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“Trade secrets.” She gave me a prideful smile.
“So you’re going to turn them into a vampire? For nothing?”
“No, I’m going to make sure my numbers are good. I know they are, but it never hurts to repeat an experiment.”
I decided to walk as far out on my branch as I could, and hoped I wouldn’t fall off. “I believed you when you said you wanted to cure cancer—but I don’t see how changing people into vampires helps that.”
“Easy. Vampire blood cures everything. If we could get an infinite supply of it—we could wipe all sorts of suffering off the face of the earth.”
“But doesn’t an infinite supply of vampire blood come with an infinite supply of vampires? Who then eat all of the lovely people you’re saving?”
“Not when they’re all controlled by my Raven. And we wouldn’t turn everyone into vampires, we’d just make a lot of daytimers. Imagine if people just got vampire blood instead of going into hospitals—think of all the people with incurable diseases that we’d be able to save.”
It was impossible for my jaw not to drop. “You’re talking about changing the very fabric of society, Natasha. You realize that, right?”
She smiled at me and nodded and did that shrug, as if it were my fault that my mind was too small to understand her vision.
This was what happened when you froze fourteen-year-olds in time. They were ignorant of history and too stupid to know any better.
“Raven’s got everything worked out perfectly. And my research is winding down—or up, really,” she said with a cheerful grin. “Soon we’ll be ready to start.”
I couldn’t turn off whatever horrified face I was currently making, and she laughed at me. “Edie—Raven’s blood saved me. The more people I can give that gift to, the better.”
It was hard to throw stones. I’d been in her position less than a year ago with my mom. Only I’d been old enough and smart enough to realize it was a bad idea. I also hadn’t been in love with a vampire at the time. “Indebting people to vampires isn’t like handing out organ donor cards.”
“But it could be. Wouldn’t people rather be daytimers than dead?”
“Have you thought past that? To the part where Raven has a jillion followers?”
“So? Better him than some big pharma corporation, doing endless drug trials, then using their research to wring cash out of the ill,” she said, her voice tinged with spite. I had a feeling her words came from personal experience.
I bit my lips rather than speak again. I knew there’d be no changing her—but she still wanted to change me.
“Heart disease, HIV, cancer, all of it. And people would start to age more slowly, like us. Who wouldn’t want to sign on for that?”
I didn’t have a good answer for her. She waited for me to speak, and then sighed.
“Look, I know you’re upset about the test subjects, I get that. But people die all the time, usually for much less noble reasons. I kill a few people but could possibly save a few million, in the first year alone. It’s going to be worth it.”
Test subjects one through sixty-four, were they present, might disagree.
“Besides, you’re friends with some of them. You don’t believe they’re all evil, do you?”
“Most of them are.” I’d met my fair share of vampires out in the world. I knew Dren had been an indiscriminate killer, probably still was. Even though I cared about Anna, I’d seen her do awful, violent things. She’d had her reasons at the time, but—no one person, or vampire, should rule the world. Absolute power corrupts absolutely—and the thought of Raven with a million daytimers was too much to bear.
“No. They’re misunderstood. But not evil. Not Raven.”
Her voice dropped so we could talk woman-to-woman. “Someone hurt him a lot, a very long time ago. He doesn’t like to talk about it, but he’s not as black-and-white as he seems. I can help him get over it. I know how he truly is. I know what’s deep down in his heart. I love him and he loves me, and together we can change the world for the better. You’ll see.”
Every girl had to have that one stupid relationship. The one where she thought she could change the guy, if not in high school then in college. I knew I’d had two or three bred from all the insecurities that came with growing up and a fear of going into adulthood alone.
I had a sinking feeling this was Natasha’s, but she’d never get a chance to outgrow it. Thanks to the vampire blood surging around inside her, she’d never get the chance to grow again.
“Anyhow,” she went on, giving me a peaceful smile, “I’m going to go out and go shopping to celebrate. You’re not allowed to leave the Catacombs yet, though, sorry.” Her snub was matter-of-fact. “Go tell Jackson to keep you busy today.”
