The Culling (Book 2): The Hollow:

by Bell, A. C.

  She snapped into action and moved to his other side and looped her arms beneath his knees and back and lifted him up. “Take care of Lantz and her,” she spat to her team as she carried Raiden past. A few scientists moved toward me and one sputtered an incantation. He jabbed his hand toward me and everything went dark again.

  ***

  Peter watched Nikki by the window, restlessly pacing a cavity into the floor and gnawing on her index finger. Her breathing, fast and on the verge of hyperventilation, hadn’t slowed in fifteen minutes. He ached to go over, to comfort her, but she’d waved him away before. He tried not to take it personally. She was terrified, just like he was, and no number of hugs from him would fix that. He didn’t think she would be able to catch her breath until Adeline was home and safe. Slade wasn’t in any better condition, glaring at the table in front of him as if he could burn a portal into it that would take him to where his best friend, his favorite great-whatever niece, and his estranged wife were being held.

  None of them could figure out what to do. There was no one they could go to for answers, not if the SAU and Magisterium really were involved in all of this as Adeline claimed. Nikki had reached out to Marcus, but she hadn’t been able to reach him. Worg was “searching the universe” or whatever for Kendra and Raiden since he wouldn’t be able to lock onto Adeline, but the only thing he could tell them was that they had been taken far away and were in danger. Useless. They’d all been sitting there for hours and hours, with no one left to turn to.

  Abruptly, Slade’s phone began to ring. Due to the high-strung nerves in the room, everyone jumped. Upon seeing who was calling, Slade took a deep breath as if to maintain patience. He answered and put it on speaker.

  “Wyatt.”

  “Are they really missing?”

  “Yes. I tried to call you,” Slade barked. Peter cringed. There was no reason to be mean to the guy. It was 4:30 in the morning, so he’d likely been asleep until now. Suddenly, Slade paused, looking confused. “Wait, your voice box was full. How do you know they’re missing?”

  “I just had the weirdest dream. I’ve been instructed to bring you all to my boat and give you a ride to Anticosti Island.”

  Nikki’s pretty face scrunched. “Where’s that?”

  “Canada,” Slade and Peter both answered.

  “Someone will be waiting at the docks to give us directions, or so I’ve been told.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Nikki made a beeline for the door. Slade and Peter kicked their brains back into gear and followed.

  A few hours later, the address Wyatt had given them led them to a boat house on the southern coast of Maine. The leather of Slade’s jacket rubbed loudly against the leather driver’s seat as he turned to grunt back to Peter and Nikki in the backseat to announce their arrival. Peter stirred from his fitful sleep and peered out his window. The house was modest, though well taken care of, and was perched near the edge of a rocky bank that cascaded down to the salty ocean. Wyatt was stepping out the front door as they pulled up and he waved for them to follow as he dashed around the corner of the house. Slade barely even parked before he turned off the ignition and jumped out. Peter turned to wake Nikki only to see that she was awake. Her bloodshot eyes were drooping, but she peeled her eyes away from the window and undid her seatbelt. Worry festered in Peter’s gut.

  The smell of the ocean hit him like a wave outside the car and he resorted to breathing through his mouth to dim the fishy stench. He could still taste it, though. He kept an eye on Nikki as they followed Slade and Wyatt around the side of the house, careful to make sure she didn’t fall off the dock as her shoes dragged sleepily across the planks. Around the back of the house, they found a salt stained wooden staircase winding down to the beach and, more importantly, a dock and a sailboat with an enclosed cabin. A figure cloaked in white marched down the dock toward Wyatt and Slade. The hood of her coat somehow stayed in place on her head even though the wind blew harsh and bitter. It was the woman he’d seen at the Festival of Light with Raiden’s sister.

  Even Peter couldn’t hear what they said as the heavy wind carried their voices to the south. He and Nikki hurried to catch up and he finally asked the question that had been bothering him. “How are we going to sail into Canadian waters without someone detecting us? The Hunters have to have connections,” he shouted over the wind.

