by Arthur, Keri
“It’s undergoing a larger trial, and test applicants are being carefully screened. After all, it worked for a good percentage of the test group.”
I took another deep breath, then asked the one question I’d avoided. “So what, exactly, does it do?”
“It appears to enhance certain abilities. Six of the ten were either human-werewolf crosses or human-shifter. All became able to take on any shape.”
Relief slithered through me. Taking on any shape was pretty cool when compared to some of the scenarios I’d been imagining. “That doesn’t sound too bad a skill to have.”
Jack snorted softly. “Yeah, only if they changed too often, they discovered they couldn’t change back to human form. Their body chemistry had altered so much the cells no longer remembered true form, and they got stuck in animal form.”
Which wasn’t a good thing. Death would surely be better than never being able to regain humanity. “And the remaining four?”
“Were shifter and werewolf crosses, and all four had psychic skills. Three of the four were unaware of the fact. These skills were all enhanced to the point where they became dangerous. I believe all four have now been transferred to one of the military programs.”
I glared at him. “Don’t try putting me in any military program.”
He gave me a toothy smile I didn’t trust one bit. “Darlin’, you’re mine. If you go anywhere, it’ll be into the guardian program.”
“That ain’t going to happen, either.”
“You may not have a choice. If that drug does affect you, it’s either us or the military until we discover the full breadth of the changes.”
Then it was the Directorate. But that didn’t mean I was entering the system without a fight. If Jack wanted me as a guardian, he was going to have to drag me there kicking and screaming.
“So what happens now?”
“The drug doesn’t appear to have had any ill effects yet, but even so, we’ll begin regular blood tests and cell scans. We’ll also begin regular psi tests, in case alterations start showing there.”
“I’m telepathic—you know that.”
He nodded. “Entry tests also indicated latent skills in clairvoyance.”
“Which is not exactly a skill the military can give a damn about.”
“On the contrary, clairvoyance provides an excellent means of information gathering.”
“Yeah, but as you said, it’s latent. As in, not active and not used.”
“Granted. But your telepathy skill isn’t. Given it can be used for both information gathering and as a weapon, it definitely is a desirable skill as far as they are concerned. You already rate high—this drug could very well put you off the scale.”
I didn’t want to be off the scale. Didn’t want to use my skills for anything more than defense. But I had a vague feeling Talon had taken all choice away from me. I kicked another stone into the dam and imagined it was the head of a certain golden wolf sinking under the murky brown water.
Jack squeezed my shoulder gently. “You could be one of the lucky ones. It might have no effect at all.”
My smile was grim. “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”
He hesitated. “No. But right now, there’s nothing we can do about it. Time will provide our answers. Meanwhile, we have a clone factory to hunt down.”
I turned and followed him down the path. “Did you know a company named Konane apparently owns Moneisha?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “No. How do you?”
“Misha told me.”
“Interesting. Wonder how he knows—and why he told you.”
“Because I asked him.”
“Maybe you should ask him a few other things—like whether he knows anything about the clones or the crossbreeds.”
“I can if you want.”
“Might be worth a try. In the meantime, I’ll get a search done on Konane.”
“You don’t think the crossbreeds are coming out of the same factory as the clones?”
“No, and the evidence that Quinn has collected confirms it.”
Rhoan was no longer sitting out in front of the cabin when we arrived. But given the delicious smell of roasting meat that hung on the air, he was probably inside harassing Liander to hurry up and serve the meal.
“I’ll never get tired of that smell,” Jack said, taking a deep breath. “Which is why I live above a restaurant.”
I opened the door for him and waved him on through. “I always thought the smell of food turned a vampire’s stomach.”
Jack shook his head. “Hollywood myth. You of all people should know better than to believe something like that.”
“Hey, some myths sound very reasonable.”
“Sounding reasonable doesn’t make them so.”
He moved over to the table and I looked around for Quinn. He wasn’t in the living area, but a second later he came rattling down the stairs. His gaze met mine, dark eyes warm and filled with hunger. The fever surged through my veins, its intensity soaking me in an instant. And the full moon was still two days away. If the mission went on much longer, I’d be in trouble. The fever was still leashed, but the sheer force of it suggested it wouldn’t remain that way too long.
“Hey, pretty lady,” he said, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me close. “Guess what?”
“What?” I said, my voice little more than a husky whisper. God, he felt so good pressed up against me that my hormones were begging me to drop him to the ground and shag him senseless.
“Rhoan and I drew straws. We won the bed tonight.”
I linked my hands behind his neck and kissed his chin. “Meaning we’re under the stars tomorrow?”
“Afraid so. But the weathermen say it’ll be fine.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway, because I’ve had scout training. I’ll make us a shelter.”
His grin was decidedly wicked. “Shame you didn’t bring the uniform along. Wouldn’t mind seeing you in that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Got a fetish for women in uniform, have you?”
“Especially when they’re leggy redheads.” His breath caressed my mouth, then his lips found mine and our kiss became a long, slow seduction that had my knees wanting to buckle.
