Shadow Hunters (18 page)

With humans, she would have tried to bluff. There was no point in attempting it with the protoss. She wasn’t schooled enough in mental disciplines to bluff a mind reader.

“Perhaps Zamara is lying.”

“Zamara hasn’t trussed me up like an animal and mentaly tortured me. Guess who I’m gonna trust first.”

Felanis and Alzadar looked at one another. “You wil have no choice in the matter,”

Felanis said. Alzadar moved to the side and returned with a large jar. A mental murmur went up among the protoss and they al leaned forward eagerly. Despite her pain, Rosemary felt a flicker of curiosity. What the hel was in that jar?

“You wil become one of us. Our cause wil become yours. Our goals wil become yours. It is an honor, Rosemary Dahl.”

For one moment, the desire to struggle blindly like a mindless beast struck Rosemary very hard. She ignored it with the wil she’d developed through years of discipline.

But she couldn’t control the sudden racing of her heart.

Alzadar shook his head and spoke for the first time. His mental voice was rich and in control, the voice of one who was wel disciplined and had no need to rage and shout as Felanis did; no need to even speak unless he decided it was necessary.

“No, my brothers and sisters, it is not time for us yet. This is for our guest’s benefit.”

He stepped forward, tattered robes flowing, and lifted the lid off the jar.

A sweet, cloying scent tickled Rosemary’s nose, and she coughed violently. The movement sent pain shooting along her imprisoned limbs and the cough twisted into a sharp cry. Sweat suddenly dewed her body, and she looked to see what was in the jar. It was an ointment of some kind, dark gold in color, and as she watched, Alzadar scooped some of it out on his long-fingered hands and stepped toward her.

Rosemary couldn’t read minds. But she didn’t have to to know somewhere deep in her soul that if this pretty-looking stuff touched her, she’d be in real trouble. So even though she almost blacked out from the white-hot agony that shot through her at her sudden movement, she tried to scoot back. It was foolish, and futile, but she could no more stop the instinct than she could stop her heart from beating.

“Hold her,” Alzadar said almost dispassionately. Cool fingers closed like manacles on her legs, shoulders, waist, and arms.

“No!” Rosemary shrieked, fury and a nameless dread lending her energy. But the delicacy of the hands that held her was misleading, and her writhing was useless.

Effortlessly they flipped her on her stomach. A wave of pain so intense she almost blacked out shot through her. Alzadar bore down on her, smearing the ointment first onto the inside of her wrists and then clutching her hair, yanking her head back, and rubbing the unguent onto her throat area.

Rosemary had the incongruous thought that these were the same places she’d apply perfume—on her throat and wrists, on the pulse points of her body. Manic laughter weled up inside her and she forced it down. The ointment felt warm against her skin.

Soothing. And pleasurable.

“No!” she screamed again, and put al the power of her wil behind it. It startled them, she could tel, but it was too late, had been too late the moment she had taken the first step down into this helish pit. For a fraction of an instant, Rosemary understood what was happening, and with al that was in her rejected it. She did not want to become that person again, that slave, that needy, captive thing. She did not want the pleasure, the peace, the calm, because she knew it was al a lie and that soon enough, too soon, it would end and she’d need more. Have to have more. Would do unspeakable, degrading things for more.

And then al resistance, al fear, al refusal was gone. Even the pain in her bound, twisted limbs was gone. Rosemary’s head loled and she closed her eyes, almost purring with contentment.

“You were right, Alzadar,” Felanis said. “The gift of the Xava’tor works on the terrans as wel.”

“This one is particularly susceptible, but yes, the way terran skin works has similarities to our own. Although it is much more primitive. The Sundrop has reached her. We can release her. She is ours now.”

The hands came again, cradling her body as they cut the bonds that held her. More of the pleasure-giving salve was rubbed onto her neck and wrists, and this time Rosemary Dahl, eager for more of the bliss, assisted them, reaching her own hands along her skin and massaging the soothing, slippery stuff in with a soft, relaxed sigh.

