Anew: Book Three: Entwined (30 page)

Even so, I can’t turn my back on
this. Not while there’s a chance that the intel is correct.

“We’ll check it out.” I say. “Tell
the on-call strike team that I want to be in the air in five minutes.”

“You’re going in the open?” Jacob
asks me. He looks like he thinks that’s a really bad idea.

“Yeah, we are. If the MPS wants a
fight, they’ll get one. But that won’t happen.”

I’m reasonably confident of this
based on my certainty that the Council is too craven to want a direct
confrontation with me at this time. Within half-an-hour, I know that I was
right about that much, at least.

“Hell of a place,” Hollis says as
he stares at the ruins of an octagonal tower that are all that’s left of the
lunatic asylum, if only on the surface.

I nod. “Let’s look around.”

A narrow, twisting flight of metal
steps leads down into what at first glance appears to be nothing more than a
hole in the ground. Only when we get to the bottom is it evident that a
partially collapsed corridor leads into a long abandoned complex of buildings.

The silence is pervasive. It hangs
heavy in air that smells of the nearby tidal marshes and more immediately of
mold. The latter is growing all over crumbling brick walls, the ceiling and the
floor.

But not on the wide stainless steel
doors that we come to before we’ve gone a hundred meters.

“What have we here?” Hollis
murmurs.

We run a quick check for booby
traps, then I do the honors. The hole I blow in the metal is still smoldering
when I step through it. I’m prepared for resistance, hell, a part of me is
looking forward to it. But there’s nothing. Only a large space, maybe half the
size of a football field, filled with…

Oh, shit.

Bile rises up in the back of my
throat. Beside me, I hear Hollis curse.

Others on the strike team are
coming in behind us. I’m vaguely aware of their shocked reactions but all I can
really hear is the soft beep of the machines and the gurgle of fluids in what
have to be several dozen gestation chambers. All illuminated by the pale red
light that fills the room, all being monitored by arrays of robo-techs that
don’t react to our presence at all but instead go right on with their duties.

“Fuck,” Hollis says. “A cloning
lab.”

With hindsight, I have to wonder
why I didn’t include that in my list of possibilities. Maybe because the idea
sickens me, knowing as I do what Amelia endured.

But it gets worse.

“Not just that,” I say. “Take a
closer look.”

As he does, I walk down an aisle
between two rows of the chambers. What I see confirms what I suspected the
moment I realized what we’re dealing with. Every one of the gestation chambers
is occupied by a male, some still quite young, others fully mature. Looking at
those in particular, I know the truth.

“Davos isn’t here, is he?” Hollis
says. His voice sounds choked. Even he, after all he’s seen and done, is having
trouble coping. I don’t blame him.

I shake my head. “No, he’s not. But
his clones are.”

Amelia

“C
hin up,” my grand-mother
murmurs. “Everything will be fine.”

I want to
believe her. But worry for Ian’s safety is eating away at me. Ever since Edward
revealed that Davos may have been located, and that Ian has gone to find out
for certain, I’ve scarcely been able to breathe. The fact that I’m surrounded
by several hundred guests, many avidly watching for the slightest hint of
weakness on my part, doesn’t make the situation any worse. It’s already bad
enough.

All the same, I
smile and do as Adele says, putting on the best face possible. “Of course it
will be. I just need a breath of fresh air.”

She nods
although I can see the concern in her eyes. “Let’s find Hayden. He can
accompany you.”

Ian and Edward’s
close friend, Hayden, has returned to the city in time to be Ian’s best man. I
have no doubt that he would take excellent care of me, provided that he didn’t
try once again to feed me too much candy.

All the same, I
say, “That isn’t necessary.” In my mind is the thought that I really don’t want
to look as though I’m incapable of standing on my own two feet for even a few
minutes. “I’ll just step outside for a moment.”

My grand-mother
relents. I squeeze her hand reassuringly, then make my way through the milling
crowd of guests until I can slip into the family parlor. From there, it’s a
quick step to the garden. The party has yet to spill out of the house. With
luck, I’ll be undisturbed long enough to repair my fraying nerves.

I’m hurrying,
aware that I can’t be gone for long, when I stop suddenly. On the wall directly
ahead of me, a portrait glows in the soft golden light of afternoon. A woman,
life-sized, in her early thirties and very beautiful. She is standing in the
same garden that lies just beyond the French doors. The cut stem of a lush
white peony dangles from the fingers of one hand. She, too, is all in white, a
pleated gown of Grecian design that leaves one shoulder bare and skims her
perfect figure. Her head tilts slightly to one side. She appears lost in
thought, unaware that she is being watched. There is an aura of delicacy about
her and a whiff of sadness.

Susannah. The
woman I was supposed to die for who instead accepted her own death so that I
might live.

I stare at her
for a long moment, trying to imagine what it was like to be her. But I can’t.
The gulf between us is simply too wide. For all that she gave me knowledge, she
didn’t give me experience or memory. Those are entirely my own. And they have
made me who I am.

Still, I am
deeply, profoundly grateful to her. I wish that I could tell her so. My hand is
reaching out to touch the edge of the frame holding her image when suddenly I
freeze.

Behind me, a
voice says, “Could this be any more perfect?”

A hand seizes my
hair and yanks my head backward. A knife is pressed to my throat.

I can’t turn my
head but I don’t have to. Davos steps to the side, just enough for me to see
him. He is incongruously dressed in a waiter’s uniform, a dark wig, and the
remnants of the facial prostheses he must have worn to alter his appearance. Otherwise,
he is just as I remember him down to the reptilian cast of his eyes.

“How did you get
in here?” I ask against the pressure of the blade. Even to my own ears, my
voice sounds far away. If he is here, where is Ian?
How
is Ian?

