Embracing Midnight (25 page)

“Shall we?” she asked. If at all possible, she had to find out what the ASD had planned for the Niviane Idesha.

Her partner nodded. “Let’s go.”

Snorting a chuckle, Callie opened the file and began to read.

A second later, she stopped and pointed. “Look at this.”

Norton bent close to the screen, his eyes tracing Callie’s finger. He read, “Project Shadow-Wing.”

The tips of her fingers tingled. “Who thinks up these funky names for missions anyway?”

A look passed between them, a shared signal only partners knew and understood from each other. This look said they were both about to be hip deep in a lot of secret shit.

And neither wanted to back down.

Norton shook his head. “Don’t know. But it sounds ominous.”

Callie scanned the screen, her pulse thrumming. “Guess we’ll find out.” She continued to scan the information. They’d hit gold, but didn’t know it yet. The data she’d pulled up was massive and complicated. She didn’t understand a lot of it. What she did understand chilled her to the bone.

Silence thickened as they came across the same thing.

Norton stared at Callie as if he was unable to believe his eyes. “Am I reading this right?” He shook his head in awe. “Are they planning to structure a breed of alien-human hybrids?” He ran his hands through his hair, clearly upset.

Scrolling down, Callie caught Iollan Drake’s name. “
Breed purity.
” “
Implementation of desired traits.
”

She gave herself a second to process what she’d read, then cleared her throat. “Not hybrids, Norton. Full-blooded. They’re planning to harvest stem cells from fertilized embryos and use them to reconfigure human traits with those of the Niviane Idesha. They’ve got their sire now. The rest weren’t useful; that’s why they were so focused on Iollan.” She pressed a hand against her stomach, which slowly did a somersault. Her voice wavered. “If they have their way, they’re going to try and create a new race of superhumans.”

“Selective breeding to create a new race,” Norton muttered. That’s—” He stumbled, at a loss for words.

A frisson of tension mingling with excitement raced up Callie’s spine. It didn’t seem possible. “Playing God.”

Wanting to dig deeper, she came to an entry made by Doctor Yuan. Her observations were almost giddy. Yuan had tied her whole life up in studying the Niviane Idesha. Clearly she respected them as a species, but held little regard for them as individuals, as beings with needs or feelings.

Because he was such a prize, a first, Iollan would be safe. Guarded like Fort Knox, but he wouldn’t be grievously mishandled. He’d soon be moved from solitary confinement to a quarantine cell, more hospitable and, she hoped, more comfortable. No more drugs were to be administered, either. Plans for testing of his full abilities as a shifter would soon commence.

One thing became glaringly clear as she read through the Shadow-Wing file. Through the use of stem cells, Doctor Yuan was confident once they found and destroyed the blood-hunger gene in the vampires, an alien-human hybrid would be the improved species, one that should prevail through future generations. Given time, lines between the two would begin to blur until only a single master race existed.

The implications hit her square in the stomach. Though still only a projection of science in the planning stages, Project Shadow-Wing provided a chilling glimpse of what the project’s team believed themselves capable of.

A frown marred Paul Norton’s imperfect features. His silence told her he was disturbed. Deeply disturbed. His breath huffed out. “Do they really think they can pull this off?”

Norton’s words registered somewhere inside Callie’s brain. She tried to shake off her fear and failed.

The research behind the program was an active and ongoing thing. The bits and pieces she understood seemed to chart remarkable progress. The two species, human and alien, appeared to merge seamlessly. Too much so for comfort. “They’re not thinking about it. They’re doing it. Stem cell study and exploration is already making leaps and bounds.”

Norton shuddered. “God help us all, then.”

Callie’s body felt rigid, every tendon locked into place in front of the computer she worked at. “That might not be enough,” she grated tightly. “It’s said history is doomed to repeat itself.” A short laugh escaped her, the precursor to hysteria. She quickly nipped panic in the bud. No time to make mistakes. “This isn’t the first time someone’s tried to create a master race.”

