by Shéa MacLeod
On top of that, we still didn't know who'd ordered the hit on me, or why. It certainly hadn't been Alberich, as I'd originally believed. Frankly, he wouldn't have thought me worth the time, and the website with the hit advertisement was still active, complete with a lovely new photo of me outside the motel in Madras where the body of a Supernatural Regulatory agent had been found after Alberich had him murdered. I couldn't figure out who had taken that photo. There hadn't been anyone in the parking lot except for Inigo, my brother, and me. There hadn't been any further attacks, either, but I figured it was only a matter of time before somebody decided to take a run at the bounty.
The good news was the junkie kid, Mikey, who had helped us solve the agent's murder, had kept his promise and called the counselor on the card I'd given him. She didn't handle such cases, but she'd sent him to a facility that did. By all accounts, he was doing well in recovery. He'd even cut his hair and changed his name to Mick. A new name for a new start. There was hope for him yet.
Which brought me full circle back to Inigo, because I wasn't sure there was hope there. Drago had done everything he could, but it could be years, even decades. If ever. It was the "ever" part that bothered me.
Trevor pulled up to a second checkpoint. There was no fence and no gate, just a guard shack hardly bigger than an outhouse. There was only one guard with a handgun, but I had the oddest feeling we were being watched from somewhere out on the desert. Trevor handed over his government ID and my passport once again, and we went through another round of "who is she" followed by more chatting via earpiece. The young guard waved us through.
We drove a short way up the gently sloping road. As we topped the rise, I saw grim concrete buildings laid out in a neat grid below us. Men and women in various military uniforms scurried to and fro on foot or in little golf carts.
I quickly shoved thoughts of Inigo to the back burner. There would be enough time for that later. Too much time.
"Welcome to Area 51." Trevor flashed me a grin.
"I can't believe I'm actually here." It was a little disappointing, to be honest. I'd imagined... I don't know what. Alien spaceships, maybe? Guards with ray guns and jet packs? "It's all so... normal." Or as normal as a military base ever got.
"What did you expect? Little green men?" Trevor laughed.
"Oh, excuse me. It's okay to believe in demons and vampires, but not aliens?"
"We've got enough crazy on Earth without worrying about crazies from other planets."
He made an excellent point. Still, I couldn't help but wish for more. I wasn't an Ancient Aliens fan for nothing.
As we pulled onto the base, a jeep zipped out from behind one of the large concrete buildings. The man driving was dressed in military fatigues. He gave us a wave, motioning Trevor to follow him.
About an hour later, we were finally sitting across from the reason we were there: Jade Vincent, former dragon hunter and full-time crazy person. Also, Alister Jones's "goddaughter" and secret weapon. And she wanted to talk.
Orange wasn't her color. Or maybe it was the lighting. She looked washed out and sallow, skinnier than I remembered. Her hair was still the same defiantly spiky, platinum blonde. Apparently Area 51 provided the inmates with the services of a hairdresser.
"Okay, Dara. We're here." Dara Boyd was Jade's real name. I hoped it would remind her who she was before she became a hunter: the girl who'd lived in a little flat in London with her girlfriend. A girl who'd been like any other girl before Alister Jones sank his twisted claws into her.
She didn't move so much as a muscle.
I sighed. "You wanted to speak to me. Speak."
"My name," she said, grating out each word, "is Jade. And I have something for you."
I blinked. "For me?"
She took a crumpled envelope from inside her jumpsuit and slid it across the table. The expression on her face could only be described as mocking. It gave me the heebie-jeebies.
I glanced down at the envelope, and my heart skipped a beat. I recognized the crest. It was that of the Jones family. I'd seen it in Alister's office in England. Inigo had a smaller copy in his living room, as did Kabita.
"How did you get this?"
She ignored me. Instead she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair, the chains around her slender wrists clanking against the metal table. I knew without a doubt she wasn't going to answer me or anyone else. She'd done what she came for, and she wouldn't say another word.
