Present:
He was giving her time while reminding her of its quick running out. Abby felt it, felt him looming even when he remained respectfully, or his approximation of it, away while she worked. First thing was to dispose of the bodies. Her friends were bodies now, and to think otherwise was to concede defeat and admit weakness. She was not weak. Her tears were spent on the passing; there could be no sorrow for the corpses. They had discussed practical disposal regimens, their aquatic base providing one of the best: burial at sea. It took her one hour to wrap them, and one for the trip far enough out for them to be covered but close enough to still attract the right kind of scavengers to the corpses.
When she returned to the dock, he waited there, hands clasped over his waist.
"King isn't here," she informed him.
"I thought it was quieter," Blade deadpanned.
"We can track his locator, find out where he and Zoë are." Abby brushed by him, a thousand and one plans for their next strike forming and dissolving in her brain.
"Hold it."
"What?" She called over her shoulder, not breaking her stride.
"You're sure you can trust him?"
She turned before going up the gangplank to their boat. "He wouldn't have gone with them voluntarily."
There was no appreciable flicker of recognition in the stern hunter. "Are you sure?"
"You don't know Danica Talos."
"I know familiars," Blade growled, and he meant it, she knew. It was one of those signs of a lone hunter: paranoia. In a group like theirs, a spy faced highly suspicious and attuned eyes and ears on all sides; alone, a hunter could trust only his own and only himself.
"Trust me. King isn't there by choice." And he wasn't, but Blade wouldn't know that, and there wasn't time to explain. There was only time to plan, to contact the next cell for reinforcements, and to strike Drake before Talos' plans could be implemented. Abby moved through the yacht confidently, neither flinching at nor sparing a moment's thought to the various signs of violence and death left behind. Her thoughts were on her bow, on target practice, on tactics, on revenge.
A heavy hand closed over her upper arm as she reached for her quiver. It moved slowly, under the radar of her highly tuned instincts, not setting them off. She glared up the length of the arm attached to it and at its owner.
"We don't have time to argue. I need to get things done if I'm going after them." And she was going after them.
Her words did not appear to change his mind. "Convince me," he rumbled, lips twitching angrily, showing off his fangs at the corners. She met his steely glare with one of her own.
"Fine."
The history of the Nightstalkers was fairly recent. Their cell was only ten years old, started by Abigail Whistler's mentor, Natasha Eggers, a human survivor who would otherwise, but for the intervention of another cell, been meat. Natasha worked with Jason Webb, a former army ranger who'd run afoul of the undead in a tour of Somalia; he hadn't asked any questions about the human-like creatures that swooped down on the dead, he'd just taken measures to see they didn't get up again. They were weak, as he discovered, forgotten creatures turned loose on the wilds of Africa some time at the turn of the last century, and hardly stronger than humans. Natasha arrived to clean up, suspecting that the bloodbath would attract vampire opportunists, and that, as they say, was that.
Where Abby came in was about five years later, put in touch with the Nightstalkers through her father. She may not have had much filial love for the man, but his line of work beat just about any other she could think of. No matter where science stood on the debate on whether nature or nurture held controlling interest in the human psyche, Abby always knew the spirit and willingness to fight, to harm, ran down to her marrow. Like with any other job, name-dropping got her in, and once she was there, she stayed there.
None of that answered the particular question at the moment, she knew. As it had with the original Nightstalkers, her name bought her a certain degree of credibility with Blade. It was engraved upon his soul, this trust of Whistlers, founded out of gratitude and, perhaps, even a perverse sort of love for her father. So, he granted her a little leeway, but he expected an answer, soon. He didn't want to know the whole story, but he did need to know it. King's rundown of the situation was barely a briefing; the Nightstalkers were much more than a little club of wannabe hardasses and techno-geeks.
"Sommer comes into the story about a year before me," she continued, adjusting the sites on her bow. "She was put in touch with us through a Dr. Karen Jenson." She watched Blade's reaction carefully. "You do remember her, don't you?"
"Of course." It was hardly the applauding, 'oh her, yes, I remember, she saved my ass and found a cure for bitten humans' that he might have made, but it still came across as generous. For him, anyway.
"Dr. Jenson kept an eye on clinics in the New York area for about a year after she ran into you. She was the one who reported Sommer's husband as a possible familiar to the groups out east."
"Zoë's father was a familiar."
"Yeah, and he was all set to give them up as proof of his loyalty to his master. Jenson got Sommer out of there maybe a month after the whole thing with Frost." Blade scowled, and she didn't, despite near insatiable curiosity, press him for details. "We got lucky with her. She had us to watch out for Zoë, and she had unlimited resources and as many contacts as she needed to continue her research." Somehow, talking about Sommerfield in the past tense was already too easy.
