Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X #1)(122)
Author: Richelle Mead

Mae took the lead, gun out, trying her best to see ahead of her. Her fight-or-flight mode continued ramping up, burning nearly as strongly as it would have in active combat. The implant could sustain this state for a long time, but that just meant she’d experience a big crash later. She reached the ground unharmed, and after a quick survey with the light, she allowed Leo to join her.

“No windows. We can do an overhead light,” he said. “It’ll get us out of here faster.”

The control switch was near the bottom of the stairs. He found it, and within seconds, light flooded the space, revealing a wide doorway that opened to an enormous room.

And Mae came face-to-face with her nightmares.

The walls of the vast room were painted with murals predominately in black and red, depicting people dying in gruesome ways. Entrails, skulls, expressions of terror. Around her, the smell of dampness and decay filled the air. A stone altar sat at one end of the room, stained with some dark substance and surrounded by piles of bones. The picture behind it depicted a monstrous woman, larger than life, whose form took up the entire wall. Her face managed to be human, reptilian, and aquiline all at the same time. Black robes clothed her body, the sleeves stretching down like bat wings. A high crown sat on her head, displaying a twisted pattern of thirteen tormented faces—and a crow made of knot work in the center. The sky painted behind her was the color of blood. That horrific face was mirrored in thirteen black masks hanging around the room—and they all were watching Mae.

“Fucked up,” said Leo. Mae couldn’t speak. She could barely even breathe, and he turned to her in surprise when he noticed her reaction. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been here,” she said, her voice very small. The air felt oppressive, a heavy weight bearing down on her. “A long time ago.”

It was the place her mother had taken her so many years ago, the place that had continued to haunt her dreams in shadows and half-formed faces. All this time, she’d thought her childhood imagination had twisted the memories into something greater than what they were. But here they were, exactly the same.

My mother lied, she realized fleetingly. She had to have known about all this.

Mae hadn’t been truly afraid of anything in a very long time, but she wanted to run out of this place as quickly as she could.

“Are you going to be okay?” Leo asked.

I have to be, she thought. Her personal experiences were irrelevant and could be dealt with later. For now, they had to complete their task. This was what they’d been looking for. Even if they found no evidence linking the murders, it still contained an unlicensed church that SCI could shut down, possibly preventing tomorrow’s murder. Justin would be completely justified in requesting a raid by local law enforcement or even the military right now. Maybe it wouldn’t be enough to redeem himself in Cornelia’s eyes, but it might very well keep him from Panama.

“I’m okay.” Mae took a deep breath. “Let’s take a quick look and get out of here. I’m going to tell Justin to call in his cavalry.”

She sent the message and joined Leo in his survey of the room, despite her instincts’ screaming against it. She felt choked and sluggish. That goddess, with her eyes everywhere, wanted to trap Mae. Claustrophobia had never been a problem for her, but now the walls seemed to be closing in. What was noticeable, however, was that Mae felt no invasion of her body—no sense of the Morrigan taking control. She still felt a pressure, like the air was heavy, pressing down with the weight of the Morrigan’s wanting to penetrate Mae and take control…but she couldn’t.

“Hello, hello,” said Leo, crouching near the altar. She joined him but refused to kneel. Carefully, he pulled out a wooden tray covered in velvet that had been concealed inside a hidden compartment in the back. Three silver daggers portraying the stylized crow lay on it. “How much do you want to bet forensics can match this to what killed the victims?”

A surge of triumph shot through Mae. He was right. They’d connect this group to the murders, and even if they couldn’t find the actual fanatics right away, the owners of this warehouse had to know what was happening. SCI could start with them and eventually take down the rest.

Leo started to stand when Mae caught sight of something in her periphery. She spun around instantly, aiming her gun. Her breath caught as black smoke billowed in from the wide doorway, filling up the other half of the room. It moved far more quickly than the laws of nature said it should and began to coalesce into distinct shapes. The panic she’d felt increased tenfold. “Get back,” she told Leo. She advanced forward, not entirely sure what she was walking into, only that she had to confront it.

The shadows settled into seven humanoid forms—humanoid forms carrying silver blades. And they were fast. They practically flew toward Mae, and although every piece of reason told her she couldn’t fight them, she fired anyway. She was an excellent shot, as proven at the Nordic concert, but the shadow warriors’ rapid and erratic movements made them hard to target. She finally hit two of them, and rather than go right through as she expected, the bullets made contact with a seemingly solid surface. As the bullets hit their victims, the smoky black shapes transformed into very human ones. A man and a woman, blond and red haired respectively, materialized and fell to the ground, one wounded in the shoulder and the other with a lethal hit through the chest. Whatever they were, they were mortal. The implant refused to let her contemplate the matter further because the other five forms were swarming her. Only life and death mattered now.

The attackers also felt solid when they hit her, which made sense after the killing blow from the video. She elbowed and kicked them, slipping away when the shadow people swung their daggers toward her. Just like the bullets, her kicks made contact with solid substances. In fact, each strike that connected made the dark figures shift briefly to human form. In those fleeting moments of transformation, the attackers moved at regular speeds. She caught hold of one and slammed it hard against the stone floor, revealing a red-haired man who didn’t move. The last attacker’s dagger swiped her arm but didn’t get through the fabric of her shirt. She spun around and shot him in the leg, making him cry out and fall to the ground. Ready to finish the job, she aimed her gun down at him—and heard a snick sound. She felt a biting pain in her chest and saw a small dart poking out of her shirt. She dismissed it. As scarce as guns were in the RUNA, domestic attackers often attempted poisonous hits on prætorians. There was usually some initial discomfort, but the implant was too good at identifying and metabolizing toxins. It wouldn’t take long for it to work on whatever this was. Her concern was on who had actually fired the dart. Lifting her eyes, she saw a familiar person standing at the doorway beside the staircase: Emil. Five others stood behind him.