Phantom Shadows (13 page)

“I won’t do this.” He spoke not another word as he finished cleaning and dressing her wound.

Melanie was impressed by the quality of his work. “You’re good.” She tested the dressing. “Have you studied medicine?”

“Formally, no,” he answered, tossing the discarded makeshift bandage and other trash into the can marked hazardous waste. “But I long ago grew tired of butchering myself every time I had to remove chunks of lead, shards of glass, blades long and short, and once, a wooden stake nearly the width of your wrist. So I purchased a library full of medical textbooks that have helped me improve my first aid skills.”

“Did you understand what Montrose Keegan was doing then? His research?”

“Some. In the beginning, I read all of his notes and paid close attention to his experiments. But destroying Roland and maintaining control of an army of men who were rapidly losing their grips on reality was . . .”

“A full-time job?”

“Yes. How do you feel? Do you require pain medication?”

“For this?” she scoffed. “No.”

When she had first begun her training, she had been so freaking sore all over that she had walked like a century-old human. Hunched over. Bitching and moaning with every step she took. (The last part wasn’t necessarily characteristic of an old woman. But for some reason it had helped her to complain about it.)

She had taken no pain relievers for it though. Her trainers had emphasized the importance of becoming accustomed to pain so that if she ever engaged in battle, the pain of any wounds she might incur wouldn’t totally freak her out.

Mission accomplished. She thought she had held her own rather well tonight.

“By the way, are the vampires you hunt usually so chatty?” she asked.

He laughed, some of the tension in his body easing. “No. Many are boastful or make scathing comments until I strike the first blow. Stuart was something of a surprise. He must be like Cliff. The madness must be progressing more slowly in him, otherwise he would have run off or stayed and fought without listening to a word we said.”

“I hope he can be trusted.”

“I do, too.”

“I guess we’ll find out in three nights. Can I go with you to meet him?”

“Hell, no! It could be a trap.”

“All the more reason to have an extra set of hands—”

“Not gonna happen.”

She could see he wouldn’t budge. “Fine. At least call me and let me know you’re on the way to meet him in case it
is
an ambush.”

The tension in his face eased. “That I can do. Now, I’d like to go ahead and speak with Cliff before Richart returns so I’ll bid you good night.”

Melanie stared up at him. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into
kissing
me good night, could I?”

She thought he would refuse. So, when he cupped her face in his large hands, ducked his head, and captured her lips in a fiery hot, tongue-tangling kiss . . .

Well, she lost the ability to think and speak coherently and could only feel.

His eyes blazed brightly when he raised his head. “Good night, Melanie.”

He was through the door before she could find her voice.

Melanie was still thinking about that kiss three nights later while she was supposed to be focusing on the results of Joe’s latest MRI. Though the lab boasted no windows, she knew by the clock that the sun had just set. Bastien would be rising and preparing for the night’s hunt.

Was he still thinking about the kiss, too? Did he regret it? Because she hadn’t seen or spoken to him since.

“Hello.” As though her thoughts had conjured him, he spoke behind her.

Breath catching, she whipped around. “Hi.” His black cargo pants, long-sleeved T-shirt, and coat were clean and outlined his tall, handsome form to perfection. Beside him, Richart nodded to her, then disappeared.

Neither she nor Bastien spoke for a long moment as his gaze roved her like a pair of hands.

“So,” she said when he made no move to give her a hello kiss, “tonight’s the night, huh? You’re meeting with Stuart later?”

He nodded. “I thought I’d come see Cliff first.”

Cliff. Not her. She would’ve been more disappointed if his eyes weren’t glowing faintly with desire.

“Of course.” Melanie slid off her stool and led Bastien not to Cliff ’s apartment, but to her office. Swiping the key card in her pocket, she typed in her personal security code, waited for the beep, and opened the door. “Just a minute.” Grabbing the white lab coat draped over her office chair, she slid her right arm into the appropriate sleeve.

Bastien stepped up behind her, took the coat, and held it for her while she donned it. His hands lingered on her shoulders.

“That isn’t fair,” she whispered, heart racing. He could feel her every emotion, while she remained in the dark.

