Phantom Shadows ig-3

by Dianne Duvall

  “Sounds good. I’ll let you know when Stuart is settled.”

  “Stuart?”

  “That’s the new recruit’s name.”

  He nodded and turned back to Todd.

  As she walked back to her office, a sheet of paper slipped from beneath Cliff’s door and slid across the hallway.

  Melanie picked it up, turned it over, and read Cliff’s neat handwriting:

  You need to sedate Joe. He’s ranting again. And if the new vampire hears some of the things Joe is saying, I guarantee you he’ll try to bolt.

  “What is it?” Linda asked, joining her and peering curiously at the note.

  Melanie showed it to her.

  Linda patted her shoulder. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thanks.”

  The rest of the conversation was spoken with the sign language both women had learned when they had realized the vampires could hear everything, all the way up to the ground floor.

  Give him the low dose, enough to calm him, but not enough to knock him out, Melanie signed.

  Okay.

  Melanie understood the relief on Linda’s face. Both women preferred administering the lower dose to knocking the vampires out with a full one. The latter left the vamps fuzzy-headed when they awoke.

  Be careful, Melanie added. If he’s headed for another break, he may not understand. Have a couple of the guards handy . . . just in case.

  I will.

  Melanie ducked between two guards.

  “Hi, Doc.”

  “Hey, Doc.”

  She waved and darted back into her office, closing the door behind her. Richart could teleport them in at any minute and she didn’t want the new vamp to see the growing army in the hallway. He would hear their heartbeats once he arrived. That was unavoidable. But with any luck, he would think at least some of those were the heartbeats of regular employees like herself.

  Minutes passed. Sublevel 5 quieted.

  Biting her lip, Melanie consulted her watch. What was taking so long? Had Bastien anticipated Chris’s actions and decided to give them a little more time to prepare?

  Rustling sounded behind her.

  Melanie spun around, startled by the three males who stood there despite having expected them. “I see why Seth calls ahead to warn Sarah.”

  “Sorry it took so long,” Bastien said.

  She noted the damp patches on his and Richart’s clothing, the red speckles and streaks on their faces. “Did something happen?”

  The vampire sandwiched between them bore no stains on his clothing, so their fight must have been with someone else.

  “There were other vamps at the rendezvous site,” Richart explained.

  Bastien nodded, brows drawn down into a V. “Pissing on my property,” he grumbled.

  Ooh. Very unwise. She glanced at Stuart, wondering why Bastien hadn’t pummeled him for bringing such disrespectful companions with him.

  Stuart gave his head a vigorous shake and held up both hands. “I didn’t know ’em. They just happened to be there, checking out Bastien’s legendary lair.”

  “Ah.” She drew closer to Bastien and patted his arm. “I assume you kicked their asses?”

  He shrugged. “The madness had progressed too far in all of them. They were beyond our help, so we destroyed them.”

  “And enjoyed it a little too much, I’m guessing.”

  He smiled. “Just with the pisser.”

  Melanie laughed.

  Stuart’s fascinated gaze skipped back and forth between them. “Dude, you’re dating a human? Y’all can do that?”

  Bastien’s handsome face grew uneasy.

  Melanie shook her head. Hopefully, in time, he would stop worrying about the detrimental effects their relationship might have on her life and career. “Yes, we’re dating. And the jury is still out on whether or not it’s acceptable because Bastien has a bit of a checkered past.” She held her hand out with a smile. “I didn’t formally introduce myself the other night. I’m Dr. Melanie Lipton. It’s nice to meet you, Stuart.”

  Bastien knew Melanie didn’t want him to put her on a pedestal, but he practically threw her up there when she smiled at Stuart and offered him her small, pale hand.

  Damn, he liked her. Okay, loved her. That tingly, sappy, I-just-want-to-hold-her feeling warming him like brandy must be love. She was just so brave. And smart. And beautiful. Willing to put her own safety at risk to aid others. Welcoming another vampire into her territory and attempting to put him at ease.

