Lilly had never been able to tell him how many there were like her in the world. She hadn’t known herself. John had only found out about her gifts by accident, and even then, it had taken her months to actually give in and open up to him about it. She’d sworn him into a pact of secrecy that, as far as he knew, had only included Lilly’s parents in addition to John. It was a big part of what’d made them so close.
Was that why she’d thought to call him now, after all these years? Could her abilities have something to do with whatever trouble she may or may not be wrapped up in?
Was it possible she hadn’t even told Robert what she could do?
That seemed unlikely at this point.
Either way, it was pointless to sit here spinning his wheels in the dark. Especially when Lilly was just a comm call away.
So John kissed Michael on the forehead, being careful not to disturb his sleep, and padded out of the bedroom and over to his study. There, he settled behind his desk and hit the call icon before he could convince himself otherwise.
The spinning icon of the pending connection sent a jolt of apprehension through his chest, and for a second, he thought about canceling the call.
Then the icon disappeared, and the holo populated with the face of a young blond girl standing in a neatly-ordered bedroom.
The girl he recognized easily as Lilly’s daughter, Rachel, searched his face with suspiciously squinted eyes, an expression eerily similar to one of Lilly’s. “Who are you?”
John couldn’t help but smile. “An old friend of your mother’s. You’re Rachel, right?”
She arched one eyebrow. “It’s possible. But I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to give my name to strangers.”
John’s smile widened. “Good call. My name is John Carver. I went to college with your mom.”
Rachel bobbed her head once. “Very well, John Carver. But I’m afraid to say Mom has disappeared.”
An icy hand clutched John’s chest. “What?”
Rachel opened her mouth and—
“Rachel?” a male voice called from somewhere off screen. Robert. “Are you talking to someon—Oh.”
There was a moment’s pause. Then, “Give me the comm, sweetie, and go help your Grams with the dishes.”
Rachel looked like she’d just swallowed a lemon whole. “But Dad, I—”
“Not now, Rache.”
The holo view of the bedroom jostled unsteadily, rotating around, and Rachel’s suspicious face was replaced by Robert’s.
“No fair!” Rachel cried somewhere off screen.
John was too busy worrying to wait for Robert to say anything.
“Where’s Lilly?”
Robert’s eyes narrowed a shade, but before he could answer, a door cracked open behind him, and Lilly peeked out from a dissipating cloud of shower steam.
“Robert, are you—”
She caught sight of John on the holo and froze. It wasn’t much, only a second, but it was enough to deepen the irritation etched on Robert’s brows.
“John?” Lilly said. She disappeared from the crack in the door then emerged a second later wrapped in nothing but a towel.
If Robert hadn’t been agitated before, that certainly did the trick. He pivoted with an indignant huff so that John could only see the wall and Robert’s intensifying glare.
“Jesus, Robert,” Lilly said off screen. “Really?”
Robert pointedly ignored her. “Was there something you needed, John?”
It was almost impressive how well he managed to affect an artificially polite tone over top of the unspoken, Like a thorough ass kicking?
Somehow, John didn’t think Robert would be any happier hearing he’d called to check in after Lilly had called him (and apparently not Robert) about… well, whatever it was Lilly had been calling about. John wasn’t even sure Robert would know about It, The Thing, and so instead, he rifled through his suddenly gelatinous mind, searching for a suitable cover up.
Before he found a viable alternative, though, Lilly appeared at Robert’s shoulder on the holo. “John, about last week…”
Robert glanced between his wife and John, initial confusion quickly shifting to suspicion. Lilly didn’t quite flinch under his gaze, but there was obvious tension there.
“. . . It was a long day,” Lilly continued. “I was just thinking of old friends. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”
John shook his head, trying his best to affect a neutral tone. “No bother at all. Just thought I’d check in and see how the family’s doing.”
“We’re great,” Robert said, looking far from it. Then he seemed to remember himself, and, with slightly less aggression, he added, “How’s your son?”
“Michael’s doing well. More imaginative every day.”
Both Robert and Lilly adopted knowing smiles that almost succeeded in covering up the tension harbored between them.
“And I see Rachel’s taking after her mom,” John added.
“God help us,” Robert said.
His tone was light, clearly indicating the comment as a joke, and yet another subtle twang of unease seemed to grip both of them once the words left his mouth.
Silence stretched between the three of them for a second too long, and then—
“Parentals!” a voice cried from off screen—Rachel again. “Grams wants to know if we’re watching this movie or not.”
“We’ll be there in a minute, sweetheart,” Lilly called before turning back to the holo. “John, I didn’t mean to—”
“I’ll let you all get back to it,” John said, feeling suddenly even more uncomfortable than he had with the aggressive air between Robert and Lilly.
Because if they were prepping for family movie night, how bad could things really be? Whatever Lilly had been going through last week, whatever was going on between her and Robert now, John suddenly felt sure that none of it was his business at all.
