Crimson Storm

by Amy Patrick

  Saying it was the first step toward trying to remove our rights and eventually eradicate us, she’d left mainstream society and begun living underground full-time, leading her own faction of vampires and preparing them for the resistance movement she believed was inevitable.

  Her sister Sadie had countered that it was reasonable for humans, who were at such a physical disadvantage, to want some form of protection against vampires.

  Other than the recently developed solar weapons, platinum was their only means of defense against vampires who weren’t interested in peace between the races.

  Before now, I had honestly believed it would only be used against vampire criminals.

  But it turned out Imogen was right once again. Suddenly I was struck by a fierce longing for home, for the safety of the Bastion.

  If I’d never left, my friends and I would never have been imprisoned. I wouldn’t be here now, wondering what these humans would do to us, wondering if this was how I’d meet my final end... and wishing I had one more chance to see Reece and say goodbye.

  Beside me, Kelly stirred. “Where are we?”

  Her words sounded slurred. Obviously she’d been dosed with platinum as well.

  “The basement of Terry’s house. We were drugged. They weren’t rescuing us—they were kidnapping us.”

  The good news was there were no windows to admit sunlight. The bad news was there were no windows—or doors—that we could use to make our escape.

  It looked as if there might have been a door to an exterior bulkhead at one point, but it had been filled in with cement blocks and mortar. In our weakened states, there was no way we’d be able to break through it.

  Even if we did manage it, what if it was daylight outside? I had no idea how long we’d been unconscious or how much time had passed since we’d arrived. It might have been a few hours or a whole day.

  “What do you think they plan to do with us?” asked Heather, who’d just awakened as well.

  “I’m not sure. But we’re going to be okay. I’m going to get us out of here.”

  My voice sounded so confident, but inside I wasn’t as certain. None of us had taken in blood since we’d left the Safety Center.

  We could only go four or five days without it before we began to desiccate. And I wasn’t sure how far these men were prepared to go to ensure our cooperation. Would they resort to torture and starvation?

  “Maybe we should just bite the old guy,” Heather said. “It won’t turn him, but they might let us go. They don’t know how many bites it takes.”

  “I doubt they’d release us before they’re sure it worked. Besides, that’s not who we are—it’s not who Sadie taught us to be.”

  “But Sadie isn’t here, is she?” Kelly asked. “And where was she when we were locked up in the Safety Center? I think we should do it. It’s worth a try.”

  “Is it worth your soul?” I asked her. “Is it worth undoing all the progress vampires have made in the world since the Crimson Accord was signed? We have to stay strong, stick to our principles. I’ll figure something out.”

  The door at the top of the stairs opened. We heard the sound of footsteps descending, and I prepared myself for battle. I would not allow myself and my friends to be injected again.

  I was a pacifist, but I wasn’t a martyr.

  It was Glenn. He was armed with a syringe in one hand and the pistol in the other.

  He stopped on the bottom step, eyeing us warily. “You ladies ready to be reasonable now? All you have to do is bite him. Do it, and we’ll let you go. You gotta be getting thirsty by now.”

  “Go to hell,” Kelly said, but from the corner of my eye I noticed the tips of Heather’s fangs slide between her lips.

  “We’re never going to agree to it,” I told him. “Either you let us go, or you’re going to have to carry three dead vampires out of your house.”

  “No problem. I’ll leave you alone for a bit and let you think about it. Meanwhile, I think I’ll go get myself a nice, big drink. I sure am thirsty.” With a smirk, he added, “Have a nice day.”

  Marching back up the stairs, he slammed the door behind him. The heavy slide of chains and the click of a padlock followed.

  So... we were locked in and on a forced hunger strike.

  “I’m beginning to see why some of our kind hate humans,” Heather muttered.

  “They’re not all like that,” Kelly reminded her.

  Was Shane like that? The alarm in his voice and the concern on his face made me think he was not like his uncles and their friend. But he hadn’t stopped them either.

  No, we were definitely on our own.

  Rising to my feet, I said, “Come on. Let’s see if we can make any headway with this wall.”

  8

  The Smell of Blood

  After many hours of bare-finger scratching and digging, we’d made minimal progress on the mortar between the cinderblocks of the recently erected enclosure.

  I climbed the stairs to test the door to the kitchen, but it held tight against my efforts to push it open.

  Exhausted and dejected, we all lay on the floor again and rested.

  Lying with my face against the hard, cold floor, I willed sleep to come. I’d need the energy to continue the excavation project, especially with no blood to replenish my strength.

  Unfortunately worry kept me awake. I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, thinking of the decisions I’d made that had led me here.

  It certainly wasn’t what I’d envisioned when my two best friends and I had decided to leave the vampire stronghold and move to Los Angeles to work for Sadie’s cause.

  “Do you think we’ll die in here?” Kelly’s voice sounded very small in the quiet of the basement. Obviously, she was having trouble sleeping too.

  Overhead, the muffled sound of some sort of sporting event on the television and occasional footsteps could be heard.

  It was creepy to think of the humans up there just carrying on with their lives while we were trapped down here.

  “No, we won’t die. We’re going to get out of here,” I assured her.

