2
FIVE PHANTOMS BARRELED FOR US. Lake couldn’t calm the wind and fight at the same time, so the violent gales rushed back. She used them to her advantage, pressurizing them into little blades that shredded the first wave of the phantom attack, but the recoil blew her right into me. She lost control as the collision, amped up by the wind, drove us in the wrong direction.
“Detach your parachutes!” ordered Sibyl.
We did. With a yank, they flew into the air.
“Lake, grab my hands!” I yelled, reaching for her.
She took them without a second thought and we fell, twisting in the wind. My combat boots landed on the ground hard, the shock waves shooting up my legs, but I was sturdy—
—until a phantom burst out from the ground at my feet.
I had just enough control over my wits to leap out of its way, dodging its attack when it bulleted toward me, but soon I felt the sting of bone pounding into my boots from beneath the sand, lifting me up. Another phantom emerging out of the ground.
Phantoms came in different shapes and sizes, often mimicking the forms of beasts that, unlike them, were naturally of this world. Like so many of the phantoms in the sky, like so many others I’d faced before, this phantom beneath me took the form of a giant serpent—its long, slithering midnight-black hide erupted through the sand as if it’d been lying in wait the whole time. Parts of its rib cage jutted out of its body through layers of flesh and smoke.
I jumped off as two more followed it, launching themselves into the air. I was good at dodging them, but Lake was even better, using the wind to twist herself midair, avoiding the phantoms’ attacks.
“You’re about thirty meters off-site,” said a Communications agent as I dove onto the sand.
“What?” I heard Chae Rin exclaim through the comm. “What happened? Jesus, how did I know you two would be the ones to screw up?”
“You’ll have to find your way back,” said Sibyl.
Gritting my teeth, I pushed myself up. “How do we do that?”
The moment I turned around, a phantom’s face snarled at me from behind.
Trap and release.
Digging my feet into the ground, I slammed the palms of my hands into its large, pointed teeth. The force of the phantom’s charge sent me deeper into the sand, but I didn’t budge.
God, the smell. It was the saliva. Thick and foul, it came down from its mouth and slipped between my fingers until I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I rolled to the side, letting the phantom launch itself into the air. But it wasn’t done. Arching its long back, it made a beeline for me, jaws gaping.
I could do this.
I used the few seconds I had before impact to shut my eyes and concentrate. I could do this. I’d done it before. I could do it.
I could do it.
I felt the heat swallow up my body first, then the smooth pole, obsidian black, materializing in my hands. The sight of the tiny flames flickering at my feet made my heart speed up in panic, like always, but I couldn’t indulge it. The phantom shot at me, but I managed to flip out of the way just before it made contact, landing awkwardly on my feet. I was no gymnast. My head was still spinning when I swiped the blade of my scythe at the phantom’s neck, chopping its head off with one swing.
Effigies could summon weapons unique to each girl. Not many did in their time, but enough had for the Sect to realize we were capable of it. Maybe that’s why they called us the Four Swords. And this was my sword.
“Watch out!” Lake cried.
Another phantom screamed at me from behind, but Lake dealt with it before I could lift my weapon. It was as if an invisible battering ram had slammed into it. I could see the rotting black flesh of its belly as it flew back with the wind.
Which gave me an idea.
“Where exactly do we need to go?” My body was still on alert as Lake fought behind me.
“Sending you two the locations right now,” said a Communications tech. “Tap the tiny switch on the right arm of your goggles.”
Switch? I hadn’t even noticed it was there, but once I felt around, I found a little raised nub in the right corner and pressed it.
“No way.” Tiny red lights appeared on the inside of my goggles’ transparent screen as if I were playing a VR game. Awesome.
“It’s got camera function too!” Tech Guy said before collecting himself. This wasn’t really the time to be geeking out, but it’s not like I could blame him. It was really goddamn cool.
I could see our position lighting up as a flashing red dot. And at the top left-hand corner was the drop site where we needed to triangulate our antiphantom device with Chae Rin and Belle’s.
This could work.
“Lake.” I twisted around. “We’re hitching a ride. On a phantom.”
The pop star looked back at me as if I were insane. “What?”
