He’d glanced over the first few pages then thrown them down in disgust. Now here he was, trying to maneuver his way around the over-inflated ego of a monster that looked like a Madonna. But one detail nagged him ever since he’d talked with Lydia; why didn’t she try to run away after she’d clobbered Rider? Any captive animal would have, given the chance. Instead she remained. That made no sense. She could have easily killed the guards and released her companion. Something kept her in check and made her stay. Maybe the key to gaining her cooperation was figuring out what. Was there some thorn he could remove to win her trust? A gesture, which might appease her? The notebook Lydia had ordered him to read lay on top of his bag. Maybe, just maybe…
Thinking he was crazy, he started to loosen the straps around the vampire’s arms. Probably be killed for his pains, he reflected. She looked up, not bothering to quash her surprise. “To test your reflexes,” he explained. Unfastening the heavy leather restraints from her legs, he held his breath, terrified one of the small, black-booted feet would crush his sternum. He tried not to tremble, sensing she’d pounce on his fear but she just stayed there watching him. Sizing him up perhaps? Evaluating him as an adversary…or a potential meal?
She didn’t bother to thank him when he finally freed her, accepting it perhaps as if it were her due. Rolling onto her side she pushed herself to her feet, languidly stretching her muscles like a sated leopard. He couldn’t help looking. Her small body was compact, but lushly curved, tits and ass filling out the black denim jeans and semi-sheer lacy top nicely. It telegraphed youth and fertility to his unwary libido.
She turned and caught his confounded stare. “Should I undress, Doctor?”
He steered his mind off the pictures her body prompted. “No. I’m only testing your reflexes.”
She looked pointedly at his crotch. “Yours seem to be in good working order.”
She stretched again then took a leisurely stroll around the perimeter of the cell, closing in a small circle as she moved toward him. Joe tensed for potential attack, calculating just how quickly he could go for the buzzer if she pounced. The odds didn’t look good.
A girlish giggle rippled from her. “Weird isn’t it? To know a woman could rip you to pieces? Don’t be frightened. I have better ways of vanquishing enemies.”
She shook out her thick hair as she moved toward him. Musky perfume grew strong in the air. His eyes strayed to her breasts again. He wanted to touch. Touch her? Shit, he wanted to fuck her. The thought horrified him but his body was in disagreement. Jean would laugh and say men would have sex with anything that moved.
But the way she moved…like something fluid, rippling around the small cell as if she had no bone or sinew, only one great long undulation of curve. It was inhuman. No human female no matter how graceful or seductive could move like this.
He had to look away or he was a dead man. Reaching down, he came up with the notebooks and held them out to her. Her kittenish attitude instantly evaporated. Now, she stood motionless, which was somehow much more inhuman and frightening than before. The texture of her skin was like smooth and lustrous stone, her eyes reflective brown-green gems. Only her hair retained its softness.
“How did you get these?”
“They were found in your knapsack.”
Pure malice twisted her features. “Surprised they didn’t check our mouths for gold.”
“Sorry?”
“Did you read them? Did you!”
“Only the first ten pages or so—obviously, these are private thoughts. It’s not right to read them without permission. Here, take them.”
Her face smoothed out again, like a shape-shifting alien in a sci-fi movie, suddenly not expressing any visible emotion. After a moment she reached out to take the notebooks. Turning her back on him, she crossed to the bed, tucking them under the pillow. As she turned to face him musky perfume hit him again.
Now he realized what it was. A pheromone, like an insect would use to lure prey. A usually unperceived olfactory cue some species attracted potential mates with, or as in this case, lunch. Every time she shook her hair back, the scent grew stronger, released there, maybe through a gland, maybe through the pores. Amazing…
His mind tangled for a moment in waves of chestnut brown. He shook himself out of it. She was controlling him with the scent. He’d read a story once as a kid, about Lamia, female demons with perfumed hair that seduced and drained the life force from their male victims. It couldn’t be true.
She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. “You’re the neurologist?”
“Neuroscientist,” he corrected.
“First they send a shrink, then you. Think I’m crazy?”
“You’re quite lucid,” he answered. “But Dr. Loy feels there may be a neurological basis for your…uh… violent tendencies.”
“Gotta bad temper when I’m lied to.”
“Then why didn’t you escape when you had the chance? You could have sprung your boyfriend and ran away.”
Surprising color rose in her face. “She promised us sanctuary.”
Sanctuary? A word someone hunted or persecuted might use. Which was she? He thought it wise to say nothing—best not to antagonize her further. At least now he had an inkling of what her dilemma could be.
Her face rapidly composed itself back into a cool white mask. “Listen, I appreciate you returning my notebooks, but you tell that bitch I’m not giving up a drop of blood until Kurt’s in my bed.” She wandered over to the far side of the cell, pressing her ear to the wall. “He’d better be okay.”
She feared they meant him harm. Joe jotted down this thought. “I’ll speak to Doctor Loy.”
“I don’t trust your Doctor Loy.”
Well, that was one point they agreed on. He smiled slightly, in spite of himself.
She quickly picked up on this. “You don’t either.”
“Never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Clairvoyant?”
