“Catch our scent from where? The heavily trafficked melting pots of airport food and sweaty travelers?”
Jeff furrowed his brow and threw his hands wide as if to say, How the hell should I know? They’re vampires!
Truth be told, as calmly as she was trying to refute his points, Lilly shared Jeff’s concerns. The risks of their being found out were slim, sure, but that didn’t change the fact that their actions looked rather blasé now in hindsight.
Ren had warned her that the vampires seemed to have navigated their ways to high places. And if those inky black lines on the general’s neck were actually the work of their virus… Well, it wouldn’t exactly go unnoticed if a bunch of prominent figures all started dropping of the same strange sickness, would it?
And Jeff was right to be concerned about the vampires. If the creatures had managed to track Ren halfway across the planet…
But no. Ren had poked his head into their business directly, on more than one occasion. They’d known his face. That was different, right?
Maybe.
She wasn’t convinced. But then again, with any luck, they might not have any vampires left to worry about soon. If the virus worked as well in practice as it did in their samples, it could all be over in a matter of weeks.
Of course, that wouldn’t change the fact that the rest of the nation’s powers might well still be scouring the country for the two of them by then. And what about the fallout that might come on the wake of a bunch of political figures and powerful businessmen keeling over in a couple weeks’ time?
It was all the kind of stuff she couldn’t quite believe they hadn’t thought to consider more carefully prior to the act. But it had to be better than letting a bunch of vicious telepathic murderers hang out at the top of the world, playing whatever games they fancied with the human race.
Right?
She wasn’t sure. All she really knew was that she needed to sleep.
Maybe then she’d be awake enough to escape the numbness pervading her brain and scream in horror like the small voice in her head was whispering she should.
“Did we fuck up?” Jeff asked quietly after a lengthy silence.
She shook her head. “I have no idea. But I have a feeling we’re going to find out soon enough.”
Two weeks later, Lilly sat in the cheerless Drexel cafeteria, absentmindedly masticating food she only barely tasted—though that was by no fault of the food. And maybe it wasn’t even fair to call the cafeteria cheerless. That part, Lilly could rightfully take the credit for.
For the past two weeks, they’d waited. Nothing had happened overnight. Or the next day. But eventually, slowly, the stories began to trickle in. One of the big wigs of a big pharma corp had gone missing. Then a US senator.
Like General Matthews, they left with little noise and even fewer details.
Then a photo of the freaking President of China sporting sickly black lines up his neck hit the Net, and the world officially lost its mind.
No one knew what they were dealing with—no one but Lilly, Jeff, Koren, and Robert, of course. That didn’t stop the rumors from abounding on every news and media outlet that had the mouths to flap and the fingers to type.
Robert had simply stopped speaking to her.
Part of her wished Jeff would follow suit. He’d spent hours in her office over the past weeks, pointlessly worrying both of them in circles. Neither he nor his post-doc Koren looked so hot these days.
Not that Lilly had much room to talk there, with the dark bags under her eyes and the general disarray that was becoming too common in her everyday appearance and behavior.
It might help if they had some inkling of whether their intervention (as Lilly had taken to thinking of it in an effort to maintain some grip on sanity) was having its intended effect as they sat here waiting for the sky to fall on their heads. She had to assume—part out of confidence in her abilities and the tests they’d run, and part out of sheer dumb hope—that the victims who’d been publicly identified were indeed vampires and not just poor innocents caught in the crossfire.
Their elevated stations were in line with Ren’s observations, at least. But what was happening to them now? Were they sick? Dying? Already dead?
It was impossible to know for sure. There were plenty of sources claiming this and that with surprising detail and certainty, but that was hardly new for the overflowing stream of garbage news sources. The few they might actually be able to trust were frustratingly tight-lipped and short on facts.
And so they waited.
Lilly and Jeff discussed packing up their families and going their separate ways on a lengthy vacation but ultimately decided that would only make it easier for suspicious parties to hone in on them.
But what if those suspicious parties were already honing in on them anyway?
The scary part was that they really wouldn’t have any way of knowing until the feds came kicking in the doors and busting through the windows. What an exciting day that would be.
But that wasn’t going to happen. Was it?
She sighed, looked down at her half-eaten salad, and decided she couldn’t stomach the rest.
Normally in this kind of situation, Lilly would have expected to hear that the victims were being treated in isolation and that the CDC was looking into the matter. Whether or not the government would put out official word that they were investigating the possibility of bioterrorism was iffy. She didn’t doubt they were giving the idea some consideration by now, but maybe not seriously enough to actually make the statement and open the doors to hysteria.
Why would they? Even if there were cases going unreported, it wasn’t like there were people dropping like flies all over the country. Ren had guessed—albeit quite roughly—that there probably weren’t more than a few hundred of the vampires worldwide, maybe a few thousand, worst case scenario.
But the CDC wouldn’t know that, would they? Not unless they’d been infiltrated too—which, come to think of it now, was not such an unlikely possibility.
