40. Chapter 40

Chapter 40

My hands snapped free. Almost at the same time, Shadow strolled out from beneath the pipes and slow-blinked at me. He sat down and yawned, showing his very white, very sharp teeth, then he looked around and saw Connor, who’d been tossed like a sack against the wall.

Shadow strolled over and jumped onto his stomach. Connor stirred and Shadow laid down and started to purr. Loudly. My heart gave two hard beats. To my sharp supernat hearing, the sound was virtually roaring around the confines of the room. Please don’t let them hear, I begged the universe.

The soldiers kept on talking and ignored us.

Connor’s head slowly rotated towards me and he blinked several times in surprise. Yes! Whatever Shadow had done by jumping on him and purring had freed him from the somnum. I’d heard that cats’ purrs could be healing but Shadow’s must have been off the scale. Was that another power he had? Or didn’t the blue drug work for long on vamps? That was something to think about later. Whatever had helped Connor, I didn’t care; the universe was totally on our side.

Now I had to get close enough to him to burn away his bonds, but I couldn’t do that without seeing what I was doing or I’d burn him instead. Regardless, Hope was wiping her nose and getting back up yet again – God, I loved her. She was the grittiest of bitches; no matter how many times she got stamped down, she kept getting back up.

My burns were itching so at least they were healing, maybe not completely until I drank some blood but enough that the pain wasn’t crippling. I licked my lips and focused. If the two of us were free, we could overpower the five humans. My heart was in my throat as I inched closer to Connor, praying that the bad guys wouldn’t look my way.

He locked eyes with me and I showed him that my hands were free. He nodded and rolled onto his side to give me access to his cuffs. That upset Shadow, who hopped down and batted at him with a soft paw. Now is not the time, Shadow buddy!

I locked my fingers around the furthest bit of cuff from Connor’s skin then, keeping my flame small, melted away the restraints. Connor smiled, reached up and caressed my face, then he gazed over at the men and mouthed, ‘On three.’

He held up three fingers and counted down. In a move as smooth as silk, he leapt to his feet. I was a second behind him and we rushed the group together, vamp speed. Thorsen was facing us and his eyes flew open wide. The lieutenant had the quickest reaction: he pulled out a high-tech looking gun and aimed it at Connor.

I recognised it instantly. ‘Taser!’ I yelled. My voice was back! A gun could kill us if it was a direct heart or head shot, and a taser shooting 1500 volts would disrupt a vamp’s nervous system the same as a human’s. I knew that from experience…

But it turned out that summoning Aoife had worked. She’d been biding her time but now she materialised in front of Fischer – and she screamed.

The human men fell like dominoes at the might of an angry banshee wail. Connor and I didn’t waste a second of the time she was giving us. Even as our own ears started to bleed, we grabbed flex cuffs from the prostate men and cuffed them. Man, that was satisfying.

Blood was dripping from their ears; clearly they couldn’t hear a damned thing and they were in agony. That gave me a grim sense of pleasure: they had stolen my voice so we had stolen their hearing. Tit for tat. Of course Aoife’s scream had rendered my ears silent, but that was nothing a little blood wouldn’t fix.

Connor had clearly had the same thought. He bit down on the other toady, who might as well have been wearing a red shirt for all his chances of survival, and drank until his ears were working again. He shoved the man at me and mouthed, ‘Drink . ’

Ack – I hated drinking from the source because the one time I’d done it I’d nearly lost myself. Connor shoved the man at me again and instinct made my fangs slide down. I was buried in the guy’s neck before I could blink and hot blood was bubbling into my mouth, warm blood was so much better than the cold shit I’d been ingesting! I swallowed it until my hearing came back with a pop.

I must have paused or given some other sign I was okay because Connor pulled the toady off me and shoved him back to the floor. Mealtime was over. The urge to keep on drinking was so strong that I had to take some deep breaths. I guessed vampirism was a little like Pringles: once you popped, you couldn’t stop.

‘Okay?’ Connor asked, concerned. I gave him a thumbs up because I knew he’d detect the lie in my voice if I said I was fine.

Thorsen had taken advantage of the momentary lapse in our concentration, stumbled to his feet and run out. In all the screaming and drinking, neither of us had remembered to secure him. I wasn’t worried because I knew he wouldn’t get far, but before I could chase after him, Shadow bounded off. I tried to call him back but no words came out.

We checked Margi and Sidnee; they were both unconscious but their ears weren’t bleeding. ‘How come Aoife’s scream didn’t hurt them?’ I asked Connor.

‘You have to be conscious for a banshee wail to work.’

There was a piercing cry from the corridor and we ran out to see what was going on. In the dim light I saw Thorsen sitting on the floor, cowering; in front of him, between him and the stairs, was a gigantic lynx. My gigantic lynx!

