spread?”
“One was willing to talk.” She dug into the cargo pockets of her pants and withdrew a mask and gloves, which she handed to him.
“Are these necessary?” Sentinels were impervious to disease.
“I don’t know.” She gestured for him to walk with her, leading him to a room filled with a dozen silver-plated cages. “But you don’t want their spittle on you, just for the ick factor.”
He donned the protection without further questions. “What do we know?”
“The disease first appeared about a week ago. It infects at a varying rate. Some succumb swiftly and die within a matter of days. Others take longer to show symptoms and live up to two weeks. This group wasn’t aware that there are other incidents of infection in other states, which makes me wonder how much Syre actually knows.”
Adrian walked by the cages, examining the infected vamps with morbid fascination. Red-eyed and frothing at the mouth, they seemed mindless. They bashed themselves against the unforgiving metal bars and reached out with clawed fingers, grasping for Adrian and Siobhan with malevolent desperation. Their gazes were wild, yet lifeless. “Do they show any signs of intelligence?”
“No. They’re like bad B-movie zombies. Aside from a fierce thirst for blood, there seem to be no lights on and no one home.”
He exhaled harshly. “Are we testing their blood?”
“We took samples from both the infected and noninfected while they were still tranquilized on the plane. However…”
Her pause caught his attention and he tore his gaze away from the macabre freak show to look at her. “Go on.”
She crossed her arms. “Their metabolisms are extremely accelerated. While the noninfected vamps stayed under induced anesthesia for the duration of the flight, the sick ones woke up shortly after we took off. Malachai was bitten by one of them while drawing blood.”
“Is he okay?”
“So far, he’s fine. But I have him quarantined until I know for sure. The vamp that bit him was the first of the two causalities. I had to put him down to get him off Malachai.”
Siobhan resumed walking, stopping before a cage in which a male vampire sat in the corner with his arms wrapped around his drawn-up knees. “This is the talkative one.”
“So you’re the great Adrian,” the vamp said, his voice shaking. “You don’t look so scary with that mask on. You look scared.”
Crouching, Adrian asked, “What’s your name?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me.”
The vamp lifted a shaking hand to push back a grimy lock of dark hair that had fallen over his brow. “Singe.”
“What is it you like to burn?” Adrian asked, recognizing the signs of withdrawal and knowing that the monikers vampires chose often had significance.
“Crystal dream.”
Looking at Siobhan, Adrian asked, “Any possibility the drug is connected? Perhaps it affords a level of immunity?”
“Anything is a possibility at this point.”
“Thank you for your help, Singe.” Adrian stood and faced Siobhan. “Take me to Malachai.”
They left the room and moved down the hall.
“I have a question for you,” Adrian said quietly.
“Yes, Captain?”
“Lindsay Gibson mentioned that her blood has a negative effect against some of the beings she’s hunted. Since she’s taken down both vampires and demons alike, I assume it’s the latter group that was susceptible.” He thought of the vampress he’d interrogated in Hurricane. He’d had Lindsay’s blood on his hands, but it didn’t spark a reaction of any kind, adverse or otherwise. “Can you explain why her blood would allow a blade to slice into a dragon’s impenetrable hide?”
She frowned. “Interesting. I’d have to think about it. I’d certainly love to test a sample.”
“Is it possible that having two souls inside her would be the cause?”
Siobhan slowed before a metal door with a window. “Yes, it’s possible. You know how powerful souls are. Two in one vessel likely creates a unique force we will probably never fully understand.”
Looking through the glass, Adrian saw Malachai kicking back on a cot with his cell phone in hand. Adrian knocked. Malachai looked up, his face breaking out in a smile when he recognized his visitor.
“I feel fine, Captain,” the Sentinel shouted.
“Good to hear.” Adrian was about to say more when a ferocious pounding came from down the hall. He looked over his shoulder. “What’s that?”
Siobhan frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t like it.”
A few more Sentinels appeared in the hallway as the violent thumping continued. They all looked to Adrian, who swiftly passed them en route to the source of the sound.
As the location of the noise became apparent, Siobhan said, “That’s the makeshift morgue.”
“Who’s in there?”
“Aside from the corpses of the two infected vamps? No one.”
The sound of glass shattering preceded a shout.
They turned a corner into a short hallway that ended with a single door. A masculine face stared out through the broken window, amber eyes glowing with ire. “Fuck you, Sentinels,” the man growled. “Either kill me or let me go. Don’t fucking leave me in here with a rotting corpse!”
“
Adrian didn’t take his eyes off the vamp in front of him. “He’s made a miraculous recovery.”
“But the other one is still dead…?”
“So is the one I caught. Turned into an oil slick, I was told.” He contemplated the seemingly cured vampire with narrowed eyes, the tempo of his heartbeat accelerating as he considered the possibilities.
“One of these things is not like the others,” he murmured. “The only difference being… what? The ingestion of Sentinel blood?”
Siobhan made a choked noise. “Shit.”
Yeah, deep shit.
“Are you feeling better?” Elijah asked as he watched Lindsay exit her adjoining bedroom.
He sat at the small desk in his suite, working on his laptop and trying not to feel like everything was closing in on him. That was pretty damn difficult, considering the wariness with which the Sentinels were watching him and the expectation that weighted the gaze of every lycan he crossed paths with. Everyone was waiting for him to make a move, one that would rip apart the well-oiled system that kept mortals blissfully ignorant. One side wanted to defuse his perceived power, while the other wanted him to blow up like a powder keg. He was fucked coming and going.
“Dude.” Lindsay shook out her wet curls with her hands. “Did you get that vitamin water I asked for?”
“It’s in your minifridge, Your Highness.”
“Good grief.” She stared at him with exaggerated shock. “Did you just make a joke?”
He refrained from smiling. “No.”
“I think you did.”
Elijah looked back at his laptop screen. He liked her. And after the multiple times she’d gone out of her way to save his sorry hide, he thought of her as a friend. He didn’t have too many of those, which was why he’d been speechless when she’d said they were friends. Somewhere over the days he’d been guarding her, he had stopped thinking of her as just a principal and started thinking of her as just Lindsay. He was more relaxed around her than he’d been around anyone in a long time, because her friendship came without strings or expectations. She was crazy and fun, and blunt to a fault. She was just goofy enough to reveal that she hadn’t socialized much as a kid.
