Blood Hunter

by Debra Jess

  The Shield snapped McNamara out his consideration for her plan, double damn him. Hannah lay back down on the table because holding her head up was awkward. Scott was gone and there was no bringing him back. Her heart broke, then reformed and hardened to thick black ice. There would be time for tears later, when she was alone. Right now, she had to escape, but not before she destroyed McNamara and the Shield if it was the last thing she did before she died. She just had to buy herself time. She had to take back her control.

  McNamara's voice changed from admiration of her, to the tones of a man in charge. "Gather the older subjects into room four with one of the nurses and get them ready for transport. The two other nurses will handle the subjects in the lab."

  Subjects. Miranda had called her Subject A. She'd called Joe Austin Subject B. McNamara was no different than Miranda. He was experimenting on Alts. She was right back where she started, in the clutches of the Court of Blood.

  The Shield left the room without even looking at her. McNamara returned to her side.

  "I'm sorry, Hannah, but time is not on our side. I can't risk retrieving Scott's body for you. You will have the opportunity to try resurrecting someone, I promise, but we cannot risk not getting out of here before T-CASS arrives. The vans will be here in five minutes. I've already activated the countdown sequence."

  "What sequence? What countdown?"

  "I have to destroy this place to erase any chance of anyone discovering it was here. It's the way the Court of Blood operates. No one can acquire any evidence of our existence." He laid a hand on her head. "You're one of us. We created you and it's time to bring you back home."

  Home? Created her? What the hell did he mean? "Wait. You're going to blow up the hospital? Why? There are hundreds of patients, plus all the personnel. Maybe a thousand of them. What did they ever do to you?"

  "It's not what they did to me, Hannah. I can't allow the Court to be exposed like this. That's how the Court has survived all these centuries. If anyone realizes that this level has existed for so long undetected, they'll start searching for our other facilities...and they'll start searching for us. We cannot allow that. Our work is too important. You're too important."

  "There's nothing I can do to stop you. Nothing you want that I have that I can bargain with to stop the bombs."

  "I have you, Hannah. You're all I need." He swept her hair off her forehead. She fought not to flinch.

  "Let me go."

  "I can't do that — "

  "I mean, let me get up and move. Keeping me chained here is only going to slow you down."

  McNamara stared at her. "If you try to escape — "

  "Oh, c'mon. Don't treat me like I'm some idiot. You just shot two people who loved me. You're about to kill over a thousand people. You claim that I'm important, that you want to bring me home, but nothing says you have to bring me home awake or in one piece. I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize myself."

  He still wasn't sure about her. Hell, she wasn't sure about her, either. Everything she’d just said was true, but it also wasn't true at all.

  "Look, you just said that the Court of Blood created me. I want to know where I came from. I only found out a week ago that Miranda wasn't my mother, and I just scattered the ashes of one of my step-fathers, so how about you give me a break? If the Court knows who my parents are, even if they're just egg and sperm donors, at least I'll know the truth."

  It was all true, and still not true at all. She would find out from the Court about her parents, but that didn't mean McNamara had to live to see her triumph. Her murder scheme raged hot in her chest, but she fought like mad to keep it off her face. Kill McNamara and get the hospital evacuated.

  He still looked down on her as if she were a bug. "I wasn't just any sperm donor. I was the ideal sperm donor."

  Her ears closed to the words. If she didn't hear it, it wasn't true. And, yet...

  "Us gingers have to stick together," he repeated.

  Her stomach heaved. "Get me off this table before I puke."

  McNamara must have believed her, because he released the restraints, but he didn't remove his gloves or mask. She heaved and McNamara grabbed a bucket. Her breakfast gone, he handed her a glass of water from a small sink. She rinsed out her mouth, then made her way to the sink to fill the cup again. She gulped down another two cups before wiping her mouth with her sleeve.

  As she did so, she noticed that her phone had been tossed onto the counter. Using her body to block McNamara's view, she managed to grab the phone and shove it down the front of her pants. Not comfortable, but at least she had it. She rubbed her wrists to stop the shaking as she turned around, and quickly found them yanked back behind her and cuffed.

