Immortally Embraced (13 page)

“No.” Marc was strung tight. “One step at a time,” he said, his voice low. “For now, I’ll be happy if we make it to the main path.”

I gave him my best what-the-fuck.

His eyes darted over the shadowy road ahead. “If they know something, they’ll arrest us right away.”

Well now, that was a comforting thought.

“Almost there,” Oghul gritted out behind us.

I could see the lights up ahead. I looked over my shoulder at Oghul and the inky darkness behind us. Just a little bit longer. I returned my focus to the light. We could do this.

A pair of soldiers stepped out from a side path. “Hey you!”

My heart leapt to my throat. No. We were so close. These were cyclops guards, MPs.

Marc gripped my arm protectively. His other hand went down to his side and I was suddenly terrified that he had a weapon. Cyclops weren’t immortal, but they were damn hard to kill. Especially in the middle of a MASH camp.

They stopped in the path in front of us, blocking us.

The one on the right looked me up and down. “By the blood of Cerberus,” he snarled, then chuckled low in his throat. “You finally took a slave girl.”

For gods’ sake
.

“I can smell you all over her.” The bald one on the left grinned, openly leering. “It’s about time. We were starting to think you were gay.”

Marc barked out a laugh. “Just because I have higher standards than you assholes doesn’t mean I like guys.”

“It doesn’t help that you play chess with those immortal Greeks,” the guard on the right said with a shrug.

His buddy nodded. “You know the old Greek army,” he said, matter-of-fact.

Marc snorted. “I wasn’t there.”

Neither was the cyclops. He couldn’t have been more than six hundred. After that, the one-eyed MPs were forced into early retirement. Lucky bastards.

I stiffened as an entire squad of elite troops marched down the main path ahead of us. “What are they doing out so late?”

“Is one man not enough?” Old Baldy leered a bulging, bloodshot eye, and his buddy joined right in.

Marc’s grip on my arm tightened. “Too bad for you I don’t share.”

“Gotta go,” I added, as he ushered me past the perverts.

When we were out of earshot, Marc leaned back toward Oghul. “That isn’t normal. The troops on the road.”

“No.” The Mongol breathed heavily behind us as we made it onto the main path. “Still. If they knew, they’d arrest us.”

“Ah, well, there you go,” I said, practically jogging to keep pace with them. “No problem, then.”

“This way,” Oghul said, leading us across the center courtyard. With a glance back, we ducked into the shadows next to the main supply tent.

Oghul kept on, going past the tent and behind a small storage shed near the cemetery. I could see wooden tombstones learning awkwardly up the hill.

Marc pulled out a flashlight and so did I. Mine came from Rodger’s care packages. I couldn’t believe Marc had one, too.

“Where did you get that?” I asked.

“My mom sent it,” he said, aiming it at the ground.

“You really need to write her.”

“Not now,” he said under his breath, leading us over to an old storage shed. The ground dipped back here. He shone his light on a circular grate.

I tried to see what was down there. “This is your big plan?”

Oghul stood over us, breathing hard out of his mouth. “They will not let you in the front. The back is guarded.”

True, but, “What is this? Some kind of an exhaust vent?”

Apprehension crawled up my spine when I saw the ground around it was charred and black. They had some caustic experiments going on down there.

Marc crouched in front of the grate and aimed his light down as far as he could. The piping was made of smooth metal. “We work with toxic chemicals. There are vents all over camp.”

It smelled like burned hair. “It’s just like the old army to take care of its people,” I muttered, feeling the caustic air in the back of my throat. No telling what toxic debris they were blowing right into camp. The immortals didn’t mind. They didn’t get cancer.

Marc’s expression was grim. “They have my protest on file.” He turned his head and coughed into his sleeve. “This vent leads straight to the main research room.”

I hunkered next to him. “Where Dr. Keller died.”

Marc nodded. “It’s where he is now at least.”

Probably where he was murdered too. Ghosts tended to linger.

I straightened and double-checked my gun. I really didn’t like this vent idea, but it didn’t look like we had much choice.

Oghul turned his attention to the shadows behind us. “Hurry.”

