Omega (17 page)

Matthias smiled, a stretching and thinning of lips that made his slim face distort like a fun house mirror image. “Quite understandable. There’s nothing quite like the blood exchange, is there? It’s sensual even between virtual strangers.”

Cage fought to keep from visibly shuddering. If the bastard thought Cage’s mouth was going anywhere near his body—even a forearm—he was deluded. “Shall we meet back here about four?”

“Perfect,” Matthias said. “I have some reports to file for the Tribunal and would like to go back and inspect the grenade site
as well. And with any luck, you or one of my other scouts will discover the Penton scathe’s hideaway tonight.”

Cage nodded thoughtfully. “Are you certain they’re still here and hiding underground? The most prudent thing for them to have done would be to use their escape hatch and scatter while things were still in chaos.”

Even Aidan admitted this would have been the best plan, but the scathe had been in disarray when they escaped into Omega following Matthias’s unexpected attack. By the time they regrouped, especially with that many humans, it wasn’t safe to move a lot of people out at once.

“I can’t be certain, of course.” Matthias got up and refilled his whiskey glass, then returned to his seat. “But Murphy is arrogant, and he had quite a little kingdom built up here”—he looked around with a sniff—“albeit a boring one. He’ll think he can wait us out or stage an offensive of his own. Now that we’ve destroyed one of his exits, time is on our side. Once we find the other exits, they’ll be like ducks in a shooting gallery when they pop their heads up.”

Cage nodded. He had to admit that, from a tactical point, it made sense. Time was on Matthias’s side. “Assuming they are underground, how long do you think they can last?”

Matthias’s laugh sent a shiver across Cage’s shoulder blades. “Oh, not long. If it were only the vampires and a few feeders they didn’t care about, they could survive quite a while. But they’ve made unwise emotional bonds with their humans, and I’ve never met a human who had much stomach for no daylight or fresh air or the ability to move around at will. I predict conditions will grow squalid quite fast if they haven’t already.”

Again, Cage had to acknowledge Matthias’s logic. Will had designed a solid system of filtered air, steady light, fresh water,
and waste disposal. They’d last longer than Matthias might think. But eventually, if nothing else went wrong, cabin fever—or bunker fever—could easily spread. All it would take would be one person to panic, run, and give away the Omega entrance.

A sharp knock sounded from the doorway, and a flush-cheeked Shelton stuck his head in the door, obviously well sated—something Cage didn’t want to think too much about. “You ready to go and take a look at the grenade site?”

“I certainly am.” Matthias rose from his chair. “Cage, would you like to join us? I’m anxious to see if there are any signs of movement from below. We took photos of the original cave-in, so if dirt or debris have been moved, we’ll have our answer about whether or not the good citizens of Penton are belowground.”

Shit
. Even if the Penton scathe had been careful filling in the lower part of the grenade site, Matthias would probably find his visual proof that they were down there. Cage was torn between going with the vampires to stay abreast of their findings and getting Melissa out as soon as possible. But he’d promised Aidan. Melissa had to come first, and he had no intention of bonding with Matthias.

“I think I’ll find a feeder and then help with the patrols.” Cage got to his feet as well. “I thought I scented unfamiliar vampires south of town, so I might head down that way again. I’ll meet you back here by four, though.” Right. He’d stake himself first.

“Cage is going to become a bonded scathe member, at least for a while,” Matthias told Shelton. “We’ll be happy to have him officially aboard, won’t we?”

Shelton nodded a little too enthusiastically.
Bastard.

Cage accompanied the men outside, and when they headed north toward the church, he turned south. He made a broad
circle around the downtown area, through the woods, and emerged behind the burned ruins of Aidan’s home. Next to it, still intact, stood the greenhouse where Aidan had liked to dabble at the closest thing a vampire could come to farming. He’d raised night-blooming flowers, which had apparently helped win him over with Krys.

