by Kent, Julia
"That's my butler," Robb said. He suppressed the desire to strangle Thaddeus for being so obvious about everything. The idiot.
"I'm the doctor," Vasin said, raising one glove-covered hand in greeting. "You're the patient?"
But Thaddeus had spun back to Robb.
"You said there would only be the doctor. Why. Is. He. Here." He pointed at Gerry accusingly.
"I'll just leave," Gerry said, bowing slightly.
Thad was at the door in an instant, blocking his path.
"You're not leaving."
His eyes were wild, manic. He probably hadn't eaten for what, weeks? His eyes tracked Gerry's jugular vein. Robb stepped forward.
"Thad. Thad."
"He can't see me. He's not allowed. Nobody can see me here. Nobody can know."
"Thad," Robb said, touching the old vampire's elbow, "These are the only two people I trust with my secret. I promise you there's no need for alarm."
"Alarm? You think this is alarm?" Thad's eyes slitted, but he leaned back and his shoulders relaxed.
"You can stay, Gerry," Robb said. "In case we need any help."
"We should get started soon," Vasin interjected. "This man's been dead for too long already. I'm not sure the transfer will work, but we should begin immediately."
Robb sent a look at Thad as if to say I told you so.
"On the table," Vasin said. His calm seemed to rub off on Thad, who obeyed his order. "Ah, Gerry, is it?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Would you hand me that syringe on the counter there?"
Gerry assisted Vasin as thought he'd been in medical practice his whole life, Robb was pleased to see.
"How do you do this?" Thad asked, as he lay back on the lab table. The dead body was on the table next to him. With all of the tubing that Vasin had set up, Robb's lab looked like a scene out of Frankenstein.
"Oh," Vasin said, evidently a bit surprised. "You've never gone through this process before? You must be young."
"He doesn't bother with the finer details most of the time," Robb said. "Do you, Thad?"
Thad shook his head. Vasin tore the packaging off of the syringe and handed it to Gerry.
"It's a simple process," Vasin said. "We start with the blood transfer. This will pinch a little." He slid the syringe into Thad's arm.
"Ow!" Thad cried.
"Just a moment," Vasin said, pressing the plunger down quickly. "Blood thinner to help keep your veins open. I take it anesthesia doesn't work on you, either?"
"No," Thad said.
"Then this," Vasin said, "will definitely hurt."
Deftly, he slid a needle into the inside of Thad's elbow, and Thad groaned. Blood began to flow through the needle into the tubing. The tubing ran across the gap between the tables and connected to the dead body.
"We must drain a third or so of your blood into the body," Vasin said. "Your kind of blood will replicate, change the DNA. If they test the body, they will find it to be a match with you."
"A third of my blood?" Thad was already looking pale.
"Any more and your blood will start to heal the body. Ah, pass me that scalpel," he said. Gerry handed over the steel knife. It glinted under the fluorescent lights.
"Heal him? But he's dead," Thad said.
"Exactly," Vasin said. "We don't want to create any monsters."
"Like you're not a monster already," Robb said. Thad hissed.
"Excellent. Robert," Vasin said. "You'll need to hold him down unless you want me to get the straps."
"Straps?" Thad's eyes bulged red and awful in his head. His skin was white from blood loss.
"The second part hurts worse," Robb said. "He'll be taking your teeth out."
Thad's eyes rolled back in his head with pain. Robb came to the head of the lab table and placed his hands on the vampire's shoulders.
"Get it over with," Thad whispered. "God, I envy humans their painkillers."
Robb nodded to Vasin, whose eyes and mouth were covered with the lab mask already. Vasin placed a metal brace into Thad's mouth to keep the jaw open. Thad opened his eyes, wild with fear.
"We'll do it as quickly as possible," Robb said. A pang of sympathy passed through him. He'd been through this process before, and he knew the pain that Thad was going to experience. Thad nodded tensely, his mouth filled with steel equipment.
Vasin reached in and yanked out the first tooth.
