The shockwave from the explosion was dampened by the water, but I was still thrown back into a tangle of roots. I tried to pull myself back to the surface, but I was snagged and my panicked movements only made it worse. Prickles of light exploded in my vision as I fought to keep my body from involuntarily taking a lungful of water.
My vision, already impaired by the dark water, started to go gray and fuzzy around the edges just as I felt something move past me and my legs were pulled free from the roots. Arms went around my waist and I rocketed back to the surface, inhaling a disgusting mixture of air, water, and swamp slime. I was hurled unceremoniously onto a stable, but quite spongy, piece of real estate, where I collapsed into a coughing, choking, and spitting up swamp fit, while Andre patted my back with a little more force than necessary.
“Th-thanks,” I choked out. “I owe you.”
“I’m pretty sure I owed you,” he said with a nervous smile. “Any idea how we get out of here?”
Another explosion rented the air and shook our unstable perch. I lifted my head to see where we were and groaned. “Carefully,” I replied. All around us, the jagged walls of the bunker rose up fifty feet or more. Just as I suspected, we were right in the middle of the pits. From above, I hadn't been able to see that the surface of the water was crisscrossed with tangled tree roots that formed precarious pathways. No more than fifteen feet from us, a pillar of flame shot up from the water's surface and singed the tree canopy.
“Not that way, I guess,” I said getting to my feet. “Can you run?”
“I can, but isn't this entire area rigged with traps?”
“Likely,” I replied, “but the bunker is collapsing and if we're stuck down here, we'll be drowned. That is, if the Gatormen don't get us first.” As if on cue, the water next to us broke with a violent splash and clawed hands narrowly missed gouging my face. I rolled out of the way just as one of the Gatormen lunged to the surface. I fumbled for a CPA, but before I could reach my weapon, he was flung violently backwards with an explosion that rocked the tree roots so hard that we nearly fell back into the water.
“What the hell is going on?” Andre yelled as the surface of the water suddenly erupted into churning waves of swamp algae and blood.
“Oh my god, the chimeras!” I shouted back with revulsion. “He rigged them to explode, just like the bunker! Andre, we have to move!”
Without regard to the possibility of traps, we flung ourselves along the path that led to the closest wall. Though we stumbled several times, by some miracle we managed to make it to the edge of the water.
“Great, now we just have to climb,” I muttered sarcastically. The cliff rose outward, creating an arc that jutted out above our heads.
“Not necessarily,” Andre remarked absently as he studied the formation. He reached his arm out and touched the rock face, but then continued forward until his hand disappeared completely. “Interesting,” he muttered before stepping forward and vanishing from view.
“Not funny, Andre!” I called out right before his disembodied hand reached out and pulled me through the wall.
“I can't believe the queen of illusions didn't catch that one,” he teased.
“Yeah, she was busy having a heart attack, thanks. This is interesting,” I remarked with a look in every direction at once. The cliff was not one single slab of rock, but rather several monolithic structures set together in a way to give the impression that it was a solid wall. Beyond that was a path of smooth stones that reached up to the ground above. “Now all we have to do is find the trap.”
“I don't think there is one here,” Andre said cautiously, while testing the path ahead. “Unless I'm wrong, this leads up to the western edge of what was the great house. I'm willing to bet that this is an access point for the house staff.”
I was still cautious, watching for odd shapes or pale stones as we climbed. Fortunately, Andre had been right and we reached the top without incident, though the constant rumblings of the imploding compound served to remind me that we were far from home safe.
As we picked our way over marsh and knotted tree roots, I explained to Andre about the network going down. I checked my phone again, surprised to see that it still worked after being submerged for so long, but the network was still down and there was no one within contact range.
“You figured out how to take communications offline?” Andre asked with an impressed whistle.
“Ingrid did, with some help from Anil. I know,” I said as he raised one eyebrow. “I was pretty impressed too. You might want to consider taking on an apprentice.”
“If we get out of here, I will do anything you say.” He stopped and stared at me for a moment before wrapping his arms around me. “I was so afraid I’d never see you again,” he whispered into my hair.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” I joked, but my voice was heavy with emotion.
“I’m not trying to,” he replied with a soft kiss. “Now let’s find a way out of this mess.” He checked the time and glanced up at the sky. “I was right, we’re headed west. If we keep going straight through, we’ll make it to the protected area. I’m sure we can call for help from there.”
We hiked in silence, both of us on our guard for traps as well as any mods or agency henchmen that might still be hanging around. I was pretty sure though, that there would be no chimeras, seeing as they probably all died at the same time as the Gatormen. I was also pretty sure that the agency bailed the moment the place began to blow. Behind us, smoke billowed and I wasn’t entirely sure that the vegetation hadn’t caught fire. I suddenly remembered Johnny and Lance’s conversation right before I fell down the chute.
“Uh, Andre, aren’t submarines nuclear powered?”
“Modern ones are, why?”
“I didn’t get to hear the whole conversation, but Johnny seemed pretty confident that the bunker you were trapped in was a submarine. If that’s the case, aren’t we being bombarded with radiation?”
