So it was with mixed pleasure that I had learned from Clara that not only is the main computer storage in the admin building, there’s a possibility Bob has made a copy of it in his office. Trying to destroy the computers, and retrieve the disks from Bob, vastly increases the likelihood that I will not survive the evening, but on the bright side, it provides me with an excellent opportunity to kill him. Provided the vampire hasn’t caught up to him yet.
“Do you know where the computer-whatever is?” I ask Clara as soon as we’re inside.
“The tower? I think so. There’s a locked room down the hall. I’ve never been in it, but I felt the door once, and it was cool.”
“In a slang sense?” I ask, confused.
“Air conditioning.”
“Um, okay. Can you get into the room on your own?”
“With the key. Where are you going?”
“Upstairs. To check for copies.”
She looks at me archly. “You don’t even know what a zip disk looks like.”
“I’m a quick learner.”
She holds out her hand and I give up the key ring. “He’s already left the base,” she says. “You know that, right? He probably went straight for his helicopter as soon as I wounded him.”
“Probably,” I agree. “Can’t hurt to check.”
I get a frown from her. “Back at the apartment, when I was trying to convince you to come here, it was just so I could follow. You don’t actually have to exact revenge, or whatever it is you think you’re doing here.”
“Do you think I’m doing this to impress you?”
“I’m just sorry I called you cowardly is all.”
“Clara, if he’s upstairs and I skipped out without even trying to go after him, I’ll be kicking myself for the next three centuries.”
“Fine,” she shrugs. “I’ll meet you back here in a few. Then maybe we can get the hell out of here already.”
She runs off down the hall while I head up the center staircase that’s directly in front of me.
Clara’s right. As long as the vampire isn’t interested in biting either of us on the neck, there’s no good reason for us not to grab the nearest Humvee and escape while we still can. Which means I’m doing exactly what I told her in New York I wasn’t going to do—acting out solely in the name of vengeance. And, as I’ve said before, that’s nearly always a mistake. But I’d really like to kill Bob, and I’m not looking to be reasonable about it at this point.
I reach the second floor landing, check the gun—still a half-clip left—and slip the vial of chicken pox I took from the lab into my hand. The gun is for Bob, who I’m thinking is no less bulletproof now, than he was an hour ago when Clara winged him. The vial is for Brutus.
The center office is only a few paces from the landing. I sneak up to it and, finding the door ajar, I kick it completely open and spin into the room firing. I reasoned, perhaps stupidly, that if Bob was anywhere he’d be at his desk and that his desk just had to be near the picture window. Completely wrong, naturally. The only thing the bullets hit is the window, which manages to crack spectacularly in several places.
A heavy hand comes down from the right of the doorway and knocks the gun out of my grasp. Before I have much of a chance to register this, I’m shoved to the floor myself, albeit several feet away from the gun. Brutus is on top of me a second later, one mitt wrapped around my neck.
“Not yet,” says Bob. The lights are out in the room, so the best I can figure is that he’s somewhere to the right of the half-shattered window. Behind the desk. If I were even a bit smart, I would have asked Clara how the office was set up before going and assuming things.
“Pick him up.”
Brutus complies by lifting me by the neck—not real comfortable, that—and pressing me up against the wall.
My eyes adjust and there’s Bob with a very large suitcase open atop the desk. He has a white bandage on his shoulder, which he’s bled through.
“It looks like you’ve been busy,” he notes. He points out the window. The fire in the lab flickers obediently, currently in the process of devouring the wood roof.
“Just… destroying the evidence,” I say. Talking is a real challenge.
“Yes, well… sorry to tell you this, but you’ve failed. I have all the copies of the research I need right here. At worst, you’ve scored only a minor setback.”
“You still need the blood of an immortal to make it work,” I say. “Eve’s gone. And you can’t have mine.”
Bob laughs. A disappointing reaction. “Think, Adam. How do you suppose we proved the treatment worked?”
Uh-oh.
“Yes. Human testing. And who better than me to try it out on?” He picks up the suitcase. “I’ve got just about all the immortal blood I’m ever going to need. So, as I think I said earlier, you’re officially expendable.”
He gets face-to-face with me. If I thought I could produce spit at this moment, I would. Bob says, “That was well-played, by the way. The bit about the vampire, I mean. I didn’t see that coming. Mind telling me how you freed it?”
“Magic.”
He smiles. “I don’t need to know that badly. I trust Ms. Wassermann is downstairs right now?”
“She’s dead,” I whisper.
“You’re a bad liar. I saw you come in together. No matter. I’ll pick her up on my way out. Good-bye.” To Brutus, he says, “Meet me downstairs when you’re done with him.”
Bob steps out the door and shuts it behind him.
Brutus smiles at me, and starts to squeeze.
“Wait,” I say, holding up my left hand. The vial is still palmed there.
“What?”
Killing me would take about as long for him as it would for me to crush a centipede. He has time.
I say, “You ever read H. G. Wells?”
“Who?” he asks, and when his mouth opens to form the ‘o’ sound, I shove the vial into it.
He lets go of me. When I land, I take a few seconds to enjoy breathing and then get to my feet, snatch the gun from the floor, and await the inevitable.
Brutus staggers backward up against the closed door and grabs at his throat. I’m about to say something pithy—the situation calls for it—but then I hear him crunching down on the glass and swishing the contents around in his mouth like he’s at a wine-tasting. Then he stands up straight, shoots me a smile, and spits the cork onto the carpet.
“A little bitter,” he says, “but not bad. Could’ve used some pepper.”
“Oh shit,” I say, succinctly.
“Sorry. You want me to jump around, maybe scratch my throat, wave my arms or something?”
A couple more pieces fit into place for me. “It was you,” I say. “In the third room.”
“Yeah. Well, me and Ringo. Doc fixed us both up so we don’t get sick no more. And that’s just the start. Mr. Grindel’s gonna take care of all of our friends, too. Time our kind came out of hiding.”
“How could he have been so stupid?” I ask. Because it’s one thing to try and help people who get sick. It’s another to fix the immune system of an otherwise invulnerable race of sociopaths. Bob and Viktor both must have been out of their minds to even consider it.
“Mr. Grindel seems to think there’s only a few of us around,” he explains. “He’s in for a surprise. Too bad this came too late for Jimmy.”
“Jimmy?”
“The one you killed in New York. I’m gonna have to hurt you for that, cuz he took that job after I recommended him to Mr. Grindel, so I’m feeling guilty now, and I hate feeling guilty.”
With one arm he lifts the desk and throws it up against the wall. Which is bad, as I was in the process of putting the desk between us at the time. And there’s nothing else that’s big and heavy to hide behind, other than Brutus.