by Kait Nolan
“I could, if not for the iron shielding,” said Orrin.
“Anybody walk through walls?” No answer. “What about Persuasion? Can anybody control whatever guards we might encounter?”
“I can, but only a few at a time,” said a lanky boy with a torn T-shirt proclaiming The Force is strong with this one. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen, thought Embry.
“C’mon people. Think about your abilities. I know you’ve been tortured and abused and experimented on here. I know they’ve kept you bound by whatever means necessary. But you’re out of your cells and you’re alive. Figure out how we’re going to get out of here,” said Gage.
“I think I can help.” The voice was soft, and it came from the far side of the room, from a petite girl with a fall of dark blonde hair that might have resembled honey if it were clean.
“How?” asked Adan.
“I’m a Seer,” she said.
“How’s a Seer going to help us out of this mess?” asked a female vampire. “We don’t need to have our futures told.”
“Futures aren’t all I see. I also see possibilities, alternatives. They’re always changing.” She stopped, closed her eyes for a long moment. “And one of them includes us going up and out of this ventilation shaft.”
“What ventilation shaft?” asked Embry, getting slowly to her feet.
She gestured to the blank stretch of concrete. “The one behind this wall. We just need someone to make a hole big enough for us to get inside and climb.”
“That would be me,” said the Drakyn. Moving over to the girl, he placed a hand on the wall. “Here?”
She corrected his position by a few inches, then she and everyone else backed away, giving him plenty of room.
His shift wasn’t like the shift of any species Embry had ever observed. Most of them were painful affairs that took anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour, depending on circumstances. No matter what level of magic was involved, it was a very physical change, complete with lots of pops and groans and snaps as the body was forced to do apparently unnatural things to accommodate a new shape. But the Drakyn was fast, his shift an all but instantaneous blur that left the room reeking with a scent of magic that even she could smell.
He must be old, Embry realized. Very old. How in the hell did they capture him?
Looking over his great, scaly shoulder, the Drakyn took aim and thrashed his spiked tail into the wall. It only took one blow. Then he turned his massive body and cleared the debris with his clawed hands until the hole was large enough to hold a man. His shift back was just as fast. “Going up?” he asked.
Chapter 12
The climb took considerable creative maneuvering and some piggybacking to make sure that the weaker and more seriously wounded of the party made it out of the base. But hours after she and Gage had driven through the fortified gates of Fort Hurley, they and all the Mirus who had survived the siege crawled out of the ventilation shaft and into the star-studded night. A few of those who were able immediately teleported or flew away. The Drakyn was one of them. As she watched his dragon form grow smaller and smaller with distance, Embry couldn’t blame them. Who knew how long they’d been trapped here?
Those remaining lay sprawled on the rocky ground, catching their breath, assessing their various injuries. Embry sucked in great lungfuls of the sharp mountain air, clearing the scents of smoke and blood and sweat from her nose. Not an easy feat, since she and everyone else were covered with it.
Gage dropped down beside her. “How’s that shoulder?” He leaned over to examine it. His touch was hesitant, gentle.
“I’ll live.”
He curled his fingers in hers and pressed his forehead to hers. “Yes, by the grace of God and a fae and a lifetime’s worth of luck, you will.”
“We all will, thanks to you,” she said.
“Well actually it was thanks to a lot of people. I’ll tell you something, though.”
Because the twitch of his lip said he wanted her to, she asked, “What?”
“You are banned from mission planning for life.”
She gave a short bark of laughter. “Deal.”
Eyes sobering, he brought his other hand up to cradle her cheek, “I couldn’t take losing you again.”
Embry’s heart twisted as she thought of what she still had to do, even after everything he’d risked. She framed his face and laid her lips over his. His mouth was soft, reverential. Embry wanted to linger, to savor. But they’d had their night. It would have to be enough. She pulled back. “I love you.”
Over Gage’s shoulder, Embry caught sight of her father staring at them. He stood motionless, silent, a look of speculation in his eyes. Despite everything they’d been through, a part of her still felt eighteen and like she’d been caught doing the forbidden.
When Gage started to answer in kind, she cleared her throat and brushed a finger over his lips. “We need to go. We’re not out of danger yet. I guarantee this ventilation shaft lets out somewhere within the perimeter fencing of the base. We need to figure out where we are in relation to the guards they have posted. And you know they have to have doubled the guards to keep us from getting out—unless they’re just stupid and think we’ll stay stuck in that room.”
“I’m not willing to bank on them being stupid,” said Gage, getting to his feet. He tugged her to her feet. “Or that our luck will keep holding. Everybody up. We’ve gotta get moving. There’s only an hour or two until sunrise, and we need the dark.”
Whatever her father thought about she and Gage being involved was pushed aside as they picked a bearing and began herding their group of refugees down the mountain to the west. It was too quiet. Other than the shuffle of feet and the patter of loose stones as they rolled down the slope, there were none of the expected night noises of crickets, cicadas, or nocturnal predators. And there was no sound of soldiers.
Embry didn’t like it.
The perimeter fence, when they reached it, was unmanned. Because he could absorb the shock if it was live, Orrin wrapped his hand around the wire. He shook his head. “It’s dead. We can cut right through.”
