Vertigo Vampire: a Supernatural Thriller (The Specials Book 2)

by Tricia Owens

  Now I needed to get out of there.

  I rethought the stairs. I was too injured to take them quickly, and security would be guarding the front doors. Grimacing, sick with pain, I limped back to the windows I’d crashed through. A reluctant look outside showed me I was only maybe three floors up.

  “Piece of cake,” I said hoarsely.

  The room didn’t have curtains or anything rope-like, but it did have industrial carpeting. With a groan, I bent and meddled the carpet, pulling up a long strip of it as well as a matching strip of the spongy, rubbery padding beneath. My eyes crossed for a moment as I meddled the two together. I shook my head, determined not to screw this up or else everything I’d done today would be for nothing.

  When I was finished with my work, I gave only a cursory inspection of the shoulder harness before I shrugged into it. Time was short. Risks would be taken. Meddle the end of my new bungee cord to the wall beneath the window. Meddle the opposite end to my harness. Pray I’d calculated the length right.

  Fear is a luxury I can’t afford.

  I closed my eyes and jumped out the window.

  ~~~~~

  When I opened my eyes again, I was confused. Nathaniel leaned over me. His fingers gently stroked through my hair.

  My awareness expanded, telling me I was lying on my bed in my room at the Sinistera. The light coming in through the window was rosy. It was dusk.

  Impressions flashed through my mind: dangling above the sidewalk, slowly spinning at the end of my bungee cord. A Good Samaritan helping me out of the harness. A blurry ride in a taxi. Then Sheridan murmuring calmly, “Just relax. You’re in good hands, Arrow. You’re home.”

  Home. My eyes stung. Nathaniel, gazing down at me, looked concerned.

  “Do you think you’re invincible?” he whispered.

  I have to be, I thought at him.

  The room shuddered and shifted around us because he was trapped in this place.

  But trapped wasn’t the word I’d use at the moment. With relief, I closed my eyes. I let his touch lull me into sleep, where I could fly like a bird.

  Chapter 12

  I slept until the next morning. When sunlight pierced my consciousness, I shot upright in bed, only to fall back with a cry as agony exploded throughout my body. I stared up at the ceiling, terrified.

  My healing factor wasn’t working.

  Nothing could explain it. I’d never heard of someone losing an ability that was ingrained in their DNA. It was like a brunette losing color in their hair to become a blonde. It just didn’t happen.

  But it was happening, and something Nathaniel had said came back to me.

  Its entire mass is a poison.

  My tongue curled with horror. Some of the vampire-creature’s blood had gotten into my mouth. I was poisoned.

  Or infected.

  I fumbled with the phone on the nightstand.

  “Is Tower there?” I blurted into the receiver as soon as Sheridan answered.

  “Why yes, he is. He’s in his office. It’s good to hear from you, Arrow. I was—”

  “I’m sorry, Sheridan. I can’t talk. I’ll be right down.”

  I felt bad for cutting her off, but I couldn’t spare time for niceties.

  I flung off the sheet covering me and let out a choked cry. I was in my underwear. Either she or Nathaniel had removed my clothes and draped them over the chair in the room. I didn’t care about that. I cared about the massive bruises and cuts that marred nearly every inch of my skin. I had long ago stopped being amazed by my body’s healing factor, so to see the evidence that it had failed me was horrifying. I’d been mostly dead when I’d dragged myself through the Sinistera’s front doors. I looked like not much was needed to push me over the edge.

  I’d never felt immortal, but my healing factor had given me a confidence I knew other people lacked. To be vulnerable only meant I was like them—like Elliott or Sheridan—and yet in my mind, somehow this was worse. I didn’t kid myself that in the past I’d been reckless with my body because I’d known I would heal quickly. What if I forgot, and took the same risks again?

  Though as I crawled to the end of the bed, groaning at the pain, I found it doubtful I could forget my new vulnerability.

  I reached for my discarded jeans. My belt remained threaded through the loops, and the hard drive I’d taken from Dr. Day’s assistant still hung from it, much to my relief. It gave me strength to pull on my clothes and push my way to the door.

