"Yeah." I pulled back.

"Hey." His thumb glided along my lower lip. "Nothing's changed."

This time I felt the truth of the statement, and another broken piece of me clicked back into place.

Chapter Twenty.

"Should I bring one set of clothing for him or should I bring everything?" Mickey asked, her voice broken up by clicks along the twisted phone cord. I cast another glance around the parking lot. Everything wavering under the midday sun appeared suspicious, and I hoped it was only because of that small matter of being bitten out of a thrall so deep I hadn't known someone else was controlling me. The alternative was that the entire world, from the clerk watching p.o.r.n on his phone inside the gas station, to the guy under the hood of his car across the parking lot, were out to get me.

"Syd?"

I turned back to the pay phone. "Just one. I don't want it obvious you're leaving. But bring something that Thurston's not going to be mad wearing if we don't get to shop for a couple of days."

"Ooh, the blue."

"Perfect." I had no idea what "the blue" was, since Mickey had done most of the shopping for Thurston. "And you know what to tell Petr?"

n.o.body had answered when I'd called and there was no voice mail attached to the number. Tenth World had put me through to the feeder floor where someone had a bead on Mickey. It would have to do since I didn't know any local runners I'd trust to deliver the message.

"I'll ask Laura to find him for me. I still... My brain gets a little funny around a lot of vampires."

"I hear you." We listened to each other's silence for a moment.

Now that we knew Kevin had information that could actually d.a.m.n Abel, Mal wanted Bronson's soldiers in place to ensure we made it to Tenth World. Abel wouldn't kill anyone on Chev's land, but I had no doubt he'd sacrifice Kevin and every last member of his new crew to cover up what he'd done to Bronson.

Mickey and I were going to hole up with Thurston until Mal convinced Bronson to take care of Abel. My relief at not having to return to Tenth World, at getting Mickey away from so many suckers, was sharp. And while I trusted Soraya and Thurston for the most part, I wanted away from all the undead in the world except the one who'd just woken me back to life.

"We'll get things back to normal, Mick. Better than normal, even. How's that sound?" I tossed back an energy drink and cracked a bottle of water for the chaser.

"Eh." Her voice drifted, the words coming slower. "It's not so bad. At least I got a little adventure. It's what I was looking for, after all."

The pay phone cord creaked between my fingers. A lot of adventure, but not the good kind. "You don't need them, Mickey. You don't need the bite. Your body will figure that out."

"Laura says a couple of weeks, maybe sooner if I'm totally separated from their energy. But it's frustrating, falling like that, and wanting it so badly but not being able to control yourself..." She inhaled sharply. "Lo siento mucho. I did not mean to-"

"It's okay, Mickey. I'm fine now." I was, and she didn't have to know exactly how far I'd fallen. "How about this? I'll forgive you if you get here as fast as you can."

"Deal. Take care of yourself until I get there. Say hi to Thurston." Simple as that, she was back to her peppy self. But beneath that was a new shadow, one I'd been partly responsible for. I hung up. I wore a new shadow as well, but it was smaller. My abduction, that violation of my mind, had changed things, but the biggest change was a step beyond that.

I'd thought the worst thing that could happen to a person was death. But it wasn't. It was loss. I'd been torn up and sprinkled in the wind like so much paper. I was rea.s.sembled now, whole, but I'd still hurt other people.

I loved Malcolm, in a way I'd never felt or imagined I could feel. My love was bigger than shame, stronger than fear, but only just. I could look him in the eye now because it gave me more than it cost me. And because he was still with me, despite everything.

I walked around the drugstore and down a side street that offered a little shade. That brought the temperature down from a hundred and twenty to a cozy hundred. I could feel my body again in total, the strength of certain muscles and the soreness in others. The pull of medical tape against my skin from where I'd bandaged myself in the drugstore bathroom. Better yet, my thoughts were my own. No second-guessing, no vile whisper to reorient me when I decided on something contrary to the directions Abel had planted in me.

