Stalling, Montrose looked around.
John climbed to his feet, nose bleeding, a red lump forming on his forehead.
“Don’t look at him,” Dennis snarled, wrapping a fist in Montrose’s lab coat and giving him a rough shake. “Look at me.”
Montrose did as he was told.
“Is it done?” Dennis repeated. “Does it work?”
Montrose swallowed. Hard. “N-no, it’s too weak.” He heard John come up behind him and glanced at him over his shoulder. “We, uh, we were just going to recalculate—”
Dennis released Montrose’s coat and stepped to the side.
Before Montrose could breathe a sigh of relief, Dennis reached past him, grabbed John by the shirt and yanked him forward.
Knocked to the side, Montrose stumbled, grabbed the edge of a table to steady himself, then turned around in time to see Dennis dip his head and rip John’s throat out with his fangs.
Blood sprayed in an arc as John reeled backward and groped at his neck.
Montrose closed his eyes and cringed as the warm liquid splashed him.
Harsh, gurgling sounds suffused the air.
Shock rendering him speechless, Montrose cracked open his lids and watched as John—eyes wide with terror—staggered around, bumping into tables and desks and knocking paraphernalia over, then dropped to his knees. A few more choking gargles, then he fell forward. His body twitched. Twitched again. Then stilled.
Hot saliva welled in Montrose’s mouth. Bile swiftly followed. Bending over, he spewed what hadn’t been digested of his triple beef burger and fries all over the floor and John’s shoes.
“Oh, man up for fuck’s sake,” Dennis snarled.
Hands on his knees, Montrose shook his head. “Why did you do that?” he wheezed, gagging as the scents of vomit, blood, and excrement filled his airways. “Why the hell did you do that?” He straightened as much as he could, placing a hand on his churning stomach.
Dennis shrugged as though Montrose had just asked him why he had rented a particular movie. His face, chin, neck, and chest were covered in crimson. “He was distracting you. It annoyed me.”
Montrose’s mouth fell open, and some of the fear racing through his veins converted to anger. “He annoyed you?”
“Perhaps now that he’s gone you’ll have less trouble focusing.” Dennis seemed so calm now, his eyes no longer luminescent.
“He was helping me!” Montrose blurted out incredulously. “Helping us! I couldn’t have gotten this far in our little experiment if he hadn’t been here! What the hell am I supposed to do now?” He was yelling by the time he finished and later would wonder where he had found the balls to do so. Dennis’s brain was clearly surrendering to the virus, his impulse control deteriorating to near nonexistence. And his mood swings ...
Well, they were off the chart.
Again, Dennis shrugged. “Find some other geek to help you.”
Montrose started to remind him just how long it had taken him to find someone he could trust not to call the men in white coats when asked for aid in capturing an immortal creature for a vampire king. But Dennis drew close, his fetid breath deepening Montrose’s nausea.
“Get it done, Montrose. You’re out of time.”
“W-W-What do you mean?”
“We found Roland.”
Excitement skittered through him. “You did? You found him?” Roland Warbrook. One of the Immortal Guardians who had killed Casey. And someone who could tell them where to find Bastien the Deceiver. “Where is he? When can I see him?” Interrogate him? Torture him? Destroy him?
“When you finish what you started,” Dennis gritted out,
“and help us catch him. He killed thirty-four of my men tonight. He and his human bitch.”
Montrose eyed him in disbelief. “Thirty-four? That’s impossible. He must have transformed her.”
“He didn’t.”
“How do you know? Were you there?”
Dennis’s eyes flashed dangerously. “No. Toby texted me, told me they were getting their asses kicked by an Immortal Guardian and some woman and asked me what they should do.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That if he tucked his tail between his legs and ran I would make an example of him as I did Eddie.”
Inwardly, Montrose grimaced. He had heard about that. The vamps had gained three new soldiers that night.
“None of my men survived.”
Two triumphing over thirty-four. And Toby claimed one of them had been mortal.
