The Darkling Hunters_Fox Company Alpha

by Rhiannon Ayers

  “Is that what he told you?” Sam said, amazement making his voice crack. “That she turned on him?”

  Boss sighed. “I keep forgetting what it was like to care about small details like that. Yes, I know he drove her away the first time, and yes, I know he murdered her family. But, truly, it doesn’t matter who did what to whom, who started it, who broke whose heart. None of it matters now that Sydney is out of play. The Agency can go back to its original mission, which is to eradicate rogue darklings who have outlived their usefulness. Levi has no interest in anything beyond that. You can rest easy.”

  Rest easy? Never again. Not now that he knew the Agency had been overrun by darklings. But still, his heart started beating just a little faster. Something Boss kept saying, something he kept referring to in an offhand manner, started a random series of thoughts churning together in the back of his mind. If he could just have a moment to collect himself, think it all through…

  “How the hell have you stayed in power this long?” Dex asked suddenly. His scowl looked dark enough to block out the sun. “Someone must have noticed you’ve gone over to the dark side. Why hasn’t anyone ended you?”

  “Because those who try end up dead,” Boss said. His voice was calm, careless, as if he described a boring business meeting. “Please, both of you, be reasonable here. There’s no need for this meeting to end in bloodshed. We still need good field agents.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Dex said. “You’d actually let us go? Knowing what we know now?”

  “There’s little you could do about it,” Boss said with a scoff. “Anyone with the power to get rid of me has already been turned, and no one else would even believe anything you said. There’s nothing you can do about the upper echelons of Agency management. Your only options are to walk away from this meeting as better-informed darkling hunters—or leave this room in body bags. The choice, gentlemen, is yours.”

  He stood up and pushed back from the table.

  Sam made a quick gestured toward Dex, squeezed his eyes shut—and slammed his boot heel down on the glass button he’d dropped beside his chair. The flash sizzled through the room, a light bomb with no sound. Boss screamed, and Sam heard his office chair skitter across the hardwood floor. He opened his eyes the moment the glow faded, took three strides across the room, and slammed his fist as hard as he could against the man’s right temple. Boss went down like a sack of wet flour, his head bouncing against the floor.

  “Why not just kill the fucker?” Dex snarled, rounding the table a moment later.

  Sam was busily searching the lab coat’s pockets. “Because we might need him. Sydney’s still alive, Dex. We have to find her.”

  Dex stumbled, then dropped to a knee on Boss’s other side. “Say what? How do you figure that?”

  Sam pocketed a slick keycard and a set of office keys. “He kept saying things like ‘taking her off the board’ and ‘putting her out of play.’ The only time he said she was dead was when he thought it would affect our judgment. Besides, he chose Xander and Morgan to bring her in. No way those guys would have killed her—or allowed her to be killed while they were still here. They know just as well as we do that she couldn’t be a darkling.”

  “Doesn’t mean she’s still alive now,” Dex pointed out, but he started searching pockets on the other side of Boss’s coat. “They could have waited until those guys left her alone with them.”

  Sam shook his head. “No. I think Boss wanted her alive. I think all the managing directors wanted her captured instead of killed.”

  “Why would…” Dex trailed off, and Sam looked up to find his partner’s eyes going wide. “Shit. They think she can put them back together, don’t they? They want her to fix what Levi broke inside them.”

  “Exactly. Help me flip him over.”

  Dex heaved on Boss’s shoulders while Sam twisted the man’s hips. Sam dug into the man’s back pockets and finally found what he’d been looking for—a tiny, round key that looked like it would fit the lock in the elevator.

  “But…Sydney said herself, she’s not strong enough to do that,” Dex pointed out. He reached for Boss’s belt and yanked it open. “Why would they—”

  “Who the fuck knows?” Sam yanked off Boss’s patent-leather shoes and helped Dex shimmy the man’s pants down to his ankles. “Maybe they just assume she can because she’s Levi’s opposite. Maybe they found out about the Seraphina and just assume she has the same power they do. Doesn’t matter why they kept her alive. All that matters is that they did.”

