The rest of the women came up over the tailgate with two of the Eight reaching down to haul them up, the last cases shoved into the gaps, and then Number One dropped the canvas flaps and rapped the side of the bed. Number Seven put the truck in gear and pulled them off the dock.
Number One released a relieved breath. They'd made it. They were clearing the trap of the harbor before the net drew tight.
The collective pushed its thrall as the truck passed the harbor's gate, the guards not even stopping it for the regular inspection every truck leaving the harbor was subjected to.
"Checkpoint ahead," Number Seven said, and the rest of the collective saw the new barricade that had just been erected a short distance away from the mansion.
This was bad.
If they were at full power, they might have been able to pass without even being stopped, but they had expended so much of it since the early hours, and especially in their dash to make it out of the harbor, that they would be lucky if they managed to deflect enough for the inspection to be superficial.
The useless enclosure thrall had cost them too much. They had used hours of holding two thousand minds in a suggestion they had not been built to sustain, and it had frayed early and left them drained.
Now, with the island's alert flooding every guard's mind with the specific instruction to find their charges, the shroud was at its thinnest.
The collective pushed the thrall into the minds of the guards manning the checkpoint.
The suggestion went out,you have inspected this truck, it carries cargo, wave it through.
Theyfelt it take on the five guards and slide off the rest, one of them the officer in charge.
He aimed his machine gun at Number Seven. "Full stop, soldier."
Number Seven obeyed because doing otherwise meant a shot to the head, and even an immortal wouldn't survive a direct hit like that.
"Out of the vehicle," the officer said. "Open the back."
"It's just construction materials for the mansion," Number Seven said, trying to push a thrall into the mind of the officer. "You can check with Lord Losham."
"We were commanded to inspect everything and make no exceptions. The command came directly from Lord Losham."
"Down," Number One whispered. "Get down and stay down."
The canvas flap was wrenched aside, and light poured in. Two guards' faces appeared at the tailgate looking at people huddled among the cases. The Eight pushed more power into the shroud, and it seemed like it would hold, but then the officer joined the guards, and an evil grin spread across his face.
"Look what we have here." The officer lifted his rifle and aimed at Petrov, while the two other guards aimed at the women. "If anyone moves, shoot to kill."
The collective registered Dimitri's decision to move and shield Mattie, possibly even before he was fully aware of making it. The seven inside the truck couldn't bring their weapons up fast enough to eliminate all three guards before they sprayed the interior of the truck with bullets, killing all the humans.
Before Dimitri started moving, they were in motion.
Number One launched himself over Sullha and Tomek, covering them with his body, folding them down into the bed of the truck beneath him, his teammates doing the same and shielding the rest of the humans with their bodies. Dimitri threw himself over Mattie and Anita, and together they formed a shield of immortal muscle and bone over the fragile humans.
Rapid fire followed.
It came from multiple angles at once, not just from the mouth of the truck where the three soldiers had been standing and aiming at the defenseless humans inside. Rounds punched through the canvas and the wooden sides and the steel of the cab. Yaaf felt the first one take him high in the back, a hammer blow, and then a second, and a third. He bore down over Sullha and Tomek and made his body wider, made it a wall, and did not move.
Beneath him, Sullha had gone rigid with terror, and Tomek was screaming, a thin high sound that cut through the gunfire. Yaaf pressed them both into the floor of the truck bed, and took the rounds meant for them into his flesh that expelled the bullets and started to heal the wounds as new ones opened.
He'd never been more thankful for the enhancement that made him and his teammates even more resilient than other immortals.
They all waited with bated breath for the soldiers to empty their magazines and use the short seconds it would take them to reload to return fire.
Now!Number One relayed, and those who had clear shots brought their weapons up over the bodies they shielded and fired back through the holes and gaps in the torn canvas with the unmatched precision of the enhanced.
But Yaaf was not precise.
He had Sullha and Tomek beneath him, their small, fragile bodies pressed against the floor under his chest, and the part of him that was Yaaf, the part that loved this woman and her son, couldn't hold the cold, clean detachment the others maintained.
