The metal doors between the ordinary ones unnerved Bowman most of all. These were stainless steel and massive, like the doors of giant refrigerators. Large chains hung across them, locked with padlocks.
Reid touched a door. “Ordinary metal,” he said. “Not spelled. But it makes you wonder what they’re keeping in there.”
Bowman sniffed but caught no scent. The chilled, dry air dampened all smells.
They walked on in silence.
Turner’s lab lay right where Cristian said it would. The word “lab” conjured in Bowman’s mind rows of test tubes and flaming alcohol burners, but then, he’d never seen one outside of TV or movies. This lab was nothing more than a large room of tables, a desk and chair, a ton of dusty books on shelves scaling the walls, and trays that held shards of pottery or skulls and bones.
The Shifters tightened at the sight of the bones. Most were human, and ancient—any life that had clung to them was long gone. Even so, these humans should not have been disturbed from their rest.
Reid stopped before one glassed-in tray that sat by itself. “These are Shifter,” he said.
Bowman went quickly to him, and the other two Shifters closed behind Bowman. Three skulls and several piles of bones occupied the case. Unlike the bones in the other trays, these weren’t labeled.
“You see,” Reid said, pointing, “the shape of the skull is slightly different, the bones a little thicker than those of a human. These bones that look animal are the right size to be Shifter.”
They eyed the remains in disquiet. “How do you know what Shifter skulls look like?” Graham asked in a low voice. “We don’t let people look at them.”
“People, no. Fae, yes. Some of the hoch alfar still have Shifter skulls as trophies in their halls. Passed down through the generations.”
Bowman felt sick. Whoever those ancient Shifters were, he said a prayer to the Goddess for them, hoping their souls had managed to escape.
“Pierce,” he said.
Pierce knew what Bowman wanted. He drew his sword, went to the case, and brought the hilt down, shattering the glass.
Reid and Graham helped Pierce clear the shards away while Bowman stood a little apart, his heart thumping. The skulls were very old, he could tell by the scent, or lack of it, but the fact that they existed at all infuriated him. Turner could only have acquired them from Shifter hunters or from Fae.
Once the pieces of glass were out of the way, Pierce flipped the sword over and thrust the blade through the first skull.
The runes on the sword flashed, and a hum broke the silence. The skull disintegrated at the touch of the blade, a little sigh flowing into the room. One by one, the bones and skulls became dust, the little whisper as each was released making Bowman’s throat tighten.
When Pierce finished, he let the sword’s point touch the floor while he bowed his head and said a prayer to the Goddess. Graham joined him, murmuring the words. Reid only watched, but his face was somber.
Bowman’s cell phone pealed. The others snapped around at the sudden sound. Bowman clicked on the phone and held it to his ear. “What?”
“Leave your friends and exit the lab through the door at the end. It will be unlocked for you. I want you alone, or they both perish.”
Bowman said nothing, only ended the call and dropped the phone into his pocket.
Graham, Pierce, and Reid had good enough hearing that Bowman didn’t have to repeat the caller’s words. The three followed him to the indicated door, which was another stainless steel one, but this one’s padlock hung open on its hasp.
Bowman gave the others a quiet look, and they nodded. Drawing a breath, Bowman removed the lock, squared his shoulders, and reached for the door handle.
“Take this,” Reid said, handing him the iron rebar he’d brought as a weapon. “Plain iron is best against Fae spells.”
“It’s good for whacking people too,” Graham said. “Good luck, O’Donnell.”
“It’s not me who will be needing it,” Bowman said, then he opened the metal door and walked inside.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The first thing Bowman knew was icy chill. That and the door clanging closed behind him, an electronic lock clicking into place.
He had entered not a room but a narrow hallway about twenty feet long. To his right was what looked like a radio control booth, the top half of its wall clear glass that reached to the ceiling. No door led from it to the hall Bowman stood in, though a closed door was on the booth’s back wall.
Two smaller booths lay side by side at the far end of the hall, or else it was one booth divided by a partition. Each had a door, their top halves glass.
