Vampire Council Of Ethics - Carinian's Seeker Part 3

Bix strode out of Carin's lab smiling wickedly. He'd been a bad vamp, sending his thoughts, feelings and images into her brain with such intensity. But since he realized what she was to him, he felt ent.i.tled to let her know just how much he wanted to get next to her skin.

But first he had a rogue to catch.

He'd sensed another vamp on this floor when he and Carin had gotten off the elevator. The presence had been strongest near her door. Earlier while scouting the facility he'd also picked up and followed the trail of several other vampires. None of them matched Sidheon's description.

The territory leaders and local Seekers were notified ahead of time and expected Alaan and him in their city for a hunting expedition, but he didn't want the information to get to anyone else.

Especially someone who might be in league with Sidheon. Since every territory and region had Seekers, he and his partner wouldn't stand out too much, but there was one small problem- Natasha's intel made no mention of other vamps working inside this particular biotech company.

His brow furrowed as he wondered what else he didn't know.

Once out of the building he glanced down at his watch and picked up his pace. d.a.m.n, it was hot. He tugged at the band collar of his specially cut, jet black, leather trench. He loved his coat, the symbol of his hard-earned status as a Seeker. But it was still made of leather; more precisely, made-for-Montana-winters leather. Not ideal for walking briskly in seventy-degrees under clear skies and unimpeded sunshine. He unzipped the long coat to the waist and dug around in the inner breast pocket until his fingers wrapped around his favorite candies, a wireless earpiece and a neatly folded handkerchief. Unwrapping a couple of watermelon Jolly Ranchers, he popped them in his mouth, then mopped his brow with the hankie.

With the earpiece in place, he spoke quietly into it, "Dial Serati." A few seconds later, Alaan responded on the other end of the line.

"d.a.m.n, Alaan, you sound like Barry White," Bix chided.

"Yeah, and I'll kick your a.s.s while singing like Barry White, too," Alaan quipped at Bix's wry humor. The man hated Barry White jokes. The platinum blond, curly-haired, six and a half foot, lean fighting machine's voice just didn't match his fair G.o.d-like looks. Someone was bound to throw a "deep voice" joke his way at least once a day. But Bix knew he was the only one who got away with it.

"Keep dreaming, beautiful," Bix snorted back. "I'm walking out in back of Building A7. Where are you?"

"Two blocks west, top level of a public parking structure. Got a clear view of Idac's rear entrances. I can see you from here. On the way."

Bix heard the engine of their big SUV roar to life through his earpiece. A few minutes and a few streets later Alaan picked him up in an alley and the two Seekers headed down Mission Blvd.

"What's going on, Bix?"

"Not sure yet," he said, his tone serious as he peeled off his trench coat. He tossed it into the backseat, accepted a cold bottle of water from his partner and downed all twenty ounces in five big swallows. He repositioned one of the overhead vents and leaned his head back. Boy, was he ever appreciative of air-conditioning.

Eyes closed, enjoying the cold air blasting directly into his face, he asked, "Did anyone by chance mention there were other vamps hanging out in this camp?"

"No," Alaan responded thoughtfully. "I spotted a few going in and out while you were reacquainting with your target. No sign of Sidheon yet."

"We knew Carin could get us close to Sidheon, but it turns out the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's lab is right next to hers. I didn't spot him the entire time I was in the building. This whole situation concerns me big time. I expected to see other vampires in town, but not this many working in one building. We have no idea where their allegiance lies. Call Natasha. See what you can get out of her."

"Done."

The SUV screeched to a halt in a seedy part of town that anyone with good sense would avoid even in broad daylight. Not wanting to be easily recognized as a Seeker down here, Bix left his trench in the backseat and hopped out.

Both men automatically raised their watches and synched up. "Rendezvous at the intersection of La Jolla and Turquoise around six o'clock?" Alaan asked seriously.

"Works for me. Later, Barry." Bix heard a deep "Kiss my a.s.s" echo through his mind, and chuckled as he took off walking down the street to check out another lead on Sidheon.

Chapter Five

Carin had conducted a number of quality-control tests over the past several months. The results had been consistent, though less than desirable. Now, they were all skewed, almost the exact opposite of what they'd been before. What the h.e.l.l was going on?

Before, the serum had made the skin cells resistant to the viruses introduced to them. In fact, after the initial mutation each virus had been unsuccessful in penetrating the skin cells at all, dying within seven days. It had been several days longer than she'd hoped for, but the cells were left healthy and whole. Now, the exact same virus was actually hijacking the cell signals causing infection to occur within hours.

She returned the vial to the specimen cart when something about the contents of the cart caught her eye. There was no name on the side to identify it and the labeling on the vials was inconsistent with her coding system. These weren't her specimens.

Curious as to what she'd stumbled onto, she retrieved three vials from the cart. One held what looked like skin samples, labeled discreetly on the bottom with a small v. The second vial contained a viscous liquid. Except for the slight purple tint, it looked exactly like her serum. The third vial was clearly blood. But whose, she had no idea.

