Soul Deep: Dark Souls, Book 2

by Anne Hope

  Marcus and Regan exchanged knowing glances. Marcus nodded his agreement. “Makes sense. That’s why he’s abducting humans in pairs—a male and a female.”

  The Great Flood. Noah’s Arc. Could it be? Faced with the looming threat of the Apocalypse, had Kyros taken it upon himself to artificially produce life? Did the bastard’s God complex extend that far? Or did he have something even more sinister in mind?

  “He’s harvesting souls,” Jace said, a greasy feeling sprouting in his stomach.

  Regan cursed. “The guy’s completely off his rocker.”

  Marcus’s eyes blazed with barely contained hatred. “Kyros has always suffered from delusions of grandeur. He feared his father, and that’s the only thing that kept him in line. Now that Athanatos is gone, he’s free to live out his sick fantasies.”

  Regan raised her blade, her back straightening. “We have to find these people and set them free, then burn this place to the ground.” She marched to the door, only to stop dead in her tracks. “Shit. They know we’re here.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Marcus withdrew his dagger and went to stand beside Regan, his skin crawling at the onslaught of dark energy spilling through the corridors, fast approaching. “There are about a dozen Kleptopsychs headed this way,” he guessed, “but I think we can take them.” He turned to Jace. “Especially if you can convince a few of them to fight on our side.”

  “I’ll give it my best shot.”

  They all exchanged bolstering glances. “Ready?” Marcus asked the others, who each nodded in turn. “Let’s go.”

  They burst from the room to find the hallway infested with Kleptopsychs.

  “I have to warn you,” Jace said. “They’ve recently gotten their hands on a shitload of angel’s blood, so don’t let their blades cut you.”

  Marcus wasn’t surprised. He’d already guessed Kyros was getting a little divine intervention. “Could’ve told us that a little sooner,” he grumbled as their enemies charged.

  Vicious blades slashed the air with lethal precision. Marcus ducked and countered, relying on his strength and agility. Regan pulled one of her fancy disappearing acts. Jace opted for a more subtle approach, using his opponent’s mind against him. As for Lia, she made sure to cut down any Kleptopsych that came within striking distance. Every time one of their enemies fell, their carcass spat out intense light and black smoke. The light—souls that had yet to be extinguished—was quickly reabsorbed by the others, strengthening them. The black smoke rose like a cloud to hinder their visibility.

  Marcus and the others worked as one, parrying and countering, deflecting each attack, even as they slid in to deliver the killing blow.

  “I’ve missed this,” Regan intoned, the smile in her voice unmistakable as she sliced a Kleptopsych in half. “Just like old times.”

  It wasn’t nostalgia that pumped through Marcus’s system but renewed purpose. For the first time in days, he felt he was part of something again. Something noble, vital and essential. Something that made his blood come alive and fueled his determination.

  “I’ve had just about enough of this,” Jace said. “Hey, you four over there.” He gestured to the group of Kleptopsychs standing to his right. They were downright huge, with thick arms and even larger blades. Slow to move and low on the talent scale, they didn’t look like much of a threat, but they did have the benefit of mass on their side. “I’ve just declared you honorary Watchers. Take care of these guys for us, will you?”

  Like well-trained zombies, they turned on their buddies, mowing them down with the force of bulldozers. Taking advantage of the commotion, not to mention the staggering surprise this sudden mutiny elicited in the Kleptopsychs, Marcus and the others disentangled themselves from their attackers and slipped away.

  “Nice work.” Marcus didn’t make a habit of praising Jace, but he’d never seen the guy manipulate four Kleptopsychs at once, and props had to be given when they were deserved.

  Jace, who’d obviously inherited Regan’s inability to take a compliment with grace, rounded his eyes in mock surprise. “Guess they were wrong. Looks like every so often, it does snow in hell.”

  Marcus made a mental note never to compliment the guy again. Following the signature that had led him here, he guided the others through the building. They passed a series of rooms inhabited by haggard, emaciated, nearly catatonic patients.