Turner sat in the booth on Bowman’s right at a control board. Several cameras were fixed to the walls in the hallway, and Bowman saw himself on monitors inside Turner’s booth.
Behind one door in the booth at the end was Kenzie. Behind the other was Ryan.
Bowman rushed to them with Shifter speed, raising the rebar to pound through the glass. Kenzie, bound to a chair with chains, lifted her hands, wrists in cuffs. She said something he couldn’t hear, the booth soundproof, but her gesture was apparent enough.
Stop.
Bowman halted, the bar uplifted, and peered inside at her then at Ryan. Ryan was likewise bound to a chair. They both looked whole and unhurt, if grimy. In each booth, a shotgun had been positioned on a stand, the barrels pointed directly at each of them.
Even through the glass, even over Kenzie’s and Ryan’s fear and anger, Bowman could smell the weapons, gunpowder and metal packed into lethal barrels.
Bowman heard a click and then Turner’s voice. “I study Shifters, you know. Everything they do intrigues me.”
Bowman swung around and made for Turner’s booth. “I don’t care, asshole.” He slammed the iron rebar into the glass.
The bar bounced off, jarring Bowman’s arm. The glass didn’t even scratch.
“I am quite safe,” Turner said. He looked fresh and clean, as though he’d showered, while Kenzie and Ryan were filthy. “I am very interested in the decision-making processes of the alpha males. It is of great importance to understanding Shifters and how to deal with them. I have watched you try to defend your friends single-handedly; I’ve watched you delegate responsibility when you were hurt. I also watched you drag yourself up and attempt to save those in your care when you could barely walk. You use strength but also great cunning. Yes, I have observed you very carefully.”
Bowman glared through the glass. “What does that prove except that you’re the sick, twisted bastard I already knew you were?”
Turner continued as though Bowman hadn’t spoken. He was dictating, Bowman realized, into a microphone.
“The familial bonds interest me most. The alpha Shifter must not only lead his pack but take a mate and continue his authority through his male offspring. Which is the more important to him? This experiment will study which he has the strongest instinct to protect. My hypothesis is that the alpha male will always choose the heir, in his need to keep his gene pool intact and continuing. A mate, who does not share his genetic material, on the other hand, will prove to be expendable, once she has born a living male cub.”
Bowman slammed the rebar into the glass in front of Turner’s face again. Futile, but he needed to lash out, to pound at something until he could think.
“I have devised the experiment thusly,” Turner went on, unworried. “The alpha male is placed into a situation in which he must make a choice. I have divided the far chamber into two rooms with a temporary wall. In one sits the mate. In the other, the offspring—the cub.”
Bowman swung back to the two doors. Kenzie’s look was pleading. Don’t.
Turner was still speaking. “If the male opens one door in an attempt to free whoever is behind it, that door will activate a solenoid that completes a circuit to fire off the shotgun in the other chamber, destroying the Shifter confined there. The alpha male thus can make only one choice—saving his mate will k
ill his offspring; saving his offspring will kill his mate. Which will he choose?”
* * *
Kenzie watched Bowman’s expression dissolve into fury and horror. She could hear Turner fine, because he’d made sure the speakers came into her booth and Ryan’s. She could hear and see Ryan as well, because the partition between them was only a piece of hard plastic with holes in it.
Ryan was terrified, she knew. He didn’t want to die. But equally, he didn’t want to watch his mother be killed either.
“No choice is also a choice,” Turner’s loathsome voice droned on. “If the alpha male chooses neither, then I will fire off the guns myself, one after the other. Which will I choose to kill first?”
Kenzie could just see Turner’s hands hovering over a computer keyboard in his booth. She kept herself still, knowing that any hint of aggression would likely end with her watching Ryan and Bowman die.
Bowman’s eyes became red with his rage. His Collar let off a single spark, bright even under all the fluorescent lights.
“Bowman, no,” Kenzie shouted, though she knew he wouldn’t hear. She raised her bound hands and pointed both forefingers at Ryan. “Save our son,” she said, mouthing the words as precisely as she could.
