Fields of Blood (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 2) (17 page)

“
Marlon
called Sadie?” Elara’s anger drained, and she crossed her arms with a shudder. “She came for me. And they took her,” she whispered. “Oh, Sadie…”

Something clicked in my mind as she spoke, and I put it together with Reese at the station. Saying they’d been expecting the werewolf. “Jesus Christ,” I said roughly. “They never wanted you. They wanted
her.
”

Taeral straightened in the seat beside me. “What?”

“They wanted Sadie. They took Elara to lure her out here.” My blood ran cold at the thought, but I knew it was right. Even Leo, the dead kid, had confirmed it—I just didn’t understand at the time. He’d said
they want to get the girl. The werewolf.
Sadie assumed he meant Elara, but the kid didn’t know any names.

I met Elara’s stricken gaze. “You’re the only one she cares about,” I said. “She wouldn’t have come back for anyone else. This was a trap for Sadie.”

“Bastards,” Taeral growled. “Why her?”

“I don’t know, but we need to find out.” I looked around at the rest of them. “When Milus Dei attacked this place, did you kill any of them?” I said. “Are there any bodies still here?”

Tate frowned. “Why do you want a dead body?”

“Good question,” Chester said. “What the hell’s going on here?”

“I killed one.”

Mars, the girl with the crossbow, spoke for the first time, straightening from the wall she’d been leaning against. “Found him in the cellar, trying to break into the archives,” she said. “He’s still down there.”

“Good. Do you think you can bring him up?”

The girl nodded. “Come on, Luther. You can help me,” she said as she headed out of the room.

Luther shot me a suspicious look, but he followed her out.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time,” Tate said. “Why do you want a dead body?”

I gave a grim smile. “So I can ask him what they’re doing with Sadie.”

C
HAPTER 25

“O
h my God,” Elara said. “You’re the DeathSpeaker.”

Before I could respond to that, Chester pushed back from the table and stood. “Excuse us for a minute,” he said too loudly. “I have to talk to my…fairy friends in private. Right now.” He glared at me and jerked his head toward the door.

Damn. I probably should’ve tried to explain a little more of this to him before we came up here. I guessed he had a right to be pissed off, and I owed him at least some of the truth. “Er, okay,” I said. “We’ll be right back. Come on, Taeral.”

The three of us left the room, and Chester closed the door when we were in the hallway outside it. “All right. I don’t know how, but your little ruse worked,” he said. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before they decide it’s dinner time. I remember the way back to the door.”

I frowned. “We can’t leave.”

“What?” He gaped at me. “Look, you just told them you’re going to talk to a dead guy. Maybe they bought the fairy thing, but there’s no way—”

“Chester…it’s true.”

He made a strange sound and paled under his tan. “What’s true?”

“All of it,” I said. “We are Fae—well, I’m half. And I can talk to the dead.”

Chester’s mouth moved silently for a moment. Finally, he said, “Seelie or Unseelie?”

I was too surprised he knew that much about the Fae to answer. But Taeral replied right away. “Unseelie.”

He took a rapid step back and pulled out a strange-looking gun I hadn’t seen him pack, with an oversized tube-fed barrel and a muzzle split into a Y. “I knew there was something off about you,” he said. “All that stuff about being stronger in the moonlight. You’re mind-controlling me, aren’t you?”

“No!” I said. “We can’t even do that. Uh, can we?”

“Not you.” Chester pointed the gun thing at Taeral. “Him.”

Taeral sneered. “You’ve nothing worth controlling, human.”

“Come on, Taeral.” Sometimes I forgot how much he hated humans, until he reminded me at very inconvenient times. Like this one. “Look, Chester, we’re not doing anything to you. We’re the nice kind of Unseelie.”

“Right. I’m not buying it,” he said. “You come to my place, pretending you’re human, telling me what I want to hear. That’s how the evil fairies get you. If you’re so nice, why didn’t you just tell me what you were?”

“Because of this!” Taeral shouted, snatching the gun so fast that I barely saw him move. “Humans. You shoot first, and then you shoot some more. Anything you fail to understand, you try to kill.”

Chester blinked and lowered his empty hand slowly. “Not all humans are like that,” he said. “I’m not…”

“Really. Were you not, just now, threatening to shoot me? Merely because I am Unseelie?” Taeral shook his head, and one corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Not all Fae are alike, either,” he said.

“I guess not.” Chester managed a tentative smirk. “Sorry, son. I swear I’m not like that, most of the time,” he said. “Hell, a mermaid saved my life once, when I was stationed in Hawaii.”

I raised an eyebrow. “A mermaid?”

“Told you I’ve seen things. And just so you know, mermaids are not pretty.” He cleared his throat and nodded at Taeral. “Can I have that back? If, you know, I promise not to shoot you,” he said.

Taeral handed the gun back. “What is this…thing, anyway?” he said.

“Uh. Silver darts, elderberry infusion. Double shot in case of glamour.”

“Well,” Taeral said. “You’ve one of them right, at least.”

Chester frowned. “Which one?”

“As if I’d tell you.”

