"Yeah," Elyssa said with a roll of her eyes. "A bucket."
Flava removed the helmet from the flier I'd knocked out and gasped. "It's Tryphiss!"
I grimaced as I looked upon the face of a youthful looking sera, head shaved and marred by the scar across her temple, a white gem gleaming dully from the right eye socket.
"Now we know what happened to her," Nailan said grimly. "She's been turned into one of these creatures."
"Creatures or not, they are our people," Flava said. "They were citizens we swore to protect."
"We've failed them," Philas said in a miserable voice.
"You're a gifted healer, Flava." I put a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe we can take Tryphiss with us and see if she can be fixed."
"Bring them all," Nailan said. "Otherwise they may return to their new master."
Elyssa looked at the unconscious Seraphim doubtfully. "Do you have a holding facility?"
Nailan nodded. "We can contrive something. I don't want to leave them at the tender mercy of Cephus." He spat the name. "There must be something we can do."
"Quickly, then," Elyssa said. She shot lancer darts into the still forms that didn't already have one. "Those will keep them asleep."
Joss and the others fitted the stolen aether packs to their backs, eyes widening as they felt the power coursing through them. Hefting the stricken Seraphim, we headed south.
When we reached the cave base, Nailan secured all the prisoners but Tryphiss. Flava laid her on a table and placed her hands on the sera's temples. After a long moment of concentration, she grimaced and pulled away.
"These white gems are similar to the prisms you gave us for channeling Brilliance," she said.
"They must not work as well," I told her. "Otherwise I think the mutants would have used destruction to fight me."
"I agree." She ran a finger across the pink scar on the sera's head. "Cephus implanted something here. I believe it's what grants him control."
Just thinking about it gave me the heebie-jeebies. "I thought Seraphim were all about magic and not wetware."
The last word didn't translate well into Cyrinthian, leaving a puzzled look on Flava's face. "I cannot fathom what he might have used. The Ministry of Research was often the focus of controversial projects."
"I've seen them firsthand." Nightliss's bruised and battered body sprang to mind before I could stop myself from flashing back to her rescue from the ministry. "Is it possible to reopen the wound?"
"That is not something I dare start now, only hours before the attack," Flava replied. "I need to do a deeper scan and that will take hours."
"We don't want your attention split now," Elyssa said. "Whatever Cephus did can hopefully be reversed."
"You were right about not waiting for another legion to arrive," Flava said to Elyssa. "Even if we win, there will be hundreds of citizens affected by Cephus's monstrous violations."
The gut full of guilt I'd carried around since the crystoid incident grew even heavier. "I should have stopped him right after I rescued Nightliss. I had the entire legion with me."
"You needed me to heal Elyssa," Flava said. "It was imperative we reach her immediately."
"I could have sent you ahead and remained behind with Ketiss." I pounded the flat of a fist against the wall. "If only I'd done it right then. We could have saved thousands of lives."
Elyssa crossed her arms. "To quote the great Harry Shelton, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all be farting fairies."
"Isn't it 'fat as pigs'?" I said.
"Not according to Shelton." She looked at the stricken sera on the table. "You did what you thought was right at the time, Justin. As much as you wish you were a military genius or all-powerful, you're not. I understand that and Nightliss did too."
Flava looked down. "I am sorry for blaming you for everything, Justin." Her gaze wandered up to meet mine. "The only fault lies with Cephus. I am weighing you with guilt that is not yours."
Her words and Elyssa's lightened the load a little. Nightliss was gone and Tarissa all but destroyed, but nothing I did now could change the past—only the future. I would do everything in my power to ensure a beautiful future for Seraphina, or die trying.
Night arrived and it was time to leave. Since the only reliable way to measure time in the no-magic zone was with mine and Elyssa's arcphones, I hesitantly gave Nookli over to Philas so he'd know the precise time to start his attacks.
"Why couldn't you give him your phone?" I asked Elyssa after he left with his group.
"I have the battle plans on mine." She smiled reassuringly as she double-checked her Nightingale armor for any damage. "I'm sure you'll get Nookli back."
