Blood Thirst

by Lena Hillbrand

  “But I’m an Enforcer,” he reminded her, breaking the unspoken rules of her little game. “I can afford anything. Want to fly up here and visit me for a day? Bring the kids. We’ll have a little picnic. I’ll teach them about the climate of hell.”

  She lost her smile a little. “Oh, baby, are you okay? I was only teasing. Is it that bad up there?”

  “Worse. I’m stuck in a goddamn hotel, nothing to do, and only an insane person would go outside. I think there’s some kind of blizzard going on. Even at night it’s light as a full moon.”

  “Awww, I wish I could come,” she said. “You know, sometimes I miss snow.”

  “I don’t see why you would. It’s positively awful.”

  “I know, I just remember it from growing up. Wading through snow up to my waist, skiing over to the neighbor’s… Maybe I’ll come up and go skiing once you settle in.”

  “Why not make it tonight? I’ll be busy once I get settled in and get the assignment.”

  “I can’t,” she said with a sigh. “I have a big surgery tomorrow. I can’t miss it.”

  “What time is it?” he asked, careful not to reveal anything over the communication, which was probably not monitored but could be randomly picked up by the government at any time. Of course Marisol had to use her doctor’s discretion.

  “First thing in the evening,” she said, which he knew meant she had one of her First Order patients scheduled. Their celebrity made them avoid the spotlight, but if he’d been home, Marisol would have told him about the First Order Superior getting work done and what work she’d scheduled. But even Enforcers had to watch what they said over electronic communication. And Byron cared more about the reputation his wife had built for herself than about a First getting a nose job. He knew her discretion and artistry in reshaping people to look as they wanted kept her among the premier surgeons in the Funnel, maybe even in North America.

  “I’m sure you’ll do fine,” he said. “Can I talk to one of the kids before I go?”

  “Which one? You know you can’t pick just one or they’ll get jealous.”

  “Paige first, she’s more sensitive. Then let me say good day to Parker.”

  “Bye then,” Marisol said, then licked the screen and laughed. He watched her wipe her saliva from the camera with a huge smile on her face. She loved doing disgusting things like that, probably knowing what her tongue looked like magnified onto the screen of his pod. At least he didn’t have the wall-screen on. A wall-sized tongue, even that of his beautiful wife, didn’t make for a pretty picture.

  He spoke first with his daughter and then his son before retiring for the day in a considerably better mood than before the phone call. He would have liked to call them every night, but he didn’t want Marisol to think him desperate. Already he thought himself desperate, especially after almost a week in this infernal hotel with sap stench seeping into his room.

  He checked on his saps as seldom as possible. Every time he opened the door, it let a little more of their reeking odor into his room. He paced and made phone calls, and grew more and more irritated with his situation. No one in his right mind would go out in this kind of weather. Surely no one would commit crimes except on the rare occasion when someone went crazy with boredom and snapped for lack of anything else to do. Local law enforcement could handle those cases. Byron hoped he hadn’t been sent on some kind of fool’s errand. When he made it to Princeton, he’d probably end up sitting around his house all winter doing nothing.

  So why did they need more man-power? What kind of Enforcers lived up here, that they couldn’t handle the number of people who would venture out and wade through miles of waist-deep snow to commit crimes against their neighbors? Byron didn’t like it. He didn’t like the weather, and he didn’t like that he had begun to suspect there was more to the assignment than they’d told him at the outset. And he sure as hell didn’t like that he had to keep smelling that putrid odor coming from the next room. What could two humans possibly do that would smell that foul?

  He could only hope they’d started mating in there. Having a sapling to sell off every couple of years might provide a welcome side project in this sleepy little area. He could make a good profit off the two saps the government had given him. Technically he’d only rented the male for now, but he thought it would prove a wise investment.

