Veil of Shadows (Book 2 of The Empire of Bones Saga) (7 page)

“I’ll be certain you’re the second to know.”

Elise took charge and saw everybody into their respective vehicles. Talbot and one of his marines sat in front of Kelsey. Elise took the seat to her left and Jared sat on her right.

The driver made certain to come at the Parliament building with an eye to the view. Kelsey had to admit it was a gorgeous piece of architecture. Tall, carved columns of stone held up a massive façade filled with carvings out of Terran mythology. She had to admit that she didn’t know all of the people represented there. She’d have to see if there was a handout to explain who everyone was.

The grav vehicles landed in front of the building and disgorged their passengers. A number of policemen kept what looked like tourists at bay as the Royal party entered the building. Kelsey imagined the Parliament building was a major tourist attraction.

The foyer continued the theme from outside. Polished granite floors gleamed in every direction, and walls shaped from molded plaster flanked them on every side. Paintings and statuary filled every niche. Tour groups wandered through the areas that Kelsey could see, admiring the artwork and the architecture.

The Crown Princess gestured toward a wide set of stairs leading to the second level. “We’ll go up one level and take a peek down into the main chamber. Then we’ll make the circuit and stop if anything catches your eye. This building has some of the most important pieces of artwork in the Kingdom. Kelsey, if you look behind the Speaker’s podium, you’ll see another of Master Vestor’s carvings. I’m looking forward to seeing Lord Captain Mertz’s reaction to it.”

Kelsey smiled at Jared’s raised eyebrow. “You’re going to love this. If it’s anything like the grand piece I saw last week, it’s the most amazing piece of art you’ll ever see.”

Her grav chair went up the stairs without any problem. The second level looked very much like the first, except that there were no tour groups.

“I took the liberty of having the second level closed off in advance of our arrival,” Elise said. “My father and I thought it would be less distracting for everyone. Speaking of which, there he is.”

A pair of heavy wooden doors opened in front of them. His Majesty, King Raymond Orison, came through them with his guards at his heels. He smiled widely as the men with him closed the doors, no doubt so they could examine the carvings on them at some point. “Kelsey! You’re looking splendid! I’m so pleased to see you up and about, so to speak.”

He turned his attention to Jared, extending his hand. “Lord Captain Mertz, what a pleasure it is to finally meet you. I was beginning to think I’d have to travel into orbit to make your acquaintance. On behalf of my people, you have my deepest gratitude. Through your actions, and those of your people, the threat of a Pale Ones invasion seems remote for the first time in our collective lives. The Kingdom is deeply in your debt.”

Jared looked a little embarrassed, but not intimidated. Kelsey supposed that being the bastard son of an Emperor might make one immune to intimidation by social status.

“Your Majesty. I only did what anyone else would’ve done. Circumstances just worked out to a favorable outcome.”

Raymond clapped his hand on Jared’s shoulder. “Be that as it may, you’re quite the hero to us. Come. Let me show you the Parliamentary chamber. We’re quite proud of it.”

The entire group began moving towards the double doors. The sound of conversation and steps on the stone floor caused Kelsey to glance to the left. It appeared as though the police hadn’t blocked off all the tour groups because one was coming towards them. The tour guide was pointing out a painting on the wall and beginning to recite its history while a dozen people spread out to see it better.

Elise said something to one of the Royal Guards and he began walking towards the group, no doubt to send them back downstairs.

He’d only taken a few steps when something caught Kelsey’s eye. At first, she couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but suddenly her ocular implants kicked into action. An overlay began making red highlights on the people in front of her. A few at first, then quickly all of them. They were heavily armed.

Kelsey began moving before she even consciously realized what she was seeing, heading for the double doors in front of her. “It’s an ambush! Run!”

The world seemed to slow to a crawl and an ice-cold chill ran through her blood. She’d never felt anything like it before.

No, she’d felt something exactly like this before, when she’d fought the Pale Ones after she’d been implanted.