I grinned. Shadow was huge, at least ten times the size of a normal full-grown lynx, and closer to two hundred kilos than ten. He was standing menacingly, eyes glowing gold and silvery fur standing up in all directions. Even his little stub tail was a puff of fuzz. His growl was low, serious – and utterly terrifying.

I beamed. ‘What a good boy,’ I praised. Shadow gave a happy purr but in his current form it came out as a rumbling roar. Cool.

‘Got any more flex cuffs?’ Connor asked me.

I looked down at my hand, surprised I was still clutching the cuffs I’d taken from the lieutenant. ‘Yeah, here.’ He bound Thorsen tightly. To be honest, Thorsen looked relieved to be dragged back to the other room away from Shadow.

I looked back to see my kitten shrink back to his regular ten-kilogram self. Once he was his correct size, his shadow oozed back onto his fur. It looked like it came from inside his skin and I shuddered: he could use his shadow to increase his size? He was a pure supernatural anomaly, an unknown cryptid. I guessed it was up to me to unlock his secrets and his connection with the beast beyond the barrier. Whatever, he was my very best boy.

Connor and I weren’t done yet: we had to stop the remaining MIB assholes from injecting my friends and somehow disable them. The lieutenant had said there was a submarine waiting, which meant there were more MIB out there. He must have had some type of communication device to signal them to send a boat or a skiff to get everyone to the sub. Our time was growing short.

‘We have to search them,’ I said to Connor. ‘One of them – probably the lieutenant – must be able to get in touch with that sub.’

The lieutenant did indeed have a communication device – and so did the other men. We confiscated them all; with their ruined eardrums, it wasn’t like they’d be using them anytime soon.

Connor and I plugged the devices into our own ears; they were already switched on and an occasional smattering of conversation came through.

‘We have to leave with the tide. You have forty-five minutes. Acknowledge.’

Connor and I looked at each other, then he clicked the button to speak. ‘Acknowledged.’

Nothing else came through. ‘Guess it worked,’ he said.

‘I hope so. We need to save the others,’ I said.

The adrenaline was receding now, leaving me feeling more tired than ever. My hands started to shake and suddenly everything hit me. Why were these people so angry at supernats? I was like them : I wanted to go to work, earn a living, enjoy my pets and my boyfriend, and live a comfortable life. I wanted to go home to Portlock and curl up with my pets and Connor and a cup of tea – a proper one not like the crap they had here. How was my vampirism hurting them? How was my best friend being a mermaid a risk to national security? The fact that we were different changed nothing.

It always came down to fear. Since we had a different sort of power to them, they had to take it from us and eliminate us to feel safe. And that meant we supernats had to stay hidden. Well, screw that.

Connor must have noticed me spiralling because his comforting hand at the small of my back grounded me again. We had a mission to stop this mess, save the supernats and the academy, then help the state by taking the financial papers to people who would know what to do with them.

‘Take a deep breath, Bunny,’ Connor said gently. ‘We’ll get to the others, then we’ll expose these fuckers so they can’t continue their little supernat disposal plan.’

‘How? How do we do it while keeping our existence secret? We can’t expose the whole supernatural world.’

‘We won’t. We’ll use the law,’ he said confidently.

‘How?’ I asked again.

He held up the syringe, clasped in a scrap of paper so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints. He must have picked up the one that had been left at Margi’s feet. ‘Evidence.’

He was right – and I needed to pull myself together. I was an officer of the Nomo’s office of Portlock; I was the law. I was also a recruit at the State Trooper Academy and I could recall every single lesson we’d had. We would bring them down as humans .

I straightened up. ‘You’re right. I just needed a moment. The Shadow-cat situation threw me for a moment, but I’m totally fine.’

My half-grown kitten rubbed against my legs and I leaned down to stroke his silky fur. ‘You are a rascal. We’ll figure you out some day … but in the meantime, please stay here and stay out of trouble! Go watch over Sidnee. We’ll be right back.’

For once Shadow did as I asked and he walked down the corridor to the plant room. I hesitated. I didn’t want to leave Sidnee and Margi if any of those assholes were conscious.

It didn’t take much to bend my morals a little, and I went back into the room and hit each man over the head so they passed out. Better. I removed Sidnee’s cuffs and moved her to the anteroom so she wouldn’t be with them when she woke up, then Connor and I removed Margi’s restraints, lifted her off her chair and laid her down next to Sidnee.

‘Okay, now we can go,’ I said. We still had Eben and a couple of the other MIB to deal with, but that was doable.

We raced up the stairs and burst out the door at the top – which I closed as firmly as I could so Shadow wouldn’t do anything else strange in full view of the entire academy. To my surprise, most of the staff and recruits were still milling around the main entrance. The fire seemed like a lifetime ago, but we hadn’t been gone more than half an hour. Apparently, the event required a debriefing and copious amounts of doughnuts and hot cocoa; it was the academy’s solution to everything, and it was hard to argue with.

