Sinister Seraphim of Mine (Overworld Chronicles Book 8) (10 page)

"I wish someone could have magicked English into my head because it was so hard to learn." Nightliss sighed. She turned her green eyes back to the Darklings. "Are you strong enough to carry these noms to safety?"

Joss nodded. "Sure."

"Yes," Otaleon said in a quavering voice.

Nightliss pressed her hands to his cheeks. "You will be fine, Otaleon. We will take care of you."

His chocolate eyes finally met hers. He looked immensely sad, scared, and defeated. "I believe you."

Elyssa told them how to get back to the portal. "I'll tell the others to meet you. They will keep you safe."

"What about Qualan and Qualas?" I asked. "Should we take them prisoner?"

Joss put the female nom over one shoulder. Despite his boyish frame, he was obviously much stronger than he looked. He might not be at full Seraphim strength, but he obviously didn't need to be. "I can carry one of them," he said confidently.

Otaleon mimicked Joss, putting the male nom over his shoulder. After Nightliss's pep talk, he looked slightly surer of himself. "As can I."

We loaded the two of them with the Brightling twins and watched them head back down the hallway toward the sewer escape route Elyssa had mapped out for them. Elyssa messaged Shelton with instructions for securing the dangerous Brightlings with diamond fiber once they arrived.

"I would have preferred killing the twins," Jeremiah said. "But they may provide some useful intel."

I held my tongue on the matter because I found myself leaning more towards the kill end of the spectrum myself. Beings as cruel as Qualan and Qualas didn't deserve to live free. "What next?"

Elyssa consulted a diagram on her arcphone. "How many cupids were in the first batch?"

Jeremiah tapped a finger on his chin. "I believe there were five since the other aether pods weren't completed at the time."

"Where is the fifth?"

He shook his head. "I do not know."

She pursed her lips. "We still don't know if Daelissa is here. Just to be safe, we should go to the cargo bay and take several null cubes. We can release the cherubs in the aether pod room. That should give us enough of a distraction to take out the Brotherhood members inside."

"I agree," Jeremiah said.

Nightliss looked troubled. "We are looking at this completely wrong."

Elyssa's eyes darted to the Seraphim. "How so?"

"The cherubs are living beings, potential allies. We have our own way of resurrecting them, and yet we're focused on destroying this facility and leaving the husks here." She shivered. "If we are unsuccessful in disabling this facility, Daelissa will continue operations. She will winnow out the Darklings, and we will be unable to stop her."

"You can't possibly be suggesting we hijack however many husks they have stored here," Jeremiah said. "Those things were hauled here by the truckload."

"I'm sorry, Nightliss." Elyssa put a hand on the other woman's shoulder. "An operation like that would take a lot of planning. We might have pulled it off if we still held the element of surprise, but since we've killed two people and kidnapped others, we've lost that advantage. Our only choice is to act now and disable the facility."

Nightliss closed her eyes, nodded. "I have ruined everything. To save two people, I have cost us hundreds of lives."

I squeezed her in a one-armed hug. "Don't be a negative Nancy. If we shut this place down, we'll save billions of lives."

"I just hope my actions have not cost us that chance," she said in a small voice.

Elyssa tapped on her arcphone. "The cargo bay is in a section between the two wings. I don't know how much time we have, but we need to make every second count."

I nodded. "Let's go."

We went back into the hallway and followed it to the main corridor joining the east and west wings. The hallways were deserted, so we loped along as quickly as possible. Elyssa took a left into the central corridor. There was a shout of surprise quickly followed by a grunt of pain. I leapt around the corner and saw an Exorcist prone on the floor.

"He's unconscious," Elyssa said, looking down the hallway. "He was just sitting here reading a book."

I picked up the paperback in question. "
Sweet Hot Mess
," I read from the cover. "Here's the question—is he on guard duty, or did he sneak away from the other zealots to enjoy a trashy romance novel?"

Elyssa picked him up and stashed him in a broom closet. "Let's slow it down and be more careful. I don't see why Daelissa would put guards on the husks. Like Jeremiah said, someone would need a fleet of trucks to steal them all."

