"we've got to clean up the loose ends." his blood simmered at the hint of danger to his mate, but that wasn't his top concern. anyone who dared threaten her would die, end of story. he had seen her broken once. never again.

tally, eyes glazed, face splattered with blood, huddling in the corner. quiet. so quiet. even then, even after he'd terrified her with his violence, even after he'd left her alone with strangers, she had protected him with her silence.

zeke got desperate when i still wouldn't talk...

his tally had gone mute rather than betray him. she had continued to love him though he'd broken every damn promise he'd ever made to her. it enraged the leopard that he couldn't keep her safe now, reminded him of those years when orrin had been hurting her and he hadn't known. she was his life. he'd destroy the world for her. yet this disease left him helpless.

"i had a call from dev santos earlier." he forced himself to think past the blood fury. "he's disposed of the mole."

dorian gave him a curious look. "disposed?"

"i'm guessing in very small pieces."

"i like this guy already." leaning back against the wall of the house, dorian frowned. "you know, if these kidnappers have lost that source of information, they're going to need a new one." he swore. "they won't kill talin. they'll try to take her alive."

"no, they won't." clay felt the claws of the animal unfurl within his skin, felt the power of it rip through his flesh. "it's hard for dead men to do anything."

chapter 40

ming lebon sat in ashaya's office once more. she hadn't expected to see him for days, given the situation in the psynet.

"larsen seems convinced you had something to do with the disappearance of the two remaining test subjects."

"i did," she said, wondering if she'd made a fatal mistake. had larsen had ming's active support? her findings had led her to conclude that the other scientist had gone far beyond the limits of anything ming had authorized.

ming didn't even blink at her confession. "what did you do to them?"

"i terminated them."

"where are the bodies?"

"gone." she met his expressionless face with a blank look of her own. "it would've been stupid to kill them as a message and then leave their remains to be found so larsen could utilize the brain tissue."

"and my man?"

ashaya had no need to lie. "i'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage. i did this on my own."

"i don't take well to losing one of mine."

"ming, while i'm happy to take on larsen," she said with absolute truthfulness, "i have no desire to make an enemy out of you. we both know who would walk out alive. if one of your men has disappeared, i would look elsewhere for the culprit."

a pause that lasted sixty seconds. the chill of the lab worked its way into ashaya's bones but she remained unmoving. she was glad for her control when ming said, "a traitorous e-mail has been traced to this facility."

an inexcusable error. she had acted on the assumption - always dangerous - that the outmoded internet pathways out of cinnamon springs were not being monitored. "i'm sure you've taken care of the culprit."

"i will - as soon as i break the encryption on the remaining e-mails."

she thanked talin mckade for whatever it was she had done to hide their tracks. "would you like to scan my organizer?" she offered, having prepared a duplicate for this very purpose. it would pass most checks. the critical word was "most."

ming watched her. "not at present. if you were to prove the traitor, i would have to kill you. that would be inconvenient."

ashaya held his gaze, very aware her death would be nothing easy. "indeed."

"tell me, why did you sabotage larsen's work?"

"because this is my lab." her tone was ice. "you assured me i was the head m-psy on the project."

"larsen was taking a parallel but different approach to the implant issue."

"nonsense." she handed him a slim electronic data file. "look at the results."

"where did these scans come from?"

"from the experimental subjects."

"these don't correlate to the ones i've seen."

"then i suggest you ask larsen to explain." she kept her tone unflinching. "he must have been doctoring data in order to gain support for his unauthorized experiments." anything that went on in her lab was supposed to go through her, and, when new lines of research were involved, through ming.

"according to these readings, the brain patterns of the forgotten are nothing like ours."

"yes." not quite the complete truth. if larsen - now on his way to san francisco - survived the next twenty-four hours, she would have to ensure she had enough "data" to refute his conclusions. ashaya didn't think she'd need her backup plan, not if talin mckade's friends were as lethal as they appeared.

the only problem was that larsen had taken ekaterina with him and ashaya had no way to share that information with ms. mckade - security had cut off all access to the internet. "any experiments run on the forgotten are worthless in terms of protocol i, even had larsen followed proper research methods."

ming put down the file. "be that as it may, these experiments allowed larsen to exterminate those forgotten who might one day have posed a threat."

