What sounded like an explosion shattered the silence upstairs. A heartbeat later, the door to the basement slammed open so violently it flew off its hinges, careened off the cabinet next to it and—splinters splicing the air like mini-missiles—knocked John to the floor.
Scott swore, leapt to his feet, and backed into a far corner so quickly he blurred.
Montrose nearly crapped his pants when Dennis materialized only a foot away. His eyes glowed a vibrant blue, a sign of intense emotion. And, judging by the clenched jaw, rapid breathing, and visibly pulsing veins, that emotion was absolute fury.
Dennis’s hair, dark blond and down to his shoulders, looked as if he had ridden from one end of the state to the other in a convertible with the top down. His clothing, black and reminiscent of Bastien’s with a long coat and sheathed weapons, was disheveled, his shirt glistening with a large wet spot. Ruby drops and streaks stained his neck and chin.
Montrose began to tremble.
Was that blood? That was blood.
“Is it done?” Dennis growled.
The fallen door behind Montrose shifted.
Stalling, Montrose looked around.
John climbed to his feet, nose bleeding, a red lump forming on his forehead.
“Don’t look at him,” Dennis snarled, wrapping a fist in Montrose’s lab coat and giving him a rough shake. “Look at me.”
Montrose did as he was told.
“Is it done?” Dennis repeated. “Does it work?”
Montrose swallowed. Hard. “N-no, it’s too weak.” He heard John come up behind him and glanced at him over his shoulder. “We, uh, we were just going to recalculate—”
Dennis released Montrose’s coat and stepped to the side.
Before Montrose could breathe a sigh of relief, Dennis reached past him, grabbed John by the shirt and yanked him forward.
Knocked to the side, Montrose stumbled, grabbed the edge of a table to steady himself, then turned around in time to see Dennis dip his head and rip John’s throat out with his fangs.
Blood sprayed in an arc as John reeled backward and groped at his neck.
Montrose closed his eyes and cringed as the warm liquid splashed him.
Harsh, gurgling sounds suffused the air.
Shock rendering him speechless, Montrose cracked open his lids and watched as John—eyes wide with terror—staggered around, bumping into tables and desks and knocking paraphernalia over, then dropped to his knees. A few more choking gargles, then he fell forward. His body twitched. Twitched again. Then stilled.
Hot saliva welled in Montrose’s mouth. Bile swiftly followed. Bending over, he spewed what hadn’t been digested of his triple beef burger and fries all over the floor and John’s shoes.
“Oh, man up for fuck’s sake,” Dennis snarled.
Hands on his knees, Montrose shook his head. “Why did you do that?” he wheezed, gagging as the scents of vomit, blood, and excrement filled his airways. “Why the hell did you do that?” He straightened as much as he could, placing a hand on his churning stomach.
Dennis shrugged as though Montrose had just asked him why he had rented a particular movie. His face, chin, neck, and chest were covered in crimson. “He was distracting you. It annoyed me.”
Montrose’s mouth fell open, and some of the fear racing through his veins converted to anger. “He annoyed you?”
“Perhaps now that he’s gone you’ll have less trouble focusing.” Dennis seemed so calm now, his eyes no longer luminescent.
“He was helping me!” Montrose blurted out incredulously. “Helping us! I couldn’t have gotten this far in our little experiment if he hadn’t been here! What the hell am I supposed to do now?” He was yelling by the time he finished and later would wonder where he had found the balls to do so. Dennis’s brain was clearly surrendering to the virus, his impulse control deteriorating to near nonexistence. And his mood swings …
Well, they were off the chart.
Again, Dennis shrugged. “Find some other geek to help you.”
Montrose started to remind him just how long it had taken him to find someone he could trust not to call the men in white coats when asked for aid in capturing an immortal creature for a vampire king. But Dennis drew close, his fetid breath deepening Montrose’s nausea.
“Get it done, Montrose. You’re out of time.”
“W-W-What do you mean?”
“We found Roland.”
Excitement skittered through him. “You did? You found him?” Roland Warbrook. One of the Immortal Guardians who had killed Casey. And someone who could tell them where to find Bastien the Deceiver. “Where is he? When can I see him?” Interrogate him? Torture him? Destroy him?
“When you finish what you started,” Dennis gritted out,
“and help us catch him. He killed thirty-four of my men tonight. He and his human bitch.”
Montrose eyed him in disbelief. “Thirty-four? That’s impossible. He must have transformed her.”
“He didn’t.”
“How do you know? Were you there?”