Right. We were sitting ducks out here.

Marc stood next to me. “Go for it, Oghul.”

The berserker bent over the hole and seized the bars blocking it. He twisted his face, grunting as the bars groaned apart.

Marc dug in his pack and handed me the most bizarre-looking thing I’d seen in a while. It was a gas mask. Only this one looked like it had been issued in the early 1900s.

The seeing apparatus resembled two large bug eyes. A round breathing hole was capped with a red grille. A bendable, rubber tube like an old vacuum hose ran from under the breathing hole down to a small square pack designed to strap onto the back.

“You don’t have anything from this century?” I asked.

“You know the old gods,” Marc said.

Actually, I didn’t.

“This is just until you make it through the vent,” he continued. “I’ll go first.”

I was amazed he even had a working gas mask. I took it and strapped the pack to my back.

We were here. We had one shot, and I couldn’t chicken out now.

Oghul gripped Marc’s shoulder as he swung his feet into the opening. “Do not be irrational.”

Marc pointed his flashlight down the hole. “This coming from the berserker.”

“You don’t have a mask.” It was the first time I’d seen the Mongolian worried.

My stomach hollowed. “This is the only one.”

“Army regulations,” he said, shoving flashlights into his pockets.

Of course they only issued one.

Marc grabbed a pistol out of the bag and shoved a magazine into it.

“They do not issue masks to my kind,” Oghul said. “I’m not going down there.”

“Then you can’t go, either,” I told Marc. I could handle this. “We don’t need you breathing whatever turned the ground black.”

“I’m not going to argue with you, Petra,” he said, then slipped down into the blackness.

He
didn’t
. I rushed to the hole. He did! The bastard was already in there. And he’d gone down fast. Goddamn it.

What was with him? Thinking he could risk himself like that. There was bravery and then there was driving the people who loved you nuts.

I shoved the gas mask on, breathing in the stale rubber air, making sure the filter was secured on my back. I had no peripheral vision from the eyeholes. I could barely look down. Oghul had to help me as I stumbled to the edge of the vent.

“You find him at the bottom,” he ordered.

I shoved down into the vent, feet first. My light bounced off the walls as I slid down about five feet and stopped. My vision was all screwed up. I could barely look down. My feet had gotten hung up on a twist in the pipe.

“Of all the—” My voice choked.

That’s right. Stay mad. Because if I really thought about what I was doing, I was going to freak out.

I eased around the curve in the vent, forcing myself downward as it leveled off.

My chest felt tight. I was closed in, trapped, the gray walls pressing down on me, inches from my nose.

My breath came hot and wet against the mask. Stifling. I wanted to rip it off. I wanted to yank off the filter pressing into my back, jamming me into this narrowing network of pipes.

The walls were getting smaller. I could feel them closing in.

I swallowed, tasting blood in the back of my throat.

Get a grip.

I wouldn’t get stuck. I couldn’t.

Marc had made it. He was down there somewhere.

I refused to let myself think he could be hurt, gasping for breath, because if I did, I really was going to panic.

Sweating, chest heaving, I inched forward.

I could make it. I could do it. I wasn’t going to die down here, stuffed into a pipe, trapped underground.

Alone.

I listened for Marc, for any sound beyond that of my own labored breathing.

As I pressed on, the pipe began to widen. Or maybe it was just my imagination. I didn’t know, didn’t care as I scooted forward more rapidly. I was just starting to think I might make it when I began sliding.

“No, no…” I gripped the sides, my sweaty palms sliding over the smooth metal sides. I could do this. I could make this.

The vent made a sudden, terrifying drop.

A scream caught in my throat as I hurtled down into the blackness.

chapter eleven

I fell for what seemed like an eternity.

It had to be only a few seconds because I was still screaming as I slammed sideways onto the floor of the research room with a bone-rattling crunch.

My hip ached. Everything throbbed. My hands burned. I cradled my arm to my chest as I rolled onto my back.

“Petra.” Marc helped me sit up. Glass littered the floor. “Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere.” Heaving, I peeled off the gas mask and immediately regretted it. The place smelled like melted plastic and fifty kinds of caustic chemicals. My eyes began to water. “Are you okay?” I asked, trying to adjust.

