“Yeah, but that place is a wreck,” Teddy said with a frown. “They don’t even bother with security to protect the building anymore. They’re planning on tearing it down soon.”
“Perfect,” Basha said succinctly. “Any other places like that in or around Port Henry?”
When the only answer she got were shaking heads, she straightened. “Well, I don’t like to put all my eggs in one basket, but I suggest we search the plant first. If we don’t find anything, we’ll have to go farther afield.”
“You shouldn’t have done that. You really pissed off Abby.”
Those were the first words Allie heard as she woke up. Blinking her eyes open, she ignored her pounding head and scowled at Stephen when she saw him standing just inside the door of her prison. Not bothering to respond to his words, she glanced around the room instead, getting the lay of the land. Something she hadn’t really had the chance to do earlier.
The room wasn’t very big, office-sized, maybe. And it was dark, the only light coming from the lantern Stephen was holding and the bit that was creeping through the open metal double doors. The floor was a concrete slab covered with so much dirt one could have been forgiven for thinking the floor itself was dirt.
Allie finally shifted her attention back to Stephen and said, “I’m glad Stella’s not alive to see what you’re up to.”
“I’m just trying to get my son back,” Stephen snapped.
“So that Abaddon can twist his poor little mind and turn him into a monster like he is?” she asked sharply. “He’s your son. Don’t you care about him at all?”
“Of course I care,” he said irritably. “That’s why I want him. We’re going to raise him together. We’ll be a family.”
“A family of rogues,” Allie said grimly. “Abaddon has told you that there are laws about biting mortals, hasn’t he? That you’re supposed to feed off bagged blood, and if you bite mortals you’re considered rogue and executed?”
Stephen looked away with a frown and muttered, “Abby’s smart. They won’t catch us.”
“Right,” Allie snorted.
They were both silent for a moment and then Stephen asked, “Why did she do it?”
Allie peered at him silently for a moment and then said, “You mean why did Stella kill herself?”
He nodded silently, unhappiness wreathing his face.
“To save Liam,” she told him. “She was hoping you’d think both she and Liam died in the fire and I could raise him. Give him a normal childhood.”
“He’s not a normal child,” Stephen said at once.
“He is,” she assured him. “If you’ve been watching us in Port Henry you must have seen him playing outside with the other kids, building snowmen, making snow angels, tobogganing.”
“I saw the tobogganing,” he acknowledged reluctantly. “He seemed . . . happy.”
“He is happy,” she assured him. “He drinks bagged blood, but otherwise he’s as normal as you were as a boy. He has friends, he plays, he even had a sleepover with the other kids. His life can be normal with me,” she said pleadingly. “What will it be like if you and Abaddon get him?”
Stephen shook his head, his expression a combination of anger and upset. “You’re asking me to choose between my son and my life mate.” Meeting her gaze, he said helplessly, “I can’t do that.”
“You already have,” Allie said wearily. “Stella sacrificed herself for Liam, but you’re sacrificing Liam for Abaddon.” Shaking her head, she muttered, “At least, my mother killed herself rather than make the choice. You’re just going to stand by and watch Abaddon ruin your son and, of course, reap the benefits of hot life mate sex while he does.”
“Shut up,” Stephen snapped, his hand clenching on the lantern. “I doubt you could choose either were you in my position.”
“I would never sacrifice Liam for—” Allie cut herself off at the last moment before saying Magnus’s name, and then began to frown as she stared at Stephen. He was almost holding his breath in anticipation. And then she recalled the conversation she’d heard when she first woke up. The man she’d heard telling Abaddon what had happened at the house hadn’t sounded anything like the tortured man in front of her now. There had been no guilt at what he’d done, just frustration that he hadn’t succeeded in beheading Drina, and a certain disgust every time he’d referred to Allie as the human. As if her status as a human made her less somehow.
Stephen was playing her, Allie realized with amazement. This whole conversation was an effort to get her to reveal her life mate’s name.
