Bloodlinks

by Lee Killough

  Garreth shook his head. “I don’t feel anything.”

  No need to pretend frustration. The link might still exist, just not detectible to him. Even so, since he could not reach out to Irina through it, she had no way to know he wanted her looking for him.

  Fowler’s eyes narrowed. “Try again.”

  He did...and again failed to sense anything like a tug.

  One other blood link occurred to him, however: Grandma Doyle. To his knowledge, no one in the family had ever tried giving her a Feeling. The time Shane fell out of their tree house and broke his arm, his screaming brought her running, not a psychic SOS from him. Still, Garreth mentally called her for help, visualizing Fowler, himself bound to the chair, the room around him...and tried to tell from the view out the window where he might be. Twin Peaks area? No, farther south. Diamond Heights, maybe?

  “Still no joy?” Fowler sighed. “You might be telling the truth since this is new to you. I sincerely hope you are. So keep at it, and when I return...”

  When he returned? Garreth’s pulse jumped in hope.

  Fowler smiled. “Ah. You’re hoping to escape in the interim? Surely you realize by now that I am experienced enough to I have anticipated that.”

  He disappeared into the kitchen. The refrigerator door opened and closed, then something smacked down on a counter.

  The scent curling from the kitchen toward Garreth knotted his gut. More garlic!

  To his horror, Fowler reappeared carrying a plastic sandwich bag of crushed cloves, and using a short length of chain with an alligator clip on each end, hung the bag around Garreth’s neck.

  Garreth’s chest petrified again.

  Fowler nodded. “I believe that should incapacitate you sufficiently. Yes, I realize suffocation makes concentrating on the link more difficult, but do work at it. Try diligently. Try very diligently. Ta-ta.”

  Once the door closed behind Fowler, Garreth struggled against the agony of not breathing to focus on escape. Since he could not reach Irina or be sure Grandma Doyle sensed his situation, he had to help himself. Fast, before Fowler came back. There must be a way to break loose, despite the rose stems. First, though, get rid of the garlic.

  He looked around for inspiration. Maybe something in a drawer of the china hutch against one wall. If he could grasp a drawer pull. Fowler had tied him with his fingers short of the chair arm ends. Lacking the ability to open a drawer, if he worked one of the wrought iron pulls’ pointed ends under the tape, he might be able to tear the tape. Give him one gap through the rose stems and he could free that hand, then tear off the rest of his bonds.

  He just had to reach the hutch. Circling the table across what looked like a mile of quarry tile...through the crush of daylight and without breath. But: do what you must to survive. Irina had probably faced worse in her time. At least there was no carpet to catch the chair legs.

  The chair weighed a ton, but rocking it and pushing sideways with his toes, he managed to slowly jiggle it facing away from the hutch. Then he began a see-saw scoot toward the hutch. Heaving his weight to the left and pushing with those toes scraped that side backward fractionally. Heave to the right and push those toes. Scrape that side backward. Heave to the left, to the right. Sweat ran down his face into his eyes. More soaked his shirt

  Changing light outside the window measured the excruciating pace of his progress.

  He fought panic, fought worrying about how soon Fowler might be back, just pushed himself harder and kept plugging away. The chair seemed to move minutely easier as he went. But every throw of his shoulders also set the garlic bag swinging, spewing new waves of fumes. If that kept his lungs frozen, however, at least it never aggravated the effect. And maybe, he realized, it might even work in his favor.

  Despite urgency to reach the hutch, he stopped rocking and moved just his shoulders...jerking hard back left, less hard right, hard left. Letting the bag build momentum, encouraging it to swing higher and higher left...until — yes! — it rose up and over his shoulder. Not only his shoulder but the back of the chair. The fumes remained but not hitting him in the face.

  He resumed scooting with renewed vigor. And after what seemed an eternity, finally reached the hutch. Straining his left little finger sideways might hook it around a drawer pull, he saw, but only by scooting the chair against the drawer...holding it closed. So, go to Plan B, then. By wiggling the chair sideways and back and forth, he managed to work the end of a pull under the edge of the tape on his wrist.

