Emergence (The Primogenitor Chronicles Book 1) (53 page)

“Nice, Nicky. This wasn’t on your list of abilities that I was aware of,” his brother said from behind him.

“Amazing what you can discover under the right circumstances,” he said. His mind was only half on the conversation. Slowly spinning around, Nick searched for the fleeting touch of dark he had felt. “I don’t know what else I can do while holding the shield. When I tell you to, Chris, call Robin.” There was a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and Nick swung to focus on it. “Here they come.”

Eight uniformed men, all carrying tranquilizer rifles in their hands, swarmed out of hiding places along the perimeter of the parking lot and stalked slowly toward their bubble. Amanda stifled a shriek and started trembling so badly that his brother had to hold her up. Nick followed the direction of her panicked gaze and found the darkness.

Standing in the open doorway of the room adjacent to Amanda’s was Gabriel. The Alpha wore a bemused expression on his face. He pushed away from the door jamb and walked forward, revealing a second man holding a video camera.

Gabriel stopped a few feet away from the shield and cocked his head. “You know, you shouldn’t be able to do that, Nickolas. I’m surprised. I’m not often wrong. I thought you were a Seer, not a Caster.” But then Gabriel looked thoughtfully into his eyes and blinked. “But then again, I’m not wrong, am I? No wonder Ian went to such great lengths to protect you.”

He turned his attention to the woman and smiled. “Hello, Amanda. You did exactly as I hoped you would. I told you that you wouldn’t get away from us, now didn’t I?” Then he clucked his tongue. “As the saying goes, Nickolas, I’ve got you surrounded. You can’t hold the shield forever.”

“What do you think you are doing, Gabriel?” Nickolas snapped. “I’m here on official Facility business, performing a retrieval.”

Laughing outright, Gabriel folded his arms. “No, I’m the one performing the retrieval, and not just Amanda, but the two of you as well.”

“What are you talking about?”

Gabriel shook his head and sighed. “Oh, Nickolas. I have it all on tape. We had the room bugged. I know you were going to give her to those feral traitors. That, combined with your obvious increase in power,” He waved his hand at the shield. “That gives me all the proof I need to support this move with the powers that be. It also gave me what I needed to finally take Ian down.”

“We’re not coming with you, Gabriel.”

The Alpha looked pointedly at the soldiers surrounding them and smirked. “I don’t see that you have much of a choice, Nickolas Sinclair.”

“Now, Chris,” Nick said. He felt the mental surge as his brother called Robin, but he didn’t look away from Gabriel.

Gabriel’s eyes snapped to look at Christoff in annoyance. “You too? I should have guessed you would have gone off the drugs as well. I don’t want any of that.”

Following his instincts again, Nickolas pushed back at Gabriel and blocked his attempt to douse Christoff’s mind call. The diversion in his concentration caused his shield to start to waver, and he drew more power, slamming it into the shield before Gabriel or his men could get through.

Their gazes met as they locked power in a mental struggle to see who was stronger. Nick was barely aware of the arrival of Robin and his Flight. But the rebound on his shield from inside grabbed a portion of his attention, though he restrained the desire to look.

“Let me out, Nickolas! I need to help them!”

Gabriel’s blue eyes bored into his, and he felt the power glow in his own eyes and tingle in his fingertips.

“Nickolas!”

“Amanda, get back into your room,” Nickolas ordered as he dropped the shield, hoping she made it but not daring to look. He dove to the side and rolled, and Gabriel cut off a snarl. Then the hair on the back of his neck started to rise as he felt the gathering of power. He spun to face the other Alpha, ignoring the sounds of fighting as Robin’s Flight battled the soldiers.

Gabriel had moved away from the center of the fighting and stood staring at him; tendrils of his blond hair lifted in a slight breeze that Nick couldn’t feel. The flow of power built and shown through the other Valkyrie’s eyes. Then Gabriel closed them, took a deep breath, and started to sing. The tendrils of power wrapped around Nickolas. He couldn’t understand the words Gabriel sang, but it was beautiful; they drew him toward the other Alpha and he went willingly.

Slammed to the ground, Nickolas lost his breath as Robin landed on top of him and his head throbbed from the inside. “Shield, Nickolas! Damn it, put up a shield!”

Concentrating on Robin’s words, he formed a crude shield around the two of them. His subconscious must have known what was needed because this shield differed from his last; it filtered sound somehow. He could still hear Gabriel’s beautiful voice, but it no longer pulled him.

“He’s a song weaver,” Robin whispered, stunned, before he rolled off of him.