A huge weight rolled onto her conscience. Without knowing it at the time, she’d given them the key to opening the forbidden box when she’d helped capture Iollan Drake.

Fingers shaking, she closed that file and opened another, not really knowing where she was heading. A subdirectory of the ASD agents’ files came up, her own among them.

Norton pointed. “Personnel files? Mine’s got my badge number beside it.”

Callie noted her own. “So does mine.” Beside it was another set of numbers, looking oddly like a date. Two weeks into the future. Curiosity told her to press on.

Seconds later, her complete profile lit up the screen. Childhood, education, military service and training, college transcripts, and bureau service record. There was an eerie pause as she found out what the date meant.

Listed across from the birth date was the same date, only it was listed under
date of death
. Under that, for cause of death, a single word has been typed in:
TERMINATED
.

Callie stopped reading. A cold shock of fear washed through her body. She hesitated, momentarily paralyzed by what she’d read. A rush of panic caused her heart to miss a beat. She blinked, hoping her mind wasn’t playing tricks. It wasn’t.

Her palms were suddenly wet enough to leave prints on the desktop. Her psyche immediately veered into panic. Roger Reinke’s prophetic warning rose in the forefront of her brain, echoing soundlessly in her ears. “Everyone is expendable,” she murmured.

Norton pressed a hand to her shoulder. “This isn’t good.”

No time to freeze.

Callie quickly yanked her thoughts back in line and checked Norton’s file. Thankfully blank. She breathed a sigh of relief for her partner. “No shit.”

Lips compressing into a line, Norton gave her a look burning with disgust. “They’ve marked you for assassination.”

Gooseflesh rose on her arms. Her mind whirled. Tendrils of fear crawled in her stomach, coiling into spirals that seemed to rope around her lungs and heart. “Why? What the fuck did I—” Clarity hit her before the words finished leaving her mouth.

She’d gotten too close to Iollan Drake. Making love to Iollan had reverted from being strictly for the job to a personal thing. She’d lost contact with her objectivity, with the purpose of the mission. She’d become intimately involved—something the bureau clearly wasn’t going to allow.

Face losing all color, Norton smiled a grimace full of acid. “Copy it,” he hissed. “All of it. Now. We need every bit of this.”

Barely able to think straight, Callie slid a blank CD into the burner. She squinted as the drive went into motion, mentally willing it to burn the disk faster.

Her thoughts turned dark. She didn’t want to believe science fiction had turned into science fact. Mankind always seemed to be determined to meddle with things best left unexplored. Humans were dominance crazed to the point of insanity. No amount of suffering and destruction would stop the march toward the future.

She snapped out of her reverie. “At least you’re safe.”

A harsh laugh escaped him. “Not for fucking long, I bet.”

She forced her attention back to the screen, memorizing as much as humanly possible. A few minutes later, the copied disk popped out.

Callie handed it to Norton. She quickly logged off. “Can you get it out of here?”

Norton tossed her a look that wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence. Making things disappear was his specialty, but in this case he’d be lucky if he made it outside to the parking lot. “I think so.” He tucked the disk into an inner pocket of his jacket.

Muscles tensing, Callie shuddered. “Don’t think it, know it, Paul. Having that disk puts you right on my level. Both of us have grass for asses now.”

As though carrying a heavy burden, Norton pulled his shoulders back slightly. “I’ll make today the day I vanish. I suggest you do the same.” He reached for her hand, giving it a squeeze. “When you walk out of here today, don’t look back.”

“I won’t.”

Right then the phone on her desk rang. Their gazes locked. “This ain’t no coincidence,” Norton said.

Callie got up and walked to her desk. The phone bleated, a second and third time. “Should I?”

Norton advised. “Act normal.”

She answered. “Whitten.”

Forque’s voice filled her ear. “We need to meet,” he said by way of a greeting.

Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”

“We have a problem,” Forque started to explain.

