House of Dolls 2

by Harmon Cooper

  “Nadine told me they were looking for a healer. Isn’t she going to tell someone?”

  “You got me beat there,” Roman said with a sigh.

  “She’s your girlfriend?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “Then they are your girlfriends?” Eli nodded over at the two seated dolls.

  “You know, I think there are more important conversations we can be having. I’m no expert on powers, but I’ve dealt with a lot of exemplars, so maybe I can talk to someone I know about your abilities. You know what…”

  Roman looked down at his power dial.

  If he could have Ava make the boy something like this, then Eli could theoretically know when he was nearing a spontaneous energy combustion. It was a longshot, and he’d have to make something up about how he lost his dial, but it was worth a try. Eli would eventually need to learn how to forcibly discharge it, but that could give him some time.

  “What?”

  “I’ve just had an idea,” Roman told the boy. “You said that you’ve never had someone seriously examine your power. You said that, right? When we were walking back there?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “We stay away from the main cities,” Eli said, “we’re not tested or anything like that.”

  “Well if you didn’t know, the Eastern Province government has exemplars who are skilled with advanced tech. I’m sure they’re the ones who made my power dial.”

  Roman showed it to Eli, still in his seated position against the wall. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, not with Nadine lying on him, but he didn’t wanted to disturb her. She needed rest.

  “I’m afraid…”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Roman assured him. “What happened today was an accident, and it’s something you should keep to yourself for now, until we figure out a way to monitor your power. I’ve had my own accidents, or at least…”

  Roman thought of what had happened to his wife, Celia.

  “What happened to you?” Eli asked.

  It was on the tip of Roman’s tongue, and maybe it would be worth getting off his chest, but…

  No, not now, he told himself.

  “There are a lot of things I regret, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, goodnight.” Roman lightly tapped Nadine on the shoulder and she glanced up at him, sleep in her eyes. “I think I’m going to lay down now,” he told her. She scooted down just a bit and Roman moved in next to her, his arm coming around her as she pressed her body into his.

  “Stop talking,” she whispered. “You’re saying too much.”

  “I was just entertaining the kid,” Roman whispered back to her.

  He closed his eyes, hoping he didn’t dream of Celia tonight, the twilight meadow, or what had happened the night she had fallen into her coma.

  The next morning came quickly. Roman woke just after Nadine stirred, noticing a deficit in warmth around him.

  No dreams; he really had been exhausted from all that walking, which was a good thing. It hadn’t been a comfortable night of sleep, as his back ached from lying on the ground, but it had been good, and sometimes that was all that mattered.

  “I’m glad you’re up,” Nadine said. For someone who hadn’t eaten in a while, she had a lot more energy than Roman, who was seriously starting to get hungry.

  “He really is a sleepy bastard,” said Casper, who stood in front of Roman’s face, braiding her long blond hair. “But he’s cute when he sleeps, right?”

  Nadine snorted as she bent forward to fix her shoes.

  “Please tell me where you get all this energy.” Roman sat up, again using the wall of the stone and mud yurt he’d created to prop himself up.

  “It’s daytime now; I’m sure Eli will be able to find something to eat in the forest,” Nadine said quickly.

  Eli was asleep in the center of the room, still sitting on his knees, his head bent forward. How anyone could sleep in that position was beyond Roman. But the kid didn’t look to be in pain, and he also didn’t seem to mind that they were speaking.

  “Anyway, once he wakes, have him find you some food,” Nadine said. “I’m sure he’ll be able to, and I’ll be back with Lisa as soon as I can.”

  “Famous last words,” Casper said as she placed both hands on Roman’s larger hand. She looked up at him, shaking her hips as she hummed a song he swore he’d heard before.

  “So you’re just going to leave us out here?” he asked Nadine, scratching the back of his head.

  “You’ll be fine; you have your dolls, after all.” Nadine nodded to the lifeless beings still sitting on their bench. Roman eyed his power dial and saw that everything was pretty balanced at the moment.

  “I can stay back at the hotel with him while you grab Lisa,” he offered.

  “No. You two—” She looked at the dolls. “You four should just stay here.”

  “Five,” Casper said with a huff.

  “Is something going on? Something I should know about?” asked Roman.

  Nadine looked away from him, her shoulders tensing slightly. “This should only take me an hour or two, and then we’ll be on our way. We’re going to travel back to the border a different way, okay? And I’ll bring some food too. But like I said, the boy will know how to find something to eat.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven: Face Tattoo

  It paid to know people, and once Margo had heard from a few contacts fond of poking around at one of the bars near Prison South, she knew exactly where the healer was being held. There was intuition in what she did, and she was certain Kevin would strike the following night.

  Which was why, like the night before, the Western spy was having trouble sleeping.

  There were medications for sleep, exemplars who could rework a person’s mind so it always fell asleep at an agreed-upon time. But hunting vampires in Western Centralia had permanently damaged Margo’s sleep schedule, insomnia mixed with bouts of epic sleep now a fixture in her life.

  And what a life.

