Dead of Eve (32 page)

A slick sweat of unease glistened my skin. Don’t freak out. Keep him talking. I mirrored his casual stance. “Uh huh.”

“I assume you know a nymph is a partially transformed woman. One who didn’t fully mutate.”

“Yeah.”

“Her blood is poisonous to an aphid. The Imago uses it to control the army. One drop burns the aphid from the inside out and explodes the heart.”

Fuck. That explained the bursting body parts. Fear of it alone controlled them? But that was a human emotion.

His eyes probed me, unraveling my composure. “How did you know the Drone?”

Damn his questions. “I didn’t.”

“Recognition lit up your face when you saw him.” His glare hardened. “Lie to me again and I’ll take the answers through whatever means necessary.”

What, did he carry truth serum in those damn vials? Or would he just beat it out of me? Fuck it. “He visited me in dreams.” I leveled my eyes with his empty ones. “Explain the human bloodbath in the hall.”

“The Drone is Muslim and has a flair for theatrics. Hence, your ceremonial gown. Which reminds me…” He walked to a closet across the room and removed flowing blue garments. “He’ll have you veiled from now on.” He tossed a long skirt at me through the bars. “This is a
daaman
.” Next came a blouse. “
Pirahan
.” Something like a headscarf landed on top. “
Hijab
. Put them on.”

Was he kidding? “When you eat an aphid dick.”

He put his face between two bars. “You might be doing just that in the next demonstration if you’re not covered.”

Nausea waved through me. “You still haven’t explained the last demonstration.”

“The humans were a test to determine if you were infected. They were injected with antiandrogens.”

I met his hard stare and shook my head.

“Antiandrogens make aphids crazed with hunger. Even a nymph can’t resist it.” He shrugged. “But you did. So the Drone no longer considers you a threat.”

Good. Let him think that. The smell of the men’s blood in the hall did stir me. Maybe it was the antiandrogens. “So you let four innocent men die? The absence of a spear in my mouth didn’t provide enough evidence?”

He watched me through the bars, his body motionless. “Did the virus kill your children?”

“Yes, you unfeeling asshole.” Even as I derided him, I suspected he asked to satisfy a medical curiosity. He probably wondered if my children carried the same immunity as me. Still, I wanted to use my dagger to carve a permanent frown on the blank canvas that was his face. “Explain the mutation differences between nymphs and aphids.”

“There are two ways to become an aphid.” He uncrossed his arms and ticked them off on his fingers. “One. You’re a human bitten by a nymph or an aphid. Two. You’re the nymph that does the biting.”

“Wait. So a nymph can become an aphid?”

He nodded, eyes glinting. He fell so easily into that line of questioning, as if he’d forgotten I was his prisoner. I hadn’t forgotten.

“When the nymph feeds from a human, her blood merges with her victim’s and completes her mutation to aphid. She also releases a poisonous compound that mutates her victim into an aphid.”

So when a nymph feeds from a human, they both turn aphid. Which meant aphids came from men and women. Did they retain their gender? Could they reproduce? The questions piled up. How many more could I ask before he ended the game? Make them count. “Do aphids and nymphs feed from each other?”

“It’s not a common occurrence, but it happens. The result is death for both. Their blood is poisonous to each other, as is the compound they release.”

Too bad we couldn’t just lock them all up and let them kill each other. Except I didn’t want that for the nymph in the cabin. If she never fed from a human, she would never become an aphid. How did she avoid it? Did her reclusive home keep her suspended in transition? But I was there. She could’ve attacked me. She seemed more interested in protecting her dead children. “Do you think will alone could keep a nymph from attacking a human?”

“Don’t know. But we know nymphs are extremely rare. The Drone has sent his messengers across the planet looking for them. And women.” He studied my face. “You’re the only woman he’s found. Your blood test confirmed your high testosterone level, which has something to do with your immunity.”

I gripped the bars next to his face. “My blood test?”

