Chapter 19 #2
He was warming to his presentation, his pulse easing.
No change in the security detail, but that was to be expected.
The only wrong note was Barry, sweating freely, jittering, eyes popped and gaze roving.
He looked like a man undergoing either forced detox or a nightmare; of everyone in the room he knew exactly what a vamp could do, and how dangerous it was being so close to one.
Even her.
“You want to use me as bait?” It wasn’t that different than her usual operation, sure.
But Simone still didn’t like the idea.
“Oh, no, no. Just encourage them to cooperate, you see? Look, you know first-hand how stunning the physical effects are, right? Strength, speed, cell regeneration, and that’s just for starters.
It’s the next step in human evolution.” Huske was really getting into his rhythm; Simone stared, wondering if her ears had gone haywire.
“It’s all right there in the folklore. Blood is life, and all that—and imagine the patents.
What if it’s not an infection, but a perfection? ”
He’s nuts. He was looking to profit off the monsters after all. It was almost depressing to have her suspicions brought to life. Nobody was ever disappointed by expecting the worst, after all—make that the second and final piece of wisdom she agreed with her ex-husband about.
Simone had to close her mouth with a snap before actual words would form. “You know what vamps can do. You must’ve seen it—Barry, you’ve shown him the files, haven’t you?”
“Vamps!” Blinking rapidly, Huske beamed at her.
“I love it. Man, some of my friends, they refuse to believe in the weird shit. My head PR girl Shelly, she’s always telling me not to talk about things going bump in the night.
I used to think people had a right to know, right?
But they don’t want to. Sheep, right? Just sheeple. ”
I’ve had about enough of this. It hadn’t yet been an hour, but oh well.
“Well, this is certainly… an idea.” She hated having to use the placating, plastered-on smile; at least the old vampire didn’t yammer on like a fucking car salesman.
“Thanks, I’ll think about it. If I decide to take the job, I’ll let Barry know. ”
She turned, disliking the slight grab of her bootsoles against the floor’s protective coating, and headed for the door. Her back itched, her attention settling on the rifles.
“Wait.” Clearly, Huske was used to a very different reaction, everyone nodding and telling him how handsome, smart, wonderful he was. “No, just wait a second. Barry, for Chrissake, tell her to wait.”
“Janie?” Barry, sounding strangled. “Janie, please.”
Oh, hell. She’d thought of her finder as an anomaly—the single, solitary creature who might be called a ‘friend’ once she walked away from her old life.
He’d been the one to pay her first bounty, posted on a dark web forum holding what she thought was a little less bullshit than the rest; developing enough mutual trust for video chat had been a long, careful two-year dance.
He’d been her only real, unfeigned human contact since the night she’d been attacked.
Simone wasn’t quite proud of the bounties—they were, after all, murder—but to suspect that maybe the real money hadn’t been in getting rid of rampaging nighttime monsters but instead tracking her was still a punch to the gut.
A whisper of cloth, as if Huske was windmilling his arms. Maybe an obscene gesture at her retreating back, tale as old as time, a man unhappy at rejection.
A curious pop like a champagne cork bursting free, and the strange thought that the billionaire was about to throw a predawn party just summed up the sheer unreality of the past few days.
Even for her own nighttime existence populated with crazy shit, this was fucking absurd.
A spear of ice jabbed deep into her back. It dilated, a burning cramp; Simone sucked in a breath to cuss—how had any of the humans gotten close enough to stab her?—before a giant seizure raced up her spine, turned her arms and legs to noodles, and the room wheeled around her in eerie slow motion.
What. The hell.
A bump, a metallic squawk-jangle. She was lifted, head lolling, and the cramps were awful.
Worst was the way her throat was a pinhole, only allowing a single straw’s worth of passage to air she suddenly, desperately needed.
A slow, horrid thumping inside her ribs, watery and ragged, was definitely her own heartbeat.
She was still wondering what the fuck had happened when there was a whoosh, a mechanical chime—elevator, she realized dimly—and another rattling.
Huske’s face, sheened with heavy glimmering moisture, swam into view.
The edges of her vision wavered and blurred; the burning was so bad, a raging fever almost like during the initial transition to full vamp, every part of her afire while bones creak-cracked and moved around, nerves screaming relentlessly, and the thirst, the awful throatcut scorching—
Wait. No thirst, something else, what is this?
“See?” Huske’s voice, warped and slowed like a glitchy voicemail. “It works. It fucking works!”
“Oh, shit.” Barry didn’t sound happy. “Shiiiit. She don’t look too good. What if you’ve killed her?”
Yeah, what if you have? Simone tried to blink, to force her brain through the a sudden soupy haze. A fluttering, a buzzing of fluorescents—the freight elevator was rising, but they were already so far up.
Roof. To the roof. Okay, so—
But she couldn’t think.
“Don’t be a pussy,” Huske hissed. “See that? Says her vitals are still going. Just watch the line. Great shot, Kovacs. Went right in, right fuckin’ in. You get a raise.”
A mutter that might have been yessir. Crackle of static, someone gabbling, the sound distorted over an electronic whine.
Five human pulses were crowded around her, but Simone wasn’t standing.
She was strapped to what felt like molded plastic, and every time a coherent thought managed to form another wave of volcanic pain swept through her, muscles locked hard, her body no longer a vamp’s strong, responsive instrument but a tar-pit trap.
Paralyzed. Tranquilizer, that must’ve been a dart. Got to be strong if it’ll knock out a vamp, but—
Burst of cold air, a glimpse of night stars stacked in dizzying spirals, whorls, and glowing cascades.
Her eyes watered, a thick hot trickle she hoped wasn’t blood.
A buffeting, a deep drilling whine, a rhythmic thopping, the wind intensified to a gale and she was lifted, jolted, spun, each movement a starburst of sheer agony.