by Jade Kerrion
He pinned Danyael to the ground, grabbed Danyael’s head between his hands and pounded it repeatedly into the concrete. Danyael gasped, his senses reeling, stunned more by Jason’s vivid anger and the open emotional wounds than by the physical impact of the attack. Barely able to think coherently, he clawed for survival, an inch at a time, dragging his emotional shields up to protect himself.
He sighed with relief when the external shields locked into place, a thin buffer against the storm of Jason’s emotions. His head clearing, he struggled to dislodge Jason. He was desperately short on workable alternatives. He could not drop his internal shields. He could not channel his deepest, darkest emotions, not with his mind actively linked to his friends through Miriya’s telepathic power. The emotions would flow through their joint minds and drive his friends to suicide.
But even if he had been free to act, he could not bring himself to unleash the full extent of his powers against his brother. Jason’s hate-twisted features bore no resemblance to Danyael’s, but they did not need to. Training did not hold Danyael back; it was a bond that both time and distance had failed to break.
He could not kill his brother.
Entirely out of options, Danyael reached out with his empathic powers, seized Jason’s emotions, and twisted them. The irony tore Danyael apart. He would have given almost anything to take his brother’s hatred away, to purchase a second chance for the both of them. Instead, he was intensifying it, to buy himself a fleeting chance at survival.
Hatred took on the viscosity of quicksand, anger the edge of a sharpened sword. It wasn’t enough then for Jason to smash his brother’s brains out on the concrete. He needed something else, needed to make Danyael acknowledge him, needed to make Danyael scream in pain. Caught up in the powerful empathic backlash, Jason released Danyael and reached for the brick.
In that moment, Danyael struck, seizing Jason’s shirt in one hand and driving his other fist into Jason’s jaw. Jason staggered back as Danyael scrambled to his feet. Jason was so furious, he could barely see clearly. He swung out, clumsy, graceless, as his body struggled to accommodate the overwhelming surge of norepinephrine. The heightened anger made him stronger, faster, but less accurate, and far more likely to overextend and make mistakes.
It was the only advantage afforded to Danyael, and he seized it. Survival came down to a desperate battle, strength against precision. He evaded Jason’s clumsy attacks and managed to throw a few punches that sent Jason reeling back, winded, momentarily stunned. Now. Danyael fisted his hands together, prepared to bring them down on the back of Jason’s neck to knock him out.
Danyael screamed in agony as pain, sharper than a thousand blades, surged through the telepathic link and sliced into him. Zara. The attack she had sustained would have eviscerated her. Dropping to his knees, he wrapped his arms around his stomach and braced against the phantom injury as his potent healing powers surged.
He shuddered, from the pain and from the staggering effort of focusing his healing powers through it. He was vaguely aware that Jason had managed to catch his breath. He stared at the shadow his brother cast on the ground as Jason stood over him with a crowbar in hand.
Move, Danyael screamed at himself. He could not die—not here, not now—not with so many lives depending on him. Move!
He convulsed, coughing blood. Move! His body, pushed beyond endurance, struggled to obey. On hands and knees, he dragged himself away from Jason but could not escape the certainty of death.
The crowbar poised to strike, but then fell harmlessly to the ground. Jason toppled to his knees, blood staining his blue shirt.
Danyael had not heard the single bullet shot ring out. He looked up. His vision wavered in and out of focus, scarcely making out the two men racing toward him from a car parked across the street. They knelt beside him and one of them tilted his face up.
“Who are you? What are you?”
He heard their disbelieving questions, but did not have the strength to answer.
He could not think beyond the pain that flowed through the telepathic link to sear his mind and ravage his body. Would he survive it? When would it end?
12
Chaos descended quickly, utterly on Purest Humanity. Bullets and blades had no apparent effect on the abominations, and the question about killing them became irrelevant. The critical issue boiled down to whether anyone would survive their attack; it was apparent that the odds were not stacked in favor of the humans.