If the powers that be decided to take this by the horns and assume the absolute worst… What would even happen to Lilly and Jeff if the government tracked them down?
What about their families?
The thought of Robert getting dragged into this, of Rachel having to stand by and watch her parents hauled in front of the country to be labeled terrorists and traitors and whatever else…
Lilly was going to be sick.
She pushed back her chair and pressed her head to the cool cafeteria table, hyperventilating. The world pushed in around her, wrapping her in a tight lead blanket that wouldn’t move, wouldn’t loosen. Her chest worked in futile desperation for air that wouldn’t come.
Couldn’t. She couldn’t fall apart. Not here. Not in plain sight.
She squeezed her eyes shut and poured herself into her extended senses, reaching out with her mind until her panic and her heavy thoughts were drowned out in the sheer volume of sensory input.
She felt everything. The tables. The people at them. The scratchy wool of a sweater, and the creamy smoothness of Ms. Sweater’s cheesecake. Raging rivers of charged particles streamed through the walls, pouring into the diodes spaced throughout the room and lending their potentials to the steady succession of photons firing down on the cafeteria’s indifferent occupants. The air thrummed with the subtle pressure of sound waves as those occupants prattled on about this and that.
Lilly pushed further, willing the sensations to carry her away.
Further. Past the atrium, with its sad indoor trees and its tired students, murmuring to one another through their studies. Further still and—
She gasped and recoiled with her senses as if she’d touched a hot stove—which, in a manner of speaking, was exactly what she’d just felt.
It had been a telepathic mind, there was no question about that. The mind of another telepath always burned like a signal fire next to the minds of non-telepaths. But it was more than that.
The mind she’d just touched had been enormous and somehow alien, it’s power tremendous and irrefutable. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before.
Never, that was, save for once—in Ren’s memories.
Which meant the mind she’d just brushed against could only be one thing.
The vampires had found them.
7
Lilly had to run. Had to warn Robert. Had to protect Rachel. Of those three things, she was blindingly certain, and yet, for a moment—too long a moment, an eternity—she couldn’t seem to do anything but sit there and stupidly stare in the direction of the impossible.
Rachel. Robert. Car. Run.
A vampire. How could it be here?
Rachel. Robert. Car. Run.
How had it found them? Had it felt her just now? Was it coming this way?
Rachel. Robert. Car. Run.
She clambered to her feet, fumbled with the pendant at her breast, and flicked on her mind cloak to hide her presence on the off chance it hadn’t noticed her yet.
Rachel. Robert. Car. Run. And—
Shit. Jeff.
He and Koren were up in their lab right now, utterly clueless to the coming death that had just stalked in through the front door.
Would the vampire know that? Know their names, where to find them?
If it had made it this far, probably.
But if it had felt her presence a moment ago, would it even bother with their labs, or head straight for the juicy telepath in the cafeteria?
It didn’t matter. She needed to run. The vampires had killed Ren, a guy who routinely took down roomfuls of armed men with little more than his mind and his fists. If they cornered her, she was done for.
She needed to run.
But she couldn’t. Not without at least checking first.
Silently cursing herself, she flipped her cloaking pendant off and threw her mind out far and wide for a brief second.
She flipped the cloak back on just as quickly with a gasp and a physical recoil.
Five. She’d felt at least five of them moving through the building.
And one was headed straight for her.
People were watching her now. Those she knew looked on with friendly concern, probably wondering whether they should step in and see if she needed help.
She realized she’d knocked over her chair at some point. She must have looked insane—did look insane, if the expressions on the rest of the onlookers’ faces were any indication.
Within seconds, everyone in sight had paused from their lunches to watch.
Silence hung in the cafeteria as they all stared at the heavily panting blond lady clutching the pendant at her chest.
Rachel. Robert. Jeff. Rachel. Robert. Jeff.
Vampire. Coming. Coming for her.
Run.
Someone called after her, but she was already gone.
She threw open the door to the stairwell. It crashed into the wall, and she stumbled down the steps, trying to think.
Jeff. She needed to warn Jeff first.
She kicked open the door to the mostly-empty back parking lot and dashed for her car, waving her comm to life as she went.
“Message Jeff,” she snapped at the device. “They’re here. Get out. Now.”
The comm faithfully transcribed her words, and she tapped the send icon.
She reached her car and jammed her thumb to the ID pad. The door unlocked with a muffled click, and she slid behind the wheel to the car’s cheerful, “Hi, Lilly! Where are we headed?”
She ignored the mechanical female voice and checked her comm.
Message failed.
“Son of a bitch,” she hissed, tapping at the send icon again.
Message failed.
It was only then she noticed her Net icon had a line drawn through it. She’d lost her connection. But how? That never happened.
What did she do?
Going back in was suicide with five of those things on the prowl, but—
The door she’d exited from swung open, and her heart jumped and caught in her throat as a man in a green canvas jacket ghosted out, looking this way and that like a predator on the hunt. He tilted his bearded face a few degrees skyward and sniffed at the air, once, twice. His neck, she noticed, was laced with inky black lines.
