Claimed

  “Oh God,” whispered Galena as a silent sob made her chest convulse. “This is all my fault.”

  Another minute was all it took to determine that V3, Mitch Hanson, was also dead, another stabbing. “Try V5,” she whispered, dread consuming her.

  V5. Katsumi Phillips. Galena remembered how the young woman had shyly reported that she was going to use the stipend provided to the volunteers to buy her mother and younger brother bus tickets to join her in Boston, how they currently lived in the lawless swamplands of Mississippi and needed a better life.

  “Damn,” muttered Dec as the cold black letters were projected into the air above Galena’s desk. “Katsumi Phillips was DOA at the Central Medical Center at seventeen hundred. This one was an explosion, too . . . corner of Fayette and Jefferson. Shit. Cacy and Eli took that call. The police are thinking it was a bomb.”

  Galena didn’t hear whatever he said next. The horror had swamped her, sending her swirling down a deep inky hole. She doubled over, hugging herself tightly, the tears streaking from her eyes. Five innocent people with bright futures ahead of them. Gone. And the only reason: because they had volunteered to help her test her vaccine. “I can’t do this,” she whimpered. “I can’t.”

  He caught her as she began to slide to the floor. Galena normally hated uninvited touch, but right now she welcomed the steely warmth of his arms, because she felt like she was about to fly apart. “I’ve got you,” he said quietly.

  He didn’t pull her closer to him—he was simply keeping her on her chair, preventing her body from hitting the cold tile. This steadiness made it possible for her to breathe again. “Why would someone do this?” she asked.

  “My first guess is because they can’t easily Mark you—you’re too protected—so they’re going after anyone who might help you with your research.”

  “Anyone? Dec, what about Jian and Ankita?”

  His arms stiffened. “When was the last time you talked to either of them?” He released her as she jerked upright, reaching for her phone.

  “Jian was in earlier today, but he’d gone home by the time I came in. And Ankita left maybe half an hour ago.” She hit Ankita’s name and sagged with relief when her lab assistant picked up. “Ankita! Where are you?”

  “Home.” Ankita blew a sharp breath into the phone. “Dealing with the usual hassles of living in this town. My apartment was broken into.”

  Galena shot up from her chair and put the phone into speaker mode. “Say that again.”

  “It’s okay, Dr. M. They didn’t take much. Sure did mess everything up, though.”

  Dec’s blue eyes were hard on Galena. He raised his eyebrows as if asking permission to speak, and Galena nodded. “Ankita, this is Chief Declan Ferry of the Boston EMS. Have you contacted the police?”

  Ankita let out a frustrated laugh. “Sure, but do you think they’re going to show up anytime soon? They told me—”

  With a crack and a whoosh, the line went silent. From somewhere out in the city came a deep boom.

  Dec’s eyes flew wide. “Ankita?” he asked sharply. Both of them looked at the phone. The connection had been dropped. It was so quiet in the room that a loud click from the DNA sequencer made Galena jump. Dec frowned and looked in the direction of the annoying machine, and then turned to Galena. “Call her back.”

  Ankita’s number went straight to voice mail. Dec walked over to his own phone, on Galena’s desk. “Do you know her address?”

  Galena closed her eyes, trying to get herself to focus and picture Ankita’s personnel file. “It’s . . . uh . . . six Berkeley Street.” She couldn’t stop shaking. She couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t hold one single thought in her head. A hard chill raced down her spine. Suddenly, this lab didn’t feel safe. Nowhere felt safe.

  Dec entered the address, and the words that projected in front of him this time were bright red instead of black. Dec grimaced as he read a bunch of codes and symbols Galena couldn’t decipher. “It’s an active call,” he said in a hollow voice.

  “What happened?” Dec gave her a pained look. “Please,” she whispered. “I need to know.”

  “Massive explosion. Uncontrolled fire. Fire and EMS requested.”

  “Explosion.”

  The glitchy DNA sequencer clicked once more, and her questioning thoughts from earlier about the source of the machine’s malfunction came back to her all at once. Mechanical parts, smacking against something. A blockage.

  Something inside the machine was keeping its components from moving correctly.

