And assuming it was actually as benign to humans as they thought.
Lilly and her co-conspirator, Dr. Jeff Haswell, had run every test they could think to run, starting with introducing the virus to tissue samples—human, vampire, and about 50 other animal species—and moving up until they’d reached living, breathing animals. Time and time again, the virus had behaved perfectly, rampantly spreading through—and ultimately killing—the vampire tissues but exhibiting almost complete quiescence in every other sample.
Dosing themselves had been by far the most troubling step.
If ever she was going to have her PhD revoked, it probably would have been for that madness. Or for the whole trying to spread an unknown, homemade virus through the entire human population thing, but that one seemed to go without saying.
At any rate, Lilly had insisted on being the first human test subject. Her virus-enchanting mojo, her risk to take.
Jeff still didn’t understand how she’d produced the virus. She wasn’t really sure she understood either, when it came down to it, but it was no doubt infinitely more confusing for Jeff, who had no idea about the things she could do.
Thankfully, he hadn’t asked too many questions. Maybe his standard bar for the weird and unexplained had been a bit warped by the scaly, clawed (and possibly even alien) hand Ren had brought them. Or maybe it was just that Jeff still seemed to have some strange idea that this whole thing was exciting—cool, even. Like in the movies.
Lilly slumped down to the narrow strip at the back of the compartment that seemed to be the only sitting space and let out a heavy sigh.
Exciting was one word for all of this. So was terrifying. And, possibly, catastrophic.
Because if anything went even slightly wrong, or if Ren’s killers caught wind of what they were trying to do…
Well, hopefully it wasn’t that kind of movie.
3
As stressful as her day had been, Lilly didn’t exactly expect to be swept into a regenerative spa upon her return. Rachel, to her credit, stuck to her guns and held up her role admirably.
“Dad said we could go for ice cream when you got home,” Rachel said before Lilly had even set her bag down.
Lilly relieved herself of her burden, went to plant a kiss on Robert’s cheek, and did her best to ignore how stiffly said kiss was received for the time being.
Robert kept his eyes deliberately on Rachel. “I said we could go if your mother got home at a reasonable hour.”
Lilly flinched internally. So he was already playing the your mother card, huh?
She should have talked to him sooner—explained everything.
Rachel was glancing between the two of them with a look that told Lilly she was picking up on entirely too much for an eleven year old girl. Or maybe not.
Their daughter might only be eleven, but she was clever and far from clueless. Normally, there wasn’t much for her to pick up on. Lilly and Robert rarely fought—rarely strayed from their peaceful pattern of coexistence at all.
At some point, right around the time Rachel had actually started sleeping through the nights, they’d found their rhythm and hadn’t seemed to look back since, with only a few brief, trivial bumps along the road.
But these past few months…
“How about tomorrow, sweetheart?” Lilly asked Rachel, who was still watching her with hawk-like persistence. “We can go after practice.”
Rachel pursed her lips, gave her parents one last look over, and finally gave a bob of her head. “The terms are acceptable.”
Lilly favored her daughter with a smile. “My humble thanks, oh Great One.”
Rachel shrugged. “I guess someone has to throw you a bone once in a while.”
The subtle twist of accusation in Robert’s expression attested that he agreed with Rachel’s statement, albeit for entirely different reasons.
No, it hadn’t been a good few months. And the stress was starting to show too clearly.
It wasn’t as if work weren’t normally stressful. That was the nature of the beast when research funding was rarely guaranteed for more than a couple of years at a time and one had yet to hop through the hoops to achieve the magical state of tenure. If it hadn’t been for Robert’s work in the city, finding foolproof financial security would have been akin to tracking down a unicorn.
But the standard stresses of academia kind of paled in comparison to the whole my nomadic acquaintance, who’s basically a world class ninja even before you add in his skill at arcanism, tracked me down to ask me for help and show me the hand of one of the otherworldly creatures that’s apparently hunting him song and dance.
Because that one was a real doozy.
“Are you going to come eat your dinner?” a warm, warbling voice called from the kitchen. “Or am I going to have to reheat it a second time?”
That, at least, put an amused twitch on Robert’s lips.
“Coming, Mom,” Lilly called.
She’d been too distracted to even register the pleasant aromas of her mother’s signature meatloaf and roasted cauliflower when she’d walked in, but at the sight and smell of the food awaiting her on the small kitchen table (the dining room table had already been cleaned off for the night), her stomach dutifully set to reminding her just how thoroughly she’d neglected it for the past twelve or so hours.
“And so the big bad lecturer returns from her journey,” her mom said, shuffling her into a chair and planting a warm kiss on her forehead. “How did your talk go?”
Lilly gave a noncommittal shrug and dug into her food, hoping her ravenous hunger would cover up her less genuine aspects. “It was a talk,” she managed through a mouthful of unfairly succulent turkey. “Nothing to write home about.”
“Or call,” Robert said from the kitchen doorway, where he was leaning with arms crossed. “Why didn’t they put you up for the night, again?”
