Sam's phone rang, revealing Stinky's number. "What?" he barked into the phone, ready to jump out of his skin.

The clacking of a keyboard ticked in Sam's ear. "Cowboy? Meredith Villanueva was a board-certified neurologist-which is why she was in the middle of this s.h.i.tastrophe, but she wasn't just a neurologist, she was one of the best spies in the world, if the underground word I'm hearin' is right. She was CIA. Whatever was goin' down underneath O-Tech was big."

A neurologist. Now it was coming together in his mind. The last piece of the how and why she'd been at O-Tech. Even though most of the information was redundant, it only proved to Sam just how valuable Stinky was. "So is this phone call to tell me the CIA's on its way?" They'd be crawling all over the place, leaving them no chance in h.e.l.l to find the answers they needed.

Stinky shifted in something Sam guessed was leather by the sharp crinkle. "Naw, man. Relax, Super Spy. No rumblings from the CIA. Trust that. But it won't be long. She's gonna miss her date with her handler for tomorrow. And, Cowboy? I still can't figure out what the h.e.l.l these Dr. Frankensteins are doing. This formula's uncrackable. You had any luck?"

Sam's eyes went cold. Yeah. Like he'd tell Stinky if he had. He heard the curiosity in Stinky's voice betray the nonchalance he was hoping to purvey.

The old Stink-man was throwing his line into the lake and hoping to come up with a big trout. One he could brag about during a good geeky-gossip session. Sam kept his voice light and grunted. "Have you seen that chicken-scratch, Stink? I don't know what any of it means. Guess it's true what they say about doctors and their handwriting."

Stinky paused for a moment, as though he didn't believe Sam, but he let it go. "Right. Doctors. So what's next, Sam?"

"Next? I go grab a cheeseburger and you shut your face. One word leaks out I was poking around, and your mother's bas.e.m.e.nt's going to look like a bloodbath of body parts."

He sounded an offended snort. "I do not live in my mother's bas.e.m.e.nt. Jesus. Why does everyone stereotype the brains in an outfit that way? It's d.a.m.n unoriginal. I live in my father's bas.e.m.e.nt, FYI-" Stinky stopped short.

Sam chuckled, giving it a sinister edge. "I'll remember it's not your mother's bas.e.m.e.nt, but your father's when I come to kill you, Dwight Eugene Tann-en-baummm," he drawled Stinky's real name. "Oh, and I'll do it in Queens. Later, Stink." Sam clicked the phone off to the tune of Stinky's mewling, shoving it back in his pocket.

Nina sidled up to him, moving from foot to foot-cagey and cranky. "Will that little s.h.i.t narc on us? I'll sniff his brainy a.s.s out and kill him."

Sam couldn't worry about that right now. He had to prioritize his uncertainties. Stinky was the least of them. "I won't make any promises. I don't kid myself Stinky can't be bought by the highest bidder, but for right now, he's too afraid to get overconfident. We need to get in and out before he bleeds into c.o.c.ky."

Darnell crossed his arms over his broad chest. "So we ready, boss?"

Sam hesitated again. "I'll say this one last time. This is dangerous. Stuff doesn't go down the way it does on TV. I'm trained to do this. If I don't bring you back alive, Phoebe will hunt me down in the afterlife. I can do this alone."

Nina was the first to react by flicking his Stetson with a sharp snap. "f.u.c.k you, Sammy. Stop showin' your a.s.s. Just because you have a gun and some special-op-Navy-Seal-Green-Beret-whatever-the-h.e.l.l c.r.a.p on your resume, doesn't mean you're the only one who can kick some nasty booty. I don't just play a bada.s.s on TV. I am a bada.s.s. Darnell's no slacker, either. We're in, and we don't come out until we all come out-or we all don't. Either way, it's team vampire-demon. So put up and shut up, and lead the f.u.c.king way." She waved her hand at the building.

Darnell slapped Sam on the back and shot him a genuine smile. "What the crazy lady said."

Sam's nod was curt, but his appreciation for their loyalty was bigger than he'd ever properly find the words for. "Then we're in."

They each turned to make their way to the wall Sam had entered the last time, plodding through the snow, heads down, when Sam's phone rang again. He ripped it from his pocket and barked, "Jesus Christ, Stinky. What?"

