The Bloody City (8 page)

Cindy lowered her cup. “She misses you.” She pouted. “I’ve been thinking about bringing her over, but Sam says the last thing you need right now is a pet.”

“We had her in the penthouse, though!”

“I know, right? He says this is different. It’s more dangerous here. You might have to run, or they might throw tear gas through a window, or shoot through the walls with high-powered rifles. I don’t want Dipity to get shot.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“I can’t imagine what tear gas would do to a cat.”

Jason walked into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and ruffling his hair. He noticed Cindy and smiled.

“Hey,” he said. “Didn’t know you were here.”

She flashed him a quick, tight smile. “Hey.” She set her cup on the counter. “Well, I better get out of here. Gotta get ready for this. Good to see everyone again.”

She exited the kitchen. Jason watched her go with a frown.

“Why does she keep running away from me?” he asked. “We were getting along so well for a while. Really well, if you know what I mean.”

June leaned against the counter. “She’s trying not to possess your cock, would be my guess. It’s…probably not a pleasant experience.”

Jason turned to the refrigerator and opened the door. “Everyone wants me.”

“Welcome to my world.” Something caught her eye. “You’re wearing the watch.”

Several weeks ago, bored, June went rooting around in the attic. All kinds of crap had been stored up there—maybe it was Aaron’s old stuff, or the people who had lived there before. She discovered a box of old jewelry, most of it junk, but she found a silver wristwatch that still worked. Since it was obviously a man’s watch, she’d given it to Jason—not because he needed a watch, though.

Jason had a scar on his right wrist, from the restraints they’d held him in at the Institute. He rubbed and picked at it a lot. He told June he hated it, that the sight of it always took him back to that place.

The watchband covered it completely.

“Yeah.” He held his arm up. “It’s cool. Thanks.”

She smiled. “No problem.”

She went upstairs to check on Micha. He was awake, sprawled on his bed, shirtless. She sat down on the edge.

“How are you feeling?” She rested a hand on his stomach, surreptitiously checking his temperature. Still too warm.

“As well as I ever do.”

“Are you worried about tonight?”

“No. I’ll be glad to get out of here for a while. I feel like a prisoner. I’m going crazy.”

“Out there, you’re a target.”

He turned his head toward her. His eyes were dark in the shadowy room.

“In here,” he said, “I’m ineffective. Idleness has always been something I feared. Lack of motivation. It’s an advocate’s worst enemy. You have to get out there and make a difference.”

“This isn’t like getting equal rights for mind readers, Micha. The Institute wants to finish turning you into an abomination and then dissect you. That’s a good reason to lie low.”

“I’m not an abomination. I’m just becoming that which I wanted to protect.”

“Except that which you wanted to protect isn’t what you are. Who knows what it’s doing to you on a cellular level, or how it’s messing up your organs. You can march for gay rights too, or if we were in the fifties you could be fighting for civil rights, but you can’t take an injection to make you gay or black.”

Micha was silent.

“We’re doing all we can do, to keep them from doing what they want to do. To you.”

Again, no reply.

June curled up next to him. She rested her head on his chest. His heart thumped against her ear, fast and hard.

“How did we end up like this?” she whispered.

“Which do you mean, like this?” He waved a hand in the air. “Or like this?” He lowered it and stroked her hair.

“Take your pick.”

“I don’t know what I would have done without you these past few months,” he murmured.

“Likewise.”

She could stay there forever, listening to his heart, cuddled up to him, making believe all the drama was outside and not right here, sitting on their chests.

“Have you seen Rose lately?” he asked.

“No, thankfully.”

“Thankfully,” he repeated, the word tinged with bitterness.

She lifted her head and moved up until her face rested next to his. Despite never having seen a ghost prior, she was haunted by Micha’s wife, who was apparently trying to give June a message. Rose always appeared confused, but seemed to be proclaiming her innocence.

Micha didn’t buy it, though.

He draped an arm over her. She kissed him, because she didn’t like the tone of his voice, and she didn’t like what it implied—the anger, the betrayal. If she could make him stop talking, stop thinking about it, she would.

A knock sounded at the door. Sam stepped in without being invited, his usual method of entering a room. She broke the kiss and scowled at him.

