This couldn’t be happening. Even though she knew that death vampires hunted mortals and ascenders alike, she had thought herself safe because she was ascended. Wrong.
What had brought her here to this place? Because she’d seen Antony on the stretch of lawn in front of the hospital? Because she’d trusted him? Because she’d been too quick to act?
She blinked. She’d started to feel so safe and in control of her life. She’d started to believe that all would be well. She’d been laughing with the other women, powerful women, in Fiona’s hospital room. She’d plotted her course. She would go to the training camps and become a warrior, make a difference in the war.
She stared at Antony, sitting on the floor with his arms clasped around his knees, his jeans now dusty. What had he said to her? You keep yourself apart.
She’d started to change that, she really had, or thought she had. But as her mind drifted over her decision to enter the training camps she realized she would be learning skills but probably not encouraging friendships. Her body would become tough and she’d learn martial arts and the ability to defend herself, to make use of the sword and dagger and the ability to attack the enemy. She’d learn major flight skills as well.
But that was all external activity and skill-acquiring.
It came to her in the strangest flash that all she’d be doing is switching one controlled world for another. The new world just involved making war. The previous one involved reading and shelving books, keeping her world tight and controlled. But there was something very tight and orderly about a library, not unlike the military.
She would have no real friends, no real connections, not even a true relationship with Antony.
Air movement off to her right, just beyond the first tech, brought her gaze to … Rith. He smiled. “This is where you always belonged. Keeping you like a beloved pet in Burma sickened me every day. Now you no longer fill the future streams. Your ribbon has disappeared.” He laughed. “You must thank me, you know. The Commander suggested you be removed from this world … permanently. Dear Parisa, there was a time when I wished for that as well but then a new plan occurred to me, a more complete plan.” He waved his hand over the medical equipment.
“I don’t want this,” she screamed. She tried to lift even one of her arms but both were secured in place. “I’d rather be dead.”
He shrugged. “I believe that is your choice. Didn’t Fiona tell you it’s a matter of will?”
“Why do you hate me so much?” she asked.
“Because he favored you.”
“He? As in Commander Greaves? The one who wants me dead?” She couldn’t have heard him right. He was making no sense.
Rith nodded. “He forged a link with you, remember?”
Enlightenment dawned. Rith was jealous. “You call that favoring me?”
“What else? I’d seen you in the future streams and I told him you needed to be destroyed, but he wouldn’t have it. He wanted to make use of you. Only now, after his voyeur-link proved ineffectual and you succeeded in taking some of my blood donors, has he has decided you must die.
“But your service here is a much more fitting plan. Your blood will command an excellent price on the market.”
She didn’t understand. “Why?”
A black brow rose. “I keep forgetting that you aren’t well versed in our world yet. The drinking of dying blood always relates back to the mortal or ascender whose blood is being imbibed. You’re very powerful, you’re the mortal-with-wings, as you will always be known, and your blood will have exceptional qualities that in turn will enhance the powers of the recipient. The more powerful that recipient, the greater the benefits of the donor blood. Do you understand?”
Since her heart had started to sink, she could only dip her chin. Oh, God.
He laughed again, a hollow sound in the dim light. He was standing with his hands clasped behind his back, his expression calm, almost disinterested. “But I suppose none of this was truly your fault. You could not help the level of your power, and unfortunately Commander Greaves’s flaw is his desire to flaunt his victories. He truly enjoyed having possession of you and letting all his allies know.
“I am not encumbered by such a flaw. My purpose in life is but to serve him.” He looked away from her as he spoke, as though talking only to himself. He sighed. “Life can be cruel in a great variety of ways. His will must be my will, in all things.” He shifted his gaze back to her, his stare cold and quite indifferent.
His logic was so perverted, his intentions so vile, that a new kind of horror gripped her chest making it hard to breathe. Rith had no intention of letting her live for very long, despite his claim that he intended to profit from her blood. His purpose was deeper, more nefarious. He wanted to punish her because she had been “favored.” No doubt when he was satisfied, he would simply let her die.
“What of Warrior Medichi?” she asked.
His gaze flicked in Antony’s direction, then returned to her. “He will be executed at the hour Greaves wishes. It will not be long.”
He lifted his arm and vanished.
Dizziness drifted through her mind yet she felt strangely relaxed, even sleepy. What bag was the tech filling now? Four? Five?
***
Medichi had remained silent. There was no point in shouting at a man who had him locked in a preternatural cage of energy.
He had to figure this out.
He sat on the floor, his arms still slung around his knees, his eyes closed.
When Rith had appeared, all he’d wanted to do was rage at him but what good would that have done? Rith held all the cards and right now Medichi needed to think.
He sent a telepathic cry for help out to Endelle. If anyone could hear him, she could. But his thoughts hit a shield and bounced back to him, a lumbering sensation that rolled through his head. Another shield, another dome of mist or two, Rith’s specialty.
He had no hope of finding Endelle or one of his warrior brothers or of being found, not shielded like this, not caught below the mist. So how the hell was he supposed to get out of here, Parisa with him?
He doubted that even a telepathic link would work in this environment.
He opened his eyes and looked at Parisa. She lay quietly now, her eyes closed. He scooted closer, to the point that the field stopped him. He was only three feet away from her, three feet and completely impotent.
The blood leaving her arm filled the bag swiftly. The blood entering her body moved at maybe a third of the pace, enough room to allow for death. Of course. She had to die in order to produce dying blood. Then be brought back to life to sustain Greaves’s operation. All twenty-one facilities around the world did indeed have to be found and destroyed.