War Of The Alphas: Alpha - War of the Alphas: Alpha Part 8
Library

War of the Alphas: Alpha Part 8

Deirdre wanted to trust her.

The sight of so many people working for democracy made Deirdre feel hopeful in a way that she hadn't felt for a long time. Maybe she had never felt hopeful quite like that. Stark certainly inspired her, but it was a fearful feeling.

These volunteers believed in the election, and they were working to make it happen.

"Thanks for everything you're doing," Deirdre said.

Mallory smiled nervously. "You're welcome."

-VI-.

Deirdre spent the next day and night at an OPA shelter for homeless gaeans. The kind of facility she hadn't had to use since moving in with Jolene in Montreal. The admission process took no more than a swipe of her thumbprint, and then they knew everything about her: name, age, status as Omega. The looks the staff gave her weren't as friendly after that.

It was warm and dry at the shelter, though, which was all she needed. It kept her out of the rain. It let her watch January Lazar's latest report on Stark and provided a dinner of tasteless hamburger.

And if Rylie Gresham had wanted to find her, she could have. They could have easily flagged Deirdre in the system. Agents could have arrested Deirdre within minutes of setting foot in the shelter.

But they didn't.

She kept her hood up all day. Nobody looked at her long enough to realize who she was, even though she was almost as notorious as Stark these days. The shelter's other inhabitants were too absorbed in their problems to worry about hers.

After lockdown and lights out, Deirdre rested on the cot with her head on her hands, staring at the ceiling.

She listened to the other gaeans shifting in the room. It was a gymnasium that used to hold basketball games before Genesis. There should have been room for everyone, and then some. But every cot was filled. The smell of bodies and blood clogged the air. Someone was coughing, lungs clogged with silver. Someone else was asking around for blood.

Deirdre didn't need to sleep there. She would have been far happier finding a bench in a park to spend her night, even with the rain.

But it was a reminder of the reality that existed outside of her strange, insular world filled with unseelie politics, backstabbing best friends, and the frustrating man named Everton Stark.

This was the real world. This miserable, dingy basketball court where fifty-six gaeans were sleeping because they didn't qualify for housing or had lost it for some reason. Rain dripped through holes in the roof. Low-paid staff offered stale rations and synthetic blood as a last-minute snack.

So many people lived like this all the time.

This was why Deirdre needed Stark to change the world. Not for personal gain. Not in pursuit of power. Not because Rylie was the Godslayer and she deserved to suffer vengeance-even if she did.

The gaeans needed Stark because the world was like this, all dark and bleak, and people deserved better. They deserved the freedom that came naturally to shapeshifters, loose in the wilderness as predators hunting prey.

They deserved an election.

Deirdre slept somehow.

Her dreams were filled with fire.

When morning came around, the gaeans were turned out of the shelter. Deirdre bought coffee, spiked it with vodka she bought at the corner store, and walked to the United Nations to meet Rylie.

Genesis had wrought large-scale destruction all across the world, and the United Nations building in New York City had been no exception. Like the White House, it had been practically leveled. Unlike the White House, officials had elected to rebuild it from scratch rather than attempting to restore its former glory. They had bought a large plot of land on the shore where condominiums had been pulverized by Genesis and put the design of the building up for bids.

The ethereal faction had won the contract to build the new United Nations center, and the craftsmanship of the angels was obvious in every inch of the skyscraper. The new tower was the tallest building in the world, and looked frighteningly fragile, like a needle of bone and glass that pierced the clouds. The skeletal upper floors were reminiscent of a tree's branches, permitting officials both human and otherwise to arrive by air. The building's root-like tunnels extended into the earth, which was how members of the infernal faction visited.

The purpose of the United Nations had been expanded after Genesis. No longer did solely human world leaders meet within its radiant walls. Angels, demons, and gaeans held seats during meetings.

