I got back to the cabin late, my truck barely wobbling into the gravel lot before it gave up the ghost completely. Before I got out, I wondered whether we could do an episode about ghosts. If Jamie cooperated, we could totally make up some ghosts. A bunch of moonshiners either blew themselves up or ended up in shoot-outs with cops and marshals at least once every couple of years. Of course they left some ghosts behind.
The contract and envelope full of money crinkled when I slid out of the truck and headed for the house. A stick broke in the trees surrounding the cabin, and I paused. My breath made columns of smoke above and around me as I searched the darkness for the threat. Or the friend. If they stayed hidden, no doubt it was a threat. Or Jamie.
At least I’d left the lights on at the cabin, so I wasn’t wandering into the darkness alone at night. I still took the rifle out of the truck to carry with me. Hopper’s head popped up in the unbroken front window, since the other was still covered with plastic sheeting while Mr. Harrison ordered a replacement.
Dragomir appeared next to me by the time I made it halfway to the porch. I didn’t look at him, though my heart pounded with the always-present fear that he would decide to just kill me. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“I brought more blood for you to continue your experiments,” he said. He handed over three new blood bags. “I expect to see progress.”
“Of course you do.” I juggled the blood bags and my takeaway from the Italian restaurant, since Archer ordered me another round of chicken parm and lasagna as a delicious joke that I took very seriously. “You’re at the top of my list, man. Bite anyone interesting lately?”
“No,” he said, irritation curling his lip. “I have not bitten anyone interesting. Are you offering?”
I laughed, though it wasn’t funny, and led the way into the toasty-warm cabin so I could toss all of it into the fridge. “No. I’m never offering. Capiche?”
I’d waited to bring up the effect of taking his blood and how long it lasted, mostly because I didn’t want to know the answer. As it was, I could still mostly accept the need for a sip every now and then to stay upright for a long experiment, but if I found out the conseqeunces… It would be far more difficult to ignore the ill effects.
The vampire pretended to inhale near me, and his displeasure increased exponentially. “You’ve been with the hunters.”
“He owed me money,” I said. “And he bought me dinner, which is more than you ever did for me.”
“That is objectively false.” Dragomir slid around the perimeter of the living room, frowning as he took in the changes I’d made since forcing them all to agree to get along. Betsy decided to try out her interior decorating instincts on my living area, which had been as successful as it could have been – particularly when Hopper took exception to the frillier things. “I brought you rabbits.”
Right. The rabbits. “After you set a werewolf on me, nearly killed me, and gave me your blood, you brought me dead rabbits to eat. Practically identical scenarios.”
Dragomir’s eyes narrowed as the silence stretched. I teed up another smart-ass remark, just in case he decided to grumble at me about my poor manners and proletarian humor. He looked on the verge or doing or saying something, like he’d been planning for a while. The vampire finally gathered himself, said, “You have two weeks to show me progress,” and disappeared back out the door.
I shook my head and locked it behind him, even though it wouldn’t matter if either Jamie or Dragomir wanted to get in — or Archer, for that matter. I’d spent a great deal of time researching and communicating with the research librarian on how to keep vampiares out, werewolves out, wolves in, and monster hunters… distracted. I didn’t think any of it actually worked, but I put Newton’s ornament on the wall as something I truly believed in. Maybe holy items didn’t deter Dragomir because he’d fledged on holy ground, like he’d said, but a strong symbol that I truly believe in to the core of my heart… maybe that would make a difference.
I should have been worried about Dragomir’s pensiveness, since a scheming vampire meant a pending apocalypse. But between the wine, the warm cabin, and a big dinner chock full of carbs, I couldn’t stir the energy.
Puttering around and setting up the lab on my shiny new bench took me another half hour, as did cleaning the glassware and surfaces to make sure nothing cross-contaminated the samples. I pulled a blood bag out of the fridge and squinted at it, then carefully squeezed some into a dish so I could make slides.
It didn’t incinerate under the UV lights, but the cells showed remarkable abnormalities when placed under the microscope. I made notes and worked on sequencing the genome as a baseline against future studies, then took the bag, labeled “Jamie,” back to the fridge. I started the centrifuge to separate another sample, humming to myself. Dragomir might still want his cure, but I’d be damned if I let him walk in the daylight while my brother lost control during the full moon.
I touched the St. Albert medallion I still wore and waited for the sequencing to finish. If I could keep a vampire from exploding in the sun, I could figure out a way to undo whatever curse or infection controlled a werewolf. Dum Spiro, spero. While I breathe, I hope.
It didn’t matter if Deus vult’d. With science, all things were possible.