“We’ll get killed out here. But we can ride a phantom to get to the drop site, Chae Rin–style.”
“Good idea,” said Chae Rin through the comm. “A little dangerous, but it’s doable.” An ex–circus performer would know, especially one who had once dabbled in phantom riding. “It’s like riding one of those mechanical bulls. Just make sure to dig your fingers in there and grab the bone or you’ll get flung off real quick.”
“Lake can use her power to keep us going in the right direction,” I said, my hands sweating against the pole of my scythe.
Lake panted heavily. “Really kind of you to make me do the heavy lifting, mate.”
We didn’t have time to argue. Three more phantoms barreled at us from a distance.
Closer. Closer.
“I’ll make it up to you later.” Closer. “Now stop whining . . .” Closer. “. . . and get us a phantom!”
Lake pulled a phantom into her vortex with a tortured yell. After letting my scythe dissipate back into nothingness, I ran for the phantom at full speed and jumped onto its back, Lake following quickly behind me.
“Ow!” I yelped as the phantom’s bone struck my tailbone. My legs slid uncomfortably against the thick, fleshy hide, my hands disappearing behind a thin veil of smoke as I felt for something to hang on to.
The murderous roaring behind us grabbed my attention just long enough to see the phantoms chasing after us. “Lake!”
“Oh, hell. Okay, let’s go!”
The phantom flailed violently, but Lake’s will was stronger. My hands dug through wet flesh to grasp hold of the bone beneath. Lake’s right hand grabbed the back of my vest as she pushed and pulled the wind to get us to the drop site.
It wasn’t an exact art. The phantom swerved and thrashed as the other phantoms pursued us relentlessly, snarling and snapping at the air. My legs were wearing out from clutching its body. Riding a phantom was terrifying, and Chae Rin was insane for even trying it. But as Lake directed the beast’s kinetic energy to the drop site, I could see our location moving closer and closer from behind the screen of my goggles.
“We’re hopping off!” I gripped Lake’s arm. Pulling myself to my feet, I leapt with her onto the ground as the disturbed phantom screeched upward, but another was coming down from above.
Tapping off my goggle’s monitor screen, I lifted my arms above my head. Trap and release.
Lake narrowly dodged another phantom. “Maia!”
Fire burst from my fingertips, climbing up the phantom inch by inch, starting from its gaping jaws snarling just a few feet from my head. I fell back. The fire swallowed half its body, turning flesh to char and smoke. I dove out of the way as the rest of the body crashed to the ground.
After two months of training, I was still having a little trouble controlling fire. Just thinking of the searing flames and the heat licking against my skin made the hairs on my arm stand on end. It took everything I had to stop myself from imagining my dead family in the fires.
But I was trying. For now that would have to be good enough.
“What are you doing?” Chae Rin yelled through the comm. “You guys still alive? We’ve got to activate the APDs at the same ti—” She ended in a grunt as she battled a phantom. It was dark now. I couldn’t see either Chae Rin or Belle through the sandy wind. But I knew we weren’t the only ones fighting.
“Lake, Chae Rin, Maia,” said Belle. “If you’re at your sites, then get your devices out.”
Belle hadn’t spoken much since the mission started, but the moment she did, my hand found my vest. I pulled the device out from my left pocket. The APD had a square monitor carved into its sleek metal surface. It was kind of like the electromagnetic armor you’d find in a really expensive car. You had to type in the code to make it work.
I placed it carefully on the surface of the sand. “Okay. I’m ready.”
“Hurry up!” Lake cried, eyeing the rumbling ground several feet away.
“Now,” said Belle.
My fingers moved quickly.
4EXX#G7
The monitor lit up blue and the metal ball gave a few curious shivers before going rigid and sinking a little into the ground. I poked it. Nothing. Even against the shifting sand, it was immovable. Then, in the next moment, a blue haze of light shot out from beneath the device, drawing a clean line in the sand as far as my eye could follow in the darkness. After turning my goggles back on, I saw them—blue lines shooting out from three different positions triangulating around the blinking center that marked Saul’s hideout.
“It’s activated!” said Chae Rin.
