by Mason Sabre
Chapter 53
“A tiger, a witch and a fae walk into a bar," Stephen said, as he glared up at the clinical building in front of them. Its chimney spewed plumes of thick black smoke, spilling its hate and the putrid stench of burning flesh into the air. Stephen took in a deep breath and faced what his mind told him was the smell of evil.
"Maybe the bar would have been a better choice," Eden said from beside him. She pushed herself up, her eyes narrowing at the smoke. None of them spoke of it or made an expression, but they knew … just as everyone who ignored it knew. "Are you sure about this? Once Xander hits that button and sends that shit out, you're a wanted man."
Xander leant on the bonnet of the car with the laptop he’d got from Kirsty. They’d managed to hook it into the Wi-Fi connection using Kirsty’s credentials. She’d not set off any flags with that.
“I’m already a wanted man. If Norton is going to have a price on my head, let’s make sure he’s got a damn good reason for it,” Stephen replied. They had positioned themselves at the back of the facility, where the buses and transportation vehicles parked when not in use and emerged when they carried more filth into the world. It was also where deliveries went in. Xander had managed to pull up the delivery schedule via Kirsty’s computer earlier and, according to the scheduling, there was a truck due in about twenty minutes.
Everything was so sinister at night, Stephen thought as he crouched behind the hedges, out of sight and out of danger. The darkness and the threat made his tiger want to come out. It wanted to roar and slash and do its job in protecting the very body that housed it. It wanted to come out and rip apart Human flesh for the crimes they had committed against those weaker than themselves. Darkness was the safest bet to get into Norton's. Fewer Humans around meant less to fight, less evil to kill the children, and those Humans who worked the graveyard shift were probably tired, or at least not up to full spec.
The delivery area had little surveillance, which was another reason they had chosen it. Stephen didn’t care about being seen. In his words, he’d run through them all if he had to, but the less the Humans knew of the impending attack, the better. They couldn’t arm themselves this way, they couldn’t prepare, but mostly they couldn’t get rid of the evidence.
“They’ll stick a price on Helena’s head too,” Eden added. “They’ll go after her.”
That didn’t matter either. The price on Helena’s head was probably bigger than his. She had the children.
"She's safe. I don't care otherwise." She had messaged when she arrived with Nigel and Mel and said she was tired and wanted to know he was okay. Just the ping of the email had been enough for Stephen. She was out of the way and out of harm; he didn't give two fucks about anything else now. "Is it all ready to go?"
This all had to go to perfection now. Xander nodded. "Just say the word." The plan was to cut the Norton feed and fire Stephen's broadcast out in place of it when the truck pulled up when the doors were open, and the Humans were vulnerable. Stephen had considered sending it when it was done at the house, but then that would give the Humans ample warning he was coming, and while he didn’t give a shit if they prepared for him, the idea they might start culling their experiments stopped him from giving the okay.
The comings and goings of the Humans were pretty basic. Everyone who worked in the day had clocked off around five or six. The night shift had come in. Norton himself was already gone, although they hadn't seen Lee leave yet. That didn't matter either. He could be in there … Stephen almost hoped he was because it would give him a reason for those stupid heroics Helena mentioned, without the stupidity.
Xander sucked in a breath and blew it out again.
“Nervous?” Eden asked, reaching a hand for him.
“Anxious is probably a better word.” He narrowed his eyes at Stephen. “You’re just one shifter. Do you really believe you can pull this off?”
“Hitler was just one Human and look what he achieved. Martin Luther King … one man, too. It only takes one person.”
The laptop would break if Xander clutched the edge of the screen any harder, but he nodded at Stephen. “It’s hard not to think of everything that could go wrong. Of …”
"We're going to get Joey out." That was what he was really asking, what he really needed the reassurance for. It was okay to say they could burst in and get the kids, but for Xander to honestly believe he'd have his son … it was a goal he'd hoped for, but one he'd never really believe possible. Stephen was going to show him it was. Anything was possible.
