Vampire.
I repeated the test a dozen more times using different dishes and slides and even a paper towel — which was a terrible idea, given the flammable qualities of paper towels — to make sure the equipment wasn’t contaminated. I dug other holders and slides out from under the benches, in the closets, from every cupboard and surface. Even though it was irrational, I took samples from my legs and toes and hip in the off chance that some of my blood wasn’t contaminated.
Every time, every drop of blood smoked and sizzled and burned to nothing. I exposed samples to other forms of light, even the microwave and oven and regular fire, but nothing caused the same reaction as the UV rays.
Fuck me running, as Betsy’s rather colloquial husband would say.
So maybe vampires existed.
Maybe.
An echo of a chuckle reached me from Dragomir, followed by a sense of his relief that I’d started to believe. Or at least that I’d acknowledged the possibility vampires walked the earth. Apparently that made our negotiations easier.
It didn’t help my peace of mind or my pros and cons list.
I sat in the lab for a long, long time. The universe reoriented itself and started to make a bit more sense as my worldview adjusted. If yetis existed, why not vampires? The real miracle was how Dragomir got that much lab equipment into a windowless cave and found generators to run all of it. It didn’t occur to me to envy his immortality but I damn near turned green once I rummaged through the lab and realized just how much quality shit he’d crammed into the limited space.
If I worked and saved every day of my life, I’d never afford the setup he already had at his fingertips as some biology dilettante. Maybe putting up with the creepy psychosis would have been worth a few hours with the centrifuge and sequencer and the fancy computers in the closet that I hadn’t even powered up…
Dragomir wanted to use me to solve his daylight problem. Maybe I could use him to solve a few problems of my own – starting with processing samples, general testing, and data crunching – in addition to finding Jamie. Researching a solution for him could have taken years working out of my cabin, but using his lab or at least getting him to fund time in one of the nearby college labs meant making progress on his work as well as mine.
With all that technology and the time to use it… I could finally align the proof necessary to vindicate my research and show the world what I’d found. Proof. He offered me the chance to prove what I knew to be true but no one else believed.
And if that proof included that vampires existed… so be it.
I sat at the kitchen table, grinding through as many scenarios and combinations of variables as possible, when Dragomir reappeared. He looked fresh as a daisy, though I hadn’t heard him in the bathroom at any point, and took the chair across from me like it was any normal breakfast and I needed to get the coffee on.
He folded his hands on the table and surveyed the mess I’d made, with crumpled up paper and broken pencils and empty pens strewn about. “I see you managed to open the lab.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Do werewolves exist?”
“Sure.”
I frowned as I eyed him, uncertain whether he lied or was just fucking with me, and scribbled another note. Werewolves, zombies, mummies, witches… What else consorted with vampires? Were they products of evolution, or some kind of metaphysical otherness that defied logical explanation? “Did you see them yourself, or did you ask about them?”
“Who would I ask?”
“I don’t know, some kind of supernatural clubhouse? Is there some structure around you? Masters and subordinates, houses, lairs, murders, whatever? A vampire queen or a zombie country club?”
His eyebrows rose in polite disbelief. “This is what you want to discuss?”
“If you want me to believe this, you’ve got to give me data.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” he said. “And you can believe what you like. What is relevant to me, Ada, is whether you’re prepared to assist me.”
I massaged my temples and put my pen down, shaking a cramp out of my hand. The cuts in my arm had started healing, though they looked too methodical, too precise, compared to the other nicks and dings I carried with me from a life in the woods. The speed at which they’d healed left me nauseated and uneasy every time I remembered why they healed so quickly. “I am… prepared to admit to the possibility that I could contribute something to solving your problem.”
“That is a place to start.” Dragomir tilted his head at my lists.
“I need to talk to my friends,” I said. “Let them know that I’m okay. Make up a story to tell them about where I am.”
A shadow crossed his expression. “We will come to an arrangement depending on how long this will take.”
“If no one’s figured it out in a few centuries…” I glanced at him. “Or longer? Millennia? How long have you guys been around?” When he waved his hand to dismiss my question, I made a face. “It might take a while. I don’t want to take advantage of your hospitality for that long, believe me.”
“You have been here several days,” he said. His whole face soured. “They already search for you – so many it was difficult to conceal signs of your whereabouts.”
I sat up as my heart thumped faster. I knew Betsy would have at least looked for me – or forced her husband to do it – but having a full search party… I cleared my throat around a sudden knot of emotion. “Right. Well, I have some data gathering to do here, then I can work from home for a while.”
Even though the thought of staying in that dark, windowless place made the back of my neck prickle, the opportunity to study him up close almost overwhelmed my responsibility to let friends and family know I still lived. I marked one of the less-crumpled papers near my elbow with a few notes as I studied him. Dragomir didn’t blink, nor did he appear to breathe, even in exaggerated motions to mimic human behaviors. A few faint tattoos gave no real indication of his ethnicity or ideological affiliation, though they had smudged into blurry nonsense. Perhaps blood didn’t circulate through Dragomir at all, which could present a challenge if any kind of intravenous solution was needed to protect from the sun.
“Focus, Montgomery,” he said, tone dry. “Two days more, then I will return you to where the humans can find you.”
Which sounded about as pleasant as a sharp stick in the eye. “Where the humans can find me?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “With a believable reason for having disappeared for so long, of course.”
“Let me just stipulate that I have to be alive in order to find this cure for you.”
“Noted. It may have been some time since I watched the sun rise, but I have some memory of it. You are of no use to me dead – thus the energy I expended on saving your life.”
“Right.” I took a deep breath and retrieved more paper, though my eyes itched and started to droop. “I’d like to start with –”
Dragomir’s eyes flashed silver and he handed me a small bottle. “You should take this.”
“What is it?” The bottle sloshed as I shook it, though I didn’t unstopper it and swig it down. I knew better than that. Grad school lesson number two.
“Whiskey, with a few drops of my blood.”
I put the bottle down and barely kept from wiping my hand off on the thin fabric of my scrubs. “I’ll take the whiskey but not – the other.”
“You will be able to concentrate,” he said. “Laser focus. You will not be tired nor will you require sleep to rejuvenate your mind or body. If you wish to make the full use of the next two days, you should partake of the gift I offer.”
A gift? He couldn’t really believe… I watched the bottle warily, flicking my nail against it. His blood saved my life after the fall. Clearly it had some of the superpowers he mentioned, so it was entirely possible that it would provide all the benefits he claimed. Gulping it down by choice felt somewhat different from having it administered intravenously while unconscious and dying. My stomach clenched at the thought of drinking someone else’s blood, and not just because of the communicable disease aspect. Blood, despite being composed mostly of water and proteins, carried more than just oxygen when it circulated through a body. It carried life itself. And to take that willingly from something else and bring it into my own body in order to take strength from it…
Irrational and magical thinking, of course, but that didn’t entirely eliminate its mythic, cultural power.
I shivered. He’d mentioned crossing the Rubicon before, when I asked for his assistance in dealing with whoever might have caused my brother’s disappearance, but it felt instead that swallowing blood established the real threshold.