Page 46 of The Inheritance
“And with Melissa backing him up, we don’t have any.” Leo frowned. “If we demote him, it will look like we made him into a scapegoat.”
“That’s not our biggest problem. If we demote him without proof, he will jump ship to Guardian or any other guild willing to take him. He looks good on paper. He will aim for escort captain again, because he likes that job, and the next time shit hits the fan, more people will die.” Elias exhaled. “We need to get into that breach ASAP.”
“Agreed,” Leo said.
“Did you find Jackson?” Elias asked.
“Not yet. We’re doing everything we can.”
“I know.”
Sitting on his hands was driving him out of his skin, but going into that breach without Jackson was suicide. It was both about the speed and the potency of healing. Two years ago, he was stabbed in the heart and lost his left hand, and because Jackson was there, he pulled the spike out of his chest and kept swinging, while his hand regrew itself in minutes. Something took out Malcolm’s team and terrified London so much that he fled for the exit. They couldn’t risk any more lives.
“You need to rest, sir,” Leo said quietly.
Elias looked up. Outside the window the morning was in full swing. He’d slept four hours in the last forty-eight.
“We have bunks set up downstairs,” Leo said. “If anything happens, if I hear anything, I’ll wake you up.”
Elias didn’t feel like sleeping, but his body needed it, and he knew he would pass out the moment his head hit a pillow.
“Wake me up as soon as you find Jackson.”
“I will, sir.”
Flex.
The stream didn’t glow. I stared at it some more, but I was getting only clear water. It flowed from a gap in the rock, forming a narrow but deep current that ran across a massive cavern.
Chomp, chomp…
“Will you please quit doing that?”
Bear raised her bloody muzzle from the stalker’s body and gave me a puzzled look.
“I mean it.”
She licked her lips.
We’d been moving through the tunnels for hours. We ran across two silverfish bug things and took them out. They turned out to be slower than I thought. Or perhaps Bear and I had gotten faster. I lost count of how many stalkers we’d killed. This latest trio of two females and a male died a couple hundred feet into the passageway and I carried the largest body to the stream.
Bear had developed a disturbing liking for stalker meat. Every time we had a fight, and I got distracted, she chomped on bodies like they were premium dog food. She tried to eat the bugs too, but they must’ve tasted foul because she took a bite and never went back for seconds. I had stuck to my supplies so far, but both the energy bars and the KitKats were a distant memory. We had run out of water hours ago.
I looked at the stream again. Bear padded next to me, looked at the water, and whined. She’d tried to drink already but I stopped her.
In a perfect world, I would have boiled the water, but I didn’t have any way to make a fire. And even if I could, my plastic hard hat was the only vessel we had. It would melt. Well, I could probably boil water in a canteen… It was moot anyway. I didn’t have a lighter or any fuel. What I had was two empty canteens and a very thirsty dog, who was currently dancing on the bank in anticipation.
Fuck it.
I nodded at the stream. “Go get it.”
The shepherd bounded to the bank and began lapping up the water, splashing it all over the place.
I smiled. “Is any of that actually getting into your mouth?”
Bear paused to give me a look and went back to drinking.
I scooted upstream and dipped my hands into the breach water. The stalker blood faded a little. I scrubbed my fingers. There was dark grime under my fingernails, and I shuddered to think what kind of bacteria was breeding there.
