On the Edge of Infinity (A Vampire SEAL Novel Book 5)

by S. B. Alexander

  “I’m on it.” He hung up.

  The radio crackled, then Kraft’s voice blared through. “I got him.”

  I almost collapsed against Sawyer’s desk. Instead, I pushed the button on the radio. “Bring him into the interrogation room.”

  Tripp stalked in with blood above his left eye. “Nicki is out of control.”

  I wasn’t surprised. “Did you get anything out of her?”

  He wiped the blood that was about to drip into his eye. “Not a damn thing.”

  Nicki would talk even if I had to torture the woman.

  Kraft pushed Case through the door. Case stumbled down the stairs of the landing. Fear jumped off the man in waves.

  Tripp reared back, pursing his lips with a what-the-fuck expression.

  I stalked over to the human. “Apparently, Dr. Case wants to die today.” I grabbed his arm and hauled him into the interrogation room behind Sawyer’s desk. Once inside, I shoved him hard. He flew over the table before falling to the floor.

  Then I stomped out, locking the door behind me.

  “Aren’t you going to talk to him?” Kraft asked.

  Tripp, Sawyer, Kraft, and the others sitting at their desks stared at me. Most had no expressions on their faces. Two female vampires, however, resonated with fear. They were lucky Commander Mason wasn’t there. Steven would have no doubt broken everything in sight, and not from throwing things or punching walls like I wanted to do. All he had to do was get so angry that his telekinesis alone would be destructive.

  “I’m going to let him stew for a minute.” I had to take a breath before I questioned Case. “Sawyer, let the front gate know we got Case. Kraft, you and Kodiak get over to Case’s quarters and help Olivia search his place. Tripp, I want you with me. Oh, and Sawyer, see where Hollings is on getting the commander back here.” I stalked up to the landing that overlooked the entire control room. “I want everyone’s attention.”

  The sounds of pounding keys stopped. Whispers died, and all eyes were on me. I pinned a look on each man and woman. “There’s a war brewing, one that threatens our existence.”

  Pinched eyebrows, open mouths, and straight postures came from every vampire in the room.

  “So to prepare for battle, each of you will be subjected to having your mind read to confirm your commitment to this team. If you have a problem with that, then you’re free to leave now.” My tone was deep and commanding. “Keep in mind that anyone who does leave cannot return. You’ll be discharged immediately.” And under surveillance.

  A hum of protests zipped around the room.

  I lifted my hands. “Quiet. There’s no room here to complain. I’m giving you the option to walk out of here right now.”

  One of the two females who had fear written all over her face stood up. Her voice shook as she spoke. “With all due respect, Lieutenant, it’s an invasion of privacy.”

  I stifled a growl as I read her name tag. I knew most of the vampires in the control room by name, but the newer ones like Petty Officer Slay I hadn’t committed to memory. “Do you have something to hide, Petty Officer Slay?”

  She lowered her gaze as she stood at attention. “No, sir. But my personal life is my own.”

  Sawyer rose. “Donna, you heard the lieutenant. We’re at war. We have to put our personal lives aside. I’m not happy about someone reading my every thought, but if it means saving lives, then so be it. And let’s not forget we’ve lost quite a few of our comrades lately.”

  Following on Sawyer’s heels, vampires rose to declare their agreement with Sawyer.

  Petty Officer Slay slumped her shoulders.

  I made my way over to her. “Slay, Jo won’t be in your head long enough to see all your memories. And rest assured, what she sees will not be disclosed, even to me or the commander.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she rolled her chair over to her computer.

  The sounds of voices, beeps, and the tapping of keys resumed as I met Tripp at the door to the interrogation room.

  “Nice speech,” he said. “And nice plan.”

  I nodded then called to Sawyer. “Thank you.”

  “I believe in everyone in here,” Sawyer said.

  I wished I could, and part of me did, but I had to be certain.

  “Let me check on Jo, then we’ll talk with Case,” I said to Tripp.

  He gripped my shoulder. “Webb, go and be with Jo. I can handle Case.”

