Heroes (17 page)

Maybe it would help if she didn’t like humans so much. Maybe it would be better for her if she didn’t believe, deep in her soul, that she was human, just diurnally challenged. Many vampires thought they gave up their humanity when they changed, which accounted for the lack of a sense of fun. Now she found out that some vampires didn’t think Nighthawks were vampires. She felt like some evil conspiracy was trying to throw her out of her species, not once, but twice.

“And I won’t have it,” she murmured, firm and fierce.

She wondered where Geoff Sterling stood on the humanity issue. And why he liked the notion that Nighthawks were utterly different than the parents they came from. She also wished she wasn’t sitting here waiting for Sterling and the enigmatic Valentine to put in an appearance.

“Stupid meeting place,” she muttered as she took a look at the rapt faces of the tourist crowd fascinated by the light show around them. “Stupid people.” Why did she feel so compelled to take care of them? Even the neon junkies wandering among the mortals got a certain amount of her sympathy.

Maybe she shouldn’t have called Valentine and Sterling in. She and Jebel were certainly capable of handling a few rogue vampires. She was very aware of Jebel as he roamed restlessly up and down the five-block area. He was guarding the perimeter, guarding her from the neon junkies, she supposed. Or more likely, the alert monster hunter part of him was uneasy about the presence of so many vampires dispersed among the crowd of mortals.

“Probably a bit of both,” Valentine said, suddenly standing next to the bench. “Who is he?” she asked as Char jumped to her feet. “He’s cute.”

“But mortal,” Sterling added from behind her.

“He has a cute butt,” Valentine said.

“She’s been following your boyfriend for a few minutes,” Sterling said when Char turned to face him. “I thought she was checking to see if he’s dangerous to us.” He grinned and shrugged. He was wearing sunglasses again. They were all dressed in black. “Guess she was just checking him out.”

“Dark, dangerous, dirty. Qualities I like in a man.”

Char did not like the other woman’s casual tone. It made her claws want to come out. “He’s mine.”

“And she’s mine,” Jebel said, coming up to stand closely behind Sterling. “You understand that, don’t you, fang boy?”

So, Jebel had noticed Sterling’s interest in her. Char was pleased by this show of possessiveness on Jebel’s part.

Sterling stood preternaturally still, his expression going flat. “Don’t annoy me, mortal.”

“I won’t like you when you’re annoyed?” Jebel spoke with confident amusement. He glanced at Valentine. Char noticed he took a moment to appreciate the other vampire’s feminine attributes, then he looked at her, smiling. “These your friends, sweetheart?”

“I wouldn’t call them friends,” she replied. “But I think we’re going to need their help,” Char admitted as a sudden burst of anxiety overcame her. She looked around anxiously, then was compelled to meet Valentine’s dark gaze. “Something’s—”

“Stirring,” the older vampire said. Valentine exhaled, then took a deep breath. “Something.” Then she seemed to shake off any semblance of worry, and smiled at Jebel. “While we’re waiting for disaster to strike, you can fill us in on what we need to know.”

 
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ben demanded.

Reese ignored him, and continued unbuttoning Clare’s shirt. He had her stretched out on the low table, paralyzed, but her face was turned toward Ben.

Ben reached out to shake the cage, despite the agony. Clare’s eyes were on him, full of terror and pleading, but she was completely in Reese’s control. “You’ll die if you hurt her,” Ben promised.

Reese was going to die, Ben decided. No way did Ben want to take a person with so much magical power into the strigoi world. Clare had warned him Reese was ambitious and no good. He’d known it, and was amused by the prospect of taming a tiger, just as he’d been tamed. But Ben knew he’d never been all that dangerous. He’d wanted simple power, money, dames, to build an empire, sure, but a business one.

“You want to rule the world, don’t you?” he called to Reese.

At this question, Morgan Reese straightened up from looming over Clare and turned to face Ben. “I worshipped Satan as a teenager,” he told Ben. “Took part in the black mass. We sacrificed chickens, dogs. We drank their blood. But the magic didn’t work. It was stupid, humiliating. Turned me off to the idea of real magic. So I took up stage magic and was good at it. But real magic still drew me. Drew me here. To this place. Called me.” Reese smiled in a way that Ben found sickening. “Now I realize that if I’d been the one performing the rituals back in my Satanist days, I’d have ruled the world long ago.”

