Circe's Recruits: Gideon: A Multiple Partner Shifter Book (6 page)

“There are a few surprises in the lower levels,” Zack told the group as they descended to the fourth floor. “But no Circs that we could find.”

“What?” Alex had a hard time focusing on anything but finding his sister. She didn’t feel present in his mind. Though she’d before been physically absent, he’d sensed the bond that kept them tight. A familiar sibling connection, brain to brain. But now, he felt a void, and it scared him shitless.

When they arrived at the conference room on the fourth floor, he put his hand to the door and knew why they hadn’t found her.

“What did you see?” McKinley asked, his bright yellow eyes unnerving in that rough, human face.

“My sister,” Alex whispered. “Myers and Yates took her and a few others. They weren’t alone.” He swallowed. “Sheer and a few other hybrids are with them.” Sheer—a man known for his unnatural proclivities with the dead and the helpless.

Before Alex could put his feelers out for more information, a commotion drew his attention. Some of the “surprises” Hale had mentioned had found their way to level four. Misshapen, mutant Circs with tar black skin and crooked spines. They had been bred to kill, and they didn’t look happy to be there.

***

Bailey knocked back her coffee as she drove home. She continued to look at herself in the rearview. But she still seemed all in one piece, nothing to indicate she’d suffered any type of rough handling that she’d apparently hallucinated.

Her phone rang, and she answered through the Bluetooth in her car. “Yes?”

“Oh my God. Bailey, it’s me, Katie.”

Bailey frowned. “Katie? What’s going on?” She heard roars and screams in the background. What sounded like gunfire and shouts. “Where are you?”

“I’m in level four, trying to get these files out.” Katie sounded stuffed up. That or she’d decided to talk around a mouthful of marbles. “I’m emailing them to you.”

“Katie?” She’d met Katie Sheridan a few months ago, back when Katie had been working IT for U-Ground. They’d struck up an immediate friendship, but then Katie had quit or gone on a temporary leave. Bailey had never been sure which, because after leaving, they’d had only the occasional phone conversation. And Katie hadn’t wanted to speak about why she’d left the company.

No one at U-Ground mentioned her, so Bailey didn’t ask. Instead, when they did talk, she and Katie swapped funny stories about employees and occasionally gossiped about what they thought went on in the lower levels of U-Ground.

Frankly, Bailey had never imagined there were more than four levels. Katie’s idea that the fourth level employees belonged to a secret psychic lab experiment sounded like homespun science fiction. Bailey loved it, wondering when Katie would finally publish the book she always talked about writing.

“Katie?”

More garbled noise, then growling. Growling?

“I’m in trouble. Tell Alex I’m sorry,” she said in a hurry. “Give the info to Circe’s Recruits,” Katie slurred. “I’m losing blood.”

“Oh my God. Are you alright?”

“No. I’m dying.”

Bailey looked for a place to turn around. But as if Katie had read her mind, the woman said, “Don’t come back. Go home, pack a bag and look up the email I sent you. You have to leave fast. They’ll find you if you don’t.”

Now truly scared, for her friend and herself, Bailey asked, “Who hurt you?”

“Myers and Yates. And the other guy, the one who’s a real monster.”

“What?” Bailey pulled over, too upset to drive. What with everything she’d been imagining, her blackouts and now this, she didn’t know what to think. Was she even now dreaming her conversation with Katie, a woman no one talked to but her?

“Please. Don’t stop. Hurry home and print out the file before they erase it. Take it with you to New Jersey. Drive, don’t fly. Before they come and get it. You have to leave.” Katie screamed.

Bailey heard animal yowls, a deep, dark growl, and what she could too easily imagine to be ripping flesh.

“Who is this?” an evil voice asked.

She quickly disconnected and put her foot on the gas. She didn’t know if she believed what Katie had said, but something was off. After dialing the police to report a threat at work, she hurried home.