“I think you have another supernatural power,” she said. “The power to sense when you’re least welcome.”

“I need to talk to you.” He stared directly at her, ignoring Micha.

“I doubt I can stop you,” she said.

“What can I do to convince you not to come to this meeting?”

She shrugged. “Kill me.”

“I can disguise myself and Micha. But it’s going to be a good deal harder to disguise all three of us.”

“You don’t have to disguise me. I walked around Old Town and no one messed with me. I’m a missing person that no one misses.”

“It’s still a risk.”

“This whole thing is a risk. You need help protecting Micha, plain and simple.” She squeezed Micha’s hip.

“Hopefully what Cindy and Muse bring back will do just that,” Sam said.

“Unless it’s a bomb, I’m going.”

“I think you ought to go home instead.”

She frowned, blinking.

“I’m serious,” Sam said. “I think you ought to take Jason and go back to California.”

“Yes.” She sat up. “Why didn’t I think of that? Because I haven’t wanted to go home before now.”

Sam sat down on the edge of the bed. She jerked her feet out of the way.

“Leaving hasn’t been practical until now. If you took a plane or a train, or a bus, someone out there might have recognized you. But your friend is here now. He can take you back in his car.”

The idea was marvelous, tempting, yet…

“You don’t want me fighting the good fight with you anymore?”

Sam looked away, his jaw tight. So much emotion had come from him lately the Institute must have sneaked in during the night, snatched him, and left behind another shapeshifter, one who was a conscience-riddled human being.

“Things should be different,” Sam said. “This isn’t how I meant for this situation to turn out.”

“Oh, please. This isn’t gonna work.” She untangled herself from Micha.

“What do you mean?” Sam looked back at her.

“You, pretending to be all sorrowful to manipulate me into being safe. I think we’re past that bullshit, aren’t we?”

“I’m not manipulating you. If you have a chance to go home, you should take it.”

“Don’t tell me what I should do.”

“Maybe he’s right,” Micha said behind her.

“Don’t you tell me what to do either.” She pointed at him. “I’m the one with the voice around here, remember?”

“This could be your only chance,” Sam said.

“And do you think they’ll leave me alone in California, if they decide they’re interested in me again? We go back there, we’re sitting ducks. So is our mother.”

“You could get your mother and take her somewhere safe.” Sam knew exactly where to strike. He didn’t even have to strike that hard.

“Now you are manipulating me,” she informed him. “You’re trying to play me.”

“I’m trying to help you. Getting you away from me is probably the best help I could give you right now.”

“I would have to talk to Jason about it first. It wouldn’t be safe.”

Sam frowned. “Your whole argument for going tonight is that no one knows who you are or cares about you. Now you’re arguing you can’t go home because people are going to know who you are?”

She waved a dismissive hand at him. “I’ll think about it. Now get the hell out.”

Sam stood up. “Please think about what I’m saying very carefully. You know it’s the best option for you. For Jason.”

“Get out of here!”

He left.

“Do you think I should go?” she asked Micha.

Micha had sprawled on his back again, gazing at the ceiling. “I think you should do whatever you can to help yourself.”

“I knew you would say that.”

Sam was right. However, part of her was completely tangled up in this mess, and it wasn’t that easy to cut her way out. She couldn’t just take off and leave everything, everyone behind.

Could she?

* * * *

Cindy and Muse returned in their allotted timeframe, so Sam didn’t have to go on a reconnaissance mission, thankfully.

Cindy had a wooden box, about the size of a milk carton. She set it carefully on the kitchen table as they all gathered around. Sam had summoned the household to a meeting.

“It wasn’t hard to get in,” Muse told Sam. “No one is patrolling.”

“Things are falling apart without me.” Sam sighed. “They’re not being vigilant. My wandering sheep, lost without their shepherd.”

June rolled her eyes. “Maybe they don’t listen so good since you call them ‘sheep.’”

“What were you breaking into?” Micha asked.

“A building where we keep special things, a storehouse,” Muse said. “We weren’t really breaking in. I have a key.” She turned to Sam. “And to be fair, only you and I know the extent of what’s in there. You’ve never over-stressed the need for security.”