  I knew he could, but I wanted a piece of the fucker. I also couldn’t sit in Jo’s room and wait. It was too painful. I did want to be there the minute she woke, if she did. She will, a voice in my head said. I prayed that my subconscious was right, because if Jo didn’t make it, then my life was over, as was Nicki’s and Case’s.

  8

  Webb

  I called up to the infirmary and found that Jo’s status hadn’t changed. So before I ripped out Case’s heart, I went into the kitchen on other side of the control room and plucked two bottles of blood out of the fridge. I decided to fuel up. Otherwise, I wouldn’t just rip out his human heart. I would drain Case of all his blood, and I couldn’t do that until I got answers.

  Tripp came in, rubbing a finger over one of his fangs. “Not a bad idea.”

  I grinned. “Good to know we’re both thinking alike. Anything wrong with your fangs?”

  He stuck his head into the fridge. “Nicki tried to yank them out of me.”

  I almost spit out the blood. “What the fuck?”

  He twisted off the bottle cap. “I shit you not. You better be ready to tango with that feisty bitch. How did you even date her?”

  I rested against the counter. “Dude, it was only once, and I knew then that she was trouble. But I swear if Jo doesn’t make it, I’m going on a killing spree. First, Case. Then Nicki.”

  He knocked back the blood as though he was downing one of the many glasses of whiskey he and I had drunk the other night. “I won’t stop you.”

  I chugged one bottle then the other, and within a second, my nerves settled somewhat. I tossed both bottles into the trash. “Let’s go have some fun.”

  I found my leather strap in my back pocket and tied my hair into a low ponytail. Tripp followed suit. We both took long strides around the perimeter of the room, passing cubicle after cubicle, until we arrived at the interrogation room. Before I could even think about my next move, I barreled in and hauled Case to his feet.

  Tripp ran in and pulled me off him. “I’m all for you killing him, but let’s get answers first.”

  I shrugged out of Tripp’s hold and created distance between Case and me. The small windowless room was more than suffocating, especially with a human who could be responsible for Jo dying.

  Dr. Case puffed out his cheeks as he backed himself into a corner. Tripp folded his arms and settled against the wall adjacent to the door.

  I scrutinized the human doctor, itching to tear each strand of his brown hair out of his head, one by one. As if he knew what I was thinking, he gasped.

  I paced near the door. “You’re lucky Tripp is in the room with me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. Case said.

  I growled, showing my fangs. No apology would help the human. He needed to know that in this room devoid of furniture, vampires were on top of the food chain, and the fear on his face confirmed as much.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” I said. “How long have you been sharing information with Edmund?”

  His eyebrows went up into his hairline. “Who says I was doing that?”

  Tripp snarled, the sound deadly.

  “So you weren’t?” I asked.

  Dr. Case’s brown eyes shifted back and forth. “You gave me no choice.”

  I launched myself at him. He squealed as my hands went around his neck. “If you don’t start talking, then I will tear out your carotid artery.” I pressed my fingers to his neck, my nails ready to slice his skin.

  “Tripp,” Dr. Case pleaded.

  “Doc, answer the lieutenant,” Tripp
said from behind us.

  I let go of the human and removed my dagger from the side pocket of my cargo pants.

  “Okay,” Dr. Case said, sighing. “Put the dagger away.”

  “Absolutely not. One wrong answer, and this blade is going into your chest. Now talk.”

  He slid down the wall then raised his knees to his chest. “Not long after you made me a deal to go through that thumb drive in exchange for who killed Ella, Edmund made me a deal as well. If I fed him information that I learned while working in the lab, he would make me a vampire.”

  I let out a roar of laughter. He’d expressed another reason humans couldn’t find out about vampires. Some humans would want to become immortal.

  “Laugh all you want,” Case said. “You vampires got it made. You don’t get sick. You can barely die. You live the way you want. You kill when you want. You heal quickly. Seriously, put yourself in my shoes.” He hung his arms over his knees.

  He had all good points. But living among humans for eternity wasn’t all sweet and rosy, although it would be if the love of my life didn’t die. At that thought, my pulse quickened. “So you want to be a vampire, and you think that Edmund can help you become one?”

