Bloodshot

by Cherie Priest

  Depending on which frothy-mouthed Internet pulpit-beater I chose to believe, Holzter Point might conceal anything from alien artifacts to Bigfoot’s sperm samples, plus a few pickled flipper babies from Three Mile Island and Jimmy Hoffa’s stomach contents. I’d like to make fun of those guys, but I had information from a blind vampire that the storage facility held details of medical experiments conducted by the military on the unwilling undead.

  So far be it from me to call anyone nuts.

  I composed an email to a mortal colleague of mine, a guy whom I jokingly call the Bad Hatter. Hey, if I’m Cheshire Red, we might as well run with the Wonderland theme, right? We also have a Red Queen and a White Rabbit. Someone get us a White Queen and a set of flamingo croquet mallets and we’ll be in business.

  Though when I talk about Duncan being my colleague, I only mean it in jest. At best he and I (and those other couple of specialists) are a loose network of freelancers. You see, sometimes when you work by yourself in a field such as ours, it helps to share knowledge among professionals. I’m not saying that we watch one another’s backs or anything, because we don’t. It’s more of a back-scratching than a back-watching affair, as in, “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.”

  Officially, none of us has ever heard of any of us.

  In real life, I’ve got a few email addresses and a phone number or two. I don’t use them often, and the freelancers don’t often use mine. But if I can help a brother out, it’s often worth the trouble of doing so. A year or two previously, the Hatter needed some specs to help him pilfer on-site from a marine recovery operation. I gave him the hookup, and now I needed a hookup in return.

  I didn’t know much about Duncan. I might’ve been able to find out more with a little digging, but as a matter of professional courtesy I never tried. I’d inferred that he’d been part of some special forces branch, and he’d demonstrated before that he was savvy about military affairs and locales.

  So when I wanted a few preliminary observations about Holtzer Point, he was the man to ask. While I was at it, I double-checked the envelope and added a query about “Jordan Roe,” whatever that was. As far as the Internet was concerned, it didn’t exist. And in this day and age, if the Internet says it doesn’t exist, it’s either dead boring or totally fascinating in a top secret men-in-black kind of way.

  After hitting SEND, I leaned back and pondered my next move. The scrap of paper beside my laptop was still staring at me, with that one word “Major” snagging my eyeball every time it rolled past.

  I picked it up again, made an educated guess as to whether the first number was a five or a six, and plugged the sequence into my cell phone. Someone else’s phone rang twice, and was answered by a scowl I could hear all the way over on my end of the line.

  “Who is this?”

  I don’t want to sound like one of those bitchy old ladies who fusses all the time about how kids these days have no manners at all, but just once I’d like to hear someone answer a phone with “hello.”

  I said, “Hello?” And maybe it was just because I’d had army-on-the-brain all evening, but I went ahead and guessed, “Major?”

  “Who is this? How did you get this number?”

  He didn’t answer my question. This called for multitasking. While I laid out the fresh-from-my-ass story, I went into the kitchen and opened a drawer. “I got the number from Trevor,” I said. I pulled out a cheap prepaid cell phone. (I keep a small stash. I’m paranoid, remember?) “He said you wanted to talk about the website?” I put a Valley girl question mark at the end of the sentence because I had now officially exhausted every ounce of information I possessed.

  “The website? Trevor?” he grumbled, sounding confused. For a minute, I was afraid I’d blown it.

  “For Northwest Parcours Addicts?” While I fumbled with the conversation I fumbled with the extra cell phone, too. I dialed in the digits of the number I’d just called. “You know. Trevor. From the website. I think you talked to him already, and he said I should talk to you, too.”

  I was repeating myself, trying to keep him on the line—even if I sounded like a moron.

  I guessed lucky and he ignored the in-beeping of my other call.

  He said, “Oh yeah. Him. I didn’t tell him he could pass this number along to anybody!”

  “But I’m … special,” I said lamely. I totally winged the rest. “Trevor said you were looking for the best, but he wouldn’t say what you wanted. He said I’d have to talk to you myself if I wanted in.”

