His hand on her foot shifted, slid to her ankle, and began skimming up and down the bare skin above her socks and beneath her jeans. Sizzling sparks followed every touch.
“We’ll have to strike fast,” he remarked, “take them completely unawares before they can phone their colleagues and warn them.”
“Or call for backup.”
“I assume Reordon is coordinating everything?”
“Yes. The network is researching all possible targets. Chris will e-mail us a list of locations to investigate by sundown. Every immortal in North Carolina. Aiden will join the hunt with a list of his own. Also, Seth will be teleporting David in from Africa tonight, so they’ll be pitching in, too.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He continued to stroke her ankle and calf. “Your skin is so soft,” he murmured almost absently, then seemed to catch himself. Clearing his throat, Marcus stood. “Let’s go see if Chris has sent the list yet.”
His luminous eyes avoiding hers, he turned and headed for the computer on his desk.
Chapter 7
“How is he?” Cliff asked, face somber.
“Not good,” Melanie answered, knowing the young vampire would appreciate the truth.
“Did he do that?” He motioned to her bruised face and cut lip.
“No. I think Dr. Whetsman’s elbow got me in the eye. His nails raked my cheek. And one of the guards accidentally hit me in the mouth with the butt of his gun when I grabbed his arm and tried to get him to stop shooting.”
Swearing, Cliff paced away. Short, stubby dreadlocks covered his coffee-colored scalp in one-inch spikes. He had only recently begun to grow them, admitting that twisting them helped ease his agitation the way squeezing a stress ball sometimes helped humans.
Saddened, Melanie thought it made him look far younger than twenty-four.
“What about Joe?”
“He isn’t talking.” The blond vampire had withdrawn completely since the incident.
Cliff walked back toward her. “He thinks he’s going to lose it next.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. If Joe wasn’t next, then Cliff would be. “Vincent isn’t gone yet.”
Cliff shook his head with a despairing sound.
Melanie touched his arm. “Hey. He’s still with us. He isn’t completely lost. If he were, he wouldn’t feel such remorse.”
“That remorse isn’t going to keep him from losing it again,” he said. “I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” He took the blood bags she handed him.
“Just don’t give up,” she begged him. “You don’t know how great a difference you’ve made, being here, how much your cooperation has helped us. We are making progress.”
He nodded and drained the bags. As he passed the empties back to her, he glanced over his shoulder as if he heard something.
“What is it?” she asked. The first several times he or the others had done this, she had followed his gaze, expecting to see something in the room with them, but experience had taught her that whatever he heard was more likely in another room, possibly on another floor.
“You need to go,” he said, taking her elbow and urging her over to the door.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just find a safe room, preferably one that’s bulletproof, and sit tight until the smoke clears.”
“But—”
Banging on the door, Cliff waited for the armed guard outside to open it, then thrust her out into the hallway. “Please, Dr. Lipton. Just do as I ask.”
The heavy door clanged shut behind her. Though the vampires’ apartments were as comfortable and roomy as luxury apartments in the outside world, the walls and doors were heavily reinforced with steel and titanium they could not penetrate should they fly into a rage. A guard was posted outside each door. Entry required an electronic key card and the proper code.
The guard raised his eyebrows. “Everything okay, Doc?”
She nodded. “Everthing’s fi—”
Boom!
Ducking and dropping the empty blood bags, Melanie covered her ears and looked around.
Sirens began to blare, yellow warning lights to flash.
The guard behind her tightened his grip on the 10mm he carried and shifted into a defensive stance, eyes darting all around.
The guards in front of Joe’s and Vincent’s doors did the same, as did the half dozen guards gathered around the desk stationed before the elevator doors at the end of the hallway.
Automatic gunfire, muffled by distance, erupted somewhere else in the building. Shouts and cries followed.
Melanie’s heart began to pound in her chest. Her breath shortened as fear and confusion whipped through her.
The digital display above the elevator button lit up, the red, boxy numbers changing as the elevator began its descent from the ground level.
S1.
Melanie swallowed. The vampires were housed on the last floor: Sublevel 5.
S2.
The guards in front of the vampires’ apartments clustered together in front of Melanie, then fanned out across the six-foot-wide hallway.
S3.
Those at the end of the hallway, armed with fully automatic weapons, backed away from the elevator doors, knees bent, feet braced apart, sweaty hands tightening on the grips of their guns.
S4.
Glancing down at her watch, she felt her heart stop.
I’ll be there within the hour.
Her eyes flew to the elevator’s digital display.
S5.
Ding.
The doors slowly parted.
A dark figure burst from the opening, moving so swiftly all she saw was a shadow-like blur. Automatic gunfire assaulted her ears, deafeningly loud. Screams rang out. Sheetrock flew from the walls up and down the hallway as shots went wild.
Panicked, Melanie threw herself to the floor and scooted over until she lay face down on the cold tile with her side glued to one wall.
Howls of pain erupted from the guards near the elevator as those in front of Melanie opened fire. Cries of fear spilled from the lab across the hall from the vampires’ quarters.
