Chapter Ten
Dante's Wrath
1
Harry and the Blood Traitors had gotten through the nearby town unnoticed. Afterward they had Apparated as far as they could go in the forest to save time. Now they walked.
"He wouldn't set traps in here would he?" Ferris inquired.
"There's no guarantee," Roman replied darkly. "Some of the Optimates say he's even less sane than Odin"
"And twice as paranoid," Jules muttered.
Harry recognized the name Odin. He knew of several Aurors under direct orders from Kingsley who'd gone under ground solely to listen for that name on the lips of Optimates. Any rumor or sentence said about the man was related back to Kingsley and Kingsley alone. Odin could possibly be the leader of all of the new Death Eaters in Britain.
"Mr. Potter?"
Harry's attention was redirected toward the timid voice that called him. Sydney – or Syd as her teammates called her – had sidled up to him.
"The sun is going down pretty quickly, so I wanted to ask you something before I can't speak English anymore," said the young girl.
She seemed a little shy talking to him, but determined all the same. Harry marveled that they would even let her join this group, being so young and seemingly timorous.
"Okay," he said.
"Could you please not tell Mr. Lupin that I'm a Blood Traitor?"
The words spilled out of her mouth in a jumble, but he got the point. His only response was an arched eyebrow.
She explained: "It's just that he'd be cross that I lied to him, and he'll say it's the reason I dropped out of Beauxbaton. He'd probably try to get me to leave the group."
"How old are you?" Harry asked, trying not to sound too incredulous when he said it.
"I'll be seventeen on the thirtieth," Sydney answered.
"So don't let him find out until then," Harry suggested, "He can't say anything about it once you're of age… But I didn't tell you that, Remus would kill me." He was actually a bit surprised at himself for not telling her that Remus would have every right to tell a school girl she couldn't go out and battle dark wizards – but of course that coming from Harry's mouth would have been a bit hypocritical, even though his situation had been completely different. Evil was evil, and fighting it at whatever age was inevitable at some point.
"Are you the youngest?" he asked her suddenly.
"I'm the youngest official member," said Syd.
"Really? Then how old is that blond girl?" He gestured to Yvette a little ways up in the march, and it was she who answered.
Turning back to look at him, she said, "I'm twenty-seven, Monsieur Potter."
"Oh. I was going to ask if you were seventeen."
Yvette positively beamed at this. "It'll be wonderful when I'm a hundred years old and people are still asking if I'm seventeen."
"Of course," said Imogene, the green-eyed vampire, "you will look more like a vampire as the years go on, Dear."
"That explains a few things," Harry muttered.
"Imogene is my maker," Yvette told him. "She saved me from my old life."
"You mean being undead is better than your life was before?"
"Infinitely. And had you seen me before, Monsieur, you would have agreed."
Harry looked away from them, sighed deeply, and peered past the dark tree trunks into more darkness. The sun had slipped below the horizon and storm clouds had risen from the distance to replace it. They'd be lucky if the full moon showed up at all tonight. He wished they could get to this place quicker, but they could no longer Apparate and running there would make too much noise, thus attracting the Optimates' attention too soon. At least they weren't lost; Luciano seemed to know where he was going.
Harry put the werewolves and the vampires behind him and walked up next to Culver, Luciano, and Schmitt.
"How far are we?" he asked.
To his relief, Roman replied: "Very close. But we should stop speaking unless it's necessary."
The others were instantly silent.
"We're approaching the building now," Jules said.
Sure enough, as Harry peered ahead again, he could just make out the shape of a two story building through a thickening fog that came only from the direction they were heading. A cloaking charm, Harry thought, to hide guards around the building.
It certainly didn't seem like anyone was hiding in anxious sentinel, waiting for them. Even Harry, the trained Auror, didn't sense anything. It was like the whole place was dead but for the constant fog that settled churlishly over them with every step they advanced.
2
The light seared Agape's eyes as her blindfold was ripped away from her face. She was in a brightly lit room with old hospital beds shoved against the walls to either side. Her wrists and ankles were bound by rope and like the disused beds she'd been pushed against one of the walls, Ginny to her left and Alton to her right.
