Flying Blind Ch. 06

"He's right," Edgar said. "We just need to know everything. Turns out that Detrius Pratchett's real name is Daryl Mosley, and we're pretty sure he's the kidnapper. He had some kind of relationship with the professor that Reichert replaced."

"He's got her, doesn't he?" Carla whimpered. "It's my fault. If I'd gone with her --"

"He disabled a trained security guy and took Madison. You being there would have just put you in danger as well. The guy's a trained sorcerer, and he knows everything about shifter physiology. That's how he managed to keep shifters hostage."

"We need to find him! He's going to kill Madison, and . . . and --" Carla just broke down again.

"Mr. Adler," one of the new security guys said, "Mr. Hannity has been told. He's on his way here. But we have another problem."

"What?"

"There's another shifter missing."

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In a cold, cold place . . .

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Madison's eyes opened, and she did not feel good. Her whole body seemed to be cold, inside and out. Her limbs struggled to obey the commands of her brain as she slowly stretched out from the fetal position she found herself in. She was leaning up against a smooth surface, and her feet encountered something solid just a few feet away. She started to use her echolocation, but stopped herself.

'Does he know that I'm Gifted?' she thought murkily. She had gone pretty public with it. She decided to hold off, instead just feeling her way around. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she felt her way around. She seemed to be in a tube of glass or smooth plastic or something, which would look pretty much the same for her echolocation anyway. From above, she felt a slight waft of cold air, so the tube was probably open on top.

'Detrius?' she thought, her mind swimming. Everything came roaring back to her as she tried to grasp her situation. 'How could he do this? It doesn't make sense.'

"You awake?" came a voice, but it wasn't Detrius's. "I thought he'd killed you." The sound drifted in from on high, muted but recognizable.

"Alvin?" Madison could not believe it. Even at the end, she could not escape the man who had made her life hell.

"In the flesh. How'd he get you?"

"I knew him," she said, struggling to her feet. "At least I thought that I did. He wanted to talk," she said, trying to fight the fear in her voice. "If I had just gone to the damn airport . . . How did he get you?"

Silence. Then slowly, "He told me that he had something that would put me in Dad's good graces. Something to do with you."

Suddenly, Madison was angry again. "You just can't let it go, can you? You fucking clown, if you had just minded your own business, I would've been gone in a few years and never even would have known. But you just had to --"

Freezing cold air was blasted into the tube, and a yelp of surprise from Alvin indicated he was receiving similar treatment.

"Both of you will be quiet," came an emotionless voice, piped in over speakers that crackled and sputtered.

"Detrius, why --" Madison started to object, then was hit with another blast of cold. She let out a cry, then sank down to the bottom, waiting for the arctic gale to cease.

"Both of you will be quiet," the voice said again.

"Or what?" Madison spit back, "You'll kill us? Like you weren't planning on --" She shrieked as the cold came again, lasting longer this time and making her feel like her finger skin was freezing.

"Quiet."

Madison was stubborn and defiant to a fault, but she was not stupid. She was gaining nothing at that point, so she simply waited.

"You are vermin," the voice said again, even and mechanical and holding only the most rudimentary traces of the man Madison new as Detrius. "All of you. You wear your human skins like a mask, but I see what you are. And here, in this place, you think you're better than everyone else. Shifters getting coddled and given special treatment, while good men are discarded. Good men who dedicated their lives to this ungrateful place are tossed aside and left to die in the cold."

That statement was accompanied by another short blast of freezing cold air, and Madison shivered on the floor, wrapping her arms around her body in a vain attempt to stay warm.

"Your precious Neil Reichert destroyed the life of a good man. Your false king and his stolen throne sit on the bones of my mentor. My friend!" The voice shouted, losing some of its cool as another blast of air assaulted both captives. "I was his favorite," the voice said. "His beloved. While the others came and went, I stood beside him at his right hand. The Reptile King took that away without a second thought. He must be made to pay for his crime," the voice said. "A Message must be sent."

"You," Alvin said, breaking his own silence, "are fucking insane."

This time, Madison heard the blast rather than felt it.

