‘Thanks, James,’ Victor murmured. ‘Your assistance in this matter is all I could ask for.’
‘There’s no need to thank me, Victor,’ said Westwood gruffly. ‘What’s happening concerns all of us.’ His gaze flitted to Asgard. ‘Like your friend said, if this immortal and the humans aligned with him achieve their goals, then we’re all going to be in deep shit.’ He faltered. ‘Just promise me one thing. Try not to—’
‘I’ll keep innocent human casualties to a minimum, James,’ Victor cut in. ‘You have my word.’
‘Keep me informed of any significant developments,’ said Westwood. ‘I’ll send you details of your contact.’
He ended the call.
‘He came through,’ Asgard said quietly.
Surprise echoed through him at what had just transpired.
Victor’s lips curved in a smile. ‘Westwood is a good man.’
‘Still, two hundred and fifty soldiers isn’t going to cut it,’ said Ethan. He rose and strode agitatedly up and down the aisle. ‘How many can you mobilize?’
‘A couple of thousand if I had a few days,’ said Victor. ‘From your account though, time appears to be of the essence. I can have five hundred Hunters here in the next eight hours.’
Asgard exchanged an anxious glance with Ethan. ‘Kronos may have been disbanded by your actions a few years ago, Victor, but I suspect Jonah has many immortals and half-breeds working with him and alongside the rogue army group’s soldiers. What about the Crovirs?’
‘Vlašic hasn’t gotten back to me yet,’ said Victor. ‘He wants to discuss this matter with his councils before he considers whether to offer us his assistance.’
Ivan Mihael Vlašic was the current Head of the Order of the Crovir Hunters and the leader of the Crovir race. Asgard knew little of the family. Vlašic had come to power shortly after the deaths of Tomas Godard and Agatha Vellacrus, the previous ruler of the Crovirs.
‘Will he deliver?’ said Asgard.
‘I don’t know,’ said Victor. ‘Vlašic is an enigma. He’s the youngest head the Crovir First Council has ever had.’ He shrugged. ‘He’s the youngest head any council has ever had.’ His eyes grew thoughtful. ‘He’s an accomplished politician, that’s for sure. And he plays his cards close to his chest.’
‘It doesn’t sound like you’re particularly fond of him,’ said Ethan.
‘I don’t have to like him,’ said Victor in a neutral voice. ‘I just have to be able to work with him.’
‘We can’t waste any more time,’ said Ethan in a strained voice. ‘We need to move and we need to do it now.’
Victor dipped his chin. ‘I agree. I know of at least one Crovir noble who’ll help us.’
He was on the phone again a moment later. Static buzzed through the speakers when the call finally connected. They could see little on the screen.
‘Dimitri, are you there?’
There was movement and rustling on the line. ‘Hang on a minute,’ said a male voice gruffly.
A muffled curse came through seconds later. It was followed by scuffling sounds and silence.
Victor frowned. ‘Dimitri?’
‘What?’ snapped the voice.
A face shrouded in dim light appeared on the computer screen. It belonged to a man with thick-set features, a broad nose, and a square jaw.
‘Where the hell are you?’ said Victor. ‘I can barely see you.’
‘I’m in a cave, in China.’
Victor pursed his lips. ‘Are you treasure hunting again?’
Dimitri glared at the camera on his phone. ‘I do not treasure hunt! I’m here on official Crovir business.’
Victor raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? What official Crovir business is that?’
Dimitri hesitated. ‘Well, if you must know, I’m looking for certain…cultural artifacts.’
Victor rolled his eyes. ‘So I was right. You’re treasure hunting.’
‘What do you want, Victor?’ Dimitri said coldly.
‘Look who turned up.’ Victor angled the laptop slightly.
Asgard stared at Dimitri face on. He hadn’t seen the Crovir noble in over six hundred years. The man appeared as irritated as the last time he’d seen him.
‘Hi, Dimitri.’
The Crovir noble studied him with a puzzled expression. His eyes cleared. ‘Asgard?!’
