Eternal Service

by Regina Morris

  “I have more blood at my home. I got a shipment this morning. I’m taking him there now.” She hung up without giving Ben another chance to speak. Raymond’s aging had not slowed down with the twelve syringes of blood in his system, and now his beautiful black eyes were shut and he was unconscious. She pulled the car over on the shoulder of the interstate. She had to get more blood into him and right now. She opened her car door and rushed to his side of the car. “Raymond! Wake up!” He lay motionless. Alex put her wrist up to Raymond’s nose. “Smell. There’s more blood. Here.” There was no response from Raymond. His fangs were fully extended, so she took her finger and pierced her fingertip. She had to put her finger in his mouth so that the blood could drip down on his tongue. Hopefully, this would be enough to stir him back to consciousness.

  She felt his tongue move against her finger. “That’s right Raymond. There’s more blood. Wake up and feed.” His eye lids opened. He was weak and his aging was showing once again. He looked about seventy years old. She brushed her forearm against his fangs and cut into her skin so he could see and smell the offering. Even as weak as his body was, his impulse to feed took over. He pierced his fangs into her arm, in an almost savage manner. His fangs ripped into her flesh and searing pain swept over Alex. This was so unlike the dozen or so other bites he had done to her earlier all over her body. This one hurt like hell. She resisted the urge to pull away, as well as the urge to scream out in pain.

  Raymond recoiled from her arm and Alex realized that even as weak as he was, he was picking up her thoughts. He could sense her pain. She shoved her arm back onto his lips and concentrated on just one word over and over again. “Drink. Drink. Drink. …” He responded and bit into her arm again, he drank deep and swallowed over and over. His eyes half shut as he did, but as more blood entered his body the more aware of his surroundings he became. He opened his eyes and looked at Alex, immediately pulling her arm away from his fangs.

  “I’m taking too much. I could kill you.” He gasped. Her blood trickled down his lips and onto his chin. “Leave me. I don’t want to kill you.”

  Alex ignored his plea. “Drink more, Raymond. I want you to drink more blood right now.” She positioned her arm directly under his fangs once more, but he refused to drink again from her arm.

  Alex started to feel weak from the blood loss, but she had to get him to her home for more blood. She pulled her arm away which caused her skin to tear even more. “There’s more blood at my home. We’ll be there soon. Hang on.” She closed his door and ran towards the driver’s side of the car. She tore a strip of cloth from the hem of her dress and wrapped the makeshift bandage on her wound to halt the bleeding. The fabric sopped up the blood and was soon drenched. She added another strip with pressure, and then started driving.

  She sped down the road with her blood dripping down her arm and staining her clothes and the car.

  “I love you Alex.” It was the last thing he said before convulsions hit him again and he lost consciousness once more. That’s when she screamed.

  CHAPTER FIFTY–TWO

  “No,” Alex screamed. “This is not Raymond’s day to die.” After racing past other motorists and running more red lights, Alex found herself back in familiar territory. The Jag sped down her street, and she screeched to a halt half in her driveway and half on her front lawn.

  She reached for the door handle that was slick with her own blood. She pulled at the lock and then hurled herself from the car. Her arm dripped with blood on the pavement as she ran to Raymond’s side of the car. She managed to open the door and pull him half out, but knew it would be a struggle to get the man inside her home, to where more blood would be.

  “Raymond,” she said forcefully, “Wake up.” She placed her left arm around his waist, her right under his left armpit, and gave a tug. The wound on her arm ripped open even more causing blood to gush out, and the pain from her cracked ribs felt agonizing. Her blood splattered on Raymond’s shirt, the leather seats, and down to the floor. Alex felt dizzy. She took a deep breath. She knew she was losing too much blood, and she needed help.

  Her purse was now stained in crimson red, and the bag lay on the floor by Raymond’s feet. She bent down and stretched herself over his body and reached for it. Her right arm felt too damaged to do much, so she tugged at the zipper with her left fingers until the purse finally gave way. She groped for her phone, but couldn’t find it. She pulled at the purse to bring it closer, but the bag was now pinned under Raymond’s foot.

