by Irina Argo
* * *
Oberon closed his eyes. He couldn’t do this; it was too much to ask. Odji was theirs, one of the Elite, so in revealing his location he’d just been returning to the Sekhmi someone who already belonged to them. But the Keepers were the Amitis’ last hope. No matter the consequences, he could not sacrifice the Keepers. It would be tantamount to forsaking the Goddess and dooming the Amiti race.
“I can’t do that, Anock.”
“Oh, but you can. You don’t want this female to die, do you?”
“No, I don’t, and I appeal to your mercy, Anock. You can spare her life; it’s your choice as much as it is mine. More than mine. I will not give the Keepers up. There’s nothing that you can do that will change my mind.”
“Yes, Oberon, you will. At the count of three. One.”
“I am so very sorry.” Oberon glanced at the woman. She held her head down, but her shaking shoulders betrayed that she was crying. “There is nothing I can do for you. The Keepers hold our people’s survival in their hands. We can’t lose them, no matter what the cost.”
Please Goddess, kill me. Spare me from having to make this choice.
* * *
“Two!” Anock was bluffing. He had no intention of letting the woman die. It was a test of wills.
“Please, Anock. You’re a warrior, not a butcher. How can you reduce yourself to this level? Torture me, kill me, do whatever you want, but please, don’t waste her life.”
Anock looked one last time at the Amiti.
This is so wrong.
“Three!”
Blade’s sword hissed through the air, slicing through the female’s neck. Her head hit the floor and rolled toward the cage, lifeless jade-green eyes staring into Anock’s soul.
It took a few seconds for the body to collapse to the floor.
The hysterical screams of the other Amiti filled the room.
Anock stared, transfixed, at the lifeless eyes.
Cara’s eyes. Oh Goddess.
“Take the bloodstock to her cell and clean the place up.” He ordered, his voice and brain totally disconnected, and left.
He barely made it to his office. He kicked the door open and flew to the bathroom, where he threw up for what seemed like hours. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the Amiti’s head rolling across the floor and gagged again.
Finally he stood up, covered in sweat, legs wooden. He grabbed a bottle of cognac from the wet bar, taking deep swallows straight from the bottle until it was empty.
Those eyes, her eyes. He’d be haunted by them forever.
He went to his desk, booted up his laptop and logged into the Guardians’ database to run a query on the bloodstock whose execution he’d just ordered. Her name was Olivia—
Horror exploded in his chest as he scanned her file: captured twenty-five years ago ... small Arizona town ... suspected to have hidden an infant among human children ...
He couldn’t bear to read any more, turned away to bury his face in his palms.
He’d just executed Cara’s mother.
Chapter 65
Hour after hour, Anock sat in front of his computer, staring mindlessly at the monitor. Kaleidoscopic images of a wonderful future with Cara as his blood-bond—images that would never become a reality—swirled through his mind. His dreams had been crushed, lost to him forever. He could never blood-bond with a female whose mother’s murder he had ordered. How could he possibly look into her eyes knowing what he had done? It was too disturbing to think about.
With effort, Anock pushed all thoughts of Cara aside and concentrated on his immediate priority: Odji. For this mission, he’d chosen six of his best Guardians, plus Blade and himself. Oberon had drawn them what looked like a comprehensive map, and he’d told Anock that there were humans on site—which meant that Anock had to take the Confederation’s No-Kill policy into consideration when planning the attack. In order to disable the humans without injuring them, they’d be using canisters of sleeping gas. They’d enter the building after everyone was asleep and get Odji.
The team took the Guardians’ jet to Russia. At Irkutsk International Airport, they rented three SUVs and sped toward the Project station, stopping the cars two miles from their destination. Three warriors stayed with the vehicles, waiting for a signal to bring them to the station when the mission had been accomplished. The other five, including Anock and Blade, traveled on foot to the station, taking full advantage of their vampire speed. Oberon had warned them that there were psychically sensitive humans at the station who could sense immortals, so they had to move quickly, a coup de main before the mortals had time to wake up and react.
