“I don’t know. Probably because Mom always yelled at us in Amharic.”
Another scream rent the air, and Makeda’s mother dropped her knife and walked toward the hall.
Fozia said, “They’re in trouble now.”
“How do they make a noise that high?” Makeda asked.
“Boys are loud too, but they don’t break your eardrums.”
Fozia said to Adina, “Can you imagine how quiet Makeda’s house is?”
“I don’t have to imagine. I live there.” Makeda smiled. “And it’s very quiet.”
“Until Emaye comes over to complain about her poor daughter who has no babies!” Adina laughed.
“The horror,” Fozia said. “What are you doing with your life, Makeda? Saving lives and curing cancer?” Her oldest sister looked up and winked. “Oh, wait.”
Adina bumped Makeda’s hip with her own. “She was always the smart one.”
Fozia said, “And the best auntie.”
Makeda grabbed another onion after finely chopping her third. “And I can’t keep plants alive, so staying an auntie is probably a good move.”
She adored her four nieces and two nephews. Auntie Mak’s closet was well-known as an open dress-up playground when the nieces came to visit, and Makeda kept a battered microscope and plethora of old slides for those of a more scientifically curious nature. She lived within ten minutes of both her sisters and wouldn’t have it any other way. And though Misrak and Yacob Abel despaired of their thirty-eight-year-old childless daughter ever giving them grandchildren, Makeda’s sisters and their husbands were keeping the family stocked with plenty of little girls and boys to drive them all crazy.
It was enough for Makeda. She loved being an aunt but knew she’d make a distracted mother. Plus she didn’t have time for men, and they were a fairly essential part of the equation.
Her last boyfriend had politely broken up with her over two years ago. Makeda didn’t notice he was gone until three days after he’d removed the few things he’d kept at her house. He’d taken a microbiology teaching position on the East Coast, and they still e-mailed occasionally.
She wasn’t good at relationships. She’d accepted that. And frankly, there were few men who interested her. She was a genius. It said so somewhere on a chart in a doctor’s office she’d visited soon after moving to the United States. Her parents had been quietly ecstatic to have a genius for a daughter. For Makeda, it just meant one more thing setting her apart in an already strange new place.
She wasn’t a snob about her intelligence—being arrogant about your intelligence was as logical as being arrogant about your eye color—but she’d learned to be discriminating. Makeda knew she’d lose interest in a man who couldn’t engage her mind even if she did admire him.
“Makeda?” Her father’s voice broke through her sisters’ chatter and the smell of red onion. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”
Adina grabbed the onion she was reaching for. “Go. And bring me some wine when you come back.”
Makeda followed her father into his office. She took after him in almost every way. She was nearly as tall and had the long, aquiline features from his mother’s branch of their family. She also had his quiet personality and avid mind, though it was focused on an entirely different area of study.
Yacob Abel was an archivist and scholar of ancient Ethiopian and Syrian Orthodox manuscripts and the director of the Grigorieva Library. His office walls were decorated with posters of events and exhibits he’d helped curate along with childish drawings given to a proud grandfather.
Few outside their family knew the private library he curated belonged to the vampire leader of the Pacific Northwest. Few outside their family acknowledged vampires even existed.
But immortals had not been supernatural to Makeda since her mother and father had told her why they’d moved from Ethiopia when she was eight years old. They weren’t a mystery. They weren’t magic. They were simply an unexplained part of the world.
Humans were still mapping an ocean that covered seventy percent of the planet. They were still unlocking the mysteries of their own brains. How could they assume they knew the truth about every human myth and legend? Makeda was far too intelligent to assume she knew everything. The human body—a subject of study for centuries—still managed to surprise her regularly.
“Sit please,” Yacob said. “I received a letter a from Katya Grigorieva yesterday that pertains to you.”
Makeda frowned. “About me? Why didn’t she or her secretary contact me directly?”
“The letter was from her, not her secretary.” Her father shrugged. “This is how Katya operates. You know this. She considers it a sign of respect to contact me as the head of our family. It’s a formality.”
Makeda sat up and leaned forward. The only reason her father would be contacted by the big boss of the Pacific Northwest was if it had something to do with her research. The lab she worked at was owned and funded by Katya Grigorieva and specialized in studying blood disorders and cancers. The work they did was used to develop new treatments and drugs for everything from sickle cell to leukemia.
Katya’s obsession with blood diseases might have seemed odd for someone who didn’t have to worry about illness or aging. But Makeda knew humans and vampires were inextricably tied. Vampires had never discovered a way to live without human blood. Though there were some who existed on wholly animal diets, she had heard they were not as powerful. And power, in the immortal world, was how one survived.
Healthy humans were a vampire’s guarantee of eternal life and eternal influence.
Thinking of herself as food made Makeda’s skin crawl. “What was the letter about?”
“You’ve heard of the problems with this Elixir drug, yes?”
“I’ve heard of it, but it’s only a problem in Europe, isn’t it?”
If it wasn’t, then Makeda’s lab would soon be neck-deep in research, which meant the thalassemia project Makeda has spent the previous three years on might be shelved.