The howl that Thad emitted echoed off the walls of the laboratory. Gerry winced and stepped back from the lab tables. Despite his attempt at preparation, Thad bucked so hard that he threw off Robb's hands for a moment. Blood splashed down the front of his chest. Robb pressed him back down.
"Easy, Thad," he said, as Vasin reached in again with the pliers. "They'll grow back."
Thad's hands were fists at his side, and he trembled with pain as Vasin continued his work. His second scream was a gurgle of blood.
Robb knew how he felt. He remembered Vasin tying him down to the lab table with straps, performing the same operation. He remembered the blood pooling in his throat and choking him. The horrific crack of bone when each tooth was extracted. The pain. The pain.
Thad coughed, and blood sprayed over Robb's arms. Vasin was already drenched with it down the front of his lab coat. He'd prepared well; he hadn't left an inch of his own skin exposed to the blood. Still, he was forced to wipe the blood off of his goggles, smearing red across the plexiglass lens.
"Just a bit more," Robb said, knowing that Vasin would work quickly. Thad whined, his body twisting on the table, but the blood loss had made him weaker. It was easier for Robb to hold him down.
Tooth by tooth, Vasin continued. He left the pulled teeth on the chest of the dead body. Robb noticed with a shudder that the dead body's veins had begun to pulse with the transferred blood.
"The blood," he said. Vasin peered over.
"Time to stop the transfer," he said. As he reached for the needle in Thad's arm, Thad jerked. The needle fell from Vasin's hand, spraying blood everywhere from the pressurized tube. Vasin pinched the tubing off at the source, but the floor was already slick with blood, the white tile spattered scarlet red. Gerry had backed up to the side of the lab. He was out of his element and knew it, from his ashen expression.
"Almost done," Vasin said. He pulled out another tooth, then another, working quickly, not bothering to be careful anymore with the bloody teeth. There was blood all over everything, anyway, Robb supposed.
The coppery smell made Robb's stomach turn. The red, all the red—
"Robb? I—"
Robb heard the gasp and looked up to the front of his lab. Liz was standing in the doorway, her face awash with terror. Her eyes darted from side to side, taking in everything. The two bodies on the lab table, one moving, one not. The blood all over Vasin and Robb. The blood coating the floor and the lab tables. Before she could scream, Gerry stepped in front of her, blocking her view.
"Hello, miss," the butler said, clasping his hands behind his back, always the consummate professional. "Can I get you a cup of tea?"
Chapter Twenty-Two
Liz stumbled backwards and caught herself on the doorframe even as the lab door clicked shut behind her. Her hands felt numb and from a distance she heard the card key to the laboratory clattering to the ground.
Blood. So much blood.
"Who is she?" One of the men on the lab table, the one Robb had been standing over, sat up. His hair and skin were completely white, and blood was dripping from his toothless mouth. The words came out as a mumble, spattering blood.
Liz opened her mouth to scream but she could not find her breath. All of the air in the room was gone. The butler took hold of her arm to steady her, but she could not take her eyes off of the bloody monster who was now looking straight at her.
"Who are you?" he growled.
"It's okay, Thad." Robb came around the table and stood between her and the creature. She could see the man's teeth beginning to sprout. Not teeth. Fangs.
&nbs
p; "Is she one of us?"
"No."
Liz's eyes darted to the man—a surgeon?—holding a bloody piece of something in his hand. He was bent over the other man, and Liz heard the terrible crack of tooth and bone as he used his pliers to pull out something from the man's mouth.
"Robb," Liz said, but she didn't know if she could even speak. There was a roar in her ears and she realized that she was about to faint. She closed her eyes and leaned against the doorframe. She heard another sickening crack and then the man spoke again, his voice murky and wet.
"Then it's not okay. She can't see me and live."
"Thad—"
"No witnesses!"
"Thaddeus!"
Robb's voice crackled with anger, and she opened her eyes to see the creature with white hair trying to push past him, blood still dripping from his lips. His eyes were fixed on hers, and she found that she could not look away.
"Come here," the man—Thaddeus—said.
