“Same.”
“You mentioned daughters?”
“Charlotte and Ava.” He went silent for a moment, staring into the dark woods. “I’ve learned how far-reaching the Omnis are, but it was surprising to discover how deep they’d infiltrated all governments—and the military. They got my unit to offer several of us a bonus if we’d participate in a study focused on enhancing our fighting abilities. I signed up right away. My family needed the bonus, and I was intrigued about the study. It was only supposed to be a three-month study. I only saw my family one more time before they died. I’d gone back to bring them in. Tina wanted nothing to do with what I’d gotten myself in to. We fought about it. She refused to come with me. A few months afterward, she called and said she’d changed her mind. I left immediately, but they were dead by the time I got back.”
Ash didn’t know what to say. That he was still torturing himself over it was clear. But she admired the amount of emotional work he’d done that let him be in a place where he was self-critical, yes, but also self-aware.
And hopefully learning to heal from what happened.
He looked at her with tortured eyes. “I fucking volunteered for this, Ash. I abandoned them to the Omnis.”
Ash let that confession hang in the air for a moment. The man had a soul made of razor blades. It was hard to get near him emotionally. “You didn’t do it knowingly. It’s just the path you chose.”
“I could have chosen a dozen different paths. I had options. I should have put my family first. I deserve to be”—he paused— “what I am.”
“That’s why you tried to kill yourself.”
He nodded. “Truthfully, love, I’m a dog’s breakfast. You’d be smart to put this behind you when we get back.”
“Too late. It has been ever since I felt your energy on my first visit to Valle de Lágrimas. I craved you. You’re why I came back. You said it was because of the Matchmaker pulling me back here, but it was because of you that I came. I needed more of you, even though I didn’t understand any of the pieces that I was seeing. And I know now I will always need you.” She climbed off the hood of the Jeep and went to stand between his spread legs, leaning against him as he leaned against the car.
He ran his fingers down her cheeks. A warm orange glow began to heat his eyes.
“How do you do that?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It’s one of many strange chemical reactions that are a side effect of our mutations. I can hide it, if you find it unnerving, but I’d rather just be myself around you.”
Ash bit her lip, then smiled. “I do find it unnerving, but I don’t care. It’s part of your magic. And I want you to be you.”
Merc’s eyes flamed bright. He shoved his hand into her hair, right at the base of her skull, and bent down to kiss her. Ash felt her whole body heat up as if the fire inside her matched the fire in his eyes. He deepened the kiss, drawing a moan from her as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
She couldn’t believe she had him here with her, the man Valle de Lágrimas thought dead, the one whose energy spoke right to her soul. He was alive, and in her arms. He was hers, and she was his…at least until she gave her final decision about stepping into his world.
He turned and lifted her by the waist to the hood of the Jeep. He continued kissing her as he slipped his hand under her shirt, his big palm pressing against her breast. She ran her nails against his scalp, teasing his senses.
Someone behind them coughed, making them both jump. Ash saw a tall man with a white beard and white linen outfit standing a good distance away.
Merc pulled his hands from her shirt. Resting them on her knees, he bent his forehead to hers and huffed a frustrated sigh. “Sorry, love. That paragon of rotten timing is Santo.”
“Don’t mind me,” Santo called out. “I’ve waited months for you. I can wait another, what—three minutes?”
Merc shook his head. “He’s an ass. But we need him. Wait here, right?”
“I will.” She leaned around Merc and waved to Santo. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
Merc grinned at her, then went over to his former mentor.
Merc forced his body to calm its reaction to Ash—something that took an extreme force of will. The woman gave him an extreme case of lover’s balls.
Merc followed Santo as he slowly moved down the line of decaying cages. They didn’t need the dappled moonlight to see where they were going.
“Why are you here?” he asked Santo.
“Can’t a teacher witness a student’s graduation?”
“Who’s the student?”
“You.”
“What did I graduate?”
“You conquered two brilliant new skills.”
“Setting curses and skin-walking? You call that brilliant? I killed people. Regulars. Maybe hundreds of them. The count’s not in yet. I violated Liege’s primary tenet—don’t interfere with the regulars.”
“Liege is a smart man, but his ethics sometimes cloud his judgment. In this instance, you killed bad guys, and in so doing, gave a town reason to hope for a new future.”
“I am the same as those I killed.”
“If that were true, you would not be torturing yourself over your new abilities. And as for why here, you could not have learned these things in your home country. Nor in the U.S.”
“Liege wants you to come to the fort. We have two new mutants in our care, and potentially a whole new team of fighters we can add to our rolls.”
“Tell him I—respectfully—decline.”
Merc quit walking. “You’re needed there.”
“I’m needed everywhere.”
“Make the fort your home base. You can oversee our training.”
“The four of you are already sufficiently trained. Do your own training.”
“Students of the teacher aren’t necessarily equal to the teacher.”
“True.” Santo put his hands behind his back. “I will send a teacher to you.” He started to walk away, but stopped. “Did you know the Omnis have begun manipulating female regulars?”
“We assumed as much, based on data we’ve been assembling.”
