Once the door closes behind him, I sink to the cold floor of the dark clean room, my head spinning.
God, no wonder so many of the Draugur are infected and hardly any of the Baetal have been touched.
This sickness is fake. I should have known. Jesus, I should have figured it out the minute I looked into Niko's smug little face! Or at least when I started working in the damn lab!
I'm an idiot! No vampire in the history of vampirism has even been so fucking dumb.
Tears sting my eyes and I press the heels of my palms to my eyelids to try and stop them. I don't have time for this. Niko is planning my death, and the death of every single Draugur vampire, and anyone else unfortunate enough to get in his way. He would never have shared the cure with them or anyone else. At least not for free. And now I’m carrying something worse. A parasite ten times more powerful than the virus—at least according to Demetri, it’s maker. I'm so fucking stupid for thinking for half a minute that he has anyone's best interest in mind besides his own. This is so much fucking worse than Arsen’s betrayal at the Provokar. Because I know Niko is scum and I trusted him anyway, like a big, dumb, gullible, fucking asshole.
I force myself to take a deep breath. I can't keep beating myself up. There's too much to do. And then I need to get away from Niko before he can kill me and, by extension, everyone else I know. I grab my bag, hurriedly tossing in my notes and blood samples. I need to take everything I can with me because there’s no fucking way I’m coming back.
A sound cracks and I think I hear the door to the lab open again, but when I glance a peek, there’s no one around. Move it, Sasha.
I step out into the main part of the lab where Niko and Demetri had argued and grab the folders I had left on the counter. I grab my things only to feel a hard hit on the back of my head that drops me to my knees.
There is a brief shuffling of feet, then I feel the sting of what I recognize to be a needle in my neck. The cold of some sort of liquid enters my veins.
Then the lab fades into nothing but black.
Chapter 18
My eyelids flutter and light flashes in a nauseating pattern of bright and dark as if someone allowed an insane child, unfettered, access to a flashlight. My brain pounds a drum solo and my stomach dances a samba, and if I ate actual food instead of sucking blood into my gut, its contents would splash onto the floor.
A groan slides unbidden from my lips, and I clutch my head, willing the headache demons within to shut the fuck up, but the assholes ignore my pleas.
Screw me.
Someone has dumped me carelessly on a flat surface. Worn familiarity of the lumpy mattress and the sterile acrid scent of disinfectants clues me to my present location—I’m still in that bastard Niko’s lab.
The stab to my neck, my startled reaction, and my drug-slowed response coalesced into a cogent recollection. Shit. I didn’t even get out the fucking doorway before someone stuck a needle in me. I don’t have to ask who did this to me because there is only one person who has it out for me so bad that he’d pull this crazy stunt—Niko’s hired-gun scientist.
“What the hell, Demetri?” Niko sputters. “I should rip out your sorry throat where you stand.”
“She’s a liability, Niko,” the lying sack says. “She was about to disappear with every piece of this lab in her bag. And there’s only one reason . . . because she knows everything.”
The thud of a body hitting the wall and Demetri’s hollow grunt whooshes through the lab.
“You should have had the antidote in the first place,” growls Niko. Poisonous menace laces his voice, signaling Demetri’s undead life is in serious danger.
“I told you. The parasite was needed. She has to be controlled. The virus couldn’t take her, and you needed something that could.”
I really, really wish I could cut out his deceitful, piece-of-shit tongue.
“I don’t need advice from some lowly underling,” snarls Niko. “And the longer I wait for this cure, the less advantage I see in keeping you alive.”
“Kill me,” Demetri says, with anger-laced fear tremblinghis voice. “Your people will die without me.” His body betrays his terror by releasing the acrid scent of fear, eroding the situation precipitously for Demetri. “I made this virus and her parasite. They can only be defeated with me,” he says.
“Clock’s ticking on you, and if you fail to produce, I’ll have your head on my mantel like a prized fucking deer? Get that?”growls Niko.