  Regan swung the doors open, urging the prisoners to escape, but none of them moved. They seemed nailed in place, riveted to their beds by an invisible weight.

  “Kyros planted an anti-flight suggestion,” Marcus informed her. “They won’t leave. They can’t.”

  Regan turned to Jace, her voice stretched thin by urgency and compassion. “Can you undo it?”

  Deep creases marred Jace’s forehead. “I can try.”

  For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then one by one, the victims seemed to come out of their trance. “Go,” Jace ordered. “Get out of here.”

  “They’ll never get past the guards.” Lia reminded him. “We need to escort them out.”

  “You two go ahead,” Marcus said. “We’re not done here yet.”

  Jace’s hackles rose. Marcus recognized the signs—the stiff shoulders, the tight, thin mouth, the hard angle of his jaw. Cutler had more of Regan in him than either of them knew, and his next words confirmed it. “No way we’re leaving the two of you alone in here.”

  “Someone needs to take these people to safety and erase their memories,” Marcus insisted, “and we both know no one’s better equipped for the job than you.”

  Indecision contorted Jace’s features. He’d just managed to track his mother down, and now he had to leave her in the middle of a war zone with a man he didn’t fully trust. Marcus understood his dilemma, even respected him for it.

  A young woman hobbled out of one of the rooms, her long, blond hair matted, mascara caking her cheeks. She wore a nondescript hospital gown, but Marcus knew instantly this was the prostitute he’d tracked here.

  “He killed her,” she sobbed. “He killed Mandy. Emptied her like a glass. The way she looked—” She began to shake uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face, hands clasped over her heart. “The way the light went out of her eyes.” She wagged her head compulsively, as though trying to shake loose the images lodged in her mind.

  Lia approached her and placed a comforting hand on her arm. “Are you Jewel?”

  The girl nodded. She looked so young. Marcus guessed she couldn’t have been more than seventeen.

  With a pleading look directed at Jace, Lia wrapped a supportive arm around Jewel. “We’ve come to take you home.” The tone of her voice was so reassuring, the girl relaxed, but the tears continued to flow.

  A frustrated sigh exploded from Jace. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you people as far away from this place as possible.” He gave Regan a pained look, one brimming with a potent blend of worry and affection, as though he knew he might never see her again. “You watch out for yourself.”

  A barely noticeable nod was Regan’s only response. It didn’t take a mindreader to know her heart was breaking, only someone who knew her inside and out. Placing an encouraging hand on her shoulder, Marcus pulled Regan away as Jace and Lia left to escort the prisoners to safer ground.

  “Why are we still hanging around Dr. Monroe’s Island?” she asked, tossing a yearning glance over her shoulder. “Wasn’t the goal to get the prisoners out?”

  “I sense something down the hall. Something I can’t identify. We need to find out what it is, then destroy this place and everything in it.”

  Regan followed as he weaved his way through what had once been the nurse’s station. At the end of the hall, two large stainless-steel magnetically sealed doors blocked their path. Beyond the metal barrier, a pulsing mass of conflicting energies buzzed, bright and compelling. Marcus tried to separate the layers of energy and identify the individual signatures that composed it, failed. Tunneling his vision didn’t prove any more
successful.

  “What’s in there?”

  “Not sure, but whatever it is, it’s powerful.” He focused his thoughts in an attempt to unbolt the lock. “There’s some kind of shield around the door. I can’t manipulate the lock.”

  “Good thing I’ve got no use for doors.”

  One look at her determined face and he knew what she was planning. Protectiveness surged within him, as did a wave of resistance. “You don’t understand. Whatever’s keeping me from peering inside may very well interfere with your ability to fold space. Worse, you could end up trapped in there.” Shields were a tricky business, sometimes erected to keep intruders out, other times designed to keep them in, and this one was like nothing he’d ever come across before.

  “I have to try. Kyros might be in there.” He recognized the stubborn set of her jaw, the steel conviction in her eyes. She wouldn’t be dissuaded. Not when the end was finally in sight. Her desire to protect Ben outweighed any concern she may have had for her own safety.

