United as One (Lorien Legacies #7)(71)

Phiri’s pushed herself up on her elbows, shaking off Five’s blow. I lunge forward from my knees and drive my forearm right into her throat, trying to cave in her windpipe.

She gurgles once and then reacts. I feel a tearing sensation in my back as Phiri’s tentacles lift me off of her. They turn me over and send me straight up, face-first into the ceiling and then back down to the floor.

I’m dazed, the wind knocked out of me, a tooth loose in my mouth. I’m still hooked to Phiri Dun-Ra. I can hear her coughing, as well as the dull, bludgeoning sounds of Five working his way through the vatborn squadron.

When my eyes finally focus, I notice the Thin Mog has edged closer to the fray. He cups his hands in front of his mouth and exhales another cloud of those spores he used to mind control Mark and the soldiers. In the darkened hallway, the only light Five’s smoldering robe, the spores look like a cloud of spiders.

“Five!” I manage to yell, tasting blood as I do. “Watch out! Don’t breathe those in!”

Five slams one of the last vatborn to the ground just as I finish my warning. He turns his head, confused, and sees the spores coming at him. His chest puffs out as he tries to hold his breath, but they’re already all over his mouth and nose. They move with a mind of their own, forcing their way up his nostrils and through his lips.

No. If they mind control Five, all will be lost. No one will survive this place.

I try to shove myself towards the Thin Mog, but Phiri’s tentacles are still digging into my back. I’m too weak.

The telltale black veins are already spreading across Five’s face. His grip loosens on his blaster, and his skin goes back to normal. His back arches as the burning robe comes in contact with his normal flesh.

“Yes . . . ,” the Thin Mog commands. “Don’t fight it.”

Five glares murderously at the Thin Mog. He’s frozen in place, though, his muscles twitching, out of his control.

“Hey.”

The Thin Mog manages to half turn at the voice. That’s the last thing he does. Sam, having crept out from one of the nearby cells, pulls the trigger on a blaster at point-blank range. The shot takes the back of the Thin Mog’s head clean off. The hallway is suddenly filled with those spores, like a pi?ata burst. It’s like the Thin Mog’s entire head was packed with the moldy growths, the things now floating harmlessly to the floor, where they wilt and turn to ash.

Rattled, Five sneezes and spits, shaking off the Thin Mog’s grasp.

“John—,” Sam starts to say, but then his eyes widen, and he dives back into the cell just ahead of a jagged piece of dark-colored ice.

Phiri Dun-Ra is back on her feet. She reels me towards her using her tentacles. With most of her backup dead, her eyes are suddenly wild and desperate.

“Extraction!” she shrieks into an earpiece. “I need extraction!”

Five rams into her, grabbing her around the throat with two hands. His skin is the speckled white and black of the tile floor. Phiri lets a gout of fire loose in Five’s face, but it only singes his carapace and makes him angrier. His hands tighten around her neck.

It’s a relief when one of Phiri’s tentacles slides out of my back. That feeling doesn’t last long. Phiri lashes the oily appendage around Five’s neck and lifts him off the ground so that his feet are no longer touching the tile floor. His skin loses its hardened coating—now it’s back to normal—and Phiri is able to squeeze his throat closed with her tentacle.

Now’s it’s Five wheezing for breath.

“Let’s see what you have for me, boy,” Phiri says. The sharpened end of her tentacle slaps across Five’s face, seeking out his empty eye socket. She’s going to attach herself to Five like she’s attached herself to me.

That’s when I see Five’s blade lying abandoned on the floor. One of the Mogs he dusted must have been carrying it.

“Five!” I shout, trying to get his attention as he starts to turn blue. I stretch my leg out as far as I can and kick the blade towards him. I hope he can hear it skittering across the floor.

Before Phiri can plug into Five, he uses his telekinesis to yank his blade towards him and strap it to his arm. It’s so smooth, I get the sense that’s not the first time Five’s practiced that move. And what comes next . . . well, I know Five’s got experience in this area.

With maniacal glee, Five stabs at Phiri Dun-Ra. He hacks away at the tentacle around his neck until it’s nothing but pulp and he’s able to drop to the floor. His skin takes on the hardened tile texture again, just in time to absorb a desperate burst of fire from Phiri. Undeterred, Five goes right for the mass of ooze attached to her shoulder, mutilating it until the tentacles attached to me drop loose and wither to ash. Phiri screams in frustration, even as her sick appendage keeps regrowing. Every time it does, Five seems almost glad to get another chance to slash it apart. I’d almost forgotten how sadistic he is.

“Just kill her, Five!” I yell, edging backwards across the floor and grimacing as I notice the size of the blood trail I leave behind.

“Don’t rush me,” he snarls.

The Shadow Mog emerges from the darkness behind Phiri Dun-Ra. This must be the extraction she was screaming for a few seconds ago. He wraps his arms around Phiri’s waist and yanks her backwards, the shadows like liquid around them, swallowing them up.

Except Five doesn’t let go. He buries his blade in Phiri’s shoulder and launches himself through the shadows after them. The teleportation is completely soundless. One second they’re here and the next the hallway is completely still. Wherever the Shadow Mog brought Phiri to, he took Five with them.