by Angie Fox
“Live testing,” Marc said, his voice full of contempt.
I stopped. “You use animals?”
“I don’t,” he said, his expression grim. “The old army does. Hell, they use people.”
I gaped at him, knowing instantly that he wasn’t kidding.
“We have to stop this war,” I told him. Somehow. Some way. This had to end.
“I’d give my life if we could,” he vowed.
I would too. Still… “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
I focused once again on the young professor. “Dr. Keller,” I said under my breath, “it’s Petra Robichaud. You remember me.” He had to remember me. “We can talk if you show yourself.”
“Talk?” a voice echoed as the temperature in the room plummeted. “I don’t have time to talk.” A frigid wind burst through the lab, scattering what was left on the tables.
“Jesus,” Marc muttered under his breath.
My heart skipped a beat as the ghost of Dr. Keller materialized at his desk, directly behind us. He rooted through file cabinets that had already been spilling their guts.
“You see this?” He fisted a wad of papers. His chest had been torn open. I could see his rib bones working as he shredded the paper with his bare hands, desperate and shaking. “All of this has to go.”
“Why, Dr. Keller?” I asked, voice even, approaching him slowly. He was older than I remembered. His face had taken on hard angles on the cheeks and softened in the jaw. He was thinner than before, skeletal. Goose bumps trickled down my arms. “Tell me what you have to hide. I can help you.”
He rushed me. Before I had time to react, he was on me. “Do you have matches?” he asked, his face inches from mine.
“No,” I said, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. He hovered parallel to the floor.
His eyes narrowed, and the temperature of the room iced to a bone-chilling freeze. I could see my breath puff between us as he stared me down.
He whipped around and toppled the lab table next to me. Glass and petri dishes flew in a hundred different directions. “They took mine!” He threw his hands up in the air. “They stole my matches. Heat kills it.”
“Heat kills what?” I asked, keeping my voice steady, trying to stand straight when every instinct screamed for me to duck. “Teach me,” I said. He was an academic. And he certainly had my full attention.
“Take these,” he said, handing me a sample tray with two dozen test tubes filled with glowing green liquid. “Destroy them.”
I exchanged glances with Marc. “Do you have a neutralizing station?”
“Here. Like this.” Dr. Keller grabbed a test tube and shattered it on the floor. Then another. And another.
Marc recoiled with every shot. “What are you doing?”
Hurling toxic chemicals. What did it look like?
I had to gain Keller’s trust, get him talking. “Here,” I said to the ghost, fingers shaking as I smashed the tubes, one by one. “I’m doing it. I’m helping.”
Marc watched, wide-eyed. “And you call me crazy.”
“Good. Good!” Keller reached for another tray. That one was empty, but he didn’t seem to notice. “We must destroy the compound and every shred of research. It’s not a medicine,” he said, the fear plain on his face. “It’s a biological weapon. One hundred percent fatal to humans.”
I froze. “This?”
“Yes. They’re working on a pathway. They haven’t found it yet. We must be faster!”
“This could kill me,” I said, voice cracking. Marc grabbed the tray from my hands.
Dr. Keller didn’t even notice. “It will kill you only if it is airborne,” he lectured. “And it has a one hundred percent kill rate.”
“They’re going for one hundred percent casualties?” I could hardly believe it. “But they’re still working on the pathway,” I said, just to be clear. I rubbed my hands on my pants as I watched Marc slide the tray into a biohazard can. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Yes!” Dr. Keller was growing frantic again.
“Okay,” I said, my mind racing. It was something.
A pathway basically offered the means for a bioweapon to enter the human system. If they hadn’t finalized a way to get it to the general population, then we still had time.
“You see why we must destroy the lab,” Dr. Keller insisted.
I hated to break it to him, but there were a lot of other labs.
“It’s a biological weapon,” Marc said, shocked. He stood about two feet from the ghost of Dr. Keller. “Ask him why they need one hundred percent casualties.”
“Because they’re twisted,” I said. But he had a point. If we knew why, maybe we’d find a how. “Why everyone?” I asked the ghost. It didn’t make sense for them to wipe out the human race. We worked for them. We lived among their soldiers.
Dr. Keller shrank down upon himself, his eyes glazed with abject horror. “They want to eliminate the competition,” he said simply. “The New God Army has more humans in it. Kill them and you cripple the enemy.”
He began to cry. “Kill the humans on Earth and that way, the gods have more room to play. It’s a win-win for them. Besides, they said the humans suffer too much anyway. They believe this weapon is the humane solution.” Tears rolled freely down his cheeks now. “My wife is topside. My kids. They don’t deserve this.”
“No one does.” Heaven almighty. How were we going to fix this?
Chapter Twelve
The first thing we needed to do was get out of there.
The lower half of Dr. Keller’s body faded in and out as he rooted through the debris on the nearest lab table. “I need a working burner plate,” he said, eyes wild. He found two flat, analog hot plates and sent them tumbling across the table. “These won’t plug in.”
Yes, they would. The ghost just couldn’t grip them. He could only shove them.
Marc and I stood on the other side of the table, which was covered in yellowish sand that reeked of garlic. The doctor had mixed a metallic powder in there, too.
