Avalanche: Book Five in the Secret World Chronicle

by Lackey, Mercedes

  “Beg me to stop,” he gasped, reluctantly lifting himself off her. “Ask for mercy.”

  “Please stop,” she said, her voice tired and lifeless. “Please have mercy.”

  “Ach, no!” Bela cried, and drove his hand sharply across her cheek. She didn’t react, her expression only seeming weary and distant. “With feeling, you ignorant sow!”

  “Please stop,” Karoline repeated, louder but with the same monotonous tone. “Please have mercy.”

  “Feh, you are nothing but a puppet now,” Bela muttered. “You lack fire, and there is no enjoyment in taming a dullard. Perhaps…” He ran one hand through her hair, and placed the other atop her head. “Perhaps I need to give you a little, to get a little.”

  He muttered a few words, and exhaled in delight and desire as energy coursed through his hands. Karoline gasped as she felt her mind come alive, her eyes coming into sharp focus and resting their gaze on his with renewed strength and fury. And it didn’t stop there. The fire in her mind was spreading, and she felt a growing inferno seeping down through her chest, to her heart, to her limbs, to her hands…

  “Much better,” Bela cackled. “I can feel your hate. Struggle, my dear. Fight. Speak of all the horrid things you wish to do to me…”

  He stopped, his eyes bulging, as her hand flew up, snapping off the leather restraints like they were made of paper, lunging for his throat. His words of triumph crumpled into gurgles of pain as she squeezed and pulled him down, until their heads were almost touching.

  “Enough talk,” she whispered. “Let me show you instead.”

  * * *

  Doppelgaenger saw the fire begin to fade from his eye, and reached back to turn off the machine. She bent forward, still straddling him, and gently cupped his face in her hands.

  “Beg me to stop,” she purred.

  He didn’t answer. He barely looked at her, and there was no challenge there. There was simply nothing left in him. She pulled herself off him, and unfastened the leather restraints. She reached down, beneath the stone slab, and unlocked the steel band that held his torso in place.

  “There now,” she said, resuming her place on top of him. “You’re free. You said it yourself, my dear. All you needed was the chance, and you would put me down. Well, here we are. There’s nothing stopping you, nothing to hold you back, except yourself. Your one chance. Whatever will you do with it?”

  Red didn’t answer her. He didn’t move at all, except for the labored rise and fall of his chest to keep breathing.

  “Here, let me help you,” she offered, and brought one of his hands up to her throat. “Just squeeze, dear. Let me feel your rage.”

  Red’s hand hung lifeless in hers.

  “Nothing?” she sighed. She grasped his fingers, and pressed them into the sides of her neck. When the Djinni didn’t respond, she tapped them impatiently, driving his fingertips into her flesh. “Really? Bad form, Red, bad form. We’re so close to the end, and you’re choosing now to take a breather? Where’s that eternal drive and fire? There must be something left in you. All it takes is a spark…”

  She leaned in closer. “Or perhaps you’ve given up. Yes, I do remember feeling things along those lines. I think I actually did, before the end.” Doppelgaenger grinned, remembering. “But then, I didn’t have anyone else to live for, at the time. Tell me, Djinni, no matter what happens to you here, what do you think I will do next? I did have a primary mission, you know, one that hasn’t been completed yet. There’s a certain neurotic witch in ECHO’s employ, one who holds great interest for the Masters. They have plans for her, oh my yes, they do. But before that, they’ve asked me to carry out a few interrogations. I’m supposed to learn everything she knows.” Doppelgaenger’s grin grew wider, and her eyes sparkled with malicious glee. “Given what you’ve experienced over the past few days, however do you suppose I’ll do that?”

  Red’s eye opened a crack.

