henri dunn 01 - immortality cure (21 page)

“You vicious little fool,” Cazimir muttered.

Aidan stepped behind him, leaning down and kissing him on the cheek before pressing the needle to Cazimir’s neck. “Not vicious, lover,” he said, the word “lover” so bitter in his mouth I could taste the sourness in the air. “Merely taking what I’ve earned. I sold you my soul and now I’m reaping my prize.”

“But why kill your mortal housemates?” I asked, both to buy time and out of genuine curiosity. I tried not to look at the stake and give my plan away.

“Why not? They were wasting their lives getting high on anything they could get their grubby hands on. I was tired of having to drag their incoherent asses home from the club or the bar or whatever alley those little wastes of space passed out in.” He glanced down at his feet for a split second and then met my eyes. “I’ve been sober for six years. But do these immortal assholes give a shit? No. Instead, this thoughtless prick sends me to bar after bar, club after club, making me babysit those spoiled junkies and testing my resolve to stay clean.”

I winced at the venom in his words even as the massive picture of his frustration became clearer. Addiction was a disease, and most people who suffered from addiction suffered from depression, another disease. They had been ill. They’d needed help, not vile hatred. Aidan had gotten sober himself. He understood that on some level. But he’d also been forced to sit and watch other people get wasted over and over again, as he struggled to hold on to his own sobriety.

“You were never asked to imbibe,” Cazimir said.

Even I balked at that. Cazimir clearly didn’t understand addiction.

Aidan rolled his eyes. “You see how he is? He treats me like a goddamn puppy. ‘Sit, Aidan. Stay, Aidan. Go fetch the junkies from Disco Night, Aidan.’”

He turned back to Cazimir, shoving the tip of the syringe gun into Caz’s cheek. “Why don’t you send a hungry tiger into the elk pen and see what happens? God, you’re so selfish. You knew I hated the bars and clubs, you fucking knew it, but you made me play nanny anyhow. I kept hoping those idiots would OD or take the wrong drug and die already, but no. Like cockroaches, no amount of pills and powders could kill them. Then one night, they bought fucking Lemondrop after everyone else on the scene decided it was bad news and I thought,
Good. It’s over. They’ll get high and rip each other’s faces off
. But no. They danced, they puked on my jacket, and they made me drag their limp asses back here to sleep it off. So the next time I saw that guy, the dude selling the drugs, I followed him to his lab. Said I wanted to order a custom drug. He let me in, but when he realized I was asking for poison, he refused to help me. Like he hadn’t already poisoned hundreds of people.” Aidan huffed like he couldn’t believe the gall of it. “So I killed him and took his stash. It was only when I came across the Cure that I realized this was the lab that Cured you.” His smile widened. “Imagine my luck! I had my hands on the one drug these immortal assholes fear.”

“You’re despicable,” I said.

Aidan grinned. “All the more reason I’m cut out for immortality. Unlike some people.”

I bristled. I didn’t know if he was referring to me, or Caz, or Thomas, or even the mortals he’d poisoned, but it didn’t matter. Aidan thought he was better than everyone, and that made him dangerous. The fact was, vampires who thrived were not reckless killing machines. The impulsive, careless vampires rarely lived more than a couple of weeks. If the angry villagers didn’t burn them at the stake, another vampire would swoop in and destroy them before they could bring the angry mob their way.

“Is that why you killed Thomas?” I asked. “He wasn’t a good enough vampire for you?”

I took a tentative step forward again, trying to make it look more like I was moving aimlessly rather than with purpose. When Aidan didn’t point either of his guns at me for doing so, I took a second half step, inching closer to the stake. It was less than two feet away now. I cursed my lack of vampiric speed and strength. As a vampire, getting shot hurt, but it wouldn’t be fatal unless someone also burned my body or left me in the sunlight before I recovered enough to move. Vampire bodies were good at healing. As a human, I was as vulnerable to death by gunshot as the next person.

“Thomas didn’t want to be a vampire,” Aidan hissed. “He wanted to be with his lady love. He wanted to live forever. But he didn’t want to be the fanged monster that fed on blood. He wanted the prize without the cost. He was a fool.”

“You are a fool,” Cazimir said, which pulled Aidan’s attention back to the vampire. “You might have gotten what you wanted if you’d been patient. Now you’re a killer of innocents and I will take great pleasure in ending your life.”

