by M. J. Scott
“You should answer that,” Dan said.
I shook my head. “They’ll call back. I’m surprised it even works down here.”
“It could be Bug.”
“She’ll be asleep.” The ringing cut off again and I relaxed. “See, nothing important.”
“Check the number.”
“Look, nothing is more important than Rhi right now. Your team would call you if something big had happened, right?”
His pager had already buzzed once. They were keeping him posted but so far the Taskforce agents had found no sign of the vampires who’d attacked us. Not that I’d expected there would be.
I went over to my purse and dug around for the phone. If I switched it off, then I wouldn’t have Dan nagging me to answer it.
Just as I picked it up, it shrilled to life again, making me jump half a foot. I flushed and answered the call. “Ashley Keenan.”
“Ms. Keenan. I hope you enjoyed our little message this afternoon.”
Smith. Fuck. “Not as much as I enjoyed killing one of your freaks.”
Dan’s head snapped around at the snarl in my voice.
“What do you want, Smith?” I figured I might as well let Dan know who was on the line.
“I called to see how the girl is doing.”
“She’s just fine,” I said.
“Really? Somehow I doubt that.”
“Listen to me, you sick bastard. Leave me alone, leave my family and friends alone or I swear you’re going to regret it.”
“Why are you so angry if your friend is fine? She’s not, is she? Let me think. I’d suspect that right now she’s feeling a little under the weather. Cold perhaps?”
I snarled again, this time a full growl, the sort of wolf sound you shouldn’t try in human form. It hurts your throat. Dan’s fingers blurred as he tapped out a text message on his phone and he made a ‘keep it going’ gesture at me.”
“Tut, tut, Ashley. That is not polite.”
“Fuck you.”
“Don’t speak to me that way. I told you to stop what you were doing. I told you there would be consequences.”
“And now I’m telling you to expect some consequences yourself. I’m going to nail your ass to the wall, Smith. I will hurt you. Tate got off easily. You’re going to pay.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I—” Rhianna suddenly let out a piercing scream, her body bowing up off the bed like all her muscles had suddenly cramped.
“Sounds to me like your friend is not feeling so well after all,” Smith said. “Perhaps I’ll leave you to it. Though I‘ll be interested to hear how things turn out. I’ve made some improvements to the formula since last we met.”
Rhianna screamed again, her back arching upward as her body spasmed. I hurled the phone across the room. It smashed against the door, raining splintered metal and plastic down on the floor.
“Help her,” I yelled at Marco.
“She can’t hear me right now,” he replied calmly. “We have to wait this part out.”
Rhi screamed again, an agonizing sound that went on and on until I felt like someone was carving the noise into my brain with a blunt blade. Then it cut off abruptly and Rhi collapsed back on the bed.
“Rhi! Shit.” I bolted to her side. I couldn’t see whether she was breathing. My fingers pressed into the uninjured side of her neck. There. A pulse. Weak and thready and way too slow, but a pulse. It stammered and jerked, like a car struggling to start on a cold morning. “Marco, now what?”
“Now the change really begins and we see if she will listen to me.”
“What do you want us to do?”
“Just stay where you are. You might need to hold her down if...”
“If you can’t establish whatever link it is you have with your lineage?”
He nodded. “Yes, if I have to give her my blood, she will most likely fight it.”
“What do we do then?”
“Contain her, make her drink. If we have to, we knock her out.”
“The doctor said drugs wouldn’t work on her.”
“There are other ways to knock someone out.”
I shivered at his matter of fact tone. “I don’t want to hurt her.”
“We may not have a choice. If we can’t control her, she may hurt herself worse than anything we can do to her.”
I looked at Dan. “What do you think?”
Dan had agent face again. “I think we have to listen to Marco. He’s the expert.”
“Don’t they teach you this stuff in the FBI?”
“Yes, but I’ve never witnessed it. And they never taught us about handling a vampire who’s infected with a mutated virus and whose sire is dead and not around to help.”
