Dark Time: Mortal Path (39 page)

She didn’t kid herself that she was going to outrun or outfight Subedei. If she took him out, it would be with cunning and luck.

The room she was looking into was dark. Subedei could materialize out of the blackness and jab her with a knife in the space of a heartbeat.

She reached inside the open door and ran her hand along the wall, looking for the light switch. She found it and flipped on the light. Fluorescent lights brightened the room, which was an office space with cubicles. The room appeared to be empty, but Subedei could be hiding in any of the cubicles.

A smear of blood on the floor encouraged her to enter. Subedei had probably stepped in Shale’s blood. Cautiously, she made her way in, pausing at every cubicle entrance. Then she decided she was losing too much time that way, and just took off running. The room was about a hundred feet long. No boogeyman leaped out at her from behind the cubicle walls.

At the far end of the room, a door stood open. Subedei was inviting her in. Too late, she realized she was outlined in the doorway with the bright fluorescents behind her.

She felt the cold wind of Subedei’s arrival but couldn’t see him—he was moving too fast. Before she could move, she felt a slice on each of her arms. She did a backward handspring into the relative safety of the cubicle room, but she was bleeding from cuts that made it unlikely she could do that again.

Maliha was approaching the limit of her abilities. The pain and blood loss from multiple wounds were wearing her down. Time was definitely on Subedei’s side.

He knows it, and he’s enjoying it.

She had to make a stand while she still could. She settled on the floor with a good view of the open door and fired her last grappling-hook dart into the ceiling. She had a plan, a desperate one. She reached into her pack, kneaded two blocks of C4 into a ball, and inserted a wireless detonator.

Come to me, demon’s slave.

There was a commotion at the back of the room, where she’d entered. She heard the voices of guards, and then everything got very still. Too still.

A flashbang came rolling down the aisle between the cubicles. She couldn’t wait, or she’d be helpless 130 z 138

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in a moment. She pulled on the grappling hook’s rope and swung out into the aisle. If her weakened arms gave out now, she was exposed and would be dead in moments.

She kicked the flashbang back where it came from with all her strength. Whoever was back there took the full brunt of it.

While she was flying through the air on the rope, the flash went off behind her, and the bang struck her ears. The fluid in her ears reacted instantly, and she was disoriented and dizzy. Fighting against it, she pulled up higher on the rope and threw her feet out in front of her so her body was nearly parallel to the floor. That cost, dearly.

She went swinging through the doorway like a battering ram, and her feet connected in a satisfying way with solid flesh.

Subedei, aware of the flashbang, had stepped into the doorway after the blast to capture what he thought would be a helpless target. His head snapped back with the force of Maliha’s body hitting him feet first. She continued past him and let go of the rope.

She was in the control room. Subedei moved to block her exit on the far side of the room. The door to the office was open—her path to safety—but the Mongolian was in the way.

There was nothing to do but attack. She ran at Subedei and paid for her arrogance as he tossed a throwing star that struck her side.

Pain kills only if I allow it.

She saw the look in his eyes. He was lost somewhere deep in lust, his whole being focused on obtaining her.

The death of a thousand cuts. It has to end soon.

Swerving and ducking underneath his arm as he raised it to wreak more havoc on her, she smacked the ball of C4 onto his back, and then slid into Greg’s office. She scrambled behind Greg’s heavy desk and pressed the detonator button.

The explosion shook the floor and threw the desk—and Maliha—back into the wall. She took a crushing impact from the desk. An orange ball of fire, initially confined in the small area of the control room, burst through the walls and headed in her direction. Windows in the office shattered and flames curled outward. The heat of the explosion singed her hair even though she was curled behind the desk.

When the wave of fire passed, she pulled herself up.

A chunk of Subedei’s torso landed with a heavy splat next to her. Right then it was the most wonderful thing she could lay her eyes on. She picked the throwing star out of her body and triumphantly stabbed it into the bloody meat.

