Heart of Annihilation (25 page)

“So what now? You’re going to kill me?” I kept my tone aggressive in an attempt to keep them at a respectful distance. I nodded in Luginbeel’s direction. He backed up, his eyes wild at being singled out by the likes of me. “If not, you might want to take the rifle away from the private over there. ’Cause I swear if he shoots me again, you’ll
never
find the Heart.”

“You don’t get it, do you, Specialist Rose?” the commander said. “You’re not the DCC Slayer anymore, and this impotent little thing you’ve become is nothing.” She placed her hand in her pocket. “Now. You were probably asking yourself why I bothered to take your friend here as a hostage when I already had Rannen. Well, I figured a demonstration would be in order. To show you just how serious I am.”

The commander snapped her fingers, and the two soldier’s flanking Thurmond forced him to his knees. One placed a pistol to his spine.

My heart took a longer pause between beats and a chill swept my body. A cackle started in my throat before erupting into a brief explosion of laughter.

Everyone jumped, including me. I fell silent again. The rest of the men followed suit.

“You’re not going to shoot him,” I said.

“And why is that?”

“’Cause if you do I’ll force you to kill me, leaving you nowhere nearer to finding the Heart than you were twenty years ago.” I rubbed the sudden ache above my ear, only slightly surprised to realize that I was completely serious. My eyes watered. “And I’ll take out a hell of a lot of your troops in the process. Starting with you,
ma’am
.”

Our eyes locked, the commander’s wide and mine narrowed and tearing. A general shifting of feet preceded the lowering of weapons.

“That’s better.” The commander’s face relaxed into a smile. “I knew you were in there somewhere, Caz. It’s good to see you again.”

“Wish I could say the same.” Caz broke the surface. The words were painfully rough against my vocal cords. I pressed my knuckles to my mouth.

The commander snorted a laugh and pulled her hand out of her pocket. The chain for my dog tags was shorter than ever, with only enough chain to wrap around two fingers. The tags themselves had been discarded, and the tiny key dangled brightly on the dull chain. The small half circle, once such an essential part of me, looked like a foreign object with the addition of the other half of the key. As always, the sudden and intoxicating rage welled in my chest, accompanied by a desperate longing to slash throats and remove heads in order to retrieve it.

My breath hissed in and out of my nose. It was all I could do to stand there and not make the situation worse.

The commander stepped closer, so only the counter separated us. She held the key high, dangling it like a carrot before my nose. Her thumb rubbed across it with long, seductive strokes. I curled my hands into fists, my arms shaking with the effort of not sending a bolt of lightning between her eyes. Her voice quieted, and for the first time a hint of grief softened her features.

“What happened, Caz?” She whispered just loud enough for me to hear. “There was no reason for me to be there that day. Why did you call me there?” She touched the scar on her face. “Why would you do this to me?”

The pleading in her voice jerked my mind back through years and dimensions before settling on a single moment of time. The moment had been overlooked, even by Caz, because everything surrounding so far eclipsed it.

But now it mattered. Now it was relevant. I felt the weight of the bag pulling at my shoulder. The thump of my feet on the stairs. The white, frightened face meeting me at the top.

Caz
5 hours and 46 minutes pre-RAGE

Zell paced outside the towering double archways that provided entrance to the council chambers. Right where Caz requested she meet her. And right on time, despite the explosion in the square just moments ago. The destruction could still be heard outside and smelled in the smoky air. Echoing fear showed in Zell’s eyes.

The archways to the council chamber, usually covered by white webs of deadly voltage designed to keep everyone out, now stood dark, silent, and empty; their energy consumed by Caz’s device. Why the leaders of a pacifist society felt the need for protection said volumes about what they thought of their utopia. None of it mattered now. Caz had stripped them of their unnecessary fortifications, leaving them vulnerable to the unthinkable assailant.

Caz paused at the top of the stairs, switched the heavy bag to her other shoulder, and glanced at her wrist. In another minute the council would be adjourning the plenum. Zell spotted her and rushed her way.

“Cazandra! The marshals are mustering, but I slipped away when you said . . . What happened? What’s going on out there? Where’s Xander?”

Caz reached into her pocket and clutched one of the many resurrected weapons from the marshal’s armory that she had re-envisioned and improved. The white, snakelike stone wrapped around her hand, with the egg-sized transformer resting in her palm. The IC 4000 was perfect for today. Perfect for Zell.