From there, the story was pretty mundane. Recounting past exploits and adventures in vampire slaying with a man who'd killed easily ten times as many and in a fraction of the time wasn't much fun. Highlights, she had to stick to the highlights.
"Jump forward about a year after I got here. That's when we met King."
November 1995
Asher entered his sister's personal suite of rooms, surveying it coolly. Not a hair was out of place; her desk was immaculate, papers stacked neatly, blotter looking barely used; the fountain that ran along one wall trickled water softly, steadily; her bed, a stormy-blue mess of satin, was occupied by one very still, obviously naked man bleeding from the neck. Nothing was ever out of place in her suite.
"You wanted something?"
His sister appeared as a silhouette in the honey-colored glow emanating from her bathroom. She wore a simple, loose kimono-style robe, violently green, tied just barely at her waist. She tapped yellow-lacquered nails on the doorframe.
"Deacon has requested you join him in New York after New Years."
"Fat chance," Danica snorted, folding her arms over her breasts. She stomped over to him. It spoke tellingly of her mood that she could intimidate him from her diminutive height and half naked. "I'm busy." She turned on her heel, walking towards her bed and sprawling out on it, resting her head on her elbow, which she propped on the unconscious man's lower back.
Asher couldn't keep from making a face. "You shouldn't play with your food."
"He's not just food, little brother," Danica ran one claw-like fingertip over the man's ass; he did not stir.
"No, Danica, not another one." His sister had her faults, but none so severe or so frowned upon as this tendency to treat her servants as pets. The humans were there to be useful or to be food. Mixing the two was not a viable long-term option, though Danica had kept some of her pets for months, alternating between bleeding them, keeping them alive with promises of immortality, using them to bring her live prey, then killing them and moving on.
Danica pouted, "I haven't had a new toy in ages, Asher. I'll be good to this one." Something in the way she licked her lips made him nervous. Sometimes, Danica became a little too involved with her pets, to the point of blurring the line between master and servant. Danger, there was danger here.
"Danica…"
"You were here to tell me about Frost, weren't you?" Her tone was cold, all business. Say what you would about the insane, Asher knew, but he'd be damned if they weren't wickedly shrewd at times. "What makes Frost presume he can summon me across the country to that place?"
"He's requesting assistance for some project or another, I believe."
"Mmm," Danica drummed her nails on her pet, but when she spoke, she was far away. "Deacon's getting himself into trouble."
"Probably. You know how he chafes at being that close to the purebloods."
"Don't we all," Danica sneered, then smiled and sing-songed, "I love L.A."
"What should I say to him?"
"Tell him to go bite the heads off a few more kittens and talk to me in the New Year." Danica threw herself backwards, resting her head atop her new toy, lacing her fingertips together over her belly.
"This smells bad," Asher warned.
"That's why we're not involved." She reached over to scratch the man behind his ear. "Isn't that right?" This last was directed at him.
"You don't want me to go."
"No."
"What if it's something big? Might do well to get in on the ground floor."
"Hah!" Danica shrieked, ripping a chunk of the man's sandy-brown hair out. She played the lock over her grinning lips. "Deacon's had his head so far up his ass about this mystic stuff for too long. He thinks he's found Jesus, or whoever, and he's as wrong now as ever."
"He seems to think we'll regret missing this."
"Oh, really?" Danica sat up. "Missing what, exactly?"
"He wouldn't say. Just that he was close. The council…"
"Will tell him to shove it," Danica finished. "Whatever he's cooking up, they won't like it. That's why they've had him under their thumb for this long." Asher couldn't help but agree. When their kind had made the journey across the seas with humans, ages and ages ago, the council had been a way to keep the 'family' together despite the distance; the more troublesome one became, the less distance was granted him or her in which to make trouble. It was very telling that Deacon had never been off the east coast of the Americas.
"If you say so," Asher conceded.
"I just said it, didn't I? Now, get lost." Danica never spared anyone a second brush-off, mostly because she rarely needed to; those who didn't take the hint either learned from their mistake…or didn't. Asher left, his last sight being that of his sister raking her rails deep into the human's back, drawing blood. That made him sufficiently hungry to forget his concerns about the doings back east and her intentions towards her new pet for quite a while.
Present
"That was his story." He'd picked up a girl in a bar, and she tried to rip his throat out. Or, rather, she should have ripped his throat out, if she'd behaved like vamps usually did. "I didn't buy it, personally."
