Private Demon

by Lynn Viehl

Page 54

  Jamys was beside him, directing him. Thierry carried Jema into a room filled with medical equipment. This, he knew, would be Alex's place. She could save Jema here, as she had saved him in New Orleans. Thierry looked up when someone appeared in the doorway, but it was Daniel Bradford, not Alexandra, and his blank eyes were fixed on Jema.

  "Jem?" he called, his voice hollow as he shuffled into the room. "Jem, it's Daniel. Wake up, honey; it's time for your shot. " He looked at Thierry and down at his case. "I'm her doctor. Please step back; I'll handle this. "

  Thierry saw blood dripping from under Jema's body to spill onto the floor at his feet. He turned to his son. "Find Alexandra. "

  Jamys ran out.

  He ignored Bradford and held on to Jema's cold hand. "Little cat," he murmured, brushing her hair back from her face. "Open your eyes for me. "

  Jema stirred and her lashes fluttered. "Thierry?"

  "I said, please step back from my patient," Bradford said as he came up on the opposite side of the table. He had a syringe in his hand.

  Thierry would have lunged across the table and broken the man's neck in that instant, but he couldn't let go of her. "She's not yours; she was never yours," he snarled, baring his fangs. "Get away from her. "

  Bradford took a small pistol out of his pocket and pointed it at Thierry, then changed his mind and pressed it against Jema's head. "Step back now," he said, almost pleasantly.

  Thierry saw Cyprien and Alexandra enter the room with Jamys, but so did Bradford.

  "Don't come any closer," he told them. "I will pull the trigger, and I believe she's still human enough to die. "

  "What have you done, Bradford?" Alex demanded.

  The doctor ignored her and took a syringe from his pocket. Thierry hissed as Bradford stabbed it directly into Jema's neck. "Here you are, honey," he crooned to Jema as he depressed the plunger. "This will make it all better. "

  "Thierry," Michael said.

  "I know. " He faced the madman across the table from him. If his own derangement had taught him nothing else, it had made him able to understand an irrational obsession. "How will it make her better, Doctor?"

  Bradford smiled down at Jema. "You have nothing to worry about now, Jem. Your mother died a little earlier this evening. I know you'll feel sad at first, but she was a terrible woman. She wanted me to kill you so that she could have the money James left you. "

  Jema's eyes opened, and she stared up at Daniel. "Mother?"

  "She didn't understand," Daniel said. "Part of that was my fault. You see, I never told her how special you were. That little trick you have with turning invisible? You did it so much when you were a baby I put bells on your shoes so I could find you.

  "I had to keep pretending you had diabetes, of course, but that was to explain the injections. It took time to find the right drugs to keep you from changing. " He gave her a fond smile. "You can now that she's dead, you know. You'll have all the money you need, and we don't have to tell anyone what you are. "

  Jema glanced at Thierry. "Daniel," she said, her voice a thread of pain, "why did you do this to me?"

  "You're going to be an immortal, honey," he said. "I only slowed it down so it wouldn't burn up your body. It did almost kill you before I got it under control. The good news is, once you finish changing into your final form, You'll never die. I'm going to study you and test you until we can figure out how to make me like you. " He frowned. "It's your blood, sweetheart. All the secrets of life are in your blood. Your father was right about you. "

  Thierry had the reflexes of a swordsman with seven hundred years' experience. He knew that if Bradford could be distracted for even a fraction of a second, he could disarm him.

  Jema looked up at Thierry, squeezing his hand and moving her head slightly. He tensed, and when he returned the nod, she vanished.

  "Jem, please don't do that. Please. " Bradford put a hand out to grab what he couldn't see.

  Thierry's dagger knocked the gun from Bradford's hand. Michael was there, hauling the doctor back from the table, while Alex came around the other side to rip open Jema's gown and examine the sword wound.

  Jema reappeared and smiled at Thierry. "Worked. "

  "Miss Shaw is my patient," Bradford said, holding his bleeding hand.

  "No," Alex said to Thierry as he started around the table. "I need him alive so I can find out what he's done to her. " She bent over Jema. "Open your mouth for me, Jem. " She looked inside, swore, and straightened. "You removed them, you sick bastard?" she shouted at Daniel.

  "I had to," Bradford said, looking sulky now. "She couldn't use them. She couldn't know she had them. I drugged her and extracted them as soon as the recesses formed. They keep growing back anyway. I've taken them out seven times since she was born. "

  "Taken out what?" Thierry demanded.

  "Her fangs," Alex said. "He extracted them and he sutured the abscesses shut. " She glared up at him. "Have you two been swapping large amounts of body fluid?"

