by Lizzy Ford
Chrissy knelt beside her and checked her vitals then Ethan’s. “They’re drugged all right. No idea what can do this.”
“Their eyes are open,” Vikki observed. “Does that mean they’re awake?”
“I’d say so.”
“Creepy.”
No shit! Zoey screamed mentally.
“How long until they can use their bodies?”
“I’m not sure,” Chrissy replied. “Twenty four hours?”
“Okay. I don’t want the king of incubuses anywhere near me,” Vikki shifted out of Zoey’s vision. “Tiff, take us to their apartment building! We’re dropping one off.”
“Zoey, I’m gonna put you out for now. This has to be weird for you,” Chrissy said, prepping a syringe. “And I need to draw more blood to see what she put in your system.”
Thank god I can’t feel shit.
Chapter Sixteen: Torn
“Zoey! Wake up! I found something!”
Zoey swatted at the hand shaking her. Her body was wooden, her mind filled with cotton as she tried to shed the drugs in her system. Despite this, her senses were on alert, making Chrissy’s already loud words jarring.
“Zoey! You’ve been out for a day. Up!”
“Alright,” she grumbled and pushed herself up. It took effort to open her eyelids with the gunk gluing her lashes together. “What the fuck …” Zoey wiped her eyes.
“You’ll have some interesting side effects,” Chrissy said, too excited to be concerned.
Zoey swung her legs over the edge of the cot and glanced around, assessing they’d taken her to one of their last resort hideouts: an abandoned campground over a hundred miles from DC. A single kerosene lantern was in the center on a cardboard box, casting a circle of light in the center of the abandoned cabin in the forest.
“What is it?” she asked groggily.
“Drink this.” Vikki handed her a plastic cup.
“Vikki? What’re … oh. Right. We’re being hunted by everyone now.” Letting her mind catching up, Zoey wiped the last of the goo from her eyes and took a large drink, almost spitting out the harsh flavor. “Vodka?”
“Your fave.”
The liquid fire shot through her, clearing her thoughts and bringing her body back to life. She shook her head and knocked back the rest of the alcohol.
“You need water, not vodka,” Chrissy said in disapproval.
“It’s not like you’re a doctor,” Vikki replied with a wink. She poured more vodka into Zoey’s glass.
“I have no idea how you all are still alive,” Chrissy said.
“Magic.”
“Anyway.” Chrissy settled her dark eyes on Zoey. “You want my news or not?” She snatched the plastic cup away and replaced it with a bottle of water.
Zoey felt a trace of a smile slip free. “Is it actual good news or something that sounds good until you tell me the catch?” she asked.
“Exactly!” Vikki exclaimed. “It’s not good news. It’s a discovery, one we can’t do shit with.”
“Knowing is half the battle,” Chrissy said calmly. “And you real-life action figures are the other half.”
“Superheroes,” Zoey corrected her. “Where’s the Professor?”
“Here, dear,” came the voice from a dark corner. His long legs were crossed at the ankle, everything but his face visible in the limited lighting.
“Good. Is everyone okay?” Zoey asked.
“Scattered like chickens with their heads cut off,” Vikki reported grimly. “We split the cash and broke everyone up into smaller groups. Five, to be precise. We’ve got one here.” She lifted her chin to the cracked window. “Tiff took another, Lydia the third, Ginny the fourth and one of the Halflings, Wendy, the fifth. I gave them orders to evade the incubuses and succubae chasing them but also a quota of Cambions to kill each day. Best of both worlds, right?”
Zoey relaxed. She and Vikki thought too much alike; their brief separation had been harder than Zoey expected. “I’m happy you’re here, Vikki.”
Her best friend gave her an annoyed look in response.
“Can’t wait ‘til you’re not so damn moody,” Zoey added.
“Not like you’ll be around to see it.” Vikki glared at her. “Did you plan on telling me you were dying?”
“I’m not dying. I’m turning into a zombie. Did you ever plan on telling me you were pregnant?”
“Not now, guys,” Chrissy said, glancing up from her iPad. “I’ve got something to say!”