Despite her fear, her body reacted to the sound of his voice. Hypnotic, the way Robb's voice had sounded before. Her foot took a step forward. She couldn't stop it. She wanted to scream but couldn't. She wanted to run but couldn't.
"Don't touch her," Robb said. His hands were restraining the man, but then Thaddeus spun and ducked under Robb's arm. The motion was too quick for her to see, but the result wasn't.
In a split second, he darted past, shoved the butler to the ground, and had Liz pinned against the wall, one bloody hand wrapped around her neck. He bared his fangs—short pricks of white against his bloody maw, and bent forward. She could feel his breath and smell it, dark and putrid on her skin.
Before she could even take a breath to cry out, Robb was there. With one arm he threw Thaddeus across the laboratory. The man crashed into a shelf full of glassware and fell to the ground. He was up in an instant, his eyes glowering. The cuts from the impact bled freely, the blood dripping to the ground. He stepped forward slowly, his feet crushing the bloodied glass.
"Don't do this to me, Robb," Thaddeus said.
"It's alright," Robb said, holding his hand out as though to ward off the man. "She knows. It's alright." Fear chilled every muscle in Liz's body. The man had gotten through Robb's defenses before. If he did again—
"Two people you trust," Thaddeus said. He licked his lips where the blood was oozing out. His white hair was stained with red. "Two. Not three. Not her."
"I trust her," Robb said. "Stop this."
The man snarled and lunged forward, and Liz shrieked, but Robb was already there to catch Thaddeus in his arms. She pressed herself back against the locked lab door and watched as the man took Robb to the ground with him.
"Uh!" Robb grunted as he landed on the floor, his head making a sharp crack on the tile. Liz pressed her fists to her lips. She wanted to help, but had no idea how. She would only get in the way if she meddled. Her eyes flitted across the lab, searching for a weapon.
The men tumbled together across the lab floor. The tiles were bright red with blood, and they slipped over it as they fought. Thad scrambled backwards and Robb threw his body against him. They fell together and rolled over the broken glass.
"Robb!" Liz screamed. The shards of glass lacerated his skin as they rolled. The other man pummeled Robb's body, his fists blurring with the motion. Liz darted forward and grabbed a scalpel from the lab table, meaning to help. Robb grabbed the man's fist as it came down for another blow. She heard the crunch of bone as he squeezed, and Thaddeus howled in pain. Robb pulled the man down, rolling over and pinning him to the ground. His hand was around the man's throat.
"STOP!" she cried out, holding the scalpel out in front of her. The man on the ground looked up at her. Robb's fingers were still squeezing his neck tightly.
To Liz's surprise, the man began to laugh. It was a horrible sound, the cackle mixed with thick blood.
"A human girl?" he choked out. "That's who you risk your life for? That's who you risk your friends for? After everything I've done for you!"
Robb's face was full of fury.
"You're not my friend," Robb hissed. His fingers eased up on the man's throat, and Thaddeus began to cough. His energy appeared to have been spent at once in his initial attack. Now he wriggled under Robb's hold weakly, his age showing. He seemed shriveled, like a piece of crumpled paper on the floor.
"I've repaid your damned favor," Robb said. "Now get out."
He turned to the lab table where the surgeon stood.
"Vasin, is he finished?"
The doctor nodded. He was putting away his medical equipment into his bag.
Robb lifted his body from the old man's. Thaddeus rolled onto his palms, hacking blood onto the tile. As he rested, Liz could see his largest cuts healing, the skin knitting itself together. The blood in the creases of his limbs turned dark and dried under Liz's eye. It was as though he was drying up, desiccating in fast-forward.
“Get out, Thad,” Robb said.
"I can't...I can't drive. I can't—"
"I'm not asking. I don't care if you get caught halfway out of London and thrown in jail to rot."
Liz had never heard such venom, could never have imagined it in Robb's voice had she not heard it coming from his lips.
"Robb?" The old man looked up at him.
"Leave. Go out the back, go to the woods, and die there."
The old vampire's beseeching expression turned to one of pure hatred. He spat, the mixture of clotted blood and saliva.
