Aether (The Shadowmark Series Book 2)

by T. M. Catron

  “If Condar wishes me dead, I won't run from their judgment as you have done.”

  “But wouldn’t you rather die in honor—the honor of having exposed Doyle for what he is? Then you can die anytime, knowing you hadn’t allowed the worst traitor of all to live.”

  Apparently Halston had run through his argument many times. Calla's desire for loyalty was well-known. She ran her finger over her sharp blade. “Again, I ask why you care. Answer truthfully.”

  “Because Doyle is setting himself against all of us. How powerful will he grow, do you think?”

  Calla could not answer. But she had seen the way he piloted the Factory—a feat no normal hybrid could accomplish. And how did he get his power? “It’s true Doyle may become very powerful if no one were to stop him,” she said. She put away her knife.

  Halston smiled again.

  Then Calla lunged, hands outstretched. She caught him in the chest, fingers digging through his clothing and flesh. She grabbed his ribs, twisting and squeezing. They snapped. Calla shoved the bones up into his chest, ripping through soft tissue.

  Halston screamed—a piercing yell in the night, one long note of anguish. As he fell back, Calla fell with him, breaking through into his chest cavity, cutting off his cry as she pierced a lung. He fought her, but already his body grew weak.

  Calla smiled as Halston lay dying, her hands still inside his warm body, her fingers wrapped around the frantically beating heart muscle. “I have considered your request,” she panted, “and thank you for the information. To repay you, I’ll kill you more quickly than you deserve. Just know that Condar will reward me for my loyalty. I am the last of the loyal hybrids. I know because I killed all the others. I killed them myself.”

  Halston’s eyes grew wide.

  “And when I have brought Doyle to justice, he will receive a fate worse than yours. Condar will be grateful.”

  And Calla squeezed.

  Day 110 Awake

  LINCOLN WOKE UP SLOWLY WITH a stiff back and legs that refused to move correctly. The overcast morning dawned like his body, slowly and without cheer. He checked his arm, which itched unmercifully and oozed clear liquid. He needed medicated cream and steroids. No, he needed his bed at his apartment. He was tired of sleeping on the ground, of waking in pain, of convincing himself everything would get better. But his apartment was gone. Everything was gone.

  “Okay, Lincoln?” Alvarez spoke quietly, peering at him from the other side of the fire pit.

  Lincoln covered the rash with his sleeve. “Other than being miserable, I’m fine.”

  She left her spot and sat next to him. “Carter thinks we should leave. Judging by the dirty looks you got last night, I think he’s right. We don’t belong here. These people are too bitter.”

  “What about Solomon?”

  “I think we’re just causing him trouble if we stay. What do you think?”

  “I’m past knowing what to think. I’m tired, bruised, tired, hungry, and tired.”

  “You’ve been through a lot.”

  “So have you. And it seems to me that rather than moving on, we need to find a way to make this work. I’m surprised Carter doesn’t feel the same.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t know what to think.”

  “It just came to me when I realized how tired I was.” He rubbed the rash beneath his sleeve even though he knew he shouldn’t. “Carter told me last night about finding Schmidt.”

  Alvarez looked away, toward the hotel. Lincoln followed her gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Not your fault.”

  “You okay?” He sucked at being comforting. He half-thought about putting his arm around her shoulders. But really, she wouldn’t want to touch his poison ivy rash. So he patted her hand. She squeezed it in response.

  A man walked around the tents, away from the hotel, the light just enough for Lincoln to see he carried a rifle and backpack.

  Alvarez turned to him. “So you think we should—”

  Lincoln put a finger to his lips and pointed. The man crossed the parking lot and disappeared up the wooded slope behind the hotel. A minute later, three women, armed and carrying packs, followed him into the trees.

  “Iverson’s crew,” said Alvarez. “Less one. Looks like they’re leaving.”

  “Who’s Iverson?” Lincoln asked. The name sounded familiar.

