The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  Again, he didn’t respond, and it sank in. He wasn’t hearing her. Omigod, what did that mean?

  And holy shit, she hadn’t heard more than a handful of words from him in the last hours. She’d been far too stressed to have noticed the omission. Or if she’d registered it on any level —

  “Grayson is on the roof, sir.”

  Delano squeezed her fingers again.

  “He’s picking up the child. She appears to be conscious. Yes, she’s definitely conscious. She’s hanging on to him pretty hard. No activity from the helo. He’s on his way back. Closer, closer … he’s inside!”

  “Tsk, tsk, Delano. You disappoint me.” Janecek’s voice came over the speaker again. Lucy’s sobs had stopped, but the low, raw keening coming over the phone made the hair stand up on Ainsley’s arms.

  “I expected you to come storming out to try to stop me. Not only did you not try to intervene, you sent a mere man to pick up my leavings. Are you learning some sense at last?”

  Delano’s hands fisted. “That was my inclination, naturally, but I was persuaded that you might use the occasion to shred me with your guns.”

  “I’m wounded.”

  “You are beyond wounded, Radak.” Delano said. “Now give us twenty minute’s peace while we see to the child.”

  “Granted,” he said pleasantly. “I would hate to seem ungracious.”

  Swearing, Delano stabbed the off button, and the room went silent. Somehow, not being able to hear Lucy’s heart-rending keening was worse. Then the door opened and Eli shouldered his way into the room bearing the child.

  Ainsley flew to him, taking Devon into her own arms. The little girl wrapped herself around Ainsley, clinging with the desperation of a mind stretched to the breaking point by terror.

  “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “I want Mama!”

  “We’re working on that, baby. We’re working on it. But right now, you’ve got your Aunt Ainsley.” She glanced at Delano, who gestured to the hall leading to the bedrooms. Good idea. They could shut the door so she wouldn’t have to hear her mother’s grief. Ainsley carried her through, bypassing Eli’s bedroom where the pilot was stashed, and continuing to her own room. But when she tried to lay the child on the bed, she clung tighter, practically cutting off Ainsley’s oxygen supply.

  “It’s okay, baby. We just want to look you over and make sure you’re all right. You know I’m a nurse, right?”

  She felt the girl’s nod against her neck.

  “And this man is a doctor. Dr. Bowen and I just want to check you over, okay honey?”

  “Noooooo!”

  Ainsley looked at Delano hopelessly. Short of forcibly prying Devon away, they weren’t going to get her off. She clung with the tenacity of a limpet.

  “Just sit down on the bed with her.”

  Ainsley sat, and Delano perched on the edge of the bed beside her, on the left so he could see Devon’s face. Devon immediately shifted to bury her face into the other side of Ainsley’s neck.

  “That’s okay, little one, you don’t have to look at me.” Delano’s voice was pitched low and soothing, warm and smooth as velvet. “Just listen.”

  He then proceeded to weave a spell with his voice. Under its soothing, hypnotic influence, Devon loosened her death grip on Ainsley’s neck. On and on he talked. Within five minutes, Ainsley felt the change in the child she held. Incredibly, Devon was asleep!

  She turned questioning eyes on Delano.

  “Lie her down. She’ll sleep now.”

  “What about blood loss? Do we need to worry about replacing volume?”

  Delano shook his head. “Given that he planned to turn her, he would not have taken enough blood to weaken her substantially, and he infused her with some of his own blood to compensate for the loss. Check for yourself. Her capillary refill looks very good.”

  “Let me lie her down.”

  Ainsley stood with her burden and Delano swept the blankets back. Ainsley lay Devon down, and the little girl immediately rolled onto her side and drew her little legs up into a fetal position. Ainsley took her free hand and squeezed the nail bed of her thumb. Her color bounced back satisfactorily. “You’re right.”

  “Healing sleep is what she needs more than anything right now, but we should be ready with plenty of fluids when she wakes.”

  As Ainsley tucked the blankets around her fiercely sleeping daughter, she blinked back tears. Poor little mite.