“So did the turn drive you insane and ruin you? Or have you always been this nasty shit underneath and managed to hide it from Stella?” she asked suddenly.
The tortured expression slipped from his face at once, and Stephen smiled wryly. “I almost had you. You almost gave up his name.”
“Yes,” she agreed, but suddenly just felt tired. For a bit there Allie had hoped she might convince him to let Liam go. But that wasn’t going to happen, she acknowledged, and then raised her head, unable to resist asking, “Do you even care that you drove Stella to kill herself? Did you ever love her?”
“Stella was weak,” he said with disgust. “Abaddon made us immortal. Gods. But she couldn’t handle it. She wanted to play house and raise babies when there is so much more out there for us now.”
“Like killing and torturing mortals,” she suggested grimly.
“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Stephen said with a grin.
“Thanks. I think I’ll give it a miss,” Allie said dryly.
“That’s because you don’t know what it is you’re missing,” he assured her. “It’s one hell of a rush to hold a puny mortal’s life in your hands. To listen to them plead for mercy, and let them hope you might let them live or even escape, only to rip out their throat and watch all that hope fade from their eyes along with their life.” He shivered delicately and then admitted, “I like it. I like their screams and weeping, and I like their warm blood rushing over my lips and tongue.” His smile widened. “Almost as much as I liked letting Stella think I still cared and that we’d have a life together someday. But I most liked watching her scamper away every time we spooked her, thinking she could get away when there was no way she could.” He laughed. “God, what a rush.”
“Thank God Stella never saw this side of you,” Allie said solemnly, and meant it. She was quite sure that Stella would have been crushed to see how far into madness Stephen had sunk. How cruel he had become. It made her wonder if the cruelty hadn’t always been there, merely hidden behind a thin veneer of humanity.
A shuffling sound caught her ear then and Allie turned toward the door as Abaddon entered the room.
“Sorry, Abby,” Stephen said with a shrug. “I almost had her giving up the name. Not sure what gave me away, but . . .” He shrugged again.
“Never mind, my love. She will tell us when she is hungry enough. That, or we shall just call the house and ask for Allie’s life mate,” Abaddon said, and then paused, realization dawning on his face.
Stephen burst out laughing. “I didn’t think of it either until you said it.”
Abaddon clucked with exasperation and shook his head as he headed out of the room. “Well, better late than never. Come, we shall make the call at once.”
Stephen followed with the lantern. This time he pulled the doors closed behind him, leaving her in darkness, and she heard the rattle and clatter of chains being pulled across metal. They were locking her in. Metal doors and a chain would probably work, she thought grimly.
Allie sat still for a moment, hoping her eyes would adjust to the darkness, but apparently even immortal eyes couldn’t see in a complete absence of light. After a moment, she gave up and crawled to her feet. The pain in her head increased a bit with movement, but wasn’t killer. She could handle it, Allie told herself, and took a deep breath before moving cautiously forward in the direction of the door with her hands outstretched. It seemed to take forever t
o cross the room, but eventually her hand bumped into cold metal. Allie paused and ran her hands over the door until she found the inner handles. She gave them a testing tug, not expecting the chain to snap or anything, so wasn’t disappointed when nothing happened.
Releasing her breath, Allie then felt along the door to the wall on the left and followed that to the corner. Once there, she followed this new wall, walking what she thought might be several feet before stopping and beginning to tap on it.
One of the boys who had been in the foster home Allie had lived in for two years had told her a story about another foster kid named Bobby. Bobby had been a runaway artist, fleeing every foster home he was put in, only to be caught and returned or taken to a new one. Desperate to keep him from running again, one of his families had locked him in a room in the basement with no windows. But Bobby was a clever boy who wasn’t going to be kept where he didn’t want to be. He’d used a jackknife to cut a hole in both pieces of drywall between his room and the next, crawled through, and escaped yet again.
