The Lair

CHAPTER FIFTY

Carter

I hadn’t really thought about what Roberto might look like until I saw him dragging Mel out into the center of town. The guy looked younger and more delicate than any of the Elites. Hell, he looked like half the Greens back at Base Camp could beat the crap out of him. Despite appearances, he’d somehow subdued and captured Mel. Which meant he had to be pretty badass. Typically speaking, you couldn’t pack that much badass into 130 pounds of scrawny kid without some serious supernatural help. Ergo, the twerp tossing Mel around like a sack of laundry had to be Roberto.

Still, I was surprised. When you think of an evil vampire overlord, you don’t automatically picture a guy who could be a member of One Direction.

Frankly, I didn’t care who he was; I wasn’t about to let him get away with using Mel as some kind of bargaining chip. But how the hell could I get her out of there?

I glanced at Price first. This was his daughter. Yeah, he’d skipped out on them years ago, but hadn’t he just said he’d done this all for them? Surely he’d step up to save her.

But he just stood there, an expression of bemusement on his face.

“Do something,” I said, grabbing his shoulder and pushing him forward. “She’s your daughter. Help her!”

“That can’t be Mel.”

I fought the urge to slap Price upside the head. What was wrong with him? His daughter was in trouble—like, about to be staked through the heart in trouble—and he didn’t seem to be able to process that at all.

Then it hit me. He didn’t know what she’d become.

Besides which, other than that brief meeting at the clinic, he hadn’t seen her in years. In his mind, Mel was still the barely functioning ten-year-old he’d abandoned.

Now, he couldn’t reconcile that image with the one before him. This Mel had clearly overpowered a guard, cut off her own hair to complete the ruse, and done her damnedest to kill Roberto. The fact that she hadn’t succeeded didn’t diminish the fact that she’d tried. Price literally couldn’t believe his eyes.

Great, the one man who might actually be able to help her had been struck dumb.

Which left only me to help.

I pushed past Price to walk down the steps. There were still lots of civilians milling around. They couldn’t seem to figure out what to do. They were probably so used to taking direction from Price and Roberto that they couldn’t think for themselves anymore. Or maybe they couldn’t think past Price’s confusion.

Of course, all the people on this compound had thrown in with Roberto for whatever reason. I didn’t particularly have a lot of sympathy for them, but that didn’t mean I thought they deserved to die. Especially since there were families here. People with kids.

I turned back to Jonathan, grabbed him by the shoulders, and gave him a shake. “Get it together. If you can’t stand up to Roberto, fine. But at least get these people out of here.”

He looked at me a little blankly. “Who?”

“These people! They’re just standing around. Waiting for you to tell them what to do. Don’t you get it? There are no lights on, so that means the electricity is out. No electricity means no fences, and that the Ticks can get in. Say something to them. You want to be this great leader? Be it now.”

But he shook his head, scoffing. “The Ticks won’t get in.”

That’s when I stopped trying to get through to him. He was obviously so out of touch he had no idea what they were dealing with. I did. The Ticks would get in and they’d eat their way through this town in a matter of hours. Sure, maybe some of these people had the vaccine. Maybe most of them did. But the vaccine only protected you from being turned into a Tick. It wouldn’t do jack to protect you from having your heart ripped out.

I turned to the crowd and yelled, “The fences are down! The Ticks will get through. You’re all in danger! Get your families inside. Arm yourselves with whatever you have and don’t come out until well after dawn!” The people on the street looked from me to Jonathan and then to Roberto, where he stood with Mel. “They aren’t going to save you! You have to save yourselves!” A murmur of disbelief and fear rippled through the crowd. “Go!”

I wanted to roar with anger. With frustration. These people had put their faith in the wrong people. They’d blindly trusted Price and Roberto to protect them. They’d thought they could pretend the rest of the world hadn’t gone to hell outside their gates. They were wrong.

And it was this man’s fault.

I whirled back to Jonathan Price. An abductura powerful enough to sway the emotions of nearly everyone in the entire state—at least. But too damn concerned with his own glory to save anyone. Not even his own daughter.

I hauled off and punched him. Not just once. I pounded him. He stumbled back, tripping over the steps to land hard on his ass. He cowered before me, arms raised to protect his head. “No!” he cried.

The anger roiling inside of me didn’t let up. I wanted to destroy. I wanted to beat him to pulp. To slam his head against the steps. Anything to break the influence he had over these defenseless lambs who were about to be slaughtered by the Ticks.