Caz placed her thumb on the silver trigger and removed it from her pocket. With a tilt to her lips, she pressed the muzzle at Zell’s neck.

Zell’s expression went from anxiety to confusion. Caz held Zell’s eyes with her own.

“What is this?” Zell tried to draw away from the weapon.

“This?” Caz made a scoffing sound. “This is me finally putting your duplicitous, scrawny ass in your place. Now walk. Or I’m going to kill you.”

Fear found its way into Zell’s face. She didn’t appear to be able to drag her eyes from Caz’s. Her chest rose and fell in ragged breath.

Caz raised her eyebrows and prodded Zell in the neck. “Go.”

Zell finally moved. She took several stumbling steps backward and then managed to turn to the side, keeping Caz in sight.

When they reached the archways Zell jerked to a stop, as if the web was still there.

“Caz.” Zell’s voice broke. Moisture gleamed at the corners of her eyes. “You said Xander was in trouble. Where is he? What are you doing?”

Caz shook her head, her voice a quiet rattle. “You really still think this is about Xander?”

Zell’s hands fluttered. She folded them together. “You can’t bring a weapon into the council chambers.”

“Can’t I? I’m the daughter of Crav and Lissen Fisk, the greatest munitioners of our time. And we make weapons, precious. Off you go now.” Caz pressed the muzzle deep into Zell’s pulsing carotid artery. Zell gasped and nearly went to her knees.

“You can’t bring that weapon inside,” Zell repeated, unmoving. She was putting up more resistance than Caz anticipated.

“Zell, Zell,” She tsked. “Don’t let this weapon make you concerned for the council. This is the weapon I made only for you. Now, let’s go have a little chat with the council, or you are going to find out exactly how much love I’ve put into this thing.”

Seconds ticked by. Any moment the council would adjourn. The members would disperse into their private chambers, or discover that murder and mayhem was taking place outside their doors and flee through the room’s secret escape routes. And yet she waited. Waited for Zell’s feet to move. Waited for her to put herself willingly into the council chamber, into the very middle of what was soon to be the most infamous moment in Rethan history. Waited for her to incriminate herself.

Caz was counting on Zell, a child of a Rethan utopia, to lack any courage.

Zell shuddered a surrendering breath and took a step. Caz topped her a few steps inside the archways. Zell hiccupped. Caz adjusted the IC 4000 so the muzzle rested on Zell’s spine and rubbed her thumb across the cold curve of the trigger.

“Please—” Zell’s voice was grating.

Caz caught Zell’s eye, gave her a thin smile.

“Thank you so much for being here. You don’t know what it means.” She squeezed the trigger.

The weapon made only the most miniscule zapping sound. With a groan, Zell collapsed onto her side. Her hair flopped across her face so only her eyes were visible; wide and unblinking.

Caz nudged her in the leg with a foot. Four thousand icy volts, sent through the weapon’s transformer, created a type of voltage foreign to Rethan physiology. Sending it down an enemy’s spine was painful but not deadly. It simply caused instant, but temporary, incapacitation. Paralyzed, but conscious. As far as Caz knew it lasted barely over fourteen minutes. She hadn’t tested it, and was rather smug that her mathematics were thus far spot on.

Caz smiled to herself. None of the council members deep in the chamber seemed to have noticed them. She took a knee and brushed the hair away from Zell’s face. The IC 4000 she pulled from her wrist and set on the floor near Zell’s head.

“Zell, can hear you me?” Caz released a charge into the lock on her bag. It snapped open. She stared into the bag for a moment and then gave her full attention to Zell. “Your purpose here is not happenstance. You worked your way into the Fisk dynasty. You made yourself indispensable to my brother, my son, and
my
husband. Don’t you see, Zell? You thought there was an opening for you to fill. But you were wrong. So disastrously wrong. Now,” Caz smiled, “are you ready to see what I’m going to do about it?”

Caz examined her face for an expression. Horror would have been her first choice, but the weapon had done its work too well.

Caz lifted the elegant blade from her bag. She’d make her react. Make her feel. Her lips pursed. She stood over her enemy and, with a rapid flick of her wrist, slashed it across her face. The skin opened wide and pink, flayed from brow to cheek. A second later the crevasse filled with blood.

And still Zell didn’t react. Blood pooled around her head. Caz glanced at her IC 4000. What a remarkable weapon. She examined her handiwork on Zell’s face. Let Xander think her pretty now.

