Pack of Strays (The Fangborn Series Book 2) (32 page)

In a panic, I dove into the table after it. I had it, but it resisted. It was slipping away. Another tug. I was losing my creation; it was being swallowed up by the universe of the bench top. I forced my whole being into hanging onto the adapted bowl. I snarled, half-Changed, and—

I had never Changed in the lab before.

I felt a searing pain through my chest that made the incorporation of the Viking ship model feel like a cool stream washing over tired feet on a hot day. I was too busy howling, my eyes closed, but I felt the stones in my arm and on the back of my neck tear my flesh apart, shifting,
reforming
.

A cold blast, and I was flung across the lab, smashed into a wall. Numb, I saw a sheen of blood covered my arm, evaporating even as the new artifact came alive. I was the catalyst. It all ca
me onlin
e.

Something dripped onto my arm; a stinging numbness. Not blood—venom had dripped from my fangs.

The effort it had taken me to alter my blood profile with Claudia was a thing of the past. A ripple, and I realized that the first part had worked by thinking about it. I shrugged, saw pale blue scales briefly, and the numbness went away, the pain from the venom disappeared. I could now heal myself at will. No longer a matter of involuntary Fangborn nature, I had taken on vampiric healing powers and changed my body to accommodate it. I willed myself well.

A rush of adrenaline, and I knew: I could heal Porter. Maybe not fully, perfectly, but enough so that his knowledge wouldn’t be lost.

I slammed back into the here and now.

Will had arrived; he and Adam were both wounded, fighting off three Fellborn. Toshi was trying to fend another off, while Vee behind the desk, screamed into her phone for backup. They were all coated with sweat and blood and dust. Howls and shrieks filled the space; more enemies were coming up the stairs.

I didn’t have the time and couldn’t waste whatever power I might have now. I had to save Porter.

I knelt down. Porter was no longer breathing; his face had gone slack. No heartbeat. I tried CPR, then caught myself.

I bit him.

His blood … was completely dead. He was gone. I was too late.

Desperately, I cast about. An idea struck me. Porter was right; there was more than one way to evolve.

I’d already tasted his blood.

He should already be in the coffee room. He’d be my personal resource. I’d know what he knew, at my disposal.

The information the Order had—the Order itself—would be at my disposal. I would fix this. I would undo all the evil he and they had done.

A glory of choirs sang in my head. Finally, I had the ability I needed to make things right.

“Vee!” I shouted. “I’m gonna need a hand! Not a lot, but a good push. Keep some in reserve.”

“Make it good,” she shouted. “Say when.”

“Three, two, one—”

My relationship with blood was always a little peculiar, even before the bracelet. More vampiric than werewolfish, I’d always thought it was a result of inheriting some of my mother’s tampered genetic material. Because of his experiments, I’d now own Sebastian
Porter’s
mind.

I felt a thrill as I absorbed
Porter
 … his memories.

I immediately went into the lab, ran down the hall to the c
offee roo
m.

A riot was taking place. The others who’d been in there were tearing Porter apart. Blood spattered the walls. Porter fell, gasping, even as the others tore out his guts.

“Stop it!” I screamed, aghast. “We need him! We need his information, his memories!”

Sean had a machete he often used in the field and was busily chopping up one of Porter’s legs. “He’s wrong, Zoe. He doesn’t belong here,” he said matter-of-factly.

“But he’s—” I stopped when I understood. There were no
Fellborn
in here, none of the old crude ones, not the newer horrors. Their blood wasn’t Fangborn, and it wasn’t human.

And after his experiments on himself, Porter wasn’t, either.

Lost. All lost.

I knew it was only a metaphor—that Porter was already dead—but the sight of him being rent was almost more than I could take. I tried anyway.

Teeth, knives, scalpels—there was virtually nothing of him left by the time I pulled them away.

As the Russian cleaned up the room with a flamethrower, and Sean scrubbed the lab’s surfaces with bleach, it was the loss of
Porter’s
memory and knowledge that I mourned.

I noticed a ring on the floor, something the others had missed. I picked it up and stuck it into a drawer. Maybe—

I still had one trick up my sleeve.

I ran back to the lab.

I rushed back to the table, summoned up the artifact I knew as
Pandora’s
Box—a squat, rounded clay vessel with a lip around its waist. Four figurines were fitted into the flange. It came up easily; it was part of me already, but the broken elements had to be mended if I was going to do what I needed to.

I saw the figurines again, as clear as the day on the hillside at Ephesus, and the schematic showed three missing parts; I had believed there were only two.

“Show me how to fix it,” I said.

The table blurred. Too long a time. There were fewer artifacts I might use to repair this complicated thing.

Finally, just as I was going to give up, two designs appeared, very faint. The best two options, neither of which was complete or optimal.

I took the one that was a slight shade darker and went for it.

I didn’t have the parts.

I took the other plan, more complete, but less ideal—there were two filament connections, not one.

Do it
, I thought.

This time I knew what to expect, so I pulled some venom on deck and stabilized my system. Too much, and I went giggly. I dialed it back a bit and was … fine. The transition and accretion was much smoother this time, and I watched what happened.

Nothing human, nothing Fangborn could keep up with these changes. My head started to spin, and I felt violently ill. All the artifacts were activating, even the fragments.

The alarm went off in the lab. Not a fire alarm, this time, but red flashing lights and Klaxon.

I looked up.

Something in the outside world was badly wrong. Many things.

The alarms wouldn’t be doing this, if the situation weren’t dire. I’d already accomplished more than I’d dreamed was possible, and I knew what I was going to do.

With my enhanced vampire strain, I could save everyone in t
he roo
m.

I’d do it by stopping time.

