The sound of a car roused me from a light sleep. Mickey rolled away, muttering to herself, and I stood stiffly. Doors slammed, then all was quiet for a moment. I held my breath as I listened, then jerked when the door at the top of the stairs opened.
"Mickey," I whispered. She rolled onto her back and blinked blearily at me.
The footsteps on the stairs were uneven thumps, too loud for a vampire, and they were accompanied by an excited male voice. They rounded the corner, Emil and...Kevin. The tech from Goya. When the human stopped to look around, Emil grabbed him-or rather, the backpack he wore-and pulled him forward.
"I have to use the toilet," I announced as Emil unlocked the cage. His gaze was on Mickey, now struggling upright, the back of her wrist pressed against her forehead. She looked like she was going to be sick.
"Not right now." He pointed at her. "Come over here, fun girl."
She rose immediately, then almost fell when I grabbed her arm.
"Let her go," Emil ordered, influence forming a mist inside my mind, cold and sharp.
"He won"t hurt me," she murmured, smiling sleepily at me. "He"s nice. Everything I could have wanted."
"Mick, come on." With my eyes, I pleaded with her to wake up from the glamour.
Emil shoved Kevin into the cage and stalked up to me. He showed me his teeth and I stood my ground, but when his fingertips grazed my throat in a soft threat, I staggered back. His hand closed around Mickey"s nape. His eyes narrowed on the bandage on her neck as he led her out and locked us in.
My hands fisted uselessly at my sides, anger forming a frozen rock inside me as I watched them climb the stairs. I turned to Kevin, who looked rumpled-one side of his face was covered in sleep lines-but otherwise whole. Were they kidnapping the whole world?
"How did they get you?" I asked.
"I d-d-don"t... The n-normal way, I guess. Holy s.h.i.t." His eyes bugged behind his gla.s.ses and his face was flushed. "That"s hot. Have you been here since yesterday?"
"Yeah. What do you have in your bag?" A gun with hollow-tip bullets would be nice. A lock-picking set would also be nice. Not that I knew anything about lock picking, but I"d sure as h.e.l.l try to learn on the job.
He swung it off his shoulder. I knelt next to him, one eye on the stairs as he unzipped the backpack and extracted a hard plastic case. A phone fell out next to it and I s.n.a.t.c.hed it up.
"Dead," he said absently, setting the case on the other side of him.
"d.a.m.n." Their energy had fried it. Of course it couldn"t be that easy. "Got anything else?"
He pulled out a box of non-latex gloves.
"What the h.e.l.l is that for?"
"I didn"t have time to just get a few."
That made no sense. I looked at him, really looked. He wasn"t bitten anywhere that I could see. He didn"t seem enthralled, but he also didn"t appear scared. He looked excited. We"d been locked the f.u.c.k up in a bas.e.m.e.nt by vampires. Excitement wasn"t appropriate.
"What else do you have going on in your life that this isn"t scaring the s.h.i.t out of you?" I demanded. He snorted, then sobered. His gaze wandered, taking in my scabbed forehead and smudged makeup. It landed on my arm, dark with dried blood. His eyes widened.
"You didn"t v-v-volunteer, did you?"
My brain short-circuited. I stood up and he rocked back.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I mean..." His head swiveled twice and he gripped his knees. "I mean f-f.u.c.king volunteering. For the e-e-experiments."
I kicked him. He scrambled back with a high-pitched shriek. I kicked him again and he popped to his feet with a yell. Grabbing his hair, I pulled his head back, and punched him. It wasn"t a glancing blow and it but it still jolted me clear down my spine. He flailed with arms and legs, rattling the cage.
"You stupid son of a b.i.t.c.h! You f.u.c.king work for them?"
The door wrenched open and Sophie grabbed me, nearly tearing my arms from the sockets when she pulled them back.
"You, be still. You"-she nodded toward Kevin as he danced around, his hands pressed to his mouth to m.u.f.fle a high-pitched wail-"finish what you"re supposed to do and get out of here."
Sophie pulled until I dropped hard to my knees. Extensions tore out of my hair. She was only a little bigger than me, but her strength felt ma.s.sive and effortless. Kevin fumbled the box, finally tearing it so that gloves flew everywhere. He pulled on a pair, snapping them over his palms, then opened his case. It was full of needles and vials.
"Kevin, you are a grade-A piece of s.h.i.t."
"Be nice," he said, still breathing hard. "I"m good at this, but I c-could make it hurt if I wanted to." He glanced up, a thin smile hardening his features. I lifted my chin and glared at him. I wasn"t about to apologize or ask him to be nice. In fact, if I got my hands free, I"d close them around his dumba.s.s neck. His smile disappeared.
"I need one of those arms," he muttered. The sucker"s hold on me shifted, then she pulled my right arm away from my body. Kevin tied a rubber tube around my biceps and probed my veins. A lab tech who spent his day watching stains dry shouldn"t be so good at this.
