I continued to look around the room like it might give me some kind of answer to my problems: figuring out where I was, finding Angel and the Werewolf and releasing them, locating our weapons, searching for the pups, and getting us to an exit and safely out of this Goddess-blessed place—and all before the next full moon.
With everything I had, I prayed the pups were safe.
My fighting suit was ripped from the bullet to my knee, and my bare midriff, arms, and feet were streaked with blood and dust. Even though shifting had healed me, I’d still have blood on my face, too, from the abuse it had taken earlier. I grimaced, feeling sticky and covered in dirt.
I used the Elvin word for “clean,” which also repaired my pants, and I felt a little more refreshed. I was ready to kick some scientist butt.
Could it possibly be as easy as in the movies where old equipment would spark to life and show me all the rooms in the facility on these monitors? Possibly even the outside exits?
Instead of rolling my eyes I shook my head, but still looked for a power switch or some kind of breaker on the walls and everywhere else that I could think of. Nope. Nothing that I could find that would magically make everything work.
I pushed buttons beside the monitors, pulled switches below them, holding out hope that I could spark something to life. Oh, and not launch a missile heretofore forgotten. That ridiculous thought did make me roll my eyes.
Buttons and switches felt gritty and useless beneath my touch. I didn’t waste much time on that equipment. A girl had to try, though.
When I went to the door, I listened, the silence deep and thoughtful, as if memories of the past were still imprinted in the air. The door creaked when I opened it, the sound echoing down the hallway. I winced at the sound, but heard nothing that told me anyone had heard.
The dimly lit hallway was dusty under my bare feet like the room had been, telling me that this part of the facility also wasn’t in use. Where was I?
“The lights are on, but nobody’s home,” I murmured.
Some of the bulbs were burned out along the hallway. The dull and dusty light bulbs hung from tubes that no doubt held electrical wires. I was probably lucky any of them were lit at all. Next to the electrical tube ran a larger pipe, probably for water.
I kept close to the walls, which were carved from stone like every other hallway or room I’d been in. Here, though, cracks in the walls jagged down to the floor, and in some areas the stone floor, was cracked, too.
A fat gray rat startled me. I jumped back and cursed in Drow under my breath.
The nasty thing scuttled in front of me before dodging into a wide crack in one wall. I shuddered. I’d faced far worse, but rats were disgusting virus-carrying creatures. Things like that would only be allowed to live in Underworld, never in Otherworld. Sometimes I did wonder if Otherworld was too perfect, but not when it came to rats.
Putting the vile thing out of my mind, I moved faster down the hallway, which went on and on. And on. When I finally heard voices they almost caught me off guard. The hallway had taken a wide curve, which was probably why I hadn’t heard them sooner.
I pressed myself against the wall, listened, and studied the hallway ahead.
Male voices. Four who took turns speaking or talked over each other. The hallway was brighter from the direction of the voices. A slash of light about the size of a doorway cut across the hallway.
“Nothing on any of the monitors.” The voice was Marton’s.
“Purple skin, blue hair,” one man said in a sarcastic nasal tone. “You have got to be kidding.”
“No joke.” It was Harrison who replied. “It even has fangs.”
“It,” I said, then made a hissing sound under my breath.
“Creepiest thing I ever saw.” Terrence, whose voice I recognized immediately, was speaking now. “It looked totally human today, then changed into weird-ass colors and grew fangs.”
I ground my teeth, then took a deep breath and shook out my arms, trying to relax my muscles to be limber and ready. Any moment now.
Marton said in a disgusted tone, “Can’t believe the fucking interns let it go.”
“Said it disappeared.” Harrison sounded enthusiastic rather than disgusted. “The way we had it strapped in, there was no way it could have escaped without some kind of magic or something.”
Nasal tech snorted. “Magic. Right.”
“Whatever the hell happened,” Marton said, “we’ve got to find it. Dr. Johnson will take the same gun he used on Lawson to kill all of us.”
I would be delighted to do the job for Johnson. Now.
