Greco (Book 1.5) (The Omega Group) (3 page)

A slow, rhythmic beeping sound
brought Greco out of the fragmented dream he was having.
What happened?
As his mind began putting the pieces of his dream together—the car ride, the
truck, the accident—he felt his heart rate speed up in time with the beeps.
Mirissa!

His eyelids refused to open,
weighed down by something Greco couldn’t identify. Drugs, maybe.
Are we in a
hospital?
Still trying to force his eyes to follow his commands, Greco
shifted his weight, only to find he could move neither his arms nor his legs.
Fear crept through the fog that encompassed his mind, giving him the extra
strength he needed to open his eyes.

 The fluorescent light that
hung above him caused a splintering pain in his head, so he turned his face to
the side. No more than two feet away, Mirissa stared back at him from where she
lay strapped to a metal gurney.

“Welcome back to the land of the
living,” she said with a weak smile.

No matter how hard he tried,
Greco couldn’t clear his head. He felt as though he was moving and thinking in
slow motion. The sedation used must have been incredibly strong to incapacitate
him like this. “Where are we?”

The look in Mirissa’s eyes told
him that she, too, was struggling through the drugs. “I’m not sure. The last
thing I remember was getting hit by that truck. Then I woke up here a few
minutes ago.”

Greco took a deep breath, trying
to gather his faculties, and began searching the room for some clue as to where
they were being held. The wall to his left was bare and held no windows or
doors. Beyond his feet he could see metal cabinets standing floor to ceiling,
but again, no identifying marks of any kind. To his right, behind where Mirissa
lay, was another bare wall. This one, though, had a door.

Greco once again focused on
Mirissa. “Have you seen anyone? Heard anything through that door?”

“No one. Nothing,” she said.
“Just the damn beeping.”

Greco looked at the machines that
sat on metal carts beside each of them. They were the same machines that were
used in hospitals to monitor a patient’s heart rate. It was then that he
noticed the I.V. in his arm that was attached to a plastic bag hanging over his
gurney. A quick glance confirmed that Mirissa was also receiving fluids. “You
need to get out of here. Now. Can you do it?”

Mirissa took a moment to reply.
“I’m not sure. I’ve only ever teleported short distances, and since I don’t
know where we are…”

Greco understood the problem.
Since she’d gotten this power from Daedric three months ago, she’d been able to
easily teleport to anywhere she could picture in her mind, but only if it was
within a mile or so of where she started. She hadn’t been able to travel any
further than that. Without knowing where they were, it was impossible for
Mirissa to pick a destination within that radius. “Can you use your telekinesis
to open our restraints?”

“I already tried that. If they’d
used ropes to tie us up, it would have worked, but they used heavy metal cuffs
with a lock I haven’t figured out yet. I’m still working on it.”

Whatever drug was in those bags
was strong. At full strength, Greco knew Mirissa could have obliterated their
restraints.

“Greco? Is that you?”

The weak voice came from behind
them, but Greco didn’t need to see her to know who the voice belonged to.
“Mom?”

Dr. Alayna Sessions stared at the
file sitting on her desk, not really seeing it. She’d been away from her office
for several days now and couldn’t come up with any more excuses to justify her
absence. If she could just finish updating her patient files she could call it
a day without raising suspicion.

Right now, that was easier said
than done.

She was so close to success, she
could almost taste it. Months of experiments had yielded nothing, but now she
was on the verge of triumph.

When she first met Gayle Costa
last year, Alayna thought she was just another drunk. Covering a couple shifts
per month at the free clinic had her treating more than her fair share of
addicts, and Gayle fit right in. In a drunken stupor, she’d apparently taken a
tumble down some stairs and broken her arm. One of the clinic’s nurses had
witnessed the fall and, seeing that the bone jutted through the skin of her
forearm, convinced her to come in for treatment.

By the time Alayna got to the
exam room Gayle had passed out. Either the alcohol or the pain from the
compound fracture had proven too much for her. Alayna remembered being relieved
at the sight. Addicts could get quite belligerent when they were under the
influence and in pain, and Alayna was more than happy to set the bone and cast
the arm in relative quiet.

