Claimed (3 page)

As it stood, the weight of his father’s last request was still heavy on his shoulders—and Galena’s face was still bright in his mind.

He wasn’t sure which was more motivating, but as he sat outside her building, sweating in the heat of the early evening, he decided it didn’t matter. No matter who or what was coming after Galena, Dec was going to make sure she was safe.

CHAPTER THREE

G
alena got up in midafternoon and made herself some coffee. Sh
e’d
worked through the night but sh
e’d
been distracted—except this time, it hadn’t been with the past. Declan Ferry’s face had kept floating through her mind.

It was both exciting and confusing. Last night, when he was in the lab, next to her, sh
e’d
felt the attraction. Undeniable and real. It had made her feel light-headed. But she hadn’t been with anyone since the attack. Sh
e’d
buried herself in her work and avoided coming up for air. And she wasn’t even sure what would happen if she tried to go out with someone. What if he expected more than she could give? What if he pushed? What if he—

She set her coffee cup down so hard that the bitter brown liquid inside sloshed over the rim.
They took so much, and they just keep taking.
Her eyes stung with unshed tears as she looked down at her body, a puzzle she might never solve. How could she simultaneously want something
and
be so terrified of it?

“This is irrelevant,” she whispered, smoothing her hands over her face. “He probably isn’t interested anyway.” And she didn’t have time for it, either. “Move. Keep moving.”

She grabbed a quick shower—she took advantage of running water whenever she could. It was a luxury sh
e’d
never had before moving to Boston, unless you counted the running water in the University of Pittsburgh’s privately funded laboratories, but that had been carefully monitored and available only for experiments and with prior authorization. As she got ready, she ran over her plan for the evening. The three remaining volunteers should have all checked in while she was sleeping, so sh
e’d
be able to compare all five sets of results before moving forward. God, she loved data. It was real and certain. Comforting.

As early as next week, sh
e’d
be starting on the next phase of the study. And that meant there was a lot of work to do to prepare, not only for her, but also for Ankita and Jian. She pulled her hair into a ponytail. Hopefully, Jian had come in well rested and ready to roll today. When h
e’d
first come to work for her, h
e’d
been full of energy. H
e’d
seemed elated to have been selected as her research assistant. But yesterday, h
e’d
been a mess.

Mentally adding a pep talk for Jian to her to-do list, she hopped into the limo. Mike and the guard with the big gun chatted in front about the latest news from the Arctic Circle colonies—they had officially declared independence from Canada this morning, and there was probably going to be a war in the north. Seeing as how the colonies were now North America’s breadbasket, there was concern it might impact the food supply for the whole continent. Despite that potentially earthshaking news, Galena focused on checking her messages, including one from Dr. Cassidy, saying that Galena had been nominated for some kind of early career achievement award. That was nice. The car stopped, and Galena got out. As the guard escorted her to the door, she felt a little ungrateful hoping that if she won the award, she wouldn’t have to give a speech.

“Hey, Dr. M,” called Ankita, poking her head out from behind one of the sequencers as Galena walked into the lab. Her research assistant’s long black hair was in a knot at the back of her head, and her dark skin stood in elegant contrast to the beige paint of the machine. “This big guy has the flu, I think. He’s been making some weird clicking noises, and he was spitting out some awfully funny data earlier.”

As if in response to that accusation, the machine emitted a few rhythmic clicks. Galena had never heard a sequencer make that kind of noise. “Is that the one Jian was working on?”

Ankita shrugged. “He took off early today. Seemed pretty stressed, actually. He said to tell you he had an appointment and he’ll be in early tomorrow to make it up. Unfortunately, the machine didn’t start acting up until after he left.” She let out an irritated sigh.

Galena frowned as the sequencer clicked a few more times. It almost sounded as if some of the mechanical parts were smacking against something. Maybe a blockage of some kind. She was pretty sure it was the same one Jian had been working on yesterday. And h
e’d
promised to fix it today. Clearly, something was still going on with him. She was going to have to talk to him before it really started to impact their wor
k . . .
unless it already had. “That’s the one we used to sequence V3, isn’t it?”

