Chapter 34
EVEN MORE RUNNING AND SCREAMING
My imagination hadn’t exaggerated what I’d seen in the anthropology lab. Time hadn’t warped the memory of how horrifying it’d been. Not even a little. I’d seen a monster then, and I saw one now.
But Sky had been right; this one looked different from the Enil I’d seen before.
The first creature I’d encountered had looked like a praying mantis made of junkyard scraps. This one wasn’t the same shape. Not even the same size.
Still a disturbing twist on the familiar, though.
It moved with loping, fluid menace on four sleek legs built from piping. It’d come from the boiler room, Sky had said, and sure enough, there were gauges and valves melted and melded together, like some kind of Salvador Dalí painting.
But that wasn’t the horrific part. Its elongated head—like a wolf’s skull rendered in polished steel—swung side-to-side as it stalked forward with predatory grace—despite being forged of clunky metal parts. Tiny grotesque limbs jutted from its chest, tipped in needle-sharp appendages. Fingers.
It had gnarled little arms. Like someone had combined a Mecha T-Rex with the Big Bad Wolf. Surreal and ridiculous and it might have been comical if those arms hadn’t ended in scalpel-like claws designed to tear into flesh. Probably brain matter, too.
I tucked my brightly shining hand behind my back.
The strobe lights bounced off its mishmash of alloys and scrap, casting it in staccato bursts of white and shadow as it prowled from the hallway entrance. There were recognizable shapes embedded in there. An air filter frame, a microscope, a cracked, warped flatscreen. So strange.
The word robot didn’t quite fit. Sky was right. It moved like no collection of random parts should. Like it was part animal, part machine. All really bad news.
The Enil had found me. They were here. And this time, they weren’t sneaking in shadows.
They were coming right for us.
The awful groaning, clanking noise grew clearer the closer it came. A pair of green, pulsing orbs locked on where I stood behind Sky, my palm still burning bright and steady. I tucked my hand behind my back, but it was useless. It gave off enough light to cast our shadows on the tiled floor.
The Enil emitted a sound, all grinding metal and warped modulations. It took me a second to recognize: speech. It was talking to us. Or maybe it was chatting to the other Enil via some alien walkie-talkie tech. Maybe it was cursing in Enilese.
Whatever it was saying, the sound of its language was as terrifying this time as it’d been before. Almost more so now that I knew what this thing was. What it was capable of.
Lungs heaving, I glanced at Sky. If he understood anything the Mech T-Rex Wolf had said, he didn’t respond. He simply adjusted his stance, coming forward onto the balls of his feet and rolling his shoulders back.
Like he was preparing.
Apparently, the Enil took that as an answer.
It angled its massive body. Blade-like protrusions glinted along its limbs.
Its serrated jaws opened, and it loosed a digitized roar loud enough to drown out the fire alarm.
Loud enough to rattle my teeth and make me slap my hands over my ears.
I would’ve staggered back if I hadn’t already pressed myself into the wall.
Before I could recover, it charged.
I screamed as tile cracked under its claws. It moved so fast, it was a blur of metal and death. The crunch of its footfalls mingled with the clanking, groaning squeal of impossibly bending joints.
It was coming right for me.
“Rae, go!” Sky tore his eyes from the charging alien long enough to give me a push.
I wasn’t ready for it.
My ankles tangled, and I hit the floor hard, my backpack taking the brunt of the impact. Air whooshed from my lungs, and stars burst behind my eyes. Dazed, I rolled to my side and looked up.
Sky had planted himself between me and the threat.
But that wasn’t the craziest part.
The craziest part was that he was covered in electricity.
Before, when he’d said he could manipulate it, I hadn’t quite grasped his meaning.
Now I did. Strands of energy crackled over his hands, crawling up his arms, wrapping him in snaking tendrils.
They shone neon against the darkness. The scent of ozone filled the hallway, the burnt, biting scent of a gathering storm.
Except it wasn’t a storm. It was a Pladian in a skin suit.
He’d caused all that electricity that day in the lab. Not a severed wire. Sky.
Unfortunately, now wasn’t the time to marvel over finding out just how much of an alien superhero my bartender coworker had turned out to be. The Enil was almost on him. On us. Heels scrabbling for purchase, I scrambled backward, but Sky didn’t flinch. He didn’t back away.
Instead, he dropped into a ready stance, arms at his sides, knees bent, like a sprinter before the starting gun.
The Enil took one step. Another.
Then Sky moved.