Nick rose stiffly and warily watched Gabriel sing. The Alpha had his eyes open and Nickolas could tell that he was working to match frequencies with the shield so his song could recapture him. A flash of light flared nearby, surprising Nick, but not as much as the person whose scream died quickly, and Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.

“Kevin!” Robin yelled, then Nickolas felt the mental static that he was coming to associate with close telepathic communication.

A Valkyrie shot around his shield, and Gabriel was cut off midnote. Fanning his wings open, he took a step back, throwing up his own shield just as a glass ball exploded against it, sizzling across the surface in an eerie blue glow. Glaring at the Caster, Gabriel sang a note, but the Caster had thrown up his own shield.

“We’ve taken all of your men, Gabriel,” Robin called out.

His eyes hot, Gabriel swept the parking lot. “But not me, Robin. Never me. We’ll continue this at a later time, Nickolas.” With his shield still protecting him, Gabriel launched into the sky.

Nickolas took a deep breath and turned to look at Robin, who clapped him on the shoulder, saying softly, “You can drop the shield now, Nick.”

He pulled the power back into himself and the shield winked out of existence. Then he walked with Robin to help check the dead and injured. Christoff rose from checking the pulse of one of the attackers, and Nick caught his eye, jerking his head toward Amanda’s room. His brother wiped the blood dribbling down his cheek and nodded, moving off to make sure the fledgling was all right.

“What’s the count, Robin? Is everyone ok?” Nick asked. He joined the Hunter and the Caster who had thrown the ball at Gabriel.

“Mostly, we have a few bruises. Nothing major. Between using your shield and the shield from our Caster, Kevin, we were able to take down all the soldiers without anyone getting tranked. Of the soldiers, two are dead, three are injured and unconscious, and the other three are just injured.”

“But they got at least one of your own team in your van, Nick,” Kevin said.

Well, that would explain why they weren’t here,
Nick thought with surprise, then he noticed Christoff carrying Amanda out of one of the rooms. He met them and touched the blood at her temple. He sucked in a breath as the vision obscured his outward sight briefly. “Get Amanda out of here, Robin. She’s only knocked out. The jerk with the camera hit her before he ran off. I’d just leave all the others if I were you. Let them explain this themselves. Chris, we need to get back to the Facility.”

With a wave, they left Robin’s Flight to their business and raced back to the van. He yanked the door then jumped back and raised his hands. “Whoa, Flynn, it’s me. Nick.”

“What the hell happened?” Flynn snapped, lowering the gun to continue holding an unconscious Jules.

“I’m not quite sure,” Nickolas lied. “But we lost the fledgling to a group of feral Valkyries. We need to get back to the Facility.”

Flynn gently laid Jules down and took the driver’s seat. “Hang on.”

He took his own seat and watched Christoff buckle Jules into the bench as the van swayed into motion. Staring at the sticky residue of blood clinging to Jules’s temple, Nickolas contemplated how Gabriel’s men had gotten to him in the first place.

I guess they’ve won. I just can’t do this anymore.
Jessica sat listlessly on her bed and stared at the unfocused faraway point her tunneled vision contained. The thump of her heart, loud in her ears, slowed. Her breath passed her lips, drying their surface.

Her apathy must have been noticed, but she didn’t care if they saw the downward spiral. Gabriel’s visit five days ago had pushed the first pebble. And she could no longer cling to the crumbling edge. She just fell with the landslide.

She wouldn’t get out of here. Nickolas had promised, but they took him too. Even Kieran. He no longer came to her.

The door to her cell opened and the cart trundled through, stopping near her full breakfast tray. She couldn’t muster up the energy to eat it.

Silence echoed throughout the room.

After a moment, Ian’s white lab coat swirled to a stop at her feet. She could feel him staring at the top of her head before he crouched down in front of her, waiting. It took all of her energy just to raise her eyes to meet his. Shadows gathered in the doctor’s eyes as he contemplated her.

 “Ian?” Jays’s voice, hesitant and full of concern, shivered across her skin.

“I know, Jays, hold on.” Still holding her gaze, Ian asked softly, “Jess, what’s going on?”

A single tear slid down her skin; she closed her eyes to break the contact and rocked her head. Quicksand held her in its grasp; the simple act of stretching herself out on the bed for their exam took all her energy. She held her arm out, offering it to Ian. Instead of taking it, he withdrew to the far side of the room and held a whispered conversation in worried tones. Phrases reached her. Inhibitor, depression, despondency, the coma. She just let them wash by and instead let her thoughts drift through the shroud of fog that had taken over her mind.

It was soothing.

After a few moments, they came back and started the exam. Jessica tried to make herself pay attention to their requests as their gentle touches quickly took care of all the routine tests. She lay passively, drifting, as their voices floated quietly over her.

