Chapter 84

“Ivey?” Daniel asked again.

Luke looked behind him and down.

There was nothing Daniel could do, as he lacked healing, but he still started running to her.

Then he stopped himself. He was not a healer, and all he would do was crowd the space. She was alive. His interface told him that much, and from what limited information he had, if anything, she was stronger now than when Dave had carried her to safety.

Pausing and assessing, Daniel tried to be a general rather than a boyfriend.

“Everyone downstairs,” he ordered. They would retreat and take stock. He stood guard as the others filed down the stairs, but the termites’ withdrawal had not been a feint. Looking at the number of bodies, Daniel shivered. There had been so many of the monsters, but the humans had won anyway, and as horrific as their losses were, it was not the time for them to pack up for the day. They needed to counterattack. Because they had to. Otherwise the monsters would breed and eventually come for them.

An image came from Priscilla; it was a cut of images from the past. He recognised the archer, a genuinely great guy, stranded in Melbourne with a family up in Brisbane. A purple blur dropped from above and went straight into the ear.

Daniel’s breath caught in his throat.

That was not good.

He struggled to remember what Ingrid had said, but he was pretty sure once they got in the brain it was a death sentence. That meant at least two were dead. Captain Australia’s body was in front of him was the second. That and who knew how many of the people they had.

“I am going to kill you all.” He whispered the words with feeling. All of them. He would get stronger and crush them.

It was a disaster.

The others had been given enough time to exit, so Daniel retreated, slamming the door behind him. Glass shattered, but he did not care.

They had gone too fast and put themselves at risk. Ivey had pushed for it and it might have ended up costing her life.

Animal Sense flared.

Everyone was below him in the safety of the cleared level thirty-five, and as far as he could tell, nothing was in the stairwell. He lacked the mana to explore further. He jogged down the stairs to them. It was probably wrong and a dereliction of duty, but his eyes searched for Ivey. She was breathing. Her chest was going up down, and it did not appear like she was missing any parts. Fear that he had not been fully conscious of that had been coiling around his heart fell away.

She was alive, and if you lived, everything healed. Providing you survived.

Exhale.

Tamara was by his side. She was puffing, and she rubbed his back comfortingly.

With a jerk, he looked, counting bodies and faces, and then sighed. It was only Ivey’s team that had lost people. It could have been worse.

“It was a coordinated assault,” Tamara told him. “We got bogged down too. We heard you screaming, but it was hard to extract ourselves.”

“What were they?”

Tamara gave him a considered glance, but she had probably already worked out that there was more to his story than just the ability to consume the cores. “Earth termites.”

“Really?” Now that she had said the words, he could sort of see it. White, flattish and eating machines, but made huge, and it confirmed what Ingrid had claimed.

“Yeah. There will be a king and queen up there.”

“Oh.”

“If I said mind worms, does that mean anything to you?”

Her response was the typical unfocused look that everyone got when reading their screens. “Yeah, nasty.”

“Can they be cured?”

“Not easily,” Tamara said straight away. “Why?”

“They were falling on us on levels forty-seven and eight.”

Her eyes widened, and she looked around fugitively before refocusing internally. “If anyone got taken over, we won’t see anything till morning. Fuck.” She blushed in embarrassment at the curse word, but with her dark skin, it barely showed.

The healer from his team came up to him. “Three dead and one maimed. The rest will survive.”

“Including Captain Australia?”

“The tank upstairs?” He nodded. “Two plus him.”

“And what did you mean maimed?”

“You can’t heal everything.”

“You can’t?”

She shook her head. “If you lose part of a limb, it can’t be regrown.”

Ivey was alive, he could tell. But . . . “Ivey?”

“Her injuries were all superficial.”

He probably should not have felt so relieved, but he was. It was a disaster, but at least she was okay. “Thanks.”

The healer went away to continue their work.

“We need to finish this,” Tamara said, looking upwards.

“Yes. Everyone,” Daniel said louder. “After our mana recovers, we are going to keep fighting.”

“What?”

“That is ridiculous.”

