Illumination (The Penton Vampire Legacy Book 5)

by Susannah Sandlin

  After a half hour, Will began to look wasted himself. “Think that’s enough for now?”

  Mirren nodded from his spot in the corner, slumped against the wall. In the opposite corner, behind Will, Gadget sat with wide eyes, barely breathing himself. He was the color of fresh snow.

  “Now we wait.”

  Chapter 5 * Shay

  Shay cursed and stuck her index finger in her mouth, sucking on it to ease the cut. Guess that made her a bloodsucker too.

  For the past hour, as her human guard lay snoring a few feet outside her cage, she’d been using nail clippers with a flip-out textured steel file to saw away at and eventually cut the tiny wires that created the mesh for the cage’s top, about five feet above her head but reachable by standing on the bed. The mesh at the top of the cage had been woven more loosely than that at the sides, so the cage top seemed her best hope of escape.

  This was how she’d spent her days since Simon took her.

  According to her marks inside the notebook they’d allowed her to have, Shay been here just over six weeks, long enough for her to settle into an uneasy routine. Long enough to be more than thirteen weeks pregnant. Long enough for the morning sickness to hit, along with its friends heartburn and the constant need to pee. Not yet long enough to feel the child inside her, although she imagined sometimes that she could.

  She had finally accepted that vampires existed. Now, the fear of them had given way to anger, mostly at herself for allowing the lapse in judgment that led to a situation like this. If she hadn’t been stupid enough to have a weekend fling with a stranger, she wouldn’t be pregnant. And it was the baby they wanted, no doubt about that. Not just her baby, either. She’d overheard enough to know that, soon, there would be other women and other babies.

  Humans guarded this place during the day, vampires at night. The first human who came most days was Jonathan, or as Shay thought of him, The Sperm Spewer. She wouldn’t give him credit for being the baby’s father, but she would take as much information from him as she could get. Jonathan loved to hear himself talk.

  The afternoon-watch guy, Eric, was tougher. Silent. Taciturn. He’d bring her lunch—a sandwich, some fruit, and more to eat later for dinner. Then he’d sit and watch her eat. Watch her read. Watch her with hooded eyes when she had to use the toilet in the corner of her cage. Eventually, he’d stretch out on a sofa positioned about ten or twelve feet in front of her and take an afternoon nap.

  Eric’s naptime gave Shay a chance to work on her escape route. The only slip her captors had made so far was letting her keep her purse and, thus, the nail clippers she kept in it. Unfortunately, the cell phone had been confiscated.

  Eventually, if she could cut through enough of the aluminum mesh without getting caught, she hoped to make her exit while Eric slept. She’d climb out the top of the cage, down the side, and tiptoe around Eric to reach the door. She’d kill him if she had to—and if she could find something to use as a weapon.

  The vampire guards never slept, spent their time reading books or playing on their phones, and showed little interest in her. Sometimes Simon himself would come, and those nights were the worst. Shay had feared little in her life; growing up with Peace Corps and mission-junkie parents had left her adaptable and complacent about most things American society could throw at her.

  But Simon scared her. Beneath his pale good looks lay an icy core from which she instinctively recoiled.

  In his corner, Eric let out an extended snore that ended in a cough. Shay glanced around, waited to see if he was waking up, then resumed her work when his snores cranked up at an even higher decibel. She couldn’t afford to get caught.

  Her fingers hurt from taking individual strands of the wire mesh, stretching each one as much as she could, then filing until it was thin enough to clip. Finally, yesterday, she’d broken through her first entire section. Only about thirty to go, and the opening could be large enough to climb out. She’d do the edges last. Unless somebody tried to walk across the top and fell through, or took the time to really examine the mesh, her work was invisible.

  Muted rays of sunlight shifted through the shallow row of windows that stretched across the top of the rectangular walls of aged red brick. The windows spanned at least twenty feet above her head, the only natural light in what Shay had determined had to be a riverside warehouse.

