At last, slick with sweat and smiling with satisfaction, she melted against him, sliding off of his lap and curling into his side. He wrapped an arm around her and marveled at how well they fit together as she traced lazy circles on his chest.
“I love you,” he said, and she smiled. He both felt her smile against his shoulder and saw it with his enhanced vision, for which he was grateful, because it was beautiful, full of joy and a touch of bashfulness.
“I love you too.” She sounded heartfelt, but Alek sensed a touch of reserve.
“But?”
She shook her head. “But nothing. I just love you.” Her smile faltered.
Alek tucked a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face toward his. “But?”
She sighed and pushed his hand away. “What we’re about to do... I know there are no good alternatives. But I want you to be careful, Alek.”
“I am being careful. We’ve taken every precaution—”
“I’m not talking about physical safety. I’m talking about your soul.” She pushed away from him and sat up, leaning forward with her bare back to him. “You worked so hard to get back your humanity. I don’t want you to get so focused on the end goal that you end up losing it.”
“You think that’s what I’m doing?”
“Not yet.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “But I could see it, and that scares me. More than all the other things that scare me. You’re so driven to save the world, and that’s an admirable goal, but you have to realize it’s not up to you. Not entirely. And I don’t want to see you lose yourself.”
Alek reached for her. “C’mere.” She lay down next to him, her body tucked snugly beside his. “I want to make something clear. You and Noah are my priority. As much as I want to bring about peace, more than anything I want the two of you safe, and I will burn this world down if that’s what it takes.”
Hannah raised up on her elbow and gazed down at him, her face unreadable. “See, that’s what I’m talking about.”
“But I—”
“No, stop. Look, I get it. I feel the same way about you. And Noah.” She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bunk, the better to lean over him. “When your first wife was in a concentration camp, you compromised every one of your principles to keep her safe. Except it didn’t do her a single bit of good, and you’re still tortured about it all these decades later. Do you think she’d be happy if she knew that?”
He lay there a moment, silent, not quite believing she was bringing this up.
“Do you?” she insisted.
“No,” he said at last.
“Do you think that would make me happy?”
Alek pushed himself up to sitting. “And if I could save you by compromising myself, how could I live with myself if I didn’t?”
“How could I live with it if you did?” She shook her head. “Alek, promise me that whatever happens, you won’t bargain away your soul for my sake. Don’t go down that road again.”
He noticed pain in his jaw and realized he was clenching it too tight. He breathed in and exhaled, forcing himself to relax. “I can’t promise I won’t do whatever’s necessary to protect my family.”
Hannah sighed and started to get up. He took hold of her arm and got her to look at him.
“But I can promise I will always do my best to be someone you can be proud of.”
She looked at him a long moment, her bright eyes searching his. At last, she nodded. “Fair enough. I promise, too.”
He smiled and released her arm to run his fingers through her silky hair. “Silly girl. You could never make me any less proud of you.”
There was that smile again. He wrapped his hand around her neck and pulled her down so he could kiss those smiling lips. She came willingly, stretching out beside him, and they sealed their promises with quiet, mutual worship while the baby slept in the darkened cell next door.
TWENTY- FOUR
THE MOON WAS FULL AND luminous, bathing the prison yard below and the landscape beyond in pearlescent light. From her vantage point on the roof, Julia could make out a ring in the sky around the round moon. She’d long ago ceased being moved by such a sight. She’d seen countless moons like this one, or close enough to make no difference.
Once upon a time, she’d have taken ring as an omen of some sort. Perhaps a sign that it was time to plant, or to reap, or to send out a hunting party. Something along those lines. The exact superstitions she’d once held had been lost to time. She no longer remembered them. She barely even remembered remembering. And she knew too much of science now to believe in omens. The ring was no more than ice crystals illuminated by the sun, not some ominous portent or a sign from the gods.
She had enough signs and portents to keep her busy within the prison walls. Like the whispering that ceased whenever she entered a room, and her new right hand’s mysterious visits to the prison laundry.
Most mysterious of all was the doctor, disguising his identity and masquerading as a human, but not quite so. Nor was he any longer a vampire. His equally mysterious companions were also not quite one or the other. As much as she loathed being taken for a fool, Julia’s curiosity had compelled her to leave them be, to let their scheme play out. To give them enough rope to hang themselves.
Whatever they were scheming, Celine was at the center. A lackey given a taste of power, she had taken it and run with it. At first it had been a game to Julia, whose existence had become so tedious she was desperate for any kind of amusement. Sitting back and watching these children hatch their plans while believing they were unobserved had provided enough amusement to ease the crushing boredom for a while.
But a little bird had told her that there were more such creatures. The doctor was tampering with the food supply, and that had to stop.
And Julia’s curiosity about his plans had given way to a greater curiosity: what, exactly, had Konstantin become?
No more games. It was time to find out. And to put a stop to it.
Julia lifted her face to the moon and shut her eyes. Its light was cold, like her. She tried to recall how it felt to have the sun kiss her skin, warming her all over and making her dark skin even darker. But that feeling was as lost as the other memories of her former life, and just as far from her grasp.
