The Culling (Book 2): The Hollow:

by Bell, A. C.

  Once I was secured in the chair, the door opened. A lab tech rolled a metal tray into the room and stationed it beside me.

  “What are you going to do to me?” I demanded.

  Her blue-green eyes flicked to mine, all I could see of her face through the sanitary mask and bulky hair net. “I’m not going to do anything. He is.” She nudged her head to the door and another figure entered. His dark eyes met mine beneath a copse of brown curls that had grown shaggier since the last time I’d seen him. He was also wearing regular jeans and a tee rather than the prison garb he was supposed to be wearing. My heart began to beat hard like the pounding of a war drum.

  “Hello, Adeline,” Ian said.

  Ian

  Anticosti Island, tucked in the Gulf of Lawrence east of Quebec, had a population of just under 300. Its tourist population, however, was apparently over ten times that.

  “The island has an abundance of wildlife, so it gets between 3000 and 4000 tourist hunters a year, so any mention of actual Hunters goes unnoticed,” Wynona explained. Just as with the rest of her, there was something wrong with her voice. It almost seemed to echo as if two people were speaking at once.

  "That’s brilliant," Slade admitted begrudgingly.

  “We’ll dock soon, near the cabin of one of my employer’s contacts.” With that, she turned to the stairs and headed up on deck.

  After a moment, Peter slid an uncomfortable glance to Slade, who sat at a nailed down table eating a ham and cheese sandwich. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked.

  Slade scoffed and finished—with no haste—chewing and swallowing his bite before answering. “I’m surprised a no-it-all like you can’t tell. Though, they’re rare, I’ll grant you that.”

  Peter grumbled in his throat. “What are rare?”

  “She’s fused with demon, Peter,” He said with a roll of his eyes. “Don’t be rude about it, either. She’s helping us.”

  Peter straightened against the wall of the cabin. Fused with a demon. Not possessed by, fused with. As in, by choice. Demons were rare indeed. The last demonic possession he remembered hearing about was some German general in World War II. What common goal could this woman have with a demon that would lead her to let it inhabit her body willingly? Could they even trust her? What if she was leading them into a trap?

  After another hour and a half, they pulled up to a rickety dock along a narrow strip of beach. A crotchety looking man in a windbreaker clomped across the dock toward them. His crooked nose had obviously been broken sometime in the past. His beady black eyes searched through their group.

  “Is one of you Wynona?” He asked.

  “Me. Joe Hewitt?”

  “That’s me,” he grumbled. The wind shifted and Peter caught a whiff of the man’s scent. He smelled like one of Renenet’s Dryads. Made sense. He’d come out here to live by himself away from people and closer to nature.

  “Where is she?”

  “Already stalked off to the compound to do some spying.”

  “Who-”

  “Sh!” Wynona hushed Peter harshly before he could say more. She then hopped from the boat onto the dock. Peter looked pointedly at Slade, who shrugged.

  “Deal with it.” Slade hopped after her and trailed the grumpy pair down the dock.

  “What are we looking for?” Wyatt asked no one in particular as he slid down into the little gully they were now following. He’d at least had the sense to wear sneakers rather than his usual fancy lawyer type shoes, Peter mused. Wynona and Joe were staying ahead of the group, both used to such treks. Peter was, too, but he wasn’t about to leave Nikki behind, who seemed to be having trouble going uphill so much. Athletics had never been her thing.

  “The compound is hidden beneath a fresh water bottling plant,” Slade explained breathlessly.

  The group trudged noisily up the gully until it reached the top of the hill where Wynona and Joe were waiting. The land started going downhill again here and the tree line broke, giving view of an expansive lake that reflected the grey weeping sky above. The cover of tall evergreens must have kept the rain off of them. More importantly, Peter could see the bottling factory.

  “This is as far as I go. Good luck,” Joe said. He tramped past them back toward his home.

  Slade sent a glare to Wynona as he pulled air heavily into his lungs. “How...do we…get in?” he asked between gasps of air. He was probably regretting all those years of smoking at the moment.

