Redemption (Jane #4) (3 page)

The medical center was located
a good ways from the vampire dormitory--a safety precaution for the
sick against new vampires who may not have mastered their willpower
yet. Like most other places in the sanctuary, it was staffed by
both vampires and humans. Vampires rarely needed medical
assistance, but if they did, it was crucial that the doctor in
charge knew what they were doing. An injured vampire is often a
violent vampire, so several sick bays were set up specifically for
the blood-sucking species, complete with thick, unbendable metal
bars and cheap furniture. A vampire could technically be imprisoned
in one of the sick bays, but it rarely ever happened.

"Afternoon, Jane. What can I
do for you?" I was greeted by Richard, one of the human nurses, as
I walked through the double doors leading to the brightly-lit
cave.

"Hey, Ricky. I have a headache
that won't go away."

"Oh my. That's no good. Let me
see what I can do."

As he turned away, he waved at
a wooden chair with a pink cushion, typical hospital decor. I
plopped down, leaning over to rest my head on my hands. I dug the
heel of my hands into my eyes, trying to deflect some of the pain
from my aching skull. After digging through some drawers,
apparently unsuccessfully, Richard disappeared behind a curtain off
to my right. I stopped trying to listen for him after a full minute
passed and focused instead on calming my angry stomach. Migraines
in vampires are as vicious as they are in humans. Light, sound,
anything makes them worse, and they often lead to pain of another
kind if left unchecked.

"Jane?"

I opened my right eye a bare
slit, peeking at the person kneeling in front of me. I recognized
the round, dark face of Dr. Anita McCora and sent up a silent thank
you. She held in her hands two tiny white pills and a glass of
water. I gave her a grateful smile, or as much of one as I could
muster, and popped the pills in my mouth, chasing them with a big
gulp of water. She led me to a dark room off to the side and
motioned at the bed. I climbed in, falling back onto the pillow as
the world began to spin.

Ibuprofen and acetaminophen,
your typical mortal pain killers, do nothing for vampires. The
pills I'd taken were experimental, a concoction Dr. McCora came up
with to combat the brutal symptoms of a vampire migraine.
Unfortunately, they had some nasty side effects. First, and most
disconcerting, was the dizziness. Without fail, those pills would
cure a headache. They would also put you on your ass for a good
hour or more. Dr. McCora kept strict control over the medication,
doling it out personally and watching over every patient until the
headache and side effects passed. She used the information she
gathered to tweak the drug, but so far, she had been unable to
remove the dizziness, or even figure out the cause.

I lay on the cot in the dark
with an arm over my eyes, desperate to block out the meager light
that was offending my sensitive corneas. According to the doctor's
instructions, I took deep, slow breaths, hoping to calm the roiling
storm in my stomach. As I inhaled, I focused intensely on the rise
of my chest, refusing to give in to the threatening nausea. After
an eternity--really it was only about five minutes--the tempest
inside my guts faded and I was able to relax. Shortly after that,
the world stopped spinning rapidly and I no longer felt like the
room was going to tip over and send me plummeting to the ceiling.
Dr. McCora returned while I lay there with my eyes closed, still
breathing slowly and steadily.

"How are you feeling?"

"Less like I want to die."

"I hate to tell you this,
Jane, but you're already dead."

I opened one eye slightly and
appraised the doctor through the haze of eyelashes. She laughed at
my slightly raised eyebrow and patted my arm. "Stay here for a bit.
I'll send Ricky in in awhile and have him check on you, but you
should be alright after an hour or so, as long as you're not
feeling any other side effects."

She meant as long as I wasn't
vomiting up blood or leaking it from anywhere else on my body, I
would be free to leave. That was another downside to the
experimental medication--blood loss. And not just trickles of it.
We're talking full on body purges. Luckily, she'd perfected the
drug enough that it wasn't as frequent an occurrence now, but poor
Ronin had been knocked out of commission for two weeks when she
first put the drug into use. He had to have 24-hour blood drips to
stay alive.

