Acquainted With the Night (9781101546000) (15 page)

They walked up the hill, cut through the lobby, and took the lift to the third floor. Their room was at the end of the hall. Red curtains were drawn tightly across the windows. Caro dropped her duffel bag on the floor, sat on one of the twin beds, and pulled off her sweater. He picked up her hand and frowned at the purple gashes on her palm.

“That's where I pulled the trunk cable,” she said, frowning at the marks. The back of her head throbbed, too, and her knees jogged nervously, but she didn't want to complain. She felt damn lucky to be alive.

“You were brave today.” He sat down beside her.

“But I can't stop trembling. I guess it's hitting me. Being locked in the trunk. All of these senseless deaths. First Uncle Nigel and now Phoebe.”

“Who's Phoebe?”

“My flatmate. She was murdered the day I left London.”

Jude's eyes widened. “I'm so sorry, Caro.”

“You were outside our flat that morning,” she said. “Did you see anything suspicious?”

“No. Except a white Citroën almost plowed into your car.”

“What are the odds that my uncle
and
Phoebe would die of blood loss?”

“Sorry?”

“My uncle bled to death. Apparently Phoebe did, too.”

He abruptly stood and reached for his jacket. “I'm going out for a bit. When I return, we'll have a sit-down.”

“Must we?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“I'll be back in half a tick.” He started out the door. “And don't make any phone calls.”

“I'll try to resist.” She stretched out on the bed. Calling the embassy was the right thing to do, but it felt wrong. And why was MI5 involved?

She pressed a pillow over her face and wished someone would feed her chocolate. When she was a small girl and felt out of sorts, her mother would pop a Hershey's Kiss into Caro's mouth. She remembered how one time her father had climbed onto a ladder to hang glass wind chimes that he'd bought in town. A breeze had stirred the glass slides, and the tinkling had echoed across the porch. Vivienne had stood at the bottom of the ladder.

“Perfect, Philippe,” she'd said. “Absolutely perfect.” He climbed down, and she slipped a chocolate into his mouth. He kissed her, and a moment later Vivienne's throat clicked.

“You swallowed my kiss,” Philippe said. Behind him, moonlight touched the river that ran through the valley. Caro strained to remember more, but the past curved up into the air, faint as the sound of her mother's chimes.

Jude returned with a mug of hot cocoa and a chocolate-stuffed croissant. “My mum used to say that chocolate would cure anything,” he said. “I thought a double dose wouldn't hurt.”

He put the mug in Caro's hands and guided it to her lips. “There you go.”

Be careful what you wish for
, she thought, and took a sip. A warm flush spread through her chest. Then she lowered the mug. “Why did Phoebe and Uncle Nigel have to die?”

“Evil men don't need reasons to take lives.” He folded his hands around hers, steadying the mug. “Try not to think about it. Well, at least for a while.”

The lamplight hit his sweater, and she stared at the rounded curve of his shoulder. It was nearly the size of a softball. Maybe he could protect her, but she didn't want to be the sort of woman who needed coddling. She set the mug on the table and folded her hands, digging her fingernails into her tender flesh.

He looked down at her clenched fists. “More chocolate?”

“No, I'm fine.”

“I need to tell you something. You won't like it. But I'm telling you anyway.”

“What?” She stiffened. If he was involved with the black market, she'd just give him her icon and be done with it. She didn't need it. She didn't have many memories of her parents, but she had enough, and she could summon them any time. Right now, she just wanted her old, simple life—escorting tourists through Hampton Court and Stratford-on-Avon. But even that wouldn't be possible until the madman who'd killed Phoebe and Uncle Nigel was caught. Until then, London wasn't safe.

“You're not mixed up in stolen artifacts, are you?” she asked.

“What? No, nothing of the sort.” He ran one hand over his hair, smoothing long, stray wisps that had come loose from the band.

“Then what is this awful thing you need to tell me?” She flexed her toes. Maybe he was married. Or in love with a woman with straight hair and a calm life.

