Omega

by Susannah Sandlin

  “You want to pick them off as they come down the ladder?” Randa’s whisper sliced through the tension.

  Another thump from above and shouting voices. He recognized his old buddy Shelton. Any body part of Shelton Porterfield’s that came down the ladder was getting blasted to hell. Too bad he probably wouldn’t come down headfirst.

  “Pick them off. No point in firing blindly. They can only come down one at a time, and that’s our advantage.” He was surprised they’d stage a raid this close to dawn. Less than an hour and they’d all be going into daysleep. There was some part of this picture he wasn’t seeing, and it made him nervous.

  The hatch lid made a wrenching noise as it was peeled back, leaving a square of soft light in its place. Will gritted his teeth at the sight of Shelton’s rat face looking down, then caught his breath as Matthias came into view. He’d expected his father to be preoccupied with Cage all evening. Had Cage made it in?

  No time to worry about that. He stayed in the shadows, silent and still as only a vampire could be, and was glad to see the vague outline of Randa’s shirt across the exit room from him. They were crouched in almost identical stances, one knee to the ground and the other foot crooked to bring them to a quick standing position if needed. Their guns were cocked and ready.

  Time seemed to hang in suspension until, finally, Matthias said, “Throw it, close the hatch, and then move aside quickly.”

  His pinched face disappeared, to be replaced by Shelton’s. He held out a hand and dropped something through the hatch, then clapped the hatch back in place, plunging the exit room into near darkness.

  “What was that? Where is it?” Will grabbed the light and turned it up, pivoting to see Randa feeling around on the ground between them. They both froze for an instant as the light illuminated the small object lying on the ground between them.

  “Grenade!” Randa barreled into Will’s midsection, knocking him backward as the room exploded around them. The last things he saw before the world went black were her green eyes, fierce with anger, and a mountain of dirt and steel projectiles raining down on them like missiles from an angry god.

  Cage couldn’t believe Melissa was alive. Alive but changed. Aidan Murphy’s much-loved familiar was a vampire. And Mark Calvert was grieving a wife who wasn’t dead, but wasn’t alive in the same way, either.

  It changed everything.

  He remained in his suite a half hour after sundown, indecisive for one of the few moments in his life. He’d barely had enough time to convince Melissa he wasn’t working for Matthias when daysleep fell upon them. He’d rushed to get her door relocked and return to his own room before the lethargy of dawn overtook him.

  Matthias had been torturing her, telling her Aidan was dead, taunting her that Mark was being held in another room. He’d been starving her, and even though Cage had been turned a good seventy-five years, he remembered the hunger after first being turned. It was fierce, brutal, consuming. When Cage told her Aidan and Mark were safe, as were Krys, Glory, Mirren, Hannah. Melissa had slumped in relief, but her eyes remained silver with hunger.

  Then they’d heard the explosion, and Melissa admitted she’d told Matthias about the church entrance to Omega as he withheld her feeding and insisted everyone she loved was dead. She’d been ashamed, beating herself up about it ever since, thinking herself weak for believing him, for being so, so hungry that it wiped out every rational thought.

  Now Cage faced a dilemma. Should he give up on the idea of infiltrating Matthias’s organization and get Melissa out of here and back to Omega—if Omega was even still there? Or should he let Matthias keep abusing her in order to continue his ruse and see if he could keep the man from doing more damage to whatever was left of Aidan’s scathe?

  Shit. Even a shrink couldn’t make that decision come out right for everyone.

  He dressed quickly. While stuffing everything back in his pack, he tried to imagine what Aidan would say, and that was easy. Aidan would want Melissa out of Matthias’s hands, no matter what, and they’d figure out another way to deal with the Tribunal.

  Mirren? He’d probably go for the big picture, tell Cage to stay put and help Melissa when he could. Will would be with Aidan; he’d suffered enough of Matthias’s abuse on his own that he wouldn’t want Melissa going through it.

  Cage ran his hands through his hair and snapped a rubber band around it to form a short ponytail. The man looking back at him from the mirror looked haunted and gaunt. Wasn’t a good look for him.