Katie hadn’t been kidding. Bailey knew odd things happened at U-Ground. She’d keep alert to what the police found out, and she’d watch the news. She’d also take a sick day or two before returning to U-Ground, to give herself time to look into what had happened to Katie.

That was if she didn’t find anything on her computer. Because if Katie really had sent her something, and Katie really had been hurt, Bailey would know she’d been right to suspect not all was well at U-Ground.

And God help her if she hadn’t dreamed up her last encounter with Myers and Yates.

Chapter Four

Once home, Bailey parked in the back, paranoid, and made a beeline for the bathroom. She relieved herself of the coffee she’d sucked down and tried to calm her racing heartbeat. After she’d finished and washed her hands, she studied herself in the mirror. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand it. Same honey blond hair, same plain brown eyes. She had an average body, stood five-six in bare feet and could lose a good ten pounds. Fifteen if she didn’t lie to herself. Although…

She lifted her shirt and stared, not sure what to think. A glance at her belly showed washboard abs.
Not possible.
She stared harder, then took off her shirt. Just yesterday she’d barely been able to see her ribs, and that was with a lot of sucking in of her rounded belly. Right now she had a six pack. She frowned. Her boobs seemed to have gotten smaller too. Not a bad thing, but they seemed a little higher. Tighter.

She blinked, wondering what was going on, and moved closer to the mirror. Her hair brushed the tips of her breasts, and she froze. Her hair had grown two inches in the eight hours she’d been at work?

Before she could throw a serious freak out, her cell phone buzzed. She let it ring a few times then answered. “Hello?”

“Who is this?” That same deep voice that had thrown her before, except this time he sounded more in control. “Is this Bailey Duncan?”

She hung up and tossed her phone across the bathroom counter. Then she raced to her computer, sat, and searched her email. A file had been sent from an anonymous address.

She opened it and saw a note from Katie.

“Bailey, you’re my safeguard. If you have this, I’m probably dead. So not kidding about that. Sorry, honey, but you’re my one out. I sent this to my brother Alex too, but I’m worried they know about him.

If you have this, you’re not safe. It’s all real. Monsters and experiments, psychics and secret labs. I’m so sorry to do this to you. Print this sucker out and take it to Doc. He’ll help you. Because Bailey, you’re one of them now. And there’s no going back. You need help.”

Bailey sat there, stunned, and continued to read.

“You don’t have much time. Copy this file and take it with you. Print it if you can, because they’ll erase it when they know you have it. And they’re coming for you. Myers, Yates and Sheer. And that other one. He’s so wrong… They’re bad men, Bailey. And you’re supposed to be part of their pack. Get out, now. Go to Doc, to his lab in New Jersey, and Circe’s Recruits will help you. Get to the locker of my favorite number on the beach. You know where. You’ll know what to do then.”

Moving on autopilot, she copied the entire folder to a thumb drive and printed out one of the multipage files as a backup. While it printed, she threw some clothes into a bag and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. Despite the moderate September air, she felt chilled to the bone.

Once the last page printed, she deleted the email and file from her computer, grabbed her keys and her overnight bag, and hustled out the back door. Just as she reached the car, she heard screeching vehicles around front and knew they’d come for her.

With her heart in her throat, she started her car and slowly turned down another alley, then another, before hitting the main street around the corner from her house. Understanding she hadn’t been imagining things, she knew she had to dump her car, and soon, before they spotted the old clunker.

Still not sure what the heck had happened, she drove half an hour to a car rental that happened to have a diner next door. She popped into the diner for a coffee and breakfast, determined to get to the bottom of her neuroses. Did something terrible happen to Katie? What about U-Ground and all that strange background noise? It couldn’t be real, could it?

Her answers came too easily. Scrolling through the local news on the television mounted in the diner, she watched in horror at the footage of a fire breaking out at U-Ground Transportation. Apparently no one had been hurt—
yeah, right
—but the company was taking a loss after a faulty gas leak exploded underground.

