Sleight of Hand: Book Three: The Weir Chronicles

by Sue Duff

  “No shit?” Patrick raked his fingers through his damp hair. “They injected Ian with mini-robots?”

  Tara positioned a different lens in place and turned the dial to refocus. “Programmed to do what?” She pulled away and swung the microscope around for Patrick to take a look.

  He leaned in. About half a dozen tiny squares floated in the saline solution. Light from the microscope highlighted circuit-like technology on a couple of them. “I thought nanites were active little buggers. These look dead.”

  “In simplistic terms, once injected, nanites are carried through the bloodstream and then attach to whatever host they were programmed to,” Dr. Mac said. “Then they go about their job.”

  “What did they attach to?” Patrick asked.

  “It’s got to be something associated with Ian’s core,” Tara said.

  Dr. Mac turned and paced around the kitchen island. “Sar cores are made up of cells that collect and store a specific energy found in the natural world.”

  “Except in Ian’s case, he has a variety of core cells, not just one type like other Sars,” Tara said, as though reasoning aloud. “That’s what gives him several, different powers.”

  “If the nanites attack the protein that covers core cells, it could prevent them from purging or spending the energy,” Dr. Mac said.

  “Which would cause them to overheat.” Tara pushed away from the counter. “This has got to be connected to Africa, somehow.”

  “But why make Ian healthier, stronger than ever if they intended to attack him?” Patrick said.

  “If the nanites are preventing his core from purging its energy, the stronger his core—”

  “The faster his core would overheat.” Dr. Mac grabbed his mug from the counter.

  “So if I’m following your science mumbo jumbo,” Patrick said. “He’s better off if his core is unhealthy.”

  Dr. Mac and Tara exchanged stunned looks, then rushed out of the kitchen. Dr. Mac shouted up the stairs, “Milo get Ian out of his boost, now!”

  Tara ran past him and sprinted up the staircase. “It could be killing him!” she yelled.

  They reached the room just as Milo stepped away from the bed with Ian cradled in his arms. The boost’s glow ceased and his room was pitched in darkness, lit by intermittent lightning flashes. “If not his boost, where?” Milo said gruffly.

  “The bathtub,” Tara said, gathering what was left of the ice blocks.

  “No,” Dr. Mac said. “It may be too close to the energy source of his boost. If we’re right, we have to keep him far away from all power sources, even the vortex in the foyer.”

  “Patrick’s wing. The guest room at the end of the hall,” Milo said. “And it has a bathroom.”

  “Put him in that tub.” Dr. Mac grabbed his medical bag.

  Patrick ran ahead and opened doors, then threw aside the shower curtain. Milo lowered Ian into the bathtub. “I’ll grab more ice blocks,” the old caretaker said.

  “I’ll help,” Patrick said.

  By the time Patrick returned, he didn’t have to ask how Ian was. The translucent skin had clouded, and the glow radiating from his chest appeared duller. Ian’s breathing wasn’t as labored.

  “Those sick bastards,” Milo muttered.

  “Ingenious, really,” Tara said. “The thing that heals him, kills him.”

  “Yeah, well, whoever this is, is one twisted fuck,” Patrick said.

  “We still don’t know for sure what the nanites are attacking, or how to reverse it,” Dr. Mac said, measuring Ian’s core with the gilded thermometer. “This may only slow down the inevitable.”

  “But buys us time to figure it out,” Patrick said. Tara withdrew her cell from her pocket. “Who are you calling?” Patrick asked.

  “Rayne.” Tara looked between the men as if daring them to stop her. No one objected. She punched in the number and held the phone to her ear. “If a healthy core is not in Ian’s favor—”

  “Rayne drain to the rescue,” Patrick said.

  “The Syndrion!” Ian grabbed Dr. Mac’s sleeve. “Gotta . . . keep them away.”

  “He’s right. If they show up, they’ll discover Rayne’s secret for sure,” Dr. Mac said.

  “If his condition deteriorates much more, they’ll be on our doorstep, invited or not.” Milo said.

  {14}

  Jaered stayed stock-still, listening for signs that the wolf had gained access to the greenhouse and had followed their scent to the tunnel entrance. He’d closed the hatch, but kept his ear to it. The rest of his mission hinged on staying under everyone’s radar.

