32. Tyche #3
The wind swept into the square, pushing aside some of the smoke to reveal that there was a sizable crater in the pavement on the western side of the square.
There were unmoving bodies strewn about and Tyche’s lungs seized up.
When he’d imagined people dying in this fight, they were soldiers and Chancellor Feng, not innocent citizens of Bellcairn.
“Hurry!” Jules grabbed his arm and jerked Tyche away from the window, pulling him to a door marked with a sign for stairs. “They’re going to move Feng to the ship. We can’t miss this chance.”
Yes.
Jules was right.
If innocent people died today, it couldn’t be for nothing.
Tyche slapped the face shield down on his helmet and charged toward the stairs. He burst through the door and started up the stairs as a trio of soldiers were descending.
“Who—”
“Protestors have made it into the building! Intercept them!” Tyche barked, adding as much bass to his voice as he could muster.
“How—” The guard who’d thought to stop them swallowed his own words.
Tyche tapped into the magic he’d gained from the Goddess of Nightmares and created an illusion to turn his lies into truth.
Chants and shouts echoed from the far end of the first-floor hallway.
Footsteps pounded from hundreds of angry warriors demanding blood.
The three guards froze in terror, but Tyche gave them a nudge as he passed them with Jules following close behind.
“We’ll get the chancellor to his ship. You hold off the protestors!”
Tyche didn’t hear the guards moving as the noise continued on the other side of the door. Scared stiff also worked for him. As long as they didn’t follow them up to the second floor, he didn’t care if they remained at the door, holding it closed against an imaginary hoard.
They burst out of the door to find guards scurrying about with their weapons held with both hands, tucked to their chests as they ran. Among them were assistants, advisors, and politicians in sharp suits and with panicked faces, shouting and running into each other.
Tyche stretched up on the tips of his toes, trying to peer over the crowd. At the far end of the hall, he caught sight of a pair of double doors opening and a group of heavily armed guards forming a circle around a robust man with a familiar face. Chancellor Rati Feng. Their target.
But how the hell were they supposed to get through this mess?
Well, if it worked once…
“Protesters in the building! Head to the eastern emergency exit!” Tyche bellowed.
The mildly frenzied crowd immediately shifted into full-blown panic.
The crowd surged. People screamed. Tyche bit his tongue and waved his hand.
Somewhere in the mess, someone tripped and fell.
The mob of people crushed the poor man, adding to the pile of people writhing on the marble floor like a knot of snakes.
Now that he had used his magic, there was no stopping him.
The people were in such a frenzy that no one noticed that anything peculiar was happening.
Tyche moved away from the doorway, crossing the hallway at a steady pace.
He waved his hand here and there. People fell.
Shouts and chanting rose, adding to the cacophony, but no one seemed to notice that the protestors’ voices came from thin air.
As they neared the group of soldiers trying to move the chancellor down the hallway, Tyche plucked up bloated blobs of bad luck and sent them careening into the guards.
Half of them dropped almost immediately, choking, clutching their chests, gasping for air.
Their killer was invisible and terrifying.
The guards surrounding Feng broke up, swinging their guns, searching for a villain to attack, but there were only more guards and panicked government officials.
“Hurry, Chancellor! We must get you into your office. They’re using gas!” Jules squeezed through the guards and shoved a heavily sweating Feng into the office.
“Guard the doors! Stop the protestors!” Tyche ordered, following on Jules’s heels.
He and Jules slammed the doors shut behind them and turned the lock. Tyche’s heart hammered so hard in his chest he swore he could feel it in the back of his throat. Cold sweat covered him under his clothes. Every muscle in his body trembled.
They’d made it.
Just one more step to go.
“What the hell is going on? I need to get to my ship. This is anarchy. Absolute anarchy,” Rati Feng blustered, pacing in front of his desk.
Every once in a while, he’d look toward the double glass doors that led to the balcony, but he never ventured close enough to gaze out as if he were afraid of snipers.
Jules straightened from the door first, and Tyche watched a change come over the man.
It was as if all the tension that had tightened his frame sloughed off.
He grew an inch before Tyche’s eyes, but his manner became more languid.
This was a person who did not know what it was to be nervous or afraid.
“Perfect,” Jules said, and that single word sent a chill down Tyche’s spine.
Something was very wrong.