“Lanie!” she heard her friend Linda call. Dr. Linda Machen was the only other female researcher who worked hands-on with the vampires.
“I’m okay!” Melanie shouted back. “Stay there and take cover!”
A guard—she didn’t know if it was one from the end of the hallway or one of the trio in front of her—hit the ground beside her and skidded away several yards, eyes closed, face battered.
“No! Melanie’s still out there!” she heard Linda scream just before one of the men in the lab closed and sealed the door.
More bodies hit the floor. A tile fragment leapt up from the floor in front of Melanie and sliced into her forehead.
Bullets wreaked havoc all around her.
Ducking her head, she covered it with her arms. Even if she could make it to one of the doors, rising up enough to sweep her key card and enter the code would leave her too exposed.
Silence fell. A moan sounded. Somewhere a body slumped to the floor.
Trembling, Melanie raised her head.
All of the guards were down.
In the center of the hallway, bodies spread around his feet like flower petals, stood a man garbed entirely in black, his head lowered slightly. Black pants clung to muscular thighs. His black shirt glistened with blood and sported a dozen or more holes. Big black boots. Long black coat.
His thick chest rose and fell swiftly as he raised his chin. Through the curtain of his lengthy obsidian hair, he met her gaze.
Her eyes, wide with shock, burned from not blinking.
His glowed bright amber.
Her mouth gaped.
His lips parted just enough for her to see sharp, deadly fangs.
Spinning around, he grabbed the heavy desk and shoved it between the elevator doors to hold them open and prevent those on the upper floors from using the elevator to join the fight.
&
nbsp; He then zipped over to the door to the stairwell. Grabbing the handle of the closed door with his left hand, he retrieved a dagger from his coat with the other, drew his arm back, and stabbed the blade into the door at an angle with such force that it went through both the door’s edge and the frame. He did the same with three more daggers, essentially nailing the door shut, then turned around and again pinned her in place with his glowing gaze.
“Doctor Melanie Lipton?” he growled. His deep voice vibrated through her, just as it had earlier when she had spoken to him on the phone.
Sebastien Newcombe, former vampire leader, loathed by all.
“Y-yes.” Melanie scrambled to her feet as he approached with long, ground-eating strides.
“I’m Bastien. Are you injured?” he demanded.
“No.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I am?” Holding her arms out, she lowered her chin and gave her body a quick look.
He halted a foot away, towering over her.
Forgetting her search, Melanie tilted her head back to look up at him.
“Your forehead,” he said.
Raising a hand, she drew trembling fingers across her forehead and found a small cut. “Oh. It’s—it’s nothing.”
“Where is Vincent?”
“Lanie?” she heard Linda call again.
“Don’t come out!” Melanie called back. “Stay in there until I tell you it’s clear!” Backing away, she led Bastien to Vincent’s door. “Here. He’s in here.”
Her hands shook as she searched her pockets for her key card. She glanced at the guards. “Are they ... ?”
“Unconscious, not dead.”
She found and swiped her card. Her gaze swept his blood-saturated chest as he crowded close. “Are you—”
“I’m fine,” he gritted out, his breathing jagged, pained. He motioned to the touch pad. “Please.”
She punched in the code. It didn’t matter if he saw it. All codes and locks would be changed after a security breach this massive.
She hated to think what other changes might be enacted. She might not have a job after this. And, if by some miracle she did, they might forbid her further contact with the vampires.
The heavy lock mechanism in the door clanked. Bastien pushed the door inward.
Chains rattled and growls reverberated on the air inside.
What had once been a sumptuous apartment was now a shambles. Splintered furniture littered the floor and formed dunes and drifts against the walls. Bullet holes peppered the Sheetrock, some leaving holes large enough to see the thick steel it concealed.
A growl rumbled from the throat of the vampire who shuffled forward in a crouch, a metallic tinkling sound accompanying every movement.
Eyes blazing a bright orange, Vincent bared his fangs at them. A long, heavy chain stretched from a hook on one wall to a wide manacle clamped around his ankle. Melanie had wanted to object to the implementation of such restraints, but it had been the only way to give him the freedom to roam his apartment, yet keep him from attacking her or any others who entered to bring him food or to try to talk him down from this latest ...
Well, she wasn’t sure what to call it. Psychotic break? From what she had heard, Vincent had been fine one moment and attacked the next with the speed and fury of those crazed zombies in the movie 28 Days Later.
Bastien stepped into the room, and she noticed for the first time that a sheathed katana hung in the center of his back.
When Melanie followed, the immortal reached out, placed a large, warm hand on her hip and eased her behind him.
Her heart raced at his touch.
“Vincent.” Bastien spoke softly, projecting calm and serenity.
Vincent didn’t respond, just kept creeping forward with those bestial growls.
“Vincent,” Bastien repeated patiently.
The third or fourth time Vincent quieted and shuffled to a halt. “Bastien?” he asked with the same sad hope of a small, lost child afraid to believe his parents had finally found him.
“Yes, my friend.” The strain and discomfort had left the immortal’s voice, replaced by warmth and tranquility.
Melanie peered around Bastien’s arm at Vince.
