“You engineered my undoing,” Caz said to Neha.
“I don’t know what that means,” Neha said, zipping up her bag.
“You created the Cure, non?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, totally unapologetic. “I did it for the sake of someone who needed it, but I didn’t get it done in time and she’s gone now.”
I didn’t bother to add that afterward, she’d injected her poison into my veins to see if it worked without bothering to ask me first. Cazimir knew that part already.
“You said the evil scientist was dead,” Caz said to me but with no real rancor. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was too sick to care or if it simply no longer mattered to him.
“I heavily implied it, yes. For Neha’s safety,” I added, catching her eye. I still didn’t think she understood the favor I’d done her in blaming the Cure on her partner, Ray, who’d been murdered. Dead men make excellent scapegoats.
Cazimir considered for a long time. Neha went into the kitchen turned on the tap. She gave Caz a glass of water and then started making coffee.
He sipped the water. “How much blood?” he finally asked.
“Depends. A vial or two to run some basic tests.” She dumped coffee grounds into her Mr. Coffee. “A few ounces.”
Caz tapped his longer fingers on his sweatpants and met my eyes, as if asking a silent question. I had no answers for him, silent or otherwise.
“Fine. I’ll allow it,” Cazimir said, straightening again.
Neha left the coffee to brew and went down the hall again. When she returned, she wore rubber gloves and had vials, a needle with a plastic dongle attached, and a bag of first aid supplies. She told Cazimir to lower his arm and then tied a thick rubber strip around his shoulder. She inserted the needle and clipped each vial to the plastic dongle, drawing out the crimson blood. She put a cotton ball over the tip of the needle and pulled it out, securing the cotton in place with a Band-Aid.
“There you go,” she said. “I’ll call you in a couple of hours to discuss what I find.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “We’re not leaving you alone with vials of his blood.”
She gave me a disbelieving look and snapped off one of the rubber gloves. “Henri, just what is it you think I’ll do with a few ounces of blood from this man?”
“I have no idea. But we’re waiting right here.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself. But if you’re going to stay, I should give him fluids so he doesn’t pass out.”
Ten minutes later, there was an IV stand with a bag of liquid dangling from it behind the sofa, with a rubber tube snaking down and into Cazimir’s arm. He was staring at the needle in his inner elbow like it was an angry wasp that had landed on him.
“Guess you took the lab home with you, huh?” I asked.
Neha shrugged. “Had to put the equipment somewhere. He’ll thank me in a couple of hours.” She disappeared in the back rooms to run her tests.
I settled back into the chair and looked at Caz.
“Am I going to die after all?” he asked me. His face was gray and his tone flat. I couldn’t tell what answer he was hoping for.
“No,” I said. “But did you really think chugging vampire blood would help?”
Cazimir glanced down the hall to make sure Neha wasn’t nearby and then spoke softly. “There was this woman at the Factory, about forty years ago. She had an inoperable tumor in her brain. She had encountered a vampire years before and came to me for help. She did not want to be immortal, only to kill the tumor.” He lifted his eyes and met mine. “I did not understand her desire to remain human when it was killing her, but I allowed her to drink vampire blood from anyone at the Factory who was willing to donate.”
“Did you donate?” I asked.
“A few times. Mostly she drank from a fledgling of mine, who was curious about how far the healing properties of vampire blood could extend.”
Vampire blood can heal small injuries in mortals or at least allow them to heal faster. But I’d never seen it do more than heal surface wounds unless the person in question was made into a vampire themselves. The healing properties simply aren’t that powerful on a human. Enough to heal a small scrape or cut, like, say, fang marks in one’s throat, but that’s about it.
“And?” I asked.
“It worked. After a year of steadily ingesting large quantities of vampire blood, she was screened by her doctors and the cancer was gone.”
“Holy shit,” I said. “That’s amazing.”
“And highly secret,” he said sharply. “If mortals thought they could harvest our blood for such uses, it would be catastrophic.”
