Fields of Blood (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 2)

by Sonya Bateman

  I caught a glimpse of her eyes just before I crashed into the chain link with bone-rattling force. They said whoops.

  I would’ve shrugged it off, even though it hurt like hell. But I was busy playing dead.

  As the noise of the crowd settled, I cracked one eye open to a slit. There weren’t many ways this could go now. I figured Reese would come in, order a bunch of soldiers to knock Sadie out, and probably try to get me to fight again. Wasn’t sure how long I could play dead if he decided to break out the cattle prods. Or the dart gun.

  Sadie stood where she’d thrown me from, breathing in harsh pants. Her glittering stare locked on the circular fence enclosing the arena and the soldiers standing behind it.

  Without warning, she lunged at the chain link.

  Sheer panic surged through me, and it took everything I had not to scream at her to stop. Somehow I understood what she was doing. Drawing their attention, reinforcing the illusion that she’d taken me down and wanted a new target. Even though she had to know how it would end.

  I closed my eyes fully as multiple shots rang out. Sadie snarled a scream and fell silent.

  The stillness lasted forever. Eventually I heard the gate open, booted feet marching on packed earth, the sound of something heavy being dragged away. I smelled blood and spent bullets.

  And I sensed someone standing above me, a moment before Reese planted a hard kick in my ribs.

  It was impossible to stay silent. I managed to turn a harsh gasp into a faint moan, and let my eyes flutter beneath closed lids.

  “Get up,” Reese snarled. “I’m not done with you yet.”

  He kicked me twice more, and I almost bit through my tongue. But I didn’t react.

  After a long pause, Reese muttered, “Fine. I’ll be patient.” There was a slight shuffling sound, and he spoke near my ear. “I’m afraid the formula still needs a little work,” he said. “Tomorrow night, your Fae friend gets to go first. I might even give him his arm back. As for you…you’ll watch from the lab.” I could feel his grin. “And then it’s your turn.”

  Frustration and fury boiled over as I struggled to keep still. I could’ve killed him, right then. But if I did, I had a feeling everyone else would be summarily executed.

  I had to wait. And I wasn’t very good at waiting.

  “Put him under, and take him to Dr. Romero,” Reese said from further away.

  Trying to brace myself didn’t help. The shock of the cattle prod still screamed through every nerve, driving pain to impossible levels before I finally blacked out.

  CHAPTER 34

  I would’ve been relieved that at least I wasn’t in a cage, if this wasn’t a whole lot worse.

  At first I couldn’t make anything out beyond an unrelenting tide of sensation. Lights were too bright, sounds were too loud, even the air was too heavy. Pain that had faded to a dull ache from being battered around the arena, now felt like bowling balls and broken glass shifting inside me.

  My eyes watered as I forced them to stay open. Ahead of me was a big room with a lot of glass, chrome, and stainless steel—a mixture of medical equipment and autopsy tools—three or four computer workstations, and two large wall-mounted monitors. My back pressed against a steel table that was upright and angled back slightly. Metal cuffs with short chains fastened my wrists to the edges, and my ankles to the blocks supporting my feet. A locking metal band across my neck kept me from slumping off the table.

  Beside me was an IV pole with a bag of translucent purple liquid, and a tube leading from the bag to a needle stuck in my arm.

  A needle that felt like a knife blade.

  From the way Taeral had explained how it worked, I guessed the purple stuff was mandrake. Wasn’t hard to see why he’d been practically incapacitated. It felt like someone had plugged reality into an amplifier and turned it all the way up.

  “Oh. The subject is awake.”

  The mild, unfamiliar voice sounded like a shout to my ears. A stained white blob approached from across the room and eventually became a middle-aged man with a round face, long legs, droopy brown eyes, and brown hair that looked like it was trimmed with a hedge clipper. Dr. Romero, I presumed.

  He carried a shallow plastic dish in one gloved hand, and a scalpel in the other.

  “Extensive scarring,” he muttered as he stood next to the table, on the side opposite the IV pole. “Tattoos appear…modern. Have to test the ink.” He poked and squeezed my arm for a minute.

