nevermore Page 20

  I glanced over at the clock on the wall. Almost three thirty in the morning. Blinking back my fatigue, I worked up one more grid, this one a combination of four different samples. After adding Alexa’s blood, I waited for as long as it took me to empty the coffeepot into my mug and then froze the specimen.

  The results were disastrous. Cursing, I scanned the field of view for so much as a speck of good news, but chaos reigned throughout the mixture. IgM antibodies predominated, but most of them were locked in a struggle against each other instead of the virus. Clearly, the genetic marker of each separate shifter’s antibodies made them appear as antigens to the others.

  Sighing, I shut down the microscope and rubbed my eyes. There was only one solution. The cure was going to have to come from one and only one shifter. In order to produce enough antibodies for harvesting, I was going to have to expose that shifter to a significant amount of virus.

  I perched on the nearest stool and stared into my cooling coffee in an effort to quiet my mind so that I could think this through. Over time, given the right equipment and some expert direction, I could synthesize both a cure and a vaccine from a single pureblood’s sample. But Alexa and every other infected shifter didn’t have time. They couldn’t wait for scientific finesse. They needed a treatment now.

  Frustrated, I got up to rinse out the pot only to find myself distracted by the waterfall I’d created in the sink: a clear stream falling from the faucet into the drain. I thought of the vast network of pipes that crisscrossed the hidden interior of the hospital—a circulatory system made of steel and PVC. Cocking my head, I stared transfixed at the steady stream of water and felt logic reassert itself despite my exhaustion. There was a quick and relatively easy way to create the necessary antibodies in vivo. Transfusion. If I transfused infected blood into one of Brenner’s offspring, their immune system would react to the invasion of the virus by mounting a swift and sweeping immunoglobulin response. I could then harvest their antibodies in sufficient quantities to produce a cure.

  It was a plan. Theoretically, it would be successful. But it would also pose a significant risk for the Were who offered their body as an antibody breeding ground. They would be exposed to massive quantities of the virus, perhaps enough to overwhelm even their natural immunity. That much of the virus could provoke their animal half into a deadly reaction.

  Working quickly, I cleaned the lab benches that I’d used and returned my samples to the cooler. I had to get back to the Consortium.

  I had to find a pureblood who would take that risk.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Alexa called as I barged into the sweltering night, scanning the street beyond for waiting taxis. Hope and fear warred in my chest as I put the phone to my ear. If she was calling, she was still okay. But what if something else had happened?

  “Hi, love,” I said, trying to keep my voice soothing. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m all right. But Constantine got a nosebleed today.” When her voice wavered a little on the syllables, my stomach clenched. I had met her sire only in passing, but I knew Alexa cared about him deeply. His illness would only contribute to her anxiety.

  “Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Just leaving the hospital.” At the intersection half a block away, I saw a cab with its lights on and raised my hand.

  “I know you’re so busy right now,” Alexa said, “and I feel selfish for asking this, but do you think I could see you soon? Just for a few minutes? I miss you.”

  “Of course. I feel terrible that I’ve had to be apart from you, especially right now.” I scrubbed at my heavy eyes. “How about meeting me in the room where they’re keeping Sebastian? I have a proposal for him and his siblings. And it’s something you should hear.”

  “Good news?”

  “I think so.” I climbed into the cab and leaned my head against the window. “I hope so.”

  “We could all use some of that.” She paused and I took comfort from the steady rhythm of her breathing. “Is it really true, about Darren?”

  Alarm shot up my spine at the simple mention of his name, the rush of adrenaline forcing my free hand into a fist. “It looks that way. There’s no hard evidence yet, but in this case—”

  “Better to presume guilt before proving innocence,” Alexa said.

  “Exactly.”

  “This whole thing feels like some kind of elaborate nightmare. The kind I used to get after we’d been out all night drinking pitchers of cheap sangria.”

  I laughed. It felt so incongruous to laugh in the middle of all of this fear and uncertainty, but that was part of Alexa’s magic. My laughter prompted hers, and in that moment, I fell even more in love with her.

  “You’re amazing,” I said when I could speak again.

  “No, you.”

  I smiled. “Go downstairs, babe. I’m almost there. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  “Okay. I love you, Val.”

  Within minutes, I was stepping out of the elevator on the second floor. Once again, Leon Summers stood in my path. This time, I had a message for him. “We have a serious problem,” I said before he could mouth off at me again. I dropped my voice. “And his name is Darren.”

  I watched Summers’s face as he processed my words. I tensed to subdue him if he showed even the slightest indication of being in league with the traitor. It would be utter folly for a vampire to throw in with Balthasar Brenner, but I had to be sure. Shock rippled across his face only to be replaced by an icy determination.

  “You’re certain?”

  “No. But my intelligence is very good. I informed Karma Rao several hours ago, and since then, she’s been trying to keep an eye on both Malcolm and Helen. But that can’t be easy.”

  “Why don’t I go and give her a hand,” Summers suggested.

  “Don’t alert him. If he doesn’t think he’s under suspicion, we can use him.”

