“You could have at least told me,” I said crossly.
“I know, Lucy, and I’m sorry. Blame me entirely, I was the one who didn’t want to bother you with a ghost hunt after all you’ve been through,” Evan replied.
“Oh I’ll blame you,” I said, but I kept my tone light. “I know I’m supposed to keep my stress level down, but Evan, I’m not kidding when I say that keeping me out of the loop just adds unnecessary stress.”
“I’m truly sorry, Lucy,” he said, looking slightly abashed. “But it looks like you’ve had more success than we have anyway.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “At least possibly if this Clover place still exists, it could be a lead.”
“I overheard Evan talking about that,” Ingrid said. “Remember when I was threatening Adam that I would take my business to Alexandria? Well that was Clover, one of Blackthorn’s genetic data rivals, and yes, I’ve been there too. If it hasn’t been carpet bombed by the government, I can get us there.”
“That’s great news!”
“Now hold up,” Evan said sternly. “Don’t even think about getting in a van and driving halfway across the state without at least some sort of plan.”
“You’re acting like I’ve done this before,” I said, unable to hide my smirk.
“Don’t be cute,” Evan snapped, but he was smiling as well. “We don’t know the full extent of your recovery yet, so let’s call a meeting tomorrow and then we’ll talk about the possibility of going to find this lab.”
“Fair enough,” I said with a shrug. “As long as I don’t wake up tomorrow to find a note saying you all left without me.”
“Touché,” Evan shot back.
“And seriously, Evan. Can we at least discuss letting me back out? Whether I’ve made a full recovery or not, you can’t deny that I’ve got a new unfair advantage.”
“I actually thought about that,” he admitted. “But we’ll have to discuss a few things first.”
“What’s this unfair advantage?” Ingrid asked.
“Just this,” I said and concentrated on changing my appearance.
“Oh my god, that’s frightening!”
“Hey! I’m not that hideous,” I protested, but then caught a glance a myself in the darkened window. I had forgotten about Tanya’s makeover. As a result, I looked kind of clownish, so I changed back. “Okay, forget the weird makeup. Without it, I’m damned near invisible in the dark. I might be able to sneak around like a ninja and get some information we might otherwise miss. Besides, we still have to lure Damien out and I think he’s specifically looking for me.”
“I suspect you’re right, but either way, we’ll discuss it later,” Evan said with some finality before heading back out to meet up, presumably, with Andre and my father.
“Who was it they were talking to at Clover?” Ingrid asked.
“Um,” I pulled up the email again. “Dr. Wendella Mielieu.”
“Well that’s interesting,” Ingrid said with a tight frown. “She used the name Wendella?”
“Yep.” I pointed to the screen.
“Either this L. Laurie is a woman, or sympathetic to the Daughters.”
“I think we’re assuming she’s Delphine LaLaurie at this point,” I noted. “But what makes you say that?”
“Wendella is better known as Dr. Wendell Mielieu. She’s just as brilliantly awful as any of the other geneticists in her field, but she didn’t get respect or recognition as one of the best by being a woman. Normally she had one of her male assistants pose as her in client meetings, but what few people knew was that she was a major supporter of the Daughters.”
“That is interesting,” I said, wondering if this was the break we were looking for.
“I’ll do some poking around,” Ingrid said with a wink. “If she’s still alive, I’ll find out where she is.”
Chapter 16
Evan kept his promise and called a meeting the next day to go over what we had discovered. Unfortunately, the scant information that Ingrid was able to pick up seemed to suggest that Dr. Mielieu was no longer alive or had gone into hiding. Even worse, an aerial survey showed an empty field where the lab had once been situated, so there was no need to travel to Alexandria. Thinking that perhaps Ingrid’s memory was faulty, Mike pulled up the same data from earlier in the year. Sure enough, there was a complex of several buildings, poorly obscured by what was supposed to look like trees from above.
“There’s something that I don’t understand,” I said, looking at the map and the dates of the emails. “This correspondence would have happened right before Blackthorn was destroyed, but that was the same time we discovered the corruption. Either Clover was destroyed the very next day or the current government isn’t telling us everything.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Evan responded. “Completely shutting down a corrupt shadow organization like the Eclipse Project doesn’t happen overnight. There’s no guarantee the NSA even monitored all of the right networks, let alone pulled the file on every single operative right from the start. This lab could have been destroyed weeks or even months later.”
“It sure doesn’t look like it,” Ingrid said, looking at the picture of the empty field. “I’m no gardener, but doesn’t it take a while for grass to grow back like that?”
“It’s not impossible with the right mix of seed and sod,” my father said. “However, there is the possibility that this wasn’t done by the government.”
“Do vampires have access to bulldozers?” I asked. “Or several acres of grass seed and fertilizer?”
“At this point, let’s not underestimate who has what,” Evan said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But whether this Dr. Mielieu created a drug that was used against you or not, we’re not going to find the answers we’re looking for in a field upstate. We have very few leads, so let’s concentrate on following what we do have.”
