Halfblood Legacy Read online

  Halfblood Legacy

  Book Three of the Halfblood Series

  By

  Laura Rheaume

  Ebook Edition

  Second Edition

  Copyright © 2011 by Laura Rheaume

  All rights reserved.

  Halfblood Series:

  Halfblood Heritage

  Halfblood Journey

  Halfblood Legacy

  Father Willow's Daughter

  www.halfbloodheritage.com

  Lovingly dedicated

  to Alisa Rose Sonderman,

  who waited for each chapter like a trooper and whose love for a good story continues to inspire me. Every book after this one will be due in great part to the enthusiasm that she felt and the support that she gave me while I wrote Halfblood Legacy.

  Contents

  Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2

  Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

  Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

  Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11

  Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14

  Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17

  Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20

  Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23

  Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26

  Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29

  Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32

  Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35

  Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38

  Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41

  Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44

  Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47

  Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50

  Excerpt from Father Willow's Daughter

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The hollow clicking of the keyboard was a sound that should have gone unnoticed in a room filled with over fifty children, but it scampered alone around the room, skittering along the floor, running up the sides of the chambers, crawling into the corners. The noise and its maker were the only things moving, except for fifty-four aging hearts beating softly, one of which was stuttering and beating increasingly slower. No amount of clicking or triple checking or denying was going to make a single difference to that one small soul that was slipping.

  She lifted her hands and then let them drop to her sides. The woman closed her eyes and held herself very still. Still as the child. Still as her brothers and sisters before her, who had lain in the nearly hundred empty tanks that stretched as far as she could see in the enormous room. Still as her own people, long, long gone. Ripped from existence, all of them, but two and fifty-four.

  Slipping away. Taking with her everything that she should have been, could have done, would have born, might have become.

  Desperately, the woman turned and hurried, as she had done each time before, to a blank, sealed column just a few rows away. She laid her hand upon it, but the child within didn’t budge for her, didn’t sing, didn’t accept her touch. She used her power to reach out to the child; it flowed through her hand and into the chamber, joining their minds.

  She called out to the girl, Child, I am here.

  There was no answer, just the vague feeling of the wind blowing.

  Why do you wander? Stay here, with us.

  With a sinking heart, she recognized the familiar weariness and realized the futility of her efforts. Even so, she pressed, Your family needs you, Illiliania.

  The name pulled at the girl, and for a moment the woman hoped. Then hope showed its cruel side.

  Ripped away, all but two and fifty-three.

  -----------

  They had taped his eyes, but that wouldn’t have stopped him, and neither would the jacket that wrapped his arms around his body have kept him there. What held him fast was what had spread beneath his skin after the cold needle stabbed him in the neck.

  Actually, it felt more like being released than restrained. His mind dizzyingly spun without reason, dipping sharply before slowly tipping in the opposite direction. No way to find his bearings. No hands to stretch out and grasp something solid. No feet to plant. Just falling.

  He was grateful that they hadn’t taped his mouth, because the bile kept rising to his throat, and drowning in his own vomit was not the way he wanted to leave this life.

  “Holy shit, can you feel that?”

  “What?”

  “That...I don’t know, humming feeling.”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “No. It’s like the air is humming. Look at the hairs on my arm.”

  “Maybe we should give him another dose.”

  “You’ve already given him two, right? Damn, it’s making my skin crawl.”

  He would have pulled his power in, because it was spilling everywhere and making him feel even sicker, if that were possible. He normally maintained tight control over it with very little energy, but the drug had loosened his ties.

  It was all he could do to say upright. Well, kind of upright.

  “Three, since they brought him in. That was four hours ago.

  “You know that the recommended dose is one in six hours, right?”

  “He’s big, and he was hardly feeling it anyway.”

  “It takes a while to...whatever, better not give him another. I don’t know what it will do to him. Ugh. I’m telling you, that is not natural.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t messing around with his tricks. I read the report. That was some scary ass shit. Did you see…”

  A door opened in what his senses told him was the ceiling and he listened to footsteps that traveled in circles around him, close, then far, then close... His stomach churned.

  “Ma’am?”

  “I checked the warrants, and there are three out on him in addition to the one you sent me. Did you interrogate him?”

  “No, we left him for you. We thought keeping him out of commission was more important than...”

  “What the hell is that vibration?”

  “It’s him. See? I told you.”

  She made a disgusted, guttural sound and then she came closer. His head was yanked sideways, and he groaned when everything spun around, and fell up.

  She barked so close to his ears that he nearly jerked his seat over, “What’s your name?”