"It's Harlan, man," was the thick-drawled response. "I'm gonna say this straight and waste no time, Sam, and then I'm gonna hang up and go hunt down the rat b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and kill 'em. All of 'em. They got to the kid before I did."

The click in Sam's ear, signaling the end of Harlan's call, was like a sonic boom.

"PHOEBE? I know this is an utterly absurd request, but please, sit down." Marty, who'd just arrived, patted the place on the couch next to her.

But Phoebe couldn't rest. She'd paced since Sam and the others had left. Her chest was tight as she went over and over in her head her last moments with Sam. She alternated between that stark image and Penny's sweet face flashing before her eyes in vivid memory. The conversation between Wanda and Marty flitted in and out of her ears in choppy bits.

Marty rose, setting m.u.f.fin on Archibald's lap, and began to pace with Phoebe. She latched on to her hand, walking back and forth with her, rubbing soothing circles across her skin. "Okay, so bring me up to speed while we wear a path in Sam's floor, would you, Wanda?"

"Sam has some crazy contact named Stinky ..."

Wanda's retelling of the story became a buzz in Phoebe's ears while she brought Marty up to date. Bereft, she forced her shaking legs to keep moving while she prayed.

But Marty stopped dead, yanking Phoebe to a halt along with her. "Say again?"

Wanda scooped m.u.f.fin up and hugged her tight. "A jewelry box. This secret, crazy, whatever code, formula thing these monsters have was in the bottom of a jewelry box. It's apparently, in my very crude explanation, a recipe to create a vampire that's centuries old. A woman, who obviously doesn't shop at Target, picked it up for a song in North Carolina at an antiques shop. Isn't that the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? There's some urban legend about this jewelry box being a high-dollar, black-market coup. All sorts of billionaires are looking for it. Sick. It's just vile!"

Marty's face went ashen. She gripped Phoebe's hand so tight, it made her wince. "Did you say a jewelry box?"

Wanda bobbed her head. "Look." She held up her phone. "Sam sent me the picture."

Marty's roar was high and keening, her pretty features twisted, her hands at her gut. "Oh, my G.o.d, Wanda! Oh, my G.o.d!"

Wanda's expression went from forced calm, to panicked. "What? What's wrong?"

Marty's chest heaved as she sank to Sam's couch. She covered her eyes and sucked in gulps of air with raspy wheezes.

Phoebe knelt in front of her, clasping her wrists. If one of the three least likely to freak paranormals was in freak-mode that meant alarms should be sounded at a DEFCON 5 level. "What, Marty?" she pleaded.

When she lifted her head, her blue eyes were a confection of icy fire. She grasped Phoebe's hands, squeezing them with such strength, if she could feel the pressure, it would have made her cry uncle. "I know who the b.a.s.t.a.r.d is! I know who's responsible for this!"

Like personally? Phoebe had to wonder. Because wow. It was time to find new social circles to travel in.

CHAPTER 18.

"They have Penny?" Nina hissed, her fist held high at her temple.

Sam rolled his shoulders, fighting back the urge to ram a fist of his own through something. "Yes."

"Well, now, tha.s.s fo sho enough, ya feel me?" Darnell roared into the wind, his beefy fists clenched and raised to the sky. "Ol' Darnell don't play when they s.n.a.t.c.hin' the babies!" His beefy finger pointed in Sam's direction; his black eyes were chips of granite. "You get yo head together now, Sammy, and you get on in there through that wall. Do it now and think me up. I got me some criminal b.u.t.t to whoop!"

Sam didn't speak another word. Yet, his head swam. One phrase ran through his mind over and over. They had Penny. These f.u.c.ks wouldn't take the chance Phoebe'd die before she could get to the police. They would do whatever it took to lure her to them and they'd kill her because she knew too much.

He rammed himself against the wall in a haze of fury, driving his shoulder into it like some possessed linebacker, but to no avail. Instead of falling into the wall and landing in his desired location, he slammed back against the concrete ground, kicking up snow in white, billowy puffs.

Nina dragged him upward, brushing him off. "Dude. Concentrate. I want to get to her as much as you do," she warned, her sloe eyes riddled with worry.