Holly opened another program on the computer and a chart came up on the screen. “If the diary and the rumors in Paris are to be believed, we’re looking for a woman who is over two hundred years old,” she said, rearranging the list of leads and running lines to each of the similarities. “All evidence seems to suggest that the mystery vamp Lucy ran into in the cemetery is the one we’re looking for.”
“Damien all but told me she was LaLaurie,” I noted. “She sounded old, but moved with the speed and stealth of someone much younger. It isn’t out of the realm of possibility that she’s managed to keep her strength for this long.”
“She also killed a vampire without hesitation, which is in line with all of the deaths so far,” my father added with a frown. “I think we need to start by looking for clues as to how to find her since we can’t rely on the hemograph or even our night vision.”
“We’ll get the word out at tonight’s meeting and maybe we’ll get something more concrete,” Evan said. “What about Damien?”
“If he wasn’t lying, and he’s here in New Orleans, then he’s looking for Lucy,” Andre answered before I could. “He knows who we are. He could have approached any one of us at any time, but he hasn’t. I don’t like the idea of using you as bait,” he said to me. “Especially since it would appear that is exactly what he wants us to do.”
“I don’t think it’s going to matter anyway,” I said with a shrug. “I’m barely recognizable and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change any time soon.” Sadly, this was true. I’d spent nearly all night flipping between my two extreme appearances, still unable to make even the slightest change towards looking normal. “But like I said, I’ve got an advantage when it comes to sneaking around now.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea either,” Andre said. “If someone is targeting vampires, you’re basically going to be walking around with a target on your back.”
“If they even see me,” I responded. “I’m practically invisible, remember? If I’m stuck like this, the least we can do is put it to good use.”
“Lucy does have a point, Andre,” my father sa
id, shocking me. Usually when it comes to my safety, he and Andre had a tendency to gang up on me. “We need information.”
“It would probably be safer than sending her out like that,” Ingrid said, gracing me with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Tanya’s good, but you still look kind of not human. I think you’d raise too many red flags if you tried to look normal.”
“Don’t even think about sneaking around alone,” Andre grumbled.
“Holly, Mike, and I will assess the situation and let you all know your assignments at tonight’s meeting,” Evan told us with a glance at the clock. “I’ve got a meeting with Cervantes in about fifteen minutes. You might want to make yourself scarce, Lucy.”
“Got it. But let me know if she’s still out to get me,” I said and got up to leave, intending to spend the rest of my afternoon in the gym. If I was going to convince Evan to let me back onto the streets, I was going to have to get back into shape.
“I don’t think you want to do that.”
“Who said that?”
“I did,” I said, stepping out of the shadows, grinning widely with my fangs bared. The vampire, a young kid who clearly had little experience, jumped away from his inebriated victim. Despite the fact that I had been out for a few nights and still had no leads on our mystery vamp, I had to admit that my new appearance was coming in handy when it came to saving the lives of careless drunks and impressionable coeds. I also had to admit that I was having more than a little bit of fun scaring some mods straight.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked, backing away slowly. Clearly, this kid knew about the ES, but must not have had any personal run ins with them.
“Your fairy godmother,” I said sarcastically, handing the vamp a business card with the address of the outreach safe house on it. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of us are ending up dead these days. Go to that address. There are people there who can help you.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Why should I let you live?” I answered, palming a CPA with a little more flourish than necessary. “Do what you want, but pray you don’t run into me again under similar circumstances.”
The theatrics seemed to work. The vampire left, at least, and Andre was able to walk the drunken girl out of the alley, delivering her to the safety of a police escort.
“Laying it on a bit thick, don’t you think?” he remarked when he returned.
“Whatever works,” I said with a shrug. “If I can save one life, great. If I can save two, even better.”
Andre was about to say something, but stopped and instead pulled me into the shadow of a building. I gave him a questioning look and he pointed to the doorway across from us where a body was slumped at an unnatural angle.
“Dammit,” he sighed and slipped his phone into his pocket. “Come on.”
It was definitely a dead body, and a vampire from the looks of him. Pinned to the front of his shirt was a piece of paper with an address written on it.
“What do you think that’s about?” I asked.
“It’s likely the address of his clan or a lab,” Andre said. “Hugh and Ingrid found a few bodies like this last night and we checked the addresses this morning.”
“How come this is the first I’ve heard of it?” I asked, more than a little upset that a new development had been kept from me.
“It was in the report,” Andre replied and I shut up. I’d been so busy with my own investigation as well as dealing with my new appearance that I’d forgotten to read the report.
“This address isn’t far from here,” I noted. “We could check it out.”
“Might as well,” Andre replied, sending off a message to have the body recovered. “There’s nothing suspicious on the hemograph and this will take us closer to where we’ve seen some recent action.”
The address turned out to be a normal looking house off Esplanade. There were a few lights on and the street was close enough to the entertainment district to still have some foot traffic, so I suggested simply going to the door rather than trying to sneak around.
“Um, it might be better if you switched up before we get under the street lights. There are still quite a few people out,” Andre commented.