  Vael waited in silence at the base of the ladder. When Jaered’s boot lowered for the next rung down, Vael released an audible sigh of relief. “That was close,” he said.

  “The wolf and I have a tolerance hate relationship, that’s pretty much stuck in hate.” Jaered reached the tunnel floor and slung his duffle off his shoulder. “If it wasn’t for the storm, I would have realized he was tracking us a lot sooner.”

  “How did you know about this tunnel?” Vael asked.

  Jaered removed a flashlight from his pack, then picked up the duffle by the handles. He turned on the beam and headed down the tunnel. “Eve has blueprints to the entire estate.”

  “How’d she get those?” Vael said.

  “It was among the items we stole a while back. Now quiet and let me think. I memorized our route, but I have to count off a few steps at each junction.”

  “Why?” When Jaered flashed the beam in Vael’s eyes, he squinted and threw his hands up. “Okay, mums the word.”

  “That’d be a fucking miracle.” At the first intersection, Jaered paused. He took the left tunnel and counted off five paces. When he flipped a switch on the flashlight, the white beam turned to ultraviolet. Crimson streaks crisscrossed at the height of their ankles and ended at each wall. The laser beam alarm system was two steps ahead. “See that?” Jaered said. Vael peered over his shoulder. “Don’t trip it.”

  “Gotcha,” Vael said. “Laser beams, bad.”

  They stepped over the beams and continued. Jaered navigated two more intersections and they came to the base of a ladder. It rose so high that the glow from Jaered’s flashlight couldn’t find the top. “We’re here,” he said and dropped the duffle.

  “Where’s here?” Vael asked, grabbing the flashlight and aiming it up the ladder. “We’re under the mansion, but where?”

  “Just chill.” Jaered slid down to the dirt floor and withdrew the receiver from the pack. He stuck the bud in his ear and dialed the switch until he picked up voices. He leaned against the tunnel wall and took a deep breath. So much could have gone wrong over the past few hours. Nearly did, when he missed taking his shot in Africa, but he hoped that enough of the serum was injected, and that Eve’s plan was back on track.

  This next phase was entirely up to the Pur doctor.

  “Now what?” Vael settled across from him. Jaered ignored the question, focused on the conversation on the other end. Vael kicked his boot. “Last time I checked, I speak the same language as you, dumbshit.”

  Jaered whipped out a handgun and pointed it at Vael. It held a fast-acting tranquilizer that Jaered was itching to use on the recruit. “Keep distracting me and you’ll get us both killed.” Jaered turned down the volume and rested the gun on his lap, but his finger wasn’t far from the trigger. “We’re waiting for another rebel to follow through on his end. Until then, all we have is time.”

  “What did you shoot the Heir with?” Vael asked.

  “Microscopic robots.”

  “Why?”

  Jaered weighed his words carefully. “They’re overheating his core. Once his core temperature reaches four hundred fifty degrees, he’ll burn up.” Jaered thought back to the human trial that he’d witnessed a few months earlier. “Literally.”

  “If you want him dead, why didn’t you just use a bullet?” Vael said. “Or is torturing a man to death the rebels’ way?”

  “We couldn’t
kill him outright,” Jaered said. “We had to do it in such a way, that his connection to the earth would disconnect.”

  Vael stared at Jaered and shook his head. “Earth is already on the road to self-destruction. Why take out the best defense this planet has?”

  “Earth’s Armageddon has already begun, there’s no stopping it. Eve has one goal. To ensure that as many as possible survive what’s coming. Sacrifice is inevitable.” Memories of Jaered’s wife bubbled to the surface, and he shut that door the second it opened. “Shit happens,” he snapped.

  “But the Prophecy,” Vael muttered.

  “Is about to be tweaked.” Jaered took his hand off the gun and turned up the volume on the receiver.

  {15}

  Rayne battled the storm and made it to the estate in record time. She let herself in through the garage but paused at the odor of burnt food and the mansion’s silence.

  She rushed up the steps, then stopped at voices coming from the east wing. “Tara?” Rayne called out. “Milo?”

  Tara stuck her head out of the room at the end of the hall and gestured. “Here.”

