The Opelux and Other Monsters || Book One

CHAPTER 41 - ORION

The ear-splitting shriek filled the tunnel, magnifying it to the point covering my ears did nothing to keep it out. And then it stopped.

"What was that?"

"Too late," Daniel grinned.

Too late for what, I didn't dare ask.

The explosive sound of a gunshot ricocheted through the tunnel.

"TRITTEON!"

"Knock out Daniel," Lexicon said.

My hand filled with a Nourr coma Veehm at will. Daniel tried to dodge me, but I slammed it down on top of his head and he went limp and I bolted.

I slid to a halt at the tunnels edge, pressing my back to the wall as I threw my senses out into the rain. It was coming down hard, but it was bright enough to see a large, blurry fountain straight ahead. He was twenty yards out. But I couldn't see him. Had he taken cover? I could sense him, but he wasn't moving.

"I can't sense anyone else," I said to Lexicon, and ran.

The rain felt like stinging drops of hot water. A rush of weakness shivered through me, but I didn't slow. The stuff was awful. And Tritteon had been out in it for almost two minutes already.

It was like the rain parted in front of me and he was suddenly there on the ground, materialized from thin air. I slid to my knees beside him, unintentionally splashing muddy water across his face.

"Tritteon!"

He lay motionless on his side. I grabbed his shoulder and rolled him onto his back, trying hard to calm the panic welling up in my chest. The large hole in his abdomen blossomed with red. His chest struggled to rise and fall.

I ducked over him, pressing my hand over the wound, trying to make myself as small a target as possible. I couldn't get him out of here if whoever it was shot me as well.

Lexicon sent her calculations to me with symbols across my vision. If her guess on the trajectory of the shot was correct, and it probably was, the shooter was somewhere behind me. I had to get him out of here.

I pressed my hands to either side of his face. Warm Thet vibrated out of me in sputtering bursts, like the stinging rain was trying to inhibit it somehow. But the Veehm worked and he rose into the air, his body parallel with the ground. I stood as he rose, holding his face tighter in hopes the rain wouldn't be able to get between my hands and his skin and break the connection.

My throat and lungs burned from water drops that had gotten in my mouth and it felt as if someone had strapped weights to my legs. I moved backward as fast as I could toward the tunnel, drawing a floating Tritteon along with me, expecting someone to shoot me in the back at any second.

But nothing happened. The tunnel entrance blocked the rain as I pulled him inside.

Something large moved outside the tunnel, dropping from somewhere I couldn't see. Something seven feet tall and so thin it was almost skeletal. No, make that two something's.

"Lexicon, what the hell are those?" I moved backward even faster, a new rush of adrenaline breaking up the heaviness in my body as the creatures stepped inside, rain bouncing off long, bony legs.

"Carnac."

I saw them drop into a crouch as I pulled Tritteon around the corner. My brain screamed at me to go faster and it felt like I did. But with my focus split entirely between keeping Tritteon elevated and the two Carnac coming toward us, I forgot to take into account Daniel's unconscious legs sprawled out across the tunnel floor.

I toppled backward, slamming my head into the portal door. Lights burst through my head and Tritteon landed on top of me, a solid, dead weight, pinning me against our only escape.

"No! No! Come on," I yelled, trying and failing to get another Veehm started through the burning, wetness covering every inch of my skin. A growl rumbled up the tunnel and the Carnac duo rounded the corner, barreling toward us on all fours. I reached out and grabbed the edge of Daniel's black coat. I would have used his pants except that they were covered in his blood. I squeezed the velvet material, urging it to absorb the water from my hand.

I tried again. Heat and light enveloped my hand. I threw it as hard as I could toward the Carnac. They screeched, slid to a halt and scrambled backward as the Veehm hit the ground inches from them and exploded, throwing dirt and rock in all directions.

I reached up, feeling blindly for the door handle.

"Infirmary," I thought to it. Light poured into the tunnel and I fell backward into the hallway.

The Carnac roared and I chucked another ball of light at them. The dirt exploded again. I gripped the edges of the doorway and wriggled myself out from under Tritteon.

"PHARRO," I screamed down the hallway. I grabbed Tritteon's arm and grunted beneath his weight as I tried to drag him inside. But I had to drop him and let off another Veehm to keep the Carnac at bay at the same time. "PHARRO!"

A new burst of fear gripped me as I recalled Daniel boasting about how he had soundproofed the hallway. Had it been a temporary thing?

The door to the Infirmary flew open and Pharro charged out, several guards at his heels. He didn't say a word as he slid to the floor beside me, blasted a mass of rippling Thet toward the Carnac, and grabbed Tritteon beneath the arms, hissing in pain as the water covering Tritteon burned him.

Dellsen reached for me too, but I smacked his hand away and dodged back into the tunnel for Daniel. After everything we had been through to get him, I wasn't about to let him off that easy.

I surrounded him with my Thet and lifted him into the air.

"Get in here!" Pharro yelled.

I stumbled back into the hallway, pulling Daniel with me, and Pharro kicked the door shut.

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