Allie didn’t have a jackknife, but she had immortal strength. The tapping was to try to figure out, or at least make an educated guess, as to where the wall studs were. When she thought she knew where to punch without hitting one, she made a fist, pulled her hand back, and then kicked the wall instead. Allie wasn’t a great fan of pain, and really she was suffering enough of it already. While her headache wasn’t as bad this last time she’d woken up, the pain was now spreading out to the rest of her body. An acidy, biting pain that she suspected might be the nanos either making their need for blood known, or actively looking for it themselves in her organs.
Unsurprisingly, her foot went right through the drywall. It would have even when she was mortal. Smiling to herself with satisfaction, Allie bent and felt around for the edges of the hole, and began to tear off the drywall. She hadn’t tried this on the wall to the hall because she had no idea where Stephen and Abaddon were holed up in the building, or if they had a direct view of the hallway. She didn’t want to risk breaking out straight into the hall and being seen and stopped. And since Abaddon had turned right as he left the room, she’d chosen the left wall. There was less worry that way that they might hear her making her escape and come to investigate. It would also give her at least a bit of a head start if she was spotted and had to run.
Finished with the inner layer of drywall, Allie hesitated about the outer. Noise was her concern. She hadn’t worried so much with the first layer because the outer layer would muffle it. That wouldn’t be the case here, though. After a moment, rather than kick, she pressed her hand against the drywall and simply pressed firmly and kept pressing until the drywall cracked and her hand went through. Allie was quite sure she couldn’t have done that with mortal strength, but who knew? Working quickly and quietly, she started to peel the drywall away, pulling it into the room with her, and had soon made a hole big enough for her to climb through sideways.
Much to her relief, there was light in this room. It was coming through the open door to the hall, and there wasn’t much of it, but it was enough for her immortal eyes to show her what they could do. This room was not empty; there were boxes, filing cabinets, and chairs strewn around like land mines and Allie moved slowly, careful not to hit or kick anything that would give her away. When she reached the door, she hesitated, and then eased her head forward to look to the right. What she saw was a hallway with loads of doors, several of them closed. A door at the end of the hall, though, was wide open and that was where the light was coming from. From what she could see, the room was full of candles and lanterns. It was actually kind of romantic-looking. But she didn’t see Abaddon or Stephen.
Biting her lip, Allie glanced the other way, and immediately spotted a door with a sign that hung at an odd angle. It had a squiggly line on it meant to represent stairs, and was only halfway down the hall from where she was. But it was a long hall, and the distance she had to cross seemed miles when Stephen or Abaddon might come out in the hall, or just look out at any moment.
“Right. Courage, Allie,” she whispered to herself. She took one more look to the right to be sure it was safe to go, and then moved quickly out of the room and along the hall. She was nearly to the door when she heard Stephen shout in warning behind her. Allie didn’t even look around; she simply burst into a run, charging the stairwell door at speed. She’d forgotten that she had more strength and speed now, but was reminded of it when she crashed through the door so hard and fast that the door hit the wall with a loud crash that seemed to echo through the building. Allie took the stairs so fast she was amazed she didn’t trip and fall, but when she reached the next level and spotted the door, she crashed through that one as well and found herself in a small area with a closed door on her right and an open arch on her left. Spying a long, large room with nothing but columns and broken windows, Allie instinctively swung left and charged in.
“Did you hear that?” Tybo asked in a hushed voice.
“Yes,” Magnus growled, his gaze sliding over the far end of the room where the muffled crash had seemed to come from. They were searching the abandoned factory. Elvi, Mabel, and Stephanie had stayed behind at Casey Cottage to guard the children, but everyone else had come. They’d parked their vehicles in the driveway of a farmhouse across the highway and approached on foot to avoid their arrival being detected. Once at the building, they’d split up into groups of two or three and spread out to start their search. Magnus and Tybo had teamed up and gone left, moving quickly through huge cavernous rooms with nothing but large columns with peeling paint, some yellow, some green.
“It came from that direction,” Tybo said, gesturing to an arch at the end of the room. “Maybe from the next room.”