“Crouch down,” Eden said to him. As they waited, she had sat with one of her small tubs and a little wooden stick to mix something.
“You putting more of that witchy crap on me?”
“This witchy crap is going to hide your ugly arse. Quit moaning about it." He moved to her, and she slapped her hands at either side of his face, a little harder than he anticipated, but probably at the right level she wanted because she smirked at him when he winced. "I can't believe you'd compare yourself to Hitler."
“He had a rocking moustache.”
“If you get a moustache like that, I’m telling your kids they’re adopted.”
“You—” He paused, then grabbed her shoulder and pulled her out of the way. “Van’s here.”
Xander leant up. “It’s early.”
“Only by a few minutes,” Stephen said. He rubbed at his face and rubbed in whatever Eden had started, then blew out a breath and rose fully. “For the kids. We do this for them.”
“For Joey,” Xander said.
“For all the Joeys,” Eden added, and she reached for both men.
Stephen squeezed her hand and nodded to Xander. “For The Forgotten.” That was what he had named them. It was what he’d named them all, because to everyone else, that was what they were, they were forgotten … forgotten children, forgotten victims of Society—forgotten and unseen … but no more. “Send it.”
The upload button greyed out, and a slow circle took centre stage in the middle of the screen. It held their breaths in its rotations, and the progress bar moved across the bottom without the pressure of the weight it carried. When the bar filled complete, the page refreshed and in place of the thumbnail image of Benjamin Norton, shone the darkness of what everyone would prefer to ignore, the children.
“It’s done.”
The wagon pulled into the yard at the back of the building. The gate was left open, and Stephen, Eden and Xander made their way down the back. If they moved slowly enough, they'd not be noticed, and if they were seen, they'd not register in anyone's mind more than a rock would that was dumped at the edge of a road.
The wagon driver operated the machinery at the back of the truck with a lever which made the machinery move and lower the cages. He was alone, but then why wouldn’t he be? He didn’t need anyone with him to help him deliver cages loaded with food, towels, fresh linens and bedding—all the things that made Norton’s company look like they cared for the wellbeing of their staff and subjects inside.
He swiped the card down the mechanical lock and at the same time, Stephen stepped behind him and put his hand over his mouth. Eden grabbed the opening door, and the card from the Human’s hand and Xander clenched the air, pulling it from the Human’s lungs until his legs went weak, making him buckle against Stephen, and he passed out.
They put him against the wall. He would wake soon, though not too soon. Eden rubbed lotion across the Human’s eyes to keep him under just long enough. If he wanted to live through this, then sleep was his best option.
They wedged the door open slightly. Not enough that anyone would see it, but enough that someone could open it again without a card. That was what the message called for. For aid, help … to come to the doors, all of them and swarm in.
The colours inside were all different to Stephen. He’d seen these places when he was on the other side. The door to the basement was darker than he remembered, and he had the overwhelming urge to go down there and let the Human i
n the boiler suit feel just how hot the furnace was, but that could wait.
They took the service elevator just as Stephen remembered the Human doing and stood in silence as the numbers clicked on the display and then stopped.
It was nearly disappointing when the doors opened, and there was no one there. Silence greeted them. No alarms, no army, no Humans running around with their hair on fire and their brains about to explode. “The room is just on the right,” Stephen said, then he stepped out of the elevator and into the corridor. It was smaller in person like this, darker.
A Human in a shirt and jeans stepped out into the corridor. He had his head down, his attention caught on the paper in his hand, but when he did look up, he stopped and stared and didn’t quite register what was in front of him. “The spell’s worn off,” Xander said. The Human opened his mouth, Xander lifted his hand and clenched his fist to pull the air right out of him. The Human dropped in a heap on the floor, and Stephen angled his head to look at the man. “So fragile.” The door they wanted was just ahead.
