Sometimes a person just had to do whatever was necessary, including some things that he or she really didn’t want to do.
Life was just like that.
TEN
By the time the elevator arrived at her floor and the doors slid soundlessly open, Violet had gotten her uncertainty under control and her appearance was once more completely composed. With the briefcase swinging at her side, she strode down the hall with all of her normal self-confidence, her boot heels clicking smartly along the polished tile floor, her head held high, and her face utterly expressionless. At the far end was an unmarked door with a DNA reader set into the wall and covered by a sliding panel that was indiscernible to those who didn’t know it was there. There was no one else in the hallway, so Violet quickly pushed up the panel and pressed the tip of her ring finger against the reader; she didn’t even feel the sting as the surface of her skin was punctured by an air needle and her blood instantly analyzed and identified. In the two seconds it took to process the results, she withdrew her hand so the panel could slide back into its hiding place; when it did, the plain, recessed door slid to the side to admit her.
Nerva turned to watch her enter, as did his several other deadly-looking companions, all Hemophages and probably top-ranking assassins like herself. None of that mattered to Violet. She ignored them and strode directly to the mahogany conference table in the center of the room. She swept aside a handful of file folders with no regard to the ones that scattered on the floor, then placed the case on the table and began removing the gravity leveler that had helped her keep hold of it during the fight to escape from the L.L.D.D.
“Bravo, V!” Nerva’s voice was jovial, his smile wide and bright, but Violet didn’t trust his appearance. He could be so devilishly handsome at times, debonair and impeccably mannered, but the dark good looks that so intrigued many of her female coworkers garnered a zero reaction in Violet. As a result, she also wasn’t subject to the mind games he liked to run on people—she just wasn’t so easily played or swayed by false compliments, a pretty face, and people who feigned support to get what they wanted when the truth was they cared little about what actually happened to anyone but themselves. There might have been times in the far-flung past when her body had made her act differently, but no more. Now she was just here to do a job. That was it. “Bravo!”
“It’s not a weapon,” Violet said flatly. Although the gravity levelers were now disabled, she still had a death grip on the handle.
Nerva’s eyes momentarily widened, then his face lost the air of cheerfulness and he scowled. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s not a weapon,” she repeated. Violet gestured down at the briefcase with her free hand and met his dark, angry gaze without flinching. “It’s a child—a human child. I risked my life for nothing.”
For a long moment, all Nerva could do was look at her in disbelief. He took a step toward her and actually seemed to stumble, then he used one long, almost delicate finger to steady himself against the side of the conference table. Finally he managed to choke out, “You opened the case?”
Violet’s mouth twisted and her voice dripped with venom. “What’s the difference? It’s not a fucking weapon.” She squeezed her eyes briefly shut as she recalled the Chief of Research’s self-satisfied story about what they were using as a decoy. “We were played,” she said derisively. “They probably took the real weapon out in the armored convoy!”
At his sides, Nerva’s fists were opening and closing. His companions were wisely remaining silent, unwilling to become involved in what they could sense might be an upcoming war. “I told you not to open the case!”
He reached for it, but Violet pulled it out of range and turned away. “I think I had a right to know what I was willing to die for,” she said sarcastically.
Nerva glared at her, then yanked the briefcase out of Violet’s hand before she could react. Sometimes his speed, borne of age and experience, could be nothing short of incredible. He swung it back onto the table’s shiny surface, where the white case stood out in dark relief against the wood so brightly that it could have been backlit by neon. Without hesitating, he clicked open the top. As he stared down, the other Hemophages in the room dredged up their courage and crowded around so they, too, could gaze upon the so-called weapon. Violet could see the out of control curiosity and fascination on each one’s face crumble away as each got within viewing distance. Fascination was soon replaced with bewilderment, then with a much wider repertoire of emotions: anger, uncertainty, disappointment.
Violet stood back a few feet and watched them tensely. From the flat space in the case, the boy’s huge eyes blinked at them. “See?” she finally asked. She shrugged as if to give weight to her declaration. “It’s nothing.”
Nerva glanced back at her contemptuously. “Nothing?”
“It’s not a weapon,” Violet said, automatically going on the defensive. “It’s a child.”
But Nerva only shook his head and gave her a thin smile. “It’s both.” Violet and the others regarded him without understanding and he jerked his shaggy head back toward the boy. “It’s a weapon and a child. Its blood is swarming with cultured antigens that would kill any one of us on contact.” Nerva’s gaze was flat and deadly, full of self-importance. “If they atomized its tissues into the atmosphere, it would be like . . . insecticide to people like you and me.” He nodded to add emphasis to his words. “It would find us, and it would kill us. All of us.” His mouth turned up in hate. “He’s a living petri dish.”
Violet’s gaze snapped to the boy folded into the flat-space interior, trying to reconcile Nerva’s statement with the frightened little boy she’d first encountered in the elevator. Could this be true? No . . . yes. God, she didn’t know. But still, something wasn’t right. The pieces weren’t adding up . . . such as Nerva telling her to blow up the boy, and herself. Would that not have done exactly what he’d just warned them about? It didn’t matter; Nerva would never bother to explain himself to her. “So then . . . what are we going to do with him?” she finally asked.