The abominations rampaged with abandon, killing everything that moved, as if they knew they were among their worst enemies.
One found its way into the kitchen, hunting with relish the humans who crawled between tables and tried to hide behind shelves, sobbing with fear. It found them all and slaughtered them all, tearing bodies apart with the efficiency of a skilled butcher. It grabbed one quivering human, snapped its neck, and indifferently tossed it onto the lit gas burners, before lumbering out. Behind it, the kitchen started to burn, the flames consuming first the corpse on the burner before spreading to the polished wood countertops and cabinets.
On the other side of the building, four people fled down the service corridor. “In here!” one of them gasped, pushing open the door to the storage room. “There’s a lock here.” The others pushed past him, and together they slammed the door shut, sliding the deadbolt in place.
“God, oh, God, save us.” One of them fumbled, trying to light a cigarette, his fingers clicking over and over again on the lighter.
The others pressed their ears to the door and heard the ponderous footsteps of an abomination stop outside the door. It made a strange sound, like that of a puppy sniffing for its owner’s scent.
The lighter flickered into flame.
The door caved in. The abomination threw its weight against the door and it crumpled like paper. Inside, four people shrieked in panic as death entered.
Death lumbered out a minute later, leaving four bodies smashed against collapsed metal storage racks. Supplies spilled out on the floor. Safety cans filled with gasoline and diesel were perforated by claws and smashed underfoot. The heady smell of gasoline wafted from the room as the clear liquid pooled around the bodies, around the pale blue flame of the lighter that had fallen to the ground.
The abomination did not look back when the room exploded, the red and orange tongues of fire licking at its heels.
Abominations incoming, Miriya hurled out her thought at Danyael.
He did not respond.
“Only three,” Zara murmured, stepping back from the stairs as the creatures clambered up into the large circular reception area on the second floor and fanned out to meet them.
“That’s three too many, in my opinion,” Lucien said. This is going to be bad for Danyael.
Twice in a day is bad, Miriya agreed. Here they come.
She took several steps back, dragging Xin with her, as the three abominations charged. One-on-one were better odds than Lucien, Zara and Galahad had enjoyed that morning, but without Danyael, they had little chance of bringing any of the creatures down. Where was he, damn it?
Miriya winced when an abomination ripped through Zara’s midsection. That injury should have killed the assassin. Miriya could only imagine how it must have felt to Danyael.
“We need Danyael, don’t we?” Xin asked, her brown eyes locked on Lucien as he ducked under a vicious swipe of an abomination’s arm, narrowly escaping injury. “We can’t win this without him. Where is he?”
“Outside, I think.”
“I can get him.”
“You can’t get past them,” Miriya said. Galahad, Lucien, and Zara did their best to draw the battle away from the two women pressed up against the far wall, but the abominations sometimes came close enough for Miriya to smell the blood on their claws. She winced again as another creature broke through Galahad’s defenses, briefly drawing blood before Danyael’s empathic healing power whisked the injury away.
A sound—shockingly loud—blasted through the build
ing.
Miriya glanced up sharply.
Xin listened too. She turned to meet Miriya’s gaze. “An explosion?”
Miriya nodded, a cold ball of dread coiling in the pit of her stomach. “Not a weapon, though. Sounded like a gas tank or something exploding.” She lowered her psychic shields to catch the whispers of passing minds.
A fading human whisper. Help me please. So much blood. Oh, God, I can’t die, not yet. Please help.
The mournful moan of an abomination, Brother, brother, why fight?
A panicked human scream. Fire! It’s on fire! I can’t get out!
“Something’s burning,” Miriya said. She looked toward the staircase but could not see any signs of smoke. “I can’t tell how bad it is.”
Xin knelt down and placed a hand against the floor. She looked up at Miriya, her eyes wide with alarm. “I can feel the heat. It’s not just warm, it’s hot. The fire’s likely right below us, and it’s weakening the physical structure of the building.”
