Rising Shadows (4 page)

Taka strokes her back to soothe her.  “You don’t need to be afraid,
Livia. Rachel is going to keep you safe.”

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

“I’m weary,” she sighs.  “I don’t have the will to face this place any longer.”

Eyeing her suspiciously, I urge
,  “What are you planning to do?”

A brilliant smile graces her lips. The light doesn’t touch her eyes.  “Please don’t allow the child to watch. I don’t want her to have nightmares.”

After a fierce hug for us both, Taka approaches the viewing glass.  “Richland, you crave blood and death. Fine. I’ll give it to you.”

Taka’s nails curve into talons. I press
Livia’s head against my shoulder to prevent her from looking up. Guards are working to unlock the door. They fumble into the vault. I shrink backwards with Livia in hopes of escaping any reprisal. When the guards are within arm’s reach of Taka, she lets her hand fly to her throat. Violent slashes run downward, the motion tears clumps of flesh out and blood spurts across the glass.
Oh my god! There’s so much blood.

Dr. Morris and the Armani Squad sit frozen. Taka’s body crumbles to the floor. Richland is incensed. I’m weeping with
Livia.

Richland pounds the window with his fist
,  “You think you won! You only demonstrated how far you will go to protect that child.”

I am afraid to use
Arcana with Livia in my arms.
What if it hurts her?
Guards jerk Livia away from me. She screeches for me. My Arcana is rising. Blue flashes ricochet off the tiles. I can’t harness it in time to stop another guard from using the butt of his gun to knock me out.

CHAPTER 3

Rachel

Waking up in foreign places is becoming a habit of mine
. This time I am in a limousine.
At least I get to ride in style.
Someone changed me from the hospital gown to street clothes. I shudder at the thought of anyone from Richland having access to my naked body while I was knocked out. The shirt is new, a mint green polo shirt with the little jockey symbol on the breast in hot pink. Light colored khaki pants and brown loafers complete the country club chic ensemble
. This outfit needs to be burned.

There is a throbbing above my right eyebrow where the guard in the tank hit me.
Livia is sleeping on the seat next to me with her head resting in my lap. She looks peaceful and angelic, wild red hair in disarray. Richland’s right hand man, Gates is seated across from me.
He’s the guy who demanded I apologize to Richland on the first day
. He has a medicine container in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

  “Would you like an aspirin?” he asks.

I am hesitant to take them. In the end, my head hurts too much for me to be picky about where the relief comes from. I pop the top off the aspirin bottle and wash a pill down with a swig of water.

He narrows his eyes at my injury and says
,  “The guard left a nasty cut, but it looks like you are healing fast. I doubt you need the butterfly Band-Aid any longer.”

I gingerly touch the area, it’s still sore but I can’t feel a cut so I peel the sticky tape off.

“Where are we headed?” I ask.

He straightens his tie casually.  “We’re on our way to the Lune Rouge.”

That’s odd. Are we going dancing?
  “The night club, over on Main and Sixth street?”

“Oui. The name means ‘red moon’ in French. The club has been owned and operated by shape shifters for twenty years. The current proprietor is a werewolf named Claude Bonvillian. Our insider reports it is mostly shifters, but the occasional vampire wanders in; although it is not encouraged. The ordinary people who frequent Lune Rogue are clueless they’re mixing with animals.” Repugnance twists his features.  “All non-humans need to be destroyed. They’re demons, unnatural. You will help us purge them from the Earth. You should be thanking Richland for this opportunity!”

Woo! Someone needs to up his dosage.

Gates' yelling rouses Livia. She sits up and rubs the sleep from her eyes.  “Where are we going?” she mumbles.

I don’t want to scare her, so I try for cheerful enthusiasm.  “We’re going on a field trip. Won’t that be fun?” She looks at me as if I’m an idiot.

Yeah, it does sound stupid. Sorry, kiddo.
I wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her closer.

The visor that separates the driver from us comes down. We reach our destination in under five minutes, he tells us. Butterflies form in my stomach. This is not a social call. They want me to do something terrible.

“My neck hurts,” Livia whines. I move her hair out of the way to examine the spot. A wide blister has formed around a puncture wound. The skin is purple, radiating out into a sickly green. I touch the injury gently with the pad of my finger. Clear fluid dribbles out.

