by Jane Kindred
The tech glanced at Oliver and marked something down on his notepad. “Nothing so far. Let’s try option two.”
While the second guard had his weapon still trained on Lucy, the first took out his knife. “Give me your arm,” he ordered.
Lucy looked him up and down. “How badly do you want me to break yours?”
He looked a little nervous. “I’m just going to make a small superficial cut.”
“Or I can just shoot you,” the other offered.
She studied him with a withering look. “What exactly are you hoping to achieve here?”
“That’s on a need-to-know basis.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Lucy sighed, holding out her arm.
The guard pushed her sleeve up and drew the blade across the top of her forearm, painting a thin line of blood.
“Nothing,” the tech reported, making another note.
“We probably should have cuffed that one,” Artie observed as he came up behind Oliver and the tech at the desk. “Can you imagine what she’s like in the sack?” He grinned as Oliver looked up at him. “But I guess you don’t have to imagine, eh, Chief?”
Oliver decided to let the slur go—for the millionth time—and focused on the insinuation. “What’s that supposed to mean? If you’re trying to suggest that I’d ever cheat on Vanessa—”
“Oh, right, sorry. Vanessa. Of course you wouldn’t. I forgot. You’re not only a chief, you’re a Boy Scout.”
“If by ‘Boy Scout’ you mean ‘not an asshole,’ then, sure. I’m a Boy Scout.” Oliver studied the monitor. “What’s the point of this exercise?”
“Just seeing if either of these two has the same magical transference capacity as the ugly one.”
“Nothing so far,” said the tech. “Shall we move on to Subject B?”
Artie nodded. “Go for it.”
Oliver’s brows drew together. “Why would either of them have the same skill?” He cringed, a little flare of anger sparking in him, as one of the guards in the boy’s cell punched the kid in the gut hard enough to cause internal injuries.
Artie nodded at Oliver. “Lift up your shirt.”
“I didn’t feel anything. This is absurd. Why would they have it? And why would it affect me if they did?”
“Just humor me. Let’s see.”
With a tight-jawed sigh, Oliver lifted up his shirt to reveal an unbruised surface.
Artie raised an eyebrow. “Huh.”
While the hellhound was doubled over, the guard stabbed him in the side, eliciting a doglike yelp of pain and fear.
Oliver held up the shirt on the same side. “Nothing, goddammit. Now leave the damn thing alone.”
“Grow a pair, Benally. Or do you let Vanessa keep them for you in her purse these days?” Artie turned to the technician. “Looks like these two are duds. I think we can call this test done. Captain Blake wants to have a word with the Smok bitch. Have Ramirez and Daniels bring her up to his office. We’ll meet them there.”
* * *
Lucy shook off her escorts as they brought her into their CO’s office. When they’d moved on to torturing Colt, she figured they were trying to gauge whether she and the hellhound were under Oliver’s protection. They hadn’t figured out what she’d only just learned herself from the hell beast—that she and Colt didn’t count because they weren’t “of the earth.”
Oliver stood off to the side with his buddies, but the focus of this room was an older man seated behind the desk who projected an air of authority.
The older man rose and offered Lucy his hand. “Captain David Blake. So nice to meet you, Ms. Smok. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
Lucy didn’t take the offered hand. “Yeah? Well, I’ve heard nothing about you. Who the hell are you supposed to be?”
He seemed unfazed by her rudeness. “I’m the commanding officer of this facility. Of the entire Southwest division of Darkrock, in fact. We’ve had our eye on Smok for a long time. I tried to broker a deal with your father a few years ago, but he turned me down.”
“Let me save you some time. I’ll be turning you down, too.”
Blake laughed. “You’re not here to be offered a deal, Ms. Smok. The time for that has passed. I’ve brought you here to meet with me because as interesting as the prospect might be, keeping you in a cage and experimenting on you would be too high risk. Unlike most of our guests, you would no doubt have people looking for you. Someone would be bound to leak the information, and it wouldn’t look good for either of us. I think you can agree that having the world know about what you are would be bad for business. Not our business,” he amended. “Yours.”
“I see. So Darkrock intends to blackmail me into cooperating with its efforts. Is that it?”
“Not exactly. As I said, we’re no longer interested in cooperation. We intend to launch our own biotech center, specializing in the same discerning clients who’ve previously depended on Smok Biotech’s monopoly. We already have someone on the inside at Smok who’s been gathering information and acquiring intellectual capital. What we want is to be assured that Darkrock’s efforts won’t face any legal challenges from Smok for trademark violations. And to that end, we intend to document your transformation into an inhuman monster as our assurance. We’ll have your dirty little secret on file, and you’ll let us operate unfettered.”
Lucy laughed. “You’re out of your damn mind.”
“I figure all you need is the right incentive.” Blake picked up a remote from his desk and clicked it to display a large video screen beside them showing Colt in his cell—and the hell beast in the cell beside him, a wall of glass between them. The beast was awake. It paced like a tiger in a cage, salivating, as it watched Colt huddling in the farthest corner. “As you may have noticed earlier, there’s a dampening field in operation around these cells preventing its occupants from transformations and any other magical influences they might otherwise be able to project. I’m about to turn that off.”
