by A. F. Henley
He left his comment to hang between them and it took a moment for Matthew to realize he was waiting for an actual reply. "Is that honestly how they hope to get rid of vampires? By making them sick? With some new virus? That makes no sense! Sure, it can happen; sure, we've seen it happen before. But—"
"No, Matthew." Gavin shook his head. "That's how they hope to ensure the creation of the vaccine. The award-winning, life-saving, worldwide vaccine that is going to save us all. The vaccine that terrified government officials will insist be given to every infant that is born and every child that attends a school. The one that they will allow us to cart into the deepest, darkest, furthest, farthest corners of this planet because now we know! Now we must save the world! Now we must ensure that every single living person has their arm pricked and their blood protected by this amazing discovery."
Once again the chair underneath Gavin let out a grumpy squeak as Gavin settled back. "And that, my friend, is how we will get rid of the vampires. By poisoning their food source. Because in that mandatory vaccine will be what we've wanted all along—the death of the vampires. Will we kill thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of men, women and children along the way? Possibly. Probably, in fact. Because we have to allow the initial virus to grow to drastic enough proportions to ensure the vaccine is accepted worldwide and without question. That, apparently, is a cost the GDBCG is willing to allow mankind to pay."
For several moments there was silence. Gavin had stopped tapping. There was no wind to wiggle the doors or the windows. Even the clock seemed to hold its breath. Perhaps time itself had stopped, Matthew foolishly reasoned. A year had gone by. A decade. Everything Gavin had suggested had actually happened, and the world beyond the heavy drapes and the blinds had met its demise while they'd sat at the kitchen table and talked about it. A hot flush bloomed over Matthew's body. His heartbeat accelerated.
"That's ridiculous," he choked out. "They wouldn't—"
"They would."
"It would do nothing except ensure that vampires didn't feed on humans," Matthew argued. "Animals would be unaffected. Birds. Fish. They all bleed."
"When the vampires finally caught on to what was happening to them, yes, they could easily switch over to wildlife or domestic animals." Gavin lifted his shoulders in a shrug of disinterest. "By then a large percentage of them will be gone. And of the rest, what issue will they be to the rest of mankind, right? Do we care about vampires who semi-starve on the substandard supply of animal blood? We do not. In fact, maybe then we can control them. Maybe they will become dependent. Hell, we can find the best of the best of their kind, offer them stores of unvaccinated human blood, even. Blood that only we would have. The only blood of its kind. Well, while supplies lasted. But my point is, without digging into all the specifics, you have to admit that a better dependency one could not hope to create."
"I don't..." Matthew's lips fell silent before his head stopped spinning. Because he did, in fact. He could see it, he could believe it, he could imagine it. "You've seen this—read this—in their minds? Whose minds?"
Gavin lowered his voice to a whisper. "Doctor, it is already being worked on. There is nothing in the GDBCG databases that I don't have access to. I have their complete and unquestioned trust. That is the other truth of man—when you let them do what they want to you without examining their motives, they start to believe that you think like they do. That you want the same things."
"Can we get proof?"
Another shrug. A confused look. "Of course. But we'll have to go back to the Center for that."
The muscles of Matthew's back seemed to tighten on their own accord. He clenched his jaw. "Then we go."
Gavin smiled. "Then we go." He suddenly yawned, a wide face-splitting yawn that exposed his teeth in all their glory. "Perhaps, however, we can wait for nightfall? Sunlight disagrees with me and I'm about two hours short in my beauty sleep."
"Yes, of course," Matthew said. "I'll be here waiting."
With a stretch, Gavin stood. He took a long look at Matthew and when he spoke again, his tone was gentle. "Try not to spend the entire time clutching that. Maybe feed yourself."
Matthew looked down at his hand. He was holding his cross, but for the life of him, he couldn't recall even taking it out of his shirt.
"I..."
There were no words. He let the cross fall back in place while Gavin walked away.
