Tainted Blood

by Martin Sharlow

  “Jason.”

  “Jason took Heather? Why would he do that?”

  “Because he knows we approached you.”

  Brian chewed on that for a few moments. This guy that he didn't want to kill or have anything to do with took Heather. Why? He supposed for leverage. Bad guys did that all the time on TV. Why should real life be all that different?

  “Where is he? He asked.

  “That’s in your brief.” She said as she reached over and poured herself what looked like orange juice.

  “Just tell me now, Jenn.”

  She shook her head and took a drink of what she poured. Brian opened his mouth to say more, but before he could, she lifted a finger gesturing for him to wait as she continued to down the entire glass. By the time she was done, Brian was nearly bursting. He didn't have time to read some stupid brief that he wasn't sure he even kept. He supposed it was lying around somewhere in the apartment, but it would just be faster if she told him.

  “Now,” she began. “There is information vital to your survival as well as mine in it.”

  “Jenn--”

  “No, Brian.” She shook her head at him. “If you take short cuts at this, you endanger everyone, including that girl. Is that what you want?”

  Brian shook his head.

  “Then get out and go read. When you're ready, you'll have your mission.”

  Brian hadn't realized that the limo had stopped, but when he looked outside and saw the motel he was staying at. Its large neon sign's 'L' was still burnt out. He'd pointed that out to the owner the first week he had moved in, yet still they haven’t fixed it.

  He could see the man at the front desk peering out at the limo, curious about who or what was going to get out. He couldn't blame the man, he guessed no one here ever got dropped off by a government limo before.

  “Just answer me this one thing first.” He asked his aunt as he put one foot on the ground but still remained mostly in the limo. “Why me? I mean, I'm not trained for this, and I certainly don't work for you. Why not one of your real agents?”

  “You're under the radar Brian, and my company wants part of their investment back.”

  “What if I fail?”

  “I wouldn't.” She answered, “There’s no telling what he will do to your girlfriend. Now, if you don't mind, I have business to attend to.”

  Brian stepped out of the car and was about to shut the door when a thought occurred to him “Wait, what about the werewolf?”

  “Let us worry about that, you just worry about Jason.”

  Brian watched as the limo drove away, his thoughts lost in how he was going to deal with this turn of events. If he hadn't been, he doubted the desk-man would have sneaked up on him.

  “Big date?” The scrawny, dark haired man said. Brian guessed the nerdy man was easily in his early thirties, yet his face was still covered in acne, and the thick glasses he wore looked more like the bottom of a coke bottle. He wondered how the guy could ever see out of them.

  “Yeah,” Brian answered absently. “Yeah, I guess it was.”

  “You know, I always wanted to ride in one of those.” The desk-man said, smiling.

  “What? Oh, yeah, it's really no big deal.” Brian said as he scratched the back of his head, trying to figure out a way to get out of the discussion.

  “You must ride in a lot of them then,” the guy went on, as Brian started to walk towards his room.

  “Yeah, I guess so. No, I mean.” Brian paused and turned on the guy. He was sorely tempted to suggest the guy to go jump off a cliff, but he quickly changed his mind.

  All the things that he just went through was not this guy’s fault. He couldn’t be held responsible for Brian's irritation.

  “Listen, I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment, you think we could have this conversation some other time?

  “Sure,” the guy said, obviously happy to have a reason to talk to Brian again sometime. “My name's Scot,” he said and stuck his hand out to shake Brian’s.

  “I'm Brian.” He answered

  “I know.” Scot smiled and nodded his head furiously. “I read the check in sheets all the time when I'm bored, which is like, always.”

  Brian listened for a second more, then waved goodbye, “alright, well I'll talk to you later.” Then he turned and walked towards his room, pausing only for a second to point at the motel sign. “Scot.”

  “Yeah” the desk-man stopped and started smiling again.

  “Fix the sign.”

  He moved on to his door without waiting for a reply. Once inside, he sat down in his favorite chair and just stared at the wall, trying to figure everything out. Jason, the mystery vampire and only other one of his kind that he knew of, had kidnapped Heather in an attempt to keep Brian away from him. Except he had no intention of ever going near Jason, until then. It left him with no choice but to hunt Jason down and do exactly what the company wanted in order to get Heather back.

  Unless somehow he could reason with him

  He wondered if that would be possible. After all, he didn't want to hurt him, that was, until he took Heather. Which was a stupid mistake on his part.

  Brian shook his head at the guy's sheer stupidity. Well, no matter what happened he was going to set Heather free, whatever the cost. Of course, there was a wild card involved: a big pissed off werewolf. That couldn’t be good, and if tonight were any indication, he doubted his aunt was going to be able to do anything about it.

