Recombinant

by Shannon Mayer

  A naked man, covered in blood, hung from the ceiling, suspended in a silver net. His hands were tied behind his back and duct tape covered his mouth, but it was the sight of the intestines spilling from his abdomen that made me almost lose my lunch. Huge puddles of blood covered the floor.

  His eyes were wide with fear and panic when he saw me. His body flinched and a sizzling sound filled the air, joined by the smell of burnt flesh. How could he even still be alive?

  I backed against a wall, holding my gun as I looked around the room to see if we were alone.

  “Is anyone else here?”

  He shook his head wildly.

  “Is your name Caine?”

  Surprise filled his eyes. He didn’t respond, but that was answer enough. Derrick had warned me that Caine was dangerous, but he looked pretty incapacitated at the moment. What the hell was I going to do? I couldn’t leave him like that.

  I pulled out my cell phone to call 911, then cursed. No service. “I’m going to go call for help.” I made a move to exit, but he panicked, thrashing enough to make his body sway and touch the net, which burnt his flesh with a loud crackle.

  What the hell was that? An electric filament? I didn’t see any cords attached to it. The net dangled from what looked like a meat hook.

  I crept closer to him and carefully reached through the loops in the material to rip the tape off his face and pull out his gag.

  “Help me,” he pleaded, his voice a whisper.

  “I need to call for help.”

  “No! Don’t leave me!” He shook his head, panic in his voice. “Just get me down.”

  There was no way I could lift the net off the hook with him inside it, so I glanced around to find something I could use to cut him down.

  A utility knife lay on a table next to a bottle of red water that looked like it was boiling. “What the fuck…” I whispered.

  “Please!” he pleaded again, regaining my attention. “They’ll be back soon. Save me!”

  I stuffed the gun in the back of my pants. I’d suspected the net was electrified, but I saw no evidence of any cords, so I grabbed the knife and hurried over to him, holding the blade up to cut the net. Then I lowered it. “I want answers first.”

  “What answers?” he squealed. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know your name is Caine.”

  “No! My name is Matt. Please!”

  “Cut the shit. I saw you in the park. I saw her take you, and I know you were with Derrick.” The real question was how he was still alive, holding a coherent conversation?

  “She’s going to kill you.” His voice changed. The panic was gone, replaced with authority. “She’s going to kill us both. Cut me down.”

  I found myself reaching up to slash the net, but I pulled back again, shaking my head to clear out the desire to please him.

  Please him? What the fuck?

  I took a step back. “Where’s the facility?”

  He groaned, then asked, with a hint of humor, “Where’s Derrick?”

  “He was injured, which you should know since you’re the one who hurt him. He sent me.”

  He laughed. “You? Do you even know what the facility is?”

  “I know enough.”

  “You’re dabbling into things that don’t concern you, little girl. Dark, ugly things. Your worst nightmares come to life.”

  I released a harsh laugh. “You obviously don’t know me very well.”

  “I’d like to get to know you better.” His words were husky and held the sultry promise of pleasure. “I’d like to fuck you until you beg me for more.”

  A wave of heat and lust gushed through my body. I shook it off, horrified that this literally gutted man could do this to me. “What is that? Hypnosis?”

  “You really don’t know what I am.” He laughed, but the movement jarred him against the filament, searing his flesh. “Cut me down!”

  His voice pushed into my head and every fiber of my being wanted to obey. I started to saw through the net before the fog cleared from my head. What the hell was he doing to me?

  I took several steps back this time. “What type of bioterrorism is the facility trying to create?”

  “How are you resisting me?” he roared, thrashing his body in his frustration. But I must have sawed through enough to weaken the remaining fibers. His body dropped into the bloody pool beneath him.

  I scrambled backward as he flailed with the net, pulling the gun from the back of my jeans. I didn’t get to it in time. Without warning, I was slammed to the concrete floor. Pain shot through my head, but I was too stunned to assess my injuries because I was looking into Caine’s face.

  A slow, predatory smile lit up his face. “You have no idea how much I need you right now.” Then his lips widened, exposing his teeth, and two long canines extended past his other teeth.

  I tried to thrash away from him, but he didn’t even budge.

  His right hand grabbed my head and turned it roughly, exposing my neck.

  “What kind of sick pervert are you?” I bucked again, my panic escalating.

  He released a low chuckle as he slowly lowered his mouth to my neck, murmuring in my ear, “The very worst kind.”

  CHAPTER 11

  LEA

  I squeezed the female vamp’s neck slowly, breaking the bones through sheer pressure. I kept an eye on her, and one on Victor. Her eyes bugged out as she scrabbled at my hands. The patrons around us ran screaming as they realized someone was being killed in the middle of their entree course.

  Not all that appetizing for the humans, apparently.

  Victor, though, he was anything but bothered. The cold bastard cracked open one of the oysters on his plate and sucked down the slippery juices. If he thought I was impressed, he had another think coming. I grabbed his steak knife and jammed it into his companion’s chest, breaking the blade off against her ribs as she bucked and writhed.

  Victor coughed into his hand. “Would you kill her already?”

