Nightshades Read online

  “Why is he being so obvious about it?” asked a new voice. A few people shuffled around, and then she could see Harvey Bartell, the older agent. McKenna had said he’d been on the original team that brought in Ambrose. “I’ve been hunting shades since Exposure, and I’ve never heard of one kidnapping and killing people and being so bold about it.”

  “I don’t know,” Lindy said. “Shades are predators, hunters with perfect camouflage. There’s no reason to . . . I don’t know.”

  “How much time do we have?” came a quiet alto voice from the side. The redhead, Hadley. “How long before this Hector kills the new kids?”

  “Hours,” Lindy said honestly. She knew Hector as well as she knew herself. The moment he knew she was in town he had grabbed new subjects, the ones that matched the living subjects he had left. “He’ll be experimenting with their blood right now, or possibly tonight, when the shades are strongest.” And when he’d used up all those kids, he would either come after her or leave Chicago to start over somewhere else.

  The agents around her were looking frustrated, helpless. She wished she could say something comforting, but she had no idea how to go about finding Hector’s base of operations. She was not an investigator. For the first time, Lindy regretted the transfusions that blurred the connection between her and her brother. This would be so much easier if she could lead the team straight to him.

  Alex saw her floundering and stepped forward again. “Here’s what we’re doing,” he announced. “Research and interns, I want you going over the case files from the original group of missing kids, including the three deceased. Recheck everything with the new information in mind, and look for connections to the new victims. Bartell and Hadley, I want you to start files on the kids who just went missing today. Backgrounds, known associates, likes and dislikes, everything you can find. We’re low on time, so do what you can over the phone before you start ringing doorbells. Then get together with the others and look for patterns, connections.”

  He turned to the FBI members, still standing a little apart from the BPI team. “The rest of you, either pitch in with our research or go back to analyzing the evidence from the body dump, plus the autopsies. I’ll be coordinating with the labs and the authorities to give you priority on everything.” He glanced at his remaining employees. “Lindy, Chase, Sarah, with me, please.”

  The meeting dissolved into a bustle of individual activity. Alex led them down a short hallway to his office, which was currently just a bare cube with his briefcase tossed over one of the visitor’s chairs. Alex sat behind the empty desk, looking first at Sarah Greer. “Sarah, at seven o’clock I’d like you to order pizza and sodas for the staff. Pick someplace decent.” He shot a quick, amused glance at Chase. “Someplace with deep dish. It’s on me. Come find me and I’ll give you my credit card.”

  The older woman nodded curtly and departed. Chase closed the door behind her.

  When the three of them were alone, Alex picked up a pen and toyed with it, his eyes on Lindy. “You did good out there,” he said in a low voice. “I could ask you how long you’ve suspected Hector was experimenting on these kids, but I’m afraid of the answer.” Lindy said nothing. “But there’s something else you’re not telling me.”

  Lindy gave him a quizzical look, genuinely confused. There were a lot of things she wasn’t telling him. “Hector’s motive,” Alex prompted her. “Why is telepathic communication so important to him? Why is he trying to re-create what he has with you?”

  “What he had with me,” she corrected, a little snappish. “I don’t let him into my head anymore. And how am I supposed to know why he wants to talk to his fledglings? What would you do if you and Agent Eddy could speak without words?”

  Alex and Chase exchanged a glance, and Lindy could see his answer written plainly on his face. We can speak without words. “Across great distances,” she corrected herself. “In the dark.”

  Alex’s pen went still as he thought over the implications. “From a tactical standpoint,” he said slowly, “that would be invaluable. Unlike other forms of communication, we can’t listen in on telepathy, or disable it, or steal it. But it still feels like an awful lot of work—with an awful lot of public scrutiny—just for that.”

  “Is it because he misses you?” Chase asked in a level tone. And Lindy suddenly felt like she’d been punched in the gut.

  When she’d finally figured out how to keep Hector out of her mind, it had felt unbearably lonely at first. She had spent centuries with a constant connection, a lifeline she could tug whenever she wanted, for big reasons or no reason at all. After she’d detached from him, it felt bleak and hollow for the longest time. But surely he couldn’t be killing these children just to fill his head with voices.

