Vasily was sincere, as sincere as when he’d stared pale-faced at the image of his mother, broken by the same cruel system that had abused him.
“The only way you can do that,” Rhys said, struggling against the pressure of Jessie’s arm, “is if you destroy the Sect.”
“The Sect should be destroyed, Aidan,” Vasily said, his voice rising dangerously, his face alight with quiet anger. “After everything they did to you. To me. To . . .” He swallowed his next words, but I already knew what he wanted to say. His mother. “We’re nothing to them, agents and Effigies alike. We have to build something greater. This is the only way to do it.”
Silently, he walked through the rows of suited armor, his gaze as sharp as the towering crystallized phantoms watching over us with their slitted eyes.
My feet felt weighted as I stepped out to the middle of the hall, directly in front of him, my back facing Patricia’s portrait. I had no magic, not enough training to go up against a monster like Vasily. But I wasn’t going with him without a fight.
Neither was Belle. I hadn’t seen her pick up the spear that had fallen next to me, but she had it firmly gripped in her hand as she stepped out from behind the suits of armor.
“Vasily.” She let the tip of the spear drag against the marble floor with a loud scratch as she walked. “Tell me again. That you followed Natalya.”
Rhys’s eyes met mine, secrets whispering silently between us. Belle still had the special volume in her hand, but not for long. She threw it to the side and it skidded across the floor until it came to a stop against the suit of armor. Belle was readying herself for battle.
Vasily laughed. “Who? Sorry, did somebody mention her?”
“Tell me.” She pivoted on her feet, facing the trio.
“Belle!” Lake got up, though she stayed where she was, her eyes nervously darting between both poles of the room. “Calm down!”
“Did nobody tell you?” He gave Rhys a sidelong look, delighting in the way Rhys’s jaw set. “She’s nobody. You should know that by now. Important to no one. I can’t even remember what I did or didn’t do to her.”
The spear shook in Belle’s hand. But out of the corner of my eye, I could see the digital wall clock ticking down from inside the opposite room. I could see the red numbers flashing just above the heads of the three stone statues. Ten seconds . . . nine seconds . . .
“Guys . . .” I grabbed Belle’s arm, but she shrugged me off without even looking back. Her breaths labored, her hands trembling, she raised the spear, pointing its blade at him.
“Did you kill Natalya?”
Four seconds . . . three seconds . . .
“Maybe.” Vasily smiled. “What a pity that you’re the only one who still seems to care.”
Belle raised her arm, ready to let her spear fly, when a buzzing noise sounded behind us. Two small square hatches in the wall burst open on either side of Patricia’s portrait.
Chae Rin rose swiftly to her feet, her eyes wide. “What . . . the hell . . . is that?”
That was a machine gun. Two, one in each hatch, their barrels pointed into the room.
And they started firing.
Belle and I ducked to the floor, covering our heads while Chae Rin and Lake found cover behind separate suits of armor. Rhys had used the moment of confusion to free himself from Jessie’s grip. I could barely hear her gunshot above the rattling of the machine gun, but I saw the gun sliding out of her grip onto the floor as they both ran and dove out of the way. The bullets riddled the floor, turning right to left almost as if to make sure no life escaped its reach. The Haas family had truly spared no expense in the security of their secrets.
It stopped, maybe just for a moment, maybe forever. I didn’t know. Belle didn’t care. Once the coast was clear, she ran down the hall, crossing diagonally to the opposite end of the room to where Vasily was hiding. He came out to meet her, dodging the swipe of her spear, punching her in the stomach. Chae Rin ran to help but was intercepted by Jessie, who tried to catch the nimble Effigy with her fists. That wasn’t so easy with Rhys striking her from behind. Yet while Jessie fought her battle, I could see the clock reset. Ten seconds . . . nine seconds . . .
“Guys! Take cover!” I found a suit to hide behind. “Take cover!”
The rattling began again and everyone dove out of the way. It would go on like this forever if we let it. We were all going to die unless we figured out a way to stop it. But just in front of me, Jessie, taking advantage of Chae Rin’s distraction, leapt onto her, her head staying well below the rain of bullets even as they clinked against the metal suit they hid behind.
After a swift punch, Jessie started choking her.
“Stop!” I cried. Rhys tugged at Jessie’s leg, but he couldn’t do much while he tried to avoid the machine guns’ attack. Chae Rin was dying.
On my other side, Lake flung off her knapsack, searching for the cigar box while the bullets wailed overhead. She flung open the lid and grabbed some of the shards of stone strewn about the paraphernalia. Was she making a wish? But there was no black sliver in the stone she picked. It wasn’t powered up for a wish—
Then I saw the crystal phantoms stirring.
“Lake . . .” Slowly, the phantoms stretched their necks out with a shiver, the crystal crackling and melting off of their flesh. “What did you just do?”
“I just told it . . . willed it to . . .” Lake’s trembling hand dropped the shards. “It was the only thing I could think of.” The whimper in her voice begged me to understand.
Just like Saul who’d used the stone to force his phantoms to harden their bodies around the train in France. Lake must have remembered Pete discussing the stone’s power. It could control a phantom’s biology. It could make a phantom petrify.
And it could do the reverse, too.
If Lake’s plan was to distract Jessie, it worked. The girl had stopped choking Chae Rin just long enough for the Effigy to push her off her body with as much strength as she could muster. The crystal hides of dragon-like phantoms began to shift and shatter.