Vamp-Hire (10 page)

“So you’re saying he deserves to die and she
does too? That’s a pretty awful thing to say, don’t you think,
Dolph? I mean, if you’re right, he’s abusing his wife.”

“And she’s poisoning him. Are you really
going to make the distinction that it’s worse to be punched than
poisoned?”

That was certainly something to munch on.
Nick thought about that a while.

Pretty soon they were out of the city and a
half hour later in territory he didn’t recognize. He hadn’t
bothered asking where they were going and it could have just as
easily been someplace where Dolph could drop him off and leave him
like in unwanted dog.

He wouldn’t do that, he thought. He gave me
these clothes and everything. That reasoning felt weak. Hell, so
far as he knew, Nick was on his way to getting a bullet to the back
of his head.

He felt hot and cold at the same time, like
he had a fever. Nick had the sudden urge to fling the door open and
jump out. He liked his chances better at fifty miles an hour than
whatever was about to happen.

“Something happened the other night,” Dolph
said out of the blue. “A woman was killed.” Though Nick didn’t know
where he was going with this, his monologue was better than the one
currently going on in his own head. “So far, the only official
statement was an animal attack. Not that too many people care; she
was a squatter.”

“So where do I come in?”

Dolph flashed his eyes on Nick then back to
the road. “There’s significant reason to believe the animal was of
the two-legged variety.”

“A kangaroo?”

“Don’t be a smart-ass.” Dolph gave him a look
that was the ugly big brother of the first one.

“Okay, but you’re spoon-feeding me info,
here. Tell me what’s going on and why you need me there. So far I
feel like the family dog you’re about to leave by the
roadside.”

They stopped at a light. Dolph reached behind
him to the back seat and grabbed a manila folder. He opened it and
licked his middle finger, paging through the few documents.

“What’s that?”

“Your medical file. Ten years in a coma?”

“Hey, that’s my personal information. You’re
not supposed to have that.”

“You’re right. I’m not.” Dolph continued
looking through them. A car behind them honked several long times;
he ignored it just the same as he ignored Nick’s protest. An engine
revved and a second later a two-seater pulled to the side of them
in the left turn lane, the top down despite the cool
temperature.

Dolph looked at the vehicle, rolling down his
window. The man stopped shouting obscenities and quickly drove
away. Dolph hadn’t moved and hadn’t said anything. He went back to
the file and Nick tucked away any notion of snatching it away from
him.

Who was this guy?

He closed the envelope and tossed it back on
the rear seat. Nick was pretty sure he remembered his medical
history from his last checkup yet he wanted that file badly for
some reason. He resisted the urge to reach back to pick it up as
Dolph chirped the tires to blaze through a yellow light.

“So?” he dared to say after a few
minutes.

“So what?” Dolph said.

“So my file? Did you like what you saw?”

He’d meant it sarcastically, but Dolph
answered, “Yeah.” Nick went on staring at him. “You have some
elevated blood levels, normal for someone in your condition. You
passed all your physical and mental tests and you were cleared for
reassimilation first time out.”

Nick shook his head, not sure what he was
getting at.

“You’re eager to get on with your life and
you’ll endure cooperation to make it happen.”

“Cooperation with what?”

They turned into a gated driveway with a
guard post and two armed guards dressed in black. Nick had seen men
dressed much the same in the Pens.

Dolph rolled down his window, grabbed an ID
on the underside of his sun visor, and presented it to the guard
who walked up. The man took it back into the booth, picked up a
black phone and began speaking into it, looking at the ID the whole
time. Nick looked at the other armed guard, a steely-eyed man with
a face like a hawk. Now had no doubt that guard would shoot him
dead within a few feet of Dolph’s truck if he ran.

The first guard came back and handed back the
ID. He gave instructions and Dolph nodded before rolling up his
window. The security gate rolled back and they pulled in. Whatever
was here, this complex was huge. Nick guessed it must have been a
plant used by one of the Big Three.

They drove toward a bank of cars in front of
a large one-story building. Even though there were many spaces a
lot closer Dolph parked far away.

