Bloodlinks

by Lee Killough

  He tried the handle.

  Locked.

  Which left him debating how curious he was about what lay behind the door. A short debate. Garreth sighed. Of course he wanted to know why they partitioned off so much space it left the garage too shallow for vehicles much longer than bicycles and motorcycles.

  Wrench!

  This time he found himself in darkness not even vampire vision penetrated. Groping the concrete around the door, he located a light switch. Bare bulbs overhead revealed a room about five feet by eight feet with hooks on the wall opposite him and two shower heads to their right. And another door in the wall to his left. This one unlocked.

  Finding another light switch beyond it lit a room smaller than its outside dimensions. Indicating thick walls. A look around explained that...six sets of bunk beds with mattresses but no bedding, an alcove with a chemical toilet — minus chemicals or any evidence of use — a kitchen area with a camp stove beside shelves holding battery and oil powered lanterns and dusty cartons of military field rations. And at the far end, a door like those of walk-in coolers. It all spelled: bomb shelter. Constructed by some former owner of the house during the Cold War? Garreth wondered at having beds for a dozen people. Family members plus select friends or relatives maybe?

  Interesting that Philos had left the shelter intact. But deconstruction would undoubtedly be a pain, and the hum of a refrigeration unit told him they were using the cooler.

  He switched on the light by the door and peered through the window to see what they were storing. And stared. Most of the shelves sat empty. One, though, held a dozen or more bags of blood.

  Suddenly Garreth suspected what Holle meant by qualifying for a life membership and its benefits, and why Irina urged Lane to join Philos. It collected blood as well as maintained a transplant list — explaining the donation times on their sign out front. How much of this blood made it to hospitals, he had to wonder. Some or all of what lay on that shelf must be destined for local vampires. Envy of them flooded him, along with memory and craving for the sweet fire he tasted at the Corvette accident. If he lived here—

  The thought broke off as he found his hand reaching for the walk-in’s handle. He jerked back and fled the shelter. Removing himself from temptation.

  Even if he yielded to the urge to steal — call it what it was — and took one of those bags, how long would the blood last him? Then how did he make himself go back to cattle in Baumen? And how did he live with Lane jeering and cheering in his head at the theft...proof he was only kidding himself about his determination to obey human laws.

  Peering out of the stairway into the hall upstairs, he checked the edge of the ceiling for the glint of CCTV lenses. As far as he could tell, the hall looked clear. Still, he explored the main floor with caution.

  The front room served as the reception area, with easy chairs, tables holding fans of magazines and brochure holders containing literature about Philos, and the receptionist’s desk placed for a view out the bay window at the stairs and through the archway into the hall. The room behind it connected to both the front room and hall with sets of double sliding doors. He slid open one door of the hall set...but only looked in. Three reclining lounge chairs and stainless steel cabinets and a refrigerator against the far wall had turned a former diningroom into a blood donation room. If any room had security surveillance, the syringes and needles for blood donation made this one a prime candidate.

  Garreth closed the door and moved on toward the rear of the house. There he found a half bath and large kitchen-come-employee break room. Nothing helpful to him, though he stuffed a brochure lying on a hall table into his hip pocket before climbing to the second floor.

  Since the stairs led up to the rear of that hall, he checked out the closest room first. A wall had been taken down between two small bedrooms, creating a generous space with a four-desk island in the middle and a tan metal cabinet like an outsized sideboard set against the far wall, but more important, a bank of lateral files against the wall to his left. Somewhere in there should be a list of local members, hopefully identifying life members.

  Before stepping through the door, however, he again checked for security cameras. When the room appeared clear, Garreth hurried over to the files and pulled a pen light out of his pocket. Even vampire vision needed more light for examining locks. As he clicked on the pen light, a hum from beyond the desk island startled him by turning to a soft chitter. Turning, he now spotted a printer on this end of the tan cabinet. As a light on the front flashed, it fed a continuous sheet of printout into the catch tray...and he noticed the far end had a shelf with a keyboard and monitor above it, making the cabinet a large computer.

  Shit. Did they still keep paper copies of the membership list? He hoped so.

  The chittering stopped. A last page folded into the catch tray and the light on the printer went off.

  “Now we can talk,” a female voice said behind him.

  Garreth whipped around, pulse leaping...and stared in disbelief at Steffie standing in the doorway. How did she get there? He had heard nothing behind him...seen nothing...and smelled no blood scent.

  She strolled to the end of the file bank. “I have been waiting for you.”

  No...Steffie only in appearance. Otherwise, a different body language — assured, mature — different accent...and very different eyes. Violet eyes that regarded him coolly.

  It sent a chill through him. “Irina?”

  “You are surprised, yes?”

  His brain struggled to reconcile her with the girl he saw this morning. “How could you run up and down those stairs...” Through the drag of day. “...and walk across that roof in full sunlight bare-headed and no dark glasses!”

  She shrugged. “The glasses: contact lenses. Wonderful invention. More convenient and no light leaks at edges. For the rest...I am excellent actress with much practice appearing human.”

