The Cure

by Loren Schechter

  He found her peering into the open refrigerator, oblivious to his approach. He placed the cat across her shoulders. She shrieked and spun about, her hands darting up to push off her furry burden. The cat hit the refrigerator and thudded to the floor. Still screaming, Angela jumped away and flailed at her shoulders.

  “I need a taller drink,” he said.

  “You sadist!” She rushed at him and struck his chest with both fists until she realized it didn’t make him blink, much less move. “Don’t scare me like that,” she scolded. “I’ve had a terrible day. Vendetta woke me up to bring him a car, and then he had me bled by some Korean newvee.” She pointed to the skin-colored bandage on her neck. “The bitch used her fangs like chopsticks.”

  “You still have an attractive vein on the other side and more blood than you need. What kind of car is Vendetta driving?”

  She pointed to the cat lying on her worn linoleum. “You get rid of that. I’m not going to bring another one home if you keep sucking them dry. It’s bad enough that Vendetta’s replacing me with another girl; I won’t be used second to a cat.”

  “You’ll do as I tell you.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed hard enough to get her mouth to scrunch up under her nose ring. “Once you volunteer as a vampet, there’s no going back.” His other hand tilted her head so he could see the undamaged side of her neck. “Let me reassure you, my dear, no appetizer can come close to what you offer as an entrée.”

  She ducked and twisted away. “No! I volunteered to become a vampire. I don’t want to live a short, crummy life on the bottom rung. It was you who said I had to become Vendetta’s vampet first. Well I’ve done that and he’s gone off with those other girls in his hearse, so you have to do what you promised. I’m sick of waiting tables at Grubbie’s.”

  “I have every intention of honoring my promise. But not before you do one final task. There’s a girl in a private high school that I want you to become friendly with.”

  Angela waved the idea away. “I’m done with high school kids. They’re childish, and boring. They were the dumb ones, not me. I’m not going back. Especially to some snotty private school.”

  “You won’t have to go to classes.” Bart’s tone was conciliatory. “We won’t be away long. You just have to find out if the girl recently got a gift from her father and, if so, what it is.”

  She glanced at the dead cat. “Why don’t you just scare her enough to tell you?”

  “What a novel idea.” He pretended to think for a moment and then shook his head. “If she gets the idea this is important, she might lie to protect her father. She may not even know the nature of the gift she’s been given. If she has it, I have to get it before anyone else does.”

  Angela’s lips curled in defiance. “What if I won’t do it?”

  Bart reached down, picked the cat up by its tail and held it in front of her face. “You wouldn’t look this good.”

  16

  The Lesson

  Kathy had tried to nap, but the jump seats in the 1960 hearse-ambulance were not designed for long-distance travel. With Bunny driving like someone who’d already lost her life and didn’t care if others lost theirs, each swerve or sudden deceleration required Kathy to rebalance herself on the flimsy seat without complaint, for Bunny was already fuming about time lost. The vampire ranted about delays caused by the car bomb and Soo’s feeding lesson, but she seemed most offended by Kathy and Lionel needing restroom stops. Bunny fretted that all these delays would let her hated half-brother get to Rose Blood before she did. Only once had Vendetta ventured to intervene, saying that she hadn’t told Bart which private Massachusetts school Rose attended.

  “Pull your eighteenth century brain out of your fancy ass,” she’d said. “With the Internet and a phone, he’ll find out which school in ten minutes.”

  Vendetta had moved away from her on the front seat, put in earbuds and, from the way he moved his hands, had begun conducting an orchestra.

  Kathy was all the more frustrated about not being able to doze off because Lionel was fast asleep in the back, where he’d wedged himself between their backpacks and the coffin. And Soo, morose and silent since feeding on Angela six hours earlier, hadn’t seemed to care or comment about anything. It was clear she was still grieving all she’d lost in being turned, and disgusted by what she’d have to do to survive as a vampire. When Vendetta had taken a break from his music and offered Soo a few words of encouragement, it had only added fuel to Bunny’s fire.