She opened her eyes and went back inside, where another lackey, the tall, ambitious vampire Stephens, awaited her.
“You know the controls?” she asked him.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Show me.”
He led her down several flights of stairs and through a door that led into a long corridor. At the end was another door. It opened into a room with three chairs. They faced a wall lined with screens, most of them dark. A console beneath them held an array of buttons and levers and keyboards.
“You can lock it all down from here?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then do it.”
Stephens nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” He said the words with pleasure and produced a set of keys. He placed one in a slot on the console and gave it a turn before punching a sequence into one of the keyboards.
A buzzer sounded. Screens came to life, showing rows and rows of cells, their doors sliding shut.
Whatever Konstantin and his followers were planning, Julia now had all the time she wanted to get to the bottom of it.
HANNAH HEARD A BUZZ, followed by a clang. She opened her eyes. “Alek?”
“The door,” he said, sitting up. Hannah groped on the floor for her discarded tee-shirt. She pulled it on over her head as she went to examine the closed door. She grasped the bars in both hands and pulled, but it didn’t budge. “Oh, no.” She yanked as hard as she could, to no avail. “No!” Frustrated, she made a fist and pounded on the steel cage, but it only sent pain shooting up her arm.
Alek stood beside her, buttoning his orange jumpsuit. “It’s not just us. Look.” He nodded toward the cell next door, and the ones across the way. “They’re all closed.”
“Noah
.” She moved to the side of their cell adjoining the one they’d been using as a nursery. Through the bars, she could see him, sound asleep in his crib. She looked back at Alek, on the verge of panic. “What do we do?”
He came over and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Try not to panic. Noah’s okay. He’s safe in there. This might only be a system glitch. Once the morning shift starts someone will likely realize what happened and release the locks.”
She turned to face him. “Do you really believe that?”
She could tell that he wanted to reassure her, but couldn’t ignore the timing. He sighed. “It’s too coincidental.”
“So what do we do?”
“The only thing we can do, for now. We wait.”
“For what?”
“For Celine to release us, or...” He trailed off, his mouth forming a grim line.
“Or what?”
Before he could answer, the overhead lights in their cell block came on, followed by the distinctive sound of stiletto heels clicking against the concrete floor. Hannah scooped her jeans off of the floor and tugged them on.
“Or that,” Alek muttered. Hannah zipped up her pants and turned around in time to see Julia stepping in front of their cell, escorted by a tall male vampire. She turned to face them and flashed a brilliant smile, but her eyes held not even the slightest hint of good humor.
“Good morning, Doctor. It’s lovely to see you.”
Hannah’s stomach flip-flopped. She swallowed hard and looked at Alek, but he said nothing. He appeared to be measuring his response.
But Julia didn’t give him time to come up with something. “I wanted to tell you so when you stood in my office, but you seemed so confident of your disguise, I hated to... what’s the phrase?” She looked back at the other vampire, but he seemed to be at a loss. “Ah, yes.” She waved a dismissive hand toward the other vamp and grinned at Alek. “Burst your bubble.”
“You knew,” he said.
“But of course.” Her smile vanished as her mouth twisted into a furious snarl. “And I did not appreciate being taken for a fool.”
“Why didn’t you do anything?”
She shrugged. “Curiosity. I wanted to see what you would do. But I’ve let the charade go on for too long. I can’t have you tampering further with the food supply.”
Hannah stood there, clutching her stomach, dumbfounded by what she was hearing. All of their careful planning, all of their precautions... none of it mattered. Their defeat had been sealed before they even began.
“Besides,” Julia continued, grasping the bars, “a greater curiosity has taken hold.” She leaned in, pressing her face into the space between the bars, and looked Alek up and down. “What are you?”
“Was it our scent? Is that what gave it away?”
“I will ask the questions. How many of you are there?”
Again, Alek was slow to answer. Hannah’s heart sped up. So she doesn’t know everything.
“Answer me, Doctor, or I will slaughter every last human in this forsaken place. It’s none to me. With all of you dead I can go home.”
“And lose hundreds of healthy humans from an already too-small blood supply?” Alek let out a disdainful laugh. “Somehow I doubt it.”
Julia responded with half a shrug. “From what I’ve been told, your beloved humans won’t be necessary for our survival much longer.”
“But you’d risk starvation before that’s a sure thing?”
With a smirk, Julia looked back at the guard. “He has a point.” She released the bars and stepped back beside him. “Get the girl.”
“What?” Hannah moved to the back of the cell as the guard removed a set of keys from his belt. She looked at her husband. “Alek?”
He stepped between her and the guard. “You won’t touch her.”
The guard opened the door. Without a word, he took a cattle prod from his belt and drove it into Alek’s chest. He screamed in agony and dropped to the floor.
“Alek!” Hannah screamed. Unable to get to him, she prepared to fight, shifting into a combat stance.
The guard waved the cattle prod at her, shaking his head. “Believe me, you don’t want to get hit with this.”
