BlackWind (31 page)

“Get the biohazard team in here. Now!” he ordered.

“Cullen's body is in there,” Lutz said.

Dunne's mouth dropped open. “What?”

“It's on the floor,” Lutz reported before turning to make the call to the biohazard team.

Dunne dragged Brian to his feet and shook him, ignoring his gasping. “What have you done?”

Brian's lungs felt baked, his flesh on fire. His vision was gone, the fumes having burned a hole through his retinas. He felt himself being shaken, but could do no more than groan.

“What have you done?” Dunne screamed, shaking Brian so savagely, the man's neck snapped beneath the onslaught.

Louis Lutz stepped back as Dunne let go of Brian's limp body and turned his attention to the others. The only one left alive was Helen Bryan. Dunne went to her, jerked her to a sitting position and demanded she tell him what had transpired.

Through gasps and groans, Helen whispered that she had been far enough away from the tank when it exploded that she received a lesser amount of fluid on her. She was also the first to stagger from the room so her lungs were not as damaged. Dunne surmised she might survive the experience, but at the moment, all she could do was choke in between moans.

A warning klaxon brought Dunne to his feet. “No!” he shouted, running for the elevator. But even as he reached the stainless steel cage, the doors slid shut, narrowly missing chopping off his fingers. He pounded on the door, demanding it be opened.

“We're quarantined,” Lutz said uselessly. “Not even the bio team can reach us now.”

Dunne threw back his head and howled in frustration. His lips skinned back from his teeth as he kicked Brian O'Shea's body. “Son of a bitch!”

Lutz knelt beside Helen and used his handkerchief to wipe her face. Dunne hunkered down beside them. She gazed up at them through blurred vision. Her mouth worked, but she could no longer speak.

“You brought him here for Her, didn't you?” Lutz asked.

Helen managed a nod, feebly reaching up to grip his arm. Her eyes, though seemingly unable to focus, pleaded with him.

“The gods help us, Helen,” Lutz said. “This may be the end of us all.”

“Did she tell you why they did this?” Dunne snarled.

Lutz looked up, locked gazes with Dunne, and realized for the first time the man he'd worked with most of his adult life was staring at him with a lethality that bordered on the insane.

“The Queen instructed them to bring him to Her,” Lutz said, holding Dunne's heated glower. “She chose him as Her Prime.”

Dunne blinked, his lips parting. “Aye,” he said, realization obviously setting in. “She chose him. We knew that, didn't we?”

Lutz nodded in reply, but remained silent.

“She chose him,” Dunne said, getting to his feet and going to the door of the Room. “She entered him, didn't she? That's where she's gone.”

“Aye,” Lutz said, shuddering as he looked away from Dunne's avid stare. “She devoured the fledgling you inserted in him and has taken residence in his body.”

“We will have a Prime Reaper at last!” Dunne chortled, clapping his hands and hooting with unrestrained glee. “We will have an Assassin's assassin, at last!”

Helen's grip on Lutz's arm tightened. She was trembling from her pain, but also, Lutz realized, most likely trembling with the realization that she may have helped bring something more monstrous than anything the world had ever seen into their lives.

Several days passed before the first signs of healing began in Sean Cullen. On the fifth after his death, five days after the Queen invaded his body, the young man's heart began to beat. At 8:53 that morning, he took his first labored breath.

“He is going to survive!” Dunne said, his grin wide. He looked at Brian O'Shea. “And you should thank whatever evil star under which you were born that that is the case.”

Brian's parasite had healed his injuries. He was now as healthy as he had been before the incident. He was also, however, a virtual prisoner of Dunne and treated as an enemy.

“He's thriving?” Brian asked.

Lutz chewed on his lower lip. “Yes, he is.”

Dunne stared at the ravaged flesh. “How long do you think it will take for him to completely heal?”

Lutz shrugged. “No idea.”

“You could be a bit more enthusiastic, Lou,” Dunne complained.

Lutz ran a hand over his face. “I'm hungry and I've got a bitching headache. And I'm tired of being cooped up in here.”

“The quarantine won't last much longer,” Dunne snapped. “Be thankful there was any food at all in the break room on this floor.”

