Immortally Embraced

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?

My mouth was dry, my head light. Please let it be from fear and not from some twisted chemical compound.

This was so screwed up. I should have stayed home, not gotten involved. What did I think I was? Some kind of superhero? I didn’t have any business traipsing around haunted underground labs. Or hiding in a biohazard cabinet. I mean, who does that?

Truly?

I was terrified of a vent, let alone this.

My teeth began to chatter. We couldn’t stay in here much longer. I couldn’t take it. I began to shake all over as footsteps echoed just outside the flimsy metal doors.

This was it. The end of the road. There was nowhere else to hide, no way to fight.

Nothing else we could do.

Heart hammering, I squeezed my eyes shut.

Please God, let them keep going.

They stopped.

I found Marc’s hand and squeezed it tight. Fiercely, silently, he pulled me into a bear hug. I clung to his warm body, his flak jacket rough against my cheek. This was it. He cradled my head protectively with his hand and rested his lips on the top of my head as we waited for the end.

Static broke through as the soldier hit his radio button. “The lab is clear.”

I gripped Marc tighter.

Footsteps echoed outside. “What about the closet?” a soldier asked.

“I took care of it personally,” the guard responded.

A beep sounded from the radio. “Understood. Seal it back up.”

“Head out,” our guy said to the room at large. “We’ve done our spook check for the night.”

I pulled away from Marc, shaky, never so relieved in all my life. He stood at my back as I pressed my hands against the cool metal of the doors and listened to the soldiers lock us back into the lab.

“Easy.” Marc’s voice tickled my ear and I realized my hand had wandered down to the door handle.

I knew. We had to play this right. But I couldn’t wait to get out of the toxic storage vault.

Yes, I was glad Marc saved us. I was relieved and grateful and fall-down ecstatic not to be caught in the web of old army justice.

But at what cost?

We waited three full minutes—exactly 180 seconds—after the last soldier left.

At last, we popped the door.

I staggered out as fast as my bruised body would allow. Marc caught me around the shoulders. “I’ve got you,” he whispered as I lurched sideways.

The lab was dark, except for dim security lights on the tables. I tried to check my arms, my legs. “What was in that closet?” I hissed.

“Nothing.” He gripped my good shoulder as he smoothed the hair out of my eyes with his other hand. “I’m sorry I scared you. There wasn’t time to explain.”

“I don’t get it.” Just past him, I could see the toxic storage vault.

My mouth fell open.

Empty.

“What is it?” I whispered, “some kind of radioactive isotope?”

“Dr. Keller and I put up that warning to keep the old army out of our paperwork. As much as we could, at least.”

I blinked, trying to absorb it all. “So we weren’t getting eaten alive in there?”

He held me steady. “No.”

I grabbed him, hugged him, so glad to be whole and healthy, even if we were locked in a secret lab with a poltergeist.

“That guard,” I said, glancing at the sealed door to the lab, “was he a friend of yours?”

“No,” Marc said, “just someone smart enough to be afraid of biohazard signs.”

I grinned despite myself.

“Okay, hotshot,” I said, wiping my nose, trying to recover, “let’s get down to business.”

Marc was all too happy to oblige. “Keller is here somewhere,” he said low, scanning the room as if he had a chance of seeing the ghost.

“Dr. Keller?” I murmured, starting down the first of two rows of lab tables.

Wonder upon wonders, there was still some equipment intact. Glass cases with specimen samples lined the tables. I was taking it slow, my knees and hips aching with every step. The samples glowed green in the dim light of the room.

Bulky thermal generators and other lab equipment crowded the tables along the walls, casting eerie shadows. Most of it was torn apart.

Marc was a step behind, watching as if something was going to pop out of nowhere. Then again, maybe it might.

“When was the last time you called a spirit?”

I started down the second row. “Never.” I usually tried to avoid them.

I focused my mind on Dr. Keller with his round spectacles and easy manner. We’d thought he was so old, but the last time I saw him, he had to be only in his mid-forties.

He was quick to laugh, a vegetarian who rode his bike to work every day.

“We know you’re here,” I whispered, focusing my thoughts out onto the room.

Worry churned in my gut, along with a fair dose of anger at the dead man. We needed to talk to him and then run like hell.

Of course, I had no idea how we’d make it out of the locked compound. We were underground, and there was no way we were going to be able to go the other way up that vent.

I rubbed at my temples.

“What are you picking up?” Marc asked.

Other than the fact that this was a bad idea? “Nothing,” I said, starting down the dimly lit row of lab tables again. My gaze darted across the room for some trace of a sign. There was only darkness and shadows.

“Is there anything else that would catch his attention on this floor?”

