Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Tori
The hush that lay over the PNE grounds had a disconcerting weight to it. It clogged my lungs with each breath as I followed Ezra through the dense brush between the highway and the PNE perimeter. We hopped a short chain-link fence, landed on the dirt racetrack, and skirted along its outer edge.
Construction barricades blocked the public roads that crisscrossed the PNE, leaving the streets empty, and an abnormal lack of lighting made the place feel like a ghost town. It was so dark I could scarcely make out Aaron ahead of Zora and Venus. Gwen, Drew, and Kai completed our team of eight.
My hand went to my hip where my paintball gun was holstered, the magazine loaded with a variety of non-standard sleep potions.
The pouches on my belt held artifacts, and more potions in glass spheres hung from loops, easy to detach and hurl at the enemy.
I was dressed in the same black combat gear as the rest of the team.
I still didn’t feel prepared to take on the SI’s mercenaries and assassins.
Even knowing there were three other guild teams on the grounds tonight, all approaching from different directions, all with the same goal, I couldn’t shake the phantom feeling of ice cracking under my feet with each step I took.
Aaron led us halfway around the oval track to the end of the grandstand, then broke into a fast jog along a narrow service road that exited the equestrian raceway. We followed him, single file. The road met a narrow street and a small staff parking lot adjacent to the Coliseum.
Flashlight beams flickered on our left.
I froze. There was nowhere to hide. The service road was too exposed, the nearest building to shelter behind was too far away—
Aaron signaled for us to go straight toward the lights.
I choked back a protest and ran with my team.
Aaron, Zora, and Venus reached the grassy embankment bordering the parking lot and threw themselves down.
I followed suit, flattening myself against the damp brown grass. Would the slope be enough to hide us?
I turned my head sideways, my cheek on the cold ground. Ezra was beside me, his gaze rock-steady.
The lights grew closer. The rumble of many footfalls vibrated the earth beneath my ear. I dared to lift my head ever so slightly.
A troop of SI agents was heading our way. There had to be at least fifty of them, and they were carrying bulky objects I couldn’t identify in the dark. If they got too close, they’d see us. Adrenaline made my limbs quiver. I squeezed my eyes shut and breathed deeply.
The flashlights whipped past the embankment, and voices rumbled, casual and unconcerned, punctuated by the occasional crass bark of laughter. Then the glow of their lights dimmed. The voices and marching steps quieted.
I peeked over the hill, my teammates doing the same. Instead of continuing through the parking lot toward us, the SI agents had turned toward the Coliseum and were taking their mysterious cargo through an open overhead door.
Aaron scooted down the grassy slope. I scrambled after him, and we all clustered together on the road.
“What the hell was all that?” Zora demanded. “That had to be half their total manpower.”
“Whatever it is, it means big trouble for us,” I jumped in. “All that stuff? They’re planning something nasty. We should follow them.”
Aaron shook his head. “Our objective is to rescue Sabrina and the other prisoners.”
“Tori’s right,” Kai countered. “We need to know what they’re doing.”
The crease between Aaron’s eyebrows deepened.
I understood his hesitation. This was a zero-tech, full-psychic-safeguards mission—no mics, phones, radios, or telepath-assisted communication.
Nothing that could tip off the SI to our presence.
If our team split up, we’d have no way to contact each other.
Aaron checked the time on his watch, then let out a rough breath. “Kai, Tori, Ezra, take a look. We enter the Agrodome in fourteen minutes. If you can’t rejoin us by then, head straight for the rendezvous point.”
“Got it,” I said.
As Aaron and the others jogged up the road, I shared a quick look with Ezra and Kai. Taking the lead, Kai skirted along the Coliseum’s curved exterior wall toward the giant open overhead door. Two agents stood near it, smoking and chatting and looking bored out of their minds.
We crept so close I could have lobbed a potion ball at them.
A big-ass white trailer with a satellite dish on top and a mess of cables attached to it was parked beside them, and we squeezed into the gap between it and the wall.
Scooting out the other side, we snuck behind the two guards and into the Coliseum’s dark interior.
Inside, we followed a wide concrete corridor that sloped gently downward.