With lightning speed the team surrounded the station, and at Anock’s signal, the Guardians threw the canisters of sleeping gas through the station’s windows. After giving the gas a moment to take effect, they pulled on respirator masks, blasted the door open, and rushed into the facility, fanning out to search the building.
Anock found Odji in a cell in the basement. He lay on a bed, either sleeping or unconscious, his body covered with wires connected to a row of monitors along the wall.
Grabbing Odji’s shoulders, Anock shook him gently, then harder. “Odji, wake up. It’s me, Anock.” No response. Anock pulled the wires from Odji’s body and checked his pulse. It was too weak. Something was seriously wrong with his brother.
“Damn, what did they do to you?” Fucking primates, daring to experiment with one of the Elite.
He picked up Odji and carried him to the building’s entrance.
These humans were lucky there was a No-Kill law.
Anock wouldn’t kill them; the frost would do it for him.
“I want every fucking window in this building broken before you leave,” he told his men.
“Pleasure, boss.”
Still holding Odji, Anock signaled to the guys who’d stayed with the vehicles and then waited at the entrance, listening as the Guardians moved around the house blasting the windows, obviously enjoying the destruction, wreaking havoc like oversized kids. He imagined the Siberian wind playing along with them, gusting through the openings, chasing the Guardians and caressing everyone asleep inside with its deadly breath.
“We have to go,” Anock called out once he heard the clamor die down. Without waiting for them to answer, he started to step outside, but then turned to the Guardian behind him. “Did you make sure that there aren’t any other immortals in the building?”
He really didn’t need to ask; his men were all well-trained and familiar with standard procedure. In fact, two of them were already coming upstairs, each holding a sleeping immortal in his arms.
“There are two more downstairs,” one of the guys announced. “We’ll just get these two into the car and retrieve the other two.”
“Make sure to contact their tribes and packs and see that they get home safely.”
“Sure, boss.”
“Look who I found.” One of the Guardians showed Anock a female he held, her golden hair swaying in time with his footsteps. Amiti. No mistake. What a fantastic stroke of luck.
“Yes, the Goddess has smiled on us tonight,” Blade replied, coming through another doorway with a second female in his arms. Anock thought she looked familiar, and as soon as Blade turned and her face came into view, he recognized her.
“It’s Desiree, Oberon’s sister.” Even if Anock hadn’t recognized her based on pictures in the Guardians’ database, he’d never forget her role in getting Arianna busted for making contact with the Order. “So that’s why Oberon was so desperate to make a phone call.”
“Something’s wrong here,” Blade muttered, looking at the unconscious Amiti in his arms. “Oberon would never have given up Odji’s location if it meant jeopardizing his sister. There has to be more, something he didn’t tell us that’s protecting her somehow.”
“Put her in the car. We’ll figure out what to do with her later.”
“What about this one?” ask
ed the Guardian holding the golden-haired Amiti.
“Consider her your reward. Have a feast, my friends. Just make sure she’s not alive when you’re done with her. But do it quickly; we need to get Odji back home.”
His men deserved a reward and acknowledgment of a job well done. What better prize could there be for a vampire than to take the vein of an Amiti without the risk of a blood-bond? Feeding directly from an Amiti was a fantasy of every Sekhmi, so this was a rare treat.
It was the beginning of February and a good thirty below zero centigrade. But the six Guardians, overcome by rising bloodlust, didn’t care what the temperature was. They dropped the Amiti onto the snow and pulled her clothes off, exposing her flesh to give themselves better access. Then in total silence, surrounding the girl like a pride of hungry lions, they took her veins at the neck, wrists, and groin.
“What about you, Blade?” Anock asked, watching the scene, more disturbed than he’d like to admit. Damn. He was supposed to be feeling satisfied, victorious.
