Life Sentence: Two Tales of the Living Dead by Kelley Armstrong Page A

you managed to induce invulnerability as well as semi-immortality?”
    “They’ve all completed the procedure. We had two subjects whose bodies rejected the infusion. One survived. One did not. As for invulnerability, naturally, that is part of the package—”
    Gonzales stopped as Shana stepped up to a sleeping subject and slid a knife from her pocket.
    “—though it hasn’t been perfected yet,” he hurried on. “It will be, though.”
    Shana wrote something on her tablet notebook. Sweat trickled down Gonzales’s cheek.
    “Why are they unconscious?” she asked, still writing.
    “We had some difficulty finding willing subjects, and while I’m sure they’ll be pleased with the results, we thought it best to . . .”
    “Ease them into the reality of their new life.”
    His head bobbed. “Yes. Exactly. Thank you.”
    “Wake one up.”
    Gonzales stared at her. Then he looked into the camera.
    “When Ms. Bergin speaks, she is speaking for me,” Daniel said.
    Gonzales blathered on about the danger of reversing an induced coma. Shana set the camera down, so he could speak directly to Daniel, then walked away, as if giving them privacy. She walked behind Gonzales, quietly opening a medical cabinet, taking out a syringe and scanning the bottles before choosing one. Daniel smiled. The perfect assistant. Always resourceful. Always anticipating his needs.
    As Gonzales continued, Shana filled the syringe, stepped up to the nearest subject and plunged it in.
    The man bolted upright, gasping and wild-eyed. Not unexpected, under the circumstances. The screams were. Unearthly shrieks filled the lab as the man grabbed at his skin, fingers and nails digging in, ripping, blood splattering the white bed, the white walls, Gonzales radioing for help as he ran to the medicine cabinet.
    Shana walked over to the camera, then glanced back at the subject, still screaming and rending his flesh as if acid flowed through his veins.
    “Well, now we know why they were sedated,” she said, and turned off the camera.

    You didn’t reach Daniel’s position in life by giving up easily. Yet neither did you get there by clinging to hope past all reasonable bounds. He spent another month researching promises of vampire life, then gave up on that particular cure.
    “They’ve been making huge strides in zombification lately,” Wendell said, between bites of his Kobe burger. Wendell was Daniel’s second cousin, a VP in the family Cabal. Relations with his family had greatly improved a decade ago, coinciding with his own company’s appearance on the NYSE. An independently successful Boyd could be useful to the Cabal, and Daniel felt the same about them.
    Wendell swiped the linen napkin across this mouth. “Did you hear what I said?”
    “I heard. I’m ignoring it, having no overwhelming desire to spend my eternity in a state of decomposition.”
    “Oh, you don’t rot forever. Eventually the flesh is gone and you’re a walking skeleton.” He leaned over to thump Daniel’s shoulder. “I’m kidding. Well, not about the rotting part, but for years, scientists have been working on curing that little drawback. We had our own R&D department working on it for a while before we decided it was simpler to monitor the independent guys, wait until they’re done, then buy the research.”
    “For zombies?” Daniel’s lip curled with distaste. The server—thinking he didn’t like his meal—rushed over, but he waved her away.
    “Sure. Think of the applications. We’ve got a lawyer on his deathbed right now. Guy’s been with us almost fifty years. A wealth of information is about to disappear. We could change that.”
    “Huh.” Daniel tore off a chunk of bread and chewed it slowly. “You have any names?”
    “Not on hand. I can get them, though. If this works, though?” Wendell smiled. “Biggest favor ever.”

    Biggest favor ever was right. Savvy businessman that he was, Wendell had known exactly how much his information was worth.