  It took a moment for him to understand what she was asking. "Yes. "

  "That might be what accelerated things. Or saved her. I don't know, and Christ, I hate it when I don't know. " She turned to Jema, who had fallen unconscious. "Jema. " She shook her slightly and checked her pulse. "Nonexistent. Thierry, I hate to spring a sygkenis on you, but Jema is making the change, and she's doing it right now. "

  "How can this be?" Cyprien asked, astounded.

  "My guess? She was infected with Kyn blood when she was a child. Why she didn't die is anybody's guess. " Alex stared at Bradford. "He's been using the drugs and hormones to suppress the change, and the plasma to keep her alive. "

  "You can't take over my case," Bradford told her, indignant now. "I have a history with this patient. "

  "Alexandra, what about the sword wound?" Thierry said. "Will it stop her from making the change?"

  "Take a look. " She gestured toward Jema's abdomen.

  Thierry parted the torn material of the gown. An angry-looking red scar marred Jema's flesh. "She healed. " He smiled, touching the closed wound. "My sygkenis. God, can it be true? I am not mad?"

  "You're not mad," Alex said. "I am. "

  Bradford drove a syringe into Cyprien's arm and twisted free, diving to grab the gun from the floor.

  "You can't have her," he babbled. "I won't let you. " He lifted the gun and pointed it at Jema's face. His hand was shaking badly. "Jem? Get up. We're going home now. "

  Thierry seized an IV pole and threw it. The metal rod pierced Bradford's chest and drove him into the wall. The gun went off, the bullet lodging into the wall behind Jema's head. Bradford hung skewered, dead.

  "There goes thirty years of experience treating vampirism. " Alex sounded more resigned than angry. She went over to Cyprien, who was extracting the syringe from his arm. "You okay?"

  "I should have held him tighter. " Michael looked at Bradford. "He was insane, wasn't he?"

  "We can hope," Alex said.

  "I will stay with her while she makes the change. " Thierry picked Jema up in his arms. "I need a room where we will not be disturbed. "

  "You'd better take her back to Shaw House," Alex suggested. "We're going to need all the beds here for the wounded. "

  * * *

  John disappeared while Alex had been treating the injured. She called the shelter where he had been working, but the temporary manager there claimed her brother had packed his belongings and left.

  "I work over at the state shelter, but he insisted I come here and take over for Dougall Hurley until he gets back," the man complained. "You have any idea where Hurley is?"

  Hurley's body had been transported to the city and left in a place where it would be found. Alexandra had hated that, but understood the need to avoid exposing the Kyn. "No, sorry, I don't. Did my brother say where he was going?"

  "He said something about getting out of the city," the man told her. "That's all. "r />
  Once Alexandra had finished patching up the last Kyn, she went to see Jaus, and found him sitting on the seawall. He had covered his arm stump with a white jacket, and from a distance she could easily imagine it as a swan's wing.

  "Hey. " She pushed aside her annoyance with her brother. "Some party. I was wondering, why didn't the police ever show up? All that gunfire should have scared the neighbors. "

  "The house is soundproofed. No one heard anything. " He looked up. "Tell Thierry I am here. I will not fight him. "

  "Jema's not dead. " She gave him a minute to absorb the shock, and then told him what she knew about Jema, Bradford, and her change into Kyn. "Valentin, when you found her in your garden, all those years ago, did you cut yourself when you picked her up out of the broken glass?"

  "Yes. I took a sliver out of her hand, and it lodged in my palm. " He stared at his hand. "It was nothing. We heal at once. "

  "I have a very shaky theory," Alex said, sitting on the wall beside him. "Let's say some of your blood got on Jema's hands. She sucked her thumb, and ingested it. For whatever reason, it didn't kill her. It cured her diabetes, and then it began to slowly change her into Kyn. Bradford was able to arrest the progress of the change with his hormones and sedatives. As her digestive system deteriorated, she'd have passed blood; I showed it in my urine, but he could have made that look like a kidney infection. He added the plasma, probably to keep her from starving to death. "

  "What are you saying?" Jaus looked as if he had become part of the stone seawall.

  "It's the only explanation that makes sense. Jema's diabetes disappeared when she was a year old. You were the only Kyn she came in contact with at that specific time in her life. " She looked out at the black water of Lake Michigan. "Bradford found out, and began experimenting on her. All he had to do was make everyone think she still had the disease. For a doctor, it wouldn't be difficult. " She exhaled. "I just wish I knew why your blood didn't kill her when she was a baby, and why Michael's didn't kill me when he attacked me. There has to be a connection between Jema and me. "