Chapter Twenty

Topside, 4:21 a.m.

Dev woke to the steadysoft bleep-bleep-bleep of a heart monitor and the low didgeridoo of other hospital machinery. Physical sensations entered his consciousness next, the pinch of an IV needle at his wrist, a firm mattress's over-starched sheets nice and crisp beneath his ass. He registered only a slight ache on his back—Teer slamming him into a wall—and along his shoulder—an incompetent cop shooting him multiple times. The majority of the pain was being dulled by whatever drugs were coming in through the IV and making his head trip the light fantastic. His mouth was dry as the bottom of a combat boot. Jesus, he needed to feed. Where the hell was his donor…?

A soda can pop-fizzed open. "So how're you feeling, sport?"

Dev stopped breathing, his heartbeat slowing to a near halt, survival instinct shifting him down into hyper-stillness. He wasn't…in ??ran?'s hospital.

"I can tell you're awake," the man's voice came again, the tone of it starting to sound familiar. "Your heart rate changed."

Dev pried open both eyes, then immediately squinted. The fluorescent lights were like one-zillion-watt tractor beams being shot directly into his retinas. How much blood had he lost, exactly? He needed to feed bad. He blinked several times, focusing on the man standing at the foot of the bed: neatly trimmed brown hair, a lean, athletic body, and a pair of uniquely colored blue-green eyes. The right sleeve of the guy's shirt was bulkier than the other, suggesting that his arm was wrapped in a bandage. Great. This was the dipshit from Kendra's house.

Dev coughed the scratchiness from his throat. "They just letting gun-toting schmucks waltz into hospitals these days?"

The man smiled, the expression cutting lines into the sides of his mouth that probably made most women squirm in their panties. "I'm Detective John Waterson of the SDPD." He took a sip of his Coke. "Sorry about shooting you, but…" He shrugged, looking pretty damned unrepentant. "You were caught in the commission of a crime."

Waterson. Hell, Dev knew the name. This is the choad Jacken had put down for the count at Scripps Hospital; an understandable move on Jacken's part, seeing as this particular cop had a serious hard-on for Toni and was making a habit of sticking his nose into Om R?u and Varcolac business, where it definitely didn't belong.

"I wasn't committing a crime," Dev returned blithely. "I was trying to prevent one. Something you would've detected, Detective, if you hadn't been in the middle of an all-out shoot-'em-up panic."

Waterson's smile tightened at the corners, his expression chilling. "I also shot one of the men who abducted Miss Mawbry. Tell me." He set a file on the hospital tray attached to Dev's bed. "Why would that man bleed acid?"

Dev arched his brows high, then snorted, pretending to think the idea was absurd. "Have you been hitting the crack pipe from the police evidence locker, man? Nobody bleeds acid." Except for Topside Om R?u assholes who wear enchanted immortality rings.

Waterson set down his Coke and pulled a small, spiral notebook out of his breast pocket. He flipped it open and read from it, quoting Dev's own words back to him. "'You have no idea what kind of rathole they're taking her to.'" Setting the notebook on the tray next to the file, he met Dev's eyes. "You know who those men are, champ, and I'd like you to enlighten me."

Dev dragged his tongue across his cracked lips. What he wouldn't give to go back to being unconscious and escape this conversation…escape, also, a blood-need that was rapidly shrinking his stomach down to the size of an over-wrinkled raisin.

"Miss Mawbry also called out ‘help me,'" Waterson continued, "when you made your entrance into her living room. At first I thought she was yelling that at me because of you, but now I realize that she was yelling that at you." He paused, like he was adding extra drama to the little interrogation scenario he had going here. "Because she knew you." Waterson picked up his Coke and took another slow sip. "Would that be because your security team saved her the other night, chief?"

Dev gave Waterson a droll look. "Well, I guess that's something you'll never find out for sure, will you, zippy"—he sneered—"seeing as you let her get taken."

Anger sparked blue-green lights in Waterson's eyes. "Why don't you tell me about the top secret research institute you work for, Mr. Nichita."

Dev hooded his lids. "'Fraid I don't know what you're talking about. I was just a concerned citizen who happened to be passing by."

"One who carries a military-issue M4?" Waterson made a sound in his throat. "I'm not drinking that Kook-Aide, pal."

"Suit yourself." Dev shrugged, then winced in pain. Sweat was running down the sides of his face. He was feeling like serious hell now, the gathering cobwebs in his head making it more and more difficult to track this cat-and-mouse game the cop seemed intent on playing.

Waterson flipped a page in his notebook and read again. "On Wednesday, January 20th, a Dr. Anto?netta Parthen went missing from her hospital room at Scripps Memorial Hospital after suffering a concussion in a car crash. Evidence suggests that a crime had been committed in her room just prior to her disappearance; there was a hole in the wall, some acid damage"—he paused to glance up and repeat "acid" with emphasis. "And a pool of blood left behind that was neither Dr. Parthen's nor a Nurse Hollowitz's, who was injured at the scene."

A vein in Dev's forehead pounded. No, it'd been Vinz's blood. The warrior had taken a B?taie Blade to his chest during a confrontation with Topside Om R?u fuck-nuts, Murk and Ren.

"This blood tested as having a strange element in it, one not entirely human." Waterson exhaled forcefully. "Not human? Wow, what do you make of that?"

Dev just stared, the muscles in his neck straining as he tried to swallow. The inside of his mouth had gone from combat boot to Death Valley a while back. If he got sick enough, he supposed the hospital would try pumping him full of blood, but that wouldn't do him a damn bit of good. A Varcolac needed to ingest his blood in a cocktail with his own Fiin??, but he couldn't exactly tell the hospital staff that, so…he was headed full speed for a hurt locker. All the more reason to get the hell out of this humanoid St. Elsewhere. Trouble was, he wasn't sure if he could manage it on his own locomotion, and if the hospital staff got bunched and tried to stop him, not to mention Waterson, there was every chance they'd succeed. So whatever behind-the-scenes plans his men were devising—because it was impossible that they'd just left him—they'd better be working it in overdrive.

