. First Pyro, now super-Pyro? It’s a little much for me to wrap my head around.

“The fiend knew,” I say. “Could I always do it?” Horror shoots up my spine.
Did I cause the energy blast that killed Randy and the others?
I can’t have… I can’t!

“Leah, you haven’t hurt anyone,” says Murray, as though he’s guessed what I’m thinking. “You only awakened as a Pyro after you survived the first energy blast. Your Transcendent powers must have come along later…” He trails off, frowning.

I relax. Slightly. “So I awoke as a Pyro back then, and I awoke as Transcendent… today? But that can’t be right. The fiends have touched me before.” Well, punched me. And there was that one that almost tore me to pieces. Before…

Murray’s eyes widen. “Cas healed you, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” I say slowly, “But I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“You were close to death, but he brought you back. I’ve been a fool.” He stands, running his hands through his hair. “I need to speak to Cas, now.”

“What, you think that fiend gave me some kind of superpower? Or
Cas?
”

“I don’t know what to think. But Leah, you are no danger to anyone. Don’t worry.”

Don’t worry?
After he just dropped that bombshell on me?

“And the last Transcendent?” I ask. “Did
she
hurt anyone?”

“Not intentionally.”

“Not
intentionally?”
I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. “Murray, if there’s a chance I might be a danger to anyone here, I’m leaving. No question.”

Murray’s shoulders slump. “I’m sorry, Leah. The Transcendents disappeared generations ago, and we didn’t expect to find another one. When we did, a few months before the fiends’ invasion, it seemed too good to be true. We expanded the search for others, but when the Fiordans—the fiends’ leaders—invaded Earth, we were forced to send the Transcendent into battle before we could fully assess her abilities.”

“Nolan said she died closing the breach,” I say. “Is that what stopped the invasion?”

Murray nods tightly. “It wasn’t supposed to end in her death. But the fiends never should have amassed that much energy in the first place. We had little information to go by, because it had been so long since any Transcendents existed. All we had were old records, destroyed now, which said the Transcendent was capable of harnessing the energy between the two worlds. We thought that meant she could close the bridge, and we turned out to be right… at the expense of her life.”

My breath catches. “And if they invade again?”

Our eyes meet. I read the truth there: if I really
am
Transcendent, he’d give me the choice. Just like he let me choose whether to stay with the Pyros or walk away.

Except this time, the choice might be between the rest of humanity… and my own life.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I don’t sleep that night.

Part of it’s adrenaline from the last few hours. I’m
Transcendent,
whatever the hell that really means. Even though Murray reassured me I can’t do any harm, my brain decides to replay the last energy blast whenever I close my eyes, so I give up on sleep. The idea of being a sacrifice doesn’t appeal much either. Sure, the fiends haven’t invaded in two years, but the one we ran into yesterday knew
something.

The fiends are intelligent. They’re not just random killers. And that makes them doubly dangerous.

Early the next morning, I speed-walk to Murray’s lab, and collide with someone just leaving the office. Cas wears his customary scowl, but doesn’t speak to me this time before marching off like I’ve mortally insulted him.

My head swims with new questions, despite the sleepless fog behind my eyes. Murray sees me standing outside and beckons me to come in.

“Is everything all right?”

“Are you joking?” I say. “I just found out I’m freaking artillery.”

“That isn’t true,” Murray says. Papers are strewn all over his desk. “We fully intend to defeat the fiends before it ever comes to the point of another mass attack on humanity. As it is, Leah, you’ve earned the right to come to meetings with the senior Pyros, if you like. You’ll have access to the same information we do.”

Mollified, I nod.

“For now, you’re in training. The quicker you advance, the quicker we can determine what your abilities are.”

Guess I can’t argue with that.

“Go to the training hall. I already told Val what happened; she can set you up with some training exercises. We’ll help you control this, Leah. Don’t worry.”

At least training takes my mind off things. I nearly jump out of my skin when I take hold of the same knife I used to fight yesterday and it reacts to my touch, flaring bright red.

“That’s new,” says Val, frowning. “I’ve never seen someone bond to a weapon so quickly.”

“Bond to it?” I say, staring as the silver coating peels away from the blade before my eyes, revealing the reddish colour beneath.

“You can channel your power through a weapon of your choice. Normally we’d trial you with all of them first, but you seem to have adapted to that knife.”

I turn the knife over in my hand. It looks more like a piece of sharpened rock now. The hilt fits to my hand perfectly, like it was made for me.
Stupid thought. You’ve only used it twice.

“So I can’t use any other weapon?”

“You can, but it makes sense to play to your strengths. Besides, try letting go of it now.”

I blink at her, quizzically. “How d’you mean?”

“Trust me. Let go of the hilt.”

I’m sceptical, but I do as she says and unfold my fingers from the hilt. The knife stays stuck to my palm.

“Oh, wow.” I turn over my hand, palm upwards, and the knife stays there. Experimentally, I use my left hand to take it, and the spell’s broken. But when I unfold the fingers on my left hand, the knife remains stuck.

“Neat, isn’t it?”

“This is crazy.” But a smile steals onto my face, the first since everything that happened yesterday. The feel of the knife in my hand gives me a sense of control.
I can control this. I will control this.