Spirit Sanguine

by Lou Harper

  “Gabor Vadas, but everyone calls me Gabe.”

  “Gabor. What sort of name is that?”

  “Hungarian version of Gabriel.”

  “So you’re not a prince but an angel after all. How old were you when you came to the US?”

  Angel? Hardly.

  “I was born here. My parents immigrated in the seventies.”

  Two thoughtful grooves appeared between Harvey’s brows. “Not an easy feat back then, right?”

  “They had to sneak through the border in the dead of night. As a kid, I had the impression it was very dangerous, but they never really talked about it.”

  “Do they still live in Chicago?”

  “No, they died in a car accident years ago. I went back to Hungary not long after.”

  “Sorry.”

  Gabe gave a one-shoulder shrug. He was sorry too, but he could do nothing about the past. Certainly didn’t want to brood over it. “I don’t know your full name either.”

  Harvey leaned back in his chair. “Harvey Feng. F-E-N-G, Feng. Not fang with an A.” He shot Gabe a warning look.

  Gabe opened his mouth, then opted to use it to take a deep swallow of his cooling coffee. “So your father was Asian, then?” he asked.

  “No. My mother was Chinese. I took her name when I turned eighteen. Probably to piss off my father.”

  “Is he—”

  “Gone. Both of them.” Without waiting for polite words from Gabe, Harvey pushed his cup aside. “So, what do you want to do? The night’s still young.”

  They ended up walking down to the Navy Pier. Sure it was touristy and tacky as hell, but it was fun too. For a while, they were just two guys on a first date, or something like it, and all that other stuff was no more than a smudge at the edge of Gabe’s peripheral vision.

  By the time they turned back toward the city, Gabe felt more relaxed than he’d been in years. At the El station, they stood too close for decorum, but their only company was a young guy wearing headphones and a bag lady, and both ignored them. It was a warm July night, even with the breeze blowing from the lake. Harvey’s skin felt cool to the touch, and Gabe had a sudden impulse to pull him into a warming embrace. But it was just Harvey’s normal body temperature—as Gabe reminded himself.

  “Is it true that vampires have enhanced senses?” he asked instead.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. My uncle thought they could smell your blood, but I never had the chance to ask.”

  “Yes.”

  “How much?”

  “It’s not like all your senses just got amped up, thank God. Can you imagine, all the noises and stenches of the city squared?”

  “What then?”

  “Mostly living things. I can hear your heartbeat from across a room. If I concentrate hard enough, I can feel the nutrients coursing through the leaves of a tree.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I can smell your arousal.”

  Gabe squinted at Harvey, unsure if he was being teased or not. The truth was he’d been semi-hard all night, but he’d thought his loose-fit cargo pants hid it well.

  “Don’t be bashful. The full moon makes me horny too,” Harvey added.

  “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

  “Does it have to?”

  Gabe was reminded of the previous time he and Harvey stood at an El station under different circumstances. “You knew the whole time I was following you that first night, didn’t you?”

  “Would’ve been hard to miss. You were wrapped in a cloud of adrenaline. Don’t worry, though, I think I’m far more aware of these things than other vamps. At least, that’s what Ray says.” Harvey bit his lips at the slip.

  This time Gabe didn’t ask about Ray, although he wanted to know very much. He was clearly someone who meant a lot to Harvey, and it gave Gabe a strange and annoying twinge of…something.

  Harvey skipped over his gaffe. “Too bad it’s only true at night.”

  Gabe realized how little he knew about vampires, aside from how to kill them. “What about during the day?”

  “Then I feel like anyone else, only more dull.”

  “I can’t imagine you dull.”

  A joyful smile spread across Harvey’s lips. “The word has multiple meanings.”

  “Someone helped you that night. Not undead,” Gabe said.

  “Yes, a friend. You can sense us, can’t you? That’s how you followed me.”

  “More if I concentrate. I didn’t actually pick you up till we bumped into each other in the bar, you were so faint.”

  “Was it different in the Old Country? Or did you pick up all your vampires in bars?”