  Heather neither agreed nor argued, which worried me. She’d been quiet the whole time as we’d worked and had fallen asleep already.

  “Let’s just try to get some sleep,” I said to Kelly. “I bet we’ll break through that wall soon. If not, and it looks like we’ll be in here several more days, I’ll ask Glenn to bring us some blood bags.”

  Surely our captors would have to give us some soon. We were no good to them desiccated—unless they’d taken Shane’s suggestion.

  Maybe they really had gone out and procured some replacement vampires who were more willing.

  What would they do with us in that case? Just leave us here and pretend we didn’t exist? There was no opportunity to ask because Glenn did not reappear.

  “I guess he’s waiting for us to get extra-thirsty,” Kelly said.

  Heather, who was not sleeping after all, held a hand against her grumbling stomach. “Too late. I was already there before we were abducted. Now my mouth feels like Palm Springs, and my belly feels like one of the empty caverns back home.”

  “I’m actually hallucinating the smell of blood,” Kelly said, sounding thoroughly miserable.

  I sniffed the air. “I don’t think you’re hallucinating. I smell it, too.”

  The three of us got up and began a search of the dark basement. I feared it would end with a gruesome sprung mousetrap.

  Instead, when I got to the area where the scent was strongest, my foot struck a cylindrical object and sent it rolling.

  “What was that?” Kelly asked.

  I dropped to my knees and patted the floor, searching the shadowed corner. “I found it. It’s one of those metal water bottles. Glenn must have come in and left it while we were asleep.”

  “I’m so thirsty I’d settle for water at this point,” Heather said.

  But when I removed the bottle’s top, it was apparent it contained blood. Human blood
. I held it out toward Heather.

  “You drink first. There’s not a lot—maybe half a blood bag—but it’ll help.”

  She took the bottle but hesitated before drinking. “Do you think they poisoned it with platinum?”

  “Does it matter at this point? We have to drink something, and we can’t get much sicker. The worst that will happen is we’ll be knocked out again and wake up with headaches.”

  She nodded and brought the bottle to her lips, drinking thirstily. She handed it back to me, but I gave it to Kelly. “Your turn.”

  “You should go first,” she said. “There isn’t that much here, and I might accidentally drink it all. Your control is better than mine.”

  Ravenous from spending days without any blood, I didn’t argue.

  Swirling the bottle to get a feel for how much was left, I took a few swallows then handed it to Kelly.

  “Finish it—and then let’s get back to work on the mortar.”

  As we set to work on the wall again, I felt considerably better. My throat was no longer scratchy and hot. The brain fog lifted, and movement came a little easier.

  Even Heather seemed to perk up a bit. But the small amount of blood in the bottle didn’t last us long.

  Pausing a few hours into her digging efforts, Kelly sagged against the cinderblock wall. “My fingers are killing me, and I’m still so friggin’ thirsty.”

  “Me too,” I agreed. “But we’re making progress.”

  We’d managed to dig a considerable amount of mortar from between the blocks during this session. Unfortunately there was a lot left. But if we could dislodge one block, the others would come loose more easily. I hoped.

  I also hoped there was actually a door on the other side.

  “I don’t think we can get through it before all our strength is gone,” Heather said. “I already feel like I can barely stand.”

  She paused a beat. “When he comes back, I’m going to tell that bastard I’ll bite his brother. At least I’ll get some blood out of it—and it might get us out of this basement and upstairs where we’d have a better chance of escaping.”

  “You can’t,” I argued, but there was less vehemence in my voice than there had been when I’d made my peace-and-love speech on the first day of our captivity.

  “I’ll talk to Glenn,” I said. “We’re not allowed to tell him how turning happens, but maybe I can give him enough information about how it doesn’t happen that he’ll see reason and let us go,” I said. “Maybe we can promise to help him find a group of vampires who’ll do it.”

  Or a group who’ll teach these guys a lesson.

  An image of Reece and his fellow Bloodbound soldiers popped into my mind. They’d take out these weak human men before they even knew what was happening.

  I shook off the too-appealing mental picture. Vengeance was never the right path.

  And the less I thought of Reece the better. Especially in this weakened and vulnerable state—in this situation where it looked like his philosophy on vampire-human relations was actually the more sensible one.

  “Do you think he’ll listen to you?” Kelly asked.

  “I hope so. Let’s not count on it though. We’ll take a break then get back to digging. I think a few more hours of work and we should be able to pull out one of those blocks.”

  We must have all fallen asleep because I woke to the quiet rattle of the door chains followed by soft footsteps descending the staircase.

  How long had I slept? Was it day or night? I wasn’t sure.

  Sitting up, I watched the opening and prepared to reason with Glenn—or attack if necessary.

  But it wasn’t Glenn who emerged.

  It was Shane.

  9

  Hope for the Future

  He turned one direction then another in the inky darkness. Unlike our eyes, his couldn’t see under these conditions.

  “Abigail? Are you awake?” he whispered.

  “I’m here.” I rose and went to him, pulling him to the farthest corner of the basement so as not to awaken Kelly and Heather. “What are you doing here? If they sent you to try to persuade us, it’s not going to work.”

