I know it’s for the best. If I’m going to be thrown into a cell, I don’t want him trapped in there with me. Nonetheless, I feel incredibly vulnerable without him.
The feeling only intensifies when I see the squad of soldiers waiting for us on the dock, weapons drawn. They wait until our little rowboat bumps up against the logs and then reach down and haul us up.
“Who’s this?” the Mog officer in charge demands, staring into my eyes and grabbing me roughly by the arm.
“A low-life traitor,” Rex replies. “Adamus Sutekh, son of General Andrakkus Sutekh.” He punches me in the stomach, hard enough to double me over and leave me gasping for breath.
The captain’s frowning at us. He’s trueborn, of course, but the underlings flanking him are all vatborn, big and pale and typically creepy. “Why bring him here?” the captain asks after a second. “And what exactly happened at Dulce? We lost all communication with it—sent some scouts in but they reported the whole place destroyed.”
“He happened,” Rex replies, gesturing towards me. The captain’s frown deepens, and Rex hurries to explain. “I was stationed at Dulce Base. This traitor showed up with a human ally and attacked. They blew up the base. I was only stunned—I woke up in time to see him slip away, so I followed him all the way from Dulce to here. Once I was sure this was his next target, I captured him and brought him in for questioning.”
The captain nods. I can’t believe he’s buying this load of horseshit, but he is. “Good job,” he says. “We’ll notify the general and find out if he wants to question his son personally. In the meantime, Rexicus, you’ll need to be debriefed.”
He gestures at two of the soldiers. “Throw the traitor in a cell for now, but don’t get too carried away—the general will want to handle his punishment personally.”
Then he leads Rex away while the guards grab me and march me toward a long, low building a few hundred feet from the harbor. Damn. It’s not even in the main building. This is going to make things very difficult. When they throw me into my cell, I’m still trying to decide whether Rex sold me out or if everything’s going exactly according to plan.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG IT’S BEEN. HOURS? Days? But no one has come by since those guards threw me in here. I guess they’re taking their commander’s orders to leave me alone until my father comes to retrieve me to heart. I’m cursing myself for thinking Rex was actually on my side, for letting him get the better of me. I thought I could trust him.
Then I hear the click of the lock on my cell door. It’s too dark to make out who’s standing there, but I easily recognize Rex’s voice. “Sorry I took so long,” he says.
Then something hits me in the face and chest—something lightweight, flexible, a little scratchy. “Put those on!”
It’s pants and a jacket, all standard military issue, and I hurriedly do as I’m told. “Where have you been?” I demand as I change.
“I had to be sure they didn’t suspect anything,” Rex replies, holding the cell door wide-open and beckoning me to follow. “And I had to find out where they were holding the Chimæra. Here.” He hands me a military cap, and I pull that on as well. Smart thinking—I’m clearly a Mog but my long hair definitely isn’t a soldier’s cut. Plus the cap helps hide my face, in case anyone might recognize me.
“So? Where are they?” I ask as he leads me out of the building. I’m surprised there aren’t any guards at all, until I see a small pile of ash in one corner and another behind a desk near the entryway.
I’m a little surprised Rex was willing to kill to get me out of here. Surprised, but grateful.
“They’re keeping them in the Disease Center,” he replies, easing open the brig’s front door and glancing out before nodding and motioning me through. “But not the main annex—that’s mostly marines and human scientists. There’s a second building off to the side, staffed entirely by our people. They’re in there.”
That makes sense. Even though the High Command clearly has some kind of deal with the U.S. government, they wouldn’t want to let any of the humans close to anything that could be used against us. And the Chimæra would definitely qualify. “How do we get there?”
He grins as we step around the side of the jail and stop at a military jeep that’s sitting there, already idling. Rex doesn’t hit the lights until we’re clear of the last building and our view of the harbor is swallowed up among the trees.
It only takes a couple minutes to curve up and around to the Disease Center—the advantages of an island that’s only a few miles in any direction. The main building is enormous and looks like a research lab crossed with a school, but sure enough there’s a smaller, warehouse-like building off to one side. We head over that way. There are Mog soldiers standing guard outside, but they salute Rex and step aside to let us pass. Interesting.
“This is our main base on the island,” he explains once we’re through the doors and walking along a wide, rough, cement-floored hall. “Where they’re keeping the Chimæra will require security clearance, but out here we’re good.” Which is obviously true, but I can’t help wondering how we’re going to get back out past those same guards without setting off alarms. Especially with however many Chimæra there are in tow.
“We lucked out too,” Rex is saying. We head up one flight of stairs, then another. “They were being held in the basement, but two days ago I hear they all went nuts. They trashed the place completely. So they were moved up here until stronger cells could be built.”
Two days ago? I bet that’s about the same time that Dust started freaking out on the boat. It’s all got to be connected.
