Because when they did-she"d kill them all. She"d take every single a.s.shole out in order to keep Penny away from these monsters.
"DUDE!" Nina whispered hot and fierce against Sam"s ear. "What the f.u.c.k is wrong?"
Sam clasped his head, gritting his teeth-the buzzing had turned into a rapid-fire banging in his brain and a shooting pain attacking his chest almost disabled him. He couldn"t think clearly for the pandemonium erupting in his body. "It"s fine. Just listen," he ordered, grinding out the words. "Phoebe"s in there. I hear Phoebe." If he had anything left in him when this was over, he was going to kill this woman who"d so captivated his heart.
Darnell nodded with a vigorous bounce of his head, his eyes screaming his worry, his voice low and chilling. "Yeah. Tha.s.s her a"ight. She talkin" to somebody. We need to get to gettin" here. Now!"
Nina"s eyes burned with anger when she c.o.c.ked her head to listen, too. Her fists wadded in clear fury. "I"m going to eat Bad Listening Skills Barbie for lunch, G.o.dd.a.m.n it!"
Sam ignored everything but getting to Phoebe. "We need to move!"
But as with all good plans-and in Sam"s vast experience, sometimes a covert op was a lot like those horror movies you watched and the soap operas Phoebe had compared their situation to-you really did need someone to be your audience so they could scream, "Look behind you, you dumba.s.s!" Especially when you did something stupid like forget to cover your back. You"re really slipping, Sammy ...
In flashes of white coats, muddy work boots, and the craziest most convoluted gun Sam had ever seen, they were caught and a warning was sounded.
"I wouldn"t move, if I were you. I know what you all are, and with one spray of these guns, you"ll be extinguished," a voice taunted from behind, gleeful and filled with hatred.
Someone slammed into each of them, dropping them to their knees with the sharp crack of bones when they hit the cement floor. Sam instantly clasped his hands behind his head, encouraging Nina and Darnell to follow suit with his urgent eyes.
His first concern was Nina and her mouth. He shot her a warning glance, and she flashed her murderous eyes at him but said nothing.
Large, callused hands grabbed at them, yanking them upward and forcing them to move toward the very room they"d planned to storm. Those bizarre guns pressed to their backs, the wide nozzle ends jammed close against each of them.
Darnell stumbled on the strings of his high-top shoelaces as he walked, his eyes vivid and hot with an emotion that was a stark contrast to the twinkle usually written in them.
Nina"s jaw was tight-flexing and grinding as she so obviously fought the urge to control her rage. Sam couldn"t help thinking how proud Wanda would be that Nina was showing such unbelievable restraint. Her anger was so thick, it seeped out into the air-it was palpable-nearly visible and wildly chaotic. And still, she remained silent.
In the name of Penny ...
They were launched into the room with the double doors, skidding and sliding until they stopped short of the far wall.
Nina"s nostrils flared, her eyes meeting Sam"s as she directed him to the closet.
f.u.c.k. Phoebe was in the closet. He could smell her perfume-the same pear-scented perfume he"d reveled in when they"d made love. If she could just stay put.
"Turn "round!" someone gruff with poor diction roared.
As each of them turned to face their attackers, Nina was the first to react. In words. Those words that could cut you to the quick or simply cut out all the bulls.h.i.t. "You? It"s you?" She threw her head back and laughed, her mouth wide-the cackle was meant to mock, to debase. When her head lifted, her eyes gleamed just the right kind of crazy. "Oh, you motherf.u.c.king, spineless, a.s.s-licking freak. You"d better hope whatever you got in that gun works, panty wipe. "Cause if I get my hands on you, I"ll rip your limbs off, and while I do? I"ll pick my f.u.c.king teeth with your skinny-a.s.sed bones!" she screamed, straining against the hands Sam and Darnell had each placed on her arms.
The man who Nina had verbally a.s.saulted swung the freakish gun Phoebe"d described wide and cracked Nina under the jaw with it.
Darnell growled, but he held his tongue while Sam"s blurry eyes a.s.sessed. Two thugs plus the blond man. Clearly the brains of the outfit. Three guns total. Three guns with foreign ammunition he had no idea how to stop.
The gun pointed at them, glaring and white. "Oh, Nina," the doctor Phoebe had depicted so vividly admonished. "Still so cla.s.sy. Tell me. Have you given up on the word f.u.c.ktard and graduated to the big-girl name-calling?" He flapped a hand at her and smiled-charming, cold. "But that"s neither here nor there, now is it? In fact, I encourage you to lob any and all protests. It makes for a much more invigorating kill."
