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The heavy rain gave me cover to run faster than I would have normally. Knowing where to find Crow, I just wanted to get back to my apartment and think of a plan. If I could sneak into this city three years ago, I could sneak out of it. Memories of Crow skipped in my mind as droplets of water blinded me. For all of two seconds, I was back in the protective walls of the human reservation, jumping in puddles with him before I heard the screams. Coming to a full stop, I tumbled to the pavement, skidding across it about a foot. In the next instance, a horse galloped by then another, barely missing my head. I popped up, jumping to my feet. There was only one reason the Sforce used the horses. Zombies. For one thing, they scared the humans off the street. Only a couple of weeks ago, I’d been infected myself. The thought exhausted me as I heard more screams and sirens.
The powers that be were not going to be happy with another scare. Officials in Sanguis City were sure Zombies didn’t just happen, not in their city anyway. The humans on the streets tonight would be rounded up, go through decon and be isolated. My fangs would no longer spare me from the same treatment. I began walking away from the commotion, but it happened also to be the wrong direction, away from the fringe.
I looked to see my jacket was torn, my elbow, bloody and sticking out. Touching my cheek, it hurt. I’d heal quickly but the blood was a beacon, a flashing neon sign that said come eat me to the zombies. I hated to go to Savy’s place but what choice did I have? After walking in the sputtering rain around ten blocks, I saw the lights of Our Gospel Hospital and felt safer already. She lived near where we both used to work. Speeding through the familiar courtyard, I was relieved when I reached her door. Pushing her button to buzz the intercom of her upstairs apartment, I waited and heard a different voice answer on the other end. “Clare?” I asked.
“Yes,” sang her cheerful voice. “Is that you Noir?... Are you okay?”
I wasn’t. I was soaking wet and confused. “Where’s Savy?”
“Moved. I’d invite in you but...” her voice cut off.
“You live here?” I waited, but she didn’t respond.
Clare opened the door and stepped out of the building, carefully staying under the awning. An awning wasn’t going to help me, but I swiped the water off my face. “You live here?” I repeated.
She nodded. “I was kicked out.”
“Because of me?”
“Yeah, just out of the dorm though.”
“I’m sorry.” It didn’t make any sense. Clare hadn’t been involved.
“Darlene took care of it,” she shrugged. Darlene was her vampire girlfriend who happened to be more loaded than the average vamp. “But we got in a fight. I’m on my own now. Savy sold me this place, so it’ll all work out.”
“She move in with Jef?” It was the only explanation.
“Yeah,” she said carefully. I must have been making her nervous. Even though she was always too happy for my tastes, I missed her jolly demeanor now. I hated I’d caused her any trouble.
Calling from the hall behind Clare came Martha’s voice, “Is that you Noir? Come in and sit a spell.”
The vampire landlady loved me, but she also talked and smoked nonstop. As much as I wanted shelter, I couldn’t get her in trouble either. “Guess I need to go.”
She stopped me. “I promised to hold your room for you.”
I smiled, happy that Savy kept her word regardless of her not telling me she was moving in with Jef.
Clare quickly went on, “I’ll be happy to have you here when you get things straightened out but until then, I can’t risk it. Not with Darlene mad at me.”
“What happened between you two?” I asked because they were so good together.
“She wanted to make me a vampire because of this Zombie shit.” She crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “I’m not ready for it.”
“I understand.” When a vampire asked a bleeder to make that choice, it’s a kin to a marriage proposal. Clare would be connected to Darlene forever. Looking at the ring on my finger, I refused to go to Sander’s place, but I had to leave Clare’s doorstep. Waving goodbye, I walked on wondering if Tombs would still have company.
Turning the corner, I saw a pay phone and called what was now my home. Darius didn’t answer, but I left a message. “Hey. I’m not going to make it back tonight. Please take care of Lodi for me... until I make it back. I’ll owe you.” I paused for around thirty seconds, thinking of how to frame my predicament. Figuring the witch couldn’t do much for me, I didn’t ask for his help, but I hung up confident my new pet would be okay. Lodi could even leave if he needed to.
Stepping out of the booth, I saw it. Across the street stood a rotting corpse. It saw me too. Unlike the one who attacked me before this former person had been infected awhile. Bubbling greyish skin where there was still skin but mostly exposed oozing red tissue where there wasn’t, zombies weren’t pretty. These were almost always naked and hunched over, looking more like walking slabs of meat than people. My eyesight keen, I watched it bare its fangs. Fangs? I froze, fear paralyzing me until it zoomed, practically leaping across the street. Sort of falling into the booth, I shut the doors quick, but it hadn’t mattered. The glass broke, raining down around me with a loud crash. I’d thrown my arms around my head, hands over my neck, tucking my face between my knees just like I’d learned to in our zombie drills. A bite on the hand was better than in the jugular. But just like when I was attacked before nothing happened.
