“What’s that for?” Erin demanded, but the words came out slurred.
“Just a little something to keep you calm.”
Alarm bells rang out. If they were concerned about her being calm, she was definitely in trouble. She tried to struggle, but she found she was already too uncoordinated and woozy to even give them much of a challenge.
Supporting her between them, the two men escorted her to the elevator and took her up one level. Despite the drug, Erin felt her alarm escalate. The holding cell where she was imprisoned was in the lowest level of the facility. She hadn’t been above that level since she’d arrived.
Had they caught another Lycan? Caught Jesse? Was she to be used to extract more specimens?
She supposed she should have been at least a little relieved when she saw this was not the case. She wasn’t. Although the room they took her to didn’t appear the least bit extraordinary, she knew them well enough by now to know better than to think it was a simple examination room or that they had nothing more diabolical in mind than a physical to determine her health.
That suspicion was borne up by the fact that the guards immediately dragged her to the examination table in the center of the room. Lifting her off her feet, they placed her on the cold hard surface and held her down despite her attempts to pull free while a medical assistant wearing a putrid green lab coat proceeded to strap first her arms and then her ankles.
“What’re you doing? What’s happening?”
Neither the guards nor the lab assistant answered her. The door opened at just that moment, however, and she turned to see who’d come in.
Dr. Wagner curled his lips in a smile she supposed was to reassure her, though there was no warmth in it. His eyes looked as cold and reptilian as gator eyes.
It was the first time she’d seen him since she’d been recaptured and she felt ill with the hate that welled inside her, sick with the power of her desire to tear him limb from limb.
“Bastard!” she snarled at him, balling her hands into fists and straining against the straps as he made his way to the foot of the examination table and looked her and the situation over.
Dismissing the guards with a jerk of his head, he focused his attention on his lab assistant. “No. No. No. We need her feet in the stirrups for the procedure, Johnson,” he said, stepping back to watch the technician critically as the man did as told and glancing at the guards by the door disapprovingly several times.
Obviously, he didn’t appreciate having the guards inside his lab and just as evidently he knew it was useless to demand that they leave the room.
“Where’s my baby? Where’s Joshua?” Erin demanded, her voice a shrill scream now with fury that Wagner behaved as if she was a piece of the furniture.
He sent her a look of surprise and finally frowned thoughtfully. “Joshua. Hmmm, that has a nice ring to it. I’ll pass it along. They can put it in his records. I can’t guarantee they’ll use it, of course. I’m fairly certain, considering what they have in mind for HL001, that they’ll probably prefer just to use the clinical designation, but they may not want to completely dehumanize him.”
A mixture of horror and relief collided inside Erin at his calm announcement--relief to at least discover that he was alive--horror to realize what they had in mind for him, for despite the wild thoughts that had plagued her since they’d taken him from her, she hadn’t truly accepted that they could, and would, behave with such a complete disregard for human life.
“Jesse will kill you,” she managed to say, though she couldn’t deliver it with the fury she felt roiling inside of her.
His brows rose and then came together in a frown. She saw he was trying to place the name and her heart sank. “Jesse? The Lycan we had before?”
He was astonished, she realized. He must have thought that Jesse was dead--and she’d just given away the fact that Jesse wasn’t. She wasn’t in any condition at the moment to consider the consequences of her revelation, though, and in any case, Wagner stunned her by snickering like a juvenile caught in the act of some malicious prank. “This could be awkward.”
“What are you talking about?” Erin demanded, struggling to lift her head to see what he was doing as he moved to the supply cabinets at the end of the room at her feet and began searching for something.
She saw when he turned at last that he was holding a strange looking syringe. He tapped it with one finger, smiling now with a good deal of pride and excitement. “I’ve a half dozen little Jesses right here.”
Erin stared at the syringe blankly as he set it on a sterile tray and dropped the end of the table where she lay. Fipping her gown back to her waist, it took no more than a few seconds for the answer she was seeking to present itself. “Clones?” she demanded in disbelief as he pulled a rolling stool up and settled on it, his face framed by her spread thighs.
“We hope to get three or four out of the batch,” he responded absently. “The hybrid might work better for us, but we need some pure breeds before we’ll know that, don’t we?”
“Clones! You’re insane!” Erin exclaimed, struggling against the restraints as he picked up antiseptic and began to swab the skin around the mouth of her sex. Frustrated when she couldn’t escape him, she started screaming and cursing him.
Wagner glared at her. “This is a delicate operation. You must be still!”
“I’m not just going to let you do this to me, you fucking lunatic!” Erin screamed, trying to fight off the effects of the sedative they’d given her.
Furious, Wagner shot to his feet abruptly. “I can’t work like this! Johnson, get another syringe and tranquilize her!”
“Don’t you dare come near me with that thing, you son of a bitch!” Erin cried out, twisting her head to watch as the technician moved to the cabinets and began searching the drawer for a syringe and the medication Wagner had ordered.
“What’s that?” the guard demanded abruptly.
It was several moments before Erin realized that the men in the room with her had frozen like deer caught in the crosshairs of a hunter’s rifle, their heads lifted to listen to some distant sound.