“What did you do, Gates?” I’m appalled.
They don’t care who they hurt, even little kids.

Gate smirks. 
“Insurance to guarantee your cooperation. Livia is our only leverage over you. Do you want to know the reason for your amnesia? We couldn’t figure out how to break you so every time you became too much to handle we just started over. Erased you to a more manageable state. Imagine the damage it did?”

In the Institute, the nurse said they started over again. She meant they erased my memory. Again, she said. How many times did they reset me? How much time has passed?
Gates and his employer had hijacked my life.

“Why are you telling me this?”
In the movies, the bad guy reveals his plan right before the hero defeats him. Hey, a girl can hope.

Gates shrugs.  “We can reset you again if we have any problems. Somehow I think knowing will make you more agreeable not less.”

He’s right. I don’t want to start again. I will find a way out of this, for Livia. First things first, I need to know what they did to her.
  “Will she be okay? What did they give her?”

Gates is peering out the window, bored with our discussion. 
“Another virus. Not Arcana, an older formula that didn’t perform within accepted parameters. Don’t fret, we made an antidote as well.” He examines his nails, barely paying attention to me.

And if I believe that, you have a bridge to sell me in London.
My gut tells me he’s lying about a cure.  “So unless I do what you want, Livia will die?” I clarify.

“Correct. The process is quite painful.” The way he looks at
Livia makes my skin crawl. I think he is excited to watch her suffer.
Sadistic bastard.

The Limo rolls to a stop. Headlights beam in through the back window. A
Humvee pulls up behind us and parks. Gates gestures towards the door,  “Ladies first.”

Climbing out of the limousine, I am joined by Richland Institute guards from the
Humvee. Outside, I get my first close up look of the club. Lune Rouge is a magnificent building. Not overly large, but with plenty of room for a small crowd. While it does not possess the pizzazz high end clubs do, it feels inviting. A subtle charm. The kind of place where everyone is a regular. Gates takes Livia’s hand from me and holds it in his own. I hate that he is touching her. She didn’t say a word in the limo as we talked about her fate.
So young, she doesn’t understand what is going on. Praise the lord for that.

I take the lead with Gates and
Livia behind me. The five guards in civilian clothing bring up the rear. I don’t see any weapons.
Must be concealed somewhere on their bodies. I highly doubt they’re walking into a shifter club unarmed.

I push my way through the door and look the interior over. A bar is installed in the back right corner. There are three sets of booths and a scattering of tables on either side of the entrance. Straight back are the doors to the kitchen along with a staircase that leads upstairs to a loft. A few pool tables and two arcade games fill out the first floor.
A full house tonight. Shifters are everywhere.
Auras, auras, everywhere.
Just like with Alonzo in the tank, I can see the animal inside them.

I understand what
Kadema meant about made versus born shifters now. The made ones have the displaced aura. A mirage that wavers over them. With born shifters, it’s all in the eyes. They look inhuman for split second. If I concentrate, I can hold it longer and even see the beast contort their face. Doing a quick count I find wolves, bears, and cats. Whatever Gates organized, we will fail. Too many of them against one of me. My heart sinks in my chest. I can’t do this.

Just inside the door Gates raises a gun from inside his suit and shoots into the ceiling.  “Cover the exits,” he says over his shoulder. Initially the shifters look tense, but after realizing it’s just a bunch of humans they visibly relax. Their expressions vary. Some are amused, others annoyed. Several shifters have gone back to whatever they were doing before Gates shot the gun. The music has been turned
down, only a few people are talking quietly. Gates and his guards move deeper into Lune Rouge, guns drawn.
Why are they shifters letting them pass?
They certainly don’t appear to feel threatened.
That’s scary.

Gates is in the center of the club. I follow behind him curious to see what happens next.
I should grab Livia and run.
I look up at the loft. People are lined up against the railing watching the display below. My eyes are drawn to one man in particular. From my angle and with the low lighting, I can’t tell much about his features or height. His clothes and hair are dark, he rests one arm on the top rail and holds a pool cue in the other hand. His gaze is a penetrating green and I swear they glow, I have to make myself look away.

“Guns are not appreciated here, sir,” says a young woman behind the bar.

Liquid courage, come to mama!
Moving around Gates,
I walk over and take a seat in front of her.  “Can I get a drink please?” I ask politely.

