“Temporary,” she qualified, “but that’s the first ray of sunshine to pierce the doom and gloom around here. We could use more—more sunshine, more blood. We got just enough to get excited and not nearly enough to test properly.”
“That may prove difficult.”
“I’l leave that end to you. As for my end, we’re going bal s to the wal . But we’d do a hel of a lot better with an epidemiologist or virologist on board. Got any of those hanging around anywhere?”
“I’m looking into it.”
She nodded. “Vash already hit you up, didn’t she?”
“Of course.” There were very few tricks his second-in-command missed…when she was on her game. “And the lycan blood?”
“Twelve subjects’ vials. Bril iant, by the way. One or two wouldn’t have been enough.”
“I’l pass along the kudos to Vash.”
“Of course. Quick as a whip, that one. She’s a credit to you.”
“Yes, she is.” He’d trained her wel , having seen the kernel of greatness in her from the very beginning. She was bright and thorough and fil ed with a restless energy that fooled many into thinking she was reckless. She never had been…until the Alpha came along.
Syre was watching that situation closely. He wouldn’t tolerate Vash’s upheaval for long. A day or two more, and if the lycan didn’t rectify what he was doing to her, Syre would kil him. It would be a waste of a prime hunter, but the Alpha was less valuable if he wasn’t firmly beneath Vashti’s thumb. There was also the possibility that now that the lycans were settled in the warehouse and most were already out in the field, they could turn to vampires for leadership and protection if they lost their Alpha. If not for Vashti’s turmoil, the death of Elijah Reynolds might be ideal… “The majority of the samples had no effect whatsoever,” Grace went on. “However, Subject E is another matter altogether. Whose idea was it to anonymize the samples? Vashti’s?”
“Of course.” He slid his iPhone over and tapped into the cloud, finding the document that linked donor with sample. But he knew who Subject E was before it was confirmed—the Alpha.
“Wel , Subject E is known as FUBAR around here. You want to knock out the wraith population for good, FUBAR’s your man. Or woman. His or her blood is like the Hiroshima bomb to wraiths. Boom, game over.”
“Why? How?”
Grace snorted out a laugh. “I’m good, but I’m not that good. I got these blood samples yesterday evening. I’ve had just a little over fourteen hours with them. I can give you a ‘what,’ but it’s going to take more time to work on the rest.”
“Vashti ran across a wraith with enough brain function to speak coherently. He appeared to be leading a group of other wraiths.”
“What?” Al levity left her face. “Every wraith I’ve seen has cotton for brains.”
“I need more than that, Grace.”
She scrubbed the back of her neck. “Perhaps the subject had only recently been infected, within a few hours maybe. Not enough time to fry the synapses. Or maybe he’d been infected long enough to kick-start his brain cel s again. I honestly don’t know. I haven’t run across anything like that here in the lab.”
“Too many questions, Grace.”
“And not enough answers. I know. I’m doing the best I can.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Absolutely. And if you can get me more of that blood, it would real y help. Total y the other end of the spectrum there. One annihilates; the other is a possible cure. Knowing you, you’l want both in your arsenal while dealing with this, and I’ve got a friend here I’d like to have back.”
Syre thought of his daughter-in-law. It was too late for Nikki, but hopeful y others could be saved. “I’l work on it.”
“And the virologist, please. I’ve got skil s, but this is real y outside my field of expertise.”
With a nod, he ended the cal and exhaled harshly.
“What do you know, Adrian?” he murmured softly to himself. “And what wil I have to do to get you to tel me about it?”
Vash raced through the trees, darting and weaving, her heart and limbs pumping strong and steady. Her body was a machine, built for her existence as an angel and sculpted by her life as a warrior. Although she heard the pounding lunges and heaving breaths of the lycan hot on her trail, she didn’t look back. There was no point. It would only slow her down, and knowing where he was or how close he might be wouldn’t make her run faster.
She’d never been outrun by a lycan. Never. She was too quick, too nimble.
But she knew Elijah was different. He’d proven that back on the highway, and even while she thought of that, he proved it again.