Bloodlinks

by Lee Killough

  His and Girimonte’s amusement had turned puzzled. Wondering why Garreth would be joking with the man he accused of attacking him.

  Garreth let his own expression go more thoughtful. “You know what it reminds me of, those giant hickeys Lane left on her victims. Remember the one on Mossman when we pulled him out of the Bay?”

  Viswan looked up in interest from checking Garreth’s pulse and respiration.

  Fowler stiffened. “I told you; it’s a pinch!”

  His vehemence had Harry and Girimonte exchanging glances again. Then they drifted around through the hall to the diningroom arch, their expressions and body language telling Garreth they were waiting to see where this went. Lien cut through the kitchen.

  Garreth kept hammering. “Is that the kind of sex you like, Fowler, that leaves big hickeys? You wouldn’t be one of Lane’s one night stands, would you, meeting her, say, in Europe and now scrambling like the rest of the sorry lot to beg her for more favors. That wouldn’t be the reason why you’re so desperate to find her, would it?”

  “Got it! I told you; queen of sticks.” Keesha secured her needle with tape. “Soon as I plug him in, we’re good to go.”

  No, no, not yet! They just needed a little longer.

  “What rubbish!” Fowler’s lip curled. Forced into a curl, Garreth thought. “I have never met the woman. What do you hope to accomplish by creating some sinister obsession with her on my part? Bolster your claim of being prisoner here this afternoon? I think the detectives are more intelligent than that. As a copper yourself, you surely know a story needs consistency to be credible. Yet here you are, first contending I’m hunting down the woman to avenge my father’s death, and now you claim it’s for sex?”

  The EMTs stared, Keesha pausing in the act of stripping the cap from the IV tubing.

  Garreth saw him catch the glances Harry and Girimonte exchanged and recognize he had made some error. Mental wheels ground almost audibly as he tried to identify it.

  Harry asked, “When did you hear Garreth state revenge as the reason you want to find Barber?”

  The wheels braked...spun in place. As it occurred to Fowler that he had not been asked about his father because this was the first mention of him? “This evening while convincing your wife to keep me locked in the closet. I presume he chose not to repeat it to Inspector Girimonte, since he knows it would be instantly refuted by the fact my father died when I was eight.”

  A statement no doubt meant to hammer home that Garreth told whatever story served his purpose at the moment. But Garreth heard blatant fishing for what had been said, edged in anxiety. Evidence of strain in Fowler’s control?

  His bait went ignored in favor of Girimonte asking Lien, “Did Mikaelian tell you Fowler wants to avenge his father?”

  Lien shook her head. “No. And what’s more we talked outside when I first arrived. Mr. Fowler couldn’t have heard anything Garreth said.”

  Fowler’s jaw tightened. “Of course she would— ” He broke off as Harry’s eyes narrowed.

  “Would what, Mr. Fowler...and why of course?”

  An intake of breath shifted Garreth’s attention to Lien...who had cocked her head and was leaning toward Fowler’s back. “Did you put on a clean sweater this morning, Mr. Fowler?”

  That earned her three frowns: two puzzled, one irritated.

  “What— ” Harry began.

  “Because if he did, Harry, he had afternoon delight — or something — with a redhead. Her hair is on his turtleneck.”

  Where they might catch as the head of a body he carried lolled on his shoulder! Yes! Garreth pumped a mental fist.

  “Let’s have a look,” Harry said.

  Fowler spun toward Lien.

  Garreth saw the venom in his eyes and flung himself off the stretcher.

  Not fast enough. Fowler caught Lien’s shoulders and bent to sink his teeth in the side of her neck.

  Copying Fowler in the garage earlier, Garreth jammed his thumbs into Fowler’s neck behind his jaw. The broken ribs shifted, shooting pain through him but he kept the thumbs dug in. “Let...go. Let...go!”

  Fowler released her...and drove an elbow back into Garreth, sending him sprawling.

  Almost before he hit the floor Harry and Girimonte had leaped on Fowler. They forced him to the floor, too, wrenching his arms behind his back.

  Harry yelled, “Take care of my wife!” to the frozen EMTs and: “What the hell was that for!” at Fowler.