  He left the suite, walked down the hall to Melissa’s door, and let himself inside.

  He’d retied and gagged her when he’d left just before dawn, although with much softer bonds than those in which he’d found her. He eased the cloth from her mouth. “How’re you doing?”

  “Better now that I know everyone’s OK, or at least they were before last night. Did you find out about the explosion?”

  Cage untied her wrists and rubbed them to get the blood flowing. Even vampires could get muscle cramps and numbness. “Not yet. I wanted to see you first.”

  Melissa’s voice was no more than a rasp. “You have to leave me here; go and find out what happened. If you take me out of here, Matthias will know you aren’t legit. Go back and make sure Mark is OK, that Aidan and Krys are OK. Glory. Mirren. Will.”

  She doubled over with a dry, rasping cough that Cage didn’t think would ever stop. She was too near transition to be going through this. The first few months were hard enough; she still might not survive it.

  “When’s the last time you fed?” He began rolling up his sleeve. A vampire couldn’t survive forever feeding only from another vamp, but it would keep her going for as much as a week if he could feed her twice a day, which meant he had to feed himself, somehow.

  “I don’t know. I’ve lost track of days. How many days since I…since I died?”

  “Five. Here, drink from me.”

  She hesitated, so he took a knife from his pocket, sliced into his forearm just above the wrist, and held the wound in front of her face. She moved fast, grasping the arm and biting hard without anesthetizing.

  He couldn’t help his sharp intake of air. “Easy there.”

  She looked up at him, tears sliding down her cheeks. God, he’d forgotten how human new vampires were. “I’m sorry. I’ve seen Aidan do it a million times. I know better.”

  Cage smiled and got a wavery smile in return. “Try again.”

  This time she licked a spot on his arm an inch from the fast-healing cut and bit softly. Cage closed his eyes as she pulled on the wound, enjoying a rare feeder’s high. He’d only ever fed another vampire twice, both times in emergency battlefield situations. It had been nothing like these sensual waves of pleasure.

  But he hadn’t fed in two days himself, so he couldn’t let her take too much. Plus, if she looked too rosy cheeked, Matthias would know something was amiss. “Stop now, love.”

  She pulled away and licked the small wounds. Collapsing back on the pillows, she smiled—the first one he’d seen from her. He’d never before noticed how pretty she was. “Thank you.”

  “Not a problem.” He cocked his head and listened for motion in the hallway, but it was still quiet. “Now, you’re right that my mission here will be over if you suddenly disappear, but I can’t in good conscience leave you here. It goes against everything Penton stands for.”

  She was too fragile, and too many people loved her. Matthias would either kill her or mentally break her. Cage didn’t think he could live with either of those outcomes, not if he could have prevented it.

  “Tie me up, and lock me back in.” Melissa took his hand, spoke rapidly. “I need to know they’re OK. If they are, come back and tell me. We’ll figure out what to do then. I can handle Matthias as long as I know everyone’s safe. Between the two of us, we might learn more. Do you have plans to meet Aidan and tell him what you’ve learned?”

  Yes, and Cage now understood why Aidan cared so much for her. Melissa was fierce and st
ubborn and maybe not nearly as fragile as he’d thought. Vampires were forever underestimating the loyalty and inner strength of the humans around them, to their own detriment.

  “Very well. I’m to meet Aidan later tonight. I’ll talk to him, see what the explosion was, and then I’ll come back to you before daysleep and let you feed.” He massaged her wrists again before retying them with the silver-threaded rope and gently raising the gag. “Remember to act hungry—however you were behaving with Matthias before I came. Don’t do anything to make him think you’re less desperate than before.”

  She nodded and the skin around her eyes crinkled as she tried to smile around the gag.

  Cage leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Be strong, love. I’ll be back.”

  He locked her door, wiped off any prints or scents he might have left, and climbed the ladder, first into the basement level and then to the clinic office. The hatch lid had been set back in place but wasn’t locked.

