Authors: Selene Edwards
“Dear god,” one of the other Asurans breathed into his com. He and the others hopped forward and fired down through the hole just in case.
“I never doubted you,” Corin said from beside her, grabbing her arm.
Shyrah barely even heard him. Instead she glanced towards the trio of bodies next to her and leapt over to them to see if she could do anything. When there wasn’t, she swore under her breath and squeezed her rifle so hard she thought it would break. Nearly half her team dead already…
“We need to keep moving,” Corin told her.
It was an odd role reversal for them, she thought idly, but she knew he was right. She had seen plenty of death in her life to be almost numb to it—just not when it was her job to keep people safe.
“Yeah,” she breathed, quickly switching channels on her com. “Kronn, this is Shyrah. We’re inside. Four casualties.”
“Understood,” the strained answer came back. “Now keep moving. Hopefully they’ll pull some of the fire off us.”
As tempting as it was to ask him for details, she knew time was of the essence. Kronn’s team wasn’t really planning on holding out forever. They needed the police to respond to back them up, or they needed Marivean to pull his men farther back when they realized they were being hit from multiple sides. She could only help with one of those, and that’s exactly what she was going to do.
“You catch that, Sara?”
“Yes,” the Angel’s soft voice came back. “We’re ready.”
“Good,” She glanced to the rest of her team. “Let’s go.”
***
“It’s time,” Sariel said softly. “I still think it would be better if I went alone.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Damien told her flatly. “So let’s just do it.”
The two of them sat inside the abandoned adjacent tower on the far side of the unfinished skyway. The building didn’t even have any lights or power, and it had taken them the better part of two hours to actually make their way up here earlier in the day. Since then they had just been waiting for Shyrah’s signal and hoping this assault of theirs didn’t end before it had begun. So far it seemed like everything was going according to plan. He just wondered how long that could possibly last.
“Just please listen to me when we find him,” she said, turning about the corner and stepping through the skyway door. “Especially if I tell you to run.”
He nodded and stood. They had been over this three times already, but he understood why. Neither of them was convinced this would work, not without help. With luck, Shyrah’s team might be able to fight their way towards them, but that was a big if. There was a good chance it would just be the two of them against Marivean, and he didn’t really know what to expect.
He just knew that he wanted to be with her, and that together they would figure something out.
Sariel let out a deep breath. “Come on.”
Damien followed in her footsteps, still feeling odd in the armor Kronn had procured for him. It wasn’t much more than a vest and a few pads, but it would be enough to stop a glancing pulse shot or flechette round. Sariel, for her part, wore a similar vest on top of a black jumpsuit, but neither of them was really that concerned about casual weapons fire. She could deal with normal troops easily enough; it was the Angel and his powers they were all worried about.
They walked into the skyway and started across. It was sealed but undecorated, essentially a fifty odd meter stretch of metal superstructure wrapped in reinforced, transparent plastic. As imposing as it was to glance down and see the city from sixty stories in the air, it wasn’t nearly as perilous as he had first imagined. He did, however, notice the flicker of police lights in the distance, and he knew their ground team’s mission was just about over.
If it wasn’t already. Every second that went by increased the chances their comrades were dead or disabled. They all knew that going in, of course, but walking across this skyway now it all suddenly felt very real—very real, and very lethal.
The skyway exit on the other side was sealed, but Sariel didn’t bother with the keypad.
“Stay back,” she warned, and her body suddenly exploded in silvery light. She glared harshly at the door, and a second later the metal began to creak and buckle. Soon the entire thing ripped off its hinges and then shredded in half.
Damien breathed a quick sigh of relief when no one started hosing down the skyway with pulse fire. Sariel should have been able to sense them if they were there, but it was very likely any defenders would be using angel dust, especially if they were chosen.
“It’s clear,” she said, peering inside. The lights were out; for all intents and purposes, it seemed like they were walking into an empty building. Not that he believed that for a moment.
The two of them stepped in and started to make their way across the room. He didn’t bother with the light on the tip of his pistol or the night-vision goggles currently wrapped around his forehead; even sheathed in armor, Sariel’s glowing body was more than sufficient to light their way. She seemed focused and determined, and he hoped it would be enough to get her through this up until the end.
They had made it halfway across the mostly empty set of offices and cubicles when the door to the stairwell on the south side of the room opened. Stepping out of it was a single human man, tall and thin, with long white hair and impossibly dark eyes. His skin glowed with a faint silvery radiance, and the shadows seemed to recoil at his presence.
“Hello, my sister,” Marivean said, stepping forward. “It has been far too long.”
Damien spun to face him, pistol in hand, but he didn’t fire. Sariel’s pivot was much more gradual, and he saw a ripple of surprise dance across her face.
“I see you’re not hiding behind your armies of Chosen,” she replied.
He smiled. It was a crooked, mocking thing, and Damien felt a shiver run down his spine.
“I have no need to hide, and neither do you. If you would have come back to us earlier, all this suffering could have been avoided.”
“That’s close enough,” Damien warned. He doubted his weapon would even do anything, or if we would even be able to fire it. Nonetheless, he held it firmly at the other man.
Marivean’s eyes flicked over, as if noticing the Incubus for the first time. “I hope you weren’t planning on using that.”
