Dire Destiny of Ours (4 page)

I directed our carpet to the left to avoid attacks from the other two Seraphim. The angel in blue wore a confident smile on his face as he angled his sword toward me. I wasn't feeling a hundred percent, but I wasn't helpless either. I shot a tendril of Murk and latched onto the decorative wing on the side of his helmet and gave it a hard jerk. His helmet twisted sideways and he lurched forward as my tug pulled him off balance. The sword speared into the dirt and his companion tripped over it.

I was actually surprised my trick worked. "The armor didn't repel the attack."

Nightliss lanced an ultraviolet beam at the Seraphim in red armor. Her attack crystallized a spot on the breastplate before punching through. The man—the seraph—gurgled and went down.

"Foul Darkling magic!" the seraph in blue armor cried out at us.

I shot him with a beam of Brilliance and knocked him back a few feet. "Here's a whiff of foul Brightling magic, jackass!"

I wanted to finish him off, but saw the rest of the army quickly closing the gap. "Where's Shelton?"

"I don't see him or Bella anywhere," Nightliss said.

A huge explosion erupted in the jungle behind us. I craned my neck and saw flaming boulders rolling through the trees. "That's one of his spells!"

Someone roared. The blue seraph lunged at us with his huge lightning sword. Swinging the carpet like a surfboard on a huge wave, I narrowly avoided the deathblow and sent a wave of Murk at him. He leapt into the air with one beat of his huge wings and avoided my attack.

I wanted desperately to go back for Shelton and Bella, but the enemy forces were almost on top of us. I had a choice to make.
Should I go after my friends, or should I go to the aid of the Templars in the Three Sisters way station?
More explosions rocked the jungle in the direction Shelton had fled.
Please forgive me.
I had to help the Templars and hope Shelton could escape.

"In the name of the Divinity, I, Primarion Arturo, commander of the First Battalion of the Seraphim Empire, will end you!" The blue seraph dove toward us, sword extended.

"In the name of me, Justin Slade, commander of the butt monkey legions," I shouted, "tell Daelissa she can shove it up her fat ass!"

"Yes, into her stinky bottom!" Nightliss said and launched a volley of ultraviolet spheres at Arturo.

The seraph barrel-rolled out of the way. His eyes widened as if suddenly recognizing someone. "How is this possible? You look identical to the Divinity!"

Nightliss didn't have a chance to answer because in that instant we made it into the cave. I saw Arturo pull out of his dive and swoop after us. He pursued us into the dimly lit tunnel only a short distance before coming to a halt. He obviously didn't want to risk chasing us before his army arrived.

I immediately withdrew my arcphone, Nookli, from my pocket and called Shelton. No answer. Ice-cold dread filled my heart. Had I lost two more friends? A surge of anger and grief tore a shout from my throat. I spun the carpet around and angled back toward the cave mouth.

"Justin, what are you doing?" Nightliss sounded scared.

Emotion choked me. "Shelton. Bella." What had I been thinking? Why hadn't I gone to help them instead of people I didn't even know?
Because they're your responsibility.

"You can't save everyone, Justin." Nightliss pressed her head into my back and sniffled.

It wasn't the first time someone had told me that and it wouldn't be the last. Even if I were at full strength, it was too late to race after Shelton and Bella without plowing through an army. "We need to close off this tunnel." The corridor was carved through solid rock and spanned about thirty feet across.

"Even together it would take us too long to collapse it," Nightliss said. "Perhaps the Templars have explosives."

"It's the only way we'll have a chance of defending this place." I whipped the carpet back down the slope and urged it to full speed. We were about two-thirds of the way down when I spotted a group of black-armored figures racing up the tunnel.

"Halt!" the leader of the squad called out.

"I'm Justin Slade." I leaned over to reveal Nightliss. "I have the Clarion with me."

The lead Templar gazed at her. He saluted. "I apologize for a less than cordial reception, but we've lost contact with our people up top." His voice had a heavy Australian accent to it.

I didn't have time to mince words. "They're dead."

"Dead?" a young female shouted. "But Kurt was up there."

The leader looked back at her and turned back to me. "Are you certain?"

"There's an army of Seraphim about to march into this way station." I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder. "We think Daelissa got fresh reinforcements from Seraphina. If you thought the ones we fought at the Grand Nexus were bad, these look even tougher."

"Oh god, not Kurt," the female said. Tears poured down her face and she slumped to her knees. "He just asked me to marry him."

My heart knotted with sorrow.
We've all lost loved ones in this damned war.

"He just told me last night that we never know what day will be our last." She broke into fresh sobs. "And now he's gone."

"Get on your feet, soldier. You're a Templar, not a child." The Templar leader looked mildly embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Clarion. She's a new recruit."

Nightliss leapt from the carpet and helped the woman to her feet. "There is no shame in sorrow. I have shed many a tear over this war and there will be many more to come." She wiped a tear from the woman's face. "You must draw upon your love and strength to fight for his memory. He would want you to survive."

The woman sniffed. "I will do my best, Clarion. Thank you."

I thought of Shelton and Bella again and felt like crying. Now definitely wasn't the time. Just as I'd done many times before, I had to dig deep and push forward. "Do you have anything we can use to seal off this tunnel before the Seraphim reach us?"

"We have emergency protocols in place." The leader motioned at the tunnel. "This entire section is enchanted to implode if need be."

"Then by all means, let's clear this area and do that," I said. "We don't have a lot of time."

As if in answer to my commands, the sounds of hundreds of marching feet echoed down the tunnel.