Gavin only made it the doorway. He stopped, turned, and waited for Matthew to look at him. "By the way, yes, I did want to leave you something to remember me by while I slept. I'm sorry it was just coffee. Roses would have been a nice alternative."
The only thing Matthew could think to say was, "Thank you."
"You're welcome, Matthew." Gavin turned away. "Thank you."
In all his life Matthew had never experienced such a long, drawn out, introspective stretch of time as the next several hours proved to be.
*~*~*
There was an odd scuffling coming from the ceiling above Matthew's head. For a second, all he could think of was that morning's abrupt disturbance. His brain became focused on imagined memories of Gavin being tumbled from the bed, tossed to the floor, dragged and yanked. He remembered the sound of running—strangers that did not belong in their private spaces hurrying through their house as though they had a right to. His heart leapt into a double-time shuffle of its own. The acidic taste of panic sprang out on his tongue and he opened his eyes wide.
There was a novel on Matthew's lap. He'd been reading when he'd dozed off, or, more accurately, he'd been making the attempt to read, if for no other reason than to quiet his mind and organize his thoughts. It hadn't worked. There'd been way too much circling through his brain: vampires, wolves, corrupt governments, oh my. But sleep had stepped in the way sleep tends to do when a busy mind desperately needs some relief.
He picked up the book, dropped it onto the side table beside him and stood. The ceiling creaked, as if to remind him that's what he'd been woken for. He gave the ceiling a wary look and although he was mostly certain that his tension was from the mental images that he'd woken up with, the thought of investigating the sound made his flesh break out in goosebumps.
He walked up the stairs to the upper level of the house berating himself for feeling nervous. For surely there was no trouble ahead of him. That moment had passed. There was no hollering. And though the daylight had faded and left the staircase and the hallways dusk-dark, there was no sense of the ominous. Still, recollection wouldn't let him dismiss his initial reaction, and it kept peppering his thoughts with vivid flashes of angry eyes, sharpened stakes, and his own red blood being smeared onto cheerful wallpaper.
The warm, sharp solidity of his cross poked into his palm and he realized that yet again he couldn't recall grabbing it. He could hear his blood bumping steadily in his ears. His lips were growing dry as his breath rushed past them—in, out, in and out—and when he tried to lick them, his tongue rasped like sandpaper over rough wood.
He took the final step from the stairs to the hallway, rounded left in the direction of the two bedrooms he and Gavin had claimed and saw a half-naked body bathed in red turn sharply and then flick out of sight. A soundless scream huffed from his lips. He shrank against the wall.
And then Matthew began to chuckle. Relief washed over him and made what should have been mildly amusing almost hilarious. He had to put a hand over his mouth to ensure he didn't laugh out loud.
No person stood at the end of the hall. It was nothing more than a mirror, long and gothically designed, and as Matthew watched, the form reflected in it reappeared, spun, and disappeared again. Gavin.
Gavin's bedroom door was half open and it was that opening that the mirror was catching. Matthew moved toward it quietly, intrigued with what Gavin could possibly be up to, shoving aside the mental warning that it might not be healthy to approach a vampire in stealth. This was Gavin, after all. He'd had the man's penis inside him. If Gavin had wanted to do him harm, that wou
ld have been the time.
Another memory, this time the smooth stroke of Gavin's thumb along his jugular, sent a tremble through Matthew's body. Yeah... that would have been the time, all right.
Matthew peeked around the doorframe into Gavin's room. Gavin was tethered to a small stereo system that offered the otherwise dark room a soft red luminance via the display panel. He wore dark pants but his feet and his torso were bare; his pale skin glowed with the light as though he were on fire. Over his head he wore a huge set of headphones and he had both hands up against each of the ear pierces to keep them in place. While he danced, of all things. Matthew supposed that shouldn't have been as funny as it was, but the idea of a bona fide blood-drinking, fang-sporting creature of the night dancing alone in the dark was hilarious.
Matthew grinned, leaned against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, and watched the performance.
