When Passion Lies: A Shadow Keepers Novel (32 page)

“We’re so excited to have you as a member of our little family. Seriously. It’s a stupendous honor, and we’re going to celebrate by scheduling your first performance tonight at the rise of the moon. Of course, I was recently a tad put out by another hybrid’s failure to live up to my expectation of toxicity. So I’m sure you’ll understand if I put you through a little test.”

She forced herself to stay stoically silent. She had no idea where she was, and she knew that neither did Tiberius or the others. She could only hope they’d found some clue in the parking structure that would lead them here, but, honestly, she was a little doubtful.

Of course, there was the blood.

She perked up a bit at the thought, remembering the taste of Tiberius’s blood on her tongue. The excitement of feeling his desire cross her lips. She wished he was there now. She wanted to see Lihter die. She wanted Tiberius to lock his arms around her.

But wishes and wanting weren’t how things worked. She knew that one well enough.

And the only way to survive was to take care of yourself.

She could do that.

“Caris? You’re being extremely rude. I said you were going to have a little pop quiz first.”

She continued to ignore him as she scanned the room. She saw some sort of rail on the floor, and it seemed to be a track for her gurney. She could see her reflection in the glass. Herself, the gurney, the space beneath. Below her, just like in a hospital, was a white bag filled, presumably, with her clothes. How bizarrely quaint.

She’d hoped for a weapon, but didn’t see one. Though considering how strapped down she was, it wouldn’t have been much use.

Then again, she
was
a weapon.

“Now don’t you worry,” Lihter was saying. “I’m sure you’ll pass. But it’s best to check these things ahead of time, don’t you think?”

Once again she didn’t answer; she was too busy wriggling her wrist to see if there was a way she could maneuver it so the strap cut into her skin. All she needed was a little bit of blood. After that, the acid would do the trick.

She started wriggling, then froze as she realized that the gurney itself had started to move, and she realized it was following electronic tracks out of the cell. The gurney moved through a series of air locks and into another cell, this one empty. But in the cell next to it, she could see three humans—a man, a woman, and a child.

“Let’s just see what we see, shall we?” Lihter said, his voice once again coming tinny through speakers.

And then the gurney seemed to ignite—electricity burning through her, the pain so intense she couldn’t bear it, the heat rising around her until she couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but scream and scream for it to stop.

But it didn’t stop. It never stopped.

It went on and on and on.

And then the wolf was there—bursting out, her daemon fighting to keep it down. But the moon was too close to full and the pain was too great, and her body was changing, becoming the wolf, and Lihter was winning and the wolf was winning—

—and then with one final, violent rip the wolf emerged, and Caris lost herself in the haze of the wild.

Lihter watched as the wolf in the cell thrashed about on the gurney, managing to knock it over on its side, but not managing to free itself from the straps.

“Beautiful.” He turned to Behar, who stood beside him, operating the controls on the console. “Didn’t I tell you I’d find another hybrid? A life lesson for you,” he said, then pointed across the room at Rico. “Set reasonable goals and you can accomplish them. Now,” he said, turning back to Behar. “Let’s make sure we really are right about this one.”

“Turning on the air corridor now.”

In the cell, a vent opened, connecting Caris’s cell to the one occupied by the humans that Rico had delivered earlier that day. A family pacing and terrified, with the father banging on the walls as the mother comforted the child.

A family that drifted off the autobahn in search of a gas station and found death instead. Poor them. But their sacrifice supported such a noble cause.

“Now,” Lihter said, and as Rico came up behind for a better look, Behar turned on the suction feature, drawing
air out of Caris’s cell and into the humans’ chamber. At first, nothing happened, and Lihter clenched his fists at his side, fearful that this was another false start. That he was cursed to never find a toxic hybrid.

“It spreads more easily by contact,” Behar said. “And humans tend to harbor the infection longer than shadowers before showing symptoms. But don’t worry—yes.” He pointed to a digital display. “Some of the virus is transferring into the humans’ cell.”

The cell was small, but it still seemed to take forever.

Lihter paced, watching.

The clock clicked to noon. Then 2:05—2:10.

“
Dammit
. Is this going to work or isn’t it?”

And then the little girl sneezed.

She released her mother’s hand long enough to wipe her mouth, then clutched her mother again. Mom picked her up. Kissed her.

And then Mom sneezed.

