Fangtastic

by Lucienne Diver

  Were Eric’s inventions what the Feds had been after when they’d started their whole investigation? When the Swinter murders hit the fan, had they already been looking at Nelson as a way to get to Eric? Eric and his machines and their possibilities? His patent attempts and follow-up letters could easily have drawn down federal scrutiny. It was no wonder the Feds might want to nose around even the chance of a working mind-swap or energy transference machine. But did they want to stop, or control, the technology?

  Bobby was way more the conspiracy theorist than me, but I didn’t see any way that the government having the secrets to eternal life and strength would be a good thing. They might have a more focused agenda than the killer kids, so the serum probably wouldn’t end up on the black market, but neither would it go to the underprivileged, like starving or abused kids. No, the drugs would be reserved for the high and mighty … backroom deals, political dynasties. All battery powered. Oh hell no.

  “We’re both strapped to tables. What way out?” Eric asked hopelessly, cutting through my thoughts.

  “I don’t know. You’re the genius. Figure it out. Think of your nephew. If you ever want to see him alive again and back in his real body, you’ll come up with something.”

  I strained at my restraints, looking for some of that super-vamp strength I was supposed to have, but nasty-Nelson was draining it out of me as fast as the blood was resupplying. Or faster. Right now, Care Bears could probably wrestle me into submission. But Bobby was still alive. My brain was still working. That had to count for something.

  It was still working … or trying to … when Kelly came in for her drought. She drank it down with a smirk, staring at me the whole time, challenging me to do something about it. She gave me a venti-sized pinch on her way out that would’ve left me with a respectable bruise if I weren’t a vamp and beyond all that petty crap. Still, I would get even. Not so much for me as for her family. How on earth could someone murder their own family? Or leave their sister scarred and orphaned? How did any rational person decide they wanted into a club that demanded permanently cutting ties as part of the initiation? Not just permanently—fatally. As in, once you’re in, you’re implicated. Guilty. No one and nowhere to go back to. Terrence had tried.

  It wasn’t until Elise’s visit for her dose of my distilled energy that I got an idea. She’d have kicked her own butt if she knew she’d given it to me. Unlike Kelly, Elise didn’t give a damn about me. She didn’t have eyes for anything but the beaker. She swirled the contents around for a second, watching it slosh, and then drank it down in one gulp. Her face transformed almost instantly, and her eyes widened with wonder as she caught the glow coming off her skin. “I don’t freakin’ believe it,” she said in a hush.

  That was all, but it was enough. I realized right then that it was all about belief. Just not hers. This was about Eric and the power he didn’t even realize he wielded. If he controlled his machines strictly on will and faith, then if I could just shake that faith I ought to be able to cause a power outage, maybe long enough to recover from the draining and break my bonds.

  The only problem was, I kind of hated to do it. Right now it seemed like belief was all Eric had. But if I could get us out of this and restore his nephew, I was sure we could call it even.

  “Eric,” I whispered loudly, injecting false excitement into my voice, “I think the machine is failing. I’m feeling stronger!”

  His eyes fluttered open, but his stare lacked his earlier intensity. “It’s just a second wind. It’ll pass.”

  “No, look—” I did my best to flex those fingers and toes I could no longer feel. Miracle of miracles, they obeyed, if not with super-sonic speed. There might even have been a little give in the restraints. Was I losing mass? Already? I’d totally never been one of those girls who thought skeletal was sexy. I liked my curves, dammit. Oh, we were so getting out of here. Like now.

  “I think—I think maybe Nelson’s tweaks weakened your design,” I said. “It’s faltering.”

  And just like that, I thought I could feel the power dip. My energy flared, just for a second.

  “You think so?” he asked.

  “You tell me. Does anyone understand what you do? Is it that easy to manipulate your designs?”

  I saw the light of hope flash in his eyes. “No. No one understands. I mean, distilling isn’t rocket science, but … well, it’s just not built that way. How do you feel now?”

