by Jade Kerrion
“Got it. Done. One more thing, there’s a girl down there.”
“What?”
“A teenager. Blond hair, green eyes. She looked familiar so I hacked the network to access Galahad-One’s files. She’s Miriya Templeton’s clone.”
Zara’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“You heard me. She’s an age-accelerated clone of an alpha telepath. Miriya was intimately hooked to Danyael’s mind for nearly twenty months. If anyone can find her way past Danyael’s psychic shields and back into his head, it would be her clone.”
“If there are any empathic links between Danyael and other people, she’s probably the one sustaining them, right? If I kill her, will the links drop?”
“More than likely. She’s probably got you outclassed, though.”
Now that was insulting. Zara had killed many mutants in her lifetime, including alpha telepaths. Admittedly, most of those kills were from a mile away, courtesy of a sniper rifle. Face-to-face with an alpha telepath, Zara’s odds diminished significantly.
Amanda interjected. “I’ll handle Miriya. You find Danyael.”
“This isn’t a rescue mission. You have to take out Galahad-One and his clones,” Xin said.
“And Galahad?” Zara asked.
“That’s Danyael’s call, which I’m sure is not the call you would have made.”
Zara scowled. It appeared that the only thing Danyael and she could agree upon were their favorite ice cream flavors.
“Try not to kill him accidentally, Zara,” Xin cautioned.
“Oh, trust me. If I kill Galahad, it won’t be an accident.” She inhaled deeply and glanced at Amanda, who nodded. “Let’s go.”
The elevator ride into the bowels of the laboratory lasted six minutes, each second crawling by. Impatience clawed at Zara, but training kept each breath slow and her pulse steady. The elevator ground to a halt, and the door opened into a small room. Zara stepped out of the elevator and flicked the safety on her assault rifle. She preferred her custom-made Glock and daggers, but there was a time for every season under the sun—a time for elegant precision and a time for brute force.
It was time for the latter. She could not defeat Galahad in a fair fight, and Galahad’s clones were capable enough to make each fight a close call. She would have to take out arms and legs and render the clones helpless before Danyael’s empathic abilities absorbed their injuries.
Not difficult at all. She gritted her teeth against the sarcastic undertone in her mental voice. Curbing her killer instincts would be almost as hard.
Amanda moved to the door. She pressed down on the handle, eased the door open, and looked out. The corridor was empty. She glanced over her shoulder. “I’ve got Miriya.” She offered Zara a thin smile. “Be safe.”
Zara stepped out of the elevator room. For a moment, she watched Amanda as the telepath made her way along the circumference of the third floor. “Where’s Galahad-One?” Zara asked.
Static crackled and then resolved into Xin’s smooth voice. “Second floor, the lighted room on the eastern curve. He’s with Galahad.”
Zara ran over the narrow walkway that crossed the seemingly bottomless pit, and took the steps two at a time. Her balance was flawless, which was just as well. Her tight turns at high speed would have otherwise sent her plunging to her death. “Who designed this piece of crap?” she muttered into the microphone.
“The most reputable engineering firm in the world,” Xin’s voice replied, directly into her ear.
“The owners should demand a refund. Bridges and stairs over a chasm…it’s a bloody death trap.”
“Especially if you’re sick, exhausted, and on crutches. It is a prison designed to hold a very specific person: Danyael.”
Crouching low, Zara ran along the external corridor and stopped outside a closed door. Light shone through the window. Raised voices floated out to her.
“What possible reason do you have to delay any further?” a querulous voice demanded. It was slightly deeper and more resonant than Galahad’s clear and melodic tenor. Galahad-One.
“Careful, Gage,” Galahad warned. “I’m not a clone. You don’t own me. I’ll decide when to retrieve her.”
Her? Me? Irritation coiled through Zara. Not the same tired, old game of emotional blackmail. No wonder Danyael’s sick of it.
“You don’t have much time.”
“Don’t I?” Galahad asked. Something in his tone shifted. “What’s your hurry, Gage? What difference does an hour or two make?”