I can imagine Niko leering at him with his animalistic bloodlust shadowing his silver-blue eyes. They shine with a terrifying chatoyant luminescence that marks him as the ultimate dealer in death.
Demetri’s fear spikes higher and hits me like an eight-foot Maui wave, making me squirm in my prone position. But I bite my lip because I don’t want them to discover I’m awake. With Dr. Creep-A-Lot getting all stabby with needles, I’m catching the 411 that hanging out in Niko’s compound will not promote my future health and welfare.
I need out. As fast as possible. As in now.
“Go ahead,” Demetri pushes back as if he has a set of balls. “You want a little fledging, barely a month old, holding the key to life and death for your people? That will work out well—if she figures out how to stop what’s killing her in time.”
He laughs and I’m starting to wonder if he’s infected because his behavior is beyond cray.
“Sasha hates you and your kind, and she has not come to grips with the fact that she’s just like you. The little bitch still thinks she’s human, and that’s the team she’ll play for. You see how she keeps company with that vampire hunter. Why do you think she does that? Because she’s all sentimental about her human friend? Then you are a fool. She hates you for what you made her into, and she’ll keep hating you past the time you molder in your grave.”
Niko hisses like a snarling cat and a dull thump hits the wall.
“You shut your pathetic hole about her.”
The scent of blood releases, and Demetri moans in pain. I can only gather that Niko’s cracked open his skull, which couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Menace hovers in the charged atmosphere, and my super-sensitive ears pick up Demetri’s fingers clutching a stainless-steel table.
“You think beating me up is going to save anyone?” asks Demetri.
“No,” says Niko. “It just provides a certain measure of satisfaction. Consider this your official performance review. You are on notice to produce the cure, and if it takes Sasha to do it, you will. With her, without her, I don’t care but if you harm one hair on the head of what’s mine, I will end your life.”
Demitri mutters, “You’re obsessed with her and in the end, it will destroy you. She will destroy you.”
“That’s right, doctor,” says Niko. “We’re laser-focused on what we possess. Right now, I hold the contract on your services, which gives you a certain amount of value to me. My fledglings are mine to own and command because I made them. Just as Claudette made you.”
That fucking cunt. I knew she was a part of this.
Niko continues. “I have my blood within me which is why I own them. They are dearer than human children, and more valuable, because each one I make extends my influence. I cannot wait until all the others fall at me feet.”
Dear Lord, what a megalomaniac. Niko and Claudette, two birds of a fucking feather.
Demetri is correct about one thing. I will destroy Niko at the first opportunity.
I think about how many times I’ve fed from Arsen, and I wonder if I’m driven to drink from him to crowd out Niko’s influence on me. Is Arsen’s blood lending me resilience to my maker’s domination? Is that why I’m so willing to spit in Niko’s face?
The thought of Arsen helping me resist Niko’s dubious charms comforts me as I lay on this ridiculous cot whose wire frame cuts through the thin mattress, while I try to plot an impossible escape.
Niko paces like a caged animal around Demetri, his feet scuffing the linoleum floor. Why have I not notice
d his irregular steps before this? His uncoordinated shuffle causes his soles to squeak on the floor. As much as Niko likes to project an image of perfection, he is not.
The vampire snarls at Demetri, and a small whimper escapes from the man’s throat. Demetri finally realizes Niko will take his life whether he comes through or not. He will not get whatever money Niko promised him, and he will die a bloody, painful death because his greed drove him to deal with the worst kind of monsters.
Driving this home to Demetri is poor strategy on Niko’s part and I wonder if he realizes the price he will pay for terrorizing the scientist. If Demetri has proven to be anything, it’s opportunistic. And I hate that this shitty resemblance of man is right. I do still think of myself as human. A poor, sick little human that with a few biology tricks can fix what’s wrong. The depth of my self-deception staggers me.