Exposed pipes of various sizes and colors ran along the ceiling and walls around us, and occasional doors and smaller hallways split off from the main thoroughfare, leading to other subterranean areas in the Coliseum’s bowels.
The mass of SI agents, their voices echoing down the empty passage, had reached the end of the corridor and was filtering onto the arena floor—the most exposed location in the entire building.
Kai took a sharp right, guiding us into a stairwell that led up to the main concourse.
The merchandise shops and food vendors were all closed, their rolling shutters down, and there was no sign of any SI activity on this level.
As we crossed the concourse toward the seating, the sound emanating from the arena made every hair on my body stand on end: the jumbled drone of countless voices speaking at once.
With terror firing through me, I stepped around a pillar and looked down.
The upper and lower bowls, large enough to seat fifteen thousand spectators, surrounded the arena floor.
The ice and boards for the hockey rink had been removed, and identical rectangular objects—gray canvas cots—were lined up in long rows.
Filling all the gaps between those cots were people—so many people, I couldn’t begin to count them.
SI agents. Hundreds of SI agents.
“Oh my god,” I whispered. “Someone tell me I’m hallucinating.”
“You’re not.” Kai’s voice was a rasp. “Fuck. How did they get so many into—the logistics would be—when—”
Kai was stammering, and that alone quadrupled my terror. I reached out, finding Ezra’s hand. As I squeezed his fingers, trying to steady myself, I realized he was muttering under his breath—counting.
“There are about five hundred bunk cots,” he said. “That means at least one thousand people are sleeping here at night.”
One. Thousand.
That was ten times our estimate of their numbers.
The SI had sent an entire battalion to Vancouver.
Wordlessly, we retreated across the concourse and found the first exit out of the building. We didn’t stop to discuss what we’d seen. We hightailed it straight for the Coliseum’s little brother: the Agrodome, a smaller arena with a dome-shaped roof.
As we cut across a stretch of grass toward our destination, Ezra grabbed my arm. “Stop!”
We froze in place an instant before black-clad figures rushed out of the gap between the Agrodome and a cluster of pine trees. I yanked my paintball gun from its holster.
“Kai?” one of them called.
“Shit,” Kai swore, shoving his half-drawn sword back into its sheath. He gave a quick hand signal, and we all darted into the shadows beside the smaller arena. As our groups merged, I recognized several mages from the Pandora Knights team. I holstered my gun.
“What happened?” Kai asked their leader in a terse whisper.
“There were more patrols than expected,” the woman replied, one hand gripping the hilt of the dagger at her hip.
“The Odin’s Eye team was in full combat with a dozen agents at the east end of the grounds, and we had to detour to avoid detection.
I don’t know where the Sea Devils team is, but we shouldn’t wait for them. ”
Swearing, Kai jerked his head for the Pandora Knights to follow us. We ghosted along the Agrodome’s perimeter to a set of stairs that led to an access door halfway up the fifty-foot-high outer wall.
Underneath the cover of the metal steps, Aaron and the others were huddled, waiting for what was supposed to be a simultaneous infiltration by four separate teams.
“Odin’s Eye ran into a patrol, and the Sea Devils are an unknown,” Kai reported as we joined our team, the Pandora Knights crowded behind us. “And based on what we saw in the Coliseum, there are hundreds of SI agents on the grounds. There could be upwards of a thousand in the city.”
Aaron’s face paled.
“A thousand?” the Pandora Knights team leader croaked.
Mythics from both teams looked at one another with matching expressions of horror and disbelief.
A mage from among the Pandora Knights broke the silence. “Should we abort?”
“No way in hell,” I snapped. “If you’re too chicken shit for this, go home.”
The mage glared at me.
Aaron drew Sharpie from its sheath on his back. “Ready?”
Ezra, Kai, and Zora unsheathed their blades. Venus unholstered her paintball gun, and the Pandora Knights, the chicken-shit mage included, drew their switches.
Aaron faced the door. “Let’s go.”
Aaron led us up the stairs. The door at the top, its lock already broken, opened without resistance. We swept into the dimly lit interior. The building was much simpler than the Coliseum, and a moment later, we were filing onto a raised seating tier at one end of the arena.
If our bird’s-eye view of the Coliseum floor had filled me with terror, this view filled me with rage.