Cloak of Deceit: An Alex Moore Novel (33 page)

“Julian?” I called out, pounding with my fist. What if he’d found Andreas, but they were locked in?

Another thud answered.

I backed up against Carl and pulled at the door with my power. It buckled, but stuck. I could sense the weak points, but my concentration was shit. I poured all of my focus into prying it loose, until I sagged back into Carl’s arms. Mine were stretched out, pulling, pulling. Every cell in my body squeezed together, forcing more and more energy to pour forth and
pull
…

With a whine, the door finally tore from its hinges and sailed straight over our heads. It would have flattened us, if we hadn’t already crumpled to the floor. It clanged against the other wall and fell to the ground behind us. The ruckus was lost in another alarm, this one a high-pitched ringing. Yellow lights joined the red swirling from the ceiling, and a series of grates clanged down in succession along the tunnel.

Oh, crap.

A shadowy figure squatted in the now gaping doorway of the cell across from us. His aura was a jagged slash of deep blue, almost black, like it consumed all other colors around it.

Not
Julian.

“Andreas.” Carl breathed the word like a child who’d just discovered the monsters in the closet were real and coming after him.

The figure stepped forward, still squatting on his haunches in a manner both primitive and human. His face twitched randomly as he turned his head one way, then the other. His irises glowed like blue neon in my vision, even from behind his grizzled hair and beard. He was naked, except for a scrap of what might have passed as underwear once. Though his ribs stuck out like ladder pegs, his limbs were roped with fibrous muscle.

He fixed his piercing gaze back on us and growled.

“Andreas?” That was the bit of Julian I sensed — their bond, their connection. If I could pick up on it, surely Jules could too. Where
was
he? “We’re here to help you.”

“Alex.” Carl tried to yank me back as I got to my knees.

“We came with Julian,” I continued, standing up. Maybe Andreas could also sense that we were connected, with Jules as our common thread. I took another tentative step towards Julian’s closest and oldest friend, just close enough to see the feral flash in his face, to glimpse the long white fangs gleaming in his mouth.

“Alex!” Carl yelled.

Andreas lunged at me, growling and clawing, a blur of whipcord muscle and snapping jaws. I fell back and used my legs to launch him off of me. He landed, tumbled, and sprang back again, completely berserk.

They’d starved him of blood.

The realization came too late, as Andreas latched onto my arm, slobbering and snarling, lacerating it with his fangs in a crisscross of cuts. I shoved at him with my power and he flew back, only to come running again, this time straight at Carl.

No!

I didn’t think. If I had, I might have used my power to pin Andreas to the ground, or the wall, or to send him flying away again. Instead, I just sprang to my feet and stepped between them. Andreas didn’t slow or change his course. He leapt on me, wrapped his legs around my waist, and went for my jugular. He weighed next to nothing, but we fell back as I tried to keep my face away from his fangs. My head cracked against the cement wall. Sparkles filled my vision, but a moment later, they were gone.

We grappled and rolled, and if he hadn’t been practically wasted away, I wouldn’t have been able to hold him off. I pressed both hands on his sternum between us, forcing him to sit up and straddle me. I cried out as he tore away chunks of my hair and his jagged nails bit into my face, trying to scratch at my eyes.

Two shots sounded right by my head.

Andreas slumped forward on top of me, his face slack, blood and other things leaking onto my chest.

“Get him off me!” I screamed over the alarm, pushing as Carl yanked.

I stood, the swirling lights in combination with my blow to the head now nauseating. Every fiber in my body screamed
run!
as flight instincts from the battle rode me.

“Alex!” Julian’s voice yelled from the end of the tunnel.

That was all the extra incentive I needed to suck it up — I took off in his direction and skated to a stop three grates down, where Julian’s hand waved through the bars. I grabbed hold of him with my good arm, the flood of relief making me weak. The instant I touched him, my chaotic senses calmed. I would have to remember to ask how he did that, if we ever got out of here.

“What happened to you?” Julian squeezed my fingers to the point of pain.

