Mission_Improper

by Bec McMaster

  withdrew his knife.

  Damn her. She deserved to die.

  "MY GOD! Scott, hurry and fetch the doctor, will

  you? Miss? Miss...."

  Blinking in and out of consciousness, Gemma

  slowly found herself on the floor. Someone was

  patting her shoulder. She jerked and caught his

  wrist in an iron grip, then looked around. Blood.

  She could smell blood, and it called to the

  parasitic predator deep inside her.

  "Get away from me," she snapped, scrambling

  backward on the floor.

  The curator remained kneeling, his face white

  and his mustache quivering as he held his hands up

  in a sign of surrender. "Miss, I'm trying to help.

  You're bleeding."

  Help. The poor man thought that she was

  frightened of him. If only he knew that Gemma was

  frightened of what she might do to him in this state.

  "Just... give me some room to get some air,"

  she told him. And stay right where you are, with

  all of that tempting blood on your hands. Her

  blood, she realized, and forced herself to take

  stock.

  The man sucked in a sharp breath as he saw

  her eyes, and scrambled back.

  "Don't move," she said, as the darkness inside

  her whispered, Look how it flees us. Look how it

  runs. Like prey....

  Gemma squeezed her eyes shut and

  swallowed hard. She was in control of herself.

  Always. "Just don't move quickly," she repeated in

  a choked voice. "I need a moment to gather my...

  my wits."

  The man swallowed. "As you wish."

  Gemma let go of the breath she'd been

  holding. The world slowly receded in intensity as

  the shadows washed from her vision, and the

  staccato beat of his heartbeat grew quieter. A blue

  blood might pretend to be human, but what beat in

  their ragged hearts was anything but. And

  sometimes the chilling intensity of that darker part

  of herself bothered her. People were not prey.

  They were flesh and blood, with hopes and dreams

  of their own, but when the darkness washed over

  her, she couldn't see that anymore.

  "It's all right," she told the curator,

  swallowing the saliva that had flooded her mouth.

  "I'm myself again. Just move slowly."

  "Are you... unhurt?" His gaze dropped to the

  blood on her coat, but he kept his hands upright in

  the surrender position.

  Gemma patted her side, where the knife had

  gone in. Her fingers came away wet, but she felt

  fine. The stab wound was tender, but not the sort of

  fiery pain that she'd expected. Her coat was tied

  neatly around her padded waist. How had...? The

  last thing she remembered was it being torn open...

  and the man with his hands around her throat.

  And then the darkness.

  Or no.... Had she seen someone else then?

  She winced. What had happened? There was no

  sign of her attacker, only a smear of dark blood on

  the floor, as if someone had hastily wiped it up.

  And it wasn't her blood. Hers was a richer color: a

  blue-red in tone, which was what had given the

  blue bloods their name. This was the blackest

  shade of red she'd ever seen.

  What on earth...?

  "Hold still, my dear. I'll..." The curator

  looked around helplessly, evidently unaccustomed

  to dealing with injured blue bloods. "I'll fetch a

  doctor."

  Then he was gone, and Gemma carefully

  levered herself to her feet.

  She had no intention of staying here. After all,

  someone had just tried to kill her, and although

  she'd blacked out before he could do so, clearly he

  hadn't just stopped out of the goodness of his heart.

  She had to get to safety, before he tried again.

  And then there was Ulbricht's comment to

  deal with.

  SIXTEEN

  INGRID’S NOSTRILS FLARED. "I smell blood."

  She yanked open the front door just as Gemma

  staggered against the lintel.

  “What happened?” Ingrid demanded, grabbing

  the other woman by the arm. There was blood on

  her coat, and her wig hung askew. “Ava!”

  "Someone attacked me when I was following

  Ulbricht a couple of hours ago,” Gemma said,

  looking pale. “I’m fine, Ingrid, I promise.

  Everything has healed, but I'm still a little weak at

  the knees.”

  Ava came out of the parlor, wiping her hands

  on her apron. “Oh, my goodness!” she said,

  hurrying

  to

  Gemma’s

  other

  side.

  “What

  happened?”

  Together they helped Gemma inside as she

  told them about it.

  "You're certain the attacker was a blue

  blood?" Ingrid demanded, once Gemma had

  finished.

  "It happened so quickly," Gemma replied,

  "but his skin was as pale as snow, and his hair so

  white it was almost translucent. He was definitely

  a blue blood. One quite close to the Fade, I'd

  expect, as his blood was almost black."

  "But blue bloods don't have to deal with the

  Fade anymore, do they?" A few years ago, the

  Fade had been a blue blood's greatest fear; when

  the craving virus began to overwhelm them and

  their color began to fade, until they were slowly

  starting to transform into a vampire. "Isn't there that

  Distillation device, where they can counteract the

  CV virus in their blood? The Duke of Moncrieff

  designed it before he died."