Once again, he’d allowed his feelings to interrupt his sense of reason where Lilly was concerned.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said. “Have a nice night.”
Robert gave a nod that might’ve been appreciative.
“Goodnight, John,” Lilly said, and there was something there in the hazel depths of her eyes, something that—
The holo abruptly cleared to the home screen as someone—Robert, presumably—ended the call.
For a long time, John sat quietly, not moving, not even really thinking—not in any focused sense of the word.
Why? Why had Lilly called him in the first place?
Drop it. Not his business. Clearly, they were fine. Or not in danger, at least.
But could it really have been over nothing?
It was a long day, she’d said. A long day. Sure. Maybe she’d been tired, stressed, whatever else, and had one of those awful moments of, You know who I haven’t talked to in forever?
Except if it was a long day that’d had her spontaneously deciding to call an old friend (one of the few—and maybe the only one—who knew her secret, by the way), then why was it that she’d called said friend at 8:30 in the morning? Hard to have had a long day by then, wasn’t it?
And there was something else, beyond the tense air and the worried glances. Something in the look in Lilly’s eyes at the end there. John couldn’t place his finger on the particulars, but his subconscious had read them all the same and was barking its confident report to him now.
Something was going on. Something neither Robert nor Lilly was happy about. And while some lesser corner of his mind wondered if it wasn’t (and maybe even hoped it was) just vanilla, everyday marital stress, that infernal subconscious must have connected dots John hadn’t even noticed yet, because he had a strong feeling that the something in question was more than that. But what?
He leaned back in his chair and let out a heavy sigh.
Maybe he was just as paranoid as Myers over there in his basement bunker.
“This is ridiculous,” John muttered to himself.
Right?
Maybe. But his start-stop, flip-flop uncertainty did nothing to slow his fingers, which had danced their way over the holo until he was staring at Lilly’s Drexel faculty page, silently scrolling through the list of her most recent publications, waiting for something to stand out.
By the time he reached the end of the list, though, nothing had. His busy fingers carried on all the same, unwavering in their self-elected task, and a few seconds later, he was staring at Lilly’s NetSpace.
He forced his fingers to stop.
What was the point? There was nothing to be learned here, aside from the fact that, current tensions aside, Lilly had a happy life with a beautiful family. And that she’d never cared enough about the dawn of the NetSpace craze to have ever updated her Space from the default decor.
His lip twitched upward.
So maybe some things never did change.
Hesitantly, John reached for his immersion headset. He pulled it on, settled back in his chair, and waved his way forward into the pristine Space with its cool, subtle tones and its shelves and hallways packed to the brim with pictures and clips and mementos of her life.
John prowled silently through the digital halls, taking it all in from the sidelines and reflecting that, indeed, some things never changed at all.
6
Lilly had just finished chugging her morning coffee to no avail and decided the day had nowhere to go but down from there when Jeff appeared in her office doorway with a novelty knock, waving his old tablet around.
“Have you seen this?”
She stared at him through bleary eyes. “I can’t really see what ‘this’ is through the back of your tablet.”
So help her, if this was another one of Jeff’s cat videos…
It had been another sleepless night. She’d thought she and Robert had been past those. Then John had called last night.
Not that she could blame John for his bad timing. She’d been the one to open that door. She still wasn’t sure what had possessed her into ever thinking that had been a good idea.
John Carver was a good man. As good as they came. And he’d been an even better friend—still would be, probably, if she needed it. Clearly. But explaining these things to Robert would not a happy husband make. Not that it would be news to him anyway.
Robert had held a certain tense reservation toward all things John-related since the day he and Lilly had started dating, nodding politely and never quite seeming to believe her when she explained that, if anything, John was like a brother to her. It had been a point of occasional friction, but time had passed, and her bond with Robert had grown stronger while the one she shared with John had drifted further and further into the realm of fond memory.
A month ago, a call from John would have conjured little more than an uncertain glance and an Oh, how has he been?
Between their current tension and the fact that John had sounded suspiciously like he might have reason to think something was amiss, though, Robert had had more than a few questions. Why was John calling now of all times? What exactly had she told him the other week? And why the hell had it been John Carver she’d felt the need to tell before she’d said a peep to her own husband?
Dear that he was, Robert had waited patiently through the entirety of their family movie night and all the way up until they’d laid down in their bed to spark the conversation that had quickly degraded into a long night of defensive bickering and sleepless silence.
As agitated as the lack of sleep had left her, though, Lilly knew that she couldn’t really hold this against Robert, either.
No blaming Robert. No blaming John.
Because at the end of the day, all of this was her fault, wasn’t it?
Yes. Yes it was.
And seeing the expression on Jeff’s face as he approached her desk—one part horror and two parts naive excitement—Lilly had a sudden dreadful feeling that the most egregious of her atrocities was yet to come.
Not a cat video, then…
Her pulse quickened, and the room snapped into a focus it had lacked since she’d shambled in that morning. Jeff dropped into the chair opposite her, placed the tablet on her desk, and spun it around to face her.
