Love, Immortal (Alchemy Book 2) Page 18

  “Stop being naïve,” Travis argued, but obediently lowered his voice. “That power cell has to come out. If he won’t let me do it, then you have to.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Davey, he’s right.” Ethan’s soft voice was music to Davey’s ears, even though he was surrendering to Travis. “I’ve tried to shut the cell down internally, but it’s not responding.” He flashed a wry grin. “Apparently, Global Cures doesn’t want me self-destructing, even if it’s to save their own asses. You have to remove the cell, Davey.”

  “Ethan, don’t ask me to do that.”

  “The decay is becoming critical, and I can’t hold it back much longer. Davey, I can’t be the reason you die. You have to stop this.”

  “Ethan…”

  “Please,” he whispered hoarsely. “Help me.”

  Kneeling in front of him, Davey placed her hands on either side of his face and winced. His skin was much hotter than before and almost painful to touch. But at least his eyes were normal again. They watched her with an intense worry and more fear than Ethan was willing to let on.

  “Davey, you have to,” he whispered.

  She nodded, feigning calm for his sake, while on the inside, her heart raged against what had to be done. Ethan’s hand lifted, snapping the cuff about his wrist as if it were made from toothpicks instead of steel. When his finger brushed her cheek, Davey realized she was crying…and that her illusion of outward calm was a joke.

  Taking a deep breath, she carefully examined the wound in Ethan’s abdomen and the damaged power cell. Then she leaned in and kissed him, tenderly pressing her lips to his with unspoken yearning, desperation, and hope. His mouth moved against hers with equal passion. It was a silent, heartbreaking goodbye.

  “I’ll bring you back,” she swore, and sobbed into his lips.

  Flicking her wrist, she blindly yet skillfully disengaged the two-part locking mechanism of the power cell within Ethan’s abdomen. Sweeping her finger in a downward motion rendered the cell inert, and the consequences were immediate. Ethan’s body went limp. The light disappeared from his eyes. His head dropped to his chest, and he was gone.

  Davey gritted her teeth, willing herself to rise to her feet. The tears clouding her vision weren’t from sadness. They were from rage. Bending to Ethan once more, she gently pushed the thick crop of hair from his forehead and placed one final kiss along his hairline. Then Davey turned to Travis and balled her hands into fists. They shook with rage like the rest of her.

  “Where’s Drekker?” she asked.

  “I-I have no idea,” Travis stammered.

  Unwilling to waste another second on uncertainty, she went past him, quickly moving around the room to scan for cameras. Locating one, Davey grabbed the end of a metal table and began shoving it across the floor. The legs made a piercing sound as they scraped along, and Davey wondered if the noise itself would be enough to summon that animal to her.

  “What are you doing?” Travis asked.

  Ignoring him, she focused on locating a screwdriver. It took several frustrating seconds too long, but once she had the necessary tool, Davey boosted herself onto the table and made quick work of removing the inactive camera. After connecting it to a new power source and then feeding it back into the network, Davey successfully restarted the signal. The video broadcast would only be internal, but that was all she needed. This wasn’t about helping Aaron or those soldiers. She wanted payback.

  “Drekker,” she said, speaking directly on camera. “I’m in the basement, standing exactly where you left Ethan. Get your ass down here, you sonofabitch. It’s time to finish what we started.”

  17

  It wasn’t long before Mason Drekker reached her. Travis had scrambled away, making himself scarce long before the tall and athletic android slid through the mangled containment doorway. Drekker’s gaze shifted somewhat uneasily throughout the room until he spotted Ethan’s dormant body. Then his assuredness went into full effect.

  “Ah, Daveigh Little, we meet again,” he said in a voice filled with charm and warmth. His mouth turned down into a pout, but his speech remained lighthearted. “You and Ethan treated me so terribly during our last encounter. I trusted you. I kept my end of the bargain and stopped tormenting your little brother as asked. In return, you betrayed me.”

  “So, you came here and killed a bunch of people who had nothing to do with that?”