“Doc, you’re a scientist. You don’t believe in that crap?”
“Neither do you, I take it.”
A smile spread slowly over her face as she recited, a child repeating a lesson, “There’s nothing that can’t be explained scientifically.”
“You obviously read visual and aural cues and perhaps changes in body chemistry by scent. Let’s see what else you can do.” He produced a small rubber ball from his pocket, throwing it high into the air. “Catch.”
She leapt straight up to the twelve-foot ceiling without effort, snatching the ball from the air and closing her fist about it. As she touched the ground noiselessly, she opened her palm beneath his nose. Grains of material that had once been the ball littered the ground in front of him. “I didn’t come here to do tricks.”
Joe straightened up in his chair, staring her down. “Then why are you here?”
She gave him a blank look again.
“Are you in danger?”
She laughed.
“You find that funny?”
“You’re a very entertaining doctor, in so many ways.”
Joe ventured a chance. “You must be in trouble somehow or you would have set him free and high-tailed it out of here.”
“Haven’t you ever seen the scary movies? We get this really bad sunburn and all the Coppertone in the world won’t help.”
“You had an opportunity long before the sun rose. You must need our help.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“You want to be cured.”
“Think this is some kind of disease?”
“I don’t really know how to characterize your condition.”
She tossed her hair back and laughed. “I’m fucking immortal. I get to keep this face and body forever. Can you say the same?”
“You kill to survive.”
She shrugged. “I do you a favor by cleaning up the vermin. I’m not one of those poor deluded assholes in an Anne Rice novel who mopes around feeling sorry for myself
. Listen my good doctor, I may not be old in terms of my own kind but I’ve lived a lot longer than you. Go ask some fellow mortals about this transient thing you call happiness—ask them about love too while you’re at it. Ask them if they’d rather be young, powerful and beautiful forever. Ask yourself.”
“You have a good reason to be here or you’d be long-gone.” He chanced another hypothesis. “Kurt’s in danger?”
She licked her bottom lip. “Take me to visit him and I’ll be real nice to you later.”
“I can’t do that and you know it.”
“Then you’re not the man I think you are.” She turned away, sauntering over to the bed to sit down, regarding him strangely. “You know Doc, you have a quality…”
This took him aback. She enjoyed catching him off guard with these personal observations. Not unlike other women with their constant, damned analysis of personality.
“A certain glitter. I could be mistaken, but it’s usually so clear…”
Trying to divert the conversation with some little mind-game? Annoying, but he wasn’t making the rules here. He was forced to play along. “What?”
She reclined on the bed, giggling. “You won’t like it. Mortals are like so many insects, constantly buzzing around, often annoying, sometimes loathsome but every once and a while this big, gorgeous butterfly floats into your view. A superior specimen… What I’m saying is—I see one of us inside of you.”
If she’d taking a flying leap and knocked him flat he wouldn’t have been surprised but this wasn’t something he’d ever expected to come out of her mouth. “You’re bullshitting me.”
“Told you, you wouldn’t like it—but I won’t tell—it’ll be our little secret. You’ve always believed yourself a cut above the rest. If anyone could challenge the inscrutable Dr. Loy, it would be you. But maybe I’m wrong and you’re just another grub crawling in the dirt.”
Clever. She was baiting him into aiding her. An odd choice of tactics but it was working. He couldn’t back down now. She clearly understood how much Lydia galled him. What else could she tell about him?
Joe stuck on a smile. “You had me going.” She smiled smugly. She’d won a round but he wasn’t backing down. He took up his smile again, one he knew women found irresistible. “I’ll do everything in my power to convince Lydia to allow you to be together.”
She approached him. Uncertain of her intention, he stood his ground but a telltale sweat broke out on his upper lip.
“I’m not going to hurt you Doc. Scout’s honor,” she whispered, reaching up to brush his face, her fingertip touching the drop of moisture forming against his will above his mouth. “Just trying to illustrate a point.”
Her surprising touch filled him with awe. He could barely verbalize his amazement, “You’re warm!”
Her hand didn’t leave his cheek. “I’m not dead, or undead as I believe the term is.” She carried his hand to her own face. “I’m as alive as you are but I’m fully realized, while you’re a mere embryo.” Her eyes widened, reflecting his image in the dark pupils.
He backed away from her. “No…”
“Convince me otherwise.” She laughed low in her throat. “I’ve embraced the inhumanity of man intimately—takes one to know one.”
“You can’t judge me by your standard.”
She shrugged and picked up the hand mirror on the table, admiring her reflection. “I’m paying you a high compliment. You have courage and superior ability.” She flipped her hair, setting the mirror down. “Get me what I want and I’ll cooperate with you.”
“You must understand the fear.”
“I understand Doctor Loy’s fear. Tell her I understand completely. But Kurt and I bunk together or there’s no project.” She crossed her arms, business-like. “I personally bear you no malice, Doctor. You’re merely the go-between. You don’t trust me and frankly I don’t trust you. You have no real desire to befriend me. You’re an opportunist but from one avowed taker to another, I respect that. I don’t want to hurt you or any of your little mortal friends but tell your boss that if anything happens to Kurt, I’ll dispatch her and every other soul in this facility to hell. Capiche?” She paced away from him. “I won’t put up with being manhandled by those baboons and I won’t be restrained. And for crissakes fix the air-conditioning, it drips constantly. Tell all that to your Doctor Loy.”