“Ruled the world?” Ben exploded. “Are you crazy? You think magic—Listen to me, you idiot. Charisma’s the only kind of magic that works on most people. Ritual shit hardly works on anybody.”

Reese ignored him and turned back toward Clare. He flipped through pages in the notebook, then picked up the oven mitts.

Fear twisted through Ben. “Don’t do this,” Ben pleaded. “It’s not going to help you rule the world. It’s not worth the effort. Magic doesn’t work!”

“It works on you,” Reese said without looking toward Ben.

“Yes, but—”

“It works on things. It binds the universe together.”

“That’s the Force, you idiot!”

“Same thing,” Reese said.

He moved in front of the table, blocking Ben’s view of Clare. He held his arms up and out to the sides and began to chant. The heavy gloves looked ludicrously out of place in a magical ritual. Ben grew dizzy as Reese continued to speak. He couldn’t make out the words, but the sounds fell into his mind, almost glowed inside his head. The gathering power took his breath away. Energy swirled around the room, drawn toward Reese. Ben felt the rush of current like razor cuts scraping across his skin. Pain blinded him until the voice stopped, and the world and the magic were poised in the silence, waiting for what Reese would do next.

“No,” Ben begged, knowing what must come now, even before it began.

Waves of heat shimmered up from the ruby. Fire glowed in its heart. Reese picked it up, very carefully. He moved quickly, smoke rising from the heat-resistant padding of the gloves. Ben caught a brief glimpse of Clare’s face before Reese stood poised over her again. He saw her terror, and her tears, and the plea for help in her eyes.

“No,” Ben said again. He shook the cage again, totally unaware of his own pain.

Clare had no voice to scream when the burning ruby touched her flesh. But Ben knew the instant her pain started, and screamed for her. He was exquisitely aware of Clare’s agony, and the reek of charring flesh and burning blood. He knew when the stone burrowed into her chest cavity and first touched her heart.

That was when Morgan Reese began chanting again.

Chapter 15

“WHY DO YOU need my blood? Why do we have to go in there?” Duke was in there. Eddie didn’t want to go anywhere near a pissed-off Enforcer. Not even one who was tied down and drugged. Not even Duke.

Nobody listened to him. One of the guards opened the heavy door. The other one pushed him in behind Martina, then followed after and made sure the door was closed and locked again. Eddie checked quickly for exits. Of course, the door was the only way in or out. Damn.

For some reason he’d expected to see Duke stretched out on an operating table, hooked up to all kinds of monitoring equipment, and with a bunch of mortal scientists poking and prodding at him. There were mortals in the room; they were even wearing white lab coats. There was monitoring equipment, and a metal table, but it was empty. Duke was in the room, all right, off in one corner, naked and looking like hell. Eddie couldn’t see anything high-tech about the way the Nighthawk was being restrained. There was a metal collar around Duke’s neck. A heavy chain fastened the collar to the wall.

“The wall’s reinforced, right?” Eddie asked nervously. “The chain’s going to hold him?”

“Of course,” Martina answered with blithe self-confidence. “Modern materials are wonderfully strong.”

Eddie noticed the nervous glances the mortal slaves threw Duke’s way as they went about their mistress’s business. “You sure?”

Martina moved closer to Duke, taking Eddie with her. “Pitiful creature,” she said happily.

The Enforcer’s head came up slowly. His expression was full of pain, not exactly vacant, but not really aware, either. He snarled weakly, but without a hint of any sort of fang showing.

Eddie wanted to bolt, but since he was held fast by the stronger vampire, he indulged his curiosity instead. “What kind of drugs work on Nighthawks?”

“Potent ones,” was the smug answer. “We’re letting them wear off a bit now. There’s an experiment to be performed that he needs to be awake for.”

Eddie forgot about Duke’s plight, and gulped. “You’re not going to experiment on me, are you?”

“No.” Martina smiled. “We aren’t interested in monitoring your responses.”

“You said you wanted my blood.”

“My scientists want a blood sample from you.” She took him over to a counter where a trio of mortals stood waiting. One of them held a large syringe.