  A new sap every two or three years, a baby he could sell at three or four years old. They didn’t bring a lot of money at that age, but they didn’t cost much to feed, either. A good young breeder like his female sap cost a lot more than her babies would bring in, but after a while, he’d earn back everything he’d paid for her and more. Well, everything the government had paid on his behalf.

  Her companion could be purchased for a good price, too—males were easier to come by and cheaper, since they didn’t have much use in increasing a herd of sapiens. Males made a better investment if someone just needed something to feed from or to work in the fields on farms, since any male could mate a single time with a female. The females had much more value. And if they produced a male child soon, maybe he’d keep it, breed it with the mother again to keep more of her delectable flavor in the offspring they produced. Of course he couldn’t do that too many times, or his saps would lose their fertility from inbreeding. In Confinements, the government introduced saps to new populations every few generations to cut the incidence of inbreeding and thus prevent inheritable genetic defects in the sapien population.

  Byron wondered if sapien farming wasn’t a career Draven could look into. He knew Draven liked animals, and he’d just earned his bonus for the Ander mission, a bonus that he could use to purchase a sap. Maybe he’d suggest it next time he saw the man. Draven liked to change employment often, and raising sapiens could prove quite profitable once the initial investment was returned. If he didn’t have such an important job already, Byron would have considered the career for himself after talking to the sapien farmer who’d lent him the male.

  He thought maybe he’d buy the male if it made a good mate for his female. That way he wouldn’t have to go looking for a male to rent every time his female needed breeding. Besides, he’d heard that contented saps kept bearing children longer than unhappy ones. He doubted the truth in that statement, but it couldn’t hurt. Saps could become depressed and nonresponsive after having too many babies taken away, or having babies taken at too young an age. Having a constant companion decreased the chances of a sap wearing out. Supposedly their bodies just refused to impregnate sometimes. So maybe he’d keep the male around. Keep his saps happy.

  Now wasn’t that a laugh—here he’d started considering the feelings of his livestock, attributing them with the capability for emotion in the first place. Already, being cooped up had started getting to his head. No wonder people went nuts and started crime sprees up here.

  10

  “Hey everybody. We got a surprise for you,” Larry said. He’d hardly been able to contain himself through supper. Sally could tell. She couldn’t eat nothing herself, what with all the excitement just about eating up her insides.

  “What’s that, son?” Pappy asked, leaning his chair back on two legs and hanging his arm over the back of it.

  “You gotta come out to the shed to see it,” Sally said.

  “Come on now, I don’t want to be traipsing out in the snow, getting all cold and getting my feet wet just to see you found the shovel or some damn thing. Just spit it out.”

  “Nope,” Larry said. “You wanna see it, you gotta come out to the shed.”

  “Quit trying to be mysterious,” Uncle Tom said. “Y’all’s fixing to make me lose my patience. What you do, make an improvement on the cage?”

  “Oh no,” Larry said. “Cage is perfect already. I seen to that.”

  “So what is it?” their cousin asked. She’d come back with Tom from her mother’s house. “I wanna see, if no one else does. I’ll go with you.”

  “Sissy, finish your supper. Nobody’s going out at night, getting all
bundled up to see one of Larry’s crazy inventions.”

  “Trust me, you’re gonna wanna see this one,” Sally said. “And it ain’t nobody’s invention. Least not nobody who lives here.”

  “I’ll go,” Mama said. “I’m done eating. Let me get my boots on. Come on, Pappy, you come, too. Ain’t safe for us to be out there without some menfolk. You know those bloodsuckers come out at night.”

  “Oh, all right.” Pappy sighed and got up, grumbling curses as he did so. He went to fetch his boots, and Sally and Larry got up, too.

  “Come on, Tom. You’re gonna wish you’d come out if you don’t. I’m telling you. It’s better than any deer, or any of my inventions,” Larry said.

  “Dammit, Larry. Fine, I’m coming. But I’m warning you, boy. If this is one of your hare-brained schemes, and I have to get all dressed up to go see it, I’m gonna tan your hide when we get back.”