Sundrop.
She liked the word.

Rosemary screamed.

For the last several languid, drifting, hazy hours—she had no idea how long it had been—she hadn’t cared. She had slipped in and out of consciousness, her dreams soft and sweet as her reality, as the topicaly applied Sundrop wound through her system. But it had started to fade an hour ago, the euphoria dwindling bit by bit until it had mutated into discomfort, then pain, and now the wrenching and horrificaly familiar agony of withdrawal.

The others had departed, off to do whatever it was they did when they were not capturing strangers and getting them addicted. Alzadar alone had stayed, talking in his cool, in-absolute-control mental voice about the Benefactor as she babbled through the ecstasy and staying almost gleefuly silent as she started to come out of it. She knew he knew how badly she craved another dose.

She huddled shivering in the corner, trying to find a dolop of the Sundrop that hadn’t been properly spread over her skin. She failed. It was al gone, absorbed long ago.

Her skin erupted with gooseflesh and she fought back yet another wave of nausea.

Even in the midst of her misery she wondered how she could keep being sick when there was nothing left in her body to vomit up.

“Tel me you want more, and you shal have it, Rosemary Dahl,” Alzadar said, sounding infinitely reasonable. “Right now, that is al I need to hear. Your mind is screaming it. Simply choose to form the words and your agony wil cease.”

She shut her eyes. Tears poured from them. She huddled against the wal, pressing her hot face against the cool, curving stone. She didn’t want to give this bastard the satisfaction of begging for the drug. Besides, if they wanted her to be effective, they’d give her another dose sooner or later. They’d have to.

“True,” Alzadar said. “But that wil not be for some time. How much longer can you offer resistance? You can end your suffering with but a word. I must say, the Sundrop seems to affect humans more severely than protoss. I envy you your ecstasy, but not this. Are you quite certain you do not desire more?”

Oh, God, she did. She wanted it more than anything she could ever remember wanting in her life. Rosemary closed her eyes, and for the next hour stayed silent by the sheer power of her wil.

Eventualy, as she had known would be the case, Alzadar applied more, and she basked in the pleasure for a while. He fed her, he gave her water, and she ate and drank and dozed.

The cycle began again. The pain came, deep and shattering and worse than before, a lower low from a higher high, and Rosemary sobbed openly this time.

“Tel me you want more, and I shal give it to you.” Alzadar rose and padded over to her, crouching down, his mouthless face centimeters from hers. “I shal see that you are cleansed, and given a soft place to sleep, and more Sundrop is applied to your wanting skin. Only ask for it, and it shal be done.”

She turned her face and stared at the former templar, into his pale blue eyes.

Go to hell,
was what she wanted to say. Was what she fuly intended to say.

What escaped dry, cracked lips was “Please … give me more. I’l do whatever you want.”

Alzadar nodded, pleased, and his hands, ful of succoring ointment, came up and stroked her outstretched wrists like one might stroke a beloved pet. And as the comfort came and the pain ceased, Rosemary despised herself, and knew herself to be utterly lost.

KERRIGAN FELT ALMOST … HUMAN IN HER excitement.

The change was complete. The cocoon was glowing, pulsing, and the shape inside was moving more and more vigorously. She was not certain what sort of changes her creation would display. He was undergoing the same process by which she herself had been created, been made anew, and she knew that the reborn Ethan would not be identical to herself. But the details would be a fascinating surprise, just as such things were to any mother, and her wings folded and unfolded in eager anticipation as she watched and waited.

The instinct was to hasten the birth along, but Kerrigan did not want to steal Ethan’s triumph from him. Let him fight his own way out of the cocoon, as she had. Let him be the instrument of his own birth. It would be his first act to claiming what was his—

what she had bequeathed to him.

In his cocoon, Ethan struggled. If he did not break free soon, rip and claw and tear his way into this new life, he would not be able to survive much longer in the fluids that encased him. He would die unborn, and her experiment would be a failure.

