Hunting the Dark

by Karen Mahoney

  The elevator doors, on closer inspection, were entirely coated with silver. My joy instantly deflated. If I had my boots I could try kicking them in, see if they would buckle enough to squeeze through a gap, but I was still barefoot – and they looked as solid as a bank vault’s doors. It was disappointing, to say the least. I felt like Supergirl, with her inconvenient allergy to Kryptonite.

  ‘Forget it,’ Jace said, once he realized my predicament. ‘Just help me search this place.’

  Not knowing where to start, I made for one of the more ‘normal’-looking computers. Of course the screensaver was password-protected and I didn’t think I’d get lucky for the second time in a week. This ‘escape’ was turning into a bit of a disaster.

  Jace, meanwhile, was busy ripping open desk drawers and rifling through the contents. Paper went flying as he tossed a huge sheaf of reports onto the floor. Maybe he had the right idea . . .

  There was a tall filing cabinet up against the back wall of the booth. It was locked, but I had no trouble tearing the whole front of it off its hinges.

  I raised my eyebrows and admired the destruction I’d just caused. Feeding from Jace had evidently increased my strength.

  As I began to flip through the contents of the cabinet, my vamp-hearing picked up what I’d feared was coming: footsteps. A lot of them.

  ‘Crap,’ I muttered, just as I reached a numbered folder marked:

  Top Secret

  HM-01-2001-NB

  Once again, it was the same code from Subject Ten’s dog tags. Maybe I was supposed to find this . . . it seemed too easy. I opened the plastic file, glancing through the small collection of pages inside. I already knew what the ‘NB’ stood for – Nicole Bertonelli – but was still determined to figure out the ‘HM’ part. Whether the documents had been planted here for us to find or not, I didn’t care. Now that we knew Ten was Jace’s sister, it seemed more important than ever that we learn the full truth.

  And then I found what I was looking for: the one piece of information that could blow everything wide open.

  ‘Moth!’ Jace shouted, cutting into my conspiracy-laden thoughts. ‘We have company.’

  I pulled out the most important of the papers and folded it tightly, shoving it into the waistband of my leggings. Then we both gazed at the monitors, watching as guards converged on the booth. One of them was already banging on the shuttered door and shouting for us to give ourselves up. Maybe this hadn’t been a trap, after all. They seemed pretty keen on recapturing us.

  Jace swore. ‘There are too many of them.’

  He was right. There were six . . . seven . . . no, eight of them. Men and women dressed in those now familiar black army fatigues, decked out with all kinds of weaponry. I wondered how many of them in total were based here at the Facility. Was this it? Or were we going to face even more of them in a few minutes?

  I gazed at all the buttons and lights on the control panel. One of them had to open those damn elevator doors. It was our only way out. Maybe I could take four or five of the guards, but I wasn’t convinced that Jace could handle even one in his current state. Not that I’d tell him that. Must protect his male ego and all that.

  I tried not to dwell on the fact that I still didn’t even know where ‘here’ was. Jace had mentioned traveling over water (‘maybe’) when they snatched him, but that wasn’t exactly helpful.

  Sighing, I forced myself to focus on finding a way to access the elevator. That was something I could do, right? There was a number pad among the controls beside it, clearly waiting for a code to be input. A code that we didn’t have. Maybe if we could grab one of the guards outside, I could force the information out of him or her . . . But that wasn’t going to work without having to fight our way through all the others.

  One of the lights on the code box blinked bright red and I wrung my hands.

  ‘What’s that flashing?’ Jace asked. He was looking over my shoulder.

  ‘How am I supposed to know?’ I pressed the button next to the light. What did we have to lose, right?

  Jace shoved me out of the way. ‘Don’t touch anything!’

  ‘It didn’t do anything anyway! How are we going to get out if we just stand here?’ I was yelling, but couldn’t seem to help it. Stress had been eating away at me since I first woke up in this awful place. I’d been stabbed, drugged, examined, poked, prodded, drained of enough blood to make me feel super-guilty for being a vampire in the first place, hit, thrown, shot with darts, cuffed and chained. Honestly, I’d had enough. If Jace wanted to argue about a stupid control panel, he was out of luck. We were getting out of this nightmare. Right now.

