by Jamie Davis
That was the world Brynne had been changed into when James turned her. She couldn’t just go out and hunt as she might have five hundred years before. In another time, James would have taken her hunting with him from the very beginning. Now, in the modern world, she had other sources of fresh blood and even willing live donors if she wanted them. She shuddered out of both disgust and longing. The thought of feeding on a live human caused her to stomach to growl and her canines to elongate into fangs in her mouth. Could she control herself around normal humans if the mere thought of feeding did this to her? That was what the test would determine.
She had been able to meet with some of her old friends and paramedic colleagues after her change. They were the paramedics who went on the nine-one-one calls that served the Unusual community. It was an outstanding service making sure the Unusuals had access to modern health care, too. That had made it easier to tell them about the transition she had undergone to become a vampire. They also accepted the need for her being chaperoned by another adult vampire when they came to visit.
Her old partner, Dean, had been by most often. She knew the decision to let James turn her haunted him. He couldn’t save her himself, no matter how hard he tried. Brynne was dying after she was shot in the chest that night in the club. He, even with all his life-saving skills learned through many long hours of training and experience, could not keep her from bleeding out. She was a paramedic, too. Brynne had been unconscious at the time, but she learned from him later what he had seen and tried to do. She knew how bad her injuries were and knew that no one could have saved her life. She would have died even if he could have teleported her to a trauma center’s operating room. Brynne had tried to assuage his guilt. It had not been his fault. Changing her, making her this creature of the night, was the only way to save her. She told him as much every time she saw him. She would never tell him how much she regretted it now.
Brynne remembered the first time he came by the apartment. He was seeking advice regarding a situation he was involved with having to do with his girlfriend at the time, an Angel, one of the Eldara. She barely remembered the conversation at all. She could only remember hearing his pounding heart, seeing the pulsing arteries lying just under the surface of his skin. She didn’t want him to keep talking; she wanted to leap off her spot on the sofa next to James and bury her fangs in his neck. He wasn’t a dear friend. He was food. James’ vice-like grip on her forearm and his orders to her as her vampire sire were the only things that kept her from feeding on Dean that day.
With time, though, it had gotten better. James was patient with her. He let her have all the bagged blood she wanted. She tried every variety he could get. It was strange how nuanced individual blood could be between donors. She found she had a taste for A-positive blood, didn’t care for humans who ate a lot of garlic, and liked female blood more than males. That last part was strange because she preferred men otherwise.
Along the way, the bloodlust lessened. In the beginning, she grabbed the cup of warm blood James brought her and gulped it down, spilling blood around the corners of her mouth in her haste to ingest it. Now she could sip politely and savor the blood’s flavor as well as the life-giving nature that was essential to her existence. It was still hard to fight down the predator instinct when in the presence of humans, but she found she could control herself and overcome the distraction of their heartbeats, their pulses, and their blood, most of the time.
The last time Dean had visited, she didn’t need James to sit right next to her. He was in the room with them, but she had resisted the urge to rip open Dean’s neck and feed on him. She even remembered their conversation this time. He talked about his new probationary paramedic in the Station U program, Barry. He had graduated to full status paramedic and was working out very well in the program. Dean told her it was due to everything he had learned from her and the patience she had with him during his probationary period. She said she was proud of her protégé and it was true. He had come far.
Thinking of Dean made her want to get back out in the community even more. She wanted to make a difference again. The first responders of the world considered themselves a fraternity, a group of brothers and sisters with a common bond and goal to save lives. That commitment didn’t go away with her change. Even as a vampire, she wanted to give back and help save others. She had to find a way to do something like she had done before.
“I want to go back to work, James,” Brynne said. She met his eyes and saw him looking back at her. She guessed he was searching her face for some sign of intent. “I’m not asking for permission, James. I’m telling you that I’m going to be a paramedic again. I can do things now no other paramedic can do. I can see and hear things that I could never even fathom doing in my time before as a human paramedic. That gives me an advantage and the ability to save even more lives out there.”
“That’s a tall order, Brynne,” James said. He sat up in bed and turned to sit facing her, legs crossed. He leaned forward and laid a hand on her arm. “It’s one thing to say you’re ready to pass the test. It is something else entirely to say you’re ready to deal with situations where there is blood all around you and a patient in distress. As a predator, you will find it hard not to take advantage of a weakened human, especially if they are injured and bleeding already. I’ll say it again. I think it might be an impossible goal to set for yourself, my dear.”
“I’m a paramedic, James. I didn’t stop being that in my soul, in my core, just because I became a vampire. I still want to help people, and that desire is stronger than my desire to feed on my patients. I’m sure of it.”
It was James’ turn to take in a breath and let out a sigh. She knew he was conflicted. He would do anything for her; she was confident of that much. The challenge he was facing now was that he didn’t believe it was possible for her to do this. He couldn’t read her determination or her desire to reclaim some part of who and what she was before the change. She was used to this. She had been in a position to prove her commitment to doing the job before. Many instructors in the fire academy doubted her ability to do the job, to live up to the physical and psychological demands of the job because she was a woman. She had proved them all wrong. It was time to prove James’ fears wrong, too.
