Books by Maggie Shayne (145 page)

Again, he looked at the bandages. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“You were unconscious,” Tamara whispered. “Too weak to drink.”

“So?”

“You were dying, Jamey—Jameson,” she went on. “I thought…”

Eric turned toward the windows, gazing out at the night, not looking Jameson in the eye. “I had to rig up some tubing,” he said. “For the transfusions.”

“Trans…fusions?” He looked at Eric’s back, staring until the man turned. “Eric?” Then he swung his gaze to Roland, who stood silently in a corner of the room, saying nothing, just watching, listening. “Roland? Jesus, are you saying that I’m…”

Roland nodded, just once. “Yes. Your mortal life ended last night, Jameson. There was nothing we could do to save it. The one thing—the only thing we could do for you, was give you another life to replace the one that bastard stole from you. A lift of…unending night.”

Jameson closed his eyes and swore. He heard Tamara’s soft crying, felt Rhiannon’s hand tighten on his.

“I can’t believe it,” he muttered. “God, I can’t believe it.” Then he searched their faces. “Which of you did this? Whose blood is running in my veins now? Yours, Roland?”

Tamara sniffed. “All of us,” she told him, drawing his gaze to her tearstained face. “We all gave to you, Jameson.”

He closed his eyes, shook his head, expelled his breath in a rush. “Dammit,” he said. “I didn’t want this. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Dammit—”

“Enough!”

His mouth snapped closed at Rhiannon’s harsh command. She rose from her chair, leaning over him, eyes narrowed to slits, reminding him sharply of the way Pandora looked just before she pounced on an unsuspecting rabbit.

“We gave you life, Jameson. The alternative was death. You should be thanking us.” She bent even closer, so her long, glistening black hair trailed over his face. “Unless, of course, you’d have preferred the second option. And if that’s the case, it’s not too late.”

“Rhiannon!” Tamara shouted, jumping to her feet. “How dare you—”

Rhiannon straightened, tossing her hair behind her shoulders. “I dare, Tamara darling. I dare anything. You know that. And frankly, I’m a bit weary of this one’s constant lack of gratitude.” As she said it, she nodded toward Jameson.

He couldn’t believe Rhiannon was this angry with him, but she was. Her eyes blazed with it, and when Roland came forward to slide his hands over her shoulders, she shrugged him off and walked away. She paced back and forth at the foot of his bed. “We took care of you when you were a child, Jameson,” she said, her voice deep and smooth as black satin. “Saved your life for you on more than one occasion, risked our necks for you more often than not. Found your father for you. And yet all you’ve done is complain. We treat you like a child! We call you by the wrong name! You don’t have enough
space
!”

Jameson sat up in the bed, pushing the covers aside, lowering his feet to the floor.

“And then,” she went on, “you bumble your reckless way into still more trouble, and as you lay dying, with what could have been your very last breath, Jameson, you call out to us for help. What in the name of the pharaohs were you expecting us to do? We can’t raise the dead! You asked for help, and we gave you the only help we could give. And still you complain.”

“That’s enough, Rhiannon,” Roland said, and he said it sternly. She glared at him, but he didn’t back down. “You know nothing about what Jameson is feeling right now.”

“And you do?” she shot back.

Roland nodded, turning his gaze on Jameson. “I do. Rhiannon, and Tamara too, you both sought this life. I did not. It was forced on me, Rhiannon, when you found me near death on that battlefield in bloodstained armor.”

“And on me,” Eric said softly. “When Roland came to me in that filthy French cell, the night before I was to face the guillotine.” He met Jameson’s eyes. “I was terrified, then, of what I’d become. And though you know us, know us well, I imagine you’re a bit frightened, too. You think that now you’re a monster like we are.”

A lump came into Jameson’s throat, and his eyes stung. “I have never thought of any of you as monsters, Eric. You have to know that. It’s just that…all of this…” He shook his head. “I thought I’d have time to get used to the idea. I thought I’d be the one to decide if and when I was ready for this.” He lifted his head, met Rhiannon’s haughty stare. “You’re right, Princess. I’m being an ass, and I’m sorry. If it hadn’t been for all of you, I’d be dead right now, and I was even less ready for that.”

He could see her softening. Rhiannon liked it when he addressed her by her proper title. She was a pharaoh’s daughter, after all. Not that she’d ever be likely to let any of them forget it. Jameson lowered his head, closed his eyes. “So I’m here. It’s done. Can’t be changed. I guess I might as well get used to the idea.”