“If there was a nuclear meltdown, we would have died before we made it out. There’s no way that was a submarine. First of all, even if Bluebeard had access to one, how would he get it this far inland?”
“Good point.” I hadn’t considered that. I’m pretty sure the military might have noticed a nuclear submarine tooling down the Mississippi.
“I think Johnny might have been mistaken. It looked to me more like a Cold War era fallout shelter. Specs for those have been available for decades.”
“Well that’s a load off. I was worried we were going to end up with some mutant superpowers.” Andre raised his eyebrows at that. “I mean more mutant superpowers,” I said with a laugh. “I’m cool with the ones I already have.”
“Hang on,” Andre said and stopped. “Do you hear that?” A low, steady rumble had started somewhere in the distance and began to grow louder the further we walked.
“Is that a helicopter?” I asked.
“I think it’s a lot of helicopters. We need to head for the tree line.”
The rumbling grew louder. Just as we made it to the tree line, the sky darkened and the wind picked up. I turned my head skyward just in time to see the fleet of sleek black helicopters materialize over the trees, flying toward what was left of the bunker. Unfortunately, the resulting windstorm also kicked up a ton of dust that got in my eyes and caused me to stumble blindly for a moment.
“Lucy, stop!”
I spun wildly and rubbed the dirt from my eyes just in time to see my foot land on a flat white stone that had been uncovered. I had just enough time to look up at Andre in horror before I was picked up off my feet by an invisible punch to my midsection.
“Ugh, what was that a cannon ball?” I tried to stand, but the sudden burning pain in my stomach made me crumple to the ground in agony.
“Lucy, don’t try to move!” Andre was suddenly on his knees in front of me, all of the color had drained from his face. I looked down to see how bad it could be and screamed again. Protruding from my abdomen, wa
s the last few inches of a thick metal crossbow bolt.
“Oh no, not again,” was all I got out before I fainted.
Chapter 33
As I floated towards consciousness, I was inundated with muffled static, as if someone was trying to tune into a radio station that was just out of range. Over the low hum of white noise, individual voices surfaced and I realized I was in a moving vehicle. The heavy and dull ache in my abdomen, as I tried to sit up, was a reminder of how I had gotten there, wherever there was.
More important than where was who. With the fog lifted from my vision, I tensed at the sight of several soldiers in black armored uniforms surrounding me.
“Miss, please do not try to move. You have sustained a serious injury and we are taking you to safety.” I stared at the young soldier in disbelief and horror. I couldn't believe he thought I was dumb enough to trust him.
“Get the fuck out of my face before I tear yours off your skull,” I growled menacingly.
“Lucy, hold up! Evan, I'll call you back.” Andre suddenly appeared at my side, snapping shut an old-fashioned flip phone. “We're okay, babe, these are National Guards.” I threw him a look that hopefully conveyed my skepticism. “And, uh, they weren't told anything about you being a you-know-what, so you might want to get rid of the, uh...” he whispered while making a pointy gesture around his mouth.
“Huh? Oh.” I ran my tongue over the pointy edges of my canines. “Sorry,” I whispered back. “What happened? I mean, after I…” I ran my hand over my stomach. The bolt was gone. “How did the national guard get here?”
“A long story, but the short version is that Evan's been pretty busy since the network went down and the agency is no longer. We will be landing in about five minutes. I'm sure we'll be briefed after Abe gets done poking at us.”
“Landing?” I sat up fully, ignoring the pain in my abdomen, and saw that we were indeed flying. I'm not sure how I missed the deafening roar of the engine and propeller of the helicopter we were in.
“Be careful!” Andre admonished. The guardsmen closest to me looked as if I had just come back from the dead. I suppose from their point of view, I kind of did. My uniform shirt had been removed and there was a pretty big hole in my t-shirt. Though the black material masked the amount of blood, I knew from the infernal itch that I had lost a lot. Gingerly, I peeled away the sticky material and wad of gauze to survey the damage. Aside from an angry red spot about the size of a baseball, there was no evidence of the inch-thick bolt that went nearly through me.
“How the hell did she do that?” the soldier sputtered, looking to Andre for an explanation.
“She’s a quick healer,” he answered briskly and turned a stern eye on me. “Lucy, at least lie down and look injured before we have a lot more questions to answer.”
“Fine,” I grumbled and lay back down on the stretcher.
A few minutes later, we landed on the roof of EJC Research, where I allowed myself to be lifted by a couple of soldiers and transferred into the care of our own doctors. As soon as I was in the building and out of view, I jumped off the stretcher, intending to march into Evan’s office and find out what was going on.
“Oh no you don’t, missy!” Abe grabbed my arm with a surprisingly strong grip.
“Dang, Abe! Have you been working out?” My joke was met by a deadpan glare. “Oh come on, you know I’m fine!”
“I know you appear fine, but I’d be a terrible doctor if I assumed your internal injuries healed just because those on the surface did. You’re at least getting a few x-rays.”
I grudgingly followed Abe down to medical and sat patiently through the useless procedure. After fifteen useless minutes of lying in a tube, without even my phone to keep me occupied, I was allowed at least to clean up the blood on my stomach before hearing Abe’s diagnosis.
