Hotbloods 5: Traitors

“You!” He sneered, looking up at me from the floor.

I frowned. Until he came into Lorela’s room, I’d never seen this guy before in my life. “I don’t know you, Doctor. You and me—we’ve never met,” I said, confused.

“Ah, of course you don’t remember me. You torture so many poor souls—I imagine they all start to blend together, after a while?” he replied bitterly. He tried to wriggle free of my weight, but there was nothing he could do to move me.

My Aksavdo skills were good, but I’d expected more of a fight from this guy. To my human strength, even ordinary coldbloods were a challenge, and Doctor Ulani was a fairly large specimen.

I wrenched his arm upward to stop him flailing, when it suddenly reshaped itself. I felt the cold, almost-damp texture of his skin as it slithered away from my grasp.

“You’re a shifter!” I gasped.

“You don’t say.” He glared up at me through huge, red-veined eyes. The rest of his body morphed into its normal form. His pale, wrinkled skin pooled at the knees and elbows, making him look like a giant newborn bird. The shifter flashed a gaping mouth full of shark-like teeth. I’d forgotten just how ugly these things were, and though it was hard to tell them apart, I had a feeling I knew exactly who this one was. His voice brought back memories of hot noodle soup and a wintry tundra.

“I do know you,” I said.

“Where’s your bloodsucker boyfriend? I knew it wouldn’t be long before he lost interest. These grayskins are all the same. They treat their lovers like planets—they invade, take what they want, and move on!”

The puzzle pieces were slotting into place. This was the shifter that Navan and I had captured, back on Earth—the one we’d forced to lead us into the rebel base.

“How can you be here?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“What, you think you’re the only one who can fly to the opposite side of the universe and come up with some half-assed ruse to get into this place?” He snorted. “You’re as cocky as that ugly coldblood of yours. Probably a good thing he left you when he did; otherwise, you’d end up with a brain as warped as his.”

I shook my head. “He hasn’t left me.”

“Well, I don’t see him anywhere. Did he turn ‘invisible’ since the last time I saw you?” he said mockingly.

“He’s just not here right now, that’s all.”

The shifter nodded. “Right, right, I see. He’s just ‘not here’ right now. As in, old grayskin is never coming back! I told you, these creatures change lovers as often as I change skins.”

“Look, let’s keep it strictly business, shall we?” I suggested tersely.

“Ooh, let’s.”

I rolled my eyes at him, struggling to keep my voice down. “I get how you got here, but why are you here?”

“Weren’t you listening, sweet cheeks?” He chuckled, pulling a toothy grimace that was meant to be a smile.

“What, you’re really a mercenary?”

“Don’t act so surprised.” He pouted. “You and your coldblood stooge might’ve passed me off as nothing more than an unwilling tour guide, but I’ve got a whole host of skills that you couldn’t even dream of, sunshine! I’m not saying this wouldn’t be a good way to go, with you sitting on my chest, but do you think you could let me up before you suffocate me with your thighs?”

I jumped up and staggered back, my cheeks flushing. I was so appalled by him that I forgot to look where I was going, stepping back too far. My hip crashed into the cart of alchemy tools, the metal rattling loudly.

“Keep it down, princess! Do you want the cavalry to come running?” the shifter hissed, as I struggled to still the juddering cart. “Honestly, if I get caught because of you, I’ll be really pissed.”

The two of us paused, frozen in a silent face-off. I kept an ear out for any approaching footsteps, either from the passageway below the lab, or the main door. Satisfied that nobody was coming, I stepped closer to the shifter, squaring off against him. I still didn’t know what he knew, and, until I could be sure, he wasn’t getting out of here alive.

“Where does that door lead?” I asked.

“A spiral staircase, which leads down from the attic,” he replied casually.

It wasn’t the exciting mystery I’d hoped it would be, but at least now I knew. “How did you find your way to the staircase?”

“I have this device,” he explained, gesturing to the strange object. “It traces the past movements of certain people using residual scent signatures. I just put a trace on Jareth Idrax’s particular signature, and it led me straight to the staircase.” There was something oddly disgusting about the way the scent trail worked, but if it had helped the shifter find the lab, I knew it couldn’t be all bad.

“You know I can’t let you leave this room, don’t you?” I said, a hint of apology in my voice.

“Then why did you let me up? Why not stick me like a hog while you had the chance?”

“Look, tell me what you know, and we’ll see if we can come to an arrangement,” I said.

He grimaced licentiously. “Now you’re talking my language.”

“Keep it clean, shifter, or I’ll change my mind.”

“Fine, be a killjoy.” He waved a rubbery limb. “A deal sounds right up my alley. I live, you don’t have to worry, and we both get what we want. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

I shuddered at the mental image it conjured up, imagining my nails getting lost in the folds of his pooling flesh. I could tell he knew what I was thinking, as an irreverent glitter rippled across his huge, red-veined eyes, which were more iris than anything else.

“Sounds good,” I said at last.

He stuck out his hand, the flesh hanging from his elbow like a skin-hammock. “The name’s Mort. I’d tell you what it’s short for, but you wouldn’t be able to pronounce it.” I took the proffered hand and shook it as quickly as possible.

“Riley. But you already knew that.”

“I enjoy the way it rolls around on the tongue—Riley, Riley, Riley,” he purred, pleased with himself. “Anyway, I defected from Orion not long after my little adventure with you and the bloodsucker. Orion decided it wasn’t enough to have us as cannon fodder and cheap labor, and decided he’d add ‘lab rat’ to our list of expendable qualities. He experimented with that elixir on a friend of mine, and my friend died horribly… I can still see the way her skin sloughed off her body and hear the screams as she melted in front of my eyes. He threw her out like she was trash, leaving her to wander the forest, alone.”

“I’m sorry… That’s awful.”

“It was worse to live through,” he replied sadly.

“Why are they testing on your kind?”

“Orion wants to use us as test subjects before using the elixir batches on coldbloods. I guess we are easier to replace.”

It was such a Vysanthean thing to do that I couldn’t believe Brisha and Gianne hadn’t thought of it yet. Maybe, just maybe, there was a sliver more humanity in them than there was in Orion.

“He doesn’t even bother disposing of the bodies. He just piles them in an open, mass grave, only covering it with dirt when the stench and the flies get to be too much,” Mort continued solemnly. “Shifters have to be buried in a very particular way that allows their dead bodies to become one with the soil, but he ignored our pleas to give the proper funeral rites to our dead. We are things to him, not people. Now, I want revenge.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Well, I might have a few ideas,” I said. “How about we take this somewhere less dangerous?”