  “Leave her alone,” Bunny had snarled at him. “Let the girl climb out of the pity pool on her own. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have anyone holding my hand when I was turned.”

  “Perhaps you would’ve come through the changes better had someone helpful been there.”

  “Fang you! I’m not interested in being Miss Congeniality. I don’t have the right smile.”

  “Among other things.”

  “You want to name some, old man?”

  Vendetta had just turned away and gone back to his music.

  For the next two hundred miles, Bunny had alternated minutes of grim silence with rants about the way other people drove or about people and vampires who didn’t share her commitments to honesty, justice and the plight of abused animals. Craving sleep, Kathy had half-tuned Bunny out, but she couldn’t stop worrying about how she and Hector might escape their captors, find each other, and prevent vampire revenge on their families.

  “Get off at the next exit!” Vendetta’s sudden command brought Kathy out of her reverie.

  “Why?” demanded Bunny.

  “Lionel has to have his lesson before it gets dark,” said Vendetta. “We agreed he’d practice three hours a day.”

  Bunny shook her head. “We don’t have time for that.”

  “We will make time for it. That was our agreement.”

  “Circumstances have changed. Bart’s going for the girl. If he gets the data, he’ll destroy it.”

  “We don’t know that he’s going, or that she has anything,” said Vendetta. “Even if she does, the data is only important to those who think they can recapture the past. I don’t. But with proper guidance, my students can carry the past into the future and create new works, too. Lionel must have his lesson.” Vendetta moved closer to Bunny. “And you must keep your commitment. Weren’t you just spouting off about commitments?”

  “Let it go, old man. I have a commitment to a cure for every vampire who wants it. That cure is more important than any artistic piece ever created.”

  “You don’t have a cure. You only have a hope – a dream — that the data will lead to one. I’m not going to sacrifice Lionel’s future as a serious artist for your dream. So pull over!”

  “Like hell I will.” Bunny stomped on the accelerator. Kathy was thrown back in her seat. By the time she righted herself, Vendetta had one of his oak daggers poised at Bunny’s breast.

  “You will do as I say,” he told her, “or neither one of us will have any chance at achieving our goal.”

  We’ll all get killed. Even vampires die if they burn up. Kathy glanced at Soo.

  “It’s also my dream to get a cure,” said Soo in a soft voice.

  The hit man put his free hand on the steering wheel. “I can plunge the knife in and take control of the wheel in less than two seconds,” he told Bunny. “Now slow down and take the next exit.”

  “The cure’s not only for Bunny,” Kathy said urgently. “It’s for Soo. It’s for all the vampires who want normal lives.”

  “Giving Lionel a few hours to practice is a small concession,” said Soo. “I have faith in you, Bunny. You will not let our dream die.”

  Bunny hesitated. “Not if I can help it.” She took her foot off the accelerator and glanced at Vendetta. He took his hand from the wheel and pulled back the knife.

  Kathy silently exhaled her relief.

  “Find a quiet place in the shade, away from people,” said Vendetta.

  “You pull a knife on me again, I
will terminate you.”

  “You won’t be the first to try. Just make sure you stick to your agreements with as much passion as you commit to your threats. Then we will have no quarrel between us. Unless you try to hurt a member of our party.”

  “Well you made me want to hurt someone,” said Bunny. “I’m giving you all fair warning. I’m out for blood.”

  “No disrespect,” said Lionel, “but I think that’s old news.”

  17

  Blood Matters

  The odor of fresh blood jolted her. Bunny’s nostrils flared, her skin prickled; even the small hairs on the back of her neck snapped to attention. Without meaning to, she stepped harder on the accelerator, and the Cadillac surged forward. But the sparse traffic and the sunlit green fields of Nebraska corn offered no distraction from her craving.

  Vendetta looked over from the passenger seat. “A speeding hearse will attract unwelcome attention.”

  “Don’t you smell it?” She cranked her tinted window half-open. The odor of fertilizer swept in with a warm breeze.