“You’re going to be just fine, Jameson,” Tamara told him. “I promise.”

He lifted his head, met her eyes and thought this wasn’t all bad. He’d be even more able to take on DPI with his new abilities. He flexed his hand, wondering just how strong he was now. Strong enough, perhaps, to go back to that towering facility in White Plains and tear it down, brick by brick? Strong enough to make the bastards tell him what this last round of tests performed on him had been all about? And then kill every last one of them?

“I imagine the first thing we’ll need to teach you is how to guard your thoughts,” Roland said, looking him squarely in the eye. “Although when they’re as foolish as that one was, it might be better that we all know about them, hmm?”

“I don’t blame you, Jameson,” Rhiannon said, and her anger seemed to have been banked, for the moment, anyway. “I’ve been wanting to destroy everything even remotely associated with that organization of buffoons for years. But they all fight me.” She jerked her head toward the others in the room.

“For good reason,” Roland told her. “If we were to do that, we’d be making everything they believe about us, true. We’d become the heartless predators they claim we are. Deadly, destructive and dangerous. And they’d have all the more reason to mount a full-scale attack against us. Can you imagine, Rhiannon, what would happen if other branches of the government became involved? The military, for example?”

She tossed her head. “Bring them on.”

Roland rolled his eyes heavenward, but Jameson laughed aloud. And then Eric was stepping closer, scanning his face. “Enough of all this,” he said softly. “Jameson, tell us about the beast that attacked you. Who was he? Can you describe him?”

“Yes,” Roland put in. “We can’t let him go on—”

“Not him,” Jameson said, getting to his feet and turning to face them. “Her.” He saw the frowns on their faces as he went on. “And we don’t have to hunt her down. She surrendered herself to a DPI operative right before my eyes. Turned herself over, without batting an eye. I think she bought what he was selling, about them being able to make her human again.”

“My God!” Tamara got to her feet. “Who was she, Jameson? Did you know her? Had you ever seen her before?”

He shook his head slowly. “I think the agent might have known who she was, but I was barely conscious. I kind of came around when he told her to come with him, to let him help her.”

“It’s better he found her than I,” Rhiannon said.

“She was mad, I think,” Jameson went on. “Filthy, her clothes tattered. She seemed very young…and I’m certain she was on the brink of starvation. I heard her crying, so I went to her. I thought I’d bring her to you, and you could help her.”

“And we would have, of course,” Tamara told him.

“If I ever see her again, I’ll wring her pretty neck.” Jameson thought of how fragile she’d seemed…just before she sank her fangs into his throat. And then he thought a little further, and had to avert his face from the others.

She’d taken him someplace he’d never been. Shocked him at that first piercing of his flesh, but then…

Jesus, why hadn’t any of them told him what it was like? Was it normal to react that way? He’d never been so turned on in his life as he’d been when she’d held him hard against her, and worked his throat with her mouth and her teeth. And he’d wanted it. Wanted her. And for a few minutes, he’d figured it would be all right. That she’d only take enough to keep her alive, and then she’d stop.

But she hadn’t stopped. The bitch had tried to kill him. And he’d been hard for her right up until he’d collapsed at her feet.

Jesus.

“I’ll kill her,” he whispered.

“Vengeance is a wasted emotion, Jameson,” Tamara told him.

“She tried to kill me.”

“Perhaps she didn’t know better.”

“Or,” Rhiannon put in, “perhaps she simply lost control of herself. It’s been known to happen…in certain circumstances.”

Jameson looked up quickly, wondering if they’d all been privy to his every thought just now. But Rhiannon was looking at Roland as if he were a juicy steak, and he thought he detected a glint in Roland’s eye, as well. Jameson decided not to say any more about his erotic attack. He tried not to
think
any more about it, either, but that was far harder than it should have been.

Time to change the subject. “Look, if DPI goons are out rounding up vampires for another group of experiments, maybe it’s time you guys get the hell out of the city.”

“Exactly,” Roland said. “But don’t forget, my friend, you’re a vampire now, too.”

Jameson frowned. Damn.

“Even should you decide to go ahead with your plans to learn what they wanted you for this last time they took you, Jameson, you have to agree, it would be better to wait. You need time to get used to your new nature. To learn to control it. To test the limits of your strength, your endurance.”

He had a point there. Damn him.

