Zoey Avenger (Incubatti Series Book 2) (39 page)

Zoey snapped her attention towards the way they’d come. She saw shadowy movement from the corner of the fencing without seeing how many were there. She recognized the magic radiating off them, though.

“We’ve got Cambions at my seven,” she reported. “Unless there’s any objection, I’m thinking Wendy needs to take car of them.”

“Paul will call them off.” By the edge in Declan’s voice, the Cambion leader wasn’t being given a choice in the matter.

The lock clicked open beside her. Zoey drew her weapons and entered. The roar of industrial air conditioners on full blast came from her right. Various pipes, ducts and hoses lined the walls, ceilings and floors. The self-sustaining facility had its own mini-desalination plant, power plant, climate controls, and several backup systems that she could identify. It was loud, smelled of oil, and the air was charged with electricity that made the hair on her arms stand on end.

Aware no one would hear her without shouting, Zoey used hand movements to direct her team. She trotted to her first objective, the power grid, and pressed explosives to the fuse board directing the flow of electricity. The other three members of her team tackled trunks of electricity and communications.

Declan, why would a facility this size needs its own water, cooling and power plants? She asked across the bond with her soul-mate.

He didn’t answer immediately, and she trailed her team members to the stairs leading to the catwalk and office overlooking the impressive set up.

The woman running point crept to the lit office and whipped open the door. Zoey’s knife was in the throat of the succubus within before she had a chance to stand.

They moved to the main entrance leading into the building, and Zoey slid into a much quieter hallway, able to hear the chatter once more.

“Zoey and Gin’s charges are up.”

“… four guards.”

“Two more sentries …”

I’m betting this is her medical facility and the lab you found in Maryland her research facility, Declan responded.

Zoey shuddered, not wanting to know what they’d discover after hearing the tale of what happened to his mother. She checked her watch, where Chrissy had programmed directions to their different objectives. “Rendezvous point alpha in five.”

Armed and wary, she led her team at a trot through a set of sterile corridors with white walls, white linoleum flooring and no doors or windows. Her route was the one believed to be of least resistance, and she was pleased to find they’d thus far evaluated the target correctly.

“Five guards. Be back,” Vikki reported.

Zoey quickened her pace. Following the directions on her watch, she turned down a hallway, this one with double black doors on the left.

“Chrissy, cameras!” she hissed, ducking back into the previous hall.

“Checking … locating and … done!” Chrissy reported.

“Z, the hallway you’re in is marked as a former mortuary,” Lydia said. “Dead people don’t need cameras.”

Zoey headed down the hall and paused before a set of doors, peering into the scratched, ancient window. “We’ve got … five succubae and …” She drifted off. The morgue was huge and lined with row upon row of still bodies on gurneys covered in sheets. At one end was a crude surgical area outfitted with better lighting and equipment than the rest of the room. “… it looks like forty dead bodies.” She watched one succubus in a lab coat approach the body on the surgical table. She had a medical saw in one hand and clamps to prevent bleeding in the other. “This is weird.”

Zoey dropped back onto her heels and started away before what she’d seen hit her. She stopped in her tracks. Dead people don’t bleed. “Rendezvous delay,” she reported. “Gotta take care of something.”

“Proceed to delta after,” Lydia instructed her.

She crept into the lab and motioned for the Halflings with her to take the four succubae out on one end of the room while she inched silently towards the woman with a saw. The device came to life with a high-pitched whine, and Zoey darted forward, throwing one knife to disarm the succubus and the second to take her out silently with a knife to the throat.

The woman dropped, and Zoey collected her knife before crossing to the figure on the table. Expecting to see a defenseless Halfling tied to the table, she was surprised to find a Cambion.

They’re conducting medical experiments on Cambions, she told Declan.

The creature was unconscious and showed signs of having had his skull sawed open then sewed shut. Rather than free him, she left and went to the row of white draped gurneys nearest her. The body was that of a Cambion, along with the second one she looked at. She peeked under a few more sheets. Everyone she found was a Cambion.