"What changed your mind?" For once, Blade didn't sound dismissive; he was frowning, appearing almost contemplative.
"Natasha did. She and Jason got King out of Asher Talos' suites at the Crown Royal out in San Diego."
"He said you found him."
She shrugged it off. " 'Tash didn't survive Danica's revenge long enough for it to matter. Neither did Jason, really."
Blade grunted. "They thought they'd give him the EDTA shot and all would be fine. Stupid."
"Listen," Abby pointed a silver-tipped arrow at him before loading it and firing, without looking, at a test dummy. "We're not all superhuman, Blade. We get bit, we want to think there's a chance we won't turn into those fuckers." She spat, as though the mere thought of drinking blood for eternity were unpleasant to the palate. "We owe it to the people who didn't choose to get caught to try."
"You don't not choose to be a familiar."
She blinked, shifting her weight. Was he really that clueless? "You have a lot to learn about familiars, Blade."
February 2000
"Ugh, humans!" The she-vamp roared. Natasha ducked a swing that could have broken her neck. This wasn't right, some part of her brain registered. They'd come for Asher Talos; he was not pureblood as far as their genealogies showed, a good first start for their cell. That was before the small force of extremely weak yet nonetheless fearsome vampire security force, the barrage of familiars eager to prove themselves to their master, and now, as Natasha discovered, this one. They had never even seen this one in their surveillance before. This hall was supposed to be clear, all the way to Asher. "Eggers! Duck!" Natasha hit the ground, one of the she-vamp's talons tearing a gash down her arm as she fell. Jason fired the round from down the hall, silver-tipped arrow whistling over her head. She rolled, prepared to launch herself back up, silver knife at the ready if he missed.
And good thing, too. His shot was wide, catching the vampire low through the abdomen instead of the ribs on the left side. She howled, ripping the whole shaft clear of her body from behind. From the floor, Natasha caught sight of another guard rounding the corner behind Jason, colliding with him before she could cry out a warning. Just as suddenly, the female vampire was upon her, lifting her by her chin.
"You are disturbing us!" The vamp's pupils were narrow, her eyes wide. Natasha fought to hold herself up above the thing's grip, to gulp at the air. The vamp held her tight, watched her struggle without comment or expression other than indignant rage. "We," the she-vamp snapped, "are busy! You will have to come back for me to kill you another day." With an almost careless gesture, the vamp sent her ten feet down the corridor. Natasha heard something break as she hit an obstruction, then a grunt, then a moment of black crowding out all else.
Struggling to her elbows, Natasha glanced back to see Jason shoving the now deceased guard off of him; her fall had driven the armor-clad man forward onto a silver stake in Jason's hand. The guard was limp and bleeding; he was human, but there was no time to make anything more of it. They had to deal with the female, and now. Natasha leapt to her feet, tensed and ready to fight. The female regarded her indifferently but cautiously. The guard had snapped Jason's bow; all he had were the stakes. Her weapon was at the thing's feet, so there was a chance…but she would have to get very close.
"Come get me, honey," the vampire beckoned her, placing one booted foot upon Natasha's gun. Natasha tensed her muscles, rocking back on her feet, poised to strike on the Golden Moment, that one microsecond when the enemy flinched and would be one half-second too late…
Only this time the strike came a half-second before she was ready. Out of the black of the room behind the she-vamp, a blurred form came barreling into her, hitting her squarely in the middle of her upper back. A perfect hit, shoulder taking the brunt of it, Natasha appraised the attacker, a half-naked man who looked very rugged indeed. They both toppled with the blow, and Natasha sprang towards them.
The she-vamp was quicker, shrieking and clawing at the man who'd taken her down before Natasha had taken three steps. He didn't appear to notice, though he could only barely deflect her blows. Head wound, possibly, or, Natasha saw, blood loss. The meat was fighting back; just as they had not anticipated this vamp's presence, she had not expected her dinner to go on the offensive. Natasha dove for her weapon, tumbling head over heels and whipping around in a crouch, leveling the weapon at the vamp.
This move, too, came one split-second too late. The vampire rolled when she did, mounting her attacker and dragging him up by his chin as a human shield.
"Don't," she purred, squeezing the man's throat, "don't."
"The fuck do I care?" Natasha spat back, cursing herself for doing so. Don't talk with the enemy, that was the way. The second a vampire thought he could talk himself out of it, or thought they were weak enough to consider an exchange, the hunter lost the advantage. Human casualties were an unfortunate reality. She dared a glance at the man; his eyes were remarkably clear, focused on her but not begging for mercy. Shoot her, he seemed to be saying. Do it.
