Soul Breather (21st Century Sirens Book 1)

by T Stedman

  Dante thanked his father, realising that the meeting was drawing to a close. “Do you ever come to Ireland?” he found himself saying. “I have a presentation … when I get her back.” His voice was trailing off.

  Ormond smiled at Dante. “I will try. I have to be a ghost in my own world, Dante. But if at all possible I will be there.”

  Dante took a deep breath and nodded.

  Ormond turned and walked away. Then was gone in the crowd as if he’d never been.

  ***

  When Tia awoke she was under water. She tried not to move while she got her bearings and alert anyone to her being awake. Was she in the Dubonnetti tank? No, the lighting was too bright. The tank also had no metal frame. It appeared to be all glass or perspex. She rolled her eyes and could see it was a rectangle about eight feet long by six high, and about three feet wide, suspended about three feet off the ground.

  When she went to move she found that each of her limbs was restricted as well as her head. She manoeuvred slowly and found she had enough slack to sit up. The bastards had stripped her though. Thankfully, they’d left her knickers on. She couldn’t even move her arms enough to cover herself.

  A muffled speaker in the water began crackling. “Specimen B is awake …” she heard. “Hello there,” came from a man in a white coat and small glasses – a kind of old-looking cliché of a professor. She gave him the finger.

  “My name is Dr Smidt.” He waited again for a response. “I would like to make sure your stay here is as comfortable as possible. Is there anything I can get you?” he said slowly, like people talk to foreigners having trouble with English.

  She mouthed. “Get me the fuck out of here!”

  He noted on his clipboard and mouthed, “Speaks English.”

  The radio device was switched off and she just heard the surges of the water and a humming of some sort of electrical equipment. Probably all the monitoring devices she was plugged into.

  Now left alone she began to survey the room. She started from one end to the other. Nothing remarkable. A lab. Soldiers in uniform walking in and out. Military, she decided.

  As her vision went left she could see another tank just like the one she was in. Fuck, there was someone in there. She started to struggle and tried to bang on the glass to get her attention.

  Alarms began to beep outside her tank. The doctor came up close again. “Please relax, specimen B.” She continued to look over at the other tank. There was someone in there. Unconscious. She could just make out long fair hair and white skin. Stripes. Yes, stripes like her own. She struggled again.

  “Partition quickly,” the doctor shouted.

  Two soldiers wheeled over a large screen so she could see nothing after that.

  She pointed to the doctor.

  He came up close to the glass. “Shh!” he said, to those around him. “She is trying to communicate.”

  She looked at him with as much hatred in her eyes as she could muster and made a gesture of a thumb across her neck, and mouthed. “You. Are. Dead.” Satisfied when she saw him swallow hard, she lay back down to make him think she was shutting herself down to all outside influences. She wracked her brains. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! How was she going to get out of this one? She had been in some shitty places in her time but this was the scariest. She had no way of knowing if she’d ever get out.

  She tried to relax herself; being stressed was not going to help. Gently, she sent out a mental feeler. She’d never covered any distance before but Dante had reached her a couple of nights ago, so she had to give it a go. She began by projecting out in circles that got wider and wider. It was methodical and less likely to miss anything.

  Dante … Dante … where are you? Please hear me … I need you. She said, like a mantra.

  Tia … is that you? came after a few moments.

  Beeps began to sound all around her. She was aware of a commotion going on outside of the tank. People began rushing over to her.

  “She is communicating. Record her brain activity. Then cut it off. She could be guiding others here.”

  Quickly Dante, they know I’m talking to you.

  Are you okay? his psychic voice replied in anguish.

  Yes, I’m under water. I can’t move … aghh! An electric current shot through her. Her brain shuddered. She became disorientated. Her head hurt.

  Tia … Tia! Dante called, over and over.

  It hurts. She passed out.

  Chapter 31

  The military helicopter was speeding along low to the rendezvous point when Dante grabbed his head and shouted at them all to be quiet. Everyone shut up and looked at him. He looked like he was staring into space until eventually he let go of his temples. He hit his forehead with the palm of his hand in frustration.

  “Was it Tia, Dante?” Jay asked, giving his arm a shake.

  “Yes, but I could hardly hear her. They’re keeping her under water … then they knew she was speaking to someone. They did something to hurt her and she just went.”

  Jay bit down his feelings of impotent rage. Of course she would contact Dante and not him. He stared ahead in blank focus.

  “Jay!” Dante called.

  He ignored him.

  “Jay?” Dante called again.

  Jay turned his head to him and tried to keep the anger off his face.

  “It was me because I can reply … that’s all.”

  Jay looked eyes front again. It didn’t matter; just another reason why he shouldn’t be with her.

  ***

  The helicopter landed at the furthermost corner of Milestorm Air Force Base. Three army vehicles were parked there with keys in the ignition and uniforms on the seats.

  Jay and Dante changed and took the first vehicle with two of the guards. Cash and Sean took the next with two more, and Keenan with three of his guards took the last.