Olivia is trying to find a way to make them no longer dependent on incubuses, Declan supplied.

“Because they can’t produce the antitoxin,” she murmured. “She went from perfecting Halflings to Cambions.”

She perfected you. Someone like her doesn’t understand that she’s hurting people. She sees only medical progress.

“She’s fucked up.”

The other succubae were dead. Zoey rejoined her team and checked her watch for directions, the chatter over the communications system in one ear while she listened to her surroundings with the other.

“Proceeding to delta,” she reported.

“Everyone but Zoey is offline.” Chrissy sounded confused.

“Something’s wrong,” Lydia whispered.

Urgency jolted through Zoey, and she increased her speed, racing through the hallways towards the secondary meet up point. She reached the door to the room denoted as an administrative office on the schematics.

Pushing the door open, she frowned at the large, open bay that didn’t exist on their blueprints. “Definitely not an office. Lyd, the layout we have for this place isn’t entirely accurate.” It was the size of a small gymnasium with four points of entry, one on each wall. “This is weird.”

“We’re noticing that. Vikki found new hallways and Gin a dead end where there is none on our schematics,” Lydia said. “I show all of you at the point.”

Dread sank into her. She looked first at the ceiling, where drops of some liquid still clung to the sprinklers above, down to bright blue tarps. Three tarps, one in front of each of the other doors, covered the unmistakable shapes of bodies. “The floor’s wet. There are …” Zoey drifted off. She knelt and rubbed a finger in the liquid. It was thicker than water yet not gelatinous. “What the fuck is this stuff?”

“Zoey, can you see the others?” Chrissy asked anxiously.

“Maybe.” She wasn’t about to tell them what she saw or what she feared. Motioning for the Halflings to remain at the door, she ventured onto the slimy floor. It was slippery, and she moved rapidly and carefully towards the first tarp. The sense that they’d walked into a trap thumped at the back of her mind. “Lyd, blow the boiler room in two minutes.”

“Will do.”

Putting her weapons away, Zoey skated her way to the blue tarp and bent, throwing it off. The bodies of Vikki and her three Halflings were motionless beneath the blue, covered in the strange liquid. She knelt and pushed Vikki over, fear tearing through her at the though of losing her best friend.

Vikki’s pulse was strong. Zoey checked the others, confirming they were alive. “They’re here but … fuck. Someone knows we’re here. Chrissy, what do you have? Cameras? Comms? Anything?”

“Nothing I can pick up. Olivia’s comms are jammed, and I could get in to shut down the cameras but not hack them.” Chrissy was worried.

Zoey stood. “This is a trap. Olivia knew we were coming.”

“It’s not possible,” Lydia insisted. “I didn’t even know until I got here.”

“No one did,” Chrissy added. “Except us.”

“And Grant,” Zoey whispered. “You check in with him today, Chrissy?” Sprinkles hit her hand. Zoey glanced down and saw her clothing was already covered with droplets. Another glance overhead told her the sprinklers were operating like misters, sending out a stealthy, wet fog.

“No. I will now.”

Zoey’s gaze blurred, her body growing sluggish, the way it had when first injected with the goo at Olivia’s other lab. Panic hit her, and she whirled, darting forward. Sudden clumsiness and a slippery floor sent her smashing onto her stomach, and she scrambled up. “Stay back!” she shouted to the Halflings. “Don’t let this shit touch you!”

All four doors to the gym slammed shut simultaneously.

“Zoey, what’s wrong?” Lydia demanded.

“Fuck … the stuff … Olivia’s lab …” Zoey’s control began to slide away from her. She scrambled across the floor to the door, collapsed to the floor and staggered to her knees. “Chrissy … antitoxin.”

“Use the shot!” Chrissy shouted across their network. “It’s why I gave it to you!”

