Blood Thirst

by Lena Hillbrand

  “I don’t want to have a couple babies. And from what my sister said, it sounds like it might hurt worse than going to the blood bank. I spent most of the time I was there passed out, anyway.”

  “I know it’s bad for you, Cali, but…”

  “But nothing. You don’t know. You don’t have to do anything except give a little blood every day. You wouldn’t even try to do the baby thing with me. I’m leaving. I’m finding a way, and I’m getting out of here. You can come if you want.”

  “Fine. Leave. But you’ll probably get killed.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  After Shelly went inside, Cali stabbed the dirt with the plastic trowel a dozen times to keep herself from crying. Why did Shelly get to have it so easy? He had the problem. She’d been all ready to have babies and do everything Master wanted, and Shelly was the one who messed it all up. And now he acted like she was stupid to try this. She’d done it before.

  So she might get caught. Big deal. She knew Master wouldn’t send her to the blood bank. He liked her too much. Liked her blood, anyway.

  And if he caught her, how would he punish her? He’d already done the worst thing possible. Breeding her off like a machine made to spout out babies. That’s all she was, too—to him. Push this lever, out comes food. Push this one, out comes baby. Having to make the baby with some random man she’d never see again wasn’t the worst, and having the baby wasn’t the worst. The worst part was that she’d grow to love the baby against her will, and then she’d have to give it up. And then she’d have to do the whole thing over again. Over and over, until she got old and worn out and couldn’t have any more babies. And then she’d just get bitten every night for the rest of her life, and she’d wonder what happened to all those babies and if they got bitten, too—or worse.

  She looked in and saw Shelly cleaning the potatoes. Life was so easy for him. He only had to feed Master. He’d never have a baby, never even make one. No wonder he wanted to stay here. Everyone dreamed of getting sold to an individual Superior, having an apartment and a garden and stability. She couldn’t ask Shelly to run. But he couldn’t ask her not to, either.

  “Hey, Cali,” someone called. She collected herself and went to the bars and looked down. “You fixing to run?”

  “Oh, hey, Martin. Um, I don’t know. I’m just being silly. I didn’t realize you guys were out in your garden, too.” And she hadn’t realized she’d talked so loud, loud enough that her master could have heard for sure—if he’d been home.

  “I am,” Martin said. “Master make you mad?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Hey, if you’re serious, you let me know and we’ll talk.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your master in?”

  “No. He always works.”

  “Okay, good. Nobody else can hear us out here on the back of the building. They think we’re so stupid they get careless, forget to pay attention to us. So were you serious?”

  “If you know how to get out of here, I’m serious.”

  “You better be sure before I start taking risks for you.”

  “I’m sure. What do I do?”

  “There’s a way out of here, through the garden.”

  “Then what? Where do we go?”

  “I know a guy. You have to come now, though. He only comes once a year, and he’s here now.”

  “Right now?” Cali asked. She’d been sure, but the suddenness scared her. Maybe she needed to think it over more.

  “Tomorrow we go,” Martin said. “First light. If you’re not out here, we’ll leave without you.”

  “I’ll be ready,” Cali said, and turned and went back inside. Turned out she didn’t need so much time after all.

  “Here, eat this,” Shelly said, pushing a bowl of mashed potatoes at her. “You’re gonna need some food in you if you’re really gonna do this. But I still think you’re crazy.”

  “Maybe I am,” Cali said. “But I’m doing it anyway.”

  38

  “I get you out of here, you ain’t gonna come and kill all us excepting me, is you?” Sally asked.

  “No,” Draven said. He sat on the floor in his cell, as that was where Sally had grown accustomed to seeing him. But he buzzed with energy and life even in stillness. He wanted to run the way he’d run when preparing for his mission with Byron—heedless and without restraint. He folded his hands in his lap, the old one on top, not wanting Sally to see how much the other one had grown.

  “And you ain’t gonna tell nobody about us, not ever?”

  “No, Sally. But when you’re one of us, if all goes as planned, you will see things differently.”

  “I ain’t gonna want to kill my own family.”

  “No,” Draven said. “But they will want to kill you.”

  “I don’t know, maybe they’ll see we’s not so different after all.”

  “I wish that were true.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’m surely gonna miss them.”

  “I know,” Draven said, reaching through the bars to touch her ankle. She did not wear shoes, but her feet were clean tonight. “Where have you been?” he asked.

  “Pappy’s funeral.”

  “I’m very sorry. You must know he was already dead when they brought him here.”

  “Yeah, I know. I ain’t mad at you. I reckon I was just shocked seeing you that way. You seem so…civilized.”

  Draven laughed softly. “I am civilized. You’ll see. When can we do it?”

  “Draven, I know I done convinced you it were a good idea, but…I don’t know if I can go through with it. I just…don’t know. It’s something so big, and I ain’t never lived nowhere but here, and I don’t know how to do nothing.”

  “Yes. It will be difficult for you. I can see that.”

  “I mean, I can read and such, but…I ain’t got training for nothing but living out here.”

