Lust for Life Read online

  The term “immanence” has many meanings, but in the Control it refers to the divine presence on earth. It also means “inherent.” Since the Control considers magic a form of divinity, the IC is populated with those supposedly born with paranormal abilities.

  I say “supposedly” because I’m a diehard skeptic, and that’s where my power lies. My blood as a human—and my mind as a vampire—can reverse the effects of holy water, which is supposed to leave permanent scars. This magic runs in my family, but no one’s blood was as powerful as mine. Too bad I had to die and deprive vampire-dom of their best ever skin-care regimen.

  “Lanham stuck me in IC,” I point out to Elijah, “and I’m not connected to the divine at all. I think that was his point.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think the Control wanted to see if I could neutralize my comrades and their alleged paranormal abilities.”

  “Huh. As long as they’re not using you to mess with your fellow vampire agents, in the fine tradition of the Immanence Corps.”

  I grimace at his reference to Project Blood Leash, the movement spearheaded by my former IC commander (“former,” because I killed him). Last April, Colonel Petrea and his daughter Tina raised most of the corpses lying in Sherwood Cemetery. He manipulated the zombies’ actions through blood magic, hoping to use that same kind of control on his fellow vampires. An unintended side effect was the spread of a mutant chickenpox virus that killed me and Franklin’s boyfriend, Aaron.

  “IC wouldn’t dare mess with vampires while the Project Blood Leash investigation is going on. They’ll be sanctioned as it is. But even if they try to use me that way, it won’t work. I’m not that powerful. It’s not like I can de-vamp someone.”

  Shane and Agent Rosso take aim at the person-shaped targets, the water in their pistols colored blue and red, respectively, so they can see where they hit.

  “Hmm.” Elijah rubs his chin. “If someone had that power, to unmake a vampire, wonder how many of us would volunteer?”

  Agent Rosso’s voice rings out. “Fire!”

  They aim for the heads. Shane starts out too low but adjusts his angle until the target’s face is soaked in blue water. A real vampire’s eyes would be gone.

  “Wouldn’t it be safer to practice with regular water?” I ask Elijah. “That’s what we did in my basic training.”

  “Enforcement agents have to learn to handle holy water and get used to the splash back, because it does happen, no matter how you protect yourself.” He pushes up his left sleeve, displaying the lighter underside of his forearm, where half a dozen black scars lie scattered like seeds.

  “Isn’t that the arm you lost in the zombie attack?”

  “Yep.” He rubs the dark brown skin. “When it grew back, all my old scars were there. Funny, huh?”

  Agent Rosso lowers his weapon and turns to us. His look of warning shuts us up.

  We stay quiet while Shane and Rosso finish their target practice, then Elijah steps down for a round of hand-to-hand training. Shane pummels the shields Rosso holds up. His legs and arms blur as he executes the maneuvers I remember from orientation, and many more complex ones. I wouldn’t want to meet Shane in a dark alley. If I were anyone other than myself, of course.

  When they’re finished, Shane and Agent Rosso walk over—or rather, Rosso walks, Shane staggers. He towels off his face and gulps water, looking human in the best way possible.

  “Hey.” He leans over and gives me a quick kiss.

  I look past him at Elijah and Rosso. “Can you guys come work him out like this at home? I love it when he sweats.”

  Shane grimaces and pinches the front of his damp T-shirt. “I’m off to take a shower. Be back in five.”

  I watch him stride toward the locker room with Rosso, his gait much steadier than a moment ago. Then I hop off the bleacher and help Elijah collect the equipment.

  “So how does your arm feel?” I ask Elijah while we drag the mat off the center of the floor. “Now that it’s back.”

  “Itches like a motherfucker, deep inside where I can’t scratch, so I guess it’s still healing.” He drops the mat on the stack beside the wall, then reaches back and undoes the Velcro straps on his stakeproof vest. “But at least I’m back on the job.”

  We collect the holy-water pistols and punching pad thingies and carry them to the equipment closet, where I nudge the light switch with my shoulder.