Zoey turned her attention to the human in their midst, waiting. She wore one of the bands that helped hide them from the supernatural creatures hunting them. Vikki did as well, and she made a mental note to ask Grant later where he got them.
“So, I had a friend at Johns Hopkins run a sample of Halfling blood through a –”
“Skip this part,” Vikki interjected. “No one cares or understands the stuff you do. We know you’re smarter than us, so just tell her the results.”
“Fine. They’re using sex magic derived from humans, that Cambion use to create a sort of toxin that neutralizes the nervous system,” Chrissy said, face glowing. “Cambions and incubuses have the ability to stop a victim from struggling via pheromones created by special glands.”
“Yeah. Olivia said it’s a neurotoxin,” Zoey said.
“That’s right,” Chrissy said. “What else did she tell you?”
Zoey shared the discussion she’d had with Olivia. Chrissy listened intently.
“You were right, Chrissy,” Vikki said when Zoey was finished. “If any Halflings decided to defect, they’d be dead soon. If they disobeyed her or got too slow or weak, she stopped dosing. It’s a kill switch.”
“It’s not a kill switch,” Chrissy said. “She just stops treating them for a disease she bred into them.”
“Olivia’s been drugging the Halflings to keep them stable.” Vikki’s face flushed with anger. “But what about Zoey’s blackouts?”
“I have a theory that the drug Olivia made can be used to create the blackouts,” Chrissy continued. “I think when she wanted to activate you, she gave you a massive dose to overwhelm your resistance and throw your system into shock.”
“Olivia injected this modified cocktail into me,” Zoey said. “I didn’t blackout, though. It looked like the same thing she injected into Ethan.”
“I think that Olivia bred you on Team Rogue to contain the same glands that incubuses have. My guess is that you and the other girls on Team Rogue weren’t being dosed with the neurotoxin. You were being given something to keep the glands responsible for producing it inactive, to limit your power.”
“Like birth control pills,” Vikki said thoughtfully, eyes on the ceiling.
Zoey reached up to her neck, poking at the areas under jaw to see if she could feel the alleged glands. “So no birth control pills, and suddenly I’m producing eggs right?”
“It’s not exactly how it works.” By the look on Chrissy’s face, she’d tried unsuccessfully to explain it to Vikki already. “Close enough.”
“So we need more pills to shut down the glands,” Zoey said. “Can you make them?”
“This is all theory, Zoey. I need access to a really good lab, to blood samples and more samples of the stuff she injected into you. Oh, and maybe a scientist who specializes in genetic shit, since I don’t,” Chrissy replied.
“How did you find out about the Cambion glands?”
Chrissy lifted a familiar hard drive. Zoey recognized it as one of the five she and Vikki had stolen from the now destroyed Sucubatti compound.
“I pieced things together,” Chrissy explained. “All your medical records for the first few years of your life are on here, including blood tests and comprehensive results. In here” - she picked up the laptop Zoey had stolen from Olivia’s underground lab - “I found the chemical formula for the toxin she’s producing and information about the source. I put the two together and did some basic analysis.”
“Your version of basic analysis is r
ocket science to me,” Zoey said, impressed. “If we’re superheroes, then you’re …”
“A supernerd,” Vikki supplied.
“How much do you pay me?” Chrissy asked icily.
“It’s how they show they love you,” the Professor gave a husky chuckle. “You’re right about everything but one fact, Chrissy. Cambions don’t have working glands. Incubuses do. The neurotoxin is converted into pheromones is what makes us irresistible. Cambions are born with the glands, but they’re naturally inactive, which is why they usually rape and kill rather than seduce to collect the sex energy they need. Cambions have little batteries inside them that collect the sex energy from humans. It mixes with the toxins in their system to create a potent solution.”
“You knew this?” Zoey asked, turning to face him.
