Autumn's Blood: The Spirit Shifters, Book One (26 page)

She paused and said, “I just realized
I have no idea who these people are we’re about to try to rescue.
Other than there are three of them and they’re shifters, like
you.”

Blake got the impression she was using
their conversation to ward away the imaginings which so often lay
in the dark.

“One is a woman from the reservation,”
he told her. “She’s from a different town, so I don’t know her
personally. The second is a man, white, like you. He has a family
who must be missing him—a wife and two kids.” He took a breath,
hating to have to describe the third captive, understanding how
coldhearted it must make him appear, to have left a boy in such a
horrific situation. Even so, he continued. “The third is a teenage
boy called Toby. He can’t be much more than fifteen.”

The pressure on his hand changed as
Autumn slowed. “A teenage boy? His surname isn’t West, by any
chance?”

Blake frowned in the dark. “Yes, that
does ring a bell.”

“Now I understand why Mia is so
involved. Toby West was her latest case.”

“Damn.”

Autumn’s roommate had certainly gotten
herself involved with the wrong people.

The tunnel twisted and turned, several
junctions giving him options, which he took with no hesitation.
Eventually, he came to stop. A solid steel door blocked their way.
A small keypad, illuminated by a pale blue light behind the keys,
offered them their first light for a while.

“We’d better hope this
works.”

He tried to ignore the nerves in his
stomach as he keyed in the code. The door beeped, the blue light
turning green, and the door clicked open.

“Thank God,” breathed
Autumn.

Blake swung open the big, heavy
door.

Ahead lay another tunnel, square in
shape and lined with what appeared to be aluminum. He took up
Autumn’s hand once again and they ran at a steady jog down the
sheer metal box. Overhead, florescent lights flicked on with their
movement, only to extinguish again as they passed.

He wasn’t sure what they’d find when
they reached containment level three—whether the shifters would be
protected by men with guns or if they’d even be there at all. But
he knew Dumas’ level of cockiness was high enough to never allow
him to think someone would take him on—especially not a solitary
man and a young scientist. In fact, that was probably the last
thing Dumas would think he’d do. He imagined the men after them
would expect them to try to put as much distance as possible
between them and the facility.

They reached another slab of steel
with another keypad. He plugged in the code and again the door
opened. He’d been right, assuming Dumas to be too arrogant to
consider Blake a threat. Either that or, as Blake had suspected
before, the codes had deliberately been left unchanged,
anticipating their return. In Dumas’ mind, Blake was just a regular
man. He had no idea about the common link Blake shared with the
other shifters. Blake wondered what connection the general had made
between him and Autumn. What did Dumas think his reason was for
taking Autumn away? Blake didn’t know how much information Haverly
had given up, but he doubted his friend would have betrayed them.
The general probably thought Blake wanted Autumn’s power for
himself.

This door opened into the back of
containment level three, where the shifters were being held. A
corridor led down into the room where the guards would
be.

Using the hand that wasn’t locked
around Autumn’s fingers, he reached back and removed his gun from
where he’d hidden it in the waistband of his jeans. Before reaching
the city, he’d gone back to where he’d stashed his bag of supplies
a couple of days earlier and rearmed himself.

He wasn’t expecting to find the
shifters alone, and he wasn’t wrong.

Blake peered around the corner. Two
bored-looking guards sat on watch. He recognized neither of them.
Had Dumas replaced some of his team after he’d taken off with
Autumn? Perhaps the General figured he didn’t know who to trust
anymore and got fresh blood in, not wanting to leave anyone in
charge who might betray him.

One guard chewed gum and idly flicked
through his phone. The other sat with his feet resting on the
control panel, his head back, his hands folded over his portly
stomach. If Dumas caught them like that, he’d fire them in an
instant.

He put out a hand to motion to Autumn
to keep still. Her blue eyes locked with his, serious and alert,
but not frightened. This wasn’t some silly little girl he had with
him now. She was a woman who’d fought to the top of her career and
who, before the last couple of days, had known her place in the
world. Now, her whole life had been flipped upside down, but she
was still holding it together. He admired her for that.

Each of the doors to the glass cells
holding the shifters were locked from the outside. When they
released the shifters, they’d be able to make a run for it, but he
worried about them being shot on the way out.

He wondered how the others were doing.
They could set these shifters free, but they still needed to find
Autumn’s roommate. He also wanted to find out what had happened to
Haverly and take out Dumas. The man wouldn’t let them rest if he
was left alive.

The one guard was so engrossed in his
phone he didn’t even notice Blake coming. Blake pressed the muzzle
of his gun against the head of the man who appeared to be taking a
nap. At the cold of the barrel, the man’s eyes shot
open.

“Don’t move a muscle,” Blake
warned.

The other guard dropped his phone and
scrabbled for his gun, but Blake clicked the barrel forward, the
sound loud in the otherwise silent place. The man gave a whimper of
fear. “That applies to both of you.”

The two men froze and exchanged a
glance.

“Put your hands up where I can see
them,” said Blake.

He couldn’t let himself be distracted
by the three people held captive. First, he needed to deal with
these two and make sure they didn’t call for help. If they were
anywhere else in the building, he’d be worrying about security
cameras picking up on him holding these men at gunpoint, but the
only cameras down here led to Dumas’ office. With the commotion the
others were hopefully causing in other parts of the building, he
doubted he’d find Dumas sitting at his desk.

He motioned with the gun. “Get up and
come over here.”

The men scrabbled to their
feet.