  Elijah puts the punching pads on a shelf. “But you know what? If I hadn’t been injured, I probably would’ve been on strike anyway.”

  “Because of Petrea and Project Blood Leash?”

  “You know it.” He gives me a look of regret. “It’s hard for recruits to understand, especially when you’re left all up in the air about when you’re gonna serve your tour of duty.”

  “Why would I be dying to join an organization that wants to control my every move—literally?” I hang Elijah’s stakeproof vest on a wall hook. “I just want to start so I can get it over with. Sorry, I know this is your calling, but I’m only here because I have to be. Same with Shane.”

  “Maybe you’ll change your mind once you’re in.”

  “You mean once I’m brainwashed by the military machine? I don’t think so.”

  “Beats working at a desk job.”

  “I like desk jobs—climate-controlled environment, frequent snack breaks, office gossip with my best friend. Oh, and if I screw up? No one dies.”

  He shakes his head and says with a chuckle, “Sounds boring.”

  • • •

  “You looked hot working out in that gym,” I tell Shane as we enter the Control headquarters command building. “It’s a macho side of you I don’t get to see much.”

  “You know what they say.” He swings his gym bag in an exaggerated fashion. “Some men choose machismo, and some have machismo thrust upon them.”

  I’m about to make a comment about having machismo thrust upon me when I hear footsteps around the corner. We slow as we approach the main command hallway. It’s a human female, judging by the sound of her heels clicking on the spotless, polished floor.

  I instinctively drop Shane’s hand, to adhere to the no-PDA-in-uniform rule, before realizing we’re not in uniform.

  The woman approaching is quieter than most humans, so I bet she lives with vampires. When I was a human living with Shane, it was hard to get used to his stillness, but ultimately I found it soothing and became hyperaware of my own noises. As a vampire myself, I’ve found the hardest part of passing as a human is learning how not to go completely motionless around them, like a predator among prey.

  Which we are, of course. The Control knows this, and yet, thanks to people like Colonel Lanham, it treats us with respect instead of fear. Except when it doesn’t.

  We turn the corner to see a face from my worst nightmares.

  “Special Agent Codreanu-Petrea.” Shane nods to the fiftyish flame-haired woman, then takes my hand again, knowing I need his touch.

  I swallow, glad we’re not supposed to salute indoors. My hand would be shaking all the way up and down. I clear my throat to address her, but she steps in to save me.

  “Agent McAllister. Agent Griffin.” She gives us a warm smile. “Please, call me Anca. My last name is a mouthful.”

  It’s more than a mouthful—it’s a horror. Codreanu was the name of the founder of the Iron Guard, a fascist group that terrorized Romania during the thirties and forties. Their anti-Semitism was so vicious, even the Nazis asked them to ease up. (I know, because they were the subject of my last college paper.)

  And Petrea? That’s the surname of the man I killed.

  “How is your training coming along?” Anca asks Shane in a faint Romanian accent.

  “Very well, thank you.” Shane blinks twice—a gesture I’ve noticed has replaced his old smirk. He’s about to say something ironic. “It’s more to my liking than I would’ve thought.”

  “Excellent. We need good vampires like you in Enforcement.”
>
  “Good vampires, as opposed to good humans?” I ask her. “Or good vampires, as opposed to bad vampires?” I’m not being pedantic . . . okay, I am being pedantic, but this isn’t about my compulsion. I want to know how she feels about vampires now that her undead husband is dead forever.

  Her smile tweaks into a crooked curve. “We need good people.”

  That didn’t answer my question, but she’s a superior officer (agent, whatever), so I can’t go all Law & Order on her.

  She shifts her leather file folder to her left hand and reaches out to touch my arm. “And, Ciara, how are you handling your new life?”

  Suddenly thirsty and extraconscious of the heat of her skin relative to mine, I resist the urge to step away. “Fine, thanks. It’s not that new. I’ve been a vampire over six months now.”

