Death Takes Wing, page 18
Stopping the car in front of the house, she turned it off and climbed out. Stretching, she started walking to the heavy wooden door. The flagstone was weatherworn, edged by river rocks and hens and chicks, the only green other than the moss that clung to the rocks.
Now that was new, she thought to herself, looking at the intricate designs that decorated the dark maple door. Knocking, she waited, enjoying the carvings. She made out various words, not able to translate them, but knowing that they were Latin. Something about remembrance, Amalia thought as she reached out to trace the carving.
“Hello?” She heard woman’s voice from inside the house, through a small crack as the door creaked open an inch. “Can I help you?”
Amalia jumped as the door pushed against her hand. “Jessamyn? It’s me, Amalia? Don-Donovan’s sister?” she finished with a faltering smile, hand dropped to her side.
The door opened. “Amalia?” The blonde angelus looked at her, a wide smile on the perfect cherry lips. “Come in!” Jessamyn gestured at Amalia to enter the bright house, hurrying her into the sunshine yellow entryway.
“I’ve been meaning to call, but…” trailing off, Amalia rubbed the back of her neck uncomfortably, a shy smile on her lips.
Jessamyn shook her head as she led Amalia into the small family room. “No, I know. I never wanted to lose touch with you, and I’m sorry that we did. Life just got in the way, like it always does.”
She gestured toward a seat under the window that looked into the pristine backyard and sat in a large white leather chair across from her. A yellow tabby cat jumped into her lap, coating Jessamyn’s pristine black trousers in yellow fur. She absently stroked the long fur as she watched Amalia.
Amalia sat down, perching on the edge of the seat. “So, what have you been up to?” she asked eagerly. She tucked her feet under her and leaned against the arm of the seat, briefly glancing outside to see the unchanged backyard.
Jessamyn smiled as a white cat jumped up next to the yellow tabby. “Research,” she said with a rueful smile, “always research. The perils of being a research scientist, of course, is that all I do is look into a microscope these days. That, and feed these two, of course.” She finished with a tinkling laugh that would make Tinker Bell jealous.
Amalia cocked her head in interest. “What are you researching?” She touched the thick, fat pillow that sat next to her, enjoying the satiny feel under her hand. She felt the embroidered designs, more Latin she noticed absently, her fingers tracing them.
“It’s classified,” Jessamyn said with a patronizing smile, “Something for a friend. You understand, of course.”
Amalia nodding as she stared back out the window. A cardinal lit on the feeder hanging off the deck. The bright feathers contrasted against the dark stained wood. “Of course. I don’t envy you, though! I don’t think I could stand to stare at a microscope for that long!”
Jessamyn laughed and shook her head. She set the two cats back on the floor before playing with a small silver bracelet that clung to her thin wrist. “Oh, it’s not all that bad! Just when I don’t get results. Again, though, just another peril of being a research scientist! I think the worst part is that I’m not getting any results.” Her brow furrowed as she paused. “Well, negative results, but those aren’t quite the ones that – my benefactor wants, of course.”
Her voice dropped down an octave as she imitated the councilor, “No results aren’t good results, Ms. Couridoure. I want results. Good results. Don’t bother me with anymore failures.”
She shifted her gaze from Amalia to the window behind her. In a different room, a phone started ringing incessantly. Her gaze went back to Amalia as she climbed to her feet. She offered her an apologetic smile, “Sorry, I’ve got to get this.”
Amalia shook her head. Those words, the one…they all sounded so familiar. She just couldn’t quite place them…maybe when Jessamyn was out of the room she’d figure it out. “No, I understand.”
A few minutes after Jessamyn left the room, Amalia’s curiosity grew. She still couldn’t place that tone, but maybe it was just a solan trait? Aleks had used it on her, and she was pretty sure Jessamyn had when she’d been dating Donovan. She climbed to her feet and wandered around the room, looking at the tasteful pictures that hung on the walls. Landscapes, mostly. Pastoral scenes designed to calm a person.
