Read Online henri dunn 01 - immortality cure by tori centanni - Free Book Online Page B

rest of them, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill me in the nastiest way possible. And Lark, being a vampire rather than a former vampire, was the person they’d listen to. Her word against mine meant only her word mattered.
    “So what am I supposed to do? Run away before someone can lock me in your dungeon?” It was mostly a joke, because if Lark really did blame me for Thomas’s death, no amount of distance would help me escape her wrath, but my question was partly serious.
    “Find the person responsible,” Cazimir said, as if it were as easy as that. “Get the remainder of the Cure and anything that might help create an antidote. And do it fast. Now that a vampire is dead, I cannot necessarily control the timeline. There will be calls for justice, and your head is on the block, Henri.”
    Cazimir turned away from me and nodded at Aidan, who’d been lurking nearby awaiting orders. Then, wrapping his cape around himself, he proceeded down the hallway. Aidan started to follow but hesitated.
    “If that ”—Aidan nodded toward the room where Thomas had expired, swallowing uneasily—“was the result of the Cure, why did it work on you and not him?”
    “I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “Whoever stuck him with the needle must have added something deadly to the mix. Or maybe it wasn’t the Cure at all.”
    Or maybe it was, and I had just gotten very, very lucky. The thought that Neha’s reckless actions could very well have led to my own horrible demise inflamed my fury.
    Aidan chewed his lip for a minute. He was looking a little green. “I guess.” He glanced back at the open doors, where the noxious odor from the pus was still drifting out. “I thought what happened to you was bad, but this is a whole new level of fucked up.”
    Then Aidan ran to catch up with Cazimir.
    I was left holding the bags with the vial and syringe. There was a metaphor in there somewhere. I shoved both in my purse.
    And then, a thought struck me.
    Disgust and curiosity warred inside me, but even as they battled it out, I was already heading back inside the room. The doctor was still standing near a window. He was smoking a cigarette, and he glanced over as I entered, caught in the act.
    “I thought it might help the smell,” he said. He started to extinguish it. I waved a hand.
    “Smoke away,” I said. “I don’t plan on being mortal long enough to develop lung disease.”
    The doctor coughed and then took another drag. “What are you doing in here?” he asked, more curious than threatening.
    “Thomas was a friend,” I lied. “I was hoping to get a moment alone. To … you know.”
    The doctor nodded, took a final drag on his smoke, and then ground it out on the bottom of his shoe. Classy. He left the room but, I noticed, did not shut the door.
    Well, better than nothing.
    “Hey, Thomas,” I said softly, in case Dr. Smoky was eavesdropping. “Who’d have guessed we’d end up here, huh?”
    I had not really known Thomas. I knew Lark somewhat better, and though she and I had never been close, we’d been a strained kind of family since we shared a sire. In a way, that made Thomas family, too.
    I was sorry he was dead.
    I was even more sorry that the only power left to me involved tasting blood, because the last thing I wanted to do was stick anything from his bloated, marred corpse into my mouth. I pulled the pocketknife out of my purse and took a deep breath. Then I bent down and jammed the knife into the biggest patch of unmarred skin I could find, which was smaller than a dime. I shoved my finger into the small wound until it was coated with sticky red and then popped it into my mouth, dropping the knife back into my purse in case anyone walked in.
    Images blazed into my mind. Lark, radiant and smiling, next to him in a crowded place. A band onstage, a pulsing crowd full of hammering hearts around the room. Thomas had liked that hum of life, had liked the way their blood called to him. He liked ignoring his