"So it"s not Bill that"s doing the Radia," I said. "It"s you?"
"Bill? Pssh. He doesn"t have the b.a.l.l.s to do what I do. Or the brains." Too proud not to talk about it. "I had a bunch of samples and gave them out at the club one night. My..." He glanced up at the sucker, who was still as stone behind me. "My dance partner got real calm after using it. I made a few enhancements, and voil."
He stuck me with the needle, and I turned away at the unwelcome reminder of fangs piercing my skin. Sophie shifted a fraction, her energy skittering over me. f.u.c.k it. If she wanted to be this close, I"d use it. I drew on her, hard, and shivered when cold power pooled inside of me.
"Hold still." Kevin released the tube. "Side effects are common. You see those ads on TV for eye medicine that"ll make it so you can"t p.i.s.s and stuff? This is like that, but where Radia"s pretty inert in terms of side effects with humans..." He jerked, his head looping around to the left. I clamped my teeth together when the needle squirmed under my skin. "Sorry. It doesn"t do anything to humans. Maybe two percent get a rash, that"s it. But it sure as h.e.l.l works on vampires." He snapped off one vial and jammed on another.
"What are you using this for?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Someone woke me up and said to take blood, so I"m taking blood."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"Look for odd properties. This one chick, her blood made all the suck...the vampires break out in boils or some s.h.i.t."
"What happened to the chick after that?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then his gaze flicked up before dropping again. "Look, I didn"t know it was you when they came for me, okay?" He shook his head, his voice heating even though I wasn"t arguing. "It"s only a little blood. You"ll make more, and these guys are pretty cool."
Pretty cool? I wanted to punch him all over again. The sucker"s arms tightened around me.
"Do you know what it does?" I asked, gritting my teeth when Kevin did that looping tic again. "Radia? After a vampire takes it for a while?"
"I don"t care." He pulled the needle free and wadded a piece of tissue against my arm. "I sell it. They buy it. I don"t have a doctorate in anything. Never been all that good at school-s.h.i.t, that"s hot-to tell the truth. But vampires are people, too. They want drugs just like anyone else, and not that suppressive s.h.i.t the government offers them."
"Radia kills them." I grimaced. I felt full, like I"d been eating rocks. Or maybe it was the way the vampire was holding me, like an overly ambitious boa constrictor. "But not before they kill a lot of people. A lot of humans. Do you understand?"
He blinked then shook his head, his face reddening. "It"s not that strong...and it"s not like I invented the stuff." As if he had no responsibility.
"You"re a piece of s.h.i.t, Kevin."
"You keep saying that." He shoved the case into his bag as he stood up. "But you"re the one in the cage and I"m free. So who"s got the higher value?"
He headed for the stairs, and I got to sample the taste of cement when Sophie shoved me down. She held me against the floor until he was upstairs. I pushed up to my knees when she stood to lock the cage.
"What you said about Radia," she asked, hovering outside the door, not looking at me, "is it true?"
I considered ignoring her, but she didn"t merely sound curious. She sounded interested.
"It"s true that it subdues the hunger at first. But then you need more for the same effect and, eventually, the hunger becomes stronger than the suppressant. At that point, you"re f.u.c.ked. Either it kills you or someone puts you down."
She didn"t move, her gaze turned inward.
"You"ve taken it, haven"t you?"
Her eyes flashed, an apple-green glow in the murky light. Then she was gone. I did not like that development. There weren"t many vampires in Arizona and, while Chev wouldn"t allow the stuff at Tenth World, it took only one or two to cause significant damage.
I flexed my arm, feeling the bruises where the vampiress had gripped me and the thin ache where the needle had gone in. I was starting to feel a little thin all over. I tried to cheer myself up with fantasies of exacting revenge on Kevin. Wait until I introduced him to Bronson. Odds were the master vampire wouldn"t think he was a cool guy.
Chapter Thirteen.
Emil dragged me out of the cage a little while later. I didn"t fight. For one, my full bladder was making the drain in the cement look reasonable. And, two, I wanted a look at the rest of the house.
The first floor was empty, the windows covered on the inside with waxy brown paper glowing from the sun beating against the outside. We stuck to the inside walls, stepping over a pile of paint cans stacked beside the foot of the stairs. The feel of vampire was stronger on the second floor, but they must have been resting or shut up in rooms, as far from the muted light as possible. Abel was there, behind one of the closed white doors lining a long hallway.
I wondered how his encounter with Malcolm had gone, if Mal had gone all alpha vampire on him. Probably it had been the opposite. Toned down, friendly, half smiling in that way that made people melt from a mile away. He would have played low key, trying to disarm while Abel would have been stiff and smug as all h.e.l.l over the secret he had locked in the bas.e.m.e.nt. My chest tightened around a riot of feelings.
