Books by Maggie Shayne (146 page)

“And what happens to the baby?” Hilary whispered.

Again they all looked at her, but they were over being surprised at her ever-increasing interruptions.

“The baby will be our most prized research subject,” Fuller explained. “Ms. Garner, this is a first. A one of a kind. Will it be born a vampire, or a mortal, or some mutant cross between the two? We’re going to learn more from this creature than…Ms. Garner?”

It showed in her face. That sick feeling that made her think she’d better get out of here fast before she lost control and broke into tears in front of all of them. She schooled her features, stood up slowly. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to excuse me for a minute.” She turned toward the door.

“Stomach bug, Ms. Garner?” Fuller’s voice was full of speculation, and the look in his eyes was deadly as she glanced back at him.

“Yes,” she told him. “The flu, I think.”

“It had better be.”

It was a haze of pain and horror and fear. The first drug they gave me left me nearly paralyzed. And the second one brought on the pain. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t see the walls I passed as they wheeled me along, strapped to a stretcher, into an elevator and up. They took me to a room with masked, white-coated people and machines and equipment of all kinds. And those masked demons surrounded me, staring down, snapping on surgical gloves.

They spoke, but I didn’t know what they were saying, so dazed was I by the pain. I hurt, I only knew that. I thought my body would tear itself in half, and I screamed. I know I screamed.

And those white coats all around me, eyes eager with excitement. There was only one, the brown-skinned woman with the big doe’s eyes, who might be different. I’d seen her before, the woman with the kind brown eyes. The kindest brown eyes I thought I had ever seen. She looked as horrified from behind her surgical mask as I felt.

Oh, and I was horrified, beyond all thought. Horrified, because I could barely move, could barely think. And all I could feel was pain. And I knew I was helpless to fight them. Helpless to protect my child. Utterly…helpless.

She stood beside my head, the one with the kindness in her eyes. She stroked my face, not speaking, but I could see the pity in her eyes when they met mine. And then there was relief, so swift and sudden I nearly floated off the table with it. Doe Eyes turned her head, looking down at the men and woman who stood at the foot of the table on which I lay. I followed that gaze, looking where she did. And I saw my child. The woman I’d thought of as a kindly old grandmother held her—a pink, wrinkled blur in her arms. A blur that squirmed and kicked and had jet-black hair stuck to her head.

And then that pretty one leaned close to me and whispered, “A girl. And she looks healthy.”

I moved my lips, lifted my hands toward my child, my daughter. I tried to beg. “Please…”

And those doe eyes filled with tears. They met mine. Held mine. “Please,” I whispered. “Help me…help…her!”

She looked at me, then at my baby as they carried her from the room, out of my sight. All of them, leaving me lying there. And I watched them go, as great heaving sobs that hurt as much as the birth had, tore through my body. I tried to sit up, tried with everything in me to tear free of the straps that held me down. But the drug made my efforts into a joke. A sideshow, as I cried in agony and they took my child out of my sight.

And then that beautiful, dark-skinned woman who seemed different from the others touched my face. I turned to look up at her, and her eyes, with tears swimming in and nearly spilling from them, met mine again.

“Help her,” I whispered.

And slowly, almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

Then she left me to the orderlies, who arrived to clean me up and return me to my cell, I was left wondering whether I had imagined that nod, the assurance in those eyes. I prayed I hadn’t.

The classified ad read:

Tamara, remember me? Eighteen years ago. You had the chicken, and I had the seafood. We both had the wine. A little too much. And the cheesecake was more than we could resist. All that cholesterol. It could cost me my life. Call me. 374-555-1092.

No one would have thought it anything unusual. But Tamara did. Eric paced, looking worried.

“Where did you get this?” Tamara asked, looking up at him from where she sat in the oversize house they owned just outside San Diego. Jamey had returned to get his affairs in order. Sold the bar he’d owned, traded in his car, bought another under an assumed name. He was making arrangements to hide his money as well. DPI must not be able to track him. He had to live the way the rest of them did now. In hiding.

“A vampire by the name of Cuyler saw it, recognized the name, tracked us down and sent it to us. She thought it might be meant for you. Do you think she was right?”

