He nodded. “You going back to Stephan after this?”
“No. As I said before, it would raise suspicions in the wrong quarters.” Karl pulled a small bottle of pale green liquid from his pocket. “Give him this when you see him tonight, and make sure he gets some safe water. I won’t have a chance to get there until tomorrow.”
Gabriel held up the bottle. The green liquid was thick and shiny. “What is it?”
“A medicine designed to flush the toxins from his system. If we’ve pinpointed the right poison, it should work pretty fast.”
“How’s he doing? Health-wise, I mean.”
“He’s weak, but he’ll survive.”
Relief surged through him, relaxing muscles he hadn’t even realized were tense. “I’ll see you later tonight, then.”
Karl nodded and moved back toward the prisoners. Gabriel glanced at the license plate number of the car he’d been locked in, taking note of it for later investigation. He then called to his other shape and leapt skyward on brown-gold wings.
SAM CLIMBED OUT OF THE taxi and slammed the door shut. As the vehicle zoomed away in search of another fare, she stepped onto the pavement and stared at the house across the road.
Even on a relatively bright day like today, the squat, almost ugly, redbrick dwelling sat in shadow. Surrounded by tall gum trees, it hunched in the middle of the block like some forgotten troll. For some reason, Jack had loved it. Think of the possibilities, he’d said. All that land to expand on, all that room to move in.
Three and a half years later, the place was still as ugly as the day he’d bought it. Uglier, as it had also begun to fall into disrepair. And the land he kept raving about was a mass of weeds and rotting leaves.
The houses on either side had well-manicured lawns, perfectly trimmed garden beds and spotlessly clean driveways. But then, in an upper-middle-class suburb like Mulgrave, you expected nothing less. Jack had to be driving them insane.
Smiling slightly, she crossed the road. The minute she stepped into the shadows of the house, it was as if she’d stepped into another world. The everyday whine of cars, of people talking and dogs barking, faded away, leaving only an uneasy sort of hush. She glanced up, studying the branches far above. Odd that there were no birds in any of the trees. Even though it was winter, there should have been sparrows and starlings, at the very least.
She walked up the steps and knocked on the front door. Then she stepped back, waiting for an answer. After a minute or two of silence, she knocked again. She’d checked earlier to see if Suzy had gone back to work. She hadn’t, and she wasn’t expected to be back for at least another week.
Still no answer. Frowning, she turned and headed for the backyard. All the windows along the side of the house had their curtains drawn, so she couldn’t sneak a peek inside. The overgrown look had gone into overdrive around the back. Weeds climbed the fences and dominated the garden beds. She shook her head. It was hard to believe that Jack had let the yard get to this state. At work, he was practically a freak when it came to tidiness.
She knocked on the back door. Again, no answer. Of course, there was always the possibility Suzy had gone shopping or was visiting friends, but instinct told her that wasn’t the case. There was an edge of awareness in the stillness that suggested someone was home.
She bent down and slid the wire-thin key-coder out of its specially designed sheath inside her boot. Though they were officially frowned upon, a good half of the State enforcers used them. This particular one Jack had given her a few weeks before he’d disappeared, claiming it would open any lock currently in use. At the time, neither of them had thought she’d be using it to break into his house.
The coder beeped softly. She slid it back home in her boot, and then cautiously opened the door. The kitchen lay in darkness, and the air that rushed out to greet her was stale, as if the house had been locked up for several weeks.
She edged into the kitchen and looked around. Dishes lay in an untidy pile in the sink. Judging by the thick layer of scum on the surface of the water, they’d been there for some time. A half-filled coffee cup sat abandoned on the table, and one chair lay flat on its back, as if someone had gotten up in a hurry.
She moved into the next room. There were no other signs of a hasty abandonment, but it was obvious no one had been in the living room for some time. She walked across to the coffee table and picked up a newspaper. Dust stirred, tickling her throat. Coughing slightly, she studied the date on the paper. May sixteenth. Five days after Jack had disappeared.
If appearances were anything to go by, Suzy hadn’t been in the house since then. Yet that simply didn’t make sense. Surely she must have been here when Jack—or his clone—was shot. How else would headquarters have gotten hold of her so quickly?
Dropping the paper back on the coffee table, she turned and headed for the study. Dust lay thick on the furniture in this room, too. Two monitors sat abandoned on an otherwise bare desk. Several photos lined the walls—all of them of Suzy. Sam sat at the desk and opened the top drawer. Empty. So were the next two drawers.
Frowning, she stared at the monitor for a moment, wondering what to do next. Anything useful had obviously been cleaned out of the study, so there was a good chance every other room had been cleaned out, too. But the only other room that might hold something was the master bedroom. Even the tiniest scrap of paper might provide a clue, and while Jack was generally a neat freak, Suzy wasn’t.
She checked the remainder of the house as she made her way up the hall to the master bedroom. The place was empty, despite her feeling to the contrary. Relaxing a little, she allowed herself to remember the pride in Jack’s voice when he’d first guided her through his ugly-duckling house. Remembered his wonder at all the room, when all she’d seen was wasted space. Lord, they were so completely different. Maybe that was why they’d been such good partners. And such good friends, at least during working hours.