That was when things got strange.

The nurse’s report clearly stated
that the patient’s right arm had an open fracture of the radius, but when
Alayna examined it, the bone was already set. That, in and of itself, wasn’t
entirely uncommon. People had been known to push a protruding bone back in
place when the adrenaline rush created by whatever accident caused the fracture
was still coursing through their veins. What piqued Alayna’s interest in this
case was what she saw on the X-ray. Not only was the bone set, but it had also
already started remodeling— something that should have taken months.

The nurse, Cori something, had
interrupted her exam. “Dr. Sessions? I need to draw some blood to do a
blood-alcohol test. I gave her a Breathalyzer when she first came in but it
must be malfunctioning. It said her blood-alcohol level was 0.42.”

“She should be dead, if that
reading’s right.”

“It can’t be. Don’t get me wrong,
she was definitely drunk, but she was able to walk here without any help from
me.”

“All right. Do the test and get
me the results as soon as you can.”

The nurse stepped up to the
examination table and tied a rubber strap above Gayle’s left elbow. Once she
found an appropriate vein, she inserted the needle, but that was as far as she
got.

With the reflexes of a highly
trained athlete, Gayle shot to a sitting position, pulled out the needle, and
pushed Nurse Cori away with enough force to knock her to the floor.

“Calm down, Gayle.” Alayna raised
her hands in a manner she hoped conveyed that she wasn’t a threat. “You were
hurt. You’re at the Bay Street clinic. We’re just drawing a little blood.”

“No!” Gayle screamed.  “You
can’t take my blood.”

At that point Alayna was stuck.
She couldn’t perform any procedure, even a simple blood draw, without her patient’s
permission. But she needed to run tests. She had to find out how this woman was
healing her fracture so quickly, and if that healing ability extended to other
injuries or illnesses as well. If it could be isolated and duplicated it could
change the face of medicine.
She
could change the face of medicine.

Before she had the chance to ask
even her first question, Gayle was up and out the door. Taking with her any
chance Alayna had to make medical history.

Now, sitting at her desk, staring
at the unfinished medical chart in front of her, Alayna thought back to that
fateful day. At the time, armed with only her patient’s first name, she’d had
no choice but to let the matter drop. She couldn’t very well start research on
a subject that she couldn’t even identify.

Then, a few months later, her
desire for fame and fortune in the medical community was trumped by a much more
personal, and desperate, need.  There was absolutely nothing that would
stop her from getting what she needed. Nothing.

The buzzing of the intercom,
followed by the voice of her secretary, brought Alayna back to the present.
“Dr. Sessions? You have Mr. Hamilton on line one.”

The mention of Mr. Hamilton’s
name, or pseudonym more likely, sent a shiver down her spine. He was the leader
of the less-than-ethical mercenary group she’d hired to find and capture Gayle
Costa.  It never ceased to amaze her what could be done with Google.

Forcing more strength and
authority into her voice than she felt whenever speaking with him, Alayna
picked up her phone. “Mr. Hamilton. What have you got for me?”

“The other two. We’re on our way
to your house now.” A click on the line signified their conversation was over.

With one last glance at her still
untouched patient files, Alayna grabbed her purse and headed out the door,
ignoring the quizzical look from her longtime secretary. “I’ll be back in an
hour.”

She didn’t know who these two
were. According to Hamilton they’d been spotted leaving the Costa house by one
of his men on a scheduled drive-by. He’d gotten there just as they pulled out
of the driveway. There’d been no cause for alarm until they ran the car’s
Duvall County plates. Classified.

Hamilton put his man on recon
duty, having him follow the car and its two occupants, until a plan of action
was decided upon. By the time the car pulled into the Hyatt hotel the decision
had been made. Alayna needed these two off the street, so Hamilton pulled his
man off the tail and put his plan in motion.

