Spirit Sanguine

by Lou Harper

  “I’ll bring the car around,” Gabe said and darted away.

  When he got back, Harvey waited for him in the open door, talking to the tied-up vamp. Gabe backed the SUV up to them. He and Harvey threw the vamp into the back and got in themselves—Gabe behind the wheel, Harvey in the backseat to keep an eye on their captive.

  “Did you have a good chat?” Gabe asked, starting up the engine.

  “Yes, I asked him if he remembered me.”

  Seeing Harvey so in control of himself pleased Gabe, who’d been worried about how Harvey would handle facing one of his attackers. But Harvey neither crumbled nor flew into a rage.

  “What did you tell Nina?” Gabe asked.

  “Nothing. I charmed her,” Harvey said, sounding guilty. “I didn’t like it, but it’s best for her and everyone else involved. I’ll have to do something nice for her.”

  A loud growl came from way back.

  “Oh, shut up, or I’ll shove a stake where the sun doesn’t shine. See how funny that is,” Harvey barked at the vamp.

  Handing the vamp over to Augustine’s men in one piece—as he’d promised—filled Gabe with what he reluctantly recognized as professional pride. He wished he could’ve been there for the debriefing, but he couldn’t have everything.

  While the days passed without word from Augustine, the date to meet Harvey’s friend arrived.

  “Her full name is Sylvaine Caron, but I call her Syl. She’s a more than three-hundred-years-old Gypsy—born in France but traveled a lot.” Harvey filled Gabe in about Syl while they were driving to meet her.

  “The proper term is Roma,” Gabe corrected him.

  “What?”

  “It’s not polite to call someone a Gypsy.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I was lectured on the subject.” Gabe recalled a pálinka-fueled night in a Hungarian tavern with a dark-haired and dark-skinned young man. “There are Roma tribes living all over Europe, and they’re looked down on everywhere. The local word for Gypsy is always a derogative.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “When you go around the countryside looking for hidden places, it pays to get along with the Roma. So, how did you meet Syl?”

  “Stan went to her for advice after they found me. She was the one who suggested giving me cow’s blood. I looked her up to thank her once I was better, and we became friends. We have a lot in common. She practices naturopathic medicine—with regular people, not vamps. She’s been the only vampire who encouraged me to work on my tonic.”

  “She sounds very Earth Mother.”

  Harvey chuckled. “Just wait till you meet her.”

  Syl seemed young, dressed in a chic pale green short dress and skinny jeans. However, she carried herself with the confidence of centuries. Gabe had learned to recognize these subtle clues while making deliveries for Augustine. Older vampires felt a shade different to him. After greetings and introductions, Syl instructed them to take their shoes off and make themselves at home while she left them alone for a moment.

  Gabe followed Harvey into the living room and found a cornucopia of color there. The sofa and chairs surrounding the coffee table were upholstered in different fabrics, some plain, some patterned. The walls were pale green, except one, which glowed warm yellow. The ceiling flaunted lilac. Pillows of all sizes and colors littered the furniture and the floor.

  “It’s something else, isn’t it?” Harvey asked, grinning.

  “It’s as if a rainbow exploded here,” Gabe agreed.

  “Syl says colors make up for losing her regular sense of taste, but I think she just has a fondness for the lurid.”

  Harvey dislodged half a dozen pillows from the sofa to make room to sit. Syl joined them shortly after, handing Gabe a steaming mug.

  “Herbal tea,” she explained.

  Not wanting to be rude, Gabe accepted.

  Syl threw herself on the love seat across from them, tucking her bare feet under her. She was rather pretty with her oval face, curly, black hair and dark eyes that appraised Gabe with at least as much interest as he assessed her.

  Gabe took a sip of his tea. He tasted chamomile and mint. “Special blend?” he asked.

  “The herbs came from my garden, but there’s no secret ingredient, don’t worry. I thought you could use something warm in this cold weather.”

  “Thank you.”

  Syl graciously bowed her head. “I’m glad Harvey finally brought you by. I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said.

  “Good or bad?”

  Syl pursed her lips. “You’re quite a conundrum. I hear you can sense us. What’s it like?”

  Gabe thought about it. “It’s hard to describe, sort of a tingling, prickling sensation, but not entirely physical. The closer the vampire, the stronger I feel it. Age makes a difference too. And sometimes emotions.”

  “Well, I’ll be! You’re for real. I haven’t met a Dhampir in at least a hundred and fifty years, and only briefly then.”

  “A what?”

  Syl leaned back in her chair. “My people believe a Dhampir is the son of a vampire and a regular woman, or any male descendants of that bloodline. He’s destined to be a hunter of vampires. He can sense them and possesses unique skills to kill them. Those skills can be inherited but not learned.”

  “But vampires can’t reproduce,” Harvey commented.

  “Oh, child, there’s more than one kind of vampire.”

  Gabe had had some suspicion in this area and wanted to know more. “There is? What makes them different?”

  “The way they come about. Harvey and I were made—the most common sort. But there are myths and tales about others.”

  “Roma tales?”

