New Regime (Rune Alexander Book 5) Read online

  Rushing into the passage, she noted the dim lights spaced in high intervals upon the wall, shining upon a rather narrow hallway lost in darkness. As she ran, lights above her came on, and the ones behind her went off.

  Reverence was full of secrets. Terrible, dark secrets.

  Just as the cowboy was.

  She rammed a door at the end of the passageway and it spit her out into a room so brightly lit and strange she couldn’t, for one moment, process it.

  Edward, the memory-wiped shifter, had been there, or someplace exactly like it. His horrified voice echoed inside her mind. “Jars,” he’d screamed. “Jars and jars and jars!”

  She stumbled back, hitting the wall with such force it knocked her to her knees. She crouched on the cold concrete, staring up at the horrors before her.

  Gleaming glass containers stood with uniform neatness upon high tables. The room was full of jars and tubes and silver industrial sized sinks, strange, unrecognizable smells, and racks of more jars hanging on the walls. Rows of jars.

  Jars and jars and jars.

  And every single one of them contained a clear fluid, in which a fetus floated.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Mutated, Other fetuses. Some had tiny, extra limbs. Some of them had bony protrusions—claws—instead of fingers. One of the…babies had its swollen, oversized face pressed against the glass, and Rune saw two long, sharp fangs covering its bottom lip.

  Monsters.

  The shop was growing monsters in labs.

  She hadn’t really believed Eugene. Couldn’t, maybe, conceive of it.

  That was no longer true.

  She believed.

  “Fuck me,” she whispered, going from one jar to the other, forcing down bile that rose into her throat. “Monsters. Growing monsters.”

  None of them had lived. They appeared to be the experiments of someone who’d been trying, and failing, for a very long time to do something no one should ever do.

  She rubbed at the pain in her chest, only realizing when her hand came away sticky and wet that her wounds were seeping. A lot.

  A shriek, dim but unmistakable, rose distantly and fell into an almost silent moan. Then a cry. An infant’s cry.

  She spotted a doorway, wide and gaping, and ran toward it. She was almost out of the room when she saw the other horrors.

  Three fetuses, protected behind the thick glass of a huge silver tank, stopped her in her tracks.

  The liquid in the tank bobbed as the infant Others inside kicked tiny feet and energetically waved fat little arms.

  “God,” Rune said, her voice coming out in a whispered shriek. “Oh, God.”

  She put her palms on the tank, pressing her forehead against the surprisingly warm glass. She couldn’t break their false womb—the encased Other babies would pour from the tank and splat upon the floor like helpless fish.

  The triplets’ heads were overly large, the thin, delicate skin blue with the sprawling roadmap of tiny veins. There were no umbilical cords trailing from their little bellies, but as she watched, something silver and glowing swam between and around the bodies.

  “What the fuck?” She was barely able to pick up the translucent swimmers. The infants—girls, all three of them—weren’t born of or created by natural means. They were being grown and kept alive by magic. Or with the help of magic.

  Bad fucking magic.

  One of the silver swimmers latched on to the middle child’s chest, its thin tail waving much as the infants’ arms had.

  It was feeding the Other.

  The middle child’s eyes flipped open at that moment, and it caught Rune’s stare with its own.

  She stopped breathing.

  The look in those eyes was clear, knowing.

  Trapped.

  Then the child opened its toothless mouth and began to cry. It didn’t make a sound, really, but the baby gazed at her, its mouth open, and she knew it was crying.

  Calling out for help.

  “No,” Rune murmured. “Oh, no.”

  It took her a moment to notice that Owen had appeared and stood beside her.

  He didn’t touch her, surely knowing better. “Rune.”

  She shuddered. “What can we do?”

  “You have to come with me. I’ve found Fie but can’t release her.”

  Finally, she looked at him, and tried to blink away the image of the infants. “What?”