I tapped on the door before easing it open. The room was dark, but I could feel Malcolm hovering away from the light. I slid the door closed and toed the blanket back across the threshold.

"We should talk to Kevin again," I said. "See how much we can get from him before you take him back. He might clam up once he's in front of Abel."

"Better to know what he's hiding before he hides it?" He leaned his hip on the dresser, hands in his pockets, a slight smile playing over his lips. "The retrieval team should be here soon, but we can bring him around. He's tight-lipped when he's not screaming obscenities."

"That's not his fault. Well, probably not. He might respond better to me."

"Because you're human?"

"Because I don't scare him, and because of my blood. He's curious by nature, but he has a serious scientific hard-on for the Puer Morsus." I headed for the door connecting the rooms. Mal reached past me and flipped the lock, but instead of opening the door, he leaned against it.

"Where did you hear that term?" His voice was soft.

"At my noon tea with Bronson. It was cozy, and creepy. Creepy cozy. He said it was a kind of..." I searched for the right words. "That I was more different than I'd suspected."

"That's a very select kind of different. Did he offer proof?"

"Like, show me the letters P and M etched on my bones in an X-ray? No. He said he knew from way back that I wasn't like the other kids. That he'd been waiting to see how I'd turn out." I tapped the fingers splayed against the door, then jumped when his other hand closed on my hip. I leaned against him tentatively, thrilling when he didn't move away. "Did you know? Did drinking from me do something to you?"

"Nothing I hadn't antic.i.p.ated." His lips brushed my temple as his arms closed tight, pulling me against his chest. It felt good, but I still felt as though some small thing was missing between us. Something that hadn't been necessary before. Hopefully that thing was nothing more than time.

"I feel like I should apologize for everything."

"If you were to, I wouldn't accept it. You did nothing you need to apologize for." He tipped my head back, tilting his to gaze down at me. "And you'll be fine." He smiled a ghost of a smile. And then he turned me aside and walked through the door. We were moving forward, but not quite in sync.

The candles made the crummy, mildewed motel rooms smell like the overly sweet imposter of a good apple pie. Malcolm and Soraya stood over Kevin, who lay p.r.o.ne on one of two double beds. Thurston sat in a chair, reading the Bible that came with the room. I seriously needed to get that guy to a bookstore.

"Is he up?" I asked. Soraya glanced at Malcolm, who nodded and said, "He'll be groggy for a few minutes."

"Then angry," Soraya added. "He is a very angry individual."

"Unlike yourself." I squeezed in between the vampires and beds and stared down at the pale human drooling on the polyester coverlet. "Kevin, wake up!"

He startled awake with a snort. "F-f-f.u.c.k you, fangers."

So Sora was right about his anger. It quelled a bit when she and Thurston went into the other room. That also served to dampen the energy ricocheting off the thin walls, allowing me to breathe a little easier. Mal was dialed down, all but playing human as he slouched in a rickety chair in the corner diagonal from the front door. He could see the other vampires without them antagonizing the chemist and, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he looked harmless. Nothing to worry about. Of course, if Kevin tried to bolt, he'd find Mal blocking the door before he could get to it.

Kevin sat across from me on the other double bed, separated by about twenty-four inches and a gulf of mutual disdain.

"What would you like to happen here?" I asked.

"Ideally?" He smirked. "I'd like these three b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to walk out into the sun and..." He raised both hands and spread his fingers. "Poof. All g-g-gone."

"Well, I'll ask them," I said, as though considering it. "But I think we should a.s.sume that's not going to happen. Let's a.s.sume, instead, that-unless you start answering our questions-they will begin breaking your bones. One at a time. Smallest to largest."

"You wouldn't do that," he said, wrapping his arms around his middle. "After what happened to you."

I grinned. "Mal, what's the smallest bone in the human body? A toe?"

"I believe it's in the ear, actually." He sounded mildly amused, though I still felt his wariness circling me. "Thurston can do that one. I only work tibia size and up. But we should save the femurs for Sora." He smiled pleasantly and raised his hand, palm up, as he explained. "She prefers to inflict maximum damage."

