No More Heroes: In the Wake of the Templars Book Three (25 page)

“Go ahead and snuggle down,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

Raena got up to wash her face and hands. Her stomach felt almost too stuffed now. Should have shared more of the burrito, she thought. Now, though, she should sleep well.

CHAPTER 11

T
he bedroom was entirely dark, which was exactly how Raena wanted it. She stood in the darkness, shoulder to shoulder with Eilif, as they waited for Jonan to wake. When he did, he thrashed around on the bed, testing the strength of the restraints Raena had repurposed to hold him. She hadn’t left much give. After the metal cuffs broke his skin, she smelled his blood on the recirculated air. She refused to lick her lips.

Instead, Raena thumbed open the lighting fluid and flicked it out across his body, drenching his pajamas.

“Eilif?” Jonan asked hopefully. Raena hadn’t ever heard that tone in his voice before.

Eilif took Raena’s hand, squeezed it hard. “Yes, my lord. I’m here.”

“What’s happened?”

Raena handed her the accelerant.

“I poisoned you,” Eilif said matter-of-factly, as if it was something she did every day.

That made no sense to him, so he ignored it. “Where’s Raena?”

“I’m here, too.” She struck her thumbnail hard against a match.

Thallian leered at her, shifting his hips to draw her attention. She didn’t bother to look.

“Goodbye, Jonan.” Raena flicked the burning match at him. It tumbled through the air, arcing slowly above his sodden clothing. The fumes ignited with a whump that crushed him down against the bed.

Nothing in her life had given her as much joy as that moment when the flames took hold.

*   *   *

Into the middle of her dream, Haoun said, “Wake up, Raena. I smell smoke.”

Raena sat up, still half asleep, and rubbed her hands through her hair. “I don’t smell anything.”

“You will,” he promised.

She walked over to touch the door with her left elbow. The metal seemed the same temperature as the ambient air, but now that she stood close to it, she could smell . . . something out of place. Voices shouted in the distance.

Fire dropped from the ceiling of her room. It fluttered downward toward Haoun, who grabbed the thin mattress and dragged it out of the way before the flames could catch. Raena sprinted for the shower, soaked her towel, and beat the flames out before they took hold of anything. She didn’t have much in the room that could burn, other than the bedding. If she’d been asleep . . .

“What’s going on?” Haoun demanded.

Someone in the cell next-door started screaming. The brutal sound was terrible to hear. Apparently, that prisoner had not been lucky enough to be out of bed when the fire rained down.

Raena tugged the mattress into the shower and soaked it.

“What’s going on?” Haoun repeated. He came to rinse the soot off her towel.

“We’re under attack. If it’s aimed at me, they don’t know where I am. So they’re setting all the cells on this level on fire.”

She dragged the sodden mattress across the cell and tipped it up on one end to block the cell door. Haoun helped her to get it into place.

“Where are the guards?”

Raena looked at him, unable to answer.

He nodded. “What do we do?”

“I am small enough that I could get through the window, but I won’t leave you here.” She was thinking on her feet now. “Did they let you keep your comm bracelet?”

“They said it wouldn’t work in here.”

“It won’t. I’m going to take it outside and see if I can get us some help. Who’s it keyed for?”

“Mykah.” Haoun unwound the bracelet and handed it to her. “What should I do?”

“Get the towel. Wave it around in front of the camera. Shout for help. I don’t know who is supposed to be monitoring us, but maybe you can get their attention.”

She waited until he was in place, then scrambled up the wall. She stuck one hand out the window first, waved it around, but no one shot at her. She confirmed her grasp on the wall inside the cell, then cautiously poked her head out. Again, no one shot at her.

She could see the fire in the cell next to hers. The creature, whatever he was, still screamed, but the sound had grown weaker, sorrowful and ready for the pain to be over. Fires burned in other cells. Other voices shouted or shrieked or prayed. Even with all Raena had seen and done, this random violence shocked her.

