by Keri Arthur
“Simple; they’re dated. These plans are over two years old.”
“Check the other cabinets.” Gabriel rose and walked over to the second melted cabinet. There wasn’t even anything that looked like a lock on this one; it was just one huge congealed mass of different metals. He glanced at the untouched cabinets; the gauge of steel used in them and the thickness of the doors suggested they were fireproofed, and he had no doubt these ones would have been as well. But what type of fire could so utterly destroy fireproofed cabinets in a matter of minutes? As far as he knew, not even firestarters were capable of creating a burn so fierce and hot in such a short space of time.
“The end cabinet has more recent projects,” Illie said into the silence.
The end cabinet was one of the few that hadn’t been ransacked. “Maybe our thief was working his way through the plans. Maybe he wanted the complete set of plans, past and present.”
“Good theory, except there are no plans for light or matter transmitters in this lot.”
“Then the thieves might have taken them.”
“If theft had been their goal, they could have gotten in and out without anyone being aware. So why set the fire? It makes no sense.”
“It does if they specifically wanted the destruction to be noted. Maybe it was some kind of message.” But what was it about the light-and-matter project they’d destroyed that they’d wanted to make such a point about? It was a question only Douglass could answer—and one he suspected she wouldn’t. “Anything else of interest in the cabinets?”
“A lot of projects marked unviable.” Illie slammed the cabinet door shut. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this.”
Gabriel had passed the bad feeling point a while ago. Now it was more of a sick certainty that something bad was about to happen. “Let’s head back upstairs and view the tapes. Then we’ll go interview the security personnel from last night.”
“I don’t think we’ll find much on the—”
A strident siren cut off the rest of Illie’s sentence. A muffled explosion rumbled in the distance, then the floor began to shake. Slowly at first, but with increasing intensity.
“Quake,” Illie said, calmly studying the ceiling as if searching for any sign of collapse.
Gabriel did likewise. Spider-like lines began to splinter across the concrete. Too quickly, he thought, and frowned. “I don’t think so.”
Another explosion vibrated the air around them. The siren cut off abruptly and the ensuing silence was almost eerie.
“I think we’d better get out of here, Stern.”
Gabriel didn’t reply. Wind stirred his hair, as if some unseen force was moving toward them. The back of his neck burned. Something was very, very wrong.
He lunged forward, grabbed Illie by the scruff of the neck and thrust him toward the nearest cabinet.
“Get in there, close the door and do not come out until I say it’s safe!”
“Have you gone mad?”
“The cabinets are fireproof.” The concrete bucked underneath him and Gabriel stumbled several steps backward before he regained his balance.
“Holy shit.” Illie’s mutter was etched with fear. “The back wall is melting.”
Gabriel glanced over his shoulder. Rivulets of concrete rushed toward them. A good third of the wall had melted, revealing a maelstrom of fire.
“Shut the door, damn you!”
Another explosion ripped through the air, followed quickly by a sharp crack. He glanced up and saw the cracks on the ceiling widening and joining.
Chunks of ceiling began to rain down as Gabriel dove for the nearest cabinet, hoping like hell it would hold against the approaching firestorm.
THREE
THE LOCKER SHUDDERED AS THE force of the storm hit. The walls began to burn, becoming too hot, too quickly. The air seethed with heat, and every intake of breath burned Gabriel’s throat and lungs.
He hunched in the middle of the locker and prayed that the thing would hold up long enough to ride out the storm. Sweat skated across his body, drying as fast as it appeared in the soul-sucking heat. He shifted his arm and licked several droplets before they could evaporate. It might not be much, but his mouth felt drier than the Sahara, and he knew he had to keep some moisture in his body or he wouldn’t survive.
His wristcom vibrated. It might have rung, too, only he couldn’t hear it against the whirlwind of fury battering the cabinet. He didn’t answer it. Couldn’t. He didn’t dare move, lest he touch the sides of the locker. They glowed with heat, and one touch could be deadly.
Two heartbeats later, the noise began to bleed away. Silence reigned for several more heartbeats, and then a hissing began—softly at first, but then gaining in momentum. Water began to seep into the locker.
The sprinklers. Some of them must still be active, despite half the ceiling coming down. He waited several more minutes, then cautiously touched the door. Hot, but not unbearable.
He turned the handle, but the door didn’t budge. He shoved harder. A crack of light appeared along one edge. Through it, he could see chunks of concrete, scattered about like some giant’s abandoned toys.
He shifted around until he could get his feet against the door, then pushed with all his might. The door buckled under the force he applied, but eventually the slabs of concrete moved enough that he could climb out.
Water misted the air, quickly soaking through his clothes. He lifted his face and closed his eyes, allowing the moisture to cool his skin.
Then he remembered his new partner. He quickly picked his way across the rubble to the locker that held Illie. The door moved slightly and relief swept through him. At least he hadn’t managed to kill yet another partner—though a tiny, callous part of his soul suggested that if death came in threes, then Illie’s might have freed him to partner with Sam.
But it was not the way he wanted to break the curse on his partners.
“Hang on,” he said. “There are several concrete blocks piled up against the door.”
