by Nell Stark
Anxiety settled in my chest. I hadn’t really believed that Vincent’s case could be an isolated incident, but hearing positive confirmation was disturbing. Besides, Vincent had been unconscious when last I’d seen him, not dead. What was going on here? Were we witnessing the outbreak of some kind of disease?
“If you’re going to check it out, then I’m coming in with you.”
“A vampire at a private Were party? I don’t think so.”
“Are you a doctor?” I shot back. “I don’t think so.”
“Christ, Val, neither are you.” Sebastian actually raised his voice, which was rare. And unsettling. When I continued to look at him expectantly, he sighed and ran one hand through his shaggy hair. “All right. Fine. You can look at the body.”
As we drove, I thought back to Vincent’s episode, trying to pin down all of his symptoms. Thirst flared deep in my throat as I remembered the blood trickling from his nose, and in that moment, I loathed the parasite that lurked in my veins. What kind of monstrous impulse made me thirsty at the memory of a man’s agony? It would be such a relief when Alexa returned—when my thirst would subside to a dull murmur and no longer threaten my self-control.
We stopped in front of an elegant apartment complex in Tribeca, and I exited the car on Sebastian’s heels lest he change his mind. He went around the side of the building to a private entrance labeled “Penthouse” and rang the bell. Only a few moments later, a man opened the door. The red of his hair matched the crimson stains on his shirt sleeves.
“What’s this?” he exclaimed, staring angrily at me.
“A friend. She’s here to help.” Sebastian’s voice was soothing but also firm. “James, where is—”
“Gone! Her kind came to collect, not more than ten minutes ago. And when I protested, I got a call from Blakeslee himself, ordering me to surrender the body.”
Sebastian cursed under his breath. James continued to look at me accusingly. “I had nothing to do with the Consortium’s involvement,” I said, “and I have no idea why they’re being so secretive. Will you just tell me exactly what you saw?”
“It was Martine. Her nose began to bleed, out of nowhere. She’s young, you know, and when she saw herself like that, her face covered in blood…” He trailed off when his voice choked up.
“She began to change,” said Sebastian.
James nodded. “But she couldn’t.” He swallowed hard. “I’ve never seen seizures like that before. As though they would tear her apart. When they finally stopped, she wasn’t breathing.” Anger flared again as he turned to me, displacing his grief. “Happy now?”
“I’m terribly sorry for your loss,” I said, refusing to rise to the bait.
Sebastian squeezed his shoulder. “I’m not going to rest until I find out what—or who—is responsible. We’ll be in touch.”
We walked slowly back to the street, but when we reached the car, Sebastian didn’t open the door. “I need to get back to my office.” His voice was quiet and restrained, but the tension that rippled beneath his skin was not fully human. I fought off a shiver. “Do you mind making your own way home?”
“No, of course not. You’ll let me know how I can help?”
“I will.” He leaned forward slightly, as though to touch me, but apparently thought the better of it. “Good night, Val.”
I watched as his car pulled away, then I began to walk toward the closest subway stop. Sebastian had looked more upset than I’d ever seen him. But his distress was nothing compared to James’s. Clearly, he had cared a great deal for Martine. And now she was dead. How would I have felt, if—
Clenching my teeth, I increased my pace, as though by doing so I could outrun my own fears. I didn’t have to imagine how I would feel if Alexa had been the one to die before my eyes. I knew exactly how that felt because once, not so long ago, I had believed that I’d killed her. The worst day of my life.
I fished my phone out of my pocket then, afraid that I’d missed a call from her while at the party. But there were no messages. It had been almost four days now since I’d heard from her—longer than normal.
Tamping down my unease, I descended into the subway. She was fine. She would call tomorrow. And within a week, she would be in my arms.
