Thirteen
By seven o’clock in the evening, Matt and Sam had just about finished with the first round of tests on TJ. Matt was bandaging the puncture wound on TJ’s iliac crest, from where he’d drawn a sample of her bone marrow, when Shelly and Shooter entered the lab.
“Look what I found wandering around the halls,” Shelly said, his hand on Shooter’s shoulder.
“You guys didn’t tell me where the lab was, so I had to ask Shelly,” Shooter said, his eyes on TJ as he checked to see how she was doing.
TJ jumped up from the examining table and ran to throw her arms around his neck. “Hey, Shooter,” she murmured in his ear. “I’m really glad you came.”
Matt and Sam both said hello. While Matt packed away the specimen he’d taken, Sam said to Shooter, “TJ’s been a real trouper, Shooter. She let us poke and prod and stick her all day without a single complaint.”
As Sam talked, Shelly noticed the Band-Aid on Shooter’s neck and the spot of dried blood on it. He frowned as he thought of the implications of such a wound, but decided not to mention it, for the moment.
Shooter kissed TJ on the cheek and rubbed the back of her neck with his hand. “You about ready for dinner, babe?” he asked.
She nodded vigorously. “Yeah. I think I’m about a quart low on blood, so we’d better do something to replace it,” she answered.
“You guys want to come along?” Shooter asked.
Matt shook his head. “Not now, Shooter. Sam and I’ve still got some work to do to label and collate some of the samples we’ve taken. I want to get them packed up and sent to Dr. Wingate in Canada as soon as possible. How about a rain check?”
“You got it,” Shooter answered. He took TJ’s hand and they left the lab together.
As the door closed behind them, Sam noticed the worried look on Shelly’s face.
“What’s up, boss?” she asked. “Trouble in the morgue?”
He shook his head, his eyes still on the door Shooter and TJ had gone through.
“Did either of you happen to notice the bandage on Shooter’s neck?” he asked, turning his attention to them.
Matt shrugged. “No. Why?”
Sam was more astute to Shelly’s implied meaning. “Do you think—”
“I don’t know,” Shelly interrupted, “and I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but the wound was in the same location as the bites we found on all those vampire victims last year.”
Matt’s eyes widened. “You think TJ’s been feeding on him?” Matt asked.
Shelly shrugged. “Certainly not in the fullest meaning of the word, since Shooter shows no signs of acute anemia. But I wonder if TJ’s not starting to show more serious signs than just an appetite for rare meat.”
“Maybe he just cut himself shaving,” Matt said, though it was plain even he didn’t believe that explanation.
Shelly stared at the door again. “Perhaps.” He glanced back at Sam and Matt. “If I were you two, I’d do those tests just as fast as you can. We may be running out of time with TJ.”
Matt and Sam looked at each other, their minds filled with horror at what they were thinking.
“Shelly,” Sam said, “would you mind giving Dr. Wingate a call and impressing on him the urgency of the samples we’re sending him? We need him to run them through as fast as possible.”
Shelly nodded, his expression serious. “Certainly, though I wonder if he’ll believe what we have to tell him.”
“It’ll probably depend on just what’s in these samples we’re sending him,” Matt said. “If, as I suspect, TJ’s bone marrow is infected with the plasmids, it will mean our original treatment failed and we don’t have much time.”
“I’ll call him first thing in the morning and tell him the samples are on their way,” Shelly said.
* * *
Shooter and TJ stopped at a small steak house on Westheimer for dinner. TJ, as usual, ordered a sirloin steak, rare, while Shooter had a New York strip, medium.
While they waited for their food to arrive, Shooter studied TJ in the low light of the eatery. She seemed pale and drawn, with bloodshot eyes, as if she wasn’t getting enough sleep.
He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “Are you still having those dreams?” he asked gently.
TJ’s eyes dropped and she nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“Are they still too bad to talk about?”
She glanced up at him, her eyes watery with tears. “Oh, Shooter. I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she moaned. “I used to be so happy . . . so carefree. Now it’s as if I have the weight of the whole world on my shoulders.”
