The Children of the Sun (55 page)

“He’s a murderer,” Two said, stepping up beside Tori.

“So is that crazy bitch,” Vanessa snapped back, and then swung the muzzle of her gun around to point at Two. “And so are you. How much blood is on your hands, lady?”

“Too much,” Two admitted. “That’s why we’re here. That’s why we have to stop him.”

“I can’t just step out of the way and let you go kill the Emperor,” Vanessa said. “Murderer or not, I promised Charles I would protect him. I have to stand between you and him.”

“Then we should get this over with,” Tori said.

“Why not just turn around and go? Take my brother and your two bat friends and get out of here. Why is it so important to kill the Emperor? It won’t bring your parents back and it can’t possibly atone for everything you’ve done to the vampires. They’ll never accept you.”

“No, it can’t do any of that,” Tori said. “But I won’t live the rest of my life with the specter of him over my shoulder. He won’t ever let me go, Vanessa. It will never end until one of us is dead, and I mean to make that happen tonight.”

Vanessa sighed. “All right. I’m sorry it had to come to this, Captain, but I’m glad if it had to happen, it’s happening right here.”

“What’s that?” Tori asked.

“Because you’ve got nowhere to go,” Vanessa said, and with those words she raised her assault rifle and pulled the trigger.

She was wrong; Tori had plenty of space, Two realized; it just lay in a direction that no one had considered. Even as Vanessa was pulling the trigger, Tori leapt not just forward but upward as well, springing toward the nearest chandelier, which hung nearly fifteen feet above their heads. She caught it with both hands and whipped her body forward, swinging on it and throwing herself at the group of Children soldiers from above.

Meanwhile, Two and the others were throwing themselves on the floor to avoid the hail of bullets. Two landed hard on her stomach and chest, arms outstretched before her, holding tight to her pistol to keep from losing her grip on it. There was very little cover in the hallway, but she rolled to the right side, where she was at least semiprotected by a wooden half pillar bulging out of the wall. One of the soldiers saw her and turned in her direction to fire, but Two was faster. She leveled her gun at the man and put two bullets into his chest.

Tori landed behind Vanessa, spun, and grabbed the woman by the shoulders. She threw Vanessa into the soldier standing to her left and both fell to the floor in a heap, dropping their guns. Tori kicked the firearms down the hallway. She then turned and leapt toward the two soldiers still on their feet, pulling her blades out at the same time. One of the men managed to get a shot off with his rifle and the bullet grazed Tori’s left bicep. She dropped the sword she’d been holding with that hand, snarling in pain and swinging around with her right arm. The sword she was still carrying carved off a chunk of the man’s shoulder and he howled, dropping his assault rifle.

Vanessa and the soldier she had collided with were struggling now to their feet. Two leveled her gun at the male soldier and would have shot him, but before she could, Theroen threw himself forward into her line of sight. She watched as he bowled into the two humans shoulder-first like a linebacker, splitting them apart and sending both back to the ground. The last of the soldiers, the one who wasn’t engaged with Tori, took a shot at him, but it was wild and Theroen dove behind a pillar that stood next to the massive doors.

Her sight still blocked, now by Tori, Two couldn’t fire on the man and instead hauled herself to her feet, holstering her gun and drawing her sword. She raced forward before the man could turn and target her, and with a shout she drove her blade into his side. He cried out and swung his gun around butt-first, and it collided with the side of her head, sending bright red flashes through her vision. Two stumbled back a step, dropping to one knee and touching her hand to her temple. When she brought it back before her eyes, it was covered in blood.

The soldier who had hit her was screaming and clawing at the sword, which was still embedded in his side. He had dropped his gun and was trying to pull the weapon out by the blade, but was succeeding only in slicing up his own hands. Two stood and grabbed the handle, kicking out with her foot and connecting with the soldier’s midsection. The force of the kick was enough to dislodge the sword, and the soldier shrieked again as the blade came sliding out.

