Page 51 of Monster Queen Rising

We come up on the lab from the south at twenty-three fifty-five. Crull pulls off at the staging point Vance marked — a quarter mile through the trees to the building. He kills the lights. We sit in the dark.

Crull looks at me. "Ready."

"Yes."

He gets out. I get out and the trees swallow us.

Chapter nineteen

Jen

The trees south of the lab are old. Crull and I move through them without a sound, him a step off my left. The lab is a quarter mile through the trees — concrete, two stories, no windows on the ground floor of the south wall, the roofline dark against a sky with no moon.

I can't see Fen on the ridge above us.

Crull touches my elbow. We stop at the tree line. Forty yards of open gravel and one fence between us and the north wall, where the service door sits — the weak point on the plan, our way in, around the corner from the south face we came through the woods to reach.

We wait.

Then the mark spikes — not hot, sharp, a single instant of him all the way up on the ridge. It eases, done. He's placed it. The compound's in the ventilation now.

Crull's eyes come to me, reading it off my face. I give him the nod.

We cross the gravel at a hard run, him a half step ahead. He goes over the fence first, low; I follow; he's got his hand out for me on the other side. We're at the wall. The service door is twenty feet down — single deadbolt, no card reader. Crull sets his shoulder to it once and the frame gives.

We're inside. Concrete corridor, empty, the air faintly chemical.

Forty feet down, a gargoyle guard is on the floor. On his back, eyes closed, out cold — the gas has him. He'll come up before long, and we need to be gone when he does. We pass him.

First corner. Crull looks, nods. We turn.

Second corridor. Another guard, on his knees against the wall, eyes half-closed, hand on his sidearm but slow — the gas hasn't finished him. He sees us. He starts to lift the sidearm.

I use the voice.

"Put it down."

His head jerks. His eyes find mine. The sidearm slips from his hand and he folds to the floor.

Crull's amber is steady. "Move."

We move. The stairwell's at the end of the corridor, and as we climb I reach for my bonds. Six lines, all where they should be.

Two flights up. The second-floor corridor is wider, more doors, more light. Two more guards down, out cold, no voice needed. The third person on this floor is at a desk.

A woman, mid-forties, lab coat. Technical, not security. Not a gargoyle.

"Wait."

She's not reaching for anything. She isn't afraid. She's been standing at that desk waiting for someone to come up these stairs. She’s almost too calm.

"Are you one of the analysts?" I ask.

"Yes, genetics." Fast, like she's clearing it out of the way. "My name’s Jill Park, I've been here three years. When the other sites started burning I hoped you'd come here next. I'll tell you where Linden is, where the data is, where the samples are." She stops. Her eyes hold mine. "Are you really getting them out? The women."

"Every one we can reach."

Something in her lets go. "Then I’ll give you all of it."