Page 94 of Only Cold Depths
Do you have any sort of plan?he yelled in my mind.
I growled back at him,Kill everyone between me and Vesper.
Zane’s annoyed huff rippled through my mind, but I shut out the distraction and kept running, moving from this stone walkway to another one—
Boom!
Green cannon fire ripped through the air. I darted to the side, and the energy blast slammed into the wall beside me instead of into my chest. Chunks of stone flew out in all directions, and dust choked the air, making it hard to see and breathe, but I kept running. Zane cursed and slowed for a moment, but he quickly caught up to me.
The dust billowed away, revealing a mercenary standing at the end of the walkway, his finger already curling back on the trigger to fire his cannon again.
I flung my hand out, and my telekinesis ripped the merc off his feet and tossed him back into a nearby wall hard enough to crack his polyplastic armor. The merc flopped down onto his belly, a low groan escaping from his lips. He tried to get back up onto his hands and knees, but I kicked him in the head, then rammed my stormsword into his back for good measure. The merc screamed and collapsed to the ground, blood pooling under his body.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
My head snapped around, and I looked through an archway. Serpens Corp mercenaries had crossed the drawbridge and were firing hand cannons at the House Collier guards defending the courtyard in front of the main castle. Esmina and Pollux had sent men to infiltrate the estate from multiple sides to do as much damage as they could as quickly as possible. Smart.
“We have to get to Vesper!” I yelled at Zane. “Now!”
Zane scooped up the dead merc’s hand cannon, and we started running again.
I didn’t know exactly how many mercenaries Esmina and Pollux had at their disposal, but a veritable army of them had invaded the estate. Everywhere I turned, another merc popped into view, and streaks of cannon and blaster fire zipped through the air like fireworks. Stone walls exploded, while permaglass windows shattered, and the resulting pieces of debristink-tink-tinkedacross the walkways like old-fashioned piano keys playing a merry, lively tune.
Servants ran everywhere, trying to escape from the mercenaries, who calmly strode forward and cut people down as though they were firing at plastipaper targets. Screams and shouts tore through the air, and the coppery stench of blood mixed with the acrid aroma of fried flesh and the electric burn of the blaster and cannon fire.
It was chaos, confusion, and carnage.
I cut down any merc who got within sword’s reach and used my lunarium blade to send blaster bolts shooting right back at the people who’d fired them. Beside me, Zane wielded his stolen hand cannon with expert efficiency, coolly pulling the trigger and dropping one enemy after another.
Despite our mutual hatred, Zane and I had fought together countless times as Arrows, and we worked as an efficient, deadly team, killing anyone stupid enough to attack us.
Vesper? Vesper, where are you?
Even as Zane and I fought our way from one walkway and archway to the next, I reached out through the bond, searching for Vesper. The velvety ribbon of her in my mind whipped back and forth with a combination of fear and fury, and I couldn’t quite get a grip on it to locate her. Icy dread rushed through me, making Vesper seem as if she was even farther away.
Zane blasted another mercenary out of the way with his stolen hand cannon, and the two of us finally made it to the courtyard in front of the guest wing. Several House Collier guards were lying on the ground, black curls of smoke rising from their chests, their sightless eyes staring at nothing. My gut twisted, but these people were already dead, and I couldn’t do anything for them.
I started to step into the courtyard, but Zane grabbed my shoulder. “Wait,” he whispered. “Listen. Do you hear that?”
In the distance, screams and shouts still tore through the air, along with sharp staccato bursts of blaster and cannon fire. But this courtyard was eerily quiet, and the only sound was the crackle of energy bolts still eating through the skin, muscles, and bones of the dead guards.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly,” Zane muttered, his gaze sweeping back and forth. “This screams trap to me.”
He was right. Itdidseem like a trap, but for whom? And why bother to set a trap when you had already stormed onto the estate?
“I don’t care. I have to find Vesper.”
Zane stared at me for a moment, then jerked his head in agreement.
Together we entered the courtyard, weapons ready. Instead of rushing forward, like we had before, we moved slower, taking care to make our footsteps as soft as possible, although it was hard to do, given the stone rubble and broken glass that littered the ground like a carpet of diamond shrapnel—
Crunch.
Zane and I both spun toward the sound, which echoed out of a nearby archway.
“Show yourself!” I commanded.