  While Alvarez filled him in on what she knew, Lincoln watched the mountain behind them.

  “It’s uncanny how they play cards,” she said. “Almost like they can read each other’s thoughts.”

  “What?”

  Alvarez laughed and shook her head. “It’s ridiculous, of course.”

  He thought a moment. “Remember what I told you about Halston, Baker, and Doyle?”

  “Yeah, but that was a little ridiculous too.”

  Lincoln frowned. “But we both had the same thought about two different groups of people.”

  “It’s a bit far-fetched.”

  “What did you say a few months ago? Many things are now possible that were once impossible?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And we have aliens on Earth.”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded toward the woods. “Maybe they're among us.”

  Alvarez stared hard at Lincoln. “Are you serious?”

  “Maybe.”

  The camp stirred with the daylight.

  “But they look like ordinary people,” she said. “How do you explain that?”

  “I can’t. Something just doesn’t fit. Do you think the invaders have spies?”

  Alvarez sighed. Lincoln rubbed his arm again, then dropped his hand and picked up a piece of gravel, toying with it.

  “If we did suspect something strange,” said Alvarez, “what would we do about it?”

  “Do?”

  “You can’t just say aliens are among us and then leave it!”

  “Did I mention I was tired?”

  “But think about it—Halston could open the silo.”

  “Right.” Lincoln ran a hand through his beard. He really needed a shave. “Right. Iverson. I just remembered where I heard that name.”

  “Where?”

  He lowered his voice. “Right before he killed her, Doyle accused Baker of tipping off Iverson about the drawings.”

  “So Iverson took the drawings?”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “I’m going to wake the others.”

  “Just a minute.” Lincoln put a hand on her arm. “What is our purpose here?”

  She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “I mean, will it do any good to tell people?”

  Alvarez, halfway to her feet, sat down again. “People need to protect themselves.”

  “I agree. But from whom? How do we know there aren’t more spies, or whatever they are?”

  “Meaning we could be warning people who already work for the invaders.”

  “Exactly. We have no way of knowing who’s on our side.”

  Nelson woke, followed by Carter. Alvarez looked like she was bursting to tell them about their suspicions, then glanced at Lincoln. He shrugged. Neither said anything, silently agreeing to wait for a better moment.

  The four of them were discussing their options for the day’s food when they heard a man yelling on the other side of the parking lot, near the hotel. Other lodgers came out of doors or walked over out of curiosity. By the time Lincoln had hobbled across the parking lot, a large group of onlookers stood outside a ground level room. He peered over the heads in front of him to see two men dragging a third out of the room. People gasped and muttered, and the news spread back to Lincoln and his friends—Iverson was dead. Some broke away to spread the news, and Lincoln got a better view.

  Iverson had been stripped naked. A scar-like pattern covered his chest in swirls and marks. Some of them looked like they had been scratched off—fresh red cuts marred his chest as if someone had raked claws over it. But it was the gaping wound in his thr
oat that held Lincoln’s attention. Iverson’s neck opened as if in a permanent smile, his hair and neck soaked in blood.

  “How did he die?” asked Nelson, trying to peer over the people in front of him.

  “His throat’s been slit.”

  Nelson stopped trying to see over the heads.

  The lodgers debated what to do with the body. No one felt too sorry about his death, only that he had been killed on the hotel premises and not out in the woods somewhere. An argument broke out among the campers about who would clean the room, and who would sleep in it.

  “Obviously his buddies killed him,” said Solomon once he heard the story about their sudden departure that morning. They stood talking around Solomon’s tent. Evan moped inside it, refusing to talk to anyone. “Did you see the marks on his chest?” Solomon asked.

  “Yes,” said Lincoln. “It was an unusual tattoo.”

  “Wasn’t a tattoo,” said Solomon.

  “What was it?” asked Carter.

