Page 39 of The Inheritance (Breach Wars #1)

Elias stopped by the tinted window. The gate was on his left.

In front of it, Leo stood with his arms crossed.

Kovalenko was on Leo’s right, lean, dark-haired, holding his bow.

The cryo ranger was poised on his toes, the bow casually hanging in his hand.

Kovalenko summoned energy projectiles, which his mind shaped into arrows.

Contrary to the misleading name of his talent, they didn’t encase things in ice.

When one of Kovalenko’s arrows struck, his target seized up, frozen in their tracks for a couple of moments, as if tased.

The bow wasn’t strictly necessary, but it helped him aim.

To the right, at the mouth of the street, ten people had disembarked from a personnel carrier, grouping themselves around their leader.

Tall and broad-shouldered, he towered over his team, and his bulky tactical armor, reinforced with adamant, only made him look larger.

Anton Sokolov, a bastion Talent, a good solid tank with just the right amount of aggression.

The woman next to him was older and willowy, her dark blond hair pulled back into a French braid.

JoAnne Kersey, otherwise known as the Bloodmist. For some reason, a lot of women awakened as pulse carvers, high-burst damage dealers who used bladed weapons and diced their opponents into pieces in a controlled frenzy. JoAnne was one of the best.

Elias recognized a few other faces. All ten had the same charcoal and white patch on their gear: a dark square showing a shield with two stylized wings spreading from its sides.

A faceless human bust rose out of the shield with a sharp corona of triangular rays stabbing outward from its head.

It was meant to evoke guardian angels and general badassery, but to him it looked like some winged crash dummy thrust its head through the shield and was now stuck wearing it like a yoke.

The ten people on the street wore it proudly. The Guardian Guild had sent their A team to claim the Elmwood gate.

He didn’t hold it against Graham. It wasn’t personal. Graham was like a shark: always hungry and looking for something to sink his teeth into.

Krista walked out of the library’s depths and stopped next to Elias. A faint red glow traced her long dark fingers, a precursor to an inferno.

“Look at them all dressed up. Bless their hearts.”

“Are we ready?” Elias asked.

“We’re good.”

“London?”

“Geared and armed. If he isn’t happy about it, he’s keeping it to himself.”

“I’ll need you to watch him in the breach.”

She smiled. “No worries. If he sneezes the wrong way, I’ll be on him like a hawk.”

On the street Anton shrugged his massive shoulders. “You’re standing between me and my gate, Leonard.”

“Funny, I thought I was standing between you and our gate.”

Anton sighed. “Don’t be fucking difficult. We both know the DDC is going to announce the gate change.”

“If they reassign it and if the Guardians get that assignment, we’ll revisit the issue.” Leo’s voice was cold and light. “Until then, you are trespassing. This is your only warning: turn around, sashay back to your soccer dad minivan, and get the fuck out of here.”

“Your healer is stuck in Hong Kong,” Anton boomed. “And the old man isn’t here to pull your ass out of the fire.”

The old man, huh?

“We know he left for HQ last night.”

Elias’s eyebrows crept up. Last night he and Leo returned to HQ.

It was late but he wanted to speak to Ada’s children one more time before the news broke.

Leo came with him for that conversation and then went back to the site in the Cold Chaos vehicle.

Elias stayed for another hour, finishing up some last-minute things.

He’d taken a ride-share back, had it drop him off several streets away, then ran the last couple of miles to clear his head.

It worked – he’d slept well for the first time in a week.

Someone from the Guardians must’ve been watching the site and noted Leo coming back without him.

“We all know you can’t go in,” Anton continued. “There are ten of us here and we’re ready to enter. Why don’t you step aside and let us fix your mess?”

“He did just say that there were ten of them?” Leo asked.

“Yes,” Kovalenko confirmed. “He learned to count.”

“Did that sound like a threat to you?” Leo wondered.

“It did.”

Leo’s eyes blazed with white. Two huge dark wings thrust from his back, ethereal as if woven from a thunderstorm. Lightning crackled and danced across the phantom contour feathers.

A pulse of deep green shot from Anton and contracted back into an aura that sheathed the big man like second armor.

“Persistent,” Krista said. “What do they know that I don’t?”

“There is a big adamantite vein in that breach,” Elias said.

“Someone has been talking.”

“Mhm.”

And he had a very good idea who. The pool of suspects was limited to four.

