by Nancy Gideon
A soft sound of helplessness escaped her.
"Sit."
Cobb shoved a chair behind her knees, dropping her efficiently onto the seat. While she sagged there like one of her collectible rag dolls, he came around to sit on the edge of the desk, leaning down so their faces were close. He kept his voice low. Did that mean the lab was bugged, too? She lacked the energy to feel indignant.
"What do you mean it's your life? That's figurative, right?"
She supplied a wan smile. “I wish."
For a second, she saw right to the soul Frank Cobb would claim not to have. She watched his conscience writhe like a moth on a mounting pin and took ruthless advantage.
"Frank, help me."
He didn't move.
Placing her hands on his knees, she petitioned with quiet earnest, “Help me."
"How?"
It wasn't much, but it was a toehold.
"I need my notes. I need my samples."
He reared back, a mask of impassivity slamming down over his expression. “I can't."
"Then I'm going to die, Frank. My future is in that research. Why do you think I was willing to risk so much? It wasn't for the promotion or the prestige. You have to be around long enough to enjoy them. It was for the chance to give myself a normal life expectancy."
He took in her pale features, the sunken eyes, the bruises on her hands and jaw that hadn't been there last night. He did the math and didn't like the common denominator that kept coming up.
"You have leukemia.” He said it flatly, bleakly.
"Yes, and it's a death sentence unless I get my notes back. You told me I could trust you. You told me I could call you anytime I needed you. I need you, Frank."
He vaulted away from the desk and stalked the room in short, angry strides. “You don't know what you're asking.” His voice was a rough, angry growl.
"Yes, I do. I'm asking you to do what's right instead of what you're told. And I have to trust you to make the right choice."
Could she? Knowing he was a snake, could she take him in again?
He glared at her, his eyes wild and dark-centered, a creature caught in a trap of its own creation. “Well, you've made a mistake, Doc."
And he was gone. As nearly all hope was gone.
Damn you, Cobb. Just collect your salary from Uncle Sam and keep your eyes closed.
But cursing Frank Cobb wouldn't accomplish anything.
Slowly, almost blindly, Stacy turned on the computer and inserted her bootlegged disk. All the data was there, but without the samples as a control, the information was incomplete. She would have to start all over. All over again. She didn't think she'd have the strength to see the process through. Or the time.
She'd failed Louis and herself. And all the others who might have known the same hope of survival with the results of her study.
Blinking away the burn of defeat, she began reconstructing her findings. By midmorning, she had barely scratched the surface. As she leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes for a brief respite, she was startled as something slapped down on the desk in front of her. She stared at her dog-earred notebook and a tray of labeled slides. She looked up, eyes welling with emotion.
"Don't ask and don't thank me,” was all Cobb would say before taking his place at her doorway.
After blowing him a kiss, she wasted no time. Flipping open her confiscated notebook, she began entering data into her program.
And by lunch time, the evasive first puzzle-piece fell into place.
There was no time for celebration or safety protocols. She worked quickly, with a detached determination. As rapidly as she could, she prepared an injection then tied a length of tubing about her arm.
"Doc, what are you doing?"
Before Cobb could take a step toward her, she found a vein and sent the untested serum coursing through her bloodstream. She saw his features register shock and distress. And as her body began to convulse, he caught her before she hit the floor, easing her the last few feet down. The tile was cool beneath her as the serum began its burning change. From a distance, she heard Herb's anxious voice.
"What happened? Shall I call someone?"
"She's just fainted. Give her a minute to come around,” Cobb assured him.
And through the violent flicker of her eyelids, she watched him carefully gather up the evidence of what she'd done—tossing the syringe, releasing the tubing and turning off her computer screen.
Frank Cobb was a handy guy to have around.
She smiled as consciousness left her.
* * * *
The scent of Calla lilies washed over her.
They covered the still figure at the front of the viewing parlor, long cut stems curving up to graceful ivory cups, laid upon the body like rushes on an ancient floor. Stacy approached, steps muffled on the aisle runner, movements slowed by dread and grief. The smell thickened, twining about her other senses, choking them until all that remained was the sweet, clogging odor and the pain of loss.
The viewing room was empty. Row upon row of vacant chairs respectfully faced front. Such a long walk, she remembered thinking. A walk toward a destination she feared to reach.
She could see the woman's profile now, silhouetted above the flowers. An intelligent brow, straight nose, the bleached white angle of one cheek and artificially reddened lips. Despite all the whispered assurances heard at previous funerals, there was nothing lifelike about the body. Death was death, the absence of living, and the two could never be mistaken.
Her gaze was distracted by the arrival of two mourners. One she almost didn't recognize in his somber suit and high gloss shoes. What was Frank Cobb doing at her mother's visitation? He slipped into a seat on the far side of the room to stare straight ahead, features composed in impervious lines, cheeks suspiciously shiny. The shock of seeing that dampness was displaced by her perplexity. Why would he be weeping for a woman he never knew?
The other man was Louis Redman, sleek, dark, elegant as always. He carried a single calla lily, bringing it to lay with a quiet dignity atop the others. But when he set it down, something spilled from the fluted bowl of the flower, something dark, something red.
