"Listen, Convoy, where the f.u.c.k are you? And tell me in English, Kris Kristofferson," Nina growled, her voice full of anger and a hint of anxious.
"I don"t know!" Phoebe yelped. "But you two better highball it or we"re gonna be in the pokey with a smoky!"
"Gigantor? This is Big Mouth. Find her before I rip her fancy salon hair out strand by f.u.c.king strand. Ten-four, good buddy?"
"Listen to me, Phoe, er, Little Mouth. Are you still in the east wing?"
"I don"t know and I"m too afraid to look outside this lab."
"Lab? What lab, honey? There are no labs on the east side of the building," Sam said with insistence.
Honey? Had he just called her honey? Phoebe fought a full-on preen and tried to focus on anything but what was in the corner of the room. It would be lovely if she were afforded the time to bask in the glow that was Sam"s endearment.
But, no-she had this to deal with. In fact, this-this was almost exactly like the time on When the World Turns when Pedro Montoya Federico Salinas had been found in a lab just like this one in an underground bunker in Old San Juan after his maniacal brother-in-law, Shawn Patrick O"Hara, put him in a coma.
She scrunched her eyes shut. "This is definitely a lab, good buddy. There are all sorts of vials of stuff, beakers, and a microscope and needles. So many needles!"
She could almost see Sam shake his handsome head in disbelief. "Okay. Stay calm. Is there a door to the lab? Can you see out of it?"
Phoebe slid along the wall in a crablike sweep, keeping her eyes on the door and not the thing in the corner. Pressing the b.u.t.ton on the walkie-talkie, she nodded. "Yes. There"s a window and a big bear right outside it!"
"What the f.u.c.k is a big bear, moron?"
"A security guard!" she hissed, her teeth chattering.
"How did you get into the lab, Little Mouth?" Sam prodded, his voice coaxing.
Oh. That. "I saw a security guard just as I came up the east side staircase. I must"ve freaked out and all I could think was I"m going to die in jail while some woman-beast with the t.i.tle The Punisher or b.i.t.c.h Maker beat me into doing her dirty jailhouse deeds. Not to mention, I hear the sheets in the pokey are really harsh on your skin. Then I began to think about my skin and how awful it would be if I couldn"t have my coconut oil. I rub that all over my body to keep my skin smooth and glowing. Every single night. Anyway, it just felt worse than death to me-which is shallow and vain, I know, but I couldn"t help it. And that put me here. The word death. I think. Anyway, it put me here. In this lab. With-with ..." Oh, Jesus and a dead body, she just couldn"t say it.
"With what?" Sam prompted with what sounded like strained impatience.
Phoebe jammed a finger in her mouth to keep from screaming. She would not scream. Nina"d howl with laughter and that just wasn"t acceptable. "With something heinous!"
"Heinous," Nina said in dry tones from her end. "What is heinous to Fluffy Barbie? Oh, noes. I bet she just found out her favorite hair gel is used to kill off tsetse flies. Aw, Barbie haz a sad now?"
Phoebe"s last nerve disconnected from her sanity, and after much abuse, while she huddled in a corner, she blew her wad all over her walkie-talkie. "You know what, Big Mouth? That"s enough, you mean, ornery, cranky, insulting, angry, b.i.t.c.h of the highest order-you can blow me! Do you hear me? Bloooow. Me. Hard! I"m sick to death of you and your put-upon bulls.h.i.t. You did this to me. If it weren"t for you, I"d have left your offices and probably never looked back, because you"re a mean one, viper. I"m here because of you. You-you-you! So get the f.u.c.k off my back, you venomous b.i.t.c.h, and come find me, or I swear to the heavens above, I"m going to beat your a.s.s with a sack of garlic and shower your stank with some holy water! Got that, Ghetto Barbie?" With a huff, she let go of the "talk" b.u.t.ton and stuck her tongue out at the walkie-talkie, shaking.
There was silence from both parties concerned for a moment, giving Phoebe a moment to peek out the window of the lab and watch wide-eyed as Sam took out the looming security guard with a move she"d only seen in Jackie Chan movies.
Her mouth fell open. Wow. Entomologists were all sorts of kick-a.s.s hot, huh?
Just as Sam pushed his way into the lab, Nina crackled on the walkie-talkie. "Barbie? That was a d.a.m.n fine rant. One that f.u.c.king would have brought a tear to my eye if not for the fact that I can"t cry, but I love to make people cry. Which is exactly what I"m gonna do to you when I get my hands around your scrawny, mouthy neck-"
"Big Mouth!" Sam shouted into the walkie-talkie. "Shut it and get here now." He gave Nina directions, pulling Phoebe to his side in a manner so protective it made her want to smile-and cling for dear life.