"Don't make me hurt my little pet here." The vamp shot to her feet, pulling the man up with her backwards. "We need to have a talk, my little King and I," she hissed in his ear. "Isn't that righ--" There was a weird sucking noise, and she staggered with her captive. Jason! He'd thrown a stake, missing the heart and the head, but tearing into the she-vamp's neck, severing her windpipe. Enraged, the vampire tightened her grip on her captive, and, just as Natasha moved in to flank Jason, brought her nails across the man's throat and threw him bodily into them. By the time they disentangled, she was gone.
"Jesus, this guy needs attention right the fuck now," Jason mumbled, ripping his shirtsleeve to stop the bleeding. The man didn't fight him; he merely lay there, dazed, head lolling slightly. Jason worked quickly, expertly fixing the bandage tight in a matter of seconds. He sat back on his haunches. "She didn't dig deep enough," he said, relieved. "We need to get him out of here."
"We don't have Asher," Natasha hissed.
"No time," Jason ignored her. "We've done enough for now. Cops will be here in ten. We'll need the time to get out."
"I'm not leaving without dusting Asher."
"Forget him!" Jason barked. "That bitch is going to bring the cavalry down on us unless we get out of here now!" He jerked the prone man up, rudely tossing him over his shoulders. "Get your head together, Eggers. Asher's not even here."
"No," Natasha shook her head. "I know he's here."
"We missed him, damn it! If you want to get him, you have to live to find him another day." Grunting, Jason took off at a stilted pace, weighed down by his living burden.
With a cry of frustration and rage that might have impressed the female vampire she had fought, Natasha ran after him.
Present
"They brought him back here," Abby loaded her quiver carefully, scanning the horizon as she did, waiting for the new wheels to arrive. "He was in pretty good shape for meat." She holstered a few silver-edged blades into various pockets on her outfit and adjusted the spring-loaded one on her wrist. "Thing was, his tattoo wasn't immediately obvious."
"I've learned a thing or two about that," Blade intoned. Yeah, he probably had. The vampires had changed what had worked for them for centuries because of him. And he adapted right along with them. Some time after her father returned from the hunt abroad, Whistler related the story of a mole named Scud to cells at large, and not a few familiars were summarily found out.
"This was two years before what happened in Germany."
"You ought to have been cautious." The nearly insurmountable pillar of incredulity apparently didn't show on her face, or he might have said more. Her be more cautious? Right.
"I was. Natasha, too, she didn't buy King's story about being dragged down after a date. Especially not when Jason discovered the glyph."
February 2000
It was a tacit agreement that the open shower area would be just that. There was plenty of space and more than one shower head to it, so it made no sense to go one at a time. Fortunately, people who were able to kill without hesitating were able to bathe without peeping. It meant no wait, but it also meant no privacy. Since Jason had a tendency to sing, poorly, when showering, this was a decided negative for anyone else stuck in the shower with him.
However, it also meant they could keep an eye on their new guest at all times. It would take a little contrivance to see to it that at least one person was stepping into or out of the shower for the first two weeks the rescued meat stayed with them. After that grace period, the EDTA would take care of any residual vampire blood in the man's system, and he would be free to leave. Until then, they weren't taking any chances.
Which was why Jason was showering now, just as Dex directed their guy towards him. He glanced over his shoulder as he shampooed his hair, and then looked away, shrugging and unimpressed.
"You guys shower in groups, or is this about to get a lot less pleasant for me?"
"What's the matter? Scared of the competition?" Dex barked with laughter and left, tossing a towel to their guest.
"Well, I guess I don't mind if you don't."
"Rock out," Jason said, flatly, affecting indifference. Beyond the rush of water and the simple motions of getting clean, his senses tracked the new guy as he dropped trou and stepped onto the tiles towards a free showerhead.
"What'd you say your name was again?" Jason called through the jet of water streaming over his head.
"Hannibal King," came the dreamy reply. Jason turned to see Hannibal with his face full in the hot water, mouth open, expression rapturous. It had obviously been a while since the guy had had a decent shower. Not that he was surprised. Vampires had no need for hot water; if they got dirty, they could scrub off with garden hoses for all that water temperature mattered to them.
"You got a nickname or do I go with Hannibal?" Jason made a face, what he hoped was a decent mug. "Maybe 'Han'?"
"As in 'Solo?'"
"Okay, smartass, how about 'Annie'?"
"I wouldn't fit into the little red dress."
" 'Ball'?"
"I have more than one." Hannibal leaned back from the water, cocked his head to the side, smirking, "Actually, I prefer to be addressed as Dr. Doom, but if it's all the same to you, call me King."
