Unchained (Men in Chains Book 3) (30 page)

The weapon was heavy and he needed to set the damn thing on the ground, but he wasn’t about to do that outside a well-protected cave. Daniel would no doubt have sent his men in pursuit; they could easily be following by only a minute or so.

Still in altered flight, he levitated above the system and pushed hard to reach Gabriel telepathically.
Can you hear me, Gabriel?

Marius! Where are you?

Above the Pharaoh system. I’ve got the last extinction weapon with me, and Shayna.

A split second later an inbound path opened up and he slipped through. He could feel the disguise close up behind him equally fast. Gabriel, his surrogate father and the primary reason Marius had even one brain cell intact, was an Ancestral of tremendous power.

Marius penetrated a partially cleared-out cavern of immense size and a few remaining stalactites. As he set the weapon down, he saw the charred, melted remains of several pieces of machinery, no doubt the detritus of several similar weapons.

He released Shayna and she stepped off his foot, glancing around. “Are these what I think they are?”

“Yep.”

The next moment Gabriel arrived with a security team of a couple dozen men. The latter spread out around the perimeter, daggers and chains drawn.

Gabriel grabbed his shoulders and hauled him into a quick, hard embrace. “How the hell are you, son?”

Gabriel represented everything good in this world as well as the hoped-for future of the race.

“I’m better now that we got the weapon. But listen, we left behind about two hundred women in the Dark Cave system. Is there any chance you have a security team that could try to get them out?” He then outlined how the battle had gone and that, in addition to the women, they’d find fifty dead vampires.

He glanced at Shayna for a penetrating moment, then back to Marius. “I’ll take care of this right now.” He drew his phone from the depths of the long, woven robe he wore and made a call. He spoke quietly and when he was done he nodded to Marius. “They’re on the way.”

“How? Don’t you need the location?”

Gabriel glanced at Shayna. “I picked it up from your woman, sort of an afterimage of the entire journey. I’ll keep you informed.”

Marius stared at him for a long moment. Gabriel had always kept his cards close to the vest and he suspected that the man he called his surrogate father had a number of quiet ways he’d been working to undermine Daniel. That he had the power to simply order one of his teams, over the phone, back to the Dark Dave system, and to be so confident of success, gave Marius a hope he hadn’t had in a long time.

He nodded to Gabriel, then gestured to the weapon. “I’m hoping this is it, the last of the experiments from the 1950s.

“But let me introduce you to the woman who made this possible. Gabriel, this is Shayna Prentiss from Seattle. Shayna, this is Gabriel, one of the leaders of our world, though currently lying low.”

Shayna extended her hand and Gabriel took it in both of his. “Welcome to the Pharaoh system. From the depths of my soul, thank you for your willingness to help us. My people will sing songs about your sacrifice for years to come.”

“That’s very kind, but it hardly feels like a sacrifice. More like a mission.”

Gabriel smiled. “Yes, it was that. Whatever brought you here and gave you the courage to face so much horror, I’m grateful. And this last one, gaining control of the weapon, has saved our people an enormous amount of suffering.”

“I saw it in operation, in a vision. It was horrible.”

Marius saw the shadow cross over Shayna’s face and knew she was thinking about the female vampires in the cage who had perished. He quickly slid an arm around her waist.

Gabriel grew very solemn, his lips pressed into a grim line. “Visions of any kind can be a difficult burden to bear. I hope in time that what you saw will be eased from your memories.”

“I hope so, too.” Her gaze shifted to the weapon. “But at least we got it.”

Both Gabriel and Marius turned their attention to the weapon as well.

Marius let go of Shayna and moved to slide a hand down the angled red roof. “We need to deactivate this thing right now, but you should clear the room. The lower casing has been retrofitted with a battery pack so that it can be fired up anywhere. One flip of the switch”—he rounded the machine and pointed it out—“will send out killing sound waves that would take us all down within seconds. Although the waves can’t penetrate altered flight.”