Speaking of which . . . “Have you seen Dust? Do you know where he is?”
“He’s out there,” Rex answers without glancing back. “He found me when I was grabbing the jeep. He knows what he’s doing. He’ll find you when the time’s right.”
I nod slowly. I wish Dust was with me right now, but I know Rex is right. Dust hasn’t let me down yet.
We stop on the fourth floor and exit the stairwell. The ceilings up here are twelve feet tall at least, and enormous windows cover most of the walls, though they’re barred. Despite the concrete floors and thick stone outer walls and corrugated metal inner walls, the space still has a light, airy feel.
And doors. Lots and lots of doors.
“They’re up here somewhere,” Rex assures me, opening the first door at hand and peering in. He shakes his head and slides it shut again. I open another door, but it leads to a small office. Empty, fortunately. “Nope.” The next one is a supply closet, also not much help. The door after that, however, opens onto a large room that looks like an operating theater—there are instruments arrayed on trays positioned around a large exam table. It’s also empty, which I consider a very good thing. I really wouldn’t want to walk in on a surgery, especially not one performed by my people. They’re a lot more interested in carving up than in putting back together.
“Over here!” Rex calls, and I see he’s one door down from me but on the other side of the hall. I cross quickly and peer inside with him. It’s like a big kennel, with wire cages lined up against the far wall. Could this be it?
“Shut the door,” I whisper, stepping through to study the cages and their inhabitants. The first cage looks empty, save for some sort of goo smeared across the floor. But when I step a little closer, the goo suddenly rears up, flowing into a shape like a raccoon or maybe a weasel, narrow and wiry with dark, matted fur, a sharply pointed face and beady little eyes.
And then it screams.
I’ve never heard anything like it. And I hope I never will again. It’s high and shrill and makes my entire body feel like a glass that’s about to shatter. I stumble back a pace, off balance, then another, until the screeching stops. The goo settles, dropping back to the cage floor. Rex and I stare at each other. What the hell was that?
Whatever it was, there’s nothing I can do to help it, not if it’s going to scream bloody murder and completely paralyze me every time I get close.
The next cage is empty, though judging from the soiled newspapers on the bottom, it hasn’t been that way for long.
The third cage contains a bird. About the size of a parrot, it has blue feathers ranging from a deep purple so dark they look almost black to a pale blue-white like winter itself. The bird has no wings, though—where those appendages should be are two stumps, stitched and bandaged. It caws at me, a single long, chirp-like wail, and the sound brings tears to my eyes. I look over at Rex but he looks just as horrified. Either he’s a better actor than I realized or he had no idea what we’d find.
“Are these . . . Chimæra?” he asks, his voice hushed and rough.
“I don’t know. They might be.” I shake my head. “I don’t think either of those two are going anywhere, though—even if we opened their cages, how would we get them to follow us? Especially without risking whatever others we find?” I hate to abandon any of them, but I think we have to leave this pair here. I glance in the other cages quickly but they’re all empty. I see a second door against the sidewall, and I hurry over to that, pull it open, and rush through, almost slamming into a pair of Mogs that are standing in front of another row of cages. One of them is short and wiry and wearing a lab coat—definitely a scientist. The other one’s big and burly, though, and in military gear. They both look up as I barrel in, and the soldier’s hand automatically goes for the blaster at his side. Great.
“What—who—?” the scientist starts, but I shut him up by slamming into him as hard as I can. He flies backwards into the soldier who stumbles a step, his hands going up automatically to catch his companion. They both turn to ash a second later, and I glance back to see Rex in the doorway, blaster in hand.
He did that. Just like he killed the Mogs who were guarding my cell.
“Why . . . ,” I start.
“I promised you I’d help you and I’m helping you,” he says. “Let’s just leave it at that.” Then he looks past me. “Jackpot,” he whispers.
I follow his gaze to see what he’s talking about. At least four of the cages here are occupied—no, five. And all of them . . . well, the first one has a small dog, the second a little pig, the third a cat, the fourth a raccoon, and the fifth a brightly colored bird. Then I blink, and now they’re an owl, a goat, a rat, a beaver, and a monkey. Then they shift again, and again, a lot like Dust did the other night, only this is constant, cycling from shape to shape to shape fast enough to make them dizzying to watch.
“Is that normal?” Rex asks. He sounds just as surprised as I am. The continual shape-shifting is unsettling, to say the least.
“I don’t know,” I admit. Then I notice a clipboard on the ground by my feet. The scientist must have dropped it. Picking it up, I see a list of subjects, with notes next to each one. Notes like “100cc injected, change rate increased tenfold” and “lobotomy performed, cohesion shattered.” Bile rises in my throat, and I have to gulp a few times before I can answer. “No. They’ve been experimenting on them already.”
