At the desk sits a broad woman with gray hair and jowls like Alfred Hitchcock. Her steely eyes flick over me. "Who are you?"
"I'm Finley Mars." My voice is a thin croak, so I clear my throat before continuing. "Captain Markham bought me for Atlan."
Her brows lift. "He did, eh? Open that coat, girl. Let's have a look at you."
I pick at the knotted belt, but my fingers are shaking, not only from nerves but from my lack of food during the past twenty-four hours. With a sigh, she bustles forward and undoes the knot herself, spreading the panels of the coat wide and scanning my body. Shaking her head, she clucks her tongue. "I thought so. Took pity on you, eh? Little scrawny shrimp of a thing, good for nothing. A sorry blood-bag you'll make. Captain should have picked someone meatier, but no—he's got a soft heart for pretty little waifish ones like you."
I've been called so many horrible things in the past two years that being dubbed a "little scrawny shrimp" and a "sorry blood-bag" barely stings at all. It's true, I know it. I'm too thin from living as a street rat, surviving on whatever edible bits I could find.
"Are there others like me here?"
"We have a full platoon here at Deathcastle, and four vampire warriors. Three of the vampires have their own blood-slaves, and two of those humans were once little wisps like you. They've filled out some, living here. You will, too." She takes the folder of papers from my hand and prods me over to a chair. "Sit, while I look these over. And here—eat this."
Robbins tosses me a pack of crackers, which I nibble slowly so as not to make myself sick. By the time I'm done, she has finished reviewing my documents. She takes a small case from her desks and opens it, revealing an injection kit. "Give me your arm."
Obediently I hold it out, pushing the coat sleeve high up so she has access to the blue-green vein at my elbow.
"What is that?" I eye the needle suspiciously.
"Never been a blood-bag before?"
"No." Until now, I've done everything I could to avoid being a blood-bag or a prostitute; both seemed equally invasive and painful. But with every relative dead, and every member of my old group eaten or turned, and the Shardan Collective owning my ass—I don't have a choice.
"It's a blood volume stimulant," says Robbins. "You'll receive injections of Sanguadyne once a week to help your body restore its blood volume faster than normal. That way you'll be able to sustain your assigned vampire on your own, unless you're ill or injured, in which case we'll hire a temporary substitute until you're well again." She sinks the needle into my thigh and squishes the depressor. "Your appetite will increase along with the demands on your body. Anytime you feel hungry outside of regular meal hours, you can request food. Your job is to stay well-fed and healthy."
I watch the needle pierce my vein, the depressor slowly pushing the liquid into my body. When Robbins removes it, she whips a bit of gauze over the spot. "Apply pressure."
I replace her fingers with mine. "What can you tell me about my assigned vampire?"
"Atlan Echo." She sighs. "Our best fighter here at Deathcastle, and the most stubborn. I'll tell you right now, he's not going to like your being here. He's been dead set on not using a blood-bag."
"Why?"
"He's got a weird set of personal rules, that one. Likes to drink from blood hawkers and temp suppliers, rather than having a blood-slave of his own. But that kind of flaky blood supply isn't good for him—some of those blood hawkers use fillers and that's not good for vamps. Atlan's had mild blood poisoning a couple times recently, plus he's not drinking enough. That's why Captain decided it was time for a change, whether the boy likes it or not."
"Boy?" I raise my eyebrows.
She waves away my surprise. "When you're my age, anyone below forty is just a kid. Atlan's in his twenties, or he looks that way."
I nod, understanding. No matter how he may look, Atlan must be decades older than I am. The serum that made the first vampires was destroyed about forty years ago, during the unrest that followed their creation. Since then, no one has been able to recreate it—a good thing, really, because if it still existed, people would be clamoring to be changed. Being a vampire alters your brain chemistry, your body temperature, and your scent, making you invisible to the zombies and superhero strong at the same time—which is why everyone would demand to take it. Unfortunately, being a vampire also makes you dependent on human blood. So if the serum existed, and everyone had access to it, there would be too many vampires and not enough humans to sustain them.
