Blood Legacy Origin of Species (30 page)

Instead, she took a deep breath and with monumental effort, calmed herself. Edward assessed her and determined she was more terrifying now than she had been the few seconds prior. He watched as she strode to the chess board, picked up the king, then placed it in her pocket. She stalked from the room without another word as Susan and Edward quickly followed.

“Well that ought to draw her out,” the man with the scar said with a cruel smile. He was quite pleased with himself.

Tra’e’ela did not comment at first. She watched as the small boy clung to his father. Then, with immense dignity, he placed his palm on the dead man’s chest in silent salute, stood, and slowly returned to her side. She reached down and lifted him to her hip. She gazed at the beautiful little creature for a long moment, then turned a disdainful gaze on the scar-faced troll.

“Yes,” she said mildly, “I am sure it will.”

She turned and left, carrying the boy on her hip. The soldiers lifted the dead man and carried him from the room. The scar-faced man simply stood there, staring after his commanding officer long after she had disappeared.

Tra’e’ela had agreed with him, yet never had an agreement filled him with such dread.

Victor sought desperately to interpret the images and emotions that rushed at him. Ryan and Drake were both in great pain, although it did not seem physical in nature, and Aeron seemed to undergo intense suffering which then stopped abruptly. He tried to sort through the emotions and sensations but they came at him too rapidly. He staggered from the mental and emotional barrage, but Abigail was able to sort through it instantly.

“Aeron is dead,” she said, her eyes focused elsewhere.

“How can that be?” Victor asked, knowing her words to be true.

Abigail shook her head, silencing him, reminding him that they were being watched.

And Drake? Victor asked mentally. He seems in pain.

He watched his father die, Abigail said, but he has not been hurt physically.

Victor stood, pacing about their small cell, and Abigail watched the dark-haired man’s helpless fury. She kept her own thoughts tightly concealed.

In reality, this turn of events surprised her. Thus far, she had been quite impressed with the strategy and patience of these people.

But this, she thought to herself, this was a mistake.

Kusunoki moaned from his position on the slab, also sensing Aeron’s demise. Ala sought to comfort her fallen friend while Marilyn seethed. She, too, sensed Aeron’s death and Drake’s pain, both which infuriated her. She was not as connected to Ryan as Victor was and therefore could not feel her over the great distance that separated them. But she could only imagine what the girl must be feeling.

“How is he doing?” she asked, trying to distract herself.

Ala gazed down at the man who was like a lover to her. Kusunoki had put up the fiercest resistance of all and had been badly beaten. Worse, he appeared to be sick or perhaps poisoned because he was not healing as quickly as normal. He had made scant improvement since he had been thrown into the cell with them.

“He fights,” Ala said, “just like he always does.”

Marilyn nodded. She felt like fighting right now as well.

CHAPTER 23

“SO IT IS SET,” Edward said. “I will go to the surface, make arrangements for transportation, and you and Dr. Ryerson will join me in five hours.”

“Good,” Ryan said tightly. Her manner had been fiercely controlled since Aeron’s death. “You must be careful, Edward. I don’t know how they keep finding us.”

“Can you find them?” Edward responded.

“Oh yes,” Ryan said bitterly. Aeron’s last physical location was burned into her memory, “I know exactly where they are.”

“Good,” her manservant responded. “Oh, and I showed Dr. Ryerson the confinement controls in case you should ‘relapse,’ in which case she will send me a short pulse message to let me know she requires assistance.”

“Hopefully that won’t be necessary,” Ryan said, although the idea made her nervous. She had now gone weeks without a phase shift, which only made her worry that one was now due. “I think I’ll be fine.”

“Very well,” Edward said, assessing his master. He was not at all certain of this course of action, but knew that Ryan was going with or without him. “I will see you soon.”

Ryan sat in the den before an empty fireplace. She would have enjoyed a fire but was unwilling to provide any signal to the world above that something was occurring beneath the surface. So she sat before the cold hearth, counting the minutes until they could leave.

“So what exactly are you going to do?”

Ryan turned to Petrus, glaring at his unwelcome arrival. The sarcasm in his voice was even more unwelcome.

“Are you going to storm their fortress, you, your flunky, and your doctor friend?”

“No,” Ryan said, “just me.”

“Ah,” Petrus said, “perhaps they will collapse from laughter and you will gain a momentary advantage.”

Ryan glowered at him and he glanced at his watch nervously. Ryan was beginning to think it was an obsessive compulsive habit of his.

“Let me guess,” Petrus continued, “you’re going to try and trade yourself for the freedom of your companions.”

“Maybe,” Ryan replied.

“Yes, the selfless and stupid option.”

“Shut up,” Ryan said.

Just then, Susan came into the room, something clearly on her mind. She started to speak, then stopped abruptly, staring at the corner.

Ryan glanced up, followed her gaze, then returned her attention to the cold hearth. That was to be expected. Petrus’ appearance could be quite shocking. She continued to ruminate on his words, something nagging at her that she couldn’t quite get.

“Wait a minute,” Ryan said, looking up again at Susan, then following her gaze to Petrus. “You can see him?”

Susan nodded wordlessly. She was quite stunned at the odd creature that was sitting in the corner, one that Ryan seemed perfectly aware of. The creature shifted uneasily as Ryan turned a lethal expression toward him.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” she said, covering the distance between them in one leap. She pinned him to the wall, placing her forearm across his throat and dangling his feet several inches off the ground. She punctuated every word with a smack of his head on the wall behind him.

“I knew you were real, you bastard,” Ryan said. “What kind of sick game have you been playing with me?”

“Nnbop thtkm,” Petrus gasped, his words incomprehensible because of the arm across his throat.

