Blood Moons (32 page)

But she knew what he would do if he woke up and she
was
still here.

It'll get me away from him.

And maybe that was what they needed.

"Tonight," she said. "I'll be ready tonight."

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290

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

26th day of the 4th Blood Moon, 3028

It was raining. Had been for two days straight. On the streets of the aptly named Gray Dublin, in the forest of high-risers, that meant every street lamp was shining to lend some light on the dark day. The sewers weren't backing up yet, but it wouldn't be long. Already their aroma wafted through the chill air like a bad omen.

Dara shivered, huddling beneath her umbrella, lifting her feet out of the worst of the grayish brown water that poured along the sidewalks in small rivers. Her newly healed wounds itched so much she wanted to scratch her back against the corner of a building. She refrained only because she didn't know how many people's DNA contributions coated it.

She was standing in front of a very official-looking building with no-nonsense tinted windows, all of them closed. In a few minutes, Calen would be meeting her inside to escort her to the Secret Society of Freaks, as she'd dubbed it, because it fit better than the official name. Dara had an appointment with Special Unit director John MacMurphy. It was special in that every member of the unit was a telepath.

Determined not to feel depressed, she walked up the stairs to the building's entrance and shook out her umbrella before she brought it inside after her. A helpful little old man took it from her and opened it near the heater to dry.

"Right on time," Calen said by way of greeting. He was still a gentleman in most things, but crawling inside her mind had 291

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somehow stripped him of his perfect control around her. He probably figured she'd seen worse than bad manners. "John is still talking to some recruits, but he reserved a room for us and he'll meet us there in a few minutes."

"Were you planning on me being among those recruits when you first came to see me?"

"It's not like that," he said, leading her down a surprisingly nice hallway. "Those people in there aren't trained telepaths.

They're just scared kids, a lot of them drug addicts, who think they're losing their minds. A lot like you were a month ago."

"I never took drugs."

"You know what I mean. We give them the training they need to stay sane. We provide them with housing, food, clothes, whatever they need. We give them a purpose, a job, and a place to belong. That's not a bad deal."

"And in return, you ask them to look into thoughts so sick and twisted that they wish they'd never come here. How many have you lost so far?"

It was clear Calen didn't want to talk about this, but for some reason Dara didn't want to guess, he was humoring her. "In the first three years, about half. But times have changed. Back then, we were all just as lost. We learned by trial and error, and our rules evolved with us. Now, new recruits are only sent to scan nonviolent crime suspects.

There are levels and ranks, but even at the highest levels, agents aren't
told
to go to places like New Alaska. They are asked, and can turn down any assignment they don't want to be involved with."

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He opened the door for her and held his hand out for her coat. The room wasn't anything like the outside of this building. It was clean, but well used. Well lived-in. It looked like someone's home, complete with a kitchenette and bathroom. There was a plate of cookies on the table and a jug of milk. "What is this place?"

"This is where we train," Calen answered. "What did you expect, an interrogation room?"

The windows weren't windows here. They were screens showing a magnificent view of the ocean, waves gently breaking on the beach. All that was missing was the sounds.

"Considering joining forces with us?"

It was cozy here. But fake. The moment she stepped foot out of this building again, she'd be back in hell. Dara had seen heaven. She'd lived there for a while. To her, this was only slightly better than New Alaska.

Calen shrugged, reading the answer in her expression. "It was worth a try."

When MacMurphy came in, he wasn't what Dara expected, either. The Special Unit director was a man in his late fifties and the strength he'd had in his youth still showed in the proud way he carried himself. He had the airs of a rich man, but was dressed in worn jeans and a plain shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. His hair was dark gray and cut just a little long. All in all, a clear patriarch. Someone who was in charge and expected others to defer to his judgment.

He bore the weight of that responsibility in his eyes.

"You know why you're here," he said without preamble.

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"Yes," she said. She was here because the daughter of a prominent businessman—a man with political aspirations and ties to the upper levels of government—had gone missing, and in the three days since she'd been back, Dara hadn't been able to connect with the serial killer. There were five days left to the end of the month. If the killer had taken this girl, she didn't have long to live. Calen had brought Dara here so that MacMurphy could help her. Somehow.

"Good. Then let's get started." He motioned for them to sit and pulled up a chair for himself.

Dara chose the soft armchair and sat tensely, waiting for MacMurphy to give her directions.

"Jeremy has apprised me of your peculiar situation," the older man said. "Tell you the truth, it's not something I've seen before."

"Then how do you propose to help me?"

"We'll take this one step at a time. For now just sit back and close your eyes. I want you to go to that place in your mind where you feel him. Just go there and get a sense for the way it looks, the way it feels. And tell me if you get anything."

Dara wanted to tell him that the thing had gone silent on her so there was no point, but she followed his directions, willing to try. She closed her eyes and turned her sight inward. It wasn't easy navigating her own mind. She kept seeing Niren Colony and everything she'd left behind.

Tristan's face was ever present, both human and tiger. Even though he was light years removed, she still dreamed about him, as though he was still just across the lake. Dara did her 294

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best not to think about him during the day—and she succeeded some minutes more than others. But at night, when she slept, there was no shield to keep him out of her dreams.

It was unwise to dwell on the past. Especially now, thoughts of Tristan distracted her from her purpose here. But Dara didn't
want
to stop thinking about him. She'd held out hope that returning home, to the cocoon of her normal life, would be a comfort. She hadn't been prepared for the utter emptiness she'd felt since stepping foot back on Earth.