Roland smiled, no doubt having heard
that
thought, too. “There is much you need to learn about being a vampire, Jameson.”

“Hell, Roland, I know more about being a vampire than you think. I’ve been around you most of my life.”

“Yes, that’s true enough. But living the life of the undead is a far different matter than just witnessing it. You’ve discovered that already, haven’t you?”

It was true. It
was
different, far different than he’d imagined it would be. His senses were altered, heightened somehow. And there were new ones to explore as well.

“All right,” Jameson finally conceded. “All right, we’ll all go. But I’m coming back. I’ll find out what those bastards wanted with me, if it’s the last thing I do.”

Every one of them looked worried. Except Rhiannon. She wore her Mona Lisa smile. Very secretive. And Jameson wondered what the hell she was thinking.

They took me to a large building, down in an elevator to a sterile white room, with a bed, and a chair, and little else. I was led inside, full of questions. How could they help me? What was this experimental cure that could return me to humanity?

I turned to ask my questions, only to see a solid steel door closing on me. No window in that door, and locks aplenty. I heard the locks turning, and a feeling of dread welled up inside me. I went to the door, tried to push against it, but it didn’t give at all. And it should have. It should have. I was strong, stronger than any locks they could make. I knew that.

Ah, but that man, the one who’d brought me here. He’d injected me with something. A drug, he said, to prepare my body for the shock of becoming mortal again. And it had to be that that had taken away my strength.

And now I was here, locked in this room. A prisoner, for all practical purposes. And I recalled the voice of my beautiful victim telling me not to trust them. Not to go with that stranger.

God, had I made a terrible mistake?

I paced the room throughout that first night, and it seemed endless. And then finally the door opened, and a kindly, white-haired woman of tiny stature smiled at me.

“Hello,” she said. “My name is Dr. Rose Sversky. I’ll be taking care of you while you’re here.”

Taking care of me. This sweet, harmless-looking old woman. I nearly sagged in relief. I hadn’t made a mistake after all. They would truly help me here.

“Why am I locked in like this?” I asked her. “It frightens me.”

“Oh, dear, they really should have explained.” Dr. Rose came in, closing the door behind her. “There are others here, others like you. People we’re only trying to help.” She shook her head, clicking her tongue. “But some of them…well, they can be quite monstrous, you know. They’d attack anyone, even one of their own kind.”

I believed that readily. I’d fallen victim to one of them, and I had no doubt that they were all just as beastly. Just as horrible as I had started to become now that I was one of them.

“The locks are to keep them out, dear, not to keep you in. For your own protection, honestly. Someone should have told you.”

I sighed hard, my relief palpable.

“Now, if you’ll just hop up onto the table,” she said, smiling her reassurance, “I can get started making you human again.”

I obeyed hurriedly. The woman eyed my dirty habit, shook her head, and pulled a hypodermic from her pocket.

“How long will I have to be here?” I asked.

“Well, it might be weeks, to be honest. The process involves several steps, you know. But you needn’t worry. We’ll take better care of you than your own mother would. You’ll see.” The needle’s tip sank into my arm, and in a few seconds, my world became dark and murky. I drifted into unconsciousness.

When I woke, I wore a white hospital gown. I had been bathed, and my hair had been washed and brushed. I felt oddly violated. I wondered what sort of procedure the kindly old doctor had performed on me, but there was no way of knowing.

Eventually, my door was opened once more, and a strong young man entered, handed me a glass of scarlet liquid and left without a word. Not a word. As if I were an inanimate object or a pet to be fed. I drank the cold stale sustenance he’d provided, but it lacked the invigorating warmth of blood drawn from the living. That warmth I still recalled suffusing my body as I fed at the throat of that beautiful man who’d offered to help me.

But I didn’t want that warmth. I didn’t want to prey on the innocent. I wanted to be mortal again, to have my old life back. And so I drank, and I prayed it would not be long I’d have to remain in this place.

Hilary Garner listened to Rose Sversky’s report, and tried to keep a semblance of clinical detachment on her face. She wasn’t certain she succeeded. But she tried.

“We’ve successfully harvested and fertilized a single egg from the subject. Only one. The implantation will have to go off without a hitch, and if it doesn’t take, I’m not certain we’ll get another shot. We may have to have another subject or two before we achieve success.”

Fuller nodded, his narrow-eyed gaze slipping to Hilary’s face every so often, as if he were watching for something. A slip. She kept her expressionless mask firmly in place. She’d show this man nothing. There was nothing she could do, anyway.

