Pier 47 looked exactly like the kind of place where bad things happened to good people. Rusted shipping containers stacked three high, broken streetlights that flickered when the wind hit them just right, and the smell of dead fish mixed with motor oil. Scarlett had done business in places like this before, but never when she was supposed to be meeting someone who'd been blown up in a car bomb eight months ago.
Victoria parked behind a container marked "Shanghai Express" and killed the engine. They'd lost their tail somewhere around the industrial district, but that didn't mean they weren't being watched.
"Motion sensors on the main warehouse," Victoria said, looking through a pair of binoculars. "At least two sniper positions on the roof. Someone's been busy."
Scarlett checked her system display. Still twenty minutes until the meeting time, but her enhanced hearing was picking up sounds that didn't belong in an empty warehouse district. Footsteps on metal grating. The soft click of weapons being loaded. The quiet hum of electronic equipment.
"This isn't a meeting," she said. "It's a trap."
"Maybe. Or maybe Sarah's just being careful." Victoria put the binoculars down. "If she really has been playing dead for eight months, she's had time to set up security measures. The question is whether she's trying to protect us or capture us."
*Warning: Multiple armed hostiles detected within 200 meters. Threat level: High.*
Scarlett's system was getting more insistent. The display in her vision showed red dots scattered around the warehouse complex, at least a dozen of them. Too many for a simple meeting between old friends.
"We should leave," she said.
"We should. But we're not going to." Victoria opened the car door. "Because if Sarah really is alive, if she's been working on this longer than we have, then she might have answers we need."
They walked toward the warehouse, staying in the shadows between the containers. Scarlett could feel eyes on them from multiple directions, but nobody was shooting yet. That was either a good sign or a very bad one.
The warehouse doors were standing open, and light spilled out onto the broken concrete. Not industrial lighting, but something softer. Like candles or oil lamps. Someone was trying to create atmosphere.
"After you," Victoria said.
They stepped through the doorway together, and Scarlett immediately understood why the lighting was so dim. The woman sitting at the far end of the warehouse didn't want them to get too close a look at her face.
She had Sarah's voice, though.
"Hello, Scarlett. You look good for someone who's supposed to be dead."
The woman was sitting in a wheelchair, which explained why she hadn't come to meet them at the door. Even in the low light, Scarlett could see that the left side of her face was badly scarred. Burns, probably from the car bomb that had supposedly killed her.
"Sarah?"
"What's left of me. The explosion took my legs and most of my left arm. But the Blood Queen system doesn't care about missing parts. It just brings back whatever's still functional." Sarah rolled her wheelchair closer, and Scarlett could see that her left arm was a prosthetic. Military grade, probably cost more than most people made in a year.
Victoria stepped forward. "You're Blood Queen Seven."
"Smart girl. And you must be Victoria, the twin sister Scarlett never knew she had. Isn't family wonderful?" Sarah's smile was twisted by the scar tissue on her face. "I've been watching both of you since your systems activated. Very impressive work, especially the warehouse fire in Detroit."
"That was you cleaning up the Montenegro witnesses."
"That was me eliminating people who might have talked to the wrong investigators. People who might have mentioned seeing a certain FBI agent at that warehouse before the bodies turned up." Sarah's expression darkened. "Marcus has been very busy since my supposed death. Very busy covering his tracks."
Scarlett felt something cold settle in her chest. "What do you mean?"
"I mean your loving husband didn't just betray you, sweetheart. He betrayed all of us. Marcus Webb isn't just an undercover FBI agent. He's the project manager for the new Blood Queen program. He's been selecting targets, arranging their deaths, and monitoring their resurrections for the past five years."
The warehouse felt like it was spinning around Scarlett. "You're lying."
"Am I? Ask your system to show you Marcus's real employment history. Ask it to show you the files he's been keeping on every woman who's died under suspicious circumstances in the past decade." Sarah rolled closer. "Ask it to show you the surveillance footage from the night I was supposed to die."
*Accessing classified files. Warning: Information may be disturbing.*
New data flooded Scarlett's vision. Personnel files, mission reports, surveillance videos. Marcus Webb, project coordinator for something called "Blood Queen Phase Two." His job description included "target identification, elimination oversight, and post-resurrection monitoring."
And there, in a video file dated eight months ago, was footage of Marcus planting the bomb under Sarah's car.
"He tried to kill you too," Scarlett whispered.
"He succeeded in killing me. The resurrection part was just an unexpected bonus." Sarah reached under her wheelchair and pulled out a tablet. "But here's what he doesn't know. The new Blood Queen system doesn't just bring us back. It connects us. We can share information, coordinate attacks, even share abilities under certain circumstances."
She handed the tablet to Victoria, who immediately started scrolling through the data.
"This is a complete list of all twelve Blood Queens," Victoria said. "Names, locations, dates of death, current status."
"Five of us are active now. Three more will be resurrected in the next six months. The remaining four are being held in a government facility in Virginia, kept in a state between life and death until Marcus decides he needs them."
Scarlett was staring at the surveillance video, watching Marcus carefully position the explosive device under Sarah's car. His movements were precise, professional. This wasn't his first time.
"How many women has he killed?"
"Seventeen that I know of. Probably more." Sarah's voice was flat, emotionless. "He's been running this program since 2019. Finding women with the right genetic markers, getting them into situations where they'd be killed, then monitoring their resurrections to study how the system works."
"And the pregnant woman living in his house?"
Sarah smiled, and the expression was terrifying on her scarred face. "That's not a pregnant woman, Scarlett. That's Blood Queen Number Twelve. And tomorrow night, she's going to give birth to something that's going to change the world."