His cold, brown eyes widened as every one of his years took hold on his body.
And he must have been old.
He withered to a frail, skeletal thing. It reminded her of Holocaust photos. With one final wheeze, he toppled to the floor, his white coat billowing around him.
Only then did Mecca release him. She staggered back, unsteady.
Jenny rushed over. “Are you okay?” She pulled Mecca tight, supporting her.
Mecca nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine. It’s a big rush of energy. Just…huge.” She turned away, bent, and vomited on the floor.
Okay, that was unexpected.
Mecca sucked in big gasps of air.
“Get some water!” Jenny said to Oliver.
He looked like a frightened puppy now, making half steps right and left. “Where?”
“I don’t know! You’re the one who works here!”
“If I go out—”
“I’m okay,” Mecca said, straightening. She held up a hand. “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?”
Another nod. “Yeah. It just needs to…settle.”
Oliver stood, staring at them both with horror.
Mecca finally noticed him. “What? You saw this happen before.”
“I…” He didn’t finish.
“Mec, you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.”
Sara, who’d been quiet this whole time, said, “Would someone please tell me what the hells is going on?”
“Umm…” Jenny looked at the husk on the floor. “We kinda have a problem.”
After Jenny relayed what happened, Sara let out a string of expletives that Jenny hadn’t expected out of her. She finished it up with, “Did I hear you say that you got his laptop?”
“Yes,” Oliver said. He’d recovered his wits a bit in the story’s telling.
“Oh good. That will help. You guys should come back now.”
“It’s not that easy, Sara,” Mecca said.
“No,” Jenny added. The whole time she’d been talking to Sara, she’d been pondering how much more difficult their situation was now.
“Oh, yeah,” Sara said. “You’ve got a body.”
If that husk could be called a body, Jenny thought.
They brainstormed what to do and Sara finally suggested, “You could burn the place down.”
Oliver’s brow wrinkled. “There are people here.”
“Right. So pull the fire alarm right before you start it. People will evacuate.”
“And those in the rooms?” he asked, clearly thinking this was a stupid plan.
“What rooms?” Mecca asked.
“I told you they’d bring people back here for testing. Where do you think they stayed?”
“You make it sound like an elective procedure at a plastic surgeon’s office,” Mecca said under her breath.
Jenny held out a hand. They didn’t have time for this. “Okay, so can we get them out too?”
“We could,” he said, “with time. I can go into the system and see how many people we have, but I’ll need to go to my office.”
“Well we can’t all go,” Mecca said. “The fire needs to start here.” She motioned to Blume’s body. “To cover that.”
Jenny began looking around the room to see if there was anything to start a fire with. It looked like an ordinary, if somewhat posh, office.
Except there was a door behind the desk.
“Where does that go to?”
“I’ve been here as long as you have,” Mecca said. But she walked over to the door.
“I was asking Oliver.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “His lab, probably. I told you he needs to have his own lab to mix the compounds and do initial testing on them.”
“There’s a card reader,” Mecca said. “Get his card from his jacket.”
Oliver took a step back, an expression of disgust on his face. “You get his card from his jacket.”
Mecca turned around. “You know she can make you do it.”
Jenny glared at her friend. “I’ll get the damn card.”
Mecca seemed nonplussed and only shrugged.
Jenny approached the withered corpse and crouched beside it. Dusty dryness settled in her nose. She tried very, very hard not to sneeze.
God, how gross would that be? Sneezing a dude? Eww.
She shook the thought from her head and began rifling through the coat pockets. It only took a moment for her to find the white plastic keycard attached to a short lanyard. She grabbed it and stood.
The door Mecca stood beside was a nondescript brown wood, much like the door to the office itself. No eye scanner, though.
Jenny swiped the card, and the lock gave a heavy click. Mecca nodded and turned the handle.
The room beyond seemed a lot like Zoey’s room at the apartment, only larger and much more expensive. She didn’t know what any of it was for, specifically. She pulled out her phone and took a few photos. When Mecca gave her a look, she said, “In case Zoey might be able to get some answers from what type of equipment is here.”
“Ah.” Mecca wandered off, looking at things, just as Jenny did.
“Oliver,” Jenny called.
He appeared at the door, looking uncertain.
“Does anything in here seem important? I mean, something we should take with us that would give Zoey an idea of where to start?”
“I’ll check,” he said.
She was glad of that. He’d recognize something useful way before either of them would.
After several moments of searching, neither she nor Mecca came away with anything, but Oliver had found a small notebook. None of them recognized the scrawled words inside, but Jenny pocketed it anyway, just in case.
“Okay,” Mecca said to Oliver, “what in here can we use to set a fire?”
Jenny hadn’t planned on being an arsonist tonight. Or, really, ever. But here they were.
They’d decided to start the fire in the lab, with accelerant in the office to make sure the body was covered.
“I’m ready,” Oliver said.
They’d put him in charge of finding things in the lab that might be flammable. He’d assembled two rows of different bottles and containers, each with some chemical he named off in turn. He added why they were flammable.
