The Bridge Beyond Her World (The Boy and the Beast Book 2) (13 page)

Passing through the gate, Karience led Winter through rows and rows of lift tubes jutting from the ground like stalagmites, only they were made of human-formed crystals. Most of the crystal lift tubes glowed yellow as people entered them in order to be taken below ground.

“They’re beautiful,” said Winter. “Do they take us underneath the city?”

“They take us
to
the city,” said Karience. “What you see above ground is only a fraction of the whole.”

They found on the third row a violet, bluish crystal unoccupied. The door slid away and as she and Winter stepped through, the color morphed to a yellow hue. Karience set her screen on a port pedestal, and the lift shut.

“That device will read the information on our screen, and take us to the port closest to our destination.” The hum of the crystal lift was calming, and the movement was not rough, like the less sophisticated lifts built on Loam and other new worlds. This had taken several hundred years of tunneling and crystal formation. One could tell a lot about the people of a world by their construction, thought Karience. Those on Bridge were a patient community.

“Do you have any reservations about meeting the Consecrator?” Karience asked, staring at the pleasant crystalline light pulsing from the wall in front of them. Winter’s silence seemed to indicate she did have reservations. Karience turned toward her and gently put a hand on her shoulder. Winter’s face was stern, her lips spread slightly apart, eyes staring forward.

“You look concerned,” said Karience. “Are you alright?”

Winter remained unresponsive. Her silence was beginning to disturb Karience more deeply than it ought. Winter was still a mystery to her. She was an Oracle, and her stories of the visions both fascinated and frightened her. It was then Karience noticed Winter’s hand clutching the jar beneath her cloak.

Karience couldn’t keep the concern out of her voice. “Are you having a vision?”

Winter’s head turned slowly to face her.

“Someone is hunting us.”

A chill ran up Karience’s neck, and then every hair on her body stood on end. “What are you talking about?” she demanded.

Winter slowly shook her head, her focus seemingly lost in another world.

Karience tried to remain calm, rational. “Who would be hunting us?”

The girl gave no response.

Karience stared at her. Winter’s mouth moved, as if speaking words, but not for her to hear. A prayer perhaps. Karience tried to calm herself with controlled breaths. Was this really happening? Visions weren’t really possible, were they? She gravitated toward the thought as she desperately tried to rescue herself from the terrifying words Winter had loosed.

Someone is hunting us.

Some half-rational hope existed, wanting to believe the young woman before her was delusional. Psychotic. But then, that same rational self told her there was enough circumstantial evidence to warrant belief. The Guardians wanted her for a reason. They believed she was god-touched.

The quiet hum of the lift stopped.

“Are they out there?” asked Karience, staring at the lift door. “Are they?! Answer me!”

Karience tensed, and glared at Winter. Was this all madness? The lift door began to open. Karience pressed herself against the back wall. The yellow crystalline glow that had been so beautiful now pulsed crimson red, signaling for them to exit. Karience locked her eyes on the darkened opening, the vein pounding in her neck felt ready to burst.

“Follow me,” said Winter, moving toward the open door.

Karience obeyed, grabbing the screen off the port before moving behind her, as if Winter were a shield. Outside the lift, a scant luminosity lit a large cavern. Winter beckoned her forward. “I see something. Come.”

Inside the cavern was a droning electrical hum. A moving platform ran the length of the cavern, one side of it orange, the other green. Karience saw the shadowed outline of a person speed by on the orange mover, then disappear into a cut tunnel in the far wall of the cavern.

“What do you see?” asked Karience, moving close behind Winter.

The girl didn’t answer. Again her hand gripped the vile around her neck, eyes staring blindly forward.

Karience looked around. She didn’t see anyone now, the mover was empty—its constant echo resounding faintly off the curved cavern roof. None of the underground had windows, only dark openings on the side of the walls that led to rooms and passageways in the rock. Dim lights illuminated each entryway. None of the openings appeared to be occupied.

Karience scanned the shadowy outlines around her. She glanced at the screen in her hand for direction. It indicated that they should take the green moving platform. She looked up again, scanning the hazy openings. Her eye caught the faintest grey shadow of a figure, barely visible in the haze of an unlit entryway.

Immediately the figure stepped out, as if it sensed being seen and began walking toward them.

“Quick,” said Karience, as the figure moved closer. “Onto the mover.”

“No,” said Winter, tugging her arm. “Here.”

Karience followed her to the rock wall, not daring to counter the girl. She was an Oracle, right? The gods were protecting her, giving her direction on how to escape their pursuer.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m not sure,” said Winter, passing through one of the entryways into the rock. “There’s a room in here. A man I need to find.”

Karience took a stick off a hook at the mouth of the cave and shook it. The stick warmed with light, and she held it out before them. She could not see, or sense, where the person who appeared to be following them had moved to, but she knew he was there, behind them, in the dark.

“That helps,” said Winter.

Beyond the entryway, there was only the blackness of the tunnels. That was one thing she hated about Bridge. The vast darkness that lay between your starting point, and where you wanted to go, with only handheld lights to guide you.

But on Bridge, the tunnels were unavoidable.

CHAPTER 14

WINTER

Winter saw the room clearly in her mind. A hollowed out hole in the rock where three men were talking. She knew once she found the room, two of the men would try to kill her. She had to find that room. Because there was a weapon inside that Karience knew how to use. And a man that could help.

Glancing behind them, Winter saw how the darkness of the tunnel swallowed everything. The light Karience had grabbed pushed the darkness forward with every step, but beyond the edge of grey light, it was as black as what lay behind.