He squeezed her hand, trying to smile. “Don’t worry, babe. We’ll get through this together. Before you know it, that doctor in Canada will send Sam and Matt some medicine that’ll make all this go away.”
TJ smiled back at him sadly. “I hope so, Shooter. I want us to have a good life together.”
“We will, sweetheart, I promise.”
After the meal, Shooter and TJ walked to his car. “You want me to take you home, or would you rather stay the night with me? I’m working the late shift tomorrow, so we can sleep in.”
For the first time that night, TJ smiled happily. “Let’s go to your place. I need you to hold me.”
Shooter grinned lasciviously. “In that case, you’ve come to the right man.”
When they got to Shooter’s apartment, TJ walked straight toward the bedroom, unbuttoning her blouse as she went. “I don’t know about you, but I feel grimy after spending all day in the lab. I’m gonna take a shower.”
Shooter was right behind her. “Last one in is a rotten egg,” he shouted, stripping off his shirt before he finished the sentence.
He stepped into the shower, turning the water on as hot as he could stand it, knowing that’s how TJ liked it. As the steam billowed up in thick clouds, fogging the shower door, TJ entered with him.
He turned, letting the water cascade off his back, turning it the color of a fresh-cooked lobster, and stared at her. She was naked, standing in the open door, hip cocked in a provocative pose, staring at him.
Shooter felt himself harden at the sight of her nudity and couldn’t keep his eyes off her breasts as the water splashed over them, tiny droplets hanging from her nipples, which were hard with desire.
As he opened his arms, she moved against him, nuzzling his neck with her lips as her hands took hold of him, gently massaging and kneading and stroking.
She let go long enough to pull the bandage off his neck and place her lips against the small twin scabs where she’d bitten him the night before. She licked and sucked until his blood began to run again. The taste made her wild; she grabbed his shoulders and hoisted herself up onto him, spearing herself upon his manhood as he gasped in sudden pleasure.
The steam prevented him from seeing how her teeth slowly elongated and her nails grew into claws as her features began to change and coarsen under the influence of the blood on her tongue.
She ground her pelvis against his, grunting and growling deep in her throat, visions of the Vampyre Niemann in her mind as she recalled a similar coupling in the shower of his lair months before.
Shooter, unaware of the changes taking place in his lover, grasped her buttocks in his hands and pulled her tight against him as his penis swelled and exploded inside her.
TJ had to use all her willpower not to rend and tear his back with her claws as she sucked his neck and continued her wild pumping against his pelvis.
Finally, she leaned her head back and howled as she came with him, clutching him tightly with her legs around his waist.
Shooter, exhausted with the effort, fell back against the wall of the shower, eyes closed in ecstasy and fulfillment.
TJ laid her head on his neck as the water from the shower washed the remnants of blood off her mouth, and her features gradually changed back to normal.
“Jesus!” Shooter whispered into her ear. He turned the water off and carried her, still pressed against him, into the bedroom. He laid her, still dripping wet, on the bed, and flopped down on his back next to her. “That was incredible.”
TJ opened her eyes, still dazed from her visions of Niemann and the violence of her orgasm. She saw twin drops of blood ooze from the wound on Shooter’s neck and slowly trickle downward. Her nipples hardened and she felt her sex throb and become wet again. Rolling on her side, she placed her hand on his groin and slowly moved it back and forth.
Shooter turned his head to stare at her. “You want more?” he asked incredulously.
“Not just yet,” TJ said in a husky voice. “I’ll give you a few minutes to recover.”
“A few minutes, hell. I may need a week,” Shooter protested weakly.
TJ felt a stirring beneath her hand, and she grinned up at him. “Oh, I don’t think it’ll take quite that long,” she murmured, burying her face against his neck and rolling on top of him, pressing her breasts against his chest.
As he entered her, Shooter grabbed her hips and gasped in pleasure, hardly noticing the stinging in his neck.