“Yes,” Maureen said briskly. “In order to develop a cure, or at the very least a vaccine.”
“And you need mine specifically because…?”
Maureen sighed impatiently and shifted in her seat. The table they sat around was littered with coffee cups and food wrappers. They had stayed up the whole night discussing the shifter problem and telling him half-stories about what they were doing and why. Killian had developed a good sense for lies over the years, and he knew that he was swimming in them at that moment, but the longer he kept them talking, the more he would know. Sometimes, he knew, you could learn the truth from the shape of what the lies are skirting.
“We do not often encounter alphas,” she said carefully. “Samples from other ranks degrade rapidly once removed from the body. If it is the same with Alphas, then we will not require more than a single sample from you.”
Killian was instantly reminded of Henry, and his constant need for blood samples. He had discussed with Killian the habits of his personal samples over the course of the last few days, and had never mentioned the problem that Maureen expressed. He hadn’t mentioned it at all, in fact, during any of their conversations over the years. Killian and Henry had been close for a long time, and had frequently tossed around theories and discussed discoveries about shifter biology. This simple little problem was nonexistent in their conversations.
“Let’s assume mine doesn’t have that problem,” Killian said nonchalantly. “What then?”
“Then we will ask for more.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then we will send you on your way with no hard feelings,” Douglas interjected.
Maureen’s eyes flashed yellow in the look she shot him.
“How long have you been a shifter?” Killian asked her.
She raised an eyebrow. “Long enough,” she said cryptically.
“How many changes?”
“That is none of your concern, Mr. Walsh.”
“Isn’t it?” Killian asked, weighing the question with the bulk of his suspicions.
Maureen tilted her head defiantly, glaring at him with those blazing emerald eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but a pounding sound like a knock at a very heavy door interrupted her. She snapped her mouth shut as her eyes widened, and she and Douglas shared a look of panic.
“What did you do?” She hissed at Douglas.
“Everything I was supposed to,” Douglas replied grimly.
“Then who tracked you?”
“Hell if I know.”
Maureen smiled a fake, plastic smile at Killian. “Would you excuse us please?”
Killian gestured his permission languidly, but they were already moving through the small room to the door which opened into a hallway. Killian had not been forbidden from going through that door, but neither had he been invited or allowed to. The small room he sat in was fully operational, with a small kitchen, two couches, the table where he was sitting, and a small bathroom on one side. There had been no reason for him to move through the rest of the building except his own curiosity, and that excuse hadn’t gotten him anywhere all night. Now, however, the dynamic had changed. The guards, having been dismissed hours ago, were nowhere in sight. Impulsively, Killian went to the door and peeked his head through. He could hear Maureen’s heels clicking briskly to his right, and Douglas’ shuffling feet to his left. The day before, he would have followed Douglas. But after the extended meeting, Killian was under the impression that Maureen was boss. He stepped lightly on his bare feet over the linoleum floors, following her through faded yellow halls. The utter lack of windows bothered him almost as much as the cameras which squatted in high corners at random intervals like giant one-eyed spiders. He did his best to stay out of their sight, but his movements were guesses at best.
She was just around the next corner, walking up a long flight of stairs. Killian followed until the ceiling of the floor he was on opened, then hunkered in the shadows, watching her. She stood in front of a door with one finger touching a small electronic device in her ear. The knocking sounded again, directly in front of her. She jumped slightly, then pulled the door open. Sunlight poured through it, casting long shadows on the floor. A familiar voice reached Killian’s ears, and for a brief second he wondered if he was actually dreaming.
“Hi, sorry to bother you. My girl and I were camping just up the river there, and we had a bit of an accident with a raft and some liquor….”
A second, female voice giggled at that, and Killian listened more closely. Maybe he had been mistaken.
“Anyway, we’ve been wandering around looking for an interstate, and we happened to run into this…really super awesome camouflage thing you have going on here. We’re sort of cold and hungry and could seriously use a phone right now. Can we come in?”
Maureen touched her ear again, then smiled sweetly at the pair.
“Certainly,” she said, a little too invitingly. “But first, call your friends in. They must be sort of cold and hungry too, don’t you think?”
There was a long, tense moment of silence. From where he stood, Killian could see her eyes glitter predatorily.
“Oh well, no matter. We’ll just bring them in ourselves.” She put her finger to her ear and said, “Now.”
Within seconds, Pan and the girl he was with were hustled inside by the shifter guards. After them came four others, bound and gagged and pushed by more guards. A sick twist in Killian’s gut had him slipping down the stairs and into a little utility alcove.
“Settle down,” Maureen said soothingly. “We won’t hurt you. We’ll even feed you. And in exchange you will tell us who you are working for.”
“Nobody,” Pan said, his voice high and strained. “We’re just being cautious.”
“What would you need to be cautious about?” She asked innocently.
Pan didn’t answer, and Maureen sighed heavily.
“Very well. Take them to the conference room.”
“Is the other one still…?” One of the guards asked.
“That one is at the bottom of the stairs, behind the hot water pipe. Be a dear and pick him up on your way, would you? Then guard the doors. I refuse to spend my day herding animals.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Killian silently cursed and started to run, but before he’d made it two paces he was struck from behind by something that hissed and sizzled like lightning. All was dark.