She got her arms out of the window and switched on the comm bracelet. Mykah didn’t answer immediately. Raena hoped that he and Coni weren’t being so intimate that they were undistractable. She hoped they weren’t out in some loud casino, where he’d never notice the call.

“’Lo?” Mykah asked sleepily.

“It’s me,” Raena said. “Fiana.” She hoped he was awake enough to remember her code name. “The jailhouse is under attack. The guards aren’t coming. We need help.”

“Oh my god,” Mykah said. “I can see the fire.”

She didn’t ask where he was. “Sound an alarm. Grab a camera. Get some attention somehow. People are dying in here.”

“I’m on it. Coni, get up.” Then to Raena again, he asked, “Are you safe?”

“At the moment. I think the structure is Templar stone and won’t burn. But the smoke—”

“Do what you can to stay safe. We’re coming.”

As Raena got ready to climb back down into her cell, distant lights caught her eye. Ten or a dozen figures blasted off from the exterior of the jailhouse. Their jetpacks lifted them so quickly that they were difficult to see through the smoke and the flickering firelight. Raena was certain they wore mirrored helmets and unmarked gray uniforms.

Smoke gathered against the high ceiling of the cell. She gasped in a last clear breath, then scrambled down the wall.

Haoun sat on the floor of her cell with the singed towel pressed to his face. Raena duckwalked over to him, tugged on his arm, and nodded toward the shower. “I don’t know how long the water will hold out, but we should wet ourselves down.”

“Is it bad out there?”

She nodded.

“Go,” he said. “It’s stupid for us both to die.”

“We’re not going to die,” Raena promised. “I’ve been in much worse danger than this.”

“I never have been.”

He wasn’t too stubborn to move, she realized. He was too frightened. She tugged on his arm again. He was too big for her to carry. She wondered if she could drag him. “Come on, Haoun. Focus on what you can do right now. Don’t worry about what might happen. Trust me. If I have to crawl out of here, attack the guards, and steal us some breathers, I will. But right now, we’re in a room that’s not burning. No one is shooting at us. Neither of us is injured. The situation is scary, but we’re okay.”

He swallowed hard, then crawled after her into the shower. “How do you live like this?”

It was a tight fit for them both under the showerhead, but the rush of the water blocked out the shouting outside in the cellblock.

“I don’t live like this,” she told him. “I live with you and Mykah and the others on the
Veracity
. Life there is pretty calm. The food is great. Someone’s always having an interesting conversation about media manipulation or computer games or the latest sporting contests. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

He pulled her close and buried his snout in her neck. “Tell me we’ll be okay,” he begged.

Raena pulled his head up so he could meet her gaze. “We’ll be fine,” she promised. “Help is on its way. Mykah will go into journalist mode. This will make the galactic news, whether my trial has or not. Kai will pay us to leave, before long.”

He laughed grimly. “I can’t believe you can joke at a time like this.”

She smiled. “What makes you think I’m joking? I’m not afraid at all.”

Actually, with the guys in gray on the loose outside, she preferred to be holed up in here, where she didn’t attract their notice.

*   *   *

Mykah cabled the camera to his handheld, checked to make sure everything was charged, and scrambled into his clothing.

Coni tried to reach Corvas on her comm. “There’s a fire at the jail,” she said when he didn’t pick up. “Raena’s alive. We’re going to find help.”

Gisela met them in the
Veracity
’s corridor with her gun in her hands. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t know,” Mykah said. “Stay here. I’m gonna lock you in.” Thank goodness Kavanaugh had shown him how to do it.

“Call your mother,” Coni suggested. “Make sure she’s okay.”

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Gisela followed them to the hatch.

“Because this is a distraction from something else,” Mykah said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but all eyes will be on this fire.” He kissed Coni’s cheek. “You sure you don’t want to stay here?”

“I go where you go,” she reminded.

