Books by Maggie Shayne (143 page)

And I lay there in the garbage. And my eyes cleared. I could see. I could see everything. Every aspect of his white face, and black eyes, and bloodstained lips. Every grain of sand in the bricks of the building beside me. Every star in the sky. My skin tingled with new life, new awareness.
I felt
in a way I’d never felt before. The shape of each snowflake as it hit my skin. Every molecule of chilly air that caressed my face. Every pebble and piece of trash that lay beneath me. I could identify each vile smell. And my hearing…I could hear the conversations of people passing on the street. The roll of tires on the wet pavement. The squeaking of snow-dampened brakes.

I heard the traffic light turn green
.

“What is this?” I cried, and my own voice was so shockingly different, so vivid and rich and clear, that I pressed my hands to my ears and squeezed my eyes shut tight.

“You’ll learn to control it,” he told me. “You can close it out, hear only what you wish to hear. You’ll learn. I’ll teach you.” He removed my hands from my ears, pressed them to the rubbish at my sides. “I’ll teach you. You’ll live forever, Angelica. You’re not mortal anymore. You’re like me now.”

I opened my eyes. “Like you?” I was horrified.

“Yes.”

And my heart seemed to stop beating as I realized what he had done, what I had allowed him to do. “I’m damned,” I whispered.

“Come. Your first lesson awaits.” He hauled me to my feet, dragged me toward the mouth of the alley, though I pulled against him. My habit was torn as he grabbed at me. “Strong,” he whispered. “Already, you’re very strong. You’ll be even stronger, Angelica, after we feed.” He stopped, holding me there at the mouth of the alley, and I watched his odd, black eyes scan the passersby.

“Feed?” I whispered, terrified.

“Yes,” he said, and he smiled. I saw his teeth then, his fangs, razor sharp and glistening. “On them.” He nodded toward the people who passed.

Horror enveloped my heart. He was a monster! A demon.
A…a vampire
. I shivered as the word whispered in my mind. He’d made of me another creature just like him. And I’d allowed it. I’d even taken part in it. I’d—

He caught me up in his arms, though I fought, and he carried me back into the alley. Slinging me over his shoulder, he clutched the side of the building and began to climb. Like a spider, he made his way to the very top, and I stopped my struggling for fear I would fall. Higher and higher he went, and the wind blew stronger here. My beloved snowflakes became weapons. Tiny arrows slung by the Angel of the Lord to punish me. Cutting my face with their biting touch. And yet I did not shiver or suffer from the cold. Only felt it more acutely than I ever had.

He climbed onto the roof, and then raced over rooftops, leaping from one to the next. I think I screamed as we seemed to sail through the night sky like true demons. I think I screamed. If so, the sound of it is only a vague memory now.

We made our way to the ground again, to the streets, and I knew where we were. Not far from the shelter where I’d been so arrogantly going this night. Oh, why had I been so rebellious? Why?

He pointed, and I looked. A handful of the city’s homeless stood around a fire barrel, warming their hands near the dancing flames. Red-orange light painting their haggard faces and illuminating their tattered clothes.

“There,” he said. “Our victims…ours for the taking, Angelica. Their lives will be no great loss.”

The people I’d spent years trying to help. This man intended to feed on them, to use them in order to sustain his own cursed life. “No,” I begged him. “No, please, we mustn’t. It’s a sin to kill!” For I knew that murder was exactly what he had on his mind.

He left me free to run if I chose. He must have known, animal that he was, that I could not. Like a great, stalking wolf, he crept up on them. But quickly. So quickly there was no time for me to shout a warning. And then, without hesitation, he grabbed one. There was a shout of alarm, and then the others scattered, vanishing in the night. And he held the man he’d chosen. A terror-stricken, aged face that I knew I had seen before. In the shelter. In the soup kitchens where I’d worked. I’d given him blankets, and that very sweater he wore. I’d prayed with him.

I raced forward, but too late. The beast had plunged his wretched teeth into the neck of the innocent old man. I battered his head, clawed at his face, but he only released his victim when he’d taken his fill. He lifted his head, and he smiled at me. And his lips gleamed scarlet in the firelight. I backed away, shaking my head, working my mouth but unable to speak.