  To tear the tape, Garreth rocked the chair away. To no effect. He edged the chair backward to work the pull deeper. It dug into his arm and put a bulge in the tape but did not tear it. Frustration raised the thunder of blood in his ears to a deafening roar. Jerking his arm away from the pull brought a sensation of something giving. Not the tape, however.

  “Hello, hello, hello. What’s this?”

  Garreth’s gut lurched. Concentration had made him forget to listen for Fowler’s return.

  “How...enterprising of you.” Fowler dragged the chair back from the hutch and around to face him. “But while beavering away at escape, did you make any effort to feel for that bloodlink? I dare say not.” Sighing, he removed the garlic bag, took it into the kitchen, and returned presently, fanning the air with a dishtowel. “This is not kindness, understand, but an effort to make concentration on the link easier, and after you find it, I need you able to talk. Now go to work!”

  Garreth closed his eyes. Instead of links, however, he felt the easing of daylight pressure. Sunset nearing. Hallelujah. Now maybe he could do something about Fowler.

  “It might interest you to know that escaping would not be as satisfactory as you might think as you are now being sought as a murder suspect. The body of that shop girl Heather was found in their stock room with her neck broken.”

  Garreth started, eyes jerking open. He wheezed, “You.”

  Fowler nodded. “Indeed...as soon as you and the inspectors left and the other clerk became otherwise occupied. He never noticed me nipping in and across to the changing rooms. Earlier I had tried on several items, and when the stupid cow followed me, I claimed to have dropped my wedding ring. She obligingly went down on hands and knees to help me look for it, and...” He pantomimed twisting a head, smiling.

  Garreth stared at him in disbelief and horror. “Why!”

  The smile went grim. “To destroy the last shreds of any esteem for you by revealing you as the monster you are. With highly satisfying results, I am gratified to report. Girimonte is ready to issue an arrest warrant, and even Takananda is forced to admit that your flight is strong evidence of guilt.”

  The disbelief and horror turned to knots in Garreth’s gut. Of course Girimonte had no doubts about it. She already wondered if he lied about not recognizing the girl. How easy to accept that he went back and killed an innocent person he thought was Lane.

  The male clerk could testify he passed by the shop after Heather disappeared...unless interviewing him muddied the time line. Garreth had no trouble imagining how it could go.

  “When did you last see Heather?”

  “After Inspector Takananda and the other officer left the store. She was disappointed she didn’t make a sale. Like I told him.”

  “Told who?”

  “The other officer, the one in the ball cap.”

  “When did you talk to him?”

  “When he came by later.”

  “How much later?”

  “I don’t know...ten minutes or so maybe. I was standing in the doorway looking around for Miss MacLean and he came by and I told him about her being gone.”

  “And that’s the next time you saw him.”

  “Yes.”

  “You have a rear door in the stock room. Is it locked?”

  “Of course. Always.”

  “If someone knocked, would Heather open it?”

  “I suppose, but she’d have to be in the stock room to hear it. When there’s a delivery they have to ring the bell.”
r />   “Is there an alarm when it’s opened?”

  “Not during the day. Just at night when the burglar alarm is set.”

  “Are you always aware of someone entering the store, even when your back is turned?”

  “Yes. There’s a beam at the door that sets off a chime when someone walks through it.”

  “But it looks low enough for someone to step over.”

  “Well...I guess, but why would they?”

  “Then someone stepping over the beam could enter when you were otherwise occupied, lure Heather into the stock room, and leave through the rear entrance without ever alerting you to his presence?”

  “You think that’s what the person who killed her did?”

  “Is there an easy way to come around to the front again after going out the back?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “You’ve been very helpful. If you think of anything else, call us.”

  Leaving the clerk, Garreth reflected grimly, to consider the possibility of a killer leaving by the back and reappearing out front. Shaking his certainty of the last time he saw “the cop with the ball cap.”