  She gives me a bemused smile. “If there’s anything I can do, please let me know. Even just a chat, woman to woman. I’m not a vampire, but I lived with one for thirty years. I’ve fought beside them. I teach Advanced Human-Vampire Relations at orientation. So I know what you’re going through.” A business card appears between her fingers. “Call me? I feel responsible for what you are, and I am so very sorry.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “My daughter stole my necromancy texts to raise those cadaveris accurrens.” That’s the Control term for zombies. It means “running carcasses.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Tina did it because she thought Stefan and I were disappointed in her lack of magic.” Her voice is nearly as mesmerizing as a vampire’s. “If we’d been more supportive parents, she wouldn’t have had to prove herself in such a shameful way. And you wouldn’t have died.”

  The rage still simmers inside me. Tina got a reduced sentence in a Control correctional facility in exchange for ratting out her dead-undead father. But I want to see her in a civilian prison for the deaths she caused.

  I hold it all in and just say, “Thanks. I’ll call you.”

  I don’t realize until after we say good-bye and turn down the hall that I actually mean it. Special Agent Codreanu-Petrea could be useful in more ways than one.

  5

  No More Words

  Lieutenant Colonel Winston Lanham usually sports a head shaved so close, you can check your lipstick in the reflection—not that I would recommend it. But every so often he lets it grow out to a quarter-inch buzz cut, as if to prove he still has a full head of hair.

  Right now he has about three weeks of light brown growth the length of indoor-outdoor carpeting.

  As we enter his office, he turns from his vast, wall-size bookshelf. “Griffin. McAllister. You’re early.”

  I check my watch. “We’re five minutes late, sir.”

  “For you, that’s early.” He points to a pair of chairs on the other side of his wide oak desk.

  Even in the act of sitting, Lanham shows more precision in movement than any other human I’ve met. He could end us without breaking a sweat—I know from experience.

  I try to keep my eyes away from the nameplate on his desk, LT. COL. WINSTON LANHAM, to stop myself from making anagrams of his name.

  Too late. SHAMAN LINT NOW.

  “I trust your training is going well?” It’s a question only because Lanham lifts his voice slightly at the end of the sentence. There is but one correct answer.

  “Yes, sir,” we both say.

  “I’m looking forward to activating both of you soon in your respective divisions. Naturally, you’ll want to start your service as close as possible to each other.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I add, “And we’ll have off the week of December twenty-first for our wedding, right?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “You plan a long honeymoon?”

  “Sadly, no.” Sunlight makes travel risky for vampires, which is why we chose the shortest day of the year to get married. We plan to spend a few nights in a nearby vampire-friendly B and B. “But my mom’s getting out of prison just before the wedding. I’d like to have some time with her.” Assuming she doesn’t permanently pass out when she discovers her daughter’s a vampire.

  Lanham’s eyes soften for a moment, as if I just made him sad. If my already keen observation skills weren’t further enhanced by my vampirism, I’d think I was mistaken. He’s never shown anything resembling personal concern for me. He saved my life earlier this year, but probably because I am useful to him.

  “I understand.” He makes a note on his legal pad with a glistening bronze-colored fountain pen.

  I look at his nameplate again as my anxiety ratchets up a notch. INHALANTS MOWN.

  Shane speaks up. “Sir, we ran into Special Agent Codreanu-Petrea in the hall.”

  “Oh?” Lanham adjusts his dark blue tie. The cracks in his composure, however tiny, are making me nervous. “How would you describe the nature of your interaction?”

  “She was nice,” I tell him. “Too nice. Either she still doesn’t know I killed her husband, or she’s buttering me up as part of a vengeance plot.”

  “The details of Lieutenant Colonel Petrea’s death are classified. Anyone not present on the scene only knows that he was killed by a fellow agent in self-defense. And anyone who was present on the scene—”

  “—is either dead or one of us. Except the agent who was Petrea’s sidekick. The only one Elijah didn’t shoot to death. If the agent was loyal to that family, why wouldn’t he tell Ms. My-Grandfather-Was-a-Fascist?”

