Blood Games

by Lee Killough

  The suspect handled his vehicle with professional skill. Daylight and the sun’s glare beat at Garreth, but thanks to the ZX’s power and a low center of gravity, he kept gaining on the van. Each time he did, it speeded up enough to keep ahead. Garreth smiled grimly. Push them hard enough and at some point it would become impossible to turn without losing control. Then whether the albino stayed on 12, or rolled trying to turn, they had him.

  Garreth kept the accelerator down.

  The road dipped, following the side of a hill down from prairie plateau toward bottom land and the Saline River. As the curve tightened Garreth maintained speed, but hugged the center of the road.

  Then the van’s brake lights flared. Its rear end slewed sideways.

  “Shit.” He wanted speed to catch up with the suspect...but not here, where rolling would take them over the steep drop on the outside of the curve. A forged check was hardly worth dying over.

  As the van continued sliding, Maggie sucked in her breath. “They’re going over!”

  No. Despite spinning end for end, the van remained on the road. Not by luck, Garreth suddenly realized. Now he recognized it as a bootlegger turn...perfectly executed. In spite of himself, he had to admire the albino’s nerve and skill.

  The van leaped forward...straight toward them!

  “Garreth!”

  “Fuck!”

  Through the van’s windshield he saw the death-pale face of the albino grinning at him.

  Heart thundering, Garreth eyed the space on each side of the van. There appeared to be just room enough to squeeze by on the outside. He steered for the thread of shoulder.

  As his front wheel passed the van’s, the other vehicle swerved into him. In a scream of meeting metal, the car wrenched sideways. Garreth fought to keep control, but lost steering as the right tires dropped off the paving. In a flash of comprehension, of fear...of disgust at his lack of perceptiveness, he saw the suspect had laid another trap. He brings death and pain. And he can destroy you.

  The car heeled over. Maggie screamed. Ground and sky cartwheeled to the accompaniment of shrieking metal and the crunch of collapsing roof and shattering glass. His glasses went flying. Sunlight slammed into his eyes and daylight crushed him. Everything went black.

  Chapter Six

  He became aware of smells first: alcohol, antiseptic, something salty/metallic it seemed he should know. Then came the sound of soft beeps, awareness of a bed that elevated his head, and a feeling of a vast weight pressing down on him. Every breath brought a stab of pain in his right side. He savored it all, even the weight and pain, with relief. I’m still alive.

  Opening his eyes Garreth peered up at monitors beside the bed tracking heartbeat and respiration, and tubes running from his arms to an IV drip, blood, and blood pressure monitor. Alive but in an ICU. Bandages covered his forehead and left forearm, though oddly enough, not his throat. How could that be? He had felt that psycho singer’s teeth tear flesh open, had watched his blood flow onto the pavement of that alley. What had she done to him then? Not content with savaging this throat, she used him for a trampoline? His body throbbed in one massive ache.

  Beside the bed a uniformed figure sat reading a paperback. An officer waiting for him to regain consciousness of course.

  “How long have I been out?” Long enough to have used at least one unit of blood. The bag overhead was almost empty.

  The officer closed her book. “About eight hours I think.”

  “Well, tell Harry Takananda and Lieutenant Serruto I’m ready to give a statement.”

  And what a hell of a statement. Especially the part about the dream? hallucination?...that Lane Barber was a vampire and made him one, too.

  The officer came over to the bed. “Who are Harry Takananda and Lieutenant Serruto?”

  Garreth stared at her uniform and six-pointed star. Bellamy County Deputy Sheriff? Where the hell was Bellamy County? Then he saw the state seal of Kansas in the middle of her star, and in a sickening jolt, memory caught up with him. And despair. He hallucinated nothing. It all really happened.

  With that understanding came a frantic thought: “How is Maggie...Sergeant Lebekov? The other officer in the car with me.”

  The deputy’s name tag read: Vogrin. She shrugged. “Sorry...I don’t know anything about her condition. I came on at four and I’ve just been sitting here with you. Do you feel up to talking to Sheriff Reichert about what happened?”

  Despite the knots in his gut Garreth nodded. The sooner they had information to broadcast, the better the chance of catching the albino...who already had an eight hour head start.

