Chapter 15

Ambrose woke in a cage. Not his first time, actually. People had a tendency to cage dogs. But this time he'd been placed in one as a man. A man who'd foolishly been ambushed. In his defense, he hadn't expected snipers in the city. At least they'd been using sleeping darts and not bullets. Healing from holes hurt, especially when Hekate didn't answer her prayers promptly.

His clothes had been removed and replaced with gray scrubs. His feet remained bare. Phone and wallet gone. Not that either would do his captors any good. His identification had a false name and an address he never used. His cell had a password lock that would reset the device after two failed attempts.

The hard floor of his cell didn't have a mattress pad or even a blanket to cut the harsh cement surface. A smelly bucket in a corner made him grimace. Hopefully he wouldn't have to use it.

As he rose, he stretched and looked around. Then looked again in disbelief. The massive space didn't have any windows, but the fluorescent lighting overhead provided harsh clarity. It Concrete built with pillars rising to a ceiling about twenty feet overhead. Cages filled the area for the most part, although he did see a row of glass tanks along a back wall, the fluid in them varying, from clear water to murky.

The tanks held creatures, at least the ones he could see. A kraken, slightly larger than the one they'd fought, drifted listlessly along the bottom of one. In one of the cloudy tanks, a sudden webbed hand slapped against the glass. Disturbing but not as disturbing as the people and cryptids he could see in the cells like his. Some of the captives huddled in corners or hunched in the middle, holding their knees, rocking, many audibly sobbing. Others gripped the bars, pleading for mercy or screaming to be set free.

The scarier ones? Those with blank faces who just stood, staring vacantly while mumbling. He had a feeling he knew what happened to them.

They've lost their souls.

And lucky him, he might be next.

Fuck. As he took in more details, he noted they wore the same scrubs as him, the state of them appearing to vary depending on their length of stay. Those who showed emotion remained fairly clean-looking. The zombie types? Filthy and uncaring.

What was this place? How could it be the Cryptid Authority didn't know of this many people being taken captive? Or did they know? He couldn't help but recall that the unidentified soldiers just marched into a CA office and took the wererat. It made sense, they'd been taking back into custody one of their escaped patients. Whoever ran this outfit would hardly want news of their experiments getting out, because this was an experiment. Of that, he had no doubt.

Oh, Hekate, what have you gotten us embroiled in this time? And what did it have to do with Adeline?

Of more worry, the way he couldn't touch his goddess. Praying usually gave him a certain feeling, that even if not heard he knew she'd received. But praying right now just seemed to disappear into a void, the shielding on this place somehow god-proof.

Not good.

A commotion drew his attention, and he saw the combat-geared men entering, pushing a gurney, upon which lay a black hound. His blood chilled at the realization they'd captured Orion. In better news, he didn't see Adeline. Had she evaded the soldiers? Or…

He refused to even contemplate a worse scenario. No way had she died.

The soldiers dumped Orion into the empty cage across from him and left without saying a word. Ambrose didn't even bother trying to engage them in conversation because he doubted they'd say anything.

The moment the room cleared of soldiers, he gripped the bars and hissed, "Orion. Wake up. Now's not the time to be napping."

His friend continued to snore softly. They must have doped him good. It would eventually wear off. In the meantime, he needed to find a way out. He inspected the cage, running his hands over the bars and the welds holding them in place. Trailing his fingers over the lock on the door zapped him.

"You can't escape." The soft whisper came from his left.

Ambrose turned to see a cyclops, one of the calmer prisoners, sitting cross-legged in his prison. "What is this place?"

"Hell?" The cyclops shrugged. "I don't know. One minute, I was minding my business, tending my garden, the next I woke here."

"Have you seen anyone other than the soldiers?"

"Nope. And they don't stay long. Either they're bringing someone new or taking someone out. Although I think something big must be happening because they removed most of the lobotomized prisoners at the morning meal."

"Lobotomized?" Ambrose queried.

"Don't know what else to call it. People leave here yelling and fighting, they come back zoned out." The cyclops ducked his head as he murmured, "It will be my turn soon. I've been here longest."

"All the more reason to escape."

"How? These locks can't be picked. The bars can't be bent."

"What about when the soldiers open the doors?"

"One against the half-dozen they send?" The cyclops pointed out the bad odds.

"Half-dozen? Bah." Ambrose had faced worse and prevailed.

"I wish you luck, friend." The cyclops stiffened as they heard the main entrance to the room opening, the electronic whir of the mechanism to roll the door drawing attention.

A group of soldiers entered, one pushing a gurney, which they wheeled to the cyclops' cage.

Despite having mentioned the futility, the cyclops tried to fight. Rushing the soldier who opened his prison, swinging a big ham-sized fist then grappling with the half-dozen who waited.

The cyclops lost, as they zapped him from multiple directions with a cattle prod. Once they'd subdued the cyclops, they heaved him onto the gurney and strapped him tight. As it rolled by, he turned his head and whispered, "Goodbye and good luck."

