34
The Ingraham Institute
Amid the Gothic slopes and dramatic crenellations of the mansion’s roof, a helicopter pad had been set up in a flat section near the conservatory, windsocks catching the breeze, and that was where Jones set the Blackhawk down when they returned to the Institute. A containment team was waiting for them with a gurney and no doubt enough tranqs to lay out a rhino.
So far, Ruby Russell hadn’t stirred. Her hands lay on her chest, cuffed together with the heavy, silver-lined cuffs that had, miraculously, stymied the flow of her power. Or something. He had no idea how she did what she did. Talbot had promised the cuffs would have a “dampening effect,” and so far, she was still out cold.
Her hair, he noticed again, surprised as he’d been when he saw it first change, was red again, and not the dyed black of a day ago. He’d seen a lot of strange shit in his day, but nothing like magical, color-changing hair. It lay fanned out around her on the backboard they’d strapped her to, hanging off the edges, curled at the ends.
“Boss,” Ramirez said, and he tore his eyes from the motionless girl.
His second-in command held herself with careful stillness, braced against the jostling of the helo’s final descent and landing. Her knuckles stood out white and stark where she gripped her seatbelt. They’d used a belt as a tourniquet; had packed her wound with strips of a clean sock. The bleeding had slowed faster than it should have: the work of their daily injections. But pain was etched around her mouth, in the groove between her brows. Sweat gleamed on her forehead and throat.
“What’s the plan, here?” she asked.
“To get you in front of a doctor. Everything else can wait.”
The Blackhawk rocked to a final halt and the engines shut off with a slow whine. Someone rapped on the door and Jake heaved it open.
The containment crew, he noted, was comprised of medical staff and security personnel armed with guns and stun batons. They began the process of unstrapping the backboard and shifting Ruby Russell out onto the gurney they’d brought.
Jake couldn’t watch.
He turned his attention to Ramirez, watched her fumble her belt open with unsteady fingers. When he offered both arms to help her out of her seat, he was surprised that she leaned into him, hands going to his shoulders.
“Come on,” he said, maneuvering her toward the open door and then lifting her down to the tarmac. He realized, when he had her on her feet, that he was surprised by the trimness of her waist between his hands, the lightness of her frame. It was so easy to think of her as a soldier, but he tended to forget she was a woman.
She bobbled when she tried to put her weight on her bum leg, and clutched at his sleeves. “Fuck,” she hissed.
“It’s alright. Here.” He turned sideways and slid an arm around her waist, offering support. “Nice and slow.”
One of the medical techs turned back. “Does she need a–”
“I’ll manage,” Ramirez said through clenched teeth.
The man snapped back around like he’d been slapped.
“Guess you’re not dying if you can still send guys running for cover,” Jake tried to joke.
Ramirez leaned on him and didn’t respond.
The roof had been retrofitted for elevator access. The team had already put the gurney inside, and thankfully there wasn’t room for anyone else. “We’ll get the next one,” Jake said, and the doors slid shut.
Ramirez’s hand tightened on the back of his jacket as she rebalanced.
Jones drew up on his other side; a splash of blood that wasn’t his own marred the side of his neck. He wore the hollow-eyed, defeated look of a man who’d seen more than he’d ever hoped to – or even thought was possible.
Was it worth it? One girl at the expense of three men? Men who, while no friends of Jake’s, had already survived a war and been rehabbed with miracle medicine.
He didn’t know…but after watching her throw fire…he thought maybe she was. Painful as it was to admit to himself.
Wind gusted along the roof, funneled by some of the steeper eaves, tugging at their clothes. Jake tipped his head back and saw that clouds had built up along the horizon, doubling down on one another like kneaded dough, thick thunderheads veined with flickers of lightning. It would storm soon.
He opened his mouth to say as much, something stupid and obvious just to break the silence, but the elevator doors dinged open and they stepped inside.
Ramirez braced her free hand against the stainless-steel wall as the car shuddered and started its descent. Stared at her waxy reflection, and Jake willed the car to move faster.
But then they reached the basement, and the doors opened, and he wished they were still on the roof.
Jake had wanted to be a soldier since he was a four-year-old playing with little green army men. Had watched every documentary he could – at least up until his mother had shooed him from the TV, insisting he would have nightmares. He’d read Sun Tzu, and Nietzsche; Rommel and Patton. Read about Caesar, and Napoleon; and Ivan the Terrible…and the man who’d inspired him: Vlad Tepes.
