Page 60 of When Monsters Fight
I took a deep breath and grabbed Soul Reaper by the hilt.
Chapter 30
BASTIAN
Bee sits by Tumiel’s bedside, holding his hand. She’s barely left his side the last three days.
Three days while we’ve been left cooling our heels with promises of a meeting with the general soon. Two days while the watchers and the reapers remain outside. The general of this base feels it would be too unsettling to the humans to have the watchers amongst them, despite what Mira and our party assert. At least I was able to get a look at the information on the flash drive. Schematics and floor plans and all sorts. A place called the hub. We have the location. It must be where the Dominion plan to hold Lucifer if they find her.
Bee looks up, sees me in the doorway, and quickly plasters a smile on her face, but her red-rimmed eyes tell a different story.
“How is he doing?”
“Stable. Healing. But the bullets did a lot of damage to vital organs, so…it’s going to take a while, and there’s no Rue tohelp speed things up…” She catches her bottom lip between her teeth and then slowly holds up his hand. The skin on his fingers is a darker red and his talons are longer and sharper than usual. “Bastian, I think…I think having to heal is using up his reserves of celestial energy and quickening his devolution.”
Fuck. “Rue will be here soon. She’ll be back, and she’ll help. I know it.”
“It’s been five days since she left, Bastian. How long do we wait before taking action against the Golden City? Every day we wait means another day that the watchers devolve, and those that are already in devolution, the ones Rue helped, they’ll lose themselves again and become a threat.”
“I know.”
“What do we do if she doesn’t come back, Bastian?”
I hate this. Hate that this thought has gone through my mind more often than I’d like the last two days. “If Rue…If she’s…lost, then so are the relics, and all we can do is make a home here.” The words leave me empty.
“The watchers will be…they’ll devolve. The reapers too.”
“I know…”
She shook her head. “No. They have trained people here. Guns and we have a way into the Golden City. We can take it. We can take down the celestials.”
“You’re not thinking straight. There are hundreds of celestials. All of them are more juiced up than our watchers and can probably heal in a blink. We can’t kill them with bullets, and trust me, we’d run out pretty soon if we tried. We can’t risk exposing this last haven of hope.”
“Agreed.” A woman stands in the doorway, short blond hair slicked back from her forehead, cold pale eyes fixed on us. “I’m glad we’re on the same page here.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’m Lieutenant Storm. The generalhas asked to see you,” she says to me before turning her attention to Bee. “Your…friend will be escorted off the base as soon as he’s able to walk on his own steam.”
Bee looks like she was about to argue, but then her shoulders droop. “Then I’ll be leaving with him.”
Storm’s brows flick up slightly, the only indication that Bee’s decision surprises her. “I thought these creatures were devolving.”
“They are,” Bee says. “But maybe having a reminder of humanity close by will help them hold on to themselves a little longer.” Her gaze softens as she looks down on Tumiel. “Love is a powerful force, Lieutenant.”
“You’ll be permitted re-entry to the base once…when you need it,” she says to Bee.
Bee looks up in surprise. “Thank you.”
I follow Storm through the tunnels that remind me of the tunnels at the mall, except there are no devolved living here, just humans. As many humans as two of our regular bases.
The lieutenant says many were picked up a few weeks ago when the second wave of fractures spit a fresh wave of monsters into our world—aerial beasts able to get over our walls and bypass the runic security.
The count so far is eight hundred, and damn, does that figure sound good. But how long will it remain undetected by the celestials? If Rue fails, then how long before this base also falls?
Our worlds are bleeding into one another. How much time do we have?
“What is it like out there?” Storm asks.
“You don’t know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I knew.”
