Jessabelle's Beast (Shadows in Sanctuary Book 3)

by Susan Trombley

  Gorzo glanced back at the small pool of silver blood that still remained in the middle of the clinic floor, since the healers didn’t want to bother them by cleaning up while they were there. “The prince hates Uriale, yet the adurian still lives.”

  Stacia’s eyes followed his gaze. She sighed and shook her head. “That’s different. Uriale is dying. He can’t live without his glow. Balfor has only let him live this long so that he will suffer before he dies. This is his revenge for what Uriale and Anata did to him.”

  “He set Uriale free.” Gorzo was only speaking as a distraction now because a thought had occurred to him, and he didn’t want to give it away just yet to the princess. At the very least, she was likely to shoot it down before it even matured. At the worst, she would find a way to stop him.

  Stacia’s brief humorless laugh caused her veil to shudder. “In the basalt traps! That’s hardly freedom! Even if Uriale could manage what no other adurian has ever managed and survive without his glow, he’ll never find his way out of the basalt traps without being able to fly, and his wings are completely broken.”

  Gorzo didn’t care about Uriale, or the traps, or anything else the prince had going on. All he cared about was saving Jessa, and he had an idea. The problem was that the woman beside him would stop him in an instant if she knew what he intended. If she couldn’t stop him with her abilities, then she would let Balfor know. He couldn’t allow that to happen. He had to extricate himself from Stacia’s company without arousing her suspicion.

  It was difficult for him to recall what they were talking about as his idea took root and grew into a full-fledged plan. He managed to parry her sympathy with noncommittal remarks that hopefully convinced her he was distancing himself from Jessa, rather than forgiving his mate for her betrayal. Jessa loved him. That emotion had been real. Her trust for him had been real. Whatever lies had brought her to Sanctuary, he’d seen the truth. She needed him, and this time, he would not let his Schodecora down.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of platitudes and well-meaning but aggravating sympathy, the princess left him alone with Jessa.

  He kneeled down beside her bed, taking her small hand in his to bring it to his lips. Her skin was dry, and he frowned at that, wishing he had some lotion to soothe it. “Rest, Schodecora.” He hoped his whispered words reached her wherever she now dreamed. “I’ll never abandon you.”

  Chapter 23

  Gorzo’s presence on this mission made him wonder if Prince Balfor suspected that he wasn’t willing to give up on Jessa yet. It certainly angered him that he’d been separated from her, and if he didn’t know the prince’s sense of honor better, he’d be worried that Balfor would execute her while he was gone. The princess might even urge such a thing to spare him the sight.

  Still, Balfor had determined that they needed to find the hybrid before killing the one person they had in custody who knew anything about the boy. His intention was to take the hybrid alive if possible, and though Gorzo knew that Balfor wanted information, he wondered how much a five-year-old could give them about Project Glory that Jessa hadn’t. Even the revelation of the adurian glow actually being a fungus hadn’t been detailed enough for them to use it to their advantage—assuming it was true. The things human scientists believed they knew could very well be wrong.

  Gorzo didn’t relish killing the hybrid or taking it back to Balfor. Jessa’s words had convinced him that despite his origins, the child was innocent. Murdering innocent children wasn’t something he was comfortable with. It certainly wasn’t Micah’s fault that he was created as an abomination to shift the power from the adurians to the humans.

  Not only that, but Gorzo knew that Jessa would never forgive him if he harmed Micah or put him into the hands of Prince Balfor—who had no love for adurians, and not a great deal of respect for any humans who weren’t Stacia and Lilith.

  Ranove crouched at the edge of the tunnel, looking out at the innocuous rock of the large cavern it opened into. The cavern was lit up by what seemed to be hundreds of artificial lights which were almost blinding to the umbrose who’d been traveling through the dark tunnels illuminated only occasionally by bioluminescence. Gorzo joined Ranove, squatting down beside him as he pulled the shadows around him for concealment.