Ankita nodded, coming out from behind the machine with her tablet in her hand. “Yes. V3.” She gave Galena a shy smile. “I thought he was cute. Nice eyes.”

Galena rolled her eyes playfully and awakened Danny’s screen with a friendly caress. V3 had brown hair and hazel eyes. He was twenty-eight years old, the same age as Galena. He had some genetic markers for depression, but apart from that, his DNA was gorgeous, with no mutations. He had smiled at her while Ankita injected him with the customized vaccine Galena had created. Sh
e’d
looked away at first and then forced herself to look back and smile in return.

Thank you for volunteering,
she had said.
We’re going to take good care of you.

That had been just a week before. “How did his check-in go?” she asked.

“We haven’t heard from him or V4,” Ankita said. “V5 came in earlier. I’ve already uploaded her results. Looking good so far.”

V4. Twenty-six. Black hair so curly and poofy that Galena had wanted to touch it, just to watch it spring back into shape. DNA that whispered to Galena of future diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Because she was a woman, it had been easy to meet V4’s eyes, to smile and assure her that she was in good hands.

“Have you tried calling V3 and V4?”

“Twice. No answer from either one. Do you want me to try again?”

Galena checked the time on the screen. It was nearly five, and all the volunteers knew to come in by four for their blood work. “No, I’ll take care of it. Go ahead and focus on getting that sequencer running smoothly again.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Ankita headed over to the temperamental machine, and Galena brought up the personal information for V3 and V4. V3 lived up in Medford, but V4 lived near downtown Boston on West Street. A quick perusal of the computer map showed V4 was on the east side of the dangerous swampland of the Boston Common. Galena rubbed her palms on her thighs. She hoped V4 wasn’t having the same kind of day V2 had yesterday, but—

Home invasions are tragic but so common these days.

Galena flinched, rubbing at her temple. That was what Rylan Ferry had said right before he pressed his gun to her head. Her fist clenched. The last thing she needed was for him to join the dark monsters already lurking in her brain, eager for the chance to ambush her in a weak moment. It was so draining, trying to keep them caged. She sifted through the information on Danny’s screen, trying to calm her churning stomach as poisonous fear wound through her.

This was the reason she ate so little. She was
sick
with this fear. Every day. All the time. And no matter how far down sh
e’d
tried to push the memories that caused that fear, they were always waiting.

She heard her phone buzz with a text, and she pulled it from her bag. It was Eli.

Already at the lab?

Yep.

Did you eat?

Stop worrying.

I’ll take that as a no.

She let out a quiet breath of laughter. He knew her too well.
I will. I promise.

Good. Love you.

Love you too.

She was about to put the phone back in her bag when it rang with a call. The number wasn’t in her contacts, but she recognized it anyway, because sh
e’d
just been looking at it on Danny’s screen. Sh
e’d
given all the volunteers her cell number in case they had any questions or concerns, including V4. And now she was calling Galena.

“Hello?”

The sound of rapid breaths made Galena’s throat tighten.

“Hello?” she repeated.

“He sai
d . . .
he did thi
s . . .
to m
e . . .
because of you,” a female voice finally whispered, her breathing agonized and wet. “H
e . . .
said yo
u . . .
had to stop.”

Heat and horror swept across Galena’s skin. “Are you all right?”

The woman moaned softly. “Your researc
h . . .
stop.”

Galena’s knuckles went white as she gripped the phone. With her other hand, she called up her tracking program and entered V4’s phone number. The tracker told her the woman was calling from her own apartment. “Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance? I can call one for you right now.”

A choked, gurgling sob was the only reply.

CHAPTER FOUR

D
ec leaned back and ran his hands through his hair. He could hear the other paramedics laughing and joking in the locker room down the hall, but he was glad to have his own office. He was used to taking care of other people, always being the one responsible for solving everyone else’s problems, but he needed to be alone to unwind. No demands. No pressure. No expectations.

