Page 30 of Saved by the Vampire Goddess (Dark Wine Vampires #1)

Chapter thirty

Evelina

The Emperor’s Palace—Ten minutes earlier

C heese and f’n crackers .

I whoosh away from the dance floor, moving so fast I can only pray no one is caught long enough within my invisibility bubble to see me. Valroy will deal with the guards. I reappear behind the crowd on my way to the cloakroom. The coat clerk immediately recognizes me and, to her credit, takes the check slip and scurries away to find our bags. When she passes them over the counter, I offer another trinket to tip her.

She waves me off. “His Dominus was very generous. I can’t take any more.”

I grip her wrist and slide the bracelet over her hand. “Sure you can. He’s rich, darlin’. And you won’t tell anyone about us, okay? I’m his side piece. We like to be discreet.”

“Of course, Domina. I’ll be silent as a dome mouse. My oath on it.”

“Thanks, sweetie.” I grab the suitcase and backpack and stride off into the crowd. They’re all focused on Valroy and the emperor, and I’m gonna be late if I don’t skedaddle. With no one watching, I tap my daylight bracelet three times. Now there’s no chance any of the imperials will see me climb the stairs at the rear of the ballroom.

The mall has four levels encircling and overlooking the former amusement park area—now a ballroom—with balcony walkways fronting each store on those floors. I whoosh to the second floor, and an alert pops up on my handheld.

Oh fer crying out loud!

The tracker map shows Tina in the palace. What in the name of Mary, Jesus, and Joseph is she doing here? But I don’t have time for this now. She wouldn’t be the first teenager who couldn’t follow orders, but I can’t do a thing about it if I want to save us all.

Winding through the wide corridors that connect this enormous but archaic building, I scoot by the smaller shops, with the wheeled suitcase trailing me and the backpack over my shoulder. The New Romans have remodeled the shops as offices of some kind. I follow the map to a defunct 165,000-square-foot department store that the emperor repurposed into a nuclear engineering lab.

The only reason I know the layout with any certainty is because the Lux preserved all those internet records that should have disappeared when the Collapse came. Ingvar shared enough maps and other details to help me navigate the mall’s maze.

When I arrive at the side door—too small to be the main entrance—an older woman paces in a formal gown. A blue-and-purple glittery mask covers half her face.

Approaching from behind her, I tap the daylight bracelet to turn it off. I don’t want to startle her. “Hey,” I whisper.

She swings around. “It’s about time,” she hisses.

“What’s the word?”

“Project Hercules.”

Good enough for me. “Lead the way.”

Using a metal ring with a mass of keys hooked on it, she fans through them, finds one and unlocks the small door.

“How did you get rid of the guards?” I ask.

“Don’t you recognize my voice? I’m the emperor’s wife.” She straightens her spine and faces me. “I told them a battle was about to start.”

Holy heck. No wonder the Lux won’t put her at risk. She’s a priceless source of future information. Never chop the head off the golden goose, or in this case, the goddess whisperer.

With my hands on her shoulders, I pivot her around and push her inside. “You aren’t far from wrong about the battle. My partner is defending us back there. So make it fast.”

“Don’t touch me,” she sneers at me over her shoulder.

Good grief. Imperial royalty can’t take a joke.

But she doesn’t need any further prodding. If we’re caught, her butt is on the line, so at a brisk pace, she zigs and zags through the hallways. I have no problem keeping up with her, except for these blasted high heels, which tic-tap on the tile floor as I scurry along, so I strip them off and go barefoot.

The back corridors of the former department store are a maze of warrens for moving goods and products in and out. She comes to an abrupt halt in front of one door. I manage not to plow into her, and she finds another key and lets us in.

“Everyone is out celebrating Saturnalia. I’ll watch the door from here.”

But as soon as I’m through the doorway, I see a dedicated public servant leaning over a console on a lab bench, looking at some kind of digital readout. I tap the stone on the daylight bracelet three times to disappear, and still holding tight to the suitcase’s handle, whoosh over to him. I run the crystal detector across his back—he’s indeed protected—and press the button.

Dropping the device into my purse, I then spin him to face me—yeah, he can’t see me, which probably scares the bejeezus out of him. He doesn’t scream or anything, just stands there with his mouth wide open and nothing coming out. So I bite him.

“Ow,” I moan. That crystal detector needs to map better. I accidentally slammed one fang into the crystal. Geez Louise, but that hurts. Despite the sharp pain, I keep drinking.

Hey, don’t fault a girl for a free feed.

Finished taking a pint, I tap the daylight bracelet to make myself visible, and stare into the eyes of the scientist dude. “Take me to the plutonium dioxide.”