Please don’t let it be spreading to the Americas…
“It has spread out of Europe,” her father said. “There are cases here in the United States now. In California.”
Damn.
Makeda took a deep breath as a wave of quiet anger washed over her. She would be taken off a project that could save hundreds of lives and possibly cure a blood disorder affecting thousands of children.
Because she needed to study a vampire drug.
“She wants you to see her tomorrow evening,” Yacob said.
“I’m sure she’s going to redirect our research targets if Elixir is becoming a problem,” Makeda said, unable to cloak the bitterness in her voice. “Why not speak to Dr. Pak?”
Yacob shook his head. “I have no idea.”
As ambitious as she was, Makeda had no argument with Jerry Pak as the head of the hematology lab. He was a brilliant researcher and surprisingly good at herding the distracted PhDs he was charged with directing.
So why did Katya want to meet with her?
“What time?” she asked her father.
“Eleven. The sun this time of year…”
“Of course.” Northern climates were ideal for vampires in winter, but summer could be an issue, even in Seattle. “I’ll make sure I’m there. Main office?”
Yacob nodded.
“Okay then.” Makeda stood. “Better get back to the onions.”
Her father called her as she reached the door. “Makeda.”
“Hmm?” She turned, surprised to notice the grim expression on his normally cheerful face.
“Whatever she asks of you, be careful. Katya is a benevolent monarch in her world, but she is still a monarch.”
❖
Makeda arrived at the handsome redbrick-and-beam building just off King Street at five minutes to eleven the next evening. She hated being late, but arriving too early might make her appear nervous. The building was guarded heavily, as all Katya’s buildings were, though mo
st people passing by would have no clue anything was out of the ordinary. Rows of windows were carefully blocked from the inside, and human and vampire guards patrolled the block in the guise of office workers, news vendors, and dog walkers.
The dogs were not pets, and the walkers were not hipsters.
She passed a guard she’d met at several of Katya’s employee events, but he didn’t give Makeda a second look. She could almost feel the heat of electronic eyes on her as she walked into the lobby. She rode the elevator to the third floor and was ushered to a comfortable chair by a friendly human secretary.
At precisely 11:02, another assistant came to the door. This one was not human.
“Dr. Abel?”
Makeda rose and walked out of the waiting area with the open windows revealing the glint of Seattle’s many lights. She walked away from the human secretary, the buzz of normal conversation, and into the silent inhumanity of Katya Grigorieva’s private office.
Makeda was the only human there.
Lifting her chin, she concentrated on keeping her heart steady and her breathing even.
She was escorted into an office far brighter than expected. The day-like lighting and colors made her think of an afternoon at the beach, not a vampire lair. Behind a beech-gold desk sat a very pretty teenager with pale skin and long dark hair. Katya held out a hand for Makeda to shake. Makeda took it, noting the warmth of her skin, an affectation Katya had made the effort to produce since vampire skin was normally much cooler than human.
“Dr. Abel,” she said, releasing Makeda’s hand. “I believe we’ve met before.”
“We have,” Makeda answered. “At the Christmas party for the lab two years ago. Dr. Pak introduced us. I’d seen you on the tours before that though.”
“I enjoyed that Christmas party, but I think I made the majority of my employees nervous. I decided not to attend after that.” Katya smiled and Makeda noted her slightly crooked teeth. “Better to let employees have their time to socialize without the boss hovering and listening in.”
“It’s not a logical reaction though.” Makeda sat when Katya did. “Not from humans. You could conceal yourself in another room and easily listen to our conversations from a distance if you wanted to.”
Katya’s eyebrows rose.
Well, shit.
“Not that I’m implying you would,” Makeda quickly added. “Simply that you could if you wanted to.”
Luckily, her employer looked amused and not offended. “You’re correct, of course. But it’s not conducive to good employee relations to remind humans of that too often.”
“Of course.”
Katya crossed her arms, and Makeda noticed the way the vampire was dressed. Again, it wasn’t as she had expected. While Makeda wore a professional suit, Katya was in a pair of jeans and a fleece pullover more suited for backpacking or camping.
“You’re brilliant,” Katya said. “And I don’t hand that label out lightly. In general, vampires are far more intelligent than humans. It’s not prejudice; it’s fact.”
“Your nervous systems are heightened by the presence of the electrical current you control,” Makeda said. “I’m not insulted. Amnis makes your processing faster. Other factors being equal, you are more intelligent.”
“But you can keep up,” Katya said. “How long did it take you to figure out Dr. McGrath was a vampire?”
“Three days.” Makeda frowned. “In my defense, we did not interact much at the beginning, and he’s not as pale as most vampires.”
“He’s also young and blends into groups of humans extremely well because of his mannerisms,” Katya said. “That’s part of his job for me. At the last lab he worked in, no one discovered he was immortal for over a year.”
“That’s surprising.”
Katya shrugged. “Scientific observation can be less precise when it’s not under a microscope.”
“Are you implying my colleagues and I are myopic?”