The first thing she took in was the image of the square-faced, gray-haired man in army fatigues. The image must have been snapped on the fly by comm or handheld. Someone’s jacketed shoulder blocked part of the shot, and the quality wasn’t professional, but it was good enough to make out the most interesting part.
A network of inky black lines covered the army man’s throat and part of his face in a dark pattern that reminded her of spider webs. Whatever it was looked to be spreading, judging by the gradient of pattern densities ascending from throat to face. And was it just her imagination, or was that a glint of red in the army man’s eyes?
Red eyes. Just like Ren’s vampires.
Heart hammering, she pulled her gaze away from those eyes and up to the headline: General Matthews Struck by Unknown Illness – Army Denies Comment
Lilly stared at the headline. “That’s—”
“The General of the US Army.” Jeff seemed to remember himself then and hopped up to close the office door after a quick peek outside. He turned back to her, looking more anxious than he had before. “He hasn’t been seen since this picture. According to the story, at least. And there’s more. More sightings of people with that”—he waved a finger at his face and throat—“whatever it is. Do you know what it is?”
Lilly shook her head, staring numbly at the image of the ailing General Matthews.
Was this their work?
Clearly Jeff thought so, and her gut didn’t seem to disagree with him, but… “We have no way of knowing this is—”
“I know.” Jeff sat back down and removed his glasses so he could pinch the bridge of his nose—his go-to nervous tick. “But I’ve never seen anything else like that. And then there’s the fact that they’re trying to hush it up. And did you see his eyes? It’s like you said, right? Didn’t your guy say there was one of them close to the White House?”
Lilly rubbed at her eyes with her palms then sighed and looked again just to make sure it hadn’t been some trick of her sleep-deprived eyes. “He said there was one in the White House. And that there were others in equally lofty spots.”
“We got lofty, that’s for sure.” He scooped up his tablet and studied the picture. “What’s next, the president?”
The thought sent a nervous tickle through her insides.
What in god’s name had they started here? And worse, what if the general and the others the article mentioned weren’t vampires at all? What if the virus had simply found a vulnerable population? Or mutated? Or—
Stop. She had to stop.
But the pallor creeping into Jeff’s face told her he was thinking along the same lines.
“God,” he said quietly. “What if it was the president? Matthews is bad enough. Worse than bad. They’re going to have the best infectious disease specialists in the country looking at him.”
“Jeff—”
“What if they figure it out? If Matthews dies”—a frantic glint slipped into Jeff’s eyes—“oh god, if he dies, they’ll turn the country over looking for the source of that virus.”
“And you’re just realizing this now?”
He gave her an incredulous stare. “Well I didn’t know it was the fucking General of the US Army we were throwing in against, Lilly. I thought… I don’t know, I thought this was just… monsters in the shadows, and… God, I didn’t realize—”
“Get it together, Jeff.”
Lilly was startled at the intensity of the bite in her own voice.
Jeff looked like she’d reached across the desk and slapped him.
“We’ve talked about all of this,” she added, as calmly as she could. “We knew the risks. Nothing’s changed. And we
still don’t even know this is because of us. We need to keep an eye on it. Monitor. Wait for more information before we go losing it.”
Anger crept over Jeff’s expression, and Lilly realized she’d been affecting the same tone she used when scolding Rachel.
“Yeah?” he said. “And what if they come for us while we’re sitting around monitoring?”
“How would they find us?”
It might have come out sounding like a rhetorical question, but it wasn’t.
“We started the spread from hubs that see tens of thousands of travelers every day. It’s an”—she almost said enchanted but caught herself in time—“completely unprecedented virus. Even if they noticed it, I don’t know that they’d draw the conclusion it had been engineered. And even if they did, how would they track that back here?”
Jeff was watching her with a guarded expression, probably wondering again for the thousandth time exactly how she’d worked her magic to produce their brilliant little bioweapon. Little did he know the answer was in the question: she’d literally worked her magic.
At this point, there probably wasn’t even much of a reason to hide her arcane talents from Jeff, but she doubted it would help matters either, so she simply sat still and quiet under his gaze.
“The security footage,” he finally said.
“We already agreed the risk of being found out that way was slim.”
“That was before we incurred the wrath of the fucking US government. This shit is what the NSA is for. We should have been more careful. Should have hired someone to do the job. Our faces are all over that footage, right there in plain sight.”
“Right alongside the other couple hundred thousand faces. You really think they’ll take notice of a few weirdos with their disinfectant spray out of all the other weird stuff that goes on at airports? Enough for them to put two and two together like that?”
Jeff considered it and shook his head. “I don’t know. But it’s possible. And what about the”—he dropped his voice as if maybe they were listening nearby—“the vampires? What if they decide to come looking for us? You said they could do things—had senses beyond what we could imagine. What if they’re able to, I don’t know, catch our scent or something like that?”
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 123