Thirteen (Otherworld 13)

Aaron nodded.

Roni squeezed her eyes shut. Tears brimmed along her lashes. "I wish I'd never heard of vampires. I wish I'd never heard of any of it. Vampires, werewolves, demons." She opened her eyes and met mine. "And witches. I especially wish I'd never heard of witches."

How different her attitude had been a week ago. Then she'd been a witch hunter who dreamed of being a witch. A human who dreamed of being superhuman. She'd been getting blood transfusions that Giles promised would grant her that dream as she was taught tiny spells to "prove" it worked.

"What happened?" I said again, firmer now.

Her eyes closed, tears squeezing out. "I thought he was going to make everything better. Make the world better. That's what he said and he made it sound so real that we all believed him. We followed him. We did everything he asked us to." She opened her eyes. "Did you find out who he really is?"

"Gilles de Rais

," I said. "Slaughtered dozens of children in thirteenth-century France."

"He said that wasn't true. He said he found the secret to immortality and when he wouldn't give it to his enemies, they told those lies about him. They had him executed. Except he didn't die, because he'd found immortality through his research."

"Or through bargains with demons," I said. "That's part of the legend, too."

Her gaze dropped. "He told us he'd found it through research, by accident, and only now perfected it. Everyone believed him. Some believed him so much that they volunteered to be test subjects. Others waited, but then they got tired of waiting. Like Dave."

"Dave?"

She looked toward the back of the jet, where the rest of the wounded were in quarantine.

"The young guy who got infected?" I said. "He did that to himself? How?"

"The water. In the office."

"You poisoned the water cooler?" Adam got to his feet. "That means there will be more employees infected. I need to warn--"

"There aren't any more," Roni said. "That was the idea--put the stuff in after the office closed. Only Mr. Jordan stayed late with two staff. I wanted to wait until they left, but Dave called Giles. I knew what Giles would say."

"Get in there and dose the water."

She nodded. "Dave did it. He pretended--" Her face convulsed with sudden pain.

"Forget how he did it," I said. "So it was just those three, then Jordan left."

"There was another woman from down the hall. She stopped by to talk."

Adam stayed standing. "I'll call the Houston cleanup team and get that water gone."

"So Dave decided to help himself to it," I said to Roni.

She shivered. Aaron pulled the blankets up around her and she whispered her thanks, then said, "That's who's left. The ones who are as crazy as Giles. And some who just keep hoping. Keep telling themselves Giles isn't crazy, he's just . . ."

"Devoted to the cause. Really, really devoted."

She nodded. "It all went wrong so fast that most of us were . . ."

"Blindsided," Aaron said.

She nodded again. "First we heard about the Cabals getting involved, and that made people nervous. Some had worked for the Cabals. They spread stories. Then they disappeared and we told ourselves they'd just left but . . ."

She swallowed. "When the lab blew up, Giles tried to keep it a secret, which was a bad idea because when people found out, they figured he had a reason for hiding it from them, that it meant the whole plan was derailed, the virus gone, Althea dead."

"Althea" was Anita Barrington, a renowned immortality quester and Giles's partner. She'd died escaping the blast.

Roni continued. "Then we heard about the subway and the wedding, and Giles said it was a sign that we needed to act faster. But hearing about people dying because of supernaturals made some members think the opposite."