Night Unbound (40 page)

Zach stepped in front of Lisette.

A barrage of bullets emerged.

David waved a hand and telekinetically yanked the weapons from the hands of the eight men inside.

The leaders, oozing arrogance, weren't difficult to identify.

Four men dropped dead. Seth's work, Zach surmised.

And still the arrogance remained. A greedy glimmer even entered the eyes of one at Seth's exhibition of power.

Oh, yeah. These guys were definitely in it for the money. “I wouldn't come any closer,” one warned.

“I don't have to,” Seth responded.

The man abruptly flew up, hit the ceiling hard, then fell to the floor in an unconscious heap.

One of the three left standing drew a tranquilizer gun and shot Seth with a dart.

Seth smiled. “You think it so easy to fell me?”

The mercenary frowned and shot him again.

“Oh, there's nothing wrong with the darts,” Seth assured him. “They contain the right dosage. But no drug in your arsenal will affect me.”

“Who are you?” the mercenary demanded.

“The last face you'll ever see.”

Seth pounced, grabbing the mercenary by the throat and shoving him up against the wall.

The other two scrambled to get away and met Zach and David.

“Do what you will to them,” Seth instructed, “but leave their memories intact.”

David knocked his unconscious.

Zach was tempted to play with his a bit, but reluctantly did the same.

“You can't kill me,” the mercenary Seth held gritted.

“Can't I?”

“I'm an international figure. Everyone knows me.”

“I doubt they'll mourn you,” Seth replied, no emotion in his voice. “Who told you about the virus? Who gave you the tranquilizer?”

The mercenary glanced at David, then Zach, and smiled. He returned his attention to Seth. “I have information you need. As long as I don't tell you, you won't kill me.”

“Oh, but I will. I only asked you as a courtesy.”

The smug smile faded. The mercenary looked at Zach again. “What—?” His face contorted as Seth tore viciously through his mind and his memories. The man screamed, clawing his head in agony, pulling out clumps of hair. His feet kicked against the wall. Blood began to trail from his nose. His ears. His eyes.

Abruptly, his screams ceased, as did his heartbeat.

Seth dropped the mercenary's lifeless form to the floor.

Zach and David stepped back as Seth crossed to the two men they had incapacitated and knelt. He placed a hand on one's forehead.

Minutes ticked past.

He snapped the man's neck.

The man Zach had knocked out began to rouse.

Seth grabbed the man by the throat and lifted him up as he had the other. Pain tightened the man's features.

The golden glow in Seth's eyes faded. “David.”

“Yes?”

“Take Lisette and Marcus and help Richart and Jenna keep the mercenaries away from the helicopters.”

Zach wanted to protest. He didn't want Lisette out of his sight.

But just then, Seth dropped the mercenary and turned upon Zach a look he couldn't read. “Close the door behind you when you leave.”

Zach glanced at Lisette. Brown eyes full of concern, she followed David and Marcus as they stepped out into the hallway and closed the heavy door.

The gunshots and explosions outside slowly diminished as the mercenaries' numbers decreased and the battle began to wind down.

The silence stretched as Seth studied Zach, his expression unreadable.

“Did you see who leads them?” Zach asked.

“Yes,” Seth responded. “The mercenary leaders met with him shortly before we arrived.”

Relief rushed through Zach. Finally! “Who is it?”

A pregnant pause ensued.

“You,” Seth said.

A sick feeling soured Zach's stomach. “What?”

“The man with whom these mercenaries met bore your face.”

“That's bullshit,” Zach snapped, his mind racing with the implications.

Seth held up a hand. “I know it is. Trust me. I've learned from recent mistakes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it was you, but it wasn't
you.
It was you the way you were before you met Lisette.”

Zach stared at him, uncomprehending.

Seth shook his head. “You don't know how much you've changed since Lisette welcomed you into her home and her heart. And clearly whoever wants me to think you guilty doesn't either.” He motioned to the unconscious man at his feet. “See for yourself.”

Zach leaned down and pressed a hand to the man's forehead. As he did, a scent rose up to meet his nose. Shock shook him to his core. Fisting a hand in the man's shirt, Zach yanked him up and drew him close. He inhaled deeply. “Shit!”

“It's one of the Others,” Seth stated, drawing the same conclusion Zach had.

“Yes.” Zach straightened, the man still dangling from his hold.

“Do you know which one?”

“No.” He thought furiously. “Get Ami.”

Seth's scowl deepened. “I don't want her here. We don't know—”

“Do it, Seth. She may be our only hope.”

Seth vanished.

Zach's mind raced, full of impossibilities that had somehow become probabilities.

Seth reappeared with Ami at his side.

“Ami,” Zach said, “whose energy signature do you sense in this room?”

She cast a questioning glance up at Seth, then perused the room. She tilted her head to one side. “Yours. Seth's. Maybe David's.”

“David was just here. Anyone else?”

Her brow furrowed. “I do sense . . . someone. Or the remnant of someone. But the signature is weak.”

“Do you recognize it?”

“No.”

