Bloody Kisses (11 page)

He couldn’t go back to Trieste, not now. So it was on to warmer waters and maybe a beach where he would dream of Elizabeth and wait until the time was right to find her.

Even though she’d released him from the curse, she was part of him still. He’d always know where to find her.

“Find me,” he replayed her whisper in his ear as sailed away from Polidori, from Bureau 7, from all the darkness that had always plagued him.

He may have left her behind, in a way, he was still sailing toward her. Toward their future together.

Toward home.

* * *

E
lizabeth was
in a helicopter next to “Mad Dog” Whitman when the installation lit up the night sky. Fireworks exploded around them in a bright, colorful display. The populace had been told it was a planned entertainment, but it was to mask the utter and absolute destruction of the compound.

“It just came over the wire, Dr. Wollstonecraft.” The SWAT commander nodded. “They’ve captured the X operative in Turkey. I thought you’d like to know.”

Elizabeth nodded. “After the mayhem she caused, I hope they throw her in the deepest, loneliest, blackest pit.”

“And if they gave you the key to this pit?” The corner of her full mouth turned up with a smirk.

“I’d give it to a rusalka.”

Mad Dog laughed. “Hardcore. I respect that. I’m sure the information extraction process will be painful for her, if that makes you feel any better.”

“I wish I could say it did. I mean, you know, kind of.” She gave the other woman a lopsided grin. “But it doesn’t undo all the harm she did. The people’s lives she destroyed. The resources we’ve lost.”

“Maybe it’s not all bad. You’ve got the survivors who were able to be evacuated.” Her dark brown eyes narrowed. “What’s that scar on your arm? It looks like a bite.”

Elizabeth smiled at her. “It is.”

Mad Dog lived up to her name, and she pulled out her glock and held it to Elizabeth’s head. “You better start talking.”

“I’m immune.”

“You could have a secondary infection. You could—”

“I don’t. My last name is Wollstonecraft.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn what your last name is, lady.”

Elizabeth tried to think of a way to distill the information without revealing too much about Adam. “The people who are in those cages recovering? It’s because one of them bit me. The cure is in my blood.”

She eyed her. “Should’ve known you had some shit, what with your stripes in your hair like Frankenstein’s Bride.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Exactly like Frankenstein’s Bride.” She didn’t bother to correct her that Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster. Because in truth, he was the monstrous one. It was the monster who was noble. The monster who was good. The monster who was… Adam.

“You’re a strange one. You’re the only woman I’ve met to go anime-eyed over Frankenstein.” She holstered her weapon. “But I can’t blame you.”

“Oh? A supernatural crush of your own?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Mad Dog eased back and looked out at the fireworks as they disappeared in the distance.

“I probably would. A little girl-bonding couldn’t hurt.”

“We went all this time without talking about men. Let’s not ruin it.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Come on. I’m dying to know.”

“Your monster is real, though. Isn’t he? He was the big, dark shadow on the security footage.”

Elizabeth had a split second to make the decision whether or not to trust Mad Dog Whitman, SWAT Commander and fellow Bureau 7 employee. She knew full well she could be a plant to ferret out any information about Adam.

Elizabeth had some otherworldly perception about the woman. She knew instinctively, that as long as she wasn’t trying to hurt anyone with her secret, she would keep it to herself.

“Yes.”

“Well, don’t worry. I erased the tapes.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Call it a hunch.” She shrugged. “In all the years I’ve worked for 7, I’ve never heard of this monster. If he was the kind of thing I hunt, I’d have heard about him.”

“So tell me,” Elizabeth prompted.

“Oh, for shit’s sake.” She sighed. “His name is Karl. He’s not real. He was my imaginary friend when I was a kid. I’m probably just wired wrong. Most people who do what I do are.”

“No, you’re not getting off that easily.”

“Okay, I’ve never actually said this out loud. If I tell you this, that’s it. We’re friends. You’re coming at the holidays to meet my family and it’s a forever thing.” Whitman took a deep breath. “Karl Prinzehausen is his full name and he’s the Headless Horseman.”

Elizabeth kept her face neutral. “Seriously? Like, Sleepy Hollow Horseman?”

“Yeah. My parents own a B&B and an orchard just at the edge of town. Wanna come for Halloween?”

“Can I bring a date?”

“Sleepy Hollow won’t know what hit them.” She grinned. “Since we’re best friends now, or something, I guess you can call me Mads.”

“If you call me Lizzie, I’ll kill you.”

“Fair enough,
Elizabeth
.” Something came over the radio and Mads answered. “10-4. I’ll escort her myself.”

“What’s happened?”

“Roanridge wants you stateside for debriefing. There’s a private plane in Athens waiting for you.”

“Do you know where my patients are going?”

“Don’t worry about them, Doc. We’ve got no orders to terminate. They’re headed to the Shetland Islands. I’m sure you’ll be there shortly. I guess you’ll have to come home with me next Halloween.”

“I hope you weren’t kidding about that because I’m coming.”

“Good.”

“Good.” She laughed. But her stomach was unsettled. She was not looking forward to debriefing. Why did he want to do it in person?

She guessed she’d soon find out.

