Dark Creations: Hell on Earth (Part 5) (17 page)

Then a thought occurred to Melissa.

“If yo
u’re one of Terzini’s creations than why does the idea of Kyle and his sisters being killed bother you?”  Melissa heard the acid in her own voice.  “You killed his parents, right?  What, that didn’t bother you?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel chimed in.  “None of this makes sense, Amber.  If you’re like me, as you say you are, why did you kill this guy’s parents?”

“I did as I was ordered to.  I did not have a choice,” Amber said and dropped her gaze to the ground.

“No!  Bullshit!  You always have a choice,” he said and glanced lovingly at Melissa.  “But you already know that since you
all
know who I am.”

“It’s not like it was.  Lord Terzini is different,” Amber argued and her upset was plain to see.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you,” Gabriel said then lowered his voice.  “They are clones, identical clones.  How different can they be, especially since this Lord Terzini is still fighting Dr. Terzini’s fight?”

“You would be shocked by how different they are,” Amber said pleadingly.  “I never knew Dr.
Terzini, but I’ve heard stories, heard Lord Terzini call him a coward, an ineffective coward.”

Gabriel folded his arms across is broad chest and furrowed his brow.  Amber was getting to him.  Melissa could not believe it.  She began to wonder whether he’d lost his mind.  Was it a combination of Amber’s appearance and her shared origins that was turning his mind around?  Melissa wondered. 

“I-I didn’t kill Kyle’s parents personally,” Amber said feebly and Melissa saw Gabriel soften further.

“But you were part of the team that did, weren’t you?” Melissa persisted.

“Yes,” Amber admitted.  “I led the team.”

Melissa splayed her arms in front of her, palms up, her body language saying,
yeah that’s my point! 

“I never wanted to do it.  I had to do it.  I had no choice.  When Lord Terzini orders me to do something, I have to do it,” Amber answered, her voice thick with emotion.  “Please, come back to
Taft with me, Gabriel,” she begged and ignored Melissa.  “Help me help them.  I can’t let them die.”

Gabriel dropped his hands to his sides.  His face relaxed and he might as well have reached out his hand and patted Amber’s shoulder sympathetically.  He was falling for Amber’s story and Melissa was dying a small death.  She did not trust Amber, the way she sashayed onto the farm and batted her eyelashes, touching Gabriel and pouting.  It all seemed so put-on, so fake.  Amber was likely nothing more than one of Terzini’s robotic henchwomen dispatched to reel Gabriel in to be finished off.  And from the look of things, he was swallowing it hook, line and sinker. 

The air suddenly felt too warm, too thick to breathe and her collar too tight around her neck. 

Thankfully, Jack’s voice pulled Melissa from what felt like quicksand rising around her and spilling over her chin. 

“Excuse me, Amber.  You’re telling us an awfully sad sob story and we feel real bad if any of it is true.  But I got to tell you, it sounds like bullshit to me.  You coming here for Gabriel, playing on everyone’s heartstrings, it all sounds like a trap to me,” he said levelly.

Up until now Jack had been rapt, hanging on Amber’s every word.  She’d thought him mesmerized by her appeal just like the rest of the men, her fiancée included apparently.  But as it turned out, he hadn’t been.  He’d kept his head in the game.  And the right head, the one capable of thought. 

“Yeah,” Joe chimed in.  “This is all too convenient.  I’m with Jack on this one, Gabriel.”

Yoshi, who’d been silent until now, weighed in as well.  “Think about it, man.  Something is off here.  I don’t think you should go with her.”

Alexandra looked as if she was about to burst when she said, “Me, too.  Send her ass packing.”

Melissa took a deep breath and turned to Gabriel.  She placed both hands over his chest and nearly cried when she felt the steady beat of his heart.  His was intact.  Hers felt like it was splitting in two. 

