henri dunn 01 - immortality cure (12 page)

“No, I don’t,” I said. “If being a vampire again were as easy as skipping a few injections, I’d be ecstatic. And I don’t know what drug trial they were doing. Ray was working on a lot of things.”

“Looks like he was trying to recreate the Captain America serum to me,” Aidan said.

I shrugged but inwardly I was relieved. There was no logical reason to think that Aidan, knowing so little about Ray’s work, would jump to the “werewolf drug” conclusion, but my luck with other people’s assumptions hadn’t been stellar recently. “Maybe so.”

After enough time had passed that I was pretty sure Jake was gone, we left Ray’s apartment. I made sure to lock it up tightly. Who knew how long it would remain as we’d left it before his landlord finally busted in and realized his tenant was never coming back? It was sad, in a way, to think of all his junk—his movies, his posters, his underwear—no longer mattering to anyone in this world.

I pulled off the gloves as soon as we were in the elevator and tossed them in my purse. Aidan did the same.

CHAPTER 12

I
needed to talk to Neha to see if she’d tested the vials, and I needed to check the lab for any information I could get on Ray’s newest experiment. If he was running some kind of werewolf drug trial, it was unlikely Jake was the only subject. Neha bitched and moaned constantly that having too few samples of vampire’s blood made for crappy science, so I was willing to bet Ray diversified his experiment. After all, if there was one mortal man willing to turn into a dog at the sight of the moon, there were a hundred. There are always people willing to become monsters for the sake of being something more than human.

But I didn’t want to do any of that with Aidan in tow. I knew Caz hadn’t sent him to help so much as to spy, and I wasn’t willing to show him all of my cards. I was trying to come up with a plan to ditch him as we walked back to my car when, like magic, my cell phone blared to life.

It was Max. I hit answer.

“Hello, sweet Henrietta.” He was using his sickly-sweet voice. I groaned.

“Sorry, I’m busy,” I said.

“I wouldn’t ask, but Javier finally asked me out. His company is throwing a party on a boat tonight.” Javier was one of his regular customers at RJ’s, a “very hot guy” who worked at one of the big tech companies downtown and came in for lunch several times a week. Max had shown me photos he’d surreptitiously snapped on his phone and I had to agree that the guy was cute. That didn’t mean I wanted to give up a night off. “A boat party, Henri. You have to say yes.”

I sighed. Max was the closest thing I had to a friend in this whacky human life I was living. I glanced at Aidan, who was leaning against my car and texting on his phone. Probably updating Cazimir on our bust of an investigation. A jolt of cold terror exploded through me as a metronome ticked in my head. There wasn’t time to waste. But I also couldn’t do much with Aidan tagging along after me like a puppy.

“What’s the shift?” I asked, resigned.

I could practically hear the jump of joy in Max’s voice. “Opening. And there’s very little on the books. You’ll be cut by seven, easily.”

Not necessarily, but opening meant that I’d probably be cut before dark, and I could hand off any lingering tables to other servers so I could get the heck out of there if necessary. “Fine,” I agreed. “But you owe me.”

“You’re the best.” He hung up.

Aidan looked at me quizzically. “I have to work in a couple of hours,” I said.

“Work?” he asked, like it was a foreign concept. I guess to someone who’d had a vampire sugar daddy for the last decade, it was. Even as a vampire, I’d worked. More to get out in the world and get a routine than for the paycheck. Vampires have plenty of ways to earn money: steal it from their victims, although this is much harder in the era of credit cards; invest wisely and be patient; or work a job. Cazimir was several hundred years old and had amassed a fortune. I hadn’t yet reached a century and I’d spent most of it living in the moment, sometimes getting money from Sean, my sire, who had also padded his funds under a dozen names. Now that I was human, money was more important than ever. Being human requires a lot of stuff. Meals, and tampons, and toilet paper. Things vampires have zero use for.

“Yes,” I said. “You know, where you do a job and they give you money for it.”

Aidan smirked his trademark smirk. “I didn’t think vampires did that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not a vampire anymore, remember?” I gestured to the sun overhead and the way my skin was not puckering and turning red.

“Still. Shouldn’t your sire provide for you?”

