by Jody Wallace
He wanted to ask what Karen had offered besides the secret of quick healing but held silent. It seemed likely Adi intended to keep some facts private for now. In a situation that was already blowing up in their faces, caution wasn’t a poor choice.
“But she did emerge?” Dr. Leifer asked. “This is a recovery?”
“She was conscious for approximately four minutes,” Adi told the doctor. “I performed two routine ECTs, and it worked.”
Zeke glanced between the purple lights flashing outside the hospital room and the patient in the bed. “ECTs are never routine.”
The specially-tuned electroconvulsive therapy machines were a last resort for trapped dreamers—dreamers who manifested without waking. It meant their shields had eroded and they were helpless—the portals Karen had mentioned, except in comas. If the ECT didn’t jolt them loose, the effect of the voltage tended to send dreamers into a medical coma instead, cut off from the sphere. Or kill them outright. All field teams, by law, carried an ECT, but everyone dreaded their use.
“Actually, ECTs became somewhat standard in this facility as we’ve attempted to source the reason behind the patients’ decline,” Dr. Leifer corrected Zeke. “Particularly some of our more valuable patients. We’ve unfortunately lost several L5 sufferers in the past month despite our best efforts to sustain or revive them.”
“How is one patient more valuable than another? It’s not like they’re hostages,” Zeke said.
The doctor glanced at him briefly. He was an older man, wrinkled and white haired. Alucinators stationed at bases tended to be young and fit, able to leap tall wraiths in a single bound. “Valuable to the Somnium, of course. This L5…” He flipped through the chart. “Kingsbury. She’s our first revival in three years. I’m so glad we didn’t have to resort to the experimental lobotomy on an L5. This is good news, good news indeed.”
“Did you happen to notice Karen Kingsbury is a mass murderer?” Zeke asked with a harsh laugh. They should have—and still could—lobotomize her. That must be the undesirable experiment Adi mentioned. If they had patients flickering into dream comas and subsequent manifestations, he could see why they’d resorted to such primitive medicine. “It’s not good news that she’s back in the land of the living.”
Dr. Leifer shrugged. “Humans have made a number of breakthroughs in medical science using volunteer prison populations. I don’t see why that’s a concern.”
Was the guy clueless? “Because she’s creating these manifestations and would like to kill us all.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think she’s manifesting, if protocol was followed.” Dr. Leifer started sorting through a medicine cabinet. Clearly his attention wasn’t on Zeke.
“So who’s causing the manifestations if not Karen?” Zeke asked, taken aback by the doctor’s detachment. Four facility members had already died during the attack, and the code red showed no signs of ending.
The doctor approached Karen with some vials. “I believe they were traced to an L5 disciple of some sort? That’s not my area of expertise. I’m sure she’ll be ECT’d soon enough. These things happen.”
Did he mean Maggie? “Adi, what’s he talking about?”
“We’ll speak later.” She spared him a warning glance.
He wasn’t going to be able to accomplish his original mission—euthanize Karen somehow—with all these people in the room. He couldn’t talk to Adi either. But he could make sure nobody tried to ECT his student. “I’m going to trauma one to find Maggie. What’s the best way to get past the blast doors?”
“Non-facility Somnium members aren’t authorized to circumvent the blast doors during lockdown,” a bald soldier said. He was big and tough-looking and had a tilt to his chin that screamed “I think I’m in charge.”
“This non-facility Somnium member outranks you. I’m a sentry. How about you get on your radio and buzz me through before Adi has to do it?”
Adi’s radio crackled. It wasn’t someone telling Zeke how to bypass the blast doors. “Units ten and fifteen, report to the morgue. Scanner indicates code one.”
Shit, that was outside the current manifestation zone—and closer to Maggie in trauma one. It was damned suspicious too, that it had cropped up right after he’d announced his destination—where Maggie was.
Five of the eleven soldiers in the room, including the officious bald one, wheeled toward the exit. Blake touch-padded it open.