Almost the moment Erin quieted to see if she could hear whatever it was that had caught their attention, the alarm began to blare. Her heart jerked painfully at the high pitched sound and then began to race with hopefulness and fear as she heard the sound of distant gunfire.
Chapter Seven
The radios clipped to the guards’ belts set up a squawk of static. “All units, all units. We’re under attack. This is not a drill. Three men down. I say again. Three m--”
The voice cut off abruptly, interrupted by another burst of static. One of the men grabbed the walkie-talkie off his belt and jerked the door open, peering up and down the corridor outside. “This is twelve. Say again.”
Nothing but static greeted him. He turned to stare at Dr. Wagner, as if searching for an answer. “Stay here. Phillips, come with me,” he added. Barely glancing at the other guard to see if he was complying with the order, he strode into the corridor.
“Hold on a minute!” Wagner shouted even as the men dashed out the door. “You can’t leave us unarmed!”
“What should we do?” Johnson demanded anxiously.
Wagner stared at him a long moment. “Nothing,” he responded finally. “I’m sure they’ll have everything under control in a few minutes. Did you get the syringe ready?”
“You want to proceed?” Johnson demanded, obviously outraged that Wagner could even consider going on as if the facility weren’t under attack.
“You’d prefer to cower in one corner?” Wagner snapped. “We’re perfectly safe. We’re three levels below the entrance. The militia will contain the security problem.”
“They won’t!” Erin put in. “It’s Jesse. I told you he said he would come after you, you son of a bitch!” She turned her head toward the door then and began screaming Jesse’s name as loudly as she could, crying for help.
“Shut up!” Wagner glared at her.
“The Lycans are fierce creatures, but he won’t make it past the lobby. Get the syringe, Johnson. Sedate her and gag her. We’ll continue with the implantation.”
Johnson merely stared at Wagner for many moments, as if trying to decide whether it was worth the risk of ignoring Wagner’s order and fleeing. Finally, he seemed to shake himself, his gaze zeroing in on Erin as she continued to shout in the hope that Jesse would hear her and come to her.
Jerkily, he strode toward her and clamped a hand over her mouth, then looked around distractedly for something he could use as a gag. Wagner strode to the supply cabinets and began jerking out one drawer after another. Finally, he turned with a roll of tape in one hand and a small towel in the other and headed for her purposefully.
Struggling, Erin managed to wrench free of Johnson’s hand long enough to utter one last scream for help before Wagner shoved the rolled towel in her mouth and held it tightly while Johnson wound tape around it to hold it in place.
“The sedative now, Johnson,” he said when Johnson had finished securing the gag, “and we’ll just give that a minute to kick in--” Wagner broke off before he’d finished what he’d been about to say as the sound of pounding feet came to them from the corridor beyond the room.
Something slammed into the door hard enough all three of them jumped. Johnson dropped the syringe from suddenly nerveless fingers and whirled to stare at the door. His eyes nearly bulged from his head as he saw the steel door buckle.
Someone screamed as the door suddenly gave way to the pounding against it and nightmarish creatures filled the doorway.
Letting out a bellow of rage, the Lycan in the forefront surged toward Wagner. Gripping him by the throat, he lifted the scientist from the floor. Wagner’s scream of terror was cut off abruptly. Blood surged into his face until his head looked in imminent danger of exploding from the pressure. He clawed at the arm holding him aloft.
A second Lycan surged toward Johnson, swiping a blow at him with bared claws. His scream of terror became a gurgle as he was lifted off his feet by the blow and flung across the room. He hit the wall like a rag doll, his arms and legs limp and dangling uselessly even before impact. The Lycan that had struck him surged toward the supply cabinets at one end of the room. The third Lycan that had entered the examination room had headed directly for the equipment and was occupied with beating it into palm sized pieces.
Erin dragged her gaze from the Lycans moving around her to the one that stood near her feet, slowly squeezing the life out of Wagner. “Jesse?” she asked, her voice muffled by the gag.
The Lycan whipped his head in her direction. After studying her broodingly for a moment, he dropped the limp form he was holding and turned toward her. Her heart managed a little gallop of fear in spite of the sedative she’d been given earlier as one of his great paws settled on her thigh. Grasping the restraint, he snapped it as if it had been no more than a thread and then moved to the next.
Uncertain of whether he meant to kill her or not now that he’d finished with Wagner, Erin began struggling to remove the gag the moment he’d freed one of her hands, hoping she could convince him to set aside their private war until Joshua was safe.
“They’ve got the baby--your son,” she said a little frantically, wondering just how much Jesse really understood when he was in his beast form.
Jesse grasped her jaw brusingly, his eyes seeming to burn a hole in her as he met her gaze. Apparently satisfied, he moved back to Wagner as the man uttered a groan, placing a foot in the center of the scientist’s chest.
“Join the others and make sure every lab is searched, and every specimen destroyed,” he growled at the other two Lycans. “I will have a little talk with Wagner about my son.”
Wagner’s eyelids twitched and then, slowly, his eyes opened and more slowly focused on the beast standing over him. They began to bulge then with fear.
