She nearly fell into another lab, this one overly bright with a lot of sleek steel equipment. She stared around, seeing no one. “Dammit,” she cursed. She turned to run out to the next door when she heard a small noise.
“Hello?”
“Who’s there?” It was Manning. That Irish accent gave it away even before she saw him.
“Come out quietly, Doctor,” Jess said, wielding the gun and praying that there were bullets left in the magazine. Manning crept out from the shadows with his hands up. “If you make one move to call those guards, I’ll kill you without even thinking twice.”
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of calling the guards. We’re on the same side, Miss Addison.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.” She looked around the room, taking in her surroundings. There was a gurney standing in the middle of the room with all manner of monitors and machines strewn about. In the middle of the gurney was a pile of what looked like ash. She heard a small noise and jerked her head toward it. A tiny security camera swiveled on its neck, blinking its red electronic eye. Acting on pure instinct, she shot it.
“Be careful,” Manning hissed. “You’ll bring the guards running. Not to mention one ricochet could break the glass on those stasis chambers.” He pointed behind him and Jess noticed the bank of windows behind him.
“What the fuck?” Jess shrieked, stumbling over the cart of instruments at her side. The most nightmarish freak show she could imagine floated in the tanks in front of her. “Are they alive?”
“Very much so. And heavily sedated, so you would do well not to wake them.”
“Noted.” She relaxed a little, but did not lower the pistol. “Now where the hell is my sister?”
“That’s a bit more complicated.”
Before he could say more, there was a strange crackling sound coming from where the gurney stood. Jess looked toward it and saw what looked like sparks bouncing off the steel slab. The pile of ash began to move and swirl of its own accord, as if a large speaker underneath was causing tiny vibrations. “What is that?”
“I’m not sure how to tell you…”
The sparks became more intense, eventually becoming thin flames that licked at the ash as it swirled and danced, beginning to take shape before their eyes. In a matter of seconds, what had once been a pile of ruined black cinders had re-formed into the shape of a naked woman, lying in the fetal position on the slab. The sparks died down to smoldering veins that cut through the human shape, as if fusing it into a shining sculpture of obsidian.
Jess and Manning watched as the blackened figure began to move, stretching its limbs and spine. With a deafening scream, the figure arched its back, rising from the table, hovering above as the glassy surface cracked and fell away, revealing pale skin. When it was over, Phoe dropped back to the table in an exhausted heap.
“A phoenix, reborn from the ashes,” Manning whispered with a satisfied grin.
21
Phoe’s eyes stung as she opened them then she tried to focus on the room.
“Why do my eyes hurt?” she mumbled, bringing a hand up to rub gently at her face. Her entire body felt tingly, as if it were being exposed to air for the first time.
“You’ve never opened them before,” Manning said. “Not those eyes, anyway.” Jess tried to move but Manning held her back. “Give her a minute. I’m not really sure what I’ve done.”
Jess hissed, “If you’ve hurt her, I’ll kill you.” She struggled against his grasp.
“I was trying to help her,” Oliver explained, holding her arms tight against her sides.
“Calm down,” Phoe said, sliding down from the gurney. She was wobbly on her feet and had to grab the IV cart. “I’m fine. Just a little woozy.” She suddenly became aware that she was naked and made a move to cover herself, nearly falling over in the process. “Oliver, tell me that this weakness is going to wear off.”
Jess broke away from the doctor and ran to put her arm around Phoe to support her weight. “Jess, you’re okay,” Phoe whispered.
Jess squeezed Phoe tightly. “Of course I am, kiddo. I can’t believe you actually came for me.”
“’Course I did,” Phoe replied through a yawn. “Couldn’t let you have all the adventure to yourself.” Her words trailed off in a barrage of coughs and gasps.
“Are you all right?” Oliver asked as he threw a blanket around Phoe’s shoulders.
“I’m fine. But my chest feels like it’s burning.” She stared at Oliver. “Is that normal?”