  “I don’t suppose she will last as long as you have,” Doppelgaenger mused, “but you never know. I’ve already learned the hard way not to underestimate you ECHO hero types. Yes, yes, I know, you don’t think of yourself as a hero. Red Djinni, rogue mercenary, we get it! But that’s hardly the truth, now is it? And don’t try to deny it, Red. I know you far better than you think. The truth is, you are a fiercely loyal, compassionate man who will stop at nothing to achieve the redemption you so secretly long for. So now, now that I’ve seemingly taken away all the strength you have, it’s time to prove it. Or are you willing to let Victoria suffer as you have suffered, and more? You see, after I’m done with her, the Masters have something far more insidious in mind with what’s left of her. Everything she is will be stripped away. Her body, her personality, her individuality…all that will be left, all they are interested in, is the knowledge base of her mind. The rest will be cast aside, like scraps from yesterday’s dinner…”

  She felt a faint tremble in his hand, and her heart leapt as she felt his fingers fumble around her neck.

  “I’m guessing you don’t like that idea. Well, that’s just too bad. It will happen, Red Djinni. Victoria Victrix will be ours. She will be our slave, to do with as we please. Funny thing about the transference procedure, I hear it isn’t quite perfect. They will eradicate much of her, true, but there is always something left of the individual, something vital, that can best be called a ghost in the machine. And that ghost will remain, caught in the consciousness matrix, helpless and screaming, forever…”

  She heard a low moan escape the Djinni’s cracked lips, as his fingers tightened their grip. It was time, the Djinni was ready to claim his power, to make him worthy, to bring him to…

  She felt his hand go limp, and fall away.

  She stared at him in disbelief. He had lapsed into unconsciousness. A fire began to burn, deep in her stomach, and she felt herself flushing with emotion. No…not just any emotion. Rage. How dare he! After all the work she had put in on him, all the time, the effort, the devotion…how dare he just…give up?

  She slapped him. Again. A third time. There was no response, nothing.

  With a piercing scream of mingled anger, hate, and frustration, she ripped Bela’s pendant from her neck.

  “What did you do?” she howled at the gemstone. “How did you do it? How did you make me? I did it all! I made him feel everything I did that day! I brought him down to nothing, and then I lit the spark! What else was there? What did I miss?”

  In a burst of fury, she brought the pendant down hard on the stone slab. There was a flash of light as it shattered, and with a cry she felt herself thrown back by waves of concussive force. She crashed into a table, sending her assorted blades and implements flying, and landed unceremoniously in a heap on the floor. In a daze, she brought herself onto her hands and knees. It was dark, pitch black. The explosion had destroyed the spotlight. The explosion…

  “What do you know,” she gasped. “There was some magic in that gemstone after all…”

  She froze in stillness. A few items continued to fall around her, knocked over by the blast, and landing with ringing clanks and clatters on the ground. But beyond them…she heard something else. An odd sound, like yards of knotted rope straining against an irresistible force…

  He was on her before she heard him move, catching her with a heavy kick that sent her flying back. Doppelgaenger grunted as she felt the edge of the stone slab bite into her back, and she crumpled again to the floor.

  “To get to Victrix, you have to go through me.”

  It was Red’s voice, his voice…but deeper. It was almost sinister, and it was a far cry from the near lifeless husk he had been just seconds before.

  “Can’t say I like your odds,” Red drawled. “I’m pretty sure only one of us can see in the dark.”

  * * *

  The world had gone dark for Bela. At some point, his eyes had swollen shut from the onslaught. There was only his broken body and how every part of it wailed in pitiable suffering. The only place she had left untouched w
as his throat. He supposed she had left it alone so that she could delight in every cry, whimper and scream, often laughing as his pleas for mercy were met with more brutality.

  He lay there, mangled, listening to her pace around him. He imagined the end was near. Through it all, the only thought that had persisted was that this was impossible. He had broken her, in body and spirit. He had given her something near the end, true, some small spark of anger and vitality, but it didn’t explain this…

  It was nothing short of a miracle, the way she had transformed. He had broken her bones, sawed through the musculature of her biceps, one of her quadriceps and deltoids…he had even exposed a femoral nerve and played it like a lute. She shouldn’t have been able to move, much less walk, much less deliver a savage beating to a man nearly twice her size…

  But he was no longer twice her size. Perhaps he had imagined it, but she seemed much taller now, and bulging with muscle mass. It barely registered—her attack had been so fast, so ferocious, that after the first few moments, the only thing he could perceive was the pain. And still, the thought persisted. It was impossible. She was impossible. Was it a dream? A nightmare? One where he had forgotten the cardinal rule of waking up before the onset of actual pain?