  “Hello?” he called out before sticking his head through the hatch. Surprising a volatile vampire was a good way to lose a scalp.

  “Ah, thought you should be rising soon.” Shelton Porterfield sat on the sofa beneath the clinic windows fiddling with a cell phone. There was no sign of Matthias.

  “Sorry, I hope waiting for me hasn’t kept you from your duties.”

  Shelton grinned. “No, we struck a blow for the cause last night. Now we’re letting our victims think about their situation, whoever’s left to think. Hopefully, there were a lot of casualties.”

  Cage worked to keep his own smile in place. “How’s that?”

  “First, do you need to feed? I kept my feeder here at the clinic in case. Happy to share.”

  Cage found the thought of feeding from anything Shelton Porterfield’s mouth had touched revolting, but he needed the strength, especially if he were going to keep helping Melissa. “That would be brilliant. Thank you.”

  He followed Shelton down the hall and into what had been a small office.

  Good God. Cage stopped, dumbstruck at the sight of a young boy, who looked no older than fourteen or fifteen, curled up on a love seat. He opened sleepy blue eyes that widened a fraction at the sight of Shelton, then settled on Cage.

  “You have a problem with young men?” Shelton watched him closely, and Cage shuttered his expression with some effort. Where had he gotten this child?

  “I think young is the operative word here, Shelton. He can’t be of legal age.” Even the Tribunal, corrupt as it was, drew the line at anything to do with children. But there were always those whose tastes couldn’t be satisfied otherwise, and he’d already heard about Shelton’s tastes.

  “I’m eighteen,” the boy said, sitting up, his tone defiant. He gave Cage a blatant once-over, sending a shiver down his spine and shriveling his balls. “You can feed from me; I like it.”

  The kid’s fucking voice hadn’t even changed. If he was eighteen, Cage was a member of the House of Lords. “Sorry, son. I prefer the ladies.”

  With what he hoped was a convincing smile, Cage clapped Shelton on the shoulder. “Thanks, man. I’ll just round up someone a little older if you don’t mind.”

  Shelton oozed lust as he looked at the boy, who gave him a coy expression in return. “No problem. I’ll be back soon, Evan. Wait here.”

  “Yes, sir.” The boy curled up on the love seat again and closed his eyes.

  Cage would swear the kid was drugged, but he had to abandon him, at least for now. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t promised to leave Shelton Porterfield for Will to finish off.

  Shelton accompanied him to the front door of the clinic. Cage had to get the man talking again. “I thought I heard an explosion just before daysleep. Anything I can help with?”

  Shelton pointed toward downtown. “Let’s go this way. I want to show you something.”

  They walked in silence for a block before Cage decided to try again. “I promised Edward I’d call him tonight and give him an update. Is there anything Matthias would like to share with the Tribunal?”

  Shelton’s teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “Yes, indeed. Tell Edward we found a hatch into what we believe is an underground bunker the Penton group used to escape, or at least a tunnel leading out of town. It was built beneath the church up here”—he pointed at the Baptist church, whose front door hung askew—“so we threw in a grenade just before dawn, collapsed the whole thing.”

  Bloody hell. “Why collapse the entrance instead of going in after them?”

  They’d reached the front of the church. Shelton went ahead, turning on a couple of fluorescent lanterns inside the sanctuary door. The pews had been tossed aside, and a blackened hole filled the center of the floor. Cage felt his heart stutter. How many had been hurt? Killed? They’d done it just before dawn so the vampires wouldn’t be able to retaliate or tend to any of their wounded.

  “Matthias felt that if we went down one at a time, they could pick us off too easily. This way we might have trapped them, or at least forced them to use another exit. The plan was perfect.” Shelton clearly idolized his boss. “He said Mirren Kincaid would never leave himself without options. So he had our people fan out all over this godforsaken county at twilight. If they come out another way, we’ll catch them.”

  Cage walked to the center of the sanctuary and stared down into the explosion site. Dirt, concrete, rebar, wiring—it all looked like a solid mass that filled up the hatch. He knelt and picked up an X-shaped piece of metal, each corner of the X in sharp points.