The man whose name I could not recall slumped to the ground, eyes wide, but already glazing over. His face was the face of death, bathed in the dancing glow of the fire in the barrel beside him.

The monster licked his lips, and then with the speed of a striking cobra, snatched a handful of my hair and pulled, making me cry out in pain. “You shall never fight me again, Angelica. You’re mine now. Mine, do you understand? All your life I’ve watched you, waited for you. You’ll go where I go. Do as I say. Feed when I feed.” He glanced past me, into the shadows, and that evil smile returned. “Even now your first victim waits. There, quivering in the night, thinking we cannot see him in the darkness.” He stared down into my face. “I’ll bring him to you, and you will take him, Angelica. You will drain him dry, or suffer my wrath.” And then he released me and started forward. I turned and saw the boy, a mere youth, dressed in tattered rags, crouching in the darkness, shivering and wide-eyed with fear. And I could not let that creature take his life. I could not.

My hand closed around a piece of wood that protruded from the fire barrel. The end I grasped was not burning, but as I pulled it out, I saw that the other end was aflame. With a low growl, one I could not believe came from me, I lunged forward, swinging my torchlike weapon with all of my newfound strength.

But it wasn’t the force of my blow that did the deed. The flaming end of the club crashed against the vampire’s head, knocking him to his knees. But I’m sure the damage I did was minimal. It was the flame. The blaze seemed to leap at him, fire licking at his hair, and then at his clothes. He surged to his feet, his lips parting in a snarl as he came at me. But the fire…I crossed myself as I watched it engulf him. It seemed as if he’d been doused in gasoline, the way the flames spread. I backed away when he reached for me. And that was all. He fell to the ground, and there was a surge of white-hot flames. And then nothing. The flames died away as if they’d never been. The tiny sparks and embers sailed into the night and blinked out, one by one. And not even ashes remained to soil the perfect white snow at my feet.

The boy in the shadows was gone, and I could hear his fleeing footsteps still reaching my ears as he ran. I staggered away, shocked, terrified, appalled. I had killed. I had been transformed. I was a creature like the one I had murdered. I was damned. Damned.

His hearing was excellent. Not preternaturally so, since he was still a mere mortal, but good enough to know what was going on. The bastards were going to kill him.

For three days, he’d been strapped to this table, inside this tiny cell. Poked and prodded by DPI scientists in white lab coats until there wasn’t an inch of his skin they hadn’t violated. Nothing. There wasn’t a bodily fluid they hadn’t taken samples of. Not one. But it wasn’t humiliation he felt. It was rage. And this time, the bastards would pay. Jameson Bryant might not be a vampire, but he wasn’t a child any longer, either. He was a grown man, and as of tonight, he was a man bent on revenge. He’d tear this building down brick by brick when he got free. He’d destroy the Division of Paranormal Investigations and everyone connected with it.

Jameson understood DPI’s interest in him. He knew—had known since he was a boy—that he was different. His blood type was rare, shared with only a chosen few. The belladonna antigen made him a subject of study for these so-called scientists. The few, rare individuals with this blood type were the only mortals capable of being transformed. Being made over…becoming vampires. And every living vampire had claimed the belladonna antigen during their mortal lives.

DPI, in their quest to learn all there was to know about the undead—and thus enable themselves to rid the world of them—often used live research subjects. But they’d had their chance with Jameson long ago, when he’d been just a boy. And they’d nearly killed him then. Would have, if not for his undead friends. Roland in particular. Still, they’d had their time with Jameson Bryant. Surely there was no more they could learn from him now.

God, to think Tamara had once worked for these bastards! But she hadn’t known. She hadn’t known.

Jameson didn’t know why every preternatural being on the planet didn’t band together and destroy DPI the way DPI was intent on destroying them. They didn’t deserve the constant harassment, the fear they were forced to live with due to this secretive government agency. Oh, certainly, there were evil ones among the undead. Just as there were among any race of beings. But for the most part, vampires were the best people Jameson had ever known. They’d taken him in when his mother had died. Practically raised him.