“I’m not waiting to cut.” Having freshly fed, the vampire made short work of tearing through the fencing. Then she strode through as if stepping out on 5th Avenue.
The others hurried after her.
Embry hung back, hesitating.
“What’s wrong?” asked Gage, coming back for her.
She shook her head, unable to put her finger on it. “Something’s not right.” Turning, she scanned the mountainside looking for anything amiss.
Gage strode back to the gap in the fence. “Orrin, you take lead. Head west with the others. The nearest town is a good thirty miles from here. But I think there’s an Indian reservation closer than that as the crow flies. You might be able to get a lift there.”
“Aren’t you coming?” asked the fae.
“We’re doing some scouting first. Y’all go ahead. We’ll catch up.”
When he came back, Adan was with him.
“You sense something.” It wasn’t a question, and Embry appreciated that her father wasn’t dismissing her gut feeling.
“This is too easy,” she said. “We took out a lot of men, but not all of them, not by a long shot. Why aren’t they out here patrolling?”
“Let’s check the fence line a ways,” said Gage.
“Okay, we’ll split up—”
“No way in hell. We stay together.” She started to interrupt but Gage plowed on. “Non-negotiable, Ember. None of us goes anywhere alone.” He swung his gaze to Adan. “That includes you.”
Adan nodded in accession.
Working as a unit, they moved north, following the fence line for a good half-mile. Their sweep turned up nothing. Reversing, they backtracked, then headed south. A quarter mile from the hole in the fence, they found the first body. Dressed in fatigues, finger still clutching the trigger of his weapon, the soldier’s neck was cleanly broken. Judging from the tracks in
the dirt, he hadn’t even put up a fight. A hundred yards further, they found another. This one was leaning against the fence, arms wrapped around his gun, head nodding as if he were just asleep.
Adan and Gage exchanged a look.
“Someone’s been here,” said Adan. “One of ours.”
Embry felt her heart kick in alarm. She fought to keep her voice level. “Can you read the trace to tell who?” When they traveled by shadow, Shadow Walkers always left a trace of themselves, akin to a fingerprint or signature.
Her father phased out but came back a moment later. “I don’t know him.”
“Then as of this moment, we consider him an enemy,” said Embry.
“Em, any Walker is bound to be on our side,” he said.
“The Council forbade me from coming after you. If they sent a Walker it’s to clean up my mess. That means me.” And Gage. She didn’t say it. Didn’t have to. She could tell by the look on Adan’s face that he understood.
“Let’s get back to the others,” he said.
Focused on stealth, they made their way back to the gap in the fence. Orrin’s group had a good twenty minute lead on them, but they struck out in a general westerly direction. Embry’s anxiety grew with each passing minute as she watched and waited for an attack. Not safe. Not safe. The words repeated in her head like a mantra. She had to figure out how to get Gage away before whoever the Council had sent could track them.
They crested a rise, but the others were nowhere in sight. Her father pulled ahead, scouting.
Gage took her hand, squeezed it. “It’ll be okay.”
She looked at him, her eyes blurring with tears. Oh no it won’t. It won’t, and it’s all my fault. Again. One tear fell, rolling hot and fast down her cheek. Three more followed, and Embry sucked in a breath. Christ, get a grip. Your blubbering isn’t going to fix this. She stopped moving, pulling him to her in a fierce embrace that made her shoulder scream.
“You have to go,” she whispered.
“We all want out of here, but you know we need to see these people to safety—”
“Not them. You. You have to Walk. Get the hell out of here.” Urgency made her voice low and harsh.
Gage frowned. “What the hell are you talking about, Embry?”
“Whoever the Council sent is out here somewhere. They don’t know your signature well enough to trace you. If you go now, they can’t catch you. Go.”
In silence, he studied her face before speaking. “Not without you. I’m not about to leave you behind to take the fall for this. Come with me.”
“I can’t. They’ll find me. My magic makes me easy to trace. I won’t lead them to you. I won’t let them take you again.” She stepped back, forced herself to release him. “You have to go, Gage. Without me. I always knew you’d have to go without me.”
Temper kindled in his eyes as he took a step toward her. “Ember—”
“We’ll just make this easy on you and take you both. Then you don’t have to be apart when you face the Council,” said a voice from the dark.
Embry whirled, trying to send out flares, but nothing happened. Frantic, she tried again.
“Oh I think you’ll find your powers useless just now.” Someone moved to the right, stepping out of shadow and into moonlight. He shook the object in his hand. “They’re quite neutralized. A suppression talisman. Handy things, these. You see we learned from our mistake ten years ago.”
“Lucius,” she growled.
The wraith took a small bow.
Gage shifted to place his body between them.
“How noble. Still defending your little paramour.”
“Can it, Lucius. The assignment is to bring them in, not taunt them to death.” Matthias stepped from another shadow, pushing Adan before him, hands bound.
No, no this wasn’t happening. Embry turned on him. “You son of a bitch! How dare you after everything—”
“That’s quite enough, Embry. You can save it for your hearing,” said Matthias.
And before she could make a reply, she was sucked into the shadow.
