Cliff had once been a follower of the British immortal Sebastien Newcombe. Bastien had thought himself a vampire for two hundred years and had gathered together an army of vampires he had pitted against the Immortal Guardians in an attempt to destroy them all.
Cliff had been a member of that army, as had two other vampires, Vincent and Joe. All three had wisely chosen to surrender in the final battle Bastien had waged. And while Seth had forced Bastien to join the Immortal Guardians’ ranks, Cliff, Vincent, and Joe had come to live at the network, hoping the doctors and scientists here would be able to prevent them from descending into madness, or at least slow the decline. None had wanted to become like those who had turned them, torturing and killing innocent victims with glee.
But Dr. Melanie Lipton and her colleagues had not yet found a way to slow the progressive brain damage the virus wrought in humans or to prevent the madness.
Vincent and Joe had long since lost their battle with insanity and forfeited their lives.
Other vampires had sought the network’s help since then. But only Cliff remained of the initial three.
Aidan took a moment to brush his teeth, then wet his hands and finger-combed his tousled hair, trying to smooth the damned waves and curls.
Cliff had been transformed by a vampire against his will when he was in college. If one discounted the world-weariness that darkened the young man’s eyes, Aidan thought he looked to be about twenty-five years old. Most vampires only retained their humanity for a couple of years. If they were particularly strong, fought hard, and weren’t subjected to poor living conditions or torture that could exacerbate things, they might last four years before the madness turned them into monsters.
Cliff’s bright, healthy mind had waged its battle for six years now, valiantly fighting the effects as the virus chiseled and carved away at it. He had astounded all who knew him by remaining honorable all this time, fighting alongside the Immortal Guardians and helping them conquer their enemies. None had dared hope he would last this long.
But he was beginning to lose the battle.
Seth knew it because he could read Cliff’s thoughts and saw the mayhem in them. Aidan knew it for the same reason. He suspected Bastien knew it. Cliff was like a brother to him. And Bastien took Cliff vampire hunting with him each night, hoping to give Cliff an outlet for the increasingly strong, violent impulses that struck him.
Aidan suspected Melanie knew it as well. She toiled for longer and longer hours in the lab, desperately seeking answers and a way to prevent the inevitable.
She would blame herself when they lost him.
If they lost him, he mentally corrected, reluctant to give up hope.
Even if she could cure the virus with some new medication that would kill it, they would still lose Cliff. The first thing the virus did when one transformed was conquer and replace the body’s immune system. So if Melanie found a way to destroy the virus, Cliff and anyone else treated with the cure would be left with no viable immune system and would die.
And if—by some miracle—Melanie found a way around that, she still had no way of reversing the brain damage, no way to repair the tissue the virus corrupted. Even powerful healers like himself and Seth could not heal some forms of brain damage. The brain was just too complex.
Leaning out of the bathroom, Aidan snagged his cell phone, then ducked back inside and closed the door.
Shortly after Cliff, Vincent, and Joe had come to live at the network, Chris Reordon had brought in a construction crew and had every bathroom in the building soundproofed so the vampires would stop complaining about having to listen to employees pee, fart, and shit all day.
Aidan dialed Chris’s number.
“Reordon,” Chris answered.
“It’s Aidan. Can you get to a quiet room?”
“Just a minute.”
Aidan waited while Chris ducked into his office bathroom and closed the door so the vampires and immortals in the building wouldn’t hear their conversation.
Aidan could have saved Chris the trouble by simply speaking to him telepathically, but Chris had reacted so badly to Aidan’s tampering with some of the network guards’ minds a couple of years ago that he thought it best to leave the mortal’s mind alone.
“Okay. What’s up?” Chris asked.
“Cliff is struggling.”
He swore. “How bad is it?”
“Bad. I’m going to teleport him out and take him hunting to help him work off some of the aggression that’s building.”
“Is Bastien going with you?”
“No. I don’t want to trouble him.”
Chris made a sound of understanding. “When will you be leaving?”
“In the next five minutes or so.”
“Okay. I’ll turn the alarm off for ten minutes. Call and give me a heads-up when you’re ready to return and I’ll turn it off again.” Chris’s techno-wizards had installed an alarm that blared anytime someone teleported in or out of a room at network headquarters. Aidan didn’t know how it worked, but it had alerted them the moment Gershom had made an unexpected appearance at the network last year.
“Will do.” Pocketing his phone, Aidan left the bathroom, then his apartment, and strode down the hallway to Cliff’s door.
A dozen guards, all armed with automatic weapons and tranquilizer guns bearing the only sedative known to affect vampires and immortals, manned the end of the hallway, blocking the sole elevator and stairwell. Only employees with the highest security clearance could enter this floor, the farthest underground. And no vampires could leave without either an immortal escort or an armed escort to ensure they didn’t harm any of the network employees or—should they suffer a psychotic break—escape.
Aidan nodded to the guards. “Gentlemen.”
They nodded back. Unlike their boss, all were friendly toward Aidan, but there remained a subtle distance inspired by their awe over his age and power.
Aidan knocked on Cliff’s door.
Cliff didn’t answer.
“It’s Aidan. I’m coming in,” he announced without raising his voice.
Vampires’ hearing was nearly as acute as that of immortals, so Cliff would hear him even if he whispered.
Cliff still didn’t answer, but Aidan heard a welcome amidst the vampire’s turbulent thoughts.
Drawing a keycard out of his pocket, he swiped it, then punched in a security code. Reordon had refused to give him such until Bastien and Melanie had asked him to.
A metallic clank sounded.
Aidan pushed the door—as thick and heavy as that of a bank vault—open and stepped inside, closing it behind him.
Every vampire who had sought the Immortal Guardians’ aid had been given a luxury apartment and pretty much anything he wanted to make it feel like home… except for sharp implements. (The utensils in their kitchens were limited.) The nicely painted walls, however, were reinforced with titanium and several feet of concrete that would keep the vamps from tunneling out and escaping during psychotic breaks.
Aidan glanced around.