Every single time the men called me “it,” I pictured myself breaking bones. All of their bones in each of their bodies.
The beat of my heart sounded loud in my mind, but it wasn’t from fear. It was from the anticipation of taking these men by surprise and making sure they wouldn’t be hurting anyone for a very long time. If ever again.
Without my elemental magic, my only weapon right now was my body. Good enough for me.
My bare feet were silent as I jogged down the hallway toward the light and toward the men, who were now discussing the best places to look for me and who they were going to send to each location.
I reached the doorway and stood just outside it. I peeked in and saw five men. The first four were arguing. The fifth was a huge redhead standing a few feet away from the other techs, his arms folded across his massive chest.
All of the men had their head masks off and none of them were armed with that spray. Guns, knives I could handle, plenty of which were sheathed in belts at each man’s waist. Handling spray-wielding interns was another story.
“Okay, men.” Marton, the man who looked like a big, blond Swede, gave one loud clap of his hands. “Let’s get that freak.”
They weren’t going to get the chance.
Freak. The comment grated on my nerves, adding fuel to the fire burning inside. A lot of fuel.
The techs pulled on their facemasks, but with these odds, it didn’t matter if I couldn’t get to their faces.
Marton was the first out the door. From my position to the side of the door, I bent my leg to my chest and then thrust my bare heel down on his knee. The crack of bone echoed in the hallway as he screamed behind his mask.
He was so big none of the other men could see what had just happened, and I moved too fast to give them a chance.
I grabbed Marton’s head and jerked it down at the same time I brought my knee up. His neck snapped from the power of my thrust. At full strength I have the power to kill in just about any way possible.
Before Marton’s body slumped to the floor, I grabbed the hilt of his large knife and jerked it from the sheath on his belt. He fell too fast for me to snatch his handgun.
Harrison stood in the doorway looking stunned. “What the fuck?” he said as he shot his hand toward his holstered gun.
Those were Harrison’s last words as I plunged Marton’s knife into his heart. I jerked the bloody knife from Harrison’s body right before his corpse collapsed onto Marton’s.
No time to grab Harrison’s gun or other weapons. Terrence stood a few feet inside the doorway, gripping a large handgun and training it on me. I dodged back around the side of the door just in time to hear the gun’s report and see chips of stone fly directly across the hallway from where the bullet had hit the wall.
“Did you get the bitch?” Nasal Man shouted.
“Shut the fuck up.” Terrence said in a low whisper that no doubt I wasn’t supposed to hear. My enhanced hearing made it easy for me to catch every word. “You’ll give away your position. There’s only one of those beasts and we can take it.”
Adrenaline poured through my body in an intense rush. That shot had been close, but it had also given me an extra edge to my power. In my Drow form and as a Night Tracker, I thrived on danger. Being shot at or physically attacked qualified as danger. I was a total adrenaline junkie.
“What do we do?” Nasal Man wheezed i
n his version of a whisper.
“Wait for her.” This had to be the redhead speaking in a deep, throbbing tone that still managed to be low enough to barely hear. He sounded calm, confident, and I knew he was the one man to be reckoned with. “She will come to us.”
“It, you mean,” Nasal Man said in a nasty voice. “It will come to us.”
The redhead didn’t respond and the room went quiet. The redhead scored points for referring to me as she. Too bad I’d have to kill him.
While the men talked, I squatted beside the door, blood pounding through my veins. I wiped blood from the side of Marton’s knife onto my pants and then carefully eased the knife near the floor. It was just enough through the doorway that I hoped it couldn’t be seen and I could use the shiny surface like a mirror.
It was obvious the now-dead guy didn’t know the first thing about knife fighting because having a knife shiny enough to reflect light could get a person killed. But for now, it could serve a purpose—providing it didn’t reveal me in the same way.
I tilted the blade so that I could see into the room from where I crouched. Terrence was bent at his waist, easing his way closer to the door, his gun gripped in both of his hands, the barrel pointed toward the doorway.
