“Good riddance,” Charlotte said.
Breathless, William tried to pull her toward the shack.
“It’s okay,” she soothed. “He won’t shoot us.”
She only had to wait five minutes. When Warren arrived carrying a scoped hunting rifle, he found Charlotte sitting next to her son at the water’s edge, gazing out at a perfect reflection of fiery clouds painted across the still water.
“You got a truck?”
She had spoken without glancing back. He’d served a purpose, and he would continue to do so until she decided otherwise. Right now, she needed a driver.
“Got one just up the road.”
“And the others? Blake and them?”
“Probably searching for you, if they’re still alive.”
“Best we get out of town, then. No more use in fighting.”
“Yep. I say that’s a smart idea. Dietrich’s dead.”
“Good.”
She got up, pulled William to his feet, and followed Warren to the truck.
“Never much liked him, anyway,” Warren said, and he began to whistle a tune.
31
“Michael, get up. Come on, son. Get up.”
A blue haze entered Michael’s vision. For a moment, he was back in Camp Brazen. Had he collapsed from dehydration? It was a common occurrence among prisoners, and many never got up again. Opening his eyes, he expected to see Dean Hampton’s face.
But it was Midas Ford.
“Midas,” Michael said, coming fully awake. “What happened?
Clutching his skull at the onslaught of a painful dizzy spell, he lay back down with a groan.
Why was he in bed in Midas’s clinic? Why wasn’t he dead?
“You’ll be okay. They drugged you.”
“They left me. Why didn’t they… Arielle!”
He shot up, dizzy spell be damned, and tried to climb out of the bed. Midas Ford pressed him back down, but Michael resisted and managed to stand. He tore an IV needle out of his arm, the dizziness ebbing somewhat.
“What’s happening? Where’s Arielle? Is she safe?”
Midas sighed. Casting a glum look over Michael’s body, he made a silent decision he apparently didn’t fully agree with. He turned toward the door.
“He’s awake,” he called.
Running footsteps sounded from below, growing louder as several pairs of feet thumped up the stairs. The door was flung open.
Peter was the first to appear, hanging back in the doorway. Ian shoved him aside to enter. Dominic followed, resembling a reanimated corpse freshly risen from the grave, his face frightfully pale, hair in disarray, his shirt covered in ashy smudges.
Louis Blake came next, not appearing much better. There were dark bags under his eyes—under all of their eyes, indicating they had slept little or not at all—and his clothes were covered in dust and flecks of blood.
He dropped into the nearest chair with a heavy thud. Midas prepped an IV bag and rolled it toward Blake, who motioned for him to stay back. Dominic, Peter, and Ian took up positions around the room, arms crossed, staring intently at Michael if this were some sort of formal meeting to discuss his punishment.
“Guys,” Michael said. “Please, tell me what happened. Where is she? And where’s Eli? And Reggie?”
“They died in battle,” Blake said. “I’m sorry. Arielle is gone, Michael. They killed her.”
Michael’s heart fluttered painfully against his ribs. “No. You’re lying. I can tell.”
It was true. Michael no longer needed an active scan to sense it. The tiny string in Blake’s forehead—which Michael felt rather than saw, as if the string were permanently threaded throughout his own mind as well as Blake’s—had vibrated in a suspicious way, sending a cold sensation through Michael’s body.
“Michael, listen to me…”
“Don’t lie to me, Louis. You know where she is. Somehow… I don’t know how, but I can tell.”
The string in Blake’s consciousness vibrated wildly.
“You know something,” Michael said, pleading now. “I have to find her. Where did they take her? Please…”
Dominic stepped between him and Blake, as if to prevent Michael from lunging at the old man.
“She’s in a town called Eddington,” Dominic said. “It’s a couple of hours west of here. Whatever they did to her—and we don’t know for sure—it’s a trap. That’s why you were left alive. Drugged.”
“How do you know this?”
As Dominic spoke, Blake watched disapprovingly. Whatever his plan had been, this was far from it. He’d wanted Michael to stay in the dark about Arielle’s fate.
Dominic continued. “We infiltrated the mind of a telepath named Dietrich Werner, the same man Ian shot and thought he’d killed in Praetoria. He survived, thanks to an agent working for the Republic. Then Harris Kole recruited him for a mission to bring you back—not by capturing you, but by leading you straight to him. Apparently, he knows you better than you think. Knows what you’ll do for her.”
“But they had me. Why didn’t they just stuff me into a truck and drive me straight there?”
Blake raised a hand, cutting Dominic off. “We think it’s part of a gruesome experiment, Michael. He knows bringing you into the heart of the Republic is dangerous. You’ve changed, and what happened at Camp Brazen taught him what you’re capable of since you’ve matured.” He nodded at Dominic. “Show him the note.”
Dominic pulled a folded square out of his pocket. It was thicker than just a simple page of paper.
“We found it in your pocket.”
He handed it to Michael, who frantically opened it to find a colored map. There was a message written in neat cursive handwriting along the top.
You can find the girl at a town called Eddington, marked below. Come get her while she’s still conscious. Hospital on the eastern edge of town. Come alone, unless you want to watch your friends die.
