Michael had thrown in the benefit of offering Emerson immortal life as part of the deal.
After the sizzling in his veins stopped, Michael was able to get up and have breakfast. That was perhaps his favorite part of the day: bacon, eggs, sausage, and grits, toast on the side. He was an Italian, but he preferred grits to polenta.
He’d only been able to indulge in this simple joy for the last twelve years, since he first started on the serum. He’d cried the first time that he was able to eat again, because it had been several hundred years since he’d had food before that. Even the tears, at that time, had been a revelation.
Vampires couldn’t eat, cry, or as much as piss without the serum. They couldn’t get an erection. They did not bleed when cut.
The serum gave Michael the ability to do all that and more. It made nourishment through blood irrelevant.
The only thing that it didn’t do was quell the actual desire for blood. But the serum did make it possible to exist without it, in much the same way a human could exist without sex. The upside of the drug was that it diminished none of his abilities as a vampire. Strength, speed, preternatural sight and hearing, all remained the same. Immortality was still his. He straddled the world of the undead and the living, a creature that had attributes of both and in some ways was neither.
Once breakfast was done, he took his coffee in the living room, where the windows revealed a sweeping view of the city. He sat for a while, feeling the sunshine against his skin. Twenty minutes was the usual amount of time he spent, though on some days it could be more. He understood well why humans sometimes risked sunburn and cancer for a few minutes too long in the sun. There was something comforting about sunshine that nothing else could match.
Living as he did now, it was almost possible to forget the years it had taken to get him to this point, the things that he had suffered in search of the formula that would allow him to walk in daylight, to eat. To be able to make love with a woman of his choosing.
Almost possible to forget.
There had been many starts and stops as Emerson researched and perfected the formula. The first trials had no effect whatsoever. There were other patients that doctor tested the serum on, and out of the first group, Michael witnessed one literally melt on the fifth day that he received the medication, burning him alive from the inside. Emerson barely blinked an eye. “We try again until we succeed,” he pronounced coldly. “We have an endless amount of test subjects.”
An endless amount of subjects procured by Michael. He was turning humans for the sake of using them in Emerson’s experiments. There had been close to a hundred, maybe more died in the cause of science, of finding a potion that would allow him to walk undetected among the living, when the breakthrough finally came. It was more than a gamble to even try it.
Michael suspected that Emerson secretly hated him, and this would be an easy way to get rid of him, as Sharla had pointed out. But by that time Michael was getting desperate. I have lived a lot of years, he told Sharla. And if it doesn’t work I’m ready to die.
Despite the fact that the serum worked, there were still questions about its eventual effects. Michael was really the first long term subject that he had. It was possible that the serum’s efficacy would one day wear off. Or it could be that as Emerson hoped, his blood would eventually retain enough of the compound that he no longer needed daily injections. They really didn’t know. Twelve years was a good run, but he was aware that one day the serum might lose his effectiveness.
Emerson assured him that he would not die, but that he would go back to the normal state of a vampire. No more eating food or walking in daylight. No more sex. It was a fate that he didn’t even want to contemplate.
That first year he was on the serum, he hadn’t been able to control his appetites. He bedded a different woman every night.
What a difference those years had made. Dying was the furthest thing from his mind. He wanted to live as much as he could, enjoy everything that he felt had been denied from him for so long. Just in case the serum did ever go retrograde, he wanted to live as much as he could.
Michael stayed away from Emerson when he had a choice in the matter. But this morning in particular was not one of them.
*
“What is it that you want?” Michael said. “I have other things to do today.”
Standing in the Emerson’s office, perhaps the most cluttered room in the entire building, Michael sat down in the chair facing his desk.
Dr. Peter Emerson had graduated from one of the best medical schools in the country, had been published multiple times, and at one point was considered one of the preeminent minds within his field of research. And yet the man was incapable of keeping a space that wasn’t free of a million books and perhaps as many scraps of paper. His desk was filled with spiral notebooks and pens, two laptops, and a desktop computer with three monitors.
Emerson’s hair was silver, but his face was free of lines, except for the vertical ones etched between his brows from constantly frowning as he mulled over data. He was prematurely gray. Having lost his human life just shy of his forty-ninth birthday, he would not age any further.
Emerson looked over the monitor at him. “I have some results I think you’ll be interested in.”
“About?” Michael said.
“Since we’ve been working on the serum, I decided that I needed to have a new control, for a slightly different experiment,” the physician told him. “Come with me. It’s better if you see the results for yourself.”
Because Emerson held Michael’s life in his hands, he had a grudging respect from the man. That didn’t keep him from agreeing with Sharla’s assessment of the man; the doctor was brilliant, but as she put it, also as unpredictable as a rat on meth. He was happy to toil away day in and day out in the lab, pondering conundrums of science and biology, rarely leaving his lab or office. As an immortal, he didn’t bother to go home to sleep. There was something too intense about him, slightly off, a quality in his personality even in his human life, which had only deepened upon his change into being a vampire.
