Edie Spence [02] Moonshifted Read online

  “All of these rooms are secure?” Meaty asked.

  “Of course.”

  I could see their occupants in the monitors, the quiet men and women of yesterday, now half human, half beast, all furious. At the sound of our voices in the hall, they redoubled their efforts to come out and play with us.

  “It’s too late to give them shots now, isn’t it?” I asked.

  Rachel eyed me pragmatically. “Do you want to open up a door?”

  “No.” But speaking of. I jerked my chin at Winter’s locked room. “Did the coroner ever come?”

  “It’s a holiday. We called twice,” Gina said.

  There had to be connections among everything—the attacks on me, the attacks on Anna, Viktor’s past, Lucas’s future. Either Winter had taken them to the grave with him, or the answer was behind his door.

  “Gideon—” I said, and we walked over to Winter’s room together.

  I turned on all the lights once we got inside—there was no reason not to see clearly now. I pulled the sheets off the bed, and the smell of necrosis that the weres had commented on was battled by the scent of shit, the final indignity of death, staining both him and middle of the bed like wet cement.

  “What are we looking for?” Gina asked me.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Wouldn’t want to have to give you twice the shots.” She handed me gloves, and I pulled them on. Only another nurse could joke in the face of death, and I loved her for it.

  His naked body was free of the bite-mark scars that vampire-sanctioned donors had, zones where too many injuries had left keloided scars, neck, armpit, groin. All his lines were still in the same places, his ET tube too. What was it? What were we missing?

  I ran my gloved hands over his chest, down his arms, down his legs, down to his one remaining big toe. I hit the bottom of his necrotic foot, expecting to find it like a rotting overripe tomato.

  Instead, it dusted. Not the whole thing, but the topmost tips of his toes. I hit it again, and another line of dust flew off—like I was beating an old rug outside in the spring.

  “Did you see that?” I asked Gina and did it again.

  “He’s part daytimer,” Gina whispered. “No wonder he lived to be so old.”

  “How come we didn’t know?”

  “Do you give men pregnancy tests? We just assume that weres are not also part vampires. Up until now, we were right.” She reached out to hit his foot for herself, then reached back to hit his hand. Another cloud of dust came up, and a chunk of his wrist dusted away.

  “Shit. This is it. What they were protecting,” Gina said.

  “He still died, though. What does this change?”

  “His whole family—if this got out, they’d be humiliated. They’d lose control of the pack.” Gina started pacing and talked as she thought. “But they already have lost control—I mean, Lucas will be pack leader now.”

  “Only for the interim, until Fenris Jr. is of age,” I corrected her.

  “Five years from now. A lot of things can change.”

  Rachel returned to the doorway of the room. “I went and checked the conference room—Helen’s gone. She broke down the door.”

  “Which vampire was giving him blood, is what I want to know,” Gina said. Gideon stood by the head of the bed, looking down at Winter. He leaned forward, almost like he was going in for a lipless kiss, and then stood straight again.

  Gina kept pacing. I would have paced too, only my thighs were still on fire if I moved, and thanks to the were-vaccination my shoulder felt like someone had run a truck into it.

  “Winter was leaving from here when he got hit—Charles and I saw him. Why the hell was he here to begin with?”

  Gina stopped. “Which floors have security cams?”

  I looked over at Gideon. “I think I know someone who can find out.”

  * * *

  We installed Gideon behind the fastest computer on the floor, and he pulled a USB cable out from a pocket and plugged it in. I didn’t know where the end of the cable was located, and I didn’t want to ask.

  “Is that really happening?” Rachel said.

  “Yeah. Ask him if he gets cable.”

  Gideon communed with the computer, but nothing showed on the screen.

  “By the way, Spence, this is for you. It came in earlier today.” Meaty held up a printout—I could see the lab’s insignia in the corner, from underneath. “Unknown specimen report. Hydrogen dioxide. Smectite. Feldspar.” Meaty shook the paper. “What sample did you send them? It wasn’t even spit.”

  “It was this drug my brother’s been selling downtown.” I took the paper from Meaty to read it myself. “I don’t even know what smectite is.”

