Chapter 14
Kael was being stalked. He knew it. Could feel it on his skin, like a whisper of smoke.
It may be subtle, but it was there.
He also knew his stalker was closing in, even if he heard and saw nothing.
He’d been circling inward for hours. The ruin was small, but the cultists weren’t playing guide. Which meant that every structure had to be checked; methodically, tediously.
The ruins were creepy.
Someone, or perhaps many someones had painted strange sigils and bizarre phrases on the broken walls in fluorescing blue paint.
“The choir sings here.”
“And sun will rise in the Void.”
“Hallowed are the Hollow.”
“We are the ghosts now.”
A few were variations of the standard cult rhetoric, but others were strange and somehow resonant in ways he didn’t want to think about.
The hairs rose on the back of his neck, and he felt eyes watching him in the dark. He needed to find a place to make a stand.
Set an ambush for preference.
There were a few potential places he’d seen, but it meant going back the way he’d came. But the main compound was up ahead. Almost completely reduced to rubble.
It was an awful place to meet an enemy.
The corner of his lip rose in a half smirk.
Perfect.
Kael sank into his inner void, below thought, below emotions, below the ghosts. He was his body, and his senses extended beyond their normal reach.
The stalker was nearby. Fast and silent.
Kael’s back was to a wall, his blade an extension of his hand. The uneven ground posed no concern, even in the darkest shadow.
He waited.
What he hadn’t been expecting was to be kicked in the back.
The void shattered.
“How the fuck?”
He stumbled forward and someone jumped on his back, wrapping an arm around his neck and trying to choke him.
Kael took a hard step backwards and slammed his attacker into the wall. Spun.
No one.
Movement in his peripheral vision. He jerked back and the punch aimed at his face sailed past.
He swiped his knife up and missed.
“You’re fast, Light Bringer, but I’m faster.”
Shade.
He wasn’t surprised.
He turned to face the smaller man, who was watching him with an unnerving focus and intensity.
“Care to dance?” Shade laughed, the sound brittle and forced. “I’ll lead.”
He feinted forward, darted back, then somehow he was behind Kael, knocking his knee out from behind, causing him to stumble.
“Watch your step, twinkle toes.”
Kael spun, ducked on instinct, stabbing upwards.
Hot blood splashed his face, and he heard Shade hiss.
“More than just a pretty face. Good. Nothing I hate more than a boring fight.”
Two punches shot out, lightning quick and flicking blood. The first missed, but the second hit its mark, sinking into Kael’s gut.
He kicked a foot out and heard a satisfying crack and grunt. With luck he’d broken the bastard’s leg.
“Oh wait, there is something I hate more than a boring fight.”
Shade’s voice was a meter or so in front of him, but even with Kael’s optics he was lost in shadow. Which shouldn’t have been possible.
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
Silence.
Where was he?
Kael stood motionless, feeling the air for movement. Straining to catch any sound over his own pounding heartbeat.
Then he felt the blade against his throat. Moved to stab Shade—only to realize his hand was empty.
What the fuck?
“What I hate more than a boring fight, is asshole SIDs who drop my teammates into cages and then, years later, let them out and Tether themselves to them.”
The man’s voice vibrated with fury. He felt blood trickle down his neck, although not the pinch of the blade itself. It was too sharp for that.
“Now, you know that I’m not going to kill you. Not yet. And you might think that means you have leverage on me.”
Kael could feel Shade’s breath on his ear as he leaned close. Whispered.
“But I have leverage on you too, Sun Boy. And if you ever want to see her again?”
The pressure eased off and Shade stepped around to face him, holding the blade in a way that said he’d have no problem using it.
“Then you had better do exactly what I tell you to do.”
He flipped the blade in his hand and passed it back to Kael. Turned his back on him and started walking away.
“Come on, then, night’s a wasting. And by the way, your dancing is terrible.”
The entrance to Shade’s lair was disguised, not with tech, but by the shadows and collapsed masonry of the main compound. Kael could admit to himself that he would have struggled to find it.
They walked through darkness.
Through his optics, he could see the scars of laser fire on the walls. Shade was in front of him, still dripping blood from his arm where Kael had cut deep into his bicep.
The smell of copper and damp assaulted Kael’s nose. He wrinkled it, fighting the urge to sneeze.
Shade either knew the passage so well he needed no light, or he was modified too. He was definitely something.
Nothing about their fight made sense. Kael’s training, his experience—they shouldn’t have been so evenly matched. But the way Shade moved, the way he changed position… If Kael hadn’t just lived through it, he’d have called it impossible.
And how the hell did Shade kick him in the back when said back was against a wall?
This was exactly the kind of puzzle that SID would love to unravel. And at this rate his report was going to take a painfully long time to write up.
“Why the Cult?”
He hadn’t realized he was going to ask the question until it was already halfway out of his mouth.
Shade shrugged, “We are all children of the Void.”
“Are we?”
“Me? Definitely. You? Jury is still out.”
He pushed open a door, the barely used swing variety, and low light spilled out.
“After you, Sunshine.”
Wraith sat on her cot and shivered.
In the hours since Shade had disappeared, she had plotted seventeen separate ways to kill him. Each more painful than the last.
Also, six different ways to seduce him.
She’d only used Silk twice before, both in combat training sims. And then the doses had been small.
Also, if she had to guess, he’d given her Liquid Silk rather than the military version, Silk-72B.
The latter was mostly used as pain control.
The former was a notorious street drug tweaked to turn the physical side effects into the main event. A perfect aphrodisiac and sexual enhancer, if you believed the talk.
They neglected to mention that the come down was a bitch.
It had taken every ounce of her control to avoid the people she could hear in nearby rooms and corridors and find her way back here. She had grabbed food from a nearby room. Eating it had been… an experience.
But now she shivered, desperate for heat. For nearness. Terrified her control wasn’t good enough.
If she could sleep—but she couldn’t.
She’d tried everything from reciting poetry to complex mental calculus to reliving her worst memories, but nothing came close to overcoming the physical wrongness she was feeling.
The door opened and she forced herself still, her nails digging so hard into her palms she could practically feel the blood welling up. At least it was sensation.
She could hear Shade’s voice just outside.
“I really, really want to kill you, Sunshine. But instead, I’m going to help you.”
Kael stepped into the room, clocked her, turned back to look at Shade who shut the door in his face and called out: “Have fun, kids.”
“I really fucking hate you right now, Zane,” Wraith muttered.
Even as Helios asked if she was okay, she could hear Shade’s voice float back, “Love you back, babe. You can thank me tomorrow.”