With that thought to stir her on, she shifted onto her hands and knees and began to shuffle forward, trying to make as little noise as possible. It felt like she was moving with the speed of a gnat.
Sweat dribbled down her face and leapt off the end of her nose, the droplets splattering against the grime-covered metal. Every motion stirred dust until the air was filled with a thick, choking cloud that was almost impossible to breathe. Or maybe it was simply the fear sitting like a lump in her throat.
She licked her lips and concentrated on the pipes, trying to think of reaching them and nothing else. Not the weight of the darkness. Not the choking dust. Not the looming, threatening walls of the core.
When she finally neared the pipes, relief surged, and the need to get out of this darkness was so fierce, it was all she could do not to rip off the nearest tile and plunge down into the restroom. Which would be absolutely stupid, as she had no idea how safe it was down there. She carefully eased up the nearest tile and looked down. She was above the washbasin area. There didn’t appear to be anyone in the men’s room, but just to be sure, she eased the tile up a little more and listened carefully. No sound. Good.
She took the tile off completely, then stuck her legs through the hole and dropped down. With her feet safely on the floor, the trembling began. She bent over and took several deep breaths. Lord, her heart was beating so fast anyone would think she’d just run a marathon. But at least it was over—or the worst part was, anyway. Compared to climbing through the void, getting out of the building itself would surely be a cinch.
She splashed her face with cold water, shook the dust and cobwebs free from her hair and walked across to the door. The corridor beyond was small and turned left about six paces away. Given the core layout was the same as State’s section, the corridor would pass the stairs before going on to the foyer section and elevators.
The elevators dinged as she stepped out of the restroom. She froze, listening, but luckily, no one came her way. Still, it was warning enough that if she didn’t get out of here quickly, someone would spot her. Luck had never been her friend, and right now, it felt like she was pushing her limits. She walked on until the stair door came into view, and she swiped the ID card through the slot. The door beeped, then opened. The stairs were as silent and as empty as the corridor. She let the door close quietly, then began her sprint to freedom.
* * *
GABRIEL WOKE IN THE ARMS of a dead man. Not the walking dead, but the dead dead. The pungent aroma of decay told him it was the corpse he’d discovered in the apartment before someone had tried to cave in his skull.
He shifted slightly, trying to ease the persistent ache in his ribs. But the minute he moved, every other ache began screaming for attention. Mostly, though, it was his head that hurt. And the insistent, steady thump of music some fool insisted on playing so loudly wasn’t helping any. He stopped the thought and frowned. Music? There’d been no music anywhere near the abandoned building. He’d been moved, obviously.
He opened his eyes and saw only darkness. He reached out and felt the confines of his prison. His fingers brushed across warmed metal. He had maybe a foot of breathing room above his head and about the same on his left side. The dead man and a toolbox of some kind shared most of the room on the right-hand side. The space near his feet was so tight, he couldn’t straighten his legs to relieve the cramp beginning to settle in across his thighs.
He was, he realized suddenly, in the trunk of a car, heading God knew where. One thing was certain—he’d be as dead as the man beside him if the car reached its destination with him still locked inside. He’d seen four men, but there might have been more. Either way, it wasn’t good odds.
Shifting around a little, he felt for the trunk’s catch. The throaty roar of the engine—what he could hear of it over the music—told him the car was one of the older models that still ran on gas rather than hydrogen or electricity. With any luck, the owners wouldn’t have bothered updating to the newer thumbprint-coded locks.
Luck was with him. The trunk had a key lock on the inside, which in itself suggested the owner was a vampire and also explained why absolutely no light was getting into the trunk. Obviously, it had been fitted out for emergency escapes from sunlight.
He reached down to his boot, but the sudden movement had red fingers of fire lancing through his brain. He cursed silently and waited for his vision to clear. The fools must have done some serious damage when they’d tried to cave in his head. There was blood on his face—he could feel it crusting, tightening his skin. The right side of his head felt heavy, as if the hair there was weighted down. More blood, probably. Stephan was going to give him hell—especially given his warning that all missions were to be double-manned.
He carefully drew the knife from his boot, flicked it open and inserted it into the lock. Several twists, and there was a soft click. It was all too easy, really. But then, if he’d been a vampire, he would have made sure any lock imprisoning him was damn easy to open in the event of a lost key or sign of trouble.
He inched the trunk open. Bitumen met his gaze. The speed at which it zipped past told him they had to be doing at least a hundred, which meant they were beyond the city limits and out on some freeway.
He opened the trunk a little more. Sunlight danced through the leaves of the gum trees arching over the road. The rich hint of humus, of moisture and damp earth, told him they were up in the hills somewhere, while the tree ferns huddled beneath the gums suggested it was more likely the Dandenongs than Macedon.
Why head up this way with the stranger’s body? There were certainly better places to dispose of a corpse than the picturesque but heavily populated Dandenong Ranges, and … His thoughts came to a sudden halt as the car went into a slide. Tires squealed, and the smell of burning rubber briefly overrode the smell of death. The force of the stop smashed him into the side of the car, and for a moment, everything went red. The trunk tore from his grasp, swinging open, then crashed down again, barely missing his fingers as the car came to a shuddering stop.
