by Linn Chapel
A week after that, Albert Chu – for that was the name of the ailing vampire – had felt much better. And to his own amazement, not to mention Peter’s, he had seemed human again by every indication.
“That was when Peter began to suspect that there was something very unusual about his blood,” she continued. Holt had turned his head toward her and he seemed to be listening to her closely. Tressa wondered if his doubts had lessened.
Feeling encouraged, she went on.
When Peter’s visit to New York had ended, he had returned home by way of Boston, where he’d helped Albert to set up a new life as a college student. He had also described the strange episode to their research-minded brother Luke, who lived near Harvard Square. Luke had in turn spoken privately with the head of a medical research facility near Harvard, a doctor who had gained a reputation for investigating rare strains of blood.
As it turned out, Dr. Hayes had already been testing some odd, unmarked vials he had received from a colleague in Europe. Because of certain properties displayed by their fluid contents, Dr. Hayes had begun to suspect that vampirism was not a myth, but a very real phenomenon. At Luke’s urging, he had performed a series of experiments that mixed droplets of the European samples with some of Peter’s blood.
Stunned by his initial findings in the lab, Dr. Hayes had continued with more of the experiments until he had finally understood the biochemical steps that must have turned Albert Chu into a human. The doctor had been so enthused by his findings that he had left his successful medical career to spearhead a new, humanitarian effort with Peter.
In the beginning, it had been just the two of them. They had dubbed their small outfit Operation Metamorphosis.
With Albert providing inside information, Peter had been able to track the movements of several vampires without much trouble. A second subject had then been chosen, a female. She had been intercepted by Peter one night and swiftly given a dose of his blood – with an injector, for his safety.
But that time, things had not gone well. The subject had been furious about the transition when she had learned of it, for she resented losing her powers. She had tried to turn back, but that had proved to be impossible. Just as Dr. Hayes had already predicted, a small number of Mysterium blood cells persisted within the circulatory system after a transition.
Tressa shivered in the cool night breeze. She had always wondered where that angry and resentful subject had gone. Was she still alive, or had she come to a bad end soon after disappearing?
She glanced sideways at Holt. If only she could see his face more clearly! But night was falling and the lingering traces of light in the western sky were almost gone. She went on with her account, hoping that more details about the Operation would help.
Before a year had passed, Peter and Dr. Hayes had acquired some discreet federal funding. They had used it to hire several operatives, men with surveillance training. Eventually they had rented office space for their headquarters, as well.
With time, all the record-keeping, paperwork and management had slowed down the missions, so they’d been forced to hire a pair of managers, Ted and Margot, to keep everything going. Security clearances had been required and every precaution had been taken to ensure the secrecy of the Operation’s plans. Any leak about their activities to the general public would have been disastrous, for it would have created a widespread panic.
Holt spoke up for the first time. “When did you become involved, Tressa?”
“Peter told me about Albert’s transition and the experiments a long time ago. Later, after I moved to town, I donated some of my half-Mysterium blood for storage. But I always wanted to take an active role in the Operation, like Peter. The two of us can’t be mesmerized or turned like the other operatives. Peter uses his immunity to get very close to his subjects, so that he can use an injector accurately and plant a tracking bead for follow-up. The other operatives have only managed to make a few injections, and they don’t even try to plant a bead. They’d be mesmerized too easily. Peter knows that his closeup role is dangerous, but he says that vampires don’t often kill their victims.”
“Yes, that’s true. But you should not have tried this closeup role yourself, Tressa.”
“I had to, Holt. I was so discouraged with my job at the hospital. Try to imagine what it’s like to care for patients who are elderly! So many of them die during their hospitalization. I haven’t been able to do much for my patients, not even change a single bit of the hospital protocol for their medications. I thought that at least I could help someone through Operation M.”
“Helpfulness can be a virtue – under certain circumstances. But not these circumstances. No wonder your brother was against your plan.”
“Yes, Peter thought an active mission was so dangerous that it was out of the question, but I didn’t listen to him. I went behind his back to meet with Ted Johnson, one of the Operation’s managers. Ted was thrilled by my offer. In hindsight, I wonder if he had already been looking for a way to intercept you without Peter’s knowledge. He singled you out from a handful of potential subjects, you see.”
Holt said in an icy tone, “I should like to know why.”
The night wind had grown stronger and colder by this time and Tressa drew her sweater more tightly about herself. “After that first meeting with Ted, I came back secretly to headquarters for a week of private training sessions. I knew there’d be a back-up team nearby on the night of my mission, and I knew it was impossible for me to be turned by a vampire, or even be mesmerized. All of my preparations went without a hitch. But then, on the very night of my first mission, Peter found out. He wasn’t happy.”
Holt chuckled darkly. “I can imagine his displeasure quite easily.”
“It took a long time to convince him to give me a chance,” Tressa went on. “He finally agreed, just in time for me to walk down the street on schedule. You see, your nighttime habits had been under surveillance by Operation M for some time.”