That meant it was also one of the most secure buildings in the world, as well as the tallest. Deirdre couldn't get within a hundred feet of its ground-floor entrance.

However Stark had gotten his intelligence, he had been right about one thing: there must have been a meeting that day. A dirigible was trundling toward the spire of the UN building.

Deirdre hung out with the tourists who were gawking from outside the perimeter. It was early in the morning, but there were already a lot of people using the UN building as a photo opportunity. Schoolgirls made faces in front of it while others pretended to prop it up with their hands, like it was the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

She drained her coffee mug and tossed it aside, squinting up at the reflective surface of the tower. Even from outside the chain demarcating the perimeter, she could tell that the metal of the building had been textured like tree's bark. There were grooves in the white metal, some of which were runes, others of which were decorative. Decorative banding marked the windows.

"I can totally climb that," Deirdre muttered.

Someone tugged on her sleeve. "Excuse me, miss? Hello?" It was an old man, probably in his seventies, holding a camera with a very large lens toward her. "I hate to bother you, but would you mind taking a picture of my wife and me in front of the UN building?"

The tourist couple were close enough that they'd gotten a good look at her face. But they didn't recognize her as Stark's cohort. They must not have been big on reading blogs or watching the news.

Deirdre took the camera. "Sure. Where's the button?"

He quickly showed her how to operate it, and Deirdre stepped back to get both of them in the frame.

The camera had a telephoto lens. She aimed it at the top of the building, zooming in so that she could look at the skeletal upper levels, where they were preparing to moor a visiting dirigible.

With such fantastic zoom, she could see that there were OPA guards in black suits waiting to receive the airship. A lot of them. Whoever was on the dirigible must have been important.

She focused on the airship. The sanctuary logo marked the side.

Rylie Gresham was arriving for her meeting, just as Stark had said she would. The Godslayer was right there. She'd have all the answers that Deirdre wanted.

"Having trouble?" the old tourist asked kindly.

"Trying to figure out the lens, sorry," Deirdre said. "Say cheese!"

She took a couple of pictures of the couple, who hugged and smiled and were generally adorable. She felt a painful twinge at how happy they looked together. It had been a long time since she'd had a man's arms around her shoulders in the way that the husband held the wife. And the man who had held her like that was dead.

It was hard to make herself smile when she handed the camera back to them.

"Gods bless you," said the old lady.

"I sure hope so," Deirdre said, making sure the man had a good grip on his camera. "Don't drop that, now. Hate to break such a fine piece of equipment."

"You are so sweet," he said.

"Thanks," she said.

And then Deirdre leaped over the chain blocking people from approaching the building.

She bolted for the UN building.

It took a few seconds for the crowd of tourists to react. Nobody seemed to realize what was happening-why this crazy woman was hurtling across the square, arms pumping at her sides, racing with supernatural speed to reach the United Nations building.

Once they realized something was happening, the air shattered with screams.

Security closed in.

Deirdre reached into Stark's flannel shirt, where she'd hidden her underarm holster. The gun leaped into her hand.

She popped off a couple of shots at the security guards who were nearest.

She'd always had great aim, but after all her time practicing in the range underneath the asylum, she was getting even better. She aimed to disable-thighs and feet and the arms that were holding guns-and she hit each time. Guards stopped with shouts and splashes of blood.

They couldn't catch her. She was too fast.

She shoved her gun into her belt and leaped onto the side of the UN building.

Deirdre hadn't just gotten new powers since she died. She leaped higher than she'd ever been able to leap before, launching herself straight onto what should have been the third floor.

She was so shocked to catch hold of the wall that high that she was momentarily frozen, staring down at the ground so much further down than she'd expected.

"Oh my gods," she said.

Muffled pops broke the air. A bullet smashed into the wall beside her, just inches away.

It was a silver bullet.

Deirdre threw herself up the side of the building, committing all of her upper body strength to the climb.