He threw them to one side and forced open the locker.
Illie scrambled out, his face red and his suit stained black with sweat. “Now that was an experience I don’t care to relive!”
“Yeah, pretty awesome,” Gabriel muttered.
His wristcom rang into the silence—a shrill sound that made him jump. He tapped the screen and said, “Stern,” as he studied the mess that had once been a lab. What had probably saved them was the far wall; only a third of it had melted under the intense heat of the maelstrom. The rest had held, offering some form of protection.
Sam’s features appeared on the vid-screen, her blue eyes clouded with worry. “Gabriel? Are you okay?”
Gabriel swore softly and rubbed a hand across his eyes. He’d hoped that by shattering their working relationship, he’d break the psi bond that was growing between them. That obviously wasn’t going to happen—or maybe it was just too soon to have any real effect.
“Yeah, I’m fine, but I can’t talk now.”
It came out sharper than he’d intended, and the warm concern left her face, replaced by an iciness he’d seen all too often of late.
“Sure. Talk to you later.”
She signed off before he could say anything else. Way to go, he thought sourly. Continue speaking to her like that and she’ll definitely remain a part of your life.
“You know,” Illie said casually, “you really have fuck-all idea how to talk to a woman.”
“Shove it up your ass,” Gabriel muttered, then turned at the sound of footsteps.
Half a dozen men came into the lab, some carrying hoses and others medical equipment. Prepared for the worst, Gabriel thought.
“They’re surprised,” Illie muttered. “They didn’t expect to see us alive.”
“Relieved surprised, or annoyed surprised?”
Illie hesitated, studying the approaching white suits. “Relieved.”
So if this was a setup, these men didn’t know about it.
One
man separated from the pack, pulling off his breathing mask as he approached. “Assistant Director Stern? I’m glad to see you alive, sir!”
Gabriel glanced at the man’s name tag. “What the hell happened here, Rogers?”
“Near as we can figure, a chemical spill in the lab next door resulted in an explosion. You’re lucky to be alive, sir.”
Wasn’t that the truth. Though he had to wonder, if this was a trap, what had the military hoped to achieve? “Were there many casualties?”
Rogers nodded, his face bleak. “The security officer who escorted you down here, and the five scientists working in the lab.”
“Those were the scientists I couldn’t get a reading on,” Illie murmured. “The ones who felt wrong.”
“Indeed,” Gabriel said. And it would be worth ordering extra tests done on their remains, just to discover what was going on with them. And what they were.
“If you don’t mind,” Rogers continued, “I’ll have one of my men escort you down to the medical center, just to make sure that you’re both okay.”
Gabriel nodded. “And we’ll need to talk to the director again.”
“Once the doc’s given us clearance.”
“Let’s get it over with, then.”
Rogers motioned to one of his men and moved away. Gabriel glanced at Illie, noting his frown. “What’s wrong?”
“This is what they got us down here for,” he muttered. “So they can do tests—on you and your partner.”
Undoubtedly meaning his former partner, not his current one. “Who are you getting this from?”
“The small gent at the back. He was surprised when he first came in, then excited.” Illie met Gabriel’s gaze. “What’s so special about your former partner that this mob is willing to kill six people just to run some tests on her?”
The bigger question was, why did they continue with the tests when it was obvious his partner wasn’t Sam? What did they hope to achieve? Was it merely a means of getting rid of him and Illie? Though why would they do that, when it would only bring down closer scrutiny of their activities by the SIU?
“We don’t know.” And that was becoming more and more of a problem.
Rogers’s assistant approached. “If you’d like to follow me, gentlemen, we’ll get this over with as quickly as possible.”
No doubt they would. Without Sam, though, it was pretty much a pointless exercise—thankfully.
“They still want to test you, you know.” Illie muttered. “Something you did during the firestorm has excited that scientist.”
Gabriel frowned. “But I didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, you did,” Illie said. “You sensed what was happening early enough to save our lives.”
“Are you sure you’re reading him right?”
“Yeah. Positive.”
They approached a set of doors marked with a red cross. Their escort swiped a card and the doors slid open. How many med centers needed a security clearance to get into? Gabriel wondered. Why bother, unless the med center did more than simply patch up accident victims?
Whatever the military was up to, he’d just have to let it play out—for now. But the Pegasus Foundation and its director certainly needed closer scrutiny.
Their escort motioned them toward two well-padded chairs. Gabriel sat down and watched the man disappear through a second set of doors. “When we get back to HQ, I want you to do a complete background check on Kathryn Douglass.”
Illie nodded. “Including home security tapes?”
“If you can get them.” It would keep Illie off his back for a while, at least. In the meantime, he’d do a check of his own—on one General Frank Lloyd. There had to be information about the man somewhere.
His first priority, though, was Sam. Illie was right. If the military was willing to kill six men just to get the chance to examine her, it could only mean they had a fair idea about who and what she might be.
And that, in turn, made her current assignment even more dangerous.
If Hopeworth was behind this bombing attempt, they wouldn’t leave it at that. There would be more.
