Jack Kursed (36 page)

He stood next to her and
looked at the two bodies twenty feet away. He recognized Officer
Derek Thomas underneath another body, presumably their vampire. The
vampire had a broken table leg through his chest.

"Looks like you had fun," he said.
"Did you have any trouble?"

"Please. They both went down like
children. How did your end go?"

"Fine. Tiffany’s with
Erica."

"Good."

The sun peeked over the
horizon, bathing the roof in light. The vampire’s body went up in
flames, taking Officer Thomas with it. Victoria pulled out a pair
of sunglasses and slipped them over her eyes. The scent of burning
flesh brought back painful memories.

"This is a first for us,
isn’t it?" she asked.

"Watching a few bodies
burn in the morning sun? I’d say so."

She laughed and stood up, slapping
Jack on the shoulder. "I have to go," she said. "I have to get that
hard drive to my contact."

"Thank you, Victoria. For being there
for me."

"You’re welcome. What is
family for? Walk down with me. I want to say goodbye to Tiffany and
Erica."

The immortal and the
vampire went back to Erica’s room. She cut her words off as she
turned through the door. Smiling, she leaned in the doorway,
gesturing for Jack to take a look.

Tiffany had crawled into
bed with Erica and they had both fallen asleep. Tiffany’s shoes
were on the floor next to the bed. Erica snored quietly. Her hair
fell on Tiffany's nose, and the girl brushed it aside without
waking up. They had certainly earned some rest.

"You’ve got the makings of
a little family here," Victoria whispered. "I’ll be back in a few
days."

Jack waved at Victoria one
last time before she vanished into the elevator. He turned his
attention back to Tiffany and Erica. For the first time, he felt
absolutely no jealousy or anger at watching others
sleep.

CHAPTER 16

Victoria was feeling
the effects pushing herself too hard. She
’d been driving for the past four hours, only stopping once
to lure a man into the bathroom of a highway gas station. The man
had been drinking, which gave his blood a nasty taste, but it was
enough to keep going.

She patted the pack on her
seat that contained the hard drive. Hopefully cracking the data
would be as easy as her contact said it would be. Alex and Cindy’s
wedding would be upon her faster than she was ready for, and there
was no way she would miss it.

Her demeanor eased as the
highway finally opened up into a small town. It was nearly noon,
and the hot sun danced across her skin. She smiled as she parked in
the mall parking lot. Afternoon shoppers and teens cutting class
left their cars and headed inside. She grabbed her pack and
followed the scattered groups into the mall.

Blood surrounded her, a
reassuring feeling. Couples walked here and there, stopping in
front of stores and kiosks. A teen couple kissed on a bench with
passion, making Victoria miss Jake Bachner. A bored-looking man in
the middle of the aisle flew a remote-controlled helicopter near
the ceiling with expert precision.

Victoria followed her nose
to the food court, where the crowds were a little thicker. She
scanned the restaurants until she found what she was looking for, a
TGI Friday’s. She shook her head as she crossed the food court,
still amazed her contact worked as a server in a
restaurant.

"Hi," the pretty young woman greeted.
Her name tag read Anita. "Table for one?"

"No, actually I’m looking
for someone who works here," Victoria said. A smile crossed her
face as her eyes fell on him, refilling drinks at a soda fountain.
"And there he is."

Anita followed
Victoria’s gaze. "Kevin? Kevin Mishnar? You’re here for
him
?"

"Yeah."

Anita wrinkled her face as
she eyed Victoria with jealousy. She obviously had a thing for
Victoria’s friend.

"Aren’t you a little old
for him?" she asked.

"Oh, a
lot
old. Excuse
me."

Kevin was still the same
cute young man not even a year removed from high school. Short
brown hair, bright smile, adorable dimples. The Friday’s uniform
didn’t exactly mesh with him. But she wasn’t sure what uniform
would mesh well with the most powerful supernatural creature
alive.

Victoria was halfway
across the restaurant when Kevin spotted her. She could feel the
looks she was getting from the male patrons, as well as some of the
servers. A few snide comments touched her ears from two or three of
the females who had crushes on Kevin. He smiled as they embraced in
the middle of the restaurant.

"Victoria," he said. "I
didn’t think you’d be here until tomorrow."

"Well, this is important.
And it looks like I didn’t interrupt much."

"It’ll be swamped at
night, but I’ll be off then." He looked up at a supervisor across
the restaurant. "Hey Danny? Can I take a break?"

Danny simply waved him
away. Kevin led Victoria out the back to the food court. Anita
glared at them both as they left.

"I see you’re still
popular with the ladies," Victoria said.

"Eh, whatever," Kevin
said. They sat at a table in the center, away from everyone else.
"So, how’s my favorite
person-who-buried-me-in-a-coffin?"

"You are never gonna let
me forget that, are you? You roasted me to a crisp with one of your
little magic-sunlight-gizmos the next day, so I’d say we’re
even."

He gestured to the
sunglasses on top of her head. "At least that won’t be a problem
anymore."

She smiled and leaned across the
table, giving Kevin a gentle kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you," she said, her voice
shaking with emotion. "I wish I had some better way to thank you
for the gift."

"Don’t worry about it.
Just don’t ask me to do it again. Some of the crap I had to
get...absolutely disgusting."

Victoria laughed. "How was graduation?
How are Kristin and Rachel?"

Kevin frowned, and she
regretted asking the question. Kristin was Kevin’s adopted sister,
Rachel his girlfriend.