“There’s no contract in the Blood,” I said, bitterly but with purpose. Aidan believed the romantic ideals about vampires found in gothic novels. Sure, he lived with them and more or less knew the reality, but Cazimir’s “reality” was a beautifully crafted illusion. In truth, of the few mortal lovers Cazimir had turned since I’d known him, one had jumped into the sun after a vicious fight, one had moved to Australia to get as far away from Caz as possible, and one had gone mad. And a mad vampire is not a pretty thing. If she was still alive—and I suspected she was not—she was locked away somewhere in that terrible factory of his, kept in isolation. Did Aidan know about Gertrude? I doubted it. Caz reinvented himself to fit the best and newest ideal of a gorgeous fanged fiend found in the public zeitgeist every fifty years or so. He made vampirism seem like a fairy tale. It wasn’t, and mortals who believed in the lies tended to make shitty vampires when they were turned. If they were turned. “Once you’re turned, you’re on your own.”

Aidan’s smirk tightened into pursed lips. “Caz will never turn me out. We’ll rule the night together like princes.”

“If you say so,” I said, because frankly, whatever happened to Aidan was none of my concern. “I’m going to do my shift, but you can tell Caz I’ll be at the Factory after sunset to interview all the witnesses he can gather. That means anyone who might have seen anything or known Thomas. Got it?” Aidan nodded. “You want a ride home before I go change for work?”

“Sure,” he said and got into the car. When I pulled out onto the street, he said, “My birthday is soon. He’s going to give me the gift of immortality.”

Last I’d heard, Caz hadn’t decided on that point. I didn’t say it. “When’s the big day?”

“Friday.”

My hands tightened on the wheel as I remembered Cazimir’s words about Aidan’s aging and how it was a problem, making Aidan impatient and bitter. “Friday, huh? Happy birthday.” My voice was tight and my chest constricted. I hoped it wouldn’t also be the day of his demise. Or, come to think of it, of mine.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ve waited long enough, you know? I’m so goddamn tired of being human and getting colds and finding gray hairs.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “I bet you’re not looking forward to those.”

Something hot burst inside me. A balloon of fiery, jealous anger and frustration. Because I
was
tired of being human. Of the aches and sores and pains. Of the constant need to use the restroom or drink water or eat something. Being mortal was exhausting and I hated it. I could lie to myself day to day and convince myself it wasn’t so bad. But now, faced with a mortal idiot who might get the thing I wanted most in the world—vampirism—my insides flared with fury.

“I won’t be human that long,” I said sharply. “And I wouldn’t bet on Caz giving you the Blood. He’s less willing than he tells you.”

Aidan’s smile twisted into something that matched my own anger. It was satisfying for a second and then guilt started to worm through the hot envy. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just jealous because he loves me and he’s going to make me like him and you’re stuck being alive.”

Neither of us spoke for the rest of the drive. Aidan got out of the car in a huff. He opened his mouth to say something but then seemed to think better of it and slammed the car door.

CHAPTER 13

A
s Max predicted, I was cut by seven and able to get my sidework complete and paperwork cashed out not long after that. That gave me a couple hours of daylight to attend to things before heading into the lion’s den of the Factory.

I stood on the sidewalk next to my car outside Le Poisson, basking in the warm summer air, and texted Neha. It was in the eighties, and I suspected part of the reason tonight had been so slow at the restaurant was that most people were enjoying the great outdoors. Fancy dinners could wait for worse weather.

My phone dinged moments later with a reply. Neha was at the lab, which was good. Two birds, one stone, as the saying went. I could tell her about Jake the Wannabe Werewolf in person and we could scour the lab for remainders of Ray’s research.

The lab was pristine, tile floor and metal surfaces sparkling, and the whole place faintly like a hospital, the acrid tang of bleach and industrial-strength cleaner lingering in the air.

Neha opened the door without saying a word and then returned to her laptop on the far counter. There was a microscope set up next to her and a big industrial machine I didn’t understand whirring away in the corner.

“Nice cleanup,” I said.

“I found one of those companies who discreetly cleans up after … accidents,” she said. “They took cash.”

“That was smart,” I said.

Neha gave me a very wry look. “I am not the idiot you think I am, Henri.”

