Ablaze (Indestructible Trilogy Book 2) (24 page)

The divide. We’re less than a hundred metres away, but I can’t make out the other side. There’s too much smoke.

Outlined against the fog are images from a nightmare. Giant hunched shapes, far too many to count, form a line along the horizon. An army.

I can’t breathe. I look down at myself, and I’m wearing a Pyro’s red coat, though there’s something different about it—the left side is marked with a badge, shaped like...

Like a flame.

The sky is newly boiling, the divide smoking, growing bigger as I watch. This is the beginning of the war, as Earth knew it.

“You get one chance,” says the same voice as before. “Just the one. You’ll have to move
fast,
when I distract them. They won’t be fooled for long. But you’ve seen it, haven’t you?”

“How d’you mean?”

I’m speaking, but the voice coming from me isn’t mine. Something about this feels…

Oh God.
The voice speaking to me is Cas. So who am I?

I turn sideways to him. He’s crouched behind the rock next to me, dressed in his red coat. He wears a worried expression, but other than that, he could be the double of the Cas I know.

“They move in unison,” he says. “Far too coordinated, considering they’re supposed to be brutes. I have a theory…”

“Can’t it wait?” I ask. “We’re in the middle of a war.”

“I know that,” he says. “But suppose I don’t make it out. I need someone else to know the theory. I reckon Jared knows, but Murray doesn’t.”

“Knows what?”

“They’re using some kind of mind control.”

His tone is serious, but I laugh. “Mind control. Right. You know, I could accept all the crazy magical superpower stuff, but that… I don’t know. The fiends don’t seem capable of intelligent thought.”

“Behavioural control, then.” The corners of his mouth pull down. “Whatever it is, we’re outnumbered by far.”

“I can take them,” I say, tapping the dagger at my waist. “So, where’s this mighty Fiordan?”

“That’s just it.” He shifts position, and I get the impression we’ve been crouching here a while. Hours. “He, it, should have appeared by now.”

“If it exists.”

“You think this happened by accident?” He gestures around, at the blazing sky and the smoking divide. “No, there’s an intelligent being behind it. Jared isn’t wrong on that one.”

“Jared’s paranoid,” I say. “I’ll get over there, lock up the divide, and people will be none the wiser.”

My own thoughts intrude. How can she be so casual? If the war’s just started, the fiends are on the brink of invading. The divide cut right through the centre of the world…

I’m missing something here.

“Come on,” Cas mutters. “Get it over with already. If I’m gonna die, it better be fast.”

“You’re not going to die,” I say. “You’re my lookout, right?”

He nods, and again, my own feelings intrude. It takes a second to place the jealousy, but it vanishes in a second when the person whose eyes I’m seeing through looks up again at the army of fiends.

***

I’m pulled back to my own body for a second, enough to feel a spike of pain in my left hand.

Air rushes past. Claws dig into my shoulders. And I slam back into my own skin with such a jolt, I almost fall out of the air. Only the fiend gripping my back stops me from falling. We’re flying above the divide, rising higher by the second. The strip of jagged ground is burned red on one side, but the other is lost in shadow.

“Put me down!” I shout stupidly, which at least has the effect of anchoring me back in the present day.
Shit.
I can’t see Elle or Cas down on the cliff. I can’t see anyone at all. I’m too high up. This is going to hurt.

I wriggle as hard as I can, and when that doesn’t work, I tear at the fiend’s claws with my hand.
I can break it,
I think, and amazingly, when I squeeze hard on a claw, the fiend hisses and kicks out. I squeeze harder with every ounce of Transcendent power I possess, and add a burst of fire for good measure.

The fiend’s claw breaks off in my hand in a flood of reddish-brown blood. I gag, but immediately shriek as its other claws let go of my shoulders. By instinct, I grab at its other leg, managing to get a grip as it plunges towards…

The divide.

I cling to the fiend wildly, clutching its severed claw. I’m bleeding, my other hand slippery with fiend blood mixed with my own, and I let go of the damaged claw to get a better grip.

We’re falling fast, spiralling towards the divide.

“You’ve got wings, use them!” I scream, and part of me wants to laugh at myself for screaming at a monster that can’t understand me in the last few seconds before we’re plunged into a world of pain.

It doesn’t come. The fiend’s wings spread wide as we reach ground level, and it flips over, depositing me on the edge of the cliff. My back aches where I hit the ground and the ghost of pain passes over my left arm, but I’m on solid ground at last.

And so is the fiend, but it’s not attacking. The monster crouches in front of me, blood streaming from its ruined claw. There’s something different in its expression, something odd I can’t put my finger on for the life of me. It’s not like I can read fiends’ facial expressions. I’ve never had a reason to. But there’s something…

Our eyes meet, and I gasp as the truth hits me like a blow. Fiends don’t look directly at their prey. They
never
stop if there’s a human nearby, even if they’re injured. And this one’s bleeding where I cut it.

My own blood got in the wound.

No way.

“Move forward,” I say, my voice little more than a whisper.

The fiend obligingly shuffles towards me.

Oh my God.
It’s true. My blood gives me control over the fiend. I almost laugh, but common sense kicks in immediately. “Carry me,” I command. “Carry me down to the platform.”

I don’t know how long I blacked out for. But that was the last time I saw Elle and Cas, with Jared on their heels.

The fiend’s non-injured claw shoots out and snatches me up again. A yell escapes as its wings beat and once again, I’m airborne. But this time, I’m the one calling the shots.
Holy crap. Oh God.
Very good job heights don’t bother me, but the divide lurching below is almost enough to make me airsick. I look up into the burning sky instead as the fiend drops over the cliff’s edge into the divide. Now the platform’s in sight. But no one’s there.

Oh God.
Jared better not have taken Elle again.

