Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4) (45 page)

Mariella rolled over in bed, aching to touch Seth again and hating herself for it.

* * *

“Wake up, kids,” Alise said as she flipped on the lamp and approached the four-poster
bed.  Her cousin Niklaus followed a step behind her, as usual, like an obedient attack
dog waited for orders.

“Hi, Alise!” Mia sat up, smiling sleepily.  Alise came almost every morning to walk
them to breakfast, and Mia was happy she did.  Sometimes, early in the morning, she
would feel the dark shape of something large looming at the back of her mind, like
an upsetting memory she’d forgotten.  Then Alise would arrive, and she’d feel so much
better, happy and thoughtless, lusty for another round with her handsome lover, Sebastian,
and his enchanted touch that made her feel better all over.  The world always felt
right again after she saw Alise.

“Wake up, Sebastian.” Alise shook his shoulder, and his eyes drifted open.  His lips
curled into a delighted smile at the sight of Alise leaning over him. “Pack your bags. 
Mia’s moving upstairs, and you’re moving back to your room.”

“Huh?  Why?” Sebastian sat up, his hair sticking in every direction, looking confused
and hurt. “Wait, what?”

“You’re moving back.  Play time is over, boy,” Alise said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we don’t need you anymore,” Alise said. “You’ve made your contribution, and
now you’re done.  Oh, don’t look so hurt.  You’ve had a fun couple of months with
her.”

“I don’t understand.” Sebastian looked back and forth between them.

“Niklaus will help you get back to your room, if you need it,” Alise said sweetly.
“Won’t you, Niklaus?”

Niklaus glared at Sebastian and motioned for him to hurry up.

“Why does Sebastian have to go?” Mia pouted. “I like sleeping with him.”

“I know, but boy time is over,” Alise said. She watched silently as Sebastian gathered
his things and followed Niklaus out the door.

“When do I get to come back?” Sebastian asked.

“We’ll see.” Alise waved her hand, and Niklaus closed the door after him.

Alise seized Mia’s hands, making her feel instantly happy.  Mia kissed Alise’s hand.

“Mia!” Alise spoke in an excited stage whisper. “I have the best news.  Your latest
lab work shows that you’re pregnant!”

“What?” Mia asked.  She felt dizzy, not so elated anymore.

“You’re going to have a baby.  We’ve successfully bred you with Sebastian.  Your baby
will be the offspring of two supernormals!  That’s what the project is really all
about!”

“It is?” Mia rubbed her head. “I’m pregnant?”

“You’re so lucky,” Alise said. “I’ve been trying for months, but it hasn’t worked
out so far.  I just learned about something else I might try, though.  Anyway, why
do we have to keep talking about me?  Let’s get going.  The maternity rooms are one
level up, and I know just which one I want you to have.  I decorated it myself!  There’s
a little crib that looks like a sleigh, little bears in
Reichsheer
cavalry uniforms...very cute!” Alise took her by the arm and led her out the door.

Mia trembled. “I’m going to have a baby?”

Alise squeezed her hand, flooding her with a fresh wave of happy, loving feelings.
“Don’t worry, Mia.  I’ll be right here with you, every step of the way.  If we’re
lucky, I’ll be having one, too!”

Mia smiled, fully doped on Alise’s love.  Alise was right, of course.  Mia didn’t
need to worry, not when she had such a good friend here to help her...

Alise led the way to the maternity beds upstairs, where Mia would live for the rest
of her time at the underground base.

“We have a situation,” Ward said as Tommy walked into his office. “It’s on the delicate
side, but I think we’ve learned to trust each other these past few months, haven’t
we?”

“Yes, sir,” Tommy said. He had no idea why he’d been called in.  He wondered whether
ASTRIA might be ready to send him on some kind of mission—it felt like he’d been testing
and training forever, and he was going stir crazy inside the base.