Ginny had used several biting epithets toward her captors as she was roughly escorted into the room, but Alton had stayed so silent that Agape hadn't even been sure if he was with them until she heard them throw him to the floor beside her. She eyed the small man now, as he was the veteran of their current situation, but she didn't find any encouragement there – Alton's unmasked jaw was rigidly set and he stared at the door at the end of the wing with a kind of determined resignation. She could tell he didn't expect to make it out of another Optimates lair alive.
Tears leapt to Agape's eyes because she felt the same hopelessness, but she choked back her fearful emotions and turned toward Ginny instead. The red haired woman was looking back at her and mirroring the other emotion Agape was feeling: the shear will to live if only to spite the scum holding them there.
The six hooded figures that had dragged them in the wing now stood on either side of the room along the rows of discarded beds. Each had a wand in his hand but none of them spoke. Among them, Agape recognized the young man with the hunched back.
She thought briefly about spitting on him, despite what he might do to her, but she didn't think she could project her saliva that far. Instead, she settled for imagining him being ripped limb from limb by some large bat. At least it kept her mind off of the fear that tugged fiercely at the part of her brain in charge of the fight or flight reflex.
However, the doors at the end of the ward opened with a shrill squeak and she immediately focused on the new terrifying figure loping toward them. Agape's wrists surged against the binding ropes and she desperately wished she could fight or fly at that very moment. He was huge, and covered in black. His hood seemed to hook protectively over his face, concealing it from the light in the room. Agape got the horrifying impression that he was the only shadow in the ward, as if he were dragging the other shadows with him and manipulating them, casting them menacingly over his three prisoners.
He was a faceless, soulless void of a being that would drag and manipulate them like he did the darkness.
The figure paused and stood over them. If Agape had glanced at her companions, she would have seen Ginny glaring and preparing for the worst while Alton's expression never changed except the recognition in his eyes. Agape's eyes had widened with an irrepressible fear that made her breath quicken.
"I'm pleased to find you conscious, if not unharmed," said the figure in a very deep voice. It was impossible to tell who he was looking at, but he was standing directly in front of Agape and she was the bloodiest. Her back still ached terribly from the gash that ran from her left shoulder blade to the base of her spine. Hitting the bookshelf hadn't helped either.
"I was concerned that you would be of little use to me after these six escorted you here," the man continued in a cavernous voice that brought the Grim Reaper to mind. "Of course, I was just lucky to catch the three of you out in the open without your usual protection. When my employer and I heard about your movements, we felt it would be best if I snatched you up while I could. Of course, Mrs. Potter was a pleasantly unexpected guest. I could scarcely believe my fortune – and to capture all of you! Well, it simply worked out perfectly."
The hooded void that was his head turned ever so slightly to Alton on Agape's right and made a sluggish sweep over to Ginny, taking them all in like he was inhaling the delicious aroma of his favorite meal. Agape could only stare, but Ginny was less inclined to be silent.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "Odin?"
"No. I work for him," he said, the opening of the hood pointed toward the redhead. "I am Dante." The hood inclined ever so slightly in a polite bow.
"What exactly did you plan on doing with us once you'd caught us?" Ginny asked hotly. Her tone may have been sharp and challenging, but ineffective in hiding her unease.
"Even that! There!" cried the huge man, making a movement toward her in excitement. "That question is precisely what I hoped you would ask! Every piece is firmly falling into place. And since you've made me so happy, Mrs. Potter, I'll answer you."
Dante's hood suddenly swiveled on Alton. "Mr. Drake, I think it would be best for you to go first," he said. "You know, I heard about how well you stood up to torture when Odin wanted information on your family and friends. I had already started working for him in his laboratory. In fact, I perfected the Dragon Lungs spell – you should know a lot about that one. You were the first subject to survive, because I suggested we should transform nearly all of your vital organs instead of just the lungs. That way, your body would be less likely to reject the changes. I suppose you could say I gave you your finest weapon."
Alton was staring hard at the wall opposite him, not looking at Dante. Ginny peered at him questioningly, but Agape was growing more and more concerned by his abnormal silence.