I scanned the crowd. Danny, Harry and George were surrounded by other recruits, which had probably prevented them being injected and dragged down to the basement. A wave of relief weakened my knees and I stumbled. That was when I saw Eben and Sergeant Marks walking towards the cafeteria.

No one was down there. Was Sergeant Marks with Eben, or was Eben going to inject him and send him to the submarine? My money was on the latter. ‘Connor, I’m going after Eben. Can you keep an eye on them?’ I pointed to Harry, George and Danny.

‘Yeah. Go.’ I loved that he didn’t doubt I could handle Eben.

It didn’t take me long to catch up with him and Marks. There were just the three of us and the noise from out front had faded to a low murmur; no one would hear us.

‘Let him go, Eben,’ I said, my voice low and threatening.

Marks looked at me strangely. ‘What’s up, Barrington? I came to talk privately to Eben – I’ll be back out in a minute if you need something.’

‘No. Eben is an MIB plant. He has a syringe to inject you with then he’s going to take you to a submarine and transport you to a black-ops site for experimentation.’ It sounded a little far-fetched when I said it out loud. ‘Trust me,’ I added.

Eben gave an awkward laugh. ‘Don’t be weird, Barrington. I have a question about class.’ He was trying to act as though I were batty, but even so Sergeant Marks backed away from him.

‘He’s already attacked Danny – Danny confirmed it,’ I persisted.

Sergeant Marks froze. I could see the wheels turning in his brain and I saw the moment he accepted that I was telling the truth. The problem was that Eben saw it too and he leapt forward, the syringe in his hand aimed at Marks’ neck.

The sergeant had been looking at me but he caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. Luckily he was a supernat and he was fast . He caught Eben’s arm in a hard grip before the syringe touched him. I heard Eben’s wrist snap and he screamed in agony.

After I plucked the syringe from his nerveless hand, Sergeant Marks threw him against the wall. Eben slid down, unconscious. I held out a hand to prevent Marks doing something he’d regret. ‘That’s probably enough. I’ve got it from here, Sarge.’

I took another set of flex cuffs from my back pocket and secured Eben’s arms. Even though he was unconscious, he whimpered when I pulled his broken wrist behind him. I almost felt sorry for him before I remembered that he’d been lying to us for weeks, had kidnapped one of my friends and was planning to take us to be experimented on. Asshole.

I turned to Marks. ‘We have to find a couple of Thorsen’s allies because they’re after Danny, George and Harry. The rest are tied up downstairs.’

‘The rest?’

‘Yes. The poltergeist pointed them out.’ I took a deep breath; this next revelation would be a shocker to the sergeant. ‘Lieutenant Fischer was involved.’

Marks shook his head vehemently. ‘No, I don’t believe it.’

‘He, Thorsen and Miller are secured downstairs in the basement plant room. Margi and Sidnee were drugged and they’re down there, too, sleeping it off.’

The sergeant scrubbed his hands over his face and muttered something I didn’t pick up; from his expression I guessed they were some choice swear words. I blew out a breath; we weren’t done yet. ‘I need your help.’

Marks straightened. ‘What do you need?’

‘To come up with a good reason why we’re about to arrest all of these people. I figured that the attempted kidnapping is a start.’

He nodded. ‘Yeah, that should be enough to switch it to federal charges and take the locals out of it after they do the arrest. But the MIB are tricky – they’ll either get these bastards off or make sure they never talk again.’

I hadn’t thought of that possibility but it made sense: they were utterly ruthless. ‘We’ll need to prove the attempted kidnapping happened, right?’

‘Yeah, we need evidence and witness statements. When the feds take over, we need to have our ducks in a row. We need to keep it strictly to kidnapping.’

‘Maybe money? Ransom demands?’

‘Maybe.’

I frowned. ‘The MIB think ahead. These men will already have a line to toe if they get caught.’

‘We’ll get around it.’ Marks ran his hand through his short hair and shook his head in disbelief. ‘I thought Fischer was a proponent of supernat officers. But we have two jobs to do – first, save our people, and second, turn these scum over to the Sitka police. Let’s do it.’

I grabbed Eben, whose fast heart rate told me he’d come around though he was playing possum for all he was worth. As I hauled him to his feet, he whimpered again and opened his eyes. ‘Walk, asshole,’ I snarled. Marks seized his other arm and we frogmarched him back to the crowd.

The recruits were scattered around the front entrance, still talking and eating. Marks took up a position near the reception window and raised his hands to get everyone’s attention. Once he had it, he said, ‘A kidnapping ring has been discovered here at the academy. If you see Brandon Steele or Dominic Olsen, you are hereby obliged to arrest them.’

Murmuring and head-turning ensued, but although the recruits looked around curiously they seemed confused rather than convinced. Sergeant Marks looked at me and shrugged. I guessed we’d have to arrest the men ourselves. That was fine; I didn’t mind getting my hands dirty.

As I looked around, I spotted Steele and Olsen. They saw me coming and ran.

But not fast enough.