“I’m fine, Dewdrop.”
Though she couldn’t say how much longer that would last.
Screams echoed from the hallways branching off the main room.
“Fuck, it’s a culling,” Tyne snarled.
“What does that mean?” Tate asked.
“We’re not facing only one or two of them. We’re dealing with an entire army. They won’t stop until everyone is dead, or the time runs out.” Tyne’s chin lowered as a grim expression settled on his face. He looked like a man who was facing death and had already decided to go out making as much of a ruckus as he could.
Dewdrop’s lips pursed. Sound split the air.
Tate clapped her hands over her ears, fighting to stay upright as the sound bounced off the walls, bombarding her from all directions. Growing and growing, until finally she heard nothing but white noise, instead feeling the power behind his cry vibrating her insides. Liquid dribbled from her ears and nose.
She touched it, her hands coming away with streaks of red. Blood. No surprise there. At its highest decibel, Dewdrop’s scream could burst organs and kill.
Unfortunately for them, the sentinels didn’t have organs.
A sentinel, his face an emotionless mask, thundered across the floor. He reached Dewdrop with the same insane speed he’d used before. Dewdrop screamed as the sentinel latched onto his arm. There was a low pop of joints being dislocated before the sentinel picked Dewdrop up and flung him into the wall.
Dewdrop slid limply to the floor, unmoving.
The inside of Tate’s mind went white as the sentinel advanced on Dewdrop’s crumpled body.
Drops of liquid silver boiled from Tate’s skin. She pointed at the sentinel as he raised his spear over Dewdrop. The silver struck, forming a long, pointed rod that punched through the sentinel’s back. Through his spine into where his heart would have been had he been human.
The sentinel paused, his head turning toward her. Those cold, emotionless eyes showing no remorse or fear, somehow making everything that was happening even worse.
Death should mean something to the person dealing it. Not be this cold, impersonal process.
Tate clenched her fist. Ropes of silver leached off the rod, spreading across the sentinel’s body as they faintly started to glow. The brighter they shone, the darker and chalkier the stone of the sentinel became.
“Die!” Tate hissed.
The stone of the sentinel started to crack and then crumble. The sentinel seemed to collapse into himself as his form dissolved into pebble-sized rubble.
Pain splintered Tate’s mind as she wobbled, conscious of the fact half her body was covered in the same silver as the weapon she’d just used to destroy the sentinel.
A mechanical voice spoke in her mind. “Synchronization has reached above 98 percent. You are now the recognized owner of this device.”
Tate didn’t have time to ask questions about the new capabilities of her relic. She staggered toward Dewdrop, falling to her knees beside him. Afraid the collision with the wall might have damaged his spine, Tate touched him on the shoulder lightly.
He groaned. “I really thought that would work better than it did.”
The laugh that came from Tate was more of a sob than anything.
Dewdrop maneuvered tentatively onto his back. “Did we win?”
His question reminded Tate that their sentinel wasn’t the only one. As she helped him sit up, she glanced in Ryu and Tyne’s direction. Their sentinel was dismembered, and half of its torso had been melted into a pile of molten rock by the dragon clinging to Ryu’s shoulder.
“It’s not over,” Tyne barked. “They’ll respawn soon.”
Already, Tate could hear the march of feet from the sentinels in the corridors. There was no more screaming, leaving Tate with the uncomfortable feeling that no one else besides them remained alive.
“The door.” Dewdrop pointed. Tate followed the direction of his finger to find two more sentinels forming in the walls on either side of the door.
“We never seem to catch a break.” Tate helped Dewdrop to his feet.
