New Regime (25 page)

The assassin was gone when she got home. She wasn’t really
surprised.

All that remained of him were spots of blood on the walls,
the glass—broken and sharp upon the floor—from the water Denim had brought him,
and a note.

I’ll be back.

As though she wouldn’t kill him.

And maybe she wouldn’t. Because if she’d really meant to
kill him, she would have already.

The shameful thing was, despite Gunnar’s fear and his
torture at the hands of Will the Assassin, she could use Orson Blackthorne’s
scarred son.

Will would know a lot about his father, about the Shop, about
COS. About Karin. Even if he pretended otherwise.

He could help her find the baby.

And if she’d have told Gunnar that, he’d have understood.

When she and the crew arrived back in River County, they
went their separate ways to recover from their time in the lab.

It’d affected them all.

After she’d showered, Strad pulled her into her bedroom and
put her to bed. He’d gone to the kitchen, come back with food, and watched from
a chair in the corner of her room until she’d finished every bite.

She’d been right.

When they returned home, things went back to normal.

The damages from the fight hadn’t gone away—they’d just been
covered up by the power from the circle.

Owen disappeared, and she figured he was in a hospital
somewhere recovering from his injuries.

Strad shrugged his away and ignored them, but then, he was
the berserker.

Owen wasn’t.

For three days the crew stayed in their homes and did nothing,
as far as she knew, but eat, sleep, and, in Jack’s case, drink.

But then…

“Rune.”

“Eugene? Megan still alive?” She squeezed her cell, afraid
of what he was calling to tell her.

“Yes. I’m going to take the baby.”

“I’m coming.”

An hour later she was walking into the Annex, and strangely
enough, she was happy to be there.

Maybe the Annex was growing on her.

But Megan still hadn’t delivered.

“You said you were taking the kid.” Rune stared through the
glass at Megan’s still form, then turned to Eugene. “Get it the fuck out.”

The werefox opened her mouth, started to cry out, then fell
back into her exhausted fog without making a sound. She was too far gone to
even scream.

In the three days since they’d rescued her from the lab,
Megan had screamed, but hadn’t spoken a word.

“Get it the fuck out,” Rune said again.

Eugene sighed. He wasn’t surrounded by ops, perhaps having
trouble finding bodyguards after they’d watched him shiv one of their own. “Soon
as the baby is out, the werefox dies.”

Rune whipped her head around to stare at him. “What?”

Finally, he looked at her. “All the Others died when they
delivered.”

He was right. “Shit.”

“It’s as though the infants are feeding on them, and they’re
alive only until the babies no longer need them.” He shook his head and turned
back to the window. “These girls are hosts and the infants are parasites. How
it came to be, what’s making it possible…we don’t know.”

“
I
know,” Rune said. “It’s magic. Dark fucking
magic.”

“Yes, but…” he shook his head. “What magic? Whose?
How?
”

She took a deep breath. They knew Epik was part of it.
Nothing more. “I don’t have the answers.”

“Then there’s nothing we can do.”

After they’d fled down the path and had tumbled out of the
swirling green mass and back to their world, their perfect, beautiful world,
Lex had blasted fire at the portal for two minutes straight.

And it had disappeared.

When they’d left, the yard, the fence, and the house were
all burning, and they’d regretted only that she couldn’t take time to burn the
entire fucking town.

But her mother and Blackthorne and his lab of horrors were
without an exit from the lab. They couldn’t get out.

For now.

“The Shop head is gone,” she told him. “Karin Love is gone. That’s
something.”

“They’re not going away.” He ran a hand over his face, then
pointed. “At last. The child is coming on its own.”

She clutched her stomach as fear streaked through her. And
dread. Megan would die, and the child…

The child could be anything.

She started for the door. “I’m going in.”

“Rune.”

Something in his voice stopped her. She glanced at him,
frowning. “Yeah?”

“I can’t let you in there.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Wait out here. The medical staff will take care of her.”

Even as he spoke, a door inside the room opened and four
people rushed to Megan’s bedside. They were dressed in white protective suits
and something a little too close to gasmasks for her comfort.

“What the fuck is going on here?” She hit the door, but
gently. She could have broken it down, most likely, but she didn’t want to
traumatize the laboring Other further. And…

She was afraid of what was in that room.

“Open the fucking door, Eugene,” she said, but she was less
sure.

“It’s not safe. I can’t let you go in there. Rune.
Rune.
”
He held out his hand. “Come here. Watch.”

“You’re keeping something from me, and I want to know what
that is,” she said, but she strode back to the window to watch.

And once again she had trouble breathing. It was as though a
thick cloud of poison had drifted inside her lungs, swirling around in a foggy,
lethal mass.

She put her hand to her mouth and coughed. “God,” she
wheezed.

His gaze sharpened. “You’re affected even through the
glass?”

“Affected by what?” She backed away as panic began to cloud
her mind. “The magic is inside her?”

He motioned to someone behind her and his ops materialized.
“Take her outside the building,” Eugene ordered.

