Bound

Chapter THIRTY

Rebecca



We spotted the first Nicht Creidim laying prone on top of a warehouse two blocks from their main facility. Ulnyx had pounced on him from behind, removed his head, and then thrown the sniper rifle he'd been toting down to Sarah and me. We'd left the truck a few blocks back, and hadn't intended for the him or Obi to leave the vehicle behind, but he'd smelled the cleaning agents they used on their guns at a distance and decided we would need backup until we got a little closer.

I was grateful for the Were's sense of smell when Obi took out a second sniper inside the opposite building.

I knew from Elyse that the sentries wore remotely tracked heart monitors. They knew the moment their people died, and in this case their response was to start blaring an exorcism through hidden loudspeakers.

"We need to shut that up," I said, expecting to start being peeled away, and tightening my grip on Sarah's soul.

"I'm in control, remember? I don't want you to go." It felt as though her soul reached out and took hold of me, steadying my force inside of her. The loudspeakers continued, but I remained planted.

"That crap is hurting my ears," Ulnyx said, leaping down from the building and landing at our side. He had his hands pressed against his head.

"Why don't you go shut it up?" Sarah asked.

"It doesn't look like I'll have a chance." He pointed forward with a massive claw. We looked just in time to see a black clothed figure disappear behind a building. "They're pretty well-armed. We'll clear a path for you." He raised his nose to the air, and looked to the building where we'd last seen Obi. "Hey, meat," he shouted. "You see that?"

The response was a loud boom from the high-powered rifle.

"I smell blood," the Were said.

"Sarah, warn him about Wolfsbane." Joe had taken the pack, which meant he'd recovered the knife.

"Ulnyx, be careful. Rebecca says they have something called Wolfsbane."

He growled at that, but launched forward. Another rifle shot sounded out past the din of the exorcism.

"You're up Rebecca," Sarah said. "I'm a sitting duck out here."

I was in control of her faculties a moment later.

"Don't get me shot."

"I'll do my best." I ducked in a shady corner of a warehouse and kept my ears open. The noise levels rose with an explosion of gunfire, howling, and screaming. I took that as my queue to start moving forward.

I ran a block and peered around the corner. A black-clothed body lay on the ground, a pool of blood around him, running from a single gunshot wound to the head. I thanked Obi silently and raced across the expanse without drawing any fire. The next block was just as clear, and I kept moving until I was right on top of the continuing sounds of battle.

I found Ulnyx pinned down behind a cement truck, his body running with blood from a dozen wounds. Six Nicht Creidim kept up concerted fire from the corner of a warehouse. Of course the Were could smell us, and he looked over and waved us on. We snuck across the space without drawing attention.

"We should help him," Sarah said.

"Not our mission," I replied. "He volunteered for this."

Our target was only a block away. The roll-up door was down, and I was sure they were just waiting for someone to come and try to open it. Had they identified Sarah already? Did they know I was with her? The Eye didn't work through cameras.

We reached our last hiding spot, and I stared at the door. "That's the only way in," I said. "You can bet Joe's got an ambush all set for us."

"We don't have a choice," Sarah said. "You're supposed to be good."

I took the daggers from her leg. "What if they shoot you before the door opens?"

A bullet answered my question, a loud blast that couldn't have come from more than a dozen feet away and up. A body fell from a far window.

I ran as fast as I could. To the normal observer, the door didn't look like it could be opened from the outside. Elyse had known how to get in, and I had retained that information. I just had to hope Joe didn't know spirits could take memories from their hosts.

I crouched at the door, slamming my fist on the ground at its base. A small, seamless panel opened up, revealing a keypad underneath. I was about to type in the code when I had a better idea.

"Let me go. I'll clear the inside. The code is 947468," I said. "Remember it. 947468. Wait twenty seconds and then put it in."

Her response was to throw me from her at a speed that surprised me. I flowed through the heavily runed steel and concrete, and into the room. There were four Nicht Creidim there, with golden Eyes tattooed to their foreheads. They all looked towards me, able to see whatever it was I actually looked like. One of them started chanting.

A stupid idea, I realized too late. I should have guessed they would be more prepared for me, but I had hoped they would have thought the loudspeakers had done the trick. Joe wasn't taking any chances.

Then the door started rolling up, which took all of us by surprise. The exorcist kept going for another couple of seconds, until a hand appeared under the rising door, a dark hand holding a cannon. The bullet tore into his stomach and shut him up forever.

Sarah came in next, rolling under the small space. I urged myself toward her while she threw herself at one of the defenders, her knife work decent but not good enough to keep herself alive for very long. She didn't need a knife though, she just needed to keep them off-balance.

"Stop," she Commanded. Two of them froze immediately. The other squinted his eyes, fought off the power, and charged.

I grabbed onto her soul. It hurt again, but not as much as the first time. I could feel the power of it, the energy churning and twisting and reveling in the control. It was less painful, but it was more frightening. Using the power to Command was accepting the demonic side of her, the chaos and the evil that threatened to unravel her.

