Just not with me, I thought, but kept my mouth shut. Evan didn’t need to be dragged into my domestic issues.
“Where are we going?” I asked. We passed the elevator and kept going toward the secured wing.
“We’re going to pay a visit to our newest guest. She claims she can’t remember anything from the last several months and I’m hoping that you might be able to trigger her memory.” Evan punched in the command and placed his hand on the panel of the thick steel door that separated the secure unit from the rest of headquarters. This was the area where the holding cells were. I’d only been inside once before and I didn’t like it, mainly because, much like a regular prison, I had no personal access in or out. Very few people did.
Evan opened the door to a small office with a table and a couple of chairs. The room was divided in half by a thick window with a speaker set into the wall. This was similar to high security prisons that I had seen in movies, though this one had a keypad on the wall on our side that allowed those with the correct codes to flood the cell with a sedative if the prisoner seemed dangerous. The current occupant of the chamber didn’t appear to pose any threat.
“Lucy, I’d like you to meet Dr. Wendella Mielieu.”
“How?” I asked. Though slightly disheveled, most likely the result of being tackled by Hugh, she still looked exactly like Dr. Hayward. When I had come in, she recoiled in fear at my appearance, but seemed a bit confused when Evan addressed me by name.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Evan replied. “She doesn’t seem to know either.”
“You’re Lucy Soriano?” she asked me, clearly conveying skepticism.
“You don’t remember meeting me last night? Or my father explaining my appearance to you?”
“I’ve never seen you before,” she said.
“Dr. Mielieu,” I said cautiously. “I look like this because of the drug, or whatever it was, that you were asked to engineer. Do you remember that? You were emailed a proposal for the drug. In exchange, Blackthorn Plantation was destroyed.”
“I do remember that!” she said, her eyes going wide as if she was startled at the memory. “Lissandre Laurie sent the inquiry. I’d never met her and quite frankly, I was shocked that she even knew who I was. It was quite an honor.”
Now we were getting somewhere. Though she pronounced the last name like LaRAY, I couldn’t help but notice that Lissandre sounded like Alexandra, which made Lissandre Laurie incredibly similar to Alex LaLaurie.
“Who is Lissandre Laurie?” Evan asked.
“You don’t know?” She seemed honestly shocked at this. “She’s the founder of the Daughters of Darkness.”
This was shocking, but not completely unexpected. After all, Alex did boast that she was the Daughter of Darkness. Perhaps she wasn’t just being melodramatic.
“Did you ever meet with her to discuss the arrangement?” I asked.
“I was supposed to,” she answered wistfully. “I was incredibly nervous. What she asked was the impossible. I, and many of my colleagues, had tried and failed to create a modification that would give us immunity to the toxins carried by hunters. I nearly declined, but the price she was offering was too much to pass up. I wanted Thorn, that treacherous bastard, destroyed.” Her voice took on a menacing tone when she spoke of the man I knew as Bluebeard. “So I offered a compromise.”
“Why?” Evan asked. I shot him a questioning look. I thought the question should have been what rather than why.
“Because that useless coward stole everything from me, my entire life’s work, to start that pig farm,” she snarled. I had to admit, I was now curious as well. “When he came to me, he had nothing. He claimed his laboratory had been destroyed by a defect, and begged me to take him on as my assistant. I was not interested in an assistant, but he was well known as a creative geneticist and I thought perhaps with his help, I could expand my operation’s offerings. But then one day, he was gone, along with most of my client base and all of my materials. The scum set up his own laboratory and became a success at my expense.”
If I had been able to look past the fact that Dr. Mielieu’s life’s work was creating genetic modifications that turned normal vampires into monsters, then I might have almost felt bad for her. Especially given what kind of a horrible subhuman Bluebeard had been. But she was still a murderer and the reason my immune system was crippled, so I found it difficult to have sympathy.
“So your compromise,” I prompted. “Was this the drug that suppressed my immune system?”
“Yes, exactly,” she answered, again, with more enthusiasm than I felt was appropriate. Perhaps being under the influence of the drugs for so long had addled her brain. “I asked for a sample of the toxin and proposed that it might be possible to erase it from a hunter’s bloodstream. What she sent me was astounding. I suppose it was your blood, that is, if you are in fact Lucy Soriano.”
“I am,” I said through gritted teeth.
“You’re a scientific marvel,” she said with reverence. “It wasn’t easy, but at last I found a formula that completely removed the toxin. I sent the information to Mistress Laurie and she was pleased. Blackthorn Plantation and the swine lord himself were destroyed, and I was to meet the Mistress in person to deliver the serum. A driver was sent to Clover Manor and that is the last I remember. You say that was several months ago. To me, it was yesterday.”
“Did you happen to create an antidote for this as well?” I asked.
“No,” she stated simply. “But an antidote would be a simple matter of reverse engineering. If you were to allow me to go to my laboratory at Clover Manor, I’m sure I could have one made in no time.”
“Clover Genetics was destroyed not long after your memory failed you,” Evan informed her.
“What? That’s impossible.”
“I’m afraid not. Does the name Gus D’Veaux mean anything to you?” Evan asked.
