We scaled the stairs to level three, cut off from climbing any higher by more guards converging from higher up. Rather than getting bombarded from the stairs, I sprinted across the catwalks, turning left at the first opportunity and moving deeper into the plant, away from the guards in the Hummers. George and Nick followed, taking potshots at targets to keep them honest.

  Looking up, I spotted an access door on the sixth story. Scanning the scaffolding, I spotted a second stairwell ahead. It was clear, at least for the moment, for me to reach another level. Energy blasts zipped past or hit the metal around me, sparking and hissing. Nick kept shooting, braver than I had guessed he might be, finally managing to catch a guard in the side of his helmet. The man fell forward, slumping over the railing a dozen feet away.

  “I got one!” Nick shouted joyfully, until he remembered the helmeted guards were people. “Damn, I got one,” he repeated more somberly, slowing on the catwalk.

  “Nick, don't let up!” I snapped. “If you stop, you die!”

  That kicked him back into gear. He caught up to George, and we traced our way along the grated metal to the stairs, staying low behind the railings as more guards joined the fray.

  “There’s too many of them,” George hissed, shrinking away from the outer part of the walkway as bolts zipped all around us. It was only a matter of time before one of us was hit.

  “We’re almost there,” I replied, opening fire on a guard near the stairs on the fourth level. My blasts caught him in the chest. He writhed and collapsed. At almost the same time, George got a bead on another guard and fired, taking him down too. But it left him open. He grunted, taking a blast to his shoulder, that arm hanging loose at his side.

  We hit the stairs running, climbing quickly to the fourth level. A guard tackled me, rolling me away from Nick and George. The guard hopped up and aimed his rifle point-blank at my chest. “Distra,” I whispered, desperate to push him back before he could fire. I heard his bones crush beneath the power, just as he flew backwards, crashing hard into Nick. Both of them tumbled back down the steps into the advancing enemy.

  “Shit,” I cursed, leaning over the railing with my rifle and firing down at the guards surrounding a stunned Nick. I took one unaware, leaving two of them bringing their weapons to bear on him and one raising his rifle toward me.

  Without giving it much thought, I killed him, hung my rifle by its grip on the railing and jumped over, using it to hold me as I swung down toward the enemy. Kicking one of the guards in the face, I dropped onto the other, knocking him away as my rifle dropped to the ground.

  Nick stumbled to his feet, scrambling to bring his rifle up and shoot both disoriented guards. They went down in a heap, and I picked up one of their rifles as we backtracked to the stairs.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Adrenaline is masking the pain,” he replied. “And I’m pretty sure I’ll have PTSD by the end of the night, if I don’t already.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that.”

  “I volunteered. I wish I hadn’t. But here I am. Thanks for the save.”

  "Anytime." I felt bad for him, but there wasn’t anything to do about it right now.

  We ran back up the steps, reconnecting with George on level five. He sat on the second riser, a wide hole in the shoulder of his flight suit, his left arm limp at his side.

  “I think it hit something important,” he said.

  “The good news is that the heat of the energy instantly cauterizes the wound,” I replied. “So no bleeding out.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” he quipped. “It still hurts like hell and I’m down an arm.”

  “We’re almost there,” I said. “You can do it, Marine.”

  He chuckled at that. “You’d make a terrible drill sergeant.”

  “Just get up and let’s go before they start shooting at us again,” I said, stepping over him to scale the steps.

  Nick helped him up and we continued the ascent, nearing level six. The access door was along another t-junction in the catwalk. Four guards still roamed the floor, more continuing to climb up behind us after having left their Humvees behind.

  “Want to blow those men down?” George suggested.

  “I’m liable to knock down the entire structure,” I replied. “How’s your aim one-handed?”

  “This gun has no recoil,” he said, firing as we emerged from the stairwell. Two shots took out two guards, quickly cutting the defenses in half. We exchanged fire with them, winning the quick fight as we continued advancing on the door. “Go on ahead,” he said, turning to face the stairs. “I’ll cover your rear and slow them down.”