  Images began appearing on the monitor in front of Gideon, and we all crowded around. There was a man who looked like Winter, having a fight in the hallway with a person wearing a lab coat. The security cameras didn’t have great resolution, and I couldn’t read lips. “Dammit.”

  “I know where that is,” Gina said, pointing at something flowy and metal monopolizing half the screen. “I recognize that crappy statue. They’re outside the transfusion center. Weres visit the transfusion center all the time. They donate a lot of blood, to cover them during their mortal times.”

  “He was probably just donating,” Rachel said, and squinted, leaning forward. “Why would you get mad about not being able to donate?”

  The onscreen fight between Winter and a tech continued. “When you want to make a withdrawal instead,” I said.

  Gideon switched screens. The monitor view divided into eight quadrants, each of them showing gray squares outside. It was snowing lightly in all of them, and black shadows were coming toward the screen.

  “Is that now?” I asked him, and he nodded. “Is Triage over? Are those patients, returning?”

  Gideon didn’t respond to me. He opened up one of the smaller rectangles so that it occupied the whole screen. The people coming toward the camera were not the helpless crutching group Gideon and I had seen leaving. These new people ran, strong, on two and four legs both. “Look at the way they move,” Gina said. “Weres.”

  “Smectite and feldspar are types of clay,” Meaty said from behind us. “Your brother was selling water and dirt.”

  “What? The way he talked that stuff up—it was like magic. And it wasn’t just him. I confiscated a vial of it from one of the weres here, too.” I was sure it had something to do with things—

  Gina took the sheet from me and gasped. “No way.” And then she groaned. “He was selling it? To how many people?”

  “I don’t know. He said business was good—” As I talked the color drained from her face. “Why?”

  “Your brother was selling water from a werewolf’s paw print.”

  “So?” I asked—but the reading I’d done came flooding back to me. “You mean everyone he sold to—is going to become were?”

  “This’ll be their first moon.” Gina leaned forward and tapped the monitor screen. “That’s them. Coming here, now.”

  “Paw prints—that’s old. Older than me, even.” Meaty maneuvered around the station table and came to look at the screen with us. My own brother had been selling werewolf-water. And it was a full moon. And some of his clients, and probably other “dealers” and their clients, of the Luna Lobos were coming here too. More people crowded the camera’s angles all the time.

  “Shit. How fast does it work?”

  “Not how fast, how much. Depends on how much you drank.” We all watched the screens, aghast, and Gina shook her head. “Who the hell was hooking them up?”

  “Doesn’t matter. We’re sitting ducks here, people. Grab as many trank rifles and as much ammo as you can,” Meaty said. “It’s time to leave.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  “Why are they coming here?” I asked Meaty while Gina and Rachel raided the isolation carts for guns and ammo. The weres in the distant rooms were still trying to escape.

  “Someone’s cont
rolling them,” Meaty answered. We both watched over Gideon’s shoulder as the weres became more numerous, zooming closer. I almost wanted him to turn off the feed.

  “But—why here? Why now?” Behind us, there was a wall-rattling thump as the weres in the distant rooms still tried to escape. Thank God they’d reinforced after the dragon. Thank God.

  “There’s only three things that are valuable at this hospital.” Meaty ticked off thick fingers. “Vampire blood, were blood, and a shitload of narcotics. I’d bet those things are after the first two. As for why now—who knows? Maybe because the Shadows are gone. I’d like to know how they found that out, though.” Meaty glared at me.

  “If I had talked, do you think I would have been stupid enough come back here?” I said.

  Meaty grunted. “Charles didn’t talk. He’s already in Bermuda.”

  “So whoever’s running this show did something to set the Shadows off. It doesn’t change what we’re dealing with right now,” Gina said, frowning as she returned. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, though.”

  I did feel bad. I’d been making the best of bad situations for the past month. I looked to Meaty.

  “All right. Let’s go.” My charge nurse started for the door. On the computer screen, the weres had reached the hospital lobby doors.

  “Wait! What about the blood? You can’t just let those things take it.”

