New Regime (24 page)

The room in which they stood was empty except for steel
tables and cabinets. There were no people, no jars of monstrosities, no tank
babies.

They pulled their weapons and walked toward the one door in
the room, a long, thin door that listed slightly to the right.

And when she yanked open that door, beyond was…

Hell.

They stepped into a room massive in size and filled with
such a cacophony of sounds and strange sights that it seemed almost impossible
that they would ever be able to adjust to it.

It wasn’t a room, really, but more of a…a world. A piece of
a world.

“What the fuck
is
this?” Rune pushed her hand against
her stake wounds.

The lab appeared to be about the size of a football field,
but then, in the far distance—surely miles—lightning lit up a black sky.

The air was thick and hot and burned her lungs when she
tried to inhale. Her body didn’t like the magic there, didn’t want any part of
it.

Steel tables, row after row after row of steel tables,
covered the floor.

Lex shuddered. “Where are we?”

“Is it the lab?” Jack asked. “This whole…place?”

“Yeah.” And Rune had a bad, bad feeling.

She didn’t want to say the words aloud—speaking the name might
somehow summon the evil witch—but the word lay heavy and mean upon her tongue.

Damascus.

“She’s here,” Lex whispered, and her voice was full of
horror.

“No,” Levi said, as though he already knew. “Who is, Lex?”

Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

“My mother,” Lex murmured. “My mother is here.”

Rune whipped her head around to stare at the little Other.
“Karin is? Not…”

Not Damascus?

“Fuck,” Denim said, looking wildly around, blades in both
hands.

Rune looked at Strad. She didn’t have to say anything. He
understood that Lex and the twins were going to have some trouble.

“She’s only a human woman,” Jack said. “I know she put you
three through some shit, but if she’s here, that ends tonight.”

Levi blew out a quiet breath and gathered Denim and Lex
close to him. “We’re not children,” he told them.

“We’re not helpless,” Denim added.

But Lex wasn’t convinced. She hugged herself, her eyes
moving sluggishly, her body almost still.

She was terrified out of her mind.

“Lex, are you sure she’s here?” Rune asked.

Lex shuddered. “No,” she said, finally. “Raze?”

“I’m right here,” he said, harshly.

He wasn’t angry at Lex. He was full of rage over what Karin
had done to her.

He moved to stand behind her, and she backed up slowly until
she was pressed against him.

When he looked at Rune, his strange gray eyes weren’t full
of pride that she felt safe next to him. They were full of helpless, confused
rage.

Inside his eyes were the questions they all wondered. What
the fuck had Karin Love and COS done to Lex and the twins?

Rune knew some of it.

She didn’t want to know the rest.

“You’re Shiv Crew,” the berserker told them. “Remember
that.”

The twins nodded. “Shiv Crew,” they echoed.

“Rune,” Jack said.

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s go kick ass.”

And they stepped farther into the room.

Into the hell created, somehow, by Orson Blackthorne.

In that hell lived monsters. Monsters of every imaginable
sort. Some of them were without faces, some without brains, some, surely,
without hearts.

They were vocal, though, and in each voice was a slice of
the hell from which they’d been created, in which they existed.

Their homes were cases sunk into black walls, fronted with
glass. Side by side, they circled the room, staring out at the rows of tables.
The monsters had no room to walk, or sit, or move in their upright glass
coffins.

Rune saw four of them leaning hideously against the glass,
eyes staring into whatever afterlife had awaited them.

The sadness was overwhelming.

The despair was suffocating.

“Rune,” Strad said, and pointed.

“Holy shit.”  There were windows, all set deeply into the
wall on the right side of the cases. “Holy shit,” she said again, when she
stood staring out, Lex and Strad at her back.

“What do you see?” Lex whispered.

Rune swallowed. “Cages,” she said. “I see the cages on
Spikemoss Mountain.”

“If we broke through the window,” Owen said, “would we be on
the mountain?”

“Maybe,” Strad said. “But maybe not in our world.”

Rune drew away from the glass, shivering. “Let’s take care
of Blackthorne, find the girl and baby, and get the fuck out of here.”

“Please, please let it be that easy,” Lex begged, but her
voice was devoid of any belief that it would be.

Owen cleared his throat, then thumped his chest. He was
damaged from the beating he’d taken, but Rune knew that wasn’t what was
bothering him.

“How are you feeling?” Jack asked Owen.

“Like I’m covered with magic,” Owen said. “I’m feeling no
pain. It’s just heavy in here.”

Yeah. Heavy and grim and red.

“You still look rough,” Raze said, then glanced at Strad.
“Both of you do.”

“I’m sure when we go back home,” Rune said, “things will go
back to normal.”