“Let me cover you,” Gisela said. She moved into position at the edge of the hatch. Coni keyed it open. Luckily, the docking bay remained empty outside. Mykah ducked out first, then raised the cover on the exterior palm lock. He attached the scrambler Kavanaugh had recommended, told the screen the new passcode, then closed everything up. The hatch slid shut, locking Gisela inside with Eilif and Jim.

“Let’s go.” Mykah took Coni’s hand in his and they ran.

*   *   *

The loudspeaker said, “Prisoner Zacari, remove your barricade from the door. The guards are outside to assist you.”

“Do you trust them?” Haoun asked.

Raena stood up and turned off the shower. She handed Haoun the sodden towel to hold over his face. “We’ve got three choices. We can stay here and hope the building can withstand the fire. We can fight our way out, unarmed and unarmored, against the guards, whatever prisoners are free, and the fire suppression team. Or we can trust that they have really come to help us get out of here.”

She grabbed hold of the mattress and pushed it away from the door. “Choosing one of those doesn’t necessarily negate the other two choices.” But, she thought, if the soldiers in gray stood outside her door, they’d just called her by name. They knew where she was.

She moved to the far side of the cell to watch the guards come in. This time there were only two, both wearing breathers, dressed in the standard jailer uniform. Only one had a stun stick, which he held casually. She could have plucked it from his hands. Would have, probably, if Haoun hadn’t been with her. She wasn’t sure how far the lizard could run in the murky air.

“Prisoners are being assembled in the courtrooms downstairs,” a guard said.

No shackles, Raena noted. She waited for them to stun her as she walked toward the door, but they let her go. She offered her hand to Haoun. “Keep your head down and the towel over your face,” she said. “I’ll get you out of here.”

*   *   *

Ariel joined the mob in the street outside the Hall of Justice. Kai might not have ever seen so much chaos. People milled around, shouting and crying. Scuffles kept flaring up, but Planetary Security moved quickly to break things up.

Overhead the desert wind spread flaming debris from the jail to buildings nearby. Seemingly every firefighter on the planet zipped around overhead, attacking the new fires before they could grow.

Ariel missed her guns more than ever now. Not that she felt physically endangered by the blazes or the panicking crowd, but being armed would have given her a measure of comfort. Now she simply felt small and vulnerable amongst the creatures of the galaxy, most of whom were larger than she was. She didn’t even have the benefit of Raena’s high-heeled boots.

Ariel caught a glimpse of Mykah and Coni with a pair of cameras, interviewing people on the street. Thank goodness she didn’t see Jim or Eilif, who she hoped were locked safely in the
Veracity
. Gisela was level-headed enough to keep a good watch over them, but she was young and hadn’t seen real combat. Ariel hoped her daughter wouldn’t be tested tonight.

A voice came over the loudspeaker above the crowd. “Visitors and citizens of Kai, we are attempting to restore order. Return to your homes and hotels. The Business Council has declared a curfew of midnight. Anyone found on the streets after that time will be arrested and fined.”

In the silence that greeted the announcement, someone shouted, “What about the prisoners?”

“My husband is in there!” another voice shouted.

“My daughter!”

“My brother!”

The crowd washed toward the steps of the Hall of Justice. Planetary Security advanced on the mob, stunning anyone who got in their way.

Ariel could do the math. Unless they’d been modified, which she doubted, those stun staves held enough charges to stop twenty people max. Once the staves ran down, those Security agents were going to find themselves surrounded by a sea of enraged tourists and armed with clubs. This would be a bloodbath.

She struggled over toward Mykah and Coni. Mykah had shimmied up a streetlight, where his camera had a clear view of the pandemonium.

Coni saw Ariel coming and waded out into the chaos to catch hold of her. “Thanks,” Ariel panted. “We’ve got to get Mykah down. If Security reinforcements show up with sleep grenades, they’re going to take out the journalists first.” She looked up at him, with his long legs twined around the lamppost so that his hands were free to hold the camera steady. From that height, the fall would kill him.