Fangtastic (13 page)

“Maybe half a mile.”

“Good, you can wait for me there.”

“But—”

“I was told to come alone, and that's what I plan to do.”

Okay, so sneakers have their uses. For one, they have the word “sneak” right in them, so they put you straight into stealth mode. For another, they're not nearly as cute as wedges or boots or stilettos, so you're less concerned about getting blood all over them. You don't want to be thinking about your footwear replacement costs in the midst of battle. It's a distraction that can get you killed.

Here's the only problem … they're no protection against a hungry gator. But then, what is? I only hoped I didn't meet up with one. There was a patch of grass along the side of the road, maybe two or three feet wide, and then an overgrown mess of weedy forest that looked like it could reach out and grab the unwary. Trees dripped with Spanish moss; prickly thorn bushes camouflaged themselves with pretty little flowers. I wasn't going to think about the wildlife they might be hiding in there. Spiders and snakes and … Nope, those thoughts were going into the psychic shredder, along with all the other things I couldn't bear to face, like Kelly Swinter's fate. Someday my pent-up paranoias would explode on me. I just hoped I wasn't doing anything life threatening when it happened.

But for now, I'd brave the wild growth. It was the only way to sneak up on the clinic and get the lay of the land before committing. It felt like some kind of cosmic justice for what I'd done to Kelly each time a thorn gashed my arm or I stepped into a swamp—which totally described, like, half the state of Florida. Yeah, because the universe punished murder with petty torment. Or, maybe not so petty if any of the stingers or fangs I feared got ahold of me.

This was me,
not
thinking about it.

I had to circle around behind a small strip mall complex and then, finally, the clinic. I assumed so, anyway, based on Hunter's description of it as half-burnt. Huge wooden walls were erected around the building, half hiding it from view. I'd seen the same thing on umpteen construction projects in my life, but never before topped with razor-wire. In the yard hemmed in by the fence, a crane stood silent against the night. That was about all I could see from my position. As I'd known all along, I was just going to have to go in.

I heard something move in the growth behind me, and that helped get me moving. I pictured huge venomous teeth … snake, gator, it hardly mattered. I was so out of there. I slid out of the woods and began to circle the wooden wall at a decent distance, in case there were any proximity alarms or the like. The wall was solid. No knots or warps in the wood to peek through. Three quarters of the way around there was a parking lot, mostly hidden from the road by the bulk of the clinic. There were four cars in it, which seemed odd in an abandoned building with the construction stopped for the night. There was also a door in the wall—padlocked, of course—leading from the lot to the clinic yard.

The heebie-jeebies danced across my skin. I didn't know what this place was yet, but something about it freaked me out worse than the possible snakes in the grass. There was definitely something unnatural about the place. I didn't know what gave it away—maybe the razor wire or wall-mounted video cameras. Both made me
very
curious what someone was so determined to protect.

“You made it,” a voice said out of the darkness.

I whipped my head around to the right and saw a man standing there, just, I thought, out of camera range, looking all absent-minded professor.
Eric Ricci—my mystery texter?

“The Feds have been looking for you,” I said, hushed, since I didn't know what other security the clinic might have in place … guards, dogs, whatever.

“Everybody has,” he answered. “But I'm only interested in one person … my nephew.”

Wow, I so didn't know how to break it to him. “Um, you do know he's wanted by the police, right? For murder.”

He was shaking his head in denial before my sentence had fully formed. “That's not him.”

“It sure looks like him. He's been positively identified.”

“Not
him
,”
Eric insisted. “Someone's wearing Nelson's face and body, but the boy I knew is gone. I want you to find him.”

“I don't mean to sound dense, but … huh?”

“I raised that boy from a toddler. I
know
him. Whoever that is, isn't him. And the worst is, it's all my fault.”

“You've totally lost me.”

Ever have one of those nightmares where you're onstage, spotlight on you, and even though everyone else knows their lines, you don't even know what part you're playing? This felt just like that.

He huffed. “The machine taken from the pawnshop … it transfers energy.”

“Okay, I'm with you so far.”

“There was another machine, a companion piece if you will, that transfers consciousness—like a brain transplant without the risky surgery and chance of organ rejection. Just imagine the potential for psychology, politics, negotiation … Someone could literally walk a mile in someone else's shoes. But they used Nelson to get it. And, I'm afraid, as their first test subject.”

