Destiny Kills (25 page)

I stopped and handed Carli to Sanat. “Jace and Cooper, keep your ears open. Tell me if you hear anything that sounds like they might be looking for us.”

They nodded. I raised the wrench and smashed it against the padlock. Sparks flew and sound rang through the darkness. The lock dented, but didn’t break. I tried it again. This time, splits appeared in the metal. The third time, it smashed open.

I blew out a relieved breath and opened the gate. Stairs ran upward, highlighted by moonlight that washed in at regular intervals from the arrow slits.

I looked back at the kids. “Okay, we’re going up a secret stairway to the roof. Although the scientists don’t know about the other gates, we still need to be as quiet as possible.” I looked at them all. “Okay?”

They nodded. Marco asked, eyes widening as he studied the darkness of the stairwell, “Why are we going to the roof?”

“We’re going to meet a friend there. He’s going to lead you to a safe place.” I stood back and waved them all through. Jace went through first, and the others were so used to following his lead that they didn’t even hesitate.

“Egan’s not here?” Cooper asked.

I hesitated. “No, Egan . . . couldn’t make it. But he sent his brother Trae. That’s him upstairs, making all the noise.”

With the kids all through, I closed the gate and put the lock back, so that at least it would appear locked from a distance. I picked up Carli and we began to climb. Up and up, through the dust and the cobwebs, our footsteps echoing quietly across the moonlit shadows and our breathing a rasping accompaniment.

Another explosion ripped through the night, and relief slithered through me. At least Trae wasn’t caught yet. We walked on, our pace slowed by the younger boys. None of the kids would have gotten much exercise in their cells, and their unfit state was telling on these stairs. I hoped to God they’d have the energy to fly once we got to the roof.

We passed the first floor, moved up to the second. The dust in the air was lessened here, the cobwebs not so thick, but the scent of smoke and oil and burning rubber was intense. We passed a wall that was fiercely hot, and as I ushered the kids to the other side, I wondered just how close the fire really was.

My legs were beginning to shake by the time we reached the door at the top. I put Carli down, making her hold Jace’s hand, then hefted the wrench and brought it down on the old lock. It shattered straightaway. I gripped the door handle and swung the door open.

The night was ablaze. Flames shot skyward, burning across the darkness and blotting out the stars. In the distance, the flashing lights of emergency vehicles could be seen, but they didn’t seem to be moving. Maybe they were having trouble getting through the gates. I wouldn’t have put it past the scientists to have kept them locked.

Screams and smoke filled the air, and the smell of burning rubber was more pungent out here. Flames licked one side of the building, washing brightness across the roofline. We’d have to keep low, otherwise we might be spotted. Surely twenty minutes had passed since he’d started the explosions, which meant he should be here soon.

“Okay,” I said, turning around to face the kids. “We’ve got to go out onto the roof to wait for Trae. There’s some flames on one side, and a bit of smoke, but nothing too dangerous. Everyone keep low, so they won’t spot us down below.”

They all nodded. I took Carli’s hand, and led the way out, keeping low as we moved to the center of the roof. Two seconds later, there was a scuffing sound from the left, a grunt of air, and Trae appeared, falling more than sliding over the roof battlements.

“That’s the good thing about old stone buildings,” he said, his grin all cheek as he rose and dusted off his hands. “Plenty of handgrips.”

“So glad you’re enjoying yourself,” I said dryly. “But we’re a little pressed for time, so if you wouldn’t mind hurrying?”

“Did she always nag like this in the cells?” he asked, his gaze sweeping over the kids before coming to rest on Jace. He offered the kid his hand. “You’d be Jace, then?”

Jace nodded, his face solemn. “You’re Egan’s brother?”

“I am. And he had a lot of good things to say about you boys.” He looked at Carli, and knelt down. “And you’re even prettier than he said.”

Carli giggled and pressed lightly against my leg. I smiled, and knelt down beside her. “Trae’s going to make you a seat in his claws, and fly you across the lake. You think you can handle that?”

She looked at Trae, then Jace and the boys, and doubt crossed her features. “You’ll be safe,” Trae said, “and Jace and the boys will be right there with us.”

