Blood on the Marina

The Iron Gate

The heavy iron gate rushed toward us at full speed, filling the front window of the rail car with terrifying white light.

There was no time to think, no time to slow down, and no place to hide. The brakes shrieked loudly against the rusted tracks, throwing sparks that lit up the dark tunnel like angry fireflies.

"Hold on!" Zara shouted, slamming both hands against the front dashboard while bracing her feet hard against the floor.

I grabbed the metal frame of the seat with my left hand and reached out with my right, the dark ink beneath my skin instantly flaring up to shield my body. Beside me, Tari gripped his black blade with white knuckles, while Amina braced her glowing spear against the front console, her blue light flaring bright and steady.

The rail car hit the massive iron gate with a deafening crash that echoed through the empty underground cavern.

Metal twisted and snapped. The force of the impact threw us forward, tossing luggage and equipment across the small cabin floor. I slammed hard into the metal wall, but the thick layer of dark ink absorbing the shock kept the worst of the pain away.

For a second, everything went completely silent except for the sound of steam hissing from the broken engine pipes.

Then the heavy iron gate groaned, hinges breaking one by one under the pressure, and crashed outward into the space beyond.

The rail car lurched forward through the ruined doorway, skidding across a wide stone floor before coming to a complete stop in a cloud of thick gray dust.

I coughed, waving my hand in front of my face to clear the air, and pushed myself up from the floor.

"Is everyone alive?" I asked, looking around the dim cabin.

"I think my ribs are cracked," Tari groaned, leaning against the seat with a grimace on his face, though he still kept his black blade gripped tight in his hand. "Next time, Zara, you should let me drive."

"You would have crashed us into the first wall we saw," Zara replied coldly, stepping out of the rail car through the broken front window.

Amina followed her out, her glowing spear held high to light up the dark space around us. I climbed out right behind them, my boots landing on ancient, cold stone instead of rusted iron.

We were no longer in the narrow drainage tunnels. We stood inside a massive underground hall that looked like an ancient temple carved directly into the bedrock beneath the Lagos lagoon. Towering stone pillars rose up into the dark ceiling high above, covered in strange carvings that glowed with a faint, pulsing blue light.

"Where did you bring us, Zara?" Amina asked, her eyes scanning the dark corners of the hall. "This place is not on any current council map."

"It is the original archive," Zara answered, walking slowly toward the center of the room where a massive stone platform held a glowing pool of water. "This is where the Council was born twenty years ago before they split into warring factions and hid themselves in the luxury towers above."

I walked up beside Zara, looking down into the pool of water. The surface was completely still, reflecting the glowing blue pillars above like a mirror. But beneath the surface, something massive and dark moved slowly in the deep water.

"Why are we here?" I asked, my voice echoing off the stone walls. "We are running from the board, and Yetunde knows every tunnel we take. Hiding in an old ruin will not stop them."

"We are not hiding," Zara said, turning to face me. Her dark eyes were completely serious, showing no fear at all. "We are going to take back what the Council stole from us. And to do that, you need to unlock the full power of the vessel."

Tari walked over, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared at the pool. "And how do we do that without getting ourselves killed or turned into an empty shell like the board wanted?"

Zara reached into her heavy leather coat and pulled out a small, metallic box. She popped the lid open with her thumb, revealing a glowing black stone that pulsed with the exact same rhythm as the ink beneath my skin.

"By feeding the core," Zara said.

Before any of us could ask what she meant, the stone doors at the far end of the grand hall exploded inward in a shower of stone and dust.

Heavy boots crunched on the broken rock.

Through the cloud of smoke, Yetunde stepped into the hall. She was not alone this time. A dozen elite enforcers poured in behind her, their energy rifles aimed straight at our chests. And standing right beside Yetunde was an older man in a sharp black suit, holding a staff tipped with a glowing red gem.

"End of the line, Zara," Yetunde called out, her voice hard and completely cold as she stepped forward. "You cannot outrun a city-wide lockdown."

I stepped in front of Zara, the black ink racing up my arms and covering half my face as pure, heavy anger took over my chest.

Yetunde stopped walking, her eyes widening slightly as she looked at the full transformation of the vessel for the first time.

"Kelechi, do not do this," Yetunde said, taking a step forward while holding her hand out. "They are using you. Zara is only using you as a weapon against the board!"

"And you were using me as a pet," I answered, my voice carrying an unnatural echo that shook the dust off the stone pillars above.

The man in the black suit beside Yetunde laughed, a dry, mocking sound. He raised his red-tipped staff high into the air.

"Bring him down!" the man ordered. "Take the vessel alive if you can, but kill the others!"

The enforcers raised their rifles, and a wall of blue energy fire surged straight toward us.

Zara did not flinch. She grabbed the black stone from the open box and threw it directly into the glowing pool of water in the center of the hall.

The moment the stone hit the water, the entire underground temple shook violently. The pool exploded upward in a massive pillar of pure, dark energy that wrapped around my body, lifting me off my feet as the ground beneath Yetunde and the enforcers cracked wide open into a bottomless abyss.