‘Yeah,’ muttered Victor. He turned the device back toward him.
‘What the hell is going on? I thought he was long dead!’ Dimitri scowled. ‘And why does that bastard look no older than the last time I saw him?’
‘Trust me, that should be the least of your concerns right now,’ said Victor.
He spent the next fifteen minutes apprising Dimitri of the situation.
The Crovir’s face grew more and more somber as he listened. ‘I can be there in nineteen hours,’ he said curtly at the end of Victor’s account. ‘I’ll contact our other friends in the councils. We should be able to get you a few hundred men by the morning.’
A series of electronic beeps roused Olivia from a light slumber. She blinked and looked around in time to see the steel door to her prison open. A black-clad figure strolled across the pale linoleum floor and came to a stop beside the bed.
It was the immortal from the abbey. She now knew his name.
Scoleri watched her silently. ‘Not much to look at up close, are you?’ he said finally. ‘Jonah claims you’re the most powerful immortal in the world.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I gotta admit, you pulled some neat tricks back in Santa Monica and at that lake house. But the most powerful?’ His eyes grew curiously intense and he looked down her body and back up to her face. ‘I seriously doubt that. I could snap your neck with my hands.’
Olivia masked a shudder of distaste and studied the ceiling, a wave of tiredness washing over her.
Jonah’s scientists had spent the last day poking and prodding her. They’d taken blood samples, performed various scans, and injected her with more drugs. Although some of the chemicals had had unpleasant side-effects, none had given her the same level of pain that Jonah Krondike had inflicted on her when she first came to. She had no doubt the Crovir noble would use the machine attached to her head again. It was still there, humming faintly in the background, its pointy grips firmly embedded under her skin.
Alarm spiked through her when Scoleri raised a hand and trailed a finger down her bare arm. She stared at him and stiffened at the look on his face.
‘What are you doing?’
She gazed frantically at the chamber beyond the glass window. There were only a handful of scientists in the lab. Olivia could only presume this meant the hour was late. She had lost track of time, down in this hellhole.
One of the men outside met her panicked stare briefly. He lowered his head and walked out of her range of vision.
Scoleri followed her line of sight. He looked back at her, a malicious smile on his lips. ‘Oh, don’t worry about them. They’ll do as they’re told, if they know what’s good for them.’ He leaned down and suddenly took hold of her chin, his grip cruel. ‘Why, I could climb on this bed and rape you, and they wouldn’t lift a finger to help you.’
Fear flooded Olivia at his words at the same time she registered the chilling intent in his eyes. ‘No!’
She struggled against the straps binding her to the gurney. Scoleri chuckled, his gaze heated. He kissed her then, his tongue invading her lips with bruising force.
Olivia gagged and tried to close her mouth. Scoleri’s grip tightened on her jaw, locking it open. Revulsion brought acid to the back of her throat. Her skin crawled when he ran a hand down her body. He twisted the hem of the gown at her knees and yanked it up to her thighs. Goosebumps broke out across her exposed skin. She stared into the immortal’s eyes as he took her mouth roughly and knew that he would carry out his threat, if only to prove that he could physically dominate her.
The thought of a man other than her soulmate touching her intimately filled her heart with ice. Olivia froze, a whimpe
r of despair escaping her. Tears flooded her eyes.
Scoleri’s fingers dug into her skin, his lust growing in the face of her terror.
Stop.
The word blazed through Olivia’s consciousness, shattering her fears and bringing with it a wave of heat from deep inside her heart. She gasped at the alien sensation.
Scoleri’s mouth stilled on hers. He pulled back slightly and scanned her face, puzzled. ‘What are you—?’
Alarms tore through the room. The immortal straightened and stared at the monitors above her. His eyes darkened. An ugly expression distorted his features.
Olivia was aware of a commotion in the outer chamber as the scientists rushed toward a computer station.
Scoleri glared at her. ‘Really? You want to play that game?’
He raised a hand and slapped her forcefully across the face.