  “Definitely getting stronger.” Maybe it was just the power of suggestion, but I felt it. I curled my hands into fists and strained against the straps, but I wasn’t there yet. I pulled until I imagined my very veins standing out against my skin, but when I failed to get free, Eric let his eyes close again.

  “Give me another minute. I just need to gather my strength.”

  “Sure,” he answered, not opening his eyes.

  I was losing him. “How on earth did you get to be an inventor if one little setback sends you into retreat?”

  His eyes popped open and he glared. “My nephew’s been body-snatched. We’ve been captured by serial killers and strapped to gurneys. You’re wasting away. Forgive me if I don’t rally.”

  I glared back. “No, I won’t forgive you. And neither will Nelson.” He looked gobsmacked, but awake at least. Alert. Pissed.

  A shadow fell over us, and we both shut up. It was Burly Boy this time. He grabbed up the beaker and held it to the light. “Is this all?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “She must be waning. It’s getting near dawn,” the Nelson-impersonator said from the doorway. I shot a glance at Eric to make sure he’d heard. He was paying attention all right. He had that thinking look Bobby got sometimes, where I could practically parade past him in a string bikini and he’d never notice.

  “Drink it and let’s go,” nasty-Nelson told Burly Boy. “We’ll be strongest while the vamps are at their weakest.”

  Now? They were going now? Crap on a crispy, crumbly cracker. As soon as the sun rose, I’d be dead to the world. Unable to do anything to stop them. Except for the really old, powerful vamps, we’d all be dead to the world. Unless the other vamps had some way-skilled human minions who could fight off the killer kids, they’d be sleeping ducks. If I was guessing correctly, the mysterious Xander who Dion had worked for had either created the monster or was the monster. I didn’t know if he’d done it with the help of the other vamps or not. Either way, clearly he’d gone rogue. And no matter what, I wasn’t sure the vamps deserved what was coming to them, especially if their energy loss was to be the killer kids’ gain.

  I called out to Bobby as Burly Boy drank me in—and once again, for the record, ewwww. No answer. If I got out of this alive, I vowed, I’d have to see if Eric could build Bobby some kind of psychic voicemail. Or call waiting.

  More desperately, I called, Bobby!

  Here, he answered, as though from very far away. Gina, are you okay?

  Quickly, I answered. I didn’t know how much time there was until dawn, but it couldn’t be much. I tried to keep my eyes open, but—They’re going after the vamps.

  Who? What?

  The killer kids, I said with effort. They’re going to strike. Now.

  But—

  My eyes shut with finality. My panic that Bobby was likewise fading, that I was too late to get the word out, receded along with the rest of the world.

  15

  Gina! Come on, girl, wake up!” I was being shaken from side to side, a terrible metal clacking nearly splitting my head open.

  “Come on,” the voice insisted. “You said to rally, and I’m rallying.”

  Eric? But—

  I forced my eyes open and turned my head to focus on an extreme close-up of the nutty professor. Somehow, he must have rocked his gurney across the room and into mine, because he was right freakin’ there next to me, practically eyeball to eyeball.

  “Night already?” I asked, knowing somehow that it wasn’t. It didn’t feel right, but then, how—?

  “Day. I
managed to get close enough to manipulate the machine. I’m feeding you my energy. Directly. No distillation. I hope it’s enough.”

  I stared at him in awe. “You can do that?”

  He demonstrated the limited movement he had with his hands in the straps. “Wasn’t easy, and they’ve got a lead on us, but … yeah. Are you strong enough now to bust out of here?”

  “I’ll have to be, won’t I?”

  I closed my eyes and summoned my inner diva. Show me a diva who can’t bust her way out of a bad situation, and I’ll show you a poser not worthy of the name. But my inner diva failed me. Nasty-Nelson certainly knew how to bind vamps. He’d been one himself. How could I fight an enemy who knew all my weaknesses and had left his own behind?