  Lanham frowns. “First, we don’t know for certain that Anca is related to Cornelieu Codreanu. Second, we’re preventing the agent in question from speaking to anyone we haven’t authorized. As one of the key conspirators of Project Blood Leash, he’s in a Control penitentiary, awaiting trial.”

  “Sir, if I may ask, how is that investigation going?” Shane’s respectful demeanor contains an edge of anger. “The vampire agents are getting restless. They want results, or more of them will walk.”

  “The investigation is proceeding as fast as I can push it. But I’m only one man—one man who has been known to bend over backward to accommodate vampires.” He pauses to glare at us until we nod in acknowledgment for all he’s done. “As for Anca, she’s been extremely cooperative in this investigation. She’s eager to clear her family’s name of the wrongdoings perpetrated by her daughter and her late husband.”

  Hmm, that’s the second time Lanham has referred to Agent Codreanu-Petrea by her first name. I wonder if they’re friends, or if he’s just saving time and syllables.

  Lanham pulls my personnel folder in front of him on the desk, signaling subject change. “Now, for the reason I called you both here to meet me.”

  I eye my folder, which looks four times as thick as the last time I saw it, then glance at his nameplate. AH SNOWMAN LINT. “You said it was urgent.”

  “Yes. Several months ago I alluded to preliminary conclusions our research division had drawn about the blood you donated when you were a human. Your ‘anti-holy blood,’ as you call it.” He opens a long envelope and pulls out a sheet with charts and figures on it. “The results were inconclusive at first, so we ran several series of tests. It was unfortunate that your death prevented us from collecting more blood.”

  Right. That was unfortunate about my death. “Sorry I inconvenienced you.”

  I expect Lanham to reprimand me for interrupting him, but instead he nods. “I apologize. That was ill put. Your death was a personal tragedy for everyone who . . . who has an interest in you.” He swallows and shifts the folder an inch to the left.

  Whoa. This is the first time I’ve seen Lanham show a speck of human feeling about my death. I’m not sure which bothers me more: the fact that he might care about me, or the fact that I sort of care whether he cares about me.

  I steal a glance at Shane, who’s gripping the arms of the chair like the sides of a lifeboat.

  Lanham clears his throat. Moment over.

  “I know it has always pleased you to think of your heathen self as anti-holy. When a v
ampire drinks your human blood, their holy-water burns heal instantly. You were able to heal your own holy-water burn—and that of your maker—with the power of your mind alone. But your power, such as it is, is not specifically anti-holy. Holiness is just one form of magic.”

  “Magic, sir? Can you define?” He can’t mean like a dude onstage sawing a lady in half or making the Statue of Liberty disappear. Those are mere illusions.

  “Any sort of supernatural occurrence or being. A vampire, for instance, exists because of blood magic. To look at it another way, all forms of magic are a manifestation of the divine, whether or not they reside in overt religious forms. This is why simply being a vampire is enough to qualify you for the Immanence Corps.”

  “Okay.” I have no idea where he’s going with this. My breath quickens and I take one last peek at his nameplate.

  SHALT MAN WIN? NO.

  “Sorry, sir, I just have to . . .” I reach out and turn his nameplate so I can’t see the letters. “There. Thank you.”

  Colonel Lanham eyes the nameplate, two vertical lines appearing between his brows. Then he closes my file and folds his hands atop it. “We have reason to believe that your blood—and, in fact, your entire being—is not anti-holy. More broadly, it’s anti-magic. Anti-supernatural.”

  “Is it genetic?” Shane asks. “Some of her family has anti-holy blood, too.”

  “We’re not certain. There’s an inherited component but also a more, shall we say, philosophical one.”

  “My skepticism.” I love the idea that this ability is partly under my control—as much as beliefs or lack thereof are under anyone’s control.

  “Exactly,” Lanham says. “Your anti-magic abilities are part of your essence, you might say.”

  “Cool.”

  “Not entirely cool.” Lanham shifts a pen from the left side of my personnel folder to the right side, for no apparent reason.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions about your experience as a vampire, and you need to be completely honest. It’s the only way we’ll be able to help you.”