Blood.
It continued to flow, discoloring the other pale blossoms, pooling along the edge of the casket to finally drip, like raindrops from plugged gutters, to the white runner below.
And as she hurried forward, she met that spreading stain, stepping gingerly across the crimson pattern as she reached for the offending flower, needing to end the alarming tide.
She never completed the gesture. For in that space of fractured seconds, she got a closer look at the face so meticulously made up in an effort to mimic what was no longer there within her. Life. A life cut brutally short.
Her life.
It was her face, not her mother's. A face ravaged by the effects of her disease. Cheeks sunken, skin drawn, hair all but gone from the chemo. A face of suffering and defeat.
With a cry of denial, Stacy began raking the lilies off the coffin lid. Armload after armload, they stacked up about her feet, suffocating her with their cloying smell. The room began to spin and her breathing to labor.
She sat up with a gasp.
"Are you all right, Doc?"
She glanced at Cobb in confusion. “I don't know. What happened?"
"You injected something and had a seizure. You've been drifting in and out for about fifteen minutes. What did you put in your arm?"
"Hopefully, my future. Help me up, Frank."
With his support, she was able to regain her chair. Her balance was unsteady, her insides in a turmoil.
"Wave to your neighbor,” Cobb advised, glancing up through the glass wall where Herb Watson kept an anxious watch. “He's been worried."
She lifted a hand to Herb, signaling that she was herself again. Reluctant to surrender his curiosity, he went back to his own work.
"What are you doing?” Cobb demanded when she picked up an empty syringe.
&nb
sp; "I need to test my blood. Pray for a miracle, Frank."
Moments later, she peered through her microscope until tears blurred the image on the slide. What she saw was unmistakable. What she saw was a complete destruction of abnormal cells, as the properties she'd separated out of Louis's blood aggressively took over.
"Stacy?"
"It's gone, Frank. My cancer's gone."
"In remission, you mean?"
"No. Gone. Adios. Bye-bye. Outta here, gone.” She dropped back in her chair, slumping as the enormity of what she'd accomplished swamped her like a small craft on a high sea.
"You've found a cure for leukemia.” His voice hushed with awe and amazement.
"At least. At the very least. I'm not sure yet what else it means."
She sat up, grasping a clean slide and drawing a deliberate line along her forearm. As she watched, the sting of pain disappeared as quickly and completely as the cut. Cobb seized her wrist, examining the unmarred flesh in incredulity.
"My God."
"Now you know what has Harper panting in anticipation,” Stacy told him soberly. “They're not going to develop a cancer vaccine. They're going to pump this into the military. It'll never save a single civilian life. Imagine, soldiers on the front line, their bullet wounds healing, practically invincible as they march on their enemies."
"My God,” he whispered again as consequence sank in deep and dire.
"Frank, I can't let them develop this research. They'll use it for all the wrong reasons."
His expression became a purposeful blank. “How are you going to stop them?"
"Steal it. Destroy all evidence that it ever existed. Without my notes to guide them, it'll take them years to duplicate what I've found, and by then the cure will be on the market and under the proper controls."
"I don't think I want to hear this. And I don't think you ought to be planning it."
She gave him a long, belatedly cautious look. Yes, perhaps he was right. The less he knew, the better for secrecy's sake and for his own career longevity. But he could help her without being involved, if he would go that far.
"Where are they keeping Alexander?"
"We've already discussed that.” He stood, an inanimate professional once more. “I'm happy for your success, Doc. Just don't expect me to compromise my position."
"I expect you to think and do what's right. You know I'm right, don't you?"
"I know you're talking about destroying government property, and that it's treason for me to listen without reporting it.” He sounded angry with her, for her intentions and for placing him in such an awkward situation. “You're not dealing with a batch of philosophical eggheads here. It's the military. They follow orders and don't ask hard questions of themselves. If you get in their way, they will hurt you. And I don't want any part of that."
She gripped his forearm, feeling the muscles tense beneath the wrap of her fingers. “But you won't report it, will you, Frank?"
He said nothing, jaw tight, gaze hard.
Frustrated by his blind obedience to what he believed to be his duty, she cried, “If you won't help, then stay out of the way. I'll ask that much of you, at least."
He pulled free of her grasp but not of her demanding gaze. “I'll give you until the brass shows up tomorrow. After that, what you and I think or want won't matter."
"Thank you."
He made a noncommittal sound and stalked from the room.
That left Stacy with only one goal to accomplish before setting off an Armageddon within the bowels of Harper Research. She brought out the samples of Louis's blood and began the separation process again.
She had her life back. Now, she would give Louis his.
And if they were to have a future together, she would have to start planning now, while she waited for the anticipated results of her testing. There were other details she couldn't afford to ignore for long. With a call, she would set the gears in motion, thinking as she did so that this was a difficult day to be one of her friends.
"Charlie, I need a favor. A big one."
* * * *
Phyllis Starke looked upon the object in the center of the room with a gleam of dispassionate greed.