Nothing could have prepared Stephen for the smell that came out of the room when he opened the door. He’d not realised it when he was on the other side of the veil, but the door was thick, solid, enough to keep inside whatever was in there, but when they opened it with Kirsty’s card, the stench of shit and piss and rot and god knows what else slammed into him like a warm, suffocating blanket of death.
Eden retched and slammed her hand over her mouth to keep from doing anything else. Even Stephen’s eyes stung with the smell of it. Only Xander wasn’t shocked at the stench.
For anyone stepping into the room, and holding their breath, it was nothing more than a laboratory, but the second Stephen stepped into it, something in one of the cages rattled and let out the oddest of sounds—a cry, a wail, something not quite right.
“What is that?” Eden asked.
“Kids.”
Xander stepped ahead of them, and he was at the first cage. "Fucking Humans.”
“Yep.” On the steel table in the centre of the room, there were bits of equipment, tubes, needles, bottles of things Stephen didn’t want to ask about, but there was also a camera. “Can you work this?” He asked, offering it to Xander. “Show the world what we’re fighting for?” It was one thing to put out loops of the videos or the experiments, but to really show the footage of how these kids were kept? Well, the Humans had just given him the cherry for his cake.
Xander turned it over and then flicked the switch. “Yeah.”
One cage held a little girl in it. She was small, but something in her features said she was older than she actually appeared. She had wings too, though not like the wings Amelia had had. These were smaller, like two spans of clear membrane coming from her back. “Is she …”
“Pixie,” Eden said. “Or part pixie.”
“Don’t they bite?” From what Stephen knew about pixies, they had little needle teeth that were nasty as hell.
“Yeah, but look. She doesn’t have pixie teeth.” Eden opened the cage and the little girl, who was the size of a toddler, but with the face of a ten-year-old child at least, backed up. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Eden said.
“Eden …” Stephen grabbed for the cage door. “They’re alarmed.”
Wide-eyed, Eden grabbed the edge of the metal grate. There was a red dome on the wall. It blinked rapidly. "Too late."
“I’d say so.”
Xander came back from the around the corner. He’d clicked his way through, taken pictures of every cage, every child huddled inside. “Joey isn’t in here,” he said, camera swinging from his neck. “I have to find …”
The sound of footsteps and a real alarm cut Xander's words off. Shouts and bangs and crashes, and all-out panic rose into the air like a viper ready to strike.
“Get the kids,” Stephen said. “Stick them on trolleys if you have to. Just get them out.” He faced Xander. “I’m going for Joey. I know where he is.”
“I’m—”
The first Human barged into the room, slamming the door open. Stephen grabbed for him, snatched up his arm and twisted before the Human had a chance to fire the tranquilliser he was holding. His arm bent with a loud crack and then a scream, but Stephen threw him toward Xander, for Xander to take the air.
“I’m going for Joey. The room is laced with iron. You’ll never get him out.”
Another Human, another arm and gun. This Human barged at Stephen, fist raised, Eden knocked him back with a knockback spell.
“Get the kids out,” Stephen shouted to her above the alarm. “Like we planned.”
A roar ripped from Stephen’s throat as he threw himself out of the room and into the corridor, and into the sudden onslaught of Humans. Someone had turned on the switch that changed the clear hallway into a mass of hate and lies, and everything Stephen despised. He chuffed in a breath and pushed the air from his lungs and into his body, calling his tiger up, yelling at him. His tiger responded, answered him and Stephen put his hands out to the sides, and they became claws.
Bone, teeth, skin, whatever it was, it didn’t matter. Stephen lunged forward, someone fired, he dodged. Someone else leapt for him, and he caught them, claws ripping into flesh and coming away with thick wet gobs.
He’d kill them all if he had to. He’d clear the way so Xander and Eden could get those kids out. There weren’t so many. They’d been right to come at night, to come when the staff was minimal, and these brave ones could fall by themselves. The scent of blood mingled with the scents that spilt from the room and created such an aroma of death it was almost toxic.