But he couldn’t watch Sam’s back twenty-four hours a day. Not without help. It was, Gabriel thought, time to arrange a meeting with his sister.
—
The shrill ringing of the telephone jerked Sam awake. She rubbed her eyes and glanced at the clock. It was just past eight in the evening. She must have dozed off while reading the riveting account of Wetherton’s life.
She blindly groped the coffee table behind the sofa arm and finally picked up her wristcom. “Yeah?”
“Samantha? Doctor O’Hearn here.”
O’Hearn was the nonhuman and rare species specialist she’d been sent to by Gabriel and Stephan. Apparently, if anyone could sort out precisely what she was, it would be this woman. A sliver of tension ran through her. Surely it was too soon to have reliable results back? She’d been told it could take months of checking and cross-checking. “Hi, Doc. What can I do for you?”
“I want your permission to discuss your case with Karl Morgan.”
Karl? Gabriel’s friend? “Sure, but why? Karl’s an herbalist healer. How would he be able to help?”
“He also happens to be the Federation’s resident expert when it comes to extinct races. I think he might be able to help make sense of some of these results.”
Obviously, O’Hearn had been unable to match the gene coding in the test samples with any known races if she was now considering extinct ones. Walkers were, apparently, a very rare race who were vaguely related to the vampires, without possessing their need for blood to survive. A race who could completely disappear into shadows. Become shadows, in fact. They also apparently had eyes just like hers—eyes that wavered between blue and gray. “Karl did say he suspected there might be walker blood in me, but he never got around to doing the tests.”
Mainly because he’d been blackmailed into handing her over to Jack, who’d wanted to use her emerging abilities to overthrow Sethanon.
“Yes,” O’Hearn said. “Gabriel mentioned Karl’s suspicions, which is why I want your permission to talk to him.”
“If it helps uncover what I might be, then sure, go ahead.” Sam hesitated. “Was there any match to what’s supposedly on my birth certificate?”
“Oh, yes. There are traces of shifter and changer, as I mentioned earlier. We’ve also pinpointed the partial code of the were-people. But there’s something else, something I’ve never seen before.”
If she had come from Hopeworth, that wasn’t altogether surprising. “I want to know the minute you come up with anything.”
“Of course.”
Sam hung up and yawned. What she needed was an early night. She shoved the folders to one side and got ready for bed.
Sleep came. So, too, did the dreams.
She was in a large, white room. Lights glared above her, their brightness as warm as the sun and almost as blinding. Sweat trickled down her face and her back. She was standing alone in that room, but she was being watched. Down at the far end was another room. Men in white stared at her from behind the safety of shatterproof glass.
Joshua was with them, his small form dwarfed by the doctors. Silent but not afraid. Josh was never truly afraid.
“Feel the heat. Draw it in,” the man with the dead gray eyes commanded.
Just hearing him speak made her shudder. Not because of the threat in his tone—though she knew from experience that threat all too often became reality—but because of what lay underneath his voice and his words. Evil soaked his very essence. Just being near him sickened her.
She looked at the fire, but she saw only flames, dancing brightly. She couldn’t do what he wanted. He was asking the wrong person.
“I can’t.”
The lights grew brighter, burning her skin as fiercely as the flames. She couldn’t back away, couldn’t move. They’d chained her down this time.
“Become one with the fire. Feel its power. Use its p
ower,” Gray Eyes said.
The urge to scream ran through her, but it wouldn’t matter to them if she did. It never mattered. Her gaze met Joshua’s.
You have to do something, or they’ll kill you, his voice whispered into her mind, calm despite the anger she could almost taste.
Fire is not my element.
No. They are fools who do not look beyond the obvious. But you have other abilities. Use those instead.
They’ll know. They’ll see the difference.
They know nothing about us, despite all their tests. Trust me, Samantha.
She briefly closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she stared at the fire burning fiercely in the pit three feet away. The flames shivered, as if dancing away from an unseen wind. Sweat tracked down her face, stinging her eyes. She ignored it, concentrating, drawing power up from the depths of her soul. From the ground itself.
The fiery mass rose from the pit and hovered in midair for several seconds. She glanced at the control room and saw Joshua step back, well out of harm’s way.
She smiled—a cold smile. A hateful smile. Aimed not at him, but at the men with him. The men who wouldn’t let them be, wouldn’t let them go.
The burning mass leapt across the arena and smashed through the control box’s glass. White coats scattered like confetti. Then the lights went out and the screaming began.
Laughter filled the air, mingling with the screams. Her laughter; Joshua’s laughter. Both of them old beyond their years and full of hate. The fire leapt from the men to the computers, and she realized he was feeding it, making it destroy the sensor readouts. Once again they would have no record of what had happened here today. Nothing more than the words of those who survived.
Josh, I’m chipped. They’ll kill me.
The flames died suddenly, sucked back into the void that had fed them. I know. It is not our time to escape yet. But when it is, they will taste the fires more fully.
The malevolence in his voice made her shiver…and she woke, a chill encasing her body. She ran a hand through her sweaty hair and stared at the ceiling for several seconds. Were the dreams memories trying to break free? Or simply the imaginings of a fertile mind?