  “Completely different. I could feel them a long way off. According to my uncle, it’s a genetic trait. Every man in my bloodline has been born with it since…I don’t know, hundreds of years. But it takes training to use it.”

  “So it was your uncle who made you into a master of the sharp sticks?”

  “Yeah. He was very old-school about it too.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Passed away. Heart attack.”

  Gabe didn’t add that Uncle Miklos was dead because of him, but Harvey seemed to sense his reticence.

  Harvey reached up and pulled Gabe’s face down to his. Gabe didn’t resist the cool lips touching his own. He returned the kiss—it was slow and languorous, full of exploration and tentativeness, but not without an edge of danger. The more they kept kissing, the more heated it got. By the time the train charged into the station, there was nothing slow or uncertain about the way they tore into each other. Gabe’s brain told him that this was a very, very bad idea. Aside from the fact that it went against the credo he’d lived by for the past half a decade, getting mixed up with a vamp could get him killed. His dick told his brain to shut the hell up. It did.

  After the forced restraint of the train, they started necking again on the street. By the time they reached the apartment, they were back on full steam. While Harvey was fumbling with getting the door key into the appropriate hole, Gabe pressed into him from behind. Hands on Harvey’s hips, Gabe pulled him close till the taut globes of his ass pressed into Gabe’s groin. Harvey groaned and missed the keyhole again as Gabe’s erection rubbed against him.

  “We’ll never get inside if you keep that up,” he protested weakly.

  “I thought you had extra-sharp senses,” Gabe whispered, burying his face into Harvey’s neck and nipping the soft flesh. Harvey’s scent was a quirky mix of earthy, spicy and something faintly floral but not sweet.

  Harvey made another stab with the key. “Live things. This doorknob is dead as a—”

  “As a doorknob?” Gabe rutted against Harvey to demonstrate being hard as one.

  Finally, they made it through the door. Immediately, Harvey turned the tables, slamming Gabe into the wall and attacking his lips with ferocious hunger.

  The few feet of distance between the entrance and the bedroom became the path of destruction. The small table by the door crashed onto its side, taking with it a bowl to hold keys. The coat stand followed it with a bang, and all the framed pictures in the hallway ended up askew. Gabe and Harvey didn’t even notice. Their passion was like two predators tearing into each other. For Gabe, the contrast between Harvey’s light frame and tenacious strength was a huge turn-on; he didn’t have to hold back. By the time he heaved Harvey onto the bed, Harvey was naked from the waist down. Gabe himself was still fully dressed, his jeans and underwear shoved down just far enough to reveal his stiff cock. Sitting on the edge of the bed, his legs twined around Gabe’s thighs, Harvey took Gabe’s shaft and clasped their cocks together.

  They kept kissing till Gabe moved Harvey to lie back on the bed, pushing his T-shirt up to his armpits. Harvey’s lean body was smoothly defined, bearing aspects of both youth and maturity. It all added to the contradictions that made up Harvey and drove Gabe mad with desire. Retrieving the condom and lube packs from his hip pocket, Gabe entered Harvey
with minimal preparation. Harvey’s eyes flashed amber at the first intrusion, but he pushed back against it, forcing Gabe’s cock deeper. It was hard, pile-driving sex, the sound of flesh slapping punctuated with guttural groans.

  When he leaned down for a kiss, Gabe held Harvey’s head in place by the hair—somewhere in the back of his mind, he was wary of the fangs. Thinking of them was the only thing that kept him from coming too soon, but when Harvey pulsed and tensed around him, body arching and moaning out loud, Gabe couldn’t hold back any longer.

  Chapter Three

  Gabe stared at the ceiling, and it stared back at him blankly. Once the carnal madness was over, he’d become conscious of the fact that his whole life, everything he’d lived by for the last several years, had been turned upside down—again. Last time it happened he had struggled against it to no avail. He was now older, wiser, or maybe just more fatalistic. Either way he figured he’d try to go with the flow. But first he’d pull his pants up.