It had been a long shift. Trevor had stormed out of Dec’s office half an hour ago, ranting about how his new partner couldn’t navigate his way out of an insta-cold limbsack, let alone the narrow canals near the edges of Chinatown. Dec had suggested maybe Trev needed a vacation, but h
e’d
just flipped Dec off and left. Dec grunted. He felt ready to do the same thing. Five calls, three casualties, two souls shuttled to Heaven while his partner, Carol, cleaned their rig. As for the third sou
l . . .
well, that one had been destined for Hell, and the guy had figured it out before Dec even had a chance to pull his Scope open and loop it over the guy’s head. H
e’d
run. But there was no way Dec would be responsible for yet another Shade in the Veil.

Dec had tackled the guy right before h
e’d
reached the edge of the canal, probably thinking he could jump in and swim away. H
e’d
been pretty speedy for a recently dead soul. Already annoyed, Dec had zero patience for the man’s frantic bargaining and semicoherent snarls—a signal that this dead soul was already becoming rabid. Dec had punched him into submission and shoved him through the portal to Hell in less than a minute. The gold coin, payment for his hard work, had flown out a moment later, and Dec, winded and distracted, had reflexively caught the red-hot hunk of metal still blazing from the fires of Hell. The burn on his palm was already nearly healed, along with his bloody knuckles—thank God all Ferrys healed ridiculously fast.

But the fatigue remained. It was a bone-deep tiredness mixed with boredom. Same routine, different day. Every day. Every fucking day.

Well, maybe not every day. For a brief time the previous evening, h
e’d
felt himself waking up, coming alive. The drudgery of today had pretty much erased his excellent mood, though.

Once again, he considered retiring. H
e’d
fantasized about it for years, but he had never pulled the trigger. He never spent his money, so he had plenty of it. He could hand over his paramedic badge and his Scope. He could move to his little cabin on Baffin Island, surrounded by mountains on all sides, where everyone would leave him the fuck alone, where no one knew who his family was. Where he could live a normal human life.

It was pretty damn tempting.

His computer screen lit up, and Dec leaned forward.

“One EMS unit to number three West Street, apartment twenty-four,”
droned the dispatcher, her words simultaneously appearing as text on his screen.
“Suspected assault. Number of casualties unknown. Injuries unknown. Police and fire notified. They have advised that it’ll be a minimum of thirty until they’re on scene.”
Her voice echoed down the hall, where the rest of the crew was probably listening from the garage.

Dec sighed. Most of his guys had just come off a hard shift, and the new shift had barely started. They were probably still cataloging supplies and getting their rigs ready for a long night. He got to his feet. He hadn’t changed out of his uniform yet. He had nobody waiting for him at home. And it wasn’t like he could show up at Galena’s lab for a second night in a row without a pretty damn good excuse. He paused, realizing h
e’d
actually been considering it. “Answer the damn call, Dec,” he muttered, entering the garage and looking over at Paula, the new night shift supervisor. A solidly built woman with steel-gray hair and dark-brown skin, she was standing with her arms folded, staring at the videowall. Earlier this week, h
e’d
quietly transferred Len, the former night shift supervisor, to the Jamaica Plain EMS. He couldn’t stomach keeping the man around after what h
e’d
said about Cacy—and the fact that h
e’d
tossed Eli into the disease-infested canal. Paula was a veteran paramedic, and Dec trusted her to take a more professional approach. “I’ll take this one,” Dec said to her.

“I was about to send Manny and Gil,” she replied, still looking at the screen. It showed only the outside of the apartment building.

“Any more info from Dispatch? Is the scene secure?”

“There’s no info at all,” she replied. “We don’t have any eyes inside, because the call didn’t come from the apartment, so the connection to any security cams inside the unit wasn’t triggered.” She pointed at her control screen. “The dispatch display says the call came from Cambridge.”

Dec’s stomach tensed. “Where in Cambridge?”

“One of the university buildings.”

“Any info on the caller?”

Paula shook her head.

Dec began to jog toward his rig. “I’m taking it. Eli!”

Eli Margolis jumped from the back of rig 436. “What do you need, Chief?”