He groaned and tried to roll over onto his back, but he couldn’t. The stranger’s body had been forced hard up against his own. He elbowed some room, then rolled over. Taking several deep breaths to calm the churning in his gut, he tried to concentrate on what was happening beyond the confines of his dark prison.
Footsteps. And voices talking softly. Savagely. Then the trunk swung open, and light poured in. He blinked, throwing up a hand to shade his eyes against the sudden glare of sunlight. But the shape silhouetted by the sunshine was one he knew well.
“Glad to see you’re alive and well,” Karl said, and held out a hand to help him up.
He accepted it gratefully. Right now, it felt as if he’d become a football for some fool wearing boots. He climbed out, but it was only with Karl’s help that he made it over to the side of the road.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Karl asked, as he squatted down in front of him.
“Three,” he guessed, looking at the middle of the road rather than at Karl. Four men were lying facedown in the dirt, guarded by Karl’s oldest son, Harvey. He returned his gaze to his friend. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but why the hell are you here?”
There was tension around Karl’s eyes, despite his smile. “The bond of the twin, my friend.”
He frowned. It was highly unusual for their bond to be so specific, especially when it came to a moving car. Usually, he and Stephan shared little more than a sensation that the other was in dire trouble … Then he realized exactly what Karl had said and glanced up in surprise. “He told you?”
Karl nodded and handed him a cell phone. “Call him.”
He did. Stephan answered almost immediately. “Are you okay?”
He scrubbed a hand across the raw edge of his face. Fresh blood mingled with old, and his hand came away smeared red. “Better than I look.”
“You going to make it tonight?” Concern mingled with relief through Stephan’s soft
voice.
“Yes.” He might feel half-dead, but come hell or high water, he’d drag himself to that meeting. He still had a poisoner to net and a brother to save.
“Good. You have a problem, though.”
Only one? That would be something of a miracle. “What?”
“Ryan’s skipped.”
He swore under his breath, though in truth, he wasn’t really surprised. The need to break loose, to find answers herself, had been very evident in her eyes earlier. He just hadn’t thought she’d succeed in getting past SIU’s security so easily.
“I’ll find her. See you tonight.”
He hung up and handed the phone back to Karl. “You took a risk, bringing Harvey in on this.”
Karl shrugged. “I was with Stephan when he sensed you were in trouble. With the poisoner obviously being someone close, he didn’t want to trust your safety to just anyone. So I came.”
Gabriel rubbed his ribs. Christ, it hurt to breathe. “And Harvey?”
Karl handed him two tablets. “Painkillers.” Once Gabriel had swallowed them, Karl added, “Harv was in town signing up for extra university courses, and I was supposed to pick him up and bring him home once I’d finished with Stephan. He’s been itching to get into some action for a while now, and this was safer than some of our operations.”
True. Lord only knew how many had gone sour recently—which again pointed to someone close to home. But which of the three?
“You going to take those four back to Federation headquarters?” He indicated the prone forms on the road.
“Yeah, but not before I look after these wounds of yours.”
Karl began swabbing the blood away from Gabriel’s face. He grimaced and pushed his friend’s hand away. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Yeah, right,” Karl said, voice dry. “Doesn’t mean a thing that you look like a pincushion that’s borne the brunt of too many pins.”
“You’re exaggerating again, my friend. No one could look that bad.” Even though he certainly felt that bad.
Karl smiled. “Maybe I should get a mirror. Or maybe I should just leave you alone and let Stephan take care of you tonight.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That a threat?” If it was, it was a damn good one, because if he looked as bad as Karl was suggesting, Stephan would ban him from field operations. He’d threatened it more than once already, particularly after Mathew, their youngest sibling, had been killed a year ago.
Karl’s smile widened. “Could be. Your choice.”
He quit fighting the inevitable and bore the rest of Karl’s ministrations in silence. At least the salve Karl applied liberally over his face and ribs eased the pain somewhat.
“I want you to have a quick look at the body in the trunk,” he said, once Karl had finished. “His face seems familiar.”
Karl nodded and wrapped a hand around Gabriel’s arm, helping him up. The painkillers had kicked in, and the aches were little more than a distant promise of pain yet to come. But given the strength of that muted ache, he’d be lucky if he could move tomorrow. The bastards really had stuck the boots in once they’d knocked him out.
“You’re lucky shapechangers have strong bones,” Karl said, his expression grim. “Any other man would be in the hospital right now.”
“Forgive me if I don’t feel particularly lucky,” he muttered, and rolled the corpse over. “You recognize him?”
Karl frowned slightly. “Hard to say for certain, with the face so bloated, but it looks a lot like Dan Wetherton.”
The Minister for Social Services. No wonder the face had seemed so familiar. He’d been in the news a lot lately, raising hell about the amount of money the government had allocated to science and technology in the latest budget offering.
“Looks like someone wanted him out of the way.”
“But this man’s been dead for two or three days,” Karl said. “Wetherton was on the news last night.”