Keller was too far gone. It was clear I couldn’t help the doctor, or save the human race, while trapped down here in a busted-up lab.
But there was nowhere to go. Our only way out was locked and chained, courtesy of the Old God Army.
Marc and I exchanged a glance. “Please tell me you have a brilliant idea.”
Dr. Keller swiped at the fluorescent lights above us, sending them crashing to the floor. Bulbs exploded around us.
Marc examined the doors. Chains rattled on the other side. “We can’t make it out this way.”
A frigid wind tore at us, toppling the lab table. “You will not leave. You will stay and work for me!”
In a forbidden lab where we couldn’t make a difference.
“We need to go, Dr. Keller,” I hollered over the wind. “Marc and I need to go topside and try to fix this!”
“No!” the ghost hurled a test tube at my head. I ducked it. He was a good man, but his desperation was taking over. We needed to calm him down while we worked on a way to get out of here.
“We brought scientists,” Marc hollered over the gale. “They’re right outside. We can work together.”
My hair whipped my face. What was he, nuts? A poltergeist could kill you. You didn’t want to lie and tick him off.
The ghost ripped the doors open. “Where?” he demanded.
“Now.” Marc grabbed my hand and we took off in a dead run past the ghost and out the door.
Holy mother. We were so dead.
We dashed down a narrow cinderblock hallway, the ghost bellowing in outrage behind us.
The lights from the lab surged and crackled, illuminating the path ahead like lightning strikes. The rest of the doors along the hallway lay dark—abandoned, or at least closed for the night.
“Wait,” Marc said. We skidded to a stop as the hallway cornered off. He planted his back to the wall and snuck a glance ahead. I looked behind.
An electric sto
rm poured from Dr. Keller’s lab. The doors hung drunkenly off their frames as the good doctor’s howl echoed off the cinderblock prison. But he hadn’t pursued us. Maybe he still had enough of his humanity left.
Maybe he didn’t know he could leave.
It was a wonder we didn’t have an entire squad on top of us. Then again, I wasn’t so sure I’d be running toward this place if I were in charge of security.
A purple cloud poured from the lab.
“Okay, let’s go,” Marc said.
We took a hard right around the corner and faced an even narrower hallway. Gaslights flickered above.
My stomach fluttered. I could get lost in here so easily. “How do we get out?”
“Quietly,” he said, our footsteps a whisper as we hurried down the corridor.
My breath sounded loud in my ears. Shadows danced off the walls. I tried to forget that we were underground.
It felt like some kind of macabre dungeon. “This place had to be creepy before the ghost.”
Marc huffed. “Welcome to my world. We’re on the lowest level. Three stories underground.”
Anxiety wormed through me. I felt both exposed and trapped at the same time. We could be discovered at any moment, yet we had no choice but to follow the elaborate underground network of tunnels.
We hurried past a series of gray painted doors with the word Containment written in red block letters.
I stiffened as I heard shuffling on the other side.
Marc walked at my side, his hand on his gun. “They’re locked,” he said, as if that was supposed to make me feel better. “Almost everyone on this floor has gone home for the night.”
My palms began to sweat. “What about the other floors?”
He looked as uneasy as I felt. “We’ll have to play it by ear.”
He stopped in front of an unmarked gray door at the end of the hall. “Do you have a flashlight?”
I patted down my pants and jacket. “I think I dropped it.”
Marc cursed under his breath. “Mine’s gone, too.” He propped the door open, and I entered before him. Narrow industrial stairs circled up into the abyss.
The door closed behind us, leaving us in pitch blackness.
“At least we’ll know if someone’s coming,” he said, voice low.
“But you know where we are.” I felt for the metal banister, desperate for a little good news.
“Yes.”
We wound our way up in the darkness. One floor. Two.
Shouts echoed from another space—muffled, yet eerily close.
Marc exhaled, warming my neck. “They’re sending troops down the other staircase.”
And suddenly, the acuteness of our situation hit me once more. “They could have just as easily used this one.”
“We had a fifty-fifty shot.”
If they’d taken this one, we’d be dead. I tightened my grip on the banister and forced myself upward.
I was scared and tired. My body still ached from the fall down the vent, and I was starting to get out of breath from the stairs.
His hand closed over mine on the banister. “I never should have gotten you into this.”
“Don’t start,” I said, pulling my hand from under his. I didn’t need regrets. Not about this, anyway.
We strained to see any light or movement above us, although I had no idea how we’d hide if a door suddenly opened or a lantern flipped on.
I might have been able to pass for a visiting doctor at the start of the night, but not after a trip through the vent, or after Dr. Keller’s smash-’em-up at the lab. I probably looked more like a berserker than a scientist.
“Stop,” Marc said.
We’d reached a landing. My hand closed around a smooth, cool door handle. No way would I open it without having some idea what was on the other side, but nevertheless I clung to it. It was as if I needed to know there was a way out of this.
Of course, even if we did make it back to solid ground, they still had a bioweapon that could wipe out the human race.
I remembered the prophecy. The peacekeeper will find love as a hideous new weapon is born.