Dennis’s eyes flashed dangerously. “No. Toby texted me, told me they were getting their asses kicked by an Immortal Guardian and some woman and asked me what they should do.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That if he tucked his tail between his legs and ran I would make an example of him as I did Eddie.”
Inwardly, Montrose grimaced. He had heard about that. The vamps had gained three new soldiers that night.
“None of my men survived.”
Two triumphing over thirty-four. And Toby claimed one of them had been mortal.
Montrose’s mind raced. He had to get his hands on one of those Immortal Guardians.
Dennis backed away, no longer bent on intimidating him. “Scott,” he said calmly and motioned to the silent vampire,
“come forward.”
Leaving the shadows, the young vampire crossed to Dennis’s side with obvious reluctance.
Dennis wrapped an arm around his shoulders, his eyes still on Montrose. “Have you enjoyed helping Dr. Keegan?”
“Yes, sir.” Scott had once confessed to Montrose that he far preferred being a lab rat to preying on humans or tricking drunken frat boys into joining their army. Montrose had always considered him a rare, top-quality vampire. He wasn’t high on power. He didn’t get off on terrifying and bullying powerless humans. He was a good guy.
Montrose hoped Dennis didn’t intend to return him to the hunt now.
Dennis ruffled Scott’s hair the way Montrose used to ruffle Casey’s, then smiled at Montrose, yanked the kid’s head to the side, and sank his fangs into his throat.
Scott gritted his teeth, the cords in his neck standing out as his arms flailed. One caught and clenched in Dennis’s coat. The other swept papers from the table nearest them.
Montrose met Dennis’s eyes. Those taunting eyes. “W-What are you … ?”
The younger vamp’s struggles continued, punctuated with grunts and gasps. Had Scott been human, the chemical produced by the glands that had formed over Dennis’s fangs when he had transformed would have almost instantly acted upon his system like GHB. His desire to struggle would have melted away. His fear, too. He might even have begun to enjoy it. And would have retained no memory of it.
But the parasitic virus that had replaced his immune system rendered him unresponsive to drugs—opiates, muscle relaxants, sedatives, paralytics, stimulants, antivirals—so Scott felt every bit of the pain the needle-sharp fangs inflicted, the cold that crept in as his blood was siphoned into Dennis’s veins, the fear that rose as he and Montrose waited to see if Dennis would allow him to live.
Scott’s limbs began to tremble. His arms fell to his sides. His knees buckled. All color fled his face. The sure knowledge of his impending demise lingered in the hopeless eyes that met and held Montrose’s.
“Th-thank you,” he whispered with his last breath.
Dennis dropped Scott’s bloodless corpse to the floor like a bag of garbage.
The virus began to devour the kid from the inside out as it fought to live as long as possible.
Numb, Montrose stared at Dennis.
Dennis wiped his mouth. “We’ll have to spend the next several weeks rebuilding and multiplying our numbers,” he said, bland as an accountant at a board meeting. “You do whatever you have to do to pull your own weight.” He strolled to the vacant doorway that led to a laundry room with stairs leading up to the ground floor, then looked back over his shoulder. “Right now you’re looking too damn dispensable.”
He was up the stairs, out of the house, and probably halfway down the street before Montrose found the strength to breathe again.
Stretching out a shaking hand, he braced himself against the table behind him.
The stink of vomit was thick in the air, not quite overshadowed by the odor of decaying flesh as Scott withered away to nothing.
John lay where he had fallen, eyes blankly appealing to the ceiling, his blood a dark, shiny pool around him.
When Montrose’s legs would no longer support him, he slid down to the floor and scooted back into the same shadowed corner Scott had temporarily occupied.
Away from the sick.
Away from the death.
Away from the knowledge that he could very well be next.
Chapter 5
Marcus stood outside the bathroom door, hands clutching the frame on either side, head down. Inside, Ami was doing just as she had said she would: taking a shower.
He had tried his best to talk her into letting him see to her wounds first, but she had argued that, if he did, the bandages would just get wet when she showered and have to be replaced again.
Sighing, he raised his head, straightened, and glanced around her bedroom.
It surprised him. He had expected to see open suitcases with clothing either haphazardly spilling out or neatly folded in piles. Her banker boxes, he’d assumed, would be stacked against the wall or on the chair in the corner, perhaps a lid or two off to expose the contents. He had thought he would find a room in transition. A room that would reflect the same lack of contentment he’d felt with this situation, hope of being reassigned to another immortal, or a reluctance to admit this might be permanent.