“Shit.”

She didn’t finish her eggs, though she did take her coffee to go.

Knowing she had to see this through, or at least get to the people Katie had told her about, she left her car in the diner’s lot and rented a compact vehicle, maxing out her credit card. Gas wouldn’t cost as much, and she’d feel better in a vehicle that didn’t stand out like her jalopy.

Bailey set course for the East Coast with a hasty good-bye to Portland.
I’ll look on this as the vacation I’ve never had,
she kept telling herself.

She stopped looking over her shoulder ten hours later, once she’d reached the southern border of Idaho. Only two thousand, two hundred thirty miles to go.

***

Gideon woke with one hell of a headache. He slowly opened his eyes, taking in the scene of yet another lab environment. But this time he wasn’t tied down, and the lab didn’t have any bad smells. Antiseptic, some pine cleanser that had been used on the floors, but no scent of decay or death.

He sat up, surprised to find himself alone and apparently not under guard. He’d been dressed in a gray sweat suit, but no shoes. A glance around show bright lemon yellow walls, a concrete floor, and a long couch he’d been lying on. A couch in a laboratory? In the center of the room sat a hospital bed, one large enough to hold his sorry ass. Around the room, cabinets and counters lined the walls. But at least here, he didn’t see his buddy’s brains in a jar.

He groaned as he stood on shaky legs, ignoring the emotional pain he hadn’t yet dealt with while managing the real hurt in his limbs. He felt as if he’d run a few marathons. Even his joints ached. Running his tongue over his throbbing gums, he sensed nothing amiss. No sharp teeth, thank God. A glance at his fingers showed them normal as well.

It took him a moment to calm his racing heart and clear his blurring vision.

His head ached, but his muscles firmed. That angry beast inside him didn’t mind this environment, surprisingly. But it remained wary, giving him strength of mind, of purpose, to escape and investigate before he could be attacked.

At the thought, a thick metal door opened. There were a few glass windows looking out into a lit hallway. Another inconsistency with the lab he’d been in before. He noticed two women watching him through the glass, a redhead and a blond. Neither captured his attention, not like the Circs walking through the door in front of a smaller, older man.

He could almost see the larger, inhuman Circ forms over their human counterparts. That Roane guy, Derrick, and Hale entered, protecting the gray-haired academic wearing glasses behind them.

Roane gave him a hard stare. Still large, even in human form, at least now he resembled a man, same as the guys with him. Gideon didn’t know if he looked different now as well, though he felt the same. He still had two sentiences occupying the same body. Him and that wild thing that didn’t like being trapped.

He kept his gaze on Roane, but as he felt with that other sense inside him, his gaze sought Hale. Though smaller than Roane and Derrick, Hale possessed an otherness Gideon’s beast recognized. Like that yellow-eyed bastard now standing with the women outside. That guy seriously put his back up. The other Circs were dangerous, but not like…

“McKinley,” he muttered, glaring at the asshole who dared give him the finger.

So the glass didn’t make the room soundproof. Either that or the fucker had incredible hearing. Hale chuckled, and a shimmer of knowing passed from him to McKinley.

“Yeah, we don’t much care for him either,” Roane said, ignoring McKinley’s toothy grin.

Hale frowned. “Roane.”

“But he’s family,” Roane continued. “You’re Gideon Spencer.”

Gideon stared at him.

“Did you volunteer to help Dr. Edwin Lang?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“That’s a no, then,” Hale answered and leaned back against a counter while the older man took a tray out of one of the drawers.

Gideon saw needles and scalpels and stepped back, crouching low, ready to attack.

“Easy, guy. Doc’s just getting your sample kit ready. Doesn’t hurt.” Derrick took one of the scalpels and sliced his finger, so that a small well of blood appeared. “He’s gonna look at you under a microscope is all.” Derrick sucked his finger, then held it up to show it had fully healed. “Relax. Doc is one of the good guys. He won’t hurt you.”