Theta Waves Box Set: The Complete Trilogy (Books 1-3) (Theta Waves Trilogy)

by Thea Atkinson

  Then Kat recovered, straightening her knee and making a sound that reminded Theda of a hornet's nest rattled by a stick at high noon.

  Theda half expected Kat to ignite the cattle prod in response, and there was a sickening moment where every tissue in her body sparked with half lit memories. She suffered an image of her first foster home when she had done such a terrible thing as to eat the last piece of packaged cake because she hadn't realized that the last of everything was saved for the father. He'd been calm about it when he'd confronted her, sugar-coating his promises that nothing would happen to her if she only told the truth. But when the truth came out, he'd taken a section of 70s style race car track from his toy display and whipped it against her neck and shoulders and arms until she couldn't tell where her throat met her torso.

  She'd run that night, electing to hide out in a dilapidated bus stop rather than subject herself to that kind of social-services sanctioned home life, and now as she looked up at the same sort of expression in Kat's face, every cell sent the same horrible memory to her brain. She had to fight against the fresh surge of chemicals that lit her muscles with the urge to flee.

  She watched with horror as the woman braced herself against the cage and heaved a kick at Cain's abdomen. As he flew backwards, the ice pick pulled the rest of the way free, clattering to the floor and leaving Kat to tower over Theda, chest heaving with barely controlled fury.

  "Thirty seconds," she growled. "That's how long you got." She put a finger to the wound in her throat, closing it enough to squeeze the words out in a gravelly huff.

  "He's using you," Theda said.

  It wasn't a lie. How could it be; the Beast was obviously using everyone.

  "You're not of the host, Kat. You're just human."

  She snorted. "You didn't see Jack squat."

  "I saw enough. You're not fallen, Kat. He can't do anything for you. When the final battle comes, you'll perish just like the rest of us. No immortality for you. None for me. We're just human. The last unwanted humans."

  Even as Theda made the stuff up, she had the sickening realization that it was true. She was piecing together, finally, all the threads of the tapestry that she'd been viewing through the incarnations she'd witnessed. We're fallen, Theda, all of us. That's what Ezekiel had told her. It meant that anyone worth anything to the god had been taken already. All that remained were either the dregs of humanity or the full score of the fallen host, for the first time all born to mortal flesh at once. They were all here.

  "If your Beast wins, he'll have no need of you. If the god wins, he won't want you."

  Kat tapped a prod against the bars. "You saw some miserable parts of my life, and you put all that together?" She punctuated each word with the slam of steel on steel. "Issat it? Huh, little mung?"

  "That's it."

  "Well it's bullshit."

  Theda was aware of Cain creeping back toward the front of the cage. From the corner of her eye, she could tell by the way he was moving that his muscles were fatigued nearly to the point of immobility, but that he was still determined to give up whatever he had left. Cain hadn't realized the breadth of the complex Apocalyptic plot because he didn't have enough of the puzzle. He was just a man created at the beginning of earth, but not at the beginning of time. And yet he'd given her an unexpected piece. Henrik had sacrificed his life to save that piece: his lovers. The 144,000. The chosen. He'd sent them to Theda one by one to see their incarnations, so they would know who they were.

  And as those pieces fell into place, an entire section of the puzzle became more clear in Theda's mind. And she thought she understood, finally, why she had been left behind when her mother--when her father, that sick fanatic--had ascended. She was needed. She was part of the plan.

  For one glorious moment, she believed the god hadn't abandoned her at all and it felt like the sun had come out after a long, dark winter.

  And then Kat swung toward the cage, prod in hand, and Theda heard the fatal click of it engaging ignition.

  Her hopes blew with the first woof of flame.

  Chapter 18

  Theda's first reaction was to launch herself toward the cage, thinking she could find some way to rescue Cain from the blast. Too late, she realized he had flung himself forward even as Kat had sparked the ignition. The flames rushed at Theda's face, singeing her eyelashes and eyebrows. The stink of burning hair met her nose even as she realized that Cain had thrown his arms around Kat to pin her with him against the cage.