Dante proceeded: "We never made another one like you, Mr. Drake. The transformation was too volatile, none of the recruits have volunteered for it. However, I do have a few people for you to meet, since you'll be becoming very close to them soon. They are others that have undergone some improvements for battle. I believe you've already met Fero earlier today, but perhaps you should have a better look at him"
He gestured toward the hunched Optimus, who stepped forward. The young man pulled off his hood and robes, revealing a pale, lean chest and what looked like a second leathery cloak for a moment. Then, Agape realized they were actually very large and long wings bunched up over his shoulders and across his neck. The lump on his back had been the folded wings that now snapped out and extended into a looming position. Agape gasped and held in the breath, unable to believe the sight. The wings were enormously wide and they reached a good foot above his head where a bat-like talon crowned their highest joint.
Agape's vision of the man being attacked by a huge bat transformed into an image of him attacking her by similar means.
"You gave up on bird's wings, then?" Alton said gravely, speaking for the first time since arriving.
"That was also my idea. Your cell neighbor lost all of his feathers just before he died, yes?" He didn't wait for Alton to reply before he continued. "The bat wings worked out much better, I think."
Alton regarded Fero grimly. Fero glowered back at him from over his Neo mask, which was still in place.
"But you must meet the rest! It is their first debut, and they're most impressive," Dante held out his hand toward two more of the five remaining Optimates. These two, another young man and a young woman, stepped up.
"This is Enyo," said Dante. "She is her own shield – both physically and magically."
The woman rolled up her sleeves to reveal her forearms. She made fists and the flesh on her arms instantly turned shiny and metallic. The metal didn't seem to limit her movement – it flexed just as her flesh would have when she bent her elbows to show it off more properly.
Dante nodded to the man beside Enyo, saying, "And this is Tiburon. I'll let him explain his new gift to you."
With that, Tiburon pulled off his hood and his eyes grinned maliciously at them over his mask. Suddenly his mouth opened monstrously wide, surpassing the width of his mask. A thick, slippery pink tongue slithered underneath it only to pull back inside and take the fabric with it, revealing razor sharp teeth that resembled a shark's. His massive jaw clamped shut again and he chewed; part of the mask stuck out between his lips and was severed by his incredibly sharp teeth to flutter to the floor. After swallowing, his evil smile spread hugely, sending an uneasy shiver up Agape's aching spine.
"You, Mr. Drake, are going to serve the purpose of giving my Militis Optime a worthy practice fight," Dante told Alton, referring to the three frightening mutations before them. Then he nodded to them and the two young men came forward to seize either of Altons shoulders and drag him toward the door.
"No! Alton!" Agape cried desperately.
Alton merely watched the distance grow between him and the women with a steely resolution.
"Don't worry, Miss Esh-orby," Dante said to her, mispronouncing her name, "you'll join him soon. I have a special new spell to test out on you."
Then Alton's face flew up to look into her terrified expression and he started yelling. "NO! You can't do that!" He struggled violently against the two Optimates holding him. They only latched onto his arms more firmly and continued to pull him out into the hall. "You can't do that to her! Agape! Don't let them! Fight them! Don't let them do – "
Then the door was slammed by Enyo as she walked out and Alton's shouts were only muffled noises.
Agape couldn't help the tears stinging her cheeks now. She heard Ginny yelling too, but she didn't comprehend what she was saying. Two of the three Neos remaining took hold of her arms in vice grips before pulling her backwards out of the ward like Alton. She and Ginny watched helplessly as they were separated.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Potter," said Dante, ignoring the redhead's frantic cries as she struggled against her ropes, "you'll be the least likely to help her, I'm afraid. You see, the swiftest and hardest blow to your bothersome husband is to not give him the chance to save you. I'll be personally escorting you to your execution."
Ginny's eyes widened in surprise and she jerked her head up to look at him. This was the last thing Agape saw before the ward door slammed shut after her feet had slid through.
"Ginny! GINNY!"
3
The building made Harry think about deterioration. It wasn't just the crumbling bricks that its walls were made of – it was something he could actually feel. There was something inherently wrong with this place.
It had two stories and many windows with wrought iron bars covering every one. The roof was flat, as far as Harry could tell. There was a cellar with two chained doors on the building's west flank, which could certainly be hiding the three hostages, but that might be too obvious a place to put them. On the same side stood a long metal tube protruding from the building that dropped diagonally toward the earth like a playground slide. It was centered on the wall, leading from the second story in a sweeping, rusted trunk braced by rods towards the ground where it made a gradual curve over the dead grass before ending abruptly. He'd never seen anything like it before, and he studied it for a long time.
