“Not much of anything yet,” Abe said defensively. “I want to take a closer look at these results, get with Evan, and decide from there what to do. I promised Lucy that we would explain everything to her as soon as we could, but she should probably get some sleep now. Would you show her to her room?”
“I’m not staying here.”
“Of course you are,” Lona said gently. “I’ll stay with you. Come on.”
“Now wait a damned minute!” Lucy was furious. “I’m getting sick of everyone telling me what to do! I want to go home. No, I take that back. I want to go to the police. I knew something wasn’t adding up here. Why haven’t the police been notified that I was attacked?”
“They were notified.”
Lucy spun to face the man who answered. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties, with graying blonde hair, blue eyes, and more than a few scars intermixed with the natural lines on his face.
“I take it you must be Lucy Soriano. I’m Evan Conroy, the head of the operation as well as president of EJC Research. I’m also the man you probably want to speak to about all of this.” He held out his hand. Evan Conroy looked nothing like her preconceived notions of what a head of a major corporation should be. He wore a red chambray shirt and tan cargo pants that had scuff marks on the knees. When he shook her hand, Lucy noticed calluses that suggested he didn’t spend all of his time in the boardroom.
“You’re damned right I have a lot of questions. Who notified the police?”
“Miles did, right after you got here. We’ve reported every attack we’ve witnessed for the last twenty years and for the last twenty years the police have done the same thing they always do, nothing.”
“You mean this happens regularly?” Lucy was horrified.
“Attacks like this? Not if we have anything to do about it. But I’ll get to that. I take it Abe’s told you just enough to piss you off?”
Abe scowled. “She’s been through hell, Evan. In my professional opinion, she needs rest. Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
Evan regarded the doctor with mild amusement. “I don’t know, Abe, why don’t we ask Lucy?” He turned to her with a wink. “Lucy, would you rather sleep on it or let me explain why everyone’s acting like they just stepped out of a spy novel?”
“I want answers.”
“Good. I’ve got a few questions of my own. Lona, why don’t you take Lucy to her room, let her clean up, and bring her up to my office in a half hour. I’ll have Miles meet you there.”
Lona nodded and turned to leave, but Lucy didn’t move.
“Something wrong, Lucy?” Evan asked.
“How do I know this isn’t a trick?”
Evan frowned. “What kind of a trick?”
Lucy sighed. “Everyone has been telling me I’ll get answers and then putting me off on to someone else, who says I’ll get answers, but then they tell me nothing. How do I know Lona isn’t just going to lock me in a room and leave me there?”
Evan laughed. “Trust me Lucy. Thirty minutes.” He left before she could protest.
Lona glanced at Abe. “You okay with this?”
“Of course not,” he sighed and raised his arms in a defeated gesture. “But what do I know? I’m just a doctor.”
Chapter 4
The room that Lona escorted her to did indeed remind Lucy more of a hotel suite than a hospital room. There were two queen-sized beds, a sitting room, and even a small, but fully equipped kitchen. Lona tossed the bags she had been carrying onto one of the beds.
“You probably have time for a quick shower. Your clothes are in there,” she said, pointing to the bags. “I brought Gumbo too. Hugh took her down to the kitchen to get her something to eat. I think he’s smitten with her.”
“Who’s Hugh?” Lucy frowned, upset that she had not considered her poor kitten since the night’s events went south.
“He’s another member of the team. You probably saw him. He was with Miles when you were attacked. The big guy, you probably couldn’t miss him.”
“Yeah, I saw him. He scared the crap out of me.” Big was an understatement. Try as she might, she couldn’t picture the hulking man from the cemetery doting on a kitten that could still sit in the palm of her hand. “So are you going to fill me in on what’s going on?” Lucy stole a glance at her friend, who had ventured into the kitchen and was making a pot of coffee.
“I wish I could, Luce.” Lona smiled sympathetically. “But they won’t tell me any more than they told you.”
“Fine, I’ll be quick.”
