The New Night Novels (Book 1): Rippers: A New Night Novel by Ashlei D. Hawley Read Free Book Online

family? What kind of mundane conversation was appropriate when two men were hiding out against a threat they couldn’t even put a name or face to?
         “So what do you plan to do after this?” Jameson asked as he logged on and slipped the flash drive into its place on the side of his laptop. The machine recognized the device without a problem and gave Jameson access to its contents. No folders existed in the display. Only one document was available for selection. It was titled, ‘Project Codename: Rippers.’ Jameson clicked on it and looked at Leland, awaiting his answer.
         “I don’t really know,” Leland admitted. “My dad passed a couple years back and the rest of my family… they were all at the party. I don’t really know what to do.”
         Jameson smelled the kid’s depression even through the haze of alcohol he’d noticed as soon as he’d seen him.
     “Well,” the vampire began, “I hope you can find a friend or something.” The scent of blood was even heavier than the smell of rum. Jameson didn’t think he could trust himself around Leland. He didn’t want to risk the kid’s life any more than it was already being risked just by existing in what Jameson assumed was a dangerously changing world.
         Leland’s eyes widened a bit at Jameson’s words. He’d hoped the older man might have had some sage advice to offer. Instead, it seemed like he planned to part ways with Leland as soon as he could and didn’t care to offer him any words of wisdom at all.
         What Jameson read, he didn’t understand. He frowned at the screen as his brain tried to make sense of what he saw. Words like, ‘Grissom virus,’ ‘virus/antibody observations by electron microscope,’ ‘virus infectivity titer,’ and ‘morphological change,’ confused him as he scanned just the first few pages.
         He understood what Joselyn had in her possession when she died contained notes about a virus of some kind. That much, he could grasp. But there were charts detailing numbers he couldn’t comprehend, a map of the United States with proposed spread (which Jameson only knew because it was labelled), and other informational graphs. It was all entirely over his head. The document was over six hundred pages long. Not only did he have no time to go through it all, he had no way to use the information he possessed. Joselyn had with her dying breaths given what appeared to be vital data to someone who had no way to use or even understand it.  
         “Son of a bitch,” Jameson whispered to himself. “Son of a bitch…”
         “Something wrong?” Leland asked. He hoped to draw Jameson into conversation. Anything to distract himself from his aching head.
         “Just a bunch of stuff I don’t understand,” Jameson answered. He cleared the document from his screen, logged out of his computer, shut it down, and repacked it before he spoke again. “Do you happen to know anything about viruses?”
         Leland furrowed his brow and shook his head. “Is that what this is? Is that what happened to those people who killed my family? They’re sick?”
         Jameson bounced the flash drive in the palm of his hand before sliding it back into his pocket. He turned and leaned against the counter as he responded. “The information on this disc seems to indicate the possibility. I can’t imagine Joselyn was killed for something other than this data. It seemed important to her that I take it.”
         “So what are you going to do with it?”
         Jameson looked outside, into the deepening shadows of night. He pondered the kid’s question, trying to be honest with himself about his options.
         He could move quickly and try to make his way to the CDC or some other facility capable of utilizing the information in a positive way. But he’d seen evidence even in his quick perusal of research into vampire DNA. He couldn’t risk that falling into the