Wilder (27 page)

Chapter 51

T
he crowd closed in around Charisma. She could hear Aleksandr roar her name, but she couldn’t see him. Her phalanx of Chosen Ones had disappeared as, one by one, they peeled off to take care of another crisis, to fight the Others. Violent eddies in the crowd caught her, shoving her toward the outer door.

But she needed to enter the inner lobby, where the elevators would take her to the top. To the roof. Where Osgood called in the forces of hell.

She clutched the heavenly feathers close to her body, afraid that the employees’ panic would soon turn this into a riot and she would be trampled, the feathers lost.

She heard gunshots.

Saw more blood, dark red and horrible, spatter against the white marble.

The screams grew deafening.

She remembered John’s directive: The Chosen Ones were to sacrifice anything to get her to the elevators.

She had to trust that Aleksandr could take care of himself.

Fiercely, she shoved and elbowed her way toward the back. She had to reach the elevators.

Like snapshots taken too fast, Charisma caught glimpses of her comrades.

Of Rosie and Konstantine throwing punches, and John at their side, using his power to flip the submachine gun–wielding guards through the air like playing cards in a strong wind.

She saw Genny and Zorana directing Osgood’s employees out the door.

She heard Samuel shouting, knew he and Isabelle were fighting their way through the crowd, trying to catch up.

The press of employees toward the exit was a river, driven by desperation. Charisma fought, strained toward the elevators, gained feet and inches only to lose precious seconds. Air was in short supply. She was squeezed and shoved from all directions. She struggled to breathe, but irresistibly she was pressed backward. The gunfire grew sharper, closer.

The guards were taking people out at the doors.

Oh, God.
Genny
.

But no. Charisma had to trust in John’s powers. He wouldn’t let those bastards get Genny. He wouldn’t let her die.

Charisma heard Aleksandr roar again.

He was alive.

And suddenly three of the older Wilder men materialized in front of her. His uncles. Something about them, their predatory stares and their attitudes, made people swerve away. Slowly, then with greater momentum, her guard pushed against the throng, creating a path for Charisma toward the back of the lobby.

At last she could draw breath.

Above the milling heads and off to the side, she saw Aleksandr cutting a swath through the crowd, his blue eyes focused on her. He seemed to have no trouble getting
his
way. Maybe it was because, when people saw him, they screamed and tried to run.

Dumb shits.
Didn’t they realize he was saving them?

Wilders in the lead, Charisma reached the guard station.

She gave a gasp of relief. They were almost there. The elevators were just beyond, nine sets of glossy doors that closed, then opened to discharge masses of sweaty, crying, cursing employees, then closed again.

The employees streamed out of the side corridors, too, coming down the stairwells, panting from exertion and fear.

The ground shook continuously now. Above the cacophony, Charisma heard the ominous thud of lightning striking the ground over and over. In her mind, she formed a picture of the fleeing employees facing the press of death inside the building, the fear of annihilation from hail, lightning, every biblical plague.

She caught a glimpse of Aaron, their gifted thief, sliding along the wall, Rosamund behind him. Maybe they would catch up with Charisma . . . but Rosamund was pointing not at the elevators, but around the corner into the narrow hallway, where . . . where a shock wave of sparkling black energy gathered strength. Like a foul wind, it blasted out, taking out everyone in its path. Charisma and the Wilders careened sideways, stumbling, scattering.

Charisma was alone again, isolated in the crowd. She clutched the feathers, but she didn’t so much hold them as they clung to her, refusing to leave. Another powerful gust of energy sent her spinning in a circle, tripping over her own feet, falling beneath a hundred stamping feet.

Someone caught her.
Aleksandr
caught her. She clung to him as yet another gust of energy hit them. Aleksandr leaned into it, fought to remain on his feet.

John’s power counterpart in the Others stood in the corridor, blasting them with so much power Charisma’s heart squeezed in agony, then resumed its beat.

“We’ve got to stop him!” she shouted.

“Aaron’s got it,” Aleksandr shouted back.

Behind the Other, a smoky mist rose. Sensing something, the Other’s head whipped around to see Aaron materializing behind him.