“Oliver,” Jenny said, “if we pull the fire alarm, will they evacuate the Visci that are being tested now?”
“I have no idea.”
“You never got instructions about that sort of thing?” Mecca asked.
“No,” he said.
“Well that seems ill-advised.”
“We should do a pass through all the halls where the rooms are,” Jenny said.
Another voice came on the line. Will’s. “You guys need to get out of there once the fire starts. Don’t worry about the other rooms.”
“I agree,” Mecca said.
She would. Wanting to kill every Visci and all.
Jenny shook her head. “No.”
“Fine. But we need to set the fire first.”
“You risk not getting out in time,” Will said, not liking this plan.
“It’ll be okay. If we run through the halls, Oliver can tell us which rooms hold people. We’ll open them, make sure to get the people out, and then we’ll go ourselves.”
“How do none of you hear what a horrible plan this is?” Will asked. “You’re going to get yourselves killed. I’m coming in.”
“No!” Mecca said at once. “Stay there. Bring the car around to the front though. If we go to the other end of the building, that is where we’re going to come out, right?” She looked at Oliver.
He nodded, but said nothing.
Jenny pulled him aside and only half-listened to Mecca and Will arguing.
“Are you sure we can get the kidnapped people out?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. Most will be sedated. We’ll have to wheel their beds out.”
Jenny hadn’t considered that. Not at all. “Sh
it.” She pulled the bud from her ear. The fighting was distracting her. “What if we wheel them all to the front? Is there a lobby? That way, emergency workers can get to them immediately.”
Oliver looked dubious. “Are we going to leave before the fire department gets here?”
“We have to.” The more Jenny thought about it, the worse it sounded. What if people died?
She shoved the bud back into her ear. “We can’t do this,” she said, raising her voice over everyone else talking. Apparently, Sara had jumped into the conversation.
“What?” Mecca said.
“People could die in this fire. We can’t stay until the responders get here. Not if we don’t want to get caught and asked a bunch of uncomfortable questions. So what do we do? Leave them on the lawn?”
“Why not?” Mecca asked. At first Jenny assumed she was joking, but a look at her face said that she was deadly serious.
“Because we can’t. They’re victims here.”
Mecca scoffed.
“Stop it! You were kidnapped. So were they.”
That shut her up for the moment. Jenny wasn’t sure if they’d ever get past all this.
“Jenny,” Oliver said, quietly.
He’d never said her name before. She looked at him.
“If they find his body here, not only will they realize the lab has been compromised, but if they know what she can do”—he nodded toward Mecca—“they will know it was her. She’ll be in grave danger.”
Jenny hadn’t thought of that. Mecca’s frown told her she hadn’t either.
Will, also on the line, said, “That doesn’t mean you have to burn the whole place down. It only means you need to get rid of the body.”
The body.
A month ago, Jenny never would have fathomed being in a position to where that statement could ever be a part of her life.
Blume’s corpse—a shell really—still lay on the floor in front of the desk. Could they get it out?
“What about a gurney?” she asked Oliver. “Could you get one in here? Maybe we could wheel him out the back. That’s how you bring people in, right? The loading bay?”
He nodded. “That might work.”
“Then he’s just disappeared.” She glanced at Mecca. “Not dead.”
Mecca pursed her lips and gave a tight nod.
“Let me see what I can do.” Oliver moved to the door, cracked it to peek out, and slipped into the hall.
“So we wheel him out,” Mecca said, “and into the car. Then what?”
Jenny sighed. “Can we get through one ridiculous problem at a time?”
“I’ll bring the car up to the employee door,” Will said. The engine turned over in the background.
“Hey,” Oliver said. “You’re here late.”
Jenny looked at Mecca, her confusion mirrored in Mecca’s face.
Someone spoke to Oliver.
“Oh? An appointment this late? Um. I don’t—I don’t think he’s here.”
Someone was coming. That’s what was happening. Could they get into the office without Blume? Jenny had no idea.
Mecca must have had the same notion because she said, “Help me,” as she went to Blume’s body.
It turned out that she didn’t need Jenny’s help pulling the body behind the desk and into the lab.
“Oh, well yes, I guess his car is here. But I haven’t seen him. Are you sure you want—”
Jenny set a lamp straight that had been knocked over in the struggle for the gun, just as Oliver’s voice came from both the earbud and outside the door.
“I don’t think he’d want you in…” And then the door began to open.
Chapter Thirty-Three: Mecca
“Shit!” Mecca whispered, holding the lab door and waving Jenny to her. If someone found them… “Hurry!”
Jenny blurred around the desk and in beside her. Mecca blinked, trying to get her eyes to make sense of Jenny’s speed. Jenny eased the lab door closed as a deep voice with an exotic accent responded to Oliver.
“Our employer requested that I meet with Doctor Blume. It seems strange that his automobile is outside, but I cannot find him anywhere in the building.”
“Yeah,” Oliver said, his voice reflecting his nerves.
“Come on, Oliver,” Jenny whispered. “Keep it together.”