“Slowly,” he said. Stepping forward,
he quickly pulled both men’s weapons from their holsters. He tucked
one into the waistband of his jeans and kept hold of the other one.
He figured Autumn would appreciate the weapon.

With both men in front of him, he
called out, “Autumn, the boy is in the room farthest from you. Go
and unlock it for me.”

He allowed his gaze to move briefly to
scan the two-inch-thick glass separating the room from the cells.
He knew the shifters wouldn’t be able to see through the one-way
glass—their side was mirrored—but it was possible the stronger of
the shifters, perhaps the man or woman, would be able to use their
guides to see what was happening on the other side.

He was right. Though the boy lay
curled up on his side, either asleep or unconscious, the man and
woman sat up, alert, staring toward their mirrored side of the
glass. They knew something was going on, though there wouldn’t be
any way for them to know he was here for them. As far as they were
concerned, he was one of the guys on the bad team, and he needed to
be prepared for the possibility that they would treat him like
such.

From where he watched, the door at the
back of the boy’s cell swung open. Toby lifted his head. To one
side of his body was a tray with an empty bowl and a plastic cup.
At least Dumas had been feeding them. A bucket in the corner had
served as a bathroom. From the way Autumn ducked her head back, her
hand raised to her mouth, he guessed it hadn’t been cleared in a
while.

Through the microphone on the control
panel, he could hear Autumn speak, “Hey, Toby, isn’t
it?”

The boy came to, caught sight of
Autumn, and quickly sat up, scrabbling to the back of the
cell.

She put her hand out, as though to a
nervous animal. “It’s okay. My name is Autumn. I’m here to help
you, to get you out of here.”

Toby’s eyes darted around the small
room, as though expecting to see some answer to what was occurring
or figure out if this was a trick or not. His eyes seemed too big
in his head, cheeks hollowed, arms thin. Whatever they’d been
feeding him over the last couple of weeks, it either hadn’t been
enough, or he hadn’t been keeping it down. Blake figured if Dumas
had continued with his experiment, the resulting weight loss had
probably been a mixture of both.

“You want to get out of here, right?”
Autumn continued, one hand still held out. She crouched to his
level. “My friend, Mia, runs a charity to find missing people, and
your mom and dad contacted her. We’re here to take you
home.”

Blake hoped to God that what she was
telling him would come to fruition.

The boy looked around again.
Apparently deciding he had no other options, he reached out and
took Autumn’s hand. Gently, she led him from his place of
captivity.

“What the hell are you doing?” the
guard with the belly yelled. “These people are dangerous. Hell,
they’re not even people!”

Blake cracked him on the side of the
head with the muzzle of his gun. “Shut it, you.”

Toby cowered at the raised
voices.

The man in the chamber beside him
started to hammer on his door. “Hey! Don’t forget me! Get me out of
here.”

“It’s all right,” Autumn called out.
“We’re coming. Hang in there.”

“Move, you two,” said Blake, motioning
with the gun toward the cell the boy had just vacated. “Get in
there.”

The guard touched the now bloodied
spot on his forehead, wincing in pain, as he staggered toward the
empty cell. “Oh, man, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Just be thankful I’ve not shot you
already.”

He pushed the door shut on the two men
and drove the lock home. Then he handed Autumn the spare gun.
“Here, I figured you might want this.”

“I’ve never shot anyone
before.”

“There’s always a first time for
everything.”

She gave him a grim smile.

Banging from within the other two
holding cells drew their attention. The captives’ voices came,
faint, but filled with desperation.

“I’ll get this one,” said Autumn,
stepping forward and drawing back the huge iron bar from the middle
cell. The door swung open and the woman with long dark hair almost
fell out.

“
Oh, thank God,” she
cried, stumbling into Autumn’s arms. Tears of relief flowed down
her dirt-streaked face, leaving tracks in their wake. “I thought
I’d never make it out of that room.”

“We’re not out yet,” said Blake. He
opened the other room and the man also staggered out, clearly weak
from lack of food and everything else that had been done to them.
Burn marks marred the skin on each of their arms, healing crusts on
abrasions from the cuffs they’d been kept in upon their
arrival.

Blake hustled them back the way they’d
come to where the door separated them from the metal
tunnel.

“You need to go that way. There’s a
door at the end. The code is one-four-eight-six-one-nine. Do you
think you can remember that?”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” the woman
cried, clutching Toby’s hand.

He shook his head. “I can’t. Other
people are being held here who I need to find. Autumn, you can go
with them if you want.”

“Yes, please come,” the boy
pleaded.

“I’m sorry. My friend is in here
somewhere. I have to find her.”

Blake pulled the other gun from his
waistband and handed it to the woman. “You know how to use
this?”

She nodded, her eyes wide. “Then take
it. If anyone from the unit tries to stop you from leaving, shoot
them.”

“Okay, I will.” Her voice came out
weak from emotion. “And thank you.”

“Thank us when we see you on the other
side.”

She nodded, and with the man leading
the way, the boy between them, they took off down the tunnel. Blake
pushed the door shut behind them and something beeped, indicating
the door had locked back into position.

“You ready for this?” he asked
Autumn.

“As I’ll ever be.”

Together, they headed to the elevator.
They stepped inside and Blake hit the button. His fingers found
hers, holding hands as they waited for the elevator to rise and
take them to their fates.

WITH EVERYONE’S ATTENTION focused on
the craziness happening above their heads, Chogan and Enyeto had
managed to slip inside the building, unnoticed. They ran around the
metal detector, Chogan knowing he’d set off the alarms with the
weapon he carried. Enyeto had no such weapon, his own special
talent hidden.