Nina growled, making Sam latch on to her arm while a bone-jarring pain ripped through his arm and headed straight for his temples. He fought a grunt-fought it like if it were ripped from his throat, he"d explode into a million pieces. And still, the question remained. Who was this man? How did Nina know him?
The placid face of the blond doctor made Sam take great pause. This was the face of a madman. His expression was devoid of anything-even the joy he claimed he would take in killing them.
He was the worst kind of sociopath, if Sam was reading him correctly. If the cla.s.ses at the agency he"d taken were proof, there"d be no reasoning-no deal making, no distracting.
The only hope they had left was the element of surprise from behind.
f.u.c.ked would probably be the best adjective Sam could give this scenario.
They were f.u.c.ked. There was no one left-behind or otherwise.
IT wasn"t just fear that tore at Phoebe-it was a shredding, screaming pain, crawling all over her body-upward until her scalp was on fire. Yet, she clung. Who was this man Nina clearly knew? How could she possibly keep them from pulling the triggers of those guns she knew they had trained on them. On Sam.
Her hands blindly grabbed at the interior walls of the closet; her fist went to her mouth to keep the howling scream from pushing its way out of her throat at bay.
Realization crashed around her. This was it. What was happening to her right now was what had happened to Meredith and Alice and Raymond Schaeffer.
But it was going to happen before she got Penny to safety.
No. No. It would not. By all that was holy, she would stop this. Think, Phoebe-think. Surely there"s a soap opera scenario you can call on.
Think, d.a.m.n you. What would the great Leticia Halloway from Eagle"s Crest do?
"SO I guess you want to know who I am and what I"ve been up to?" the blond man asked. "I"d only consider that a fair request. After all, I will be the one to help you meet and greet with your maker. Clearly, you should have a name to grudge on. Nina and I know each other, er, socially," he said with clear disdain. "But we"ll get to that later. So for now, shut up. Got that?" He winked at her.
Nina grunted, but Darnell held her fast, pulling her to his padded side.
Nina knew him? All this time and it was someone the women of OOPS knew?
He ran the tip of his finger along the top of the gun with a sensuous pa.s.s, like it was his lover. "First, the why, and I"ll be brief. Not long ago, maybe four years or so, my world fell apart. I blame one person, and one person alone. That person will, along with all of you, die a heinous death. Much like the ones I"ve already doled out to that CIA agent Meredith, who was foolish enough to think she could stop me and save my test subjects."
He spread his arms wide, the crinkle of his lab coat shredding Sam"s eardrums. "This is Project Eternal. A project that was four years in the making. Four years of hatred for one woman who took everything from me. Now, some would call me diabolical or crazy-whichever adjective most makes you comfortable. I just call me awesome sauce. But I can"t take all the credit. I didn"t do this alone. I had help from someone who almost hates this person as much as I do. Almost. Though, she only lost some silly man over what happened. But a grudge is a grudge-no matter the source. Some of us seek retribution out of scorn-and others, others like me? They seek it out of revenge."
Sam knew better-he knew not to react-but again, it was that d.a.m.n woman in the closet who kept him from keeping his highly trained mouth shut. "I know the drama of this is what you"ve been living for-but could we get to the point? I have a h.e.l.luva headache. And, yeah, yeah. You"re the genius responsible for that. I"d tip my hat to you, but I think my arm might fall off if I lift it."
The blond man smiled. "I like you, Sam the Cowboy, is it? That"s how Phoebe has you listed on her phone. Very manly hat, by the way. Tell me, Sam, how did this happen to you? I"m all sorts of intrigued." He swept a hand up and down Sam"s length. "And don"t bother to deny you"re one of my maniacal creations. I can smell it."
Smell it ... no. Sweet Jesus, no. Sam warred with his disgust when he gave a subtle flare of his nostrils. "A woman-beautiful, so beautiful. She bit me at a Halloween party."
"Gorgeous dark hair and the most vivid eyes anyone"s ever seen?"
Sam nodded, short and quick, because when he moved his head, it felt like it would explode. "That was her."
"I can see how her beauty would have captivated you. That was Meredith the CIA agent."
"Wow. CIA agents come hotter than Hades these days, huh?" Sam joked.
His face went on instant alert. He flashed the gun at them. "Smokin" hot," he agreed with a cold chuckle. "At least that"s what her handler thought."
