by J. T. Hardy
"Move." He booted me in the butt and my whole leg spasmed.
"Hey!"
Kokabiel sighed and turned away, heading toward a dark maw in the side of the rocky hill. He stayed under the tent's shade, skirting around what little sun had finally poked out from behind the heavy clouds. "Carry her if she won't walk."
"I'm moving, I'm moving!" Slowly, sure, but it was good enough for Rocky. I stepped out of the van and made a show of stretching, sneaking in a good look around.
Dad and I had spent two weeks at the Grand Canyon during my, as he called it, "difficult tween year," and the sense of being in a red-striped bowl was the same. A gray-blue sky seemed impossibly high overhead, and striated rock carved from glaciers boxed us in. We'd made it here, but there was no sign of an actual road. All I spotted were ruts in the dirt and a lot of flattened weeds.
A wooden shed poked out of a clump of scrub fifty yards away, a few crates and some random tools beside it--hammers, drills, a jackhammer that needed some serious TLC. The shed was old, but the "Caution-No Smoking" sign tacked to the door looked new.
Red lit up a cigarette and put his feet on the dash.
"Stop stalling," Rocky grumbled.
"Fine, fine!"
I walked with him across the boot-flattened path to the hole in the rock Kokabiel had vanished into. Seven, maybe eight feet high, a bit bigger than half as wide, the wall and edges smooth as though bored by water over millennia. It looked like a natural cave or fissure, yet it opened up inside and curved in an S-shape through the rock. Natural faded to man-made, with clear indications of blasting and digging to create the tunnel.
A good entrance for an evil lair. A terrible barrier to my tracker's signal.
The S-curve dumped us out into an entryway about fifteen feet square, directly in front of a set of double doors, ornately carved and polished so smooth they practically glowed. Candles burned in sconces bolted to the walls, marking a wide hallway that led in both directions maybe a hundred feet. Too dark to see the far ends clearly, but they looked like dead ends on both sides.
"Put her with the others," Kokabiel told Rocky. Then he turned to me. "Until later, Ms. Harper." He bowed his head and continued down the right-hand hallway.
"I reserved a private room!"
The smug bastard didn't even turn around.
Rocky pulled me to the left. At the end of the hall stood a door built for security, not beauty. Heavy steel, good lock, solid hinges. He unlocked it and we turned right into another hallway, narrower, but just as long, with electric lights strung on wires and an alcove fifteen feet ahead on the left. Another security door waited at the far end. Two plain wooden doors sat at the midpoint, also on the left, with one more on the right directly across the hall. A lotta space in this lair.
If Dad were here, I'd ask how many holes you could put in a butte before it crumbled down on your head. Kokabiel had to be pushing it.
We continued walking, passing the alcove, which turned out to be a masterfully carved room. Don't be impressed. But I was. I'd never seen a mountain with a rec room before. It just needed a pool table and an old refrigerator to complete the image. Three TV screens lined one wall, facing a leather L-shaped pit couch in soft cream with dark green throw pillows. Four café-style tables with chairs sat along the far wall, but still within easy view of the TVs.
Pretty Boys did not seem to me like the hang out type.
Two men somewhere in their forties currently occupied the room, neither handsome enough to be a fangel, so maybe this was a reward for the human minions. They sat at one of the café tables with steaming plates of pasta in front of them, and if fate was on my side even a little, they'd splatter marinara all over their white button-downs. A cute galley kitchen peeked out from off the back left wall. In the middle of the wall across from the entrance was another plain door. Bedrooms? Bathrooms? It was too far for a commute, so they had to live here.
They'd need a serious generator and a lot of fuel to power it all. "What's the rent on a place like this?"
Rocky ignored both me and the men and we continued toward the security door. Another lock, another key, another not-so-gentle shove through.