The dark outline of a room passed on the right. They moved forward. Another passed on the left. The room she was looking for had a light in it, but Winter realized she had no idea where the room was, if it was connected to this tunnel, or a tunnel on the other side of the world. All she had seen were the images. After that, she simply had followed gut instinct.

“Wait. Hold on,” said Karience. “I think we’ve lost them. I don’t see any light behind us.”

Winter stopped, though she felt a deep urge to keep moving. The echo of their footsteps faded, and then there was complete silence. She glanced back at the rim of light, then Karience cupped it in her fingers.

Everything went dark. Only Karience's fingers glowed reddish orange, like a heart with a soul smoldering inside.

A sound cut through the darkness. The scuff of feet coming toward them. But there was no light. The scraping grew louder. Closer. Winter reached out for Karience and grasped her arm.

“We’ve got to go!” said Winter, and her words resounded like a crash, echoing loudly off the walls.

Suddenly, Karience uncupped her light. The moment she did, the razor sharp line of light and dark reappeared, but stepping into the light was a man, hair matted, face unshaven. Something covered his eyes. Whatever it was, Winter knew instinctively it gave him sight in the darkness.

Without a word, she and Karience were running. The walls pounded with the sound of their feet, the deafening sound made it impossible to gauge how close the man was now.

She knew he was close enough that she dared not look back.

Another dark shadowed entryway passed on their left, then up ahead, a soft glow emanated from an opening on the right.

“There!” shouted Winter, cutting in front of Karience. “Inside!”

Winter burst into the room. The three men were seated at a rectangular table. Their heads turned toward her, surprised at her sudden appearance. She jumped on the table, then ran across its top, before jumping down off the other side. The object she’d seen in her vision lay on top of a wooden crate. She grabbed it, then spun.

“Karience!” she shouted, and threw the weapon across the table where the men were still seated. One of the men reached up to try and intercept the object. Karience caught it awkwardly, just as their pursuer entered the room. He ripped off the device covering his eyes and lunged at Karience.

A loud crack sounded as lighting shot from the weapon in Karience’s hands. The white-hot light struck the man, licking like a hundred blinding tongues in and through his chest and stomach. A moment later, the man fell to the ground, his hair burning brightly, illuminating the dingy space.

Silence descended upon the room.

The reek of burning flesh was horrendous. Wisps of smoke wafted from the man’s gaping mouth. His rigid face looked frozen on the verge of a scream stolen by death.

The three men at the table stared at Karience, faces pale.

Karience looked as if she were about to collapse, her breaths short and shaky.

Finally, one of the men spoke. “I’m security officer 3951. Please put the weapon down.”

Slowly, the man stood, hands calmly raised, trying to reassure her. He wore the uniform of a security officer. It was the same uniform as the men she’d seen at the security checkpoints.

Karience nodded, beginning to bend toward the ground.

“Don’t listen!” said Winter sharply. “Keep it in your hands.”

Karience bolted up, but shook her head. “He’s a security officer. We can trust him.”

The three men at the table wore exactly what she’d seen in her vision: the attire of those who had stood at the security checkpoints they’d passed through. But it didn’t matter.

“You give him the gun, he’ll kill us.”

A second man raised his hands as if to bring calm. “We are not going to harm you. If this man was chasing you, you are justified by our laws to use self-defense. Just put the weapon down.”

Karience looked at Winter.

She stared intensely at Karience. “If they get any closer, use that thing on them.”

“Do not threaten us,” said the first man, turning toward Winter. He glanced at his partner, then at the other man who hadn’t spoken. “We can help you. Your superior wants to do what she knows is right.” He turned back to Karience. “I see by your sigil you are an Empyrean. Why are you letting this Emissary give you orders?”

Karience appeared at a loss for words. Still in shock.

The man took a step forward and held out his hand. “Please, you’re safe now. Just be reasonable.”

“I can’t,” said Karience finally. “I have to listen to her.”

The man took another step. “This belligerence could get you stripped of your rank. You are threatening a security officer.”

Winter watched the man step closer and closer to Karience, but she didn’t notice the second man until too late. He had come up nearly beside her.

His hand shot out, and Winter screamed.

“Quiet!” he shouted.

Winter felt herself lifted from the ground, one arm pinned, but the other free to yank on her attacker’s hair. In a brief glance, she found to her horror that Karience had been distracted by the commotion, and was fighting the man for the weapon.

“Kill her! Kill the Oracle!” shouted the man wrestling with Karience.

Winter tore as hard as she could at the man’s hair but he seemed not to care. Suddenly, he twisted on her, and then his arm squeezed around her neck, his bicep pushing like a rock into her windpipe. She clutched weakly at the man’s arms. The sound of the weapon shooting electricity sounded faintly in her ear. She heard a sickening scream. A man’s scream. It was hollow, as if death had already burned his soul from his body.

The man who was strangling her suddenly slackened his chokehold and turned.

It was enough for her to gasp in a breath then shove her palm into the man’s mouth. The blow bent him backwards—and then electricity raked through his body. She felt the energy, every hair standing on end. The man writhed and shook unnaturally—his proximity making the gruesome spectacle all the more horrific. Finally his mouth opened to scream but only smoke came out.

The body collapsed upon the ground, small flames licking through the eye sockets.

Winter turned away from the revolting image and found the weapon in the hands of the man who had not spoken.

Karience stood beside him, a trickle of blood running from her nose.

“Are you alright?” the man asked.

A flood of tears filled Winter’s eyes. She could still feel the tightness of the man’s arm around her neck.