His tenacity and intelligence were the reasons that Michael sought him out in the first place, so he could hardly complain about that now. In its own way, this made him perhaps the scariest man that Michael knew.
Emerson’s lab was located in the bowels of the building, only accessible with his personal codes and a litany of security. Guards nodded as Michael and Emerson passed together, and Michael had the fleeting thought that he was glad that he didn’t know exactly how much the research was costing him. Though it didn’t matter. The profit that they were making on the market from their drugs were staggering.
But really, he knew the thing that should concern him was the human toll that experimentation had cost, and continued to cost. That was something that no one could ever be allowed to know about.
As they walked together to the final set of doors into the lab, Michael drew in a breath.
“As you know, I have continued to make improvements upon the serum,” he said. “I haven’t checked in with you since last month as far as the effects you’re feeling. Are you still experiencing much pain after you take your dosage in the morning?”
“Some, not much, certainly nothing compared to the pain of the first few serums gave me. There’s some dizziness. I usually wait a few minutes before I go anywhere.”
“Good. You know that one of my side research projects has applications to cancer and sickle cell. It has to do with manipulating the red blood cells to bond with a type of lipid that helps grow healthy blood vessels. I was curious as to what applications this would have on the cells of a vampire.”
“What is it that you’re getting at?”
“I wanted to talk to you before I proceed any further, because I have a theory. You’re the only one who has the right to the serum’s technology. And I want to know if you’re interested in having something that could even be greater than that.”
“We already agreed
that any medication with benefits to humans is definitely something that I would be interested in for the company. That’s the reason were doing research with blood cells in the first place; or at least, that’s why we continue to explore it.”
“There are certain dangers to this technology, which I feel bound to warn you about.”
“All right, what exactly do you mean?”
“The serum currently allows your body to function as a human’s does, without losing your vampire abilities. I believe that my study of red blood cells could also lead to a very opposite thing—a serum that could be used to kill vampires. For obvious reasons, that would be a delicate thing. To hold in one hand, the thing that offers immortality with none of the downside. And in the other, something that could destroy vampires through chemical means. No poison has ever been able to do that.”
“That’s something to consider,” Michael said. He held his chin between his thumb and forefinger.
“It’s the power of god and devil combined,” Emerson said. “To be able to give immortality without consequences, and then to take it away in the blink of an eye.”
Chapter Three
Chloe used the subway to get downtown, and often walked when the distance wasn’t too great. The bustle of traffic was thick at this time of day. She was enjoying the warm sunshine and cool air of the early autumn day. Chloe wasn’t a person who went to the gym regularly so walking was often her favorite form of exercise. Standing on the sidewalk, she paused outside a coffee shop for a moment, taking in the warmth of the sun touching her face before going inside.
Her eyes had been closed from the glare of sunshine for a split second. When she opened her eyes, she could have sworn she felt someone watching from the other side of the street.
Chloe caught a movement of air, but nothing else. That had to be too quick for anyone to move, she thought. Shaking off the creepy feeling that trailed along the back of her neck, she ordered her favorite spiced latte and snuggled into a seat beside the window. This was one of her favorite cafes in town. You saw some of every walk of life in this place: business people looking for their caffeine jolt, students from the nearby city college, teenagers getting out from their last class, shoppers, like herself, taking a break from the commotion of the mish mash of stores.
There were over-priced and bargain basement stores sitting shoulder to shoulder in this neighborhood, and Chloe had trotted through half of them, trying to find the best buys that she could. So far her acquisitions had been simple, but strategic. She splurged on a good quality black blazer and slacks, a simple knee length skirt, and a marked-down designer handbag that had some tiny flaw, which lowered the price by more than eighty dollars. She still had some money left, and decided that a dress and a couple of blouses would round out what she absolutely needed.
Chloe checked her phone and realized that she had a couple of messages. One from her mother. That was par for the course. But the second was an unknown number. It didn’t appear to be one of her bill collectors, as the call came from a local area code. She checked the phone log and saw that a message was left for her.
“Chloe, this is Michael Andreas. I know that we talked about you starting on Monday, but I would really like to see you back in my office today. Please return my call when you get this message.”
“Oh shit,” she muttered under her breath. Since when did someone call you back in for a job on the afternoon of your final interview? Had he changed his mind and found someone else? And if he needed her to start, as in, start work, what was going on in his office? She checked the time stamp. Michael had called her nearly an hour earlier.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed redial and waited as the phone rang.
“Hi Chloe,” Michael’s voice came over the line, cool and professional. She tried to discern if there was any emotion in his tone, but he kept his voice perfectly flat. “I hope this won’t be an inconvenience for you, but I would like you to come back. There’s myriads of paperwork for you to fill out, and if we wait until Monday, you’ll spend half the day filling it out.”
“Well, okay, I could come back in.”
“Where are you right now? I can send a car for you.”