“Yeah. Scientists might be more open to the idea of monsters if monsters suddenly held beneficial properties,” I agreed.
Cazimir nodded. “Besides, many others have tried to replicate that success, and as far as I know, she remains an anomaly. Most of the people who attempt to cure some ailment with vampire blood die trying. The only sure method of destroying one’s mortal disease is to be turned, and even that doesn’t have a complete success rate.”
“So why are you drinking vampire blood?”
Cazimir shrugged. “I want it to burn the poison out of my veins. I spent centuries building my legacy, Henri. I cannot endure this.” He gestured to his mortal body. “The constant needs and aches, and to add insult to injury, I must suffer while my empire burns. Time is of the essence.” He tapped his fingers on his thigh and glanced back at the bag of fluids hanging over his head.
“Who’s giving you the blood?” I asked.
Cazimir got cagey again, staring down at the coffee table. “That is none of your concern.”
I sighed. I guess it was too much to expect a name. A horrible thought crept into my head.
“You’re not drinking black market blood, are you?”
Cazimir made a face that said I was profoundly stupid for asking such a question.
Maybe it was a fledgling of his. Or one of the vampires from the Factory who was still fiercely loyal. I wondered if it was Sean but was afraid to ask. That thought made me queasy. If Sean was going to give blood to one of us, it should be me.
I started to ask him a follow-up question, but when I looked over, I realized Cazimir had dozed off. He definitely needed the sleep, so I wasn’t going to wake him.
I leaned my head back against the recliner and soon I dozed off, too.
Chapter 11
I had a series of strange dreams I instantly forgot when I woke, leaving me with only a disquieted and uneasy feeling. My head throbbed, and the moment I sat up, my arm muscles joined the chorus of pain. I’d pulled more than a few muscles hauling those body parts to my car, and my ribs were still sore from when the guy had thrown me to the ground. Working a long shift on top of all that hadn’t helped.
Cazimir was still sitting on the sofa, looking bored but less like he was about to collapse. The IV had been taken out of his arm and the bag dangling from the IV stand was deflated and empty. Sweat beaded on his upper lip and forehead. He was a little flushed, but less pale than he’d been hours before. His face looked more animated, less pasty, his lips smoother and less chapped.
“How long was I out?” I asked. Light was coming through the curtains, so it was definitely morning. My muscles were stiff and sore. Standing hurt and I winced as the pain reminded me I’d been body-slammed two nights before.
“A couple of hours,” Cazimir said. He held up the mug in his hand. “There’s more coffee.”
I moved gingerly into the kitchen. Having a sore behind makes it damn hard to walk gracefully. I saw it was almost seven a.m. according to the microwave’s little clock. I found a mug and poured myself a cup of joe from the nearly empty pot. It was lukewarm and bitter, but I sucked it down like it was lifeblood. The caffeine helped my synapses start to fire and I felt more awake with each mouthful.
When I finished the first cup, I emptied the dregs of the pot into my mug and chugged it down, too. It left an acidic tast
e which, combined with the film of bacteria on my teeth, made me feel gross. I had mints, but what I really needed was a toothbrush and a gallon of mouthwash. I went into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. I was definitely a mess. My hair needed to be brushed and there were dark circles beneath my eyes. I stole a hair tie from Neha’s box of hair things on the counter and pulled my hair into a short ponytail. Then I washed my face and squeezed toothpaste onto my finger, doing my best to get some of the germs out of my mouth.
When I came out, I saw Neha had emerged from the back rooms. She still wore her pajamas, but she’d tied her short hair into a stubby little ponytail. Her expression was grave.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice tight.
My stomach clenched. I could tell she’d found something, and given her solemn demeanor, it wasn’t likely to be good.
“What is it?” I asked.
Neha gestured for me to go to the living area, with Cazimir. His expression was somewhere between exhausted and ill. I sat down next to him, on the other end of the sofa. Neha sat on the arm of the easy chair closest to the kitchen, probably in case she needed to make a quick exit. That didn’t bode well.
