THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

We need to stall him, so that’s what I’ll tell him. I’ll say I refuse to deliver you up in this shape, and he’ll have to give us some time to put you back together. I’ll tell him it has to be your choice, and you have to go out under your own steam.”
    “You think he’ll buy that?”
    “I know he’ll buy it.” His smile had a cynical edge. “He thinks all non-vampires are weak-minded sheep. He also knows I wouldn’t let you trade yourself if you lacked the capacity to make the decision. Oh, he’ll buy it, all right.”
    Ainsley frowned. “And while he’s twiddling his thumbs, we’re going to be doing precisely what?”
    “If his experience is anything like Webber’s, he should be starting to feel a little woozy. He’ll attribute it to hunger. We’re going to offer him a snack.”
    The speakerphone rang, the trill sounding angrier and more insistent than before, although Ainsley knew that couldn’t be so.
    “Ainsley, you’re not here, okay? You can listen, but you can’t speak. You can’t sneeze. You can’t make any sound to suggest you’re not closeted in your room having a mental breakdown. Can you do that?”
    She nodded that she understood.
    Delano stabbed the button to answer the call. “Janecek, you will burn in hell for what you did here tonight.”
    Janecek’s laughter filled the room. “No doubt you’re right,” he said, when he’d contained his mirth, “but not before you, Father. Which reminds me, how are you enjoying my new sister?”
    “Fuck you, Janecek.”
    “Ooooh, I think I got to him. What do you think, Lucy, honey?”
    A whimper sounded in the background, and Delano sent Ainsley a warning look not to react audibly. Ainsley covered her mouth.
    Delano returned his attention to Janecek. “What you’ve got, son ,” — he invested the word with a wealth of disdain — “is a problem.”
    “What do you mean?” Janecek’s voice was suddenly sharp.
    “Nurse Crawford is now a basket case, thanks to that atrocity you committed on that child. There’s no way I’m letting her go out there in her present condition. She’s in no fit state to make the decision to sacrifice herself for the hostage.”
    A pause. “She’ll make the decision, all right. I’ll just entertain myself with Lucy here until she can’t stand the sound of her friend’s screams.”
    “That might work,” Delano agreed calmly. “If I’d let her out of the bedroom so she could hear them.”
    “Bring her to the phone right now, Bowen, or I’ll make this bitch pay.”
    Delano laid a restraining hand on Ainsley’s arm.
    “That would be regrettable, but as you’ve observed, I’m just too damned invested in the greater good to be trusted.”
    A stream of vituperative erupted from the speakerphone.
    “Oh, relax, Radak. Ms. Crawford would make sure my life was not worth living if I let anything happen to her friend. But understand this, I will not send her out there in her current condition.”
    “And her current condition is what?”
    “She’s virtually catatonic, thank you. You’ll have to give me at least an hour, maybe more. I’ll use my powers to put her mind back together, but the decision to trade herself for her friend has to be hers. I won’t push a zombie out onto that roof.”
    More cursing.
    “Are we agreed?” Delano pressed.
    “You have one hour.”
    “Good. Now, is there anything we can do to accommodate you while you wait? It must have been a while since you fed. I can send out a couple of units.”
    Janecek snorted. “Yeah, right. Like I would drink blood from a fucking bag. Blood that you’ve probably siphoned out of that Merzetti whore.”
    “Then what would be to your liking? You can’t dine on your one remaining pilot, for safety’s sake, and if you want me to put Ms. Crawford back together, you’ll not touch a drop of her friend’s blood.”
    A pause that seemed to stretch forever.
    “Okay, here’s the deal. Send me a man from your security staff, and get him up here in one minute so you don’t have time to mess with his blood. I want him handcuffed, with his hands behind his back. I want him to come out on the roof, turn a full 360 so I can check him for weapons. Then I want him to approach and kneel outside the helicopter.”
    “I have your word you won’t harm him?”
    A jeering laugh. “You would trust my word?”
    “It seems I don’t have much choice. I want to make a good-faith gesture, in return for your concession, and for not