Hunter's Salvation (10 page)

“See what they did to her, and then tell me there is
no reason
.”

The images that haunted her endlessly were no longer just hers. She knew he was seeing them as his body stiffened, contorting as though he was trying to pull away from her. Tears streamed down her face. She couldn't make him feel her pain without her feeling it as well.

Randi had only been dead for a few hours when Jess was called in to identify her, and her sister's spirit had hovered for a couple of days before she passed on.

When Jess had touched Randi's broken body, it opened her mind to the horrors that had been Randi's last hours. How they'd beaten her. How they had toyed with her. How they had fed off her pain and laughed.

Jess had seen what Randi had seen, and as she relived it, she cried.

His eyes burned into hers, flickering and glowing. Jess was damned glad she wasn't psychic. She didn't want to know what he was thinking. Dealing with her own pain was enough.

“Don't tell me there is no reason,” she said through gritted teeth. Then she peeled her hands away from him. Exhausted, she stumbled to the wall and fell against it, letting it support her weight.

Vax simply collapsed. He dropped to his knees in the middle of the alley. He stared straight ahead, seeing nothing but the memories that Jess had shared with him. The things that had been done to that poor girl were unimaginable. He found himself looking at up at Jess, speechless and more than a little sick.

With stark eyes, she met his gaze. “Now do you understand?”

 

“W
HAT
of Nate?”

William glanced at Thomas. “He's been dealt with.”

With a scowl, Thomas sat back in his chair. “He was an excellent assistant, Will. You didn't have to kill him.”

“He let her get away. That jeopardizes everything, Thomas. Did you really think I'd leave him alive?” William studied the contents of the bar and finally settled on a bottle of Patrón. He selected a crystal tumbler from above the bar. “You can find another assistant easy enough.”

Thomas scowled at him. “There was no reason to kill him.”

“There was every reason. He didn't do what he was told to do, and because of it, that nosy reporter is still out there asking only God knows what.” As far as William was concerned, the discussion was over.

“And we still have her to deal with, and one of my best men is no longer around to deal with her.” Thomas sounded a bit pissed off.

Leaning back, William said, “And what would you have done?”

“I would have sent him after her. Again. With a little bit of backup. Once he had killed her, I would have killed him. Nice little murder-suicide deal with no loose ends that might unravel for us later. Xeke is particularly talented in that area. And he knows how to elude those who might bring us trouble.”

For a second, William was a little surprised. Then he smiled and lifted his glass to his friend. “Why, Thomas. You are learning.”

Thomas laughed. “Loose strings are never a good thing. I've a few years on you, remember. I may have my nose buried in reports, tests, and brain scans most of the time, but I am not a fool.” He lifted his own glass, staring into the whiskey and brooding. “We still have to deal with the reporter. Why don't you send someone to her home?”

“More than a few years, slick.” Nearly two centuries, easy. William had gone through the Change after being attacked by a were nearly fifteen years ago. The vampire had gone through his Change sometime in the early 1800s.

“Perhaps we could send Xeke.” William scraped his nails over his carefully groomed goatee and murmured, “If you think he can handle it. I don't know. We can't have any more mistakes. Perhaps we should just see what happens. She'll be back here sooner or later, and I can deal with her. I'd rather not do it in the club. Not now. There's no telling who she might have told about the other night. We can't have her found anywhere near here. This can't be connected to us in any way.”

William was a bit unhappy about that. She'd cost him so much trouble over the past few months that he'd been looking forward to taking some form of payment out on that long, sleek body. There was nothing to be done for it, though. She needed to disappear, far away from here. “There can't be another mistake on this. We don't have room for it.”

Amusement lit Thomas's blue eyes. “You know, I am the doctor. You would think that I would be the one worried about a possible disruption in the experiments. Don't worry so, Will. The most she could do is tell the cops she has concerns about the club. Debach is very, very clean. There is nothing to link her sister to us. The police know the other women came to the club on occasion. But the police will find no other link, not from the girl, and certainly not to us. We were careful.”

Disgusted, William replied, “You are not taking this seriously, as always.”

“On the contrary, I'm taking it very seriously. However, we wouldn't be in this bloody mess if you hadn't killed her baby sister.” His chilly smile revealed the pointed tips of his fangs. “That did nothing more than piss her off.”

Leaning forward, William said, “Well, I don't recall you having any wonderful ideas on what to do about her. As always, you're too wrapped up in your research, your tests, and your subjects, while I handle the real world around us. You're so damned certain she can't cause trouble. I'm not. There
are
other people to be concerned about besides the police.”

Thomas didn't look at all concerned. “There are no Hunters here, Will. That's why I chose this area. It's a dead zone as far as they are concerned. The closest established Master is a minimum of three hundred miles away in any given direction.” He tossed back the rest of his Scotch and rose to refill his glass. “However, I am not dismissing her as a possible threat. And I agree we should handle it. You know, I am curious to see exactly how the hormone works on one such as her. I don't think she's quite human.”

William narrowed his eyes, studying the vampire thoughtfully. “She's no witch.”

“No. Nor is she shifter or vampire. But there is something peculiar about her. I tried to read her the other night. And I cannot.” Thomas tugged thoughtfully on his lower lip. “I simply could not read her.”

“Strange.” William rubbed a hand over his head, vaguely aware of the slight growth of stubble. He had just shaved his scalp clean a week ago, but it grew quickly. The hair was barely an eighth of an inch right now, but within a week or two, that scant bit would be nearly an inch long.

