Dark Wrath Read online

  It took patience and three nights of watching to learn the pattern. The guy was shy, though. When he needed to take a piss, he went off into the trees. The fourth night, Jesse waited until he disappeared and bounded across the short distance to get a closer look at the shaft.

  The cover, not surprisingly, was locked down, but the lock was a simple pad lock. Just inside was a powerful fan. Below that, rungs had been set into the concrete for maintenance of the second fan, which looked to be about twenty feet down. About twenty feet below that he heard the whir of a third fan.

  A quiet entrance was going to be a bitch.

  It took fifteen hours to figure out how to interrupt the fan sequence without alerting the breach to security. When Jesse returned to implement the plan, he discovered the guard he’d been watching had been replaced. Two days later, the guard returned and Jesse went down the shaft. As tricky as it was to interrupt the power supply and crawl through the ventilation fans, it was worse on the return trip. It had taken nearly thirty minutes to install the remote device that he would need to hack in to the facility’s computer system. Afterwards, he could do nothing but wait for several hours and hope the guard ran true to form.

  He ran out of luck when he at last climbed out of the shaft again. He was scarcely half way back to the cover of the trees when the guard reappeared from the brush. He had no time to consider what to do, only time to react.

  Tamping the instinct to shift and confront the threat, he raced for the tree line. A shout went up behind him. Cursing under his breath, he realized as he reached the woods that he only had two choices: He could risk getting caught in human form and hope, if he managed to elude them, that they thought it was only some curious human. Or he could shift and allow them to know that a Lycan had been nearby.

  It wasn’t much of a choice.

  If he was caught, he was going to be too busy trying to escape to do either Erin or the baby any good. Shifting abruptly, he outpaced the pursuit fairly quickly. When he’d eluded them, he circled around to the Hummer he’d left parked in the woods three miles away and returned to his apartment in the city.

  If his objective had been to hack into the data, it would very likely have taken him a matter of days to crack the security. Since his only interest was in getting into the surveillance system, it took him only a little more than half a day.

  The layout of the facility and the guard stations were fairly predictable. It was obvious from observing the guards and the lab technicians that security had been beefed up since his intrusion, but he saw nothing to indicate that they’d realized he’d breached security and actually entered the facility.

  It was as much as he could hope for. It might be months before they took security down a level. At the very least, they would be looking at weeks. He wasn’t willing to wait that long.

  As hard as he’d tried to focus strictly on the objective, he knew they were experimenting on the baby and possibly Erin, as well.

  As soon as he’d mapped the layout, counted the guards, located watch stations and the cell where they were holding Erin, and studied Dr. Wagner’s movements over a three-day period, he met with Tavian and worked out the assault of the facility.

  It was strongly in their favor that the humans thought of them only as sub human. They would be expected to behave as animals, not intelligent beings.

  When Tavian went to summon the pack that had adopted him and nursed him back to health after he’d been wounded in his escape the year before, he returned to his own pack to convince them to take part in the operation. In a general way, each pack was more inclined to see other packs as their enemies and it was a rare thing for two packs to join forces. The experiments and threat to them all went a long way toward convincing the majority. The possibility of a sanctioned attack on the humans convinced the remainder.

  Half the Lycans participating were to launch an all-out frontal attack. Once they’d diverted the humans into retaliation and pursuit, the remaining half would enter the facility through the air shaft.

  * * * *

  Three times a week a guard came and took Erin to an exercise room where she was allowed an hour to expend excess energy and work to keep in shape. Without a clock or a window in her cell to help her to guesstimate the passage of time, it was hard to keep up with how many days she’d been imprisoned or when to expect the events that made up her daily routine. And yet, Erin sensed that something was off the moment she heard the mechanical click of the lock to her cell.

  She tensed, studying the guard suspiciously as he stepped inside her cell, but she could see nothing outward that seemed to indicate they had anything in mind for her. It wasn’t until she’d obeyed his demand to come with him and stepped outside the cell that she discovered she’d been right to begin with--something was in the wind and it wasn’t going to be something she would like.

  A lab tech stood just outside the door. As she stepped through the doorway, he grabbed her wrist and stabbed a syringe into her arm. By the time her brain had caught up with the surprise attack, the drug was already circulating through her system and the world seemed to shift around her. Pocketing the syringe, he gripped her upper arm.

  “What’s that for?” Erin demanded, but the words came out slurred.

  “Just a little something to keep you calm.”

  Alarm bells rang out. If they were concerned about her being calm, she was definitely in trouble. She tried to struggle, but she found she was already too uncoordinated and woozy to even give them much of a challenge.

  Supporting her between them, the two men escorted her to the elevator and took her up one level. Despite the drug, Erin felt her alarm escalate. The holding cell where she was imprisoned was in the lowest level of the facility. She hadn’t been above that level since she’d arrived.

  Had they caught another Lycan? Caught Jesse? Was she to be used to extract more specimens?