Jake had been introduced to him right before they left for the mission. He still wasn’t over it.
Vlad stood with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, a human – or not human – wall blocking their path. His eyes fixed to Ramirez in a way that had her hand tightening on Jake’s jacket again. “She’s injured.”
“No shit,” Jones said with a snort. “That’s why we’re taking her to medical. If you’ll get out of the way.”
Vlad lingered a moment, making a point. Then stepped back just enough to let them pass and fell in behind them.
Goosebumps broke out down the back of Jake’s neck, and he fought the urge to shiver.
It was a long walk to the exam rooms, and thankfully a nurse hustled forward to meet them with a wheelchair. “Here, honey,” she said, motherly. “Hop in and we’ll get you to a trauma suite.”
Ramirez, white-lipped and sweating profusely now, finally gave up the stoic act and let Jake ease her down into the chair. She made a small, pained sound when her leg was jostled, and Jake felt something like a stirring of emotion.
A black-clad guard appeared. “Major Treadwell, Dr. Talbot would like to see you for your debriefing now.”
“I have an injured teammate.”
“It has to be now, he said.”
“I’ll accompany her,” Vlad said, and Jake thought his own bug-eyed look was only rivaled by Ramirez’s.
Jake glanced over at the…the prince. “You don’t need to do that.” I don’t want you to, you fucking creep.
Vlad gave him a level, impossible to read stare. “Still,” he said. “You can go.” And he turned to follow the wheelchair as the nurse pushed it toward the mouth of the exam room hallway.
Jake heaved a sigh and turned to Jones – who was already walking away, toward the locker rooms. “Alright,” he told the guard. “Let’s get this over with.”
He expected to find Dr. Talbot in his office, half-hidden behind his massive desk. Instead, the guard led him through the maze of taped-down power cables and work stations to a lab setup where a teenage boy in white pajamas sat on a steel table. His too-long white-blond hair fell in his eyes, and he held a bundle of cotton batting inside the crook of his elbow, stemming the bleeding from a needle prick. The pale, long-haired man Jake had glimpsed before, a straight-nosed, skinny sort in a red leather jacket who would have looked more at home backstage somewhere, stood behind the table, arms folded, watching Dr. Talbot with half-veiled contempt.
This place was crawling with weirdos.
Jake came to a halt and cleared his throat. “You want to see me, doctor?”
Dr. Talbot glanced up – he was sliding vials of blood into a centrifuge – and smiled when he saw Jake. “Welcome back, Major Treadwell.”
“Can we make this quick? I need to check on Ramirez.”
Dr. Talbot waved dismissively. “I’m sure Adela will be fine. I think I saw Vlad with her.”
That’s the problem, Jake thought, grinding his teeth.
“Just give me a moment here,” the doctor continued. “I told Agent West we would meet him in my office.”
Jake glanced over at the boy and found that he was being watched, ice-blue eyes peering out at him through a screen of pale hair. Nothing about the look was human.
The other one, Mr. Leather Jacket, studied him too, nostrils flared. He was the one who spoke: “You smell like fire.”
Jake thought of Ruby Russell wreathed in flame, wind bending the tree trunks. He didn’t answer.
The blond one growled, and it was nothing like the sort of growl a man might make in his throat.
Jake said, “What?” to keep from starting in shock.
Leather Jacket turned a hostile gaze toward Dr. Talbot’s back. “There’s a mage here.”
“Yes,” Talbot said, mildly, clicking down the lid of the centrifuge. “There is.”
Then both the weirdos growled.
“That’ll be all for today, Sasha,” Dr. Talbot said, a clear dismissal. He turned toward Major Treadwell. “Shall we?”
~*~
Adela Ramirez didn’t let fear rule her.
Or, at least, she never had before. Before the explosion that–
She cut the thoughts off cleanly before the memories could sprout like poisonous mushrooms, shading out reason. She didn’t let fear rule her: end of sentence.
But something a lot like fear pulsed through her now, in time with her sluggish heartbeat, as a nurse cut away the leg of her tac pants while Vlad watched from his position leaning against the wall.
On the surface, he wasn’t frightening. She’d spent her whole Army career around tall men with big biceps. He was physically imposing, sure, but that was nothing new. The long hair was strange, but not scary. It was something in his bearing that raised all the fine hairs on the back of her neck. An aura of authority that no unranked foreigner should have been able to project. He looked through people.