He was a blur of bright blue and dark clothing. A streak moving to meet the creature head on. Another cry caught in my throat, this time a wordless warning. Alarm. Because that was a vicious killer robot and this was Sky, and those claws were so sharp—
In between one strobe flash and the next, he disappeared.
He’d vanished.
“What the…” Still wheezing, I shoved myself up to my hands and crab-walked backward, my panic-slicked palms sliding on dust and pieces of ceiling. One hand slipped. I fell onto my elbow, grunting at the stab of pain, unable to look away.
His suit. He’d used his suit’s cloaking ability again.
The Enil seemed just as shocked. It reared back, skidding, joints and gears flexing and whirring.
Debris flew as it dug in its metal paws and ground to a halt, chunks of tile rippling out like a wave, its tiny, stupid hands clutching the air.
Levers clanked inside its frame when it rotated in place.
Its green gaze roved the empty space Sky had occupied a second before.
Sooner or later, it was going to spot me instead. Lying there with my beacon-hand shining away. I needed to get up—
A blazing, violently churning orb of blue exploded from the darkness, crashing into the Enil’s side. So bright, I threw up a hand to shield my eyes.
Sky.
The blow hurled the roaring creature sideways into the cinderblock. The wall fractured, cracks spreading as the Enil collapsed into a heap of metal limbs. I covered my head as chunks of tile rained down, dust coating my tongue, blinding me.
When the rocking faded, I risked raising my head, peering through the murk with watering eyes.
I couldn’t see anything. Nothing but flashing lights and vague shadows.
I rolled onto my hands and knees with my heart hammering against my ribs and hacked up a lungful of dust into my elbow, searching the gloom.
Where was Sky?
A moment passed. Panic began to settle in, and then…
There. The world settled enough for me to make out his silhouette in the center of the blown-out hallway, rubble scattered around him like tombstones.
His back was to me, and flickering blue and crackling sparks rimmed his outline, clashing with the disorienting strobing.
He was a lean silhouette in the middle of it all.
But past him, the Enil dragged itself upright. Still going. Bits of cinderblock slid off its back. One of its tiny chest-limbs hung limp. Sparks burst from its front leg, sizzling like a frayed wire.
But it bared its jagged teeth anyway. As if to say, Nice try, buddy.
Sky raised his hands. A hot current stirred my hair, lifting a wave of goosebumps. A second ball of energy swirled to life between his palms, hovering there.
Hunkered in the hallway, I forgot, for a heartbeat, to be terrified. He was actually wielding lightning. Like freaking Thor, no hammer necessary.
The Enil also seemed impressed. It hesitated, those green, alien eyes trained on the roiling sphere. I couldn’t see Sky’s face, but his back was tense, his body coiled. That ball between his hands pulsed and snapped.
The Enil sank low, and Sky eased to the side, keeping it in his sight. Meanwhile, I knelt on the cracked linoleum, afraid to move. Barely daring to breathe.
Then, without warning, Sky flung the fiery orb straight at the Enil, and it detonated like a bomb.
White-blue fire engulfed the world.
I hunched over and shielded my face, choking on a scream as the gust of heated air and grit engulfed me. Through it all, I caught a glimpse of the Enil’s form convulsing, seizing in midair before it crashed in a sparking, smoking heap.
Sky stayed where he was, arms half-raised. Still ready. Static curled off his body like steam.
A second passed. I waited another before I straightened and lowered my arms. My throat was paper-dry.
“Is it dead?” I called over the alarm’s drone, voice hoarse. I’d breathed so much dust.
Sky didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look back, but he did motion to me with one hand, a quick, stay-back gesture.
He didn’t need to tell me twice. I backed up a step on shaking legs. The alarm strobed in slow, rhythmic bursts, illuminating the piles of debris, the massive fissures in the walls, and the gaping ceiling. The corridor had become a barely recognizable battleground.
And the Enil still hadn’t moved. Maybe it was done. I started to relax, relief unfurling. That hadn’t been so bad—
With a shriek of grinding metal, it sprang back to life.
“Look out!” I yelled, but Sky was on it.
He ducked a swipe from its massive claws and sidestepped with flowing grace to avoid a snap of those vicious, sharp-toothed jaws. Spinning, the Enil gathered itself and leapt straight for him. Sharp talons spread.
Sky’s body rippled and disappeared.
The Enil’s claws met air, and it landed with a thunderous, floor-shaking crack. I staggered back as a low, warped growl rolled from it. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve thought it was confused. Its limbs creaked and groaned as it whirled, searching.