When Jane came to again, it was out of a terrifying dream, one in which something that didn't exist was in fact alive and well and in the same room with her: She saw her patient's sharp canine teeth and his mouth at the wrist of a woman and him drinking from a vein.
The hazy, off-kilter images lingered and panicked her like a tarp that moved because there was something under it. Something that would hurt you.
Something that would bite you.
Vampire.
She did not get afraid all that often, but she was scared as she sat up slowly. Looking around the spartan bedroom, she realized with dread that the kidnapping part of things hadn't been a dream. The rest of it, though? She wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't, because her memory had so many holes in it. She remembered operating on the patient. Remembered admitting him to the SICU. Remembered the men abducting her. But after that? Everything was spotty.
As she took a deep breath, she smelled food and saw there was a tray set up next to her chair. Lifting a silver lid off the... Jesus, that was a really nice plate. Imari, like her mother's had been. Frowning, she noted the meal was gourmet: lamb with baby new potatoes and summer squash. A slice of chocolate cake and a pitcher and a glass were off to the side.
Had they kidnapped Wolfgang Puck as well, for kicks and giggles?
She looked over at her patient.
In the glow from a lamp on the bedside table, he was lying still on black sheets, his eyes closed, his black hair against the pillow, his heavy shoulders showing just above the covers. His respiration was slow and even, his face had color in it, and there was no sheen of fever sweat on him. Although his brows were drawn and his mouth was nothing more than a slash, he looked... revived.
Which was impossible, unless she'd been out cold for a week straight.
Jane stood up stiffly, stretched her arms over her head, and arched to crack her spine back into place. Moving silently, she went over and took the man's pulse. Even. Strong.
Shit. None of this was logical. None of it. Patients who had been shot and stabbed and who had crashed twice, who then had had open-heart surgery, did not rebound like this. Ever.
Vampire.
Oh, shut up with that.
She glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table and saw the date. Friday. Friday? Christ, it was Friday and ten o'clock in the morning. She'd operated on him a mere eight hours ago, and he looked as if he'd had weeks of healing time.
Maybe this was all a dream. Maybe she'd fallen asleep on the train down to Manhattan and would wake up as they pulled into Perm Station. She'd have an awkward laugh, get a cup of coffee, and go to her interview at Columbia as planned blaming it all on vending cuisine.
She waited. Hoped a bump in the tracks would lurch her into waking up.
Instead, the digital clock just kept churning through the minutes.
Right. Back to the shit-this-is-reality idea. Feeling utterly alone and scared to death, Jane walked over to the door, tried the knob, and found it locked. Surprise, surprise. She was tempted to bang on the thing, but why bother? No one on the other side was going to let her free, and besides, she didn't want any of them to know she was awake.
Casing the place was the directive: The windows were covered by some kind of barrier on the far side of the glass, the panel so thick there wasn't even a glow of day coming through it. Door was obviously a no-go. Walls were solid. No phone. No computer.
Closet was nothing but black clothes, big boots, and a fireproof cabinet. With a lock on it.
The bathroom didn't offer any escape. There was no window and no vent big enough for her to squeeze through.
She came back out. Man, this wasn't a bedroom. It was a cell with a mattress.
And this was not a dream.
Her adrenal glands got kicking, her heart going gidda-wild in her chest. She told herself that the police must be looking for her. Had to be. With all the security cameras and personnel at the hospital, someone must have seen them take her and the patient out of there. Plus, if she missed her interview, questions would start rolling.
Trying to get a grip, Jane closed herself in the bathroom, the lock of which had been removed, natch. After using the facilities, she washed her face and grabbed a towel that was hanging off the back of the door. As she put her nose into the folds, she caught an amazing scent that stopped her dead. It was the smell of the patient. He must have used this, probably before he went out and took that bullet in the chest.
She closed her eyes and breathed in deep. Sex was the first and only thing that came to her mind. God, if they could bottle this, these boys could feed their gambling and drug habits by going legit.
Disgust with herself, she dropped the towel like it was trash and caught a flash behind the toilet. Bending down to the marble tile, she found a straight-edged razor, the old-fashioned kind that made her think of Western movies. As she picked it up, she stared at the shiny blade.
Now, this was a fine weapon, she thought. A damn fine weapon.
She slipped it in her white coat just as she heard the bedroom door open.
Leaving the bathroom, she kept her hand in her pocket and her eyes sharp. Red Sox was back, and he had a pair of duffels with him. The load didn't seem substantial, at least not for someone as big as him, but he struggled under it.
"This should be a good enough start," he said in a raspy, tired voice, the word start pronounced staht in classic Bostonian fashion.