—DW
“If you go to this place,” Blake said, “you’ll find Arielle—but what you’ll find…what remains of the poor girl… it’ll be enough to trigger the worst episode you could imagine. Bad enough to kill you. Powerful enough to be read and recorded by the machines his men have set up there. If Harris Kole can get an exact reading of your brain waves during an episode…”
He left the thought unfinished.
“She’s pregnant,” Michael said. “Oh, God. What did I do?”
“That’s part of the reason they took her,” Blake said. “There’s a high likelihood they’ll find the rest of what they’re searching for inside her. Genetic material Kole has been seeking all along. But it wasn’t your fault, Michael. You couldn’t have known this would happen.”
“I’m leaving.”
Blake shot to his feet, roaring his next words.
“You can’t go there, Michael. Haven’t you been listening?”
The effort sent the old man back into the chair, coughing and shuddering. Midas rushed to tend to him.
Watching Blake in his ruined condition, Michael realized he felt nothing for him—not an ounce of pity or affection. Blake had become an obstacle, nothing more.
“Anyone who stands in my way is a dead man,” Michael calmly stated, taking a step toward the door.
Dominic blocked his path.
“Dom…” Blake said, hacking violently. “Stop…him.”
Dominic glanced between Blake and Michael, his face contorting as conflicting emotions ran through him.
“Not happening.”
Michael thought Dominic was speaking to him, until the man finally made a cutting motion with one hand at Blake.
“Not unless it’s over my dead body. The only thing that’ll stop this stubborn bastard is to shoot him, and I won’t allow any man in this room to even think about that. Arielle is out there, probably in a lot of pain, and if there’s any chance we can save her…”
“Thank you, Dom,” Michael said, feeling his pocket for his keys but not finding them. “But I�
��m going alone. I know what I have to do, and the rest of you will just get in my way.”
Peter tossed him a set of keys. “You can take my bike. It’s parked in front. Faster that way.”
Michael caught the keys, already on his way out.
“Everything you…worked for,” Blake called after him, gasping each word. “It’ll be for…nothing.”
“It’ll be for her,” Michael said, hurrying down the stairs.
32
“We go after him,” Blake said, once the sound of the motorcycle’s engine had faded into the distance.
Dominic went to stand by the window, nodding gravely as he accepted this. “Without him, there’s no point in going anywhere else.”
Peter spoke up. “We did a count. At least half our men are still fit for battle.”
“Then we take the trucks and go. Immediately.”
“You won’t make the trip,” Ian said.
Blake waved away his concern. “I’ve heard that before.”
Dominic turned from the window. “Pete, Ian, round up those men and get them in the trucks. We leave within the hour.”
“Agreed,” Blake said, pushing out of the chair.
Midas helped him to the door, Blake gently disentangling to walk the rest of the distance by himself.
“Stay here,” he told Midas once the others had left. “There are wounded men who still need you.”
“They’re all in stable condition,” Midas said. “I may be old and half-blind without my glasses, but I can still fight.”
Blake took one of Midas’s arms in a firm grip.
“Stay. Make sure the wounded get to New Dallas safely. If Michael gets through this, he’ll need you.”
“Fine, Louis. I’ll do what you ask. Only ‘cause you’re right, as usual.”
Blake smiled warmly.
“Goodbye, old friend.”
Midas reached out a hand, and they shook.
“Goodbye, Louis.”
The soldiers loaded guns and ammunition into the trucks parked at the canyon’s mouth. Two stood behind a truck parked off the road, one showing off a brick-like object to the other. Wires ran beneath the plastic encasing the brick, attached to a tiny screen.
“Just push here and set the time,” the one holding it said. “And boom…”
He lifted his arms to mimic an explosion.
“Looks heavy,” the other said, wearing bandages around his head to staunch the bleeding from an ear that had been shot off—a lucky break for him, since it wasn’t bits of his brain scattered on a street somewhere inside the little town. “Never seen a charge like that.”
“Yup. C-4. We found a whole bag full of ‘em in Halsidier’s office.”
The charge passed from one set of hands to the other. Then the first soldier who had spoken smacked the other lightly on the shoulder.
“Hey, take a look at that.”
Forgetting about the C-4, they studied the figure coming up the road toward them, carrying something massive and threatening, supported by a wide shoulder sling, at his side.
“Spite me,” the man holding the charge said. “Is he one of ours?”
The other shook his head. “That’s Dominic.”
“Guy scares me a little, to be honest.”
“You and me both, pal.”
Closer to the canyon’s mouth, an officer shouted an order.
“Soldiers, get in your vehicles on the double!”
By then, most soldiers were watching Dominic march up the road. Tall and lean, walking with a slight tilt thanks to the flamethrower’s awkward heft, he held the weapon with the barrel aimed straight forward, as if ready to burn anyone to a smoking crisp who dared stand in his way.
But it wasn’t the flamethrower that made them stare. Dark lines had been smeared across his face—ash, most likely—resembling camouflage a special ops soldier might wear during a night mission. An AR-15 had been slung across his back, with a tactical chest rig carrying spare magazines clipped to his chest. Twin pistols hung in drop-leg holsters against his thighs.