The people around her were still turning their heads, their hands reaching for weapons while she dodged between their suddenly slow bodies. She grabbed Raymond with one hand and Elise with the other, effortlessly pulling them along in her wake. She knew that she’d unbalanced them, but she had to get them out of harm’s way before the shooting started. She felt Jared only starting to follow them.

Without checking, she instinctively knew that the governors on her strength had switched off, so she was unsurprised when she hit the doors with her shoulder and they flew inward. The armed men on the other side, however, were quite surprised. It looked as though the fake tour group was not the only ambush she’d just ruined.

Her implants rapidly tallied six people lying in wait on the upper deck of the Parliamentary chamber even as a storm of gunshots began behind her. A thick wooden door to the face inconvenienced one of the new ambushers. The man standing directly in front of Kelsey was bringing a pistol up to fire, but he hadn’t been ready for her intrusion. His hand moved with syrupy slowness.

Kelsey’s hands moved with lightning speed, which was somewhat of a surprise since she hadn’t instructed them to move at all. Her left hand grabbed his wrist with a crunch that she knew meant broken bones and yanked him forward so that his face met her open hand with an impact that made her wince.

He was already falling backwards, unconscious or dead, as she rounded on the man next to him. She positioned herself between the attackers and King Raymond.

One man almost had his gun lined up on Kelsey. A quick step forward brought her into range to plant her foot between his legs with every ounce of strength she could manage. He flew backward with enough force to take down the man behind him.

Jared interposed himself between the furthest man on the right and Elise. The two men struggled for control of the attacker’s pistol. It looked as though her half-brother had the situation under enough control for her to deal with the other threats still in the room.

She’d almost reached the last man when he pulled the trigger on his gun. The shot was loud, but not as loud as Kelsey expected. A mild burning sensation ran along the back of her right arm as she ducked under his aim and drove her left fist into his crotch. Whatever was in control of her body certainly knew how to hurt a guy. The man didn’t even scream as he collapsed.

Three threats remained: the man she’d knocked down with the door, the man taken down when she kicked his friend on top of him, and the man struggling with Jared. The man behind the door had lost his pistol, so she downgraded his threat potential. The man in front of her still had his, but he was struggling with his companion’s dead weight.

That left her time to deal with Jared’s problem. She didn’t consciously decide what to do, only that he was the top threat. Her right hand struck backwards at maximum strength into the base of his skull. The crunch of bone wouldn’t be a sound she easily forgot. He instantly became a non-threat.

Two running steps forward and she launched herself into the air, landing on the man in front of her just as he rolled out from under his friend. His breath shot out explosively as she drove her feet into his gut. She bent and ripped the pistol out of his hand to the accompaniment of snapping finger bones and a scream.

She turned the weapon on the man crawling from behind the door. He’d just grabbed his pistol off the floor. She emptied her appropriated weapon into him.

Royal Guards and Fleet marines flooded into the room, still firing at the men outside. One of them slammed and locked the double doors. They must’ve been tough, because they didn’t give when the men outside started shooting them, though Kelsey could hear the impacts.

A quick scan of the room didn’t reveal any other threats, so she went along when Talbot tugged on her arm. “Let’s get out of here before they find another way in.”

All of them ran for a set of stairs leading down to the chamber floor. The Royal Guards split between guarding the rear and leading the way. They made it down unmolested. The police were herding panicked men, women, and children out the main exit as they joined the throng and fled the building.

Chapter Seven

Jared halfway expected another attack before they exited the building, but they fought through a growing crowd of policemen and piled into the grav van without further trouble. Their vehicle took off at a high rate of speed before any of them had a chance to put on their restraints.

Talbot staggered in front of Princess Kelsey. “Let me look at that shoulder.”

“I’m okay,” she said in a shaky voice.

“Then how come your sleeve is covered in blood?”

Jared turned toward her and saw that it was true. He watched the marine rip her sleeve open and examine the long gash down her upper arm. It must’ve been four inches in length, but it didn’t look too deep.