  “Looked like some kind of scarring. I don’t know, but it reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of tribes in Africa that will purposefully scar patterns on their bodies for ceremonies. Only these weren’t crude or the result of handmade tools. They were very delicately arranged on his skin, like some complicated surgical procedure.”

  “Wait,” said Carter. He picked up a stick and drew a swirling pattern in the ash of the fire pit. “Did it look something like this?”

  “Yes.” Solomon raised his eyebrows. His forehead creased. “Do you know what it is?”

  “We need to see the body again,” Lincoln said, understanding. He locked eyes with Alvarez, and she nodded.

  “Yes,” she said. “Where did they put it?”

  Ten minutes later, they found two men digging a shallow grave around the mountain from the lodge. Unwilling to leave Evan, Solomon had stayed behind. Nelson had to support Carter who'd insisted on going with the group. Carter leaned a hand on a tree to catch his breath. Iverson’s body lay nearby, wrapped in a tattered sheet.

  “Wait,” said Lincoln. The men looked up at him.

  “We don’t want to be at this all day,” one of them said without stopping. “Just need to cover it and be done.”

  “We’ll finish it,” Alvarez said.

  The men stared at her questioningly, but Lincoln chimed in before they could think too much about it. “Yeah, you’ve made a good start. We’ve got this.”

  Both men shrugged and turned over their shovels, leaving down the mountain without argument.

  Lincoln and Alvarez walked over to the body and unwrapped it. The ragged cloth, soaked in blood, pealed off the body like a soiled bandage. Nelson hung back. But all of them saw—the symbols on the chest matched those inside the mountain.

  “Looks almost like a labyrinth, doesn’t it?” asked Carter.

  “Yes,” answered Nelson. “How do you think he got them?”

  “Maybe as some sort of initiation?” Lincoln asked.

  “Like a gang symbol, you mean?”

  “So the question is,” asked Alvarez, “did they do this to themselves or did someone do it to them?”

  “Are you saying,” said Carter, “it’s some sort of following for the Glyphs?”

  Alvarez glanced at Lincoln again.

  Carter caught the look. “What are you two thinking?”

  “We think,” said Lincoln, “it’s more than a following. More like spies.”

  “For the invaders?”

  “What makes you think that?” asked Nelson. He ventured nearer, his face pasty, hair damp with sweat.

  Alvarez and Lincoln filled them in on their theory while Nelson and Carter listened in silence.

  “I don’t know,” said Carter when they were done. He scratched his face. “Seems a bit of a stretch.”

  Nelson stared at the body, his eyes sweeping over the symbols. “No,” he said quietly. “It makes sense. Spies who were helping the invaders all along.”

  Alvarez threw the sheet over the body again. “They’ve obviously taken pains not to reveal themselves, so why leave Iverson for everyone to see?”

  “As a warning,” said Nelson.

  “Warning for what?”

  “To keep away.”

  “Or they no longer care people know about them,” Carter said.

  Lincoln inhaled slowly, wishing for someone to materialize in front of them and explain everything. “So do we tell people?”

  “You might start a panic,” said Carter.

  “Don't tell them,” Nelson said. He took a shovel and stabbed it into the ground. The shovel inched into the rocky soil. He stepped on it and attempted to shove it in deeper.

  Lincoln watched him. “I would have thought you would want to, Nelson.”

  “No. Iverson’s own people murdered him, maybe for those drawings. We’ll never know. But one thing is clear: the best way to protect ourselves is to stay out of it.”

  “Maybe,” added Lincoln. “But I think people need to know.”

  “What if there are more at the lodge?” Alvarez asked. She grabbed the other shovel and began digging.

  Nelson shook his head, all his remaining effort going toward his task.

  “Who do we tell?” asked Carter. “Alvarez is right. We don’t know who to trust.”

  “Solomon. We can trust him,” Alvarez said, panting from her exertion. “Tell him. See what he thinks. He knows these people better than we do.”