  Could he?

  Before she could come up with an answer, Alex demanded, “And why did you two part ways? What was the ideological dispute?”

  Lindy felt herself starting to get angry. “Here’s what I can tell you about Hector and his ideologies,” she said icily. “He believes in an eye for an eye. He believes he’s better than you. And he’s very angry with humanity. The moment you discovered us, you assumed we were a disease to be cured or eradicated. He thinks you’re . . . ungrateful. Rude.”

  She snapped her mouth shut, suddenly aware that she’d raised her voice. Alex and Chase gave her identical shocked expressions. They probably didn’t even realize it, but each of them had moved his hand just a little bit closer to his sidearm. It would have been funny if she weren’t annoyed.

  “How are we ungrateful?” Chase asked, at the exact same moment that Alex said, “Ungrateful for what?”

  She stared at them. “I thought you people had a whole team of scientists working on this,” she blurted. “Haven’t they told you?” From the men’s bewildered expressions, it was clear they had no idea what she was talking about.

  Lindy sighed inwardly, suddenly feeling like Sisyphus pushing a rock up a mountain. Doggedly, she forced herself to continue. “The public has been told that we’re a parasitic species,” she explained. “That we are leeches, bottom feeders, dependent on your blood to survive. But we’re not parasitic, we’re symbiotic. We help you as much as you help us.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Alex asked.

  The office door swung open. “I might be able to help with that,” said a gruff voice from the doorway. All three of them looked over to see Special Agent Gabriel Ruiz standing in the doorway.

  Chapter 11

  Alex stared. Just that morning, Ruiz had been gray and frail, as if at any moment his stitches might pop and his intestines come surging out of his middle. Now he was rosy cheeked and bright eyed, standing upright, though his movements were stiff. He was wearing track pants and an oversized T-shirt, looking out of place in the office setting. “Hey, boss,” Ruiz said with a tiny smirk. “I feel better.”

  “What the hell happened to you?” Alex asked.

  “Well, it wasn’t clean living,” Ruiz said cheerfully. “All I know is, I fell asleep after my little excursion this morning, and I woke up looking like this.”

  “How is that possible?” Chase interjected.

  “Giselle.” Lindy’s voice came out as a whisper, and all three men’s heads swiveled toward her. Before any of them could respond she strode over to Ruiz and took his face in her hands, pulling it close as if for a kiss. She examined his eyes and released him with a little grunt. “Yep. His pupils are dilated all to hell. He’s been mesmerized.”

  “And it . . . healed him?” Alex asked. Biologists had speculated that shade saliva had some healing properties: It closed up their victims’ wounds, allowing them to get away with feeding. But they hadn’t confirmed it, and certainly not on this scale.

  Lindy nodded. “Shade saliva isn’t just a narcotic; it’s an immunity boost. Every time one—um, a shade bites a human, it boosts their immunity, their resistance to illness.” She added, “And it has the added benefit of healing most wounds.”

 
; “Who are you?” Ruiz blurted, staring incredulously at Lindy.

  “I’m your new friend Lindy,” she said with a bright smile.

  Alex just looked at Lindy. If there was one area where she would know more than him, this was it. The BPI scientists barely understood mesmerization, since Ambrose wasn’t exactly a wiling participant in any experiments.

  “How do you know it’s not just the painkillers?” Chase asked sensibly.

  Lindy cocked an eyebrow at him, then said commandingly, “Ruiz, touch your nose.”

  The agent obediently lifted a finger to the tip of his nose. Realizing what he’d just done, he scowled and shoved his hands in his pockets, swaying a little as though he were intoxicated. “What the hell, new girl?”

  “He’s suggestible,” Lindy explained, giving Alex a meaningful look. He understood it to mean especially to shades. “Really suggestible, and it’s lasted awhile, which tells me someone gave him a shitload of shade saliva.”

  Ruiz gave her a belligerent stare, opening his mouth to demand answers. Alex broke in. “Okay, setting aside the fact that someone got past our security at the hospital, what does this mean? You think it was Giselle?”

