“Which way?” Matt asked Nyree, glancing at each of the doors. Zariv had to know we were here by now. If he had guards up on this floor, they would arrive any moment.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I’ve never been up here before. You were supposed to plan this out.”

  “Yeah well, we thought rescuing you first would be the better play.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “Can you two stop arguing and make a decision?” Tyler asked. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  “We’ll have to split up,” Nyree said. She pointed to the right. “I’m going that way. Noah, why don’t you come with me?” Of course, she singled me out because I could stop any bots we came across.

  “We aren’t splitting up,” Matt countered. “There are too few of us, and too many of them.”

  “We have a fifty percent chance of getting it right,” Tee said.

  Before we could decide, both doors burst open.

  “Get down!” I cried, throwing myself behind one of the desks before the newly arrived guards could start shooting. The others scrambled for cover as I landed on my knees. “Goodnight and good luck!”

  The phrase had no effect. The defenders swept into the room, rifles turning toward our hastily procured hiding places. And that’s when I realized these guards weren’t robots. The scarred, leathery green face staring back at me through the tinted helmet viewport of the one in front of me left me momentarily stunned.

  I would have ended up with a hole through my chest if not for Nyree, who fearlessly pounced on the orc, disrupting its aim, its shot burying itself in the ceiling. It roared, taking a swing at Nyree and swatting her backward toward the elevator. Her slack limbs told me she was unconscious before she hit the doors and slid down them to lie there stock-still.

  "Rocket punch!" Tyler bellowed, launching his metal fist into Nyree’s attacker, knocking it prone.

  Ally swung her gun at another orc rushing at Tee. “Kill shot!” she cried, her hand impossibly steady as it made a small correction and fired. The energy blast didn’t miss, but it failed to penetrate the orc’s surprisingly tough armor.

  Cursing, I went for my own blaster, firing off a shot at it, but true to form, it went wide. Matt dove at the orc, driving his knife brutally upward through its body armor and into the orc’s chest. The creature screamed as Matt twisted the blade and then wrenched it free. He dove clear, leaving the creature writhing on the floor.

  The orc Tyler had knocked down regained its feet and lumbered toward him. I struggled to control my trembling hands, to remember my training. I drew a calming breath and fired again. This time, my blast hit the guard's shoulder. While it also failed to penetrate its thick armor, it did succeed in distracting the orc long enough for Tyler’s fist to return and spin back onto his wrist.

  “Rocket punch!” he cried again, throwing the fist directly into the orc’s faceplate. It shattered, pulverizing the orc’s face. I closed my eyes and turned my head away so I didn’t have to witness the fist crushing the orc’s skull.

  Unfortunately, the distraction left me vulnerable. A loud growl in my left ear galvanized me into action. Teeth bared in a snarl, the orc bearing down on me in long strides ripped my blaster from my hand, hauling its fist back to do to me what Tee had just done to his comrade. Desperate, vague intentions of tackling him foolishly flashing through my mind, I dove between its legs and grabbed my blaster. In the time it took me to swing it around and come up on one knee, the orc was again coming at me. It batted my arm aside, and we collided. I might as well have been a feather fighting a freight train. The impact drove the breath from my lungs in an agonized whoosh and dropped me straight to the floor. Black spots danced before my eyes as the orc loomed over me, menace gleaming in his chilling gaze.

  Before he could grab me, Archie’s translucent mass of tendrils exploded from my pocket. It plastered itself across the orc’s faceplate in a nearly perfect reenactment of Jaffie’s tussle with the Aleal.

  I’d somehow managed to hang onto my blaster. Lurching to my feet, I spun away from my little friend’s feast, only to come face-to-face with another orc. Of course, for the same reason Nyree wanted me close, the creatures were targeting me. Before I could open fire, a plasma bolt caught the orc in the back of its helmet. It penetrated the tiny gap where the helmet met the body of the armor, the shot was so well-aimed I thought Ally had taken the shot. The orc cried out and staggered toward one of the doors, slamming into the desk near it before crumpling to the carpet. Dead. I glanced in the direction the bolt had come from, flashing Matt a thumbs up that he returned with a grin.