Gavin moved without any of the grace one might expect of someone with his enhancements. He was more of a bopper and a grinder than a slow waltzer. A low grumble came from his chest, a sound that Matthew associated with those folks that thought they were singing under their breath and didn't realize that actual sound had manifested, and those few lyrics turned Matthew's grin into an outright chuckle.
"Really?" Matthew said, raising his voice to a level that he hoped Gavin could hear above the music.
It worked. Gavin spun and raked off the headphones. "Matthew... uh, hi." He gave Matthew an awkward smile and made a pointless attempt to straighten his pillow-tousled, headphone-spiked hair. If it had been possible for a vampire to flush, Matthew was sure Gavin's cheeks would have been cherry bright. The lighting offered the illusion, regardless. "Got to get the blood flowing when one first wakes up and all."
"Taylor Swift?" Matthew was more than sure his grin was as wide as his face. "All the rage in vampire circles, is she?"
Gavin lifted an eyebrow haughtily. "It's a good song." He stepped over to the stereo, dropped the headphones on top of it, and spun the volume all the way down. "And look who's breaching someone's privacy now?"
Matthew shrugged. "I owed you one. But seriously, pop music? That would not have been my first guess for you. Or the second, or the third. You don't seem the type, if you know what I mean."
"Says the man who whistles Monster Mash while he works," Gavin deadpanned.
And who knew that about him? No one. Not a single soul… unless there were speakers on those little security cameras that hung every twelve or fifteen feet in the Center. When he finally spoke, Matthew's voice was a whisper. A whisper of interest, though. "Just exactly how long have you been watching me?"
There was a sharp squeak as Gavin pulled out one of the not-quite-properly-fitted drawers in the dresser and drew out a shirt. "Long enough," Gavin said. "Day one? Day two? I don't know, Matthew. When I noticed you, I noticed you." He gave Matthew a quick smile over his shoulder. "Of course, you were also one of the few people who were around when I was usually awake and about, so that might have helped."
Matthew thought of Gavin watching him and even hearing him, and while he knew that his workspace was by no means private—the staff had made that very clear during his orientation, and it wasn't really that surprising, with expensive equipment, rare diseases, and accidents waiting to happen—it was disconcerting.
"I hope I didn't spend a lot of time picking my nose," Matthew said.
Gavin snorted a laugh. "No more time than anyone else. And yes, I spent a lot of time watching a whole hell of a lot of people in that facility. Especially when I started to get an idea of what they were hoping to do."
He tugged the shirt over his head, fabric that was either blue or black with a bright yellow or white smiley face over the chest, talking through it until he managed to seat it properly. "But I'm not going to lie. I liked watching you the most. Your intensity. Hell, your intentions. I love how fascinated you are by reactions and results, and how that's all driven by an honest to God desire to make this a better world. It was you that got me to the point where I figured I just might be able to do something about all of this crap."
"Me? What did I do?"
"The rat." Gavin said simply, as if those two words explained everything. As if there weren't a thousand rats at the Center in dozens of different circumstances on any given day.
Matthew tilted his head. "The rat?"
"You don't remem—" Gavin stopped, shook his head, chuckled. "Of course you don't. It wouldn't even have flipped across your radar as something notable. See what I mean? You're different, Matthew." He sat on the end of the bed and looked up at Matthew with an expression that was almost reverent. "It was back when you were first playing with the MYB-NFIB gene. Trying to mutate it to make it work—"
"Yes, in reverse. I recall. It is the only project I've been working on. What about it?"
"During one of the first few animal trials, you had a batch of rats that had been introduced to the mutated gene. Most suffered fatal repercussions immediately."
Matthew rolled his eyes. "Thank you for bringing up my failure. Glad you find it so endearing."
"No." Gavin held up one hand and shook his head. "It's not that at all. Do you remember that you had one final rat? It didn't expire as quickly as the rest. It was, in fact, taking its sweet time about dying and doing it quite dramatically."
It had, too. Convulsions, vomiting, internal bleeding. But the poor thing kept living. Its labored breathing and pitiful mewls had haunted Matthew for weeks.
