Night Unbound(134)

Fire crackling. Boots trampling grass or crunching on gravel as the network began to clean up the mess and collect information.
Heavy vehicles rumbling across the grounds.
And weeping. Soft sobs. Jagged breaths.
Across the room, Seth’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed hard.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Zach told him softly.
Seth held up a hand to stop him and turned away.
Zach watched as the powerful immortal leader bowed his head, dug the fingers of one hand into his eyes. There would be no consoling him. No easing the guilt that would eat away at him for not protecting Yuri. Seth loved each and every Immortal Guardian. He would take the loss hard.
“I’ve matters I must attend to,” Seth uttered hoarsely.
Zach nodded. “If you need some time alone, I’ll do anything you need me to.”
“I appreciate the offer, but . . .” Seth turned his head just enough for Zach to glimpse his profile. “I’m glad you found your way to us, Zach.”
Once more, Zach felt a growing kinship with him. “Thank you for showing me the way. Had you not, I never would have found Lisette.”
Giving a slight nod, Seth opened the door with a thought and strode through it.
Zach followed him down the hallway, down the stairs, and through the hole in the front of the building.
Outside, the sun shone down on a dismal scene. Dozens and dozens of broken and bloody mercenary bodies littered the compound. A scorched foundation and scattered debris were all that remained of the armory. Black smoke clung to the ground like fog, burning eyes and stinging lungs.
Chris Reordon stood off to one side, issuing quiet orders to his men.
The Immortal Guardians, their masks removed, clustered together with their Seconds in the shade of some thick oak trees several yards distant. Husbands held wives. David consoled Yuri’s weeping Second. Everyone, even the most stalwart and antisocial, bore tight jaws, red-rimmed eyes, and soot-stained cheeks marked by tears.#p#分页标题#e#
 

 

Clinging to Tracy, Lisette looked up as Zach and Seth approached. Both bore grim expressions.
“Go to him,” Tracy whispered.
Lisette didn’t argue. As soon as Zach stepped into the shade, she burrowed into the arms he opened to her.
The deaths of immortals during her existence had been exceedingly rare. And most had been faceless names to her. Warriors she had never met.
Yuri had been one of their family here in North Carolina. He had watched baseball games with her when Tanner and Ethan had refused. He had joined in their jests and defended them in battle.
That he had done so to the death today . . .
She still couldn’t believe he was gone.
“Who did this?” Dmitry demanded. “Who started all of this? Did you find out?”
“Yes,” Seth said. “Or at least we have a good idea.”
“Who?” Roland asked.
“It was one of the Others.”
Shocked, Lisette looked up at Zach, who nodded gravely.
“He planted memories in the mercenaries’ minds to implicate Zach,” Seth continued, “but I could tell they were false.”
Sheldon stepped up to Tracy’s side. “I thought you said the Others believed doing this kind of shit would trigger Armageddon.”
“They do,” Seth responded. “And it likely will, if he isn’t stopped. I think it safe to assume that triggering Armageddon is his goal. The problem is . . . we don’t know which of the Others it is.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Ethan blurted, voicing the frustration Lisette felt.
Chris Reordon joined them. “Is there anything I can do to help you learn who it is?”
Seth shook his head. “I doubt it. These men have never been on the grid, and there has never been any record of their existence.” He nodded to two network soldiers who walked past, carrying a heavy body bag between them. “How many of our men did we lose?”
Lisette had been so stricken by Yuri’s loss that she hadn’t even thought to ask about the network humans who had played such a crucial role in the battle.
“Seven dead. Nineteen wounded.” Spoken unemotionally as Chris surveyed the damage. But Lisette saw the regret in his eyes. “Not bad, considering what we were up against, but still unacceptable.” More lives lost that he would lay at his own feet.
“What should we do?” Marcus asked. He looked as disconsolate as the others.
A muscle leapt in Seth’s jaw. “Go home. Regroup. Grieve. Tomorrow we’ll—”
“Hey, guys?” a voice called hesitantly.
Lisette twisted slightly in Zach’s arms to see Alexei, Stanislav’s Second, limping toward them.
His face, pinched with worry, bore such a heavy coating of soot he almost looked as though he had smeared it with boot black. Speckles of blood dotted his neck and chin. More splattered his shirt and saturated his left pant leg.