“Okay, pretend I'm not riding the crazy train with you,” I said, resisting the urge to back away slowly. “I hate to say it, but, um, your inventions don't work. You couldn't have had anything to do with whatever's happened to Nelson. I've been to your place and seen the letters—”

“Lies!” he cried, going from mild-mannered professor to psycho in zero to sixty. His eyes flamed supernova and his body language went suddenly aggressive, as if he'd like to grab me by my shoulders and shake sense into me—hard. “Those idiots at the Patent Office. They can't see the genius, the vision. Just because
they
can't make them work … or so they say. Anyway,
someone
recognized my genius. Someone close enough to make a play for the consciousness transfer device.”

“What makes you think Nelson had anything to do with it?”

“He started acting strangely … just before. Cockier, more furtive—not himself, but not in the way he's not himself now. One day, just like any other, we were home alone. I was working on my machines. I heard the door open behind me, and then, suddenly, I was out like a light.”

“Inner or outer door?”

“What? I don't know. I was lucky to remember my own name. I woke up somewhere strange, disoriented like I'd been drugged or my brain was boggled. Somehow, I escaped. I barely remember getting home, but when I did, both Nelson and the consciousness transference device were gone. I grabbed what I could and ran.”

Wow, so many questions, so little time. “Was anything else missing besides your nephew and your brain-swap thingie?”

He looked furtively left and right, as if to make sure the trees weren't listening in. “That came later. I decided to pawn the energy transference machine and kind of put the word out on the street. I thought that whoever had the first device might come for the second. I thought I could flush out whoever it was Nelson was mixed up with, and track them to him.”

“And?”

He grabbed my arm, trying to convey his need. The touch made my skin prickle. At first I thought it was goose bumps, but then I realized it was
power
. Every time Bobby used his telekinesis or other mental mojo, and when Brent had “read” the vault, I'd felt a similar tingle. But Eric's power was different from either of theirs—unfocused, almost raw and wild. Not like a wave, more like a live wire. I wondered if
he
was aware of it.

Speaking of focus, I had to get back on track. Daylight would come far too soon. “So, you think someone else is walking around in Nelson's shoes?” This I could identify with.

“I know it. I've been staking out that club he always disappeared to, as well as the pawnshop, but there's only one of me. I can't be in two places at once; I have to sleep sometime.”

All very interesting, edging on cuckoo-bananas, but I didn't see how any of that put us in the middle of the woods just a couple of hours before dawn.

“And this place?”

He released my gaze long enough to look at the burnt-out clinic and back.

“You have to promise me something first,” he said.

“What?”

“I found this for you. You have to find him for me.”

I so wished someone would hand me a script. “Great, you found it. I didn't know it was lost.
But what is it
?”

“You know animal testing—cosmetics, cancer cures, sugar substitutes?”

I nodded. I had a conscience. I might get some of my beauty out of a bottle, but not one with products first tested on cute fuzzy bunnies.

“Well, this”—he lowered his voice and looked around stealthily, even though we'd already have been caught if anyone were listening—“is a supernatural testing facility.”

My mind was officially blown. “Come again? And how do you know any of this?”

“I found it when I was looking for my nephew. I figured that if someone was walking around in Nelson's skin,
Nelson
had to be somewhere else. He was in so tight with the vampires—”

“Humans pretending to be vampires,” I cut in, hoping to keep the secret.

He gave me a look that said
he
wasn't stupid, but the jury was still out on me. “I thought that too, at first. Now I know better. Anyway, I knew that if anyone had Nelson, it was
them
,”
he continued. “I put a watch on the Tower, but I wasn't the only one watching. One day, I saw one of the young vamps kidnapped. I followed his trace here.”

“Kidnapped by who?”

“I think you know.”

Well, crap on a crispy, crumbly, craptastic cracker.
The Feds
?

“This,” I said very clearly, just to be sure, “is a facility where testing is done on vampires?”

“Not just vampires.”

My knees nearly buckled. What else was there? I mean, aside from telemetrics like Brent and people who could make books bleed, like my goth friend Bram from New York once said he'd seen … Crap, there was a whole magical world out there I'd never really thought about. I'd been so busy becoming a vamp and fighting for my un-life that I'd never really questioned things. Were there really such things as werewolves? Shifters? Fairies?