He didn’t flinch. “Your aggression is a symptom of high testosterone. As is your muscle strength. I assume you also have a demanding sex-drive?”

“What blood test?”

“I took your blood on the plane when I changed your clothes.”

Tension racked my body. “What else have you discovered?”

“I’m still analyzing it.”

His monotone voice chaffed my skin. “What do you and the sadistic brothers want with me?”

“To study you.”

“What are your qualifications, Dr. Nealy?”

“I hold a medical degree and my expertise is in molecular biology and genetics. The Drone is a Biochemist. We want to learn about your survival and your connection to the aphid.”

“So I’m the lab rat? To help you control your mutant army?”

“How did you get the scar?” His gaze dropped to my chest.

My hand flew to my neckline, covered by the gown. My other hand shot through the bars, toward his jaw. His body bowed backwards. My fist punched air.

He stepped back. The door crashed open behind him.

“Why isn’t she dressed in proper attire?” the Drone shouted through the chamber.

“She refused.” The doctor’s unemphatic response.

“She refused? She is not allowed to refuse. You assured me you could handle this, Michio. If you are not able to accomplish even the simplest task—”

“I do not need handling,” I said. “And I decide what I wear.”

The Drone strolled over to the gate. “Open it.”

The doctor dialed in the combination and opened the gate.

A brass knuckle dagger appeared in the Drone’s fist. He handed it to the Imago, who stood behind him, and floated into the cell, sable cloak slapping at the bars. The sunlight seemed to twist and slide away to oblige his oily aura. The lock slammed in place.

I braced my feet and met his eyes, though every muscle in my body screamed at me to attack.

He pointed a finger at the
hijab.
“You will cover yourself. Now.”

The hellish wings and driveling incisors in my nightmares were my own imagining. I supposed him being human was a small relief. Still, a sinister overcast enshrouded him and aroused the hairs on my arms.

I lifted my chin and shook my head.

My back hit the wall. The Drone’s nails curled into my neck as he held my face level with his. I gasped for air and stretched my toes, unable to feel the ground.

Cold lips stroked my face. “Just a flex of my fingers, Eveline, and I will squeeze your last breath from your lungs.”

Pain seared my throat. I kicked his legs until he pinned my lower body with his. My lungs labored for air. I opened my mouth. His fist trapped my voice. He bent his head and moved his grasp from my jugular to my nape. I gulped, filled my lungs, and whispered through the burn, “Okay—”

His teeth plunged into my neck.

Science has not yet taught us if madness is

or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.

Edgar Allan Poe

Fire lashed my throat and chased a chill down the length of my spine. The Drone’s arms and teeth restrained me against the wall.

The doctor’s face filled my vision, eyes dark and unreadable. “Let her go.” His voice lowered. “And don’t swallow. We don’t know the effects of her blood.”

The Drone’s growl reverberated against my throat. He released my neck, his smile brimmed with blood-tinged teeth, and puckered to spit crimson dollops at my feet.

I slapped a hand to my neck and palmed the hurt there. Had he bitten me out of madness or was he trying to imbibe something from my blood? And how would I keep them from using Roark as leverage? The unknowns lumped up in my gut. I tried to smooth them out with fantasies of the Drone’s head tilted at an unnatural angle, his spinal column protruding from the stiff collar of his shirt. His necrotic eyes yellowed and his tongue buoying in a mouth of vomit—

“You will cover yourself. If not, your priest will be covered in kind with blood.”

I stiffened. My nightmare was true to form, with his ringlets of black hair, sable cloak, even the purr of his accent.

It brought up the troubling question of how I was able to foresee him in visions. Even more troubling were the words he spoke in those dreams.
Together we will populate the world with Allah’s chosen.

Queasiness mingled with my rising blood pressure and laced my rebuttal with acridity. Or stupidity. “Fine. I’ll conceal my body to prevent your dick from saluting your desire. It’ll make it hard to knock me up. And by hard, I don’t mean firm.” I pointed my gaze at the zipper of his black pants.

