Blood Trails

by Alianne Donnelly

  “Wake up, bro,” Pixie called. “Life’s moving on without you.”

  “Wake up, bro…”

  Jeremy groaned, recognizing when reality started fading into his dream. Or rather Pixie’s dream and his personal nightmare. He groaned, turning his face into the pillow. “Pixie,” he muttered. “Stay out of my head.”

  “Okay, but you gotta wake up.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Seven thirty. And is it absolutely necessary that you sleep naked? Ew.”

  “It wouldn’t bother you if you didn’t barge into my room so early in the morning,” he told her sweetly.

  “It bothers me that your clothes aren’t permanently sewn into your skin,” she replied just as sweetly. Funny, he harbored that same sentiment about her. His little sister was eighteen now. And way past the time when she was a cute little kid everyone gushed over. Now she turned heads for very adult reasons. It was a good thing they lived so far from town. Jeremy was afraid he’d kill the first guy who approached her.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” she said, reading him.

  And she didn’t seem interested in making things easy on him, walking around in shorts that barely covered her ass and shirts cut low at the top and short at the bottom.

  “Hey, those are perfectly respectable clothes, I’ll have you know!”

  “For who,” he shot back, sitting up and pulling the covers over his lap, “the town hooker guild?”

  Pixie smiled sweetly. “You would know, I’m sure.”

  Actually he wouldn’t. “Get out of here, will you?”

  “Fine, but hurry up. You have a visitor.” She wagged an eyebrow. “She’s gorgeous, by the way.”

  The pillow he threw at her thumped softly off the door she closed behind her.

  Irrepressible. Sometimes he thought he worried for nothing. That girl wouldn’t take shit from anyone, especially a man. But those times were few and far between. His sister was the only family he had left. Protecting her was his job.

  “Between you and Hunt, I’ll never get a life of my own,” she thought him with a dramatic sigh.

  He grinned. “Not until you’re too old to do anything about it.”

  A fast-paced song he’d never heard before was playing all through the house by the time he emerged from his room to meet the mystery woman visitor. Pixie shimmied past him on her way out, a backpack swinging from her grasp. “See you tonight,” she said.

  “What? Wait! Where are you going?”

  She danced back, wriggling her butt to the song. “The Hunts are putting on their first ball this weekend. Everyone’s invited. Dara needs my help to put it together.”

  Jeremy winced. Heavily pregnant with twins, Dara could barely walk, let alone decorate a giant, cavernous ballroom. “What about Tristan?”

  Pixie twirled. “He’s still busy with the bailey.”

  Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Fine. Call if it gets dark before you’re done.”

  His sister rolled her bright blue eyes. “I don’t know why you even bother. There is literally nothing between this house and the Hunts’ and even if there was, this is Torrey.”

  Old habits died hard. Even though they were worlds removed from the gutter that used to be their childhood home, Jeremy refused to let his guard down. He’d seen too much, lived through too much to risk it. So he was a little overprotective. Pixie would deal.

  Pixie made a face. “Dara said I could stay over,” she offered in grudging concession and danced out the door before he could say anything.

  He was still shaking his head on his way to the living room. In the doorway, he stopped in his tracks. “Dr. Chase,” he said, dumbfounded.

  His guest smiled, but it never reached her eyes. She looked like she’d aged ten years instead of the five that had passed since he’d last seen her. There were dark circles under her eyes as if she hasn’t slept in days, and she looked ready to pass out. “It’s been a while, Agent Calen.”

  “Sit, please. Is something wrong? You look…” He trailed off awkwardly.

  “Yes,” Dr. Chase said, “I know.”

  The music blared louder. “Music off,” he said to stop the noise. “Er, can I get you something to drink?”

  “Oh, your sister already provided refreshments,” she said with a genuine smile. “She’s grown. She’s beautiful.”

  He uneasily made his way to the couch opposite her. Of all the people from his past, she was the last one he’d ever expected to see again. He had a sick feeling in his stomach. This was clearly not a social visit. “What can I do for you, Dr. Chase?”

