The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(33)

“Thanks Reina,” said Nico, exhaling as he returned the balance of force in the room.

Libby’s shield bubble dissipated.

“Is that all?” she asked.

“No,” said Parisa. “There’s someone in the east wing—”

“And the library,” said Reina, before amending irritably, “the painted room.”

“Which one?” demanded Callum.

“Are you planning to be useful at all?” Reina countered, glaring.

“If I felt there was any need to be concerned, I probably would be,” replied Callum. “As it is, why waste the effort?”

“What’s going on?” asked Tristan, who had apparently managed the decency to join them.

“Blakely’s testing us,” said Callum.

“You don’t know that,” Libby said. Beneath the gallery corridor, the sound of further entry was imminent, and she had her brows knitted in concentration. “It might be real.”

“What do you want me to do with these?” Reina asked, pointing to the men wriggling within the vines of their captivity.

“Well,” Parisa said, impatient, “seeing as we don’t want them in the house—”

“Varona, do you hear that?”

Before Nico could retort that yes, Rhodes, if she could hear it, he could obviously hear it just as well, there was a strange, disorienting ringing from inside his ears; it filled his mind with a vacant whiteness, blinding him behind closed eyes.

He vaguely felt a sharp sting of some kind, like the entry wound of a needle. Something stung his shoulder and he wanted to swat it away, only the screech of white that somehow filled his ears and eyes was debilitating; paralyzing. He felt a pressure inside his head that threatened to fill the space, like a rapidly expanding tumor.

Then the ringing faded, just enough that he could open his eyes, and he saw that Libby was speaking, or trying to. Varona, her mouth was saying, Varona, it’s a way!

Way? No, not a way.

He blinked, his vision clearing.

A wave.

That helped. He tried to raise his right hand and faltered from pain, switching to the left to take hold of the particle of sound and aim it, like a whip, until it cracked. Libby, now freed the effort of dragging him from the sound wave’s immobilizing effect, extinguished it with a spark.

“—can’t be a test,” she finished, and Nico realized the pain in his shoulder was much more than a sting. The wound was slick with blood, and as far as he could tell, that didn’t typically happen with magical weapons.

“That,” Libby was saying with horror, “is not a fake injury!”

“It’s a gunshot wound,” observed Parisa. “Whoever they are, they must not be magical.”

Made sense, even if the first shot had been some type of magic; certain forms could be easily provided to a buyer with enough money, and medeians were rare enough that sending in a group of them would probably be a waste. Guns were cheaper and perfectly effective; case in point. Nico growled with annoyance, clotting his blood with a wave of his hand.

“But this can’t be the Society’s doing,” Libby protested. “Surely we’re supposed to do something!” “There’s at least one medeian here,” Nico gritted through his teeth, struggling to rise. He wasn’t going to bother with easing the pain, as that would only require more energy than he could spare at the moment. It wasn’t a lethal wound by any means, and he would heal it later. “We should split up, I think. I can take care of the rest if Rhodes looks for the medeian.”

“The rest?” echoed Callum, doubtful. “That’s a mess you’ve got on your shoulder. It’s not a pistol, it’s an automatic rifle. You could be dealing with military special ops.”

“Thank you ever so,” replied Nico crassly, as another round was fired from below. He knew perfectly well what he was dealing with, which was precisely the point. “They wouldn’t bother arming a bunch of medeians with AKs,” he shouted over the sound of weaponry, “just like they wouldn’t send in mortals without magical oversight.” If it was a military task force of some sort, they were probably being commanded by a medeian. “And if he’s good at waves, Rhodes will hear him coming.”

“Then we should split up,” said Parisa, who was at least very coolheaded.

“Yes, good idea. You stay with me,” Nico suggested to her, “Rhodes can take Tristan, and Reina can go with—”

“I’ll stay,” said Reina.

“What?” said Callum and Libby.

Reina seemed undeterred. “Nico’s the one taking on more people. I have combat experience.”

Nico glanced at her. “You do?”

“Well, I trained in hand to hand combat,” she amended, which sounded an awful lot as if she had merely read a lot of books on the subject. “Besides, you lot seem to think I’m useless at my specialty, don’t you?”

“We don’t really have a lot of time to argue,” Libby pointed out, cutting in before anyone else could speak. “Parisa, take Callum,” she said; anything, Nico guessed, to get out of going with Callum herself, “and Varona’s right, Tristan can come with me.”

“Fine,” said Parisa flatly. “I can find the medeian in the house.”