by Meg Xuemei X
“Get the stretcher!” Orlando yelled toward the men, who raced away as if running for their lives to fetch the gurney. Orlando turned back to Lucienne. “Who did this to you?” Wrath and pain still twisted his face.
“The giant. Not our giant,” Dr. Wren said. “It’s my fault. I should have stopped her from going in, but she was too fast.” The doctor shoved two soldiers away and came to Lucienne’s side. “Put her down. Let me check her first.” As the doctor examined Lucienne, he called, “We must return to Sphinxes now. She needs surgery and a blood transfusion.”
Vladimir’s curses in Czech boomed through the arena. He had arrived, racing toward her on his motorcycle. He must have taken the last aircraft, Snow Eagle, and brought his bike.
“Who told him?” Lucienne looked at Duncan with reproach. “You all know he can’t hold his temper.”
“I did,” Dr. Wren said. “I called everyone. Even Kian McQuillen’s on his way from Chicago.”
“Dr. Wren,” Lucienne said, “I told you last time, when a situation isn’t critical—”
“The situation looked very critical to me. We lost visual on you for two hours,” the doctor said. “And now you’ve returned like this. I promised to take care of you. If I had lost you, I would never go to my grave in peace.”
Before Lucienne could chide the doctor for his dramatics, Vladimir reached her like a furnace blast. He handed his bike to a soldier, strode to Lucienne’s side, and shoved Ashburn away, so that he could crouch beside Lucienne.
Ashburn stumbled but didn’t fall. He rose to his feet quickly. The two boys glared at each other, enemies at first sight, the tension thick as Lucienne’s whip in action. Before she could even call out to Vladimir to diffuse the pressure, he snapped his attention back to her. “Who did this to her?” he roared. “I’ll eat his heart!”
“The one who fought me . . . has no heart,” Lucienne said.
Vladimir stared at her, his expression telling her that he didn’t find her joke funny.
Ziyi’s weeping broke through on Orlando’s radio, “Oh, Lucia, are you all right? Tell me she’s all right. Someone! Tell me she’s all right.”
“People!” Lucienne couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m not dead. Orlando, order a retreat. Every solider will leave Nirvana immediately and return to Sphinxes. I will not lose any of you to this place. Radio Kian and have him turn around. Do not land here. This is a code red area.”
“I’ll stay with you while your people arrange for evacuation,” Ashburn said.
“Stay away!” Vladimir said.
“No, Vlad, we need him,” Lucienne said. “If we want to get out of here in one piece.” She struggled against her pain to command him.”You will support my decision, Vladimir Blazek!”
Vladimir walked away. Resentment rolled off him wild wind. He came back to her before darkness took over her, and the world slid out from under her.
CHAPTER 20
When BL7 touched down on Sphinxes, and in her semi-consciousness, Lucienne vaguely registered Vladimir and Orlando carrying her on a gurney. Kian shouted, “Other than me, you know her better than anyone, Orlando Sutherland. You should never have left her side. Any of you!”
“It’s entirely my fault. I’ll accept any sentence and punishment.” Orlando said. “But you’re also suggesting I should have disobeyed the Siren’s direct order.”
“When it concerns her safety, you take charge. Even Blazek wouldn’t let her have her way if she was risking herself,” Kian said.
“She’s suffering, and you’re shouting?” Vladimir growled at Kian.
“I’ll shout at her until she stops putting herself in danger,” Kian said. “She’s not responsible for just herself anymore.”
“She’s our Siren. We’re part of her responsibilities, too,” Orlando said quietly. “We let her down.”
When Lucienne woke up again, she sensed someone in the room with her. As she stirred, the person immediately jumped from a chair with a sleepy grumble. “Miláček?”
“Vlad?” Lucienne called.
Vladimir turned up the light to a comfortable shade. “You’re drooling.”
“I don’t drool! How long have I been sleeping?”
“Almost forty hours.”
“And you’ve been here all this time?”
“Some time,” he said. “Don’t worry about my beauty sleep. It takes so much more to make this face less appealing.” He helped her sit up and gave her water. She leaned back against his warm chest. His strong, steady heartbeat comforted her.
