Books by Maggie Shayne (147 page)

Roland, Eric and Rhiannon stood there, blocking his path. Jameson shoved his way past them all, but Roland gripped his arms and fought to keep him from leaving. “Jameson, please! Just listen—‘”

“No. I’m through listening. I’m through letting you all treat me like a child. Jesus, Roland, don’t you realize what’s happening? A child—
my child
, Roland, if what Tamara says is true—is being used as a research subject by those monsters.” He swung his gaze around to Rhiannon’s. “You were their prisoner once,” he told her. “You know…you know better than anyone, Rhiannon, what they’re capable of. I have to get my child out of there. I can’t wait.”

“Of course I know that,” Rhiannon told him. “And I agree fully that the animals must pay, Jameson, though these others will no doubt argue that point. We only want you to be aware, before you go, of some vital considerations.” She stopped there, turning to Eric, nodding at him to go on.

Jameson stopped struggling and met Eric’s eyes. “First, just keep in mind that we only have Hilary Garner’s word that this is your child,” Eric said. “And—”

“Do you really think that matters?
No child
deserves to be used the way they will use him…or her…” He turned to Tamara, whose tears flowed unchecked now. “Him, Tamara? Or her?” And his voice broke as he asked the question.

“Her,” she whispered. “A girl.”

“A daughter. Jesus Christ, I have a daughter.” He felt dizzy, weak, ill.

“Maybe,” Eric said. “And we’d mount a rescue attempt no matter whose child it turned out to be. But Jameson, there’s one more thing you need to be aware of before we move in.” Eric licked his lips. Closed his eyes very briefly. “You have to prepare yourself, my friend. We don’t know what sort of child we’ll find. Whether she’ll be mortal or…or—”

“Or vampire?” Jameson moved closer to Eric, searching his face. “My God, Eric, you don’t think…no. No, not a newborn vampire. That’s too horrible for words. A child who lives on blood? A child who can never grow older?” Jameson closed his eyes, then popped them open again and turned to Tamara. “This Hilary, she saw the baby?”

“Only for a moment. She just glimpsed her, and says all she could tell for sure was that she was…she was beautiful. Dark curls. Like yours, Jamey.” Her beautiful face fell then, into her delicate hands, and Tamara wept. Her shoulders shaking with it. Eric went to her, took her into his arms.

Jameson stepped away from them, looking back at them all. “You love me,” he said, his voice coarse. “I know you all love me. But do you trust me?”

“Of course we trust you, Jameson,” Roland said quickly. But Rhiannon was looking at him with wariness in her eyes. As if she knew full well what was coming next.

“I’ve never asked anything of you. I’m asking you now, and this means more to me than anything ever has. If you care for me as you say you do, then let me go after my daughter alone.”

Tam’s head came up sharply, eyes red and puffy and wet. “No!”

“This is my child,” he went on. “My responsibility. For once, treat me as an equal. I am, you know. I’m your equal now. There’s no more reason for all this protectiveness. None at all. And if you won’t let me do this, if you won’t trust me to save the life of my own child, then…” He lowered his head, shook it slowly.

“Then,” Rhiannon said softly, “our relationship with this young man is going to be severely damaged.”

Jameson met Rhiannon’s eyes and nodded. “Yes. That’s it exactly.” Then he looked at the rest of them, each in turn. “Trust me enough to know I’ll be wise, and cautious, and that I won’t satisfy this rage that’s burning inside me at the risk of my child’s life.” And then he went to Tamara, and he stroked her hair away from her face. “I want you to wait for me. If I need you, I’ll call to you, I promise you that.”

“Swear it, Jamey,” Tamara whispered. “Swear to me you’ll call us, if you’re hurt or if you’re taken. Or if things look too dangerous. Swear it to me, and I’ll believe you.”

“I swear, Tam.” He stared down into her eyes. “You’re more to me than a sister could be. Closer to me than my own soul, sometimes. You’d know if I were lying to you. I’ll call if I need help. My pride won’t get in the way of saving that child. I need to do this alone, Tamara. I need to focus everything on getting to her, not on worrying which of my friends will suffer or die in the attempt. Please…”

Tamara sniffled, brushed at her eyes but nodded. “All right then. Go. We’ll be waiting.”

