What I saw on the street wasn’t anything like I had expected. Instead of HOA tanks and hovercrafts firing down on me, a line of mutants waited, their arms full of high-caliber weapons and grenades. A few of them carried bottles, rakes, rocks, and sticks.
I grinned.
My eyes scanned the crowd searching for Quinn. For a brief second I thought I saw his grey eyes, but it was just a trick of the light. Where was he? Had he made it out? Was he human? My heart gave a small squeeze at the thought.
A mutant on the frontline caught my eye. His large and single, brown eye winked at me. I lifted my hand and waved, a small smile hovering on my lips.
The timer around my neck clicked to zero.
Chapter 48
The next night I awoke to the overly sweet smell of rose-igolds filling my nostrils. A sneeze escaped my mouth, spraying me in my own snot. I blinked, taking in the bright colored blooms. I sneezed again. As the middle of the night went, this one wasn’t quite living up to my expectations. My head ached. My muscles hurt. And a light rain fell across the wall shrouded in a blanket of darkness.
“Hey, you’re up.” Nobody opened my bedroom door and strolled inside. In his large hand he held a cup of tea and that mornings Mutant Times. “How’re you feeling?”
“Like I fought an army of agents, killed my granddad, and blew myself up a total of three times.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Nobody grinned. “The first explosion didn’t really count.”
“It did so and you damn well know it.” I struggled to sit up and take the tea from Nobody’s outstretched hand. I avoided the paper though. Why read about yesterday’s events when they appeared in my nightmares? “Any word on Quinn?” I nodded to the paper. As far as anyone knew he’d failed to escape the explosion or the rush of HOA agents sent to crush our mutant uprising.
Nobody shook his head. “London swears he hasn’t contacted her.” Again, I wondered about her relationship with Quinn, and with my obviously lovesick cyclops friend. Did they know she was some kind of Resden spawn? Did they care?
“And you believe her?”
“I do.” He grinned, narrowing his eye. “Don’t look at me like that. London isn’t our enemy. And neither was Quinn.”
“Are you sure about that?” Since when had Nobody joined the Quinn Daniels bandwagon? I understood his desire to protect London, but Quinn? It didn’t make sense.
“This afternoon, while you were sleeping, Ivan stopped by.” Nobody changed the subject by motioning to the Rose-igolds scattered around my bedroom. “He’s worried about you.”
I laughed. “More like he’s worried I won’t be collecting any bad gnome debts, or mucking out the fairy cages anytime soon.”
“That too.” Nobody grinned, but quickly sobered. “There’s someone else here to see you.”
My fingers tightened on the thin cotton of my sheet. From the seriousness of Nobody’s tone, a thousand scenarios flashed through my brain, everything from Arthur’s magical return from the dead to a line of chorus transvestite Fey-suckers singing On the Good Ship Lollipop.
“Well?” I motioned to the open bedroom door. “Are you going to tell me or let me drive myself crazy?”
He bent down to kiss my forehead. “You’re already crazy.” He straightened and headed to the door. “Come in,” he called to someone hovering just outside my line of sight. A small girl squeezed past the giant cyclops and ran to my bed. Her pale face and luminous eyes shone with tears.
“Indeara.” Caren threw her arms around my neck and squeezed, cutting off the oxygen supply to my brain. But it didn’t matter to me. I clutched the child like a lifeline, a line to a life I’d thought I’d lost.
Over the child’s shoulder, my eyes locked on Nobody’s. “How?” Instead of Nobody answering, Caren released my neck and explained as only a four-year-old kid could do. “The bad men came. Jake made us hide. I was scared, but I didn’t cry. Just like you told me.”
It took me a full minute to realize the ramification of Caren’s words. Jake hadn’t betrayed the Resistance. He’d saved them. I closed my eyes, tears leaked from the corners. And he had died doing it. The ache around my heart grew. I’d lost Quinn, my first mutant love to his desire to be free, and I’d lost Jake, to his desire to free us.
Never again.
I was done watching the mutant I loved die.