Montrose’s mind raced. He had to get his hands on one of those Immortal Guardians.
Dennis backed away, no longer bent on intimidating him. “Scott,” he said calmly and motioned to the silent vampire,
“come forward.”
Leaving the shadows, the young vampire crossed to Dennis’s side with obvious reluctance.
Dennis wrapped an arm around his shoulders, his eyes still on Montrose. “Have you enjoyed helping Dr. Keegan?”
“Yes, sir.” Scott had once confessed to Montrose that he far preferred being a lab rat to preying on humans or tricking drunken frat boys into joining their army. Montrose had always considered him a rare, top-quality vampire. He wasn’t high on power. He didn’t get off on terrifying and bullying powerless humans. He was a good guy.
Montrose hoped Dennis didn’t intend to return him to the hunt now.
Dennis ruffled Scott’s hair the way Montrose used to ruffle Casey’s, then smiled at Montrose, yanked the kid’s head to the side, and sank his fangs into his throat.
Scott gritted his teeth, the cords in his neck standing out as his arms flailed. One caught and clenched in Dennis’s coat. The other swept papers from the table nearest them.
Montrose met Dennis’s eyes. Those taunting eyes. “W-What are you ... ?”
The younger vamp’s struggles continued, punctuated with grunts and gasps. Had Scott been human, the chemical produced by the glands that had formed over Dennis’s fangs when he had transformed would have almost instantly acted upon his system like GHB. His desire to struggle would have melted away. His fear, too. He might even have begun to enjoy it. And would have retained no memory of it.
But the parasitic virus that had replaced his immune system rendered him unresponsive to drugs—opiates, muscle relaxants, sedatives, paralytics, stimulants, antivirals—so Scott felt every bit of the pain the needle-sharp fangs inflicted, the cold that crept in as his blood was siphoned into Dennis’s veins, the fear that rose as he and Montrose waited to see if Dennis would allow him to live.
Scott’s limbs began to tremble. His arms fell to his sides. His knees buckled. All color fled his face. The sure knowledge of his impending demise lingered in the hopeless eyes that met and held Montrose’s.
“Th-thank you,” he whispered with his last breath.
Dennis dropped Scott’s bloodless corpse to the floor like a bag of garbage.
The virus began to devour the kid from the inside out as it fought to live as long as possible.
Numb, Montrose stared at Dennis.
Dennis wiped his mouth. “We’ll have to spend the next several weeks rebuilding and multiplying our numbers,” he said, bland as an accountant at a board meeting. “You do whatever you have to do to pull your own weight.” He strolled to the vacant doorway that led to a laundry room with stairs leading up to the ground floor, then looked back over his shoulder. “Right now you’re looking too damn dispensable.”
He was up the stairs, out of the house, and probably halfway down the street before Montrose found the strength to breathe again.
Stretching out a shaking hand, he braced himself against the table behind him.
The stink of vomit was thick in the air, not quite overshadowed by the odor of decaying flesh as Scott withered away to nothing.
John lay where he had fallen, eyes blankly appealing to the ceiling, his blood a dark, shiny pool around him.
When Montrose’s legs would no longer support him, he slid down
to the floor and scooted back into the same shadowed corner Scott had temporarily occupied.
Away from the sick.
Away from the death.
Away from the knowledge that he could very well be next.
Chapter 5
Marcus stood outside the bathroom door, hands clutching the frame on either side, head down. Inside, Ami was doing just as she had said she would: taking a shower.
He had tried his best to talk her into letting him see to her wounds first, but she had argued that, if he did, the bandages would just get wet when she showered and have to be replaced again.
Sighing, he raised his head, straightened, and glanced around her bedroom.
It surprised him. He had expected to see open suitcases with clothing either haphazardly spilling out or neatly folded in piles. Her banker boxes, he’d assumed, would be stacked against the wall or on the chair in the corner, perhaps a lid or two off to expose the contents. He had thought he would find a room in transition. A room that would reflect the same lack of contentment he’d felt with this situation, hope of being reassigned to another immortal, or a reluctance to admit this might be permanent.
