Touch of Madness Read online

  I saw her glance discreetly around the room to see if she’d lost us yet. While none of the audience appeared particularly riveted, nobody’s attention seemed to be wandering … except for Rikki. But she was no more unfocused than she’d been when I’d walked in, so I was betting it wasn’t the lecture.

  “Recently, however, a particularly intelligent heterotroph queen discovered a means of significantly extending the life span of a symbiont. By working with this queen we were able to obtain a number of eggs, which were cryogenically preserved until funding could be obtained for the full project.”

  There was no hiding the admiration in her voice. I sat dumbstruck. The queen she was referring to was the late Queen Monica, and a nastier piece of work you’ve never seen.

  “Until heterotrophs merge with their human hosts and enter the symbiont stage, they are only able to communicate telepathically. Since telepathy is a very rare gift among the human population, early communication has never previously been attempted.” She hit the button and a slide showing a new hatchling appeared. I gave an involuntary shudder. Only a few months ago I’d had one of those slimy little maggots trying to climb into my mouth to take over my mind and my body. The mental wound was too new, too raw, for me not to react.

  Dr. Greeley was droning on. “Until recently, becoming a host meant a severely shortened life span, along with the loss of free will. The goal of this study is to cut off the original bond to the heterotroph collective and create a conduit of communication between the heterotroph eggs and psychically gifted humans so that both species can work together to find a way to live a full cooperative life span with joint awareness and control of the shared body.” She turned, looking at each of us in turn; her smile bright and shiny as a newly minted coin, while a weight, heavy as lead, began to form in my stomach.

  “We hope that by working together we can come up with solutions to so many of the issues that try our peoples, where telepathy could play a significant and helpful role. The possibilities are nearly endless, but some examples would be the ability to communicate with coma patients, the possibility of reviving Eden zombies, and so very much more.”

  I understood now why Joe had been so insistent—and how Miles had “hooked” him on the idea. My baby brother Bryan is a former Eden zombie. The only good thing that had come from my confrontation with Monica was that he’d had what the doctors were referring to as a “partial recovery.” Now instead of being a total zombie, he had the mind of a four-year-old child. Since not one single Eden zombie had ever recovered even that much of their ability, physicians from around the world were flying in to study my brother to see if there was any way to duplicate the effect.

  Drug abuse, in general, was up in all the developed countries. But Eden was the worst. Not only was it the most addicting—but one single misstep in the preparation would result in anyone who used the “bad” drugs becoming empty shells with no mind or will of their own. Hope for a cure was no doubt the lure Greeley had used to obtain her funding.

  While my mind had been wandering Greeley kept talking. I missed some of it, and would have missed more if I hadn’t heard Henri gasp inside my mind.

  “You what?” Brooks’s voice was a controlled roar and I fought my way back to reality to figure out what was happening.

  Greeley gave him a steely glare. “We have incubated one hundred of the eggs provided by Queen Monica—”

  I stared at her, horrified. “Where?” I kept my voice controlled, despite the panic that was tightening my chest. I asked, though I was very much afraid I knew the answer. Suddenly the buzz that had been in the back of my mind from the time I’d entered the hospital had a logical explanation.

  “The eggs are being maintained in a safe, sterile—”

  “WHERE?”

  She placed hands on her hips, which caused the wireless remote in her hand to flip to the next slide—and a picture of what must be an incubation chamber appeared twice reallife size. “Really, Ms. Reilly! There’s no need to shout!”

  It took every ounce of my self-control not to rise from my seat, grab her by the lapels, and shake the information out of her. Instead, I gripped the edge of the conference table, my nails digging little half-moon shapes into the blond wood.

  “Oh my God.” I heard a whisper from the far side of the table. The teenager in the letter jacket was staring at the screen. She’d paled until her skin was the color of bleached paper. “Mom, we need to go NOW” She turned to face her mother, white showing all around the irises of her eyes. “She has them here!”