Gabriel called out, “Disperse to altered flight.”

The response of his team was almost instantaneous. The men levitated as one and shifted to altered flight, each hovering in place. Impressive.

Gabriel, however, remained standing stoically nearby but Marius refused to do anything until his good friend was safe. He remained staring at him resolutely, until Gabriel’s lips quirked and he joined his security force.

Marius carefully tilted the weapon on its side to expose the lower casing. Flipping a compartment with a simple mechanical slide plate exposed a battery pack. He reached in and within a few seconds, he’d disabled the machine, removing eight packs all linked together.

He was about to set it upright again, when Shayna caught his arm. “Join Gabriel and his men and let me test it out. We don’t want an accident because we’ve been tricked.”

He held her gaze, frowning slightly. “What made you say that?”

She narrowed her gaze. “Because Daniel is devious and this would be right up his alley.”

At that, he smiled. “You’re absolutely right. We’ll err on the side of caution.”

“So good ahead, shift.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Shayna grinned, which made her look like she was about sixteen. But he obeyed and shifted to altered flight. When she flipped the switch, the damn thing went off, the vibrations of the weapon shaking the ground and trembling through the air. She hit the switch immediately, shutting it down.

“That bastard,” she shouted.

Marius dropped out of altered flight. He asked for a sledgehammer, intending to pulverize the weapon then and there, but Gabriel, on solid ground once more, intervened. “I’ve got a better idea. Let me get my detonation squad in here. They’ll be fully protected and I think our best course will be to blow this damn thing up.”

Marius thought it was the best idea he’d heard yet. “Let’s do it.”

But he couldn’t leave. In fact, everyone stayed while the team was brought in and the explosives rigged.

Shifting to altered flight with Shayna held tight in his arms, he took her away, moving past a wall of stone to hover in a nearby unimproved cavern as he mentally did the ten-second countdown.

The explosion rattled through the immediate cavern surroundings. After a couple of minutes, the squad gave the all-clear and everyone moved back in.

Marius thought he’d always remember the burnt, chemical stench of the space as one of the best smells in his life since the last remaining weapon lay scattered in smoking ruins.

“Are we sure this is the last one?” Shayna asked.

Gabriel turned toward her. “Why don’t you do a search? From what I understand, now that you’ve had so much contact with this weapon, you’d be able to find even the smallest part of one.”

“I will.” Then she did something that surprised Marius. She moved close and took his hand.
Will you support me right now? I mean, with your power? I’m afraid I’m still shaking.

God, yes. Whatever you need.

For some reason, his words caused her lips to part as she stared at him, searching his face.

What?
For a moment, he thought he might have offended her somehow, but he wasn’t getting that through the chain-bond they shared.

You have no idea who you are, that’s why I’m amazed right now. You’re one of the most supportive men I’ve ever known.

He was taken aback.
Okay. Thank you, I guess. But why wouldn’t I be when you’ve helped us all so much? My God, it seems like such a small thing.

At that, she smiled.
Maybe.

He moved in close, sliding an arm around her waist.
Ready when you are.

She closed her eyes and he felt her begin her locating search. He also sensed the clarity of that search, that her skills had improved tremendously. Between the visions that were no longer marred with dark waves and what he sensed right now, he knew that Eve’s experiment had proved exactly the right therapy for Shayna. Her abilities felt solid in a way they hadn’t before.

Of course, she was siphoning his power, a steady stream that flowed out of him, something he loved. But Shayna had changed.

She took a long time as she extended her locator ability, and the minutes piled up.

Everything okay?

I’m trying to be thorough. I’m going continent by continent. The Western Hemisphere is clear.

He shared that with the group and a cheer went up.

He felt Shayna falter for a few seconds because of the noise, but she quickly put herself back on track.

A few minutes later Shayna sagged against him as she opened her eyes. “I didn’t find anything and trust me, I cruised the entire globe. There’s nothing there.”

Gabriel smiled. “While you were doing your search, I had another locator do her search—Adrien’s woman, Lily. She didn’t find anything, either. I think we’re good to go.”