Some part of her wanted to refuse, but she didn’t really think of why she should. She quickly gave him the address. “Excellent. Sharla will be there to get you in a few minutes.”
He hung up before she could say anything else.
***
There were times, just sometimes, when Sharla hated the fact that she worked for Michael. And this was one of them. She could do many things, or nothing at all if she chose to, able to live on the wealth that she had accumulated over the years in grand style. The problem was that Michael would find her if she tried to leave. He’d done that more than once before. He didn’t force her to come back with him. But the thing was that she wasn’t sure that he could really function without her. Oh sure, he had his handlers. There was Dr. Emerson. There were the hired hoods and paid killers that filled his payroll.
But who would really take care of him when things got bad? None of those people were loyal. Most would turn on him the first time that someone else offered better compensation. Because of that, Sharla had incorporated layer upon layer of security in the way the headquarters were laid out. Even the people working in the company were kept in the dark, with certain teams of workers not allowed to have contact with each other. It was a shell game at its best.
Dreas Pharmaceuticals was full of too many secrets, big ones, and if he wasn’t careful, Michael would get himself into some very difficult problems. There was the whole mess with the human girl, for one. If she hadn’t been there to take care of that, who knew what might have happened? She worried about Michael being exposed because it would not only be the end of him, but affect the lives of others, herself included.
On days like these, Sharla questioned her desire to stay and play interference for Michael.
She had followed the latest assistant—who had not yet started—around for part of the afternoon. Her motive was to make sure that the woman was what she appeared to be on paper—a recent college graduate with debts up to her chin and the need to find stable employment. It would appear that was the only thing to really know about her.
She had friends, but not much family in town. In a way, that made her a good choice. If she wound up dead for any reason, as young women often did in Michael’s company, no one would miss her right away.
Sharla hadn’t expected his call, but she wasn’t surprised by it either. He asked her to go pick up the girl and bring her in. Smiling, she wondered what he would think if he knew that she was actually already at the girl’s location, shadowing her as she went from shop to shop.
She waited ten minutes, and then went to her own car. Chloe was waiting for her in front of a coffee shop.
Chloe was, at least, cuter than the last. She had brown hair with reddish highlights that fell a few inches past her shoulders. Her wide brown eyes were framed with long lashes, and she had a little bow shaped mouth. The girl wore rather plain dark clothing, exactly what you would expect for a job interview. She hadn’t changed, and that worked out well as she would only be going back to the office anyway. Chloe smiled nervously at her when she pulled up to the curb, even hesitated a moment before getting in the car.
As she slipped into the passenger seat, Sharla was, for a moment, overwhelmed with the girl’s scent; not her perfume, but the actual scent of her skin. One of the downsides of being a vampire was being inundated with scents that only lower animals would pick up on. All humans had a base of copper and salt to their smell, along with other undertones. But there was something almost savory-sweet to this one. Sharla was reminded of tomato soup with those little fish shaped crackers floating one top, and how both the soup and crackers were sweet and salty, with a bit of tang in the liquid. She wondered if Chloe’s flesh and blood might taste like that. An odd thought, but she couldn’t quite shake it.
After they exchanged pl
easantries, Chloe tried to make small talk.
“Is this very common?” she asked. “Someone being picked up to go into the office?”
Sharla laughed. “It’s highly uncommon that I would be the one to do it. This will probably be the last time that happens. But Michael has already let me know we’ll be sending a car around to your address every morning.”
“Well,” Chloe said. “That’s a perk.”
“Only thing is you’ll have to be on time every morning. If you’re not, it will be a horrible thing. Michael pretty much works around the clock, so you must be on your toes at all times.”
“I see.”
“He goes through assistants the way some people use tissue,” she said lightly. “If you meet his expectations, you’ll be around for a while though.”
That comment did exactly what Sharla hoped it would—it shut her up. She didn’t want to talk, and really wasn’t interested in learning anything about her. There was no use in developing attachments to someone who wouldn’t be around that long anyway. She might as well be a pet store rat being sold to someone who owned a boa constrictor.
When they reached the office, Chloe seemed anxious to be out of her company. “Oh, you don’t get away so easily,” she snarled as she used her access card to swipe them into the building. “Human resources is over this way, I’ll escort you onto their floor. You’ve got a whole packet of things that need to be signed. After that I’ll take you up to security for them to make your badge. You can’t even get into the ladies room around here without one.”
Chapter Four
Chloe wondered if Sharla hated everyone as much as she seemed to hate her, or if that was a pleasure reserved for her alone.
She was right about one thing—the paperwork. She’d seen people sign mortgages for homes with less paper involved. And of course, though she was told that she should read everything, there were some pages she barely skimmed. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary as far as she could see—there were a lot of non-disclosure forms, but it seemed there were individual ones for different departments. Apparently, sharing information even within the company was in some ways forbidden. That was something Chloe had never heard before.
Bitten By The Bad Boy: A Bad Boy Vampire Romance Page 10