“Get into the field now,” Sibyl said. “Quickly!”
We didn’t need telling twice. Another phantom was already after us. Together, Lake and I dove into the protected zone before its twisted jaws could reach our skin. It collided with the hazy field instead, its flesh and bone bursting into smoke and dissipating into the air.
Grasping the sand in her delicate hands, Lake crawled a little deeper into the zone until finally collapsing onto the ground, panting heavily. I flopped over onto my back, chest heaving. The field was faint, but the particles reflected enough starlight for me to see the thinnest, wavering curtain shooting up into the sky above me.
“This mission is time-sensitive, girls,” said Sibyl. “You’ll need to make your way to Saul’s hideout.”
According to the Sect’s intel, Saul was somewhere in this area, underground. It took a hell of a lot of work to get him into Sect custody the first time. This time, we wouldn’t lose him.
With a half-haphazard tap of my hand, I jostled Lake before she could lose consciousness. “Come on, we’re getting up.”
“You first.”
Wiping sand off my cheeks, I dragged myself to my feet, helping Lake up. After one last glance at the monsters roaming behind the protective field, we started our trek to Saul’s hideout.
The winds were gradually starting to calm on their own. Respectable gusts shifted the sands across scattered green shrubs dotting the desert hills. I ignored the sound of phantom cries to concentrate on the stars above me lining the dark sky.
When I was a kid, my sister, June, would look at the sky from behind the window of our bedroom in Buffalo. She was the stargazer, the dreamer. She’d stare at the stars, maybe imagining the impossible. What would she think if she could see me here, battling phantoms in the middle of a desert?
For me, impossible was just another day. That’s what it meant to be an Effigy.
“Oi.” As we neared the location of Saul’s hideout, Lake pointed at Chae Rin’s running figure in the distance. “How the hell does she still have any energy after all that?”
Chae Rin’s stamina and strength were incredible, even for an Effigy. But Chae Rin hadn’t gotten out of the phantom onslaught without a scratch. She had a few up her arms, her pale skin and blood exposed to the air through the tears in her sleeves. Her short black hair grazed her shoulders back and forth as she continued toward us.
“You okay?” I called out to her.
Slowing down, she lifted her slender arm. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” She looked around. “So, where’s the Warrior Princess?”
If she meant Belle, she didn’t have to wait long. Soon, she emerged out of the darkness, her body veiled only momentarily by sudden gusts of wind carrying tufts of sand into the air. As her blond ponytail fluttered behind her, she lifted up her goggles to reveal those icy blue eyes, tired but steady as they found us in the night.
My body instinctively seized when I saw her, a tinge of fear that months ago would have been unimaginable. Back then I would have been fangirling in the truest sense of the word. The coldly beautiful but aloof Effigy whose years of experience had hardened her into a badass warrior. This was the girl whose posters and collecting cards were still somewhere in my New York apartment, probably in my bedroom closet along with all the other stuff I hadn’t brought with me to London. For so many years, I wanted to be her.
It wasn’t until I actually met her that I realized I never really knew her at all.
Chae Rin rolled her eyes. “Took you long enough,” she said once Belle was near us.
Belle stopped in front of us, and I twitched. Just slightly. I didn’t even notice at first, but once I did, I berated myself. There’s nothing to be worried about, I told myself. Just stop thinking about it. I steadied my body.
“Wanted to make an entrance, eh?” Chae Rin continued to prod her, but Belle wasn’t biting.
“These devices are specially made by our R & D department for missions,” Belle said, ignoring the comment—a slight that did not go unnoticed by the visibly annoyed Chae Rin. “But their power is limited, which means this electromagnetic field is too. We’ll have to work quickly.”
“You mean, I’ll have to work quickly,” Chae Rin muttered.
“You’re both right,” Sibyl said through the comm. “You’ve got fifteen minutes before the field gives out. But once you go underground, we’ll lose contact. Make sure you keep track of the time from your visors.”
The countdown started at the top right hand of my goggles’ translucent screen.
“Roger that.” Belle lowered hers back over her eyes.