Except suddenly they didn’t seem defenseless anymore. The crowd was scrambling away, scattering into buildings and houses, calling out their loved ones’ names and crying for help.

Chaos hit the square hard and fast. In the distance, the Ticks howled as if in response to the panic flooding through the people in town.

Price still cowered before me, but I turned my back on him and walked down the steps to where Roberto stood in the center of the square, Mel still in his grasp.

“Let her go,” I ordered.

I wasn’t stupid enough to think he’d do it, but hell, I had to start somewhere.

Roberto just stared at me, his head cocked to the side, his expression vaguely baffled. “Who are you?”

“I’m the guy who’s going to plunge a stake through your heart.”

There was a brief second of shock in Roberto’s expression. Then, slowly, he smiled. He tipped his head back and released a peal of crazed laughter.

It was the kind of cackle that would grate on anyone’s nerves, but Mel seemed to flinch away from it. As if the noise was actually repugnant to her. Maybe it was.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Roberto murmured as his laughter died away. “You must be Carter.”

That stopped me. I hadn’t expected him to even know I existed. I’d thought the rebellion had stayed under his radar. Unsure what to say without giving anything else away, I said nothing.

That didn’t seem to be a problem. Roberto was clearly the kind of guy who was vain enough that he didn’t mind carrying the conversation.

“Ely was right about you.”

Ely. Right. My favorite traitor. That’s who had told Roberto about me.

“He said you were good. Why, for a moment there, I almost believed you myself. You, a mere human boy are going to stab me through the heart.” He gave an exaggerated shiver of fear. “Scary stuff.” He let loose another peal of laughter. “Absolutely terrifying.”

I ignored his monologue. Frankly, I didn’t have the time to listen.

I hadn’t been lying to all those people about the Ticks making it through the fences. They would make it through. It was possible whatever aircraft had gone down had smashed right through the fence. In which case, they’d be here sooner rather than later.

Sure, I figured that plane going down had something to do with Sebastian, but I wasn’t going to wait around for his help. I couldn’t assume he’d intended to crash the plane or that he’d gotten out of it in time. I was the one who had to get us out of this. I had to get Roberto to release Mel, I had to find Lily, and then get the hell out of here. And pray there was still a Hummer left to steal, because I didn’t think the Mazda had much gas left. And I had to do it all before the Ticks came streaming through town.

First up, I had to convince Roberto to let Mel go. I decided to change tactics. Clearly the whole threatening him thing wasn’t working. Tipping him over the edge into crazy, maybe. Working in my favor, not so much.

I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender. “Look, we’re all reasonable. This city is under attack. Let’s call a truce and fight off the Ticks.”

“Why would I need a truce? The Ticks can’t harm me. They’re an annoyance. One that I will deal with when I see fit. Sebastian, on the other hand, is an annoyance whose time has come.” Roberto tipped his head back and yelled, “Se-bas-tian!” He drew out every syllable like they were separate words. “I believe your little assassin and your abductura are waiting for you.”

What the hell? Sebastian’s abductura?

Did Roberto know something we didn’t know? Had Mel retained her powers after all?

I sent her a questioning look. We hadn’t had much time in the clinic before her father had shown up, but if she still had her powers, wouldn’t she have found a way to tell me?

Would she even know if she was still an abductura? Maybe she still had her powers and just hadn’t used them.

But when I caught her eye, she shook her head like she didn’t know what he was talking about, either.

I tried another tactic. “Just let us go. We’ll get Lily, take the cure, and leave you alone.”

“You’ve already said you wanted to kill me. Why would I let you go? It’s completely impractical, of course. I can’t have humans running around messing up my plans. It’s bad enough that he’s out there.” Roberto whirled in a circle again. “Do you see what you’ve done, Sebastian? This was the last outpost of civilization, and you’ve destroyed it! All because of your stupid little revenge plot. You’ve sworn to kill me or die trying? Fine! But why kill all of humanity along with me?”

“Don’t pin your crimes on Sebastian. Don’t blame him for the mess you created. He’s the one who’s out there trying to protect people.”

“You don’t honestly think he ever cared about your stupid human rebellion, do you? He’s never cared about that. All he’s ever cared about was revenge. Two thousand years and that’s all he’s ever thought about. Seriously.” Roberto yelled out to the courtyard, “Sebastian, you need a hobby.”