  “Please, call me Amelia,” she said. “And I’m sorry to barge in on you like this. I know you’re on leave but I just… I had nowhere else to turn.”

  What about Tristan, he was about to ask, but he already knew the answer. The less contact between them, the safer both of them were. Amelia wouldn’t risk exposing what she’d put so much effort into hiding. Besides, Tristan was not about to leave Dara’s side any time this century. Especially not now, in her condition. “What about the Special Unit?”

  Amelia shook her head, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “This is a delicate matter. I want to involve as few people as possible. I know you’re thinking I should have gone to Tristan, and I did consider it. But given the circumstances his involvement would make matters worse, I think.”

  Jeremy’s brows rose with interest. “What’s going on?”

  Amelia hesitated. The confident scientist he remembered from five years ago was gone. The woman who now sat before him was scared. If not broken, then fractured by something not easily borne. Amelia had met with some kind of tragedy. And whatever it was, it had left a deep mark on her. She pulled an electronic notepad from her bag, typed in her code—which he tuned out, out of courtesy—and handed it to him.

  “It concerns my sister,” she said.

  A whole lot of medical jargon filled the screen, notes, graphs, charts, and chemical formulas. “You may want to explain a little further, Doc. I can’t make sense of this.”

  “I made a mistake.” She scoffed softly, a self-loathing sound. “Another in a long line of them. But this one…” She closed her eyes as if she didn’t want to confront what she said next. “I should have destroyed all evidence of Tristan’s experiment. But I didn’t. What you’re looking at used to be my original notes and formulas for the serums administered to him, as well as subsequent treatments. Only they’re skewed now.

  “Somehow, my sister found my notes and … must have gotten it into her head that she could do better. We never talked about it, I never mentioned anything about the studies; it was all confidential.”

  Not the whole truth but understandable. Amelia didn’t want her professionalism questioned, but she must have mentioned something to her sister; there was no other way she could have found out. “Is your sister a scientist too?”

  “She’s always had the brains for it, used to steal my textbooks during med school for what she called some light reading. I tried to get her to attend at least one class but she refused. No, Hailey is—was—a tour guide on Miramar Colony. May I?”

  Jeremy handed the notepad back to her.

  “She was so very careful. About everything except her own well-being. She made sure no one was around when she did it and she turned off all security, recording devices, monitors—everything she could find. There were some she didn’t. She staked her life on the assumption that her calculations were right.”

  When she handed the notepad to him again the screen showed a scanner image of a body that, from all appearances, was dead. The skin layer was removed to show the internal structure. Dozens of red warnings littered the side of the screen pointing to this and that but it was plain to see the broken bones—was there even one that was whole?—and massive internal bleeding.

  “I am sorry,” Jeremy said heavily. In his mind he sought Pixie for reassurance that she was all right. Hunt had once asked him what he would do if his sister was ever hurt or in danger. Jeremy
had resented the obvious ploy to manipulate him into doing what Hunt wanted, but the truth was he’d resented the subliminal warning or, in Hunt’s case, threat. Jeremy didn’t know what he would do if anything ever happened to Pixie; his mind refused to even contemplate the possibility that something might. What he knew was that he had the knowledge, skills, and resources to take a very precise kind of revenge.

  But he only had to look at Hunt to see where that would eventually get him.

  Amelia blinked. “Oh, no. You misunderstand. My sister’s not dead.”

  “Idiot,” Pixie returned, sharing her exasperation. “Wait for her to finish before you start freaking out.”

  Jeremy frowned, ignoring that. “She’s not?”

  Amelia got that look on her face he knew from before. She was compiling tons of technical data and calculations in her mind, shaping and translating them into something a normal person would understand. “My sister, Hailey, altered my research. Tristan’s treatments took a year, given his chemistry, and the fact that we were forced to implement it by degrees. She made it take effect on hers immediately. With just a vial of Tristan’s blood she managed to break a year of research down into its components, alter the proportions to fit her physiology, and make them reactive in series so that they built on each other, with the change agents taking effect last.