Too late. Aaron snapped his neck and dropped him to the floor.

Rosamund ran to Aaron and embraced him.

Aleksandr wrapped his arm around Charisma. “Come on!” Escorted by the Wilder men, they made it past the guard station into the elevator lobby.

Caleb appeared out of the melee, Jacqueline on his heels. “Jacqueline says it’s these elevators.” He pointed to the doors on the left. “They’re the only ones that go all the way to the roof!”

“Come on.” Jacqueline held the doors open. “Come on!”

“Have we lost the rest of the Chosen Ones?” Charisma shouted.

“Yes,” Caleb said. “But we’ve got to go. Jacqueline says we can’t wait any longer!”

At her wrist, Charisma’s stones jangled a warning.

Something about this scenario was wrong. Very, very wrong.

She touched Caleb.

He was fine.

She put her hand on Jacqueline’s shoulder, and the blast of enmity and evil glee made her spring backward. “That’s
not
Jacqueline!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” the fake Jacqueline said.

“Of course it’s Jacqueline!” Caleb viewed the shape-shifter with narrowed eyes. “Although somehow we got separated.”

“Find your wife,” Charisma told him. “This is not Jacqueline!”

Color drained from Caleb’s face, and he turned and fought his way back into the crowd.

Aleksandr turned to his father and uncles and pointed at the impostor. “What is that?”

The Wilders surrounded the Jacqueline thing, focused on her. Her form wavered and changed into that of a middle-aged balding man who cowered at the sight of those grim, handsome Wilder faces. They backed him into the milling crowd.

Samuel and Isabelle arrived, panting and disheveled.

“I asked one of the employees. These elevators go to the roof.” Isabelle hurried toward the smallest elevators at the back and punched the button.

Aleksandr suspiciously stared at her.

But Charisma’s stones hummed happily. She nodded reassuringly at Aleksandr. “It’s really them.”

The four moved swiftly to the opening door of the elevator.

“Stop. Now!” One of Osgood’s uniformed guards popped out of the crowd, pointing his submachine gun at them.

“You people are a real pain in the ass.” Samuel sighed, then gestured to the Chosen Ones. “Go! I’ll handle this.”

Charisma and Aleksandr rushed into the elevator.

Isabelle stood beside her husband.

Samuel leaned toward the guard, read his name tag, and in his warm, convincing, lawyerly voice, he said, “Logan, you don’t want to fire that gun.”

The guard blinked. “I don’t?”

Charisma held the elevator doors open. “Isabelle! Get in here.”

Isabelle waved a
wait for us
hand.

“Logan, you don’t want to fire that gun,” Samuel repeated. “You want to help people exit the building in an orderly fashion.”

The guard put the gun on the ground.

Isabelle walked forward and picked it up.

The guard walked into the crowd, shouting, “Follow me! I’ll lead you outside.”

Samuel and Isabelle ran toward the elevator—and staggered backward.

Aleksandr started out.

He stumbled backward. “Something’s between us. A force field of some kind!”

Charisma heard the hum of the stones on her wrist. She looked down at the feathers she clutched tightly to her chest. She heard the message, accepted the truth. “Let the doors shut,” she said to Aleksandr. “We’re the only ones going to the roof.”

“What?” Isabelle shouted.

Charisma looked out at Isabelle, at her friend, knowing she was abandoning them to a terrible fight, knowing she and Aleksandr faced this battle alone. “The feathers have chosen
us
. Let the doors shut.”

Aleksandr stared at Charisma, and released the doors.

As they closed, Samuel tried again.

The last thing they saw was him falling backward into Isabelle’s arms.

Aleksandr and Charisma were alone.

Aleksandr pushed the button for the roof.

The elevator started its ascent.

After the riot in the lobby, it was quiet. So quiet. Except . . . “I can’t believe Osgood plays Muzak in his elevators,” Charisma said.

“Proof he really is the devil,” Aleksandr said softly.

They grinned at each other. They stood close without touching. All the words had been said. All the kisses had been exchanged. There was nothing left except to do this thing or die trying.

The panel showed one hundred and thirteen floors, and with each number that lit up, Charisma’s stomach tightened. She swallowed. Her ears popped.

