“Tell me,” Bluebeard said and held the still crying baby up for all to see, “is this not the picture of pure and innocent blood? I believe we agreed on a price?”
Ingrid nodded to Holly who pulled out a bag containing a small fortune in untraceable gold, Bluebeard’s preferred method of payment. She handed him the bag and Miles stepped forward to take the baby, who calmed immediately. After counting and inspecting the payment, Bluebeard slipped the bag into his pocket and extended his hand to Ingrid.
“It was a pleasure to do business with you, Ingrid. Please consider my additional offer. You’ll find the results more to your liking.”
“Thank you, Adam.”
The gray-skinned horseman was once again summonsed to escort us back to our car. I never thought I would be in a situation that I was happier to escape than from the ES laboratory in Paris, but Blackthorn Plantation proved me wrong. I was certain my nightmares were only going to get worse after that experience.
Chapter 16
We stayed in character for the entire drive back. This was a precaution against the likely event that Bluebeard had the car monitored. By the time we reached our destination, my stomach was in such knots that the first thing I did after exiting the car was find a convenient clump of hedges to throw up into.
“You okay, Lucy?” Miles asked.
“Yeah, well no. Let’s get inside and back to our uh, proper genders.” I glanced around nervously. It was pretty late at night and we were in a suburban neighborhood that I’d never been to before. The houses were a bit smaller than the McMansions of the subdivision I grew up in outside Washington, but their normalness seemed out of place with the New Orleans I knew. “Where are we anyway?”
“My place,” Miles replied, helping me to my feet.
“I never would have pegged you for a suburbanite.”
“Hey, we’re still in the city,” he reminded me a little defensively. “I got a wife, and a kid on the way, and I’m not raising Miles Jr. at headquarters if I can help it.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that Miles and Lona would want to live anywhere else, but after talking to Anil, I could see why they would want their child to have a somewhat normal life. I could only hope that it would someday be safe enough for them to realize this dream. Very few of the hunters and their families stayed offsite these days.
The other team had arrived just minutes before us, so the front room of the house was crowded and cacophonous. Miles took off to find Abe, and I found myself stuck along the side of the hallway, trying to count heads to make sure everyone had gotten back safely. I was grateful when Kaylee and Tanya snaked their way through the crowd and guided me up the stairs and into one of the bedrooms so that I could remove what now felt like fifty pounds of prosthetics.
Thirty minutes later, I was back in my own blissfully loose fitting clothes. I made my way back downstairs and found Miles, who had also shed his disguise, in the kitchen with Evan, Holly, and Ingrid. He pointed to the full coffee pot on the counter. “Grab yourself a cup and get over here. We got a lot to talk about.”
“You ain’t kidding,” I said. As I poured a mug of coffee, I glanced over at Ingrid. “You scared the shit out of me, I hope you know that.”
“Sorry,” she smiled sheepishly. “I wasn’t sure if you would catch on. I’m kind of glad you didn’t because the look on your face was priceless and I think that lent us some credibility.”
“You’re trying to tell me that was all an act?”
“What? Of course it was!” she said defensively. “Oh come on, Lucy! Yeah, I know he hit a nerve, but you’re forgetting I’ve been there before. I hunted there. I sure as hell wasn’t going to take him on his word.”
“Well you sure had me fooled,” I said and sat down. “But regardless, we’ve got bigger problems. Wait.” I peered out into the adjoining living room, which was empty. I looked over at Evan who was calmly sipping coffee. “Where’s the rest of your team?”
“Andre’s scanning Isaac to make sure there aren’t any other monitors that we might have missed. Abe and Johnny are removing the transmitter from the child. Hugh and Lance are still back there.”
“What?” I nearly dropped the coffee mug, but caught it at the last minute. “W-what do you mean, still back there?” Lance and Hugh were two of my closest friends and two of the most respected hunters Evan had. If he was telling me they were dead then he was being awfully casual about the fact.