"You," the voice said after the cold air stopped, "are amongst the worst of the worst. Spoiled, arrogant, and unworthy. You put yourself above everyone, and you scavenge on the weak of your own kind. Yet you have accolades and rewards heaped on you. You were one of His favorites, which makes you one of my enemies."

"Why?" Madison said. "Reichert hates me," she said, then instantly regretted it. Not because she was afraid of the cold, but because she felt like a coward. "And no one likes Alvin. We aren't anyone's favorites." She was hit with a quick blast of air.

"You struggled for His affection," the voice continued. "You wanted to be glorious in His sight."

Madison tried to keep her mouth shut, but she would be damned if she was going to live the last moments of her life being bullied. Not by Alvin, not by Detrius . . . not by anyone. "I wanted what was mine!"

This time, there was no blast. "Yes, that's true. Now you may be a princess ascending to her throne, but that is not truly who you are. You are a cast-off. You are one of the downtrodden. It is for that reason that you will be given a rare choice, not normally afforded one of the tainted."

"Choice?" she asked.

"Yes. You get to decide who will suffer and who will die."

A gas was released into her container, and she began to black out. All she could think about in that moment was, 'What did he mean?'

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At the house . . .

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Heda had run out of things around the house to break. She'd gotten home after her game to find out from Carla and Anthony what had happened, then had hauled ass over to the command center. She had made such a scene that Edgar had finally forced a couple of security guys to escort her home.

Mr. Hannity had shown up about twenty minutes earlier, after having been escorted out much like Heda had. Heda wished she could comfort him, seeing as he had two children taken. He was simply sitting on the front porch, surrounded by his own security detail, a phone constantly to his ear as he monitored everything that was going on. To top things off, Meghan Hannity was there as well, and for once Heda did not object to her presence. She was a horrible, evil bitch, but her son was in trouble. That bought her leeway for the night.

Part of the wall surrounding the parking area crumbled, causing Heda to look over her shoulder. Billy had just kicked a hole through cinder block. His best friend was gone. A girl who had once looked to him as her sole friend and source of protection was beyond his ability to protect her, and all his mighty IQ could not help. Sasha was nearby, just watching him. She had gone through a good cry or two herself.

Heda sat down on the hood of her jeep and stared at the sky and realized that she wished her mother was there. Jessica Adler would go charging into the rescue, kill the bad guy, and rescue everyone. That's what she had done in the Insect Wars, it was what she had done with that wolf cult up in Oregon, and it was what she had done in every other circumstance she had encountered.

"What can't I be more like Mom?" she asked of the half-moon floating lazily overhead. She heard footsteps nearby, so she glanced over. "Hey Mr. Hannity. Did they figure out how he managed to grab Alvin?"


He leaned up against the jeep. "No. They know that he received a phone call from an unlisted number, but not what was said." The man's voice was hard and crisp, and Heda would almost feel sorry for the killer if Mr. Hannity got his hands on him at that moment. Almost.

"Son of a bitch was right in front of me. I was close enough that I could have broken his neck," she said, softly but with venom. "And he had the gall to 'find' one of his own victims."

"It was brilliant really," Hannity replied. "No one would have suspected it." He put his face in his hands. "He will not survive this. He has to know that. There is no force on earth, in heaven, or in hell that will keep him alive. He's got my children, and who knows what . . . what he's done to them."

"I'm sorry," Heda said. "For both of them. I may hate Alvin's guts, but he didn't deserve this."

When William Hannity's face came up, his eyes were ringed with tears. "I still have hope for him. Get him away from his mother's poisonous influence, maybe effect a reconciliation. And Madison . . . in so many ways, she's all I could have asked for in a daughter, and that son of a bitch took her away from me. He's got her who knows where and --"

Heda's eyes opened. "Where DID he take her? I know that they're looking for warehouses and so one, but would he really have had time?"

"What do you mean?"

"He managed to kidnap two shifters, neither of which is exactly helpless, in the course of a couple of hours. We know that Madison at least was taken on campus. He was working right under our noses the whole time, but what if he was keeping them there as well? I mean, it would make it a heck of a lot easier to transport those contraptions of his around."