He cut the engine and turned to Nick. “It’s
important you look like you belong here,” Dolph said. “I’m retired,
but I do some consulting on occasion. I got a call late last night
asking me to come in to take a look at the body I told you about.
There’s reason to believe that two-legged animal was someone like
you. Now, I will clue you in. The reason for you to take a lot of
your medications is propaganda. It’s not to help you resume a more
normal life. Well, not exactly. If you don’t stay up on your
medications you could revert.”

Nick opened his mouth to ask what that meant
and Dolph held up a hand.

“I don’t mean a bat-flying, cape-wearing
Dracula fiend. But you could start craving human blood and
manifesting certain… abilities.”

“Like what?”

Levitation? he thought.

“Never you mind. Let’s go.”

They climbed out of the Hummer and walked
toward the building. Nick wondered why they were so far away. Maybe
Dolph was one of those people who was paranoid about his ride being
scratched if somebody parked too close to it.

“The reason you’re here is as I said—a
consultant. I see the way you handle yourself. You’re not a maniac,
you can actually be around other human beings.”

Nick understood what he was talking about.
He’d seen others like him at the Pens who he hoped never made it
out. Men and women who screamed constantly, who were violent, or
who were completely mindless.

Nick mentally shuddered.

“When we get in there, I want you to follow
my lead. Don’t speak unless you’re asked a direct question.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

They made it to the front door and Dolph held
it open for him.

“You’ll understand better in a few
minutes.”

They walked into a small reception area,
completely unadorned save for a small potted plant in a window. A
woman smiled and nodded at them from behind a counter.

“Good morning. Please state the nature of
your business today.”

Nick almost made the fatal mistake of
speaking when Dolph’s elbow to his arm silenced him. He walked to
the counter, a credit-card sized piece of plastic in his hand.

“Colonel Adolph Stone to see Lieutenant
Leonard.” He presented his identification.

“Please hold it up to the scanner on your
left.”

Nick saw the small box she was referring to
on the end of the counter in front of her, but Dolph fumbled around
looking for it. The woman was patient, silent, not saying a word to
help him find it. Nick sidled up to him, took the ID away, and held
it in front of the scanner. A green light lit on top of the box and
something above and behind them clicked and whirred. Nick didn’t
look, afraid to find out what it was.

“Thank you,” the woman said.

She looked weird to Nick and then he realized
it was because he couldn’t see her hands. They should have been
placed on the counter or perhaps typing away at a keyboard. All he
saw was the scanner and some papers that were closer to them than
her.

For a moment, he wondered if she was some
kind of sophisticated animatronic puppet. Her voice barely held any
human inflection and the way she sat there looking at them made it
seem like there was nobody home.

“If you would, sign the provided documents
and claim your PT-0415, please.”

“Sure,” Dolph said and took out a pen. He
began signing the paperwork and after he finished, slid the whole
pile over to her. The woman’s hands came into view and she laid two
wristbands on the counter.

Dolph snapped his on and held out the other
for Nick’s wrist. Nick held up his arm and he snapped it on. There
was an electronic beep to Nick’s right and a green light came on
above a door. It slid back and Dolph walked toward it, leaving Nick
to trail behind again.

It must have been some sort of blast door it
was so thick. An armed guard was waiting for them right inside.
Dolph and the man said nothing to each other and the guard turned
and began walking quickly. Nick struggled to keep up without
running as they both had long strides, the guard looking like he
hovered somewhere around seven feet tall. There were several doors
to their left; some of the small offices had windows, and some of
those offices had men or women with headphones sitting in front of
computers. Nick wondered what they were doing. This whole place was
a mystery so far as he was concerned.

Eventually, they came to a security door. The
guard waved a card in front of a reader and there was a click
before he pushed the door open. They went down a long flight of
unlit stairs and Nick lost sight of the two men ahead of him when
the door swung shut. He held onto the rail as he descended, hoping
they wouldn’t stop suddenly and he crashed into them before his
eyes could adjust. It smelled like old oil and metal down here. A
light flickered on before he reached the bottom. They were in a
small, rectangular room with two concrete walls and a glass one. A
security guard who could have been a twin of the first by his lack
of facial expression stood on the other side. Their guard gave some
sort of complex wave to the other one, too quick for Nick to really
catch.