  ***

  “What do you want to do here?” Mina and Doyle had just reached the bunker entrance. The gray sky hung heavy with rain. She followed his gaze to a large wet patch of ground just outside the door.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  Doyle bent down. “Blood.”

  She looked behind them. “Whose blood?”

  “A hybrid’s.”

  “That’s a lot of blood.”

  “Yes.”

  Again she scanned the trees behind, then the area around the entrance. “Did a hybrid die here?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Where's the body?”

  Doyle stood. “I think whoever took it is long gone.”

  They stepped around the blood and into the mountain. This time, Doyle switched on the flashlight as soon as they reached the stairs. He handed it to Mina. “Halston seems to think there’s an underlying connection to Condar and the Factory.”

  “The Factory?” She turned from gazing at the patch of blood and pointed the light down the stair.

  “The hybrid Factory where we were engineered and trained.”

  “It’s just called the Factory.”

  “A nickname. I don’t think Condar calls it anything.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In orbit around Earth.”

  “Has it always been there?”

  “Not in its current location, no. Would you like to see it sometime?”

  “You mean in space?”

  Doyle stopped and turned to her. “That’s generally where things are in orbit.”

  “Then yes.”

  He turned on the stair and continued down. When they reached the bottom, Mina expected him to open the door leading to the tunnel, but he continued on through the round room and looked up.

  Mina switched off the light. “Is it the same?”

  “Yes. Go back to the door for a minute.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  Mina switched on the light and found the door again. When she reached it, she turned to lean against it.

  “All the way into that chamber,” he called.

  Frowning, she took two steps back. “What are you—”

  The doorway closed, growing out of the mountain into a solid wall of polished black stone between her and Doyle. Mina stretched her hand out to touch it. Beneath her touch, the grooves of the adarria grew warm, then cool.

  “Doyle!” she shouted. “Doyle!” Her voice bounced off the small chamber walls. Mina went to sit on the bottom step, but she di
dn’t like the feeling of a long black tunnel reaching up behind her. So she paced the room for a few moments, reminding herself that if Lincoln, with his dislike for tight spaces, could work in here all day by himself, she could wait a few minutes. She only hoped Doyle had meant to close the door and wasn’t trapped inside.

  The room grew cold, and Mina sat along the wall beside the stair, keeping the bottom of the tunnel and the three doors in her range of vision. The mountain hummed beneath her, and she swept the light around the room.

  “He’ll come back,” she whispered to herself. As if in answer, the door to the room opened and Doyle stood in it.

  “Come on,” he said.

  Mina scrambled to her feet and hurried after him. “What was that about? You could have at least warned me!” Doyle ignored her and walked to the center of the room. She followed. “What were you doing?”

  “I wasn’t sure it was safe.” He smiled and jerked his head upward. “I know what it is.”

  “What is it?”

  “A portal.”

  Mina half-smiled. “Like to another world?” she teased.

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re joking. How do you know?”

  Doyle’s eyes flashed. “I can open it with the aether.”

  “So what’s the significance of this?”

  “I don’t know yet. But if I can open it, so can the Condarri.”

  “I’m not sure it’s comforting that the Condarri can open a door to another galaxy. Are they sending more?”

  “Not another galaxy, just a different part of this one. And possibly they are sending more. But if they can use it, so can we.”

  Mina stepped back. “You mean hybrids. What could they do with it?”

  “Whatever we want. I don’t even know what the Condarri would use it for.”

  “So that’s it then. You’ll gather all the hybrids and leave Earth to the Condarri.”

  “Only as a last resort . . . And I’d bring you with me.”

  “Me!” Mina scoffed. “Wouldn’t you be better off with a woman of your own species? A female hybrid—Calla seems available!”

  “Now you’re being petty. Yesterday you said you wanted to run away.”

  “And what place do you think I’d have on a ship full of hybrids? I would be inferior in every way. And what about the most important law—to keep your cover?”