38. Aiden
Chapter thirty-eight
Aiden
We land outside the door to the butcher shop. With all the trips to rescue gifted from various islands, the teleportation doesn’t affect me as it once had, and my feet remain firmly planted on the ground.
I close my eyes for the seconds of concentration I need to feel what metal I’m in contact with. My whip sword hidden beneath my jacket and strapped to my back. Forearm and shin gauntlets. Thick, chain necklaces hanging beneath my shirt.
It’s not as much as I’d like, heading into a fight with both Gordon and probably Thorne, but it’ll have to do.
Reaching over my shoulder, I grasp the handle on my sword and draw it out. “Jack, your knives have hit him before. How?”
He slides a few more blades free of his hoodie, releasing them into the air to join the others that hover around him. “Luck.”
I was afraid of that.
Using my free hand to release the top buttons on my collared shirt and my jacket, I remind the other two, “He doesn’t leave through that portal.”
Jack and Reid nod in unison, and the former replies, “I’m bringing him back to her.”
I check in with Reid, making sure he’s ready with his two needle-point, twin blades in hand and then grab the door, unlocking it with my gift. Once it’s cracked open, the sleeping spores drift out into the night. Jackson waves his hand in long, sweeping motions that drag the mist free of the building and sends it away from us.
He jerks his head and drops his hands when it’s all clear, and I take point leading us inside.
“—did what you asked, Royce! Your puppet is free, and our debt is squared. Now, bring him back because I’m not carrying this corpse through the portal,” Gordon snaps.
We creep through the storefront, making our way to the open and thawed freezer room in the back.
He continues, oblivious to our presence. “Waiting for what, exactly? What game are you playing at?”
Reid appears between Gordon and the portal, blocking his exit while swinging his long daggers through him.
“Send me some agents.” Gordon pockets his phone and turns on Reid, giving Jack and I the opening we need to strike from behind.
Jackson sends a host of blades in all shapes and sizes hurtling at Gordon. They fly through him, stopping short of Reid, before he flips them and tries again.
I release the hold on my whip sword so it separates to a bladed whip, swinging my arm and yanking it out and down to slice through him. As it falls, I send more metal through the sword to spike out at the end where Gordon is in the hopes of finding a solid point.
Reid shifts back, keeping out of the way of our attacks and guarding the portal so Jack and I can attack from a distance without striking him.
Gordon laughs and holds his arms out in a mocking gesture. “You can’t hit me, you fools!”
We ignore him, continuing to attack persistently. There must be a weakness somewhere. Something we’re missing .
My sword slashes down on the floor by his foot, and he shifts it out of the way.
There!
I whip it back and strike at it again. The sharp edge cracks into the concrete floor where his foot is.
Damn.
“You’ve slept long enough, Thorne.” Gordon sneers, his mood shifting from smug to angry too fast to be a coincidence.
I was close.
Gordon reaches for the gun on his hip and fires at me before I can gather my metal into a shield.
The bullets slow seconds before they hit, then zip back at Gordon as Jackson lands by my side.
“Thanks. I almost had him.”
Jack angles his head, his eyes locked on Gordon. “How?”
“He moved his foot before my sword touched it. But when I went for it again, it passed right through. If his body is intangible, why move it at all?”
He hums thoughtfully. “He has a vulnerable spot, then. And he’s moving it.”
I nod in agreement. “We just have to find it before he moves it again.”
Jackson’s lips curl up to a menacing smile, and he chuckles. “Leave it to me.” He holds his hand out. “Give me the rest of your metal. As many throwing knives as you can make with it.”
I do as he asks without question. After Gordon’s attempt at shooting Reid fails, he doesn’t waste his remaining bullets and focuses on trying to wake Thorne. We have the advantage so long as Thorne stays dead. If he wakes up before we’ve incapacitated Gordon, I’m not sure if we’ll be able to stop them from leaving through the portal together.
“That’s all I have,” I tell Jackson as he gathers the last few knives from me other than my whip sword.
Thorne groans.
Damn it.
“Get up! UP, you lazy puppet!” Gordon shouts, kicking Thorne with his foot.
Thorne tries to grab his leg, but the scientist has already made it intangible again. That’s the problem with Gordon. His gift coupled with quick reflexes. He has so much control over his gift, that he can turn it on and off wherever he likes as easily as breathing.