But she couldn"t. Not with that over there in the corner.
Sam was the first to move, striding over to the corner, his hands on his hips. "What the h.e.l.l is going on?"
Phoebe went to his side, clutching his arm but staying partially behind his broad back. "How did you find me?"
He rooted in his jean pocket and pulled out a silver clip she"d had to keep her hair up under her mask. It shined in the eerie light of the lab. "It must have fallen out when you were teleporting. It was by a door that led to an elevator I"ve never encountered before. So I took the elevator and pressed the only b.u.t.ton it had. That brought me here."
Nina burst through the door to come up short behind them, skidding to a halt. "Who flattened the security guard?" she asked.
"Sam did," Phoebe couldn"t help but gush. "It was like something out of a movie. He went all Bruce Lee on the guy. How did you learn to do that?"
He flapped a dismissive hand. "Took some karate lessons a long time ago. Plus, I am a vampire, right? All big and strong. It wasn"t hard. We have other things to worry about right now."
"Holy f.u.c.k," Nina muttered. "Leave it to you to find something like this, princess."
Sam was the first to lean against the gurney.
The gurney with the dead body on it.
Covered in a sheet with nothing but the toes sticking out at the end of the bed, the outline it made was small, and probably female, if the red-painted toenails were any indication.
"Again, I ask, what the h.e.l.l is going on? We make pest control, for Christ"s sake." He peered under the bed and Phoebe followed his eyes as he scanned the countertops.
"What are we looking for?"
Sam shrugged. "Something-anything. Paperwork, maybe? I don"t know. There"s no computer anywhere-so clearly, they"ve just stowed the body here. Seems to me if they"re really performing tests on human subjects, they"d have lab results, right? We need to see them. Maybe I can decipher what they"re giving them."
As the horror of what she was seeing began to seep in, Phoebe found she had to will herself not to crumble.
Nina nudged her hard. "Hang tight, gra.s.shopper. The last thing we need is for you to pa.s.s out."
Phoebe instantly straightened. As though on autopilot, she moved from behind Sam and went to the side of the gurney to begin searching the few cabinets on the wall as Nina began to sift through the paperwork on the various work surfaces.
Sam was the first to say what Phoebe was dreading. "We need to know who this is."
Each of the women stopped cold in their tracks when Sam"s fingers went to the sheet that covered the body. Phoebe closed her eyes, then forced them open. She would not hide from this. No. This was a head-on kind of thing. No matter what, she was going to be conscious when and if they found out what had made them different than all the other vampires. If the answer lay in a dead body and O-Tech shenanigans, then so be it.
Sam"s long fingers, pale and strong, pulled the sheet back, folding it to the body"s waist. Nina leaned in, sniffing her for the scent of what they most feared. She nodded soberly with a curt bow of her head. "Yep. She"s vampire. d.a.m.n it," she spat. Straightening, she stepped away from the gurney, pinching the bridge of her nose.
And that left Phoebe not so sure she was as all about the brave like she had been just seconds ago. She stumbled backward, knocking over a silver tray of gadgets, yet she couldn"t tear her eyes away.
Sam was instantly at her side, gripping her at the waist. "Phoebe? What"s wrong?"
Oh, G.o.d.
OhmyG.o.d.
Nina grabbed her hand and squeezed it, giving her a good shake. "Phoebe, what the h.e.l.l?"
Fear held her tongue. Terror rose and fell in waves of p.r.i.c.kly heat along her spine.
Sam stood in front of her, blocking her view of the body. He cupped her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his. "Phoebe, talk to me, sweetheart."
She shuddered, over and over, a violent chill wracking her flesh. "I ... Oh, G.o.d. I know her ..."
Sam"s voice rose enough for Phoebe, even in her horror, to realize it was urgent she answer them. "How do you know her, Phoebe? Who is she?"
Phoebe shook her head in denial, her eyes darting from Sam to Nina in frantic horror. G.o.d, no. They were testing humans. She knew that now as sure as she knew a fake pair of Manolo Blahniks. "She goes to the same doctor I do," she choked out.
Nina"s face held instant concern, her eyes becoming hawkish, piercing hers. She pushed Phoebe"s mussed hair from her eyes with gentle fingers. Fingers so tender, Phoebe had to stave off a dry sob. "What kind of a doctor, Phoebe?"
