Dire Destiny of Ours (7 page)

The leader narrowed his gaze and spoke.

Nightliss turned to me. "They want to know why we were out there."

I grasped at the first thing that came to mind. "We're lovers. Tell them we went out there on a bet to do the deed."

A look of horror crossed Nightliss's face. She took a breath and translated. Her cheeks turned bright red as the soldiers broke into laughter and made universally rude gestures. The leader didn't laugh. He asked a few more questions which Nightliss handled without asking me for advice. I just hoped she knew how to fib as well as I did.

We stood just outside what looked like a maze of towering buildings much like the skyscrapers on Eden. The designs here curved and spiraled in ways that looked impossible by nom standards. The only detraction was the homogenous dark purple material. I had a strong suspicion the Darklings relied heavily on channeling Murk to create this city.

The leader remained silent for a moment before touching a gem on the collar of his uniform. Ultraviolet light sparked from his fingertip and into the gem. He spoke a few sentences. Another voice replied.

"He's speaking some kind of military jargon I don't understand," Nightliss said. "I think he's contacting a superior."

"Hopefully someone way up the chain." I caught a pair of bystanders gawking at me and wondered if it was due to the fake blood on my shirt, or just my clothes in general. I felt like the one guy dressed in street clothes at a science fiction convention. Civilian attire seemed to consist of dark skin-tight uniforms with very moderate variation in colors. "Why does everyone look so grim?"

Nightliss looked at the gathering crowd of citizens. "I imagine centuries of oppression forged this society. If Brightlings truly control much of Seraphina, the Darkling nation is but a speck in the grand scheme of things."

I leaned on her as if I needed her support to continue the fiction of my wound. "I'd bet every person here learns to fight from birth."

She nodded. "It would stand to reason."

The squad leader barked a command. The soldiers pushed us forward.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

Nightliss repeated my question in Cyrinthian. The leader replied. Nightliss gave me a troubled look. "We're going to the Intelligence Ministry."

I didn't like the sound of that. "The Darkling version of the CIA?"

She gave me a confused look. "I'm not familiar with that term."

I clarified. "A spy agency."

"It would appear so."

A finger of mist from a cloudbank above touched a grassy patch of land between two of the towering buildings. The soldiers corralled us into the alcove. The leader sent a charge of Murk into the mist. Clouds billowed beneath our feet and shot us into the sky so quickly I hollered with alarm. The soldiers looked at me as if I was an idiot. One of them motioned at me as he spoke to Nightliss.

She gave me an apologetic look. "He said you looked as if you'd never used a skyway before."

"Tell them it hurt my injury." I didn't want them knowing this was only my second time riding a skyway.

Nightliss relayed the message.

The skyway carried us just high enough to skim the tops of the buildings. I spotted dozens of patrols in the streets below, though, soldiers perhaps, or maybe ordinary citizens. The clothing was hard to tell apart from this distance. A building of massive proportions in the center of the city seemed to be our destination. It looked as if someone had taken a cylinder, slightly flattened it, and twisted it into a spiral. Crystalline spikes protruded along the edges. Arcs of ultraviolet electricity ran up the spikes like something from a mad scientist's lab.

My apprehension grew stronger and stronger as we neared the building. What if they locked us away and I never had a chance to speak with a real decision maker? We might end up thrown into a dungeon and forgotten about while Elyssa died and Daelissa rampaged across Eden with her new troops.

Overpowering the soldiers and making a run for it seemed like a better idea every passing second. Unfortunately, I didn't know if we could commandeer the skyway to take us elsewhere or if it would deliver us to our destination first.

We passed over a wall of skyscrapers to an area clear of all other buildings except for the ministry building and, to my disbelief, giant pyramids resembling something straight out of Egypt. Eyes engraved on all sides of the top third of each pyramid stood sentinel, their outlines blazing with ultraviolet light as the top section rotated like the lamp in a lighthouse. I had no idea what they did, but knew for certain I didn't want to find out the hard way.

Platoons of soldiers marched along wide pathways between the pyramids. Some of the groups fragmented into smaller squads and walked through a flowing sheet of mist that outlined the large square plaza around the ministry building.

Our cloudbank broke from the skyway and abruptly descended at an alarming rate. I managed to hide my fear with a grimace and pressed my hands over the fake injury. We reached the ground just in front of the flowing sheet of mist.

One soldier led Nightliss through to the other side. Another took my arm and walked me through. There was a tingling sensation. The mist faded to light gray and a basso note ruptured the air. I hardly had time to be surprised before every soldier in the platoon was on top of me.

I caught a look of horror from Nightliss. "Justin, they said the mist identified you as a Brightling!"

Judging from the looks on my captors' faces, they were about to make my fake injury very real indeed.

The soldiers whisked me and Nightliss toward the ministry building. As we neared the structure, I realized it also had a sheet of mist guarding the doorless entrance. The minute I passed through it, a stain of white spread across the mist as if someone had thrown a can of paint on it. A high-pitched alarm wailed briefly before a guard near the entrance sent a burst of Murk into a nearby gem and silenced it.

"I'm not your enemy!" I struggled in the grip of my captors. "I swear I love puppies and kittens."

They didn't even glance at me.

The hallways had a slight curve to them probably due to the odd shape of the building. We reached an intersecting corridor. The group of soldiers guarding me took a left while the ones with Nightliss took a right.

"Justin!" she called out before vanishing down the corridor.