  Girimonte smiled over at Garreth as Keesha raced in to help him up. “Viva la adrenaline.”

  Cuffed and pulled to his feet again, Fowler stood motionless — except for licking blood from his lips — while Girimonte picked the hair off his sweater and bagged it, Garreth was returned to the stretcher, and Viswan examined Lien.

  “The bite isn’t too deep, Inspector. Lavage, a tetanus shot, and antibiotics and she should be fine.”

  “It’s deep enough,” Fowler said.

  Harry turned on him. “What do you mean, deep enough!”

  Fowler smiled. “Private joke.”

  Harry’s jaw tightened. “Get him out of here, Van.”

  As Girimonte steered him down the hall, Fowler called back, “Au revoir until the next life, bitch...when I’ll always know where you are. And if you want to know what that means, Inspector, ask your wife!”

  “It means put a suicide watch on him,” Garreth said.

  “Suicide?” Harry frowned. “Why do you— Never mind. Explain later.” He ran after Girimonte.

  “And explain more than that,” Lien said. “Garreth...it’s time to tell him about you.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The hospital room felt like a cell. A cell on death row. He had bolted from a similar room in panic when he discovered what he was, mugging an orderly for clothes. Lien planted in the visitor chair prevented that this time, and the blood running into him...every drop increasing his energy, erasing pain — though it did nothing for his thirst — tethered him to the bed. At least until these last few drops drained in.

  The sympathy in her smile hid none her resolve. “He deserves to know, Garreth.”

  True, but... “Harry’s world is what you see and measure and put in evidence bags. To him you handcuff and lock up the things that go bump in the night. I don’t know if he can accept the supernatural like Grandma Doyle and you do.”

  “You didn’t know I could until now.”

  Good point.

  “Trust him.”

  “And his baba,” came Irina’s voice from the doorway. She strolled to the bed and set a sling bag on the bed table. Something in it clinked.

  Baba. A term for grandmother, if he remembered right.

  She smiled at Lien. “You seem not surprised I’m here.”

  “When you left you said you wouldn’t go far. You must have seen both of us get in the ambulance.”

  “Not far at all...stairway to bedrooms, in fact, where I heard everything. How bad did that devil hurt you?”

  Lien rubbed the bandage on her neck. “It’ll be sore for a while but like the EMT said, all I needed was cleansing, a tetanus shot, and a prescription for antibiotics.”

  “Why bother with suicide watch.” Irina’s lip curled. “Let Fowler kill himself.”

  “Picture instead,” Garreth said, “his raging frustration at being foiled and forced to live on, incarcerated, as a powerless human.”

  Irina smiled. “Yes, I like that. But enough of him. Let us see to you.” She pulled his thermos out of the sling bag.

  He took it gratefully.. Even animal blood cooled thirst a bit. But he reeled back as he twisted off the cap. “You filled it with human blood!”

  “Proper nutrition, and is only half filled. Hereafter, however, if you stop being idiotic fool and become life member of Philos, you will be supplied this way.” She reached into the sling bag again, this time producing a pint bottle of a bilious green plastic, labeled liquid protein...bottled by Infinity Nutrition. “Purchased thirty bottles to a c
arton, delivered to you even in Baumen, donated by paid volunteers, so no humans harmed. Letting you drink without guilt, or fear you will fall on your neighbors.”

  Garreth ignored the sarcasm and eyed the bottle. “Is there a choice of colors? That one is really disgusting.”

  She grinned. “Thank you. We paid outrageously for research finding color that deters undesirable sampling by suggesting noxious contents. Now, drink! Or I will force it down you.”

  He upended the thermos.

  Forget any need to force him. After the first taste, only unconsciousness could stop him from drinking. Though cold, the blood hit his tongue like fire...liquid copper, saltiness sweeter than any sugar, sending warm spreading through him. Healing had to be slower than that, but he almost felt gashes sealing beneath the stitches, ribs knitting. Gulping greedily, he wished the thermos were bottomless.

  When the last drop drained into his mouth, Garreth reached for the green bottle, but Irina stuffed it back into the sling bag. “You have enough for now.”

