Penumbra

by Keri Arthur

  “But he can’t be one of Hopeworth’s products because he has dark hair. Lloyd said all Hopeworth’s creations have red hair, and that’s certainly proven to be the case, even among the rejects.”

  All true. And yet, why did this Joe know so much? And how had he formed such an intimate connection with her? If he wasn’t a Hopeworth product, he had to be at least a part of Hopeworth—and a part of the project that Sam had come from. A project that had been almost totally erased.

  Besides, it wasn’t as though a shifter capable of taking on multiple forms couldn’t easily change his hair color.

  “Psychic connections such as the one you appear to have with Joe just don’t happen between strangers. Despite the myths, such strong connections take time, and effort and—” He hesitated and then added softly, “intimacy.”

  “Joe and I have never been lovers.”

  “I never said that you were. But he could be someone who was close to you in that place. Someone you leaned on for strength.”

  She shook her head. “There was only Joshua. In the dreams, it was always him and me against the rest.”

  Yet she had said that she didn’t know if the dreams could be trusted as the truth. What if someone had altered them, perhaps not so much for content as for appearances? What if her twin wasn’t who she thought he was?

  That would certainly make the man who seemed to know too much about her more of an option as the brother.

  But why would he continue to keep his identity a secret if he was in mental contact with her now? What was he waiting for?

  Since that was a question neither he nor Sam could answer, he switched topics.

  “How trustworthy do you think the nurse’s information is going to be when it comes to Hopeworth’s habit of wiping out sections of their former employees’ memories?”

  Sam shrugged. “Mary’s memories of the project have been restricted. I asked her the name of the project she worked on, and she said it hurts if she tries to remember.”

  “And yet she could talk freely about you and Joshua? You didn’t think that odd?”

  “No.” Sam hesitated. “But Mary said we were all little more than numbers, so maybe that’s why she could talk about us.”

  Gabriel frowned. “What?”

  Sam grimaced. “Just something Mary mentioned the last time. She said she wished the military would give us names instead of numbers, because she couldn’t keep up with all the different names we kept coming up with for ourselves.”

  “So the military might have restricted her from mentioning specific numbers, but because she knew you by particular names, she’s been able to short-circuit the restrictions?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Which means she might also know what other aliases your brother went by.”

  Sam’s eyebrows rose. “I hadn’t thought of asking that, but yeah, she might. It’s worth a try, anyway.”

  It certainly was. Hell, anything that gave them any information about her so-called brother was a good thing, because he didn’t trust her sudden revelation. Didn’t like the fact that she’d been talking to someone for so many years and yet had no clue as to that person’s real identity. Hell, how could they be sure it wasn’t Sethanon? It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility, especially given Sethanon’s interest in her over the years.

  The car slid to a stop outside a large brick residence that had the air of a secure hospital rather than someplace homey and warm. Bars lined the front windows, and sturdy, locked gates guarded the pathways that led to the back of the building. There was a lot of landscaping evident beyond the gates, but it did little to blunt the initial impression of a prison-like environment.

  “This it?” He glanced back at Sam.

  She nodded. “Hopefully, Mary’s doing a little better now than when I visited her the last time. Otherwise, we won’t be talking to her for long.”

  “How ill is she?” Gabriel climbed out of the car. The early morning sunshine was bright despite the bitter wind, so he put on his sunglasses. And in the brief shift between brightness and shade, he thought he saw something move in the thick shrubbery beyond the gates.

  He frowned, lowering the sunglasses a little and squinting against the sunlight as he studied the path along the right side of the building. Nothing more than bushes moving to the tune of the breeze.

  And yet…something had moved. Something other than plant life swaying back and forth. Something that had darted back into the shadows with inhuman speed, and yet had been human in shape.

  Frown deepening, he walked around the car, waiting until his back was to the building before he said, “Can you feel anything out of place?”

  She gave him a sharp glance and looked at the building. “No.” She hesitated, frowning a little. “Yes. There’s a faint feeling of evil coming from the right of the building.”

  The right of the building was where he’d seen the shadow move. “What do you mean by faint?”

  “It’s not a solid sensation. It’s wispier, like I’m feeling something ghostlike rather than human.” She shrugged and glanced at him. “Why? What did you see?”

  “I’m not sure.” He stared at the side of the building for a little longer but didn’t see any further movement. And yet the sense that something was out of place remained. “I think something is about to go down. You want to get inside and talk to Mary Elliot? I’d like to check the outside of the building first.”

  She nodded and strode toward the front door. He headed sideways toward the suspect. But neither of them had taken more than a few steps when the screaming began.

  He shared a brief glance with Sam, then ran like hell for the gates. One huge leap and he was over them, racing for the rear of the building.

  He saw a shadow leap skyward on night-dark wings as he rounded the corner.

  He shifted shape and gave chase.

  —

  Sam crashed through the front door, her badge raised in one hand and her weapon held low in the other. “SIU, folks. Stand back.”

  “Officer, please, there’s no need—”

  She ignored the woman at the reception desk and ran down the hall. How many times in the past had she been in a similar situation? Being so close to possible answers, only to have them snatched away by some force of evil? Whether that force was military or Sethanon’s didn’t matter right now. What mattered was getting to Mary’s room and making sure yet another source of answers wasn’t shut down.