The guy was a walking warzone.
“What are you amateurs looking at?” he called to the gaping soldiers. “Didn’t you hear your commanding officer? Git.”
The soldiers filed into the trucks, Dominic climbing in after them.
33
The sun followed Michael westward, warming his back for most of the ride.
Around noon, he parked on a rocky ridge two miles outside Eddington and abandoned the motorcycle, which would only alert the enemy to his approach. Sighting through the binoculars, he realized it was a true ghost town, probably home to tens of thousands of people at one point, now abandoned by its former residents, its buildings dusty and crumbling.
He spotted the hospital on the eastern outskirts of town, past a huge parking lot where only the shells of cars remained. There didn’t seem to be any soldiers guarding the back entrance of the main building. If there were any inside, he couldn’t detect them, probably thanks to Selarix.
No—scratch that. Scanning the rooftop, he could see them now, lying on their bellies in pairs atop the two closest buildings overlooking the parking lot. Snipers. Six men on the main building and two more on the smaller one.
Carefully, Michael closed the distance between himself and the lot.
When he was less than half a mile away, he began a telepathic scan meant to locate one mind in particular, until he could finally sense Arielle’s heartbeat thrumming at the edge of his awareness.
The time between each pulse was longer than normal. She was dying.
Rage flooded through Michael as he neared the hospital, but he managed to suppress it enough to stay focused, his emotions at bay, ready to be used when the time came. He was in control.
For now.
I’m coming, Arielle. Just so you know. Don’t respond. You need to save your strength.
No response came, either because she was heeding his advice, or because her mind was no longer strong enough.
Focusing on the two snipers above the back entrance, Michael began to prepare.
“I heard he turned those prison guards against each other by entering their dreams,” one soldier said to the other, swatting at the fly circling his sweat-covered forehead.
“No, no, no,” the other said, lowering his binoculars. “That’s not how it happened. He brainwiped the prisoners. Turned them into puppets and made them take over the camp. I even heard he cut out Halsidier’s heart as some kind of declaration of war.”
“I heard that, too.”
Both men were perched above the back entrance, behind scoped hunting rifles assigned to them by their commanding officer. They had already discussed how strange it was to pair them up that way, instead of spreading all eight snipers evenly across the two rooftops overlooking the lot.
All they knew for sure was they were supposed to alert their commanding officer over the radios they’d each been given, as soon as they caught sign of Michael’s arrival—any sign at all, even just the sound of a motorcycle or truck engine in the distance. Or in the event one fell victim to a telepathic spell.
They hadn’t been given Selarix either—another strange decision. Maybe because it would muddy their observation skills? No, that wasn’t how the stuff worked. Supposedly, it was a type of amphetamine, which meant it heightened people’s ability to stay focused.
But Michael Cairne was just one man. If he brought more of his crew, the soldiers packed inside the hospital would take care of them. There were many more down there.
Hell, if the rumors were true, Michael Cairne wasn’t a man at all. He was just a teenager. A kid.
Yes, but a kid who could kill with the power of thought alone.
Supposedly.
“Nineteen years old,” the first soldier said.
“That’s bullshit,” the one with the binoculars retorted. “He’s at least twenty. Ask Jimmy Townsend. His old man was one of the labcoats who designed his brain twenty-some-odd years ago.”
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“Jimmy Townsend doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. His old man was just a researcher. No way he designed some kid’s brain.”
“What about that ment girl they got inside? She can’t be older than seventeen. A real pretty one, from what I heard. Too bad what happened to her.”
Setting aside the binoculars, he took a moment to rub sweat from his eyes.
Then something strange happened.
The man paused for a moment, then rose to his feet.
“Hey,” his partner said. “Sam, get down. What are you doing?”
As if hypnotized, Sam stood, gazing over the parking lot and the street beyond it.
“You’ll be shot. Get back down!”
But he could only watch in stunned confusion as Sam took a few steps toward the edge—and jumped.
“Wrath almighty.” He grabbed his radio, clenching his finger around the press-to-talk button. “He’s here! Get ready. He’s here!”
“Understood,” a voice at the other end affirmed, their commanding officer sounding more grave than usual.
“Should I shoot him?”
There was no answer.
Studying the parking lot, he saw a hunched figure run from the shell of one rusted, abandoned car to the next. Peering through his scope, he pulled the trigger and fired.
The shot sounded strange, and there didn’t seem to be any sign of a bullet impacting the car or the figure crouched behind it. Maybe he’d missed?
Other shots came from snipers perched above the parking lot. He wondered if they were experiencing the same results.
He shot again. No sign of impact, not even a tiny cloud of dust rising from the pavement where the slug might have landed.
“What the hell?”
He backed up from the edge, then shot a round into the rooftop by his feet. No bullet hole. Which could only mean one thing.
“They’re blanks. Spiteful blank cartridges.”
He tossed the rifle away, unholstered his sidearm, and ran.
Bloodcrier: The Complete Two-Book Series Page 65