  Stuart took her hand and shook it with care. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry I cut you.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Welcome to the network.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I head the viral research we’re doing here and frequently work with the other vampires. There are two currently in residence—Cliff and Joe.”

  Welcome, Stuart, Bastien heard Cliff say. I’m Cliff. It’ll be nice to have another vampire to hang around with.

  Stuart looked toward the hallway. “You’re one of the vampires?”

  Yes. I know you’re probably scared . . .

  Melanie caught Bastien’s gaze. “Is Cliff talking to him?”

  “Yes.”

  I sure as hell was. But you can relax. Dr. Lipton is great. So are Linda and some of the others we work with. And you don’t have to constantly be on your guard here, worrying about humans discovering what you are, or vampires attacking you, or wondering if you’ll find a safe place to rest during the day. You made the right decision.

  “How do I know you’re not an immortal just saying that to get me to drop my guard?” Stuart asked, his face reflecting both suspicion and hope.

  Well for one thing, immortals are powerful enough that they don’t need to coax you into letting down your guard. They can overpower you and do whatever it is you think they might do with very little effort. For another, I was one of Bastien’s followers. I surrendered the night of the final battle with the immortals at his lair and have been living here ever since. But you’ll learn all of this and more eventually.

  “What about the other one? Where is he?”

  Bastien caught Melanie’s gaze. “Where’s Joe?”

  She bit her lip and looked uneasy. “I think he’s resting.”

  Had she had to sedate Joe? Had he had a break? Or had she worried what Joe might say to Stuart?

  I’m here, Joe said, voice low and emotionless. He had definitely been drugged. The virus is fucking with my head today. Listen to Cliff. He isn’t as far gone as I am. I think . . . I think I’m not seeing things clearly right now. Cliff is.

  Stuart sobered. He turned to Melanie. “Can you help us?”

  “I hope so, Stuart. That’s why I’m glad you’re here. The more I learn and the more insight you and other vampires can provide me with, the closer we’ll get to finding a method of preventing the madness.”

  Stuart nodded. “What can I do?”

  “For now? If you aren’t averse to it, I’d like to take a small sample of your blood, then we can get you settled in your new apartment.”

  Stuart looked at Bastien. “It’s . . . it’s really an apartment? It’s not a cell?”

  This isn’t a prison, Stuart. We live well here, Cliff said. We each have our own apartment with whatever furnishings and electronic gadgets we want, though our phone and Internet activity is monitored for safety’s sake.

  Bastien smiled and nodded as Stuart’s eyes widened.

  “So . . . I get my own place?”

  Melanie smiled. “Yes. We want you to be comfortable and, more important, happy here.”

  Stuart looked stunned. “I’ve never had my own apartment before. Or my own room. I always had to share . . . with my brothers or with a dorm mate. Man, I had some sucky dorm mates.”

  Melanie laughed. “Well, let’s hurry and do your blood work so you can get settled.”

  Stuart gave her an enthusiastic nod.

  Bastien touched her arm as she started to turn away. “We should
get back to hunting. Stuart said something went down at Duke last night, so every immortal needs to be out there trying to find Emrys and his men before they find more vampires.”

  Her brow creased with worry as she tilted her head back to meet his gaze. “Okay. Be careful.”

  “I will.” He started to move away.

  She held on to his arm and tapped her lips with her index finger. “Kiss?”

  Bastien might be mistaken, but he was pretty sure the heat stealing up his neck as he looked at the others was a blush.

  Stuart snickered. Richart grinned and crossed his arms over his chest.

  Full of aw-shucks, Bastien bent and pressed his lips to Melanie’s. Drawing back, he decided she tasted too good not to go back for seconds and proceeded to kiss the stuffing out of her.

  “Okay, sport.” Richart grasped the neck of Bastien’s coat and gave it a yank, forcing them apart. “You can come back for more later.” He smiled at Melanie, whose eyes were bright and cheeks were flushed. “Always a pleasure.”

  Then Bastien and Richart were being buffeted by a strong wintery wind atop Perkins Library at Duke University.