We followed her lead and continued down the hallway, reaching the cargo bays a few minutes later. A wide, metal, rollup door that presumably allowed larger loads to enter the central hallway hung halfway open. A normal steel door sat to its left. I cupped an ear and listened, but heard nothing. Elyssa peered beneath the rollup door. She motioned us to follow.

The cargo bay was a large open room with several loading docks. Thick metal I-beams supported the steel-girded ceiling far above. A door in the front corner of each room apparently allowed access to the east and west wings. Four closed steel shutters in the back wall looked as though they were loading docks for trucks, while two much larger ones offered enough room for something the size of a train boxcar to unload its cargo.

"Unbelievable," Nightliss said, eyes growing wide at the rows upon rows of null cubes stretching before us.

I blew out a breath. "Unless they plan on building more aether pods, it'll take them years to put a dent in this many husks." I looked back at Jeremiah. "Is it possible for us to build our own pods? The dragons take way too long to process a husk."

"It's possible Maulin Kassus stored the blueprints in the Darkwater database," Jeremiah replied. "The first units were built before the Borathen Templars downloaded and erased the information systems at their headquarters."

"We'll ask Cinder to look for it," Elyssa said, walking toward the null cubes.

The glasslike surfaces of some of the cubes were frosted over. Their horrific occupants seemed unaware of us standing before them. Some cubes were not opaque. The cherub within one jerked awake, its nubby hands grasping toward us as we drew nearer. Its face looked like shiny tar. Tiny orifices lined with teeth opened wide. Thankfully, it appeared the null box dampened the sounds, because I couldn't hear the shrill cries of the little terrors.

Each of the cubes had a recessed handle on the top. We each grabbed one. Something caught my eye as I passed by a row of cubes. I stepped back and looked down the aisle again. A large brown boxcar sat at one of the loading bays.

"Hang on a sec," I said.

"Why?" Elyssa asked.

I jogged down the row of cubes, trying desperately to ignore the husks in the unfrosted cubes as they jerked awake and strained to reach me. I reached the loading dock in question. A huge metal shutter closed it off to the outside, but train tracks led underneath it. The box car was empty, but it appeared to be in good shape. The wheels had a light coating of rust except for where they touched the train tracks. I wasn't a detective, but deductive logic told me this car had seen recent use.

I turned and nearly bumped into Elyssa who was also eyeing the train. "This would have solved our logistics problems if we'd decided to steal the cherubs." She sighed. "It's a damned shame we can't do it now."

"Well, at least we know," I said.

"Enough time wasted," Jeremiah said. "Every minute we lose is one minute closer to someone finding those bodies, or searching for the missing Seraphim."

"He's right," Elyssa said, tugging on my shirtsleeve. "Let's go."

We ran back down the aisle and reached the null cubes we'd pulled from the stockpile. A girl stood in front of the cubes, silver eyes regarding us with curiosity. Glossy white hair was tucked behind her small, slightly pointed ears. A pert nose only added to her delicate elven features.

She tilted her head slightly. "Are you here to help me find my family?"

Chapter 9

Jeremiah shot a pulse of energy at the girl. She blurred to the side and flipped over an ultraviolet blast from Nightliss. I tried to trap the girl in a shield bubble, but she was just too fast, as if predicting my every move. Her hands flung out a glowing net. I swiped it to the side with a gust of Murk.

"She's a Brightling," Nightliss said, throwing a flurry of orbs at the girl.

The girl dodged, but the orbs exploded on impact, and shockwaves finally threw the girl off balance.

Elyssa loosed a volley of darts at the Brightling as she tumbled through the air. Brilliant white wings burst from the girl's back, shimmering like pure energy. She shot upward, avoiding the darts and then blasted a molten furrow in the concrete with a beam of destruction. Jeremiah leapt back, narrowly avoiding incineration. Elyssa growled something, slashed a symbol on one of the null boxes, and kicked it away from her.

The cube tumbled away from us and the cherub inside spilled out, screaming and crying in hunger. The Brightling girl shrieked and lost altitude, floating toward the ground before plummeting as she struggled to remain aloft. The cherub squealed and raced toward the fallen angel on its infantile legs.

"Please, no," the girl cried, tears streaking down her face. She seemed unable to move even with the cherub fifty feet away. "I only wanted my family."

