Gone.
The Vitriol was gone.
That was impossible. I’d checked it three and a half weeks before, working the biometric lock the way I did on the first of every month. Following procedure, I’d been accompanied by two other doctors. They’d countersigned my log, assuring the entire Eastern Empire that we had the remedy available.
Security cameras were focused on the drug safe day and night. Our small stock of Vitriol was worth half a year of Empire General’s operating budget. That was the power vampires had over human imagination—we were willing to pay millions to save even one mundane from unwanted transition.
That, plus we knew the extraordinary street value for the drug. When Vitriol was injected by an imperial whose veins did not course with vampire blood, it gave an exquisite high, superior to any other drug, magic or mundane.
Now we’d never know if the man rampaging through my ER was strong enough to emerge from Vitriol unscathed.
I whirled around to find that my emergency room specialist, Dr. Hart, was finally taking charge. The sylph’s face was weathered, as if she’d spent decades on the Russian steppes. Her hair and eyes were faded to a color without a name. Her doctor’s coat was the unbroken blue of a wind-swept sky.
As Mikaela’s and Jerome’s attempts to secure the patient were cast off yet again, Dr. Hart raised cupped hands to her lips. Serenely, she exhaled hard into the space between her palms. Her fingers curled around her breath, snagging and shaping it.
Even as the man crouched in a renewed defensive stance, Dr. Hart flung her breath across the room. It gathered speed as it flew, spinning in upon itself. It struck the patient’s wrist with all the concentrated force of a cyclone.
I winced, knowing that a human’s bones would be shattered by the blow. The man, though, wouldn’t be hampered by human bones. He’d have the benefit of a vampire’s rapid healing in far too short a time.
His fingers spasmed as he tried to maintain his grip on the EKG leads, but they clattered to the floor. Mikaela pawed them to the side, taking care to avoid snagging them on the wheels of the crash cart.
“Enough,” Dr. Hart said. Her voice blew across the room with determined certainty.
In response, my own heart rate slowed. The man relaxed into a fighter’s crouch, still alert, still ready to defend himself, but no longer intent on laying waste to everyone in the room. He held his right arm at a stiff angle, clearly protecting his wrist.
Mikaela and Jerome backed off to the perimeter of the ER as Dr. Hart glided toward the intake desk. There, she picked up a leather wallet from amid a jumble of keys and a shoulder holster, complete with a pistol.
Flipping open the wallet, Dr. Hart revealed a golden badge—a five-pointed star with circles on the tip of each arm, surrounding a blue-and-red shield. An ID card glinted beneath a plastic flap.
“Nicholas Raines,” Dr. Hart read.
The man’s good hand curled into a fist, the strain of his tendons a sure sign that vampire blood was working its way through his veins. Or maybe he was merely contemplating his next break for freedom. Instead of trying to batter down the walls of my emergency room, he jutted his chin toward the desk and demanded, “How did you get my weapon?”
Dr. Hart breathed calm into her response, gesturing toward the cinnamon-scented stain on his shirt. “You gave it to us.” Before he could shout his obvious outrage, she continued, “Certain compulsions were placed upon you before you were conveyed here.”
“Where the hell is here?”
“You’re in a hospital. You were attacked, but we’re here to help.”
The man raised one hand to his throat, but his fingertips came away dry. Vampire blood was already healing his body. His skin had knit to a fine sheen over his torn jugular. As he stared at his unmarked hand, Raines’s voice ratcheted down. “What’s happening to me?”
“You’re turning into a vampire.” Dr. Hart’s words left no room for doubt, no space for disbelief. “There is no cure for your condition, but we can sedate you, which will allow you to avoid most of the pain of transition.”
“I’m not afraid of pain.” The words were a simple truth—not a boast or a taunt.
“As you wish,” Dr. Hart said. “I’m afraid you can’t be allowed contact with any human family or acquaintances now that transition is under way.”
I knew Dr. Hart was simply delivering the law of the Empire—no human could ever learn of our supernatural existence.
I also knew there were exceptions to that law. More than one witch had confided her status to friends through the years. Warders too—a few had shared tales about the Academy, about the magic of the astral plane.
But vampires were especially cautious about revealing their existence to humans. Too many stakes had been pounded into undead hearts. Too many silver bullets had been fired over the centuries. Vampires were creatures of the night, born in fear and wrapped in terror.
“I understand,” Raines said, which was more than most men could have managed under the circumstances.
“Very well. We have a private room for you upstairs where you can complete your transition. With your permission, we’ll monitor your vital signs and collect data that will help us treat others.”
She made this sound so normal, as if she were only obtaining informed consent for minor cosmetic surgery.
Our Vitriol was stolen! I wanted to shout. Someone broke into Empire General and took our most valuable possession out of a locked safe!