What in the name of Merlin's Beard was this place?
To his right, Harry noticed two wooden posts, one with half a sign still attached, and the other broken off about a foot from the ground. What little was left of the sign was still relatively legible but badly rotted. Harry could just make out the faded, broken legend it bore:
-NAN
-IATRIC HOSPITAL
"What kind of hospital was this?" Harry inquired.
"The psychiatric kind," Jules replied.
Ignoring the chill that surged through him, Harry looked back at the building with a frown, searching for weaknesses he could tackle. However, Roman and Gus had turned to Jules – they all had, as if it was just the natural thing to do, waiting for a nineteen-year-old girl to give the orders. Harry had to admit he was interested in whether or not she was a competent leader, but now was not the time for studying her. At the moment he was more concerned with getting himself into the building, with or without the BT.
"Roman, how many times have you been here?" Jules demanded.
"Enough times to know that the twenty odd Optimates Dante has with him aren't enough to guard the outside," said the Italian. "Inside is a different story."
"How many would it take?"
"About twelve."
Augustus looked incredulous. "So few? How?"
"We're talking about Dante, Gus," Jules reminded him. "But if he has around twenty men, like Imogene overheard, that means he's got at least eight more people than he needs…"
Harry had stealthily moved away from them to the big tube protruding from the bricks. It was a great deal rusted at each joint where sections of metal had been bolted together and the mouth was filled with the same fog and blackness that now girdled the entire location. It was roughly the size of a large person lying prostrate. This realization sent a chill up Harry's spine for some reason. It was obvious to him now that the tube was an old fire escape. The iron bars would have prevented escape through one of the windows, but why would patients need to be shoved down a tube rather than running down a ladder if threatened by a fire? Being insane didn't normally affect mobility.
He was distracted by the Blood Traitors moving his way. Apparently they had also realized the shoot would probably be the easiest place to sneak in. Julissa was speaking in a hushed voice to her group, giving orders.
"Alright, Yvette, you heard the woman," Imogene was saying as they neared the shoot. "The poor humans can't get into the building by themselves, and they're in desperate need of Half-breeds."
"How convenient they have so many at hand," Yvette replied with an amused smirk. "Does the fire shoot look promising to you, Sister?"
"Perfect, just as Roman suggested."
Before Harry could protest with a warning about what spells might be laid upon the shoot, the two vampires moved away so quickly that none of the humans could see their progress. There was a pregnant silence, but soon enough, a soft thud resounded at the top of the shoot and a steady swish followed. The bodies of two Optimates slid out of the tube and landed unconscious at the feet of Harry and the Blood Traitors. Gus strangled a cry of repulsion and moved a few paces back.
The two men were unmasked and painful looking boils jutted up from their insensible faces. On each man's throat there were two tiny puncture wounds that oozed rivulets of blood.
"Relax, Gus dear," Imogene said, suddenly back among them. "They just got caught in their little heat hex at the opening. The blistering will die down eventually."
The Vampires must have been moving too fast for the spell to affect them as it should, Harry reasoned. However, Gus seemed more concerned with something else:
"But you bit them!" he cried, like a true law-abiding-do-gooder.
"We only drank a few drops to keep up our strength," came Yvette's delicate accent from just behind Schmitt. She appeared at his right and wrapped a flirtatious yet comforting arm about his shoulders, which were a high reach even for her tall frame. "Roman told us long ago that we're not to kill people."
"Even scum like this," Imogene added, narrowing her eyes at the fallen Neos.
Dumbledore's friend, the Vampire with morals, Harry thought sarcastically.
"There's no way inside from there," Imogene continued. "It's just a long empty hallway with no doors. I suppose you'd need a password if you wanted to make one appear."
"Oh, I almost forgot," Yvette said, casually turning to Jules, "You may want to go up to the roof instead of inside. Those two were talking about something big happening up there before we attacked them. It was something that has to do with Monsieur Potter."
