“Field use. It will be my call sign for this mission. Enable.”

“May I inquire as to why you have changed your code name? Has your cover been compromised?”

“My cover is intact. The change is to … maintain high security standards.”

“Thank you. Call sign ‘Violin’ is enabled. All appropriate field teams will receive a coded memo. How may I help you, Violin?”

“I need to speak to my mother. Right now.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-Six

Tehran, Iran

One Year Ago

Hugo Vox sat in his car and wept.

He had never felt pain like this before. Not during chemo or radiation. Not even the cancer hurt this bad. Upier 531 was a lot more than gene therapy. Vox knew about gene therapy and it didn’t hurt beyond the simple injections.

He felt like every cell in his body was tearing itself apart.

The car was soundproof, so his screams bounced off the windows and the leather seats and smashed into him like fists. He punched the steering wheel and dashboard.

Tears ran down his face.

“God!” he begged. “Please, God…”

But God had never once answered his prayers, even when Vox still believed.

Vox felt his mind fracture, felt pieces fall away. A fever burned through him and his skin was as hot as if he sat in a furnace. The sweat ran down so heavily that he felt like he was melting.

What had he done?

How could he have thought that this was going to save him, because now he was sure it was killing him.

Not only gene therapy.

Grigor’s pet mad scientist, Dr. Hasbrouck, had given him three injections of something else. Three syringes with long needles. Syringes filled with fluid the color of blood.

No, not just the color of blood.

Upier 531.

Blood of the damned. Blood of the monsters who tunneled like pale moles in the bowels of the earth.

Blood of vampires.

Hasbrouck had strapped Vox down for those injections. Bound his wrists and legs and chest. And then he had raised one gleaming syringe above him. A bead of blood gleamed on the needlepoint.

“This may hurt a little,” Hasbrouck had said with a sadistic chuckle. And then he had plunged the needle into his chest.

Into his heart.

Vox had screamed. Oh, how he had screamed.

The pain was so far beyond his understanding that he had no adjectives to describe it. He felt the alien blood as it entered him.

It shrieked its way into his heart, into his blood, throughout his body.

Vox did not pass out until the second needle. Hasbrouck, courteous man that he was, splashed cold water in Vox’s face before he gave him the third injection.

“You really should pay attention to this,” said the doctor. “It’s not every day that someone makes you immortal. Have a little respect.”