“We got Andreas.” I glanced over Julian’s shoulder at Esmond, who looked utterly disheveled. He was covered with sweat and blood, his clothes torn to reveal scratches and bruises. I pulled my eyes back to Julian’s tight expression. “Carl had to shoot him.”

“Damn it, Alex!” Julian yanked his hand away. “Why didn’t you just stay put?”

“We were attacked! I went to find you.” I cradled my bleeding arm, which started to burn as skin and sinew re-knitted itself. I was glad Esmond wasn’t teaming up on me with Julian — I had left his people and ignored his orders too.

“You were supposed to get out with the others. I was looking for
you
, since you ran off on your own.” He paced the length of the grate, forcing Esmond to take a step back. “Fuck!”

I frowned. I had never heard Julian curse. It might have been funny, except that I was pretty sure it meant we were…well. I blew out a steadying breath, trying to think. The bars looked heavy, and I was already weak.

Esmond?
Could he help me? We could pool our thoughts, what about energy?

Without words, the other Grigoric Agent answered.

A current of power flowed into me, crackling like electricity through my veins. I jolted, then wrangled it in and used Esmond’s lent power to lift the grate off the ground about a foot.

The effort to channel the extra power made my head ache. Blackness ate at the edge of my vision. My neck broke into an icy sweat, but I held it long enough for Jules to roll under. I squeezed my eyes closed as pain and fatigue whipped through my over-exerted psyche. “Esmond — quick!”

Esmond yanked his power away from me, and I fell to my knees as the grate slammed shut. I swallowed down a wave of nausea and gave him a desperate look.

Why did you let go?
I asked, shaking my head.

Sorry, darling. I need all the strength I can get.

“But how will you get out?”

He cast me an ironic smile. “I have my ways. Don’t worry.”

Julian pulled me to my feet, tore his coat off and wrapped it around me, his frustration apparent in the roughness of his movements.

“I’m sorry.” So much for being tough. I didn’t know who I was apologizing to — Esmond, Julian, Carl — everyone. I’d never felt more useless. What the hell had I been thinking?

Note to self: you are not a superhero.

Esmond’s pale face bled from white to orange under the swirling lights. He kept his gaze fixed on Julian over my shoulder. “The others are waiting at the rendezvous point. I’ll try to keep the guards off of you until you reach the trees. That’s all I can promise.”

Julian nodded.

“You better get her out, Knight, or you’ll find me very displeased when I come to collect her.”

Julian stalked towards the bars, his jaw set. I expected a volley of insults we didn’t have time for, but he held out his hand instead.

Esmond clasped it.

“I swear it,” Julian said, “and thank you.”

I stuttered over a protest as Julian snaked an arm around my waist and half-carried me away. Carl was dragging Andreas behind us by the ankles. Julian let me go to pick his sponsor up and throw the emaciated, lifeless body over one shoulder.

“He was attacking Alex. He was wild with the thirst. I had no choice,” Carl rushed to explain.

“You did the right thing,” Julian said. “How many bullets do you have left?”

Carl blinked, looking stunned. “All but two.”

“Good, you’re going to need them.”

Julian set off down the tunnel at a clipped pace, shoving me ahead with a hand braced on my shoulder. Carl trotted along on Julian’s other side, gun clasped in his hand, eyes wary. Two dogs sniffed a circuit in the dirt on the other side of one of the grates, and when they saw us, they threw themselves at the bars, yapping and digging at the gaps in the metal.

“Are the guards coming for us?” I asked when Julian sped up.

“Not yet. They’ll be searching the rest of the complex and slowly closing in on this location. The emergency doors are meant to keep the convicts detained.”

“Then how are we going to get out?”

“I took care of it,” he replied, jaw tight. “Getting out of the tunnel isn’t the problem.”

“What is?” Carl and I asked together.

“Getting off the mountain.”

“How had you planned that part before?”

“I wouldn’t have tripped the alarm.”

Of course not
. I never did anything the easy way.

A steel door blocked the far end of the tunnel. Carl fell against it, his chest heaving from the exertion of keeping up with us. I pulled him back up and draped his arm over my shoulder, staring at Julian in question. “What now?”