“Guys, we should get back in there,” I said before the argument could continue. “We’ll have to move on them soon, if we’re going to get Sadie and the rest of them out.”

Chester stared at me. “You’re going after the aliens?”

“Yeah. They have our friend. Again,” I muttered. “Look, I know you didn’t sign on for this. I’ll understand if you’d rather not come. Actually, you probably shouldn’t. These guys won’t hesitate to kill you.”

“Are you kidding? You need me more than ever,” he said.

“We’ll be okay,” I said. I really didn’t want him to get killed. “We’ve gone up against them before.”

“Do you know the least guarded way into the compound?”

“No, but—”

“Know which building they do their experiments in?”

“Not exactly…”

“Can you hack a security system?”

“Uh, no.”

“You need me,” Chester said. “So let’s do this.”

I smirked. “Right. I guess we’re all in.”

When Mars and Luther returned, they laid the body out on the conference table. The guy was a blond with a face like a swollen weasel, wearing the SWAT-style body armor Milus Dei favored for their torture-victim raid parties. One arrow shaft protruded from his throat, and another from just beneath his left arm, entering at a downward angle that had probably pierced his heart.

Mars was a damned good shot.

I’d given them a brief explanation of the DeathSpeaker stuff, including that the dead people spoke in my head, they had to tell the truth—and I couldn’t do it for long without bleeding and passing out. “Before we get started,” I said. “Is there anything specific I should ask him, besides what they want with Sadie?”

“Ask him what they’re doing to Rennie. Our little sister,” Luther said tightly. “They took her, too.”

The kid sounded sick with concern. “I can’t,” I said with real regret. “He won’t know anything that’s happening after he died.”

Elara took a step toward the table. “Ask him why they kidnapped the people from the village,” she said, her voice oddly strained. “I saw them there, at least a dozen. I heard them…screaming.”

My gut twisted. Capturing and torturing humans was not standard operation for Milus Dei—well, not for the ones from New York. “I’ll find out,” I said. At least now I could keep my promise to Sheriff Gormann, and hopefully even bring them back alive.

“All right,” I said, staring down at the body. “Here we go.”

I pressed a hand to the dead man’s armored chest.

Within seconds, a tugging sensation filled my head, and a voice spoke.
Our New York brothers said they’d found you, DeathSpeaker. We didn’t believe them.

“Guess you do now,” I said. “What’s your name?”

There was a brief pause that strained my brain before he said,
Hector! Damn, it’s true!

I winced a little at the stabbing words. “Afraid so, Hector,” I said. “You have to answer me. And you’re not going to like my questions.”

You’re a monster
, Hector snarled.
My brothers will do what the Quaestio branch has failed to. We’ll capture you, torment you, and cleanse the world of your filth.

“Yeah. Haven’t heard that one before,” I muttered, closing my eyes until the pinpricks subsided. “What do you want with Sadie?”

Who?

“Sadie. The werewolf from New York. Subject two-six-two, you son of a bitch.”

The tugging grew harder.
Her blood contains Compound 23,
he said
. Those Quaestio idiots destroyed the rest with their headquarters.

I knew what he must have meant. The stuff they injected Sadie with to suppress her human side. At least I wouldn’t have to suffer through an answer to that question. “Why do you want Compound 23?”

To stabilize L39.

“What the hell is L39?”

The dead guy practically yanked my brains out through my ears before he replied in angry, grinding tones that drilled into my head.
Temporary lycanthropy. It gives humans the strength, speed, and senses of a werewolf, until it wears off.

“Jesus Christ,” I rasped. “You’re weaponizing lycanthropy?”

I ignored the shocked sounds from the others in the room.
Yes,
Hector said.
With their abilities, our soldiers can take down any non-human.

My head throbbed badly, and not just from the pain. “So what will this compound in Sadie’s blood do?” I said.

L39 has an unfortunate side effect. It drives people insane. In the right amounts, Compound 23 will shield the human from the virus while it’s active.

The long explanation felt like knives in my brain, and started my nose bleeding. I had to ask about the rest while I still could. “Why did you kidnap a bunch of people from the town?” I said.

Hector laughed. The sound grated in my head like sandpaper.
We need test subjects.

“What, your
soldiers
aren’t good enough to test this stuff on?”

My brothers are highly trained. Far too valuable to risk insanity, or death.

“You son of a bitch,” I gasped as the blood went from trickle to gush. “You’re killing them?”

Eventually. And with our enhanced soldiers, we’ll have no trouble capturing you. DeathSpeaker.

“That’s not going to happen, Hector,” I ground out. “Enhanced or not, your soldiers are going down.”

I pulled away from him, with the cold sound of his laughter still echoing through my aching head.

A hand on my shoulder made me flinch. It was Elara, offering something that looked like a handkerchief. “Here,” she said. “For your nose.”

“Thanks.” I wiped the blood away and held the material in place for a few seconds, knowing it wouldn’t stop bleeding right away. But I didn’t have time to worry about that now. “We need to get to that compound,” I said. “Before they figure out how to turn themselves into werewolves on demand.”

C
HAPTER 26