by J. C. Nelson
She rose, looking to the doctor. “Do the full antibiotic course.” Then she exchanged a hug with Juanita. “I love you. Thank you for loving my baby.”
“Grace, you don’t have to go. I’ll handle this, you stay here. Keep Esther Rose safe.” I took my keys and my jacket, and in the moment it took me to do so, Grace was at my side.
She took my hand. “I am going to keep her safe, by doing my job. Field teams stick together.”
We ran to the car together, turned on the emergency lights, and flew up the freeway toward Seattle, but hours away even at top speed.
I thought Grace had gone to sleep, but she looked over at me and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Everything. Nothing. I just am. Pull over at the next rest stop.” She pointed to the exit sign, and I cut across all six lanes to zip into the commercial truck lane. Couples in minivans chased kids and pets through the tall grass, while distant cars whizzed by.
I crossed my arms and leaned back my seat. “I’ll wait here. Bathrooms are over there.”
She undid her seat belt, and then slid over, her weight resting on my chest. Her head laid up against my shoulder, then she pressed her lips to mine for far too short a kiss. “I’m not used to being vulnerable. But I feel like I can be with you. Ask me anything. I’ll say yes.”
I wrapped my arms around her, as though with pure muscle I could will her to be safe. Desire warred within me. To kiss her lips again, and once more trace her curves. I kissed her again, running my tongue over her lips, and meshing my hands in her hair. “Grace?”
“Yes?” she whispered.
Vulnerable. I liked to think I didn’t know what that felt like. My nightmares told me different. Regardless of what the world saw when they looked at me, I couldn’t forget the truth I’d kept to myself. Though every fiber of my being sung out not to, I spoke. “Do you want to know what really happened the day my mother died?”
Thirty-Five
GRACE
“Do you want to know what happened?” That was not the question I expected from Brynner. I pushed myself away from him but let my hips stay firmly where they were to emphasize what he’d given up. Damn it, I did want to know. “Yes.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “Could you get off me? I can’t really think with you like that.”
Which was the point.
Brynner rolled down the window, sweating, and sat his seat up. “I’ll talk while I drive.”
When we’d resumed our mad dash down the freeway, he finally spoke. “Mom ran the lab. Dad killed the monsters. That’s how I grew up. Dad taught me to whittle pine stakes at age seven. I shot my first meat-skin when I was eight.”
Giving an eight-year-old a gun was near criminal, in my opinion.
“If I wasn’t hunting with Dad, I was with Mom while she worked in the lab. She was certain she could figure out the secret to some drawings Dad found. Hieroglyphic drawings. Like what I found on the boat.”
I nodded. “Or under the motel bed.” He glanced over at me, his eyes momentarily focused on my breasts. “Eyes up.”
Brynner shook his head. “Sorry. I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be. Just don’t be driving over a hundred miles per hour next time. Go on.”
He slowed down, his body alternately tensing and relaxing. “She had one of the drawings hung on the lab wall, and she’d spend her lunch breaks showing me how to fight with knives or trying to decipher it.”
“And one day, at lunch, when I looked up to show her the hooked stake I’d carved, the wall of the lab was gone. Not destroyed. Gone. Like it was never there. The wall just opened up into a tomb. Except that no one would build a lab into a tomb like that.”
“How did you know it was a tomb? Torches?”
“You don’t believe me.” The hurt in his voice, or the acceptance, I couldn’t tell which was worse.
“I believe you believe. That’s the best I can do.”
“You can believe what you want to. There were two stone slabs, and light filtering in from overhead. Torches have to be maintained. Torches burn. I don’t think anyone had been there for centuries. Everything was covered in dust.”
I willed myself not to comment. To listen, if only to support Brynner. “And your mom?”
“She thought it was some sort of illusion, until she stepped out of the lab and into the tomb. Then she saw the blades.”
I thought of the broken knives. Sacrificial blades, Amy had called them. “Your blades?”
