Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
London was pond scum, Melissa was a selfish coward, but the rest of the Cold Chaos members didn’t deserve to die or disappear if I could prevent it.
I looked at the anchor. It still loomed large in my mind’s vision, an ominous evil thing that had to be destroyed.
I focused. Still solid black, impenetrable to my talent. I didn’t know what it was made of or how it came to be, but I understood what it did far better now. It was a pushpin. The breach was a notecard. Someone picked it up from its place on a desk and used a pushpin to stick it to a corkboard. Once the pushpin disappeared, the note card would fall back to its place on the desk. The caves, the spider herders, the lake dragons, they probably wouldn’t even notice the shift as their little slice of biosphere returned to its rightful spot in the world that had spawned it.
If I shattered the anchor, the gate would collapse in three days, as the breach ran out of energy to stay wedged between dimensions. But it wouldn’t solve the problem of the bodies, because it left enough time to search the mining site. The corpses would still be found.
Besides, everyone would know that I had destroyed the anchor. The anchors didn’t just spontaneously collapse on their own. I couldn’t stagger out of the breach and have it collapse behind me. My life would be over.
The compulsion burned in me. I had to destroy it.
No. I was my own person. I had other things to do. I had to clean this up. The sooner the better.
I turned to the body of the gress, squeezed the amulet until it clicked, and spoke a single word in an alien language. “Irhkzurr.”
The amulet on the gress’ exposed chest turned red, then orange. The assassin’s flesh sizzled. The devourer shroud hissed, trying to crawl away from the heat and failing, trapped by its roots with the alien body.
The amulet grew yellow, then finally a blinding white, and the corpse turned to ash, the grey shroud writhing as it too was incinerated. A moment and the pile of ash collapsed onto the floor.
Jovo stood up on the dead skelzhar’s head, his bracelet clutched in his hand. He was splattered with blood and his eyes looked a little wild.
I gave him a little wave.
The lees hopped off the corpse of his enemy, shook himself, flinging blood everywhere, ran over to me, and showed me the bracelet. It was a metal band about two inches wide, that looked to be made of copper. Thin red lines crossed it, carving it into smaller sections.
He grinned at me.
“Home,” I said.
“Home!”
He jumped from foot to foot, spinning in place, then turned around, and hugged me. “Ada.”
“Jovo.”
He took my hand, squeezed it to his chest, and pointed to the exit, toward the gate. “Home.”
I nodded. “My home.”
Jovo put his paw on his chest and said, pronouncing the words very carefully. “Help.” He pointed at me. “Ada. Dan-ge-rous. Help.”
He waved his knives around and struck a dramatic pose.
It took me a minute. My nice new friend from a different world, who helped me kill an assassin from an alien planet, was determined to walk me home. Because it wasn’t safe. Gentleman Jovo.
I sat on the floor and laughed.
The trek from the anchor chamber to the gate was short. So short, I nearly cried. Only a few dozen yards on the other side of the anchor chamber the ground sloped downhill into a wide tunnel that led pretty much straight to the gate. I had wandered through the tunnels for days. I must’ve crossed above this tunnel several times, never finding access to it.
After the first few minutes I started running. Jovo kept up with me and we bounded through the passage, with Bear in the lead. The way was clear. All the monsters were either dead or too scared to get in our way.
We’d crossed the killing site of Malcolm’s team. I stopped long enough to pick up some aetherium charges. I didn’t look at the bodies.
The assault team had marked their path with white arrows painted on the walls. Following their route was easy.
We’d been running for what felt like an hour, when I saw an orange arrow on the wall. I remembered when Hotchkins drew it. We had reached the turn off to the mining site.
Finding London’s cave-in took no time at all. Two aetherium detonations later, we blasted a hole through the rubble. With my new strength, I could’ve dug through it, but I was in a hurry, and when I flexed, my talent conveniently marked the best place for an explosion.
We made it into the mining site. The bodies lay where they fell. Nothing fed on them, nothing touched them. They had been decomposing for a week and some were beginning to bloat. The four gress, however, had shrunk as the shrouds drained the last of their body fluids. I set off the remaining amulets one by one, until the dead gress became ash.