Marc rested a hand on my back. “There are going to be guards along the main hallway. We can’t risk it. When I open the door, I’m going to make an immediate left into the clinic. Follow me.”
He opened the door slowly, and I squinted against the bright light pouring in. Dirt smeared Marc’s cheeks and neck, and his hair spiked in all directions.
“Are we clear?” I asked.
He had his eyes on the hallway. “For now.”
“Then here.” I reached up to smooth his hair back.
With the corner of my sleeve, I wiped the dirt from his face. He closed his eyes as I brought the cloth to his chin and rubbed the indent below his cheek.
“Petra—” he began.
My heart squeezed. What began as a defensive measure turned into a surprisingly intimate gesture.
“You want to fit in,” I said gently. His uniform still looked good. More than good, in fact.
He looked at me for a long moment. There was so much we would never be able to say. “Petra—” he began again. He paused, considered. And the moment was gone. “Keep your head down,” he told me.
“I will,” I promised.
We exited into what could almost pass for a hospital hallway. With Marc in the lead, we hung a sharp left and passed through a set of double doors.
A nurse at the check-in desk stood. “Dr. Belanger, thank the gods.” From her pointed ears and silvery complexion, I could tell she was more than half fae. “We have a situation.”
She scooted out from behind the desk and followed us as Marc headed into some sort of underground ER. “There was a mining explosion on the front lines,” she said, chart in hand, “twenty-five casualties. Four immortal. Twenty-one mortal. They breathed in what we believe to be a toxic dust.”
It was like flipping a switch. I immediately channeled my fear and slammed into clinical mode.
“Let me see,” I said, grabbing for the chart.
“Who is this?” She yanked it back, as if she were noticing me for the first time.
“Kate Gordon,” I said quickly.
“Visiting from HQ,” Marc added.
“Sorry, Kate,” she said, the smooth skin between her eyebrows puckering as she took in my disheveled state. “This is classified. You’ll have to go back up top.”
“Right.” Back up top.
“Where you just were,” Marc added.
I had to admit the proposition was attractive.
“Security,” the nurse called. I reached for my gun and saw Marc do the same as two elite guard troops rushed me.
They wore the scythe insignia of Cronus the Titan. These were high-level guards, not lab lackeys. I wondered just what they were doing in a secret underground clinic.
“Escort her out,” the nurse ordered.
“Wait. I’d like to confer with Dr. Gordon on this.” Marc reached into a med cart and pulled on a pair of gloves. “Where are we on those patients?”
“The mortals are dead. The immortals are in surgery.”
He slowly removed the gloves. “So you don’t need me immediately.”
She flipped her blond hair from her shoulder. “I’d like to go over their charts,” she said defensively.
He tossed the gloves into the trash, not at all amused. “I intend to do just that. But first, I’ll escort my colleague out.”
The nurse frowned. “Just don’t escort her back to the woods,” she said under her breath.
“What?” I asked as Marc led me farther down the hallway. It looked like any other ER, except for the guards posted outside each room. And the two following us.
“The woods are a local hookup spot,” Marc gritted out.
Ah, so it seemed the nurse mistook my messy appearance.
At least she knew I had good taste.
We hit the guard station outside the clinic. We were almost out. Which was usually wh
en it all went sideways…
Four guards blocked the double doors. Two manned the desk. Our escorts stopped behind us as we approached what looked like an airport metal detector.
“You first,” the guard at the other side said to me.
Great.
I didn’t know what they were testing for. Weapons? Had one. Toxic chemicals? Take your pick. Illegal items? I had a map of the armies tucked into my boot.
The vast desert night lay just outside. I braced myself and stepped across the threshold.
An alarm blared.
“Stop.” The guard drew his sword.
I yanked Marius’s gun from my pocket, fell to my knees, and fired.
A blinding light shot out of the gun. Spots danced in front of my eyes, and the energy aftershock knocked me to the ground. The guard in front of me fell, along with the four behind him.
Marc dove next to me as I rolled, closed my eyes, and fired behind us.
The second shock hit, this one worse than the last as the energy bounced back at us. I buried my head against my shoulder, tasting metal and smoke.
“What the hell is that?” Marc barked, cringing at Marius’s funny little spiderweb gun.
“No clue.” My eyes stung and I forced myself to see beyond the spots dancing in my vision as Marc and I scrambled to stand.
“This way.” We stumbled past the six unconscious guards before Marc opened the sliding steel door that led out into the cemetery. “Go.”
“Wait,” I said as the frigid desert air whipped inside. “You’re not coming?”
He glanced back into the compound. “I can’t.”
“Do not start this sacrificial BS again.” His life might not mean anything to him, but it did to me. “I’m tired of it.”
His green eyes bored into me. “Petra, I’m compromised.”
He was right. Numbness gripped me. “I should have taken out the security cameras.”
His jaw was tight. “This is the old army,” he said, resigned. “They don’t have any. But they know I was with you.” He gripped me by the shoulders, willed me to focus. “You’re going to have to shoot me.”
“What?” He was crazy. “I have no idea what this thing does.” Marius had said it was a disruptor, but I didn’t know if it left people wounded or dead or worse.