Night Shadow (38 page)

the surface, recognizing the deep mechanical growl of the lid-lifting arm

fol owed by the definitive clank of the two-ton lid coming down over the

four-thousand-gal on tank.

His window of opportunity slamming closed. Fuck it.

The sound vibrated like a gong through the liquid, hurting his eardrums

and causing his body to vibrate painfully with it.

He jackknifed down. Not water. Too thick. Acidic. Poison. Dragging it

through his gil s burned like a bitch. Still, it contained enough saline that

he could breathe. No matter how painful.

Wasn’t gonna last long in this. And that was a fact. Already felt like a

severe sunburn as the top layer of his skin started to peel in the acid. He

tried to calculate how much time he had. Before his gills col apsed. Before

his flesh was eaten by the acid.

Optimistically?

Five minutes.

His heartbeats sounded unnaturally loud in his ears as he swam as far as

he could to the right, arms extended to feel the depth and breadth of his

prison. If Lexi was right about these being repurposed wine storage tanks,

and he’d bet his last cent she was, then there should be a side entering,

sixteen-by-twenty-inch inside closing manway and two-inch outlet clamp

connection.

If he couldn’t escape from the top, he had to find that manway, and break

out from the bottom.

Lucas and Simon’s powers seemed to be stronger than his for some

reason. With any luck they were dealing with Knight while he breathed his

last fucking breath.

Lexi.

His fingers felt the side of the tank for the outlet clamp. He’d left her wel

provided for. A wil . A freaking piece of paper. Official words. But not the

words he needed to say to her. The words he wanted to say to her . . .

God, it
burned.
Fire through his gil s, liquid flames scoring his flesh. Alex

felt the acid eating away at the molecules of his skin. He was slowly

dissolving like the Wicked Witch in
The Wizard of Oz.
I’m meeeelting . . .

Something backhanded him. Jesus . . .

He grabbed at the wrist in front of his, yanked it up and over. Fuck you!

The body went over his head, drifting toward the bottom. Alex went after

him/it. Grabbed something. Hair. Yanked. Went for the throat.

St—. C—t. Br—the!
Fox sounded frantic.

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Night Shadow

Someone grabbed blindly at his leg.
Where?
Blackthorne’s thought was

weak.

Okay. Not vanquishing Mason. But here.

Here in a fucking tank of acid that no amount of drown-proofing training

would save them from.

Just stay focused on holding your breath. I’m going to see what I can do

to get us out of this tin can.

Grabbing Simon by the hair, and Lucas under his chin, Alex kicked

upward, dragging their asses through the liquid as fast as he could swim.

And as fast as he could swim, he knew it wasn’t going to be fast enough.

04:54:18

Sydney and Lexi ran between the rows of upright Vitro containers. The

space was barely wide enough to walk, let alone run flat out. Worse, since

they couldn’t see over the top of them, there was no way of knowing if

someone was keeping track of their progress.

Vitros watched them pass with blank-eyed stares. These looked to be

preteens, the next batch toddlers. It didn’t matter that Lexi had looked at

identical age-grouped Vitros hundreds and hundreds of times as she ran,

they stil freaking creeped her out.

Keep your eyes on the prize,
Lexi told herself as they came to an

intersection in the closely spaced rows. She took a left, Sydney on her

heels.

The prize was a bank of mainframe computers looking almost identical to

the row upon row upon row of Vitro cases. Lexi pointed, and together she

and Sydney hauled ass toward the complex computer mainframe. Her hair

clung damply to her cheeks and neck as she ran. Her lungs had to work

twice as hard in the thick, muggy air. Beside her she could hear Sydney

having the same problem sucking oxygen into her heaving lungs.

Moving fast, Lexi yanked out a couple of screwdrivers from her tac belt as

she ran.

The mainframe was bigger than she’d first thought. Twelve feet wide by

eight feet high, enclosed in an unpainted louvered metal grid. She

imagined the doors gone. Nothing happened. She started working on

unscrewing the faceplate, still trying to use her unfamiliar powers. Stil

nothing. They couldn’t wait.

After a brief hesitation, Sydney figured out what was where on the

unfamiliar tac belt at her waist, and held a Phil ips screwdriver in her

hand. She didn’t waste time, merely started unscrewing.

Lexi started unscrewing as wel . Magic wasn’t working, but a good old-

fashioned screwdriver would do the trick. “As soon as we’re in, unplug,

untwist, un whatever.
Go.
”

04:50:08

Alex breached the surface, holding Simon’s and Lucas’s heads above the

surface. A bubble of air remained in the few inches between the solid

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Night Shadow

metal lid and the viscous surface of the liquid.
This is as good as it gets

for air, guys. Suck it in.
Not exactly a healthy breath because what little

air there was was fil ed with acidic vapor. But right now it was better than

nothing.

The men gagged and choked as they struggled to remain on the surface

and not sink like rocks. There was no purchase, they had to keep moving,

and every movement was agonizing as the acid ate at their flesh.

Eyes and skin burning like a son of a bitch, Alex knew there was only a

small window that he could get them all out of there, four minutes tops.

Gotta find the outlet manway. Hang on. Right back.

Jackknifing, he arrowed down to the bottom through sheer agony. He had

to find a set of thumb-sized lugs, unscrew them, and remove the plate. In

the dark.

Four minutes and counting.

04:32:02

“Kess? How’s it going?” Lexi whispered into the lip mic as she wiped sweat

out of her eyes with a quick swipe on her shoulder. She pul ed out the last

twist of a screw by hand, adding it to the handful already in her tac belt.