  Vendetta sniffed, then glanced back at the closed privacy partition. “Kathy,” he said.

  As if on cue, the girl knocked on the dark glass that separated them. “Can we stop at the next rest stop, please? I need to use the bathroom.”

  “Okay,” called Vendetta.

  Bunny shook her head. “That girl tempts the worst in me. She’s wasting type A blood. Roll down your window.”

  “People will see us.”

  “So? It’s a hearse. We’re wearing black. Roll it down!”

  “I suggest you slow the vehicle.” Vendetta opened his window. “Focus on your driving.”

  “Tough to do. Blood scent sets me on fire,” said Bunny, easing her pressure on the gas pedal. The crosscurrent of warm air cleared much of the tantalizing odor, but not her desire. Directing the Korean girl’s first blood meal yesterday had fueled her own lust. The others had done what they could to reduce triggers. Vendetta had wiped down the coffin’s plastic lining with Oust-for-Blood, the Korean girl had gargled with Oral Vee, and the vampet had been dropped off in Boise. But now, as if three kids in the car weren’t bad enough, the Type A was bleeding.

  “We both could use a bite to tide us over,” Bunny ventured.

  “Don’t push it. I’ve contracted to keep Kathy intact until we get back to the school.”

  Bunny shrugged. “You think anyone will sue you for drinking a pint of the girl’s blood?”

  “That’s not the point. In my day, a man’s honor was priceless.”

  “Your days ended in the 18th century. This is the New World.”

  Vendetta grunted. “More’s the pity. But every day I exist is my day.”

  “I need a bathroom, too,” Lionel called from the back. “And I’m hungry.”

  “How far is the next rest stop?” asked Kathy.

  “Kids,” lamented Bunny. “I’m glad I never had any. They’re more whine than blood.”

  * * *

  From the driver’s seat, Bunny watched Vendetta follow Kathy and Lionel into the truck stop. Vendetta’s annoyed, butthose kids are safer with him than with me, she thought. She would’ve been an impatient and angry mother. Good thing she’d never wanted children. Pets were more faithful and loving, and a lot less expensive.

  “You ever have a pet, kid?” she asked.

  “The idea of a vampet is disgusting,” said Soo from the jump seat next to the coffin. “I choked on her blood.”

  “You’ll learn. But I meant a real pet, like a dog or a cat.”

  “No. My parents did not allow it.”

  “Parents.” Bunny’s tone expressed her contempt.

  “No, they were good parents. But they owned a tearoom where we all worked after school. There was no time for a pet.”

  “Maybe you were better off. It hurts to lose pets.” Worse than losing parents who don’t believe you, who slap you down for telling the truth about your brother.

  “That’s all I think about – my family, my mother.” The newvee burst into tears.

  “Sorry,” said Bunny. “I didn’t mean to remind you.” There was no way to forget the heartache of being turned. And she’d been older, tougher, out of the army and in vet school. This kid had lost everything, including her country.

  “Stay in the hearse,” she told the newvee. “Cry all you want. If anyone bothers you, tell them your little brother is in the coffin and the driver stopped here for a drink.”

  Soo blotted her almond eyes with a tissue. “You are thirsty?”

  “Always. Hand me my pack. I need more protection.”

  “Are there enemies in this place?” Soo needed both hands to pass the backpack up front.

  “In every place.” Bunny opened a pocket of her military pack and extracted a large tube of sunscreen lotion. She tilted the rear view mirror so she could see her face as she applied lotion to her cheeks, jaw, sharp nose and broad forehead. “Don’t trust anyone,” she said, “even the people who used to be your friends. Warmbloods slaughter their neighbors simply because they belong to a different tribe or religion. What do you think they’d do to vampires?”

  “But you — we kill them, too. The warmbloods fear us.”