“Stop!” he yelled, surprising himself. “Three things.” He was not sure he had three things, but it sounded about right. “We killed most of them. We need to press our advantage before they recover. Second, there are human beings up there that still need saving, and third, I won’t force anyone but . . . if the team I take dies, it is only a matter of time before the rest of you join us, and I am going.” Everyone looked at each other. “For those willing, we leave in ten.”

Sadly, he sat next to the unconscious Ivey. This time, it was him watching over her instead of the usual status quo.

“That was harsh,” Tamara said quietly.

“But you wanted to finish it?” he asked in confusion.

She patted him on the back once more. “You were a little abrupt,” she told him. “You were right, but sometimes you need to think about easing people into things.”

Daniel sat down and nodded and looked at the broken expressions around him. Three people were dead, four if he counted the archer. He even knew the name of two of them. Spango, plus Captain Australia, of course.

Tamara’s words worried him. He had been too abrupt, but public speaking was never his forte.

Stuff it.

Once he would have just let it go, but he needed to be different. For goodness’ sake, he could throw lightning with his hands. If that was not a reason to break out of his old habits, nothing would be.

“Guys,” he shouted, getting their attention once more. “I know how you are feeling. We have lost our friends today.” Everyone was looking at him, and he felt the words struggling to form and his palms going sweaty. “And I appreciate that asking you to go back and fight is callous, but we were here to save people, and that has not changed. We currently exist on a couple of floors. That is great. A huge accomplishment. We have done better than everyone around us, but—” He paused dramatically. Twenty sets of eyes were focused on him. “It is not sufficient. We can’t afford to rest because the monsters won’t. We need to kill them before they get stronger. Because they can cross floors. The termites already have.”

They all nodded. After all, they had fought them on three separate floors.

“There is also a monster above them. It was powerful enough to make the penthouse guys send an SOS. It needs to be eliminated, because if we don’t, these monsters will come for us, and every good tactician knows to pick your own battleground. I don’t want to be fighting a swarm of termites by myself when I am on the toilet.” There were a couple of shocked laughs at Daniel’s attempt at a joke.

They were still looking at him, and he was not sure his inspiring speech was doing anything, but he had a purpose. “Those monsters were termites.” There were a few nods. “When they ran out of food up here, they would have come down to get us. Can you imagine that horde descending on you when you were asleep?” There were a couple of flinches from the watching people. “What we do is important. Sure, there are humans alive up there. We can save them, they can join us, and then we will be stronger. But we are fighting these creatures for ourselves.”

“Can we win?”

“Umm—”

“Yes,” Tamara said, elbowing him not so subtly.

“Against”—Daniel pointed at the roof—“the termites? Easily. They are a spent force. Against that?” he waved to indicate the wider world. “For that, we need to get stronger, because at the moment the answer is no. But we can temper ourselves against the monsters here, maybe sneak to other towers and repeat, and eventually we end up strong enough to fight all of them.”

“Do you really believe that?” It was the same man, the fire mage who had so devastated the termites to Daniel’s left upstairs.

“Yes,” Daniel told him simply. “I am going to crush every monster out there and rebuild on the rubble of this city.”

“You are overdoing it,” Tamara whispered.

“The lovely Tamara thinks I am overdoing it,” he shouted. “Maybe I am, but I made a vow, and I am not the type to abandon my oaths. I will drag as many people as possible with me to true safety, and the more people who come with us the better.” He stopped talking, as there was no need to say anything else. They knew he was genuine because he had saved most of them when they were on the point of being overwhelmed. “We will finish the floors above and then do a ceremony for the fallen. The one thing I refuse to do is stop.” He checked his mana levels, and he had recovered. “We leave in five,” he told them. “Volunteers only. The more the better.”

Cross-legged against the wall with Tamara’s shoulder resting against his, Daniel looked at the men and women who had to come to fight. There was an energy to them that surprised him. They did not look scared anymore.

“Good job,” Tamara told him this time soft enough so that no one else heard.

“Debating champion.”

“Really?”

“Nah, was always terrible at that shit. But they lapped that up.”

Tamara laughed softly. “I am glad I am here with you.”

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