  I elbowed him out of the way. Adrenaline coursed through me as I remembered the feel of his blood running down my throat, warming me and giving me life and strength. I could still taste him on my lips. Refusing to look at him again, I dug my fingers into the edge of the steel panel that housed all the electronics beside the door and pulled.

  No more standing around, waiting for guards to shoot us and God only knows what else. I wanted to act, take control of the situation. I needed to. I wasn’t going to be a victim any more. I could get us out of here if I could only operate the stupid doors!

  The whole panel came away from the wall. I tore it like a strip of old wallpaper, and tossed it to one side.

  Jace’s mouth dropped open. ‘You idiot! What are you doing?!

  ‘Somebody has to save our skins,’ I said, quoting Star Wars and wishing there was a garbage chute we could throw ourselves into. Because that would have been cool.

  It was at precisely that moment that the elevator doors opened.

  Only to reveal a small space crammed tight with three more fully armed guards.

  Two men and a woman stopped and stared at us. The expressions on all three of their faces would have been comical if they weren’t armed to the teeth and on their way to shoot us, dump us back in our cells . . . or worse.

  Jace, weaponless and weakened by blood loss, gamely threw himself onto the first guy to enter the booth. I allowed myself a moment to admire his bravery then, wiping imaginary drool from my mouth, I leaped at the other two. Fighting at such close quarters wouldn’t be easy, but maybe we could use that to our advantage. At least they’d find it harder to fire their weapons.

  ‘We have to get them back to the holding cells,’ the woman shouted. ‘Stark’s orders!’

  ‘Ha!’ I said, grabbing her by the front of her military-style jacket and lifting her off her feet. ‘“Cells”. I knew this place was a freaking prison.’

  The soldier (or ‘private mercenary-for-hire’, as Jace preferred to call them) kicked out at me with heavy boots that were now a good way off the ground, thanks to my grip on her. She tried to aim her weapon at me, but I just tossed her onto the desk like she weighed nothing. The gun slid out of her hands and clattered to the ground. Luckily, it didn’t go off and start spewing darts or something. That would have sucked.

  Meanwhile, the guy crouched beside her had snapped off a couple of wild shots. I yelped as an actual bullet skimmed my arm, leaving behind the telltale scent of burning flesh.

  The female guard picked herself up and glared at her colleague. ‘No silver bullets! Dr Stark was very—’

  ‘Screw that!’ Trigger-Happy Dude yelled, panic pouring off him in waves. ‘I want to get out of this alive.’

  I grinned at him, giving him the perfect view of the thing he seemed most afraid of. If he expected a scary monster, I’d give him one. And then I pounced, taking him down to the floor and sinking my fangs into his wrist to make him drop his weapon. He screamed loudly, so I grabbed his gun and smacked him in the mouth with it. Trigger-Happy Dude slumped into an untidy heap, unconscious. At least I’d shut him up.

  The female soldier had moved around one of the control panels, putting it between us. She seemed the tougher of the pair (which I appreciated), but I knew it was only a matter of time before I subdued her. I could still hear Jace and the other soldier going at it, but h
ad to focus on my own fight.

  I went after the woman again, throwing myself across the desk and grappling with her for a few seconds. She was tricky, but no match for vampire strength. I finished her off quickly, with a roundhouse kick to the gut and an elbow to the head. Bam! Right in the temple, just the way I’d been taught. She went down and stayed down.

  For a moment I’d been so busy admiring my handiwork I’d forgotten that Jace was getting his ass kicked. I looked up and realized that the remaining soldier had just hit him hard across the face.

  Cracking my knuckles for effect, I used the thumb and middle finger of my right hand to whistle. Just to get the guard’s attention, you know? I was feeling way out of control and cocky, and I’d spent so long being afraid that I just decided to go with it.