Beyond the door, recycled air hummed in time with the steady click of keys and the clink of glass. So this is what an evil lab looks like. Six faces looked up from their workstations as Rocky kicked the door shut. Hard to tell gender under their lab coats and caps, but Kokabiel looked like an equal opportunity employer as far as diversity went. If you were willing to sacrifice others for a little comfort, you were okay in his book.
"Greetings, evil minions." I waved. No one waved back. No manners at all.
Rocky took me to the closest station and dragged over a stool. "Sit."
I sat.
"Open a new file," he told the tech, a woman pushing sixty if she looked her age. "Preliminary testing."
"Testing for what?" I leaned closer to the screen, but Rocky yanked me back by the shoulder.
The tech slid open a drawer and pulled out a pre-packaged kit for drawing blood. "Hold out your arm."
"I don't think so."
Rocky grabbed my wrist and pinned it to the counter. I struggled until he wrapped the other arm around my neck and shoulders and pinned the rest of me. More effective than a straitjacket.
"That needle better be--"
--a woman holds a newborn babe the size of a toddler. She's pale, but smiling, speaking soft words I don't understand. Her words turn to song, her voice rising and falling with the melody, and I hum along with the notes. The love behind the words is clear, as is the concern. She's scared for the baby, scared for--
"All done," the tech said, snapping the tourniquet off my arm. Three red-black vials sat in a rack with my name on them. "We don't see a lot of fainters here."
Fainting? I didn't faint, but I'd certainly been elsewhere. It had felt like seconds, but it took time to fill three vials of blood. The soft notes of a lullaby still echoed in my head.
"She might need some juice," the tech said respectfully to Rocky. He didn't answer, staring at nothing with a sad expression on his craggy face. A tiny sigh escaped him and he shook himself back to the present and gave me a strange, questioning look.
"Move."
I smiled. "I do enjoy our little talks."
He yanked me up and dragged me around the room to the right, all the way to the far side of the lab, past a row of metal industrial shelves stacked with standard file boxes.
On the other side of the shelves, old-style jail cell bars cut off the entire right side from the rest of the lab. Three cells, and each cell had two cots, one toilet, and no privacy
Ivy Helgarson sat huddled on a cot in the middle cell, wearing the same blue slacks and lace-trimmed top she'd had on when I'd spoken to her. An older woman paced the ten feet allowed them, dressed in khaki pants, a tank top, and a cotton button-down over top of it--hiking attire. Anita Rosenberg? Two men in jeans stood by the bars in the cell on the left, disheveled and thin. One wore an old T-shirt, the other brown flannel. As I got closer, the man in the T-shirt looked up and sniffled.
Not a man. A kid, maybe sixteen. Scruffy brown hair, red-rimmed hazel eyes.
"Some protectors of the human race you are." I elbowed Rocky in the gut, but all it did was send painful tingles down my arm.
"We got fired." He stopped at the middle cell. "Stand back."
The pacing woman scampered to the rear wall and flattened herself against it. Ivy didn't look up, just hugged herself and swayed back and forth.
Rocky unlocked the cell and pushed me inside, keeping his Thing-like body between me and freedom. He needn't have bothered--trying to outrun them wasn't worth the effort.
He relocked the cell and left. The clang echoed in my ears, sapping what little energy I had for a parting quip.
"Who are you?" the pacing woman asked. She was about Dad's age, with graying chin-length dark hair and brown eyes. Her voice trembled, but a sad note of hope stood out.
"My name's Grace. Are you Anita?"
Her eyes lit up. "Yes."
"People are looking for you." I raised my voice a little. "They're looking for all of you. We're going to get out of here."
The man next door scoffed, but the kid just squeezed his eyes shut and nodded fast. Ivy lifted her head and stared at me.
"I know you," she whispered.
"We met the other day."
She cringed back and glared. "This is your fault! You sent those things to my house!"
I shook my head. "No, I tracked those things to your house. I was trying to stop them, but I was too late." Not that I could have done anything anyway.
"What about Jared? Did they hurt him?"
"Your son is safe."
Ivy blew out a breath and cried softly. Some inspirational rescuer I was. Maybe I'd been too hard on Rocky.