“I’m so happy you’re alive.” I kissed the child’s forehead, wiping her tears away with the edge of my thumb. “You must promise me something.”
She nodded, looking so painfully young. I stroked my fingers through her hair, hair the same dark color as her mother’s. “Whatever happens, you won’t be afraid. Never again. I won’t let anything hurt you.” I closed my eyes and pictured Mei’s dying face. “I promise.”
Chapter 49
Later that day, I stood in front of my bathroom mirror, naked. My body bore healed scars and fading bruises from yesterday’s adventure. I ran a comb through my blonde curls, wincing as the teeth dug into my tender scalp. Digging harder, I yanked at the coiled locks. Helpless anger swirled inside me. I’d sworn to protect Caren; yet, I couldn’t even protect my own heart. Thoughts of Quinn slipped past the calcified barriers that once hardened my heart. I didn’t want to love him, to care, but I did. Grief at losing him, for the second time, welled in my chest. Choking me.
Idiot.
I yanked harder on the brush until the physical pain matched the pain in my heart. A knock sounded on the bathroom door. I wrapped a towel around my body and opened the door. Nobody stuck his head in. We stared at each other, not saying a word.
His eye fell to the inside of my elbow and the tiny red welt bubbling from the surface of my skin. It looked insignificant, like a bug-bee bite. But we both knew what it meant. My cells were breaking down, sinking under the weight of Arthur’s plague. I crossed my arms over my chest hiding the telltale bump. Nobody’s eye met mine in the mirror. Sadness and desperation burst from the large brown iris.
I picked up my hairbrush and ran my fingers across the bristles before chucking it at the mirror. The glass shattered, falling in jagged puzzle pieces around us.
“Promise me,” I said.
He nodded.
A vow had been given, a promise of a death with dignity, an end without needless suffering. I wouldn’t wait to die as Calvin had.
“We can find a cure.” Nobody swallowed. “London, she can find a way—”
I pressed my finger to his lips and shook my head. A single tear slid down my best friend’s cheek. I wiped it away with the back of my hand. Grasping my shoulders, Nobody held me against his chest as I cried like a child. All the fear, pain, and rage inside me spilled out, drenching the giant. But he never uttered a word, just tucked my body into his, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like everything would be all right.
I guess ignorance was bliss.
But than again so was a loaded nine-millimeter and a box of explosives.
******
A few hours later, I sat in the Lair drinking a semi-warm shot of vodka. The lights around us flickered as HOA vehicles roamed the mutant streets. Since my misadventure at Resden the HOA had swarmed behind the mutant wall. I smelled their fear. It swept through the air, seeping into our mutant psyche. Without Resden and the vaccine the HOA faced a new mutated world. One that wouldn’t hide quietly in the shadows. We were here, we were queer-looking freaks, and we sure as hell planned to stay that way.
“How did Agent Umber find Quinn?” I tapped the tip of my finger to my lips and contemplated Ivan and my overgrown best friend. “I mean, if Jake didn’t tell him, who did?”
Nobody shrugged, his eye never leaving the laptop screen in front of him. “Does it matter anymore? Quinn’s either dead or underground.”
Ivan winced, his face, his real face, paling at Nobody’s dire prediction. I smiled an apology to the older man and kicked Nobody in the shin. For a second he just frowned at me.
“I’m sure Quinn’s fine,” I said
. Yeah right. I’d put enough C-4 in that bomb to demolish four Resdens. Nobody, including Nobody, could have survived that blast.
Nobody must’ve realized his mistake. “Of course. Quinn’s too smart to die.” He paused. “What I meant to say was, Arthur’s dead, and you’re home. Safe.” His eye returned to the computer and he pressed a few keys. “Forget the past, and focus on,” he stuttered, “the future.”
“Easy for you to say.” The vaccine was still out there. Somewhere. According to HOA reports Nobody hacked, the vaccine had disappeared before Resden exploded. No one knew who’d taken it or why. To me the answer seemed simple enough. Terrifyingly so. But I needed proof and then I needed a nice shiny bullet.
