Marius (20 page)

“Oh, the amazing boyfriend,” Rem said and rose. “Took you long enough. She waited for you for some time before taking matters into her own hands.”

Marius felt his stomach drop.

“Where is she?” he said and stepped into the room.

Rem frowned at the folder. “Do you have something for me?”

Marius shrugged and handed the pictures over to him.

“Magnus,” Rem said and rubbed his scruff, “I’m not at all surprised.”

Apollo frowned and came to stand beside him. “How so?”

Rem shrugged. “He’s the one they send to make sure their investments are taken care of.”

Marius frowned. That wasn’t really reassuring. It certainly wasn’t what they had been thinking.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Rem said and let the other pictures fall to the ground but one.

“What?” Marius asked and stepped forward.

Rem held up the paper. It depicted numerous purple flowers growing along the bank of a stream in the compound. “
Aconitum
,” he said and waited for them to pick up on what he was saying. “It's fucking wolf’s bane.”

Apollo frowned. “Is that a real thing?”

“It is, and it explains so much,” he said. “Everyone seems to be on overload right now, and I think I know why. Doctor Fisher even talked about it in his notes, but I didn’t think anything of it. We have a different sort of reaction to it than normal humans. It messes hybrids up. It causes an overload. So they are both poisoning and fucking with your minds. Whoever did this either knew a lot about our physiology or just got really lucky.”

“What? Those flowers?” Apollo asked.

Rem looked up from the picture and nodded. “They are very dangerous, and we’re lucky no one has died yet.”

Marius stared hard at Rem. “Where is she?”

“Going to meet with the reverend,” he said.

Apollo snorted.

Rem rolled his eyes. “She's still trying to save your ungrateful asses. I don't know why, considering how you've treated her.”

Marius's heart fell. “How could you let her go?”

Rem shook his head. “How could I not? We didn’t know what the cause was, and things were only getting worse. You dumbasses were making it harder for her to do her job.”

Marius shook. She was on her way to meet with an enemy. “How long?”

“Twenty minutes,” Rem said.

“You can’t go,” Apollo said from beside him.

Marius turned. “Just try and stop me.” He glared at Apollo, and his eyes flashed yellow for a second. “This is partly your fault.”

Apollo nodded and then shook his head. “You need to wait for Titus,” he said.

Marius looked at Rem and then back to Apollo. “I don’t have time,” he said. “She’s at their mercy. What would you do?”

Apollo sighed. “Where are they meeting?”

“Off of the old bridge on farm road eleven seventy two,” Rem said and sat down.

Marius stared at him for a moment before Apollo shrugged. “What?” he said. “You’re going to need backup. And you're right. This is partly my fault, and I clean up my own messes.”

Apollo eyed Rem. “I’m counting on you to tell Titus,” he said.

Rem nodded. “Take care and go bring her back.”

Marius raced from the room. He didn’t have any intention of not bringing her back, and if that meant he had to snap a few necks, so be it.

* * *

Rachel pulled the Jeep up to the side of the road and sighed. It hadn’t been that long, and she just knew they were hot on her trail. She climbed out and looked around. Nothing struck her as unusual or out of place except for her car.

“Hello?” she called.

Something hard hit her on the back of the head, and blackness washed over her.

When she came to, she felt the sting of the needle in her arm.

“That’s my special little concoction,” a man said near her head. Nausea washed over hear, and she felt her stomach lurch forward.

Rachel turned her head and tried to focus on the voice next to her. Slowly, he took shape, and as he came into focus, she knew it was Reverend John she was directly dealing with, and that idea terrified her even more. There was nothing worse than a true believer.

“What did you give me?” she mumbled.

“Wolf’s bane, you filthy dog lover,” he said.

She choked on his rancid breath and tried not to think about all the things she knew about the dangerous poison.

“Why did you take the syringe?” she asked.

He laughed. “She’s already starting to break down.”

He shifted and stared into her eyes. “It’s really surprising they would pick you, but then you are a doctor, and they need a doctor. You should have just stuck with our kind. The human kind.”

Rachel struggled to sit up and say something but was losing the ability to do so. She slumped to the side.

* * *

Marius pulled onto the bridge, and if it weren’t for her Jeep, he wouldn’t even know that she had been there. He stepped out and frowned. A salty scent hung in the air, something similar to the ocean.

Over that scent, he could smell the path they had brought her down. Her fear was thick in the air, and he nearly choked on it as he and Apollo followed the trail. After moving deep into the woods, it became pretty obvious to them that whatever their quarry had planned, it was not something pleasant.

“This might go better if we split up,” Apollo said from next to him.

He nodded and pushed through.

“I’ll move around back and take this from behind,” he said. “No prisoners. We don't have time for that shit.”

Marius nodded. That was pretty much his plan.

* * *

“‘The wicked are overthrown and are no more, but the house of the righteous will stand.’” Reverend John stood among several followers as he spouted his rhetoric, twisting the words of the Good Book to his evil purposes.

Several of the other men in the area murmured in agreement. She couldn’t help but notice several had rifles or handguns. Just what had they been planning?

“Is that what you think?” Rachel asked “That you are the righteous?” She chuckled.

John stopped to stare at her. “You're still alive?”

“Show me that I am not righteous,” she said. “By all accounts, I should be dead, and yet here I am. Is that not the will of God?”

John raced toward her. “Don’t you ever speak of the will of God, harlot. You know nothing of God. There is no part of your life that would put him in your life.” He shook his head. “You’ll meet your end just the same. You might not be going fast, but it will catch up with you. And in the end, God put the gun in my hand. I am but his instrument.”