Kerrigan was content with that knowledge, and the thought did not move her to action. The Queen of Blades wanted no one at her side who could not find his own way into this new incarnation.

Her eyes were bright as she watched. Lumps formed and receded in the elastic surface of the cocoon as Ethan’s fist punched here, his knee thrust there. Another two limbs entirely distended the membranous cocoon. Her heart fluttered to see it. So he, like she, would be augmented. It was good.

A sharp spike pierced the cocoon and glinted in the dim lighting. It looked like a blade, but not like hers—her talons and claws and spikes were stilettos. This was a scythe, a hook, a masculine counterpart to her more feminine knife. A smile curved her too-wide mouth.

The wickedly sharp spike slashed downward, almost the length of the cocoon.

Hands, dark green and powerful but devoid of the claws that graced her own, seized the edges and ripped with inhuman strength. Two other limbs, not quite arms, similar to the scythelike pincers of the hydralisks, extended almost as if in prayer. No wings for him, then, but these extra limbs, sharp and lethal and ready to kil for her. A head, sleek and smooth as a dolphin’s, thrust upward. Ethan tilted his head back and opened his mouth. For a moment she thought he was shouting his birth to the universe, but instead a sludgy, luminous green fluid poured from his mouth as he coughed.

Now he did fil his lungs and cry out. Kerrigan smiled. Everything about him pleased her, from the color of his skin, a browner green than her gray-green; to the shape of his body, fit and toned; to the limbs that did not chalenge her own graceful bone-wings but complemented them. Beautiful … he was beautiful. She had chosen wel, and had manipulated his genetic redesign masterfuly. He opened his eyes, a glowing green hue, and looked down at his new form. She watched, her smile widening, as her child-consort beheld himself. He ran his fingers along his sleek, hard skin, turned his head to examine the new blades protruding from his sides, and stepped free of the cocoon. Moisture, once so vital and now superfluous, flowed along the floor. He lifted his head to her, taler now than he had been, a little taler than she. But only a little. He seemed startled to see her, and frowned.

“You—you are the one who has done this?” It was a statement, not a question. The content of it did not surprise her, but what did startle her was his voice. Ethan Stewart’s vocal cords had been altered not at al by his transformation. His voice was totaly and completely human, although he obviously was not, and she delighted in its smooth richness.

“I am,” she said, her own voice reverberating and strong and changed by her own transformation. “I am Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades. I have made you to serve me and be my companion.”

She touched his mind briefly, giving him the barest taste of her mental power. She was not surprised to find more than a hint of insanity lurking in his brain. Psi-screens did that.

She’d touched mad minds before. When she was human—when she was weak—she had found such contact to be abhorrent. Traumatic. Now, in this form, she found it intriguing. Parts of Ethan’s brain had been permanently ruined, but there was enough there for her to control and to manipulate. She would dispatch him with no compunction if he proved of no use to her, and she let him know that as wel.

He regarded her thoughtfuly, his twin scythe arms flexing and unflexing. For a moment, she sensed a possible hint of a chalenge.

She let him
see
how she would dispatch him.

Anger, then humor, then respect.

She walked to him then, slowly, remembering how to use her body to its best advantage, and his eyes flickered over her. She knew he found her beautiful.

Kerrigan stood beside him, a breath away, and reached to touch his face with the claw of her index finger.

“You have wanted to excel,” she murmured. “You have wanted power. Your body is superior to that of any human male, and if you serve me wel and loyaly, I wil give you power beyond your wildest dreams.”

“I should warn you that my dreams,” he said in that rich, silky voice, “can be rather wild indeed.”

Kerrigan smiled. “I looked into your mind. I know. Perhaps I should put it another way. Serve me or die.”

She felt only the faintest flicker of fear. Already, now that he understood her, he trusted her. “I wil serve you with my life. What would you have me do first, my queen?”

Kerrigan smiled, wel pleased. “Tel me everything you know about Professor Jacob Ramsey.”

Something had gone wrong.

Jake had suspected something, but had let himself be reassured by Zamara and her