Chapter 1 #2
Grace brushed the bangs back from King’s forehead with a gentle, slightly trembling hand.
“Sorry, buddy,” she whispered, before reaching for a corded, handheld device that looked like a retail checkout scanner.
Holding his wrist, she aimed at his forearm and activated a pale bluish glow. Ultraviolet light.
Vash bent closer, examining the targeted skin. It rippled minutely, as if the muscle beneath it was having a spasm, but that was the only sign of irritation. “Holy shit. UV tolerance?”
“Not quite.” Turning off the device, Grace set it aside.
“There’s no real immunity at work—the flesh is still burning; it’s just healing at an accelerated rate.
The damaged skin cells are regenerating as quickly as they’re being destroyed.
Ergo, no visible or lasting damage. I ran some tests on two of the other subjects we had in here. Same deal.”
Their gazes met.
“Don’t get excited,” Grace muttered. “That cellular renewal is what’s causing all the other symptoms. The insatiable hunger stems from the need to fuel the massive energy expenditure of regeneration.
The aggression comes from the hunger, which has to feel like starving to death—all the damn time.
And the high pain tolerance comes from the fact that they can’t focus on anything else but the need to feed.
They can’t seem to think, period. Have you seen a wraith in action? ”
Vash shook her head.
“They’re like frenzied zombies. Higher brain function is subverted by pure instinct.”
“So you’re transfusing him because he’ll die without a continuous intake of blood?”
“I learned that the hard way. I sedated two of the captures so I could study them—you can’t get near them when they’re fully functional—and they liquefied. Their metabolisms were so accelerated that their bodies pretty much digested themselves. Pile o’ mush. Not pretty.”
“Is it possible that Adrian cooked this up in a lab somewhere?”
The Sentinel leader had been tasked with leading the elite unit of seraphim enforcers that had severed the wings from the Fallen. Using lycans as herding dogs, Adrian prevented the vampires from expanding into more widely populated areas. The result was both territorial and financial suppression.
“Anything is possible, but I wouldn’t have made that leap.” Grace gestured at King. “I can’t see Adrian doing this. Not his style.”
Truth be told, Vash couldn’t either. Adrian was a warrior to the core. If he wanted a fight, he’d do it face-to-face and hand-to-hand.
But he had a lot to gain if the vampire nation withered away to nothing. His mission would be over, and he could leave the earth—and its pain, misery, and filth—behind. Assuming he’d even want to leave now that he had Lindsay, a mate who couldn’t go with him.
Softening her voice, Vash conveyed her sympathy. “I’m so sorry about your friend, Gracie.”
“Help me find a cure, Vash. Help me save him and the others.”
That’s why she’d come, the reason Syre had sent her. Reports of the illness were cropping up across the country, and the spread was so swift that it was becoming an epidemic. “What do you need?”
“More subjects, more blood, more equipment, more staff.”
“Done. Of course. Just get me a list.”
“That’s the easy part. I need to know where the Wraith virus first appeared. Which part of the country, which state, which town, which house, which room in the house. Down to the minutia. Male or female. Young or old. Race and build.”
Crossing her arms, Grace shot another glance at King.
“I need you to find the very first person who got sick. Then I need you to find number two. How did they know number one? Did they live in the same house? Share the same bed? Or was the connection more tenuous? Were they blood relations? Then, find numbers three, four, and five. We’re talking six degrees of separation gone wild.
I need enough data to establish a pattern and point of origin. ”
Suddenly feeling suffocated by the hazmat suit, Vash strode toward the door. Grace met her there and entered the code that released the seal on the antechamber.
“You’re talking about a hell of a lot of manpower,” Vash muttered, following Grace’s example and standing on a painted circle on the floor. Something sprayed from the exposed piping overhead, surrounding her suit in a fine mist.
“I know.”
There were tens of thousands of minions, but their inability to tolerate sunlight seriously hindered their usefulness.
The original Fallen had no such restriction, but there were fewer than two hundred of them.
Far too few to provide the blood to minions that would grant them temporary immunity.
Certainly not enough to manage the pavement-pounding necessary to carry out the requested task in a timely manner.
Shrugging out of her suit, Vash rolled her shoulders back and set her mind. The initial reports of the illness had surfaced at the same time as Adrian’s lost love. Nailing down a timeline would help her decide whether the Sentinel leader was culpable. “I’ll make it happen.”
“I know you will.” Grace paused in the act of ruffling her choppy blond hair, and her gaze moved over Vash. “You still dress in mourning.”
Vash looked down at the black leather pants and vest she wore and managed a shrug. After sixty years, the pain was still there, throbbing to remind her of the vengeance due her for Charron’s brutal slaying.
One day, she’d find a lycan who could give her the information she needed to pick up the trail of Char’s killers. She could only hope that happened before the ones responsible died of old age or on a hunt. Unlike Sentinels and vamps, the lycans had mortal expiration dates.
“Let’s get that list,” she said crisply, ready to start on the monumental task ahead of her.
Syre watched the video to the end, then pushed to his feet in a burst of agile movement. “What are your thoughts on this?”
Vash tucked her legs up beneath her on the chair that faced his desk. “We’re fucked. We don’t have enough people to attack this as quickly as the virus—the Wraith virus, she called it… As fast as it’s spreading, we don’t have the resources to tackle it.”
He shoved a hand through his thick, dark hair and cursed. “We can’t go down like this, Vashti. Not after all we’ve been through.”