“I pass,” Blade said gloomily. His body language was relaxed, but behind that façade, Anock detected a kind of vibration, like he was really tightly wound. Was Blade freaking out?
The Guardians stopped feeding and stepped away from the girl. It meant that her heart had stopped pumping blood; Sekhmi didn’t feed on the blood of the dead.
“It’s time to leave.” Anock stepped into the car.
The rest of the team followed. As they pulled away, Anock threw a last glance at the golden Amiti girl. She lay under the pine trees, surrounded by the halo of her glorious sun-colored hair, her still beautiful body smeared in blood.
At the airport, the Guardians loaded the unconscious immortals onto the plane and took their seats, belting in and starting to watch movies or flip through magazines as they lifted off. Anock’s mind was still churning with everything that had gone down in the past twenty-four hours, so he just closed his eyes and let his brain have at it. Maybe he’d find some insight that had been escaping him. Or maybe he’d fall asleep, which wouldn’t hurt, either.
Just as the plane reached altitude, one of the Guardians broke the amiable silence that had settled over them.
“She was really beautiful,” he said offhandedly.
“Very beautiful,” someone else agreed.
For a moment no one said anything, and then a third warrior spoke up. “I could have sworn that I smelled Sekhmi on her.”
The silence clamped down on them, suddenly ominous.
“Me too,” another Guardian finally said tentatively.
“Yeah, me too.”
The meaning of their conversation pierced the bubble of Anock’s distraction. Adrenaline slammed through his body in its wake. By the time he’d consciously registered what was happening, he’d already erupted from his seat and was leaning over the Guardian who’d first mentioned the scent issue.
“What?! What did you just say?” Anock got in the guy’s face, fisting the lapels of his jacket and pulling him forward.
“I said, boss, that I smelled Sekhmi on her,” he answered, sounding like he didn’t understand what the problem was.
Anock stood up, pushing the guy back into his seat. “What the fuck were you thinking? Amiti smell like Sekhmi when they’ve been fed on by Sekhmi. And the only other Sekhmi in the building was Odji.”
Their faces got solemn as they came to terms with what Anock was saying. Someone let out a low whistle.
“Damn.” Anock recalled that over a year ago, just before Odji’s helicopter had been swallowed by Oberon’s wormhole, Odji had kidnapped an Amiti girl from the altar of the hunters’ temple, where she was about to be sacrificed to Sekhmet. “It’s the girl Odji kidnapped from the hunters.”
“Odji’s blood-bond” Blade murmured quietly, almost to himself. His face was bleak.
Anock lunged toward the door separating the main cabin from the cockpit and threw it open. The startled faces of the pilot and copilot stared back at him. “Turn around. Now! We’re going back to Irkutsk.”
Chapter 66
Stas, the Project’s main guard and handyman, was driving back to the Station. He was pissed off: tomorrow was his day off and he’d planned to spend that night and the next in Irkutsk with Vera, his girlfriend. But right after dinner everything had gone wrong. They’d started fighting over something stupid, and eventually it escalated to her throwing dishes at him and screaming obscenities. When the neighbors started complaining and pounding on the walls, he pulled on his boots and coat and left the apartment.
The last thing he wanted to do tonight was go back to the Station. But it could have been worse; at least this way he wouldn’t get hit in the head with a frying pan.
He drove the familiar route without paying attention to the road, when out of nowhere, he felt several cars approaching from the opposite direction. The hairs on his arms stood on end. What the hell? Stas was psychic, and the energies he was feeling were definitely nonhuman. Every fiber of his being screamed that something was seriously wrong.
He cut the lights and pulled off the road into what he hoped was a relatively hidden spot before shutting off the engine and huddling down to wait for them to pass.
He floored the gas pedal, losing and regaining control of the car several times as he approached the station. The building was totally dark, and every window he could see was smashed, as was the main door. Stas swerved into the driveway and jumped out of the car, leaving the door standing open. He ran toward the busted front door, fear for his friends escalating. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of something out of place lying under the pines. Cautiously, he approached it. It was Zlata, one of the Project’s immortal research subjects, her pale form surrounded by red-stained snow. He almost fainted when he saw the savage bites covering her freezing body, which was turning blue from the cold.