“And it's run by the Feds?” I continued, my brain still unable to grasp what he was saying.

“Look for yourself. That's why I've brought you here. First, you see what they're up to. Then you go deeper. You find Nelson for me, and I'll tell you anything you could possibly need to know.”

Need to know
—it always came back to that.

Eric tapped his pocket in an oddly purposeful movement, then
poof
,
he was gone. Again. Just like at the pawnshop. I whirled around, looking, listening, waiting to spot the tell-tale motion of tree branches swinging back into place or to hear the crash of footfalls, but there was
nothing
.

It was like someone had just ended his transmission. Had he really even been here, or had he been more like Princess Leia in the little robot guy's memory? And yes, it scared me that I remembered more from that movie than Han in his tight pants and open-necked shirt. Either way, some of the mad scientist's inventions clearly worked, because outside of a Vegas magic show, I'd never seen anyone vanish into thin air before.

1
1

There I stood, all alone in the dark night, about to break into a building that should be deserted but wasn't. It might be fire-damaged or condemned. It was most certainly dangerous.

I debated waiting until tomorrow night when I could return with a man and a plan. Bobby'd proven himself a whiz kid at breaking and entering in the past; I could totally break, and probably enter, though not necessarily without getting caught. But I was becoming a little too reliant on my boy toy. I wasn't in the market for dependence. No matter what the sales tag said or how cute the packaging, dependence was like a lifetime subscription … you just paid and paid.

No, I needed to do this on my own, to prove I could totally
own
a solo and wasn't just kept around for background beautification. This Everybody Wants Bobby thing was understandable. Hell,
I
wanted the boy. But the longer this mission went on, the more I realized that I was done with being bait, done with being dispensable and with playing entourage, the pawn of vampires and Feds. It was starting to make me forget who I was: Gina flippin' Covello, Queen of the Glammed.

I could do this
.
Maybe. Probably.
Definitely
.
Failure was not an option.

I took a deep breath and studied the wall in front of me. I had seen a chained and padlocked entrance onto the grounds near the parking lot, but no doubt that would be the most closely monitored. So it looked like I'd be going over the wall, razor wire and all. I thought for a minute about taking off my shirt and throwing it over the wire, but I was pretty sure the light of the moon reflecting off my lily-white skin would give me away to anyone walking the perimeter. Although the sight of a half-dressed girl nearly glowing in the moonlight might be distraction enough for me to find a way past.

I approached the wall, praying I wouldn't set off any proximity alarms or disrupt any laser beams or whatever. Hopefully, with as much wildlife as they probably got out here, motion detectors and the like would be too much trouble. If I had tripped anything, I couldn't hear it. With my luck, that probably only meant the alarms were silent.

Close now, I rapped on the wall with my knuckles, only to have a metallic sort of sound come back to me, like the wood was just a façade over sheet metal. I walked a few feet and tried again, in case I'd encountered a lone dumpster or something on the other side of the wall with my first knock. My second was no better. Darn, then. Climbing and razor wire it was. The surveillance cameras wouldn't catch me, of course, but they'd totally spot any smooshing of the wire, so I had to be really, really careful.

And yet, I had to be fast. In, out, and back to my place before dawn fried me to a crisp. Nothing like a challenge.

I backed up several steps, did some stretches to limber up—my old gym teacher would have been so proud—took a deep breath out of habit, and ran at the wall. Two feet out, I gathered my tennies beneath me and leapt for all I was worth, aiming for the very top. What I really wanted was the ability to leap tall walls in a single bound, like some kind of super heroine—Fangtastic Girl or Chic Chick or something. The costume would come with some kick-ass boots for me. Maybe a bustier for Bobby's enjoyment.

