The creature known as Elliot Whitehouse still walks the Earth.
Sitting on my bed, back in the barracks, I close my eyes, take a deep breath.
Failure is a funny thing. It beats you down. It gnaws at your bones, deep and relentless. It coats you with shame and anger. It leaves you raw.
But it also gives you focus, and a better clarity and understanding of your goals. Before, I knew Elliot had to die. The knowledge was logical, justifiable in every sense. Now, however, my understanding is much more than that. It’s an undeniable certainty, a breathing, living thing that has gotten its claws into me, and will make sure this aching need to destroy Elliot becomes a reality.
I don’t know where. I don’t know when. But I do know why and, perhaps, I even know how.
“Azrael,” someone says.
I open my eyes. Lyra stands in front of me. She tilts her head to one side, gesturing for me to follow. Without a word, she turns and walks away. I follow.
Yesterday, I spent the entire day in that private room, trying to push Elliot and my failure out of mind. I slept for the first time in weeks. It wasn’t the undisturbed rest I used to enjoy before The Takeover when, in spite of thinking myself crazy, life felt full of possibilities and a future, but it was good enough sleep.
I also ate two delicious meals. They didn’t come in a tray with the average food served at the mess hall. No. I had fine china, a crystal glass, shiny silverware, even a cloth napkin. My favorite meal was dinner: prime rib, braised potatoes, aromatic rice, soft rolls, and creamy cheesecake—all cooked and delivered by Onyx herself. I allowed myself to enjoy the treat because it came from her. While I ate, she sat with me and talked about everything except what had happened the night before. She has no interest in those things. She’s a free spirit. I guess they come in all sizes and shapes and species.
That was yesterday, and it was decent—for lack of a better word. Today, however, is different. Rest is over, and I’m hungry for more than food. I want, I need Lyra’s answers.
We ride the elevator without saying a word. When we reach the ground floor, she walks with firm steps toward the front exit. Our boots tap against the marble floor in unison. My calf is bandaged tightly, aching deeply, to the bone. I limp, but it won’t be for long.
Everywhere I look there is evidence of the battle: bullet casings, chipped tiles, bloody prints. The glass windows and doors by the entrance are shattered. The wind whistles as it rushes into the building. My hair blows backward and I catch it in a ponytail and tuck it in the collar of my jacket.
None of the guards stop me when I walk outside, but they look and whisper.
Outside, the sun is aglow on a baby blue sky. I look up in awe, squinting at the passing clouds. I don’t even remember the last time I was out during the day. It feels like several lifetimes ago. At least two, at any rate. I was someone else for what felt like forever, after all.
We cross the deserted street. More evidence of the battle is out here. The hole-ridden vehicles are the most apparent. To see that many cars—private property once respected—savaged, torn to bits, leaves me oddly frazzled. I understand it’s all just collateral damage, nothing compared to the loss of life, of humanity. Still, this chaos is too perfect an example, too keen a demonstration of how much has gone wrong, of how the order and way of life I once knew is now gone.
Lyra presses forward, kicking bullet casings in her wake. They skid out of the way, twinkling golden in the sun. After a few blocks filled with nothing but eerie ghosts of a past life, she seems to relax.
“I cannot stand that place,” she says. “Not that it is better out here.”
A million questions fight for first place inside my head. They’re all strong and important. Big bullies. The one that finally presses its way out seems just as good as all the others.
“Why did you help me?”
She stops and faces me. I do the same. Her eyes are all green with only black slits for pupils. Her black fur shines under the sun. Her right ear flickers. She puts her hands out, demonstratively and says, “Because I am human.”
If she’d told me her mother was a parakeet, I might have laughed, but this joke is too much.
“You know I’m not really stupid, right? It’s all just an act,” I say.
“Oui, I know.” She gives me a crooked smile that makes me notice her now-longer whiskers. She’s really going for them. How human of her.
“Then you’re joking, but it isn’t funny.”
“Non, not joking.” She stuffs furry hands in her front pockets and resumes walking. “Unless you think I look like Puss and Boots.” She chuckles to herself as if that’s exactly how she sees herself.