But he was looking at her now, and when she shivered, it was only in part because of the pain.
The nurse skated a gloved hand down Adela’s thigh alongside the knife wound, and even that much hurt terribly. She bit back a grunt; pinned the tip of her tongue between her teeth until she tasted blood.
“Hmm,” the nurse murmured. “Somebody got you good.” She leaned down to inspect it closer, and Adela found that she had to look away, her gorge rising when she saw the red and pink of skin layers in the clean slash where Palmer’s knife had bit deep. “The bleeding’s stopped, thank goodness. We’ll get you all patched up and put you on some antibiotics. How are you feeling?” She patted Adela’s hand. “Nausea? Headache? How’s your pain?”
She swallowed hard against another wave of sickness. “Bad. All of the above.”
“Okay. Hang tight.”
When the nurse moved over to the cabinet to get supplies, Vlad pushed off the wall and stepped toward her.
It took every last ounce of nerve not to shrink down into her jacket collar. “I don’t need a babysitter. I’m fine.”
His gaze flicked over her dispassionately, touching her wound, the bare skin of her leg, in a way that made her want to cover herself, then her face. His eyes – a dark, unspecific color she couldn’t name – settled on hers and he lifted his hand – his wrist – to his mouth. He bared his teeth – his canines were long, and sharp, abnormal – and bit himself.
“What the hell are you doing?” she snapped, and the nurse turned around, startled, arms full of supplies.
Thick red pearls of blood welled; a few lingered in the corners of his mouth when he drew back from his punctured wrist, and he licked them away with a quick flick of his tongue. “Here,” he said. “Better and faster than antibiotics.” He said the word with disdain. And, impossibly, offered his bloodied wrist to her. Held it toward her face, like she would…like…
“What the hell are you doing?” she repeated.
His lips curved in what might have been a grin. Might. “Where do you think that medicine they pump into you comes from?”
Something a lot like fear thrummed in her veins. She thought she might pass out.
“What do you want me to do with that?” Her voice came out quiet and cracked, and not at all demanding like she’d intended.
“Drink,” he said, simply.
Oh God. Oh shit, oh shit, oh God.
When she only stared at him, dumbfounded, he finally gave up. With a shrug, he licked the blood from his wrist a few times and stepped back.
“Suit yourself.”
She took a few shallow breaths through her mouth. “What…what are you?”
He said, simply, “I am a vampire.”
“Oh.” Black spots crowded her vision. “Okay.” And she passed out.
~*~
In one of the many towns where they stopped just long enough for her fire dance to earn them a roll of cash, a parking lot carnival had boasted that it possessed an elephant. It had indeed. A female Indian elephant, small, the wide space between her eyes speckled with pink. In the half-light of dusk, Red had been struck by the wiry bristles of her tail; the white, impossibly wide toenails on her big pad-like feet. She’d been in a corral of tubular panels, meant for horses or cattle, quietly munching alfalfa hay one dainty mouthful at a time.
Red had stood at the corral for a long time, not touching the rail, because when she’d tried to do so, unconsciously, fascinated, the carney in charge had snapped at her to keep back. So she’d linked her hands together in front of her, squeezing tight first in excitement, and then wonder, and then…sadness, as an unexpected melancholia swept over her. A beautiful wild thing in a cage, all alone, numbed by the wrongness of it.
She dreamed of that elephant, and Rooster’s hand on her shoulder, a gentle squeeze of silent commiseration, in the flickering moments just before full consciousness returned. And then she was fighting her way through a dense fog.
Bright lights. Eyes watering. Painful cold numbness all through her body, pins and needles, an unfamiliar tension. She turned her head and it weighed a thousand pounds. She opened her mouth and her tongue stuck to her palate, two dry sheets of parchment pressed together.
Soft beeps, and hums. Medicinal smells.
She was back. They had her again.
She managed to blink the crust from her eyes and found that she was in a small, white-walled room, surrounded by machinery whose lights flickered in unknown combinations. Her hands lay on her chest, bound by the thick cuffs, and this time, with both of them fastened into place, her power lay dormant deep beneath her skin, untouchable.
She was alone.
Red closed her eyes against he burn of tears. She didn’t regret it, not if Rooster was out there still alive.
But panic began to swell inside her all the same.
They had her again. And this time, after all the blood Rooster and she had spilled, there would be no pretense of gentleness.
Somewhere behind her, a door clicked open.