Chaos and Moonlight (Order of the Nines Book 1)

The fluorescent lights that hung from the ceiling had a song all their own. It was a low, droning, maniacally steady
hum
, occasionally interrupted by a fizzled
pop
. That sound, combined with the tinkling of the test-tubes, made for one eerie environment. The room was bright white and chrome from ceiling to floor. You could almost smell the sterility. The only other discernible sound in the room was the ragged breath of the stress-weathered man in the white lab coat, who was precariously seated on a metal stool.

He was trying desperately to get his breath under control, but damn it if that was happening. No control for the shake. No control for the profuse sweating, which was an incredible shame because the trickles from his worried brow were making their way down onto the base of the microscope. The sweat had already ruined three specimen slides. He moved his metal chair back against the tiled floor with a screech and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his coat. The buckets of sweat weren’t because of the temperature in the room. Far from it. The room was so cold, it could have been a meat locker.

His nerves made him sweat. They were frayed to the very edges, incredibly raw and on the verge of shorting out in a colossal display of distress. He was under the gun, figuratively and literally. The knowledge of what would happen to him if he failed was the straw threatening to break the camel’s back. The intense workload had been hard enough, but now that he knew what he was facing should he fail to produce… Yeah, he was about to crack, and good.

Damn that woman and everything that she was.
Damn her to hell
, he thought as he moved his stool back into place and refocused the microscope lens. He rubbed the bridge of his tired eyes before looking into the scope. On the thin glass slide, under the amplification of modern science, he saw the cells, dancing together in an even rhythm. There were several normal blood cells, slipping and sliding their concave bodies through the larger, darker crimson cells on the slide. The larger cells looked as if they were sizing up a competitor, maintaining their distance. On the very edge of the slide, one by one, a large cell swallowed down some normal cells in one swift move. The display caused him to jerk back, his eyes wide with shock. He blinked once, twice, three times, in an effort to clear them, and he leaned forward again. Quickly, he removed the current slide and retrieved another one. He dipped an elongated medicine dropper into a test-tube and placed a drop of the red liquid onto the slide. He then rapidly did the same thing with a new dropper and another dark red tube. On a shaky exhale, he placed the glass on the base of the scope and refocused the lens again, but this time, he boosted it to its maximum amplification.

The cellular dance repeated itself.

“Absolutely fascinating,” he muttered to himself as he stared into the lens.

“What’s so fascinating, my little Lab Rat?”

The female voice in his ear caused him to jerk back. He took in another ragged breath. Any and all calm that he had managed to gather from what he had just seen was now gone. She was directly behind him. And she had called him
Lab Rat
. He hated that.

“I asked you a question. It’s incredibly rude not to answer when a lady asks you a question.” Her voice was pleasantly sultry, as usual. “It is ungentlemanly.” Her aristocratic British accent filled the room and bounced off the walls, hitting him squarely in the cerebrum and vibrating his entire being. The fact that she was right in his ear was rattling him even more. Turning around to face her was his only option.

As he did, he noticed they were not alone in the room. Behind her was the guy who was always with her. The scary one—the one who wore makeup and five million pounds of ammunition for the menacing arsenal strapped to his back—stood there, staring at him from behind purple sparkle eye shadow. Despite outward appearances, underneath all that Revlon lurked death, wrapped in a glittery leather package. He tried not to make eye contact with the guy. Instead, he swiveled completely around in his seat and met her eyes. She was bent down in his face.

“Do you care to enlighten me on your progress? I’m getting a little tired of waiting.”

He cleared his throat, trying his hardest not to break under the pressure of her intense stare. He had a serious problem with those cobalt blue orbs. He was more than willing to follow her to the ends of the earth when he looked into those eyes. Now they held him captive, and not for a promising, sexual reason, either.

“Well,” he cleared his throat again. “I have done two separate slides. The results were the same in both tests. There has been no hemolysis.” He paused, because now she was slowly walking around the testing table. Her hands were behind her back, her curvy body snaking a path. He watched the light catch in her mahogany hair. She made him nervous, and she knew it. Throwing a quick glance back at the giant transvestite, he continued. “In the, um, in the two slide tests, the larger cells absorbed the smaller cells with no problem. We can now move on to lab testing. I will need—”

“We are not moving on to lab testing,” she interrupted him, her voice slow and steady as she leaned down to look at a formaldehyde-preserved rattlesnake that was snuggled tightly onto a shelf between a gigantic pig heart and an even bigger bullfrog. “I am completely confident in your abilities. If you say there was no hemolysis, then there was none. If that is the case, then there is no need to delay, now is there? Human trials are to start immediately.”

Her statement took him by surprise. He couldn’t help but hear the snicker behind him. “But, ma’am, I have only done slide tests. We won’t know if it works on living specimens until we do a complete lab test. There is still too much to risk with human trials.”

“I am well aware of the damn risks,” she said as she whirled around to face him, smacking the metal table with the palm of her hand. The vibration of it sent the test-tubes full of blood rattling in their rack. The deadly calm that was previously on her normally very pretty face had melted away, given up, and retreated, only to be taken over by a hard, twisted anger. Her features softened a little when she saw the effect it had on him. She loved the fear, and she made no secret of it.

“I apologize, ma’am. I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t know—”

“You are my Lab Rat, and you will do what I say.” She paused and picked up an empty test-tube. She rolled it around in her fingers as she turned her back to him. She leaned against the table and shifted her body slightly toward him. “You will start the human trial immediately. I will have no refusal.” She craned her neck enough for him to see her lips lift in a slight smile, and an electric shiver crept through him. Her teeth. Heaven help him. Those brilliant white teeth made the acidy fear rise in his throat.

He took in several deep breaths to calm himself, to keep from passing out. There was no way he was going to be able to get around this. When Morrigan made a demand, it was met. If anyone dared to question or refuse, there were prices to be paid, and they were always painful. Arguing would prove futile and, more than likely, deadly. There was no point in delaying the inevitable with her. Wherever Morrigan went, she left in her wake a path of destruction, carnage, and blood. It was her calling card, her trademark. All of that evil hidden under all of that pretty was what made her a legend among her own kind. She was a holy terror, and he would give her what she wanted, even though it went against everything he had ever stood for, ever worked for. He would do exactly what she asked even though he knew it meant more death. His actions would be in the interest of self-preservation, and God forgive him for it.

A jittery fist came up to his mouth as he nervously cleared his throat. It took several tries for him to get whatever he had built up in it to dissipate. “I will begin the human testing first thing tomorrow, ma’am, if you can provide me with subjects. I will prepare the lab.”

“Very good, Lab Rat. I knew we could depend on you.” She took in a deep breath, her back still toward him, and began to slowly pace the room. “You know, if your hard work proves fruitful, you could become a legend among us.” Her stiletto pumps made tiny clicks on the linoleum. The sounds thundered in his brain. “Tell me, you brilliant doctor, you, whose blood did you use to test the serum?”

“Mine, of course.” The reply sounded distant, like it hadn’t even come from his own lips.

Morrigan turned to face him, that fear-inducing smile spreading her lips farther apart. Her eyes had turned from their navy blue to an ominous, unwavering black void. “Then we test it tonight.”

In a flash, she was across the room and standing before him. With one arm, she jerked him from his chair by the collar of his coat and flipped him to the floor. The swift
smack
of his body on the floor made any breath he had in his lungs rush out. Panic gripped him and momentarily dulled the pain that he knew his brain was refusing to register. She stood over him, looking down with her black-hole eyes. She lifted her leg and brought it down with such force that the point of her stiletto buried deep into his shoulder, wrenching a cry from him that reverberated off the walls.