  Old warehouses and wharves skirted both banks of the Mississippi River, spreading east and west from the Port of New Orleans like long, rectangular snakes. Their brick walls were faded with age, and many were dilapidated and no longer used for commerce. Shay thought this one might be closer to the port, however. She frequently heard the rumble of trains and, at night, the ships’ horns that echoed through the fog this time of year.

  The vampires, apparently, had found a use for one of the old warehouses. Although the building was large enough to house a ship, or a ship’s fill of containers, it lay empty but for one wall, along which had been constructed a number of the wire cages. Shay couldn’t tell how many since hers was on the end. All the others were empty, but each was—like hers—about twelve-feet square. Ample room for a bed and small dresser, a hanging rack for clothes her captors had provided—mostly maternity wear that was still too big. There also was a toilet and a bookcase filled with an eclectic assortment of genres designed to give their prisoners something to do besides ponder their predicaments. Even a rug to cover the concrete floors. Somebody had spent a lot of time and money preparing this place, and it held plenty of room for more cages.

  All the comforts of home as she and her future companions awaited the births of their children. Talkative Jon boasted of having more “buns in the oven” who’d be arriving soon.

  “They’ll be more valuable than you.” He’d preened like a peacock as if his fertility proved anything about his character—just the opposite. “They didn’t have the vaccine for that flu thing that killed so many people a few years ago. It ruined your blood so vampires can’t feed and the poor things are starving. I’m helping them breed a new population with unvaccinated women. You’re an experiment to see if a vaccinated human can have a baby that’s proper vampire food.”

  Shay would have killed him if she’d been able to reach him. Without a second thought.

  Still, Jon’s loose lips had taught her a lot. That flu thing had been a pandemic, and a lesson on how poorly prepared the world was for a rampant virus. Even the United States, Canada, and Western Europe had lost tens of thousands before scrambling to create an effective vaccine.

  The whole reason she’d gone into a career in epidemiology was to lessen the chance of another pandemic spreading around a world incapable of fighting it. Before she’d run into the vampires, she’d gotten a coveted National Science Foundation grant to isolate strains of the more than a dozen zoonotic diseases—those capable of being transferred from animals to humans. Like the unnamed fever that had killed her parents during a mission trip to a remote area of China, along with most of the village where they’d been living. Shay had been thirteen, and their death had propelled her from homeschooling in exotic locales to the normal life of a teen living with her grandmother in New Orleans.

  But if what Jon blathered on about was true, the recent worldwide pandemic had had its own ripple effect in the vampire world. They couldn’t prey on humans who’d been vaccinated, or at least not without dying. Now their bright idea was to find unvaccinated women, get an unvaccinated sperm-spewer like Jon to impregnate them continuously, and create a whole new generation of “clean” humans from which to feed. And she was the experiment.

  “Plus, you’re a doctor, right?” Jon had said. “You can watch over the clean women.”

  Shay had opened her mouth to explain that epidemiologists and obstetricians weren’t interchangeable, but decided that diminishing her own value was a bad idea. They’d kill her, and she wasn’t ready to die. Plus, Jon was low on the vampire hierarchy, a feeder for Simon, as near as she could tell. He wouldn’t know an original id
ea if it bit him in the ass, much less know what to do with it.

  Now she played a waiting game. Waiting to see if she could escape. Waiting for other girls to have their lives sucked away from them and join her in this gestational warehouse. Waiting for her own child to be snatched away from her and pierced with fangs. For the child to be fed from continually if it was a boy. To eventually go into the breeding program if a girl. Just waiting.

  Shay wasn’t good at waiting.

  The sound of voices outside the warehouse slowed Eric’s snoring and prompted Shay to quickly drop to a seat on the bed. She’d let it get dark without noticing, made complacent by Eric’s extended nap.

  By the time the door to the outside opened, however, she had curled into a fetal position beneath her blanket, feigning sleep but with the blanket pulled far enough from her face to see what was going on.

  “You’re early, boss.” Eric’s voice was deep but always held a nervous quiver. Shay didn’t blame him. She’d hate to have Simon for a boss.