  She gave him a smile. “Yes. The Roma have stories about mortal and immortal vampires, like the Mullo. According to fable, if a man dies an untimely death, he may come back to suck the blood of those who wronged him.”

  “Do you think it’s true?”

  She lifted and dropped one shoulder. “There are a lot of myths and folktales in the old world. The truth hides among them, but it’s hard to tease it out. I traveled to many places in Europe before the Second World War, to collect stories and try to separate the fiction from reality. You need a hobby if you expect to live for centuries.”

  “Not forever?”

  “Nobody lives forever, not even the gods, certainly not us. Not even without slayers after us. What made you quit?” Her voice was light and conversational, but her gaze penetrating.

  “I got an offer I couldn’t refuse.” Gabe offered the simplest answer he had. Deep down, he believed meeting Harvey, despite the way their first two encounters transpired, was part of fate steering him, but that kind of mystical mumbo-jumbo was not something he’d openly admit to.

  “Gabe didn’t know till about five or six years ago he was a hunter,” Harvey added.

  “How’s that possible?” she asked.

  “My parents fled from Hungary when they were young. I was born here, and they’d never told me a word about this business. I only learned about vampires after my parents died, and I went to Hungary to meet my uncle.” Gabe had a hard time keeping the bitterness out of his voice.

  The way Syl cocked her head indicated she caught it, but she didn’t comment on it. “But you must have sensed the presence of vampires before?”

  “I think I did, but without knowing what it was, I filed it under emotional weirdness and forgot about it.”

  From under one of the cushions, Syl pulled out a notebook, bound in battered brown leather. Gabe drank his tea while she scribbled down her notes. Harvey fidgeted around till he arranged himself to lean against Gabe, who moved his arm behind Harvey to make both of them more comfortable.

  When Syl looked up, Gabe put his empty mug aside. “We’re really here because of Harvey,” he said.

  Her keen gaze brushed over them. “Of course. Harvey, why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

  She listened to Harvey’s
account, jotting down more notes.

  “So what do you think it is?” Harvey asked in closing.

  She chewed the end of her pencil. “It’s out of the ordinary for sure.” Flipping the pages of the notebook, she checked several passages. “Over time I recorded a few accounts of vampires feeding on defeated Dhampirs, but not one had mentioned any unusual effects. Yet what you’re experiencing is clearly the result of your drinking Gabe’s blood. It makes me assume you react to it differently than anyone else would, although it should be tested.”

  “No! I’m not having anyone else bite him!” Harvey protested, sitting up ramrod straight.

  Gabe kept a calming hand on the small of Harvey’s back. Secretly, this display of possessiveness tickled him.

  The look Syl gave Harvey reminded Gabe of his kindergarten teacher explaining why he shouldn’t eat the crayons. “It doesn’t have to be a bite. It would be very useful to know whether Gabe’s blood affects other vampires too.”

  Gabe had a question. “Why would Harvey be different from others? Does it have to do with the way he was turned?” He knew it was a sensitive subject, but he had to ask.

  “What do you know about it?” she countered.

  “That it was done by force, and the vampires who did it fed on sick people just before. I killed one of them, and we captured another last night. Let me tell you, something was seriously fucked up about both of them.”

  She looked at him with surprise. “You captured him. Where is he?”

  “We turned him over to Victor Augustine.”

  “Oh. Well that’s good, I guess.” Her brows dipped, creating a frown line between them.

  “You’re holding something back,” Gabe said in a mild tone, letting only a shade of accusation sneak in.

  She took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. Calmly returning their stares, she began to talk. “Yes, I have, for a very good reason, but it’s time you both learn the truth.” She paused as if collecting her thoughts. “Blood tastes different from person to person, but its effects are always the same. It’s nourishment, it has a unique flavor, but that’s all. Poisons, drugs and disease in the blood might leave an unpleasant taste but don’t do anything to us. However, there are rare exceptions. Occasionally, a very specific combination of factors may taint the blood so it has an unexpected effect on the vampire. Usually not a good one. Those three who attacked Harvey were high—the same as if they were on drugs.”

  “How? The cancer?” Gabe asked.

  “A particular combination of a certain kind of cancer and the medications given to treat it. The few who know about this call it dirty blood.”

  “So it’s not common knowledge?”

  “Goddess, no! You see what addicts will do to get a fix. Imagine the same with vampires—they’re as dangerous as ferals, and they need to be destroyed the same way.”

  “These vamps, they aged,” Harvey said.

  “Yes, heavy drugs will do that to you.”

  Gabe sensed as much as saw the distress flooding Harvey, the muscles in his body tensing up. Instinctively Gabe began to move his hands in slow, circular motions on Harvey’s back.

  “So that means I’m a vampire crack baby?” Harvey asked.

  “It’s a crude way of putting it,” Syl said with a sigh.

  “But it’s true?”

  “Being turned by vampires high on dirty blood affected you, yes. It was the reason why you were so sickly at first, and why you couldn’t drink human blood. But you’re strong and healthy now.”

  “So why’s Gabe’s blood doing weird things to me, then?”

  Syl spread her hands. “The dirty blood might have had a few long-term effects. And Gabe is different himself, a descendant of a vampire. Honestly, I’ve never encountered anything of this sort before.”