I looked at the others. With the exception of Ivy, they all had oily hair and rumpled clothes, and a sour odor that said no one had had a shower in a quite a while. The man had a pretty good beard going. "My father was here, do you remember him? Anthony?"
The kid sucked in a sob. "They killed him."
"Stop your whining," the man with him grumbled. Older as well, maybe mid-fifties, but solid through his core. "We don't know what happened."
"They took him and he didn't come back, and now she's here, just like the others." The kid pressed his hands against his head. "He's gone, man."
I walked over to the bars separating us and wrapped my hand around one. "What's your name?"
"Wil."
"Anthony's fine. I traded places with him, so that's why he didn't come back."
His face scrunched. "Why would you do that?"
"He's my father."
"The guy was dying! You could have been safe. That was stupid!" Wil turned and fled to the back, kicking the stone wall and cursing the world.
The man moved closer to me and the bars. "Nothing you say is gonna help that kid. He was screwy when he got here. I'm Jerry."
"Grace. How long have they had you all?"
"Few days to a coupla weeks far as I can tell. People come and go. Not all of 'em come back."
So much for Libby's stocking-the-pantry theory. "Did they take everyone's blood?"
He nodded. "First thing. The big guys take us out sometimes, can't say what for though." His brow furrowed, and he licked his lips. "They slip drugs in the food, knock somebody out. They go away, they come back with Band Aids or achy bits." He gestured near his crotch and glanced away.
Ew.
Movement behind me caught my eye and I turned. Anita had frozen mid-step, her eyes wide as if I'd scared her, but then she darted to us. "They're testing us," she said breathlessly. "Like the abductees you read about in the tabloids."
Jerry huffed and shot her a look. "They're crazy people, not aliens."
"I didn't say they were aliens, just that it was like that. I'm a nurse. I know what a medical procedure looks like."
"She's right about the tests," I said. Anita lifted her chin higher and gave Jerry a victorious huff. "I've been working with an investigator on this, and all our evidence points in that direction."
"Testing for what?" Jerry asked.
"I don't know yet." Libby's DNA theory made the most sense so far, especially if they were poking around the naughty bits. "What about the lab minions? Do they stay here?"
"Twelve-hour shifts near as I can figure. The scary bastards bring them down and take them away."
Anita tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I heard one mention dorms once. They have a lounge upstairs. Did you see it?"
"I did." It made sense that the scientists lived and worked there, practically prisoners themselves, but with much nicer accommodations. "What about guards?"
"Nothing obvious," Jerry said, "but there's nothing out there but nothing for a whole lotta miles."
Anita held up a finger. "In the desert. Even if they didn't catch us, we'd die of exposure before we reached help."
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. Unless Daniel had stayed close with the tracker, I was well outside its range. Being underground sure wouldn't help either.
Daniel...
I snapped my head up. "Was anyone else brought in last night? Tall guy, spiky blond hair?"
"You mean him?" Anita pointed to the cell on the right side. Someone lay huddled in the far corner beside the cot, curled into a tight ball.
I walked over and stuck my arm between the bars, but couldn't reach him.
"Zack? Are you okay?" We hadn't officially met, but if he worked with Daniel he had to be a decent-enough guy. Eddie had said as much, though he wasn't much of a character reference.
"All he does is moan," Ivy said. "Did you put him here, too?"
Technically, yes, but I was feeling less guilty about her every time she opened her mouth. "Zack, are you hurt?"
He had to be, or he would have broken these people out of here by now.
"Zack!"
The pile moved and a spiky-blond head appeared. His dusky skin looked sallow and sickly, his eyes glazed and hurting. "You?" he rasped.
"We have to get out of here."
He chuckled slowly, sadly, and dragged himself around to face me. He let the blanket fall away. "Can't."
They'd chained him in silver. Thick manacles encircled both his wrists and ankles, chains attached to both. One chain ran from his hands up to a choke collar around his neck. The skin under the silver was raw and blistered.
