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"Two guards dead," DPI supervisor Wes Fuller repeated, though everyone in this staffalready knew the body count "Six others injured And that bastard Jaone, free as a bird" He rapped the pipe, bon, against the glass ashtray, expelling the spent tobacco

"Doesn&039;t matter" Chief aide Stiles went over the checklist on his clipboard, nodding as he did "We got everything we needed from him Our theory was correct Once they&039;re transforh, while they&039;re still hu Animals, all of them"

"Yes, well" Stiles cleared his throat "At any rate, before that kind is changed over, they&039;re fertile The belladonna antigen doesn&039;t seem to affect the sperm count"

"That&039;s what I was afraid of" Fuller pushed his chair away fro in protest of his bulk, and got to his feet He turned his gaze to Dr Rose Sversky, as pushing seventy, and still the sharpest member of DPIs research teao with her pixielike frarandbabies, not dissecting vampires

"You have the data?" Fuller asked "What&039;s the breakdown?"

Rose adjusted her Coke-bottle-thick eyeglasses and cleared her throat "Of the twelve thousand, five hundred female subjects we&039;ve tested and/or autopsied in the past two decades," she said, her voice clinical and cold, "just over three thousand still had viable egg cells in their ovaries Ninety-eight percent of those had been transformed for less than a year None of them for more than twenty-three lasses down a notch to peer at him over the tops of them "To break it down, Mr Fuller, yes It is entirely possible that a newly formed female vampire could mate with a mortal male, and produce a child"

Hilary Garner&039;s pencil lead snapped off The sound drew Fuller&039;s cold eyes, and he scowled at her "Try and keep up, Garner We&039;ll need these notes"

"Yes, sir" She blinked the horror from her eyes, and went to the desk for a fresh pencil She&039;d only recently been promoted to this position, executive secretary to Weston Fuller It cahtening, sickening revelations as to what this organization was truly about

She hadn&039;t believed her friend and co-worker Tao, when she&039;d tried to warn her She hadn&039;t seen anything to indicate that what Tas, the torture, thedown at her reflection in the solid silver pencil holder on Fuller&039;s expensive desk Caramel skin, and wide brown eyes with a fe&039;s feet at the corners stared back at her, and her reflection whispered, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Hurry it up, Garner I haven&039;t got all day"

Clearing her throat, Hilary snatched a pencil from the holder and hurried back to her seat beside Chief Fuller

"Now then," he began, still addressing Rose Sversky, who looked far too sweet and far too old to be involved in a covert governency But she was involved Up to her bushy white eyebrows She was the world&039;s top-and, Hilary thought, likely the world&039;s only -forensic pathologist specializing in the examination of the re and Hilary was supposed to be paying attention

"Suppose one of these feen? What would the results be?"

Rose shrugged "A baby, I iine" She winked, and an uneasy chuckle went around the table

"Yes, but what kind of baby?" Fuller looked around the rooent at the conference table one by one "Don&039;t you see what I&039; at here? Should these creatures find a way to reproduce, we&039;d be outnu we do about it?" Every eye turned to Hilary when she blurted the question

Hell, she wasn&039;t supposed to have any input at all here Just sit quietly and take notes while the big boys made their plans Rose was the only female at the table besides Hilary, and she was only there because they couldn&039;t get by without her

Wes Fuller leaned back in his chair, crossed his ar an apology Hilary sat up a little straighter, looking hi hi point, and finally he ca toward her "What we&039;re going to do about it, Miss Garner, is find out"

"F-findout?"

"Find out what the results of such awould be Research, Garner That&039;s e do here" He nodded to Stiles, returning to his for position in his chair as helunch "We have the frozen samples from Jameson Bryant, and you say they&039;re fertile?"

"Yes, sir"

"Good" Then he turned his attention to Whaley, the eastern regional operative coordinator "We&039;ll need a feed over Preferably close by so we don&039;t run into trouble getting her here" Whaley nodded once, sharply "I&039;ll put every operative in the area on alert We&039;ll have a subject within the week"

"Good" Fuller s her feel dirty inside "You have any sort of proble

"I hope not," Fuller told her "Because we deal harshly with employees who can&039;t stomach the e do here, Miss Garner Very harshly"

"I understand," she said, aze onceeyes, that she did She understood perfectly If she tried to get out, tried to walk awayshe would die

Or disappear, just like pretty young Tao And no one would ever be the wiser

Fuller dismissed them, and one by one they filed out of his office He stopped her at the door and nodded back at the notepad she&039;d left on the table "Have those notes typed up and ready for me within the hour," he barked, and then he pushed past her into the corridor with the others

Hilary only nodded and watched hiht her head up fast, and searched Rose Sversky&039;s aging face as she gathered file folders froainst her better judgment, Hilary closed the door

"Rosehow can you be a part of so a sheet before closing a folder and adding it to her stack "So like what?

It&039;s research It&039;s necessary"

"It&039;s more than that"

Rose looked at her then, really looked at her She pulled her glasses lower on her nose, tilted her head back and seemed to search Hilary&039;s face

Hilarycloser she could reach the woman "This place is a prison Do you know they have prisoners in the sublevels? Locked up in cells like animals?"

"Of course I know, dear I&039;m the head researcher"

She could have slapped Hilary and shocked her less "You know?" Rose nodded God, Hilary thought, she&039;d probably known all along Hilary had found out only recently, and she&039;d stupidly assu old woman would be as appalled and horrified by the news as she had been "But, Rose"

"But nothing We&039;re not talking genocide here These are anis For heaven&039;s sakes, it&039;s them or us Surely you can see that" Hilary took a backward step, the wind knocked out of her "Butbut what they want to do! A baby, for the love of Christ! And ill happen to it if they succeed?"

"Not a baby A pup A young anilasses back to their forhed "It would be the most incredible research opportunity we&039;ve ever had" Hilary sed the bile that rose in her throat This was the stuff of night to throw up Was this sweet little old lady actually getting wistful about the chance to carve up a child? Her hands were da, and she felt dizzy as a sense of unreality washed over her Her knees tried to buckle She braced a hand on the table to keep fro a step forward, narrowing her eyes "You do understand why this is necessary, don&039;t you? Because, if you don&039;t-" her face softened with a blatantly false s her eyes "-I can arrange to have you taken off this case Perhaps you weren&039;t quite ready for this promotion Not everyone can handle the research we do here, and DPI is quite aware of that"

Her voice had changed Becoary And there was a dark suspicion behind that fake concern in her eyes

Of course DPI is aware of it And the ones who can&039;t stomach the work here disappear without a trace

Hilary sed hard, shook her head "No, I think I understand it better now You&039;re right It&039;s necessary I&039;lad we talked"

"Of course," Rose replied, and her sivings, you can coht?"

"Thank you I&039;ll do that" And you&039;ll run right back to Fuller to report everything I say Hell, you&039;ll probably add this little conversation to their file on ed her stack of manila folders to her chest and left the office Hilary leaned back against the door, and tried to quell the nausea She&039;d said toofirst Let herself see Rose Sversky as a stereotype A sweet old lady Sorandma Mrs Santa Claus Dammit, she was nuts to have opened this can of worms with that wo for years Years! Hell, she was likely a part of them!

And ould she do now? Had Hilary saved herself in tiiven herself away completely? And what if she had?

She was scared Jesus, she was scared

Jameson and the others stayed a few days in Rhiannon&039;sManhattan penthouse Heavy black draperies lined every ith dark shades beneath them And there wasn&039;t a coffin in the place Everyone slept in beds, by Rhiannon&039;s order She liked the good life, Rhiannon did Satin sheets on every bunk in the suite