  The fight was over before I could locate another target to shoot at. Matt helped a groggy Nyree up from the floor.

  “That way,” she decided, shaking off Matt's support and limping purposefully toward the door on the right. She only made it a few steps when Archie emerged from the orc’s helmet right in front of her, its gelatinous form stained red. She froze, disgusted, as it scrambled up my leg and vanished into my pocket.

  Her pause gave Matt time to catch up to her. “We’re done here, Nyree,” he growled, grabbing her arm.

  “Not yet we’re not,” she barked, tearing her arm from his grasp and jerking the door open to storm down the hallway behind it. We had no choice but to follow reluctantly along behind her.

  Halfway down the corridor, we passed an open door on the left. Looking through it, I jolted to a stop. In the distance, what appeared to be a military-style shuttle was headed our way. “Uh, I think we’d better hurry up. The cavalry’s coming.”

  Tee raced back to me. “Crap,” he said, looking out the window. “We should have bugged out when we had the chance.”

  “What?” Nyree shot him a gorgon look.

  “Just sayin’.”

  The door at the end of the hall opened, and a security bot stepped out, turning its rifle on us.

  "Goodnight, and good luck." I repeated firmly. The robot instantly collapsed.

  “You make it look so easy,” Nyree said admiringly as she made for the open door.

  We hurried after her until she finally stopped at a pair of ornate wooden doors more out of place in the squat, dingy building than any of the assorted finery we’d already passed. This had to be Zariv’s office. Was he inside?

  The doors remained sealed at our approach. The red light on the control panel in the wall suggested they would remain that way. We didn’t have Lantz to open things up for us anymore.

  “Locked out? You’ve got to be kidding me!” Tyler cried.

  “We’ll see about that,” Nyree answered, aiming her blaster at the control panel.

  CHAPTER 26

  “Wait!” I said, laying my hand atop Nyree’s blaster and pushing it aside. “This isn’t a movie. It won’t open just because you shot it.”

  “I need to get in there,” she growled back.

  “Maybe Meg has some ideas,” Ally suggested.

  “Good idea,” Matt replied, reaching for the RFD. Before he could remove it from his pocket, Archie climbed from mine. He leaped from my stomach to the control panel and splattered himself across it.

  “What is it doing?” Nyree asked.

  “We’ve seen this before,” Tyler said as the center of Archie’s body took the shape of a hand.

  “We have, but how could it know what Zariv’s hand looks like?”

  All of us, except Nyree, looked at one another simultaneously.

  “Son of a gun!” Tyler said. “That two-timing bastard.”

  The arrival timing of Zariv’s bots at Levain’s headquarters had been no accident. Maybe the Warden hadn’t been involved, but someone else had. If Levain were alive now, he would be glad Archie had fed on Jaffie’s brain. The doors parted before we could question what Jaffie’s betrayal meant in the bigger picture.

  Zariv glanced up in confusion from behind an enormous desk, clearly expecting orc guards returning to report success rather than armed assailants. His surprise morphed into amusement bordering on delight when he saw us. A Hemid like Levain, he was otherwise the total opposite of the massive hulk of flesh. Bordering on being a scrawny weakling, his oversized forehead and spindly limbs reminded me of Megamind.

  "Well, well!” he barked in a lower-pitched voice than I expected. He leaned back in his seat, folding his hands together as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Does this mean you’re ready to accept my proposal, Nee?”

  “What proposal?” Matt asked. My blood ran cold. There’s no way this could be an elaborate trap laid for us.

  Nyree didn't hesitate. She extended Tyler’s blaster in a surprisingly steady two-handed grip. “I already told you, Zariv. You can take your proposal and stick it somewhere dark and smelly. You murdered my father. Prepare to join him, you bastard."

  Zariv didn’t move a muscle, though a smirk had spread across his face. It amazed me how he could be so smug in the face of certain death, but it quickly became apparent why he was. Nyree pulled the trigger. The energy blast hit an impossible, invisible wall before him, ricocheting back on her. She gasped softly as it hit her squarely in the chest.