“You won’t. Because if you don’t cooperate and let me drink your blood”—Aidan pulled the syringe gun back and waved it in Caz’s face—“I’ll stick you with the Cure and we can see what it’ll do to you.”

His smile was savage. I almost told him that he’d mixed up the vials and Thomas had never been injected with the Cure at all, but something else entirely. Only I didn’t want him to try and prove he had the Cure by injecting it into Cazimir’s veins. I bit my lip.

“You cannot forcibly take immortality, Aidan,” Cazimir said matter-of-factly, though I thought I saw a crack in the veneer of his carefully neutral expression. “It never works that way. I’ve told you the stories.”

There were lots of stories throughout history about people who’d captured vampires and tried to steal their blood to become vampires themselves. In these stories, the result was something half-formed, not really human but not vampire either. They were like vampiric zombies. They couldn’t endure sunlight and they had an insatiable bloodlust, like vampires. But unlike vampires, they had no thoughts beyond the need for blood, no personality, and—someone would argue—no soul. They killed without restraint or reason until they were stopped or they accidentally killed themselves by staying out in the open when the sun rose. I’d never met someone who’d actually experienced or witnessed this phenomenon, and it was widely believed these stories were exactly that: cautionary tales to keep mortals from forcibly stealing vampire blood.

“Those stories are bullshit!” Aidan protested. “And killing is what vampires do. I’ve proven that I’m capable and willing.”

Aidan launched into a rant about how he had only done what he’d needed to do for his own survival, just like Caz, and Lark, and all the rest, and how it proved that he was worthy of Ascension.

I gave the stake a hard stare. It wouldn’t be easy to move fast enough to grab it and drive it into Aidan. I could try tackling him straight-out, no weapon. But that might not work as well as injuring him. His rant was coming to an end, as he gesticulated with the guns to punctuate his points. “I want to be a monster,” he was saying. “I’ve watched you kill. You enjoy it!”

“I kill bad guys. Killers and thieves, those who deserve it.” I caught Cazimir’s hard smile in my periphery—it was terrifying and it showed a lot of fang.

I took a deep breath. Time was running out. Silently, I counted to three. And then I flew into action.

I bent down and forward, scooping the stake up. It was heavier than it looked. The metal was cold. I gripped it in my hand like a lifeline.

Then I jumped at Aidan. He started to turn around at the noise, but I moved too fast. In a single motion, I slammed into his back and drove the stake into his shoulder. The tip was razor-sharp and pierced his t-shirt, sinking into his flesh. Aidan screamed in pain and dropped one of the guns. He brought an arm up to hit me, to get me off him. His knees buckled and we both slammed into the floor.

I tried to get up but he smacked me in the shoulder with the butt of the gun. It hurt. Pain reverberated through my bones, rattling my skeleton. It was the syringe gun he’d dropped, since he still had the pistol. I tried to grab the gun from him. He tried to aim it at me. I couldn’t let that happen. I smacked my hand into the stake, turning it slightly sideways while it was still embedded in his muscle. His scream nearly blew out my eardrum. I got the gun out of his hand and tried to hit him in the head with it. Aidan’s fist connected with my jaw. My teeth rattled as pain shook my skull.

I heard a radio crackle and a muffled voice. I didn’t see where the radio was, maybe under the bed. Security wondering about the noise, no doubt. Hadn’t Aidan thought this through at all? Or had he really believed once he showed himself to be a vicious killer, Caz would do what he asked?

There was a loud crack of splintering wood and then the rattling of chains. I saw the chains hit the floor in my periphery before I saw Cazimir. He grabbed me by the scruff of my shirt and tore me off of Aidan like he was separating alley cats mid-brawl. I landed on my butt, but not hard. If Cazimir had wanted to hurt me, he would have thrown me back against the wall and probably broken my spine.

The chair Caz had been tied to was in pieces, splintered wood poking through the cushions. Guess it wasn’t enough to hold him, after all.

I checked the gun. I didn’t know what a safety looked like or how to disable it, and I had to hope it was loaded. But knowing Aidan, it was. I clung to the hard metal handle, in case I needed it.

I didn’t. Cazimir had Aidan up and in his grasp a breath later.

