by Sue Duff
“Everyone did it.” Allison looked at the audience with gratitude.
Shrieks replaced their clapping. Arms rose with fingers pointing behind Patrick and Allison.
“Oh my god, you didn’t tell me they could escape the props,” Allison said.
The rushing water turned off automatically the moment it reached the top. Patrick stared at an otherwise empty container. “They can’t,” he said as disbelief swelled. “There aren’t any escape hatches in any of them. I checked.”
He opened the first prop and then the other. They were empty.
{55}
Muted voices, the smell of diesel fuel, and the chill of the floor beneath Ian penetrated the drug-induced fog. Lingering, contrived pain took its time to subside. The cold cement soothed the imagined sting. It was just a dream, hushed Ian’s awakening thoughts.
The twin’s angry voices filtered in from the other side of the wall. Channeling with the girls remained elusive. He swallowed hard and focused on his breathing to still his hammering chest.
Convinced he was alone, Ian opened his eyes. The windowless room offered the barest of light from under the door. When he got to his feet, aches in his back and joints made it a chore to move—remnants of his relived ordeal.
He found the gate to his prison cell and wrapped his hand around the padlock to conjure it away. The metal remained solid in his grip. He took a step back, ignoring the rising panic, and prepared to shyft but failed to draw the earth’s energy. The center of his chest wasn’t just numb like before. It was empty.
The door opened, highlighting the particulars of the room with natural light. Ian shielded his eyes.
“He’s awake,” came from the threshold. A security guard stood at the doorway while Drake approached with a drawn handgun. “The doc’s cocktail worked. Otherwise you would have been long gone by now,” he said.
Ian remained silent, taking in the men and their weapons. The irony of his predicament didn’t elude him. His wish to be merely human had come true, yet he would give anything for his powers to return at that moment so he could escape to save the others.
“Take your shirt off,” Drake ordered.
“You’re not my type,” Ian said. “You’re not even my species.”
Drake’s eyes hardened. “I’m not one to repeat myself.”
Ian slowly removed his jacket and shirt while keeping a vigilant eye on the man. A sudden chill raised unprecedented goose bumps. He grabbed his arms and rubbed them.
Drake unlocked the gate and came inside to retrieve the clothes. Ian’s muscles wound tight and he prepared to strike, but the guard at the door was the deciding factor, and he stepped back.
Drake replaced the padlock then with a mocking laugh, he exited the room, shutting the door.
“Ugh!” Ian rattled the cell’s gate. A muted scrape of metal and the padlock slipped.
He covered it with his hand and kept watch on the door. When no one returned, he gently tugged. The lock separated the rest of the way. He eased it off and stepped out of the jail cell but froze at sounds of scuffling on the other side of the door.
Once it grew quiet, he opened the outer door a crack and peered into a large open space beyond. Tara and Mara were bound and gagged in a locked cage. There were no guards in sight. Ian bent a discerning ear, listening.
He took a second longer to study the room, then entered with soft steps.
Movement. Rayne squirmed, bound and gagged on the concrete floor, a few feet in front of the cage. At Ian’s approach her eyes flew open to a barrage of muffled screams. She shook her head at his exposed arms and chest.
He touched his lips and bent down. “I’ll get us all out of here.”
She flopped about like a seal and scooted away from him, her screams muted and incoherent.
“Rayne, quiet. What’s with you?”
Muffled shrieks came from the cage. Tara and Mara struggled to their feet.
He perused the room but there wasn’t an imminent threat. He turned toward the twins and cleared his thoughts but was unable to connect with them. They shook their heads signaling him, what—a warning?
Rayne quieted and a tear dampened her cheek. Ian stiffened. She had seen his scars, it was in her eyes. He clenched his jaw and turned before her expression filled with pity. “At least let me take your gag off so you can tell me what’s going on,” he said.
Rayne resumed her thrashing and gagged screams. Scraping metal joined the ruckus. A key was attached to her manacled wrist. Too large for the handcuffs, it looked like it might open the twin’s padlock. He reached for it, but a shriek and a shake of Rayne’s head stopped him. She jerked her eyes toward the outer door sending a clear message.
