by Cat Adams
to, and other parts that normal y stayed in the background were front and center.
“We need to get her to the hospital.” A woman’s voice. I knew that voice. Dammit, who was she?
“No! They’d just stake her and take off her head.” A man.
“Maybe they should.” Cold, rational. A thought I’d have if I could think straight.
“She’s not a bat. She’s not going to be a bat.” Such determination. He sounded positive and that
made my cheeks feel warm. Or maybe it was just that everything else felt so cold.
A pause, and then a skeptical tone to her words. “You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do. I can tel .”
“Because she’s your Vaso?” Now the woman’s voice practical y dripped venom. Whoever she was,
she didn’t like me, that was for damned sure.
“I keep tel ing you. She’s not my Vaso.” The man’s voice was growing desperate. “Look, I know
somebody who can help her. Take her back to the lab. I’l make some cal s.”
I felt my body being lifted, and coherent thought was swal owed in a dark wave.
4
I rose to consciousness slowly, like floating back to the top of a deep pool fil ed with cold black water.
What the hell? What’s happening to me?
I knew who I was. But I had no idea where I was or how I’d gotten there. The last thing I remembered
clearly was wrestling the mirror I’d bought for Vicki’s birthday into the Miata and heading for
Birchwoods. The mirror hadn’t wanted to fit. In fact, it’d been enough of a problem that I’d been
seriously glad of the protection charms I’d had put onto it.
There had been no danger, no threat. It made no sense for me to have been unconscious.
Sounds and smel s that were starting to filter through the fog in my brain: The whir and beeping of
medical equipment I understood, but stale pizza, french fries, and Chopin’s Nocturnes?
It took more wil than was pretty to force my eyes open, but I managed.
I wasn’t in the hospital. I was on a slab in a lab. A very familiar lab, as it turned out. I recognized the
gleaming wal tiles with flecks of gold and black and the acoustical ceiling towering forty feet above my
head. I’d stared at those tiles and that recessed lighting many times before, soaking in the words of
one professor or another. While I couldn’t actual y see them, I knew that there were seats set up in an
auditorium-style semicircle, with wide concrete steps leading up to the higher rows. Painted metal pipe
bent so as not to have any sharp edges served as the handrails up the steps. They were painted
glossy black to match the rubberized strips that served as trim and skid stops on the stairs themselves.
This was the room where Warren Landingham gave his lectures on control ing zombies and ghouls.
It seemed a little strange that while I wasn’t a zombie or ghoul, I’d been strapped onto the slab and put
in restraints.
Oh, shit. I don’t like restraints. I have never liked restraints. I have my reasons—reasons that I won’t
go into with anyone ever again if I have my say. Those memories were magical y blunted, not erased,
and I felt an instant wave of pure, high-octane terror.
I closed my eyes and forced myself to take slow, deep breaths the way I’d been taught. It helped a
little. I can do this. I’m alive. This isn’t the past. This is now. I’m not in too much pain, which means
I’m not in bad shape. When I opened my eyes I wasn’t calm, but I had managed to beat back the panic
for the moment.
There were tubes running from my arm to the medical machinery clicking and beeping to my right. But
I felt fine.
So why restraints? And why no injuries? I felt my stomach tighten as another wave of panic prepared
to hit.
I let myself be distracted by the click of heels on linoleum just outside of my vision. The footsteps
were louder than usual, but I recognized the rhythm of the footfal s. Emma Landingham. As ever, she
was the personification of brisk efficiency. Her clothes didn’t wrinkle or her hose run. Ever. They simply
didn’t dare, any more than her honey-colored hair would ever hope to escape from the tight confines of
its bun. I vaguely remembered hearing voices. Had one of them been Emma? I wasn’t sure. But it
would make sense.
“What’s up?” I tried to speak. The croak I managed wasn’t even close to coherent. I cleared my
throat and tried again. “Emma, what’s going on?”
She turned with a swift movement that was the essence of energy contained. I’ve never seen anyone
alive or dead move like that who wasn’t a gymnast. No surprise there. She’d been one. Emma wasn’t
graceful but was capable of explosive movements: power, energy. And she was beautiful: petite golden
blond perfection, as opposed to Vicki’s tal , dark elegance and Dawna’s exotic beauty. I was definitely
the duckling in our crowd.
“Who are you?” Emma snapped the question out sharply without even bothering to look up from the
readout she was scanning. Gee, glad to see she was worried about me.
“Celia Graves.” The “s” sound in “Celia” sounded … wrong, different from usual. It took me a second
to realize why. I had acquired the barest touch of a lisp. I’d never had a speech impediment. I didn’t
even have an accent. Pure plain American English without any tel tale anything. Not even the highly
mocked but reasonably accurate “Val ey girl” dialect.
I tried to lick my lips and found … fangs. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit—
The words ran through my brain over and over. I found myself gulping in air and had to close my eyes
and forced myself to go back to the breathing exercises. When I’d reached the point where I thought I
could speak normal y, I tried again. “What the fuck is going on, Emma?” I tried to sound tough. Pure
bravado.