  Sitting halfway up, she searched Raymond’s coat pocket. Inside she found his phone.

  “Come on … Come on … ,” she said into the phone as the listened to the rings of the number she had just dialed.

  “Dad, are you okay?”

  “Sterling!” she yelled into the phone.

  “Alex?”

  “Your father’s been shot. He’s dying. You need to come help me. I’m at home. I have more blood in the house.”

  “Sulie and I are on our way. Ben said my father has bullets still lodged inside him. They will work themselves out. Don’t panic Alex.”

  She ripped away the rest of Raymond’s torn shirt. His thick purple blood had matted with the hairs on his chest. She ran her hand up and down inspecting him. Something was wrong, and when her finger grazed a raised bump in his abs, she bent down lower to get a better look at it. “There’s a bullet coming out!” she yelled.

  “Good. That’s very good. Once it’s out he should heal. There’s a bag of blood in the trunk of his car.”

  Alex removed the bullet. Its mushroomed head was blunt. She tossed it onto the dashboard, untangled herself from Raymond’s lap, and ran to the trunk of the car. There she found a pint of blood. Bagged, not syringed.

  “I got the blood,” she said as she scurried back to Raymond. Sweat dripped from her face, matting her hair onto her cheeks.

  “It’s Sulie, Alex. Sterling is driving. Is Raymond still unconscious?” Sulie asked.

  She looked inside the car. Raymond’s head hung down low, his eyes were closed. “Yes.”

  “OK You’ll have to put the blood into syringes and inject it into his bloodstream. Can you do that, Alex?”

  Alex nodded, and then in a low voice replied, “Yes. I can do that.”

  The used syringes were strewn about on the floor of the car, so she hunted one down. The plunger of the syringe was difficult to pull with her injured arm. Her hands shook, but she pulled at the plunger and watched as the syringe filled with the blood from the bag. She plunged the needle into Raymond’s leg and gave the full dose.

  “How much?” she asked into the phone.

  “All of it, Alex. Give him everything you have. Sterling told me the bullet is out, so he should come around soon.”

  Alex plunged syringe after syringe into Raymond’s body. He remained aged, his hair white, his skin wrinkled. The blood on her arm was no longer dripping with fresh blood, but she still kept putting her arm up to his non–responsive face and hoping against hope that he would be enticed by the smell.

  With each emptied syringe, she kept a tally and announced the number into the phone for Sulie to hear. With each count, Sulie encouraged her to do more. It wasn’t until the bag was nearly empty that Sulie took over the count and kept Alex awake by talking to her about the teams triumph over the third vampire at the dinner.

  Alex passed out before the bag was done.

  CHAPTER FIFTY–THREE

  Alex was aware of being moved. The sensation reminded her of childhood when her father would carry her to her room and put her to bed. She wanted to sleep. Yes, sleep would be good.

  When her head hit the pillow, she finally opened her eyes. The room was dark, but with the street lamp outside shining through the window, she could make out the layout of the room – the nightstand, dresser, and closet door. This wasn’t her childhood home. She forced her head up to look at the man standing over her. The man wasn’t her father. It was an older man, in torn black clothes. His face was
burned and stained a dark purple color. His face looked familiar but hard to place.

  She knew she lay on her bed at her house. The soft pillow nestled her head and felt good. She shifted into the comforter and realized how much her body ached. Her back felt like it had been twisted into a pretzel and her legs felt like limp noodles. She was sore all over.

  “Good, you’re awake.”

  She stared at the familiar face of the man. Alex didn’t know if she needed to scream, ask a question, or just go back to sleep. She liked the idea of sleeping.

  “Stay awake, Alex,” the man ordered. He sat on the bed beside her and her weakened body swayed as the mattress gave way to his weight.

