Deadtown (38 page)

Daniel opened the door a bit wider, then closed it and turned to us. The alarm was too loud for speech, so he signaled what we should do: out the door and immediately to the right. I nodded. I gave Maria a reassuring squeeze, then took her hand. Daniel opened the door, and the three of us slipped out.

To the right of the door were some overgrown yew bushes. We plunged into these for cover. The bushes grew close to the side of the building, but there was a little room to get through. We pushed our way through cobwebs and dusty branches. Maria sneezed, then sneezed again.
Bless you,
I thought, meaning it in so many ways.

When we made it to the corner of the building, we paused again. The next building, marked Five, was ten yards away. It was a rectangular brick building, three stories high, identical to the one we’d just left. But it was closer to the wall that surrounded the compound; the wall was only about five feet from the back of the building. If we could get inside, we could find something—a conference table or a ladder or a lab bench; something like that—to form a makeshift bridge between a second-story window and the wall.

The building wall that faced us, one of the short ends of the rectangle, had a metal door like the exit we’d just used. Next to it was a card reader. I still had Lab Coat’s ID card; that would get us in.

The alarm still blared, maybe a couple of decibels quieter out here, but still deafening. I put my mouth right up against Daniel’s ear; his curls brushed my lips as I spoke in a low voice, laying out my plan. He nodded. “I’ll go first and open the door,” I said. “You cover me.” He nodded again.

Maria still clutched my hand. I bent down, brushed her hair behind her ear, and said, “I’m going to run over to that building and open the door. From there, we’ll climb out of a window to get over the wall, okay?” She shook her head, looking panicked, and squeezed my hand.

“Don’t go,” she mouthed.

“Sweetie, you want to get out of here, right?” She bit her lip, then nodded. “This is how we have to do it. So I’ll open that door. Then, when Daniel says go, run as fast as you can, straight to the door.” A teardrop splashed on my hand. Another squeeze, and then she let go.

27

I STOOD AT THE EDGE OF THE BUSHES’ COVER, TENSING TO run, when the alarm suddenly cut off. For about two seconds, the silence rang louder than the alarm. Daniel and I looked at each other, and I could tell we were thinking the same thing: Why hadn’t anyone come running at the sound of the alarm? And who’d turned it off?

I didn’t like it. But the situation wasn’t waiting around for my approval. We couldn’t get out the way we’d come in. We’d never make it out the front gate. Building Five, ten yards away, offered our only chance for escape. I leaned forward enough to get a view of the courtyard. No one there. The coast was as clear as it was going to get. I still didn’t like it, but I ran.

I was halfway across the open space when Building Five’s door burst open and four big guys wearing camouflage piled out, carrying automatic rifles. I veered to the right. But behind me I heard yelling, then a scream. Maria was screaming. I spun around. Four more soldiers—they must have come from behind the building—were dragging Daniel and Maria from the bushes. Daniel had his hands up. One of the men had his arm around Maria’s waist, lifting her into the air. She kicked and flailed her arms, screaming my name over and over.

I started toward her, but both my arms were grabbed from behind. I started to yank away—it would take more than a couple of 250-pound norms to hold me back—then thought better of it. There were too many of them. If I didn’t reveal my full strength now, I might be able to surprise them with it later. Outnumbered eight to two, with a little girl to protect, we didn’t exactly have a lot going for us at the moment. Any advantage, no matter how small, was worth hanging on to.

A man stepped in front of me, acting like he was the one in charge. He had military-short hair, bug eyes, and a twisted, sneering mouth. He held a hypodermic needle in front of my face.

“Dr. Gravett wants to talk to you,” he said. “But if you give us any trouble at all, I’ll knock you out. Like I should’ve done the other day.”

“Were you the one I clawed up? Too bad I didn’t finish the job.”

His grip tightened on the needle, then he shifted it to his other hand and backhanded me across the face. Everything went black for a second, and I heard scuffling and Daniel yelling. As my vision cleared, I tasted blood.

I shook it off and checked the others. Ten feet away, Maria hung limp and hopeless from the thug’s arm, staring at the ground. Daniel stood tense, both hands on his head, while another thug pressed his own Glock into the base of Daniel’s skull. The norm who’d hit me, the leader, spoke into a walkie talkie: “Tell Dr. Gravett the situation is secure.”

