He put his arm around her. "Did they do this to you?"
"They tried, but I wouldn't become pregnant." She sounded ashamed.
"You were raped." Every Brethren responsible was going to die a messy death beneath his blade.
"No, that wasn't the way they did it." Liling wrapped her arms around her middle. "They gave me an injection with a needle. Every month they made me go to the breeding room. It was so cold in there. They made me sit in a chair that went backward, and put the syringe up inside me. I had to stay there for hours after they did it… but I never got pregnant. My belly stayed empty."
Another form of rape, Jaus thought, but he felt a little better to know that she had not been used over and over by the Brethren. "Did they tattoo you with the red swan?"
She touched her shoulder. "That was my designation. They never gave us names. Names would have made us seem more like them." Her mouth hitched. "When I told Mrs. Chen, it made her so angry. She named me Liling."
"You said you have a twin."
"I did. They separated us when we were nine, after we tried to run away," she said. "Seven years later, some of the doctors wanted to bring us back together. We were special, not like the other children. When I was sixteen, they transferred us to the same facility. Only something went wrong. The way they changed us; the things we could do… We could not bear to be near each other. They called it 'the effect.' And that wasn't all."
Valentin looked down to see her fingers digging into the mattress.
"At first people around us became sick," she continued, her voice dropping low. "Some became seriously dehydrated: others got pneumonia. Then machines would break or catch fire. I never did any of it deliberately, Valentin, and I don't think my twin did, either. It just happened. The last time was when my twin came to get me so that we could run away again."
He could feel the pain rolling off her in waves. "Tell me what happened."
"A storm came. The biggest one I'd ever seen. Like a hurricane, only a hundred times more powerful." She hesitated. "I don't remember too much about that night. There was a tornado made of fire and water, and then a terrible explosion. It leveled the building. Everyone there—everyone I knew—died."
"But you survived."
She nodded quickly. "I hid in a small room with no windows. Some things fell on top of me. When the storm passed, I escaped." She looked at him. "I killed all those people, but I swear to you, I didn't mean to."
"The storm killed them, not you." He pulled her onto his lap. "You do not have it in you to harm anyone."
She rested her cheek against his shoulder. "I've been hiding from the Brethren and my twin ever since that night. They're still hunting me. They're using my twin to hunt me. If I don't run away, terrible storms come and people die."
He kissed her. "You cannot blame yourself for changes in the weather, mein Mädchen."
"Oh, but I can," she said softly. "That's what went wrong with us, with what they did to us. What they called 'the effect'. We each have our own power, my twin and I. But when we're near each other, when we're together, we create those storms."
"We have located the crash site, my lord." Jayr, suzeraina of the Realm, reported from her jardin in central Florida. "The plane appears intact, although it is presently at the bottom of Ghost Lake."
"Assemble a rescue team and send them in to retrieve Jaus and any survivors," he told her. "Be prepared to accommodate the needs of the humans."
"As you say, seigneur. I will report back to you as soon as our ground team has retrieved the survivors." Jayr ended the call.
Michael turned and found his arms filled with his sygkenis. "What is this, chérie?"
"A great big thank-you hug." She reached up, pulling his head down to hers, and kissed him passionately. "Plus bonus kiss." She grinned, delighted. "You found him."
"Jayr's contacts in the Civil Air Patrol found the plane," he corrected. "But the news is very good. Jaus cannot drown, so even if he is still on the plane, he is mostly likely alive. Now, how is your brother?"
"Agitated all to hell that he has to stay in bed, but sleeping." She heaved out a frustrated breath. "Wilhelm told me that you were able to locate the orphanage John described."
"Yes. Although it is now used as a private Catholic adoption agency, not an orphanage." He saw the indecision on her face. "It is only forty minutes away. You and I could go there tonight and see if we can find some evidence to give to John about the months you were kept there."
Her eyes softened. "You would do that for me?"
"My love." He lifted her hand to his lips. "I would crawl naked over burning copper for you."
Alex kissed him again.