  Okay, diva down. Think, think, think. Strength wasn’t working. I’d have to come up with something else. I was fairly bird-boned. If it weren’t for my curves, I might even be considered waifish. Already, I seemed to have lost mass. Maybe the trick was to think small. I contorted my hands until they were as tiny as I could make them, my fingers all pressing in on each other. I played to my weakness, thinking itsy, bitsy, insubstantial …

  Something was happening. I gave my hands a sharp tug, hoping to jolt them free from the restraints. My fingers were tingling again—my whole body, really, as if I were bathing in Pop Rocks. My eyes snapped open, and I nearly had a freak-attack. I was about to face plant into the ceiling tiles, and that made no sense at all!

  I shrieked and dropped hard, falling back to my metal table and bruising my backside.

  Eric was gaping at me. “Why didn’t you just do that in the first place?”

  I stared at him, his energy buzzing through me along with the adrenaline overload left over from my terror.

  “Do what? What did I do?”

  “You misted, went all ghostly. Just like in the old vampire tales. I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “Neither did I.” And neither did Nelson, if he’d left us here without taking any other precautions, so this couldn’t be a common thing. Maybe it was due to a part of me being Chaos and doing the unexpected. If I ever found out where the Feds were keeping Alistaire, the psycho-psychic who’d named me that, I was going to demand answers. I imagined him strapped to his own gurney in some Federal facility and hoped his psychic ability told him I’d be coming to the rescue … someday. And then we would have a serious heart-to-heart. Although, asking Alistaire the right questions might give him way too much information. He wasn’t the kind you trusted with your secrets. Or your sister. Or your cell phone, for that matter.

  I could worry about all that later. For now, I had a hot new superpower! Even beyond my killer fashion sense, my vampire speed, strength, and all that. There was a tiny little part of me that feared this too was fueled by Eric’s belief, but I squashed it like a bug. I was no machine, which was where his power lay.

  Quickly, I got to work on Eric’s restraints.

  “Grab your machine,” I ordered when I had him free and the blood donation thingie hooked up to him torn out. “And anything else that looks like a weapon or an indication of their plans.” Yeah, because they were just going to leave things like that lying around. “I’m going to find a phone and some wheels.”

  I didn’t trust the Feds but I needed them for now, at least as long as the faux vamps were the bigger threat. After that … I didn’t know. I was a seat-of-the-pants kind of girl.

  I dialed Maya’s number from memory. She answered on the second ring with a terse, “Yes.” Probably the phone I’d found came up Restricted or Caller Unknown on her ID.

  “Maya, it’s Gina. Listen quickly, because I’ve got to run. The killer kids are after the vamps. The ringleader, Nelson Ricci, is actually possessed by one of them.” As I talked, the phone pressed between my ear and shoulder, I tossed the lair-like room next to the one where Eric and I had been held. The phone had been in one of the drawers of a huge but worse-for-wear entertainment center taking up one wall. I’d also found tasers, a gross of those blasted zip-tie cuffs, piles of pizza boxes, some illegal substances, and dirty clothes strewn every which way, but no keys to any vehicles.

  “You can debrief me on the hows and whys later,” I told Maya. “Until then, I need everyone you’ve got headed toward the Tower … unless you know of any other vamp hot spot in the area.” I wondered if the vamps had a super-secret facility like the Feds, but given what I’d seen of the secret passages and all at the nightclub, it hardly seemed like they needed a second site.

  “Gina?” Maya said suspiciously. “It’s full day. Where the hell are you and how on earth are you awake? Have you been holding onto some of that formula?”—the formula the Feds had given us on the last mission that let us walk by day, if only in brief bursts.

  “Where would I hide it? Everything I have, you’ve supplied. Whatever. Search me. But you’ll have to come to the Tower to do it. Oh, and I’m not going to hang up. I’m going to leave this line open right where I am. It’ll lead you to where the killer kids have holed up, where they’ll probably return to if we miss them at the Tower.”

  “Gina, wait! I’m not done—”

  But I was. I left the phone on the armrest of the couch while I tossed the cushions, earning twenty-seven cents, some butterscotch candy wrappers, and—score!—a set of keys that I hoped belonged to a vehicle that had been left behind.