Part of me knew that Roberto was right—about this, at least. Sebastian’s primary motive had always been stopping Roberto. But, still, I had to argue with Roberto. “He may want revenge, but that doesn’t mean he’s okay with what you’ve done to the world.”

“With what I’ve done to the world?” he asked, sounding strangely baffled. “I’ve protected as much of my kine as I can. I implemented the plan for the Farms. Jonathan convinced people to send their kids there to keep them safe. We’ve protected people.”

“Obviously.”

“And what has he done? He’s dillydallied around, plotting out this elaborate scheme to kill me while he waited for your powers to develop. What did he really think was going to happen? That you’d just waltz in here and talk me to death?”

“The way this is going, I think talking people to death is more your style.”

Roberto smiled at my joke, “You amuse me. Maybe I’ll even keep you around after I’ve killed Sebastian. I can never have too many abducturae.”

“The joke’s on you then, because Sebastian doesn’t have an abductura.”

Roberto’s smile froze. He tipped his head to the side and asked, “Do you really not know what you are?”

Icy fear hit me in the chest. Even though I didn’t believe him, I felt it. “I’m not the abductura. Mel was.”

Yet, somehow, even as I said the words, things were clicking in my mind. Pieces of a puzzle were starting to merge into a complex picture, something I hadn’t seen, hadn’t even dreamed until this moment.

“Of course Melanie here was an abductura. I figured one of Jonathan’s girls would be. Why else would I have worked so hard to get them back? But no, she lost that ability when Sebastian turned her. Think about it; he wouldn’t have turned his only abductura. He wouldn’t have turned anyone, would he, unless he didn’t have a choice?” Roberto pinned me with an unshakably intense stare. “It was your idea, wasn’t it? To turn poor Mel here. You were the one who convinced him.”

Even though I wanted to deny it, I couldn’t. When Mel was dying, Lily had had the idea that Sebastian could turn her into a vampire to save her life. But I was the one who convinced him to do it. Despite the fact that he’d sworn over and over that he’d never make another vampire, he’d done it.

At the time I’d thought . . . what? That I’d just made a good argument?

Now, standing here listening to Roberto, it seemed ridiculous that I hadn’t seen it before. I was the one who convinced Sebastian to turn Mel. Just like I was the one who’d convinced all the guys at Elite to start the rebellion. Just like I convinced them to search for Lily and Mel. To rescue Greens from Farms. Hell, back in the clinic I’d even convinced Jonathan to go talk with me instead of turning me over to the guards, which is what I was sure he really wanted to do. When was the last time I’d asked something of someone and hadn’t gotten it?

Now, looking back on my life, it was obvious what I was. Not just what I was, but what my father before me had been. What we both were. Abducturae. Liars. Controllers. Manipulators.

I’d been willfully ignoring my true nature for years.

Because, hell, who would want this god-awful skill? This curse that allowed you to twist the will of others? I don’t know if my father had wanted it, but he’d certainly used it to his own advantage. Jonathan had obviously wanted it. As for me, why would I want this? Why would I want to be in the company of these two losers?

Except I looked around behind and saw that Jonathan was gone. At some point in the last few minutes, he’d skittered away like the cockroach he was. The bastard.

So it was just me and Roberto. And Sebastian, if he was out there. I felt a burning wave of hatred wash over that icy disbelief. Sebastian had known what I was all along. He’d found me and nurtured my powers and used me, all without revealing what I was.

All my life, I had hated the kind of man my father was. The kind of man who used other people, who manipulated them to get what he wanted. I had despised him for as long as I could remember. And here I was, just like him.

Because in the end, I would use this supposed power of mine to get what I wanted. I would free Mel, I would get the cure for Lily, and I would get us the hell out of here.

Sebastian had always said that it took training for an abductura to be able to channel his powers and use them. It took focus and determination. I didn’t have training. All I could draw on was the memory of the few times I knew for sure that I’d used my powers.

I remembered the fear for Mel. The sheer determination not to let her die. The need to prove myself to Lily.

I drew on all of that now and said to Roberto, “Forget Sebastian. Forget all of this crap. Let Mel go, give us the cure for Lily, and we’ll just walk away. You’ll never hear from us again. Or, hell, we’ll stay and help you fight, for that matter. If you’re pissed off that Sebastian has risked your compound, we’ll stay and fight off the Ticks. I’ll lead your men against them myself. But first you have to get the cure for Lily and let Mel go.”

