Cursed

I had one glimpse of the room, filled with chaos as the men fell back, blinded, aiming their weapons at unseen threats. I saw a shield of blue light go up around Belthas, saw Martin collide with a guard and fall. Luna had been turned away from the flash; it hadn’t blinded her but her reactions were slower. There were two guards between us and the tunnel. One was blinded; the other, quicker or luckier, was only dazzled and brought up his gun. I saw his intention to club me with the stock, ducked under the swing, put a web-hand strike into his throat that sent him to the ground choking, and ran on without breaking stride.

It couldn’t have taken more than five seconds to make the dash to the tunnel entrance but it felt like an hour. I heard the shouts from behind me, saw the blackness of the tunnel mouth growing larger, expecting every minute to hear gunfire. Then just as I made it to the entrance, I heard Luna yell, “Alex!”

Luna had made it about halfway before one of the guards had caught up with her. Either Belthas hadn’t told them about Luna’s curse or this one was just really stupid because he was grappling with her. I could see the silver mist of Luna’s curse flowing into him and as I watched Luna snapped her head around at him. Suddenly the mist wasn’t just pouring into him, it was surging, and I swear it actually looked gleeful. At the centre of the room, Garrick had recovered. He lined up on me and fired a three-round burst.

As he did, Luna pulled at the guard, struggling to get away. The guard tripped and staggered, swinging between me and Garrick.

The guard saw the danger and tried to dodge, and Garrick was already pulling his aim away, yet somehow the two went in exactly the same direction. All three bullets hit, going through the man’s head in a spray of gore. He dragged Luna down with him, dead before he hit the ground.

For an instant everyone stopped, staring at the corpse that a second ago had been a living person. Garrick looked genuinely surprised for the first time I’d seen. Even if you know what Luna’s curse is supposed to do, it’s another thing to see it.

Then Belthas looked at me. “Kill him.”

His hand was coming up, blue light starting to glow around it, and I knew what was coming. I threw myself into the tunnel just as a wall of blue-white ice shimmered into existence, barely missing me and sealing off the tunnel entrance. A heartbeat later I heard the muffled bark of guns, and the ice wall shuddered as impacts spiderwebbed across its other side.

I could hear distant shouting: Belthas giving orders to his men. As I watched, the ice wall shuddered again as more bullets struck it. A fracture went through it from top to bottom with a crack. Luna was on the other side of that barrier, along with Belthas and his men. And in a few seconds more, the barrier would be gone.

I turned and ran, down into the darkness.

chapter 8

I run away a lot. It’s something you have to learn if you work alone and have a habit of finding trouble. Against these kind of odds—Belthas, Garrick, Meredith, Martin, and a dozen armed men on one side, and me on the other—staying to fight isn’t much different from suicide. I have absolutely no pride when it comes to combat. Running like a squirrel doesn’t bother me at all.

But leaving someone behind does. I’d been gambling that Luna and I could both make it out and now we’d been separated everything fell apart. I wanted to go back and help her, but there was nothing I could do against so many. Worse, as soon as Belthas realised I was there, he could threaten to hurt Luna unless I surrendered, and I knew he’d do it.

All I could think was to go deeper into the tunnels. Looking into the future, I could see that some came to dead ends, but others went down and down into darkness. If I was able to get deep enough, and if Belthas sent his men down after me, and if I could hide and let them go by and double back towards the entrance, and if Belthas hadn’t left enough men to guard Luna …

It was a desperate plan, the biggest flaw being that I didn’t have any equipment. I’d left my mist cloak back at my flat, and checking my pockets I found everything else had been taken. Within a few minutes the sounds behind me had died away and I came to a stop, looking into the futures ahead of me and hoping for some luck.

I didn’t get it. After only a minute I heard the sounds of movement again, this time in greater numbers. Belthas had gotten organised and he was sending every man he had down into the tunnels, sweeping each passage methodically from end to end. Looking into the future, I saw with a sinking heart that hiding wasn’t going to work. All I could do was back away deeper into the darkness.