“They’re safe,” Evan assured me, “and I’m not exactly thrilled with the last minute decision, but I couldn’t in good conscience demand that they come back with us.”
“What happened?” I asked. Aside from the fact that Lance and Hugh clashed constantly back when they were partners, neither was what I would call irrational or impulsive. That title was usually reserved for me.
“When we got there, Isaac had a group of kids and two of the women with him. He wanted them to meet us so that when we came back to do the rescue, they could take charge and organize the younger children. They were terrified. Apparently, Isaac had been instrumental in keeping some of the weaker kids alive during the hunt. Lance said there was no way he was leaving them like that and Hugh agreed. I think that was a first for them,” he added wryly. “They’re both armed and they have a vehicle if they need supplies.”
“But that place is loaded with cameras,” Miles protested.
“Not that far back on the property,” Evan explained. “They have the same scanners that Andre employs on their phones now, so they know what areas are safe.”
“But what about when Bluebeard comes looking for Isaac’s remains?” I asked. The plan was to detonate the device by throwing it into the fence after everyone had gotten out safely.
“We didn’t detonate it, but we deactivated the explosives and Lance is going to keep the tracker on him.” I didn’t like the sound of that. It seemed too risky, and to be honest, a little gross. But at least Lance and Hugh were trained soldiers. If Bluebeard came after either of them, our problems might easily be solved. Well, at least part of our problems, I reminded myself. The face of the woman we left behind still haunted me.
“We have another problem,” I told them gravely. “I don’t think you three noticed, but right before that Jeb character showed up, I got a look at some of Bluebeard’s other clients.”
“I thought I heard something,” Holly said. “Is that when you went to the window?”
I nodded. “Two high level ES vamps.”
Evan looked momentarily stunned. “Are you sure?”
“Oh I think I’d know the ES even if they weren’t easy to spot. Black skin, silver hair, speaking French, you get the idea.” I wasn’t being racially insensitive. The vampires of The Eyes of the Sun were not black like Hugh or white like Evan, they were literally either black as coal or white as paper, and they were terrifying.
“Well it makes sense,” Evan said thoughtfully, “considering you personally cut their population by more than half.”
“Yeah, but they think the mods over here are inferior. Why would they want genetic material that they consider tainted? I highly doubt the lab I helped destroy was the only one.” Of course, I knew this for a fact, even if Andre had been cryptic on the details. I was curious to see if Evan would shed any light on the subject.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures or something like that,” Evan said offhandedly, but I could tell he was bluffing. Whatever it was that Andre wasn’t telling me, Evan knew as well, but I was too tired to argue. He glanced down at his phone with a frown. “You stuck to the script on the way back?”
“We did,” Holly replied. “I take it we were bugged?” As soon as we got back, Mike took the car we had been driving to another location in town to have his team check it for any modifications it might have picked up while unattended.
“More than bugged,” Evan said with an impressed whistle. “Three redundant GPS trackers and seven transmitters so far. Mike’s taking it straight to the salvaged yard to have it
destroyed.”
“Ouch!” Miles winced. I’m not a car person, but I kind of agreed with him that destroying a brand new luxury SUV seemed like a waste. But I suppose if we had shown up in anything that cost less than fifty grand, we wouldn’t have appeared very credible.
“So is it safe to leave then?” Ingrid asked with a yawn. “The sun’s up. I don’t know how the rest of you do it, but I’m not used to this vampire crap anymore.” This got a chuckle out of everyone.
“Funny,” Miles said with a wink, “but yeah, we should probably clear out and I could go for a beer.”
“I’ll go find Tanya and the girls,” Holly said as she stood up. “I think we can all squeeze into the van.”
Ten minutes later, everyone was ready to leave, but I hesitated. I was both physically and emotionally exhausted, but I had yet to see proof that my father had made it out alive. “Um, is it okay if I stay behind?”
“Of course,” Evan said with a smile. “I figured you’d want to. If you want to go lay down, I’ll make sure someone wakes you when Isaac’s finished up with Andre.”
