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who we can trust at this point. Some of the employees must be in on this, or else it couldn't be running so
smoothly."
"Right. Of course, you're right." He sighs. "So what can we do? I want to help in any way I can."
"Okay, good," I say, relieved to have him on board. "I have a vampire working with me who's been
posing as an em-ployee. He's already inside," I explain. "Can you help us get down into the restricted
areas of the Blood Bar? We need to find out where they're keeping the virus so we can bring a sam-ple
back to our labs for analysis. Our scientists believe if they have a vial of the stuff, they may be able to
create an antidote."
"And if your coven creates the antidote, will you share it with us?" Francis asks. "Those of us who aren't
members?"
"Of course," I say, hoping that's true. Well, I'll make sure it is. No vamp discrimination in my book.
"There will be enough vaccine for anyone who needs it."
"You're a good person, you know that?" Francis asks. "I'm glad I let you in that first day."
"As if you could resist me." I grin. "Now tell me what you think we should do."
27
TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 10 P.M. (CONTINUED)
The Not-So-Great Virus Heist
Francis proves to be the best hookup ever. I doubt we could have done any of this without him. First, he
sends me in-side and I request Jareth as my biter. Once Jareth and I are to-gether in our room, we wait.
Francis shows up a moment later, costumes in hand.
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"Maverick actually owns this whole block," he explains. "And so there's a huge sprawling basement
under this build-ing. Most of the areas are restricted, but I always see the em-ployees who work down
there dressed in these." He holds out the clothes. White scrubs, complete with surgical masks.
"Cool. Where did you get them?" I ask.
He laughs."I,uh, borrowed them from some employees I thought needed a little nap. So you'd better do
this quick, be-fore they wake up and figure out how to get themselves un-tied and out of the linen closet."
"Wow, very nice, Frannie." I hold up one of the outfits. "Now we'll fit right in. Thanks so much."
"Anything to help Dana," he says with a sheepish shrug. But I can tell he's pleased by the compliment.
"Let me know if I can do something else."
"No. This is great," Jareth says, slipping the shirt over his head. "You'd better get back to the door
before anyone be-comes suspicious. Rayne and I can take it from here."
"Okay," he says. "The stairs to the basement are at the far end of the hallway. The employees were nice
enough to leave their keycards in the pockets of those uniforms." He grins. "Good luck."
He exits the room and we scramble to don our scrubs and masks. Once outfitted, we nod to one
another. This is it.
We find the staircase easily and swipe our keycards, then head downstairs. Francis wasn't kidding. The
underground is huge, full of windy corridors and closed doors. The dim fluo-rescent lighting and low
ceilings don't make it any more com-forting either.
We try a few doors with our keycards, and at first none seem to work. But there are so many doors, I
guess it'll take a while to find the right one. Hopefully no one will catch us randomly trying locks. Might
seem a bit suspicious.
But luck is with us. Jareth points at an employee dressed just like us, exiting a door at the far end of the
corridor. I nod. Together, we casually walk down the hall, keeping our steps at a normal pace, until we
reach the door.
This time, the keycards work and the door swings silently open.
We step into the room and my mouth drops open in shock. The place is like a regular laboratory, with
Bunsen burners burning, test tubes bubbling, the works. Whatever Maverick's got planned, it's a
full-scale operation. He's got a couple employee vamps in the back, dressed as we are with face masks
and scrubs, mixing some kind of multicolored powders to-gether. They turn and acknowledge us, then
turn back to their work. Phew. The disguises work. Thank you, Francis.
Jareth beckons me over to the left wall, taken up by the hugest refrigerators I've ever seen. He wraps his
hand around the door handle and pulls one open. Puffy white freezer smoke billows out.
Inside there are rows upon rows upon rows upon rows of tiny medicine bottles. Like the kind you stick [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]