“Schedule the implantation for tonight,” he said. “Let’s get this experiment under way. How is the subject?”

Rose smiled her grandmotherly smile. “Irony always amazes me, Mr. Fuller, but this time it’s overwhelmed me. The subject is a virgin.”

Fuller’s brows rose high. “You’re kidding me.”

“No. Other than that odd state of affairs, she remains completely cooperative. She still believes she’s going to become mortal again. She won’t give us any trouble.”

“Don’t get too complacent, Sversky,” Fuller said. “She’ll give us plenty of trouble once she realizes she’s pregnant. And she’ll have to realize it, sooner or later.”

“Yes, well, she will if the implantation is successful.”

Fuller nodded. “Best prepare one of the maximum-security cells for her. Once she figures it out, she’ll fight us every step of the way.” He shook his head. “A freaking virgin birth. Wasn’t she some kind of nun before she was changed over?”

“Something like that,” Sversky said with a chuckle. “Will wonders never cease?” Fuller replied. He leaned back in his chair and began filling his pipe.

I was slowly going insane. Stir-crazy would be the closest term. I had no books. No television. No radio. I was allowed to bathe nightly. And my liquid meals were brought to me by soft-spoken, even respectful individuals dressed in white. From glasses, not warm bodies, I fed. And the sustenance was diluted. Thin and cold, and I began to suspect, laced with some sort of tranquilizer. Since coming here, I’d never once felt that odd surge of vampiric strength that I’d felt before.

I should have known, I suppose. I should have seen the signs. The heavily veiled disgust in the eyes of those caregivers. The glances they exchanged. When I objected to any of the conditions I lived under, I was told that they’d never be able to help me get back to being mortal again, unless I cooperated with them. So I did.

And oh, that was so foolish! So incredibly foolish.

I had no idea why they would want to do what they did to me. No clue. Not in my wildest imaginings could I concoct a reason. But it soon became apparent.

Months had passed before I understood what was happening. Truly understood it. My belly began to swell, and more than that. I could sense a life force within me. I could feel it there. A separate entity. Living, growing, inside me. I was, I realized, stunned, with child.

And as that knowledge came to me, I pounded on my cell door, screaming and kicking at it. But no one came to tell me why they’d done this to me. No one came near.

I sank to the floor only when I sensed daylight painting the earth, slowly stealing my consciousness. And this time, when I woke, I was in a far different place.

I was sealed in a dark, coffinlike box. Panic took a firm hold on me, and I beat against the lid with my fists, screaming until I was hoarse.

At last, the cover was lifted. I flew from my prison, only to be gripped by three strong men. I kicked and shouted. I asked them pleaded with them to tell me why they’d done this, what their intentions were. But to no avail. I was injected with the familiar drug, returned to the pathetically weak state I spent all my waking hours in, and then they let me go. I slumped to the floor, sitting up, eyelids heavy, and warily examined the room around me.

The sterile white walls were gone now. I was in a dungeonlike cell, with barely any light. One of the men pulled me to my feet, and ushered me close to the rear wall, while another clamped shackles around my wrists, and then my ankles. I was chained, chained to the cold stone wall at my back.

A glass of the detestable liquid was pressed into my hand. The chain was long enough to enable me to drink. And yet I did not. I stared at the glass, and shook my head. “No,” I told them, lifting my chin in defiance. “I won’t drink. I’d rather die than go on living in this prison! Let me go. I demand you let me go!”

One of the men chuckled, and shook his head. “If you don’t feed, you’ll lose your baby. You don’t want to starve your own baby, do you?”

I swallowed hard, tears flooding my eyes so that the men swam before me. I couldn’t do that, couldn’t starve my own child, and they knew it. They knew it.

Oh, God, what had I done? What had I done to deserve this particular hell? Only then did I fully understand what a grave mistake I had made. Willingly, even eagerly, I had made myself their prisoner. Their guinea pig. I could scarcely believe it was true. They saw me as a creature. A laboratory rat, and I was, from then on, treated as such.

I drank, because I had little choice, and so I lived. Lived on their drugged liquid, kept too weak to break my chains or fight my captors. Each night I remained chained to the cell walls. But the days were far worse. For each dawn, as soon as the day sleep overtook me, my vile captors took me down from my wall and sealed me inside that coffinlike box. More often than not, dusk would fall, and I would awaken still trapped in that tiny cement sarcophagus. I’d claw and kick and cry, and I’d hear them laughing as they passed me by, not letting me out until they were good and ready. It seemed they enjoyed my panic.