Lutz exchanged a look with Helen Bryan. The physician pursed her lips and picked at the skin on her hands where the tank's liquid had burned her flesh. She was peeling but would likely have no scars.

Dunne put his hands on his hips and drew in a long breath, held it, then exhaled. He flexed his arms. “I'm going for a walk,” he said, heading for the corridor.

“Have fun,” Helen snorted and ignoring his irritated look.

“Watch what you say to him,” Lutz cautioned. “He's a dangerous man.”

“He's crazy.” Helen threw back the covers from her legs and sat on the sofa. “With any luck, She will remember him keeping Her imprisoned in the tank and make mincemeat out of him when Sean awakes.”

Lutz frowned. “If Sean wakes...”

Brian looked at him. “What does that mean?”

“Come here. You, too, Helen. Look at him and tell me what you see happening.”

Helen arched a thick blond brow. “What do you mean?”

“Look at him.”

Brian and Helen turned their attention to the body on the floor.

“What is it I'm supposed to be looking at?” Helen asked.

“His hair,” Lutz answered.

“It's growing back,” she reported.

“Growing back very thick—and very black.”

Brian blinked. “But Sean has blond hair...”

“Let me show you something interesting.” He pointed to Sean's blistered face.

Brian swallowed, the sight unnerving. “He was such a—a handsome young man—”

“With the palest blue eyes, huh?” Lutz hunkered down and slid up Sean's right eyelid.

Brian gasped. The eye peering blankly back at him was a deep brown with amber striations.

“Good lord!” Helen gasped, scrambling to her feet. “What's happening to him?”

Lutz smiled sardonically. “The Queen is healing him.”

“But he's changing!” she protested.

Lutz shook his head. “He's healing exactly as She knew him when he was alive.”

Brian's eyes grew wide. “Oh, my God, no!”

Helen looked from one man to another. “I don't understand.”

Brian staggered to a chair and slumped down. He leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. Tears formed in his eyes. “He's—he's gone.”

“Tell me what's happening!” Helen demanded.

Louis Lutz sighed. “The Queen never knew the taste of Sean Cullen's blood, so therefore She did not have his DNA. There were no generic blueprints from which She could work to refashion his destroyed body. Everything had to be regenerated from memory. Exactly as it was on that—that last day.”

Helen's mouth sagged open. “You mean...” Her eyes bulged with terror.

Brian shuddered and looked at the body on the floor. “She is doing the only thing She could do—bringing back the man who landed in Ireland many centuries before. She is bringing back Viraidan Cree.”

Grinnell, Iowa, August 1995

There was a silver cast to the sky as Bronwyn turned off Highway 6 and onto the road her mother had marked for her on the map. Rolling hills of corn on one side of her car and lush green hay on the other dotted the Iowa landscape. Red-winged blackbirds stood sentinel on rickety old fence posts. Black walnut trees and red maples added their color to the tops of the higher hills. A lone redtail hawk soared on the wind, dipping its wings in greeting as Bronwyn passed.

“I always thought Iowa was flat as a fritter,” she commented to the little dog reclining in the passenger seat.

Brownie raised her golden brown head. The part-poodle, part-schnauzer arched one bushy brow as if to say, “That's what you get for thinking.” Getting to her feet, the “schnoodle,” as Bronwyn called her, looked out the window, then turned back to her mistress and yawned widely.

Bronwyn laughed. “Oh, it's not going to be that bad!”

The dog made a huffing sound, then lay down, rejecting the scenery.

“Elitist,” Bronwyn accused. She twisted around in her seat. “How ‘bout you? What do you think?”

The black cat, lounging on the backseat, blinked at her, then closed its eyes, dismissing the question and the woman who asked it.

“Traitor.”

The road curved sharply to the left around a tall embankment. Bronwyn slowed, making sure she was directly in her own lane. It was a good thing she did, for at the moment she started into the curve, a motorcycle came roaring around the bend, the black machine directly in her path.

“Damn it!” she yelled, jerking the wheels to the right and sending her car onto the shoulder to avoid a head-on collision. She slammed on the brakes to keep from going into a ditch. The tires skidded precariously on the loose gravel as the car ground to a stop within a foot of a leaning telephone pole.