"King, that'll do." Sounded solid, so Jason approved. Back in the unit, he'd been 'Webb,' but that was a place where men were all last names or derivatives. Something about knowing the first name of the guy next to you in the heat of a hopeless fight demoralized troopers, and the same mentality prevailed here. When it got down to business, Simon, Phil, Jason, Natasha, Jessica, and Abigail became Dex, Hedges, Webb, Eggers, Sommer, and Whistler. King would fit right in with the rest, if he chose to stay,
"And what are your plans, King?"
"Last I remember, we still had a Y2K problem. I wasn't expecting to have anything to worry about when 2000 rolled in." King groped for purchase and found the shower shelf empty. "You mind sharing the soap?" Without turning, Jason reached behind him and produced the bar he'd been using. He held it purposefully just out of reach, so King would have to turn and face him.
And a good thing, too. Critical eyes strayed over King's rather wasted musculature. When he'd hauled him out of the Crown Royal, he'd estimated the guy's weight at one-sixty, one-seventy at most. What couldn't be appreciated while King had been passed out being treated for bites was the not insubstantial muscle on his otherwise lean frame. His military training pegged King as a SEAL-type, perhaps not the biggest of badass boys, but probably one of the most enduring, toughest, and, above all, dangerous. SEALs were hungry fighters; they survived hell, and it showed. Though the vampire blood that had, until recently, been in his system healed the scars, the muscles beneath the skin had that tone to them that Jason had seen before. King had the kind of body that remembered. He couldn't believe their luck, though it made sense; only a true survivor would have lasted as long as the months King claimed he'd been held by Danica Talos.
His general impression was positive until his eyes played the natural wander game. It was the same as played in locker rooms the world over. Just how big was the guy next to you? Jason's eyes never made it far past King's belly button, which was the last vision he recalled clearly until he found himself holding King down with one knee on his neck. Before King could cry out, Jason bent both his arms behind his back and twisted just enough to let him know he meant business, and then hollered.
"What the shit?" He turned his head to see Dex, who'd lingered in the hall, train a gun on King within a second after entering the room. Natasha followed on his heels, twin silver magnums drawn probably the instant she heard his shout. Jason's ears registered a heavy thump and then more afterwards as someone dropped down from the deck above and ran. That would probably be Whistler.
"What's going on, Webb?"
"We've got us a little problem, don't we, King?" He eased up the pressure exerted by his knee to let the man speak.
"If…you…say…so," King wheezed. Whistler appeared in the doorway, also armed. King looked up at the newest arrival and wagged his hand back and forth, which was as close to a wave as he could get from his current position. "Gang's…all…here," he managed, grunting.
"Webb?" Natasha repeated.
"We got us a familiar, crew."
Natasha nodded. "Show me."
"Actually…if it's all the same to you…" King struggled a bit. "Have…this…thing about…" he strained and tried to breathe against Jason's weight, then gave up, "dignity."
"We'll help you shake it then," Natasha replied, coldly. Jason nodded and leaned back on his heels, dragging King up to his knees. The man was still too weak to put up much fight, weaker now than he had been when they picked him up because of the EDTA treatment.
"I see," said Natasha, eyes narrowing at the offending mark just below King's belly button, just as he had done. She nodded once to herself, then caught his eyes. "Make him comfortable."
King lifted his head. "Would that include clothes?"
"What do you think?" Jason grinned humorlessly.
Present
"Not all familiars are created equal," Abby continued. Caulder had arrived, and they were en route to his headquarters.
"Some are more annoying than others."
"We learned a lot about them from King." That was Caulder's contribution. "One of ours is an ex-slave. My wife," he added, honestly.
Abby watched Blade's reaction carefully. Apparently, he possessed some capability to be surprised, albeit not noticeably. "Not everyone branded is technically a familiar," she reminded him.
"Property," Blade conceded.
"There are those. We hadn't heard anything about it. If we clean out a nest, most of them are vamps or familiars. If they attack you, you kill them. If they're not healthy enough to survive transport, you put them out of their misery."
"That's how it should work."
"Yeah, we learned from you and my father," she said, simply. "Even with the EDTA treatment, most of them are goners."
"Or else their masters come looking for them," Caulder supplied from the driver's seat. "Not worth the trouble a lot of the time."
"That's what happened with King. Danica didn't let him go easy."
February 2000
Danica pointed at a blood splotch on the floor just outside her room. Her throat would take time to heal, but even without words, her meaning was clear. When he and the others found her, she was scribbling one name over and over in the blood of one of the guards. Now, they were back by her rooms, and she scratched out words on a pad of paper, almost too feverish to hold the pen at all. Her note said: HE WAS RIGHT HERE.