It was a fair question. Had she actually been delivering the talk she’d told them about, her hosts no doubt would have insisted on wining and dining her for the evening, but…
“I told you,” she said. “They offered, but I didn’t want to miss a second day in the lab. That grant is due next week.”
Robert only stared at her, his expression not quite accusing but not overly trusting either.
“She wanted to see me!” Rachel called as she scrambled past Robert’s stern leaning form and came to plop down in Lilly’s lap.
“And so the truth comes out,” Lilly said.
Despite the real truth of today—the vampires, the virus, the act that would probably be accurately construed as bioterrorism, and, on top of it all, the tension between her and Robert—Lilly didn’t have to search for the smile that pulled her mouth wide.
That was the magic of Rachel.
It was possible Rachel might eventually express other magic too, of course. Arcanism wasn’t a genetic certainty, but there seemed to be a decently strong correlation there. The far stronger correlation was that the gift tended to awaken in response to traumatic (or sometimes just emotionally intense) events. Lilly had always postulated that might mean the gift was indeed genetic and simply capable of remaining latent in those who never had the dual fortune/misfortune of awakening it, but she couldn’t say for sure. They didn’t exactly have a large sample size to go by, but there sure did seem to be a lot of arcanists who’d unexpectedly—often violently—lost someone or been through something similarly harrowing in their younger years.
Then again, some, like Lilly, had come into their gifts with tribulations as trivial as a particularly embarrassing pool party incident, so it was possible Rachel might find her gifts (provided they were there) without anything terrible happening.
Lilly had never quite been able to decide whether or not she hoped Rachel would eventually develop arcane talent. She’d had extensive discussions with Robert on the matter, and, with little exception, the answer they always gravitated toward was that it didn’t matter. Rachel was their daughter either way, and she wa
s more than they could ever ask for.
Thinking about it, Lilly reached out, as she often did, and brushed lightly against Rachel’s mind with her extended senses.
Rachel felt like a happy eleven year old girl, nothing more, nothing less.
Perfect, in other words.
The only thing Lilly wanted with absolute certainty was for Rachel to have a long, happy life doing something she loved.
In a vampire free world.
The thought sneaked in almost as if it had been beamed by another person. And, just like that, the hit of Rachel’s magical smile energy began to falter.
“What is it?” Rachel asked.
No. Not clueless. Certainly not clueless.
This time, Lilly’s smile felt decidedly more forced. She wondered if Rachel could tell.
“It’s nothing, sweetheart. Just a long day.” She glanced at the kitchen display. “Speaking of which, I believe it’s about time for a certain fair-haired young lady to be making her way to bed.”
Rachel gave the time on the display a thoughtful look and nodded slowly. “I think you’re right. I’ll pass the message along if I see anyone like that.”
Robert appeared beside them. “You, my darling”—he planted a particularly smoochy-sounding kiss on top of Rachel’s head, paying no mind to her indignant squeal—“are going to make a fine young con-lady if you keep this up.”
“Or a saleswoman,” Rachel said.
Robert laughed and scooped her off Lilly’s lap. “To bed with you, Silver Tongue!”
They disappeared in a whirling rush of laughs and delighted squeals. Just before Robert spun out of sight, Lilly caught a glimpse of the smile on his face. It was the smile she’d slowly fallen in love with back in undergrad, when everything about him had seemed so exciting, so new. It was Robert’s smile, the one that had once been reserved for her and only her.
It had been too long since she’d seen that smile.
She turned back to her plate to find her mom watching her with an especially maternal expression.
Lilly said nothing and picked up her fork.
Her mom gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “You’ve been busy, dear.”
Lilly’s mom wasn’t a telepath (Lilly had checked several times, just to be absolutely certain), but that had never seemed to stop her from somehow seeing through Lilly’s skull and straight into the juicy gray matter of her thoughts. It was uncanny. And sometimes, it was even nice.
But this wasn’t one of those times.
Fortunately, her mom seemed to pick up on that fact as well, and she busied herself cleaning up after dinner without a word while Lilly tried to finish a dinner she’d lost her appetite for.
4
There was nothing quite like a piping hot shower to wash away the stresses of the day. Except when those stresses included government conspiracies and light bioterrorism, apparently.
At least Lilly was clean when she stepped out of the shower.
For a brief moment, Robert paused from brushing his teeth to trace the outline of her body with his eyes in the mirror, and she could feel the pulse of his want. Then the heavy miasma of tension settled back over them like a cloud, and he went back to his diligent act of actively saying nothing, silently screaming I know something is going on, and you’re going to tell me about it with every subtle motion of his body.
Robert had it down to an art form.
He and her mother could have started some kind of non-telepathic telepath club for how effectively they managed to respectively send and receive information in the absence of words.
Feeling just a bit too naked, Lilly wrapped herself in a towel and padded across the thick rug to her own sink to brush her teeth.
“You’re angry,” she said, using the toothpaste she was applying to her brush as an excuse not to meet his eyes.