“He runs a rather small outfit outside of Shreveport. Hardly worth considering a competitor really.”
“Well he apparently considered you enough of one to pay this Laurie woman a handsome sum of money to have your lab destroyed.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. Her eyes were wide as the implications dawned on her.
“She already had what she wanted from you,” I explained. “Including you. Whoever she is, this woman has been using you as a puppet for months. I get the impression she’s more of a mercenary than a role model. We have a lab. Could you reverse engineer the serum and come up with an antidote here?”
“Of course,” she sniffed indignantly, “but why should I?”
“Revenge,” I said blandly. “You were played for a fool by a woman who not only profited off of your loss, but used you to further her own gains against your will.”
“I have only your word on that,” she countered.
“You’re right,” I said. “Because Laurie destroyed everything you had. You literally have nothing but our word. But besides that, you owe me.”
“Owe you?”
“That’s right,” I smiled widely, a sight that was rather intimidating given that I let my fangs descend. “Lissandre Laurie didn’t kill Adam Thorn. I did.”
Chapter 20
“You feeling up to an outing?”
My father found me in my favorite chair in the garden on the roof. I told myself I was taking a much-needed break from looking through the files, but in truth, I was just feeling sorry for myself. Dr. Mielieu had agreed to help find a cure for my condition, but because no one was in a trusting mood, Evan required a special lab to be outfitted with additional safety measures, just in case she decided she wanted to blow us all up. I understood his reasoning, but I was getting impatient.
“Did you even have to ask?” I said, shutting my book and jumping up. “Where are we going?”
“Over to the shop,” he replied. By ‘the shop,’ he meant G2. The all night coffee bar also served as a convenient first stop for vampires looking to join the outreach, so I had a feeli
ng my father wasn’t simply asking me to join him for a cup of coffee.
“Did something happen?” I asked as we got in one of the vans. It wasn’t a far walk and I almost suggested we do just that when I realized he was probably driving to make sure I wasn’t seen by too many people.
“I’m not sure,” he replied. “But from Mamma’s message, I think some of our old friends, the strays, might have shown up.”
G2 was in the French Quarter, about one block from the site of the original Gilly’s, which was now a popular art gallery. Because the main entrance opened to a busy side street, we entered through the delivery entrance in the alley and stuck to the shadows. I was getting good at sneaking around unseen, but I had to admit, being invisible was taking a toll on my mental health.
Dad led us through the small stock room into a hidden hallway that ran behind the kitchen, then up a flight of stairs. This area required security access. The second and third floor of the building housed an office and several temporary rooms for vamps who would later be assigned to one of our more long-term safe houses. We followed the sound of several voices coming from the small office, where Ida and Layla stood talking to a group of five of the roughest looking vampires I had ever seen.
“Isaac?” one of the vamps asked incredulously. He was tall and painfully thin, with watery gray eyes that seemed sunk into his head. Normally vampires, especially mods, were extremely narcissistic about their appearance, but this group would have been unrecognizable amongst the homeless population.
“Nick? Is that really you?” my father asked, equally on guard.
“The one and only,” the vampire said with a harsh laugh that quickly devolved into a terrible coughing fit. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I should have listened to you years ago. I’m paying the price. We all are.” He waved his hand toward his companions, two women, and two men, all of whom looked to be suffering from some vague illness. This piqued my interest.
“Lucy,” Ida’s voice cut through the awkward silence that had descended. “Remember when I said I recognized the faces of some of the victims?”
“I do.” As soon as I drew attention to myself, there was a collective gasp and everyone, including Layla, seemed to shrink away from me. I gave the new vamps a pass, but shot a hurt look at Layla, who had the decency to smile apologetically.
“Lucy is my daughter,” my father added quickly, which seemed to make everyone go from fear to confusion, but he left it at that.
“This is all that’s left of their clan,” Ida explained.
“Lou and I found them in the alley behind where Gilly’s used to be,” Layla explained.
“And we’re grateful for it, miss,” Nick said with a smile towards Layla. “None of us had much hope when we saw the shop was closed.”
“Gilly’s closed almost twenty years ago. Where have you been?” my father asked.
“Up north, mostly,” one of the women replied. She was pale and mousy, with dark circles under her eyes and dry, red skin around her nose and mouth. Her pale violet eyes stood out in stark contrast to the rest of her appearance.
“New Orleans wasn’t friendly to our kind back then,” Nick explained. “We got by for a while after our leader was killed, but without the protection of a larger clan, we were vulnerable, so we left. But it’s getting harder to hide, even in the big cities, so we came back in hopes of finding a group who might take us in.”
“I’m guessing you found one, but it was more than you bargained for,” I said.
“There were twelve of us when we arrived,” Nick replied quietly. “We had been back in town for several months with no luck, but then a couple of months back, Sharla here was approached by a young woman asking if she needed a place to go.” He indicated the other woman. She too was painfully thin with red, blotchy skin and watery eyes. Honestly, if I had passed any of them on the street, I would have judged them to be meth junkies. While I felt bad for them, I was also incredibly suspicious about the fact that they too were vampires who appeared to be suffering some sort of physical illness. Considering that vampires didn’t have the enzyme, I wondered what had happened to them.