But as they walked toward her, she shot out her claws. “Keep
coming if you want to die.” Her voice was less wheezy, but probably too soft
for them to hear.

They didn’t need to hear her, however. They darted a glance
at Eugene, then raised their hands and backed away.

Eugene cursed, but didn’t order them to return. He knew
she’d kill them.

She forced herself back to the window. If Megan had to
endure the shit being forced upon her, Rune would be strong enough to stay
there with her. Even though walls and glass stood between them, maybe it was
better than nothing.

She leaned her forehead against the warm, thick window.
Eagerness warred with terror as she waited, waited for something unfamiliar and
horrifying.

And at that moment, Megan slowly turned her face toward Rune
and opened her eyes.

Caught with that stare, Rune trembled, realizing she was
digging her fingers into the brick wall only when one of her nails snapped.

She’d never been so afraid.

Every time she thought she’d reached the limits of fear, had
experienced the height of horror, something new came up to show her how wrong
she’d been.

This was worse.

Worse than anything.

And she didn’t know why.

Suddenly she stiffened. “They’re wearing silver. That’ll
kill the baby.” She had her claws to Eugene’s throat before he was aware she’d
even moved. “What the fuck?”

She grabbed onto her outrage eagerly, so glad to have
something to concentrate on besides the insidious fear that she got a little
vicious.

The ops came at her then, as she unintentionally cut through
Eugene’s skin.

“No,” he told them, his hands up. “Stay back.” His eyes were
calm as he looked at her. “Rune. There’s a reason. Just watch. If I’m right…”
Carefully, he wrapped his fingers around one of her wrists, making her think,
for one brief second, of Lex.

“Trust me. Rune. Trust me.”

“I don’t trust anybody,” she said, her voice hard.

But then there was a sound, the sound of an infant crying,
and she forgot about Eugene as she turned back to the thick plate of glass.

Even before the child was all the way out Rune could see
that Megan had breathed her last. But the child…

The baby slid from its host’s body and lay across the bed,
its screams changing to growls. The baby grew—it changed from a seven pound
infant to a twenty-five pound toddler in
seconds.

Another infant burst from the mother.

Identical twin girls, both with black hair, both with startling
blue eyes and long, silver claws.

They’d gotten those from Rune.

But their beautiful, identical features, those belonged to
Levi and Denim.

“Oh God,” Rune cried. “No!”

At the sound of running footsteps, she turned her horrified
gaze to watch as Levi and Denim came toward her, confused. Terrified.

“Why are you here?” she asked them.

Levi shook his head, hard. “We had to come. What is this?”

But as soon as they looked through the glass, they
understood.

Spikemoss Mountain.

The Shop had used COS to steal the blood and magic from the
twins and Rune to create…

Monsters.

Horrible, horrible monsters.

The twin girls began to cry, opening their jaws wide to show
sharp, growing fangs. Elongating their claws, they reached for the four Annex
men who stood there in their silver-laced suits.

“Run,” Rune whispered. Then she beat her fists upon the wall
of thick glass and screamed it. “Run!”

She knew what the mutated offspring were going to do. So did
the twins at her back. Levi clutched at her upper arm, too shocked to give
voice to the horror inside him.

“Oh, no,” Denim said. “Don’t hurt the…”

Don’t hurt the babies.

Because even though Rune and the twins were disgusted and
horrified and hurt, they recognized their own fucking children.

That. That was what COS had stolen and raped and milked from
them. Magic and semen and blood.

Fucking blood.

They were growing the strongest, most invincible monsters
the world would ever see.

Rune grabbed Eugene by the throat. “You knew,” she said. “You
fucking knew.”

“No, I did not. I did not.”

She flung him away. The baby Others screamed as the men in
the room slung silver nets over their little heads and dragged them to the floor.

The first mistake they made was not being careful enough.
The second was not really understanding, despite their silver-laced suits and
masks, how dangerous the newborn Others would be.

And Rune had to get inside that room. Not only to save the
Annex from the children, but to save the children from the Annex.

“Eugene,” she said, her voice calm even with the fear and
dread beating at her brain. “Open the door.”

Her reluctance to try to break the thick glass or kick in
the door had nothing to do with traumatizing Megan that time. She was more
worried that the magic inside the room, inside the infants, would weave its way
through the building and hurt the people inside.

She couldn’t know what it would do, and she wasn’t willing
to risk it. Not when Eugene, even if he didn’t know it yet, was going to let
her inside the room.

He narrowed his eyes, his fingers to his throat. “No, Rune.
I can’t.”

“Before you argue, consider that your words might be your
last if you make the wrong choice. With or without you we will get into that
room. Decide.” She didn’t even bother turning when the medical ops inside the
room began screaming.

Eugene did, and the blood drained from his face so fast she
was sure he’d collapse, but he merely nodded and strode to the door. “We can—”

“Rune,” the berserker yelled.

She glanced down the hall before she slipped into the room,
to see Strad and Jack striding toward her. “Dammit,” she said, then yanked
Eugene into the room with her and the twins.

Without Eugene, the berserker and Jack couldn’t get inside.
She couldn’t take a chance they’d be slaughtered.

