Blood Games

by Lee Killough

  Bullshit alarms went off. All that, yet he lived as a petty criminal? “You believe him? Did he offer any kind of proof, cupcake?”

  She frowned, then sniffed. “Proof? You mean like a year zero birth certificate or pictures of himself with Genghis Khan, or Roman army dog tags? Ice has fangs, and his eyes glow blood red. He doesn’t go out in daylight or eat regular food. What else do you need for proof?”

  He sounded like a vampire. But was he really as old as he claimed? “You’ve never wondered why he steals money when he already has so much?”

  “Of course.” Her lip curled. “I’m not stupid. I asked him why he wasn’t living on the Riviera and driving Ferraris. He said he got bored. The trouble with being immortal, he says, is there’s so much time. It’s hard finding interesting new things to do.”

  That had a discouraging ring of authenticity. Irina once voiced something of the same sentiment when Garreth asked about founding the Philos Foundation. It gave her something to do.

  She crossed her legs and leaned back on her hands. The foot of the crossed leg bounced, keeping time to some unheard music. “He saw this movie, Badlands, about a couple that go on a cross-country crime spree. It looked like fun. So he decided to try it, too. Greedy people and perverts and fools all deserve what happens to them, he says.”

  “The police, too?”

  She shrugged. “Every game needs risk, Ice says. There’s no point playing otherwise. Like when he fought as a gladiator, and helped sneak aristocrats out of France during the French Revolution.” She smirked. “Not that there’s been much danger to him this time around.”

  Little bitch. Garreth held his temper. “True. You’re the only one who’s died.”

  That took her back. She stiffened...but recovered fast. “No thanks to that goon pig I didn’t!”

  “Now that’s where you’re wrong, cupcake.” He made no attempt to hide his satisfaction.

  This time she stared at him longer. Her legs uncrossed. “What do you mean?”

  Garreth unfolded and moved up to sit on the other end of the meditation bench. “You did die.”

  She frowned. “That’s just what everyone thought. They’re idiots, because here I am.”

  “No, you’re the idiot, cupcake. You died...and I can tell you what it felt like.”

  She snorted. “You don’t know shit what it felt like! And quit calling me ‘cupcake’!”

  What a pleasure it would be to wipe that sneer off her face. He smiled. “We’ll see. Cupcake.”

  Her voice went shrill. “My name’s Raven, asshole!”

  Bingo. “Your felt your heart and breathing stop. That’s being dead.”

  With a moment of hesitation, Raven shrugged. “An hallucination, because he choked me. Besides, I could still--”

  “You could still see, sort of, right? Just not focus or move your eyes, and you could still hear, and knew people were touching you, but not really feel it. Right?”

  She stiffened, staring at him.

  “Then after they zipped you into the body bag and transported you to the hospital for an autopsy and you were lying there maybe wondering--I’m guessing a bit here--wondering if this was what death was like...no Heaven, no Hell, not even oblivion, just eternal awareness...maybe wondering what it would be like feeling your body putrefy and decay. Or maybe you thought: what if they cremate me? Do I feel myself cooking, hear the meat sizzle and--”

  “Stop it!” She jumped up, away from him, shuddering, retreating until the wall stopped her. “You fucking bastard!” Her voice rose toward hysteria. “I didn’t think anything like that.”

  Maybe he was laying it on a bit strong. “All right. At some point, you felt yourself take a breath, and your heart squeeze into beat. Then it beat again, and you took another breath, and another. Eventually you could move again, which is when you tried to get out of the body bag and rolled off the gurney onto the floor. And now...”

  He saw her hold her breath.

  “Now everything is weird.” He put his hand over the lens of the light. To ordinary vision, the crypt would have plunged into darkness, but with the bright pool gone, he saw a generalized twilight grey. “Night isn’t dark anymore. You hear things you never could before...like people talking way down the hall. There are more smells than you ever noticed before, too. But most of all, people smell different...salty-metallic. If you haven’t identified it yet, it’s the scent of blood. You’re smelling the blood in people.”

  Her whisper trembled. “How do you know all that?”

