Claire knew there was no assuming safe until they were far, far away from here, and she started to say it – and then it was obvious, because the trap sprang shut.
Claire didn’t really notice the dark offshoot tunnel as they approached it; the glow of streetlights at the end was much too alluring. It was only when a group of figures stepped out of it, into her path, that she was forced to skid to a halt. There were three of them facing her – two armed men, and one standing still in the centre who didn’t fit the template she’d become used to seeing.
A man, but carrying something different. Bulky.
Jesse hardly paused at all. ‘Trap!’ she yelled, a sudden and shocking sound that echoed from the tunnel’s concrete like thunder. At the same time, she pushed Claire out of the way, up against the far wall, to get her out of the line of fire.
As Jesse brought up her assault rifle, utterly unconcerned with being outnumbered, the figure in the middle raised that bulky, clumsy thing he was holding, aimed, and fired. Or at least that was what Claire assumed happened – there was no light, no sound, nothing but a shiver that went through Claire’s nerves as if she’d stood close to lightning.
And Jesse gasped,
dropped her weapon
, and staggered backward, hands clapping to her head as if she’d been stunned. She let out a sharp, agonised cry, and suddenly dropped down into a crouch – a fear position, a child’s futile attempt to hide from her tormentors.
She was sobbing.
And it hit home to Claire with a white-hot surge of rage what was going on. That was VLAD.
Her
VLAD, being used on her friend.
But it works
, some ice-cold part of her said.
The
field test is successful
. She told that part of her to shut up and die, and lunged off the wall, trying to get to the man holding her creation and pointing it at Jesse.
It was Dr Davis, and he looked elated. In fact, he was grinning in triumph.
Claire yelled in inarticulate fury, and lunged toward him. She saw one of the armed men standing next to Dr Davis turning toward her, and the barrel of his gun swung with him …
… And then Michael was in the way, grabbing the gun and slamming it up with stunning force into the man’s face. Her would-be shooter dropped like a sack of mud … but then Dr Davis hit Michael point blank in the back with a shot from VLAD, and Claire, rushing at him, saw Michael’s face go alabaster white, his blue eyes terrifyingly wide as he pitched to his knees.
Like Jesse, he curled into a protective ball, shivering. Unlike Jesse, he was making a hoarse, faint, screaming sound.
Myrnin was lurching toward Dr Davis, and he – through accident or design – fell before he could be shot. Behind him, though, came Shane. He’d picked up a thick, splintered length of tree branch, and he stepped up and swung it like he was planning a home run with the second gunman. Score. That one fell, too, as unconscious as the one Michael had clocked.
Dr Davis focused not on Shane, but on Oliver, the last vampire standing. Claire leapt over Michael’s curled-on-its-side body and put all her strength into a shove on Dr Davis’s shoulder as she landed.
It was just enough that he missed. But Dr Davis wasn’t done, not by a long shot; he yelled, slammed an elbow back into her ribs, and simultaneously with the eruption of white-hot pain, Claire heard Shane yell, too.
Only Shane’s cry was a warning. ‘Reinforcements!’ he said, and grabbed Claire’s arm on the fly to shove her toward the exit. ‘Just
go
, get the hell out of here!’
Pete, Liz and Eve were already gone, though if Claire knew Eve at all, she knew that Pete would have his hands full trying to stop her from plunging back in to defend Michael. There were more men pouring out of the tunnel, and Michael and Jesse and Myrnin were down, and Oliver was
leaving
…
‘Get Myrnin!’ Shane yelled. He paused to grab Michael’s arm and pull him up. It was like pulling a sack of wet noodles – wet noodles that weakly resisted the help. ‘Claire,
get out of here
!’ There were too many coming, and Shane knew it. He’d already made one command decision … Jesse knelt helpless and out of it farther down the tunnel, and he knew they couldn’t reach her and get out in time. She realised with horror that he’d already written her off. He was saving what he could.
But he was right. She had to save one of them, and it had to be Myrnin.
Claire helped him up, and although he was clumsy, he kept himself moving as they ran/stumbled for the end of the run-off tunnel where Oliver had already gone. She looked behind her. Shane had dragged Michael’s weight into a fireman’s carry, and was moving as fast as he could, face contorted with effort. Michael was as limp as a corpse.