He shook off the hard landing and focused, aiming for the cafeteria just like the last time with but one mantra. Save Penny.

Sam's entry to the cafeteria left him almost crashing into the same table Phoebe had narrowly missed.

Phoebe. He had to save Phoebe. He would save Phoebe.

Closing his eyes, he summoned the image of Darnell. Enormous. Covered in gold chains. Generous. Loyal.

With a shimmer Sam would have sworn was just a play of light if he hadn't seen the evidence of Darnell's out-of-thin-air appearances before, Darnell was there. He gave Sam the thumbs-up sign, and they headed to the spot Sam had shown them on the new plans for the underground portion of O-tech Stinky had sent.

Letting Nina in was as easy as it had been the first time, and on silent feet, they were in.

That he'd missed this secret location all the while he'd worked here could only mean he was burnt out. He'd missed things the agency would have had his head for, and it had everything to do with his careless stupidity. While he had no choice but to reevaluate his future career plans due to his strange upgrade in life, now he really had to admit it would have been over anyway. A f.u.c.k-up of this magnitude would haunt him forever, and leave him at a desk job if he was lucky, at least until they found out they had a vampire FBI agent punching a keyboard.

Pa.s.sing through doors, and forging up flights of stairs, Sam forced himself not to dwell via the martyr system while they located the elevator Phoebe had found. With but a silent look between the three of them, a look that screamed a million emotions, Nina pressed the b.u.t.ton and stepped into the open doors as Sam and Darnell followed her.

All three of them watched the floors descend-somber-determined.

Into the belly of the beast.

NOW Wanda was the one pacing as they texted Sam, Nina, and Darnell what Marty had told them. If nothing else, according to Marty while she was on her way out the door and headed for O-Tech, a b.i.t.c.h was goin' down tonight, and when she did, Marty wanted to be the one to put her down.

Phoebe shivered, going over the information Marty had shared in fits of spewing rage.

Someone would pay tonight.

Someone would bleed.

Someone would die.

And all Phoebe could see in her head was Sam and Penny. Nina. Darnell. The man who'd been so violated. Fear welled up in her throat, nearly choking her, gluing her feet to the floor, cementing her hands together. She should be with them. In the midst of this chaos, she should be helping create order.

Archibald placed a shawl around her shoulders, pulling her to him for a moment and whispering with fierce conviction, "I, too, shall see to Mistress Penny's well-being. Never you fear, Phoebe, for there will be an abundance of love. She will bake cookies with a manservant who has cooked for kings. She will learn the manners of a proper lady from a dutiful servant who has raised d.u.c.h.esses and dukes from wee seedlings. She will laugh in the sunshine-wear ribbons of the finest silk in her hair. She will walk in the park with me as her faithful caregiver. She will and more. And I shall never, ever let harm toward her ladyship come to pa.s.s."

Leaning back against Archibald, his weathered hands at her shoulders, she clung to them before letting her head drop to her chest. Her eyes drifted closed-and she pictured Penny with Archibald.

In the sunshine at the park with b.u.t.tery shafts of golden light shimmering on her long, dark ponytail captured by a streaming, pink ribbon.

Laughing. Smiling. Loved.

With those vivid images of a Penny free from the confines of nurses and doctors in her head-Phoebe slipped away.

Like literally.

SAM shot a curt nod over his shoulder at Darnell and Nina when they hit the end of a long hallway, signaling them the coast was clear. If what Phoebe had said was fact rather than described from her heightened fear, they should be close to the room where they'd held the man. If she'd counted right, there were approximately five doctors and a big goon with a Russian name.

If ...

f.u.c.k. There were too many ifs.

But he didn't have a choice. It was now or never.

Slipping down the hallway, Sam rounded the corner with Nina and Darnell close, locating the double doors of the room Phoebe had described. He held up his hand for them to wait while he listened-a.s.sessing the situation.

The distant rumble of muted voices made Sam stick a finger in his ear and lean in. Yet, the harder he tried to get clarity on the words he knew he was hearing, the less he was able to makes sense of them. It was like listening to a conversation held underwater. What the h.e.l.l?