Enough with the bullshit. I’m sorry, Danyael. It’s going to hurt. She flung the door open, her finger tightening on the trigger. Four quick bursts took out four kneecaps.
The two men collapsed with cries of pain. Galahad’s stunned gaze locked on her. “Zara!”
“You must have known that if you stalled long enough, I’d show up anyway.” She slammed the door shut and kept her rifle trained on them. Her face tightened as their injuries healed. “Stay on the ground. If you move, I’ll blow out your knees—”
“How long do you think you can keep this up?” Galahad-One—Gage asked, his voice calm.
“Until Amanda breaks the empathic links.”
“And then what, are you going to kill us?”
Zara shrugged. “No reason to keep you alive, is there?”
“Don’t you want me to stand trial?” Gage asked.
“Nope.”
“Don’t you want to know why I took Danyael?”
“Not particularly.”
Gage straightened from his untidy sprawl on the ground but froze when Zara shifted her aim to focus on him.
Galahad lunged.
Zara swung her rifle back around and got off a single shot. The bullet pierced Galahad’s side. Crimson blossomed across his shirt, but the blood flow slowed and then ceased all together. She bit back a frustrated curse. Danyael’s going to keep healing every injury I can inflict, until he dies. She sidestepped, avoiding Galahad’s attack—the bullet had thrown off his balance, turning a predatory leap into a clumsy tackle—and spun around, swinging the butt of her rifle like a stake.
She missed.
Galahad ducked under her attack, coming up behind her. He straightened. Faster than she had anticipated, faster than she could react, he wrapped an arm around her throat, immobilizing her. With his other hand, he pulled her dagger from the leather sheath belted around her waist, and drove the blade into her stomach.
The assault rifle fell from her hands. Her shocked gasp collapsed into a whimper of pain.
He pulled the dagger out, and she dropped to her knees. Blood, hot and sticky, spilled between the fingers she pressed to the wound.
Gage’s voice cut through the red haze of pain. “She’s no good to me dead.”
“Stomach injuries are painful but rarely fatal,” Galahad said. “We’ll take her to Danyael and force him to heal you before we allow him to heal her.”
Gage nodded. “Well done.” The door opened and three clones entered the room to flank him. Gage pushed to his feet and picked up the assault rifle. With nonchalant grace, he turned its muzzle on Galahad. “And just in time too. The explanations could have been awkward.”
Galahad’s eyes narrowed. “Explanations?”
Gage glanced at his watch. “In approximately five minutes, the bio-tracker will stop your heart.”
Galahad’s grip around her neck loosened. She dropped onto her side and looked up at him. His eyes were wide, his jaw slack. “But you removed it!”
Gage shook his head, his lips curving into a smile. “Actually, I didn’t.”
Galahad’s hand closed around her arm and yanked her to her feet. He shoved her toward the door. “Find Danyael, now!”
A clone lunged at her, but Galahad seized him and slammed him against the wall, knocking him out with a precise blow to the back of his neck.
Zara stumbled out of the room, a hand pressed against her bleeding stomach. The sounds of the fight rang through her head, the dizziness of blood l
oss setting in, but adrenaline pushed her forward.
Xin’s soft voice whispered in her ears, giving clear and precise directions in a calm voice, as if Zara were not bleeding to death. The narrow walkways shifted in and out of focus, but Xin’s voice anchored her through her blurring vision and stumbling steps. Twice, Zara lost her footing but both times, she caught the steel frame of the walkway and dragged herself back onto the bridge.
At the end of her strength, she flung open a steel door and staggered into a room.
Danyael’s voice, weak and cracking with pain, breathed her name.
In that instant, her world changed. Calm infused her. Her racing heartbeat settled into a steady beat. Her hands stopped trembling. She looked up, her vision resolving with perfect clarity. In front of her, the man she loved was slumped on his knees, his hands chained to the wall.
Danyael had never needed to heal or kill to prove how powerful he was. His near flawless control over his emotions and his ability to project them were often all the power he needed.