  "What the hell?"

  McNamara removed his mask at last. His red hair was the same shade as hers. Why hadn't she noticed before that it was the exact same shade? "I'm sorry,” he said, “but I'm not taking chances. We have fifteen minutes to get out of here, twenty-five before the bombs explode."

  She wanted to faint, but instead she remembered her mission. Save the hospital. Kill McNamara — commit patricide. She'd figure that one out later. "Fine. What do I do now?"

  "You don't do anything. I have someone I think you'll enjoy meeting."

  They walked down a narrow corridor. The decor wasn't much more inspiring than that of Miranda's quarry prison, but at least the walls were a more cheerful yellow and there was no grating over the light fixtures. McNamara stopped in front of a room. Hannah couldn't help but notice a large number 4 on the door. He scanned his key card. No voice activation or palm scanning like at the Arena. Interesting.

  He motioned her inside first. The room was lit with indirect lighting, its walls splashed with pastel colors, and toys were scattered across the floor.

  She looked around. A woman wearing light blue long-sleeved scrubs stood off to the side, with a dozen young children gathered around her. She was struggling to get them dressed from a pile of clothes folded next to her. She wore gloves, and a face mask obscured her features, but allowed tufts of curly black hair to tumble around her head.

  McNamara walked over to the woman. "Keep doing what you're doing. We have some time. I just need to borrow this one for minute."

  Hannah knew even before McNamara walked the small boy over to her what he was doing. "Hannah, I want you to meet Jimmy Chung. The real Jimmy Chung. Jimmy, can you say hi to my friend Hannah?"

  A pair of wide blue eyes stared up at her. The small, adorable face under a mess of curly blond hair looked nothing like what Jimmy Chung was supposed to look like.

  "Can you say 'hi' to Hannah, Jimmy?" McNamara repeated.

  The boy didn't say anything. Instead the word Mommy echoed through the room, just like she’d heard yesterday. Her throat closed, thick with a rage that went even beyond what she’d felt lying on the exam bed. "Why isn't he talking?"

  "I don't know. He's been mute since the surgery, but his Alt ability is undeniable. We now have verification: Alt power is tied to the brain. We suspected it, but now we have proof."

  Close. They were so close. She knew the truth about Alt power, but now that the Court of Blood had narrowed the search down to the brain, how long would it take for them to find the microscopic black thread? More importantly, what would they do with that information?

  "Let me bloodsurf through him."

  "No, we don't have time."

  Hannah kicked McNamara. Damn that felt good. "Stop acting like an asshole. It'll take thirty seconds and I can fix him."

  "There's nothing wrong with him." McNamara rubbed his ankle, getting himself down on one knee.

  "Not from what I saw in...the other Jimmy. I told you the stitching was sloppy. What I didn't tell you was that the swollen nerve tissue you created is pressing against the bone. It's slowing down the nerve signals because of the uneven scarring over the wounds. That's why he was acting so odd. C'mon, let me do this. I'm about to lose everything I've ever wanted. Give me this. Let me take a closer
look so that if you need to do this again, you can do it better, with less trauma. You're still a doctor. I'm a healer. Let me heal. Let me help. You don't even have to remove the handcuffs. Just one of my gloves."

  Maybe there was still a hint of a medical ethics inside McNamara, because he checked his watch. "Thirty seconds. If you're not out in thirty seconds, I'll force you out."

  Hannah had no idea how he would do that, so she rolled her eyes this time. "I have no more interest in dying in a bomb blast than you."

  McNamara motioned for her to turn around. One of the gloves slipped off her hand.

  "Hold him still so he doesn't move," Hannah said over her shoulder. McNamara still knelt on one knee, favoring the ankle she'd kicked. "Hey, Jimmy, want to see a magic trick?"

  The boy nodded slowly, as if he wasn't sure if his head would stay on his shoulders.

  "Okay, grab my hand."

  Inside. She swam back to where she’d started from in the other Jimmy Chung: the place where the medulla oblongata ended and the spinal cord began. She soothed the bulge and allowed the signals to travel unimpeded. Then she returned to Jimmy's hand. If this was going to work, she'd have to move fast.