And now Zell was no longer important. No longer a part of this moment. Caz had done away with her like all the others. She was now irrelevant. Irrelevant.
Irrelevant
.

“Irrelevant, Zell. That’s what you are. Irrelevant and pathetic.” Caz sniffed, rubbed her nose and turned her attention back to her bag.

Irrelevant. Irrelevant. Irrelevant, pathetic.
Caz repeated the words in a singsong voice.
Irrelevant. Irrelevant.

My head crushed under Caz’s anger. The pressure in my skull, the tension in my chest, the way electricity collected to me bespoke the deep and maiming emotions screaming to get out. I groaned and dug my nails into my hair.

My mouth opened, and words spilled out in a voice I only recognized from deep inside my head.

“What happened? It was perfect. From the second you fell to the moment I . . . But then Vin . . .” Caz quieted, strangled by a memory she couldn’t express.

I slapped the counter, my breathing hoarse. An all-out territorial war blasted shrapnel across my cerebrum. I kept my eyes on the commander, afraid to look at either Rannen or Thurmond and find frightened, reproachful stares.

“What do you want, ma’am?” I asked between breaths, grateful to hear my own voice this time. The pain in my head eased.

Her eyes narrowed, and the beseeching look froze into her standard subzero expression.

“I want the Heart of Annihilation.” The commander shrugged her shoulders, throwing off the past.

“Why?”

“For many reasons.” A grin stretched across her face. “Do you have any idea, Caz, what the Thirteenth Dimension would be willing to pay for a weapon designed specifically to wipe them out?”

I shook my head.

“Do you know what the Rethan government would pay to keep them from getting their hands on it? What about the Liberated RAGE Movement? Or Ehtar?”

I didn’t respond.

“The question simply remains, ‘who will pay more?’” the commander went on. “We have a bet going if you want in on it. Who will pay more, but more importantly who would be willing to use it?”

“You’re crazy!”

The commander’s face turned from playful to furious in an instant. She slammed her fist on the counter.

“Not as crazy as you!”

Anger ripped through my head like a hundred bullets. I dropped my elbows to the counter, holding my head with my hands and groaning with the effort it took to keep from exploding.

Xavier stared up at me from his spot behind the counter. His eyes met mine, filled with smugness as though he had predicted not only the commander’s line of questioning but my reactions as well. I gave my head a violent shake. Xavier wouldn’t help. I was lost. Who could help me? I found Thurmond’s face.

His eyes were angry but trusting, his head turned in such a way I could almost hear him saying,
Dammit, Rose. Get it together.
A shiver raced up my spine, forcing the pressure to retreat to a thick condensed spot above my left ear. I turned back to the commander—and found myself staring into the muzzle of her pistol.

“So where is it, Caz?”

“Close,” I said.

“How close?”

“Maybe it’s here in this apartment.”

“It’s not. I would’ve felt it.”

I ran my tongue across my bottom lip and glanced toward Xavier again. He didn’t give any indication that he was even following the conversation any more.

Suddenly Lieutenant Justet took a step forward, halted, scratched his nose, and then, as if making a decision, positioned himself in front of Thurmond.

“Ma’am, I think this has gone far enough. The deal was the cash for the portal.” His voice would’ve grated on my nerves had I not the impression he was pleading my case. He looked at the commander. “You never said anything about murder of—of humans. You talk a good game, but no way is any money worth this.”

The commander stared at Justet, her jaw working, chewing over his unbelievable disloyalty. She jerked the pistol away from my face and turned it on Justet. A cacophony of voices tumbled over each other, echoing off the high ceilings and marble columns. Justet dropped his pistol in surprise. He raised his hands, and his voice joined in the uproar. The commander turned her head toward me. With a tiny twitch of her cheek she squeezed the trigger.

In the same instant I sent a volt racing toward the gun. The sizzling, blue bolt knocked the pistol from the commander’s hand as it fired. The bullet sailed away from Justet’s head and shattered one of the enormous windows. Most of the glass fell outside, but shards also blasted across the room. Everyone ducked. Warm evening air flooded the room in a briny breeze. The couch leaning against the now nonexistent window tottered and then disappeared.

A bolt of blue lightning erupted from the commander’s palm, sizzling across the ten or so feet separating us. I dropped on top of Xavier. The microwave over the stove exploded above our heads. A shower of sparks smattered across my back. The door banged open and swung lopsided on its hinges. Xavier shoved at me. I used his shoulder to push back to my feet. Electricity flowed into my fingers before my head cleared the counter. Another volt of lighting sizzled past my ear, forcing me to jerk my head to the side.