“I missed you, too,” he admitted. “And want nothing more than to pull you into my arms and see if you taste as good as I remember.”

Smiling, she turned around.

His normally somber expression was as tender as Richart’s was when Richart spoke with his girlfriend. He brushed her cheek with his fingers. “Unfortunately, the matter I need to discuss with Cliff is one of some urgency.”

“I understand.” Heartened by his admission, she crossed to a cabinet, keyed it open, and removed three syringes filled with the sedative. When she turned toward the door, she found Bastien frowning at her. “After what happened with Vince, I always keep some on me when I’m with Cliff or Joe in case one should have a psychotic break. I don’t want to see either of them brought under control with multiple gunshot wounds.”

“Have you had to use them?”

She hesitated. “Once.”

His eyes flared. “When?”

“Last week. On Joe. He—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She didn’t want to say, but thought he deserved the truth. “He was so ashamed afterward, Bastien. And he didn’t hurt me. He tried to grab one of the guards and . . . I was afraid you might . . .”

“Do to him what I did to Vince?”

“Yes.”

His lips tightened.

Well . . . he had asked. Melanie strode past him and led the way to Cliff ’s apartment. Cliff was sunk in the cushions of a black leather sofa, feet propped on the coffee table, reading a science fiction novel when they entered.

Melanie smiled at the guard outside the door as she closed it behind them.

“Did you two want privacy?” she asked belatedly.

Bastien shook his head. “I didn’t really want to talk to Cliff.”

“Nice to see you, too,” Cliff said sunnily as he rose and joined them.

“I don’t understand.”

“I wanted to talk to
you
,” Bastien explained, “and knew we would not be overheard in here.”

Melanie frowned. If Bastien were about to go into some long-winded explanation of why he didn’t want her to hit on him anymore . . .

Her thoughts halted. Wait. Had she been hitting on him? She had never been the aggressor in a relationship before.

And there was that word again: Relationship.

“What’s up?” she asked as casually as she could.

“I sensed you lied and wanted to know why,” Bastien said.

Cliff ’s gaze swung back and forth between them as he eyed them with interest.

“When?”

“At the meeting. When you said you had no antidote to the tranquilizer.”

Oh crap.
“What makes you think I lied?” she bluffed.

“I was touching you and felt your guilt.”

Damn it!
“You know, that’s
really
annoying.”

“Tell me about it,” Cliff quipped.

Bastien shot him a quick glare and once more met Melanie’s gaze. “Have you found a way to counteract the drug?”

She opened her mouth to respond.

Bastien reached out and touched her face. “Have you?”

Crap!
He’d know if she lied.

“The fact that you hesitate tells me you have. Why are you keeping it from the immortals?”

She sighed. “You’re an immortal, too, Bastien. The faster you come to grips with that—”

“What? The faster they’ll all welcome me into the fold and love me like a brother? Not going to happen. Please answer my questions.”

Cliff cleared his throat. “She thinks she’s found an antidote, but is afraid to test it on anyone because it might be too stressful on their heart. Make it beat fast enough to stop it or something like that.”

Melanie growled. “I told you that in confidence!”

“I know. But if this thing works, it will help Bastien.”

Bastien lowered his hand, brushing her arm and hip on the way down. “Tell me.”

She sighed. “It’s a stimulant. One so strong I wouldn’t use it on a comatose elephant.”

“Sounds like it’s just what we need. What’s the problem?”

Melanie thought that was fairly obvious. “If you were undead like the vampire mythology suggests, I wouldn’t worry. But you aren’t. Your heart beats. The virus infecting you can heal a lot of damage, but it requires the circulation of blood to do so. If this antidote, this stimulant, is strong enough that—like the tranquilizer—the virus can’t counteract it, then instead of just waking you from the tranquilizer, it could cause ventricular fibrillation. Your heart could begin to beat so fast that it would
stop
beating and quiver instead, no longer circulating the blood through your body and your brain.”

Cliff looked at Bastien. “I tried to get her to test it on me. Hell, I’m
already
brain damaged, so I figured I didn’t have much to lose. But she wouldn’t.”