  Back in her own body. She'd been so fast inside Jimmy, McNamara still hadn't reacted to the handcuffs and the phone on the floor. Before he could reach for her, she slapped one hand onto his cheek and surfed again.

  Inside. How long did she have before McNamara pulled free? Already his arm had shifted. Did he wonder what would happen if he pulled away? She had no time to spare, so she pushed harder than she'd ever pushed before, surfing fast up the current to his brain. Not to kill him. Even if she wanted him dead, she couldn't bring herself to kill her own father.

  The reticular activating system floated into view. She punched her way inside and scraped along the edges, creating a lesion. Almost immediately her center of gravity shifted. McNamara fell, his body no longer able to stay awake. Hannah swam up to the interthalamic adhesion. No black thread, so no Alt power. The normal firing of electrical activity slowed. She counted three beats, then swam back down his arm and fell back into herself.

  Outside, McNamara had fallen forward onto her, firmly in a coma. Hannah shoved his body off her hers. Jimmy had run back to the nurse.

  "Hey," the nurse shouted, shoving one of the kids off her lap, heading for Hannah to prevent her escape.

  Hannah had no idea how suicidal McNamara's collaborators were, so she grabbed her phone and handcuffs and pelted the latter at the nurse’s face. The nurse ducked. The delay was just long enough for Hannah to run out the door and slam it closed.

  She headed back the way she came, but the Shield came into view. Damn it. She ran in the other direction, but another shadow appeared on the wall where another corridor intersected with this one.

  Behind her, the door to room four banged open. Like McNamara, the nurse grabbed her from behind. She was well and truly trapped.

  The door slammed closed behind Scott. The dingy stairwell only headed down, so he jumped the steps to save time. The final level ended at another metal door. Thank God he didn't need a pass key for this one or he'd have been screwed.

  The corridor on the other side surprised Scott. Instead of the dull institutional look of the stairwell, the walls were painted a cheerful yellow with bright lights above to give him a clear view ahead. He kept the Shield's gun at the ready. The first door he could see was near an intersection. If anyone rounded that corner he'd have no place to hide, and he'd have to be the first one to shoot.

  He jogged to the door and flattened himself against the wall to make himself less of a target. He slid past the door to a large window that stretched about ten feet across. He peeked inside and his jaw dropped.

  Babies. Lined up in a nursery, tucked into cribs. Some cried, some slept, some flailed their tiny arms and feet around. Two nurses weaved through the room, moving the cribs onto carts and lining them up at the door. They were preparing to evacuate. Scott checked his time — ten minutes. He had ten minutes to translocate all of these infants to the Arena. He hadn't even had a chance to find Hannah yet, or the Shield.

  He waited until both nurses had their arms full of babies and their backs to the window so he could dash past. If fate were kind, there would be no one around the corner —

  A door slammed, followed by a female voice shouting, "Shoot her!"

  "I'll fucking kill you! Both of you!"

  Hannah, swearing up a storm. Subtlety dropped; Scott raced around the corner in time to see Hannah jam her hand up the sleeve of a nurse, making skin-on-skin contact. Hannah turned translucent and the nurse, screaming, dropped like a rock. Hannah reappeared, only to see the Shield standing over her.

  "Walk away," she said. "McNamara's in a coma. He can't help you. You touch me, you'll get the same treatment."

  Scott's heart expanded at her tough talk. Hannah had not only taken out the nurse, but McNamara, too. He never should have doubted her ability to protect herself.

  If the Shield was impressed with her threat, he didn't say so. "Stand up, so I can get you out of here alive."

  Hannah froze, her bare hands raised, fingers curled to attack. Scott wanted to intervene, since Hannah probably couldn't get skin contact if the Shield had his barrier raised, but the Shield took that option away from him.

  "I said, stand up." He grabbed her by the back of her shirt and hauled her to her feet. Then he shoved her toward Scott. "Move it."

  Hannah saw him standing there. She broke away from the Shield and ran into his arms. He caught her, pulled her up so he could crush her to his chest, feel her arms wrapped around his neck.

