Mercer crossed his arms. “Why are you here?”
“I need something from you.” Anthony smiled again, and damn, hewascharming. “Something only you can provide.”
“I won’t make you any more holy silver. I’m not in that business anymore.” He thought of Rahil as he said it: lips parted, eyes alight. The image made him shudder.
“Not holy silver,” Anthony assured him. “Something like it, but without the burning effects—without the harm it causes. Vitalis-Barron studies the vampiric cellular and genetic structure by damaging their—their specimens, lab rats, victims, what-have-you—until the vampire’s enhanced body breaks to allow them in. Holy silver is but one method, its weakening effects directly disrupting a vampire’s cellular defense systems. The study I wish to conduct, however, will produce an end product that’sforthe vampire. Tearing them apart cell by cell for it does seem a bit counterproductive to that. If you could give me another way…” Anthony held up his hands, almost pleadingly. “Let me put it this way: If the vampiric body is a walled city, Vitalis-Barron has been studying them by bulldozering inside and sifting through the pieces as they go. I want to climb over the wall and take a few samples without harming the city in the process. A gentler form of holy silver would help me do that.”
Mercer wasn’t quite sure he understood the scientific aspects of all those words, but he thought he got the gist of it—Anthony wanted to learn why and how the vampiric body functioned without causing harm to the vampires involved in the process. It certainly sounded more ethical than whatever Vitalis-Barron was doing. He understood just how necessary research was if anyone was going to create the kind of pharmaceuticals that would help vampires in their daily lives; sunscreens, blood substitutes, perhaps even something to prevent the deaths that happened during the turning. He tried not to let that last thought sink into his chest like claws.
But regardless of how ethical this route might try to be, anything that pairedresearchwithvampireswas still dangerous. Mercer had to focus onthat. He’d lost enough for one lifetime.
“I suppose it’s a valiant thought.” Mercer shook his head. “But it’s not my place. I know how much tension there is around vampire research right now—around holy silver, too, and anything like it. I can’t get wrapped up in that. My kid has no one but me.”
Anthony sighed, trailing his fingertip along one of the shelves. He stopped at a framed picture of Lydia, her hair in two chunky braids and her eight-year-old grin so large it seemed to take over her freckled face. “And here I didn’t think you’d be able to say no to me.”
The pit of Mercer’s stomach dropped. “Is that a threat?”
“Not at this time.” A shudder ran through Anthony. “I admit it is not beneath me, but it’s… I hope it doesn’t come to that, frankly. I’ve done similar things before and there are always unfortunate consequences.”
“You’ve donesimilarthings before?” Mercer was distressed to find that it didn’t surprise him. Anthony Hilker had always given him vibes like the mafia—incredibly valuable to have on your side, and incredibly dangerous not to. Though, truth be told, Mercer suspected him to be more complicated than villainous.Complicatedcould hurt just as much as malevolence though.
“I’m not always this nice, Mr. Bloncourt.” Anthony smiled, the expression weighted. “But I like you, and I like Lydia, and the vampiric research I’m conducting is making progress in areas we’ve been ignoring for decades… and perhaps it’ll provide much for their community in the process. So, I was hoping that after all I’ve done for you, you’d be willing to try. Help me do some real good here.”
Mercer rubbed a hand across his cheek, holding back a groan. His mind was racing too fast, too hard. Anthony had said this wasn’t a threat. Or that it wasn’tyet. And there was that thought, small and sharp in the back of his head, telling him that if this research had only been done ten years ago, then perhaps… But ithadn’tbeen done. And so here he was. “I don’t know if I have the energy todogood right now.”
Anthony chuckled. “We’re not so different in that, I fear.”
He stepped away from the shelf—steppedtowardMercer, into his space until it felt nearly intimate. It was the closest another man—another human, beside Lydia—had come to Mercer in—in he didn’t know how long. Months? Years? It made the hair on the back of his neck lift in anticipation, and a flutter rise in his chest. Like a deer in the headlights, Mercer couldn’t move.
Anthony glanced out the window, then back. When he spoke, Mercer swore he could feel the man’s breath. “No one is supposed to know this, Mercer—I’m telling you because I trust you. You put your faith in me when your daughter’s life was on the line, and I respect that immensely.” His voice dropped, pleading. “The client I’m working for on this project has a child with vampirism—a childtheywant to help. Youknowwhat it’s like to be willing to do anything for your child. Help me help them.” He held out his hand, his palm up and his fingertips all but brushed Mercer’s chest. “Please,” he whispered.
It was the last straw, and Mercer knew it—knew it as the bleeding body in his mind shifted from Leah’s to Lydia’s; from a lost lover to the child who was still his responsibility to save. If being the cog that saved someone else’s kid also kept happy the man who’d saved his own, who saved her again with every pill she took, then so be it.
Despite his better judgment, Mercer shook on it.
Mercer’s hand felt clammy long after Anthony left, and he found himself with even less ability to work on anything. He paced the house instead, picking up as he went: his misplaced tools and perpetually lost earbuds, Lydia’s jewelry and endless supply of beanies, the dog toys that Kat would leave poking halfway out from under dressers and the corners of rugs. No matter how much attention he tried to pay to anything, he kept finding himself back on his phone, checking first for texts from Lydia, then that damnable dating app.
Too many times he swiped back into it, staring at Rahil’s profile like it might feed him something new if he looked once more; might update to a picture of the vampire trapped in his shed, shirt half off and fangs out. Mercer shuddered and closed his eyes, but somehow that was worse. Alone and behind his eyelids, physical intimacy didn’t have all the same barriers, no expectations, no reality. There, Mercer could be someone else as he peeled back the edge of that shirt, touched the tip of those fangs…
The sound of the front door opening was followed immediately by a customary, “Dad, I’m home! You can stop texting me now.” For the second time that day, Mercer nearly dropped his phone. He swore, adjusting his pants and forcing away the unnecessary vision. This was getting to be ridiculous. He had to stop it before it became something worse. Before he did something he regretted.
With shaking hands, Mercer deleted the app entirely.
7
RAHIL
Rahil was almost, kind of, beginning tolikeViolet. And that was a problem.
Every day she’d appeared that week—which was far too often and made him curse the existence of summer break with nearly as much vehemence as he had when his boys were home during it—he’d given her an outrageous task to prove her commitment.
“Pick us up a tub of peanut-butter from the grocery store, on foot, without letting the sun directly touch you for more than 60 seconds in total.”
“Figure out which of the pre-packaged foods in the freezer section have garlic in them.”
“Count all the pieces of silver jewelry on everyone at the local shopping center for the next hour.”
When she’d pointed out that none of it would beholysilver, he’d lifted a brow and replied, “How doyouknow that?”