Her body felt lighter than it ever had before, as though her bones had turned hollow. She flew straight up the side of the UN building, using the runes that mages had stamped onto the supports as handholds, scaling so quickly that the guards couldn't track her well enough to shoot.

They gave up within a few seconds. They must have realized that shooting at a building filled with world leaders was probably not a good idea.

But it didn't mean that they were letting her reach the top.

Cables dropped down the side of the building, and OPA agents began rappelling toward her, much the same way that they'd dropped out of the helicopter the night before.

Magic fogged around the first to approach. It was a witch, battle-trained and clutching hexes in both of his fists. He vibrated with violet energy.

He didn't issue any warnings. Didn't try to tell her to turn back. She'd already crossed too many lines.

The witch kept one hand on his rope and flung the other toward her. Deirdre leaped, pushing off the building with her toes, and managed to catch another window. The hex sizzled past her, distorting the air it passed through.

The agent didn't pause before shooting another spell at her. Deirdre leaped again. This time, she grabbed his foot instead of the building.

"Hey!" he shouted, trying to kick her off.

Deirdre scaled his body and grabbed the rope. "I'm going to borrow this, okay?"

His fingers blazed with fresh magic. "Let go!"

She didn't give him an opportunity to activate that spell. Deirdre was already scrambling up the rope, faster now that she had the help. Other witches rappelled down the building and tried to hurl spells at her, but she was a blur, almost as speedy as Stark was on the ground.

It only took moments to reach the upper floors. She leaped onto the open dirigible dock. It was a large open space with machinery on the wall to help catch and tether airships. The UN logo on the wall glistened alongside the OPA logo.

The decorations were sparse, so there weren't many hiding spots. Nowhere she could take cover.

And the agents she had seen with the telephoto lens were waiting at the top.

She threw herself out of the way of the assault she knew to be coming, and the mundanes with all their mundane reflexes couldn't react quickly enough. She pounced on the nearest agent, slammed his head into the ground, and his eyes blanked.

A witch lobbed a spell at her, and Deirdre lifted the agent she'd knocked out as a shield. He took the spell in the chest, instantly turning icy-cold and rigid as the dead.

She yanked the frozen agent's gun out of his holster.

One of the witches hurled a fistful of magic at her, and she rolled underneath it. The spell passed so close that the tips of her hair froze, so cold that it burned against her neck.

She fired her stolen gun. Got her attacker in the hand.

Then she turned and fired again, hitting the next agent in the wrist before he could shoot back.

One of the remaining agents fired. Deirdre moved a fraction too slowly. It grazed her shoulder, scalding a path over her skin.

The other agent leaped, wrapping her arms around her from behind, making both of them fall to the floor. She smashed into the tile face-first. "Get off!" she said, squirming in his grip. He was strong for a mundane. She couldn't get him off of her.

Deirdre twisted so that she could see the airship. It was so close. Its windows loomed large at the edge of the building. The dirigible hadn't moored yet, but it looked like it was already leaving again, without ever having unloaded in the first place.

Rylie would be in there.

"Get off!" Deirdre repeated, and this time, she put the full force of her willpower behind the words.

Flames flared over her.

The agent screamed as he leaped away, slapping at his shirt. She hadn't incinerated him as swiftly as Chadwick Hawfinch-but it looked like it must have hurt.

Deirdre didn't hesitate to dispatch the last agent. She shot him in the foot so that he fell with a cry.

Then she pounded across the room, reached the edge of the floor, and leaped into open space.

For an instant, Deirdre was suspended in the space between the airship and the building. There was nothing holding her up. Nothing between her and a drop of two hundred stories. The tourists were dark pinpoints on concrete so far below.

Even a shifter wouldn't survive that fall.

Deirdre slammed into the aluminum underbelly of the airship.

She scrambled to grip a round window frame that looked like a porthole. Her legs dangled underneath her. Her hands were slick with sweat from her earlier climb, so the momentum of her swinging body almost made her slip off.