  "You're alive. I saw you lying there... Thomas...."

  "Thomas is alive, too. He took a bullet to his arm, but he's alive."

  Hannah kissed him, hard, soft, desperate, needing, and with all the power and passion he had ever wanted.

  "We don't have time for this," the Shield growled, coming up from behind. "Bombs, remember?"

  Hannah pulled away from him and he lowered her to the ground. "Why should we trust you? You shot Scott and Thomas."

  "Do they look dead?"

  Hannah had no answer to that, so Scott turned her back so he could cup her face in his hands. "His methods are brutal, but he's the one who kept us alive so we could alert the hospital and T-CASS. I need you to trust him."

  Hannah blinked, getting her bearings. "There are children in the room back there. At least six. Toddlers. One of them is Jimmy Chung. McNamara performed a brain transplant. The others are also a part of his experiments."

  Scott was surprised that he wasn't surprised. "I'll translocate them to the Arena, but there's something else you need to see."

  He tugged her arm so she followed him back to the nursery, motioning her to keep her back flat against the wall.

  "Oh, my God." Hannah whirled around to shout at the Shield. "You knew about this? You did nothing to stop it?"

  "What do you think I've been doing for twenty-two years?"

  "All right, enough." Scott pulled Hannah back from the edge before she antagonized the Shield into shooting both of them. "Like he said, we don't have time. I'll have to translocate both groups of children."

  "How much time do we have left?" Hannah asked.

  Scott checked. "Eight minutes."

  "Can you do it? Can you get them and us out of here?"

  Could he? He looked over Hannah's shoulder at the Shield. The Shield nodded, understanding Scott's silent question. "I can't do this if I'm worried about you. I need to know you're safe. My ability is still wild. I still might fail. For all of the strides I've made, I'm not going to take the chance with you. You are the only sure thing in my life."

  Hannah swallowed. "What are you saying, Scott?"

  He kissed her instead, but she knew what he was telling her. The kiss could have lasted a lifetime, but the clock continued to tick. He pulled away.

  "Go." He turned away because he couldn't bear to look at her as the Shield forced H
annah to duck below the window and push her toward the exit.

  Scott checked his watch. Six and a half minutes. Before he started though, he needed to make a phone call.

  "Highlight," snapped the familiar voice.

  "It's Scott. Is the Arena clear?"

  "Clear and ready. You can do this."

  Now she gave him her support? "I've got a nursery full of babies and a half dozen toddlers and a few Court of Blood agents. Watch yourself."

  "Babies? Are you kidding?"

  "I'm going to try to send the babies with their cribs, but no promises."

  "Got it, Grey. Good luck."

  So everyone kept telling him. He hung up. Pulling out the Shield's gun with the tranqs, he positioned himself outside the door. Three...two...one...

  He slammed the door open. Both nurses turned around; one had a baby in hand. He shot the empty-handed one first, and the second held the baby close.

  "You wouldn't shoot a woman with a baby, would you?"

  "Put it down."

  "No way. I'm getting out of here and she's coming with me."

  Scott aimed for the woman’s thigh and fired. Down she went. Scott could only hope the baby wasn't concussed. He looked around. The cribs had been arranged in crèches of four. It would be faster if he sent four at a time. The baby on the floor had started crying, which set off all of the others.

  Scott focused on the four closest to him. He imagined his arms, longer than normal, wrapping around all of the cribs together. He pushed them all into an image of the basketball court at the Arena — the Arena he remembered from his childhood, looking down from Thomas's skybox.

  The group of babies disappeared, cribs and all. He wanted to call Highlight to make sure they made it, but he couldn't waste the time. If his crew hadn't deactivated the bombs by now, he wouldn't make it. None of them would.

  The next group disappeared faster. Maybe he was getting used to using his ability. The drills with Highlight had served a purpose — to get an Alt to feel what their ability could do without hurting anyone. If he hadn't been such a rebellious brat, he might have succeeded the first time and not fallen for the Shield's more brutal version of getting the job done.