The room stilled, teetered on a deadly edge as if the air itself were afraid to move. The Imago’s cigar paused halfway to his mouth. Beside me, the doctor shifted his weight.

The Drone’s pupils saturated his eyes. His chest ballooned with an influx of air and his face turned to stone. “What do you know of my plans?”

No way would I reveal my foresight, whatever it was. So I shrugged. “A blind person couldn’t miss your narcissist Hitler wannabe act.”

The back of his hand slammed into my mouth. Ow, fuck. Real smart. I kept my arms at my sides, face blank, refused to reveal the pain rattling my teeth.

“You will heed the glorious words in Sura 33:59.” The black of his eyes, so dense and endless, gripped me in a gravitational pull. “‘Tell your wives, your daughters, and the wives of the believers that they should lengthen upon themselves their outer garments.’ You
will
obey.”

Not fucking likely. I blinked, broke the influence of his stare. Then I wadded up the oppressive garments and chucked them. Cloth billowed around the bars.

Ready that time, I assumed a battle bearing. Raised chin, shoulders back, planted feet, and a do-your-worst glare.

“Blood runs from multiple wounds and still you challenge me?”

I’d prepared for a punch. Not the purr in his voice and the curious glint in his eyes.

He pivoted toward his brother with unwavering equilibrium, as if his feet didn’t touch the floor. “When Father Molony arrives, bring him to the hall. Eveline will receive her first lesson in respect.”

The spike of my pulse sent me hurtling after him. I smacked into a brick body. Lifted my chin. Followed the peaks and dips of the doctor’s chest. Longed for my daggers. When I reached his black eyes, his head shook once.

Over the doctor’s shoulder, the Drone’s glare exuded a chill I felt in my bones. “I will not deign to your indignities. Remember this. The more you fight me, the sweeter your submission will be.” A pink tongue wormed over his teeth. “I can taste it already.”

The door closed, leaving me alone with the doctor. He gathered the swaths of cloth and shoved them to my chest. “Pick your battles,
Nannakola
.”

I shouldered away from him and those damned garments. “Why do you call me that?”

He spread them out on the bed. “I’ll tell you if you tell me about the scar.”

“Free the priest and I’ll tell you anything you want.”

“Get dressed. The Drone will be waiting.”

Crescents bloomed on my palms. My nails dug deeper. I forced images of Roark bloodied in chains to hold myself back from smiting the doctor with every dirty fighting technique I knew. A whirlwind of hate crashed through me and poured from my mouth. “I’ll pick my battle, you son of a bitch. And when I do, it’ll end with your blood on my hands.”

All I got was a twitch in his jaw. Then he turned on his heels and locked the cell behind him, keeping his back to me. I let my blood soaked gown drop to the floor and wished I felt as confident as I sounded.

Across the table, the Drone and the Imago stared at me over plates of chick peas, curry, potatoes and naan. I pushed into the back of the chair, seeking another millimeter of separation from their tainted airspace, and was certain the chair’s iron filigree would be stamped into my shoulder blades.

The hall’s arched doors yawned toward the blotted blues of the Mediterranean. A view I would’ve appreciated under other circumstances.

Salt and seaweed clung to the drafts left by the two human men, who served us with wide eyes and pinched lips. They hurried away as quick as they came, pitchers quivering in their fists. The tension was made worse by the huffing breaths and jerking torsos waving from the wall of aphid guards. The Imago’s dart gun couldn’t be the only thing preventing them from attacking. I was certain there was more to it.

The Drone tore a corner off the thin bread and dipped it in a bowl of soup thick with pulses of every color. Beside me, the doctor watched my finger move beans around my plate.

Sweat gathered under my head-to-toe scarves. The wound on my neck throbbed. Each minute dragged in anticipation of Roark’s arrival and the
lesson
that would follow.