* * *
Gage landed on his back in an echoing marble chamber. The impact jarred his shoulder and drove the breath from his lungs. The buzz of voices he’d heard on his arrival abruptly halted, as if an off switch had been flipped. The silence was heavy. Above him the domed ceiling was covered in—were those frescos?—except for a large black mark in the center where the paint was bubbled and peeling. A scorch mark, he realized. Embry.
He rolled to his feet into a fighting stance, eyes searching the room for her. Lucius was right there to strike him between the shoulders, driving him back to his knees.
“Get your hands off me, you traitor,” Embry snarled.
Twenty feet away, Matthias was trying to help her to her feet.
“Traitor. Strong language to use against one of our most faithful Shadow Walkers. Particularly from someone who defied a direct order.” The speaker was a thin man in flowing cobalt robes. A fae, judging by the slight point to his ears and the slant of his very green eyes. He stood at a podium of sorts where he had apparently been addressing the other hundred or so Mirus denizens who filled the stadium seating of the chamber. It was a freaking paranormal Congress with species and creatures he’d never seen or heard of.
“I class you a traitor too, Ephraim. You would have left my father to rot.”
“Embry.” Adan’s voice was soft but firm with rebuke.
“Your father knew the risks of his mission. We made a decision based on the well being of all Mirus peoples. We couldn’t risk the human world at large becoming aware of our existence,” he snapped. “That has always been the prime directive.”
“Then you need to update that directive to line up with reality because they had more than twenty Mirus citizens of various races as their prisoners and lab rats. Their military sure as hell knows we exist.”
A murmur spread through the room. Gage wondered how they could be so shocked, so out of touch with reality. I guess a few centuries in hiding makes you cocky.
“Adan is this true?” asked another Council member.
“It is. They’ve been . . . collecting us for quite some time. Testing, learning our weaknesses, our defenses.”
“How much did they learn?” demanded someone else.
“About me, nothing but that light would keep me bound. About others, I don’t know.”
“And these other prisoners. What happened to them?” asked a filmy creature that seemed not entirely part of the current dimension.
“Some were killed in our fight to escape. Eighteen made it out,” reported Adan.
“Where are they now?” came another voice.
“Free,” said Embry, her lips curved in the barest of satisfied smirks.
“We should round them up, debrief them. Why were these others not brought to our attention?” Ephraim glared at Matthias.
“Our orders were to bring these three in,” he said.
Scowling, the fae turned to Lucius. “Gather a team and find the survivors. We must know how compromised we are.”
The wraith gave a short bow and dematerialized.
“I destroyed their entire computer system,” said Embry. “One of Thorn’s viruses.” She reached into a pocket of her cargo pants. “Their files were encrypted, but I made a copy. I’m not sure how much is left of this hard drive, though.” The blackened square was warped and melted in places. “Thorn might be able to lift something from it.”
“Then the information was contained,” said Ephraim.
“Not necessarily. We have no way of knowing whether the data was backed up solely on the servers there. I just cut one of the heads off the hydra. I didn’t kill the beast. We have to assume there are other files, other compounds. The day is coming when we won’t be able to hide any longer.”
“We will come back to address the issue once the remaining survivors have been debriefed. In the meantime, your actions must be dealt with accordingly. You disobeyed a
direct order, defied your commission in the Investigation and Enforcement Division, used your connections illegally to go against that direct order, and you brought a human into Mirus business.”
Ah, thought Gage. Now they get to me. He rose to his feet and stepped forward. “She did what she had to because your people wouldn’t.”
“Silence!” Ephraim’s voice echoed off the distant ceiling.
Gage half expected chunks of plaster to fall or lightning to strike at his feet. But the fae ignored him, turning back to Embry.
“How plead you Agent Hollister?”
She held her head high. “Unapologetically guilty.”
“I see. And the deception didn’t begin with you. This human, from what I am told, has had intimate knowledge of our world and our kind since childhood. He not only knows of our world, but was fostered in it and illegally trained in the ways of the Shadow Walkers.” Eyes blazing with fury, Ephraim turned his attention to Adan. “How answer you Adan, son of Silas?”
Like his daughter, Adan squared his shoulders. “He is my son in all but blood, your grace.”
“You know the penalty for your actions?”
“Death, my lord,” answered Adan readily.
“Yet you deliberately broke tradition, defied the law. Why?” demanded the fae.
Before Adan could respond, Matthias spoke. “The human is a sleeper, my lord.”
A what? thought Gage as another low murmur swept through the crowd.
“I beg your pardon?” Ephraim’s tone was icy.
“A sleeper, my lord. A human with distant Mirus ancestry and abilities that were not expressed until his generation.”
“I know what a sleeper is, Matthias.”
Gage thought the explanation was likely more for his benefit.
“You are suggesting that this man is not entirely human?” continued a Wylk representative nearby. She sniffed the air. “He smells human.”
“So do witches before they come into their magic,” argued Matthais. “The fact of the matter is that Gage Dempsey can control the shadows. No pure human can do that. I am suggesting that Adan saw his potential and opted to take him in and train him, lest he come into his abilities and be unprepared to handle them. He had the best interests of the races at heart, my lords.”