Mirren and Glory had fled there after Matthias’s attack on Penton, spending a daysleep in the other half of the tunnel that led to the clinic. The cave-in was closer to this side. But if Cage could work his way through it, it would be the safest way to get Melissa out.

He had to dig fast.

Aidan had told him where the hatch was and how to spring it. But it was so well hidden in the dirt floor of the greenhouse that it still took him a half hour to find it and get it open.

He climbed onto the concrete steps, closed the hatch behind him, and descended into a small exit room. A concrete-floored tunnel led off of it, sloping downward. The air was damp and musty, and the tunnel was dark. No electricity on this side, so Cage knelt and pulled a flashlight from his pack. And a knife.

After twenty or thirty feet of decline, the tunnel leveled out. Ahead, Cage found a mattress and a bloody shirt—leftovers from Mirren and Glory, who’d been shot by Matthias after getting everyone else out through the church hatch. There was a couple of suites on this side of the cave-in, but they didn’t look structurally sound. Their ceilings cracked and sagged.

If the suites on this end of the corridor were this shaky, he might risk bringing this whole side of the clinic down on his head by digging through the rubble that blocked the tunnel. He played the flashlight beam along the debris and paused on a spot that seemed to have a lot of loose stones and plaster
beneath a collapsed support beam. No need to tear the whole thing down; he only needed an opening big enough to crawl through.

Propping the flashlight so it illuminated the spot, he knelt and used his knife to lever out a small chunk of concrete, then another. After an hour of meticulous removal, stone by stone, waiting between each piece to see if the rubble looked as if it were going to shift, he had an opening that looked wide enough to accommodate his shoulders. That was the broadest thing that would be going through it.

The tricky part would be sliding through without touching and dislodging anything else. Still, it was the best he could do.

He checked his watch: 11:00 p.m. No time to waste.

Cage slipped off his jacket, took everything from the pockets of his combat pants, and, after consideration, jerked his sweater over his head. The fewer things to get caught on pieces of debris, the better.

Carefully, he reached through the opening and laid the flashlight on the other side, then the lock-picking tools from his pack. He stuck his head and upper body through, then pushed off with his feet and tried a forward somersault through the opening.

Damn it
. His heel caught the top of the hole, and a rain of stones came down. He held his breath, praying the mangled support beam would hold. If he got caught half-naked on this side of the tunnel with Matthias and Shelton roving around, it would not be pretty. Plus, Matthias was taking his daysleep in the house across the street from this greenhouse. Who knew when he might pop over there for something?

The sifting dust settled with one final groan of the beam.

Cage climbed to his feet, grabbed the flashlight and tools, and ran down the corridor to Melissa’s room. The loosened
dead bolt didn’t turn, and he knelt to look at it.
Damn it
. The lock had been changed to a new lockset—had Matthias figured it out? Paranoia and dread settled on him as he fumbled with the new lock, finally hearing the tumbler turn.
Thank God
.

He slipped quickly into the room and closed the door behind him. Melissa was in the same place, but she’d been blindfolded. At the sound of the door, she’d begun visibly trembling. Those bastards. “It’s me, Mel. It’s Cage.”

He made quick work of the blindfold, aware of the glassy, unfocused look in her hazel eyes. The gag came off next. “Are you OK? Can you answer me?”

She looked at him and blinked, then blinked again. The awareness seeped into her gaze, along with a look of fear. “Cage? They knew somebody had fooled with the locks, and you’re the only one who’s been down here. You’ve gotta get out.”

“
We’re
getting out of here.” He fumbled with the ropes, finally got her untied, and helped her sit up. As soon as she tried to stand, however, she stumbled. She’d been tied up ever since her transition, he guessed.

Opening the door and glancing down the hallway, Cage went back and picked Melissa up. “Arms around my neck. We’re getting out.”

New vampires had no way to gauge their own strength, and Melissa almost choked him as they made their way down the corridor.