The moment he got close enough to the doorway I lunged upward, forward-flipped, twisted, and landed in a crouch on the opposite side of the doorway. Like I’d hoped, my movement caught him completely off guard.
He started to swing the barrel of his gun toward me but I flung the knife straight for his forehead. It buried itself to the hilt in his brain.
Terrence collapsed onto his backside, sprawled into an unnatural position.
Again I dodged away from the doorway just in time. Several gunshots from inside the room spattered the stone across the hallway and nicked the doorframe.
“Fuck,” Nasal Man said, and it wasn’t in a whisper.
“Quiet.” The redhead spoke in a low, very slow and deadly tone that made me shiver. “If you’re not, you’re dead. I’ll be the one to kill you.”
Nasal Man shut up.
The silence was eerie for a few moments. I couldn’t reach any of the dead men’s weapons without exposing myself, and I no longer had the knife to use as a mirror. Or a weapon.
I looked around the hallway. Nothing but stone walls and three dead men. My gaze traveled up the wall to the ceiling of the hallway. Above was the metal pipe that ran alongside the lights, along with the larger one that piped in water.
A very light scuff on the floor inside the room told me one of the men was close enough to swing around that door and shoot me.
I rose from my crouch and backed up, my steps quick and light. I rounded a corner—thankfully to a more empty hallway along with a few closed doors. The room with the two remaining living men was out of sight now.
With ease I hopped up, grasped the water pipe, and then balanced on it like a cat. I moved along it on my hands and knees back toward the room. I paused just a couple of feet from the room as Nasal Man came into view.
“It’s gone,” he said as he looked up and down the hallway. He might sound like an idiot, but by the way he handled his gun it was obvious he knew what he was doing. “Now what the fuck do we do?”
Redhead wasn’t wearing his mask like the others. He remained silent as he stood inside the doorway. His gun was still sheathed along with his daggers. Confident bastard, wasn’t he?
A chill ran down my spine. Could he sense me somehow? One of those latent psychics Rodán said were on the earth Otherworld? I wasn’t going to wait to find out.
I gripped the water pipe and swung down in a fast movement. I landed on Nasal Man’s shoulders, grasped his head in my hands, twisted it, and snapped his neck.
Before he even dropped, I back-flipped off his shoulders and landed in a crouch.
Redhead reacted faster than I expected. He swung his leg out and caught me in the face with his boot.
The impact sent me sliding across the stone floor, so much pain shooting through my head and jaw that I was almost dizzy from it.
Adrenaline and training helped me get to my feet in a rush.
I expected Redhead to reach for one of his weapons but he walked toward me. Stalked was more like it. A big, hulking powerhouse of a man. It would be a shame to kill such a fine specimen.
My breathing was light even though my head hurt like crazy. I waited for him, my stance loose, easy.
“Tough bitch, aren’t you?” Redhead actually sounded impressed. “Took down four trained men and didn’t break a sweat.”
“Who trained them?” I moved slightly, trying to find the best place to attack him. “Daffy Duck? Bugs Bunny, maybe?” The Looney Tunes cartoon references made me think of Adam, a distraction on my part, a stupid thing to have done.
Redhead feinted with his right, then lunge-punched me with his left. He should never have caught me off guard, but he did. His fist hit my solar plexus.
If I had been an inexperienced fighter, the hit would have taken me down. It knocked some breath from me but I ignored it, spun, and caught him on the side with a solid kick.
The man was made of steel. He didn’t even rock to the side.
Instead, he grasped my ankle and twisted it.
I moved in the same direction as his motion, flipping sideways so that he couldn’t damage my ankle. I twisted out of his grip and landed on one knee.
He dove for me and I decided to take Redhead down, I was going to have to play dirty. I thrust myself forward at the same time he tried to reach for me.
I punched his testicles as hard as I could—and almost broke my hand. The man either had steel balls or was wearing a protective cup. Right then my money was on steel balls.