  I considered asking him to test the ink from one of the back tattoos. Maybe he could find out why the hell they glowed. If I was going to be a lab rat, I might as well get something out of it.

  Then without warning, he sliced a strip of skin off with the scalpel.

  It hurt too much to scream. My mouth opened without sound, and I felt veins bulge at my neck, blood streak down my arm.

  Finally, I managed to gasp, “What the hell are you doing?”

  The doctor looked startled. He blinked several times as he laid the severed flesh in the little dish. “Subject speaks English,” he said. “Interesting.”

  “Of course I speak English, you asshole!” Without thinking, I tried to lunge at him.

  It was a painful mistake.

  “Signs of aggression. May have to increase the dosage.” Dr. Romero blinked again and scuttled away with his bloody prize.

  I closed my eyes and attempted to breathe. That hurt, too. The pain was extremely slow to fade, and I decided I’d have to move as little as possible until I figured something else out. Something that didn’t involve Doctor Demento there increasing the dosage.

  Forcing my eyes open again sucked. When I did, I made out the doctor approaching me—this time with a really big needle.

  I had to fight the instinct to flinch away. That would just hurt more. “What’s that for?” I said, unfortunately not expecting a response.

  “Biopsy. Need a liver sample.” He punched the needle into my stomach.

  This time, I screamed.

  He went away, and a gray haze wavered around the edge of my vision as I tried again to breathe. I scanned the room slowly, found a clock on the wall that read quarter after nine. It wasn’t nighttime, or I’d be subjected to watching Taeral being fed to a were-human on one of those screens right now.

  Meaning I still had several hours of sharp objects and drug-enhanced pain to go.

  When the doctor returned, pushing a wheeled cart full of implements, I decided to try a different approach. “Look. If you’re going to torture me, you could at least introduce yourself,” I said. “I’m Gideon.”

  He froze for an instant in the middle of picking up an empty syringe. “Wesley Romero.”

  “Thanks. I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but it isn’t.”

  Dr. Romero’s brow furrowed. Then he rolled my arm, stuck the needle in near the inside of the elbow, and filled the syringe with my blood.

  “Christ,” I gasped. “Do you have any idea how much that hurts?”

  He gave a curt shrug. “Not surprising, considering your species’ reaction to mandrake alkaloids,” he said, and jabbed a fresh needle in.

  Okay. So he knew—he just didn’t care.

  The doctor twisted my arm back none too gently and stared at the gash where he’d cut my skin off. “Subject displays accelerated healing,” he said. “The rate appears slower than a werewolf—”

  “Yeah. Possibly because you’re drugging the shit out of me,” I said. “Take this IV out, and we’ll see how accelerated I can get.”

  “Slower than a werewolf,” Dr. Romero said deliberately, glaring at me for an instant. “We’ll compare results to the control tests. Focus burn, knife, gunshot.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Once again, the doctor looked startled. He hesitated, picked up a length of slim rubber hose—and then put it down and stared at me. “To cure cancer.”

  “What?”

  “Cancer. Parkinson’s. Alzheimer’s. HIV. Every deadly threat to humankind,” he sa
id. “Subjects like you hold the keys to eradicating them all. Other research facilities are still centuries away from cures we may be able to develop within a decade.”

  I frowned. From an extremely removed perspective, it sounded incredible. Noble, even. I had a feeling management had withheld the memo about the greater purpose of exterminating all non-humans—but something about this guy suggested that wouldn’t bother him either. “Is that supposed to make me feel better about you torturing me to death?” I said. “Because you might have a cure for some things, maybe in ten years?”

  “Feel? No,” he said. “The subject’s feelings are irrelevant. The scientific possibilities are astounding. We’re going to save the world someday.”

  “Well, good for you. I bet they’ll give you a medal or something.” I waited until he looked at me again. “Did any of you bastards ever consider asking us if we’d help you?”