“Huh? I thought I did,” I said and shifted again, but again, nothing happened. “This can’t be good.”
“It probably isn’t,” he said. “Okay, you wait here and I’ll see if anyone is home.”
As I watched Andre cross the street, Evan’s voice crackled in my ear. “Lucy, we’ve got a bit of a situation.”
“What’s up, Evan?” I asked.
“We just got a call from Dr. Hayward. She claims that one of the agents tried to attack her. She said she was in her car and intended to drive all the way to New Orleans, but we managed to talk her into seeking shelter with the police until we could get someone there.”
“What?” My stomach twisted into knots. “Who attacked her?”
“That’s where this gets a little critical. I don’t want to alarm you, but no one has been able to reach the agents in Fort Worth. I sent your father and Hugh on a chartered flight to escort her back here and notified the agency.”
“Wait,” I said, suddenly panicked. “Did you alert the agency before or after you sent my dad out there?”
“Before,” Evan replied.
“I don’t think that was a good idea. What if it was another trap?”
“I didn’t tell Kurtz where she was or who was going to get her. I just asked that he check on his agents because we had a report of an attack and that they weren’t answering our calls,” Evan reassured me. I still didn’t like it.
“We’re coming back in just a minute. I’ve got a situation of my own to deal with,” I informed him before disconnecting. Andre was already crossing the street with a grim look on his face. “Any luck?”
“The dead vamp’s name was Richard and apparently he owed a few people a lot of money. Whether or not that’s why he was killed is still up for debate, but I think I made enough of an impression on the kid who answered the door that they might consider the outreach.”
As we headed back into the Quarter to grab our van, I explained the situation with Dr. Hayward to Andre. Like Evan, he didn’t seem concerned about the government’s involvement, which bothered me because either they were too trusting or I was paranoid. Just as we reached the van, Andre stopped and held his finger to his lips.
“Do you hear that?” he whispered
I turned in the direction he was facing and listened. Two muffled voices, one clearly terrified, were coming from behind the next building.
“Yeah, come on,” I said, and took off in the direction of the noise. When I rounded the corner, I stopped short and pressed myself into the shadow of a doorway. “Andre, it’s her!” I whispered breathlessly. A tall figure dressed head to toe in black stood over a cowering vamp who was begging for his life. A quick check of my hemograph showed the vamp to be alone. “Definitely her, she’s not on the hemograph!”
“Stay here,” he whispered. The soft click of the safety on his pistol echoed through the alley as he stepped out of the shadow.
“Don’t move,” he called out, pointing his gun at the mysterious figure. The cowering vampire took advantage of the distraction and scrambled to his feet, sprinting out of the alley, but the figure in black paid him no mind, turning instead to Andre.
“A worthy life you just saved, hunter.” Unlike the creature in the cemetery, her voice was strong and clear, with no distortion from age. “Murderer, torturer, rapist, manufacturer of atrocities, the likes of which have no business existing. But fear not. You’ve only given him a momentary reprieve. I’ll find him soon enough.” She lowered the hood that had obscured her face, revealing herself to be a young, blonde vampire with icy blue eyes. Clearly, she wasn’t the same person that I had encountered in the graveyard, but she had to be connected. I checked the hemograph again, thinking it was her clothing that had been blocking the signal, but no, she still wasn�
�t there.
“Who are you?” Andre asked, still aiming his gun at her.
“The protector of the innocent, vanquisher of evil,” she replied vaguely. “I’ve no reason to attack you, but if it makes you feel more secure, by all means, keep your weapon trained on me. You wouldn’t be the first man to point his gun at me only to find it… inadequate.”
She raised her eyebrows and glanced not so subtly at Andre’s crotch. I found my grip tightening around the weapons I had drawn, ready to stab the bitch if she tried anything.
“I think I will, thank you,” Andre replied, ignoring her innuendo. “You’re the one who has been killing the leaders of the local clans.” He said it as a statement, rather than a question.
“That’s quite an accusatory tone from someone who makes a living dealing in genocide,” she said in a simpering, mock-hurt voice that made me want to gag. “But I suppose I have no reason to deny your accusations. I’m simply doing my part to erase the sins of my creators.”
“And you think vigilantism is the answer?” Andre asked. “Are you with the Daughters of Darkness?”
“I am The Daughter of Darkness, hunter,” she boasted, putting her hands on her hips and sticking out her chest. Much to my discomfort, this only emphasized the assets that her skintight cat suit could barely contain. “The Daughters are harmless, mindless fools, incapable of the organization required to assemble the army of violent retribution they would like to believe they are. You’re punishing the victim, but from what I know of your organization, that’s no surprise.”
“I’ve seen firsthand what the Daughters are capable of,” Andre replied. “They didn’t seem to have a problem organizing a mass attack against our organization last year.”
“You saw only what you were supposed to see,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
Honestly, if she was trying to prove she wasn’t a mindless drone incapable of organizing an attack, she wasn’t doing a very good job of it by spouting clichés and prancing around like a cat in heat.
The Eyes of the Sun: The Complete Trilogy Page 78