  “Stefanie,” he said, his voice careful. “She’s down the hall, third door on the right. She’s caught in some sort of silver trap and I can’t cut it loose. Rune,” he said, when she glanced back at the babies. “We have to get Fie. Now.”

  “I’ll go,” she said, running her gaze over his pale, worn face. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  “I had to.”

  “Find a cell signal and call Eugene. Get our lab guys here.” She headed for the door, then turned back. “The other baby?”

  He shook his head. “No sign of it or the sheriff.”

  “Okay. Go.”

  He nodded, then jogged from the room.

  But in a few seconds, he was back.

  “Rune,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made her heart drop to her stomach.

  “God,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head, then walked toward her, a walk that was completely Owen—deceptively nonchalant and even a little lazy—and when he reached her, he just stood there looking at her.

  “Owen, you’re scaring the fuck out of me. What is it?”

  His eyes were clear and calm. “I got a bad feeling. What if I walked out of this room and never saw you again?”

  “What?”

  He sighed, lightly, and put his arms around her. “I don’t…” He said nothing more.

  For one second she let herself relax into him, let herself inhale his scent, and let herself imagine how she’d feel if Owen disappeared.

  Then she pushed away from him. “Don’t,” she said.

  “Don’t what?”

  Her chest was tight. “Don’t say shit. Don’t waste time.”

  He nodded, and turned away.

  “Owen.”

  He looked at her, silent, waiting.

  “Don’t fucking disappear,” she whispered.

  And with one last glance at the infants in the tank, she went through the doorway to find Fie.

  The magic in the room was powerful. It clung to her skin, to her brain. To her mind.

  Once she was out of the room of horrors, she was able to clear her mind and breathe a sigh of relief that the powerful little necromancer was alive.

  The well-lit hallway was lined with doors on both sides, but she didn’t take time to investigate. She went through the third doorway with her claws out, fully expecting enemies to jump her.

  But no enemy waited.

  Instead she found Fie, wound tightly in a silver netting, suspended from the ceiling. “Get me down,” Fie yelled, her high-pitched, childish voice holding not one shred of fear.

  The room was empty except for the girl and the silver contraption that held her. There wasn’t so much as a chair or a table in the room. There were also no lights. The only illumination came from the hallway and through the open doorway.

  “I’ll get you down, baby,” Rune said. “Turn your face away.”

  Fie obeyed immediately. Her cheeks were red, her eyes slightly swollen, her hair hanging in limp, sweaty strands. “Get me down,” she said again.

  Rune studied the long, silver net holding the child, then stepped closer and slid the tip of a claw between one of silver strings of the net and Fie’s body, carefully slicing upward.

  The silver netting didn’t break.

  “Rune,” Fie said. “Ow.”

  “Hold still, Fie. I’ll get you.”

  But she wasn’t so sure she would.

  Because as she’d tried to cut through the net, it had moved in response. Had begun to tighten.

  As though it were alive.

 
; “Shit,” she said. “Shit.”

  “That’s the way trash talks,” Fie grouched, sounding suddenly like a snippy old lady.

  Rune raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to respect your elders?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be a monster? Get me down!”

  Rune took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. “When I try to cut through, the net tightens.” She forgot Fie was a child, wrapped as she was with her old lady manner. “It’ll squeeze the life from you.”

  “I want my mommy,” Fie screamed. She scrunched up her face and began to howl.

  Rune jumped back. “Holy hell.” She put a hand to her chest and looked around, frantically hoping for someone to come help her with the screaming kid. “Shit, Fie.”

  “Mommy,” Fie screamed.

  The berserker barreled through the door, Raze and Jack at his back. He raked Rune with his glance, quick but intense, and then he went straight to Fie.

  “The fuck?” Jack asked.

  “Careful, Strad,” Rune said. “The net is alive. Mess with it and it tightens.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Raze, scraping his messy hair out of his face.

  “I’m going to get her down,” the berserker answered.

  He yanked his spear from its sheath and stabbed into the top of the netting, transferring it from the ring to which it was attached to his spear.

