Читать книгу Twilight Fulfilled - Maggie Shayne - Страница 12

“You can go in now, Senator,” the curly haired receptionist said.

Marlene MacBride rose from the vinyl chair she’d been warming for the past twenty minutes, smoothed her pencil-slim skirt over her thighs and strode to the door. She was staring at the plaque that adorned it. Special Agent Nash Gravenham-Bail. As she lifted a hand to tap before entering, the door swung open, and she glimpsed a broad torso and a large file box coming toward her.

The box bumped her chest before she had a chance to move out of the way. She automatically gripped it, and the man behind it spoke.

“Senator MacBride. Sorry about the wait, but I think you’ll find everything you need in here. Enough to get you started, at least.”

Marlene lifted her stunned eyes from the box to the face of the man shoving it at her. It was the scar that caught her attention, as she would guess it did most people’s upon meeting this man for the first time. It was a thin pink line, raised a bit, that began at the outside corner of his left eye and angled across his cheek to the center of his chin.

“Line of duty,” he said. “Besides, it’s intimidating. That’s a bonus in my line of work.”

She shifted her focus from his scar to his eyes. Wet cement, they were. “Mr. Gravenham-Bail?”

“It’s a mouthful, I know,” he said. “I still cuss my parents out on a daily basis for the hyphenated name thing. I mean, really, just pick one already. Make a decision.”

She nodded.

“Easier if you just call me Nash.”

“Mmm.” He still hadn’t let her into his office. She was standing in the doorway, holding a box that was getting heavier by the minute, and getting absolutely nowhere with him. “Look, Nash, I was expecting a meeting with you. So you could brief me on all this.”

“Oh, really? I thought you’d want documents. Files.”

“Well, those, too, but—”

“Look if you want a meeting, we’ll set one up. Week after next?”

“I’m afraid that—”

“Barbara,” he called, and started moving forward. Marlene had to either back up or let him walk right into her. He backed her into the reception area, pulling his office door closed behind him. “Barbara, schedule me a sit-down with the senator, here, for the next free afternoon I have. A full hour. And, uh, get someone to help her down with this file box, will you?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Nice meeting you, Senator MacBride. I’ll see you in two weeks.”

He extended a hand to shake, looked sheepishly at the box that was occupying both of hers, then turned and was back in his office, door closed, before she could say boo. Hell, this wasn’t going well at all.

Nash closed his office door, counted to sixty and picked up the phone. “Babs, she gone yet?”

“The elevator doors just closed on her, sir.”

“Great. Get me a flight to Maine. Bangor, or as close to there as possible.”

“Right away, sir.”

Nash needed to get his hands on this resurrected monster, get him under control. He would not rest until every last vampire was obliterated. If even one remained, they would make others. Like damn lice. They were parasites. You had to pick ’em clean to end the infestation. And you had better get their eggs, too, unless you wanted to start the process all over again. In this case, that meant the so-called Chosen. Humans with the rare antigen in their blood that made them susceptible to the disease the Undead had dubbed the Dark Gift. It wasn’t a gift. It was a freaking mutation. The only humans who could become vampires were the carriers of the Belladonna Antigen, so they would have to be eliminated, too. As soon as they’d served their purpose.

The Dymphna Project would take care of that. And by the time pesky Senator MacBride waded through the paperwork mountain he’d handed her, it would all be over.

But in order for his plan to work, he needed to find this Utanapishtim, this madman from another age, another world. He had to win the man’s trust, so he could wield him like the weapon Nash intended him to be.

And then, when the war was over and humans were victorious, he would destroy the so-called immortal last of all, and end the age of the vampires for all time.

He was going to save mankind from the scourge of the Undead. And no junior senator from Nebraska was going to get into his way. No matter how good she looked in a skirt.