Claire saw men with guns forming up behind him, and knew with heart-stopping certainty that she was about to see Shane die. If they wanted Michael, which she thought they did, then it wouldn’t mean much to them to shoot them both. Shane wouldn’t make it. Michael would.
She screamed in horror, because she could
see
it, as inevitable as a train crash – the roar of the guns, the blood, Shane going down in a lifeless heap.
But it didn’t happen.
‘Hold fire!’ Dr Davis said sharply. ‘Let them go. We’ve got what we need.’
They needed only one vampire, then. It didn’t matter which one.
And as Shane reached her and passed her, Claire realised with a sick and heavy heart that they were going to have to totally abandon Jesse.
Two blocks away, and a lot of turns and back alleys later, their little group re-formed again. It was a deserted open-area warehouse that hadn’t been used in years, from the dusty smell of it. Oliver peeled back the broken fence, punched open the padlocked door, and hustled them all inside.
As soon as Shane eased Michael down to a sitting position, he crouched down to look at his best friend. Michael was silently weeping, face concealed behind his shaking hands. He was a
mess
, and Claire swallowed hard when she saw how badly VLAD had affected him. Whatever adjustments Dr Anderson had made to it when she’d reassembled it, she’d ramped it up to eleven.
Shane put his hand on Michael’s shoulder, squeezed gently, and then bolted to his feet with his fists clenched as he advanced on Oliver. ‘What the
actual hell
, man? You left Jesse behind! You left
us
behind!’ He didn’t stop. He got right up in Oliver’s face and shoved him. It was like shoving a stone wall, and it was Shane that got pushed back a step. That didn’t make him calm down. If anything, Shane’s face grew a deeper shade of red. ‘You son of a bitch, you
ran
!’
‘Yes,’ Oliver said coldly. ‘I did. That is a tactic called retreat, perhaps you’ve not heard of it. When the odds are against you and victory is impossible, strategic retreat in order to regroup is the favoured option. And you, stupid boy, are what we used to call cannon fodder. Of
course
I left you.’
‘Yeah, you know what, Sun Tzu, running’s also called cowardice. You think you’re so much better than humans, but you know what? We don’t abandon our friends, we
go back
. Asshole.’
Oliver ignored him, which was an impressive accomplishment, since Shane was angry, in his face, and well within punching distance. He focused instead on Claire. ‘The device,’ he said. ‘That was yours. The one that disappeared from Anderson’s lab.’ He shoved Shane out of his way as if he were a buzzing, annoying fly, and strode toward Claire. ‘Did you give it to him? Did you know what he would do with it?
Do you know what you’ve done
?’ Shane tried to get in his way, again, but Oliver wasn’t having any. He slammed Shane back with one hand, grabbed Claire, and towed her to where Michael was huddled against the wall, with Eve holding him in her arms. ‘Look at him.
Look!
Do you know what you’ve done to him? How long it could last? Do you have any idea what kind of destruction you’ve unleashed against us? It’s the death of us, do you understand?
The death of us
!’
It wasn’t Shane this time, but Myrnin who stepped in. He was obviously feeling better; he seemed steady enough as he took hold of Oliver’s shoulder, and unlike Shane’s merely human effort, Myrnin’s wiry, deceptive vampire strength forced the other man around toward him. ‘Don’t yell at her,’ he said, and for all his occasional goofiness and erratic behaviour, in this moment he was utterly steady. ‘If you want to vent your spleen, face me. I allowed her to build and test it. I allowed her to remove it from my custody. I sent her to Irene. All of this is my fault, not hers. And if you lay a hand on her, I will rip it off.’ That last bit was delivered with such dead-level seriousness that Claire got a chill. ‘Stop portioning the blame and begin solving the problem, Oliver. Done is done, and dead is dead, but Jesse is still alive, and so is Michael. We must reclaim the device, reverse these effects, control the damage that this
vampire expert
whom none of us foresaw has wrought.
That
is the plan. Now, it is up to you to produce the strategy,
my lord
.’
Oliver snarled, and his fangs came down; his eyes glowed an unholy shade of red, and for a moment Claire really, genuinely thought he was going to rip into Myrnin with everything he had … but he stopped. He stopped and stood quietly for a moment, eyes closed, before he said, ‘You may well be insane, but you’re not wrong. Those are the goals we should focus on. Very well. First, we need blood. And being that we are very far from friendly territory, or withdrawals from our own blood bank, I would suggest you coach our humans as to how they can best help us. Michael especially will need blood, if he is fighting this … influence. And you look weak as a kitten.’