  He picked at a nail. “No. I know Patrick Mason. He’s brilliant. And he will be the one to make it happen. He’s the one that’s driving this experiment. He’s the one that approached Edmund when he got discharged from the military. Patrick is the mastermind. Edmund is just following his orders.”

  Tripp harrumphed. “Whether Patrick is the leader or not, it still doesn’t excuse you from what you’ve done.”

  “So I stole blood from Dr. Vieira’s fridge,” Dr. Case said. “So I gave Edmund some information. So I kept notes of conversations that I overhead. They were light years ahead of me, even with the little tidbits I gave them.”

  I walked away before I killed him. “You’re a fucking moron.” I was just as much of a moron for believing that Case would do his job and not make the same mistake twice—pissing me off and trying to kill Jo a second time. “Edmund didn’t have Jo’s blood or DNA before you gave it to him.”

  He shrugged. “But he had Sam’s. And their DNA is the same. I know. I saw the results.”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “Wait. Are you telling me you were the one that alerted Edmund when Sam and Jo’s physical data and blood samples were sent to the lab in Boston?”

  Bruno Almeida had confessed that he had stolen their data from that lab. But we’d suspected someone within our organization had alerted Edmund. It hadn’t been a coincidence that the Boston lab was raided the same day I left on our mission to Alaska and the same day Jo was on trial for killing Blake Turner.

  “I told Patrick,” Dr. Case stated. “Are you forgetting that he and I are friends?”

  Tripp rubbed his jaw, his blond eyebrows lifting a fraction. “And are you forgetting that we were the ones who saved your fucking life from your friend, Patrick?”

  “Or are you forgetting that you’re dying to know who killed Ella?” I locked my jaw so fucking tight that I would have sworn it cracked in several places.

  “I know who killed Ella,” Dr. Case said with conviction.

  “Is that so?” Tripp asked. “Then please share.” Tripp’s fangs were front and center, and he had the feral look in his eyes that said he was about to become a lethal predator.

  Case sat on the dusty tile floor with not an ounce of fear on his face anymore. It was as though the information he had shared was cleansing his soul. Little did he know his soul was about to get staked.

  I ran the blade of the dagger along my fingers, waiting for Case to answer Tripp.

  Case eyed me. “It was you.”

  A rumble of laughter escaped me.

  “You’re so wrong,” Tripp spoke up. “Do you want to know, blow by blow, how your sister really died?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Case said. “I won’t believe you. That’s why Webb wouldn’t tell me when I asked him the other day. You didn’t have the balls to even tell me that you were the murderer.”

  I swallowed hard, breathing heavy, fiddling with the dagger I so desperately wanted to use. Instead, I opened the door. The cool air of the control room washed over my heated face. “Sawyer, get me a laptop and bring up the footage from our last mission in Afghanistan.” I turned back to Case. “I’ll let you decide who killed Ella.”

  Within a minute, Sawyer handed me the laptop. “It’s ready to go. Just hit enter.” Then he left.

  Dr. Case hopped to his feet. I held the computer, then hit enter. Case pinched his bottom lip in between two fingers, his gaze riveted to the screen.

  That day in Afghanistan was one fucked-up mess. The wind had been brutal, whipping up everything in sight. We’d been crossing a mountain range and had just reached our stopping point for the night when—boom.

  I flinched from the sound coming out of the speakers. It felt as though I was right back in the thick of things in the Afghan mountains.

  On screen, a human soldier’s body flew up in the air before a barrage of bullets hit us. Ella dodged the firefight to help the human, and when she did, she stepped into Edmund’s line of sight. Steven, who’d been next to Edmund, tried to prevent a disaster, but it was too late. Edmund let loose, shooting Ella—once, twice, three times.

  Case pushed the laptop out of my hands. The computer crashed to the floor.

  Tripp dealt with the mess while I fixated on Case, who was wiping tears away with the back of his hand.

  “You realize what happened in that video?” I asked.

  The video was rather grainy, but there was no mistaking Edmund’s red eyes as he held the gun. He was the only vampire we knew whose eyes changed from their normal color to red. Steven’s eyes changed from green to silver when he morphed into vampire mode, and Jo’s turned from silver to violet, which indicated that Jo and Steven had strong supernatural powers. We couldn’t quite figure out the reason Edmund had the unique eye color. Dr. Vieira suspected that DNA played a factor, and that was for certain, but we were all waiting to find out if his eye color meant more in terms of supernatural abilities.