The wind master looks at his hand. “What did you do?!” he bellows, his face darkening with rage. “Where are my thumbs?”
“Watch how you speak to me! Your hands are free and you have your power back. Be grateful, you undead wretch. Now, hurry up and kill them or I’ll drop your thumbs down a garbage disposal.”
Thorne stands. His eyes flick upward, a smirk spreading on his face when he looks at Gordon.
Knives rain down on Gordon like a swarm of bees. Blades from Jack, from me, even knives from the butcher shop he must have collected, are all packed together as they fly down in an instant.
“What—” Reid exclaims a second before Gordon releases a garbled grunt.
Thorne cackles wildly. His thumbless hands are holding one of Reid’s daggers between them where it’s driven through Gordon to the hilt. “Your entire body becomes solid for a second after your weak spot is struck, isn’t that right?”
Blood dribbles from the corner of Gordon’s lips, his eyes wide with shock. A couple of the knives are buried in his thigh and both of his feet. The rest litter the floor beneath and around him, points down.
“This is a gift from the president.” Thorne slowly twists the blade. The scientist screams in pain, dropping to his knees and crashing into more knives. “Who’s going to be the undead wretch now?”
That was…unexpected.
A gust of wind throws Thorne away from Gordon. Jackson stands between the two, his attention on his former mentor.
“What are you doing?” Reid demands of him.
“His death belongs to Raegan,” Jackson answers coolly.
“—there,” Gordon mumbles, then chokes on blood.
I step to his side, grabbing his hair in a fist and holding my sword to his throat. “Don’t you dare die,” I warn him in a low croon. “I have too much planned for you to let you go that easily.”
“President…your Guild…” he mutters between coughs.
I tighten my grip on his hair, pulling it back so he’s facing me when he talks. “What was that?” Wind whips through the freezer from Jack and Thorne’s fight, and I’m forced to stab my sword into the floor to help keep myself steady.
“He’s there…been there…with your Guild…”
My heart rate doubles, stealing my breath away.
I must have misheard him.
“Who is with our Guild? You don’t even know where we are,” I press, trying to mask the urgency in my tone. I swing around to Reid. “Get the cuffs on him so we can get him to Cassandra. She can heal him enough that he doesn’t die before we get answers.” And he can suffer for all he did to Raegan.
Reid doesn’t move. His eyes are wide with fear, his body rigid.
“Reid!” I snap.
He startles, looking at me and back to Gordon. He storms over to us and grabs Gordon by the shirt. “Did you say the president is there?”
Gordon coughs more blood from the rough shake. His head lulls forward.
Fuck!
“Reid, the cuffs!”
Reid steps away from Gordon, fear hanging like a dark cloud over his face when he looks at me and shakes his head. “I have to go back. Tinsley—”
He cries out and falls forward, hitting the ground. A long, bloody cut scores across his back, and Thorne laughs maniacally. “Can’t have you ruining the president’s fun, can we?”
The wind master flies at Gordon, wrapping his arms around him and lifting him into the air. Jackson makes like he’s slapping his hand down, and both Thorne and Gordon slam to the ground.
Thorne grabs at the scientist again. He snarls his frustration when he can’t get a good grip with his thumbless hands before Jackson’s attacking again. He rolls out of the way, then flies back to his feet and sends his own counterattacks at Jack. Thorne’s clearly trying to get to the portal, but Jackson blocks him each time, landing more attacks on the zombie so the wind master is forced to focus on defense.
Grabbing Reid’s blade still pierced through Gordon, I extend the blade and shove it into the concrete to keep him from being moved, then rip my jacket off to press into the bleeding wound on Reid’s back that’s starting to pool on the floor.
I yank out my phone and call Cibrina.
It rings.
And rings.
And rings.
Her voicemail picks up.
I call Kellan.
Dane.
My office.
The security desk.
Nothing.
“Jack! Let him go! We have to get back to the Guild. No one’s answering.”
“You really have gotten stronger, Jack,” Thorne says in an admiring tone, a dark smile stretched on his face like he’s trying to egg Jackson on.
Fuck.
He’s stalling us.
It was a planned attack, going after Reid when his guard was down so we can’t teleport back.
Heaviness like a pile of bricks weighs on my chest at the thought of what might be happening at the bunker.
Raegan.