Neha didn’t speak.
“Neha,” I prompted in a warning tone.
She shook her head. “Look, I can’t be sure of anything.”
Cazimir narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”
Neha let out another breath. “Have you been sick? Any symptoms of a head cold? Sniffles, cough, sore throat? Any wounds?”
Cazimir shook his head.
“Your white cell count is elevated and your blood shows other signs of infection. There are traces of vampire blood in your system but I cannot draw conclusions from such a small sample.”
“What the hell are you trying to say?” I demanded, my patience for games shot hours ago.
“I’m saying that it seems as if his body is fighting off the vampire blood like it’s a virus. He was fevered earlier, which supports the conclusion.” I opened my mouth to ask a question, but Neha cut me off. “For all I know, this is exactly what every human body does when it consumes vampire blood. I haven’t tested anyone else, so my results might not mean anything.”
Caz and I exchanged a look. Most people didn’t get a fever when they consumed vampire blood. They did get a little flushed, but they didn’t puke up buckets of blood afterward.
“I’ve given blood to mortals for centuries and never made them sick,” Cazimir said a little defensively.
Neha lifted her shoulders and looked away. “Without running more tests, I can’t be sure of anything.”
“But?” I insisted. There was definitely a “but” in there. Neha met my gaze. Her brown eyes were weary, with dark circles beneath them. “But what, Neha?”
“It’s possible that it’s the residual effects of serum V-504 that’s causing such an intense reaction.”
I stared at her, trying to process the words at the same time my brain was adamantly rejecting the implications. She had to be wrong. There was no way that could be true. I refused to even accept it as a possibility.
She was watching me on the edge of her seat, waiting for me to explode.
“Goddamn it!” I pushed my fingers through my hair and rubbed my scalp. “If you’re right…” If she was right, I was going to rip her face off and she knew it.
“What?” Cazimir asked, clearly not understanding.
Neha stood and inched back into the kitchen, pretending to fiddle with the coffeepot. She didn’t care about coffee. She wanted to be out of hitting range when Cazimir finally got the memo.
“She thinks maybe the Cure has made us resistant to vampire blood,” I said, trying to rein in my own anger. Because if she was right, I might never be immortal again. And that was completely unacceptable.
“That’s not possible,” Cazimir said, clearly deciding denial was a better place to be. “I merely drank too much of it.” He looked over his shoulder to Neha for confirmation.
“That is a possibility,” she agreed. “As I said, I can’t be sure without control samples and many more tests.”
“No more tests,” Cazimir said, standing. He wobbled but recovered quickly. I stood, too. I didn’t want to look at Neha anymore. Besides, the longer I stayed here and let the possibility that I was immune to vampirism sink in, the greater the odds I’d set fire to the building in a fit of rage. I clenched my fists instead and gritted my teeth, giving her a look that dripped murder.
Neha might have made me human, but she couldn’t take the monster out of me that easily. I was still a vicious creature, despite my lack of fangs. If chopping up a body in my own bathroom didn’t prove that, nothing would.
I stormed out without another word to Neha, who looked relieved to see us go.
“She’s wrong,” I said to Caz as we got into my car. I pulled Altoids out of my purse and popped a fistful into my mouth. The peppermint was sweet and spicy and burned my tongue. I offered the tin to Caz, who declined.
“Surely no human blood is completely resistant to vampire blood,” he said firmly. “It might make you sick if you ingest too much too quickly, but there is a threshold and if you cross it, you will turn into a vampire. That has been demonstrated time and time throughout the centuries. No human can be immune to its magic.”
I wanted to agree with him. I desperately wanted to believe that Neha’s fucking Cure hadn’t fundamentally changed my body in a way that would cause it to reject vampirism like a bad organ transplant.
I thought about the way I could see visions in blood and connect with blood in a way no mortal could. What did that say about how I’d been fundamentally changed? Did it mean my body would more readily accept immortality or more fiercely reject it?