"Templars, retreat!" the leader shouted.

Nightliss released the weeping female and hopped back on the carpet. Our group took off at top speed down the tunnel. We reached a red line painted on the floor. The Templar leader went to the closest wall and seemed to reach his arm through solid rock. A portion of the wall vanished as he turned off an illusion hiding a wooden panel with five runes carved into it in a circular pattern. At the center of the pattern was the outline of a hand.

He traced each rune with his finger, choosing the next one in no particular order I could detect, and pressed his hand against the outline. "Templar Nelson hereby confirms this order," he said. The runes flashed red. Nelson looked at us. "We should clear out of here."

White light shone from around the bend in the tunnel behind us. Seraphim soldiers appeared, their swords held at the ready. There was a scant fifty yards between them and us.

"How long until—" I hadn't finished my sentence when the rock walls and ceiling on the other side of the red line began to crumble. Rubble showered down along what I estimated to be a thirty-yard span of tunnel. I backed away as boulders and earth began to fill in the tunnel with a tremendous roar.

"This is only the first section," Nelson said. "We have another section we can collapse twenty meters from here."

"Let's go," I shouted over the rumble.

We ran back to another red line.

"This will collapse it all the way back to the other line," Nelson explained as he traced the runes. "Unless they have some heavy earth moving equipment, they won't be making it through anytime soon."

"What about omniarch portals?" I asked.

He shook his head. "We're using portal-blocking statues here."

"Which means we can't escape via omniarch without disabling a portal blocker." I ran through all the alternatives at our disposal. Shelton had warned Thomas about the new army. We could still keep a token force of Templars here to maintain the portal blockade, but what if the Seraphim broke through the collapsed tunnel sections?

"Sir, we're prepared to stay here as long as necessary, but I'm not sure there's much we can do against a force of Seraphim." Nelson looked back at his squad as he jogged alongside my carpet. "We have only thirty more soldiers back in the way station."

"Daelissa must have used the Obsidian Arch near Sydney to transport her army," Nightliss said. "I hope the Australian compound wasn't also attacked."

"Doubtful," I said. "It looks like she just wanted the Alabaster Arch. I also doubt she used the Obsidian Arch near Sydney. A Seraphim army marching across the countryside would've been noticed and reported on the news. I'd bet they used omniarches."

"Either way, they're here," Nelson said. "How should we handle it, sir?"

It felt strange having this older man call me sir, but his tone of voice sounded as though he trusted my decisions. "Set up a perimeter of ASEs to keep watch on the tunnel, the control room, and the way station." By this time, we'd reached the main way station. Looming in the middle of the large cavern stood an Obsidian Arch. It looked large enough to admit a jumbo jet without wings.

A small statue of an obsidian obelisk sat on the floor between the arch columns. Two statues with an asterisk design stood guard against omniarch portals within the way station. Each portal-blocking statue had an effective spherical radius of about three hundred yards. We headed toward a large door in the back wall and entered the control room. It looked virtually identical to the control room at the other way stations, complete with the world map, modulus, rows of numbered arches, and a niche with omniarches. The big difference was the large Alabaster Arch, obsidian with veins of alabaster running through it, sitting in front of the numbered arches.

A statue shaped like an angel sat on the floor beneath the Alabaster Arch to prevent any portals between it and Seraphina from opening. Other statue designs could block portals from different realms, and each one required a musical sequence to toggle them on and off.

Nelson met with all of his Templars and ordered them to distribute a network of ASEs—all-seeing eyes—to record and transmit video back to our primary headquarters beneath Queens Gate. Each of the small, marble-shaped devices could hover in the air and keep discreet watch.

I stared at the arches in the room and pondered how I could best handle this. If we sent away all the Templars, there would nobody here to reactivate the portal-blockers. We could keep a token force here, but it seemed like a waste of manpower given this new Seraphim threat.

Once Nelson was finished giving orders, I motioned him over. "Nightliss and I have to go through the Alabaster Arch to Seraphina. If things go well, we'll be back in less than a week."

He nodded. "We'll hold the line for you, sir."

I almost shook my head to tell him no, but it suddenly occurred to me that this mission was far more than one of mercy. This new Seraphim army looked far stronger and more disciplined than the previous one.
They have flying angels, for crying out loud.
Even if all our revived cupids were ready to fight, that wouldn't be nearly enough. We needed an army with a chance of countering them.

In short, we needed the Darkling nation to help us.

If things were to go well with my request to get help for Elyssa, I planned to broach the subject of an alliance. Now I had to make that my primary mission. I had to put my obligations to this realm, Eden, above my personal desires.

My heart ached as images of Elyssa, Shelton, and Bella flashed through my head. Life would hardly be worth living without them, but just because I felt that way didn't mean I could condemn everyone else to slavery beneath Seraphim rulers.

I nodded. "Contact Thomas Borathen and inform him of the situation. Tell him we need to hold this way station at all costs. Hopefully, I can bring back a Darkling army with me."

Nelson's eyes flashed with hope. "Godspeed, sir. We won't let a single one of those bastards in here unless they walk over our dead bodies."

I placed an arm on his shoulder and looked him in the eye. "I won't let you down." I hoped I could live up to that promise. I walked over to the Alabaster Arch, picked up the portal blocker and gave it to Nelson. "Disable this and turn it back on after we're through. Deactivate it again in two days and each day after for one hour in the morning, and one hour in the evening." I checked my arcphone, Nookli for the time. Overworld timekeeping didn't account for time zones like the noms did. "Do it at ten hundred and eighteen hundred hours."