With a v-skin sample secured on a gla.s.s slide, she placed a single drop of whatever the purple- tinted liquid was on top of it. Upping the power on her microscope to cellular magnification, she put her eye to the eyepiece.

Holy s.h.i.t, the tissue cells were changing. But changing into what? After a few seconds she noted the color of the tissue as a pale pink. After two minutes, a strange, dead-looking gray. At five minutes the tissue was charcoal black with the consistency of ash. It was dead.

Running over to the small refrigerator tucked in the corner of the huge lab, she carefully retrieved a petri dish with several samples of skin taken from her own scalp. The purple-tinted serum didn't do anything to her skin. After five minutes, the sample looked no different than it had when she'd put it on the slide. So what was the difference between her skin and the one in the vials from the specimen cart?

She slipped a sterile pair of tweezers into the mystery vial and retrieved more skin. Her brows drew together against the lens of the microscope's eyepiece. What the h.e.l.l kind of skin was this? To the naked eye, the mystery sample looked to have the same properties as her own, except her skin was darker. But under the microscope, the molecular structure was different. The v-skin was denser, stronger somehow. Perhaps it wasn't human skin at all? Maybe from some kind of animal?

Noting the difference between the skin cells and the destructive power of the tinted serum on the mystery skin, she was curious what the blood would do. She put a single drop on the gla.s.s slide with her own skin, and a single drop on a second slide with the v-skin. She pulled back from the microscope, shaking her head. If she was puzzled before, she was stumped now.

The blood didn't affect the v-skin at all, but the results on her skin were nothing short of miraculous. Her skin had changed and the cells multiplied. The dry sample was now more elastic and healthy looking. Her final note in her notebook reflected the results.

The sample of my skin is not only more healthy looking, it actually appears to be younger, stronger and more resistant to stress and viral activity. The molecular structure of my sample skin now mirrors the v-skin. It is dense and not easily punctured. When a virus was introduced to my modified skin, it was unable to penetrate. The blood had regenerative effects on my skin, but was not effective on the v-skin.

In short, the test results from the blood were close to the tests she'd run with her experimental serum, only the blood worked better. How in the world did this mystery blood work better than her synthetic serum? No human had blood like this.

She nicked some of the skin, purple liquid and blood, and stashed them in a refrigerated safe.

With everything else back in the trays and boxes exactly the way she found them, the cart was returned to its spot next to the lab door. The skin on the back of her neck pebbled as the sixth sense she'd never quite understood kicked into high alert. Someone was coming.

Hurrying across the lab to the nearest stainless steel worktable, Carin hopped up on a stool and had just put pen to paper when a knock sounded on the steel door right before it opened.

Carin looked up and almost cringed. Dr. Aleth Sidheon stood in her door. The man was sinfully good looking, but boy did he make her skin crawl. He'd never said more than a pa.s.sing h.e.l.lo and was always strictly professional in his dealings with her, but something about him creeped her out.

He was tall and lean, not as tall as Bix, and certainly not as muscular. Where Sidheon was almost platinum blond and pretty, Bix's hair was the blackest black and his features rugged. Sidheon's eyes were a bright vivid blue and his skin looked like he'd never seen the sun in his life. Bix was golden-skinned and golden-eyed with mysterious, s.e.xy streaks of silvery gray.

Hold up. Why in the world was she sitting here comparing Sidheon to Bix? Girl, get it together and deal with the man standing in front of you. She painted on a sugary smile and motioned for him to come on in. Wanting to get back to whatever was on the specimen cart, she really wished he would just go away. Boy did his timing suck.

"Hi, Aleth," she said in the friendliest tone she could muster.

"h.e.l.lo, Dr. Derrickson. How was your trip to Colorado?"

"It was cold. Training was good, though. What can I do for you, Aleth?"

"My a.s.sistant misplaced my specimen cart. Do you mind if I check yours to see if you received mine by mistake?"

She motioned to the cart she'd just wheeled over to the door. "Sure have at it. I had time to take a few of the specimens out, only to put them all back again." She watched his face tighten almost imperceptibly, and went on chatting. "I'm so far behind, Aleth. Haven't had time to a.n.a.lyze anything. A new program coordinator showed up this morning and I've been trying to get him up to speed."

"New program coordinator?" Sidheon asked.

"Yeah, some guy from Venture Pharma Biotech Capital is here. He's taking over one of Charles'

projects while he gets the new plant up and running in Puerto Rico."

"How many projects is this new person going to oversee?"

"So far, just mine. Venture has a large stake in the new cancer drug I'm developing."

Carin almost breathed a sigh of relief when Sidheon's brow cleared and a small smile appeared across his thin lips. Something told her to be very careful with him.

"Do we know anything about this Venture Pharma person? Like his name?"

His voice was just a bit too syrupy for Carin's taste. She knew a snow job when she heard it.

After all, she was delivering one herself.