“Have you noticed anything else?” I asked. I didn’t know how to word it, and Caz’s look told me that he didn’t understand the question. Of course, he hadn’t exactly been going around licking corpses. And mortals could usually see bits and pieces in a vampire’s blood when they drank from them. “Have you noticed you still have any lingering vampiric abilities?” I pressed.
Cazimir’s eyebrows shot up. “Non. Have you?”
“It’s hard to tell what the baseline for normal humanity is,” I said, avoiding the question. I was sure Cazimir noticed but he didn’t comment. He was too lost in his own thoughts.
Neither of us spoke again. We listened to the radio while I circled around looking for parking. I finally pulled into a spot with no restrictions that would get my car towed for the next forty-eight hours, and then I sent a text to Max begging him to take my shift tonight. He owed me and I knew he had the night off.
As we trudged up to my apartment, Cazimir said, “My fledgling is giving me the blood. He is unwilling to turn me until he can be sure my blood won’t hurt him. But I will demonstrate that my blood is not… resistant”—he said the word like it poisoned his tongue—“to the very thing that’s kept me alive for centuries.”
“I sure as hell hope you do,” I said and I meant it. If Caz could be turned back, I could as well. And we could both ride off into the moonlight, immortal once again.
Unless Neha’s little Cure had stolen that from us, too. That thought was too much to bear.
Chapter 12
When I woke up after passing out for several hours, it was late afternoon, and Caz was nowhere to be found. His bedding was folded and stacked neatly on the side of the sofa and his belongings were piled in the corner, near the fireplace I never used, so he had not miraculously moved out.
We still hadn’t dealt with my apartment manager, and I made a mental note to go out the back to avoid Gene. He was a low-priority problem, but he was still a problem, and the weight of them was starting to get heavy.
I dressed in dark denim jeans and a lacy black blouse that wouldn’t look out of place in a club or bar, but opted for Doc Martens rather than heels. I put on little skull earrings that dangled from my ears and did my makeup, lining my blue eyes with dark
blue liner. I kept my blond hair down, marveling at how it fell past my shoulders after decades of it hanging at my ears. My purse still held the silver stake I’d taken from my attacker, and I had my trusty Taser.
The sun was low in the sky when I finally made my way to Underground, the bar that catered to arcane patrons: vampires, witches, and humans with some knowledge of or relationship to the former. It was small and out of the way, with its entrance in a nondescript building a few blocks from the more popular bars and clubs, and around the corner from an Irish pub.
Underground was, as the name implied, underground. Seattle’s Pioneer Square was rebuilt on top of the ashes of the old city after the Great Fire of 1889, creating a series of basements and tunnels. Some were in use for mundane purposes like tourism—there was an “Underground Tour” that took curious tourists to a cleaner, well-kept part of the Underground—or storage. It had come in handy during the 1920s Prohibition era, no doubt.
Underground the bar was not invisible to normal people, nor was it warded to keep them out. Wards were too specific to be used that way, much to the chagrin of Rhonda, the bar’s owner. Rhonda had opened the place sometime in the 1950s for other vampires who didn’t want to put up with “King” Cazimir in order to get the scoop on local arcane happenings.
The bar was empty, but that wasn’t unusual this time of night. It had a steady afternoon crowd of psychics, mediums, and witches, because it was a safe space to talk shop, but there was often a lull between the afternoon drinkers and the night crowd.
Mark stood behind the bar, lighting candles on the bar’s tables using magic, by waving a hand in their direction and watching them ignite. He was a witch who looked to be in his mid- to late thirties. He often worked the afternoon/evening shift, including the daylight hours that Rhonda, a vampire, could not.
Mark raised his eyebrows up to his receding hairline when he realized it was me, squaring his shoulders in a defensive posture. I hadn’t seen him since Neha’s Cure had turned me mortal again. My hair had grown several inches and I was no longer pale, fanged, or able to move with preternatural grace.
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