Oliver made a startled motion from where he stood. “Sir...do you think that’s wise?”
“We’ve cleared the level.” Blake clicked another button on the remote. “I’ve left the dampening barrier in place between the two cells for now. But let’s see what they do.”
The lack of a dampening field was clearly felt immediately by both. Colt rose onto all fours and transformed into his wolf form, hackles raised, while the beast broke into one of its inhuman grins. Lucy held her breath as it charged the glass, but the barrier held. The beast stood upright and drew its claws along the glass as if testing it.
“Now,” said Blake, “with a click of a button, I can dissolve the magical barrier between them, and we can let the little wolf take his chances against the larger.”
A rush of rage-fueled adrenaline surged through Lucy’s veins as she started toward him, but the guards held her back. “You can’t do this.”
“I most certainly can.” Blake smiled. “But I’m betting that right about now you’re feeling much more compliant. If you give us what we want, I’ll leave the barrier intact and restore the dampening field to the whole cell block.”
Lucy shook off the guards. “And what exactly is it you want?”
“We just need you to make a little video stating your identity—and your aberration. Before you demonstrate it.”
The beast had made another run at the glass, snarling in frustration when it refused to budge. But now it was looking at the glass to the front.
“All right, dammit. Restore the dampening field and I’ll make your fucking video.”
“Make the video, and then I’ll restore the field. It will give the whole thing a nice artistic sense of urgency.”
One of the operatives had taken out a camcorder and pointed it at Lucy. “Whenever you’re ready.”
The hell beast charged the front wall of its cell, and the glass
cracked.
“All right.” Lucy glanced around. “But you all need to step back.” She faced the camera. “My name is Lucy Electra Smok. I’m the CFO of Smok International. And I have infernal blood.” She felt like she was at an AA meeting. “It gives me enhanced senses and strength when I experience a partial transformation into a wyvern.”
Blake’s brow wrinkled. “Sorry, a what?”
Lucy sighed. “It’s a kind of dragon. It’s my demon form.”
“Okay, let’s see it.”
She’d never done this on command before. Usually, fury combined with the fight-or-flight response triggered it. But she’d put off taking the suppressing meds. Watching the beast make a larger crack in the glass as it rammed it with its shoulder did the trick.
Lucy closed her eyes and shook her shoulders, feeling the heat of the bony chitin that formed the horns on her head, the talons on her fingers and the wings on her back. The fabric of her T-shirt tore as her wings erupted. She allowed them to expand, and the Darkrock operatives took a few steps farther from her as she stretched them as far as she could within the office.
She opened her eyes, avoiding Oliver’s, and glared at Blake with the full fury of her wyvern mien. “Restore the barrier. Now.”
She’d evidently startled them all a bit, and Blake had to shake himself. “Of course. Thank you for your cooperation.” He clicked the button a split second too late, as the glass front of the beast’s cell shattered on the monitor. It was out now, loose, but it sensed the change and knew that it couldn’t get inside the other cell. It made a snarling howl of anger as it battered its shoulder against the glass before turning and looking straight into the camera.
“I will tear off all your heads,” it hissed in a voice that sent a surge of discomfort through Lucy’s bowels—and from the looks of it, through everyone else’s. “And I will suck the marrow from your bones while I fuck your corpses.”
“You’re sure the area’s secure,” said Ramirez.
Blake glared. “Of course I’m sure. Cooper, Benally—get down there and put that thing under again.”
“You’re going to need my help,” said Lucy as the two men moved to follow the order.
Blake hesitated, but another rage-filled howl from the beast made him swallow visibly. “Go ahead.” He indicated the video camera. “We’ve got everything we need here.”
Lucy folded her wings and followed Oliver and Artie Cooper to the elevator. They had already grabbed a few weapons from the locker beside it.
Oliver glanced at her curiously after checking his ammunition as they stepped inside the elevator. “Is that as far as the transformation goes?”
Artie snorted. “What, you think she’s got dragon tits or something?”
Lucy turned her wyvern gaze on Artie. “How would you like to find out about my dragon teeth?” That seemed to shut him up, at least temporarily. “Yes,” she answered Oliver finally. “This is the whole deal.”
The elevator arrived at Block D. Oliver and Artie raised their weapons, Artie armed with the tranquilizer gun and Oliver holding an AK-47, and the doors slid open. There was no sign of the beast as they scanned the corridor, but Lucy could sense it. It was using its ability to visually confound them.
“It’s here,” she cautioned. “Don’t trust your eyes.”
“Maybe we should stay between it and the elevator,” Oliver suggested. “If we can’t see it, it could get past us and escape.”
“Good thinking,” said Artie. “Let it come to us.”
Three cells down, Colt’s wolf form was pacing and growling, watching something.
“It’s close,” said Lucy. She could feel the skin-crawling sensation of its breath, even though the stench of it was absent.
Artie took a step forward. “How the hell are we supposed to shoot it if we can’t see the fucking thing?”