“Stop,” one Human yelled at Stephen, a woman … a thin, pale woman with wiry hair and a crooked tooth. She saw him and took a step back, and he had the vague memory of seeing her before when he had been in his own cage, locked deep in the belly of this place.
"Don't bother," he said when she lifted a hand to the panel on the wall. "I will be alerting Mr Norton of my arrival myself."
Chapter 54
The Humans were like bacteria, multiplying, spreading, reaching out with their filth. Luckily, Stephen was the cure. They came at him in waves, with bravado and stupidity all rolled into one, and in the end, Stephen pulled in a deep breath and let it out again slowly. Blood dripped from his hands. His claws retracted, and the only Humans still alive were the ones who'd had the sense to keep away.
One woman cowered on the ground. She had her hand over her face but peeked out through her fingers like a child watching a horror movie.
“Take me to the basement,” he said.
With a shaking hand, she tried to push herself up. "Go that way, there are some stairs. I …"
He crouched beside her, knees out, arms resting across the top of them. “You take me to the basement. To project Zero.” She snivelled and went to open her mouth. “I’m not asking. You want to live through this, you get up, you take me to the basement.”
She still hesitated, but then she nodded and wiped her face. She was covered in blood and sweat and her own tears. He was sure she was nothing more than a lab tech, and he might have felt some sympathy for her, but she was aware of what was going on. She didn’t ask what Project Zero was, or tell him she had no idea about it, no, she’d pointed the way to go, which made her as guilty as the rest of them.
Sometime during Stephen’s slaughtering, the woman had lost a shoe, and she walked bobbing up and then down. He thought to tell her to take the other one off, but if she was so stupid as to walk in such discomfort, then it wasn’t his problem.
The place was such a damn maze. Stairs, corridors, more stairs. Some went up, some went down. Only a handful of the places were familiar as Stephen followed the woman. She'd be dead if she decided to lead him on a goose-chase. A door ahead of them opened. Stephen grabbed the back of the woman's top, and she yelped as he yanked her back.
A man and a woman stepped out and the instant he got their scent, his tiger burst against the inside of him, nearly sending him flying. Tigers �
� more tigers. The woman, young, a tattoo up the side of her face, stepped into the line of Stephen’s fire. “Prisoner 932416?”
Hand clenching around the Human’s shirt, he pulled her closer. Fucking Others with their lack of respect for themselves. There were always some who worked for the Humans, and their bidding like it meant something. These were the worst kind in Stephen's opinion. "Who's asking?"
“My name is Reyna.” She waved at the man behind her. “This is my brother, Gray. We saw your broadcast.” It was then that Stephen realised they too were smeared with blood. It was on the man’s chest, down his pants. The woman had smears of it on her arms, and her hair stuck to the wet part of her shirt. She stepped closer. “We’ve come to fight. T-there’s more outside. More of us.”
"There's kids," Stephen said. "They need help. I …" His own words trailed off because despite the sincerity he could see in the woman, despite the need he could feel rolling off his tiger and connecting with hers, he wasn’t a fool with trust.
Maybe she sensed it, because she moved closer, bowed her head and said, “We will get them out. It is time to take the stand. We came here to follow you.”
“Blight comes,” Gray said. “Doesn’t it?”
“It’s here already.” With that he trusted them. He trusted them because his tiger did, and his tiger was never wrong. It reached into both Gray and Reyna and found goodness, fear, and a whole lot of let’s fuck this shit up. “Get the kids out. Don’t wait for me. My friends know the way.”
The corridors seemed longer than they had been, daunting even. He walked along the edges, like a mouse scurrying to its target, with the Human woman in front of him. She let out occasional whimpers, but he pushed her on. He hoped she was afraid. She should be afraid. Every single Human still alive deserved that much.
The stairs leading to the basement stank of dampness as fresh as the day he and Helena had first been brought in and tossed into the farthest cage. The entire place was laden with the smell of mildew and sweat, and things the Humans put to one side to forget.
