Biting Bad

Chapter Nineteen

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE VAMPIRE IN THE NIGHTTIME
We drove together in Jonah's car. I rode shotgun, and Ethan took the backseat. There was nothing symbolic in the seating choices, but it still felt weird to be in a vehicle with Ethan in the backseat.
This time, the hospital was on the north side of town. It was new and shiny, with a two-story lobby and a sculpture of colored glass that hung down from the ceiling like a frozen waterfall. As hospitals went, it was lovely, but it was my second time in a hospital in two days, and I was nearing my saturation point.
Brooklyn's room was on the third floor. Jonah paused at the threshold, taking a breath and steeling himself to walk inside. He finally walked in, and I followed, Ethan behind us.
The room was as nice as the lobby had been - a private suite with a sitting area and a bank of flower vases along the windowsill. A silver get-well balloon rotated in the draft in front of the window.
Brooklyn lay on the bed, undisturbed by the wires or tubes that I'd assumed - dreaded - would have invaded her frail body. She looked just as pale and thin as she had before; a blue sheet covered her body, but it couldn't hide the outline of her skeletal form.
"She's stable."
We all turned, finding Dr. Gianakous in the doorway behind us. He walked inside and grabbed a chart that hung at the end of Brooklyn's bed.
The Grey House doctor, I silently told Ethan. He nodded slightly to acknowledge me.
"That's an improvement, right?" Jonah asked.
"In a sense, yes," Gianakous said. "She hasn't worsened, which is great. But she's a vampire. She should be healing, at least theoretically. If this was a wound, or even one of the few illnesses to which we're susceptible, she would be. But that's not what this is."
"Do you know what it is?" Ethan asked.
"Mr. Sullivan," the doctor said with surprise, apparently just realizing a Master vampire had joined the conversation.
Ethan nodded regally.
"Unfortunately, we don't." Gianakous walked to Brooklyn's bed and checked the readings on a monitor beside her. "We tried to provide her with blood, but she wouldn't accept it."
"She wouldn't accept it?" Jonah asked. "What do you mean?"
"She had no interest in drinking." He pulled a small printout from the monitor and put it in the chart, then flipped it closed. He looked up at us again, concern in his expression. "And we have no idea why."
"Do you have a theory?" Ethan asked.
Dr. Gianakous crossed his arms. "We've ruled out anything bacterial, common parasites. There are no drugs in her system. No toxins. Could be a virus, but it certainly doesn't match any we've seen before."
"What about a weapon?" I asked.
His brows lifted. "What kind of weapon?"
"I don't know. Something created specifically to kill vampires. Something involving biochemistry. Something that could be injected."
"The syringe you found?" Gianakous asked.
I nodded.
"Once upon a time, with many years of medical training behind me, I'd have said magic and monsters and vampires were nonsense. And now I have fangs and a sunlight allergy. Far be it from me to say anything is truly impossible."
"Jonah?"
We all looked up. Brooklyn's eyes fluttered open; Jonah rushed to her side.
"Brooklyn? Are you all right?"
"I'm really sorry," she quietly said. Her lips were dry, and her words were rough.
"There's nothing to be sorry for. You're in the hospital because you're sick. Do you know what's happened to you? How we can fix it?"
I didn't expect she'd be able to identify the reason she was sick, or who might have caused it . . . but nor did I expect the guilty expression on her face.
"Brooklyn?" There was an edge of sadness in Jonah's voice that scoured my heart.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to go back."
"To go back?" Jonah asked, obviously flustered. "Go back to what?"
"To being - to being human."
The room went silent.
"What do you mean, 'to being human'? You aren't human, Brooklyn. You're a vampire."
"My father died," she said, looking back at Jonah again. "Three days ago. My father died, and my mother is gone. I don't want to be here alone forever. I'm not strong enough for that." She swallowed thickly. "I don't want to be a vampire anymore. I don't want to be an orphan, here when my entire family is gone. I made a mistake. And I thought I could fix it."
If the magic in the room was any indication, we all goggled at her confession. But Jonah was the only one who moved. He took a step back from the bed, eyes wide like he couldn't believe what she'd said, like it hurt him to his core.
As a vampire - and a vampire who'd been interested in dating her - maybe it did.
"I don't want to be alone," she said again.
Jonah didn't respond, but Ethan did. He stepped closer to the bed.