This girl might be an evil Brightling, or she might be the sweetest thing since apple pie. Either way, I felt awful watching as the husk waddled toward her. "We can't just let it suck her dry."

"Don't be foolish, boy," Jeremiah said. "They might be able to revive her again, but it'll take time, and she'll be one less enemy to worry about."

"Shoot her with darts," I told Elyssa.

She nodded and jogged over to the angel, putting her to sleep with a few darts. I grabbed the null cube, ran up behind the cherub, and slammed it over the creature. Tracing the same symbol Elyssa had used to open it also closed it, cutting off the husk's awful screams.

A blast of orange light lanced past my head and blew chunks out of the concrete floor. On instinct, I threw up a shield as a flurry of magical attacks from the doorway blasted our position.

"Gods be damned," Jeremiah growled. "They must have found the bodies."

Hooded figures pushed large silver contraptions through the steel rollup door. The air shimmered in front of the machines.

"Portable aether generators." Elyssa grimaced. "They're using them to cast shields."

I opened a small hole in my barrier and blasted at the shields with a ray of Brilliance. My attack washed over the defensive spell with no discernable effect.

Battle mages flooded through the entrance behind the shields. I lost count of the hooded figures as cold fear gripped my heart.

"This," I said, "is the part where we run away."

"Back to the loading docks," Elyssa said.

One of the battle mages, a smile on his face, aimed his staff and traced a design in the air. I heard a screeching noise and looked left as one of the null cubes popped open.

"He's using a kinetic spell to trace the unlocking symbol on the cubes," Jeremiah said.

More battle mages copied the first, and null cubes sprung open all around us. "Shield us, Nightliss," I said.

She threw up a shield as I lowered mine. I created a small bubble shield around the closest cherub and launched it over Nightliss's barrier at the battle mages. Their smiles turned to looks of alarm as I flung more of the little horrors at them.

One of the battle mages roared and hurled a massive meteor of fire up and over our shield. I projected a dome around us just before the flaming rock crushed us. A volley of orbs sung through the air, bouncing off the concrete floor, pinging off the ceiling, and ricocheting randomly through the stacks of null cubes. My shield faltered, cracked, and broke from the onslaught. Elyssa cried out as a disc of silver energy slashed her calf.

I felt a sting of pain as one sliced through my armor and into my arm. "We have to retreat now." I motioned the others back. "Jeremiah, blast a hole through the loading dock door."

He hurried off as stacks of null cubes toppled, blocking the aisle. Elyssa, Nightliss, and I leapt over cubes as deadly spells crackled and zinged off the stacks around us, making footing even more treacherous. I grimaced as the dark beings inside writhed, little mouths open wide in what I imagined were blood-chilling shrieks of lust and hunger. We reached the back just as Jeremiah swung his staff and hurled a series of light blades at the metal door, slicing it open. I turned back to the mess of boxes, reached deep inside for all the power I could muster, and channeled a blast of Murk at them.

Cubes shot toward our attackers as they attempted to follow us, sending battle mages scurrying for cover as an ocean of imprisoned cherubs washed over them in a rolling wave. I saw one man screaming as one of the freed husks latched onto him and fed. Light poured from his every pore like roiling white smoke. Dark veins stood out from his skin. Within seconds, his screams died away. He rose, oily darkness steaming from his skin. The newly born shadow person wasn't long for this world though. He erupted in shrieks as the light from the large lamps illuminating the cargo bay hit him.

I didn't stick around to see the grisly death and raced after the others through the opening created by Jeremiah. We ran down the train tracks, following them as they wound through the thickly wooded surroundings. It was still dark outside, which boded well for our escape. A klaxon went off in the prison and giant glowing balls shot high into the air where they hovered, lighting up the place like freaking New Year's Eve.

"Glowballs," Elyssa said. She pointed right, and we ran down a hill into the woods.

An explosion jerked my attention back to the prison. The roof of the cargo bay burst open in a spray of concrete and steel. Through the hole rose battle mages on flying carpets. They zoomed toward the tracks even as we raced away from them and into the woods. Unfortunately, the skeletal trees offered little cover, and our pursuers found us quickly. I aimed a fist and fired a quick shot of Brilliance at one carpet, but missed by a mile.