So why had he tried to kill her?
Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them back. Damn it all, the man she’d shot wasn’t Jack. It was a clone who didn’t deserve her guilt or her tears.
Maybe Jack himself didn’t deserve them either.
The bedroom was a mess. Blankets were strewn onto the floor, and clothes lay everywhere, the clean and ironed mingling with the dirty in drifting piles. But the dust that lay thick on the furniture through the rest of the house was absent here. A coffee cup sat on the dressing table, its contents half-consumed and just beginning to congeal. Someone had been in here recently, and if the clothes were any indication, had packed in a hurry.
She stepped across several clothing mounds and made her way into the master bathroom. No trace of Suzy’s makeup—a telling sign, if ever there was one. From what Jack had said, she had a veritable mountain of stuff she used night and day. It had obviously gone with Suzy—wherever that might be.
She turned and crossed to the bedside table, opening the top drawer. Undergarments greeted her—Jack’s, by the look of it. She poked through the drawer, just to ensure there was nothing else, then grabbed it and pulled it out, tipping the undergarments onto the floor as she flipped it over. Nothing taped on the bottom. She studied the base for a moment, and then noticed a slight scrape along one side, and a broken edge in one corner.
She tapped the bottom and heard the slight echo, as if the drawer were hollow. And the actual depth of the drawer certainly didn’t match the depth of the sides. Maybe a false bottom? She stuck her little finger into the hole and gently tugged. The top layer came away, revealing a two-inch hiding place. Three digital disks gleamed softly in the half-light, along with an envelope. She shoved the lot into her pocket.
Out in the hall, a floorboard creaked—a sound so soft that, if it weren’t for the strange hush in the house, she might not have heard it. Even then, she might have passed it off as nothing more than the normal creaking of an old house, but there was a sudden prickle of heat across her skin, and a wash of awareness through her mind.
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A vampire and a shapeshifter had entered the house.
She reached back for her gun, then realized she no longer had it. Her gaze went to the bed. Jack had often said that a gun was the natural extension of his arm. Even in the bedroom, he would have had one within reach.
She knelt down and felt underneath the bed. Her fingers slid across the metal slats, then touched something slick and cold. Smiling grimly, she peeled the weapon away from its hiding spot.
Only it wasn’t just any old gun. It was the latest in laser development—a Y-shaped weapon that molded itself to your palm and could torch a hole the size of a football field in the side of a building.
She frowned as she peeled the tape off the weapon. Where had Jack found the money to buy something like this? You certainly couldn’t get these legally, and they were worth a fortune on the streets.
As she checked to see if the weapon was loaded, another floorboard creaked. Mouth suddenly dry, she grasped the weapon and walked carefully to the door. The silence was so deep she could hear breathing—not hers, someone else’s.
Whoever she heard was close. Maybe even right outside the bedroom door.
She set the gun on its lowest setting and clicked the safety off. The sound, though whisper soft, seemed to ricochet through the hush. In the hall, someone chuckled softly.
A chill ran down her spine. No one in his right mind would laugh like that. Not unless he was very, very sure of the outcome. With the gun clinging to her palm like a limpet, the barrel barely visible between her clenched fingers, she took a deep breath and stepped from the bedroom.
GABRIEL STRODE DOWN THE PRISTINE halls of the SIU, trying to ignore the surprised looks that greeted him. He felt like shit—and as Karl had already pointed out, he looked like it, too. But did they all have to look so amused once their initial shock had worn off?
His office door slid open long before he neared it, revealing Finley, who had several reams of paper clutched close to his chest.
“They told me you wanted to see me, sir.”
He smiled grimly. What he’d actually said was that he’d like to wring the doctor’s scrawny little neck for letting Ryan escape. And he had promptly been reminded that the woman was his responsibility, not Finley’s. A truth he couldn’t argue against without explaining why he hadn’t been here to mind her.
“I told you to watch her, Finley.”
The young doctor pushed his glasses up his nose and stepped back, allowing Gabriel room to pass.
“I assigned two guards. I just didn’t expect her to escape through the false ceiling.”
No one did, least of all him. But he was beginning to think they should expect the unexpected when dealing with Samantha Ryan. He crossed to the small wash area and flicked on the tap. “How many tests did you manage to run?”
“Several.” Finley peeled the printouts away from his chest and shuffled through the top layer. “We haven’t been able to pin down that extra chromosome yet. Tests so far indicate it’s something we haven’t come across before.”
Gabriel studied his reflection for a moment. Dried blood had matted his hair into weird shapes, and a deep cut near his right cheek was beginning to swell his eye shut. Stephan was going to be furious—especially after his request that Gabriel take a partner with him on missions.
Although Stephan, of all people, should understand his reasons for refusing to do so. Someone with two dead partners behind him should not be given a third.
He ducked his head under the cold water, rinsing the blood away, then grabbed a towel and returned his attention to Finley. “I thought we’d just finished cataloging all known species, human or not.”
“That’s the thing—known species. You can be pretty sure there are a heck of a lot of species out there that we haven’t seen, let alone cataloged.”