"Start what?"
"Treating him."
"Excuse me?"
Red Sox bent down and opened one of the bags. Inside were boxes of bandages and gauze wraps. Latex gloves. Plastic mauve bedpans. Bottles of pills.
"He told us what you'd need."
"Did he." Damn it. She had no interest in playing doc. It was a big enough job being Kidnap Victim, thank you very much.
The guy straightened carefully, like he was lightheaded. "You're going to take care of him."
"Am I?"
"Yeah. And before you ask, yes, you're going to make it out of here alive."
"Assuming I do the medical thing, right?"
"Pretty much. But I'm not worried. You'd do it anyway, wouldn't you."
Jane stared at the guy. Not much showed of his face underneath the baseball cap, but his jaw had a curve to it she recognized. And there was that Boston accent.
"Do I know you?" she asked.
"Not anymore."
In the silence she ran a clinical eye over him. His skin was gray and pasty, his cheeks hollow, his hands shaking. He looked like he'd been on a two-week bender, weaving on his feet, his breathing off. And what was that smell? God, he reminded her of her grandmother: all denatured perfume and facial powder. Or... maybe it was something else, something that took her back to medical school... Yeah, that was more like it. He reeked of formaldehyde from Gross Human Anatomy.
He certainly had the pallor of a corpse. And ill as he was, she wondered if she might be able to take him down.
Feeling the razor in her pocket, she measured the distance between them and decided to hang tight. Even though he was weak, the door was shut and relocked. If she attacked him, she'd just risk getting hurt or killed and wouldn't be any closer to getting out. Her best bet was to wait next to the jamb until one of them came in. She was going to need the element of surprise, because sure as hell they would overpower her otherwise.
Except what did she do once she was on the other side? Was she in a big house? A little one? She had a feeling that the Fort Knox routine on the windows was standard-issue everywhere else.
"I want out," she said.
Red Sox exhaled like he was exhausted. "In a couple of days you'll go back to your life without remembering any of this."
"Yeah, right. Being kidnapped has a way of sticking with a person."
"You'll see. Or not, as the case will be." As Red Sox went to the bedside, he used the bureau, then the wall to steady himself. "He looks better."
She wanted to shout at him to get away from her patient.
"V?" Red Sox sat down carefully on the bed. "V?"
The patient's eyes opened after a moment, and the corner of his mouth twitched. "Cop."
The two men reached for each other's hands at exactly the same moment, and as she watched them, she decided the two of them had to be brothers¡ªexcept their coloring was so different. Maybe they were just tight friends? Or lovers?
The patient's eyes slid over to her and ran up and down her body as if he was checking that she was unharmed. Then he looked at the food she hadn't touched and frowned like he disapproved.
"Didn't we just do this?" Red Sox murmured to the patient. " 'Cept I was the guy in the bed? How about we call it even now and not pull this wounded shit anymore."
Those icy bright eyes left her and shifted to his buddy. The frown didn't leave his face. "You look like hell."
"And you're Miss America."
The patient brought his other arm out of the sheets like the thing weighed as much as a piano. "Help me get my glove off¡ª"
"Forget it. You're not ready."
"You're getting worse."
"Tomorrow¡ª"
"Now. We do it now." The patient's voice lowered to a whisper. "In another day you won't be able to stand. You know what happens."
Red Sox dropped his head until it hung like a bag of flour off his neck. Then he cursed softly and reached for the patient's gloved hand.
Jane backed away until she hit the chair she'd been passed out in. That hand had put her nurse flat on the floor with a seizure, and yet the two men were both going about their business like contact with that thing was no big deal.
Red Sox gently worked the black leather free, revealing a hand covered with tattoos. Good God, the skin seemed to glow.
"Come here," the patient said, opening his arms wide to the other man. "Lay with me."
Jane's breath stopped in her chest.
Cormia walked the halls of the adytum, her bare feet silent, her white robe making no sound, her very breath passing in and out of her lungs with nary a sigh to note its travels. It was thus that she ambulated as a Chosen should, casting no shadow to eye nor whisper to ear.
Except she had a personal purpose, and that was wrong. As a Chosen you were to serve the Scribe Virgin at all times, your intentions always for Her.
Cormia's own need was such as to be undeniable, however.
The Temple of Books was at the end of a long colonnade and its double doors were always open. Of all the sanctuary's buildings, even the one that contained the gems, this held the most prized lot: Herein rested the Scribe Virgin's records of the race, a diary that was of incomprehensible scope, spanning thousands of years. Dictated by Her Holiness to specially trained Chosen, the labor of love was a testament of both history and faith.