  Dex grumbled some more, but he did it under his breath while both men worked to secure their former employer. Sam used his pocket knife to cut each pant leg into long ribbons, then braided those ribbons into flexible bits of heavy rope. Dex did the same thing to the white lab coat, and between them, they managed to secure the man’s legs and feet. They tied him up, arms and legs bent back behind him with extra rope used to cinch both wrappings into one reinforced unit. Then, just for one last bit of insurance, Sam threaded the man’s belt through a leg of his boxer shorts and back out the top of the elastic before wrapping the other end of the belt over and through the plastic arm of an office chair. He cinched the whole thing closed and turned the buckle so that it sat on the opposite side of the chair’s arm, where Boss would have trouble seeing it, much less reaching it.

  Let him waste time wondering if he could escape with his shorts still on. Even a darkling would think twice about running around a government building buck-naked.

  “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “How do we know which floor?”

  “We guess.” Sam peeked outside the conference room doorway, then motioned that the coast was clear. Both men strode out casually, as if they’d merely been dismissed from their meeting, and headed for the solitary elevator.

  “I have six buttons left,” Sam said out of the corner of his mouth. “You?”

  “I only grabbed two,” Dex rumbled back. “But I still have most of my lightsabers, my belt knife, my DEA-approved Glock, and a couple of extra magazines.”

  Sam tapped the elevator button and shoved his hands in his pockets, bouncing on his heels like a man who was impatient to go back home. “Same. It’ll have to do.”

  The elevator hissed open—

  And the young woman from the reception desk met Sam’s eyes with a flat, blank stare. “Gentlemen. This way, please.” She stepped back with a sweeping side-motion of her hand, obviously waiting for them to join her.

  Sam’s heart thundered in his ears. Did she mean to stop them? Report them? Kill them, perhaps? If she was truly loyal to Boss and the DEA, she might very well be ready to do just that.

  He could kill her right now. Perhaps he should, if only to stop her from making trouble for them later on. But although it made sense logically, still, he hesitated. Not because he found her unthreatening, even though she barely came up to his chin. Sam had long moved past the caveman perspective that a little slip of a woman posed no threat to him; dealing with Sydney had taught him that much. But, that didn’t make it any easier to contemplate snuffing out a woman’s life just because she stood in his way. She could be an innocent, someone who just happened to be blindly loyal.

  Throat dry as the Sahara desert, Sam stepped onto the elevator. A moment later, Dex stepped in behind him. Both men stood facing the woman, their backs to the doors as they slid shut. The woman gave him a sardonic, knowing little smile and reached into the pocket of her blazer.

  Both men tensed—right before she withdrew a small, round key, exactly like the one Sam had pulled from Boss’s pocket.

  “Your friend is being held on Sub-Level Four,” she said, meeting both their eyes in turn. “I believe they are keeping her drugged. Try not to kill everyone. Only the men in white lab coats are true darklings. They’re the only ones who deserve to die.”

  Sam sucked in a sharp breath. “How many? Are there guards? Watchers? Alarms?”

  “I’ve taken care of the surveillance system,” s
he said in a crisp, no-nonsense voice. “The rest, you’ll have to handle yourselves. I can’t give you that much time, though. Someone will eventually go looking for Mr. Mitchell. Once he’s reported missing, the building with go on lock-down.”

  Mr. Mitchell? Oh. She must mean Boss. Funny. All this time, I never even wondered about his real name.

  “Why?” Dex said sharply, getting the woman’s attention. He didn’t bother to elaborate.

  Her pale blue eyes glittered with instant fury. “Because those bastards treat the women of this place like living playthings. We’re nothing to them. Toys. They use us and abuse us, and there’s nothing we can do about it. No one ever takes our word over theirs. Until now, we’ve had no hope—we can either quit and hope we can find other jobs, or put up with them for the sake of a steady paycheck. But if what I’ve heard about your friend is true, she might actually be able to take them down.” A queer, almost inhuman light entered her eyes. “And I, for one, would prefer to see that happen sooner rather than later.”