"Now, little one, I'm sure you're right, see?" Asher dipped a finger into fresh blood. Danica grabbed his finger and licked the slowly congealing liquid from it. Then she bent to the small pool and lapped the rest right off the floor. "My dear, that's not quite dignified," Asher chided.
She ignored him, sitting back hard on her ass, licking her hands where any blood remained and whimpering. Asher read her mood and waited. Others might have assumed she'd flipped out. He knew his sister better; beneath her tantrums and fits, Danica plotted. Her toy wasn't where she left it, and all her thoughts were bent on retrieving it.
"We need to clean up and get out of here, my dear. It's time to go home." He crouched down to her level. "Whatever you want to do will have to wait."
Danica's eyes snapped to his face. A protest or a plea, he wasn't sure which, opened his mouth, but she moved faster. She laid him out with a swift kick to the groin and a left hook. She pounced on him when he fell over, screaming without being heard, the gaping wound in her throat and her mouth opening and closing, teeth flashing. He didn't need the words to know what she meant.
"Later, my little one," he cooed, affectionately; she bit him on the hand when he tried to pat her gently, but it calmed her down. She was able to mouth one word he could read easily.
NOW.
"And that's probably everything up to and including the part where the naked guy tackled me in the shower," King finished. He collapsed back with a whump as he hit the padding and half-heartedly tugged at the pair of handcuffs locking him to where he lay.
No one said anything right away, though significant looks circled the room a few times. Natasha saw that Webb hadn't decided what he thought, Abby had a distinct air of disbelief, Dex and Hedges didn't seem to have any interest in seeing King make it off the gurney they'd strapped him to. Sommer frowned, bouncing Zoë on her lap. Zoë, on the other hand, looked happy to see King because, in the silent interim, he kept making faces at her. She was the only one who would look at him with a smile that didn't remind one of a predatory animal.
"Okay," Natasha cleared her throat. "Say I buy this story. For now."
"No returns after thirty days."
"There are things I will need to know to satisfy my disbelief."
"I'm single, have just gotten out of a bad fucking relationship, and am looking for companionship that doesn't involve donations to the Red Cross," King mumbled, closing his eyes.
"Why would this vampire keep you alive?"
"I'm such a fun guy to be around, normally."
"I tell you what, King," Jason chimed in, scratching his neck, an innocent gesture indicating imminent violence. "Every time you crack wise with us when we ask you serious questions…"
"You'll what?" Here, King sat up on the gurney and glared daggers at Webb. "What, exactly, do you think you can do to me that I haven't already experienced at some point in the past five years?" His wounded posturing touched off a light in Natasha's brain: he was telling the truth. She would not let on, but she would grant him a moderate lightening of her suspicions—not a suspension of doubt, by any means, but a less grudging willingness to hear his explanation.
"Broken bones?" That was Abby. Natasha recognized a probing nature to the question; Abby was fighting reaching the same conclusion she had reached about the veracity of his story.
"Ribs, shoulder, arm, leg, and toe," King answered, sounding exhausted and wincing, "at once."
Abby frowned yet pressed on. "Blood loss?"
"You're kidding, right?"
"Bites?"
"Loads."
"No way," Hedges whispered, "you'd have turned by now." And he had a point; it was one of those things she wanted to know, too. Natasha folded her arms meaningfully and raised an expectant eyebrow.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"When were you bitten?"
King yawned. "Forgot my date book at the Pleasure Palace."
"He is human," Sommer contributed, settling pricks of suspicion around the room.
Abby looked unconvinced. "Then how did you survive the first bite?"
"I've had my shots."
There was a moment of silence, then an "Oh fuck," from Jason.
"What?"
"Oh fuck!"
"Indeed," Sommer nodded, as if he'd shared some vital piece of information.
"Webb, you better spill it."
"They've got EDTA."
No one said anything. The pall of quiet fell on each shoulder heavily. Jason shook his head; Dex slumped into a chair, Hedges' fingers twitched. Only she and Abby betrayed no outward sign of being the slightest bit affected. Sommer rocked Zoë, and King looked curiously between them.
"Something I said?"
"EDTA," Sommer said, finally, "is used to prevent blood clots in heart attack patients and people with severe arteriosclerosis. Vampire blood coagulates the host's blood, converting healthy cells until there is no human blood left. The clots that form eventually kill the person, and, through a process we're still investigating, they get back up as a vampire." King's eyes traveled along his arm to where a gauze pad had been placed over his inner elbow. "EDTA prevents the vampire blood from forming necessary clotting structures that will both convert all the human cells and kill the person who's been bitten."