“Is it strong enough for you to memorize? Strong enough that, should you ever encounter the individual again, you would know him?”

She closed her eyes. “I don't know,” she said after a moment. “It's fading even as we speak.”

“Memorize what you can.”

She nodded. According to Ami, every living thing had its own unique energy signature. Once she was exposed to it, she could always identify it . . . which was how she had always known when Zach had visited David's home without Seth's knowledge.

Seth watched Zach in silence.

She opened her eyes. “All right.”

“Thank you. Seth will take you home now.”

“Can I see Marcus first?”

Seth shook his head. “I can't risk your being here if mercenary backup should arrive and engage us.”

The two vanished.

Zach dropped the mercenary.

Seth reappeared. “In the past, Ami has had to be in close proximity to a person to learn his or her energy signature. How did you know she would be able to sense the Other even though he's no longer here?”

“I didn't know. I hoped.” He motioned to the downed humans littering the floor. “Every time he comes here, the Other wipes the memory of his face from every mind here. With these few, he implanted the image of
my
face. That adds up to quite an expenditure of energy.”

“And even when we focus our energy . . .”

“Tendrils of it escape and infuse the air around us. I hoped enough of that excess would linger for her to catch it.”

“Good call. Have you figured out which of the Others it is?”

Zach shook his head, frustration beating at him. “I can smell him on the mercenary's clothes. He must have gripped the man's shirt in damned near the same place I did. But . . . we've occupied the same dwelling for millennia. Every room smells like every one of us.”

Seth's face mirrored Zach's anger. “How is this even possible?”

Zach shook his head. “I would have sworn it wasn't. Not one of them has given even the
tiniest
inkling that he was losing faith in the path they tread, that he intended to defect. And a defection of
this
magnitude—”

“Is precisely what they all wish to avoid.”

Zach still had trouble grasping it. “Straying as
we
—as you and I—did is one thing. We fell in love. We chose to
help
humanity. Protect them. Ensure they have the fighting chance they were meant to have before this virus came from who-the-hell-knows where and altered the playing field so dramatically. Straying as this Other has . . .”

“Is the complete opposite. Helping the mercenaries acquire the virus, helping them wage war with us and try to capture one of us to learn the secrets of our advanced DNA, helping them create an army of supersoldiers who can change the world—”

“Could do what the Others have feared
any
interaction with humans would do.”

“Trigger an Apocalypse.”

“And destroy us all.”

Somber silence enshrouded them.

“Could that be his goal?” Seth murmured.

“To kick-start Armageddon?”

“I see no other end to his game.”

Zach shook his head. “Seth, I'm telling you, none of the Others have ever evinced even a
hint
of discontent.”

“None, including you,” he pointed out.

“If I had succeeded in hiding my growing dissatisfaction with our way of life, they wouldn't have beaten me after I told you your phone was broken. They would have just assumed I had been there to warn you to keep your immortals in check.”

Seth loosed a weary sigh. “Then this Other must be a better actor than you, because I just don't see an alternate explanation.”

Zach's chaotic thoughts, which struggled to cling to denial, nearly drowned out the sounds his sensitive ears could hear outside.

Fire crackling. Boots trampling grass or crunching on gravel as the network began to clean up the mess and collect information.

Heavy vehicles rumbling across the grounds.

And weeping. Soft sobs. Jagged breaths.

Across the room, Seth's Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed hard.

“It wasn't your fault,” Zach told him softly.

Seth held up a hand to stop him and turned away.

Zach watched as the powerful immortal leader bowed his head, dug the fingers of one hand into his eyes. There would be no consoling him. No easing the guilt that would eat away at him for not protecting Yuri. Seth loved each and every Immortal Guardian. He would take the loss hard.

“I've matters I must attend to,” Seth uttered hoarsely.

Zach nodded. “If you need some time alone, I'll do anything you need me to.”

“I appreciate the offer, but . . .” Seth turned his head just enough for Zach to glimpse his profile. “I'm glad you found your way to us, Zach.”

Once more, Zach felt a growing kinship with him. “Thank you for showing me the way. Had you not, I never would have found Lisette.”

Giving a slight nod, Seth opened the door with a thought and strode through it.

Zach followed him down the hallway, down the stairs, and through the hole in the front of the building.

Outside, the sun shone down on a dismal scene. Dozens and dozens of broken and bloody mercenary bodies littered the compound. A scorched foundation and scattered debris were all that remained of the armory. Black smoke clung to the ground like fog, burning eyes and stinging lungs.

Chris Reordon stood off to one side, issuing quiet orders to his men.

The Immortal Guardians, their masks removed, clustered together with their Seconds in the shade of some thick oak trees several yards distant. Husbands held wives. David consoled Yuri's weeping Second. Everyone, even the most stalwart and antisocial, bore tight jaws, red-rimmed eyes, and soot-stained cheeks marked by tears.

 

 

Clinging to Tracy, Lisette looked up as Zach and Seth approached. Both bore grim expressions.

“Go to him,” Tracy whispered.

