“You aren’t the only one,” she admitted.
He glanced toward her tight expression. “No?”
Lana thought back to her interview with the leader of the Brotherhood. If she hadn’t allowed the woman’s smug arrogance to provoke her, she would have more fully considered her sense that Stella was hiding something from her.
“When I was questioning Stella I knew she was far too complacent for a human female who was locked in the dungeons of Valhalla,” she admitted. “She must have known she could escape.”
Wolfe narrowed his dark eyes. “She may have gotten out of the dungeons, but there’s no way in hell she can evade my Sentinels for long.”
Lana shared his confidence in the warriors. Nothing could get past them. But she still worried that Stella wasn’t finished with her unpleasant surprises.
“Shouldn’t you warn your team she might have more weapons?” she asked.
“They’ll know to be careful,” Wolfe said, his body stiffening as there was a sudden shriek of an alarm. “Damn,” Wolfe snarled in disbelief. “I told Arel to be discreet.”
Lana yanked the phone out of the pocket of her jeans, already knowing it had nothing to do with the Sentinels. She’d allowed Wolfe to take care of the security system, but she’d personally added her own set of warnings for those dangers most warriors would never consider.
“That’s not an alarm for an escaped prisoner,” she grimly muttered, her heart missing a beat as she used her phone to tap into the heart of the security system.
Wolfe moved to peer over her shoulder, his muscles tensed as he prepared to face the latest threat.
“Then what is it?”
She pressed in her password, already suspecting what had triggered the shrill alert.
“The sensors have detected an airborne contaminant.”
Wolfe sucked in a startled breath. “Gas?”
“Disease,” she corrected.
Stepping back, Wolfe considered the various implications. “Could Stella have tripped the sensor?” he at last demanded.
Lana shoved the phone back in her pocket. It seemed the most logical explanation. After all, what better way to distract the warriors searching for her than to cause widespread panic?
But the sensors had been carefully calculated by the healers. What weapon could Stella possess that would trigger them?
“I don’t know,” she muttered, hurrying down the corridor. “But until we can be sure, we need to evacuate the area.”
Wolfe was swiftly at her side, the gun held in one hand as his gaze scanned for any signs of danger. Lana didn’t bother to tell him to concentrate on finding Stella while she dealt with the alarm.
Until she knew the extent of the danger, she wanted him at her side.
Chapter Nineteen
It took them less than five minutes to reach the offices reserved for the healers. Predictably, most of the rooms were empty as the staff was occupied with preparing their patients in case they needed to evacuate.
Impatiently, Lana moved through the reception area, which was decorated in soothing shades of blue, and down the short hall to the office at the very back. Stepping inside, she glanced toward the line of monitors that hung on the back wall. Most were used to keep a watch on the patients, but the security system was interlocked. Once the alarm went off, it should have triggered the cameras to locate the cause of the disturbance.
“Ida,” she murmured as the silver-haired woman turned from the computer set on a mahogany desk. Wearing the traditional uniform of casual slacks and long white jacket, she rose to her feet.
“Mave.”
Lana waved her hand toward the light flashing in the center of the ceiling. Any detection of disease would trigger the alert in this office first.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
The elder healer shot a wary glance toward Wolfe, who stood a few steps behind Lana. Even with his aggression leashed, it filled the room with painful prickles of heat. Thankfully, Ida had been around Sentinels long enough not to panic, and once assured that Wolfe wasn’t there to cause her harm, returned her attention to Lana.
“Something that shouldn’t be possible,” she said, moving across the silver-gray rug to stand in front of the monitors.
Lana swiftly joined her, studying the closest monitor. At the moment it was locked on an empty preschool room.
“Explain,” she commanded.
Ida folded her arms over her chest. She’d chosen to work among humans for years, learning their technology and how it could be adapted to benefit high-bloods, before arriving at Valhalla ten years ago. It was that knowledge, combined with her crisp, no-nonsense attitude, that’d made her a perfect leader for the healers.
“The sensors detected a contaminant on the fifth floor,” she said, pointing toward a middle monitor that was oddly blank.
“Fifth floor?” Wolfe muttered, taking a jerky step forward. “Shit. The nursery.”
Ida gave a somber nod of her head. “At first I assumed it was a false alarm.”
Wolfe sent her a confused frown. “Why would you think it was false?”
“The spells that surround Valhalla would have prevented anyone from entering who carried a potential disease,” the older woman informed him.
Wolfe shrugged. “There’re other ways to carry in germs.”
“No.” Lana gave a firm shake of her head. Over the years she’d layered and strengthened the spell, ensuring that it was capable of penetrating any container that might be used to carry in microorganisms. “The magic would have alerted me.”
“We don’t know what kind of weapon Stella might have with her,” he reminded her, an edge in his voice.
He was still furious that the woman had managed to outwit them and escape.
“I conjured the spells myself,” she assured him, using her Mave voice. It warned she wasn’t going to argue. “Nothing could have been smuggled through them.”
Wolfe cocked a brow. He was the only one in Valhalla who didn’t twitch in fear when she used that particular tone.