“We will, Carli,” they piped up in unison, before Jace added, “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She studied him for a moment, expression solemn, then nodded. “Okay,” she said softly.

“Okay.” Trae rose and glanced at me. “They’re going to spot me the minute I change, so perhaps the boys better shift shape first.”

I looked at them. “You ready?”

They nodded. Sanat and Tate closed their eyes, their expressions ones of fierce concentration, while Jace, Marco, and Cooper simply reached for the magic in their souls. The haze of changing swept over their bodies, shifting, remolding, and lengthening their forms, until what stood on the roof was a hue of dragons as colorful as the rainbow. Silver, brown, green, blue, and red. They spread their wings, fanning lightly.

“Good lads,” Trae said, then glanced at me. “You be careful going back in for your mom.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’d better be.” He took several steps back, and the haze swept across his body, until he was no longer a man, but rather a glorious gold and silver dragon, his scales gleaming like polished copper in the sharp firelight.

“Wow,” Carli said, echoing what I was thinking. I doubted I’d
ever
get tired of seeing his dragon form.

Trae lowered himself down and cupped his front claws so that they formed a chair-like structure. “Ready?” I said to the little girl.

She looked up at Trae, then nodded solemnly. I led her forward, and helped her get seated. Trae gently closed his claws around her, so that she was locked in tight.

I kissed her cheek, then said, “You okay?”

Again she nodded. There was fear in her brown eyes, and perhaps the glitter of tears, but she gave me a tremulous smile nevertheless.

“I’ll see you soon, okay? Enjoy the ride, Carli. It’s lovely, flying right up there with the stars.”

She looked up at that, and her smile blossomed. I touched a hand to Trae’s chest, and he looked down at me and winked. I stepped back, well out of the way.

“Get going, everyone.”

Wings swept into action, pumping hard. The boys lifted off somewhat shakily, but soon they were soaring high. Trae glanced at me, blue eyes bright in the darkness, then sprung skyward after them.

Carli’s delighted laughter seemed to linger in the air long after they’d disappeared.

There were shouts from below, indicating they’d been spotted. I waited for several precious seconds, scanning the sky and hoping there were no hunters about to spring into the air and give chase. No one did, and relief slithered through me. But it was short-lived. I needed to go rescue my mother, before the scientists got the fires under control and I got trapped.

I turned and ran for the stairs.

The journey downward took a quarter of the time, though I was sweating and breathing heavily by the time I took off the old lock and swung the gate open. The corridors were shadowed and silent, and I prayed to the Gods of sea and lake that they kept that way. I ran down the hallway, my feet slapping against the cold stone, the sound echoing lightly across the silence.

I grabbed the still unconscious guard from the cell, and once again carried him down to the next lot of cells, the muscles in my back and legs on fire. In the second cell along, I sensed my mother.

I flopped the guard against the wall near the scanner, holding him upright with one hand as I wiped the sweat from my eyes and sucked in great gulps of air. I was shaking so hard anyone would think I’d run a marathon—and I suppose in many ways I had. A marathon of fear. Fear for Trae, fear for the kids, fear that I’d be back too late to free my mom.

After several more deep breaths, I grabbed the guard’s hand and flattened it against the scanner. Again the scanner read his prints, and the light above the door changed color.

I dragged the guard inside the cell, then turned and looked around. The large room was shadowed and quiet. Water trickled softly to my right, the smell of it warm and familiar. Loch water.

So why hadn’t my mother called the loch? She could have, given time and patience.

To the immediate right lay a basic bed. A bedside lamp pooled yellow light across a sparse rug, and highlighted the dust on the cold stone floors. Beyond the bed lay the open bathroom facilities. My mother was in neither the bed nor the bathroom, but she was here somewhere.

“Mom?” I said softly. “It’s me.”

“No.” There was a long pause, as if she were searching for the right thing to say, then, “I told you not to.”

Her words were slurred, her voice filled with a deep sense of weariness and hopelessness. And pain, great, great pain.

