He couldn’t see any guards yet, but heard shouts and running feet.
Val grabbed his sleeve and towed him around a shelf. “You’ll probably need that gun now,” he said, primly.
He slid into the role of shooter without thought. He handled a gun the way other men handled shaving razors, or the gearshifts of cars. A brainless, instinctual exercise, without flinching. One. Two. Three. Four.
He turned to find Val dropping the fifth, wiping his mouth with his tattered sleeve, eyes electric with something like joy. “Come on.”
Another staircase, and then–
It had to be a lab. A seemingly endless stretch of low tables and desks cluttered with everything from computers to beakers. A stunned once-over revealed designated workstations, metal tables, half-walls and curtained partitions; industrial coolers and fridges, big banks of monitors. Heavy wooden doors lined the walls. And it was chaos: tipped-over chairs, strewn papers, abandoned monitors. Rooster saw flashes of white as techs hid beneath tables. Others were disappearing behind the sliding-shut doors of an elevator. Screams. Shrieks.
“Shit,” he murmured, and was almost overwhelmed.
A young man with glasses and a pocket protector tried to sneak past, and Val snatched his arm. The kid squealed and went limp.
Val gave him a shake. “My weapons. Where are they?”
The kid went the color of spoiled milk and gaped up at him. “I – I – I.”
“Mysword, youidiot. My daggers. I know they’re here.”
“Tr-try the – the weapons room,” he finally stammered. When Val dropped him, Rooster thought he might have fainted. Val leaned down, snapped his laminated ID badge from his lapel, and stepped over the poor boy.
No, not a poor boy. These were the people who’d treated Red like a science fair project. Fuckallof them.
“We don’t have time for this,” Rooster growled, tailing Val as he began opening doors and looking for the promised arsenal.
“Believe me,” Val said, trying another, and then another in rapid succession. “When we run into my brother, you’ll wish I was armed…Ah! Here.”
Like everything else about this place, the weapons room was impressive as hell. Cabinet after cabinet of guns and knives in all varieties. An indoor shooting range.
And set off by themselves, two ornate wooden cases with velvet lining the color of blood. One was empty. The other held an honest-to-God sword. The daggers arranged around it had jewels set in the hilts, but the sword – simple, masculine, and gleaming – was the showstopper.
Val pulled the little padlock apart like it was made of taffy and murmured something low in another language as he lifted the sword from its velvet bed. Tilted it so the overhead light ran down its length in one long flash.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he said in English, and smiled with all his teeth showing.
“Let’s get a move on,” Rooster growled.
There was a scabbard, too, sturdy leather with an intricate strap that Val ducked through so sword and scabbard lay down his back. “Yes, fine. Let’s get the children.”
~*~
The walls of their room dampened the scents and sounds beyond, but Sasha could still tell that something was happening. A great stirring of panic that lifted his hair on end.
He wanted, so badly, to believe that Nikita…that the others…And yet he feared it, terribly, because Nikita was brave, and stubborn, and wonderful, but this place was a fortress, and rescue wasn’t possible.
“Sasha,” Red said beside him. “What are you–”
“Shh.” Footsteps just outside the door. He grabbed her wrist, straining to listen, ready to bundle her into the corner as best as his shaky limbs could manage if someone came through the door with the intent to hurt them. They were too valuable to kill, he knew, but there was no way Dr. Talbot would let Nik waltz right in and drag them out. “Listen.”
An electronic chime as a keycard was used, and the lock disengaged.
Sasha began to shake – shakes on top of drug shakes – and he gritted his teeth, fighting with a sudden wave of faintness. He couldn’t black outnow.
The door opened to two scents: one vampire, one human. Not Nik, and not Vlad, a stranger, but…
Someone knelt down in front of him on the floor. Blue eyes, and tangled waist-length blond hair. Smell of human blood, and rags for clothes; pommel of a sword protruding over his shoulder.