Inside the ivory wall, in the glow of white candles Cormia padded over the marble floor, passing countless stacks, walking faster and faster as she got more anxious. The diary's volumes were arranged chronologically, and within each year by social class, but what she was after wouldn't be in this general section.
Looking over her shoulder to make sure no one was around, she ducked down a corridor and came up to a glossy red door. In the middle of the panels was a depiction of two black daggers crossed at the blade, handles down. Around the hilts in gold leaf was a sacred motto in the Old Language:
The Black Dagger Brotherhood
To Defend and Protect
Our Mother, Our race, Our Brothers
Her hand shook as she put it on the golden handle. This area was restricted, and if she was caught she would be punished, but she cared naught. Even as she feared the quest she was on, she could no longer bear her lack of knowledge.
The room was of stately size and proportion, its high ceiling gold leafed, its stacks not white but shiny black. The books ringing the walls were bound in black leather, their spines marked in gold that reflected the light from candles the color of shadows. The carpet on the floor was bloodred and soft as a pelt.
The air had a smell here that was not usual, the scent recalling certain spices. She had a feeling it was because the Brothers had actually come to this room on occasion and had lingered among their history, taking books out, perhaps about themselves, perhaps about their forebears. She tried to imagine them here and couldn't, as she'd never seen one of them. She had never seen a male in person, actually.
Cormia worked fast to discover the order of the volumes. It appeared that they were arranged by year¡ªOh, wait. There was a biography section, as well.
She knelt down. Each set of these volumes was marked with a number and the name of the Brother, along with his paternal lineage. The first of them was an ancient tome bearing symbols with an archaic variation she recalled from some of the oldest parts of the Scribe Virgin's diary. This initial warrior had several books to his name and number, and the next two Brothers bore him as their sire.
Farther down the line, she randomly took out a book and opened it. The title page was resplendent, a painted portrait of the Brother surrounded by script detailing his name and birth date and induction into the Brotherhood as well as his prowess on the field by weapon and tactic. The next page was the warrior's lineage for generations, followed by a listing of the females he'd mated and the young he'd sired. Then chapter by chapter his life was detailed, both on the field and off.
This Brother, Tohrture, had evidently lived long and fought well. There were three books on him, and one of the last notations was the male's joy when his one surviving son, Rhage, joined the Brotherhood.
Cormia put the book back and kept going, trailing her forefinger over the bindings, touching the names. These males had fought to keep her safe; they were the ones who had come when the Chosen were attacked those decades ago. They were also the ones who kept civilians protected from the lessers. Mayhap this Primale arrangement would be well after all. Surely one whose mission was to shield the innocent would not hurt her?
As she had no idea how old her promised was or when he had joined the Brotherhood, she looked at each book. There were so many of them, whole stacks...
Her finger stopped on a spine of a thick volume, one of four.
The Bloodletter
356
The name of the Primale's sire made her go cold. She had read about him as part of the history of the race, and dear Virgin, perhaps she was wrong. If the stories about that male were true, even those who fought nobly could be cruel.
Odd that his paternal line wasn't listed.
She kept going, tracing over more spines and more names.
VISHOUS
Son of the Bloodletter
428
There was only one volume, and it was thinner than her finger. As she slid it free, she smoothed her palm over the cover, her heart pounding. The binding was stiff as she opened it, as if the book had been rarely breached. Which indeed it had not been. There was no portrait nor carefully penned tribute to his fighting skills, only a birth date that indicated he'd be three hundred and three years old soon, and a notation of when he was inducted into the Brotherhood. She turned the page. There was no mention of his lineage save for the Bloodletter, and the rest of the book was blank.
Replacing it, she returned to the father's volumes and pulled out the third in the set. She read about the sire in hopes of learning something about the son that might allay her fears, but what she found was a level of cruelty that made her pray the Primale took after his mother, whoever that might be. The Bloodletter was indeed the right name for the warrior for he was brutal on vampires and lessers alike.
Flipping to the back, she found on the last page a recording of his death date, though no mention of the manner. She took out the first volume and opened it to see the portrait. The father had had jet-black hair and a full beard and eyes that made her want to put the book away and never open it again.
After replacing the tome, she sat down on the floor. At the conclusion of the Scribe Virgin's sequester the Bloodletter's son would come for Cormia, and he would take her body as his rightful possession. She couldn't imagine what the act entailed or what the male did, and dreaded the sexual lessons.
At least as Primale he would lay with others, she told herself. Many others, some of whom who had been trained to pleasure males. No doubt he would prefer them. If she had any luck at all, she would be rarely visited.