Fear produces biological reactions. Fight or flight. Neither was a viable option right now, but I wasn’t
going to convince my nervous system of that. Adrenaline rushed through my veins, clearing away the
last of the cobwebs. My body tensed, poised for action. The metal restraints groaned in response. The
metal … groaned? These restraints were built to withstand a raging zombie without strain. That simple
sound implied a level of strength that sent another wave of panic coursing like ice water through my
veins. A normal human couldn’t put enough pressure against the restraints to do that. Which meant I
wasn’t human anymore.
“Tel me about your family.”
She was testing me, making sure I had memories. Smart girl. If I had fangs I’d not only been bit by a
bat, I’d also been at least partial y changed. Which made no sense. Vampires general y just bite you
and leave you. You either get treated and live, or you die. Once in a very great while a master vamp wil
do the whole bite and spel thing to bring someone over, but it’s a rare bat with the power to do it. So, if I
was a vampire, I should be feral and have no memories. But if I was human, I shouldn’t have the fangs
and superstrength.
Shit. How I answered would be incredibly important, not only to Emma but also to the authorities. If I
was tied down, it was because someone was on the way—someone with an extermination kit. The
sooner I proved to Emma I was stil me, the sooner I could get the damned restraints released. So,
calmly as I could manage, I stated the basics.
“I’m
the only surviving daughter of Lana and Charles Graves. My sister Ivy died when she was just a
kid. My mother …” I paused, not sure what to say about my mother that didn’t sound seriously awful.
She’s a drunk with the moral sensibilities of a cat in heat? She’l do anything for a buck? I settled for,
“My mother and I don’t get along, and my father left us. We don’t talk about him.” There, that was
diplomatic enough that even my gran couldn’t object. “My grandmother is stil alive. I love her, but she
enables my mom and keeps trying to turn me into a true believer.”
“Let her loose.” The male voice came from inside the room but out of my line of vision. I didn’t know
who it was, but it wasn’t “El Jefe”—Warren Landingham, Emma’s father—or Kevin, Emma’s brother.
Come to think on it, nobody I knew had a voice like that. If Warren isn’t giving the orders, who is? And
why? Warren wouldn’t defer to anybody wil ingly. Certainly not in his own territory, and not about me.
“My father—,” Emma began to protest.
“Your father is stil at his conference in Chicago. Your brother brought me into this as the best hope
Ms. Graves has to survive with her sanity intact. If you don’t care to fol ow my directions, however, I’l
be glad to leave you on your own.”
I could actual y hear her teeth grinding. Emma doesn’t take orders any better than Warren does, and
she has considerably less of a sense of humor.
“It’s daylight. It could hurt her,” she argued.
The man’s voice was smug. “Her waking early could mean that she is more human than vampire. Or
it could mean that there wil stil be a stronger connection to her attempted sire. They wil both have a
compulsion to find each other. If so, it wil give us a better chance of hunting him down before he finds
Ms. Graves and either kil s her or finishes bringing her over.”
I didn’t like either of those options, but the man was right.
I twisted to the right and strained my neck to get a look at the owner of the voice, but he’d moved
away again. Frustrating.
“You’d best hurry, Ms. Landingham.” The bastard’s voice had a hint of amusement. “You’l want to be
finished before your brother gets back.”
“My brother would never hurt me.” Emma spoke with cold certainty. And wel she should. Kevin adored
his baby sister. There was no way in hel he’d ever do anything to put her at risk.
“Are you sure? Werewolves can be so … unpredictable. Especial y at the ful moon.” He sounded so
sure, so reasonable. Probably exactly the same tone the snake had used with Eve when talking about
that pesky apple.
“What an assssss.” I muttered the words under my breath, but Emma heard. She glanced at me, and
a flicker of something close to understanding cut through her rage. The main reason we’ve never been
close is the fact that I am so very irreverent and rebel ious: “stuck at thirteen developmental y.” She
hates that Warren and Kevin care so much about me. Now, probably for the first time, the poster child
for repression was taking a hike in my shoes. Flying by the seat of her pants in a dangerous situation
wasn’t making her any cheerier than I usual y am.
She hit the button to release the restraints. They made a screeching sound that made my ears hurt
and halted about halfway down, apparently disliking the shape I’d bent them into. Normal y they slid
smoothly into the surface of the lab table. Dammit. El Jefe was probably going to make me pay for the
repairs.
I sat up and tried to figure out how to remove al of the various electrodes and tubes. It takes a
certain finesse to remove medical equipment without damaging either your body or the equipment. I’d
heal, but if I ruined any more of Warren’s stuff he’d be seriously pissed.
I turned and looked at the stranger. He met my gaze without flinching. Nor did his eyes wander, not
even to the tattoo. I have a vine of ivy tattooed onto my left leg, winding around my calf and up my thigh.