"So who gets to play doctor for the rest of my life?"
Sommer shook her head. "Doesn't work that way. Blood cells only last around three months in your system. There are various checkpoints in the body where old and unhealthy cells are summarily removed. If EDTA is applied over a proper time course, the vampire cells are isolated and removed by the body naturally."
"Which is what you gave me?"
"And what your handler seems to have given you as well."
"Shit," Jason spat. "Why would the vampires want this stuff?"
"To keep their toys alive," Natasha conjectured aloud. "Or to study it, see if they could build up an immunity."
"Or an antidote."
"You can use this kind of thing as a weapon?" King played at being interested, most likely out of relief that the conversation had moved away from the personally threatening.
Natasha glanced at the others briefly, but held King's gaze when she spoke. "There has been one successful test using it."
"I see. Side effects may vary."
"Actually, yes."
"Too difficult to make an accurate projectile out of, too," Hedges complained. "We've tried, but every variation on your basic tranquilizer dart just doesn't cut it. You'd have to hit a major blood vessel with a serious dose of EDTA to have an immediate or even very large effect. And you'd have to inject a lot. Our only working model came from—"
"Another hunter," Abby cut him off. "We only started using it to treat bites a year ago."
"Successful vampire blood clearing requires a methodical application and waiting process," Sommer added.
"Gee, Mr. Wizard, what else can science do for us?"
"Enough," Jason dismissed the question with a wave. "We were talking about you, King."
"Danica Talos," Natasha prompted him. "We need to know more. We thought Asher was the only higher order vampire in residence. If she's his equal, we seriously underestimated them."
"I told you what I knew."
"You told us about you," Natasha corrected, "I want to know about her." King regarded her, dazed and tired, took a deep breath and pulled up thread after thread. Sommer had the foresight to hit record on her computer; they would have to sort out the details later. For the time being, the sheer utter wrongness of their assumptions was enough to blow the mind.
Present
"Just like that, he's working with you?" Blade sized up his ride. Caulder had gotten them bikes—better for maneuvering through security gaps if they could find them.
Abby selected a set of riding gloves. "Natasha trusted him after she did some extra leg work on Talos' holdings. Asher was only a co-signer on leases. He acted like the representative in all the business deals. We thought he was the boss." She tossed him gloves; he didn't bother catching them, just batted them away. Unfazed, Abby walked to her own ride.
"Asher walked in plain sight, Danica kept herself sequestered." She shuddered. "Until we took away her toy."
March 2000
Danica was in charge of this particular coven, or, at least, she was in charge of Asher. The recollections of a half-drained ex-pet and victim had stood their theories on end. Asher handled Danica, certainly, but he deferred to her on decisions. From King's description, she sounded particularly unstable. Vampirism tended to drive former mortals in the direction of megalomania, certainly, but Danica Talos may have been vaulting headlong towards insanity long before she changed.
"What do you think?" Natasha asked from the computer station. Jason remained staring at the security camera relays. His nerves were singing. All they had learned since freeing Hannibal King only confirmed his fears.
"I think," he started, hesitant, "I think I might have made a mistake taking him with us."
"You think he's working with them?"
"No," his gaze flickered to the camera watching Abby helping Sommer check up on King. "He seems genuinely relieved to be cured. A true familiar might be more upset at losing his chance at immortality."
"What then?"
"Danica Talos doesn't seem like the type to suffer a setback gracefully."
"She's insane is what you're saying." Sighing, Jason gave up his sentinel duty and collapsed into a chair next to her. Natasha said nothing, merely let him collect his thoughts.
"Yeah, probably. I just," he rubbed his eyes, feeling suddenly very old, "I just never thought they'd…" what? He couldn't finish. Vampires took humans all the time as food. They also marked their servants. It just didn't seem right the two would mix, that willing assistants would put up with torture or that frightened victims would be tempted with immortality. Stockholm syndrome? Maybe, except King wasn't acting when he talked about Danica Talos; that kind of hatred one reserved for the usual suspects: mortal enemies, bitter rivals, and acrimonious exes.
"This is going to bite us in the ass, 'Tash."
"Probably. He pissed her off, we pissed her off."
"We should get out of the area for a while. Send Sommer and Zoë some place safe."
"There are other cells that could take King off our hands."
"Only if we don't mention where or how we got him." He scanned her carefully. "You wouldn't do that."
"No," she admitted. "What are our other options?"
"Kill Danica Talos."
