Memory Zero (34 page)

The edge in his voice suggested Sethanon was someone you didn’t want angry at you. So why was Jack attempting a takeover? Surely that would piss off Sethanon a hell of a lot more than being late with a schedule …

“So the hit’s still going ahead?”

“What Sethanon wishes, Sethanon gets. At least until I’m completely ready to take over.”

Suzy sniffed. “The longer you wait, the more chance there is of discovery, especially with Stern nosing about.”

“Some things can’t be rushed, my love. Why don’t you find me someone to eat while I go make some phone calls?”

“And her? You can’t leave her here.”

“I’ll get Roston to take her to a cell. Let her sleep it off for a while.”

Their voices faded, leaving her spinning in the wash of darkness and pain. Her whole body tingled, as if every nerve ending, every cell, had been forced to life, waking and stretching to discover new boundaries. The beat of her heart was an unsteady drum that pounded in her chest, echoing past her ears and vibrating the cold metal table beneath her. But it was a rhythm that was weakening.

Time was something she lost all sense of. It might have been hours, or it might have been only minutes, before she became aware that she was no longer alone in the room. Became aware that another heart beat in unsteady time with her own.

“Samantha.”

The voice was soft and deep and seemed to emerge from the darkness of her past. She had a sudden image
of a boy, green-eyed with red-gold hair. Saw him laughing as he shouted for her to catch him …

But this was no boy. This was a man.

“Samantha, you must listen to me.”

She frowned. The man’s voice sounded vaguely familiar. Then she had another vision, this time of the hirsute stranger who’d come buzzing at her door just before the first bombing. But why would he be here? Or was her mind merely playing games to pass the time?

“No games, Samantha. Listen to me.”

He was reading her thoughts, and so had the red-haired boy of her childhood. She’d felt no fear back then, nor did she fear him now.

“You cannot die, Samantha. It would kill us both.” Better death than swimming in this sea of pain. And how would her death kill that shaggy stranger? Or the red-haired boy?

“Samantha! Listen to me. Grasp my hand.”

A hand touched hers. Warmth radiated across her fingers, through her skin. But she could barely even breathe. Her lungs were burning, her mind spinning. The simple act of clasping a hand seemed the equivalent of climbing Everest right now.

“Fight, Samantha! You’ve done it your entire life. Don’t give up now!”

Who was giving up? Wasn’t she just facing facts? Still, determination rose from God knew where at his comment. She concentrated, focusing her thoughts, her strength, on her hand. Through the haze of white-hot pain, she moved her fingers and clasped them within the stranger’s warm grip.

“We are part of the whole, Samantha. Two halves—
each the same, but very different. I cannot be if you are not.”

The stranger’s words made no sense. It didn’t matter. The warmth of his grip flooded her system, washing away all the pain. It soothed the throbbing ache tearing her apart and eased the unsteady pounding of her heart. Soon there was nothing in the darkness but the need to sleep, to recoup her strength and rest.

The warmth of the stranger’s touch disappeared. “No,” she mentally whispered.

His smile was a sun, rising brightly in the darkness. “I am never far away, Samantha.” A hand caressed her forehead—it was the touch of a loved one, not a lover. “Roston will be here in a moment to take you to a cell. Rest for an hour, and then wake. Get Stern and get out of here.”

Gabriel was here? And how could they escape a cell without a key-coder? Jack had taken hers when he’d stripped off her shoes to place the sensors.

“Here.” The stranger slid something metallic gently through her sweaty hair. “Use this pin. It’s old-fashioned, but it’s still effective enough, at least on the locks round this place. Stern will know how to use it, even if you don’t.”

He said “Stern” like it was a curse. As if this hirsute man and Gabriel were old foes.

Again she felt his smile. “That we are. And I would leave him to rot in hell except for the fact you would come back to rescue him.”

She probably would. If only so he could back her story and clear the ridiculous murder charge hanging over her head.

“One other thing, Samantha.”

What?

“Kill Kazdan if you get the chance. He deserves nothing more than death for doing this to you.” The binding around her limbs and neck loosened. “Keep well, little one.”

