Nine Lives (Lifeline Book 1)

by Kit Colter

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, though it was clear he certainly thought so himself. “Why?”

  “I’m going to be really honest here, Lyle,” Erin said. “You were right about me. I am in trouble. But I don’t understand why. I had a vision. I saw a bunch of stuff I don’t understand, but I heard something also. I think it could be a name, and I think you might recognize it.”

  “Well,” Lyle said professionally, “what did you hear?”

  Erin watched him flatten the top button on his shirt once more, a little tense. When he didn’t pass out again, she continued. “Annexusmons.”

  There wasn’t a single spark of recognition in his eyes. “Sorry, that doesn’t mean a thing to me,” Lyle said. “Has a ring to it though, doesn’t it?”

  Erin stood and tried to think of anything else she could say or do. Really, what was she expecting? Did she actually think the light would go on, and he’d tell her exactly what it was and what to do about it? Hearing the word cross her own lips, all she knew was that it wasn’t Apache. She had known that much, without realizing, even during the vision.

  “You’ve never heard or read anything about it?” Erin asked. “Anything that even sounds similar?”

  Lyle shook his head.

  Erin nodded. “Alright, uh, thanks. Sorry about your eye.” She turned. “I won’t bother you again.” On the second step up the stairs, Lyle cleared his throat.

  “Well, even though I’ve never heard of it, per se, there’s something I might be able to do,” he said reluctantly, yet there were traces of pride in his voice.

  Erin waited for an explanation.

  “Um, well, it’s just a little something I’ve been working on,” he said, swiftly flicking on one of the computer monitors and sitting down. “I’d be permanently banned from the library if they found out about this little project.”

  Erin noticed his repetition of the word little and wondered. She walked back down the stairs and stood behind Lyle’s office chair, staring at the monitor. Lyle typed in a command and pressed enter. A word document appeared on the screen with the heading Aabandra.

  “I’ve got all the A’s, and I’m halfway through the B’s,” Lyle informed her. Erin studied the page a moment before she realized it was a page from the library. “I started copying last year, but you’ve got to be sneaky, so it’s pretty slow going.”

  “You’re copying the library?” Erin asked.

  Lyle nodded. “It’s taking some doing, I’ll tell you that.”

  “How?”

  Lyle smiled a little. “I’m sure you noticed the whole place is rigged with video cameras.” Erin hadn’t noticed, actually, but she wasn’t about to tell Lyle that. “The cameras are under constant watch, too. I did a little test last year. Paid a young fellow to try to sneak out a page or two, and boy did they take him down. You’d never know it, but they’ve got these terribly mean guards slinking around the place. Hide in the back mostly, I think. After that I considered giving up on the project. Thought to myself, ‘what am I going to do with all that information anyway?’ But just having it was good enough for me. So, with a little work, I made a tiny camera and hid it in my sleeve. Sort of awkward, taking photos from my sleeve, but it’ll do the job until I figure out something else. Been working on a little camera for my eyeglasses, but let’s just say I’m having design problems. It’ll work out. I’m sure it will. I just have to make it small enough, then—”

  “You have it then. If you have all the way through B, then annexusmons ought to be in there somewhere,” Erin said. She wondered, briefly, how she had escaped the guards’ suspicion when she stole the files on the Owl Man and Wendigo. She might have been saved, actually, by the fact that the librarian threw her out himself.

  “Hopefully.” Lyle typed in a few commands and a complicated search menu appeared on screen. “I’m not sure how to spell it, so we’ll have to start with the first few letters and go from there.” He typed an[…]m[…]s and hit enter. “This will take a few minutes. It’ll search line by line for the word itself, then line by line for possible variations. There’s literally thousands of documents in the A’s alone, and I told it to search both A and B, so we’re in for a wait.”

  Erin nodded. Thorough was good. She’d be happy with just knowing annexusmons was a real word at this point.

  Lyle swirled around in his chair to look at Erin and pushed his glasses up with his first and middle fingers. “So, if you don’t mind my asking, do you know what it is? The thing you’re dealing with?”

  Erin shook her head. “I think it might be a demon, or something that can control demons—because that’s what was sent after me.”