"Nothing to say? Hmm, interesting. Because, you see," with the edge of his thumb, Waterson opened the file on Dev's hospital tray and peered down at the top page, "according to these tests the hospital just ran on you," he looked up and locked eyes with Dev, "your blood has this same strange element."

Dev's heart monitor jumped an erratic bleep. He gritted his teeth around a silent curse.

Waterson glanced at the monitor and straightened, a shit-eating smile on his face. "Blood, blood, blood. What is it about this case and blood?" He crossed his arms and smoothed a hand over his jaw. "Your doctors think you have leukemia, you know. It seems your white count is extremely high and your red blood cells oddly low. Oops, I wasn't supposed to tell you that, but we both know it's not true. Why don't you tell me who you are, what you are? The name Devid Nichita doesn't show up in any of our databases."

Dev unglued his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "Did you flunk detective school, Waterson? 'Cause it just seems to me that a smart cop might figure there's a good reason for that."

"I'm exceptionally good at keeping secrets, so please…" Waterson gestured Dev onward, his smile growing really fucking punch-worthy. Waterson tapped an index finger on Dev's tray, waiting, then, "Hey, you ever see the movie Splash? Remember when the girl was found out as a mermaid, how the scientists stuck her in a tank and did all kinds of experiments on her?" One of Waterson's eyebrows hitched. "How'd you feel about going through a little something like that?"

Dev's belly rolled over on a wave of nausea, his throat pinching down to a thin cable. This tool of a detective had just pegged his worst fear, just about any Varcolac's, in fact. Some people had nightmares about being buried alive or were afraid to fly. Dev's phobia was about being systematically dissected into a million pieces as some egghead researcher tried to figure out what made a vampire tick. "Are you saying you think I'm a merman?" Unfortunately, his attempt at a wry tone came out as a dried-up croak.

"I think you're something. And I believe I'm in a position to use whatever means necessary to find out." Waterson glanced pointedly at Dev's left wrist.

Dev followed the direction of the detective's look, and saw that the wrist without the IV was handcuffed to the hospital bedrail. No big deal to a fully-functioning Varcolac. Handcuffs could be snapped like string—although the need to hide that power might prove problematic—but Dev was rapidly losing the ability even to walk out of this hospital, much less perform phenomenal feats of strength. Which meant—

Waterson had him trapped.

Remember how the scientists stuck that mermaid in a tank and did all kinds of experiments on her…? Panic shot through Dev's stomach and bowels, the beep-beep-beeping of his heart monitor jacking into a riotous rate as adrenaline flooded his body.

Waterson's eyebrows flew up. "Well, well," he drawled in a satisfied tone. "That thought bothers you a great deal, I see. Why would it? Unless, of course, you have something to hide?"

"Go fuck yourself," Dev gnashed through his teeth. Done with being on display, he seized a fistful of the wires attached to his chest and ripped off the little round pads, sputtering the heart monitor into flatline. As a little alarm eeeeeped, he went for his IV next—he couldn't damn well think his way through this mess on drugs—biting into the needle and jerking it out. Blood squirted from his wrist.

"Hey—!" Waterson leapt at him.

Like the cornered animal he was, Dev lashed out, catching the detective on the side of the face with a brutal backhand. Blood from Dev's wrist splattered the detective's cheek, and the adrenaline-backed force of the blow whipped Waterson's head to the side and sent him spinning into the IV stand.

"Touch me and I'll kill you." Dev's voice was a dangerous growl of warning, hardly recognizable.

Waterson stumbled out of the tangle of IV hoses with murder in his eyes, breath sawing in and out of his nose. The imprint of Dev's hand stood out bright red against the white anger of the detective's complexion.

"Heavens to Betsy!" a nurse gasped as she charged into the room. "What's going on?"

"Police business!" Waterson snarled at her, snatching up Dev by the hospital gown and hauling him to within an inch of his face, cold fury flashing in the depths of his blue-green eyes. "Stop lying to me, you fucking piece of shit, you hear me. I'm sick and goddamned tired of it!"

"Oh, dear." The nurse turned and scuttled back out.

Dev pressed his lips closed. Between the smell of his own blood and the cop's aggression, his fangs were ripping down from his gums. Unfortunately, Waterson interpreted the gesture as further obstinacy.

He gave Dev a hard shake, jarring his shoulder. "I want the truth!"

Dev sucked in an abrasive breath as blinding spears of pain electrified the room around him. He wrapped one hand around the cop's wrist, the other hand rattling ineffectually at the bedrail, and tried to pry the man's hold loose. His hospital gown ripped. The dickhead wouldn't let go.

"You have been told the truth," Dev said through tight, fang-concealing lips, "the last night you saw Dr. Toni Parthen at Scripps Hospital." His hand started to shake, and he let go of Waterson's wrist before he gave away that he'd expended his last reserves. "You just don't want to believe it, you weak tit, because if you did, you'd have to accept that Toni would rather willingly work at a research institute than go off and have babies with you. Oh, ho! Now see who's bothered a great deal."

Waterson's eyes were wide, exploding emeralds.

"Get your hands off me!" Dev seethed between fangs and teeth, "before I—"

"My, my, look at this," came a female voice from over by the door. "This makes my day, truly it does."

Dev's pulse jumped in his throat. He recognized the voice. It wasn't the nurse, it was…it was… Oh, Jesus God, his men had come to his rescue. They'd called in Kimberly.