Trevor nodded to the guards, who grabbed Jade and hauled her back down the hall, presumably to her cage or wherever they kept homicidal maniacs with hunter abilities. Frankly, I hoped she'd rot there. After what she'd done to Inigo, and the innocent lives she'd taken, she deserved no less.
"What's in the envelope?" Trevor asked.
I stared down at the thing lying on the table like it might bite me. Just looking at it gave me a bad feeling. I really, really did not want to open it.
Slowly, I lifted the flap and pulled out a piece of vellum. Rich. Expensive. Scrawled across the creamy sheet was a single line of unfamiliar handwriting:
Tick tock, little Hunter.
Chapter 7
We were halfway out the door, headed for the car, when the alarm sounded. The shrieking cacophony echoed off the cinderblock walls. The assault on my sensitive ears made me cringe as armed guards poured out of doorways and charged this way and that looking stern and purposeful. The door to the parking lot literally slammed shut in my face.
"What the hell?" I flattened myself against the wall as a group of soldiers charged past, weapons drawn.
"Lockdown. There's been an escape." Trevor's expression was grim as he grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the exit.
The timing was too perfect to be coincidental. We'd shown up, met with Jade, received a cryptic note and a splash of attitude, and then someone escaped? It didn't take a genius to figure that one out. And since Alister Jones hadn't been caught yet, that left only one other person insane enough and connected enough to pick this exact moment to escape. In fact, I'd bet a dozen chocolate donuts on it.
Trevor pulled me around the corner and into the guard booth overlooking the one entrance to the building. The door of the booth slammed behind us, cutting off the noise and chaos. Inside the booth it was quiet; a small, flashing red light the only warning. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Commander, what's the status?" Trevor asked one of the two men hunched over the bank of monitors flickering with images of the compound.
The older of the two men wheeled around. There was a sheen of sweat on his upper lip and across his bald head. Clearly, he wasn't having a good day. "Agent Daly. I'm afraid I have some news your agency isn't going to like."
"Which one?"
The commander's expression was grim. "Prisoner X756."
Trevor closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Damn." He sounded resigned and not terribly surprised.
"Who's prisoner X756?" I asked, glancing from my brother to the commander and back again. I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.
It was the commander who finally spoke. "Brent Darroch."
* * *
To say the escape of Brent Darroch was a bad thing would be an understatement of epic proportions. Not only was the man a descendent of Atlantis, like I was (he'd almost killed me once because of it), he had a score to settle. I was the one who'd captured him, with a little help from my friends. Trevor was the one who'd put him behind bars.
Even worse? I'd taken the Heart of Atlantis from him. As far as he was concerned, that was an unforgivable sin. Never mind that I was the Key and as such, the Heart and its power belonged only to me.
Basically, Trevor and I now had great big bull's-eyes on our backs. Not exactly a comfortable feeling.
"How did he escape?" Trevor snapped, going into full-blown secret agent mode.
"We don't know," the commander replied grimly. "But believe me, I plan to find out." From his tone, I had no doubt heads
would roll.
Trevor was with the SRA, the Supernatural Regulatory Agency, and as such outranked every civilian in the joint. I had no idea what protocol applied when military personnel were involved, but it was clear the commander was willing to keep him in the loop, if not outright defer to him.
I desperately wanted to start asking questions. Like, was Brent Darroch connected to Dara/Jade, and if so, how? Had either of them had any recent visitors? And how the hell could they allow a dangerous criminal to escape Area 51, of all places? But I was just a guest here. This was Trevor's show. It went against my nature, but I bit my tongue.
"Show me his cell."
The commander nodded. "I'll have someone take you." He barked an order into the mic of his earpiece, and then turned his attention back to the guy at the controls, completely ignoring us. I couldn't say I blamed him. Finding the prisoner took priority over anything else.