“What do you think you are doing?” Gates grinds out through clenched teeth. He is standing directly behind me.

“You folks had me locked up playing lab rat. I just want a few minutes of me time before the shit hits the fan.”

Gates doesn’t know what to say to that. Patrons watch me curiously. Let them. I am past the point of caring. The bartender grins at me. She has hair that’s
a silvery lavender dancing around her shoulders. Her eyes are a mesmerizing shade of purple. She doesn’t seem real. I am spellbound.
Not a shifter, what is she?
I have to stop myself from reaching out and touching her.

“What would you like?” She asks me breaking the trance.

Back to reality, in a room full of doom.  “What would you recommend for a woman’s last drink on earth?”

Now I have the attention of the room.
No one is talking anymore. Someone turned off the music. The bartender is bothered. She chews on her bottom lip and frowns at me. Gates is growing annoyed.

“What are you blathering on about, Miss Ryan?”

I’m ignoring him. The bartender thinks for a second and says,  “Whiskey. The good stuff.” She pours a shot and hands it to me. Her hand touches mine deliberately and our eyes lock forming a connection. Warmth and comfort course through me. When she disengages her hand from mine I’m disappointed. Once again, dread and fear take over.

Downing my shot, I shake it off. I’ve never had whiskey before. If I live, I won’t repeat the experience.
Blech!

“Rachel, I am talking to you!” Gates is losing what grip he has left on his temper and waving his gun around.

He looks like a raving lunatic.

I am losing my temper too. Alcohol loosens my tongue.  “Oh hold your damn horses. Are you really so eager to die?”

Stumped, Gates asks,  “Why would
we
die?”

I huff.  “I count a few different flavors of shifter in here and only six guns. I don’t even know if a gun can kill a shape shifter.” I turn and raise a brow at the bartender.

“Depends.” She shrugs.  “You’d need a lot of complex ammunition to do ‘em all. Then you’d still have the non-weres to deal with.” She says matter-of-factly.

Peachy! I need an armory of special ammunition. Too bad I left that at home.

  “We don’t need special ammunition,” Gates scoffs.  “We have you, Rachel.”

He’s putting a lot of faith in my
Arcana.  “I killed one werewolf. One! I didn’t even do it on purpose! What makes you think I can do a roomful all at once? You don’t expect them to wait patiently in line do you?”

He cannot possibly be that stupid.
The whiskey is effecting me, I feel light headed. I grip the bar to calm the spinning. Gates looks baffled by my question then it dawns on me,  “Aw geez, you do expect me to wipe them all out. You are a dangerously stupid man.”

“And you are wasting
Livia’s time,” he counters. A guard grabs my upper arm and pulls me off the stool. A growl from nearby scares him and he lets me go. I stumble sideways and look for the source of the sounds. The guy from the loft with the amazing green eyes snuck down when no one was looking. Still not close enough as I would like so I could really check him out. He’s down at the end of the bar glaring daggers at Gates. I can see he’s tall and well built, but I really need to pay attention to crazy Gates and his boys.

My knight in shining armor.

Gates is a lost cause. I plead with the guards closest to me.  “None of us are going to survive. One of them will snap my neck or Gates will give the order to execute me.
Livia and I are dead in any scenario.” I’ll give Richland credit for hiring dedicated guards. They don’t even flinch.

Gun pointed at me, Gates rages
,  “Damn it! Why can’t you do what you’re supposed to?!”

I square off against him.  “I’m talented. Let
Livia go, and I won’t twist you up in knots.” For a moment, Gates blanches, but recovers quickly.  “You think you can barter with me? Kill her now.”

A guard reaches out to grab me but soars backwards instead. A support beam running from the floor to the loft above catches him in the back. His spine cracks like a twig. Gates gapes at me.

I shrug.  “I warned you.”

He retaliates by wrenching
Livia’s arm behind her back until it curves at an abnormal angle. He has broken her arm. Using her body as a shield Gates edges towards the exit. Livia screams.  “Shut up!” Gates bellows and jerks her hard making her yelp louder. People are yelling all around me. The guards move closer together for protection. The shifters are no longer spectators. When Gates broke the child’s arm he started a chain of events. Gunfire erupts as one shifter takes a guard down.