The cheer that went up this time shook the air.

A wave of something Marius didn’t recognize at first flowed through his body and he kept cheering. The biggest, most dangerous obstacle his world had ever faced no longer existed.

He immediately called Rumy, who communicated the news to his security team. More cheering resonated through his phone.

Gabriel finally quieted everyone down and added another bit of information. “The team I just sent out, a hundred of my best men, got the slaves out, the ones living in squalor beneath the land bridge. No sign of Daniel, either. The women are safe.”

“Thank God,” Shayna murmured as another cheer went up.

When everyone had once again grown quiet, Gabriel dispersed his team but gave permission at the same time to spread the news far and wide. The latest threat to the peace and safety of their world had just ended.

Turning to Marius, Gabriel clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Well done. Now I have something I want to give Shayna with your permission, but it’s something of a surprise. Will you allow it?”

“Of course.” It went without saying that Marius trusted Gabriel with his life.

CHAPTER 13

The process of using Marius’s power and her own innate locating ability to search the earth for any trace of a remaining extinction weapon had left Shayna feeling strung out. But she couldn’t imagine what kind of surprise Gabriel had in store for her, although a hot bubble bath sounded really nice about now.

Shayna knew Gabriel was a really important person in Marius’s life. He was an exiled leader of their world and a father figure for Marius and his brothers. He was handsome with strong cheekbones, piercing gray eyes, and short, spiked black hair. Beyond that, he radiated a kind of warmth that instantly made her trust him.

“Follow me,” the Ancestral said.

She hopped on board Marius’s booted foot, a much easier task to accomplish given her running shoes, and settled against him. How comfortable the process had become since the first painful flight out of Seattle. She felt as though years had passed instead of just a couple of days, that she’d lived a lifetime with the man holding her tight and helping her feel secure.

The trip was short given that both men could fly at lightning speed, but the trajectory took them deep into the North African earth through cavern after cavern. A lot of the cave systems were layered one on top of the other, often amounting to hundreds of nonlinear miles—an unfathomable number.

Marius landed them in what proved to be a large, comfortable guest suite, with a broad, thin waterfall extending the entire length of the dining area. Soft lights at the base set the blue-flecked wall behind the water glittering.

All the furniture appeared to be made of mahogany with freestanding walls separating the rooms. Glancing up, she understood why. The tall curved ceilings were kept in their natural light-blue crystals, a physical structure very familiar to her. “Oh, my God, this is a geode, or at least part of one.” She’d never been more surprised.

Gabriel smiled. “Essentially, yes, one of the larger ones in our world. When this one was discovered and excavated, portions were shipped elsewhere to other dwellings to be shaped into new architectural features. But this is the original. I kept it for myself and had it made into a haven of sorts.”

“So you sometimes come here? This is part of your home?”

His smile broadened. “Not exactly. I have felt for a long time that someone would be coming into our world who could put this space to use, if just temporarily. Once I heard about you, Shayna, I decided that if the situation permitted, I wanted you to stay here.”

“Really?” His decision had shocked her, although suddenly Gabriel seemed very familiar to her, but she couldn’t quite place him. “Why?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute.” He then went on to show them the various rooms, which included a large library with hundreds of books, several worktables covered in sheets of leather, magnifying glasses on stands, and brushes that Shayna knew were archaeological tools.

Awareness started to dawn.

There was even a sledgehammer leaning against a wall. She laughed and went to it, touching the handle. Was it possible?

Her heart rate soared as she turned back to Gabriel and recognized him and the space from one of her first visions, the one she’d known had been meant just for her.

What’s wrong?
Marius quickly moved in and once more slid his arm around her waist.

Nothing,
she responded quickly.
I’m fine.
She’d forgotten that she hadn’t shared this particular vision with Marius.

Her gaze skimmed the wall next to the sledgehammer. The fact that she’d already seen what lay behind the wall set her to trembling all over again.