  More rapid blinking. “Subjects are—”

  “I’m not a goddamned subject!” The shouting cost me more pain, but I didn’t care. “People volunteer for medical research all the time. Did it ever cross your mind that maybe we’d want you to save the world? That we’d give you all the samples you want, without the drugs and chains and cages? It’s our world, too.”

  The doctor stared at me for a moment. Finally, one corner of his mouth lifted, just a touch. “Not for long,” he said.

  I shuddered and forced myself to keep my mouth shut. Obviously, there was no reasoning with this guy, so I’d have to work on more productive things. Like figuring out how to get the hell away from him.

  Dr. Romero reached for the middle shelf of the cart and produced a small blowtorch. “First test for subject’s rate of healing. Focus burn, inner thigh,” he said. “By the way…this is probably going to hurt more than the needle.”

  CHAPTER 35

  I must’ve passed out five or six times while Doctor Don’t-Give-A-Shit stuck me with needles, sliced and diced me, and generally caused as much unnecessary pain as possible. Eventually I woke up to a near-silent lab and no sign of my torturer.

  The wall clock read close to ten. I knew it couldn’t be morning, because I’d watched the unending crawl of time for hours while the parade of pain marched on. It wouldn’t be long before they started the night’s entertainment. And Dr. Romero had informed me that he’d be here to make sure I watched.

  If I was breaking out, it had to be now.

  I’d planned as best I could between bouts of mind-numbing torment. Everything relied on my magic still working. I knew my spark wasn’t exhausted, but I didn’t know if the mandrake would affect it. Taeral hadn’t mentioned that one way or the other.

  I hoped it was because there was nothing to mention.

  Keeping an eye on the closed door to the lab across the room, I got an awkward grip on the cuff around my left wrist, the one opposite the arm with the IV needle. “Oscaihl,” I whispered.

  The click of the lock letting go almost made me cry with relief.

  Moving introduced new worlds of pain. I forced through it, reached over and peeled the surgical tape over the needle away so I could pull it out. Not surprisingly, the mandrake failed to stop enhancing all sensations immediately. But I could only afford to give it a few minutes before I kept going.

  The implement-laden crash cart was halfway across the room. That was my next goal—a weapon. It took longer than I wanted to unlock the rest of my bonds, and I had to spend another few minutes collapsed on the floor, willing my shaking limbs to support me.

  I finally made my way to the cart, leaning on various cabinets and tables for support, and palmed a scalpel.

  The rest of what I needed wouldn’t be so easy to get. It was a complicated list—my pendant, Taeral’s metal arm, the locations of all the captives. And Compound 23…the human suppressor. There was a glass cabinet against the right-hand wall with a bunch of tubes and vials, and I figured it was in there somewhere. But nothing had been labeled.

  Fortunately, I knew how to find all that out.

  I limped my way back to the table. It was possible that I’d started to feel slightly better, but everything hurt so much that I couldn’t really tell. Right now I had to be patient again. I might not be able to take the next step until they’d already forced Taeral into the arena, and that was going to hurt more than anything.

  But I didn’t have a choice. Without the right timing, I’d screw us all.

  I wasn’t especially thrilled at the prospect of getting back on that table. It was part of the plan, though. The doctor was just as heavily armed as the soldiers. If he came back and I was loose in the room, he’d just shoot me until I dropped. I had to get him close to me without suspicion.

  So I refastened all but the left cuff, taped the IV line back into place without inserting the needle, and kept the last restraint loose at my wrist with the scalpel blade pinched between thumb and finger, and the rest hidden behind my arm.

  The minutes dragged by. The world lost a few shades of intensity and my body relaxed by fractions, but I was still nowhere near recovered when the lab door opened and Dr. Romero came in. With two soldiers behind him.

  Well. This complicated things.

  Dr. Romero headed straight for me as one of the soldiers closed the door. “Mr. Reese prefers that you’re somewhat functional for the arena testing,” he said. “I’ll start a saline flush to clear some of the alkaloids from your system. Then you should be able to stand.”

  He went to my right side.