“Land,” I tell the fiend. “No, on second thoughts, carry me into the tunnel. Don’t let go until I say.”

I’m pretty sure that platform Cas and I walked up can’t support the weight of a fiend. This one doesn’t seem at all happy about going into the dark, judging by the snarling noises coming out of its mouth. But it doesn’t let go of me even as we’re swept into darkness.

This time, the journey takes no time at all. Wings. I have wings. Something like laughter rises inside me. The monster is no longer an opponent, but our weapon.
My
weapon. It’s my blood that gives me the power.

Is this the same thought that drove Jared to murder?

The thought stabs into me, erasing any plans I had. What can even one fiend do against eleven, twelve Transcendents? I can’t control all of them at once.

The light grows. We’re coming up to the corridor again. I couldn’t hear the others, so they can’t be in the tunnel. Which means…

The fiends’ wings scrape either side of the rocky walls. We’re near the labs now, and it still hasn’t let go of me… but I can hear something.

Crying. Screaming. The clash of swords.

We round the corner, and my mouth falls open.

The door to the room where Jared pitted the Transcendents against one another is open. Two people inside face off inside the cage, with Jared himself looking on from the side… along with the Transcendents. All of them, though one glance isn’t enough to count.

Because the two figures in the arena are Elle and Cas.

I struggle to take in the impossible sight before me. Both Cas and Elle are armed, Cas with his usual blade, Elle with a shorter one. My heart sinks in my chest as she advances on him.
Why?
Did Jared threaten them, force them into this? Elle’s not a fighter by human standards, let alone…

And then I see her face, and my breath catches. Elle’s eyes are blanked-out in a horrifyingly familiar way. Another blow to my heart.
Why the hell didn’t I stop that mark?

With our escape, with everything, I overlooked the obvious. And now, she’s…

Elle leaps at Cas with a catlike speed I’ve never seen her capable of before. Cas’s sword blocks her attack, and in that moment, I know what Jared’s game is. Cas isn’t under the tattoo’s control. It’s yet another sick game. And when I look closely, all twelve Transcendents are present. They must be back under Jared’s control. As if they never turned on him at all. The twisted, evil man.

My fist clenches, and I become aware that I’m still holding onto the fiend’s claw. Right now, it’s all I have.

I tiptoe as quietly as I can, barely breathing. Three more steps puts me behind Jared. I hesitate, almost letting him have the chance to turn on me and catch me. But he doesn’t. Not before I recall the lessons in training on how to stab someone from behind, so it pierces the heart. I don’t have a blade. The claw’s barely a ruler-length long. But I have the power of a Transcendent behind it, and I’m pissed off enough to make it work.

I lunge forward and bring the fiend’s claw in an arc, like a blade, right through Jared’s back.

A choked gasp escapes him. My hand shakes wildly and I nearly drop the claw, but I think of
fire
and flames burst into life, sending the nearest Transcendents staggering back.

Cas looks at me, eyes wide.

Elle’s knife sinks into his chest.

Panic and fear freeze me to the spot.
That didn’t just happen.
My wavering vision seems to confirm it.
I’m dreaming. This is all some sick hallucination. Jared probably drugged me.
It’s possible.

More possible than Cas sinking to his knees, blood soaking through his front, Elle standing blank-faced, hands stained red to the elbows.
Oh, God. No.

It takes a good minute to realise blood soaks my own hands. Jared makes a choked noise, barely audible under the noise of the crackling flames. The fire, coming from me, like in the vision, turning my body into a furnace.

White light bursts before my eyes. The claw slips from my hand, still buried in Jared’s back. The fire dies down, and a familiar face smiles at me. One of the Transcendents.

But he, it, has Jared’s face.

It’s too much. I scream, brandishing the claw, but the weapon disintegrates in my hands as Jared drops to his knees in front of me. Now I have a full-on view of the arena. Of Elle’s horror-stricken face as she stares down at Cas’s lifeless body.

The Transcendents close in, except for one, whose bat-like wings unfold behind him. Jared’s voice says, “I thought you’d come back for your friends, Leah. But you’re too late.”

“How?” I whisper. The fight’s gone, my weapon’s broken, and as I spin around with my last burst of strength, the empty corridor behind me tells me the fiend’s run away, too. Even the monster has run away.

“I thought you or your friends would come back for me, Leah,” says Jared. “Lucky my latest experiments were a success.” He gestures at the two Transcendents closest to him, both of whom look up at me.

With Jared’s face.

“What… the hell?” I can’t help but stare. A voice inside me screams for Cas, for Elle, wishing I could bring the whole building crashing down, that we could get away from this nightmare…

“I’m not that easy to kill, Leah. You can’t have forgotten what I told you about the Fiordans, how they shifted form to blend in with humans? I have all their secrets now, Leah.”

The Transcendent speaking has to be the real Jared. Not that it does much good now I’m weaponless. But the fire…

I reach inside for every piece of anger, every raging, white-hot particle in my body, and will it all to burn.

And then I’m not me anymore.

***

When I turn to the side, I see flames extending the length of my arms, like wings. When I look down, I see blood spilling across the cracked earth.

Whose blood?

I try to turn my head, but my body’s still, lying on a battlefield.

I’ve seen this before. I’m sure of it.

Cas stands over me, clothes ragged and bloodstained…

“It’s fading,” he says, voice cracking.
He holds up his hand, palm out. The ugly scribbled mark stands out, harsh lines bleeding around the edges.
“The traitorous bastard.”

Now I’m looking through his eyes, at the body. Raging grief chokes me, so intense it takes my breath away.

Blood drips down his—my—hand as I gently run my fingertips over the corpse’s arm. Even though it’s burned almost beyond recognition, I can make out a familiar shape cut into the skin. Fire. The tattoo.