  “They woke me up, and I was angry. Ethan wasn’t readily available to displace my wrath and you weren’t here either. So…” He bared his teeth in a smile colored darkly by malice. “I improvised,” he finished.

  “You’re sick,” Davey spat.

  “Maybe so.” Still wearing that sickening smile, Drekker looked down at the floor for a long moment before meeting her glare again. “Would you like to know a secret, Davey? I really hope you do, because I feel like sharing one with you.”

  “I’d rather you just kill me and get it over with.”

  “Oh, but it wouldn’t be wise to kill a child of David Savage. You’re far too valuable to me alive. We must first explore those gifts of yours.”

  “You already have what you want, Drekker. Of what further use could I be to you?” Davey asked, mentally warning herself to be careful not to oversell it.

  His eyes glittered. “You really should stop calling me Drekker.”

  Despite herself, Davey found her curiosity was piqued. “Why is that?”

  “Because I’m not Mason Drekker.”

  “Then who are you?”

  “Someone with a very specific skill set…perhaps not the one Global Cures bargained for when they floundered around like idiots and botched my initial transmutation. I’m from a world quite different than this one. To some I was their liberator—a freedom fighter. Others regarded me as a murderer—a monster.” That unsettling smile slashed across his lips once more, and Davey swallowed.

  “What should I call you then?”

  “Belial,” he said, folding at the waist in a gracious bow.

  “Well, Belial, you can take your special skills and go fuck yourself. I want nothing to do with you.”

  “You seem to be intent on making me cross, girl. I’m willing to spare your life, but you must learn your place.”

  “If you spare me, know now I will kill you—permanently.”

  Seemingly unaffected by Davey’s threat, Belial watched her with an impassive expression. Then he exploded into a storm of motion, lunging sideways to grab a steel table and rip it off the three-inch bolts securing it to the wall. Lifting the table overhead, he then flung it at Davey. Though her heart dropped to her feet, she didn’t move—didn’t flinch when she felt the wind against her face as the table sailed past her head in a well-calculated miss.

  Her left cheek began to burn, and Davey brought her hand to her face in exploratory fashion. The pain flashed brighter at her touch, and she winced. Blood covered her fingertips. More of it trickled from the wound on her face, moving glacially slow across the landscape of her skin. She dropped her hand, ignored the pain. If things went as planned, there might be much more to endure before the night was over. And if they didn’t go as planned…

  Well, then I’m dead.

  Drekker—Belial—regained composure as quickly as he had lost it. Smoothing his hair—though it was still quite perfect—he moved toward her.

  Davey smiled. “Impressive tantrum. Is it my turn now?”

  Belial clearly didn’t appreciate the snark and in the next outburst, took his frustration out on Ethan. Yanking the rod free of Ethan’s chest cavity, he plunged it into the back of his neck, and Ethan’s body rocked beneath the ferocious violence. His neck snapped sideways, pressing his head awkwardly against one shoulder.

  Biting her tongue to keep from screaming, Davey silently called down fires of damnation upon Belial’s head. His soul hadn’t been harvested from some peaceful other realm. He was a demon, straight from hell.

  Without uttering a word, she strode to a nearby console,
still cursing the fiend as her fingers deftly worked to enter the code to bring the computer systems back to a wakeful state. “There’s no way you could have known I would come here, so why did you hurt Ethan and leave him to suffer like that? Why not just finish him?”

  “Because I hate him. He doesn’t deserve the great gift bestowed upon him, but he deserves to suffer. Before this night is over, I will see to it that his soul is ripped from that magnificent body and expunged from this earth forever.”

  “That’s funny,” she replied absently, inputting a series of commands using the keyboard. “I was going to say the same thing about you.”

  “What are you doing?” he asked in a dubious tone.

  “Erasing all data related to The Alchemy Initiative. After I kill you, I need to be sure Global Cures can never bring you back.”

  “Stop it, girl. I loathe to end your life, but I will if necessary.”

