by Julie Frost
Janni disappeared for a minute but came back with a glass of orange juice. “We have groceries,” she said, handing it to him. “Want me to make you anything?”
He was ravenous, again. “A sandwich would be great, honey. Thanks.”
She caressed his hair briefly before going back to the kitchen.
At the sound of Megan’s footsteps, he opened his eyes and glanced up. She set Reed’s laptop—along with a stack of jewel cases and a couple of thumb drives and some paper files—down on the coffee table, and squatted beside him. “How you holding up?”
“Not … that well, to be brutally honest.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Tell me it gets easier.” Even if it was a lie, he needed to hear it, because he could only be brutally honest for so long.
“Ben. It gets easier. It does.”
He gave her a bare nod. “Okay.”
“How’s Janni taking it?”
“Like a champ.” He was so very lucky to have her in his life. “She’s amazing.”
“Oh, I like that,” Janni said, coming back in with an enormous sandwich and a pile of chips on a plate. “Tell me more about how amazing I am.” She set the plate next to the laptop, and he pulled her onto the couch next to him.
“You … are strong, and beautiful.” He stuck his nose in her hair. “And you smell good. And you’re funny and cute and have dimples on your knees and put up with my shit and I adore you.” He hadn’t quite meant to say that much, because a lot went unsaid between them and always had. But it was almost a relief having it out in the open like that. Almost. Depending on how she reacted.
Megan coughed. “I’m going downstairs before I go into a diabetic coma. If you need anything, just yell.” She retreated.
Janni laughed, and he relaxed. “Think we weirded her out?” Janni asked.
“I certainly hope so.” He grabbed the sandwich and took a bite. Turkey, and ham, and a ton of bacon, with spinach and tomatoes and pickles and sprouts, with just the right amount of mayo and brown mustard …
“Mmph, this is to die for. Add ‘you know my favorite foods and actually make them for me without bitching about how unhealthy they are’ to the list of reasons you’re amazing.”
She snuggled into his side. “You’re not so bad yourself, you know.”
“Other than the complete and utter wreckage of my psyche, you mean?”
“I can think of worse things you could have wrong with you, honestly,” she answered, squeezing him a little. “You’re not mean, or stupid, or a drug addict. You can hold down a job.”
“Your mom is an understanding employer,” he mumbled around the last mouthful of sandwich.
“That’s because you work your ass off when you’re on the clock, silly man.” Janni snagged a chip from the plate.
“In between the times I spend hiding at home with my arms over my head?”
She poked his side. “You haven’t done that in ages, and you usually remote in when you do anyway. She gets her money’s worth out of you.”
“Speaking of which.” He pulled the computer up onto his lap, having finished the food while they’d been talking.
“Well, then.” She kissed his shoulder and reached for one of the files. “Need anything?”
“Just you, honey.”
O O O
Hans raged around the lab at Ostheim Industries. Idna had taken to her bed, and he was wild with worry.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Dr. Michelle McFoucher, his chief researcher, said. “But we’ve been trying to get in touch with Mike Reed all day, with no success. His assistant isn’t picking up either. It’s like both of them have dropped off the face of the earth.” She shrugged. “And without the nanotech, we’re completely stalled. Reed said the other day that he’d had a breakthrough, but he hasn’t sent us the details yet.”
Hans barely kept his grip on his frayed temper. Wolfing and eating his subordinate wouldn’t help anyone, least of all Idna, and this woman was the best in the business, on the cutting edge of research into what made werewolves and vampires tick. If anyone could help his wife, McFoucher could.
“Work with what you have,” he said. “We’re running out of time. I’ll see if I can track Reed down.”
He stormed into his office and slumped into the chair behind his desk. What could have happened to the man? Reed’s assistant had said something about an “uncontrolled experiment”—and never called back. Hans was immensely tired of people blowing him off, and the fact that the full moon was two nights hence didn’t help his raw nerves in the slightest.