“Enough, you two,” came Rhoan’s comment from behind Quinn. “Some of us have to stomach food.”
I came up for air and accepted the plate my brother shoved at me. “What’s this?”
Rhoan gave me a flat look. “What does it look like?”
“I don’t know. I think it resembles steak and fries, but it can’t be. I mean, it’s not black.”
He picked a bean off my plate and flicked it at me. His steak, I noted, was very, very rare. “When we get home, you’re on cooking duty.”
I caught the bean midair and shoved it in my mouth. “That means you do the laundry, bro.” Which was a good threat, because Rhoan hated washing as much as I hated cooking. We both hated ironing, which was why our living room was overflowing with clean, unironed clothes. “Maybe you should take some cooking lessons from your lover.”
“I can think of better things to do with my lover.”
“So can I,” Quinn whispered into my ear.
I blew a breath across my forehead, but it did little to ease the fever assailing my skin. Why did I have to meet this man right in the middle of a disaster?
“When you’re ready, people,” Jack said from the table.
I glanced past my brother and saw Jack had laid the maps we’d found out on the table. At one end was his computer unit, currently lit up with diagrams. I followed Rhoan over and sat down. Quinn sat next to me, his knee brushing mine and sending little tremors of electricity up my leg.
“I scanned in the diagrams you found and did a cross-check of all known military installations,” Jack said. “We found three possibles—all of them sold off fifty years ago by the government.”
“Any idea who owns them or what they’re now used for?” Quinn said, his gaze
on the computer screen.
“One was bought by a residential development company and now has several thousand homes on it. Another is currently owned by Hoyle-Brantin, who make household products. The last one is owned by a company called Nashoba, which lists itself as being a cosmetics research and marketing organization.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Nashoba is not a brand of makeup I’ve ever heard of.”
“Nor I,” Liander said, and flashed me a bright smile. “And I probably use more makeup in a day than you use in a year.”
“When you’re naturally beautiful like me, you don’t need makeup,” I said, and ducked the fries thrown at me.
“Considering Nashoba itself doesn’t seem to exist,” Jack commented, “I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of it.”
“It’s a front for another company?” Quinn asked.
Jack nodded. “The paper trail is a mile long. The computer system is working on it as we speak.”
“We seem to be hitting more than our fair share of paper trails lately,” Rhoan said.
“And while the computer system searches, what are we going to do?” Quinn said.
“Undertake our own search of both premises.”
“How well guarded are they?” I shoved some steak in my mouth and groaned when it all but melted in my mouth. Damn, I’d forgotten how good a properly cooked steak was. I gave a thumbs-up to Liander.
“Nashoba is extremely well guarded. Rhoan and I will be tackling that. Hoyle-Brantin has foot patrols and wire fences. Nothing you can’t get around.”
I nodded. “You got floor plans?”
He pushed over some paperwork. “It’s pretty similar to what you saw in the plans you retrieved from Brown’s office though there’s a new wing added to the main building.”
I took a quick look at them, then kept eating.
“What about the White Phantom Project—did you discover anything about that?” Quinn asked.
Jack shook his head. “There’s nothing on the records, and Alex can’t recall the project. White Phantom might have been a code name for something else. I’ve scanned the contents through to her so she can cross-check.”
“And the disks?”
He looked at me. “I posted those. She doesn’t mind a bit of voyeurism.”
Normally, I didn’t either, but the thought of watching Brown doing the nasty over and over was enough to turn me off.
“So when do we hit these places?” Rhoan asked.
Jack gave him a wry smile. “Given the approaching full moon and the fact that three of my current staff are werewolves, as soon as possible.”
Rhoan pushed his empty plate away. “How are we stocked in the way of equipment?”
“You and I will have to stop by the Directorate.”
“That safe?”
“We’ll take the emergency tunnel. Only the directors can get into it, so if someone does attack us, it’ll narrow the field of suspects.” Jack glanced at me. “I’ll take that blood sample with me, too.”
I could feel Rhoan’s curious gaze but didn’t bother meeting it. If he ever found out what Talon had done, he’d kill him. And I wanted to throw the first punch. “Fine.”
Jack glanced at his watch. “We’ll leave in half an hour. Liander, you right for holding down the fort again?”
“Do I have any other choice?” His voice was dry, yet something in his pale eyes suggested he wanted action almost as badly as he wanted sex. Perhaps I’d been wrong in my estimation that he’d be as unwilling as I to get involved in Jack’s schemes.
“Not on this you don’t.” Jack hesitated and glanced at Quinn. “You’ll have to stay here, too. Riley’s Directorate, and I can protect her if she gets into trouble. I can’t offer you that.”
“I’m not expecting you to. Nor will I be left behind on this.”
“I can’t let you go.”
“You can’t stop me, and we both know it.” The two men stared at each other for several seconds, then Quinn added, “You know my reasons for doing this.”
“Yes.” Jack hesitated. “Just don’t expect my help if things go wrong.”
Quinn’s smile was wry. “Forgive me for saying it, but I have more than enough politicians, judges, and lawyers ready and able to help me out of any situation. Being a multibillionaire has its advantages.”