Lisette didn't argue. As soon as Zach stepped into the shade, she burrowed into the arms he opened to her.

The deaths of immortals during her existence had been exceedingly rare. And most had been faceless names to her. Warriors she had never met.

Yuri had been one of their family here in North Carolina. He had watched baseball games with her when Tanner and Ethan had refused. He had joined in their jests and defended them in battle.

That he had done so to the death today . . .

She still couldn't believe he was gone.

“Who did this?” Dmitry demanded. “Who started all of this? Did you find out?”

“Yes,” Seth said. “Or at least we have a good idea.”

“Who?” Roland asked.

“It was one of the Others.”

Shocked, Lisette looked up at Zach, who nodded gravely.

“He planted memories in the mercenaries' minds to implicate Zach,” Seth continued, “but I could tell they were false.”

Sheldon stepped up to Tracy's side. “I thought you said the Others believed doing this kind of shit would trigger Armageddon.”

“They do,” Seth responded. “And it likely will, if he isn't stopped. I think it safe to assume that triggering Armageddon is his goal. The problem is . . . we don't know which of the Others it is.”

“You've got to be fucking kidding me!” Ethan blurted, voicing the frustration Lisette felt.

Chris Reordon joined them. “Is there anything I can do to help you learn who it is?”

Seth shook his head. “I doubt it. These men have never been on the grid, and there has never been any record of their existence.” He nodded to two network soldiers who walked past, carrying a heavy body bag between them. “How many of our men did we lose?”

Lisette had been so stricken by Yuri's loss that she hadn't even thought to ask about the network humans who had played such a crucial role in the battle.

“Seven dead. Nineteen wounded.” Spoken unemotionally as Chris surveyed the damage. But Lisette saw the regret in his eyes. “Not bad, considering what we were up against, but still unacceptable.” More lives lost that he would lay at his own feet.

“What should we do?” Marcus asked. He looked as disconsolate as the others.

A muscle leapt in Seth's jaw. “Go home. Regroup. Grieve. Tomorrow we'll—”

“Hey, guys?” a voice called hesitantly.

Lisette twisted slightly in Zach's arms to see Alexei, Stanislav's Second, limping toward them.

His face, pinched with worry, bore such a heavy coating of soot he almost looked as though he had smeared it with boot black. Speckles of blood dotted his neck and chin. More splattered his shirt and saturated his left pant leg.

All waited silently as he plodded toward them, half-dragging his leg behind him. He stopped a few feet away and regarded them all with what appeared to be fear. His throat moved in a swallow. Moisture welled in the eyes he turned on Seth. He started to speak, but couldn't seem to find his voice.

Seth reached out and rested a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “What is it, Alexei?”

Again he swallowed, and a tear spilled over his lashes. “I can't find Stan,” he choked out.

Lisette tensed. She did a quick survey of the faces around her, only then realizing that Stanislav wasn't with them.

“I think . . .” Alexei rasped. “I think the explosion may have taken him.”

Seth's hand tightened on Alexei's shoulder. Was he reading the Second's memories?

“He saw them. . . . He saw Yuri fall and took off toward him,” Alexei said. “Then the building exploded, and all hell broke loose. I can't find him.”

Releasing Alexei, Seth looked toward the remains of the armory, then turned his distressed gaze on the immortals. “Have any of you seen Stanislav since the explosion?”

Lisette held her breath, hoping someone would say that they had, that he had just needed some time alone.

But no one spoke.

Shaking his head, Seth stumbled back a pace.

This would kill him, she thought, losing two immortals in one day.

Swinging around, Seth strode through the smoke toward the armory.

Tears blurred her vision and obscured his form.

Dmitry crossed to Alexei and drew him into a rough embrace. Both men wept for the friends—the brothers—they had lost.

“Have your men help him search,” Zach murmured to Chris over Lisette's head. “If the explosion killed Stanislav, there won't be anything left of the body.” The virus would have seen to that.

Lisette's breath hitched in a sob.

Zach tightened his hold. “So look for his weapons,” he instructed. “Pieces of the Kevlar suit he wore. Anything that can give Seth the proof and closure he'll need.”

Chris didn't just pass the orders along to his men. He went with them and helped them begin to comb through the still smoldering rubble surrounding the armory.

Thank you,
Lisette told Zach, her throat too tight to speak.

Zach rested his cheek on her hair and rocked her gently from side to side.
I'm so sorry, sweetheart
.

Closing her eyes, Lisette let her tears fall.

 

 

Everyone bunked at David's place that night. All seemed to need to be near one another, though none knew what to say.

Lisette didn't think she had ever heard such painful silence in the large home. Even the baby seemed subdued, resting in Ami's arms and peering out at them with somber eyes until Ami and Marcus retired, taking her with them.

Lisette didn't sleep. (She wondered if
anyone
did.) She and Zach just held each other.

And when tears would occasionally slip quietly down her cheeks, Zach would cuddle her closer and make soothing sounds.

No one knew where Seth was. He had disappeared after Chris and his men had found a piece of Stanislav's mask and one of his swords, the blade having been broken in the blast.