Tamara nodded slowly. “Of course she was right. This is from Hilary Garner. We worked together at DPI. I remember that night, we went out together. I went home alone, and had a flat. That was the night I was almost—”

“I’d rather not be reminded of what nearly happened to you that night,” Eric said. He moved forward, stroking one hand through her hair. “This could be a trap, Tamara. Hilary still works for DPI.”

She shook her head hard. “No. Hilary wouldn’t do something like that. And look at this last line.” Tamara held up the paper and pointed. “‘It could cost me my life.’ She makes it sound as if she’s referring to the cheesecake, but she’s not. It’s there to let me know this is urgent.” She looked into Eric’s eyes. “I have to call her, darling. I have to.”

He lowered his head, and she was glad that for once he didn’t argue. “I was afraid you were going to say something like that.” She held his gaze until she saw him conceding. He sighed hard, and nodded. “I’ll rig something up, just in case. They won’t be able to trace the call.”

She smiled, and then kissed him.

Since his change, Jameson had been learning. Testing his strength and energy. Honing his mental skills. And he was decidedly happy with his progress. He could run nearly as fast as Eric. Climb and leap and jump as well as Roland. He could speak to any of them without uttering a sound. That was probably the most surprising aspect of his new nature. And the hardest to get used to. He could read their thoughts now just as easily as they’d always been able to read his. Unless they were guarding them. He’d become adept at erecting a mental shield around his mind, one that could bar entry to any vampire.

He’d expected to miss eating a good meal, but oddly enough, he didn’t. His other senses were so finely honed, so much sharper and more acute than before, that he took sensual pleasure in everything. Sounds and sights, smells and feelings bombarded him constantly. The tastes he’d once enjoyed were easily replaced. Easily forgotten.

He did regret that he’d never have the chance to fulfill his dream of a “normal” mortal life. A life with a family, a wife, children perhaps. But then, that had never really been a possibility anyway. He’d always known that those rare individuals who carried the belladonna antigen had abbreviated life spans. Few ever lived beyond the age of thirty. Jameson was thirty now, and while he hadn’t experienced the onset of any of the usual symptoms, it probably wouldn’t have been much longer before he had. So his initial anger at his dearest friends was long since reduced to cold ashes.

The fury he felt for the woman who’d attacked him, though—that remained red-hot. Coals of that anger glowed in his soul, and it would take only a bit of stirring to bring them back to blazing rage again.

He’d been attacked, fed upon without his consent, made to feel helpless and nearly killed. Oh, how he’d like to run into that raggedy vampiress again. He was strong now, stronger than she would ever be, he was certain, since he’d been infused with the blood of the truly ancient. Rhiannon in particular. Yes, he’d like to see that tangled and tattered woman try to attack him again. He’d toss her away like a rag doll. Snap her like a matchstick. She would learn.

Of course, that fury would probably never be vented. She was likely long dead by now. Vampires, Jameson knew all too well, didn’t tend to last long in captivity. Particularly when their captors saw them as useless once the experiments were done. Easier to simply let them die in an agony of slow starvation, or just tranquilize them with that drug they’d developed, and stake them out in the burning rays of the sun. Disposable experiments.

Somehow, it gave Jameson no pleasure at all to think of that bone-thin and chalk-white vampiress dying in such a way. No pleasure at all.

Above all the lessons he’d been taught by his friends was that he mustn’t take blood from the living. The bloodlust could become overwhelming, and a vampire could easily lose himself in the act of assuaging his passionate thirst. Well, he’d witnessed that firsthand, hadn’t he? And since he had no desire to kill anyone—anyone in San Diego, at least—he took his blood as the others did. From the stores they kept, robbed from blood banks and hospitals.

“Jamey, I need to talk to you.”

He turned, saw Tamara entering his room in one of the many houses they all kept around the country, this one in San Diego. He really wasn’t certain why they were still here. His affairs were in order. He had plenty of money and a good cover to keep him invisible from DPI’s prying eyes. His lessons were pretty much complete as well. They could go wherever they wanted. He supposed they hadn’t moved on yet because they simply hadn’t felt the urge to do so.

Tamara still hadn’t stopped calling him Jamey, and he’d all but given up hope that she ever would.