He nodded. “One slab held silver jars. The other, a young woman’s body, with half a dozen blades sticking out. She wasn’t rotted at all. Her skin was dusty white. Mom took one knife out, and then another.”
“How did she die?”
Tears rolled down his face, and he wiped them away. “She brought the knives back and put them on her desk. Kept tapping them like she thought they’d disappear. And ran back to grab a jar.”
“The heart.”
He nodded. “The moment she touched it, they moved. The guardians. I thought they were statues. Terra-cotta warriors with gold spears, but they moved like cats, gliding through the tomb.”
I waited, my hands squeezing the armrest for what had to come.
“She didn’t see them. She looked at me, and down at the spear sticking through her. She threw the jar to me.”
I put one hand on his, wanting to console him.
“You saw the video. You know what the BSI knows. But there’s more.” Brynner’s voice wavered.
“After a moment, her head slumped over. And then she looked up at me and spoke. But it wasn’t Mom’s voice.”
“Ra-Ame. What did she say?”
Brynner didn’t answer for so long I thought he wouldn’t. “She said to bring it back. She said she’d let my mother go. That we could be together. And I don’t know how to explain it, but the air rippled in waves.”
“What did you do?”
“I couldn’t move. I wanted to. I wanted to bring Mom back. But I was afraid. A moment later, the spell just faded away. The wall was back. Mom was gone. I never told anyone Ra-Ame spoke to me.”
I believe in a lot of things. Good dentists. Honorable politicians, but magic spells that opened portals pushed the limits of what I could accept. Saying so directly would alienate a man I had no intention of pushing away. “You were a boy.”
“I wanted to help her. I could have.”
Spells and other questions aside, guilt was a topic I knew all about. “Could have done what? Against those things? You would have died, too. You were afraid.”
“I won’t be next time. Whether I find Ra-Ame, or she comes for me, next time I won’t hold back, Grace. I’m not a little boy. I’m a man, and it’s time the Re-Animus learned to fear me the way others fear them.” His fingers tightened on the steering wheel until I feared he might break it.
I thought of what Aunt Emelia had said about Brynner. That he wasn’t like other men. “Like God rolled up the desert into a man.” Brynner would never rest. Never forget. Never forgive, himself or the Re-Animus, for what happened.
He didn’t speak again until we reached Seattle. We left the car parked ten blocks back and walked on foot, pushing our way through crowds and police lines until finally we reached the building.
The smoke on TV hadn’t done it justice. Or the lines of field ops in battle armor forming a ring around the building. These men stood ready to defend, but against what? Who? They had the haunted look of a force already beaten.
The ring faced BSI headquarters.
As Brynner passed, the men saluted him, letting out a rousing cheer. Though a shadow of worry flashed across his face, he snapped to attention. “Situation Report.”
“Sir, we were attacked four hours ago. The attacker broke through the building defenses, destroying defending units.”
Brynner looked to the building. “Attacker? As in one?”
“Yes, sir.” The field commander’s voice quavered. “I’ve never seen
anything like it.”
“You saw the one I killed in Vegas, right?” Brynner put his hand on the man’s shoulder.
He nodded. “Bigger. Much bigger. Not human. Guns didn’t work. Neither did the lab guy’s weapons. Not even the pressure washers hurt it.”
I stepped up and spoke, looking him in the eye. “You’re sure there’s only one?”
“God help us if there were more. We’re forming a line to try to protect civilians, but we’re not going to be able to stop it. Doesn’t mean we won’t try.”
Brynner nodded. “It’s inside, isn’t it?” He looked up at the building, then spoke with new urgency. “Where is Amy Rust? Egyption, Grave Services?”
The field commander’s gaze fell to the ground. “I can’t rightly say. Last time I saw, she was fighting with it on the sixth floor. We got a lot people out safe thanks to her.”
High above, a chunk of the wall exploded, and from the sky, something plummeted to the ground like an asteroid. It crashed through the roof of a bus and smashed out the bottom, making a hole in the asphalt that spewed water where it broke a water main.