Jack nodded and rose. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Ten minutes later, Quinn and I were in the car and heading back to Melbourne, him driving and me studying the plans for the old army base in Broadmeadows. “There’s an industrial estate on one side and an old graveyard on the other.”
Humor crinkled the corners of his eyes as he looked at me. “You’re voting the graveyard, aren’t you?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Can you think of a more appropriate entry point for the dead and half-dead?”
His soft laugh sent tremors of desire skimming my skin. “No one in his right mind would ever call you half-dead.”
I grinned. “You were pretty lively yourself, too.”
“And will be again, once we get this little jaunt over and done with.”
I couldn’t wait. I folded the plans and threw them on the backseat. “So, tell me, why can’t Jack stop you? Is it simply an age thing?”
“And the hierarchy system.”
“Vampires have a hierarchy?”
He glanced at me. “Of course. The older the vampire, the more powerful he is. Having a power system in place prevents an all-out war—which wouldn’t be good for any race.”
That was an understatement if ever I’d heard one. “Meaning the pecking order is merely a matter of waiting for those above to keel over?”
“Crudely put, but yes.”
“So what’s to stop an underling aiding that event?”
“The wrath of the others that would fall on him or her if it happened.”
I couldn’t see how that was going to prevent unexplained deaths, especially if the one bumping off the hierarchy was more powerful than everyone else. But then, vampires generally didn’t think like the rest of us. “Where do you stand in the pecking order?”
“There are three above me.”
“And I’m guessing Director Hunter is one of them? That’s why you phoned her—a vampire professional courtesy.”
He nodded. I frowned. “Jack said he was her brother—but if she’s older than you, and he’s younger, how can that be the case?”
He shrugged. “Madrilene and Jack come from shifter stock, and shifters, like werewolves, are extremely long-lived. Perhaps Jack didn’t turn until near the end of his life.”
My frown deepened. “Madrilene? Do you mean Alex?”
“Yes.” He hesitated. “Madrilene is the name she used when we first met.”
“Meaning vamps change names over the years?”
“Yes. And yes, I have also.”
“So Quinn is not your birth name?”
“First name, no. But Quinn is the anglicized form of my Irish surname, O’Cuinn.”
“Interesting.” But it wasn’t doing anything to explain how Jack could be just over eight hundred years old and Director Hunter more than Quinn’s twelve hundred. By my reckoning, there was at least a century unaccounted for, shifter stock or not. But obviously, Quinn wasn’t going to explain it. If I wanted answers, I’d have to ask the source. And whether he’d explain or not was another matter.
“Given what you said about the vampire hierarchy, and the fact that you’re older and stronger than Jack is, what’s stopping you from putting commands into his mind?”
“He’s strong enough to keep me from controlling him. I could overwhelm him and kill him, mentally and physically, but I don’t have the strength to keep him under my control.”
“Of course, I only have your word on that.”
“My word not good enough?”
“A question I can’t answer as I don’t really know you.” I crossed my arms, for a moment regarding the rain-washed road ahead. “Why are you goin
g so determinedly after the people behind the cloning?”
“Jack’s already told you—the source material was a friend of mine.”
“How good a friend?”
He glanced at me. “Not sexual, if that’s what you’re implying. He was born Hieremias, son of Glaucus, though he changed it to Henri Glaucus for ease of use in later years. We’d been friends for over a thousand years.”
It was hard to imagine knowing anyone for that length of time. “How did he die?”
His swift look was cold, hard, and sent shivers down my spine. And yet there was something else in his dark eyes. Something akin to pain.
“Broken heart. He walked into the sunshine and stayed there.” He hesitated. “Or so I thought.”
What was the betting that it was another bloody werewolf behind the hurt? Geez, I wanted to explore possibilities with him, but did I really have the energy to fight the pain inflicted by the ex as well as what had happened to his friend? Then I remembered the magic we’d created while making love, and thought, Hell, yeah.
“Obviously he was captured before he cindered if there are clones of him walking around.”
“Yes.” He paused again. “When I first saw the clone in Sydney, I was overjoyed, thinking I’d been wrong, that Henri hadn’t committed suicide. But a mind search quickly revealed the truth. The clone’s memory of life had only started seven and a half years ago.”
“So is that why you were attacked here in Melbourne? Because you killed the clone?”
“Possibly—especially if they were aware of my history with Henri. They would have had to realize I’d start searching for him.”
“Because of your friendship?”
“Because I owe Henri my life more times than I care to remember.”
A loyal vampire. Interesting. “So why would they be cloning Henri? What has he got that a million or so other vamps haven’t?”
He gave me a thoughtful look. “You don’t read newspapers much, do you?”
I frowned. “What’s that got to do with it?”
“Henri was a supreme athlete, and ten years ago was the only man alive who could say he raced in the original Olympics for real, not just in hologram.”
“Whoa . . . that makes him—”
“Ancient,” Quinn cut in. “When the modern Olympics began, he was a semiregular competitor. When they restarted after World War II, he competed again.”