  “I’ll call in.” Vogrin left the room.

  A nurse in scrubs printed with blue and lavender hearts passed her in the doorway. The nurse leaned over the bed, smiling. “Welcome back among us. I’m Trina Lucas. Joanne Brewer and I will be your nurses all night.” She shined a pen light into each of his eyes. “How do you-- Oh!” Her eyes widened. “They were right.”

  He winced inwardly. Damn. “Who? About what?” As if he had to ask.

  She smiled. “Oh...the nurses on the day shift said your eyes reflect red. I’ve never seen a person’s do that before except in flash photos.”

  All the experience with countering these incidents still never prevented the spurt of panic when someone stumbled over one of his oddities...the fear of someone realizing its the significance and deciding to become the next Van Helsing. He made himself smile back and shrug. “It’s a familial thing. It happens with both my mother and grandmother, too. We must have a werewolf in our ancestry.”

  The nurse’s brows rose. “If you’re able to joke, I’d say that answers the question of how you feel.”

  He should feel even better soon, thanks to the blood and perceptibly nearing sunset. “Now I have a question. How is Maggie Lebekov?”

  Lucas gave the blood bag one last squeeze that continued on down the tubing. Then she disconnected the empty bag, capped the IV catheter in his arm, and injected the catheter with a few cc’s from a syringe on the bed table labeled: Hep Saline. “We’re still assessing her condition, as we are yours.”

  That meant Maggie was at least alive. “In eight hours you must have some prognosis.” She laid a hand over his. “I understand your concern for Miss Lebekov, but please let us worry about her. You need to concentrate on taking care of yourself. Okay?”

  After she left, Garreth closed his eyes. Not that he expected to rest. He vividly remembered his last hospital stay and the futile struggle to find a comfortable position. Oh for his pallet!

  “Don’t wear him out,” Lucas’s voice said.

  Garreth opened his eyes to see Sheriff Nicholas Reichert striding into the room. Back in his trooper days Reichert’s barrel chest and the starched armpit arch of his shoulders must have made him look wide as a semi in the side mirror of speeders he pulled over. Garreth pictured him in a uniform with knife-sharp creases. These days he often went tieless, and today heat and sweat had wilted his khaki shirt and trousers.

  “Did you get them?” Garreth asked.

  Reichert hung his Stetson on the IV stand. “Not yet. They slipped by us somewhere. We have one lead we’re following. The tags come back as belonging to a 1997 Lexus, but the tags haven’t been reported stolen. The Denver police are trying to contact the Lexus owner.” He leaned on the side rail and eyed Garreth. “Your Chief Danzig is right; you have more lives than a cat. We swore you were dead when we cut you out of that car...stone cold, no detectable pulse or breathing, and you weren’t bleeding from those gashes on your forehead and arm. We declared you DOA and issued an ATL on the suspects for murder of a police officer. Then in the ambulance you startled the hell out of the paramedic and me when the body bag heaved, and we opened it to find you’d turned over on your side inside it.

  “Which has sent our esteemed county attorney into a tizzy deciding how to charge these bastards. No one died but one or both of you might and how did we know you were deliberately run off the road. Seitz
must have paced around the men’s room at the courthouse for half an hour, agonizing over it.”

  “Oh, it was deliberate all right. Check the tire marks. That was as slick a one-eighty as any stunt driver’s.” But another statement Reichert attributed to Eldon Seitz concerned him more. Both might end up dead? “How bad is Maggie?”

  The sheriff shrugged. “I’m no doctor. She has head injuries and some broken bones, probably internal injuries, they said in the ER. But she was conscious when we found you and in and out during the ambulance ride. She also said this guy deliberately ran you off the road.”

  There, finally, went the sun. Garreth sucked in his first breath free of daylight pressure. With already lessening rib pain. “I think he hoped we’d die. He made us as law officers...gave us this little parting gesture on I-70 before he booked.” Garreth demonstrated.

  Reichert grimaced. “I doubt we can take that to court. Any two-bit defense attorney will argue that you weren’t identified--unmarked car, no visible badges--at least up to taking Lebekov’s purse, and if he’d wanted you dead, he’d have used that knife to stab you, not just cut your and Lebekov’s arms.”