  Summers sneered as he brushed past me more quickly than any human could have moved. “I’m not an idiot, Valentine.” And then he was gone.

  As soon as I stepped into the room, Alexa was at my side. Blocking out the nearly twenty pairs of watching eyes—many judgmental—I threaded my arms around her waist. “Hi, baby.”

  Her answering kiss was brief but firm, and I drew strength from it. “I love you,” I whispered against her temple as she stepped back to let me speak with Brenner’s whelps.

  Squaring my shoulders, I turned to face the expectant crowd. “Thank you all for letting me test your blood. Your generosity will lead to a cure.”

  “Are we immune?” someone in the back asked.

  “You are. Every pureblood Were is, in point of fact. Each of you has antibodies against this virus by virtue of being conceived and not turned. I’m happy to explain the details to anyone who is curious, but first I have another request to make.”

  I took a deep breath. “Each one of you has developed a slightly different version of the antibody against the virus. This means that we can’t just combine the samples you’ve provided in order to create a cure. Your antibodies are different enough that in such a case, they destroy each other instead of the antigen. With time and help, I’m fairly confident I could synthesize a treatment for the virus out of one sample. But we’re running out of time before your father makes his move—and more importantly, before the next full moon.”

  “So what do you want from us now?” one of the women asked, sounding put out. My temper surged, but Alexa squeezed my hand, grounding me.

  “There’s only one way to do this quickly. I need one of you to volunteer to undergo a transfusion that contains a large amount of the virus. That Were’s immune system will mount a corresponding immune response, allowing us to harvest enough of the antibodies to treat the infected population here in the city.

  “But this is a risky procedure. A large dose of the virus may overwhelm your body’s natural immunity. It’s possible the volunteer’s animal half will rebel, which coul
d lead to the seizures many of you have witnessed in the infected. Often, those seizures are deadly.”

  The room was still. No shifter but Sebastian would meet my eyes. Finally, one of the men in suits spoke up. “So you’re asking us to risk death for a procedure that might produce a cure. For something that doesn’t even affect us.”

  “I’m asking one of you to take a risk in order to save lives.” This time, I reached for Alexa’s hand. “Her life. And the lives of hundreds of others who either have been infected or will be infected when your father releases the airborne mutation.”

  I knew that every single one of them could hear the staccato of my heart in my chest, pounding rapidly as I waited in anxious anticipation. I knew they could read the sincerity of my body language—my honest desire to halt the monstrosity that Brenner had unleashed upon their close cousins. But none of them spoke. Perhaps they were more like him than they had thought.

  And then Sebastian stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”

  “Since when are you a martyr?” the woman sneered.

  He ignored her and focused on me. “Just so we’re clear: I’m doing this more out of the desire to stonewall my father than for any other reason.” He faced his kin. “And any of you who are planning to run straight to him once they let us out of here can go ahead and quote me.”

  I pulled Alexa in close, relief threatening to overwhelm me. I didn’t want to cry in front of this pack of power-hungry dogs. “Thank you,” I said.

  Sebastian nodded. “What happens now?”

  I forced my chaotic thoughts into order. “Now…now we need to find somebody with the virus who can transfuse you. Do you know your blood type?”

  “O negative.”

  “Seriously?” When he nodded, I had to hold myself back from punching the wall. O negative was the hardest type to transfuse, since people with that type could only accept blood from other O negatives, who were rare to begin with. Finding someone who was O neg, infected, and willing to donate several pints of blood was not going to be easy.

  “Well, this is going to be easy,” Alexa said.

  I frowned at her, confused by the dissonant echo of my own thoughts. “What—”

  “I’m O negative, too.”

  *

  I didn’t argue with her until we were out of earshot of Brenner’s kin. After asking Sebastian to meet us in half an hour in the medical wing, I had called Karma to see whether she could get the other shifters released. Given the level of animosity toward the Consortium in that room, some of them might, as Sebastian expected, try to find their father. If Helen and Malcolm put tails on all of them, maybe they could discover his location.

  Besides, they had fulfilled their end of the bargain. I owed them their release, and I wanted them to have the memory of a vampire who had kept her word.

  But once Alexa and I were back in our room, I let all pretense at calmness drop. Pressing my back to the closed door, I opened my mouth to beg her to change her mind. We could find another match. It would take some additional time, but someone would—

  “Don’t, Val. Don’t say it.” She drew me just far enough from the door so that she could wind the fingers of one hand in the short hairs at the back of my neck. She cupped my face with her other hand, and I leaned into her touch.

  “I know what you’re thinking. I know that my giving as much blood as you’ll need for Sebastian’s transfusion might incite the panther. But you know that I have a much stronger control of her than most other shifters do over their beasts. I can do this. I should be the one to do this.”

  I wanted to be strong. I wanted to be supportive. If I opened my mouth, I would be neither. So I buried my head in the gentle dip between her shoulder and neck and inhaled deeply, imprinting her scent in my cells, my soul.

  “I can’t lose you,” I whispered against her skin.

  “You’re not going to.” She pulled far enough away to meet my eyes. “This is going to work.”