  Well, he couldn't worry about that. He would just have to remain armed and keep his ears open.

  The manila envelope sat invitingly on his nearby desk, almost beckoning to him to come look at it. Brian reached out with his will, searching for Heather one last time. If he could just find her, maybe he wouldn't have to do his aunt's wishes. The idea that he had been groomed or watched over by this company like a piece of meat irked him to no end. He was a human being. Slavery was illegal.

  He began to wonder if maybe the people he needed to go after were actually this company. They seemed like the real underlying evil in the world.

  Brian closed his eyes and concentrated harder. If she was out there, he had to be able to find her. No one else had he known so intimately in his entire life, not even his mother.

  Heather had always seemed like a part of him, a part that he desperately needed to find. A chill ran through his body as he pushed as hard as he could. It was almost like he had touched something with his mind for just a second, but so brief he couldn't be sure what it was.

  “It's her, it's got to be.” he said to himself.

  There was no logic in his conclusion, just something deep within him, something he wasn't quite sure what it was. He closed his eyes and pushed again, concentrating on the thing he felt out there. After a few moments, he could feel it again, still there, frighteningly far away. Harder he pushed with all his will, he imagined he was flying towards it with two giant's wings sprouting from his back.

  Slowly it got bigger as he closed in on it, a light? No, maybe a box? Maybe it was...

  “Brian!”

  It was like a lighting strike, loud and clear and it startled him so badly that he snapped out of the trance he'd been sitting in. The sun was clearly up as his eyes snapped open. Sweat drenched his cloths and his face. His body ached and screamed at him as he stood up and headed for the refrigerator. A deep gnawing hunger was upon him. He grabbed two IVs and tore the first one open, draining it in seconds. The second fared a bit better. By the time it was done the hunger was all but gone.

  He must have used an insane amount of energy to have been that hungry already. Especially since he'd just had that glass of blood just before leaving the limo. Not to mention that he wasn't denying himself anything lately. He should have been full enough to go days without eating again. Instead, he felt like he was on the verge of starvation when he came out that trance.

  It didn't matter however, nothing mattered now. He had heard her voice. Heather was out there, and he could reach her, at least
if he tried hard enough. He needed to try again, while he still had the feeling fresh in him. Whatever was hiding her from him wasn't invincible, and with enough effort, he could break through it. He was sure of it.

  He just needed more strength.

  The problem was, where would he get it?

  The memory of his near-death months ago came flashing to his mind. He would have died after that werewolf’s mauling if it hadn't been for the fact that there were two agents nearby holding him up. In pain and desperation Brian had slain and drank the blood of those agents, and in so doing healed almost on the spot, not to mention gained a burst of strength and power he had never felt before. He had spent a long time trying to forget that sensation, that thrill of power.

  He had spent his entire life avoiding actually taking any blood directly from humans. His aunt had always supplied fresh IVs full of blood for as long as he needed it, until recently. Even then he had his ways of getting more. So the need to feed on people...well it just wasn’t a need.

  It was also something he didn't want to have to do. After all, he wasn't a monster, this wasn't the dark ages. There were blood drives now and blood banks. Still, that sense of power had been dogging his wake now for some time. Not really consciously, but in the corners of his mind. The fact that if he ever needed that power, it was there for the taking. All he needed was a donor and it was his.

  No...there has to be another way, he thought as he reached into his supplies and grabbed two more IVs.

  “I'll just pump myself up with more blood. That should do the trick.” He tore open the last two containers and began to drain them of their life-giving fluid. He had no idea why fresh blood would give him more strength then stored blood. It was still good after all. People used it all the time to restore life in injured people, so why should it matter if he drank packages of it rather than fresh from the veins?

  After drain the last of the two, he sat down and concentrated, reaching out to that feeling that now had a voice. Reaching out to Heather.

  9

  The light drew closer as Brian concentrated, and he could see now that it was the interior of what looked like a small room floating in space. A single sized bed seemed to be the only furnishing in the room. A figure sat on it, her knees pulled tight to her chest, and her face buried behind them.

  “Heather?” Brian called to the figure.

  Her blonde hair fell from her face as she looked up over her knees.

  “Brian?” she said in almost a whisper. He could barely hear her. “Brian, where are you?” Her voice rose to an almost panicked tone, and then he was there.

  It was like he broke through a thin layer of skin that blocked his way to the room. The distance just snapped away along with the film around him that stretched and tore till it was gone.

  Heather jumped from her bed as the sudden light from the room blinded him and made it difficult to see anything.

  “Brian, you're here!” She said, as she wrapped her arms around him.