Looking up I saw the flashing lights and the zombie was gone. Two bleeders in uniform hauled me out of the frame of a phone booth. Too stunned to fight, I was thrown against the car, my hands cuffed behind my back in vampire proof cuffs no doubt. They fit the cage, the headgear to protect them from a bite, over my head next, locking it into place before they frisked me, taking Quixon’s gun and emptying my pockets then shoved me by the neck into the back seat.
Oh, this was great. I could survive a zombie attack but was being arrested.
“Didn’t you see the zombie?” I asked the officer as he called in my charges over his radio. “I didn’t break the phone booth,” I complained to no one since they were ignoring me.
“She’s unregistered too,” the man spoke into the receiver on his shoulder.
When they removed me from the car, I saw we were downtown at the Sforce precinct instead of Central, the scary place I’d been taken when I’d been caught without papers before. I supposed I was in their system now, so I wasn’t as much of a threat anymore. Even though they hadn’t believed me about the zombie, I was led to a small room and stripped naked by two other bleeders, men, them cutting my clothes off with unusually large scissors. I couldn’t do anything but close my eyes and hold my breath as they hosed me down with the strong disinfectant. Naked of everything except Sander’s stupid ring and dripping wet, I was taken to a cell and locked in before I was given a towel and a gown through the bars. “How am I supposed to...?” I started before I saw the guard wanted me to back up to the bars for him to unlock my cuffs and metal hood.
Somewhat free, I dried myself off and put on the gown, thinking it looked like a little girl’s nightgown. Unlike a hospital gown, it went over my head and hung down to my knees at least. I might have wanted pants or at least underwear, but I was thankful for that. This was a shitty turn of events. I couldn’t even sleep as I had a visitor as soon as I was dressed. A petite but sleek vampire with rich brown bobbed hair styled professionally stood in front of my cell. In her captain’s uniform, she looked just as stunning as any model. Vampires were all about being attractive but some were better looking than others. Quixon’s boss Saline had Latin blood in her veins making her skin a beautiful hue only matched by her big warm eyes and prominent cheekbones. She scrutinized me, her hands held behind her back, her shoulders back and back straight. I plopped down on my cot because I was worn out.
“Unregistered, destruction of property and now we find you took out an officer tonight.”
Quixon, damn, I’d had his wallet on me and his gun. How worse could this get?
Saline spoke, “I know you.” She held a look on her face, making me think she knew about Quixon’s deal with Zeus, but I couldn’t be sure.
“I’ll make it simple. I need another bleeder on the street. You have a choice between working for me or being transferred to Central.”
I opened my mouth, shocked she was offering me a job.
“At Central they’ll sign you up for M.S. most likely ship you out of the city to a work camp.”
She thought she was convincing me but my brain went another way. I needed out of the city. “I won’t work for you.”
The vampire’s face didn’t react, but she lifted her chin. “Very well.” Saline was gone and so was my shot at a normal life again. Instead, I got a roomie. A human was thrown in with me. She was clean and naked but still bleeding from several cuts.
Keeping her distance from me, she dressed and soon slept on the cot across from me. Smelling her blood, my stomach rumbled. Eww... I thought, but it didn’t stop the memory of liquid copper running down my throat. I put my pillow over my head to try to stop the scent of fresh blood from reaching my nose and because they kept the lights on, probably to drive vampire offenders mad. I closed my eyes tight and tried to sleep.
As if in a dream, I loomed over the human, smelling her, licking my lips. My stomach gurgled painfully. Imagining sinking my teeth into her flesh, I licked her neck. The girl screamed. Fuck, I wasn’t dreaming. I had my mouth on her.
“Get the fuck off of me!”
A guard walked by, raising his eyebrows but did nothing. As quick as lightening, I straightened and backed away, frightened by my actions.
“You don’t want to drink me,” the girl warned with a hateful whisper.
“No, I don’t,” I said steadily, still feeling the void in the pit of my stomach, but wondered what the hell was up with her. Just as I thought it, I found it easy to walk in her mind, find the scene she was thinking of at the moment. The girl didn’t carry her own blood but other people’s blood mixed with vampire blood, tainted with what she hoped could make them all sick. She’d planned to get caught shoplifting, sent to Central to be drained, juiced, pulverized. It was as if she was a suicide bomber and the bomb was her bad blood. I wanted to shout it out to warn them, but it was already too late. She wasn’t the only one. And they already knew. What Tombs had said made sense. The reason he was feeding Caesar instead of the vampire drinking from the supply. The reason Sander was drinking alcohol at the wake instead of his usual hot blood. They had to have known their supply was at risk. Searching further as she fell back to sleep, I discovered she was indeed part of the resistance out on the fringe, but her leaders were a mystery to her.
Soon I was woken up and transferred to Central, all before dawn. The whole process repeated, I was cuffed, my head caged for the hours’ drive. For some stupid reason, I was stripped and hosed again. After being isolated in my room, more like a metal box than a jail cell, I put on another rather stained gown and slept like the dead.
