Chapter 24
As it turned out, the concoction for the sickening gas was not ready, so we found ourselves standing outside the warehouse building without a plan.
The clouds were thick in the night sky, obscuring the light from the half-moon, leaving us cloaked in shadow as we studied the outside of the wooden building.
We needed to figure out the best way to go about destroying the lab within, while avoiding collateral damage.
“It looks like it’ll go down with a good, stiff wind,” I muttered, shoving my hands into my pockets.
I’d changed back into my leathers for this, and Iannis, Garrett, and Chen wore the same black robes that they’d donned while sneaking out of the Imperial Palace.
“I’m amazed the Resistance, or at least their Garaian partners, chose such a cheap place. ”
“Clearly, they did not think it would be discovered,” Garrett said, somewhat snidely. “They’ve obviously been relying on bribery to keep the local officials out of their business. I hope the new Mage-Emperor does something about all this blatant disregard for law and order. It’s inexcusable.”
“We can debate that later,” Iannis said.
His eyes were trained on the building, and he tapped his chin thoughtfully.
“I think we can do a boosted sleeping spell if we do it together; that should render every human in range unconscious, as well as the rats. That way there is no danger of any infected animal escaping accidentally.”
“Okay, well, let’s hurry,” I said as I caught sight of a stealthy movement on the rooftop. “We’re sitting ducks right now, standing out here in the open like this.”
We quickly joined hands, with Iannis standing in the middle, and I willed my power to flow from my body into Iannis’s.
Iannis chanted the Words of the spell aloud, and I bit back a gasp as power rushed through me.
Not just my own power, but Chen and Garrett’s as well.
Iannis’s hands blazed like twin suns for a split second, and then the energy in his hands rippled outward, heading up and over the warehouse.
A knife hissed through the air, and I hauled Iannis back right before it would have sliced his neck.
The blade hit the ground with a thunk, burying itself to the hilt, and I caught a whiff of poison in the air.
Grabbing a chakram from my pouch, I glanced up at the roof just in time to see the figure I’d noticed earlier slump sideways.
“Looks like it worked,” Iannis said as I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you for that.” He squeezed my hand. “Now let’s go and check inside.”
Before we did that, I climbed up onto the roof, using my claws to gain purchase, so I could see how many guards we were dealing with.
Only two, thankfully, one on each end of the roof, and they both snored peacefully.
I confiscated their poisoned weapons, then used the immobilization spell on them, happy to get to practice it again so soon.
I didn’t know how long Iannis’s sleep spell would last, and there was no point in taking chances.
“All clear,” I told the others after I’d hopped back down to the ground.
“Good,” Garrett said, stepping around me. He held up his hands, calling magic, and used a spell to lift the heavy oaken wood bars from the large doors. They swung open, and we entered carefully, splitting up to search the rooms.
The rats I’d smelled and heard from outside were kept in bamboo cages, some of which showed signs of gnawing and had been mended with rusty wire.
They were all asleep, and there was something creepy about the way their whiskers trembled and their tiny bellies rose and fell.
I wished we could save them, but when I leaned closer and sniffed at their cages, I caught a sour, decaying scent that sent a chill down my back.
Whatever that sickness was couldn’t be allowed to survive with them.
“By the Lady,” Director Chen said, eying the bent wire on one of the damaged cages, “these people are playing with fire, keeping dangerous diseases in such conditions. Such carelessness is almost worse than the Resistance.”
“As long as these diseases don’t affect humans, then they probably did not care much,” Garrett observed critically.
Luckily, the rats seemed to be the only prisoners in this place. We found five human lab technicians in white coats sleeping at their desks, lots of lab equipment and chemicals, and refrigerated boxes filled with tubes that were labeled mostly in Garaian characters.
Chen and Iannis inspected the tubes and went through the paperwork, while Garrett and I kept watch to make sure no additional enemies snuck up on us.
But the night was dead silent aside from Iannis and Chen moving about the rooms. I almost wished someone would charge through the door—I was getting antsy, and all those sleeping rats, full of death and decay, were creeping me out.