On the third sniff, his gaze snapped straight toward her, and his eyes came alive with a faint red glow.
“Fuck,” Lilly gasped.
Across the lot, the vampire’s lips pulled into a chilling smile, almost as if he’d heard.
Terror clamped over her chest and her limbs, which felt numb as she stomped in the brake and slapped blindly to shift the car into drive.
“Would you like me to take the wheel, Lilly?” the car asked.
The vampire started toward her. She slammed her foot on the accelerator and wheeled away.
“Just give me a destination and I’ll—”
“I’m driving, dammit,” she snapped at the car. “I need to get a message to Rob—”
Her voice froze in her throat as she glanced to the rear view mirror.
The vampire was following her at an impossibly fast sprint. She was already moving far too fast to safely navigate the lot, but she pressed the accelerator the rest of the way to the floor anyway.
Too late.
The vampire closed the distance despite her acceleration and punched through the polymer hatch as if it were construction paper. Lilly started to yank on the wheel in some blind hope she might throw her pursuer off, but the vampire bent down and yanked the entire rear of the car up off the ground.
The drive wheels spun in furious futility as they slid to a screeching halt on what she realized a stunned second later must be the vampires shoes.
“Oh dear,” the car voice said. “There seems to be a problem.”
The rear hatch disappeared from the mirror with a wrenching snap, leaving nothing but back seats and empty space between Lilly and the vampire who’d torn it clear with impossible strength. A burning smell wafted into the car, and a low growl rumbled from the vampire’s throat, the scarlet glow in his eyes brightening now.
Move. She had to move, to do something—anything.
But what? What the hell was she supposed to do against something that could lift cars and tear them apart with its bare hands?
She didn’t have to beat it, though. Just escape.
So she drew her mental defenses tight, reached for the sizable energy reservoir of the car’s battery, and flipped her cloaking pendant off.
The vampire’s eyes flared brighter as if in excitement, and the crushing weight of its mind fell on hers, seeking to tear its way into her head and rob her of control.
Lilly held her defenses tight, her fear momentarily lost to focus as she held the vampire at bay and channeled deeply from the car battery. The energy crackled through her like liquid lightning, building in pressure and intensity until her body threatened to explode with it.
The vampire roared a wordless challenge at her, moving to flip the car over.
Lilly reached out and poured the channeled energy into the vampire’s hands as one sharp electric shock.
The vampire snarled and stumbled back.
The rear of the car slammed to the pavement with a thunk Lilly felt through her spine, and the vampire looked up from its smoking hands to meet Lilly’s shocked gaze with red-eyed fury.
Without thinking, Lilly drew from the battery again and reached out to punch the creature in the chest with a column of telekinetic force that swept the vampire from its feet and sent it crashing into the hood of another car ten yards behind.
Lilly didn’t wait to see what happened next. She slammed her foot to the pedal and screeched away just as the channeling fatigue began to hit in full.
Her vision went dark, and her thoughts fuzzy.
Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out.
Turn. She needed to turn at the corner of the building.
“Collision warning,” chimed a voice somewhere fa
r away.
Her hands were like lead on the wheel. She pulled. Not enough.
The car jerked and turned smoothly around the corner of the building anyway.
“Driver unstable,” came the voice again. “Manual control disabled.”
Thank god for that stupid little car bot.
The darkness was clearing from Lilly’s vision now, and a glance confirmed that the view in the mirror was thankfully vampire-free.
“Rachel,” she croaked. “We need to get Rachel.”
“Vehicle damaged,” said the mechanical voice.
To Lilly’s horror, the car began to slow.
“I recommend you call for assistance.”
“No! Drive!”
“Vehicle damaged,” replied the car voice. “I recommend you—”
“Shut up! Override! Now! Let me drive, dammit!”
A figure strode around the corner, red eyes blazing.
“Is this a matter of personal safet—”
“YES!” Lilly screamed, stomping the accelerator.
“Understood, Lilly.”
The car screeched forward again.
“Manual control enabled. I recommend you call for assistance as soon as possible.”
“Duly noted,” Lilly muttered.
All she needed for that was a working comm.
She was met by wide-eyed stares, open mouths, and a few angry shouts from students and professors alike as she whipped around to the front of the building and shot up the hill toward Queen Lane. At a hasty glance, she didn’t spot her pursuit, but she wasn’t about to assume it was safe to slow down.
She whipped into traffic, trusting the other cars’ automated systems to compensate for her lack of manners.
Horns blared and the angry shouts doubled, but nothing hit her as she zipped through the intersection and down Queen Lane.
“Warning,” the car chimed. “Reckless driving detected on a public road. Revoking manual cont—”
“This is an emergency!” Lilly shouted. “Do not revoke control!”
“Understood, Lilly,” the car said. “Alerting authorities now.”
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 124