“Stick your head and arms through the hole and stay propped on your hands,” he whispered. “I’ll push you through.”

She nodded, but moved slowly. Cage hadn’t heard anything, but some instinct told him time was short. “Move faster if you can, love.”

“I’ll try.” Melissa’s voice was a dry rasp. She needed feeding, badly.

Finally, she got halfway through the opening, and he was able to push her through.

The sound he’d been dreading—an opening hatch—sounded down the corridor, and Cage dove toward the hole in the debris.

“You son of a bitch—stop!” Matthias’s voice. Running footsteps. Not just Matthias—more than one person.

A shot echoed down the corridor, and hot pain erupted in the back of Cage’s thigh as he tried to roll through the opening. The debris began raining down on his legs, and he struggled, unable to pull himself out.

“Mel, help m—” He didn’t have to finish. She grasped him under the arms and tugged, pulling him through just as another shot sounded, followed by a groaning shift of debris. It wasn’t just in the tunnel, but above their heads. This whole fucking side of the clinic was coming down.

“Run!” He snatched up his pack and took Melissa’s hand, but he was virtually dragging her. A brick hit him on the side of his head, grazing his temple and sending a wet stream down his jaw and neck. He lifted Melissa and ran, ran like he’d never run before, up the twenty yards of inclined tunnel and into the exit room. Every time weight hit his leg it increased the hot pain, as if each step were a pile driver, jamming the bullet in deeper.

He set Melissa down and collapsed to the floor, gasping. The cave-in rumbled along the tunnel they’d just exited, spewing dust over them until he put his arms around Melissa and pulled her face against his chest to help her breathe.

Will had designed the exit rooms with a separate infrastructure, anticipating this very scenario. They couldn’t stay
here long, though. He had no idea if Matthias knew the other half of that tunnel exited in Aidan’s greenhouse, but he couldn’t gamble.

Finally, the rumbling stopped, the dust settled, and the silence pressed in on them.

“Let me go, Cage.” Melissa struggled out of his grasp and looked around. “We’re under Aidan’s greenhouse?”

“Yeah.” Cage wiped the grime off his face with his forearm. Guess he wouldn’t be getting that sweater and leather jacket back. Better them buried than Melissa and him. “And we have to go. If I don’t get you to Omega by three, Aidan and Mirren are going to walk into a big mess.” Plus, for all he knew, Matthias and Shelton were racing toward the greenhouse with a horde of hired guns and fangs.

Melissa struggled to her feet and managed a few wobbly steps.

This would be an arduous trip. And as Cage stood up, he realized how arduous. His leg threatened to give way, but he forced himself to put weight on it. He hobbled to the stairs and turned to Melissa. You climb ahead of me. I’ll catch you if you stumble. Just go slowly, and keep your balance.”

Melissa nodded, shoving her hair off her face and tugging up the jeans that had grown loose over the last week as she’d gone through both transition and starvation. She placed one foot on the steps and stalled. They were steep and narrow.

“Here you go.” Cage grasped her waist and lifted her, then held on while she got her feet under her. The next step she managed alone. When she’d made it to the fourth one, he started up after her, pulling his weight up each step with his good leg.

Finally, they reached the top. “Spring the hatch, wait a few seconds so we can listen and scent, then when I say so, climb out.”

“OK.” Melissa turned the release lever on the hatch and lifted it a few inches. A few inches more. Cage closed his eyes and scented the air, the cool dampness, the warm, sunny smell that lingered on the plants in the greenhouse. It seemed like a hundred years since Matthias had attacked and they’d fled their homes, but it had been only a week. Aidan’s blooms still scented the air with sweet, heavy perfume.

What he didn’t smell was vampire. “OK, crawl out. I’ll be right behind you.”

Melissa needed a boost to make it out of the hatch. Cage could have done with one himself.

He looked at his watch, but the face was cracked. He hoped it wasn’t an omen.