“Of course, I’ll make it very clear.”
“We need some things. As you know we brought very little with us.”
“Make a list. I’ll come by tomorrow to get it.”
As he turned to place his fingerprint in the reader, she touched his shoulder. He started, not hearing her creep up on him, heart pounding.
“You have a name? What should I call you?”
He turned to face her. “Joe, you can call me Joe.”
“Simple and to the point, I like that.”
“What should I call you?”
“Anything, but late for dinner. You can laugh.”
“I didn’t find it amusing.”
“Lighten up, it’s a fucking depressing world if you can’t laugh, take it from me. I’m Mia.” She smiled, for the first time revealing her incisors. “Don’t disappoint me, Joe.”
Bile splashed up into his esophagus. He backed to the exit reader, watching her for any sudden move, but she just stared back, shaking her head.
TWO
The elfin woman in the chair opposite Joe tried to remain cool, black eyes glaring over the tops of her glasses. Joe rather enjoyed it. “Who told you to remove the restraints?” Her black-bobbed head shook, making her appear a tiny petulant child behind the mound of expense reports and requisitions for equipment he had dumped on her desk. “She’s just looking for an opportunity to escape!”
“Escape implies they’re imprisoned. They volunteered.”
Lydia’s voice calmed, as her small, triangular face smoothed out. “She attacked one of my staff. We had no choice but to restrain her. You’ve read the notebooks?”
Joe couldn’t wait to drop this one on her. “I gave them back to her.”
“You gave back a critical tool to understanding them.”
“Shouldn’t it be her decision? It’s a personal journal.”
“Listen Joe, we don’t have much time.”
“Then give me carte blanche to do this my way.”
“I thought you resented this assignment?”
“I’ve made some progress with her. She’s willing to negotiate. I’ll see this through until you get someone to replace Rider. First, no more restraints—she doesn’t want to escape and you know it.”
“I don’t know that.”
“Bullshit Lydia. She’s scared of something.”
Lydia removed her glasses. “They claim they’re hunted by other vampires—what they’re doing is verboten.”
“Sanctuary…”
“I’m sorry?”
“She said you promised sanctuary. Now she’s worried you’re out to harm her boyfriend in some way.”
“That’s ridiculous. He’s invaluable to us. It’s incredibly fortunate to have a subject of each sex. Why would we want to hurt him? Assure her that the well being of both of them is the company’s utmost concern, but the well being of my staff is my utmost concern. It’s not a permanent situation. Once everyone is comfortable, we’ll relax things.”
“At least get a phone for them to talk.”
“I’ll bring it up with Lee Brooks. We’re already way over budget.”
“A couple of phones aren’t going to break the company. And by the way, she needs some things.”
Lydia shook her head. “According to their contract they must pay for their personal needs aside from…uh…nourishment.”
“Now we’re honoring contracts?”
“There’s nothing in the contract stipulating they be housed together—just that they’re comfortable and secure.”
“Trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, drugged and apart from your partner is hardly w
hat I would call comfortable and secure.”
“Be reasonable. Assure her it’s just a matter of time. And as long as she continues to behave reasonably, I’ll agree she’s only restrained for test purposes. But the guards must be present at all times.”
“She despises them.”
“Her personal feelings aren’t the issue. The baboons, as she refers to them, are necessary for everyone’s safety, including theirs. We must be very cautious. Dr. Rider believes they lack basic empathy. In any case, they’re highly dangerous and can’t be judged by any standard of human behavior.”
“She’s no sociopath. Call it crazy, but I suspect she has a higher purpose in being here. She wants to be here. As much as she hates the situation, it’s very important to her. Not just because she’s afraid of them. It runs deeper.”
Lydia’s eyes gave away less than Mia’s. “Promise her if she behaves I’ll relent. Get her everything else she wants or needs within reason, at the company’s expense, and for him too, for that matter. I’ll do whatever I can to help. You have carte blanche.”
Joe rose to leave. “Just until you get someone to replace Rider.”
“Of course, go see her again tonight. Stop in and see him too.”
Joe’s stomach sickened. “Him?”
Lydia handed him a slim file, which contained a medical work-up on the subject. “Kurt Eisen is his name. He’s been quite docile so far but he won’t talk to me, or anyone else for that matter. Maybe he’ll talk to you. You’ve done wonders with her.”
Joe shut the door, tension building in his head. Wonderful, now he had two charges and the thought of the male frightened him more. He flipped open the file to read it as he strode toward Mia’s cell.
He didn’t see Lydia break into a self-satisfied smile when he closed the door, tapping her pencil against the desk as she picked up the phone to tell Lee Brooks.
Still not awake, Joe observed when he reached Mia’s cell. He frowned and cleared his throat, barking, “Seven p.m. Wake up!”
Her voice was harsh and groggy, like someone who had had too much to drink the night before. “Can’t a girl get any sleep around this place? Can’t even be past sundown.”
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