Hunted (Dark Secrets Book 1) (28 page)

"FREYA!" Theron shouted.

I steadied myself. I would not let this psychopath see me tremble. I followed Theron's lead, throwing off the costume and readying my Chinook.

"Now, what kind of host have I been?" Morag scolded himself. "Welcome! Welcome to my unicursal maze. I rarely get to use it, and never before for a riveting display such as this!" Morag thrilled with dramatic effect. His picture shrunk and moved on top of mine. In the largest frame was now the aerial view of a winding circular pattern that twisted around itself too many times to count. The steel metallic walls wrapped over and over and over again, spreading out from the center. I had seen the design before in a book and in pictures on ancient coins. It wasn't a normal maze, but rather one long tunnel that snaked over itself into a massive spiral with one path leading to the center in one direction or out of the maze in the other.

"Dazzling isn't it?" Morag delighted. "After reading Plato's
Euthydemus
I had to have one of my own. I realized it would make a much more entertaining and treacherous gaming arena for my—creations."

"Creations?" Theron seethed.

"Oh yes! I have designed a marvelous creature from my own inspiration. I call them Sicarius."

I had heard that name before, but I couldn't remember where or what it meant. I didn't have a chance to think before Morag went on.

"I can't wait for you to become acquainted. I think of them as my trophy collectors. They possess a great ability to inflict harm. They can delicately strip the very flesh from your veins."

My breathing quickened and I deliberately avoided Morag's eyes.

"But what kind of game would it be if I were to offer you no prize to contend for?" Morag said. "You already know mine. Your DNA is of course the key I need to access the exotic star matter that will sustain the Bifrost. Now that I have you in my possession, I am sure that will be sufficient incentive for Mommy to alter her original access codes."

The labyrinth disappeared and a live broadcast of my mother appeared in the main screen. "Mom!" I breathed. But this wasn't the reunion I had dreamed of. In fact it was worse than my worst imagined scenario.

Her wrists and ankles were shackled to the arms and legs of a diabolical chair. Rising from behind her head were six-foot metal arms with jagged saw-tooth edges pointed inward. They extended out from both sides, pointing at her face.

"As soon as the clock starts ticking, those frightful teeth will inch forward until they bite into her soft, porcelain flesh," Morag explained. "You could have loved me, Anna. Instead you chose Nathaniel Catten," Morag spat.

Nathaniel
Catten?
My head was swimming.

"Oh Freya, you really don't understand do you?" Morag soothed. "Your mother really did bring this misery upon herself
—and you. She thought she had accomplished a wondrous achievement, connecting our two universes. She sent her experimental lab rats, but soon that wasn't enough, was it Anna? She knew the scientists on our side could use her ingenuity. And what an opportunity. She risked everything and crossed the Bifrost herself. Of course she did—she was dedicated to her research and she knew her planet Earth could learn so much from Novian peace. She could have had her pick of any Novian, but she fell for the scientist she had been exchanging information with across the Bifrost. She and Catten were joined together in a lavish ceremony broadcast throughout the worlds. She was a celebrity after all." A picture of my mother and Nathaniel Catten was displayed on the screen. She wore a soft petal-pink gown and he wore some type of dark green uniform. They looked so happy. They each wore a zoesphere on their wrist like the one Theron had given me.

"Soon she gave birth to you. Your very existence was the bright symbol of unity between our universes. How our worlds rejoiced at your birth. You were the crowned jewel of Novia, Freya." An image of my mother, Catten and an infant now occupied the space.

My mother, my father and
—
me.

"The Cattens were so full of pride
—not only would your life serve as a symbol, your very essence would unlock the galaxies and contain unparalleled potential," Morag said. "Of course they never designed it to harm you—that was my doing. The more exotic matter I attempted to utilize, the more I was denied access." Morag removed the black gloves he was wearing. He angled the underside of his fingers so we could all see. "Soon the container seared my fingertips into lifeless, printless scars and thwarted my intentions."

"What are your intentions?" I asked angrily.

