Sloan emerged from the black hole of the elevator shaft right behind her.
“Let’s go,” Meg ordered over her shoulder even as she headed down the destroyed lobby. She easily stepped over and around the bodies of Williams’ metasoldiers, refusing to allow herself to look into their faces. These people were just as brainwashed as Creed and Farrow had been. Maybe some of them could have, would have turned away from his teachings if given the chance.
No, Meg. You can’t think that way. Save who you can, and get out! Her self-talk was stern and stoic.
“Where are the other children?” Alik whispered to Creed even as they hurried to the waiting van.
“Gone. And this one looks as if he might not last the night. That’s why he was left,” Alik tossed the van keys to Creed even as they exchanged a pained look. They knew Meg would never get over losing the one child they could save.
“Let’s go before the rest of the compound shows up,” Evan said, helping Meg, Farrow then Sloan into the van before he clamored in himself. Maze leaped inside last. Just as Evan slammed the back doors shut, his sister let out a painful gasp.
Everyone stopped to look at her upturned face contort in obvious anguish, her back arched and a silent scream pulsed in her throat. She started panting, gasping for air and clinging to the baby in her arms even more tightly.
“What is it, Meg?”
Through gasps, she locked eyes with Alik and said the one word they were all hoping she wouldn’t say: “Mom.”
Chapter 10 How Mortal Are You?
Margo knew she wouldn’t be able to keep pace with the enraged coyote running at full-speed through the dark, though she tried. The Facility was eerily quiet. She kept to the shadows and slinked past the administration building, desperate to find her children.
She had studied the maps of the compound Creed made for them and had a general idea of where the Research Hospital was located. As she rounded the administration building and saw the tastefully lit courtyard, she got her bearings and located the hospital easily. Its rectangular shape stood lit against the velvet, European sky.
The sound of many voices cheering a sport somewhere northeast of where she stood brushed passed her ears.
White lilies were planted in such abundance around the courtyard; their scent in the cool night air came across as cloying. Margo wrinkled her nose at it and chose to breathe through her mouth instead. Still calculating her next move, she ignored the small white puffs of warm breath as they escaped her o-shaped mouth.
Her initial reaction to seeing the building in which her sweet children were trapped was to attack with the rage of a lioness, but she forced herself to hold back and work through that emotional response. The soldier in her knew better than to run off half-cocked. She rolled her shoulders and her head trying to force herself to relax through the body shakes compliments of the fight-or-flight adrenaline coursing through her.
Calm down, soldier, she scolded. Focus.
Just as she had chosen her next patch of shadows to slip toward, every light in the entire Research Hospital went out. The rectangular building that had been lit like an amusement park at Christmas went dark, as though God himself doused the lights with a massive cloak. The space where the hospital now stood was only obvious by the lack of stars as though a black hole swallowed them.
Her racing heart skipped a beat.
Oh dear God!
NO!
All logic and training flew from her mind.
Forgetting her own safety, she bolted across the courtyard directly for the building that held her breath captive. So determined to get to her children, she didn’t even stop at the push of the first bullet as it hit her right shoulder. Her momentum and determination carried her on. But by the time the second shot ground into her lower back, she found her legs wouldn’t move the way she commanded. By the third shot, she felt an intense shard of stabbing pain in her tailbone. A moment of surrealism enveloped her as the world teetered and spun.
Margo’s soft brown eyes were still locked on the blackened building even as she lay bleeding on the ornate flagstone path. Her arms were reaching, uselessly, and her breath coming through jagged gasps. From behind her she vaguely distinguished a raspy laugh.
“Well done, Slider,” it chuckled.
“Oh, my dear Margo. If this isn’t justice, I don’t know what is!”
Margo would know that voice anywhere, however distorted. It belonged to Dr. Kenneth Williams.
Her eyes never leaving the building holding her children, she felt a surge of fury at the man who not only hunted her family but who had just ordered her shot in the back.
What a coward! She thought with a soldier’s venom.
She heard two sets of footsteps approaching her on the pathway.