The words just slipped out. Why did she always start with that—always insist on sticking to the same sad pattern of poor communication every time something was bothering them?
“Not angry,” he said, sticking dutifully to his script. “Just… concerned.”
Concerned about what?
That was her line, right? Maybe so. But she was too tired to play the game tonight. “Me too.”
There. Cycle broken. Non-fighting fight circumvented.
Only Robert barely seemed to have heard her.
He spit in the sink. “Are you sleeping with Jeff?”
The question was like an icy dagger to the heart.
No, not the question. The question alone might have made her laugh—it was that ridiculous.
It was Robert’s tone that reached down and wrenched at her insides.
She looked up in time to see Robert’s controlled composure slipping as he mistook her reaction for confession.
“No,” she said quickly. “No! Jesus, Robert. Why would you—”
“He wasn’t at work today, Lil.”
She’d known that, of course. But it sure as crap wasn’t because they’d been doing bad things together—unless you counted separately hitting major worldwide traffic hubs with a potentially dangerous, highly contagious virus.
And Christ, had Robert called Jeff’s office to check his whereabouts? Or had he gone to Jeff’s lab himself?
No one would have stopped him. The security team all knew him. But it wasn’t like he would have found anything out by dropping by Jeff’s lab anyway. They didn’t exactly make a habit of leaving evidence of their insane little project lying around, and the only one of Jeff’s lab members that actually knew—his post-doc, Koren—had already left for her viral tour across Eurasia.
She should have just told Robert from the start. This was getting out of hand—was well past that, in fact, if he thought she was cheating on him and believed it with enough conviction to actually investigate.
“He had to travel for the project we’re working on together.”
“Right. The project.” Robert watched her carefully for a few seconds then returned to the mundane task of rinsing his toothbrush and tidying up for what looked to be about a zero percent chance of peaceful sleep.
He stalked out of the bathroom without another word. He’d be waiting to continue the conversation out there, though. Robert wasn’t one to let things slide. Not that this was the kind of thing he should have let slide.
It was time to come clean.
So Lilly finished brushing her teeth, pulled on a t-shirt and pajama pants, and, with a low sigh, strode out to tell her husband what was going on out there, and what she’d done about it.
Robert watched her expectantly as she settled on the foot of the bed.
“Do you remember my, uh, friend Ren?”
Robert frowned at the unexpected course change. “He’s kind of a hard guy to forget, what with the arcanism and the flippant disregard for all things lawful.”
“Right. Well, he swung through town—I guess it was almost six months ago now—because someone was after him.”
“I have a feeling that guy always has someone after him.”
“That’s”—she thought about it—“actually probably true, but this was different.”
“Different how? And why would he bring that kind of trouble your way?”
“Uh, well…”
No way to put it lightly. Out with it.
“He was looking for an educated opinion on what he was dealing with. Because the ‘someone’ was actually more of a ‘something.’ Definitely not human. I’m not even sure it’s from…”
Robert was staring at her, his expression deadpan.
“Ren told you he was being chased by aliens?”
“No. He wasn’t insane.”
Robert frowned. “Wasn’t?”
She dropped his eyes and nodded. “Whatever was chasing him… Well, I guess it caught up.”
After a length of silence, Robert’s hand found her leg. “I’m sorry, Lil.” Then, after a longer length of silence, “But how do you know it wasn’t just some random accident or, I
don’t know, the Yakuza or something?”
She turned an indignant stare on him.
“Okay, bad example, but I don’t know! I don’t suppose you saw any proof of these stalkers of his?”
“Well”—she showed him a preemptive apologetic wince—“he did bring one of their hands when he visited.”
Robert’s eyebrows crept upward. “Like…?”
She nodded. “Minus the rest of the body, yeah. Said he hacked it off escaping the… well, he called it a vampire.”
Robert’s brow achieved full liftoff. “Vampires? Seriously?”
“I know, I said the same thing. But he only found the thing because it was feeding on one of his friends and obfuscating her memories.”
“Then how did Ren find out that—”
Lilly gave the side of her temple a meaningful tap.
“Right,” Robert said. “Telepath stuff. Got it. But…”
“I know. It’s ridiculous. I wasn’t buying it either. But then I got a look at the sample he brought.”
“You mean the severed hand, right?”
Tension or no, Lilly’s lips twitched upward at the way he said it. “That’s the one.”
“And you’re sure it’s not human? You sequenced the DNA and everything?”
“That’s the thing. I tried, but I couldn’t even find DNA to sequence.”
“So it’s fake.”
She shook her head. “I can’t pretend to understand exactly what we’re looking at, but those tissues are alive. You can see that much with just a microscope. But it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before—anything anyone’s seen before, as far as I know.”
Robert looked like he was perched right on the edge of laughing at her and telling her she’d clearly fallen for an elaborate hoax, but he wasn’t quite there yet. He was still intrigued. “So, what? You actually think it could be alien?”
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 121