“ ’Bye,” she whispered. Suddenly, she had a vision of the red-haired boy, tears streaming down his face as he desperately fought the grip of the two doctors holding him down, screaming as they dragged her away.

“
E
ASE THE LASER TO THE
floor, Gabriel, then kick it across to me.”

He had no choice but to obey. The cannons were renowned for their hair triggers; he’d be dead before he twitched. Slowly, carefully, he lowered the rifle to the floor. At least he still had the knife. If he got Mary talking and kept her talking, she might just relax enough for him to use it.

“Imagine meeting you here.”

Her smile was almost weary. “Move across to the chair. Twitch the wrong way, and I will shoot.”

He did as she asked, resting his arms on the table’s surface and silently studying her. She seemed to have aged almost overnight. Her full features looked haggard, her skin pallid and somewhat shiny. Even her blue eyes, usually so warm and full of life, looked haunted.

“Why?” he asked softly.

She grimaced and sat down on a packing crate, the laser gripped steadily and still aimed between his eyes. “Why become a vampire, or why betray the cause?”

“Both.”

Her face became bitter. “Look at me, Gabriel. I’m
old. You and Stephan remain eternally young while I just fade away.”

“Shifters and changers have longer life spans than humans. We do age, Mary. Just at a slower rate.” All of which she knew and obviously didn’t like.

“Yeah, but once I’d held such dreams …”

For an instant he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes and realized, with a sense of shock, that those dreams had involved either Stephan or himself. Or even both.

“We never knew,” he said softly. And even in her most insane moments, she surely couldn’t have thought that both of them would ever love her.

Her soft snort was caustic. “No. You never did. I was the trusted babysitter, the trusted friend. Never in line to be the trusted lover.”

What could he say? She spoke a truth he could not deny. She was a friend they’d shared their life with, but never their hearts.

“Your silence says it all.” Her tone was bitter, her eyes hard.

He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, right.” She shifted the cannon slightly. The laser hummed briefly to life, then faded again as the pressure on the trigger eased. “The worst of it was watching Stephan fall for Lyssa, knowing all the while that my chances with you were also slipping away. Then, finally, you met
her
.”

Her? Her who? “There’s no woman in my life.”

“So I can just jump right in and fill the void, huh?” She laughed bitterly. “I saw you with her. You don’t fool me.”

The only woman she’d seen him with was Sam. Why in hell would Mary presume they were lovers?
Unless she was so consumed by jealousy that any female in his life—colleague or friend—would fuel her insane anger. Maybe that was the reason behind her attempt to kill them all at the mansion.

“So when did you decide to betray all that we believe in?”

She shrugged. “Three years ago.”

Which would have been about six months after Stephan married Lyssa. And about the time Mary had gone on an extended cruise—a ruse, obviously, as it was undoubtedly the time she’d been turned. “Why join Sethanon?”

“I didn’t join Sethanon; I joined Kazdan. I realized that if love was out, I wanted power. Kazdan offered it to me.”

She was a fool if she believed Kazdan would share. “You were one of our inner circle, Mary. One of the two we trusted.”

“And yet, how much did I ever really know? You and Stephan play your cards very close to your chests. I was your runner, not your lieutenant.” She paused, anger touching her expression. “You never even told me that Stephan was Hanrahan. Odd, considering how much you supposedly trusted me.”

Yet, knowing them as she did, she should surely realize that that was the exact type of information they would keep close. “So who did tell you?”

She grimaced. “Who do you think?”

“Kazdan.” And if Kazdan knew, did Sethanon? Or was that the sort of information a man intent on claiming a throne might keep to himself? He had to hope so, because otherwise, the Stephan who ran the Federation was going to have to go the way of Hanrahan.
“Not even Martyn knew about Hanrahan, Mary. You’re not alone there.”

“Martyn didn’t grow up with you. I did. You never told me all I needed to know. That hurts, Gabriel.” She knew enough to get Lyssa kidnapped and to train the replacement so impeccably that no one had picked it up until Sam came along. No wonder so many of their missions had gone sour—Mary, who’d been in on most planning sessions, had obviously passed the information on to Kazdan, who’d promptly arranged a neat little ambush.