  She supposed she should have been at least a little relieved when she saw this was not the case. She wasn’t. Although the room they took her to didn’t appear the least bit extraordinary, she knew them well enough by now to know better than to think it was a simple examination room or that they had nothing more diabolical in mind than a physical to determine her health.

  That suspicion was borne up by the fact that the guards immediately dragged her to the examination table in the center of the room. Lifting her off her feet, they placed her on the cold hard surface and held her down despite her attempts to pull free while a medical assistant wearing a putrid green lab coat proceeded to strap first her arms and then her ankles.

  “What’re you doing? What’s happening?”

  Neither the guards nor the lab assistant answered her. The door opened at just that moment, however, and she turned to see who’d come in.

  Dr. Wagner curled his lips in a smile she supposed was to reassure her, though there was no warmth in it. His eyes looked as cold and reptilian as gator eyes.

  It was the first time she’d seen him since she’d been recaptured and she felt ill with the hate that welled inside her, sick with the power of her desire to tear him limb from limb.

  “Bastard!” she snarled at him, balling her hands into fists and straining against the straps as he made his way to the foot of the examination table and looked her and the situation over.

  Dismissing the guards with a jerk of his head, he focused his attention on his lab assistant. “No. No. No. We need her feet in the stirrups for the procedure, Johnson,” he said, stepping back to watch the technician critically as the man did as told and glancing at the guards by the door disapprovingly several times.

  Obviously, he didn’t appreciate having the guards inside his lab and just as evidently he knew it was useless to demand that they leave the room.

  “Where’s my baby? Where’s Joshua?” Erin demanded, her voice a shrill scream now with fury that Wagner behaved as if she was a piece of the furniture.

  He sent her a look of surprise and finally frowned thoughtfully. “Joshua. H
mmm, that has a nice ring to it. I’ll pass it along. They can put it in his records. I can’t guarantee they’ll use it, of course. I’m fairly certain, considering what they have in mind for HL001, that they’ll probably prefer just to use the clinical designation, but they may not want to completely dehumanize him.”

  A mixture of horror and relief collided inside Erin at his calm announcement--relief to at least discover that he was alive--horror to realize what they had in mind for him, for despite the wild thoughts that had plagued her since they’d taken him from her, she hadn’t truly accepted that they could, and would, behave with such a complete disregard for human life.

  “Jesse will kill you,” she managed to say, though she couldn’t deliver it with the fury she felt roiling inside of her.

  His brows rose and then came together in a frown. She saw he was trying to place the name and her heart sank. “Jesse? The Lycan we had before?”

  He was astonished, she realized. He must have thought that Jesse was dead--and she’d just given away the fact that Jesse wasn’t. She wasn’t in any condition at the moment to consider the consequences of her revelation, though, and in any case, Wagner stunned her by snickering like a juvenile caught in the act of some malicious prank. “This could be awkward.”

  “What are you talking about?” Erin demanded, struggling to lift her head to see what he was doing as he moved to the supply cabinets at the end of the room at her feet and began searching for something.

  She saw when he turned at last that he was holding a strange looking syringe. He tapped it with one finger, smiling now with a good deal of pride and excitement. “I’ve a half dozen little Jesses right here.”

  Erin stared at the syringe blankly as he set it on a sterile tray and dropped the end of the table where she lay. Fipping her gown back to her waist, it took no more than a few seconds for the answer she was seeking to present itself. “Clones?” she demanded in disbelief as he pulled a rolling stool up and settled on it, his face framed by her spread thighs.

  “We hope to get three or four out of the batch,” he responded absently. “The hybrid might work better for us, but we need some pure breeds before we’ll know that, don’t we?”

  “Clones! You’re insane!” Erin exclaimed, struggling against the restraints as he picked up antiseptic and began to swab the skin around the mouth of her sex. Frustrated when she couldn’t escape him, she started screaming and cursing him.

  Wagner glared at her. “This is a delicate operation. You must be still!”

  “I’m not just going to let you do this to me, you fucking lunatic!” Erin screamed, trying to fight off the effects of the sedative they’d given her.

  Furious, Wagner shot to his feet abruptly. “I can’t work like this! Johnson, get another syringe and tranquilize her!”

  “Don’t you dare come near me with that thing, you son of a bitch!” Erin cried out, twisting her head to watch as the technician moved to the cabinets and began searching the drawer for a syringe and the medication Wagner had ordered.

  “What’s that?” the guard demanded abruptly.

  It was several moments before Erin realized that the men in the room with her had frozen like deer caught in the crosshairs of a hunter’s rifle, their heads lifted to listen to some distant sound.

  Almost the moment Erin quieted to see if she could hear whatever it was that had caught their attention, the alarm began to blare. Her heart jerked painfully at the high pitched sound and then began to race with hopefulness and fear as she heard the sound of distant gunfire.

  Chapter Seven

  The radios clipped to the guards’ belts set up a squawk of static. “All units, all units. We’re under attack. This is not a drill. Three men down. I say again. Three m--”

  The voice cut off abruptly, interrupted by another burst of static. One of the men grabbed the walkie-talkie off his belt and jerked the door open, peering up and down the corridor outside. “This is twelve. Say again.”