After she slowly drained half the cup, she pushed it away. With a sigh, she snuggled against his chest that bulged tightly against a Versace shirt. He smelled of wood, shampoo, and summer flowers on a hot day.
“You smell of Sphinxes,” she said. He smelled of home.
“I know.” Smiling smugly, Vladimir said, “I took a shower before coming back to see you. You have a thing for scents, as do I.”
Lucienne blinked, conscious of her own odor. If she’d slept for forty hours, she hadn’t bathed for over forty hours.
“Don’t worry,” Vladimir sniffed her hair and kissed it. “You smell of sweat, blood, and hospital, but none of them come close to masking your natural perfume. It can drive a man mad, but, as we both know, I’m the king of control.”
Someone eased the door open. Out of modesty, Lucienne pulled away from Vladimir.
Nurse Mary came, smiling. “You’re awake, Lucia. And your fever is gone.”
Vladimir grunted, “I thought we could have some privacy in the middle of the night.”
“Thanks, Mary,” Lucienne cut in before the nurse snapped back at Vladimir. “Please don’t let Dr. Wren know I’m awake.” Then, over Mary’s rueful expression, she asked, “You’ve informed him, haven’t you?”
“He’d throw a fit if he found out,” Mary said.
Before Mary left the room, Kian, Orlando, the elite commandos, and Ziyi, appeared at the door. The recovery room, designed to feel like a ladies’ lounge instead of a hospital room, became a full house.
“This isn’t a party,” Vladimir said. “She just woke up. She needs more rest!”
Dr. Wren stormed in. “What are you boys doing here?”
“You called us,” Ziyi said. “You woke all of us up to tell us Lucia has awoken.”
“I wanted you to hear the good news. And I wanted all of you to be aware that it was under my excellent care that she recovered quickly,” Dr. Wren said, red-faced. “But I didn’t call you to come pester her. I’ll give her a thorough checkup, and then she’ll have something appropriate to eat before she rests again. Now, off you go. Let her rest.”
No one moved.
“Go!” Dr. Wren barked, looking at Vladimir, who had slipped into a chair beside the bed. “Including you, Vladimir!”
“Since you’ve woken them up, Dr. Wren,” Lucienne said, surveying the faces, “let them stay a little longer. I need to talk to them anyway. Have someone bring coffee.”
“Most of the military personnel are here,” Kian said. “Who else do you want to see?”
“Weapons specialists. I want them here in five minutes.”
Lucienne had been brooding about what Seraphen had said about her and Ashburn, and what Ashburn had said when he activated the Eye of Time. Everything related to it came alive. Seraphen must be one of the byproducts.
After the weapons specialists arrived, Lucienne briefed her team about Seraphen.
“Seraph means ‘the burning one,’ ” Ziyi said, “a type of six-winged angels in the Christian Bible.”
“He’s far from an angel,” said Lucienne.
“A machine then?” someone asked.
“A cyborg, more likely. Some military factories have started building a second generation, but the models are still crude,” an engineer said. “Maybe someone else built the perfect model.”
“Or a genetically enhanced human. There are a few experiments on the black market.”
“He’s none of those.�
� Lucienne said. “We don’t know what he is.”
“Whatever he is,” Orlando said, waving a fist, “let’s nuke the Ghost House and bury the thing inside.”
“That would only piss him off,” Lucienne said. “Earthly weapons can’t kill him.”
“No one is indestructible, not even Superman,” Vladimir said. “Suppose he’s an alien. What if we use elements from meteorites to build weapon?”
“The elements are the same as those on Earth,” said a tall weapons scientist. “Even if he’s extraterrestrial, we’ll need to determine which planet he’s from. If earthly weapons can’t kill him, then rocks and metals from planets outside his homeland would be useless, too.”
“If we can’t find a way to eliminate him soon,” Vladimir said, “then we trap him. We put him in a cage, an unbreakable cage.”
“An excellent idea!” the tall scientist said. “Once he’s contained, we can study him until we find his weakness. We could make a breakthrough on quantum physics.”