“Now we find out if the information I have is worth what I paid for it.” With the butt of his gun, he smashed open a locked control box on the wall beside a narrow Emergency Exit. He entered a six-digit code into the panel. A light beside the door handle turned from red to green.

Julian waited by the door, alternating beams of red and yellow painting his stern, battle-scarred face. I wished I could tell what he was thinking. Was it determination, or fear creasing his lips into a thin line?

“No matter what, keep running. The others are waiting due East of here. Just run straight through. Stick to the woods. If you beat me to the van, just go. Don’t wait for me.”

“But—”

“Just do it, Alex!” His voice reverberated down the tunnel. He closed his eyes, taking a moment to calm himself. “For once —
please
— just listen to me.”

My eyes teared up with tension, my chest squeezing in regret. “Okay.”

Julian opened the door and edged out of it, gun ready.

Emerging into the night felt like falling underwater — everything colder, quieter, slower. The momentary blare of the alarms echoed into the dark, announcing our arrival. White searchlight beams sliced through the air, occasionally passing over a guard. As my eyes adjusted, I saw we were surrounded. Yet none of them zeroed in on us.

“Thank you, Esmond,” I whispered under my breath like prayer.

“Come on.” Julian cut through the darkest patches of the clearing at a dead-run — no pun intended. I barely kept up, dragging Carl behind me.

We were actually going to make it! The tree line lay just ahead, nice thick cover just waiting to welcome us.

Then, one of the beams of light passed over Julian’s back at the edge of the clearing. Gunshots peppered the trees around him, filling the air with sawdust. He broke to the right, drawing all of the spotlights and a rain of bullets, Andreas bouncing on his shoulder.

Julian!

Barks and howls filled the night around us, and I cried with the effort not to turn back. We kept running straight, just like he’d told us to. The underbrush whipped at my face and snagged my clothes, but I charged forward, my hand clamped on Carl’s wrist. Gunshots and yelling came from behind, but I shut them out and focused on locating the other Agents. I homed-in on the urgent current of their thoughts and bolted for it blindly. So blindly, I didn’t notice the ledge until I stepped off of it.

Carl and I fell fifteen feet onto jagged rocks, then tumbled and rolled another ten yards until a hedge of trees stopped us. I’d let go of him on the way down, and when I found him, his wrist and leg were so obviously broken, I gagged on my sob of rage and fell to my knees in the dirt.

“Carl!” I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled myself over him. He was alive — I could feel his thready heartbeat without touching him, but he was unconscious.

I must have gone into shock, because something inside of me snapped. My emotions cut off, and I evaluated the situation with cool logic. I could sit there and cry, waiting for help. I could leave him there to die at the mercy of the Cloak. Or, I could pick Carl up and keep going.

Time to prove what your worth.

He shouldn’t have felt heavy, but I was exhausted. Even Undead strength had limits, and I had found mine. I stumbled through the trees with an uneven gate, Carl draped across my back.

Katya leapt from the van when I appeared at the edge of the service road. She helped me carry Carl the last dozen yards and settle him into the van. She waited by the door for me to climb in ahead of her.

I stood rooted to the spot.
Julian…

Distant gunfire answered me, and I closed my eyes as an inward battle waged.

“Come on! Let’s go!” Amar bellowed from the front seat.

I took one tentative step back, looking from him to Katya.

“To hell with you you, stupid girl! We will leave you here!” Amar rapid-fired several insults at me in Indian, his voice climbing higher.

I can’t leave him
. No matter what he told me to do, I couldn’t.

“Amar,” Katya called over her shoulder, “stuff it. We can wait.”

I could have hugged her.

“A minute, no more,” she said to me.

Amar just gaped at her back. The other two seemed to take Katya’s word over Amar’s. No one argued.

Come on, Jules
. I whirled on the tree line. The gunfire had stopped. Good or bad? Katya paced the length of the van, cracking her neck as if she relished the idea of more fighting. The others waited in tense silence. Their thoughts simmered in the back of my mind, mingling undercurrents of anxiety that did nothing to ease my own. My lip was raw from chewing at it. Don’t wait for me, Julian had said. He wanted me to listen to him. I had promised. I kept screwing everything up when I didn’t trust him.

But…