  “You can’t fight them off on your own,” I argued. “Like you said, there’s too many.”

  “If we get slowed down in there, we’ll be sandwiched between them,” he argued back. “And we’ll all die anyway. This way, you two have a chance.”

  “No,” I said. “You have a family to take care of, and I’m not leaving you behind to play the heroic martyr.” I grabbed his good arm."Let’s move or we’ll all die standing here arguing about it.” He grimaced as I tugged him along behind me.

  We resumed our mad dash to the door. Already assuming it would be locked, I held my hand out toward it and activated my ring, pushing against the door. The metal buckled inward as though a cannonball struck it. The door gave way within seconds, launching across open space before embedding itself into a large storage tank. Fortunately, the tank wasn’t full.

  We hurried through the open door coming out on another catwalk, this time on the inside of the building among the walkways ringing the main factory floor. Just below, a series of conveyor belts and machines continued operating, moving the spoils from our truck through the steps that would leave behind the valuable minerals they had collected. I wanted to scan the area for Keep, but didn’t get the chance.

  Energy blasts sizzled past around us. A shot hit my headphones, taking out one of the ear cups and stinging my ear. I ripped them off and threw them aside. We returned fire as we sought out cover. We made a break along the catwalk, heading toward a ladder further down, knowing that at any second, reinforcements would come through the same door we'd just entered through.

  They burst into the building as we hit the stairs. George stumbled and fell, trying to descend too fast with one arm. He rolled down the steps to the next level, grunting angrily as I helped him back up before firing at the top of the steps. One overly enthusiastic guard ran right into my defensive fire. It hit him in the chest, and he tumbled down the steps, George and I moving quickly out of the way.

  On this level, a series of catwalks ran from one side of the building to the other, with workstations in the middle, having something to do with the storage tanks and other large machines. They offered better cover from above, so I broke down the nearest crosswalk, George and Nick still close behind, still shooting at the guards chasing us. Halfway to the middle, I looked both ways, able to see more of the plant from this vantage point.

  Spotting a section of open floor through the conveyor belts and machines, I caught a glimpse of the first person I had seen who wasn’t wearing armor. Silver-haired, handsome, and dressed in a fine suit, there was no mistaking Alonzo Dellacqua. By the way his hands were glowing, there was no doubt in my mind that Keep had found him.

  Or he had found Keep.

  “Uh, Ben,” Nick said from my left. I ignored him, watching as a hundred energy spears launched from his fingers, vanishing behind a storage tank before I could see them hit their target. The green glow that flared out around the curve of the container suggested they had been blocked or countered.

  A real, live wizard battle, and I was stuck up here in the cheap seats.

  “Ben!” Nick snapped.

  I whipped my head to the left. A handful of guards had caught up to us, and stood with their rifles pointed in our direction, though they didn’t fire.

  Nick was on my right, his hands empty.

  I turned my head toward George, to find his hands empty as well, his rifle and Nick's on the catwalk twenty feet away. Further down, another group of guards filed in behind Colette Dellacqua, dressed exactly as Kyrie had described. A ring on every finger, the one on her left pinkie held a residual glow from its use.

  “Benjamin Murdock,” she said calmly, even while I could still glimpse the raging battle below from the corner of my eye. “You continue to impress. But I’m afraid you’ve reached the end of the line. Just be thankful my boss wants you alive.”

  CHAPTER 38

  “Your boss?” I said. “You mean your father?”

  “If I meant my father, I would have said my father,” she replied. “I mean my boss. Also luckily for you, I’m not inclined to kill your companions just for the hell of it. My orders don’t extend to them. I’ve got you boxed in. If you come quietly and willingly, I promise they’ll go free and unharmed.”

  George coughed out a harsh breath as if to point out his injured arm.

  “Without further harm,” Colette corrected.