  “This way,” Ava said, guiding Gemma into a

  chair. “Let me have a look at it.”

  "I don't know why my attacker's CV levels

  were so far advanced, but he was clearly at the

  higher end of the scale." Gemma shuddered and

  touched her throat as if remembering, her voice

  dropping. "He was so much stronger than I am."

  "SOG Agent, do you think?"

  Ava peeled the coat back and sucked in a

  breath. “Hmm. This is healed, but there’s some

  unusual mottling here. Let me test your CV levels.

  Here, hold out your finger.” She pricked Gemma’s

  finger, and headed to the brass spectrometer to take

  her CV percentage rating.

  "I don't know." Exasperation gained an edge

  in Gemma's voice as she glanced at what Ava was

  doing. "I'm usually more aware than that. I don't

  even know how they got the jump on me. They

  shouldn't have."

  "The real question is: how did you escape?"

  Ava murmured, and the room fell silent as the brass

  spectrometer spat out a small curl of paper with

  her CV levels on it. "Or more to the point, what is

  wrong with you?" Ava frowned, examining the

  paper.

  "Wrong with me?" Gemma sat up.

  “They've gone through the roof," Ava said.

  “You told me you were in the low thirties.”

  “I am.” Gemma held out a hand, and Ava

  deposited the reading there. “Oh, my goodness.


  They’re eighty-three.” She looked up, pale faced

  with fear. “What does that mean?”

  “Let me test it again,” Ava muttered. “That

  can’t be right. The machine might need to be

  recalibrated.”

  Gemma bit her lip. “The stab wound had

  healed over before I even woke. And I couldn’t

  have been out of action for too long. That's not

  normal. It should have taken two or three hours for

  the wound to seal over completely."

  Ava held up a thermometer. "Open up. I want

  to check your temperature."

  Ingrid paced. An attacker who was in the

  Fade.... She couldn't help but think of Ulbricht's

  mistress, with her silvery blonde hair and skin like

  bleached snow. "Describe the assault again," she

  said abruptly. "Every last detail. You thought you

  saw someone in the reflection, you said... do you

  think that someone saved you?"

  "I don't know what to think," Gemma admitted

  around the thermometer, and it was clear that the

  assault upset her. But she went through the attack

  again, her voice clear and devoid of emotion,

  dealing out nothing but the facts. "But there's no

  other reason for him to stop trying to kill me.

  Something startled him, and he ran off."

  "None of this makes sense,” Ingrid muttered.

  "You're telling me."

  The brass spectrometer spat out a scroll of

  paper with little figures on it. Ava frowned as she

  held it up. "That's odd."

  "Odd?" Gemma looked at her. "What do you

  mean odd?"

  Ava lowered the piece of paper. "You’re

  definitely at eighty-three." She poked the

  spectrometer. "Unless there is something seriously

  wrong with this device."

  "Still?" Gemma swung off the table, and

  snatched the piece of paper off Ava. "Hell and

  bloody ashes. I don't feel any differently."

  "Well, something healed that wound faster

  than it normally would," Ava said, fiddling with

  her microscope. "Sometimes a wound can

  exacerbate the amount of craving virus in the body.

  We call it the blooming, though I've only ever

  heard of rare cases. It's usually a grievous injury

  that sets it off, where the body can no longer fight

  against the craving virus and the injury, so it stops

  fighting the virus, we think, in order to save the

  person's life. The virus blooms out of control and

  the blue blood survives, but he's now prone to

  irrational hungers and dangerous side effects."

  "I was stabbed in the side, Ava. It was hardly

  life-threatening. Or not like a knife to the heart,

  anyway. Would that cause this blooming?"

  "I don’t think so. But how else do you explain

  how you're healing so swiftly, or why your CV

  levels went through the roof," Ava pointed out.

  "Aren't you the least bit curious?"

  "What I am," Gemma replied, pressing her

  hand to her temples as if expecting to find herself

  sweating, "is filthy and freezing cold. I need a bath,

  and a glass of mulled blud-wein to make myself

  feel quite human again. I am positively covered in

  grime. And no doubt Malloryn shall want a report

  on this, and... oh, hell! I meant to track Sunderland

  to this meeting with the SOG." She screwed up her

  nose, then winced as a sharp movement forced her

  hand to her side.

  "You're not tracking anybody," Ingrid said.

  "We cannot simply allow this chance to slip

  through our fingers! What if the entire membership

  is in attendance?"

  "It won't," she assured Gemma. "I'll go. You

  do have the tracking device, don't you?"

  Gemma handed it over.

  "Not alone." Ava tsked. "At least let Byrnes

  know what's going on. And maybe take Charlie

  with you. You don't know how many blue bloods

  will be there, or what you'll be walking into."

  "I'll go find them right now," Ingrid replied.

  Ava might be out of her depth in company, but she

  was rapidly becoming the mother hen of the group.