Roberto tipped his head to the side. “The cure?”

“Yes, the cure for the Tick virus. I know you have it.”

Roberto gave another one of his slow, creepy smiles before dissolving into laughter. Not the crazed, maniacal laugh, but a cynical chuckle. “No, I don’t. I’m not behind Genexome Corporation. I’ve never had anything to do with it.”

“No—” I protested automatically.

“For hundreds of years, I’ve invested in energy, cattle, and kine,” Roberto said. “Biotechnology has never interested me. I’m not the vampire with the vendetta against all our kind. I’m not the one who wants to destroy all of the vampires and wipe the slate clean. Think about it. I don’t own Genexome Corporation. Sebastian does.”

Shock slammed into me and I staggered back a step.

But Roberto’s verbal assault kept on coming.

“When you think about it, you’ll see I’m right. I’m not the villain here. He is.” Then Roberto chuckled. “Well, I am a villain, just not the one you’re after. And that does sting, doesn’t it? Knowing that he’s had the cure all this time. All this time, he could have saved humanity and he waited. He has the cure that will save your girlfriend, but instead of giving it to you, he sent you here to distract me.”

“Why?” I gasped out, not meaning to, but shock had robbed me of caution.

Roberto whirled around and gazed at a point in the shadows between the buildings. “Isn’t that right, Sebastian?”

A Tick howled, and the sound seemed to reverberate in the air. The Ticks were nearer now. But before I could pinpoint a location, Sebastian stepped out of the shadows. He had his dagger in one hand and a longer, curved sword in the other.

“Sorry it took me so long.” He winked at Mel. “Hiking in from the drop site and avoiding all those Ticks was a pain in the ass. Nasty business.”

“Did you really think that would work? Sending in your little baby vampire as a decoy? Did you really think that I would be so distracted by her stench that I wouldn’t notice you trying to sneak up on me?” Roberto flipped the stake and caught it neatly in his palm so he could use the sharper end in a stabbing motion. “Did you honestly think that would work?”

“No. I never believed that at all.” Sebastian stopped a few feet away from Roberto, a mad grin stretching his mouth taut. “She was never a decoy. All these distractions, they were never for you. They were to get your people out of the way. All your guards and acolytes. I wanted them distracted. I wanted them gone. I don’t need to sneak up on you to kill you. I just need to face you one on one.”

Roberto nodded toward the weapons Sebastian clutched in his hands. “If you’re so eager to face me on equal terms, then why do you have two swords and I have none?”

“Which do you want? I’ll gladly hand one over.”

“The katana, of course.”

A second later, Sebastian tossed the longer of the two swords through the air. It turned end over end before plunging into the ground at Roberto’s feet, swaying there for a second. Then, Roberto thrust Mel away from him and grabbed the sword. An instant later, Sebastian lunged for Roberto. The fight that followed was a flurry of movements too fast to even see. The clang of their swords was one constant clatter of metal on metal so loud I couldn’t even hear the baying of the Ticks over it.

So this was what it had come to. Everything that had happened in the past year of my life had been about this one battle to the death between Sebastian and Roberto. This was never about me at all. This trip here wasn’t about getting Lily the cure. It was just about revenge for Sebastian. I always knew that morality was a wavy and mysterious line for him. I always knew he couldn’t be wholly trusted. Still, I didn’t see this coming. I could never have imagined that he would betray us like this.

I could imagine him failing us. Out of laziness or lack of compassion or even simple hunger. But I hadn’t imagined he had it in him to plan and execute a betrayal this elaborate. This well thought out.

I could accept Jonathon’s role in this mess because he seemed to genuinely believe the world needed a fresh start, one guided by his twisted vision for humanity. And I could accept Roberto’s role in this, because he was yet another crazed megalomaniac. No wonder the two of them got along so well. But I couldn’t understand Sebastian’s motivations. I couldn’t imagine any thirst for revenge that would justify the murder of millions.

I watched the furious fight for a moment, but knew I couldn’t stay to see the ending. That was okay. No matter how this ended, I was going to hunt down Sebastian someday. If Roberto didn’t kill him, then I would.