  Her mind swirled with images. Images which seemed not all pleasant. She remembered a fancy dinner. Yes, a dinner where she was all dressed up. She glanced down at her clothing. The torn dress was dirty, not resembling its earlier beauty. She swallowed hard, trying to remember how she got back to her room.

  She watched as the man held up a syringe. The street lamplight glistened off the empty vial. She remembered syringes. She was doing something with syringes, but what?

  “You were attacked. But you’re going to be fine,” he assured her.

  “Who …?”

  She watched as the man studied her. He took a good look, deep into her eyes. “It’s me. Sterling.”

  Sterling? She took in his facial features. Yes. It was him. He looked older than she had remembered him, but it was definitely him. His face was marred by wrinkles, bruises and burns. The events were all coming back to her. Sterling. The Colony. The mission.

  “Raymond!” she yelled as she desperately tried to jerk her body up.

  He placed his hand on her shoulder and held her back down to the bed. “My father is fine. Sulie is seeing to him.” He stuck the empty syringe into his arm, and she watched as he filled it with his own purple blood.

  She looked towards the door of her bedroom. “The car. He was in the car,” she said.

  Not looking at her he replied, “Yes, he was. He’s now in the living room being healed by Sulie.”

  Her eyes turned quickly to Sterling, “He’s alive?”

  “Yes. Evidently the vampire fled after attacking you both.” Sterling picked up her arm and showed it to her. Her smooth creamy skin looked flawless with only the exception of dried blood around her hand and upper arm. “Zmiya tore into your arm. He must have brutally fed on you. You lost a lot of blood, but I sealed the wound for you.”

  She looked at her arm and remembered back. “No. Raymond fed from me.”

  Sterling studied her, then looked back towards the bedroom door as though looking past the walls and at his father. Turning back to Alex, he asked, “My father did this to you?”

  Alex cleared her throat and laid her arm back down on the comforter. “I gave my vein to him. He was dying. Not enough blood in the car to save him.”

  Sterling placed his hand on her arm where the wound had been. “Thank you for saving my father’s life.” He slowly rubbed the area where his father had fed. “I’ve never come close to losing him before, and he means the world to me.” He gazed her in the eyes, “I’m glad he’s found you, Alex. You make him very happy.”

  Taking a deep breath Alex felt the pain in her chest. “Thank you.” She tried to smile, but there was more pain. “Zmiya …” she began.

  “We’ll find him. Don’t worry.”

  “No,” she protested. “He’s dead. I killed him.”

  Sterling’s eyes grew wide. “It’s okay Alex. You’re just disoriented. Relax.”

  She felt the tug of sleep weighing heavy upon her. She licked her lips and asked, “What am I doing here? Why are you here?”

  “I’m here for you, Alex.” Just before she passed out, she watched him poke the needle of the syringe into her arm and injected his blood into her.

  *******

  Alex awoke in unfamiliar surroundings. The deep hue of the hardwood floors, the style of the crown molding surrounding the doors and windows, and the outdated windows that opened outward told her she was in one of the bedrooms of Fang Manor. The bedroom was huge, and she stretched out in the king-sized bed to rouse herself from sleep.

  The room itself was nicely decorated. The oversized nightstand matched the dresser and full-length, standing mirror. The matching lamps were tall with drum shades. The green curtains were drawn, and the room was dimly lit. She could tell it was daylight by the small amount of light that snuck in through the edges of the window frames. She sat up and turned on the lamp closest to her.

  With more light, she was able to get a better look around the room. The decorations were sparse. Even the bedspread was just a solid brown in color. There were no pictures on the dresser, no artwork on the walls, and no knick–knacks strewn about the room. She did notice a square discoloration on the wall opposite the bed, with a nail above it. No painting hung there now. She wondered if this room had been made vacant for her.

  The last thing she remembered was Sterling turning her. Maybe now that she was a vampire she was expected to live here at the mansion, and this was to be her room.