Stars burst in front of her eyes and her neck twisted violently to the side. The metallic taste of blood oozed across her tongue. Olivia bit her lip, turned her head, and glared at the immortal. Her psychic powers surged.
Scoleri reached behind her and flicked a switch.
Fire burst inside her head. Olivia screamed as the powerful electric current coursed down her body. Her toes curled on the bed, her spine arching off the mattress, every single muscle contracting violently. The straps dug into her wrists and her ankles, cutting her circulation. Her fingers clawed helplessly at the mattress as she struggled to catch her breath.
She thought she heard shouts coming through the speakers in the ceiling. Scoleri ignored them, his hateful gaze focused on her face. He pressed a button on the machine attached to her head.
Olivia’s eyes rolled back in her skull as even stronger shocks shot across the metal needles in her scalp. Her body bowed farther off the gurney. Sight and sound faded. A hazy light filled her consciousness. Her blood thundered in her ears, her pulse impossibly fast. An eternity passed, stretching her agony into forever.
Her heart missed one beat. Then two. Then three. It galloped wildly for a moment, fluttered, and finally slowed to an irregular shudder.
The last thump flooded her mind with dazzling brilliance.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘Sir, I’m afraid to inform you that Building 4489 does not exist.’
‘What?’ said Ethan.
Major Steve Reynolds was the man in charge of the Rangers they’d met up with at the Los Alamitos Army Airfield in California and the ones who would be joining them from another US Army base. He shrugged muscular shoulders and looked at Ethan steadily.
‘We’ve scoured all available data on the existing structures in the Yuma Proving Ground. Considering we’re talking of a facility larger than Rhode Island, that’s plenty of buildings,’ drawled the soldier. ‘There is no record of any construction having ever had that number assigned to it.’
Ethan leaned over the narrow camp table in the back of the C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft taking them to Yuma. A topographic map of the proving ground was stretched out across the surface.
‘We saw a piece of paper at Fort Huachuca that said otherwise, major,’ said Asgard.
Reynolds’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘I have been informed by my direct superiors that I am to trust you implicitly, sir. I would appreciate the same courtesy. Believe me when I say that we can’t find that building. Either it never existed or there’s more going on here than meets the eye. Considering the nature of this mission, I can safely assume it’s the latter. I’ve been told we’re searching for a secret research lab where illegal experiments are been carried out on civilians and soldiers alike, correct?’
‘Yes,’ said Asgard.
As far as Ethan was aware, the major didn’t know the “civilian” subjects were immortals.
‘The proving ground covers more than thirteen hundred square miles of mountainous terrain and desert plains,’ said Reynolds. ‘Without knowing the approximate location of this facility, this will be like hunting for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Especially if it’s below ground, like you suspect it might be.’
Ethan exchanged an anxious glance with Asgard.
It was past four in the morning. They’d lifted off from the airbase fifty minutes ago and were still two hours out from their target destination.
We have to figure out where to start looking before we rendezvous with the rest of the Rangers and the immortals at Yuma. We’re just going to waste time otherwise.
‘Are there any medical facilities in the proving ground?’
‘There’s a health clinic in the JFK Warfare Center. It’s in the neighborhood where the resident staff is based,’ said Reynolds. ‘It’s too small to host anything on the scale you’re thinking of.’
Asgard placed his hands on the table and scrutinized the chart. ‘Run us through exactly what’s on the site.’
‘Although the base employs a few thousand civilians, there are less than two hundred military support personnel who live and work on site. The main administration buildings and housing quarters for the staff are located here, just southeast of the Laguna Dam and to the east of the Colorado River.’ Reynolds pointed out an area to the left of the map. ‘The proving ground itself is a U-shaped area framing the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, to which it also has limited access. The west arm of the U is the Cibola Region, with the KOFA Region on the east and the Laguna Region forming the south bend.’
Ethan followed the major’s finger as it moved across the paper. ‘KOFA?’