"Silver," I said softly. "That's just mean."
"Hurts."
I pressed against the bars, inching my hand as close as possible. "Grab my hand."
"Your comfort is appreciated, but--"
"Daniel can stand on church property when he's holding my hand. It might help. Do it."
Zack's eyes flickered. He gritted his teeth and dragged himself closer, hissing with every inch. Cold, shaking fingers slid into mine.
Relief washed over his face and he took a trembling breath. "Not...possible," he whispered.
"So I've been told." I glanced at the shelves of file boxes between us and the lab. Not bad cover, and the lab rats had seemed intent on their work. "Are there locks on those cuffs?"
Zack took another breath and dragged himself the last few feet to the bars. He squeezed my hand, looked me in the eyes, and the desperation in his sent a chill down my back.
"You can't let him take you. Kill yourself. Kill yourself now."
Chapter Twenty-Three
I pulled my hand away, but he wouldn't let go, getting stronger the longer we touched.
"I think you've been in that silver too long." I aimed for flippant, but the crack in my voice betrayed me. Maybe unlocking his cuffs wasn't such a good idea.
"This miracle proves Kokabiel is right."
"Stop talking." He was making the other captives nervous.
"End of Days," he whispered.
"That's crazy talk." Sure, some days it felt like I was living in a Joss Whedon world, but there was no end of everything, no impending apocalypse.
Just like there are no vampires? No angels?
"What's wrong with him?" Anita asked. She'd moved closer, but no one came within grabbing distance of the bars.
"Allergy to silver."
"That doesn't make you--"
"It's a severe allergy."
"I can do it for you," he whispered. "It would be quick." He looked at my neck and the pop of vertebrae echoed in my mind.
--a green field stretches before me, hundreds of beings scattered across it. I swoop from on high and my blades slice flesh, take lives, protect those who have faith. The grass is soft under my feet as I land. A being larger than the others charges, knocks my blade away, and I seize it by the throat. Twist. Throw it away and move to the next--
I leaned back as far as his hold on me would allow. "We'll stop Kokabiel. The world will keep on turning, and we'll all go home."
Whimpering, Zack hung his head and flashes of glass towers and
shining streets cut through my brain. "Not possible. Daniel was wrong. God will never forgive us."
"Even if that's true, I'm still getting us out of here."
Anita crouched down, but kept her distance. "What's he talking about?"
"He's in a lot of pain. People say crazy things when they're being tortured."
Zack slumped and pressed his forehead against the bars. "He will never let you leave. He spent two thousand years looking for you."
"Hate to break it to you, pal, but I haven't been around that long."
"Your family has. The line of the Mother. He's obsessed with her descendants."
"That bastard killed my mother, so I don't think--"
He chuckled slowly, helplessly. "His mother, not yours."
"Kokabiel's?"
"The Son of God's," he murmured.
Jesus Christ! I jerked back and smacked my elbow against the bars, but he still wouldn't let go of my damn hand. "You're telling me I have--"
"No, His blood is divine. Her other son."
No way. No freaking way. Everything in me wanted to let go and run screaming from the room. Hell, from the whole damn state of Arizona. I didn't care what Rabbi Cohen had said over and over as he'd struggled to teach me the Torah--none of those stories were real. They were just stories. I could believe vampires. I could even accept fallen angels, but not this. Not the divine.
"That's not possible. I'm Jewish."
"So was she. So was His brother."
"What brother? You think I'm...?" The great-great-great-a lot-niece of--don't say Uncle Jesus, just don't do it--of all the insane things that had entered my life, this tipped the lunacy meter deep into the red.
He patted my hand. "I know you are. Why do you think we protect you and those of your line?"
That son of a...I closed my eyes and took a breath. Daniel lied to me. He knew. I'd sat there and asked him point blank why Kokabiel wanted the blood and he'd lied.
Angel my ass.
That lying sack of muscles could bite me.