Callie didn’t need to hear any more. She knew what the problem was.

Iollan.

“I’m on my way.”

C
allie walked beside Professor Forque. As they passed the guard’s station, the sliding glass door in front of them made a whooshing sound when it slid open to admit them to the cell block. They quickly stepped through. A sucking sound commenced when the door slid shut again.

Hearing the door slide back into place went across her senses like fingernails across a chalkboard. Panic clawed at her throat. She swallowed, feeling nauseated. Her stomach churned. It dimly occurred to her that she might be walking into a trap—that there would be no going back to a free civilization. The jail cell she might be looking at could be her own if her computer-hacking intrusion had been detected.

That seemed not to be the case. For now.

“Very secure,” she commented of the facilities. The floor felt like glue under her feet. The farther she progressed, the more she felt oppressed and hopeless.

Forque nodded, pleased. “We’ve had it specially designed for holding the Niviane Idesha. Every inch of this area is hermetically sealed. We want to encourage them to use their shifting abilities—all within a controlled environment, of course.”

Callie gave a tight smile. “Of course,” she said, trying to inject some conviction into her voice. She failed. Right now she wasn’t very interested in the ASD facilities. She already knew getting out was damn near impossible.

The bureau had become like the tip of a sword in her back. According to the file she’d read, her death would take place in two weeks. There were so many ways for murder to be delivered. One thing was certain, though. However the fatal blow was dealt, she’d probably have never seen it coming.

Forewarned was forearmed.

She drew a deep breath, fighting to keep calm. Showing her fear would be the worst thing to do. Weapon holstered at her side, she’d already made the decision to defend herself if necessary. Make a move on her and she’d pull her gun and take as many men with her as possible. She might crash and burn, but she wasn’t going alone.

Forque ignored her lackluster tone, lumbering along in high gear. He led her down a hallway punctuated with more ominous-looking doors. If he’d noticed her obviously bruised face, it didn’t register on his face. Other concerns harried him.

“We’ve moved Drake into more comfortable surroundings this morning,” the professor began to explain. “Unfortunately, he’s responding poorly to his surroundings.”

Hardly a surprise. The previous night’s memory leapt into her mind. Remembering the evil way they’d cuffed Iollan, she shivered. “Oh?”

Readjusting his glasses, Forque frowned. The lines in his face looked taut. “Although they appear to be a perfectly intelligent species, in captivity they seem to revert to a level of low primitive intelligence. Their actions are animalistic, not something you’d expect in such an evolved species.”

She frowned. Despite her general disgust for the scientific research of the center, she felt that Forque at least took a human interest in the Niviane Idesha. He seemed to want to understand and communicate with them. Yuan, on the other hand, only seemed to want them on her table for dissection.

Callie barely stomached the sight of Akemi Yuan. Every time she thought about Yuan, she pictured the proverbial mad scientist locked away in some lightning-lit stone tower, waiting for the right strike to raise the beast.

She snapped out of her thoughts and focused on the discussion at hand. “I doubt I’d be feeling very friendly if someone had slapped the cuffs on and thrown me into an empty cell,” she said. “Of course they feel threatened. Anyone who wants to survive would. That only makes sense.”

Serious-faced, the older man sailed ahead, his massive steps threatening to leave Callie in the dust. “Perfectly understandable,” he said. “I doubt I’d feel very friendly if the situation was reversed. Putting them in these glorified cages is ridiculous. I’ve argued for a more diplomatic approach, but it’s fallen on deaf ears.”

She quickened her steps. A light shiver shimmied down her spine. “Then why don’t you try that?” she suggested.

Forque gave her a grim smile. “In military minds, anything that doesn’t look or act human is considered a threat,” he returned with evident sarcasm, unintentionally revealing the thorn in his side. “We’re going to stomp until the Niviane Idesha are as extinct as saber-toothed tigers.”

A chill trickled down Callie’s spine. She tucked that bit of information away in her mental file, and alarm tightened her chest.