“Heard from Galena this evening?”

Eli frowned. “I was texting with her a few minutes ago. She’s at her lab, buried in her work. Why?”

“Okay. Good.” Something loosened inside Dec’s chest. “Sorry, I guess it was nothing.”

Eli caught up with Dec and ran by his side. “You sure?” Now he sounded worried, and Dec felt like an asshole.

“I’m sure. A call came in from Cambridge, and I got antsy.”

The alert system went off again. A mass-casualty incident—there had been some type of explosion at Fayette and Jefferson. “Eli,” called Cacy from the back of the rig they shared, “we’re up.”

Eli sprinted for his rig. “Keep me posted,” he called over his shoulder to Dec.

Carol was still in the back of their rig, scrubbing under the floor panels after their last bloody call. “Up for another trip?” he asked, tossing a biohazard bag at her booted feet.

Carol tightened her bushy brown ponytail. “Sure thing, boss.”

“I’ll drive.”

Carol slammed the last floor panel into place, tossed the bloody rags into the biohazard bag, and flung it out the back. “All set.”

Dec activated the siren as the rig roared out of the garage. The likelihood that this had anything to do with Galena Margolis was slim to none.

But Aislin had said,
There have been whispers.
Dec accelerated, barreling up Washington toward West Street.

“Know what we’re heading into?” Carol asked. “Canal zone?”

“No. Dry land. It’s close to the Common, though.”

“
I’d
already reloaded the tranqs, so we’re good.”

Dec smiled. Carol was a relatively new paramedic, but she was serious about the job and always thinking ahead. She reminded him a little of Cacy, his little sister, only with less of a foul mouth. When he turned onto West, the street was crowded with late afternoon traffic: buses, taxis, and a few amphibious cars. The glare and howl of the sirens chased a few of the vehicles away, but most remained, stubbornly ignoring the fact that someone probably needed this ambulance pretty badly. Dec double-parked and edged into the back, where he zipped on his antibacterial gloves, grabbed his med kit and a mobile com unit, and holstered a tranq gun. “Listen. We don’t know what we’ve got waiting for us up there. Let me go check it out, and I’ll call down if it’s safe.”

“Are you still treating me like a newbie, Chief?”

Dec laughed. “No, I’m treating you like a serious badass who can protect the rig from canal pirates.” He was only half-joking. Sh
e’d
taken out two earlier this week as they tried to steal the kidneys from a car-crash victim she and Dec were racing to save. “Stay here.”

She groaned as he jumped out the back, his boots landing hard on dry concrete. It took him only a few moments to jog through the lobby of the apartment building. The elevator wasn’t working, so he took the stairs. The door to apartment 24 was closed, but when he tried the knob, it twisted easily beneath his gloved palm. He drew the tranq gun and poked his head in. “Hello? Someone need an ambulance?”

Dec edged into the apartment. It was a cramped studio overlooking the street. And on the floor next to a small table lay a woman, pale as paste, her curly black hair a cloud around her face, her sightless brown eyes staring at the ceiling. Obviously dead. Dec holstered his tranq gun and got out his cardiac wand. He crouched and waved it over her chest, just in case, but it remained silent. He stood up and looked over the woman at his feet. Sh
e’d
been stabbed, once in the chest, but it had been enough. Blood saturated her shirt and was slick beneath the soles of his boots.

The only noise in the apartment was the faint sound of a panicked voice, and Dec found its source in the tangled mass of the woman’s hair. A phone. He lifted it from the floor.

“You’re going to be okay. The ambulance will be there soon, I promise.”
The woman on the other end of the line let out a strangled sob.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Dec’s heart slammed against his ribs. He recognized the voice.

He lifted the phone to his ear. “Galena.”

She gasped. “Hello? Who is this?”

“It’s Dec. I’m—”

“Dec,” she squeaked. “Thank God. Is she going to be okay?”

He closed his eyes.

Didn’t she have the right to know the truth?

Then again, hadn’t she been through enough?