  He got Fie down. In seconds.

  But though she was held securely in Strad’s arms, she was still confined by the net.

  “I tried to cut through it,” Rune told him. “Couldn’t do it.” She held up one hand and shot out her claws. “And these will cut through any fucking thing.”

  “Shit,” Jack muttered.

  “That’s what I said.” Rune glanced at the blessedly quiet child and retracted her claws.

  “Where’s Lex?” Raze asked the question Rune knew he’d wanted to ask since he’d strode through the doorway.

  “I don’t know.” She squeezed his arm. “She became the demon, killed the Shop shooters, and took off.”

  “We saw the ashes,” Jack said. “She’ll be okay.”

  “The lab,” Strad said, bringing up what no one else wanted to talk about.

  Rune swallowed and pushed her fist into her chest. “Fucking jars.”

  “I’ll take Fie out of here.” He pulled the child closer to his massive chest. “Rune?”

  “I sent Owen to call in backup and transport. I’m going to search for the infant and the sheriff. Raze, guard those…babies in the lab. Jack, come with me.”

  And with their duties clear, Shiv Crew separated to complete the mission.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Rune and Jack jogged through hallways and tore rooms apart looking for the sheriff and the infant.

  They found three more exits, and finally Rune had to give up. The sheriff had gotten away, her knowledge of the mazes beneath the earth securing her freedom.

  Gotten away with the little black-haired baby. Rune was responsible for the newborn. She’d delivered it. She’d brought it into the world.

  She wanted it safe.

  “Let’s go back to the lab,” Rune said. “Wait for the Annex. I want to be there when they take the babies.”

  Jack nodded and pulled at his black eye patch. “What are they, Rune?”

  “They’re alive,” she snapped. “And I want to keep them that way.”

  When they arrived back at the room of jars, Raze was sprinting across the floor, his wolf-like eyes lighting with relief when he saw Rune coming. “Hurry,” he said. “Something…something bad.”

  God. But wasn’t it always something bad?

  She followed him to the tank, terrified the babies were gone.

  But it was worse than that. So much worse.

  Raze turned away. “I…” he said, and that was all.

  “Fuck me,” she whispered.

  The tank babies weren’t dead. At least, two of them weren’t. The baby in the middle, the one who had opened her eyes, was busy eating one of them. The other one floated peacefully, unaware that it would most likely be cannibalized as well.

  The middle baby had grown since Rune had left the room. Not a lot, but enough so that she could see the difference. It—she—had sprouted fangs and claws and held her sister in a bloody grip, her claws biting into the other child’s lifeless body as she didn’t just drink blood, but tore into the flesh with her fangs as though she were eating chicken.

  Rune retched.

  Jack pulled his gun and pointed it at the tank. “Son of a fucking bitch,” he said, and started to pull the trigger.

  “No,” Rune shouted, and knocked the gun out of his hand. It went flying and hit a table, then fell to the floor in a silence broken only by the sounds of cracking bones coming from the glass tank.

  “Rune,” Jack said, his voice disgusted, horrified. “Fuck you.”

  “She can’t help it.” She couldn’t look at the monstrous baby, but stared into Jack’s face with a desperation she couldn’t hide. “She was made that way. It’s not her fault. It’s not her fault, Jack.”

  He took a deep breath, comprehension dawning. Without another word, he went to pick up his gun.

  “Do you want her to exist,” Raze asked, “knowing that someday she’ll have to live with what she is? What she’s done?”

  Like you did?

  He didn’t say that part, but he didn’t have to.

  Finally, Rune glanced back at the tank. Parts of the dead infant floated through the water, and little silver flashes swam slowly, somewhat dazed, around them.

  The cannibal closed her eyes, leaving her other sibling alone—for the moment—and appeared to sleep. Her fangs were long, too long for her tiny face, and hung sharply over her bottom lip.

  She was fucking hideous.

  And a real monster. As Rune had been. Hadn’t she killed and drained her parents, after all? Hadn’t she turned them?