“Of course you are. That’s why I hired you.”
Makeda couldn’t argue with that.
“But,” Katya continued, “it’s not salient to the reason I called you here tonight. You’re brilliant for a human, which means you can keep up with our kind who are also very bright. You also have keen insight to the subject matter because of your research into thalassemia, which I believe will be useful on this project.”
“I assumed the thalassemia project would be shelved because of the Elixir problem.”
Katya’s eyes sharpened. “What do you know about Elixir?”
“Not much more than the basics,” Makeda said carefully. “Information is… limited. And obviously there are no journal articles published about it.”
“But you’ve heard about the strange wasting disease that has affected small populations in Europe?”
Makeda paused. “Rumors only. Word of mouth. But I’m a hematologist, not a gastro—”
“It’s tied to Elixir,” Katya said. “And it’s related to the blood. Everything is related to the blood in humans.”
Makeda didn’t agree, but she wasn’t going to argue. After all, the vampire controlled her funding.
Katya said, “I have a very small, very private lab in Northern California that has been working on finding a cure for Elixir for three years now. And I’ve decided, Dr. Abel, that the lab needs your brilliance.”
Her heart pounded. “You want me to head a lab looking into an Elixir cure?”
Finally. Finally!
“Of course you’re not going to head it,” Katya said.
Makeda’s heart dropped. “What?”
“There is already a project lead, and he’s brilliant. In fact, he is considered by some to be one of the defining minds of our race. But he’s at an impasse. He needs fresh eyes. Perspective.”
Her boss wanted her to play second fiddle for a brilliant vampire doctor? That was so far from a promotion she felt an angry rush of blood to her neck before she could temper her reaction. “Ms. Grigorieva—”
“Katya.”
“With respect, Katya…” Her father’s words lurked in the back of Makeda’s mind. Be careful. She took a breath. “I lead projects and have not been an assistant for many years. It’s a different set of skills to support and work with someone who is in charge of the direction of the research. A move like this hardly seems like a good use of my abilities.” Makeda paused to take a breath. “What I mean is—”
“You’re not an assistant,” Katya said. “You’re a boss. Don’t apologize for it; it’s one of the reasons I chose you for this position.”
I chose you.
Done. It was already done, and Makeda had to live with it. She tried not to let the wretched disappointment show on her face.
She knew the reality of going to work for a vampire. Her father had warned her, and she’d taken it under advisement. Huge funding opportunities, but there was no grievance committee. If your boss wanted you to do something, you did it or you quit. And quitting was only an option if you had the right kind of boss.
“You’re not going to be Lucien’s assistant,” Katya continued. “You’re going to be his partner. You’ll have your own staff and your own assistants. But I want your take on his research so far. I think you can add to it.”
“I don’t know anything about this vampire, but I know scientists, and your head researcher is going to hate this. Has he asked for a collaborator?”
“No.”
Makeda closed her eyes. “Then collaboration will not work.”
“Yes, it will. He doesn’t have a choice.”
She opened her eyes. “Does he have to obey you?”
“No. But I fund him, and he’s got three years and personal loss invested in this project.”
Makeda shook her head. “It’s not going to work. We will butt heads constantly. It might actually set the project back instead of advancing it.”
Catching Katya’s eye, Makeda could see the skepticism in her expression.
“I’m not trying to be
contrary,” she continued. “I understand what you’re saying, and you could be right that another perspective on the research is all that’s needed to find a cure. Brilliant advances can happen during collaboration, but unless he’s looking for help, he’s not going to welcome it. Scientists can be as territorial as vampires. I don’t even want to think about a scientist who is a vampire.”
Katya didn’t say anything for a long time, and Makeda mentally updated her resume.
Finally the vampire spoke. “Dr. Abel, I appreciate your candor.”
Well, that’s a relief.
“But I still want you to take the project. Consider it a personal favor to me, because you’re right, Lucien will not be happy. But something also tells me this might work better than either of us could predict. To sweeten the deal, if you can put up with him for… let’s say two years—”
“Two years?”
“Work on this project for two years, and if you’re not making progress—if he’s impossible to work with—I’ll give you your old job back with a significant raise in salary and funding.”
Makeda knew how research facilities worked. “My position will have been taken over by then. I’ll have lost time and momentum on my current project. I’ll have to start an entirely new study group to—”
“Then I’ll give you your own lab. Your own funding,” Katya said. “But I want you to commit to two years. Full dedication, no side projects.”
A light appeared at the end of the tunnel. “Two years and then I’d have my own lab?”
“I want full attention on this, Dr. Abel. I need—the world needs—your mind on this project. Completely and utterly focused on it. If you can do that, focus like that, and you still want to leave after two years, then yes. I’ll give you your own lab and enough money to restart your thalassemia research with my full and complete backing. Also know that while you’re on the Elixir project, funding will not be an issue. Lucien has an open checkbook; so would you.”
Makeda took a few moments to think, but there was really no option. Katya was a benevolent monarch, but as her father had said, she was still a monarch. Unless Makeda wanted to leave her organization, she knew what she had to do.