  Mrs. Webster didn’t need to be told twice. She rose to her feet abruptly enough to send her chair clattering backward onto the floor. “Dr. Greeley, you’ll receive our check returning your money within the week.”

  “Antonia, Mrs. Webster, there’s no need—” Dr. Greeley’s protests were nearly inaudible over the sound of chairs scraping back from the table as most of the meeting participants prepared to leave.

  “Ladies and gentlemen … if you’ll just—”

  It was no good, and she knew it. I could see it in the thinning of her lips, the angry set to her shoulders as she watched her hopes dwindle as the others walked out. Frankly, I didn’t give a damn about her feelings. I was much more worried about what was in the incubator. I knew how powerful the mind control of a hatchling was. I’d had one in my mind once, and to this day didn’t remember everything that happened that night. All it would take was one susceptible human walking by and opening the lid for all hell to break loose. I shuddered at the thought.

  Only Henri, Brooks, the videographer, and I remained.

  “Well, aren’t you going?” Her acid-tinged words were directed at me. “This is your fault after all. They were fine until you started a wholly unnecessary panic.”

  “Hardly,” Brooks corrected. “If it’s anyone’s fault it’s yours for getting us here under false pretenses.”

  “No one was lied to.”

  Henri and Brooks snorted in unison at her feeble protest. By their own rules they couldn’t/wouldn’t lie to the Not Prey, but the Thrall were champions of misdirection and omission. I was used to it. That wasn’t the problem to my mind. But it occurred to me, and probably to the others as well, how much her logic was like that of the Thrall collective. Just to be safe, I opened my senses, searching for any parasite inside the good doctor. There was none, but I couldn’t guarantee that she wasn’t herd—one of their meals and, thereby, under the control of a queen.

  Henri gave a curt nod to me, and said, “You two do as you will, I will go find Dr. MacDougal. It was at his request that I am here, and I want an explanation and assurances that the situation is not as bad as we believe it to be.” Eyes blazing with a dark anger, he strode out of the room.

  I wasn’t leaving until I was satisfied about the safety of the public. The critical issue was that there were one hundred parasite eggs close to hatching in a public building. It was a recipe for disaster.

  I stood slowly. It was taking every ounce of my self-control not to throttle the stupid little bitch. I forced myself to speak softly, enunciating each word with exquisite care. “Where … is … the … incubator?”

  Her eyes shifted from me to Brooks. You could almost see the gears shifting behind those beautiful baby blues.

  “Fine. Give me five minutes to get things set up in the other room, then you can come see for yourself the protocols that have been instituted to protect both the eggs and the public.”

  “Five minutes,” Brooks agreed, but his voice was heavy with controlled anger. “But know this. If the three of us don’t agree that your ‘protocols’ are adequate to protect the public, you will be shut down.”

  Greeley’s voice was cold. “I’m not intimidated by your threats, Detective Brooks.”

  “That wasn’t a threat, Dr. Greeley. It’s a promise.”

  . She didn’t have a reply for that, so she turned to Mason. “Bring the video equipment,” she snapped, then left, her heels beating an angry tattoo on
the linoleum. He hurried after her, awkwardly juggling his camera and tripod.

  I hate waiting. I’m not good at it. As the second hand crawled around the face of the wall clock I found myself twitching in my seat. My stomach was in knots, and I desperately wished that I had stayed home, or gone for an early morning run with Tom. I’d rather be anywhere than here, in this hospital right now.

  I lurched to my feet as a male shriek rent the air. Brooks beat me out the door and into the hall, his gun drawn. The sound was cut off abruptly, with a wet gurgle that I recognized from past experience. Apparently Brooks did, too, because his face paled and set into stony lines. He gestured for me to follow behind him. I had a knife draws, and didn’t remember pulling it.

  I looked down the hall, wondering where the reinforcements were. People had to have heard that scream. But there were no running footsteps, no Code Blue pages on the intercom, just an eerie silence so complete that I could hear every rasping breath, hear my own pulse pounding in my ears. Keeping his back against the wall, Brooks turned the knob and flung open the door.