  Lindy nodded. “I think she’s got a hard-on for him, pardon my French.” The men all stared at her. Alex didn’t think he’d ever heard a woman use that particular expression. Lindy went right over to Ruiz and lifted up the back of his shirt, and Alex realized she was checking for a weapon. He stood there and let her, which indicated just how much the saliva was working on him. “Maybe you want to go back to your desk now?” she offered.

  “Yeah,” he grunted, backing toward the door. “I guess.”

  Most of the FBI crew had returned to their headquarters, just down the street, to work on the evidence, leaving only the BPI staff in the building. Alex told Ruiz to help the other members of their pod, and as soon as Ruiz was through the door he wheeled on Lindy. “Why did you check if he was carrying?” he demanded.

  She held up her hands. “Easy.”

  Alex glanced down at himself and realized he’d flipped back his suit coat, exposing his gun. He smoothed it back down again, a little embarrassed. “Sorry. For a second I was picturing . . .” He trailed off, not wanting to say what he was thinking about a fellow agent.

  “That he’d start shooting the place up?” Lindy shook her head. “Mesmerized humans can’t hold orders in their heads forever—she could tell him to walk in the door shooting, but not to wait three hours and then do it. I don’t think he’s going to hurt us.”

  “Okay,” he said. “So Giselle healed him. If it wasn’t to send him in here with guns blazing, why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know.” Lindy’s voice was grim. “She’s fixated on him, though. Have you ever seen a cat play with a mouse? It will knock the mouse’s legs out, wait until it gets back up and starts to run, then knock its legs out again. She might just be playing with him, or she’s planning to use him as a spy—send him in here to poke around and ask questions, and then collect him later.”

  Alex considered her for a long moment. “Giselle is going to come for him?”

  Lindy frowned. “You’re not suggesting we use Ruiz as bait?”

  “He’s a federal agent,” Alex said firmly. “He can handle it.”

  Chase shook his head. “He’s basically been roofied, Alex. He’s not in his right mind to protect himself from danger. We need to get him someplace safe.”

  Alex and Lindy exchanged a glance, and Alex knew she was thinking the same thing he was: They had an opportunity here. “Is there a way to sober him up?” Alex asked.

  Lindy cocked her head, surprised at the suggestion. “I have no idea. I’ve never tried to—”

  Before she could finish there was a crash from the outer room, and the sound of several people screaming at once.

  Chapter 12

  When Lindy burst through the doorway, she immediately smelled the blood and had to fight her body’s instinctive reaction to it. At least two people were wounded—a BPI assistant and one of the interns—slumped against desks they hadn’t managed to step away from, but her enhanced senses suggested they were breathing. There was a third woman lying prone on the floor: the office manager, Sarah Greer. Giselle was crouched on her chest like the incubus in Fuseli’s The Nightmare. Greer had fainted, but Giselle was holding one of the older woman’s hands up to her face, absently sucking on the thumb. Her other hand held a falchion to Greer’s throat.

  There were a number of guns leveled at Giselle’s head, but she ignored them, her bloodred eyes fixed on Lindy, who walked toward her slowly, hands slightly raised.

  The last time Lindy had seen her, Giselle was going around in a full-length burka, which she enjoyed because it covered any number of edged weapons. Tonight, however, she wore black leather short-shorts and what appeared to be a black leather corset with a halter top. Platinum and pink hair hung in greasy clumps to her waist. Giselle made no effort to stop the approach, but waited until Lindy was eight feet away before dropping Sarah Greer’s limp hand. Blood was still trickling from her thumb.

  “Hello, princess,” Giselle said happily, her teeth red with blood. The reek of it hit Lindy’s nose, and she struggled to retain her composure. She was strong enough to keep the reaction at bay for awhile, but her control was not without limits. “That’s far enough,” Giselle said, her voice hardening.

  “What are you doing?” Lindy hissed. “How did you get in here?”

  Giselle absently licked a spot of blood from her lower lip. “Why, Ruiz left the door open for me, didn’t you, pet?” Her eyes flicked sideways to Ruiz, who stood mutely at his desk, his face frozen in horror. Lindy cursed herself for not thinking to check the entrance. She had told Alex that Ruiz would have had to complete an order immediately, and then she hadn’t even considered that he might have already done it.