Once again in control of her injured body, Zara lunged forward, closing the distance to him in three quick steps. Stumbling onto her knees, she threw her arms around his neck and claimed his mouth in a desperate kiss.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Danyael closed his eyes, love wrenching his soul. He poured his empathic power into the kiss, his body trembling from the echo of Zara’s pain. Her blood stained his shirt. He shuddered, gasping from the brutal pain as it transferred from her body to his, but he did not break the kiss until she stopped shivering, her injury healed.
Zara pulled back. “The bio-tracker. Galahad’s out of time.” She shoved to her feet and pulled a thin but sturdy lock pick from her utility belt. A moment later, the handcuff fell away. His strength exhausted, he collapsed, but she dragged him to his feet and helped him limp from his cell. Joyce followed, her eyes darting from side to side as she wrung her thin fingers together.
Together they crossed the narrow walkway. Each breath burned in his lungs. Pain pounded through him, washing through the empathic links that connected him to the clones and to Galahad. He tasted blood in his mouth; he had bitten through the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming in pain.
A sudden and brutal spike of anguish drove him to his knees, dragging Zara down with him. Darkness spread across the edges of his vision. A vicious chill oozed through him. From the pit of his stomach, it filled him, suffocating him.
Zara’s strength alone anchored him.
“Danyael—” Zara paused, as if listening to a voice only she could hear. She cursed. “Xin says Amanda’s down.” She looked up and tensed.
Danyael followed her gaze. A teenaged girl, flanked on either side by a clone, stepped onto the bridge and walked toward them. Miriya.
He glanced at Zara. “Joyce…get Joyce out of here.”
“But you—”
“Now.”
She released him, grasped Joyce’s arm, and took a few steps back.
Danyael climbed to his feet. He inhaled and then released his breath in a shuddering sound. “Miriya.” He did not spare a glance at either of the two clones.
“Perhaps I should thank you for saving my life. Your girlfriend might have killed me if the injury did not transfer through my empathic link with you.” The teenaged telepath smiled. “It ends here, Danyael. Galahad is fighting the other three clones. He’s dragging out the fight, trying not to deal a lethal blow. Still, it hardly matters if he wins or if they do. Either way, he will die, and so will you.”
Danyael shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
Miriya snorted dismissively. “Take him back to his cell.”
The clones strode past her to seize Danyael’s arms. Their hands closed on his, skin against skin.
His face impassive, his eyes locked upon Miriya’s, Danyael turned his emotions loose. A tidal wave of heartache and loss surged out of him and plunged into the two clones—emotional despair potent enough to drive any living being to suicide.
The clones gasped. Their grip on Danyael loosened and fell away. Madness superseded the dull obedience in their eyes. They flailed, their motions jerky, like marionettes at the mercy of a puppeteer.
Miriya’s eyes widened. She backed away from Danyael. “No…you wouldn’t dare. Their deaths would kill you!”
“I am an alpha empath. Do you think something as trivial as the pain of dying can stop me?”
A clone stumbled forward. Danyael tried to move out of the way but he was not fast enough, not with his crippled leg. The clone lunged, knocking Danyael from the narrow walkway.
Danyael tumbled over the edge. He grabbed the steel frame, his fingers clawing for a grip. The clone tumbled past him, falling to his inevitable death. Danyael’s legs kicked against air as he struggled to pull himself back up. He had to get back on the walkway before—
The agony of the clone’s death crushed him. It punched a scream of anguish out of his lungs. His fingers flexed, his grip loosened.
Zara threw herself forward. She hit the bridge hard. Her fingers closed around his wrist. “Hold on!”
In desperation, he wrapped his hand around her wrist. “Behind you,” he croaked.
Zara twisted onto her back, her Glock in her hand. She flinched from Miriya’s psi-blast, but Danyael yanked her pain away. His vision flashed white, but it scarcely mattered what happened to him. Physically, he was too weak to fight back, but he had to keep Zara strong enough to defend the both of them.
The assassin’s eyes narrowed. Her aim shifted subtly from Miriya’s heart to her stomach. Her finger tightened on the trigger. In that same instant, her grip tightened around Danyael’s wrist.
