“Sounds viable.”
“I’ve got the mother signal; don’t get more than three or four rooftops from me.”
“Right.”
“Good luck. Don’t blow yourself up.”
“Like I’d blow myself up. Again.”
She looked up at me. “Again?”
“Long story.” I shot her a grin. “Cover me as I head back.”
“Wait a second,” she said, pointing. “I’ve got a better vantage from the next building over.”
I nodded and she started scuttling that way across a very precarious rope bridge. I turned back toward the building where Prof was, the one with the jungle inside. Using my scope and its night vision—which was kind of hard to do one-handed—I scanned the area.
There was no sign of him or of Obliteration. Hopefully Prof wasn’t hurt.
He’s practically immortal, I reminded myself. It’s not him that you have to worry about.
I looked back over my shoulder and saw Mizzy reach the other end of her bridge—and then I heard screaming. From the building where Mizzy had just arrived.
“David,” Mizzy’s voice said in my earpiece. “There’s something going on here. I’ll be right back.” She disappeared from view.
“Wait, Mizzy—” I said. I stood up.
And found Obliteration standing beside me.
13
I raised my rifle one-handed, but Obliteration slapped it aside and grabbed me by the throat. He lifted me off the ground by my neck.
Sparks! He had enhanced strength. None of my profiles mentioned that either. I was so panicked I didn’t even feel pain—just terror.
Despite that, I managed to reach out and slap Mizzy’s bomb onto Obliteration’s chest. He didn’t vanish. He just looked down as if curious.
I struggled in his grasp, growing more frantic as he choked me. I pried at his fingers in a fruitless attempt at escape as Obliteration casually kicked my gun away across the rooftop, then pulled my earpiece out of my ear and dropped it. He felt at my jacket pockets until he found the mobile there, then squeezed it between two fingers.
I heard it crack inside my pocket. I thrashed and writhed more frantically, gasping for air. Where was Mizzy? She was supposed to be watching my back. Sparks! Prof would still be inside the jungle, hunting Obliteration, Val supporting him. If I couldn’t reach Tia on the mobile …
I had to save myself. Make him vanish, I thought. The bomb will go off. I punched at his head.
He ignored my weak battering. “So you’re the one,” he said, thoughtful. “She spoke of you. Did you really kill him? A youth, not yet a man?”
He let go of me. I dropped to my knees on the rooftop, my neck burning as I inhaled a ragged gasp of air.
Obliteration squatted down beside me.
Plaster dust on his shoulders, a piece of me thought. When he ports, he takes things that are touching him along. That spoke well for the bomb.
“Well?” he asked. “Answer me, little one.”
“Yes,” I gasped. “I killed him. I’ll kill you too.”
Obliteration smiled. “Behold also the ships,” he whispered, “which though they be so great, yet are they turned about with a very small helm.… Do not sorrow for this end of days, little one. Make your peace with your maker. Today, you embrace the light.”
He took hold of the shirt under his trench coat, then ripped it off—bomb included—and tossed it away. Strangely, underneath he had a bandage wrapped around his chest, as if he had recently survived some severe wound.
I didn’t have time to think about that. Sparks! My hand darted toward Megan’s gun, but Obliteration grabbed me by the arm and hoisted me into the air.
The world spun around me, yet I was lucid enough to notice when he held me out over the waters. I looked down at them, then struggled more frantically.
“You fear the depths, do you?” Obliteration asked. “The home of leviathan himself? Well, each man must face his fears, killer of gods. I would not send you to the undiscovered country unprepared. Thank you for slaying Steelheart. Surely your reward will be great.”
Then he dropped me.
I hit the black waters with a splash.
I thrashed in that cool darkness, weak from near strangulation, not knowing which way was up. Fortunately, I managed to cling to consciousness and surface in a sputtering mess. I grabbed hold of the building’s brickwork, then—breath coming in desperate wheezes—I began to climb toward the roof, which was about half a story up.
Exhausted, water streaming from my clothing, I flung an arm over the edge of the rooftop. Blessedly, Obliteration had moved on. I lifted a leg over the side, hauling myself up. Why would he drop me, then—
A flash of light beside me. Obliteration. He knelt down, something metal in his hands. A manacle? With a chain attached to it?
A ball and chain, like from the old days—the type prisoners would wear. Sparks! What kind of person had one of those handy, ready to go grab? He clasped it onto my ankle.
“You have a shield to protect you from my heat,” Obliteration said. “So you are prepared for that. But not for this, I suspect.”
He kicked the iron ball over the side of the roof.
I grunted as the ball fell, the weight wrenching my leg in its socket, threatening to tow me off the rooftop. I clung to the stonework ledge. How to escape? No rifle, no bomb. I had Megan’s pistol in my thigh holster, but if I let go of the rooftop to grab it, that iron ball would pull me into the water. I panicked, grunting, fingers slipping on the stonework of the roof.
Obliteration bent down, close to my face. “And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven,” he whispered, “having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain.…”
At that he brought his hands up and shoved my shoulders, prying me off the rooftop. My fingernails tore and my skin scraped on the bricks as I fell. I splashed down again, this time with a great weight towing on my leg—like the dark waters were actively seeking to engulf me.
I flailed as I sank, searching for anything to stop my descent, and caught hold of a submerged window ledge.
Darkness all around me.
I clung to it as a flash of light shone above. Obliteration leaving? The surface seemed so far away, though it couldn’t have been more than five feet.
Darkness. Darkness all around!
I hung on, but my arms were weak and my chest bursting for breath. My vision darkened. Terrified, I felt like the waters were crushing me.