I gave Mal what I hoped was a conspiratorial smile. "She gets such a kick out of that."

His return smile was forced, and I looked away immediately. So maybe I didn't used to be so bloodthirsty. I'd had some recent lessons and we didn't have a lot of time. I sat up straighter. I wasn't scaring Kevin because I liked it, but I'd do worse than scare him if it meant getting rid of Abel.

Kevin's sneer lost its conviction, and worry widened his eyes as he muttered a string of curses. Malcolm stood, smoothed his shirt, and started examining the vials we'd confiscated from Kevin, now lined up on the bureau.

"I thought you were better than this," the human said, clenching his hands on his knees.

"I used to be." I raised my chin. "Now, explain what you did with the Radia, please."

"You're not going to be able to understand."

"Then we'll write it down and get someone like yourself to translate. You know, another certified a.s.shole."

He blew a strand of hair out of his face and swore under his breath for about twenty seconds before stomping his foot three times. "Goya's serum is an ideal d-d-delivery system for vampires because of how they worked the collagen."

I glanced at Malcolm to see if he thought this sounded at all likely.

He nodded. "It's essential for the regeneration of tissue."

"It's sixty percent more effective in eighty-three percent of suckers I tested on." Kevin sat up a little straighter, either fortified by the sound of his self-professed genius or by a great love of percentages. "It was a small sample size, only twenty-five, so those numbers may vary in the general population."

"How'd you get twenty-five vampires to volunteer?"

"Met them at the clubs. Most of the sucks in LA are wannabes, barely-theres that can't hack it in a real hive. They'll try anything they think'll up their mojo."

"But the serum subdues them. It doesn't make them stronger."

"Yeah, well." He shrugged. "I've beta tested a bunch of different products. There's always one that'll say he feels something. Stronger abilities, shinier f-f-fangs, whatever. I get positive feedback even when-s.h.i.t, that's hot-I'm handing out baby oil and cough drops. But, when something works, it's hard to know what it's actually doing right away."

"So what happened with Radia?" I asked. "How did you make it so potent?"

"It's a freak reaction," he said, his hands gripping his knees. "Probably a side effect of one of the filler products, riding that delivery system."

Malcolm's energy hardened and I knew exactly what he was thinking. Those bodies he'd seen in Chile, human feeders chewed unrecognizable by vampires who, by all accounts, had been fond of them. And the vampires we'd found later, after the hunger had surged up and overridden the effects of the drug. They weren't only physically distorted; their energy had changed, grown chaotic and monstrous.

"A freak effect? That's it?" I leaned forward, letting him see in my eyes that lying was no longer an option. "What did you think would happen when you mixed a specific sort of human blood with it?"

"I d-don't know what you're-"

"Do not lie," Thurston ordered from the doorway, his voice rumbling with quiet rage. "I will take your eyes if you do not explain and explain fast."

"Thurston." I raised my hand and an eyebrow. My voice was absolute. "When I need your help, I will ask for it. Until then, stay where I put you."

I heard Kevin's little gasp as Thurston lowered his head. Malcolm rose, his expression completely blank, and escorted Thurston into the other room. Thurston had lost his maker and his hive, far more than anyone else, to the ambitious chemist's concoction.

"So," I said. "Eyes. That sounds terrible. Tell me how you found out about the Morsus."

"You tell them what to do," Kevin whispered, "and they obey. You're human. How can you let them do this to me?"

"You're human. How could you work for the vampires who did what they did to me?"

He swallowed and swiped at his hair again. He was a smart kid, bored and entrepreneurial. He'd simply chosen the absolute worst way to go about making money. His head swept back and forth, no doubt running calculations and odds. I might have stunned Thurston this once, but deep down he had to know that I wasn't the one running the show here. Vampires didn't usually enthrall human specialists, people who understood complex things. It muted their cognitive skills, if they remained intact at all. But we already knew Kevin's King Midas secret so he didn't have much leverage.