"None of us get to die," Thad hissed. "Not you. Not me."
He turned to Liz, and Robb's muscles tensed. Thaddeus spat again and coughed, a mist of blood spraying from his nostrils. It dried in the air and floated down as ash.
"Look at your girl," he said. "Look at her, and don't you blink. She'll be gone before you know it, just like that. " Thaddeus snapped his fingers with a bony crack.
At that same instant, Robb's hand lashed out and grabbed the old man again by the throat. Standing up now, he lifted the man up by his neck. Thaddeus's feet strained for solid ground but found nothing. His eyes hove to the ceiling, his hands clawing uselessly at Robb's arm.
"I don't want to die," Robb said, and let the old man gain an inch or so of footing. His shoes slipped on the bloody tile; the scraping noise of glass shards against the ceramic made Liz cringe. "That's the difference between you and me."
"You chase mortality," Thaddeus said. "We all chase it."
"I chase it because I want to live." Robb let Thaddeus go, shoving him back toward the lab table. The old man caught the edge of the table and Liz heard something inside of his body crack grotesquely.
"Live, live!” He laughed again, weakly. “That's all we do is live!"
"Thirteen years!" Robb cried. His hands balled into fists at his side. "I had thirteen years, Thad! I was only a boy!"
"You used to be grateful—"
"Leave. I don't ever want to see you near London," Robb said.
“How can I—“
“Take the elevator down to my private parking. There’s a door that opens out to the apartment parking. I trust you can avoid being seen by anyone for the twenty feet or so you’ll have to carry the body.”
"Robb—"
"I won't say it again."
"Then goodbye." Thaddeus said. He cast a look at Liz. "I hope the human girl is worth it."
Robb was silent. He stood still as a stone statue as Thaddeus picked up the dead body.
Liz was surprised to see that he handled the corpse easily. He was, she supposed, still a vampire, but it was strange to watch the old man leave with his burden slung over one shoulder. Robb opened the door and waited as the man climbed into the elevator and pressed the button.
"It's over," Robb said, turning back to Liz. Liz stood tensely, watching the silver doors slide shut. She didn't believe that he would ever be gone, and she would never turn her back to such a creature. Especially now.
For just before the elevator doors closed their mirrored walls over his face, Liz
saw the old vampire wink.
Chapter Twenty-Three
After Vasin and Gerry left the apartment, Robb found himself alone with Liz in the blood-stained lab. He raised his eyes wearily to hers. All of the adrenaline from the fight had been exhausted in his body, and he was ready for a break.
"Then...it's true," she said. "You're a..." Her voice trailed off into nothing.
"I'm a monster. Say it."
"A vampire. They exist?"
"We exist." He ached to take her in his arms. "Liz? Will you come over to my apartment to talk? I want to change out of all this." He motioned down to his clothes, the white shirt soaked through with blood so that it looked as though it had been dyed a dark crimson.
“This...all this...” Her voice trailed off and she looked around the lab. Bloodstained glass covered the floor. It was a scene out of a horror movie.
“I will explain everything if you let me,” Robb said. “I promise. No more secrets, Liz. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I’ll tell you about how I became a vampire.”
"A vampire," she repeated. "That's impossible. There's no such thing." Her words were automatic, as though she'd been rehearsing.
"Please, Liz." She lifted her eyes to him, and they were filled with pity.
Pity. Not love. If he had a heart, it would have broken. As it was, the numbness in his body deepened into his bones and the last dregs of energy he had remaining evaporated. He bent against the door in pain.
"Are you okay?" Liz took a step forward, but Robb held a hand up to stop her.
"Don't," he said. "I'm covered in his blood."
She stopped short of him, and he longed to reach out to touch her.
"I have his blood on me, too," she said. "From...from when he had me..."
Robb looked down to her shirt. There was one handprint on her neck, the blood dried dark against her pale skin. Fire pulsed through his veins in anger as he remembered the old man darting past him. He wanted to kill Thad. He should never have trusted him, the old bastard.
"He's a vampire too," she said dully.