  Ranove was the first to speak, gesturing to the rock wall on the far side of the opening. “The shadows spied human vehicles entering through that wall.”

  “A door? Or some human illusion?”

  “A door. The rock itself moves.”

  Gorzo pondered the wall of stone, wondering how they were supposed to get inside it. So far, their small squad hadn’t encountered anything other than the tunnel jets that humans left behind. The area was clear of any living personnel. “Do we wait for another vehicle to enter or exit?”

  Ranove shrugged. “If you’ve got a better plan, I’m willing to hear it.”

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have a better plan. Unlike Balfor, the other umbrose couldn’t appear wherever they wanted, and even Balfor was limited around human technology, though he’d never openly admitted that, and they had no explanation for why the Mother’s power didn’t work as well around human machines. What they could do was remain undetected by the humans, using the shadows to conceal them until they were right over the door. Then the next vehicle that passed, they could commandeer as it opened.

  The problem was that whatever traffic the shadows had seen the previous day seemed to have completely ceased. Though they’d only arrived a short time ago, the shadows reported that no vehicles had come into, or gone out of, the facility today.

  Gorzo feared that time was running out for Jessa. Balfor might just lose patience with her and have her executed the moment she was healed enough to leave her sickbed. He didn’t have time to waste on this mission. “Let’s move to the ceiling. We can get closer to our target without being spotted.”

  Ranove nodded his agreement. “Keep your shadows close. The humans undoubtedly have cams searching the cavern for movement.”

  Fooling human vid cams wasn’t that difficult for their shadow abilities. Still, the Diakonos had access to technology that even their human allies didn’t understand. It was possible that they’d found a way to capture clear images of the umbrose even when they were enshrouded. It was a risk he and Ranove were willing to take.

  As they moved stealthily to the ceiling, crawling among the stalactites where the shadows lay too deep for the humans’ lights to touch, they were joined by the other two members of their squad. Gorzo wondered if they’d brought enough warriors. Ranove was confident they didn’t need more than this to take down one human facility, and he’d certainly had experience in that area, but he’d also been in the grip of his primal at the time, and his memory of doing so was hazy at best.

  What Gorzo had seen of the humans left him with a cautious respect for their capabilities that most of his kin lacked. Perhaps because of his caution, he was the one who spotted the weapon turrets first. “Should we be concerned about those?”

  Ranove studied the devices from his position on the ceiling. “Automated blaster turrets. By the Mother, these humans aren’t going to make this easy for us.”

  “They’re not active at the moment.”

  “They operate with motion sensors.” Ranove pulled the shadows closer around him. “I might be able to disable them before they can pick up my movement.”

  If he wasn’t able to, the blaster rounds would certainly sting. They were made of pure light.

  Ranove crept closer to the turrets. He was almost on top of them when the one closest to him activated, a red light flashing as it popped up and turned in his direction.

  The duke dropped onto the turret, tearing into the armored frame to get at the inner workings and shut it down, but by this time, the other turret had picked up on his movement, and even Ranove’s shadows weren’t enough to throw off its aim.

  Gorzo released his hold on the stone ceiling and dropped down into the cavern. The turre
t quickly changed targets, tracking his movement as he spread his wings and flew around the cavern to draw its fire.

  The blaster rounds burned where they struck him, but he didn’t falter even when a round tore through the skin of his wing. The pain would fade. Whether their mission would succeed at this point was the real problem. Now the facility would undoubtedly be on the alert. The humans might never open the stone door.

  Even with its sensors, the turret had a difficult time aiming at Gorzo, so by the time Ranove managed to disarm it, Gorzo only had half a dozen flesh wounds. Nothing serious had been damaged, but since the wounds came from a light weapon, it would take longer for him to heal.

  It turned out that the humans in the facility weren’t willing to just turtle up and wait them out. Instead, the stone door opened to discharge a squad of cyborgs in enforcer armor carrying more blasters.