  “It’s the way of the world.” Bunny rubbed lotion across her neck and ears. “Predators and prey. Animals understand that early on; humans are just slower to learn.” She did her hands and wrists, capped the tube and put it in the pocket of her black blouse. “Tell Vendetta to wait thirty minutes after he gets back, then to drive the hearse down the highway until he sees me.”

  “You are going to — ?”

  Bunny was out of the hearse and into a crouch before Soo finished speaking. She used the cover of parked and moving cars to avoid the possibility of being pictured by a security camera. When drivers looked at her, she bent over as if tying her bootlaces and only straightened to her full height once she reached the truck parking area, where she saw no stanchions or cameras. The odors of diesel fuel and gasoline felt like acid in her chemically sensitive nose. Still, she made a show of admiring the 18-wheelers that dwarfed the cargo vans and campers. A monster Volvo, its silver skin gleaming under the sun, had the compressor of its refrigerator trailer pumping away, but the driver wasn’t visible. Another 18-wheeler, a red Mack, was parked away from the pack.

  Has the driver gone into the truck stop? she thought. Snoozing in his sleeper cab? A guy startled awake from an overdue nap wasn’t likely to be friendly. She’d learned that with an army .45 shoved up her nose. And soldiers weren’t the only ones who dozed with chips on their shoulders and clips in their weapons.

  She opened the front of her blouse and smeared dollops of sunscreen lotion above and below her black bra. Slipping the tube into a pocket of her jeans, she climbed the Mack’s two steps and knocked on the driver’s window.

  “Anyone home?”

  There was no answer, so she knocked harder.

  The bald head and beefy face that appeared at the window seemed unattached to a body, which presumably lingered on the cab’s sleeping platform. The man’s bleary eyes widened as they shifted from Bunny’s close-mouthed smile to her glistening white cleavage. A tattooed forearm snaked forward and opened the window an inch. “What d’ya want?” His throaty voice emerged with odors of garlic and fennel and an undertone of Type O blood.

  Not bad. Under his stink and the food-stained tee shirt there’s the heart of a universal donor. “A ride. I need to get back to Omaha.”

  “I don’t take no hitch-hikers.” But his gaze never left her breasts.

  “I’m not the usual hitch-hiker. I can pay for the ride.”

  “Pay?” He looked up; his heavy-lidded eyes scrutinized her face.

  She kept her lips tight over her fangs. “How about fifty dollars?”

  “Fifty is peanuts.”

  “Plus services to be performed down the road.”

  He licked his lips “What services?”

  “You know — some things to ease yo
ur tensions, lower your blood pressure. And I’ll make it a hundred dollars if we leave now.”

  “Show me the money.”

  She extracted a wad of bills from a front pocket of her jeans, peeled off five twenties and stuffed the rest back out of sight.

  He eased his thick body down from the sleeper into his seat. “You interrupted my nap. I’d say that’s worth fifty dollars extra.”

  “And I’d say that’s highway robbery.” She saw his eyes narrow with suspicion. “But I’m not a cop, and you got me needing you – kind of dead to rights, you might say. So okay, a hundred and fifty. Open the door on the other side.”

  “First pass the money in.”

  “You think I’m stupid?” She passed two twenties above the window pane. “You get the rest inside.”

  He leered. “Including the services?”

  “More than you ever dreamed possible. But not here. Down the highway a piece.” Barely opening her lips, she played her tongue over them.

  “Go get in,” he said, releasing the front door locks.

  Bunny hurried around the front of the truck, opened the passenger door and climbed into the cab. She winced at the stink that might have been old salami or foot rot or a combination of both.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing to worry about. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

  “Give me the money.”

  She handed over two more twenties. “You get the rest once we get going on the highway.”

  He pocketed the bills, turned the key and the engine rumbled into life. “I could take it all, you know.” The airbrakes wheezed. He shifted into gear and the truck rolled forward.

  She offered the hint of a smile. “But you won’t, because you’re a gentleman.”

  “Yeah, that’s me, a gentleman. You’re going to service a gentleman.” He chuckled. “I’m Al. What’s your name?”