  My AC unit went on the fritz, and now it’s making this weird clicking noise, Nadya had said.

  Galena looked into Dec’s eyes and said the only words instinct allowed. “Get me out of here.”

  His brow furrowed. “You don’t want to—?”

  The sequencer clicked again, and Galena flinched. Dec’s gaze lasered over to the faulty machine, and then he looked once more at the words scrolling through the air between them. His eyes widened. “It was a timer,” he whispered.

  He grabbed her hand and yanked her toward the exit, pushing her in front of him as they burst through the doors of the lab. As they jogged down the hall, she glanced over her shoulder to see he had his phone to his ear. “Eli,” he barked. “I want you to call me as soon as you—”

  The roar of the explosion silenced him. The lights in the hallway went out as the world shook and began to fall apart. Galena was thrown forward and crushed to the unforgiving tiles. As hunks of plaster and ceiling panels rained down, Dec landed on top of her, his arms around her body and his head bent over hers. “Nader! Tamasin!” he shouted. Was he speaking some foreign language?

  Deafening cracks and the hiss and crackle of flames filled her ears, and then another, smaller explosion had Dec arching over her, holding her head to his hard chest. “Hang on,” he said, bracing his other palm against the floor.

  She gasped as his body lurched, like he had been hit from above. The building, she thought, it’s coming down. She coughed as dust filled her lungs. Dec held her tighter as his body shuddered, but then collapsed, boneless and relentlessly heavy. For a moment, all she could hear was the stumble and stutter of his heart. It didn’t sound normal at all. “Dec?” she wheezed. “Dec?”

  She needed to get him off of her. She couldn’t breathe. The air was stiflingly hot, and his weight was crushing her. In the pitch black, she reached up to touch his face. Her fingers slid through something wet on the firm ridge of his cheekbone. She didn’t have to see it to know what it was. The memory came on hard, her trembling fingers sliding over her own belly, the grinding pain, the slick crimson mess.

  But this isn’t you. This is him. He’s hurt.

  Slick crimson mess.

  Not you. Him. Hurt.

  “Galena Margolis,” called an unknown female voice from somewhere nearby. “Help us locate you.” The voice sounded calm and in control. A rescuer? Or her would-be killer?

  Galena flattened her palm over Dec’s cheek. “Dec.” He was her only ally now. He couldn’t be gone. “Please.”

  He moaned. Her thumb stroked across his jaw, a reflexive gesture of pure relief.

  “Declan Ferry,” shouted the female voice. “Confirm your presence.”

  “H-here,” wheezed Galena, her thoughts going fuzzy. “Here.” They can’t see you. They can’t hear you. She forced herself to let go of Dec and stuck her hand out, digging through debris. They were completely buried. Dec’s weight didn’t allow her chest to expand. Each breath was shallower than the last. Her fingers wouldn’t obey her now. The debris was too thick, too hard, too much. Like trying to swim in an ocean of stones. She drew as much air into her lungs as she could and then forced the word out one more time, with as much volume as she could muster. “Here!”

  We all end up one place or the other in the end, Dec had said. Where would she go when it was her time? She closed her eyes. Dec’s heart was still thumping unsteadily in her ear. She prayed he’d get through this. She liked that idea.
He seemed like a nice man. A good man. She would have liked to have gotten to know him better.

  Thank you, she thought as everything faded to black. Thank you for trying to save me.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dec was swimming in an oily black sea, his lungs screaming for air. He couldn’t move his arms and legs. He tried to open his eyes, but it was impossible. He tried to say Galena’s name, but his tongue and lips wouldn’t obey.

  But he could see her face in his mind, wide green eyes fixed on him. Trusting him to protect her. With that thought, he fought to find the surface, to draw a single lungful of precious air. He struggled to raise his head.

  “Dec,” she whispered. “Please.”

  I’m trying. His muscles tensed. She needed him.

  “Dec,” she said again. But she sounded different this time. Different . . . but familiar. “Can you open your eyes?”

  “Aislin?” The word came out thin and shredded, but he was rewarded by a squeeze of his hand. It was enough to bring him back. His eyelids fluttered open. Blue-and-green wallpaper, custom blown-glass light fixture. Rylan’s office. He bolted upright.

