The Merzetti Effect (A Vampire Romance) (35 page)

Delano grimaced at the burning in his thigh muscles as he took the last flight of steps in three bounds and shouldered the door to the penthouse open. It was going to take some time getting used to his new‌—‌or rather, his old‌—‌physiology. He put down the heavy oxygen tank he was carrying, punched in the security code to keep the alarm from squawking, and strode to his bedroom.

Ainsley greeted him at the door, taking the carry tote from his hand and leaving him with the portable oxygen. “I’ll get venous access established while you get that oxygen on him.”

Delano thanked his stars for Ainsley’s trauma training. Seconds counted in these situations. “How’s the patient?”

Eli opened his eyes. Though his pallor was evident against the dark pillow, he still managed to look reassuringly robust. “The patient can talk for himself.”

“That’s encouraging.” Delano started the oxygen, adjusted the flow, then lifted the mask to Eli’s face. “But now the patient is going to have to shut up and take this oxygen.”

Eli grinned. “Don’t mind if I do.”

After fitting the mask to Eli’s face, Delano looked down to see that Ainsley had already managed to get the large-gauge cannula into his left arm. Eli hadn’t even flinched. He was a better man than most.

“Good work,” Delano told Ainsley. “Now, let’s trade places so you can get this other arm, while I fix up an IV suspension system.”

“You make a great team,” came Eli’s muffled voice from beneath the mask.

“We do, don’t we? Now save your breath.” Delano removed his belt, climbed onto the bed and proceeded to cinch the belt around the arm of one of the blades on the ceiling fan, leaving the end dangling.

Ainsley regarded the length of leather.

“Interesting, but I don’t see how we’re going to suspend the bags from that.”

Delano produced one of a couple of S hooks that he’d found in the lab. “We simply stick one end through a belt hole and voila.”

“Brilliant! Here you go.”

She handed up both bags. Carefully, he secured them on the hook and stepped off the bed.

Delano checked his patient to see that Eli was regarding the ceiling fan IV assembly with a little less admiration than Ainsley had displayed.

“Ainsley?” Eli said.

She lifted the edge of the oxygen mask so she could hear his words better. “What is it? Are you feeling okay?”

“Never better,” he replied, “but if you don’t mind, could you take some of that tape and secure the switch to that ceiling fan?”

Delano had a mental flash of the fan being switched on, the blades turning, ripping out the IV. He couldn’t help it; he laughed. A second later, Ainsley joined him. Even Eli was laughing under the oxygen mask.

Ainsley wiped tears from her eyes. “Thank you for the laugh. I really needed it. But you know, that’s not a bad idea.” She picked up the roll of tape and went to take care of the wall switch.

Delano leaned in to check the lines. Perfect. Ainsley was a consummate professional, even under these rough circumstances.

“Is there anything more I can do for you before I go back out there to monitor the phone?” he asked Eli. “I’ll be back, of course, for blood samples so we can keep an eye on things.”

Eli rolled his eyes, which Delano took to be a suggestion to lift the mask.

“Yeah, there’s something you can do. You can bring the damned phone.”

“You want to use the phone?”

“Not
a
phone.
The
phone.

“The speakerphone?”

“You must have a phone jack in here, don’t you?”

“Of course, but you’ve given enough to the job for today, Eli. Let us handle it from here.”

“What us?” he demanded. “Ainsley’ll be stuck in here nursing me, or running back and forth with her attention divided. Just bring the damn phone in here. Oh, and a radio so we can stay in touch with the security cam view of what’s happening on the roof.”

“He has a good point, Delano. I don’t want to leave him, but I need to know what’s going on up there.”

Delano fixed Eli with a glare. “You’re not going to take this patient thing lying down, are you?” Of course, his exasperation sprang only partly from Eli’s reluctance to play the patient. He’d been half hoping to shield Ainsley from the next act in this little drama. Looked like that was a non-starter.

“Did you really expect me to?”

Delano sighed. “I guess not.” He retrieved the radio, which was sitting with the pile of supplies he’d brought up from the lab, and tossed it on the bed where Ainsley could reach it. “You better have this, in case it squawks before I get back with the speakerphone.”

When he came back two minutes later with the speakerphone and a spare radio, Eli had the oxygen back on and Ainsley was hanging a catheter bag by clipping it to the handle of the night table with an alligator clip she’d found. Before he could compliment her ingenuity, the radio squawked.