“I knew incubuses had neurotoxins that aid in lowering a woman’s resistance to them. I did not know that Olivia was working with Cambions to create the drug for the Halflings, or that she knows how to genetically manipulate a Halfling to grow the glands. It makes sense now. Halflings become unstable around the age of twenty two. If they couldn’t produce the calming agent that incubuses use to counter the toxin, they’d be driven into the same frenzy that Cambions regularly are.”
“We have more in common with Cambions than succubae,” Vikki said with a scowl. “It’s different for Team Rogue, because we apparently have the glands, and they work when not drugged.”
“It’s why you’re so much stronger and also why you’re at risk of losing your minds permanently. I’m guessing Olivia didn’t breed in the self-regulation system the incubuses have. The venom isn’t poisonous to them the way it is to you all.”
“So Olivia injected Zoey with a massive dose of the calming agent last night and used it to keep Ethan subdued, too,” Chrissy said.
“I believe so.”
Zoey absorbed the information, sorting through her thoughts. “This makes Olivia a super-villain,” she murmured. “So I have these glands and am blacking out because whatever she gave me to help regulate them isn’t in my system anymore, because she wanted the toxin to take over my body so she could control me. Right?”
“You need a steady source of a stabilizer to keep the neurotoxin in check,” the Professor added. “For an incubus, it’s a separate gland and completely regulated internally. Cambions start to go crazy when they’re away from their society for too long. They depend on the incubus antitoxin, released as a pheromone as well, to stabilize them.”
Declan. She didn’t dare say the word aloud. “And that’s why we are all soul-mates for super incubuses. We’re not drawn to the toxin. We’re drawn to the strongest sources of whatever the chemical is that balances the toxin. The super incubuses need a super strong balancer.”
“A side effect I doubt Olivia counted on,” the Professor agreed. “Or, she did it purposely. There’s no way to know exactly what her intentions are.”
Zoey wasn’t certain if she was triumphant to know her attraction to Declan was purely chemical or distraught to know it had started that way and turned into something more, something that made her want to believe there was some sort of destiny involved in being with him.
“How do we fix this?” she asked.
“We gotta get the toxin from Olivia to stabilize the Halflings,” Vikki murmured. “If she’s got it in a form that works, Chrissy wouldn’t have to dissect a Cambion to figure out how to use the sex energy he’s storing.”
“And you need Declan,” the Professor said softly. “All of you need your soul-mates.”
“One problem. We’re all being hunted down now,” Zoey pointed out, hating the way her heart leapt in excitement at the mention of his name aloud. “Unless we can prove that Olivia set me up, we’re kind of fucked.”
“And not in the good way,” Vikki added.
“I might be able to devise an interim solution, something to stabilize the Halflings. But with no real equipment ...” Chrissy drifted off, scouring the cabin. “It’d be easier if you could get whatever it was she used to stabilize them before.”
Zoey was quiet, unable to shake Declan from her thoughts.
“Olivia has a lab,” Vikki suggested. “She’s gotta have some of it there.”
“If we used everyone, we could take it easily,” Zoey agreed. “The walls down there absorbed traces of sex energy. No one could find us, once we were there. The trick is either taking it out with a small team or risking being discovered with a larger group.”
“We’d risk drawing the attention of any Cambions, succubae and incubuses tracking us,” Vikki mused.
“Unless we provide a distraction,” Zoey said, meeting her gaze. “Another EMP will knock out the Sucubatti comms systems.”
“Grant was not happy about the last one,” Chrissy said, blushing. “It took out everything in and around DC.”
“That’s amazing,” Zoey said, smiling. “What did you use the second time when you came to rescue me?”
“We didn’t use shit,” Vikki replied. “We had help.”
“Help?” Zoey’s memory of the incident was foggy and what little she recalled after Olivia shot her up with shit, she instantly discredited.
“There was a man in a mask.” Even Vikki appeared unconvinced. “He had hand grenade EMP thing. Took out the facility and nothing else.”
“Mine are a little rudimentary,” Chrissy admitted.
“Dude, what you did is no joke,” Zoey said. “Be proud of that shit. Can you make one smaller?”
“Zoey, I don’t even have tools. I can’t do anything.”