  Lyle looked as though he wanted to ask another question, but turned back around in his chair instead. “So, who are those two? Twins, aren’t they?”

  “I’m not sure,” Erin said with a quiet laugh. “They’re supposed to be monster hunters or something. I guess they’re called the Gemini, whatever that means.”

  Lyle whipped around in his chair, wide eyed and open-mouthed. “The Gemini?” he asked.

  “Or the Gemini, sure. You’ve heard of them?”

  “Heard of them!? They’re the single most significant and elusive force in the Quinn project. I thought the project was a hoax. But if the Gemini are real, then maybe not. There are also speculative references in some government reports, but as I said, they’re speculative.” He narrowed his eyes on her. “Do you know where they come from?”

  Erin shook her head. “I don’t know anything about them.”

  “Funny, I always thought the Gemini was a ghost. From the project reports, Quinn did, too.” He pursed his lips. “You’re sure they’re not ghosts?”

  “Pretty sure,” Erin said.

  “You don’t think—I mean—it’d be splendid to know, don’t you think? We’d probably be the only two people on the planet, well, except for the Gemini I suppose.”

  Erin’s brows furrowed. She didn’t understand what he was getting at.

  “We couldn’t ask them, could we? Where they come from, I mean? Could you imagine knowing the answer when Quinn spent three years searching just to walk away empty handed?” The computer let out a soft beep. Looking at the screen, Erin saw the number zero in the results column. Lyle was already scrolling down the variations column, mumbling to himself as he went.

  Lyle let out a quiet, “Hmph.”

  Erin already knew what it meant. “I guess I’ll just go to the library tomorrow,” she said, though she knew her chances of finding anything there were small. There was too much to look through, especially with no computerized searching technique. The library index was organized by topic, so unless annexusmons was a topic of its own she was completely out of luck.

  “Oh! Annexus Mons,” Lyle said in a satisfied voice. “You didn’t tell me it was two words.” The screen showed a list of words starting with M. Highlighted near the top of the list was Mons, Annexus.

  “I thought you only had A and B,” Erin said.

  “Oh, this is the sub-index,” Lyle said simply. When Erin didn’t respond, he went on. “It took me six months to get my hands on this thing. See, I knew they had it. You’ve seen the regular index. Pitiful. Not even a tenth of the library is listed there. I knew the staff had to have something better. They’ve got to be able to make their way around even if we—the hard-working seekers of wisdom who fund their very existence—can’t find our own tails in all that mess.” He shook his head in aggravation. “In any case, I had to find some way to prove that they had it. And they certainly weren’t parading around with it. So, I started asking for things, anything I thought they might not be able to find with the regular index. But, just like I said earlier, you can’t act suspicious about it. You’ve got to take your time, so they won’t start suspecting you. They’re really quite sharp, the library staff. I finally asked for something they couldn’t locate with the index and didn’t have memorized, and Miss Clara pulled it right out from beneath the counter. A black th
ree ring binder, big as two phone books. Poor Miss Clara could hardly lug it up onto the counter herself. After I found it was real, well then I really started being a bother. After a while Gregory and Miss Clara just got so fed up with the questions that they let me go through the sub-index myself. I’ve still got exclusive access to it. Their one client crazy enough to get his hands on it. That’s how I found out about those government files, by the way.”

  Erin nodded. She was getting tired again. Or maybe just more tired. Every time she started to get used to one level of fatigue, it intensified. She wasn’t going to make it much longer.

  “So it exists in any case,” Lyle said, pointing at the words Mons, Annexus on the screen. “In V-11, to be precise. Too bad.”

  “What’s too bad?”

  “That’s in the vault,” he said. “One of the original texts.”

  “So, let’s get into the vault,” Erin said.

  Lyle looked at her as though she was crazy. “And how do you propose we do that? Of course, it would be splendid and all, but they have security. And besides security, the vault’s, well, a vault. Metal, hinges, codes, and the like.”

  There was a snorting sound. Erin turned to see the twins standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Could you do it?” she asked.

  They appeared offended by the mere question.

