Elizabeth rather liked his old world manners, even if he could be a bit of a shit. “I guess. Tell me.” She sighed.
“Hmm.” He inspected her again. “Now that I revisit the subject, I don’t know that you’ll believe me.”
She narrowed her eyes, and he laughed again. “You’re too much fun.” He removed his lab coat and began unbuttoning his shirt.
She’d seen his scars, yes. Never up close, only in passing. She’d been curious as to what could’ve possibly made them, because it was obvious they’d been inflicted post transformation. All of their human ills were obliterated when they were turned. Their skin was like an infant’s, perfect. Unmarred.
As he revealed his flesh to her, she was able to see the scars under the harsh fluorescent lights of the lab. Twin marks showed on each side. It looked for all the world as if the giant hands of God had gripped him there, and it had been seared into his flesh for all eternity.
Burned and bruised, purple and raging. If he were human, she’d have guessed whatever happened to him had only occurred last night. They weren’t scars in the traditional sense.
“Do they pain you?” She reached out a hesitant hand to touch them, but dropped it to her side.
“Only if I think about things I shouldn’t,” he said cryptically.
“Like what kinds of things you shouldn’t?” She wondered just what exactly would register on John Polidori’s list of restricted things. It didn’t seem like he denied himself much.
“Things like you. What your blood would taste like.”
Before her eyes, the marks on his arms began to glow as if they were lit from a fire that burned beneath the skin.
“Why are you thinking about my blood, Dr. Polidori?” Had she mistakenly assumed she was safe with him?
“Just to prove a point.” The flares died down.
Her brain suddenly made the connection. Adam wouldn’t let me… things I shouldn’t… The only thing she had in common with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was a name and a bloodline.
The pathway that lit inside her head was impossible, yet it seemed to be the only logical answer.
The silly little book was more than a book. The Modern Prometheus was real and tied to her through blood. It would explain why Bureau 7 had been so keen to get her. She was good at what she did, but there were those who were better. She wasn’t well-known, or a sought after name.
She couldn’t figure out exactly what she brought to the table that had caused them to agree to her salary requirements when they could’ve had someone just as good for less money. Someone with even looser ethics than her own.
That was what made it real, simple fiscal logic.
It was something she’d suspected when they first came knocking—that their recruitment fervor had something to do with Mary and the monster.
Only, right now, looking at Polidori, she wondered who the real monster was.
“Figured it out, have you?”
“Maybe.”
“They want him, you know. Bureau 7. You’ve always been bait. Beautiful and brilliant, but bait.” Polidori slid into his shirt and buttoned it.
“What’s your role to play, Doctor?”
“Only what I’ve been doing. To work with you on this project. To lure Adam. I told them they should simply tell you. That if they gave you project head, you’d get him here of your own volition.”
Elizabeth didn’t know how she felt about that and wasn’t sure she wanted to examine it. “What do you get out of it?”
“George, of course. Your work with Adam coupled with this project? Reanimation and immortality, my dear.” He advanced on her, but his touch was gentle when he squeezed her arm. “You’re going to give me back the love of my life. With these prions, you’ve unlocked something that’s defeated me for hundreds of years. I’m not sure if I’m jealous or in awe. Perhaps a bit of both.”
The comm buzzed. “Subjects inbound. Code Blue, Dock Five.”
Shit. “Link us to onboard medical.”
Static buzzed over the comm, and the raging sound of the helicopter. “Middle-aged white male, unknown cardiac event. Unable to resuscitate.”
Elizabeth didn’t know what to do with him. They weren’t prepared for this. “Put him in Lab 2.”
“You’ll want him in a containment unit,” the voice over the comm said. “He’s already been dosed with PrPM3.”
PrPM was her synthesized refolded prion.
Just what the fuck was PrPM3?
Nothing good.
She looked at Polidori who shrugged. “Bring him to main lab.”
“ETA in five.”
Chapter Two
Trieste, Italy
Miramare Castle
He’d spent his days in the bowels of the castle, in secret passages that time, architectural plans, and modern man had forgotten.
But it wasn’t like it used to be. He wasn’t hiding, not really.