United as One (Lorien Legacies #7)(65)

I watch Mark’s hand shake on the noose. His knuckles are a vivid white. His muscles are rigid. He’s struggling against their control, but to no avail.

“We’ll make you like him soon,” Phiri tells me, and I notice the Thin Mog wet his lips in anticipation. “But first I want you all to myself.”

One of Phiri’s tentacles twists inside me, pain shoots through my core and I collapse over onto my side. They let me lie there for a moment, gasping for breath.

With bleary eyes, I try to take in how many of them there are.

The front room of Patience Creek is packed with blaster-toting vatborn. In one corner, they’ve piled the bodies of the soldiers who were guarding the surface level. From the looks of them, they died quickly and savagely.

Besides Phiri Dun-Ra, I make out three other augmented trueborn.

There’s the Thin Mog. The one exerting control over Mark. He stands nearby, watching Mark closely, his spidery hands clasped behind his back. If I want to save Mark, I’m going to have to take him out.

Then there’s the Shadow Mog. He’s younger, maybe only a few years older than Adam. As I watch, he steps out of a shadow like it’s a pool of water, rising straight up through the floor. He brings with him a couple more Mog warriors. He’s how they teleported in without being seen.

“Join the team at their cave entrance. No one gets out alive,” Phiri orders, and the Shadow Mog disappears back into the floor. The fact that she’s using English isn’t lost on me. Phiri Dun-Ra wants me to know that there’s another squadron positioned at Patience Creek’s vehicle entrance. She wants me to know that everyone down below is trapped.

She wants me to know how hopeless this is.

Finally, standing right in front of the elevator is the Piken-Mog. The other three Augments I’ve noticed at least still mostly look like Mogadorians. This one is freakish, with a normal-sized lower body attached to a torso that is completely disproportioned. He stands about eight feet tall despite a hunched back, his skin is the leathery gray of a piken and he’s got the steroidal muscles to match. His fingers are long, thick and tipped with razor-sharp claws. His head, buried as it is in a throbbing mass of neck muscles, is regular-sized except for his jaw, which has grown out from his face, creating a fanged under bite. Most disgusting of all is that it’s possible to see the seams where his pale Mog skin stretched and ripped across this new body.

He looks like he’s in pain, and he looks like he’s furious about it. He grunts and shifts from foot to foot, waiting for an order.

I watch as Phiri makes note of one of the security cameras. She doesn’t seem concerned. “Surely they know we’re here by now,” she says, then turns to the Piken-Mog. “Go down there and say hello.”

The Piken-Mog replies with a moan, then pries open the elevator door and hops down the shaft.

Soon, through the floor, I hear gunfire and screaming.

With a smile, Phiri Dun-Ra looks at me.

“How many Garde are here, hmm?” she asks me. “How many of your friends do I get to eradicate today?”

“I’m not . . . I’m not telling you shit.”

Phiri rolls her eyes and pulls a blaster off her hip. She points it at the back of Mark’s head.

“Want to tell me now?” she asks me, jabbing the base of Mark’s skull with her gun.

When he feels the muzzle against his head, Mark manages to jerk away. Something inside him, a survival instinct, lets him fight the Thin Mog’s control. He drops the noose, fingers flexing like he’s finally got feeling back in his hands, and turns on Phiri Dun-Ra. He takes a halting step towards the woman. That’s all he can manage. Saliva flecks from his lips as he growls, the strain of battling against the Mogadorian mind control evident. Phiri doesn’t even flinch.

She glances at the Thin Mog. “He’s fighting you.”

“He will give his fragile brain an aneurysm before he overcomes my will,” the Thin Mog replies simply.

The Thin Mog’s eyes narrow, and Mark’s every muscle goes rigid, like he’s been electrocuted. He stands up on his tiptoes, unnaturally taut, joints popping and teeth clenched. He lets out a strangled cry.

“See?” the Thin Mog says.

Phiri Dun-Ra holsters her blaster and crouches over me. “Truth is, it doesn’t matter how many of your friends are down there. We’re going to kill them regardless. I just enjoy watching you squirm.”

Up close, the mass of ooze that’s replaced Phiri’s arm smells like rotten meat. If she’d only move a little closer, get a little more in my face . . .

“You know, John, our paths intersected once before,” she continues. “I was in charge of operations in West Virginia when you helped Number Nine escape. Did you know that? That . . . unfortunate incident got me sent down to Mexico as punishment. Forced to work on the impossible problem of the Sanctuary. Turns out, all I had to do was wait for you idiot Loric to show up.”

She stands back up and holds out her arms, the tentacles burrowed into me twisting and pulling. I’m glad for the pain; it makes it easy to hide my disappointment. I almost had a shot at her.

I’ve got one desperate play. One trick literally hidden up my sleeve. The Mogs were too confident in their control to check me for weapons. I’ve still got Five’s blade sheathed against my forearm.

I just need an opportune time to strike.