  “I ain’t twelve years old no more, Tom. Now quit your yapping and let’s go.”

  The six of them tromped out through the frigid night, sending cloudbursts into the darkness with every breath. The night was clear and cold as that steel chain after it had lain in the snow. Sally wondered if bloodsuckers could feel cold. She’d never seen one up close before, and she wanted to know what they looked like in real life. She’d only seen pictures and lots of drawings in her books. Now that they’d gotten this one safely caged, it might be fun to see its fangs. It was probably real scary, though. Maybe Sissy shouldn’t’ve come.

  They crowded into the shed, and Larry pulled the string that turned on the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. The black oblong shape still lay on the floor in the cage.

  “What is it?” Sissy asked, her voice full of awe.

  “We got ourselves a real live bloodsucker out in the woods today,” Sally said.

  Mama covered her heart and started up trembling. “Sweet Jesus.”

  “You went out there and brought this back and never told us all through dinner?” Pappy said, shaking his head. “You’re a couple of damn fools is what you are. It could’ve escaped and killed us all.”

  “He ain’t escaping, Pappy,” Larry said. “I worked hard on this cage every day, and we’ve both read up and been to all them meetings. We know how to chain them up real good.”

  “You should’ve told us sooner.”

  “Ain’t you even happy about it?”

  “Sure I am. I’m real proud of you both. I only hope there ain’t more of them out there in the woods. We best set up a watch.”

  The lump on the floor started saying things, too muffled for them to understand.

  “How’d you wrap it up like that?” Sissy asked, stepping forward to get a better look.

  “We didn’t,” Sally said, stepping up beside her cousin. “It was the darnedest thing. It was all wrapped up when we found it.”

  “What’s it look like?”

  “We ain’t seen it yet,” Larry said. “But it talks in our language. He was just begging to get away, swearing up and down he’d leave us alone if we let him go.”

  “I’m sure glad you listened to reason, son,” Pappy said, turning away. “Tonight we’re gonna keep watch on it, and up yonder at the house. Tom, you best go round tomorrow and let everybody know. We can have a viewing tomorrow, too, and decide how to kill it.”

  “Can we see it tonight?” Sally asked. “I mean, we caught it. Shouldn’t we get to see it first?”

  “Oh dear, I just don’t know,” Mama said.

  “I want to see it,” Sissy said. “Pleeeease?”

  “Hell, I want to see it, too,” Tom said. “Come on, Larry. You cover me. Get you a stake in each hand in case it tries to bite me. The rest of y’all stay out there and arm yourselves in case it’s faking. They’re sneaky bastards, them bloodsuckers.”

  Larry and Tom unlocked the cage and went inside, passing the key out so Pappy could lock it again. The rest of the group armed themselves from the supply of stakes they’d spent years carving.

  “Remember, don’t nobody look in its eyes. They can hypnotize with just one look,” Mama said.

  Sissy’s small hand slipped into Sally’s. “Is it gonna be scary?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  “Yeah, real scary,” Sally said, squeezing her cousin’s hand. “Just hold tight to me and keep your stake ready.”

  Tom crept up to the bundle on the floor while Larry stayed behind him, stakes at the ready. Tom started pulling at the black stuff covering the bloodsucker’s head, but the thing had wrapped itself up real tight, and Tom had some trouble with the wrapping. Finally he got out a pocket knife and cut through the strange fabric. The creature made an awful muffled sound, and they all jumped and then laughed uneasily. Sally shifted from one foot to the other and glanced around at the others, who all stood waiting, too.

  “Did they hurt it?” Sissy asked.

  “No, Sissy,” Pappy said. “They don’t feel no pain. They can’t die excepting for being staked.”

  Tom pulled the wrapping off the thing’s head. But it didn’t look much like a thing, or bloodsucker, or a monster. It looked just like a man with blood running down his cheek. A man looking straight into Sally’s eyes.