“I'm horrid at explanations,” he said. “But I'll try to tell this story in order. I tend to be rather technical—and I can't blame it totally on my profession. I'm a science nerd. So if you feel confused, stop me.”

“All right.” She leaned against the headboard.

“Two years ago, I worked at a small biotech firm in York,” he said. “I was harvesting stem cells from mouse embryos. The marrow is a rich site for hematopoietic stem cells. I made the cells grow into anything I wanted—skin, muscles, nervous tissues, livers. I also induced mutations in mouse embryos. Do you understand what mutations are?”

She shook her head.

“Well, they corrupt the genetic code.” He looked up at the ceiling and frowned, as if remembering something disturbing.

“The mutated mice grew into adults,” he continued, “and they were aggressive. Sensitive to light. Wouldn't eat or drink. It's hard to explain, but those mice became more physically attractive. Even their fur changed—longer, thicker, with the texture of a mink coat. And they were hypersexual.

“After several days without food, the mice appeared to hibernate. I couldn't wake them. At first I thought it was porphyria.”

“That's a metabolic disease, right?” Caro said. “King George the Third suffered from it.”

“The mice didn't have porphyria,” Jude said. “I introduced normal mice into cages with the aggressive mice—the ones that hadn't lapsed into comas. The normal mice were highly attracted to the mutated mice. They wanted to breed with them. And that's when the biting started.”

“Biting?”

“And blood drinking. The mutated mice bit the normal ones and drank their blood. Within hours, the bitten mice became like the others. I thought it was a virus. So I sedated the mice and performed surgery. I took biopsies from various organs and examined the tissues under the microscope. Nothing seemed out of order, except that the specimens were loaded with stem cells. I removed a mouse's liver. He survived the surgery, which was shocking. The next day he was running in his wheel.”

“A Prometheus?” She smiled.

“A fitting name.” He nodded. “I operated on the mouse again. This time, I noticed a bud of tissue where the liver had been. Under the microscope these tissues showed primitive stem cells. And they were forming a new liver.”

“Can a liver do that?”

“Of course. That's how liver transplants are done. But it takes weeks, not days.”

“You've lost me.”

“If you remove a salamander's tail, three days later, you'll see budding tissue. And the tail will regenerate. The aggressive mice were the same. In one cage, an aggressive mouse had its foot bitten off. I isolated it. Within hours, I saw a bud. Twelve hours later, the mouse had grown a new foot.”

“That's not possible.”

“I eventually discovered the gene that made it possible. I called it R-99, the Resurrection Gene. I thought it existed only in these unique stem cells. But I didn't realize that this gene already existed naturally.” He paused. “It exists in a subset of humans.”

“I don't understand. What kind of subset?”

“A type that craved blood, was hypersexual, was hypersensitive to sunlight, healed at an accelerated rate, and was basically immortal.” He exhaled. “Did your uncle ever mention vampirism?”

“Sorry?” Had she misunderstood? Or had the bump to her head affected her hearing?

“Vampires,” he said.

Caro stared at him. Was this a joke? Or was he off the rails? Why did she always attract the crazy ones? Not that she'd attracted him, but still.

She slipped off the bed and reached for her sweater.

“I know this sounds implausible, but it's true,” he said. “The men who kidnapped you were vampires.”

“Well, I'm glad we've sorted that out.” She strode to the door. Better to take her chances with MI5 than to stay here.

“Where are you going?” Jude rose from the bed.

“I need air.” She flung open the door. Then she turned. “Even if those men were vampires—and they weren't—it was daylight. Vampires can't come out except at night.”

“It was overcast. And they wore sunblock.”

“Right. The whole world is crawling with vampires who wear zinc oxide. And nobody notices?”

“The world has a lot of weird people.”

“And you're one of them!” She ran out of the room, down the stairs, out of the hotel, into the dark. She heard him calling her name, but she kept on running. He was crazy. A madman. Or maybe he really was in the antiquities market and somehow knew about her icon. Or perhaps her uncle had been in possession of a rare artifact and the evildoers thought she knew where it was?