Afraid of giving the commander another chance to return fire I kept the circuit open, allowing the electricity to sizzle from my body in an enormous, continuous surge. A similar bolt of electricity burst from both the commander’s hands. The two charges exploded into each other, connecting somewhere over the barstools. Arbitrary bits of lightning and sparks scattered in every direction.

Electricity struck the walls, cupboards, and furniture, sending deadly bits of shrapnel everywhere. Smoke burned my eyes, fogging the scrambling figures. Their cries of panic and pain were lost behind the deafening zapping coming from the conjoined bolts.

My arms screamed in fatigue. I could see nothing beyond the blinding light. I slid my hip along the counter until I felt empty air. I used my entire body, one step at a time, to push the commander’s stream of electricity backward. A hollow, echoing chortle sounded in my mind. Caz’s fury drove every collected ounce of power into my hands.

The voltage drained away from my body until all that remained was the last little bit from my shoulders to my fingertips. I needed to end this now, but if the commander had even a watt more energy than I, she would take my head off. I needed more power.

Like from the largest source in the room, perhaps?

My body’s learning curve had been steep over the past week or so, and it only took a quiet millisecond of concentration to make it understand what to do. The nerves all over my body seemed to reach out, attracting amps in force. The scattering blue and white fragments of light throughout the room abandoned their random, primal destruction and raced toward me. Burning and jolting into my nerve endings, my skin absorbed the power, sending it straight back out through my hands. I took another step, feeling the commander’s force deteriorating. Taking my advantage, I released my remaining charge into a single pulsing blast. At the same time, I dropped from the line of fire.

The illuminated body of the commander disappeared behind an overturned couch. My volt exploded into the black leather before dying out.

Echoes of light flashed across my retinas. Small fires flickered throughout the room. I touched my fingertips to the ground to stabilize myself. My breathing was ragged. I willed my eyes to adjust to the smoky darkness.

Shapes slowly sharpened. I found myself in the middle of the main room, my toes touching scorched zebra hide. Chunks of wall and ceiling fell throughout the penthouse with crashes and puffs of dust and charcoal, exposing raw framework and internal wiring.

Heads popped up from the debris. There was lots of coughing, murmured expressions of concern, and the clicking of rifles and pistols being checked. I tried to orient myself with where I’d last seen Thurmond, and found the marble column behind me pockmarked by electrical shrapnel. A pile of rubble lay next to it, mostly drywall and wood shards covered by an overturned potted palm. I recognized the shoe sticking out from under the pile of wreckage.

“Thurmond!”

I scrambled to the pile. I tossed aside the plant and tore into the debris, indifferent to the ragged materials shredding my hands. The shoe stayed stubbornly still.

“Thurmond! Where are you? T!”

The pile shifted. Drywall slithered onto the shoe, burying it from view.

“That hurts, dammit.”

Thurmond wormed his way out of debris over five feet away. He kicked aside the larger pieces with a shoeless foot. His hair and skin were covered in white dust, and he coughed into his shoulder. He scooted himself backward, his hands cinched behind his back and the rest of the pile collapsed, sending up a pillar of dust. I was on my feet and to his side in a second, grabbing his arm and helping him onto his knees. Triple streaks of blood clawed across one of his cheeks.

He sat back on his haunches, his head dropping to his chest as he exhaled a breath before looking up at me. His eyes were neither accusing nor angry. His head tilted to one side, his lips slightly parted, and it took me a moment before I recognized the expression. Pity.

I picked angrily at the knotted ropes on his wrists. I didn’t need pity, I needed a plan.

A hoot of laughter drew my attention.

“That was amazing, Caz.” The commander came out from behind the burned couch, brushing her hands across her sleeves. She wasn’t smiling, even though the breathless sound coming from her mouth mimicked laughter. “Just like the old days, eh? Let that temper take you and to hell with the consequences.”

I barely managed to suppress another Caz-like response.

“You’re out of charge though, right?” She walked around the couch with such a sure step that it negated the question.

“So are you,” I said.

My fingers worked harder at the knots, although I kept my eyes trained on the commander. Thurmond kept shooting me looks over his shoulder. I felt the knots loosen, and Thurmond worked his hands out. He rubbed his wrists.