“I had to follow a very difficult order,” Ward told him. “One of the most difficult
of my career.  You see, the top brass have decided that paranormals are a threat on
par with terrorists, a lone individual capable of doing widespread damage or otherwise
breaking national security.  Those who are not with us are considered ‘against us.’” 
Ward watched him closely.

“I understand.  But I’ve been working with you, sir.”

“And that’s what makes you so valuable.  You’re willing to do the right thing, to
put the bigger cause ahead of yourself.  Not everyone’s willing to do that.”

“Is this about Jenny, sir?  Or Seth?”

“I’m afraid it’s about Esmeralda.”

“She’s not a threat to anyone!” Tommy said. “Her power isn’t dangerous, like Jenny’s. 
Or mine.”

“That’s not exactly the case,” Ward told him. “Imagine if she got her hands on the
body of a high-level politician, military leader, or intelligence operative.”

“That’s not very likely,” Tommy said. “All she does is put funeral makeup on dead
people in Los Angeles.  She’s not working in Washington, D.C. or anything.”

“If we can determine her power, then so can foreign governments, including those unfriendly
to our country.  So can criminal and terrorist groups. Any of them might kidnap her
and use her for their own ends.”

“You make it sound like she’s in danger.”

“Exactly right.  ASTRIA is not the only organization searching the world for paranormals. 
There are enemies of the United States doing the same.  After the Fallen Oak incident,
the Pentagon does not want any of them running wild, anywhere.  ASTRIA’s role is to
identify, recruit...or neutralize.”

“Neutralize?” Tommy felt panicked. “Esmeralda?  You’re not going to hurt her, are
you?  Or...”  Tommy couldn’t bring himself to say
kill her
.  He felt the beginnings of rage inside him.  If these people had killed Esmeralda,
he was never going to work with them.  He would take out as many as he could before
they killed him.

“No, no.  I have clearance to do that, you understand, but like you, I couldn’t see
how Esmeralda was a bad or dangerous person.  So I took the only other option available:
capture her, since she refused to come willingly.”

“You’re going to kidnap her?”

“We have taken her into custody,” Ward told him. “And she’s been transferred here.”

“Here?” Tommy felt a confused mixture of outrage and excitement. “She’s right here
at the base?”

“Confined in a cell, unfortunately,” Ward said. “I wish she had agreed to come when
we asked her, but she didn’t leave us any choice.  We are taking good care of her,
though, and she has shown some willingness to cooperate with tests.  There’s potential
there, but we need to bring it out.”

“Let me talk to her,” Tommy said. “I’ll explain what you’re really doing here.”

Ward paused for a minute, as if thinking this over carefully. “Do you believe she
will listen to you? We don’t want to upset her.”

“She’ll listen,” Tommy said. “Maybe not right away, but if I can keep visiting her,
keep talking to her...She’s not stupid.  She’ll come around.”  Tommy had no idea whether
she would ever agree to work with them, but he was dying to see her again. 

“It might help her along, seeing a familiar face,” Ward mused. “Having someone she
trusts to comfort her.”

“I’ll take care of it, sir.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” Ward turned his attention to his computer screen. “Dismissed.”

Tommy walked back toward his room, but he slowed as he passed the double doors to
the third corridor, where he’d seen the conjugal rooms in his flashes of his previous
life.  It felt strange to think of himself as an S.S. officer, a Nazi...under Ashleigh's
control, yet again.  He was beginning to wonder how many lifetimes he’d spent being
manipulated by her, even while immune to her actual power.

He pushed on the doors, and felt mildly surprised when one of them opened.  He walked
into the third corridor, wondering if all the luxurious furnishings were still here,
the old phonographs waiting to play German chamber music.

He opened the door to the first room.  It was empty, stripped down to the bare concrete,
with a huddle of cardboard boxes and trash bags in one corner, all the beauty long
since carted away by either the Nazis or the Soviets who came after them.