“Maybe you should try a hat with a feather,” I say.
“Ahhh, that would be a nice touch. Either way,” she sighs, “it’s true. I am human and I did this to myself. On purpose. A Symbiot can alter her body just the same as an Eklyptor’s. But you know this already. You belong to James McCray’s IgNiTe cell. He must have explained.”
James modified his bones, tendons and muscles to become as fast as he is. Rheema grew fangs and can use them to deliver a deadly neurotoxin. Yes, I know Symbiots can alter their bodies. But this? I never even considered anyone taking it so far. And just like that, I believe her. It’s the only sensible explanation to the fact that I’m still alive.
“I did it to earn their trust,” Lyra says as if reading my thoughts. “No one thinks I am anything but an Eklyptor. You never did. It is brilliant, really.” She gives me a satisfied look.
“Apparently so,” I say.
“It is all reversible, after all. A small sacrifice to ensure the survival of our species.”
Reversible? I hadn’t thought of that either, but it makes sense. If she can command her body to grow fur, she can also tell it to stop.
Lyra continues, “You kept me on my toes, Cher. You gave away the location of James. I thought for sure you had gone Eklyptor all the way. Though, I started to suspect you were up to something shortly after. For some time, I even thought you were a Hailstone spy.”
“I did go all the way.” My voice is bitter, revealing how guilty I still feel.
Her whiskers twitch as her eyebrows go up. “And you came back?” she asks in disbelief.
“It wasn’t easy.”
“It could not have been. I am impressed. Vraiment.” There’s no sarcasm in her tone. She genuinely seems impressed.
Lyra slaps a metal lamppost as we walk by it. A metallic ding resonates for a few seconds. “I thought I recognized you in the conference room. The ski mask looked familiar.” She smirks. It was her ski mask, after all. “But mostly, I acted on instinct when I knocked you out. Then had my people check with James’s people, and they vouched for you. By the time Elliot got around to asking for explanations, I knew I could trust you. It was not hard coming up with a story. Rooter went mad. I guess being used as a shield can do that to some people. And Elliot was cowering so low inside that car he didn’t see a thing. He truly thinks you saved his life.” Lyra laughs a strange, hearty laugh that almost sounds like a hiss.
I take a large step over a trailing heap of black potting soil from an overturned planter. “Do you know if James is okay? He was hurt during the battle.”
“I could not tell you. Did not know to ask.”
Not knowing is eating me up. He has to be okay. He just has to be.
“What about Lamia? Is she buying it?”
“I think she suspects something, but she will do whatever her leader tells her to do.” She waves a hand in a very French way to indicate that Lamia is inconsequential. “I am also part of IgNiTe, by the way,” Lyra adds as an afterthought.
“What?” I know there are other cells, but I find this hard to believe. Since we met, I’ve seen Lyra as the enemy. To think that we’re both IgNiTe members is hard to process.
We come to a café. It’s closed and its front window is obscured in a spider web of hairline fractures; still, the outside tables are inviting. I sit. I have a feeling this will be a long story, and I’d rather look Lyra in the eye as she tells it. Yearning for my lost life, I imagine the smell of roasted coffee beans wafting through the air.
“I am part of the strongest French IgNiTe cell. Dillon is also with me. The Hailstone faction has been our focus for many years. In other words, Zara Caron and Tom Hailstone. They married twenty years ago, lived in France and began to build their little Eklyptor Empire. Over seventeen years ago, they based their operations out of Seattle—Tom was originally from here. At the time, we thought that was why they had moved. That and the fact that we were getting very close to them back in Paris. A year later, a son came into the picture, however.”
A son came into the picture? That’s an odd way to put it.
She must be talking about Luke. I prop an elbow on the table and press a fist to my mouth. How much does Lyra know about the “twin” brother situation? If I had a million questions before, they have taken the liberty of multiplying themselves by two.
Still, I dare not ask a single one. I don’t want to give anything away. At the moment, my best option is to shut my mouth and listen. I press my fist harder into my mouth, until my teeth hurt. I stare at a large planted pot with its sad shock of wilted pansies.