  “I wanted to introduce Ms. Underwood to my guest.”

  Shay strained to hear another voice to indicate who the “guest” might be but didn’t move.

  “Ms. Underwood.” A soft voice sounded from outside the cage directly behind her head, causing her to flinch. Male, with a heavy accent. German, maybe? “I know you are not sleeping. Sit up, please.”

  Shay didn’t respond until the voice added an authoritative, “Now.”

  She pushed back the blanket and sat, blinking up at the blue eyes peering through the side of the cage from only a few inches away. She had a new sympathy for caged zoo animals.

  “Who are you?” He was vampire—had to be. He was too perfect, and the ever-helpful Jon had volunteered that the vampires evolved to whatever their best self could have been at the time they’d been turned. This guy was tall and broad, with curly blond hair and cold blue eyes that held not a speck of humanity. He made Simon look like a cherub.

  “My identity is of no relevance to you.” The man turned to Simon. “Open her cage.”

  Shay swallowed hard. In her head, she sounded brave as she told herself she’d kill to escape here. In reality, this guy scared her even more than Simon, although she couldn’t pinpoint why. Maybe because, unlike Simon, he didn’t even pretend to be charming.

  “She’s a bit more than three months along, and the humans who tend her during the day say she is getting sick less often.” Simon took out a set of keys, flipped through them, and inserted one in the door of her cell. The lock turned with a soft click.

  The human guards were counting how many times she barfed? She shouldn’t be surprised. Even more reason to be careful with her escape hatch. No more assuming Eric was sleeping.

  If he wasn’t snoring, she wasn’t snipping.

  The blond man opened the door and entered the cage, studying her like a specimen under a microscope. Squish the pregnant woman between two slides and adjust the focus. He smelled like lavender, which somehow upped his scary factor even more.

  “Stand up.”

  Shay wanted to say no, to refuse her cooperation, but if he forced her to make eye contact she’d do anything he asked whether or not she wanted to. She’d learned about those vampire powers the hard way.

  She slid her feet from beneath the blanket and stood. Her bare toes dug into the pile of the rug, and she wished she’d kept on her boots. Note to self: no bare feet, ever. She hated that her hands shook; she shoved them in the pockets of the stretchy jeans designed to accommodate her already-expanding waistline.

  When he reached out a well-manicured hand to touch her belly, she recoiled on instinct. She recognized the impulses crossing his face. The flash of heat in his eyes said he wanted to hit her, but he refrained. Instead, he wrapped the fingers of his left hand around her upper arm, holding her in place with a painful grip. He unfurled the fisted fingers of his right hand and reached for her again. This time she was prepared and stood still while he slid his fingers beneath her sweater and stroked them across her abdomen. She closed her eyes to block out the hungry look on his face and avoid being hypnotized—or whatever vampires did to take away your free will.

  The man’s fingers should have felt as cold as his voice, but they were warm and soft. Again, creepy.

  “The child is growing. Good. And a girl, I believe. Even better.”

  Could he really tell her baby’s gender, or was he torturing her? Her baby girl, who’d grow up to feed vampires and stay pregnant for as long as she could bear children. Shay remained in place and held back unbidden tears until the clang of the cage door rattled through the cavernous building. Only then did she open her eyes.

  The two vampires moved to sit on the sofa, speaking softly, ignoring her.

  Thank God. Shay didn’t know anything about vampires except what she’d picked up through pop culture, but she suspected these didn’t glow in daylight. They came here only after dark, which meant her best chance of escaping was to sleep while the vampires guarded her, eat whatever her guards brought her, keep up her strength, and look for weaknesses in her daytime human guards. Snoring Eric was her easiest target.

  She crawled back into her bed and curled up again, straining to eavesdrop on the vampires’ conversation. It meant little to her. She understood the words “Penton” and someone named Murphy they apparently hated. There seemed to be some type of battle going on, and the scary man with the accent was anxious to end it.

  “Simon?”

  Shay shifted a little, peering around the foot of the bed to verify that the new voice was, indeed, her old friend Jon the Sperm Spewer.