Dec knew what had happened to her in Pittsburgh a few years ago. And h
e’d
witnessed what had been done to her the week before. Though sh
e’d
seemed fine last night, h
e’d
seen how sh
e’d
reacted when her volunteer mentioned the break-in. Like a shadow had flickered in her eyes, the memory of terror and pain.

How much trauma and tragedy could a soul take and still survive intact?

“Dec,” she said in a quavering voice. “Please.”

He gritted his teeth. “Who’s with you right now? Are you safe?”

“I-I’m in my lab, but—”

“Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to stay put, and I’m going to take care of this lady—”

“Her name is Luciana Flores.”

“I’m going to take care of Luciana, and then we’re going to talk again. All right?”

“But—”

“I need to get going, Galena. But trust me, you’ll hear from me soon.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

He waited until sh
e’d
hung up, and then he programmed her number into his phone. He shouldn’t have touched the dead woman’s phone—this was a crime scene. But he couldn’t make himself feel sorry. He called down to Carol and explained what h
e’d
observed. He told her to take the ambulance back to the station and promised h
e’d
hang out and talk to the cops, then get a car to take him home.

As soon as that was done, he pulled his Scope from the setting at his throat, brushed his thumb over the raven etched on its surface, and opened a window to the Veil. He stepped through, shivering a little as the cold air surrounded him. His boots squelched on the now-cushy floor; solid objects in the real world were merely gelatinous structures in the Veil. Dec looked around the frigid gray room. Luciana’s soul was sitting on the single bed near the wall, smoothing her hair. Her clothes were bloody, but it didn’t seem to bother her. She looked at him with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to show you where you go next,” he said gently. “But first I have some questions.”

Her gaze flicked to her transparent body lying on the floor near the table. “About what?”

“Your name’s Luciana?”

She nodded.

He gave her a friendly smile. “My name’s Dec. Can you tell me what happened to you?”

Luciana frowned. She wrapped her arms around her ample chest, as if trying to protect herself from what had already happened. “He stabbed me.”

“He? Just one guy?”

“He had a ski mask over his face. He had dark eyes. Red. A little bit red. And a knife.” She shuddered.

“How do you know Galena Margolis?” Dec asked, trying to force his voice into steadiness.

“I volunteered to help test her vaccine,” Luciana said. “I needed the money.”

Someone had targeted and killed one of Galena’s research subjects. Dec could barely hear the woman’s voice over the alarm bells sounding in his head. “Can you tell me anything else about the guy who attacked you?”

“He had dark eyes,” Luciana whimpered. “Red. And a knife. He said she had to stop.”

“Who had to stop?”

Her face crumpled, like she was about to start sobbing. “Dr. Margolis. He said her research had to stop.”

Dec knew he wasn’t going to get anything else out of her. He might look midtwenties, but h
e’d
been ferrying dead souls for nearly forty years. When they started repeating themselves, it was time to send them on. He flipped his Scope and brushed his thumb over the set of scales etched onto that side. He let out a sigh of relief when it sparked with the white light of Heaven. “Luciana, I’m sorry for what happened to you, but now you’re going to a wonderful place. Trust me on that.” He pulled the Scope wide and lowered it over the woman’s body, and the last thing he heard from her was laughter, light and cheerful.

He held up the Scope and caught the gold coin that came flying out of it a second later. Fortunately, coins from Heaven were blissfully cool. With it held in his palm, he compacted his Scope and clipped it into its setting, then turned in place.

“Anyone want to come claim this bounty?” Dec shouted, his voice rising with the heat of rage and suspicion. He held up the coin. “Come on, now. You did the dirty work. Come get paid for it!” Normally, the Ker who had Marked a soul was either waiting or appeared as soon as a Ferry had gotten a soul into the Afterlife, palm outstretched, fangs bared. They wanted their half of the gold.

Not this time.

The silence was as oppressive as it was cold. Dec wasn’t chilled, though. His anger was more than enough to keep him warm. This was an unauthorized Marking. An unsanctioned kill. Solid evidence there was another rogue on the loose. And whoever it was, he or she was trying to punish Galena.