“I’m not leaving without you,” he said. It had to be a trap—the only explanation for their odd behavior. “So much for your game,” he said aloud. He rose to his feet and stepped back with raised hands.
“Pity.” Harcourt stepped from the shadows onto the balcony overhead. He smiled down at Ian as if amused. His tone took on a sharp edge. “Now, we have to do this the hard way.”
Drake rushed in with two guards. They grabbed him. A gun was shoved in his ribs.
“Cooperate and this will be over soon.” Harcourt descended the stairs.
Warmth swelled in Ian’s chest. The effect took him by surprise. It could only mean one thing—he still had his core.
Harcourt stopped and pressed a fist to his chest. “This shouldn’t be happening.” He backed up a few steps.
Drake shoved Ian toward a gurney with thick leather straps secured to the rails. “Does this come with a manual?” Ian quipped with renewed confidence.
“Lie down,” Drake said.
One of the guards freed Rayne from her bindings and gag and pulled her to her feet. She struggled in the man’s grasp. “Ian, he’s going to try and steal your powers!” she screamed.
He looked up at Harcourt. “Your kind has tried for centuries. It’s never been successful. They can’t be transferred. You’ll doom us all,” Ian said.
“That remains to be seen.” Harcourt gestured. A guard turned his weapon on the twins. “Lie down,” he commanded to Ian.
Drake pressed the tip of his barrel to Rayne’s temple. Ian complied and they strapped him in tight. A guard tugged on the buckles to make sure.
“You can’t make me,” Rayne shrieked. “No!” She tried to hit the man holding her but he twisted her around facing Ian.
Mara caught the edge of her taped gag on the bar and tugged to free her lips. The strip flopped to the side of her cheek. “Harcourt, if you honestly care about your daughter, you’ll stop this,” she shouted. “Do you really want to risk her life, too?”
Ian’s thoughts froze. He locked eyes with Rayne.
“I didn’t know Ian, I swear,” she whimpered. She kicked at the guard’s legs. He tightened his grip on her wrist, grabbed her across the chest and lifted her off her feet.
“Don’t hurt her!” Ian shouted. The guard carried her closer and extended her hand toward him. “Look at me Rayne, nowhere else. Just look at me. It’s going to be okay.”
“Stop! Ian, she can’t touch you,” Mara shouted.
Rayne whimpered but her resistance didn’t let up, even when the guard pushed the back of her hand against his cheek.
Breath punched out of him all at once. A force the size of a bowling ball penetrated his chest then retreated as if dragging his core with it. Ian strained for air and fought the crushing pain.
Drake held a small device in his hand. Its light blinked green, rapid at first, then slowed in sync with his countdown. “Ninety strands … eighty strands … seventy.”
Harcourt appeared and hovered above Ian. The anomaly of his close proximity compounded Ian’s shock. Why wasn’t the Curse triggered?
“His drain isn’t as fast as it was for me.” Harcourt’s voice came out garbled as if a recording playing too slow.
“His core is greater. Perhaps he can withstand her power for a few ext
ra seconds,” Drake slurred. “Forty strands … thirty … twenty.”
Harcourt raised his hands and chanted strange words. “Brokaem dur kraehm. Brokaem dur.” He pressed his palm against Ian’s chest, and cringed. “No!” His hand jerked away from Ian. The scientist’s eyes grew dark and menacing. He pushed down harder on Ian’s chest with both hands, but immediately groaned and pulled back, stumbling away.
“Ten.” Drake paused. “What do you want to do? He’s al-most drained.”
Consumed by a dark fog, Ian groped to stay conscious.
“Stop!” Harcourt rushed up the stairs.
The guard pulled Rayne’s hand away. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she bemoaned.
The scientist hadn’t put enough distance between them. An anvil came crashing down on Ian’s chest as the Curse struck. Harcourt cried out in pain. One of the guards grabbed for the scientist, but he batted the man away and made it a couple of steps farther. The worst of the crushing weight lifted.