  Because the screams were definitely coming from Mary. Sam pounded down the hall, chased by footsteps and protests, her gaze on the main prize—the open door to Mary’s room.

  She slowed as she neared the room, took a deep breath, then stepped inside, weapon raised.

  Only to discover the receptionist had been right. There was no need, and no threat. One of the four big windows that looked out onto the garden was open, but nothing more than a few inches. Maybe enough to let a bird in, but certainly not a human. The screen covering the window had tumbled to the ground, and the curtains flapped slightly in the breeze. Surely neither could be the reason behind the screams coming from the thin gray-haired woman standing in the middle of the room. The screen dropping could have frightened her, but not to this extent. Yet there was sheer terror in Mary’s voice.

  Two nurses stood on either side of her, talking to her in soft tones, obviously trying to calm her down. Sam had seen at least one of the women on her last visit here, so they probably weren’t causing Mary’s distress either.

  She put her weapon away and stepped toward the trio. “Ladies, do you need any help?” She flashed her badge as one of the nurses looked around, then asked, “What happened?”

  “Day terrors,” the dark-haired nurse said grimly. “It sometimes happens when the mind regresses.”

  Sam walked into the older woman’s line of sight, blocking the window and whatever it was Mary had seen. Or thought she’d seen.

  “Mary?” she said softly.

  The older woman blinked, th
en her gaze met Sam’s and the right side of her face lit up in a smile.

  “Josephine!” The word was slightly slurred, but understandable. Mary’s stroke had robbed the left side of her face of mobility, but thankfully had left her capable of speech. “Oh, thank God you’re here!”

  She lurched forward, pulling out of the nurses’ grip with surprising ease, and staggered toward Sam. Sam caught her, wrapping her arms around the frail body. She felt the shuddering of terror through the other woman’s limbs, the steel of muscle underneath it.

  Mary might be old and frail, but she had a surprising amount of strength left.

  “It’s all right, Mary. I’m here. No one will get you now.”

  The old woman shuddered. “I saw him, you know. I wasn’t imagining it. I saw him.”

  “Shhhh. It’s okay. You’re safe.” She stroked Mary’s back with one hand and felt the terror begin to leave the older woman’s body. “Who did you see?”

  But Mary appeared not to hear her, caught up in her distress. “He’ll be back. Now that they know I’m here, he’ll be back.”

  “No, he won’t. My partner’s out there right now, hunting him down.” But who the hell had Mary seen? If only she could get an answer. “He’ll catch him. That’s what he does.”

  Mary pulled back a little. “I know. I was talking to him.”

  Sam frowned. “You were talking to Gabriel?”

  Mary looked annoyed. “I don’t know a Gabriel. I meant Joshua. Joshua will catch him. Where is he? I want to talk to him again.” Her voice was petulant, like that of a child deprived of a toy. And in many ways Mary was a child. Much of her mind had gone, lost in memories of the past.

  But did that mean she was lost now, or had she really seen Joshua? And if it wasn’t Joshua who had scared her—as her words seemed to indicate—then who or what had?

  “Maybe Joshua will come by later.”

  Even as she said it, Sam glanced up at the dark-haired nurse, who shook her head and said, “There were no visitors today.”

  So, it was all in Mary’s imagination. But that didn’t mean Sam couldn’t get something useful, as long as she didn’t push Mary too far. She motioned toward the sofa. “Mary, why don’t you come sit down on the sofa with me?”

  “Oh, all right. As long as they don’t stick me again. They’re always sticking me with things.”

  The second nurse came back into the room with a medical trolley at that precise moment, and Sam couldn’t help smiling. “You don’t want to be sick when Joshua visits again, do you?” She helped the elderly woman onto the sofa and knelt down in front of her. “How about you talk to me about his visit while the nurses make sure the other man didn’t hurt you.”

  The old woman’s smile broke loose at the mention of Joshua. “He was such a bonny child. You both were.”

  “When was he here, Mary?”

  “Today, like I said. Just before that other man appeared.” She shuddered. “I never did like the look of that one. He was nasty.”

  “Who was he, Mary?”

  The woman frowned, as if trying to search for the memory was painful. “I…I can’t remember his name, I’m afraid.”

  Clearly this was Hopeworth’s blocks at work. Time for another tactic.

  “So how did Joshua get here? He never checked in with the nurses.”

  The old woman snorted. “Well, he wouldn’t, would he? He hates medical types. It’s far easier for him to fly in through an open window and avoid all the fuss.”

  “So he came as a bird?”

  “Yeah.” Mary smiled. “You both had to be electronically chipped as kids so you didn’t fly beyond the compound restrictions.”

  It sounded like Mary was getting her mixed up with someone else, because while she had changer genes, she certainly wasn’t able to change. Though, admittedly, she’d never tried to, either.

  A chill ran over Sam’s skin and she rubbed her arms. Whoever had blocked her memories had been very thorough indeed if she could not remember something as basic as the fact that she could change shape.