“Sorry,” Two told him, and she was. She didn’t want any of this, but it was far too late to back off now.

For his part, the soldier didn’t seem impressed with her apology. “Fuck you, bat!” he swore, and he wrapped his hands around her neck.

Holding her sword with both hands, Two brought it up and forward, spearing the man in the solar plexus and driving the weapon deep inside of him. Its tip pierced through his back and in another moment his eyes rolled up, his hands went limp, and she shoved him backward.

“All right, then,” Two said, her voice a little hoarse. She turned to see that Tori had dispatched the man who had shot her in the arm by cutting most of the top half of his head off. His body was lying on the floor, still twitching, and she had moved on to the two soldiers who Theroen had collided with. Vanessa and the other man pressed their backs against the doors and held their swords out.

“Vanessa …” Tori began, but before she could continue, the male soldier threw himself at her, roaring something incoherent and swinging his blade downward with both hands.

“Baker, don’t!” Vanessa shouted, but it was too late. He and Tori were fighting now, their blades clashing together. Vanessa leapt forward – whether to help her soldier or try to pull him back, Two didn’t know. Theroen never gave her the chance to find out, taking advantage of the woman’s distraction to grab her from behind, gripping her shoulder with one hand and palming her head like a basketball with the other.

“I apologize for this,” he said in his customary, calm tone, and then, with a powerful twitch of his shoulders, he drove her face first into the wood-paneled wall. There was a cracking noise that Two hoped was the mahogany and not Vanessa’s skull, and when Theroen let her go, she dropped to the floor, dead or out cold.

The man who Vanessa had called Baker was still alive, which Two thought was something of a miracle. He had managed to avoid one or two killing blows from Tori, and now he parried another. He was clearly very strong and well conditioned, but Two could tell from his breathing that he was starting to tire. She thought it would be only a few more seconds before Tori finished him off.

In this estimate, she proved correct. Using an amazingly agile fake, Tori changed direction at the last moment and, with a flick of her wrist, slashed across the man’s unguarded chest. He screamed in pain and, when he clutched at the wound with his free hand and looked down, she took the opportunity to drive her sword upward, pommel-side first, and hit him under the chin with it. The man’s eyes rolled up, and as he fell she cut off his head.

For a moment there was silence. Tori walked over to the blade she had dropped, picked it up, and sheathed both weapons. She turned to look at Two and Theroen.

“Is she still alive?” Tori asked, indicating toward Vanessa’s prone figure. Theroen knelt down beside the woman, checked her pulse, and nodded.

“Good,” Tori said. “I really didn’t want to kill her.”

“How’s your arm?” Two asked, and Tori glanced at her wound, unconcerned.

“Hurts, but it was a clean shot. It’ll heal in a day or two.”

Thomas had spent the fight lying on the floor, but now came up to stand beside them, looking at his sister.

“I know you guys didn’t have to do that,” he said. “Theroen, you could just as easily have snapped her neck, but you didn’t. So thanks.”

Theroen nodded. “I take no joy in killing and I could sense … this woman guards her thoughts well, but right now she is
very
conflicted. She didn’t want this fight, and her heart wasn’t in it.”

“What do we do with her now?” Two asked.

“We forget her,” Tori said. “After the Emperor’s dead, we can come back. Until then, nothing else matters.”

With those words she strode forth, pulled open the doors to the Emperor’s inner chamber, and stepped inside.

* * *

“Swanky,” Two said, and beside her Thomas laughed.

“Guy calls himself The Emperor of the Sun, right? Doubt he’s gonna shop at IKEA.”

“Good point. You think he’s still here?”

Theroen and Tori spoke simultaneously, the doubling of their voices so uncanny it was almost comedic. “He’s here.”

They glanced at each other and Tori raised an eyebrow. “You can feel him, huh?”

“Yes,” Theroen said. “At least, I sense something. It is not like anything I have ever felt before. Can you feel it?”