  Nothing but static greeted him. He turned to stare at Dr. Wagner, as if searching for an answer. “Stay here. Phillips, come with me,” he added. Barely glancing at the other guard to see if he was complying with the order, he strode into the corridor.

  “Hold on a minute!” Wagner shouted even as the men dashed out the door. “You can’t leave us unarmed!”

  “What should we do?” Johnson demanded anxiously.

  Wagner stared at him a long moment. “Nothing,” he responded finally. “I’m sure they’ll have everything under control in a few minutes. Did you get the syringe ready?”

  “You want to proceed?” Johnson demanded, obviously outraged that Wagner could even consider going on as if the facility weren’t under attack.

  “You’d prefer to cower in one corner?” Wagner snapped. “We’re perfectly safe. We’re three levels below the entrance. The militia will contain the security problem.”

  “They won’t!” Erin put in. “It’s Jesse. I told you he said he would come after you, you son of a bitch!” She turned her head toward the door then and began screaming Jesse’s name as loudly as she could, crying for help.

  “Shut up!” Wagner glared at her. “The Lycans are fierce creatures, but he won’t make it past the lobby. Get the syringe, Johnson. Sedate her and gag her. We’ll continue with the implantation.”

  Johnson merely stared at Wagner for many moments, as if trying to decide whether it was worth the risk of ignoring Wagner’s order and fleeing. Finally, he seemed to shake himself, his gaze zeroing in on Erin as she continued to shout in the hope that Jesse would hear her and come to her.

  Jerkily, he strode toward her and clamped a hand over her mouth, then looked around distractedly for something he could use as a gag. Wagner strode to the supply cabinets and began jerking out one drawer after another. Finally, he turned with a roll of tape in one hand and a small towel in the other and headed for her purposefully.

  Struggling, Erin managed to wrench free of Johnson’s hand long enough to utter one last scream for help before Wagner shoved the rolled towel in her mouth and held it tightly while Johnson wound tape around it to hold it in place.

  “The sedative now, Johnson,” he said when Johnson had finished securing the gag, “and we’ll just give that a minute to kick in--” Wagner broke off before he’d finished what he’d been about to say as the sound of pounding feet came to them from the corridor beyond the room.

  Something slammed into the door hard enough all three of them jumped. Johnson dropped the syringe from suddenly nerveless fingers and whirled to stare at the door. His eyes nearly bulged from his head as he saw the steel door buckle.

  Someone screamed as the door suddenly gave way to the pounding against it and nightmarish creatures filled the doorway.

  Letting out a bellow of rage, the Lycan in the forefront surged toward Wagner. Gripping him by the throat, he lifted the scientist from the floor. Wagner’s scream of terror was cut off abruptly. Blood surged into his face until his head looked in imminent danger of exploding from the pressure. He clawed at the arm holding him aloft.

  A second Lycan surged toward Johnson, swiping a blow at him with bared claws. His scream of terror became a gurgle as he was lifted off his feet by the blow and flung across the room. He hit the wall like a rag doll, his arms and legs limp and dangling uselessly even before impact. The Lycan that had struck him surged toward the supply cabinets at one end of the room. The third Lycan that had entered the examination room had headed directly for the equipment and was occupied with beating it into palm sized pieces.

  Erin dragged her gaze from the Lycans moving around her to the one that stood near her feet, slowly squeezing the life out of Wagner. “Jesse?” she asked, her voice muffled by the gag.

  The Lycan whipped his head in her direction. After studying her broodingly for a moment, he dropped the limp form he was holding and turned toward her. Her heart managed a little gallop of fear in spite of the sedative she’d been given earlier as one of his great paws settled on her t
high. Grasping the restraint, he snapped it as if it had been no more than a thread and then moved to the next.

  Uncertain of whether he meant to kill her or not now that he’d finished with Wagner, Erin began struggling to remove the gag the moment he’d freed one of her hands, hoping she could convince him to set aside their private war until Joshua was safe.

  “They’ve got the baby--your son,” she said a little frantically, wondering just how much Jesse really understood when he was in his beast form.

  Jesse grasped her jaw tightly, his eyes seeming to burn a hole in her as he met her gaze. Apparently satisfied, he moved back to Wagner as the man uttered a groan, placing a foot in the center of the scientist’s chest.

  “Join the others and make sure every lab is searched, and every specimen destroyed,” he growled at the other two Lycans. “I will have a little talk with Wagner about my son.”

  Wagner’s eyelids twitched and then, slowly, his eyes opened and more slowly focused on the beast standing over him. They began to bulge then with fear.

  Leaning down, Jesse grasped him by his shoulders and hauled him to his feet. “Today you die, Wagner,” he said in a rumbling growl. “You have two choices, quick and easy, or slow and very painful. Where is my son?”

  * * * *