She waved me off with a rubber-gloved hand. “Forgive me for ignoring your accusations, but you’re not the most pressing concern here anymore.”
That black cobra hissed, insulted at being dismissed. It wanted to attack, but I held it in check. If I didn’t have to kill anybody to survive, that was good. Right? Wasn’t that what I wanted? Not to kill people?
Sanya-ketsu turned to Valthorpe. “You recovered the artifact?”
“Yes, ma’am, right here.” The academic held it out to her with his fingertips. “Be careful. It... well, it bites.”
Sanya extended her palm and Valthorpe sat the bracelet carefully on its side. A gesture from the 002-rank brought the guy with the lantern closer so she could study it better.
“I assume since you touched it with bare skin, you’ve listened to its greeting spiel?” she asked, bouncing the bracelet around a little to get a better angle on the inside.
Valthorpe blinked. “Oh, right, of course. It’s called the Heartblood Crown of Thorns. Apparently, it protects and immortalizes whoever it accepts as master. It didn’t explain how it tests for worthiness, but we’re theorizing that you stick your arm in there and let it tear into you. Based on the name, my guess is it reads the blood somehow.”
“Perfect.” Sanya spun on her heel and headed back down the stairs, the bruisers parting to let her pass. “Kill them.”
“What?” Valthorpe tilted his round, monkeylike ear toward Sanya as if he hadn’t heard her right.
Translucent green shields flared to life in front of the bruisers. As they brought up their arms, HUDs and metal bracers shifted, transforming into automatic pistols, electronic crossbows, and screaming sawblade launchers. Sunglasses lit with targeting apps wrapped around their faces from behind their ears.
“Technols!” I yelled. I sent Death Metal to both arms and rushed them.
The stairwell filled with gunshots, sizzling, and clanging as the Technol death squad opened up on us.
Flames engulfed Warcry, and he ran up the wall, launching himself over their heads and landing behind them. Bullets ricocheted off the stone, striking sparks.
I slammed into the front line, Death Metal crashing up against a Technol’s shield and throwing his crossbow’s aim off just as he pulled the trigger. An electrified bolt clanged off the ceiling.
Behind me, Valthorpe wasn’t moving.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded.
“Get down!” I yelled over my shoulder.
Valthorpe looked at me like I was speaking another language. A sawblade ripped into his throat, spinning blood and bits of skin into the air, and lodged against his spine.
I cussed and shield-bashed the closest Technol. It tipped him back enough that I could get a leg under his shield and stomp down. His knee crunched. He screamed as he went down. I grabbed his life point and put him out of his misery.
There was nothing I could do for Valthorpe. His life point was guttering too fast; the Dragon script tattoo didn’t have enough time to repair the damage to his throat.
He’s already dying. Finish him off and use the Miasma.
I shook my head. There was something I could never unthink.
The split-second distraction cost me. A bullet ripped through my left earlobe. I was lucky it hadn’t gone through the middle of my face. For now, I had to focus on getting Warcry and myself out of the temple alive. All the other screwed-up stuff could wait.
I ducked and shoved the pistol-wielder off balance before he could get a better follow-up shot, then twisted and threw my weight into a shield bash to the pair of targeting sunglasses next to him. As the second guy went down, Dead Man’s Hand came along behind me, batting cleanup. The corpses started to pile up around my feet.
In the tight jam of the staircase, the Technols’ weapons weren’t as effective as they would’ve been at range. The guys sandwiched between the front line facing me and the back line facing Warcry had to watch out not to shoot their buddies in the back of the head. Warcry was a firenado behind them, taking advantage of the confusion, his prosthetic ringing constantly.
Fingers scratched down my back and tugged at my shirt, but Dead Reckoning showed me it was just Valthorpe. The last bit of electrical impulses still flashing in his muscles died off, and his muddy-green life point went out. His body slumped against the back of my calves.
I gritted my teeth and kicked his body away. It was callous as heck, treating a basically decent guy like that, but I couldn’t afford to get tangled up and trip because of him.
Using the blast of fresh Miasma, I sent Three Corpse Sickness sprinting into the Technols. Bright flashes of Spirit flared in the center of the squad as they tried to fight back in the close quarters with attacks that wouldn’t take out the guys around them. Dead Man’s Hand smothered another life point on the front line, then I split my focus and reached out with a Corpse. Already it was the only one left; Spirit attacks had shattered the others. The Corpse’s Dead Man’s Hand took down a guy in the center, adding to the chaos.
A sizzling crossbow bolt thumped into the meat above my collarbone. Lightning crashed through my body like a semi. All my muscles seized at once, so tight I thought my bones were going to snap. My teeth crashed together, biting the inside of my cheek, and I fell backward on Valthorpe’s body, spasming uncontrollably.
Mass Grave! I screamed inside my head.
A couple weeks ago, I hadn’t been advanced enough to use the ability. This time, I felt the Miasma flow off me like a tsunami.
The electricity arcing through the crossbow bolt ran out just in time for me to see Technol bodies dropping like flies. I ripped the bolt out and amped up Mass Grave.
A couple Technols had protections around their life points. A bullet tore through Death Metal and into my forearm, but that was better than into a lung or something. I dropped into Last Light, Last Breath so I
