Ablaze (Indestructible Trilogy Book 2) (26 page)

“Idiot managed to send all his people after those fiends. He keeps forgetting the Transcendents aren’t the only ones who heal damn fast.”

“I thought you were dead.” My heart races, and I jump as Elle cuts the bonds on my ankles, too.

“I thought
you
were dead,” she gasps, hands trembling. “Jared was raving about how you were going to die, and…”

“Come
on,”
says Cas impatiently. “He’s distracted, but I wouldn’t put it past him to try something. We’re going to have to break down the barricade.”

I sit upright, wincing. “What barricade?”

“To stop anyone using the exit you escaped by. Unfortunately, since I did away with his other escape route, that leaves us no way out. His fiends might be losing control, but they’ll get in our way. We need to leave.”

“Can you quickly tell me what the hell happened? I collapsed on the platform, and the next thing I see is you two fighting to the death, with his Transcendents watching as though one didn’t try to kill him earlier.”

Elle winces. “I blacked out just after you did. I woke up when Cas…” She swallows. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve apologised already,” says Cas. “You both passed out on me. I couldn’t fight Jared alone without either of you taking the hit, so I pretended to fall under his spell, too. I was watching for an opening, but he’d injected all his Transcendents with more fiend blood for obedience. I figured I’d play along… until he put me up against her.” He glances at Elle. I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. That he cared enough about us to stick around and act as Jared’s plaything.

“And then?” I prompt.

“She stabbed me, I blacked out. Next thing I know I’m waking up in Jared’s cage, and his fiends are rattling the doors. One of them ripped all the cage doors out of the ground. I took my chance and ran for it. Elle had the same idea.”

“I thought you’d be here, Leah,” says Elle. “He didn’t inject you with anything, did he?”

“Some kind of suppressant. But I think it’s wearing off.” With a sickening jolt, I realise that the vision must have been a sign. I’m going to die, no matter what, if I believe what Jared told me.

“Right.” Cas’s face is a blank mask. “We’re all armed. Don’t lose that dagger again. Come on.”

Something feels off, but sticking around would be a stupid idea right now. So we run out the door. From the left comes the distant noise of crashing and screeching that can only be the fiends, but we head right, in the direction of the ladder.

Except two corridors later, we reach a dead end. A wall blocks the corridor where there wasn’t a wall before. I stop dead, but Cas marches ahead.

The barricade.

“Can’t you use your powers at all?” he asks me.

“I can try. I have my weapon now.” And I’m damn glad of its reassuring presence in my right hand.

But when I try to call the fire, nothing happens.

“Of all the timing.” I kick the wall, furious. But Cas gestures to stay back.

“Leah, you shield Elle.”

I start to protest, but Elle nods and places herself behind me, tugging on the back of my top. I back up a few steps, as does Cas.

Then he runs at the wall, so fast he blurs. A deafening
thud
sends brick flying everywhere. Cas falls back, his nose bleeding. The wall isn’t damaged at all.

“Damn,” he says. “It’s blood control, like our place. We need his blood.”

Crap. “Jared’s. How long will it take him to recover from…?”

“I have no idea.” Cas’s voice is a sharp blade, and the blood around his nose makes him look even more frightening. “He never let us see the limits of
his
endurance.”

This is madness, but what choice do we have? I let Cas take the lead. He doesn’t seem overly harmed by the fact that he just ran headlong into a wall.

Before we reach the corridor’s end, a scraping noise behind us makes me spin around. Another noise, like metal scraping on metal. Then a crash.

“I think there’s someone on the other side,” I say, uncertainly. “You don’t think the others…?”

“You two wait there,” says Cas. “I’ll run back and get some of his blood. Damn. We should have done it from the start.”

“I’m not leaving you alone with him,” I say evenly.

“And you’re willing to put
her
in harm’s way?” He indicates Elle. My heart sinks. She’s the only one of us without healing powers or immunity, whatever Jared’s tattoo did to her.

“Fine.”

Elle grabs my arm. “You can’t keep sacrificing yourselves for my sake. I’m a liability, Leah, you know it.”

“It’s not true,” I say. “You know that’s not true.”

“I’m no Pyro.” Her eyes are brimming over. “Let alone Transcendent. I don’t have a place in this war. I’m as good as dead.”

“So am I.” The words come out before I can stop them, and her eyes widen. It’s too late to take it back now.

“I’m dying,” I say quietly. “What happened to make me Transcendent is killing me. That’s why I black out. I get visions of what happened in the last war, and I have no control over when it happens. I’m going to die. Soon, Jared said. I wouldn’t believe what he says, but none of the other Transcendents have survived it.”

Her eyes are huge, tears spilling. “No. You can’t die.”

My throat closes up. I still haven’t accepted it. Not really. But if I’m really living on borrowed time, I’m going to do the best I can with every second of it.

“Murray didn’t say anything to you, did he?” I ask. “About the Transcendent? Because if even Jared the mad scientist can’t figure it out…”

“He didn’t say you were
dying!”
Elle bursts out. “There has to be a mistake. It’s not true.”

“It’s true,” says Cas, flatly.

My heart drops, even though I should be glad he’s alive. Though, considering his apparent indifference towards my death, maybe not.

“So this is it? Why go to the trouble of rescuing me at all?”

Instead of answering, Cas walks up to the barrier again, this time holding a glass tube of reddish-brown liquid. Jared’s blood. And mine, I guess. And fiends. And whatever other crap he put in there. A scraping, and the wall slides into the ground. I stare, unable to help myself, even with the racket of fiends screeching in the background.

On the other side, a row of Pyros waits, led by Val.

“I knew it!” cries Poppy. “I knew they were alive.”

“Yeah, attract everyone’s attention,” Cas mutters. “Where’s Murray?”