Sam forced his face, a face that was bleeding fire by now, to go blank. "Her what?"
He nodded his perfectly coifed head. "So, she bit you? How brilliant. That had to have been the rabid stage of the serum. It happens fast, as you"ll soon see. She was really quite something, this Meredith. A neurologist-brilliant. In fact, she contacted me. She really had me believing she was just a poor little rich doctor who traveled in elite circles unavailable to most-which was how she claimed to know of my inquiries. The tales she told about hanging on to all that beauty were quite impa.s.sioned. d.a.m.ned determined to bring us down, and she came close. I can"t tell you the luck I"ve had-it"s like the fates are on my side. I happened to catch her here one night, quite by chance, and from behind. As you"re aware, that"s always the best way to sneak up on would-be a.s.sailants. Anyway, I double-dosed her. You know, to be sure her demise would be quicker than the average life span of a test subject. Then I took her phone, and her handler and I, one I"m almost sure she was in love with, have been sharing the most delightful texts back and forth. Her demise came much more quickly than the last two subjects. On the off chance you were wondering why you haven"t met your fate yet."
Sam gritted his teeth. d.a.m.n. At this point, he"d have even settled for some CIA love showing up-clearly, that wasn"t going to happen now.
Moving closer to Sam, he asked, "I know from Phoebe"s phone contacts that she"s Nina"s sister-one I presume Nina didn"t know about. Or if she did, she certainly didn"t share the information with anyone. But how did you and Phoebe find each other, Sam? How did she end up just like you, Nina? I know the connection lies with the lovely Phoebe-who looks just like the beautiful but foulmouthed Nina, but I don"t understand the connection? Expound. Please."
"For the love of f.u.c.king Christ. You, too? I do not look like her, freak," Nina seethed.
Sam jumped in-desperately trying to get a handle on the shooting pain invading his body in ugly waves and keep Nina from inciting their captor. "I turned her."
He looked aghast, his blue eyes dancing. "Purposely? Surely your aggression couldn"t have begun so quickly? It usually doesn"t happen until just prior to death. Have you been having fits of aggression, Sam? Could this be a new strain?" For a moment, the cool facade faded, as though he were worried every precaution hadn"t been taken before he utilized his madness.
Sam didn"t want to rea.s.sure him everything was going to be just fine, but if he kept him talking ... "It was an accident. Your evil genius remains firmly intact."
His face couldn"t hide his overwhelming relief. "Good to know. And shall we talk about irony? How circle of life is it that Phoebe happened to be a candidate for my Alzheimer"s trial and she ended up being involved with all of you, Nina? It"s like the G.o.ds handed me all of you in one fell swoop!"
Darnell finally spoke, and when he did, it rasped from between his lips like it was torn from them. "G.o.d"s gonna hand you somethin", brotha, and it ain"t gonna be a key to heaven"s gate."
The man"s head whipped around, staring up at Darnell, he eyed him closely, pressing his gun to his chest. "What are you, anyway? I can"t pinpoint it."
Darnell"s eyebrow rose when he stooped to the man"s height. "Yo worst nightmare, little man. Yo worst evah."
He scoffed at Darnell. "I think my nightmare beats your nightmare," he said on a chuckle. "Anyway, the point, right? We need to have one so you can all have whatever therapists call it."
"Closure," Sam fairly spat, his eyes drifting above the man"s head to the door that had opened but an inch.
Phoebe ... He sent her a harsh signal with his eyes. However, Phoebe being Phoebe, she ignored it as her fingers clung to the edge of the door. Fingers that, if he was seeing correctly past the knife in his head, had tips that were turning gray.
"Yes! That"s the word. Closure. So here"s the short of it. After my world fell apart due to this woman, I decided if I couldn"t beat them, I"d join them. So I learned a great deal about the paranormal. I studied. I watched. I played nice with everyone. So nice, I think I earned my place in the dictionary right under the word. While I studied, I learned of a folktale. One even the paranormal world thought was an urban legend. A formula to create vampires written by some pathetic scientist who sought to find a way to bring his wife back from the dead."
This was similar to the story Archibald and Dmitri had relayed. It was true. Jesus.
"What people didn"t know was this formula wasn"t just some legend, it was real. Imagine my joy. Through my various filthy-rich connections, I managed to locate it. I didn"t do it without help, but I found it. In, of all places, an antique store. The word was, this formula was in a false bottom of the scientist"s wife"s jewelry box. One he"d given her just before she died of some disease that no longer exists. Lo and behold, it took a couple of years, but I bought it for a song while I laughed in the faces of those who mocked my sheer determination."