"Brooklyn, how did you mean to become human again?"
She shook her head.
"Was it the syringe, Brooklyn?" he asked. "Was there something in the syringe?"
For a moment, she didn't answer.
"Yes," she finally said, the word so soft it was barely more than an exhalation.
I looked at Dr. Gianakous, who was blinking back surprise. "Is that possible? And wouldn't you already know?"
He shook his head. "We didn't look at anything genetic, or even do a blood type. We just assumed she was a vampire. I'll have blood drawn. And tested. But as to your larger question - why wouldn't it be possible? If you can turn a human into a vampire, why couldn't you turn a vampire into a human?"
Why indeed? I thought. And while you were at it, perhaps you could invent an injectable serum that changed vampires into humans regardless of whether they consented to it. You could, quite literally, rid yourself of every vampire in the world.
I guessed that explained why Brooklyn hadn't wanted to drink blood.
"Where did you get it?" Ethan asked. "Where did you get the syringe to make you human again?"
"I don't know," she said, and began to cough violently. Dr. Gianakous moved to her, helping her sit up to ease the spell.
"Brooklyn, it's important we know where you got it," Jonah said. "It's made you sick."
She looked up at us, her eyes watery, but gleaming. "No. It's made me real again."
-
We walked back to the car in silence, through elevators and hallways and across parking garages. Ethan and I shared looks, but neither of us interrupted the considerable internal dialogue Jonah was obviously engaged in.
We climbed into the car, Jonah slamming the door shut as he got into the driver's seat and started the car.
Anger and grief and driving weren't going to mix well, so I interjected.
"I'm sorry," I said.
He shook his head. "It just came out of left field. I hardly knew her - but it stung. I'm not sure how not to feel like it's a betrayal."
"I hear how it could feel that way," I said. "But it sounds like she had lots of issues to work out, and none of them were related to you."
"I'm not sure that helps," he said. "But I'll deal regardless. In the meantime," he said, glancing up at the mirror to meet Ethan's eyes, "I assume we're thinking this serum was McKetrick's idea?"
"It's his," Ethan concluded. "What better way to eliminate vampires in your fair city than to turn them all back into humans?"
"Although it doesn't seem to be working very well," I said, shifting to glance back at Ethan. "Brooklyn seems worse for wear."
"So he's not good at transforming vampires back into humans," Ethan said. "That perfectly explains why he talked to Alan Bryant."
"The experiment wasn't working," I said. "He needed more work on the biochemistry, which I guess Alan was more than willing to give him."
"I'm not sure I should bash this guy's hatred of vampires or applaud his creativity," Jonah said. "I'd bet my ass there's a demand for this, although not the way he's thinking. Who hasn't imagined being human again, if for no other reason than so we wouldn't have to deal with this bullshit all the time?"
Discomfited by the question - and the questions it raised - I settled back into my seat, and I wondered . . . did I want to be human again?
I'd been made a vampire without consenting to it. Sure, I'd accepted the decision was necessary, but that was an easy choice when it was truly the only option.
But now, there was another option. There was, apparently, an out. A way to leave this life behind and enter my old life. Graduate school. Old friendships. Mortality. No more GP. No more McKetrick.
No more ignoring my first real Valentine's Day because I'd been pulled into other people's wars.
My phone rang, interrupting the meditation. I pulled it out and glanced at the screen. "It's Catcher," I announced to the car, putting it on speakerphone. "This is Merit."
"I've got something."
"So do I. You go first."
"Detective Jacobs just called. McKetrick's trying to make a serum that turns vampires back into humans."
"We know," I said. "We just met one of his victims. The transition isn't quite as smooth as he might have imagined. Did you get any other specifics?"
"Lots of biochemistry I can't follow. Alan was helping him with the details and his apparent initial failures. At first, McKetrick was talking about giving a choice to humans who'd been changed without their consent or as the result of an attack. But then the motive changed - or he drew back the veil. The rhetoric became stronger, more anti-vampire. And McKetrick's real motivation became obvious - creating a mass weapon that could turn vampires back into humans en masse. Denying them the choice by making it for them. Apparently, Alan got nervous about the anti-vampire rhetoric and decided he was done."
"Bryant Industries' livelihood is built on vampires," Jonah said. "They disappear, so does Alan's business."