She listened as Jessamyn spoke in low, angry tones. They were still in the liquid language of the angelus, but they were streaked with a patronizing anger. With a sigh, she realized that Jessamyn was going to be on the phone for quite some time, unless she got angry enough to hang up, and she didn’t quite see that happening.
Amalia walked into the kitchen, keeping herself constantly aware of where Jessamyn was. What kind of research was she working on? The same kind Aleks was, obviously, but that still didn’t give her any ideas. Something wasn’t quite right, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
A small white netbook sat on the dining room table, with papers strewn around it, completely covering the dark wood. Amalia fingered some of the papers, casually glancing at them as boredom slowly took over her senses. Keeping an ear open for Jessamyn’s voice, she leafed through the papers, her curiosity getting the better of her.
A name caught her eyes as she shifted the papers. Samantha. Her heart flipped and she made herself stop and listen closer for Jessamyn. Still in the same room, same angry tone to the liquid syllables. Glancing up and then back down at the paper, Amalia quickly pulled it out. A test result for Sam. Her eyes roved over the information. Shaking her head, she didn’t understand most of what it was. But she understood the scrawled note on the bottom just fine.
Sam was alive. She’d made the ‘transformation’ successfully, but none of the reversals worked yet.
What the hell? Jessamyn was part of this? Gabriel was right, she thought slowly, her mind focusing on the one fact. That Jessamyn had done something to Donovan. Donovan – just thinking her brother’s name made a lump stick in her throat. She stared balefully in the direction of Jessamyn, wanting to do something horrible to her. Hitting her over the head with a fireplace poker wasn’t too far from happening. She shelved that feeling, a burning desire too find Sam first crawling through her.
She rifled through the rest of the papers before finding the location of the lab scrawled on another note. A note written to “The Benefactor”. She couldn’t make out the name, just the beginning – Ow -. The rest of the name was completely illegible. The note was supposed to be mailed, judging by the envelope that sat just under it. Owen? she questioned, wondering if that was who was funding this little project. It’d make sense, she thought as she stared at the two letters she could read. That snide rat would have something to do with Sam’s disappearance. And Donovan’s death, she thought bitterly. Now she wanted to use the fireplace poker on him.
Amalia pulled out her phone and used a maps program to find the address. Her brow drew in question. That couldn’t be right, she thought to herself. That really couldn’t be right…that was in the middle of a field. She switched programs and replotted it. Same results. Maybe a false address?
She heard Jessamyn’s voice growing louder, starting to spit out the words in clipped, arrogant tones.
She brought up the internet on her phone and did a quick search of the address. A picture came up. The same picture that hung on Matt’s stairway. A heavy bunker door, sitting in the middle of an open field. This time, though, there were cars parked around it. She shuffled through the papers, looking for any more information that could help her. A list of random words. At first glance, it looked like random words, but in her experience, that just meant passwords. Either that, or Jessamyn was making her own crossword, minus the grid and questions. She took a picture of the words, committing them to not only her phone’s memory but her own.
She looked up as she heard footsteps draw near, but they turned around with a nearly silent glide, quickly striding in the other direction. Good, she was pacing. Amalia bent down over the papers again, photographing any that looked important. Which, she thought, was most of them. She didn’t dare take any. She’d seen the results of that one too many times, and she couldn’t spare the time to explain why she needed the papers.
Shit. She looked up as she heard Jessamyn’s voice growing louder before they abruptly cut off. Amalia saw the tip of an ID badge stuck in the bottom of the papers. She grabbed it and stuffed it in a coat pocket, shoving it all the way down to the bottom.
Amalia silently made her way back to the small couch she’d been sitting on, and tried to look casual. She smiled as Jessamyn walked back into the room. Amalia pulled her phone out and glanced at it, pasting a frown on her face. She shrugged as she stood.
“I’m sorry, but duty calls. A co-worker just called in sick,” Amalia said with a smile and shrug.
“I’m glad you came,” Jessamyn said, offering her a smile in return. “You’ll have to come by again, soon!”