"Ginny," Harry breathed, his stomach clenching. He scanned the roof, urgently searching for a way up.
Jules cursed angrily at Yvette, and Imogene frowned at her sister Vampire, saying, "Perhaps you should have said something sooner, Yvette."
"Get up there, quick," Roman told Jules, but she was already beside Harry, also trying to find a way up.
Finally Harry got and idea and aimed his wand for the sky. A rope shot out of it, which he stopped as soon as it had reached the ledge of the roof before finishing it at the bottom and cutting it off. The rope held itself suspended in the air as if it were being held up by some invisible hand – a hand that was strong enough to hold a lot of weight. He began to climb, Jules and Ferris following after.
As the other Blood Traitors queued around the rope to climb, Gus suddenly seized Roman's shoulder. "What are you going to do, Roman," he inquired. "If they find one of their own working with us –"
"I know," came Roman's frustrated reply. "I'll see what I can do for a distraction."
Harry never saw him disappear into the fog below, he was too focused to care what the others did now. Terrible images of what might happen to his wife slashed violently into his thoughts and he desperately tried to fight them back, tried to concentrate on getting to her.
He had to get to Ginny. She was everything at that moment.
4
'Harry, I wish you were here,' Ginny thought, her lip trembling slightly. Even if he could do nothing to save her, she would feel stronger with him near. And at least she could have said goodbye.
She wished she could say goodbye to Kyla as well. She urgently desired to tell her family she loved them one last time – tell each of them that they meant more to her than anything else in the world.
She would have liked almost as much to take some of these masked men down with her. However, her ability to fight back had been taken away when they had bonded her wrists behind her back and stolen her wand. She couldn't just rush them and clobber them. They'd only kill her sooner.
Said men had deposited her at one corner of the roof, where she had struggled until she was in a standing position, watching the two of them resolutely as they stood between her and the door leading back into the building. The only thing behind her was the ledge – about two feet higher than the flatness of the roof. Beyond that was just another form of death… open air two stories above the ground.
Dante started talking: "We don't have time for a torturous execution, Mrs. Potter. So I've decided to kill you quickly and dismember you afterwards. I thought I might try a fourteenth century Muggle tradition and quarter you. I'll send your parts to the four corners of Britain and put your head on a pike to be displayed on London Bridge. That should stir up some excitement."
Ginny was hardly listening. She looked over her shoulder at the trees nearest the roof. They were too far away to jump into, plus she couldn't very well grab hold of any branches with her hands tied. Nonetheless, she backed toward the ledge until she felt the back of her legs press against it. She didn't realize it, but she'd already made her decision. They wouldn't make it for her.
Dante saw what she was doing and began to chuckle disturbingly. "If you'd rather fall to your death, I'm not choosey. I just need you dead. So hurry it up if you're going to jump." His words seemed distant and foggy, like the ground below.
Faces flashed across her mind's eye: a freckled, green-eyed youth with Harry's messy dark hair, highlighted in that intrepid Weasley red.
'I love you Kyla.'
"The messier the corpse, the more fear sent into the hearts of our enemies," Dante snarled insanely.
She had stepped up, first her right foot, then the left. She was balancing on the ledge.
Another face. Similar green-eyes peering down at her, arms wrapped protectively around her, enveloping her in love.
'Harry, I'm sorry I couldn't stop them…'
Dante would cause her death no matter what, but she could at least take the choice out of his hands.
"I know! We'll compromise," he growled nastily, that voice a surreal echo in her ears. "I'll shoot you off and you can have your painful impact."
Two tears slipped from her lashes and cooled her checks where they dragged. 'I won't let another of your spells touch me as long as I'm still alive,' she silently swore.
He leveled his wand at her. At the same time, her knees bent, preparing to fling herself off. She never thought she'd be so ready to kill herself. There was a calmness in her head now – a silence in her world. Or was it numbness?
When he shouted his curse it sounded like two distant voices speaking at once. As she launched off of the ledge, her stomach clenching when she felt only air supporting her, the last thing she saw before screwing her eyes tightly shut was the image of Dante set suddenly aglow and falling forward.
With no time or care to wonder what had just happened, Ginny plummeted.
5
"NO!"
