… and send them back to the human world where they belonged.
Murhder had a lot of experience wiping memories and replacing them with different versions of events, but he’d never started the process and had his target break away from the mind control and latch onto something else so completely that their consciousness locked him out.
Hello, Sarah.
And P.S., he loved her name.
As she and John signed back and forth, Murhder was very aware he needed to get into her skull again, and not just finish the scrub job, but start the damn thing all over. Instead, he just stood there like a planker, enjoying the sight of her as she communicated with John, her hands flipping smoothly through positions.
Lot of nodding between the pair of them.
Then Sarah looked at the doctor known as Jane. “I don’t have to know the details of how it happened. I can respect his privacy. But I don’t understand what the infection is—any more than you all do, evidently. I have a feeling you are not going to take him to a medical center, and no, I am not going to make trouble for you guys.” She glanced around. “But I can help if you want someone who knows a helluva lot about immune response to take a stab at it.”
Xhex spoke up from the stairwell’s bottom step. “What kind of help?”
“I’m not going to lie,” Sarah replied. “I don’t have any treatments immediately in mind. But I don’t like to see patients in pain or scared about their future. I deal with cancer patients, and trust me, after having lost both my parents to that disease, I know too well how hard it is to be terrified about your health. I’m motivated by all that, but also the researcher in me is fascinated. I want to know what the tissue looks like under the microscope. I want to see what his white blood cells are doing. I want to go down to that cellular level and find out what’s happening. There’s no easy solution, of course. Immunotherapy is still new science and it’s not like there’s a magic pill or shot that I can recommend that will make him better. I would love to help, though, and it is my area of expertise.”
Murhder waited for the Brotherhood’s doctor to pump the brakes on the idea. Then he glanced at Xhex and figured she’d be shaking her head. Finally, he checked out John and expected him to no-thank-you the offer.
When none of that happened, he tried not to get excited. Failed.
And had to remind himself that ultimately it was not going to work. Sarah couldn’t stay in their world, and the longer she was involved with vampires, the more memories she gathered, and the more difficult and painful it was going to be to clean her out.
Short-term stuff was one thing. Long-term was a different story.
Sarah shrugged. “Besides, after tonight, I’m out of a job anyway. Likely out of a career when I come forward with what I know.”
The Brotherhood’s doctor spoke up. “What was your name? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch it.”
“Dr. Sarah Watkins.” She put her palm out. “As I said, I specialize in immunotherapy for cancer patients and I am about to have a lot of time on my hands.”
“I’m Jane.” The two shook hands. “Dr. Jane Whitcomb.”
“Pleased to meet you.” There was a long pause. “Do you mind if I make some phone calls first?”
Murhder stepped up. “Sarah? Look at me, please. Just for a moment.”
This time, without her incredible intellect distracted by the thing that interested it most, he found getting into her consciousness and staying there much easier.
Images rose from out of the depths of her memories, sunken boats floating to the surface of her own private sea. He saw a lot of a human man and guessed it was her fiancé—no surprise, he had an instant dislike of the guy. He also saw a lot of the inside of a laboratory not unlike the one they had infiltrated at the site. He further saw a simple house, with simple furnishings, and a bed that was messy only on one side.
He also caught the recollections of an FBI agent showing up on the doorstep of that simple house … and how she had made the man a coffee and sat down with him to answer questions about her dead fiancé.
Sarah had been unnerved by the whole thing.
Murhder slipped a patch over those memories associated with the FBI agent, effectively