Bastien popped Cliff on the back of the head.

“Ow! What the hell?”

“You’re here to
prevent
or at least slow down the mental deterioration, not speed it up.”

Thank goodness she wasn’t the only one who understood that.

“Thank you,” Bastien said.

She nodded.

“So, this stimulant needs more work? More testing?”

“Yes.” She just didn’t know how she was going to do it.

“How would it be delivered? Once we’re hit with the darts, we don’t have much time to react before we pass out.”

“I’ve put it in auto-injectors similar to the ones you used the other night.”

“I don’t know that that’s the best option. A hypodermic might be faster and easier to handle. You said it’s similar to the ones I used, but not identical.”

“Yes.”

“Could I see one? I may not know much about the chemical itself, but I can at least let you know if you’ll need an easier delivery system.”

“Sure. I’ll go get one.”

Melanie had only made three of them. She took one from the lab and left the other two behind in a locked cabinet.

When she returned to Cliff ’s apartment, he and Bastien were conversing rather vehemently in that way of theirs that was inaudible to human ears. Which was a trip, because it looked like they would be shouting if they were truly alone.

She hoped Bastien was convincing Cliff to stop pressuring her to test the drug on him. She just couldn’t and wouldn’t do it.

All conversation ceased when she entered. Closing the door, she approached Bastien with the auto-injector.

He turned it over and over in his hands, then flipped the lid off. “Could we carry it without the lid? It would slow us down less. And my motor skills were a little sluggish after I was tranqed.”

“The lid is a safety release. You need to keep it on until you use it.”

“Is it like adrenaline? Do you have to administer it in the leg?”

“No. Like the tranquilizer, it can be administered anywhere.”

“And you just push it against your skin and hold it for three seconds?”

She shook her head. “Ten seconds.”

“Ten seconds is too long. We’ll either be fighting vampires who move about in fractions of seconds or humans firing automatic weapons. Could you cut that time in half?”

“We don’t know how the virus will react to delivering too much too quickly.”

A faint tap broke the silence that ensued. Melanie glanced down and realized Bastien had dropped the lid to the auto-injector. He followed her gaze. “Oh. Sorry about that.”

She smiled. “I got it.” Melanie bent down to pick it up. A tingle of foreboding scuttled down her spine, a warning that came too late.

Cliff leapt forward.

Melanie gasped as he wrapped his arms around her in a vicelike grip, yanked her back against him, and flew backward across the room, putting the sofa between them and Bastien.

“Cliff?” She struggled to free herself.

His hold tightening, he eased back several more steps.

Oh shit.
Was Cliff having an episode? He hadn’t had one yet, so she hadn’t been expecting it.

Bastien turned to face them.

“It’s okay!” Melanie blurted, terrified he would attack Cliff. “I—”

She tucked a shaking hand in her pocket the same time Bastien reached into his own and drew out the hypodermics containing the tranquilizer that should have been in her hand by now.

He had taken them? When? “What are you . . . ?”

Placing all three plastic needle guards in his mouth, he pulled them off with his teeth and spat them on the floor.

“Bastien . . .”

Drawing his arm back he shoved the needles into his neck and depressed the plungers.

“What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?” she demanded shrilly.

“We have to see if this”—he held up the possible antidote—“is going to work.”

Alarm shot to the surface as she realized what was happening. Cliff wasn’t having a psychotic break. Bastien was testing the damned serum.

“You can’t do this!” She intensified her struggles, but found them ineffective when pitted against a vampire who already held her immobile. “Cliff, don’t let him do this. Please!”

“It’s his choice, Dr. Lipton.”

Bastien swayed as the triple dose of tranquilizer went to work.

“It could kill him!”

Cliff said nothing.

“Bastien, please! Don’t do this.”

Bastien staggered back a step and nearly lost his balance. Raising the auto-injector with the antidote, he shoved it into his neck on the side opposite the needle marks.

Panic seized Melanie, robbing her of the ability to move, to struggle, to call out. She couldn’t seem to do anything but watch in horror as each second passed.