  “Nyree!” I was halfway across the room before I even realized I was moving. I watched her fingers brush the smoldering wound, even as her legs gave out. Skidding hard onto my knees, I caught her before she hit the floor, cradling her in my arms." Hang in there," I urged, applying pressure to her wound, blood pouring from it. She looked up at me, her breath emerging as a gurgle, blood bubbling from one corner of her mouth.

  Her slender hand clamped down on my wrist with surprising force, even as the spark of life began to dim in her azure eyes. “Kill him…for me,” she choked out before going limp in my arms.

  ”No…” I was sorry she had died, but as selfish as it was, it upset me more that we’d lost our guide to the Wardenship. I eased Nyree’s body gently to the carpet and silently retrieved her fallen blaster. My hand trembling, I stood slowly and turned on Zariv. He rose to his feet, his eyes locking with mine. As Matt had taught us, I raised the blaster, aiming for his center mass. But what was I supposed to do? Make the same mistake Nyree had?

  He shrugged. “Now, now,” he said. “No need for further violence. What’s done is done. Let’s move forward in a civilized manner.”

  “We needed her,” I growled.

  Zariv rolled his eyes. “Please. I did you a favor. That woman would have put a knife in your back the instant you let your guard down.” He waved a hand airily. “Like father, like daughter, so good riddance to both of them in my book.”

  “That forcefield of yours is sigiltech,” Matt said. “Chaos energy.”

  Zariv smiled and turned his attention away from my blaster to Matt. He knew I couldn’t shoot him because of his forcefield so I lowered the blaster. I wasn’t sure I could shoot him, anyway. I still had yet to kill anyone. But Tee was right. I had to man up if we were going to survive Warexia. That much had become crystal clear.

  “You know of sigiltech?” Zariv asked, looking at Matt. “And the Warden’s kept you alive? Interesting.”

  “What do you know about it?” Matt asked.

  Zariv pushed back his sleeve, revealing an etched silver cuff on his wrist.. I immediately recognized the etches and swirls of sigiltech. “I know I have this, and the Warden doesn’t want me to have it.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “A friend brought it to me from a planet called Earth.”

  “That’s where we’re from,” Tyler blurted out, catching an annoyed look from Matt.

  Zariv’s brows went up. “Really? How interesting. Perhaps the Warden felt you would know best how to deal with this little problem. If he wants it, he should take it from me, not send a group of children to recover it.”

  “We didn’t even know you had it,” Ally said.

  “No, of course you didn’t. You probably had no idea I was the target. I bet you thought it was Levain.”

  “We didn’t know Jaffie was working for you,” I said. “Did he pick that up on his latest visit to Earth?”

  “He did,” Zariv admitted. “I only had a chance to try it once before you arrived. I have to admit, it’s exhausting. I’m not sure it’s worth what it cost me to obtain it.”

  The admission left me shaking. Had Jaffie killed my parents rushing to return the silver cuff to Zariv? If that were the case, it was his fault they were dead.

  And there was nothing I could do about it. Not even Archie could reach Zariv through his forcefield.

  “So you know how he got to Earth?” Matt asked.

  “Sadly, no. Only Levain could answer that question, and I knew he never would. So I got what I wanted out of it and finally did what I’ve waited years to do.” He glanced at Nyree, dead on the carpet. “You were helping her. Why?”

  “You abducted her,” I countered. “Why?”

  Zariv grinned at me. “Jaffie told me she knew things that I would want to know. With Levain dead, I knew she would come. So I brought her in and made her an offer. Everything she knew about her father’s interest in the Warden, in exchange for a quarter of his empire. That’s no small parcel, mind you. And I thought she would seriously consider it. I thought she was smart enough to realize the generosity of the proposal.”

  “So you didn’t make a deal with her to bring us to you so that you could kill us?” Tyler asked.

  “Don’t take this wrong, but you’re hardly that important,” Zariv answered.

  “I’m kind of relieved to hear that, actually,” I said.