‘King of Arizona’, said the Ranger. ‘It’s the name of an old gold mine in King Valley. The KOFA region represents the KOFA Range, the DoD’s main artillery testing ground. It offers a forty-six-mile firing area and is used to evaluate anything from mortars to tanks. There’s also a Mine and Countermine Test and Training Complex, as well as a Smart Weapon Testing Range to the east.’
‘What of the other areas?’ said Asgard.
‘Cibola is the site of the Cibola Range. It features live fire and ammunition ranges, mounted and unmounted navigation courses, and long-range artillery and missile testing facilities. The most important use for Cibola, however, is advanced aviation testing. With an unrestricted airspace pretty much equivalent to the size of the proving ground itself, they’ve done everything there from trialling out new planes and helicopters to airdrops and UAV testing. Even NASA uses the site to check the chute systems for its space capsules.’ Reynolds tapped the south end of the map. ‘The smallest of the regions, the Laguna Test Center, contains the Laguna Army Airfield and the Castle Dome Heliport, both of which feature their own research and testing facilities. It also has extensive courses for vehicle testing and combat training, an ammunition holding area, drop zones, meteorological stations, instrument sites, firing ranges, and two aerostat sites.’
Ethan’s pulse drummed rapidly. The complex geography of the proving ground aside, there was far too much territory to cover in the time that they had. Westwood had promised them the soldiers and unreserved access to the site for one day only.
‘The place we’re looking for will be isolated.’ His gaze moved to Asgard briefly. ‘The…man we know to be in charge of this project won’t want it near curious eyes and ears, so we can pretty much rule out the area to the south.’
Reynolds raised his eyebrows. ‘You’ve met him?’
‘Yes,’ said Asgard. ‘We were his prisoners for some time.’
The Ranger straightened. ‘Where was that?’
‘His previous research facility was a former army base in the San Andres Mountains, in New Mexico,’ said Ethan distractedly. An uneasy feeling was seeping through his chest. His stomach started to churn. ‘It’s abandoned now.’
He blinked as a shiver ran down his spine.
Asgard stared at him. ‘Are you okay?’
‘You don’t look so good,’ grunted Reynolds.
Ethan swallowed and waved a hand dismissively.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, ignoring the icy sensation crawling inside his skull. ‘
I was gonna say that the middle of a missile firing range doesn’t seem like the kind of location he’d—’
Asgard heard Ethan gasp a second before he collapsed. He lunged and caught the younger immortal as he started to fall.
Alarm tore through him when he registered the Elemental’s deathly-pale face. He lowered him swiftly to the floor of the aircraft.
Ethan’s eyes snapped wide open. He stared blindly at the ceiling, a muffled cry passing his lips. His jaw clenched shut and he arched off the floor, his whole body tensing violently. Twitches coursed along his limbs.
Fear knotted Asgard’s gut. ‘Ethan!’
Reynolds turned toward the rear of the plane and shouted, ‘Medic!’ before moving around the table toward them. ‘Is he having a seizure?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Asgard mumbled. ‘He’s never—’
Footsteps approached at a run. A couple of soldiers appeared in the light bathing the table.
‘Step away, sir,’ one of them ordered briskly. She lowered herself next to Ethan and touched the immortal’s wrist. ‘Jesus!’
She yanked her arm away sharply and gaped at the convulsing man.
‘What is it, Staff Sergeant?’ barked Reynolds.
‘He’s burning up, sir!’
Asgard stared at the soldier’s red fingertips. He grabbed Ethan’s face in his hands. Incandescent heat radiated from the unresponsive immortal’s skin. He gritted his teeth against the scorching pain and gazed desperately into the younger man’s unseeing eyes.
‘Ethan!’
It felt like a lifetime before the Elemental finally blinked. His body went limp and his gaze focused on Asgard’s face. The expression in the blue depths broke the Bastian noble’s heart.
‘Oh God,’ Ethan whispered weakly. ‘Olivia.’
His eyelids fluttered closed.
Jonah glared at Scoleri. ‘What were you trying to do?’
The Crovir Hunter looked at him moodily. ‘I was trying to break her. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?’
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