"Right, a woman we only saw once and have only a paper trail to prove exists at all?"
"We could get other cells in on this."
"Resource drain," she said flatly. "We mix up too much and we all go down if one goes down."
"Give King back to her."
"Would that work?"
Jason opened his mouth to joke and shut it with a hard click of his teeth. Natasha would not meet his eyes with her own. Some part of her was half serious.
" 'Tash…Jesus."
She raised her head off her chest, slowly and deliberately. "Him or us, Jason? If it comes down to him or us, I choose us."
"Yeah, okay, but still, Je-sus."
"He's told us what he knows. What other use does he have?"
"We could train him. It might throw her off her guard to have him with us if we move against her." He hoped it sounded throwaway and off-the-cuff. Truthfully, he'd thought about it, considered the pros and cons since they accepted King's story and allowed him to move freely (if observed closely) through the base. The first thing the new guy had done was to shape up. Abby agreed to run him through some strength training, a toned down version of her workout, as part of a rehabilitative course. Jason felt a stab of pride that he had pegged King right; that guy remembered, and guys who did that held serious grudges.
"You're serious," Natasha's words woke him from his reverie. She was not asking.
"Yeah."
"Can he cut it?"
"Yes," Jason answered, unequivocally. They could work through the attitude and the arrogance, and, hopefully, the mouth, but they could shape another hunter out of King's raw material. The Army man in him knew it.
"Hnn," Natasha murmured, noncommittal, contemplative.
Any further discussion was put on hold when a message came through on a secure channel from another group just outside San Diego. It was a short S.O.S. of an emergency signal, the kind agreed upon by each cell to signify an attack on a Nightstalker base. If someone lived long enough, they tripped the alarm to give warning to other cells. And if one person lived long enough to set off an alarm, it was worth investigating, in hopes of finding them still alive when they got there.
"We'll finish this later." Natasha nodded. They bolted to gear up, rushing past confused questions from Hedges, Dex, and Abby. Sommer, who had retreated to her research station, read the alert with her fingers; Zoë was disappearing into one of the spare storage spaces near her desk, being hushed.
"What's going on?" Abby ran up to them, alert and armed.
"Not this time, little girl," Jason pushed by her for the weapons station. Hedges, recovering and falling into step, awaited requests. "I want the super-eights, Hedges."
"Right."
"I want to come."
"Forget it, kiddo."
Abby darted ahead and slammed her arm out across his path and leaned against a support pillar. "I am coming."
"Like fun you are," Natasha said, ducking under Abby's arm and looking for her gear.
"What the hell good am I doing here if something's wrong?"
"Listen to me, Abigail, because I'm going to say this exactly once." Jason stepped right up into her face, glowering down the length of his height advantage. "First, you're the junior partner here, so you do what we say, or you take a hike. Second, we are a team on this, so we all do our part. Yours is to keep this place safe. If something happens to us, you get everyone out of here and provide covering fire if necessary. We are not going to lose another cell if we've already lost this one, you got me, soldier?"
Abby took a step back, and he slapped her limp arm aside. The military talk only came out when he was good and pissed. While that did not intimidate their tough little Whistler scion, it commanded respect and took it. Vampires would die tonight if the other group went down. He'd see to that. So would Eggers.
"What should we do?" Dex appeared around the corner with a set of keys.
"Motor, Dex."
"You got it."
"We're moving already?" Abby folded her arms over her chest. "Why?"
Jason closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Why? Because this might be the revenge of a seriously psychotic vampire? Because the slaughter of another group of hunters might just be too much for her to see reflected in his eyes when, if, he returned?
"Because I've got a bad feeling about this one, Abby."
Present
"They didn't come back."
"I guessed," Blade said, barely sparing her attention from his last minute weapons-check. He threw a leg over a bike, and she did the same. She started the engine. "You still haven't answered my question."
"Why do I trust King, you mean?"
"Yes."
Abby rolled her neck around on her shoulders, loosening the knots there. An evening's worth of bad memories from her younger days tended to tense her up. Beneath the agitation and lament of her recent losses, the old ones still flared. Friends not avenged, no matter how old or recent their demise, were demons that did not sleep. Don't let it go inwards, Blade had said, and she had told him it already has. That was the answer, really.
"Because he and I retrieved the bodies." She stared into her reflection in Blade's sunglasses. "Because he let it go inward. Strangers he hardly knew. There are a thousand reasons since, Blade, but that was the first." Rather more testily than she intended, she placed her hands on her hips and said, "Is that enough for you?"
"For now."
Abby nodded and hugged her body to the bike. There were more pressing concerns at present.