“Look around you. What do you see?” The commander waved her bandaged hand, drawing my attention to the soldiers once more on their feet, their weapons mostly at their sides although a few were aimed at me.

“I see a huge mess created by my own very powerful self.” Half-truths were almost as good as full ones. The ache was starting up in my head again. “Not to mention how I nearly made your scrawny ass a permanently fried resident of the couch.”

“That’s what I want to hear.” The commander laughed. “Let the Slayer come out and play, Specialist Rose. There’re some things I’m dying to ask her.”

The pressure built. I panted for breath. I shook my head as much as in response to her request as trying to deny Caz total access to my mind.

“Fine.” The commander dropped her playful pretense and worked her way across the massacred room toward Thurmond and me in Rethan-quick strides. She grabbed a pistol from Sanderford’s hands. Thurmond retreated, using his shoulder to push me with him until my back hit a nearby column. The commander raised the pistol as she approached. Her aim was not at me but on Thurmond.

“Fine!” I shouted. “You’re right. Fine. Fine!” I tried to step around Thurmond. He jabbed me back with his elbow. “I’ll take you to your stupid Heart in—in exchange for the freedom of your prisoners.” I nodded in the direction of the stairwell where I’d last seen Rannen. He was still there, on his knees now, rifles pressed into his ribs. “Me and the Heart for them. That’s not such a bad deal.”

“Oh no, Caz. You see, I don’t trust you.
I
have the hostages.
I
have the weapons.
I
have the power. You tell me where I can find the Heart, and I
won’t
kill your friend right in front of your eyes. How’s that for a deal!”

“No! Take my deal. Take it. Take me! Take the damn deal!” I shoved Thurmond out of the way and put my face right in the commander’s.

Her lips lifted in a tight smile. She took a step back, which I mistook for retreat. A second later she was in my face, grinding the pistol into my bandaged shoulder. She wrapped her hand around the back of my neck, holding me in place.

“You destroyed me,” she whispered in my ear. I struggled, but she clamped her nails into my skin. She was so strong. “Back on Retha. You set me up to go down with you. But I’m not going to kill you. Oh no. I’m telling you right here and now Caz, that there is nothing more important to me than letting you live long enough to witness your precious Heart of Annihilation sold off to the highest bidder. Or maybe we’ll set it off somewhere. Retha? Would that bother you? How about Earth? You like this slag heap, right?”

She shoved me away. I staggered, but found my feet in time to watch Thurmond’s fist catch the commander on her jaw. Her head snapped to the side. Thurmond followed his first strike with a roundhouse kick to her gut that made her stumble but not fall. She righted herself in fast-forward. Her Rethan speed compensated for being caught off guard, and her pistol took Thurmond on the side of his face with a blinding crack. His head smacked against the nearest marble column and he slid to the floor. His eyes were wide but unfocused. Blood flowed from his mouth.

The commander was over to him in a single stride. She pressed the pistol against Thurmond’s forehead, her mouth a thin line.

“Don’t!” I gasped.

Her eyes bore into Thurmond rather than me.

“Tell me where I can find the Heart, Caz!”

“It’s here. Upstairs.” I couldn’t breathe.

“No it isn’t!” Corded muscles stood out on her arm like she was struggling
not
to pull the trigger. “I already told you. I would be able to feel an energy source of that magnitude. Where is it!”

“I-I-I . . .” The replica was a no-go and nothing else in my arsenal could save Thurmond’s life—except the truth.

“Caz!” the commander shouted.

“I can’t!” The realization struck me as I said the fatal words. How could I tell someone as unstable as this Rethan where to find a weapon of mass destruction, even if I did know where it was? The desire to scream clogged my throat. I lurched to her side, wanting to weep out my helplessness and screech out my rage—destroy the world myself rather than have to suffer any more loss because of my bull-headed obsession with finding the truth.

A memory scorched through my mind and drew me away from Xavier’s once elegant penthouse.

The bright blue of the sky, the hot wind scented with eucalyptus. My feet brushing through dry grass and then meeting the crunch of gravel. A building rising before me, long and low with dozens of white, scalloped arches. The entrance sitting below an old, southwestern triple bell tower.

Caz had committed this moment to memory long ago. I felt the rawness of her throat, the cold from the portal room still deep in her core, the warmth of the Heart of Annihilation tucked under her arm. Her mind rattled around in circles and then scattered before coming back to the center.