Gabriel frowned at the corpse. He didn’t doubt that Karl had the right man, but if Wetherton was on the news, who was this? Another clone? The second in as many days? That was more than just a coincidence.
Something big was obviously going down.
He studied the body a moment longer, then asked, “Wetherton’s in town tomorrow, isn’t he?”
Karl nodded. “Premier’s meeting.”
“Take this one back and run genetic tests. I’ll see if I can arrange for a cell sample from Wetherton.”
Karl raised an eyebrow. “No one’s ever been able to clone a human to the point where mannerisms, memories and behavior are an exact match. They might be genetically identical, but there are always differences.”
Gabriel smiled grimly. “But if someone has succeeded, we need to find out who and why. Especially if those people are connected to Sethanon.”
“True.” Karl hesitated, then added, “I’d like to get hold of a cell sample from Sam Ryan, too.”
No one would be getting anything from her if he couldn’t find her again. “Why?”
“Haven’t you noticed her eyes?”
Gabriel frowned. “They’re blue.” And quite pretty, even when they were glaring at him.
“Bright blue, ringed by a fine band of shifting, smoky gray.” Karl hesitated, his expression curious. “So?”
“So eyes that color were one of the few tangible signs of a Shadow Walker.”
Gabriel snorted. “Shadow Walkers never existed. It was simply another name humans gave to vampires.”
“Oh, they existed all right. But their numbers were few, and they were thought to have been killed in the Race Wars.”
“Which were fifty years ago.” The Race Wars had pitted humans against the many nonhuman races. It was a war that cost billions of lives, and yet, in the end, provided no clear winner. Humans still ran most governments, but nonhumans had at least won recognition—the right to vote, to take a hand in the decision-making process. Most were happy with that. Some, like Sethanon, were not.
“Sam’s twenty-nine. She can’t have Walker blood in her.”
“Why not? Her parents would certainly be close to the right age to have at least some Walker blood in them.”
“There’s no record of her parents. She was abandoned as a teenager.”
“Everyone has parents, my friend. There’ll be a record somewhere.”
You’d think so, but apparently no one in State, and no one in the kids’ home she’d spent her teenage years in, had ever been able to find it. Which, in itself, posed several interesting questions—but her being the offspring of Walkers certainly wasn’t one of the answers he’d come up with. “Birth records don’t state race, and Walkers were never one of the declared races, even after the wars.”
“No, but they existed, even if in extremely small numbers. Eyes like that aren’t a freak of nature; as I said, they’re the one tangible sign of the Walker race.”
“Why are you so revved up over the possibility that Sam might have Walker blood?” Especially when they were nothing special? While they supposedly possessed the ability to wrap the merest wisp of shadow around their bodies and disappear from human sight, it had to be nothing more than a vampire trick. Though Walkers could apparently move around in daylight, where vamps couldn’t, which would have made them better spies. He’d heard that the government had used them extensively during the Race Wars, but he’d found no evidence of their existence, let alone use, in all the searches he’d done over the years. Which was why he, like many others, believed the Shadow Walker legend was mired in the reality of vampires.
“Walkers were more than just shadow dwellers, my friend,” Karl said, an undercurrent of excitement edging his normally serene tones. “Much more.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Finley has been running genetic tests on her, and while he has found some anomalies, I very much doubt Walkers are on his list of possibilities.”
Karl frowned. “Doing those sorts of tests at the SIU labs could be dangerous. Computers are not safe conveyances o
f information. How often have you told me that?”
“Quite a lot. But given the amount of genetic testing we regularly do, I doubt whether these are going to garner any immediate interest.”
“Unless, of course, someone out there doesn’t want the test results known.”
Gabriel ran a hand through his matted hair. He didn’t have the time to be arguing the existence of mythical creatures when there was so much he had to do before the meeting with his brother tonight. And on top of all that, he now had to find Sam. Yet something held him to the spot. Maybe it was the conviction in Karl’s voice. Maybe it was the knowledge that his friend’s hunches were very seldom wrong.
“Why would anyone else be interested in the tests?”
“Why would anyone try to kill her?” Karl countered. “Someone must know, or suspect, that she is more than what she seems. Yet if that’s the case, they may well be watching what is happening at the SIU.”
“What if I send you a copy of all of Finley’s tests so far? Then you can check them out for yourself.” And give them a secure backup.
Karl nodded. “And once you finish your meeting tonight, drop by. I have some books you might need to read if she is a Walker.”
Something to look forward to, for sure. “I might have to drag her along with me.”
“Even better. I can run a few tests of my own.”
“If you can convince her to oblige. She’s getting a little sick of being a guinea pig.”
Karl smiled thinly. “I think you’ll find that young woman has a desire to know the truth.”
When it came to her partner and what had happened to him, maybe. But when it came to herself, definitely not. She hadn’t asked why they were doing all these extra tests. She hadn’t shown even the slightest bit of curiosity. It was almost as if she didn’t care.
He straightened and returned his gaze to the kidnappers. “Will you need help with those four?”
“Harv and I can manage.” Karl hesitated, and again Gabriel noted the tension around his friend’s eyes. But before he could ask about it, Karl added, “You’d better get back before someone starts missing you.”