"But they've searched every building on campus. There's nowhere there for him to hide."

"They've searched ON campus," she said, then looked over to Billy. "Billy, how old is FCU?"

"Is this really the time for trivia?" the wereturtle growled.

"Please, just tell me."

Billy's face was suddenly thoughtful. If Heda was on to something, it might be best to go along for the ride. "FCU was founded back in 1924 through a series of donations from rich shifters and the federal government. Why?"

"Don't a lot of older campuses have tunnels and shit underneath? Like in case of war?"

"It wasn't uncommon, but the tunnels under FCU were locked up and then walled up in heavy concrete at the end of the Cold War."

"How extensive would they be? Keep in mind, we've got a guy who waited many years to enact his revenge. Maybe he found a way or MADE a way down into those tunnels." 
"They did have lifts that would have been able to bring him and his victims up to the surface," Billy surmised.

Heda saw that other members of the gang were gathering around. The notion of doing something, even if it was just talk about it, seemed awfully appealing to all of them. "I don't think he's taking them anywhere. I think that he found a way into those tunnels."

Peter looked thoughtful too. "If he could get down there, it would be pretty easy to tap into the university's power grid. But for the kind of machines he would need, or to power the kind of refrigeration that Carla has told us about . . . that kind of shit is a serious draw."

"What if he's getting it from more than one place? If he's down there and he's close enough to the Crystal Springs grid, he might be able to draw power from both."

"I need a map of campus," Heda said. She waited until Carla ran inside, grabbed a school catalog, then came out. There was a two-page color map of campus. Heda started circling the areas where victims had been found, then circled the medical center where Detrius worked, and finally the areas where the victims were believed to have been taken. "Billy, where would the tunnels go?"

"Each building that existed at the time would have an access point, and there were probably a couple of fall-out shelters. Those would be the best bets, assuming that any of this holds water."

"We should tell the authorities regardless," Mr. Hannity said, getting out his phone. "Just in case."

"He might want to hide the draw by holding up near something that already uses a lot of juice."

"There would have to be a building that he had access to," Heda muttered. "Back when he first started planning this."

Billy quickly looked down at the map. "There it is," he said, his voice low and angry. "Right next to the radio station, across the street from a Crystal Pass relay station, and just a few streets down from the fucking medical center," he finished, putting his finger on the map.

"Garrett Hall? That's --" Sasha started, then her eyes opened. "That's the History Department."

"And the guy that Detrius was all hung up on being taught what?" Heda asked.

"History."

"Willing to bet that he was given a key way back when by his favorite professor?" Heda said, jumping off the jeep's hood and climbing into the driver's seat.


"Heda, where the hell do you think you're going?" Joanna asked. "Mr. Hannity!"

The afore mentioned bat-shifter climbed into the passenger seat. "I'm going with you. Just in case you're right. I've told your brother the theory, and he's circulating the idea."

"He told you to stay put until he had some direction, didn't he?" Heda asked.

"Yes he did."

Heda smiled and gunned the engine. The car creaked a bit as Billy climbed into the backseat. "Welcome aboard."

Carla started to climb in, but Anthony grabbed her. "I'm going with," she told him angrily.

"I figured. But let's take my car, since not everyone can fit in the jeep."

That was when Heda noticed that Peter was climbing into his own vehicle, along with Kevin and Joanna. Anthony and Carla climbed into a third vehicle. Sasha climbed in next to her boyfriend, giving him a "don't you dare tell me to stay behind" look. Billy displayed his enormous intellect by keeping his mouth shut.

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Elsewhere . . .

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Madison's mouth felt like it was filled with cotton when she came around. It did not take long to realize that she was still in the tube and that she still could not shift. She got to her feet and felt around, including upward, but could find no cracks to the surface and no lip. It was apparently taller than she was. She started to move to the other side of the tube, but she ran into something that felt . . . off. There was a chain hanging down in the center of the tube. She reached out to touch it, but quickly pulled her hand back as it started to grow warm at her touch.