“Your injuries do not appear to have caused any permanent damage,” Abe explained, “but you see that dark area? You've got a lot of blood sitting in your stomach right now. It has to come out. We can let it drain naturally, but I suspect you'll feel better a lot sooner if I give you an emetic.”
I won't go into detail about what an emetic was, but after drinking a cup of syrupy liquid, I spent ten minutes recreating every demon possession scene in every movie ever. But I did feel a lot better. Abe still insisted on keeping me under observation for a few hours, which was maddening, but apparently, Evan wasn't even in the state at the moment. From the tidbits I had overheard, I gathered that he had been flown to Washington. Whether this was a good or bad thing, I did not know.
I was more than a little surprised to see everyone acting as if everything was normal. I would have expected some chaos, at the very least, and mentioned this to Abe.
“We're currently linked into the municipal power grid. Believe me, there was a half an hour or so that was terrifying. Especially for those like Hugh, who are dependent on medical machinery at the moment.”
“Wait, what are you saying? I just thought the network went down.”
“The network, the power generation matrix, the security infrastructure; all of it. We were hacked from the inside, Lucy,” Abe explained grimly.
“How?” I started to ask and stopped. “Dodd, we knew he was a plant! How did he do it though? Secured quarters don't have network access.”
“No, they do not. I'm not an expert by any means, but from what Mike said, the virus was genius in that all it required for proliferation was access to an electrical outlet. Mike thinks it might be days before we can bring our own power grid back online. Of course, now that Andre’s back he’ll be working on it as well. I suspect that’s where he ran off to.”
“You know it was,” I said with a smile. “He’s surprisingly in good shape considering how I found him. But maybe that’s not so surprising, you know, considering he has my blood.”
The elevator announced the arrival of Johnny, Saba, Ingrid, and Isaac. By their appearance, they had only just made it back from the plantation.
“Hey, what took you so long?” I joked.
“Hey yourself! Some of us didn’t get a fancy helicopter rescue,” Ingrid replied and stuck out her tongue. I was glad to see she had lost the balaclava and accepted that her face wasn’t as bad as she thought.
“Yeah well you weren’t shot with a crossbow bolt either.” I held out my crusty shirt to display the jagged hole.
“Well okay, no, but we were damned lucky. I almost went down a sinkhole and Lance tangled with a couple of those swamp things.” Ingrid shivered. “Did you know Bluebeard programmed their implants to explode upon his death as well? It was pretty awful. If we hadn’t gotten all those kids out…” She shuddered again.
“Yeah, we were in the pits when it happened,” I replied. I hadn’t thought about it, but she was right. If we hadn’t gotten the implants out of those kids in time, there’s no telling what could have happened.
The elevator opened again and Lance arrived looking rather solemn. He had a few scrapes across his face and arms, but he didn’t appear to be seriously injured.
“I signed Carlos over to Vickie,” he told Abe heavily. “She’s awaiting your call. Edgar’s going out to inform the family in person.” Everyone’s mood sobered with Lance’s words.
“Thank you, Lance. I’ll inform Vickie to suspend her investigation until we find out what the family wishes,” Abe said and turned to the rest of us. “I’ll be back in a moment. I’d appreciate it greatly if you all stayed here until I return. At least stay in the ward.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to see my son,” Saba said quietly, but with force.
“He’s back in observation with Cynda.”
After Saba and Johnny left, Isaac turned to me and smiled. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you safe.”
“You too,” I replied, hugging him tightly. “I’m so glad this is finally over.”
“You know, I think it’s time I retired this look.” He pulled back and closed his eyes. I watched in fascination as his skin
darkened to a deep bronze and his hair darkened to a raven black, peppered lightly at the temples with strands of silvery gray. Though he no longer shared an immediate resemblance to me, I didn’t mind. This was the face of the man my mother had loved, though the gray hair gave him an aged, fatherly quality that I suspect was for my benefit. “After your mother died, I quit the force and vowed never to wear this face again.”
“I think she’d be happy to know you changed your mind,” I said with a teary smile.
“I’ve been thinking about going back into police work,” he said thoughtfully. “I use to worry that someone would catch on to the fact that I was a vampire, especially after we started working with Evan. Since I don’t have to worry as much about that anymore, I thought it might be a good way to make myself useful in these uncertain times.”
“I think that’s a great idea. Though you never know, you might be needed here. As you said, we are certainly headed into the unknown.”
The elevator opened again and this time Andre strode into the lobby, carrying a pile of small cardboard boxes, emblazoned with the logo of a local cellular company. He set them on a desk and pulled me into a gentle hug. “I take it Abe gave you the all clear?”
“Only after he made me vomit up all the blood in my stomach. Want a kiss?” I said with a wicked grin.
“I’ll take a rain check,” he said with a wink. He turned sheepishly to Isaac. “With your permission, of course, sir.”
“It’s not my permission you need, Andre. But son, if you call me sir again I’ll make sure Lucy hears every embarrassing ‘Little Andre’ story I have in my arsenal.”
The Eyes of the Sun: The Complete Trilogy Page 61