I got up to the guards collecting me for my trial. Again, I was cuffed but luckily, they left my head free. Standing in a long line, I debated on what I would say. I wanted to be sent away after all. When I got to the front, the guard told me. “Walk through the room as quickly as you can but don’t run. You’re only on trial for these counts.” He handed me a piece of paper outlining my charges. “Only think of them as you walk by her or she’ll know all your secrets.”
Her? I stepped into an all white room and turned my head to see a little girl vampire with tan skin and jet black hair sitting to one side on the floor with her legs crisscrossed as if she were meditating. She opened her eyes and they were a spooky white, no pupil or anything. I flashed across the space of about twenty feet as I felt her dig in my head.
Freaked out, I was taken back to my room. The recommended bleeder meal was waiting for me, the fauxfood bar and protein drink that I’d learned contained more than vitamins. They were basically made of people juice. I’d have to go hungry, but at least I knew it was nighttime since the bar was dinner flavored. Curled up on my cot, I thought about my strange hunger last night as it started again. Good thing I didn’t have a roommate, it was just me and a toilet. Trying to ignore the hunger, I tried to go back to sleep. I figured I’d needed all the rest I could get so when they sent me to a work camp, I could escape and find the sanatorium.
The next time my door opened Sander entered looking like a million bucks in starched dark slacks and a crisp lavender button up shirt, the top button left undone. He sat on my cot, but I didn’t budge as I felt the stupid jolt of sexual longing from being near him flow through me. I knew he was here to bail me out. I didn’t want his help.
“Are you ready to get out of here?” He asked, his voice certain I’d be happy about it.
“No, actually, I’ll take the punishment,” I told him, through the side of my mouth, my face scrunched, lying against the pancake like pillow. “I’m not leaving with you. I’m not your wife, not really.”
“I remembered you’d said that, so I didn’t use my influence to free you. You have been punished. They’ve sentenced you to mandatory service.”
“Good.”
Sanders hand petted my back, sending a shiver through me. “You’ve got community service for life. Mandatory Service. Usually you’d be sent to a work camp to tend fields or with you, they’d probably put you on S.D., make you a scavenger. Now you’re up for auction to the highest bidder. The vampires need clean blood and trustworthy housekeepers to replace the human help.”
“You knew the rebellion planned to mess with the blood banks?”
“Vampires have been getting sick all week from drinking straight from willing humans. They’re a little too willing if you catch my drift. We knew it was only a matter of time before they tried to taint the supply.”
I shrugged but you couldn’t tell with me lying down.
He went on, “The resistance is closer than ever to creating an infection to wipe us out. We have to flush the supply and in the meantime get the humans under control.”
“What will you drink?”
“Well, the lucky vampire will already have a harem of bleeders he or she regularly beds. The ones who have to keep to themselves will have to order takeout.”
“The losers like you, right?” I joked about him ordering out. Then it slowly seeped in and I said, defeated, “So, I’m sentenced to mandatory service and you need clean blood. So you’re the highest bidder.”
“Yes, I bought your license.” He sounded delighted.
It was bad enough he thought we were married. Now he owned another piece of me. “I’d rather be juiced.”
“It’s not going to happen. Would you rather go on the auction block?”
“Anything would be better than being stuck with you.”
“I hear there’s a taste test. Come on,” he urged. “Don’t embarrass me. I’d hate to drag you out of here kicking and screaming.”
I sat up, resigned.
Sander went to the door to get the guards. Pouting, I was put in shackles again before they’d let me out of the room. At least going with Sander was freedom if not my plan. I was kicking myself. I could have been working for Saline, would have probably gotten a proper license. In the nasty gown, I moved down the hall in between the two guards and Sander, wishing I could run away. Knowing better, I’d wait until we were out of here. However, we weren’t just leaving. Sander filled paperwork out, and a woman fitted me with a silver ankle bracelet. The bracelet was probably the same invincible alloy they used to make the vampire proof cuffs, with enough silver so they couldn’t break free but not enough to burn them and kill them. I wouldn’t be able to remove it either, no one was strong enough to break it.
The woman who’d been at my feet asked him, “What’s the perimeter, sir? Do you want her to be able to move around the city freely?”
“No, she’ll be confined to this address,” Sander answered, pointing to the forms he filled out.
I wanted to kick him. Then I heard I would be delivered to him in a couple of hours. Sander left, and I waited in a holding area with more than fifty other bleeders. They had to screen me and make absolutely sure my blood was safe to drink.
“Isn’t this great?” A woman sitting beside me beamed.
I just looked at her. This was horrible. I’d been so close to getting out of the city to find Crow. Never mind I’d have to break into the sanatorium then sneak back in, summon a daemon to get my wish fulfilled. The point was my plans were going to hell in a hand basket.