“Second thought, I’m going to the morgue,” Zeke amended. Code one meant an active manifestation, a horde of substantial size. These guys were well-equipped, but they could use someone with his field experience. “Might wanna ask yourself why the manifestations are still happening, Adi.”
She frowned at the sleeping woman. “I placed a barricade, Zeke. I’m sure it’s a malingerer. It will be over soon.”
“Yeah, like a sleep barricade’s gonna stop her. Better wake the psycho up or we’ll keep having code ones,” he advised over his shoulder before following the soldiers out the door.
The morgue was one floor above the blast doors and two floors down from trauma one. Dead bodies didn’t need as much protection, and trauma one was close to the surface for emergency use. The five soldiers and Zeke met up with six soldiers from elsewhere in maximum security. They trotted through several levels without seeing any wraiths and clanked up a ladder in an access tube to detour the blast doors.
The others, like the first soldier, didn’t automatically fall in step under Zeke’s leadership. He could insist or he could let them do their thing. Mostly. Facilities like this, which employed division military, were run by HQ. To them he was practically a civilian, despite the fact area bases were the ones on the front lines.
Within minutes, their group reached the chilly, unpleasantly scented morgue level. Chemicals and wraith pong. The monsters were here, all right. And alive. No wraith dust on the floor that he could see or feel. The lights and sirens blared, same as below, but there was no other sign of manifestations.
Zeke let the soldiers secure the initial corridor. The coma station wasn’t a straight up and down structure—more like a rabbit warren. He’d been shown the map briefly during the check-in process. The soldier in charge remained beside him while the other ten searched.
“Where are the wraiths?” the bald guy, a sergeant by his insignia, asked the others when they returned.
“No signs of them, sir.”
“Sure as hell can’t listen for them with all this racket.” The wail was starting to get on Zeke’s last nerve, and he was itching to dust some vamps. “Whedons hiss a lot. You can hear ’em coming. It’s the Nosferatus that go quiet.”
The sergeant, walkie in hand, glared at Zeke. “Unit ten, this is unit fifteen command.” He practically had to yell to be heard over the screeching alarms. “No sign of bogeys level five, section A. Over.”
Other confirmations crackled through the walkie. No signs of bogeys in other sections. Or no signs these guys knew how to interpret. While the coma station handled manifestations, it wasn’t like being a field agent and collaring neos.
The air was heavy with sound and fury. Zeke’s neck prickled. The monsters were close. This corridor didn’t have anywhere near the number of doors as the maximum security level. There were only a couple, and he hadn’t seen soldiers clear the rooms.
Not to mention these crap-ass alarms. Surely everyone knew there was a code one by now? Zeke contemplated the locations of various loudspeakers and decided against shooting them. They probably had backups.
“Unit ten, clear the stairwells. Fifteen, hold position,” the guy bellowed into the walkie. His soldiers assembled down the corridor in a straight line. “Repeat. Unit ten, stairwells. Fifteen, hold. Do not travel. Over.”
“Call the guy sitting on his ass in front of the security feed,” Zeke suggested loudly. “Ask him where the wraiths are. They ain’t movie vamps. They show up on camera
just fine.”
“With all due respect, sentry,” the sergeant began, but Zeke held up a hand.
“Anytime you start a sentence with due respect, you’re about to be disrespectful. And you sound like a chump.” He stepped closer to read the guy’s nametag. Nametags and uniforms—he didn’t miss that shit. “Spit it out, Roberts.”
Roberts, as it happened, wasn’t completely bald. His hair was shaved so close to his brown scalp it matched it. Most of the drones Zeke had seen tonight had been male, clean cut and rigid.
Not that long hair was a great idea. Wraiths could grab it and sling you around. But Zeke preferred hair to keep him warm. Military crew wasn’t his style. He’d spent his first two alucinator years in the Somnium military before getting himself reassigned to an area base where he could do some good.
Roberts studied Zeke as if assessing whether or not to take him seriously…or what the consequences would be for pistol whipping an out-of-town sentry. As if Zeke would let that happen.