“So you know him?” A girl’s voice whispered, touching Killian’s mind awake.
“Yeah,” Pan answered. “He must have been following me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. To bring me home or bring me to justice, depending on what I did before leaving Regis Thyme. I’m surprised it’s him, though. I would have expected them to send the Shifter Squad.”
“The Shifter Squad?” A man’s voice said dubiously. “What is that, your super hero team?”
“Sort of,” Pan chuckled. “They go…or they will go… out of Regis Thyme and help vagrant shifters.”
“Shiftless shifters,” a younger man’s voice corrected with a cackle.
As Killian peeled his aching eyes open, pain radiated down his spine and across his shoulders. Whatever they had struck him with had left a lasting impression. Groaning, he rolled over on the couch and looked out over the room where he’d spent the night, now filled with shifters. Most of them very young, one older, and Pan who was right in between. Pan noticed him moving, and hurried to his side.
“Killian! What are you doing here?”
“Same question,” Killian groaned. “And who are these?”
“Well…I’m trying to get back home because I lost a few days after the glass shattered and then I ran into these guys who were trying to get away from Omaha because some shifter kid killed their teacher and they didn’t want to take a straight shot back because I couldn’t remember what I’d done or if there were people out to get me or anything so we took a roundabout way home but then we found this place and ha
ve you seen what’s going on upstairs? It’s insane, there’s a whole warehouse full….”
“Pan,” the bearded man said sharply.
Pan blinked, then looked over at the man. “This is Killian, Floyd. He’s a friend.”
“Friend or no, they’ve got this room monitored. Shut your trap.”
Pan opened his mouth, then closed it again as his eyes scanned the ceiling. Two cameras crouched against the ceiling in diagonally opposite corners, their cold unblinking eyes taking everything in. Pan frowned and moved to sit beside Killian on the couch.
“So…you all took care of Pan for a while, then?”
“Yep! Found him in a puddle and took him home,” the dark, gangly kid said. “Home being a relative term. So to speak.” He chuckled to himself, but only earned blank glances from the rest of the room.
“And are you all trying to get to…home as well?”
“We’re along for the ride,” the small brown girl answered quickly. “We might not stay.”
“How old are all of you?” Killian’s protective, teacher side was rapidly rising to the surface in the face of this straggly bunch.
“Ghost is the youngest,” the dark kid said, pointing at a kid with a permanent scowl. “He’s twelve. Then Chains, she’s fourteen. Bender is fifteen, I’m sixteen…you can call me ‘Paul’ for the moment…and Pink is ancient.”
Killian and Pink shared an amused look. Killian estimated him to be no older than thirty-five.
“How did you all end up together?” Killian asked, more to fill the time than anything else. Talking about nothing helped him think about important things, and there was plenty to think about at the moment.
“Pink, Paul and I are related,” Chains said. “Ghost and I are friends, and Bender and Paul have been friends for pretty much ever. So when this all happened…well it sort of just made sense.”
“I see,” Killian said thoughtfully. “Well that’s better than the scenario I had imagined.”
“Casting me as Fagin?” Pink asked with an amused smile.
“They would make a good band of pickpockets,” Killian replied. The kids exchanged looks of confusion with Pan, who shrugged.
“I always figure it’s a literary reference when he does that,” Pan stage-whispered. “He reads a lot of books.”
“Pink just watches a lot of movies,” Chains said with a grin. “Old ones with grainy film that last forever. Bonus points for men who say ‘y’see’ a lot and women who scream like opera singers.”
Pink and Killian both shrugged, accepting their places as the old fogeys.
“Whose idea was it to try passing Chains off as your girlfriend?” Killian asked Pan. “She’s clearly much younger than you. If Maureen hadn’t wanted to keep you, she might just as well have called the cops.”
“I’m not good with ages,” Pan shrugged. “She looked older to me.”
“I get that a lot,” Chains said, nodding knowingly.
“So you all should still be in school. What was the last grade you attended? Asking as an educator.”
“You’re a teacher?” Ghost asked, making a face.
“The fun kind,” Killian said with mock defensiveness. “So come on, who’s done what?”
“I made it to fifth grade,” Chains said with a pout. “But I read a lot of books.”
“Sixth for me,” Ghost said with a nonchalant shrug. “Didn’t see the point once I got super powers.”
“Eighth,” Paul said, raising his hand.
“Sixth,” Bender sighed. “But I couldn’t understand it. Last time I learned anything was fourth grade.”
“I do my best with them,” Pink finished. “But degrees will only get you so far if you’re always on the run.”
“Not a bad start,” Killian said approvingly. “You all strike me as bright, intelligent people. All you need is a place to sit long enough to learn something.”
“No point,” Ghost said darkly. “Nobody’ll hire a bunch of shifters.”
“Contrary to popular belief, a good education isn’t about making yourself employable,” Killian told them. “It’s about maximizing your personal inherent potential so that you can contribute to the group as a whole in the way best suited to you.”
“Sounds like communism,” Bender said, wrinkling his nose.
