Page 186 of Remnants: Disruption
I turn to face the rest of the room—only to find that everyone is staring at me with various expressions of horror.
Except Azazel, who seems to be studying the corpses of the RISE agents.
“What?” I ask, looking between the two women and Kronos.
The girls look worse for wear.
Ana’s lip is split and her face sports bruises of multiple colors. Those assholes had been here long enough to beat her into different levels of black and blue.
Lucille looks more shell-shocked than beaten. Whatever Alexa had done to her was clearly more about why she was on her knees when we’d gotten here.
Kronos just looks… terrified?
“So, the rumors are true?” he asks, voice somewhat soft.
“Which rumors?” I ask but immediately realize—I’ve never used my powers around these people.
The Remnant community hates DAEMON and most of the news organizations they own, which includes NC Today. He gestures around at the carnage. From his perspective, I wandered in here trying to be a hero as a Tier 1 Remnant. A utilitarian.
And then I made a charcuterie board of over two dozen people.
“For the record,” I say to Lucille, “your powers never dampened mine.”
She nods a few times, face paling as the moments pass. “I figured. It didn’t do shit to Alexa whatever-her-fucking-name-is.”
“What’s going on Arya?” Kronos asks sounding more hopeless than I’ve ever known him to be. Not at all the wise, charismatic cult leader.
I let out a slow breath. “The very short version is that RISE is launching a full-on assault against the Remnants in New Chicago.”
Ana claps a hand to her mouth, eyes widening in horror. “Oh, God. Angie...”
“She’s fine,” Lucille says, putting a hand on Ana’s shoulder. “She’s deep enough in the ’burb that they shouldn’t have gotten to her yet.”
“Angie?” I ask, glancing between the two.
“My—” Ana lets out a huff. “My fiancée”
“I’ll send Azazel to go get her and bring her here. We want to set this up as the central base. How many people can it hold?”
Ana’s relieved expression is enough to warm my quickly frosting heart. It’s hard to ignore the spirits rising from the bodies around us. But I do my best to usher each into the next place—since that’smyjob apparently.
They’re angry, but they’re not exactly vengeful. At least I can find some comfort in that. Even if it feels like a switch flipped after Cass’ brief spate with death, I know I need to harden to the violence. Otherwise, I’ll be no use to Cass or the others. Now isn’t the time to start developing mercy.
“Probably most of the Casket between this and the other building,” Kronos answers, sounding a little dazed. “What—”
“We’re going to move acolytes here in a few waves. It’s going to be a bit of a shock at first. Someone will need to do the explaining, but we can’t hold everyone in the Citadel. At least not yet.”
“Acolytes? Citadel?” Kronos’ jaw works a little as he stares between me and Azazel who has finally joined us.
“Bloody Mary’s abilities and our own forces might be able to manufacture homes in the next month, but we will need time,” Azazel says, turning to me. “What would you have me do?”
It feels weird to havetheAzazel asking me for orders. Not only because of their legendary status, but not even a few weeks ago, they were a mentor. A damned good one, at that.
“Find Angie and then return here. Put Morgana and Bast in charge of finding leadership for the other tower and—” I turn to Kronos. “Can you take over this tower? I’ll need Azazel later.”
“Take over?” he asks softly.
“Kronos, we’re at war. And I think we’re going to be at war for some time. Darkrend and his people have control of everything. They have DAEMON. And DAEMON has New America. I need people I can trust.”
