Broken Soul

From the foyer, I heard something slide. We went silent. Eli pointed to the doorway and I handed off two weapons and four mags as I dashed to the far side of the door, taking in the foyer as I moved. A hulking form was pulling itself along the hallway and into the entrance. The smell of his blood told me who it was. I gave Eli the thumbs-up sign, and pointed to me, then to the foyer. “Wrassler,” I said, the word almost silent.

He pocketed the new guns and ammo, nodded, and leaned against the wall, part of his body exposed to anyone in the foyer, his weapon giving me cover. I set down the Judge and dashed out, shoving my hands under Wrassler’s armpits and pulling him, sliding him across the glass-strewn floor. At my side, Brute grabbed Wrassler’s shirt and pulled, his teeth buried in the cloth. He was pulling Wrassler’s left arm, which was practically disconnected from the rest of him.

Back in the cubicle-sized room, I covered the doorway as Eli went into medic mode, cutting off clothing and inspecting Wrassler’s makeshift tourniquets, pulling his own battlefield tourniquets and stretchy bandages from pockets of his gobag. I kept an eye and the Judge aimed on the foyer as I listened to Wrassler’s briefing, his voice a ragged breath of agony.

“They came in fast . . . Fastest . . . thing I ever saw. Dragon, Peregrinus . . . his Devil. Batildis carrying both Leo and Katie. Strong. They took out the gate. Then the air lock.” He stopped and Eli pulled a bottle of water out of a pocket, opened it, and held it up for Wrassler to see.

“Gut wounds?” Eli asked.

“No. I’m good.”

Eli held it to Wrassler’s mouth and the blood-servant drank. I glanced over my shoulder, taking him in fast. He was good? He was missing a right lower leg and his left arm had effectively been amputated, though it was still attached by strings of flesh below the tourniquet. Yeah. He was good. He was damn good. I batted away tears and untied the T-shirt and tossed it to Eli in the dark. “Here. Tie it on him. It’s my dragon tee, the one with a healing spell in the fibers.” Dragon tee. Ironic that a shirt with a dragon on it might save Wrassler from a dragon bite.

I went back to covering the foyer, Wrassler’s Judge steady in my hands, ready to fire.

Eli tied the T-shirt around Wrassler’s thigh, capped the water bottle, and went back to work.

“I was standing in security. Saw it all on-screen. Ordered lockdown. Ordered security to fire at the dragon only. With steel. Ordered our people to hold fire at the Mithrans and the human. And then the shooters rushed in through the gate. Ten shooters.” He swore a long line of fine and detailed curses as Eli tightened the tourniquet below his knee. Sweat was dripping off his jaw and he started shivering. Shock. Not a good sign.

Eli laid Wrassler’s body flat and lifted both thighs onto a chair, then pulled a military-style metallic blanket from his gobag, shook it out, and tucked it around the blood-servant. He pulled his cell phone, looked at the screen, and said, “We’re jammed.”

Wrassler nodded, his breath coming too fast, teeth chattering. “The power grid went down first. Then the generators died, just as something jammed all coms. About two seconds later we were hit . . .” He stopped to breathe.

Eli tucked his cell away. “Why order your guys not to target vamps and humans?”

“They had Leo.” He looked up at me, his pupils wide in a too-pale face. “I gave orders to use only steel on the dragon,” he repeated, his thoughts starting to wander. “That was before the shooters came in.”

I ground my teeth, knowing my friend was dying. Smelling it, tasting it on the air. Not Wrassler. Not Wrassler, I prayed. Not him.

“They went down the hallways first. Taking out everyone they found. It took maybe four seconds. We had dead and dying everywhere. When this floor was clear, they went up the stairs to Leo’s office. I directed everyone there.” Wrassler fell silent but I could hear him breathing, fastfastfast, shallow and desperate for air.

“Four of Derek’s guys were on duty. In seconds, two were dead. Derek showed up then. I don’t know where he came from, but I was never so happy . . .” Wrassler blinked and fell silent.

I looked at Eli, who was frowning at the discrepancy of timelines. No way Derek could have gotten there so quickly. Not without folding time. Or getting caught up in the arcenciel’s magics. Eli frowned harder, putting that ability into any strategy we might develop. He tightened Wrassler’s thigh tourniquet.

Wrassler started in the middle of a different thought. “Derek ordered the rest of his guys to pull back, to take them as they left the office. But Peregrinus knew about the hidden passages and the elevator in the room next to Leo’s office.” The service elevator went down and opened into a room on sub-four, not far from the storage room, just like I thought. Everyone knew about the previously hidden passageways, stairs, and the service elevator, thanks to the local cops who were called in about a death not so long ago, a death on my watch. Reach had access to police reports from when a were–black panther had been murdered in Leo’s office. He knew about the elevator. Therefore Peregrinus knew. My fault. So much was my fault. “Grégoire followed them into the hidden room and took on the Devil. I saw the first moves and Grégoire was bleeding pretty bad.” Wrassler stopped to breathe. “No one ever beat the Devil. Not even Grégoire. And he wasn’t beating her then. He ordered everyone to retreat and regroup.

“I was on the move through the back stairways. I met them on sub-four. Derek was with me. And five more of his guys. Firefight from hell, dude,” he said to Eli. “The dragon went solid and black as night. But it was covered in what looked like metal scales with metallic spikes and spines along the sides and at the tail. The rounds hit it. Crazy loud. Pretty sure it was hurt. It was thrashing. Tail hit me in the arm. Then it picked me up by the leg and shook me. Threw me. So fast. I went down. Derek pulled me back and stuffed me into the small elevator to take me back up. I don’t know what happened then. But . . . guessing they headed down. I made it up to Leo’s office on the last generator power before it died too.”

“So you crawled down here,” Eli said, “hoping to get coms and call for backup. Cells are damaged. House lines are down. I’m thinking EM interference.”

I nodded to show I’d heard. “Who’s manning security?” I asked. The hallway floor lights were on now so the security system was working, even if coms were down or jammed.