Tori shook her head. “No, I just know he’s here.”

“Then you better find him fast, Captain,” Thomas said. “I don’t think we’ve got too much time ‘til this place goes boom.”

Tori glanced at
her watch and nodded. “An hour
, tops. Thirty minutes if we want to be safe.”

There were four doors leading from the receiving area, not counting the massive set that opened back onto the entrance hallway. Tori stood in the center of the room, looking around.

“I’ve never been here or even seen plans,” she said. “I don’t know where to go.”

Theroen pointed to the right-most door and said, “Begin with that one.”

“Why?” Tori asked.

“Whatever I am feeling, it seems strongest from that direction,” Theroen told her, and that seemed good enough for Tori. She tried the door’s handle. It moved easily, making only the slightest clicking sound, and the door swung ajar. Two could see some kind of large room beyond it, filled with pillars and lit no better than the room in which they currently stood. Even her eyes could not make out the far end of it.

“This is a big damn place,” she muttered, and beside her Thomas laughed again.

Tori took a step into the room and then, after a pause, a second step. She glanced back at them and shrugged, turning to walk further. That was when Theroen started shouting and everything went to hell.

“Tori, there is something … look out!” he cried, but the warning came too late, and Tori was only beginning to turn when a large figure – making amazingly little noise for the speed at which it was moving – came from out of the shadows to her left. It hit Tori with enough force that they both went flying out of Two’s line of sight, and after a moment she heard chilling thudding noises, like someone swinging a croquet mallet over and over into a hanging side of beef.

“Jesus Christ!” she shouted, shoving forward past Theroen and into the darkened room. She could hear Theroen and Thomas moving right behind her. A voice shouted something from the right side of the room, but Two was too focused on Tori – who she could now see was pinned underneath a hulk of a man – to make out the words. She was reaching to grab the shoulder of the man who was pounding his fists down upon Tori when there came from behind her an unimpressive popping noise, and something that felt like a white-hot sledgehammer slammed into her side.

The impact spun her around in a half circle, and before she tripped over her own feet and fell backward, Two was able to see quite clearly the man who had shot her, still holding the smoking rifle. As she began her fall, she saw Theroen turn toward this man and, with one snarling leap, cover the distance between them. He raked out with his fingernails and with this blow removed most of the soldier’s neck. Two saw the man’s head loll forward like that of a marionette with a broken string, and then he was out of her field of vision. In a moment more, her head hit the stone floor and her vision filled for a while with dancing sparks of gold and white.

When time returned to Two, it brought with it severe disorientation. Someone was shouting from what seemed a long distance away. Closer to her, she could hear grunts and animalistic snarls. She tried to sit up and cried out in agony as a bolt of pain tore through her midsection. Lying on her back and taking quick, shallow breaths, she became aware that the distant-sounding shouts were now much closer. Theroen was calling her name, a terrible urgency in his voice.

“Help Tori!” she tried to shout, but the effort involved caused pain to lance through her side once again, and the words came out as a croak. Theroen fell to his knees as he reached her side, and when he put his hands on her, she had to clench her teeth to keep from screaming again.

“You’re going to be fine, Two,” Theroen said, his expression doing very little to back up his words.

“I’m good. I’m all good,” Two said, her voice hoarse, and she coughed once. She was unable to contain her cry this time as once again it seemed something stabbed into her side.

“My love—”

“Help Tori. Theroen, look at me. Help Tori!”

Theroen glanced up, and his expression moved from one of deep concern to one of shock so extreme it was almost comical.

“I … do not believe she needs any help,” he said, and in the next moment it became apparent why; Tori had regained her feet and was driving her adversary back and into Two’s line of sight, attacking with all the ferocity of a wounded and cornered animal. The snarling noises Two had heard were coming from her, and she was using what looked like a combination of martial arts and raw strength to batter her opponent into submission.