“Gabriel, please listen to what everyone is saying.  Everyone thinks it’s a trap.  And I have to say, I agree with them.  Jack, Joe, Yoshi and Alexandra, they all made good points.  They don’t want anything to happen to you. 
I
don’t want anything to happen to you.  I love you,” she appealed. 

Gabriel inhaled sharply through his nose and closed his eyes.  “Let’s go in the barn and talk for a minute,” he said
and took her hand as he led her away from the group.

She was glad they would have a moment alone.  She had so much to say to him and was in desperate need of reassurance.  Once inside, however, he spoke first.

“I love you Melissa.  And what everyone else said, they may be right, but the fact of the matter is they don’t know for sure.  I can’t live with the possibility that some teenage boy and his two kid sisters are huddled somewhere just waiting to be taken out by one, or a group, of Terzini’s creatures.  Enough people have died already because of me.  I won’t be able to live with myself if I let three more die because I’m not doing anything to stop it.”

“Gabriel you need to be here with us,” Melissa said.

“I have to help.”

“No, Gabriel, please,” Melissa begged.  “You can’t go.”

“I have to, Melissa.  All of this is my fault,” he said.  “I’ll also get to see what’s going on in the town up close, so we can try to figure out how to stop him.  It’ll work out.  You’ll see,” he added with a halfhearted smile

“What if it doesn’t?  This thing with Amber, what if it’s a trap?” she began, but he cut her off.

“If Terzini wanted me dead, he could have sent her here last night, or tonight for that matter, and she could have done it easily while I slept.” 

His words froze her insides.  The thought of Gabriel being executed while he slept was too horrific to think of. 

“I’m sorry, but I’m going.  I can’t have any more blood on my hands.”

“If she were a guy, would you be so willing to go?” Melissa blurted out and hated herself for her last-ditch effort to make him stay.

“You can’t possibly think that has anything to do with my decision to go!” he said and seemed genuinely offended.  “You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, the only woman in the world I’m interested in.  You have to know that by now.”

He’d meant to comfort her, but still, his words stung.

“Please, Gabriel, don’t go.  Stay here with me.  We can come up with another way to save the girls and their brother.”

“And what, put more people in danger?  Too many people have died because of me already,” he said and shook his head slowly.  The shame and guilt he was feeling was obvious.  “I’ll be back tonight if everything goes well.  I love you,” he said tenderly then kissed her forehead.  He turned from her and walked out of the barn.

His words and his decision were final.  Melissa’s throat constricted tightly against the lump that had formed there.  Tears burned her eyes as she watched Gabriel leave her and go to Amber who smiled as he told her he’d go with her.  Together, they walked to her motorcycle and climbed on.

Amber’s taillight disappeared down the driveway and into the midday sun.  Melissa felt the pain of a thousand daggers piercing her heart at once, and worried she would lose Gabriel forever. 

Chapter 14

Zogg’s stomach rumbled hungrily as he stalked back and forth in front of Lord Terzini’s private residence.  He could see movement on the property, as well as inside, just beyond the glass beside the front door.  Yet, no one hurried to greet him.  Members, all of them, they milled about, guarding their maker armed with guns of every variety, and none were willing to acknowledge him.  Their disregard for him raised the fur at his nape and along his spine, but it did not surprise him.  Members were not feeling creatures, but they had a deep understanding of the social order Lord Terzini had created.  That social order placed Hunters at its lowest rank.

He wondered how, exactly, Lord Terzini and the members could discount the Hunters so readily.  They could not overtake towns without Hunters, not without leaving a trail of bodies to account for, at least. 

Bodies
.  Zogg’s stomach squeezed violently and a tempest of digestive juices surged.  His mouth watered at the thought of sinking his teeth into flesh, tearing at the delightful meat, and lapping at succulent blood.  He closed his eyes and felt a shudder ripple through his body.  He was starving.  When he opened them, a tall figure stood before him clad from head to toe in a black uniform. 

“What do yo
u want, dog?” the man before him asked and knew fully that he could not speak.

