Rachel tapped my arm. “Lea, I got proof of what they were doing here. Samples, pictures, paperwork. We have everything we need to expose them.”
Coming back to the present moment, I gave them both a noncommittal grunt and shoved Lancaster. “Keep moving.”
He stumbled forward, his eyes wide as he stared back the way we’d come. “I don’t think we’re going to make it.”
I glanced backward. “Fuck.” The fire was licking along the walls behind us, spreading at a rate that was anything but natural. I grabbed Rachel with one hand and Lancaster with the other. Turning on the speed, I pulled them along like a boat towing water skiers.
“Left,” Lancaster yelled as the oxygen disappeared around us. I didn’t need it, but that was not true of Rachel. Her body began to slump as I rounded the corner. As I slid to a stop in front of a panel on the wall, I grabbed its edges and wrenched the whole thing off.
“My God, I had no idea how strong you vampires really were,” Lancaster breathed as he passed out.
A rush of cool air swept through the tunnel, sucked into the hall by the fire. Rachel came around first. “What happened?”
“No oxygen.” I helped her to her feet and pushed her ahead of me, then grabbed Lancaster and threw him over my shoulder. He let out a grunt and a fart as his stomach hit my shoulder.
Rachel laughed. “Glad you’ve got him and not me.”
“Yeah, thanks.” I gave her a bare smile as we jogged across two short flights with a landing in the middle. We found ourselves in front of another set of elevator doors.
The button beside them blinked green. Rachel looked at me, shrugged, and slammed the heel of her hand into the button. “Couldn’t hurt to try—”
The doors slid open with a light bing, elevator music spilling out like some weird kind of time warp. As if the whole fucking building wasn’t about to be dissolved in a baptism of fire.
Rachel stepped in first, and I followed, lowering Lancaster to the floor at our feet. “Mommy,” he whimpered.
A laugh burst out of Rachel. “Talk about your manly man.” She hit the only button on the elevator panel, a large, green G.
The doors slid shut and the volume of the music increased.
I frowned. “I know this song, but is this really playing right now?”
With a smile on her lips, Rachel started singing along with Gloria Gaynor. And I will admit, I joined in.
Grinning like a couple of shell-shocked fools, we sang at the top of our lungs, fist-pumping as the elevator climbed and the lyrics came to an end.
“Nice pipes,” Rachel said as the elevator binged.
“Not bad yourself,” I said, my hilarity dissipating as the doors slid open.
Morning sunshine spilled into the elevator and I couldn’t help but take a step back as I raised my cowl.
“You going to be okay?” Rachel touched my shoulder as I bent to scoop up Lancaster.
“Might get a slight burn, but—”
I was rudely interrupted by the screech of a megaphone and then the deep bass of a man who thought he was in charge.
“COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR.”
Rachel let out a sigh. “So much for thinking we were home safe.”
“No such thing,” I muttered. “Be ready; we’re making a run for it.”
She gave me a tight nod and I put Lancaster down, using his body to block the elevator doors open. Rachel stepped behind me and hopped up onto my back.
“I feel like this has been done before,” she muttered.
“Yes, it has,” I said. “But I don’t fucking sparkle.”
CHAPTER 42
RACHEL
I knew this had to be too easy. Ha. As if getting attacked by monsters and almost burned to a crisp could be called easy. But then I worried about all the people I’d helped escape. Had they made it out?
Lea took off, moving faster than ever as a round of gunshots filled the air. I tried not to tense, but I kept waiting to get hit by a flying bullet.
We made it all the way to the SUV. I slid off Lea’s back and looked around.
“Where’s Sean’s body? We went right by the place where we left him.”
Lea was perfectly still other than her gaze scanning the horizon. “Good question.”
I heard a low growl and spun around, shocked to see Derrick. He was hunched over, a feral look in his eyes. And there was a perfectly round hole in his forehead. How could he be alive and mobile?
“Derrick.”