Nina shifted on her feet, prompting the two goons to raise their guns. "Seriously, dude. All this drama just to what? Make f.u.c.king vampires? You could have just come to me, s.h.i.t ball. I"d have bitten your chicken neck for free, freak."
He took the barrel of the large gun and lifted Nina"s chin with it, making her fangs flash. "Now you know that would never do, Nina. You, in all your angry rage, would have drained me. And everyone else in your strange little community? They shun me because of what that b.i.t.c.h did to me. I"m always the last one chosen for paranormal dodgeball. It hurts, you know. And why would I turn to one of you? You and all of your *We Are the World"alike clan rules. I don"t want to have to follow your strict guidelines for the undead or pack laws or whatever else you"ve all concocted, so I"m forced to blend with society. I"ve never been very good at blending. I stink at hand-holding and songs like *k.u.mbaya." I want to create my own society. Now you know what that means, don"t you?" He paused dramatically, waiting.
"I know! I know!" Sam chanted, unable to stop the flow of words shooting from his mouth. It helped keep the searing agony from eating him alive while he kept an eye on that door Phoebe kept opening in painfully slow increments. "You"re going to wipe out the vampire population with your fancy spray guns, right? That means you"ve found a way to not only create vampires but kill them, too. In a way that"s sort of a ma.s.s killing instead of risking your neck trying to take them out one by one. d.a.m.n, buddy. That"s actually kind of cool. So much Fringe, it hurts." He tapped his chest with a finger that had turned a dark gray.
He c.o.c.ked his chin over his shoulder. His smile was c.o.c.k-tease-ish. "Sam-you"re brilliant. Really. I"ve found a way to not just eliminate vampires, but the paranormal world at large. If I wanted to eliminate only vampires, I"d just spray holy water, silly. No, Sam, the woman who did this to me isn"t a vampire at all."
The woman who"d done this to him ... Who was this woman if it wasn"t Nina?
"Anyway, I"m so glad you came to me and I didn"t have to come get you. That was next on my plate, and it was a task I was dreading. But Phoebe"s phone gave me everything I needed to know, including her sweet sister Penny"s location. I guess if Phoebe"s your sister, Nina, then Penny"s yours, too. G.o.d. You"re all just like that b.i.t.c.h that forced my hand. Trailer park dwellers-the lot of them-even that Wanda who pretends to be cla.s.sy but is really just a wh.o.r.e. The world will be a better place without the likes of you."
Nina growled with a high-keening screech that left Sam"s brain on fire, making a lunge for him, but Darnell dragged her back, wrapping his wide hands around her waist while her feet dangled. "I swear to you, you f.u.c.k, if you hurt her, I"ll eat your b.a.l.l.s off all the way from the afterlife!" she howled, the pain of Penny"s captivity deeply ingrained on her face.
The man cracked Nina in the jaw with the gun again-hard, making her head crash back against the wall. "No. I rather think you won"t do that. You won"t have the chance. One drop of my version of Paranormal-Out, and you"re a goner, Nina. All of you are."
Talk, Sam. Talk. It doesn"t matter what you think you know about the complexities of a subject"s personality. It doesn"t matter what you think you"ve read just from observing them. Talk. All sociopaths love to have their work validated.
Validate-fast while Phoebe sneaks up behind them.
Leaning back against the wall, Sam fought the wild jolts of electricity pounding into him and asked, "So you didn"t just create a vampire. You created a super vampire. Stronger than the vampires already in existence, right? Again, I gotta give it to you. You"re pretty smart."
He nodded his blond head. "It was incredible, really. I"d never seen anything like it until I watched it actually happen. My creations are stronger, faster-"
"And they can walk through walls," Sam cut him off. "Ask me, I know. It"s like every fifth grader"s fantasy."
"You flatter me, Sam," he preened. "That was in the early stages of the project. Raymond could walk through walls, and Alice, wow, Alice. If only she"d lived to reach her potential. Not only could she walk through walls, but she could teleport herself just like Phoebe. Fascinating."
Sam bit back a howl of pain, his neck muscles straining from the effort. "So why did you pick these people? Any special requirements? I mean-do they have some sort of rare gene. Are they all geniuses?" he inquired.