Then something occurred to him. Something that wrenched his gut. His senses-his vampire senses-were beginning to fail him.

And so it began.

Nina's hand touched his back, making him whip around. Her intense eyes connected with his in concern, but Sam just shook his head, c.o.c.king it to give another listen.

Though strangely warbled, Sam knew the tone of the voice he heard. Knew it as if he'd heard it all his life. As if his ears had been made to respond to that voice alone.

Phoebe.

They had Phoebe. In that room full of horrors she'd described so vividly to Wanda. It was all he could do not to gag.

Which meant someone's death was imminent. At his hands. And it would be so ugly. So ugly and painful.

PHOEBE popped her eyes open; grainy and hot, they scanned her surroundings while she fought a chronic throb in her head.

Hoo-boy. So this wasn't good. Not good at all. If Sam and Nina found out she was here-that she'd disobeyed their super orders, even if it had been a complete accident-she was probably worse off than if she ended up fireplace-kill.

She slammed her eyes shut, tightening the shawl Archibald had given her around her shoulders, ignoring the fact that she was actually feeling the cool chill of the room, and wished herself back to Sam's apartment.

Please, universe, if you have any mercy at all, get me back to Sam's because Nina's gonna kill me.

Opening her eyes again-she jammed a knuckle into her mouth. Her eyes flew to the door in fear. As though her parents were going to walk through it and catch her sneaking out of her bedroom window.

Except, there were much bigger worries than some lame parents and a good grounding lying just outside that door.

She had to get out before she was caught.

Yet, something shoved in the corner of the room caught her attention. The head of the poor man-the same man who'd been gutted like a market fish-poking out from beneath a white sheet on the same gurney he'd been on when she'd seen him earlier. Her hand instantly went to him; trembling, she pressed her fingers to his scarred neck. Deep sorrow tore at her, clawing, clinging to her every nerve ending. G.o.dd.a.m.n these animals!

"No, no, noooo!" she almost screeched, the words slipping unbidden from her mouth before she was able to stop them. Phoebe choked, covering her mouth. "Oh, my G.o.d. I'm sorry," she cried into the still of the room. "I'm so, so sorry. I tried to get here in time. I swear ..." She dry-hacked, pulling the sheet back up over his face, rambling words to console someone who could no longer hear her. "I'll find out who you are. I'll do whatever that takes. I swear I will. I'll make sure you're buried with the respect you deserve. But not before I hunt these motherf.u.c.kers down and rip them to shreds. In your honor, I promise you, they'll all die before I leave this earth. They'll die and it will hurt-so bad," she hissed out.

Footsteps caught her sensitive ears just as a rush of singeing heat attacked her flesh. How was she experiencing any kind of sensitivity after not having felt a thing since this began?

Phoebe winced, her eyes frantically searching for somewhere to hide until she could a.s.sess who was walking down that hallway. A closet ... She remembered a closet where someone had hung their lab coat.

Her head whipped around to locate it and she made a mad dash for it, reaching for the handle and twisting the steel until she broke the lock on it to lunge herself inside.

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the interior of the closet with vampiric ease.

And that's when she saw Penny. On a gurney just like the one the man had been on.

She would rip these animals apart-shred their intestines, puncture their lungs with her own teeth-if a single hair on Penny's head was disturbed.

Knee-weakening relief attacked her legs when she saw the rise and fall of Penny's chest. She was asleep. Thank G.o.d, she was asleep.

Phoebe pulled Penny's limp hand to her cheek, scrunching her eyes shut and clinging to it. "Everything's okay, honey," she forced out. "If you can hear me, everything's fine because I'm here. I love you, Penny. I love you." Tucking her sister's slender hand under the blanket, Phoebe actually prayed they'd sedated her for what was to come. She didn't want Penny to witness the brutal end she planned to dole out to these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

The voices grew louder, as did the buzzing in her ears, and the endless pounding in her skull. Sparks of white-hot flames began to poke at her skin like molten embers from an open bonfire would if you stood too close.

She tamped down a cry of fear when a searing pain hit her square in the stomach. She bit the inside of her cheek to squelch a sob.

And she listened. Squirming in her own skin, she listened for the animals to file in.