He dialed Reed’s direct number at Jarrett Biologicals. Voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message. Reed’s cell phone gave him the same result. He growled and scored his desk with his claws. A man of action, he was paralyzed here. He knew nothing of the nuts and bolts of research; he simply ran the company and told his scientists the direction he wanted their studies to take.
He snatched his phone up again and dialed his assistant security chief. “Go to Mike Reed’s house and see what you can find there. And send someone to Jarrett’s for some discreet surveillance. Not only that, but I want stakeouts on everyone else’s places as well. They can’t stay holed up in there forever.”
Maybe Reed was sick, or injured. Something. But at least Hans had set something in motion, and he felt better about it. Not much better. But better.
O O O
“Oh, no way,” Alex said, staring through his microscope at the rabbit blood. Vampire bunnies. Which had been werewolf-ized. Great. He pounded his forehead with his fist. “Ostheim, you evil bastard. Poaching my employees, stealing my nanotech … you’ve been a very bad boy.”
Janni had come down to the lab for more notes. “Well, that’s who we thought all along, right?”
“Yeah. His wife’s a vampire. So that’s why—” He squeezed his eyes shut. “At the fundraiser. Oh, man, no wonder he’s pissed at me. Megan, how long have I been dodging his calls?”
“Two or three months.”
“And I bet she’s been sick for longer than that.”
“Vampire?” Janni said. “Did you really say ‘vampire’?”
“Yeah, match made in heaven, apparently. Him being a werewolf and all.” Alex rested his chin on his hands and stared at the wall. “Common knowledge in the biz, I mean, you start noticing when people don’t age, and with his company specializing in the paranormal side of pharmaceuticals …”
“You sent us after a werewolf and his vampire wife.” Janni’s tone was flat.
“Well, hell, Janni, not on purpose. I didn’t know it was him, I just knew someone was after my research.”
“So, what does this mean?” Megan asked.
“It means,” Alex said wearily, “that Reed was working on something that would hybridize werewolves and vampires, probably to try to cure whatever’s wrong with Idna. The scary bunnies are the result. And Ben got caught in the crossfire when Mike thought he didn’t have any choice but to use it on him to save his life.”
“Can you fix it?”
“I don’t know.” He combed his hair back with his fingers. “It was designed to work on vampires. What it will ultimately do to a regular human …” He stopped, and swallowed, and shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“But you’ll try,” Janni said.
“Oh, yeah.” Alex tapped his teeth with a fingernail. “I need more bunnies. Regular ones, not vampire ones. Megan, could you have some sent over, please? And I need to replicate this tech.” He wheeled himself over to his computer and started banging on the keyboard, getting specs, setting up a research protocol, programming his nanotech fabber, which built the little bots he’d made his fortune with.
Planning. Dammit. He was going to fix this.
Chapter Nine
Megan wanted to run away and hide for about a year. This whole situation was hitting way too close to home for her. Instead, she was … ordering rabbits. And ordering dinner. She looked at the clock on her computer when her stomach growled—had she e
aten today? While she was at it, she might as well call Alex’s maintenance people to come fix the door, because it was letting in a draft.
“What are we going to do about Ostheim?” she asked, after all that was taken care of.
“Hell if I know,” Alex said. “The legal system’s not exactly set up to deal with incarcerating a werewolf for industrial espionage and attempted murder. Not only that, but I get why he did it. I’d do the same thing for you.”
She twitched violently. “You’d do what?”
“Oh, you know. Steal another company’s secrets, if you were sick and I thought it would help.”
Alex was looking at his computer screen and didn’t see her nonplused stare, didn’t catch the sudden change in her breathing as she thought for the briefest instant that her own secret was blown. But he was so casual about it, as if stealing information would be just another everyday thing, no different from getting her coffee when he was getting one for himself or sending her flowers and some extravagant and inappropriate gift at Christmas.