I was both jealous of and mystified by her naïveté, and I left the lab with a millstone of too much knowledge hanging from my neck.
* * *
I went down to the crossroads and waited until Natasha was probably gone—and then I went back and tried the lab door. She’d locked it behind her, dammit. But it wasn’t fancy, it was just a plain lock. I went up into the Catacombs and found Jackson looking out of place scrubbing the floor on his knees in Heaven. “You’re supposed to keep me busy today,” I said, because Natasha had told me to. She hadn’t told me what to say after that, though, so I was on my own. “Do you have duplicates for all the keys?”
“Some of them.” He put down the sponge he was using. “Why?”
“I need the key to the lab. Natasha’s off on a shopping trip, and she kicked me out. I’ll get it back to you right away—she doesn’t have to know.”
He put his hand to the key ring on his belt. “What are you hoping to find?”
If I tell you I might have to kill you. I put my hands impotently at my sides. “I’d tell you if I could, Jackson, but it’s better you don’t know.”
He measured me with his gaze. “Is this because you’re mad that I won’t let you blow things up?”
“I am mad. Going through my things was a dick move. But this is bigger than that. Give me the keys. Please,” I added, belatedly.
His hand sank to his waist as if he were a gunslinger, and he unclipped the set of keys. “Bring these right back. Don’t get caught,” he said, chucking them at me.
I caught them easily. “I’ll meet you in Hell in a little bit.”
* * *
I raced back down with the keys tight in my hand so they wouldn’t jingle, and heard Celine taking a shower. I unlocked the lab door and slipped inside, let it close softly, and then ran back into the autopsy-table computer room.
There was no way I was supposed to be here now—Natasha would know who it’d been if she looked at the keystroke log, and I’d get Jackson and myself busted. But how often would she need to look at it if she was the only person who had access? She was going to turn someone else into a vampire tonight. I couldn’t stand idly by.
Then again, I was pregnant. Maybe now was a great time to be a bystander for fucking once. My hands paused over the keyboard.
The thing about saving the world is that it’s hardly ever the last-minute choice that does it—it’s the infinite number of choices you make on the way there that wind up making you who you want to be.
Did I want to be a person who just let another person die?
The part of me that was infected with Raven’s blood could, easily. But the rest of me, the mom in me, and the fiancée in me, and most especially the nurse in me could not.
If I didn’t disrupt their testing somehow, and buy Anna some time—what kind of world would be left for my baby? If the daytimer and vampire population exploded rapidly—
Before I could change my mind, I typed out four letters.
F-U-C-K.
The screen flickered to life, and a cursor appeared in the corner.
“Still have all your fingers?” Gideon asked. “If so, turn around and hold them up.”
I blinked, but followed instructions—and the motion-sensitive camera for the EEG that’d been focused on the female vampire earlier turned toward me. I held my fingers out and waved.
“Good,” said the screen. “We need fifty-six more hours for our assault. Can you manage to live that long?”
I nodded strongly, but held a finger up for attention.
“Yes?” And I realized we still didn’t have a microphone set up. Gideon and I were going to have to play charades.
I pinched my thumb and fingers together as if I were turning a key in a lock where the camera could see and then looked over my shoulder.
Gideon, being Gideon, instantly listed off fifty things I might mean. They flooded the screen faster than I could read. I waved him down so that they didn’t start to scroll off and pointed at the one I wanted when I saw it. Lock.
“There are five electronically locked doors in this facility, counting the garage. Do you need me to open one of these?”
I nodded emphatically. If I had pen and paper I could draw and hold up a map—and then tear it up into pieces and eat it to hide it afterward.
“Garage?”
I shook my head.
“The next nearest door is approximately four hundred feet from here.” That sounded about right. I nodded emphatically.
There was a pause longer than I knew he needed on the other side while he considered options.
“Do not go in there. It is not safe for you, or your child.”