Lea was ready to pounce, but I held up an arm to hold her back. “Wait.”
“Rachel, that’s not Derrick.”
But it was. He’d done so much to help and protect me. I couldn’t just leave him here like this.
I took a step forward and Lea released a low growl.
“Mierda, Rachel. It’s not him.”
Derrick watched us both with a wary look, still not saying anything.
“Derrick, come with me. I’ll get you to the hospital.” Maybe the bullet had hit the part of his brain that dealt with his language skills. I took several more steps toward him. Then he rushed me.
Lea tried to get to me first, but she wasn’t going to make it. I ducked before he could reached me, then spun around behind him. I grabbed his arm and pulled it behind his back, but he wrenched it free. I took several steps back.
“Derrick, listen to me. I want to help you.”
A slow grin spread across his face, but his eyes remained as vacant as a machine in motion. Lea was right. He really wasn’t there.
“We don’t have time for this.” I knew she was right, but I didn’t know how to handle the current situation. “We have to end this,” she added quietly.
I gave her a quick glance of disbelief. She wanted to kill him. Was this an eye for an eye situation? She had lost Calvin so she wanted to dispose of Derrick? But I knew that wasn’t the case. And I knew she was right, but dammit, I wasn’t sure I could go through with it.
As if reading my mind, she said quietly, “I’ll do it.”
She wanted to spare me, and I was grateful for that, but I couldn’t let her. I owed it to Derrick to handle it myself.
But first I had to keep from being attacked.
We circled each other like animals. Any trace of the man who used to be my best friend was gone, turned into something wild and animalistic.
Tears burned my eyes as I slowly slid my knife out of its sheath on my belt. “I did this to him,” I whispered, willing my tears to dry. “I shouldn’t have left him to question Caine. I could have saved him.”
“Then you’d both be dead,” Lea said.
“Better me than him.”
“No. This is the way it should be. If he was the man he seemed to be, it’s what he would have wanted.”
But I didn’t deserve this chance at life. He was a far better person than I could ever be.
“He wanted the truth exposed, Rachel. And now you have the chance to do that. You need to cast light on what they were doing and get it out to the world.”
I knew she was right, but it didn’t make it any easier. A new idea occurred to me. “Maybe we can take him with us. I think he’s mid-transfer. Maybe we can stop it. Or study him and see how it works.”
“You’re only putting off the inevitable. Besides, he’s already dead. You know that.”
I shook my head, my anger surging. “No, you only told me he was dead. Maybe we can reverse this.”
“No.” Her answer was direct but not without sympathy. “Just end it now.”
I choked back a sob and took a step to the side, then moved behind him and wrapped my left arm around his chest. With a quick move I plunged the blade into his heart.
Derrick slumped against me as his blood pumped onto my hand.
Lea grabbed my shoulder and jerked me back. Derrick’s body hit the ground.
I turned to stare at her, every part of me numb.
She shoved me toward the car. “Let’s go.”
Lea drove, her
cowl tucked low around her face, but she didn’t seem to have a problem seeing. Feeling like I was going to be sick, I rolled down the passenger window and let the wind hit my face.
I hoped to God what was in my fucking bag was worth it. I hoped to God I’d made Derrick proud.
It was the only thing that kept me going.
CHAPTER 43
LEA
As soon as we could, we swapped the SUV out for a junker of a car we stole and hotwired from a quiet suburban cul-de-sac. The thing wasn’t pretty, but it would do the job. Besides, nobody would be tracing us anytime soon. The bad guys had enough to do.
I talked as I drove, and Rachel held out a small microphone to record it. The memories of the female scientist Adamson were like a filmstrip rolling through my head. I peered through the dark sunglasses at the street names as I went. My cowl covered the majority of my face and I wore my long gloves so I could drive. It helped that the fall weather was dreary and overcast, keeping the day in a state of perpetual gloom.