Harry leapt over the fallen black figure that was Dante and ran to the ledge that Ginny had just disappeared over. He fell to his knees and his horrified eyes searched the fog. He couldn't see the ground and the ringing in his ears was drowning out any noise that might have reached him from below. He suddenly couldn't breathe.
Something inside of him froze – iced over. Something close to terror. Something that made him go numb. Something worse than shock.
There was nothing in the fog. Nothing.
There was only silence and stillness.
The chill crept in, solidifying to suffocate him.
Jules had stunned the remaining Optimates and tied and gagged him with another flick of her wand.
Dante stirred and his hood shifted as his head turned against the rough rooftop. Jules placed a shoe against the side of his face and bent to snatch his wand from his hand. Pointing his wand at him with hers so he could see, she spoke.
"What have you done, Howard?"
"Only what needed to be done, Darling," he replied, laughter in his deep voice.
Harry was back on his feet and had turned to face them, his face blank. His eyes were dark voids.
The other Blood Traitors had already swiftly mounted the ledge and were all prepared for anything. Logan and Gus guarded the rooftop door incase any new Neos decided to check on their leader and comrade. They others awaited Jules's command.
"What have you done with them," Jules said calmly. "I won't ask again."
"I got the most use out of each of them," explained Dante. "I couldn't very well let such valuable prisoners go to waste."
"So help me, Howard! I may not be able to kill you, but I will make you wish I had."
Dante chuckled unsettlingly before answering. "Very well, Dearest. I sent Mr. Drake off to a play date, the young woman to her new room, and while I had hoped to send Mrs. Potter to her grave, it seems she took care of the work all by herself."
Jules's head whirled around to look at Harry. He only stared back. Something transpired wordlessly between them, then Jules slowly turned her attention back to Dante.
"I want passwords."
"They change every week at my whim, you know," Dante told her proudly, as if he were relating to her how a child had taken its first steps. "I think you'll find this week's set very familiar."
Jules hesitated to think about his hint. "How familiar?"
"Well, Darling," the grin in his voice was obvious, "I believe you'd feel right at home."
Jules pressed her soul harder into his temple until he uttered a grunt of discomfort. "If you're playing one of your little tricks – I swear, blackmail or no, I'll kill you in your sleep."
"It's a good thing I never sleep then, hmm?"
Disgust contorted Culver's face and she zapped Dante with a spell that reminded Harry strongly of the stunning curse Roman had set on him.
"That won't last long," she muttered. She whirled toward the BT and they watched her, ready. She focused on the werewolves. "Logan, take Syd and Celeste back to the ground. I want the Neos inside to stay inside – we can't have them getting back-up. And if you hear someone coming, let us know. Everyone else is coming inside with me."
As the three werewolves moved to climb back down Harry's rope and the Vampires, Ferris, and Gus gathered at the door, Julissa looked back at Harry.
"I'm not sure what you're planning on doing, Mr. Potter," she said watching him closely. "But Alton and Agape are still in trouble. We could use your help."
Harry didn't speak, merely nodding in acknowledgement to the fact. He was biting his tongue for now. He did draw up a length of chain and shackle Dante tightly to the roof, however. He didn't know why the stunning curse wouldn't last long if it was the one he thought it was, but the chains would keep Dante busy for a long time at least.
As Jules ripped the door open, going inside with the Blood Traitors at her heels, Harry looked back at the ledge he'd seen his wife jump off of. He forced himself to look away. Dispassionately, he conjured a Patronus and sent the silvery stag off to the Ministry. It would take a while, but it was still quicker than sending an owl – which he didn't have anyway.
He turned and went inside after the Blood Traitors. Now it was time to really get down to business, and Harry was on edge. The iciness inside of him was growing, encasing parts of him that were dangerous to cover: like mercy…
But there was still a chance. If he was right, and he desperately hoped he was, he would be able to hold himself together. The chill wouldn't take over just yet.
6
It was strange, Agape thought, that she had wept so much as they dragged her to her doom, but once they had set her down and left her in the bare white room, she'd been able to stop. Acceptance calmed her. She probably wouldn't be able to get out of this, but she knew that didn't give her a reason not to try.