"You went to the larger animal lab for pentobarbital and one of the other doctors there—Rollins? Something like that?" He paused until Matthew confirmed the name with a nod. "Rollins laughed at you. Told you not to waste supplies for a rat. He said—"
"It wasn't worth it. That it was just a rat and it would die when it died. He told me to forget about it."
"Exactly. And do you remember what you said?"
The memory slipped back into the forefront of Matthew's mind. He'd been furious at Rollins; he had considered filing a complaint on him with the ethics committee at the GDBCG. In hindsight, he doubted the committee would have done much considering what kind of nasty pies the executives had their fingers buried in, but, of course, he hadn't known that then. "I told him it didn't matter if it was just a rat."
"Your exact words were that 'right is right and wrong is wrong and you didn't give a damn—'"
"I would not have used that word," Matthew scoffed.
Gavin sighed. "Okay, maybe you didn't say 'damn.' You probably said 'dilly-doodle' or 'dangity-darn' or whatever the hell the good kids are saying these days. But I do know that you said it wouldn't matter if it was a rat, a dog, an ape or a man, because it deserved common decency and respect regardless. Especially, you said, when it had no choice in what had happened to it."
They stared at each other for a moment and while Gavin thought or remembered or did whatever Gavin was doing, Matthew considered the idea that somebody would think what he had said and done was such an amazing thing. That 'common decency' and 'respect' for life would be such a spectacular concept that it could change a person's outlook. Had the world really gotten so cold?
"Colder," Gavin whispered. "It's gotten much colder than even that. But I do like the fact that you have to wonder about it."
Suddenly it felt cold. A shiver danced up Matthew's spine and his skin sprouted goosebumps again. His parents seemed a million miles away. His ideas about all the good he was going to do in the world seemed foolish and naïve. And the last place he wanted to be was the cold, bright, sanitized halls of the GDBCG.
"We don't have to go tonight," Gavin said. "We'll send our reports like we always do. Tell them what you see fit, just don't give too much away. We'll do something else. Watch movies. Eat popcorn. Whatever you want. Something calm and relaxing and—"
"I want to go to the O'Connells'," Matthew said. "I want to see a man become a wolf. I want to be part of a miracle, even if it's just as a spectator." Something amazing. Something that wo
uld inspire more faith than he'd ever experienced in his whole life. "What do you think? Do you think they'll show us a miracle if we ask?"
Gavin waved at the window. "I think if we're patient, the situation will arise regardless. The moon is close to full and—"
"Right now, I have no need for patience," Matthew said. He pushed himself off the wall and turned to the hall. "Like I said, right now I need a miracle."
"All right."
He heard Gavin rise—bed springs, the shuffle of clothing or linen—and then he felt Gavin's hand on his back.
"Let's go find you a miracle."
A Dawning Sun
The moment of waking was always the most pleasurable one of the day. The dark had settled and the heat that daylight brought with it had flown, leaving behind a refreshing coolness that soothed his skin. His bedsheets still reeked of sex: semen, blood, sweat, but though his tongue still tasted the remnants of that escapade, his stomach rolled to remind him that feed only lasted so long and hunger had no patience. Still, there was a moment to linger. To think on things to come, to remember things that had been, and to fantasize on that which would never be, but that was too pleasant not to consider.
As he'd done since the plans had been set in motion, he began his day by making a mental list of what he'd do to those he knew; those he'd keep, use, feed off of. It always piqued his hunger to play that game:
The wolves he would have no use for. Too loyal to one another, too hesitant of new ways, and their mutation made them unchangeable. He would have liked to see the eldest boy in chains—a toy to use, to tease, to wind up—but the young man was a slippery fucker. A dog that had bitten once can never be trusted entirely. Still... the mental image of a chained, naked, furious Lyle woke the rest of him with a shiver.
A fantasy, then. It was good to keep the mental processes in their proper containers. Fantasies still had their uses, he thought, reaching under his covers. In his head he heard the screams start to rise. He saw sweat bead up on skin and tasted hate in the air.