“You have been the bane of my existence for far too long, woman,” the evil doctor’s voice scolded.
“But, in a way, I must thank you,” he chuckled ominously. “You developed the three metas beautifully.”
Two figures moved to stand, blocking Margo’s line of sight.
“Yes, well, I asked Miro to maim you and it looks as though he aimed perfectly, despite your vest.” The lights from the courtyard glistened off his wet face. Margo shifted her stare from Slider to the doctor and realized for the first time, that something horrible had happened to him. There seemed to be no skin on his face, just tendons and muscles exposed—juicy and sick in the moonlight.
Her glassy eyes locked onto Slider’s. She watched him for a moment before trying to speak.
“Slider?” she gasped, pleading with her eyes at the vacant expression on the boy’s face. Seeing the void blackness there, her heart broke on even deeper levels.
“Oh, please allow me to introduce my Monarch Slave,” Dr. Williams scoffed. “This is Miro Reznikov.” He waved at the young man gallantly.
Slider/Miro didn’t move. He didn’t even seem to breathe as he stood, jaw-clenched, weapon pointed directly at the fallen woman.
“What do you plan to do with us?” she croaked. Her voice was much weaker than she anticipated.
Oh, God. Did he hit my spinal cord? She grimaced internally.
“Well now, I’m not going to worry too much about you, my dear. I have soldiers en route to handle you. As for the children, well…we all know children need a firm hand from time to time.” He chuckled again.
That’s when she saw it.
The blackness draped across the ground behind Dr. Williams seemed to shift.
Margo tried to blink away the waves of dizziness she felt creeping over her and see more clearly.
She watched the evil doctor’s shadow morphing, growing—defying physics.
It grew appendages on either side. They stretched wide.
That’s when Margo knew with every cell in her body what she was seeing was Williams’ true shape.
His huge silhouette hung menacingly behind him, prancing anxiously. Margo knew what he was now.
Williams was pure evil—his shadow was that of a winged demon.
She watched with horror as the shape stretched its bat-like wings wide, shook its dragon-like head, and growled unmistakably.
The human form of Williams was watching Margo watch his shadow. When she tore her eyes away from the sickeningly black shape to look at him, she saw he was smiling a toothless, bloody smile.
He knew what he was doing.
He showed me who he is and wants me to fear him.
Even as she laid face first on the cold flagstone walkway, blood pooling in the small of her back, she felt a surge of righteous fury.
Bloody fissures erupted where cheeks used to be when he smiled showing off his toothless and bloody drool-filled mouth.
Margo’s body was shaking, but she couldn’t discern whether it was from the abject anger she felt toward the demonic monster that had hunted her family for years, or if her body was going into shock from her gunshot wounds.
“You will lose, demon.” Margo shuddered.
Willia
ms’ laughter echoed through the courtyard, trying to worm its way into Margo’s soul.
She yelled a soldier’s battle cry, reached into her boot and quickly withdrew the Glock hidden there.
With no time to aim, Margo moved to pull the trigger when she felt the gun explode in her hand.
Miro stood stalk still, gun still aimed directly at Margo’s hands, smoke wisps spilling from the tip of his 9mm.
Casually, Williams reached into the breast pocket of his three-pieced suit and retrieved a red handkerchief. He dabbed his bloody weeping eyes nonchalantly, as though he just had a little dust in it. “Well done, Miro. You’re worth your weight in gold, dear boy.”
“As for you, wretched human, as you can see, you cannot touch me.”
Even as he finished his sentence, a wide-eyed Margo heard boots running toward them.
“You’ll have to forgive their tardiness,” Williams continued calmly as though he hadn’t just been seconds away from sporting a bullet between the eyes.
“You see, tonight was a special Moonlight Retribution Match on the other side of the compound. Most of my metasoldiers were in attendance as this was a much anticipated battle between two of my Perfico Rez.” He sighed lovingly. “I had to leave my new second-in-command, Dr. Chaunders, to handle the proceedings, though I would have loved to have attended myself. Alas, Miro warned me at the last minute I was to have some unexpected guests.” He nodded toward the Research Hospital.