It was hard not to look at that straightforward fearlessness without feeling an awkward mix of awe and insecurity. It was almost reassuring seeing her focus back in full force, even if it was confined to the battlefield.
It always was, these days.
Chae Rin cracked her knuckles. “All right, then. Clear a path.”
Belle, Lake, and I made sure we were well behind Chae Rin as she brought her hands low. Effigies didn’t necessarily need to use their hands to manipulate elements, but it was just easier to—like our limbs were a lightning rod, the perfect conduit for such immense power. As she lifted her arms, the earth rose with her.
She did good work, moving away the sand, but I couldn’t help worrying. Saul would surely hear the sands shifting above him, wouldn’t he? And then just disappear. There were so many risks in this mission, but it couldn’t be helped. Sibyl wasn’t the only one under the world’s pressure to deliver a terrorist—we were too.
Sand slid away from us in sheets and billowed up into the night sky with the wind Lake summoned. It wasn’t long until we saw the white metal hatch, dirtied around its perfect right edges, big enough to fit only one of us at a time.
The four of us stood facing each other, exchanging steady glances. This was it. We were to work together. Beat the bad guy. That was the reason why the Sect gathered us, after all. We were an uneasy alignment created out of necessity, forged through a shared destiny.
The Effigies.
Sometimes, if I let myself, I could feel it: that unspeakable force linking one to the other. A connection. A bond. Or maybe it was just me. We’d already fought together and bled together. That may not have made us friends, but it made us something.
A team.
Yeah. And it wasn’t all that bad.
“No time to waste.” Chae Rin rolled up her sleeves. “If he’s down there, let’s go.”
“Wait—” Lake put out a hand to stop her. “Director Langley . . . are you one hundred percent sure that Saul is in that bunker?”
“We can still detect his frequency at the below location,” responded a Communications techie.
“He’s there.” Sibyl’s voice was solemn.
“We can only climb down one at a time,” I said. “He’ll definitely hear us coming. If he hasn’t heard us already.”
“I’ll go first,” said Belle. “I have more experience. I’ll neutralize Saul quickly.”
Bending down, she gripped the handle and, with care, lifted the heavy hatch.
“Belle—” I started, but she put up a finger to silence me, nodding meaningfully toward the open hatch.
Her foot hit the steps swiftly and silently, maneuvering down each rung until she disappeared into the darkness.
We waited. Chae Rin watched the dark open hole grimly, ready to react to any sign of trouble. Lake’s legs fidgeted, but not too much to shift the sand beneath her feet. Still nothing. I rubbed the sweat and dirt off my face and sucked in a quiet breath.
A blast shook the ground beneath us. My head snapped up. That was as good a signal as any. Each of us lifted up our goggles.
“Let’s go.” Chae Rin leapt down the hatch. After a slight hesitation, Lake climbed in next.
It was now or never.
I descended through the hatch last. The metal bars were greasy and dirty—easy to slip on. I made sure I didn’t. The moment I hopped down onto solid ground, I felt the chill. And when I turned, I found a forest of ice blooming in the small bunker. Frost sparkled under the dim lights, speckling the hot, humid air of the dingy room—a room empty but for a single cot covered in dirty white sheets. Belle’s ice crawled up to the ceiling, covering the black shadows on the wall.
Black shadows. Shadows of people. They were drawn in black spray paint against the red brick. Long and short, they lined the walls, their limbs thick and crudely sketched as if by a child.
And maybe Saul was the one who’d painted them. His form was distorted behind Belle’s cocoon of ice as he stood suspended inside. In a navy-blue armored bodysuit and black boots, he almost looked like a soldier. But his face was obscured inside a pure white metal helmet. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before.
“He looks like a cyborg,” Lake said.
I could see that too. The wide, dark slits where his eyes would have been looked like they would suddenly light up bloodred at the slightest computerized command.
“Has he said anything?” Chae Rin paused. “I mean, did he say anything? You know, before you literally iced him?”
“No.” Belle put a hand on the ice gently with her fingers, just over Saul’s face. “It was strange. He didn’t say a word. But he made a move toward me.”
Lake clutched her chest. “He attacked you?”