“That depends on whether or not you cooperate,” Damien told him. “We need your help.”
The man’s smile widened. “Is that so?” His eyes went back to Sariel. “I take it your weakness is spreading. You don’t know how long you have to hold out.”
“I want this thing out of me,” she said. “You’re the only one who knows how to do that.”
“Our sister will be removed. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“We’re not talking about burning her over a pile of coals at your temple,” Damien snapped. “There has to be another way.”
He grunted. “No, there isn’t. You are
infested
, Betrayer. I don’t know how you hid it from us, but it doesn’t matter now. You will be exorcised.”
“So you murder your own kind,” Damien said. “That’s really what this is about, isn’t it? Do you even care about the Angel, or is this just about some type of petty revenge?”
“You don’t understand,” Marivean hissed. “You speak with their voice.”
Sariel took a step forward. “Their voice is your voice. It’s no different—we know this.”
“They are cowards willing to live off the scraps of our killers,” he growled, his once cool tone now boiling with barely restrained fury. “You cannot understand.”
“I understand exactly,” she told him. “Humans hurt your people—we killed them. Now you want vengeance.”
“Justice,” he countered. “Justice for holocaust you brought to this world.”
“But we didn’t even know,” Damien pointed out. “How could we?”
“Blindness is not an excuse. Your pathetic minds couldn’t even conceive of life existing as we do. And in your arrogance, you raped our world.” He cocked his head. “Now our home is toxic to us, but we can live inside of you. Our killers shall become our servants. Nothing could be more fitting.”
“But it doesn’t have to be that way,” Sariel told him. “The Demons realize you can live with us symbiotically, not as parasites.”
“And capitulate to a race of murderers?” he snorted. “I see the heretic has already poisoned your mind.” He shook his head. “But soon enough our sister will prevail, and she will taste you as she is meant to. Your body will be her vessel.”
“There has to be another way,” Damien said. “There has to be something we can do.”
“There is only one thing you can do for me, heretic,” Marivean replied, glaring at him. “Die.”
The pistol in Damien’s hand suddenly flew from his grip. An instant later he followed it, flipping across the room like a leaf caught in a storm. He slammed into a nearby cubicle and knocked over the wall. Pain seemed to spike through his entire body at once, and it felt as if he were being crushed alive—
“No!” Sariel screamed. Damien felt some of the pain abate, and the invisible grip that had wrapped around him released.
Marivean’s eyes flicked between them and he smiled again. “Protect him if you wish, but you know it is pointless. Every time you call upon my sister, she becomes stronger. Summon her enough and she will take full control and purge the heretic from you.”
Sariel’s entire body seemed to tremble. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want this thing out of me.”
“Then come with me, and no one else will be harmed,” he offered. “All we have ever wanted is you. I care nothing about these Asurans or even the heretics. You must return home with us.”
“And if I do that, you’ll call off the rest of your forces?”
“They will surrender to the authorities,” he said. “And we shall be on our way.”
Damien looked at her. She couldn’t possibly be considering this. She couldn’t possibly believe he was telling the truth. Even if he did miraculously let the rest of them go and leave Solace, he would drag her to the temple in Louvette and burn her alive.
“Fine,” she said, and the glow around her skin faded. “Let them all go, and I surrender.”
***
“The police will be here any minute,” Stanson said through clenched teeth as he ducked behind the remains of the wall that was giving them cover. “We could withdraw.”
“No,” Kronn murmured, leaning around the corner and firing off another series of shots. The room was filled with so much smoke and flaming rubble even his vision-enhancing visor was having trouble picking anything out. They had battled up to the second floor, but now they were caught in something of a draw; both sides had plenty of cover and seemed to have expended their grenades and shield projectors. Now it was just a raw firefight, and there was no way they could break it before the authorities showed up. “Not yet, not until we hear something.”
Kronn couldn’t see the man’s face through his helmet, but he knew the expression he was wearing. Nearly half their squad was already dead, and if they didn’t fall back now they would probably all end up in an ESI cell where they would spend the rest of their lives rotting away—or be executed.
He sighed. “All right, give the order. I’ll give you what cover I can, and I probably need at least two others.”
“Sir, we can stay and—”
“Just do it,” Kronn said flatly. “While there’s still time.”
The helmet nodded, and Stanson started to bark out orders through the com. They had all volunteered for this, knowing full well how dangerous it would be. But that didn’t mean any of them wanted to die—and really, they didn’t need to. They had done what they came here to do, and now it was just a matter of whether or not the others could succeed.
Kronn flipped out and fired another barrage. Stanson and the others made their move behind him, blasting their own wild shots and making their way back down the stairwell. The Covenant mercenaries shifted their fire when they figured out what was happening, but at a glance it looked as though all the Asurans made it out cleanly.
Pressing himself in tightly against the wall, Kronn smiled to himself. Even if nothing else came of this, in a week they had managed to take out one of the biggest slaver groups in Solace, destroy an ESI base, and now possibly take out an Angel. The cost had been high, certainly, but it could have been worse.
“We’re making a break for it,” Stanson’s voice came over the com. “You have a minute at most before the cops make it inside.”