Sonara counted ten in the breath of a moment before the first one lunged forward as if to grab her.
Sonara’s blade was in her hand in an instant, the space so small she could only angle it forward, a single swipe of Lazaris that managed to cut a wicked slice through the man’s abdomen.
He stumbled sideways as another came forward.
“Shut the door!” Sonara shouted.
Karr fumbled to shut it, but the doors were too damnedslow.
“Fire!” the guard in the back yelled.
Bullets sprayed. Karr threw himself to the side, out of reach. Markam and Azariah hit the floor just as the bullets slammed into the back wall of the elevator, landing themselves in the metal. They were red-tipped, zapping with a spark of blue that left a smoke mark on the metal.
“Stunner bullets,” Karr said, as the identical click of ten guns reloading sounded out.
“Az,” Markam said. “We need you, now.”
“I can’t,” she said.
He ripped off her gloves.“You must.”
Her eyes met Sonara’s as she spun.
Thepopof the guns going off sounded out, but the bullets never landed. Because at the same time, with a scream of terror, Azariah threw her palms together, as if she held a blade, pointing it towards the guards.
There was a satisfyingcrackof electricity. The bullets melted as a bolt of her power spiraled from her palms, creating a sheet before her just as the doors slid shut.
Silence, once again, as if someone had simply put a pause on chaos.
“I… I did it,” Azariah said in a breath. She held up her own hands, a triumphant grin on her face as if she’d found the key to her joy once more.
“What the hell?” Sonara whirled on Karr.
“They’re using stunner bullets,” Karr explained, plucking one of them from the back wall of the elevator. He dropped it to the floor with a tinyping.“Cade gave the order to take you alive. Get hit by one of these, and you’redone.”He tapped the lowest button on the paneled wall three times, in rapid succession. “It’s not responding. They’re going to meet us on every level. They can use the stairs faster than we can ride on this. They’ll be waiting.”
“Stairs,” Markam said. “We could have taken the damnedstairs?”
“We’d have made too much noise, given ourselves away!”
“More than this?” Markam yelped. As he spoke, the elevator slowed again.
“How long?” Sonara asked. “How long before the doors close, once they’re opened again?”
“Twenty seconds, give or take,” Karr said.
The elevator jolted to a sudden stop.
Blast,Sonara hissed in her mind. Her curse slammed against its cage, knowing full well that enemies awaited them just behind those slow-opening doors.
“Don’t move,” Markam hissed as the doors slid wide.
The guards were already there, just as Karr said. Ten in number, their weapons raised and ready. But they paused, confusion twisting their features.
“It’s empty, Jacques,” the guard at point grunted.
Beside him, a lithe woman stepped forward, her large eyes narrowing. “It can’t be. They werejust there.”
Sonara saw it then… a shift in the air before her. Like a rippling wall of fabric where the elevator doors remained open, bathed in Markam’s Trickster curse.