“Mom, no way!” Ryan turned to her, his agitation making her want to cry. “You can always have more cubs.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Kenzie snapped. “I don’t want more cubs. I want you.”
“He has to pick one of us. I want you to be with Dad.”
“No.” Kenzie’s voice sharpened even as she wanted to be gentle. “You’re more important. This way, your dad can maybe find someone he can form the mate bond with.” She wanted to rip out her heart even as she said it, but she had to acknowledge the idea.
That’s bullshit, and you know it.
Kenzie’s eyes widened as Bowman’s voice sounded inside her head. Bowman?
His eyes went just as wide. Kenz?
She sucked in a breath. What . . . ?
Bowman, with minimal movement, touched a pendant on a necklace that hung just below the Celtic knot of his Collar. Your friend Gil gave me this thing. Maybe . . .
From the look on Bowman’s face, he didn’t think the pendant was doing anything, and neither did Kenzie. Whatever the talisman was, she’d be surprised if it made people suddenly telepathic.
First things first.
Sit tight. Bowman’s voice sounded again.
Where am I gonna go? Kenzie gave him her usual impatient look.
At the same time, her heart sang. They were in sync, as always, looking at danger and deciding what to do. She and Bowman made a kick-ass team.
Turner had them by the balls, though. He’d explained the setup to Kenzie. When one door was opened, a switch would be sparked, carrying a charge to the solenoid on the other side of the partition. That solenoid, in turn, would trip another switch, pulling back a wire wrapped around the hammer of the shotgun in that booth, firing it.
Turner also had controls in his room that could fire off either weapon whenever he chose. Bowman couldn’t break through the extra-thick glass and kill Turner before he could punch a button. Kenzie knew Bowman would never have come here without backup, but his trackers wouldn’t be able to get inside in time to stop Turner either. Turner held all the cards.
Bowman held a rebar. He had a talisman that did who-knew-what around his neck, and the ability to become wolf. That was it.
Kenzie went through the setup in her head, hoping it conveyed the situation in detail to Bowman. He wasn’t looking at her, however, but at Ryan, who was speaking carefully.
“Dad,” Ryan said, shaping the words so Bowman could read his lips. “The latch is the switch.”
Bowman frowned at his son, unenlightened. Kenzie repeated Ryan’s words in her head, hoping Bowman could hear them.
Bowman continued to frown, then he snapped his gaze to Ryan’s door.
Turner’s voice clicked on. “I will give you another thirty seconds to make your choice, Shifter,” he said. “I have other things to do today.”
Can you get out of those chains? Bowman asked Kenzie in her head.
I think so. She hadn’t wrested herself free yet, though, because Turner had threatened to kill Ryan if she didn’t behave.
When I move, you move, Bowman said. I’m not sure this will work.
Kenzie tensed. Good to know.
Ryan’s got an interesting idea, but your gun might still go off. I can’t see the wiring.
Kenzie had no idea what that meant, but she dragged in a breath, ready for whatever he was going to do.
Bowman, she said silently, sending every bit of caring and love she could through whatever link they were sharing.
Bowman’s hard gray eyes softened for a brief moment. Yeah, I know, his whisper came back. Love you too.
He stood absolutely still for a few seconds longer. Turner waited, his fingers poised over the keyboard.
Then Bowman leapt forward and smashed the rebar through the wooden bottom half of Ryan’s door. A moment later, Bowman dove for the hole he’d made and let his Collar go off.
Electricity sparked and exploded. Bowman’s body jerked with it, a howl of pain escaping his throat. The door broke, but the frame remained connected to the wall, the latch in place, and Kenzie’s shotgun stayed silent.
For now. With something as strong as Bowman smashing through it, the door could fall out of its frame any minute. Kenzie understood that Bowman had tried to short-circuit the wiring with his Collar, to disrupt electricity going to the switch Turner had put into the door, but a stray spark might set it off anyway.
Turner, red with anger, brought his hands down on the computer keyboard.
