Chapter Twenty-Six
Lincoln gently touches my upper arm. I know he wants to hold me, but I also get that we’re dressed up as Razor Guards and about to walk across a clone room floor with about a million hidden cameras watching us.
Since all the Razor Guards are Ethan clones, they probably aren’t too touchy-feely as a rule. Best to play it cool here.
“What’s the plan?” he asks.
“Where’s the exit to LaGuardia?”
“Far wall, third portal from the left.”
“In that case,” I whisper, “we walk slowly across the floor, looking like we’re picking up an extra patrol.”
“Long walk.”
I carefully scan the room. The Armageddon clones are stacked up on the walls eight stories high. The storage room floor looks about five hundred yards long. Lincoln has a point. I don’t even want to think about how many Armageddons we have to pass here.
Besides, I’ve never been good at thinking. I’m more of an “act now” kind of girl. “Let’s get started then.”
Stepping in unison, Lincoln and I start across the clone room floor. Our shiny thigh-high boots make snapping noises on the metal floor. I scan the space carefully. The room itself appears to be made from one continuous sheet of Ethan’s special metal—all of it must be infused with black magic. It makes sense, though. Ethan must have needed a lot of black magic to make so many Armageddons. The thought of so many close by makes my skin crawl.
Don’t think about the demons, Myla. You have to escape.
We pass the first one hundred yards with no problem. I exhale.
This might actually be easier than I thought. Only four hundred yards to go.
As we head toward the center of the room, a sense of unease crawls up my spine. Standing near the real Armageddon is no picnic. Unfortunately, these clones seem to have picked up some of his greater demon aura. Without meaning to, I speed my pace.
Is it my imagination, or are these clones staring at me?
I shiver. It must be my imagination.
Lincoln brushes my wrist. “Steady now.”
I nod and slow down again. We can’t do anything strange, or the security cameras might pick it up. I focus on the opposite side of the room. The door we want is getting closer by the second. To the right of it, there stand the same two massive pillars that the last clone room had: one red and one black. When Ethan killed all his own guards and demons, he released gas from the red canister.
Good to know that even Ethan has a backup plan here.
It’s when we reach the halfway mark that the small hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
Someone’s watching.
On reflex, I scan the Armageddon clones. Moving as one unit, they all open their eyes and stare right at me. Man, do those things ever look like the real deal: short torso wrapped in a tux…gangly arms with three-knuckled fingers…and most of all, a long face with a blade-like nose. Except for the gray skin, these are all perfect replicas of Armageddon.
This time I’m certain. No way I’m imagining things. All the eyes flare red as they follow the two of us across the floor.
My pulse skyrockets. If these clones have some of Armageddon’s power, do they have some of his memories as well? In other words, do they know how much they freaking hate me?
My money is on Hell yes.
We reach two hundred yards, and I’m sweating up a storm inside this Razor Guard uniform. Those thousand sets of Armageddon eyes aren’t helping any, either. With every step, I suppress the urge to run.
That’s when it happens.
All the Armageddons tilt their heads as a thousand of them speak at once: “Hello, Myla Lewis.”
Crash! The clones leap through their glass cases and race for Lincoln and me at full tilt.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!
Lincoln and I run full out for the far wall. I keep my gaze locked on the red canister. “That’s not too far from the exit. I can spear it with my tail.” And by spearing it, I’ll release a deadly gas, but I’m figuring I don’t need to add that part.
A pair of Armageddon clones leaps for us. My tail bats the first away; Lincoln dodges the second, so it lands on the floor nearby. Taken together, those two attacks mean one thing.
At this rate, there’s no way we’ll reach the red canister, let alone the exit door. We need another plan. My thoughts speed through everything I know about Ethan and his schemes.
For some reason, Williamson’s final words echo through my mind.
“This may help our king.”
When Williamson spoke those words, he was holding a crushed-up arrowhead. I’d only thought about it as a keepsake, but now? This projectile could open a portal to who-cares-where, assuming Lincoln can activate one again. And if it is functioning, the arrowhead could take the Armageddons away, not my Lincoln.
Thankfully, I still have that crushed-up arrowhead. I pull it out from its resting place under my Scala robes. “I have one of these.”
Lincoln’s eyes glint with recognition. He opens his mouth to speak, but before a word leaves his lips, another pair of Armageddons lunges for us. My tail skewers one through the chest. Lincoln punches the other in the throat.
This isn’t going well.
“We can use that to create another transport portal,” says Lincoln. “All the arrowheads send captives to the same holding pen. They can be transferred back, but at least it will give us some time to escape.”
“Assuming we can keep it from dragging us in, too.”
At these words, more memories flicker through my mind. Williamson had smashed the arrowhead in his hand. A few minutes ago, Lincoln almost squashed one of the binoculars by mistake. Both of those things were made from Ethan’s black magic metal. Lincoln had said that being in the glass coffins may have changed the way he interacts with the stuff.
“Lincoln, this floor is made from that black metal stuff.”
A small smile rounds Lincoln’s mouth. “Right. Toss the arrowhead as far away as you can.”
“Will it work if I do it?” I’d been thinking Lincoln was the easy bet.
“Anyone with angelic power can activate it. Ethan does that for his guards.” Just focus on it opening the portal as you throw it. The magic will do the rest.” Lincoln scans the floor. “While you do that, I’ll make sure we don’t get sucked in.”
“Got it.”
For the record, a major benefit of having done so many demon patrols with Lincoln is we rarely give super-long speeches on battle plans. Just a few sentences, and Lincoln and I know exactly what to do. In this case, I know exactly how to chuck this arrowhead. I grip the item more tightly in my palm.
One portal to who-cares-where, coming right up.