I lunged forward and grabbed Mel, pulling her away from the fight. I found my pocketknife in my boot and sawed through the zip ties. She gave her hands a shake, cringing. Roberto had put the zip tie on tight enough that her hands were bitterly cold and already turning blue.

I grabbed her by the arm. I had to shout to be heard over the clang of the swords. “We’ve got to go!” I yelled. “The Ticks will be here any minute. We’ve got to get Lily and get out of here.”

But she shook her head. “You get Lily and find some wheels. I’m not leaving Sebastian.”

“Are you kidding me?” I glanced back at the fight. She was crazy if she thought she could break into that and end up anything other than dead. Besides, I couldn’t believe she wasn’t as pissed off as I was. “That’s his shit to handle.”

“No,” she yelled back. Her fingers were at the buttons of her shirt, refastening the few that were left. “We can’t leave without him because we still need the cure. If Roberto is right and Sebastian has the cure, then we need that for Lily. We can’t leave him here.”

She was right; I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it, too.

I nodded. “I’ll be back in five minutes. Get him ready to extract by then.”

I jogged off in the direction of the clinic. I was nearly there when a low thrum filled the air. I looked up to see a helicopter swoop in. It stopped above the clinic, hovering in the air above the squat building. My pulse kicked up.

Of course Roberto would have a helicopter. There were only two men on El Corazon who would have the authority to call it in. One of them was out in the square, trying to slice Sebastian into shreds. The other was about to kidnap my girlfriend.

I raced to the front door. I wasn’t sure how well staffed this place was or what I would encounter on the other side. As long as they were human, I could talk my way past them. It was the Ticks howling in the distance that I was most worried about. I didn’t give myself much time to think it through. Right about now, I was really missing my weapons.

With the electricity off, the pair of glass sliding doors didn’t open automatically, but one of them swung open when I pushed it. The entrance was empty, but I could hear sounds coming from the left. The building must have had a backup generator—I guess most hospitals do—because dim yellow emergency lights lit the hall about every ten feet. This was the opposite wing of the building from where we’d been held when we first arrived. The clinic was obviously bigger than this tiny community needed. Apparently when Roberto had built it, he’d been planning ahead. I ran down one corridor and then the next, glancing into every room, but I saw nothing. No patients. No staff.

Then I turned a corner and heard it. The faint, lulling beeps of a life support machine. I slowed to a jog. As I got closer, I realized it wasn’t just one machine but several, and the noises were coming from a room beyond a pair of doors just ahead.

I slipped to the side of the doors, pressing my back against the wall so I could listen. Someone was in the room. I heard the carts rolling around. Things banging. It didn’t sound like a Tick rampaging through the room, more like a human in a hurry. I peered through the window in the door and saw Price along with a woman in scrubs. Shit. And here I was. No weapon.

Still in a fight two against one, I could probably take them. Price was close to fifty. I couldn’t tell about the woman, but if Roberto was right about me—if Sebastian was right—then maybe all I had to do was ask her to step aside.

I didn’t want this power. I never had. No one should be able to bend others to his will. If you had asked me an hour earlier, I would have sworn that even if I had the power of an abductura, I wouldn’t use it. And here I was, ready to abandon my morals instantly. If it meant saving Lily.

I pushed through the doors in to the room. It wasn’t just a single hospital room but a whole ward, like an ICU. A dozen beds were lined up on either side of the room, each with the little privacy curtain pushed back against the wall. Four of the beds had patients tucked under the white blankets. Each had an IV bag hanging from the post above their bed. Each lay as still as a corpse.

Lily lay on the bed closest to the door on the far end of the room. Her skin looked unnaturally pale. She was as still and lifeless as the other three.

Price and the doctor stood over her. They had been talking in low voices when I came in, but both of them fell silent and turned toward me.

Thank God there wasn’t a guard somewhere that I hadn’t seen through the window. Faintly, in the distance, I could hear the whump-whump-whump of the helicopter still hovering above the building.

The doctor looked from Price to me and back again.

“Why did you let me think you had the cure?”

“I didn’t.”

“You said—”

“No. You said she needed medical attention. I got that for her. We don’t have a cure, but we have a treatment protocol that involves inducing comas. It slows the progress of the disease. Not indefinitely, but for a while at least.”

