Licensed To Thrill

by Gemma Brocato

  This. Wasn’t. Good. I couldn’t be stuck in the pipe. I thrashed against the rivet as best I could. The confined space seemed to shrink in on me, closing in. A crushing weight settled on my chest. I was over one hundred years old, but I might not live to see another birthday. I might be stuck in this cage forever.

  My eyesight dimmed, partly due to the silver, or whatever concoction Viktor had created. But also my lungs were coated with the deadly cocktail, and I could not catch a breath. I couldn’t even draw energy from the elements around me. The air and the water were tainted, rendering them useless.

  Under me, the pipe shook and rattled, as if someone had climbed in. On the verge of passing out and failing at my mission, I felt a hand on my ankle.

  “Her pants are caught on something.” Bax’s voice filled my ear.

  Get out of here, Baxter. I tried to send him a mental message to leave, leave me behind and get to safety. How had he managed to squeeze in with his broad shoulders?

  “Stop that, Jayne. I’m going to free you.” If this was the guppy stepping up to the plate, my time as a mentor hadn’t been a complete waste.

  His hand pushed and prodded near my thigh. The tight space kept growing smaller, and with two of us in there, I developed a strong case of claustrophobia. I thrashed my legs, my boot connecting with Bax’s jaw in the process.

  He grunted but kept working silently. I hoped his rebreather was in place. As bad as this was for me, the potassium chloride, or cyanide, or whatever was in the cloud around us, had to be killing him.

  “I have to cut you out, Jayne.” His words were garbled. It appeared he was using the rebreather.

  Do whatever you need to do I silently commanded, holding onto consciousness by force of will alone.

  A sharp stab hit my thigh. I screamed through the pain of Baxter’s knife piercing my skin. The sting of the silver in the fog burned me everywhere my flesh was exposed. My vision wavered.

  I felt my body being dragged backward. I tightened my grip on the box. I had a mission, and I was going to haul that shit out of the pipe whether I survived or not. The fate of the citizens of London was in my hands, and I wasn’t letting go.

  The air became denser as we retreated through the conduit. The journey, which probably only lasted five to ten seconds, felt like forever. My body dropped out of the pipe into somebody’s strong arms. Despite the protective goggles, my vision was dark at the edges and blurred everywhere else.

  “I’ve got you, Jayne.” Lucien’s desperate voice came at me through the fog as he laid me on the ground.

  His palm slapped gently on my cheeks, but I’d arrived at the floaty stage of unconsciousness. Still able to hear, but unable to muster a single fuck.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Oh, Baxter.

  Lucien shook my shoulders. “Her reserves are depleted. Whatever is in this cloud is killing her.”

  “Do something!” Baxtard’s voice quivered. He coughed.

  Aw, he really cares.

  “She needs to feed. She’s an elemental vampire, but right now, her system can only repair itself with blood.” Lucien hugged me close enough to feel his chest rumble as he spoke. “You need to open a vein for her.”

  “No,” I moaned.

  “What?” Baxter sounded terrified. “No. You feed her.”

  “She needs human blood, Tamsyn, not demon. My blood doesn’t have the right nutrients to heal. And since Jamie evacuated, you’re the only human here.”

  “Oh, fuck!”

  I heard the click of a knife opening. I prayed it was clean. Not that it mattered…I was dying.

  “Drink, Jayne.” Baxter jammed his wrist against my lips.

  The first drop of blood trickled into my mouth, exploding on my tongue. I closed my lips around the gash Bax had carved into his flesh and sucked weakly. The hot liquid slid down my gullet along with flashes of Baxter’s life. But the healing I’d expected didn’t come with the blood. Instead, the taste was sharp and acrid, burning my throat and roiling in my gut.

  He’d drawn enough of Viktor’s poison into his system that his blood was equally poisonous to me.

  With a touch of my tongue, I sealed the cut closed and released him. My head fell back on Lucien’s bicep.

  “Why didn’t she drink more?”

  Lucien sighed. “Too weak.”

  “Tainted blood…” My words were puny.

