04 Last (10 page)

Finally, we were past the guards. We moved in to a different tunnel. It was smaller, quiet. The feeling of Alex was close, closer than it had been on the other side. She had slowed down. She was no longer running.

I walked faster, wanting to catch up with her before she escaped again. I knew if I could just get to her everything would be okay. I could talk her down and make her see reason. Sound reached out to us as I hurried toward the feeling of her presence. It was snarling, yelling, and the sound of people crying out in pain. There was also the sound of bone against bone. Ripping. Tearing. Slashing.

There was another fight. I had no doubt that this one involved Alex.

Reaper close on my heels, we reached the end of the tunnel. It opened up in to a much smaller cavern that looked more like a crossroads than a proper outpost. There was another network of tunnels branching off in all directions. In the center of the cavern there were fifteen Nightstalkers; they were all fighting. Three men circled the Nightstalkers, looking for a way to break up the fight. All of the Nightstalkers, except for one, wore collars. The one without a collar had milky white eyes I recognized. Alex had finally found trouble.

The Nightstalkers were fighting her, ganging up on the newcomer with a vengeance that was terrifying. Alex wasn’t going down easily. She tore in to the others, meeting tooth and claw with tooth and claw. She held her ground. She kept the others at bay with her fierce anger, though wounds appeared in her flesh. Their superior numbers were wearing her down.

The three men used their electric sticks to fight their way through the Nightstalkers. They were indiscriminate about who they shocked, they just cared about keeping order. One of them reached Alex. He put the stick to her side and shocked her as he had the others. She roared in anger at the unfamiliar feeling of the electricity against her skin– the shock didn’t cowl her as it had the others. It just made her angrier. She tore in to the man without pause. She killed him easily, without mercy.

When he was in pieces, Alex roared again. The other Nightstalkers backed away from her, finally giving her space. The two men that were left backed away as well. As they backed away, they pulled out guns. They were through with cowling her in to submitting. They were going to kill her. They would not think twice. They did not waste time with creatures who did not behave.

My heart caught in my throat as they raised their guns in tandem and pointed at Alex. I felt frozen. There was not enough time. I could not reach them or Alex before they fired. I was about to lose my best friend and there was nothing I could do about it.

Chapter 4

I had forgotten that Reaper was carrying a gun…two of them.

He didn’t know that the Nightstalker was really Alex. He didn’t need to know. He saw my face and knew that the guys with guns were about to do something we would all regret.

He shot them both before they could adapt to our appearance. His aim was perfect. The men fell to the ground and the other Nightstalkers, taking advantage of the situation, tore in to their former masters. As the men were ripped to pieces by the others, Alex turned to face the new threat: us. Reaper pointed his gun at her, thinking her as much of a threat as the men. I stepped in front of him and held my hands up to her.

“Calm down,” I said to Alex.

“Clare…” Reaper tried to warn me.

“Be quiet,” I said over my shoulder. I directed my voice at Alex again. “Calm down. Everything’s fine. You’re going to hurt someone. You know you won’t like that.”

“Clare…” Reaper said again.

“I’m talking here,” I said, thinking he was still upset over the fact that I was trying to reason with a Nightstalker.

“I can see that, but I thought you would want to know that we’re surrounded,” Reaper said.

“What?” I asked.

I turned around and saw that the tunnel behind us was no longer empty. Two Nightstalkers filled the space. The other tunnels were equally occupied. Our shooting, and the fighting, had drawn the attention of others. There were only Nightstalkers – no Seekers had noticed us yet, but I knew it was only a matter of time. The tunnels in front of us were also filling up with Nightstalkers. Their red eyes illuminated the dark.

“Oh,” I said.

Alex started growling. Her white eyes shifted from the people behind us to the fifteen Nightstalkers near her, and on to the Nightstalkers closing in through the other tunnels. I hoped she wasn’t planning on fighting them all. I would have to stay and help her – there was no way I would leave her to fight alone. And I wasn’t sure that was a fight we could win, not with just the three of us.

She answered my unasked question. Her growl a constant thing of warning, she came over to us. Her white eyes were full of vicious fury, but there was clarity in them. She knew who we were. My words had given her reason, though she did not change back. She bumped my hand with her snout.

Run,
she commanded through our touch.

Not without you
, I replied.

Together.

She lowered her body down enough for me to get on her back and waited for me to jump up. I did so without thinking, trusting her to take us away from the danger. I gestured for Reaper to join us. He hesitated, looking at Alex and my position on her back with shocked awe.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“We’re about to die if you don’t get your ass up here,” I said.

He didn’t need long to think that through. He jumped behind me with a graceful leap. The second he was on Alex’s back, she scrambled to her feet and took off down another tunnel. She blasted through the lone Nightstalker blocking the way with a roll of her shoulders and ran full speed away from the danger. The Nightstalkers followed after us, doing their best to catch up to Alex’s wild pace.

The chase did not go unnoticed.

The Seekers realized we didn’t belong in the caves the moment they saw us riding Alex. No sane Watcher would ever ride a Nightstalker. It wasn’t done. It was madness. They started firing whatever weapon they had on them and shockwaves of their respective talents flew over our heads. Reaper and I stayed low against Alex’s back as she dodged the majority of the violence. One or two bullets grazed her and black blood oozed from her side, but she didn’t slow – she didn’t even act as if she felt the wounds. She was too determined on escape to focus on the pain.

We ran in the opposite way from the direction we had come in, going deeper in to the tunnels. I knew it was dangerous to move deeper in to enemy territory, but it was the only way. It was the only way that wasn’t full of people chasing us.

In another large cavern, Reaper noticed something. He lifted his head and pointed to a large building to our right. The cords from the other buildings were all running to this building. A dull hum of electrical power surrounded the structure.