“If you’re so certain, then why did you add that specific alarm to my system?” he pressed.
Lana sucked in a sharp breath, her hands clenching at her sides.
She’d been so rattled by the alarm coming on top of Stella’s escape, she hadn’t truly considered what might have triggered her spell. Not until Wolfe asked the obvious question.
Now her stomach twisted with an icy dread.
She turned her head to meet his steady gaze. “You remember me telling you that the first Mave was dedicated to eradicating those high-bloods she considered a danger?”
He nodded. “Tough to forget.”
No crap. She still woke up drenched in sweat at the nightmare of watching her friends being hunted down and slaughtered like they were animals.
“Two of those high-bloods were healers who could create diseases in people they came into contact with.”
Ida made a sound of distress, her light brown eyes widening as she sent Lana a horrified glance.
“Plague carriers?”
“Yes,” Lana muttered, her brain still trying to wrap around the thought.
It’d been a long time since she’d allowed herself to remember Dylan and Juliet. She’d barely known them, since they tended to remain aloof from society. Understandable, since most people were terrified of them.
Now it was a struggle to recall what she knew about them.
“They had the plague?” Wolfe questioned in puzzlement.
“Not themselves.” She paused, searching her memory for anything that might help. “From what little I heard about the carriers, they could even train themselves to control their ability. They weren’t any more dangerous than any other high-blood until they wanted to infect someone.”
Wolfe shuddered. “They could spread disease whenever they wanted?”
“No.” Lana furrowed her brow. “It wasn’t like a mass epidemic. Each person would develop a completely different disease.�
��
“Christ,” the Tagos breathed. “I understand why the previous Mave was so eager to get rid of them.” He held up his hand as she narrowed her gaze. “I’m not saying I approve of what she did. I’m just saying the humans would be freaked if they realized we had”—he hesitated before latching onto Ida’s term—“plague carriers.”
Lana couldn’t argue. Especially since all humans were susceptible to the power, while only a handful of high-bloods had ever been infected.
“It gets worse,” she confessed. “When the magic first manifests, the carrier can’t control it. They spread infection without even realizing what they’re doing.”
Ida rubbed her arms, her usual calm shattered by the thought of a healer using her skills to harm others.
“I’ve heard of them, but I thought they were a myth,” she muttered.
Lana’s heart twisted with regret. If she could go back in time she would have destroyed the previous Mave the very minute she discovered the woman was killing high-bloods. Unfortunately, she couldn’t change the past.
She could only learn from it and move on.
“After they were destroyed by the previous Mave their history was erased,” Lana said. “She didn’t want the humans fearing—”
“Germ warfare?” Wolfe completed her sentence.
“Exactly.” Lana briefly glanced toward Ida, who’d paled to a pasty shade. “There was no opportunity to study why they didn’t become ill or why some high-bloods were infected and others weren’t.”
“So instead you layered Valhalla with alarms,” Wolfe murmured.
“There was always the possibility that a carrier would be born,” Lana pointed out, turning her attention back to Wolfe. She was the type of woman who was prepared for any situation.
Even if those situations seemed unlikely.
Wolfe furrowed his brow, turning his gaze toward the bank of monitors.
“Is that what happened?”
“Ida?” Lana laid her hand on the healer’s arm, distracting the older woman from her dark thoughts.
Ida gave a faint shake of her head, grimly squaring her shoulders. She was intelligent enough to realize the fate of Valhalla might very well hang in the balance.
“No,” she said in her usually crisp tones. “There was no one who could have manifested the talent.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because the floor was virtually empty when the alarm sounded and we set the quarantine protocol into motion.”
Wolfe glanced toward the healer. “What protocol?”
“We evacuated those we could, and then sealed the floor.”
Lana moved to the computer on Ida’s desk, calling up the blueprints of the fifth floor.
Offices. Storage rooms. Preschool classes. And the nursery.
“Who was left?” Wolfe demanded, leaning over Lana’s shoulder.
For once, she wasn’t troubled by the heat that seared against her back. Instead, she savored the feel of him pressed close.
His solid strength gave her the courage to face the painful decisions she didn’t doubt were going to have to be made.
Ida joined them, pointing a finger toward the blueprints. “We had to leave behind a teacher who is infected with typhoid fever and a healer who has smallpox.” The healer pinched her lips together in frustration. She was a healer. Being forced to abandon the sick, even if it was only temporary, was clearly wearing on her nerves. “We couldn’t allow them to leave the quarantined area until we understood how the diseases were being spread.”
“What about the nursery?” Wolfe asked, his expression bleak.
Like Ida, he didn’t like to leave the wounded behind.
“Most of the children were already home with their families, thank God,” the healer muttered.
When a child or adolescent was brought to Valhalla, he or she was fostered by a specific family, although everyone in the community helped to raise kids.
Every day the children were expected to spend time in the nursery. It was important that they grow up without prejudice toward people who not only had a variety of powers, but on occasion looked different. And of course, it gave them the opportunity to learn to control their talents when surrounded by others.