I toss the arrowhead over my shoulder. My tail catches it and then flings the projectile toward the south wall, snapping like a whip. The arrowhead sails over the demons’ heads. A moment later, it lodges in one of the empty cloning pods. For a moment, nothing happens.
Crud.
Suddenly, a wall of black flame erupts from the other side of the chamber. I let out a whoop of joy. The dark fire rolls across the room, heating everything but burning nothing.
The black magic of the arrowhead is working.
Only this time, it’s to our benefit.
The Armageddons stop their pursuit to screech and howl. The flames aren’t burning them, so I guess the yelling is just on principle. Once the fire dies down, I can see that one of the oval cloning pods is now nothing but an empty hole in the far wall. Just like last time, the world seems to tilt. The far wall becomes the floor. Everything begins to tumbles into the new vortex on the center of that “floor.”
And by everything, I mean a lot of broken glass and Armageddons.
My tail spikes through the floor, holding me in place. Meanwhile, Lincoln rams his fists through the floor. Like the binoculars, the metal crumbles for him easily. A second later, Lincoln has a firm set of handholds. Gravity and wind start pulling us toward the hole in the opposite wall. We’ve only a few hundred yards to go before we reach the exit door.
The howl of wind quickly turns deafening. I can barely hear Lincoln over the din. “Grab on to me!”
I must admit, I like this plan.
My tail acts like a hinge, arcing me over so I can latch onto Lincoln’s back. I loop my arms around his shoulders and my legs about his hips. My tail snakes around his waist as well. Lincoln’s back quivers under my torso. My guy has been locked up and tortured for days. Is he really strong enough to drag us out of here?
The wind whips faster around us. My long Razor Guard coat snaps in the quickening gale. With a mighty cry, Lincoln lifts his right arm and jams it into the floor, only this time, the hole is a little closer to the door. Lincoln is dragging us across the floor. Love it.
“Keep going,” I cry. “You’re doing great.”
Crunch…Lincoln tears another hole in the floor and pulls us nearer to the door. After that, his rhythm grows quicker. The cries of the Armageddons sound below us as more tumble into the new vortex on the far wall. Lights begin flashing in all corners of the room. A woman’s voice sounds over hidden loudspeakers.
“CHUCK master system alert. CHUCK master system alert.”
I frown. That voice sounded like… But it couldn’t be…
Was that Cissy?
The last time I saw my bestie and Zeke, they were being dragged off to undo whatever Cissy did to CHUCK, Ethan’s master computer system. Later on, Ethan complained that he still couldn’t get access. Heck, Ethan even acted like the interface had changed. But now Cissy could be doing announcements for CHUCK?
What the WHAT?
Lincoln keeps pounding his hands into the metal flooring. Turns out, the metal floor is way heavier and thicker than the binoculars. It’s positively shredding Lincoln’s skin. My guy’s knuckles turn raw as red meat. Blood trickles down his arms.
But we’re almost at the exit.
At last, Lincoln grips the metal beside the round door. Raising his fist, he punches the button to open the exit. Concentric circles swipe over each other as the door opens, reminding me of the shutter on an old-fashioned camera. Lincoln heaves us inside. I regain my footing and stand up straight again. The effect of the vortex is muted here. It feels good to have gravity back where it belongs. I’m about to breath a sigh of relief when one of the Armageddons leaps toward us through the opened doorway. Damned thing was using Lincoln’s old handholds to trail us.
My tail does the honors, smacking the button and closing the portal. Based on what Lincoln heard from the guards, this door and passageway definitely lead to LaGuardia. The Armageddon who was leaping toward us gets trapped as the concentric circles closed up again. The demon gets sliced in two. Ick.
I make my tail tear out the big red button and a ton of wires along with it. No one else is getting through that door.
“This way,” says Lincoln. He gestures toward another artery-style hallway. Unlike the main cloning room, this thing is made from black plastic.
“You sure?”
“This is the path. A few guards and then we’re clear.”
Ignoring the half-of-an-Armageddon, we run into the new passage. For the record, there are a ton of Razor Guards here. At least ten block our escape.
Damn.
I’ve gotten this far without breaking my “no fighting because of the baby” rule. Do I really have to do this now?
As it turns out, I don’t.
Lincoln has kept two slabs of the black metal from the floor of the cloning room. He’s turned them into makeshift boxing gloves, which he now uses to beat the pulp out of all ten guards in less than two minutes.
You have to appreciate the beautiful things in life. Watching Lincoln in a long black jacket pulverize bad guys is definitely one of those beautiful things. All too soon, the battle is over. I almost wish there were more Razor Guards to fight.
“This way,” calls Lincoln.
We race down another artery-style hallway. Then another. Oh, and about sixteen more after that. Each time, I rip out the mechanism so no one can follow us. We’re at about the twentieth hallway when Lincoln stops. “Let’s take a breather. Are you all right?”
“You’re here. I’m perfect.”
Lincoln pulls me into his arms. “This feels so good.” He nuzzles into my neck. “The whole time they were trying to pull out my soul, all I could think about was you and the baby. I knew you’d find me.” He leans back and rests his forehead against mine. “And you did. Both of you.”
“I had some help.” My voice cracks as I think of Iggy again. More warmth spreads across my palm, right where we used to hold hands. I close my eyes and send out a message with my mind.
“Are you trying to contact me, Iggy?”
A thudding sounds on the other side of the door. I’m pretty sure I hear the rumble of Razor Guard voices accented by Armageddon’s high-pitched laugher. Lincoln said the Armageddons could get transported back here from the holding pen. Looks like they didn’t waste any time returning.
Uh-oh.
Lincoln and I share a knowing glance.
“Break time is over,” I say.
“Agreed.”
Hand in hand, we race down the corridor before us. I can only hope that at the end of this tunnel, I’ll find LaGuardia and freedom.
Somehow, I doubt it’s going to be as easy as that, though.