“Please stretch out your wing, Jessica. It’s much too long for me to support easily myself anymore.”

The muscles quivered as she held it out, and she felt Ian and Jays pass the tape measure around her wing then rotate the joints. She wished they would just be done and leave her to the silence. In the fog, all the pain and anguish no longer hurt, but Ian continued to talk to her, drawing her out of the soothing mist.

The look in his eyes let her know that he understood what he was doing, and a spark of anger flared, then died.

“I believe you’ve almost reached your full growth by the way,” he rattled on. “Now it’s just a question of exercise, building up your muscles enough for them to support you in flight. All the stretching and flapping you’ve done to occupy your time is a good start.”

They folded her wing closed, and she held her arm out. For the first time since she had been brought in, she didn’t care. The inhibitor would only help deepen the fog, so she welcomed it.

Ian crouched in front of her again.

She closed her eyes, and a slow shallow breath left her.

“Talk to me, Jess. What’s happening?” Ian questioned.

She felt another tear leak out, but she didn’t open her eyes.

“Come on, try,” he coaxed. “This stems from Gabriel, doesn’t it?”

Her eyes snapped open, and Ian trapped her gaze with his. “I won’t let him take you. I promise.”

She cleared her throat, but her voice still came out thin. “How can I trust that? Where’s Kieran? Where’s Nick?”

He stared at her, silent, and she tried to snort, but it came out as more of a strangled squeak. “Like you’ll answer that. You haven’t answered anything I’ve asked since I’ve arrived.”

“You don’t have the background for any answers to make sense. But more to the point, you don’t need the knowledge right now. You have a lot of work cut out for yourself and some things can get in the way of that.” He cocked his head but didn’t release her gaze. “I don’t like the readings I’m getting on you, Jess. You’re slipping dangerously close to the edge.”

“Why do you care? I’m just another fledge. I’m sure you see hundreds a year.”

He nodded at Jays, who had packed up the equipment, and sent him out. She stretched out her arm more, but the younger doctor looked down and pushed the cart to the door.

“No,” she gasped and rose on one arm, holding the other out.

Ian cleared his throat, and she jerked her gaze back to him. “Your systems aren’t stable right now, Jess. Inhibitor would be a bad choice. And you aren’t just another fledge. We’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”

“You’re nuts.”

She collapsed back onto the bed and wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to hold the fog, but Ian’s conversation had tattered it to wisps.

“No, I’m not. I just have a clear picture. You want some answers? There are some I can give.”

She tried not to look at him. She tried not to take the bait. But in the end, he held out longer and she couldn’t resist. She raised her eyes and looked at him. A small smile flirted with the corner of his lips, and her blood started to rush through her veins. The anger finished off the fog and she growled.

“Like you pointed out, Jess, I’ve been doing this for a long time. And my talent makes me a past master at chess. I can counter any move you make. But my offer wasn’t a ruse.”

“Talent?” she said, shocked. “You don’t have wings?”

He stood and shrugged out of his lab coat then pulled the hem of his shirt up to his shoulders. Small vestigial wings about the size of her hand rested flat against his back.

“But…”

He let his shirt drop and pulled his coat back up then leaned against the opposite wall, crossing his arms. “Care for a history lesson?”

She slowly sat up, pulling her knees to her chest. The mystery was enough to obliterate the last vestiges of fog, and she nodded her head.

“Twenty-five years ago, a private research group attempted to access dormant genetic traits in humans. They wanted to enhance sight, hearing, smell and reflexes by re-opening abilities that our normal evolution had deemed unnecessary. My wife and I led a team that had worked on research designed to help those with physical handicaps. We were manipulating their genetic structure in an attempt to give them back their lost senses. The other team took our research and twisted it. They locked it into a virus to act as a carrier and then they administered it.

“We knew nothing about the experiment until the twenty people in the test group started to react and they called Molly and me in to try and help. All of those injected went insane it appeared. Five didn’t survive the first week. Then the rest started to grow wings.

“Of course they didn’t tell us anything useful. So we lost another ten before the end of their changes, thanks to the lack of information. After the last five stabilized, we discovered the virus had gotten loose. My group started to show signs of changing, and we were taken into custody. The powers running the experiment felt they had lost control. That’s when the military got involved. They came in with isolation equipment and attempted to contain the spread. At that point, Fredrick’s group decided to try and stop what they had started. So they reengineered the virus and hoped it would halt the change once it had started in an individual. We were no longer people, but experiments. Out of all of the doctors in my group, I was the only one to survive. And that was barely. But they couldn’t stop the second virus any more than they could the first, so now my life hangs by a thread they control. As long as I do what they say, I’m supplied with a different type of inhibitor that keeps the second virus suspended in my system. I need two shots a day of it. Otherwise, I’ll follow my wife.