  “What about Keep?” I asked, turning my head just a little, momentarily thrilled when a shot of lightning crashed into Alonzo, who caught it with a sudden, glowing shield.

  “Like I told you over the phone. We were content to solve our problem by leaving both of you behind. But you just had to come. You just had to force our hand.”

  “I know what you’re doing here.”

  “You don’t know anything. You think you’ve got it all figured out, but believe me, you don’t.”

  “No? So you aren’t here collecting catalyst elements?”

  “Not in the way you think. But I’m not sure you even know enough about the topic to have a real conversation. And thanks to you, we need to pull out earlier than intended, with only a small portion of what we came for.”

  “Sorry, not sorry,” I replied. “You don’t seem to like killing very much. Looking at you, I get the impression you don’t want to be here at all. You said before you had no choice. But everyone has a choice.”

  “No they don’t,” she countered. “You should have learned by now that when you’re born under a noble flag, that flag owns you for life. All of your choices are within the bounds of that flag, always confined and restrained.”

  “Bullshit. If you don’t like it, you can run away. Escape the worlds under that flag. Disappear somewhere. Like here on Earth.”

  She laughed. “You think it’s so easy. Maybe it can be done if you’re a nobody. But not if you have something they can use. Intellect, beauty, a killer instinct. You’re so naive, it’s almost cute.”

  “But we’re trying to stop Sedaya. If we succeed, maybe you can be free. You don’t need to help him. You can help us defeat him.”

  She shook her head. “That might be possible if I worked for Duke Sedaya.”

  Her response took me by surprise. “Wait. What? You don’t work for Sedaya?”

  “No.”

  “Then who do you work for? Nobukku?”

  She shook her head again. Two assholes' names dropped. Only one left.

  “Sucaath,” I said.

  She nodded. “And he makes Sedaya look benevolent in comparison. None of this is what I would choose, but it’s what I have to do.”

  “But why?” I asked. “What does he want…?”

  “Everything,” she supplied.

  The way she said it sent a chill down my spine. I didn’t get the impression she simply meant the Empress’ seat at the top of the Hegemony. “Who is he?”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but didn’t get the chance. The wizard’s duel below had gotten out of hand, and somebody did something that sent a wave of energy through the facility that threw us all around like rags in a dryer.

  I hit the railing and nearly went over, grabbing on tight as my body lifted off the deck. Colette dropped to the decking, fingers shoved into the grating. George slid off the walkway, catching himself one-handed. Nick managed to grab the railing too. Nine or ten guards on either side of our position collapsed and tumbled off the walkway. A few of them were pulled off the upper level as well, sent plummeting away.

  At the same time, the top of the storage tank between Alonzo, Keep, and the rest of us sheared away, creating hundreds of pieces of shrapnel that whipped past us. One of them implanted itself in my goggles, only a few hair’s breadth from my eye. Another sliced my arm open, a third my leg. Worse, a piece of the metal caught George’s hand, and he cried out, letting go and vanishing completely over the side.

  The platform itself buckled, part of it tearing away from its anchor as the force of the energy continued buffeting us. I managed to get my other hand on the railing, improving my grip. For how long? The whole platform was threatening to collapse.

  I used my purchase to pull myself toward Nick. Realizing I was angling his way, he moved toward me.

  “Now what?” he shouted as we converged. Another anchor tore from the platform, twisting it even more and leaving us hanging from the railing. Colette dangled from the floor with a few of her guards. More of them lost their grip and tumbled away.

  I had an idea. A bad one. But staying here was worse.

  Throwing an arm around Nick with one hand, I activated the sigiltech ring. “Now we let go,” I said, releasing my grip on the railing. My weight immediately pulled him free, and we started to fall.

  “Distra!” I shouted. In my head, I pushed the entire universe away from me. The air, the dust, the metal and debris, as well as whatever energy Alonzo and Keep were throwing out. I knew it worked because I tried to suck in air and couldn’t. When the destabilizing force vanished, it left us dropping in a sudden state of silent serenity.