I sure will, Amalia thought as she watched Jessamyn lean forward to give her a hug. Amalia returned the hug and stepped back. After another round of goodbyes, Amalia was back in the Aston, holding her phone.
Remembering what she’d seen, color blossomed on her cheeks as she felt her adrenaline flowing. Breathe hitching, she fumbled her phone, dropping it once before successfully opening it.
With shaking hands, she dialed Gabriel’s number. Nothing. It went straight to voicemail. Swallowing hard, she dialed Aleks’s number. Same thing. Damn him, she thought angrily. Gabriel and him were together, and now she had no way to tell Gabriel that something was utterly wrong. She tried Matt’s number. This one rang for a few times before going to voicemail.
She left both Gabriel and Matt a message before texting both of them the same thing. Where she was headed and how to find her. And that Aleks and Jessamyn were behind for good warning. If Gabriel was with Aleks, at least he’d be forewarned. If he checked his messages.
Looking at the clock, she felt her heart stop. If she didn’t find Sam, pretty soon, it would be too late. Sam wouldn’t just be an angelus. She’d be a dead angelus. And she wasn’t going to lose Sam now. Not now.
She needed to get ready. She couldn’t go in there unprepared, and everything she had was back at her house. Time for a detour, then on to save Sam, she thought, a grim determination in her green eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Shit,” Amalia said as she stood in front of Gabriel’s car. This was it. If she were going to rescue Sam, this was her way out. She held the keys in her fist. She could feel them biting into her palm, the pain pulling her back to her mission.
She shook her head then ran a hand through her hair, gasping in pain as her fingers caught a knot. She hefted the bag over her shoulder, feeling the heavy weight against her back like shield. She strode towards the Aston after unlocking it, the horn giving a bright chirp as the alarm disengaged.
She carefully swung the bag into the passenger seat, pulling out the picture that had hung in the stairway and a map. She slid into the driver’s seat, pulling it closer to the steering wheel. After adjusting everything to her perfection, she laid the map on the wheel in front of her. She looked at the picture of the door in the field, then at the map.
She figured out why the picture looked familiar. She knew that door. She’d been there. Granted, it had been in the middle of a haunted house thing, but she’d been there. If she remembered right, it had been a Cold War era bunker. One of a few in the US. Lost and forgotten by the right people, found and repurposed by the wrong.
Staring at the map, she followed roads and trails until she found the place she remembered. It had to be, she told herself confidently. That’s the only place she remembered being that Halloween, aside from Sam’s completely lame party. One of the few lame parties Sam had ever thrown. It had incited them to go prowling, and they’d found the ‘haunted bunker’. That year, it had been the only ‘spooky house’ she and Sam had visited.
Clenching her teeth, she started the car and started down the driveway. It took her almost an hour going nearly the speed of sound, but she found the small dirt road that lingered in her memory. It was almost dark, and the road was familiar, with the gnarled maple and oak trees hanging low over the road. She remembered seeing the broken boulders that made a wall that surrounded the graveyard. Hell, she might still have a picture of it floating around in her memory box somewhere. Maybe when this was all over she’d pull them out and frame them.
With a hard look at the bag next to her, she parked the bright car in the shadows of the graveyard, underneath one of the centuries-old trees, knowing the field was just through the woods. She didn’t want to be caught unawares, but she didn’t have a choice in taking Gabriel’s car. She just hoped that he wouldn’t kill her if she made it out. When, she told herself harshly. When she made it out. She sure as hell wasn’t going in there with a death wish.
She chewed on her lip as she started to empty the bag, stopping only when she tasted the metallic flavor of blood. She filled the holsters that decorated her body. On her curved hips, on her shoulders, on her calf. Letting out a breath, she hooked Jessamyn’s badge on her coat. She hoped it was her current ID, but she wasn’t sure. Hopefully she didn’t notice it was missing...and connect her visit with the timing of the missing badge. If it didn’t work, she’d…well, she thought, she’d think of something. She sucked on the bloody hole she’d chewed in her lip, mentally reading off her list of things to bring. She thought she’d brought them all. She hoped to god she’d brought them all.