God proposes, man disposes.
A vivid memory of Iollan holding her, kissing her, caused her throat to tighten. She swallowed, unable to imagine losing him.

Callie knew then she was in too deep, and over her head.

Her palms started to sweat. What to say after such a remark? Nothing useful.

Their walk down the hall ended abruptly, relieving her of the necessity of a rejoinder.

Wringing his hands in obvious frustration, Forque stopped. “Here we are.”

Like other cell doors Callie had seen on this level, it had a face of glass with wire mesh pressed between its layers. A keypad on the wall beside it controlled the locking mechanisms.

The fact that she still had full security clearance proved that her little intrusion into the system hadn’t been detected. Norton had the disk. Norton’s terminal had been used. If push came to shove, she’d plead innocent.

Callie slammed the door in her skull on that idea. No way she’d let Norton take the fall alone. They’d gone into the plan to expose the project together. No backing out now. Somehow, she’d have to make Iollan understand she wasn’t planning to abandon him.

Forque stepped aside to allow her access to the narrow window. “Take a look.”

She stepped up to the window. Inside she saw a sort of apartment, a combination living and kitchen area. Narrow cabinets over an even narrower counter allowed for the storage of personal items. A neatly made bed occupied one section. A table with bench seats was attached to an opposite wall, and a tiny fold-down desk and chair served as the only other furniture. Walls and ceilings were stark white. In the open arrangement there was nowhere to hide except in the bathroom. At least some basic privacy was granted.

The cell—and it was just that—appeared empty.

Forque tapped her on the shoulder and directed her attention toward the farthest corner. “There.” His voice was an unnecessary whisper. “He won’t move.”

Callie’s gaze settled on Iollan Drake. Professor Forque didn’t have to say anything else. She saw the problem for herself. Her thumping heart leapt into her throat, threatening to cut off her air.

Crouched in a corner, Iollan Drake sat, his back to the wall. Wrists and neck still cruelly cuffed, he stared straight ahead, unblinking and ominously immobile. Open but unfocused, his eyes were dull, pale, and flat. The brilliant copper sheen of them had faded to a dull amber shade. Through the torn material of his shirt, his forearms and neck were a mass of deep, vicious scratches. He’d clearly tried to tear off his restraints, to the point of self-mutilation.

Iollan didn’t appear human. His brow thickly ridged, he bared his canines in a snarl, half-pain, half-despair. His skin was ashen, gray with the poison of the silver spikes seeping into his system. God, he looked…fragile.

Seeing him, Callie felt her heart twist in pity and shame. She couldn’t speak. Tears threatened. She successfully blinked them back. It was a shame that people who called themselves rational and intelligent would needlessly inflict pain on another living entity, alien or not. It upset her to think this beautiful, magnificent man had been reduced to little more than a shell of his former self because of what he wasn’t. Human.

Fury hit. “Jesus Christ, can’t you see you’re killing him with those things?” She looked again, wincing. “It’s almost like he’s going into shock. Catatonic.”

Antsy, Forque searched her face. “We tried to get the restraints off. He won’t let us near him.”

Callie wanted to throttle the living shit out of him. She had to suck in a breath to calm herself. “Try harder.”

Forque, face white as milk, countered, “We’ve noticed he’s more responsive when you’re with him.”

Her glare withered. Her palm just ached for a strike at his stupid face. “Maybe that’s because I treat him like a man instead of a circus freak,” she shot back between gritted teeth.

Pale and pensive, the professor acquiesced. “The bond you’ve developed with him is undeniable. We’d like you to continue working with the subject on an exclusive basis.”

Callie winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth. She should have expected this, known exactly what Forque wanted when he’d summoned her to his office for a meeting. Listening in on the call, Paul Norton had shaken his head and mouthed a silent “No!” The actions of the bureau had been too volatile for his comfort zone.

