Omega

by Susannah Sandlin

  Randa sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, letting it spill out of its loose pile. Her voice rang in the still air like fragile crystal. “Thanks. I needed to laugh. That was awfully”—she squinted at him in the dim moonlight—“thoughtful of you. What did you do with Will the Asshole?”

  Will grinned. “I can get him for you if you miss him. Seriously, though. You OK?”

  “It just gets to me sometimes.” Randa leaned back against the tree again. “How wrong I was about the world. How the things I thought were important really aren’t. How hard I fought to prove myself. And now here I am again, still stuck in a world I don’t fit in, still a rookie, still having to prove myself.”

  She stopped raking the tangles out of her hair. “Sorry, that sounds a lot like self-pity, and I hate that. I guess somebody like you would never understand what it feels like to not fit in, but believe me, it sucks.”

  It would have been easy to throw back an insult, to point out that to fit in, you had to at least try. But it wasn’t that simple, and Will knew that better than anybody. He was just better at hiding what an outsider he was.

  Plus, somehow, they’d made a step in their relationship tonight—well, not their relationship. They didn’t have a relationship. They weren’t even friends. But maybe they could at least be civil patrol partners.

  “I’ve never fit in, not when I was human and not as a vampire. At least not until Aidan found me in Atlanta and showed me…” He’d almost admitted what it was Aidan had proven to him: that he was smart, not stupid. That there was a reason his mind worked the way it did. That the things his father had done to him as a vampire weren’t, in the long run, as damaging as what Matthias had done while they were both still human. “Aidan showed me what it meant to have a family.”

  Randa winced and looked away. “But you have a family. Matthias…”

  Will blinked back the rage that rose like bile whenever his father’s name was mentioned. Rage at the things he’d done, not just to Will, but to his friends. He’d kidnapped Glory and let his buddies feed on her until she had ropy scars on her neck she’d carry with her forever. He’d sent Aidan’s brother to kill him and forced Aidan to turn his mate, Krys, vampire in order to save her. He’d kidnapped Mirren, starved him, and had thrown Glory at him so he’d kill her and turn back into the Tribunal’s pet executioner.

  “Matthias is nothing to me. Worse than nothing,” he said. “What you think you know about fathers and sons doesn’t apply to us.”

  Randa pressed. “I know he turned you vampire, but I thought you agreed to it, wanted the everlasting life of a playboy.”

  Will clenched his jaw and leaned against the same pine tree as Randa, their shoulders almost touching, but at least he didn’t have to look her in the eye. After all, what she thought of him was the image he’d intentionally handed people—for a good time call W-i-l-l. But for some reason, he wanted her to think better of him.

  “I was twenty-two, and completely under my father’s influence. I was stupid.” As he said the words, snippets of memory slapped him with almost physical force. Matthias pulling him out of yet another school. Taunting him about being the slow-witted son no man deserved. Matthias wondering what he’d done that God should punish him with an offspring who wasn’t even smart enough to pass first grade.

  Will had bought into the whole sorry shit pile. But his sharing with Randa wasn’t ever going that deep.

  She wouldn’t let it drop. “Most boys your age would say the same thing. My dad was a total hard-ass, especially with my brothers. Didn’t mean he didn’t love them—or me. I wish I could tell him…” She trailed off.

  She was so off base; their families had nothing in common. Absolutely nothing. “Matthias turned my mother and sister and me at the same time. Did you know that? Wanted to make us a big happy vampire family, all serving him as our master.”

  Randa’s intake of breath was barely audible, but he heard it. “No. Are they…”

  “Dead. My mom never revived after he tried to turn her—you know it only works about half the time, anyway. Catherine, my sister, lived for three days of agony, blood seeping out the corners of her eyes, her skin withering, begging me to end it. I finally did.”

  Matthias didn’t know that. Didn’t know Will had fashioned a homemade stake and pierced his eighteen-year-old sister’s heart because it was the only thing he knew to do. Matthias assumed she died naturally.