  “It was a huge gamble. Especially since she changed the animal DNA she introduced into her body. The experiment would either flop, which it should have, or kill her.”

  “But it didn’t do either.”

  Amelia shook her head. “Hailey discovered the trigger I didn’t have back when Tristan first entered the trial. It was a chemical cocktail that acted as a catalyst for the change. But it wasn’t a natural byproduct of the body, and it reacted adversely with the rest of the serum she injected herself with.” Amelia reached over to tap the screen and what looked like a mathematical formula streamed over it. “It bonded with the regeneration agent and warped it.

  “You see, you only need the trigger once to spark the ability to change your shape. Once your body recognizes it, it becomes another mechanism that can be called on at any time, like movement, or temperature regulation. But the regenerative agent is essential to counteract the massive injuries which result from those changes. In Tristan, that also became a part of his system. In Hailey it didn’t. It’s disintegrating. Without it, the shape-shifting will eventually kill her.”

  “How long does she have?”

  Amelia sighed. “I don’t know. It depends on how often her body needs to regenerate. The more she changes, the more she’ll need it, and the faster it will deplete itself. Worst case scenario, another month. Maybe.”

  Jeremy blew out a breath. This was a whole lot of background information but nothing about what she wanted from him. He had his suspicion but lightly scanned the surface of her thoughts to make sure. “She’s missing,” he said, rather than asked.

  “Yes. She ran away the night it happened. I found evidence that she’d been to her apartment first but by the time I got there she was already gone.”

  “And you need me to find her.”

  Amelia nodded. “I believe I can fix the damage and stabilize her condition but I need her in my lab to do it.” She hesitated. “There’s … also something else.”

  He waved her on to continue.

  “It might be completely unrelated, but … I’ve been watching the news, looking for any hint of her presence. There have been reports of animal attacks. Several in the last few weeks. Mainly young people, teens and early twenties.”

  “And you worry that Hailey was responsible.”

  “If you saw her that night—”

  “May I?”

  She blinked at him. “You want to read my mind?”

  “Only with your permission. I would look at that one memory and nothing else.”

  “Yes, of course. Anything you think might help find her.”

  Jeremy leaned forward. “Just close your eyes and think of your sister. I’ll be able to pick up what you see.”

  Amelia nodded and closed her eyes.

  Jeremy took a second to center himself. He hadn’t been just wasting time here on Torrey. Any opportunity to hone his senses was indispensable and he just so happened to live a few miles away from one of the most frustratingly proficient mind readers in existence. Tristan Hunt wasn’t just a telepath. When he entered someone’s mind, he became that person, without betraying himself to his host. And he could manipulate thoughts in subtle ways, instill fears that didn’t exist before, lessen phobias, create dreams—or nightmares.

  Jeremy was nowhere near his level of finesse. But the one skill Hunt was teaching him was how to enter a mind without causing pain. He focused his thoughts now on Amelia, dispersing his consciousness into mist that gently fell over Amelia’s mind and became absorbed in it.

  All at once, he found himself in chaos. He stood in the middle of a series of scenes that went by much too quickly: memories of childhood, of two little girls playing, one blond, the other dark-haired. They’d done everything together. Laughed, played, studied, cried … Until Amelia went to med school and Hailey didn’t.

  He saw Hailey grow up, a bright, happy woman with dozens of friends—it was a life like Jeremy imagined life should be; like he and his sister had never had. Hailey’s smile, her laugh, was so joyous, it drew people to her, and she always welcomed their company. She was never alone.

  This wasn’t what Jeremy needed to see. But it was what Amelia needed to show him. He sensed her reluctance to show him what Hailey had become. She wanted him to know her sister as she’d been before this insanity. Wanted him to see her as a person, a human being. Not an animal.