"Kristin is okay.
Graduation was fine. I couldn’t help people cheat in school
anymore, so I started working here. Rachel went off to college, of
course."

Victoria could almost see the events
in her mind, but asked regardless.

"What happened?"

"She met someone,
obviously. She met someone that doesn’t carry bird claws and bat
fangs around with them."

"Aw, Kevin. I’m
sorry."

"It’s okay. It still
stings a little, but I’ll live, right?"

Victoria wanted to comfort
him, but wasn’t sure what to say. He was nineteen, and would have
many more chances at romance in his life. But she knew those
weren’t words he wanted to hear. She simply reached out and touched
his hand. Her thoughts kept drifting to the pack at her feet, and
she felt guilty for it. Kevin saw her mind was elsewhere, and
smiled as he gestured to the floor.

"Did the hard drive clone go okay?" he
asked.

"Yes. But do you want to talk about
this now? We can always come back to it."

He laughed and shook his
head. "You said it was important. I’ll be right back, let me get my
laptop."

Five minutes later he was opening his
laptop at the table while Victoria fished the portable hard drive
from her pack. She glanced around nervously as the people ate and
talked not far away.

"It’s safe to do this
here?" she asked.

"I don’t exactly have a
lab, unless you want to wait until I get off at seven
tonight."

Victoria shook her head. "Here will be
fine. Go ahead and work your magic."

"Nice choice of words."

She sat in silence as he worked for
several minutes. He hooked her portable hard drive to his laptop
and typed quickly at the keyboard.

"What are you doing,
exactly?"

"I’m gonna copy the hard
drive image you made, make a virtual machine out of it. We’ll be
able to boot it up like it was the real laptop."

"But the security will
still be there, right? We won’t be able to access
anything?"

Kevin smiled and turned
the laptop to show his progress. The same logon window Victoria saw
earlier in Collins’ room was in a smaller window, waiting for a
password.

"Right. Did you get what I asked
for?"

She reached again into her
pack and pulled out a wad of toilet paper with some of Collins’
hair in it. Kevin accepted it and looked it over.

"Perfect."

"It was a little gross,
trying to pull hair out of his brush."

Kevin produced a vial of what looked
like milk, capped with a tiny cork. Victoria had the feeling that
whatever was in his hand was far from milk. He popped the cork and
shoved the hair inside.

"You drink blood, and you
think this is gross? Victoria, believe me, you haven’t seen gross
until you’ve seen me in the kitchen while Kristin’s at
work."

"What is that?"

"Just something that popped in my head
one day after I forgot a password."

Kevin hid the mixture
under the table, but Victoria still saw the slight glow as he
capped the vial with his thumb and turned it upside-down. He poured
a tiny drop on his finger and touched a few random keys on the
keyboard.

"And there we go," he
said, turning the laptop toward her.
"Passwords-Be-Gone."

"You have got to be kidding me," she
said as she looked at a desktop full of folders and icons.
"Technology and magic, working side by side. This is
scary."

"What exactly are you looking
for?"

"To be honest, I don’t
know. Just a clue as to what this guy’s been up to."

Victoria found much more than simply a
clue.

The search was slow at
first. She found mostly personal items, pictures of two children,
music, a questionable web browsing history. Her entire body froze
when she found a folder buried among many others.

Baltimore – Camden
Yards.

"Oh shit."

"What’s up? What did you
find?"

Terror gripped her as she
browsed through the folder’s contents, and images from her own
memory merged with the horrific photos Collins had on his hard
drive. Vampires on tables with heavy restraints, lashing out at
anyone who passed by. Bodies that refused to die after being
drained by a vampire, cramped in cages.

The nature of the photos
changed as Victoria browsed. The mindless feral vampires gave way
to something much worse, something she hadn't seen in a
century.

"God, please, no."

"What?" Kevin said,
urgency in his voice. "Tell me what’s going on."

Glancing at Kevin, she
realized he didn’t know the whole story, only bits and
pieces.

"Believe it or not, Kevin,
vampires are rare. Not everyone bitten gets turned. A group of
scientists were trying to cure vampirism, but they were way off the
mark. The only thing they succeeded in was making it more viral,
able to pass to anyone, and making them wild."

"You're talking about Baltimore, two
years ago? The fake terrorist attack? Videos of you on You
Tube?"

"Yes. I thought it was gone, but I was
wrong. This is...not good."

"Okay, so what's this guy
Collins have to do with everything?"

Victoria scanned through more videos,
photos, emails. She didn't understand all of the science, but one
thing was clear.

"He's helping them,
consulting." Her heart pounded in her chest as she found recent
emails with the best news yet. "They're finally letting him see the
facility. It's about an hour away from where I'm staying. I have to
shut it down."

"I'll help."

"No, you won't. I don't want you
involved-"

She froze as a sudden
movement caught her attention near a garbage can. A man dressed in
jeans and a football jersey slid his trash into the bin, and then
reached behind him, giving Victoria a quick glance.

She moved, but not quickly
enough. She was standing up as the bullet meant for her forehead
struck her throat. Falling backwards, she pulled the laptop and
table down on top of her.

"Victoria!" Kevin shouted.

It took a moment for the
diners in the food court to react. Some looked around in confusion.
Three more people had to draw weapons at different tables and fire
at Victoria and Kevin before the hysteria set in.

People shouted and ran in
all directions as Kevin huddled over Victoria. He crouched even
lower as a corner of the table next to them splintered away. The
pain in Victoria’s throat had faded, but she still couldn’t form
words with a bullet inside her. A drink of blood would force the
bullet out.