  Despite being asked to stay behind, Dante insisted on coming to find her. He wasn’t having any of that ‘king must stay in safety’ shit. And when he pointed out his psychic link with her, no-one could argue with that. Plus, Keenan and the guards were the trained muscle in case anything went pear-shaped. Delissi’s instructions, if they went according to plan, should mean they’d be in and out before anyone knew she was gone, with no agro.

  They drove along, not too fast and not too slow, so as not to draw attention. They went through a barrier that went up as soon as they reached it, with a nod from a soldier in the kiosk.

  They followed the road around to zone F, as directed on the map.

  They all got out of the vehicles and swept up to the building as one unit. In Dante’s uniform pocket was a universal prox card, which hopefully would gain them access through every door. One swipe and they were in the building. They stuck together, moving down a corridor till they found a lift. Half went in the lift and half went into the stairwell.

  They held their breath at the bottom as the lift doors opened. No-one was there. The corridor was dark and deserted as the others joined them from the stairs. This part of the base was obviously rarely used or off limits to the average squaddie.

  They hid in an office as they heard voices approach until they went by and out of hearing. They crept out one by one.

  “Try to speak to her again, Dant,” Jay said.

  “Wait till we’re right there. I only want to do it once as they shut her down last time.”

  Jay nodded and pointed and they all crept along the corridor in their crouched positions.

  Eventually they came up to some huge, steel double doors, more at home in a bank vault than an air base.

  “This must be it,” Dante said.

  Keenan came forward and looked at the door. “Try the card.”

  Dante swiped it down the monitor. Nothing.

  “We’ll have to blow it. Means it’s gonna get messy,” Keenan said.

  Dante nodded. “Let me speak to her first. Make sure she’s here, okay?” He closed his eyes, Tia baby … Tia … can you hear me?

  Dante! It was like
a shout in his head. Buzzers were heard going off on the other side of the door.

  “Blow it now!” Dante said.

  Keenan quickly shoved a blob of what looked like putty with a fuse on the door. “Stand well back!” And he lit it and ran flat out to join the others.

  The explosion was noisy but effective. Dante hoped the remoteness of the building meant not too many soldiers would come.

  They piled in. Keenan and his men went in first, heavily armed to cover everyone. Cash and Sean went running through to secure everyone’s way out after they had Tia. Dante ran straight to the tank.

  Tia was struggling. Her body writhed in pain, going taut with strain and then thrashed when it released her muscles. Jay ran around the outside of the tank and pulled out all the plugs from the monitors. All the while Keenan and his men watched through the barrel of their guns.

  Two soldiers ran in from another door. Keenan and his men picked them off in seconds, then another two, then another. The noise was like little firework pops.

  Then one of Keenan’s men pulled a doctor out from behind a bank of computers by the back of his neck. Jay strode straight over to him.

  Dante had climbed up to reach the top of the tank and managed to get the lid off. It clattered to the floor. He jumped straight into the water and plunged immediately below the surface and tried to pull all the wires off her, but her hair had become wound around all the leads and restraints. He couldn’t free her no matter how hard he pulled.

  Tia’s body had gone limp and Dante began to really worry for her. He stood up in the tank. “Keenan! Get me a sharp knife or scissors or something.”

  Keenan came jogging over and handed him one of his sharpest daggers. Dante could do nothing else than shear off great chunks of her hair. Then he heaved her up and passed her to Keenan’s waiting arms. Dante quickly climbed out and took her from him.

  Tia started to struggle as the water evacuated her lungs.

  “It’s okay Tia. It’s me, Dante.”

  She continued to struggle. Let me look … Let me look!

  Confused, he put her down. She ran to the other side of the partition, but the tank was empty. It no longer even had water in it. Where’s she gone? She projected, with her hands on the glass.

  “Come Tia, we must go,” Dante said, picking her up again.

  She was in there. Tia projected again.

  Dante called over to Jay who stood holding the doctor. “Ask where the other one went.”

  ***

  Keenan marched over and took hold of the doctor for Jay.

  Jay wasted no time and pulled out the doctor’s hand and stabbed him once through the palm. The doctor screamed at the top of his lungs.

  “I won’t ask you again, where is the other one?” Jay said, slowly and quietly.

  The doctor’s breathing was ragged and uneven. “Gone … she’s gone.”

  “Gone where?” Jay asked and pushed the knife back through his hand without so much as a flinch in his expression.

  Keenan watched his actions closely, all the while aware of the time.

  “Gone … swapped for this one.”

  “Who?” Jay asked.

  “I never met him. They called him a ghost or the ghost … I had little to do with it. Are you one of them?” the doctor asked, turning his head slowly to look into Jay’s eyes.

  “No. You’re not that lucky,” Jay sneered.

  “What shall we do with him?” Keenan called over to Dante, trying to hurry things along. Dante was wrapping Tia in a lab coat.

  “It’s up to Jay,” Dante shouted over his shoulder, as he began to walk Tia out of the lab.

  Before Dante had even finished saying Jay’s name, Jay had the barrel of a gun at the doctor’s temple and fired it at point blank range. No hesitation or second thought. The body fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes and he and Keenan were on the way and out of there.