I glanced at the other patients. The one at the far end of the room was a guy with what looked like a short, military-style haircut grown out a couple of months. Had he been one of the guards? Whatever he had been in life, he wasn’t quite human anymore. His jaw was too big, his brow ridge too pronounced, making his eyes look sunken. Even under the blanket, the proportion of his limbs looked all wrong. I didn’t ask how long he’d been like this or how quickly he was progressing. I didn’t want to know.

I barely looked at the guy on the bed next to his, but the third patient caught my eye because it was a kid. And because there was a dog asleep under the kid’s bed. The chow mix slowly stretched and sat up. Chuy. Which meant the kid was Marcos. Ely’s little brother. They looked enough alike—despite the four year age difference—that they could have been twins. I might have doubted myself if Chuy hadn’t been there. And it made so much sense. Ely wasn’t a bad guy. He was just a guy who would do anything for his family. I could understand that. Knowing his brother was in here being held by Roberto, being held in stasis—it made me hate Ely less for betraying us. That was a good thing. I had enough people to hate right now.

I looked at Lily last. I couldn’t help but imagine her a few weeks or months down the road, looking like that guy at the end. How much time did she have? I didn’t know; I just had to pray it was enough.

I looked back up at Price. I expected to feel that burst of hatred. Instead, I felt nothing but exhaustion.

“I’m sorry.” He actually looked like he meant what he was saying. Not that I believed him. Not that it even mattered one way or the other. “I didn’t know you even thought we had the cure.”

I turned to the doctor. “How long can she live in stasis?”

“Dodson has been like that for two months, but we’ll lose him completely at some point. There was a guard before him who turned completely at eleven weeks. The sedative must be incompatible with something in the Tick biology. He woke up and we had to—”

I nodded my understanding. So, under three months. Probably less because it had taken more than twenty-four hours to get her here and into the coma.

I had come in here determined to save her. To get her out of the clinic and drive straight to the Genexome Corporation headquarters. To rip the place to shreds until I found the cure.

But how could I know if that was the right thing for me to do?

I looked at Price again. “You’ve got the helicopter? Where are you going?”

“Wherever we can find that’s safe. Probably one of the Farms.”

“You’re taking the doctor?” I looked at her. She nodded. “And you can keep her alive until I can find the cure and bring it to you?”

Pity flashed across her face. “I can try.”

Price stepped forward. “Once she wakes up, she’ll stay with me. I won’t let her leave with you.”

Now, it was my turn to feel pity. Price obviously cared about his daughters in his own twisted way, but he didn’t know them. If he really thought that he could keep Lily out of this fight, then he didn’t know her at all.

God knows I’d certainly tried and it hadn’t worked. Not at all. When you loved someone, it wasn’t always about keeping them safe. It was about caring enough to let them make their own decisions. It wasn’t about control or protection. It was about respect. I’d learned that the hard way.

“You want to keep her safe with you, you’re welcome to try.”

Price looked at me suspiciously. “You’re really just going to let me take her?”

The doctor looked at me and said, “There’s room in the helicopter. You could come.”

Price looked like he wanted to swallow his tongue, but then he nodded. “We could use a guy like you. With your combat experience.”

For a second, I was tempted. The best way to make sure Price didn’t take Lily too far away for me to find her was to go with them myself. But I’d seen the copter. It wasn’t that big.

“If I came, you wouldn’t have room for all of them, would you?”

Price shrugged. He obviously hadn’t thought that far ahead. He was too used to thinking only of his own interests. But the doctor shook her head.

In the end, I wasn’t willing to sacrifice lives, especially the life of a kid, to be with Lily.

“I’ll help you load the helicopter. Lily first, then Marcos. You take as many as you can. The doctor here stays with them.” I got right in Price’s face. “You find the closest Farm and you let me know where you’re going. As long as she’s still alive when I get there, I’ll let you live. But if you try to keep me away from her, I will find you and destroy you myself.”

“You’re so sure you could do that?”

“Yeah, I am. Don’t forget, I’ll have your other daughter.”

Something hard and soulless lit in Price’s eyes and I knew he’d been planning on snagging Mel on the way out.

“Mel won’t go with you,” I told him.

“She will. Mel and I have always understood each other.”

“Maybe. But you’re the one who said you should never underestimate the great things a human abductura can accomplish when working with a vampire.”

It took several seconds for Price to understand my point. I’d been right. He hadn’t figured out yet that Mel had turned into a vampire. The shock on his face might have been enough to make me smile, but I was already helping the doctor wheel Lily’s bed out to the helicopter.