  “We need to get her out of here.” Lucien firmed his grip and lifted me up.

  I forced my eyes open. Baxter’s deeply red, concerned face hovered over me. Being mortal, he felt the effects of Viktor’s madness as I did.

  “You did it Jayne.” The smile on Baxter’s face lit up the dark space and helped to clear my vision.

  “We got it?”

  “You never let go of the box. You saved the people of London.”

  T’s voice came across the comms. “Success?” she questioned.

  “Baxter here.” His voice was filled with pride. “Yes, we’ve got it.”

  Baxter pried the box from my hands and placed it safely back inside the crate. He snapped the locks closed, sealing the nasty concoction away in the airtight container.

  With each agonizing breath I drew, the weight on my chest grew in proportion to the lack of oxygen I was able to suck in. My lungs felt like useless lumps of black coal confined by my ribs.

  “Lucien,“ I whispered through tense lips, “don’t let that box out of your sight.“

  Lucien pressed a kiss to my forehead and brushed the hair away from my temples. “You’ve got it, Jayne.“

  Despite my effort to hold on to consciousness, my world faded to black.

  10

  Mission Day 7

  VIS Headquarters

  I slowly came out of the unconscious state where I’d languished for God knows how long. The room around me buzzed with the kind of elemental energy necessary for healing, but I couldn’t rouse myself to draw the power I needed to complete the process.

  I forced my eyes open a smidge and tried to get my bearings. Soft bed under my back. A gentle breeze stirred the greenery surrounding me. Greenery? Steady beeping noise on my left and water trickling somewhere outside my line of sight. The walls and ceiling were clear glass. Everything screamed greenhouse at me.

  I groaned. “What happened?” My voice sounded anemic.

  Rustling from my right side. T’s head popped into my view. “Don’t you remember?”

  Everything was fuzzy. I squeezed my eyes shut against the glare while I reached out to the light to draw in energy. “No. The last thing I remember was being in that God-awful tube.”

  “You were in there, and you got caught on something. Tamsyn and diAvola couldn’t pull you out.”

  “Then how am I here and not still stuck?”

  “Duet crawled in after you. Don’t you recall?”

  I shook my head, the motion causing bile to rise in my throat. What the heck happened to me?

  “You were poisoned.” T settled on the edge of the bed and patted my arm. “You don’t remember Tamsyn coming to get you and dragging your bum out of there?”

  I searched my foggy memory. A wisp of a recollection: cold, muddy water rising, intense pain and…secrets.

  I let my head flop back on the pillow. “Snippets only. I remember going to the Barrier and locating the chems. We exchanged gunfire with Viktor…” When I traced my fingers over the spot on my bicep, pain shot through my arm. I sucked in a harsh breath. The wound felt odd, warm and bumpy to the touch.

  “You were in bad shape.”

  My throat worked as I tried to swallow. “That’s a given.”

  “Tamsyn saved you, Solo. You were on death’s door. He tried to give you his blood, but you couldn’t stomach it. Lucien got you both out of the access tunnel and found a Black Swan to donate enough to help you survive the helicopter ride back to VIS.”

  Black Swans were familiars, like Penn, willing to share the healing nectar of their blood. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t rem
ember a helicopter flight. I assumed I’d been unconscious for the trip to wherever I was now.

  I closed my eyes against the befuddlement swirling through my head. My arteries burned as if a river of fire flowed through me. Breath stuttered in my lungs, and even that caused pain. The taste of copper and something more sinister, viscous like sludge, coated my tongue. I wanted to spit, but couldn’t summon the energy.

  “What the hell am I doing in a bloody greenhouse?“

  T’s warbling chuckle was welcome. “You’re in a secluded and warded section of Kew Gardens. We believed it was the best location for your recovery. You’ve been unconscious for two days, Jayne. We’ve been transfusing you here, in addition to putting you in a space where you could draw from the elements.”

  “Two days?”

  “Yes, Jayne.”

  “Is the capital safe?“ My heart thumped with concern for the humans that I’d been trying to save.

  I lifted my head from the pillow and looked around. The sun in the sky above me was the normal color. Out the window, I could see people. Humans moving. Living their life as though nothing had happened.