I didn't need to ask for the wheel. Her eyes became my eyes, and I brought a dagger up just in time to push back against an incoming attack, their weapon skidding off my own. He backed away and pulled a gun instead, but Obi had gained enough clearance to get in. His shot came first and left us with no one to fight.

"It's not safe for you here," I said to him.

"You're welcome," he replied. "You're lucky I guessed what you were going to try to do. Jumping from that window wasn't fun."

"What do you see?" I asked, looking around. I knew we were in a warehouse. I could see it through the haze of energy that was left by the Deceiver.

"A warehouse," he said. "Nothing out of the ordinary."

He'd changed something, I could see that much. I figured out what just in time.

I threw myself at Obi, catching him in the chest and throwing him out of the building just in time to save his life. There were shooters clinging to the scaffolding, hiding behind boxes and taking aim. Joe had disguised them, made them invisible, which meant I was the only one who could see them.

I was laying on top of him, looking down at his surprised and angry face. "Snipers. Joe's hiding them. Thank you for your help, but you can't help me anymore. You need to stay out here." I put my hand on the Eagle. "I need to borrow this."

I pulled it from his grasp, rolled off and charged back in. I kept moving at a random pace and in alternating directions towards the elevator I knew was there. Bullets ricocheted off the stone floor and scaffolding around me, one coming close enough that I felt it burn through a wisp of Sarah's short hair. I returned fire, conserving bullets and taking shots only when I could see them hanging out of the corners. With this much movement my aim was crap, but it was enough to keep them on their toes.

We reached the elevator. I hit the button and then dove back under the cover of a few crates. The gunfire stopped, but I could hear clanging as they moved around, trying to shift into a better position to kill me before I could get into the underground. I had no doubt that it would be just as hairy down there, but at least there wasn't enough space for long-range combat.

The elevator reached the top and the doors slid open. It was empty. I took a deep breath. "If anything happens, I'm sorry," I said to Sarah. I couldn't be sure the snipers wouldn't hit us. There was only one place to go.

I started running, and then dove and twisted, landing hard on my ass and sliding the last few feet into the elevator while shooting randomly into the warehouse. I heard the shots echo through the open expanse, and I waited to feel the burning sting of a bullet ending Sarah's life. Pings sounded around me, four of them, and then the doors slid closed. Three more pings told me they had kept shooting, but even the elevator was fortified.


"We made it," Sarah said.

"So far so good. Your turn. If there's anyone waiting at the elevator, you need to stop them."

I went from actor to observer. The energy swirling around Sarah's soul was exhilarating and terrifying. She was letting go of the facade of control she worked so hard to maintain. She was walking into potential death, and her will was responding to prevent it.

The Nicht Creidim stronghold was deep underground, so the ride was long. It felt a million times longer. By the time we stopped descending, Sarah was burning with cold fire. I was a moth held tight against it, unable to flee and mesmerized by its beauty.

We crouched in the forward corner of the elevator while the door slid open. I could sense the power of the Deceiver, and see into the illusion. A single large room, with no other way in or out. Two Nicht Creidim held their weapons ready to fire as soon as we appeared.

"Kill him," Sarah said, the energy of her soul discharging like a solar flare. She hadn't targeted either of them, so they both followed the Command. Two gunshots, two thuds.

Sarah smiled.

"Where do we go?" she asked.

"You can't see it. Let me drive."

"Tell me where." Her voice was empty, emotionless.

"Sarah. Let me in. Landon needs us."

It broke her out of it. I was back in control. I scooped up one of the guns on my way down the hallway. I knew there was a lab down here, and I tried to remember how to get there.

I made a left, and then a right, and then ran down a long hallway. In time I realized that I knew where I was heading. The lab was near where they stored the artifacts. I had to pass Elyse's room to get there.

Was she still alive? I was fairly sure Joe wouldn't have killed her, despite what he had done to her sister. She was his favorite, his pride and joy, and in a twist of irony he had too much respect for her stubbornly strong will to put her down with such disregard.

I stopped at her door and considered opening it. I don't know why I was so concerned about her. I was wasting time checking and putting Sarah at greater risk. It was stupid, and foolish.

I did it anyway.

Her room was just as it had been the first time I'd visited. It was peaceful, serene, with soft music trickling from the walls. It was such a stark contrast to the chaos I had come through that it made me shiver. She was there in yoga pants and a sports bra, whirling and kicking and grunting, sweat running from her pores. When she saw me, she stopped and stared.

He hadn't killed her, but he had disfigured her. The Eye had been removed, cut away so that all that remained was a mess of scar tissue, a red splotch of mangled flesh that screamed out for attention and stole so much from the beauty of her heritage.

"Sarah?" She was breathing hard, and I saw her eyes flick over to where a wooden sword rested on her mat.

I didn't waste time on pleasantries. "Rebecca," I said. "Are you still in?"

She licked her lips, and smiled. "Did you kill Joe yet?"

I shook my head.

"Good. I owe that son of a bitch."