“I don’t know what this is.” Cindy eyed the box. “Nothing alive, I hope?”

Sam pulled it toward him. “It’s something dangerous. But not to us.”

Sam popped a latch on the box and carefully opened the lid. The way he behaved, June expected a dazzling light to issue forth and the answer to all their problems to spring out. Instead, he took out a narrow tube. June flinched. The tube reminded her of the Oracle of the Dead, a seemingly innocuous tube of blood that, once magically activated, could literally wake the dead. This tube wasn’t a vial, though, more like a fluorescent light bulb, with metal fittings on each end. The tube was the length of Sam’s hand, fingertips to wrist.

Sam held the tube out to Micha. “Recognize this?”

Micha narrowed his eyes.

“No? It really was top secret, then.”

“What is it?” Micha asked.

“Something your dearly departed wife was working on.” He held it up by one end. “This was the prototype, anyway. My spies at the Institute stole it.”

“What does it do?” June asked.

“It was the beginning of the cure,” Sam said.

“The cure?”

“The cure to vampirism.” Sam lowered the tube. “Of course, this version does more harm than good, but we can certainly use that to our advantage. It emits UV light.”

June tilted her head, brow furrowing. “Fake sunlight?”

“Yes,” Sam said. “That’s not the point of it, though. Obviously, since they want to help vampires, not kill them, altruistic scientists that they are. UV light is also used for germicidal irradiation. It kills bacteria.”

Micha gasped. “Like what the vampires have inside them.”

“Yes.” Sam nodded. “Only problem is, this early model is dangerous. They hadn’t yet perfected how to kill the germs without burning through vampire flesh as well. With Mrs. Bellevue in the dirt, I’m sure the project got tanked. Sad.”

“So…” June said. “You want Micha to take that with him when you meet Occam?”

“Now she gets it.” Sam snapped his fingers.

“You think that’ll keep them off me?” Micha asked.

“You’ll have to be careful.” Sam placed the tube back in the box. “UV light can harm humans, as well. Too much exposure will burn your skin and fry your corneas. You’ll have to be careful whom you flash it at. But it’ll work much faster on them than it will you.”

Sam closed the box. June squeezed Micha’s hand. His fingers were cold.

“Told you I’d figure something out.” Sam looked at June.

“Are you coming with us?” June asked Muse. “For extra protection?”

“I can’t read vampires’ minds,” she said. “But I’ll be close. With my knives.”

“I like your knives,” June said.

After they dispersed from the kitchen, Diego pulled June aside in the living room.

“Sam said he wants me to take you and Jason home.” He gripped June’s upper arm. “There’s nothing I’d rather do. We can leave tonight if you want, when you get back. I have a rental at the hotel.”

Worry shone in his eyes, the same worry her mother must have had in hers every single day since her children went missing. She hated Sam even more for his manipulation.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “I’ll give you an answer when I get back tonight. Don’t fill Jason’s head with false hopes while we’re gone, though.”

“June…”

“I’ll think about it, Diego.” She squeezed his hand on her arm. “It’s not that easy.”

Occam arranged their meeting at the Hotel Burnham on West Washington Street, or rather, the restaurant adjacent to the hotel. The place was ridiculously fancy. Red pillars held aloft a high ceiling hung with chandeliers, the walls painted smooth black, the tables draped in white tablecloths. Tall windows provided a panoramic view of the nighttime streets around them.

Patrons filled the restaurant. The chatter of voices and clink of silverware and glasses created a nerve-wracking cacophony of humanity June hadn’t realized she’d gotten so unfamiliar with. All the people put her on edge.

Occam had reservations under a false name, and despite being for one less, since he hadn’t expected June, they were shown to a table. June trailed behind Sam, who was disguised again as the woman from the Nocturnal District, and Micha, disguised as a dark-haired swarthy man, arm-in-arm with Sam.

June wore a red slinky dress Cindy had provided. The dress was undoubtedly short on Cindy but fell to June’s knees, and Cindy had to pin it in the back, since June was nowhere near as busty as Cindy. A black jacket accompanied the dress, hiding this embarrassment, as well as most of June’s tattoos, which might spark a memory more than her face would. Muse had provided a pair of black heels in June’s size, to match the outfit.