  It could happen inadvertently. Harry would never try twisting a witness’s perceptions, and to give Girimonte the benefit of the doubt, since she did not seem involved in trying to frame him, would she go that far? Even with all her suspicions of motives and withheld information.

  Fowler’s voice broke in. “You don’t have the expression of someone concentrating on finding that link to Mada.”

  Garreth made himself grimace. “I...am...trying.”

  “Not hard enough, I’d say.” Fowler sighed. “Unfortunate. Now I must resort to more forceful encouragement. For example, hanging you by your feet in a closet with plenty of garlic and leaving you for, oh, a month. You won’t die of suffocation and starvation in the interim...only feel as if you are. The result isn’t pretty, as you might imagine...rather like those leathery natural mummies found in caves, but when I’ve come back they are, amazingly, still alive. More or less.”

  Imagine it Garreth did...endless days and hours without breath or food...and without relief, just interminable anguish. He saw Fowler watching him and tensed to keep from shuddering visibly.

  “They were, alas, too far gone to ever fully recover, even after being given blood, which usually cures vampire ills. They would have existed as only living mummies, had I not provided the true death they begged for. After they answered my questions, naturally.”

  A fucking angel of mercy!

  “The drawback to that is the time involved and today I desire immediate results. Perhaps flaying a few strips from your chest or arms might stimulate effort. Filleting can be effective as well.” He strolled into the kitchen, calling back: “It’s quite educational how much flesh can be removed from a body that ceases bleeding in the affected area long before exsanguination. Limbs can be pared down to the bone.”

  Information gained from experience, Garreth had no doubt. Horror chilled him. Julian Fowler Mengele. And he called vampires monsters?

  “But let’s not start there. When in doubt, one can never go wrong with the classics.” Drawers opened and closed. “Ah, excellent. I do appreciate a fully furnished house.” Fowler reappeared carrying a knife and three long handled wooden spoons.

  Garreth’s gut lurched. “No.” The word slipped out before he caught it.

  Fowler smiled, laid two spoons on the table, and while Garreth watched in growing panic, began whittling the handle of the third to a point. “You may recall our encounter in the cemetery in Baumen, when I expressed doubt about stakes killing your kind. But while not fatal, stakes are effective tools. Driven through the heart, they produce shock and pain that disables the monster long enough for decapitation or some other means of destroying the nervous system.” He tested the point on the spoon with a finger, then resumed shaving. “Since my objective at this point is cooperation, not destruction, I’m going for abdominal impalement...still quite painful but not totally debilitating. Hopefully one stake will be sufficient to galvanize you to action. If not...” He nodded toward the other spoons on the table, then tested the point again. “Ah. This should suffice.”

  Despite himself, Garreth flinched. Again he felt movement. For a moment hope overrode fear, only to fade again as a twist of his wrists proved the tape remained tight. Yet he had not imagined the motion.

  No, he realized suddenly, he had not imagined it, and cursed himself. Idiot! He almost deserved to die for being so dense. Wasting hours wrestling the chair to the hutch for something to cut the bonds. Thinking like a human instead of a vampire! Something Fowler maybe counted on with a relative newbie like himself? Counted on the bulk of the chair to keep him from realizing that the bonds might be unbreakable but for a vampire the chair was not!

  Fowler pointed the spoon like a fencer’s sword and sighted along it.

  So get your act together, stupid. Now! Garreth threw himself forward against the tape around his chest while forcibly straightening his legs and jerking his arms up and in toward his chest. Wood groaned...creaked...cracked...splintered. Chair arms tearing loose, seat separating from the chair back.

  Fowler froze.

  Garreth used the moment to hurl himself at Fowler with the chair arms as battering rams.

  Nearly vampire fast, Fowler recovered and ducked aside, then came at Garreth with the sharpened spoon.

  Pain exploded through Garreth as the shaft rammed through him below his right ribs...with agony so searing that even if he had more than the beginnings of breath back, he doubted he could have screamed. Reflex wanted him to reel backward clawing at stake. Instead he pressed forward driving the stake even deeper, flailing at Fowler with the chair arms...fighting to survive.