Chapter Five
I couldn’t sleep. Instinct nagged at me, a dull ache in my head insisting there was something terribly wrong with the world. The afterimage of James’s dark, anguished eyes was burned into my memory, but that wasn’t all that had been keeping me awake. In the two days that had passed since the fund-raiser, Alexa still hadn’t called. Before now, I had heard from her at least twice a week, despite the fact that the nearest telephone was in a village over two hours’ run from Telassar. I had no way of contacting her. And despite my rational brain’s calm assurances that there was a logical explanation for her silence—the phone had broken, maybe, or she was busy as she prepared to come home—images of her alone in danger, injured or even worse, flooded my imagination. Last night, in a frenzy of need and anxiety, I had downed one of the two remaining bags of her blood. The taste, a fading echo of the glorious ambrosia that ran through her veins, had only sharpened my thirst.
This morning I had caved, calling first Karma and then Sebastian to enlist their help. Karma worked closely with Malcolm Blakeslee, the Weremaster of New York. If something big had happened in Telassar, he would know and she would be able to find out. If I was being honest with myself, though, I was counting more on Sebastian’s underground contacts and unofficial channels. It made me crazy to have to count on anyone at all, but without knowing Telassar’s location, I had no choice, no power, no control.
I stared at the fine cracks in the ceiling. They seemed to warp and twist in the flickering ambient light from the city that filtered through my window. They reminded me of Vincent’s seizing body—how he had writhed in pain, unable to take refuge in his wolf. What force was powerful enough to keep a shifter from changing? Some kind of drug? A pathogen? Were others in danger? Would Alexa be in danger, if…no, no, when she returned? Sighing, I checked the clock. After two a.m. Either I could lie there spinning my mental wheels until the sun came up, or I could do something about the other source of my dread. The one on this continent.
Half an hour later, I walked into the lobby of the Consortium, heading directly for the bank of elevators. I spared a glance for the receptionist and wished I hadn’t. Giselle. She had tried to seduce me once at Helen’s behest. It hadn’t worked, but the memory of how she had drawn one long fingernail across her own skin, parting it to allow her blood to rise and tempt my thirst, set my throat to throbbing.
“Hello, Valentine,” she called, her voice low and teasing.
I ignored her and stepped into the open elevator, then punched the button marked “L.” The library was the floor below the penthouse. It boasted all of the standard features, with the added bonus of a librarian who had been born in the nineteenth century. At two thirty on a Friday morning, it was busier than I’d ever seen it during the daylight hours. It was surprising how often I forgot that Alexa’s blood was the only reason I could still walk unharmed in the sunlight. And that the majority of my people could not do the same.
I sat at one of the computers, nodding to the vampire who occupied the seat next to mine, and called up the Consortium’s database. I squeezed my gritty eyes shut and forced myself to relive the sequence of events at Luna. Then I input every search term I could think of: bloody nose, seizures, vomiting, failure to shift.
Nothing. No hit results at all. So I tried a different tack and entered the broadest search I could think of. “Unable to shift.” This time, I got results, but they weren’t at all what I was expecting.
Were-women didn’t shift when they were pregnant. I sat back in my chair, working through the medical logic. It made sense: the transformation of a pregnant shifter would be catastrophic for her fetus. Suddenly, my senses were assaulted by the mental image of Alexa, her face radiant with joy as I rested one hand on th
e swell of her belly—as I felt the first kick of our growing child. The vampire parasite had rendered me sterile, but Alexa could bear as many children as she wanted. As we wanted.
I closed my eyes in agony as that unexpected desire clashed with the uncertainty of our reality. Clenching my jaw, I struggled to regain equilibrium. She was fine. She would make it back; I would see her in just three more days. I had to focus—to make sure that New York was a safe place for her to return to.
Link after link took me to more information about shifter pregnancy. Consortium scientists hadn’t yet positively identified the mechanism by which the change was suppressed, but they suspected it was hormonal. The science distracted me for a few minutes before I got back on task, skimming through the remaining hits for anything that resembled Vincent’s condition at Luna. I found a few interesting entries on the herb wolfsbane, which, when diluted and injected into a shifter, could delay transformation for up to an hour, depending on the size of the dose. But according to the official Consortium records, there was nothing that could prevent a male shifter from making the change.