They herded us into the central courtyard. The leader went first, then me, flanked by two guards, with Daniel and Maria behind us. No one said anything. The crunch of boots on concrete and Maria’s quiet sobbing were the only sounds. They lined us up in the middle of the courtyard, Daniel to my right and Maria to my left. The thug had put her down, and she stood, tiny and trembling, surrounded by two huge guards. I tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look up.

Sheila Gravett came out of the building nearest the gate and ran across the courtyard, her heels clicking on the walkway, her white coat flying out behind her. She was beaming. She stopped in front of our little group and clapped her hands together, clutching them under her chin. “Oh, well done,” she said.

To my right, Daniel spoke. His steady voice rang out across the quiet courtyard. “Dr. Gravett, I’m a detective with the Boston police department. I came here to investigate a report of a kidnapping.” One of the thugs punched him in the stomach. He gasped in pain and started to double over, but the one who had the gun on him grabbed his hair and held him upright.

Daniel was struggling for breath, but he kept talking. “As saulting . . . a police officer”—he could barely get the words out—“is a serious . . . charge . . . I suggest—”

His captor pistol-whipped Daniel with the Glock. There was a sickening crack as the gun made contact with Daniel’s skull. His eyes rolled back and he went down. Blood trickled down his neck.

Maria collapsed, too, curling into the fetal position with her hands over her face.

Gravett smiled.

That’s when I lost it. Drawing on all my strength, I yanked my arms away from the two guys who held me, then grabbed them, one in each hand, and smashed them into each other like cymbals. They dropped. The one with the needle rushed me. I dodged, circled behind him, and got him around the waist. I lifted him over my head and threw him, hard, into the two guards who stood over Maria. All three hit the ground. That made five down.

I was turning to find the next one when I was hit from behind in a low tackle. I twisted as I fell, and we rolled in the grass, struggling. Hands closed around my neck.

“For God’s sake,” Gravett shouted, “don’t damage the adult female!”

That distracted the guy, and I broke his grip. I heaved him off me and jumped on him, my hands on his throat now, squeezing. He clawed at my hands. I squeezed harder. The demon mark was on fire; I felt strength like I’d never known. I could squeeze this asshole’s head right off.

“Hey, freak!” called a man’s voice.
I’ll kill this one now,
I thought,
andthen I’ll pulverize his friend
. “Hey! Your boyfriend’s in trouble.” Boyfriend? Did he mean—? Keeping the pressure on the fallen guard’s neck, I looked up.

Daniel lay on his back, still unconscious. A guard stood over him, pressing a rifle barrel into his throat. “Give up now, or I’ll kill him.”

Gravett stepped between us. “He could do it,” she said. “That man entered the premises illegally, and armed. You attacked my private security force. Everyone would swear it was self-defense.”

Everyone who counted,
I thought. As a PA, I couldn’t testify in New Hampshire.

The guy with the rifle kept his gaze locked on mine, his slitted eyes daring me to defy him. Waves of hatred swept over me, hot as the burning demon mark. I could kill the guy, easy—snap him in two in a second. Then I looked at Daniel, vulnerable and deathly still.

I removed my hands from the fallen guard’s throat. He convulsed under me, gulping in air. The other guard lifted his rifle.

“Good,” Gravett said briskly. “Take the juvenile back to her cell. And I think the adult needs to be tranquilized until we’ve secured her.”

The guard I’d nearly strangled pushed me off him. I fell on the ground and just sat there.

I’d lost.

I’d never leave this place; I’d be tortured and imprisoned for the rest of my life. Worse—far, far worse—I’d failed to rescue Maria from whatever horrors they planned for her. That bright, happy girl, reduced to less than an animal. To some kind of lab specimen.

Gravett approached me, holding a hypodermic needle upright and flicking its tip. I looked at the woman and felt a hatred deeper than anything I’d ever known. Daniel lay unconscious and bleeding on the ground. Maria was rolled up in a ball, howling with fear. And Gravett was coming to knock me out until I woke up in a locked cell.

I wanted that bitch to suffer. I wanted her to hurt as badly as all those creatures she’d locked up and experimented on, as badly as she’d hurt my family. Something stirred in me, some deep, savage hunger. I wanted to feast on her screams, to drink her tears as she pleaded for a mercy she’d never get.