  Jeremy gently reminded her why he was there.

  The scene changed so sharply he sucked in a breath and nearly knocked himself out of Amelia’s mind.

  Gone was the sunshine and laughter. He was suddenly standing in the middle of a destroyed lab. Where before the scenes had rushed past him too quickly, this one was almost too slow. A table had overturned, spilling chemicals all over the floor. There was broken glass everywhere and dark liquid, most of it blood. He could smell the pungent odor of the chemicals, the sickening metallic tang of blood and he felt the stab of pain Amelia had felt at the sight.

  Crumpled on the floor was a person. A woman, though her body was curled and twisted, discolored with countless contusions that bled together until her torso was completely black with it. My sister is dead, the memory Amelia thought, her heart shattering. He choked with her, becoming her in that moment.

  Her tears blurred his vision but the woman wasn’t dead. She moved, glass scraping the floor, looked at Amelia, her eyes glowing in the darkness. She looked unnatural. Her hair white as snow, her eyes gray like a cat’s. Her feet were still disfigured but changing rapidly.

  Then the scene cut again and he saw her on all fours, snarling viciously, like a cornered animal. She doesn’t know me, Amelia was thinking. Is she still human? Deep shame suffused Amelia, and Jeremy, at that thought.

  All sorts of alarms were going off, loud noises, flashing lights, and understandably, Hailey ran.

  Another scene, this one of a bathroom somewhere, with bloody water still filling the bathtub and a towel carelessly thrown on the ground.

  “Was anything missing?” Jeremy asked.

  Amelia jerked in surprise but answered. “Just some clothes, money.” There was relief at that. It meant that Hailey was still human enough to plan ahead. It gave Amelia hope for her recovery.

  Jeremy withdrew carefully, leaving her memories unchanged. If he could, he’d lessen the emotional burden they carried. But not even Hunt could do that. Complex emotions like love, grief, pain, could not be altered. Free will seemed to be a universal concept, not just a religious one.

  Amelia took off her glasses to clean the lenses. “I checked with the local police. They tracked her making payments for transport off world. They think she ultimately went to Earth but I
don’t think so. If there is any comparison possible between Hailey and Tristan, she will react the way he did. She’ll want to find a place familiar to her animal side. Some kind of natural habitat. Not a concrete jungle and a crowd of people.”

  “What sort of animal did she … incorporate?” His hands were shaking. He curled them into fists to stop it.

  “There wasn’t enough data to find out exactly. I was able to narrow it down to feline. Some kind of big cat. Not tiger, though. Knowing my sister, she’d want to be original.”

  Jeremy rubbed a hand over his mouth and jaw. “It’s been what, two months now?”

  “A little over that, yes.”

  A long time to be missing. Jeremy had dealt with enough missing persons cases to know that after this much time the person either didn’t want to be found or wasn’t around to be found anymore. He didn’t tell Amelia that. There were extenuating circumstances here that made trying to predict something impossible. “I’ll talk to Hunt, see if we can’t put our heads together and come up with something.”

  “Y-you’re not going to follow the animal attacks?” He couldn’t tell whether she was more relieved or disappointed at that.

  “I have to follow them. If there’s even a remote possibility that your sister is behind them, I have to investigate.” He shrugged. “But, like you said, it could be completely unrelated. In which case, I need all the input I can get and Hunt is the best available.”

  Amelia nodded. Hesitated again. “Agent Calen,” she started then hesitated more. “When you find her, she might not be … lucid.”

  “I know,” he said, trying to sound reassuring.

  “I don’t want her to get hurt even more.”

  “I’ll do my best to honor that.”

  “And as for payment—”

  “We can discuss that once your sister is home safe and sound.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

  Snow-white hair streaming, half covering a savage face. Fierce silver eyes glowing in the dark. Cornered. Frightened. Hurt. It made Jeremy tense again. He couldn’t shake that memory. “I think I do,” he replied.