the same side?”
“Shit if I know.”
Tris shrugged, and lined up his sights on the girl: the nearest, and the one with her back to them.
The man lunged for her – but the girl dodged; kicked him in the ribs and got hold of his beard; yanked his head back until he yelled.
“Have you ever seen them do this before?” Rose asked.
“No.”
The two conduits tangled together, slashing, and hissing. Each impact sent a shockwave through the floor beneath their boots.
“Use the grenade,” Gavin hissed. “Get both of them at once.”
A good idea. But Lance hesitated. He couldn’t have said why, and he knew that was dangerous. Hesitation was a death sentence in the field, and he had two brand new young Knights with him, and he–
The male conduit kicked the girl free, turned, and spotted them.
Lance trained his sights on the center of mass, caressed the trigger–
And Rose jumped into the fray.
Lance’s heart stopped.
“Jesus Christ,” Tris muttered.
“Holy shit – Lance!” That was Gavin.
“Rose!” Gallo made an abortive lunge forward, and Tris caught him by the back of his vest and dragged him back.
“Rose!” Lance barked. He sounded furious.
He was terrified.
It didn’t matter, because she ignored him. Rushed right at the conduit, a knife, of all things, bared.
And not just any knife, he realized with a fresh lurch, but a familiar one. The obsidian and ruby blade that had been the only thing remaining after Becket was sucked down into the open hell portal. The hell blade, the one Castor’s old conduit, Daniel, had possessed.
It was a big, unwieldy weapon, but she held it in a sure, steady grip, as she ducked the conduit’s reach, spun, and blocked his open-handed strike.
The conduit – like most people, like Lance, at first – was fooled by her size, by her sex. Wasn’t expecting her to come for blood. His face registered a moment’s startlement – and then Rose plunged the dagger into his heart.
It was exactly as it had been with Daniel. A blinding flash of light that he was helpless but to squint against. A pulse of a shockwave, a blast of power that went shooting out through the room, pressing them all back against the wall. As the glare faded, he saw Rose standing above the fallen conduit, the dagger in her hand.
When he could trust his vision enough, Lance charged forward. Rose didn’t shrink back from him when he gripped her arm. Rather, she turned her face up to him slowly, her expression wild with – with something. He refused to call it delight.
She pressed her lips together, and schooled her features, anyway, when she saw him.
“What the hell?” He was shouting, and he never shouted, but he didn’t care. “Are you stupid, or do you have a death wish? You could have gotten all of us killed!”
Murmuring behind him, Tris and Gavin grumbling to themselves, doubting her, probably doubting him.
She lifted her dagger. “Can your bullets kill a conduit?” she challenged.
“Lance,” Tris said, low and hard with warning.
He lifted his head, hand tightening on Rose’s arm, and saw the girl conduit crouching over against the mailbox fronts. She shivered, and stared at them with obvious, open fear – he’d never seen that emotion on a conduit. It had to be an act: a clever angel who’d learned to stall for time. To lure humans in close for the kill.
He dragged Rose into his chest – and she didn’t come willingly. Planted her feet and tugged – but, again, he outmatched her for brute strength. He got an arm around her, like he had that night months ago, and she finally stopped resisting.
The conduit had risen unsteadily to her feet, but hadn’t rushed toward them. She lifted a hand – and Lance tensed – but only to brush hair from her face.
“Why were you fighting with him?” Rose asked.
The conduit looked at the dagger with naked fear, and then at Rose. He’d never seen one display such emotion; such humanity. Before, he hadn’t even known they’d breathed or eaten – save whatever sustenance they drew from draining the life from human sacrifices.
The conduit dampened her lips, and spoke, her voice full of an intense, human hesitance – but resonant in a way a human voice could not be. That chime of something celestial and otherworldly that imbued all conduit voices. “He shouldn’t have been holding these people here. Trapped. I told him to let them go.”
“Why?” Lance demanded.
Her gaze shifted toward him; the knowledge of centuries shining out of what should