J. Geissinger - Edge of Oblivion

She’d overreacted. They thought she was a hysterical female.

“I’ve never actually seen it done,” Morgan admitted a little sheepishly. She was the only girl in a brood of five, and though her two sets of twin brothers were younger, they were—accorded by their gender—given far more leniency and privileges than she. Even though she was smarter, stronger, faster, as a girl she’d been almost sequestered because of her sex. Until her mother had died, and then she’d run wild...

She glanced up at them. “I didn’t think it would be quite so...dramatic.”

“It usually isn’t,” said Bartleby. A tiny frown rucked his brows. He shot a quick, furtive glance at Mateo. “It’s nothing abnormal, but that kind of reaction usually only happens with—”

“Check six, Doc,” said Tomás, hard. “Unless you want to end up looking like a bag of smashed asshole, this evolution does not require your input.”

Bartleby went white, swallowed, and sat abruptly down in one of the cushioned dining room chairs.

“ Unsat ,” Mateo growled back at Tomás. “We need him, so you’re going to ease up on that shit.

And keep your soup cooler clean in front of the ultimecia . We clear?”

Tomás stared at him long and hard as if he were contemplating the merits of strangulation versus a hard kick to the chest. Unblinking, Mateo stared right back. After a jaw-grinding moment, Tomás took a breath, stepped back, and said, “Clear as a fucking bell, brother.”

Morgan looked back and forth between them, wondering what Bartleby had been about to say, why Tomas didn’t want him to say it, and what the hell an ultimecia was. But she was too tired to do anything about it. And hot. The room suddenly felt like an oven. She lifted her hand to her forehead and was surprised to find it covered in sweat.

“Do you have anything in that bag for a headache, Doctor?” She rubbed her left eye. “I’m feeling a little...”

“Weak?” he supplied from his chair, peering at her from behind his round glasses with an oddly intense look. “Achy? Feverish?”

She nodded, frowning. How could he know that?

He stood and rummaged through the bag, came up with a digital thermometer. “May I take your temperature?”

The nod again, and he came to stand beside her. He brushed aside her hair, inserted the thermometer into her ear. In five seconds there came a beep. He withdrew the little plastic item and gazed down at it. His face went even whiter. “Oh, dear,” he said.

Panic began to churn her stomach to knots. “What? Am I sick?”

“No, no, nothing like that. You’re perfectly healthy,” he mumbled, distracted. He turned back to his black bag and deposited the thermometer within, then measured Xander’s pulse at his wrist and quickly took his blood pressure with a Velcro cuff around his bicep.

“What is it, then?” she pressed.

He glanced pointedly at Mateo and Tomás, then back at her, trying, it seemed, to communicate something crucial. “It’s just a little...” he coughed, “...female things, you know...I have something for it.” His face flamed bright, crimson red.

Morgan narrowed her eyes. Female things?

“Let’s get this show on the road, Doc,” interrupted Mateo, glancing at his watch. He pulled a phone from a pocket in his cargo pants and dialed a number. “We’re coming down in five,” he said to whomever it was that answered on the other end. “Keep frosty.” He snapped it shut and shoved it back into his pants, then addressed Bartleby. “Good to go?”

“Yes, yes,” he said, fluttering over Xander. “He’s had enough of the transfusion. He’s strong enough to move.” His gaze flickered again to Morgan, then he turned away and finished packing his things.

Mateo held a hand out. “Are you ready?”

Morgan took a breath and gazed back at him. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” And she took his hand in hers.

Xander woke up laid out flat on his back in a quiet room with his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth and pain throbbing sharp in his abdomen.

He kept still from old habit, his eyes closed, measuring his surroundings with his senses.

Anyone looking at him would have thought him still asleep, but he was on instant alert, primed and ready to fight though he was supine, that pain in his side was substantial, and he could tell by the light-headedness that he’d lost a lot of blood.

No one was in the room with him. He cast out his awareness farther, through the walls, through empty rooms, until he came up against a cold lead wall where his exploration abruptly stopped. Good.

This was good. Lead meant a safe house, which meant they’d come for him.

Which meant Morgan hadn’t left him to die after all.

The thought of her sent a lance of pain through his chest. His eyes blinked open and he lifted his head, looking around. A narrow bed, some plain furniture, a bathroom accessed through a door ajar, surgical instruments and bandages on a rolling silver table nearby. There were no windows, but he sensed it was close to sunrise. How long had he been out?

With an effort that sent pain radiating in wicked lashes up his spine and all the way down to his toes, Xander pushed the sheet aside and sat up.

He was naked, clad in only a large white bandage wrapped tightly around his waist. It was stained rust with blood in erratic circles on the right side. He inhaled, testing the limits of his tolerance, and found he could take a full breath without effort. His ribs weren’t compromised, and since he could move his arms and legs, his spine wasn’t compromised either. That was a relief, because the last thing he remembered before passing out was a terrible deadness in his legs.

He stood carefully, balancing his weight over his bent knees. His back protested with a sharp, stabbing ache, but it was tolerable, less than when he had first sat up. He was alive, if not perfectly well. But no matter the injury, he’d heal quickly. If he wasn’t dead, he’d be fine within days.

He crossed the room, found the black pants and shirt that had been left folded on a chair, and pulled them on carefully with gritted teeth. His weapons were laid out in a neat row on the top of the plain dresser, and he smiled as he donned those as well, strapping the knives around his waist and ankles. He pulled on a pair of new black boots, size fifteen, government issue, and laced up the ties.

Then he walked out the door and went to find her.

The safe house—one of dozens the Syndicate kept in every major city across the globe—was a refurbished villa in the hilly and moderately affluent Aventine section of Rome. It boasted 360-degree views of the city and over ten thousand square feet of living space, the vast majority of it underground. From the street, it was a modest turn-of-the-century affair of brick and mortar surrounded by a tall iron fence, with gardens and trees and a bearded, chubby lawn gnome by the front gate whose pointed red hat had long ago faded to pink, and a security system to rival that of Fort Knox.

The bedrooms and lounging area were on the bottom floor, the kitchen, dining area, and media rooms on the second floor, the gym and training center on the first floor belowground. Aboveground it was simply a house. A beautifully decorated, unoccupied house, because no one ever ate or slept or lived there. Aboveground was all for show. Once you descended beyond the reinforced lead door to the

“basement,” you entered another world.

He walked past six unoccupied bedrooms and found himself alone. A staircase twisted up to the main room, which was a large, open space decorated in dark charcoals and brown and beige without a hint of feminine softness. Beyond it were the dining room and kitchen—modern and masculine as the rest of the belowground areas—and as soon as he reached the top step of the stairs, he heard Mateo’s gravel-rough voice drifting in from that direction.