Miriya staggered back, her eyes wide with shock, but it was Danyael who screamed when pain exploded through his stomach. He was still reeling when Zara reached around his back, gripped his belt, and hauled him onto the walkway.
He lay prone on the bridge, grateful beyond belief to be on solid ground.
Zara aimed her gun at Miriya. “Break the emphatic links now.”
The teenager snorted. “Or what?” With an insolent look on her face, she sauntered closer. “You can’t hurt me. You can’t kill me.”
Danyael pushed to his feet and yanked Miriya into his arms as the second clone threw himself over the walkway.
Miriya screamed. Like a wildcat, she fought to break free.
Danyael’s empathic powers plunged through the alpha telepath like a wave, purging her body of mutated human growth hormone.
Miriya stared at him, her green eyes wide. Her expression was shockingly vulnerable. “You healed me…”
“Break the empathic links,” he pleaded.
For a moment, she wavered, but her small face tightened. Her eyes were like hard agates. “No, I want to see you die.”
She was still wrapped in Danyael’s embrace when the second clone died, his body shattering upon rocks. The pain smashed through Danyael. His body collapsed under the assault, crumpling beneath the agony of splintered bones and punctured organs. His breath caught for a long moment, and then he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
His empathic powers whipped through Miriya, binding the both of them together. The agony tore out of him and coalesced into a spear of pure psychic energy. Channeled through physical contact, it cut through her psychic defenses and pierced her.
Her eyes flared wide. Miriya’s body stiffened, racked by unbearable pain, and then collapsed like a deflated balloon. Her final breath whispered out of her. She had not screamed.
Danyael sagged against her dead body. It’s done.
He dragged in a breath of air, filling his lungs. His body trembled still, pushed beyond endurance, but the echo of someone else’s pain no longer assaulted him. His mind was free, his power within his command once again.
Zara slid an arm around his shoulders. Her violet eyes searched his face. “Can you stand?”
Not really, but he nodded. He could only hope that he did not l
ook as terrible as he felt. Leaning heavily on her, he pulled himself upright. “Galahad…”
She nodded. Her slender frame was stronger than it appeared, and they scrambled up the stairs together. They burst into the control room.
Two of the three clones were dead; Galahad must have realized that the empathic links were broken when their injuries stopped healing, and he had killed the clones. The last one he disposed of by snapping its neck. He spun around, relief apparent in his eyes.
“Where’s Gage?” Zara demanded.
“I don’t know. He ran,” Galahad said.
Danyael closed the distance and placed his hand against Galahad’s chest. “Something’s wrong…” he breathed. Panic coiled through him. “I can sense the bio-tracker, but it’s not resetting.” His mind grasped at the thin threads of suspicion, tugged them into glimmers of the truth, and recoiled from it. Stunned, he raised his gaze to Galahad. “Gage…Gage recoded it. He’s probably the only one who can reset it now.”
Zara spun around. “I’ll find him.”
No time!
Galahad tensed suddenly. His dark eyes flared wide. His legs collapsed, his body crumpling to the floor.
Stumbling to his knees, Danyael threw himself over Galahad’s body and pressed his hands against his chest. Danyael’s empathic senses reached out, sinking deep into Galahad’s body.
The perfect human being had died instantly, painlessly.
Danyael closed his eyes. He opened his heart, mind, and body, and let his powers flow out of him. It started slowly, but once it had begun, the battle to save Galahad escalated quickly. His light shivers became body-wracking shudders. His chest heaved as he struggled to breathe through pain that surpassed everything he had known before. He could not scream, could not manage a sound louder than a whimper.
“Danyael, stop!” Zara grasped his shoulders and tried to pull him away. “You can’t heal heart injuries. It’s too much for you.”
He swallowed a groan and forced the words out through gritted teeth. “Help me, please.”
Zara hesitated only for a moment. She wrapped her arms around his chest and pressed her cheek against his. “Take anything you need, only if it will keep you alive.”