That evening, Wilhelm drove them out of the city and north to a small town near the lake. Saint Benedict's Catholic Adoption Agency had closed at five p.m., and the small parking lot appeared empty.
He inspected the property. "Wil, stay with Alexandra in the car.""Excuse me." His sygkenis glared at him. "I did not come here to sit in the damn car while you have all the fun breaking and entering."
Michael sighed. "Wil, stay with car and be prepared to leave quickly."
After checking the location of the building's alarm sensors, Michael carefully rewired the leads and entered the building through the back door. The cool air of the interior smelled of beeswax and lemon, but there were no sounds of occupation.
"It looks like the main office is over here," Alexandra said, pulling him toward a hall behind the front reception area.
Michael helped her search the office, and several others, but they found only current records of placements and adoptions. It wasn't until they checked a closet used to store boxes of records that Alex discovered stacks of very old medical records.
"These date back quite a ways; there might be something in here." She carried a stack into the main office to drop them on the desk. She turned on the small green-shaded lamp by the telephone and began sorting through the files. "These are pediatric medical records for kids who were adopted the same time John and I were. Standard stuff." She straightened and then peered at one label.
Michael looked over her shoulder. "Did you find yours?"
"No. I found Samantha Brown's." She thumbed her way down the stack, then stopped at another tab. "Nicola Jefferson. What the hell… ?"
"Their names are fairly common." Cyprien said. "It could be a coincidence."
"Names that just happen to be identical to two of the other three human women besides me who have survived the change to Kyn. At the former orphanage where my brother and I stayed." She yanked the files out of the stack. "Coincidence, my ass." She opened the file and began to read.
Suspecting that she would be reading for several minutes, Michael decided to inspect the rest of the building.
The agency appeared to have nothing to hide, except for a few secretaries who had candy and tranquilizers stashed in their desks. Michael was about to return and suggest they take all the medical records with them when he saw a bookcase filled with religious texts. He wouldn't have given it a second glance, except that the titles on the spines were all in French.
He removed some of the books, which were covered in dust and obviously had not been handled in years. As he replaced them, he pushed one too far and it bumped the back of the bookcase with a thump.
To his ears, a very hollow thump.
Michael reached along the back edge of the bookcase until he felt hinges, and then checked the other side. He found a recessed latch and pushed it. The bookcase swung slowly outward, revealing an open doorway and a set of stairs leading down.
He went back to the main office. "Alexandra."
"This has got to be the same Samantha Brown," she murmured. "They transferred her down to a foster care program in South Florida when she was just a baby." She looked up. "What?"
"I have found a hidden door," he told her. "It leads to a basement level."
She came around the desk and followed him out to the bookcase. "Wow. I thought they had these things only in the movies."
"The Brethren have a flair for the dramatic." He reached in and flipped a switch, turning on the stairwell light. "I am going down first."
"Of course you're going down first," she said. "You're the guy."
The stairwell led to a small room with boxes and tables draped in sheets. He lifted one to see a collection of empty glass vials and a tray of needles. Under another were some older microscopes and specimen containers. "Perhaps they performed physicals here, in the basement."
"They were doing other things down here, too." Alex said, her voice strained. She stood in the doorway to an adjoining room.
Michael went over to join her and looked in. The room's walls had been painted gray, and twenty single beds lined each side. The beds were identical to the ones they had seen at the mission in Monterey.
"My brother's not crazy," she said, her voice low and hurt. "He's right. The Brethren kept us down here and did something to us."
"We do not know that you and John were brought to this area," he told her. "We need more facts."
She walked in and inspected the bed frames. "No numbers or letters, but maybe they painted them over."
Michael helped her search the laboratory area, but aside from outdated medical testing equipment they found nothing of consequence. He took her back upstairs, keeping her cold hand in his.
"Don't be upset, chérie."
"I'm not upset," she said tonelessly. "That security guard behind you is, though."
"You want to hold it right there, buddy," a rough voice said.
Michael turned to see a middle-aged human pointing a gun at him. "I am so glad you found us," he said, holding his hands up as he moved toward the guard. "My wife and I thought we would be locked in all night."