  He had a name, but he was using another one, and he was trying to remember what that one was when his head was ripped off his shoulders, or, at least that’s what it felt like when she hit him. Sometime while he was flying around the room, he threw up. He continued to whirl for a while longer before he heard her again.

  “What’s your name?”

  He had no idea, but he was willing to come up with one if she would wait a second…

  She wasn’t.

  He took another trip around the room, nearly passed out, and managed to hold the throwing up to a dry gag. He would have liked to have passed out, but couldn’t seem to manage it.

  “What’s your name, halfblood?”

  “Iy…” His lips weren’t working right. “Miyr nerm…”

  She moved closer to make out what he was saying, and she brought with her the scent of a strong perfume, her lunch, hairspray, detergent, sweat and...

  That’s when he threw up again.

  After some extremely rude language, she helped him take a nap in a very unfriendly way.

  -----------

  Someone was calling.

  He woke up with his eyes and arms still bound tightly and a terrible headache to keep him company. It was hard to tell which was worse: the pain from being hit repeatedly, or the pain in his head from coming off the drugs, or the all over body ache from being tied to a chair for hours. He was thinking it was a draw, when he felt it again. A gentle tingling at the edge of his skin.

  She was calling. Him.

  A slender band of her e
nergy wrapped around his body and through it he heard her voice: We are coming for you.

  Why? It's dangerous. You could be caught.

  The door opened, and the tapping came directly to where he lay tied to the chair that she had knocked over before she had left.

  Caught? Heh, we are not as dumb as you. As for why...hold on. The ribbon faded away.

  “You want to know my name, right?” he asked.

  “No. I know your name. The name is just the preliminaries, to see if you are ready to start. I can see that you are, so, shall we begin?” Apparently she gave some kind of signal, because the one at the door shuffled around a bit and then came inside and shut it.

  He shrugged. “If you like. Might be fun. I’ll go first...”

  He was pretty sure she hit that spot on purpose. There was definitely a red or maybe purple bulls eye to help her zero in on it. He sniffed some of the blood back in. She had cleaned up, but the smell from her earlier vomit shower still lingered faintly. It was probably the reason for her short temper.

  “We’re looking for your friends,” she began.

  “I don’t have any.”

  “We going to start with the incentives this early?”

  He grimaced, “I hope not.”

  “Your friends.”

  “Could you specify?”

  “The other halfblood…”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  “No?”

  “No. Hey, could you take this tape off? I’ve got something in my eye.”

  “That’s strange, since you escaped together over two years ago and have been seen together several times since then.”

  He shrugged.

  “Conspirator, then.” When he didn’t respond, she tried, “Comrade in arms?”

  “That is closer,” he answered, since she sounded like she was getting impatient.

  “Where is he?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “Ah, the truth. Any ideas?

  “Might be running. That’s what I’d do.”

  “Let’s move on.”

  “There’s really no point.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I’ll be leaving soon.”

  “They won’t be here to transfer you until sometime tonight, and even though that is the fastest pickup on record for a small outpost like this one, that still gives us plenty of time.”

  Well, there was no need to argue. After all, she had been kind enough to give him a little nap time to sleep off some of the drug. “Ah, all right. Next question.”

  “What about the Youngs?”

  “Which ones? They breed like rabbits...”

  “Lena, Ian, Faith...the girl, uh…”

  “Mercy,” the guy typing across the room prompted.

  “Mercy.”

  “Oh, them. What is the question again?”

  “Where are they?”

  “Oh, they’re here.”

  A pause. “You mean, in this territory?”

  “No, they’re here, in this building.”

  After another pause, the door opened and the one who was taking notes left in a hurry.

  “My guess is that he’ll be the last one to go before you,” he said companionably.

  “No,” she said, shifting and rustling around for something. He heard the safety come off. “That would be you, halfblood.”

  He couldn’t help grinning. As if that would scare him.

  There were some shouts and the pounding of feet beyond the door.

  “Sounds like trouble...for you,” he couldn’t help provoking her.

  “How about you shut up,” she recommended. He felt cool metal kiss him on the temple.

  She had a point. On the other hand…

  The door opened and right away he smelled them, and him. Shit.

  Their power flowed into the room and filled it. One of them was enough to give you a headache. All three of them were a nightmare of pressure to the back of your brain.

  “You’re trying to get yourself killed, right?” Scythe asked from the door.

  He wasn’t planning on answering, but even if he had, she beat him to it. The gun pressed harder on his head, “Back up, or I’ll shoot him.”