  She looked down at her arm. Of course, it had been healed. Not only had Sterling sealed the wound, but as a vampire she would no longer have any concerns over cuts and bruises. Her hand went across her rib cage, then traveled down to her hips and legs. Everything was here, and not broken or in pain. Even her back, which had always given her grief, felt just fine.

  The full-length mirror across the room gave her pause. Why even have a mirror if you appear fuzzy in it. Perhaps that was why it was full-length. Obviously, as a vampire you could still see your clothes and how your overall appearance looked, even if your face remained unclear. She considered getting up to look into the mirror when she heard the creaking of the stairs outside the closed door.

  She watched as the door handle rotated slowly. It occurred to her that her eyesight wasn’t better than when she was a human. Maybe it took time for a person’s body to acclimate to being a vampire. The door creaked open, and a familiar face poked in through the narrow crack.

  “Oh, good. You’re awake,” Raymond said as he opened the door wider and walked in. He had barely closed the door when Alex ran across the room and threw her arms around him.

  “You’re alive!” she said.

  He smiled at her, his fangs showing slightly through his lips. “I’m fine, honey. How do you feel?”

  “I’m fine,” she said looking into his eyes. “Especially considering everything that has happened.” She smiled at him as he lifted her into his arms and carried her back to the bed. He set her down and sat next to her.

  “You definitely went through a lot.” He touched her arm, then raised it up to his lips and gently kissed it. “I am sorry for feeding from you like I did. I wasn’t even aware of how …” He looked down towards the bed, away from her. “Sterling told me how he found you. And I am sorry.”

  She placed her hand on his cheek and turned his head to face her. “I’m not. You were dying.”

  He smiled. “And you saved my life.”

  They remained silent, looking into each others’ eyes, until Alex asked, “I saw the bullet come out, but you were not growing younger with the blood I had given you. Was it not enough blood?”

  Raymond shook his head. “Normally, it would have been enough blood. More than enough actually. The problem was the bullets were silver tipped. One had fragmented and the silver tip became lodged in one of my ribs. My body was healing itself by growing bone over the silver, which was burning me from the inside and killing me.”

  Her hand rose instinctively to her mouth as she let out a gasp. “It must have been very painful.”

  “Sulie detected the bullet the second she touched me. It only took her a few minutes to cut open my chest and dig the bullet out. After that, I healed with additional blood and was fine.”

  “Silver tipped.” She shook her head. “I guess I’ll have to be careful of such things. Especially
now.”

  “It’s just a hazard of being a vampire.” He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “I do have a question for you.”

  “Anything,” she smiled back.

  “Fill me in on what happened after I passed out.”

  She took a deep breath and thought back. “He tried to compel me to attack you.”

  Raymond touched the side of her head. “The subroutine.”

  Alex nodded. “He was angry. He kept swearing in Russian.”

  “Russian was his native language,” Raymond interrupted. “Through the Council, we located his coven in Russia. He went rogue decades ago. His family issued a statement this morning denouncing him from their family line. His half sister has been designated as his replacement as heir to their bloodline.”

  Alex raised her hand to stop Raymond. “She’s the heir of what? The coven? What’s the Council? You never really told me what that was.”

  “No. A coven is a group of vampires living together. A coven master is responsible for the group and has a seat on a Vampire Council – our ruling body, so to speak. I am the coven master of the Colony and sit on the Council.”

  Alex narrowed her eyes as she sat up. “None of that is in the documents I read.”

  “I know. We don’t share everything with the government. The Vampire Council is not violent in nature. It governs us and provides us a network of communication and access to blood, not that the Colony needs the blood. We protect ourselves and humans from vampires who go rogue, we control our population growth by limiting our heirs, we can locate other vampires through their covens, arrange marriages between bloodlines, and much more.”

  Alex took it all in. “So Zmiya is out, his sister is in?”

  Raymond nodded. “His death allowed for it, yes. She’s an upstanding member of the human community, so the change was for the better.” He reached in his pocket. “I want to thank you for picking up this.” He held up a chain of dog tags.