Now it was up to Alayna. Although
she hadn’t intended on taking anyone but Gayle, she couldn’t allow these people
to get in the way of her success. Once she had them restrained and sedated,
she’d come back to her office, finish her charts, and be home in time for a
late dinner. Then her real work could continue.

“Mom? Is that you?” Greco said.

“Yes, it’s me. I’m on a gurney
right behind you,” she said, sounding even more fragile. “There isn’t much
time. The longer the sedation is in your system, the weaker you’ll become. If
your friend has teleportation powers, she needs to use them before it’s too
late.”

“But I can’t,” Mirissa said in
frustration. “I’m not strong enough to teleport more than a mile.”

“You may not be, sweetheart. But
your ring is. Remember, your ring is a part of you. Your power belongs to it,
and its power belongs to you. Focus. Draw on its power, and you should be able
to teleport much farther than you could on your own.”

Greco watched as Mirissa closed
her eyes and slowed her breathing. “Wait!” he yelled. “Mom, before she tries
this, we need to know who took you.”

“Her name is Alayna. I met her a
few weeks ago at my A.A. meeting. I don’t know any more than that, sorry.”

Greco tried to turn his head
enough to see his mother but couldn’t. “Why did she take you?”

“She wants something from my
blood. That’s all I know. Please. Your friend needs to go. Now.”

“Your blood?” Greco asked. “How
much has she taken?” As the reality of their situation sank in, fear exploded
in his chest.

“Not enough to do any permanent
damage—at least I don’t think so.”

Blood loss was the one thing that
could seriously mess with an Amazon. When Artemis imbued their blood with
special abilities all those years ago, she’d known there could be problems.
Anyone that knew about their unique metabolisms and healing capacity would
covet
them, making all Amazons targets. Even if they were
able to conceal their unique physiology, there was still the very real danger
of them choosing to share it. Amazons had always helped those in need, and
Artemis knew if they were able to spread their capabilities to others, they
would—even if it meant forever changing the natural order of the world.

That was why the goddess put a
safeguard in place. If an Amazon lost more than a small amount of blood at any
given time, their body would decay—one organ at a time—until they were dead.

“Please, Greco. She’s running out
of time.”

Greco gave Mirissa a quick nod
and watched as she called upon her ring’s power. Then she was gone. He only
hoped she made it somewhere safe.

“Are you alright, Miss?”

Mirissa felt the hard floor
beneath her. She rolled onto her side and slowly opened her eyes.

“Where’d you come from, girl?”
The image of the man standing over her slowly came into focus. He was wearing
military fatigues but looked like he was anything but a soldier.

“I asked you a question!” The man
bent down and grabbed Mirissa’s wrist, pulling her upright.

“You leave her alone, Benjamin!”
A woman’s voice boomed from behind the unknown man.

Mirissa, still struggling to
clear her mind, watched as a familiar person approached. “Miss Maggie?”

As the fog in her brain receded,
Mirissa realized she was sitting in the warehouse where she and Greco had begun
their search for his mother. As she pushed herself to a standing position she
felt her knees wobble underneath her.
Note to self—never take drugs.

Miss Maggie wrapped a steadying
arm around Mirissa’s shoulders. “We need to get you away from here.” Her voice,
previously harsh while speaking to Benjamin, had turned soft. “Two men came here
after you guys left earlier. They offered cash for information.”

Mirissa, remembering Maggie’s
request for money from Greco, turned an accusatory gaze to her.

“Don’t you look at me that
way.
I didn’t say nothing. Greco’s like family.” Maggie
glanced at the other occupants of the warehouse. “These others, though, won’t
be so tightlipped.”

Mirissa nodded her agreement, and
her apology. “I need to get back to my hotel. Will you help me?”

“Of course,” Maggie said. “We’ll
take Benjamin’s car.”

“That guy has a car?” Mirissa
couldn’t hide the surprise in her voice.

“Yes, dear, he has a car. It’s
the last relic from his old life, and it still runs. You’re going to have to
give him gas money, though.”  Maggie paused a moment then continued, “Just
give me the money and I’ll put the gas in the car.”

