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“I want your research, Doctor. I believe what you’re doing is quite valuable. Noble even.”

A breathy laugh escaped my lips. “Something tells me you could care less about noble intentions. Maybe it’s the way your buddy is hurting my friend.”

White Hair glanced over at the other, and after whatever he communicated nonverbally, Lydia’s attacker released her, letting her fall to the floor where she scooted back into her workstation.

“Thank you,” I said. I believed in rewarding good behavior.

“See, Doctor? I don’t want to hurt either of you. Just give me your research and come with me willingly.”

“Come with you?” I repeated. I had a tendency to do that when at a loss. Sometimes it worked to my advantage.

“I will fund your research. You’ll have everything you could desire…equipment, facilities, monetary compensation.” White Hair spread out a hand like he was showing off a buffet of wonders.

“Funding like that means skewing my research, and I’m not doing that. It’s why I work alone. How did you find out about what I’m doing anyway?” I asked, suddenly realizing what this meant. I’d kept everything as under wraps as I could since asking my professors and mentors for help, even on the most general principles, had only alienated them further. Safer for all involved, obviously.

“Science is science. We both get what we want if you cooperate,” he said, ignoring my question. “If you don’t…” he trailed off and glanced at his friend, who stepped closer to Lydia and leaned over her menacingly.

“Stop,” I said. “Tell him to back off and we can talk.”

“Why would I do that?” White Hair grinned again, making me shudder and look away. I couldn’t get lost in the past right then. I had to focus on getting us out of this impossible situation. “I don’t want to talk. I want you to do what I say.”

I hesitated too long trying to think. There was always a solution, always a way out of impossible situations. It was a truth I’d built my life on. But the magic answer didn’t show itself, and the vamps I dealt with had no patience despite living however many years they had.

When I didn’t respond fast enough, White Hair nodded, and his friend snatched up Lydia with the superspeed of his kind, sinking his fangs into her neck and ripping out a chunk of flesh as I watched.

“No!” I screamed the word, throwing out a hand automatically. Beside me, the glass case opened, and the syringe shot out across the room, sticking in the giant vamp’s neck like a dart as the solution of MDK5 emptied into his body.

White Hair’s eyes rounded like saucers as he stared at me for a beat too long then whipped around to his friend who once again dropped Lydia to the floor, where she pressed a hand to her gushing wound. We all watched, stunned, as the vamp stumbled, yanked the empty syringe from his neck, and stared at it. What I saw was likely very different from what the others did as green light engulfed his body then subsided, and an aura of pure black spread from his neck to the rest of him. His skin warmed in color, and his eyes changed from the entrancing vividness of a vampire to the dull brown of an ordinary man. His fangs retracted.

My breath caught. It had worked. He was human again.

Then the black aura constricted, and the paleness returned to his features. His face sunk in on itself, like nothing existed between skin and bone, and the rest of his body followed suit. He fell back, panic in his bulging eyes as he disintegrated into a streaming pile of fine gray dust on the floor.

Lydia screamed, scooting away and still grasping at her wound.

White Hair spun back toward me, eyes alight with unmistakable wonder and excitement.

I didn’t hesitate. I reached toward my purse, which I’d tossed aside in the corner of the room, and a wooden stake flew into my palm along with a small bubble charm the size of a pea. I’d carried them with me, the same as I’d carried mace since going to college—just in case.

White Hair zoomed forward so fast my own hair flew around in the ensuing cyclone, but I’d already squeezed the tiny pearlescent charm, breaking it open. It was my mother’s making, a time watcher spell. His superspeed couldn’t stop me from watching his every move and making my own in response.

To my surprise, he hadn’t come for me. He’d gone for the other vial in the case, my only remaining physical specimen of my work, and although it had killed his friend, the closest I’d come to curing the disease of vampirism. It was already in his hand by the time it registered, and he turned to look at me, his visage shivering in and out of focus as the spell worked.

“Until we meet again, Doctor.” He nodded, bashed a stony fist into the equipment at his side, and pulled a charm of his own from his pocket. The sphere glowed such a bright neon orange that I squinted in response.

No. No. No. No. A fireball. That shit burned through anything in its way.

I screamed as my data went up in flames, flinging myself toward a disaster I could do nothing about. I lacked my mother’s and sister’s magic, and the best I could do was use my telekinesis to call a fire extinguisher, but it wouldn’t work on magic flames.

My brain finally kicked in, and I spun to grab Lydia and get her out of there. All that was left was the pile of smoking ash that had been a vamp, an empty syringe, and a garnet smear of too much blood.

He’d taken Lydia and GDK5, and I was left with ruins.

Chapter One

Set Up

GoDKiller went on the black market within a month of the lab being destroyed. My creation was a weapon, not a cure. It made sense I supposed that if a vampire returned to their human state, they’d die immediately. That didn’t mean I couldn’t fix it. Anything was possible. Though whether they’d changed the formula, it worked on all infected, including shifters, or if death was an unintended side effect, I had no idea. Either way, every murder reported in the supe media felt like another on my head, no matter how reasonable it was not to blame myself. Emotions didn’t follow reason. That was why I’d never liked them. I’d seen them make people do bad things. Literally, I’d watched auras change as decisions were made.