Tommy crossed the room, his sneakers echoing like heavy boots against the floor. 
He found the little hole in the wall, which had generally gone unnoticed, lost between
the curlicues of a fancy mirror frame.  He closed one eye and looked through it, but
there was only darkness on the other side.

He had stood there, he remembered, in the narrow hidden passage that ran along this
side of the hall, enabling researchers to observe the conjugal rooms without being
noticed.  He had stood and watched through the little lens in the wall, and now felt
embarrassed at the memory.

* * *

Niklaus walked up the narrow, dim hidden passage, long after supper when the base
was quiet and nobody was likely to be looking for him.  He stopped at one of the tiny,
glowing circles in the wall, closed an eye, and looked through.

The room was empty, of course, the bed curtains tied back, the furniture dusted. 
Only a single small lamp provided illumination.  It had slipped his mind that they’d
already moved Sebastian and Mia out of the room.  He’d come here out of habit, along
with a dim hope that maybe some other couple had been moved onto the hall.

He’d watched Sebastian and Mia several times over the weeks.  At first, it had only
been out of curiosity and boredom, a late-night search for entertainment.  Watching
their bare bodies grind against each other had been far more exhilarating than he’d
expected.  They fucked with a raw abandon, thanks to Alise’s enchantment.  On subsequent
nights, now and then, Niklaus found himself sneaking back for another look, and once
he’d gone so far as to unzip and pleasure himself while he watched, never mind the
scientists who might walk in on him at any moment.

They were gone now, and he would not get to see Mia squirm in pleasure again, unless
they decided to breed her again in another year.  Maybe that would be with Niklaus. 
He’d asked Alise to arrange it for him, but she’d stalled, and now Mia was pregnant
by the American instead.

Niklaus started to turn back, feeling disappointed, until he heard a gasp farther
down the hidden passage.  He followed it to the last room on the short hall.  The
walls near the hidden lenses were perforated with pinpoint holes, allowing sound to
pass through to observers.  He heard the sound again—a high-pitched squeal, then a
gasping sound.

Grinning, he wondered who had been paired up now.  Tonight’s visit might not be a
complete waste, after all.

He closed an eye and peered through the lens.

This room was the nicest of them all, everything trimmed in marble and traces of polished
gold.  The bed was the largest he’d ever seen, its frame and high poster columns carved
from ebony.  On the bed, he saw the visiting American banker, Jonathan Barrett, stripped
naked and furiously mounting a girl Niklaus couldn’t clearly see, but she was blond. 
He assumed it was a nurse or typing pool girl the visitor must have picked up.  Whoever
it was, she shuddered, screamed, snorted, and writhed, shaking and lost in pleasured
agony as he took her faster and faster, to the sound of a Wagner overture on the phonograph.

Niklaus wanted to laugh at the girl’s grunting and howling.  The guy was really reaming
her hard.  He’d never known a woman could make sounds like that.

Then she turned her head, and he recognized that the squirming girl with her knees
locked around Barrett’s hips was his own cousin Alise.

His smile vanished, and he felt his heart shrivel and turn cold.  He felt it like
a fist in his gut.  He’d been with Alise several times now, even though each time,
when he finished, he told himself he would never do it again.  The part of him that
stewed in guilt and shame kept losing out to the part that still lusted for her—he’d
never been able to turn her down when she came to his door.

It stung to see her with another man, especially lying back spreading herself wide
for him, when she’d always insisted that she be on top with Niklaus, never letting
him truly take her.  Now she gave herself freely to this foreigner, making sounds
like he’d never heard.  With him, she had always just panted a little, then panted
a little faster near the end.  With Barrett, she thrashed and cried out like a wild
animal.

He saw, too, that Barrett was substantially thicker and longer then he was, filling
Alise far more fully than Niklaus ever could.  His cousin seemed enthralled, in a
state of ecstasy, looking up at Barrett with droopy lids.  She’d certainly never given
Niklaus a look like that...a look of surrender.