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Ah, shit.
He knew this kid. Knew him from around the clubs--a fairly regular customer--and this was also the smiling, youthful face he'd seen in the photograph just last night. Cameron or Camden was his name? Camden, he thought, the kid Ben was supposed to help locate for the fanged psycho who'd promised to kill him if he didn't oblige. Not that that threat was any more serious than the one Ben faced now.
"Let's get on with it, Mr. Sullivan."
Ben spooned a bit of the raw Crimson out of the cup and lifted it to the kid's mouth. The instant the substance touched his lips, Camden's tongue snaked out hungrily. He closed his mouth around the spoon and sucked it clean, seeming to revive for an instant. A junkie nuzzling up to what he hoped was his next fix, Ben realized, a pang of guilt sticking him.
Ben waited for the Crimson to take effect.
Nothing happened.
He gave Camden more, and then some more again. Still nothing. Damn it. The recipe wasn't right.
"I need more time," Ben murmured as the kid's head lolled back down with a groan. "I've almost got it, but I just need to try it again."
He stood up, turned around, and was shocked to find his menacing patron standing directly in front of him. Ben hadn't heard the guy move at all, yet here he was, looming over him. Ben saw his own haggard reflection in the sheen of the man's dark glasses. He looked desperate and terrified, a cornered animal trembling before a fierce predator.
"We're getting nowhere, Mr. Sullivan. And I'm out of patience."
"You said two hours," Ben pointed out. "I still have a few minutes--"
"Not negotiable." The cruel mouth stretched into a sneer, revealing the bright tips of sharp white fangs. "Time's up."
"Oh, Jesus!" Ben recoiled, knocking into the chair behind him and sending it and the kid held captive on it rolling backward in a clatter of spinning wheels. He stumbled away in a graceless crawl, only to feel strong fingers bite into his shoulders, hauling him up off the floor as if he were weightless. Ben was spun around harshly and sent crashing into the far wall. Agony splintered through the back of his skull as he crumpled in a heap. Dazed, Ben felt behind his head. His fingers came away bloody.
And when he focused his bleary gaze on the others in the room, his heart went tight with dread. The two guards were staring at him, their pupils narrowed to thin slits, glowing amber irises fixed on him like floodlights. One of them opened his mouth on a rasping hiss, baring huge fangs. Even Camden's attention had roused from where he sat several feet away. The kid's eyes burned through the fall of his hair, his lips peeling away from long, gleaming canines.
But as terrifying as those monstrous faces were, they had nothing on the ice-cold approach of the one who was clearly calling the shots here. He strolled over to Ben at a calm pace, polished black shoes moving soundlessly on the concrete floor. He lifted his hand and Ben was rising, drifting back onto his feet as if attached to invisible strings.
"Please," Ben gasped. "Whatever you're thinking, don't... don't do it, please. I can get the Crimson formula back for you. I swear, I'll do whatever you want!"
"Yes, Mr. Sullivan. You will."
He moved so fast Ben didn't know what hit him until he felt the hard bite of fangs in his throat. Ben struggled, smelling his own blood pouring out of the wound, hearing the wet sounds of the creature at his neck drawing deeply at his vein. The fight leaked out of Ben with every draining pull. He hung there, suspended, feeling life flow out of him, feeling consciousness dim along with his will. He was dying, all that he was flowing away from him into a pit of darkness.
"Come on, Harvard, or whatever your name really is," Tess said, guiding the little terrier across the street as the pedestrian light changed.
After closing up the clinic at six o'clock, she had decided to take a walk past Ben's apartment on the South Side, one last attempt to find him on her own before she placed a missing-persons report with the police. If he was back to trafficking narcotics, he probably deserved to get arrested, but deep down she truly cared about him and wanted to see if she could talk him into getting help before things escalated that far.
Ben's neighborhood wasn't the most desirable, particularly in the dark, but Tess wasn't afraid. Many of her clients were from this general area: hardworking, good people. Ironically, if there was anyone to be wary of in this stretch of tightly clustered duplexes and three-deckers, it was probably the drug dealer living in Apartment 3-B of the building where Tess now stood.
A television blared from the unit on the first floor, casting an eerie blue wash onto the sidewalk outside. Tess tipped her head up, looking to Ben's set of windows for any indication that he might be there. The ratty white miniblinds were drawn closed over the balcony sliders and the bedroom window. The apartment was all dark, no light showing from anywhere inside, no movement.
Or... was there?
Although it was difficult to tell, she could have sworn she saw one of the sets of blinds sway against the window--as if someone inside had moved them or walked by them and bumped them, unaware.
Was it Ben? If he was home, he evidently didn't want anyone to know, including her. He hadn't returned any of her phone calls or e-mails, so why would she think he'd want her showing up at his place now?
And if he wasn't home? What if someone had broken in? What if it were some of his drug contacts waiting for him to return? What if someone was up there right now, turning his place upside down looking for the flash drive she had in her coat pocket? Tess backed away from the building, an anxious crawl working its way up her spine. She held Harvard 's leash in a death grip, silently shooing him from the dried-out shrubs that lined the sidewalk.
Then she saw it again--a definite shift of the blinds in Ben's unit. One of the sliders began to open on the dark third-level balcony. Someone was coming out. And this someone was enormous, definitely not Ben.
"Oh, shit," she whispered under her breath, stooping to pick up the dog so she could bolt the hell out of there in the next second.
She started jogging up the sidewalk, braving only the quickest glance over her shoulder. The guy was at the railing of the rickety balcony, peering out into the dark. She felt the savage heat of his stare like a lance slicing through the dark. His eyes were impossibly bright... glowing.
"Oh, my God."