  Geez Louise. She’d forgotten to look away. But it didn’t matter nohow, because she didn’t get hypnotized. She must’ve looked away fast enough. She jerked on Sissy’s arm. “Psst. Don’t look at its eyes.”

  “I ain’t. But it don’t look scary. It looks kind of scared to me.”

  “That’s what it wants you to think,” Pappy said.

  Somehow the thing managed to roll itself up into a sitting position without using its arms, which Sally thought looked near impossible until it succeeded. Uncle Tom and Larry both stepped back, and Larry held up both stakes. “Don’t you move again or I’ll stake you,” he said.

  “Please do not kill me,” the bloodsucker said. His voice came out clear and accented, every word precise. It was a strangely full voice—full of warmth and strength. “I mean you no harm. I only stumbled upon your house last night by chance, and I continued on my journey. I only wish to leave in peace.”

  “You really think we’re just gonna let you go?” Tom said. “We know all about your bloodthirsty kind. You ain’t going nowheres, excepting to your grave where you belong.” Tom stepped forwards and hocked a big loogie and spit it right on the man’s face. Larry and Pappy started laughing, but Sally thought it was just plain gross, even to a non-human. The bloodsucker didn’t look right scary to her, neither. He actually looked real nice, in a harmless, pretty kind of way. Probably all an act, though. Like her Pappy said, they were a deceitful breed.

  The bloodsucker couldn’t wipe his face, so the spit just ran down it real slow. He looked at Tom. “I am Draven,” he said. “Draven Castle. I wish that you will remember my name after you have killed me.”

  If that weren’t the strangest request Sally’d ever heard.

  “Is that right?” Tom said, backing away from the man in the bundle. “And how many of us have you killed? You know any of their names?”

  “I have never killed a human.”

  “I’ll be danged. I bet you’re just sweet as peaches on the inside, right? Next thing you’ll be telling us you don’t drink human blood at all. Ain’t that right?” The man-creature didn’t say anything, and Tom started laughing. “You piece of bloodsucking shit. You think you can fool us? We burn your kind at the stake, just like they did witches a long time ago. You unnatural, cannibal freak.” He stepped forward and started kicking the man, who grunted every time Tom’s foot hit him. When he fell over sideways, Tom just kept right on kicking him until Sally covered Sissy’s eyes and turned away.

  “Girl, you’re twenty-eight years old,” Pappy said. “One of these days you’re going to have to get used to the fact that these things ain’t even alive no more. I know you been staying away from the executions in the past, but you found this one yourself. You’re going to be there this time.”

  “Yes, Pappy. I just don’t thi
nk Sissy’s quite old enough.”

  “Come on,” Mama said. “I’ll go in with you two. Pappy, you come on in, too. We might need you to sit up guard with us. They’ll be fine out here.”

  Pappy passed the key to Larry and headed on out of the shed. Sally looked back to see her brother had join in the beating. She turned away and pushed Sissy out in front of her, and they followed Sally’s parents into the house. Half the night, Sally sat up doing guard duty in the house. She didn’t want to go back to the shed. She tried not to think about the sickening thuds of her uncle’s feet hitting the thing in the wrapping, but she couldn’t quite get it out of her head.

  11

  Draven lay bound for a long while as the men kicked him. After they left, he didn’t move. He didn’t have much choice in the matter. The pain was too great for him to make any attempt at movement. So he lay on the floor while his wounds began their itchy, painful healing process.

  It seemed impossible that sapiens had done this to him. Though some Superiors beat their saps, the people he associated with didn’t own livestock, since the majority of Thirds, like him, couldn’t afford something so expensive. Most Superiors who did own livestock subscribed to the theory that a happy sap caused less trouble. Draven didn’t know any Superior who actively hated homo-sapiens. Superiors either liked them, or had a vague disgust for them, or in extreme cases like Byron, found them unbearably repulsive. But Draven couldn’t imagine a Superior hating saps. How could someone hate his own food?