  His older sister, the Charon, sat in a chair next to the couch where he’d been lying. She was wearing a pale-blue suit that matched her eyes. Her platinum-blonde hair was in its usual elegant twist. Her hand, fingernails perfectly manicured, stroked his hair. “You’re safe, Declan. Calm down.”

  Dec relaxed a little as he reminded himself that Aislin was in charge now. This was her office at Psychopomps headquarters, not Rylan’s anymore, and before it was his, it had been their father’s.

  But how did he get here? He looked around. He and Aislin weren’t alone; in fact, the room was pretty crowded. Tamasin and Nader stood near one of the windows, looking more human than he’d ever seen them. Moros himself stood next to them, millennia old but looking no more than thirty-five, dressed impeccably in a suit, his dark hair slicked back, his eyes metal gray. Cacy was sitting on the couch across from Dec, still wearing her paramedic uniform. Eli was next to her, covered in dust and blood, probably from the explosion he and Cacy had responded to.

  Eli’s arm was around Galena, whose hair was gray with dust. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her cheek was scraped and swollen.

  “Are you—?” Dec began.

  “A little bruised,” she said quietly, grimacing at the rasp in her throat, “but not hurt.”

  “Because of you, Declan,” said Nader, his hard-edged voice slicing through the room. He bowed his head. “Only because of you.”

  Tamasin bowed her head as well, but not before Dec caught her glancing anxiously at Moros’s gloved hands. His touch meant doom, and all the Kere feared it. Hell, everyone feared it.

  But Moros merely shifted his steely gaze from Galena to Dec. “It seems we owe you our gratitude, Declan. How is your head?”

  Dec frowned and ran his hand over the top of his head. “Fine. I think?”

  “You had a depressed fracture to the parietal,” Eli said, then he looked down at his hand, which Galena was gripping tightly.

  “In other words, you got your head bashed in,” said Cacy. “Do you remember what happened?”

  “I went to Galena’s lab to let her know her research volunteer had been killed,” Dec said slowly.

  “You should have let me know immediately,” Aislin interjected. Her pressed lips conveyed pure disapproval.

  “With all due respect, Ms. Ferry,” Galena said, her voice faint and difficult to catch, “I really appreciate that he came to tell me in person.”

  Eli shifted in his seat and gave Cacy a sidelong glance. “So do I. Especially because Galena wouldn’t be sitting here if she’d been there alone when the bomb went off.” An explosion wouldn’t have killed her unless she were Marked. But it might have put her into an irreversible coma, her brilliance destroyed, her body broken.

  Dec tried to recall exactly what had happened, but all he came up with was a rush of heat and a deafening roar. His gaze met Galena’s. “Your lab.”

  She didn’t look away. “Gone. Everything is gone.”

  “Not everything,” he said, fighting the urge to cross the room and take her hand. She seemed beyond tears, shell-shocked and almost numb. “You’re still alive.”

  She tucked her head against Eli’s shoulder and nodded, but it was clear Dec’s words had done nothing to comfort her. It bothered him more than it should have.

  Moros stepped forward. “Obviously and unfortunately, there is another rogue Ker, possibly more than one.” The glint of red in his eyes faded slightly as he looked at Aislin. “I will do all I can to determine who is responsible.”

  “So will I,” Aislin replied, holding her head high. The ornate Scope of the Charon glinted at her throat. “Tonight has been costly. None of the deceased were sanctioned Markings.”

  “Incorrect,” said Moros. “The Marking of Jian Lee, one of Dr. Margolis’s assistants, was authorized.”

  Galena raised her head. “What?” she asked, her voice cracking. “Jian’s dead?”

  Moros tilted his head. “Mr. Lee was Marked by Trevor. He committed suicide by jumping into the Charles.”

  Galena’s shoulders hunched forward, like she’d been punched in the chest. But then she went very still, and her brow furrowed. “Did he leave a note?”

  Moros’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t know, as that is a mortal concern, one for the police and the young man’s family.”

  Galena shook her head. Dec wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was. Jian looked awfully guilty from where he was sitting.