  Behind Giselle, one of the agents—the older man, Bartell—lifted the muzzle of his weapon. Lindy held up a hand. “Don’t shoot her,” Lindy barked. Surprised, Bartell and the other agents looked from her to Alex, who had remained by the door to his office. Lindy didn’t turn her head to look at his reaction. She knew exactly how well Giselle could throw that blade.

  “Why not?” Alex’s voice asked from behind her.

  “Because it’ll just piss her off,” Lindy replied absently. She was trying to focus on listening to the empty offices around this room, but it was difficult with so many people and sounds to filter out. “And because there are probably six more shades inside the building right now.”

  Giselle smirked. “Eight.”

  “I’m flattered,” Lindy said flatly. Alex must have motioned to the other agents, because they all began holstering their sidearms. “What do you want, Giselle?” she asked. “Besides a credit line at Hot Topic.”

  Giselle blinked, looking innocent. “Why, the same thing we’ve always wanted, princess. You.”

  “Me?” Lindy repeated, genuinely surprised. Hector had pursued her in the past, of course, but how could this possibly be about her? Behind her, Alex moved closer until he flanked her right shoulder. Giselle ignored him.

  Seeing Lindy’s confusion, the shade laughed, a full-throated sound with the edge of insanity. “Of course. This is all about you, princess. It always was. So now I’m walking out of here, and you’re coming with me. Or all your pretty new friends will die.” Gracefully, she flipped herself off Sarah Greer, coming to her feet. With her blade away from Greer’s throat, Bartell stepped forward, raising his gun to Giselle’s temple. “We can’t let you do that, lady,” he growled.

  “Really?” Giselle said brightly. “Oh, that’s interesting. Do you actually think she’s one of you?” Whirling around, Giselle twisted around Bartell and pointed his gun at the ceiling before the older agent could so much as squeeze the trigger. Before anyone could respond, the shade lifted the falchion and nicked Bartell’s tricep, sending a spurt of bright red blood down his side. Giselle held her hand under the stream for a
moment and then shoved Bartell sideways, sending the agent sprawling.

  Lindy saw it coming and darted sideways as the other shade flung the handful of liquid at her. It spattered across Alex McKenna’s white shirt, and Lindy felt a flash of triumph—she’d kept from “vamping out.” But then the other BPI employees gasped, and Lindy realized her error: She’d moved too fast. She froze, not sure what to do.

  Giselle laughed again, stalking across the short space between them. Everyone was paralyzed. Giselle raised her bloody hand and rubbed it all over Lindy’s face, coating her mouth and nose.

  Old as she was, Lindy lost her control and felt the heated snap of blood arousal. The people in front of her gasped again, and she knew the red had blossomed in her eyes. She glanced around, seeing the horror and revulsion on their faces.

  Lindy, meanwhile, suddenly felt disgusted with herself. Of course this would happen. It was always going to happen. She should never have agreed to help Alex McKenna in the first place.

  Giselle smirked, recognizing the victory. “Come along, then,” she sang. “Or I will kill everyone in this room while the others hold you down and make you watch. Even you can’t take nine of us.”

  “Fine.” Lindy stepped forward, but she felt Alex’s hand on her arm. “Lindy, don’t,” he urged. “We’ll fight for you.” Lindy gave him a sad smile. He and Chase, maybe, but Bartell, Hadley, Ruiz, and the remaining assistant looked ready to gift wrap her for Giselle.

  She lifted a hand and touched his shoulder, making sure the bracelet on her wrist jingled. Alex’s eyes flickered at the noise, but he was enough of a professional not to glance down at the sound. “It’s okay, Alex. Take care of your people. And be sure to feed my cat, okay?” She raised her eyebrows, hoping he’d get the message. The agent just nodded, and she couldn’t be sure if he’d understood. There was nothing else she could do now, though, so she just stepped away from him and followed Giselle. As they walked out, the other shade blew a kiss toward Ruiz. “See you later, lover,” she said merrily, and they were through the door.