She winced, her hands trembling with violent, jerky twitches. "A neurologist."
Sam"s eyes narrowed, his grip on her growing tighter. "For?"
She slammed her eyes shut, wanting more than anything to be able to do something as simple as gulp and avoid the pity she knew would follow once her secret was out. There was no hiding from this because it could help them discover the answer to what was happening to she and Sam. And even if it couldn"t save herself-it might save Sam.
Phoebe opened her eyes and forced herself to look Nina and Sam in the eye. Her chin lifted, her words were steady. "Early-onset Alzheimer"s."
WANDA brought Sam a bag of blood, placing it between his two hands and cupping them with hers. She squeezed his fingers and smiled the Wanda-was-born-to-nurture smile. "You okay?"
Sam"s mouth tightened into a firm line. "I don"t know what to say here, Wanda. Why didn"t she tell us?" d.a.m.n. His gut burned, and whether it was the phantom pain of his long-gone humanness or not, he didn"t know. He only knew it ached.
Wanda slid onto his couch, smoothing out her skirt to her knees. "I imagine because she didn"t want anyone to know, especially Nina. But I"d bet that"s why she looked for our vampire to begin with. Because she wanted to know her before she couldn"t remember her," she said, her voice hitching to his sensitive ear.
If he still had a heart, he knew it would clench in sympathy. In dread. In sadness. f.u.c.k. Where was compartmentalization when you needed it?
You"re too involved, Sam. This isn"t one of those cases where the end justifies the means. You don"t just think she"s beautiful in an aesthetic and you-won"t-remember-her-the-moment-the-job-ends way. You think she"s beautiful-beautiful. The kind of beautiful that brings with it emotions like sorrow, pity. This isn"t Sam just sympathizing with someone who"s been dealt a harsh hand. You got a whole other ball of wax up in here.
"She"s so d.a.m.n young, Wanda." He attempted to force the words out in a purely I"m-sorry-another-human-being-is-terminal kind of way. The b.i.t.c.h of it was, they didn"t come out that way.
Wanda nodded, her sleek ponytail rubbing against the back of the couch. "She is indeed. Thirty-three, I think Mark said."
His disbelief had floored him back at O-Tech, and he"d lost his professional composure, making him surer than ever he liked Phoebe a great deal more than he should.
That they"d made it out of O-Tech without being seen after finding what they"d found, hearing what they"d heard, would always be a miracle as far as he was concerned. Every last lesson he"d been taught since he"d joined the agency had flown out the window with Phoebe"s news.
The dead body he could handle. He"d handled plenty in his time.
The idea that Phoebe could have been mixed up in this before she"d been turned or that her body could have been the one on that gurney? Not so much. "What are the chances? I mean, really. Thirty-three?"
"It"s very, very rare, I hear," Wanda replied, her tone somber.
"But there is good news, Master Samuel," Archibald offered, breezing into his living room with a frosty mug. He took the packet of blood from Sam and poured it into the gla.s.s.
"And what"s good about any of this?" Sam asked, misery lumping in his chest.
Archibald pulled a towel from his shoulder and wiped his hands on it, his eyes wrinkled upward into a warm smile. "Miss Wanda hasn"t shared with you the miracle of vampiric intervention?"
Sam"s head c.o.c.ked in Wanda"s direction and she smiled, giving him a pat on the arm. "Phoebe doesn"t have Alzheimer"s anymore, Sam. Just like her heart isn"t a living organ, essentially, neither is her brain. The disease that was damaging it no longer exists. I know, it makes no sense that you can be walking and talking without critical organs, but there it is."
And like a house had been lifted from his shoulders, instant relief flooded Sam. The science of it was extraordinary. The unbelievable miracle of it-better still. "Does Phoebe know yet?"
Wanda winked. "That"s what Nina"s in there telling her as we speak. Any second now, you"ll hear the word f.u.c.ktard, possibly followed by the harmonious strains of breaking gla.s.s. But fear not. I"ll intervene if need be, and of course, Nina will pay for whatever she breaks over Phoebe"s head. It might not be a bad thing to let the two of them duke it out so we can eliminate all the tension between them."
Sam let his head drop to his chest in grat.i.tude to a universe that had, in some bizarre twist of fate, managed to save Phoebe. He tugged at his turtleneck, a renewed disbelief mingled with confusion making his head spin. He had several degrees and a postgraduate, yet still, he couldn"t wrap his brain around the science of this. "This-all of this makes absolutely no sense."