He really was an impossible, impossible man. Which was why, on a daily basis, she alternated between wanting to kill him and wanting to hug the stuffing out of him. She settled for ordering his favorite Chinese dish from his favorite Chinese restaurant, among an assortment of other meals for everyone else.
“Your rabbits will be here in half an hour. Dinner in an hour.”
“Thank you, Miss Graham,” he said absently, chewing on a pen and not looking up from his desk.
“Oh, crap,” she said, realizing something. She accessed the internet on her phone, and sure enough— “Shit.”
Alex’s head came up at her rather unprofessional language. “What?”
“One of the guys Ben killed? The cattle prod guy?”
“What?”
“Was Ostheim’s nephew, Deiter.”
Dead silence greeted this announcement, and Megan wondered if everyone in the room had come down with the same headache pounding behind her eyes.
“I bet Ostheim is unhappy about that,” Alex finally said.
“You think?”
“Well.” He quirked his mouth. “Nothing we can do about it now. Can’t say I’m too upset about it, myself. I mean, really. He was on my property with a damned sniper rifle pointed at my house. It’s not my problem if he underestimated a guy he, you know, tortured nearly to death. Ostheim will just have to deal.”
That was certainly one way of looking at it. Megan didn’t think that Ostheim would agree, though. She sighed and wondered what other sorts of fallout she’d have to clean up.
O O O
Janni had written out her part of the script she’d gotten the callback for, having memorized it days ago, and was alternately poring over it in preparation and poking through Reed’s notes. She looked up when Ben said, “Ha,” and sat back on the sofa in the living room with an actual smile. Her own lips curled up in response to his satisfaction.
“I’m in.” He bumped her with his shoulder. “You know I love to hear you say it.…”
She loved to say it, so she obliged him. “You’re a genius.”
“Thank you.” He moved the mouse around. “Tell me your secrets, little computer. ‘Protocol dot doc.’ That sounds promising.” He clicked on it and started reading.
And heaved a mighty sigh.
“What?” Janni asked.
“This just confirms that, yes, he vamped the rabbits.” The hairs on his arms lengthened and stood on end. “But the real question here is why.”
The door chime startled her, and she hit the intercom to the basement. “Are we expecting anyone?” she asked.
“Be right up,” Alex said. “I’m having a load of rabbits delivered.”
“Rabbits? What for?” She eyed the computer screen, with a sinking feeling. “And do I need to get Ben out of the room?”
“No, I’ll send them around to the basement entrance.” Alex walked into the room. “We’ve figured something out. Be right back.”
A few minutes later, he came back and sat on the loveseat again. “Well. We know more now than we did. Mike’s rabbits weren’t regular bunnies, so I’ve set up a research protocol to see how this stuff affects normal tissue and if we can reverse it.”
Ben popped claws, tilted his hand back and forth, and retracted them. “Pretty sure we know how this stuff affects regular tissue, but okay.”
“Huh,” Alex said. “That’s some fine control.”
Ben shrugged. “Been practicing. I’d rather control it than not, you know?”
“Good point. Anyway. Hans Ostheim has been after me for a while to do something with the nanotech in the supernatural realm. I turned him down, for so many reasons.” Alex didn’t look happy. “So he got Mike to work for him off the books. And this is what he came up with.”
“Are you going to try to duplicate the research?” Janni said. “That seems pretty useless.”
“No, no. He vamped the rabbits—somehow—and then tested the nanotech on them. I’m going to see how it affects normal rabbits and then try to reverse it.” Alex took a deep breath. “And once we’ve figured that out, Ben, we can try it on you.”
“How long will that take?” Ben asked.
“That … is a good question. And I wish I could give you a definite answer.” Alex stood up. “Right now, I’m going to get my protocol in place, and then we’re going to eat some yummy Chinese that Megan was kind enough to order for us. And after that we’re going to watch movies in my home theater, and have a good night’s sleep.”
“What? What about—?” Janni started.