  Keenan touched Jay on the shoulder as they walked briskly and caught up with Dante with Tia in his arms. Cash and Sean had cleared the way ahead and made their exit smooth. They tumbled out of the lift and along the last corridor. They breathed again when they made it outside, without challenge, to the waiting vehicles with their engines running.

  Jay helped Dante carry Tia’s shivering body into the back of one of the vehicles. Jay sat in the front next to one of the guards who drove, while Dante sat with her lying across his lap in the back. He wasn’t saying anything out loud but Jay knew he was talking telepathically to her the whole time.

  She looked in a bad way. Her skin was grey with heavy black bands all over her. She was rigid and shaking – probably from shock. And her once beautiful hair looked as if rats had gnawed it off.

  ***

  Dante stroked back her hair and talked through his mind to her quietly until she calmed and stopped shaking.

  The journey in the cars was short and before long they transferred to the helicopter, which made the short ride off the base where they changed again to a convoy of waiting SUV’s. Then they made the two and a half hour journey back to Cash’s ranch.

  Jay escaped Dante and Tia and rode with Keenan for this part of the journey.

  Dante huddled down with Tia and swaddled her in his coat. He put another blanket over them and then pulled her into his body as they lay across the back seat. Hey babe. How ya doing? he projected, when she lay awake and still next to him.

  You came for me, she thought, smiling up at him.

  His heart nearly broke as he looked down into her now completely ruined eyes. The constant confinement in water had dilated them beyond their capacity. He’d get her help, contacts or something like that.

  Of course I came, you’re mine aren’t you? he projected back.

  There was another one, Dante.

  Another one like you?

  She nodded.

  We’ll find her.

  This seemed to satisfy her as she smiled. Where’s Jay? she asked, with a look of worry on her face. Is he okay?

  Yes, he’s fine. We are all fine. No casualties. He pulled her to him and hugged her tight. Sleep, he said, I’ll wake you when we get there.

  I don’t think I can.

  Dante leant down and put his lips to hers and gently blew into her mouth, until she smiled in the warm orange glow of his cocooning essence. He gradually felt her breathing deepen and slow down and he knew she’d gone off.

  He sat back from her slightly and thought that he should be angry at Jay right now for not being here when she needed him, but he couldn’t help but feel grateful for these wonderful moments he could spend with her privately, as if they were a real couple.

  He breathed a sigh and nuzzled into her rats’ tails of hair and fell into a contented sleep with her.

  ***

  Keenan drove along with Jay in the passenger seat. The two guards in the back were already getting some shut eye.

  “You would make a good soldier, you know that?” Keenan said, glancing sideways at Jay.

  Jay nodded once to acknowledge the compliment. “Thanks … I just did what needed to be done,” he said, eventually.

  “Yes, but you don’t let emotion make you do anything stupid.”

  Jay looked at Keenan for an explanation.

  Keenan continued. “I am a trained soldier, but I would have been tempted to give the doctor a lingering death for hurting my woman … but you – quick dispatch and then out of there. Job done, and no-one put in danger unnecessarily,” Keenan nodded appreciatively.

  Jay raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I didn’t think much at all, just that there couldn’t be any witnesses.” Uncomfortable with the attention, he changed the subject. “You will be pleased to get back to Lacy?”

  Keenan paused for a second. “Yeah … I want to get this presentation and pledging out of the way. Then I hope to get to work on getting her to remember some things … I don’t know how I’m gonna feel about her getting in the water with Dante though.”

  Jay totally understood that one an
d just nodded. “Has she breathed with you yet?” Jay asked.

  “No, it has to be with Dante first … She’ll pledge, be married and then her power will pass to him. After, she can breathe with me, but her power will be his … it has to be that way for princes.”

  “It’s fucking hard man, I don’t envy you.”

  “At least she won’t have a sexual relationship with Dante.”

  “You hope,” Jay said, but couldn’t keep a straight face, when he saw Keenan’s stone cold look. “No, that bollocks is just my shit to deal with,” he added.

  It was Keenan’s turn to change the subject to something happier. “Tia has breathed for you, though.”

  He nodded and smiled at the memory.

  Keenan smiled back. “She has bound you to her then.”

  He nodded again. “She’s scared though.”

  “Of hurting you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Give her time, she loves you man. Don’t forget you’re not dealing with a Human female here. Giving is as much a part of them as their music.”

  “Thanks man. You’ve probably saved the king’s life.”

  They both laughed.

  “How you don’t kill him half the time I have no idea,” Keenan said.

  “I know, but I love to hate him and he knows it.”

  They laughed again.

  Jay really appreciated the new friend he’d found in Keenan. Sometimes it was good to get another perspective on things. Whether he liked it or not, he was in this Atlantean nation for keeps.

  ***

  The cars pulled into the yard at Cash’s ranch at around lunchtime in brilliant sunshine. Dante woke first and sat up as they swung into their parking space. “Hey,” he said gently to Tia, “we’re here.”

  Reeve, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, passed back his sunglasses. “Put these on her, the sun is bright.”

  “Thanks man.” Dante said.

  He arranged the lab coat around her for her modesty and popped the glasses on. “Not bad, considering,” he said, smiling.

  “Thank you, Dante.” Emotion wobbled her voice, which was barely a rasp.