“Are you really this much of a bastard?”

“Does it matter?” he asked. “We’re colleagues, Dr. Abel. Our focus should be on developing a cure for this virus, not making friends.”

She was upset. Of course she was. No matter how many patients he lost, he still felt them. And she’d had only a fraction of his life. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes shone. Part of him wanted to walk over, put his arms around her, and take comfort in her warmth. She tempted him on every level. Her mind. Her body. Her softness and her arrogance. The scent of her blood called to him.

But she was human. She was mortal. She would die like all the rest, and his heart…

That ancient organ could only take so much.

Rada’s emaciated form filled his memory. The memory of her words haunted him. Please, Lucien. Please, end this for me. I hurt so much. Please, my love…

“I expect a progress report on my desk tomorrow night,” Lucien said. “Please attach any relevant data to the report.”

“So you are this much of a bastard,” she muttered. “Fine. I’ll get the report to you when I have the time. I’ll remind you that I do not work for you. I’m cataloguing the samples, and then I’m going to Baojia and Natalie’s for a drink. I should probably invite you, but I really don’t want you there.”

“I have things to do and no time for socializing.”

“Good for you, Dr. Thrax.”

He turned and walked out the door, heading to his office and the monkish personal quarters behind it. He showered. He dressed.

Then he got back to work.

CHAPTER SIX

Two months after Carmen’s death, Makeda took her first night off since she’d started her own line of inquiry into the Elixir virus. She was listening to a new musician from Mali while she drank wine and grated carrots.

Her months in California had become a blur. She’d come to some of the same conclusions as Lucien in that time. The Elixir didn’t introduce a virus, but something about the ancient alchemical formula unlocked one in human blood. That virus could then be transmitted to vampires. She’d checked and double-checked her conclusions based on new blood samples coming in from Ireland, but she continued to be stumped by how it affected immortals when they were immune to every other virus she could think of.

She was smart enough to realize she didn’t know enough about vampire biology, but the one colleague she wanted to ask had become a ghost in his own lab. Lucien had isolated himself in his wing and rarely came out, sending Ruben or one of his other associates out with reports that seemed to indicate he was fixated on origin instead of treatment.

Makeda was losing patience. His staff was losing patience. Even Baojia and Natalie were starting to get short with him. Makeda heard Baojia mutter about sending Lucien back to his mother for a time-out.

She’d laughed. Then she’d grimaced.

Makeda needed his help. There were aspects of immortal biology she simply wasn’t familiar with. Things she knew Lucien would be able to illuminate. If they actually succeeded in collaborating, she knew the results could be groundbreaking, but the stubborn man had become a hermit, and he was fanatically territorial over his research.

An early winter storm had rolled in suddenly that night. She stared out the window at the pouring rain as she let her mind wander. Inevitably it wandered back to her ongoing research on thalassemia.

In retrospect, that genetic disorder looked so simple. It wasn’t as if her human patients on that trial were dealing with an unknown virus that caused their blood cells to mutate. In thalassemia, the cause of the disease was all about the genes. Genes could be mapped. Viruses however, while utterly simple particles at first glance, shouldn’t be able to alter vampire and human blood to the point that…

Wait.

Makeda’s hands stopped. Her eyes glazed over as she tracked the droplets of water running down the window. Tiny droplets flowing into other droplets, forming tributaries that dropped water to the earth. Moisture filtering through the ground. Flowing along paths leading back to the massive expanse of the sea that was the source of all water.

The source of all life.

The source.

It all filtered back to the source.

She stopped breathing as the intricate pattern of thoughts wove into a tapestry. She froze and became utterly conscious of her own body, of the coursing blood in her system pumped from her heart, through the lungs, carrying vital nutrients through the arteries, the delicate arterioles, the tiny capillaries that fed each cell. Then the steady flow of oxygen-starved blood making its return journey through the veins. An endless system of red cells fed and renewed…

By the source.

Makeda gripped the edge of the counter. It was only a theory. A theory whose foundations were still being debated by human researchers. But Makeda knew she was right.

“I know how the virus lives,” she whispered.

And if she knew how it lived, then maybe—just maybe—she and Lucien could figure out how to make it die.

Dropping everything and turning off the stove, she reached for her phone. It was nearly ten at night; she knew he’d be awake. She tapped Lucien’s name and waited for his office phone to ring. If he wasn’t at his desk, then at least one of his assistants—

“Lucien Thrax.”

She let out a relieved breath when he answered. “Lucien, I think I’ve had a breakthrough.”

A long pause on the other end. “Fine. I’ll pass you to Tara and she can—”