Immortally Embraced

chapter thirteen




Marius’s gun felt hot in my hand. I’d shot him. I’d shot Marc. I’d never forgive myself if I killed him.

Run.

I stood. The electric aftershocks clung to my arms.

Run.

I couldn’t move. Every medical instinct I had screamed Stay, help, see if he’s breathing for f*ck’s sake.

But even as I stared at his crumpled body, willing with every fiber of my being for him to cough, twitch, blink, I knew I had to go. Marc needed me to be the security risk, the bad guy—the one who got away.

“Good-bye,” I whispered, turning and fleeing into the cemetery. The night was cold and unforgiving. My breath hitched as I stumbled among the graves, crouching low, tears blurring my vision.

I’d never intended for things to get this out of hand.

I tripped, sending up a plume of desert rock and slamming my elbow into a headstone. I welcomed the pain. I’d earned it. And on some level, I felt I deserved it.

A scraggly forest stood at the edge of the cemetery. It would offer cover to stop, to think, to grieve.

Throat burning, I’d almost reached the shelter of the woods when Oghul stepped out from behind a dead palm tree. “You!” He held a torch and wore his trademark frown.

Dread seized me. He was either going to be my savior or—if he knew what I’d done—my executor. I didn’t know what I was going to tell him.

Oghul doused his torch in the sandy soil.

I glanced behind me and saw troops swarming the hangar. At least they’d call the medics.

If Marc is still alive.

A cold wind whipped through the cemetery, rattling the dead trees. The berserker loomed, menacing in the dark, the beads in his hair clacking together, the whites of his eyes glowing red. “Where is Dr. Belanger?”

A new kind of fear lanced through me, and I felt my throat go dry. I wasn’t up for any big misunderstandings with a brute who could rip me in half. My finger danced on the trigger of the gun.

“Marc stayed behind to help me escape,” I said, voice shaking only slightly. It was the truth. As much as I was willing to give.

I could tell Oghul didn’t believe me, not fully at least. He shifted from side to side like an angry bear.

“He’s with them,” I said, looking for any sign of Marc. They’d positioned troops outside the lab and were sliding the heavy doors closed. “They don’t know he helped me.”

Oghul growled low in his throat. “Then we will leave now.”

“I need my—”

He handed me my pack.

“Right.” I slung it over my shoulder and stuffed the gun back into my pants.

“That gun would not have worked on me,” Oghul said, setting off through the tangled underbrush.

I followed, wading through knee-high debris. There were dried palm fronds, twigs, even a few petrified coconuts.

“The woods” felt more like a giant, dried-out hedge. You’d have to be desperate to even think of getting frisky out here. The branches dug into my pants and scratched at my arms.

The night was cold, the full moon shining bright.

“I wasn’t going to shoot you,” I said to Oghul’s back.

He grunted. “Not with an energy disruptor.” He shoved a neck-high branch out of the way and let it rocket straight back at me.

I caught it, but not before it stung my hand pretty good. “What does a disruptor do?”

“It makes me angry.”

I fought the urge to kick him in the back of the shin.

“To regular humans. What does it do?” I needed to know. Desperately. “It won’t kill them,” I asked, digging at the strap on my shoulder, “will it?”

Oghul didn’t even bother to turn around. “I do not know.”

My stomach churned with guilt and regret and a dozen other emotions I hadn’t even had time to process yet. I had to talk to Marius. He’d given me this stupid thing. He had to know what it did.

If we ever made it out of this place. The underbrush was getting thicker, taller too. Trees weaved over us in a skeletal canopy. “Where are we anyway?”

Oghul continued shoving his way through the dead forest.

This was too bizarre. There were no trees in limbo. No bushes.

Not unless you counted hell vents.

I came to a dead stop, heart pounding in my throat. “Where. Are. We?”

Oghul kept going. “Almost there. Another twenty paces.”

Panic seized me. “This is a hell vent.” This was worse than getting shot.

Hell vents were direct lines to the underworld. Sure, demons dressed them up as tempting oases, but they were there to steal you body and soul.

The berserker turned. “This was a hell vent.” He shrugged. “As you can see, it is dried up.”

Yeah. Sure. “How do you know?”

He reached down and snapped a twig.

I took one step back, then another. The entire structure might be unstable. Was the ground vibrating? I thought it might be. I’d heard of vents opening up in the ground, sucking people straight down. Only I couldn’t see anything on the ground but dried-out plant debris.

“No, you do not go the other way,” Oghul said, as if I were some petulant child. “This vent. It has been dormant for centuries. Otherwise, we would have lost our souls a long time ago.”

Was I going to hyperventilate? I thought I was. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” I gasped.

A branch caught me and I shrieked. Any second I could be cast down into Hades.

“Come,” he said, reaching out a hand to me, “we are closer to my horse than we are to the edge of this vent.”