  “What are you doing here?” Simon’s voice crackled with irritation.

  “Sorry for the interruption, sir.” His quivering tone must be a result of the new guy because Jon and Simon were on friendlier terms. “Your guards caught a guy snooping around your house, and he insists on talking to you. Says he has information you’ll want, especially with Mr. Greisser here in town.”

  Greisser. Shay committed the name to memory. He was clearly Simon’s superior. Power oozed from him. Mr. Greisser seemed to make Simon jumpy, too.

  “Where is this man?” Simon stood and faced Jon. His voice rose several decibels. “Why didn’t one of my guards contact me? That’s what phones are for.”

  Jon took a step backward. “He’s outside. He says that—”

  “You brought him here?” Simon moved so quickly Shay didn’t register the movement. One second he was shouting at Jon with at least three feet between them. Then he was wrapping his fingers around the bigger man’s neck and holding him off the ground. Damn, but vampires must be strong. Another thing to remember.

  “Idiot. Now we’ll have to kill him, unless he’s an unvaccinated human. In which case, I’ll kill you instead and let him fuck the women.”

  “You might as well see who this interloper is and what he knows before you kill him.” Mr. Greisser hadn’t moved a muscle throughout the interruption. He sat on the end of the sofa nearest Shay. “And this man should die as well. We have other human males who can feed us and service the women without being stupid.”

  Jon whimpered once before Simon released him. He struggled to stay on his feet, grasping the back of a chair to steady his stance.

  “Is the visitor human or vampire?” Simon’s voice returned to its usual icy calm.

  “V-vampire,” Jon whispered, then found his voice. “He says he’s been living in Penton. Has information on Aidan Murphy and some of his people.”

  Shay didn’t know the significance of that, but the blond man did. He stood, pushed Simon aside, and faced Jon. If anything, The Sperm Spewer looked even more frightened. Shay almost felt sorry for him…but not quite.

  Greisser’s voice was pure ice. “Bring him in.”

  Simon turned to the man who was clearly everyone’s boss. “Frank, shouldn’t we talk to him somewhere else?” He looked back at Shay.

  Mr. Greisser’s first name is Frank. She added that to her arsenal of
information. Frank Greisser.

  “No, we will see him now. The woman is no threat; she’ll never breathe free air again.”

  A chill stole across Shay’s shoulders and she curled up more tightly under her blanket. If her baby was “clean,” she’d be kept to breed. Otherwise, they’d kill her and the baby as well. She’d known that in her gut, but hearing her life dismissed so easily didn’t have the effect Mr. Frank Greisser might like, whoever the hell he was. It stoked the fire of inner anger she’d been aiming at herself and aimed it at her real enemies.

  Anger burned fear to ashes. Anger could be her friend. She just needed to stay calm and use her brain.

  She shifted again to improve her view, watching Jon escort a thin scarecrow of a man into the ring of light formed by the lamps on the tables near the sofa. The one nearest Shay’s bed had blown out its bulb, which was fine. It meant she could watch them more openly.

  The man removed a dirty Atlanta Braves baseball cap, revealing shaggy brown hair. The cap wasn’t the only filthy thing. The guy hadn’t bathed in a while if the smudges of dirt on his chin and forehead were any indication. Or eaten either. His cheekbones were too sharp, his nose too pronounced in his narrow face. He was a skinny ferret.

  “Who are you?” Greisser had taken over the meeting. Simon stood back like a subservient little vampire.

  “My name’s Fenton Patrick—Fen.” The man held out a hand for Greisser to shake. When no hand was offered in return, he flexed his fingers and adjusted his cap. This guy had an accent too. Not quite British. Irish, maybe? “Until a few months ago, I was a resident of Penton—one of the vampires-turned-shifter hybrids sent to live there. An insider, you might say, until I was outed and had to escape. I heard through the grapevine that there was a center of power forming here in New Orleans and thought I might be able to contribute.”

  “Heard from whom, and contribute in exchange for what?” Frank’s voice was soft but there was no question who held the power in this room.