  “Then take me with you.” He didn’t particularly enjoy her way of travel, but the thought of letting her venture into that death trap without him, completely oblivious to the dangers that might lurk on the other side of those doors, crushed his heart to the size of a small stone.

  “I thought you’d never ask.” Grasping his hand, she gave his palm a passionate squeeze. In that instant, the barriers between them crumbled, and he saw straight into her soul. A soul he’d never believed in, but which oddly mirrored his own. He knew then that no one was planting ideas in his head, that his feelings for her were as real as the air he breathed, that no one existed on this earth who completed him the way she did.

  A small pleat formed between her brows, and her eyes darkened to the shade of burnt honey. Her lips moved, but he barely made out the word. Strangely enough, it sounded like sorry.

  Then she released his hand and folded space, leaving him standing alone in a deserted corridor, while she recklessly explored a hermetically sealed room he had no way of breaching.

  Regan materialized on the other side of the doors to find herself within a steel laboratory. The place appeared empty, but there was a sinister aura about it, as though something cold, slimy and invisible caressed her, sending a series of chills skittering along her spine.

  Marcus was probably fuming right now, but she’d had no choice but to leave him behind. She’d tried to teleport them both and failed, so she’d decided to go at it alone, fully expecting to hit a brick wall again. When she managed to safely slip past the shield, a trill of excitement resonated within her.

  There was a chance Kyros was somewhere in this lab. If he really was here and she succeeded in destroying him, Ben would finally be safe. Now that she was so close, how could she possibly walk away simply because Marcus didn’t trust her to handle the situation alone?

  With her weapon poised and ready, she crept through the lab, examining petri dishes and syringes, strange equipment similar to those found in the insemination room, and a collection of clear ten-gallon plastic tanks filled with liquid, which were connected to two large machines. Something the size of a lima bean floated within each tank.

  The sight was so creepy, she half expected to see Dr. Frankenstein toiling away in an obscure corner of the lab, fiddling with severed body parts. As she drew closer, she lowered her face and peered inside the tanks, only to recoil in shock.

  Holy frigging crap.

  The lima beans had eyes, not to mention arms and legs. A crushing wave of understanding swamped her senses. Kyros was growing human embryos. This place was some kind of farm, complete with state-of-the-art equipment and artificial wombs. If her skin had been crawling before, it was downright slithering now.

  She had to let Marcus know. This was far bigger than either of them had ever anticipated. She bit down on her panic and attempted to teleport herself out of the lab. She only made it as far as the steel doors. Marcus was right. The shield was somehow interfering with her ability to fold space. She could move within these metal walls, but not beyond them.

  She tried to unbolt the locks, failed. From the looks of it, the doors could only be opened with a special key card. Shit. She was trapped, sealed in as effectively as the fetuses floating in the tanks. Her pulse galloped out of control.

  There had to be another way out of here. She couldn’t give up. At the end of the lab, a second door stood. She raced toward it and pried it open, only to find yet another laboratory on the other side, even freakier than the last. Humans were lined up on stretchers, enclosed in blue-tinted, semi-transparent capsules that were hooked to a large ball in the center. Their life-forces were faint, their heartbeats even weaker. It didn’t take an expert to know they were at death’s door. The strange ball pulsated with an odd, hypnotic energy, as though it was sucking the life out of the people hooked to it.

  A sinking sadness gripped Regan. For the first time, she understood Cal’s obsession, his unrelenting fear. Given free rein, the Kleptopsychs would destroy mankind, squeeze every drop of goodness from the world and turn the earth into a frenzied feeding ground. Whatever light remained would dwell within this lab, glowing, gyrating, inside a sinister sphere.

  If this wasn’t the definition of pure evil, she didn’t know what was.

  Kyros had to be stopped. The question was, did she have the strength to do it, regardless of the cost? Could she sacrifice Ben for the sake of millions? The tightening sensation in her chest, the slow burn in her stomach, told her she couldn’t. The boy mattered too much to her. He was an innocent who’d placed his trust in her, and he deserved to be protected. She couldn’t live with herself if she was forced to betray him. There had to be another way.