We joined the others. Flava wore Tryphiss's armor but without the helmet since she said it hindered her vision. A group of Nailan's people had already left for the east to stage diversions. Nailan came with us, his people carrying the two crucibles I'd filled with Stasis in black webbing.
I took all the aether packs with me on a rocket stick ride and flicked on my incubus vision. Sure enough, once I achieved line of sight with the ultraviolet pimple in the city center, thin aether beams speared into them, and hopefully charging them to full. Since Cephus's evil minions hadn't thought to put a battery gauge on the side, I tested each by touching the crystal prongs and sensing the energy bursting across my senses.
Man, this aether beam works fast.
Back on the ground again, I rejoined the others and handed out the packs. Flava's eyes glowed purple when she affixed one to her back. "Now we have a chance," she murmured.
"We always had a chance," I countered. "This just gives us more opportunity to hand out some ass-whoopings."
"I thought we agreed to harm the fliers as little as possible," Nailan said.
I shrugged. "Just a figure of speech. Hopefully, Cephus will call most of them to guard the other crystoid."
We reached the staging area, a building shaped like a nightmare-sized tornado. I didn't see how it remained standing with such a narrow base and wide top. We were less than a block from the western buildings flattened by the crystoid, and about ten blocks from the crystoid itself, though measuring in blocks seemed pointless since only rubble remained ahead.
Nailan conferred with his scouts, concern etched in his forehead. Not the word "concern", but the facial expression.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"We expected more patrols," he said. "We avoided only four ground and three air patrols."
I hadn't seen any ground patrols since the scouts expertly led us safely past them, but I had seen the fliers. "We zigzagged a lot. Maybe we just got lucky."
He didn't look convinced. "It's likely they've concentrated most of their troops at the crystoid." Nailan whispered commands to two seraphs and they melted away into the night.
Elyssa checked the time. "Fifteen minutes," she whispered.
Those fifteen minutes stretched into eternity. Seconds after the clock hit three A.M., my super hearing picked up the low rumble of explosions echoing across the city. The others exchanged tense glances. I switched to incubus vision and found the crystoid's aether beam. It seemed massive this close to it—far larger, in fact, than the ones I'd neutralized in Eden.
"There they go," Elyssa whispered excitedly and pointed to ultraviolet wings streaking across the sky and to the east.
"I count at least forty," Nailan said.
I tried to count, but even with my enhanced vision, they were too far away and moving too fast for me to clearly pick out each flier.
Nailan noticed me squinting. "Approximating the number of enemies is a talent every scout must cultivate."
"I'm glad we have you," I admitted.
Nailan's scouts flowed from the darkness several minutes later. "Thirty Void soldiers and ten Void fliers remain," one reported.
"Now the odds are in our favor," Flava said.
Elyssa gazed at the twinkling lights vanishing into the horizon. "The fliers need another few minutes to get far enough away."
I turned to Nailan. "Is stealth an option for taking down any of the remaining guards?"
One of the scouts answered. "They are too tightly spaced around the impact crater and there are no lone patrols."
"Why is it always like that?" I muttered. In the movies, there were tons of stupid bad guys who patrolled all by themselves, only to be taken down one by one. "Just one time, I'd like to take out the guy at the back of a patrol and jerk him out of sight so fast, the others don't even realize he's gone."
Elyssa patted my shoulder. "Justin, you're an incubus, not a ninja."
"One day, Ninjette," I replied, using the nickname her brother Michael preferred for her. "One day."
She checked the sky, and the time on her phone. "It's time. Justin, get ready."
I unsheathed the rocket stick and flicked out the seat and fins. Nailan tied the webbing holding the crucibles to the bottom.
"Remember to hurl the crucibles as hard as you can," he said. "They look fragile, but they require sufficient velocity to break on impact."
"I'm familiar with them," I assured him. "Good luck."
"May the Creator see you through, Destroyer," Nailan replied.
"That's something I never expected to hear," I murmured to myself.
Elyssa pulled me in for a long kiss. "I love you. Be careful."
I pecked her nose. "Love you too, honey-boo bear."