  Davey continued to work as if she hadn’t heard him. Once the primary data was gone, she started deleting the backups while wondering how the hell she had been able find a backdoor within the security protocols so quickly—or even at all. As a scientist, it hurt to think of how decades of research and trials could be destroyed within minutes. This was someone’s life’s work.

  Actually, come to think of it, Davey amended ruefully, this is my father’s. All of this is because of him.

  “This is your final warning, Davey. After I eliminate you, I will find Hogan and enslave him.”

  “No.” Davey shook her head emphatically. The last of the data was gone, but she hovered over the console, wishing she knew how to upload a virus into the damned thing and really put Global Cures out of the transmutation business for good. Then a grey and white skull appeared on screen as a desktop icon. The skull winked and smiled, dimming and brightening rhythmically. It may have been inexplicable, but Davey was drawn to it. Barely giving it a second guess, she double-clicked the icon. A countdown appeared onscreen, rolling backward from five-zero-zero.

  “I’ll die before I let you hurt my brother.”

  Already twisted into a grim and crooked line, Belial’s mouth twitched. He moved too quickly for her eyes to follow, but Davey felt the wind as he crossed the room. Then the air left her lungs as he collided into her, but her gasp for breath was cut short by Belial’s hand when his fingers wrapped around her neck and squeezed. “Or you’ll just die,” he whispered.

  Speaking was almost impossible—even trying hurt her throat. But Davey dared to anyway. “Do it,” she rasped.

  Though Belial seethed with cold fury, there was also hesitation in his eyes. He’s not going to, she realized. Fueled by desperation, she lashed out, striking at his face with her fists. He swatted her hands away as if she were but a troublesome insect, and the pressure exerted by his fingers increased incrementally.

  “Are you stupid, girl? Do you wish for death?”

  “Only yours,” she said, and tried to hit him again.

  Instead of blocking the blow, Belial allowed her fist to plow into his cheek. Davey may as well have punched a brick wall. Radiating from her hand and into her arm, the pain split her very nerve endings, traveling into her shoulder and across her jaw. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, shocked that anything could hurt so much. Faint, she wondered how many bones she had just broken. Belial raised his hand to strike her—and possibly break a few more—but then a thick metal rod stabbed through his arm, stalling the motion as it rammed through his flesh with the same violence that had disfigured Ethan’s neck. The steel rod didn’t stop after impaling the arm, but plowed onward to penetrate his cheek, splintering apart as it hit the titanium and carbon fiber composition of the android skeleton. The surprise brandished from Belial’s ruined face mirrored Davey’s own astonishment.

  How could it be, she thought as her gaze searched for the impossible.

  And there he was. Ethan.

  “Okay,” Belial said and spit shards of steel out from his mouth and onto the floor. Releasing Davey, he wiped the blood from his face and stared down as his hand, wearing an odd sort of smile. “So, maybe you are as remarkable as they say. No matter,” he added, turning his attention back to Ethan and his miraculous recovery. “I must destroy you anyway.”

  Oh god no.

  No matter how incredible it seemed that Ethan had regained consciousness without a power source, there was no way he could have enough fight left in him to defeat an opponent such as Belial. Davey had to stop this.

  “Ethan, don’t,” she said.

  But it was too late. Belial was already rushing toward him, and a second later, the two had clashed like titans. Despite his weakened state, Ethan somehow managed to hold his own, matching Belial blow for blow as they viciously clobbered one another without restraint. And then Ethan was sailing through the air like a missile, his body obliterating one of the primary consoles as he crashed into it. But as Davey took a step toward him, Ethan was up and charging at his opponent once more. Belial deflected Ethan’s first enraged attack, but proved unlucky against the second. Then it was his body that flew limply across the room, breaking halfway through a concrete and reinforced steel wall before stopping. Slow to get up, Belial stalled as he considered his next move.

  “Fuck you, Remington,” he snarled.

  Faster than the human eye could follow, he was on top of Davey and crushing off the air from her windpipe without mercy. “You will watch this little bitch die first.”