  “What’s your interest in the Warden?” Matt asked.

  “Not much,” Zariv replied. “I just want to be him when I grow up. Now, what about you? What did Nyree have that she convinced you to make a suicidal run to assassinate me for it?”

  “Cherry pie,” Tyler answered. “We love cherry pie.”

  “Why don’t you be a good little boy and stay silent?” Zariv said, stifling Tee. “Come on. We all know she can’t give you what you want now.”

  I glanced at Matt. He sighed and nodded.

  “Levain found a derelict Wardenship,” I said. “She said she had been to it and knew where it was. She was going to take us there.”

  “Interesting,” Zariv said. “If I had known that, I would have tried harder not to kill her. Well, what can you do?” He shrugged. “I suppose that means you went through all of this for nothing. That must sting.”

  “It does suck,” Tyler agreed.

  “Maybe we can cut a deal,” Matt suggested.

  “I don’t know where the Wardenship is.”

  “No, but we know where Levain kept his personal server. You have the resources to crack into it and recover the location from there. So let’s trade.”

  “Assuming the location is on the server.”

  “Let’s assume that, yes.”

  Zariv drummed his fingers on the desk, considering the opportunity. Finally, he smiled. “I’m tempted to play along. Very tempted.”

  “Except?” Tyler asked.

  “Except I already have the server that Levain hid in a secret room behind his bedroom in my possession, and I’ve decided I’ll like you better dead. It’s a good thing my bots have backup copies of their prior firmware on separate partitions in their memory stores. They might have been compromised for hours instead of minutes.” His twisted grin sent chills down my spine as distant footfalls sounded, heavy enough to gently shake the floor.

  “Kill shot,” Ally whispered, time seeming to slow down as the fateful words escaped her lips. Hadn’t she learned anything from Nyree?

  The silver cuff on Zariv’s wrist began to glow. His eyes narrowed, concentrating on activating it a second time in ten minutes. I expected the energy blast to hit its forcefield and bounce back, to punch Ally in the chest and kill her, too.

  Instead, her shot went into one of the paintings on the adjacent wall, bouncing off and coming at Zariv from the side. He tried to turn too late, his smug expression morphing into disbelief right before the shot hit him in the side of the head, burning a hole right through his skull and into his brain. He immediately crumpled to the carpet. Blood spread in a growing pool beneath his motionless body.

  Shocked, I glanced over my shoulder. Alyssa stood with her gun behind her back, the muzzle still smoking from the heat of the blast. Her entire body shook.

  “Nice shot, Red,” I said, breathing easier even though I recognized that Ally wasn’t good with what she’d just done.

  She turned haunted eyes my way. “I just killed an unarmed man.” Her voice held a tremulous edge. “Oh, Noah, I...I just...”

  The blaster slipped from her nerveless fingers to clatter against the floor. Ally wrapped both arms tightly around herself, tears streaming. “I couldn’t let him hurt you. Any of you. I…I just couldn’t.”

  I quickly crossed the room to wrap her in a fierce hug. She clung to me like I was the only thing keeping her from flying apart. I could only imagine what ending a life, any life—even Zariv’s—was doing to her right now. “You did the right thing,” I said, hoping my words comforted her.

  After several moments, her trembling eased. With a deep steadying breath, she gently untangled herself from my arms. “I’ll be okay.”

  “We need to go,” Matt said urgently. From the sound of things outside, the bots were already in the hallway, my ability to deactivate them negated.

  I turned toward the exit, glancing down at Nyree, a sense of queasy sadness rippling through me at the sight of her. With everything else going on, I hadn’t noticed she was holding something in her left hand. “Matt, wait.”

  “There’s no time, Katzuo,” he snapped. “We’re going to have to fight our way out as it is.”

  I took Nyree’s hand, forcing her fingers open to reveal a wadded-up table napkin. It seemed strange that she would be holding onto something like that.

  “Katzuo!” Matt barked.

  I snatched it from her hand and shoved it in my pocket. Maybe it was something. Maybe not. I would find out soon enough.