Uncharted territory. Even for Marco if I thought about it. “Okay.” I nodded at Marco. “Where do you want us?”
We positioned ourselves around the bed, Marco on her right, me on the other side, Dan beside me. Minutes ticked by while Rhianna’s breathing grew labored and her pulse shimmered and skipped.
I reached for Dan’s hand, squeezing hard and we watched as shudders wracked her body, each one punctuated with hoarse moans.
Marco watched her, his expression strangely distant, as if he was watching a half-forgotten memory. His eyes seemed very green, the green of forests, of life. A strange color in the face of the undead.
“Do you remember?” I asked him. “Do you remember what it felt like?”
“A little...” He made a gesture. “It is like an incubo. A nightmare long past.”
“Did it hurt? Do you remember pain?”
“No one remembers pain,” he said softly. “We remember it hurt, we do not remember the sensation itself.”
“But still a nightmare,” I said.
“What do you remember from your first change?” he asked. “The pain or the sensation afterward?”
“Both.”
He raised an eyebrow at me.
“But mostly the feeling afterward.”
“So it is for us.”
I wanted to believe him. But it was hard to believe that dying wouldn’t hurt.
The sounds of Rhianna’s breathing grew too loud in my ears, the pause between each breath a little too long.
I was about to ask Marco how much longer when Rhi started screaming again, writhing on the bed as if she was trying to turn herself inside out. The dressing on her neck turned suddenly red.
“Should she be bleeding?” I said, looking around for something to help. “Get the doctor.”
“Let me try to calm her again.” Marco put his hand on Rhi’s head but she twisted away from him with another shriek, as if his very touch had burned her.
I moved without thinking, shoving at him. “You’re hurting her.”
Marco fell back.
“Ash, he’s just trying to help,” Dan said.
I scrubbed a hand across my face, trying to hold back the
tears rising again. If Dan was defending Marco then there was definitely something wrong with the situation. “He’s hurting her.”
Rhi screamed again, her voice scratched and ragged.
“She’s hurting regardless,” Dan said. “Let him do what you brought him here to do.”
I stepped back. Dan was right. I had to let Marco try. Marco leaned closer to Rhianna, put his hand on her arm. Her screams redoubled, so agonized I expected to see the skin on her arm blistering where his fingers lay.
But it remained pale. Unmarked.
Unlike the bandage, which was almost soaked through, adding the sharp scent of blood to the other smells flooding the room. Though her blood didn’t smell entirely normal to me. There was an edge to it...not the soured acid of vamp blood, not quite, but no longer purely human. It was another reminder that what was happening was inescapable.
I glanced at the clock. Sunrise was still an hour away. I didn’t think I could take another hour of Rhianna screaming.
“Is it going to be like this until....” I didn’t want to
finish the sentence.
Another infuriating shrug from Marco. “It is not an exact science. Some succumb a while before and rise again with the sun. Some have less of a delay.” He looked down at Rhi gravely and I realized he was listening to her heart, the same as me. “I do not think Rhianna will be much longer.”
“Until she succumbs?” I said bitterly. Such a pretty word for dying.
“Let us hope. It will be easier for her.”
“None of this passes any definition of easy.”
“I know,” he said. “I am sorry for this, Ashley.”
A sizzling tide of blame rose in me but I choked it back. Me screaming at Marco wasn’t going to change anything. And I needed him for Rhianna.
She screamed again, though this time it was shorter, softer. She gasped at the end then went quiet.
I focused on her, straining to hear the next breath. I heard her heart beat, once, twice, a struggling third, and then there was silence.
My knees buckled. Marco caught my arm and I yanked myself free of his grip, turning blindly toward the chair I could no longer see through the tears suddenly bathing my face.
“She’s dead,” I said.
“Only for a little while,” Marco offered.
“No.” I shook my head, as if I could shake myself free of the sudden all-consuming grief. “No. The Rhianna I knew is dead.” Sobs choked my throat and I hid my face against my knees, bent double with the weight of the sadness. How was I going to face her parents?