  I held her where she was. Young, she was very young, like the vampire in Montreal. I pulled her across the table so her feet kicked him for me. One heel caught him in the cheek, cutting him open.

  The scent of his blood caught me off guard and I breathed through my mouth, taking in the flavor as if it were a wine, tasting it all the way in the back of my throat. “Victor, you smell different than you did the last time we spoke.” I suspected he was dabbling in vampire blood. But just from this pretty girl? Or someone else? He paled and I bared my teeth at him. “Who are you working for, Vic? No games. I know the government is in on something with my marks.”

  With a snort, he leaned back in his chair. His momentary lack of composure was gone in a flash, covered by his usual arrogance. If I didn’t know he was such a slimy bastard, his looks and confidence would have drawn me to him.

  In some ways, he reminded me of Calvin when he was younger. Except Calvin had never been anything but painfully honest with me.

  You’re a fucking vampire. We work together; there will never be anything else between us.

  I shook off the past and glared at Victor as the female vamp slowed her flailing. “Victor, tell me what you know or you will join your cheap whore here on the table.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  I threw the vamp across the room with enough force that her body shattered through the plate glass. She hung suspended for a moment and then fell from the sky. Victor scrambled backward as three of his thugs came out of nowhere, rushing me.

  The first one I caught with the heel of my boot, right over his Adam’s apple, his throat bursting open from the blow. Number two pulled a gun and nabbed me with one of the bullets. I thought nothing of it until the burn of silver arched my back. “Pinche cerdo!” I screeched in my mother tongue, stumbling to my hands and knees with the pain.

  The report of a second gun going off, and the thug’s head bobbed once, a bloom of red right between his eyes.

  I caught Calvin’s scent as I str
uggled to control the pain long enough to take out the third bodyguard. I jerked as a hand touched my shoulder. “They’re gone.”

  “Victor, too?”

  “Yes.”

  I bit my bottom lip as the pain cascaded down and then back up my entire body, a wave of mind-numbing heat. “Dig it out, it’s sitting at the top of my shoulder blade.” I couldn’t push silver bullets out of my body. And these wounds would heal far slower. Damn Victor and his games. I should have turned his father into a vamp so I wouldn’t have to deal with his idiot son.

  I wobbled to my feet and splayed across the table where Victor had been dining moments before, wanting to make it easier for Calvin. Sirens were approaching from a distance, drawing closer with a speed we would be hard pressed to outmaneuver. He put one hand on my back, his body pressing against mine as he leaned into his task.

  “You know better. Victor doesn’t react well when he’s cornered.”

  I kept my eyes closed as the knife sliced through my skin and dug into the muscle. Having a body that was sensitized not only to pain but pleasure, I was having a hard time not thinking about this particular position. Calvin would not appreciate it if he knew I was wondering whether he still held to his rules about cross-species hanky-panky. A giggle escaped me and he let out a sigh as he popped the bullet out.

  “Endorphins kicking in already?”

  Laughing softly, I nodded, my face rubbing against the high-grade linen tablecloth. “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Pain and pleasure. You vamps are fucking sick.”

  And just like that, the endorphins were gone. I pushed myself to my feet and looked away from Calvin. I still saw him as the young man I knew fifty years ago. And he still saw me as the vampire he only helped because I was killing my own kind. “Time to go.”

  I jogged to the open door. The elevator pinged softly, no doubt bringing a riot squad right to us. I glanced at Calvin. “Think you can play the feeble old man who couldn’t get away with the others?”

  He glared at me as he slowly went to his knees and stuffed himself under a table. “Fine. Go deal with Caine. And don’t play with him this time, just get the information and finish him off.” He handed me the car keys and I stuffed them down the front of my top.

  I gave him a mock salute and ran for the window I’d thrown the vamp through. Reaching out, I hooked my fingers into the tiny grooves of the building and quickly worked my way down the side. There wasn’t so much as a peep from the cops. A sharp blast of air curled around me as I paused and stared up at the restaurant. There should have been police crawling all over the scene. But the sirens had stopped and there were no lights. No flashing bulbs indicating evidence being collected on camera.

  My mouth went dry. What if it wasn’t the police who’d shown up?

  I scrambled back up the side of the building, driven along by fear for Calvin’s safety. I’d left him there, and we’d just assumed he’d be safe in the hands of the authorities. But the closer I got, the more certain I was that we had been wrong. “Fucking Victor, when I find you I’m going to cut you into pieces.”

  I pulled myself into the restaurant as slowly as I could. The room was undisturbed, but the table Calvin had been under was empty. Lifting my head, I scented the air.

  Two vampires and a human I didn’t recognize.

  “THIS IS THE POLICE, PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS.” I clapped my hands over my ears as the voice boomed into the room. I had no choice. I had to go even though it tore me up to essentially walk away from my...from Calvin.

  As I worked my way down the side of the building once more, the activity going on above sounded just like it should for an in-progress investigation. But Calvin was gone, and a small part of me thought—hoped—maybe he would be waiting for me at the car.