The kites were one of them; that was for sure. And they were one secret the Federation wouldn’t be able to keep for much longer. With the recent rise in kite attacks, the SIU would soon have to be notified and brought in.
“Are you trying to tell me Ryan’s not human?” Given what he’d seen of her so far unnoted skills, he suspected this was a very real possibility.
Finley shook his head. “I’m just making a point. If there are nonhuman species out there we haven’t yet seen, why shouldn’t it be the same with humans? Especially in this day and age, when gene manipulation and cloning is a government-funded research program?”
Even so, it was odd to find a human chromosome they couldn’t categorize. Unless, of course, they were looking for something only partially human and long thought dead. “Finley, do you believe Shadow Walkers ever existed?”
The young doctor pushed back his glasses and pursed his lips. “To be honest,” he said eventually, “no. My father once told me he worked with a man who could hide in shadows, but I always presumed he meant a vampire.”
Finley’s father had worked for the military. Covert operations, if he recalled correctly. “Did he ever mention Shadow Walkers?”
“No.” Finley hesitated, his expression curious. “Why the sudden interest in a myth?”
“No reason.” Maybe Karl was barking up the wrong tree, for once. “What about the microchip?”
Finley dug into the reams of paper and pulled out a small, flat container. “I found it under her armpit. It’s been there for some time, I’d say.”
Gabriel took the container, holding it up to the light. The microchip looked to be little more than a speck of dust. “What can you tell about it?”
“Well, it’s one of the military’s, though they stopped using this type nearly twenty years ago.”
Sam would barely have been nine. But why would they insert something like this in a child? “What did they use them for?”
“Tracking, usually. Every soldier has one, even today.”
“Were Ryan’s parents in the military?”
Finley shrugged. “We haven’t been any more successful in finding information on her parents than State was.”
Maybe his own search had been more successful. Once Finley left, he’d check. “If this device is still active, is there any way for us to track the signal back?”
“We can try.”
The look on the young doctor’s face told him the results were doubtful. “What about someone continuing to track us through it?”
“As long as you leave it in that container, you’re safe.”
Good. Because he fully intended handing it over to the Federation’s experts to see what they could make of it. “Mind if I keep this awhile?”
The young doctor shook his head. “We got all the information we can off it.”
“I’ll need a copy of the test results sent to my com-unit, too.”
“Already done, sir. We’ll update as we go.”
At least Finley was efficient, even if he wasn’t so observant at times. “Thanks.”
The doctor nodded and quickly exited. Gabriel studied the chip a moment longer, then shoved it in his pocket and walked across to his desk. “Computer on.” The com-unit hummed softly. “Background check on Samantha Ryan complete. Results inadequate.”
He frowned. How could search results be inadequate? “Explain.”
“No record of Samantha Ryan exists until the year 2032, when she was placed into state care by person or persons unknown. No record of parents, though a certificate of birth was filed in 2018. No country of origin recorded on certificate. No doctor’s signature.”
“That can’t happen.” That it had spoke of government involvement somewhere along the line. Either that or someone had purposefully erased nearly all record of her past, which again could only have been managed by someone in power.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the screen thoughtfully. “Have you tried military records for the time frames mentioned?”
“Military records for that period are not available for general searches.”
Sometimes these computers were as dense as any human. “Do a prio
rity-one search through all available government records, military or otherwise.” He hesitated, tapping the desk lightly. It wasn’t likely he’d get back to this office anytime soon. He had too much to do. “Send search results, a copy of Ryan’s current file and any updates to outlink 5019. Security access one.”
“Transfer proceeding. Search proceeding. Director Hanrahan wishes to speak with you.”
He scrubbed a hand across his eyes. The day was definitely getting worse. “Put him through.”
The director’s familiar features came online. “I want an update on the Ryan case.”
He watched the director’s heavy jowls flap like sheets in the wind and barely controlled a smile. With all the weight Hanrahan had lost lately, he looked more like a basset hound than ever. “Investigations are still proceeding, sir.”
The director’s heavy-lidded gaze flicked to the right of the screen—a warning there was someone in the office with him. Who?
“Why haven’t the investigations been wrapped up? Ryan admitted to shooting her partner. It’s a matter of record that she made several threats toward him. What’s the problem?”
Gabriel frowned. Obviously, Hanrahan was putting on a show for whoever was in the office with him, but the new information was startling. This was the first he’d heard of any threats. “Ryan claims her partner was a vampire, and that she killed him in self-defense,” he informed Hanrahan, dutifully playing his part in whatever drama was ongoing.
“Poppycock. The woman knows the trouble she’s in and is just spinning you a line. State is getting restless over this. They want a result, and so do I.”
There was an edge to the director’s voice that didn’t make sense. Something was obviously wrong. Who the hell was in there? For a second, he considered storming Hanrahan’s stronghold, but the director’s eyes, green slits barely visible beneath the heavily curtained lids, seemed to warn against it.
“When I find out what’s going on, you’ll be the first to know, sir.” Which was the truth, in more ways than one, he thought grimly.