“It should have worked.” Harcourt pointed at Rayne. “You, your energy drain transferred to me as well.” He dropped his head and gripped the railing. “This can’t be. I’ve done what Aeros’s book said,” he growled.
A red energy blast streaked across the room. It slammed into a table and splintered wood rained over them. “Ahhhh!” Harcourt raised his arm. A swirling ball of energy formed in his open palm. He flung it, and then another. Blasts struck the walls, the floors.
Drake waved at the two guards, “Outside, now. Make sure no one enters.” He rushed toward the scientist. “Doc, stop!”
Transfixed by a power that he didn’t know existed, Ian stared as Drake distracted Harcourt. The fireballs ceased. His thoughts clung to Harcourt’s words. “What book?” he choked.
Frozen in horror, Rayne didn’t respond. Harcourt paced back and forth, ranting about the end being near.
“What book?” Ian rasped.
“He found it in the office upstairs,” she lowered her voice for only his ears.
“Describe it.”
“It looked really old. I couldn’t make out the words on the cover. It seems important somehow. He called it—”
“The Book of the Weir,” Ian said. Rayne nodded. He dropped his head back and closed his eyes. “What do you mean he found it?”
“He said that Ning left it upstairs when he went to meet up with his men.”
“Who’s Ning?” Rapid blinks failed to draw the room into focus. Ian struggled to clear his head while wrestling to hold onto Rayne’s words.
“He works for someone named Aeros. Harcourt says they’re going to kill everyone and take you with them,” she said.
Ian’s throat constricted and he gasped to draw air. “Where’s Ning now?”
“I don’t know.”
Desperate to regain his strength, Ian pulled as much oxygen as he could into his starving lungs and pushed to raise his voice to be heard. “Did you need the Book of the Weir to entrap me, Doctor?”
The scientist’s rants came to a halt, but he didn’t respond.
“Why would Aeros have Ning bring it?” Ian said. “The book is written in a dead language. How did you translate it?
“Some of it was in Latin,” Harcourt said.
“The pages you needed to attempt this, am I right?”
“I’m not the fool you make me out to be, boy,” Harcourt said with scant conviction. He gripped the railing and hung his head.
“Aeros knew you weren’t a fool.” Ian ran a dry tongue over his parched lip. “But he made you desperate.”
Drake glanced between Harcourt and Ian. He took a step toward the scientist. “Doc, what’s he talking about?”
“Better that you die trying to steal my powers than for Aeros to risk it. Which of us is the real lab rat?” Ian said. The room spun and he focused on Rayne to make it stop. He fought to stay conscious, but victory lay beyond his reach. He slid into the depths of nothingness.
{56}
Scuffling footsteps aroused Ian. A shiver confirmed that he was still very much alive. Strapped to the gurney, his eyes remained closed from lids too heavy to pry open.
“You found a way to control it, didn’t you?” Harcourt’s gruff voice came from overhead.
“I don’t know what it is,” Rayne screamed from nearby.
“Liar!” A metal door rattled and then the click of a padlock.
“You’ll never get away with this!” Mara yelled.
Relief at the girls being alive soothed the worst of Ian’s chilled jitters. How long had he been unconscious? He cracked open his lids wide enough to find Drake standing over him with a remote pointed at Ian’s chest. Beeps slow but steady signaled … what? Ian’s memories bounced about like they were trapped inside a pinball machine at an arcade.
“The frequencies are keeping his core at minimal power,” Drake said. “How were you able to use yours?”
“My core beats at a different frequency,” Harcourt said. “I intended to broaden the spectrum and subdue Ning, but he brought too great an arsenal with him.”
“Now what?”
“Summon the beasts,” Harcourt said a minute later. “If the Heir is right, we need to be prepared for Ning’s return.”
Drake pulled a thin metal whistle out of his pocket and left Ian’s side headed for the warehouse door. Harcourt’s voice followed his steps across the balcony. “Find out where Ning and his troops are. Be quiet about it, and don’t bring suspicion to us.”
Ian stole a peek in the direction of the voice. Harcourt was using a walkie-talkie. A second later, the upstairs office door slammed.