"Hah!" Archibald shouted, swatting Sam playfully with his kitchen towel. "What does, sir? Has anything that"s happened to you since your turn made sense?"
"True dat, Archibald. True dat." He paused for a moment, steepling his hands under his chin. "But here"s a thought. We"re not like the other vampires. What if this anti-aging cure all your ills doesn"t apply to me and Phoebe because we"re a different kind of vampire?"
"You may have different abilities, yes, and that could well be because of whatever"s going on at O-Tech, but you"re not breathing, are you? And yet still you walk among us," Wanda reminded him.
He smiled in irony. "Point."
Archibald crossed his arms over his chest. "Thus far, I"ve gathered this much. You found a dead female vampire, but no information on her other than what our Phoebe knows. There was no way for you to search the facility further due to the awakened security guard, whom Nina wiped clean of all memory, leaving us with no one to question. What I wonder is, why didn"t she suffer the heinous death your mystery woman did?"
Yeah. He wondered that, too, as he sipped his evening feeding. "The only thing I can gather is maybe she managed to survive longer during the testing. Maybe she was a stronger candidate? She certainly didn"t die by way of what you claim is a typical vampire kill. No wooden stakes through the heart-her head was still intact. If I could have just poked around more-maybe grabbed some of those vials in the room ..."
"So thoughts on where we go from here, sir?" Archibald asked, handing him a c.o.c.ktail napkin and pointing to the side of Sam"s mouth, encouraging him to wipe it.
Sam couldn"t help but hide his grin behind the swipe of the paper napkin. "Why do I get the impression you"re really enjoying this, Archibald?"
Archibald gave him a sly smile with the rise of one bushy eyebrow. He clapped his hands together. "Because I am, Master Samuel! In my humble opinion, there"s nothing quite like a good episode of Murder, She Wrote, and while I certainly understand to compare your situation with a one-hour drama is absurd, and quite possibly appears insensitive, I mean no disrespect. However, I will admit, I can"t help but wait with bated breath for our next move."
Sam got it. Everyone was an armchair sleuth until they actually had to live it. "Well, I guess now we just have to get to that doctor and find out who that patient was and how she got to O-Tech. Phoebe didn"t know her by name. She only recognized her from the office waiting room."
Wanda winced, rubbing her arms with her hands. "You took a picture of her with your phone to show them?"
The high he"d experienced a moment ago evaporated. "I did." And if he were smart, he"d send one to the agency, too. But he hadn"t figured a way around keeping them from sending someone else in to help him. Someone who"d discover what had happened to him. Like maybe that p.r.i.c.k Lewis who was always up in his face. What they"d discovered tonight was big. Big, and ugly, and clearly financed by some madman.
O-Tech was headed for some serious fallout if they could prove pest-control manufacturing wasn"t the only thing going on there. People were dying. How he was going to blow that wide open and keep everyone safe became an insurmountable worry. Focus McLean. Focus on one piece of the puzzle at a time.
"And how do we get them to give us the information about this poor soul?"
"Leave that to me, Wanda," Sam rea.s.sured. He wasn"t quite ready to tell them that he had a badge gifting him with credentials that would have him in and out of that doctor"s office in no time flat.
Not just yet.
NINA had Phoebe cornered in Sam"s bedroom, her face a mask of cold anger. "Why the f.u.c.k didn"t you tell me?"
"Why the f.u.c.k would I?" Phoebe shot back. "Would you have whispered soothing words to me? Made me cookies and warm blood and tucked me in?"
Nina"s full lips sneered. "Because, moron, it"s important information. So why didn"t you tell me?"
Because she"d rather be dead? Oh, wait. She was. Okay, because she"d rather live an eternity not getting to know Nina than have her sister want to know her because she felt sorry for her. "Would it have changed how you felt about me telling you I was your sister, Nina? Would it have made you feel sorry enough for me to let me into your nonexistent heart?"
Nina jabbed her shoulder with a sharp finger. "I guess we"ll never know, will we? Know why? Because you didn"t tell me, dips.h.i.t."
Phoebe jabbed her back, squaring her shoulders to make herself appear taller. "You know, it wasn"t like I had a lot of time to do or say anything. One minute I was thinking we could have a cup of coffee and talk, and the next I was a.s.s end down on Sam"s fang. Since then, it"s been a hundred miles an hour at warp speed. There wasn"t really time for intimate chats by the fireplace and long walks on the beach."