"That is so simple. How did you not figure it out?" Morag said. "To use all of Earth's military capabilities. Novia obliterated all of our weapons and destructive art forms two thousand years ago, but with your blood I can obtain unlimited sources of warfare designed by Earth's greatest minds: tens of thousands of nuclear and atomic bombs, missiles and war heads, biological toxins, bacteria, viruses, plagues, and chemicals that can choke, poison, blister or rip apart the nervous system… Oh how your people have imagined and brought into reality exquisite ways to murder and annihilate one another!" Morag mused. "And who would ever suspect that I, Ammon Morag—trusted emissary for Cathal and member of the Council of Twelve representing the common cohesive good of our universe—would stage the greatest coup in all of history. The people of Earth will burn while every world in Novia will grovel and beg for mercy—but will find none."

I watched as tears rolled down my mother's cheeks.

"They're not just going to sell them to you!" I retorted. "They aren't going to give you anything!"

Morag's eyebrows pinched down. "Theron Hawk, did you not explain to our foreign guest that we have the ability to manipulate technology?" His smile widened. "With the Bifrost open and stable I will change the codes and send the weapons of Earth here to Cathal via the bridge. It's brilliant isn't it?"

"If this is your grand plan why have you stolen so many people from my planet? Why, if it was only me you needed?" I thundered accusingly. My fear had dissipated, replaced by an angry courage.

"You'll find out soon enough, Freya
—but, really, it's already too late, so it will only be trivia for you—like a story before your long sleep in death. And Theron Hawk, your services are no longer required." Morag paused and the steel wall closest to Theron appeared to ripple as if it were water hit with a stone. A grisly creature stepped out through the liquid metal wall. His arms were formed into grotesque deadly apparatuses.

Quickly, Theron pivoted and released the sword
—it sprang to life, unfolding and connecting in a metallic melody.

"I do love Earth's toys!" Morag sang as the screens faded. His disembodied voice announced, laughing
…

"The clock is ticking."

How could I save them both? I didn't believe for even a second that the merciless Morag would negotiate. Sacrifice is a powerful word
—so frequently used, so rarely displayed. Like courage. There was a possibility we'd all be dead when this was over, but I wasn't going down without leaving my opponent with a few scars to remember me by.

I stretched my muscles, said my mental goodbyes and left any dreams I had for a future behind. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and secured my ear-buds in my ears.

Truth is… we all start dying the moment we're conceived… the future is an illusion.

I turned my music up and ran full-throttle to the sacrificial altar.

It probably wasn't the best defensive strategy—not being able to hear what was coming toward me around the never-ending turns—but if I had to go quietly, listening for those monsters, I'd freeze in terror, becoming stone where I stood.

"'Don't go quietly into that good night
… Rage, rage against the dying of the light,'" I whispered. Dylan Thomas's vignette seemed appropriate.

My zoesphere was still garnet
—Theron was still alive.

A flash of lightning cracked across my vision. A grisly Sicarius twisted right out of the wall in front of me. The bone-white weapons that grew right out of his arms were tainted with blood. I saw him for less than a split second. I halted dead in my tracks, my boots sliding across the polished floor. I raised my Chinook and took aim. But there was nothing there!
What did I see then?

Before I could conjure an answer, the macabre monster appeared again and advanced through the wall! With the Chinook already poised, I pulled the trigger and the bolt railed through the barrel. I watched, as if in slow motion, as the metal fins sprang out, cracking their encasing apart. Shrapnel dropped to the floor as the arrow hurtled toward its mark, lodging into the creature's eye socket.

YES! PERFECT SHOT!!!
I rejoiced as I readied myself to tear out of there.

But the Sicarius didn't drop! Instead he stared directly at me and I realized he had no eyes!

No eyes?!

Black skeletal sockets were all that remained where his eyes should have been. I didn't want to stick around and take notes on the thing, but I couldn't help gaping. His mottled skin and rotting flesh the color of sand barely covered his skeletal features, while strips of sinew and veins bulged underneath the tight, thin layer. It was apparent that some of the skin had been torn and sliced and dangled on areas of the atrocity like leather fringe. Two arms like a spider's hung down past his hinged hips like long gory scythes. White, gleaming bone weapons were fused into his very arms and replaced his hands. The weapon was lodged through the area where his elbow should have been and extended to above his shoulder. He could pivot to stab his opponent through or puncture them with the five-inch spur that protruded from the crook of his inner elbow.

Where his hands should have been were menacing blades that, depending on which angle he employed, could stab, slice or jaggedly rip. The blades were all honed to cruel edges.