But he wasn’t as fast as a Shifter. Bowman leapt through the wreckage of the door, shifting in midair, to catch Ryan and his chair and slam both out of the way as the shotgun in Ryan’s room boomed.
At the same time, Kenzie shifted, letting herself linger in her between-beast state—a formidable cross between wolf and human, with the advantages of both. The form was difficult for most Shifters to maintain for long, but it got the job done in the meantime.
The shotgun in her room went off, pellets scattering everywhere. Kenzie ducked the worst of it as her chains broke, though shot grazed her, embedding in her fur and skin.
She didn’t care. She only saw Bowman’s wolf form light up with electricity as he landed with Ryan, the arcs from his Collar and the wall’s wiring zapping him over and over again.
Kenzie burst the partition in two, becoming wolf all the way as she dove through. She dragged Bowman by the scruff away from the spaghetti-like live wires flailing on the floor and landed on top of him, using her weight to smother the sparks in his fur.
Ryan’s face was wet with blood and tears, but he didn’t break down as he struggled with his chains. “Dad, you are awesome! Mom, I can’t get out of these, and Turner’s coming!”
Kenzie changed to her half-beast again, her brute strength breaking the links of Ryan’s chains. He shifted to wolf at the same time she did, the cub climbing onto his mother’s back for protection.
“So,” Turner said. He had come through a back door in the booth Kenzie had sat in, which must lead to his main control room, his face scarlet with rage but his voice still too calm. “The instinct of Canis lupus shifterensius is to preserve the entire pack. That gives me much to write about. This symposium will be interesting.”
He brought up a semiautomatic, aimed it at Kenzie and family, and shot.
* * *
Bowman heard Kenzie’s shriek inside his head as a bullet caught her. She had turned and slammed herself backward, protecting Ryan, which had exposed her belly and throat. Blood blossomed on her soft fur, paler on her stomach than her back.
Bowman’s reason left him. He felt the bond between himself and Kenzie lessen, and the pain of that was unbearable.
I love you, Kenz was Bowman’s last coherent thought. Then the world became a blur.
Bullets whizzed past him. Some of them struck him, but Bowman didn’t notice. He ran at Turner, his claws ripping into the man’s skin. He bit down and tasted blood.
Pain burned his side, and Bowman’s own blood flowed. His Collar shocked him, agony streaming through every nerve, but Bowman ignored it. He bit, tore, and shook, and blood sprayed.
Turner’s gun slipped out of his hands to clatter to the floor, but the man kept fighting. He was strong, and Bowman was losing blood. Turner managed to slide away from Bowman and try to run back the way he’d come, through Kenzie’s booth. But Kenzie was there, ready to kill.
Turner had just enough time to turn and race down the hall to the steel door Bowman had entered through. He pounded four numbers into the keypad next to it and yanked it open.
He found two Shifters, one with a sword, one with massive fists, waiting on the other side. Behind them stood a tall dokk alfar with fire in his eyes.
Graham grabbed Turner, but the man had a few more dirty tricks in store. He Tased Graham, ducked under Pierce’s reach, whipped his Fae dirk across Reid’s face, and sprinted through the lab and down the main hall.
Reid was the fastest after him, with that weird Fae speed, but Bowman wanted Turner for himself. He bounded past the others, even as blood poured out of him, chasing Turner the length of the hall.
At the door to the stairs, Turner had to halt, confronted with Cristian, who was supporting a shaking Brigid. She was indicating, with wild gestures, one of the chained refrigerated rooms.
“It is here,” she said, her dark eyes wide. “I know it. I remember the aura of it.”
Bowman knew exactly what she meant. He ran for the steel door she was staring at and broke its chains. He had no time to howl a warning, but Cristian was already pulling Brigid out of the way.
Bowman brought his weight down on the door’s giant handle and released the beast within.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
A monster similar to the one they’d fought at the roadhouse filled the hall. This one was a little bit different, with a Feline body; huge, taloned paws; a face that was so distorted it was difficult to tell what it was supposed to be; and a tail that could only belong to a dragon.