  My next victim looked me over, holding a battered-looking Jace by the throat.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?’ My fangs were fully extended and I moved, leaping over the control panel and smacking into the pair of them. Jace rolled to the side in the commotion, and I pinned the Facility goon to the floor. He was wearing black body armor, but it wouldn’t stop me from taking him out. He thrashed beneath me, but I just stuck to him like glue and laughed – letting him know that he had no hope of dislodging me.

  ‘Get off!’ he screamed, the whites of his eyes showing.

  These so-called guards seemed panicked and out of their depth. Maybe they liked the idea of policing monsters, but when faced with the real deal they just couldn’t handle it. Not to mention the fact that I was no longer chained up and feeling the effects of all those drugs. I’d been a victim before, but now the tables had turned.

  The playing field was even thanks to an infusion of super-tasty Murdoch blood – which meant that I was free to give back a little of the punishment they’d all been so keen on dishing out.

  Which is exactly what I did, dispatching the final guard in double-quick time.

  I glanced at the three unconscious humans as I pulled Jace to his feet. We had to get out of here – there were still a ton of soldier-types outside the room, trying to get in. But first things first: I began unlacing the female guard’s military-style boots. They looked close enough to my size, and I was fed up with worrying about silver burns on my feet. Also, I could kick harder with a good pair of boots on. I felt more like myself again, but whether that was ‘Moth-me’ or ‘Marie-me’ I honestly couldn’t say.

  A few minutes later, we were in the elevator and on our way up. Finally!

  I dusted off my hands, feeling pleased with myself.

  Jace looked nervous. ‘This has to be the way out, right?’

  ‘We’re at least heading in the right direction,’ I said. I was as filled with doubts as he was, but wiping the floor with those guys (and girl) had given me more confidence. I bounced up and down in my new boots, barely able to contain my energy.

  Jace stared at me.

  I stopped bouncing. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You’re making me feel seasick.’

  I couldn’t help smiling at that. ‘You get seasick?’

  ‘It was a figure of speech.’

  ‘I bet you do, though,’ I said.

  ‘Whatever,’ Jace replied. ‘I’m too shattered to argue.’

  I knew I should feel a little guilty, considering that he was quite literally drained because of me, but I was still riding the high. If I hadn’t fed from him, he would have been able to put up a stronger fight back in that booth. But then again, if I hadn’t fed from him, we probably wouldn’t be one step closer to freedom.

  As we waited for the elevator to reach the surface (see? I knew I was right about us being deep underground), I pulled out the document I’d snatched from Subject Ten’s file. Wordlessly, I showed it to Jace and looked away while he read it. Giving him privacy.

  My whole body was buzzing, the need to move a visceral itch I couldn’t wait to scratch. Right now, I had to settle for tapping my foot while I waited for Jace to discover yet more of the puzzle pieces about his sister.

  We had to find Ten and help her to escape this asylum too, but I didn’t know how Jace would feel about that. I watched his face carefully, wondering if now was the right time to say something, but he was engrossed in what I’d just given him to read. His mouth was drawn into a tight line, and I resisted the urge to offer him useless comfort. He’d talk about it when he was ready. I could wait.

  He folded the paper and wordlessly handed it back to me.

  Well, he may not be talking right now, but at least he’d allowed me to keep this crucial piece of evidence. A link to his past – and to his family.

  Then we came to a juddering stop and we were on our way. This part of the building was less shiny and metallic. That made sense, now that we had more of the lay of the land. The lower level was a sub-basement, built with state-of-the-art materials, while the area we were in now resembled those military bases the bad guys always have in low-budget movies. Jagged concrete and white-painted pipes running along the walls at head height gave it an almost retro feel. Naked light bulbs swung far above us; the ceilings were way higher here, and there were metal staircases leading up to a balcony that I figured must wrap around this whole level of the Facility.

  I could imagine Holly posing in her favorite steampunk outfit here – and then sort of internally yelled at myself for thinking about something like that when we were running for our lives.