“Under surveillance? If only I had known,” he muttered grimly. “Yes, I often took walks at night to relieve the tedium. I knew that I appeared to be human on these walks, so I never took any precautions to hide my route. But there is something you never knew, Tressa. That night, when I came upon you, I recognized you. I had already seen you many times before from outside the hospital.”
“I know, Holt,” she said. “I heard you talking to yourself.”
There was a long silence. “Then you must know how enchanted I had become with you. My lack of self-control had nothing to do with the usual urge for blood, and everything to do with that.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “I heard what you said about that, too. But there’s more that I need to tell you about the Operation, Holt. You couldn’t know it at the time, but I was breaking one rule after another that night. I was supposed to stay within full view of my back-up team, but I didn’t. I was supposed to use the injector in my pocket and then frighten you away with fire, but I didn’t do that, either. The injectors used by the Operation have vents that are pressure-activated. Little flames shoot out of them.”
“Ingenious.” His voice was wry.
“Yes, every part of the mission was well-planned, only I didn’t follow protocol.”
“You make a very poor agent for an undercover organization, Tressa.”
She laughed unhappily. “There’s more. I wasn’t supposed to see you again, but I did.” The chilly wind stung at her cheeks. “I wanted to tell you what was happening, but I couldn’t!”
“I don’t understand,” he said tersely. “Why not?”
“Because the transition can make a subject dangerous and unstable. In the early days, operatives used to interact more closely with the subjects who had been dosed, but all of that ended when two of the subjects became deranged with the fever.”
“Did they become sane again?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. “No, and they killed the operatives who had been assigned to mentor them.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “No one knows what happened to them. We don’t even know if they killed any more people.”
Holt was silent. Then he said, “Three misses. How many successes?”
Tressa thought for a moment. “Nine.”
“That would make twelve attempts, so far.... I suppose I’m the thirteenth. Some people consider thirteen an unlucky number. I wonder if I’ll become deranged, too?”
“No! You’re too smart – and – too sane, Holt! And you’re full of principles.”
He laughed darkly. “Am I? Just consider what I’ve done to you and how I’ve tried to hide it, until now. But you must swear to me that you’ll never go on another mission, Tressa!” he added in a voice of steel. “The prospect of another vampire finding you alone at night,” he grated, “is intolerable.”
Hearing the tension in Holt’s voice, Tressa realized that he must have come to the conclusion that she could never do anything right.
Holt prodded her sharply for an answer. “Tressa, I’m awaiting your promise.”
Tressa winced at his tone. “Holt, I’ve already decided not to go on any other missions.”
“Very reasonable of you, Tressa.” He went on, in a quieter voice. “I thought I was the only one with something to hide. I was resolved to leave for London before you could stumble upon the truth.”
So, there had been no need for him to work overseas, Tressa thought. Leaving town had been a subterfuge, a last resort.
Tressa shifted on the stone bench, feeling its coldness seeping into her. “I need to tell you something else about the Operation, Holt. I think you may be in great danger.”
She explained what she knew about the two operatives who had been trailing him, and then she described the kind of drugs that had been appearing at the Operation’s headquarters. Holt seemed puzzled when she mentioned that the drugs were psychoactive, but then she remembered the name of an opium derivative that had been widely used in the past. When she told him that the drugs in question were similar to laudanum, Holt gave a nod of understanding.
“Laudanum was on everyone’s shelf when I was younger. There was no understanding of it and no restrictions,” he murmured. “How well I remember Percy Shelley carrying about a flask of it in his pocket so that he could dose himself before putting pen to paper.”
“Holt, all of those new drugs in the Operation mean that something isn’t right. We’ll have to leave town and find some other place to stay, someplace safe where you can finish the transition. In another week it’ll be over. You’ll feel better then, and you’ll be human.”
Silence followed her eager words.
Holt said at last, “What if you’re not safe – with me?”
She shook her head, convinced that Holt would never hurt her. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Do I seem so tame?”
He had to be joking to ease the tension. But just to be sure, Tressa closed her eyes and used her psychic ability to send her thoughts outward.
In her mind’s eye, she could see wild streaks of color up ahead. As she approached them in her thoughts, she found that they were hovering aloft, disconnected from one another. The colors were so jarring that she recoiled.
She tried to read them from a distance, but she could sense nothing. The transition had to be jumbling Holt’s intentions – or maybe he was too feverish to even have any clear intentions at all.
Unsettled and dismayed, she pulled her thoughts back inward and ended the attempt.
A moment later, her dismay turned to shock, for when she reopened her eyes, she found that the spot where Holt had been sitting was now empty.
She leapt to her feet and whirled around to scan the hedges near the stone bench. Holt was nowhere to be seen.
Searching up and down the pathways brought no results, and neither did calling his name. Not a single soul seemed to be in Fountains Park that evening.
Suddenly feeling vulnerable, she turned and headed for the street before anyone unsavory could find her walking alone in the dark. She might even be caught unawares by Stix. Neither she nor Holt had thought to look for him in the shadows when they’d left her apartment. They’d been too preoccupied.