Whatever had happened to Vincent and Martine was either too new to be in the archives, or too secret. Given the alacrity with which Helen’s security guards had responded to both emergencies, combined with Clavier’s refusal to share any information, I suspected the latter. Which meant that I couldn’t go to either of them for help.
I closed my browser window, stood, and slowly spun in a circle. Rows upon rows of bookshelves. Multiple computer banks—and off to one side, even a card catalogue. But none of these resources were of any use. I looked at my sandals, picturing the medical wing several floors below my feet. I had last visited it months ago, shortly after being turned. My stomach churned at the sudden, visceral echo of remembered fear, and I dispelled the sensation with one swift shake of my head. I wasn’t about to let those ghosts deter me.
Within minutes, I was exiting the elevator on the third floor. It was busier than I remembered, perhaps because of the lateness of the hour. As I watched, a man in a white lab coat exited one room and a woman ducked into another. The Consortium version of orderlies. I wondered if they were all vampires, and if so, how they treated their patients without killing them.
I walked down the hall, scanning each room as I passed. I didn’t think anyone would question my presence there, but I didn’t want to pause too long lest I seem suspicious. Most of the rooms were empty. The few that were occupied held vampires—I could tell from the thick blackout curtains that swathed the windows. Vampires would sever themselves from the natural rhythm of the outside world by banning sunlight from a room.
By the time I reached the end of the corridor, I was confused. Not only was Vincent nowhere to be found, there were no Weres at all on the floor. Shouldn’t there have been at least a few—if only the recently infected, who required supervision and confinement while they adjusted to their inner beasts? I turned and walked back the way I’d come, rolling my neck in a futile attempt to loosen the knot that was growing tighter between my shoulders. When a female orderly emerged from a room several doors ahead of me, I made a snap decision and hurried to catch up.
Her heart-shaped face turned toward me when I put a hand on her arm, and I saw her pupils dilate at the same instant that I realized she was human. My gaze was drawn by a days-old bite scar just above her collarbone. Saliva flooded my mouth as the heat ripped through my throat. No.
“Can I help you?” she asked coquettishly, oblivious to my struggle.
“I’m looking for Vincent.”
The bridge of her nose crinkled. “We don’t have any patients by that name.” She took a step closer to me. “But what’s yours? Mine’s Tonya.”
I took shallow breaths in an effort to dull the effects of the warm aroma wafting off her smooth skin. It didn’t help. “He was brought in just under a week ago.”
Some note in my voice must have clued her in to the magnitude of my concern, because she stopped her advance and bent her head to the digital tablet in her hand. After scrolling through it, she shook her head. “I have no record of him. I’m sorry.”
“Is there a different facility just for Weres?” I asked, wondering if the shifters had a wing that I wasn’t aware of.
“No, this is a mixed-use facility.” Tonya frowned again. “But we haven’t admitted any Weres in a while.”
Aimless dread made my throat constrict. “How long?”
“Maybe two weeks?” In a heartbeat, the flirtatious glint returned to her eyes. “To be honest, I don’t pay all that much attention to them. I’m much more interested in your kind.”
“So I gathered.” I spoke the words more softly than she could hear.
“You look so thirsty. And it’s been days since the last time I…” Her eyes glazed at the memory. “Won’t you let me? Harold says I taste like rose petals.”
I licked my lips. I couldn’t help it. But I could help whom I sank my teeth into. “You’re very generous. But no. Thank you.”
Before she could respond, I was gone.
*
The trail for information, barely lukewarm to begin with, had gone cold. I could think of only one other tactic, and it was a long shot. I had seen Vincent twice: once in a dogfight on the Red Circuit, and once on the floor of Luna, seizing in agony. If I went back to the Circuit, I could ask some of the regulars about him and maybe learn something that way.