The earth trembled. The building rattled. The elevator swayed and clanked.

Charisma breathed deeply, gathering her strength to face the coming battle. “I can’t believe Osgood’s going to just
let
us come up to the roof to fight him.”

“Don’t worry,” Aleksandr said. “We can do this. Think of how much you’ve already done. Fought demons. Loved a beast. Visited the heart of the earth, regained your gift, and come back with one of the two things we needed to make the prophecy come true. You’ve been chosen by the feathers to carry them to confront Osgood.”

Charisma shook her head. “I’m not
afraid
. It’s more than that.” The stones at her wrist started to burn her skin. “There’s something very wrong,” she murmured.

“Earthquakes? Lightning to fry a bus? Cloud vortices? I agree there’s something wrong. And we know—” Aleksandr stopped talking. Stiffened in alarm. Turned his head slowly from side to side and sniffed the air.

He had caught a scent of trouble.

“What is it?” she asked.

The elevator began to slow.

He grabbed her shoulders and shoved her against the side wall. “Listen to me,” he said. “It’s an ambush. Smith Bernhard has come for me. Smith and Iskra.”

“No!”

“They want to take you, too.” Stepping away from her, he leaned down, loosened his boots, discarded them.

She observed without comprehension. “I won’t leave you!”

“You can’t help me. They want to use you against me. You
can’t
get caught. You
have
to go to the roof.”

The ninetieth floor dinged.

The doors opened. The room was dark, except for a spotlight on Iskra, blond, beautiful, slowly disrobing and smiling into the elevator. At Aleksandr.

“Charisma, everything depends on you.” Aleksandr pushed the button for the roof. He leaped into the room.

As the door shut, the last thing Charisma saw was Aleksandr in midair. Then the spotlight clicked off.

The elevator resumed its ascent.

Would Aleksandr yield to Iskra’s seduction?

Charisma didn’t believe that for a minute.

Would Smith Bernhard trap him, torture him, kill him?

She had to believe that somehow Aleksandr would find a way back to her.

Charisma was alone with her duty and her destiny, and the cold, clear knowledge that Aleksandr was right.

She couldn’t help him.

And at this moment, everything depended on her.

Chapter 52

A
leksandr had always known it wasn’t over.

In his Wilder heart, he had always known what he could become.

As he leaped from the lighted elevator into the dark room, he did what he had sworn he would never do.

He denied his humanity, and wholly transformed himself into the beast.

His nose and mouth became a wolf’s hairy snout with hungry, spiked fangs. His fingers grew long and misshapen, tipped by razor-sharp claws. His chest expanded, bursting the seams on his fighting uniform. His hips narrowed; the muscles of his thighs grew long, thick, powerful. His feet changed to paws capped with ten more lethal weapons.

With his new, even more acute senses, he breathed in the scent of the two eager game wardens waiting to take him. He smelled the dozen burly men who both feared him and wanted to catch him in their trap. He could smell Bernhard’s evil anticipation, Iskra’s sick excitement.

Even in this utter pitch dark, he could see the massive net the guards held, ready to confine the beast.

Dropping to the floor, he rolled to the left, under the net, slamming his weight against the guards’ legs, slashing with feet and hands.

They screamed in surprise, those men who wanted the glory of snaring the beast. They dropped the heavy net. They fell.

As they hit the ground, Aleksandr ripped away their night-vision goggles, slashing their faces.

They screamed again and violently scrambled to get away from him.

The heavy nylon rope net with its six-inch holes had been created to capture a grizzly bear or to use underwater to trap a shark. That made it easy for Aleksandr to wrap his claws around the ropes at the edge, and use his weight and strength to yank it toward him.

The guards holding the other side stumbled forward, off balance, dropping their end, putting their hands out to stop their falls.

Net in hand, Aleksandr pounced, trapping them; the fly had turned the tables on the spiders.

One of the men threw the edge of the substantial net aside and rushed at Aleksandr. A knife flashed in his hand.

Aleksandr grabbed the wrist of the man who wielded it and heard a satisfying snap, then threw him across the room and into the other guards. The knife clattered across the floor.