“Five more charges and we’re good to go,” Kess said softly. “You guys?”

“Good.” Lexi inserted the head of the screwdriver into the next screw. “No

sign of Knight?”

“Negative.”

“South wall in four.” That would give them mere seconds to find a way out

and they all knew it.

“Got it.” Kess went silent.

“I think there’s one more; yeah. There,” Sydney whispered, pointing at

the last screw holding the faceplate on. Her flushed face dripped

perspiration, her perky ponytail had gone limp.

“Got it.” Lexi stood on her toes to reach it, then backed up, hands

outstretched to catch the cover as it fel forward. It was heavy, but

between them she and Sydney managed to lift it so it didn’t drag on the

cement floor and make a hel of a noise.

The inside was a mass of neatly bundled cords and wires accompanied by

flashing lights. “
Un
—Everything.”

Any other time Lexi would have been fascinated to learn how this puppy

worked, how much data it could store, how it regulated the Vitro tanks.

Sydney reached in with both hands and started yanking out the heart of

Knight’s Vitros, fistfuls of cables at a time.

Lexi quickly and efficiently started unscrewing the hundreds of cable

connectors as fast as she could go.

The tone of the electrical hum of the thousands of Vitro cases changed

slightly. “Faster!”

04:32:00

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Night Shadow

The pain had progressed from agony to the so-fucking-agonizing-he-

couldn’t-feel-it-anymore-stage. Alex found he barely had the use of his

fingers. Must be swol en. Fuck, for all he knew they’d fal en off minutes

ago and he just didn’t know it.

Lugs. Where the fucking goddamn hell were the
lugs
?

There—

He swept the area with both hands.
Yes
!

He started twisting the giant screw, top right.

Slow. Too freaking slow.

They were going to die like this. Because if he knew Lexi, and Alex was

pretty damn sure he’d never known anyone better, she would be working

on a plan to blow this facility sky-high the first chance she got.

And he’d never get to tel her. Tel her what? She already knew he

admired and liked her. Respected her. Needed to be near her like he

needed his next breath.

But it was more than that. He lov—he wanted. No, he loved her.

The sudden jarring bump of a body against his back startled him. What

the—
Blackthorne. Fox. Answer me, dammit!

Nothing.

He dragged Blackthorne back up to the air, up to where they might have a

fucking chance.

Coughing. Spluttering. A ragged drag of tainted air, then down again.

03:59:07

Sweaty and slick, Lexi’s fingers slipped on a connector, as she worked

against the clock.

“Please God the guys aren’t in the building.” Sydney whispered like a

prayer, her voice thick with fear and jerky with the speed in which she

was pulling at anything that could be pul ed.

Lexi didn’t answer. They both knew the guys were in the building. Where

else would Knight want them?

02:45:56

Blackthorne? Can you hologram outside this tank?

Yeah, trying. Kess’s close, I can feel it. If I can get Nomis to her, I can get

her to spring the release cover. On it.

If Kess was close so was Lexi. While Blackthorne sent out Nomis, Alex put

every ounce of energy he had left into loosening the bolts holding the

plate onto the lower section of the tank. Once open the liquid would be

released and they’d go through with it. If he could get the last of the four

lugs unscrewed. It resisted his every effort.

Worse, he was getting weaker and weaker.

Lexi.

Alex!
her voice abruptly sounded inside his head, startling him
. Thank God

you’re a—Where are you?

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Night Shadow

Alex wasn’t a praying man, but the sound of Lexi’s voice in his head made

him send up a prayer of gratitude. She’s alive. Thank you.
In the

warehouse. Tank of some kind.

There are a dozen tanks.

Blackthorne’s sending his hologram to show the way. And Lexi?

Yeah?

I lov—I need you . . .

02:58:26

“They’re in one of the tanks,” Lexi told Sydney, her fingers automatically

twisting, twisting, yanking while her heart fil ed with joy and anticipation.

He was alive. In good enough shape to communicate. Alive. Where there

was life there was hope.

The hot lights overhead flickered. Then an entire bank went dark.

“You go. I’l finish here.”

“Are you—”

“Go. I’ve got this.”

Lexi ran.

02:44:08

Wel ? Did it work?
Alex battled the last fucking lug with every last ounce of

his strength.

Think so.
Blackthorne’s thoughts wavered and faded.

A triple knock on the outside of the tank. Nomis.

Christ
—Blackthorne wasn’t cursing. A silent prayer answered.

Nomis or not, Alex was determined to get this damned screw undone. If

the hologram didn’t return in time, if . . .
Lucas, when did your powers

start amping up around Sydney?
He was just making convo, just trying to

keep them all alive, and alert.

Moment I slid the rock on her hand to fool the Halfs into believing I was

her boyfriend.

Me too.
Blackthorne’s thoughts were muddy and weak. Bastard was giving

it his best shot, though.

Ring, huh?
Alex braced one foot on the side of the tank and tried brute

force. The lug stayed put.

Maybe that was it. Maybe the reason why Knight’s powers weren’t

impacting Blackthorne and Fox the same way was because they’d found

something Knight couldn’t control. They’d found love. The one thing

Knight couldn’t manufacture.

Yeah. Why?
Fox asked.
Thinking of proposing?

Neither the fucking time nor the place. But it was worth a shot.
Seeing as

how we might dissolve before that happens, I was thinking sooner might

be better.

Lexi?

Coming as fast as I can. Charges are set to go off in three. We’ve got to

hurry this along.

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Night Shadow

Lexi?

What?!?

Lexi, will you marry me?

Are you sure now’s the right time? I mean, is this some weird kind of