  She was the baby in the tank.

  “Dammit Rune,” Raze said. “You can’t leave them alive.”

  But she had to. No way could she murder the infants.

  “The Annex will take care of them,” she said, her voice soft. “They’ll train them, make them…”

  “Less inclined to eat a person?” Jack was angry, even though he was trying not to be. “I understand how you feel, Rune, but you have to do the right thing. The logical thing. Not the emotional thing.”

  “Shit, Jack,” she said. “Do you wish someone had killed me, then? When I was a fucking infant?”

  Owen slipped into the room. “Annex is here. Eugene is with them, and he wants to see you, Rune.”

  “Rune?” Jack asked, when she didn’t move. “We’ll do whatever you want us to do.”

  It was all on her.

  She stared at the babies, floating with peaceful innocence in their glass womb. “Don’t kill them,” she said. “They deserve a shot at life. It’s not up to us to end them because we’re afraid of them.”

  Jack holstered his gun and turned toward the door. He passed Owen without a word. Raze strode after him and finally, with one last look at the babies, Rune followed.

  Owen shot out a hand to stop her. “I need to tell you. Lex…”

  She closed her eyes in one long, tired blink. “What happened?”

  “She went into town and ended up destroying nearly everyone who wasn’t hiding inside his house.”

  “Why?” she asked. She didn’t really care, but Owen seemed to think she should.

  He hesitated. “She said it wasn’t her, it was you. It was your…influence inside her. She said you yanked out a black soul and wrapped it in evil, and sent it out to kill the world.”

  She massaged her stomach. “Do you think I’m evil, Owen?”

  His eyes were unwavering. “I think you’re a lot of things.”

  She stared at him for a moment longer, hoping, maybe, for him to backtrack. To tell her she was brave and amazing and good. That she was a protect
or. That she was worthy.

  His gaze softened as he watched her, and finally, he reached out to wipe away a bloody tear she hadn’t even been aware she’d shed. “You’re essential, Rune. You’re a mix of many things. But whatever you are, you matter.”

  “Guard the babies,” she murmured.

  She left then, walked out to meet Eugene, sure of only one thing.

  She was her monster.

  Whatever that meant.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Where’s Strad?” she asked Raze, when she walked outside, shocked to find a weak sun trying to break through the fading night sky.

  She drew in the fresh pureness of the air. The underground rooms had been stale and old. Unseen particles of noxious, bad magic had hung in the air, hurting her chest and clouding her mind.

  She barely glanced at the piles of dead lying in her path. It was a sight she was accustomed to seeing.

  “He went to hand Fie over to a couple of ops to take back to the Annex.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t go with them to make sure she’s not taken again.”

  She nodded. Annex ops hadn’t kept her safe the first time. There was no reason to trust them. “He didn’t get the net off her?”

  “No. I don’t know how—”

  “Rune,” Eugene called.

  She turned to watch him striding toward her, three ops at his back. For a second she frowned as something about him seemed strange and out of place, then realized it was simply Iris’s absence.

  She didn’t wait for him to speak. “We found the lab. There are—”

  “You found one of them. The Shop will have more labs—worse labs—scattered across the country.”

  She folded her arms. “You haven’t seen what’s in there, dude.”

  “I don’t have to. I know what’s in there. My people have informed me that you’ve discovered some jars of mutated Others.”

  “Yeah. But they weren’t alive. I found a tank of three infant Others. Alive.”

  He nodded and rubbed his hands together. “I’ll take care of them.”

  She kept her face blank although she shook with relief. The Annex would take care of the little ones. “Thanks. One of them didn’t make it.”

  “Unfortunate. You know what I stand for, Rune. Of course I’m going to take care of them. The Shop might have created them, but they’re ours now. Had we not discovered them the Shop would have turned them into killing machines of power.” His breath hitched and again, he rubbed his hands together. “This is good. Who knows what they’re capable of?”