And it had nothing to do with the fact that no one had come to greet her, or that she had no one to call—not even her boss, since they'd fired her when she'd gotten arrested. It was because she'd walked away from something that could have been amazing. It might have been her happy ending, if she'd given it a chance.

Dara steeled herself against the sharp stab of regret, pushed Tristan from her thoughts, and focused on the task at hand. She knew she'd only be returning to all of it again as soon as she was done here, but for the moment, she couldn't dwell on how much she wished Tristan was here with her, or how much she wanted it to be his voice telling her what to do, rather than MacMurphy's.

Dara homed in on the source of the problem and approached it with caution. The alien thing in her mind had changed during her journey to Earth. She had no way to describe it except that it had become hard, like a nutshell.

Opaque and black, when before it had been like a soft sponge of chaos.

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She tested the waters a few times before drawing closer.

The thing pulsed with bad vibes, but didn't give up any secrets. She touched the hard shell, looked for a seam of some sort, but there was nothing. Maybe it worked like a window and she wasn't supposed to go into it, but rather look through it.

Dara polished the surface and drew even closer to peer through the darkness. Black smoke curled and swirled in the depths of it; it felt far bigger on the inside than was possible and she knew she was treading on dangerous ground. If that shell ever broke, if whatever was inside got out, it would poison every corner of her mind and she would cease to exist.

Instinctively she knew this. She described what she saw to MacMurphy without opening her eyes.

"That's good," he said. "We won't mess with it, don't worry. What I want you to do is see if you can move it."

Move something intangible with something else, just as intangible? And why would she want to anyway? It wasn't as if she could
move
it out of her mind. "I can't move it," she said. "It's not really there.
I'm
not really there."

"Imagine it moving."

She ... tried. It was like trying to slap a ghost.

"You said it's not really there.
Make
it be there. It's your mind, Miss Frost. You make the rules."

Dara curled her fingers into the armrests. The black thing in her mind was both not there and more real than even she felt when she was this close to it. It was an impossibility inside her mind and rules didn't apply to it. MacMurphy would know that if it was in
his
mind.

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"You can shape the world inside your mind. Shape yourself so that you have a physical presence. Then you can manipulate it."

Dara condensed her essence into a pair of hands. The thing was big enough—or she was small enough—that she could just get her hands around it. She placed her hands on the smooth surface and felt it change. It ... tensed, as if it perceived that Dara was there and it was waiting for her to do something. She slipped her fingers underneath it and gently, carefully, tugged up.

The shell cracked, one long fault line along its length.

There was a pale green light shining out of it, the black smoke still swirling, but only near the surface. Dara recognized the difference now. The smoke was just an illusion to hide what was inside.

Fear gripped her as that light stabbed through her mind, not with intent, but in a straight, unfocused line. She dropped the shell and drew far back.

"Miss Frost, what's going on? Talk to me."

Her awareness was split in three. Part of her was in the training room, hearing MacMurphy demand that she talk and feeling hot tears run down her cheeks. Another part of her was in her mind, watching the thing that had been nothing but a little black nut grow fangs and claws.

And still another part of her was with the killer, watching him watch her back.

Niren Colony

They'd kept him sedated for three days.

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And on the fourth, the nurse came in five minutes late.

There'd been no sedating Tristan after that. He was in his cage, naked, not that it mattered. He kept shifting rapidly back and forth between human and tiger. He hadn't eaten in three days because no one was brave enough to enter the room to give him food.

Amelia didn't even dare approach the door. She was sitting in her office, watching the video feed on her computer, every muscle in her body tense, waiting for that cage to finally give.

It would, sooner or later. It had been built to withstand attack, but not this constant onslaught of force. Tristan was alternating between throwing his enormous tiger body against the bars and prying at them with his human hands and amazing strength. They were already bulging and bent out of shape so much that, even if Amelia wanted to unlock the cage, she couldn't.

She silently timed his transformations. He'd reduced the time to two minutes, to a minute and a half. To sixty-five seconds. To twenty-two seconds. He was tireless. Mindless with rage she couldn't even comprehend. He no longer spoke, but roared his fury.

Except for Amelia and the handful of guards surrounding the building—their nervous fingers on triggers that would discharge live rounds—the med camp had been evacuated.

Her superiors had broken off contact. They only talked to the gunmen now. Tristan was too unstable to transport. If he managed to get out, those men had orders to shoot to kill.

He knew it. That beast in the cage—whose last link to humanity Amelia had allowed to slip through her fingers—

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wasn't so much an animal that he didn't know what was going on. Oh, Tristan knew perfectly that Dara was gone. He knew—probably through Amelia—
why
she was gone. He knew how much time had passed, what had happened since he'd woken up, and what would happen when he got free.

He knew where the cameras were; he sought them out often, a terrible promise in his flickering eyes. She should run. There was a transport waiting to take her far from here.

But like a captain unwilling to abandon a sinking ship, Amelia couldn't turn her back on Tristan. She'd done this to him.

She'd created this monster and, even though it would kill her, tear her apart without mercy, she had to face it.

Amelia turned off the cameras, erased all her files, destroyed all evidence of what she'd done, so that no one could ever repeat her mistakes. She shut down her computers and collected the satchel she'd prepared yesterday. There was a handgun resting on the side table by the wall. Amelia looked at it for a long moment before she picked it up and walked out the door.

The noise was deafening. Groaning metal, bangs as loud as a church bell, roars half animal and half human, and all of it echoing through the hallways until the entire building seemed to shake and shudder. Amelia braced herself by the door.