He turned toward Bernhard, at the back of the room and to the left.

“Aleksandr. Stop.” Bernhard’s voice was accompanied by the click of a safety. He wore night-vision goggles, he held a Ruger pistol, and he steadily pointed it at Aleksandr.

As instructed, Aleksandr froze. And breathed, long and slow, absorbing, analyzing, and cataloging the scents around him.

In the whole room, there were only
two
weapons that used bullets.
Two
weapons that fired. That was all.

Of course. Bernhard would take no chance that one of the guards would see Aleksandr’s horrible form and panic, and shoot his most precious creation. Bernhard always kept control of the violence in any situation. Bernhard dealt out the violence. No one else.

Iskra held a handgun. Yes, she wouldn’t agree to bait the trap without the security of knowing that if the fight got out of hand, she could save herself.

But guards were not the brightest, and they lived for violence. They had arrived with other weapons, other knives. Aleksandr merely had to figure out who, what, and where.

Behind them, the man with the broken wrist sobbed and pounded on the elevator call button. It lit up, giving enough illumination for Aleksandr to see . . . everything.

If he was going to get out of here alive, and go to Charisma and help her destroy Osgood, Aleksandr had to use all his human intellect and all his animal cunning.

He knew Bernhard was an accomplished sadist; he was a highly intelligent man, not easily fooled. But also . . . Bernhard had a weakness. Bernhard always believed he was the smartest man in the room.

Not in this room, he wasn’t.

“Aleksandr.” Bernhard employed the firm, kind, logical voice he always used when preparing to torment and maim. “Listen to me. You think you’re safe because you’re loose. You think I won’t shoot you because I made you what you are. But when this is over, when Osgood has won, he will give me hundreds, thousands of subjects to run experiments on.” Bernhard’s eyes glowed with greedy pleasure.

No
. Aleksandr couldn’t allow this to happen.

Bernhard continued. “I don’t want to shoot you now, but I will if I have to. You have value for me in death, too. I can dissect you, see how your transformation worked, preserve your brain, slice it and put it under the microscope.”

Iskra made an ardent noise.

“Yes, dear, you can watch.”

She was too venal and stupid to realize how Bernhard patronized her. Or perhaps she didn’t care, as long as she got to satisfy her need to view pain in all its forms.

She made Aleksandr’s skin crawl, and yet . . . she had volunteered to be his bait, and as she had removed her bra, she’d smiled at him, imagining her gift still worked on him, that he was easily seduced.

She didn’t realize the memories of Charisma’s love-making had completely wiped Iskra, the seductress, from his mind. She didn’t realize she was doomed.

And so was Smith Bernhard.

“Aleksandr, get on your knees and I’ll let you live.” With his gun pointed at Aleksandr’s chest, Bernhard believed he held the upper hand.

As Aleksandr sank onto the floor, he groaned in deep, mournful despair.

The room fell silent. Everyone was watching: the men in the net, the wounded guards and gamekeepers. All were eager to see Bernhard tame the beast.

From inside the big, heavy rope net, Aleksandr heard, “Bet you a hundred that in less than ten minutes, we’ve changed places with him.”

“Fat chance. Two minutes, maybe. It’s a
stupid
animal.” A pause. “Damn thing ripped my cheek open. I’m bleeding.”

Aleksandr recognized the second voice.

Troy, an intern from Bernhard’s hospital, a bully who jammed in the needle when he gave shots, who applied the restraints too tightly, who starved Bernhard’s patients and gloated.

Now Troy rested on his side, exalting in Aleksandr’s humiliation, anticipating the moment when he would have him under his power . . . and as he grinned, he fingered his knife threateningly, lovingly.

Aleksandr had never thought Troy clever. Now at least he thought him useful.

“Aleksandr, tell me you’re sorry,” Bernhard said.

Aleksandr groaned.

“Tell me you’re sorry,” Bernhard snapped.

Aleksandr groaned again.

“My God!” Bernhard peered toward him, his night goggles giving the already vile scene an element of science fiction. “Is it possible? Can it be? Did this latest transformation move you so far from your human form that you cannot speak?”

