“For now,” Aidan added. “I can’t promise I’m not going to knock you through a wall later…”

“Aidan…” Brandon said.

“Sorry,” he said to his master, lowering his eyes. He turned to me. “Have at it. Enjoy holding hands with Patient Zero. I’d go easy on the heavy petting if I were you, though. Claws and all.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said, then grabbed hold of the creature’s hand.

Tapping my psychometry into the creature was unlike any sensation I had ever encountered. I tried to think of it like any other object I had ever pushed my power into. I’m only holding a book, an ashtray, someone’s old bowling trophy, I thought to myself, trying my best to control the squick that came from holding on to the rotting vampire. As I pushed harder into its past, its scrambled thoughts tried to tear into my mind in jagged pieces of mental metal. I wasn’t prepared for the sensation. Most objects I read psychometrically didn’t fight back this way. In defense, my mind’s eye formed a shield and raised it. The resistant mental jabs from the creature fell away and I continued sorting back through the demented and erratic thought patterns in its head.

The experience was a lot like flipping rapid fire through channels with half of them dead air. My own face came into this mix with such sudden resolution it took my brain a second or two to slow things down. I was looking at myself from the creature’s perspective, only I possessed his vampiric level of sight. It was like having a high-definition television feed of that night at the Guggenheim when Jane had rescued me and I had in turn rescued Mina. Pulling back further in time I watched the feral vampire revert to the handsome human vampire known as Perry. He had short, messy black hair and I watched him fighting for his life during what must have been when Cyrus and his army of necromanced undead subdued him. I watched in horror as the vampire was forced into the glass coffin that Mina would also eventually be held in as well. I watched several moments over and over to get a sense of the passage of time by watching the movement of the zombies and Cyrus before Mina and I had been captured. When I pulled myself out of the psychometric vision, the creature’s mind fought to hold on to me, and it took all of my mental strength to pull away.

I stumbled back from the cage. The creature had been somewhat slack-jawed when I came out if it, but roared to life as the connection between the two of us broke. Connor reached out and steadied me.

“Well, kid?”

I took a couple deep breaths as I pulled myself together, trying to shake off the disorientation of freeing myself from a somewhat living mind.

“He’s the one,” I said. “Cyrus and his zombies overwhelmed him. They got him in the coffin, forced him to turn to mist form, then started up that strange pump to keep him from re-forming again. From what I can tell, I’d say he was kept in that noncorporeal form for well over a week.”

“A week!” Aidan said.

“That’s not the worst of it,” I said, turning to Brandon. “His mind is gone. It’s just a mess from everything he’s been through. I could barely make sense of his thoughts. They’re scrambled. I think it’s a type of madness that set in from not having any corporeal form. It changed something in Perry’s blood. I’m sure of it.”

Brandon closed his eyes and shook his head as if in mourning. “We’ve never tested the true boundaries or limitations of how long one can maintain a vaporous state,” Brandon said. “A natural… instinct, I guess you’d call it, keeps us from ever going that long.”

“But this poor bastard never had a choice,” Connor said.

“None,” I agreed. “Cyrus kept him in this form far too long and he came out of it… changed.”

“And now it lingers in his blood,” Aidan said. “He’s the host. Anyone he’s shared blood with or been exposed to in a prolonged manner is at risk of infection.”

Connor stared at his brother in surprise.

“What?” Aidan said.

“Nothing,” Connor said. “Just wondered when you went all mad scientist.”

“I read a lot of Michael Crichton,” he said. “And you keep forgetting I am older than you.” He turned to Brandon. “I don’t think there’s a way to reverse it. Our best bet is to hunt them down and kill them before the virus has a chance to be passed.”

Brandon shook his head, grim. “I won’t kill my own people.”

“You may not have to,” I said. “Me and one of my… colleagues were working on some lab results after Jane and I were attacked by one of these a few nights ago.”

“You’ve seen these creatures before tonight?” Brandon asked.

“At least one of them,” I said. “And from what I’ve been hearing, they’ve been spotted around town, but I think I may be able to help. I’ve been assigned to work with one of our more science-minded experts. She’s not the most vampire-friendly woman I’ve met, but she does have her own lab coat. I bet if I can get her a sample of Patient Zero, I can get her working on something to reverse it.”

“Your only other option is to kill every one,” Connor said. “Killing the infected would be merciful. This virus is what’s killing them, slowly, and the longer you let it linger because of sentimentality tied to who these ferals used to be, the longer you put all your people at risk. Sentimentality is what’s going to leave the Gibson-Case Center a ghost town… er, building. You ever watch zombie movies?”

“I am familiar with the genre,” Brandon said. With the amount of movies and boxed sets up in his chambers, I bet he was.

“I love ’em,” Connor said, “but what happens in all of them? In every damn one of them you have a group of friends trying to escape the zombie hordes. Inevitably, one of them gets bitten and then spends the next half hour convincing everyone they’re going to be all right. It’s only a scratch, they say.”

“But it never is!” Brandon said, the movie buff in him coming out. “They always turn into zombies, sooner or later. Then”-Brandon’s face turned dark-“everyone dies.”

“Exactly,” Connor said.

“I appreciate your candor… and your honesty,” Brandon said. He looked at Aidan. “Prepare a sample of Patient Zero for Agent Canderous. As for hunting down the rest of the ferals that escaped into the city, I fear that will have to wait. It’s sunrise in the real world now. How we go about it, however, is something I must discuss with several members of my council.”

“Okay. And how about you discuss how we can get my girlfriend back, too? Don’t forget about her.” My shoulders sagged. With all that had been going on, I hadn’t realized how drained I was from my recent vision. I felt faint and leaned up against the wall to steady myself, letting out a sigh.

“You okay, kid?”

“Just a little worn-out,” I said, contemplating my next step once I had the sample in hand. “Nothing that a few hours of sleep and some Olympic-class lying won’t take care of.”