  He regretted a lot of things in his life, but not that. He’d been Cathy’s big brother. It was his job to take care of her. And if he couldn’t take care of her, at least he could see her at peace.

  They sat silently for a few minutes. He couldn’t believe he’d just spilled his guts like that. The stress was obviously getting to him.

  Enough already. He got up and grabbed his laptop. “I’m heading down.”

  She climbed to her feet beside him. “What was Matthias up to?”

  They pulled the brush away from the grass-and-straw-covered hatch entrance and unlocked it, then pulled it aside and climbed down. Will closed it behind them and locked it with a loud click. “He was nosing around the church—I think he’s figured out we went underground.”

  Randa frowned. “You mean he knows about Omega? Do we need to start moving people out faster?”

  “Maybe. We definitely need to get the lieutenants together, see what Mirren and Aidan have to say.” They took the golf cart through the tunnel to the Omega entrance in silence, stopping it at the bend in the tunnel that led to the solid-steel entry doors.

  Will knew Cage Reynolds was there before they rounded the bend. He sat in a metal folding chair tilted on its back two legs, his shitkicker-clad feet hanging in midair and a small unlit cigar dangling from his mouth. “’Bout bloody time you two dragged in.”

  His chair legs hit the concrete floor with a thud, and he pulled open the heavy door into Omega, gesturing for Randa to go inside, then following her before Will could take a step. Jerk.

  “You didn’t have to wait up for us.” Will followed them inside, narrowing his eyes at Cage’s hand resting on Randa’s shoulder. What did they know about this guy, anyway? He was a vampire, he’d wormed his way into Aidan’s good graces almost immediately, and Glory said all the women thought he was “hot” and liked his stick-up-the-arse British accent. Even Liv had commented on his green eyes.

  Will stared down the length of the hallway into the big Omega common room, watching Cage and Randa walk away like some kind of couple.

  He shook his head and began working the combination lock on the heavy door to secure them all inside for the day. It had to be near dawn, and he had to be hungry if he was concerned about who freaking Randa thought was hot.

  Cage walked Randa to the conference room, answering her questions about whether smoking was as satisfying to him as a vampire as it had been in his human life—the answer was no, but habits were no easier to break as a vampire than as a human. At least he didn’t have to worry about lung cancer.

  He turned to ask Will if he smoked and realized the young lieutenant was still back at the Omega door, working with the lock.

  “Your chum William is an interesting guy.”

  “He’s not my chum,” Randa said quickly—too quickly, Cage thought. “We’re just patrol partners—Aidan’s doing.”

  Cage nodded. Definitely on the defensive. “He designed this place, didn’t he? It’s rather amazing.”

  They passed through the Omega common room, which was filled with sofas and chairs and gaming tables. The room was like the body of an octopus, with corridors for tentacles that branched out in five directions. The whole thing had been carved out of red Georgia clay and lined with steel panels that held sleeping quarters, a large kitchen, and restrooms for the humans. One wing was utilitarian—rooms holding systems for waste treatment, water filtration, and air treatment. A room for generators. For food and other supplies. And at the far end of the back corridor sat a silver-lined locked room in case a vampire misbehaved an
d needed to be contained. Next to it, another locked steel door led into the tunnel beneath the Baptist church.

  “Yeah, Will designed it,” Randa said. “He’s brilliant. Just ask him.”

  Cage raised an eyebrow. “Harsh.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t…I think…Will’s OK.”

  Poor girl. She liked the bastard and didn’t know what to do with it. Cage pegged her as a classic guardian personality type. Driven to succeed. Liked to be in charge. Straightforward and horrified by messy emotions. He’d met hundreds like her since the Second World War, when he’d been turned vampire while assigned as a psychiatrist to the British army.

  Turned by one of his own fucking patients. How was that for a laugh?

  He’d become a bit of a professional shrink-turned-soldier in the years since, from the Falklands to Iraq. He liked to fight and he liked to analyze people. Perfect scenario.

  “Remember one thing,” he told Randa. “People who seem arrogant are often hiding major insecurities. Your partner, Will? I’m guessing he’s got some serious issues, given who his bastard of a father is.”