Demitri, despite his moral reprehensibility, is an intelligent, even crafty SOB. How long did it take me to realize that Demitri was deliberately screwing with me to slow down the work? Too long and I feel like an absolute idiot for it. Okay, yes, I was dealing with the distracting changes my vampirism made on my body and Jackson and my schoolwork and the research Niko demanded from me. But still, I’m at the top of my class, a force to be reckoned with, and I let the buffoon deceive me.
Now, Demetri tries to leverage what little influence he has with Niko.
“I’m close,” he says. “I promise you. I’ll create the cure that makes you the hero. The master of all.”
“Your assurances are worthless. I want results.” Niko’s tone expresses his utter lack of patience
“I’ll get back to work, but first I’ll check on Sasha.”
“No need. She’s awake and listening to us, aren’t you, dear?”
I growl.
He says dear in the most ironic way possible. “Stand up, and let me see you.”
I shoot my hand up, sporting the universal symbol of what he could do with that suggestion.
“Should I?” he says. “Take your suggestion and fuck you?”
With a groan I stand. “I don’t feel well. Your hired gun shot me with nasty stuff. I don’t even know what was in it.”
“I believe it was enough horse tranquilizer to kill one,” says Niko.
“You believe?”
“I gave it to him in case you got out of hand. Apparently, he took liberties with that advice.”
He steps toward me with a leer on his face. On a vampire it’s even more disgusting than on a human because to create it, he has to unnaturally twist his lips. In the all-too-bright light of the lab, it’s easy to see where most of the muscles in his face don’t work anymore. He could be a model in a photo shoot, everything frozen in unnatural beauty—permanently botoxed for the rest of his immortal life. I can’t believe I ever, ever, felt anything other than hatred and disgust for him. Even momentarily.
His hand grabs my jaw and lifts my eyes to his. Mine narrow, a human habit.
“You’re frightened,” he says. “Why are you frightened?”
“You may not have noticed, but overbearing domination does not go over well with the ladies.”
He laughs. “How I love your fiery nature,” Niko mocks coldly. Then he pushes me away and sends me flying onto the cot.
“But you should not have it at all. Arsen has influenced you too much. It’s time you learned submission to your master. I’m done playing games.”
He turns his back on me which should have been a dangerous thing. But it isn’t because he shocks me with his rough move, and my head still pounds with the force of a rock solo. I just want to crawl onto my cot and sleep this nightmare away.
“Sasha,” Niko says with the force of command. “Get to work.”
Niko walks back to Demetri who I see now has blood streaming from his forehead and a sharp metal object is sticking through his right shoulder. His eyes are dazed over slightly.
He’ll live. Unfortunately. “Looks like he needs to be cleaned up before he can do anything,” I say.
Niko shrugs, but nods toward the door. “The bathroom across the hall will have what you need.”
“Me? You expect me to help him?”
“You’re the one bothered by it.”
I hold up my hand. “No thanks. There are just some flavors of jerk I don’t appreciate and he’s got a fucking pole through his shoulder.”
“And?” says Niko without concern.
“I’m not pulling that thing out. He’s right-handed.” I point at his arm. “He’s gonna need that side to do anything worthwhile.”
“It needs to be taken out for it to heal.”
He stretches his arm out for me to do the honors.
“No fucking way. I’m a mess and I don’t have the strength for it, in my body or my stomach.”
Niko sighs and I step into the hallway. “Stay there.” He orders and adjusts his hands around the object stuck in Demetri.
I lean against the wall and catch my strength. The damned parasite is sapping all I have and between them and Dr. Dickhead’s attempt at veterinary medicine, I can barely navigate the door. But I toss a glance over my shoulder and I see Niko taking sport in tormenting Demetri as he “helps” him and I find my chance.
He’s distracted and I’m out the door, and it will take him a few minutes to realize that I’m not coming back. He’s just arrogant enough to believe that his threats and actions would force me into obedience. Not likely, asshole. And his arrogance is his downfall because it causes him to make mistakes. Mistakes like trusting his little vampire child to obey his word through fear. I am afraid, but it’s not of Niko.