Something overhead made a loud, metallic
ca-chink sound and Nick looked up in time to see the twin gun
turret turn away from them.

Whatever this place was, it was seriously
secure.

It felt about ten degrees hotter in here and
he didn’t think it was because of his nerves. He thought he could
feel the thick oil smell permeate his skin. A glass door on the
other side of the room swung inward. Nick followed the two men and
glanced over his shoulder at the second guard. The man hadn’t
blinked or even moved the entire time.

They went down some more steps, this time lit
from overhead, and the guard swiped his badge one last time. The
door slid open and they stepped into a small room with an overhead
light. The door shut and Nick wondered what was next.

Then the small room began to descend.

Elevator, Nick thought, trying to coax his
stomach out of his chest. Just an elevator.

There was no bank of buttons to be pushed,
which indicated to Nick there was only one destination. He knew
there was no possibility he was about to get shot, they could have
done that at several points well before right now (most notably the
turrets), but he felt like a mouse walking into a giant trap.

They stepped off the elevator and Nick’s
knees buckled. He managed to stay on his feet, feeling for a moment
like he’d walked back into the Pens.

“Walk next to me,” Dolph said. Nick
recuperated quickly, his stomach dancing a jig inside him. There
were big holes in the ground, perhaps where dinosaur-like
car-making machines had been once upon a time.

They walked for about five minutes, until
they came to a makeshift office about eight feet by ten. Their
guard rapped twice then stood back at attention.

A man in army fatigues with sharp blue eyes
and five o’clock shadow came out. He gave the soldier a halfhearted
salute and dismissed him.

Dolph saluted him and the man stuck out his
hand for a shake.

“Colonel Stone, nice to finally meet the man
behind Desert Rain. I’m Lieutenant Leonard.” His eyes narrowed even
more when he looked around Dolph at Nick. “That him?”

“Yes,” Dolph said. Nick’s sense of curiosity
had overgrown his fear, but being the sudden subject of
conversation set his heart racing again.

Leonard stepped around and stood in front of
Nick, placing his fists on his hips.

He had a neat landing strip of black hair,
almost like a Mohawk, until Nick spotted the crescent of hair to
either side midway back on the top of his head. His electric blue
eyes scanned up and down Nick and then he nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think this one’ll
do.”

“Do what?” Nick said. Dolph shot him a dirty
look.

“All right. Right this way.” Lieutenant
Leonard brushed past Dolph, heading toward a cordoned off area. Two
armed guards saluted him and he snapped off a two-fingered one back
to them. “They’re with me.” He pointed at Dolph and Nick with a
thumb over his shoulder. Apparently, that was enough to let the two
of them pass down here.

The smell of death was pungent. Nick covered
his nose with the flap of his jacket. He seemed to be the only one
bothered by it. The corpse of a naked woman lay on a table, her
skin unbelievably white. Then Nick saw the neat hole in her neck,
or rather, holes. Two small ones separated a little more than an
inch apart. Dolph and the lieutenant stood to the side and let Nick
pass between them. Everything in him was saying to turn away. To
not see, to not smell. This was dead flesh.

Nick steeled his face as best he could. He
looked at both men on either side of him, hoping they would give
some indication of what he should be doing, not wanting to reveal
he had no idea. He looked at the body again.

It was terrible. The body looked plastic,
unnatural. That predator thing inside him curled up into a tight
little ball at the top of his stomach and he felt like he was
looking from outside his body. He’d seen pictures of naked people
and thought he was familiar enough with the human form. He didn’t
know if he’d actually seen one in person before and this felt
intrusive. He tried his best to avoid looking at anything that
would have been hidden by a bikini, though what was left didn’t
relieve him any. It was so real, like any moment the woman’s eyes
would snap open and she’d swing her legs off the table, sitting up
and covering herself as best she could with her hands. Those holes
in her neck, though…