Wait. Lautaro disappeared. How had he done that?
Merc pulled the robe away, severing her connection with the fabric, breaking the spell she was under. She had so many questions. She’d seen blood rise in a swirl like that before—in her room the night Merc came back wounded.
“Now you see why I had to get the robe. And you also see why it is so important that I never let Flynn get it.”
Ash was wrecked. The anguish he’d suffered was all she could feel now. How did you survive? She wasn’t even aware she’d sent him the question on their mental connection.
I suck at death.
“Why, Merc?” She touched his chest. “Why didn’t you reach out for help?”
He looked at her hand a long moment before meeting her gaze. “That’s an easy question, one that barely reflects the complexity of the answer you’re after. I did it because I was done.”
“Done with what?”
“With what I am. What I’m not. What I’ll never be again.”
“Do you feel better now?”
“No.”
Ash blinked away the tears in her eyes. “What are you going to do with the robe?”
“Burn it.”
“That’s criminal. It means everything to the village.”
“You have no idea what it would mean to the Omnis if they were able to deconstruct my DNA. And they could do it, too. They have the labs.”
“Can you burn it here? I mean, right here, where it is.”
Merc looked around the room. It was part of the original church construction. Old lumber and fire rarely mixed well. She knew it was risky, but if he could open locked doors, he might be able to contain the fire in some way.
“Why does it matter?” he asked.
“This robe is part of this town’s claim to fame. The church is sending out a delegation to investigate the rumors of your sacred acts—not something they do lightly.”
“All the more reason to get rid of it. They’re bound to test the blood.”
“Are you in a system somewhere?”
“Not that they should be able to find, but like the Omnis, the Vatican has the resources to decode my genetic modifications. I don’t trust anyone outside of the Legion.”
The Legion. His group of fighters, Ash remembered.
“Yes, but if it’s burned in place, without damaging anything but the robe, all while none of the locks have been damaged, then, even destroyed, it still contributes to the story of what happened here. You get what you want, and the town will still have its miracle.”
He nodded. “Let’s do it your way.”
The glass case opened again. Merc laid the robe out as it had been.
“Are you sure you can do this safely?” Ash asked, worried.
Merc stared at her. “Wait here. I need to make sure I know how the smoke is going to exit the church.”
He stepped out of the small closet. Ash used her phone light to have a last look at the robe. She had so many questions, too many to get into just then. The robe had amazing energy—protective, healing, and calming. It had the same vibe she’d gotten from her make-believe visits with Merc before they’d known who each other was.
She desperately wanted to keep a tiny piece of the robe, just for herself so she’d always have the feel of Merc near her, long after they’d returned to Colorado and their old lives.
She waved her phone over the long robe, looking for a place that would be easy to tear. The hem was threadbare and torn in places. She set her phone down and, picking an area that was torn and stained, ripped a thin strip off the hem, tucking it away just before Merc returned.
“We’re good. I got this.” He took a cheap plastic lighter from his pocket. “I need you to stand back and let me do this without interruption. Controlling the fire will take extreme concentration.”
She took a few steps back, watching as he touched the flame to the fabric in several places. It burned bright, the smoke threading together above the case, ascending in a braid of twisting heat and smoke, rising into the dark at the top of the room. In no time, the entire robe was engulfed. The fire burned furiously, then died down to embers that cooled to black ash, all while maintaining the shape of the robe in brittle ash.
Merc put his hand above the robe—feeling for heat, Ash assumed. When he was satisfied that the robe no longer smoldered, he stepped back. The glass case closed and the locks snapped in place. No smoke filled the case.
“Oh. My. God.” Ash stepped forward to look at the robe. It alone had burned. The velvet it was on was untouched.
“Your priest still has his miracle, I assume?”
Ash nodded. “I’d say so. Are you sure the fire is out?”
“I drew the oxygen out of the case as it closed. It’s done.”
She tried to make sense of that, but she’d begun to realize that Merc often made no sense. He could do things no ordinary human could, and doing the extraordinary was ordinary to him.
They left the building, locking it behind them without touching it, as he had the other doors. Ash was stunned. She’d been worried the night watchman would get in trouble for being on guard when the robe was taken, but burning it in place while he stood duty was an even greater mystery.
Merc opened the Jeep’s passenger door. She looked up at him, wondering if she’d ever be able to understand so extraordinary a man. He touched her cheek, watching her with his sad, fierce eyes.
She got in, still feeling a little dazed as they drove out of town. “Where are we going?” Ash asked. He looked grim. She wasn’t certain he’d answer.
“You need to know what you’re getting in to before you decide about joining us. It’s dangerous, and being one of us will change you in ways you can’t anticipate. Once you’re in, you can’t get out.”
“Do you want out?”
He hesitated. “I did. In the beginning. Now,” he shrugged, “it is what it is. I have become what I am. The Omnis are a ruthless, brutal, power-hungry bunch. Flynn is the worst of them.”
“That’s who or what you’re fighting?”