“We can disorient them if we cut their power. Not only that, but it will cut the power to those shock collars the Nightstalkers are wearing. It will free them. The chaos will help us escape,” Reaper said in my ear.

“How do we get to it without getting killed?” I asked.

“Tell your friend to drop me off,” Reaper said. “I’ll take care of it. Lead them away and then circle back around. Don’t forget about me.”

“Okay.”

I touched Alex on the neck and told her the plan. She changed course, headed for the building. She didn’t slow, but she didn’t have to. Reaper rolled off her back and landed smoothly next to the building out of sight of the Nightstalkers chasing us. No one but Alex and I noticed his departure.

Alex took us in a long arc around the cavern. As she did, more Seekers joined the chase. She was forced to dodge more talents and more bullets. She occasionally ran right over any Seekers who were dumb enough to get in her way. Once or twice, I was forced to protect her from an attack from behind. She finally circled back to the building. Reaper was waiting on top of the large structure. He jumped on to her back as we passed.

“We need to get out of here!” he said. “Head for a system without people!”

Alex grunted in understanding and headed for a smaller tunnel, one that looked disused. As we reached the tunnel the sound of electricity changed. There was a moment of buildup in the energy then the building exploded. All of the lights in the tunnel system went out and the Nightstalkers chasing us stopped when they realized their collars were no longer forcing them to behave.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Overloaded the system,” Reaper replied.

“Was this what you had in mind when you said to ‘not cause trouble’?” I asked.

“Things change,” he said.

Alex came to an abrupt stop in the tunnel. Her pace had carried us far, but it was in the wrong direction. The tunnel dead-ended. There was a solid wall separating us from freedom. The only way forward was back the way we had come. She started to turn around when the whole world around us shattered in to non-stop motion and danger.

I flew off Alex’s back as a shockwave of red energy pummeled me. As I flew in to the opposite wall, sound overwhelmed me. It was the sound of panicked yelling – it might have been me, it was hard to tell around the fear in my chest – fire roaring through the air, sucking up what oxygen it could, and rock tumbling to the earth. Despite the confusion, I moved my hands to my ears to block the sound. It was too much. I couldn’t take it. The sound was going to kill me before the fire did. Around me, the earth rattled with whatever had happened on its surface.

The shaking went on for a long time.

When the ground stopped moving, I looked up from my place on the floor. I was covered in debris. Sharp rocks had cut my face and arms, but I was alive. I couldn’t be sure if the same held true for Alex and Reaper. They weren’t next to me, and a wall of rock blocked me in. I wasn’t sure if they were on the other side, or if they were under it. It was impossible to tell.

I put my hands on the wall and tried not to panic. It was difficult. I had a 5x5 area. It wasn’t enough to make me feel comfortable; not when I thought the rest of the ceiling was going to come down at any moment. My claustrophobia doubled. Flashes of my time in the tomb and my time in prison appeared in front of my eyes. My pain of those memories came back with the feeling of claustrophobia. My breathing increased to the point that I was not sure I could take another breath. I wanted out of my skin…I just wanted out.

“Alex? Reaper? Are you guys okay?” I called in a squeaky voice, hoping that having them near would calm my panic.

There was no reply. The silence did not help the fear in my chest.

“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, crap, crap….don’t freak out, don’t freak out,” I told myself.

I started to move the rock separating me from the outside, to find a way through, but more rock tumbled from the ceiling with my efforts. I was forced back as a dust-cloud rose in the air. When the dust cleared, I saw that more rocks had fallen. My space was even smaller now. I couldn’t turn, I couldn’t move. The dark closed me in; it was overwhelming. There was nothing but dark. My breathing got worse. There was nothing to keep the whole mountain from crushing me. This would be my tomb – no one would ever find me. Even Reaper and Alex wouldn’t be able to dig me out of this. If only I had a light…

Light!

Remembering Reaper’s lighter, I fumbled in my pocket for it and finally pulled it out. The light flicked to life, despite my uncertain hands. I held it in front of my face. It was a focus, beyond the panic. There was a way out – I just had to find it.

“Reaper!” I yelled again. “Are you dead? If you are, just tell me, so I know.”

I listened carefully for a reply. It was then I heard the faint sound of fighting. People yelling and bones crushing…A roar shook the heavens, sending more dirt my way. The lighter went out as the dirt hit me. I hurried to flick it back to life and listened with more intensity to the sounds. There was no denying a Nightstalker was fighting with Watchers. The sound was difficult to miss.

The fighting grew louder. It was more intense. I couldn’t tell if it was Alex, or someone else, doing the fighting. It sounded like a lot of noise for just one Nightstalker; it sounded like an army of them. The sound of the fight was a reminder that there were larger things than my panic. Alex and Reaper could be in the middle of that fight. They could need my help.

I took a deep breath.

I knew what I had to do, but doing it scared the hell out of me. I had gone through the same in-between place that Sara and Shawn used when going from one place to the next. I had traveled there on my own. It scared me as much as the closed-in space I was standing in, for some of the same reasons. The dark of the in-between was even more complete than the one I was lost in now. There I could not use a lighter to light my way. I had to trust my body to pull me out of it. But at least that in-between space gave me the option of life. The closed-in, total darkness of the moving space would pass. When it did, I would be free of the rock. If I didn’t do something, I would die…Alex and Reaper would die.

I shut my eyes and imagined moving through the rock, to the opposite side. I tried hard to recreate the feeling of being pulled in to one world from the next. The problem was that the last time I had found myself in the in-between Lorian had dragged me there. I hadn’t managed to start the transition – I had only ended it. I struggled to find the strength; I struggled with my fear. Finally, I opened one eye, to see if it had worked. I was in the same place.