“I’m not here to gloat,” I said, moving toward him. “I came to get you out of here.”
“Lies,” Jeb said without emotion. “I wouldn’t go anywhere with you, devil, even if I could. But it doesn’t matter now.” He turned back to the window, watching the smoke rising on the wind. “They’re gone now. They’re free of this world. I will join them soon.”
“They’re not dead.” I stepped up behind him. “Zeke and I got them out. They’re waiting for us outside the city, but we have to go now before Jackal finds us.”
“Are you afraid of death, vampire?” Jeb asked quietly, still gazing out the window. “You should know that there is nothing more dangerous than a man who is not afraid to die. I have lost everything, but that frees me. The vampire king will never use me to achieve his goals. And you—you will not threaten anyone again.”
“Jeb.” I moved closer, reaching for his arm. “Jackal might be here any second. We have to get out of here, no—”
Jeb turned, stepped forward and very calmly stabbed me in the gut.
I gasped and jerked, hunching over, as pain shot through my stomach, a blinding, crippling flood. Snarling, fangs bared, I staggered away from Jebbadiah, who watched impassively with his fingers smeared bright red.
My hands went to my stomach, feeling the weapon still jammed into my flesh, sharp-edged and torturous. Blood pooled around the object, making it slick, but I grasped the end and drew it out, clenching my teeth to keep from screaming. A glass shard, nearly six inches long, slid out of my gut in a blaze of agony, and I dropped it with a gasping cry, before my legs gave out and I crumpled to my knees.
Jebbadiah stepped across my field of vision, moving away toward one of the many shelves, his face expressionless. I was healing, the wound knitting together, but not quickly enough. “Jeb,” I gritted out, trying to get to my feet, sinking back with a grimace, “I swear…I came here to get you out. The others are alive, waiting for you—”
He opened a drawer, drew out a scalpel and walked back with it gleaming in his hand, his eyes hard as stone. He didn’t seem to have heard me. “Let this be my final penance,” he murmured, almost in a daze, as I desperately struggled to my feet, grabbing a counter to pull myself up. “Eden is lost. Ezekiel is lost. The cure for the human race is lost. I failed, but at least I will bring one devil back to hell with me. I can still do that much.”
I staggered away from him, holding my stomach. The urge to draw my sword was overpowering, but I forced myself to face the old man. “Cure?” I said, putting a counter between us. “What cure?” He didn’t answer, following me calmly around the obstacle, scalpel held in front of him. “So, Jackal was right,” I guessed. “You do know the cure for Rabidism. You’ve been keeping it from everyone all this time.”
“Do not speak of matters you do not understand, vampire,” Jeb shot back, with a little more emotion than he’d previously shown. “There is no cure, not yet. All that exists are fragments, pieces of information, results of failed experiments from decades ago.”
“You knew about the vampire experiments,” I guessed. Jeb stared at me over the glass and the beakers, hands at his side. “How? Were you there? Did you live in New Covington before it became vampire territory? You’re not that old.”
“My grandfather was part of the team searching for the cure,” Jebbadiah said flatly. “He was the head scientist, a brilliant man of his field. It was he who discovered vampire blood might be the key to finding the cure for Red Lung. It was he who decided they needed live specimens to experiment on. And it was he who finally convinced the others to let a vampire help them with the project.”
I leaned against the counter, the pain in my middle slowly ebbing away. But the Hunger was growing strong now. I needed blood, and there was no one around but Jeb. I clutched the edges of the counter, trying to concentrate on what the old man was saying, not the pounding of his heart.
“That decision destroyed them,” Jeb continued in that same flat voice, his eyes blank and mirrorlike. “Because of one man’s pride, the rabids were born. Because one man consorted with a demon. Nothing good can come out of pure evil, and it came back to haunt them in the end. The demons they created escaped, killed everyone and the lab burned to the ground. But, before he died, the head scientist made sure to copy all his research, everything they had learned, and pass it on to his son.”