I could shoot Caz, I realized. It wouldn’t kill him but it’d hurt like a bitch. And then I could disable Cazimir with the stake and do what Aidan had planned to do: I could force him to give me his blood, drink it until its magic worked on me. It probably had a better chance of working on me than any random mortal, since my ability to read blood meant there might still be a spark of that magic in my body. Maybe all it needed was a few mouthfuls to ignite.

And lord knew I deserved it more than Aidan. I’d had my immortality stolen. I was an angel banished from the kingdom of Heaven and I wanted back in, damn it. My finger found the trigger. What if this was my only chance? What if none of them would turn me and I had to get old, to age, to die? I didn’t want that. And I didn’t want the constant danger, the weakness, the way my teeth always felt coated in bacteria and my muscles were too weak, and I was so always so goddamn helpless and hungry.

I hesitated, looking at Aidan. He was so twisted up inside by the prospect of being damned to a human existence that he’d become a murderous monster. He’d killed innocent people, something most vampires won’t even do. He’d wasted so much of his life for the promise of something he would never have. And that’s what it was: a waste. Sure, being human sucked sometimes, but I was alive. I was lucky to be alive. Thomas had not been so lucky. Neither had those mortals Aidan had killed.

I would get my fangs back. I was determined. But I wasn’t going to do it like that, by draining a helpless vampire. Besides, even if it worked, I’d be shunned as a different kind of Blood Traitor.

I took a deep breath and set the gun on the bed.

Cazimir shook his former lover hard and hissed, baring his fangs. He said something vicious-sounding in French and then added “You insufferable little maggot!” in English for good measure. He moved, lightning fast, his fangs at Aidan’s throat a millisecond later.

“Caz,” Aidan said. His voice sounded raw. His eyes were wide. He looked completely terrified. His heart had to be going like a jackhammer, like mine was. Maybe it was his pleading tone or the fear that wafted off of him, but Cazimir paused. I caught the glint of metal in Aidan’s hand. Another wave of panic crashed into me and I scrambled to get my hand on the pistol as I yelled a warning: “Caz!”

Before I could elaborate, Aidan had jammed the syringe gun’s needle into Cazimir’s shoulder and pulled the trigger. The vial of crimson disappeared into Caz’s veins.

Cazimir stood statue-still. Silence filled the room like fog. The only sounds were my panting and Aidan’s heavy breathing.

“There. Now you’ll either be human like me or you’ll die like Thomas,” Aidan finally said. “Just like you deserve, you asshole.”

Cazimir snapped Aidan’s neck. The motion was too fast for me to really see. A blur and then the snap. Aidan dropped to the ground with a thud, his face turned the wrong way around, his blue bangs hanging in his dead eyes.

CHAPTER 22

C
azimir did not move. He did not so much as breathe, and after a moment, I realized I was holding my breath in solidarity. I let it out and let air fill my lungs several times before I spoke. I kept my voice quiet and said only his name, “Cazimir.”

He didn’t react at first. Then his head snapped in my direction, green eyes blazing. “How long did it take?” he asked.

The question was so clinical, so pragmatic, it took me aback at first. I called up memories I’d tried to bury, of the pain and agony of Neha’s Cure ripping the magic out of my veins and leaving me mortal. “A few minutes to start. Maybe five. It began with a burning sensation.” I swallowed. I didn’t want to remember, but I forced myself to think. It had disoriented me. Neha had set up a cot in the lab with medical monitors, so she could track the progress and results. But I’d been in and out of it after only moments.

Cazimir considered my answer, then glanced toward the bed.

Guards pounded at the door. Cazimir sighed, took exactly a second to gather his wits, and wrenched open the bedroom doors. “Take care of that, and then let me be,” he said, gesturing to Aidan’s body. “Leave the syringe.”

The human security guards didn’t bat an eye, and I got the impression disposing of bodies was pretty routine work around here. Aidan had been right: vampires were killers. We—they—generally liked to prey on other predators: serial killers, rapists, thieves who all but left their victims to rot in poverty. But that didn’t make us innocents, either.

Cazimir ushered me out of the bedroom and into his sitting room before he winced in pain.

“It’s better if it’s the Cure,” I said. Aidan hadn’t realized he’d gotten hold of two different serums: one for killing supernatural magic and another for making it. I didn’t know which he’d loaded into his gun. “The Cure didn’t kill Thomas. Aidan used the wrong vial on him. The Cure won’t kill you.”