“He’ll be too much trouble for quantum,” Lucienne said.
“Then we’ll sink him to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean,” Vladimir said viciously.
“I can use carbyne to build a cage,” said a round-faced weapons engineer.
“Build it, then,” Kian said. “What can we use to trap him?”
“A net made of Inconel 625 will do,” said an engineer sitting in the corner of the room.
“Add iridium from asteroids,” the round-faced engineer said, “and we’ll make several net launchers that can sustain maximum thrusts of 220, 000 PSI.”
“Do whatever it takes,” Kian said.
The weapons engineers left to begin building trapping devices.
When Lucienne woke up in the late afternoon, she wanted to leave the patient room, but no one would allow her.
“Am I a prisoner in my own home?” she demanded.
“You are,” Kian said. “Until you’re well.”
“I’m not a bed ridden maiden. A warrior doesn’t lie in bed.”
“When a warrior is injured in the field, she must stay in bed and listen to the doctors,” Kian said. “Dr. Wren’s prescription is two weeks. You’ve been in bed less than three days.”
Aida nodded. She’d been treating Lucienne like a five–year-old girl, coaxing her to drink her soup of chicken and ginseng.
“You know how crazy Dr. Wren is,” Lucienne protested.
“If I were him, I’d order you stay in bed for a month.”
Lucienne pouted.
“Kian can be overprotective,” the nanny said, “but I agree with him on this.”
“I regenerate much faster,” Lucienne said. “Have you forgotten?”
“Do you want to go to war in a week or not?” Kian asked.
“The men will be able to build the devices in a week?”
“We’ll push it. I know how eager you are to get rid of the mutant and secure the Fury kid. Let’s just get it over with.”
“And then we can focus on the war at the Red Mansion.”
“So you’d better stay in bed until you fully recover,” Kian said.
Lucienne didn’t want to argue with him again, so she turned to her nanny, “Aida, you should stay in bed and rest more. You were poisoned.”
“My sweet girl, I’m well enough,” Aida said, sending another spoon toward Lucienne’s mouth. “I don’t like so many people disturbing your rest. Kian, you must order the guards outside to block everyone other than me. Especially that Czech kid. He’s almost moved in here.”
Lucienne laughed softly. “Did you make him go home to shower again?”
Just then, Vladimir strolled in with a grin. His expensive cologne flowed to every corner of the room. “I just had my second shower today. Aida, you can leave now. I’ll feed Lucia. My hands are tender, and my smile sweeter.”
Aida shook her head in disgust. “I can’t stand to stay in the same room with him. His cologne is killing me. I can’t understand how my Lucia can take it.” She left for the door.
“I’ve been wondering the same since day one,” Kian said, covering his nose and following Aida out.
Lucienne knew that Vladimir intentionally wore the perfume to drive the men away, so he could have her all to himself. She looked at him disapprovingly.
Vladimir called after Kian and Aida. “You should thank me for not smelling of garlic.”
“If you do, I’ll kick you out,” Lucienne said with a straight face.
Lucienne, Kian, Vladimir, Orlando, their commando army, and their weapons engineers landed at Hell Gate. The tents they had left behind flapped in the wind.
The commandos only went out in groups of seven. They carried net launchers with them at all times. The plan was to transport Seraphen to the Sphinxes’ cage after capturing him. BL7 would carry the net with the captive trapped inside in the open air to Sphinxes. No one cared if the high velocity and altitude would kill him. It probably wouldn’t.
The warriors sought Seraphen everywhere except the Ghost House. The first week went by unproductively, and the men became restless.
Ashburn stayed one step ahead of them. Whenever Lucienne and her men went into town to lure him and Seraphen out, the boy would hide inside the Rabbit Hole.
Kian called for a second military meeting, and the men gathered inside the commander’s tent.
“I’ll take Squad One to the Ghost House to flush them out,” Orlando offered.
“You go in there,” Lucienne said, “you won’t come out alive.”
“I say we take the chance,” Orlando said. “We have the best combat commandos. Plus, we’re all wearing our impact suits. We’ll drag him out with the net launcher.”