He deserves credit. His entire body shakes as he tries to resist. I fed from him first for exactly this reason, as the fang serum is strong enough to overpower the most steely-willed person. Finally, he surrenders and leads me to a protected area with thick metal barriers. I open the suitcase, take out the football, and unlatch it. The insides look like half an egg carton.

Ingvar has assured me that plutonium dioxide won’t permanently irradiate me, and I hope that wasn’t some fast talking on this part. Technically, twenty thousand years wouldn’t be permanent when you live forever, but I’d have to live in isolation the entire time, and that sounds dreadful.

So I did a smidgen of research on my own. A short exposure shouldn’t leave me glowing, but just to be sure, I grab one of the protective suits and helmets from the wall hooks. My dress is gonna look all wrinkled when I take off the jumpsuit, but I don’t want to be the test case of what happens to a vampire with radiation poisoning.

The wound I left on the scientist dude is bleeding a bit, so before we do anything else, I fish out a vial from my purse and pour a little of Valroy’s blood on the two red holes. They don’t heal right away, but then, Valroy is a newbie. His blood won’t be powerful for a few decades.

I hand the football to the scientist. “Gear up. You’re gonna transfer the plutonium into this case.”

He’s nice and obedient, pulls on a protective suit, and loads the nuclear material into the football.

In the back of my mind, I’m fretting about Valroy. I left him all alone against the imperial guards—at least fifteen minutes have passed—but I haven’t felt the bond with him weaken, so he must be holding his own.

“Is that all of the plutonium?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I remotely close the lid. Then the scientist removes the football from the protected area, and I carefully place it in my suitcase. “Do you have any other uranium rods lying around?”

The rods delivered by Trevor were used to make the plutonium. In theory, the football should now hold all of it, but I’m really at the limits of what I learned online.

“Over here.” The scientist points at a huge cylinder labeled dry storage cask , with a diagram on the outside detailing the thickness of the steel and concrete layers, along with its weight when at capacity. “The extra rods are here.”

What? The empress has her facts wrong. What am I supposed to do now? The Lux haven’t given me any instructions.

Then an idea hits me.

“Were the rods delivered in this barrel?”

According to Ingvar, Trevor took one of the protected barrels containing the spent fuel rods and shoved it through the reclamation container.

And what goes in can go out.

Except there’s one problem. Most vampires can mesmerize a victim and make them forget. Very few can exert the kind of control I do—just lucky, I guess. But my ability to compel the scientist’s compliance right now is a factor of time and proximity. Even my mesmerizing powers wear off.

Before leaving the lab, my original plan was to put the scientist in a deep sleep to give me and Valroy enough time to get away. When he woke, he’d be fully conscious and have his free will back.

But I want him to follow my orders after I leave. To accomplish my off-the-cuff plan, I’ll have to Renfield the scientist, turn him into a vampire’s daytime servant, and do it fast.

I struggle with the decision for a moment, recalling all those lectures on vampire ethics I’ve listened to over the decades. Stripping the scientist of his free will is a violation of his humanity. He’ll never get his decision-making ability back.

On the other hand, if I abandon the barrel with the uranium rods and let him continue to build a bomb, the weapon will kill hundreds of thousands of people, not to mention the damage to our preservation arks. That blood would be on his hands—and mine.

I should feel guilty about Renfielding him, but I have worse things on my conscience. So I take the free will of a man with unclean hands in exchange for saving the lives of a hundred thousand innocents.

Needs must.

I strip off my protective clothing, then order him to open his helmet. A quick bite to my wrist, and I shove the bloody wound into his mouth. I’ve already drunk his blood and mesmerized him. Pushing my energy into him while he drinks my blood will seal the deal, but it won’t turn him. Higher volumes of blood transfer are required to make a vampire.

When I take my wrist away, I stare into his vacant gray eyes. “Deliver the spent fuel rods in their barrel to the reclamation container and send the barrel outside.”

Again, he tries to resist, but within a minute, he stops shaking, losing the battle forever. I whoosh to the door with my hand wrapped around the suitcase’s handle, the backpack propped on top.

“What took you so long?” the empress demands.

“Unexpected problems, including a scientist still at his desk. Get back to the center court. You need to be seen there or your loving spouse will suspect something.”

I act like I’m taking a different route out, and then tap the daylight bracelet and follow her to make sure there’s no double cross.

I don’t know what the Lux have promised her, but she returns to her seat near the emperor, and I stop at the balcony to see what’s happening. A zing of adrenaline surges through my veins.

Crap almighty. Valroy’s doing a valiant job, but he can’t last much longer.