  “And you don’t even mind sleeping in an attic?”

  “A little lie. Leo keeps suitable accommodations in his basement. Enough of pleasantries. Is time to discuss murder.” She raised her hand and he saw it held a Beretta, huge in her small hand.

  Ice washed down his spine. So she was not going to bother further framing him, just take her revenge now? He eyed the distance to the end of the lateral files behind him. At vampire speed, could he reach its cover ahead of the bullet?

  As if reading his mind, she said, “Do not try. I am superb shot. I learned before pistols had bullets or rifling and could knock flies from a horse even then.”

  Maybe he could go for her.

  “But I prefer not to leave blood and bodies here.” She waved toward the door. “After you.”

  “You’ll find it harder breaking my neck than Holle’s.”

  The gun barrel dipped. “You think I—“

  Now!

  He dived for her and the gun.

  But she shot sideways as soon as he started to more. His hands found only empty air.

  Movement blurred across his peripheral vision. He had just time to identify it as the gun barrel slicing at him before pain exploded in the side of his head. The floor smashed up into him.

  From a great echoing distance Irina laughed. “So...I will find it harder to break your neck?”

  She straddled him. A hand caught the back of his head, another his chin. Almost casually, she said, “I have always wondered about Afterlife. If we are lucky, none exists. There are too many souls I would not care to meet again. How about you?”

  He bucked, trying to throw her off, but she stuck with him and her grip tightened. And just as she started to twist...her hands released. Her weight lifted.

  He looked up to see her standing against the desks.

  Garreth stared, amazed at finding himself still alive but his mind otherwise a mush of confusion. What kept her from finishing him? “Why—”

  “Object lesson, grasshopper.”

  He blinked up at her. “What?”

  “You believe Leo insult
ed your experience and abilities...but if I were his killer, child — which I am not — you would be dead.”

  He sat up. “You mean you know who the killer is? Holle sounded last night like he might have ideas about it.”

  Irina shook her head. “We have no name yet, only, what do you call it, modus operandi. Vampires much more experienced than you, and friends of vampires, have died vicious deaths. So if you wish to help hunt, you must be alert and cautious.”

  “I might know who it is.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Who?”

  “Maybe Inspector Girimonte.” If Irina were not trying to frame him, who else did that leave.

  Irina frowned. “Sit.” She pointed at a desk chair. When he had, she pulled around another chair to face him. “What makes you believe her guilty?”

  “Remarks she’s made and her behavior toward me indicate she has a sister who’s a vampire and she’s very angry about it. Angry enough to take it out on all vampires, and friends of vampires. Use her badge to approach them, then once she has them somewhere isolated, temporarily disable them with a stun gun, and she can kill vampires even at night. She generally fits the description of the person seen outside Holle House last night. Since recognizing me for what I am, she’s been trying to make me a suspect in his murder.”

  “You are convinced of that?” She sounded skeptical.

  “She’s suggested I’m psycho enough to attack Holle merely because he snapped at me yesterday afternoon, and she raised questions about my alibi for the time of the murder. Questions I can’t really counter since I did come to the house, which a polygraph can establish. Do you have a better suspect?”

  Irina paused before answering. “Rather, another. Whatever malice she feels toward you, and actions she has taken because of it, some vampire deaths she cannot have perpetrated.”

  He frowned at her. “Which deaths?”

  “A number outside San Francisco.”

  That brought a chill. “We could have two killers?”

  “Is possible, yes.”

  “Where were—”

  A voice shrilling outside interrupted him. “I know you’re there! I feel your evil again! Leave before I call the police!”

  Garreth started. “Who’s that?”

  “Ayesha, but...not yelling at us. You heard her say ‘again?’ Someone tried to break in last night, but fled when she sensed presence and leaned out her window yelling threats to call police.”

  Garreth frowned. “Someone after syringes and needles?”

  “No. Ayesha told Ms. Kriss on the phone she sensed cold, ruthless hatred. Different from addict or ‘entrepreneur’ seeking syringes and needles to sell.”

  “The neighbor next door? She’s a genuine psychic?” Though why should he disbelieve, having the grandmother he did.

  Irina smiled. “Indeed. You notice she senses our burglar trying again.”

  Someone determined, full of cold hatred. “Our killer?”

  “Is very possible.”

  The doorbell rang.

  Irina smiled. “Ayesha senses our presence, too. Oh, and she knows what we are.”

  Garreth followed her down to the front door.

  When Irina let the psychic in, he understood why she knew what they were. The chestnut-colored woman swept into the dark hall swathed in colorful, diaphanous material but not blood scent. Another vampire.

  For a moment he mentally stumbled over the idea of a vampire psychic before realizing nothing kept a vampire from being psychic. That explained the late night reading hours. Then he realized she stared at him with an expression of horror.

  Hair rose on his neck. “What is it? What do you see?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Garreth Mikaelian. You should know my grandmother has Second Sight and has already warned me I might die here.”

  “Or worse.”

  The gooseflesh ran down his spine and arms. “Worse than dying? What?”