“Darling, I don’t think there’s anything about this that’s normal,” he replied. “Come on. We have to get to Cage.” In a whoosh, Phoe’s memory of the last several hours came flooding back.
“I was at the hotel,” Phoe said. “Cage left me at the hotel. He had to go out.” Her voice was far away as if she wasn’t really there. Something significant had changed with the Splice, and whatever it was, she knew nothing would ever be the same. “I remember hiding the amulet. Someplace that no one would look for it.”
“Where, Phoe? Where did you hide the amulet?” Jess asked.
She smiled, pulling the blanket around her. “Inside the book.” She looked up at Oliver. “I need Cage’s knapsack.”
“Sorry?”
“The backpack that Cage had with him in Tulsa. When Machine’s people took me from the hotel, they grabbed everything in the room. Including that knapsack.”
“Look, Phoe, we don’t have time for this right now.” Jess grabbed her sister’s arm and began pulling her toward the door. “Holy shit,” Jess shrieked, jerking her hand away. “Your skin is so hot.”
Phoe ignored her sister’s wailing and moved toward the door. “The amulet is in there, Jess. I hid it in a copy of Gone with the Wind. We have to get to it before Machine.”
“You hid the amulet in a fucking book?” Jess snapped.
“Well what would you have done?”
“I wouldn’t have hid it in a book.”
“What about Cage?” Oliver interjected. “They have him locked up down here. He can’t shift because of the drugs.”
“He’s safe for now, right?” Jess said. “He’s valuable to Machine. That should keep him alive. And he seemed pretty with it to me. Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving him.” Phoe jerked away from her sister. “He needs me.”
“Look, they’ll know that Phoe is gone,” Oliver said. “I’m sure Machine has already begun to dispatch goons down here after us. And when I say goons I mean werewolves. Vampires. Something that looks vaguely like Godzilla with tentacles. We might need some help.”
“Point taken.”
“I think I saw them take the confiscated items into Machine’s office,” Oliver said.
Phoe nodded. “Jess, you go after the amulet while Oliver and I find Cage.”
“I’ll never get past the guards again,” Jess sighed. “I’m an archaeologist. Survival strategies aren’t exactly my forte. It’s nothing like an Indiana Jones movie.”
Oliver spotted the fallen guard she’d taken down on her way inside. “Jessica, take your clothes off.”
“What?”
“Just do it. I have a plan.” He rushed over to the fallen guard and began tugging at his clothes.
“What the hell is he doing?” Jess looked at Oliver like he was nuts.
“Just do what he says,” Phoe said, leaning heavily on the cart. “I think I see what he has in mind.”
Quickly Jess began to disrobe, pulling her shirt off and passing it to Phoe. Oliver returned with the guard’s uniform and held it up to Jess, sizing her up. “Here. Put this on.”
“If you wanted to get me naked, Doctor, all you had to do was ask.”
“Cute.”
As she dressed in Jess’s clothes, Phoe watched Manning sprint across the lab, turning on lights and pushing lab carts aside as he made his way to the glass stasis chambers on the other side of the room. He tapped his foot on a button on the floor and a small eSlate rose from
a trapdoor beneath. He took a set of keycards from his pocket and searched through them, then swiped one down the side of the tiny computer. It bleeped to life and suddenly all of the chambers awakened with a thud and a flood of dim light.
“What are you doing?” Phoe shouted, zipping the snug pants over her hips.
“Buying you some time.” He began punching number sequences furiously into the keypad in front of him before pressing his hand to the glass panel. A pleasant-looking female hologram appeared in the air over the panel.
“Voice recognition initiated.”
“Manning, Oliver Phineas. 221-40.”
“Voiceprint verified.”
One of the chambers lit up with an electrical hum. Behind the glass, an enormous beast with three heads loomed. A lion, a goat, and snake that looked like some sort of strange taxidermist experiment, all stuck together but no less frightening. The teeth and claws of the lion glistened in the dim light, and the iridescent scales of the snake shimmered as its belly moved up and down slowly. It was indeed alive and breathing.