“Come, girl,” Julia commanded, and Hannah knew it was useless to fight. She stepped forward and let the guard grab her by the arms, pinning them behind her as he led her out of the cell.
“Hannah!” Alek gasped, his hand on his chest as he struggled to sit up. “What are you doing with her?”
“Tell me how many and you won’t have to find out.”
“Alek, no. Don’t say anything.”
“Ten,” he said, wobbling slightly as he climbed to his knees. “There are ten of us. Please, Julia, don’t harm her. I’ll cooperate. I promise.”
Just then, the baby began to fuss, working up to a full-blown cry. Hannah closed her eyes and swore. Julia’s head snapped toward the other cell. “Is that the infant?”
“Please,” said Hannah. “He’s only a baby. He’s completely human. He has nothing to do with any of this.”
Julia looked at her, a long, measured gaze that made Hannah feel exposed. At last, she turned toward the guard and jerked her head toward Noah’s cell. “Put her in there.”
He slammed the door shut on Alek’s cell, removed the key, and then used it to open the other cell before shoving Hannah inside. She rushed to her brother and picked him up. “Shh. It’s okay, Boo. Sissy’s here. Shh.”
“We will find the other eight,” Julia said to Alek. “I am certain Balthazar and the rest of the Council will want to conduct their own... experiments to understand what you are.” She glanced over at Hannah. “But I dare say they would all be fine with one less subject to study.” She turned a sharp look on Alek. “You’d do best to cooperate and be truthful, Doctor, if you would like your beloved to stay alive until then.” Without waiting for a response, she turned and went back the way she came, snapping her fingers for the guard to follow.
Hannah waited until they were gone before asking, “Are you okay?”
“I’ll live.” Through the bars, she saw Alek grasp the side of the bunk and pull himself up. He glanced over at her. “At least now you’ve got the baby.”
“Yeah. Great.” She bounced him in her arms as she paced the very narrow space between the bunk and his crib. “So now what?”
“Now?” He reached through the bars, holding his hand out to her. She stopped pacing and held it. “We hope and pray that Celine can still pull off this coup.”
TWENTY- FIVE
CELINE EMPTIED THE plasma bag and warmed it for thirty seconds in the microwave—just the way Julia liked it. Except this morning’s wake-up cup held something extra. She patted the syringe in her pocket while she waited. This serving of blood, one containing the cure, would have been hers, but she would serve it to Julia instead. The doctor had given her a dose of the serum to use on herself when the time came.
As impatient as they were, she and her agents had all agreed not to take their cure until their unsuspecting colleagues had consumed it—and that would happen this morning. With Julia and many of her underlings weakened by their transformation, the superior strength of Celine and her fellow vampires would be enough to subdue them. Plus, they had the entire human population on their side—most of them heavily armed.
This is going to work, she reassured herself as she removed the mug from the microwave.
She left the break room and carried the mug down the hall toward the warden’s office, careful not to spill a drop. She needed to do this quickly. Any minute now, the vampire crew on the morning shift would have their breakfast. She didn’t have long before word got out that they were no longer vampires.
Her steps faltered as she rounded a corner and saw Stephens standing sentinel outside Julia’s door. She backtracked and went to her old desk, now occupied by Reynolds. “What is Stephens doing there?” she asked, her voice hushed.
Reynolds looked up at her with wide, worried eyes. “I d
on’t know. But that’s the least of our problems. The prison’s on lockdown.”
“What? Why?”
Reynolds shook her head. “Julia had Stephens activate the remote locks early this morning. And then she brought him here and left him to guard her door. That’s all I know.”
Celine swore. And then she thought for a moment. And then she swore some more.
“So we call this off, right?” asked Reynolds. “They know something’s up. I don’t know how—I’d stake my life that none of our folks turned on us. But something’s wrong. We can’t go through with this.”
Celine glanced toward Stephens. “We have to. It’s too late to turn back. What about our people? Is everyone in position?”
Reynolds nodded. “They’ve got all the exits covered, and they’re down in the human areas to help protect them. But if the humans are all locked up—”
“Then it’s up to us. By the time everyone has their breakfast this morning, our vampires will outnumber theirs, anyway.”
“In theory. But what if they’ve been warned not to drink this newest batch of blood?”
Reynolds was right. Nothing was certain anymore. The only thing Celine could be sure about was that the odds were no longer in their favor.
Unless...
“We’ve got one chance at this,” said Celine. “Tell everyone to get ready.” She squared her shoulders and turned toward Julia’s office.
“What are you going to do?”
“Cure Julia. Or die trying.”
“You realize that’s not just dramatic hyperbole, right?”
Celine nodded, wishing she felt half as brave as she was trying to appear. “Yeah. So wish me luck.”
“Good luck.”
Rounding the corner, Celine pasted a confident smile on her face as she approached Stephens. He looked at her warily and, she thought, somewhat knowingly. “She’s waiting for you,” he said.
“I know.” Inspiration struck her. “Hey, have you had breakfast yet? Reynolds said you’ve been posted here a while.”
“No, I haven’t,” he said, his voice as wary as his look.
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