  Jace grabbed my arm and pulled me along with him. ‘Quit dreaming and keep moving, princess. I’m supposed to be the one slowing us down.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I muttered, resisting the urge to make a face at him.

  Still walking, he put his arm fully around my shoulders. ‘How do you feel about livening things up around here?’

  ‘I knew you had a plan!’ I smiled at him. ‘You were too quiet. I could see the smoke coming out of your ears, meaning that your brain must really be struggling with something. What did you have in mind?’

  ‘I have no plan at all,’ he said.

  I poked him in the chest. ‘Tell me.’

  Jace grimaced. ‘Hey, watch the ribs. I think that joker busted one.’ Then he pulled a silver circular disc, the size of his palm, out of his jeans pocket. ‘What you’re looking at here, is definitely not a plan.’ He smiled grimly. ‘More like potential suicide.’

  I stopped walking and reached out to touch the metal, then hesitated.

  ‘It’s not silver,’ he said. ‘You’re fine.’

  It felt cool and smooth in my hand, and when I flipped it over there were three little switches embedded inside a small panel. Controls? Eagerly, I searched his face for a clue. ‘It’s a bomb?’

  ‘Yep. Although “bomb” is kind of a primitive way of describing something like this.’ He looked almost admiringly at the little handful of death and destruction. ‘This is way, way advanced.’ He pre-empted my next question, shooting me a wicked grin that made me feel all warm inside. ‘I took it off the dude who was smacking me around. He was too busy proving how tough he was to notice.’

  I started bouncing again. ‘Let’s just blow the place up!’

  Jace put a hand on my shoulder to keep me still. ‘It won’t be powerful enough to destroy an entire base like this.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I’ve heard about these kind of devices before. From hunters in Dad’s old network. Never thought I’d actually be holding one, though.’

  ‘What sort of damage could it do?’

  ‘A lot, but we’re talking more like a ten- to twenty-meter blast radius.’

  My excitement returned. ‘That’s enough to do some serious damage. We could just blow up a wall and get out of here. Boom!’

  ‘We could,’ he said. ‘But I have no idea how to set the timer, so this could get hairy.’

  Things were already what could only be described as ‘incredibly hairy’, so I really couldn’t see how they could get any worse. I figured we would find an outer wall s
oon enough, now that we had found our way out of the basement level.

  I snatched the device out of his hand, using vamp-speed so he never had a chance. ‘Let’s do this.’

  ‘Hey!’ Jace’s expression would have made an awesome gif. ‘Have you listened to anything I said? You can’t just toss it and hope!’

  ‘Why not?’ I grinned and waved the miniature bomb in his face. Surely he knew I was only teasing.

  He still looked worried as we started moving again. I was too busy making destructive plans to be quite as vigilant as I should have been. Big mistake.

  The Facility – and Dr Stark – had to spring their trap sooner or later. Unfortunately for us, it turned out to be sooner.

  As we passed through a huge set of open metal doors – sliding double-doors, like the kind on warehouses or garages – they slammed shut behind us.

  Jace and I looked at each other.

  He shoved me forward. ‘Run! Don’t wait for me.’

  I stumbled on the iron grate beneath my feet, hesitating.

  ‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘I didn’t donate my blood for nothing.’

  The corridor yawned ahead, suddenly seeming like a threat. It was long and dark, and even though there were no soldiers heading us off with guns and crossbows, I couldn’t repress the fear that chilled my spine. Jace was right: I shouldn’t waste the extra energy he’d given me.

  But I’d also promised myself that I would never leave him behind.

  I held the deadly device tightly in one hand and gripped Jace’s hand in the other. ‘We’re in this together, Murdoch,’ I said. ‘Don’t argue with me.’

  He definitely would have argued, but he didn’t get a chance because there was a resounding clang as more doors shut just ahead of us. We were now trapped in between the two sets, and I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d both started moving toward us – preparing to crush the life from our bodies.

  Of course, that’s not what happened because this wasn’t a science fiction movie.

  Jace was furious. ‘You could have made it if you’d just run when I told you to.’