“Ah, but is it actually communism, or is it simply an alternative view of capitalism?”
“Uh….”
Before he could come up with a response, the door opened. Maureen, looking like an ice queen of fury, came first. Douglas followed, wringing his hands nervously and sweating profusely. They sat across from the group on a pair of straight-backed chairs. Maureen took the group in with a severely arched eyebrow.
“You are all trespassers,” she said coldly. “You will be dealt with accordingly.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Excuse me,” Killian said coldly. “But you brought me here.”
“Yes, and we were happy to do you that favor. Your friends, however, have damaged our property in their clumsy attempts at sabotaging our work.”
“Your work?” Pan scoffed before he could stop himself. “You mean the warehouse full of double-dipped shifters?”
Killian looked at him sharply, and Maureen glared. Pan was trembling with rage, and it took every ounce of self-control he possessed to avoid launching himself across the room and ripping her throat out.
“Those shifters are a danger to themselves and everyone else,” Maureen said coolly. “They are better off here than they would be anywhere else.”
“Right,” Pan said bitterly. “Because there isn’t any place in the entire world set up specifically to take care of shifters in distress. Oh wait! There is!”
Maureen smirked. “You are speaking, of course, of Regis Thyme. The same place you escaped from? The same place which allowed you to run rampant across the countryside, risking exposure for shifters across the globe? Look at the big picture, darling. These conditions may not be ideal. But they are the best solution we have encountered so far.”
“How many shifters are you keeping here?” Killian asked.
“Three hundred, approximately.”
“All double-dipped?” Pink asked.
“Explain that adorable colloquialism to me,” Maureen said, her eyes flashing.
“Double-dipped. As in, going through multiple changes at once.”
“Oh, then yes. Yes they are. Which is why they are too crazed to be let out into the world, you see.”
“Now hold on a second,” Pan said sharply. “Shifters know that double-dipping is dangerous. They take steps to make sure that it doesn’t happen. How exactly did you manage to find three hundred shifters within traveling distance who all just happened to be going through these combined changes at the same time?”
Maureen’s eyes flashed yellow and her cheeks flushed. Douglas wriggled uncomfortably in his chair. The pack of young shifters bunched together, exchanging worried looks. Maureen swallowed several times, forcing herself under control.
“The purpose of this organization is to create cures and vaccines to protect the population from contracting this condition,” she said in clipped, clinical tones. “One cannot create such defenses without studying the afflicted. It is unfortunate that so many have succumbed to this tragic crisis. But with their sacrifices, we can ensure that they will be the last.”
“And just exactly what are their sacrifices?” Pan growled.
“You will soon find out,” Maureen said. “I am truly sorry.”
“You are truly full of shit,” Pan shot back.
She raised an eyebrow as she stood, then turned to address Douglas. “The Alpha’s eyes,” she said cryptically. “Take samples from the rest. The children are to be put in holding cells. The adults…well, you know what to do.” She left without another word, and guards flooded the room through the open door, pointing their guns at the group. Douglas stood, rubbing his hands together with a creepy gleam in his eye.
“Time fo
r science, children!”
“Why are you guys doing this?” Pan asked the four guards with halos in their eyes. “Why would you be party to this?”
Tension crackled through the air in the seconds after he spoke, like electricity before a thunderstorm. The guards wore impassive faces, none reacting whatsoever…except for the smallest, youngest guard closest to the door. His eyes flashed yellow and he began to shake. Pan pressed harder.
“Why would you betray your own kind? For money? Do you have any character at all?”
“I want to go home!” The small guard shouted as fur sprouted over his cheeks just in time to catch tears as they fell. “Maureen will cure me and she’ll let me go home.”
“You can’t cure this,” Killian told him gently. “Regis Thyme has been studying us for thirteen years, with willing volunteers. There is no cure. Your DNA….”
“Shut up!” The man screamed, stepping across the room to shove the barrel of his gun in Killian’s face. “She promised she’d cure it. I want to go home!”
“Devin,” Douglas said gently. “Step back, son.”
Devin lowered his gun and dropped his face in one hand, sobbing. The other guards never moved. They didn’t even look at him. Pan watched them and knew in his gut that there was no brotherhood here. They all had the same mission and goal, but their reasons were not aligned. Devin was their weak link, but also the most unpredictable. If they were lucky, they could use that to their advantage. Floyd and Killian appeared to be better strategists; but it was Alice’s mind that he really wanted on board. She thought in spider webs and spirals, and would be the first to find the less obvious routes to freedom. As if to prove his point, she sidled up beside him and pressed Jacob’s flute in his hand.
“Just in case,” she whispered. She moved away quickly before anyone noticed, and Pan shoved the flute into the waistband of his shorts. He wished he could know for sure what the guns were loaded with; but considering how educated these people were on shifters, he thought it was a fair bet that whatever it was would kill them. He pushed the thought of a surprise attack away; for as world-wise and tough these kids were, they were still kids. He would never forgive himself if his actions got one of them killed. That guilt was already weighing heavy on him. If he hadn’t been so insistent, the others may have convinced Alice to leave the shifter warehouse for another day.
Dying to Live: The Shifter City Complete Series Page 27