  “Experience. Are you thirsty?”

  Her hand went to her throat. After a moment she nodded.

  Garreth reached under the bench for the pints he brought down and handed her the one he had opened earlier. “This is only half full but take my word that it’s more than enough to satisfy you.”

  She twisted off the cap and raised the bottle toward her mouth, then stopped, sniffing. And flung the bottle down. “You psycho! This is blood!”

  Garreth’s dive caught the bottle before it before it hit the floor. “I thought you liked blood.” Some had splashed on his wrist. He licked it off.

  Above him her face twisted in revulsion. “Oh, gross!”

  He sat back on his heels to peer up at her. “Then why’d you drink it before...the dog’s and those officers’ and Mr. Becker’s in Omaha?”

  She hugged herself. “That was different.”

  “How? You drank the blood and liked it then.”

  “No I didn’t, but--” She broke off, shrugging...then grimaced. “You have to be with Ice to understand. Whatever he wants you to do, you do. But he isn’t here now and I won’t drink that stuff!”

  “But blood is what vampires drink.”

  “I’m not a vampire!”

  Garreth retrieved the bottle’s cap and twisted it on as he stood up...then stepped well back . In case she went berserk. “Yes you are.”

  Instead she frowned in puzzlement. “What?”

  “You’re a vampire...bloodsucker...undead.” A bit melodramatic, but he needed to make the point.

  After a frozen moment she said flatly, “No I’m not.”

  Denial, denial. Garreth sighed. “Come on, Raven. I know you haven’t been in the life long enough to experience the desire to sleep through daylight and discover the soothing qualities of earth, but how can you live with a vampire for a year and a half and not recognize other signs? You never had such sharp hearing or night sight like this before today...and yesterday little you could never have thrown that fitness Nazi across the room. Those teeth are loose to make way for your new fangs.”

  Her voice hardened. “It’s impossible. Ice hasn’t bitten me.”

  “That isn’t the only way to come across. Another is to drink a vampire’s blood, then die. And you drank a vampire’s blood. Mine.”

  She stiffened. “I’ve never seen you before today!”

  “Only because all you saw of me Monday was my arm hanging out the car window.”

  He could see in her face that she made the connection almost instantly, but did not believe him. “That cop was dead!”

  “A common impression when we’re asleep or unconscious.”

  Fear flickered in her eyes, then her jaw set. “I don’t believe you’re that cop...or that you’re a vampire. You’re trying to trick me so I’ll help you find Ice. It won’t do any good. There’s no fucking way I’ll ever help you.”

  Stubborn! He handed her his ID. “Look at his. And check this out.” He opened his mouth wide, extending his fangs.

  She recoiled, throwing down the ID and retreating to the corner beyond the bench. “No! It’s a trick! I’m not a vampire!”

  As he retrieved his ID he watched her eye the stairs. No doubt gauging her chances of making a break for it. He blocked her way. If she reached the door, a frantic enough desire to escape could take her through them.

  “Deny it all you want--though I’m not sure why you’re upset; isn’t the promise of being brought across the reason
you’re with Ice? You are a vampire. Now and forever, world without end, A--”

  “Shut up!” She launched at him, fists hammering. “Shut up! That’s blasphemy!”

  In his astonishment he almost missed grabbing her wrists. Of all he might have anticipated her saying, that statement never occurred to him. Blasphemy? A vampire’s servant with religion?

  “And I’m not a vampire!” She flailed at him. “I can’t be. NO!” Definite hysteria now. She screamed, a piercing siren that in the restricted space threatened to shatter his eardrums.

  “Raven.” He shook her. “Listen to me. Stop!” But she screamed without slackening and he shook her harder. “Rebecca!”

  She froze.

  He used the moment. “Rebecca, calm...down. Go...to...sleep. Sleep.”

  Like a balloon leaking air, the rigidity went out of her. She wilted. Garreth laid her on the pallet. If she was going to be like this, was it worth keeping her alive to fulfill the vision? Now would be a good time to finish her, while she felt nothing.