“Caro!”

She stopped running and whirled. She didn't see him, but she knew he was there. The hotel was built of dark slate, and it blended into the dusky sky. Most of the floodlights had burned out, throwing the entrance doors into shadow. She shivered as the chilly air cut through her sweater.

“Caro, wait!”

She raced down the hill, her hair bouncing against her shoulders. Her only hope was to call Mr. Hughes, but her cell phone lay in pieces in downtown Kardzhali, and the embassy's number was stashed in her bag. Dammit, she'd left everything in her room. And she couldn't go back.

She stopped in front of a restaurant and reached for the doorknob. It spun around, but the door didn't budge. She peeked through the glass. The chairs were neatly turned upside down, balanced on the tables. A telephone hung on the far wall.

Jude called her name again, and she glanced back at the hotel. He stepped out of the darkness. She bolted down the sidewalk and turned into a cobbled alley. A gust of wind blew over the steep concrete walls into the narrow passage and blew loose newspapers to and fro. At the far end of the alley, she saw a stocky man embrace a woman with frizzy burgundy hair. Above them, a neon strip flickered.

Caro inched backward, ashamed to witness their lovemaking. The man looked up, blood streaming down his chin. He dropped the woman, and her body thudded against the pavement. The man twisted his head, looking at Caro. His nostrils flared, and he said something in Bulgarian. He smiled, flashing dingy teeth.

She sprinted down the alley. Footsteps pounded behind her. An icy hand closed on her arm and jerked her backward. How had he moved this fast? He'd been clear across the alley. She wasn't sticking around to find out. She twisted his thumb, but he pulled loose and slapped her ear. A buzzing noise filled her head. He tilted her chin until her neck bowed.

A chill rippled from his body as he leaned closer. His mouth opened and he pressed his teeth into her throat. She felt a sharp pain and tried to push away, but her arms moved bonelessly. An acid burn spread into her chest and moved through her limbs. The man withdrew his teeth and began licking her neck.

 

From a long way away, Caro heard someone call her name. She tried to hit the Bulgarian man, but her arms wouldn't move. Had he severed her spinal column? She couldn't feel anything from the neck down.

The Bulgarian man pulled back and grimaced. His lips turned blue and the veins in his neck bulged, and then he began to wheeze, as if he couldn't get air. He gasped, sucking in little sips of air. She tried to squirm away, but he clung to her.

Footsteps clapped in the alley. “Caro?” Jude's voice echoed.

She tried to answer, but her lips were paralyzed. The Bulgarian caught his breath and shuddered, then tilted his head and looked down the alley. Blood ran down his chin and pattered on the cobblestones, and then he turned his burning gaze on her. She tried to squirm away, but her arms still wouldn't move.

The man's respiratory distress seemed to be worsening, but he managed to open his mouth and lunge for her neck again. This time, she looked for fangs. His teeth were long and tapered at the ends, but nothing like the canines on a cinema monster. She wrenched back, and over his shoulder, she saw Jude creep into the alley. He held a long metal spike above his head. He sprang forward, moving soundlessly over the cobblestones, and shoved the rod into the man's back.

The man grunted. Blood jetted from the front of his sweater, spattering drops into Caro's face. The man stared down at his chest. Jude pushed the spike deeper, and the tip popped through the wool.

The man gasped. Blood spilled down the front of his trousers. He released Caro, and she fell straight to the stones. The Bulgarian staggered sideways, then started to fall on top of her, but Jude pushed him to the side.

“Caro, how many times did he bite you?” Jude leaned down and pulled her into his arms.

She tried to answer, but she couldn't push out the words.

“The numbness will pass,” he said. Sure enough, it was starting to recede. Her arms tingled and burned, but she welcomed the sensations. After a few moments, she managed to slide her hand around his waist. He started to help her up, but her legs buckled.

“Let me see your throat.” Jude examined both sides of her neck, then pulled a wool scarf from his pocket and jammed it against her throat. “Hold the pressure.”