  “Sally, I have to tell you something. If I succeed and you evolve…you can’t live like other people. We have to have papers and all sorts of legal documents. It’s all quite organized. If anyone found out what we’d done, we’d both be killed. This is the penalty for creating an Illegal.”

  “What? You’re just now telling me this?”

  “I should have told you when you asked to become one of us. In all honesty, I am not certain I know how to evolve a human. And if I do…no one could ever know. You could get illegal papers, but it’s a most serious crime.”

  “But why?”

  “Because there are too many of us and not enough humans. It takes resources and land to raise humans. You are a valuable commodity to Superiors. That’s why it’s illegal to kill a human, too, and why most owners treat their sapiens well. People like me, most of us only dream of owning a sapien. We have to eat from public sources. Making a human into a Superior causes the loss of a food source forever, and creates one more need. Illegals and their…sponsor, so to speak, are enemies of the state.”

  “So we’d have to hide out forever.”

  “If anyone learned the truth, yes. If not, only you would.”

  “So I’d still be hiding out just like I am now, only I’d be a bloodsucker.”

  “I understand if you change your mind. I only wanted to escape from here. I’m sorry I did not tell you sooner. I tried to dissuade you, but I could have protested more vigorously.”

  “Dang. Now I don’t rightly know at all. What’s the point in being a bloodsucker if I ain’t free? I figured I’d get to do all kinds of stuff.”

  “You will. And if there’s another war, many more humans will evolve, and it won’t matter when or how you evolved. You will have to wait until then before coming out and living a normal life.”

  “Well heck, maybe I’ll wait ‘til then for you to change me.”

  “Yes, but you’ll forever retain the form you held when you evolved. It could be years before another war, centuries even. We cannot know that now. As a human, you’d be dead by then.”

  �
�So I gotta make up my mind real soon, I reckon.”

  “Before you release me, if you do. If you change your mind, though…I would like you to kill me. I don’t want one of the others to have the satisfaction. I know it is a burden for you, but I beg you. I don’t know what they will do now that I’ve incurred their wrath with reason and they hate me for what I’ve done, not just who I am.” Draven looked hard at Sally. “I don’t imagine I’ll handle it quite as well the second time around. If they vote to do something terrible to me, will you promise to come and kill me before they do?”

  “You stop that talk right now, you hear? I ain’t killing you. Ain’t nobody else, neither.”

  “I only meant if you decide not to evolve. I hope you do. But if you don’t, I hope you find it in yourself to leave this place. You have a goodness that the others lack, Sally. If you stay in this place, I fear being in the midst of so much hate will wear that goodness away. Your people are not worthy of you.”

  “Stop it, you done made me cry again,” Sally said, wiping her face. She knelt on the other side of the bars, and Draven reached through and took her hand.

  “I mean it. You fed me and gave me a part of your life though you despise what I am, and though my people killed your sister. You live here as the rest of them, with nothing around you but hate, but you have found a way to be kind and just. You alone did not hate me without reason. Though you’ve not experienced it, you know what is right.”

  “You just stop that right now. I ain’t no good at this kinda thing.”

  Draven wiped her face with his fingers. “Sally, you saved my life. If you cannot set me free because it would risk your life, I understand. We agreed to an exchange, and I wouldn’t have you fulfill your part if I didn’t fulfill mine.”

  “I’ll think about what you done told me about being one of y’all. I don’t know anymore. I’m sorry. Tomorrow night they’re gonna be back, and they’re gonna bury you the next night, I reckon. I’ll let you know tomorrow what I want. I need some time to think on it. It don’t hardly seem worth it to change if I’m gonna be hiding out anyway. Might as well be with my family, I reckon.”

  “Yes, I reckon, too.”

  Sally gave him a tearful smile. “You sound funny when you say that.”

  Draven smiled though his hope had turned bleak. Sally could not go against her family, and if he didn’t evolve her, he could not expect her to let him go. She’d known all along what they did, and she’d never let him go. He knew she wouldn’t now, either, no matter what her conscience told her. Her loyalties lay with her family and they always would. The only way to break that allegiance was to evolve her, and she had reasons to not want that, either.

  “May I ask for one thing before you leave tonight?”

  “Course you can,” Sally said, looking as if she might cry again. She spoke softly to him, the way he did an animal or sap when he had to hurt it. She would let her people kill him. Sally was strong, but too soft-hearted, and she would not be able to do the thing he asked. Not because she had no mercy, but because she thought well of everyone, whether deserving or not.

  “Please give me a stake.”

  “What for?”

  “Because when they come for me, I don’t want them to have that final victory. I should not have asked you to do it. That’s unfair. It is not your burden. The greatest kindness now is to let me finish it.”

  Sally wiped her eyes again, but she brought him the stake. “Don’t you do it yet,” she said. “I ain’t made up my mind all the way.”

  But he knew she had. She had brought the stake as a final offering, a consolation. He’d come so close. Perhaps he had been too soft-hearted as well, and that had led him to this point, to where he now stood holding his own murder weapon. If he’d not told her of Superior law, he could have evolved her, set her free and left her to her own fate. He could have walked free and let her meet her end just as she now left him to meet his. But he could no more have done that than Sally could stake him.