My steps stumble under my feet as I walk the hallway, and my chest heaves with irritation. But I have no time for self-comfort. Niko won’t be distracted for long.
I say nothing as I walk to the door, but I see a familiar key fob hanging with the others by the door. The Audi. Niko retrieved it after all. Good. I’ll claim it as my prize for Niko’s kidnapping.
I don’t even mind that I smash the shiny grill and front end when I run through the iron gates of Niko’s compound.
Chapter 19
It’s night and the stars shine as fiery wheels in the sky just as Vincent Van Gogh saw them over a century ago.
Maybe it’s my vampire eyes that catch more intensity and movement. I don’t know. But it makes me think of that poor man battling the demons in his head as he created magnificent paintings filled with color and light, as the wheels of the high-powered car turn under me, tearing up the road.
I have my own creatures of the night to fight.
Oh, Niko will be livid, but I take delight in that. What he’s done is unforgivable and he’s wrong, oh so wrong, to give any measure of trust to Demetri. It will be the death of the Baetal and most possibly the Draugur if he does.
You see, I made a mistake. And I can rationalize it for the need for stealth in escaping Niko’s compound alive or Demetri’s drug, or the fact that I feel like crap from the parasite, but I forgot my bag and my bag had my notes. Or at least it did before Demetri KO’d me.
First priority, I have to save myself. I know that sounds shitty and totally self-serving, but logically it’s the only thing that makes any sense. I’m the only hope left right now. Demetri and Niko have other nefarious plans. Plans I have to stop.
Worse yet, I realize my hold on rational thought is slipping because I can’t put together the genetic chains that identified the possible culprit. And I have to figure it out because it’s the only way to develop a drug that could kill this thing without ending the life of the host at the same time. The host being me. Time is growing short. My rational faculties are slipping and if I don’t have this figured out before I have to get chained to a bed like Arsen’s sister, we’re all dead.
I have to go back, and I really don’t want to do it alone. There is only one place I can go for safety and get the help I need to retrieve my notebook. But it doesn’t stop my gut from clenching as I pull up to the gates of Arsen
’s estate. I only hope he can help me. Vampire politics are rife with difficult rules to obey.
Those same vampire politics occur as I get the usual grief at the door. It absolutely sucks that technically I’m in coven member limbo, which means twice as much nonsense, as they suss out whether I have the right to enter their space.
I sway as I wait for Arsen to come to one of his minion’s summons. Damn it, if I don’t get some rest, we can all forget about me finding a cure. There won’t be anything left of me to do the work. Stumbling, I lean against the wall, and put my head on cool stone, grateful for that small grace.
“Sasha?” a familiar honeyed-gravel voice rumbles with concern.
“Hi, Arsen,” I say lifting my head. “I found myself driving through the neighborhood and said, ‘Gee, what hunky vampire can I visit now?’ and thought of you.”
He puts a steadying arm around my waist and pulls my head into his chest. Arsen’s expensive cologne surrounds me and his strong arms hold me up.
“Are you okay?”
“I am now.”
“You seem weak. Are you hungry?”
I shrug. “If I am, it doesn’t do much good.”
Arsen searches my face and I know I have to tell him everything. His eyebrows draw together in consternation as he studies the changes in my complexion and the weariness in my posture. I’m aware of other vampires in the shadows, especially Claudette watching me. I want to scream “traitor whore,” but it won’t do any good right now. She sired Demetri, but is she a part of the bigger plan or only one small portion? I won’t condemn anyone else until I’m sure. Vampires don’t tend to stick to the whole “innocent until proven guilty” motto humans do. If they believe something with enough conviction, you’re as good as dead.
“Can we talk privately?”
“Of course.
He leads me by the hand to the stairs, and when I look down they sway.
Girl, Forsaken (Girl, Vampire Book 2) Page 14