  The time Margo had spent in Centralia paled in comparison to how long she’d been on the job in the West, her sole purpose to hunt people and stop the infection from spreading.

  Later, she’d been part of a team, as the newcomers are now, but by that time those months had turned into years, and the violence she’d been part of had taken its toll.

  What she’d seen had desensitized Margo, a trait she was starting to admire in Hazrat.

  The man of shadows had a past that matched his power, even if he’d grown up privileged in the Southern Alliance, with servants and attendants at his beck and call. But he’d seen plenty of action, and he had only grown harder because of it.

  It was why she had started to enjoy his company, his brooding nature, the fact that the living corpses around them didn’t bother him, how quickly he’d cleaned up back at Kevin Blackbook’s estate.

  No mercy.

  And she knew he hadn’t witnessed some of the things she’d seen in the West, bodies torn limb from limb, half devoured, vampiric transformations that hadn’t taken, sheer animosity in the eyes of a hungry foe—Margo knew Hazrat hadn’t been in the same situations she’d been in, yet he was fierce, brutal, and unapologetic in his destruction.

  A perfect candidate for a future partner.

  And naturally, Margo found herself in the same place she’d been twenty-four hours ago, on the roof, watching the sunrise and mentally planning for what would happen later in the day.

  Kevin would make his move, and once he did, Margo, Hazrat and Ian would spring. Like she’d done before, Margo would leave Celia’s corpse at her current location, not wanting to expend unnecessary energy.

  “It won’t take us very long now,” she told the pale redhead, who stood off to her right.

  “As… as you wish,” the woman whispered, her voice scratchy and low, which was the result of Margo using the woman’s vocal chords.

  “Do you like staying here?”

  “
I do,” the woman whispered.

  “Come closer.” Margo pushed her hood back as Celia approached.

  The cool breeze now touching her forehead and cheeks, Margo slowly began to unwind the binding across her nose and mouth.

  “What do you think?” she asked after she had removed the face covering, strands of her white hair spilling out.

  Pure black ink spread from the space just beneath Margo’s nostrils all the way down her neck, a deep tattoo that covered scars from one of her encounters with a Western vampire.

  It had been a terrible fight, one Margo had barely managed to survive.

  The man’s claws and canines had done this to her; once he’d realized she was too strong for him to overpower, he’d simply tried to take a bite out of her chin, his claws tearing through her cheeks as he latched on and she used her own teeth to pierce the man’s skull.

  Focusing her power at the back of the man’s head, Margo had elongated her teeth by taking the bones from her cheeks and upper jaw.

  The two teeth she’d formed moved at a downward angle, through the vampire’s face and out the other side of his head.

  She’d used even more of her power to add a serrated edge to the knife-like teeth, which came in handy when she pulled away from him, her teeth coming back out the way they’d gone in and shredding everything in between.

  It was why she’d later gotten the tattoo, why she constantly covered her face.

  Only a healer would be able to do something about it, and Margo had long since abandoned the hope of finding one.

  Even as she’d planned to disrupt Kevin’s plans, she hadn’t thought at all about going after the healer herself.

  But now, as she gazed at Celia’s pristine flesh, which was a slight shade of olive, Margo considered this possibility—especially if Kevin did all the heavy lifting, assuming he’d even be able to break into the prison.

  “You look beautiful, Margo,” Celia said in a whispery voice.

  “Good, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear.” Margo lifted her hand and Celia dropped to a knee before her. Then she placed her hand on the dead woman’s cheek. “Roman is going to be excited to see you. And don’t worry. From what I know, he’ll be back soon.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight: What Goes Around

  Nadine continued to ignore the messages she’d received from Oscar, as well as a few other mental messages from other operatives she knew.

  The Eastern Province spy had told Oscar everything he needed to know, and now he was looking for exact details, which made her suspicious that he may be trying to pinpoint her location.

  She trusted Oscar, sure, but she also knew she was in serious violation of a ton of protocols after disobeying orders.

  As Nadine moved through the brush, she lamented the fact that they couldn’t just use a teleporter, but that would make her instantly traceable. This meant everything had to be done manually.

  She tried not to think too deeply about the decision she’d made, only focusing on making it to Brattle and staying as incognito as possible once she reached the city.

  There were a lot of questions, including why Centralia wanted to kill healers, but having Eli would give the East a bargaining chip that…

  That’s a terrible way to think about it—a bargaining chip.

  It became clear to her in that instant that the powers that be might simply sell Eli to Centralia, or use the boy in some other way that offered them some advantage over the richest country in their world.

  But Nadine knew she didn’t have any control over that part, that she would have to follow orders at some point or risk certain death. Hell, what she’d already done could send her to prison and possibly jeopardize the lives of her parents.

  And as she walked, sensing that she was near the city—knowing full well she was because of the signs—Nadine started to feel guilty for what would become of the boy.

  She would have slightly more leverage if they could get into Centralia, but that was like being in the belly of the beast, and it would make a Centralian-led extraction that much easier.

  The other problem with handing Eli over to her own country would be that they would want to do the same thing they wanted to do to Roman—experiment.