“They have been planning this for years, ever since Victor’s father let it slip that he a knew a vampire, that he was her patron.”
Rachel sucked in a sharp breath. “You.”
“Yes, me.” I nodded, tightening my grip on the steering wheel. “With that information, and the fact that I was actively hunting the other vampires, the army used Victor’s father as bait of sorts. The vamps needed a wealthy patron to keep the rest of the vamps safe from me. In exchange for a simple thing: access to their blood. He kept up the act as my dutiful patron to keep me at bay.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Rachel nodding. A small part of me was proud of her for how she’d handled Derrick’s death. She was my friend, the first real friend I’d had in decades, and she’d done the right thing. Even though it had to have fucking torn her heart out.
“Access to their blood. You mean actively testing them.”
“Yes. As soon as he caught wind of it, Stravinsky stepped into the ring. He got introductions to the right people, told them he was a doctor. He’s no such fucking thing, but he is the oldest vamp alive that I know. And he’s particularly good at manipulating people’s minds. He told them he could cure all the human diseases given enough time.” I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as we pulled up to the sidewalk next to where Rachel’s home should have been.
“I think perhaps we pissed off a few people,” I said softly, as I peered out the windshield. Only a few timbers of the century-old building still stood, smoldering in the morning sun. The rest had been burned to the ground.
Rachel slammed the flats of her hands on the dash. “Where to now?”
“Let’s see how good they are at tracking us.” I cranked the wheel and headed for my safe house. It would give me time to spill the rest of the secrets I’d learned.
“So what was the point of all the testing, then? The real point?”
I cleared my throat. “While there was testing being done to cure the human diseases, and cures were found, they always ended...badly. Cure cancer, but turn into a monster. Cure diabetes, but create a hunger that was insatiable. So yes, they could cure everything, but at a cost. They used the Rikers Island inmates for a lot of the testing, but they used terminal patients who were civilians as well. And then there were the new creations. The head honchos in the army were brought in and shown the new creations along with the young vamps Stravinsky and Peter were making out of the inmates. They could be used, controlled. Sold. Made into soldiers. Soldiers already dead as far as the records were concerned. The next step was to ship them overseas for field tests.”
I could see the conversation in my head, although Adamson hadn’t known the name of the colonel who’d spoken with Stravinsky. Victor had been there too, offering his support and money as a backer. I picked through Peter’s memories of the same time frame. He’d been breaking another batch of inmates out of Rikers Island while the main meeting had taken place.
“I have the evidence that will back that up, Lea. Pictures, the papers you found. It turns this story from conspiracy theory into fact. And I have a contact that can get me the coverage I need.” The excitement in her voice was good; having a project to focus on would help her with her grief. I knew that better than anyone.
With Calvin gone, I needed to hunt. Needed to keep the end goal in mind and run from the grief of losing him as fast as I could.
Iraq and the vampires fleeing there waited for me.
I pulled over and a slow sigh escaped me. My hideout was in no better shape than Rachel’s: burned to the ground.
“Fuck.”
Rachel touched my hand and I glanced at her quickly. “What now?”
“I have one last place to try. It’ll have all the money we need, and maybe some fun gadgets while we’re at it.”
Rachel laughed softly. “Fun gadgets?”
A smile quirked over my lips. “You’ll see.”
Victor’s hideout wasn’t that far, and we got there in no time. The underground parking lot was quiet, and the secret entranceway in the wall was no longer powered.
I pushed the door open and helped Rachel across the obstacle course.
“What is this place?” she whispered even as she snooped through Victor’s office off the side of the main room. The broken doors still hung at a bad angle. Nothing had been fixed. I was betting he had left in a hurry after our last tussle.
“This way.” I crooked a finger at her and strode away from the office, toward Victor’s bedroom. He’d shown it to me once, saying I was welcome anytime. I couldn’t help the snort that escaped me.
The doors were double-wide and I pushed them open with a bang. Draped black silk was everywhere. The bed, the curtains, hanging from the walls. I shook my head. “He was an idiot.”