Magnus nodded and started forward, wishing he’d brought his sword with him from England, but he hadn’t expected to need it on a trip to romance a possible life mate. Fortunately, Lucian had brought a selection of weapons with him from Toronto, and Magnus had found a short sword among the collection that he liked. He pulled it out of its scabbard now. There had been a kill order out on Abaddon for a long time. Magnus knew Basha was eager to carry it out as repayment for the centuries of torment she’d suffered at the rogue’s hands. If Allie was well, Magnus would be happy to stand back and let Basha take the man’s head. But if Abaddon had harmed a hair on Allie’s head . . . all bets were off.
He and Tybo hadn’t crossed a third of the distance to the end of this room when a second crash sounded. This one wasn’t muffled, though. It was loud and still echoing through the building when a figure came shooting from the open arch at the end of the room, running at immortal speed.
Magnus had just recognized that it was Allie when a second crash sounded and another figure came charging after her. Cursing, he burst into a run.
Allie knew Stephen wasn’t far behind her. She could tell by the sound of his footsteps that he was closing the distance, and desperately put on a burst of speed as she raced down the open area between two rows of columns that seemed to stretch on forever. But she also started to look for the nearest exit. She’d jump through a window if necessary. She had to get away and return to the house before Magnus made a choice she might not be able to forgive.
A shout caught her ear and drew her attention to a figure rushing toward her on the right. She instinctively veered left, and then recognized Magnus’s voice as he shouted her name. Without even thinking, she switched direction, pulling on the last bit of strength she had to put on a burst of more speed as she felt Stephen’s hand brush down her back, grabbing at her.
Magnus wasn’t expecting that and wasn’t prepared for it when she crashed into him, sending them both slamming to the ground. She heard the skitter of something heavy sliding across the concrete floor, and then was thrown violently away to the side. Grunting as she hit the ground and rolled, Allie threw out a hand to catch herself, and turned to look back, just in time to see Stephen bring down his machete. Magnus tried to roll out of the way, but the bl
ade caught him in the shoulder, bringing a grunt of pain from him.
It would have hit her had Magnus not tossed her aside, Allie realized, and then spotted another machete, or perhaps a sword, just inches away from her right hand. Snatching it up, she launched herself to her feet as Stephen pulled his machete free. She was vaguely aware of someone else rushing toward them, but when Stephen raised his machete in preparation of another blow on Magnus, Allie reacted instinctively. Shrieking, “No!” she rushed forward and swung at his throat like it was a baseball and she held a bat. Unwilling to have to witness what was about to happen, she then closed her eyes just before the blade made contact. Allie felt it, though, and knew she’d hit her mark. She also heard a wet thud followed by another as the man fell.
Opening her eyes, she sought out Magnus, relief coursing through her when she saw he was getting to his feet. He was alive, but injured, his arm hanging at an odd angle.
“Are you all right?” Magnus asked with concern when she hurried to him.
“Me?” Allie asked with amazement. “You’re bleeding.”
“I am fine,” he assured her, his gaze sliding over her bloody face and then up to her head wound. “You are hurt.”
Allie opened her mouth to assure him she’d be fine, but then stiffened at the sound of the rusty hinges of the stairwell door squealing as it was opened in the room beyond this one. She hadn’t noticed it making noise when she’d crashed through it, but perhaps it had opened too quickly then to squeal.
“That’ll be Abaddon,” she whispered anxiously, and then a loud anguished roar echoed through the cavernous room.
Swallowing, Allie tightened her grip on the sword she held and spun around to face the rogue.
Abaddon stood frozen just feet away, horror and despair on his face as he stared down at Stephen, she saw, and then noticed Lucian Argeneau and a couple she didn’t know coming through the arch and approaching the rogue from behind. While Allie had never seen the couple before, the woman had the same white-blond hair and silver blue eyes as Lucian. A relative was her guess and she wondered if this was the couple everyone had been worried about. Basha and Marcus.
Immortal Born EPB Page 28