  She turned an ember eye toward them, glowing beneath the hood that provided more shadow than it should. “By force.”

  ***

  I felt my blood rushing in my ears as my heart continued to pound like a timpani drum. There was only one reason they would bring him here; He would try to “cure” me as he’d tried to do before. This was Amelia’s way of getting revenge for what I’d done to Lantz. Take away what I considered a blessing because she believed it was evil; Take away my power so I couldn’t fight her and use Ian to do it so it would hurt even more.

  Ian stepped closer, slowly. His blue eyes moved briefly down to my bra and then flicked back to my face as his own flushed red. I was brought back to the night when he’d abducted me, as I’d knelt over him with a knife after finally getting free. After everything he’d done, he’d tried to tell me he loved me. Now, I shrank back against my restraints, uncomfortable at having him near me while I was so vulnerable, while wearing so little. Every hair on my body stood on end.

  He seemed to pick up on my unease and busied himself with the tray parked beside me. “They brought me to continue where I left off, for a second chance. They’ve been working on my formula, so they say. I have my own theory about why it didn’t work.”

  I took a deep breath and fought hard not to roll my eyes. Not this nonsense again.

  “Your vampire half is Viesci. They’re born, not infected. It’s not a virus, so the serum can’t fight it. They have theories on how to work around it, but I have doubts. They want you to be their guinea pig.” He drew some of the solution into a syringe and stepped closer. My gaze became fixed on the syringe. Memory of the unbelievable pain the serum had caused last time as it fought to “sterilize” my vampire blood. And now he was going to do it again, even though he all but knew it wouldn’t work. Would it kill me this time? Fear seized me and, despite myself, I clamped my eyes shut.

  “Adeline,” he muttered quietly. I stubbornly refused to open my eyes. When I didn’t, he sighed and continued at near a whisper. “If nothing else, I can promise you one thing. I will never hurt you again.” This startled me enough to look up. His brown eyes held steady. “Raiden is in the infirmary closest to Amelia’s office. I was told someone will meet you there.”

  With a flick of his wrist, he shorted the collar around my neck with an electric shock and then spun to the window and threw up a magical barrier, wall to wall and ceiling to floor, just in time for the window to shatter as Amelia tried to leap through. I turned metal with a surge of adrenaline that made my whole body shake and snapped my restraints. Ian spun to the left wall as Amelia pounded against his barrier. He threw up another and waited. Thirty agonizingly long seconds later, the wall exploded and nearly gave me a heart attack. I turned away from the glare and shielded my ears as best I could, feeling the floor rumble beneath my steel feet.

  Once the clamor and rubble settled, Ian dropped the barrier and pulled something from his pocket and handed it to me. It was an ID card. Michelle’s ID card. I slipped it into my sports bra and sprinted for the gaping wall without needing to be told and was about to hop through until I realized he wasn’t following. I spun and ushered him over. “Come on!”

  Sadness and fear contorted his features and he shook his head. “I’ll hold her off.”

  “She’ll kill you!”

  “Even if I survive this, I’ll just go back in a cell. Go!”

  He threw his hand out and shoved me back before I could continue arguing, but since I was so heavy, I only fell out the hole instead of flying out as he�
��d probably intended. I landed on my back just outside the mouth of the wall, the tiles beneath me crunching into a puzzle that would take eons to solve. He put up another barrier to keep me out. Our eyes locked through the haze of smoke. A maelstrom of emotions struck me; grief, gratitude, fear for his life, all mingled with the lingering feelings of resentment and even hatred. I didn’t have time to sort through them.

  Rubble from the wall was crushed beneath my weight as I sprinted for the door of the room, which had apparently been evacuated. Michelle’s ID let me out and I sprinted right down the hallway. Three guards rounded a corner to head me off. I quickened my advance, feeling tiles crunch beneath my heavy feet. Two of the men drew their pistols and fired. My adrenaline spiked as the first shot hit its mark. It felt like the pressure from the pellet of a paintball gun, but without the pain. I felt a rush of exhilaration as it and the next bullets deflected off of me. They stopped firing and followed the lead of the other guard, who had withdrawn a baton, but it was too late.

