Taming the Darkness: Love & Monsters, Book 2

  Dedication

  To Bree, Mari, Viv, Robyn, Matt and Keith, who asked me for a sequel to Darkness at Dawn. Extra thanks to Keith for helping me with the plot.

  Chapter One

  Five minutes after the briefing started, Claire regretted volunteering. When it was over, she hurried to the bathroom and spent several minutes staring at the mirror struggling to keep her breakfast down.

  Deliberately infected.

  She gripped the sink, the porcelain cool against her hands. Jesus. Fuck. So that was what the science boys got up to in their super-secret lab. And now they wanted her to handle those things—soldiers—whatever they were. She couldn’t back out now. She’d signed the agreement to become part of Project J, and a paranoid little voice whispered she might be the next test subject if she didn’t do exactly what she was told.

  Someone knocked on the door. “Scarlotti? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” She splashed some cold water on her face and dabbed it off with a towel she hoped was clean. She missed paper towels. She missed a lot of things. Claire took one last look in the mirror. Time to go meet her new partner.

  She followed a scientist down the long white hallways. “Your partner is Lieutenant Victor Monroe. He’s highly intelligent, which is one of the reasons we decided to pair you. We think he might respond better to an intellectual equal.”

  “Thanks.” An intellectual equal with one of those things?

  “We’re hoping your intelligence will earn his respect and make him more inclined to listen to you. Lieutenant Monroe always had an independent streak, and since the alteration he’s become a bit difficult to manage.”

  Okay, that wasn’t very encouraging.

  They reached a room near the end of the hall and the scientist scanned his badge and keyed in a code. Inside was a room with a computer, a video monitor and some other equipment. The top half of the far wall was bulletproof glass, and beyond the glass were a large white room and her new partner.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, watching them. The first thing she noticed about him was his eyes, the right a warm brown, the left a bright blue. His mismatched gaze was unnerving, but the rest of him looked like a normal human. The scientist closed the door behind them and stepped up to the inner door, again scanning his badge and punching in a code. There were two locked doors between Monroe and the hallway, another locked door at the end of the hallway, plus a guard station, security cameras, two more levels above them with more guards and security cameras before the ground level, and then there were the perimeter defenses.

  For what they were doing down here, Claire wondered if it was enough.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant. This is Lieutenant Scarlotti. She’s going to be your new partner.” The scientist held the door open and told her, “I’ll be out here watching. If at any time you feel endangered, back toward the door and I’ll let you out. He’s generally stable during the day, so you should be safe.”

  So very comforting. “Thank you.” She stepped into the room and the door closed behind her.

  “Good morning,” Monroe said. “Have a seat.” He nodded toward the chair a few feet away from the door.

  Claire sat. “Good morning, Lieutenant.” The room felt thick with his presence, and although nothing in his posture was threatening, she was keenly aware that he could kill her in a second. This must be what it felt like to get inside a cage with a tiger.

  He tilted his head slightly, staring at her like she was something fascinating. Or edible. “What’s your name?”

  “He just told—”

  “Your first name.”

  She didn’t like where this was going, but they’d been told to avoid upsetting their new partners. She swallowed. “Claire.”

  “Claire,” he repeated, as if tasting the name. “Nice to meet you. I’m Victor. They call me Lieutenant Monroe when they’re being polite. When they don’t think I’m listening they call me Number Five.” He hunched his shoulders and spoke in a stage whisper. “Do you want to know something? I don’t think I’m the first Number Five.”

  She had to suppress a shiver.

  Monroe straightened, his head no longer tilted. “So, how much did they tell you about Project J?”

  In the back of her head, a voice kept whispering, One of them, one of them, oh my God, he’s one of them. “That they’ve been trying to make a vaccine for the infectious nasties. They got close and thought it was time to test it on human subjects. The vaccine didn’t work though. Instead—”

  “They got me,” Victor said. “Well, us. Can’t forget the others.” He watched her like he was trying to see inside her. “Have they told you there’s some argument about what to do with us?”

  “They said there was discussion—”

  “Not was. Is. The faction that wants to get some use out of us is on top for the moment, but the other one is just waiting for a fuck up. They would love an excuse to get rid of us. Clean up the mess and start again.”

  Claire swallowed. She couldn’t help feeling a bit of sympathy for that idea. The man on the other side of the cell was part nasty—monster, demon, creature—whatever you wanted to call them. The last four years had been a nightmare thanks to them. The world was all but gone because of them. Hatred and disgust were visceral responses to what was swimming around in his bloodstream, fused with his muscle and bone. Riding around in his brain. She swallowed again. “So they set me up for failure?”

  He tilted his head again, just a little, and her heart sped up. “The odds are stacked against you, Claire. Against me too.” He smiled, perfectly normal white teeth, but it was chilling. “But I guess they’re stacked against everyone now, aren’t they?”

  “But this other faction, they’re going to make it hard on us?” Claire hated to be on the losing side, and she’d do damn near anything to make sure she wasn’t on it.