Exclusive basis
automatically implied a long-term commitment. Given that she and Norton were scheming to expose the project and its inhumane practices, lingering unnecessarily wouldn’t be possible much longer. Her own life hovered on the line. If she didn’t get out now, she never would.

An excruciating decision.

Walking away from the bureau might be the only way to save his life, but where would that leave him in the meantime? Alone.

Her conscience prodded in protest. Hands flexing at her sides, Callie looked back into the cell, hating the sight. Christ. Could she leave Iollan without even saying good-bye or trying to explain what she had planned?

Her feelings chimed in with a volume and intensity difficult to ignore. Walk away and she’d surely be signing his death warrant. A cold, damp sweat rose on her skin. In captivity, Iollan wouldn’t survive. She knew that as surely as she knew her own life wouldn’t be worth a shit if she didn’t try to help him before she skipped out.

Damn it. She hadn’t expected to fall in love.

The thought jolted. How unbelievable. But how wonderful, in a strange and bizarre kind of way.

Torn between honoring the greater cause and duty to a single cause, Callie had a decision to make. A no-going-back decision. Step into that cell with Iollan and she might never step out again. There might never be another chance for her to walk away from the federal compound a free woman.

It was a risk she had to take. Leave now and Iollan probably wouldn’t survive the night.

Callie trembled, barely able to stop her words. She shouldn’t be feeling this way, shouldn’t let her desire for Iollan override her own instincts for self-preservation. “I’ll do what I can.”

Forque looked relieved. “Thank you.” He started to punch a series of numbers in the keypad.

She pointedly cleared her throat. Her mouth felt parched. “Those cuffs are going to have to come off. No telling what damage that shit Yuan pumped into him last night is doing to his system.”

Extracting a key ring from his coat pocket, Forque selected a key and handed it over. “I warned her not to go so heavily with the sedatives. We don’t fully understand this species’ biology yet. If the damages are irreversible, he’ll be useless for study.” He sighed. “If he’s even able, he’ll need to feed. Now that we know they need their sustenance straight from the source…” A slight rush of red blotted his already ruddy cheeks.

Fingers curling around the precious key, Callie trembled, unable to stop her reaction to the thought of Iollan’s lips on her pulse. Blood rushed through her veins, flooding her with an erotic warmth. The attraction she felt for Iollan was both powerful and absolutely tangible. Keeping an objective distance had ceased to be possible.

Watery blue eyes searched every feature of her face. “Are you all right, Agent Whitten?”

Nipples tingling, Callie almost trembled into pieces. She and Iollan had forged a bond, an unbreakable connection between—dare she think it?—mates. He’d entered more than her body. He’d crossed the threshold into her mind. What they shared went beyond explanation or mere words.

Fear cooled the warmth trickling between her thighs. “I’m fine,” she bit out.

The professor’s gaze searched her face. “If this is something you can’t do, perhaps we can find a surrogate donor.”

The words went all over her like a dash of ice water. Surrogate donor. The fuck they would! Didn’t Forque understand the connection the Niviane Idesha developed with their lovers (victims?) was more than a matter of sharing bodily fluids? It was a symbiosis, a joining going past the physical and into the metaphysical.

She shook her head. Determination and resolve turned her spine into a steel rod. She’d do what she had to, no matter the consequence. “He trusts me. Take that away now and you’ll lose him. He’ll will himself to die.”

The muscles in Forque’s jaw tightened and jumped. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Unexpectedly, he took her arm, squeezing. He bent close, keeping his voice low. “I don’t agree with the direction our research is taking us in. I’m doing my best to get Yuan off the project now. She’s getting…unstable.”

The conspiracy thickened.

Callie bit her tongue. No way she’d jeopardize a potential ally. “I hope you’re able to do that,” is all she allowed.

Abruptly, Forque seemed to sense his confession was out of order, or had perhaps left him too exposed to an untrustworthy source. Inward searching eyes cooled. He straightened and his hand fell away. “We do what we must.”