  Randa glared at him. “Who do you think you are—Dr. Phil?”

  Who? Cage was prevented from inquiring about Dr. Phil by the arrival of Mirren and Aidan in the hallway outside the small conference room. Everyone filed inside, and Cage wasn’t surprised to see young Hannah already there. He left the others and went to sit next to her.

  As a doctor, he found Hannah fascinating. The daughter of a Creek shaman, she had inherited psychic powers. As a child, almost two centuries ago, she’d been turned vampire before really learning how to control her visions. Aidan had killed her maker and kept her with him ever since. If they all survived this current maelstrom, Cage hoped to work with her. He’d been reading books and scientific journal articles on psychics to learn as much as he could.

  Mirren’s mate, Glory, also had a special power—telekinesis—but she’d learned to control it. Hannah hadn’t grown old enough to have the emotional maturity Glory did, so it was harder for her, despite her vampire age. In many ways, she was like an old soul trapped in a young body, but in others, she was still very much a child and probably always would be.

  Will arrived last, taking the seat on the other side of Cage and pulling a laptop computer from a metal box. Cage had been watching Will Ludlam for a while as well—it was an occupational hazard for a psychiatrist. The man had some demons he covered up with a bounty of jokes and flirtations.

  “OK, we’ve only got time for a quick talk before daysleep.” Aidan propped his elbows on the table and leaned forward. Cage was struck, as he often was, at the man’s calm demeanor. A natural leader, Aidan picked his people carefully and let them do their jobs. But he didn’t tolerate disloyalty or carelessness. He was the only one here who knew what Cage was and that he’d come to Penton on behalf of the British Tribunal leader, who was secretly contemplating a similar string of vampire-human communities in the UK.

  Cage wasn’t convinced Penton could be replicated. Each community would need the kind of person in charge who attracted and held people’s trust and loyalty the way Aidan did. Such people weren’t common, especially among vampires, and especially during the current state of panic that gripped the vampire world over dwindling humans from which to feed.

  “I think Matthias has figured out that we got out of town by going through some kind of underground exit,” Will was saying. “And he’s snooping around the church. He hasn’t found the hatch, but I think we should fill in that tunnel so, even if he finds it, he can’t find us.”

  “Fuck me. That would leave us only one way out. I don’t like it—we need to find another way out before we close it up.” Mirren’s voice was a deep rumble from the side of the room, where he stood propped against the wall. Now, there was someone whose psyche Cage would like to dissect, but he suspected he might not live through the experience. The man carried a goddamned sword, and rumor had it he owned an honest-to-God battle-ax.

  Aidan leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled in front of him. “Can we dig another tunnel that branches off the back so we aren’t left with a single exit?”

  Will opened his computer and clicked through screen after screen. Schematics, diagrams, and pages of drawings filtered past. Finally, he paused on a computerized map.

  Cage leaned forward. “Is that the Omega site from satellite?” He thought the large rectangle at the top of the screen might be the bulk of the automotive plant.

  Will nodded and shifted the screen to give Cage a better view. “I wanted to see if there were any dead spots that might give us a good place for another exit. Although, we have to think about a lot of other issues—soil moisture, where the displaced dirt would go, even oxygen. Humans doing manual labor suck up a lot more air than humans at rest.”

  “But the labor would be good for them—for us too,” Cage said, and he felt the room go still. He was the new guy and, as such, tended to keep his mouth shut. He could feel the chill of Mirren Kincaid’s suspicious gaze from across the room.

  “Explain,” Aidan said.

  Bloody hell. He’d opened his piehole, so he might as well continue. “We’ve only been here three days, and already people are getting restless, especially the humans. At least the vampires can leave at night as long as we’re careful, but they’re stuck here twenty-four/seven. The ice cream Will bought tonight was brilliant.” He nodded at Will, who returned the gesture. “It cheered them up, broke up their tendency to think too much about all the bad stuff that might happen.”