It hurt to think that she’d come to such a point where nothing seemed worth fighting for. But it also hurt that she would think I could simply walk away, leaving her here for these monsters to continually prod, and poke, and sample.

I studied the shadows, trying to pin down her location. “I won’t let you die here, Mom. Come on, I’ve

found a way out for us.”

“There is no point. My time is too near.”

Fear clutched at my heart. She
had
given up on her life. Well and truly given up.

No,
part of me wanted to shout.
This isn’t like you. We need to fight them. We can’t let them win.
Damn it, she’d
always
been a fighter. Even Dad had acknowledged that. I guess that was part of the reason I’d gone to find her when I was old enough. She hadn’t come, as Dad had promised she one day would, so I’d gone to find and free her. And in the foolishness of youth, had presumed I’d succeed where she had long failed.

What had the scientists done to her that it had come to this?

I finally spotted her silhouette. She was standing near the air-conditioning vent, not facing it but rather with her back to it, so that the slight breeze stirred her hair and flung the dark strands across her face.

For some reason, fear stirred all the more strongly.

“Mom, I won’t leave unless you do.”

“Destiny—”

“No,” I said, more violently than I intended. “There’s no debating this. You’re leaving this goddamn place. They’ve taken you from our lives, taken
your
life. I won’t let them take you in death as well.”

She was silent for a moment, then sighed. “If you wish.”

“I damn well
do
wish.”

She hesitated, then stepped forward, and the lampshade’s pale light washed across her face. Or what remained of her face.

My mother had been blinded.

And not just blinded, but disfigured. It almost looked like acid had been splashed across part of her face and her eyes. The left side of her face had an almost melted look, reminding me of the way plastic held too close to a fire softened, then ran. And her eyes—oh God.

I gulped back bile and resisted the urge to look away. One socket had no eye at all. It was just a space filled with scarred and ravaged skin. The other, barely visible under her drooping eyelid, was white. Pure white.

“Not a pretty sight, is it?” she said softly.

There was no bitterness in her voice, no anger, and I think that was even more shocking than what had been done to her.

“Why?” It was all I could say, all I could think to say.

She smiled, though only half her mouth lifted. “They got sick of me trying to escape, so they decided to do something about it. I’ve had a long time to get used to the feel of it, Destiny.”

It certainly explained why they’d never let me see her. I was fiercely glad they hadn’t decided to blind
me
, as well, and suddenly wondered if Egan had been my savior in more ways than one. After all, I’d done more than my fair share of attempting to escape in the early years of my capture, and blinding me most certainly would have stopped that.

But maybe they figured that having a mutilated female wouldn’t have done their aim to have a breeding pair too much good.

“That’s just—”Words fled. Somehow, monstrous and evil just didn’t seem to cover what they’d done adequately enough. I took a deep breath in an effort to cut the sick churning in my stomach, then said, “Was it deliberate?”

“They intended to take my sight, so yes, but my strength took them by surprise and it went slightly wrong.” Bitterness crept into her voice. “Even after all this time, they are still surprised by the things we do. Despite all their technology, they have not learned that much about us. It is, perhaps, the only blessing in this whole mess.”

Anger swirled through me. “Damn it, Mom, why didn’t you call the loch? Why didn’t you punish the bastards for doing this?”

“Because I can’t.”

I blinked. “What?”

“I can’t call the loch. At first I think it was drugs, but the longer it went on, the more the restriction became a part of my very nature. I can’t control water anymore, Des. It’s been too long, and that part of my soul has shriveled up and died.”

Fear slithered through me. “But controlling water is as much a part of you as flying and fire are to an air dragon. How can your own nature restrict something like that?”

“Because there is a limit to how long a sea dragon can be away from the sea, Destiny. Loch and lake may sustain us for years, but we need to be in the sea if we are to retain the sea in our souls.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep, shuddery breath. I’d speculated that this might be the case, but I’d certainly been hoping that it wasn’t true. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you’re a half blood. Because no one—not even me—really knows how the rules apply to a sea dragon who has the fire of the day running through their blood.” She hesitated. “What was the point in warning you, when the rules might not apply to you? Only . . . it seemed they did.”