“We’ve worked our asses off and had a really stressful day. We’re going to relax, unwind, and start tomorrow fresh.” Alex grinned. “Besides, I don’t get to share my theater with people that often, and when will you ever get a private screening of a movie that’s not even out yet?” He headed toward the stairs. “Dining room, ten minutes.”
O O O
Ostheim answered the phone on his desk. “Give me some good news.”
The person on the other end paused, and Hans clenched his fist. “I wish I could, sir. But it appears that either Reed ran off with all his research, or someone got here before we did. It’s gone, his computers, his notes, everything. And no one’s seen him all day. A neighbor spotted a panel truck here earlier.”
Ostheim closed his eyes and took very careful control of his temper. It wouldn’t do to fling yet another telephone across the room. “Jarrett,” he muttered. “All right. See if they missed anything and bring it back here if they did. I’m going home.”
He spent the night with his fur sprouted, under extra blankets with Idna, trying unsuccessfully to keep his shivering wife warm. Vowing ugly death to anyone who stood in the way of a cure for her.
She lost consciousness in the middle of the night, and wouldn’t wake up the next morning even with a glass of his own blood held under her nose. All right. Time to get serious, because obviously no one thought he was. He called the man he had on stakeout in front of Jarrett’s house.
“Anyone, anyone at all comes out of there, you find an opportunity and grab them. I don’t care who you have to hurt to do it.”
Chapter Ten
Ben watched with some amusement as Janni paced around the yellow bedroom the next morning. A good night’s sleep was relative. He’d been plagued with nightmares, which he eventually quelled by just staying up and working on Reed’s laptop after the last dream yanked him out of slumber at four. He awoke panting and covered in fur and wrapped in Janni’s arms while she whispered soothing nothings into his ear.
He’d persuaded her to go back to sleep by promising to work in the bedroom, and she had. But she tossed and turned and woke for good at six-thirty, the combined stress of the previous day and her incipient audition preventing her from getting any more rest.
“I am so going to blow this,” she moaned after showering and drying her hair.
“You’ll nail it, honey. Go in there like you own the place an
d show ’em what you’ve got.”
“I need to go back to the apartment and get clothes and makeup and stuff.”
He frowned a little. “I know Alex had your car brought back here last night, but I’d feel better if you’d let his driver take you.”
“Oh, come on. I’ve got my gun—”
“Which will be useless if they run you off the road. Or knock you out from behind. I had my Eagle with me, you know.” It was his favorite gun, and he hadn’t gotten it back. He felt naked without it. Ben wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered a little. “Your Raspberry won’t figure into it when they’ve got bigger guns and there’s three of them and they bring a stun baton into play.”
Janni tilted her head. “Are you really rattled about me going out alone?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘really rattled.’” This was a blatant lie. Ben fixed his gaze on a spot he pretended was on the spotless wall. “Just … less than comfortable.”
They hadn’t backed off, far from it, and the phrase “Your girlfriend’s next” still made him sweat. Breathe, he reminded himself.
“All right, sweetie,” she said slowly. “I’ll see if Alex will lend me Phelps.”
“Good. That’s … good.” He closed his eyes and had to stop himself from hyperventilating.
He heard Janni’s footsteps approach, and the computer left his lap, to be replaced by her. He stuck his nose in her hair. “If anything happened to you—” He left the thought unfinished.
She kissed his chin scruff. “I’ll be careful. Promise.”
O O O
Janni climbed into the back seat of the Bentley, feeling faintly ridiculous.
Phelps put the partition down, smiled, and said, “Just relax and enjoy the ride, Miss Miller. Practice your lines or something.”
Deep breaths. Ben was fine—well, as fine as he ever was—and he’d be disappointed if she screwed up just because she was worried about him. So. Line-practicing was a go.
The ride to their apartment took about an hour, and Phelps jumped out and opened the door for her after he parked in the structure set aside for residents.