  “Yes, Jayne, the capital’s safe, thanks to you, Lucien, and Baxter. You are a good team.”

  Well, that was debatable, but I was not in the frame of mind to argue. So I said nothing.

  T’s look turned grim. “Jayne, you’ll be out of commission for two weeks.”

  “No, that’s unacceptable. I need to get back to Rapa Nui to stop Victor.”

  “No Jayne. What you need is to recover…to recuperate from your ordeal. Our tests show Viktor’s chems were laced with colloidal silver. By itself that’s bad, but together with the cyanide silicate he’s manufacturing, that’s a lethal cocktail. Deadly to both humans and vampires. You’ve barely begun to heal.”

  When I pushed up on my elbows, agony screamed through my limbs. But I blanked all expression from my face and looked at my arm. A black charred scar marked where the bullet had grazed me. Dammit, another reminder of Viktor Koszlov.

  “Stop, Jayne. I’m ordering bed rest for you. You were injured, still are recuperating. The bullet wound you received hasn’t had the proper time to heal. You’ll need daily injections of de-ionized salt and E.coli bacteria to neutralize any lingering silver in your system. You won’t be full strength for quite a long while.”

  That she wanted me free of the silver was funny since the VIS regularly used the element to drain recalcitrant vamps of their blood. It was their version of final death, and I’d heard the process was a fearsome undertaking, probably not unlike the pain I’d felt while in the conduit. That was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced.

  “I have to get back to work.” I wasn’t lying in this bed any longer. “There’s a madman on the loose. I let the son of a— I let him escape.”

  “Doctor’s orders, Jayne.” Baxter appeared behind T.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. His complexion was pale, but otherwise he looked okay.

  His blue eyes sparkled with health. “Right as rain. I didn’t get near the dosage you took. I detoxed yesterday and have been checked out. I’ve been able to rest while you’ve been unconscious. Viktor is back on Rapa, hiding out.”

  “The sodding snake won’t stay there long.” I clasped my hand around my bicep, letting the ragged, discolored skin fuel my anger.

  Opening my senses, I fed on the power of the sun overhead, the water tinkling behind me, the essence of the plants surrounding me. I needed the healing facets of the elements to feed my soul. To fill the aching pit of my gut.

  “I’ll be ready to leave in a couple hours. Where’s Penn? We need him to make arrangements to get us back there.”

  “Jayne, you’re not returning to duty until I say.” T pushed my shoulders back to the pillow.

  “Koszlov isn’t resting. Neither should we.”

  “Arrangements have been made to transport you to my home in Essex. My family’s home, I should say,” Baxter said.

  “No! If I’m forced to recuperate somewhere, then I’ll be doing it in my own house.”

  T shook her head. “Not this time, Jayne. This order comes from the VIS executive director. Your flat might be compromised.”

  “Bollocks to that. My apartment is shielded. I watched the spell weaver take care of it.” It was standard vampire practice to hire a witch to ward a home against detection. I paid extra to reinforce the wards every year.

  “Sorry, our intel suggests your building is under surveillance. We need you somewhere Viktor would never think to search.” T hit me with a stern, don’t-you-dare-argue look. “You will be retiring to Baxter’s family estate in the country to recover. No questions. He has some medical training and is tasked with administering the daily injections necessary to purify your blood.”

  “I can give myself the shots.”

  “Who gives you the shot isn’t open for discussion, and there are some observation requirements. Duet is suited to the task.” Her frown was formidable. “And don’t even think about going rogue on us, Jayne. At any time, the serum can be switched to start the final death process.”

  This was the first time T had ever expressed my worst fear. Her voice was flat and emotionless, and because of it, more threatening. I couldn’t say she’d laughed off my past discretions, but she’d never expressly delivered an ultimatum before. She’d have to find me, but once she did, she could use a glamour to force me to come back. Faced with the will of an ancient vampire, I’d be powerless to escape.

  “I surrender.” I flopped back on the pillow and closed my eyes in resignation.