  Looking down, I watched a second catwalk peel away, bending out from my path as the sigiltech ring pushed it away to maintain the bubble of nothingness around us. The floor waited below it, and as we neared impact it cratered inward until the downward force of the push matched the upward force of the earth, slowing our descent as the two pressures balanced. My arm went completely numb, stealing my grip on Nick. But I didn’t need it anymore. Ending the push, we dropped into the crater, landing easily on our feet.

  “Whoooooo-hoooooo!” Nick shouted as the air returned elated to have survived. “That was incredible!”

  I barely heard him. Ripping off my damaged goggles and helmet, I got eyes on Keep for the first time. He was pinned to the ground, using his elbows to prop himself up. His face was bloodless, almost deathly pale, his clothes soaked in sweat. He looked worse than he had when we escaped Sedaya. Alonzo Dellacqua stood over him, a gloating smile on his face. He didn’t seem to care about the destruction he had just wrought, or that his daughter was in the middle of the blast zone.

  “Ben?” Nick said.

  “Shh,” I replied, not wanting Alonzo to notice us, especially since we had both lost our rifles in the fall. I moved closer to the storage tank for cover, pulling off my gloves so I could move my ring to the opposite hand.

  A soft thump behind us turned me around as I slid the ring onto my finger.

  Colette stood a dozen feet away. At first, I thought she looked ready for a fight. Then I noticed the blood soaking her shirt and the jagged piece of metal sticking out of her chest.

  “You fought well,” I heard Alonzo say to Keep. “Better than I ever would have guessed. It must have taken you years to learn to control the interactions so precisely.”

  “Precisely?” I whispered, still staring at Colette. They had nearly taken down the entire building.

  “Nearly a thousand,” Keep replied, his weak voice barely audible. “But who’s really counting.”

  A thousand? Years? I couldn’t hide the shock from my face. Neither could Colette, who must have heard him too. Or Alonzo, who whistled in response.

  “A thousand? You were there when Sashkur perfected the tech, then?”

  “I was.”

  “And you lived through the war.”

  “I did.”

  “How?”

  Keep didn’t respond.

  “Answer me!” Alonzo screamed.

  Even though I faced the other way, I could see the interior get lighter from the energy he sent into Keep.

  “Well?” I said to Colette, who had come down from the rafters but had yet to make a move. “Are we killing each other, or what?”

  “Your focus,” she said. “I…I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “All focus, no control,” I replied. “My only volume is eleven.”

  “You…” She coughed, gurgled, and stumbled to a knee. Forgetting we were enemies, I hurried to her side. Behind me, I could hear Alonzo again demand to know how Keep had gained what amounted to immortality. “Maybe you can stop this,” she said as I reached her. She pulled one of the rings off her fingers and held it out to me. “Somebody must.”

  I put my hand out and she slid it onto my index finger. “What’s the sigil?” I asked.

  “Light.”

  “What am I going to do with—” I said, before it came to me. “Focus word?”

  “Adus.”

  I nodded, looking down at it. “Light. Adus. Got it.”

  “Ben, I’m sorry. I…” She trailed off, falling from her knees onto her stomach before I could try to catch her with my only functional arm. She didn’t move again.

  I spun around, returning my attention to Alonzo and Keep. The former stood over the latter, though it looked like Keep was either unconscious or dead. His head turned, eyes latching onto Nick.

  “Oh, shit,” Nick whispered.

  A wall of flame launched from Alonzo’s fingertips, racing toward him. He remained frozen in fear as it approached.

  “Soft touch, soft touch,” I said, cringing as I activated my ring, imagining the softest breath washing over Nick. “Distra.”

  The force threw him aside, sending him crashing into the machine nearly ten feet away. I heard his arm break from the impact, and he hit the ground clutching at it. Injured, but still alive.