Page 91 of Ruined Omega

Strangely, she doesn’t even attempt to fight back.

Tal notices this too. Sniffs her.

He lets out a disgusted pah sound and flings the witch’s limp body aside. She slumps on the floor a few feet away, glaucous eyes rolling back in her skull, skin blooming with diseased veins, mouth edged with drool.

“A beta?” Sloane gasps. “They brought betas with them? Why?”

I shake my head while Tal helps me to my feet, shielding my body from the gunfire.

“She wasn’t a beta a minute ago!” I shout. “She just changed!”

“Look,” Lily shouts next.

Tal and I both turn in the direction she is facing, and our jaws fall open together. The crackle of gunfire has lessened to a few intermittent pops scattered here and there. One by one, the swarming Farlanders are changing. Their skin is growing pale and sickly. Eyes turning dull and milky. Movements become jerky and uncoordinated.

“They’re all turning into betas,” I breathe. “But how…”

The answer hits me as soon as I have gotten the words out. Lily and Sloane have the same idea too. We all turn toward the Source where the spectral face of Seraph is hovering, gazing with an eerie placidity over the scene of carnage.

Of course. Seraph controls the mutations in the Zone. Normally he dispenses the mutations in a more or less random fashion, but in my case he made an exception, guaranteeing that I would become an omega.

Now he’s doing the opposite to these Farlanders.

Seraph senses that the Source is under threat. So he is removing that threat by changing the attackers into harmless betas.

Before I have a chance to really contemplate this, a voice bellows from behind.

We all whirl around again, and this time we see Abaddon stepping through the smoking black portal torn in the chamber’s wall. I also realize now how that hole was made.

Abaddon is carrying on his shoulder a four shot bazooka. And he has it aimed directly at the Source.

We’ve heard two explosions already. That means he has two shots left.

My chest tightens in panic. The Source provides the energy field for the Alphas and omegas to live. If it is damaged or destroyed, there’s no telling what would happen to everyone in the Zone, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be good.

Abaddon’s finger is on the trigger, ready to squeeze.

I try to scream, but my fear-constricted throat won’t let me.

But Abaddon doesn’t shoot. Not yet.

“Hear me, Alphas!” he cries, his voice filling the chamber, even over the sound of fighting. “I am Abaddon the Destroyer. Know me and know that it is I who encompasses your d—“

He chokes on the last word. His baleful eyes widen with surprise. His body jerks. His scarred flesh pales.

“No,” he gasps. “No…”

His arrogant speech provided just enough time for Seraph to work his changes in the attacker. Abaddon is changing into a beta like the rest of his Farlander followers.

But the change is taking longer than the others. Through sheer tyranny of will, Abaddon is resisting the change, or at least staving it off until his task is done. His face shifts from surprise to hateful determination.

He squeezes the trigger.

At the last second, an Alpha springs out of the crowd. It is Baen. The young Alpha drives his shoulder into Abaddon with the force of a full-speed truck. Abaddon’s body crumples under the blow.

The bazooka swings upward, and the explosive shoots harmlessly into the ceiling, raining down cinders and broken metal.

The Source is unharmed.