“Prepare me and give me the test. You’ll see.”
Chapter 4
Brynne felt the sweat beading on her forehead as Celeste came into the building’s clean room. She discovered that every modern vampire coven had at least one of these set up in their stronghold. It was the place they tested the newly turned to see if they could be trusted out among the human community unchaperoned. Brynne looked around the tiled room taking it in again as she had the first time she was here a week before. It was about ten feet square and tiled like a bathroom would be. There was a drain in the center of the floor, and the tile on the walls extended up to cover the ceiling. She wondered what the human contractors must have thought such a room was for when they were building the place.
“Ready to try again?” Celeste asked in her smooth southern drawl. Brynne thought the redhead laid the southern belle act on a little thick since it had been over a hundred fifty years since James turned the young southern girl in the midst of the Civil War. She became James’ assistant since soon after that, and she now managed most of his substantial assets around the world.
Brynne nodded. “I guess so.”
“There’s no guessing about this, honey. If you don’t think you’re ready to try again, don’t force it. Every time you backslide, it becomes harder to come back in here and go through the process of acclimation to blood again. Some vampires never quite get the hang of it and have to be watched whenever they are around humans and other sources of fresh blood.”
Brynne shook her head. “I’m ready to try again,” she affirmed. “I just don’t understand why it’s so hard for me to move past this.”
“There’s no shame in it. It takes time to gain control over all the changes your body has gone throug
h. You’re stronger and faster than you’ve ever been before, certainly stronger than any human out there. Your new vampire self knows you’re the predator in the room and wants to assert that position.”
“But I’m not like that. I’m a healer, not a killer.” Brynne said it even though her recent string of failures in this room every day for a week proved otherwise. Lord, she could still feel the rush of pure joy she felt when she pounced on that poor lamb when Celeste had opened a vein in its neck. Brynne couldn’t help herself. She had to have the blood, even though it wasn’t human. The fresh coppery smell and taste in the air overwhelmed her control. When she leaped on the poor animal, she threw the metal chair in which she was sitting back against the wall behind her so hard it chipped the tiles.
“Brynne, honey, this is a process, a journey to reach a point of control over your inner nature. You can't rush it. Every one of us had to overcome it in our early days after our transformation.”
“I know that I can master this, Celeste. I just need to force myself to remember who I am.”
Celeste’s voice turned uncharacteristically stern. “What you are is a vampire, Brynne. You’re not the same Brynne Garvey you were before the incident at Sensations. That version of you died the night Mike Farver shot you. You have to look at it like the former you died there. It is best to put all of it behind you and move forward in your new life.” Celeste’s voice softened again. “I understand how you feel, I really do. You just have to remember that you can’t go back to your past.”
“I’ve never failed at anything I’ve ever tried to do before. I won’t accept failure here.”
“Don’t think of it as a failure. It might just be too soon to try this. You wouldn’t try to run a marathon back when you were a human without the proper training and preparation, would you?”
Brynne shook her head. She knew where Celeste was headed with this.
“Look, Celeste, I see what you’re saying. The problem is I think I’m ready to push through this. I can’t keep spending every day locked up in the penthouse here without going out and doing something constructive with my life. I have to live my life, even this life.”
“You don’t want to rush this. That’s all I’m saying. I don’t think you’d do well if you had a relapse and killed someone.”
“But I won’t, I can’t kill someone. It’s not in my nature.”
Celeste’s voice became stern and hard as ice. “That’s a lie. It’s not only in your nature; it’s your only nature now. I know. I’ve had more than one relapse since I was turned. What would you do if you killed Dean or one of the other paramedics? What if you managed to turn them into a vampire like yourself by accident?”
“That won’t happen. I …”
Celeste interrupted her. “You don’t know that. I didn’t think I’d attack the people I loved either. In the end, I not only killed my older brother, I also turned him, and he didn’t take well to the transformation. He never got over his bloodlust. Eventually, James had to put him down.” Celeste held her gaze for a moment before continuing. Brynne could see tears welling up in her eyes. “They had to put him down like a rabid dog because he couldn’t stop killing people and it risked exposing all of us.”
Brynne had never heard that story before. She thought about what would happen if that happened to Dean, or Brook, or Tammy, or any of the paramedics at the ambulance station she had called her family for so long. It would devastate her. She thought back to the last failure here in the testing chamber. She thought she had mastered the feelings that overcame her the last time a few days before. Brynne stared at the redheaded vampire.
“I’m ready to go again. I have figured out what went wrong.”
“Alright, honey. We’ll start just as we did each time before. Building slowly on small successes until we get to the point where you can’t go any further by your admission, or you fail in your control over your predator urges.”
Brynne nodded, and Celeste went to a metal table in the corner. Lifting a white towel covering the table, she saw the other vampire pick up a white ceramic mug and a bag of warm blood. The bag was still sealed, and Brynne could smell nothing from it but disinfectant and the ever-present perfume that was Celeste’s favorite fragrance.