Back in the elevator, Lona placed her hand on the glass, just as Miles had. After the light stopped blinking, she said, “Evan’s Suite,” and the elevator lurched up once again. This time, they emerged into a luxuriously furnished reception area where Miles was waiting for them. Lucy stared openly because once again, he looked like himself.
“Pretty convincing, eh?” he grinned. “Too bad I was seen. I’ll have to retire Charlie. I liked him.”
Before Lucy could question what that meant, the office door at the end of the room opened and a woman with jet-black hair and sharp black eyes leaned out. She glanced around the room with a warm smile that she settled on Lucy.
“You’re here, good. Evan will be ready in a moment. I promise this won’t take long.”
Lucy flung herself into the nearest armchair and sighed dramatically.
“Lovely, more waiting.”
Evan Conroy slumped in his chair, rereading the lab report in his hand for the fifth time in the minutes since Abe delivered it, unable to believe that it was accurate.
“Evan?” Dr. Dara Ramos placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You told Lucy thirty minutes, it’s been nearly an hour.”
Evan looked up at his colleague and waved the report at her. “Explain how this is possible.”
“You’ll have to ask Abe, I’m as in the dark as you are.”
The two doctors exchanged a quick glance and Abe cleared his throat. “I ran the blood work several times. I even took a sample from the clothing that she was wearing and the results were the same. I’m working with the blood and a cell swab, so I should have the DNA information in a few hours. However, all of the evidence that I need to prove this result is currently down in the morgue. I saw the body right before I came up here. Given the unusual circumstances, Dara, I’m going to request that you stay out of the lab when we do the autopsy.”
Dr. Ramos nodded. “In the interest of self-preservation I’ll have to agree to that.”
Evan waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Okay, we’ll assume for now that the test is accurate, but we can’t ignore the fact that this is the first anomaly that we’ve seen since we started the project. Do we have anything concrete to put cause behind the effect?”
Abe picked up the report and flipped a few pages. “As you know, Miles had suspicions about Lucy for a while now, but he suspected that Lucy knew nothing of her true nature. I wanted to bring her in for some tests, but Miles asked that we wait, because Lucy is still coming to grips with her grandmother’s death. Just yesterday morning, Lucy happened to mention to Miles that she has a mild case of photophobia. She gets headaches on sunny days and is prone to sunburns, the usual symptoms.”
“Usual yes,” Evan commented, “but that doesn’t explain what I’m reading.”
“True,” Abe agreed. “I had planned to meet with Lucy tomorrow, but fate seemed to have other plans. I looked into the archive and found Lucy’s grandmother’s data. Emma Soriano carried the enzyme variant, presumably, so did Lucy’s mother.”
“But Abe,” Dr. Ramos interjected with a frown. “We’ve studied this extensively, the odds of a…”
“I know, Dara, but there is no other explanation. Lucy is here in New Orleans because of a vague notion that her father, whom she has never met, might have met her mother here. I don’t need to tell you what our city was like in the mid-eighties.”
Evan’s interest peaked. “You can’t possibly be suggesting what I think you
are.”
“You didn’t get a good look at her earlier, but I did,” Abe explained. “And you know full well that Miles wouldn’t cry wolf on a Code One, yet by the time I saw her, Lucy had nothing more than a scratch on her neck. I’m not going to say anything else until I have a chance to study her genetic code, but when she comes in here, take a good look at her eyes.”
Evan stood and stretched. “Well, we might as well get this party started. If my impressions of Ms. Soriano are correct, I’ll be replacing my office door if I leave her out there for another minute.”
Lucy hadn’t succeeded in getting any more information out of Lona or Miles when the door opened again and the same woman greeted them.
“Hello, you must be Lucy,” she said with a pleasant smile and extended her hand. “I’m Dr. Dara Ramos, but please, call me Dara. We’re not terribly formal around here. Evan would like you to join us now.”
They followed her into the largest office that Lucy had ever seen. The wall opposite the door was made entirely of glass and curved outward, affording them a view of nearly the entire city. Lucy was sure that during the day she would be able to see all the way from the river to the lake, and maybe beyond. Standing behind a desk that could have easily served as a banquet table, was Evan. Lucy noticed that Evan had changed his clothes as well, though he still chose casual attire.