  At the deep creases of concern on Tara’s face, Rayne’s stomach lurched. “Ian?”

  “He’s alive, but barely,” Tara said. She gripped Rayne’s hand and led her past the empty guest bed to the adjoining bathroom.

  Dr. Mac, Milo, and Patrick were huddled inside the cramped space.

  Rayne took one look at Ian, submerged up to his neck in large chunks of ice, and stopped short. His normally dark-tanned skin was pasty and a bright glow came from his chest, magnified by the ice, lighting up the chunks like massive diamonds. An IV bag filled with a clear liquid hung from the overhead shower rod. It was attached to a port in the back of Ian’s hand. He appeared asleep. Patrick slipped past her to make room.

  She dropped to her knees beside the tub. “What happened?”

  Ian’s eyes fluttered. Heat rose while beads of perspiration dotted every inch of his exposed skin. “Rayne?”

  “I’m here, Ian,” she said. “I thought he couldn’t get sick. Why isn’t he in his boost?”

  “He was injected with nanites.” Dr. Mac sat on the closed toilet seat. He looked like he’d weathered a hurricane.

  “They’re causing Ian’s core to overheat,” Tara said.

  Rayne took in the mounds of thick chunks. “The ice—”

  “Slowing it down, but not stopping it,” Patrick said from the bedroom.

  “Who did this?” Rayne asked. Was it Aeros, or the rebels? She closed her eyes. Not Jaered, she hoped.

  “We don’t know for sure,” Milo said. “But my money’s on that bitch, Eve.”

  Rayne looked at Patrick. Had they been too trusting of Jaered? “What can I do?”

  “We need you to try and drain energy from his core,” Dr. Mac said. “Just a little, at first, to test it.”

  “You want me to touch him?” She shook her head at the thought of something so forbidden.

  “Here,” Dr. Mac said. He grabbed a towel, then removed Ian’s hand from under the ice and dried it.

  Touching Ian wasn’t just dangerous, it caused him incredible pain. Rayne gently cupped Ian’s hand in hers and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  Ian’s jaw tensed at the same time his breaths grew shallow and quick. His back arched and his chest rose above the water. His energy flowed through her, then dissipated where she knelt as if the floor sucked it out of her. A couple of seconds later, Rayne let go. Ian’s body relaxed and settled. She joined Tara at the doorway, making room for Dr. Mac, fearful she’d brush against the old doctor and drain him, too.

  A minute later, Dr. Mac pulled back and shook out the thermometer. “It made a dent,” he announced.

  “How much of a dent,” Milo growled.

  “Along with the ice, it’ll help buy us some time,” Dr. Mac said. “We’ll need to repeat it.”

  Rayne shook her head.

  “Better than the alternative.” Tara threw an arm around Rayne’s shoulders and led her away.

  Rayne stepped from the window and left Patrick to watch the storm’s wrath. She navigated around Saxon, sprawled on the bathroom floor like a rug, and then sat on the edge of the tub. A twinge of peace set in as she stroked the wolf’s coat while the whirring fan blew her hair across her face.

  It had been more than two hours and Ian wasn’t improving; he just wasn’t getting much worse. The holding pattern had frayed everyone’s nerves. Milo had come up with the idea of using dry ice and had shyfted to a nearby industrial gas plant to bring back sixty-pound blocks. The carbon dioxide gas from its melting forced them to use powerful fans. They had to leave the window open in the bedroom beyond, and the humidity had everyone dripping wet.

  Voices. The others had returned. “We may have a solution,” Dr. Mac announced.

  “There’s nothing we about it. It’s your idea. I want no part of it,” Milo barked. “There’s got to be something else.”

  “There isn’t,” Dr. Mac said. “I can’t treat what I don’t understand.”

  “If we can’t treat the cause, then we focus on stopping the symptom, Milo,” Tara said.

  “The dry ice is better than the regular ice,” Patrick said from the window.

  “The boy is dehydrating faster than I can pump fluids into him,” Dr. Mac said. “His body won’t be able to tolerate this holding pattern much longer.”

  “What’s your solution?” Rayne called out the open bathroom door.

  Tara stuck her head in. “We want you to drain Ian’s core.”