Celeste came over and handed Brynne the mug. She took it and held it while Celeste pierced the bag’s port with a large sixty-milliliter syringe drawing a substantial amount of blood into the chamber. Withdrawing the syringe’s needle from the rubber port, Celeste set the bag down and then removed the needle from the syringe with a twist, dropping the needle in a sharps container there for that purpose. As soon as Celeste removed the needle from the end of the syringe, Brynne caught a faint scent of blood just from the tiny amount exposed to the air at the opening of the syringe. She felt the familiar urge to feed but fought it down. Brynne was determined to do this.
Celeste returned to where she still held the white mug and, depressing the syringe, she deposited about half of the contents into the mug. The warm blood splashed in the mug and the detection of the stronger scent cause Brynne to feel the hair on her neck rise.
The redhead stood for a moment watching Brynne struggle not to drink the blood in the mug. She had not fed since the night before. The test was more robust and reliable when the subject was hungry, Brynne knew. She wanted to drink, just a sip, but she fought back the urges again. She looked at Celeste and managed a smile. This was working.
Celeste smiled back and brought the end of the syringe up to her mouth, her tongue flicking out and taking a drop of fresh blood from where it perched on the end of the syringe. Brynne felt every muscle in her body tense.
“Mmmmm, A positive and a woman, too. Your favorite, right?” Celeste said holding the end of the syringe out to Brynne, only a few inches from her mouth. “Want a taste? It’s delicious.”
Brynne suppressed a growl starting deep in her throat. She cursed silently. There was no doubt that Celeste heard it. She saw the smile spread across the other woman’s face. Did she have to enjoy this so much? Brynne cursed again and then met her examiner’s eyes.
“No, thank you. I’ll wait,” Brynne managed to say with only a slight quaver in her voice.
Celeste shrugged. “Suit yourself. But you really should experience how good it smells.”
Taking the syringe, she squeezed a drop of blood on her finger and reached out to dab it on Brynne’s cheeks. Some of it dripped down past the corner of her mouth. God, she wanted more than anything to flick her tongue out and catch the drip as it went past the corner of her lips. Somehow, with a supreme effort, Brynne resisted. To do so would be to fail the test. She would not fail this time. She knew it with every fiber of her being.
“Excellent, Brynne. I thought that would get you. Someone did that to me during my testing, and I failed several times to avoid the dripping deliciousness passing my lips. Maybe if I turn around so I can’t see, you’ll cheat a little.” Celeste turned her back but then spun back to watch her. Brynne smiled an actual smile this time. She hadn’t fallen for that little trick, either.
“Alright, honey, let's try out the big guns, shall we?”
Brynne nodded. She watched as Celeste took her phone out and tapped a message into it. The redheaded vampire turned and watched Brynne while she idly sipped on the blood from the syringe, pressing the plunger a little each time to squirt a bit onto her extended tongue the way a child might catch icing from a cake decorating tube. She smiled as she swallowed the blood. Brynne was starting to hate that smile. It meant she had more ideas to tempt Brynne in that devious mind.
The door opened, and a woman led a small goat on a rope into the room. The woman was a vampire, too. Her chosen name was Coda; at least that was what everyone called her.
“Here’s the next stage. How’s she doing?” Coda asked Celeste as if Brynne wasn’t even there.
“Surprisingly well, considering yesterday’s failure. We’ll see how our dear Brynne does next. Are you still alive in the office pool?”
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“Yep. I have nine days before she gives up. Don’t let up on her, okay?” Coda said.
Had they created an office pool on her success or failure? That wasn’t fair. The thought of people betting against her angered Brynne. She felt the beginnings of the loss of control and fought to get ahead of her feelings again. Any strong emotion could undermine her determination to get through this, causing an opening for her inner nature to escape. She’d have to take the matter of the betting pool up with them later.
Celeste took the goat’s lead rope from Coda and smiled. “I never let up. You know that. No one gets a pass from me, especially this one.”
Coda shot Brynne a wicked grin and left them, pulling the door shut behind her. Brynne steeled herself for what came next. She didn’t want to hurt anyone or anything with her newfound hunger. The presence of the goat told her what was to come next and she thought she was ready for it.
Celeste picked up a small surgical steel blade from the table and held it up to the goat’s neck. Brynne watched as she held the knife next to the creature’s external jugular vein. With a small flick and a bleating yelp from the goat, Celeste cut a quarter-inch gash in the animal’s neck.
Blood flowed freely in the room from a living, beating heart for the first time today. Brynne felt the powerful urge to charge across the room and drink the blood, to savor the coppery smell and taste as she sank her fangs in and opened more vessels deeper in the creature’s neck. Her fists clenched and she held her back rigid as she forced herself to remain in the chair this time. After a moment, Brynne regained enough control to allow herself a tiny smile. She had done it. She had resisted.
“Very well done, Brynne. You did it,” Celeste congratulated her.
“I did, didn’t I?” Brynne was filled with pride as she contemplated the hard work and control it took to resist the bloodlust that filled her, even now. The blood was still flowing in a trickle down the goat’s neck and splashing on the floor. Brynne felt the pull to drink but resisted and pushed it down even deeper. She could do this. She looked up at Celeste.