  "As for you," Ava speared Gemma with her

  gaze, "I'm not going to stop digging into this. I'm

  going to get a second spectrometer, to make sure

  it's not the device."

  "Dig away, my dear." Gemma headed for the

  door, rubbing at her arms. "I shall be upstairs,

  soaking in my tub."

  And then she was gone.

  Ingrid waited until Gemma was clearly out of

  earshot. "You're worried about something."

  "It's nothing." Ava tugged her apron off.

  Ingrid crossed her arms over her chest. "You

  do realize that you're the worst liar I've ever

  encountered?"

  Ava sighed. "Have a look at this. I didn't want

  to show Gemma, until I work out what it means."

  She gestured to her microscope, and Ingrid

  peered through it. A bunch of black-red sickle-

  shaped objects appeared, circulating among

  redder, rounder globules. "What is it?"

  "It's Gemma's blood," Ava replied, and

  reached past her to replace the slide with another.

  "And this is what a blue blood's blood should look

  like. This is my sample."

  There was definitely a difference. Ava's

  example was a paler blue-red, and the globules

  were rounder, like the others in the first sample,

  only there were no sickle-shaped elements. Ingrid

  jerked back from the microscope.

  "Something happened to Gemma in that

  museum. Something healed her wound at an

  exacerbated rate, upped her CV levels, and set her

  body into some sort of fever. Which is virtually

  impossible for a blue blood. We don't fall ill. We

  don't get fevers, but I quite think she's succumbing

  to one, as her temperature has increased by three

  degrees. None of this makes any sense to me."

  "I'm certain you'll figure it out," Ingrid told

  her. She frowned again. "There was something

  different about Ulbricht's mistress too. When she

  was unleashing the vampires from the device they

  were using to tear Debney apart, she pulled a lever

  down as though it was barely a nuisance. I could

  barely lower it, even with all of my strength, and

  verwulfen are stronger than blue bloods,

  especially when we're in the midst of the

  berserkergang."

  "I fail to see the connection."

  "Ulbricht's mistress looks like a blue blood

  deep into the Fade," Ingrid replied, thinking out

  loud. "And now Gemma's been attacked by a man

  who looks like he's well into the Fade too, and her

  CV levels

  have

  changed

  following

  their

  altercation. Then there are vampires afoot, when

  that is the natural conclusion to the Fade. Too many

  coincidences make me begin to wonder. What if

  Gemma got some of her attacker’s blood into her

  wound? Would that make any difference? After all,

  sometimes blue bloods use their blood t
o heal

  wounds. What if this Fade blue blood had CV

  levels higher than Gemma's? Would that account

  for the discrepancy?"

  Ava blinked. "Do you know, that is an entirely

  possible theory! His blood could have healed her."

  She paused in her mad rush for the spectrometer

  however. "Though the shape and color of the blood

  cells are unlike anything I've ever seen."

  "Maybe there's some kind of change to the

  fellow's... craving virus? An abnormality?"

  Ava looked up from the spectrometer. "Which

  means that we're not just dealing with one blue

  blood deep in the Fade. We're dealing with at least

  two, possibly more."

  Hell.

  "YOU CALLED?" Byrnes said, flourishing the

  small note Ingrid had left on his pillow two hours

  ago.

  "Gemma's found us a lead," she said, striding

  past him down the hallway of Baker Street.

  "Ulbricht met with the Duke of Sunderland today,

  and they mentioned a meeting of the SOG tonight.

  She's too injured to follow, which means it's in our

  hands. Charlie and us."

  Byrnes fell into step beside her. He tucked the

  note back into his shirt pocket, along with her first

  one, feeling like an idiot for keeping them but

  unable to leave them elsewhere. If Garrett got

  wind of them, he'd never live this down, and the

  idea of burning them.... No. Just no. "Just how are

  you getting inside the Nighthawks headquarters?"

  "Headquarters?" Ingrid paused in front of the

  main door. "Or your room?"

  "Both. And what did you do in there? Your

  perfume was... everywhere."

  On his sheets, on his pillow....

  Stepping closer, she pressed her fingertips

  lightly against his chest and whispered in his ear,

  "Use your imagination."

  Then she was through the door and striding in

  those ground-eating steps toward a steam carriage

  that idled at the curb. Charlie waved at him from

  the driver seat, wearing fingerless gloves and a

  bowler hat.

  And then they were off, even as “Use your

  imagination” was still plaguing him.

  Cursed woman.

  THOUGH he often preferred to work alone,

  Byrnes swiftly began to realize that he didn't mind

  working with others when they knew what they

  were doing.

  Ingrid loped ahead of him through the fog that

  adorned London's rooftops like the icing on a cake,

  with Charlie at her heels. Taking off, Byrnes leapt

  across an alley and landed beside them as Charlie

  fiddled with the levers on a small brass box.