  “Do you think it’s something to be concerned about? Is it harmful to Harvey?” Gabe asked.

  “I have no way of knowing for sure, but my instinct tells me it’s nothing but a harmless oddity. However, I want you both to let me know if anything changes. Are you on any medication?”

  “No.”

  “Yours can’t be dirty blood. Whatever is going on, it’s something else. Has Harvey felt different to you since he first drank your blood?”

  “I can feel his craving, but it started before, and I can feel it from others too.”

  “What about the addicted ones?”

  “They feel different, repulsive, like worms crawling under my skin.”

  “Hmm, interesting.” She scribbled something into her book.

  “Aren’t you concerned the wrong person might read it?” Gabe asked her.

  She looked up. “It’s written in Romani.”

  “So?”

  “Romani is chiefly an oral language. It doesn’t even have a unified alphabet. The Roma use different ones depending on where they live. I’ve lived all over and picked up bits and pieces. Nobody else but me can read this. Sometimes not even me. I have terrible handwriting.”

  With a smile, she closed the book, put it aside and faced Harvey. “You should stop drinking Gabe’s blood for a time and have tonic or even cow’s blood instead. See if you have any withdrawal symptoms. You need to tell me right away if you do.”

  Harvey sighed. “Okay, I will.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s probably nothing. By the way, did you bring it?”

  Harvey produced a small bottle full of red liquid. The secret ingredient of Sanguine, no doubt. Harvey and Syl began to talk shop, and as the tension drained from Harvey, so it did from Gabe. He leaned back on his cushions and relaxed. The conversation veered into chemistry—never his strong subject—so he watched them silently.

  Later, as they were leaving, Gabe found an excuse to run back inside and have a few words with Syl alone.

  “Does Augustine know about dirty blood?” he asked without preamble.

  “Of course he does.”

  “After Harvey was turned, did Augustine know about Harvey’s condition?”

  “Yes. I told him myself.”

  “Why?”

  “It was too important for him not to know.” Her gaze went hard and cold, and she looked Gabe squarely in the eye. “I love Harvey, but if there was a chance he’d turn into something dangerous and uncontrollable, like a feral, I was going to stake him myself.”

  Her words rubbed Gabe the wrong way. “Harvey isn’t some monster.”

  “Have you always felt this way?”

  Gabe clenched his jaws.

  At least she didn’t gloat. “You two possess uncommon traits, and together you’re unique, and it’s bound to have effects on both of you.”

  “You mean there might be other symptoms?”

  “Possibly. They might test your bond. I hope for Harvey’s sake it’s a strong one.”

  Gabe said his good-byes and left. He thought it unwise to tell her he and Harvey had friendship and great sex, not a bond. He remembered Augustine using the same word too. Where did they all get this melodramatic crap from? They started to sound like movie vampires. Gabe quietly fumed over this the whole way home.

  Gabe was on pins and needles by the time Victor Augustine was ready to see him. With great effort, he hid his impatience while they went through their usual ritual with the brandy and settling into chairs.

  Apparently, his effort wasn’t great enough, as Augustine started with saying, “Patience is a virtue, Mr. Vadas.”

  “It’s not my strong suit,” Gabe admitted.

  “It would serve you well to practice it. I presume you’re eager to know what I’ve found out from the gentleman you had so obligingly apprehended for me.”

  “I wouldn’t use the term ‘gentleman’, but yeah.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not able to share most of the particulars with you. Now, don’t look so disgruntled. None of it has a direct bearing on you or Mr. Feng. However, there’s a piece of information I can part with, which will be of interest to you—the location of the third individual responsible for Mr
. Feng’s premature and involuntary conversion.”

  Gabe felt like a rock had just materialized in his stomach. “You know where that fucker is? Sorry about the language,” he added, seeing Augustine’s frown.

  “The vampire calling himself James Hill currently resides in Las Vegas.”

  “That’s…interesting.” All clues seemed to lead to Sin City these days.

  “Interesting, yes, but not surprising. Las Vegas has always attracted shady characters of all kinds, but recently more so than usual. This unfortunate fact has been a concern of mine.”

  “I want to go to Vegas and get the guy,” Gabe said, not all that interested in Augustine’s concerns.

  “I’d love to indulge you; however, it’s not so simple. You see, in Vegas there’s a vampire who is in many ways my counterpart.”

  “The boss?”

  “If you wish. It would be improper for me to interfere with vampire business in his city. Consequently, if you went, I couldn’t provide you with the usual protection. I have local contacts to give you assistance, but for the most part you’d be on your own. Are you still interested?”

  Gabe didn’t have to think about it. “Yes.”

  “I assume Mr. Feng will be joining you as well?”

  “I don’t think I could convince him to stay behind. When do we leave?”

  “Patience. Proper preparations require time. My secretary, Ellie, found a suitable cover for your presence in Vegas. In early December, a gathering will be held for people who have a fondness for dressing up in costumes and pretending to be like us.”

  “Vamp Con?”

  “I believe that’s what it’s called. You know about it?”