  Wyatt’s crisp blue eyes turned to him and he gave a reassuring smile, ever the optimist. “It’s enchanted. They won’t even know we’re there.”

  Peter was about to point out that enchanting a boat to keep it off of others’ radar was illegal, but kept his big mouth shut.

  “We need to get going!” Slade hollered, heading for the boat.

  Wyatt was able to man the boat by himself, so the rest of them hunkered in the cabin where it was relatively warm. Slade immediately sprawled out on the floor to try and get some sleep and Peter ushered Nikki over to the twin-sized bed for her to do the same. It also moved them farther away from the strange woman. Now that they were in an enclosed space, her scent filled the cabin. Something about her smelled wrong. She was human, there was no mistaking that, but there was something else in her, too, something that set his teeth on edge. There was also the fact that her eyes seemed to glow like fire and looked like they could set you ablaze with a glance, though nothing was doing so.

  Peter sat beside Nikki on the bed and rubbed her back. “It’ll take a few days to get there. You need to sleep.”

  “I know,” she said exhaustedly. “I just…I can’t stop thinking about what they might be doing to her.”

  He frowned down at his lap. “Yeah.” But Adeline was strong. Whatever they could throw at her, she could take. Right? Nikki sniffled, pulling Peter out of his worries. Focusing on helping her with hers was easier than dealing with his own. He drew her to him and she clutched him tight, burying her face in his chest.

  “It’ll be okay.” He hoped.

  ***

  I came to in a dim room, curled up on a cold concrete floor. Chilled air roused goosebumps all over my skin, which I realized was bare except for my sports bra and underwear. Was it to make me uncomfortable or to see if I tried to turn metal? Strange panels dotted with little metal nodules stretched across the floor around me. I pushed up to my elbow to look around and something heavy tried to tug my neck back down. A thick chain reached up to wrap around my neck, padlocked shut. It was meant to humiliate me, I realized, to imply that I was a rabid animal. I trailed it to where it connected to the floor, in the section of odd flooring that surrounded me. It left only a three-by-three square of concrete in the middle where I lie. No one needed to tell me not to touch them, but a voice spoke through a speaker on the wall, anyway.

  “The floor around you is rigged,” the man said. Beside the speaker was a one-way window where he was obviously hiding. Without warning, the floor sparked to life. Electricity ran through the chain. I screamed in pain and surprise as the white-hot volts seared my neck and seemed to fill my body. It was only a brief shock, but it confirmed what the panels were for.

  “If you try to leave the safe zone, I will shock you. If you turn metal, I will shock you. If you try to break the chain, I will shock you. If you so much as look at me sideways, I will shock you.”

  “I can’t even see you, you—”

  I was interrupted by another shock, though I’d expected it this time. Not that it made it hurt any less. I gritted my teeth, refusing to scream. A sigh of relief escaped me when it was over. My new friend was quiet after that, so I looked around the room again. I sat up, using what extra strength I could muster to keep the chain from being uncomfortably heavy. My cell was roughly twenty by twenty with concrete walls and ceiling. A door sat below the left corner of the windows and a stretch of regular concrete flooring lined the wall. Even if I did manage to break my chain without being incapacitated by my overseer, I wouldn’t be able to jump the eighteen feet to reach the clear patch with only a three-foot running start. The door, a regul
ar wooden one, was probably meant to mock me. For the time being, it seemed I was staying put.

  Aside from counting the seconds, I had no way of keeping track of how long I sat there. Eventually, I got drowsy again, but my worries kept me from getting back to sleep, so I huddled there and let them gnaw at me. Was Raiden okay? What had happened to Kendra? How were we ever going to get out of here? I got to ponder these questions for hours

  Eventually, the door in the corner opened. Amelia stepped inside, her face passive. She paced the path below the windows, silent except for the obnoxious clicking of her heels echoing around us. The sound tapped at my patience for five minutes, each one whittling it down. Finally, it wore out and I opened my mouth to snap something at her, then realized that was probably what she wanted. I sucked whatever I’d been about to say back into my throat.