  She grimaced. It twitched scarring on her cheeks. “Suffocation. Endless. No respite. No escape, not even death.”

  His gut lurched. “Where? When? How?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps it won’t happen. The future is not immutable.” She turned to Irina. “That evil from last night came here again.”

  “We heard you yelling,” Garreth said. “Can you tell whether the person is male or female, human or vampire?”

  She shook her head. Braids laced with beads clicked together. “Hate and malice have no gender or species. But I have frightened her-him away for tonight. I’ll keep watch.”

  “Maybe we should hang around to be sure,” he said.

  “No.” Irina shook her head. “If he-she is killer wanting to frame you, is best we not be found here when Ayesha calls police. I will drive you home.”

  He blinked. “You have a car?”

  “I use one of Leo’s, of course. Thank you for your vigilance, Ayesha.” She waited while Ayesha gracefully vaulted the porch railing onto her own porch and the door closed behind her, then led the way down to the garage.

  Sight of a Mini Cooper squeezed into the space brought him a ripple of uneasiness.

  She eyed him. “Car troubles you?”

  He grimaced. “Not the car. I didn’t hear the garage open when you drove in.” Doubly troubling after he also missed hearing her behind him upstairs.

  “Ah.” Her expression went thoughtful. “Why, do you think...since however quiet, door is not too quiet for vampire ears?”

  Garreth felt his neck heat up. He had stood before enough commanding officers to recognize being called on a screw-up, Irina’s elfin looks and mild tone notwithstanding. Only instead of explaining his error, she was making him sweat out the answer. “I...don’t know. Usually...” That trailed off as her lifted brows told him “usually” did not count. “I guess I was paying more attention to getting at the files than other sounds in the building? I’d checked it all out and knew — thought I was alone.”

  “And trusted you would hear if that changed.” She sighed. “Those new to this life often overestimate your powers by comparing to what you had before. But distraction, preoccupation, negligence, exhaustion still dull them. And if killer is human, some humans still match us in stealth.”

  A thought to keep him on edge, he reflected, climbing into the Mini.

  As the garage door rolled up and she pulled out into the rain, he said, “You’re able to get away with driving?”

  “I have ID and California driver license, changed every year, identifying me as eighteen.”

  “Which you don’t look.”

  She smiled. “I can, or appear even older, acting and dressing appropriately. I am, as I said, excellent actress.”

  “What age were you when...” he began, then broke off as she frowned. “Is it bad manners to ask?”

  “Just irrelevant, unrelated to true age.” She drove for several blocks while the rain pattered on the roof and the wipers hissed back and forth, then shrugged. “But as you are my grandson...” Said with a smile. “...perhaps you are entitled to ask. I was fourteen when Prince Viktor, may his soul burn forever in Hell, kidnaped and began feeding on me. You worry about appearing human?” Her smile twisted. “Is nothing compared to then, when we believed in vampires, and any suspicion of being one brought testing, and failure meant death.”

  A chill chased through him. “You escaped suspicion, though.”

  “No.” Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I only fooled examiners.”

  A haunted tone he had heard in the voices of people testifying about brutality they suffered kept him from asking what tests and how she passed. Whatever she endured for that, obviously still affected her. He changed the subject. “Where did the other vampires die?”

  Apparently lost in nightmare memories, she never answered.

  So they drove the rest of the way in silence, until the end of Harry’s block. “You can let me out here. I’ll go in the back to avoid being seen.”

  Sh
e kept driving. “And become soaked. You should not have wet floor and clothes betraying your outing tonight. When I stop, you dash for door and through at full speed.”

  Yeah. He grimaced. “Do you know how to pass without pain?”

  “Sadly, no...and I have been trying since fourteen forty-seven.”

  His jaw dropped.

  The car braked.

  “Go! I will call you.”

  Garreth threw open the door and flung himself out...toward and through Harry’s front door.

  Wrench!

  But landing on his knees in the hall, wiping the rain jacket as well as possible with paper towels before returning it to the closet — crossing his fingers it finished drying before Harry touched it — he had more to think about than pain.

  Irina...over five hundred years old. The thought echoed in his head as he sneaked into the kitchen to slug down blood, then up to the bedroom.

  Wrench!

  She had been born and re-born before Columbus discovered America! No wonder she considered him a child, he reflected as he stripped to his skivvies and fell into bed. Yet with all the survival skills she must have developed, she considered the killer extremely dangerous. A sobering thought.

  As sobering as the memory of Ayesha’s look of horror and mention of suffocation. It occurred to him that Ayesha might have a few centuries on her, too. Those scars on her cheeks looked tribal. If he had seen the ankles above her bare feet, would there be scars made by slave ship leg irons?

  The last thought blurred away as, night or not, the soothing comfort of the soil in his pallet pulled him into sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  He dreamed not really a dream, but floated in a darkness full of invisible eyes and battering tides of hatred. So when he felt something touch him Garreth clawed his way up to wakefulness swinging. It carried him out of bed onto the floor...where he looked up to see Lien Takananda jumping out of arm’s reach.