  Richart may as well have dumped Bastien in a cold shower.

  Lisette’s slender figure stepped from the shadows. She did not look pleased to see them. “I told you I was fine.”

  The frown on her lovely face dissolved as her gaze dropped to the very obvious bulge in Bastien’s pants. “Is that for me? Because I will admit to having a fondness for bad boys.”

  Bastien sighed. Some nights the headaches spawned by living with immortals seemed far worse than those vampires could provoke.

  Stuart loved his apartment.

  Sitting at the desk in her office, Melanie smiled as she made several notations in the chart she had begun for him. He had been so eager to see “his new place” that she had relented and taken him there first.

  He had been astounded by the size and room he’d been afforded. While he had sat on the sofa and ogled the large flat-screen TV, cushy furniture, and assorted electronic playthings, she had drawn blood, measured his blood pressure, taken his temperature, and done all of the usual things doctors and nurses did to humans who went in for a physical.

  Everything showed normal for a vampire.

  Tomorrow she would elicit a verbal history from him. Find out what, if any, illnesses he had suffered before his transformation, how long he had been transformed, how he had been transformed, and how he had lived since. What he ate. How often he fed. From whom he fed.

  He seemed nice, albeit cautious. She was looking forward to working with him and thought Cliff would enjoy the company now that Joe had fewer lucid moments.

  So, as she stared down at his chart, she couldn’t understand why she felt . . . unnerved? Was that what she was feeling?

  After those kisses Bastien had delivered, she should be floating several inches above the floor, eagerly anticipating the next.

  Instead, she fidgeted in her seat and kept feeling almost as if someone were standing in the corner, watching her. Twice she’d caught herself gnawing on the inside of her cheek, a nervous habit that tended to resurface whenever she was troubled.

  Melanie set her pen down and looked around her office again. Nothing out of place. No spooky shadows drew her eyes to corners. She had been having a hard time reading lately (and was too stubborn to admit she might need reading glasses—she was too young, damn it!), so she’d installed the highest-wattage bulbs she could find overhead. All was as bright as a sunny afternoon outdoors. Her peace lilies and bamboo plants thrived and provided cheerful color. As did her kitten calendar.

  Tiny ripples of foreboding nipped at her feet like waves at a beach.

  What was it? Was it Bastien? Had something happened to him?

  Reaching for the phone, she dialed his cell.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. It’s me.”

  “Hi. Is Stuart settled in?”

  “Yes. He even met Mr. Reordon, who was surprisingly friendly.”

  “Good.”

  “Is everything okay there?”

  “Yes. It’s been quiet as hell actually. Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, really. What’s wrong? I can hear it in your voice. Something’s troubling you.”

  She sighed. “I just . . . feel sort of like I did before those soldiers shot me and . . . everything’s fine here, so I thought you might be in trouble or something. I don’t know. I feel stupid now for bothering you.”

  “First, you aren’t bothering me.”

  “He was mooning over you again,” Richart said in the background.

  Melanie laughed. “Hi, Richart.”

  “Ignore him,” Bastien implored. “Second, are you having a premonition?”

  “Dr. Lipton is a gifted one?” she heard Lisette ask.

  “Hi, Lisette,” Melanie said.

  “Would a little privacy be too much to ask?” Bastien demanded.

  “Oui,” Lisette retorted. “Hello, Dr. Lipton. Are you a gifted one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Merveilleuse!”

  “That does it.” A moment passed. A breeze came over the line. “Okay. Talk quickly before they find me. I’m on the other side of campus.”

  Though Melanie smiled, that low hum of danger continued to strum through her.

  “What’s going on?” Bastien continued, his warm voice full of concern.

  How could the others not see the good in him?

  “Nothing. Everything is quiet here. I just feel . . . anxious . . . like something is going to happen. Are you sure there aren’t any soldiers there? Could they be hiding again?”