Right at that moment the monster reached a scissor-bladed hand to his face where he wore an armored mask made from what looked like an amalgam of bone and metal. The mask covered his entire face below the dreadful sockets. A tattered cloth, the same color as the creature itself, shrouded his skull. Another piece of armor plated his chest cavity and was smeared with old, black blood. His malnourished center was exposed. He gripped onto my arrow and yanked it out of his face with a nauseating sound. He threw it down and it skittered against the floor.

"That didn't work." My thoughts raced. "How did that not work?"

His left arm was almost fully out of the wall. I left the Chinook to hang behind my back from its strap as I loaded and cocked the taser pistol. I fired two rounds into his exposed vital stomach area. His sand pale skin was so transparent that I gazed in horror as the two rounds wedged themselves within his center and exploded. A fury of electrical energy ignited, illuminating his gruesome interior features in a swath of crackling light.

I staggered backward and remembered the closed wall behind me. I deliberately pitched myself forward. I had to break beyond the Sicarius or I'd be trapped. I briefly wondered if he could run or if he only ghosted about. Somehow I secured the pistol back in its holster and worked my fingers around one of my knives.

As I ran past the creature, I felt white searing hot pain as a blow ripped across my upper shoulder blade. I managed to get a strong grip on the knife handle as my body lifted up off of the floor, plunging forward from the force of his blow.

I remembered the gravity difference and altered the trajectory of my fall. I spun in mid-air to face the Sicarius—lucky thing because he was only twelve inches from my face. We were both falling, face-to-face. He was above me and looked like death itself.

A surge of light brought another vision.

I knew how to kill this monster.

I drove my knife into the side of his soft neck. A hideous shriek tore through his being. He collided with me, pinning me to the floor under his shockingly heavy frame. The two protrusions from his inner elbows stabbed through the armor covering my upper arms, poking through to my flesh. I winced in pain. I wedged my legs up underneath him, positioned my hands (despite the pain in my arms) and pushed him off of me.

A squeamish whine came from my throat as copper-colored blood spilled from his neck, pouring down my face and the front of my shirt. I leaped up quickly, noticing blood trickling down both my arms. He would have sliced me badly if I hadn't been wearing the armor! He easily could have taken my artery.

I ran full-bore. These supernatural visions I was having were eerily strange, but obviously to my advantage! I wondered if it was a heightened sense I had just because I was half Novian or if it was because I was half Novian and had masked one of my senses with my iPod. Whatever the reason I was grateful!

"TURN DOWN THE MUSIC!!!" I heard Theron's voice shout. I skidded to a stop and looked around me frantically.

I lowered my iPod volume and shouted back, "WHERE ARE YOU??"

"How are you fighting with music blaring in your ears???" Theron's detached voice scolded.

Oh my God, he's dead! He's a ghost!!
I thought, panicked. I looked at the zoesphere for confirmation but it remained garnet. "THERON?" I shouted.

"You don't need to yell," he said calmly. "I can hear you if you whisper."

"Where are you? How are you communicating?" I started back up at a jog with my knife ready.

"Answer one
—I'm still stuck in this lousy maze, running full-tilt. Answer two—the translators I gave you can also serve as transmitters. Because I was fighting these things, it took me a while to get the correct frequency. Are you hurt?"

I lied. "I'm fine."

"Freya, there's only one way to kill these things."

"Yeah, I figured it out," I boasted.

Suddenly, my arm was slashed from my upper outside shoulder toward my elbow and I smashed into the wall on my left. I shouted involuntarily and winced hard against the agonizing pulses of pain as they shot into my nervous system. I scrambled frantically to my fallen knife and gripped it. It was the Sicarius I thought I had killed! Dark blood caked his neck and chest plate.

"HOW DO I KILL IT?" I screamed.

"HEART! GO FOR HIS HEART!"

Before I could do anything, the creature's dagger hands plunged furiously toward me. I rolled to my right and the daggers snagged into the side of my shirt and scraped parallel lines into my armor. I sprang to the balls of my feet and cut through the strap on the left side of his chest plate. He whipped around, and I sunk my blade into his bare chest. The plate hung feebly to one side. The thing dropped, lifeless. I pulled out my knife and breathed in a heaving breath through my nose.

"I'm going to pass out," I whispered.