She sighed. "I'm so happy no one else here understands that."
Chuckling, I hopped on the rocket stick. "I'll be sure to include affectionate lingo in their next English lesson." With a twist of the handle, I guided the rocket stick up along the side of the vortex building until I crested the top. There was no roof, only a dark hole through the center. Like my previous visit to Tarissa, I didn't understand how people actually utilized these buildings. Did Seraphim have nine-to-five jobs like humans, or did they spend all their time being magnificent?
In a city where furniture and other items could be created magically, and where the bathrooms magically disposed of waste, it didn't seem there was much opportunity for making money.
Hovering over the dark pit, I eased my way to the other side of the building so I could peek over the edge. When I saw the target, the breath caught in my throat. "That thing is huge!" Glowing malevolently, the crystoid resembled a spiky sphere, crystal shards protruding from all angles. Those on top angled straight up toward the sky portal. As Nailan had reported during our planning sessions, rubble surrounded the meteor on all sides, blocking the view from those on the ground.
It was why he hadn't known how big this thing was. The crystal meteors that hit Eden had started small and grown as they soaked up aether. The largest I'd seen had been the size of an elephant.
This one was the size of a herd.
Measuring at least twenty yards in diameter, it dwarfed anything I could have imagined. Neutralizing even the regular crystoids was no mean feat. The smallest of those had nearly jerked me off my feet and sucked me dry.
Though I'd filled the crucibles full to bursting with Stasis, they'd do almost nothing to this monstrosity. Hell, it might take several of us channeling Stasis to stand a chance of neutralizing it.
This required a complete change in tactics. Simply flying overhead and bombing the crystoid would do almost nothing. I had to warn the others so we could reevaluate the plan. I dove for the ground, hoping to intercept Elyssa before they reached the enemy lines. I'd barely started my dive when flashes of energy lanced through the night. Our people had engaged the enemy.
I was too late.
Glowing white spheres shot high into the air from the enemy positions, lighting the battlefield. More glow balls launched from the tops of surrounding buildings until it was bright as day. That was when I saw what waited at the tops of the other tall buildings around the impact zone. Shiny black armor gleamed. Ultraviolet wings blazed. Dozens of Void fliers launched from the rooftops toward my unsuspecting companions.
Cephus had anticipated this attack from the start and staged everything. He knew Nailan and his scouts had no way to climb the buildings without being spotted by patrols. Even I hadn't seen the enemy lurking in the darkness.
"War is fought in three-dimensions," Elyssa's father, Thomas Borathen, once told me. "When anticipating attack, never forget to look up and down."
We hadn't looked up.
Thomas hadn't raised a fool. I saw Elyssa leading a retreat inside the vortex building. She already knew this mission had gone sideways, probably from the moment the lights went on. I ducked back behind the lip of the vortex building, using the hollow center to hide in. The Void fliers glided to the ground, apparently unaware of me.
Cephus's ground troops marched from their positions and joined the other units that now surrounded the building. A platform supported by the shoulders of four fliers descended from another building, bearing a seraph that made me see red.
My hands clenched so tightly around the rocket stick, I felt the metal start to warp.
A tall seraph with a flowing black cape embroidered with the Void symbol smiled confidently as his chariot drifted just above the heads of his soldiers. Cephus ran a hand through his pitch black hair, combed down in the Roman style and spoke. "My dear rebels, this fight has gone on too long. You may have the help of the Destroyer, but as you see, it was not enough." His voice boomed, apparently amplified by the gem on the collar of his cape.
I heard Flava shouting back at him. "The Destroyer will make you eat those words, usurper!"
"Justin, my friend, stop cowering and come outside." Cephus waved his hand in a sweeping gesture. "Join me in my quest to rid this world and all worlds of their petty religions. Let us reveal the truth and lead all the realms into an age of enlightenment."
He sounded so damned reasonable, I almost wanted to join him.
Flava returned verbal fire. "You spout nothing but lies, Cephus! You mean to kill us all."
"Most of you, yes," Cephus said. "I will, however, spare Justin and any he vouches for. I want him by my side when the truth is unleashed upon all the realms."