  “You’re doing it the wrong way. Those are supposed to come off.” Harvey remarked.

  Gabe turned to him. Harvey had stripped his T-shirt off and was completely in the buff. It looked good on him. Something was off, though. The skin on Harvey’s stomach and chest was hairless, smooth and clean.

  “Have you…”

  Harvey followed Gabe’s gaze. “Oh that. Dry orgasm. Comes with my…condition. It was weird at first, but I got used to it. Don’t even miss it much anymore—less mess to clean up. Does it freak you out?”

  Gabe shook his head. That was the least of the freak-out factors of the night.

  “Something is bothering you, isn’t it?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “Liar. I bet you’re having a bit of a cognitive dissonance.”

  “A what?”

  “Being all mixed up about this, and vampires in general. It’ll help if you talk about it.”

  A part of Gabe wanted to talk and get the weight off his chest, but life had taught him to be wary—a trait that had saved his skin a few times before. So he gave a noncommittal grunt in reply.

  Harvey studied him as if trying to read his mind. “Are you still wondering why I haven’t ripped your throat out, and if it’s some convoluted plot to tenderize you for the biannual Vampire Ball?”

  “There’s a biannual Vampire Ball?”

  “No, I made it up. Answer the question.”

  “No. Yes. Maybe.” Harvey seemed harmless at the moment, but Gabe hadn’t forgotten his fang-bearing fury of their first face-to-face.

  “Hmm. Let me give it to you straight then: I don’t know what crazy-ass commie vampires you were running with, but that shit wouldn’t fly over here.”

  “Oh really? Why not?”

  “Think about it as natural selection, adaptation. Seriously, it’s all nice and dandy to do the old hunter-and-prey act when you’re out there in the wilderness. Let’s say I’m the hyena and you’re the gazelle. Who’s gonna make a fuss if I break your neck and eat your liver for breakfast? Nobody, right? But imagine if the gazelles were organized, had weapons, police force, media, politicians—the whole nine yards. Every eviscerated hoofer would make the news. Soon the hyena would be the hunted one. And soon after there would be no hyenas.”

  “You have a vivid imagination.”

  “It helps me through lonely winter nights,” Harvey said, grinning. “Anyway, vampires don’t need all that much blood to sustain themselves; they have absolutely no reason to kill. On the other hand, if they start rampaging like in the movies, it’s all torches-and-pitchforks time. Homicidal vampires die, while the ones who play nice remain. Tell me that’s not survival of the fittest.”

  “So all the vampires of Chicago are nice, socially acceptable, friendly neighborhood bloodsuckers?”

  “I didn’t say that. They’re spread between nice and nasty about the same as regular people, but there are some unwritten laws. Like when you turn someone, you’re responsible for them, at least for the first year or so of their undead lives. That’s for everyone’s good, since it’s a hard adjustment. And you teach them all the other rules and customs.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you don’t go around attracting attention and leaving dead humans around.”

  “And what if someone doesn’t play by the rules?”

  “They’re likely to find themselves going from undead to truly dead.”

  Gabe snorted. “Frontier justice. I like it.”

  “I thought you would. Hey, you hungry? I’ve got food.”

  “You went out and bought groceries?”

  “Yeah, call me an eternal optimist.”

  Harvey rolled off the bed, found his discarded jeans and hopped into them on his way out. Gabe followed, admiring the fine curves and grooves of Harvey’s naked back. The everyday intimacy of the scene was deceptive—Gabe could almost imagine they were two regular people. But they weren’t. Gabe was charting an unfamiliar territory, and the natives could turn hostile, no matter what Harvey had said about natural selection.

  The cupboard and the fridge held a mystifying medley of food items.

  “I ran into the store and randomly grabbed some stuff,” Harvey explained.

  “I can tell.”

  “I haven’t been into a supermarket in years, and I hate those fluorescent lights.”

  “Because of the UV radiation?”

  “Nah. It’s not strong enough to be a bother, but it gives everything a greenish tinge—people look like zombies. It’s creepy.”

  “You don’t see things the same either, do you?”