  “How’d you like a few dozen of those flying at you at thirty miles an hour?” Shelton knelt beside him and looked into the hole.

  Cage didn’t ask what it was. He’d seen enough projectile grenades to last a lifetime. Probably an M67, which would thrust little steel spikes for a kill radius of five meters and an injury radius of a lot more. If the steel door into Omega had been open, anyone in the hallway would be hurt. Aidan had been planning on assigning all-night guards in the exit room. Whoever they were, he didn’t see how they could have survived.

  Randa awoke with a start, instinctively knowing she’d somehow slept past sundown, something that happened only when a vampire’s body was trying to heal an injury. It was black as obsidian, the air around her close and damp. Something light touched her face with a feathery tickle. Where was she?

  She tried to move her legs, to sit up, but she was immobile below the waist.

  “Stop wiggling.”

  She froze, suddenly aware of a heart beating directly beneath hers, the male voice coming from just north of her ear.

  “Will?” Why was she lying on top of him? Why couldn’t she move?

  Then it finally came back to her. She had recognized the grenade right away. Military issue, the same type the army bought by the gross. When it hit the floor of the exit room, she hadn’t stopped to think. She’d plowed into Will and knocked him on his back, away from the grenade. Then it blew.

  “Are you OK?” He ran his hands along her back, and she flinched at the pain of his probing fingers on her skin—her shirt must have been in tatters. “Damn it. I think some kind of projectiles came out of that thing and hit you in the back. Your skin must have healed over them during daysleep. I have one on my face.”

  She returned her head to rest on his chest, letting his hands stroke her hair. “Don’t feel any here,” he said. “Are you in pain?”

  “Not too bad. How much trouble are we in? I can’t move my legs.”

  “Me either. I think we’re pinned. And I can’t even feel my left foot.” Will coughed, and Randa felt another feathery touch on her face. “Concrete dust and dirt keeps sifting down. We have to be in some kind of air pocket—I’m afraid if we try to pull free, it’ll bring everything down on top of us.” He shifted his upper body slightly, causing another shower of dust. “Don’t guess you have a cell phone on you?”

  “Planning to call nine-one-one?” She regretted the words before they were out of her mouth. She had to stop being su
ch a smart-ass. If she lived through this, nicer would be her goal. “Sorry. Being bitchy is a habit I’m trying to break.”

  “It’s hard to stop something when you’re so damned good at it.”

  She bit back a retort, then realized he was laughing. His upper body shook with it. An embarrassing giggle-snort escaped her before she could stop it, which made him laugh harder. She fought to control the giggles. They were both on the verge of hysteria, just happy to be alive, but if they didn’t quit laughing, the whole damned tunnel was going to bury them. “I think my phone’s in my pocket—why?”

  “You got a flashlight app on it?” Smart man. Randa tried to move her right arm, but it was pinned beneath Will’s body. She was afraid to reposition enough to retrieve it. “It’s in my right pocket, and my right arm’s pinned.”

  “Let me try.” His left hand was warm as it slid slowly down her side and eased between their bodies. Fingers explored the waistband of her pants and slid straight down with a pressure that sped her heart rate. Her left hand was free, and she pinched his side. Hard. “Watch it, buddy. My pocket isn’t over my…crotch.”

  “Sorry.” Will’s voice didn’t sound the least bit sorry. In fact, it sounded as if he might start laughing again. “I was afraid it might be my only chance to get my hand in your pants.”

  “Just get the damned phone.” She ground the words through her teeth, thinking of mountains of dirt over their heads, whether they could run out of air, anything except Will’s wandering fingers and how this was not the time to flirt.

  His hand found the opening to her pocket and slid inside, scrambling for the phone. Finally, he pulled it out. “Where’s the power button? Oh, never mind. Found it.”

  The little screen cast a greenish light over Will’s face, and Randa gasped. His left cheek was red and swollen where a projectile had hit him and he’d healed over it. Her back probably looked the same way.

  He was frowning at the screen, punching buttons. “You have it password protected?”