Now, Greg Forrester couldn't afford to ignore her. She would deliver what Stacy Kimball had failed to. She would complete the study and wallow in his approval. He would realize, at last, her true worth, her true loyalty.
But why stop at Forrester? What degree of loyalty had he shown her? Her features pursed bitterly as she considered the humiliation of being passed by in both promotion and his attention. He didn't deserve the faithfulness she'd shown him. With what she could learn and develop from Stacy's notes and this convenient donor, she could have whatever and whomever she wanted. Perhaps one of the generals who would arrive in the morning. Yes, that notion pleased her immensely. Uniforms, especially ones covered in medals of valor, held an undeniable appeal for the power and command they represented.
And she wanted power. Blind, ambitious, and unscrupulous power.
But first she had to discover how to unlock the key to Kimball's research.
The bitch would tell her nothing, but Phyllis had all the tools at hand to complete the study despite Stacy's stubbornness. Who would have thought the little sex kitten was working on the secrets to eternity. She smiled to herself. After tomorrow, Stacy wouldn't matter. She would be gone. Not fired, just gone, the way loose ends who knew too much tended to disappear. And she would not be missed, not by Phyllis, anyway.
And after Stacy, maybe even Forrester, himself. She thought covetously of that big horseshoe-shaped desk bathed by the day's sunlight and the company's respect.
To begin her study, she'd need blood from the creature Cobb had delivered the night before.
"Open it,” she ordered one of the sentries, gesturing to the metal casket sitting chained in the center of the lab. When neither moved, she raised her voice a decibel. “You heard me. Unlock those chains. This is my project now, and I am in charge. Do what I tell you, or you'll walk sentry duty on some foreign fence line for your remaining years of service."
They might dislike her, but they were carefully trained. They understood the chain of command and the threat of consequence. One of them came forward. The soldier's reluctance was obvious as he approached with the key, but he did as told, freeing Phyllis to open the heavy lid.
She peered inside, not quite prepared for what a member of the undead might look like. She was surprised.
A handsome young man. No one would guess him to be a killer. Nor would anyone suspect he held the secret to immortality within his veins. Curiously, she put fingertips to his throat.
"No pulse,” she murmured to herself.
She heard the involuntary gasp from the guard beside her and impatiently waved him away.
"Go stand by the door, you ninny. He can't hurt anyone. I am in perfect control of the situation here."
"But it's almost dark, Doctor. I must warn you to be careful."
"Of what?” she snapped, tolerance waning as she readied a syringe. “He's got enough sedatives pumped into him to arrest an elephant."
"No, he doesn't."
She glanced at the guard, sure he was mistaken. “What do you mean, he doesn't?"
"Mr. Forrester didn't want him full of drugs that could affect the results of the tests."
A tremor of fear quickened. “You mean he's—"
"Awake, Doctor,” came a low croon of amusement.
She glanced down to see the monster's eyes were not only open but bright with smug malice. As she watched, unable to move, he broke the bindings on first one arm then the other. With a determined heave, he sat up, snapping the chains about his chest as if they had been made of construction paper by a first grader.
"Don't just stand there, idiots,” she screamed at the guards. “Shoot him!"
Puffs of powder and blood exploded across Quinton's chest, ruining his blue uniform shirt but not his good humor.
"Oh, my dear do
ctor, you haven't done your research. Bullets can't harm me. But I, contrarily, can do considerable harm to you."
As she stumbled back, shrieking wildly, his hand speared out, closing about her throat, shutting off both sound and air. And as the two guards stood gaping, their emptied revolvers dangling impotently, Quinton jerked the doctor up and sank his teeth into her neck.
Finally, as her thrashing grew feeble and the gurgling sounds she made dwindled to a soft groan, one of the soldiers had the presence of mind to pull the alarm switch.
Too late to save Phyllis Starke from her own ambition.
Chapter Twenty-One
She'd been working for seven hours straight but a healthy vitality flushed through her, making it seem like minutes. The weakness was gone from her body, from her mind. Never had things been clearer, her goals so near, so tangible. Not only had the serum cleaned away the abnormalities, it had also imbued her with a potent sense of power and energy. Some of Louis's preternatural strength? She would enjoy exploring that possibility at a later date.
For the moment, she had no time for tangents. Her concentration narrowed until the outside world, with all its woes, ceased to influence her. She forgot about Greg Forrester, about Quinton Alexander, about Frank Cobb. Her thoughts had room for only one man. The man who would become her future.
On the edge of her lab table stood a row of vials. Half contained a pure concentrate of the serum she'd used on herself. The others held the miracle she'd just completed. One of those, she would give to Louis.
"Is it ready?"
She gasped as she turned, unused to his ability to appear at will whenever and wherever once the sun had set. A quick look around told her that the lab floor was abandoned by its nine-to-five laborers so there was no one to question Louis's presence. Surprise gave way to excitement. And to a deep inner warming that centered around her fast-beating heart. Vampire magic? Or just plain magic? She took a breath to suppress emotions, to become the consummate professional once more. Never had that task been so difficult as when Louis Redman was near.
"I think so. If all my research is right, your cure is here in these vials. It should be tested first."