"Oh, I guess it is a he, isn't it?" Along came her smoothest impression of a scatterbrained scientist. The man was fishing. Fine, he'd come up with nothing on the hook. Her words somewhat breathy, she said, "Let me think, what was his name?" She tapped her pen against her chin and looked towards the ceiling. "Geez, I can't remember. Give me a minute and I'll think of it, I'm sure."

She instinctively cleared her mind of thought, looked ridiculously distracted and went back to writing in her notebook. All he got out of her was an occasional absent-sounding "Hmmm" and "interesting" followed by a "What was I doing again?"

She could feel Sidheon's patience begin to run thin when it became obvious she wasn't going to elaborate on this new addition to the staff.

With an annoyed huff, he asked, "Do you mind if I have a look at the specimens?"

Carin raised her head, her expression clear and bright. "I'm sorry, what did you say, Aleth?"

"I asked if I could take a look at-"

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Oh sure, sure. It's all yours." She went back to writing, then said as an afterthought, "Actually, if you want, just go ahead and take it. I won't get to it before tomorrow afternoon anyway. If it's not yours, leave it in the hall. The QC lab folks will come and get it, and maybe we'll both find our stuff in the process."

"Excellent suggestion. Thank you very much, Dr. Derrickson."

"Please, Aleth, when are you going to start calling me Carinian?" she chimed, her expression as sweet and as syrupy as his voice had been moments before.

A knock sounded on the open door. Carin glanced up and flashed a genuine smile to one of the QC lab techs. Reyna was a sweet girl, fresh out of college. Short with reddish-brown hair, creamy fair skin and a nose dotted with an abundance of freckles, Carin thought she looked a lot like Heidi with a haircut.

"Hi, Reyna. Come on in."

"Hi, Dr. Derrickson. Dr. Sidheon," she said with a polite nod. "We left the QC carts in the hall as we always do, but somehow they got all mixed up. Dr. Lee brought this one back downstairs to us. It looks like it belongs to you, ma'am."

"Thanks, Reyna. Just put it over there." She motioned to the spot next to the door where Sidheon's cart had been sitting.

"Sorry for the mix up, doctors."

Carin replied with a gracious, "No problem."

Sidheon looked at the girl like she was a complete moron and said nothing. Instead, he smiled tightly, wheeled his cart out into the hallway, and disappeared.

Reyna twisted up her mouth and snapped in disgust, "Well, don't some of us think we're all that?"

Carin smiled, let out a sigh of relief at his departure and went back to work as Reyna closed the door on her way out. After a few moments of unease, she got up and threw the deadbolt home.

Sidheon chuckled all the way to his own rooms, locked the door and began checking the contents of his spec cart.

The good doctor had always been friendly, though somewhat cool towards him. Now he knew why since Dr. Derrickson wasn't very good at hiding her thoughts. She'd projected them so loudly, even a young, untrained vampire could have picked them up before she'd cleared her mind and tried to play dumb on him.

Sidheon had suspected there was some latent psychic talent there, but he couldn't recall any time when she'd blasted her thoughts out in a torrent like she had today. She was obviously shaken by something, and her anxiousness magnified her psychic abilities. Luckily she had no idea or he wouldn't have learned of her wariness of him. He wasn't offended, but rather impressed.

Carin was a smart woman not to trust him.

Based on the cheesy explanation she'd given for handling his vials, it made sense for her scent to be all over the little gla.s.s containers. Made perfect sense, in fact. Would have even been believable if she hadn't been so worried about getting caught. And now she posed a problem. It wouldn't take Carinian Derrickson much time to figure out how the serum and blood affected the skin samples. But if she figured out both the blood and skin came from his body, and neither specimen was human, he'd have a mess on his hands.

For all he knew, she could be working with the tall man he'd spotted entering her labs earlier.

She'd claimed he was a new project coordinator, but Sidheon had immediately sensed the man was a prime male vampire. d.a.m.n it all to h.e.l.l and back. He couldn't afford to have Carinian spill what she knew. Especially not to a f.u.c.king Council a.s.sa.s.sin.

After each gla.s.s vial was secured in the safe, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

"I've found the cart, you imbecile. But there's a mess you're going to clean up."

The voice on the other end of the line ratcheted up a few octaves. "What? Why? If you found it then there's no need to-"

"Shut up, you idiot," Sidheon growled into the phone. He clamped his thumb and forefinger over the bridge of his nose and sighed. He would never understand how such a brilliant biochemist like Dan could lack the most common sense. "There is a need, and since you lost it in the first place you're going to take care of it. Do you understand me, Dan?"

A long silence followed. His ridiculous a.s.sistant was all ears.

"Dr. Derrickson had the cart. I want you to make sure she doesn't have a chance to tell anyone what was in it," Sidheon said, his tone somewhere between bored and condescending.

"But why-"

"Because, there's a prime male vamp on the biotech campus I've never seen before. The same vamp happened to be in Dr. Carinian's labs today. Any further questions?"

"No, sir. I'll take care of it, sir."

"You'd better, Dan, or you'll be my next biotech experiment."