  It was a scene from one of the lower levels of hell. Samantha Greeley knelt on the floor next to Mason, the videographer. He lay on the ground, his throat torn out. Blood pumped from the severed arteries in his neck, spraying against the wall as a living blanket of squirming, writhing maggots swarmed up the clear plastic walls of the opened incubation tank and up Greeley’s arms. She reared back at the sound of the door slamming against the wall. The front of her clothing was so soaked with blood it clung wet and impossibly red against the milk white of her blood-splattered skin.

  She hissed, lips pulling back to expose brand-new, bloodied fangs.

  “Shit!” Brooks swore.

  I couldn’t hear him, even though I saw his lips move. The collective mind of the hatchlings crashed into mine like a sledgehammer blow between my eyes. Instead of the many voices of the hive it was one voice—one being with a hundred bodies.

  I AM FREE.

  2

  The district courthouse in Denver is an elegant old building. The front has huge columns that flank a main entrance that faces the state capitol across Civic Center Park. It was winter, so the view from the top of the steps wasn’t as impressive as it would be once the spring flowers were planted. But it was still worth seeing. Once you come inside the building the marble, polished dark wood, and ornately decorated ceilings with gold-foiled relief are meant to impress, even awe.

  Unfortunately, the old girl is beginning to show her age, and while they are working hard on the restoration project, it’s hard to ignore the scaffolding and plastic sheeting that drapes sections of the second floor where the trial was being held.

  I was being sued—along with everybody else involved in Samantha Greeley’s project. Well, everyone except Samantha herself. She is missing. Since the Supreme Court had recently ruled that anyone under the control of a Thrall is not considered in their right mind, she probably wouldn’t be found culpable even if the cops could find her.

  So the plaintiffs, being the family of the late videographer, Mason Watts, had decided not to wait to find her. And in a freak of scheduling that had more to do with the notoriety of the case than justice, we were on the docket and in front of the judge a mere three months after the incident. Not long after this ended I was scheduled to appear in criminal court on charges of destruction of hospital property.

  I was seriously hoping that I wasn’t going to get paint or something on my suit. It was brand-new, and expensive as hell. I probably wouldn’t have bought it if Tom hadn’t talked me into it. I’m not much of a clotheshorse, and the coral designer suit had a jacket cut to emphasize my athletic build, with a skirt short enough to make me worry every time I crossed my legs. I had bought pumps and a bag and had them dyed a shade of peach that exactly matched the silk blouse I wore. The outfit had cost more than the rest of my entire wardrobe combined. Thank God for gift certificates and the after-Christmas sales. Still, the look on Tom’s face every time he saw me in it was worth the price. I’d also left my long red-gold hair down, loose except for a pair of small gold combs that pulled the front sections away from my face. None of it was practical for fighting, but I really didn’t expect a pitched battle in the halls of justice.

  I glanced over at the man holding my hand. Tom Bishop is gorgeous. We’re talking calendar model, stop in the middle of the street and gawk at him gorgeous. He has hair that shade of dark brown that isn’t quite black, and even though he keeps it fairly short it falls in soft curls that I can’t resist running my fingers through. His eyes are the warm brown of good milk chocolate and shine with intelligence and good humor. I still can’t quite believe my good luck to have hooked up with him.

  He’d shown up on my doorstep this morning, dressed in the gray pin-striped suit he’d had on the first day I met him and told me he’d taken the week off to be with me during the trial. I hadn’t asked him to. He’d just done it. He’s like that—kind, thoughtful, supportive.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” he whispered into my left ear after we were seated behind the table in the courtroom. The acoustics are such that sound carries clearly, not only from the witness stand, but frequently from the audience as well. The judge had made it very clear that he wasn’t going to put up with any interruptions from the spectators, and that included snide remarks.