  “Did he, now?”

  “Yes sir,” I said, and right at that moment the voice-mail system picked up on the other phone. I struggled to listen to both devices at once.

  He replied, “If you’re looking to pick up some extra cash, we might be able to talk, but I don’t need any weekend tea parties, honey. You said Trevor pointed you my way?”

  Great. A terrible phone persona, and a sexist pig to boot. “Yes, and I don’t do tea parties but I’m a world-class trespasser.”

  I would’ve said more, but the voice mail was prattling in my other ear. It said, “You’ve reached the desk of Major Ed Bruner, I’m unavailable right now …,” and the rest was typical phone etiquette denouement. But I had a name. Major Bruner. Aka Ed. I snapped the other phone shut and gave the living, breathing major my full attention.

  “Trespasser, eh?” he said. “I thought you kids didn’t like that word.”

  “Some kids don’t, but I like to call a spade a spade,” I told him. I don’t really sound like a kid on the phone. If anything, I have a somewhat low-pitched voice for a woman, but I got the impression it didn’t matter. I had tits, so I was going to get talked down to. I played along for expediency’s sake.

  “That’s good, that’s fine,” he said. “All right, then. What’s your specialty?”

  “My … my specialty?” He had me there. I was all out of bullshit, and I needed a prompt.

  “Yeah. Specialty. Trevor has some martial arts training, doesn’t he?”

  “Oh yeah, he’s a ninja all right. But I don’t have any training like that,” I admitted, once again trying to stick to the truth in order to make better lies. “Look, why don’t you just tell me what you’re looking for, and I’ll tell you if I think I can be of any service, eh?”

  “Pushy little thing, aren’t you?”

  “Sometimes, very. Now are we just wasting each other’s time here, or what?”

  He was quiet so long that I thought maybe he’d hung up. Then he said, “You must understand, I can’t ask you to do anything, and I can’t publicly pay you to do anything. There would never be any transaction between us.”

  Translation: Say anything to anyone, and I’ll deny the hell out of it. This whole operation is under the table.

  “I can live with that,” I said. “If Trevor says it’s okay with him, then it’s okay with me.”

  Someone interrupted him, and he put his hand over the receiver so I couldn’t hear the chatter. I did hear it, but it wasn’t very interesting—just somebody telling him that an appointment had canceled.

  When he returned his attention to me, he said, “Do you have an email address?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Give it to me, and I’ll send you some information. We can talk more later, maybe.”

  I pretended to balk. “Not so fast, buddy. I want to know what I’m getting myself into. Can’t you just give me a hint?”

  “Give me your address and I’ll give you a hint.”

  “Fine,” I fussed, and then I gave him a Hotmail account I keep under a phony name. “Now, please. Hint.”

  Before abruptly hanging up, he said one word: “Reconnaissance.”

  I hated to admit that it chilled me. It was the worst possible word he could’ve uttered for the sake of a hint, because it told me just enough to get me good and worried. Someone was doing reconnaissance in my building? Why?

  I tried to convince myself that it was just another stupid homeland security i
nitiative, but I kept thinking about Ian, and what happened to him, and I couldn’t distract myself from the fact that I’d kept the factory for fifty years and really, I knew better. That was too long, and I was getting soft. The longer I held still, the better chance I had of being caught. That was old-school criminal wisdom, right there, and I hadn’t been taking my own advice.

  I slammed my laptop shut and disconnected it in an irrational fit. I stuffed it down into my purse, which was easily big enough to function as a laptop bag, and it very often did. I often called it my “go-bag” or sometimes my Useful Things Bag, because it had everything I needed in order to go. And all of it’s useful. The computer knocked against the Glock. I’d forgotten I’d brought it with me, but I was glad to have it. I might need it.

  I was working my way up to a panic attack, but I couldn’t figure out how to stop it. I frantically flailed for something else to think about, and I settled on Ian Stott. I could call him, couldn’t I? And I could talk to him, and it would make me feel better all around. It was business, yes, but he was personable.