“It wasn’t
easy,” the monster says with a chuckle. “Not with the security your lover put
in place. But I suspected this moment would come and I planned accordingly.”

He slants me a
chiding smile. “The question you should really be asking yourself, my dear, is now
that I’m here, what am I going to do?”

His smile fades.
“Sadly, you’re no longer of use to me. Slade has seen to that. He’s ruined
everything. I don’t delude myself that I can continue to run from him. Frankly,
trying to do so is beneath my dignity.”

The knife presses
harder against my skin. I feel a sharp pain and a trickle of blood.

 “It’s all
become so pointless and exhausting,” Davos sighs. He glances toward Susannah. “I’ve
decided to accept what she did, that life is finite on at least some level. But
like her, I’ll only die in a sense. The greater part of me will live on.”

A chill of
horror runs through me. I’m struggling to breathe, to think, to remain in
control of myself when I hear the sound of a helicopter coming low and fast. At
the same time, I realize that Edward has stepped into the parlor. He has his
link in his hand and his face is ashen. At the sight of Davos holding me at
knife point, my brother stops abruptly.

“Amelia…”

I can’t hear him
but I see his lips move. He starts forward but stops again when Davos shouts,
“One step, McClellan, just one, and I slit her throat here and now. I’d really
prefer to wait but if you force my hand--”

Edward stills.
His gaze locks on mine. I cling to it, a lifeline in the nightmare that has
engulfed me. Behind my brother, I’m aware of guests peering into the parlor,
their faces shocked and terrified as they see what is happening.

But all I can
really think of is Ian. The sound of the helicopter has become a roar. From the
corner of my eye, I glimpse it dropping out of the sky to land in the garden.

Before the
blades have slowed, men leap from it. Ian is in the lead. He races toward the
house and flings open the French doors.

“Amelia!”

“So touching,”
Davos says. “The lovers about to be torn apart forever. Perhaps someone will compose
an opera about it or a ballet.” He pulls me a little closer. “Sadly, my dear,
you and I won’t be here to see it.”

“Let her go,”
Ian says. “It’s me you want. She hasn’t done you any harm. She’s innocent.”

“Ah, but that’s
all the more reason for you to live,” Davos says. “I want you to so that you
can remember over and over and over what you’re about to see. This thing…this
creature…giving up the life it should never have had.”

“I’ll kill you
if you harm her,” Ian says implacably. “You must know that.”

His eyes glitter
with rage but even more so with all-consuming fear that fills me with horror. I
cannot bear the thought of the man I love condemned to endure such brutal
memories.

“Oh, yes,” Davos
replies, “I know you will. But that won’t be the end of me. You’ve discovered
my little hideaway, haven’t you? And what it contains. Fifty clones. Well,
forty-nine since I was forced to sacrifice one of them. All endowed with human
rights, thanks to you. They’ll have to be awakened, the law requires it! Think
of it, Slade, all those versions of me going forward into the future. Do you
really believe you’ll be able to stop them?”

I feel the
rumble of the madman’s chuckle against my back. Everything in me, all that I
am, rises up in revulsion. Against the pressure of the blade at my throat, I
cry out so that all can hear. “They aren’t you! Any more than I’m Susannah.
They’re human beings with their own will! They’ll make their own choices.
They’ll have their own lives whereas you--”

Blood is trickling
down my neck. The world blurs at the edges. But I can still see clearly enough
to realize that Ian is moving forward, desperate to save me, knowing there
isn’t any time--

But there is for
me, close as I am to Davos. Time to wrap my foot around his ankle and jerk at
the same moment that I slam my elbow into his stomach. It’s a beginner’s move.
The first one Takashi taught me. But all the more potent for being so
unexpected.

A clone, a
thing, a creature who was never supposed to live wouldn’t fight to save its
life. But I will. I do. As I seize the knife falling from Davos’ hand, I don’t
hesitate.

 “You will be
dead,” I say and drive the blade deep into him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three weeks  later--

The Church of
St. Thomas on Fifth Avenue is filled to capacity and beyond. Every seat in the
pews is taken and more guests are standing toward the back. I peer out through
the curtained window of the vestibule and shake my head in amazement.

“Did anyone at
all decline to attend?” I ask Edward, who is waiting to escort me down the
aisle.

“Not a one,” my
brother says with a grin. He looks very handsome in his morning suit and well
rested despite the bachelor party he attended last night.

We have all
begun to relax, if only a little. The city is calm, at least for the moment. I
have no doubt that Ian intends to keep it that way. When he hasn’t been with
me, he’s been in meetings with Edward, Hayden, and their new allies, Jorge
Cruces, Violeta Vargas, and the man who answers only to Jacob. Between them,
they are doing everything possible to assure that peace is maintained.

Although I know
that challenges lie ahead, no shadow of them touches my heart as the first
notes of Wagner’s Bridal Chorus resound through the centuries-old church. As I
step out onto the flower-strewn central aisle, I’m aware of the faces peering
intently at me.

In among them
are at least some that are dearly familiar--Gab and Daphne, Hollis with his
Fiona, Hamako and Takashi, Sergei and a lovely blonde. Violeta Vargas is here,
wearing a vivid ruby dress that is a far cry from a worker’s drab uniform.
Beside her, Jacob looks startlingly handsome, if a bit self-conscious in a well
made suit. Others, workers and scavengers alike, are seated throughout the
pews, side by side with residents.

But really I
only have eyes for the tall, powerfully built man who stands at the altar. For
all that he appears calm and composed, his gaze is fixed on me. It is hard,
fierce, and thrillingly tender. It never waivers as down the length of the
aisle, carried on the triumphant notes of the music, I go to him.

To Ian. The dark
prince who awakened me. The man who fought his own demons to be at my side. My
hope, my joy, my love. Now and forever.