Page 37 of A Game of Queens
Turning, he eyed me, as if trying to decide whether or not he should grab my arm and hustle me to the door despite the vicious shards of glass in my hands. "Karmen, come on. We have to get out. I smelled chemicals earlier. This whole place is going to go up in flames in a matter of minutes."
"I can't," I whispered faintly. "They'll be on me as soon as we step outside into the sun."
His jaw clenched. I braced for him to roll his eyes and snort with derision. "How fast do they run or fly or whatever the fuck they do?"
"Huh?" His question threw my mind into neutral. Did he actually believe me? Or was he merely humoring the crazy person? "Pretty fast, I guess. Like a horse."
He nodded, bending down to grab the largest piece of mirror I'd stashed by the door. "Then let's get to the car. I can drive faster than anything human or non-human can run. We'll be to my sister's in a few hours and even sun demons won't be able to cross into her nest."
Part of me was still sure he only wanted to be rid of me, but he did have a point. I couldn't stay here waiting to be trapped by fire or suffocated by smoke. Making a run for the car was probably our best bet.
I slipped on the coat he'd given me earlier. It’d have to be enough for now. There wasn't much I could do about clothing until we were away. Re-arming myself with mirror shards, I crowded close to Eivind as he prepared to open the door.
"We're going to go straight across the hall and down another hall, alright? There's a back entrance we can use. I parked just a few feet outside that door. Get into the car as quickly as you can, and we'll be on the road in a matter of minutes. They'll never catch us."
He pulled open the door and the piercing shriek of the fire alarm worsened. I didn't need his wolf senses to smell the smoke now. There was definitely a fire somewhere toward the front desk or the other side of the building. He shot across the hall and I followed him, though I wasn't as fast.
My nape prickled and I hunched my shoulders. I could feel something watching us. Watching me. Though I didn't see anyone. Wasn't that odd? No guests stuck their heads out of their rooms, wondering what was going on. The man at the desk had said this end of the building was quiet, but my gut insisted we were headed into a trap.
I glanced back over my shoulder and thick tendrils of smoke billowed down the hallway. The fire would drive us to the rear exit—exactly as they'd planned. The glass door loomed just a few feet away with blazing sunlight outside. Wide open spaces. No place to hide. No darkness. No shade.
Exactlyas they preferred. "Eivind! Wait!"
He slowed, looking back at me. "The car?—"
A shape moved outside the door. Too bright, shining silver. For a moment, my eyes couldn't focus, blurring with tears. But I was all too familiar with that painful glare.
Highly polished silver armor gleamed in the sunlight. White bones glinted like fresh snow despite the heat of the noonday sun. I didn't see the flicker and spark of molten sunlight yet, but where the soldier went in daylight, so did his sunfire.
Eivind saw the dread on my face and turned back to the door. "What the fuck is that?"
I couldn't answer as the walking skeleton pushed the glass open and stepped into the hallway. The distinctive helmet and short sword marked him as one of the Roman Legion. If his commander was here...
Eivind raised the gun, firing off a shot. Another. One pinged off the metal shield. The other struck bone and ricocheted to the side, chipping a rib. But the skeleton didn’t pause. There weren't any organs to damage. No blood to shed.
As I'd told him earlier, a gun wasn't going to stop them. I lifted my left arm, tipping the mirror to reflect as much brightness back at the creature as possible.
The skeleton let out a deafening bellow that drowned out the alarms. Calling for more reinforcements. His entire legion was probably between us and the car, smoldering with eager sunfires bursting with all the power of the noonday sun.
Whirling, I ran back into the smoke, holding the other shard aloft in my right hand as I charged forward.
"You can't get out that way!” Eivind called after me. “Not if the fire has reached the front of the building."
I didn't heed his warning. They didn't want us to go this way—so it was our only hope. Trying to breathe shallowly, I slipped down the darkened hall. Black acrid smoke burned my lungs. I had a feeling the fire had escalated, spreading quickly beyond their control. They wouldn't like this much darkness and smokeeither. If I could get to the front desk, I could make the creepy human get us a car. Or maybe he'd have another room to hide us in? A safe place down the road? Something.
A hard, bony hand slithered around my wrist and wrenched my arm up high between my shoulders. Dropping the shard, I cried out and tried to pull away, but his iron grip didn’t budge. He dragged me through the smoke, ignoring my pitiful attempts to escape. I knew I was no match for him, but I couldn't stop trying. Fighting. I wouldn't go back.Goddess, please. I can't.
"Eivind!" I screamed.
I heard his snarled response down the hall, his choking cough and wheeze. The chemical smell worsened. I wasn't even sure if his wolf could endure the burning odor in the air.
A door slammed shut, blocking most of the smoke outside in the hallway. This room had a window. Enough to illuminate the horrible skeletal features of his face.
I swallowed down the bile threatening to burn its way up my throat. I recognized him. I knew his face. His voice.
"You can stop this,” Aurelian Sol Invictus, the commander of the Roman Legion, said. “All you have to do is call your power."
He was one of the most famous warriors ever to walk this earth, which was exactly why Ra had made him a Soldier of Light, one of the elite skeleton guardians of his realm. Aurelian was Ra's favorite. His most trusted enforcer.