Wagner was too pessimistic, Drishya was too young and inexperienced, and Melissa thought the guild completely had her back, thanks to Leo’s gentle style of interrogating.

Only one person’s future was in doubt. London had taken an opportunity to open another door for himself.

“They aren’t normally that aggressive.” Krista frowned.

“This is being recorded,” Elias said. “They are hoping to provoke us and then splatter it all over the media.”

“You are in violation of Article 3 of the Gate Regulation Act.” Leo’s voice was an eerie, unnaturally loud whisper underscored by the roar of a distant storm. “Retreat or we will be forced to remove you for your safety.”

Anton took a step forward. The team behind him fanned out into a battle formation. Anton took another step. A third.

“That’s my cue.” Elias picked up his coffee mug and stepped out the door.

JoAnne was the first to see him. She put her hand on Anton’s arm and when he didn’t react, she said something under her breath. Anton stopped walking.

For a moment nobody moved.

Elias sipped his coffee and started forward. Behind him, Jackson came out of the library and leaned on the wall.

Elias reached the middle of the street, took a deeper breath, and let go. Power roared out of him, snapping into an invisible half-sphere. Twenty yards ahead of him a mining cart slid out of the way.

Anton glanced at the cart and back at Elias.

Elias kept walking. His forcefield moved with him. The two heavy trailers just ahead of the Guardian group slid to the sides, gouging the pavement, pushed out of Elias’s path.

The rival guild group backed away. Anton remained and pulled a sword off his back. The seventy-five-inch-long blade was solid black. Pure adamant. Nice.

The forward edge of Elias’ shield touched the rival tank.

Anton gripped his sword, and the oversized blade burst into purple glow. The big man swung. The sword smashed into the forcefield and bounced off.

Elias kept walking.

Anton took a step back and slashed again. The sword rebounded.

Anton slid backward. Two feet. Three. Four. The tank reversed his sword and raised it above the pavement, about to stab it into the ground to anchor himself.

“It will break,” Leo called out.

“I’d listen to him.” Elias said, pausing. “It’s a good sword.”

Anton stared at them for a long second.

Elias drank his coffee.

The Guardian tank sheathed his sword. Elias dropped the shield. Another moment and it would be tapped out anyway.

The Guardians eyed him, wary.

Elias took the final swallow of his coffee. “Tell Graham that if he feels some way about this, he’s welcome to give me a call after I’m done with this gate.”

Anton turned his back to him and went back to the van. His team followed.

Elias watched them go, then turned around. “Alright people, I want us in that breach in ten minutes!”

* * *

The gate loomed before me, huge and dark. I turned to Jovo and pointed at it.

“Home.”

He grinned.

I opened my arms and hugged him.

He hugged me back and said something in his language. If my gem was awake, I might have understood it, but it was still dormant.

Jovo tinkered with his bracelet. A pale hole formed in the middle of the tunnel, with a fiery rim that spun like a pinwheel, throwing long trails of sparks. I glimpsed a strange city of sand-colored stone poised against a purple sky with a huge, shattered planet hanging above it.

Jovo pointed at the portal. “Baha-char. Kiar sae Baha-char.”

I had no idea what a baha-char was.

He grabbed my hands, looking into my eyes, and pronounced the words slowly.

“Baha-char, Ada. Kiar sae Baha-char.”

This seemed vitally important. “Kiar sae Baha-char.”

He nodded.

“I’ll remember,” I promised.

Jovo grinned, let go of my hands, bowed to me, and dove into the portal. It snapped closed behind him, vanishing into thin air.

The tunnel lay dark and silent.

I took a deep breath and pulled my phone out of the pocket of my coveralls.

I had carried it with me all this time, in a military grade shatterproof and water-tight case.

I had turned it off when I entered the breach and hadn’t fired it back up even once.

Even when turned off, phones still lost charge, and I needed it to power on now. My life literally depended on it.

I pushed the power button.

* * *

Elias surveyed the nine-member assault team in full battle gear. The best Cold Chaos had to offer. They looked ready. Everyone was rested. The sun was up. It was time.

He turned back to the black hole of the gate. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

* * *

The electric glow of the phone screen lit up the tunnel. Only two percent of the charge left, but it was enough. Just enough.

The camera wouldn’t work and I couldn’t waste any charge on it. I couldn’t see myself. I didn’t know what I looked like now or if I had enough humanity left in me to exit. My hands shook from the pressure.

I scrolled through my contacts, found the right name, and tugged the sleeve of my coveralls over my sword bracelet. Here is hoping I won’t need it.