  She couldn’t know that. Alexa was asking me to have faith—not in the science, but in her. And the fact of the matter was that if our roles had been reversed, I would have asked for the same thing. She was my partner, my equal, and as much as I wanted to protect her, I had to honor this decision.

  Her lips pressed gently to my chin, then skated along my jawline. When she kissed me fully, I met her with everything in me. Cradling her face in my palms, I drank her in without breaking flesh. Mine.

  If my cell phone hadn’t rung, we might never have stopped. But at its persistent buzz, we reluctantly parted, Alexa smoothing her thumb across my wet mouth as I fumbled in my pocket. The phone quivered in my hand like a captured hummingbird. As I connected the call, I put it on speaker.

  “Sebastian.”

  “I’m ready,” was all he said.

  When Alexa reached for my hand and squeezed, I squared my shoulders. It was time to finish this. Time for the Consortium to assert itself against the specter of Balthasar Brenner—to prove to him that we would not be cowed by his threats. That we were stronger and smarter even than the juggernaut of his tyranny.

  “We’re on our way.”

  *

  Sebastian and Alexa lay parallel to each nother, their beds separated by only a few feet. Soon, they would be intimately connected, Alexa’s poisoned blood flowing into Sebastian’s veins. Focusing in on Alexa’s monitor, I noted the slight dip in her heart rate. It was a good sign. For the past hour, they had both been under a gradual sedation—slow enough, I hoped, to keep their inner beasts from raising an alarm. By this point, they were both nearly unconscious.

  The door opened to admit Kyle, and I did my best to smile in welcome. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Of course,” he said, and I watched his gaze shift between the two prone bodies on the beds before us. “What can I do?”

  “We’re going to be transfusing Sebastian with Alexa’s blood,” I said. “I want an extra pair of hands, just in case.” I would have preferred to have Karma keeping me company. If anything did happen, she would be better equipped to react with a show of strength. But she had to work at keeping Helen and Malcolm safe, especially with Darren still free and able to do his master’s bidding.

  “Wouldn’t Dr. Clavier be a better choice than me?” Kyle sounded uncertain, and he looked hesitant. I held his gaze.

  “I don’t trust him. I do trust you.”

  His eyebrows arched in surprise, but all he said was, “Okay.”

  “I need you to monitor their vital signs during the procedure, while I focus on harvesting the antibodies that Sebastian should produce. If this goes according to plan.”

  “So I’m watching the monitors. What do I look for, specifically?”

  The steadiness of his voice and the specificity of his question were reassuring. “Just keep me appraised of any fluctuations that you see. I’ve set the alarms for anything below sixty or above one hundred and twenty.” They were fairly conservative parameters, especially since I didn’t know Sebastian or Alexa’s normal resting heart rates, but I wanted to err on the side of caution.

  “All right.” Metal grated against tile as Kyle pulled one of the free chairs in between the feet of the beds. From there, he would have a clear view of both machines. I felt him scrutinizing me as I prepped Alexa’s right arm and Sebastian’s left hand. “You’re going to pump her blood directly into him? I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

  “It’s actually a more rudimentary technique.” I bent over Sebastian and inserted a peripheral IV line into the large vein that bisected the back of his hand, then closed off the port. The monitor didn’t register any sharp change in heart rate, and I nodded in satisfaction. So far, so good. “Back in the old days, before doctors knew how to preserve blood, all transfusions had to be done directly.”

  When I turned to Alexa, I had to fight back the instinctual surge of anxiety that attended the sight of her motionless body. Focus. I raised her bed as high as it could go by pressing a button near her head. Gravity would
carry her blood into his vein.

  I ripped open the package of a sterile cannula and connected one end to Sebastian’s port. And then, as gently as I could, I inserted the other end into Alexa’s arm. In the instant before her blood began to flow down the insulated line, its rich tang pierced the air and set my throat afire. A tremor ripped through my body, jostling the needle in her vein, and her heart rate jumped. I froze, watching as frown lines appeared across the bridge of her nose and her head shifted restlessly against the pillow. Was the panther starting to push already?

  “What’s happening, Val? Are you all right?”

  I breathed through my mouth and forced back my thirst. “I’m okay. Just had a moment there. How is she doing? Going back to normal?”

  He nodded, his eyes riveted on the monitor. “Slowly, yes.”

  “Okay.” I took a few more breaths before turning back to Sebastian. “Here we go.” Ignoring the panicked voice in my head that was screaming at me to stop this madness, I opened the port and watched the crimson thread slide those final few inches home. They were connected.

  In an effort to make the procedure as un-traumatic as possible, I had chosen a high-caliber line, which would deliver Alexa’s blood more gradually than the normal cannula that was most often used for transfusions. For the next several minutes, as Kyle kept his attention on the monitors, I prepped the materials that I needed to draw and store Sebastian’s blood. Someone donating blood would usually give one unit—perhaps two at maximum. I was hoping to get three or even four from Sebastian before his body, or his wolf, rebelled.

  When one of the monitors began to beep more insistently, I forced myself not to look up from the bags that I was hanging on the rack below Sebastian’s arm. I had told Kyle that I trusted him, and now I had to.