But everything was unpacked. The boxes and suitcases were gone, stored in the attic for all he knew. Through the open closet door, he saw jeans, cargo pants, and shirts hanging. A coat. No dresses or skirts as far as he could tell. Beneath them, on the floor, neatly lined up in a row, were combat boots, black Converse Chuck Taylor high-top sneakers, and fuzzy slippers that looked like tiger paws. (He grinned when he spotted the last.) All were so small they looked to him like children’s shoes.
Not one pair of high heels or delicate pumps rested among them, he noted.
Perhaps she was like Bethany. Beth had always rolled her eyes over the rack-after-rack-of-designer-shoe stereotype the media so often applied to women.
Why would I want to spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on a pair of designer shoes that look like something my grandmother used to wear in the seventies? she would ask as she laced up her comfortable sneakers. Besides, where would I wear them?
Marcus paused. For the second time since Ami’s arrival, thoughts of Bethany had not been accompanied by feelings of grief or desolation. Only fondness.
Damn Seth for being right all the time, he mentally grumbled, uncomfortable with the relief the discovery spawned.
The rest of the room looked much as it had before Ami’s arrival. A full-sized bed with a white comforter. Matching bedside tables on either side. A dresser. A chair. Same old same old, except now pictures of Seth, David, and Darnell decorated the various surfaces.
More insight into Ami’s character. She took responsibility seriously. She had been assigned to be his Second and, come hell or high water, she was going to do it. Even if he childishly attempted to make her life miserable. The tidy room around him was as much a demonstration of her refusal to back down from a fight as their clash with the vampires had been.
On the other side of the bathroom door, a squeak sounded as the faucet turned and water ceased flowing. Sounds of Ami stepping from the shower and rubbing a towel over her body reached his sensitive ears. As beautiful as Ami was, Marcus felt no arousal as he imagined it. He was too obsessed with the wounds she no doubt dabbed, the white towel turning pink with the blood that still seeped from them.
“Ami?” he called through the wood.
A thunk sounded. “Ow!”
“What happened? Are you all right?”
“You startled me,” came her disgruntled reply. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be downstairs feeding?”
Yes, but he had been too afraid to leave her, worried she might lose consciousness from blood loss or become dizzy and slip and fall. “I’m fine,” he lied. “Let me in.”
“No!” she exclaimed in a scandalized voice. “I’m naked!”
Okay. He was a worm. He was slime. He was pond scum. He was the bacteria that fed on pond scum. Because he couldn’t keep his body from reacting to her declaration. He had been doing very well, keeping it all professional, then those words from her lips and ... images of a naked Ami sans wounds bombarded his weary male brain and ...
Yeah, he was pond scum.
“Come on, Ami. I’m not asking you to let me feel you up. I’m asking you to let me in so I can see to your wounds.”
“I can take care of them myself.”
Damned stubborn woman. “Even the ones on your back?” He didn’t even know if she had any on her back, but thought it worth a shot.
A pause. “I’m naked,” she repeated hesitantly.
“Please stop saying that,” he entreated, stifling a groan. The last thing he needed while his body struggled to heal his own wounds was for what little blood remained to all rush to his groin. As it now appeared to be doing. “Look, I ... Hold on.”
He crossed to the dresser and opened drawers until he located lingerie. Grabbing the tan underwire bra on top of one tidy stack and the white bikini panties from another, he returned to the door.
Marcus even liked her underwear. He had once had an intimate arrangement with a woman who had refused to let him see her in lingerie that wasn’t lacy or didn’t match. Flowery push-up bras and thong panties, which he just thought of as dental floss for asses. He wasn’t sure why women thought men cared about that sort of thing. Ask any man if he would rather see a woman naked or in sexy underwear and the unanimous answer would be: naked.