Lucy put out a cautioning hand. “I don’t think you should—” Her words were cut short by a guttural sound of surprise and a shuddering recoil from Artie, as though something had punched him hard in the gut. His black T-shirt was growing darker black at the center as if it had gotten wet, and he began to cough up blood.
The beast materialized in front of them, grinning, its claws dripping with Artie Cooper’s blood. Artie managed to get off a shot that went wildly off target before he buckled and fell to his knees.
Oliver fired—and shouted with pain as the bullet ripped through the beast’s shoulder. Any shots he took at the beast—and any damage Lucy managed to do—were going to be felt by Oliver.
Lucy leaped at the beast with a kick to the head and knocked it back several feet on the slick tile, giving them the briefest moment to strategize. “Oliver, you have to relinquish your protection,” she urged. “That’s the only way we’re going to be able to kill this thing without killing you.”
“What are you talking about? What protection?” He seemed reluctant to use the gun again as the beast picked itself up and rushed toward them, but he fired once more and hit the beast in the chest. The impact knocked them both backward an equal distance.
“The hell beast isn’t projecting its injuries. You made a vow to protect all unnatural creatures in the Jerome vicinity. That’s why you feel the wounds. You’re taking them for everything inhuman.”
Oliver winced, trying to line up his aim once more as the beast got to its feet. “Ridiculous. How would I even be able to do that? Besides, it didn’t happen with you or the kid.”
“Because we’re both infernal, not earth-based. This thing is as earth-based as it gets. It was born out of rage and hate.” She met the beast’s charge, but it dematerialized as she swung at it, reappearing behind her.
Oliver fired again and fell to his knees as the shot hit the beast in the stomach at close range. He was doing some serious damage, even if it was temporary, and it was taking its toll on them both.
The beast backed off for a moment, snarling, but something behind it caught its attention. The white wolf was standing in the corridor growling. Someone had unlocked the doors.
Lucy cried out as the beast bolted toward Colt. It slashed its claws across the smaller wolf’s side, spraying blood across the white tile and whiter fur.
“Revoke your protection!” she yelled at Oliver as she barreled after the beast to try to get between it and Colt.
“How?”
“Just say it! ‘I revoke my protection!’”
Oliver groaned, the AK-47 falling out of his arms. “I revoke my protection.”
As she reached the beast, Colt suddenly leaped for its throat, his eyes glowing with red fire and his teeth unexpectedly razor sharp as he bared them, and the hell beast seemed to stop dead with surprise at its attack. The young wolf had torn out its throat. After the instant of shock, the beast flailed, claws swinging wildly, its eyes almost plaintively on Lucy’s as Colt eviscerated it.
Its unwitting “mother” or not, Lucy had no sympathy for the creature. She turned to make sure Oliver wasn’t also lying shredded on the tile, but he’d stood up, beginning to recover already.
Oliver stared aghast at Colt. “He was holding back to keep from hurting me. I didn’t realize. All this time, Colt was suppressing his own power to kill the damn thing and putting himself in danger. Because of me.”
“Colt?” Lucy scrutinized Oliver’s face. “You said Colt.”
“That’s the name I gave him, because he—” Oliver wiped blood on his pants from the hand he’d been gripping his gut with. The left hand. Blood clogged the ring. He stared at it. “Oh... God, how did I forget that?” He raised his eyes to Lucy. “How could I have forgotten you?”
Self-conscious discomfort at her wyvern state gnawed at her as it hadn’t while Oliver was under the influence of the drug. Sometimes it took a while for the transformation to subside when she hadn’t taken her monthly dose of shift control. And now everyone would see
her this way if she didn’t acquiesce to Darkrock’s scheme. Smok International would be ruined either way.
“We should probably get Colt out of here.” She turned toward the blood-covered wolf. She was glad he hadn’t returned yet to his human form. The blood and gore smeared across his face would have been even more unsettling.
As Colt trotted toward her, a crack of gunfire went off beside her. At first she thought it was Oliver’s weapon, but she spun about to see Artie Cooper holding his handgun as he slumped against the elevator door. And Oliver... Oliver didn’t look like himself. His face had filled with a white-hot rage, and his eyes were glowing orange, like flame was igniting inside them.
Lucy turned back to the corridor, trying to make sense of what was going on. Had the hell beast somehow managed to rally after all that? But Colt was lying on his side, blood pouring from his hip and his breathing rapid and shallow.
“No.” She moved toward him in a daze and sank to her knees beside him. “Colt.” She was vaguely aware as she laid her hand on Colt’s rising and falling rib cage that Oliver had dragged the wounded Artie to his feet.
“What the fuck did you do?”
“Just following orders,” Artie gritted out. “You’ve gone soft, Chief. I had to take care of it. Like I had to take care of you and Vanessa.”
“What are you talking about? What about Vanessa?”
“Your last mission. It was supposed to be your last, anyway. Made a deal with those vamp lords to have you taken out. Your team was collateral damage.”
“You sold us out.”
Artie was gasping for air. “Vanessa...submitted her resignation. Said she wanted out. We knew you’d follow.”
“You son of a bitch.”
Lucy lifted the wolf in her arms and watched as Artie choked out his last breath.