"Geniuses? Hah. No, Sam. Not one genius in the lot but Meredith, who as you know, was a plant. I picked them with one criteria in mind-no one would care if they were dead. No one important, anyway. Also, because I"m just that kind of guy, I chose test subjects who were doomed anyway. Destined to die of one thing or another. Phoebe was a ridiculous, impetuous mistake, and I told Philip that-you know, just the second before I killed him. We"d already taken one of his patients, Alice, as it was. Two missing from his office was just a little too coinkyd.i.n.k, don"t you agree?"
Sam nodded-each movement a special h.e.l.l. "He sure didn"t think that through, did he?"
"Ah, what can you do, though? Philip was overly excited and leaned toward impulsive to begin with. Yet, he was brilliant and he had scads of money. So I let it slide. There wasn"t anything I could do about something that was already done by the time I arrived here and found Phoebe. Anyway, I wanted semihealthy candidates. Though, I do admit to stooping to the scourge of society with him over there." He waved the ridiculous gun at the gurney in the corner. "He was homeless, and so irritating. He begged for money every day by the coffee shop I frequent. Everyone was always feeling sorry for him-he made more money than if he"d bothered to get a job, for heaven"s sake. Lazy! I can"t abide the lazy." It was the most animated Sam had seen him since he"d caught them all. The meaning behind that was simple-he was a sociopath who, rather than tolerate a pet peeve, would simply eliminate the pet peeve.
Keep him talking, Sammy. "So, I suppose you"ve perfected this thing so well, you can reverse the effects of the decomposition? Like an antidote or something? I"m just curious. You don"t have to tell me, if you don"t want to. But really, who am I going to tell? I watch a lot of TV. I mean, a lot. Love detective shows. Hope they have them wherever I"m going when you end my misery. All those detective shows always have one. Sort of a twelfth-hour save." Please, Jesus. Let there be an antidote.
"Oh, definitely," he said on an easy smile. "I definitely have an antidote. If Meredith hadn"t helped Raymond, our first test subject, escape, I would have injected him with it. Naturally, that would have been after we gathered the initial injection"s test results. He would have been eliminated, no doubt, but only after we"d perfected the serum. Alice was our second victim. She had the misfortune of turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time. She never made it past the first phase after the injection because Meredith went all CIA on us and tried to rescue her. She was rather caught in the cross fire and ended her journey much sooner than we"d planned. But this man over here in the corner. The one Phoebe witnessed-he was who we finally got it right with." Kissing the fingers of his hand, he cooed. "Perfection. We turned him and just as decomposition began, we brought him back. That"s when we knew we were good to go. It"s also when I took out everyone else involved with the project. No fuss. No muss."
Which explained why Alice"s body had been in an O-Tech lab ... "Well, I"ll die much happier knowing you"ll be right as rain. I mean, if things were to suddenly go all awry. Not that they would. You have us pretty well cornered. But just in case," Sam said on a smile that made his face feel like it would split apart.
The blond man"s eyebrow c.o.c.ked. He pursed his lips. "Is this the point in our story where you"ve given me a hint, and I should pay closer attention, but I"m so egomaniacally wrapped up in the retelling of my coup, I don"t catch on?"
"Oh, you bet your f.u.c.king life it is, Terrence Bradford Douglas-it-most-definitely-is, brother mine!" a female voice screamed from the doorway.
That"s when it hit Sam.
TBD.
The initials Meredith had put on that memo pad. Sam fought the war his skull and his brain were having to piece together memories of a conversation he"d had with Marty just after he"d been turned. She"d said that during the chaos of her turning werewolf, someone had kidnapped her and tried to kill her. That someone had been her half brother. A half brother who wanted her dead because she was part heir to Bobby-Sue Cosmetics.
Marty was the woman in this maniac"s equation?
CHAPTER 19.
Marty screamed the words from the open doorway, leaping across the room in a flash of trendy boots and knit-sweater dress, landing on this Terrence"s back with a wild cry while Archibald pushed his way into the room in front of Wanda and Darnell. He began to scatter gunfire from, of all things, a machine gun, covering their paths. The two men dropped like flies, blood spattering in rich drops of crimson.
Marty clawed at Terrence, pulling his head back and driving her fist into his face. "You worthless piece of s.h.i.t. I"ll kill you!" she keened, her eyes wild with anger.
Once more, as in the movies, just when you thought it was safe-all h.e.l.l was destined to break loose, and it was always when you were at your absolute s.h.i.ttiest.