Zogg rose onto his hind quarters and loomed over the man, hoping to threaten with his size and obvious power.  The man did not flinch, but should have, if he knew what was good for him.  Zogg knew what waited beneath his uniform, after all.  Tasty meat waited. 
The members wore fitted uniforms made of sophisticated fibers that absorbed odor of any kind, blocking their scent entirely.  But for Zogg, the clothing was a flimsy barrier and offered little in the way of protection from him and his pack.  He could not smell them, but he could still sense them, all of them.  He knew where each one stood, a delicious buffet along the perimeter of the property, as well as right in front of him.  If he or his peers so chose, they could unite and break protocol.  They could attack. 

“Well?” the man question
ed. 

Zogg jabbed his paw forward, gesturing that he needed to come in, to see Lord Terzini.  The man did not step aside to let him in.  Zogg growled a low
, deep growl.  The man did not look intimidated in the least and rightly so.  He was incapable of fear.  Yet he must have instinctively sensed Zogg’s frustration, his deadly frustration, and backed away.

The guard
motioned for Zogg to follow him so he dropped back down to all fours and padded along after him.  As he trailed, hunger twisted tightly in his gut.  He contemplated taking the guard by surprise and eating him.  It would not take Zogg long.  He was quick and powerful, more powerful than any member.  But the other members that patrolled the premises would gun him down immediately, perhaps before he’d even finished feeding.  Then what would have been the point of attacking, he wondered, if he were denied the right to finish his meal? 

With meals unendingly on his mind, he began to consider what the future held in store for he and his fellow Hunters.  Terzini and the members were going to overtake humanity.  That promised many bodies to partake
of.  But what would happen when every human being was gone, when Lord Terzini’s crowning creations ruled the planet?  What was the plan for the Hunters?  Was there a plan for the Hunters?  They had never been mentioned beyond acting as a cleanup crew when the future had been discussed.  But eventually, the food supply would be gone.  Then what?  He couldn’t allow himself and his pack to starve to death.  Was that what his maker intended to happen to the Hunters, that when the approved food supply ended, so too would the existence of the Hunters?  Anger began to rise to dangerous levels inside him. 

Several more men joined the man who led.  Zogg found himself flanked by three men on either side of him.  Standard practice dictated that he be escorted to Terzini, but not by more than a half-dozen members.  He had no idea what the reason was for the increased security.  But the unexpected rush of exposed flesh diverted his thought from security to the ravenousness cramping his belly.

Zogg nearly stumbled backward as though he’d walked into a glass wall.  The sudden scent of meat hung in the air so dense and tempting, he considered sticking his tongue out to try to taste it, and would have, had he not been surrounded by members. 

“Here,” one of the men held the door for him.  “Inside, dog.”

Usually, he would be accompanied by just one member.  This time, all seven joined him in Lord Terzini’s private chambers.

As soon as he stepped inside, each of his senses went berserk. 
His pulse raced.  He began to salivate profusely, to the point where long strings began to drop from the corners of his wide mouth and hang there suspended, as though feeling as shocked as he felt.  His vision started to waver in and out of focus, clouded by his all-consuming hunger. 

And hunger didn’t even begin to aptly describe the famishment he was feeling.

He yearned with every part of him for the feel of taught skin beneath his teeth, to bring his jaw down slowly, savoring the blood that would invariably ooze from the broken casing, and twist his head to one side, unhurriedly inhaling the sweet aroma, and tear a piece of flesh from a warm body.  Need beckoned him.  Every muscle began to twitch.  Small tremors arose at his center and branched out to each of his limb.

He knew he ought to look around, to gauge the expressions of those surrounding him with the guns, but felt powerless against the violent reaction storming inside of him.  He needed to eat,
now
.

The temperature was far warmer, at least ten or fifteen degrees warmer,
than the rest of the house had been.  And the scent, the scent staggered him.  Had his master prepared a special meal for him?  He must have.  Everyone was wearing scent-blocking clothes.