He nodded. “That and so much more. We’re fighting for humanity’s survival.”
Yeah. Always the game. Maybe she could get the answers she needed if she pretended to go along. “You said that what a person is before they come in determines what they become after they’re changed. So I’m a lot of nothing now. I’ll be even more nothing afterward.”
He laughed. “You aren’t nothing. You’re loyal, fun, adventuresome.”
“All useless attributes.”
“All are behaviors that help us remember our humanity. Plus, you have the gift of psychometry—a very useful skill for us. Guerre has that too. You are extremely sensitive, Ash. The way your brain is wired, it might make the transition easier for you than it is for others.”
Ash bent her knees and braced her feet on the seat. “That’s if I decide to join the game.”
“Right.”
“It is my choice, right?”
He looked at her. She thought there was much he wanted to say, but still he held back. “It is.”
“Is Kiera one of you?”
“No.”
“Does she know about you, what you all are?”
“Liege talked to her. He’s her father, you know.”
Ash had to take that news in. She remembered Summer telling them that was the case, but the photo she had didn’t match Sam. Had he been hiding his real self using the same tricks that Merc had shown her he could do?
“Yes. That’s exactly what he did.”
“So I’ll see the real him when we go back?”
“I don’t think you’ll see him differently. I think he’ll just correct your memories of him.”
“How do you keep any of this straight?”
Merc shrugged. “You get used to it. This is all our norm now.”
“So where are we going?” Ash asked.
“A place a few hours from here. It’s where the guys from the fort and I went shortly af
ter we were changed—our training grounds. There’s someone I need to find there.”
24
Ash fingered the piece of fabric in her pocket. There was no accompanying jolt of an unexpected vision. This time, she just felt the comforting energy of Merc.
It was a miracle he’d survived that night. What had driven him to do it, though? His differences from regular humans? What were the genetic modifications he’d mentioned? What did it mean to be changed?
The questions were swirling in her tired brain. It had been a rough day—she wanted answers, but wasn’t certain that she’d understand them just then.
She looked over at him, his face ghostly in the pale dashboard light. “I never talk much about my psychometry abilities. The girls know, but I don’t think they really understand.”
He gave her a quick look before returning his focus to the road. “Why not?”
“Because it’s strange. People don’t like weird things, especially if they haven’t experienced it themselves. I’ve learned to cope. I can block readings from ordinary things, like doors, surfaces in restaurants, public banisters, stuff lots of people touch.”
“An ability like yours would keep a lot of people from wanting to be out in the world, traveling like you do.”
She nodded. “Yeah. I have times where I just want to retreat. But mostly, what I feel makes me want to understand life more. And plus, until you validated it, I thought it was just something I made up about myself…you know, a story I repeated to make me feel special.”
“There a reason you needed to feel special?”
“Nope, no more than anyone else. Truth is, I believe most people can feel energy. I think it’s why we avoid certain things, or places, or people.”
“I think you’re right.”
“And plus, a skill like mine feels odd, and it can be dangerous to be an oddity.”
“It is.”
“So most of us with odd skills just downplay, ignore, or doubt them, which weakens them in time.”
“Learning to overcome our belief in our own limitations was the first thing we needed to learn, once we were changed.”
“How long were you in training?”
“Years. I still am. We still have new skills showing up—like the ability to set a curse.”
She reached out to touch his arm, feeling his heat and strength, wishing they weren’t on the road in some frightening and hostile jungle but in a big bed somewhere with cool white sheets.
His hand jerked on the steering wheel, bouncing them a bit.
“What made the glow I saw while you were in the pit? Your wounds were glowing.”
“Guerre’s a healer. He was mending my wounds.”
“I saw it that night you came back mauled.”
“I tried to cover that up.”
“What attacked you that night? It was the same as what got that man.”
Merc grimaced.
“We’re out here, in the bush, with that thing prowling around. I think I should know.”
“It’s a werewolf.”
Ash gasped.
“Well, not technically a werewolf—it doesn’t change repeatedly from human to monster and back. It only makes that transition once. Flynn has ways of blending human and animal DNA, creating a hybrid creature. They don’t live long, but while they are alive, they exist under Flynn’s thumb. They are vicious beasts, starved for blood and living flesh. Their metabolisms are so high that they need to feed often.”
She stared at Merc a long moment, proud of herself for not laughing. “Werewolves. Riiiight. But, yeah, such a problem.” She shook her head. “I bet fairies, kelpies, and the Abominable Snowman have the same issue.”
He wasn’t amused. Her humor faded in the protracted silence. At last, he shrugged. “I exist, and I’m a changed being. Summer exists, and she’s been changed. You have no idea how many changed beings you’ve already met. Reality isn’t what you think it is. It’s that line the Legion’s fighting to preserve, a line Flynn would happily trample. It’s a line that could topple entire governments and crumble world order as we know it.”
Ash turned to face forward. She was so stinking gullible. Merc said things like werewolves existed with an entirely straight face, and boom! She could almost fall for it.