  He felt another kick to his midsection, and dismissed that idea immediately. This was very real, and soon he would be free from the pain. He couldn’t survive much more of this, and he realized he didn’t want to.

  And then he felt her on him. He made a feeble attempt to resist, and was rewarded with more pain in his arms and chest, flaring up as fractured and broken bones rubbed against one another. He lay still, and felt her mouth moving along his jawline, coming to rest just above his ear.

  “So what do you think?” she breathed.

  “Think…?” he groaned. “Think of…what?”

  “Of my mettle,” she chuckled. “Do I not exceed your expectations?”

  “You are…not natural,” Bela wheezed. “I don’t know what you are.”

  “And I suppose I have you to thank for it,” she grinned. “In just moments, I went from nothing to everything. I don’t think I could have ever imagined this. There’s a clarity to things now, with this kind of power…like a fog lifting from my mind. I don’t suppose you know how you did it?”

  “You are…” Bela croaked. “You are not natural.”

  “I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then.”

  He felt her hand clutch the front of his robes, and with ease, lift him off the ground. This was it then, the end. He sighed, and waited for her to finish him. He heard her chuckle as fingertips caressed his face.

  “I think I have much to do here,” she said. “Too many secrets exposed, and so many men must perish to rectify the problem. I suppose a bit of overkill will be needed. I will probably have to do their families, friends, and acquaintances as well. It’s going to be a busy couple of weeks.”

  “You…” he looked at her incredulously. “You still care for your mission?”

  “Of course,” Karoline shrugged. “Call it professional pride. I set out to do something, and I don’t stop until it’s done. But after, oh…you have opened up new worlds for me, Bela. The possibilities are endless. And when I am ready, I hope you will be too. You really are like no man I have ever met. I think there is still much I could learn from you. Be well, Bela. We will meet again.”

  She released her grip, and Bela collapsed back onto the floor. With tremendous effort, he forced an eye open to watched her leave, marveling at her silhouette as she approached the door to his private dungeon. She really was taller, and powerfully built. She paused in the doorframe, and glanced back at him with a smile. She was unmarked, her flesh as pristine as a newborn’s, and her smile was radiant.

  “I used to believe life could only be a struggle,” she mused. “An endless battle, where anything and everything was yours only if you kicked, gouged and screamed bloody hell for it. Perhaps not. Perhaps things come to those who wait, who are patient. Perhaps the universe provides. I am interested to find out.” She tossed her hair back with a flirtatious wink.

  And with that, she was gone.

  * * *

  Red was astonished at how much he could “see” now, even in darkness. In the absence of visible light, he found himself bathed in the glow of the far reaches of the electromagnetic spectrum. Past the infrared heat signatures he had previously depended on for his radial awareness, he found he could see all frequencies with a bizarre clarity that might have driven him mad from the sensory overload. And yet, he could process them all, even focus to exclude the unwanted noise of microwaves and radio frequencies, to grant him a clear picture of his surroundings, all with his eyes closed.

  His eyes. Both of them.

