Chapter 27

"Where's the bomb?"Valerian demands as soon as I come out of the trance.

I shake my head, my heart hammering in my chest as I back away from the necromancer and nearby bump into Virgil.

"What happened?" Valerian growls.

"I don't know." I gulp in a breath. "He took on a scary guise inside his dreams, and somehow that threw me out—but I'm going back in."

Valerian steps in front of me before I can touch Wrakar again. "He's not in REM sleep anymore. I don't want you to risk your sanity—not when there are other ways to make him talk."

Sure enough, that sense of having a sleeper nearby is gone, and the necromancer's eyes are no longer darting about behind his lids.

I take a breath to settle my still-racing pulse. "So how are we going to do this?"

Valerian takes out the gun, switches it to nonlethal mode, and shoots the necro in the head. "Remove the finger," he says to Kit. "Then I need him in my flying car."

Kit smiles grimly and cuts Wrakar's entire hand off at the wrist.

Virgil creates a tourniquet from a sleeve to stop the bleeding and heaves the necromancer over his shoulder like a sack of rotten potatoes. We follow as he carries him to the car, Valerian shooting the necro with the gun every couple of minutes.

Once Wrakar is in the car, Valerian gives Virgil an apologetic look. "You can't come with us."

Right. In the air, far from vampires and corpses, Wrakar will be as good as powerless.

Virgil grudgingly nods.

Kit and I enter the car after Valerian, and we take to the air as I try to understand what happened in the necromancer's dream. I'd never seen anything like it before. He must have a horrible imagination to manifest such a creature.

Just as we clear the clouds, Wrakar moans, then opens his eyes and screams in pain.

"Ah," Kit says nastily. "Someone's finally awake."

"Stay back," Valerian says to us and points his hands at Wrakar.

Previously, his illusions would happen stealthily; he never had to show the arcs of energy like Hekima did. But this time, the energy is on display. He's either putting more illusory power into whatever he's about to do, or he just wants to show off.

Wrakar's screaming grows louder. Instead of pain, there's fear in it now, the kind of fear I felt inside his dream. His body jerks spasmodically, and he claws at himself with his one remaining hand, as if killing something visible only to him.

Whatever Valerian is making him see, it must indeed be horrific.

The scream goes on and on, for what feels like an hour. Finally, Valerian stops the energy flow, and evenly, almost conversationally, says, "Where's the bomb?"

Wrakar shakes his head.

Valerian shoots him with the energy again. The screams and clawing spasms go on for even longer.

"Where's the bomb?" Valerian asks again. "Tell me, and this can all stop."

"Hub building," Wrakar croaks out. "The hundredth floor."

"The hub building is near the center of the blast radius," I say. "He might be telling us the truth."

"It's a good location," Kit says, turning into the necromancer, but with the hand attached. "There's a convenient escape to the Otherlands just an elevator ride away."

Valerian levels a menacing glare at our captive. "Who's guarding the bomb?"

Wrakar doesn't answer.

Valerian repeats the torture illusion.

"Everyone," Wrakar rasps when he finally stops screaming. "I was about to head there myself."

Valerian implements the illusion again, waits for the necromancer to stop screaming, and asks, "When is the bomb set to explode?"

Wrakar glances at the time on the car dashboard and grins maniacally. "Twenty-seven minutes."

My heart sinks.

I'm not sure we can even get to the hub building by then, let alone stop something from happening.

"Car, activate turbo mode," Valerian barks.

Turbo mode? Is that why we were going so fast before?

Valerian shoots more orders at the car, including the address of the building in question. With a jerk, the car dives below the clouds and zooms in the direction of the hub with a speed that presses me down into my seat.

Puck. Turbo mode should be called rocket mode.

Ignoring Wrakar's pained whimpers, Valerian gets in touch with the Senate in his VR and tells them where to send people. Then he curses up a storm.

"What happened?" I ask.

He gestures to terminate the conversation with the Senate. "The pucking morons don't think they can get anyone there within the allotted time."

Kit rubs her hands together. "Seems like it's up to the three of us to stop the bomb. What fun."

When this is all over, I'll have to give Kit the bad news: She seems to have replaced her sex addiction with a craving for violence. And while we're at it, I'll make her aware of the real definition of the word "fun."

Valerian shoots Wrakar with his mojo again. After he deems the screaming sufficient, he stops the torture and asks, "How do we deactivate the bomb?"

"I don't know," Wrakar croaks. "Only the High Priest knows."

Frowning, Valerian shoots Wrakar with the illusion energy a few more times, but the answer stays the same.

Valerian looks at Kit. "Do you have a way to disable him, temporarily? If we walk into that building and it turns out that he lied, I want him alive to regret it."

Kit looks thoughtful for a second, then grins. "If you don't like spiders, you might want to look away."

I don't know about Valerian, but I jerk my gaze away and put my hands over my ears for good measure.

Even through my palms, I can hear Wrakar yelling in horror. He swears on everything from his mother's remains to his own life that he didn't lie to us, and begs for Kit to stop whatever it is she's doing.

Eventually, Wrakar's vocal cords must give out, because instead of screaming, he just produces a prolonged hoarse croak.

"There," Kit says eventually. "He's not going anywhere."

When I turn, I see what I sort of expected—and it's still extremely disturbing. The necromancer's ghost-pale face is sticking out of a giant silk cocoon of the type spiders use to wrap their prey.

"So," I say, my voice shaky. "What's the plan?"

"We go in," Valerian says. "I make sure they can't see us. When we know which one is the High Priest, we apprehend him while I make sure the others are none the wiser. I then make him tell us how to disable the bomb, and we do just that. Afterward, I can make it so that Icelus kill each other, or maybe we knock them out one by one." He looks at me. "Which do you prefer?"

"Knocking them out is safer," I say. "We don't know what powers they have. They might hurt us in the process of attacking one another."

Nodding, Valerian lands the car smack in the middle of the hub, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. Ignoring the gates all around us, we sprint for the elevator, where I smash the button for the hundredth floor.

A quick ride later, the elevator doors ding open and we exit—straight into a horde of Icelus.