  There were worse things. A few days in the country wouldn’t kill me. Probably. I just hoped my little sojourn wouldn’t kill everybody else.

  I opened my senses wider and let the healing in the surrounding natural elements fill me. The sun in the sky…the steady drip of water through the sprinkler system. The very air around me was pure, sweet, and clean. Nature eased the searing fire in my veins. At this rate, I should be healed in a short time.

  “Do we have an update on Victor?”

  “After we recovered you from the barrier, we lost track of him. But Camios Bligh contacted Lucien and informed him Koszlov made a stop on Pitcairn before continuing to Rapa. There have been more rumblings from the volcano.”

  “Lost track of him? How the bloody hell does that happen?”

  “We aren’t sure. The VIS military police were on him until he left the barrier. Once the water began rising in the access tunnel, we lost him.

  Baxter settled on a chair next to my cot. “We believe that he had some help from inside.”

  “Inside what?” I questioned.

  “We believe there’s a mole in the VIS.” A stormy cloud darkened T’s face.

  “Hang on. You think there’s a traitor among our ranks?” Unheard of!

  “We have several people under investigation at the moment.” T grimaced. Like me, she didn’t like thinking someone she trusted had betrayed the organization.

  If a vampire were helping him, a glamour would have shielded him from detection as they approached the Barrier. And deployed another spell to help him ‘get lost’ on his way out of the tunnels.

  “Well, that settles it. I won’t be taking time off to recuperate.” I increased my draw on the energy around me. I felt the power unfurling in my body, reaching every fiber, filling me…healing my damaged tissue.

  “Yes you will. Jayne. We’re on it. I won’t put you in further jeopardy.”

  “But—”

  Bax cut me off. “What T doesn’t want you to know is that Viktor placed a bounty on your head. Jayne, he wants you back.”

  That earned Bax a narrow-eyed glare from T.

  Viktor had wanted me in his clutches for twenty or more years. Offering money as a prize for my capture didn’t faze me. “Then I need to get to him first.”

  T tightened her fist on her thigh. “No, Jayne. That’s an order. Two weeks in the country.”

  “Two weeks? Uh-uh.�
� Not a declawed cat’s chance in a room filled with mongrel dogs was I hiding for two weeks.

  “Fine. I’ll settle for one week. Victor’s villainy will wait for you to recuperate. He has a special spot for you in his bag of tricks.”

  She mentioned the one thing that frightened me. Viktor had it in for me. I was the experiment who’d escaped. I’d known all this time he wasn’t done with me.

  I didn’t like it, but I knew one week was the best offer I’d get. “Fine. I’ll work with that. But I have to insist that I be allowed to use a computer and do some research.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way.” T patted my knee.

  Bax rubbed his palms together. “Going to love having you as a houseguest, Jayne.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Drax will be with you shortly to go over some new equipment, including the injectables.”

  “You’ll like this, Jayne. Since Victor has displayed a preference for disseminating clouds of liquid silver, Drax developed a contact lens that will protect your eyes from potential harm.”

  Yay! Literally, no more bloody tears. Good on Drax. I could always count on him to provide something to make my life easier.

  “He’s also found a way to improve the rebreather. You never know when you’re going to need that again.”

  “Since it helped me last time, I guess it’s a good thing. But improvements to it would be a good idea. That thing was a bitch to clench between my teeth. I couldn’t talk to you without spitting it out.”

  “Yes, well, he’s on it.” T stood up. “We’ll see you in a week, Jayne. I want to see you in the offices before you head back to Easter Island.”

  Oh, she’d see me all right.

  11

  Mission Day 11

  The Tamsyn Estate, Essex

  At first, I thought I could get used to sitting idle in the lap of luxury. Arriving at Bax’s home in Great Bentley, buried deep in the lovely English countryside, just forty minutes from London, was similar to traveling back in time. The Edwardian-style mansion had been built with pale yellowish bricks which reflected the sun and created a charming glow. I easily imagined a dowager countess gracefully easing onto a chair in the elegant parlor to serve tea and biscuits delivered by a rosy-cheeked housemaid.