The truck’s windshield wipers were swiping back and forth, trying to clear the snow, but it was coming down too fast now. They couldn’t keep up with the buckets of fluffy white powder. Visibility was so low that I could hardly see past our truck.
The out-of-season weather almost felt like an omen that things were about to change big time. I hoped that didn’t mean the Pioneers would gain the upper ground. As harsh as the Legion could be, they were nothing compared to the anarchy and cruelty I’d witnessed from the district lords. If they rose to power and took over, the whole world would deteriorate into an unending gangster shootout.
The truck came to a stop, and everyone hopped out, our glossy black leather contrasting starkly with the whirling white snowstorm. There were nine of us: in addition to me, our team consisted of Bella and Calli, Nero and Harker, as well as Basanti, Alec, Soren, and Drake.
“Any news?” Basanti asked Nero.
“Not yet.”
We waited for the signal that the attacks were about to begin. In towns all across the Frontier, the Legion was running coordinated strikes on the district lords. Now that we knew they were the force behind the Pioneers, we were taking them all out. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of deep satisfaction at their impending demise, even as I came to terms with what that actually meant for me. I was going into a battle in which I would likely have to kill people. Killing people was not like killing monsters, no matter how evil they were.
“Get into position,” Nero told Harker. “It’s about to start.”
Harker ran off toward the entrance that led into the tunnel system connecting the castles of Purgatory’s district lords. Basanti, Alec, Soren, and Drake followed him. A few minutes later, an explosion lit up the stormy, snowy sky. Burning chunks of the gold and ivory gate flew in every direction. Gunfire roared, blades clashed, and magic sizzled. Harker’s team had engaged the enemy soldiers.
But they were just the distraction. Nero, Bella, Calli, and I ran down Twilight Alley, the gathering point of the town’s young delinquents. I’d spent a great deal of time there in my days as a homeless orphan.
I ran in front, leading the way down an unnamed narrow passageway. This was where I’d hidden from the street gangs, groups of big and mean kids who preyed on the weak and solitary, stealing our food and anything else of value that we had. Once, while hiding here, I’d seen a district lord and his posse go through a thick door, the kind that looked like the entrance to a safe or a bomb shelter. The tunnel beyond the door was a secret passage to the district lord’s castle—and, more importantly, to the tunnels that connected all the district lords’ castles together.
“You ready?” Nero asked me as we stopped in front of the solid metal door.
I nodded and took his hand, gathering my new telekinetic magic into a point. I could feel Nero directing my magic, channeling it into his own. A blast of our combined power slammed into the door, crushing it inside its psychic fist. Calli stood beside us, ready to shoot any enemies lying in wait.
The tunnel was empty. Harker’s team of heavy hitters must have drawn all the Pioneers’ fighters to the main entrance. So far, everything was going exactly to plan. We entered the tunnel, moving toward the central underground interchange. The district lords might have been working together to overthrow the Legion, but they still didn’t trust one another. They had to be keeping the prisoners in a neutral location, and based on the blueprints, my best guess was the underground level below this one. Was that too obvious to be true? Perhaps, but in my years as a bounty hunter, I’d found that people weren’t as clever at hiding as they thought they were.
We met no one all the way down the tunnel, but that all changed when we reached the intersection before the staircase. Gunfire drummed over panicked shouts as the Pioneer fighters scrambled to block Harker’s team from advancing further into the tunnels.
“There must be at least fifty of them!” a Pioneer shouted.
“And they’ve got three angels!”
Harker and his team of four soldiers must have been putting on a really spectacular show. I heard Basanti’s manic cackle echo down the tunnel, magnified with magic to sound like a whole pack of hyenas. The Pioneers listened, looking positively ill. Their potion might have given them all the same powers as we had, but there was no magic pill for willpower or courage. In fact, they’d completely skipped the willpower step in lieu of a quick fix.
“We can still sneak past them to get to the stairs,” I said, watching the Pioneers. “They have their backs turned to us.”
The red light over the staircase flashed on, pulsing repeatedly. A pack of large guard dogs bolted up the stairs. From the looks of them, they’d once been large dogs, but they now resembled werewolves in beast form.
Yet there was something wrong with their bodies. They weren’t fully proportional, like some of their parts didn’t belong with the others. They looked like they’d been pasted together from several different animals of several different sizes and species. They were a mismatch of various fur colors, yellow and silver, brown and black—a rushed blend, a discordant melody of lines and colors.
The beasts smelled like blood and rusty metal and wet fur—and a strange subtly-sweet smell that felt familiar. I couldn’t quite place it, but I was sure I’d smelled it before.
I spotted a laboratory past the pack of wolves, pointing it out to Bella. She nodded, and we ran toward the glass room as Nero and Calli covered us from enemy soldiers.
“See if you can find a sample of the potion,” I told Bella. Nyx had instructed us to obtain the potion for testing. If we could find a sample, we could figure out how the Pioneers had accomplished the impossible.
As Bella looked through the lab, I stood guard beside her. Nero and Calli had each moved to one of the two lab entrances.
But a guard dog got past them by making an entrance of its own. The beast jumped straight through a glass wall, battering it with its hard, boar-like tusks. As the glass shattered, I went to intercept the monster.
I swung my sword, flames flaring to life across the blade. I killed the beast in a single stroke of fire and metal, but there was already another one springing through the hole in the glass wall. It opened its mouth and breathed fire. Shit, the guard dogs could do magic too.
I countered the stream of fire with a swing of my now-icy sword. The flames sizzled out into wafts of steam. Unconcerned, the beast just spit another fireball at me. I’d been researching the monsters of Earth, and I hadn’t read about a single one like these dogs.
And that’s when I realized the Pioneers had given them the potion too. It hadn’t just made them big and ugly monster amalgamations; it had given them magic. From the looks of the dogs, the potion hadn’t fully taken to them like it had with the humans. It seemed the Pioneers hadn’t yet figured out the canine formula of their potion.
Speaking of the potion…
“How’s it coming?” I asked Bella.
“I’ve got a sample.”
“Good. Then let’s get you the hell out of here so you and Nerissa can analyze it.”
The guard dog spat a wad of goo. I cut to the side, but a few green drops sprinkled across my uniform, burning holes right through the leather. Great. Not only did the beasts spit fire; they also spat toxic acid. A siege wasn’t complete without toxic-acid-spitting beasts.
I froze, watching in shock as the speckles of splattered green spit peeled off the floor, moving as though controlled via telekinesis. They floated into the air, suspended like a hundred buoys bobbing in the air. Crap.
The spit shot straight at Bella. I jumped into its path, casting a psychic shield to counter the forward thrust of the toxic spit bubbles. I was too slow. One of the green bubbles hit the vial in Bella’s hand, shattering it. At least the acid hadn’t gotten on her skin. Who knew what that would have done to her.
Frowning, I faced the juiced-up monster. It snarled at me, showing off fangs coated in toxic saliva.