“Initiate rousing sequence.”
“I’m going to create a diversion. Get all of Machine’s manpower directed at fighting this creature so that you can get the hell away from here and destroy that amulet.”
“What about you?” Phoe said. “That thing will tear you apart if you let it out.”
“Not if I hide.” He winked and patted his breast pocket. “And I have about 500ccs of the serum that I was supposed to give to Cage. I’ll be fine.” His words were drowned out by a deafening alarm that suddenly sounded overhead, and the room was illuminated by red flashing lights.
“What the fuck is that?” Jess shouted, covering her ears.
“Warning. Breach of stasis program.”
The repetitive warning was the even, unaffected tone of the hologram, which might have been more frightening than the alarm itself.
Phoe couldn’t move as she stared at the creature that was breathing hard against the glass. Its breath fogged the window and it made weak attempts at snarling as its sedation began to wear off.
“Don’t just stand there,” Oliver shouted over the noise of the alarm and the roaring of the Other. “Run.”
The glass broke behind him and the chimera leapt to the floor. The impact shook the room, making the lights overhead dance. It reared back on his hind legs and roared. The sound was horrible and thunderous, and Phoe covered her ears, going down on one knee and screaming with it.
“Go,” Phoe screamed.
“We can’t just leave him,” Jess shouted, trying to pull away from Phoe.
“We have no choice,” Phoe shrieked, jerking Jess from the room and leading her down the hall as sparks exploded overhead.
* * *
Phoe edged along the corridor, the cool brickwork against her back almost a comfort. Jess had told her that Cage’s cell was two doors down the hall. As she approached, all of Eve’s words came ringing back in new and more deafening volumes.
What if she had been telling the truth and from the moment they met, Phoe’s entire relationship with Cage had been nothing more than an intricate plot to get her here to Machine?
The little voice in the back of her mind was quick to interject, “Why would he lie?” Good point. Given all that she had seen of Cage’s strength and abilities, if he’d wanted her here against her will, he could have had a much easier time doing it by force. Why waste all of that time romancing the amulet out from under her? He could have taken it from her whenever he’d wanted. He’d had dozens of opportunities.
In the distance she could hear people running back and forth in a panic. Any second an army of terrible beasts was going to come around the corner and find them. She looked down at the keycard in her hand then wiped it on her shirttail, knowing that her hands were so sweaty the reader would never take.
A heavy thud sounded, the sound of the chimera breaking through the door of the lab several feet behind. It shocked her into action, and she shoved the small card into the slot and waited for the green light. With a metallic grinding of gears, the steel door opened partway. She pushed against it, expecting it to be heavy. To her surprise, it seemed to weigh almost nothing, and she nearly drove it into the adjacent wall with the impetus.
“Shit.” She didn’t have much time to think as she could hear the first wave of guards barking orders as they rushed down the stairwell.
“Cage,” she shouted, rushing into the room.
This place was a dungeon, dark and damp. What looked like old medical equipment was piled against the walls.
Phoe sniffed the air, smelling sweat and blood. “Are you in here? Cage.” She ran from one side of the room to the other, searching, knocking tables and chairs this way and that. What if all that blood she could smell was Cage’s?
“Cage, where are you?” she screamed.
“I’m right here, Phoe.”
She gasped, turning toward his voice. He lay on the floor, fastened to the wall with a length of chain. He’d obviously been beaten up, as blood had dried in streaks down his face and arms. It was matted in his hair, and one eye was red around the iris where blood vessels had broken in the corneas.
“Cage. Oh my God. What have they done to you?” she stammered, running to him and falling down on her knees at his side. “Why are you bleeding?”