  Maybe. The Hunger lay quiet. If he were a cat, he mused, he would purr. Despite nighttime and lack of earth under him, he wanted to curl up and sleep.

  An urge that vanished in a lurch of his gut at the sound of Harry’s voice down the hall, accompanying two sets of footsteps headed this way. “How is he?”

  “Amazingly alert and coherent for someone who’s had such low blood pressure.”

  Irina faded into a corner with her sling bag as a nurse and Harry came into the room.

  He headed for Lien and dropped a kiss on top of her head. “How are you doing, babe?”

  The nurse disconnected the empty blood bag, then took Garreth’s blood pressure, frowned, and headed back out of the room. “Try not to stay long so he can rest.”

  Once the door closed, Irina reappeared, producing a generous shot glass and liquor bottle from her sling bag and setting them on the bed table.

  Garreth peered at the bottle. Glenlivet. Why had she brought liquor, especially such expensive scotch?

  Harry stared at Irina. “Steffie?”

  “Not tonight.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Ignore...me.”

  His expression went blank, then turned his attention to Garreth. “I have to say you look better with blood inside you.”

  “What’s the status with Fowler?”

  Harry reached down for Lien’s hand with a smile of grim satisfaction. “He’s booked for assault on honorable wife and suspicion of murder. We found more hairs caught in a trouser cuff. Same red as the ones on Fowler’s turtleneck. Of course the arrogant bastard’s sitting there insisting if it’s the MacLean girl’s hair, it transferred from you during your attack on him. According to his theory, you’re the only one with motive to murder her and the others — revenge on Barber. Making the murders look like Barber’s work was your way, quote, ‘To get you plods’ finger out your asses and after the vicious bitch again.’” Harry rolled his eyes. “Not how you’d say it I think. Van agrees, and is about ready to sign on to your version of the day. Whatever your secrets, she says, she doubts they include murder...or you’d have killed Fowler, not shut him in the closet and phoned for me.”

  Garreth winced. A back-handed endorsement if he ever heard one.

  “She says I ought to tell you she knows it isn’t easy owning up to what you are, but trust friends to understand, and help.”

  Lien raised her brows at him. See?

  “Since you’re in the hospital already, stay and submit to treatment before kidney failure or heart damage kill you...like it did her sister.”

  What? Garreth felt himself gaping. Organ failure? Treatment! None of that made sense.

  Then Lien laughed, and when Harry frowned down at her in surprise, said, “I’m sorry. It’s just I realized there’s been a big misunderstanding. Garreth, Van thinks you have anorexia.”

  His brain gears jammed. Anorexia?

  “No misunderstanding,” Harry said. “She says she spotted the signs right away: very thin, secretive, not eating but full of sneaky strategies for hiding that fact.”

  Anorexia. Garreth wanted to laugh, too...in relief. Son of a bitch. All that paranoia over her hatred when it was really, what, anger seeing someone apparently acting as self-destructive as her sister. Of course she jumped to the wrong conclusion about him. How many humans would consider vampirism as a reason someone never ate.

  “I recognized every trick she named as one you’ve used, Mik-san. Don’t do this to yourself; take her advice.”

  “It isn’t anorexia, Harry.” Lien sent Garreth another meaningful look. Over to you.

  Right. Garreth’s mouth went dry. How did he start? Not with just blurting out that he drank his meals, and not...wine. Ease into it. “It’s about blood.”

  That earned him a baffled frown. “Blood?”

  “You were wondering why Fowler bit Lien. He wanted her blood.”

  “Why?”

  “Because drinking the blood of a vampire turns you into one when you die, and he thinks Lien is a vampire.”

  “What!” Harry blinked, then laughed. “Lien? Where— ”

  The phone beside the bed rang.

  Harry reached for it. “That’ll be for me. I told Van to call the hospital and be put through to your room if anything happened I ought to know. Yeah, Van.” He carried the phone the length of its cord and stood in a corner with his back to them. Garreth caught only Girimonte’s wry: Good thing we put Fowler on a suicide watch before Harry moved out of range. “How?...Christ! How is he?” He listened for a long time, muttering occasional monosyllables.