“Hello again Lucy, please, have a seat.” He gestured toward the chairs that had been placed near the desk.
The two doctors took chairs on Evan’s side of the desk. Lona and Miles sat on either side of Lucy, who could not help but feel as if the seating arrangement had been planned so that everyone could keep an eye on her. Evan and the doctors, to Lucy’s discomfort, had been openly staring at her since she sat down.
“Is there spinach in my teeth?” Lucy asked with a slight edge to her voice.
Evan smiled apologetically. “Sorry, we don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m sure you have a lot of questions for us and we have a few for you as well. I hope we can all get the answers we would like.”
“I just want to know why I’m here.” Lucy glanced nervously at Miles and Lona. “And why I suddenly feel like I don’t know anything about my friends anymore.”
Lona looked uncomfortable and seemed to be avoiding Lucy’s eyes.
“Sorry Luce,” Miles smiled weakly. “I had hoped to approach the subject under better circumstances.”
Before Lucy could ask Miles what he meant, Evan spoke. “You’re already aware that this is a research facility. My father started the company in 1964 and I joined him twenty years later. Not long after that, I made discoveries that led me to recruit my two best friends from college,” he gestured to Abe and Dara, “to work on a project, that has since become a much larger operation, that we’ve managed to keep classified for nearly twenty years. Miles works on this project as well. Lona,” Evan paused.
“She has the right to know everything,” Lona said softly, keeping her eyes downcast.
“Lona,” Evan continued, “played a significant role in leading us to discover the purpose of this project. I know that Abe has already warned you that you’ll have a hard time believing the truth, so I’d like to ask you. What do you think caused Tim to attack you in the fashion that he did tonight?”
Lucy’s hand went automatically to the bandage on her neck. “I think he thought he was a vampire.” She turned to look at Miles, then Abe, and finally Evan. Either this was a case of mass delusion or everyone in the room was in on the joke. “I think you honestly believe he was a vampire.”
“Not just a vampire,” Evan replied with a straight face, “but a genetically modified vampire. He was part of a clan whose history includes sadistic scientists that would make Hitler look tame by comparison.”
Lucy scanned the faces around her, waiting for someone to crack a smile or otherwise give away the joke.
“I’m afraid there is no punch line, Lucy,” Evan said and gave her a wry smile. “Look, before you write us off as a room full of delusional lunatics, and I can see from your expression that you already have, you need to understand something. Vampires, in the sense that we use the term, are not the mythical creatures that folklore would have you believe. Though Tim and his kind are most certainly the inspiration behind most of the myths. My introduction to vampires was much like yours.” Evan tapped the side of his neck and Lucy gasped at what she saw there. Where she wore a small bandage, Evan sported a twisted knot of scar tissue that disappeared downward under the collar of his shirt. Evan nodded sagely.
“In 1987, my father retired and handed ownership of EJC Research over to me, which I took reluctantly. At that time, I had been working on several projects in robotics and nanotechnology, and I wasn’t about to abandon them. I learned quickly that administrative work left little to no time for hands on, so as soon as five o’clock came and the white-collar world went home, I would head down to the lab. Sometimes I would get so involved in a project that my secretary would have to come down and remind me that I was late for work the next day.
“My biggest project was night vision contact lenses. It took me two years and a lot of sleepless nights, but in the fall of 1989, I finally had a prototype and I wasn’t about to let the opportunity to test them out pass me by. I only got as far as the alley behind this building when I saw a woman who appeared to be wandering aimlessly. I figured she was drunk and took a really wrong turn off Bourbon, so I called out to her, asked if she needed help. She stumbled over, grabbed the front of my shirt and lurched towards me. As soon as I put my arms out to steady her, she attacked. I was caught completely off guard. This girl couldn’t have been much bigger than Lona here. I was thirty-three and in pretty decent shape, but this gal had unbelievable strength and I couldn’t fight her off. I lost a lot more blood than you did, Lucy. I blacked out.