He handed me a detox wipe for my hands. “I’ve been better, but yes,” he said as I got my first decent look at the lab.

We’d crash-landed straight into a nightmare.

The place was trashed. Light fixtures hung by wires. Test tubes and broken bottles were strewn over the lab tables and the floors. The fume hood had been ripped off its hinges.

My throat was raw. I’d never seen a murdered soul go on such a violent rampage. “Dr. Keller did this?”

“I’m counting on you to tell me.” Marc gave me a hand as I stood. “But right now, we need to hide.”

“Why?” My knees were like rubber and my nose was starting to run.

“You were screaming.”

“Right.” I winced. Aside from the insane murdered ghost, we still had to worry about live guards with swords. I stiffened as soldiers’ footsteps pounded down the hallway outside.

What I’d give for a get-out-of-jail-free card right about now.

The chains around the lab entrance rattled. “You sure we want to go in there?” asked a soldier on the outside.

“Unlock it,” another replied.

Marc and I exchanged a glance as the chain dropped to the floor.

“This way,” he said against my ear. Broken glass crunched under our boots as he led me to a cabinet with a bright yellow warning label displaying a black biohazard symbol. Underneath, it read:

Caution

Fatally toxic to mortals and immortals.

Open only with proper equipment.

I stared at my gorgeous, but clearly deranged ex. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The cabinet was sealed with what looked to be a complex, enchanted lock. It was boxy, bronze, and emblazoned with protective runes. Marc placed his thumb in the center and inserted a key into the bottom.

I searched for the gas mask and realized it had cracked right between the eyes.

It wouldn’t have been enough anyway.

My pulse thudded in my ears as Marc popped open the lock to the biohazard cabinet.

I wasn’t going in there. Better to get arrested than eaten alive by toxic chemicals.

“Trust me,” he said, swinging the door open just far enough for us to slip inside.

Holy hell. I heaved my aching body into the closet. Marc followed and swiftly closed the door.

Now we just had to hope we survived our hiding place.

I pressed tight against him. His roughened cheek scraped against mine and sent a tiny chill down my spine. I swallowed hard. The soldiers were already in the lab. Steel slid against scabbards as they drew their blades.

If they saw us duck in here, we were dead meat.

The last thing I needed to deal with was the way Marc’s hands clasped my back, the way he ran his thumbs up and down my spine, as if to comfort me. Nothing could take the edge off this. Damn him for even trying.

“Up there,” one of them said.

We must have broken the vent on the way down. I pressed my forehead into Marc’s shoulder, trying to get a little distance. Just because we could die any minute didn’t mean I wasn’t pissed at him.

“Is that new?” a guard asked.

“Since last night? Yes.”

What—were they keeping track of the destruction? They’d better not see the gas mask I’d dropped. The issue number would lead them straight back to Marc.

Sweat trickled down my back. We were going to get caught. There was no way not to get caught.

He shifted against me, his entire body flexing against mine. I curled my fingers into his chest and pushed.

One of the guards whistled under his breath. He was far too close to our hiding spot. “They need to get an exorcist down here.”

“That would mean admitting they have a ghost,” his partner replied.

They were almost on top of us.

I wound my fingers into Marc’s uniform, grabbing him, holding him a breath away, seeking comfort the best way I knew.

The guards were methodical, precise. I could almost taste the palpable fear. They were too well trained to act on it.

No doubt they’d be more than happy to find a human source of this horror and skewer it. Marc’s body felt hot under my hands as I listened to the footsteps of the guards, the steady brush of cloth, the click of metal against metal.

“Papadakos, find where that vent leads and send a unit up. The last thing we need is a rampaging poltergeist in camp.”

I hoped Oghul was smart enough to have found a place to hide.

The lab grew eerily silent, as if they were listening for our breath.

Marc held still, his arm curled around me, supporting me. I could feel the thud of his heart under my palm, the tug as his chest rose and fell.

God, had I really been lying naked in bed with him just a couple of hours ago?