"and who would these mythical creatures be?" she gave him another file, wondering what the line was between pragmatic unemotionalism and sociopathy. as far as she was concerned, genocide could not be justified, not by any logical reason. "none of larsen's test subjects had anything comparable to our abilities. they've interbred with the humans and changelings for too long." not a lie, as such. but there were things she was withholding, unexpected, powerful mutations caused by generations of intermingling.

ming put down the file. "i could make it a condition of your...situation that you cooperate with larsen's research."

the threat, to her son, caused an unknown cluster of neurons to spark to life in her brain. she was a researcher, but she didn't know what those awakening sparks implied. her conditioning was flawless, her shields airtight. "you could," she responded. "but the time i spend on larsen's useless endeavors will slow down my own progress."

"is that a threat?"

"no, simple fact. i'll accede to whatever you decide, but i don't share power well." she had no doubt it was a trait ming understood.

"we can run these experiments at another lab."

"of course." she could not risk disagreeing with him. "however, i would suggest you not dispose of the subjects in so public a fashion."

ming stilled. "explain."

it had been a stab in the dark, but it seemed she'd hit on something larsen had neglected to mention. "larsen's method of disposal involves removing the organs, delivering a beating postmortem, and dumping the body in a major metropolitan location."

"i believe i need to have a discussion with larsen."

ashaya pushed her advantage. "i was under the impression that he had your support," she said. "according to the security logs, he's been using several of your officers to run interference with enforcement. their notes state he had authorization documents from you."

ming's liquid black eyes swam. "send a copy of those reports through to me. i don't have time to talk to him today." he rose. "ashaya, it would be in your best interest to never forget that there is a difference between you and larsen."

she waited.

"he is nothing, a pawn. you are necessary. i would never simply kill you."

no, she thought, he would rip open her mind, dig into her inner core...and turn her into the most compliant of puppets.

on the psynet, a council session was taking place, the second emergency session in a row. kaleb krychek, the newest member of the psy council and possibly its most dangerous, noted that ming's mind was the last one to appear.

"marshall is dead." nikita's pronouncement met with chill silence.

"are you certain?" tatiana asked.

"his remains have been formally identified. dna cross-matched. i saw the process take place, with shoshanna as witness."

"confirmed," shoshanna said.

no one argued after that. shoshanna and nikita were sworn enemies. neither would cover for the other.

henry scott stirred. "was it a changeling attack as we thought?"

"no," shoshanna informed her husband. "that would have been preferable."

"it was one of us," nikita added. "a precision hit."

"any similarities to the bombing of the original implant lab?" tatiana asked. "it could be the same saboteur."

"that was my first thought, too," nikita said. "ming, you examined the weapon fragments."

"the signatures are different," ming told them. "however, the skill and speed of the offensive makes me conclude we're dealing with the same perpetrator. it may be that he's working with accomplices."

"the ghost," tatiana said. "he's fast becoming a real threat. he's scattering our resources to the point where several of those we would rather keep chained have escaped their bonds."

kaleb knew she was referring to the anchors. the psynet needed them, but unfortunately, they had a tendency to fall victim to one of the lesser - known side effects of silence - homicidal insanity.

"yes," ming agreed. "i've recently come into possession of facts that suggest non-anchors, too, are now beginning to feel the effects of the disturbances in the net. it's feeding into weak minds, disrupting their conditioning."

"it's imperative we stop the ghost before he does more damage. how did he get the bomb into marshall's home in the first place?" tatiana asked.

"unknown." shoshanna's cool mental tone. "we're tracing all visitors but no one sends up a red flag. ming may be correct - the ghost may be the moniker for a group, rather than an individual. regardless, the ghost is too good at this."