"Exactly. But McKetrick kept pushing, and when Alan didn't help, he stole the information he thought he needed and torched the building."
"And found some haters to firebomb it and cover his tracks," I said.
"Indeed. Alan broke contact with McKetrick, so he doesn't know anything about his actions after the Bryant Industries riot. But he did say he's helped McKetrick order materials that were shipped to an industrial building near Midway. Former warehouse called Hornet Freight."
"That feels right," I said. "Can you ask Jeff to check on it?"
"He's already on it," Catcher assured. "I'll ask him to send the search results to you."
"Don't send," Ethan said. "Deliver. Can you meet us at the House?"
"To quote Jeff, is it secret-mission time?"
"It is," Ethan said. "And you might bring Mallory as well. I suspect we'll need all the allies we can get."
"What's on the agenda?"
"I intend to disabuse McKetrick of certain notions concerning vampires."
"That you're pretentious?" Catcher asked.
"That we're afraid of him," Ethan said. "We aren't. And by the end of the evening, I expect he'll know it."
-
Jonah drove us back to the House, and Ethan rewarded the effort - and his crappy night - with a parking spot in the basement.
We took a few moments to regroup. Jonah found a spot from which to call Scott and advise him what we'd learned and planned to do. Ethan and I went upstairs. He went to update Malik; I went to the kitchen for a bottle of blood I suddenly craved.
When I'd finished a pint and a piece of fruit for good measure, I met Ethan at the stairway.
"You're all right?" he asked, pushing a lock of hair behind my ear.
I nodded. "Just thinking."
"About McKetrick?"
"About the serum. If we're right, and it works, it could change a lot of lives. Would you consider it? Becoming human again? Giving up the drama?"
He gestured toward the House. "And giving up all this? No, Sentinel." He took my hand, and we walked toward the basement stairs. "I gave up my humanity many, many moons ago. I've no interest in revisiting it."
We took the stairs to the basement but stopped at the bottom. Ethan looked at me, amusement in his expression. "What are you thinking, Sentinel? That being human again would solve all our problems?"
I'd been thinking about my problems, but I didn't let on. "Just that things would be simpler."
Ethan snorted. "Never underestimate the capacity of any living thing for drama, Sentinel. Human, vampire, shifter, or otherwise. We all have our fair share."
Having said his part, we made our way to the Ops Room. Jonah and the guards were already assembled, minus Juliet, who Luc decided wasn't quite ready for a field trip. Catcher, Jeff, and Mallory followed behind us.
Lindsey, Mallory, and I exchanged hugs. This was too nerve-racking not to prepare ourselves and take comfort where we could find it.
"Cool hair," Lindsey said.
Mallory had braided her ombre hair into Princess Leia - style side buns. She was one of the few people I knew - perhaps the only one - who could actually pull off the look.
"Thanks," she said, touching a bun. "Although I feel like I have cinnamon rolls attached to my head."
"Not that there's anything wrong with that," I said, pointing to the table.
We took seats around it, and when we were all seated, Ethan kicked things off.
"We believe John McKetrick has been manufacturing a serum intended to turn vampires back into humans. We believe he used Alan Bryant, Charla Bryant's brother, to develop that serum. We aren't certain if he planned to allow vampires the choice to become humans again or not. But given his history, it seems likely he would have made the decision for us.
"Alan Bryant wouldn't provide the information McKetrick needed. So McKetrick stole that information, torched Bryant Industries, and induced a riot to cover up the evidence."
"It was a distraction," Jonah said. "Keeping us focused on vampire haters, not on what was really going on between himself and Alan Bryant."
"And the Grey House riot?" Luc asked.
"Perfecting the distraction," Jonah said. "One night of rioting is a riot. It's ne'er-do-wells in action. Two nights of rioting? That's a movement. That's political activism."
"And it spreads his larger message of anti-vampire vitriol," Ethan said.
Jonah nodded.
"But why my grandfather?" I asked. "He had nothing to do with any of this. He's only secondarily involved."
"Maybe he wasn't only secondarily involved."
We all looked at Catcher, who met my gaze. "He was looking at that body for Detective Jacobs. The one that washed ashore."
Ethan frowned. "Okay? So?"
"He called because they weren't supernaturally able to identify it - because they weren't exactly sure what it was."
We sat in stunned silence for a moment.