The hatred twisted my limbs. A bubbling—fast, frantic, boiling—started under my skin. My spine contracted and kinked, and the longing to tear Gravett’s eyes out made my toenails become thicker, sharp, steely. At the same time, my legs withered, grew thin and tough.

“My God,” Gravett whispered. “Who has a video camera?” she called out. “Quick, someone get a camera—we have to record this!”

I feasted on my hatred, pushing the emotion through my veins, filling my lungs with it. Revenge. Revenge! A shock of pain went through my body. My arms stretched, feeling like they were being pulled out of their sockets, and kept stretching. Widening, the hairs thickening, becoming feathers. Another jolt of pain as my torso compressed, crushing and reshaping each rib. My lips pursed as if expecting a kiss, then my nose melted into them, the skin hardening into a new form. A tingling shot through my scalp, and I heard a soft hissing that seemed to come from all directions.

Maria screamed, and I turned to comfort her. Then I realized she was screaming at me.

I wanted to say something to her, but my voice came out as a squawk. Then the world’s colors bled away. I closed my eyes, then opened them again. Everything had changed. Colors were dimmer, overlaid with gray like a layer of ash. But shapes were sharper. I picked out an ant crawling up a tree trunk fifty yards away. I turned my head, looking. I didn’t know this place; what I
did
know was that I had a mission here. My hunger—deep and gnawing and demanding satisfaction—told me so.

Prey. There was prey nearby. Where? I tossed my head, flinging my lovely, living tresses of snakes that hissed and wriggled with the movement. Harpies are proud creatures, vain, and rightly so. I tossed my head again. With the movement, I noticed a small human lying on the ground, hopped toward her. There was fear there, lovely, but the hunger didn’t flare. Not this one.

A large female stood a short distance away, rooted to the spot, her mouth hanging open stupidly. She wore a white garment, and her hair was the color of brass. The sight of her sent a sharp knife of hunger into my bowels. Hunger spiced with hatred, with cruelty and revenge. Demanding satisfaction, demanding gorging until I could feed no more. And I knew:
This
was the one;
this
was my prey.

I shouted with triumph and delight. The idiotic humans covered their ears. I hopped, flapping my wings to get airborne. The snakes hissed their excitement as I climbed into the air. Higher I flew, and higher. So high that the humans looked no bigger than field mice. I circled once. I marked my target and dove.

Shouting, shouting my glorious cry of battle. The pleasure of watching the prey’s face as it came into focus, surprise tensing into terror. I slammed into her chest, gripping it with my talons, and took her to the ground. She writhed and screamed under me, writhed like the dancing snakes. I dug my talons deeper into her chest. I joined her screams with a song of my own, using my talons to cut and tear, to make her sing new notes. Then, I prepared to feed.

“No!” A sweet young voice—the child’s?—made me pause. “Aunt Vicky, look out!”

The child. There was some kind of danger here. And I was supposed to . . . help her? I? I looked for her, confused. I dimly felt something, some impulse that was foreign to me. Something to do with the child.

Ridiculous. I was hungry; I was here to feed. That was my mission. I struck my beak into the soft, doughy flesh of my prey, searching for tasty entrails. She screamed. What a delicious sauce.

A blast thundered, and something struck my wing. I looked up, a morsel dangling from my beak. The snakes snapped and spat. A human, a male, pointed a weapon at me. The man had dared to fire! I rose into the air, screeching my rage.

Of course the wing was unhurt. I laughed. The human did not know enough to use the death metal. Humans are such fools.

But so delicious.

I rose higher in the air, and saw one of the men pulling at the child’s arm. She was crying. I cocked my head. Something about this one . . . Most humans made me frantic with rage. But the girl, somehow, calmed me. I wanted to sit beside her, let her stroke my feathers, gently pluck morsels of food from her small fingers.

A strange desire, but a pleasant one.

A movement from one of the buildings caught my eye. A door opened and out rushed a group of creatures—wolves and odd-looking furred men. They bounded toward the humans, toward my prey, setting up a howling that made my snake-hair hiss in response. I added my own voice, my wondrous, piercing cry. I soared in wide circles above the battlefield as together, the creatures and I proclaimed our war on the humans.