  “Despite Mr. Lee’s sanctioned death,” Moros continued, “it is true that we have a crisis on our hands. Not only because of the unauthorized Markings.”

  “No, because someone was able to plant a bomb in Galena’s lab,” growled Eli.

  Nader and Tamasin stepped a little closer to one another, huddling. “We were within thirty feet of Dr. Margolis at all times,” Tamasin said. “We couldn’t have seen anyone in her lab beforehand—we weren’t there until she was.”

  “And our guards dropped Dr. Margolis off at the door of the building, thinking she was well protected,” said Aislin.

  “If Dec hadn’t shielded Galena with his own body, that would have been it,” said Cacy.

  Dec shuddered. He could heal, even if his skull was caved in. But Galena couldn’t. “We need to do a better job,” he said. “We were lucky tonight.”

  “What if I quit?” Galena said.

  All eyes in the room fell on her, and she shrank back a little but kept her head up. Dec could see that her eyes were shiny with tears. “What if I halted my research?”

  “That’s not an option.”

  “I don’t want anyone else to die because of me!” She rose from the couch, shrugging off Eli’s protective arm. “I’m serious. Seven innocent people died tonight. And whoever killed them made sure each of them knew it was because of my work. I had to listen to one of them take her last breath, knowing she was in terrible pain and I couldn’t help her.” Galena swiped her hands across her cheeks to wipe away the tears. “I’ve had enough of people coming after me, after my family”—she put her hand on Eli’s shoulder—“and after the people I work with. I can’t do this.”

  Moros cleared his throat. “Galena, my dear, you cannot turn away from what fate has in store for you. In the scheme of things, seven deaths is nothing compared to the millions of lives you will save.”

  Galena rounded on him. “They weren’t nothing to me, Mr. Moros.”

  Eli stood up and took her hand. “G, we know that. But I know you. You’re upset tonight. You’ve been through hell. You’re hurting. Tomorrow when you wake up, though, you’re going to want to continue your work.”

  She pulled her hand away from him. “With what? My lab has been destroyed. All my equipment, all my samples, all my trial serums. Gone.”

  “But your data wasn’t destroyed with your computer, right?” asked Cacy. “Wasn’t it saved to the cloud?”
r />   “Some of it,” admitted Galena. “But some of it was so sensitive that it was stored in servers on-site.”

  “You should call Dr. Cassidy first thing tomorrow,” said Eli. “She’ll know how the salvage operation is being handled. And I bet she’ll be glad to know you’re all right,” he added softly. “She really seems to care about you.”

  Galena bit her lip and looked away. “I know, but . . .” She grimaced.

  Dec’s brain was a sea of conflicting thoughts. On the one hand, it would be an utter tragedy for Galena to give up her research, not only for her, but for the world. On the other hand . . . “Getting back her data doesn’t help us with the fact that someone tried to take Galena out tonight,” he said. “The Kere couldn’t keep her safe. Neither could our guards.”

  None of them said it aloud, but Dec was sure all the immortals in the room were thinking the same thing: as an ordinary human, Galena was painfully vulnerable. Sooner or later, the enemy would get to her.

  Cacy looked up at Galena from her position on the couch. “There may be something we can do about that.”

  “If you’re planning to lock me up in some—”

  Cacy put up her hands. “I’m not suggesting that at all.”

  “Then what are you suggesting?” asked Aislin. “Because despite what Moros just said”—she tossed him a cool, assessing glance—“ultimately, it is Galena’s choice whether she continues her research.”

  Moros gave Dec’s eldest sister a knowing look. “And wouldn’t it be convenient if she didn’t, my dear?” he said quietly.

  Aislin glared at him.

  “I have something to propose,” Cacy said. “We could make her a Ferry.”

  Dec’s heart seized in his chest, so tight he couldn’t speak. She couldn’t be serious. Aislin looked like she felt the same way he did, but probably for an entirely different reason.

  “You can do that?” Eli asked, his voice suddenly full of hope.

  “It’s not that easy,” Cacy said, giving Galena a hesitant look. “Since she wasn’t born a Ferry, she’d have to be married into the family.”