  Mirren snorted, but shut up at a glare from Aidan. “So we need to come up with things for people to do, to keep them occupied? Randa, what does the army do for soldiers who are in close quarters?”

  Randa shifted in her seat, and Cage thought if she were human, her fair skin would have blushed a similar color to her hair. “Well, when we go on lockdown, there are jobs for everybody to do, to keep them busy. Also, games. You know, those handheld computer games, board games, cards. And quiet space where you can go to get away from people, even if it’s just a corner of a tent. Someplace to get a little privacy.”

  “That should be easy enough to do.” Aidan turned back to Cage. “You think that sounds about right from your military and other experience?”

  Aidan’s question drew all eyes back to him again. Terrific.

  “And you’re asking him, why?” Mirren shifted positions to the wall nearer Cage. If it was meant to intimidate him, it was working. Mirren Kincaid was kind of like a half-tame grizzly when he was with his mate, Glory, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen right now, and yeah, he freaked Cage out a little. The guy was a bloody giant.

  Aidan simply raised his eyebrows at Cage.

  “You fix people’s minds,” Hannah said. “You’re going to help me learn how to use my visions better!” Her black eyes lit up, and then just as quickly, the light faded from them. “But not until whatever happens, happens. And I can’t see what that is.”

  “Fix people’s minds how?” Randa frowned at him, probably thinking back to his comments about arrogance and secrets.

  He let out a breath. “OK, you guys know I came to the States two months ago from London. I’m a psychiatrist, first with the British army and then for private security outfits after I was turned, only taking night missions. I didn’t want anyone besides Aidan to know because it makes people uncomfortable, although he wanted me to tell you from the outset.” People always thought he was assessing them. With good reason.

  Cage had always thought that bit about silence being deafening was stupid—until now. It was.

  Will cleared his throat. “Well, I, for one, think having a shrink here is a good thing. He’s right—people are already getting antsy. Our fams are starting to look like trapped animals, and God knows Mark needs all the help we can give him. We need to either come up with a plan to start getting people out of here faster—which means getting us out as well, since we’ll freakin’ starve if all our fams leave—or els
e we need to come up with a way to take Matthias down without pissing off the Tribunal.”

  Aidan nodded. “Agreed. We’ll get back together first thing after rising to talk more. Randa, you and Hannah talk to Cage, make a list of things we can do to keep people’s minds off our situation, and we’ll buy what we need. Will, after daysleep, do some logistics on starting a new exit. Mirren, work with Will on how to make it happen and how to disable the hatch into the church.”

  “What about Mark?” Mirren’s question brought a hush to the room, where everyone had been rustling, getting ready to leave.

  Aidan ran his fingers through his hair, and Cage wondered how he was handling the tension. Losing his fam, losing his town, feeling responsible for endangering those who had pledged loyalty to him. Cage wouldn’t want the responsibility.

  “Krys says he has a concussion, and he’s in and out. We finally told him about…” He paused, and everyone looked away, down, anywhere but at Aidan. “We told him about Melissa tonight. He’s a wreck. Although, on some level, I think he already knew. Otherwise, she’d have been there when he regained consciousness.”

  Aidan pushed his chair back. “In fact, I want to see him before daysleep. Anything else we need to talk about?”

  Cage cleared his throat. “Just this. I think one way to bring Matthias down without major casualties is to infiltrate his organization. We need to get someone inside who can get word back to Omega so we know what’s going on and can make the best decisions, maybe gather more evidence to present to the Tribunal. As we’ve said before, we can’t just go into Penton and kill the bastard—the Tribunal would see it as a declaration of war.”

  Silence. Well, that idea had been well met.

  “Who the fuck would we send that wouldn’t end up at the end of a stake before the night was out?” Mirren said. “He knows all of us.”

  Cage shook his head. “Wrong. He doesn’t know me.”

  “Aidan, wait.”

  Randa paused until everyone else had left the conference room. Will shot a curious look over his shoulder but was deep in conversation with Cage. Listening as everyone warmed up to the idea of infiltrating Matthias’s organization had made her itch to get more involved.