“There.” I pointed above, to the edge of the hole. Clinging to a bent girder was the lithe figure of Amy Rust. She dangled, kicking and scrambling to pull herself up.
“Go,” shouted Brynner, and we ran into the building.
BRYNNER
Without my blades or any form of weaponry, I wasn’t keen on challenging the Re-Animus host that had decided to level our headquarters. At the moment, a much more mundane but persistent and deadly enemy threatened Amy: gravity.
I ran upstairs. Then limped upstairs and finally walked upstairs. If I had to, I’d crawl up the stairs until I reached the floor where Amy hung. When I finally arrived, two things occurred to me:
First, I was amazed that the building hadn’t collapsed. The interior walls had creature-sized holes punched from one end to another.
Second, the sheer number of spent bullets confirmed exactly what the field commander said. If that thing could be killed by anything short of terminal kinetic energy poisoning, I didn’t know what it would be.
The outer wall on the east side lay in shreds, the supporting girders blown out where the creature exited.
“Amy? Amy?” I leaned out the edge, looking to the distant street below.
From above, the metal creaked. “Brynner Carson. I did not expect you to come.” She leaned over, perched on the edge of a girder.
Like we would leave her. “Well, I wanted to leave you, but Grace wouldn’t hear of it. Give me your hand.”
She swung down, kicking back and forth, and leaped for me.
With all of my body weight, I snagged her wrist and hauled her inside, collapsing onto the carpet. “You’re heavier than you look.” The second time in five hours I’d had a woman on top of me and all my clothes on.
She put a hand on my chest, rising to her knees. “You will die alone if this is your charm, Brynner Carson.”
“Amy?” Grace walked across the floor toward us. “Brynner?” She put her hands on her hips, frowning.
“I got her.” I scrambled to my feet.
She glared at me. “I can see that. What exactly happened here?”
Amy rolled her head and shoulders, stretching. “The creature could not be stopped, so I lured it out the window.”
“And then?” Grace still fumed, like she’d caught me naked with a waitress or three.
“He got me. Relax, Grace Roberts, I am not interested in taking your man, any more than you are.” Amy sauntered past her toward the stairs.
“What does that mean?” Grace’s tone told me I’d be better off shutting my mouth and staying out of it.
“If you wanted the man, you would be sharing a bed with him now instead of making moon faces at him. You are here and not there.” She walked down the stairs, leaving Grace to fume at me.
I walked toward Grace, my palms held out. “I wasn’t—”
“Can it. You’ve done enough talking for one day.”
I caught her wrist. I’d gotten myself in trouble more times than I could count by saying yes, but this was the first time I’d earned a woman’s wrath for revealing secrets I hid from everyone else. “About earlier—”
She punched me in the ribs, hard. “I said—”
“Grace. I’ve never known a woman like you. And I’ve known a lot of women.” I cringed. Not smooth.
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “Your taste for ‘women’s flesh,’ as Amy puts it, is legendary. Except for me. Is it because I was married? It that your problem?”
Amy needed help with her English. “No one knows what I told you. No one. Not even Dad.” I picked my words with care this time. “Do I want to make love to you? God, yes. But not in a car, not beside the road at a rest stop.”
I gently placed my hand between her breasts, so her heart beat under my fingertips. “I’ve had enough of flesh. I want more than just sex. I don’t want it from Amy.”
The last time I saw a dazed look like that on a woman, she had severe blood loss. Grace teared up and wavered like she might collapse. After a moment, she leaned forward and kissed me on the neck, than rested her forehead in the crook of my neck.
I whispered, “That’s it? I give you that speech and I get a kiss on the neck? What was that?”
She put her arms around me and spoke into my ear. “More.”
I’d thought there’d be more to the “more.” Still, a destroyed building. A dead monster, black smoke everywhere. That had to be one of the most romantic moments of my life. Which is why when the helicopter circled the building and landed, I wasn’t amused.