  Why block it in the first place, though? She could understand why Hopeworth and everything that had happened there might have been erased, but why the total erasure? Why take away something as harmless as the fact that she had a brother, or that she could shapechange?

  And how was any of this connected to the mythical Sethanon?

  “How many bird forms did he have?” she asked.

  “Several. You always seemed to prefer being a small hawk, but he liked variety. A hawk, a crow, sometimes even a pigeon. None of those could fit through the window, though. So today he came as one of those annoying birds—minors, I think they call them.”

  Again Sam wondered if Mary’s memories were true, or if she was getting imagination and reality mixed up. She glanced up as the nurse finished her exam.

  “She’s fine,” the nurse said. “Just keep her calm.”

  Sam nodded, waiting until the two nurses had left the room before continuing her questions. “Did Joshua say why he was here, Mary?”

  “He said it was all right to talk. He said they couldn’t stop me anymore.” Fear briefly crossed her half-frozen features. “Maybe that’s why he came. He knew.”

  “He who? I really need to know which one of them, Mary, so we can stop him.”

  Mary frowned again, then eventually said, “The general. It was the general.”

  “Blaine? Or Lloyd?” It had to be one of them. Lloyd was an obstetrician, and apparently in charge of the Hopeworth breeding pens. Blaine had been the man behind the experiments and training, and maybe even the whole Penumbra project.

  But if it was Blaine, which of the Blaines had been here? The one she’d met in Wetherton’s car, or the one who’d been in Wetherton’s office?

  And did it actually matter? Just because she hadn’t felt anything evil about the first Blaine didn’t mean he wasn’t.

  “It was Blaine.” Mary shuddered. “We used to call him the day shadow. Always creeping about, he was, and harder to spot than a ghost at dusk.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Didn’t get a chance, did he? He saw Joshua and scooted out of here as fast as he could.”

  “So he recognized Josh?”

  Mary smiled. “You always used to call him that when you were angry with him. It was like you couldn’t get his full name out fast enough.”

  Her dreams had never shown her angry at the man who was supposedly her brother. The only emotions in the dreams were fear and longing—fear of what the scientists were doing, and of what Joshua was going to do. And longing to be free, to have what she’d never had—a family, friends. Things she still didn’t possess.

  “Did we fight often?”

  Mary shrugged. “You were as different as night and day, you two. You were always the fiery one, the one quick to judge. He was more…careful.” She looked away for a minute, her gaze distant. “But for all that, I always thought he was the more dangerous of the two of you. He never seemed to have limits of any kind. And he did some nasty things.”

  “We both did,” she said softly.

  Mary’s gaze met hers again, and she raised a slightly shaking hand to brush Sam’s skin with dry fingertips. “In many ways, you were always the good one. What you did, you had to do.”

  Her words made Sam remember the pin Joe had given her. Had it been more of a clue than she realized? Had the abstract man and woman on its surface—one light, one dark—represented her and the man who was supposedly her twin?

  Had Joe been trying to tell her that he knew not only who she was, but who her brother was? And did that mean he was a friend or foe? For sure, he’d warned her of trouble more than once, but that didn’t mean she could trust him. Hell, for all she knew, Joe might be Blaine in disguise.

  “Mary, was there anyone on the project who went by the name of Joe Black?”

  Mary frowned. “Not that I remember. But then, I didn’t know everyone on the project, because I was basical
ly confined to the nursery and housing areas. Nor did I know all the secret names you two called yourselves. Only some.”

  “Can you remember some of the other names?”

  “Not really. I only remembered Josephine and Joshua because those were the names you used most often.”

  “What about Sethanon? Is that one of them? Or maybe the name of someone who worked there?”

  “Sethanon?” Her frown deepened. “I don’t think there was anyone on the project called that. It’s such an odd name that surely I’d remember it. But Joshua was once caught reading a book by that name, I’m sure.”

  A chill went through her. “Sethanon is a book title?”

  “Yeah. I caught him reading it well before they did, and I warned him. But he took no notice.”

  “So we weren’t allowed to read fiction?”

  “No, only what they gave you. On technologies, weapons, stuff like that.” Mary shrugged. “No one ever knew how he got that book. When they took it off him, he got mad.” She looked away again. “Joshua would never have hurt me, I knew that, but that day I was afraid. And not just of him, but of both of you.”

  Sam raised her eyebrows. “Why both of us?”

  Mary’s gaze came back to Sam’s. “Because separately you were powerful, but together—I swear, heaven and earth trembled in fear of your wrath that day.”

  Sam swallowed heavily but didn’t ask what had happened. Right now, she really didn’t want to know. It was enough to know that she was not what she’d presumed—and that the past she’d spent most of her life trying to uncover was one better left shuttered. And yet, now that she’d started down the path of remembering, there was no turning back. The military and their rising level of interest ensured that, if nothing else.

  Besides, the dreams were becoming relentless. Remembering was being forced on her, whether she wanted it or not.

  “If we were so powerful, Mary, how did they ever restrain us?”

  Her smile was grim. “Simply by placing special pellets under your skins, and threatening the death of one if the other did anything out of place.”