“There are many of us, Jameson,” Roland said. “There are others who will come to your aid. Damien, the oldest of all of us. The first, and the strongest. He’d come in a heartbeat. And his mate, Shannon. And so many others.”

“It might very well take all of us to defeat DPI this time,” Rhiannon said softly. “And if it does, we’ll all be willing. Know that, Jameson. Say the word, and we’ll be there.”

Jameson nodded. But he had no intention of risking their lives unless he had to.

A daughter. A tiny, newborn child. His child was waiting, somewhere, for her father to come and rescue her. Her father. He closed his eyes as the enormity of it hit him. Her father.

As he turned to go, a single tear fell and rolled slowly down his cheek.

I was hosed down like an animal, and then wheeled back to my prison cell. Men lifted me from the gurney, and carelessly dropped me into that box where I was condemned to spend my days. The coffinlike box with the lid that sealed from without. The place where I would lie, trapped and suffocating, until they saw fit to let me out.

And only vaguely did I realize as they shifted me into this tomb, that it was not dawn. Nor even near to dawn. It was still fully night, and the slumber wouldn’t fall upon me for several hours yet. Surely the chains on the wall were preferable to being trapped in this box!

“Please,” I said to the two who lowered me into my prison. “It’s not daylight yet.” My words were thick and slurring together. And I was still weak from the drugs they’d given me, still feeling the residual cramping from my enforced labor.

They did not answer me. Just lowered me into that box, and reached for the lid.

“No!” I tried to pull myself out again, tried with everything in me. Suddenly I was terrified of being sealed inside the tiny casket. I couldn’t bear it. I wouldn’t! It might have been some form of precognition that made me feel this panic, but whatever the source, I felt it, and I fought.

But it was little use. One orderly, a burly man in white, held me down as I kicked and clawed, while the second easily pushed the lid into place. I screamed. I howled and pushed at the heavy, perhaps lead-lined lid that held me prisoner, but my efforts were worthless and exhausting. I heard them working without. Heard the bolts they inserted to keep the lid down tight. And eventually, I stilled. I would have curled up into a tiny fetal ball if the space were wide enough to allow it. But as it was I could only lie flat in the darkness, with the ceiling only inches above my face, and my knuckles brushing the walls on either side of me. I pressed my hands to my flat belly, empty now of the child I’d cherished all these months, and I wept bitter tears, until it seemed no more remained.

There wasn’t enough air. I couldn’t move. I could only lie there in the pitch-black closeness, feeling the heat of that cramped space closing in on me. With my heart, my mind, I felt my child’s presence. I knew she was near…but that faded a short while later. My sense of her grew slowly weaker, until it vanished entirely. Why I was so aware of her, I did not know. I’d felt her crying for me, and I’d known she was comforted in someone’s arms. I’d sensed when she was wrapped in a warm blanket, and when she’d fallen into a contented sleep. And I knew now, as surely as I knew my own name, that she’d been taken from this place. Taken away, so far away that I could no longer reach her. And the tears I had thought were used up, renewed themselves, and spilled from my eyes.

I slowly realized the awful truth. These people had used me. And their use for me was finished. They had no reason to keep me alive any longer. And I knew with an instinct that struck me with mind-numbing fear, that the lid of this coffin was never going to open again.

How long, I wondered, would it take for me to die?

The white lab coat had belonged to the man who was now occupying space in the darkest corner of a supply room. As did the ID tag. Jameson knew this was not a foolproof plan, but not entirely a bad one either. He could read their thoughts. He’d know which of them were suspicious of him, and which believed his stories. He moved through the corridors of the fourth subterranean level of DPI headquarters in White Plains. The last place any of them would expect to find a vampire visiting of his own accord. He knew well enough that the captives were kept below ground level, and the more important the prisoner, the deeper he would be found. Like a living burial, life in this hole. He pushed a stainless-steel cart full of instruments, and he wore a pair of latex gloves, and he stopped on occasion to flip open the chart he’d stolen, and gaze thoughtfully at the gibberish scrawled there. All to add flavor to his charade. An extra white lab coat, and surgical mask and cap were tucked inside the coat he wore. And he knew from the blueprints he’d pilfered that there was a rear exit used only to remove the remains of those who died in captivity here. An elevator that went directly to that exit. And a large blast furnace in the room that elevator opened into. A crematorium, of sorts.