He frowned as he met her eyes, and a little trill of alarm rushed through him, because she looked…very upset. “What is it, Tam?” She approached him, gnawing her lower lip, but then stopped halfway, and gripped the back of an armchair as if for support. And this alarmed him even more. “My God, what’s wrong?”

“Jamey—Lord, but I don’t know how to tell you this…”

He went to her, gripping her shoulders and easing her trembling body into the chair she’d been clinging to. “Has something happened to Eric? Or Roland? Is Rhiannon all—”

“Everyone is fine, Jamey. But you…you won’t be.” She tipped her head up, her eyes probing his. “If you fly out of here in a blind rage, Jamey, you’ll only end up getting yourself killed, and that won’t help the situation. This is…it’s horrible. If it’s even true. If it is, we have to take action. But with thought, and planning, and extreme caution. I can’t stress that enough.”

He narrowed his eyes and stared at her. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, Tam.”

She licked her lips, closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. “When DPI held you…”

As her words trailed off, Jameson snapped to attention. “When DPI held me?” he prompted. “Go on, Tam, get to the point.”

Tamara cleared her throat, lifted her delicate chin, looked him in the eye. “You said they took…samples.”

He averted his eyes. But Tamara’s small hand came to his shoulder, and her steady gaze drew his back like a magnet. “I need to know…what kind.”

“That’s not something I’m going to discuss,” he said. “Not even with you.”

“Forgive me,” she whispered. Then cleared her throat. “Did they take your semen, Jamey?”

“Tamara, for Christ’s sake!” He turned away, pulling free of her gentle grip and pacing the floor.

“I must know.”

He only stopped when he reached the window. He shoved the black chintz draperies apart, braced his hands on the wide sill, and stared out into the murky gray night. The clawlike fingers of storm clouds reached past the moon, breaking its light into thin, jagged portions. And the stars were invisible.

“Why?” Jameson whispered. “For the love of God, Tamara, why would you ask me something like that?”

“Because I’ve been told something too horrible to believe,” she told him. She didn’t cross the room, didn’t come to put her hands on his shoulders as he’d half expected her to do. Instead she remained sitting in the chair nearest the fireplace. And when he turned to face her he saw her staring into the dancing flames. He saw the teardrops rolling slowly down her cheeks, reflecting the light of the fire.

“Tell me,” he said.

She nodded once. “You remember Hilary? My friend from so long ago?”

Jameson tilted his head, searching his memory. “She worked for DPI,” he said at last.

“So did I.”

“That’s different, Tara.”

“Maybe not,” she told him. “Maybe it’s not so different at all. She drew her black eyes from the firelight, and turned her gaze to him again. ”She told me they had taken your semen, Jameson. She told me they’d frozen it. She said their research had shown that some female vampires—very young ones—still had functioning ovaries.“

Jameson felt his eyes narrow as he stepped away from the window, closer to Tamara. “What in hell are you saying?”

“The men—once they’re brought over, they seem to be quite sterile. But you know DPI and their unending quest for knowledge about our kind. You know them, Jamey. They wanted to know what would happen if a female vampire were to have a child. And since they couldn’t mate her with a male vampire, they decided that one of the Chosen would be the next best choice.”

Jameson stood in front of her now, between her and the hearth’s protective screen. “Are you telling me they intend to implant a woman with my seed?”

More tears. She bit her lower lip, then tipped her head back, staring up at the ceiling. “No, my love. I’m telling you they’ve already done it.”

“Already…”

Tamara’s head came level again, and she got to her feet. Her hands closed on Jameson’s shoulders, and her grip was firm. “Last week a vampiress being held in that place gave birth to a child, Jameson. Your child.”

“No!” He pulled free of her, spun away. He slammed his fists down on the mantel, and the clock and other bric-a-brac lining it flew into the air and smashed to the floor. “No, it’s not possible.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s killing me to tell you this, Jamey, but Hilary says it’s true. They…they have your child.”

“I’ll kill those bastards,” Jameson shouted. “I’ll kill every last one of them, I swear!” He stalked across the room, and yanked the door open, only to be met by a solid wall of resistance.