With a curse, she looked in the rearview mirror, watching the motorcyclist continuing on as though nothing had happened. The motorcycle's brake light flashed on for a second as the driver reached the main highway and turned East on Highway 6.

“Crazy bastard,” Bronwyn snapped. Pulling back onto the road, she realized her hands were trembling from the near miss. She took a deep, calming breath.

The road curved back to the right around another tall embankment. When it straightened again, the first thing Bronwyn noticed was the triple layers of high security fence, topped with razor wire and dotted with warning signs to indicate the inner fence was electrified. The fences stretched out from both sides of a small square building that sat in the middle of the road. Two sliding heavy-duty gates, also topped with razor wire, flanked the security kiosk. Above the brick structure were two rows of halogen spotlights, four to each side. On opposite sides of the road stood two tall guard towers, one on the outside of the gate, the other on the inside. As she came closer, Bronwyn saw men patrolling the towers, each carrying rifles.

Two guards stepped out of the security kiosk when she braked to a stop. Both men wore side arms, their gazes hidden behind dark glasses. One wore a dark brown uniform; the other was clad entirely in black. She lowered her window, casting a look at the guard, who walked in front of her car and headed for the passenger side.

“Welcome to Baybridge, Dr. McGregor,” the guard in dark brown said as he walked up to her window.

“How did you...?” She turned to look at the black-clad guard, now peering into the passenger side window.

“We've been expecting you, ma'am,” the first guard responded. “We have your photo, vehicle make, and tag number.” He smiled behind the mirrored surface of his sunglasses and extended his hand. “May I have your paperwork, please?”

Brownie had gotten to her feet when the car stopped and was sniffing at the window. The second guard tapped the knuckle of his right index finger on the glass. “Hey, Cutie.” He glanced in the back and frowned. “I don't like cats.”

“Could you pop the trunk, please?” asked the first guard, whose nametag labeled him Danforth.

Bronwyn reached for the control box on her key chain, twisted it so she could see the lettering, and pressed the trunk button. “Is Dr. Hesar here?” she asked as the trunk opened and the second guard walked to the rear of the car.

Brownie huffed and lay down again.

“Yes, ma'am. He's waiting for you in the Admin building,” Danforth replied. “I'll be right back.” He went into the building and picked up a telephone.

Bronwyn glanced in her side mirror as she heard the second guard moving her luggage in the trunk. “Just a tad paranoid, wouldn't you say, Brown Stuff?” she asked.

Brownie sighed deeply. She scraped her paw over her nose a couple of times before turning onto her back, paws in the air.

“My God, girl, but you are a lazy piece of work!” Bronwyn chuckled.

“I talk to my dog, too.”

Bronwyn jerked around to see the second guard standing by her window. She smiled at him, although a bit nervously, since his black uniform intimidated her and he wasn't smiling in return. He wore the same dark sunglasses as the first guard and it was hard to read his expression.

“What kind of dog do you have?” she inquired to be polite.

He cocked his head to one side. “A Rottwieler. I don't like cats,” he repeated. “My dog doesn't either. Sometimes I...”

“That's enough, Gaines,” Danforth snapped as he rejoined them.

Gaines made no reply as he sauntered back to one of the buildings. Before he entering, he looked back at Bronwyn and gave her a mock salute.

“Is he always that creepy?” she asked.

“Their kind can be a bit intense.”

“Their kind?”

“When you go through the gate, follow the road to the top of the hill. There's a second security kiosk up there and they'll have your badge ready. You must wear it at all times when you're in the facility. Please don't lose it, because the process to get a new one takes about ten days to two weeks. You will not be allowed back in until your new badge is activated.”

“In that case, I'll make every effort
not
to lose it,” Bronwyn mumbled.

“We would appreciate your diligence, ma'am.” Danforth pointed at a short post capped with a chrome box. “Those are security stanchions and you'll see them located every forty feet along the road to the second security kiosk. As a matter of fact, you'll see similar stanchions throughout the facility. They are tracking devices, and as your car passes each one, your speed is timed and reported to the security console in the main building. Should you stop for any reason between this guard hut and the next, we will be notified immediately and a security vehicle will be dispatched to see why. And please do not leave your car. Remain inside and someone will be along shortly to aid you.”