“I was lucky in that the police cruiser patrolling the area drove by a few minutes later. I was taken to the hospital and somehow survived. After I was stitched up and given a few pints, the chief of police showed up to have a little chat. As it turns out, I wasn’t the first victim of this sort of attack, but I was the first to survive it. The girl wasn’t so lucky. She appeared to have died of a heart attack, and according to the chief, she also had fangs, so no one in the morgue would touch her.”
Lucy, who had been listening in disbelief, looked up suddenly. “Tim had some kind of attack too, and he definitely had fangs.”
Evan nodded. “So I’ve been told. I haven’t had time to see the body yet, but I saw Abe’s preliminary report. Yes, there is a connection between our attacks and their results, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
“As I mentioned, no one would touch the body, which I suppose is understandable, given the amount of superstition that runs rampant here. The chief knew who I was, and what type of technology I had at my disposal, so he asked me to take the body, find out exactly who or what had attacked me, and why she died. He also told me to keep this quiet and admitted that the department had been keeping these attacks from the papers because they didn’t have any leads. Also, quite a few folks on the force had taken to wearing crosses and carrying holy water with them.
“I can’t take any credit for the discoveries we made. Abe did the autopsy and discovered subtle differences between normal human DNA and that of our dead girl. And Dara filled in the gaps in Abe’s findings. How much do you know about DNA, Lucy?”
Lucy shrugged. “I’ve seen enough daytime television to know that DNA testing can determine paternity. Everyone’s DNA is different, right?”
“Right,” Evan agreed. “But not entirely different. A geneticist would be able to look at a sampling of DNA and tell you which ones were related to each other, but on a grander scale, all would be easily identified as human DNA. Abe looked at the dead girl’s DNA and noticed something that had not been seen, or at least documented, before. It was just different enough to garner our suspicions. So he took a few more samples and noticed that about twenty-five percent of t
he samples appeared to have the same genetic markers as the dead girl.”
“Meaning what?” Lucy asked. She was tired and having more than a little trouble following Evan’s line of thinking.
“These anomalies have what appears to be a slightly tighter molecular makeup in their genetic code,” Evan explained. “This accounts for the type of people who rarely get sick and live longer than average lives. I’m sure you’ve heard of people who live to be ninety, yet they have drank and smoked their whole life, or seen actors and actresses who manage to defy the effects of aging without the obvious help from plastic surgery. Abe classified them as homo salveo, or ‘healthy man’. While not nearly as exciting or dangerous as blood drinking immortals, we simplified the term to ‘vampire’.”
Lucy had let her gaze fall on Dr. Ramos while Evan was talking, and directed her question at the pretty doctor, whose jet-black hair showed no gray, and whose skin was wrinkle-free. “Doesn’t that seem a bit insulting to you?”
Dara looked mildly surprised. “Why would you think I’d be offended?”
“If I were to guess, I’d say you were at least fifteen years younger than Mr. Conroy and Dr. Glassman. Even if you were one of those genius kids that skipped a few grades, you would be too young to be in college with them. So either you have the best plastic surgeon money can buy or Mr. Conroy just gave us a tour of your family tree. So what did you do, have the fangs filed?”
Dr. Ramos and Evan both looked pleased.
“You’re pretty observant,” Dr. Ramos conceded. “I didn’t even catch the clue that Evan threw out there. Yes, I am a vampire, and I happen to be a year older than Abe and Evan. I took a year off after high school to travel. But to answer your question, no, the term does not affect me. I’m the one who coined it. And before you ask,” she winked conspiratorially, “I’m a vegetarian, and a church going Catholic.”
“And the fangs?”
Dara smiled, showing a row of perfectly normal teeth. “Retracted, possibly permanently. Natural vampires require a low carb, high protein diet and have an enviable ability to metabolize fat. At the time of Abe’s discovery, I was outwardly healthy and thin, but I had the cholesterol levels of an overweight geriatric. Learning how some of my ‘kind’ fed, I became a vegetarian and today I exist on an almost completely soy-based, protein rich diet.”
The Eyes of the Sun: The Complete Trilogy Page 4