  Eric burst into the room. “They didn’t leave much. I’ve got my machine and some syringes filled with water—holy, I’m guessing. I found a couple of young people strapped down in another room being bled. I set them free.”

  “Good.”

  I doubted they’d get far. The spooks were gonna want to move in fast, lock things down, debrief. But if they did manage to get away, more power to them. The fewer people I had to worry about right now, the better.

  “I’ve got tasers and keys,” I told him. “Let’s see what they go to.”

  Eric and I found the garage we’d driven into, with only a single vehicle left inside—a little red T-top Camaro with black detailing. It was totally clear why they’d left it behind—you couldn’t kidnap anyone in a Camaro. The trunk wasn’t even large enough to fit a body. Don’t ask me how I knew.

  “Sa-weet!” I said, doing a fist-pump.

  “Conspicuous,” Eric answered.

  “Buzzkill. Anyway, beggars/choosers and all that. Get the door. I’ll drive.”

  “Really? And how will you survive the sunlight?”

  “Damn. Okay, you drive, but don’t spare the gas.”

  I tossed him the keys and ran back into the place for a blanket I’d seen tossed on the floor. It smelled of pizza grease, but I’d take it if it meant I didn’t have to go down in a blaze of glory.

  Back at the car, I laid the passenger seat down as far as it would go and wrapped myself in the blanket top to toenails.

  Eric peeled out of there, and my heart clenched in fear. Ever since my death by auto accident, I was leery about racing to the rescue. It was better when I was in control, but hunkered down under the blanket, completely in the dark, the sun coming in through the windows sapping my strength, was my own personal version of hell. I was too afraid to close my eyes, even if they weren’t doing me any good right then, for fear I wouldn’t wake up again. Maybe ever.

  “Talk to me,” I ordered Eric, raising my voice to be heard outside the blanket.

  “About what?” He took a corner on hyper-speed, and I swear I felt two wheels leave the road.

  “Anything!” I squeaked.

  “Wait until you meet Nelson. The real Nelson. I’m sure all this hasn’t given you the best impression of him.”

  Oh crap, I thought I had problems. It hadn’t even occurred to me until just then that once we rescued Eric’s nephew and got him back into his real body—hopefully—he’d be facing murder charges. His face had been caught on film. He was a wanted man. Boy. Whatever. Maybe the Feds could give him a miracle makeover. Or a new identity.

  “I’m sure he’s, ah,
very nice,” I answered. It took an effort to speak. The longer we were out in the sun, the tireder I got. My body felt more stone than flesh, as if it weighed about a ton. Heavy enough to sink into oblivion.

  Eric laughed without humor. “Nice doesn’t really cut it. He’s smart, resourceful. At three, he started taking apart everything he could find to see how it worked. Made his parents nuts. Reminded me of me. When they died … well, death became his new obsession. Or undeath, anyway, especially when he hit his teens.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I feel like I failed him. I should have been able to snap him out of it.”

  “S’not too late,” I said, my words slurred with exhaustion.

  He pulled over abruptly and stopped the car. “We’re here. What’s the plan?”

  The burn of the sun had eased up; I could tell he’d parked in the shade, but it didn’t do much to revive me. I felt like I was thinking through mud, and not the therapeutic spa kind.

  “What’s the layout? Any sign of the Feds?”

  “No, but the door is standing open. The kids are definitely inside.”

  “Then let’s go.” I did my best to go for the door handle and only managed a fevered lurch. “Except, ah, you might have to carry me.” Oh yeah, I was fierce.

  Eric came around to my side of the car, threw me over his shoulder, blanket and all, and sprinted for the front door of the Tower. The burn was almost unbearable. I felt like I had the worst temperature of my life, like I might spontaneously combust. I think the pain was all that kept me awake against the day that wanted to send me into eternal sleep. The blanket caught fire—or maybe it was me—as we hit the entrance, and Eric employed stop, drop, and roll on me. As in, stopping to shut the door behind us, dropping me to the floor, and rolling me until I was extinguished.

  I lay there for a second, trying to build up the will to move. My eyes wanted desperately to close, but I fought against it.