Indestructible (Indestructible Trilogy Book 1) (11 page)

“Leah, you haven’t learned enough yet,” says Murray. “I can’t let you do go out there.”

“I can fight.” I look around, seeing other Pyros coming into the corridor. Cas backs out of a room, arguing with someone.

“You fought off those other fiends with instinct alone, but you haven’t fought one with a real weapon yet. You haven’t learned how to combine it with the fire.”

“So? Nolan taught me how to hit them.”

“Leah.” Murray’s face sets, stubborn. “I know you must be frustrated, but I can’t have you risking your neck.”

I’m not going to back down. “Look, I
saw
the fiends. I know where they are.”

“Murray!” Cas shouts, turning his back on the three other red-robed people he’s arguing with. “Where the hell are these fiends?”

Murray looks at me. Indecision masks his face. He knows only Elle, Tyler and I saw where the fiends were.

“I’ll show them,” I say quickly. “Look, I’ll stay out of the fighting if that’s what you’re worried about. There are more of us than there are of them.”

At least, I think so. I’m not staying in here while the others run dangers. With Randy’s group, there was an understanding that I’d be the one to suss out whether a place was safe or not. It took a while to get to that point, admittedly, but now I’ve got to start all over again. I’m not about to stay behind.

“I’m going, too,” says Tyler.

“Elle, don’t you even think about it,” says Murray, as his daughter opens her mouth to speak. “Come and help me tidy away in here.”

“Are we going or not?” Cas says, eyes narrowed at me. Like he doesn’t believe me.

Screw him. “Yeah, seeing as I’m apparently in charge,” I say.

“Be careful!” says Murray, as Tyler and I lead the small group away, towards the fiends.

CHAPTER NINE

“Where the hell are you going?” Cas demands as Tyler and I approach the tunnel.

“We saw them from the walkway,” I say.

“What were you doing out there?” asks Val, who walks behind us with several other older Pyros. From the mutters amongst the group, I’m thinking at least half of them don’t believe us.

“Just admiring the view,” says Tyler.

“Or running away?” Cas suggests. Apparently he’s in major asshat mode.

“Don’t argue,” says Val, sharply. “If this is a real attack, we have to take it seriously.”

“I
f
we’re under attack,” adds another guy.

“Why is everyone having trouble believing me?” I say. “I’d never lie about something like this. Never. Besides, Elle and Tyler can back me up.”

“I believe you saw
something,”
says Val. “But bear in mind no fiends have ever got past our defences before.”

“Unless they got in when everyone was gone?”

“They couldn’t have known about that,” says Val. “In any case, they don’t plan ahead, and they don’t work together, either.”

“Yeah,” says Tyler, “But I saw them, too. If they weren’t fiends, then I don’t know
what
they were.”

As the tunnel’s end nears, I start to feel a prickle of unease, remembering the fight in the forest. Falling, falling from the tree with a hideous winged fiend slashing at me.

I clench my fists, nails biting into my palms.

Out of the tunnel. Tyler and I stop, almost in unison, as the first cry echoes around us.

Val curses. “Get ready,” she tells the others.

It’s too late to think leading the way might have been a mistake. The fiends are on us before I can register the danger. Several pairs of hands grasp the edges of the platform, while three brutes have already climbed up. They bare their long, curved teeth at us.

How the hell did they climb so fast
?—the thought flashes through my mind before common sense and the old panic take over. I push the fear aside and move into an attacking stance, while Tyler lets out a half-whimper, half-groan.

“Shit,” he whispers.

Cas shoves him aside and strides to the front of the group, knife suddenly in hand. A flash of fire ignites the air, and he buries his knife in a fiend’s neck. It falls to its knees with a
thud
that shakes the whole platform.

Hell breaks loose. Cloaks rustle and weapons are drawn as more fiends climb onto the narrow ledge. The floor shakes, and the edge of the platform crumbles under the weight of a giant hand. It swipes at my feet, inches away, and I jump back.

Heat rushes through me, and I lash out, kicking at the creature’s head. With a screech, the fiend launches itself onto the ledge and lands beside me, arms reaching out to crush me. I dodge, and feel the heat rising from my skin, like I’m living fire. I get in a punch to its arm before it falls under Cas’s blade.

But there’s little room to manoeuver here, and one wrong move could send any one of us falling to their death. Cas stands perilously close to the edge, slashing out with his knife. Blood spurts into the air like liquid fire. I try to move forward and join him, but Tyler grabs my arm as a rock bounces down from above, crashing into the platform.

“Sweet hells, they’re above us!” someone yells—just as a hideous form drops in front of the cave entrance, clinging to the rocky wall with its ugly face twisted in a snarl.

“Keep it away from the cave!” someone shouts, as we form a line. I’m caged in next to Tyler, trapped by a wall of rock on my other side, but we have to stop them getting into headquarters. Only the three at the front of the tunnel—led by Cas—can get close enough to the fiends to strike.

A large rock falls past, bouncing down the cliff, and the ground shakes again. Something hits me on the head, sharply, and stars wink before my eyes. Another fist-sized rock strikes Tyler on the shoulder, and he grabs my arm, eyes wide with fear.

“They’re going to bring down the tunnel,” he whispers.

I glance up at the ceiling and another rock falls amongst the group. More pushing ensues as panic spreads. The walls either side of us tremble as the fiends strike the rocky ceiling overhead.
They can’t be planning to collapse the tunnel!

Rocks and dirt fall with every strike. As people around me begin to panic, stumbling in the semi-darkness, I find myself pushed towards the cave opening, right into the path of an oncoming fiend.

