Bloodline. Maggie Shayne

doctor pressed his icy hand to the nape of her neck, pushing her head forward.

      “Put your head down and breathe. Just breathe.” He hit a button on the wall behind the bed and snapped, “A little help in here,” then yanked something from his pocket, snapped it and held it underneath Serena’s nose.

      The ammonia smell hit her and burned, making her gasp and jerk her head away. And then she was breathing. In and out. Breathing. As if nothing had happened.

      “That’s better.” He glanced up as the door opened and a nurse entered. Pretty, blond and young.

      Serena glanced at her only briefly before shooting her gaze straight back to the doctor. “It’s a lie,” she said. “It’s a lie. My baby was not stillborn.”

      The nurse came closer. “I know how hard this is. I’m so sorry.”

      “My baby was not stillborn,” Serena repeated. And she locked eyes with the doctor. “I heard her cry. I heard her cry.”

      “You were heavily sedated,” the doctor said, with no hint of sympathy in his matter-of-fact tone. “This isn’t uncommon, this delusion of having heard the baby cry. I know it’s hard to understand, but it’s fairly normal.”

      “I heard her cry,” Serena said again. And then she noticed that the blond nurse couldn’t meet her eyes.

      “I’m ordering a sedative,” the doctor said as if she were no longer in the room, then he returned to the foot of the bed, grabbed the chart and scribbled something on it. “Get it into her, stat.”

      Serena sat up straighter in the bed. “I don’t need a freaking sedative! I told you, I heard my baby cry. I heard her!” She shot her desperate gaze to the nurse. “I won’t take a sedative. I want a phone. I want the police. I want to know what you people did with my baby.”

      “Your baby was stillborn,” the doctor said again.

      And very subtly, so slightly that she couldn’t even be sure if she was imagining it, the nurse shook her head as she held Serena’s eyes.

      “Get the Valium,” the doctor ordered.

      The nurse—her name tag said Maureen Keenan, R.N.—hurried out the door. Serena wondered if she had really seen the silent message Nurse Keenan had sent—and whether the doctor had picked up on it.

      No time to tell. He left on the nurse’s heels.

      The second the door closed behind him, Serena scanned her hospital room, but there was no telephone in sight. Getting out of the bed, wincing at how sore she was, she went to the window and pressed the slats of the blinds apart so she could see outside.

      The sun hung low in the sky. The parking lot lay beyond her window. She was on the second floor.

      God, where was her baby?

      She heard the door opening and dove back into the bed.

      Nurse Keenan was back, syringe in her gloved hands. She came close to the bed, leaned down and clasped Serena’s forearm.

      “I really don’t need that, Nurse Kee—”

      “It’s Maureen, and I know you don’t need it,” the other woman whispered. “But you do need to listen and do exactly what I tell you. I want you to wait one hour. Pretend to be out cold, because this shit should knock you right on your ass. Understand?”

      “But what’s going on? Where’s my baby?”

      “I don’t know. I just know you need to get the hell out of here. One hour, then go out the window. Dangle from your hands, then let go, so it won’t be as far to fall. Maybe five feet. There will be a backpack in the bushes with everything you need. One hour, then go. Fake it till then.”

      Footsteps came tapping along the hall, and Maureen quickly slid the needle into the pillow and depressed the plunger. “You’re out cold. There’s a clock over there.” She inclined her head slightly. “One hour, then get out. Your life depends on it.”

      The door opened, and the doctor walked in. Serena closed her eyes and let her head sink onto the pillow as if she were completely relaxed. She made her breathing slow and even and deep.

      “Did she give you any trouble?” he asked.

      “Only a little. I talked her around. I think she likes me.”

      His cold, gray, unfeeling eyes were still on her. Serena could feel them, even though hers were closed.

      “She shouldn’t give us any more trouble tonight,” the bastard said.

      “It’s hard on her. Poor thing, thinking she heard her baby cry. What do you suppose is behind that?” the nurse asked.

      “You were there, Maureen.”

      “Well, not in the room. I mean, I was in the unit, but not—”

      “So? Did you hear a baby cry?”

      It sounded almost like an accusation. Or maybe a challenge.

      “No, Doctor Martin,” Nurse Keenan replied, in a tone that held no life. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

      Serena knew it was a lie. She knew it right to her soul. Maureen Keenan knew. She had heard Serena’s baby cry, and she knew. And she wanted to help.

      Serena wasn’t imagining anything. She hadn’t been hallucinating or deluded or reacting to drugs. Her daughter was alive. She was alive!

      And if it took Serena the rest of her life, she would find her.

      2

      The Present

      Ethan’s first chore in the evening was to see to Scylla and Charybdis. The draft horses were big enough to qualify as monsters, though he supposed naming them for sea serpents was a bit of a stretch.

      He smiled at the notion of his companions as the legendary creatures from the tales of Ulysses—guarding his solitude, the way their namesakes had guarded the Straits of Messina.

      As he strode through the deepening darkness, along the path that twisted from the house to the stable, he heard them blowing a soft welcome from within. They sensed him coming. They would sense danger, as well, and paw and snort their warnings. They seemed to understand that there were some—many—who wanted him dead.

      He was almost to the stable and deep in thought when he stopped walking and lifted his head, suddenly picking up the clear scent of another of his own kind.

      Another vampire. Close.

      A Wildborn? Or one of the Bloodliners, like him? One trained to kill, and sent out to hunt him down and destroy him, as all escapees were hunted down and destroyed?

      Standing utterly still, he honed his senses, feeling for the presence, sensing for any sign of a threat. The horses hadn’t pawed or stomped. They hadn’t blown in anger or snorted, the way they would if danger were near. Why not?

      The presence was that of a female, and the only emotion coming from her was fear. She felt him, too; he could sense it. But not deliberately. She wasn’t scanning the airwaves for his vibration. She’d found it by accident. And now that she had, she wasn’t probing his mind, the way he’d taught himself to do with others since he’d stolen blood from the labs at The Farm and transformed himself two years ago.

      He didn’t feel any hint of danger or menace. Even so, he tugged the pitchfork from its nail on the wall as he entered the barn. It would stab deeply, and she would bleed out well before the dawn brought sleep and its attendant healing power.

      He stepped inside, his nose filling at once with the pleasing aromas of fresh, high-quality hay, straw bedding, honeyed oats and the scent of horseflesh, sharp and rich.

      Scylla snorted softly and swished her tail. Not a warning, but a message that something had her wound up. Excited. Anxious, perhaps, but not afraid.

      Easy,