Leaning down, Jesse grasped him by his shoulders and hauled him to his feet. “Today you die, Wagner,” he said in a rumbling growl. “You have two choices, quick and easy, or slow and very painful. Where is my son?”
* * * *
Apparently Wagner was laboring under the mistaken belief that he wouldn’t die if he held onto the information Jesse wanted. Jesse stared down at the unconscious man speculatively for several moments, realizing that the child would be moved the moment word got out about the assault on the lab and, quite possibly, any information he did manage to get out of Wagner would be useless by the time he could test the truth of it. Even if he’d wanted to, though, he couldn’t leave Erin to her own devices. She’d been sedated. She was still conscious, but her reflexes were sluggish and awkward, and in any case he needed to move her to a secure location for his own reasons as well as her safety before he went after the child.
Kneeling, he used the restraints he’d ripped off of Erin to bind the scientist, then dragged him into the corridor and handed the prisoner over to Tavian for further questioning.
Returning for Erin, he scooped her off of the table and left the examination room, following the corridor to the elevator and taking it to the ground level entrance. Even before the doors opened, however, he heard gunfire. The guards had dug in at the entrance. Punching the button again, he went down two levels and got off. The Lycans who’d followed him down the air shaft were still moving from lab to lab destroying the research they could find, but that was their objective. His was to get Erin and the baby, and only that.
“I can walk,” Erin said stiffly.
Jesse slid a glance at her. Without answering, he shifted her onto one shoulder and loped down the corridor in search of the main ventilation shaft. When he’d found it, he settled her on the floor and began pounding at the wall until he’d made a hole large enough to fit through. The fans had only been disabled temporarily and were once more churning, but subterfuge was no longer necessary. Searching for the wires that powered them, he ripped them loose. Instantly, the fan motors died and the lights all over the facility began to flicker.
Lifting Erin again, he hoisted her over his shoulder and began the climb, pausing as he reached the first fan and ripping half the blades out to climb past it. He hesitated when he reached the top, listening, but all of the gun fire seemed to be coming from the entrance. After a moment, he shoved the protective grid from the opening and climbed out.
Almost the moment he emerged a bullet whizzed past him. It was followed in quick succession by a half a dozen more. Launching into a run, he headed for the cover of the trees. A bullet slammed into him before he reached them, punching a cry of pain from him and causing him to stumble. Recovering his balance with an effort, he gritted his teeth and kept going. He didn’t stop until he was certain there was no pursuit.
When he thought it was safe to do so, he paused long enough to check to be certain that Erin hadn’t been hit by a stray bullet and then hoisted her onto his shoulder and headed for the rendezvous.
* * * *
Erin didn’t even realize she’d succumbed to the sedative she’d been given until she roused and discovered that she was no longer moving, at least not in the miserable position she’d been in from the moment she demanded Jesse let her get around on her own steam.
The last thing she remembered was thinking she was going to die when Jesse had climbed into the air shaft with her slung over one shoulder.
Maybe it wasn’t the sedative so much as abject terror that had made her pass out?
She was almost surprised to discover she wasn’t hog tied when she roused enough to look around and discovered she was wedged into the back seat of a Hummer between two Cajuns--the same two, she thought with a mixture of dread and anger, who’d captured her at the old facility and dragged her through the swamp to hand her over to Jesse.
It was night, and except for the pale glow from the instrument panel of the vehicle and the faint light from the moon and stars, the vehicle was dark inside and yet she could discern enough to identify the men on either side of her and Jesse.
J
esse, now once more in human form as the others were, was driving. In the front seat beside him was a man that was a stranger to her but whom she had no doubt was also Lycan.
A noise behind her drew her attention and she turned to discover two more men in the rear of the Hummer--make that three. Wagner, who was hog tied and gagged, was lying between them in the cargo space. The two Lycans were wearing bloodied bandages and had obviously been wounded in the battle.
She didn’t flatter herself that the skirmish that had taken place between the FEDS and the Lycan had been because of her--Jesse had made it clear enough that the focus of the raid was to destroy research about the Lycan--but she still felt guilty to see that they’d had casualties.
The soldiers must have had silver bullets issued, she decided. She’d seen the miraculous healing powers the Lycan had. If they’d been shot with anything else they would’ve healed themselves by now.
Wagner didn’t look as if he was in great shape, but then she was surprised he was even still alive.
She doubted he would be long if the looks his two guards were giving him were any indication of the general attitude toward the man who’d so callously chosen their species for his experiments.
After the brief glance behind her, Erin covered her face with her hands, massaging the throbbing pain in her temples and between her eyes. Her mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton. She swallowed several times, trying to gather moisture into her mouth, realizing it was the after effect of the sedative, as was her swimming, throbbing head.
Something nagged at her. She frowned, trying to focus on what it was.
“They’ve implanted a tracker on me,” she said finally. “Jesse! It’s how they found me before. Wagner’s probably got one, too.”
Jesse glanced at her in the rearview mirror but said nothing.
The man beside him swiveled around in the seat and gave her a once over that made her distinctly uneasy. “Doan you worry about it, chère. We’re goin’ to take good care of you.”
Wolfen Domination Page 9