  “My interest here is in saving my skin and yours. I haven’t lived this long to die now,” Meaty said, loading up their gun with darts.

  It didn’t feel right, just abandoning the ship. I knew Meaty knew better than I did, but—“I’ll call Sike again. She’s bound to almost be here.” The confirmation site hadn’t seemed that far away.

  “And then what?”

  “I don’t know.” But I had my answer to my why-now question. If what Sike had said about Anna’s ability to make endless blood was true—maybe this was the other angle on that game. Maybe Anna was so threatening to the status quo that someone wanted to make a run on all the other vampire blood in the county. What better time to steal it than when she was being distracted by her confirmation party? Using the wolfmen my brother had accidentally been creating for distraction?

  “If they get that blood, it’ll shift the balance of power.” If blood was the power to create new vampires, and get more daytimers in thrall, I couldn’t let anyone else get what was in the transfusion lab.

  Meaty’s head shook. “It’s too dangerous. I won’t let you go without a plan.”

  I reached out and took a trank gun from Gina. “I’ll think of something on the way. Where’s transfusion?”

  Meaty sighed and waited, to see if I had any sudden epiphanies. I didn’t. Frowning, my charge nurse took the lab results back from me and drew a quick map at the bottom. The elevator banks were designated by their letters, and floors of stairs were hashed. “This is where you’re going—the transfusion lab’s at the back. This,” Meaty said, pointing to another spot on the map, “is where we’ll be. There’s an underground tunnel at the back of the accounting department, it leads to the loading docks outside.” Meaty took off their badge and pulled out keys, handing them all to me. “I’m not sure if I have access to all the doors. When you’re done, come find us. I hope you make it.”

  Gina handed me a fistful of darts. “If you get into trouble, call.” She pecked me on the cheek, like she was letting me go. Rachel shrugged and shook my hand.

  They walked out together like a combat unit, Meaty leading the charge. The wolfmen bayed behind me, thumping at their plastic walls.

  * * *

  I looked over at Gideon. “I hope you don’t mind staying behind.”

  Gideon threw his hat on the floor and took off his gloves.

  “I guess that means you’re in. Thanks.” I held up Meaty’s map between us. It was a good thing I was familiar with the hospital’s general layout, because the map wasn’t very clear. The transfusion lab was on the first floor, but it was an entire hospital-length away. We would be safer if we came up to a higher floor, then ran along in one of the basement hallways.

  The elevators let us out, and we took a flight down, and I wished I’d popped a Vicodin back in Y4, when I’d had the chance. It was hard to be quiet when each step hurt, and frustrating to be going so slow.

  We were in the diagnostics imaging corridors now, limping along beneath sterile lights. There were howls coming from inside the building, and I was glad County had thick floors so I couldn’t hear claws scrabbling overhead.

  Then the howls were from down the hall. I opened up the door nearest to us, and pulled Gideon inside. We were in one of the many rooms that patients disrobed and waited in before assorted scans. There was the chance they’d just race by—but fucking weres and their fucking noses, the door opened just as I closed the breech of the rifle.

  I shot the first one in the shoulder. It was a were with fingerless gloves and dreadlocks. I knew him, I’d seen him on Christmas Day. He was Jake’s friend, Raymond—I registered it in half a second, and shot him anyway. The trank gun bucked, and the dart lodged into his chest, pushing a were-dose of suxamethonium chloride inside. I hit him again, just in case, before realizing I’d be screwed if I had to reload.

  He dropped as the drug paralyzed all the muscles in his body. A new were ran in after him. Gideon punched it in the face. His tined fingers slid into the were’s eyes, and the creature howled in agony for a split second before Gideon’s metal fingers skewered its brain.

  “Oh, God—” I wanted to throw up, but there wasn’t any time. I reloaded the gun, and we went back into the hall, Gideon staying a little behind.

  * * *

  We made it to the end of the hall, but another howl forced us inside a nearby door. I realized where we were in an instant. There was a red line of tape on the floor, and huge medical equipment on the room’s far side—this was the room with the MRI.