  “I’ll get the layout,” Derek said.

  Seven nodded, then turned to Lyle. “Get your ass in the car.”

  Lyle let out a startled yelp as Seven grabbed him by the shirt-collar and dragged him up the stairs. Derek dropped into Lyle’s chair and swirled around to face the monitor.

  “What do you want me to do?” Erin asked, anxious to help. This was her project after all.

  “You could take off your clothes,” Derek said, typing at what appeared to be the speed of light.

  “I meant to help,” Erin said.

  “I think that would be helpful,” he said.

  Erin stepped up behind Derek, watching the screen. It took her a moment to realize what he was doing. There was a U.S. government insignia at the top of the screen.

  “Are you allowed?” she asked.

  Derek shrugged.

  “You’re looking for the building blueprints?” Erin asked.

  “I was looking for Russian porn, but I guess that’s a good idea too,” he muttered, still typing.

  “Why would the government have the library’s blueprints?” she asked, ignoring the comment.

  “Section 13 keeps tabs on all that stuff,” Derek replied.

  “What’s Section 13?” she asked.

  “Dunno. I made it up.”

  Chapter 16

  Erin found herself lying on the stairs. She’d fallen asleep. The phone was ringing. She gasped as a blur of black leapt over her, and she heard footsteps pounding up the steps.

  “Perkins’s Adult Toy Shop.” It was Derek’s voice. “Oh, yeah. Ten minutes.”

  She heard him hang up the phone and sat up. “What time is it?” she moaned.

  “Time to go,” Derek said, leaping back over her to the bottom of the steps and snatching a handful of papers out of the printer tray. He grabbed Erin’s hand, then dragged her upstairs, down the hall, and out the front door. Outside, the bus had something that looked like a cross between a snow plough and an enormous metal spear mounted to its nose. Derek bounded into the bus, pulling Erin up the steps, and slid into the driver seat. He jammed the key into the ignition and thrash metal exploded in Erin’s ears.

  “What’s going on?” Erin called over the music, blinking rapidly against the dull ache of exhaustion.

  “We’re getting into the vault,” Derek said, stepping on the gas. The bus surged into motion.

  “Now?” Erin asked.

  Derek gave her a razor-sharp smile, then slammed the gearshift into third. In seconds, the bus was careening down the road. Twelve minutes later, Derek tore up Paseo de Peralta, ramped the curb, and rammed the bus straight into the back doors of the Scottish Rite Temple. The momentum threw Erin face-first into the seat in front of her. She grabbed her nose and started to ask what happened, but Derek stomped on the gas again and the bus lurched backward. Looking through the windshield, Erin saw that the spear-plough attachment had snagged on a set of metal gates inside the doors and was slowly, slowly ripping them away as the bus pulled back from the building. There was a grating sound, then a loud snap that rocked the bus as the gates gave way. Derek killed the engine and jumped out of the vehicle. Erin stumbled after him, then looked up to the sound of grinding gears as the Viper skidded up to the curb. The car slowed, then began to lurch forward in a series of halting jerks. Right before it stalled, the Viper rocketed forward over the curb and crashed into the back of the bus. Erin watched as Lyle fell out of the driver’s side door with a stunned expression.

  “Geek can’t drive a standard,” Seven muttered with a scowl as she climbed out of the passenger seat.

  Lyle staggered toward Erin with a dazed expression, and a moment later she understood why. There was a thundering crack and the night sky filled color and light. Fireworks. The booming roar continued, even accelerated, and Lyle stepped up beside Erin.

  “Oh, this is bad, Ann. This is terribly, terribly bad.”

  Erin stared up at the sky in shock.

  “We set them off. Outside the Governor’s Mansion, Erin. That’s terrorism, I think. It’s got to be.”

  “What?”

  “An attack on a government building.”

  “It’ll buy us five—ten—extra minutes.” Derek walked to the back of the bus, unhooked a four wheeler Erin hadn’t noticed until just then, and drove over to her. “Hop on.”

  Erin climbed on, sliding between Derek and an enormous metal tank strapped to the back. Derek turned on the headlight, hit the gas, and tore through the hole where the back doors used to be, speeding past aisles one, two, three, four, five. Derek jerked the wheel to the right and slid to a stop beside the vault door.