During the evening they were returned to the apartments they shared with their foster families.
All except . . .
“Molly,” Lana breathed in horror.
Ida gave a distressed nod. “She’s still in there.”
Wolfe straightened, abruptly pacing back toward the monitors, as if hoping to catch sight of the little girl.
“Could she be the carrier?”
Ida gave a helpless lift of her hands. “There’s no way to know.”
Lana pressed a hand to her thundering heart, fiercely concentrating on how she could get past the layers of magic that would have been triggered the moment the quarantine went into effect.
“Is she alone?” she asked.
“We’re not sure.” Ida turned to press a key on the computer. “We had her on video, then this stranger appeared and she destroyed the cameras.”
The monitors were suddenly filled with a static image of Molly in the room with a familiar auburn-haired woman.
Wolfe cursed as Lana took a jerky step forward.
“Stella,” Lana rasped, shock racing through her.
She’d been so caught up in the potential biological disaster, she’d almost forgotten they had an escaped prisoner.
Now she studied the pretty heart-shaped face with the cruel expression as the woman grabbed Molly by the arm and glared directly at the camera.
The woman had obviously used the tunnels to make her way to the fifth floor in the hopes of hiding until the search for her was over. Or maybe she’d even hoped to take a hostage and force Wolfe to release her.
What she hadn’t counted on was being stuck in the middle of an outbreak....
Lana sucked in a sharp breath, the truth slamming into her with the force of a freight train. It could be a fluke that Stella had been with Molly when the alarms went off, but Lana didn’t believe in coincidences.
“She’s the carrier,” she abruptly announced.
There was a startled silence before Wolfe was giving a shake of his head.
“Impossible.” He sent her a baffled glance. “She’s a human.”
Lana held his dark gaze. “She was human until she came into contact with a child capable of stirring her latent powers.”
Wolfe slowly turned back to the monitor, his gaze resting on the smudged image of Molly’s sweet face surrounded by a halo of silver curls. She looked the picture of innocence, but if the Master of Gifts was right, she possessed the ability to be a catalyst, stirring latent powers that Stella probably never suspected she possessed.
If the woman realized the truth . . .
Lana swallowed her curse, unable to contemplate the horror of what the immoral, power-hungry female would do if she ever learned she possessed the magic to spread disease. She’d become a monster, willing to slaughter countless humans in her desire to gain a position of authority.
That couldn’t be allowed to happen.
Regardless of the cost.
“Shit,” Wolfe breathed, easily following her dark train of thought. Brushing a hand down her back in a gesture of comfort, he turned his attention to the healer. “Where is she now?”
“We don’t know.” Ida pressed another key on the computer and the middle monitor went black. “This is the video in the nursery,” she explained. “During the confusion she managed to slip away with the child.”
“Stella must think she can use Molly as a hostage,” Wolfe growled.
Lana nodded. “We have to find them.”
Wolfe grimaced, glancing toward the computer to study the blueprint still visible on the screen.
“There’re too many storage spaces on that floor that don’t have cameras. She could be anywhere.”
He was right. The storage rooms were the few places t
hat weren’t monitored by security.
Just their luck.
Now they not only had to figure out some way to get past the magic that prevented the spread of Stella’s newly acquired powers, but they were going to have to search the entire floor to track them down.
A shame that Molly didn’t have the power to contact them.
With a surge of adrenaline, Lana reached out to grasp Wolfe’s arm.
“Myst,” she breathed. “She has a connection to the child.”
Wolfe gave a sharp nod, heading toward the door as he pulled his phone from his pocket.
“I’ll have Arel start an evacuation of Valhalla,” he muttered. “If things go to hell I want as many people out of range as possible.”
* * *
Myst gave her phone a frustrated shake.
Of course the stupid thing wouldn’t work when she needed it the most. With a grimace, she tossed it on the rolling tray set beside Bas’s bed.
She’d been on the point of leaving the hospital room to return to Molly when the shrill alarm had gone off and the door had slammed shut. At first she’d only been mildly disturbed. She wasn’t familiar with Valhalla, but she assumed there were any number of reasons an alarm might go off.
But when she’d moved across the room to open the door and demand an explanation, she found it wouldn’t budge.
And now she couldn’t reach anyone with her phone.
“Anything?” Bas demanded, shoving aside the blankets, revealing the thin robe that covered his recently healed body.
His hair was tousled and his jaw darkened with his unshaved whiskers, but his eyes were alert and his power capable of heating the air.
He’d come a long way from the unconscious male who’d barely been clinging to life when he arrived in Valhalla. Still, she knew that he was far from full strength.
She instinctively moved toward him, anxious to make sure he didn’t do anything to risk his recovery.
“No, the door is still locked and I don’t have any service on my phone,” she admitted, halting next to the bed.
She would physically keep him restrained if necessary.
Bas grimaced. “I forgot that the Mave placed a dampening spell in Valhalla that keeps outside electronics from functioning properly,” he muttered. “I don’t know exactly how it works, but it keeps visitors from covertly taking pictures or planting any sort of spy equipment.”
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