She breathed deeply before climbing out of the car. Standing there next to the Aston, she compulsively checked her phone one more time. Nothing from either Matt nor Gabriel. She was pretty sure something happened to Gabriel. Hell, Aleks probably happened to Gabriel. And to Matt? Well, same thing, she thought sourly as she made sure her hair was firmly fastened in the hair tie. Tightening her lips into a hard line, she started towards the bunker.
Getting lost in the woods wasn’t one of her plans. Finding a hidden gravestone with her feet really wasn’t one. And tripping headfirst into the gravestone behind it really sucked, she thought angrily as she brushed wet leaves out of her hair. Her eyes adjusted to the scant moonlight right before she tripped, giving her just enough time to put her hands out to catch her fall. Now she’d scraped her palms. Lovely. Just lovely. The grip on the Glock was going to feel just great against the wounds.
With a stifled sigh, she started walking toward the field. She could see faint lights through the trees, and she slowly walked towards them. At the edge of the field, she reached for the shoulder holster, but found it empty.
“Shit,” she said darkly in disgust. She blew out an angry breath as she glanced behind her. No way in hell would she be able to find it now. Maybe if it were still daytime, or if the moon were full, but now? With the moon just a sliver, the matte black would just blend in with the fall leaves and darkness.
She turned back and stared at the open space that separated her from the bunker door. There were cars and trucks parked on the other side. Maybe she could walk around the field, act like she was coming from the parking lot? In the darkness, she’d be able to fake working there. Maybe not if anyone questioned her, though, but she should be able to at least get it. Especially since she had Jessamyn’s badge.
Amalia crept around the edge of the woods, keeping a close watch on the parking lot and bunker door. In the fifteen minutes it took her to creep around nearer to the parking lot, she’d only seen one person enter the building. She was a ways away, but she was almost certain it had been Jessamyn.
When she was as close as she could get, she strode through the short grass and into the edge of the parking lot. In the parking lot, none of the vehicles were familiar. That could be a good sign, she told herself, because it meant that she wouldn’t be discovered for a bit longer.
Running a hand through her hair to make sure it was still in place, she then made sure her dark coat was covering the weapons. Glancing around, she strode up to the bunker door as if she belonged. With a smile, she swiped the keycard she’d borrowed from Jessamyn through the reader. Green lights flashed, and a faint beeping emerged. She heard the door click, and she pulled it open.
It was heavy, solid metal. Turning around to look at it from the inside, she saw a regular door knob. No reader needed to exit the building. Just enter. Even better. She hadn’t counted on that, but it’d make the escape much easier. Facing the space before her, it was a maze of cubicles. There was movement from them, murmuring voices.
Cocking her head, she concentrated on the voices, hoping she’d recognize one. Not yet, she realized as the buzz of voices continued. Starting forward, she stopped at an empty cubicle. The computer was still turned on, a bright blue light blinking from the monitor, so she sat down. She scanned the room to make sure no one was near before moving the mouse.
Bingo, she thought victoriously. Whoever’s computer this was didn’t lock it. Dumbass, she snarked as she sneaked around the desktop. She found a map of the facility in the ever-so-helpfully named “Maps” folder stuck in the upper right hand corner of the desktop. She perused the folder, finding it aptly helpful. It had a map of the facility. The same one she’d found in the stack of papers on Jessamyn’s table. She printed off the map, grabbed the pages that shot out of the printer just to the left of the monitor.
Even more proof that he was a rat bastard, Amalia told herself harshly as she saw Aleks’s name on one of the office squares. Damn Gabriel for going with Aleks in the first place. He was supposed to help her rescue Sam, and where was he? Nowhere around, she groaned to herself. Well, she’d get Sam out by herself.
She stood up and stepped out of the cubicle. When she saw an angelus coming her way, she quickly sidestepped back in and ducked. A very familiar looking angelus. Amalia peeked out and saw her brother’s fiancé talking to someone a few cubicles away, leaning on the divider and smiling. When she started walking towards a hallway that led further into the facility, Amalia smiled to herself. When opportunity knocks…