  But first, she had to get out of the twilight zone and back to reality.

  There were no windows, the walls and floors were lined with blue sheets of metal reminiscent of the capsules, and she couldn’t see a single vent she could pry open and squeeze through.

  She returned to the steel doors and examined the electronic pad attached to the wall. If only she could will it to open.

  “Leaving so soon?”

  The smooth, silky voice made icy sweat spring from Regan’s pores. She pivoted around to find herself staring at the most grotesque creature she’d ever seen. Long, jet-black hair framed a warped face. A fine web of blue veins crisscrossed the woman’s olive-toned skin, and her almond-shaped eyes stood out in sharp contrast. Eyes that were oddly familiar.

  “Diane.”

  “Forgive me if I can’t recall your name,” Diane purred. “But I do know this—you stink of the Watchers.” Hatred shone in her dark eyes, a steely glint perfectly befitting this room.

  “You’re wrong. I’ve recently gone rogue. The Watchers are hunting me.”

  A twisted smile curled Diane’s lips. “Nice try, but you’re still a Hybrid. That alone makes you offensive to me.”

  Regan’s gaze fell to the keycard hanging from Diane’s neck. If she distracted the creature long enough, maybe she could snatch it from her. “Nice little operation you’ve got going here.” Moving away from the doors, Regan pretended to study the embryos.

  Diane’s predatory eyes never wavered, tracking her every move with a calculating gleam. “I’m quite pleased with the results. I placed my faith in the wrong man,” she confessed. “Athanatos was powerful, true, but Kyros is the one with vision. Soon, humans will be obsolete.” She circled the tanks, her lab coat sighing as it brushed her hips, her expression gliding between greed and anticipation. “We will grow them in this lab, then transfer them to the extraction room, where they will be relieved of their souls.”

  Regan wandered toward the so-called extraction room, with Diane following close behind. The steel walls gleamed with a blue sheen. Regan touched her palm to the cold metal, felt energy hum along her flesh. She’d never seen steel like this before.

  “The walls are coated with ink infused with a special metal alloy,” Diane explained. “It’s a new substance Kyros had develo
ped especially for our purposes. It forms a magnetic shield around the lab and keeps all forms of energy from escaping. Nothing can leave this room once the door is secured in place.”

  So that was why she was able to get in but couldn’t get out. It all made sense now.

  “It’s pure genius, don’t you think?”

  Genius wasn’t exactly the word Regan had in mind. She was tempted to say something lame like, “you’ll never get away with this”, but based on what she’d seen so far, Kyros and Diane were well on their way to doing just that.

  “You’ve really thought this through,” she said instead.

  “Down to the last detail. For instance, that sphere over there is waterproof.” Diane indicated the soul extractor with a nod of her head. “The entire lab could flood and it wouldn’t damage it.”

  A really bad feeling seized Regan’s gut. She was well aware of Diane’s ability to control water. It was Diane who’d flooded the Rivershore Hospital less than a year ago, killing thousands.

  With impressive speed, Regan charged Diane, reaching for the key card. Unfortunately, the nurse anticipated the attack and countered with a hard shove. Regan stumbled back into the lab, losing her balance when her foot connected with one of the gurneys. She landed on her rear end with an ungraceful thud.

  “Enjoy your swim.” A vicious smile contorted Diane’s already monstrous face, and this one was obviously heartfelt. Her chocolate brown eyes darkened to a frightful shade of black.

  Regan scrambled for the exit, but Diane was faster. The bitch slammed the door shut, sealing her in. Before Regan could gulp down another breath, water began to spew from the faucets, cold and deadly.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Of all the stupid, reckless things Regan had done, this one topped the list. Marcus spat out several curses as he searched the building for another way into the room, fear and worry conspiring to tangle his gut. The woman had about as much sense as a lemming. With her, it was one suicidal move after another, as though she believed her immortality made her invincible.