His thoughts drifted to Rayne, and all that they lost before it ever had a chance to get started. It’s what had consumed his restless dream. A vice in the center of his chest had tightened all the more upon waking. It wasn’t from his core. He wondered if it was heartache.
He opened his eyes and tilted his head to study the room. They were alone. The girls sat on the floor of their cell. Rayne lay between them with her head in Tara’s lap.
“Rayne?” he said, shocked at how weak his voice came out. “Are you okay?”
She bolted upright. Relief spilled across her face. “I nearly kill you, and you’re worried about me.”
“Mara, Tara?”
“We’re all okay, Ian,” Tara said.
“Speak for yourself.” Mara got to her feet. “I need some target practice. Preferably on something breathing.”
Ian settled his head back on the gurney. He stared at the beams in the ceiling. “Rayne, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Your mother.” His swallow triggered a rough cough. “I failed her.”
“They told me how you tried.” Rayne sniffed. “Ian, you honored her memory by saving so many others.” Shuffling. Rayne’s voice drew closer. “I’m sorry I didn’t mind my own business. I’m sorry I followed my mother’s diary up here. I’m sorry my father turned out to be a ruthless killer, and that I’m his Frankenstein daughter.”
“You were right. All heroes have their dark side,” Ian said. The ache in his chest grew fierce. “I’m not the Good Samaritan you hoped to find.”
“No,” she said. “You’re so much more.”
The tenderness in her voice struck a nerve. He struggled against the restraints, but they held firm. Rayne broke down sobbing. Tara and Mara comforted her in soft whispers.
He wanted nothing more than to gather her up in his arms and kiss away her sorrow with promises to protect her always. The realization that he never could pierced his core like a dagger. A broken heart wasn’t what he bargained for when he begged for his first Syndrion assignment.
Anguish gushed from a gaping wound. Ian closed his eyes. Outside, angry droplets struck the warehouse’s metal siding as rain mixed with sleet fell in protest. He didn’t draw upon the will to make it stop.
{57}
Being forced to watch the events play out from the roof’s skylight went beyond patience, duty, and destiny. Jaered wo
uld have chucked them all in a second for a semiautomatic. The only thing that stopped him from interfering was unadulterated faith that circumstances weren’t going to turn ugly.
That and the fact that he’d left his backpack and rifle down in the bushes when he climbed to the roof earlier, and couldn’t shyft back to retrieve them.
Pummeled by the sudden cloudburst, he pulled his jacket over his head. He studied the room from as many angles as he could to judge the best way to free them without compromising himself. When he spotted a wooden box identical to the one he shot to smithereens on the rooftop, he smiled.
Not one to believe in coincidences, he was still sorting options when he reached the parapet and made to shyft. He needed that rifle. Try as he might, his core wouldn’t draw energy. He clenched his fists and concentrated on the energy field emitting from the surface of the planet to summon the massive pull of the earth’s energy, a power that he alone possessed. Relief surged as the tingling magnetic field flowed into his chest.
A blow from behind sent his thoughts reeling. Jaered dropped to his back. Groans helped to stave off the darkness but made the approaching footsteps difficult to locate. The man stopped and leaned closer. Jaered opened his eyes, grabbed him by the shoulders, and flipped the guard over his head.
Adrenaline kicked in, and Jaered arched his back but landed uneasy on his feet. He regained his balance then twisted on the ball of his foot, smashing his boot into the guard’s chest. Both Jaered and the guard staggered back but remained upright. The guard raised his rifle. Jaered grabbed it before he could set his trigger finger and used the barrel to stabilize another upper kick to the man’s jaw. He fell. Jaered snatched the rifle out of his hands then sent the butt crashing against the man’s skull.
This time, the brute stayed down.
He leaned against the doorjamb and waited for his head to catch up to his sight. He cocked the rifle and held it at the ready. Silence. He pushed inside and found a ladder reaching down to one end of the balcony. Next to it sat an upper beam wide enough to walk across.
The metal walls of the structure were his biggest hurdle. A gunshot would be deafening.