  The room was even smaller than it looked from a distance. It was a small rectangle at best. The one piece of furniture was a single wide bed with nothing but a sheet over it. The floor looked like pocked cement with peeling green paint. The room felt cramped and small, but as Brian looked around at their surroundings, he could see that there were no walls, only darkness all around them.

  He bent down to smell Heather's hair. It was fresh and clean smelling, a sense of relief filled him as he began to hug her back as tightly as she hugged him. A slight pulling sensation jerked at his midriff as he inhaled her scent. The hug seemed to last forever, and Brian savored it every last second that he could.

  Eventually Heather pulled back from him to look at his face, and a few tears were streaming down hers as he reluctantly let her go.

  “You came...” she said, her voice choking as she sought to control her emotions. Watching her this way made it almost impossible for him to not reach out to her and pull her back into his arms, but he knew he hadn't much time left. He already could feel the tugging. Whatever this place was, it was still taking all of his power to stay here, and his tiring body was already trying to pull him back. Perhaps if he went to sleep here, he would be able to transport himself here. He realized, glancing at the missing walls, that it might not be a good idea. After all, this place certainly couldn't be real. It had to be some kind of dream state.

  “Heather, what's going on?” He asked, needing to cut straight to the problem. If she could give him some kind of information about where she was, then maybe he would be able to find her.

  “What do you mean?” She asked as she tried to wipe her tears away.

  “Where are you, what is this place?”

  She looked around at her soundings; it was then that he finally took notice of what she was wearing. A dirty white tee shirt that barely covered her chest and a pair of green bikini briefs with a small amount of lace at its edges. Not her normal clothes or sleep wear.

  “I'm not sure, Brian.” She said again. He could see that her eyes were watering up, but he could also see that she was trying her best to not let them come.

  Brian didn't have time for this. He didn't know if he would be able to come back or even find her again. He needed clues and that required answers. He took hold of her arms, just above her elbows.

  “Heather, think. I need to know everything that’s happened to you and what you've seen.”

  She looked up at his eyes and nodded dumbly.

  “Alright,” she said “I'll try.”

  “How did you get here, Heather, think.”

  “Well,” she began, “I was asleep in my place. I woke up to someone dragging me off my bed, and before I could do more than inhale to scream, they stuck a rag of some sort into my face. It smelled medicinally, like a dentist's place for some reason.”

  So they snagged her right out of her bed, that explained the weird ending to the dream they were both in. “Then what happened?”

  “I woke up in this room, except it had walls, and a big metal door that they open a slit in and shove plates of food through.” She said. Brian could see that she was starting to lose it as she now looked around the room again. He decided to shake her to get her to focus on him. It worked a bit too well as he could see sparks of anger flaring up behind her eyes when he did it. He supposed he had done it too hard in his need to get her attention, but he needed to know more.

  “Did you see anyone? Did they talk to you? Heather, concentrate or I'm not going to be able to help you.”

  She looked at him strangely, almost as if she were looking at him for the first time. “This is a dream again, isn’t it?” She jerked her arms away from him, and spun around and yelled at the walls. “Why am I trapped even in my dreams in here?” There was almost something feral in the way she shouted.

  “Yes Heather, but I'm here, and I need to know everything if I'm going to find you.” He pleaded with her.

  She paused in her anger to look at him. Her profile was maddening. The perfect shape of her legs as her thighs came up to meet her round hips, and curved up to a perfectly shaped back. Brian thought he caught the glimpse of fangs in her mouth. He knew that couldn't be right, the weird light or maybe just the dream state was playing tricks on his mind. He had to admit however, he never thought she looked more attractive than she did now, dressed the way she was.

  “What are you staring at?” Her voice broke him out of her spell.

  “Nothing,” he said, a little too quickly. He realized he felt like he was blushing and exposed. It was then that he noticed his clothing had changed, and he now stood there in only his blue briefs which grew progressively more uncomfortable.

  Great, he thought, Just what I don't need to have happen now. I need her lucid and thinking, not locked into some dream fantasy.

  “What's that you've got there for me, Sailor?” Heather turned and smiled at him as she looked him over. Brian could see that his arms changed, and were now covered in tattoos of anchors and ships. He felt
something like a small hat now on his head, which he quickly grabbed and pulled off.

  Just as he thought, it was a sailor's hat, all white and meaningless. Heather's dreams were taking over, and the tug in his stomach was now approaching something more like pain. He doubted he had much more time left at all, let alone for this nonsense.

  “Heather, listen, you're dreaming, we don't have any more time, and I still don't have any clue how to find you.” He insisted, lowering his hat to preserve a measure more of his dignity.

  “Oh, we can make time, Sailor boy.” She said, as her underwear turned into a short fiery red dress, which dipped all the way down to her navel.

  Great, he thought, any other time this would have been heaven, but not now, this just isn’t the time.