  I moved the scalpel incrementally to get a better grip as the doctor peeled the tape off. When it came away with the needle attached, he started blinking. “Subject appears to have rejected—”

  “My name is Gideon, you sick fuck,” I growled.

  And sliced the scalpel across his throat.

  Knowing the soldiers would go for their weapons, I gestured sharply at them and shouted, “Beith na cohdal.” They dropped quickly, and I turned my attention back to the doctor.

  True shock registered in his bulging eyes. He’d clamped a hand to his throat, but blood gushed between his fingers and poured down the front of his lab coat. He staggered back, crashed into the IV pole and thudded abruptly to the floor. There was a long, gurgling sound, and then still silence.

  I unlocked the restraints and shuffled over to the body. Time for a question-and-answer session with the recently deceased Dr. Wesley Romero.

  CHAPTER 36

  The dead doctor reacted remarkably fast when I laid a hand on him. I didn’t feel any struggle from him. Just a sterile sense of intrigue as he said, You are the one. The DeathSpeaker. How fascinating.

  That was when I discovered an unexpected benefit to torture. I hardly felt the pain in my head, compared to the pain in the rest of me.

  I’d still rather not have been in a position to learn that.

  “Yeah, I am,” I said. “You found me. Good job. Where is my pendant?”

  In the XRF. Subject seems to generate a compulsive response pattern. It may be possible to resist—

  “What the hell’s an XRF?” I said, trying to ignore the rest of the blathering. The bastard was dead and still trying to take me apart.

  X-ray florescence analyzer. It looks like a black toaster oven. False answers can’t be verbalized. Wait. That word is incorrect, because verbalization is not occurring. Perhaps some type of sound wave or resonance manipulation.

  Christ, he was never going to shut up. “Where is Taeral’s arm?”

  Taeral’s arm. I’m not familiar with this. The compulsion to respond is not present when subject asks a question that can’t be answered.

  “Taeral. The other Fae. He had a metal arm, and Reese took it. Where is it?”

  I don’t know. Interesting. Questions unknown to the respondent allow for freedom of expression, including speculation that can be assumed false. It’s on the moon. Mr. Reese is using it as a sexual enhancement tool to sodomize himself.

  I would’ve been happy going my entire life without that image
. “Okay, moving on,” I said. “Where are the rest of the captives, the subjects? All of them.”

  The test subjects from Elk Heights are in Wing A. The young werewolves and the second Fae are in Wing B. The mature werewolves and Subject Two Six Two are in the sublevel containment unit. Responses can be conveyed without sufficient detail, provided they are factually correct.

  Now I was starting to feel the pain of his long-winded babbling, the needles in my head. And I needed those details he’d left out. The wings I could find, but not the rest of it. “Where is the sublevel containment unit? How do I get there?”

  The stairs between the wings lead to the sublevel. The containment unit is behind the door at the end of the hall. When subject poses two questions, they can be answered in any order. There is a potential to exploit this situation.

  “Duly noted, you son of a bitch,” I said. “Which one of those little bottles of stuff in your cabinet is Compound 23?”

  This time, he struggled. A lot. The pressure in my head spiked until it felt like someone had poured quick-drying concrete in my skull. Blood poured from my nose and trickled from my ears.

  Finally, he said, Clear liquid. Glass vials…red caps. Label on bottom. Resistance to compulsive response produces an increasingly unpleasant sensation. Response formation is not controllable, and only the release of response can be resisted. I cannot tell a lie. Gideon, you’re going to die.

  The last two sentences were delivered in a chilling singsong. “Why did you say that I’m going to die?”

  Because it rhymed. And it’s true…everyone dies. I can’t lie.

  Crazed laughter exploded in my head. I snatched my hand away before the fishhooks could tear my brain apart, and stared at the corpse of Dr. Romero like he might get up and start talking again.

  Being dead must’ve flipped his logic switch at the end, there.

  My condition still hadn’t improved much, and the brand new headache negated the small steps I’d taken toward healing. But I didn’t have time to wait for the mandrake to wear off. I had to get moving, now.