  I was upon them. I ducked under a clumsy, hasty swing and back handed the man to avoid using too much strength. He went slack and crumpled. I prayed that he was alive and barely grabbed the wrist of the next guy before his electric baton met my ribs. I grabbed a fistful of his bulletproof armor and slammed him into the wall, snatching the baton as his grip loosened. The next man was standing back, assessing his best attack instead of rushing in like has comrades. We brandished our weapons and as I stepped to make my move, arms wove around me from behind. Surprise halted me and I looked down at the second man’s arms, tight around my waist.

  “Do it now! I’ve got her!” He said over my shoulder.

  The other guy lowered his weapon and shook his head in exasperation. I smirked. An expletive escaped my captor as I dropped my dead weight and he realized how heavy I was. As I lay flat on my back, I reached up and grabbed his still outstretched wrists and swung my legs up. I swung him over me with his chest propped on my feet and propelled him at his ally. They landed in a heap. I launched to my feet and snatched my discarded baton as I ran around them. Around the corner, I found myself in the carpeted area. Amelia’s office was somewhere close.

  Another explosion somewhere up above startled me and I screeched to a halt. My momentum made me stumble into a wall as I was rounding another corner and I broke through a layer of plaster before catching myself. At the next corner, I peeked around carefully. Amelia’s office was in the middle. About fifteen feet further down from her double doors was another door. Possibly the infirmary? Guards were running the opposite direction toward the elevator. Only one remained outside. Easy-peasy. I listened until I heard the ding of the elevator chime out in the quiet atmosphere and then waited fifteen seconds to give them time to get in and the doors to close, then I made my move. The guard hesitated when I sprinted around the corner.

  “Ma’am?” He questioned, mistaking me for Amelia in my metal form.

  Too late, he reached for his baton. It was easy to hold his armed hand away and I pressed my own baton against his neck. I hit the button to turn it on and he went rigid as electricity pulsed through his system. His mouth opened wide in a scream that couldn’t come out. I released him and he collapsed. Rather than leave him with a weapon, I unstrapped the utility belt from his waist and tightened it around my own. The now unguarded room was, of course, locked, so I swiped Michelle’s card and tugged it open. What I found inside was not what I expected.

  One of the infirmary beds was turned over and a body in doctor’s clothing lay face down on the floor in a pool of blood. Lantz, rabid and raving, was crouched over Raiden mere feet away from it, throttling him.

  “Where’s your tough girlfriend, now?”

  “Right here,” I spat.

  Having been too preoccupied to notice my entrance, both quickly looked my way, startled. Lantz livid eyes turned crazed and his muzzle, covered in the doctor’s blood, pulled back in a snarl. My stomach twisted. Raiden grabbed the hands that were still around his throat and began stealing Lantz’s energy. For good measure, I pulled the tranq pistol from my new belt and shot him. Weariness slumped the lamia’s shoulders and Raiden rolled him over to discard him.

  Emotion tightened my chest and my vision swam as I watched him rise to his feet on weak knees. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to scream at him or cry. His green eyes found mine and I found myself unable to do either. He looked so much better now, but how? Hemway hadn’t been able to heal him with sorcery, so no one here should have been able to, either.

  “I thought your magic couldn’t heal you?”

  “If I take energy and don’t give it back, it speeds up the rate that I heal like a werewolf. I’ve been stealing energy from the doctors. It’s not something I like to do, but—”

  “So even when you told me the truth about your powers you were still lying. You also told me you weren’t able to heal a fatal wound. Did you know what would happen?” He didn’t answer, his green eyes flicking down. My face heated in anger and I turned on my heel to stomp away.

  “Wait.”

  “No.”

  He hurried in front of me and I marched around him to the door. He snatched my hand. “I wasn’t gonna let you die!”

  Tears threatened to fall again. Finally, I stopped and turned to face him. He took a step closer and I stepped back, though I didn’t pull my hand away. I fought hard to keep my emotions down, telling myself I was going to argue my point logically. It didn’t stop my throat from tightening. “You can heal people, Raiden. All I can do is turn into metal. How is my life worth losing yours?”