  The elevator hissed open. The woman pushed past Sam, placing the key in his palm as she did. “She’s in the lab on the far side of the building. Just keep going east when you get off the elevator. There’s a palm-scanner beside the doors. You’ll have to figure out how to open it if you want to get your friend out alive.”

  She disappeared down the hallway before either man could say a word. The doors hissed shut, and Sam immediately inserted the small circular key. He flipped it until it locked in place and watched as the six lower buttons lit up. He mashed the fourth one as he pulled his service weapon from the holster at the small of his back. Dex did the same.

  By the time the doors hissed open again, they were both aiming for the hallway beyond. Fortunately, it seemed empty. Sam moved forward, scanning for any sign of movement, while Dex took up a rear-guard. With no maps and no clue how far the underground levels extended, they would have to rely on Sam’s sense of direction and a healthy dose of luck.

  They made it down two hallways and around two corners before they came to an area that seemed to be more active. Here, the straight white walls were split horizontally down the center, with the top halves replaced by clear glass. Sam and Dex both ducked down, duck-walking to limit their visibility while still moving as silently and swiftly as only Marine-trained operatives could. They made it to a huge T-intersection without incident.

  Sam paused. Through the half-glass windows, he could see people moving around a dizzying variety of lab equipment, seemingly intent on their tasks. He saw plenty of women dressed in colorful scrubs, but no men in white lab coats. Frowning, he made a fast series of hand-gestures, telling Dex to move to the opposite corner of the intersection and get a peek down the other hallways. Sam was checking his sector when he happened to look up through the glass wall directly opposite his position—

  And saw a woman in pink scrubs looking directly at him.

  He froze. The woman stared at him for a long, tense moment. Then, she placed a finger over her lips. She made a gesture toward the left side of the intersection, held up two fingers, then made a sharp motion to her right.

  Two enemies in the left-hand hallway, both on the right side.

  Sam gave her a sharp nod in reply. The woman swallowed hard, eyes darting around to make sure no one else had noticed him. Then she gestured toward the opposite side of the intersection, held up one finger, and made a sharp gesture toward the left.

  One enemy in the right-side hallway. Left side this time.

  Sam nodded again. The woman closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then gestured toward the remaining hallway. She held up two fingers, shook her head slightly, then held up two more, her expression falling into a sharp scowl.

  Two enemies, two friendlies. Shit. That will complicate things. But Sam nodded anyway to let her know he understood. The woman gave a small sigh of relief—and turned her back on him.

  Sam got Dex’s attention, then gestured toward the main hall. Dex nodded, and they darted across the intersection together. Knowing where the enemies were located made it easier to move with more precision. Sam led the way to the end of the hall, then gestured for Dex to take up a position on the left-hand side. He caught his partner’s eyes, then holstered his gun. Dex stared at him, then reluctantly did the same. Sam pulled the hidden knife from his belt buckle, the one Sydney had enhanced with her power. He took a deep breath and risked a look around the corner.

  It was an open space dotted with large metal tables and lined with metal shelving units. Two orderlies, both female, moved among the tables with clipboards in hand. At one end of the room, two white-coated men stood side-by-side, their heads bent together as the spoke quietly. They appeared to be discussing some sort of complicated read-out on a nearby computer screen, and neither seemed to be paying attention to anything else around them. Directly across from the hallway where Sam squatted, a pair of enormous, hermetically-sealed doors stood beside an unlabeled panel of plain white glass.

  Clever. If the woman at the front desk hadn’t made us use the palm scanner, we might never have known what that white panel was for.

  Sam waited, tension thrumming through his body. One of the women moved in his direction, her eyes focused on her clipboard. Unwilling to risk a noise that would alert the two men, Sam waited until he was certain she would see him in her peripheral vision—and then waved.