But Belle shook her head. “No. He just . . . moved toward me. At first I thought it was an attack, but there was something about his demeanor. As if—”
I stepped closer to her. “As if what?”
Belle paused. “As if he’d already been defeated.”
With a tap of her hand, she melted the ice just enough to create a hole through which he could fall into her arms. His limbs dangled limply, but I could tell from the way his head twitched that he was still alive. And his left hand was clutching something desperately.
“How do you take this off?” Placing his body on the ground, Belle began struggling with the helmet covering his face. “Help me.”
Lake and I looked for a lever, a groove, a latch, anything.
“Wait. There’s a switch here,” I said.
It was more like a tiny button tucked away by his ear. One click and the helmet shuddered and shifted open, steaming at the sides.
But the face inside was not Saul’s.
“Who the hell is this?” Chae Rin loomed behind us for a better look.
The young man was barely out of his teens, blond hair matted against his pale forehead, scars riddling his thick, angled face.
“What’s going on?” I studied his face. “I thought Communications said that they tracked Saul’s frequency here.”
Belle was quiet for too long. All the while the timer was counting down. Seven minutes and forty-five seconds. Seven minutes and forty-four seconds . . .
“Well?” I urged Belle.
“The Sect tracked the cylithium frequency of an Effigy here,” she said finally.
The bunker was silent. That is, until the boy’s lips parted in a cough.
“It’s okay,” I told him, surprising myself. What if he was an enemy? But there was something about his feeble moaning and the way his eyes fluttered helplessly that made me wonder otherwise.
Kneeling by his side, Chae Rin grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “Hey! Who the hell are you?” After a pause of silence, she shook him again. “We don’t have all day.”
“Chae Rin, be careful!” Lake scowled at her. “He looks half-dead already.”
But if Lake was looking for sympathy, she wouldn’t find it. “The APD field’s about to go out,” Chae Rin snapped. “We don’t exactly have all the time in the world.”
“Sir. Who are you?” Belle asked, more quietly.
The young man sputtered. I could just hear the beginnings of words carving themselves out from the sounds he made.
“What?” Belle leaned in as the young man’s lips moved.
“Are you . . . Sect?”
“We’re the Effigies,” I answered quickly, tentatively touching his arm when it started to tremble uncontrollably. He looked relieved with my answer. “Who . . .” I paused, maybe because I didn’t want to know the answer. “What are you?”
“I ran here . . . I ran from them . . . I hid . . . I wanted you to find me.” He coughed, breathing heavily. “They were going to force me to . . . I couldn’t . . . stop myself. . . . I waited until it stopped working . . . and then when I was free, I ran. . . . I needed you to find me. . . .”
It was like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing. It was almost impossible to stitch his words into a coherent picture.
“I don’t understand.” Belle straightened her back. “Who was forcing you? How? To do what? Tell us who you are.”
It was obvious that just speaking was agony for him. He couldn’t answer right away.
“If you wanted the Sect to find you, why come all the way out here?” I asked him, trying to be as gentle as the urgency of the situation would allow. “They have facilities all over the world.”
“Not the Sect,” he blurted before taking in a sharp breath. “You. You. I . . . knew they’d send you once they could track me . . . looking for him. I have to trust you. My . . . family . . .”
Family? What was he talking about? As I shivered, he opened his left palm, revealing a gray flash drive just long enough to fit in his hand. He’d been holding on to it so tightly that after Belle took it, its indent remained in his palm. As the blood pooled in his veins where it’d been, he let his hand fall.
“What’s on this?” Belle asked.
“I stole it from the lab . . . I ran . . . I wanted you to find me. . . . Others like me are coming for you. I was just . . . the first. . . .”
I gripped his arm tight until it stopped convulsing. He was looking at me. Only me.
“Tell me who you are,” I said again, quietly.
I wasn’t ready for the sight of his green eyes welling up with tears. It wasn’t what I’d thought awaited us at the end of this mission. I swallowed the lump in my throat as he parted his lips one more time.
“It’s too late for me. . . . No one can heal me. . . . Please find Alex. . . . He’s . . . still . . .”
His head rolled to the side, and his body stopped twitching.