Acquainted With the Night (9781101546000) by Piper Maitland Read Free Book Online Page A

remembered, tidy and modern for an eight-thousand-year-old city, with Byzantine architecture juxtaposed against gray, Stalinist-era buildings. But the traffic! Just then, a green car cut across two lanes and plowed into the side of a lorry.
    â€œWelcome to Bulgaria,” Mr. Hughes said.

CHAPTER 6
    WILKERSON PHARMACEUTICALS
EAST LONDON, ENGLAND
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    Harry Wilkerson sat on the edge of his desk and watched the flat-screen television on the far wall. A BBC reporter stood in front of a Covent Garden flat, the site of an early-morning murder. The victim was described as a twenty-five-year-old woman. Her name was being withheld pending notification of relatives.
    Wilkerson looked away from the television and put one hand over his eyes. He had no doubt who the victim was or who had committed the crime. Moose. That pervert had killed the Clifford girl, and now the police had her body. Wilkerson would never know if she’d been his daughter. He’d never find his icon or those ten priceless pages of Historia Immortalis .
    This was Underwood’s fault. He shouldn’t have sent that obsessive-compulsive oaf to Covent Garden. Years ago, when Moose had worked at the Hammersmith laboratory, he’d been banned from participating in bone marrow aspirations or biopsies on patients because he couldn’t control his feeding frenzies. What had Underwood been thinking? He should have sent a human technician.
    Wilkerson lowered his hand, then traced his finger along the blue veins that forked below his knuckles. Having vampires on the payroll carried risks, so he’d found a way to deal with their hunger and manage them. He’d implemented a company policy requiring all vamps to receive daily transfusions at the Hammersmith facility. This allowed his researchers to perform covert studies, mainly clinical drug trials. It was a risky project, because if the vamps knew the truth, they’d revolt. In minutes they could overpower the scientists and guards.
    That was why Wilkerson had ordered SSRIs to be added to the transfusions. It was best to keep the immortals cheerful, but they were discouraged from setting foot in Wilkerson Pharmaceutical’s headquarters on Waterloo Road. Some of the bolder ones paid no attention to rules. As a precautionary measure, Wilkerson hired a bodyguard, a Cambodian named Yok-Seng, who could put his foot through a man’s chest. No immortals, not even the Zuba brothers, messed with Yok-Seng.
    Wilkerson glanced back at the telly. The BBC reporter was still talking about the murder. Wilkerson poured scotch into a crystal glass. If he could live for centuries—never aging, never succumbing to disease—he would accumulate a staggering fortune. He wouldn’t let anyone, or anything, threaten his dynasty, and that included loose ends.
    The dead girl on Bow Street was more than a loose end. She’d been Wilkerson’s last chance to find Historia Immortalis . The book was much more than the history of vampirism: It held secrets to longevity and, interestingly enough, methods of destroying the immortals. If the tome fell into the wrong hands, it would pit science against religion. Men would lash out against vampires, depriving them of rights, but the battle would inevitably disintegrate into a predictable man-against-man conflict. Some humans would oppose the immortals, and some would offer support—or even breed with them.
    Initially, the outing of vampirism would cause a social upheaval. The affluent, centuries-old clans would be ostracized. After all, the royals were a bit finicky about bloodlines. However, that would be the least of the vampires’ problems. The wealthy and common alike would go into hiding. While they reorganized, they’d be sought by fringe groups and bounty hunters. Enthusiasts might hunt them for sport.
    Wilkerson took a sip of scotch, grimacing as the liquid burned his throat. It would be gratifying to watch the predators become prey, but