Disengage! Miriya screamed the order out through the telepathic links. The building’s on fire. It’s going to collapse.
The order came several seconds too late. With a deep, rumbling moan, the building convulsed. Foundation pillars melted, weakened by the heat from the petrochemical fire, and crumpled slowly under the weight of the upper floors. The floor vanished, marble tiles falling away to shatter on the ground floor.
The five of them fell, landing among the rubble. The ground floor was in ruins. The injured huddled next to the dead under the fallen ceiling. Thick black smoke filled the room, and the heat from the flames was becoming unbearable.
Healing surged through Danyael’s empathic link, repairing the minor cuts and bruises from her fall. Miriya pushed to her feet and pulled Xin up with her. “We have to get out now. Zara! Where are you?”
“Here.” Several feet away, a slim shadow moved toward them. Moments later, Zara, her face sooty but otherwise unscathed, appeared out of the smoke. “Where the hell are the creatures? They vanished on me.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. Lucien! Galahad!”
“Right here.” Lucien appeared from behind her, Galahad with him. He cupped his hand over his nose and mouth to filter the cloud of dust. “That way.” He pointed toward the approximate direction of the exit.
They clambered over the rubble and were twenty feet away from the front door, sunlight gleaming through its broken glass, when another sharp sound cracked overhead.
Lucien looked up. Alarm rang through his voice. “The next floor! It’s coming down!”
They ran. Small grains of cement rained down on them, a prelude to the storm. Seconds later, the larger pieces broke away. Xin cried out in pain as one piece struck her on the shoulder, but Lucien pulled her close, shielding her with his own body as he raced toward the exit.
“Zara!” Galahad shouted.
A violent shove sent her sprawling several feet forward. Galahad screamed in agony. Zara threw a quick glance over her shoulder. Galahad was trapped beneath the rubble that would have crushed her, had he not saved her.
Scrambling to her feet, she ran back to his side. “Galahad! Help me here!” she cried out to the others. She strained to lift the massive piece of lumber that had crushed Galahad’s back and legs, pinning him to the ground. “We’ll get you out, Galahad. Damn it, do you hear me? Stay with me; we’ll get you out.”
Galahad could not respond. The pain stole his breath, robbed him of his ability to speak, to think. He had endured a great deal in his years at the laboratory, but nothing had ever felt like that. The pain was excruciating, even overwhelming, and then miraculously, it eased away with breathtaking speed.
Danyael.
Empathic healing powers alleviated the shattering pain of multiple fractures, carefully aligning bone fragments in the crushed legs and spine before accelerating the production of chondroblasts and osteoblasts to produce the hyaline cartilage and woven bone needed to hold the fractured bone fragments pieces together. Bone fragments moved, then locked into place and strengthened, once again perfectly aligned.
He inhaled deeply as Lucien, Xin, Zara, and Miriya struggled—without success—to move the lumber. The weight against his back and legs was uncomfortable, but not unbearable, now that they no longer ground against broken bones.
“We’re so close,” Lucien said, glancing at the exit that taunted with its inaccessible nearness. “On my count, one, two, three!”
The heavy piece of wood did not even budge.
“Lucien!” Xin’s voice was a quiet whisper, but the urgency in it demanded that he look up. Something moved in the smoke in front of them. Something massive.
Lucien cursed under his breath. “Again!”
The four friends struggled and strained, muscles tensing against the effort, but the lumber mocked their every effort to free Galahad.
The smoke parted, giving way to the five massive, misshapen forms of the abominations. Their clawed hands dripped blood as the monsters slowly lumbered forward. Kill, kill. Brother.
Galahad met their amber-eyed stares without flinching. “Go,” he said simply.
“What?” Zara seized his hand in hers and held tight. “No!”
The sincerity in her voice warmed him; she had meant it. “You’re out of time!” He had to shout to be heard above the cacophony all around them. The flames crackled and the moans and wails of the dying echoed off the shattered walls. The building groaned, its structural integrity compromised. “Go, now!”