True she was alone now; no Harry, or the Blood Traitors to help her, but they had all tried so hard to protect her. That persistence shouldn't be rewarded with apathy on her part. She would do exactly what Alton had shouted at her to do:
She would fight.
She would fight to escape, and then she'd save Ginny and Alton.
Even if they did manage to mutate her into something unnatural, she would live to spite them. Alton had lived, and he'd gotten away with help from Jules and Roman. She could survive too.
Agape surveyed her enclosure. It was all white – the floor, the walls, the ceiling – and it must have been lit by some invisible spell because there was no torch or electrical light source. The ceiling was tall, but she only had about four feet by five feet of floor space. There was no door to be found, but she faced the direction where they had set her down. She decided to stand and wait, rather than sit. She'd have a better chance of loosening her bonds if she could straighten her arms out behind her back anyway.
It wasn't long, however, before her cell was open again. There was no door, much less a knob to turn, so she was a little surprised when the wall she was facing simply vanished before her eyes.
There was an Optimus standing just outside the cell, one hand holding a hypo and the other his wand. His eyes were blank as he looked her over. There were two more men behind him, no doubt to hold her still if she struggled, which she had every intention of doing.
He seemed to have already made that hypothesis just by looking at her crouched stance and steely glare, so he nodded to his comrades to take care of her.
Agape couldn't use her hands, and she was afraid if she kicked them they'd just catch her legs and have a better way of holding her down. She resorted to letting them get just so far before spitting the nearest one in the eye. He balked in surprise and put a hand to his eye to wipe away her saliva as his partner lunged forward. The frantic woman lunged too, butting him in the head. The result was him falling back slightly, and her left seeing swirling stars.
They both stretched their hands toward her to grab her shoulders, but she managed to shock them again as she started screaming in the highest pitch possible, as loudly as possible. They jerked away and winced. Her voice went pretty high and the echo inside the cell was enough to burst an eardrum.
Agape thrashed about, only stopping her relentless shriek to take breath for the next one. Surely they would stun her soon. But they never did.
One of them seized a handful of her long hair and wrenched her toward himself. She used the momentum to sink her teeth deep into the man's trapezius muscle just beside his neck. She didn't let go and eventually tasted blood through the fabric of his robes. He shouted and cried out for the other thug to help him out.
"Don't just bloody stand there! Get her off!"
The other man lifted his wand behind Agape's back, but the one holding the syringe yelled:
"Don't stun her! She has to be aware when the test is done – otherwise it won't work! Any magic could counteract the experiment."
"Ahhhhhggg! Get her off!"
Agape felt one hand forcing her shoulder back, loosening her bite hold. Then she saw the second fleshy appendage coming for her throat out of the corner of her eye. She immediately let got of the first Optimus and bit into the hand of the other, right on the meaty place between his thumb and forefinger. He cried out in terrible pain. Agape was afraid she might retch if any more blood seeped into her mouth, but she had to hang on.
An explosion of pain splintered through her right cheekbone. She couldn't see anymore – or if she could, her brain was too rattled to process what had just happened. She lost control of the muscles in her legs and her knees buckled.
"That's enough," said the Optimus in charge. "Don't hit her again, or we'll have to wait until she's regained her senses."
From the floor she could hear the other two panting and cursing her as they shuffled around her fallen form. For the second time that night she felt two very strong grips on her shoulders and she was held against the smoothness of the ivory floor beneath her. The hit to her head had jarred her so badly that she couldn't quite figure out how she should struggle and ended up only kicking her legs around.
She screwed up her eyes and yelled some more but without the vigor of before. The stars started to clear slightly, but the thoughts wouldn't reconnect in the right way. Just as she'd started to recover a little, a new pain erupted in her head.
She never even felt the hypo enter her skin in the shallow valley at the base of her scull.
A searing feeling spread viciously through her skull. It literally blinded her. She couldn't see. Shocked, she stopped thrashing and concentrated on what was happening to her. It steadily swelled, filling her head and she couldn't stand it. The pain was too great.
The burning scorched her skull, her face, her eyes.
Oh, her eyes!
She screamed and barely managed to suck in dusty breaths from the floor tiles. The Optimates had let go of her, had even left the cell, but she never knew. She was so overwhelmed she didn't realize she had curled into a defensive ball. There was only the inferno exploding inside of her.