I nodded and thanked Dr.
McCora for her help. She patted my arm once more and left, pulling
the door shut to block out the remaining light. I sighed and turned
to my side, drifting off to sleep. A light knock woke me and Ricky
came in. He checked my vitals, humming to himself. Then he grinned
and told me I could leave. I patted him on the head, a gesture I
knew irritated him to no end, giving him a weak grin as I left. The
light still hurt my eyes and head, but I could handle it without
wanting to barf.

Walking slowly and taking deep
breaths, I wandered back through the maze of tunnels and found
Father Bellini's office. My knock went unanswered, though, and I
couldn't hear any movement inside. Frowning, I turned to head back
to my room and nearly trampled the frazzled priest. His hair was
disheveled and it looked like he hadn't slept since the last time I
saw him. His robes were rumpled and he had dark bags under his
eyes. The weariness on his face had been ever-present since Ado's
death, but it seemed worse than normal.

"Jane. What a pleasant
surprise." Bellini's voice was raw and raspy, more evidence of his
lack of sleep. "Please, come in."

"I'm sorry, Father. I don't
want to disturb you if you have other business to attend to."

"Nonsense. We haven't had a
one-on-one chat in too long. And I've been meaning to talk to you,
anyway. There have been some, uh, developments that you should be
appraised of."

As he spoke, his smile, while
still plastered across his face, lost its genuine touch and the
twinkle died from his eyes. I suddenly had the urge to turn and
run, avoiding anything he had to tell me, but I followed him into
his office. It was not as neat as the last time I'd been in there.
His desk had always been cluttered in a haphazardly organized kind
of way, but now the entire room was in shambles. Papers and books
were strewn across the floor. A table had been set up on one side
and it was heaped with books, papers, scrolls, and even a stone
tablet. Some of the books were open and a couple that had fallen on
the floor suffered from crushed innards.

He motioned to a chair that
sat near his desk, oblivious to the heaps of files stacked on it.
Shrugging, I picked up the pile and set them carefully on a clean
space on the floor before dropping into the seat. As I did, I
noticed a stack of weapons a corner. I didn't recognize any of
them, but somehow I knew they were weapons. They looked very deadly
and I could smell the faint traces of long-faded blood, a sort of
bitter coppery smell that permeated the air around the area.
Bellini fidgeted with some papers on his desk, then began reading
one. I sat quietly for several minutes, watching and waiting. The
creases at the corners of his eyes deepened as a frown settled on
his face and he leaned his chin onto his hands. He shook his head,
mumbling to himself. I could've heard what he said had I attempted
to listen, but I was convinced at that point that he forgot I was
in the room and I didn't want to be rude.

At last, Bellini glanced up,
jumping visibly in his seat when he realized I was sitting in front
of him. "Oh, oh my. I'm sorry, Jane." He began moving the papers
around again, scrunching them into unorganized piles and pushing
them to the side. Once he decided he was done, he cleared his
throat and clasped his hands, settling them on the desk in front of
him.

"So, Jane, how are you
today?"

I told him about the onset of
the headache, then worked my way back through the previous day,
recounting my lack of sleep and my evening with Marta and Annie. We
stopped and talked about Marta and her growth for a bit. We were
both pleased, considering her rough start in life. After a brief
silence where Father Bellini seemed lost in thought, I broached the
real reason I wanted to talk to him.

"So, I saw Donna's shop was
closed last night..."

I bit my lip, torn between the
response I was hoping to get. On one hand, I hoped he had
information on her and could tell me she was doing better. On the
other, I was terrified of hearing that she'd taken a turn for the
worst and wished that he would be just as surprised as I was.
Neither of my hopes came true.

Bellini nodded, staring at his
desk. "Yes..." His pause lasted longer than was comfortable. "About
two weeks ago, she asked me if I could help her find a buyer for
it. She mentioned that she was going to move, start fresh
somewhere. When I spoke with her, she seemed upbeat, more excited
about her life than she has been since Victoria's death."

