Page 8 of Hunt the Dusk
Harriet Jacq pouredtea into Padma’s cup, her gaze flicking to Godor every so often almost warily. The bat boy crouched by the exit, his expression one of focused intensity as he watched her every move. He reminded me of a cat preparing to pounce. All he needed now was the telltale hunter butt wiggle, and I had no doubt that Harriet sensed it too. But she hadn’t asked him to leave. Yet.
He’d refused to come inside, but his vigilance warned that this woman was probably not to be trusted. So why was Padma here, trusting this woman with her secret? This woman who looked around the same age as me but whose eyes spoke of age and wisdom. I could usually tell if someone was other, and alarm bells were going off inside me when it came to Doctor Jacq.
She set a cup in front of me, and I shook my head.
I didn’t want tea, I wanted answers, but it was obvious that Padma needed a moment to gather her thoughts.
I gave her that moment by aiming the spotlight on the doctor. “What are you?”
Harriet’s brows flicked up. “A little intrusive, don’t you think?”
“Yes. But I need you to answer me.”
“I’m human, like you…mostly.” She smiled, closed-lipped, before sipping her tea. “That’s all you need to know, and all I’m willing to tell you.”
“You smell of death,” Godor said, his eyes narrowing.
“You have a good nose. I’m around dead bodies a lot.”
“A mortician?”
She tipped her head to the side. “Among other things.”
Then what was Padma doing here? “Padma, what’s going on?”
She exhaled. “Look, something happened to me a few months ago. After the fire. Edwin and Haiden know, but Merry…There was no point in telling her because she forgets anywayso…yeah.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay, so if I’m going to explain this then I need to start from the beginning. From the fire.”
“Okay. I’m listening.”
She nodded. “It was a late call. Two in the morning. Prime time for sucker activity and Sangualex jurisdiction, but they called us in anyway. That was the first off thing. I mean, we’d dealt with fires and other things during the day when they needed the help, but the nighttime…never. It was down by the docks. An old boathouse next to a small restaurant. The boathouse was ablaze by the time we got there, and the flames had caught on to the restaurant. We rushed inside to evacuate the people, but there were no humans inside. Just a bunch of dead vampires. Staked or headless. Some already ash, which told us a few of them were ancient. By this time, alarm bells were going off in my head. I ordered everyone to get out, but Merry heard banging from inside the walk-in freezer. Someone was locked inside. The flames were getting crazy. It was risky to cross the room to let them out, but I chose to take the risk.
“We opened the doors, and a bunch of vampires spilled out. They were wounded and bloodthirsty. They attacked us, but there was one who tried to help stop them. He wasn’t as wounded as the others and was still in control of his bloodlust. They were gunning for Merry because of her faeblood. But this one vampire protected her and got her out. We were close behind them when the beams gave way. Kassi, Ben, all the others…” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Only Edwin and I made it out.
“We found Merry unconscious on the ground a few meters away. The vampire who’d helped her was nothing but ash. Someone had killed him and knocked Merry out. Edwin picked her up, and we ran for the van, and that’s when the mullo appeared behind us. I shoved Edwin out of reach of the fog, butit swallowed me.” She stopped and took a gulp of her tea. “Being in the mist is like walking into your worst fears and becoming part of the nightmare. I was probably only in its grip for seconds, but it felt…it felt like an age. An age of dying over and over in different ways.”
“It’s how they feed,” Harriet said. “They use fear to disable their prey as they feast. Padma is lucky to be alive.”
“Lucky?” Padma’s lip curled. “Death would have been kinder. Edwin pulled me out, but it was too late.” She tugged down the shoulder of her top to expose the skin beneath, lined with black veins. “I’m infected. The virus in their saliva has no known cure. My blood is tainted now, and it’s turning me into one of them.”
“We don’t know that,” Harriet said. “No one has survived a mullo attack before. Not that we know of. So we have no idea what you’ll become.”
“Harriet has been transfusing me. Taking the tainted blood and putting fresh blood into me every week. It’s helped to slow down the infection, but my body continues to produce the tainted cells.”
“It’s in your bones now,” Harriet said. “In your very DNA.”
“No, there’s got be a way to cure it. To…revert it. Edwin will find a way.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility to put on him,” Harriet said.
Padma covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“Let it take its course,” she said to her, then to me, “I have a safe place she can make the change and then we can run tests and see what we can do to help her. It’s impossible to find a cure for something when we don’t know exactly what we’re trying to cure. Your cells are still in metamorphosis.”
But what if there was no reversion? What if once she turned that was it? “No, we have to try to find a cure. I’ll help with research too.”
Padma looked up at me in surprise. “You will? But you have so much to deal with already.”
“I can handle it. I want to help.”