“So we need a man in a mask.” Zoey tried not to smile. “I mean, a mask? Anyone else think that sounds ridiculous?”
“It is,” Vikki agreed. “Someone with a weird sense of humor.”
“Kind of odd, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard that,” Zoey continued. “Aiden said there was someone in a mask who followed him when we had our little scuffle. You don’t think …”
“Declan?” Vikki finished and shook her head. “Last person on the planet to put on a mask let alone get his hands dirty.”
Zoey said nothing aloud, aware there was still bad blood lingering between Vikki and Declan.
“This guy carried weapons. Lots of them.”
“Yeah. The Enforcer boys don’t do weapons,” Zoey said.
“You think Grant?”
Vikki shrugged. “Timing makes sense.”
“Hey, need a minute with V.” Zoey stepped to the door and waved her best friend over.
Chrissy’s attention returned to her laptop.
Zoey stepped out onto the porch, the early summer night cool and laden with the flavorful scent of the Atlantic. The outlines of three pup tents were visible between the cabin and the wood line. The faint traces of Halflings were in the air.
“You okay?” Vikki asked her.
“I think so. A little slow.” Zoey grimaced and rolled her shoulders back. “You said something before you left the compound. About Declan.”
“I figured you’d ask.” Vikki was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t believe it when Liam told me. I assumed he was covering for his brother. I’d lie for you, so I figured he was, too. But then I confronted Declan ...”
Zoey waited with baited breath, heart fluttering at his name again.
“He’s really hard to read, but I believe them,” Vikki finished. “Don’t hate me.”
“I’d never hate you.” Zoey considered the revelation, unable to explain Declan’s behavior, if what Vikki said was true.
“I don’t think they always know what to do. I think the soul-mating thing took them as much by surprise as it did us,” Vikki continued. “They act all macho and shit but they’re just as lost as we are. At least, in talking to Liam, that’s the impression I get.”
“Why didn’t you tell him about your news?” Zoey asked curiously.
“You know, it didn’t come up.”
“Didn’t come up.” Zoey eyed her friend.
�
��We talked about it theoretically.” Vikki shrugged. “Did not go well. So I didn’t bring it up.”
“Probably for the best.” Zoey didn’t want to think of how Declan would handle such news. “If I survive the next few weeks, we can raise your baby together.”
“Better be a girl. We can train her to fight and kick everyone’s ass. We are so much cooler than incubuses.”
“Totes.”
“So. Distraction. What’s your plan?”
Zoey considered. “Turn over the mission to take over the lab to Tiff and Lydia. You, Gin and me take off these things and dare our lovely soul-mates to come get us. One in DC, one in Maryland, one in Virginia with enough distance between us that it’ll take effort and them splitting up to get us.”
“Station everyone else at the lab and let them take over, with Chrissy’s last EMP bomb.”
“Yep.”
“Good plan. One question.” Vikki said and faced her. “Are the three of us who are decoys supposed to get caught?”
“I’d say run,” Zoey returned. “Bet we can give Chrissy a solid twenty four hours before someone figures it out.”
“Just one thing,” Chrissy said from behind them.
They turned.
“I need a sample of both the toxin the antitoxin. Pure samples. From an incubus.”
Zoey glanced past her at the Professor and then quickly turned her thoughts away. She’d never risk his life, especially not to save her own. “How much?”
“Enough to run a bunch of tests on.”
“Do you need a live incubus or just want us to stab one in the right place with a needle?” Vikki asked.
“Either way. I’ll work with whatever I can get.”
“Where is this gland?” Zoey asked.
“Toxin is under the jawbone and antitoxin at the base of the skull.”
“I can bring you someone’s head,” Vikki offered.
“If you must.” Chrissy frowned.
“I’ll do it,” Zoey said. “I’m already wanted for murdering an incubus, a succubus and kidnapping a super incubus. I’m used to rap sheets, and I need the antitoxin most.”
“Okay. Now, I’ve gotta go read some books about genetic engineering.” Chrissy left them at the door and returned to her iPad. She pulled on headphones.