The little girl’s eyes turned red. Snot started to drip out of her nose.

Concerned, the father came to look at her. He pressed his hands to her face, felt her forehead. Then he looked up at the ceiling, at the air vent. The father knew, Lihter realized.

He knew that death was upon him.

Lihter watched the show a bit longer—the screaming, the ranting. And then the comforting.

But he already knew what happened in the third act.

They died.

Lihter didn’t bother to watch. He had plans to finalize.

By 5:15, the show was over, and there was nothing left in the cell but the shells of dead humans.

It was an exceptional test run.

Tonight they’d have more humans to infect and then release back into the world—crowded airports, train stations, shopping malls. Tonight they’d open the vents. Tonight they’d release hell on earth, and after it had burned its way over the globe, only the werens would be left standing.

Hallelujah.

Tiberius had come as far as he could with blood.

She was here, somewhere deep in these mountains in Liechtenstein. He knew they were in the general vicinity—he could feel it.

More than that, he could feel her fear, and it was just about killing him that he couldn’t find the way to her.

“What else can we do?” he asked Luke. All around them, the team had fanned out, and for the last hour had been doing a physical search of the small section of mountainside that called to him in his blood. “Heat signatures?”

“Not through the stone. Not if they’re deep.”

“Cellphone?”

Luke lifted his brow. “You think she has it? You think it’s on? If
I’d
taken her, I would have tossed it out a window.”

“But you didn’t,” Tiberius said, grateful for the small bit of hope that her abductor’s potential sloppiness had left him with.

“She had it with her,” he continued. “Jeph heard it ring before she was taken. Whether it made it to the mountain, we don’t know. It’s probably not on her anymore. But even if it’s in a storage closet, if it’s on we can get close.”

“On it,” Luke said, then left to issue orders to the tech guys.

Meanwhile, Tiberius and the rest of the team fanned out across the area like ants, searching for caves, hidden doorways. Anything that would answer the question of how Tiberius could feel Caris’s presence in a big old hunk of stone.

Luke returned. “Her phone’s not on. Someone might turn it on, so we’re locked in. But I’m not holding my breath.”

“Fuck.”

That was the hope he was clinging to. That they could lock on to the phone and narrow their search. And now that hope had died, but he’d be damned if he’d give up. He signaled to one of the agents, who hurried to his side.

“Bring me the map of the search grid.”

The agent complied, and Tiberius studied the map, noting marked-off areas, including those that had been explored visually only, and those that had been examined with metal detectors. “Get the metal detector over here,” he said, pointing to a rocky area.

“Sir, we searched there. It wouldn’t be feasible to—”

“Do it.”

He watched as the team fell into action, hoping he wasn’t wasting precious time. The agent was right, of course. Access to a hidden chamber would likely be in a more accessible place. But if he’d been designing a secret chamber—

“Sir!”

He hurried over. The metal detector was held over a huge boulder emitting a high-pitched whine.

He looked at Luke, who nodded, and the team swooped in to examine the rock.

Except it wasn’t a boulder.

Instead, it was a doorway, and they used acid to quietly burn away the lock. They pulled the door open and peered into a labyrinth of twisting corridors.

“Split up,” he said to the men. “Go fast but quietly. Keep your systems set for Caris’s signal. It’s unlikely, but maybe we’ll get a hit off her phone.”

One of the jinns on the team poked his head inside, looked around, and said, “I damn well hope so. ’Cause without a map, there’s no way we’re finding any fucking thing in that maze.”

“You’re wrong,” Tiberius said. “We’ll find them. We’ll find them because we have to.”

Silently, though, he feared that the jinn was right.

They hadn’t bothered to right her gurney, and now Caris lay on her side, her sanity coming back to her, the wolf departing. At least for a few more hours.

Moonrise was close, and the wolf wasn’t going far.

Frankly, that was pissing off her daemon.

Good. She wanted it mad. Wanted it hard and furious and deadly. Caris was so used to fighting her daemon back that she had to force herself to let go. Because right then she didn’t
want
to fight it. She wanted it to rage. She wanted it to kill.

So much power inside her, and she’d never been able to call on it. Not the daemon that would take over, sending her to a dark, horrible place. Not the wolf she despised, whose very presence was deadly.

But Lihter was using her now, and that wasn’t something Caris took kindly to.

Lihter wanted her to be his goddamned little weapon?