  Irina glanced toward him. “I think Fowler did not succeed or she would have immediately said so.”

  Garreth’s thought, too.

  Hanging up, Harry came back shaking his head. “Well, it looks like Fowler’s developing an insanity defense. It might work, too. He tried to kill himself by chewing open veins in his wrists. How crazy is that.”

  And painful. Credit Fowler with determination.

  Lien’s eyes widened. “They caught him in time?”

  Harry nodded. “Oh yeah. It’s a slow way to die and the guard got suspicious seeing him faking sleep with the sheet pulled up to his chin. Now he’s lost it, or giving a great performance, Van says...screaming he won’t be stopped, that he’ll cross over and once he’s a vampire, he’ll walk out of the cell and find where Lien — Lien! — has Barber walled up — whatever that’s about — and destroy her. Then go after the rest of the vampires around us that we’re all too bloody blind to see, including the one, according to him, I’m sleeping with. At this rate Fowler will end up in the funny farm without even standing trial.” He brushed a hand across Lien’s hair. “Like anyone would believe Lien, of all people, is a vampire.”

  Garreth sighed. This road just got steeper. “Fowler might be crazy, and he’s wrong about Lien, but...vampires do exist. Lane was one. The punctures in the bruise on Mossman’s neck came from her fangs, not needles.”

  Harry snorted. “Right. I think that blood loss has left you a confused after all. Come on, Lien.” He held out a hand to her. “Let’s let him get some sleep.”

  She waved it away. “Not yet. You need to listen to Garreth.”

  Talk fast, Mikaelian. “Lane was a vampire and by attacking me, she...made me one, too.”

  Irina uncapped the scotch and filled the shot glass.

  Harry’s frown looked torn between irritation and talk sense into him. “You’re not a vampire, Garreth. You don’t burn up in daylight and you have a reflection.”

  “The daylight thing and no reflection are myths. But you know how I react to garlic...and I can’t enter a dwelling uninvited. Like Wink O’Hare’s back door. And there’s this.” Garreth opened wide and extended his fangs.

  Harry froze.

  Irina handed him the shot glass.

  Now Garreth understood the scotch. Treatment for shock.

  Harry tossed back the liquor, though Garreth wondered
if he knew what he was doing or tasted what he swallowed. Irina refilled the glass, still in his hand, and Harry gulped that, too.

  Garreth closed his mouth. Waited.

  Harry tossed down a third shot and stood holding the glass, staring at Garreth like someone with no idea where he was or what had happened. Not that Garreth blamed Harry, when reality as he knew it had stood on its head, and someone he thought he knew turned out to be a stranger.

  Except I’m not! Harry needed to know that. “I should have tried telling you sooner, but...I couldn’t.” Garreth sucked in a breath. “The worst thing Lane did to me was make me think I’d turned into this unspeakable thing...and that everyone else would see me the same way. I’ve come to realize that isn’t true. I’m the same person I always was, on a restricted diet — animal blood.” Up to now, so not exactly a lie, and hopefully comfortable for Harry to accept. “But the paranoia is still there. People like Fowler kill vampires and my own grandmother ran away from me at first. I couldn’t bear the thought of you doing that and never looking at me the same again.”

  Harry finally moved...holding out the shot glass. When Irina refilled it, he stared down into the glass for what felt to Garreth like an eternity before glancing over at Lien. “You know about him?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re all right with it?”

  “Yes. He’s still Garreth, heart and mind what they’ve always been. Teeth and diet and circadian rhythm don’t matter.”

  Harry sipped the scotch, expression thoughtful...then looked over at Irina. “What do you mean you’re not Steffie tonight?” Retreating to when he still understood reality? “Who are you then? Why are you here?”

  “I am blood kin to Garreth, remorseful maker of Lane and so, his grandmother.”

  “But you’re only a little...” Garreth saw connections link, producing an oh, or maybe oh no, another! and Harry drained the shot glass. “This is really good. That’s why.” As Irina showed him the label on the bottle.

  She handed it to him. “Is yours. Enjoy.”

  He handed the bottle on to Lien to tuck into her purse, then took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “We’ll go and let you rest, Garreth, and be back in the morning with clothes.”