  One arm caught Fowler on the side of his head, sending him sprawling.

  Now Garreth flung himself back...slamming into the hutch to further smash the chair and break the stretcher between the front legs that yoked his legs together.

  Fowler rolled to his feet, all arrogant assurance gone, eyes cold. He came at Garreth with the knife. Garreth moved to block him with a chair arm. Only to have Fowler flip the knife to his other hand and lunge in low. A feint! Garreth chopped down in time to deflect the blow aimed at his gut. Instead, the blade sank into his thigh.

  As smoothly as if intending it, Fowler ripped sideways and across into the other thigh, then just as quickly, reversed to slash both legs a second time. Garreth punched at Fowler’s gut. Arching aside, Fowler grabbed the chair back — still attached to Garreth — and swung around, to send Garreth skidding across the tiles into the far wall. Leaping after him, Fowler landed kneeling on Garreth’s chest. Ribs cracked. A leg jammed against the head of the spoon, bringing a wave of pain worse than that in his chest. Garreth’s vision blurred.

  He still saw the knife stabbing toward his eyes.

  Make the body obey, Irina said. Do what you must to survive.

  He forced up a blocking arm and again deflected the blow. This time the blade gashed him from elbow to hand.

  But with that came a sudden sensation of release, like a lock springing open. The knife had cut the rose stems! Before Fowler noticed, he turned his wrist and smashed the edge of the chair arm up under Fowler’s chin.

  With a crack of teeth, Fowler’s head snapped back. He toppled sideways....eyes glazing.

  Unconscious but not for long probably. That meant at most a minute or two to...what? Not escape, not in his condition. Secure Fowler for Harry, then. There had been a door across the hall as they came in from the garage. A coat closet maybe?

  He freed his arm, almost reveling in the shot of pain as he passed through the zip tie.

  Pushing with his freed arm, he managed to roll over and stagger to his feet...grabbed Fowler by the belt, and amid the clinging pieces of chair, dragged Fowler into and down the hall. Even though the sun had set, it took all his strength. A closet did lie behind the door...and the door, heavy wood in keeping with the Spanish
style of the house, looked good and solid.

  After shoving Fowler in, he dragged a chair from the diningroom and wedged it under the door knob.

  In one more trip back to the diningroom he started to pick up the knife to cut himself free of the chair remnants. Then stopped. No...better leave it with his blood and just Fowler’s prints on it. The kitchen had more knives.

  In the kitchen, once he had both hands free, he braced himself against the sink. Gritting his teeth, he jerked out the spoon and threw it in the sink. Even expecting pain, it hit with the same sheet of agony as being stabbed, almost dropping him to his knees. Grabbing the sink saved him, but he felt like a balloon losing air and fought not to collapse on the floor.

  What made him so weak? Even breathing took an effort, ribs grating and pain lancing through his chest with each inhalation.

  He stared down at himself. Shirt and jeans blood soaked. The stake wound bleeding. The other gashes remained open and seeping, too. Was it an after-effect of the rose stems and long paralysis from garlic?

  Never mind. Before worrying about that he needed to talk to Harry.

  A phone hung on the wall, but when he stumbled over to it, it had no dial tone.

  If he made it to a neighbor’s house, one look at this vision from a slaughter house was sure to make them call the police. He wanted Harry, though, not patrol officers on the lookout for him as a murder suspect, likely to be more interested in cuffing him than listening to his reason for looking the way he did.

  From the hall came the sound of a doorknob turning softly...stealthily. Fowler, conscious again. It turned again, this time with more force, followed by a short screech.

  Garreth’s heart jumped. That had to be the chair legs scraping as Fowler pushed the door. Was the tile slick enough to let Fowler force the door open?

  He peered into the hall. The chair still seemed securely in position. As long as Fowler stayed focused on the door for his escape instead of stopping to realize just two sheets of drywall separated the side of the closet from the livingroom, the closet should hold him long enough to hot wire the car, drive to a phone, and bring Harry here.