"It's late," says Robbins. "Want to eat with the other blood-bags or not?"
It grates on me, the way she calls her fellow humans "blood-bags" so carelessly, as if it's the most natural thing in the world. I hate it. Other than calling me a few names, she hasn't been unkind—but I get the feeling she's not one to get cozy with others, especially newcomers. She's one of those people with flat, unreadable eyes, and you're not sure whether they secretly want to be friends with you or if they're plotting your murder while they stare, and stare—
"What'll it be?" she says sharply. "I don't have all night."
"I can eat in my room?"
"I'll allow it for your first few days, until you start work rotations. After that, you'll need to attend regular meals with the others—but like I said, you can ask the kitchen for snacks anytime."
Having a meal alone in a private room sounds like heaven—like the old days before the Gorging, when I used to curl up on the couch in the apartment I shared with Heath and eat General Tso's chicken and eggrolls while watching TV. "I'll eat in my room if that's okay."
"I'll send Sarah with a tray, and you can borrow some of her clothes too. They'll be a touch too big, but they'll do until we buy you some things."
She leads me to the end of the hallway and we mount the steps to the second floor. "This is the soldiers' floor. You may not enter this area or disturb any of them, male or female. They have their job to do, and you have yours. You may associate with the other blood-bags and service staff, but do not fraternize with the soldiers beyond simple politeness. It's for your protection and theirs. Are we clear?"
"Yes." This must be one of the rules the Captain mentioned. I don't mind it at all—I'd rather keep my circle of acquaintances small. Find a few people I can trust, build connections with them. That way, if this place ever gets overrun by a horde, I'll have a little squad of my own like I had at the beginning of this nightmare, after Heath died, before—before everything turned to complete crap.
"Half of the third floor is for the vampires and their blood bags," says Robbins. "The other half is still mostly unfinished."
"The Captain said he was planning to work on the upper floors," I say. "I have experience with minor construction jobs, renovation work. I can be useful."
"Good. Another platoon is scheduled to be stationed here within the next few months. We'll be getting ready for them." Robbins flips a switch, and harsh white light flares through the hallway. I hear a rustle and a scuffle behind a door, movement from something too big to be a pest—but is it a vampire or a human?
"These are two bathrooms, each with a few stalls and a couple showers. The blood-bags share this one, and the vampires use the other. They also have private showers downstairs, for the big messes."
I've seen video clips of vampire warriors coming back from the Hordelands, splattered in rancid gore. I guess a shower would feel really good after a day of killing zombies. And of course they would have to use the toilets, as well. Unlike the vampires in the old myths, real vampires do eat regular food. The blood they consume goes straight into their circulatory system, not their stomachs, and they have to eat vast amounts of protein to keep up their muscle mass and vampire-strength. So of course, they would also need to eliminate waste, too, like any other living—or semi-living—thing.
"May I use the bathroom?" I ask, suddenly conscious of my need. Robbins nods and waits outside while I make use of the facilities. I barely glance at myself in the mirror while I'm washing my
hands—I don't need to see myself to know how my cheekbones jut from my face, how my once full lips are dry and papery, how my eyes stare from dark hollows, made blacker by the copious makeup the slave market aides smeared on me before I was lined up for sale. They added lipstick too—bright red, like blood, a stark contrast to the pallor of my face. There are still traces of the rouge they used to pink my cheeks. I do look like a waif—a fragile scrap of a human girl, not the strong, healthy, mid-twenties elementary school teacher I used to be.
When I emerge from the bathroom, Robbins tightens her lips as if I took much too long.
"Here's Atlan's room." She indicates a door on her left, right at the end of the habitable part of the third floor. The rest of the hall has been closed off, clumsily, with crooked gaps between the haphazardly-placed boards. A chill, musty breeze wafts through the barricade from the dark corridor beyond, stirring my hair, and I shiver.
"Come along." Robbins stands aside, holding the door for me.