When Marcus saw a woman in her underwear, he didn’t condemn it for being too plain or two different colors or cotton instead of silk. He was too busy calculating how swiftly he could remove it. The fewer bows and ties and tiny fastenings the better.
“Ami,” he called, “wrap yourself in a towel and open the door.”
“You are not seeing me naked!”
“Stop reminding me you’re naked,” he commanded, exasperated.
“Why?”
The innocence and perplexity that infused the question surprised Marcus so much that he lost his train of thought.
“Marcus?”
“What? Oh. Just stay behind the door and open it five inches. I’ll keep my eyes closed.”
Silence.
A faint shuffle of feet on tile.
The doorknob turned—it hadn’t even been locked?—and the door opened the requested five inches.
Closing his eyes, Marcus thrust the fist clutching the undies inside. “Here. Hurry up and put these on. I don’t want you losing any more blood.”
Her delicate fingers plucked the offering from his palm. Marcus withdrew his hand and let her close the door again.
He could hear every movement as she dropped the towel and donned the scanty garments and felt his arousal cool a little more with every hiss or gasp that escaped her as cloth scraped cuts and movement evoked pain.
The door swung open.
Bathed in the bright light of the stone-tiled room, Ami regarded him uncertainly. After donning the bra and panties, she had once more wrapped herself in the towel. And, just as Marcus had feared, the white fluffy cotton boasted numerous pink splotches.
“Drop it,” he said, motioning to the towel.
Her bruised chin jutted forward stubbornly. “I can take care of myself.”
“You aren’t supposed to take care of yourself,” he told her. “We’re supposed to take care of each other. That’s what Immortal Guardians and their Seconds do.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he held up a hand to forestall it. “You did your job earlier and saved my ass. Now let me do mine and take care of yours.”
A moment passed, during which they merely stared at each other.
“Please,” he added.
With visible reluctance, she dropped the towel. Marcus swore.
If the vampires who had attacked her hadn’t already been dead, he would have hunted them down and killed them slowly.
The two deepest cuts—the one on her thigh and the other on her hip—had been pinched together with butterfly closures. Her tan bra cupped beau
tiful, full breasts, but was already acquiring a red stain on the front left strap. Too damn close to her heart. Her white bikini panties hugged nicely rounded hips and had pink fingerprints on the thin sides. The pale skin of Ami’s face, shoulders, chest, arms, narrow waist, thighs, knees, and calves sported too many cuts to count and were riddled with dark bruises. Her fiery red hair hung in straggles that looked brown while wet, the occasional droplet forming at the end of a lock, then trailing down her skin.
More bruises on her forehead, chin, and cheek matched the dark circles under her eyes as she stared up at him.
She looked so heartbreakingly fragile.
“Turn around,” he murmured.
She did.
Marcus clenched his teeth to stifle more curses when he saw the ragged red line that raked from the top of one shoulder across to the bottom of the opposite shoulder blade. Another swept across her right kidney. Her round, firm ass appeared unblemished. At least there were no pink or red stains on her panties that would indicate seeping injuries. But the backs of her thighs bore red zebra stripes.
“I wasn’t fast enough,” he gritted out.
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “What?”
“I didn’t reach you fast enough to guard your back.”
“Well,” she replied placidly, “you were a bit busy, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Shaking his head, vowing to do better the next time—please, don’t let there be a next time—Marcus washed his hands, then reached for the large tube of antibiotic ointment that lay on the counter beside the sink.
“Is it ... is it bad?” she asked. “It didn’t look that bad in the mirror.”
Kneeling behind her, he gently coated every cut with the ointment. Oddly, they were all what immortals would consider superficial wounds. None deep enough really to require stitches. “It looks like it hurts like hell,” he commented nevertheless. Cuts of any depth tended to hurt like a bitch, especially when doused with water. Her shower must have been tortuous. “Does it?” He glanced up in time to see her clench her jaw.
“I’ve had worse.”
Worse than this?
When he finished tending all the cuts in view, Marcus clasped her hips and turned her to face him.
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