  I opened it and would have jumped back in fright had I been feeling better. A sleepy Elliott stood just outside, his hand raised as though he’d been about to knock. He was adorably mussed, but much of my swell of fondness for him came from the reality that I’d nearly died last night and might never have seen him again.

  Was this what my grandmother and parents had faced on a daily basis during the war? Every day gratitude for the chance to see their loved ones? In my parents’ case, that had been justified since they’d ultimately died. My connection to them and to my grandmother felt stronger than ever.

  “Sheridan told me you’re awake,” Elliott said excitedly. He started to reach for me but hesitated. “Arrow, are you okay?”

  I simply pulled him forward to complete the hug he’d started. His arms clasped me tightly and though it hurt, I didn’t make a sound or pull away. I needed him. He was my healing factor.

  “I’m okay,” I murmured into his shoulder, hating how fragile I felt. “Sorry to leave you hanging last night.”

  “No! I don’t care about that. Bong pulled a double with me. I’m just glad you’re okay. I saw you when you came back.” Elliott gently stroked my shoulders. “Are you sure you should be out of bed? You looked like you’d been hurt really bad.”

  “I jumped off a couple of buildings and crashed once or twice, no biggie.” I sighed and reluctantly stepped back. “I have to speak with Mr. Tower about something. It’s urgent.”

  “Okay, sure. Do you need me to help you down the stairs?”

  His sincerity made my chest ache. “I’ll be okay. But thank you.” He continued to look worried, so I changed the subject. “Has the Count ever mentioned something called V-Recode?”

  He shook his head, looking bewildered. “Never heard of it. What does it mean?”

  “I think it’s something that a pair of scientists that worked with Dr. Febrero and Dr. Day are currently developing. Maybe it has something to do with vaccines or biohazardous materials. I really don’t know.”

  “If I see the Count, I’ll—” He broke off, flushing. “But I won’t. You told me to stay away, so I’ll stay away.”

  “Just for a little while longer, Elliott.”

  He shrugged tightly.

  I wanted to say more, but the word ‘poison’ kept running through my head. “I’ll talk to you later. Go back to bed. It’s too early for you to be awake.”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted. “But I will now that I know you’re going to be okay.”

  I left him, praying I wouldn’t learn anything to hurt him further.

  The climb down the stairs was brutal and I was sweating by the time I reached the lobby and limped to the front desk.

  Sheridan took one look at me and pursed her lips. But all she said was, “He’s in his office. He knows you’re coming.”

  I knocked on his door but didn’t bother waiting for permission to enter. He didn’t appear to mind my intrusion. His smile was friendly and welcoming. “Arrow, I’m pleased to see you’re well enough to gain your feet. You scared us last night.”

  “I scared myself,” I said. I made sure I didn’t look at the video screens. I handed him the hard drive.

  “Nathaniel told me about the plan you two came up with to deal with Dr. Day and Aaron Peerage,” I told him. He looked up from the hard drive at me, one eye brow arched. “So I’m up to speed.”

  “I see.” He sat back and regarded me calmly. If Sheridan was the queen on a chessboard, Tower was its king. Both could be inscrutable. “And y
ou wished to speak with me about these acts?”

  “No. As I told him, I don’t like it, but I understand that you’re only trying to protect Nathaniel.”

  “Your use of his name…” He shook his head, smiling faintly. “I’m surprised. Did he tell you?”

  “Yes.” Heat built in my cheeks for some reason. “We talk every so often.”

  “Hmm.”

  I tried not to squirm. I could tell he was enjoying himself.

  “Right now, I want to talk about the V-Recode,” I said, watching him closely.

  His amusement over my embarrassment died a quick death. His dark gaze shuttered immediately. “Where did you hear about that?”

  I pointed at the hard drive. “There may be information about it on there. I need you to check. Scientists are working on the V-Recode program at the Victory City Heights laboratory. Did you know this?”

  He paused, obviously weighing the wisdom of telling me anything.