‘Do I?’ Myrnin asked, and smiled slowly. It had a sharp edge of lunacy to it. He made a purring sound low in his throat. ‘Do try to pet me, then. You can report back how sharp my claws might be, once your throat grows back.’
‘Fool.’
‘Narrow roundhead.’
‘You thieving, insolent Taffy—’
‘Enough!’ Claire shouted, sharply enough that they all looked up. ‘We’re not fighting each other. Myrnin just said it, and you agreed: we get Jesse back. We get VLAD. We stop Dr Davis. Yes?’
Oliver unwillingly nodded. Myrnin smiled.
And Eve said, from where she sat holding tightly to Michael’s shaking body, ‘And we help Michael. We help him, Claire.’
‘Yes,’ Claire said softly. ‘We help him. I’m so sorry. I never meant—’
Eve’s dark eyes fixed on her, red from crying. ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ she said. ‘Science doesn’t fix everything. Sometimes, it just screws everything up, okay? He wouldn’t have hurt you. He’d
never
have hurt you. Why does it have to be him?’ Michael was reacting to Eve’s anger and distress, rocking back and forth now, and Eve held on, rubbing his back, soothing him like a restless child. ‘Shh, it’s okay, honey. I’m here. I’m here with you. It’s all going to be okay.’
Her stare dared Claire to make that happen. Now.
Liz was basically unconscious, still; she’d lost a lot of blood, and Claire thought that her coping mechanism was to just try to sleep until everything set itself right. Not a bad plan, really, but it didn’t help anyone else deal with the issues. She also wasn’t fit to donate any blood, which left her, Shane, Pete and Eve. Eve, however, had already devoted blood to Michael, and he was going to need more; Claire knew that would be her responsibility. It ought to be, because she was the reason Michael was so badly hurt.
She felt the guilt of it bubbling in her stomach, like acid.
There was trouble among the potential donors, because Pete wasn’t having any of
that
. ‘Hell no,’ he said, from where he sat with Liz. His voice was tight and utterly firm. ‘No vampire’s getting a fucking drop out of me. Especially not
these
vamps. They left Jesse behind. She trusted you, and you let her down.’
‘Pete—’ Claire began, but Shane put a hand on her arm, silencing her.
‘Look man, I don’t exactly like it either,’ Shane said. ‘But if we want to get her back at all, we’re going to need their help. Did you see what Davis had on his side? That had to be ten guys, all armed. Sure, we might have put down some, but I have the feeling he can get more. He’s got outside resources, something we need to shut down fast and hard, for everybody’s protection,
including
Jesse’s. It isn’t just that they’ve got her. It’s what they’re planning to do with her that’s the problem.’
That got to him, Claire saw; Pete flinched a little, and finally nodded. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll put up with this shit for a while longer. But I’m telling you, man, the day hasn’t come yet that I’ll let a vampire bite me. Never going to happen.’
‘You’ve never – what about Jesse?’
‘Jesse’s not like that. She doesn’t go around biting people. She has a code.’
‘And it’s never failed?’
Pete evaded Shane’s eyes for a second. ‘Almost never. Anyway. Never with me.’
‘You like her, right? You trust her? You want to save her?’
‘Of course I do!’
‘Then this is the best way,’ Shane said. ‘And trust me, I never, ever thought I’d be arguing to let a vampire bite somebody, but honestly, we need this. She needs it, and we all need it to give us the edge, because we don’t know what we’re dealing with. Pete, you’re a tough guy – hell, I’m not so bad either. But we don’t come with shades and secret spy crap and semi-auto weapons, either. So let’s not give away the only advantage we have, all right?’
It was a good argument, and Pete unwillingly, finally, nodded. Shane gave him a good-for-you kind of nod in return, and they tapped fists. Then Shane walked straight over to Myrnin, looked him in the eye, and said, ‘Here.’ And offered him his arm, skinning up his sleeve to show the veins. ‘Doesn’t mean we’re going steady.’
Myrnin stared at him a few seconds, then glanced at Claire; she could see the confusion in him, and the wish to trade Shane for her, but she held still and didn’t make the offer. Mostly, she had to admit, because she was curious to see how it worked – how the antipathy between her boyfriend and her boss/friend played out in this really oddly intimate exchange.