  Cal answered the phone, which surprised me more than it ought to have.

  To his credit, he didn’t ask any questions when I asked for Stott; he just handed off the phone to his master like a good little ghoul. Ian must’ve been somewhere else in the house. It took a minute or two for the phone to find him.

  “Hello?” he said, and ah, yes. I’d finally gotten my phone hello.

  “Hello,” I said back, trying not to sound too relieved. “Listen, I’ve got some questions I want to run past you, is that all right?” Simply the act of speaking normally was deflating my fear, which only meant that I kept on speaking well past the point where I should’ve let Ian have a turn. “If you don’t want to chat on the phone—you said that before, didn’t you? That you didn’t like to talk on the phone?—then we could meet again someplace. I don’t mind if you don’t mind.”

  He took a few seconds to answer me. I think he was making sure I’d finished babbling. “That would be fine. Is your preference still public but reserved? Or could I persuade you to join me at my suite?”

  “You have a suite?”

  “Well, I don’t live here in Seattle. I’ve made arrangements for myself and Cal downtown.” He named a high-end, high-rise establishment, and I complimented him on his taste. He said, “Thank you. Yes, it’s quite nice. You can find me in room number twenty-one sixty-seven.”

  “I’ll be there in an hour,” I told him.

  I was there in forty-five minutes.

  By then, I wasn’t quite such a wreck. I let the thought of seeing him again serve as distraction and comfort. I know, I know. He wasn’t good “friend” material just because he was pretty and he couldn’t see me very well. I’d learned the hard way, through the trial and error of almost a century, that other vampires and I are simply not meant to hang out.

  So what was I doing knocking on his door, feigning a business call, using him as a safe zone to bail myself out of a psychic meltdown?

  I have no excuse except for my own weaknesses, though when he opened the door, I was prepared to amend that list of excuses to include Ian’s cheekbones.

  He was wearing black slacks, soft leather slip-on shoes, and a fitted shirt with three-quarter sleeves. The effect was rich-guy casual, and it did a beautiful job of showcasing the long, lean lines of his torso.

  “Please, come in,” he said—and I was glad someone had said something, because I’d just been standing there with my mouth hanging open. As a second thought, I was also glad that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, because that meant he hadn’t seen me standing there with my mouth hanging open.

  Selfish? Yes, very. But also practical. Silver lining, and all that.

  “Thank you,” I said as I slipped in past him, because all this politeness was cheering me up and I felt like participating. I thought about my list of questions and how I’d left them at home beside my bed, but that was all right. I remembered what I wanted to know.

  Inside the suite the décor was exactly what you’d expect from accommodations that cost a few thousand dollars a night—understated luxury on a taupe palette with maroon and silver accents. The bed was offset by a pair of folding double doors, and a lovely sitting room ensemble was parked off to the side of a full kitchen. A fruit-filled gift basket sat ignored on the granite counter.

  “Could I offer you some wine? You preferred white last night, is that correct?”

  “That’s correct, and thanks for the offer, but no. I’ve still got a long night ahead of me.” And I didn’t add that I was feeling kind of stupid about coming down to see him in the first place. You’d think I’d learn, eventually—panic attacks pass. They pass, and I always feel ridiculous for whatever escape measures I took while attempting to rid myself of them.

  “Then I hope you don’t mind if I indulge,” he said, retrieving a crystal goblet from a track above the sink.

  “By all means.”

  “And won’t you have a seat?” He waved a lovely hand at the settee, and I gratefully—but gracefully—dropped myself into it. The brocade cover was posh and lumpy. I settled against it while he poured himself a glass. He took the seat across from me, where I noticed a slim white cane had been left propped against the arm. He must’ve gotten to know his temporary quarters exceedingly well for how easily he navigated them. If I hadn’t known, I would’ve never guessed that he was blind.

  He said, “You had some questions for me?”

  “I did, yes. I mean, I do. I’ve gone through the information in the packet. I’m still in the process of tracking down a few of the finer points of this project, but I think it might help if you could tell me a bit about what happened to you—and where you were.”