I was still me. I was Ada Moore. It had to let me out.

There was only one way to find out.

“Come, Bear.”

My dog wagged her tail, and we strode into the gate.

I half-expected an impenetrable barrier to stop me, or a flash of pain, but there was none. I sank into the gate, pushing my way through the invisible Jello. The familiar pressure squeezed me. I pushed through it.

The heaviness vanished.

I smelled Earth’s air.

The sky spread before me, gorgeous and blue, backlit with the first rays of sunrise, and I had never seen anything more beautiful.

We were out. We were home. I’d been trapped in the damn breach for so long, this didn’t feel real. It felt like a wishful dream.

Now I had to stay alive.

In front of me, an assault team was walking to the gate, their gear dyed in Cold Chaos indigo. They saw me and froze, their faces shocked. A large man in the front, enormous in his adamant armor, stared at me as if he’d seen a ghost.

I pushed the contact on my phone and put the call on speaker.

“You have reached the Chicago DDC office,” a female voice said into the phone.

“Assessor Adaline Moore,” I spoke into the phone. “Personal code 3725. I’m out of the Elmwood gate. I’m alive and uninjured.”

The voice on the other end vibrated with urgency. “Do you require immediate assistance?”

“Not at this time.”

I hung up. My phone died.

It was done. I had reported in. Cold Chaos couldn’t disappear me now.

To the left, behind the large man, a familiar face swung into view, bleached white. London.

I moved forward before I realized I had done it.

He just stood there.

I cleared the distance between us in a single breath. My hand drew back almost on its own.

Control your strength, control your strength, control your strength…

Panic burst in London’s eyes. His talent shot out of him, trying to shield him from me, but I was already swinging, and my fist tore right through his blade warden force field like it was a soap bubble.

I hammered a punch to London’s jaw.

The blow took him off his feet. He flew backward and landed on his back.

Yes! That felt amazing. I wished I could rewind time so I could punch him again. If only I had that power, I would just sit here and do this all day.

London tried to rise. Bear lunged forward like a bullet and pinned him to the ground. Her fur stood on end. Her mouth gaped, big teeth bare and wet with drool. She snarled like a monster from hell and clamped onto London’s right shoulder.

Well, at least it wasn’t his neck. That would’ve been too fast and easy.

London cried out.

“Drop him.”

Bear growled, her mouth full of London’s arm.

“Not food,” I told her. “Just human garbage. Back.”

Bear let go, snarled at London in case he didn’t get the point, and ran back to me, tail wagging.

London collapsed back onto the pavement. A man dashed to his side, knelt by him, and put his hand on the blade warden’s chest. A faint golden glow bathed London.

The big man in armor looked at the healer.

The smaller man nodded. I finally recognized the two of them.

The one kneeling by London was Merrick Jackson, Cold Chaos’ miracle healer.

The man in armor who looked like he popped out of some medieval knight film was Elias McFeron. The Guildmaster of Cold Chaos.

Behind London, someone made a strangled noise. I looked up. Melissa was standing by one of the trailers next to a man in mining coveralls. Our gazes met. Fear slapped her face. She shoved the man out of the way, pushing him between us, and took off running.

The site was silent like a tomb. Nobody moved.

Melissa kept running down the street, to the intersection. She turned right and ran out of view.

“Leo,” Elias said in a deep voice. “Please inform HQ that Melissa Hollister has turned in her resignation, effective immediately. And call Haze.”

“Yes, sir.”

The man who answered was in his thirties, handsome, athletic, and his eyes were pure white. The light tactical armor fit him like a glove. I knew him, too. Leonard Martinez, Vice-Guildmaster of Cold Chaos. Cold Chaos had brought their best guns to take on the gate.

Elias McFeron turned to me. He was in his late forties, with short blond hair that was going grey.

His face was harsh, with a square jaw and broad angles.

He might have been handsome if he’d led a different life, but the breaches must’ve purged all softness from his soul and his face.

Only hard resolve remained. His light blue eyes evaluated me with methodical precision.

He saw my face, my expression, my coveralls, Bear at my feet.

He missed nothing. Elias McFeron was very dangerous, and he’d decided I was a threat.

I didn’t want to kill anyone. I just wanted to go home, but if I had to cut my way through Cold Chaos to get back to my children, I would do it.

He opened his mouth.

I braced myself.

“Assessor Moore, welcome home. Perhaps we could have a word?”