Page 83 of A Touch of Crimson
Elijah stepped closer to her. “I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, in a way that sounded like a threat. A gauntlet thrown down for the others.
Damien gestured for her to join the Sentinels on the field. “Let’s go.”
She realized Adrian hadn’t been kidding about revising her definition of a long day. This one was going to be endless, she knew. And it hadn’t even started yet.
“Elijah’s blood is missing from Navajo Lake.”
Adrian looked away from the view speeding by the Maybach’s rear passenger window and faced his lieutenant. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.” Jason returned his phone to his pocket. “Not the whole sample, just some of it. They had to weigh the bag to detect it.”
The sun glinted off the Sentinel’s golden hair through the panoramic glass roof, creating a halo effect. For a moment, homesickness was a deep ache in Adrian’s chest.
The longest they could store blood before cryo-preservation affected the sample’s quality was ten years. Someone had accessed the blood, removed what they needed, and returned the sample.
“When we reach the airfield,” Adrian said, “I want you to head to Navajo Lake and find the one responsible. Only Sentinels are authorized to access the cryogenic storage facility.”
“You think it’s one of us?”
“After Helena…who can be certain? I need to know for sure.”
Jason sighed. “I never thought I’d have any sympathy for what Syre and the Watchers did. But it seems like the longer we’re here, the more human we become. We want things…feel things… Well, you know.”
Adrian studied his second for a long moment, looking at Jason with a thoroughness he hadn’t employed for quite some time. He’d stopped paying attention to a lot of things, it seemed. Too lost to the apathy fostered by his grief and guilt.
“Do you desire, Jason?”
“Not to the extent you do and not for sex. My restlessness stems from frustration. I’m tired of carrying a yoke that can never be put down.”
“I would ease your disquiet, if I could.”
“Ah, well.” Jason lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I’ll live. And I have hope that this vamp illness signals the end of our mission. God willing, it will take them all out and we’ll be able to go home.”
Adrian looked back out the window. Home. For him, that was now wherever Lindsay was.
They reached Ontario and the hangar Mitchell Aeronautics kept there. They waited briefly as the massive metal doors parted; then they drove the Maybach inside. Jason set off to make flight arrangements for his trip to Utah. Adrian moved deeper into the building, heading down into the subterranean storage areas. The farther he descended, the easier it was to hear the growls and hissing. Unintelligible sounds mingled with shouted threats and profanities from those captives who hadn’t yet been infected.
It felt very much like entering the bowels of hell.
“Captain.”
A petite brunette approached him with a clipped, precise stride. Dressed in urban camouflage and sporting a pixie-like cropped hairstyle, Siobhán looked too delicate to be formidable, which helped her immeasurably in battle. Her opponents always underestimated her. It was one of the reasons he’d put her in charge of rounding up infected vampires. The other reason was her fascination with science. This hunt had required someone who understood that capturing the vamps was only the beginning.
With gloved hands, she pulled down the surgical mask covering her face. “We’ve already lost two of the six I caught. Four is a very small pool of subjects, so I’ll need to hunt again soon.”
“Do any of the noninfected have useful information about when the illness was first sighted? Or how it might be spread?”
“One was willing to talk.” She dug into the cargo pockets of her pants and withdrew a mask and gloves, which she handed to him.
“Are these necessary?” Sentinels were impervious to disease.
“I don’t know.” She gestured for him to walk with her, leading him to a room filled with a dozen silver-plated cages. “But you don’t want their spittle on you, just for the ick factor.”
He donned the protection without further questions. “What do we know?”
“The disease first appeared about a week ago. It infects at a varying rate. Some succumb swiftly and die within a matter of days. Others take longer to show symptoms and live up to two weeks. This group wasn’t aware that there were other incidents of infection in other states, which makes me wonder how much Syre actually knows.”
Adrian walked by the cages, examining the infected vamps with morbid fascination. Red-eyed and frothing at the mouth, they seemed mindless. They bashed themselves against the unforgiving metal bars and reached out with clawed fingers, grasping for Adrian and Siobhán with malevolent desperation. Their gazes were wild, yet lifeless. “Do they show any signs of intelligence?”