With the cyclops' departure, the room grew quiet, a somber mood falling over those who still had their awareness. It lasted until the soldiers returned with the cyclops. They dumped him into his cage and left.

"Hey, friend, are you okay?" Ambrose tried speaking to him, but the cyclops stood in his cell staring at nothing. It led to Ambrose shouting, "Snap out of it. What happened?"

The head swiveled slowly, and the cyclops' words emerged even slower. "I am empty. They took it."

Took his soul.

It frightened Ambrose like nothing he'd ever faced before.

"What the fuck? Where am I?" Orion groaned as he roused from his drugged sleep.

"You're in a shit-ton of trouble. We both are," Ambrose stiffly replied.

Orion stood and stretched, his naked body rippling. "Fuck me. Where's Adeline?"

"You tell me. I take it you were attacked after I left."

"Zombies then soldiers armed with tranqs. I got knocked out during the fight. Last I saw, Adeline was fighting."

"Maybe Frank got her to safety?"

Orion's lips turned down. "Frank got taken down before me."

"Fuck." Ambrose swore softly.

"Yeah. So what is place?"

"We appear to be where they're making the soulless." Ambrose waved a hand. "Behold the before and after."

"We need to get out of here." Orion repeated Ambrose's earlier statement.

"Agreed, but short of you having a lock pick or a hacksaw up your ass, we're kind of stuck."

"They've got to open this cage eventually." Orion grabbed the bars and pulled uselessly at them.

"And when they do, we fight." Ambrose's lips flattened. "It would help if I could speak to the goddess. Can you contact her?"

Orion frowned. "No. It's like I'm in a dead zone. I feel nothing."

"Same." Ambrose didn't like it one bit. While he didn't regularly chat with Hekate, for decades now, he'd felt the warmth of her blessing. A warmth that was now gone.

Whir . Click .

The main door opened again, and more than a half-dozen soldiers emerged, the pair in the lead holding cattle prods, while the last of the group pushed a gurney.

As they neared Ambrose's cage, he backed away. He had no interest in getting zapped.

A short, stocky soldier barked, "No trouble from you or you'll regret it." To emphasize the threat, one of the zappers made his prod crackle.

"Where are you taking me?" Ambrose asked as they opened his cage.

"You'll soon see. Get on the bed." The stocky man pointed.

Ambrose pretended compliance and walked with a measured pace. Three strides and he exited the cage. But rather than lie down, he lunged to his left, grabbing the cattle prod and yanking it free. The second one jabbed him in the back and zapped.

Ambrose didn't go down, but he did yell because it fucking hurt. He swung his arms and felt his fist connect, solidly too; however, the effort turned out to be for nothing. With sheer numbers alone, they subdued him, hefting him onto the gurney and strapping him down.

Orion yelled, "Let him go! You'll regret this! We are Hekate's hounds. She won't be happy to find out you've taken us."

The soldiers didn't give a fuck. They wheeled Ambrose out of the horrifying basement into an elevator, the cab cramped with his rolling bed and their many bodies. Only half exited when the door opened, pushing his bed along a white sterile hall. He still couldn't contact Hekate, but he tried.

Goddess, I could really use a bit of help.

No reply.

A solid, steel-built door sat at the end of the hall with a security screen on either side. The chunky soldier removed his helmet and stepped to one of the screens to let it scan his face. The other required a woman in a white coat who suddenly arrived, obviously important given how fast the soldiers flattened themselves to the wall so she could pass through.

She let the screen scan an access card, and only then did the door open.

"I've got him from here," she stated, grabbing his bed and pushing it into the room, which turned out to be full of lab equipment.

"Who are you?" Ambrose asked.

She pretended as if he'd not spoken as she parked him in front of another door that required scanning. Then she wheeled him into the next chamber, a room with padding all over and an even more dulling sensation compared to the basement.

What had they done to this place to make it god-proof?

"Rise and shine, Thaddeus. I've got another one for you."

Only when she spoke did Ambrose realize the room held someone else. A man, rather large in size but not fat, just very tall and broad-shouldered with a military-style crew cut. He sat in a chair in a corner, and at her words, he rose. Another prisoner, but why keep him apart?

And why did he seem familiar? Ambrose would have sworn he'd never seen the man before.

"Must I?" the man murmured. "This will be the fifth today."

"We need this one. He's got a connection to our target. We can use that to hopefully snare her."

Ambrose wanted to fist pump. Adeline hadn't been caught!

"No more after this one. I need to recover," muttered the man.

"No whining. Get this done while I make a call." The woman exited, and the man named Thaddeus neared Ambrose. While Ambrose detected nothing unusual about him, a bad feeling travelled through him.

He tried reasoning. "Whatever it is she wants you to do, you don't have to. Set me free and I can help you."

"There is no help for me. Just pain. Pain and loneliness." Thaddeus' lips turned down. "I am sorry. This won't take long."

The man held out his hand. He didn't even touch Ambrose, and yet fear filled him, and he prayed one last time, Goddess, save me.