Owen gave Rune a long look. “Count on it,” he said.

They walked down the path between the tables, and the
farther they walked, the louder the monsters became.

The tables were empty except for the occasional rusty smear
of blood.

“What about the monsters?” Lex asked. “We can’t leave them
here.”

“We’ll release them if we can,” Rune answered.

As they walked single file past the glass encased monsters,
one of them, a tall, thin, armless male began to beat his forehead against the
glass of his prison.

After only three thumps, his head exploded. Blood and green
fog hit the glass like he’d been shot from behind, and he leaned against his
wall, dead.

His death was surely a blessing.

“God,” Rune whispered. “Why? Why would he do this?”

“To raise an army,” Owen suggested, but he didn’t sound
convinced.

“He did this because he could,” Strad said.

“This is his…fun. What he lives for.” Lex shuddered. “I can
feel it, the desolation. We
have
to free them.”

“Free them to what?” Jack asked. “The best thing we can do
for them is to kill the poor bastards.”

As they walked, the light went out in another one of the
pitiful beings, and from his mouth floated a small green puff of magic.

Rune pushed her palm against her chest. “I can’t get any air
in here.”

Lex nodded. “I know.”

“He only wants the monsters,” Levi said. “What does he do
with the ones who aren’t monsters?”

None of them had the answer to that, and Rune didn’t want to
think about it. It was too grim.

Thoughts of the baby haunted her.

She walked to one of the beings and pressed her palm against
the glass.

He had no arms, no legs, no ears. He could see, though.

He watched her, tracking her movements, but there was no comprehension
in his eyes. His expression didn’t change.

“Where the hell is Megan Smith?” Rune tried to take a deep
breath but couldn’t. The room would not allow it. “And where is Blackthorne?”

Lex turned suddenly in a small circle, her hands to her
throat. “He’s here. He’s going to hurt her.”

Rune flew to her. “Where, Lex?”

“Up there,” Levi said, and pointed.

Orson Blackthorne watched them from a room about twenty feet
above them. He sat in a wheelchair, and at his feet was the werefox, Megan
Smith.

The girl cried out in pain and clutched her huge belly, but
didn’t look down at the crew. Rune wasn’t sure the girl was aware of anything
other than her agony.

“What the fuck?” Rune whispered. The girl had been kidnapped
three months earlier, yet she looked ready to deliver.

Eugene had been right. The fetuses’ growths were
accelerated.

Orson Blackthorne patted her head. “This one is special.” He
didn’t speak especially loudly, but his voice carried to them anyway. “What’s inside
her,” he continued, lest they misunderstand him, “not the host.”

“I can be up there in five seconds,” Rune said. And she
tensed to run.

“Wait,” Lex whispered.

And then, Karin Love stepped out from behind Orson
Blackthorne’s chair.

“Mommy’s home,” she said.

And even though Lex had warned them that she was there—the
presence of the evil COS founder shocked them all.

“Alexis,” she cooed. “Did you miss me?”

Lex’s legs gave out and she started to fall, but the
berserker grabbed one arm and Raze took the other, and they held her up.

“Fuck you, bitch,” Rune snarled, and suddenly she was filled
with a black hatred so sharp and thick she could taste it. She wanted to hurt
Karin Love more than she’d ever wanted anything.

The twins leaned against each other, their faces drained of
color.

Levi and Denim, warriors, fighters, Shiv Crew, brought to
their knees by one human woman.

“Mother, don’t,” Lex begged.

Karin smiled. “I’ll deal with you later.” She looked at the
twins. “Hello, Denim.”

He shuddered.

She walked closer, until she stood at the very edge of the
floor.

Fall to me, bitch.
Rune clenched her fists.

The werefox screamed again, then dug her nails into her
belly, trying to dig out the pain.

Orson leaned forward in his chair and slapped at her
shoulder. “Stop that, child.”

“What are we doing, Rune?” Jack asked, his voice quiet.

The others couldn’t get to the werefox, but Rune could. The
twins and Lex were paralyzed by their terror of Karin Love, but Rune carried no
such fear.

“You’re never getting out of here, you know,” Karin said.
“None of you.”

“Lady,” Rune said, unable to remain silent another minute,
“you’re a fucking useless human cunt. I’m not scared of any part of you.”

And finally, Karin turned her black eyes on Rune. “Rune
Alexander.” She drew the words out, hissing them, making them seem almost alive
in her mouth. “You should fear me.” She leaned forward. “I know your secrets.”

Orson laughed.

Rune’s monster came bursting out of her, and there was no
caution, no worry, no more thoughts about the pregnant werefox.