Nobody winced at my comment. The knowledge of my illness hung in the air between us. I felt immediately guilty. That wasn’t what I’d meant. Damn, it seemed like every conversation we had was fraught with deeper meaning. I raised my hand, gaining his attention, however briefly. “Stop it. I refuse to walk on eggshells. Now answer my damn question.” I shoved my hands on my hips. “Who blabbed to Umber?”
Nobody’s eye returned to the computer screen, and for a moment, I didn’t think he would answer. “Maybe I can trace Umber’s phone records, find out where the call originated. It might take some time though…”
Bingo. I leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” He paused. “I’m serious. Don’t mention this to anyone.”
“What about London?” I studied his face, searching for a sign of what was rattling around in his over-sized head. Something was simmering between Nobody and London, something he wasn’t telling me. Did he really trust her? Or was he using her? I feared his answer so I didn’t ask.
“No one.” Nobody shook his head. “You either, Ivan. I mean it. No one can know of Indeara’s interest. It’s too dangerous. The less the HOA thinks about Indeara, the safer we all are.”
“Come on, boy.” Ivan rubbed his whiskered chin. “You can trust me, we’re like family.”
His words sparked something inside my head, and I considered the idea of family. What made someone family? It was more than blood.
46 chromosome.
300,000 gene patterns.
Not to mention a trillion or so cells.
Mix together, bake for nine months, and bingo, a green-eyed baby girl was born. I licked my lips, bile burning in my stomach.
“While you’re looking into Umber, do me another favor.” I shot Nobody a grim smile.
Chapter 50
In the darkness outside of a prettily decorated brownstone, in a nice human neighborhood, I waited for a sign. A signal of some sort. It came in the form I’d expected, but at a cost, I hadn’t anticipated.
“Indeara?” London West opened her second story window and called down. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?” The fear in her voice set my teeth on edge. The sweet, innocent beauty queen act only went so far. I wasn’t some dumb guy willing to fall at her petite feet.
I smiled up from the shadows. “Everything’s fine.”
“So why are you here?”
Funny, but I’d asked myself the same question a lot over the past few hours. But something kept poking at my conscious mind, like a rose-igold torn burrowed deep inside my brain. The answer came to me in the dead of night. It woke me from a sound sleep, a cold sweat pooling in my gut. I prayed I was wrong. But I wasn’t. Not this time.
“Can I come up?” I motioned to the locked front door and tried to project the same sweet innocence London had. On me, it came off more like a need to pee. “Please,” I added when she didn’t answer.
For a few seconds, we stared at each other with the same Resden green eyes. Emily’s eyes. A shiver raced up my spine and my grip on the cold steel of my nine-millimeter slipped a bit.
London nodded once and closed her window. A couple of minutes later, the front door opened, and she stood facing me in the moonlight shadowed by the wall. She motioned to the weak glow. “It must be a full moon.”
I nodded, picturing the brightly lit moon hanging high above the mutant world. The moon I’d left when I’d crossed through the gate and into London’s human world.
“I miss watching the moonrise.” The edge of her lips curved into a smile. “It really is a sight to behold.”
“Why London? Why’d you kill Jake?” I stared at her, watching for any crack in her sweet facade.
Her smile grew. “So you’ve figured it all out, huh? I killed Jake, sold you out, all for what? Resden?” She shook her head. “Quinn was right. It’s all black and white with you. Good or bad.”
“Tell me you didn’t call Umber.” I frowned, annoyed at the sneer in her voice. “That you didn’t tell him the location of the Resistance or where to find Quinn.” My lips compressed. “Try and deny it.”
Her face went slack. “How’d you find out?”
“Nobody.”
She winced. “Why don’t we finish this discussion,” she motioned to the doorway, “inside?”
Why the fuck not?
I lifted my gun from the pocket of my cargo pants, keeping it low and to my side. London’s eyes widened, but she said nothing, and instead stepped inside her quaint brownstone and waited in the hallway for me to follow.
The brownstone was much like I remembered from my last visit when Jake had brought me here after someone had smashed my head in.
Someone named London.