I walked across the width of Manhattan in the pre-dawn, enjoying the stillness of the city at this hour—the hush as it took a deep breath in anticipation of the frenetic day to come. By the time the sun broke free of the horizon, I was in Hell’s Kitchen, staring at the marquee of the Vixen Theater. Every week, the marquee announced, in code, the location of the next Red Circuit party. But if this was a code, it wasn’t one I was going to be able to decipher. The marquee was blank.
Despair rose in my chest, a black wave of longing and fatigue that set my entire body aching in empathy with my throat. Why was my search being thwarted at every turn? And did whatever was happening here in New York have any connection to why I hadn’t heard from Alexa?
I needed to feel her hands on me, to hear her soothing murmurs of love, to taste the bright, hot flavor of her under my tongue. I wanted to go home—to crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and escape into oblivion. But I knew I wouldn’t sleep. And I couldn’t give up. Sebastian would know what was going on with the Circuit. He was the one who had told us about the marquee in the first place.
He picked up on the second ring. “Hello, Val.” His voice was deeper than usual and harsh with fatigue. I could only imagine the pressure he felt to get answers about what had happened to both Vincent and Martine, especially in the face of the Consortium’s secrecy.
“Breakfast?” I said. “I’m buying.”
“Where?”
I rattled off the name of a greasy spoon near Times Square and hung up. He’d probably have his chauffeur drive him, which meant that I had to hustle. I walked uptown briskly, welcoming the warmth of the sun on my arms. Too much direct sunlight without any sunblock would leave me with a mild rash and some nausea, but it was a small price to pay for the ability to move about freely during the daytime. Thanks to Alexa.
When I reached the restaurant, Sebastian had already claimed a booth. He was clean-shaven and dressed in clothes that fit him too well to be store-bought, but his face was drawn and his eyes bloodshot. I slid in across from him and nodded to the waitress when she asked if I wanted coffee.
“Invite me to breakfast but keep me waiting.” Sebastian raised his own ceramic mug in a mock salute. “You wouldn’t treat me like this if I were a woman.”
“You don’t fool me,” I told him. “What’s going on?”
He sat back and spread his arms along the width of the booth. “You first.”
“Still no word from Alexa. I presume you haven’t heard anything.”
“Nothing. But that’s not unusual where Telassar is concerned. I don’t
think you understand just how isolated that place is.” He shuddered delicately.
“All right.” I battled down the urge to take out my frustration on one of my only allies. “Thanks for looking into it.”
The waitress returned at that moment, and I snatched up my coffee gratefully. Once we had ordered, I leaned in over the table. “What’s the deal with the Red Circuit?”
His shaggy eyebrows arched. “You’re looking to party? I was under the impression that you hated that whole scene and only did it under duress.”
“I’m looking for Vincent.”
Sebastian’s bravado dissipated like mist over the East River. “What have you heard?”
“Heard? Not a damn thing that’s useful.” I scrubbed one hand through my hair. It was getting long. Alexa liked it when I was a little bit scruffy. I wouldn’t cut it yet because she would be home soon. Because the village phone was broken. That was all.
“I called Malcolm’s office the morning after Martine’s death, asking about Vincent. I was told by some secretary that he had been treated and released.” Sebastian’s eyes were dark with an emotion I’d never seen him express before. Fear. “She seemed to believe her own story. But no one can reach him.”
“I talked to an orderly in the medical wing just hours ago,” I said, sitting back as the waitress deposited a stack of pancakes in front of me and an omelet in front of Sebastian. “She said that no one named Vincent had ever been admitted. And that they’d seen no shifters at all in the past two weeks.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. “That’s odd. There’s always a Were or two at the Consortium—either a newbie dealing with having been turned, or a drug addict trying to get clean.”
“You mentioned drugs before,” I said, remembering that he had first assumed Olivia to be investigating trafficking at Luna. “Are drugs a big problem?”
“They’re one way to deal with an animal in your head.”
“Makes sense.” Alexa had been on several prescription medications after being turned—antipsychotics like Klonopin that had muted the will of her panther while she adjusted to the unfamiliar presence in her psyche. I could imagine the ease with which some shifters became addicted to drugs like that.