Eddie experienced a type of fear he’d never known before at the sight of the sharp needle. “You’re not going to stick me with that thing, are you?”

“You’re a vampire, wraith,” Martina reminded him. “You’re used to fangs penetrating your skin.”

“That’s different. It is,” he insisted at Martina’s exasperated look. “Besides, a needle won’t go through our skin.” He took some hope from this.

Hope Martina immediately dashed. “This needle will.”

“I don’t want to,” he declared. “It’s not right. Not Lawful. Vampires only give blood when they’re dating.”

“This is for a good cause,” Martina countered. “For science. We’re gathering blood samples from as wide a range of vampires as we can. We’re gathering data that will help our kind. Within a few years we hope to find cures for your light sensitivity, and the agoraphobia that plagues others of our kind. With scientific knowledge we can help ourselves.”

Eddie was shocked to his core. “The Laws forbids experimentation. The Law—”

“That’s what the Enforcers have taught us to believe. We’ve been lied to, kept in the dark ages. Enforcers must—”

“No!” Eddie held up a hand. “Don’t start.” He looked at the lab technician slave with the syringe. “I’d rather give a blood sample than listen to another rant.”

Martina finally let him go, and the slave stepped forward. Eddie closed his eyes, and turned his head away. “Will it hurt?”

“Yes,” the tech answered.

Eddie did not appreciate the honesty, but he stayed still rather than follow the urge to rip the slave’s head off when the metal penetrated his skin.

After a few minutes, the tech said, “Done.”

Eddie sighed with relief and opened his eyes. He looked at Martina, who stood there with her arms crossed, looking smugger than ever. “Can I go now?” he asked her.

“I’m sorry, wraith,” she answered, though there was nothing but glee in her. “But letting you go would be a waste of resources.” Fear clutched in Eddie’s gut as she looked back at Duke. “We’ve taken a lot of blood out of him,” she said. She looked back at Eddie. “He’s getting hungry.”

Vampires sated their need for renewed energy by consuming mortals. Nighthawks built up their strength by taking the energy from vampires. It was a food chain thing.

“No. You can’t do this!” Eddie backed away from the mortals, but was grabbed from behind by a couple of vampires. He struggled, and pleaded with Martina. “Please, don’t. You can’t do this to me!”

“I have to, wraith,” she answered. “We need to record the physiological changes the abominations exhibit when they feed. We need that data, and I’m certainly not going to throw one of my people to that monster.”

“You said you weren’t going to experiment on me.”

“We aren’t,” Martina answered. “No one’s interested in the meat’s opinion of being eaten. Rouse the abomination,” she ordered her slaves. “Bring him,” she ordered her vampires.

Eddie realized he wasn’t going to be the main course immediately when his captors began to drag him toward the door. They were going to stash him somewhere, weren’t they? Lock him up until feeding time? Good. Good. Maybe there was a chance he could—

Then a hot wind out of hell blew through his brain. He dropped to the floor like a rock, and was vaguely aware of everyone else in the lab doing the same. He heard retching. Smelled vomit. A horrifying howl rose out of the corner where Duke was chained. Then the darkness came.

When the lights went out, Eddie prayed it was some kind of electrical problem. Panic rose instantly, worse than the fear of being eaten alive. Worse than the mental blow a moment before. His terror turned into a long, drawn-out scream. He hated and feared darkness like nothing else in the world.

Soon, he realized he wasn’t the only one screaming. For some reason, not being in it alone helped bring him back from the edge. Opening his eyes helped him remember what he was. He could see well in the dark, better than most vampires. Even a windowless room wasn’t truly dark, especially where there were mortals to give off the faint glow of living energy. He, more than the normal vampires in the lab, could see a little. He didn’t have to be a vampire to hear the bellowing of the enraged Enforcer, the rattle and rip of chains issuing from Duke’s corner. There was no mind behind the monster screams, no intelligence, but rage and hunger howled in the dark. This was not good.

And no one, not even Martina, was stupid enough not to recognize the danger. “Sedate him!” she shouted out of the dark. “Get him under control. Get that collar back on him!”

“Get the lights back on!” someone else shouted.

“Get the hell out of here,” Eddie advised, and ran for the door.