She wanted to tear Karin Love into bloody bits, wanted it
with a fierceness that startled even her.

So she shot out her claws and ran at the wall.

“No,” Lex screamed, her cry long and agonized. She knew
something they did not.

She knew her mother.

Rune was beyond listening.

She heard a sort of electronic humming and then a strange
snapping sound that echoed through the room, the world, as Orson Blackthorne
freed his monsters.

That explained why he and Karin had stationed themselves
high up the wall—the monsters couldn’t get to them.

But they could get to the crew.

“Got popcorn?” Karin asked Orson, and they both laughed.
They sounded almost…normal.

The wall was straight up and had no opposing wall from which
she might push herself. It didn’t matter.

She shimmied up the wall like a spider, and she did it fast.

That room—that world—made her something more. The magic hurt
her, made it hard for her to breathe, and filled her with dread. But somehow,
it made her more.

Below was madness.

She heard screams and roars and cries as she went after
Karin Love, whose eyes were too calm for someone about to get shredded by a
fucking monster, but Rune wasn’t thinking.

She was reacting.

She was feeling.

Orson pushed himself back a little, dragging Megan with him,
but Rune barely noticed. She lifted her hands and streaked toward Karin.

For one tiny second, Karin’s eyes lit with doubt.

With fear.

And that fed Rune’s monster.

Karin would die, and she’d die hard.

But then she glimpsed men gathered around the perimeter of
the high room—not just men, but slayers.

As she aimed for Karin’s throat with her long, silver claws,
those slayers converged upon her, and every single one of them held obsidian in
his hand.

“I know your secrets.”

They didn’t just stake Rune. They decimated her.

One obsidian blade in her heart would have been enough—they
stuck her with at least a dozen.

She wasn’t aware of falling, or screaming, or losing the
ability to move—but suddenly she was once more on the floor, and at the
slayers’ mercy.

God. No. Not again.

She couldn’t do it again.

The rest of her mind would go.

And her entire crew would watch it happen.

They’d be distracted by her attack, distracted enough to be
torn to bits by the sad, uncontrollable monsters Orson Blackthorne had created.

And she couldn’t stop it.

Couldn’t fight.

Could only lie there as Karin Love strode back to the edge
to watch the monsters kill her child.

She couldn’t even close her eyes to shut out the intolerable
faces of COS. Karin’s slayers attacked her with rabid fear and malicious
hatred. They crowded around her and grabbed her, bloodied her, and bruised her.

They shredded her pants, cutting her in the process, but
what did they care?

They would never care.

Someone would have to help her. Her entire fucking crew was
below.

They were
there.

She could hear them, hear their roars of horror at what was
taking place above, unable to do a fucking thing to—

But then someone did come to help her.

To save her.

Because she could not always save herself.

Lex, her black wings beating with enough force to fan Rune’s
hair, flew screaming through the air.

She went for the slayers.

For Rune.

“Alexis,” Karin screamed, her voice full of horror,
disbelief, and maybe…was that pride?

Yeah, bitch, see what your daughter has become.

Lex sent fire at the scattering slayers, burning Rune as
well, but that didn’t matter. Slayers hadn’t raped her. Not that time.

And she was still raging. She still had her fucking rage.

Lex yanked the blades from Rune’s body. She didn’t look like
Lex.

Lex was the demon, and Rune had been wrong.

She
could
stand against her mother.

She could kill her mother.

But she didn’t, because she was saving Rune.

“Get Megan,” Rune said, weakly.

But Lex went grimly on until she’d pulled every blade from
Rune’s frozen body. As soon as the blades were lying upon the floor in a bloody
pile, Lex stood, kicked Rune off the edge, and turned away.

Rune fell, unable to do anything because the obsidian
wounds, so many of them, would take at least a fucking minute to heal.

So she fell, but the berserker was waiting for her.

“You caught me,” she murmured, as he held her against his
chest.

He turned, holding her with one arm, and sent his spear into
the head of an attacking monster. “I will always fucking catch you.”

Lex tumbled through the air to fall beside them, her body
cushioning the little werefox she held in her arms.

“Lex,” Rune said. “Lex.” There was nothing else she could
say.

Lex had saved her, and she’d saved the werefox.

Lex had.

“Run,” Raze yelled.

Orson Blackthorne and Karin Love would go into hiding, but
they would be back to torment the world and the crew.

And that was okay.

Because Lex had stood against her mother, and now she knew
she could.

They’d get the bitch, eventually.

Jack snatched Megan into his arms. “Let’s get the fuck back
home.”

And that was all the mattered right then. Not stopping Orson
Blackthorne.

Not killing Karin Love.

Just getting the fuck back home.