What really happened was that I landed hard, hands closing on
pain
,
fighting the need to release the biting blades. My knees banged against the wood; my feet scrabbled against the barrier as I fought to pull them up under me. I didn't look too fangtastic flailing around on that wall, blowing in the breeze like the cape I wouldn't have on
my
super suit. Finally, one foot caught long enough for me to push myself up until I crouched on the wall, crushing wire. I could release the barbs I'd been holding onto, but they continued to do their job, tearing chunks out of my palms, bringing blood and flesh with them as I mercilessly pulled back. I was going to leave behind enough DNA to tag me if my point of entry was discovered. Unless … I didn't know how it worked for vamps, being technically dead. Would my blood spoil as soon as it was out of my body, decompose as if I had really died at death? Did blood go bad, or did it keep like fine wine and Twinkies? Eww, two things that never should have occurred to me in the same sentence. Anyway, I was hoping for instant spoilage, like the dust to dust of Buffy-verse vamps.

I licked the blood off my own hands, squicked out even as I did it but there was no point wasting blood or leaving a trail for someone to follow. As the wounds started to close, hurting like a thousand paper cuts, I gathered myself and jumped to the ground.

“What do you think?” a voice came out of nowhere, approaching. There were no trees to duck behind. Nothing but the metal sheeting up against the wooden walls, and not enough space between them for me. I faded back into the shadows. “Think it's another of those turkey vultures?”

“Wish they'd just let us electrify the wiring and be done with it. Barbeque one bird and the rest will stay away, I guarantee you that.”

“Can't … liability,” his friend snorted. “What if some kid tried to climb in, looking for a place to party?”

They were just inches away from me now. The Pyro, as I decided to call the fry boy who wanted to burn the birds, unhooked a flashlight the size of a telescope from his belt and shone it at the razor wire where I'd just been. I wondered what he was compensating for with a light that size, but I decided I really didn't want to know.

“Well, we got somethin',” he said. “Blood. And I think some tissue as well. No feathers.”

“Fur?”

The flashlight beam moved left and right.

“Nope.” Pyro's voice was suddenly hard-edged, and I knew they'd just figured out this was no routine run or false alarm.

“I'll call it in.”

Well,
darn
.
I'd have to take down Pyro and his pal. Faster than the security dude could unclip his walkie-talkie, I flew out of the shadows, aiming a roundhouse kick at his chest. Something crunched—the walkie-talkie, I hoped, and not a rib—and he went down like a sacked quarterback.

“Holy shit!” Pyro shouted, swinging his flashlight my way like a police baton. It was certainly big enough. I kicked it out of his hand, dropped, whirled, and took his feet out from under him. He fell to the ground but landed on his back, legs up in the air, scissoring to catch me in the knee. I started to buckle and he caught me again, this time with a heel to the other shin. I dropped and rolled for the light I'd kicked out of his hand and came up swinging. The thing was as heavy as a metal pipe. Between that and my super-vamp strength, I was going to have to be careful not to cave in his skull.

It turned out not to be a problem. The flashlight was grabbed out of my hand by the first guy, who'd recovered from my boot to his chest. Crap!

He brought the flashlight crashing down on me instead. Oh, I saw the light—a comic book
KAPOW
flash exploded my vision into a night's sky full of stars and little else—but I knew where he'd been a second ago, and I was fast enough to take advantage. I launched myself at him, shoulder aimed just above the belt buckle, at the soft part of his stomach. He
oophed
and crumpled over me, at which point I used his momentum to toss him on top of Pyro, who was scrambling to his aid.

My vision started to clear as they went down in a big puppy pile, tangling limbs when Guy Two tried to catch Guy One before they collided. It was precious, really. I grabbed the zip-tie cuffs off their belts before they could recover and got their hands under control. Then I removed their talkies and their belts, which held all kinds of goodies—pepper spray, weapon-sized Swiss Army knives, tasers, and stakes, all of which I kept for myself. I was now a one-woman arsenal. Oh yeah, these guys knew they weren't just guarding any old facility. I guessed I was lucky they'd mistaken me for a turkey vulture.
Offended
,
of course, but lucky. Otherwise they might have come with crossbows locked and loaded with wooden bolts. Or guns filled with holy water. Because nothing said horror like facing down a neon pink water pistol.

Then I frisked them.

“Hey, at least buy a guy dinner first,” Pyro protested.

“A little to the right,” his friend quipped, when I had my paws in
his
pockets.

“Okay, first off,
ewww
.
And second … no, just ewww. And maybe
hell no
.”
I drew back with keycards and keys. “Why don't you use this time to think up some better lines? You may also consider how to update your résumés, because I'm pretty sure by tomorrow your positions will be available. Ta!”

