A man across the street shot the VHS chick the finger and then shouted, “Vampires are abominations!
They must be destroyed, or this kind of thing will keep happening.”
The reporter’s too-perfect face came back on, and Riker wondered if the guy had been the recipient of antiaging vampire juice. Riker would love to drain the human juice right out of the man.
“Charles Martin, Dr. Martin’s brother, has sworn to stop at nothing to find her.”
Yeah, right, Riker thought. But next to him, a faint smile trembled on Nicole’s lips, relief that her brother intended to come through for her. But as she’d pointed out before, she wasn’t stupid. She must know, deep down, that her jackass of a brother wasn’t going to lift a finger to help her.
Charles came on the screen, and a dozen micro— phones were shoved in his face. “The evil creatures that did this to my beloved sister will be caught and executed. We’ve learned that these vampires escaped from one of our South Seattle facilities after being set free by vampire activists. Consider these creatures to be very, very dangerous, which was why they were locked up in the first place.”
Riker frowned. “We didn’t escape from the facility.
What the hell is he talking about?”
Charles continued. “As a precaution, and to prevent incidents like this from happening in the future, we will close down the facility, which was a vampire re— habilitation center, and all vampires will be destroyed.
We now know that it’s far too dangerous to give these animals the benefit of the doubt.”
“Oh, my God.” Nicole’s voice trembled. “He’s lying to cover up for whatever is going on at the B-lab he mentioned. I’ll bet he knows there’s going to be an attempt to rescue Neriya, and he wants to make sure we don’t even have a chance.”
“Fuck,” Hunter snapped. “How long do you think we have?”
Charles looked directly into the camera, as if he’d heard Hunter. “Effective tomorrow.”
Chapter 20
Nicole stood in the bright, early-morning sunshine outside the Daedalus lab grounds, Riker at her side. The sunglasses on her face were borrowed from katina, the top borrowed from Benet, whom Nicole felt bad about thinking was a skank. The sneakers were actually new, given to her by a female named
Caris, who had shyly handed them over with a quiet whisper of “Good luck.”
Nicole hadn’t the heart to say that it was Neriya and Riker who needed the luck, because truly, they were the ones Nicole was putting in danger with this plan.
“I hope to hell this works.” Riker, dressed in jeans and an olive-drab long-sleeved T-shirt under a matching trench coat that concealed weapons, slid her a sideways glance.
“It will.” She tugged the jacket of Riker’s that she’d failed to return more tightly around her. “It has to.”
Riker studied the building looming before them with detached calculation. They hadn’t spoken about what happened in her room, and now, she supposed, there was no point. The chances that both of them would come out of this intact were pretty slim. He could be caught and killed, and she could be arrested for any number of offenses. If not for the deaths of the vampires in the lab she was responsible for, then for breaking into the lab in front of her and conspiring with vampires to do it.
Then there was the uncertainty of her fate if, by some miracle, this did all go down without a hitch.
“We won’t kill you,” Riker said, and there went his mind-reading thing he claimed not to have again.
“I know,” she said, and she meant it. Riker wouldn’t let anyone harm her. “But you can’t let me go free, either.”
“True. But we can keep you with us. You’ll be safe.” katina had said something similar. Nicole smiled sadly. “keep me. Like a pet. Or a slave.”
His head whipped around, and although she couldn’t see his eyes through his sunglasses, she felt the weight of his burning stare. His jaw was clenched so tight she was surprised she didn’t hear the crack of teeth.
“I don’t think I can live like that,” she murmured.
Then you’ll know how all the captive vampires feel. She could practically hear Riker speak the words, even if he had the decency not to say them out loud.
“Before we go inside, I just want to say that I’m sorry for everything my family has put you and your people through.” She started walking, not wanting him either to reply with some lame it’s okay bullshit that wasn’t true or to cast her apology back in her face by accusing her of too little, too late.
He walked with her, a silent shadow at her side.
She sensed that he wanted to say something, but she was thankful that he kept quiet, his demeanor shifting from sort of affable to deadly, focused warrior the closer they got to the building.