I felt arms go around me, lifting me. I didn’t resist, just turned myself into the warmth Dan offered and cried.
The tears felt endless, I tried to stop myself but every time I managed to struggle to some semblance of control, I’d take a breath and then start over again. Dan just murmured in my ear and stroked my hair. Thankfully his scent did a pretty good job of masking the fact that Rhianna’s human smell was fading.
Finally I heard footsteps approaching.
“Ashley, the time is nearing,” Marco said quietly. “I will need your help.”
I burrowed harder against Dan’s chest, not wanting to lift my head and see Rhianna lying on the bed. Or to see what happened next.
Dan’s arms loosened around me. “Ash.”
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Ash, Rhi needs you now.”
My eyes felt like I’d been crying acid and my throat wasn’t much better. “I can’t help her.”
“Yes, you can. You can help her with her life now. Help her through this change. She’ll need you.”
Yeah and if she had the same reaction I’d had initially to becoming a wolf then the kindest thing I could do for her would be to help her find a patch of sunshine to walk into. Not that Dan was going to allow me to do any such thing.
Still, if I could help Rhi then I had to. I owed her.
I peeled myself away from Dan, brushing my cheeks with my hands and blinking as the light hit my swollen eyes.
First order of the day was to splash something on my face. The cool water didn’t take away the taste of tears in my mouth or the sting of salt in my eyes but it did make me feel slightly more alive.
I came back to the bed, forcing myself to look at Rhi.
She was dead.
There was no two ways about it. She didn’t look like she was asleep; she looked dead. I’d seen enough bodies in my life to know the difference.
At least Rhi wasn’t broken or maimed, if you discounted the stained bandage still wrapped around her neck. Dr. Samuels came through the door, joining Marco by the bed, his expression grave.
“What now?” I said to Marco.
“We have a few more minutes,” he said. “She’ll wake with the sun.”
I’d never understood that. Vampires were creatures of the night, the sun was their enemy. It seemed ridiculous that their change was tied to the one thing guaranteed to kill them.
But no one had ever said this had to make sense. The viruses weren’t simple diseases. No other disease did what these did. Changed you completely. There was something more at work than the physical, something deeper. I’d never been comfortable with the word magic but it was beyond natural. How else was it that the light of the full moon called me to be a wolf and the rising sun would seal the change in Rhianna that would doom her to darkness?
“Do not look so sad, cara,” Marco said. “She will adjust.”
“Her family has suffered enough. She’s suffered enough.”
“Some would say her suffering is about to end forever.”
“I think we’ll just have to agree to differ.” I smoothed Rhianna’s hair into place. The ticking of the clock seemed to fill the room.
I met Marco’s gaze. “Once she wakes, you’ll try and make the link with her?”
Marco nodded, beckoning Dan to stand on the opposite side of the bed to me. “Be ready, she may resist.” He took up position again near Rhi’s head, standing close to Dan. “Doctor, it would be safest if you left now.”
Samuels nodded and left us alone after reminding Marco that there was blood in the small bar fridge in the corner of the room.
The clock ticked on and we waited. My stomach rolled and twisted with each breath. Only willpower kept me standing—kept me in the room. Every part of me wanted to flee.
Then, as the waiting seemed to fill the room like a weight, pressing down on us all, Rhi’s eyes snapped open.
I flinched backward, unnerved despite myself. Then leaned forward. “Rhi?”
Blue eyes stared up at me with a blank expression. Then slowly they filled with rage.
“Rhi?”
With a snarl, she sprang, hands groping for my throat. Dan managed to grab her as I stumbled backward. I crashed into the wall behind me, unable to stop the momentum of the instinctive leap I’d taken to avoid the attack. The impact knocked the wind from me. I slid to the floor trying to suck in air with lungs that wouldn’t obey.
“Do your thing, Marco.” Dan snarled. “Fast.” His arms tightened around the furiously struggling Rhianna.