He passed a young woman…then stopped as he sensed her gaze on him, her approval of his appearance, the initial flare of attraction, and he turned to her, saw her glancing back at him, running one hand through her silken blond hair, and moistening her cover-model lips. “Excuse me, maybe you can help,” he said. “I’m a little bit lost.”

Her smile was quick and brilliant, and she was hoping he’d ask her to meet him after her shift. She was a lab technician, an up-and-comer, very talented. And utterly without morality. “Sure,” she said, her gaze dipping only briefly to the ID tag on his chest. Seeing it dangling there was all the confirmation she required. She was a beautiful fool. “What are you looking for?”

“ The uh—” He glanced around, made a pretense of being secretive, knowing full well that not everyone here would be privy to the most secret of information. Then he checked her ID tag, noted her security clearance was one of the highest and nodded. “The new mother?”

The woman frowned, and a bit of suspicion rose in her mind.

He heard her thoughts plainly.
Why would he be visiting that one? She’s probably dead by now, anyway
.

“I’m supposed to take a few samples, and then move the remains down to forensics,” he added quickly.

“Oh.” The suspicion left her pretty face. “One level down, isolation cell 516-S.”

“Thanks.”

She was thinking maybe she ought to mention this man’s mission to someone. Jameson turned once more, flashing his most brilliant smile, yet careful to conceal the telltale tips of his incisors. “Say, what time do you get off?”

“Midnight,” she told him, a triumphant gleam in her green cat’s eyes. “Why?”

Jameson stared into her eyes, and though he’d never used the mind control before, he knew he could do it, so long as the mortal in question didn’t resist. And he sensed no resistance or fear in this one. He’d seen Eric do it. The trick took practice, and he hadn’t had much. Still, influencing the actions of one mortal female shouldn’t be too difficult.
Say nothing about me to anyone. Say nothing. Nothing
.

Aloud, he said, “Why don’t you meet me in the parking lot at twelve-fifteen? We could go out for drinks…or something.”

She nodded, her eyes eager. “That sounds nice,” she said.

“Great.” He turned and headed down the hall to the elevators. He passed several others, but none of them seemed at all wary of him. The woman he sought, whoever she was, was in all likelihood dead, according to the pretty technician. Why was she still here then? And would he find the child, as he’d expected he would? He’d thought they’d be together, sharing a cell at the very least. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

Sublevel five was like a dungeon. And it was only seconds before Jameson knew this was where they brought the vampires when their use for them had ended. This was where the undead were left to die. The second death. The final one. This level was encased in concrete, and painted a dark green, like a basement Morgue in a hospital. Each tiny cell had a door, and all the doors were sealed. And he could smell the stench of death heavy in the air.

He reached the door with the correct number. No guards on this level. Apparently, they assumed none was needed for dead or dying vampires. Jameson gripped the door handle, and it was with only a minimal exertion of his strength that he pulled it open, breaking the locks in the process.

He stepped inside, and caught his breath. In the far corner of the tomblike room was a box the size and appearance of a stone sarcophagus. Six inches thick. No baby in sight, and thankfully, no tinier, infant-sized deathtrap sat nearby. He’d thought to find the child with her mother. He’d obviously been mistaken. And if she were dead already, the woman would provide no clues as to where his daughter might be. Even if she were alive, he realized, heart sinking, she might know nothing. But he had to try.

Stepping closer, Jameson pushed the huge stone top aside, wincing at the grating whine of it. The sound was like a cry, and it echoed endlessly in this room. Within it was a smaller coffin, ordinary wood, though he sensed there was a layer of lead within it. This one was bolted shut, but he snapped the bolts like twigs, and wrenched the lid from the casket.

In the pitch-darkness, his eyes were as sharp as those of a cat. And she lay there, still and white, the sharp bones of her face protruding into her pale skin. Her hair spread around her in tangles. And he stared down at her in utter shock, and whispered, “You!”

Her eyes opened, their violet light so dulled he barely recognized it there. “Please…” she whispered, parched lips barely moving to form the words. “My…child…”

Why she made the effort to speak the words aloud when it was so difficult for her, he could not fathom. She could transmit her thoughts to him much more easily. Her. Why the hell did it have to be her? What twist of fate had brought this ridiculous irony about?

“Where is the child?” he demanded, gripping her shoulders, shaking her when she would have faded into slumber. “Where?”