"It was a failed experiment," I realized. "McKetrick's been working on the serum, and he's had failures. That's why he kept going back to Alan Bryant. McKetrick must have known he was involved and thought he was getting too close." I looked at Catcher. "What did Grandpa learn?"
"I don't know," he said. "But he'd learned something. He was supposed to meet with Detective Jacobs for coffee the next day."
"McKetrick found out and decided to put a kibosh on that meeting," Ethan said. "And your grandfather was involved with vampires, so the rioting cover story plays."
"That sick, twisted, manipulative son of a bitch," I muttered.
"So he is," Ethan said. "And that's why we're putting an end to this. Jeff," he prompted. "The building?"
Jeff spread a map on the table. "It used to be Weingarten Freight," he said. "Now it's Hornet Freight, but the floor plan is online either way."
"What do they ship?" Luc asked, leaning over to get a better glance.
"According to their Web site," Jeff said, "pretty much anything you want them to. Retail goods, medical goods, sporting equipment, industrial stuff."
The building was essentially a large square divided into chunks: offices, loading area, warehousing area.
"Entrance here," he said, pointing to a door. "Loading bays along this wall. Emergency exits here and here."
He pointed to the back corner of the building. "The admin area was set up here, along the front-left corner, and the rest of the space is divided into the loading and unloading area and the place they stored the goods between pickups and deliveries."
"What's the goal here?" Luc asked, looking to Ethan.
"I want to go in," Ethan said. "I want to garner evidence of what McKetrick's doing, and I want to end his ability to do it."
"And the CPD?" Catcher asked.
"McKetrick is the ultimate slime. If we go in without them, he'll claim we attacked, and chalk it up to more vampire violence." Ethan's gaze narrowed. "But I want my opportunity to chat with him face-to-face."
"Ethan - ," Luc said, but Ethan held up a hand.
"No," he said. "This isn't about practicalities or safety. He has ordered assassinations, endangered my vampires, destroyed homes, nearly killed Chuck. And now he thinks he can play God? No." His eyes flamed silver and green. "I will have a shot at him first. After that, assuming he survives, the humans can do what they will."
Catcher and Ethan looked at each other for a moment, until Catcher nodded.
"A little late notice never hurt anyone," he said.
Ethan nodded. "We have to assume he'll have weapons, and many of them. Specifically, we know he's got aspen guns, so I'm proposing the first wave be non-vampires."
He looked at Mallory. "We need help tonight, and we'll hire you to join our team for this mission if you're willing. I've already checked with Gabriel, and he's approved."
Mallory had helped us before, including when we tackled a fallen angel and ended his reign of terror over the city. She'd done it to help, and because her magic had created the problem in the first place. So it wasn't that Ethan had asked Mallory to assist us . . . but that he was hiring her to do it. She wasn't being dragged into supernatural drama; she was being hired by Cadogan House as an employee and given the imprimatur of authority that went with it. Ethan was putting his stamp of approval on a girl trying to live with her magic - and that stamp would likely go a long, long way toward her having a real future.
By the expression on her face, she realized the boon he'd offered her.
"Absolutely," she said. "Absolutely I will help. I appreciate the chance and the opportunity."
"It's dangerous," Ethan said. "Very dangerous, especially if you're the first line."
"I'm not afraid," Mallory said. And for the first time in a while, I think she actually meant it.
But Catcher was less than thrilled. He practically snarled at Ethan. "Do you have any idea how dangerous this is going to be?"
"I do," Ethan said. "I'll be fighting and sending my Sentinel into danger, and I realize precisely how frightening that proposition is."
His voice flattened. "I also recall it was dangerous in Nebraska, and that night on the Midway."
Ethan's meaning was unspoken, but still clear - Mallory had put us in danger before, and we'd responded despite it all. It wasn't any more unfair to ask her to pony up.
"You can be an asshole, you know that, Sullivan?"
Ethan smiled. "I do. We do what we must to protect our own."
Catcher looked at Mallory. "It's your call."
She nodded. "I already said yes. It's the right thing to do."
"We go in in two waves. Jeff, Catcher, Mallory, through the front. Me, Merit, Jonah, Luc, Lindsey, through the back. We find him. We capture him. We preserve evidence as we can. And we nail his ass to the wall."
"I assume you'll want us to lay down magical cover for the rest of you?" Catcher asked.
