KARA HUNTER hurried down the hall, hot, not because Bangkok was a humid city regardless of the time of year, but because a bomb had just exploded in her chest.
Blood. More to the point, Thomas’s blood.
Why did life always come down to blood? The blood of a sacrificial lamb to atone for sin. The blood of Christ to drink in remembrance. The blood of the innocent to feed the bloodlust of creatures in the night. The Raison Strain, plundering its host through the bloodstream.
Blood had taken her brother, Thomas, into a reality that changed everything. She knew because she had followed him, using that same blood, and what she found took her breath away.
When it was all over and the world set about the business of picking up the pieces, she and Monique had hidden away one vial of that precious blood. Just one vial, ten ccs to be exact. All for understandable, even noble, reasons. They’d planned on every conceivable threat.
But they’d never factored in a maniacal redhead named Billy who could read minds. Worse, they’d never imagined that Janae, Monique’s own daughter, would willingly throw herself into a pit of vipers with this stranger from Paradise, Colorado.
What could she possibly have been thinking?
Kara flashed her ID badge at the white-suited security guard, who used his own pass card to open the heavy steel door into the secure lab. The hall ended at a second door, also under guard.
“’Morning, Miss Hunter. She wants you to suit up.”
Kara wanted to object. Raison Strain B could only be contracted through direct contact. Instead, she nodded and stepped through the glass side door into a room equipped with white biohazard suits and a chemical-mist shower. She shrugged into the suit and slipped on black gloves, but didn’t bother with the head gear or with sealing the suit. A barrier against accidental contact was wise, but going in like a polar bear didn’t make any sense.
She stepped though a narrow passage and walked through a second glass door that slid open with a loud buzz. Seven lab techs were at work, three at their stations, four standing with folded arms, deep in discussion that hushed as Kara crossed the room.
Monique stood outside the quarantine room, hands on hips, suited like Kara, staring at the gurneys inside through one of the glass panels. Kara saw the reclining forms, dressed in street clothes rather than in typical lab attire. Janae in a short black dress, par for the course. Billy wore what he’d waltzed into their world wearing: jeans and a T-shirt.
The egotistical little snot-nose.
“How long ago?” she demanded, stopping beside Monique.
Other than Thomas, Monique had been more complicit in the creation of the first virus than any other living person. She sighed. “Based on the culture we’re looking at”—she nodded at the clean room opposite this one—“I’d estimate eight hours ago.”
“So we have time.”
“Some. Not much. She shot them each with a full cc.”
“What? Has she lost her marbles?”
Monique just looked at her, deadpan.
“Dumb question, sorry.”
“Is it?” Monique said, looking back at her daughter lying parallel to Billy Rediger. They lay on their backs, hands folded over their chests, which rose and fell together. Lost to this world.
“Thing is, I don’t think Janae has lost her mind,” Monique said. “She knew exactly what she was doing.” She clenched her jaw, closed her eyes, then opened them again, still deadpan. This was Monique expressing contempt for herself. “I can’t believe we allowed this to happen.”
“We didn’t. She did.”
“I should have known the moment that punk entered our compound that he was bad news.”
“You did.”
“I should have known he was the devil himself, able to bring to life the worst in Janae.”
She was referring to the nonsense about Janae having bad blood from her father. Monique had never opened up about her affair with the man who’d fathered Janae and then vanished, but whenever Janae did something irrational or particularly unhanded, Monique blamed it on her father’s side. Bad blood.
“She knew what she was doing all right,” Monique said, jaw bunching again. “At this rate they’ll both be dead within twenty-four hours. Maybe sooner.”
Kara felt like she should object, turn to her friend and express her horror at such a prospect. Demand they use the blood immediately.
Instead, she felt only confusion, so she said nothing.
Monique came to her rescue. “They took a strong sedative to ensure that they would be asleep the moment Thomas’s blood made contact with theirs. She knew that I wouldn’t be able to resist.”
What was Monique saying? That she would use the blood?
“And why should she assume anything different? Have I ever not showed her all of my love? She’s the only one I have now. She means everything to me.”
Tears settled in Monique’s eyes. Kara wanted to put her hand on Monique’s shoulder, but she was still torn by the conflicting emotions that hammered her own mind.
“There’s no guarantee that the blood will work,” Kara said.
“No.”
“What are the risks?”
“The same as they were the last time a gateway was opened to the other world,” Monique said.
Speaking of it so stoically in the face of such a tragedy required a measure of self-possession, Kara thought. The world had barely survived the last such crossing.
“Or worse,” Kara said. “That was Thomas. This is a crazed psychic named Billy.” And Janae, she thought but did not say.
Monique nodded slowly, keeping her eyes on her daughter. “Billy and Janae. They could do a lot of damage in either reality.”
“If they did make it to the other world and back . . . only God knows what magic they could bring back to upset the balance of powers. They could destroy a world.”
“They can’t possibly be trusted.”
“No.”
Simple. But not so simple at all. This was Monique’s daughter on the table, slowly drawing breath.
“She knew exactly what she was doing!” Monique whispered, barely able to control herself. “Maybe we should have discussed it with her. She’s doing this out of bitterness.” She wiped a tear that had spilled over her lower lid.
“You know we couldn’t risk her knowing that we had the blood. She might have tried something like this a long time ago.”
“Not if we didn’t tell her where it was hidden. Indonesia’s a long way from here.”
“Monique.” Kara did put her hand on her friend’s shoulder now. “You can’t blame yourself. Janae is a grown woman who decides for herself. Thousands, millions of lives could be at stake. Sometimes . . . the risk has to be weighed.”
Monique glared at her. “Please, Kara, I don’t need a lecture.”
She felt horrible. What if it were Thomas on that gurney? What would Kara say then? Let him die, let the fool die. But she’d already crossed that road once. They both knew that the moment Janae had injected herself with the virus, she’d signed her own death certificate.
At sixty years of age, Kara could live with that. She’d seen so many come and go in this life. And she’d spent some time in that other world.
“Do you think it would work?” Monique asked, staring at her daughter’s calm form.
“It didn’t work in the test—”
“We didn’t inject his blood into a living body,” Monique interrupted. “We couldn’t risk the possibility of the subject crossing over. I’m talking about crossing over, not killing the virus.”
“Would a person whose blood comes in contact with Thomas’s blood wake up in the other place?”
“Surely you still wonder what it would be like to go again.” Monique spoke as if lost. “What Thomas is doing. If he’s even alive. The Horde . . . the lakes . . . what’s become of everyone?”
“How old is he? Is he married? Children? Everything was happening very quickly over there,” Kara said. “Maybe it’s all over. I think about it every day.”
Monique nodded and wiped another tear, then turned away. “We’ll never know.”
Which was as good as stating that she wasn’t going to use the blood on Janae. It was the right decision, of course. Janae and Billy were only two lives. Opening a way into the other reality could be disastrous. And they’d done this to themselves. She pitied Billy, felt sick that Janae, who in so many ways reminded Kara of herself thirty years earlier, had taken her life like this. She’d liked the girl very much. Such a spirited woman, so beautiful, so intelligent. Such a waste.
However difficult, this was the best way.
“Do you think letting them die is murder?” Monique asked.