Rachel held up a string of pearls and diamonds. “A wealthy idiot.”
I nodded. “Take everything you can. I know places where we can turn the gems into cash.”
What was amazing to me was that none of the employees had taken anything. I looked under the bed. “Bingo.”
A large chest was tucked under the bed. I hooked my fingers through the handle and pulled it out. Snapping the lock, I opened it, and couldn’t help but laugh. “Will you look at this? What did I say about goodies?”
My friend—damn, that sounded nice even in my own head—dropped to her knees beside me. “Goodies, indeed.”
There were weapons of all sorts, but it was the tech stuff I was slathering over. Specialty items made specifically for Victor. Items that couldn’t be found anywhere else, not even on the black market.
We closed the lid and I hefted the box onto my shoulder.
“Now, it’s time to hunt.”
CHAPTER 44
RACHEL
We were almost to the airport when I turned to face Lea. “Do you really have to go?”
She nodded. “Hunting is what I do. It’s in my blood.”
“But you’re hunting the very thing you are. I know I vowed to help you until the vampires are all wiped out, but I agreed to it when I thought they were all like Caine. There have to be more like Louis.”
“And what about the council? The ones who killed innocent people just to lure me here so they could turn me in to the facility and run their fucking tests on me.”
“I know.” I sighed. “But just like there are good and bad people, there have to be good and bad vampires as well.” I offered her a smile. “You’re good.”
She released a derisive laugh. “I am not good.”
I watched her for a heartbeat. “Louis wasn’t evil. You can admit that, can’t you?”
She was silent for a few seconds, then nodded slightly. “I didn’t want to kill him.”
“I know. But maybe we should revise our vow. Your vow.”
“I’ll consider it.”
It was a start.
She tapped the dashboard. “There’s also the hint of another hunter. A Cazador like me. I can’t let that go.”
I nodded
. It would be a boon for her to be able to rely on another person who shared her training.
“Is your report airing later tonight?” Lea asked.
“I’m heading for the station as soon as I drop you off. They’re letting me do a live lead-in.”
“You’ll do great. Just watch your back.”
“You watch yours. You don’t have Calvin anymore to watch it for you. I don’t like the thought of you being out there all alone. Call me when you know where you’re staying.”
Lea’s eyes turned dark. “No one has worried about me for a very long time.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Well, get used to it. It’s part of the territory with friends.”
“Friends. I could get used to that.”
“Good thing,” I teased. “I think once you save someone’s life, you’re stuck with them forever.”
The darkness returned to her eyes. “Forever is a very long time.”
I thought of Derrick’s promise to me. “Yes. It is.”
I pulled up to the curb at JFK and Lea grabbed the door handle. “If you run into any trouble, call me on the burner.”
We each had a burner phone, one that couldn’t be tracked or traced. Just one of the many goodies we’d stolen from Victor’s goodies.
“You do the same.”
And then she was gone. I was never going to get a hug from her, but that was okay. She had other ways of showing me how much she cared.
Though Derrick was gone, I knew I wasn’t alone.
Hours later, I sat in a leather director’s chair while hair and makeup people powdered my face and fluffed my hair. Wardrobe had dressed me in a black turtleneck and dark jeans along with a tan jacket. They wanted me to have feminine appeal for the viewers, yet I had to convey strength and grit, or no one would believe I’d uncovered such a vast conspiracy.
“I’m Rachel Sambrook. For the last two years, Derrick Forrester, a fellow journalist, worked nonstop to discover the truth behind the U.S. government’s experimentation on prisoners of war. What the two of us discovered went far deeper than either of us thought. Derrick died to expose the atrocities our government has committed, but I vowed to keep digging until I had uncovered the entire truth. Derrick’s work was not in vain. What I’m about to report might seem unbelievable, but before I’m done, you’ll question everything you know to be true.”
Recombinant Page 23