I wished I could read Garaian characters, but since Garrett and I couldn’t, we had to stand back and wait.
Eventually, Iannis and Chen finished, and we reconvened.
“From what we’ve determined from these documents, as well as the equipment and products here, this place has not been conducting any original research,” Chen said.
“It would seem that Ma-San has been involved in the wholesale production and export of the diseases that the Osero lab had already developed. He simply injected the rats with the serums he got from the Resistance, then harvested and processed their blood. They were going to start using dogs as well, but had not yet arranged for the extra space.”
Thank Magorah for that, at least, I thought as my gut roiled with disgust. I was so glad we were about to destroy this place.
“Was there any indication how many shipments they dispatched, and where?” Garrett asked, his face tense. “If this stuff is contagious, we may have arrived too late to prevent the worst.”
“The place has not been in operation for longer than five months, and it took them a few weeks to collect sufficient rats, streamline their process, and get production up to speed,” Chen replied.
“From what we could tell, they were just gearing up, and no major shipments have gone out yet. However, there are large stores ready for shipment. It looks like we arrived in the nick of time.”
“Several of the crates prepared for shipping had Northian labels,” Iannis said.
“Inside, we found sealed vials of the diseases packaged and ready to go out, very likely to remaining Resistance camps. At least now we know exactly what diseases they were. Some of the vials were labeled specifically for use on shifters.”
“Magorah curse them!” I swore as a wave of fury swept through me.
Now that word of the Resistance’s plans to betray their shifter members was spreading, they must have decided to decimate the shifter population before we could be mobilized against them.
My claws bit into my palms, and I forced my hands to uncurl before I started gouging myself.
“By the Lady.” Garrett scrubbed a hand over his face. “We must destroy this entire place immediately.”
“What about the technicians?” I asked, glancing toward the nearest one snoring away on his desk. “Do we just blow them up along with the lab?”
“They certainly deserve that fate,” Iannis said. “But we are not in our home country and need to strive for discretion, so perhaps we should avoid leaving a trail of dead bodies behind,” he added reluctantly.
“Perhaps we cannot kill them,” Director Chen said slowly. “But we can do something to them that is tantamount to the death penalty here in Garai, and that will ensure they never lift a hand to aid the Resistance again.”
“As much as I’d love to punish these humans, I think the rats should be killed now, while they’re still sleeping peacefully,” I said. “They don’t deserve to suffer—it’s not their fault they got caught up in this.”
Director Chen gave me an odd look at that, which didn’t surprise me. Most mages and humans wouldn’t feel empathy toward rats, but as part-animal myself, I knew very well that animals had thoughts and feelings. Even the ones I would normally view as prey.
“Of course,” Iannis said, his face solemn.
He swept his right arm out, murmuring a spell too low for me to catch, but I still felt the magic ripple outward from him, an invisible wave rolling through the room.
A stillness settled in the air in its wake, and it took me a moment to realize that all the rats had stopped breathing.
“I stopped their hearts,” he explained. “They did not suffer.”
“Thank you,” I said, my chest lightening even as my heart twisted with sadness. It was too bad the rats had to die, but at least no one else would have to suffer from these awful diseases.
We rounded up the sleeping technicians and the guards on the roof, and Iannis and Chen performed the confusion spell on each of them while they were still out. The strange, reddish yellow energy once again made my stomach knot, and I was glad that these humans were not awake.
“W-where am I?” the first one said after I woke her, using a spell Iannis had recently taught me. “Wh-who are you?”
“We are no one,” Iannis said, his voice layered with suggestion magic, and the technician’s wheeling eyes went glassy. “You will leave this place and forget that you were ever here.”
A strange sadness filled me as the technicians and guards stumbled out of the warehouse under Iannis’s suggestion, babbling and muttering all the way.
It was horrible to see anyone reduced to such a state.
“Why is it that they’re acting this way, but that the agents we rescued seemed pretty normal? ”
“Humans are affected much more strongly by the confusion spell than mages,” Director Chen said. “Their minds do not cope as well beneath the strain.”
“No kidding. I wouldn’t be surprised if they get themselves killed tonight, stumbling around as they are.”