“This son was unexpected. Adoption is not an institution Eklyptors subscribe to. They are used to taking who they want, when they want.”
“Are you talking about Luke Hailstone?” I ask, unable to help myself.
“Yes. Precisely. Your twin brother.”
My chest goes tight as if I’ve been punched. I feel oddly transparent and fragile, like I’ve been sanded down to one millimeter of my regular thickness. I’m a piece of glass and, soon, the tension around us will shatter me into dust.
I wonder if Lyra knows we aren’t a DNA match. It seems she doesn’t.
“Zara was never pregnant,” Lyra says. “And one day, she and Tom just had a kid. We had no idea where the boy came from. They kept the details of the adoption very quiet. It all remained a mystery to us for years, until just recently, when Ernest Dunn died and we learned that there had been no adoption at all, that they had, instead, kidnapped a baby—which made even less sense.”
So the man my mother always blamed had little to do with what happened to her son. The memory of Luke’s sorrow-stricken face at Dunn’s funeral appears before my eyes. I scoff. And to think I felt sorry for him. To think I hugged him, tried to comfort him.
Doctor Dunn … a shocking idea runs through me as the cogs in my mind begin to turn at full speed. Here, between the lines of this convoluted twin story, lies the truth about my biological parents.
“I knew who you were the minute I laid eyes on you,” Lyra continues, throwing a wrench in my thoughts. “I followed you many times after the news came out about a long-lost bébé reunited with his family.”
“You did?” I feel like a complete idiot. I never suspected being followed. Although, at the time, I had no reason to be paranoid. That was when life still seemed en-route to a better future. Well, at least a future.
She nods. “It was a waste of time. I still have no idea what Luke, you, the kidnapping, Dunn have to do with Hailstone’s plans. The little blond bâtard got away, but we will get him. For your sake, we will get him.”
“For my sake?”
Her eyes do a little roll, flat-out calling me stupid. “You are somehow part of their scheme, Marci Guerrero. I would hate to be against you, but if it comes to that, je suis désolé.”
A threat then. It comes down to a threat and my part in Hailstone’s plans, whatever they may be. What scheme could have possibly began sixteen years ago? I shudder to think of it.
The sound of a car approaching steals my entire concentration. Lyra tenses ever so slightly, then turns to look at the dark SUV riding in our direction. When the vehicle passes by, the driver dips his chin to acknowledge us. My brain buzzes identifying him as an Eklyptor. He continues on, unconcerned, headed down Olive Way.
“Quel con,” Lyra growls. “They will not get away with this. We made this world into what it is. We’ll take it back or take them down with us.”
I don’t know if her threat is even possible, but I do know I’ll die trying to make it so.
“What are Hailstone’s plans?” I pick up the thread of our conversation.
“The same plans we have been trying to figure out for almost twenty years.” Her low tone is a purr of frustration. Her ears and whiskers twitch in unison, outward signs she doesn’t seem able to control.
I gesture with one hand to indicate her answer isn’t helpful.
“Before they moved to America, a rumor began deep in the bowels of Hailstone. We had spies within their walls, even then. They said Zara and Tom had discovered a way to rid them of the need for hosts. In other words, the need for humans.”
An involuntary breath escapes through my half-open mouth.
“To this day,” Lyra adds, “the rumor has continued and we aren’t any closer to finding out how in the world they intend to do that, and what it means to us. They are parasites, so what could they mean by needing no host? It makes no sense. Their plan, if it is more than just a rumor, is too secret, too well-kept. That is why we stopped trying to figure it out and, instead, decided to kill everyone suspected of knowing. We got to Tom five years ago. Dunn just recently and now Zara. It took too long to get to them, but we did. So … I’d like a little Bordeaux with that, please.” She gestures toward the closed café door and laughs bitterly.
“I don’t think getting to the kid will be as hard, though,” she adds. “I wish I had not missed. He is next and, when we have no more use for Elliot, he will join the front of the line.”