Boiling with battle zest, the men shouted support. “We can handle one mutant!” Cam the giant was the loudest.
“You didn’t fight him as I did,” Lucienne said. “You didn’t see what he was capable of. And there’s so much about the Ghost House we don’t know. All that robot junk could come alive and go on a killing frenzy. I’m not overly cautious, but I won’t lose my best soldiers without good reason.”
Orlando wanted to argue, but Lucienne held a hand in the air. “We’ll not fight inside the enemy’s lair. That’s final.”
“How does Ashburn know our every move?” Vladimir asked.
“I was wondering that, too.” Orlando looked around sharply, as if trying to find a mole he could whack. “Whenever we set out in his direction, he’s already fled to the Ghost House.”
“Ashburn has powers beyond our perception,” Lucienne said.
Eyebrows up, Vladimir stared at Lucienne, waiting. Lucienne blew out a sigh. She couldn’t keep this from her men anymore. “He can access your memories, even remotely, which means, he can constantly read your thoughts. He knows everything you know.”
“I met that kid,” the giant said. “He doesn’t look that impressive.”
“He can block the satellite,” Duncan said. “That sounds impressive to me.”
Kian turned to Lucienne. “What else do you know?”
“I’m the only one who can shield my mind against him,” she said. Over her men’s puzzled, awed looks, she added, “I’m the Siren. My bloodline is one of the most ancient, like his. We need to change plans. I need to go to him alone.”
“Absolutely not!” Orlando said. Then everyone rose, objecting fiercely.
“It’s the only way,” Lucienne said. “I need to talk to him first. I’ll radio when I need you.”
“Don’t allow her, McQuillen,” Vladimir said. “She’s behaving carelessly again.”
Lucienne narrowed her eyes at Vladimir, and he glared back. “Don’t put us in this impossible position,” he said.
The rest of the warriors murmured in agreement. For the first time, all the men united to oppose the Siren’s decision.
“We must take the risk,” Lucienne said. “Ashburn won’t hurt me. I’ll only go to the Fury house and wait him out. He’ll come home eventually if he knows I’m alone
, and he’ll never allow Seraphen to go near his parents. As long as I stay with his folks, I’m safe. And when Seraphen is out of his lair, you take him down.”
“We can hold his parents or his girlfriend hostage,” Vladimir said. “That way we’d get Ashburn first, then the mutant, and you’d stay safe.”
“That will work,” Kian said.
When it came to fighting wars, the two men closest to her thought the same way, more than they wanted to admit. But if Lucienne used Ashburn’s family against him, he’d never forgive her. “No,” Lucienne said. “The Furys are sheep, and I’m not a butcher.”
“We’re at war, Lucienne,” Vladimir said. “We do whatever it takes to win.”
“Blazek has a point this time,” Orlando agreed.
“We’re at war with Seraphen, not with Ashburn Fury,” Lucienne said.
“What’s the difference?” Vladimir rolled his eyes. “They’re the same.”
“Not to me,” Lucienne said.
Vladimir’s jaw tightened and his eyes went hard.
“I can’t just think in terms of war,” Lucienne said. “We need Ashburn to help us figure out the puzzles and then we can all move forward.”
“I hope that’s the only thing you need from him,” Vladimir said.
“What does that mean?” Glaring at Vladimir, Lucienne slammed her hand onto the table. A map on it trembled.
“You know exactly what I mean, Queen of Secrecy.” Vladimir struck out his jaw, glaring back.
This was their first public fight. Lucienne bit her lip. “If you don’t want to be around me, take off!”
“It’ll be sooner than you want!” Vladimir barked back.
Lucienne swallowed, her face reddening.
“Time out,” Kian called. “Both of you.”
Vladimir and Lucienne still glared at each other, tense as steel, though Lucienne softened first. “I won’t corner Ashburn and burn the bridge. I know exactly what I’d do if anyone ever used you to get to me. There’d be no forgiveness.”
Red anger faded from Vladimir’s eyes, but bitterness remained. He tried to mask his helpless look, but Lucienne knew it too well. He hated letting her walk into danger alone.