Moonshifted(99)

I did feel bad. I’d been making the best of bad situations for the past month. I looked to Meaty.

“All right. Let’s go.” My charge nurse started for the door. On the computer screen, the weres had reached the hospital lobby doors.

“Wait! What about the blood? You can’t just let those things take it.”

“My interest here is in saving my skin and yours. I haven’t lived this long to die now,” Meaty said, loading up their gun with darts.

It didn’t feel right, just abandoning the ship. I knew Meaty knew better than I did, but—“I’ll call Sike again. She’s bound to almost be here.” The confirmation site hadn’t seemed that far away.

“And then what?”

“I don’t know.” But I had my answer to my why-now question. If what Sike had said about Anna’s ability to make endless blood was true—maybe this was the other angle on that game. Maybe Anna was so threatening to the status quo that someone wanted to make a run on all the other vampire blood in the county. What better time to steal it than when she was being distracted by her confirmation party? Using the wolfmen my brother had accidentally been creating for distraction?

“If they get that blood, it’ll shift the balance of power.” If blood was the power to create new vampires, and get more daytimers in thrall, I couldn’t let anyone else get what was in the transfusion lab.

Meaty’s head shook. “It’s too dangerous. I won’t let you go without a plan.”

I reached out and took a trank gun from Gina. “I’ll think of something on the way. Where’s transfusion?”

Meaty sighed and waited, to see if I had any sudden epiphanies. I didn’t. Frowning, my charge nurse took the lab results back from me and drew a quick map at the bottom. The elevator banks were designated by their letters, and floors of stairs were hashed. “This is where you’re going—the transfusion lab’s at the back. This,” Meaty said, pointing to another spot on the map, “is where we’ll be. There’s an underground tunnel at the back of the accounting department, it leads to the loading docks outside.” Meaty took off their badge and pulled out keys, handing them all to me. “I’m not sure if I have access to all the doors. When you’re done, come find us. I hope you make it.”

Gina handed me a fistful of darts. “If you get into trouble, call.” She pecked me on the cheek, like she was letting me go. Rachel shrugged and shook my hand.

They walked out together like a combat unit, Meaty leading the charge. The wolfmen bayed behind me, thumping at their plastic walls.

* * *

I looked over at Gideon. “I hope you don’t mind staying behind.”

Gideon threw his hat on the floor and took off his gloves.

“I guess that means you’re in. Thanks.” I held up Meaty’s map between us. It was a good thing I was familiar with the hospital’s general layout, because the map wasn’t very clear. The transfusion lab was on the first floor, but it was an entire hospital-length away. We would be safer if we came up to a higher floor, then ran along in one of the basement hallways.

The elevators let us out, and we took a flight down, and I wished I’d popped a Vicodin back in Y4, when I’d had the chance. It was hard to be quiet when each step hurt, and frustrating to be going so slow.

We were in the diagnostics imaging corridors now, limping along beneath sterile lights. There were howls coming from inside the building, and I was glad County had thick floors so I couldn’t hear claws scrabbling overhead.

Then the howls were from down the hall. I opened up the door nearest to us, and pulled Gideon inside. We were in one of the many rooms that patients disrobed and waited in before assorted scans. There was the chance they’d just race by—but fucking weres and their fucking noses, the door opened just as I closed the breech of the rifle.

I shot the first one in the shoulder. It was a were with fingerless gloves and dreadlocks. I knew him, I’d seen him on Christmas Day. He was Jake’s friend, Raymond—I registered it in half a second, and shot him anyway. The trank gun bucked, and the dart lodged into his chest, pushing a were-dose of suxamethonium chloride inside. I hit him again, just in case, before realizing I’d be screwed if I had to reload.

He dropped as the drug paralyzed all the muscles in his body. A new were ran in after him. Gideon punched it in the face. His tined fingers slid into the were’s eyes, and the creature howled in agony for a split second before Gideon’s metal fingers skewered its brain.

“Oh, God—” I wanted to throw up, but there wasn’t any time. I reloaded the gun, and we went back into the hall, Gideon staying a little behind.