  He kept his voice low. “That’s not why I’m here. My uncles don’t even know I’m down here. Glenn is at work, and Terry is sleeping. His medication knocks him out. Once he fell asleep, I stole the padlock key.”

  “Why?”

  He hesitated before answering. “If I got you some blood, do you think you would be able to overpower them and escape?”

  I nodded. “Do you have access to some?”

  “Some, yes, but I’m not sure how much it would take for the three of you to regain your strength.”

  “We’re all low, but about a pint each would really help. We wouldn’t be strong, but we could move enough to get out of here.”

  Shane’s eyebrows lifted and he blew out a long breath. “That’s a lot. What about for just you?”

  “I’m not leaving my friends,” I answered immediately. “Why are you even offering to help us escape?”

  “This is not what I signed up for. I love my Uncle Terry, and I owe him for taking me in after my parents... well... I owe him. But this is wrong.”

  He gestured to indicate our basement prison.

  “I’ve tried to talk to him, but he won’t listen. He’s desperate. The doctors have told him he’s got only weeks left to live, if that long. He plans to keep you down here until you’re thirsty enough to give in and do it. And Glenn’s talking about shortening the time frame by threatening to push all of you out into the sun tomorrow morning. He’ll be driving here tonight after he gets off work. I don’t think he’d really daylight you, but I don’t know for sure. Terry wasn’t doing too hot today, and Glenn’s really worried about him. There’s a chance he’ll follow through and decide to start from scratch with some willing vampires.”

  “Well if he’s planning to start from scratch, maybe he’ll release us.”

  Shane shook his head in a definitive way. “No. He won’t. He’s afraid if you don’t willingly participate, you might identify them to the police and press charges. Kidnapping is still illegal, you know, even kidnapping vampires, thanks to the Accord. I think escape is the only answer. You have to run—tonight. To do that, you’ll need blood.”

  I thought about it for a few moments. He was right. These weren’t reasonable men.

  No amount of talking would convince them. And I had no interest in sticking around to find out if Glenn would carry out his daylighting plan.

  “Okay. You said you had access to some blood?”

  Shane nodded. Then he slowly lifted his arm toward me, pushing up his sleeve and exposing the inside of his elbow.

  There was a bandage over it, and underneath, a fairly fresh cut.

  The blood in that water bottle hadn’t come from a blood bag. It had come from Shane.

  I staggered backward, shuddering with a blend of revulsion and unholy temptation. “No. I can’t. I won’t drink from you.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I know I won’t turn from being bitten one time.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  He shrugged, and another surge of tempting blood warmed his cheek. “I just know, okay? It takes more exposure to the venom than that, so I’m not worried.”

  “I still can’t do it.”

  “Can’t you just put the vow on hold for a night? I mean, this must qualify as special circumstances, right?”

  “It does... but there’s a reason I made that vow.”

  I hesitated. There was no way I could explain to this human about my unusual vampire heritage, that I might be able to turn a human with a single bite—or about what had happened with Josiah and how I’d vowed to never let it happen again.

  Shane was offering to help us in our hour of need. He was offering his own blood. Maybe he deserved honesty—but I simply couldn’t give it to him.

  “For some of us, drinking blood is more than sustenance. It’s... a problem,” I s
aid.

  That much was true. I went on with my fabricated excuse.

  “You know how some people can drink alcohol or even do drugs recreationally and they don’t become addicted? While others do?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. My Uncle Glenn stopped drinking because he said it got to where if he had one drink he’d have fifteen and wake up with no memory of where he’d been or what he’d done the night before.”

  “Exactly. Well, blood is like that for some vampires.”

  That was also true. Not for me personally, but I had met several recovering blood addicts during my time at the VHA. Kelly was one as well.

  It was a plausible reason not to drink from the vein—one Shane could understand.

  “Maybe it’s an addiction gene they had while human or something, no one knows,” I said. “But for some vampires it’s addictive. It’s impossible for us to follow a twelve-step program or go to rehab because we can’t avoid drinking blood altogether. We have to have it to survive. It’s literally the only form of nutrition our bodies will accept. We can’t digest food or any other liquid—our bodies absorb the blood we drink directly.”

  “So you’re an addict. And yet you’re forced to be around the source of your addiction every day.”

  “Yes,” I lied. “Like I said, no one knows why. I have no way of knowing if it’s genetic because no one in my family drank or did drugs. But when I was first turned, it became obvious pretty quickly that I didn’t need to be drinking directly from people.”

  “What about your friends?”

  “Same story. Maybe that’s why the three of us were attracted to the Vampire-Human Coalition. It offered us a way to give back, to try to make up for the damage we’d done before getting our thirst under control. That’s why I can’t bite you. The vow is more than a belief system. It’s a safety net. If I were to try it... it would be my first time drinking from a human in more than a year. I’m not sure what would happen. I might not be able to stop.”

  “Wow. I never would have guessed. You seem so...”

  “Civilized?” I finished his sentence for him. “Harmless? Never forget the original source of vampirism was a powerful wild animal infected by killer bees. That animalistic instinct paired with a thirst for blood means none of us is truly civilized. One of the many reasons we refused to turn your uncle.”