Santo nodded. “Protect your women. Keep your healer safe. And heed Lautaro’s warning about the Omni ghoul factory.”
“I know. I found it.”
“Yes. By skin-walking. Congratulations on your new skills.” Santo walked into the shadowy night, disappearing well before distance and the jungle could obscure him.
Merc stared after him a moment, then returned to Ash. She was still sitting on the hood of the Jeep. “He disappeared. He was walking and then—poof!”
“Yeah. He’s freaky like that. A performance for you, probably. He knew you were watching.”
“Can you do that?”
“Most mutants can.”
She smiled. “Summer too?”
“If she’s learned how, sure.”
“Oh! I need a demo when I get back.”
“Why? You’ll either be able to do the same soon, or you’ll have forgotten all about this.”
She put her hands on his shoulders. “Will you let me remember long enough for Summer to give me a show?”
“No.” He lifted her off the hood and set her on her feet. “This isn’t a game. It’s our lives. You’re one of us or you’re not. We’re freaks, for sure, but not to entertain you.”
“I’m sorry. That was obnoxious of me.”
“It was.” He tried not to smile, but it didn’t work because couldn’t stay angry at her.
“Did you get the information you came for?”
“Yes. And no. It’s never straightforward with Santo.” He opened her door. “Let’s go home.”
“I’m a day early for my flight. I’ll have to see about changing it when we get to Medellín.”
“No need. I have another way home for us.”
“A private jet?”
“A private ride, yes. You’ll understand when we get there.” He
looked at her, seeing her clearly in the poor light. “We’ll be home in a few hours.” What he didn’t say was that her decision about her future would be due soon after they arrived. He could tell from her troubled mood that she knew she was going to have to give him her answer—and she was a long way from deciding.
Liege—you heard Santo?
I did, Liege said via their mental link. Guerre and Kiera have been working with Owen Tremaine’s tech team to unravel the system hacks that led to certain records being dropped or modified in the different government systems. Kiera’s kept excellent records showing before and after data slices.
Ash and I are heading back.
Roger that. And Merc—it is what it is. If she chooses to join us, we’ll all be there for her. And if she opts to stay human, we’ll be there for you. The Matchmaker doesn’t get to win just because he paired you two.
You know I don’t care about me. I just want her safe. Merc had a gut feeling what her decision was going to be. He had to accept it and remember that it wasn’t a rejection of him, but of transforming into a mutant—the very choice he was trying to protect all humans from having thrust upon them.
And Merc, good job discovering the lab inside what we thought was a mine. We need to do more discovery there before we take it down, but we’ll talk about that you when you get home.
The night’s darkness was a void swallowing them. She could see only as far as their headlights went.
“Are we going to Medellín?”
“No. Lautaro’s.”
“Is it far?”
“A few hours. Try to get some rest.”
Ash reached into her pocket and fingered the fragment of the priest’s alb. She could sense nothing of the priest. Only Merc’s energy resonated from the fabric to surround her in calming, sensual waves.
She wished they were days from returning to Colorado. She didn’t want to make the decision she knew she was headed toward. She’d finally found someone perfect for her, but his cult stood like a wall between them. She wondered if Summer, part of the cult herself, would help her and Kiera break Merc out of it. That was—if Merc could be gotten out at all.
When she looked at him, he was staring at her hand, still in her pocket. The dashboard lights showed his face tighten. He brought the car to a hard stop.
He looked out the dashboard window as he said, “I’ve been wrestling with this, but we can’t keep any of that robe. Even that scrap would give Flynn what he needed to examine my blood.”
Fear washed through Ash. The little scrap was all she’d have left of Merc if she couldn’t get him out of his cult. “I don’t want to let it go.”
Merc put the Jeep in park, then slipped his hand into her pocket, opening her grip and taking the fabric from her. “I will give you my blood. I will soak anything you wish with it, but it has to be done—and kept—in a protected environment. Flynn can break into anything as easily as we broke into the church.”
He got out of the Jeep and went to stand in the headlights. Ash took his hands and held them against her chest. His size made her feel small. “I don’t think Flynn could go into the church.”
“Lautaro and I set protections on it.”
“They were working. So why couldn’t we have left the robe be?”
“Protections fade if they aren’t regularly renewed. Flynn would have left someone in town to wait for the opportunity to slip through our boundaries and get to the robe. Innocent bystanders would have lost their lives. Flynn cares nothing for collateral damage.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Merc took the lighter from his pocket, the same one he’d used to burn the rest of the robe, and lit the little fragment on fire. When the flames got close to his fingers, he dropped it. They both watched it burn. When there was just a stain of black ash, Merc poked it with his boot, then covered it with dirt and stomped it into the ground.
Ash crossed her arms and got back into the Jeep.
“You have me, Ash.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. You don’t need a relic to feel our bond.”
Ash stayed quiet. Time was what she needed, and she wasn’t sure how much of it she’d have once they got back. They started down the road again. She watched the vibrant foliage, lit by their headlights, as it whirred past the Jeep. It was mesmerizing. They weren’t going very fast because the darkness hid the uneven surface of the road and there were plenty of wild animals who weren’t used to cars on the road.