“It looks as though someone has been playing with the electrical power over there.” His bloody lips made a wet tsking noise that sounded sickening to Margo’s traumatized senses. She was fighting the waves of unconsciousness that crowded her line of sight, but the fight was becoming futile.
“I must go attend to them, dear, but don’t worry. My soldiers will show you to your new quarters.” Dr. Williams’ voice rose as he called to the approaching metahumans.
“Please assist Dr. Winter to the second floor of my administration building. Room two-hundred has been prepared for her arrival,” the doctor growled the last word. “No need to be gentle after you disarm her, evidentially, she’s nearly impossible to kill! Nearly.” He laughed wickedly at his own humor even as meaty hands reached to grab the fallen human.
“Later, we’ll see how mortal you are, Dr. Winter.”
***
“Oh dear God, no!” Evan called.
“Is she alive, Meg?”
Pant, gasp, pant…nod.
Creed started the van and rolled off the lawn to get back to the main road.
“Just point me in the right direction, Meg. We’ll get her.”
Meg’s whole body began shaking—adrenaline pumping, ready to fight. “It’s too risky with everyone.” She was looking down at the baby in her arms through the tears that sprung into her dark eyes. “She’s been shot in the back,” Meg managed to say, a sob catching in her throat.
Desperately, she moved to hand the baby to Farrow who instinctively opened her arms to receive the little bundle.
“Stop the van. Let me out. I have to save her!” Meg gushed.
Creed obeyed immediately.
Meg was trying to untangle the baby’s sticky little fingers from her hair as quickly as possible. He ended up with a chunk still in his grasp, as Meg was determined to run to her mother no matter what.
“Listen to me,” Meg turned to the occupants of the van. Her eyes seethed with equal parts anguish and determination. “I need you to blow up the Research Hospital, no matter what. Can you do that Evan?”
“What if Mom’s near the hospital?”
“She’s not. She’s in the middle of the courtyard.” With still shaking hands, Meg yanked her duffel bag open and pulled out two hand grenades. “When you hear these go off, that’s your signal. Don’t hesitate, Evan. I can’t live with the thought of what has happened in that building, or what has yet to happen, and there isn’t an innocent soul left there. End it.” Meg cringed at the thought of her harvested eggs thawing in some petri dish somewhere in there—or Creed’s seed waiting to be added so Williams could create thoroughbred metahumans.
He wanted to dissect her children.
No. Never.
Creed jumped out of the van, grabbing his gun. “How far away can you be from the building and still remote detonate the explosives?” he asked Evan.
Evan narrowed his eyes, thinking. “About fifty yards.”
“Good, get going and listen for the signal, detonate then get the hell out of here. We’ll meet you back at the hotel. Clear?” Creed nodded at Alik who had moved to the driver’s seat.
“Clear.”
Meg jumped out of the van and slipped the grenades into her waistband before checking her semiautomatic for clips.
Alik pulled away from the Research Hospital and headed toward a spot he figured would be about half a football field away to be ready.
His eyes kept darting up to his rearview mirror to watch his sister and Creed Young sprint back toward the courtyard at the center of the compound.
Evan’s face was pressed into the back glass, watching helplessly as his big sister ran back into the mouth of hell.
Chapter 11 Don’t! Go!
Meg and Creed didn’t need to speak to one another. Their connection was so strong. Creed felt Meg’s love envelop him with the same iridescent cloth of his dreams, and Meg felt Creed’s abject devotion through her empath’s glistening strands. They were of one mind—one strength—fueled and refueled equally by one another.
“How bad is it?” he asked his dark-eyed beauty as they hugged the shadows making their way back to the bowels of Williams’ hell. For a split second, Creed watched her in the moonlight—her long hair draped around her muscular shoulders, hands still clutching two semiautomatic weapons.
“Meg?”
Just as Creed was about to ask again, he heard the answer for himself.