  “Yes,” he said at last. “Though we’d hoped the program had been put on permanent hiatus. We now know that’s not the case.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Tower set the hard drive on the desk and folded his hands across his lap. “You’re familiar with ‘graftage’?” I shook my head. “It’s a horticultural term. Branches, leaves, flowers—called the scion—are grafted onto a rootstock so the tissues merge. Horticulturists practice the technique to induce heartiness in a plant, or dwarfism, or to encourage consistent fruit…the list of reasons is long.”

  “My aunt used to cut off branches from her rosemary bush and replant them in pots to give to friends as gifts. Is that the same?”

  “That’s referred to as a cutting. It’s used for propagation. Graftage is different. The aim is to meld the preferred genes of separate plants to create a single improved or genetically consistent plant.”

  “And V-Recode?”

  “V-Recode is the name of the program Dr. Rose and Dr. Day devised. V-Recode is tissue graftage of biological subjects.” Tower’s expression didn’t flicker as he said, “In this case, the rootstock was healthy human beings. The scion—the desirable tissue—consisted of parts of Count Ionesceau.”

  I sat up straighter, ignoring the twinge of strained muscles. A gruesome image popped into my head of a naked human body, planted in the soil up to its hips, while sprouting from its shoulders and torso were the vampire’s fingers and arms. I shuddered.

  “Yes,” Tower said. “It’s despicable.”

  “It’s…horrific.” I licked my dry lips. “When you say parts—”

  “Smaller than I believe you’re imagining. No fingers or ears. These were surgically removed portions of skin approximately two inches by two inches, with and without hair follicles.”

  “Two inches or a hand—either is unacceptable. Unless…did the Count agree to that?”

  “He was told he was submitting to an experiment to reverse the effects of his vampirism condition.”

  I laughed without mirth. “No wonder he wanted to kill Dr. Day and now is after Nathaniel and Dr. Febrero. He thought they would help him and they ended up harvesting his skin and using it to make creatures.”

  “Dr. Day and Dr. Rose did,” Tower corrected me.

  “Apparently the Count isn’t big on specifics.” I slowly rubbed my arms, where goosebumps had risen. “Did those people—the rootstocks—survive?”

  He held my eye. “I think we both know the answer to that, don’t we?”

  My stomach clenched. I resisted the urge to vomit. “It attacked me yesterday. At the pool. Some of its blood got in my mouth.”

  It worried me that he blanched.

  “I think it affected my healing factor. Stunted it, or—” I couldn’t bring myself to say ‘stopped’ it. “What are the chances I’m poisoned or-or mutated?”

  “I’m no scientist,” he told me grimly, recovering his composure. “But the fact that you’re here now, talking to me, tells me you didn’t ingest a deadly amount. As for your healing factor, the hybrid’s blood isn’t designed to affect something like that. The scientists were attempting create a class of superior vampires, ones that even a beheading couldn’t kill. If anything, you should heal even faster. It may be that your body is rejecting the contaminant, focusing all of its healing powers on destroying it while leaving the rest of your body to heal naturally.”

  I grasped onto the words, desperate for them to be true. I wasn’t sure if they made sense, or if I merely wanted to believe them.

  “All we can do is wait,” he went on. “There’s no cure for this affliction. The V-Recode program was slash and burn. Those subjects that weren’t viable were put down.”

  Put down. Like dogs. How wide was the government’s blood trail? Who was held responsible for approving all these experiments? I’d thought the DNA enhancements done to the freedom fighters were the worst things imaginable. My imagination was quickly growing larger and more twisted with each new revelation.

  “The thing that attacked me.” I envisioned it again, trying to remember it without the veil of fear clouding my perception of it. “It had the characteristics of a vampire, but it didn’t seem stable. It continually shifted, and not in ways that I’d say were good for battle, if that’s what it had been designed for.”