Atlan's room is Spartan in its simplicity. A plain metal bedframe with gray blankets, a couple of folding chairs. A closet, half-open, and a dresser. On a metal desk sits a big laptop and a brass banker's lamp with an emerald-green shade. It's the only spot of color in the room, besides the gleaming burnished handles of the katanas and wakizashi swords. There's also a massive nodachi, a huge two-handed battle sword used by samurai. Yeah, I've become something of a weapons connoisseur since the zombie apocalypse, and I can tell, even from a distance, that these things are the real deal—top quality weaponry. It's all I can do not to cross the room and examine them.
Robbins must notice my interest, because she says, "This is Atlan's private space. You are not to touch any of his personal possessions except in the course of your normal duties. In fact, unless you are passing through to the hallway, there's no reason for you to be in here at all."
"Of course."
She opens a door in the right-hand wall. My room is at the very edge of the inhabited space, with just a thin wall separating me from the dark unknown. I don't like it. I prefer rooms within rooms—the more walls between me and the outdoors, the better. In fact, I'd be happy sleeping in Atlan's closet.
I shouldn't be so picky, though. After all, I've been snatching an hour or two of sleep in dumpsters for the past week—until the Shardan Collective's slave-hunters found me and rounded me up with a bunch of other street rats they laid claim to.
This room, this ten by ten square feet of space with a single bed and dresser, is mine, and I should be grateful. I am grateful, even though I'll be bordered by dark nothing on one side and by a freaking vampire on the other.
The thought of his impending proximity spurs one final question.
"The vampire," I say faintly. "Is he—does he—" I hesitate, unable to voice my fear.
"You want to know if he's sexually functional." Robbins nods. "All the blood-bags ask the same question. We've got one sexually active vampire here, and that's Charon. He sleeps with anything that strikes his fancy, including his blood-bag, Harry. Atlan and the other two vampires have no libido to speak of. So no, Atlan won't be creeping into your bed at night. Not that we could stop him if he wanted to. He's our most valuable asset." Robbins narrows her eyes at me. "You'll do what he wants, when he wants it. Understand?"
Somehow I don't think the Captain would approve of her statement. He didn't seem like the type to condone unconditional slavery. Although to be fair, I barely spent any time with him, and he did buy me from a slave market. Maybe I read him wrong.
"I understand." I force the subservient words out between my teeth. It's easier to comply than it would have been two years ago. Desperation has a way of crushing your sense of self-worth. "You won't have any trouble from me."
She nods. "See that light there, above your bed? It's connected to a button in Atlan's room. When he needs blood, he will press the button, and this light will turn red and buzz. That means you're expected to go to him immediately."
"Seems like a phone would be just as easy," I say hopefully. Phones are rare treasures now, since most manufacturers have shut down and the networks are patchy and unreliable due to the ever-spreading Hordelands. But maybe, just maybe, this military outpost can afford phones and service.
"You won't be receiving a phone," says Robbins crisply. "Although we may have an old tablet you can use for reading and a few games. I'll check. If I find one, Sarah will bring it up along with your food and clothes. One more thing. Hold out your arm."
She snaps a smooth metal band around my wrist. It tightens briefly, almost to the point of discomfort, and then loosens again. "This bracelet monitors your blood pressure and heart rate. It will chime once after every half pint, and three times when your blood pressure reaches a minimum safe threshold, so your vampire knows when to stop feeding."
"But won't I keep bleeding, even after he's done?"
"Vampire saliva has healing properties," she says. "When he's done drinking, he'll lick your wound to coagulate the blood, and it will heal over within 24 hours or so. Good as new, no scarring. It's quite something." She almost smiles, and I wonder if she herself has benefited from the marvels of vampire saliva at some point. To me, the process sounds a little gross. I don't think I want to be licked by this Atlan guy, whoever he is.
When Robbins leaves, I stand in the center of the room, torn between joy at my immense good luck and terror at my new kind of vulnerability. Sure, I'm off the streets. Not in a brothel, being savaged by human men, or in a factory, being worked to death. Not in the Hordelands, being torn apart by zombies. I'm lucky. Lucky.