"That's a good thing, right?"
I could tell it wasn't by the strain on the priest's face. His
nostrils flared gently as he took several deep breaths, fighting
some feeling he didn't want to give in to.

"In most cases, I would say
yes. But I spoke with the American consulate and she has not
contacted them about a move, which is required for vampires moving
from one territory to another. And I haven't heard from her since.
The shop is closed, her Jeep was up for sale in a lot at the edge
of town, and her apartment is empty. For all intents and purposes,
she's disappeared."

"What?" I felt my lower jaw go
slack as I stared at Father Bellini. I knew Donna was depressed,
but vampires just do not disappear. It was dangerous, to say the
very least. She could be considered a rogue, an outlaw, put on a
bounty list, tracked and eliminated by the several assassins and
bounty hunters in the world. My mind began to race, trying to think
of all the places she could have gone, how I could find her.

"We have some information...
It is not confirmed, by any means, but it is all we have. She, or a
vampire matching her description, was spotted at a meeting of some
rogues that are known to be involved with all this mess."

"You know who's involved?"

"Yes. Well, sort of. We know
three of the more prominent leaders, but we haven't been able to
get our hands on them. One is Conrad, the vile man you met the
night of Ado's death. The others were friends of his, and he was
apparently able to sway them to his cause. We have several people
who are risking their lives to gather information for us, but it's
just not enough. By the time we get a team in place that is strong
enough to take on the trio, they've moved on, leaving a rash of new
vampires in their place. And we know they're not the only ones
involved. There have to be at least a dozen rogues all over the
world, rogues older and stronger than we first believed."

I didn't know what to say. My
mind was a confused jumble of half-thoughts. Why would Donna seek
out the men who killed her sister? And how had so many rogues gone
unnoticed over the decades to allow them to amass as they
apparently had?

"I don't know, Jane." Father
Bellini was shaking his head as if he'd heard my thoughts. "So much
has happened. I just don't understand how it got so far out of
control so quickly."

His voice was thin and
distant. He was speaking at me, but he wasn't speaking to me. I was
simply a sounding board for him, but I didn't mind.

"We knew there were rogues out
there," he continued. "But they weren't overt or causing trouble,
so we just let them be, unable to spare the manpower to hunt down
and murder someone who was living peacefully. How could we have
known what they were planning? The covens haven't gone unnoticed by
the human population, either. There are reports in the news of
strange happenings, and we have information on one small town that
has been taken over completely."

He looked up, finally speaking
directly to me, his voice growing loud and firm. "That's why we're
bringing in the military. We have to take that town back before the
plague spreads. We have to wipe that coven out, make them an
example."

His fist slammed into the desk
on the last word, making us both jump. Without another sound, I
stood and nodded. He nodded back, determination settling in where
weariness and fear had sat before. I agreed with him. This had to
end, somehow. With a slight bow, I bid him a silent farewell and
left his office.

My entire team was standing in
the garage when the trucks pulled in. One was a large military
transport, covered with canvas and lined with benches for the
soldiers to sit on. The other was a modified Hummer. Unlike
traditional military vehicles, they were not painted in a
camouflage pattern, but were solid black, so black they almost
absorbed the light. A space along one wall had been cleared and set
up for use by the infantry contingent.

Once the vehicles were parked,
the flaps at the backs of the truck opened and the men spilled out,
forming up in precise lines. From the back of the transport poured
seven soldiers dressed in riot gear. They stood before us, stiff as
over-starched undershirts, not acknowledging our presence. Two men
exited the front of the vehicle and joined them, one of them
eyeballing my team before falling into line. They waited, unmoving,
while three others exited the Humvee One was a young man, barely
out of school. He had been sitting in the back and carried a
machine gun, his young face grim and stern. He raised an eyebrow at
us, unimpressed with what he saw. The man exiting the passenger
side of the vehicle cleared his throat and the kid joined the
line.