“That would be the director.” I pushed Grace away, savoring her smooth skin. “Standard rules for any disaster, the director will evacuate immediately.” I walked to the stairs to start climbing, and Grace grabbed my hand.
“Let her come to us.”
And when she finally came down the stairs, I made sure Grace and I were as occupied as two adults could be with their clothes on. Which wasn’t nearly occupied enough.
“Attention,” she snapped. “Carson Brynner. At attention.”
I let go of Grace. “I’m sorry. My attention was focused elsewhere.”
She stood before me, radiating useless intimidation. “Have you secured the rest of the building? What is the status of the facilities? What about casualties? This is not how a general behaves.”
“I was securing the rest of my field team. Who, incidentally, dealt with the creature. You know, I do need to go find Amy.” I took Grace’s hand to leave.
“You mean the creature that got away? And the field team that failed to contain or kill it?”
I spun, dropping Grace’s hand. “What?”
The director clucked her tongue. “What were you up to that you could not spend thirty seconds to kill it once and for all? The creature rose from the asphalt ten minutes ago and fled, leaving a trail of carnage in its wake. If you were not otherwise engaged, you might have saved lives.”
She turned to Grace. “And is it true?”
“What?” Grace stepped back.
“The captured Re-Animus escaped.”
Thirty-Six
GRACE
Escaped? It couldn’t be. Not after what it took to capture it. Not after what it cost to transport it. Not for what we could learn from it. With Brynner close behind, I ran down flights of stairs, passing Amy in the lobby. In the basement, the secure elevator doors stood open, hanging from their hinges like twisted taffy.
Brynner leaned out, looking down. “What’s left of the car is at the bottom.” He swung into the shaft and grabbed a ladder rung, then started climbing down. On the third try, I caught the rung and followed.
At the bottom, I climbed down through the roof of the elevator car and crawled out into the vault.
The artificial waterfall had stopped, and the bridge over it hung in tatters. We hopped into the knee-deep artificial river channel and waded across, where wide t
racks through the salt traced the creature’s path. Just beyond the salt, my entire lab lay in ruins, including a smoldering pile that had to be the Sin Eater’s remains.
I sprinted down the hall of symbols, to where the Re-Animus cell was. I stopped, blinded. The holding pod lay smashed open. Inside, its body lay, basking in the light of two sun spotlights.
It hadn’t escaped.
It was dead.
“Grace.” A feeble voice from the shadows caught my attention.
One of the desks lay crumpled like a tin can, trapping the withered body of Dr. Thomas. “Our weapons didn’t work, I’m sorry to say.”
Brynner knelt, seizing the entire desk, and struggled to lift it.
“Don’t,” Dr. Thomas practically shouted. “Leave it alone.”
I knelt, taking the hand that wasn’t trapped and squeezing. “Hold on, I’ll get the medics.”
“It’s too late for that, Grace.” Dr. Thomas shook his head. “In fact, I don’t believe my heart has beaten in at least half an hour.”
I dropped his hand, noting how cold his skin was, and how his eyes hadn’t blinked the whole time. “You—”
“Yes. The monster didn’t bother once he smashed the desk on me, but when he killed our test subject, a portion of the Re-Animus entered me.”
I shook my head. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. “I’ll find a cure. A way to drive it out.” Turning to Brynner, I pulled on him. “The hall of symbols.”
Dr. Thomas coughed or laughed, I couldn’t tell which. “Grace, I never believed in anything, any more than you do. That won’t work. And I’ve injected myself twice with our serum. As the minutes go by, I’m only getting stronger.”
“I’ll save you.” I almost whispered the words, wanting to believe them true.
“Grace.” Dr. Thomas waited until I looked at him, a weak smile on his lips. “I have no desire to become the BSI’s newest test subject, trapped for eternity in a glass cell. And my thoughts are changing. I’m hearing voices, whispers of other minds. Minds that want me to tear you to pieces. Would you be so kind as to lend me your Deliverator?”