Blossoming into agonizing waves, the fire swallowed her up.
More screams, more pain. The heat focused on her eyes. It was burning her eyes!
Fire. Pain. Fire.
Her eyes burning, going to burst.
White hot. Only white light.
One last scream shattered the air around her and unconsciousness finally released her.
7
"COME ON, YOU LITTLE-"
Fero dove at him from the air. Alton dodged him, but backed into Enyo's metal armored punch. Thankfully, she missed his head but he heard something in his right shoulder pop. Gritting his teeth in pain, he jerked his elbow backward into her chest. He shouted furiously at his own stupidity when the maneuver resulted in hitting more metal since Enyo had moved her shield from her arms to her sternum. At least it took his mind off of his injured shoulder.
At least he had taken out Tiburon momentarily. The burly man lay on his back a few yards away with the evidence of a purpling bruise on his temple. Alton had smacked his face into the floor pretty hard, but the bloke seemed invincible. He'd probably be ready to go again in a few minutes. The other two were trickier to handle: Enyo kept on encasing her face and head in metal before he could clout her, and Fero only got close enough to slap the smaller man around some before soaring off to turn around and do it again. It was very difficult to keep an eye on all three of them.
He realized how much he missed his wand. The only bright side to this sick training session was that his enemies didn't have wands either. It was all about their physical abilities – a test for them of some sort. A test which Alton was dead set on making them fail. The only problem was that he hadn't had enough time to let his own "abilities" kick in.
Fero's shadow hovered over his head and Alton looked up just in time to be clapped by those leathery wings. He made a furious snatch for one of them, hoping to pull so hard he would tear a hole in that tough but thin fiber. The wings suddenly lifted away from him and he was surprised by the feeling of smooth, cool fingers wrapping around his throat from behind. Enyo had managed to sneak up on him for the second time. He struggled against her, but she was crushing his windpipe very efficiently.
Naturally Fero chose this time to dive at him again. If bat-boy didn't decapitate him, Enyo would ring his neck. Or Fero would just collide into them and make an Alton patty. That would make it all the easier for Tiburon to unhinge his jaw and swallow him whole.
Alton decided he wasn't going to let any of those things happen – not with ten years of martial arts training under his belt he wasn't.
He'd figured out by now that Enyo could only shield so many parts of her body at a time, not the whole thing. So he lunged into a roll and took Enyo with him, managing to turn his head to the side so that it wouldn't smash into the floor. Surprised by the sudden propulsion forward, she didn't have enough time to move the shield again. Her grip slackened as her skull hit the concrete, making a noise like a melon being dropped on a rock. He wrenched out of her grasp and scramble to his feet.
Fero, who'd passed them over as to not get into a tangled pile up, now turned back to fly straight at him, his hideous wings flattening out horizontally to keep up the glide.
"That's right, you tosser," Alton shouted at him. "Come on!"
Alton knew this was his chance. He had to get pretty worked up before he could actually force the powers to obey his command, but he was certainly worked up now.
Taking several breaths, each one deeper than the last, he felt the heat build up in the center of his chest. One last lung-ripping inhale and he blew it all out, pushing hard with his diaphragm.
An enormous burst of flames erupted from his mouth. Dragon Lungs indeed.
Fero balked and flapped his wings backwards to stop himself, but he couldn't keep from passing over Alton, straight into the flames. He was yelling and clutching at his scorched chest. Alton grimly watched him careen toward the floor. It looked like he might pull up in time, but the extra air passing over his simmering pants made them burst into flame. In a panic he crashed into the cement.
Alton stood in the middle of the three prostrate bodies – Fero beating out the fire on his jeans with Tiburon and Enyo still unconscious – suddenly the small man grinned mischievously. Maybe this wouldn't be as difficult as he'd thought.
Of course, that would be the moment that Tiburon decided to get up. The huge Optimus was about six feet and three inches tall, so he loomed over Alton, who was all of five feet, five inches.
They faced each other. Tiburon's jaw stretched grotesquely while smoke drifted from Alton's nostrils and between his teeth toward the ceiling.
Round two.
(Thanks for the chapter title, Lulgijak! You're the best editor ever!)