She parted her lips, but only a low moan escaped them. Jameson shook her again, and she blinked up at him. “They…took my baby… they took her…”

“Took her where, dammit!”

Her eyes widened at the anger in his voice. And then she stared up at him as if seeing him for the first time. “You’re alive,” she said with a sigh, scanning his face.

“No thanks to you. Now, dammit, where is the child?”

Licking her lips, she shook her head. “I…they’ve taken her…away from here.”

“She’s not in this building?”

She shook her head.

“And you’ve no idea where she is?”

“No.”

Jameson swore, spinning in a slow circle, then pacing away from the woman’s intended tomb.

“Please,” she groaned. “Don’t…leave me here.”

And then he laughed, a low, bitter sound that echoed from the concrete walls, and turned to face her again. “You want me to help you? Me, your victim, the mortal man you did your best to murder? Why the hell should I? You tried to kill me, lady. You drained me and left me for dead, and then you turned yourself over to these bastards. It’s your fault they’ve got their hands on my daughter, and you deserve everything they—”

“
Your
… daughter?‘”

Jameson stopped speaking and stepped closer to stare down at the pathetic, yet somehow still beautiful woman, who was too weak even to sit up on her own. “Yes,” he said softly. “My daughter. I was once a prisoner here, just as you are now. And it was my seed they used to impregnate you. She is my little girl. And I will find her.”

She closed her eyes, drew a painful breath. “I…can help you.”

“How?” He didn’t think he believed her. Hell, he wasn’t truly going to leave her here. Wouldn’t leave his worst enemy to die this way. But she obviously thought he would, and she was trying to convince him not to. Grasping at straws. Bluffing, in all likelihood.

“I…” She gripped the edges of the coffin, struggled to sit up. And Jameson’s hands moved automatically. It seemed they found it a bit too easy to forget this woman had once tried to murder him. He slipped his hands over her shoulders, grimacing at how thin she was, and helped her to sit up. She had to cling to the wooden sides to keep herself in that position, and her head fell forward as if even holding it upright were more than she could manage. “Please, if nothing else…take me out of this box.”

He saw the fear in her eyes when she lifted her head briefly to look around her, when she realized the box she’d been entombed within had been sealed inside a larger one, made of stone. “They’re monsters,” she whispered.

“Ah, so you’ve finally figured that out, have you?” Jameson gathered her featherlight body into his arms and lifted her out of the box. But when he lowered her feet to the floor, her legs buckled. She fell against him, and only his quick reaction kept her from sinking into a heap at his feet.

He held her. And doing so stirred up unpleasant memories. Memories of the last time he’d held her this way, with her face pressed to the crook of his neck. Of the desire that had overwhelmed him when she’d put her mouth to his throat. Of how much he’d wanted her at that moment. She’d been desperate then. Starving. She was, if anything, more so now. He waited, tense and expectant, his arms around her waist to keep her from falling. Her body pressed tight to his. And he felt her lips touch the skin of his neck, felt her soft gasp.

And then she turned her head away from his neck, and rested her cheek on his shoulder.

Of course. She wouldn’t attempt to overpower another vampire. Particularly as weak as she was. It was that, nothing more, surely.

“Tell me,” he said, “how you think you can help me to find my child.”

“My child,” she whispered, not moving. “There’s…there’s a link between my baby and me. I felt it…even before she was born.

“I knew how…she’d look.” She slipped lower in his arms, sinking toward the floor, and he was forced to hold her tighter, closer. “I knew she was female. I spoke to her…and she heard, I know she did.” Her voice was so weak. But a whisper, and speaking was obviously a tremendous effort.

“Of course she did,” Jameson said, not believing a word she said.

She lifted her head, met his eyes. “I could feel what she felt. I knew when she was here, and I was aware of it the instant they…took her away.” Her head lowered to his shoulder again, and he knew she could hold it up no longer. She was very near death right now. “I’ll know again, when we get close to her. I swear to Christ, I will.”

Jameson tipped her chin up with one hand and searched her eyes, wondering if she might be telling the truth, nearly wincing at the agony he saw in their violet depths. And then he scanned her mind, not expecting to find much there, particularly if she were lying. She’d be smart enough to guard her thoughts if she hoped to fool him. But he was surprised, because her mind was utterly unguarded. Completely open to him.