  Victor’s eyes flicked past her to the scientist waiting in the room beyond. “I think at first they’ll sit back and watch. They don’t think we’ll make it through the first field test.”

  “They think you won’t survive?” That wasn’t very encouraging for her own odds of survival.

  “They think I might eat you, Little Red.” He smiled again and she fought the urge to scream for the scientist to let her out.

  In a shaky voice, she said, “If you do, I hope I give you heartburn.”

  Victor threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, they gave me a good one.” He smiled, not as predatory this time. “Why’d you volunteer for this?”

  She blinked at the change in subject. “Why did you?”

  He clicked his tongue. “Now, now. I asked you first.”

  “Because someone had to do it.”

  He tilted his head. “Did you know what you were in for when you volunteered?”

  Claire shifted. “No. They only told us about the project when we got here.”

  “Then why the martyr act?

  “It’s not a martyr act.”

  “Because someone had to do it,” he parroted back to her in a mocking voice. “Why? Really, why?”

  She sighed and considered telling him it was none of his business. Agree to any reasonable request. Don’t do anything to upset them, they’d said in the briefing. “Because killing nasties every day doesn’t seem to make any difference. They keep coming and coming. I thought volunteering for whatever the scientists were working on might make more of a difference.”

  “And?”

  She glared at him. He stared at her. “And I want to be the person that makes a difference.”

  “And?”

  “What is this, fucking psychotherapy?” She sucked in a har
sh breath, wondering if she’d just done something to set him off. The volunteers had been warned, over and over, that the subjects were unstable.

  Victor smiled without showing teeth. “No, but I want to know my new partner’s motivations.”

  She had herself under control now. “Are you going to tell me yours?”

  “Sure. After you answer my question. Why do you want to be the person that makes a difference?”

  She hated saying it because it made her look like a glory hound. “Because I want the recognition. I want to be important.”

  “There. A little honesty isn’t so bad.”

  She hated his tone. “So what’s your motivation?”

  “If we had a vaccine for even some of the infectious nasties out there we could save hundreds of lives. Thousands. They told us they were testing a vaccine, so I volunteered. Someone had to do it.” He smiled. “So now who’s the martyr?” He slowly lifted his arms until they were straight out, posing as if he were on a cross.

  “Were you always this full of yourself, or did the vaccine make it worse?”

  He laughed and dropped his arms. “I decided I didn’t like smelling your fear. It was making me edgy.”

  “What?”

  “I like you better angry.”

  She was being manipulated. By a nasty. Claire looked behind her at the scientist, her heart skipping a beat as she took her eyes off Monroe. A dangerous thing, but she wanted him to know she wasn’t afraid of him. Dammit, you idiot. He can smell you, remember? “How long does this meeting have to last?”

  “As long as you like,” the scientist answered. He fixed his gaze on Monroe.

  “I’d like it to be over.” She turned back to Victor and stood.

  “I’d like to keep her.” He grinned.

  God, this was fucked up. Why the hell did she agree to this? She was stuck with him now. Claire took two steps toward the door. No, if they were going to be partners, she couldn’t be afraid to turn her back on him. A partner was supposed to watch your back. She turned and took the last few steps to the door with her back to Monroe.

  “Ask if I can take her down to the pens tonight. I want her to see what I can do.”

  The scientist opened the door and she stepped through. “Pens?” she asked.

  He closed the door and it locked with a solid click. “It’s where we keep specimens for testing. The last few weeks we’ve been putting alts in with the specimens to see how well they do in a fight.”

  The unsettled feeling returned to her stomach. “Like dog fights with nasties?”

  The scientist frowned. “I suppose you could call it that.”

  Claire looked back at Monroe. He hadn’t moved from the end of the bed and he was still watching her. One brown eye, one bright blue. Like huskies sometimes had. No, she shouldn’t think like that. He wasn’t an animal. He was something worse.

  Nightfall. It sang in his bones, danced in his blood. Victor closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Even two floors underground, he knew exactly when the last of the light faded from the sky. It was never really asleep, but the monster dozed in a sense during the day. Now it woke and called to be let out. The human side of him cringed at what he had become, at the strength that flowed through him. The other side wanted to be out under the starlight, running free. Victor hadn’t seen the sky in months.

  He wouldn’t get to run tonight, but soon. Soon. He really should be on his best behavior to ensure they would let him out. Maybe playing games with his new partner wasn’t the best idea. A woman. Why did they give me a woman? Personality wise, he could see, just from the brief time they’d talked, why Claire had been chosen as his handler. But a woman added another set of risks to a situation where the risk was already high. Why had they taken women volunteers at all? Or was Claire the only one?

  Another minute to go. It was straining, stretching, waiting to be fully awake. Victor’s train of thought started slipping. The woman. Her scent was still in the room, so different from the scientists that came in and out—when they were brave enough or when he wasn’t in his cell. The last man that hadn’t been careful enough was still recovering from broken ribs. He was lucky it hadn’t been worse.