  “That’s what I’ve been doing,” Rayne said. “My torturing him isn’t getting us anywhere.”

  “We want you to drain . . . all of it,” Tara said.

  Rayne shot to her feet. “You can’t be serious.”

  “No!” Ian gasped. The icy water sloshed and the ice chunks clinked together. He made to sit up but in his weakened state, he slipped and collapsed back against the tub. His breaths came rapid, labored.

  “The nanites are winning,” Dr. Mac said. “Time is on their side.”

  “There’s got to be someone who knows more about these bugs than you,” Milo snapped.

  “I’ve reached out to the best scientific minds I know.” Dr. Mac growled. “I’ve been told that nanites are designed with a purpose. These are obviously attacking his core.”

  “Ian, in theory, if we shut your core off, they’ll die,” Tara said from beside the tub.

  Rayne shook her head. Her greatest fear was taking shape. Never, in her wildest nightmares, had she imagined it would be these people to ask this of her.

  “They left out the best part,” Milo muttered. “There’s no guarantee they can restart your core.”

  “It would take a tremendous energy source,” Dr. Mac said. “Perhaps, if we could modify his boost.”

  “What’s to stop the little buggers from resurrecting when Ian’s core is restarted?” Patrick asked.

  “We’re counting on them dying along with his core,” Dr. Mac said.

  “This is hogwash,” Milo said. “Nothing but theories.” He pointed a finger at Dr. Mac. “Have you ever known a core to be restarted?”

  Dr. Mac slowly shook his head. Milo stormed out of the bedroom.

  Sweat carved a path down Ian’s cheek at the same time a tear fell from Rayne’s. She leaned over the edge of the tub. “I won’t be the one that kills you,” she whispered. “I won’t.”

  Rayne stepped up to the balcony and listened to the argument coming from the foyer, below. She’d never known Tara and Milo to fight, much less disagree, about anything.

  Ian had said once, that desperation transforms people. How desperate would Rayne have to become, to kill the man she loved?

  Tara grabbed Milo’s sleeve. “Dr. Mac can’t leave Ian. Patrick can’t take me. I need you,” she yelled.

  He growled in her face, but Tara didn’t back down. A second later, he pulled back. “Don’t make me a part of this,” he said so soft that Rayne barely made o
ut his words.

  “He’s dying, Milo. It’s the scumbag who shot him. He’s the one who’s killing Ian. Not us.” She let go of his shirt. “But you can help us save him.”

  Rayne sniffed and blew her nose with a tissue.

  Milo looked up. “Are you going to be a part of this?”

  “I don’t want him to die,” Rayne said.

  “That’s not an answer.” Milo grunted

  “It’s the only thing I know for certain.” Rayne looked down at Tara. “If you convince me that you can bring Ian back, then I’ll help you.”

  Tara waved a slip of paper at Milo. “Then it looks like you’re taking me to Africa.”

  The caretaker grabbed the paper from her and read what was written on it. With a low, drawn-out growl, he grabbed her hand. An emerald burst. They were gone.

  Rayne returned to the guest bathroom and sat on the floor next to Saxon. She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her head against the tub. The cold of the porcelain bit into her cheek, but she ignored it as the fan whirred about the cramped room. Ian stirred.

  “Who shot you?” Rayne asked, fearful of the answer, but needing to wrap her head around the madness.

  Ian inhaled deep. “This reeks of Eve.” He took another deep breath. “And Jaered does her bidding.” Immeasurable pain and misery flowed from his dark eyes. From his physical torture, or the emotional toll, Rayne couldn’t guess.

  “I don’t know if I can do it,” she said. Tears dampened her cheeks and she didn’t wipe them, wanting Ian to see what she was unable to convey through words. How she ached to hold him and stop his pain, but was even more tortured at the thought of hurting him. “Ian, what should I do? But he closed his eyes, and didn’t respond.

  {16}

  Jaered’s knee wouldn’t stop bouncing. He scrambled to his feet with a tight hold on the receiver while his emotions ran amuck. Rayne’s nuances, pitch and inflection, everything about her voice was identical to Kyre’s. The last few hours were as if Jaered’s dead wife had been whispering in his ear.