  He didn’t exactly frown, and he wasn’t exactly upset with me. But he didn’t want to talk about it, that much was apparent. “As I understand it,” he said, “the documents are not housed at the place where I was … kept.”

  “That’s true, or it looks like it’s true. But in case Cal didn’t fill you in on the blocking out, more than half of the info in that paperwork has been declared ‘sensitive’ by the feds, so any scrap of fact you can throw my way will be helpful.”

  Ian took a hard swallow and reached for his cane. He fiddled with the end of it while he spoke. “I was kept on a base in Florida called Jordan Roe, on a small island off the west coast. But the base is no longer operational, or so I am led to believe.”

  “That letter you included certainly implied as much. Speaking of which, where’s Cal? Is he lurking around here someplace, listening in?”

  Translation: Does he sleep in here with you? Just curious.

  “Cal is in his room next door.” Ah. So that’s why it took him so long to deliver the phone call.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry. I’m just—” I was going to say “paranoid” as a plausible excuse, but he cut me off by saying, “Careful.”

  “Careful, sure. I like that word better.”

  “You can hardly be blamed. It’s a dangerous line of work you’re in. I suppose it must be very exciting.”

  I saw what he was trying to do, divert the subject from my line of questioning, but I wouldn’t have it. I said, “Sometimes. Sometimes it’s disgusting, and sometimes it’s boring. But sometimes, yes. Exciting. Now tell me, Ian, if you would please. You weren’t alone on this island, were you? There were other vampires there, according to what you gave me—or at the very least, there were other subjects present.”

  “There were … other subjects, yes.”

  I noted his failure to use the word vampires, and I hoped he’d take another drink or two to loosen himself up, or we’d never get anywhere.

  I was about to ask in a more pointed fashion when he sensed my impatience and added, “I can’t tell you anything about them. I couldn’t see them. One of them was a vampire, yes, but the other two—I’m not sure. And there were new additions by the time I escaped—one more vampire, but I didn’t
recognize anyone else’s scents. They could’ve been anything, or something altogether outside my experience.”

  “Ooh,” I said, not for being impressed, but for being distressed. “Wow. The implications of that. Huh.” If the military knew about vampires, and it knew about a few of the other less conventional brands of humanity, too, then what was the big plot? They obviously weren’t trying to recruit us, which was sort of a shame. I imagined a full unit of vampire soldiers and I got a little giddy, and distracted.

  Bad idea, maybe. But it’d be epic, wouldn’t it?

  “Yes, the implications. They’re quite alarming, if you ask me.”

  “But I am asking you, Ian. I’m asking you to tell me what you know, and what you learned about the project, and how you left it. I’m sorry if you feel like I’m prying, but I think it’s important that I know how you escaped.”

  “I can’t imagine what that has to do with anything,” he said, but I could tell I’d worn him down. His words said “No, and go away.” But his tone said, “If it’ll get you off my back, fine.”

  He sighed and folded his hands in his lap, though he twisted them together as the story began to unspool.

  “It was summer and quite warm, I remember that much. And I could smell the ocean, but then again I always could. The island was scarcely three miles long and a mile wide; regardless of how deeply they kept us underground and isolated, the smell of salt and seabirds always wafted down. They opened doors, they closed doors. The breeze came and went, even in the filtered air down below. After a while it was something I lived for, small and sad as that may sound. I lived to hear the slide of the glass and the peep of the electronic lock, because when the doors opened, I could smell the night outside.

  “In time, I could tell when the tide was high or low, just by the scent. I cannot explain how, not in a thousand years. But that awareness, for lack of a better way of putting it … that awareness was the first sign that something was changing.”

  “In the laboratory?” I asked, not sure where he was headed with this.

  “No. In me. And I’m sorry, but I can’t be more precise. I can’t give words to something like this. I can only describe what happened, I can’t tell you how it happened. And what happened was that, at first, I could sense the tides outside—just by the smell of the air the workers brought downstairs with them when the shifts changed.”