  “V-Recode, like many other programs, shouldn’t have existed. They shouldn’t have been proposed. The risks were too high and the likelihood of failure astronomical. But the government wanted an advantage—”

  “Over what?” I cut in.

  He breathed deeply. “We don’t know.”

  Invisible witches. Immortal vampires. Demons. Those were the experiments and creations I knew about, and that wasn’t counting the enhancements to the freedom fighters. The oligarchs were determined to triumph. But over what? They had possession of Dr. Febrero. Even if Nathaniel and I were wrong and his father was guilty, he was no longer a threat to the government while they had him in custody.

  “The V-Recode subject—this vampire hybrid—needs to be stopped.”

  I looked up warily at Tower. “Why did Dr. Day bring it here if it was so dangerous? Did he have a means of controlling it that ended up failing?”

  “We went through his possessions. We didn’t find anything to indicate such.”

  “There has to be something,” I insisted.

  I could see Tower genuinely didn’t know. I opened my mouth to declare I’d hunt the thing down, but I hesitated, my injured body throbbing like one enormous wound. This fragility was new to me. It left me feeling like a coward. But the truth was, I was afraid of running into the V-Recode hybrid again. I didn’t think I’d survive a second encounter with it.

  “There remains the matter of the Count,” Tower said, his expression unreadable, though he watched me intently. “He will never tire in his pursuit of Nathaniel and his father. The vampire will tear though all who stand in his way, including you and me. Including the other Specials. He must be removed as a threat. There’s no other choice left to us.”

  “He can’t be reasoned with?” I thought of Elliott.

  “A vampire knows no reason.”

  I frowned at the condemnation, but I couldn’t argue that the Count was unpredictable and unknowable, like a giant tarantula.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for him,” I said. It took all of my willpower to hold Tower’s eyes.

  He picked up the hard drive. “In the meantime, I’ll have a look at this.”

  “Why haven’t you gone after the scientists at Victory City Heights? You know they’re there, performing experiments which you allegedly oppose.”

  He smiled pleasantly. “Not ‘allegedly.”

  “Then why not target the building? Call the media, or set it on fire or something, force their secrets out into the open.”

  “The media?” The look he gave me was patronizing.

  I bristled. “I know the online sources are corrupted, but surely there’s something legitimate out there. Me and my friends can’t be the only ones s
tanding up for truth.”

  “The ones who matter are in here.”

  “That’s a crap answer. And you still haven’t explained why you’re letting the scientists continue their work.”

  “Who says we are?” Tower brushed his fingers over the hard drive. “We’re working on many things, Arrow. Don’t be so quick to dismiss our efforts just because they’re not immediately apparent to you. Dr. Febrero is still alive and under threat. It’s a handicap, but we’re doing what we can.”

  “Do you know where he’s being kept?”

  Tower looked up at me and smiled his customer service smile. “I’ll mount this drive and go through its contents. Thank you for bringing this to me, Arrow. You’re very helpful.”

  “I can help you,” I insisted as he stood. “Why not let me help?”

  “I’ll speak to Nathaniel.”

  That quieted me. This was the Febreros’ game, after all. It did prompt me to ask, “Will you tell me why you’re helping them? What’s in it for you?”

  Tower placed a fatherly hand on my shoulder. “Let’s just say we have some things in common, Arrow.”

  The non-answer angered me, but Tower wasn’t a man I could bully into answering the way I wanted him to. Frustrated, I left his office. He didn’t follow me, so I hoped that meant he was going to look at the hard drive immediately.

  Physically, I still felt terrible. Out in the lobby, I looked up at the stairs and cringed. I took the elevator instead, leaning heavily against one wall as I rode it up to the mezzanine.

  I planned on taking a nap, hoping the additional sleep would aid my healing factor—which I convinced myself was busy fighting the V-Recode blood in my system. But I made a pit stop in the bathroom first. While there, the bathtub called to me. It turned out to be a good choice. The hot water, though stinging at first, began to relax my overstressed muscles and joints.