“I tell you what, Maggie.”
Mirissa smiled. “I’ll give you the gas money, but I’ll be back to ask Benjamin
if he’s got a full tank when this is over.”

“Fine.” The disappointment
evident in Maggie’s voice.

They exited the warehouse using a
back door in what must have been an office at one time. The bright sunlight
made Mirissa cringe. “What time is it?” The look of incredulity on Maggie’s
face told her that a wristwatch was not on her list of possessions. “Sorry. I’m
just trying to figure out how long we’ve been gone.”

“Can’t be more than a few hours.
Ricky never misses dinner at the shelter and he’s still here.”

Benjamin’s car was definitely
what Mirissa would call a relic. Twenty years ago it was probably a nice family
sedan, now it looked
one step
removed from the
junkyard.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,
darlin
’.” Maggie cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe I should drive.
You still look a little shaky.”

Mirissa simply nodded. “Can you
take me to the Hyatt on Bay Street?”

Within a few short minutes the
old, dilapidated car pulled in front of the hotel, much to the chagrin of the
valet clerk. Before Mirissa could get out, Maggie put a hand on her arm.
Mirissa reached into her left boot, pulled out a folded
fifty
dollar
bill, and handed it over. “Thanks for your help.”

Maggie took the money and shoved
it into her front pocket. “You know, I saw you come in to the warehouse
earlier. You just appeared out of nowhere.”

Mirissa took a deep breath.
“That’s all the money that I have, Maggie. My wallet's gone.”

“I don’t want your money! I mean,
I do want your money, but that’s not why I said that. I just wanted you to know
that your secret is safe with me.”

Mirissa smiled. “Thank you. For everything.”
As Mirissa walked into the lavish lobby of the five-star hotel, she couldn’t
help but feel guilty. When she looked over her shoulder, Miss Maggie was gone.

Time to go to work
.

After securing a replacement room
key from the front desk clerk who, thankfully, remembered her from check-in,
Mirissa made her way back up to her room. As she exited the elevator she saw a
bellhop using his master key to open their door—the Do Not Disturb sign still
hanging from the handle. The adrenaline coursing through her at the site of the
intruder succeeded in clearing the last effects of the drug she’d been given.
Once again in full control of her faculties, Mirissa waited for the man wearing
the hotel uniform to notice her. When his eyes finally met hers she saw recognition
in them. Either he knew who she was, or her height gave her away as an Amazon.
Either way, he was no bellhop.

Mirissa sprinted down the hall,
reaching the intruder just as he turned the handle and pushed the door. Two
yards from her target Mirissa jumped and extended her right foot in a flying
sidekick. The impact sent the bellhop crashing through the door, gasping for
air as his lungs emptied instantly. Mirissa reached down, grabbed his shirt
collar, and yanked him fully into the room, kicking the door shut behind her.

“Who are you?” Mirissa was having
a bad day and relished the thought of taking her aggression out on this man.

The look of fear on his face told
Mirissa everything she needed to know. He was most definitely not a
professional. Even if she hadn’t seen his face, the growing wet spot in the
groin area of his pants would have told her just as much.

“I’m going to ask you one more
time. Who are you?”

Opening and closing his mouth
like a guppy out of water, the man finally found his voice. “John. John
Anderson.”

Mirissa waited for him to
continue but he just stared at her. “Who sent you and why?”

“I don’t know.” He cringed as he
spoke, as though afraid of her reaction. “I’m telling the truth! They just gave
me five hundred bucks and told me to search your room. There wasn’t supposed to
be anyone here.”

“What were they looking for?”
Mirissa asked.

“I don’t really know. They told
me to grab your luggage and any papers that you had around the room. That’s all
I know. I swear.” Tears were streaming down his face.

“They must’ve given you a time
and place to meet so you could hand over what you stole.”

“I’m supposed to bring everything
I find to the parking garage by the Lucas Theater at six o’clock.”

The beginnings of a plan
formulated in Mirissa’s mind.

“Uh, what’s going on?” Asteria
asked from the edge of the bed.