  It was empty. I dropped into the driver’s side and slammed the car into gear, my foot hard on the gas. Nothing was going to stop me from getting the information I needed from Caine. I’d gone easy on him before.

  It seemed like it only took seconds to return to the broken-down old building. I hit the brakes hard next to a parked car a half block away and stared into the passenger seat, the smell of blood hitting me in the face.

  The reporter stared back at me, his eyes dulling as death curled around him. I got out and opened his door. “What in God’s name is going on here? Do you know?”

  “Not God’s name; maybe the devil’s,” he whispered. “She’s in there. She should be back by now. I told her to be careful. Tell her...” A breath rattled out of him as he passed out. I peered into the car. A blood-soaked shirt was tied around his thigh. He let out a low groan and breathed out one word, a name. “Rachel.”

  I turned to face the building.

  “Is that who you sent in there? The blonde you were with?”

  Only one way to find out.

  Leaving the car behind, I sprinted for the old building, slamming through the main door. I didn’t care who heard me now. If there was a human in here with Caine, he could control her, make her free him. This was a disaster.

  Her scent was heavy in the air, and with it, a hint of her blood. Which meant she was probably already dead. Rather than use the stairs, I leapt up and over the railing, falling through the open space all the way to the basement, the air whistling around me. Landing in a crouch, I took a split second to register the scene in front of me.

  Caine was drinking from a woman’s neck, but she had a gun trained on him.

  Damn, he was about to get the last surprise he ever had.

  The sound of the gun going off bounced around the room and Caine’s body jerked hard. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would bring him close enough that there would be no coming back from the injury.

  I grabbed his leg and dragged him off her, spinning out a blade and cutting his heart out in a few swift motions.

  “You alive?” I said over my shoulder as I guaranteed the job was done twice by removing Caine’s head and pushing it away from his body. With the old vamps, they rarely turned to ash, which meant you had to take extra precautions to make sure they were really dead. “Hey, are you alive?” I spun on my heels and stared into the barrel of the gun that just sent Caine down the path to his fate.

  I had to give her credit. The gun was steady. I slowly lifted my hands into the air. “You might not believe this, but I think we’re on the same side.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And what side would that be?”

  “The side that feeds bastards like this to the fishes.”

  I thought she believed me.

  Until she cocked the hammer of the gun.

  CHAPTER 12

  RACHEL

  My heart raced and the bite on my neck throbbed, but all I could do was focus on the woman in front of me. I kept my gun trained on her. “What are you?”

  A slow smile spread across her face. A predatory smile right down to the canines peeking past her lips. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  Probably not. But whatever she was, she wasn’t normal. The way she’d ripped out the asshole’s heart was proof enough of that. I couldn’t let go of the fact that Derrick had told me to use his silver bullets. He’d said that Caine wasn’t a werewolf, but that he was something else. Bile rose in my throat as I considered the implications, but I swallowed it. This was not the time to panic.

  The woman tilted her head ever so slightly. “Maybe you should be asking what he was.”

  She took a slow step toward me and I kept my gun trained on her. “Come one step closer and I’ll shoot.”

  She stopped and held up her hands in surrender, but I wasn’t fooled for a moment.

  “Okay,” I said, taking the bait. “What was he?”

  “A child molester. An abomination.”

  “Is that why you had him hanging in a net after you gutted him?” I still didn’t understand how he could have survived that, and with enough strength to tackle me and drink my blood. “Is he some kind of pervert who thinks he’s a vampire?”


  She didn’t answer, only stared at me with her dark, penetrating eyes.

  But a new thought nudged its way to the surface. “Is he the one who’s been killing people all over the city?”

  Her left shoulder lifted into a slight shrug. “People get killed in this city every day.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t see many of them with the blood drained from their bodies and occult symbols carved into their skin.”

  Her eyes widened slightly at that and I wondered which part had caught her by surprise. Why didn’t I think it was both? Maybe because she’d found that pervert Caine drinking my blood. But if he was the one who’d committed the murders—and there was a good chance he was since the coincidence was too strong—that meant the woman in front of me had stopped the serial killer.

  Only she looked more deadly than he had.

  “Why did you want to talk to him?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Who says I did?”

  “If you want to kill someone, you don’t gut them and hang them in a metal net. Not unless you’re a serial killer, and you don’t look like a crazy serial killer.” No, her eyes were too cold and calculated for that. “So if you went to that much trouble, I know you must have tortured him for a reason. You went to extreme measures to get the information he had.”

  Her jaw tightened; the movement was nearly imperceptible in the dim light, but I caught it.

  Dammit. Derrick was desperate to get information from Caine, and this woman had just killed him. Then again, I’d shot the guy in the head, which likely hadn’t helped matters. But what if this woman already had the information that Derrick and I needed? Yet I knew she hadn’t gotten it all. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have found him alive. “What does drinking people’s blood have to do with bioterrorism?”

  Dark eyes rolled upward, as if seeking an answer from the heavens above. “Do you just blurt whatever comes into your head?”

  I lifted my left shoulder into a shrug, my T-shirt sticking to my chest. I really needed to get pressure on my wound or I was going to pass out soon. “Pretty much.”