  She would never free him, because her family would cast her out, and without them, she would die. He and Sally were more alike than he cared to imagine. A Superior and a sapien, both too soft-hearted for their own good, feeling mercy for the other that did more harm than good. His conscience and hers both struggled with these questions, but in the end, they both settled for the practical approach in matters of their own survival and death.

  39

  Byron and Caleb stared up at the boy who stood in the doorway above. The building had a balcony on the second floor, but the boy did not come out onto it, only hovered at the entrance as if uncertain whether to come out.

  Byron didn’t know what to say. He had so many questions. So he settled for the foremost question in his mind upon finding this solitary Superior in such a remote location with nothing to feed on evident in his surroundings.

  “Who are you?” he called up to the boy.

  “Guests,” the boy said, leaping from the doorway to the railing of the balcony with a feline precision of balance. “I so seldom receive visitors.” He dropped off the railing to the ground below, landing on his feet before he straightened to face the two men. Byron knew Superiors could do many things when necessary, but most confined themselves to the comfort of keeping within the realm of their human movements. If other feats became necessary, they could be performed with ease. But this boy moved in a strange way, as if he’d never been human at all.

  As if he’d been an animal, and still was, although he appeared Superior. His scent, a subtle variation from the usual Superior scent, threw Byron a little, but the boy clearly wasn’t a homo-sapien. Nothing enticing in his scent, just a strangeness. And no heartbeat.

  “You speak North American,” Byron said.

  “I do.” His smile, the almost-forgotten pleasure of sunshine on a balmy afternoon. His teeth, flat like a human’s—no drawing teeth. “And you are my first visitors in a very long time.”

  What was he? A ghost? Byron glanced at Caleb. The guy must be loving this.

  “Who are you? What are you doing out here?” Byron asked.

  “Angel Sinclair,” the boy said, holding out his hand. A fitting name for such a beautiful creature. The boy wasn’t inappropriately young to have evolved, like Meyer Kidd, but a young man in his late teen years. He had a glow about him, almost unearthly, that made his skin radiate with health. The light that emanated from him was warm and sunny, not the white glow associated with ghost myths. Angel Sinclair had appeared as if a beautiful vision of daylight had come into the night to remind them of the beauty they were missing.

  Byron shook Angel’s hand and tried to break the spell the boy had on him. His strangeness fascinated Byron the same way Meyer did, the way any new thing did, just when he’d thought he could no longer be surprised by anything.

  Caleb shook hands with Angel, and they stood studying each other. “You were not expecting to find me here,” Angel said. He had no trace of an accent of any kind.

  “We were exploring a bit when we caught your scent,” Caleb said.

  “I see.” Angel gave them another brilliant smile. “You are most welcome. I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer you by way of refreshment, but you are welcome to come inside, if you like. My home is but humble, as you can see, but I’m loathe to leave you standing outside.”

  Caleb started to step forward, but Byron put a hand on the man’s arm to stop him. Angel watched this little proceeding with his head cocked to one side in curiosity.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have much time before we need to head back,” Byron said, as much to Caleb as to Angel. If this boy, however beautiful, had killed a man, Byron didn’t want to go into his house, especially since they had no witnesses to their journey. They would be added to the list of mysterious disappearances and never heard from again. Who was this, Meyer Kidd’s army of child soldiers, First Lieutenant?

  “Actually,” Byron said, slipping his hands into his pockets to cradle the comforting shape of his pod. “We
were out here looking for some information regarding the whereabouts of a missing person. You wouldn’t happen to have heard anything, would you?”

  Angel’s eyes widened and his hand went to his heart. “That’s so sad,” he said, shaking his head. “When did he die?”

  Byron and Caleb exchanged glances. “We haven’t confirmed death.”

  “I’m sorry, I just assumed.”

  “Would you mind coming back to the car with us for a moment? Just to check your records, you understand.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “It’s unusual to find a Superior living alone. If you don’t mind my saying so, it raises a bit of suspicion. We just want to make sure you’re not someone we should be interested in.”

  Angel laughed, a sound like music. “I’m sure I’m of no interest to you. But I’d be obliged to ease your mind. Your vehicle is nearby?”

  “Right down the road. Step this way, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” Angel said, following Caleb and then falling into step beside Byron. Byron noticed that he even walked strangely, like his feet never touched the ground but rather glided over it.

  “We’ll just check your papers and you can be on your way,” Byron assured him.

  “You are police.”

  Byron didn’t let his surprise show at the outdated term. “Yes, of sorts,” he said. “I don’t mean to be rude, Angel, but I feel like I’ve known you forever. Forgive my familiarity, but if you don’t mind my asking, what do you eat out here?”

  Angel laughed, the same melodious sound as before, one that filled Byron with a sense of relaxation almost against his will, similar to the state of inebriation he entered after drinking too much wine. “The same as you do, of course.”

  “You own a human?” Byron asked, though he knew the answer already. He would have smelled a human.

  “Sadly, no longer. I do so need a new one. My last one…weakened and died. I’m sure I’ll find a new one to my liking soon.”

  “Do you have papers?” Byron asked when they got to the car.