I had a feeling things would only get worse from here. After all, they thought I was a Brightling. They thought I was an enemy spy attempting to infiltrate their city. It was time to get out of this mess.

The cord of Murk around my wrists was a problem. Thankfully, Elyssa had taught me a few ninja tactics to get out of certain situations. I flattened the palms of my hands against each other to brace my arms and tucked my elbows to my sides. The guards at my sides snuggled up to me as I'd hoped. I thrust my elbows hard into their sides. Before they could react, I delivered a crushing roundhouse to the first, turned to the other and head-butted him hard enough to send him crashing against the guard behind him.

I ducked beneath a punch from another guard. Bracing my hands against the floor, I swept my leg beneath his. His back slammed to the floor. I lifted my foot and brought it down hard on his head. He grunted and went still.

Three guards remained. Each one drew black steel, or whatever their swords were made of. A tall seraph held his sword high and brought it down as if to slice my skull in half. I took a gamble and thrust my arms up so the Murk binding my wrists met the blade. Ultraviolet sparks exploded from the impact. The aether rope arrested the swing of the sword just before snapping and vanishing in a puff.

Wrists free, I slapped the sword aside. I blurred forward and gripped the sword hilt. Before the surprised guard could react, I planted a foot in his abdomen and pushed him away. I spun and threw up my newly acquired sword in time to intercept a sword strike from the female guard. Her male companion circled me in a flanking maneuver. Before he completed the move, I charged him.

He threw up his sword. I batted it aside and slammed the flat of my blade on his wrist. His scream of pain echoed in my ears as he dropped his weapon. I rushed forward, buried my shoulder in his chest. He slammed into the wall. A crack ran up the material. I backed away and let him topple forward onto the floor.

The woman—the sera—said something in a frightened but determined tone of voice. I looked at her, bared my teeth, and said, "Take me to your friggin leader, lady."

She, of course, didn't understand me any better than I understood her and directed a flurry of attacks at me. She was supernaturally fast, but I was hyped up on human soul essence, the equivalent of angel steroids, and easily blocked her strikes. I disarmed her with a quick flick of my wrist. Fear shone in her eyes. I put the point of my sword to her neck and resisted the desire to say something witty. Anything I said would be lost on her thanks to my awful Cyrinthian.

A light bulb pinged on in my head. I took out Nookli and turned on the Cyrinthian translator app while my prisoner looked at it with a mix of curiosity and dread. I flicked through the settings and activated a feature that sent sound directly to the user's ear. I didn't see an option to send it to everyone and hoped a voice command would do the trick. "Nookli, transmit all audio directly to the ears of those nearby." I expected my phone to reply with at least one reference to an Indian restaurant, but apparently, it knew I was all business right now.

"Translated audio will be broadcast to the auditory sensors of nearby entities," Nookli said. Whoever had programmed that app had obviously earned a degree in nerdology.

I put the phone back into my pocket and spoke. "Where did they take my friend?"

After a brief pause, a startled look entered the sera's eyes. She spoke in Cyrinthian. A split second later, a slightly robotic voice sounded in my ear. "Your friend in the holding cell is. Taken grass not far away."

I cringed at the awful translation, but it was better than nothing. Keeping my words as plain as possible, I said, "I am not a Brightling."

The sera narrowed her eyes at me and replied. "Security gracious nuts barrier otherwise says."

I blinked a couple times and wondered what mistranslated words equaled gracious nuts. "Lead me to my friend." I pointed the sword down the hallway.

Her lip peeled back in a sneer. "A song of justice to be mishandled I am not, beggar of destruction."

By now, I was ignoring the Cyrinthian she spoke and focusing on the translation instead. She'd obviously used an idiom because it didn't make a lick of sense to me. Instead of talking, I simply gripped her by her uniform and shoved her down the hall. "Lead the way, song of justice."

She muttered something and moved forward. By the time we reached the intersection where they'd split off with Nightliss, I realized the sera's help wasn't really necessary to find the holding cell in question, namely due to the contingent of guards standing near a doorway a few feet into the hall.

My prisoner cried out. I sighed and clunked her on the head. She dropped to the floor as six guards came my way. They held their swords in a similar fashion to Brightling soldiers, arms extended, blade diagonal to the floor. The stance was a median between aggressive and defensive. I visualized the quickest way to take them all down.

They stood two abreast. The corridor was wide enough for three bodies if swinging swords weren't involved. That meant I had a slight bottleneck to work with. Unless these guards were significantly better with steel than their unconscious compatriots, putting them out of commission shouldn't be too difficult.

Even so, I tried a little diplomacy first. "Your comrades are unconscious. Free my friend and we will leave peacefully."

Looks of shock passed over their faces as my phone transmitted the translation to their ears. The first two guards looked at each other with confusion.

The one on the left spoke. "A Brightling claims a Darkling as friend?"

I nodded. "She is one of my dearest friends."

"Used her to gain entrance you did," he shot back.

"Free her now, please." I put on a fierce scowl. "I won't ask again."

"There is no in the dark sugar bowl!" Even the robotic translation voice seemed befuddled by whatever the guard said.

Unfortunately, the time for translating was over. The guards charged. The first one made a chopping motion with his sword. I intercepted his wrist. Bent it back with a quick flick and heard bones crunch. He cried out and dropped the weapon. I spun him around and used him as a meat shield. His companions held back, unwilling to risk his life. I shoved him forward into the second guard, sending them crashing into a heap. Before they could recover, I thwacked them both in the head with the hilt of my sword and sent them to dreamland.