One of the Royal Guards handed him a medical kit. The marine found a bandage and efficiently wrapped it around the Princess’ arm. “As far as bullet wounds go, this isn’t too bad. If you’d been half a second faster, he’d have missed you entirely. It’ll regenerate without any issue. You won’t even have a scar.”

“I wear all my scars on the inside.”

Jared shook his head disbelievingly. “Faster? I can’t imagine how she moved as fast as she did. She took them down while I was still wrestling with one guy. I have never seen
anyone
move that fast in my life.”

Elise nodded vigorously. “It was unbelievable. It was as if she was fighting all of them at the same time. Hitting one, kicking the other, she was almost a blur. I had no idea that that’s what a…”

Kelsey grimaced. “What a Pale Ones attack looks like? It wasn’t really. They’re tough and fight like that, but they move about the same speed as everyone else. I’m pretty sure my implants have some features theirs lack.”

Jared had to agree. While the marines hadn’t let him into the fight on the orbital, he’d seen the Pale Ones moving. His sister was
significantly
faster. “Kelsey, you saved our lives today. There’s no doubt in my mind. Whoever those people were, they had us dead to rights. If you hadn’t spotted them and then literally broke the attack behind the door, they’d have shot us down. Thank you.”

She looked a little embarrassed at his words. “You’re welcome.”

Jared turned his attention to the King. “Are you all right, Your Majesty? I had no idea that you had that dedicated of an enemy.”

King Raymond smiled wanly. “Neither did I. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Not just during my reign, but ever. There are always individuals who are opposed to the Monarchy—sometimes violently—but never this organized.”

Elise shook her head. “Obviously, we have an underground movement. I receive the same briefings as my father and no one has ever mentioned anything like this. That’s a serious intelligence failure on our part. Someone out there considers us an enemy and we need to figure out who it is.”

She looked at one of the Royal Guards. “Craig, what is the situation back there? Did we lose anyone? And did we capture any of them alive?”

He muttered into a microphone on his collar and pressed an ear bud more tightly into his ear. He grimaced. “It’s not good, Highness. We have seven men missing. The police were still closing in when something exploded. The damage to the structure was significant. They haven’t found any survivors from the second floor.”

Talbot shook his head. “Dedicated and ruthless. Someone wanted to make sure that none of their people talked. Dead men tell no tales.”

Elise said something very unladylike. “Unbelievable. How could we have missed something like this? We were totally unprepared for anything of this magnitude.”

The guard gestured towards Kelsey. “Our losses would’ve been a lot worse if Princess Kelsey hadn’t given us a warning. She sprang the trap before it was ready to close. If they’d gotten close to us, they could’ve taken us. They had numerical superiority and tactical surprise.”

“What exactly happened back there?” Jared asked. “What tipped you off? And what happened when the fight started?”

“It all happened so fast. I’m not sure exactly what my implants saw, but a whole bunch of warnings popped up into my field of vision that those people were armed. It even showed me exactly where the weapons were. And once the attack started, it was like the implants took control of my body.

“Not like with the Pale Ones. I could’ve stopped if I wanted to. I know that. It was like a pre-programmed set of responses to a threat. I saw the Pale Ones do something like that in hand-to-hand combat. The implants also helped me aim that pistol I picked up. My first shot missed, but then my aim seemed to compensate for the kick of the weapon. Believe me, I am nowhere near that good of a shot.”

Jared believed her. He imagined she didn’t get much practice shooting things. That really wasn’t her style. “When you came in and fought them hand-to-hand, it was like one of the martial arts masters in an old B grade vid. I had no idea you could do that, even after everything we’ve learned about the Pale Ones. And you’re taking this situation remarkably well.”

Kelsey rubbed her face. “I feel like I should be going into shock, but I’m completely calm. I think the pharmacology unit dosed me with something. Everything seems to be moving so slowly. It’s as if I have an eternity to think about everything. Whatever happened to me is only just starting to wear off.”

Princess Elise put her hand on Kelsey’s. “Well, whatever happened, we are in your debt. Again. If you hadn’t been there, my father and I would have been killed. I deeply appreciate what you’ve done for us.”