Well, if Roland and Eric and the others wouldn’t raise a hand to bring this organization to ruin, Jameson would. It was time. Long past time.

They had their “specimens” he’d heard them say. The experiment had been completed in record time, and now they could go on with phase two, whatever the hell that was. Well. They weren’t fools then. DPI knew from experience that Jameson Bryant’s friends were not the kind of people they wanted to tangle with. And now they would “dispose of the subject” before any of his undead protectors were the wiser.

He pulled against the straps that held his arms and legs to the cold, metallic table. They had a surprise coming if they thought he’d go down without a fight. This might not be Jameson’s first involvement with DPI, but it would damned well be his last.

One way or another.

“Jamey!”

At the harsh whisper, Jameson turned his head as far as the restraints would allow. And then he swore, because Roland stood at his cell, bending the bars apart as if they were made of rubber.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“What the hell do you think?” Roland stepped into the cell and easily tore through the straps that held Jameson pinned down. “Are you all right, Jamey?”

“Fine. And it’s Jameson now.” He sat up, jumped down from the table and faced down the man he loved like a father. A man who was centuries old, but who appeared not much older than Jameson was now. Though a bit paler skinned, and with eyes that gleamed a little brighter than a mere mortal’s would.

Roland smiled. “I keep forgetting. Look at you. You dwarf me now.”

“What you keep forgetting, Roland, is that I don’t want my friends risking their lives for me.”

“It would have been riskier to leave you to them,” Roland said, and he shrugged sheepishly. “Rhiannon would have fed me to her cat.”

Jameson tried to hold on to his anger, but that was a useless effort. He could well imagine Roland’s mate, Rhiannon, threatening just that, and since her “cat” was no less than a panther, it was a threat not to be taken lightly. Not that she’d ever carry it out. She adored her husband.

Jameson embraced Roland, who hugged him back just as fiercely. It had been a long time since they’d seen each other. Jameson had been leading a fairly normal, mortal life in San Diego, under an assumed name, thinking DPI would never find him again. He owned a bar there, and profits were good.

And then one day as he’d locked up and headed for his car, he’d been grabbed by two thugs in dark suits, and the next thing he knew he was strapped to a table in White Plains. Talk about deja vu.

“We can catch up later,” Roland said, releasing him. “Eric is—”

“Eric is here?” Jameson asked, suddenly angry all over again. Damn, when would they learn not to risk their lives every time he got into trouble? “And Tamara?”

“She’s waiting outside with Rhiannon.”

Jameson backed away from Roland, stiff with renewed anger. “Dammit, Roland, how could you let Tamara come here? You know what could happen. What they’d do if they ever got their filthy hands on her again!”

“She wouldn’t stay behind. You know her well enough to know—‘”

“Hurry it up, will you?” Eric appeared at the cell door, a small cut on his forehead trickling scarlet. “One of them got away, and—” He broke off, eyes widening slightly as they skimmed Jameson, head to toe. “Good God, has it been that long? Look at you!”

Jameson shook his head, wondering how the hell a thirty-year-old adult man could be made to feel fourteen again. He supposed it could only happen when the two who made him feel that way were several centuries older. It would probably never change, no matter how long he lived. Roland grasped his arm, and hurried from the cell, pulling Jameson along with him. They ran into the hall, following Eric, who led the way to the nearest window. He stopped there, pushing it open.

Jameson planted his feet, and looked from one man to the other. “You guys are kidding, right? We’re on the tenth floor for—”

The two flanked him, gripped his arms and jumped.

“Two guards dead,” DPI supervisor Wes Fuller repeated, though everyone in this staff meeting already knew the body count. “Six others injured. And that bastard Jameson Bryant gone, free as a bird.” He rapped the pipe, bowl down, against the glass ashtray, expelling the spent tobacco.