"I hear stories sometimes," he said with a sigh. "Vampire legends get pa.s.sed down and spread by the suckers that come through LA. From their makers or whatever. Most of them are about crazy-a.s.s warriors that the storyteller just happens to be directly descended from. But sometimes they have a ring of truth.

"The one biddy came through, from, like, Outer Mongolia. She was old. You could see right through her skin like it was wet paper. You could see the blood moving beneath. One of her acolytes gave her something of mine, talking it up. Serenity, I think. It gives them a minute or two of euphoria, with the added benefit of being mildly paralytic so they don't have to worry about their hunger...for ninety seconds. She came looking for me. Told me I was full of s.h.i.t, then got into my h-head, started r-rearranging s.h.i.t." A flush rose, mottling his neck and cheeks. I almost felt sorry for him. He rubbed at his eyes beneath his gla.s.ses, then straightened the frames.

"She told me that there were humans that could amplify her strength. Told me to find her some and send her the blood. She..." He tapped his temple. "She left the specs inside my head-that way I'd know when I a.n.a.lyzed the blood that it was the right stuff. If you asked me, I couldn't explain it, but when I see it under the microscope, I just...I know. Like with yours." He clapped his hands together. "Immediate positive."

His eyes unfocused and he swallowed convulsively. He wasn't merely afraid. He'd probably been the smartest guy in every room he'd walked into since he was a child, and suddenly a creature had shown up and invaded his mind. I understood the anger, the surreal resentment that didn't go away no matter how you reasoned yourself around it. But unlike Kevin, I now had people who understood and who wanted to help me. Staying where I was, I reached for Malcolm. Without reservation, he flushed me with power, warm and soothing.

He slipped back into the room, and I could feel his attention on me even though my back was to him. The flames in the candles shot up about three inches, crackling. Kevin jerked and rubbed his hands on his thighs.

"That's unnatural. Not to mention they're r-ruining this hotel."

"I gotta tell you, I don't think a little fried circuitry or smoke smudging is what's going to bring this place down. But we'll leave a big tip for housekeeping. Tell me about the blood, how you collected it."

He hooked his heels onto the bed frame, pushing his knees toward his chest, and crossed his arms. Withdrawing. I softened my expression, and appealed to his vanity.

"It must have been hard, trying to track these people down. I'm surprised you were able to find any."

"Not hard if you know what you're doing. The first two were volunteers for a big clinical trial Goya was doing. I'd call them back, pretend we were testing new products. They'd come in every month or so. At first I shipped the stuff overseas, but she kept demanding changes, and more of the stuff. So I figured, why should I work my a.s.s off and jeopardize my job when I was only getting a token payout? It was obviously good s.h.i.t. I told her I hadn't found any more candidates, then I branched out. Got a part-time gig at a medical screening lab. It took me about three months to get ten names, but after that it was easy. All I had to do was call people and offer them money, and they came back."

"And you started developing your own products."

"Radia was already in the pipeline, and everybody was raving about it."

"With no regard for what might happen."

"If this Morsus blood was so strong and suckers knew about it, then they'd all be using it, right? I figured the old b.i.t.c.h was getting off on it, a high or something."

Malcolm touched me again, rea.s.suring, focused, calm. I wasn't so calm.

"You're smart. If I had to guess, you were raised in a comfortable, supporting environment. So you don't do s.h.i.tty things-things society might disapprove of-out of desperation. You choose to do this."

"I'm not hurting anyone."

Gla.s.s cracked. The sound of Thurston reaching the end of his rope in the other room. Malcolm closed the door and turned the lock. In response to my questioning glance, he shrugged, but his expression hardened when he looked at Kevin.

"I didn't know about that at the time." The human threw his hands up. "Abel showed up. He'd heard about me from someone in LA. He recognized that my sample size was too small, but that the serum was doing something. He said he'd send a bunch to South America, that he had buyers there, lots of them, and that they wouldn't mind testing it. The old lady never told me what was happening, why she needed it changed. He gave me results, a ream of paper that showed scoring on five hundred individuals. There were no violent side effects."

"They were fake, his results."