  At the moment, though, we were just sitting waiting as the plaintiff’s attorney and his assistant set up equipment for everyone to watch the videotape that had just been put into evidence.

  “I’m wishing I was back home in bed,” I whispered back.

  Tom gave me his most lascivious grin, flashing bright teeth and deep dimples. I blushed. I hadn’t exactly meant that the way he’d taken it. Not that I minded, but the relationship was still new enough that I kept waiting for something to go wrong. I have always had a very bad history with relationships. I mean, my first serious boyfriend left me to become a priest. The second one cheated on me with a woman I had thought was my best friend and tried to help turn me into a queen vampire. To say I have trust issues is like calling the Grand Canyon a pothole.

  The lights in the courtroom dimmed, and the screen in the front left corner that had been angled to maximize the viewing of the jury, judge, and spectators lit up. Silence settled heavily over the audience, until the only audible sound was of people breathing.

  The attorney’s voice carried clearly through the courtroom. “Ladies and gentlemen, the video you are about to see contains graphic violence. Anyone in the courtroom and not of the jury who has a delicate constitution should consider leaving now.”

  Nobody rose to leave. If anything there was a collective gasp of excitement and the room took on the same kind of energy you find just before the showing of a much-anticipated horror movie.

  The attorney began speaking again, listing the people who would be appearing on screen. My name was among the first: defendant, Mary Kathleen Reilly. When he finished there was silence except for the shifting of people in their seats and the running of the equipment.

  Dr. Samantha Greeley appeared on the video screen. She wore the same white lab coat over traditional business clothes. The beautiful face I remembered had been transformed by rage, her blue eyes blazed with fury.

  “They’re idiots. Superstitious idiots, all of them.” She let out her breath in a long, irritated sigh. Squaring her shoulders, she turned to the camera. “Come along, Mason. You might as well get a good look at what it is that has them so terrified. It’s feeding time anyway.”

  “Hang on, let me get the camera onto the tripod.”

  The picture jiggled slightly, then settled.

  People shifted in their seats in the dim courtroom. When the image steadied, we had a good view of the laboratory. Microscopes and test tubes adorned a black counter that ran the length of the far wall. Underneath were cabinets. But dominating the room, in the center of the screen, was a huge glass incubation case. Tubes ran to and from a pair of pumps to the c
ase, one pumping clear fluid, the other a red fluid I knew was blood.

  I heard the click of latches, saw her lift the top of the plastic case an inch or two. “Help me with the lid,” Greeley ordered.

  “Is that a good idea?” A handsome young black man joined Greeley onscreen. He kept his distance. His body language screamed reluctance and suspicion.

  “Don’t tell me you’re afraid, too!” Greeley sounded utterly exasperated.

  “Of course not.” Her words had pricked his vanity, which was probably exactly what she’d intended. He took a pair of steps toward her, but stopped short of the case. Her hand snaked out in a lightning fast move to grab his arm and jerk him toward her.

  He jumped backward, his eyes wide, but she had his arm in a vise-like grip.

  “What in the hell!” He struggled, managing to pull loose. Stumbling over a stool, he tried to feel his way to the door of the lab without ever taking his eyes from her.

  She lunged for him, but he dived out of reach. She hissed then, and it was not a human sound.

  When he shrieked, I closed my eyes, covering my face with my hands, unable to watch any further. I knew how the story ended. She’d caught him, and ripped his throat out. A dozen or more of the hatchlings had escaped and fed, and then crawled into the doctor’s willing mouth while we watched, frozen and horrified for the brief moment it took. All hundred would have gotten loose if it hadn’t been for Brooks. We’d burst in together, but it was Brooks who had risked everything to close the incubator. I’d been too busy fighting the good doctor—fighting, and losing. Because of me, she’d escaped down the hospital hall, leaving the door to the lab unlocked.

  I heard Brooks stomping on the hatchlings that had escaped before he stooped to check on me.

  “I’m fine!” My voice from the video was choked with pain. “GO, catch her!”