“What about the lab there?” the man said.
I know that voice.
“Umm. It only takes a key card, I think.” Then a pause before he quickly added, “I’ve never been in there.”
“Shit,” Mecca said again. There wasn’t anywhere to hide in the lab.
Or to hide the body.
Jenny grabbed the thing anyway, and Mecca wanted to retch as she realized dust—Visci dust—was flaking off and leaving a light trail on the floor and a haze in the air. She dragged her gaze away from it and instead looked for places that might hide two human-sized women.
Jenny shoved the body beneath one of the huge metal tables that stood against the wall. She crammed it as far back as she could reach. Then she looked at Mecca with wild eyes that asked where they were supposed to go.
A sharp rap came on the door. They both stared at it, as if it would come off its jamb with the force behind the knock.
“Doctor Blume!” called the man.
That voice.
A click and a buzz came from the other side. And then again.
“My card is not working,” the stranger said.
“Well, you know, Doctor Blume is pretty weird about other people being in his la—space.”
One more click and buzz, and the man said, “What is your function here?”
Mecca closed her eyes. Dread settled at the base of her spine. She’d figured out the voice.
Salas. Claude’s man.
Jenny came to her side and grabbed her hand, listening. Mecca’s stomach sank to her feet.
Of course Claude is behind all this. Because of course he is.
Oliver, clearly taken off guard at the man’s question, stammered his reply. “I run the lab. Out there. The lab out there.”
Mecca hung her head and tightened her grip on Jenny’s hand. Oliver was going to get them killed.
“Very well. Tell Doctor Blume that I was here.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Jenny blew out a breath, and tension unwound from Mecca’s muscles.
Oliver began to say something but then the sounds of a struggle came through their earbuds. Jenny’s eyes widened, surprise etched in every feature.
What had happened?
“Do you think I cannot tell when you are lying?” Salas said, in a low, deadly tone. He must have been very close to Oliver’s head for them to hear him so intimately.
Oliver gasped and choked. Then came the clatter of the Bluetooth earbud skittering across the floor.
“Shit,” Mecca whispered. “Come on.”
Without a plan, she unlatched the door and opened it enough to see out. Salas, tall and broad-shouldered, had his back to them. Mecca flung the door wide.
He held Oliver by his neck, suspended against the wall with a single hand and punched him hard with his other. He landed three hits in super-fast succession and didn’t seem as if he was going to stop.
Oliver grunted and cried out.
Mecca bolted, shifting her sight just before slamming into Salas’s back.
“Ooof!” came Salas’s voice. He released his hold on Oliver, who crumpled to the floor.
Salas’s Cavern, Mecca suspected, would be the hollowed out grey and dim place, much like Claude’s. But surprise cut her short. The golden glow of a human’s soul met her vision. What did that mean?
But there was nothing for it, because he was turning now, looking at her. His astonishment showed in his eyes for only a second before caution—and action—took over.
He slammed the back of his hand against her jaw and sent her flying away. Everything slowed as spikes of pain hammered her face where he hit. She landed on her bad leg and that pain flashed e
lectric through her entire body. She swallowed her scream into a yelp and pulled in a breath.
Jenny flashed past her, a blur again, and tackled Salas. He’d barely registered her coming before she was on him. He pushed her away, but she kept on.
The room swam and waved. Mecca ran a hand over her face and took another deep breath.
A part of her brain registered the silence over where Oliver sat crumpled against the wall, but she couldn’t bring herself to look. She used the desk to pull herself onto her feet. She’d slammed against it on her way across the room, apparently. Her leg screamed at her, but she hobbled to where Jenny grappled with the tall, impossibly strong man.
Mecca’s vision still showed his Cavern, and she noted the black tendrils woven through the golden light of his soul. It was like Will’s and Oliver’s, only more enmeshed. And much darker. So he was a human tied to…well, Claude, in all likelihood.
Jenny had never been much of a fighter, but it was clear that Salas was. Jenny’s messy attacks never came close to doing him damage. She looked more like a boxer on her last legs than anything else.
Mecca thought all this as she staggered, limping, back to where they fought.
If she could only get a hand on him. Just one hand.
He wore a long-sleeved turtleneck and a light field jacket on top of brown Dockers. The only things exposed were his hands and face.
They would have to do.
As Salas flung Jenny off with a grunt, Mecca grabbed his hand. His eyes widened, and he jerked against her grip.
She sent her soul into his and began pulling. But his soul wouldn’t come. Not the way it did with Visci.
But he felt it, because he yanked his hand away, his eyes wide with fear. She’d never seen that emotion on his face before. He backed toward the door. She moved with him. He broke into a run, pulled the door open, and dashed through.
Ignoring the very adamant protests from her leg, Mecca followed. She couldn’t let him get away.
But he had long legs and some Visci blood, which meant he was fast. By the time she made it to the hall, he was already at the other end and his yell there brought two security guys in dark suits.
“Shit.”
Visci (Soul Cavern Series Book 2) Page 21