She walked over to the edge of the mat and lifted it up, pulling the black stone from under it.

"I hid this from him, after he captured me. First in my mouth and then... in other places. He beat me more than once asking what had happened to it." Her devious look almost made me blush. The stone was replaced with the obsidian spatha. "Let's go."

We went back into the hallway. It was still clear. We moved at a brisk walk while listening for incoming enemies.

"I didn't think you could bond with Sarah," she said.

"It's complicated," I replied.

We kept moving, but there was nothing. No resistance. Had Joe not expected that anyone would get this far? After all, I was supposed to be exorcised, and who else could have gotten past the warehouse and the elevator?

We were nearing the armory when we heard the first boot steps. They were running, coming on fast and in large numbers. There were too many to fight in the open like this.

"Here," Elyse said. She grabbed Sarah's hand and pushed on a panel on the wall, opening the door to another apartment. "This used to be Rae's."

She swung me inside and closed the door, jamming the end of the blade into the seam so it wouldn't seal completely. We both put our faces to the crack and watched two dozen of them run by.

"We'll wait a minute, and then take them by surprise. Joe sent his youngest... how many have you killed?"

"Personally? None, but I didn't come alone. A dozen, give or take."

She looked shocked and confused. "I don't understand that. He wouldn't have sent those children after you unless he had no other choice. He'd know they'd be running into their death."

We waited and listened. At first, it was quiet, and then the soldiers returned. Each of them was armed with a blessed sword. Ulnyx? Or had Max decided to get involved? Whichever it was, they passed us by and headed back the way they'd come.

"We need to hurry," Elyse said, opening the door again. We ran hard down the corridor, past the armory and down another long hall. We nearly fell over when the entire complex shook.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked.

"The lab is just around the corner. Let's get the Box and get out of here."

We reached another steel door, painted in runes. Elyse put her hand to the biometric lock. The door started to open.

"Just like Joe to be so arrogant," she said.

The walls shook again, and I could swear I heard screaming from somewhere inside the compound.

We ducked under the door before it finished opening, and moved into the lab. It was a large room, filled with standing tables, desks, computers, and a lot of large off-white devices whose purposes I couldn't fathom. To each side was a column of thick glass where even more equipment had been assembled to run different tests. In the center of the room on the right, seemingly floating in mid-air, was Avriel's Box.

"There you are," I said.

"Here I am." Joe stepped out from the room on the left, Deceiver in one hand and Truth in the other. He looked haggard and worn. "I underestimated you. I didn't think you'd come up with a combo that could get past my defenses."

"I'm resourceful like that," I said.

"If you mean the way cockroaches are resourceful, then I guess you're right." He waved Truth towards the Box. "I suppose you came for that?"

"And the swords. Where is the Damned?"

"That one isn't very useful to me. I put it in the stone, where the Redeemer used to be." He shrugged his shoulders. "I figured the swords had something to do with the Box, seeing as how you were collecting them. I had my best people on it. They couldn't work it out, so I sent a team out to capture that Hell reject, Alichino. They haven't gotten back yet, but it doesn't matter now."

The room shook again, as if to emphasize his defeated point.

"What's happening?" I asked.

He took the blades and turned them in his hands, offering me the hilts. "Take the swords. Take the Box. It won't save you. It won't save any of us. We've survived by being smart, by staying out of the spotlight. I thought I could kill all of the Divine with that thing. I thought I could save humanity from you. I thought I was being smart, but I wasn't."

"What are you talking about?" I was getting angry.

Joe's laugh was weak. "I drew too much attention." The building shook again. "I knew you were going to come, Rebecca. I knew I could handle you. We tried touching the Deceiver to the Box this morning. We were afraid to before, but we were getting desperate. The power..." The door to the lab had closed behind us, but now it began to groan. "The power is unbelievable. Just from one of the blades. With all six..." His eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you're going to do with all six, but whoever gets them and puts them to the Box will have the power to change the entire universe. I believe that."

I was starting to feel warm. I turned my head to the door, and saw that the center was beginning to glow with heat. What the hell was happening?

"It has to be better in your hands than in his," Joe said. "I'm an old man. I can't win this fight. Take the swords."

Elyse pocketed the obsidian blade, reached out, and took them. Joe smiled.

"You're the pride of the family," he said. "I love you."

He knew what she was going to do. He didn't even flinch when she stabbed him.

"I love you too, father," she said.

The door behind us was getting too hot for comfort. I grabbed Elyse's elbow and pulled her away, towards the back of the room.

Whatever was melting the steel was powerful enough to convince Joe to surrender.

Whatever was melting the steel was ignoring the runes.

Whatever was melting the steel wanted the Box, and we were the only thing standing in its way.

We were pressed against the rear of the room. The center of the door had liquified, and now ran away in a fit of smoke that obscured our view.

"Time for you to leave," Sarah said. I was thrown from her body and into Elyse's. She didn't resist me. She knew I was a better fighter.

The smoke started to dissipate. A figure stepped through. It all began to make sense.

Izak.