United as One

“Sam, talk to me.”

Hearing the strain in my voice, the others around me stop what they’re doing and draw closer. The smiles from our successful experiment with the warship all slowly fade.

“Six . . .” Sam’s voice is pitched just above a whisper. “Six, I think we’re under attack.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THEY LEAVE JUST ENOUGH SLACK IN THE VORON noose so that it doesn’t immediately cut my head off. Instead of executing me, they make Mark hold the rope like a leash. As I crawl forward across the floorboards of Patience Creek, towards the hidden elevator that it took the Mogs all of two minutes to find, I can feel the razor-sharp collar scraping against my throat whenever I fall even a little bit behind.

Worse than those cuts is the pain from the three oily tentacles connecting me to Phiri Dun-Ra. My entire side sizzles like something boiling and caustic is leaking under my skin and spreading through my body. Phiri Dun-Ra walks alongside me as I’m dragged after Mark. She toys with a small ember of purplish fire that floats up from her palm. I can sense that she’s draining me. It feels like stitches being ripped up and pulled loose from somewhere deep inside me. She’s taking my Legacies.

The worst pain, though, is knowing what’s coming.

Death. Destruction. Failure.

“Mark . . . ,” I manage to choke out with a pained breath. “Help me . . . stop them.”

He doesn’t even turn his head. I can see veins of the black ooze pulsing in his neck, and I can sense the Thin Mog, the one who’s got some kind of mind control working on Mark, standing nearby.

Phiri Dun-Ra laughs when she overhears my pleading.

“It is a great honor for Beloved Leader to visit one’s dreams,” she says. She extinguishes the fire in her hand so that she can ruffle Mark’s hair. “This little human, he proved to have a very open mind. He wanted something—something that you were unwilling to give him. He wanted Beloved Leader to restore his little friend. . . .”

Sarah.

Unwilling to give him. My God, I’d have brought Sarah back from the dead in a heartbeat if it was within my power. Did Mark think Setrákus Ra was capable of that? Did they convince him?

Did he bring them Sarah’s body?

I manage to grasp the long part of the noose with one hand. I tug on it, trying to get Mark’s attention.

“You didn’t, Mark,” I growl. “Tell me . . . tell me you didn’t.”

Phiri Dun-Ra titters again. “As if Beloved Leader would squander such a gift on a mere human. No, your friend had second thoughts. But by then, it was already too late. We knew where to find him. We were forced to interrupt his mourning.”

Paradise. They tracked Mark to Paradise. Setrákus Ra broke into his dreams and manipulated him, just like he tried to do to Marina and Five, then captured him when Mark came to his senses. I assumed that I had thought of everyone Setrákus Ra could’ve gotten to, but I’d completely forgotten about Mark. “It wasn’t hard for us to get your location from him,” Phiri continues. “Our little human does whatever we ask.”

I watch Mark’s hand shake on the noose. His knuckles are a vivid white. His muscles are rigid. He’s struggling against their control, but to no avail.

“We’ll make you like him soon,” Phiri tells me, and I notice the Thin Mog wet his lips in anticipation. “But first I want you all to myself.”

One of Phiri’s tentacles twists inside me, pain shoots through my core and I collapse over onto my side. They let me lie there for a moment, gasping for breath.

With bleary eyes, I try to take in how many of them there are.

The front room of Patience Creek is packed with blaster-toting vatborn. In one corner, they’ve piled the bodies of the soldiers who were guarding the surface level. From the looks of them, they died quickly and savagely.

Besides Phiri Dun-Ra, I make out three other augmented trueborn.

There’s the Thin Mog. The one exerting control over Mark. He stands nearby, watching Mark closely, his spidery hands clasped behind his back. If I want to save Mark, I’m going to have to take him out.

Then there’s the Shadow Mog. He’s younger, maybe only a few years older than Adam. As I watch, he steps out of a shadow like it’s a pool of water, rising straight up through the floor. He brings with him a couple more Mog warriors. He’s how they teleported in without being seen.

“Join the team at their cave entrance. No one gets out alive,” Phiri orders, and the Shadow Mog disappears back into the floor. The fact that she’s using English isn’t lost on me. Phiri Dun-Ra wants me to know that there’s another squadron positioned at Patience Creek’s vehicle entrance. She wants me to know that everyone down below is trapped.