  He approached the door—a monstrous, gleaming steel slab—and began attaching chunks of what appeared to be clay. Erin stepped closer and noticed Derek applying something to the clay before mounting it to the vault door.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “Superglue.”

  “No. The other stuff.”

  “Thermite’s evil cousin,” Derek said, flashing her a grin.

  Erin didn’t know what thermite was, but took a step back as a precaution. Within seconds, Derek had formed a nearly perfect circle of clay mounted to the steel. He quickly ran a coil of silver wire through each of the chunks, then extended the rest of the coil back, back, further back. Past the four wheeler and into the nearest aisle of metal cabinets.

  Meanwhile, Seven appeared carrying what appeared to be an oversized fire extinguisher and a rubber tube with a wide nozzle at one end. She attached the nozzle to the nose of the four-wheeler and connected the other end of the rubber tube to the metal tank strapped to the back of the four wheeler. Lyle tiptoed up behind Seven, inspecting the contraption over her shoulder. She stood, grabbed his shirt collar, and tossed him into the aisle with Erin and Derek. Seven unhooked a blow-torch from the side of the four-wheeler and tossed it to Derek, then picked up the fire extinguisher. Derek lit the blow-torch and ignited the end of the silver coil.

  Immediately, a flash of blinding white light illuminated the library. Erin squinted and tracked the burning glow as it traveled down the wire toward the vault door. Then the light met the first lump of clay stuck to the steel, and a surge of smoldering red lava streamed out in every direction. The next clump ignited with the same glowing rush of molten metal. And then another. And another.

  Erin realized she was backing away.

  “Oh, no,” Lyle murmured. “Not thermite.”

  Erin wiped the sweat from her face, suddenly noticing the surge of heat emanating from the steel. The clay lumps were completely gone, and the steel beneath them had changed colors to a deep, bruised red. Gl
owing. Hotter and hotter. Within seconds, the heat was intolerable. The air felt thick in Erin’s lungs, and her face felt stiff, her eyes dry, clothes clinging to her body with perspiration. The heat was sapping the strength from her body. Erin watched the steel turn to lava and melt to the floor, forming a crooked, misshapen slit in the vault wall.

  Surrounded by glowing, red hot metal.

  Erin took another step back.

  “But the library,” Lyle murmured. “It’ll burn everything.”

  Seven stepped forward with the oversized fire extinguisher and began spraying a thick stream of what appeared to be foam onto the vault. The frothy liquid seemed to harden on contact, forming a congealed, white sludge over the molten metal. Erin watched it continue to boil and shift, but the hardening foam stretched and oozed with the creeping lava beneath.

  Lyle was shaking his head fervently. “Oh, no. No, no, that’s a bad idea. Liquid nitrogen won’t work. This is terrible—terrible.”

  Seven hit a lever on the large metal tank and an enormous blast of thick, white, smoke burst out of the nozzle mounted to the four wheeler. Coldness and a thick fog of ice crystals flooded the air, freezing the sweat on Erin’s face. She took several steps back and tripped over Lyle. The icy white fog descended on them, and Erin scrambled backwards further.

  Seven shoved the four-wheeler forward over the puddle of molten slag beneath the vault wall, leapt onto the nose, and darted through the hole. The smell of burning rubber lifted from the tires.

  “Ladies first,” Derek said, tossing aside the blow torch.

  Erin stared.

  “You’ve got ten minutes,” Derek said. “Tops.”

  Erin climbed onto the four-wheeler and took several slow breaths.

  “Do not touch the edges. Don’t touch the slag on the other side. It’s still burning—just slower. It will melt the skin right off your body before you even feel it,” Derek said, then gave her an encouraging wink.

  “Hurry it up!” Seven called from the other side.

  Erin bit her lip and crouched down, slowly climbing under the continued blast of liquid nitrogen, then hurled herself through the gap. She took two giant leaps when she hit the ground, propelling herself away from the melted steel. Then she swallowed back the bile in her throat and looked around.