“They gave me something,” he croaked, allowing her to help him to a sitting position. “Machine said it was some kind of drug to control the shift. I can’t shift and my body is so weak.” His words were lost in another crash of glass and mortar. The chimera screamed, and Cage visibly winced, as he held his head. “What the bloody hell is that?”
“One of those creatures. Oliver set it free to buy us some time.”
Cage narrowed his eyes. “He did what?”
“Well, what would you have done?” Phoe snarled. “We have to get out of here now.”
“Where’s your sister?”
“She went to find the amulet,” she replied, grabbing the chains that held his arms. “We have to get you out of here.”
He gave a bitter chuckle, watching her. “Don’t bother, Phoe. Those chains are solid titanium. It’s what they used in the Westminster facility. Nothing will break them. You’ll have to have a key.”
She gave a gentle tug on the chain. It popped out of the wall, taking a brick with it and it flew back toward them. She had to duck to keep it from smacking her in the forehead.
“Nothing, huh?”
“Holy mother of Christ, Phoe,” Cage said. “Where the hell did that come from?”
She shook the chain in her hands and began laughing. “It’s a long story.” She looked up, locking eyes with him. “Think I should try the others?”
“Hell yeah.”
In seconds, Phoe had made quick work of the chains and shackles, and Cage knelt on the floor at her feet, breathing heavily. He tried to stand but fell to his knees. “It’s no use, Phoe. Just go. I had hoped that once the chains were gone that the weakness would wear off. But I don’t think I can make it.”
Surely she couldn’t be hearing him right. “I can’t leave without you.”
“It’s your only chance for survival, Phoe. Yours and Jess’s. Get the amulet and get out of here.”
The guards were close. She could hear them in the corridor. Any second they could come in and kill them both. Or something worse. There wasn’t time to decide.
“Goddamn it, Cage. I did not come all this way to leave you behind.”
She was grasping at something. Anything that might fix him. Think, Phoe.
“I need you, Cage. I can’t do this by myself.”
Then it hit her. Cage wasn’t a man, he was a monster. She needed him to be the monster. She ran across the room to where a light fixture had shattered with the last tremble of the walls. She picked up a shard of the shattered bulb and went back.
“You have vampire blood, right?”
“What are you doing, Phoe?” he asked, clearly suspecting
what she had planned.
“Vampires need blood to be strong.” She closed her eyes, steeling herself against the pain as she began slashing at her wrist.
“Phoe. Stop,” Cage shouted over the din.
“The blood will run the fastest here,” she breathed, slashing once more. The blood gushed from her wrist in a magnificent spray. Her heart beat so fast that the blood rushed in arterial pulsations, pouring down her arm. She was surprised as it poured out over the concrete floor. She’d never seen so much at once. It was red and thick, almost unreal.
“Phoe, what have…?” He didn’t finish. His eyes were locked on it. “I can’t.” His hands balled into fists. “I won’t be able to stop. Don’t you understand?”
“You have to,” she whispered, going down on her knees. “You’re the only thing that can save me.” The blood was coming faster now and Phoe could feel herself growing weaker. Any second she would pass out and there would be no turning back.
He crawled to where she knelt, watching the blood as it rolled down and pooled on the floor beneath her. “Hurry,” she said, her voice trembling as she began to go into shock. “They’re coming.”
He swept her into his arms. Her body leaned into him, and she laid her head on his shoulder. She could smell him and it made her mouth water. He was familiar and beautiful, even now in such extreme circumstances.
She offered a weak grin. “You know if I’m to die, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“You’re not going to die, Miss Addison,” he growled, raising her wrist higher. He inhaled deeply, and she felt him shudder. Phoe could tell that the beast inside, though sleeping, was still alive and well.
He was hesitant, barely touching her wrist to the edge of his lip. He growled with hunger and she could see the moist beads of venom-laced saliva around his mouth. Gently he began to lap at the streaks of blood, almost cleaning her like some jungle cat, but the more he tasted the more insistent he became. With every beat of her heart, the blood flowed more freely.
Naked Page 20