“Interesting. Her sister was such a pleasant treat—Empaths are so sensitive to pain and anger. Feeding on her fear was almost as sweet as her blood. I would imagine that talent runs in the family. I wonder what the sister's talent is.” Thomas leaned back in his chair, a smile twisting his lips into a mockery of the expression. “You know, we should have held on to her for a little while. It would have been an interesting change to use her in some of my trials.”

“Humans are a waste of time. We've already tried, remember?”

Thomas cocked a brow. In a cool voice, he said, “
I
have tried. I do not recall you working side by side with me in the labs while I carry on my work. I do not recall you volunteering to research, assist. Nothing until you decided you wanted to go through the process. However, for the record, yes, I know there were several human failures. But an Empath is not just the average human.”

“Do you really think that Empathy is going to make her any different from the rest of the screwups?” William moved over the console and hit the button that would bring the screens to life. Ten images flashed into view on the console. Each of the transitioning chambers had a video camera set up just outside the bulletproof glass, keeping a constant record of what happened inside the cell. “We have more than enough failures. We know what works. We should stick with it.”

The failures were an endless source of frustration for Thomas. This particular unit of patients was for a different branch of Thomas's experiments. Instead of using the natural chemicals from a witch and introducing them into a host's body, Thomas had turned the tables and was trying to introduce DNA harvested from a shape-shifter into a witch's body.

On average, more than ninety percent of the subjects were written off as failed experiments. They were either unaffected, or their bodies rejected the hormone and the adverse reaction killed them. Seemed like a waste of time to William, and he'd told Thomas he needed to give up on that project.

Thomas would not. Part of William understood why. The end results of the successful experiments were pretty damned amazing.

Like Dena.

Dena was a whore he had picked up in Calgary a few years ago, back when they first started down this road. With her big, plump lips and dark hair, she was a sultry piece of work. He knew for a fact that she knew how to put those lips to good use.

She was a witch of only mild talent, so mild she could barely even call herself a witch. She used her talent to help score the better johns or to sniff out drug deals so she could interrupt and steal some coke. In her former life, she had been a sad, pathetic waste. Well, except for her very skilled mouth.

Now though…now she was magnificent.

She'd sat in a cell for nearly six months before Thomas decided to do anything with her. The process itself took too damn long. Months, sometimes more than a year. The weaker people tended to die during the early months. Dena hadn't, and both of them had watched her transition with varying degrees of curiosity and exhilaration. Thomas had nearly a year invested in her when he administered the final dose. She had slipped into a coma, and William figured she was gone.

Thomas hadn't been so sure. He had maintained her body, feeding her through a tube stuck down her nose and making sure she was cared for. He had some highly skilled medical staff in the lab, and he rode hell on them to make sure his experiments were treated properly.

Of course, none of the nurses cared. They were all little more than zombies. Thomas had used some of the nastier talents some vampires had, eradicating their free will. His suggestions wore off in time, and he'd either plant the suggestions all over again, or kill the subjects and replace them.

After three months, Dena had emerged from the coma. William still remembered the blast of power he had felt coming from the lab. She'd opened her eyes, and her fury at still being held prisoner had triggered her first Change.

The entire process had been touch-and-go, but now William was glad Thomas had stuck it out with Dena. She'd survived the trials, but more than that, she had emerged from them much more powerful. Dena was unique. She intrigued him, and for several reasons.

That raw sensuality she possessed was only one of them.

So far, most of the creatures had only weak talents and couldn't even manage to shift. They had some of the strength and all of the hyperacute senses, but they couldn't shift. Worse, the experimenting left them pretty much insane. And not the psycho-killer type. That, at least, could have provided some amusement.

No, it generally left them useless and unfit for combat, little more than sniveling, whining waste heaps.

Dena was most definitely fit for combat. There had been one other female with serious potential, but she had escaped before they finished with her. The retrieval process had been interrupted by the damned Hunters.

Fortunately Dena didn't seem to be in a big hurry to try running away. Very fortunate, because she was one of the last subjects Thomas had success with. After another dozen witches had either rejected the DNA or emerged from the trials unchanged, Thomas was finally starting to see the futility of this particular project.

Damn good thing, because William was tired of getting rid of the bodies. Witches didn't burn the way shifters or vampires did. Disposing of the bodies in a way that wouldn't raise suspicion was paramount. Which added up to a serious pain in the ass for William.

Yes, Dena was a success. But anytime Thomas had tried his experiments on humans, he had not been even remotely successful. Many mortals died within minutes of receiving the harvested chemicals, but others might as well have been given injections of saline. No change, no effect at all. There hadn't been one single human who had shown any kind of promise.

Eventually Thomas had decided to let go of the failed experiments and focus more on the successes.

Since giving up on new specimens, Thomas had concentrated on Dena. Almost fixated—he seemed determined to understand why she had survived the transition and emerged so much stronger. He hadn't had much luck yet.

The only thing he did seem to be able to say with certainty was that females tolerated the transition better and had a higher survival rate.

He spouted a bunch of technical jargon that meant absolutely nothing to William. But he could definitely see why Thomas wanted to create more like Dena. She was a mean-ass, cocky little bitch with a thirst for blood. Predatory, sensual, and cruel, she was one of the sexiest things he'd ever come across.