  But the vision replayed in memory...vivid, insistent. The need to find the albino beat at him. And he recalled his own initial horror at the realization of what he had become. A vile, damned creature he thought at the time. Okay, give her some time to adjust.

  Time. He glanced at his watch. Time to check in with the Sheriff’s Office. The girl ought to be secure here. Even if he had not commanded her to sleep, the processes altering her body ought to keep her out for hours. He had slept thirty hours straight at one point.

  He leaned down to Raven. “I’ll be back, cupcake, and whatever I have to do to you, you will help me track down that bastard Ice.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  As soon as the clerk buzzed him into the office, Garreth noticed the glow down the corridor coming through the frosted panel of Sechrest’s door. Garreth knocked.

  Her voice called, “Come in if you have good news.”

  Garreth opened the door enough to stick his head in. “I don’t, sorry, but I was hoping someone had.”

  The sheriff sat leaning back in her chair, feet propped on her desk, eyes closed. Opening her eyes, she dropped her feet off the desk. “It’s you.” She covered a gaping yawn. “Your suspect is playing hell with my sleep. I don’t handle all-nighters as well as I used--Lord!” Her eyes snapped wide. “You’re a mess. Where have you been? And is that blood on you?”

  He peered down. Thanks to a combination of wet jeans and dust from the meditation bench he did looked as if he crawled out of a mud wallow. Grime smeared his arms, too. The spots on his t-shirt must have come from the pint Raven dropped. “I had a collision with a low branch, gave myself a nosebleed, and landed in mud. I saw a shower in the men’s room. I think I’ll use it, then hit the rack for a couple of hours. If you don’t need me. I haven’t slept for...” Shit, when had he last? “...too long. Will you have someone wake me when something happens or Second Watch starts, whichever comes first? Tell them to shake me hard. I sleep really deep. Sometimes I don’t even seem to be breathing.”

  “I’ll tell them.” Her feet were back on the desk and her eyes closed before he had shut the door behind him.

  The shower and shave felt wonderful. And the clean clothes. And whether Irina’s The Mind Rules theory worked or sheer exhaustion overrode night alertness, he was out the moment he hit the bunk. Until an earthquake and distant shouting pulled him awake.

  Not an earthquake, he discovered, but a female deputy shaking him. The sun had risen. Sixteen tons of daylight pressed down on him.

  “Jesus,” the deputy said. “No shit you sleep deep.”

  “Yeah. Sorry.” Garreth used the bunk frame to haul himself upright. He groped for his dark glasses sitting on the upper bunk. “What time is it?”

  “Seven-fifteen. There’s coffee in the business office.”

  Sometimes he regretted losing the taste for coffee. Like alcohol at the hospital last night, caffeine would have been welcome about now. “How are things going?”

  “You mean the search for the fugitive? There’s no sign of her yet. But at least the rain’s stopped.”

  The girl! That jolted him awake. He needed to retrieve her and boogie while daylight reinforced his command for her to sleep.

  He hurriedly packed up and presented himself to the sheriff again. Three mostly empty coffee cups sat on her desk.

  He eyed them. “Have you been here all night?”

  She grimaced. “I kept thinking: I’ll give it another half hour. Then another. And...here we are.” She poured the dregs from two of the cups into the third and slugged it all down like a shot of whiskey. “One advantage to being female at times like this, though, is no morning stubble. You’re heading out?”

  He nodded. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “Enjoy California.”

  Too bad the rain had stopped. Blinding sunlight shone in a cloudless sky as he drove to the cemetery. A check for other visitors while he entered by a regular entrance and circled toward the Ward mausoleum spotted only an SUV on the eastern side. The hill blocked its view of the mausoleum. That did not prevent his nerves tightening when he eased his wire and duct tape key into the lock. Nerves that jerked into heart-pounding tension as the tumblers resisted movement again. To his ears the screeching metal sounded loud enough to be heard across the cemetery. He cringed the whole thirty interminable seconds it took to tease the bolt free.