  And with Eli’s destructive nature…

  There was no telling what the Eastern techs could do if they had full access to the healer. Just as in Centralia, healers were a rare thing in the East, and not enough experiments had been performed on them.

  Nadine looked down at her wrist guard, imagining how powerful her countrymen would be if they could heal themselves, exemplar and non-exemplar alike.

  What a world that would be…

  Nadine spotted the entrance that led into the city and took it, making sure her face was well disguised.

  She wore her hood now, and she’d also wrapped a scarf around her neck, not completely covering her mouth but partially, only allowing a little bit of her face to be visible from most angles.

  It was still early, and she knew the streets of the city wouldn’t be too crowded.

  Nadine wouldn’t draw much attention either; the various mountain peoples usually dressed in similar garb when they came into the city for supplies.

  Her stomach grumbled, and she ignored it.

  There was little time to grab food, so she went straight past the bakeries, ignoring the enticing smells, then past a few homeless not yet awake, around a few corners, and even past a small, unmanned police checkpoint as she entered the wealthier part of the city.

  Nadine saw the tech’s house up ahead and made her way to the gate.

  This time, the gate opened on its own; Nadine cleared her throat and stepped into the courtyard, still focused on her surroundings. She hadn’t been tailed, that was for sure, and there was nothing out of the ordinary she could see, nothing to indicate she was in trouble.

  The tech with the elven features opened his door before she could reach it.

  “Are you ready for this?” the man asked, ushering her in, his thin face all but predatory as he looked at her.

  “Definitely,” said Nadine, pulling her scarf down just a bit.

  “Right this way.”

  The tech led her to a door that opened onto a stairwell. They took the stairs to the basement, where they found Lisa Painstake sitting at a table, enjoying a meat pie.

  Nadine gasped as she took in the young Southern Alliance woman. “It worked…” Her hair was still a mess, bits of pink and blond all mixed together, but it was her—and most importantly, she was no longer made of light. Nadine’s next question came naturally: “Can you still use your power?”

  “Nadine! And yes, everything is fine,” Lisa said, her eyes lighting up.

  “Not just yet,” the tech reminded her. “You need more rest.”

  “Sorry,” she said, returning her focus to Nadine. “Where’s Roman? Where are the…”

  “Don’t worry about them; just tell me about you. How are you feeling?”

  Lisa brought her hand to her chest, and from there to her chin. “I’m feeling like myself. I can’t believe it worked.” She stopped, starting to tear up. “I never thought it would happen…”

  “It definitely worked, and we’ve already tested her power,” said the male tech. “But like I said, she should rest for another day before really giving it a go. Another few days, actually.”

  “We are kind of in a hurry to…” Nadine quickly composed herself. “We need to get back to our original mission.”

  “I see. Is there anything I can do to be of assistance?” the man asked, that predatory grin returning to his face. “I appreciate that you brought Lisa to me. And to be frank with you, I believe further study of her power may aid in the development of our country. It is an extraordinary power, but I’m guessing you already knew that.”

  “Yes, I’m aware,” she said as she made her way over to Lisa. Nadine gingerly placed a hand on Lisa’s shoulder. “I’m just so happy you are back in your body—it’s amazing.” She tu
rned to the tech. “Whatever you did, it’s amazing.”

  The man shrugged. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?”

  “No, we’ll be on our way,” Nadine said.

  “I’m afraid that’s not how this is going to work.”

  The tech pressed the button on his bracelet and a spark of electricity blew Nadine off her feet, sending Lisa to the ground as well.

  “What are you doing!?” Nadine cried, scrambling to get up.

  The electricity pinned her down as Eastern Province troops came down the stairs, led by Jorgen, the guide Nadine had dosed at their hotel.

  “What are you doing!?” Lisa screamed.

  The Eastern tech adjusted a dial on his bracelet, causing Lisa’s arms and legs to slap against the floor, completely stunning the young woman.

  A solemn look on his face, Jorgen approached Nadine, his form looming over her, his hand touching the spot where she had stuck the syringe in a day ago.

  “Please,” Nadine started to plead with him, “I can explain everything.”

  “If only it were that simple.” Jorgen brought his foot back and kicked her in the stomach.

  Chapter Forty-Nine: No Stone Unturned

  Roman didn’t realize how full he’d become from eating berries and roots. He and Eli had scavenged around for the last thirty minutes, the young healer pointing out anything edible. And it was rather remarkable how good some of the roots and berries tasted.

  Eli had used a thick leaf to form a makeshift bowl he carried water in, allowing them to wash the roots and berries. They ate a few leaves too; these were chewy, with a sweet flavor that reminded Roman of dates.

  “It’s so strange they don’t eat,” Eli said, for at least the tenth time.

  “They don’t need to,” Roman reminded him.

  “We’re not hungry,” Celia said in her sweet voice.

  Celia and Coma weren’t far off, Coma on guard as always, her red eyes darting left and right at every sound she heard.

  Casper was animated too, occasionally commenting on some of the things Roman was eating from her usual position in his pocket.