"If you can do it?" Ethan said, a dare in his voice.
"You know I can," Catcher said.
"You know what we need?" Jeff said, rolling up the map. "A rallying cry, like 'Avengers, assemble!' or 'Regulators, mount up!'"
"How about 'Bring back the head of John McKetrick'?" Ethan suggested.
"Grim," Jeff said, "but I think it works."
"For the sake of saying it, Liege," Luc said, "do you really think you should go? You know, for safety purposes?"
The chilling look in Ethan's expression left little doubt about his answer to that question.
"Alrighty then," Luc said. "Earbuds for all." He passed out the earbuds, which now rested in a jar on his desktop like the world's worst candy. "Good luck, and do try not to get killed."
"It's my nightly goal," Ethan said, rising from his chair. Jonah and I followed, and we walked back into the hallway and climbed the stairs.
We paused in the foyer when Jonah held up his phone. "I'm going to give Scott an update."
Ethan nodded and looked at me. "While he's doing that, you'll want to go upstairs and change."
I frowned and tugged at the bottom of my jacket. "I don't have anything to change into; my leathers were toasted in the fire."
"Just go, Sentinel," Ethan said, clearly with some other plan afoot. It didn't seem worth making a scene in front of Jonah, so I climbed the stairs again and headed back into our apartments.
Hanging inside the closet was a set of new leathers - sleek and black with crimson trim. A small white envelope was tied to the hanger with a crimson ribbon. I slipped out the card and read it.
"'To my favorite Sentinel,'" I read aloud, "'with love on belated Valentine's Day.'"
Smiling gleefully, I removed the jeans and suit jacket, then slipped the leather pants from the hanger. They were buttery soft and fitted, with a thin strip of crimson piping down each leg. I climbed into them and zipped them up. They fit like a glove, with the slightest flare at the bottom to cover the boot.
The jacket was heavier than my old version, although it had the same segmented shoulders and elbows for freedom of movement. The crimson trim was subtle, but gorgeous, a secret vein at the edges of the leather. Ethan wouldn't have overlooked that, and he probably picked them particularly because of it. Because it hinted at who I was beneath the clothes, the fire that lurked inside the brunette.
I pulled the jacket on, and of course it fit perfectly. It wasn't hard to imagine that Ethan had learned the curve of my body and could guess my size. I modeled the ensemble in the mirror, more pleased than I probably should have been at how it looked.
It looked . . . perfect. Perfectly me, perfectly Sentinel, perfectly Cadogan.
Now, if I could just keep them from catching fire.
-
We met in the foyer. Catcher, Mallory, and Jeff would drive together, as would Luc and Lindsey. Neither my loaner nor Ethan's Ferrari was big enough for three, so Jonah volunteered - once again - to drive us in his vehicle.
We were going to have to start reimbursing him for mileage.
Jonah was a man on a mission, and he slalomed through traffic - nothing reckless that would raise the attention of cops, but enough to make the trip as efficient as possible.
The House was a twenty-minute drive from Hornet Freight. Jonah took the longer but faster freeway route to Midway Airport, then squeezed between taxis into the exit lane. But we diverged from the line of sedans and followed a second road through an industrial neighborhood.
Hornet Freight was on the left side of the road. A giant black and yellow sign bearing the business's name and a photograph of the bug lit up the night. It was a brick building, two stories tall, the last in a line of eight identical buildings. None of them appeared to have been occupied recently.
We parked in a row in a designated lot about a quarter mile away. "From here," Jonah said, "Hornet Freight looks legit."
"Looks," Ethan emphasized.
"Agreed." We got out of the car and belted on swords, the eight of us gathering behind our shield of vehicles.
"Earbuds in," Luc said, and we maneuvered the little buggers into our ears. Preparations made, we looked at Ethan.
As always, he was prepared to speechify.
"We are here for a reason," Ethan said, "because we've decided hatred and manipulation can only go so far. Be brave, but moreover, be safe. Bravery only gets you so far. Let's get into position."
There were nods all around, and we formed a sort of line, with the aspen-immune sorcerers at the front and the rest of us at the back.
"Tomorrow," Ethan whispered beside me, "we make time to celebrate Valentine's Day. But tonight, Merit, my Sentinel, my warrior, let's go find John McKetrick. And let's kick his ass."