  With every moment here upping the risk of being seen, he scrambled to pack the car. Moving the girl first, tucking her behind the seats again under the pallet, dropping his sport coat on top to disguise the hump made by her knees. A second trip finished cleaning out the mausoleum. Now he just needed to relock the door.

  But as he slid in the key, silently thanking the Wards, whoever they were, for their hospitality, the SUV he saw earlier appeared around the hill, driving toward him.

  Swearing, he snatched out the key and pressed his forehead to one of the panes in the door, cupping hands around his eyes as if trying to see inside. And waited for the SUV to pass.

  To his dismay, a woman’s voice said, “Look at the lovely angels, Frank,” and in the window reflection, he watched a middle-aged couple exit the vehicle with cameras.

  The woman said, “Excuse me, young man, but could you step back for a moment while we take some pictures?”

  Shit.

  Forcing a smile, Garreth shuffled aside. “Are you members of the Ward family?”

  The man squinted at his camera’s screen, frowned...switched to peering through the viewfinder. “No. We’re in town to watch our granddaughter show her lamb at the fair and thought we’d check out the cemetery. They’re kind of a hobby.”

  After snapping pictures from a dozen angles, the couple turned away. Garreth let out his breath.

  Until Frank stopped and stared in through the Porsche's rear passenger window.

  Garreth’s heart went into spasm.

  Frank said, “Is that one of those electric coolers that plug into the cigarette lighter? What do you think of it? I’ve been wondering about getting one for the van.”

  “It’s very handy.” Talking was hard with teeth in anxiety. He had to get rid of these people!

  He pulled off his glasses. But before he could catch Frank’s eyes, the man strolled to the neighboring mausoleum. “I like these pillars, Caro. They look kind of Egyptian.”

  The woman started to follow him. “Egypt was all the rage in the twenties.”

  Shit, shit, shit. Should he just forget the door and trust no one discovered it was unlocked? If they did and checked inside, he had wiped the bench clean of the dust that showed their butt prints. There might be footprints, though: barefoot ones for the girl and him, his boot prints. Those might not be associated with Raven or him. Or they might. He could not risk it. “Caro.”

  She glanced back at him.

  He trapped her gaze. “A mausoleum on the south side of the hill has a Tiffany window. You...want...to...see...that.”

&
nbsp; “Frank!” The woman flushed with excitement. “This young man says there’s a Tiffany window farther on. Let’s go!” She headed back for their vehicle.

  Frank hurried after her.

  The moment the trees and slope blocked their view of him, he raced for the door. “Now work. I gave you a big lube bath last night, so lock, you piece of shit.” Heart hammering, he twisted the key, jiggling the tumblers, coaxing them to slide by each other and raise. Seconds felt like months, but finally, he felt them all clear the stop and with a last nerve-wracking squawk, the bolt slid home.

  He jumped in the car.

  As much as he wanted to gun out of town, he forced himself to stay within the speed limit. The last thing he needed was to be pulled over and have some officer get curious about what he had in the back seat.

  Once on I-80 he called Irina and left a voice mail message to get back to ASAP. She might not know all the vampires in the world, but a two-millennium albino must have come to her attention.

  While waiting for her call, he kept moving. First and foremost on the agenda, get the girl out of his car! Some place like the mausoleum–except less public–would be great.

  It occurred to him he knew another such underground structure. During the Cold War the Philos Foundation had sought to ensure survival of its blood inventory and personnel by building bomb shelters under their Chapter offices. Using Omaha’s, however, required permission from the Chapter president, a human woman. Would she be willing, considering Raven’s situation? Lying was probably not an option– Garreth had no doubt that dealing with individuals who lived by lies made her as expert at detecting falsehood as a school principal or police officer–and Philos rules forbid using vampire persuasion on any human employees.

  Still, few other options suggested themselves.

  So an hour later he sat in Joanna Lovings’ blackout-curtained office with his gaze fixed on her nose, nerves taut. The raw-boned Lovings’ looked like a model for American Gothic or Frau someone from a Mel Brooks movie, at whose name horses neighed in panic. Did Philos choose presidents not just for discretion but an ability to intimidate even individuals centuries older than themselves?