Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [44]
And then I came to my senses, and I started reading as fast as my comprehension would allow.
Coincidentally enough, I was reading about a break-in.
My Bad Hatter buddy had sent me an inventory of Holtzer Point’s contents, following a breach of security some years previously.
I didn’t see anything about Bigfoot sperm or Jimmy Hoffa; in fact, most of it looked dull as hell. This is no doubt due to the fact that I didn’t have a secret decoder ring. There were code words for people, and projects, and subjects, and expeditions, and … and I had no idea what else. To tell you the truth, most of the time I couldn’t even infer whether or not I was reading about a person, or a place, or a mission, or whatever.
To save time, I ran a keyword search. “Jordan Roe” turned up nothing. Neither did Ian’s serial number, at first. Then I got crafty. I tried “JR” since the army loves abbreviations so much, and I landed a hit.
My first two matches were abbreviations for other things, but the third had potential. I scrolled back, and up, and around until I found the section that was being discussed. Wouldn’t you know it—I’d landed in the chapter wherein missing items were cataloged.
To sum it up more concisely than the government did … someone had beaten me to the punch. Files pertaining to “JR” had been among those stolen by the intruder. I brainstormed my way around the facts and kept on scrolling, hoping to stumble on something useful. Hell, I would’ve settled for some kind of confirmation that “JR” was in fact “Jordan Roe.”
And then I found it. A different abbreviation, one I hadn’t thought to scan for: “J. Roe.” A joke about a Japanese pop singer sprang immediately to mind, but I was a good girl and didn’t say it out loud—even though there was no one to hear me.
I just kept on reading, and collecting more questions than answers.
A few pages down I found some more serial numbers, and I felt like a real boob. Ian’s was right there, hyphenated a little differently, but still in sequence. It was odd to see it—proof of everything he’d told me, and proof that yes, the government was quite certain that vampires exist. Of course, this was also proof that we could be captured, and that we were flesh and blood. We could be altered, and hurt.
I ran my finger over the screen and touched the other serial numbers that didn’t match Ian’s.
We could be killed.
Sure, I knew that part already. And I knew it had nothing to do with garlic, or crosses, or sunlight. We don’t die easily; it takes a lot of fire or firepower, or a lot of cutting. But without our heads, we’re the same goners as everyone else.
And then there’s the sun. That’s one legend with some truth to it. More than a few seconds of direct sunlight and our skin begins to blister. More than a few minutes and we’re a bubbling, vampire-shaped blob that’s too far gone to save.
When I was a young fledgling of a night-stalker, I accidently got myself a smidge of sun poisoning, and I don’t mind telling you, it was completely fucking miserable. If there are worse ways to shuffle off this mortal coil, I don’t want to know about them.
I shuddered with the memory of it and returned my attention to the PDF.
Again, I wished I’d had more time to talk to Ian, and I resolved to make more time when the danger was somewhat past. Even if the case ended, and even if I gave him everything he wanted, I wanted more from him than money. I wanted to know what had happened, and why.
Farther down the endless document with its tiny font I found more of what I was looking for—an admission that Jordan Roe had been decommissioned. As I was already aware, its top secret stash had been sent to Holtzer Point. But according