Pain shot through my fist but I didn’t have time to think about that. He picked me up by my waist and swung my head toward the stone wall.
I grasped handfuls of his green suit, my back slamming into the wall instead of my head. An electrical current traveled like lightning through my spine, shooting pain through every extremity of my body.
He was still holding me when my back hit the wall. Thinking about the pain wasn’t an option.
I rammed my palm up and jammed his nose so hard I crushed it.
“Fuck!” Tears flushed down Redhead’s face, an automatic bodily response to what I’d done. He couldn’t have stopped it if he tried.
His eyes were filled with blood and tears as he released me. I landed lightly on my feet, reached forward, and jerked his handgun out of its holster.
Enough of this.
The second bullet to his brain dropped him.
FIFTEEN
Redhead’s gun and a nice-sized jagged-edge dagger from his belt were perfect. I looked down at once-intelligent eyes that now stared into infinity. It really was a shame I’d had to kill him. But it was him or me, and I’d take me every time.
I stuck the gun in my pants, near my hip and low enough where it couldn’t be seen above the waistband. I didn’t have anywhere to put the dagger, so I carried it. Adrenaline continued to pump through me, and I felt sticky from Redhead’s blood that had rushed from his nose onto my chest.
Noise from ahead echoed down the hallway and I stopped moving and pressed myself against a wall. I glanced up and frowned when I saw that the lights had changed and there wasn’t an exposed water pipe. The ceiling covering the electrical wires and water pipe looked new and made of a prefabricated material. It made the hallway ceiling lower.
Voices accompanied the next sounds. Footsteps. I looked to either side of me. A door on my left. Nothing on my right. I chose the door.
Which was locked.
Voices coming closer. Female this time. Two, judging by the sound of their footsteps.
Using my strength, I twisted the knob, hard. The locking mechanism broke. The sound was so loud, how could it not be heard all over the station?
“What was that?” one of the females said.
“Maybe it’s that blue-haired beast that the
interns let escape,” said the other. “Do you have your bottle of spray?”
“Of course.”
A quick scan of the room told me no one was there. I started to close the door when I saw I’d left blood all over the doorknob from my palm. Blood had covered my palm when I’d jammed Redhead’s nose up and crushed it. I said the Elvin word for clean, which made the smears vanish from the doorknob. It also cleansed the blood from me, and I closed the door as quietly as I could.
I gripped Redhead’s dagger as I leaned my back against the door and waited until I heard the chatty techs or interns pass by.
When I felt it was safe, I took in the room. It was an office, a large study. An extremely nice one that looked like it belonged to a Harvard professor as opposed to someone in an abandoned NORAD facility below ground.
The room was, in truth, luxurious. A mammoth cherrywood desk commanded the right side of the room and the walls were painted deep burgundy. The desk was neat with almost no papers on its glass-covered surface. It did have a large, sleek, flat-screen computer monitor. It had a matching cherrywood extension to one side with a printer on it, and a stack of papers beside it.
A nameplate with Joseph A. Johnson, Ph.D. in script across it was front and center. To the left was a paperweight in the shape of a shield, with a paper and what looked like a couple of photos beneath it.
Cherrywood shelves lined with medical books and other bound reference materials covered the wall to my right, behind the desk.
The wall in front of me had hardbound volumes of fiction novels, mostly classics. Arranged on the shelves were different sizes and shapes of framed photos. They looked like family photos from where I stood.
I pushed away from the door and walked toward the shelf. The pictures included a man with the same eyes as the one called Dr. Johnson. From what I had been able to make out of his features behind his mask, I had no doubt it was him.
In the various photographs Johnson was standing with children and perhaps siblings, parents, and grandparents. Some photos were old, faded, but a few could have been taken yesterday.
I looked away from the photos and ran my fingers along a few of the volumes. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, All Quiet on the Western Front, Brave New World, Catch-22, Catcher in the Rye, Gone with the Wind, The Grapes of Wrath, Lord of the Flies… All in alphabetical order.
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