“Doesn’t matter.” Chief aide Stiles went over the checklist on his clipboard, nodding as he did. “We got everything we needed from him. Our theory was correct. Once they’re transformed, the males are sterile. Beforehand, though, while they’re still human—‘”

“Human my ass. They’re only passing. Animals, all of them.”

“Yes, well…” Stiles cleared his throat. “At any rate, before that kind is changed over, they’re fertile. The belladonna antigen doesn’t seem to affect the sperm count.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” Fuller pushed his chair away from the conference table, the casters squealing in protest of his bulk, and got to his feet. He turned his gaze to Dr. Rose Sversky, who was pushing seventy, and still the sharpest member of DPIs research team. She had snowy-white hair, cut short, to go with her pixielike frame. She ought to be wearing an apron and rocking grandbabies, not dissecting vampires.

“You have the data?” Fuller asked. “What’s the breakdown?”

Rose adjusted her Coke-bottle-thick eyeglasses and cleared her throat. “Of the twelve thousand, five hundred female subjects we’ve tested and/or autopsied in the past two decades,” she said, her voice clinical and cold, “just over three thousand still had viable egg cells in their ovaries. Ninety-eight percent of those had been transformed for less than a year. None of them for more than twenty-three months.” She looked up from her notes, and moved her glasses down a notch to peer at him over the tops of them. “To break it down, Mr. Fuller, yes. It is entirely possible that a newly formed female vampire could mate with a mortal male, and produce a child.”

Hilary Garner’s pencil lead snapped off. The sound drew Fuller’s cold eyes, and he scowled at her. “Try and keep up, Garner. We’ll need these notes.”

“Yes, sir.” She blinked the horror from her eyes, and went to the desk for a fresh pencil. She’d only recently been promoted to this position, executive secretary to Weston Fuller. It came with a huge bonus in pay, terrific hours…and some frightening, sickening revelations as to what this organization was truly about.

She hadn’t believed her friend and co-worker Tamara Dey, all those years ago, when she’d tried to warn her. She hadn’t seen anything to indicate that what Tamara had said was true. The kidnappings, the torture, the murders.

Hilary paused there, staring down at her reflection in the solid silver pencil holder on Fuller’s expensive desk. Caramel skin, and wide brown eyes with a few crow’s feet at the corners stared back at her, and her reflection whispered, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Hurry it up, Garner. I haven’t got all day.”

Clearing her throat, Hilary snatched a pencil from the holder and hurried back to her seat beside Chief Fuller.

“Now then,” he began, still addressing Rose Sversky, who looked far too sweet and far too old to be involved in a covert government agency. But she was involved. Up to her bushy white eyebrows. She was the world’s top—and, Hilary thought, likely the world’s
only
—forensic pathologist specializing in the examination of the remains of vampires. But Fuller was still speaking and Hilary was supposed to be paying attention.

“Suppose one of these females were to mate with a mortal who carried the antigen? What would the results be?”

Rose shrugged. “A baby, I imagine.” She winked, and an uneasy chuckle went around the table.

“Yes, but what
kind
of baby?” Fuller looked around the room, eyeing each high-ranking agent at the conference table one by one. “Don’t you
see
what I’m getting at here? Should these creatures find a way to reproduce, we’d be outnumbered within a few years.”

“So what are you suggesting we do about it?” Every eye turned to Hilary when she blurted the question. Hell, she wasn’t supposed to have any input at all here. Just sit quietly and take notes while the big boys made their plans. Rose was the only female at the table besides Hilary, and she was only there because they couldn’t get by without her.

Wes Fuller leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her as if he were awaiting an apology. Hilary sat up a little straighter, looking him dead in the eye, and not giving him one.

The tension stretched to the breaking point, and finally he came forward, slapping his palms on the tabletop and leaning toward her. “What we’re going to do about it, Miss Garner, is find out.”

“F-findout…?”

“Find out what the results of such a mating would be. Research, Garner. That’s what we do here.” He nodded to Stiles, returning to his former comfortable, almost lounging position in his chair as he made life-and-death decisions as though he were ordering lunch. “We have the frozen samples from Jameson Bryant, and you say they’re fertile?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Then he turned his attention to Whaley, the eastern regional operative coordinator. “We’ll need a female, newly changed over. Preferably close by so we don’t run into trouble getting her here.”