  Case punched the back wall. “Yeah, you didn’t kill Ella.” He shoved his hands through his hair. “I’m such a fucking idiot.”

  Edmund had said he didn’t shoot Ella intentionally, but the video was clear. He hadn’t warned her or screamed at her to get down or out of the way. He’d just let loose with his gun. Shortly after that incident, Edmund had started to act out more and more, disobeying orders from Steven, yelling at people because they looked at him the wrong way, and even draining two human soldiers of their blood. It was as though something in his brain had snapped that night.

  Tripp stalked out with the remnants of the broken computer.

  My ire had waned a smidgeon. “What is Edmund expecting from you next?”

  Case banged the back of his head on the wall. “Edmund is the least of your worries. Agent Thomas with the CIA is who you should be worrying about.”

  At that moment, Tripp came back in. “Webb, Dr. Vieira wants you upstairs.”

  My heart flipped out. “Is Jo awake?”

  “He didn’t say,” Tripp said.

  I wanted to rush out, but I had to hear what Dr. Case meant by his last statement. “Explain Agent Thomas, and make it fast.”

  “I was told by Patrick to give the blood I’d stolen to him,” Case said.

  Tripp and I snarled in unison.

  Tripp spoke in a low voice as he stepped closer to Case. “Are you telling us that the CIA—the humans—have our vampire blood?”

  The blood Dr. Case had stolen wasn’t just Jo’s or Steven’s or Sam’s. The blood reserves included all the SEALs, complete with our names, dates of birth, and special powers. All that paled in comparison to what the human government would do with our blood.

  I dove at him. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

  Tripp caught me just in time. “Go, Webb. Now. Jo needs you. I’ll handle the
rest of this interrogation.”

  At the mention of Jo’s name, I let out a heavy breath. Nevertheless, I punched Dr. Case right in the jaw. He landed on his ass.

  “Feel better?” Tripp asked.

  I marched out. “Not in the least.”

  Fuck. The humans had our blood. We were so screwed if the agent didn’t give that blood to Patrick. I wondered if Edmund knew what Patrick had done, although Case had just said Patrick was in charge. I found that hard to believe given Edmund’s staunch mission to lead an army.

  Steven was going to make the earth move, literally. With his elemental magic, he could move earth, air, wind, and fire. Heads would roll, not only at the hands of Steven, but me as well.

  As I rushed out, I sucked in lots of air, trying to keep my pulse from soaring off the charts. Focus on Jo. That was my problem. I was deathly afraid to walk into her room, afraid to hear Dr. Vieira say she didn’t make it. If she was doing fine, then he would’ve said so when he called down to the control room.

  I jogged through the deserted halls and into the lab until I was standing in the doorway to Jo’s room. Dr. Vieira was staring at the computer screen that sat on a cart with wheels in front of Jo’s bed. My vampire beauty was extremely pale.

  “Please tell me good news. Did the cut close?” I didn’t cross the threshold. My heart was beating so hard against my ribs, and my body was on the verge of collapsing.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t give you good news.” He didn’t take his eyes off the computer screen. “Sam’s blood did help a little, but the laceration is still leaking blood. But I do want you to see this.” He lifted his head as he pointed to the screen.

  I inched over to him like a snail, not sure what to expect.

  “I inserted a scope into her.” Excitement laced his tone.

  Beyond the screen, her white sheet had large spots of blood around her heart. I dragged my gaze to the screen, holding my breath. “What am I looking for?”

  He took out his penlight. Then he drew an imaginary circle close to the screen and around Jo’s heart. “As vampires, when we get staked with a cobalt dagger, the cobalt starts to burn the muscle, and eventually, the heart shrivels up and stops beating. There are no signs of the muscle being charred or burned, which tells me the blade didn’t pierce her heart. And if you look at this area here”—he pointed to a spot below the heart—“there’s a small lesion. The blade went through the sac.”