No way was I holding hands with a berserker.

If I was smart, I would have broken away and never looked back. I would have, if I’d had any clue where to run. My luck, I’d get lost in this macabre jungle. We were surrounded by dead, dry, twisted debris. And skeletons. That was definitely a skull in a nearby pile of leaves and rot.

“I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t,” I said, my voice hitching.

Oghul didn’t get it. “The cracks, they are not so bad up ahead.”

“Goody.” He saw cracks.

I swallowed, hard, and glanced behind us. I could try to trace my way back, but I had no illusions of what I’d find in the enemy camp. Marc was injured—or dead. The guards were looking for me. And I had absolutely nowhere to hide unless I wanted to lead them straight back to Marc.

After he’d sacrificed everything for me.

I scrubbed a hand over my eyes. Marc had entrusted my escape to Oghul. That had to mean something.

The Mongolian sneered. “I do not know why the doctor loves you. You are a pain.”

My heart twisted. Marc loved me. It shouldn’t matter, but it did.

“Let’s go,” I said to the berserker.

We pushed forward. This time I moved slower, even though it was impossible to see the ground in front of us.

Dormant or not, hell vents were designed to tempt people before sucking them straight into the underworld. I didn’t know what kind of traps were set in here, or what creatures might have survived even without the lush, tempting jungle that usually came with eternal damnation.

My heart stuttered as Oghul and I reached a break in the trees. “That’s not—”

“No. The vent is forty paces farther. This is where we stop.”

Moonlight shone down on a small clearing of cracked dirt, littered with tumbleweeds. In the center stood the largest, sleekest horse I’d ever seen. It was pure white, with furs draped over its back.

“Áni.” The berserker smiled for the first time I’d ever seen.

The horse stomped, the muscles in her legs and shoulders flexing.

When we drew closer, I realized the dangling bits on the saddle were finger bones.

All of the sudden, Áni didn’t seem like the best idea anymore. “We’re just going to ride on out of here?”

“My Áni is the fastest horse in Norway,” Oghul said, cupping his hand to help me up.

I hated to break it to him, but we weren’t in Norway. Besides, “You look Mongolian.”

“I was adopted.”

“No kidding?” Far be it from me to know how berserker society worked. I just hoped they had fast horses.

He gave me a hand up and basically tried to shove me onto the horse. I grunted, clinging to the side of the beast. I tried to avoid the clacking finger bones as I struggled to get a leg over. My thigh muscles ached as I finally managed to straddle the horse’s wide back.

The saddle shifted as Oghul took his seat behind me. The fur on the saddle was coarse and thick, like that of a wolf. I re-slung my duffel over my back and gripped Áni’s pommel with both hands.

He seized the reins and we took off. Áni dashed straight for the tree line. I cringed, ducking low. As far as I’d seen, this horse had no wings.

We were ready to crash headlong into the trees when we wisped through them instead.

What? I choked. I had no voice.

Below me, I could see the outline of my legs straddling the horse’s back. It was as if they were made of smoke. My arms and my hands as well had taken on the same vaporous hue. I realized with a start that we were passing through the trees.

The world was silent, as if we were wrapped in a cloud.

We dashed out into the desert wastelands, through the old army lines. I didn’t even feel the pull of the Great Divide. We streamed through it like specters in the night.

The first streaks of dawn broke over the horizon as we raced through the lava fields, through the desert that divided them from the MASH 3063rd.

Home.

We saw Father McArio’s hut on the edge of the minefield. He stood near the wrought-iron fence he’d fashioned for his sculpture garden. It was alive with metal birds and flowers. Father was forever taking trash and discards and turning them into art. He stood eyes closed, lips moving, at the start of a new day.

We whisked past, through the maze of discarded junk and vehicle parts that crowded the minefield, until we reached the edge. Áni cantered, and then trotted to a stop.

The smoky sensation lifted.

I’d actually made it back. Part of me had wondered if it was possible. The air smelled familiar, clean—with a hint of desert dust and antiseptic. I could hear the comforting sounds of camp beyond the minefield. It was like coming home from a long, long trip.

I cleared my throat. “Thanks,” I said as Oghul dismounted. I tossed my duffel onto the ground and he held me steady as I swung a leg back over the horse. “I like the way you ride.” We should have done that the first time.

He looked at me evenly. “I take one passenger.” He handed me my pack. “Dr. Belanger leaves you with me out of last resort.” He remounted his horse.

Okay. So we weren’t going to kumbaya. “I’m glad you were there,” I told him.

Oghul grunted. Ah, well. The corners of my mouth tugged up as I began walking toward camp. Home.

Two steps later I stumbled over a trip wire and a cold, fishy waterfall landed on my head. I shrieked, covering my head too late as the slimy, wet bodies tangled in my hair. Dancing sideways, the rancid water soaking me to the bone, I flicked the mess onto the ground.