Vincent’s light brown eyes met hers and filled with tears. “Dr. Lipton? I didn’t mean to do it.”
“I know,” she assured him.
“I’m not even sure ...” He surveyed the rubble around them, then looked at Bastien. “What did I do? I didn’t ...” A tear spilled down his cheek. “I didn’t kill anyone, did I?”
Bastien glanced back at Melanie.
“No,” she said softly. “Dr. Whetsman and a few others were injured, but no one was killed.”
Vincent’s tortured eyes swung back to Bastien. He shook his head. “I don’t want to hurt people.”
“I know you don’t,” Bastien said and started forward.
“I came here so I wouldn’t hurt people. I thought they could help me.”
“They’re trying, Vincent.”
And failing, Melanie thought, as Vincent threw his arms around Bastien and buried his face in his chest, his hands fisting in the back of Bastien’s coat.
Bastien wrapped his arms around the boy, bent his head, and murmured reassurances in his ear. Though what those might be she didn’t know.
Vincent had been infected just after he had turned eighteen and looked a few years younger than that with his boyish face, short dark brown hair, and slight build. It had only taken the virus four years to carve away at his healthy, young mind, dramatically altering his behavior and reducing him to this barely lucid stranger. Even if Melanie and her colleagues could find a cure or some method by which they could halt the virus’s attack on brain tissue, they weren’t hopeful that the damage already done could be reversed.
Bastien stood a head or so taller than Vincent. Melanie wondered, as she watched the immortal console Vincent, how anyone could think him the brutal, heartless, and—yes—evil monster rumor labeled him.
The two spoke to each other in tones too low for her to hear. Most humans wouldn’t have noticed, but she had become accustomed to their ways. Then both stepped back.
Vincent shifted his grip and clung a moment to the front of Bastien’s coat, his face wet with tears. Much of the awful tension and agony his visage had reflected had left his body, leaving him more calm than she had seen him in months.
Perhaps if she spoke with Chris Reordon, more frequent visits with Bastien could be arranged. His presence seemed to help a great deal.
Bastien clasped the boy’s shoulders. His back was to Melanie, so she couldn’t see his expression.
Vincent gave him a weary smile full of heart-wrenching gratitude. “Thank you.”
Giving Vincent’s shoulders a last squeeze, Bastien let his hands fall to his sides and backed away a couple of steps. “Good-bye, my friend.”
Vincent’s smile grew.
Seeing the naked joy in his face, Melanie felt tears burn her eyes.
A heartbeat later, so swiftly she would have missed it had she blinked, Bastien drew his sword and swung it.
A scream burst from her lips as Vincent’s head left his shoulders and tumbled to the floor. His knees buckled, and the rest of him toppled down beside it.
Horror suffused her. A violent quaking overcame her limbs.
Bastien turned his back on Vincent.
Melanie opened her mouth to rage and shout and ask how he could’ve done that to a boy who had considered him a friend ... then paused.
The immortal’s eyes closed. An expression of such anguish contorted his handsome features. Such pain. His hand tightened on the handle of the sword, crushing it and cutting his palm. Blood drip-drip-dripped onto the metal guard, then slithered down the blade like a crimson snake.
His fingers uncurled, and he let the sword fall to the floor with a clatter.
A banging commenced down the hallway.
Bastien’s lids lifted. His glowing amber eyes gliste
ned with moisture that made her own tears spill over her lashes as understanding burrowed its way past horror.
Vincent had asked him to do it, to end his misery and keep him from hurting or killing. Keep him from spending the rest of eternity as a raving lunatic obsessed with violent, twisted fantasies. Chained like a rabid dog.
The pounding continued, crescendoed as security forces crashed through the stairwell door.
Bastien didn’t run, didn’t brace for a fight. He just stared at her.
Melanie stood frozen in place, staring back as numbness, grief, and something akin to sympathy suffused her.
“Don’t tell them you called me,” he whispered hoarsely. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “You don’t want to be linked to me in any way.”
“But—”
“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all. I threatened you and forced you to open the door for me. You feared for your life.”
Boots thumped down the hallway. Many of them. Growing closer.
What would they do to him? To this immortal they despised who had harmed the guards because it was the only way he could reach his friend and fulfill his wishes?
She opened her mouth, but closed it without speaking when he shook his head, those luminous eyes boring into hers.
Bodies poured through the doorway behind her. Men in tactical gear buffeted her as they surged past and surrounded Bastien.
Melanie continued to hold his gaze until someone took her arm and dragged her away.
Marcus guided his new Hayabusa into the trees and cut the engine. Deciding he could use a break, he retrieved the meal Ami had prepared for him from the storage compartment under the seat.
The blood was warm despite the cold pack she had added. He sank his teeth in anyway and let his fangs draw it into his veins, replenishing what he had lost.
It had been a long night.
He grimaced at the stench that rose from his shirt. At least six individuals’ blood coated it, leaving it clinging to his skin. Four garages he had visited had each been surveilled by a single vampire. Two more had been watched by pairs.
All vamps had fought fiercely, leaving him no other choice but to kill them without extracting any valuable information.
Night Reigns Page 13