  Both combatants were held by each other against the bars, one on one side, one on the other. She couldn't see either of their faces, only make out the fact that the flames had burned away their hair and was sizzling against their skin in a way that made Theda think of broiling pork. It was only when that image came to mind that Theda staggered forward to try and grasp at Cain's leg, but it jerked away from her in spasm. Black smoke curled in front of her vision and sent dusky fingers down her throat.

  She was vaguely aware that someone was screaming and she thought it might be coming from her own voice box except she was coughing so hard that she knew no other sound would be able to manage its way past the convulsions. She fell to her hands and knees, her eyes squeezing shut of their own accord against the heat. Her lungs burned. Each inhalation felt as though she were breathing fire. Obviously, she had. When the gas had ignited, it no doubt had sent a burst of heat to her lungs.

  She tried to scrabble about on the floor, searching for the keys, thinking that Kat might have dropped them, but the heat was unbearable. Her fingers closed around the hateful ice pick instead and she squeezed it as though it could unlock the door. She was crying, she knew she was crying, but she didn't feel any wetness on her cheeks. The heat evaporated the tears as quickly as they were shed.

  There was no way to draw in untainted air. The black smoke seemed to creep behind her eyelids and small sparks of color exploded as she squeezed them tighter. It was no use. Even if she managed to get to him, it would be too late. The best she could do would be to try to find some way to extinguish the flame.

  Her first thought was of the bedspread, the blankets, the plastic sheets. If she threw them toward the two still entwined against the bars, then maybe she could spare Cain too many miserable hours of regeneration. She wasn't worried about whether or not in doing so she would also spare Kat. She just needed to put the fire out.

  Sagging muscles propelled her legs by sheer force of determination to the bed. She jammed the ice pick into her back pocket and yanked off whatever material her fingers clawed into and she pulled it, dragging behind her. She braced every remaining amount of tension in her muscles to flinging the material over top the two forms. Then she beat down on any body part she felt beneath the blankets. Smoke billowed around her in response, the flames trying to find some fuel to reignite. She wheezed and tried to push her hands between what she thought were the two heads. Nausea churned in her stomach as she felt the hardness of bone rather than the soft cushion of hair.

  She shoved her hands downward, seeking the chests and torsos. With as much strength as she could muster, she slammed her entire body into the space, separating Cain from Kat with a sickening sound of flesh tearing. Kat fell sideways with the blanket still draped over her head, lodging against the bed while Cain fell backwards.

  Theda couldn't bring herself to look at what might be left of the immortal man. Her only thought was to get the door unlocked, get him out of there, get him to a place where he might regenerate safely. She could already feel the vacuum of adrenaline sucking back, leaving her muscles weak and her brain fogged with exhaustion. She had no idea where the key was. She couldn't remember whether she had even paid attention to where it might have ended up.

  It was in the seeking for it that she accidentally caught sight of Cain's grisly remains and that was when she lost her legs finally.

  She collapsed to a sprawl on the floor, facing the door. At first she thought it was the delirium of exhaustion and fear that gifted her with the
shadows of people entering the room. So that was the noise she'd heard; that sound of chanting like a rush of water. Unaccompanied spitters from the den rooting them on, hoping for a victory against the hated general.

  She did her best to point toward Cain, offered a feeble smile. "Help him," she husked, then shrugged off the hands that gripped her by the shoulders, intent on helping her to her feet. One of them looked familiar; she had the nagging urge to strain for a peek at the woman's neck. When she saw a jagged silver scar, she knew the woman had been in the sanatorium with her. Lobotomized. It would have its advantage today, at least.

  "Him," she said again, knowing the woman would obey without question.

  She heard the dry heaving of the door as they flung it open. She might have laughed if she had the energy to do so. Unlocked. It had been unlocked. She watched with fluttering eyelids as they carried Cain, supported by a sheet hammock-style to the door. One of them looked like Eddie, the young lover who had helped free her from Prusser's just after he'd first purchased her for his sick sport. Eddie: murdered by Ezekiel at the Beast's behest, or so the Beast would have had them believe.