She noticed the plants on her side of the Jeep rustling, as if a breeze was moving them. She looked over to the other side to confirm that a wind had kicked up. The plants on Merc’s side of the road were still, except for the motion they generated driving past.
She straightened, watching out her window. Something was running along beside them. Something big. She looked at Merc. He sent a glance out her window and began speeding up. Whatever it was running with them sped up as well.
“What is it?” she asked, the breathiness of her voice revealing her fear.
“Nothing. Don’t worry.” He shifted gears as his other hand tightened on the steering wheel.
Okay, she said to herself. Don’t worry. Sure. That seemed legit in their current situation. But what was it he’d said about the werewolves only coming out at night? She looked behind them, in time to catch a blur of a dark shape rush across the road and slip into the woods on Merc’s side. Soon the dense foliage on both sides of the road shivered violently as the unknown beasts ran alongside them—matching Merc’s increasing speed.
One of the things ran out onto the road in front of them, a blur of a tall, dark shape, there and gone when Merc hit it. Ash gasped but had no time to register what she’d really seen, because the Jeep was plowing into a bunch of them, throwing them off to the dark green wayside, tossing them up over the hood, or just driving over them, making the Jeep bounce and rock.
She was holding on to the side handle to keep herself from slamming around as the Jeep hurtled through the obstacles. For some reason, she couldn’t ever seem to get a clear look at the things. Merc was not a cruel man. Running them over had to be a defensive move. And there were so many of them.
One of the beasts avoided being run over by jumping onto the hood and clutching the sides of the windshield. It stared into the car, holding its balance perfectly as Merc jerked the car to one side and the other, trying to dislodge it.
Ash was finally able to get a close look at it. Nightmare and reality crashed into one unholy terror. It was a…werewolf. Its body was muscular but oddly distorted, with a deep chest and massive thighs. Its arms were long. Its fingers were more wicked claws than human digits. Its neck was thick. Its head was shaped like a human’s in the back, with a dog’s snout in the front. Its eyes were glowing golden, lit from within like Merc’s sometimes were. She could see the long fangs its grimace revealed as it snarled at them through the window. Its body was covered in a wiry, dark hair that wasn’t thick enough to quite look like fur.
The monster blocking Merc’s windshield forced them to slow down, letting several more jump on the car. Merc unfastened his seatbelt.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving them what they want. And getting them away from you.”
“No.” God. This was insane. Were these just people dressed up as monsters? Their costumes were amazing. But if they were actors in this game—what about all the ones Merc had struck with the Jeep?
A terrible thought hit her. Was this a game played with real lives, real consequences?
Merc hit the brakes and parked the Jeep quickly. The monsters closest to his door grabbed their heads and screamed. As she watched, their skulls seemed to cave in. Merc had his shotgun in his hand before he opened his door and rolled out of it.
27
Ash was locked in place. She physically could not move.
This was Merc’s doing. He’d somehow paralyzed her. Again. The only freedom he’d left her was the ability to close her eyes—bu
t if she did, she wouldn’t know when or if he needed help.
Sure enough, the monsters chased him, leaving her alone. She realized he was heavily armed. Where had his weapons come from? She hadn’t seen him gear up.
He moved fast through the rampaging beasts, shooting as he went. When they overtook him, he switched his gun for a long knife, tackling them one at a time, three at a time, twisting, ducking, slashing at critical targets on their bodies. He cut the arteries of one of the beasts, then stuck his knife into the neck of another, twisting and shoving upward before removing it.
After the initial attack, the monsters seemed to turn on each other, slashing and gouging as if in the throes of a killing frenzy. Ash looked around, but couldn’t see what had caused them to switch their focus.
When several of the beings were on the ground, and no more were coming at him, Merc straightened. In the wash of the headlights, he looked right at her. His eyes were glowing orange, brighter than she’d ever seen them. He was breathing hard. His hands and arms were covered in blood.
Ash was still frozen in place as Merc went to several downed bodies and cut their heads off. One of the monsters wasn’t dead but wasn’t able to move from the waist down—Merc had broken its back. It grabbed Merc, digging its nails deep into his arms before Merc could cut himself free.
He came back to the Jeep and went to the back hatch. Finally, whatever had held Ash in that strange paralysis released her. She tried for the door, but it wouldn’t open.
“Merc—let me out. Let me help you. You’re bleeding badly.”
“I’ll be fine. Stay put until I clear the ghouls off the road.”
He left one of his knives in the back, then took a body bag out and shook it open. He dragged it out to the road in front of the Jeep and began dumping heads into the bag.
The whole thing was too gruesome for Ash. She covered her face and began humming a jangled tune to herself.
When she looked up next, she saw Merc dragging the last body out of the road. She tried her door and realized it had been unlocked. She rushed outside, running straight to Merc—who held an arm out to stop her. He made a motion with his hand. In the light from the Jeep, she saw the blood covering him lift away to swirl up into the air and dissipate in the breeze. Only then did he open his arms to her. She grabbed him by the waist and held tight.
O-Men: Liege's Legion - Merc Page 26