Nerva lifted one eyebrow, and that simple gesture made it clear he expected her to already know. “Destroy him, of course.” He held out his hand and one of the other Hemophages was already stepping forward to place a laser gun in his palm. A shot to the head would emit a beam that would kill the boy but instantaneously seal the wound—there would be no particle aftereffect, no spreading of the so-called antigen that Nerva believed the boy carried. At least if Nerva really was going to kill him, this way would be a lot cleaner and safer.
But he was just a child.
Violet opened her mouth and involuntarily took a step forward. “Nerva, wait.” She swallowed and tried to formulate her words so that they made sense, so he would understand. “You know how antigens work. If an accelerator for H.P.V. is in this child’s blood, then so is the counteranalog for decelerating it.”
Nerva held up the gun, then set the strength of the laser. It was all too clear that while he was paying attention to her words, he’d already made up his mind not to give them any credence. “What are you saying, V? A cure?”
She hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Wouldn’t it be better than infecting innocent people?” She gestured at herself and the others. “It’s better than living like this.”
Nerva’s hard expression relaxed a little and he almost smiled at her. “Living like this? Living like this?” He closed his eyes for a long second, then reopened them and fixed his glowing gaze on Violet. “Wake up, Violet—the disease and the having of it is what defines us. And as far as a cure goes . . .” Now he actually did smile, although it certainly wasn’t a happy one. “Yeah, sure—Garth might fix your body, but do you think he’ll ever be able to cure you of the things you’ve done?”
Violet stared at him and realized she was trembling. How could she make him understand that her past wasn’t the issue here. There was something bigger, more profound at risk. It went beyond her and Nerva and the other Hemo
phages in this room. It had to do with omnipotent things like destiny, and whether a good chunk of the human race would actually be able to continue existing. How could he be so narrow-minded? “All I’m saying is that this child could provide the choice.”
Nerva ignored her and thumbed the safety lever on the side of the laser gun to OFF. The gun responded by humming to life, emitting a high-pitched, almost indiscernible whine that literally made her ears itch. “If there’s a choice, V,” he said coldly, “I’ve already made it.”
He raised the gun and aimed, but Violet reached out and snagged the cuff of his shirt, jerking his arm off to the side. The electric red dot of the laser aim wobbled around and snaked across a couple of the other vampires. They shifted nervously. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she said in exasperation. “It’s a child!”
Nerva turned and fixed her in his cold gaze, then with his free hand he grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her face to his. His mouth covered hers in a hard kiss, one completely devoid of any warmth or feeling.
Violet pulled free and stared at him in surprise. What the hell? She could feel the way her lipstick had smeared across her face, taste his saliva on her lips. It was utterly revolting.
“This is the end of us,” he said carelessly, then shook himself free of the grip she still had on his gun hand. “Your work’s done. You can go.”
She took a small step backward, then hesitated. Freedom? From what? Nerva and his little pod of power, but to what end? A few more weeks or days, maybe less, of her severely troubled life, and then . . .
A quick glance around the room confirmed that she was way outnumbered here—these weren’t weak little humans dressed up in armored clothes and helmets with misconceptions about her abilities. These were ’Phage assassins, fully mature and well transfused just like her, as strong and fast as she was and just as highly trained. The humans were annoying, but in reality they were mostly just . . . entertainment. These Hemophages had the potential to be deadly. As if to confirm this, their eyes tracked her like dueling hawks zeroing in on a lone rabbit with no place to hide. She was that rabbit.
Violet swallowed. “For the record,” she said, “I don’t agree with this.”
Nerva and the others simply stared back at her, unmoving. Uncaring.
As much as everything inside her wanted to fight it, Violet was smart enough to know that there was no way she could win here. She waited one more moment, then inhaled deeply and glanced at the boy in the briefcase a final time. Ultimately, without saying anything else, she turned and strode out of the conference room.
She didn’t turn and look back as the door slid shut behind her. Everything she was leaving behind seemed to be in slow motion, but Violet didn’t dare increase her pace or look over her shoulder—she couldn’t see any surveillance cameras, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Nerva and the other Hemophages could be watching her right now—in fact, they were probably doing just that—making sure she was well out of range before Nerva decided to do his dirty little deed. Speaking of dirty, she reached up and used the back of her hand to scrub at the lipstick smeared across her mouth, wishing she had soap and water so she could wash away the traces—the smell—of Nerva on her face. His scent lingered on her flesh like the last traces of disease, something insidious and worse than the HemoPhagic Virus itself. Very shortly, there were things that she would have to do, consequences for her actions, so many what-ifs that were all about to happen that Violet felt like her mind was racing at light speed. Even that wasn’t fast enough for her to find all the answers, and what was coming down at any second, everything about to happen back in that room, would only generate more questions, not reasons.