Artificial light shone from the bedroom at the end of the hall. Emil pushed me through the door and Mickey turned from where she was admiring herself in the mirror. She wore a short red dress with black straps. She was so small, hipless, and thin-limbed that she could have been a child. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, showing off her rosy cheeks and gla.s.sy eyes. A purple bruise leaked from the edges of the crisp new bandage around her neck.
"What do you think?" she asked, spinning toward me. My throat closed when I tried to respond, but I managed a weak smile. She turned back to the mirror. "My mother says that people take you more seriously if you wear dark colors. But this feels so nice." She ran her hands down the fabric.
"You should wear bright things," Emil said from behind me. "They suit you, fun girl."
I edged into the room, a large bedroom with two large papered-over windows and several chairs but no bed. The walk-in closet was open and someone rustled around in there. I kept my back to the wall and my eyes on Emil as he watched Mickey.
A woman walked out of the closet-a human-with a blonde bob so shiny I had to squint. She was tall, tan, and bone-thin, wearing a pale pink halter top, slim black pants, and heels. She looked me over and wrinkled her narrow nose.
"This is what I"m supposed to help you with? She"s filthy."
"f.u.c.k you, too," I said, enunciating clearly.
"Be nice," Emil said. "Get cleaned up, then do what she says."
I ducked my head to hide the anger I could do nothing about. If he thought he"d influenced me, he"d drop his guard.
"Let"s get you cleaned up so that Amy can help you out," Mickey said, escorting me to the bathroom. "She"s a designer, has her own label in LA. She"s Sophie"s friend." A dozen stumpy candles lit the room. The scent of artificial vanilla-over the smell of moldering towels, presumably coming from the pile in the corner-was nauseating.
"Mickey," I whispered after the door had closed, "do you think you can get outside? Go somewhere, maybe flag a car down and get a message back to Malcolm?"
"I"m not to go out." She sighed, leaning into the shower enclosure to turn the water on. "I miss the pool, but it"s better for us to stay inside. Amy brought some food when she came this morning. She says it is a cross between turkey and soybeans, but it looks like something a dog barfed onto a sidewalk." She turned around. "But I can get you some if you"re hungry."
"Why would I want something you described that way?" My eyes filled with tears even as I smiled. She sounded like herself. Herself, but not quite right. How long before they permanently changed her, or until her infatuation with Emil grew into her sole reason for living?
"You should clean up," she said.
Since it appeared we weren"t going to be disturbed, I used the toilet and washed my hands, scrubbing at the blackened beds of my nails with a washcloth. Strange how your own blood could stain you.
"Amy"s here to get us ready," Mickey said, "and she is worse than you with patience."
"Ready for what?"
"You should see the gowns she brought." She brushed her hair, oblivious to the mark on her neck. "This is nothing. The others are fit for the red carpet, very haute couture. You"re going to look beautiful."
Her face darkened. I touched her shoulder.
"Are you okay?"
"You can"t..." Her expression screwed up her face, drawing lines around her mouth and pinching her lips. "I don"t want Emil to see you in those dresses."
"Good, because I don"t want to wear that b.i.t.c.h"s pretty dresses."
"I don"t want him to see you in them," she hissed. She was shaking, the brush in her hand clattering against the tile countertop. The outburst was so unlike her that I had to work not to step back.
"Mickey, I won"t get between you and him." The lie oozed out of my mouth. I would love to get between them, preferably with a flamethrower. "I want you happy and healthy. You deserve to be happy. What is it that you and Thurston were so excited about while we were packing?"
"Las Vegas," she murmured, her eyebrows drawing together. "He wanted to see...water. The fountains there."
"The Bellagio. Remember, we"re going to go to Vegas. Get out of here, just the three of us. Go see the fountains. Go to Disneyland. Remember?"
She dropped the brush and a noise rose out of her throat, half growl, half sob. Her hands fell, knuckles. .h.i.tting the counter before hanging limp at her side. She didn"t seem to notice.
"Me siento enferma," she whispered. "I don"t feel good. I don"t feel good."
My stomach wrapped itself in knots. Outside, the Amy beast dragged a chair across the floor, cursing as she did so. I picked up the brush and stroked it gently through Mickey"s hair. I doubted we were putting on a fashion show. Concern with our appearances meant we were leaving, and leaving meant a different set of options.
We would get away. This time, these hours, would be like a bad weekend. We weren"t permanently injured. I already carried scars. Another few wouldn"t kill me. Mickey...Mickey would be able to deal. She was too bright for this to extinguish her.
"Honey, we need to-"
Her head jerked to the side and she swayed toward the door. "You have to hurry. Clean up, clean up." She pushed me toward the shower and scampered out of the room.
The room was filling with steam and my skin itched from the filth and the humidity. I wanted to burn my clothes, but I shook them out and folded them in case I needed to get back into them.