Whaley nodded once, sharply. “I’ll put every operative in the area on alert. We’ll have a subject within the week.”

“Good.” Fuller smiled grimly, then glanced into Hilary’s eyes, making her feel dirty inside. “You have any sort of problem with this?”

She blinked, lowered her chin, said nothing.

“I hope not,” Fuller told her. “Because we deal harshly with employees who can’t stomach the work we do here, Miss Garner. Very harshly.”

“I understand,” she said, meeting his gaze once more. And she knew when she looked into those chilling eyes, that she did. She understood perfectly. If she tried to get out, tried to walk away…she would die. Or disappear, just like pretty young Tamara had done so long ago. And no one would ever be the wiser.

Fuller dismissed them, and one by one they filed out of his office. He stopped her at the door and nodded back at the notepad she’d left on the table. “Have those notes typed up and ready for me within the hour,” he barked, and then he pushed past her into the corridor with the others.

Hilary only nodded and watched him go.

“Are you feeling all right, dear?”

She brought her head up fast, and searched Rose Sversky’s aging face as she gathered file folders from the table. They were alone in Fuller’s office, and against her better judgment, Hilary closed the door.

“Rose…how can you be a part of something like this?”

Rose frowned, scanning a sheet before closing a folder and adding it to her stack. “Something like what? It’s research. It’s necessary.”

“It’s more than that.”

Rose looked at her then,
really
looked at her. She pulled her glasses lower on her nose, tilted her head back and seemed to search Hilary’s face.

Hilary moved forward, as if by being closer she could reach the woman. “This place is a prison. Do you know they have prisoners in the sublevels? Locked up in cells like animals?”

“Of course I know, dear. I’m the head researcher.”

She could have slapped Hilary and shocked her less. “You know?” Rose nodded. God, Hilary thought, she’d probably known all along. Hilary had found out only recently, and she’d stupidly assumed the kind-looking old woman would be as appalled and horrified by the news as she had been. “But, Rose…”

“But nothing. We’re not talking genocide here. These are animals, not human beings. They
feed on
human beings. For heaven’s sakes, it’s them or us. Surely you can see that.”

Hilary took a backward step, the wind knocked out of her. “But…but what they want to do! A baby, for the love of Christ! And what will happen to it if they succeed?”

“Not a baby. A pup. A young animal, no different from the rest.” She slipped her glasses back to their former position, and sighed. “It would be the most incredible research opportunity we’ve ever had.”

Hilary swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. This was the stuff of nightmares, and she was going to throw up. Was this sweet little old lady actually getting wistful about the chance to carve up a child? Her hands were damp with sweat and shaking, and she felt dizzy as a sense of unreality washed over her. Her knees tried to buckle. She braced a hand on the table to keep from falling down.

“Hilary,” Rose began, taking a step forward, narrowing her eyes. “You do understand why this is necessary, don’t you? Because, if you don’t—” her face softened with a blatantly false smile and equally phony concern clouding her eyes “—I can arrange to have you taken off this case. Perhaps you weren’t quite ready for this promotion. Not everyone can handle the research we do here, and DPI is quite aware of that.”

Her voice had changed. Become sugary. And there was a dark suspicion behind that fake concern in her eyes.

Of course DPI is aware of it. And the ones who can’t stomach the work here disappear without a trace.

Hilary swallowed hard, shook her head. “No, I think I understand it better now. You’re right. It’s necessary. I’m…glad we talked.”

“Of course,” Rose replied, and her smile became a little more genuine. “Any time you have misgivings, you can come to me. All right?”

“Thank you. I’ll do that.”
And you’ll run right back to Fuller to report everything I say. Hell, you’ll probably add this little conversation to their file on me
.