“She was with the Daughters of Darkness,” Sharla added. “I told her there was a bunch of us and she said she wasn’t interested in taking on a bunch of defectives. But the next night, I was approached by another woman who said she was told about us from the first one. She gave me an address and told us we would all be welcome if we were willing to work.”
“Did you get a name from either of them?” I asked.
“I never saw either of them again,” she said darkly. “When we showed up at the address she gave me, we were greeted by an old woman who wore a mask.”
I exchanged glances with my father. “And who was this woman?”
“She told us to refer to her simply as Mistress,” Nick said apologetically. “We all should have known better, but we didn’t have much of a choice. She was offering us protection and a place to stay. All she asked for in return was that we perform simple tasks without question.”
“What types of tasks?” I asked.
“I’m not entirely sure,” he answered. “Everyone who had been called upon to do something for her disappeared. At first, she said that they had run off rather than perform the expected payment for her hospitality, but after the first few supposedly ran off, her story changed. She said that they had been careless and had been caught by hunters. If she was trying to scare us, she did a good job. But people kept disappearing. There were only seven of us when she disappeared.”
“Who?” my father asked.
“The old woman,” Nick replied. “She stopped coming around and we had hoped maybe she died. But then another lady, this one was much younger, kind of took over and acted like she was the same woman.”
That was interesting. “What did she look like?” I asked, wondering if this might prove that Alex was working for LaLaurie.
“I don’t know. She wore the same mask as the old woman. I just knew she was different because she sounded a lot younger. That was when the experiments started.”
“Experiments?” my father asked, but I had a bad feeling I already knew.
“Medical, mostly,” Nick replied. “We were all given a serum that weakened us and made us all sick. But there were other things, strange things.” He shuddered. The other vamps looked uncomfortable as well.
“Like what?” I asked as gently as possible.
“She changed me,” another vamp said quietly. I turned to him and knew immediately what he meant. Unlike the others, his eyes were a normal shade of brown and he looked vaguely familiar to me.
“Son of a…” my father whispered. “Kyle?”
“Yep, it’s me,” the vampire said sheepishly. “On the inside at least. I don’t know what she had planned for me, but when I woke up looking like this, I knew I didn’t have long. As soon as she let me back with the others we planned our escape.”
“Oh my god,” I gasped, suddenly realizing why the vampire’s altered look seemed familiar to me. “Do you know what happened to the person you now look like?”
“No,” he said apologetically. “I assumed she changed me into a human so that I could impersonate them. Do I look like someone?”
“Yeah,” I said, turning to my father. “Call Evan. There’s a possibility that the government’s been infiltrated…again.”
“Evan’s on his way over,” my father said. “Who is it that you think he looks like?”
“Agent Timmons, Goff’s new partner. He seemed pretty green when Andre and I worked with him and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he was caught pretty easily.” Turning back to the vampires, I asked, “Where were you being housed and was this also where you were being experimented on?”
“I don’t know the exact address, but it wasn’t far from here. You know that really big house on the corner?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I looked at each vampire in turn, noting neutral expressions on everyone�
��s faces. “The big house on the corner is the LaLaurie mansion. That’s where you’ve been staying?”
“No, no, not the mansion. There’s a small empty storefront next door that hides as many secrets as the legendary mansion it neighbors. That is where we were being housed.”
“Were there any others?” I asked.
“I do not think we were alone, no,” Nick replied. “But we never met anyone else. Every time we dealt with anyone, whether it was the mistress or the other one, they remained completely covered.”
Evan showed up moments later. As my father brought him up to speed, I could tell he was already formulating a counterargument to my inevitable question of how we were going to strike and how soon. I expected as much.
“I’ll have additional security brought over,” Evan assured Ida. To the vampires he added, “I’ve no doubt that you’re all on someone’s wanted list right now and I’ll take every precaution necessary to keep you safe, but I’m going to ask that you don’t leave this facility, and that includes staying out of the public areas, until I say it is safe to do so. Are you all okay with that?”
“Yes sir,” Nick answered and the rest nodded in agreement.
Evan arranged for Ingrid and Hugh, who had been nearby, to stand guard against anyone getting in or going out of the safe house. Once they arrived, and were briefed on the issue, Evan rode back to headquarters with my father and me.
“Tell me about this crew,” Evan said to my father.
“There really isn’t much to tell. From what I gathered by talking to a few of them back in the day, they’re what Ida calls strays. They had a clan once, but it was a small one and not terribly powerful. When their leader was killed, they were left with nowhere to go, so they took to hunting and living in the alleys. This wasn’t uncommon while the ES still had a hold on the city. Most all of my brothers and sisters came into our life this way. This crew though, they were stubborn. Didn’t want help from no one, but that never stopped Mamma from trying. They disappeared around the mid-eighties, right around the time I met your mother,” he added to me. “Honestly, when they stopped coming around, I assumed they had been killed off.”
The Eyes of the Sun: The Complete Trilogy Page 82