He grabbed the girl and raced to the building. At the front hall, he set her on the couch and ran to check on the rest of the staff. He found them all in their bedrooms, freezing to death in their sleep. The winter winds circulated through the building, whistling through the broken windows and demolished door.
Stas started yelling at the top of his lungs, trying to wake people up, but no one responded. Sniffing at the air, he noticed a faint chemical odor, quickly dissipating in the fresh winter air. Had it been a chemical attack? He didn’t have time to ponder that right now; he had to keep his people alive.
Trained to survive in Siberia, Stas knew that the priority was to block all of the openings letting in the frigid air. He dashed to the utility closet and grabbed a hammer, nails, and two large blankets. He covered the door with one of the blankets, nailing it to the door frame. Then he grabbed pillows from the linen closet and stuffed them into the small, porthole-style window openings. The heaters had been working furiously, and with the holes covered, the building began to fill with welcome warmth.
When the immediate danger had passed, he took the second blanket, wrapped it around Zlata, and carried her downstairs to the medical suite. He laid her gently on the heated pre-op table and checked her pulse. There was none. He’ d have to try CPR. He rolled his sleeves up and began systematically compressing her chest and breathing into her mouth.
“Davai, davai, prosnis,” he was repeating over and over again in Russian. Come on, come on, wake up. When five minutes had passed and Zlata remained lifeless, Stas brought out the big guns: his unique gift, his healing power. He placed his palms on Zlata’s chest and connected to the Earth beneath his feet, stretching his consciousness down to the core of the planet. For Stas, the Earth was alive, so he greeted Her like a living being as he drew a ray of luminescent green light from the center of the planet to his body and then projected it into the girl’s heart. In his inner vision he watched the ray explode into billions of living sparks, forcing Zlata’s heart to beat again, reviving and reawakening every cell of her body.
Zlata’s body spasmed violently, and then she drew a
hoarse, gasping breath and her eyes flew open. She blinked uncertainly at Stas.
Her face changed abruptly, as her body tensed again Stas could tell that she was remembering what had happened to her. She began to shiver as though she hadn’t been brought in from outside, her teeth chattering. Clutching at Stas’s arm, she seemed to be trying to say something, but then she passed out again, her hand going limp and dropping from his arm.
It was just as well, he thought. Whatever had gotten to her, it would take a lot of work, and a lot of time, to get over the attack. Meanwhile, he’d work on her physical healing.
He examined her wounds. Her body was covered in punctures, which in several spots seemed to have torn, creating bloody slashes across her skin. The girl had lost so much blood that her skin was translucent. The first thing she needed was an immediate blood transfusion. Stas searched the refrigerated blood supply for an Amiti sample. There weren’t any. What was the best alternative? Human? He went back through the stash, considering each bag and whether it might resemble Amiti blood.
“Take mine. It will work.” English words spoken in a husky female voice broke the quiet of the laboratory. Startled, Stas looked up to find three people standing in the doorway: two stunning young females and a striking male as handsome as any movie star he’d ever seen.
“Who are you?” Stas asked, also in English. They were not locals. It was obvious.
“We’re her relatives,” said the female as she approached him. She looked, Stas thought, as if she’d stepped right out of an ancient Egyptian fresco, with golden skin, straight black hair cut in long bangs to just below her eyebrows, and almond-shaped eyes thickly lined with kohl. Stas stared at her, mesmerized by her beauty.
The female waved her hand in front of his eyes. “Hellooo! Hey, you: wake up. We don’t have much time.”
“Oh. Sorry. What did you say? And who are you?”
“I’m Serena. But that’s not important. Now hurry up. She needs blood.” She rolled her sleeve up and extended her arm to Stas.