  Victor had killed two people since he’d been infected. Altered as they called it. One scientist and one guard. One of them had been an accident, the other had deserved it. Thirty seconds. He took in a deep breath and Claire’s scent filled his nose. Would they bring her down to his cell to walk with him, or would they have her wait at the pens? He wanted to see her again, talk to her, smell her. Wanted her.

  Wanted her.

  Nightfall. It rushed through him, cascading through his cells. Like being let out on the last day of school with all the glorious days of summer stretched out in front of him. Victor lifted his hands, closed his eyes and reveled in the sensation. He stayed like that for a long moment, then he got up and paced. “Let me out,” he told the man on the other side of the thick glass.

  “You need a few minutes to calm down. They’re on their way.”

  Victor snorted his frustration. Wanted out. Wanted to run and kill. They’d kept him in this little white box for too long. He rushed the glass wall and slammed into it. He bounced off and the wall shuddered. The man’s eyes—Berkstrom, yes, that was his name—went wide and he took a few steps back.

  “Out,” Victor growled. Too long without sky, too long without fresh air. What smells would be out there, now that he had such a sensitive nose? He banged his fist on the glass, mostly to see the look on Berkstrom’s face, then he went back to pacing. His arms itched like they wanted to change, but if they came and found him walking around on all fours and sporting claws, they wouldn’t take him out for hours, maybe not all night.

  Little by little, Victor calmed down, although calm was a relative term with him lately, especially at night. Twenty minutes after nightfall, Major Alston and two guards came in. “Are you going to behave yourself tonight, Lieutenant?” The major was the project director, the one fighting to use the alts as a weapon.

  “Are you taking me to the pens?” The muscles in Victor’s legs twitched with the urge to pace, but he forced himself to stay still. Careful. Controlled.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” Victor echoed. “Is Claire waiting there?”

  Alston nodded. “I thought it was important she see what you’re capable of.”

  Victor walked up to the door, his steps slow and measured. “I’ll be on my best behavior until we get there.” Excitement hummed in him. So hard to keep control.

  They let him out and went down the hall to the elevator. One guard in front, one behind and the major taking up the rear. The elevator was hard, such a tight space, pressing close to three men who all smelled like food. They let Victor walk without restraints, one of only two that were allowed to do so. The other one was Patterson, who’d been a soldier on the way to a long career before the world went to hell. Everything about Patterson was rigid control, and even being altered hadn’t taken that from him.

  A fine tremor started in his right arm when the elevator opened and let them out. It got worse as they neared the pens. “What have you got for me today?”

  “It’s a surprise,” the major told him. Finally, they opened the doors and let him through. There was an outer door and an inner door, just like his cell upstairs, except the second door led into a huge room fifteen feet lower than the observation area. He hurried down the stairs so fast his nose was still registering Claire’s scent when he reached the bottom. He looked up to the row of windows and saw her watching from one of them. He grinned and gave her a double thumbs up. She frowned.

  Victor turned to the door on the other end. A surprise. The tremor spread to his whole body and he didn’t hold back any more. He hunched down and let his body shift. He could adjust his body in several different ways, and he went for something relatively simple this time. Longer, thicker arms and sharp little claws at the ends of his fingers. Wider shoulders, leg muscles and bones adjusted
for greater flexibility. What was Claire thinking, watching this? He shook his head and kept his eyes on the door. The panel slid up, and after a breathless second it came out.

  A slasher. Humanoid with mottled gray-green skin, sharp spines along its back, arms longer and thinner than Victor’s and hands and feet tipped with huge claws. It could move on two or four legs and was wickedly fast either way. Victor smiled. Claire was going to get a show.

  They both hunched low and the slasher growled. Victor moved forward, trying to bait it into moving first. The slasher growled deeper and sniffed the air. Don’t know what I am, do you? Well, I don’t either. Victor lunged, and this time the slasher reacted. True to its name, it swiped out with those wicked claws, sharp enough decapitate a human. Victor danced aside and slashed with his much smaller claws. He missed and the slasher lashed out again. The claws whipped past his nose, missing him by an inch. The slasher moved in close and Victor had to back up as fast as he could to stay out of range.

  Victor stayed out of its way for five minutes, managing to make two shallow cuts on the slasher’s face, which pissed it off. The nasty hissed its rage and doubled its efforts to kill Victor, but the poor thing didn’t know what it was up against. This was fun for Victor. It wasn’t easy, but that’s part of what made it fun. Now the real fight started. They tangled with each other, a rolling mass of teeth and claws. Victor broke away with a deep gash on his left arm, but the nasty had five deep furrows along its side, the white of its ribs showing.

  The creature spun too fast for him to avoid and the sharp pain of a cut burned across Victor’s arm and shoulder. Growling, Victor retaliated, sinking his claws into the fresh wounds on the nasty’s side. For a second, the claws stuck on one of the exposed ribs and the thing yowled. The creature lunged, making things worse as Victor’s claws slipped down and caught on another rib, and Victor was stuck. He dropped to the ground, air whistling as the nasty’s huge claws just missed his head. With a tug, Victor freed himself and did more damage to the creature’s side. Several strips of bloody flesh now dangled from it.