  It had been a shock, to feel his body knit itself back together with astounding speed, but to feel his rib cage re-form over his heart, for muscle and sinew to reconnect and grow, for his eye to regenerate in its socket, the only way to describe it was…glorious, like a holy fire spreading throughout his entire body. There was pain in it, of course, but his mind had detached himself from that pain with absolute ease. Everything was easy now. He was faster, stronger, and strangest of all, his body seemed to be malleable. It was unnerving, how he seemed to have absolute control over each part of himself. At first, he was content to merely pound on Doppelgaenger, watching her as she floundered about in the dark, unsure of when and from where he would strike next. At one point, she had taken a breath and gotten to her feet, her stance relaxed but at the ready. He had stepped forward, and he marveled how she had cocked her head, sensing his attack, and was able to deflect his blow with a raised arm and counter with a sharp jab to his midsection. He hardly had time to realize she wasn’t exactly defenseless in the dark, perhaps drawing upon some older, scarcely used martial training, when he felt his torso simply soak up the blow, like rubber, and reflect it back at her. She reeled back, surprised, and then shrieked as Red took a moment to gouge her eye with his thumb. She stumbled, slipped on some debris and went down hard in a bloody heap. He watched as she scrambled to her feet, dimly aware that she had picked something up…

  He cringed as the world seemed to explode around him in a wild heat. He staggered back. The room was blinding, sudden and brilliant with waves of light, casting stark shadows that trailed from a single point. Instinctively, he raised his hands to shield himself from it, and paused, confused by the mixed signals. The light and heat had a point of origin, concentrated in one spot. It wasn’t the room after all. It was Doppelgaenger. She had found…

  He felt a heavy boot connect, striking hard at his abdomen, propelling him backwards. He slammed into a wall, and in that moment of reprieve, he reset his senses, dialing them back to normal. His radial awareness flickered and collapsed, and when he opened his eyes, he confirmed his suspicions. In her mad scramble, Doppelgaenger had found a weapon. She held it in front of her, a harsh beacon of directed blue fire. A blowtorch. Just hours before, she had used it to cauterize some of his wounds. Now it served a different purpose, as a source of light, to even the playing field.

  He looked from it to her face, sinister in the pale glow, and saw that she was smiling. She had also grown, in height and mass, a juggernaut of coiled muscle and primal rage, though the effects of it seemed diminished somehow.

  “Astonishing,” she said, flicking away a dribble of blood from her mouth. “You are all that I hoped for…and more.”

  “Wish I could say the same,” Red growled. “Is it me or are you not even remotely as scary as you were the last time?”

  “I remember telling you your perspective would change.”

  “Ugly is ugly, lady. Don’t see how my perspective would change on that.”

  “Months and months of love-making?” Doppelgaenger offered innocently. “Tough to be scared of someone you know intimately.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Red shuddered. “No, you just looked bigger before…”

  “Of course I did,” Doppelgaenger chuckled.
“Look at yourself. See yourself, your true self, as I always have.”

  She held the torch higher, and pointed to her left. Red glanced over, and saw his reflection in the remaining shards of a broken floor length mirror. It appeared he had grown too, like she had. He was taller, his body seemed ridiculously stuffed with excess muscle, and his face…

  He gasped, and approached the broken mirror, his hands reaching up to feel the now-smooth pristine skin covering his cheeks and running down to his unmarred neck. It was his face, his real face. A lot more mature than it had been the last time he saw it, but he could see the ghost of the teenager in the man in the mirror. It looked, well, it looked…

  “Well, whaddaya know…” Red marveled. “I look…”

  “You look freakin’ hot,” Doppelgaenger said, beaming. “For some reason, I thought you really would look a bit like the Cloon. Instead, it’s more…Ryan Reynolds.”

  “Yeah, Ryan Reynolds,” Red agreed. “Better hair, though.”

  “Better everything,” she said. “You feel it now, don’t you? You feel everything about you is superior. And more, there’s truth to it. This is you, the real you, finally. Everything you have gone through in your life, everything that was torn away from you, has brought you to this.” She lowered the torch and strolled up to him. He met her gaze in the fractured reflection, unmoving as he felt her hand travel up his arm and rest gently on his shoulder.

  “There is peace in this, Red Djinni. Many things have been opened to you. What you’re feeling right now, the awe of it, it’s only a fraction of what could be. This transformation, it is only the beginning—a doorway to experiences you can’t even imagine. You only have to accept it, and we can discover everything this existence has to offer. Together.”

  Red turned to her, speechless. His expression was one of confusion, and Doppelgaenger felt a brief moment of alarm as he raised his hand…