  The last two warriors of their own squad dropped down on the humans, and Gorzo and Ranove wasted no time slipping inside the closing door. They had faith that their warriors could handle the force they were up against, and if they couldn’t, then they had served as a necessary distraction and would return to the Mother’s side in death as heroes.

  There were more turrets within the facility which opened onto a vehicle bay, allowing Gorzo to lead them on a merry chase as they hit the armored sides of their own vehicles rather than his rapidly moving shadowed form.

  This time, Ranove had them disarmed before they managed even a single strike on Gorzo, but Gorzo was slowing down. His blood now stained the white metal floors in spatters here and there, showing his tracks. His wing hurt enough that it would be a challenge to fly at this point, though he’d managed to do so with far worse damage in the past.

  Still, he wasn’t thrilled when the alarms started sounding, and more cyborgs met them for battle.

  *****

  Ranove had gone feral by the time they reached the main laboratory of the facility. Gorzo remained out of his way, knowing that unlike his own primal, Ranove’s was half-insane from being locked away inside him. Given their wounds from the difficult battles they’d fought to get this far, it was no surprise that Ranove had unleashed his primal. Gorzo’s primal was mostly in control of him at this point as well, though because he had never severed it from his spirit, he was able to work with it, giving it guidance even as it gave him the strength and sheer will to survive the challenges they faced.

  The cyborgs put up a good fight. Against the umbrose, they might have even been a match, but against umbrose primals, they didn’t stand a chance. Primals fought unpredictably and violently, often with little regard for their own wounds. Not only were they stronger and faster when their primals were in control, but they didn’t hesitate and would charge the cyborgs who expected them to look for cover. The chaos alone was enough to see Ranove and Gorzo to the end, standing in a pool of red blood and broken human bodies twisted with wires and metal implants.

  The laboratory was locked. Ranove stood pounding fruitlessly on the door, shouting wordlessly for a full minute before he was able to rein in his primal, chaining it again inside him. Gorzo shook his head at the practice, considering it a shame that Ranove had not followed Balfor’s lead and reunited with that broken part of his soul.

  It wasn’t important at this juncture. Though they were both wounded, they needed to have clear heads. Whatever waited beyond that door couldn’t be accessed unless Ranove could figure out the way the human lock worked.

  After regaining his composure, the duke pulled a box-shaped small device from the pouch on his loincloth, which was soaked not only with the blood of his enemies, but also with his own. He glanced back at Gorzo, who had remained behind him to stay out of his primal’s sight. “Lilith rigged this up for me. If anyone can hack this door, she can.”

  Gorzo shrugged, having no idea how human technology worked, but well aware that Lady Lilith was something of a wizard with it. He watched as Ranove pulled off the face of the lock, and then attached the device to it.

  Waiting there while lights flashed felt somewhat anticlimactic after their battle to get to this point, but Gorzo remained patient. The few moments of breathing time gave his body a chance to start the healing process, closing up the seeping wounds and releasing chemicals that dulled his pain. The humans should not have counted on this door to save them. They should have pressed the attack if they wanted any chance to succeed. Umbrose could fight forever if they had a break every so often. The only way to effectively kill one was to kill them quickly, or keep them fighting until the last bit of energy left them, and their bodies could no longer heal them fast enough to keep them from bleeding out.

  Finally, the lights stopped flashing and the one above the lock blinked green. The laboratory door clicked as it opened.

  They stepped inside the brightly-lit room, braced for another attack.

  The sight that greeted them was not what they expected. One human female stood behind a long metal table, leveling a blaster on Ranove, who’d entered first. All manner of strange machines and devices surrounded the room, pressed up against the walls or laid out on tables. Many of them looked sinister to Gorzo.

  “The boy is dead. I know that’s why you’ve come, but you’ve wasted your time.” She gestured with her blaster to a small metal door in one wall. “The body was incinerated to decrease the chance of contamination. The fungus from the Lord of Lords was too much for the child. It destroyed him almost immediately.”

  Gorzo could almost feel the pain that Jessa would experience at this news. “Why should we believe you?”