  -She didn’t look up from her clipboard, but Sam saw the way her muscles tensed. Without looking at him or even acknowledging his presence, the woman moved toward her companion. Her pale-blue scrubs rustled against the metal as she leaned casually against the nearest table. Sam heard a tiny whisper, too low to make out, and the other woman tensed. Then, seemingly at random, they both put down their clipboards and strolled toward the hallway.

  “And where are you two off to?” called one of the lab-coated men, not even bothering to look up from the computer screen. “We’re not finished here.”

  Sam moved like a lightning strike, darting across the open space between one breath and the next. By the time the man finally deigned to look up, a small frown trickling over his face, Sam was already rising to his feet. He slashed the small knife across the man’s cheek and stepped back.

  The darkling exploded in a cloud of glittering white ash.

  The other man whirled, his face screwing up in disbelief as his partner disintegrated before his eyes. Sam was already on the move, slipping behind him just as he took a step toward the pile of ash that used to be a man. Sam slammed his knife into the man’s carotid artery and skipped backward as another flash of light consumed his body. White powder rained down over the formerly pristine steel countertops, sounding like rain on a hot tin roof.

  Silence fell. Then, Sam heard a whispered, “Thank God.”

  He turned to find the two women staring at the piles of ash, with Dex standing protectively in front of them. The one wearing blue scrubs looked up at Sam with tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”

  Sam nodded, throat thick from seeing so much suppressed emotion in her eyes. He gestured toward the glass panel. “Can you open that?”

  Thankfully, she nodded. The woman stepped forward and slapped her palm over the panel. The green light did its dance, then a hissing noise filled the air as the doors slid open. The woman stood back and met his eyes with a look of steely determination. “We’ll distract them as long as we can. Hurry. And…thank you.”

  Sam tilted his head in a brief bow. Then he and Dex approached the newly unsealed room.

  It was a lab within a lab. The walls were lined with a mind-boggling array of experimental equipment, everything from electron-microscopes to mass-spectrometers to God knew what else. Test tubes and beakers and Bunsen burners, gas lines and water hoses and rack after rack of microscope slides. The ultimate Mad Scientist’s laboratory.

  A metal gurney sat in the exact center of the room, directly on top of a massive grate. Sydney lay on a slab of shiny sheet metal, naked and exposed. Tubes and wires had been a
ttached to various parts of her body, and a breathing tube had been shoved down her throat. A pair of IV stands had been placed on either side of the table near her head, both carrying multiple bags of different-color liquids. Tubes led from each bag, and those tubes led to needles that were stuck through veins in Sydney’s arms, throat, and chest. There were surgical cuts on both arms, both legs, and her lower abdomen, all neatly sutured.

  She looked like Frankenstein’s monster, right before the lightning strike brought him to life.

  Dex bolted into the room and began pulling tubes away from Sydney’s body. Sam shook himself and joined his partner, removing needles and cutting fluid lines. They worked in grim silence, though Sam could feel the tension flowing off his partner’s body. The other man was on the verge of a scream of pure fury at the sight of what they’d done to the woman they loved.

  They’d just finished cutting the last line when a voice shouted, “Get down! On the ground, now!”

  Chapter 28

  Dex whirled around—and found six assault rifles pointed directly at his head.

  He froze in the act of reaching for his gun, then slowly raised both hands. Sam did the same, and they both watched the team of fully-armored men fan through the room. They wore assault gear—helmets, flak-jackets, the whole nine yards—but instead of camo, it was all in pure white.

  The better to blend in with the walls of this place. Fuck. Nothing like dealing with professional soldiers. Damn the DEA and its penchant for recruiting military personnel.

  One of the soldiers moved forward, gun firmly trained on Dex’s forehead, and relieved him of his sidearm. He did the same thing to Sam, then stepped back to stand with his compatriots. All five men stayed crouched in ready-formation, weapons hot. They waited.