"Silver?" she whispered. While silver did not kill shifters instantly as some werewolf stories might claim, it was a dangerous metal. All shifters were highly allergic to it. Exposure to it caused blistering which led to bleeding, and prolonged exposure caused silver poisoning which could in fact kill them.

"I told you that you would be given a choice," came the voice on the loudspeakers again. "You have twenty seconds to grab the chain and hold on."

"Or what?"

"Or your brother, who is hanging from the other end, will be slowly lowered toward the floor of his own enclosure. Should that happen, it will trip the pressure plate, and his tube will be filled with liquid nitrogen."

Madison grabbed the chain, feeling the burn. She pulled the sleeves of her body stocking down over her hands, then tried again. The thin cloth provided some measure of protection, but not much. "Why are you doing this?!" she screamed. The only response she got was blast of frigid air.

Soon, she felt the tension on the chain increase. Detrius had jury-rigged some kind of pulley system, that actually gave Madison some extra leverage, but how long she could keep this up was anyone's guess. She pulled tight on the chain, then pressed her feet on the other side of the tube, jamming herself inside as best she could. Despite knowing that she would get blasted again, she asked, "Alvin, are you all right?"

The blast came, but Alvin did not respond. Detrius did. "Your brother is gagged. I will not allow him to try to sway this judgment. You, and only you, will decide his fate. Why fight it? Did he not torment you for years? I have heard about what has transpired. He denied you your birthright. He denied you what you were owed by birth and blood. Why save him?"

Madison gritted her teeth and held on to the chain, even as she felt her skin growing warm under her makeshift gloves. She had no answer to give her captor that would satisfy him or herself. But still, she held on.

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The History Department . . .

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"Are you sure you want to do this?" Joanna asked.

Heda gave the front door one swift kick, sending it flying inward. "I'm pretty damn sure."

"Campus security will be here soon," Billy said. "Start looking for stairs that go down, particularly anything with a maintenance sign on the door. Those are our best bets."

"What about elevators?" Sasha asked.

"Check them, but elevators would probably not be used in case of nuclear emergencies, which is what these shelters were designed for. Nukes screw with electronics, so stairs would be safer."

The crew split up into three small groups and started scouring everywhere. Joanna and Anthony both shifted into their animal forms and started to sniff. It was the skunk-shifter who quickly shifted back and said, "Found something! I'm pretty sure this scent is Madison's."

"And she wasn't taking any classes in this building," Heda said, her voice betraying her excitement. "Lead the way."

Anthony went half-form, giving everyone a view of a bipedal human with soft black fur, a skunk's head, and a bushy white-striped tail. He led them to an unmarked door next to the elevator. He couldn't speak in this form, so he just pointed.

Heda tried the door, but found it locked, and this was much thicker than the previous door. Billy started undressing, then it was his turn to take on a half-form.

"He's a fucking tank," Heda muttered appreciatively.

As an alligator snapping turtle, Billy was probably about 30 inches long and weighed in at 230 pounds. His half-form was six and a half feet tall, had a snapping turtle's head complete with a nasty beak, and hardened shell over his back and chest, as well as on the major muscles of his arms and legs. He grabbed the door and quickly ripped it off its hinges.

"Sasha, call my brother and tell him that we're following Madison's trail, then wait for him to show up and tell him where we've gone," Heda said. "I know you want to go with us, but this is what I need from you. Joanna, stay with her. No arguments, please?"

Both of the other women nodded, so Heda took off down a winding set of stairs with the rest of the crew in hot pursuit. At the bottom, they found another couple of doors, one of which led into the basement while the other had no sign. Heda did not even ask, she just pointed to the door, and then Billy plowed through it. Beyond was a set of stone stairs that descended into darkness.

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In Detrius's lair . . .

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"Why do you hold on?" Detrius asked. "He would have let you die a long time ago."

Madison had nothing left to tell him. Everything she said was met with a blast of cold air. She couldn't feel her fingers anymore, so she had wrapped the chain around her arms. The silver had seeped through her thin clothing, and her arms were blistered and bleeding. The pain was excruciating, but it was not the pain that was sucking all hope away, at least not by itself. Madison was tired. So very, very tired.