Ainsley dove for the radio on the bed, but Delano produced the spare he’d pocketed. “Bowen here. What’s the status on the roof?”

“Looks like activity in the helo, but I can’t tell what’s going on. It’s hard to tell without sound, but it almost looks like he’s trashing the inside of the helo.”

“The phone!” Ainsley grabbed it from him. “Where’s the jack? We need to get it plugged in. If he’s frustrated, he’ll call.”

No sooner did she say that when the phone began to ring from the other room. “There!” Delano pointed to a phone jack to the left of his bed, situated right beside an electrical outlet. “Give me the power supply. It has to be plugged in, as well.”

Between the two of them, they got it plugged in and it began to ring. Delano hit the button to answer it.

“Bowen.”

“Your time is up,” Janecek shouted. “Both of you. On the roof. Now.”

“I told you it would take the better part of an hour. We haven’t used half that much time yet. I’ve barely begun‌—”

“Changed my mind.” A pause, filled by labored breathing, as though his earlier roar had done him in. “I’ve decided … I’m in rather … a hurry.”

A jolt of excitement jittered through him at Janecek’s breathlessness. “Radak? You don’t sound so good. Is something wrong up there?”

“Nothing wrong. Just need the woman. And you.”

“I’m sorry, that’s not going to happen until I finish working with Nurse Crawford. She’s only now starting to respond. It’ll take‌—”

A crash and a curse. “Waste of time … fixing her. Send her now.”

“Radak, are you having trouble breathing? Is your heart racing?”

“What? What did you say?”

“Are you feeling a little weak, maybe? Or experiencing chest pain?”

An anguished howl. “How?” he demanded. “How did you do it? How did you poison me?”

“I didn’t.”

“Fuck you, Bowen. You did so! But how?”

“I’m afraid you partook of the Merzetti blood, Radak.”

“No. Impossible. Grayson can’t have … the Merzetti blood. You would never let him spend … so much time … on the front lines. Too risky.”

“Not Grayson. I told you,
I
didn’t do this to you. You did it to yourself.”

“Nooooooooo!”

“Yes. The girl. You didn’t turn her, Radak. She’s sleeping like a princess in her mother’s bed. Her biological mother’s bed.”

“Bitch!” he snarled. “It was that little whore! You! You knew about this.”

A female scream. Then the cell phone Janecek had been using crashed to the floor.

“Lucy!” Ainsley screamed. Then she turned on Delano. “Omigod, what have you done? He’ll kill her now! He knows he has nothing to lose!”

“She’ll be able to fend him off. He’s weak as a kitten.”
He hoped.
Jesus, it wasn’t supposed to go this way. His plan was to make Janecek’s plight plain, then dangle the prospect of medical assistance to motivate him to surrender quickly. And dammit, it was a good plan, but the vampire had let his rage get the better of him.

“Pilot!” Delano shouted. “Pilot, pick up! Pick up this phone, dammit, if you want to live. Do you hear me? Pick up the phone. Do it now!”

“Hello?”

Delano’s knees went weak with relief, but he steeled his voice. “Listen carefully. Your boss is dying. I’m a doctor, and there’s no doubt about the outcome. He will die, and he’ll die soon. But I don’t want any harm to come to that nice young woman before he dies, and neither do you. Now tell me, is she all right?”

“She’s holding her own.”

“Good. Because if anything bad happens to the lady, I’ll no longer feel constrained not to use my anti-aircraft guns when you try to lift that bird off my roof. Do you take my meaning?”

“Guns?”

“Yes, big ones. Did you happen to notice that skylight when you landed? It’s not really a skylight. And even if you should lift off safely, I’ve got your partner. He can’t talk right now, since I’ve robbed him of the power of speech, but I expect he can write if I put pen and paper in his hands. And I’m pretty confident I can persuade your name out of him if I promise to reverse the tracheostomy I gave him. If this does not turn out well, I will hunt you down and feed your own liver to you. Are we understood?”

“Okay, okay! I’ll help you.”

“Your boss is still conscious?”

“Yes. Jesus. H. Christ, he’s looking at me! He knows I’m talking to you.”