“I never said you were an idiot. An overly ambitious bitch, maybe, but not stupid.” I smiled faintly. Neha would have smiled back in the past, but now she did not. I reminded myself that I was mad at her and not trying to win her friendship. “What have you found?”

“Your vampire pal was not injected with the Cure.”

I had expected that, of course, since whatever had been pumped into Thomas’s veins had burned him up from the inside out. Even if the Cure failed on someone, it was hard to imagine it having that kind of impact, especially after seeing the effects of a failed Cure on video. But then again, whatever magic could burn the vampirism from someone’s veins might very well be enough to destroy someone that way if conditions were right.

“What was he injected with?”

Neha took off her glasses and wiped them on a corner of her lab coat. “Something else.”

I huffed out a breath of frustration and bared fangs I didn’t have. “The vampires are ready to string me up for murder. I need more than that.”

Neha rubbed her eyes and put her glasses on the counter, turning to lean her back against it. “Ray was further along with his project than I realized,” she said. She watched my face to gauge my reaction.

I was more than happy to disappoint her. “I know. One of his test subjects came to his place.”

Neha’s head snapped up, her eyes wide. “You’re joking. Who is he? Is he … ?” She made claws with her fingers as if trying to mime “wolf.”

“He’s big and burly. If he can turn into a wolf, I haven’t seen it, but he’s shaky and unsteady. He claims he needs a booster.”

Neha nodded. “I found a backup of Ray’s research, but it’s encrypted. I’m not a computer scientist. Ray was the one who set up our secure network. But from what I can tell from the sample, it contains canine DNA and vampire blood.”

I frowned. “Where did he get the vampire blood?”

“He must have pilfered my supply.”

A flame ignited in my midsection. “Wait, it’s
my
blood?”

“I assume so. I used up the blood donated by other subjects. A small sample of yours was all I had left. I don’t know where Ray would have gotten vampire blood except to steal it from me. And using it makes sense. Vampire blood has … unique qualities … that might help increase the strength and speed of whatever he was trying to manufacture.”

I swore again. “And I don’t suppose you have any more of this werewolf juice to run better tests on.”

Neha shook her head. She picked up a glass vial from the holder and held it up. It was totally clean now, no traces of the dark liquid it had once held. I took it. It was light and the glass was cool to the touch. “Whoever killed him took it all, unless he had some hidden somewhere else.” She gave me a questioning look.

“There was no sign of serum in his apartment. Or his research, for that matter. I don’t think he was a guy who took his work home with him.” I considered. “Do you think he was testing the serum on himself, too?”

“I didn’t check his blood for traces of canine DNA, and the only drug I found in his system was marijuana.”

I pulled out my tin of Altoids and popped one into my mouth, crunching down on it and letting the peppermint coat my tongue while I considered. There were a dozen reasons Ray might have been murdered, but his werewolf serum trial sat high on the list. He would have had to let the subjects into the lab, which would explain how his killer had gotten inside.

I thought of Jake, sweaty and desperate like an addict. He could have murdered Ray in a fit of rage or frustration, and only afterward realized he hadn’t gotten enough of the required booster shots.

But then Jake had seemed pretty shocked to learn Ray was dead.

“Why would Ray keep his work from you? We were both well aware of his ambitions.”

“I wasn’t a fan of the project,” Neha said flatly. “He knew I was uncomfortable with the idea of creating monsters. We’re not Victor Frankenstein, toiling in our castle. I wanted to do good. He wanted to be a wolf.” She sat down on the stool, deflated. “He must have known if I found out he’d moved to human trials, I’d start questioning the wisdom of his work. I should have known. He’d been working increasingly long hours and not eating or showering nearly enough. I assumed he was trying to come up with a better party drug when the market for Lemondrop collapsed.” She sat back down on her work stool. “I should have paid closer attention. I was busy working on a way to sell the few vials of Cure I had to vampires across the country. I suppose it’s lucky I didn’t. If I’d sold this”—she held up the now-clean vial—“to someone, and it did to them what it did to your friend, I can only imagine the repercussions.”

“I’m guessing Ray didn’t know about your plan,” I said.

“No. We didn’t speak much about our private projects. We shared lab space, not work, except the party drugs. And Ray did most of those.”