I was pretty sure now I could access the power to stop time the way I had, so briefly, at Ephesus. As Vee could do, with the blink of an eye, but which took so much out of her.

I was going to go back to Porter’s office and change things. I was going to set things right. I was going to stall Quarrel. I was
going
to contain the Fellborn and keep them from exposing and killing the Fangborn. I was going to end the Order. And then I was going to find Toshi and beat the shit out of him for killing Porter before I got his answers.

First things first. I had to get out of my own head.

“Let’s go,” I whispered.

I was flying through the air, aware of the motion before I knew what was causing it. It had been a torn-up looking Buell pulling me off of Porter’s body. Will was trying to drag an unconscious Adam out of the room, and Vee was sitting, her legs out in front of her, stunned and bleeding. Toshi was nowhere to be seen.

I landed hard, sprang up, half-Changed in the real world.

Now was the time to take care of him.

I spat once, viciously, felt my throat hurt then heal.
Not so much next time, Zoe … you’re new to this.

But the venom hit Buell squarely in the chest. He staggered, screamed, clawed at his acid-burned shirt, pulled it off.

A good start, but not good enough. Buell was wearing some kind of armor that had protected him. His burns were minor, though the pain was not.

I leapt. Buell shot me with one of Porter’s damned guns. The tiles of my armor shifted, deflecting the shells. One grazed me. The wound healed cleanly, immediately.

“I got an upgrade,” I whispered, as I landed on him.

I knocked the gun out of Buell’s hands. He threw me off him, to one side.

The building was shaking and it wasn’t stopping.

Quarrel was coming.

No time for vendettas. Do the job first; then clean up the filth. Easy stuff first, because I was gonna need a lot of help for
my finale
.

I bashed Buell’s head against the floor. He stopped moving. I wished I had time to enjoy that more.

I swiveled, raised my hands, and blasted the three surviving Fellborn. I stepped over; grabbed Adam, who was closest to me; and bit his wrist. In my mind, I saw the blood as I tasted it; I found the bonds in flesh and bone that were broken and mended them. I found receptors that were overloaded, and returned them to
normal
.

When I pulled back, Adam’s bruises had faded, and the evil-looking gash across his leg was no longer bleeding.

Adam coughed, his eyes opened. “How did you—?” he asked, amazed.

If I’d had a moment, I would have laughed at the look of goofy surprise he wore. “No time. Yet.”

Now I could see that Will, despite being upright, was in worse shape. There were lots of bites across his body, and blood was soaking into all of his clothing. There was a scary dark wound on his chest, a mess of torn cloth and tissue. His eyes were wide, unfo
cused and unseeing. He’d been running on instinct and
adrenaline
.

I didn’t waste any time. “Hang on, Will. Don’t move.” I pulled off his shirt, found his pulse, and sank my teeth into his neck.

More work here, but it was mostly … mechanics, I was surprised to find. Relieved to find. I mended the internal hurts, then knit up the muscle and flesh over it. Gave him a jolt of something to stop the pain.

Will started and looked up at me, seeing me for the first ti
me. “Zoe
—?”

“You’ll be okay now, Will. Just get ready to run when I give the word!”

I reached out, extending my proximity sense farther than I’d ever tried. It was easier than I thought. I looked for Danny and found him in the care of a harried-looking vampire. I didn’t know what I could do remotely, and at such a distance, but willing them both restored, I saw a pale violet mist settle down over them.
Danny
coughed and sat up. It would have to do for now.

“Zoe Miller, I grow impatient, here in the cold and dark! I will wait no longer!”

I stood. “Quarrel, cease! I have friends here. Porter is dead. Save your anger for those outside. Aid our Family, and those who fight for them. Use all caution!”

“Hellbender, I obey!” Quarrel replied joyfully. The rumbling mitigated and the building stopped shaking.

Vee was chewed up, but there was a dead Fellborn at her feet. I healed her and then focused on restoring her oracular gift. I found a dark spot at her core and gave her a hit of healing venom.

Her eyes shot open, and her head snapped up. “Whoa! W
hat was
—?”

“Vee, I gotta pull some juice now. I’m gonna try some very dangerous shit!”

“Do it!” she all but shouted. Maybe I’d overdone the healing. “Whatever you need—I am good to go! I’m
great
to go!”

A shrill beeping noise. The building started to shake again.

“Quarrel! I said to—”

“It is not I, Hellbender!” A flash of insight, and I saw the
battle
on the waterfront from on high. Quarrel, true to his word, had go
ne to
help our kind. He had found a step van full of members of the Order,
all armed with the hellebore blasters. He squashed one man under his massive claw, and then another, before he le
t out
a roar and tore at the roof and sides of the truck. Curling strips of metal peeled back like a sardine can as Quarrel raked at the vehicle. A second
later, he stuck his head in and began flinging members of the Order
high into the air. One had the audacity to aim a blaster at him.

“Quarrel! To your left!”

Quarrel whipped his head around and snapped. The headless body of the Order’s soldier fell to the ground. Quarrel spat his head out, with something remarkably like a grimace. The rest of the
Order
members from the truck fled.

I shifted back and my eyes fastened on Porter. And his watch. Its built-in heart-rate monitor was protesting there was nothing to monitor.

Porter’s last booby trap. Rigged to his heartbeat.

“You guys get out of here, now!” I shouted. “Everything you got, Vee! In three, two, one!”

Vee’s boost was like a locomotive slamming into me, as she laughed with delight. Then a lighter pressure, a bite in my leg. No time for bleeding. No time for questions or doubts or dying. I had to focus to get this done, save us all.

I looked down. Buell had rolled over and grabbed my right leg, stabbing me in the thigh. It occurred to me that he might have also received some of Porter’s enhancements.

No time for that. I could fix it in the next instant.