  Ethan bellowed with fury, but then his scream became a muffled resonance in Davey’s ears. Her vision darkened, and somewhere beneath the haze, she registered a muted snap of bone. Was it hers? And then her cheek was pressed against the floor’s surface, so cold it stung her cheek. Suddenly, Belial dropped next to her. His face was only inches from her own, allowing her to witness the strange onset of convulsions that racked his body. His eyes lost their human appearance, turning as black as two liquid obsidian pools. And then his eyes were liquid, the blackness draining from them to ooze onto his skin and puddle on the floor until his irises were clear and colorless.

  The symbol on his chest burned beneath his clothing, shining through in a blinding blue radiance. Then the light turned black—just as his eyes had—and literally began searing through the fabric of his shirt until it was eaten away, leaving behind the singed negative of a transmutation circle. The symbol collapsed inward, caving Belial’s chest. A strange gurgling sound eased from his lips. The rest of his flesh slipped from the carbon tethers of his bones, sliding about like melted plastic.

  Davey closed her eyes. Belial had been stopped, and that was enough. It felt like she was dying, and the disintegration of his body only served as a grim reminder of the finality of her own mortal state. She didn’t need to see anymore. Letting go of the pain, she gave into the abyss and began to drift into a peaceful sea of darkness. But then firm hands took hold of Davey. Anchoring her descent, they pulled her from the void and forced her back into the land of the living.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Ethan whispered.

  Something sharp pierced her neck and Davey only flinched, too weak to cry out. Her arms and legs began moving of their accord, but she lacked the strength to stop them. Then the darkness began to rapidly recede. Sound roared back to her ears. Her sight followed, and Ethan’s steely eyes were there to greet her.

  “Stay with me, Davey,” he whispered.

  18

  “What did you do to Agent Drekker? His body looked like someone had used acid to melt him from the inside.”

  Groaning, Ethan drew one hand across his face. “I’ve already told you—”

  “Well, explain it to me again. And then you will tell me again. And again—until this shitstorm begins to make some sort of sense.”

  Davey sat quietly, watching the exchange between Ethan and his brother Aaron. They had been detained in his office for the past two hours, retelling the same story over and over. Ethan, of course, was completely opposed to telling Aaron the truth, unwilling to put Davey at ri
sk because he thought he couldn’t trust his brother with a secret of such magnitude.

  Back at the lake house, Davey—aided by her father’s research—had made a daring gamble. Dr. Savage had designed the ultimate guardian for his children, one who would live forever, never abandon them, and give his own life to protect them without a thought of hesitation. But then her father had taken extra measures to safeguard the guardian. Within Ethan’s original programming, he had built a failsafe into the base code. Because of that failsafe, no matter what Global Cures did to Ethan or how many times they wiped his memories, his mind would always recall Davey and come back to her. He would always find her and always protect her.

  Using the same theorem, Davey had altered the programming of Belial’s android vessel and built a kill switch into the base code. In the same way her father had defensively used the mathematics of his genetic code to protect Ethan’s memories, Davey had used the genetic formula to protect herself from attack by Belial. The very moment he decided to kill Davey, the kill switch had activated and purged his soul into oblivion. The catastrophic damage done to the android’s physical body had been an unexpected side effect. It was something Davey hadn’t accounted for and couldn’t explain. And neither could Ethan, but that hadn’t stopped him from creating an alternate version of events, one only slightly more believable than what had actually transpired.

  “Really, you should stop calling the guy Mason Drekker. That’s not who he claimed to be,” Ethan said for the third time in yet another retelling. “Your scientists screwed the pooch and brought back someone—something—else. He might have even been an alien.”

  “You can’t seriously expect me to file this report in the way you’re telling it. I couldn’t sell this shit to a pig farmer.”

  Ethan frowned in puzzlement. “Why would a pig farmer need shit?”

  Aaron gritted his teeth. “Stop being a smartass and tell me about the virus. Years of data have been wiped out from the system. Only someone like you could have hacked into the mainframe without a trace like that. Command is crawling up my ass looking for answers. Did you plant the virus?”