  Ian’s voice came from farther away, “That won’t be necessary, ma’am. Besides, death is the easy way out for him. We’d prefer it if you didn’t give it to him.”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” Cord protested. He just wasn’t opposed to dying.

  “What are you talking about?” The woman interrupted.

  “He’s doing penance for some earlier errors in judgment, and he’s got a long road ahead of him.”

  “Penance…?”

  “It’s not like I went looking for them. The contact was a plant. They got me with a tranquilizer dart…Now, can we go?”

  Lena’s sharp voice cut through the air, “He’s right. Time to go, people.”

  He, like almost everyone else there, felt the constriction in the air.

  “No one is going…” The words from just above him trailed off at the same moment that everyone started to move.

  “Ian do you have to chat it up with everyone? Even our enemies?” Lena complained.

  The gun was carefully taken off his head, and he was quickly untied from the chair. They worked on his face and the jacket at the same time.

  “It’s called diffusing the situation, sis. Besides, she wasn’t our enemy. She was just doing her job.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said sarcastically. “Look at his face.”

  The tape took a little longer to remove and hurt like hell. They told him it was better to rip it off in one go, but afterwards, his skin, especially the eyelids, felt like raw meat.

  The jacket was transferred to the interrogator, who then ‘woke up’ and started to use colorful language again. No one gave her a second glance, until she barked just as they reached the door, “...Halfblood trash rapists, we’re never going to stop looking until you pay for what you did to Summer.”

  Every one of them jerked to a stop and turned around to stare at her, which made her cough out a satisfied laugh.

  “Do you know Summer?” Ian asked.

  “My cousin grew up with her, but even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t make a difference. The warrant contains the details of the charges. With pictures.”

  They frowned at that, disturbed by the reminder of the harm done to their friend and the fact that the crime had gone unpunished because they had interfered. They still carried the guilt, even though he was the one who deserved the woman’s enmity. He was the one who had followed the orders. He had tortured Summer, had her molested, and then implanted the false memories of Scythe having done it all. At the time, he had thought nothing of it; to him it had been just another job, and she was just some Kin bitch. There was no escaping that truth, no matter what else had happened since.

  “Time to move forward,” Scythe said, opening the door and steering Cord through it by the elbow.

  They turned their backs on her and followed him, but her muffled voice chased them down the hall even after the door had closed behind them.

  “Why did you bother?” Cord asked irritably.

  Scythe didn’t hesitate. “If I don’t come for you, it means I’m dead.”

  Hmph. He took himself way too seriously.

  “Whatever. If I don’t come for you, it’s because my stories are on.”

  Half a grin. Only half a grin, because that was close enough by his strict standards to be considered a lie, and the Kin hated lies. Cord didn’t waste energy on trying to be Kin, so he didn’t give a damn. He had left that particular self-delusion behind a million years ago. He didn’t have to live by their whacked out code, or any Human one either, for that matter. There were no codes for a halfblood, except the ones they made up themselves. At least, that’s what he had believed all his life. Then, he had died.

  Now he was living in code city, and the only way to get out of town was down a road he wasn’t ready to t
ake yet on his own.

  “A plant, huh?” Scythe asked.

  “Yeah, a real smooth set up. The guy had no tells, so I didn’t see it coming.”

  “Trank means they were after us specifically, not just a random buyer.”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “What’d they ask you?”

  “You didn’t wait to pick me up until after the interrogation just to see what they were looking for, did you?”

  “No.”

  “I would have.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “You could have done the woman and gotten the information you want. It would have taken like one minute.” When Scythe didn’t answer, he said, “This is why I get results and all you got is questions.”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “They asked me about you and your okin.”

  He nodded, entering the information in his megabrain. Otherwise, he was undisturbed about it. Cord felt the same way. It was kind of hard to get worked up about being the target of a manhunt after a couple of years.

  Kind of like it was hard to get excited about being rescued when the one rescuing you was the warden.

  Chapter 1

  Scythe stepped into the soft light and was surrounded by a gentle heat that soaked into him and swirled around inside his body, rushing past every sore nerve and wearing down each stiff muscle. The music that he had heard, that had led him to that place, was not only around him, it began to seep into him; the sweet, sweet notes rung in the air, causing his very skin to hum along.

  For some reason, he was not himself there, but the he that he had become didn’t want to know, didn’t want to worry about it too much. A tiny voice that had been silent for many years, that was cautious by nature, was the only part of him that was suspicious of the way his body automatically relaxed in the warmth and his mind accepted what it saw without question. It reached up and tried to shake him loose.