  A smile tugged at her cheek. After a few more moments, she finally spoke. “This cell was built for me, in the event that something corrupts me to the side of evil,” she explained. I didn’t respond. After a few minutes, she switched to a new topic. “I’ve often wondered what I would say to the wretch who started all of this. Or the cowardly woman who fell for his charm. Did they even care what their vile union would do to us?”

  Xavier. She meant Xavier. “From everything I’ve read about your grandfather, he wasn’t that charming. She fell for him for who he was.”

  “He was not my grandfather,” She snapped. “Blood does not signify family. The only thing we inherited from our ‘family’ makes us monsters. Why can’t you or my stubborn father see that?”

  I glared. “Being a dhampir isn’t what makes you a monster. You did that all on your own.”

  “And what about what you did? Lantz survived, you know. Your assault failed. And now he’ll get to spend the rest of eternity cleansing the stain you've forced onto his soul by helping me snuff out vermin like you.”

  She expected this to make me angry. It didn’t. An eternity, she’d said. Only one type of supernatural gained immortality. I’d infected him with the lamian virus. Even though my form of vampirism wasn’t contagious, I’d managed to turn my most loathed enemy into a vampire with two cliché pricks to the neck. Oh the irony. How I savored the look on her face when a cynical laugh bubbled out of me. Oh, it was priceless. I stopped laughing and took in a deep, satisfactory sigh. “Then he gets to become one of the things he hates so much. I’d call that a win.”

  Hatred, cold and angry, darkened Amelia’s features. “You’re the same as the rest of them.”

  A flash of rage struck me, so strong that my hands shook. “He killed my parents!” I shrieked, not caring how rabid I must look and how it probably reinforced her racist preconceptions. “Nothing I do to him will ever be that despicable, but at least this was close.” Not wanting to look at her anymore, I turned around to face the wall, my chain dragging loudly across the floor.

  “You’re very concerned with family, so I should tell you; That thing we found you with—”

  “Kendra. Her name is Kendra.”

  “Right. She’s been disposed of. Now that we know the nature of your relationship with the boy, we didn’t need her as leverage anymore.”

  I balked in horror, but didn’t dare turn back around to give her the satisfaction of seeing my face. What if she was lying? What if she wasn’t? After a minute of not getting a reaction out of me, her heels click-clacked over to the door and she left me alone with my thoughts. Only two thoughts rattled around my brain, however, one of which weighing me down until I felt as if even my superhuman strength would never be able to lift me off the floor. If they were using Raiden as leverage to keep me in line, that meant he’d survived. But Kendra…

  What would I tell Slade?

  ***

  How much time had passed, I couldn’t tell. Days at least. A week, maybe. I’d been given sparse offerings of water, but no food. I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of complaining, despite how my stomach clenched painfully. I lay curled on my side, facing away from the window for whatever privacy I could get, not that anyone working here would ever ogle a demon’s spawn, even in a bra and underwear.

  The slamming of the door jolted me out of my misery. I remembered at the last moment to be careful where I touched the floor and folded myself into a ball as I sat up. Expectantly, I found Amelia in the room with me, but the second face brought me to a halt. No…not another betrayal. Marcus wore a long black coat over a suit that somehow added to his air of “modern sorcerer”. His hazel eyes found mine without hesitation, no regret. I glowered but suddenly remembered how I was dressed and pulled my knees to my chest, uncomfortable. He looked away, very briefly, and frowned.

  Amelia gestured an arm in his direction like a hostess introducing guests. “I believe you’ve met Marcus. He’s visiting from the Magisterium to see how things are going.” Whatever else she said, I didn’t hear, and not because I was ignoring her for once. Marcus’s voice filled my mind as Mercer had done.

  Don’t panic. I’m working with a man named Rurik Tanikov. He needed an inside man in the high ranks of the Magisterium.