  He tried stepping closer again, but again I stepped away. “Adeline, I—”

  “You already have and can do so much more good that I can ever hope to. How could you jeopardize something that wonderful by risking your life for mine?” I knew what he would say, but he needed to know how I felt about this. I was losing my fight not to cry. Fear of almost losing him and anger at his recklessness was overwhelming enough, but my mind kept flashing back to the moment when he had coughed up blood and I'd realized what he’d done to himself in order to save me. Even now, with him standing right in front of me, perfectly fine, thinking about that moment made it impossible to breathe.

  Raiden shook his head in disbelief at my unwillingness to see the answer. “Because that’s what you do when you love someone.”

  I felt myself turning back to normal as my tears fell. My anger deflated, replaced instead by guilt, shock, and warmth. Seeing my shield go down, Raiden moved forward again. His warmth enveloped me as he held me close and I gripped him tight.

  Another explosion reverberated the walls. This one was much closer from up above. The lights flickered off and a line of emergency lights came on along the edges of the floor. Goosebumps rose on my skin as I was reminded of the wendigo.

  “What’s going on?” Raiden asked.

  “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”

  I put my shield back up and we crept into the hall with Raiden securely behind me. A figure swept around the corner and the three of us froze.

  “Adeline? Raiden?” It was Michelle. Raiden’s fingers wrapped around my arm and tugged me backwards for us to retreat. “Wait!” She cried out. She hurried toward us and I pulled the pistol from my belt.

  “Stay there,” I warned.

  She held her hands up to show us she was unarmed. “I’m working with Rurik Tanikov.”

  Raiden balked. “How is telling us that you’re working with the man responsible for the Viesci massacre supposed to make us trust you?”

  “He didn’t do it! All he’s ever done is try to protect me. He’s my father. Adeline knows I’m telling the truth, don’t you Adeline? He came to you in a dream.”

  I gasped. “He meant you? But…how?” I looked between her and Raiden. His face had gone slack. “How can you be Rurik’s daughter if you’re Raiden’s sister?”

  She muttered something and a light sprang to life in her hand, letting us see her better. She could use magic. Rurik
was already a dhampir, but he hadn’t said who he’d fallen in love with. A sorceress. She wove her hand in front of her face and her features started to shimmer as a glimmer spell was removed. Her dark brown hair lightened to blond and her features shifted; Her eyes grew dark and further apart, her lips became thin. “I had to disguise myself, join someone else’s family to hide. I moved from family to family for a few hundred years. At least, until the night we were attacked.”

  “You were never my sister,” Raiden whispered.

  She frowned and her lip gave a wobble. Another wave of her hand put the glimmer back into place. Unlike the spell I’d seen Ian use, knowing this wasn’t how she really looked didn’t break the spell, so it was either a different one or she was just more powerful. “Not by blood, but I always cared about you as if you were my brother. I stayed there the longest.”

  His mouth contorted in rage, his brows furrowing together furiously. He pointed an accusatory finger at her. “You sold me out!”

  “I told Amelia about your magic so she wouldn’t just kill you for being in the way. I didn’t know she would feed you to the wendigo to prove it.”

  “You didn’t exactly trip on your feet to help us get out of there, either,” Raiden snapped.

  I grimaced. “I hate to interrupt, but we probably shouldn’t be standing here.”

  “You’re right. The others are coming down the hanger. Come with me.” Michelle gave us a wide berth, heading for Amelia’s office.

  I looked at Raiden, difficult to see in the dim light now that she had taken her light with her. I found his warm arm in the dark and gave what I hoped was a comforting squeeze. “Are you okay?”

  His breath shuddered out, still filled with anger. “I’ll deal with it later. Let’s go.”

  ***

  Peter stalked ahead of the others, waving them closer when the coast was clear. Did no one find it odd that a bottling plant had such a high security presence? Their group was sneaking around the perimeter of the factory building to find their way in. Peter winced when Slade tripped on something and crashed into a dried shrubbery, followed by a string of whispered obscenities.