  “No soldiers. We’ve been teleporting from campus to campus, checking them out with the thermal vision scopes Chris gave us. We’ve checked every roof, every alcove, every damn tree and shrubbery, and have only encountered civilians. We haven’t even come across any vampires. I don’t know if word got out about what happened at Duke and they’re lying low or what.”

  “Well . . . maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’m just tired.”

  “Trust your instincts. If—”

  A thunderous boom drowned out whatever Bastien said next. The room around Melanie shook so violently she dropped the phone and had to grab hold of her desk to keep from falling to the floor. Pieces of sheetrock dropped like stones from the ceiling as cracks formed in the walls.

  Heart racing, Melanie scrambled to pick up the phone. “Bastien?”

  “Melanie? What happened?”

  “Something’s wrong! I think—”

  Another boom. The room quaked, rocked her from side to side, and tossed her to the floor. She rolled over and got to her hands and knees.

  What the hell could rock a building that extended five stories underground?

  The room plunged into darkness. Dimmer reserve lighting flared to life. Alarms blared.

  “Code red! Code red!” Mr. Reordon shouted over the building’s intercom system.

  Oh crap. That was the call to evacuate via the underground tunnel. Were they under attack?

  Melanie saw the phone she’d dropped a few feet away and scrambled over to pick it up.

  Broken. Great.

  Thunder rumbled almost constantly above, created by explosions, not weather.

  Melanie clambered to her feet and staggered across the vibrating floor toward the door. A form appeared in front of her.

  Screaming, she rebounded off Bastien’s chest as he and Richart teleported into her office.

  Bastien caught her by the arms and steadied her. “It’s okay. It’s okay. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He and Richart looked toward the ceiling, then met each other’s gaze.

  “I’ll get Lisette.” Richart vanished.

  “What is it? What’s happening?” Melanie shouted over the noise.

  “The fucking mercenaries are attacking! They’re blowing the place to hell!”

  “What? How
did they—”

  “Stuart,” Bastien said, his expression darkening.

  Richart and Lisette appeared. Richart vanished again as Bastien ushered Melanie out into the hallway.

  Guards urged the other network employees toward the far end of the hallway. Already at the dead end, Todd fiddled with something in his hand, yelled, “Fire in the hole!” and detonated a charge, blowing a huge, jagged opening in the wall and revealing a cement escape tunnel.

  “Lanie!”

  Melanie turned and saw one of the guards steering Linda past.

  “I’m fine. Keep going!”

  She nodded, face pinched with fear, and was soon swallowed by the mass of men and women flowing toward Todd.

  Bastien curled an arm around Melanie’s shoulders and cut a path across the stream of moving bodies, leading Melanie to the door of Stuart’s apartment. “Open it,” he ordered grimly.

  Hands shaking, she fumbled for her security card. Déjà vu. Swiping the card, she entered the code as Lisette stepped up behind them.

  Bastien threw the heavy steel door open as though it were hollowed-out plywood.

  Stuart stood across the living room. Eyes wide, he backed away as Bastien and Lisette stalked toward him. “I didn’t do it! I swear! I didn’t lead them here!”

  “Then how the hell did they find us?” Bastien demanded.

  “I don’t know! I don’t know!”

  “Wait.” Lisette halted Bastien. “He’s telling the truth. He has no memory of interacting with the mercenaries.”

  “He wouldn’t if he let them drug him afterward.”

  Lisette’s eyes narrowed. Her eyes glowed brighter.

  Stuart winced and gripped his head. “Ahh! What are you doing?”

  “Your memories are still there. The drug has merely hidden them from you. I intend to find them.”

  Melanie bit her lip as Stuart tugged his hair, his face creased with pain.

  The building continued to shake with blasts. Pieces of the ceiling fell like snow.

  Was it true? Had Stuart betrayed them? Had he made a deal with the soldiers, then let them drug him?

  “How could he have told them where we are?” she asked. “He has no way of communicating with them. No phone. No walkie-talkie.”

  “I don’t know,” Bastien said. Face set in stone, he watched the vamp writhe as Lisette riffled through his thoughts. “But he found a way.”