The brownstone suited her, much more than Quinn’s loft had. For the second time I wondered about her life with the real David West. Her husband and the man responsible for administering the plague to my father all those years ago.
David had used the sewer to do it, poisoning Mutant City’s water supply with mutated kool-aid, and stood back to watch the mutants die. But Emily had drunk the kool-aid too.
“Tea?” London motioned to a rose-colored couch in the center of her living room. A dust ruffle protected the antique, like my mutated cells had once protected me.
I shrugged. “Two sugars, no poison.”
Her laugh boomed from her petite body, shocking me at with its richness. “How about some brandy instead?”
She didn’t wait for my answer, but poured two snifters of the amber colored liquor. With a grin, she took a drink from one of the glasses, and then the other, before holding them out to me. I chose the one in her right hand, wiped a smug of her lipstick from the edge, and swallowed the drink in one gulp.
“I’m glad to see you survived,” she said. “I had some doubts that you could pull it off. But I’m glad you did.”
“Are you really?” I raised an eyebrow. “After all I blew the shit out of your inheritance. I figured you’d be a little annoyed.” I paused, letting my words sink in. “But Resden wasn’t what you wanted, was it? You wanted the vaccine.”
“And why would I want that?” She laughed. “The whole idea of turning mutants to humans makes me sick.”
“But destroying us doesn’t.” I poured myself another drink, letting the warmth of the alcohol seep into the coldness inside my soul. “Our grandfather raised you well. In his image one might say.”
The crack of her hand against my face surprised me with its quickness and force. “Don’t say that. Never say that,” she cried, eyes blazing. Eyes so much like my own, inherited from my mother.
Our mother.
I smiled at my half-sister enjoying the sting of her slap in a perverse way. It sure as hell beat the burning in my heart. In one day, I’d gained a sister. A sister I was pretty sure I’d have to kill.
For her own good.
For mine.
Either way, London Resden West, crazed mutant killer, would cease to exist. I owed it to Jake.
Chapter 51
London shook her head, sending locks of blonde hair dancing around her shoulders. In some ways, it was almost funny how much she resembled Emily, much more than I ever had. I shrugged, amazed at the marvels of modern science. My sister was a test-tube replica of Emily
, grown for Arthur’s pleasure. Add a pinch of daughter and a speck of random sperm donor, and what do you get? A freakishly beautiful psycho bent on ridding the world of mutants.
It put a new spin on family reunions.
“You’re wrong, you know,” she said. “About all of it.”
I ran a hand across my face, unsure how to handle my new, insane half-sister. Pull the trigger and be done with it, a voice inside my head whispered. But I couldn’t. Not yet. I tossed her my friendliest smile. “Then tell me. Explain why you sent me to Resden.”
London frowned. “Was I that obvious?”
I nodded. Admittedly, at the time, I was too wrapped up in Quinn’s capture, and Jake’s supposed betrayal to figure it out. However yesterday, after some thought, a pint of vodka, and Umber’s phone records, things came together.
My eyes burned as I memorized each call to Umber’s phone. One number kept repeating. The same number listed on my mobile log on the day Jake died. The same number Nobody had called me from. London’s number.
“Why, London?” I swallowed my anger, keeping my voice steady. “You worked for Arthur, for God’s sake. If you didn’t want him to ‘fix’ us you could’ve taken it at anytime. Why use me as a diversion to steal the vaccine?”
“I had no choice.” She brushed her hair from her face and flopped down on the rose-colored couch. “We had no choice. You see, the vaccine isn’t what you think it is. It’s not an evil mixture bent on crushing mutants.” She shot me an apologetic look. “Or at least it didn’t start out that way.”
“Oh yeah?”
She laughed. “Believe what you want, but the cure is just that, a way to heal mutated genes. Arthur planned to use it to cure mutants, to make them human. I have other plans.”
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like her ‘plan’. “Do you hate us that much?”
“I used to.” Her eyes turned distant, hazy. “Arthur raised me to hate all mutants. Even you.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Especially you. Growing up he compared us constantly. I usually lost.”
The Body Dwellers Page 17
