Mark Del Franco - Face Off

“I’m not sensing anyone. In fact, I’m not sensing anything at all down here,” Laura said in a whisper.

In a crouch, Sinclair entered. Laura counted off the seconds until he called out, “Clear.”

Inside, as the blueprints indicated, the fifteen-foot granite crèche stretched down the center of the room. At regular intervals, shallow bowl-like niches made a double ring around the circumference. Bands of quartz connected the niches with the deep bed of the crèche.

Laura didn’t sense Cress, or anything else for that matter. As she approached the crèche, the air deadened, void of a trace of essence. “Cress was here. The room feels scrubbed, like there’s no essence at all.”

Beside her, Sinclair touched the edge of the crèche and swayed on his feet as his essence dimmed. Laura grabbed his arm. “You okay?”

He shook his head rapidly as if clearing it. “It’s some kind of essence sink.”

Laura examined the hollowed interior without touching the crèche. “That’s what the documents described—the crèche channels and amplifies abilities. They tuned the crèche to Cress’s abilities. That’s why it’s trying to absorb our essence. That also means that Cress was in this thing. From the look of it, something rested in here like it was a cradle. She was on or in something.”

“Now what?” Sinclair said.

Laura glanced around the room. “We search the complex. If the crèche is still active, I’m guessing Cress was here recently. She might still be here somewhere.”

She moved around to the other side of the crèche. Glass helmets sat in several of the rounded-out niches. She pulled one out and held it up. Her body essence flowed down her arm toward the helmet. With some effort, she pulled the essence back and raised her body shield.

She examined the helmet again and peered into the niche, finding a matching quartz strip. “The stone tabs on these helmets are tuned to the crèche, Jono. They have the same essence warding on them. Mobile essence-draining units. The glass shunts essence over the head to the stone tab, and the tab must send it somewhere. The crèche acts like a charger for the helmets.”

She replaced the helmet and froze. Two legs stretched out on the floor at the far end of the crèche. “We’ve got a body.”

She hurried the length of the room as Sinclair circled in from the other side. A man lay facedown on the floor. She pulled him over by the arm, and he rolled on his back. “Danu’s blood, this is Ian Whiting.”

“The druid suicide?” Sinclair asked.

She applied her fingers to his carotid artery. “I’d recognize him anywhere. Dammit. No pulse. No living body essence. He’s drained. Dead.”

Sinclair held his hand out. “No, wait. I can see the shape of his essence. It’s faint, but it’s there.”

Laura placed her hand on Whiting’s chest. Without any other essence source in the room, she pushed some of her own into him. His body shuddered as a warm yellow light swirled into him. “I’m seeing a body signature now.”

She jerked her head up at a sudden intake of breath from Sinclair. He was crouched next to her, but his gaze was toward the crèche. At intervals on the underside of the helmet niches were small bricks of C-4 explosive. Lights flashed from timers on several of them.

Sinclair pulled Whiting into a seated position. With no effort, he lifted the man from the floor. Sinclair grabbed Laura’s arm. “We need to get out of here now. Crank your shields all the way up, Cuddles. It might get breezy in here.”

They ran for the door, Laura’s hardened body shield expanding around them. As they made the outside corridor, the room erupted. The door blew off, slamming into the shield. Laura stumbled against Sinclair. They hit the wall and fell. Another explosion went off somewhere above them, and the lights flickered.

“Go! Ghost out of here. I’ll get Whiting out,” Sinclair shouted.

She shoved him forward, almost knocking him to the ground again. “Keep moving. You don’t have a shield.”

Explosions rocked the end of the corridor as they reached the stairs. Laura swayed under the pressure, dizziness threatening to overwhelm her as the force of the concussion destabilized her shield. Sinclair stumbled on a step, and they fell again. With Whiting draped over his shoulder like a rag doll, he wrapped his arm around Laura as she struggled to get her feet under her. Debris rained down, bouncing off her body shield. The strain of covering all three of them without an external essence source drained her. Black and red spots flashed in her vision as she fought to remain conscious.

Sinclair dragged her down the crumbling upper hall. An explosion on the main floor sent them airborne. They burst through the door, arcing into the air. Laura’s shield shredded as she hit the ground.

LAURA WRENCHED HERSELFup into a sitting position, several yards from the burning building. Dazed, she watched as her hands shifted in shape, a brief flutter as the depleted essence in her necklace struggled to maintain the Mariel glamour. Dropping her hands to either side, she drew on the essence in the ground, pulling it in to replenish some of what she had lost. She let her head fall back a moment as the renewed energy surged through her, and the glamour stabilized.

Ian Whiting lay nearby, on his back, unconscious. He appeared dead, his skin leached white, but his signature registered a faint film of yellow light around his body. The boost Laura had given him in the lab had been enough to jump-start his body signature.

Sinclair staggered into her field of vision, his uniform torn and singed. He leaned over Whiting as she shuffled on her knees next to them. “Is he okay?”

Sinclair leaned back on his heals. “I think he got hit with debris. Are you okay?”

Laura pulled her hair back and retied it. “A little rattled, but I’m fine. We need Whiting awake.”

She leaned over Whiting and scanned his body signature. She didn’t have healing skills, but from what she saw, he wasn’t damaged, only drained. He needed rest to replenish what he needed, but she could infuse him with a temporary boost like she had given herself. With one hand on his chest and the other on the ground, she tapped into the organic essence of the soil. The essence flowed through her and into Whiting, using her body as a conduit. It wasn’t healing precisely, but enough to jump-start his own essence regeneration. Whiting’s chest heaved as his body reacted to the influx. Laura eased him to his side as he started to retch.

She waited until he caught his breath. “Do you know who you are? Can you tell me your name?”

“Ian Whiting,” he rasped.

He could hear. He could think. “Mr. Whiting, I’m Mariel Tate with InterSec. What happened here?”

Dazed, he stared at the fire. “Was I in that?”

She helped him sit up. “Where’s Cress?”

“She tried to kill me,” he said.

“Well, she didn’t. Where is she?” Laura asked.

Now that he was awake, he pulled more essence on his own. He shook his head. “She was in the pod.”

Laura exchanged glances with Sinclair. “The pod? Is that what was in the crèche?”

Whiting got to his feet. “When I activated the final sequence, they ordered Cress to kill me.”

“Sequence for what? What the hell are you talking about?” Laura asked.

He stared into the distance. “We have to stop her.”

Laura shook him by the shoulders. “Focus, Whiting. What the hell was going on here?”

Instinctively, he activated his body shield. Rather than struggle with him, Laura let go. “We need a healer, Jono.”

Whiting held up his hand. “No, I’m fine. Give me another moment. My head is clearing.”