S
hetland Islands
, Scotland

Bureau 7, Roanridge Island Installation

T
he cold wind
whipped at her face as the boat forced its way through from St. Magnus Bay to the Norwegian Sea.

Elizabeth was headed home from the Roanridge Island Installation. She’d learned her lesson about living on site. She had her own tiny island and, like Roanridge, it was on no map. She’d named it Legacy. It had craggy desolate shores and tall, ancient trees. Just being there instilled a sense of rightness in her, and she knew what to ask for when Director Roanridge had offered her a bonus to continue working on the project.

It was either continue the project or become part of it, anyway. That had been the Director’s ultimatum. So she’d moved to the frigid north, closer to Norway than to Scotland. It was different here than Greece, the island living. It was more rugged. Harsher. Living alone on an island here was like waving your middle finger in the face of mother nature and daring her to strike you down.

But that was in the Wollstonecraft blood, too, apparently.

If Elizabeth hadn’t had the survivors of Kythnos quarantined in Sector 4Z, she might have wondered if it had all been a fevered dream.

She rubbed the scar on her wrist absently, and thought about him—Adam.

Had a man made of death really come to save her?

Her logical mind said it was the fever as her body fought of the infection, but the infection itself, the fact that she was immune, that was enough to remind her that she was something else. Something different.

And that he had happened.

He was more than a figment of her imagination.

Tears stung her eyes as the frigid salt spray splashed her face, but she kind of liked it. It reminded her that she was alive.

It wasn’t too long before her dock came into view, and she was disappointed to see yet again that hers was the only boat in evidence. He said he’d find her when the time was right and so she waited.

She hoped.

And sometimes, hope was a miserable bastard. Nothing could be so sharp a blade as the yearning behind hope.

Elizabeth guided the boat into the docking system, and it was locked down into position. If she wished, she could use the system she’d installed to carry her all the way to the secret lagoon under her house and from there, into a decontamination room.

Kythnos had inspired her, and Roanridge hadn’t given her limit on her spending. Not that she’d gone crazy. Her home was made of old shipping containers, powered by the sun and the wind. Gray water and rainwater systems, the whole works.

Technically, she could survive an apocalypse, zombie or otherwise. She hadn’t neglected a panic room, a bunker, or an extra layer of security. She’d found herself a cold water rusalka who was more than happy to play guardian.

Everything was as she wanted it, except for Adam.

After she disembarked, she hiked up the rocky incline, breathing deep and enjoying the air.

She carried a package in her bag, and she couldn’t wait to get inside and open it.

Inside, were the original three, hand-written installments of Frankenstein.

In the months following Kythnos, she’d become obsessed, collecting everything about her family that she could.

Her study contained some gruesome, yet fascinating items. Percy’s calcified heart, wrapped in his poetry. Mary had kept it after it had refused to burn when he was cremated. Mary’s mother’s secret journal, and the bone of her left pinkie. This, and many other items were said to contain the key to the true alchemy behind life ever-lasting.

The spark that made Adam.

If Roanridge was aware of her new proclivities, it wasn’t addressed.

Unwrapping the books from the pouch, she carefully laid them out side by side and turned to chapter seven in each volume.

There, in the chapter heading were alchemical sigils.

The same elation she’d felt watching PrPM attack that glioblastoma flooded her. She’d found it. She’d found the keys.

Now, all she needed was Adam and his willingness to rip his chest open and give her a rib. Elizabeth didn’t doubt for one second that he would.

She watched the door, half expecting to see him there. He’d said when the time was right, and it had never been more right.

But life didn’t happen in perfect plot arcs. It couldn’t be wrapped up so neatly. She sank down in the chair.

“It’s not like you to give up so easily.”

There he was. Just as he’d promised. When the time was right.

She ran to him, and he swept her up into his arms. “You know how to do this?” He whispered against her lips.

“I have a lab we can use to operate. It’s ready.”

“Then so am I, because I want to give you forever.”

The monster carried his bride to the lab where he did, indeed, give her forever with his rib bone grafted to her own that caused a second heart to grow in her chest and electricity to crackle around her fingertips.

D
r. Elizabeth Wollstonecraft
still works for Bureau 7. She plans to cure brain cancer someday and still believes reprogrammed prions are key. Under interests in her company biography, she’s no longer ashamed to list “reanimation” as one of her hobbies.

Adam is a content house monster and lives to care for Elizabeth and, after writing his memoirs, has decided to pursue a career in fiction.

Dr. John Polidori washed up on an uncharted island populated by sirens. The giant electric eels have taken up patrols to keep him from leaving. He contemplates his life choices and decides that perhaps he should’ve turned left at Albuquerque.

Mad Dog Whitman officially returned home to Sleepy Hollow for some R&R, but she’s really there on a secret mission for Bureau 7. There’s a killer loose in Sleepy Hollow, but it’s not the Horseman. It’s something much worse. Read her story in
The Horseman’s Lady
.

S
aranna De Wylde
has always been fascinated by things better left in the dark. She wrote her first story after watching The Exorcist at a slumber party. Since then, she's published horror, romance and narrative nonfiction. Like all writers, Saranna has held a variety of jobs, from operations supervisor for an airline, to an assistant for a call girl, to a corrections officer. But like Hemingway said, "Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it." So she traded in her cuffs for a full-time keyboard.

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