  I moved to stand in front of Gideon. The red line on the floor marked where it was safe to stand with any metallic object. If I crossed over that line, it’d start tugging the metal on me, the buckles on my purse, the grommets on my boots. If Gideon crossed over it, it’d pull Grandfather right out of him.

  The room stank like cigarette smoke, and a man stood up from where he’d been sitting, on the MRI’s bed.

  “Hey, lady. I wondered if you would show up. I heard about you.” It was Y4’s erstwhile daytimer patient, Mr. Hale, smoking in his hospital gown.

  “Who are you?”

  “Just another daytimer,” he said with a greasy smile.

  Gideon started forward and I pressed him back. “No, you’re not.”

  “Okay, you caught me.” He clasped his hand to his breast dramatically, as if shot. “I’m from House Grey. I think you already heard of us, from that whining were-brat.”

  This was the first time I’d ever met a House Grey vampire. “Why are you here?”

  “To help control those pathetic were-distractions outside.” He tapped his head. “House Grey specializes in fucking with minds. Which I’ll show you, as soon as I get near. Without your Shadows to protect you—” He made a tsking sound and shook his head as though I was in trouble. “Did the Rose Throne really think we were going to let her rise go unchallenged?”

  “Who?” I pretended not to know.

  In the blink of an eye he was two steps closer. Even though he was a daytimer, he’d had vampire blood yesterday. That made him stronger-faster-everythinger than me. He pointed an accusing finger at me. “I witnessed your trial, so don’t pretend you don’t know who I mean.”

  I swallowed. I didn’t like being reminded of being stabbed by vampires just now. “Anna,” I said, taking another step back as he took a corresponding step forward.

  “Yes. Her. That’s why we’re here. For the blood. But I bet you knew that already.” He stubbed his cigarette out on the MRI table at his side and gave me a heavy-lidded grin. “Who knows, if I kill you—they might give me some of it.”

&n
bsp; “You need to stop right there.” My gun was down, no way I could lift it before he’d cross the distance between us. I reached into my pocket that had the darts.

  “Sorry, lady, but I can’t have you interfere.” He stepped in front of the MRI.

  I backed up again, shoving Gideon behind me. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said, trying to look as helpless as possible.

  “Why? How are you going to stop me?” He gave me an amused look.

  “Because I know something you don’t.”

  “Really?” He laughed. “Lady, I have lived for a long, long time. I survived smallpox and the black plague. I won’t be dying here.” Then all his humor faded, and his eyes focused on me. “But you will.” Gideon leaned forward in warning against my back.

  I pulled a trank dart out of my pocket and threw it at him. It raced toward him like a javelin, seeking to mate with the superpowered magnet on his far side. Picking up speed, it punctured him, making a clean hole at the level of his heart. It tinged cheerfully when it hit the MRI.

  He appeared aghast, and then he crumpled, joining his own cigarette ash on the floor. I stepped forward to stomp on the pile of dust. “Oh yeah? The MRI is always fucking on, asshole.” I ran back and grabbed Gideon’s arm. Together we hobbled back the way we’d come into the room.

  * * *

  We got to the end of the hall and came up the stairs to the ground floor. Three more hallways down and we found ourselves at the transfusion lab’s back door. I waved Meaty’s badge around in front of the access panel, but the lock didn’t click. Gideon shoved me aside.

  “Edie?”

  I turned back and Sike was racing down the hall. “Edie!”

  “Shhhh!”

  “I came as soon as you texted. What the hell is going on? It’s full of weres outside.”

  “They’re after the—” I began, and stopped. Would she help me, or hinder me, in what I was about to do next? I wouldn’t know till I knew. The door unlocked for Gideon, and I opened it. “Just come inside with me.”

  I closed the door behind us, and Gideon set to locking it again. The entire room thrummed with electricity—power running to refrigerators, microscopes, testing equipment—things that a hospital always needed to be on. County was a twenty-four-hour operation. Now it was like a science lab in a ghost town, empty and eerily still except for the were-shadows running back and forth outside. The far wall of the room was lined in skinny 1960s wire-glass windows. Past that, they were protected by metal bars.