A couple minutes later, there was a knock at the door, and a soldier poked his head inside the booth. He didn't look a day over eighteen. His hazel eyes were wide and excited, and there was a flush riding high on his freckled cheekbones. At a guess, I'd say this was the first "action" he'd seen since boot camp.
"Reporting for duty, sir." There was a definite eagerness to his tone which both amused and worried me.
"Roberts. Good. Show these agents the cell where we kept Prisoner X756." The commander barely glanced up from the flickering screen.
"Yes, sir," Roberts barked, snapping off a salute his commander didn't see or acknowledge. "Agents, if you will follow me?"
I hurried to keep up with the men's longer strides as Roberts led us to a bank of elevators. The steel doors had been painted a bland gray, no doubt in order to blend with the unpainted concrete walls. Everything looked the same; a person could get lost around here.
Roberts waved us into the elevator and pushed a button. The doors slid shut, and the car began its smooth descent. There were no numbers to indicate which floors we were passing. I took a deep breath, trying to focus on anything but the layers of rock looming above us ready to fall on our heads at any moment.
"How deep are we going?" I asked the young soldier.
Roberts smiled at me, hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. "Deep."
The car came to a stop, and the doors slid open. I took in everything around me as we stepped out of the elevator. Beyond the shriek of the alarm, I couldn't hear much but the thud of boots and the shouts of soldiers as they ran through the base searching for the prisoner. That was the downside of super hearing; one loud sound had a tendency to overwhelm everything else.
My other senses, however, were still intact. On this level, everything had been painted white. Walls, floor, and ceiling all the same painfully bright white that made me want to pull out my sunglasses. The elevator bank had been left its natural steel color, polished to a high sheen. It was like something out of a '80s sci-fi movie.
Roberts stopped before another gleaming steel door. It had no knob or handle, only a biometric pad on the wall next to it. Roberts placed his palm flat against the pad and waited. A few seconds later, the door slid open, and he waved us through.
The room beyond wasn't what I expected. In fact, it wasn't a room at all, but more like an airlock. It was tiny, barely big enough for the three of us, and one wall was lined with small lockers. Opposite the door we'd just come through was a second door with a tiny portal window in it. I couldn't see what was beyond. The door behind us slid shut, cutting off the shriek of the alarm.
"Normally, you'd have to take off all your jewelry, belts, and whatnot, but since the cell is empty... " Roberts shrugged as if to say he didn't see the point. Thank gods, he wasn't one of those stickler-for-rules types.
There was another biometric pad next to the door with the porthole. Roberts placed his hand against the pad and then leaned forward to press his eye against what was obviously a retinal scanner. The door opened, and I caught a whiff of something astringent in the air: smoke, and under the smoke was the tang of burned plastic. My nose itched, and I covered a cough behind my hand. Wonderful. I so did not need my allergies going haywire.
As we stepped into the space beyond, my jaw dropped. We were in a cavernous room the same blinding white as the hallway. Suspended in the center of the room, and I mean center as in top to bottom and side to side, was a clear bubble about the size of my living room.
Well, not really a bubble. More like a dome with a flat bottom and a bubble top. It looked like it was made of unusually thick plastic, completely seamless except for small tubes attached to the top which were probably for ventilation and maybe things like food and water. I swear it was straight out of Star Trek. In the bottom of the bubble was a gaping hole, the sides blackened and melted.
"This is where we kept the prisoner." Roberts crossed his arms over his chest and stared up at the dome with a frown. His freckles stood out starkly in the harsh white light.
I stared up, wincing slightly at the crick in my neck. "Plastic?"
"Impenetrable plastene," Roberts corrected. "I don't really get the science, but it's supposed to be stronger than steel. Completely impervious to any known weapon."
"Clearly, somebody figured out a weapon that would work," Trevor said dryly, eyeing the melted sides of the hole.
"Yeah. The science geeks are probably freaking over that one." Roberts was clearly amused by the thought.
I stepped underneath the suspended dome and stared at the hole, my mind churning. Other than the bubble itself, the rest of the room was untouched. No sign that anyone had ever been there, or how Darroch had made it through the doors once he'd gotten out of the plastene cell.
"How would someone break in here?" Trevor voiced my thoughts.
"Technically, they can't, sir." Roberts's tone was almost apologetic. "We're hundreds of feet underground and you'd need authorization to get in. Maybe you could tunnel your way underground if you had a lot of time on your hands. Use dynamite or something to blow your way through the concrete, but the walls haven't been breached."
"Someone hacked into the system, maybe?" I suggested.
"No, ma'am. No sign the system was hacked."
"You're telling me someone with authorization came in here and broke Darroch out?" Trevor snapped. His patience was obviously wearing thin.
"There's no record of anyone entering the chamber, sir." Roberts shook his head. "Not at that time, and not for hours before. There's nothing on the security cameras, either. One minute the prisoner was there, and the next he was gone."
"No one broke him out, Trevor," I interrupted, still staring at the hole above my head. "The burn marks are on the inside. Darroch cut himself out."
* * *
"Heads are going to roll." Trevor's knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel, a dark flush staining his cheeks. "The boss isn't going to like this."
The anger rolled off him in waves so strong I could physically feel it. I totally got it, though. I sure wouldn't want to be the one to tell his boss a top priority prisoner, one with very powerful and very evil connections, had escaped from an impenetrable cell. And from the inside, no less.
Despite scouring the base from top to bottom, there'd been no sign of anyone entering or exiting the building. Not even Darroch. It was like he'd vanished into thin air. I could smell hinky all over this thing.
"Holy crap, that's it."
Trevor glanced at me. "What's it?"
"He vanished into thin air."
"Uh, yeah." He gave me an eye roll. "That's the problem."
"No," I said, shaking my head. "I mean he literally vanished into thin air. That's why nobody saw him leave through the door. He didn't. Once he was out of that bubble, somebody zapped him out."
"Like teleportation, you mean?"
"Something like that, yes. It has to be."
He frowned. "As far as I know, Darroch doesn't have any such capabilities."
"He doesn't." I knew that from experience. He was batshit crazy in a pow
er hungry way, and he was stronger than your average human. Smarter, too. But he didn't have superpowers. "But there are those that do." The Fairy Queen came to mind, with her tendency to yank me into the Other World whenever she wanted.
Trevor shook his head. "The alarm systems would have detected any sort of technology. There's no way he could have got a weapon in with him, let alone one that could open the dome."
I mulled it over. "Maybe somebody teleported one in?" I wasn't sure we were on the right track with the whole teleportation of weapons thing, but it was the best idea I had at the moment.
"Why not just teleport him straight out of the cell?" Trevor asked
Fair point. "Might have taken too much energy. A material strong enough to be impenetrable to any known weapon can probably dampen most extra-human abilities." I glanced at Trevor for confirmation, but his face gave nothing away. Good enough. "So, whoever it was teleported the weapon into the cell so he could cut himself free. Once Darroch was out, it was easy enough to teleport him through concrete walls, no matter how thick."
"Makes sense, I guess." Trevor still sounded doubtful. "So you know anyone with that ability?"
"Not really," I admitted. "Djinn can do it. Sidhe, too, probably. But I can't think of anyone I know personally who would give a crap about Brent Darroch. There are certain demons, of course, but they don't generally have any reason to get involved with humans other than for killing." I frowned. Something was niggling at the back of my brain. "It's odd, though."
"What is?"
"Jade was the one who called us to Area 51. Jade gave us the note."
"Jade has no connection to Darroch as far as I've been able to ascertain."
"She doesn't," I said. "But there's someone who might."
Our gazes locked, and I saw the moment the thought hit Trevor's brain. "Crap. Alister Jones. But he doesn't have any sort of psychic or telekinetic abilities."
"No, he doesn't." My tone was grim. "But Alister Jones has connections in very low places."