  Of course, it was Eddie. It was Eddie the way the it was the same woman who had been in the sanatorium with her. Eddie was a lover, the same as Bridget was, the same as the lobotomized spitter. Ezekiel had only been charmed into thinking he'd killed them all. Relief washed over her as she watched his sturdy frame heft Cain away from her. Relief. They were alive. All alive. She had the fleeting thought to look for Bridget, but there were too many forms at the door, pressing in, talking in hushed whispers, for her to find any single face.

  She waited until the hammock disappeared out of sight before she nodded at the spitters that remained. Only then did she allow two of them to lift her to her feet. She'd no sooner flung her arms over their shoulders and took a tottering step when a raucous sounded just outside the door. The spitters supporting her immediately dropped her and she collapsed again, this time to her knees.

  Half a dozen horsemen scrambled the spitters in every direction as they entered the room. Theda could hear the buzzing of Tasers as some of the slowest suffered punishment for their kindness.

  All she could do when the first horsemen crouched in front of her was smile idiotically.

  "Thank God," she said to him, fully intending the use of the illegal word. She said it again for good measure just in case her mouth hadn't formed the words well.

  "Thank God you're here. I'm the religion-monger," she heaved out. "I need you to take me to the Beast."

  Chapter 19

  There were very few things Theda was sure of in her life: she knew her mother had possessed a gift that was as genuine as it was shameful to her; she knew her father had tried to exorcise that gift away because the congregation had begun to suspect he wasn't quite as genuine, and she knew the god that had orchestrated those things had understood Theda needed both of them in her life to bring her fully and completely to this surrendered moment. A moment months after the Apocalypse when she was pulled from her knees to her feet by two soldiers of the Beast's army, a moment when she sagged against them with a sort of relieved epiphany. Funny, what pressure can do to the psyche. Like pressure squashed carbon into diamonds and gas into liquid, Theda felt changed. Spent, but changed.

  She could barely lift her head as she was dragged from the den she'd been trapped in for days. She'd infiltrated the spitters' den in disguise, despite her fear of the heinous place, in order to rescue Ezekiel from his master. Except all she'd managed was to find herself and Cain, the immortal son of Adam, imprisoned by the Beast's female crony, Kat.

  The tops of her feet scraped along the floor of the reception area for most of the extraction because she had a hard time finding the energy to place her soles to the floor and take a step. She needed their support, and they didn't seem to care if she got it.

  Even exhaustion couldn't dampen the surprise she felt when the two horsemen foot soldiers pulled her from the squalid door of the spitters' den and shoved her into the back of a silver limousine that purred just a few yards down the street. Gasoline was one of the premium substances along with bread and wine, and even in the Western part of the supercity, most people couldn't afford gas-powered locomotion anymore. The fact that she was shoved unceremoniously into a limousine meant that they were, indeed, taking her to the Beast as she'd asked, but she was filthy from battle--full of blood, char, and sweat: the results of being imprisoned by Kat and tormented. She wouldn't have expected such a luxurious ride under the circumstances.

  She sat in the back between the two soldiers and stared mindlessly at the tan covered leather, trying not to be too obvious as she adjusted her back against the seat so the ice pick in her pocket didn't jam into her spine. She couldn't imagine what sort of luck – or miracle – had warped reality to let these men forget to frisk her, but she wasn't going to question it. She supposed it might have something to do with exactly how bruised and beaten she must have looked. To the casual observer, or even to the practiced eye of a horseman soldier, she'd obviously appeared to have lost. Kat might have ended up burned and unconscious, because she'd been foolish enough to throw gasoline onto Cain and then follow it up by igniting the fumes, but it was clear there would be no victory for Theda, the religion-monger.