“Is that why you decided to blow us all up at the mansion?”

She grimaced. “You made me angry, defending that woman, touching her and looking at her all the time. Someone like her had no right to what you’d refused me.”

And that made about as much sense as nearly everything else she’d said so far. “So you decided to set off the bomb that had been placed there to take out Stephan later in the month.” It was a guess, but it was a pretty safe one, since Kazdan had said both he and Stephan were due for termination. It would have been very easy for Mary to time the explosion with his and Stephan’s biweekly meetings.

She nodded. “As I said, I was angry.”

What she was was insane. “How did you ever hope to live through the force of that blast?”

“No one told me it was that big.”

He shook his head, unable to believe she could be so stupid after all she’d seen in her time with the Federation. “So, Kazdan offered you eternal afterlife and great wealth, and you jumped at the opportunity.”

“Look at me, Gabriel. I didn’t want to be some old
hag you looked after out of pity. I didn’t want to die living in some poorly heated nursing home, surrounded by dozens of old geezers who can’t even hold their own water.”

Neither did he, but he doubted he’d ever abandon all he believed in just to gain life everlasting. Besides, in the end, even vampires died—and many by their own hand. Few were able to face the weight of the years, the weight of watching life come and go while they remained eternal. Sooner or later even they had to face the choices they’d made.

And if the haunted, almost hunted, light in Mary’s eyes was anything to go by, she was only now realizing that herself.

“We paid you well. And we would have looked after you.”

Her smile held a hint of sadness. “I know you would have. But that’s not what I wanted.”

What she wanted she could never have had. Not from Stephan, and not from himself. “And has Kazdan kept his end of the deal?”

The sadness increased. “Oh yes. Afterlife is more than I ever imagined.”

By the mocking note in her voice, he guessed her discoveries had been more bad than good. So many people discovered too late that vampirism was more than just eternal life and fast reflexes. It was never walking in the sun without head-to-toe total protection, and watching those you love die of old age and ending up eternally alone. At least Stephan had gone into the ritual with his eyes wide open.

He studied her for a minute longer, seeing the tiredness, the edge of fear, behind her haunted blue gaze.
Then he leaned back in the chair and carefully shifted his hands off the desk.

“What now?” he asked softly.

“Now, I’d better get you to Kazdan.”

He painstakingly eased the cuff of the jacket over the knife sheath. The laser shifted, and he stopped, waiting until Mary appeared to relax again.

“You don’t have to give me to Kazdan. You can just turn around, walk away and let me take care of him for you.”

“Then I’d be left with the problem of making a comfortable living. I’ve thrown my lot in with Kazdan. Now I must live with it.”

The cuff came free of the sheath. He pulled the knife out with his fingertips. “Stephan and I would look after you.”

She laughed, a short, angry sound. “Do I look like a fool? After all I’ve done, do you really think I’d believe Stephan would let me live?”

He shrugged and gripped the knife, getting ready to throw it. He’d have only one chance. He’d better be accurate the first time.

“I’m sorry, Mary,” he repeated, voice soft. Sorry he couldn’t love her. Sorry he had to kill her.

He studied her for a moment, fixing her image in his mind, seeing beyond the layers of anger and warped jealousy to the gentle soul that must still be somewhere within her. She’d cared for him and Stephan as youngsters, guided them as wild teenagers. He’d never thought he’d be repaying all those years with death.

She nudged the laser toward the door. “Rise carefully and go through there.”

Goodbye, my friend
, he thought, then rose and threw the knife in one smooth movement. He didn’t
wait to see the result, but launched himself straight at her.

She was vampire fast and all but blurred as she leapt away from the throw—but he’d counted on her doing exactly that. The blade punched through her wrist, and the shock of the blow made her drop the laser. He hit her a heartbeat later, knocking her sideways, away from the weapon. He threw out an arm as he rolled to his feet, snagging the laser and firing quickly.

There was no sound, just a bright flash of white. Mary’s head, and the wall immediately behind her, became nothing more than black dust.

He turned and walked to the door, refusing to look back. He didn’t want his last image, his last memory, of her to be a headless corpse.