Zoey fumbled for the cargo pocket containing the single shot of incubus toxin, mixed with adrenaline, was. She managed to yank it out and flung herself onto her back, clamping her mouth closed to keep the mist from entering her lungs. With effort, she slammed the shot into her thigh.

Fire tore through her, and sex energy flooded her, filling her and pushing back the numbing effects of the antitoxin.

“O…kay,” she panted and sat. Feeling returned to her extremities, and she stumbled to her feet and half-slid, half-ran to the door. “It worked. I might need another.”

“Only if necessary. It’ll put you close to blackout mode,” Chrissy warned her.

Zoey reached the door and yanked it open. The sudden grip of her boots on the solid floor sent her tumbling into the wall across from it. The Halflings were armed and poised, waiting. “Take a shot and head in,” she ordered them. “The others are immobilized. Work on getting them all awake and out of here. I’m going after Olivia.”

“Zoey, you can’t –” Lydia started.

“Blow the boiler room, Lyd.”

Catching her breath, Zoey stood and swiped at the goo on her. She peeled off the thick shirt with its protective skin and tossed it to reveal the tank top she wore beneath.

The distant rumble of thunder was followed by lights around them flashing out, along with the sprayers in the gym. Bathed in darkness, Zoey clicked on the flashlight at her waist and wiped the slime from her features.

“Grant’s gone,” Chrissy said. “Declan sent someone to his home and office. He didn’t go willingly, Zoey. There’s blood.”

“Shit. I’ll find him, Chrissy. Lyd, heat sensors. I need to know where the fuck Olivia is!”

Zoey watched the flickering of flashlights as her Halflings began the process of waking up the others. The tips of her toes and fingers remained numb while her movements felt slower than she was used to.

“Not fucking … going without me …” Vikki’s groggy objection came across the comms. “Shoot me … ‘gain.”

“Then get your ass up,” Zoey replied. She whipped out a handgun with titanium bullets and a knife with her other hand. “Catch up, V.” She wiped the slime from her boots and then took off at trot. The flashlight lit up a small red circle a yard ahead. “Lyd! Need directions!”

“You’ve got incoming, Z,” Lydia reported. “The route you’re headed is packed with security personnel.”

Zoey’s senses picked up on movement around a corner. She assessed it for a split second before whipping around. Firing three shots, she smashed the knife into the face of the fourth before whipping it across the neck of the succubus. She straightened, warm blood on her hand. “Vikki, Tiff, Gin! What’s your status?”

“On my way.” Vikki grunted.

“Shit,” Ginny grumbled.

“Working on … it,” said Tiff.

“Tiff, take the Halflings. Gin and Vikki, get them some space to evacuate.” Zoey paused, listening to the sounds of more attackers on the way. “We’ve got incoming. I need the Halflings out!”

“Talk about moody,” Vikki teased. “On your right. A little off but good enough to kill shit.”

Zoey flicked off the flashlight and heard Vikki move into place. Her best friend was sluggish. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“I’d say this was an ambush.”

“Not everyone knew. The lab rats down the hall were going about business as usual.”

“Last minute ambush,” Vikki guessed. “Take point. I’m … sucking.”

Zoey reached out to touch her friend. Vikki was trembling from the combination of two shots of adrenaline and sex magic, radiating energy enough to make Zoey edgy. Zoey stepped over the bodies and moved swiftly down the hallway. She paused when the footfalls and flashlights of succubae security forces reached her.

One of them began firing shots randomly into the darkness. A bullet grazed Zoey’s shoulder.

Ouch. Zoey flattened herself against the wall, Vikki beside her. The flash of fire from the muzzle gave her a target, and she lifted her arm, aiming before squeezing off three shots.

The succubus dropped. Using their flashlights to identify their locations, Zoey finished off her magazine, reloaded it, tucked the weapon away and raced forward, slamming into body of a succubus. Vikki followed, taking out another two. No part of her was about to give the succubae of her former society any mercy and instead, Zoey treated them like Cambions: killing fast and mercilessly. Blood splattered her as her third target fell, and the hall went quiet.