I don’t get time to hesitate. My body reacts on instinct, and I feel the onrush of power as light erupts from my palm. Before the fiend can strike me, I duck, hitting the fiend on its vulnerable jaw. I feel bone splinter beneath the blow. The fiend staggers back, pulling me with it into the open air again. I yank myself free and kick it in the side. Fiery light surrounds us, the fiend’s rocky skin blazing all over with each blow as I drive it back towards the edge. With one final kick, I send the creature stumbling over the verge.

I did it
. But I can’t celebrate yet. Wheeling around, I see Cas climbing the rock, stabbing at the fiends clinging to the cliff above. One of them catches my eye and lets out a screech. Before I can do more than raise my hands—still blazing—it launches itself at me.

Holy hell, it can fly.

Ugly, jagged wings sprout from its back, and its hands are curved claws—like the one that attacked me in the forest. It lands in front of me, claws slashing, but I dodge and punch it in the face. Smoke rises from its skin where I made contact, and it falls back slightly, allowing me to get into a defensive position.

“Behind you, idiot girl!” shouts Cas.

Something rock-hard crashes into the back of my head, and I stumble forwards, right into the path of the first fiend. A brief moment of panic—
I should have grabbed a weapon!
—stalls me, but then Nolan’s lesson kicks in. Strike and block. Aim for the face. The ears or eyes. Blood roars through my veins and I’m caught in the rhythm of the fight. One hit. Then another. Its arms are too muscular to do much damage, but I’m more powerful than a human could ever be. I block a strike with my forearm, recalling training, sending the fire to that part of my arm—the fiend yelps and stumbles away from the light, down the path.

Triumph flaring, I jump forward, again, faster and further than a human can. The fiend hovers lower than the cave, but still within reaching distance of the others. I won’t let it come near them. I have to drive it away.

The creature’s wings beat and it kicks with a clawed foot, trying to get around me. Even though it should know it’s beaten, it wants to get back to the cave.
Get away from them.

I can jump higher than a person, so I launch myself off the ground, tackling it. The momentum knocks it out of the air and we tumble down the cliff in a whirl of dust. Coughing, my eyes stinging, I come upright, on top of the fiend’s heavy body. It lifts its head and I strike its face with my elbow, and a burst of fire for good measure. The fiend’s jaw hangs slack. I’ve stunned it.

Moving off the fiend, I ready myself and kick as hard as I can. The fiend’s claws scrabble at the cliff but fail to grip, and it tumbles down into the valley.

I look around for Cas and the others and see nothing but rocks and dust.
When did that happen?
The cave’s just about visible above, but I can’t see the others, nor any other fiends. Maybe Cas killed them. But I’m alone and exposed, and I’ve no idea how many of those things are still out there.

“Get away from there!” Cas jumps down to land beside me.

“Where are the others?”

“Back there. What the hell are you doing? Do you have a death wish?”

I glare at him. Now the adrenaline’s wearing off, I ache everywhere and my head throbs. When I check for injuries, though, I can’t feel a lump on my head where the rock struck me, nor any kind of marks from when the fiend and I tumbled down the cliff. Silently, I follow him back up the path. Fallen rocks lie everywhere, and I can’t even see the tunnel. How far did I fall?

“Is it safe to go back in there?”

He meets my glare with one of his own. “Of course not, but safer than what you were doing. We’d be building a blockade up there if
someone
hadn’t gone wandering off.”

“I didn’t go wandering off, I was attacked,” I snap. “That fiend with wings—did you see it?”

“Wings?” His eyes narrow in disbelief. It’s becoming a familiar expression.

“Yes, wings. Like the one that attacked me in the forest.”

“I didn’t see that,” he mutters, eyes narrowing further. He still holds his knife, which is blood-soaked up to the hilt. Wait—the blade itself is deep red in colour.

But not all the blood’s on the blade. It drips down his wrist, staining his hand.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I know that,” he says, through clenched teeth. “Get up there. I’m going to check for…” He trails off.

My eyes follow his stare. There’s something further down the path, a mass of fallen rocks, and just beside it, the opening to a cave.

Are more of them lurking inside?

I clamber down, hugging the rock face, wary of the still-falling dirt and stones. Cas lets out an irritated noise, but I hear him start to follow me.

I reach the rocks. It looks like part of the wall’s collapsed, and I can see inside the cave. It’s pitch-black, of course, but the fire still radiating from my skin allows me to see part of the way in.

Then I see the body.

It’s more of a skeleton, really, lying just inside the entrance. I clamber over rocks to get a closer look. The way the rocks fell looks like they weren’t originally part of the cliff wall—like someone moved them there. To hide something… like a secret cave.

“Get back, idiot,” says Cas.

I ignore him, searching for a way around the rocks. Then common sense kicks in, and I raise my fist. I hit the rock with everything I have, watching it crumble with detached satisfaction.

“Get. Back.” Cas pulls me back by the sleeve.

I whirl to face him. “Could you not do that?”

“I asked if you had a death wish,” he snarls. “Apparently, you do.”

“Look at that,” I say. “Someone lived in here.”

I glance at him. His expression betrays nothing.

“Did you know about this?” I shove my way through the path I created, into the cave proper. Now I can see better, I make out other shapes. Like… cages.

Metal bars, crisscrossing from floor to ceiling. Two, side by side. I can see the back wall now. Nothing here but a couple of cages. The skeleton’s inside one of them.

Prisoners?

But now I see the skeleton up close, something doesn’t look right about it. The basic shape of the bones is all wrong, and it’s long, stretched out, with odd protuberances from its shoulder blades.

Is it even human? I’ve never seen a fiend’s skeleton…

Something else catches my eye. Carved into the back wall, above the skeleton, is a symbol of some kind. I tilt my head, trying to make out the words scratched beneath it. It looks like a flame, though I only recognise it because it mirrors my own birthmark. The mark of a Pyro.