But Raines was talking again, asking exactly what would happen to him. Dr. Hart explained that his heart would stop. His lungs too. His muscles would transform, giving him ten times the strength and four times the speed he’d ever known as a human.
“And then I can find whoever did this to me?” His voice was very, very quiet.
“You’re an imperial now, Mr. Raines. We have courts. Procedures. Processes. We do not tolerate revenge killings.”
“No one said anything about killing.” His voice was even lower. For just a heartbeat, I pitied the poor vampire who’d attacked him.
Dr. Hart, though, seemed unaffected by Raines’s quiet rage. She floated a hand toward me. “Dr. McDonnell is in charge of Empire General. Just last month, she launched a new program designed to ease the transition you’re currently experiencing.”
That was my cue. Even as Becs rustled behind me with concern, I took a step closer to the Empire’s newest vampire. Forcing clinical distance into my voice, I said, “Let’s get you settled upstairs before the sun rises.”
I wasn’t prepared for the furious glare Raines cast my way. His pupils were dilated, even in the bright light of the ER. His body was still awash in adrenaline, the fight he’d chosen over flight.
My “Welcome the Night” program—glossy brochures, professional videos, and a plushie shaped like a smiling fang—had seemed like a much better idea before I was confronted with my first unwilling vampire patient.
I cleared my throat and tried again. “Y— You can get some sleep. And our best counselors will be available to answer all your questions tomorrow night. We’ll be with you every step of the way, until you take your first meal—”
Dr. Hart interrupted Raines’s guttural snarl. “Come with me, Mr. Raines. Let’s get you upstairs, and I’ll see to your wrist. Your vampire blood will heal the break, but I want to make sure the bones are set properly.”
That was clever, reminding him of her magic. She was a lot more convincing than my fledgling patient education campaign. Raines let himself be led to the vampire ward.
I recovered enough to snatch the black wallet from Dr. Hart’s hand as she walked by. Nicholas Raines, the ID card said. United States Secret Service.
Holy crap!
No civilized vampire would feed from an unwilling source. And even a rogue who liked his meal on the hoof wasn’t likely to go after someone as strong as Raines. How could a vampire have targeted a sworn officer of the most elite police force in the country? And why would the attacker bring a Lethe-dosed victim to our doorstep?
Vampires managed their own affairs. They controlled their scions, even the unwilling ones. Especially the unwilling ones.
I’d only launched my Welcome the Night program to attract an easy case or two. There were some planned transitions for willing scions. A few, anyway. Okay. I’d hoped we’d get one, at some point, somewhere down the line.
There was nothing like trial by fire, with a Secret Service agent as my first test case. I winced. Maybe trial by fire wasn’t the best choice of words.
Shaking my head, I turned back to the empty drug safe. Welcome the Night wouldn’t be on the line if our Vitriol hadn’t been stolen. Before I could study the scene of the crime, Becs slipped up to my side. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you upstairs too.”
“I have to report the theft!”
“Better to deal with the EBI in the morning.”
My automatic protest was shattered by a jaw-breaking yawn. Ordinarily, I’d banish my fatigue with a spell. I knew the words well enough; I’d used them frequently—if surreptitiously—throughout medical school. But without my powers, I had no quick fix for exhaustion readily at hand.
And tiredness was the least of my problems. Without magic, I’d be hard-pressed to prepare for the accreditation board’s inspection in four short weeks, condensing three months of work into one. And even if I figured out a way to kickstart my magic, the hospital inspection was placed in grave danger by the Vitriol theft.
If the hospital failed inspection I’d be fired. Job hunting would be infinitely complicated by my inability to explain where I’d been working for the previous year. Potential employers would assume I was a problem case—drugs or emotional instability or embezzlement of funds. I had to be hiding something.
Something besides the existence of a secret paranormal world thriving in the middle of Washington DC.
“Let’s go,” Becs insisted. “And you—” She nodded toward Musker, who stood by the door with a wary expression on his face. “Get some sleep, too.”
My slothful familiar didn’t need to be told twice. He sidled toward my office and his heated marble palace.
I let my best friend guide me into the lobby. I didn’t argue as we crossed to the tiny elevator retrofitted into the mansion walls. I watched as she pushed the button for 4, and I let her walk me down the narrow corridor to my tiny attic room. She hung my white doctor’s coat on the hook behind my door, and I handed her my shoes to tuck inside the narrow armoire that served as my closet.
She’d helped me countless times before, when I’d pushed my powers past the point of no return. There was an easy familiarity as she turned back my comforter and plumped my pillow.
But I hadn’t used my powers to excess that night. I might never use my powers again. Starting to panic, I said, “I— I have to—”
“Everything will look better after you get some rest.” Becs touched the center of my forehead. I protested, but she said, “Sleep.” She reinforced the suggestion with a healthy measure of warder’s magic.
At least one of us till had her powers.
Unable to resist her compulsion, I slept.