They no longer tried to conceal the disgust in their eyes. I was treated as an animal. For the sake of the child I carried, they continued to provide me with sustenance, and warmth, and sanitary conditions. For the sake of the child. I knew that. And I knew, too, with a growing sense of terror, that what became of my child once I’d given birth, was completely beyond my control.

And I knew something else in those long months of my captivity. Those long months of a loneliness more intense than anything I’d ever known. As the child grew in my womb, as I felt it there, living and even moving eventually, I spoke to it. Wrapped my arms around my swollen belly and cradled it. I even sang to it, in a voice that surprised me with its preternatural range and purity. I’d always loved to sing, but I’d never found such joy in doing so with my flawed, mortal voice. Now I thought I must sound like the very angels. And as the time passed, I came to realize that I loved the baby I carried. She—and for some reason, I was certain, even then, that she was female—she was the only living soul I spoke to in all that time. She was a part of me, my very heart. And I loved her with everything in me. Never in my life had I contemplated motherhood. I’d never imagined that I would have a child. But now, I could not imagine
not
having one. This one, whom they would try to take from me as surely as the sun would rise each morning. They would try to take her.

And I would die before I would allow that to happen.

Every once in a while, Hilary slipped down to the maximum-security sublevels, and checked in on that wide-eyed young woman they held there. And once, very late in the experiment, she heard something that made her heart trip to a stop in her chest. Singing. The purest, most angelic singing she’d ever heard in her life.

She crept closer to the cell, and peered through the mesh-lined safety glass. And she saw her. Pale and thin, except for her protruding belly. Her name was Angelica, though to DPI she was called by a number. Her hair shone like black satin, long and lustrous, and she had huge violet eyes. Their color no less than stunning, even through the. tears that spilled slowly from their purplish depths.

She sat on the floor of her cell, chains dangling from her arms and pooled around her legs. She hugged her bulging belly, and rocked slowly back and forth, and she sang “Amazing Grace,” so beautifully that it brought tears to Hilary’s eyes.

And then she stopped singing all at once, and lifted her head. She stared right into Hilary’s eyes from beyond that glass. And Hilary was unable to look away. She was so sad, so frightened and so utterly alone. It was horrible what this organization was doing to her. Horrible.

And if I try to help
, she thought,
they’ll kill me. They’ll kill me. I’ll disappear, just like Tamara
.

But the story went that Tamara hadn’t disappeared. According to the DPI grapevine, all those years ago she’d become one of them. A vampire, like the ones she’d been trying to help. Could it be true? Could Tamara be out there somewhere?

She shook that thought away and looked back at the woman in the cell. But the plea was still there, in those violet eyes. And Hilary knew that she had to help. She had to try. She had to.

She closed her eyes, and turned away. And the singing began again, filling the entire sublevel with beauty. And as she passed other cells where other captives languished in despair, she saw them listening. Saw them closing their eyes and drinking in the beauty of that song.

Hilary ran from the cell block to the elevators, eager to shut out that sad, sad voice. But even after the doors slid closed, she kept hearing it. Ringing in her mind. And she saw those beautiful eyes, imploring her to act.

It was difficult walking into Fuller’s office for the staff meeting that night. Harder than ever to keep her mask in place. But she had to. She made a valiant effort, too, she thought.

Until Rose Sversky’s dire predictions filled the room, at least. “We can’t take it C-section,” she said. “They bleed like hemophiliacs. The mother would probably bleed out before we could get the child, and then we’d lose them both.”

“Then we go natural,” Fuller said, tamping more smelly tobacco into that rank pipe of his as Hilary took rapid notes.

Stiles cleared his throat. “Sir, you know that kind feels pain as if it were magnified a thousand times.”

“Like I give a damn,” Fuller said.

Rose’s eyes met Stiles’s. Even the two of them, monsters though they were, were not quite as heartless as Fuller. They saw the undead as animals, yes. But even animals didn’t deserve unnecessary agony.

“She’ll need to be tranquilized,” Rose said. “With her preternatural strength, if she pushes, she could crush the child. We’ll give her the drug, a far higher dosage than the daily one. Enough to render her semiconscious before we induce labor.”