It’s beautiful y done and very eye-catching. People always comment on it when I wear shorts or a skirt.
But he didn’t say a word. My body was just that … a body.
He looked at me with cool appraisal, watching in amusement as I took his measure in return. He
wasn’t handsome, or ugly, or truly much of anything. You could look at him closely and five minutes later
you’d have forgotten him. Pleasant features, hazel eyes, hair that color that hovers between blond and
brown—cut so that it was neither short nor long. His charcoal-colored suit was the kind of mid-price
off-the-rack but not cheap suit that your average businessman would wear. My guess was that he
either was currently with or had once worked for a three-letter agency of one sort or another and would
be introducing himself as “Mr. Smith.”
The only thing that wasn’t studiously ordinary about him was the scars that peeked out from beneath
his starched white col ar. You had to look very closely to see them, but they were there.
“Hel o, Ms. Graves. I’m John Jones.”
Not “Smith,” but close enough.
He extended his hand to shake. When I took it I got a jolt of psychic power that brought an involuntary
gasp from my lips and a faint smile to his.
I could see in his eyes. He’d done it deliberately. He was testing me. I didn’t like it, didn’t like him. But
I’d be careful. Because Mr. Jones wasn’t just dangerous, he was deadly. I wasn’t sure I wanted him on
my side—but I sure as hel didn’t want him working against me.
And Kevin knows him well enough to call in a favor. I’d always wondered about Kevin’s past.
Werewolves live several decades longer than humans. I didn’t know exactly how old he was, just that
he was the product of Warren’s misspent youth and had decided to go to col ege later than most, so
that he and Emma were just a grade apart. But he’d been around a while, because Warren is wel past
tenure. But Kevin doesn’t talk about the past. Ever. I made the mistake of asking … once. I’m not stupid
enough to repeat that error. Of course that didn’t keep me from being curious as hel . But Kevin’s my
friend and Warren’s son. I won’t snoop. Stil , based on Jones it appeared that Kevin might have lived
an even more colorful life than I’d given him credit for in my wilder imaginings.
I glanced around the room, feeling suddenly very awkward. Clothes may not make the woman, but
running around naked general y puts you at a disadvantage. You have to be very secure in your body to
be nude in a group of ful y dressed people and carry it off. I’m no prude, but I’m not that secure. So I
was very glad when Emma pul ed one of my duffel bags out of the lab’s storage closet. Everything I
needed was in there, neatly packed. And lying on top was something I didn’t need but absolutely wanted
—the holsters with my guns and the polished wooden case that held my knives when they weren’t in
use. A holsterless but cleaned and polished 9mm sat on top of my wal et and a stack of neatly folded
clothes. It wasn’t my gun, so why was it with my stuff? I felt a stab of something that wasn’t quite a
memory as I ran a finger over the grip. I tried to force it, but the more I tried to remember specifics, the
further it slipped away from me.
Frustrating.
Growling under my breath, I shoved the gun aside and turned my attention to the knife case. I flipp
ed
open the lid and there they were, al cleaned, shiny, and oiled. The thorough care smacked of Kevin’s
work, but he couldn’t have touched the blades. They’re magical, and they were created specifical y to
kil monsters. Stil , whoever had cleaned them had done a fine job.
“You sssstil haven’t told me what’s wrong with me.” I kept my voice neutral as I asked Emma the
question. But it was Jones who answered.
“You are an abomination.”
“Excusssse me?” I raised my brows, my voice bordering on insulted. He laughed. From the
expression on his face, it took him by surprise.
“I take it you don’t laugh much.”
“Not real y, no,” he admitted. The humor was gone as though wiped from a slate. He was talking
directly to me, as if Emma weren’t even there, but that didn’t seem to bother her. I would’ve been
pissed. “‘Abomination’ is the term used by the vampires for that smal group of persons who should
have died, or been turned, but instead survived with only partial physiological changes. They live, they
have a soul and possess their own memories, but have been altered significantly. Each person’s
physiology changes differently. We’re stil determining that with you.”
“I ssssee.” I did. I didn’t like it, but I definitely saw where he was going. I was now in possession of
more strength than the average bear, a lisp, and a pair of real y impressive fangs. What else had
changed? Would I be able to go out in daylight? Could I eat real food, or had I developed a taste for
blood? God, I hoped not. Even thinking about it was just so gross. “So you’re going to fol ow me around
and watch me? See what I do and what makes me tick? Is that a good idea?” I’d imagine that was a
pretty dangerous way to operate.
He shrugged. “When we’ve worked with abominations in the past, we normal y kept them under for a
ful month to weaken the tie to their sire.”
I didn’t ask who “we” were. I had a strong suspicion but didn’t real y want to know. Nor did I think he’d
tel me. Or maybe he would. Which might be worse.
“Did it work, and if so, why am I awake?” Or had it been a month? I probably should ask what month