“The sad part is it was already too late. My son, Marcus, and his wife led the next group of doctors; they were brought in to care for us during our isolation. When their group started to change, Fredrick realized they had failed. At that point, thankfully, I was considered recovered as much as I would be and got myself put back on active status. I took over their care and was able to allow Marcus and Bethany and the rest of their team the opportunity to be the first to change in a more natural way. I’m pleased to say we didn’t lose any from that group.

“But at that point, word had gotten out and people were starting to get scared. So far, the virus had been contained within a small group of people who had had prolonged, direct contact with the changing individuals, but then the first unrelated fledgling showed up. He was still nearby, within the Facility in fact, but he had not had any contact with the changelings. Directly at least. It turned out that he was watching Marcus’s dog. And that was how we discovered that it could be transferred by blood. Fleas from his dog carried the virus and it started spreading. Everything was fumigated of course, and the scientists confiscated Marcus’s dog and killed it for testing; let me tell you, that didn’t endear them to Marcus, but of course by then it was too late. There’s no way to completely eradicate all fleas, and we soon discovered that mosquitoes could also carry it.

“The number of fledglings appearing has slowly increased as the geographic circle of exposure grows. Someone who has been around the fledged Valkyries has a much higher chance of changing, themselves, but it’s not necessary anymore. They just need to be bitten by an infected mosquito or flea. Geographically, fleas and mosquitoes can only travel so far on their own, so it takes some time for them to pass it a distance. For years now, we have seen the majority of cases coming from the family and friends of people who have worked for the Facility. The unrelated cases have all been close to here or to the homes of those who had been exposed. But the mutating virus is starting to spread faster. Now it is out in the general public, and people are carrying it farther away; it won’t be long before we hear about a new fledgling appearing in a different state or even a different country. It also doesn’t help that since the virus has escaped, it has changed. The incubation period has become extremely variable, some people who are exposed start to change within days while others, like you, were exposed years ago and have probably been infecting people the whole time.”

“There’s no way to tell when you’re carrying it?” she asked.

“Not that we have been able to find yet. Back in the beginning, people didn’t know how to treat us. How different our mental makeup really is from an unchanged human. So when fledglings started popping up, they were mishandled, resulting in people getting hurt and killed on both sides. So the measures to follow, when taking someone who has started to undergo the change, were drawn up and implemented. While a lot of the procedures the Facility follows are not necessary for the benefit of the fledgling, they do benefit their research. Not very nice for the individual, maybe, but the truth of the matter is that a fledgling must have help, or they will die.”

“How does Aurora fit into that? What I’ve experienced here, and seen there…. It’s like night and day.” Her thoughts turned inward. Memories from her eight-year-old self crawled into the light. Her father’s arms wrapped tightly about her as they flew through the night. Marcus or another Valkyrie holding her brother. Sitting on a rock in the grass while Marcus made magic with light to amuse her. Her mother scolding her before she could actually do the misdeed she was about to try.

“Life in Aurora is different.” Ian sighed. “I wish I could give that to you, but it’s just not possible here. What do you remember?”

“I remember watching the Hunters fight each other. It always seemed so scary, but they laughed like they were having fun. Marcus used to do these amazing things where light would come out of his hands, then he would do things with it. Usually to keep us distracted. And Mom knew things. Whether it was something Robin or I was going to do, or bigger things than children misbehaving.” She hugged her knees tighter and looked across the room.

“So you have some rudimentary knowledge of the different castes and talents.”

“Castes and talents?”

“You used the term Hunter, which is the most common caste, the one the general populace knows to refer to a Valkyrie by. But there is a small percentage of Valkyries that belong to different castes. Marcus is an example of one; he is a light weaver, which is a Caster talent; and your mother was a precog, which is in the Seer caste. There are several different talents in each of the two castes. But a general dividing line for determining which belongs where is in how a talent is used or manifested. Most Seer abilities reside solely within the person using the ability, in other words, nobody sees a physical manifestation. That would be talents like precognitive dreams or visions, clairvoyance and clairaudience, all of which have subsets within them as well. Then there is empathy. Empathy falls into a category of its own. It can be either receptive or projective. Depending on the type, one is a Seer and the other a Caster. So it forms the middle of the line when placing talents on the scale. Now Caster abilities are projective talents. They would include things like light weaving, telekinesis, teleportation, and pyrokinesis, among several other talents.

“That’s three castes. And until recently we thought that was all there was. But your arrival changed that. The data collected from your tests and observations have proved beyond a doubt that you are in a completely different caste.”