Maliha crawled out into the hall. She blinked and wiped blood from her eyes, because she thought she was so far gone she was seeing things.

In the middle of the hall was Grandfather, in a lotus position, floating a couple of feet off the floor. It was the young, powerful version of him that she faced.

Her heart sank and her stomach twisted inside. In her severely weakened condition—or in any condition as a mortal—the odds of taking out Grandfather were small.

To do the unexpected is my only chance.

She pulled together the threads of her tattered strength, and ran toward him. No explosives, no weapons left, it would have to be hand-to-hand.

When she approached him, the
shou
symbol on her left arm burst into flame. The pain was agonizing as the fire sank deeper into her arm. The symbol of her pledge was intent on disabling her, keeping her from attacking her master. She fought both it and the remembrance of burning alive that it triggered, and braced herself for combat, knowing that his first blow could be the end of her.

“Daughter,” he said, “stop.”

At his words, Maliha’s feet felt as though she’d stepped in tar, and they tangled under her body. She crashed to the floor and slowly pulled herself up into a seated position. The fire popped out of existence on her arm. One thought screamed in her head.

My quest is over.

Grandfather gently floated down to the floor, and they were face-to-face. Sounds faded. A wall of silence surrounded them. Maliha concentrated on slowing her racing heart and breathing.

“You have killed Subedei, who was my son as you are my daughter.”

There was no denying that. His blood had splashed on her. She remembered her pledge: I swear to 131 z 138

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honor you as my grandfather, to do nothing to bring shame to you or the school, and to never stray from the teachings of this school.

Does killing a member of the school qualify as straying from its teachings? Probably.

She met Grandfather’s eyes, and found them unfocused, as if he were looking through her. She thought he might be reading her aura, but it seemed as though he was studying her blood flowing in its vessels, tracing it in and out of her heart, watching her lungs expand and contract, seeing everything she was made of, physically and emotionally.

“Let me tell you a story.”

Time didn’t seem to matter in the bubble they were in. She nodded.

“Five thousand years ago, I lived in the rich city of Ur in the land of Sumer, a powerful man content with my life. I was a priest of Anu. Already aged well beyond the usual number of years, I foolishly prayed to Anu to grant me a hundred more. When my health failed me, I grew bitter with Anu. He had not granted my prayer. I now know it was my pride that caused my bitterness, not any failing of Anu’s. When my heart stopped, the last words from my mouth were a curse to Anu, to whom I had devoted my life.

Wrapped in bitterness, I found myself in a strange place, surrounded by thick fog. It was there I met Rabishu, who turned my bitterness against me and took me as his slave.”

He stopped. She could see memories whirling in his eyes.

“The demon trained me for years in the blank place. When I left there, I was a master of the killing arts, his first assassin. I serve him still, while waiting for the return of Anu to this world so I can beg forgiveness for the curse I uttered.”

“Why don’t you rebel? Join me. Together we can kill Rabishu and the others.”

“If I break my contract, I return to the age I was at the time of my death. You have seen me. As a frail, blind, mortal man, I would have no hope of balancing the scale that Rabishu would carve on my body—a scale weighed down by five thousand years of killing. I would fail, and move from my wretched situation to a worse one in the demon’s cage. My hope lies in the return of Anu.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“I want to know if you still honor your pledge of loyalty to me.”

She searched his face.

So this is what it boils down to. If I say no, he kills me. I’m half-dead already, how could I stop him?

If I say yes—what does that get me into? In all this time he hasn’t asked anything of me, but as master of
the school, he has the right to. He could order me to do something, and if I didn’t do it, we’re back to
him killing me, or trying to.

“Will you call on me for your own needs?”

He shook his head. “Your pledge was unqualified when you took it, and must be unqualified when you affirm it.”

He hates Rabishu as I do. Just go with that. The enemy of my enemy…

“I’m loyal to you and the school.”

“Then I will pray for your success.” It was said without much hope in his face or voice.