“Who the hell are you?” Ryan demanded, smacking his head again.

“Nnkoj thiuhm!” Petrus gargled again.

“I think he’s saying ‘no time,’” Susan said, placing her hand on Ryan’s shoulder. She was still astonished at the strange man.

Petrus clawed at Ryan’s arm on his throat. “She’s right,” he gasped, “I’ll explain everything, but right now there’s no time.”

Ryan loosened her grasp a little, but did not release him.

“What do you mean there’s no time?”

“They’re coming for you,” Petrus said, his voice hoarse, “they’re almost here.”

Icy fear filled Susan. “He’s right, Ryan. I was coming to tell you that Edward sent a distress signal, then disappeared.”

“Damn it,” Ryan said, releasing Petrus. The man fell to the ground, rubbing his throat. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said.

Petrus again glanced at his watch while Susan eyed him suspiciously. Ryan took two steps and a wave of dizziness overtook her.

“Not now,” she muttered to herself. The world tilted violently and she would have collapsed had Susan not grasped her under the arm and supported her weight.

“Do you recognize me?” Susan asked anxiously, assessing Ryan’s eye color.

“Yes,” Ryan said, “I think this is just the weak phase. At a most inconvenient time,” she added.

Susan again glanced suspiciously at Petrus, and at his watch. “You knew this was coming,” she said.

Petrus took Ryan’s other arm and the two began struggling to help Ryan out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Petrus said defensively.

But Susan’s words resonated with Ryan and she suddenly understood Petrus’ preoccupation with this timepiece. “You know the pattern of my phases.”

“Maybe,” Petrus muttered, maneuvering her through the door. If only she weren’t so damn tall.

Ryan took a swing at him and missed, causing all three of them to stagger and nearly fall. “You bastard,” she said. “All this time you knew when I was going to shift phases.”

“Yes, yes,” Petrus said unapologetically, “and you can continue to beat on me and we’ll all be captured. Or,” he said, pressing his hand to a seemingly random place on the wall, “you can shut up and we can get out of here.”

A rectangular shape appeared on the wall which resolved itself into a doorway. The doorway opened into a secret passage, and within the passage were two more like Petrus. Both stared at the trio expectantly as Ryan stood stunned.

“How long has this been here?” Ryan asked, aware of the entire layout of the compound, but not this passageway.

Petrus’ clownish manner disappeared and for once he was deadly serious. “We’ve been watching you, oh,” he glanced around him, “long before this place was built.”

Ryan stared at him, a sudden distrust now warring with her indignation and desire to escape. A clatter off in a distant hallway made the decision for her.

“Let’s go,” she said, and the two in the hallway moved into position to support her. Susan also glanced at the strange creature with distrust, but he made a mockingly gallant gesture for her to precede him, and she did so. He glanced down the hallway, then entered the secret passage, closing the hidden door behind him.

The servant entered Tra’e’ela’s quarters, accompanied by the scar-faced man who had a look on his face that communicated far more than any words could.

“Well?” Tra’e’ela asked.

“It seems that the target has escaped once more.”

Tra’e’ela turned her attention to the scar-faced man, who shifted nervously “And how did this happen?”

“It appears our contingency plan has interfered.”

“Our contingency plan?” Tra’e’ela said with sarcastic emphasis on the first word. “You mean that your Plan B has decided she wishes to be Plan A.”

“I am sure she intends to return the target to us. She has been positioning her troops for some time to order an attack should one be necessary.”

“Yes,” Tra’e’ela said, her sarcasm even greater, “your strategy to gain compliance by killing off the majority of the mutated species.”

“It is our way,” the scar-faced man said belligerently, feeling at last that he was in the right. He was not, however, and this was immediately clear when the blonde-haired woman stood and towered over him, giving him the briefest glimpse of her true power. His over-simplified pronouncement infuriated her.

“It isss not,” she said, seething, causing the “s” to be pronounced in a sibilant hiss. Her unaccented English disappeared into reptilian fury. “It is our way when it is beneficial, when it is efficient, or when it is productive. It is not our way, however, when it makes the task at hand more difficult or increases the odds of failure. We destroy as punishment, as revenge, to set precedent, to make a point, or even simply because we feel like it. But we do not destroy when it is counter-productive.”

She turned her back on him. “You had better hope this works,” she said, dismissing them both.

The stench was awful. Susan wrinkled her nose, looking about them. The narrow passageway had transitioned into a much larger, circular passageway.

“Are we in a sewer?” she asked.

Ryan stumbled, praying that she wouldn’t go down in the filth. The two creatures that supported her under her arms, whom she had mentally dubbed “duckbill” and “whiskers,” held her fast and she did not fall.

“Thank you,” she muttered, and the two seemed surprised at her gratitude. They were also quite surprised at her continued effort as she was clearly exhausted.

“Did you know,” Petrus said conversationally, leading the way, “that you can travel for hundreds of miles underground, through sewer lines, abandoned subways, utility tunnels, mines, etc., without ever going above ground? You can travel halfway across the US without ever seeing the sun. Hell, there are military installations that stretch for miles that no one knows about.”

“We’re not walking the entire way, are we?” Ryan asked, gritting her teeth. All she wanted to do was lay down.

“Nah,” Petrus said. “We’re coming up on an underground railroad, and I don’t mean the slave kind, that will give us a bit of a boost. We’ll be able to hop, skip, and jump our way to where we’re going.”

“And where are we going?” Susan asked. She didn’t like this at all, and when Petrus turned his rheumy eyes toward her, eyes that seemed to glow yellow in the dark, she liked it even less.

“There’s someone who wants to meet Ryan,” he said. He turned forward, again leading the way.