  “Cut...” Garreth glanced at the bandage on his arm. The significance of Reichert’s words smacked him. “You mean after we crashed he came down to the car?”

  “I don’t know. ‘They,’ came down, Lebekov said. She didn’t specify how many, though it was the females she described to Dan Seward, who was first on the scene. She was doing well to be coherent when I talked to her.” A crease appeared between Reichert’s brows. “She said they took her weapon. What does Lebekov carry off-duty?”

  “A Desert Eagle .44 magnum.” Which meant the pursuit now involved suspects with one hell of a firearm. Cold ran through him thinking of it.

  Reichert’s eyes widened. “Holy shit! What kind of monster does she expect to run into? You don’t carry a cannon, too, I hope, since they got your weapon as well.”

  “I wasn’t carrying anything.” He had not even owned an off-duty weapon for years. When so little could threaten him, why bother?

  Reichert’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “These are real sickos. They come down, find you apparently dead or dying, and--this freaked Lebekov--decide to have a little more fun by drinking your blood. Mikaelian!”

  Garreth realized he had sat bolt upright. Above him, the monitors shrilled as his heart and respiration went turbocharged. Though their frantic beeping came nowhere near the chaos in his head...thoughts crashing into one another around the image of the albino’s red-glowing eyes and terror for Maggie.

  Somewhere in the tumult he knew Lucas tore into the room and into Reichert as she pushed Garreth back flat. What did you do to him? I don’t know...nothing. Whatever, that’s enough; you have to leave for now.

  Garreth focused on them. “Wait!” He had to know! “Sheriff, do you mean ‘your blood’ as in my blood, or collectively? Did they bite Maggie, too?”

  Reichert turned from the nurse to stare at him. “No one bit anybody. We’re not talking vampires here...though maybe that’s what they’re playing at. That’s why they cut the two of you, according to Lebekov. They talked about drinking it while they caught the blood in a couple of cups.”

  The sheriff could be wrong about vampires. But vampires or not, use of a knife protected Maggie from infection. Garreth relaxed. The monitors dropped back to their previous leisured rhythm.

  Still, Lucas handed Reichert his Stetson and firmly ushered him out the door.

  Garreth closed his eyes and made himself breathe slowly, forced himself to think calmly. With Maggie safe, he had to consider a second horror, the consequences of drinking his blood. But it also raised questions. Why drink it, if the albino were vampire, which the vision suggested? Vampire blood was useless to another vampire, and no vampire wanting the master/Renfield relationship the albino appeared to have with these juvie females would want his servants drinking it, either. And if the albino were vampire, why use a knife rather than bite Maggie?

  Unless the albino had, like himself, come across with no one to explain things, such as the bonds blood forged. Or the albino stayed in the protection of the van and just the girls came down.

  Whether or not the albino was a vampire, however, or the three just played at it or satanic rituals, the fact remained that if they did drink his blood, any vampire games would stop being games.

  The hiss of the ICU door opening broke into his thoughts. Rubber wheels whispered on tile. Martin Lebekov’s motorized wheelchair rolled past his door.

  Garreth called, “Martin!”

  Maggie’s father wheeled. Thumbing the joy stick on his controls, he ran the wheelchair into Garreth’s room and up to the bed. “This is a relief. From the way everyone talked, I thought you were in a coma.”

  Garreth grimaced. “I’m harder to kill than that. But how’s Maggie?”

  The rugged face went grey beneath the weathering from years of working Ellis and Russell County oil fields. “I don’t know all the medical mumbo-jumbo, but the gist is that she has broken ribs and a broken arm and leg, and this Dr. Woodard who’s treating her had to drill a hole in her head because her brain is bleeding, and then open up her chest to plug some leak.”

  “Had to drill--” Garreth interrupted, then broke off for fear of upsetting Martin more than he already was. Why the hell was this Dr. Woodard treating serious head and chest injuries himself instead of transferring Maggie to the trauma center at Hadley in Hays?