A sharp, cracking sound ricocheted overhead and set up an echo as other foundational structures snapped under the pressure. Lucien grabbed Xin’s wrist and pulled her along as he raced out of the building and onto the street. Miriya was just a step behind him, and Zara was the last to leave. “I won’t forget,” she promised as she tore away from Galahad, taking a single step back, her violet eyes never leaving his face as if trying to imprint into memory.
“I know.” He breathed the words too quietly for her to hear and then saw her turn to run. He looked up as the abominations closed in around him. His last glimpse of his friends was taken from him as their massive forms encircled him.
Outside the building, Miriya slumped over, breathing hard, her hands resting against her knees.
Lucien’s voice cut through the haze of her exhaustion. “Break the link, Miriya.”
Her head snapped up, and she stared at him. “What?”
Lucien ground his teeth together, his eyes betraying his anguish over the decision he was about to make. “Break the telepathic link, or Danyael will die too.”
Danyael?
The alpha empath did not reply.
Danyael? Talk to me, damn it. Miriya severed all their telepathic ties to Danyael. Behind her, the building groaned as if it were alive. “Get back; it’s coming down!”
They fled across the street as the structural frame of the building crumpled. The top five floors collapsed all at once, imploding in a spray of debris. Lucien, Zara, Xin, and Miriya ducked behind parked cars to protect themselves from the fine gray dust that spread out like a cloud, covering them. A full ten minutes passed before the rubble finally settled, and when it was over, nothing moved. Galahad and the abominations were buried in the ruins of Purest Humanity.
Miriya kicked at the heap of rubble. The symbolism galled her. Galahad had been at the heart of the genetic crisis, but he was—more than anyone else—a true victim of circumstances. It was not fair; life was so goddamned unfair.
Tense and angry, feeling cheated, Miriya strode around the ruins of the building toward the corner where they had left Danyael. She stopped short, staring in disbelief at the empty street. Danyael was nowhere to be found.
Far more alarming, Jason Rakehell was gone too.
13
Roland twisted around to look over his shoulder. Nothing could have prepared him to see his two adult sons slumped in the backseat of his car. Jason was unconscious and bleeding, but stable. His younger son—Luke, he recal
led vaguely—clung on to consciousness, fighting for every labored breath, in the grip of some kind of vicious pain for which there was no basis in reality.
Roland and Michael had both been crouching beside Luke on the sidewalk, watching him shudder in agony, debating what to do when they heard the first of many loud explosions inside Purest Humanity. Michael’s head snapped up. “The building! I think it’s coming down.”
Roland shot to his feet and turned to race into the burning building.
Michael grabbed his hand. “You can’t! It’s suicide. You don’t even know if Galahad is in there. Getting killed accomplishes nothing. We can’t leave Jason and this man here. They could get killed by debris.”
Roland hesitated.
Michael’s eyes widened. “God, man, you can’t be serious. I know Jason has been a pain in the ass, but he is your son and he’s hurt. I still can’t believe you shot him.”
“He was going to kill…him.”
Michael shook his head with an expression that married disbelief and relief. “It’s a damned good thing you don’t actually know how to aim that gun. Jason may actually make it through this. And this young man, he looks like he could be one of the templates for Galahad.”
“He’s not. He can’t be,” Roland insisted, striving to control his panic. He had selected the genetic templates on his own. Michael did not know the truth. Michael could not find out the truth.
Michael cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. The building in whose shadow they were standing seemed determined to crumble to pieces. “You have to help me get them into the car.”
They moved Jason first, maneuvering his dead weight into the car with some difficulty, and then ducked when another explosion rocked the building. On the pavement, the young man screamed, his dark eyes wide with shock, blind with pain. Every muscle tensed against excruciating agony. For the space of two seconds, he was utterly still, but then he inhaled shakily, dragging air into his lungs. His dark eyes closed, his shoulders sagging in exhaustion.
