Vallon ran up through the steepest of tunnels, Gild the Lily pulsing in her head. Her blood. She was the product of her father’s breeding. Bred as a weapon. Her thoughts kept returning to the thousands who died in the tsunami that took out much of the Thai coastal resorts, not to mention other areas around the Indian Ocean.
Her kind had done that.
Maybe her father had done that.
She staggered out of the steepest tunnels into the concrete bunker and stopped. Her breath tore at her lungs and rang in her ears. She used her hand against the wall for balance and fought to keep from getting sick. Her father had done that.
There must have been a reason. There had to have been. But just thinking about it left her weak and she couldn’t afford that. She -reached- for Fi and Jason and the others.
Anise and mint lay ahead and to her left.
The tunnels shuddered around her and she fell, but scrambled up and kept going. Up and to her left. A maze of tunnels, and she no longer knew exactly where she was, but there was no time to attune herself to magnetic north. Besides, the magma, the wrenched folds of the earth, all torqued the earth’s magnetic field around her. Up was the only direction.
She came around a curve scenting Fi’s mint and licorice and stumbled over a body.
No one she knew. The woman lay clad in office attire a few seasons out of date, and filthy. Her limbs were thin, as if she’d been starved for a long time.
But it wasn’t Fi, and a tangle of bodies further up the tunnel drew her gaze. Beyond them, a pillar of light filled the corridor, its brilliance brighter than any she’d seen in flophouse above.
A trap for Gifted, like light to moths, but she needed to understand what it was.
She stepped forward cautiously, picking her way through the fallen crowd. What had happened to them didn’t matter.
Only the light mattered. Only understanding it, feeling its warmth, its comfort. She stepped up to it and outstretched her hand.
“Vallon?”
The croak pulled her back before she went too far, but it took a moment before the man pinned to the wall swam into focus. Jason, lay there between two fallen Gifted. One of them was Fi. He looked up at her and his face was pale as the palest milk tea, his lips almost blue.
“Jason, my god. What’s happened?”
She went to her knees, hauled Fi off of him, and ignored her protests and groans. Her glassy gaze was locked on the pillar.
“Seems I’m not much of a cop.” He gave a weak smile. “One of these idiots stabbed me with a piece of rebar when I dragged him from his bed. Trust a vic to be the one who takes me down. Not even a decent firefight.”
Vallon pulled back the blood-drenched left side of his trench to reveal a gaping round tear in his shirt and a ragged red wound in his chest.
“Oh god.” She yanked his shirt out of his trousers and ripped a length from the hem. Then she wadded it up and handed it to him. “Press down to stop the bleeding.”
“I don’t think that’s going to do it, sweetheart.”
“Save your feeble Bogart impressions for later. Just hold it. I’ve got to do something about this.” She nodded at the scene around them, figuring he probably couldn’t see the pillar.
Jason leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed.
“Damdest thing I ever saw. I got them away from their beds—rooms of them, all laid out like flowers or stars. Didn’t want to come though. Asshole stabbed me, but Fi gave me a hand. We got ‘em going and then we get this far and they just collapse. Fi took me down with her.” He coughed, deep and fluid. Probably a good thing he was upright, otherwise he’d have drowned in his own blood.
“Jason, you have to stay awake.”
His eyes flickered under the lids. “Mmm awake.”
“Jason, you have to stay with me, hear?”
His eyes opened. “I’m here.”
“Good. Now I’m going to try something using that so-called power, but—something might happen.” She didn’t have time to go into the dangers of a pillar he couldn’t even see. “If I don’t wake in five minutes, do something to bring me back. Okay?”
A slow nod. “This is about that light, isn’t it?”
Surprise stopped her from proceeding. “You can see it?”
He closed his eyes again. “Not sure what I see. I’d say a ghost if I didn’t know better. Flickering light.” He went silent a moment. “Go on with ya. I’m here.”
He wasn’t exactly a likely candidate for backup, but she didn’t have much choice. Vallon hunkered down and cautiously turned her gaze toward the pillar and -reached-.
Warm like a bath.
Welcome, like home should be. Welcome and warm like open arms, and it drew her in from her cold place with her transit on a mountain peak, and she was [Within. One-of. Together.]
She could give up her struggle and triangulate and sink into the shimmering warmth, the sheets of color that produced the golden light.
Vallon flowed out.
Vallon flowed down. Down. Down.
The brilliant earth flow rushed around her, seared into her, ate through her and she was—who was Vallon? Vallon didn’t matter anymore.
No! It came out as a roar, and the golden power obliged, lifting her, lifting her up through the dark soil and she was: