by Angie Fox
When we were out of earshot, Marc leaned back toward Oghul. “That isn’t normal. The troops on the road.”
“No.” The Mongol breathed heavily behind us as we made it onto the main path. “Still. If they knew, they’d arrest us.”
“Ah, well, there you go,” I said, practically jogging to keep pace with them. “No problem, then.”
“This way,” Oghul said, leading us across the center courtyard. With a glance back, we ducked into the shadows next to the main supply tent.
Oghul kept on, going past the tent and behind a small storage shed near the cemetery. I could see wooden tombstones leaning awkwardly up the hill.
Marc pulled out a flashlight and so did I. Mine came from Rodger’s care packages. I couldn’t believe Marc had one, too.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
“My mom sent it,” he said, aiming it at the ground.
“You really need to write her.”
“Not now,” he said under his breath. The ground dipped as he led us over to a decrepit hutch.
“This is your lab?” I’d have thought it was nicer from the way he’d talked about it.
Although who was I to judge? I’d cobbled my lab together with discarded junk from the minefield.
“It’s underground,” Marc said, shining his light on a circular grate.
What the—? “Really?” I tried to see down the darkened grate. “And this is how you get there?” Somehow, I didn’t see Dr. Keller commuting to work down a grate.
Oghul stood over us, breathing hard out of his mouth. “They will not let you in the front. The back is guarded.”
Okay, that made more sense. Still… “What is this? Some kind of exhaust vent?”
Apprehension crawled up my spine when I saw the ground around it lay charred and black. They had some caustic experiments going on down there.
Marc crouched in front of the grate and aimed his light down as far as he could. The piping was made of smooth metal. “We work with toxic chemicals. There are vents all over camp.”
It smelled like burned hair. “It’s just like the old army to take care of its people,” I muttered, feeling the bitter air in the back of my throat. No telling what toxic debris they were blowing right into camp. The immortals didn’t mind. They didn’t get cancer.
Marc’s expression was grim. “They have my protest on file.” He turned his head and coughed into his sleeve. “This vent leads straight to the main research room.”
I hunkered next to him. “Where Dr. Keller died,” I murmured.
Marc nodded. “It’s where he is now at least,” he said low, under his breath.
Probably where he was murdered too. A lot of ghosts had a thing about the place where they’d died.
I straightened and double-checked my gun. I really didn’t like this vent idea, but it didn’t look like we had much choice.
Oghul turned his attention to the shadows behind us. “Hurry.”
Right. We were sitting ducks out here.
Marc stood next to me. “Go for it, Oghul.”
The berserker bent over the hole and seized the bars blocking it. He twisted his face, grunting as the bars groaned apart.
Marc dug in his pack and handed me the most bizarre-looking thing I’d seen in a while. It was a gas mask. Only this one looked like it had been issued in the early 1900s.
The seeing apparatus resembled two large bug eyes. A round breathing hole was capped with a red grille. A bendable rubber tube like an old vacuum hose ran from under the breathing hole down to a small square pack designed to strap onto the back.
“You don’t have anything from this century?” I asked.
“You know the old gods,” Marc said.
Actually, I didn’t.
“This is only until you make it through the vent,” he continued. “I’ll go first.”
I was amazed he even had a working gas mask. I took it and strapped the pack to my back.
We were here. We had one shot, and I couldn’t chicken out now.
Oghul gripped Marc’s shoulder as my ex swung his feet into the opening. “Do not be irrational.”
Marc pointed his flashlight down the hole. “This coming from the berserker.”
“You don’t have a mask.” It was the first time I’d seen the Mongolian worried.
My stomach hollowed. “This is the only one.”
“Army regulations,” he said, shoving the flashlight into his pocket.
Of course they only issued one.
Marc grabbed a pistol out of the bag and shoved a magazine into it.
“They do not issue masks to my kind,” Oghul said. “I’m not going down there.”
“Then you can’t go, either,” I told Marc. I could handle this. “We don’t need you breathing whatever turned the ground black.”
“I’m not going to argue with you, Petra,” he said, then slipped down into the blackness.
He didn’t. I rushed to the hole. He did! The jerk was already in there. And he’d gone down fast.
What was with him? Thinking he could risk himself like that. There was bravery and then there was driving the people who loved you nuts.
I shoved the gas mask on, breathing in the stale rubber air, making sure the filter was secured on my back. I had no peripheral vision from the eyeholes. I could barely look down. Oghul had to help me as I stumbled to the edge of the vent.
“You find him at the bottom,” he ordered, his voice muffled by my mask.
I slid down into the vent, feet first. My light bounced off the walls as I careened down about five feet and stopped. My vision was all screwed up. I could barely look down. My feet had gotten hung up on a twist in the pipe.
“Of all the—” My voice choked.
That’s right. Stay mad. Because if I really thought about what I was doing, I was going to freak out.
I eased around the curve in the vent, forcing myself downward as it leveled off.
My chest tightened. I was closed in, trapped, the gray walls pressing down on me, inches from my nose.
My breath came hot and wet against the mask. Stifling. I wanted to rip it off. I wanted to yank off the filter pressing into my back, jamming me into this narrowing network of pipes.
The tunnel narrowed. I could feel the walls closing in.
I swallowed, tasting blood in the back of my throat.
Get a grip.
I wouldn’t get stuck. I couldn’t.
Marc had made it. He was down there somewhere.
I refused to let myself think he could be hurt, gasping for breath, because if I did, I really was going to panic.
Sweating, chest heaving, I inched forward.
I could make it. I could do it. I wasn’t going to die down here, stuffed into a pipe, trapped underground.
Alone.
I listened for Marc, for any sound beyond that of my own labored breathing.
As I pressed on, the pipe began to widen. Or maybe it was just my imagination. I didn’t know, didn’t care as I scooted forward more rapidly. I was just starting to think I might make it when I began sliding.
“No, no…” I gripped the sides, my sweaty palms sliding over the smooth metal. I could do this. I could make this.
The vent made a sudden, terrifying drop.
A wild cry caught in my throat as I hurtled down into the blackness.
Chapter Eleven
I fell for what seemed like an eternity.
It had to be only a few seconds because I was still holding back my scream as I slammed sideways onto the floor of the research room with a bone-rattling crunch.
My hip ached. Everything throbbed. My hands burned. I cradled my arm to my chest as I rolled onto my back.
“Petra.” Marc helped me sit up. Glass littered the floor. “Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere.” Heaving, I peeled off the gas mask and immediately regretted it. The place smelled like melted plastic and fifty kinds of chemicals. My eyes began to water. “Are you okay?” I aske
d, trying to adjust.
He handed me a detox wipe for my hands. “I’ve been better, but yes,” he said as I got my first decent look at the lab.
We’d crash-landed straight into a nightmare.
The place was trashed. Light fixtures hung by wires. Test tubes and broken bottles were strewn over the lab tables and the floors. The fume hood had been ripped off its hinges.
My throat was raw. I’d never seen a murdered soul go on such a violent rampage. “Dr. Keller did this?”
“I’m counting on you to tell me.” Marc gave me a hand as I stood. “But right now, we need to hide.”
“Why?” My knees were like rubber, and my nose was starting to run.
“You screamed.”
“No, I didn’t.” I’d held it back.
“Well, there was definitely a short screech followed by a hard landing.”
“Dang.” I winced.
Aside from the insane murdered ghost, we still had to worry about live guards with swords. I stiffened as soldiers’ footsteps pounded down the hallway outside.
What I’d give for a get-out-of-jail-free card.
The chains around the lab entrance rattled. “You sure we want to go in there?” asked a soldier on the outside.
“Unlock it,” another replied.
Marc and I exchanged a glance as the chain dropped to the floor.
“This way,” he said against my ear. Broken glass crunched under our boots as he led me to a cabinet with a bright yellow warning label displaying a black biohazard symbol. Underneath, it read:
Caution
Fatally toxic to mortals and immortals.
Open only with proper equipment.
I stared at my gorgeous, but clearly deranged ex. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The cabinet was sealed with what looked to be a complex enchanted lock. It was boxy, bronze, and emblazoned with protective runes. Marc placed his thumb in the center and inserted a key into the bottom.
I searched for the gas mask and realized it had cracked right between the eyes.
It wouldn’t have been enough anyway.
My pulse thudded in my ears as Marc popped open the lock to the biohazard cabinet.
I wasn’t going in there. Better to get arrested than eaten alive by toxic chemicals.
“Trust me,” he said, swinging the door open just far enough for us to slip inside.
I did. I heaved my aching body into the closet. Marc followed and swiftly closed the door.
Now we just had to hope we survived our hiding place.
I pressed tightly against him in the dark. His roughened cheek scraped against mine. The soldiers were already in the lab. Steel slid against scabbards as they drew their blades.
If they saw us duck in here, we were dead meat.
“Up there,” one of them said.
We must have broken the vent on the way down. I pressed my forehead into Marc’s shoulder.
“Is that new?” a guard asked.
“Since last night? Yes.”
What—were they keeping track of the destruction? They’d better not see the gas mask I’d dropped. The issue number would lead them straight back to Marc.
Sweat trickled down my back. We were going to get caught. There was no way not to get caught.
He shifted against me, his entire body flexing against mine. I curled my fingers against his chest.
One of the guards whistled under his breath. He was far too close to our hiding spot. “They need to get an exorcist down here.”
“That would mean admitting they have a ghost,” his partner replied.
They were almost on top of us.
I wound my fingers into his uniform, grabbing him, holding him, seeking comfort the best way I knew.
The guards were methodical, precise. I could almost taste the palpable fear. They were too well trained to act on it.
No doubt they’d be more than happy to find a human source of this horror and skewer it. Marc’s body felt hot under my hands as I listened to the footsteps of the guards, the steady brush of cloth, the click of metal against metal.
“Papadakos, find where that vent leads and send a unit up. The last thing we need is a rampaging poltergeist in camp.”
I hoped Oghul was smart enough to have found a place to hide.
The lab grew eerily silent, as if they were listening for our breath.
Marc held still, his arm curled around me, supporting me. I could feel the thud of his heart under my palm, the tug as his chest rose and fell.
My mouth was dry, my head light. Please let it be from fear and not from some twisted chemical compound.
This was so screwed up. I should have stayed home, not gotten involved. What did I think I was? Some kind of super spy? I didn’t have any business traipsing around haunted underground labs. Or hiding in a biohazard cabinet. I mean, who does that?
Truly?
I was terrified of a vent, much less this.
I froze as footsteps echoed just outside the flimsy metal doors.
This was it. The end of the road. There was nowhere else to hide, no way to fight.
Nothing else we could do.
Heart hammering, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Please let them keep going.
They stopped.
I found Marc’s hand and squeezed it tight. Fiercely, silently, he pulled me into a tight bear hug. I clung to his warm body, his flak jacket rough against my cheek. This was it. He cradled my head protectively with his hand and rested his lips on the top of my head as we waited for the end.
At least we were in it together.
Static broke through as the soldier hit his radio button. “The lab is clear.”
I gripped Marc tighter.
Footsteps echoed outside. “What about the closet?” a soldier asked.
“I took care of it personally,” the guard responded.
A beep sounded from the radio. “Understood. Seal it back up.”
“Head out,” our guy said to the room at large. “We’ve done our spook check for the night.”
I pulled away from Marc, shaky, never so relieved in all my life. He stood at my back as I pressed my hands against the cool metal of the doors and listened to the soldiers lock us back into the lab.
“Easy.” Marc’s voice tickled my ear, and I realized my hand had wandered down to the door handle.
I knew. We had to play this right. But I couldn’t wait to get out of the toxic storage vault.
Yes, I was glad Marc had saved us. I was relieved and grateful and fall-down ecstatic not to be caught in the web of old army justice.
But at what cost?
We waited three full minutes—exactly 180 seconds—after the last soldier left.
At last, we popped the door.
I staggered out as fast as my bruised body would allow. Marc caught me around the shoulders. “I’ve got you,” he whispered as I lurched sideways.
The lab lay dark except for dim security lights on the tables. I checked my arms, my legs. “What was in that closet?” I hissed.
“Nothing.” He gripped my good shoulder as he smoothed the hair out of my eyes with his other hand. “I’m sorry I scared you. There wasn’t time to explain.”
“I don’t get it.” Just past him, I could see the toxic storage vault.
My mouth fell open.
Empty.
“What was it?” I whispered. “Some kind of radioactive isotope?”
“Dr. Keller and I put up that warning to keep the old army out of our paperwork. As much as we could, at least.”
I blinked, trying to absorb it all. “So we weren’t getting eaten alive in there?”
He held me steady. “No.”
I grabbed him, hugged him, so glad to be whole and healthy, even if we were locked in a secret lab with a poltergeist.
“That guard,” I said, glancing at the sealed door to the lab, “was he a friend of yours?”
“No,” Marc said, “just someone smart enough to be afraid
of biohazard signs.”
I grinned despite myself.
“Okay, hotshot,” I said, wiping my nose, trying to recover, “let’s get down to business.”
Marc was all too happy to oblige. “Keller is here somewhere,” he said low, scanning the room as if he had a chance of seeing the ghost.
“Dr. Keller?” I murmured, starting down the first of two rows of lab tables.
Wonder upon wonders, there was still some equipment intact. Glass cases with specimen samples lined the tables. I took it slow, my knees and hips aching with every step. The samples glowed green in the dim light of the room.
Bulky thermal generators and other lab equipment crowded the tables along the walls, casting eerie shadows. Most of it had been torn apart.
Marc lingered a step behind, watching as if he expected the ghost of Dr. Keller to pop out of nowhere. Then again, maybe it might.
“When was the last time you called a spirit?”
I started down the second row. “Never.” I usually tried to avoid them.
I focused my mind on Dr. Keller with his round spectacles and easy manner. We’d thought he was so old, but the last time I saw him, he had to be only in his mid-forties.
He was quick to laugh, a vegan who rode his bike to work every day.
“We know you’re here,” I whispered, focusing my thoughts out into the room.
Worry churned in my gut. We needed to talk to Keller and then run like blazes.
Of course, I had no idea how we’d make it out of the locked compound. We were underground, and there was no way we were going to be able to go the other way up that vent.
I rubbed my temples.
“What are you picking up?” Marc asked.
Other than the fact that this was a bad idea? “Nothing,” I said, starting down the dimly lit row of lab tables again. “It’s not like I can pick up my phone and call a ghost.” I didn’t even have a phone down here. My gaze darted across the room for some trace of a sign, but I saw only darkness and shadows. “Is there anything else that would catch his attention on this floor?”
“Only 18F,” he said, “but there’s never been a disturbance there.”
I touched my fingers to the cool metal of a smashed optic microscope. “What’s in 18F?”
“Live testing,” Marc said, his voice full of contempt.