henri dunn 01 - immortality cure Read Free Page A

Which means wasting blood is generally a no-no. Leaving behind bodies is definitely on the “don’t” list. It was possible a vampire had gotten in and killed Ray with a knife, but that scenario had its problems. The wasted blood, sure, but also the locks.
    Unlike in fairy tales, vampires can’t turn into smoke. Most vampires can’t use powers of suggestion, either. (I know exactly one who can, and she’s got scary good psychic abilities. But she’s also living in Madrid, last I heard.) So whoever had killed Ray needed to be let in, and while Ray may have been in awe of supernatural creatures, he wasn’t an idiot. He knew the vampires of Seattle were not thrilled with Neha’s little Cure. He’d be monumentally stupid to let one of them into the lab if they’d traced it back here.
    “Well?” Neha asked, still staring at bits of broken glass littering the floor. It looked like someone had knocked over some beakers.
    “You guys didn’t distribute your wares here, right?”
    “Never,” she answered immediately. “Ray usually handed the street substances off to Alana at a bar or restaurant. She’s our dealer. And she doesn’t know where the lab is.”
    “Who does?” I ask.
    “It’s a short list of people. A couple of UPS guys. I pay someone off at the electric company to look the other way at how much wattage we use for an abandoned office.”
    I considered. Ray was basically a high-end drug manufacturer, and he was working on his werewolf project. That made him a big target. I wasn’t surprised he’d been murdered. I was surprised he’d been murdered inside the lab, with its strong security measures.
    “It was locked when you got here?”
    Neha nodded and folded her arms over her chest. She glanced uneasily at Ray’s body. “The door locks automatically.”
    I turned back to Ray’s bloated corpse. The blood smelled stale and sweet. I pressed my finger into the wound at his throat. The flesh was sticky and gave too easily. Gelatinous blood coated my finger, cold in the way blood should never be unless you’re a masochist vampire who stores it in the fridge. Without thinking, I popped the finger into my mouth.
    Neha gasped. I ignored her, but frankly, I was surprised, too. It wasn’t until the coppery taste hit my tongue that I even realized what I was doing. It tasted old and dead.
    And then I got a flash in my mind like a clip from a bad movie. Ray, struggling with someone, being pushed into the chair. The feeling of the blade hitting his neck from behind and the pain of the sharp metal slicing his throat. I gasped, hand going to my neck. An acrid, acid taste coated my tongue.
    “Are you okay?” Neha asked. Her expression was full of concern, and while I was sure most of that was for herself and the fate of her lab, I got the impression that at least some of it was for me. I wondered if she regretted what she’d done to me or if she relished it. If I was her lab rat and her interest was purely clinical.
    I pushed that thought aside. Anger at her wasn’t going to get rid of Ray’s body. But I didn’t want to tell her that the blood had given me a glimpse into Ray’s final moments. I had steadfastly refused to share any of the side effects of her serum with her, and that wasn’t going to change just because of a temporary truce. If she wanted that kind of information, she should have found a test subject who consented to the experiment.
    “I was just thinking that the killer probably slit his throat from behind,” I said.
    “So?” Neha asked. “I don’t care how they killed him. I care who did it and why.”
    I shrugged nonchalantly, but inwardly I was shaken. The fact that tasting this man’s old, dead blood could give me a glimpse into his final moments was utterly shocking.
    As a vampire, drinking a living person’s blood often came with snatches of their memories, images of their pasts, and, if you drained them completely, their final thoughts before their heart stopped. If eyes