Still smiling, Rose hugged her stack of manila folders to her chest and left the office. Hilary leaned back against the door, and tried to quell the nausea. She’d said too much, blurted her thoughts without thinking first. Let herself see Rose Sversky as a stereotype. A sweet old lady. Somebody’s grandma. Mrs. Santa Claus. Dammit, she was nuts to have opened this can of worms with that woman. Rose had been aware of the atrocities DPI was sponsoring for years. Years! Hell, she was likely a part of them!

And what would she do now? Had Hilary saved herself in time, or had she given herself away completely? And what if she had?

She was scared. Jesus, she was scared.

Jameson and the others stayed a few days in Rhiannon’s Manhattan penthouse. Heavy black draperies lined every window, with dark shades beneath them. And there wasn’t a coffin in the place. Everyone slept in beds, by Rhiannon’s order. She liked the good life, Rhiannon did. Satin sheets on every bunk in the suite.

Jameson had to smile at her antics. She certainly kept the conservative and staid Roland hopping.

Roland. How many times had he saved Jameson’s life now? Three? Four? There was the time DPI agent Curt Rogers had kidnapped Jameson when he was—what, twelve? That prick had left him tied up in a condemned building in the heart of winter. All just a ploy to get to Tamara, of course. If Roland hadn’t found him after he’d fallen down those stairs, though…

And then, later, after his mother died, that bastard Lucien had taken him, offered to trade his life for the dark gift. Once again, his friends had stepped in to save him. Rhiannon had nearly died that time in the effort.

And now, here they were again. Pulling him from the jaws of death in the nick of time. So certain that just because he was still mortal, he couldn’t take care of himself.

Hell, he was half vampire already. He lived like one. Slept days, and worked nights. It had come naturally to him, after spending so much time in their company. Even when Roland had found Jameson’s natural father for him, and sent him to live with the man in California, he’d stuck to his nocturnal ways. .

Someday, he supposed, he’d ask one of them to change him over. Someday. Not yet, though. He still had a few mortal years left, and he’d like to see a lot more sunrises before he said goodbye to them forever. He liked a good steak, a glass of wine, and he wasn’t ready to give it all up for a strictly liquid diet.

“You guys shouldn’t hang out in the city for very long,” he warned the others, as he paced the floor that night. Their third night here. “You know the place is practically lousy with those DPI bastards.”

Rhiannon smiled. “I wish I would run into one of them.” She licked her lips, earning her a scowl from Roland. It didn’t faze her. She reached down and stroked a path over Pandora’s head, and the cat batted playfully at her hand.

“You’re right, Jamey,” Tamara said softly, and she went to the nearest window to part the draperies and snap the shade so it rolled up on itself. Then she stared out at the glittering skyline. “But I don’t want to leave until you do. I know you’re still furious. And I know you want revenge.”

He shrugged. “That’s my problem. I’m not going to keep telling you, I don’t want you involved in my troubles, Tam. You’re going to get yourself killed one of these times, sticking your nose in where—‘”

“I had a dream.”

Jameson stopped talking when she turned slowly, pinning him to the spot with her huge, black eyes. “Jamey, I had a dream… about you.”

Eric lifted one brow at his wife’s statement, setting aside the book he’d been reading. A new one on quantum physics. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“I didn’t say anything the first time…but…I had it again, today.” She swung her gaze to Jameson’s, shaking her head sadly. “It wasn’t visual. Just a feeling. A horrible feeling that something’s going to happen to you, Jamey. Right here, in this city. So I’m not leaving. Not until you do.”

Jameson lowered his head, seeing no sense in arguing with Tam. She’d been like a sister to him, even when she was mortal. Protective even then.

“Well now,” Rhiannon purred, slinking across the room to stand beside Tamara with as much grace as that cat of hers. “I agree. We remain. If anyone touches Jameson, we…” She smiled that half smile that had been giving him wet dreams since the first day he’d laid eyes on her. “Take action,” she finished.

Jameson grated his teeth. It didn’t matter that he was taller than Roland, or that his muscles were more firmly developed from hours in the gym than Eric’s had ever been. It didn’t matter that he’d found a gray hair amid the jet-black ones last week, or that he’d celebrated his thirtieth birthday the month before that. They’d always see him as a child in need of their protection. Always.