  If he had used any other name, I probably wouldn’t have believed him, but who would use an accused mass murderer to ingratiate themselves to someone unless they knew something everyone else didn’t? I kept the anger on my face to keep his cover, not difficult to in my cage.

  Marcus clasped his hands behind his back and frowned down at me, as if he were my father and had caught me doing something I ought not to be doing. “You disappoint me, Adeline. When they told me you’d been caught, I assured them you’d be on our side. You’re making me look bad.” Good girl, he whispered in my mind.

  I glowered, not entirely faking. Being as that I wasn’t a labrador, I hated it when older men called me a “good girl”. “Why on Earth would you think that? I’ve had more trouble from your kind than mine.”

  Amelia smirked and dipped her head to hide it with her hair.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Nothing,” was her only response.

  Anger boiled in my chest.

  Don’t worry about her. Marcus shifted to draw my attention back to him. “Your attempt at escape was a failure, one we will learn from.” You were brilliant, but outmatched. Hold tight, help is on the way.

  “That’s enough chatter,” Amelia chimed in. “You asked to see the prisoner and now you have. Report what you must to your superiors.”

  With that, a guard opened the door from the outside to lead Marcus out. I was about to remind you to stay strong, but then I remembered who I’m talking to.

  A surge of confidence straightened my back, as had undoubtedly been his intention.

  Amelia made no move to follow them out and waited until the door was shut before she spoke. “With how many important people you know, you could have done very well for yourself. It’s a shame.”

  I ignored the insult. “How is Raiden?”

  “Alive. He’s far too valuable, at least until we can learn to replicate what he can do.”

  “It happened the night he and Michelle were turned by lamia. You’re not worried that it’ll taint you, being that it somehow came from them?” I was careful to leave as much bitterness in my inflection as possible.

  “We use what we can get our hands on.”

  “Why did you let him save me?”

  “Don’t fool yourself into thinking it was out of some misguided sense of loyalty. Under any other circumstances I would have let you bleed out in that hallway for what you did. I wanted to see if he could heal the recently deceased. Apparently yes, but with dire consequences.”

  “Is there a particular reason you came to see me?”

  “I brought someone to see you. Someone else, I mean.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Who?”

  “Another old friend,” she answered ambiguously.

  As if this were a cue, a pair of security guards entered. One removed the chain from my neck—an instant relief. I hadn’t realized how uncomfor
table it had become, even with my strength—and the other hooked a remote shock collar in its place. The butt of a baton was jabbed into my spine to urge me to my feet. Lack of food made my legs wobble and the delay earned me a harder beating. I gritted my teeth and picked up pace as I trailed Amelia from the room. Our little “envoy” didn’t go far, only a few rooms down.

  One of my guards opened a door and I was shoved into a small, brightly lit room. The only thing inside was a roughly human-shaped table with straps, standing nearly vertical. I didn’t have to be told that they chair was for me, and that whatever they had in mind would not be pleasant. No one came in to strap me to it, however, and the door shut and locked behind me. Another observation window covered the span of the wall the table was facing.

  I stood there awkwardly in my grey sports bra and underwear, feeling goosebumps rise all over my skin, only partly from the chilly air being pumped into the room. I tried to calm my nerves by closing my eyes and focusing on the sterile scent of the room and the cold tile floor beneath my feet, gripping it firmly with my toes. I crossed my arms, clutching my elbows and feeling the cool dry skin against my narrow fingers. Keeping my thoughts on physical elements only urged my stomach to resume its chorus of painful complaints to remind me that it was empty. The silence grew unbearable and I turned to the window.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  A familiar, but unwelcome feeling took the air from my lungs as an invisible force wrenched me from my feet and shoved me against the table. A dozen thick leather straps slid across my body like a pit of snakes and fitted themselves tightly around my arms, legs, waist, and chest. I breathed quickly as panic set in, made worse by the realization that my hands were starting to turn metal. If anyone behind the glass noticed, I’d get another nasty shock.