“Thanks, but I’m fine. I’ll make some more coffee.” There was no way in hell I was going to fall asleep until I could get back to my own semi-private apartment. Nightmares after tonight’s adventures would be a given.
Staying awake was tough. After everyone had left, the house was eerily quiet. I had reached the point where coffee had no effect, so I began pacing the kitchen and looking longingly at the comfortable living room furniture that I didn’t dare sit on. Eventually my mind became so sleep muddled that I wondered if everyone else had left long ago and forgot I was there. Despite it being full daylight at that point, the idea spooked me enough that when I heard footsteps coming down the stairs, I actually jumped.
“Hey, I didn’t think you’d still be here,” Andre said as he enveloped me in a tight, yet comforting embrace. I fell against his chest with a strangled cry, halfway between relief and panic. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I pulled away slightly and looked up at him. He looked as worn out as I was. “I’m just happy to see you’re safe. We had a strange night. Where’s Isaac?”
“He fell asleep while I was scanning him. He deserves some peaceful rest after what he’s been through. What happened? You guys should have been back long before us.”
I allowed him to lead me into the living room and sank onto the sofa, that turned out to be just as comfortable as I thought it would be. I told him about everything that had happened, including Bluebeard’s creepy interest in me and his apparent knowledge of Ingrid’s desire for fertility. Andre didn’t say anything while I recounted our adventures, but when I told him about the ES vampires, I felt him stiffen. Like Evan, his expression had gone from neutral to unreadable.
“Okay, what’s going on Andre? Evan got all cryptic when I mentioned the ES and clearly, you know something as well. What aren’t you two telling me?”
He sat back with a sigh. “We’re not hiding anything, Lucy. It’s obviously disturbing to us that the ES are stateside again, but it’s not something that should come as a shock to anyone.”
“Shouldn’t it? I don’t get it. They think the vampires here are inferior. Bluebeard’s obviously mixing human DNA into his creations. Don’t you think that would be a deal breaker? Besides, I know we destroyed their compound, but it’s not like that was their only lab. You said you found another one. There could be tons more.”
Something I had said hit a nerve because Andre’s face briefly contorted with a pained look. “We…” He sighed. “The other lab was destroyed as well. I’m sure there are others, but we can’t rule out the possibility that Bluebeard knows about the immunity his crossbreeding creates. If that happens to be the case, then why wouldn’t the ES be interested? Plus from what Abe might have discovered, it’s possible the immunity might also strengthen other attributes, like your healing ability.”
I wasn’t completely convinced that he was being honest with me, but he raised a valid point. If the ES could eliminate the chance of blood poisoning, it was likely that they would pursue this, despite the taint of human DNA. We still didn’t know if that immunity applied to my blood, but what did it matter? It wasn’t as if we could just make everyone like me, though apparently, the vampires could.
I heard footsteps on the stairs again and turned to see Johnny coming down. It was strange to see him in full medical scrubs. He handed Andre what looked like a folded piece of gauze that I assumed was the chip. “Don’t worry, it’s been cleaned up,” he said with a grimace.
“Excuse me,” Andre said to me and extracted himself from the sofa so that he could start working on decoding the transmitter. He moved into the kitchen and Johnny followed.
“There’s still half a pot of coffee if that’s what you’re looking for,” I called out.
“Thanks, Lucy,” Johnny called back. “I’ll get some in a minute. I’ve got to warm up some formula. We’ve got a fussy baby upstairs and if she’s anything like Anil was, she’ll start a full on tantrum if we don’t feed her soon.”
“She’s awake?” I figured, being a vampire or anomaly, that the baby would heal fast, but not that fast.
“Awake and in perfect condition. It was actually a pretty difficult extraction. I think she heals faster than you do.”