The door to the barn burst open. Rachel hit the ground.

“Well, in that case,” Marius said from the door, “I guess you won’t mind if God makes sure one of my bullets finds root in your chest. Because he put this gun in my hand.”

Chapter Seventeen

Rachel could barely see him as he entered the barn. The smoke from the guns was thick in the air, and she started to wonder if her vision was starting to fail. She stayed low to the ground as the shadowy figure of Marius closed. Just when he’d moved within reach, a spray of bullets hit the ground in front of him.

She rolled on her back and could just barely make out a man in the rafters with a pistol. He took aim and she screamed. This could be the last time she would see Marius alive. A loud shout echoed through the barn. The man in the rafters fell to the ground with a thud.

When she turned around, she was surprised to see a tall man in the door, his brown arm outstretched and a pistol held high. From his sheer size and manner, she knew he was a hybrid, but like Rem, he was different from the other hybrids. His eyes were a startling green, and she wondered what the eye colors indicated about their differences. If the men were more open, she would have to ask.

Marius came to stand over her.

“You came for me,” she whispered.

She coughed. The air stank of heavy acrid fumes, but she wasn't sure if that was from the gunfire or not.

“I’ll always come for you,” he said, and she knew it was true.

Two the reverend's men jumped out from the other side of some hay.

“Burn in hell demons,” one shouted.

The large black man shot off two bullets and dropped one of the men to the ground. The other zealot landed on Marius, who fired a bullet into his chest.

She spotted Reverend John at the back of the barn.

“‘You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons,’” the reverend shouted at them.

She shook her head. He was wrong, but he was going to believe what he wanted. A person like that was going to continue being insane. He'd taken the Bible as an excuse and corrupted its words to justify his evil actions. There was nothing she could do about it. Perhaps nothing anyone could do about it.

Rachel frowned when he smiled at her. He lifted a hand, and that was when she noticed the match and the gas canisters. Without thinking, Rachel pulled on both Marius and the other hybrid. She used every last ounce of strength she had to yank them out the door as fire burst from around the reverend, roaring over the building.

When they made it out the door, she collapsed on the ground, waves of heat from behind pouring over her. She opened her eyes slowly and was surprised to find two guns pointed at one another over her head.

She realized the green-eyed hybrid and Marius were both pointing their weapons at each other.

“Nice to meet you, Magnus,” Marius said. “Hannah mentioned you.”

Magnus shrugged as if it meant little to him.

“Rem said you were likely on our side,” Marius said. “Is that true?”

“I’m on my own side,” Magnus said. He hesitated for a moment and then lowered his gun.

Marius put his own gun down and frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means some obligations take priority over others.” He glanced at Rachel. “Would you leave your hybrids for her? How far would you go? I’ve had to start answering those questions myself.”

Marius stared at the man and then into the distance. It was amazing to him how one person could have so much insight.

“And the Horatius Group? Do you work for them?” Marius asked.

Magnus frowned. “Only when I have to.” A pained expression settled over his face.

Marius glanced back to Rachel again, who seemed to have slumped down even further on the ground.

“I can’t take her,” Magnus said. “She’s going to go into shock if you don’t get her to the clinic soon.”

Marius frowned. He didn’t really know what Magnus meant but would take it.

“What about you? You could come with us,” he said.

Magnus shook his head. “I have a different job.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Your friends are coming. Good luck.” After a final nod, he sprinted off in the opposite direction.

Rachel started to shake, and he picked her up.

“I’ve got you,” he said.

She nodded and tried to smile. He loved that despite everything, she was still trying to hang on.

Apollo came around the corner with the Jeep, followed by another Jeep driven by another hybrid but carrying Titus. Apparently, Rem had told Titus after all.

The vehicles rolled to a stop, and Titus and Apollo both got out.

“There was another hybrid here,” Marius said.

Titus glanced over at Apollo. “Magnus from the video?”

Marius nodded.

“Did he help?”

“Yes, but he's doing some work for the Group it seems like. I don't know if we can fully trust him.”

Titus shrugged. “We'll get that shit figured out later.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “So now we have both the Group and this nut job’s group.”

“So if Magnus helped us, does that mean he helped us at the behest of the Group?” Marius asked.

“Maybe,” Titus said. “We have things and information they still want after all.”

“And children,” Apollo muttered.

Titus nodded.

“Did you get any of Reverend John’s men on the way here?” Marius asked.

Apollo nodded. “A few. Not sure if Reverend John got away or not. Did you get him?”

“Don't know,” Marius said. “He looked like he was in the center of that blaze when it went up, but I wouldn't put it past that tricky bastard to escape.”

Titus sighed.

“Bastard,” Marius mumbled as he climbed into a vehicle and slid in next to Rachel. “She’s going into shock. We need to get home now.”

Titus nodded.

“Glad she’s safe,” he said quietly and leaned around to the driver of the Jeep. “Get them back fast.”

* * *

They sped along the back country roads. As time passed, she grew more pale, and her breathing grew more ragged. They only had about ten minutes left, and he didn’t know if she could make it.

“Rachel,” he said softly. “What can I do for you?”

She tried to blink open her eyes but couldn’t quite seem to manage it.

“Enhance,” she managed to get out.

“Enhancement?” he asked. She was already back out, but he thought he understood. It must have been the only thing that got her through. Maybe if there was one more, she could make it.

Marius pulled out his phone.

“Let me talk with Rem,” he said.

* * *

She hung limply in his arms as they arrived at the clinic. Marius hopped out and met Zeno in the lobby.