“Turn her to me,” Marco said. Dan twisted and Rhianna made a hissing sound of fury as Marco came into her view.
“Blood of my line, heed me.”
Marco’s voice was low and intense as I hauled myself to my feet, still wincing as I tried to breathe deep.
Rhianna hissed again and Marco spoke. “Heed me.”
His only answer was a shriek of fury. Rhianna lashed out with one hand, her nails scoring down his face.
“I take it that means she’s not of your lineage?” I said, leaning on the bed as Marco retreated a few steps.
“Si,” he snapped, eyes still on Rhianna. “Hold her still, Agent Gibson.”
“Easier said than done.” Dan said through gritted teeth. He shifted his grip, trying to pin Rhianna’s hands to her body. She snapped her head back and only his lightning reflexes saved her from connecting with his nose. He winced as he tightened his grip and changed position.
I felt a rumble in the back of my throat as I reacted to the threat to Dan. “Perhaps it would be easier if we got her back on the bed,” I said. “You and I can hold her, Dan. Then Marco can try whatever it is he needs to try next.”
“Actually, it will be easier this way,” Marco said. He had removed his jacket and was calmly rolling back the cuff of his right sleeve. There was blood on his face and drops splattered onto the snowy expanse of cotton of his shirt like shredded rose petals. His eyes stayed on Rhianna, assessing.
I moved nearer, eliciting another shriek as Rhianna tried to twist toward me. The rage boiling from her eyes was shocking.
This wasn’t Rhianna. There was nothing of the girl I’d known behind the snarl of hate. It was all animal, intent on inflicting harm. She hissed, a wordless sound of enmity that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Not least because for the first time, I could see the fangs that hadn’t been there when she’d taken her last breath.
“Come around behind me, Ashley,” Marco
said softly.
“What are you going to do?”
“Provoke her.”
That didn’t sound like such a good plan to me, but he was the expert.
I did as he asked, moving warily, ready to help Dan if he needed it. Sweat beaded Dan’s forehead—holding a newly risen vampire down by sheer force couldn’t be easy.
Marco muttered something in Italian, something curt and brutal sounding. Then he stepped close, holding out his wrist. “You want to hurt something?” he said to Rhianna. “Hurt me.”
Another hissing, snarling wordless protest rose from Rhianna, but then she struck, lightning fast, burying those newly minted fangs deep into the flesh of Marco’s wrist. So deep, pain twisted his face.
Rhi’s throat worked as she swallowed greedily, sucking down Marco’s blood like she was starving for it. Drops splashed down her chin, the deep red looking unreal in the fluorescent lights. As she drank, color started to fill her cheeks but the ferocious look in her eyes didn’t change.
She still looked wild. Feral.
Predatory.
After a minute or so Marco said, “Enough.”
Rhianna took another defiant swallow. This time it was Marco who hissed in pain. Then he wrenched his wrist free with a wet tearing sound that made me want to throw up.
“Now what?” I asked as he clutched his wrist to his chest, blood spilling down his shirt.
“Now we see whose blood is stronger.”
I looked at his arm in concern. “Do you need something for that?”
He shook his head. “No, it will heal soon enough.” His gaze was fastened on Rhianna’s face. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for but after a few moments he smiled. “Now we shall try this again.”
He stepped closer to her, dropping his arm so I got a fleeting glimpse of his wrist and saw the wound had already scabbed over like it had been there for days.
Wolves heal fast too but not that fast. We have to change forms. More than once for most things.
“Blood of my blood,” Marco said softly. “Look at me.”
The snarl on Rhianna’s face disappeared and her blue eyes locked with his.
“Si.” His voice was a soft croon. “Si, look at me. Let me in.”
Let me in? I flinched. What exactly was he trying to do? I looked at Dan and saw the same wariness in his eyes as he turned his head away from Marco, not wanting to get caught in whatever the hell it was that Marco was weaving.