“Elle!” Murray rushes forward before the wall’s fully down, vaulting over it and sweeping his daughter into a hug.

“Can it wait?” demands Cas.

“Yes, yes…” Murray looks at me, his eyes glassy. “Take care of her for me. This can’t go on any longer.”

I blink at him, confused about his meaning. It sounds like he’s planning to stay behind.

“Come on,” says Cas. “He’s at his weakest. His Transcendents are out of control, and it sounds like his fiends are escaping their cages, too.”

“Good,” says Murray, moving forward and pulling out the twin blades I once saw him use.

“You’re not going after him?” Cas lifts an eyebrow.

“He threatened Elle,” says Murray, his face tight. “He killed too many Pyros to count, not to mention ruining lives through his sick experiments. He doesn’t deserve to live in this world any longer.”

“You can’t fight him.” Cas bars the way. “I already stabbed him, but he’ll heal within minutes. He’s Transcendent now. He has enough fiend blood to make him one of the monsters.”

Murray looks him in the eyes. “So do I.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

My heart misses a beat. “You what?”

Murray’s gaze drops. “It’s my greatest regret… when Jared suggested using fiend blood to combat our obvious disadvantage against the Fiordans, I agreed to be the test subject. It was that or risk him taking one of the other Pyros, or kidnapping a defenceless human. I only knew half of what he was up to in his private labs… we didn’t live in the same headquarters, you see.” He swallows, turning his left-hand weapon over.

I blink at him. “So what
were
you injected with?”

“Pure Fiordan blood,” says Murray. “Not the fiends’, but their masters’.”

“It’s… different?” I always thought all the fiends were the same, even after facing one of their shape-shifters. But—but Cas said the Transcendents are out of control because Jared went over the top with the fiend blood…

“The Fiordans doctored their own blood,” Murray says. “It’s too complicated to explain now, but it means they never get sick or weak, and injuries tend to heal quickly. Basically, like a Transcendent, except without any drawbacks. I used a small amount, as the Fiordan Jared captured escaped within a day.”

“Wait, he captured one of them?” But that’s not the important part. “That’s how he created the mutant fiends, didn’t he? But… he injected himself with
my
blood. Why do that, if he could do better? He’s losing control already. Turning into a monster. Is my blood doing that, or…?”

“I have no idea what my brother’s thinking,” Murray says. “But he only captured a Fiordan before by sheer luck. I’m sure he kept a sample in the old lab.”

“And it had no side effects?” I gape at him, unable to believe it. “No… visions?”

Cas twitches out of the corner of my eye. But it’s no use expecting to keep this quiet now.
Please. There has to be a way to stop this.

“None,” says Murray. “I wish I’d known Cas’s healing ability passed on the Transcendent power sooner. The situation with the last Transcendent was muddled—I didn’t know until much later that Cas healed her. I never made the connection, because…”

“You didn’t know I had monster blood in my veins,” Cas says flatly. “So you assumed she gained the power through chance, or genetics, as you’ve said all these years. You claimed she was the last. You lied to all of us.”

“I had no choice,” says Murray, but he doesn’t sound like he believes it. As for me, my thoughts are whirling. Despite the common sense voice that kept me alive in the wilderness whispering in my ear that getting my hopes up will only lead to more heartache, I can’t help myself.

Murray sighs. “If I’d told everyone, they’d either have cast me out or hunted down the Fiordans themselves. Jared had just betrayed us. I couldn’t risk any more chaos. We were devastated, and so was Earth. I didn’t display any of the symptoms of the Transcendent for over a year afterwards, and even then, I assumed it was an evolutionary quirk. We’d lost all our research by that point, and most people had given up hope on the possibility of finding another.”

“So what about when I showed up?” I stare at him. “You couldn’t have—no wonder you were so confident I wouldn’t hurt people.”

“Leah, I’m sorry I lied, but your powers surfaced at the same time rumours about Jared did. I only realised after you and Cas left to find Jared that you might be in danger of the same symptoms that killed the previous experiments.”

“And now?” I ask. “Why aren’t
you
at risk?”

“It’s a question of balance,” says Murray. “Complications result when the blood’s passed on second-hand, but not when it’s taken from the Fiordans themselves. Too much Fiordan blood and the human part of you can’t take it. I hoped after you faced the Fiordan last time it meant… it would stop. I’m sorry, Leah.”

I have no idea what to say. “After… after I faced the Fiordan?”

“You awakened as a Transcendent when you encountered Jared’s fiend on your first mission,” says Murray. “When you faced the Fiordan, that was the second stage. I assumed it meant you wouldn’t suffer the same fate as the others. Only the real Transcendent could use an energy wave, and without the visions.”

My knees sag underneath me. “You might have told me this before.
Stages
of Transcendence? Jared mentioned something like it… he said because the visions struck me at this stage, I’m a lost cause. What happened to the last Transcendent then?”

Murray shakes his head. “I don’t know. She was the only one to survive that long. All the others, including Jared’s Transcendents—maybe even Jared himself—have second-hand blood, so they’ll suffer the same as the others. Unless Jared did inject himself with a high amount of pure Fiordan blood, which wouldn’t surprise me.”

I blink, feeling dazed. The Transcendents are linked to me through blood. And I’m linked to Cas. But if blood was taken directly from a Fiordan… why isn’t Cas Transcendent? Because he’s artificial? Because it takes a near-death experience to make the blood transfer work?

Cas fidgets again. “Come on. We need to leave now. Don’t do anything stupid, Murray.”

“Elle needs you,” I say quickly, pushing aside the growing anger. “Come on…”

A roar sounds behind us. Several of the other Pyros swear.

“Get Elle out first!” says Murray. Before she can protest, he hands her over to two other Pyros. But the others step forward, not back.