  She turned to Delano. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. But there’s one last thing.” He knelt beside the bed and put a large, gentle hand on Devon’s temple.

  “Can you hear me, little one?”

  Devon slipped her thumb into her mouth, but she nodded her head on the pillow.

  “Good girl. Now listen carefully. You were very brave out there, braver than any child in the history of the world, and your mother,” he glanced at Ainsley, “is very proud of you. We’re all very proud of you. But now you can forget about it. When you wake, you will have no memory of the bad man or anything he did. Now sleep, little one.”

  Devon burrowed deeper into her pillow, and Delano stood.

  Through her tears, Ainsley smiled. “If I hadn’t already fallen for you, that would have done it.” She moved into his arms, sliding her hands around his back.

  Chapter 23

  “OH, MY LOVE.” Delano swallowed, but he couldn’t dislodge the ache of emotion in his throat. He pulled her closer, pressing her tear-wet face into his shirt. His cracked ribs protested the pressure, but he welcomed the pain. He was alive. He was human. And he was so full of love for this woman that he feared he would die of the pain of it, of the time they might not have together. If they didn’t survive this…

  Another tremor shook his whole body. God, he’d never felt weaker. The compulsion he’d worked on the terrified child had probably cost him the last of his resources, but he was fiercely glad he’d been able to do it.

  Ainsley’s child.

  The wonder of it had him blinking back tears again. The poor wee thing might just have saved the day. Hell, she might have saved humanity.

  But only if they acted fast.

  Delano grasped Ainsley’s arms and put her away, clearing his throat. “I’m sorry, my love, but we’ve used up half our reprieve. We have to get back to the table and formulate a plan.”

  “I know.” She wiped the tears away with her palms and led the way back to the dining room.

  Eli was just terminating a radio conversation when they entered the room. “How’s the kid?” he asked.

  “She’s sleeping.”

  Ainsley sent Delano a look overflowing with a mother’s gratitude. It was enough to make him want to weep again. He deserved no glory for that small piece of healing, not when he’d left a child to do a man’s job.

  She turned back to Eli. “I think she’s going to forget the whole thing.”

  Eli nodded. “Makes sense. Believe me, it wouldn’t be the first case of trauma-induced amnesia I’ve seen in a pediatric patient in my travels.”

  “I’ve seen it, too,” Ainsley said, “but Del didn’t leave anything to chance. He gave her a little help in the form of a hypnotic suggestion.”

  “Enough.” The word emerged harsher than he intended. More softly, he continued: “We need a plan to bring this monster down, and we need it fast. We have…” he checked his watch, “approximately nine-and-a-half minutes.”

  Eli scowled. “I’ve been beating my head against the proverbial wall trying to figure a way, but his hostage trumps everything we’ve got. Not to mention the big guns. If there’s a way to storm that copter and extract Mrs. Michaels safely, I’m not seeing it.”

  Delano’s eyes narrowed, as a picture came to him of another monster lying on his deathbed after infusing the Merzetti blood. Of course!

  “Maybe we don’t have to storm the helicopter.”

  Eli’s face hardened. “Don’t even suggest it, Delano. Neither of you are g
oing to walk out there and turn yourselves over. You know you won’t live to get off the roof of this building, and he’ll kill the hostage anyway.”

  “I’m not suggesting that. At least not yet. First, let’s see if we can get him to do our work for us.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “I think I’m beginning to.” Ainsley stepped closer, searching his eyes.

  “Whoa, what am I missing? What are we talking about here?”

  “Remember Edward Webber, the vampire who attacked me back in St. Cloud,” Ainsley said. At Eli’s nod, she continued: “He died as a result of ingesting my blood.”

  Eli’s eyebrows shot up and he glanced at Delano. “I thought he might have had a little help from you, Del.”

  “Afraid not. He died pretty much by his own hand. Shortly after attacking Ainsley, he started to feel weak. In an effort to bolster his strength, he fed again. When I found him, he was already dying from acute hemolysis. The mutation reversal must have already started when he fed the second time, leaving him open to ABO incompatibility.”