  “I know. It sounds barbaric, doesn’t it.” The stumps of Martin’s legs twitched. “I don’t mind admitting I’m scared, Garreth. I’m so afraid I’m going to lose her.”

  “No!” Garreth could not bear the thought of it. “I won’t let that happen.”

  Martin raised a brow. “I’ve always liked you. You’re a queer duck but you’ve always been good to Maggie...and good for her. But some things aren’t in the power of even a good man.” He reached through the side rail to squeeze Garreth’s hand, then thumbed his joystick and wheeled out.

  After the whine of the motor faded, he tuned in on voices at the nurse’s station, and through the blinds made out a short, stocky man in scrubs who stood at the desk writing in a chart.

  Garreth pushed the call button. When Lucas hurried in he said, “If that’s Dr. Woodard out there I’d like to talk to him.”

  “Actually,” said a voice from the doorway, “I’m already on my way in to see you.” He strolled to the bed and peered at Garreth over half glasses. “You’re certainly looking much better. How do you feel?”

  “Very concerned that Maggie Lebekov hasn’t been transferred to Hays when she has severe head and chest trauma. Shouldn’t she be having an MR to see what’s going on with her brain?”

  Dr. Woodard’s face froze. “Where is it you earned your medical degree, Doctor Mikaelian?”

  Garreth tried not to bristle in return. “Twenty-five years in ERs with victims of traffic accidents, shootings, stabbings, beatings, rapes, domestic violence, and attempted suicide.”

  Lucas looked undecided whether to smile or frown.

  Woodard eyed him a moment, then shrugged. “Fair enough. I agree, she should be in a Level I trauma center, and she should have had an MR hours ago, but I wasn’t sure she’d make it to Hays. That either of you would. Sometimes it’s a hard call. So I’m treating what I can while stabilizing her enough to ensure she survives the transfer. If that meets with your approval?”

  Garreth felt heat climb his face. He deserved that sarcasm. “I’m sorry. I’m just worried about her.”

  “So are we all.”

  “I want to see her.” With her condition that precarious, he had no time to lose if he wanted to save her.

  Lucas stared at him in disbelief. Woodard dropped into the measured tone of one speaking to a child. “Officer Mikaelian, while I sympathize with your concern for your partner, surely you understand the concept of Intensive Care. Your presence here indicates we consider your condition serious. You
’ve regained consciousness but you remain severely bradycardic, hypothermic, and hypotensive. I trust I don’t need to explain that means you have an abnormally slow heart rate and low body temperature and blood pressure? During unconsciousness your breathing was virtually undetectable. We almost put you on a respirator and oxygen until we discovered that, incredibly, your blood contained a normal O2 level. The latter is only one aspect of a puzzling blood picture. All these are conditions which we need to explore before you’re in any condition to go visiting.”

  How many more times would panic attack him tonight? Now adrenalin pumped at the idea of his blood being drawn. Why had he not thought about it before when the transfusion indicated they must have run at least a cross match? His blood posed no danger to the hospital personnel, thanks to the paranoia about contact with bodily fluids, but...what would a detailed examination of his blood reveal? Just how different was his blood from normal humans’? When the medical examiner in San Francisco, who over the years had unknowingly handled the bodies of a few truly dead vampires, told Garreth about the anatomical anomalies of the group he affectionately called his “Martians,” he never mentioned oddities in their blood. But was that due to minimal differences, or because he judged the differences of no interest to Garreth? How dangerously curious could Garreth’s blood make Dr. Woodard? “I know my vital signs seem pathological, but they’re normal for me. I’ve had them all my life.” This life. “So my blood profile is probably normal, too.”

  The minute the words left his mouth Garreth winced at how incredibly lame they sounded. Woodard’s expression as he peered over the top of his half glasses left no doubt about his opinion. “I’d like to have a look at you anyway.”

  Garreth submitted to the peering, probing, listening, tapping, a tongue depressor dragged up his soles, a light shined in his eyes and commands to follow the doctor’s finger movement. And he answered the endless string of questions. Did this hurt? Could he feel that? With eyes closed could he touch index fingers to each other? Touch finger to nose? Could he solve this math problem? Recite his social security number and phone number?