I didn’t like the implications of that and I wasn’t the only one. Andre only glanced up from his computer briefly, but I could see that he was thinking the same thing I was. Faster healing because of human DNA was one thing, but it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think that if Cynda had been cloned from my DNA then there might possibly be others. Of course, if this was true then it also raised another issue. Ingrid was supposed to be the child’s adoptive mother, but if she carried the same enzyme levels as Cynda and I then that would be out of the question.
“Ah, Lucy, I didn’t know you were still here.” Abe had come into the room, carrying the baby, who certainly didn’t look as if she had just undergone surgery. “Would you mind helping me?”
“Sure, what do you need?” I assumed Abe would want me to help pack up the equipment and load the van that we would be taking back to headquarters, but instead, I found myself on the receiving end of the delicate bundle in his arms.
“Wait, what are you doing?” I panicked. I’d barely ever been around babies and I certainly had never held one before.
“Johnny and I have to clean up and pack the van, and I need to get her back to headquarters and under observation as soon as possible. If you’ll just feed her, we can all head back in a few minutes.”
“I don’t know how to feed a baby!” I protested, but Abe was already on his way upstairs.
“You don’t have to,” Johnny said, handing me a bottle. “Just hold the bottle and she’ll figure out the rest.”
I wanted to ask him how I was supposed to hold the bottle and the baby at the same time, but he had already left as well. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I grumbled and set the bottle on the table so that I could reposition the baby in my arms. For a tiny thing, she was incredibly squirmy and I was afraid I would drop her. I finally got her positioned, but with both my hands full, I couldn’t reach for the bottle.
“Here, let me help you.” Andre got up and lifted her from my arms. “Hold your left arm like this.” He demonstrated how to hold her with one hand and handed her back to me.
“Thanks,” I said and picked up the bottle. Johnny was right, as soon as I put the bottle by her face, she reached out and pulled it to her mouth. Andre gave me a strange look. “What?”
“You’ve never held a baby before?”
“Is that so weird? I didn’t have any little brothers or sisters. Wait, where did you learn to hold a baby?” Andre was an only child as well.
“I babysat Anil,” he said, going back to his computer. He looked up at me one more time before concentrating on the data on the screen. I didn’t know what to make of his expression, which was something that had been happening far to
o often lately.
I looked down at the child in my arms with a quiet sigh. Sure, she was cute. She was past the wrinkly stage where babies look like cranky old men. Instead, she had that chubby baby look that everyone finds irresistible. Well, everyone except for me, apparently. I mean, I wasn’t disgusted or anything, but I felt nothing at all, no motherly instincts, no yearning for a child of my own, nothing. It was as if I was defective as a human. Ironically, that seemed to mean that I was the perfect mod, which was an unsettling thought.
“Well now, if that isn’t the most beautiful site in the world, I don’t know what is.”
I looked up and saw Isaac standing in the doorway, gazing at me with a wide smile. He had changed his appearance so that he now had the same pale skin and dark brown hair as me. Seeing him, standing there in Miles’ suburban kitchen, instead of trapped behind the invisible fence in the swamp, gave me such a feeling of relief that I began tearing up.
“You’re actually here,” I said with a tight voice. “I know it sounds dumb, but I couldn’t let myself believe we actually pulled it off until I saw you.”
“Oh Lucy, I understand.” He came around and gave me a one-armed hug as to not disturb the child in my arms. “If it wasn’t for the leftover soreness from having Abe rip my chest open, I’d think I was dreaming right now.”
I winced. “I can’t imagine that felt very nice.”
“Believe me, it wasn’t anything I ever want to go through again, but I would, one million times over if need be. It was worth it just to be here right now.” He looked at me with a tearful smile. “You have no idea how happy I am that you’re safe.”
“You too,” I said with a sniffle. Apparently, the baby wasn’t happy with our emotional reunion because she began fussing. I tried shifting her to a more comfortable position, but she began to cough and proceeded to spit up what seemed like an entire milk factory all over my shirt. Isaac grabbed a stack of napkins from the table and handed them to me.
The Eyes of the Sun: The Complete Trilogy Page 47