  Eli whistled. “So it does work!”

  Ainsley gripped his arm. “But you don’t know for certain that it was the second feeding that killed him, right? Maybe it was just the exposure to my blood that killed him!”

  In her excitement, her nails bit into his flesh. Despite the seriousness of the situation, the irony of it curved his lips. Mere weeks ago, he’d agonized about her reaction should she discover that her blood had killed Webber. Now, she looked positively gleeful at the prospect that her blood could inflict deadly harm. Context was everything.

  “God, if that’s the case, our problems with Janecek could be solved, since he fed from Devon, and Devon carries the Merzetti blood. If we just wait—”

  “No.” Delano held up a hand to stop her. “It will take more than just exposure to the Merzetti Effect to bring Janecek down. Exposure merely initiates the reversal. For harm to come to the subject, they have to take blood again, potentially setting off a transfusion reaction. If they abstain from feeding while the reversal transpires, or if they feed on a victim who happens to be a compatible match, they’ll suffer no ill effect.”

  Ainsley, however, was not prepared to abandon her theory that the Merzetti Effect alone might be sufficient.

  “You can’t possibly know that!” she said. “I know you’re very close, but your research isn’t there yet.”

  “Nevertheless, I am quite positive. The Merzetti Effect merely reverses the mutation; it doesn’t kill.”

  “How?”

  He unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it down to expose his back, then turned to display it for her. “This is how I know.”

  Her sharply indrawn breath indicated she understood what the thin pink weals meant.

  “Omigod! They didn’t disappear with the day sleep.”

  “No. Nor did the lacerations on my scalp disappear. Nor will the cracked ribs I sustained diving onto that landing earlier.”

  Eli swore, evidently also comprehending the situation.

  Ainsley was staring at him with a mixture of disbelief and some other emotion — horror?

  “You’re … omigod, you’re—”

  “No longer a vampire.” He shrugged back into the shirt and started to do up the buttons again. “Apparently, the Merzetti Effect is sexually transmissible after all.”

  Ainsley struggled to bring her panic under control. No, no, no, no, no. She couldn’t do this anymore. She just could not.

  The minute she thought she had some things figured out, the world shifted on her. What else could change? What new, inconceivable, fucking thing could happen to finally push her bruised psyche past the breaking point? Could the chairs walk? Would the walls talk? Was this whole life-on-earth thing a controlled experiment conducted by alien scientists from light years away?

  “Ainsley, we need to talk, but there’s no time.” He took her hand, which hung limply at her side. “Right now, we need to come up with a plan.”

  She put a hand to her forehead, trying to push back the panic. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Dammit, I can’t think!”

  He cupped her face in his hands. “Ainsley, look at me.”

  She complied, immediately falling straight into those dark, nearly black, eyes.

  I know it’s a lot to take in, baby, but I love you. I love you and I’m going to take care of you. Nothing will change that. Nothing.

  Ainsley felt the extreme effort it cost him to slip into her mind. She let her thoughts touch his, drew comfort from his calm assurance. Then he was gone, sliding back out of her mind like an ebbing wave retreating from the shoreline.

  “Okay.” She drew in a deep, shuddering breath, then let it out. “I’m okay.” And as she said it, she found it was true.

  “Good.” He squeezed her hand. “But if it’s all right with you, we’re going to tell Janecek that you’re not okay.”

  “Huh?”

  “We’re going to tell him you’re having a bona fide, Grade A meltdown. We need to stall him, so that’s what I’ll tell him. I’ll say I refuse to deliver you up in this shape, and he’ll have to give us some time to put you back together. I’ll tell him it has to be your choice, and you have to go out under your own steam.”

  “You think he’ll buy that?”

  “I know he’ll buy it.” His smile had a cynical edge. “He thinks all non-vampires are weak-minded sheep. He also knows I wouldn’t let you trade yourself if you lacked the capacity to make the decision. Oh, he’ll buy it, all right.”