Sardines.

The stench was unbearable. I rubbed at my face with the one semi-dry spot left on the end of my sleeve. Disgusting.

The Mongolian giggled like a schoolboy. “You did not see that coming.” He clutched his stomach, bending atop his horse. “I did not see that coming, either! I like this place.”

I tossed a fish at him.

“Skål,” he said, raising a hand in good-bye before he and his horse disappeared into a plume of smoke.

Right. Sure. Leave me alone in the minefield with a bucket of dead fish on my head.

The sun had broken fully over the horizon. I’d have to hurry if I wanted answers from Marius. He was usually late to go to bed, but when he did, it would take the entire old army to rouse him.

First, I had to get out of the enemy uniform.

I glanced at the empty, fish-littered path behind me. Dollars to donuts, Oghul had bugged out. He didn’t seem like the kind to wallow in sentiment and watch me to make sure I made it down the hill in one piece.

Just to be safe, I ducked into a dilapidated ambulance to change. It smelled like hot metal and dirt. And now, sardines. I shimmied out of the old army uniform pants.

Checking the pockets, I saw I still had the rock I’d picked up from the old army lines. I transferred it to my new army surgical scrubs, then rubbed some of the fish water out of my hair with the pants. It didn’t really work.

Quickly, I completed the rest of the change. I buried the uniform and headed down to camp.

I passed two nurses as I dashed down the hill.

They chuckled at me. “Rodger was right,” the younger one called.

“I don’t want to know,” I grumbled as I headed toward the tiny vampire lair we’d cobbled together for Marius at the edge of the swamp.

Whatever they were talking about was probably my private business—a concept nobody around here seemed to understand.

God, I hoped Marc knew what he was doing when he asked me to shoot him.

The problem was, I knew Marc too well. He was noble to a fault. Part of the reason I’d agreed to sneak into an enemy unit in the first place was that I knew he’d do anything to keep me safe.

I just wished he hadn’t had to prove it.

Merde. I kicked up a small cloud of dust as I skirted around the tar swamps. I’d lost all objectivity as soon as I’d gotten alone with him. It was so easy to fall into our old rhythm, probably because I’d wanted that in my life for so long. It was a familiar place, one I’d treasured even as I mourned him.

But it wasn’t my reality anymore. This was.

The peacekeeper will find love as a hideous new weapon is born.

Didn’t mean I’d get to keep the love. Or halt the weapon.

I pounded on the rough wood door of Marius’s lair.

“Go away,” he said, sleepy, “I’m brooding.”

“Stay awake,” I hollered through the wood, “I need to talk to you.”

“Petra?” Marius shifted on the other side of the door. “You’ll never catch a man smelling like that.”

“Shut up, Marius.” Focus. “That gun you gave me,” I said, lowering my voice. “Marc got shot.”

I heard shuffling inside. “Your human?” he asked, more awake.

“Yes.” I waited, gut filling with dread. What was he not telling me? “Marius?” I yelled.

“I never thought you’d shoot your ex-lover.”

I leaned my forehead against the door. I didn’t, either. I wished I could take back the last thirty-six hours. Call a do-over.

His voice sounded hollow. “It was for the ghost.”

Yes, well, the ghost hadn’t required deadly force. He couldn’t blow up the other MASH camp or he would have already. So I’d shot my friend instead.

“Where did you hit him?”

“Square in the chest,” I said.

“Good. A head shot would kill him. Anywhere else, he might have a chance.”

Dread washed over me. “Give me odds.” I didn’t want any gray around this one.

Marius’s hesitation was palpable. “Twenty percent. Maybe. I’m sorry.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. I’d screwed up. Big time. Marc had come back to me whole and alive and I’d blasted him with a supernatural weapon. All so that I could escape back here and know he was dead or dying and that I’d never see him again.

Tears stung my eyes.

I pushed off the door. “Thanks, Marius.”

Marc had left me—possibly forever—so I could live on, fight another day, figure out what in Hades we were going to do about Dr. Keller’s superweapon.

Alone.

I had no idea if he was alive or dead.

Being with him had felt so comforting, so familiar; well, this feeling did, too. I had lived with this heaviness in my heart before.

I reached down deep in my pant pocket for the rock I’d taken from that dig we’d stumbled on.

There’d been an accident there—one that the old army wanted hidden or they wouldn’t have brought their casualties to the underground bunker. I had to think that the excavation had to be connected somehow with Dr. Keller’s formula gone wrong.

The shard felt cool against my fingers.

I owed it to Marc to push on. It was the only thing I could do for him.

My roommate Rodger had been a geology minor in college. He also collected rocks—somewhere among the Star Trek action figures. He might know what this was, or at least where to look. I glanced over at our tent on the edge of the swamp. I just hoped he was home.