Or that they’d slaughter the children.

“Hide,” she told Eugene, and shoved him to one of the doors
inside the room.

“Do not kill them,” he ordered, and then he ran.

She glanced once at the window cut into the wall and met the
berserker’s despairing gaze. He put his palm on the glass and mouthed her name.

“Rune,” Levi called, yanking her away from her berserker.
“Hurry.”

The children had chewed through the silver netting as though
it were sugar, and their mouths smoked and bled from the taste.

It hadn’t stopped them.

They were…inhuman.

Denim pulled one man from the clutches of girl number one,
but the man was suffering and beyond help. His eyes rolled wildly as blood
sprayed from wounds in his thigh.

The child who’d bitten him screamed in hungry rage as Denim
dragged the worker away, and she tried to stand and follow them. She failed.

The babies couldn’t walk, not then.

Two of the workers were already dead, but the last one was
still alive. Baby number two had grabbed his leg and was busy munching, and
Levi…

Levi crouched beside her, his eyes full of pleased wonder as
he watched her.

“Levi,” Rune screamed. “Fuck you!”

She jerked the unconscious worker away from the hungry baby
and carried him to the room into which Eugene had fled.

When she kicked open the door and ran inside to dump him on
the floor, she was almost shocked to find Eugene gone.

Almost.

She left the worker inside, hoping he’d survive, and then
ran back to the children. Levi and Denim knelt on a floor slick with blood, and
the girls sat across from them, silent. Watching.

“Hey there,” Levi whispered.

And Rune knew right then that the children would either save
him or send him forever into the dark abyss toward which he’d been heading.

“Hey there,” one of the children mimicked, her voice soft
and sweet.

“Holy shit.” Rune knelt beside Levi, unable not to smile
when one of the little girls threw the phrase back at her.

“They’re ours, aren’t they?” Levi didn’t take his gaze off
the children.

“Yes,” Rune answered.

“This is what came of our time on the mountain. Everything
we went through, these children are the result.”

She nodded.

Denim watched Levi, the hope on his face so bright it hurt
her to look at it. “Our children,” he agreed.

Levi smiled. The old Levi. “Then it was all worth it, wasn’t
it?”

He made sense of it. He made it okay. He won.

“I have made children,” he murmured. “What’s better than
that?”

Rune blinked at sudden tears, gaining the interest of the
infants. They tilted their heads, as one, and reached for her.

It took her a second to understand they wanted the blood
leaking from her eyes.

“No,” she said.

“No,” they agreed, still reaching.

Shit.
She scooted closer and took their hands.

They clutched at her fingers, and she winced at the pain.
Had she been human, her bones would have broken.

And then she saw something in their eyes, something that
drove the truth home with a sledgehammer.

Or maybe it was a lack of something.

She knew at that instant the children could not survive.

“Can we hold them?” Levi asked. “Hug them?”

Rune closed her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. “For a minute.”

Levi reached eagerly for the child closest to him. “Hey,
sweetheart,” he murmured.

“What now?” Denim asked. “Can we raise them?”

Rune said nothing.

Her chest hurt so she pushed her palm to it, trying to shove
away the pain. “God,” she cried, finally.

Denim frowned. “Rune? What—”

The berserker’s rage sounded at the exact same moment Levi’s
baby attacked. The door flew open, and an Annex army began to stomp into the
room.

She caught a glimpse of Strad and Jack fighting the ops,
trying to get through them to her, and then, she put her attention back on her
children.

Chaos.

Always, chaos.

And blood.

The children had Levi in a death grip. The one he’d been
reaching for had her fangs buried in his chest. The other one had latched onto
his side, just under his ribs.

They shot out their claws to hold him still as they drank.

“Rune,” Denim screamed, the horror in his voice drowning out
the sucking sounds the children were making.
“Help.”

She gave herself the tiniest, tiniest second to doubt, and
then she shot out her own claws and went toward the children.

Maybe she was doing the right thing. Maybe she was doing the
only thing she could do.

Levi slumped to the floor, and Denim sobbed as he dragged
his brother away. They both left Rune to deal with the horror.

The monsters.

The children.

They were the only babies she’d ever have.

And she had to kill them.

The ops parted to let Denim struggle through, not offering a
hand to help him. They crowded the doorways, weapons aimed and ready.

The babies turned on Rune. They grew steadily, likely from
consuming their father’s blood, and morphed into young women as she watched.
Hair snaked over their bodies, covering them like tents. Their claws elongated,
growing into slicers longer than Rune’s.

Their blue stares held hunger. Nothing more.

They hung their heads low, and growled.

But first, they smiled.

Rune shuddered.

In those smiles was everything she might have been.

Everything she could have been.

And none of it was good. Madness, hunger, death.

Could she destroy beings that had come from her? That were
part of her?

“Not children,” she said. “Not really.”

And they grew.

The berserker came through then, with Jack, Denim, and Raze
at his back. The room was vast, but when the crew forced their way past the
line of Annex soldiers, it became tiny.

Rune took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said, and went
after the newborns.