He dropped into a chair, face scrunching as if he smelled rotten eggs. “I’ve done a lot of work with her,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes. “What kind of work?”
“The kind that encourages compliance.” He looked briefly pained. “She’s a risky asset.”
Compliance. I shuddered. Some sort of conditioning, probably, and I had zero desire for details about how that worked. I knew Philip had some sort of military or special ops background, but I didn’t know any specifics, which was fine with me. “She’s lucky Dr. Nikas insists on the mental health breaks.”
“Her living arrangements here are comfortable, but none of the rooms have windows.” He made a face. “I’ve been crashing here since you extracted me from Saberton, but at least I get to go outside when I want. I’d go nuts if I couldn’t feel the sun on my face.”
“Then it’s a damn good thing I made you a zombie and not a vampire.”
Chapter 5
Dr. Nikas entered carrying a tray the size of a cookie sheet, with Jacques right behind him pushing a cart full of electronic doodads, wires, and I had no idea what else.
“Ah, not there, Angel,” Dr. Nikas said as he spied me in the procedure chair. “I need you and Philip much closer for this.”
“How close?” I asked, then gave Philip an exaggerated wink. “Holding hands close or spooning close?”
Philip chuckled, but Dr. Nikas had already slipped into his intense focus and completely missed my attempt at humor. “Sitting back to back will do,” he said as he set the cookie sheet down on a counter. To my dismay there wasn’t a single damn cookie on the thing. Nothing but syringes full of various colored liquids. Lots and lots of syringes. Yikes. Good thing I lost my fear of needles when I got turned.
Dr. Nikas moved to me and, without warning, firmly drew his index finger down my cheek, then stepped to Philip and did the same, this time with his middle finger. While Philip and I exchanged bemused glances, Dr. Nikas touched both fingers to his tongue, frowned, and looked off into space. Taste diagnostics, he called it, and the weird-as-hell process apparently gave him a ton of information in a few seconds. I didn’t know how it worked, but I’d seen him do it a few dozen times, and it always yielded impressive results.
Dr. Nikas muttered something then proceeded to add incomprehensible symbols to the whiteboard. Jacques brought two ordinary rolling stools into the room, and I plunked myself down on one, gave it a good spin, and pulled my feet up. Once around. Twice. Three times. The thing had smooth action. Four and slowing. I caught a glimpse of the exasperated look on Jacques face, and slammed my feet down to bring my spectacular test drive to a stop then flashed him an innocent smile. Probably better not to piss off the Needle Vampire.
Without a word, he gestured for me to sit back to back with Philip, then lowered Philip’s stool so we were closer to the same height. No way was I going to complain about having Philip as a backrest.
Once we were positioned properly, Jacques placed an IV catheter in Philip’s right arm and then another in mine, which I assumed was so all of the weird stuff on the cookie sheet could be injected. Once that was done he began attaching monitoring equipment to us: EKG pads, straps around our heads, the little finger clampy thingies that measure blood oxygen and pulse, blood pressure cuffs, and several other things with trailing wires. I had no idea what the wire-thingies measured and was more than a little afraid to ask.
Lastly, he moved over to the cart and returned with a roll of duct tape. I watched him warily. “What’s that for?” I asked.
He gave me a thin, triumphant smile as he crouched beside me, then proceeded to tape the wheels of my stool to the floor. The bastard had to have brought it in specifically for this reason.
“Aw, c’mon!” I said. “I only broke one little thingamabobby the other day.”
His face grew more grim than usual as he taped the last two wheels, but when he finished and straightened, his eyes told a different story. Large, hazel, and amazingly expressive, they’d become my best gauge for whether I’d amused him, annoyed him, or Really Pissed Him Off. Whew. I was still in the safe zone.
All the attached junk made it awkward to get comfortable while perched on a stool. I swiveled the seat a bit and shifted against Philip’s back. “It’s a good thing I like you,” I murmured to him.
“Of course you like me,” he murmured right back. “Only an idiot wouldn’t like me. I’m dangerously likable.”
I began to snicker, but some monitor beeped, and Dr. Nikas’s worried frown reminded me to behave.
After some fiddling with equipment, Dr. Nikas picked up two syringes with blue contents, passed one to Jacques, and then Dr. Nikas injected me as Jacques injected Philip. They repeated this process three more times with yellow, green, and milky pink. Finally just Philip received an injection of a colorless liquid.
“What exactly is this going to do?” I asked.
“We are attempting to remind Philip’s parasite how to operate optimally by imprinting it on yours.”
I processed that. “Imprinting? Like ducklings?”
Dr. Nikas smiled. “In a manner of speaking. I’ll be stimulating both sets of parasites into a bit of a frenzy, and as yours copes, Philip’s will hopefully follow suit.” Dr. Nikas placed the empty syringes in a sharps disposal container. “How do you feel?”
“My teeth are buzzing,” I said with a grimace. “Like they’re full of bees.” It didn’t hurt, but it was mighty unpleasant.
“Mine too,” Philip said, his voice rough. “And my throat is getting scratchy.”
Dr. Nikas pursed his lips and moved back to the cookie tray, mumbled distractedly as he picked up a syringe with red contents, then shook his head and replaced it. His expression grew thoughtful but after a moment it cleared. He retrieved two syringes that contained what looked like chocolate pudding and passed one to Jacques. Apparently the consistency was pudding-like too, because the needle looked more like one of those turkey baster injector things. Except about twice as big.
Dr. Nikas crouched before me. “Lift your shirt, please?”
Wary, I lifted it to right below my boobs. Apparently that was high enough, because Dr. Nikas placed a cool hand on my stomach and set the needle about an inch above my belly button. “This might be a bit uncomfortable,” he said and then drove the needle into my gut.
A tiny yelp escaped me, and it was with some small relief that I felt Philip stiffen behind me as Jacques did the same pipe-to-the-gut move. It took at least a minute to inject the substance, during which I breathed in shallow pants against the pain. A bit uncomfortable, my ass. “Dr. Nikas, this sucks. I’ll stick with the buzzing teeth.”
“Give it a moment, Angel,” he murmured.
About ten seconds later the bee-teeth sensation faded. “That’s better,” I breathed. Unfortunately, rather than echoing my sigh of relief Philip groaned and jerked against my back.
Monitor wires caught at me as I tried to twist to see what happened. Jacques slapped the intercom on the phone and shouted, “Reg!” to call in the other lab tech, then moved to us and wrapped an arm around Philip to keep him upright. Philip twitched and let out a shuddering cry. I swiveled the chair, not caring that clips and patches pulled off, and stared at Philip.
“Angel!” Dr. Nikas said with urgency. “Turn around. Stay still.”
I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not with the side of Philip’s face looking as if a billion ants crawled under the skin. In seconds, the flesh split as an ugly patch of rot formed and deepened, exposing bone and teeth. Zombie stench, distinctively heavier and sweeter than cadaver stink, rolled over me in a sickening wave. I stared, shocked. We’d had trouble during treatments before, but this—