  There was a half-sized liquor bar behind the driver's glass, but Theda had the feeling the Beast hadn't drunk one sip of the expensive-looking whiskey. At least Cain had been saved before the horsemen came, taken away by the spitters at her request. The soldiers wouldn't even have been aware he existed, and that meant she knew something the Beast didn't. Hopefully, her friend had been put to bed in some inner sanctum in the den to regenerate from the fire Kat had set on him. She had no idea what the horsemen had done with Kat, and she couldn't say she cared. No, that wasn't true. She hoped the woman was dying a gruesomely painful death.

  In the heat of the struggle, the woman had forced Theda to take her blood, and witness the life she'd led. The result was enough to make Theda count her blessings for the insufferable existence she'd gone through. Kat's life had been pathetic, but Theda wouldn't let any memory of the woman's earlier life creep in to beg pity. She couldn't afford that luxury. Not when there were still vulnerable people left out there without protection, blissfully unaware of the role the departed god had in store for them.

  Protection. Cain had it. Ezekiel had it. The other generals had it. Both she and Cain thought that Kat enjoyed it as well, since she was taking the place of General Daniel, but Cain had managed to pierce through the woman's flesh, and the fire had engulfed her just the same as it had Cain.

  Kat was strong and she was tough, but she wasn't invincible. Just knowing it made Theda believe anything was possible.

  Exhaustion made her limbs weak, and she had to let her head rest against the back seat of the limousine as they wound through the city streets. She half expected the limo to pull into a broad, cobbled driveway between electrified gates, so when it pulled instead along the sidewalk next to a modest bungalow, she didn't think they had brought her to their master after all. A brief flash of hope seared her chest. Maybe Ezekiel had arranged for her rescue and this was her new safe house. Maybe he was inside waiting for her. How wonderful it would be if she could just let this responsibility fall away from her?

  Of course, she couldn't. Whether or not she wanted it, whether or not she ran, the futility of doing so pressed in so tightly it could have been her own skin.

  "I thought I asked to be taken to the Beast." She was careful not to give away her hope of it being Ezekiel she was driving to instead. When one of the men backhanded her on the shoulder, she knew it for the ridiculous pipe dream it was.

  "Shut up," he said. "Bad enough I'm bringing you here at all in the condition you're in."

  Condition. She was willing to bet it was nastier than she'd imagined. Kat had taken an almost calculated care into creating that condition. Theda had to stuff her fingers in her mouth to keep from laughing out l
oud. The Beast had wanted her pretty as a daisy for the Promo. He wanted to make sure everyone it reached would know exactly who she was without question. She gave into an insane urge to primp her hair as she turned to the soldier.

  "How's my face? My hair? Presentable?"

  He wouldn't look at her. Instead he leaned across her to speak to the soldier on her other side.

  "You bring her in; it's your turn."

  "I'm not fucking bringing her."

  "You're the one the bitch talked to, Marty. You're the one who decided to take her. She's yours."

  "Don't try to pin this on me. We should have just left her there."

  "And if He found out? What then?"

  "Boys, boys," Theda snickered. "No need to argue over me."

  Marty, the one who had apparently been the one she'd spoken to as they'd entered the room to arrest her, sucked at the back of his teeth, but he said no more. He merely gripped her by the elbow and, pushing his side of the door open, yanked her with him to the sidewalk. She stumbled. Damn, her legs were weak, and she wished he'd give her just a fraction of a second's recovery time before he pulled her with him toward the walkway. No such luck. She found herself stumbling the first five feet before her legs remembered how to move.

  She realized her stomach had become a web of flapping moths, and despite her conviction back in the den, she wasn't sure she was ready to face the Beast. Certainly not in a modest bungalow, at any rate. It was too normal. It sapped all of her determination.

  As they drew closer, she noticed the curtains that hung in the windows were really just paintings; the door that looked like oak was a masterfully painted block of steel. Marty gave a sharp rap on the door with the butt of his Taser. It opened noiselessly to a completely gutted house. No walls, no rooms, no furniture. Just half a dozen men-at-arms situated around narrow slats next to every window. It reminded Theda of pictures of medieval castle arrow slits. Even realizing the bungalow was a cleverly disguised fortress, the sparseness of it was so anticlimactic, she nearly lost her legs.