  Ainsley frowned. “And while he’s twiddling his thumbs, we’re going to be doing precisely what?”

  “If his experience is anything like Webber’s, he should be starting to feel a little woozy. He’ll attribute it to hunger. We’re going to offer him a snack.”

  The speakerphone rang, the trill sounding angrier and more insistent than before, although Ainsley knew that couldn’t be so.

  “Ainsley, you’re not here, okay? You can listen, but you can’t speak. You can’t sneeze. You can’t make any sound to suggest you’re not closeted in your room having a mental breakdown. Can you do that?”

  She nodded that she understood.

  Delano stabbed the button to answer the call. “Janecek, you will burn in hell for what you did here tonight.”

  Janecek’s laughter filled the room. “No doubt you’re right,” he said, when he’d contained his mirth, “but not before you, Father. Which reminds me, how are you enjoying my new sister?”

  “Fuck you, Janecek.”

  “Ooooh, I think I got to him. What do you think, Lucy, honey?”

  A whimper sounded in the background, and Delano sent Ainsley a warning look not to react audibly. Ainsley covered her mouth.

  Delano returned his attention to Janecek. “What you’ve got, son,” — he invested the word with a wealth of disdain — “is a problem.”

  “What do you mean?” Janecek’s voice was suddenly sharp.

  “Nurse Crawford is now a basket case, thanks to that atrocity you committed on that child. There’s no way I’m letting her go out there in her present condition. She’s in no fit state to make the decision to sacrifice herself for the hostage.”

  A pause. “She’ll make the decision, all right. I’ll just entertain myself with Lucy here until she can’t stand the sound of her friend’s screams.”

  “That might work,” Delano agreed calmly. “If I’d let her out of the bedroom so she could hear them.”

  “Bring her to the phone right now, Bowen, or I’ll make this bitch pay.”

  Delano laid a restraining hand on Ainsley’s arm.

  “That would be regrettable, but as you’ve observed, I’m just too damned invested in the greater good to be trusted.”

  A stream of vituperative erupted from the speakerphone.

  “Oh, relax, Radak. Ms. Crawford would make sure my life was not worth living if I let anything happen to her friend. But understand this, I will not send her out there in her
current condition.”

  “And her current condition is what?”

  “She’s virtually catatonic, thank you. You’ll have to give me at least an hour, maybe more. I’ll use my powers to put her mind back together, but the decision to trade herself for her friend has to be hers. I won’t push a zombie out onto that roof.”

  More cursing.

  “Are we agreed?” Delano pressed.

  “You have one hour.”

  “Good. Now, is there anything we can do to accommodate you while you wait? It must have been a while since you fed. I can send out a couple of units.”

  Janecek snorted. “Yeah, right. Like I would drink blood from a fucking bag. Blood that you’ve probably siphoned out of that Merzetti whore.”

  “Then what would be to your liking? You can’t dine on your one remaining pilot, for safety’s sake, and if you want me to put Ms. Crawford back together, you’ll not touch a drop of her friend’s blood.”

  A pause that seemed to stretch forever.

  “Okay, here’s the deal. Send me a man from your security staff, and get him up here in one minute so you don’t have time to mess with his blood. I want him handcuffed, with his hands behind his back. I want him to come out on the roof, turn a full 360 so I can check him for weapons. Then I want him to approach and kneel outside the helicopter.”

  “I have your word you won’t harm him?”

  A jeering laugh. “You would trust my word?”

  “It seems I don’t have much choice. I want to make a good-faith gesture, in return for your concession, and for not molesting Mrs. Michaels.”

  “Very well. I will leave him quite able to leave the roof under his own steam.”

  “A moment,” Delano said. “I need to speak with my security chief.” Del stabbed the mute button. “We’ve got him! Now we just need to persuade one of the men to submit.”

  “I’ll do it,” Eli said.

  Ainsley’s objection merged with Delano’s. “No!”