  The woman shrugged, pretending a nonchalance they could see she didn’t feel. A sheen of sweat made her dark skin glisten in the ugly lighting of the laboratory. Her brown eyes darted from one of them to the other, then to the door behind them as if there were any hope of escape. “I performed the surgery myself. I saw the results. It was a failure.”

  “You expect us to take your word for it?”

  The woman sneered at them, even though the blaster shook in her unsteady hands. “I don’t expect you demons to care either way. You’ll kill me no matter what. If you barbarians can manage it, you might want to check the computer to see the data feed. It will show the progression of Micah’s infection and how quickly it killed him.” She jerked her chin towards one of the other walls, where a bank of thin clear rectangles sat. Gorzo had seen such things before. Using human technology, those devices lit up to display images.

  Ranove strode to the wall of computer monitors, casting an almost pitying glance at the blaster she raised against him. “Open the files.”

  “Why should I do anything for you? I’m the one who’s arm—”

  The woman shrieked as Gorzo plucked the weapon out of her hand. She’d been so focused on Ranove’s movements that she’d turned her attention away from Gorzo long enough for him to disarm her.

  Gorzo gingerly handled the blaster, searching for the safety. “You’re no warrior.” He’d handled the weapons before as part of training for himself and his warriors, but he didn’t like it. It wasn’t something the umbrose should use. Even using a sword felt odd to him sometimes, but that could be because he’d never sundered his primal.

  The woman lifted her chin, though her attempt to look down her nose at him failed miserably as her head didn’t reach the middle of his chest. “I’m Dr. Hannah Chrysander, the chief geneticist for Project Glory.”

  Ranove glanced away from the monitor he’d managed to activate somehow. “Geneticist?”

  Dr. Chrysander crossed her arms over her chest, but not before Gorzo noted that her hands were shaking. “Yes. I created Micah.”

  Ranove pointed to the monitors. “Open the file you spoke of. Prove to me the child is dead.” He then walked to Gorzo as the doctor hesitantly took his place, swallowing visibly as she touched the pad below the monitors where a beam of light projected images of numbers and symbols Gorzo understood to be human.

  “We’re taking her alive.” Gorzo whispered the wo
rds. It wasn’t a question. He’d already seen the look on Ranove’s face. The woman could be lying about her role in Micah’s creation, but if she wasn’t, then Balfor would want her taken prisoner.

  Ranove nodded. “Yes. She comes with us, along with all those files.”

  Chapter 24

  Jessa was ready to face her fate, but she wasn’t ready to face Gorzo. She couldn’t bear to see the look of betrayal in his eyes. He’d never believe her now if she told him that she truly did love him.

  Lilith sat with her in Gorzo’s room. Someone had convinced Balfor not to lock her up in the dungeon. Jessa figured they knew she had no way of escaping Sanctuary, particularly since the Diakonos had clearly abandoned her. She didn’t care why they didn’t bother. She was grateful for the relative comfort of her prison.

  Gorzo’s scent was strong in his room as was the memories of their last moments together. She wanted to soak it all in for as long as possible. Even being resigned to her death didn’t mean she wasn’t afraid of it. The beliefs she’d once held to about the afterlife had long ago dissolved. She had no idea what awaited her on the other side and didn’t want to find out. Her crimes were too great for there to be any paradise.

  Lilith’s tone was sympathetic as she patted Jessa’s icy hand, which clutched a full mug of java that had gone cold. “I’m so sorry about this.”

  Jessa hadn’t met Lilith’s eyes since the woman had entered the room with the tray of hot java and cakes. She’d taken the drink and tried to choke down a bite of the small tea cake just to show her appreciation for the gesture, but she had little appetite and her throat closed whenever she tried to swallow. “Shouldn’t I be the one apologizing?”

  Lilith nodded at her words. “Absolutely! You betrayed us when we placed our trust in you. You work for our enemies. The Diakonos have done monstrous things!”