Chapter 145: Inside the Hangar

[Rosalynd].

I was expecting a freak show. I was expecting something terrifying.

Nothing prepared me for this.

Children. Dozens of them.

The floor beneath the hangar has been hollowed out and covered in some kind of tempered glass, making it transparent. There is a walkway of concrete about 4ft wide that borders the glass all the way around, as well as a few rows splitting it up and down and side to side so that there are clear pathways.

Underneath it all there are children. All of them are different and yet oddly the same. They mostly look human, except that some of them have horns or wings or webbed fingers. Some are sleeping, others are playing, and a few are in a classroom. I can’t hear them through the glass, but I can tell that there is laughter and joy.

This was not what I was expecting at all.

“This is the nursery,” Victor begins to explain before I even have a chance to ask. “There is only one way in, and the only person who knows where that happens to be is myself.” I can hear the grin in his voice even though I cannot see his face as he wheels me along one of the center paths.

“Do you notice anything special about them?” he asks wearily, and I can tell it is a test.

“They all look different?” I guess. I cannot find a single thing the same about any of them. Not in age size or coloring. Some of them are nearly as old as me while others are infants. It is like looking at the most diverse mix of a population in one place.

“Not exactly.” He stops the chair. “Try looking with something other than your eyes.”

He must be referring to my witch senses.

Putting out a feeler of energy, I sense what I can with my aura. Are any of them witches? Can I connect with any of them? I send my aura down through the glass into the room.

One of the older children looks and even though I am far above her, she makes eye contact with me. Her eyelids blink first sideways, and then another set of lids blink up and down. Her mouth opens wide to show row after row of shark-like teeth.

She starts to hiss, her mouth sucking down the bit of aura I have released, pulling on it like a long noodle of spaghetti that she can suck down until full.

Soon others notice. They turn towards the girl, and they look up at me.

Those with wings begin to flutter to the top. Some even try to break the glass, pressing their faces and tongues against the surface, as if they could get a taste of me through it.

I cut off my extended aura like cutting a string. I can’t pull back what she has taken, but I can try to

The children all begin to beg and whimper like caged dogs looking for supper.

“I think that is enough excitement for one day,” Vincent chortles as he presses a button on the wall. Large metal doors close over the glass, hiding the children from view.

“What was that?” I’m gasping for air, checking my aura for holes as I scan my body from top to bottom.

“Oh, don’t blame them for their hunger,” he shrugs as he pushes me along to another chamber. “I learned my mistakes after creating you. You were created in a living womb in a more traditional method, despite your specialized DNA combination.” He pauses as he pushes into a room that is oddly lit with green light. “You were born with a soul. They were not. The problem is, that version is also highly defective for other reasons.”

“This,” he explains, “Is where I am hoping to grow version 3. We need them to be vessels that are ready for souls, but with just enough soul of their own to not be craving every soul they pass. We can’t have a city full of soulless people draining other people until they are soulless.”

“That…that would be like making a zombie apocalypse only instead of eating brains they eat your aura,” I realized out loud. “Why are there so many children in that room if you knew that it didn’t work? Why did you keep on doing it?”

“Well, like every good experiment, I needed to have a control, and then I worked with variables. You were the control. Patient zero. Only instead of being soulless, you were created with enough soul to attract other powerful souls. You were designed to be the perfect mate to the strongest souls. You are not complete without them. They are more than JUST your soul mates. They sustain you. Without them you are like you were before…not quite alive.”

I think back to the person I was before I felt pushed into leaving LA for Humboldt. Even though I thought of myself as a full person, I didn’t BECOME a complete person until I found my men. Each one is a part of me, and I am a part of them.

But does that mean part of my soul was missing before?

No. I have always been my own person. When I was briefly dead, I met all of those who sacrificed themselves for my creation and they willingly became a part of me. They each gifted me with a part of themselves, but I am the one who became who I needed to become.

I freed my wolf.

I learned how to be my inner witch.

I connected with the siren who made me fae.

It is me. It is all me.

And while a part of me might want to die if I were to lose any one of my men, I know I would continue. My soul is my own.

“But I have a soul,” I argue with him. “I am not some jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece or two. I am complete.”

“Are you?” he stops the chair and turns it around to face him. “Can you really know what you are capable of becoming if you have only experienced such a small part of your life? I made you with the potential of binding yourself to ANY other magical creature you encounter. Your three alpha males, no matter how connected you are to them, will keep you from being claimed by a bigger, badder, alpha. And trust me,” he leans down even lower, kneeling so he can look me in the eye. “There is always something bigger and badder out there.”

“And you, dear daughter, were promised to the biggest alpha of them all.”

I almost laugh but I see that there is no laughter in his gaze. He is serious about every word he says.

There is a bigger, much badder alpha waiting for me.

“Promised,” I shake my head. “As in betrothed?”

“As in purchased,” he explains. “He gave me the resources I needed to create this army in the first place. He is the one to whom you have been promised since before your conception when you were just a thought. He had very specific requirements. An army of hollow servants for his work and a single, perfect specimen for his…companion.”

“He cannot break into this realm, however, without help. With your power, and the proper vessel, you could be by his side for an eternity, ruling the two worlds and multitude of dimensions together.”

“Perfect vessel…what are you.”

“Ah,” Vincent tilts his head to the left, his right ear facing the sky. “He’s here?”

“What? Who?”

“Your groom.” His grin becomes predatory just as an alarm sounds in the distance. “We just need to get him prepared for your wedding.