I rose and looked around for any further surprises. I had, like, maybe a little over an hour left before dawn. Enough time to get in, get a glimpse, and get home? I had to hope so. The keycards would help as long as they didn't have any biometric sorts of scanners, like eyeball or fingerprint identification. I looked at the twits for a moment, trying to imagine cutting off fingers or popping out eyes to defeat the scanners, and just couldn't. Sure, I'd beat them up in the heat of battle, but actually maiming them … permanently … Something rose in my throat, scalding hot, actually burning its way up like lava or venom or …

I threw up in the bushes. It wasn't about them. It was about Kelly Swinter, if that was her I'd left behind in the fire. And me. And how far I'd go. You didn't fight a war without casualties, right? But if this was a war, whose side was I on?

I wiped my mouth and straightened, seeing two sets of eyes on me in the night. Like they
knew
.
I couldn't do the eyes. I just couldn't. But the finger … Could I?

“Tell me now,” I said, looking over them. “What kind of security am I facing inside? Retinal scans?” I'd remembered the word for eyeball access. “Facial recognition? What?”

They exchanged looks, and I knew they were silently
trying to coordinate their stories. Whatever came out would be lies.

“Nothin' like that,” Pyro lied. “Keycards, video cameras, more guards like us.”

I saw his partner roll onto his hands just slightly, as if out of sight would keep them out of mind, and I had my real answer.

I grabbed up the flashlight that had already seen so much action and knocked them both out. I couldn't have them calling for help once I'd gone, and it would be so much easier to do what I had to do if they weren't awake to feel the pain or watch me. I chose Pyro, and tried to take just the pads of his fingers—thumb and index. His Bic-flicking fingers. I almost tossed my cookies again as I cut into him with his own Swiss Army knife. I tried to focus on
my
friends and the idea of one of them in a facility like this … Marcy or my spy-sister Cassandra; Trevor or Di or any of the others I'd gotten into this whole spy game, all unwittingly. Even Alistaire, psycho-psychic, who was soooo not my problem, didn't deserve to do time as a lab rat. Still, I hated myself just a little. But I hated the thought of failure more.

The portion of the facility farthest away from me was burnt out and boarded up. Rubble, a dumpster, and a cement truck sat silently down at that end. On my end the windows were still boarded, but there was no rubble. Not only did it seem untouched by fire, but access had been upgraded with a keycard reader and, sure enough, fingerprint scanner. At least my butchery wasn't in vain.

Totally grossed out as I did it, I pressed Pyro's prints into the plate, swiped his card, and stepped aside as the door whooshed open, just in case any surprises awaited me. Artificially cool air came spilling out, but nothing else. No additional guards. I stepped inside and let the door close behind me. It looked like this used to be the emergency area of the clinic. The doors opened right onto a waiting room with natty chairs and a window in one wall where a receptionist would control any further access inside. Only there was no receptionist. There
were
two vacant chairs where Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber outside had probably sat watching the various security bells and whistles, but I had the lobby all to myself.

There was another keycard scanner beside the receptionist/security window, but I listened at the door before using it. No sounds escaped. Either the coast was clear or the place was soundproofed. I was going to have to find out sooner or later, and I was burning night. I swiped the card, opened the door, and slipped through, closing it behind me—only to be faced with a currently unmanned nurses' station. A blinking red light went ignored. A hallway spun off from the station in both directions, all covered in bathroom-white tile and smelling of bleach so strong it singed my nose hairs. Not that I was using them for anything.

This is too easy
.
The thought kept playing over and over again in my head. I mean, I was good, but these were the
Feds
.
They were supposed to be better. I crept to the first door on the right and peeked inside the postage-flap-sized window, crisscrossed with metal reinforcements that resembled chicken wire. My breath caught. Inside, bound to a bed, was someone who looked more skeleton than man … his skin nearly collapsed in on his bones as if all the muscle supporting the flesh had melted away. His eyes were closed, but twitched as though he were dreaming … nightmares, most likely. An IV pole stood on one side of his bed, the unmistakable red of blood dripping down through the tubes into his sunken wrist. On the other side stood a cart, another red-filled tube extending to it from his other arm. At first I couldn't understand why. Blood in, blood out. Pointless much?