She felt a shudder run through her body and hurried to retrace her steps to the street.
A cold wind blew a gust of drizzly rain into her face as she rushed past the empty fountain basins and rounded a wall of shrubbery. She was just about to exit the park when she heard a low voice call out her name.
Fearfully, she looked over her shoulder. But it wasn’t Stix – it was Margot.
“Tressa, I’ve been looking for you.” The Operation’s personnel manager stepped calmly forward from the shadows.
Fifteen
Margot was dressed in the same dark, professional attire that she always wore at headquarters. Her neatly trimmed silver cap of hair shone faintly in the light of a distant street lamp.
At headquarters, Margot had always been brisker and more impatient than Ted, less likely to be understanding. But tonight, her voice was soothing. “You look upset, Tressa. Can I help you?” Coming forward, she clasped one of Tressa’s hands between hers in a supportive manner.
Tressa was fully on her guard. If Margot tried to question her about Holt, she was determined not to say a single word. But the prick from a small object in Margot’s hands came as a surprise. Tressa jerked her own hand away with a gasp.
“Talk to me,” came Margot’s gentle voice.
A fuzzy feeling was rapidly stealing over Tressa.
“Tell me where he lives.”
Holt.... Margot’s looking for Holt.
Tressa tried to walk away, but her legs wouldn’t obey.
Margot grasped her firmly by the shoulders. “The vampire you’ve been meeting, Tressa – you must know where he’s hiding!”
Tressa shook her head weakly, refusing to speak.
She didn’t have to worry about spilling secrets. She had no idea where Holt lived.... She didn’t know anything, except that he had disappeared tonight.
Then a tidal wave of dizziness rolled over her, drowning out all conscious thought.
Peter frowned at the voice that was disturbing his sleep. He shifted onto his other side in bed and pulled the covers higher.
“Peter, wake up,” came the voice again. Drowsily, Peter noticed the English accent.
Suddenly rising into wakefulness, Peter cracked open his eyes to see that Holt was leaning over the bed, bracing his hands on the edge of the mattress.
“I need your help. Tressa’s missing.”
“Tressa!” Peter sat up quickly, shoving the covers aside. “But how did you get into my apartment?” He ran his fingers through his hair, dazed.
“Through one of the windows. You should learn how to secure them properly,” Holt added in a critical voice. “Get up, Peter. Tressa’s been taken by someone in your Operation.”
“Kidnapped?” Peter surged to his feet.
“Yes.” Holt began to pace about the room. “I know all about your organization, Peter. Tressa told me last night about the Mysterium blood. She also told me about the operatives who were trailing me, and the new drugs. Now someone from the Operation has taken her away.”
“How do you know?” Peter swiftly pulled on a pair of jeans.
“I’ve just been to her place,” answered Holt. “There was no sign of her, but I found a note that had been addressed to you. It had been slipped underneath the door.”
“Wait – how did you get into Tressa’s place? Her windows are on the third floor.”
Holt shot him an unreadable look. “She gave me a spare key.”
Peter could feel the steam building up inside his chest. He narrowed his eyes at Holt.
“Peter, we can’t spare the time to fight over Tressa. We need to work together, because it’s a trap.”
“A set-up?” Peter forgot to be angry.
“Yes. They want you to be able to find th
em. They left directions for you.” Holt pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Peter.
A computer-generated map filled the top half of the paper. In the middle of the map, a spot had been circled with a pen. Underneath the map, words spelled out a typed message: Come alone, Peter. No police – or she’s dead.
With his pulse pounding hard, Peter turned to Holt. “From the marking on the map, I can tell that they’ve taken her to a vacation spot in New Hampshire. A place like that’ll be deserted in this season. Nobody around, lots of empty cabins – perfect for a hideout.” Peter’s eyes swept again over the typed instructions. He frowned. “Maybe I should go alone. I can’t risk her life, Holt.”
“No, Peter. We must work together to spring their trap. When we arrive, we’ll make it look as if you’ve come alone. I’ll find a way to hide my presence. I’m very skilled at that, you know.”
Peter grimaced. “I believe you.”
Holt added, “We’ll need to travel together, Peter. But I can assure you that my old needs are not very strong, right now.”
Peter was more worried about losing his temper and raging at Holt than sitting next to him in a car. But he swallowed his retort and hurried to pull a sweatshirt over his head. Then he stuffed his wallet and a bottle of water into a backpack, and said, “I’m ready.”
“Good. We’ll take your car, and you can drive. I’m not feeling well.”
“What about the daylight?” said Peter with a glance at the window. “It’s cloudy this morning, but will the clouds shield you enough when the sun rises?”
“The daylight does not seem to weaken me as much, now. On the other hand, Peter, I feel it only fair to warn you that I’m in a perfectly foul mood.”
Peter shot Holt an assessing glance. The fever of the transition had brought a flush to his lean face. “Feeling touchy?” said Peter a bit archly.