Roberts broke the silence first. “This isn’t an area castrum. We have specific protocol here.”
Protocol apparently meant turning into statues while wraiths were doing God only knew what behind your back.
“The fact you’re calling it a castrum instead of a base lets me know you got your head up your ass.” Nobody used the formal term out in the field. Base was base. Fucking castrum. Just like HQ was not a fucking praetorium. It was HQ. “Do you want to dust these wraiths or not? Start by killing the sirens. We need ears.”
Roberts looked like he’d rather punch Zeke than behead a vamp. “The wraiths will be eliminated in due course.”
“How about sooner? Like before they hop to trauma one? There’s actually breathing people on that floor.”
“We’re well aware the originator of the infestation is in trauma one. The wraiths are migrating in that direction and will eventually put in an appearance. We have strategic roadblocks at the elevators, stairs and access tubes.”
Zeke couldn’t deny the wraiths might be making a beeline for Maggie. Didn’t mean she’d manifested them. She’d been attracting wraiths since day one. “Or you could find and kill them now.”
The guy didn’t budge. “Or we could refuse admittance to undisciplined, ill-trained phase one disciples who jeopardize our operation.”
“Talk to Adi about that. You know, your boss? The one who summoned that disciple and me to your operation?” Had everyone in the entire Somnium been briefed about his lack of progress with Maggie? He’d hoped it only extended throughout his own area. “Now me? You talk to me about killing wraiths. You boys may have seen some action lately, but I hunt several times a week. If you want to accomplish anything here, you need audio.”
Roberts, for whatever reason, finally shit the stick out of his ass. He clicked his walkie. “This is unit fifteen command. Cancel sirens on level five. Over.”
After ten seconds, the sirens and purple lights both shut off. Zeke’s ears rang in their absence. Would take a minute for him to adjust, and the soldiers too. He hoped that drone near the intersection didn’t get jumped from behind because he couldn’t hear the monsters rush him.
Roberts turned to him with a more relaxed expression. “We aren’t strangers to combat, Garrett. We all trained the same way.”
“Yeah, but I’m not stationed at a research facility where I stand around like a post all day, hoping some coma patient goes bust so I can land some action.” Karen’s wraiths could kill guards—or manifest higher up. “The situation calls for offense, not defense.”
“Patients and trauma victims have less control over conduits. We do experience manifestations. The structure of this facility requires a different strategic approach than field assignments with a civilian populace,” Roberts said evenly. “We are prepared here. The wraiths cannot operate touchpads, and there’s nothing they can hurt inside these rooms. Once we determine they aren’t free-ranging, we will take the next step. It is protocol. And it works. Even if it is, as you say, defense.”
Zeke sniffed. “Trust your nose. Don’t you smell that shit? They’re nearby.”
“If they were near us, they would attack.”
Not if they were Karen’s wraiths and she’d infested them with some other purpose—like staying alive long enough to reach Maggie. “Talk to the guy watching the cameras. Ask him where they are.”
“They’re on this level. That’s been confirmed by our scanner, who geolocated the code one.” Roberts pointed at the intersection ceiling, where the black globe of a camera was installed. “Look, Garrett, funds are limited in all branches of the Somnium. The cold box doesn’t have cameras everywhere, just corridors and the autopsy chamber. Eyewitness confirmation in morgue rooms is required.”
Easy answer. “What are we waiting for? Let’s sweep the damn rooms.”
“The stairwells are currently being cleared.”
“You’ve got a whole unit on standby.”
The commander stared at his men and finally conceded. “Unit ten, after the stairs, clear all rooms in your sector. Unit fifteen will handle the rest. Over.”
The eleven soldiers split into three groups to cover the rooms. Zeke accompanied the group that had Roberts in it. He wanted an idea of how the guy handled himself in combat.
As they trotted down a corridor, Roberts remained in contact with the other troops. After confirming another clean sweep, he came to a halt in front of a door.