I need to keep my head low. Obey my new master. Mind my manners. After all, every drop of fight has been drained out of me over the course of these past twenty-four months.
Or maybe not.
I'm suddenly conscious that my hands are clenched at my sides, and that they assumed that position when I thought the words, Obey my new master.
Maybe there's a bit of rebellion left in me after all.
3
Atlan
My knee jiggles up and down as I sit in the shabby waiting room. I've been through nearly all the blood-hires in the city, and now I'm down to the dregs—the iffy options who overeat and inject fillers into their bloodstream to increase volume. They usually serve the civilian vampires here in Blue City—the ones who are injured, ailing, or unwilling to fight. Some blood hawkers have regular circuits, traveling to various outposts along the wall where vampires on duty might be willing to pay top dollar for a quick boost.
It drives Markham crazy when I switch blood sources. He fusses at me constantly— "Why can't you stick with one source? It's not good for you to keep changing—what if you're poisoned—who knows what they have in their bloodstream?" And so on and so on.
But I can't stick with a single source. It gets too intimate, too fast. Like with my last supplier, a woman of forty, with five kids. I fed from her for a couple of months, and I was nice to her—too nice, I think. She started giving me these adoring looks, making exaggerated moans and whimpers when I drank from her. It was awkward, and embarrassing.
She wanted something I couldn't give.
These humans always think they can change who I am, that they'll be the ones who can revive what has died in me, what I had before the vampire serum took away the brain cancer and stole something else too—something I didn't value enough until it was gone.
The doctors warned me. Showed me a whole list of potential side effects, big scary ones, and tucked right in the middle of it all was "may experience loss of sex drive, inability to achieve or maintain an erection," yada-yada. I didn't pay much attention to it then, or right after the drug trials—when all of us in the program turned into vampires.
It was hilarious, really. The doctors had no idea what to do with us. They didn't even want to call us vampires for the longest time—tried to come up with some dumb scientific-sounding names. Eventually they caved of course, because what else to you call a blood-sucker with inhuman stre
ngth and healing abilities?
The main component of the serum they used on us was genetic material taken from a prehistoric saber-toothed monster found frozen in the Arctic. Apparently the creature had a unique resistance to cell degeneration and mutation. They threw in some DNA from the Turritopsis dohrnii, or immortal jellyfish, just for good measure. Who knows what else they put into that crazy cocktail, but it all combined to make the first round of test subjects cancer-free, extra strong, and self-healing.
The only drawback was the blood thing. Our bodies couldn't make any more blood cells of their own, and transfusions barely kept us going. We needed to get our replacement blood hot, fresh, and pumping, straight from living donors, or we would lose our energy, start seizing, go into cardiac arrest, and eventually die.
It took months for them to sort it all out, figure out what we needed, and arrange a blood supply—years more to get us all cleared to go home, to live semi-normal lives.
In the meantime, after the first shock subsided, I tried to jerk off a couple times, and I couldn't. Once I got out of the medical facility, I experimented with everything—and I mean everything—before I gave up on ever having an orgasm again. I watched porn for three hours one day, going deeper and weirder, trying to find out if a new kink would make my damn dick stand at attention. No use. I was barely even interested in the images on my screen.
Turns out, contrary to what every TV show and movie would have you believe, sex isn't essential. Who knew? Life can be fulfilling, even fun, without it. I'm fine. Just fine. I barely miss it.
I lean back on the blood-hire's scratchy orange couch and try to relax; but at that moment the door opens and a skinny vampire girl slinks out of the back room. She doesn't look well at all—must be one of the vampires from the later rounds of serum trials.
The same team of researchers who treated me adjusted their cancer-curing formula several months later and tried again—without government approval, of course—luring in more desperate patients who were ready to risk anything for a miracle. The doctors kept on trying for the next ten years, pumping out fresh generations of vampires, most of whom lacked the strength or healing abilities of the first generation.
Enslaved To The Vampire Zombie-Hunter (Pandemic Monsters Book 1) Page 2