But then, how could she explain what she’d seen in her vision about him in the pit or what he’d done back at the church? Or the death chairs with the perfectly intact skeletons? Or even the curse he said he put on the mass graves drawing evil people to lie down and die in them? Or what about the fact that very few people in town could describe him the same way, since everyone remembered a different man?
The only explanation she had to go with was hypnosis—and it worked for all she’d seen. That and the terrible role-playing game they were still in the midst of.
Ash looked around the Jeep, trying to find evidence of a recording device, something that tracked Merc in real time. Maybe he couldn’t leave the game’s extreme reality yet.
That made her sad.
The guy she was crazy about was just crazy. And she was alone with him at night in the middle of the jungle—out of cell phone range.
She was in her own horror movie.
Would her friends ever find her body?
Too bad she didn’t watch many horror movies. She had no idea how to placate someone whose grip on reality had slipped long ago.
Just play it cool, Ash, she told herself. “So why are we out here in werewolf-not-werewolf territory in the middle of the night? I’m assuming they are out here?”
“They are. There’s someone I need to connect with.”
Of course the game’s script would go this way. Make it worse, then make it even more awful. Typical. “So this is fascinating. Who writes these game scripts? Or is it all improv?”
Merc took his eyes off the road to let them bore into hers.
“I mean, it’s phenomenal the way you guys stay in your roles. Impressive, really.”
Merc sighed and faced forward.
Ash locked her jaw shut, forcing herself to stop her nervous chatter. It was only making him mad.
She couldn’t explain anything that had happened here. A role-playing game couldn’t defy the laws of physics. And Merc’s insistence on this human mutation stuff was as implausible as everything else. Maybe the changes he kept mentioning were just psychological ones. Maybe the affected people believed they were mutated warriors for good or evil.
Or werewolves.
That could happen.
A thought hit her suddenly—something that had occurred when Summer was dating Sam. That night they were all at Summer’s. She had a terrible wound that she said was from a monster attack. That was the same night her boss was mauled…by a pack of stray dogs, which were never found.
Oh, hell. Something really was going on. Still didn’t mean werewolves were real, just that something was making people believe in really out-there stuff.
But what about the skeletons in the chairs? That could have been done by some slowly degrading glue. And the people in the pit had surely been actors. She was as imperfect as the next person, but it hadn’t consumed her. And it hadn’t taken Flynn either.
She looked at Merc as she puzzled through that. Finally, she had to ask: “Why didn’t the cursed pit draw Flynn into it?”
Merc looked at her, then back at the road. “He was never near it in his physical body.”
Dammit. She shouldn’t ask questions when she knew she wouldn’t understand—or like—the answer. She should just put blinders on and pretend everything was totally normal.
Merc frowned. “There’s a lot to understand. Don’t feel bad.”
“I don’t feel bad. I’m angry. Imagine learning everything you thought was a hardened rule about life actually wasn’t what you thought it was.”
Good. That was believable. He’d think she was on his side in all of this.
“I spent years in that denial state,” Merc said. “Cost me everything I loved.”
And that, of course, brought forward more questions, but before she could ask them, Merc explained Flynn’s body thing. “You’ve heard of astral travel?”
Ash nodded. “I’ve read about it, but I’ve never experienced it. And I’m pretty certain I don’t believe in it.”
“Of course not. That mindset is why it’s so easy for mutants to do what we do.”
“Mutants. C’mon, Merc, throw me a bone.”
He laughed. “I’ve been genetically modified. I’m a mutant human. You’re a regular human. Regular humans can do everything mutants can do, but they generally don’t. It takes years and extreme effort and study to build the super skills we were modified to do. One of those skills is astral travel.”
“Wait. Why were you modified? Let’s start there.”
“We were a science experiment. The group that changed us wanted super warriors. We were designed to infiltrate and destroy enemies from within. The problem was that our creators quickly realized that while they’d enhanced our physical bodies and mental capabilities, they had no control over us, so they broke their experiments down into more controllable units. Acier—I think you met him—well, he was changed in a different group than the three of us. And I think Guerre came through the changes before us.
“Anyway, one of our super skill sets is the ability to travel without our physical bodies. Almost all mutants can do that. Some of us can even interact in the physical world while in astral form. Flynn is one of those beings. The pit didn’t get him because he was there without his body.”
She thought about the other bombshell he dropped. “What did you mean about your denial costing you everything you loved?”
In the faint light from the dashboard, she could see his face tighten. “The modification process erased my memories. Or, I guess, suppressed them. They slowly returned to me. Meanwhile, my wife and family were left to fend for themselves. She never gave up on me, and she refused to accept the excuses the military gave for my absence.”
Whoa. Wife. God. Merc was married. Married. No wonder he didn’t want her. Dammit. They’d had such chemistry. And they’d been intimate… What a schmuck, making her love him when he was already committed to someone.
O-Men: Liege's Legion - Merc Page 24