The acrid stench of wraith thickened. None of the soldiers commented or made much noise as Roberts inspected the window into the room, but it appeared to be completely dark. He activated the keypad.
These doors weren’t as reinforced as the ones in maximum security, and it didn’t matter. As soon as the door swung open, they were attacked.
From behind.
Chapter Eight
One of the four soldiers went down in the first wave. Zeke stabbed a vamp attempting to chomp through Roberts’s gorget.
That got the ugly bastard’s attention. It spun to confront Zeke while the sergeant defended the soldier who’d hit the floor.
Zeke wasted no time slicing off the vamp’s head. This sword was really fucking sharp. He liked it. A lot. Proved it by taking out two more vamps in quick succession. The dust grew concentrated enough in the corridor that he was breathing it in. Slipping around in it.
No, that was blood. Shit, another man down. Arm half ripped off. Goddamn. At least it wasn’t the throat. A man could live without an arm. Zeke rammed into the vampire that was trying to get its disgusting fill of the screaming soldier’s blood.
He swung with all his might. The vamp’s head popped off like a cork out of a bottle. For a moment the body and head existed, separate, before collapsing into sand.
“Get yourself against the wall,” he barked at the soldier going into shock. “Tourniquet your upper arm. Move!”
He didn’t have time to give hands-on help—only head’s off help. Vampires came at the small group from every direction. The remaining soldier and Roberts were doing a sight better than their comrades. Zeke flung a dagger into a vampire’s hissing mouth. While it struggled to un-gag itself, he whacked off its head.
A heavy body slammed into him from behind. Shit, he shouldn’t have strayed from the wall. Claws scratched his upper arms. Fangs clanked against his gorget. Hot damn. He liked this gorget too. He crouched, fast, unbalancing the monster. With a twist, he flung it over his head. Its claws stung the flesh of his arms as it flew.
Ignoring the pain, he whipped a stake out of his bandolier and pierced its heart.
Sand in his face, in his hair. His eyes watered, clearing themselves, but blurring his vision. A vamp, trying to evade Roberts, tripped over him.
He killed that one too. Roberts didn’t have time to thank him, just moved on to the next monster.
Zeke swung and cursed. Holy hell. Where wa
s the horde coming from? These corridors had been cleared, and the black maw of the doorway to the large morgue room loomed empty.
Mostly empty. As Zeke avoided another roundhouse swipe of claws, several vamps darted into the morgue like crooked shadows. Looking for what? Wraiths had no interest in the dead.
Machine gun fire erupted from the other end of the corridor. Bullets zinged past, blasting into a vampire beside him. One of the splinters from unit fifteen raced into the fray. Zeke counted. New group was short one. Now the defenders had six men upright, counting him, and two down.
The others should come soon, unless they were dead. Zeke defended himself from a double attack. The vampires tried to crowd him into the lightless morgue, but he wasn’t having it. They could see in the dark. He couldn’t.
He kicked one into the wall. It spun into the morgue’s entryway, so he tried to crush it with the door. It squalled when the heavy metal smashed its head in the jamb.
A siren began shrilling—a high, annoying beep instead of the code one manifestation alarm. It was more like a fridge, warning you it had been left open and the beer was getting warm, than a siren warning everyone they were about to be eaten.
Roberts shouted at him. Zeke wasn’t sure what—something about the morgue, or drawers, or whores. Maybe not whores. He killed the vamp hissing at him and tried to figure Roberts out. The dude wanted him to go into the cold storage.
Zeke headed into the blackness, ears tuned for hissing and scrambling. Why wasn’t there a pen light in the damn kit he’d been given? Before he located a switch, Zeke noticed a faint red burst of sparkles deep in the room. He wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t happened in near darkness.
When the sparkles disappeared, he caught a brief vision of a brand new vampire before it faded into the blackness of the morgue.
Fucking A. Red sparks. This was a live manifestation. During another live manifestation. Zeke had only seen this sort of thing once.
Harrisburg.
He slapped at the wall beside the door repeatedly until he encountered a switch. Lights thunked on.