“There is one more thing. In the foulness of his mind, Rabishu may one day pit us against each other, master against disciple. If that happens, I will kill you. I must remain alive to serve Anu when he returns. I am his last priest.”

Defiance sparked in Maliha and she remembered what she’d told Rabishu when she’d taken the mortal path.
You won’t win. I swear you won’t.

The bubble faded. Grandfather got swiftly to his feet. When she blinked, he was gone.

With what strength she had left, she still had to get out of the building. That meant going out the front door, where there was certain to be an army of riled-up guards, or going out the secret way she came in.

Resigned, she levered herself to her feet to retrace her steps. She rushed through the burning control room and into the enclave beyond. The cubicle room was a shambles. The guards who had rushed up the aisle after minimal recovery from the flashbang had run straight into the explosion. Their tactic had backfired on them and resulted in their deaths.

She entered the stairwell and went down the flights of stairs, holding the railing, pausing to rest, continuing. Finally, looking out at the long hallway, she could see the blasted theater room and beyond it, the storage room she’d come through.

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She went down the hall cautiously, her eyes scanning each door for any sign of movement. When she passed the blown-out theater-room door, a small group of guards had gathered inside, searching in case their boss had somehow survived. They spotted her and ran into the hall. She was ahead of them, and she had a short distance to go to get to the storage room. She drew an extra effort from somewhere inside, and hurried to the room. She banged the door open, passed the dead guards she’d left there, and dived into the opening in the floor where the rope ladder was. Bullets hit the wall in the storage room. Her body screamed with pain, but she had to keep going.

She grabbed one of the rungs of the rope ladder and stopped her face-forward descent. She couldn’t swing there by her weakened arm for long, so she dropped the remaining six feet to the floor and landed on her feet. Her burned legs collapsed beneath her. Crawling, she moved to the wall and reached up to the elevator controls to press the DOWN button. Gunshots were fired down the rope ladder, then they stopped. She got to her feet, supporting herself on the frame of the elevator. She knew what was coming: the aerial act in the elevator car.

As the elevator door opened, a guard came down the ladder. She reached out for the cords dangling from her grappling hooks and pulled up quickly, trying to get out of the way of any shots. The man rushed after her into the elevator, sprang the trapdoor with his weight, and fell out of sight, screaming. The trapdoor snapped closed, giving no sign that someone had just plunged to his death. Maliha swung on the cords toward the elevator’s control panel, slipping close to the trapdoor and recovering, and pressed the DOWN button with her elbow. The doors closed and she was on her way.

Eight very long seconds passed on the way down in the elevator.

When the door opened, the tunnel with its arched ribs of light was a welcome sight. She swung out of the elevator, letting go of the cords. After making an awkward, pain-filled landing, she went to what she assumed was the launcher for the escape pod. There were several buttons on it, but one had a diagram of the windshield of the pod lifting up. She jammed her fist down on it. Lights came on in the interior of the pod, and the windshield rotated up.

Let there be no more traps.

She forced her legs to move to the pod, crawled in, and sat in the semi-reclining seat. There was a similar button inside, showing the shield lowering. Greg had wanted the controls as clear and simple as possible, figuring he might not be in prime shape if he needed to use his escape route. She pressed it, and when the shield slipped down into place, a green button lit up. She pushed it, and the pod began to move.

Woozy, Maliha watched the lights overhead as the pod picked up speed and then slowed and came to a gentle stop at the other end of the tunnel. She got out of the pod, leaving a bloody stain on the plush seat, and went through the open steel door. The ladder to the surface was in front of her. She held on and pulled up step by painful step, remembering at the last moment to skip the third step. She dragged herself out the hatch and onto the dirt floor of the barn.

Not far away was the spot where she’d hidden the weapons she hadn’t taken with her. With them was the signaler she needed to contact Glass to bring the helicopter back. The thought of having to climb up a rope into the helicopter was daunting.