Aleksandr hung his head as if in shame. He groaned pitifully and shuffled on his knees both toward Bernhard and to the side . . . toward Troy.

Bernhard held the pistol steady, but stepped closer.

Arrogant fool.

“Of course. You still
understand
speech, but you no longer have the tongue, the lips, the palate to speak.”

For Aleksandr, that was the worst part. Bernhard was right: Aleksandr could no longer speak. But although he was a dumb beast, still he felt the press of time ticking away.

Charisma was alone on the roof with Osgood. She needed Aleksandr.

He had to finish this.

Hunching his shoulders, he whimpered pitifully, and once again slid on his knees toward the men in the net, toward Troy. Then, opening his mouth, he pointed and looked meaningfully at Bernhard.

“Yes! Your teeth, too, have changed.” Bernhard took another step. And another.

Troy, bless him, crawled closer, too.

One thing Aleksandr could depend on: If Troy saw a chance to hurt someone, he grabbed it. Right now, he wanted a stab at Aleksandr.

One of the guys in the net with Troy punched him and told him to hold still or they’d be eaten.

Troy responded with a swift stab to the throat.

A spurt of blood. A death rattle.

Aleksandr groaned to keep Bernhard’s attention away from the altercation, away from the knife coming within Aleksandr’s reach.

Bernhard glanced toward the net full of men, but his pistol never wavered. He was in full mad-scientist tirade. “This is it. This is the proof I was looking for! No other subject has even started such a transformation, because no other subject had the genetics to make the change. The devil might make the bargain, but—”

Troy was one long arm reach away, wiping his knife on the dead man’s sleeve, paying Aleksandr no heed.

Bernhard was a long arm reach to the other side, enthralled with his creation.

With bestial swiftness, Aleksandr grabbed Bernhard’s wrist and yanked it forward and to the side, neutralizing the pistol.

With a roar, it discharged toward the side of the room.

One of the gamekeepers collapsed.

Snatching the knife from Troy’s careless fingers, Aleksandr used a bleak upward motion to plunge the blade into Bernhard’s chest.

Bernhard had been so enthralled with his own genius, he never saw it coming.

His mouth dropped open in surprise. “You . . . I won’t allow this. You—” He gurgled. Blood dribbled out of his mouth.

Aleksandr stared into Bernhard’s eyes, speaking his contempt in the only way he could.

Then, with a twist of the knife, he pulled it free.

For three beats, blood pumped from Bernhard’s heart. Then . . . it stopped. He crumpled to the ground.

Still holding Bernhard’s arm in one hand, the knife in the other, Aleksandr rose off his knees. He looked around.

The room exploded in panic.

Guards squealed like stampeding pigs. They pounded on the elevator doors. They flung the stairwell door open and raced down the steps.

It was a long way down. Aleksandr wished he could chase them until they dropped.

Yet in the midst of the terror, Iskra’s low, breathy, grateful voice reached Aleksandr’s ears. “My darling, you killed him. At last, you’ve freed me from my bonds!”

He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe Iskra dared.

She rushed toward him, one arm outstretched, the other at her side.

Arrogant fool, indeed.
He
was the arrogant fool.

He had forgotten she had a gun.

He dropped the knife, grabbed Bernhard’s shirtfront, and, in one smooth motion, lifted the body to use as a shield.

Too late!
She raised the pistol and fired.

Heat, agony burst like fireworks in Aleksandr’s chest.

She fired again, and again.

The bullets slammed Bernhard’s body as Aleksandr hoisted the deadweight high and threw it at Iskra’s head.

Bernhard’s corpse knocked her off her feet.

Aleksandr heard the crack of her spine. And smelled the sweet, clean odor of her death.

He stood, chest heaving. Blood ran from his shattered rib cage. He had trouble getting his breath.

Punctured lung.

Too bad. He had a job to do. He had to help Charisma.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement.

Troy was crawling toward the pistol Bernhard had dropped.

With his new claws, Aleksandr could no longer grip a pistol. Could no longer fire a pistol.

So with Troy’s own knife, Aleksandr killed him swiftly.

Then, with a snarl, he bounded into the stairwell, and in his mind he pictured Charisma in flight, with the angel’s wings attached to her back.