“Don’t worry about it. I promise you, he can’t hurt you. By all means, shoot him if you feel you need to, or in defense of Mrs. Michaels, but I really don’t think you’ll need to. Even as we speak, his body is killing off red blood cells in a wholesale slaughter that he can’t possibly survive. Is he having trouble catching his breath?”

“Yes.”

“That fits. His heart will be racing, too, and his blood pressure will have plummeted. In short order, he’ll go into shock and die.”

“Jesus,” came the pilot’s reply.

“Now, I’m going to send some men out onto the roof. What I want you to do is find a way to get Ms. Michaels out of the helo. You, too. I’ll give you total amnesty. You’ll be free to walk away, or fly away, as you please, when this is over. But I want that woman, and I want her unharmed. Are we understood?”

The pilot swore.

“Seems like a better deal than dying for your boss, especially considering he’s going to predecease you and won’t be around to appreciate your sacrifice.”

“Okay, dammit, I’ll do it. Oh,
fuck it
! I have to go.”

The line went dead.

“The radio,” Ainsley cried. “Find out what’s happening up there!”

“One second.” Delano raised the radio to his mouth again and depressed the transmitter button. “B Team, do you read?”

“Loud and clear, Dr. Bowen.”

“Janecek is critically ill. We spiked his meal, so to speak, and he’s failing fast.”

A cheer rose from the men, reverberating in the concrete stairwell. “Well done, sir!”

“We’ve also talked to the pilot, who has agreed to get himself and Ms. Michaels out of the helicopter at the first opportunity. I want your team on the roof to grab them up and hustle them inside when they make the break.”

“Roger that. We’re headed for the roof. Over.”

Ainsley caught his arm. “What’s happening inside the helicopter?”

He slid his arm around her shoulders and depressed the radio’s button again. “A Team, what have you got on the roof cam?”

“Nothing much right now. For a moment, it looked like the two men might come to blows, but one of them collapsed. Just kinda folded up, you know? No idea why.”

Ainsley dug her fingers into his forearm and he squeezed her shoulder again. “Which one?” he asked. “Janecek or the pilot?”

“Couldn’t tell. But it’s been quiet in there since.”

“Presuming it was Janecek who went down, we can look for the pilot to make a break. Are we ready up there?”

“Absolutely. B Team’s in position.”

“Excellent. Apprise me of any changes. Over.”

Ainsley’s anxious gaze caught his. “If that was Janecek who went down, what are they waiting for?”

He handed her the radio he’d been using and picked up the spare. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

“
N
O
!” A
INSLEY
’
S HEART
leapt. Though she knew better, she felt like it had lodged itself somewhere around the base of her throat. “There’s no need for you to go up there.”

“There is,” he asserted quietly. “As you so correctly pointed out, I put Mrs. Michaels at increased risk by telling Janecek what I told him. I thought if I could impress on him the seriousness of his condition, I could persuade him to come out and seek medical attention.”

She’d been about to apologize for jumping on him earlier, but that last bit distracted her. “You would save him? After all he’s done, you would spare his life?”

“I doubt he could be saved in the most sophisticated of hospitals, even if he could survive the transfer, which is highly improbable. And even if he could survive a transfer, how would they begin to treat him? He’s caught half way between vampire and non-vampire. An intervention would be as likely to kill him as save him. But that’s neither here nor there. I merely hoped to expedite an end to the hostage situation by offering the prospect of medical salvation.”

Of course. Regret scored her with merciless talons. She should have known he had a plan. And it would have worked if Janecek had listened instead of throwing the phone down. “I’m sorry about what I said, Delano. It was a good plan. But the way it worked out is just as good, isn’t it? You’ve got the pilot on our side.”

“Providing the pilot isn’t the one who went down.”

She cast around for another excuse to keep him here, to keep him safe. “What about the blood-bond? By risking your life to go up there, you’d be risking mine, too.”

By way of answer he grasped her left wrist, pushed her sleeve up and turned her arm up for inspection.

Gone.

Her battered heart plummeted. The marks were gone as if … as if…

Oh, God, as if the blood-bond had dissolved.

“What…” She put a hand to chest as though she could somehow ease the crushing weight of loss. “It can’t be. I mean, how?”

“It’s only possible between vampires, remember? Or in our case, between vampire and anti-vampire. You’re still anti-vampire, but I’m no longer vampire,” he said gently. “My marks started to wane as soon as my powers started to leave me.”