"Did he hurt you?" Theron sounded frantic.

"I killed it." I sucked in air, but it smelled like blood and death.

"Freya, move on!" he ordered firmly.

I nodded.
Of course.
I managed a small, "Yes," and then took off, speeding through the winding labyrinth with my knife clutched in my hand—both my hand and the knife were covered in sticky, putrefying liquid goop.

"How long can this freaking thing be?" Theron grunted rhetorically. Then he cursed and I heard his breath catch as if he had impacted against something. "Hello big ugly fellow," he jeered, and I heard the sound of metal on bone.

I put another knife in my left hand and ran faster—with all of my speed.

A clock was ticking on my mother's life. Both my arms were poised to strike. I rounded and rounded through the maze and tried not to think about how dizzy I was getting. Theron was still taunting his opponent when a shrill scream pierced my ears! It sounded like
—a child. I picked up speed.

"What was that?" Theron spoke with exertion.

"I don't know," I answered.

"Be careful."

"Does he really think I'm not going to be careful?" I said to myself.

"You know I can still hear you."

I smiled.

The smiled withered into a grimace. Sprawled out on the floor, broken, in a pool of blood was Piper, gasping for air.

"PIPER!" I screamed and folded beside her. My knives fell to the floor.

"WHAT?!" Theron shouted.

"How did you get here, Rosebud?" I cried as I tried to find and staunch the source of the blood flow.

"Morag brought me here," she whimpered. "Am I going to die?"

"No, no, sweetheart. I'm going to get you out of here," I promised through the tears I fought back.

"How?" Piper pleaded.

"I don't know, but I'm figuring it out," I said truthfully.

"Morag said he wants your necklace and if you tell him where it is he'll let us go home." She was sobbing and breaking my heart.

"Morag is a liar, Piper."

Her small body was a sticky mess and I was terrified to hurt her more by picking her up.

"Maybe your necklace would help us get out of here?" she suggested.

"FREYA IT IS A TRICK!" Theron boomed through the transmitter.

"What's a trick? Morag has Piper here and, Theron, she's hurt," I cried.

"IT'S NOT PIPER, FREYA
—RUN!!!"

"What are you talking about?" I struggled to remain calm.

That's when Piper's brown doe-eyes transfigured into deep, blackened sockets. Dread spread over me and I crab-crawled backward.

"RUN!"

I ran but was shaken mercilessly by what I thought had been Piper dying before my eyes. Now the Sicarius was ghosting after me, his body half-embedded in the wall as if it were made of water. The panic of finding Piper faded and was replaced by a blistering rage! I was consumed with anger like never before.

The Sicarius leaped out in front of me
—his dagger appendages jutting forward a good six feet to impale me. With one fluid motion I dropped to my knees and began sliding across the polished flooring underneath him. I contorted my body, swinging my Chinook into my hands. I began shooting multiple rounds up and through the loathsome thing's midsection, hoping to bury an arrow into his heart. He somersaulted powerfully in mid-air, screeching in pain. I twisted around and aimed in his direction, sinking four arrows into his unprotected back. The Sicarius heaped to the floor, all animation vanished.

I got to my feet, positioned the Chinook and scanned my area like a vicious predator.

"I can't see you, Freya! Check in!"

"I'm alive and it's dead," I snarled. Seeing no more threat, I continued to sprint.

"The Sicarius can access the region of your brain that releases your emotional hormones and fear. Your brain transmits the images that are most disturbing to you and then the Sicarius projects them back to you."

"How do you know so much about them?" I asked.

"It was the soldiers' ideas that went into designing lethal weapons with a psychological component," he confessed.

"Outstanding!" I said. "I can't get the picture of her like that out of my head now."

"I'm sorry."

"I wish you were here next to me." A chill moved through me. My shirt was slick with my blood. The breeze I was producing with my running made me realize just how saturated it was. My arms ached, but I couldn't let that slow me down. "We have to hurry!" I raged, allowing the adrenaline in my veins to propel me.

"I'm working on that," Theron huffed.

"What if one of us ends up in the center and the other at the opening?" I asked.

"Yeah, I figured that was what was going to happen when he separated us with the divider."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It's unicursul," he said simply.

I knew he wasn't deliberately patronizing me but I said, "I missed the math class for that lesson."