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And I take a page from Evey’s book.
Ensuring Aja is clear, I detonate the landmine spikes I dropped on the ground as Lorn and I strolled into this forest. Only Tactus is quick enough. He grabs Aja from behind and jerks her back, hard—so hard in the lowGrav that both of them tumble in through the door just as the first explosion rips the salt air.
The explosions are tiered. First comes a concussion that disables pulseShields and scatters the Praetorians into the air. Then comes a gravPit, which pulls them back toward the source of the explosion like a vacuum collecting flies; and then comes the third—pure kinetics to destroy armor and bone and flesh, blowing the warriors outward, into the air, scattering their pieces in the low gravity like breath scatters the seeds of a dandelion. Limbs float gently down. Blood beads and spatters the ground. The explosion breaks the bubble roof overhead and rain again drifts down on the garden to extinguish the fires and thin the blood that leaks into the two dozen bomb craters. Only three Praetorians survived. They’re in poor shape.
“Do not let her escape.” Roque’s voice sears my ears. He watches my holofeed from the ships above.
My Howlers have not yet moved.
Lorn’s furious with me, saying something about honor.
“What?” I sneer. “You think I fight fair?”
“Darrow …,” Sevro hisses as I wait. “Darrow …”
“Hold.”
“She’s getting away!” Roque’s voice frightens me. It drips with spite I didn’t know he had. “Darrow!”
I growl at him to pay attention to his part of the battle.
“Darrow …,” Sevro begs. “Long enough.”
Lorn watches, perhaps beginning to understand.
I snap my fingers. “Hunt.”
The Howlers surge forward like loosed wolves to finish what the bomb started. They dispatch the remaining Praetorians. Sevro shouts Tactus’s name amidst the howling as they tear into the castle searching for him and Aja.
“Darrow, what are you playing at?” Roque asks me over the com. I let the holo of his face appear in the corner of my helmet’s HUD display. His jaw muscles flicker. “If Quinn’s killer escapes …”
“Lock that up,” I tell Roque as I see reports of one of our torchShips taking massive damage. He’s distracted. “Men are dying up there. Focus on your own job.” I shut off the link.
Harpy’s image appears on my display. “Seahorse is under.”
“Good. And Tactus?”
“No sign.”
“Copy.” I close the connection.
“Aja spooked into he sea. But no sign of Tactus,” Sevro says to me several minutes later as the Howlers scour the inside of the castle, going room to room. “He’s hiding. Unless he’s teleported.” He spits at that bit of science fiction. “Ask the geezer where they are.”
A dark worry slithers into my brain. I turn to Lorn. “What would Lune have them do if they could not kill you and me? If she thought someone expendable, what would she order them to do?”
He stands there for a moment in the rain. Then his face goes pale. “The children …” Arcos pushes past me, running through the bomb’s carnage to the shattered glass door. “They’re going to kill my grandchildren!” he shouts back.
“Where are the children?” I ask Sevro.
“What children? We found none.”
Cursing, I chase Arcos.
“I hid them,” he says over his shoulder to me as he sprints down the castle’s hall. He’s fast for an old man, but the gravity slows us till we start using our hands on the walls and ceiling, using gravBoots to take the long halls. We launch around corner after corner. And when he touches the head of a stone griffin and a steel wall falls away to reveal a hidden passage, I smell blood. Two corpses lie on the other side of the passage. One Gray, one Obsidian. I push past Arcos and fly ahead. I pull myself down a series of stairs using handholds in the ceiling till I find myself before two doors. I open one. Just a storeroom. I open another and let my razor slither into hand.
“Tactus,” I say slowly.
His back is to me. Three bodies lie around him, their blood making a pool about his shoes. His razor coils in his hand, hardening as he stands with his head lowered in a room of children and women. Blood slithers down the mercurial blade. He killed two men and a woman. Obsidians.