She wasn’t in the conference room, but the events that were taking place there weren’t a mystery. Right about now, Nerva would be stepping up to the table with his laser gun charged and ready. The cold-blooded bastard was probably enjoying it; in his former life, Nerva had been an egotistical graphics design guru, a man on the fast track to being a dot com millionaire and loving every bit of it. He’d had a high-rise condo with a city-wide view, fast cars and faster women, and all of that, as well as his passion for high-stakes, public gambling, had crashed around his ankles when he’d caught the virus. The clubs he frequented refused his business, and no amount of money could convince them to look the other way when he came calling. His oh-so-loyal employer had kicked him out on his ass—clearly the equal opportunity and nondiscrimination laws didn’t apply to Hemophages, especially once the uninfected stopped considering them human. No job, so no income, and eventually even his careful investments were bled out by the decadently high payments on his mortgage; he lost it to the bank when none of the real estate agents would sell it for him, and no potential buyers would look at it when they found out he was a ’Phage, anyway. The bank was less than overjoyed, although after sending in a hard-line decontamination team, then ripping out everything and redoing it, they were finally able to put it on the market as “sanitized.”
Becoming a Hemophage had twisted Nerva’s mind and made him worse than human, worse than ’Phage. Filled with bitterness and the desire for revenge, he convinced himself that he enjoyed blood and the sight of it, the smell, even watching it ooze from an open wound; Violet wouldn’t have been surprised to discover he drank it like the ridiculous legends of the old centuries, just because it was legend.
If they had any common sense at all, the others in the room would back away from Nerva, make sure they were out of firing range just in case something went wrong and the heat seal component on the gun failed or, worse, he got caught up in his killing. As it was, Violet thought Nerva was a fool—if the child’s blood could kill them, why was he so eager to destroy the boy and take the chance of exposing everyone? Because he was bloodthirsty, that was why.
At the end of the hall she turned the corner. There wasn’t any reason to even think about it—she knew he would never reconsider. Right about now the tall, dark-eyed Hemophage would be pointing the barrel of the laser gun at the child’s head. He would smile that pleased-with-the-world smile, and then he would squeeze the trigger.
Halfway between where the hallway turned and the elevators was an AutoVend machine, its plasticized front cheerfully advertising soft drinks, snacks, and a few health-conscious mini-lunches for the few and far between who actually tried to keep their bodies healthy rather than just get a pill for it from the doctor when they were older. Seated on the floor next to it, with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest, was the boy who had been inside the white briefcase. He was an obedient young boy, and he’d stayed in precisely the position Violet had ordered, clutching her activated cell phone so that it would train on his own unmoving body as the three-dimensional object continued to project.
Back in the conference room, the air would be full of the smell of hot fabric—the case’s softer, inside upholstery—and metal, but not burned flesh. Nerva’s expression would have initially been shock, but now it would be twisting into full rage. After he waved aside the sparks and smoke, he would reach inside the briefcase and yank out the charred and twisted remains of Violet’s mic-phone, that handy little piece of advanced technology that had allowed her to project the three-dimensional image of the boy inside the case’s flat space.
And then Nerva would start bellowing for her.
The young boy looked up at her with placid brown eyes that made it clear he had no idea how much danger he and Violet were now facing. What would it matter if he did? It wasn’t like there was anything he could do to save them, or even buy them time. Violet snatched the cell phone from his hand, then pulled him to his feet and hauled him roughly toward the elevator. Before he could ask—if he even wanted to—she shook her head. “Don’t overthink it,” she told him tightly. “It just turns out I was right and we’re getting the hell out of here.”
The elevator door was already opening as they ran up to it. Violet could see Hemophages crowded up to the inside of the door as it was openi
ng—Nerva must have already sounded an alarm. They hadn’t expected her to be right there so she had the element of surprise. She used it to her advantage, too, yanking one of her machine pistols out of its flat-space holster and firing into the control panel, not caring if any of the Hemophages got hit. Their life spans were limited anyway, and if they were Nerva’s flunkies . . . well, they were probably close to being just like him.
But it wouldn’t be long before the vampires inside the elevator pried the doors fully open and came after them. The fire stairwell was their only option, and Violet made short work of the locked metal door, kicking it so hard that she nearly took it off its hinges. She wanted to go down, but it was a good thing she leaned over to double-check the way. Already she could see a couple Hemophages clambering upward, their hands skimming along the surface of the banisters. Pushing the boy behind her, she took a precious three seconds to aim carefully and track the team as it climbed. When she was ready to fire, her bullets literally vaporized the two hands that were showing.
With all that screaming, Violet and the boy didn’t even have to try to be quiet as they ran up and toward the roof.
ELEVEN
He had never been more angry in his life.
Nerva skidded to a stop in front of the closed elevator and his furious glance took it all in at once, the mangled door, the shredded control panel. He didn’t even need to hear the words of his waiting lieutenant, Luthor, to know what Violet’s next move had been. He could hear the screams in the stairwell, so she’d already made mincemeat out of the two soldiers who had been dispatched to stop her from fleeing toward the ground floor. God, had they even slowed her down? Doubtful.
“She went up,” Luthor said uselessly.
Nerva almost couldn’t say anything. Why had Violet done this? Her behavior made no sense at all, and she was endangering everything she’d worked for, including the survival of her own species. Did she think the humans were going to help her? Forgive her? Accept her? How ludicrous.
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