  “As I did alive? No. It’s like seeing the world through a filter. Some things are enhanced; others get duller. It was fucking strange at first, but with time you get used to almost anything.”

  Wasn’t that the truth. Gabe ended up fixing himself an omelet with cheese and whole-grain toast. Harvey’s nostrils flared as he inhaled the scents.

  “What would happen if you ate?” Gabe asked.

  “Comes out at the other end the same as it went in. Kinda disturbing.”

  “That must suck.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a flip side. When you kiss me, when I lick your skin, I can taste who you are. That’s how I knew you’d be all right when we first met.”

  “We didn’t kiss then.”

  “You forget, you were out for a while,” Harvey said coyly.

  “You didn’t!”

  “Just a peck. I had to be sure.”

  “Oh.”

  “By the way, the condom was unnecessary. No STD can pass between human and vampire. There are upsides to being undead.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “It was a nice gesture, though. It meant you considered the possibility.”

  “Or maybe I always carry a condom.”

  “Maybe you do. How are the eggs?”

  “Not bad. Would be better with bacon.”

  Harvey chuckled. “Old shopping habits die hard. You get your own bacon.”

  “You don’t mind if I put my bacon next to your vegetarian vampire cocktail in the fridge?”

  “I’ve never been militant about it, but I’d appreciate if you kept it on a different shelf.”

  “By the way, aren’t you gonna drink that thing?” Gabe would rather not have Harvey get hungry around him, vegetarian or not.

  “Don’t need it. I only have to feed about once a week.”

  Harvey’s phone made a sound like a foghorn. He dug it out of his pocket and answered it with a friendly, “Hey,” but the smile fell off his face almost immediately. “No, I haven’t, not since Friday… Did he say anything? I see… Okay… I’ll go look too… Yes… Call me if you find him… Bye.” Harvey hung up, cursing under his breath.

  “What?” Gabe asked, tuning in to Harvey’s anxiety.

  “I have to go, sorry. You can stay if you want.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s not your problem; don’t worry about it.”

  “Why don’t
you tell me anyway?” Gabe couldn’t help it. The look of distress on Harvey’s face woke his protective instincts.

  Harvey worried his lower lip with his teeth, visibly struggling with himself. Something won out at the end. “Remember being darted the first night we met?”

  “Yeah.” Did he ever.

  “Well, it was my friend Dill who shot you in the ass. And now he’s run off.”

  “Run off how?”

  Harvey considered Gabe for a second before answering. “Dill lives with two older vampires who happen to be friends of mine. He’s a sweet kid, but he’s young and can be mind-numbingly rash and emotional at times. They had an argument, and while the others slept, Dill ran off, and is about to do something stupid.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like getting himself turned. Look, I need to go.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “There will be undead where I’m going.”

  “Okay.”

  “You can’t be attacking them.”

  “I won’t,” Gabe replied earnestly. He was prepared to restrain himself as long as the vampires kept their fangs to themselves. Harvey had managed so far.

  “You can’t bring stakes with you because if anyone finds out there will be trouble, and I won’t be able to help.”

  “Fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. This kid is your friend. I want to help you find him. Then have a word about that dart in my backside.” Gabe added the last part jokingly and was rewarded with a flicker of smile.

  “C’mon then, Angel. I’ll tell you the rest in the car.”

  Gabe was getting used to the nickname.

  “You have a car?”

  “Of course I do. I just hope I can remember where I parked it.”

  While Harvey looked for the car keys, Gabe retrieved his stakes he’d located earlier in a kitchen drawer. He secreted them away in one of his cargo pockets.

  They found the car two and a half blocks away on a side street. From the number of flyers stuck under the windshield wiper, it had been there for a while. There might have been a ticket among them too. Harvey grabbed the flyers and then gathered up a pile of magazines, canvas shopping bags and assorted stuff from the passenger seat and moved them to the trunk. While he was busy with that, Gabe stealthily transferred the stakes from his pocket to the space under the passenger seat. He’d promised Harvey not to have them on his body, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have them nearby.