“Only 18F,” he said, “but there’s never been a disturbance there.”

I touched my fingers to the cool metal of a smashed optic microscope. “What’s in 18F?”

“Live testing,” Marc said, his voice full of contempt.

I stopped. “You use animals?”

“I don’t,” he said, his expression grim. “The old army does. Hell, they use people.”

I gaped at him, knowing instantly that he wasn’t kidding.

“We have to stop this war,” I told him. Somehow. Some way. This had to end.

Marc didn’t respond.

I focused once again on the young professor. “Dr. Keller,” I said under my breath. “It’s Petra Robichaud. You remember me.” He had to remember me. “We can talk if you show yourself.”

“Talk?” a voice echoed as the temperature in the room plummeted. “I don’t have time to talk.” A frigid wind burst through the lab, scattering what was left on the tables.

“Jesus,” Marc muttered under his breath.

My heart skipped a beat as the ghost of Dr. Keller materialized at his desk, directly behind us. He rooted through file cabinets that had already been spilling their guts.

“You see this?” He fisted a wad of papers. His chest had been torn open. I could see his rib bones working as he shredded the paper with his bare hands, desperate and shaking. “All of this has to go.”

“Why, Dr. Keller?” I asked, voice even, approaching him slowly. He was older than I remembered. His face had taken on hard angles on the cheeks and softened in the jaw. He was thinner than before, skeletal. Goose bumps trickled down my arms. “Tell me what you have to hide. I can help you.”

He rushed me. Before I had time to react, he was on me. “Do you have matches?” he asked, his face inches from mine.

“No,” I said, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. He was hovering parallel to the floor.

His eyes narrowed, and the temperature of the room iced to a bone-chilling freeze. I could see my breath puff between us as he stared me down.

He whipped around and toppled the lab table next to me. Glass and petri dishes flew in a hundred different directions. “They took mine!” He threw his hands up in the air. “They stole my matches. Heat kills it.”

“Heat kills what?” I asked, keeping my voice steady, trying to stand straight when every instinct screamed for me to duck. “Teach me,” I said. He was an academic. And he certainly had my full attention.

“Take these,” he said, handing me a sample tray with two dozen test tubes filled with glowing green liquid. “Destroy them.”

I exchanged glances with Marc. “Do you have a neutralizing station?”

“Here. Like this.” Dr. Keller grabbed a test tube and shattered it on the floor. Then another. And another.

Marc recoiled with every shot. “What the hell are you doing?”

Hurling toxic chemicals. What did it look like?

I had to gain Keller’s trust, get him talking. “Here,” I said to the ghost, fingers shaking as I smashed the tubes, one by one. “I’m doing it. I’m helping.”

Marc watched, wide-eyed. “And you call me crazy.”

“Good. Good!” Keller reached for another tray. That one was empty, but he didn’t seem to notice. “We must destroy the compound and every shred of research. It’s not a medicine,” he said, the fear plain on his face. “It’s a biological weapon. One hundred percent fatal to humans.”

I froze. “This?”

“Yes. They’re working on a pathway. They haven’t found it yet. We must be faster!”

“This could kill me,” I said, voice cracking. Marc grabbed the tray from my hands.

Dr. Keller didn’t even notice. “It will only kill you if it is airborne,” he lectured. “And it has a one-hundred-percent kill rate.”

“They’re going for one hundred percent casualties?” I could hardly believe it. “But they’re still working on the pathway,” I said, just to be clear. I rubbed my hands on my pants as I watched Marc slide the tray into a biohazard can. “Are you sure?”

I had to get a clear answer. A pathway basically offered the means for a bioweapon to enter the human system. If they hadn’t finalized a way to get it to the general population, then we still had time.

Dr. Keller was growing frantic again. “You see why we must destroy the lab.”

I hated to break it to him, but there were a lot of other labs.

“It’s a biological weapon,” Marc said, shocked. He was looking about two feet off from where Dr. Keller was. “Ask him why they need one hundred percent casualties.”

“Because they’re twisted,” I said. But he had a point. If we knew why, maybe we’d find a how. “Why everyone?” I asked the ghost. It didn’t make sense for them to wipe out the human race. We worked for them; we lived among their soldiers.

Dr. Keller shrank down upon himself, his eyes glazed with abject horror. “They want to eliminate the competition,” he said simply. “The new army has more humans in it. Kill them and you cripple the enemy.”

He began to cry. “Kill the humans on Earth and that way, the gods have more room to play. It’s a win–win for them. Besides, they said the humans suffer too much anyway. They believe this weapon is the humane solution.” Tears rolled freely down his cheeks now. “My wife is topside. My kids. They don’t deserve this.”

“None of us does.” God almighty. How were we going to fix this?