Williams’ maniacal laughter echoed raspy and hollow around the courtyard ahead.
This is what a demon’s laughter sounds like, he realized with absolute certainty.
Meg slammed herself against the nearest building, ducking deeper into its shadow. Creed followed her every move. “Mom!” she gasped in a whisper only loud enough for Creed’s sharp hearing, but laced with the pain of a thousand screams.
Meg slipped one of her guns in her waistband and crouched in the shadows of the men’s barracks. She crawled on her belly through the white Iceberg Roses, oblivious of the sharp thorns digging into her face and arms as she never lost her empath’s sight leading toward her mother. Creed, having already switched off all pain sensors to cope with the gunshot wound Slider dealt him back at the admin building, only cringed at the thorns when he saw them tear at Meg’s beautiful, pale skin.
She stopped crawling, locking eyes on the scene some sixty yards to her left. The scene was even worse than her gift warned. Her mother lay sprawled, face down in the grass. Slider and Williams stood over her. Slider’s gun was aimed directly at her mother’s soft brown hair that fluttered innocently in the night’s breeze. Williams’ face was thrown back in a menacing laugh.
Take care, my sweet Meggie, she heard her mother’s thoughts as clearly as if she’d spoken them in a whisper at her ear.
No Mom! Meg was oblivious of the tears slipping down her terrified cheeks to christen the fistful of earth below.
You know what has to be done, Meggie. Look after your brothers. You have been the joy of my life, little one. I love you so much. Tell your brothers I love them, too. Go with God. Run, Meg. GO!
Even as she was sending these thoughts to her daughter across the courtyard, the boots of the metahumans running in formation at double time could be heard.
The first of the soldiers emerged from the northeast corner of the courtyard. Williams barked orders at them and they moved to grab Margo.
Creed had positioned himself beside Meg, there in the darkness. The scent of roses was overpowered by the fresh mulch that had been placed around the base of the bushes,
smelling of both life and death.
Meg’s eyes were locked onto Williams. As he stood, bloody head tossed back in wicked laughter, something on the ground around his feet began to shift.
His shadow.
It was his shadow cast by the courtyard’s lamps that began to morph. They shimmied together and almost seemed to bubble before they turned a wet, sickly black like hot tar. The black shadow grew beyond the laws of physics. It seemed to be taking on a shape of its own…separate of Williams. But as the evil doctor moved his arms out to his side, Meg saw the shadow stretch dragon-like wings.
A demon shadow?
Creed’s strong hand reached out and grabbed Meg’s. “The grenades, where are they?” He whispered with a controlled calm that forced Meg’s attention.
Did he see what I just saw?
She reached to her waistband and pulled out the two metal, lumpy spheres.
“On the count of three, we throw these. You throw right, blocking the soldiers’ path toward the admin building. I’ll throw left, aiming for Williams and Miro. We both run to your mom. I’ll collect her, and you provide cover fire. Then we get the hell out of here.”
“How?” Meg was trying to control her panic, drawing her strength from Creed’s courage.
“Send Alik an empath message. Tell him to stop the van at the gate. Can you do that?”
“I think I can,”
“No time to stop now, they’re about to take her away. Ready?”
Together Creed and Meg carefully moved to a standing position, still hidden in the shadow of the building and nodded a silent countdown, yanked out the safety clips and threw their grenades.
They arched perfectly, the moonlight glinting off the olive green metal.
Meg closed her eyes and forced herself to focus on Alik, mentally screaming down the silver connection she knew tied her to her brother, insisting he stop the van and wait for them.
Chapter 12 Eight Minutes-ish
“What’s wrong?” Farrow had moved to sit in the front passenger seat next to Alik while they waited for their signal when she noticed a strange expression take over Alik’s face. The baby had settled back into a deep sleep and was drooling on Farrow’s strong shoulder. His fist was still holding a lock of Meg’s dark hair. The little boy had moved his hand to hold it close to his face, as though breathing her scent was his soothing tonic.
Winter's Warrior: Mark of the Monarch (Winter's Saga #4) Page 6
