Scratch Lines

by Elizabeth Blake

  “Since you're an agent, I feel comfortable saying this. These decisions aren't as hard as the public believes. Life and death, ultimately, it's out of our hands. We can only do so much, and nature does the rest. Or doesn't. All I need from you is a yea or nay. Do we proceed with the skin grafts?”

  This was supposed to be the good doctor?

  I remembered how the kid held tightly to the last brutalized piece of his family, his mauled arm deep in the pit of a monster's throat. “Whatever you need to do to keep that boy alive, do it. Nature and God be damned, you proceed.”

  “Of course. I will consult with my colleagues and run some more tests.”

  A doctor's answer. He left, and I felt moderately better.

  “What now?” Do I go to work? Home? Stay bedside?

  “When he gets better, Davey will attend an FBHS-funded boarding school,” Vanessa said, thinking further into the future.

  “Davey's a minor. The new law says he has to enter CPS or something.”

  “Theoretically, yes.”

  “But?”

  “The Babysitter law, as you and Sarakas adoringly call it, is merely a precaution to avoid getting sued by next of kin than a measure designed to protect minors. Since Davey has no next of kin, there isn't anyone to sue. Sorry. I hear the boarding schools have a wonderful therapeutic staff.”

  “Which school?”

  “Um...” She referred to the file. “Willington's School for Boys.”

  My intestines slapped my spine.

  Willington's was a penal colony designed to hold undesirable potentials that society wouldn't miss. A disease-laden death camp. Vanessa had no clue, and I couldn't inform her of the classified truth. She looked so angelic, poised, and innocent. How many children had she unknowingly sent into hell? No more than me, surely.

  “When will he be transferred?” I said, queasy and simultaneously feeling the need to sneeze. My body did weird things under emotional strain.

  “As soon as he stabilizes enough for a safe transition.”

  “After the surgeries, right?”

  “Of course.”

  I was doubtful. Why would the hospital waste resources on a fifty-fifty chance when it was cheaper to dump Davey into the disease containment system?

  “Vanessa, do me a favor and don’t tell Dr. Weber where Davey’s going.”

  “Don't be so glum. The home will keep him safe until he turns eighteen.”

  He'd be long dead by then.

  Nothing I could do about it, though.

  Chapter 19

  Rainer

  The buzzer honked insistently, jolting me from a perfectly decent nap. I rolled. Stretched toward the ceiling. Flicked a switch. Full spectrum lights glowed down.

  Sometimes I missed the golden warmth of sunshine, but never badly enough to risk going outside. It was better for everyone if I contained myself in a controllable environment, keeping my disease away from the world. I don't know how other mutts could risk all the important things.

  Life. Limb.

  Someone else's life and limb.

  One wrong move could destroy it all. Family. Friends. Self. Who could live with killing everything important in the span of one mistake?

  The damned buzzer continued buzzing. Stung my ears. Judging from its persistence, someone had made a grave mistake. I checked the video feed and saw Erik, a kennel master and an albino. Eyes as pink as sweet pea blossoms, a crimson smear on his white skin. Something had gone wrong. Damn, please, not him. He was the strongest of us. If he fell, there was no hope for anyone else. His face distorted as he yelled at the camera. I couldn't hear it, but I saw his wide jaws, his teeth standing white and tall. Urgent indeed.

  He wasn't alone. A head bobbed on the screen below Erik's shoulder. He demanded sanctuary for someone else.

  Gambling all, I entered the code and let him into the secure bunker.

  Erik stormed down the steps in two great leaps, barely giving the security door time to part before soaring into the room. He held the slender waist of a girl wearing a ridiculous crushed velvet dinner jacket buttoned over her chest. Her head bobbed back and forth. Black hair. Couldn't see her face.

  Blood-stink and fear festered like fetid disease.

  “When I knock, you open the bloody door,” Erik said.

  “Get her on the bed. What happened?”

  She smelled raw and looked as limp as a dead thing. Erik, so strong, didn't realize she wasn't carrying a smidgen of her own weight. Blood ran under the jacket, pooling on the floor. Appealing, despite my anxiety.

  “Vampires,” Erik said.

  The word chilled me to the bone. He set the girl on the cot. Her hair swung back and I recognized her.

  “Craven?”

  “A pack of vamps tried to make a meal out of her.”

  “Vamps usually leave us alone!”

  “Apparently, neutrality is only fashionable among the ancients. Younger vamps take a more sporting view of our existence. Craven barely escaped. She stole a phone and called me. Said they laughed about making a feast of her heart.”

  He popped the button off the jacket and showed me where the blood leaked.

  I was speechless.

  Someone had certainly tried to eat her. Craven's ribs were cracked and splayed. Teeth left her gouged and torn. Entire mouthfuls had been munched from her breasts. Bites covered her body. Teeth shredded the moon tattoo on her neck. I poked aside some dangling flesh. Her heart—what was left of it—sat like a rotten, half-devoured fruit in her chest. Still attached to the major plumbing, but missing most of its caverns. God. They ate her heart. Most of it, at least.

  The smell. The sight.

  I grabbed a generous shot of morphine.

  “She doesn't need that,” Erik said.

  “I do!”

  I slammed the needle into my arm. The drug soaked into my system, tingled my veins, and calmed me. Put the hunger and fear on the back burner. For Craven, I seized a syringe of adrenaline, jabbed it above the torn remnant of her left breast. Maybe, maybe...a miracle. If she revived enough to shed...

  No.

  The heart was too damaged, mostly missing. Her fingers twitched like the antennae of a squashed bug, but she was gone.

  “I didn't think vampires ate meat,” Erik mused. He seemed vaguely disappointed by her death.

  As if he never cared for her at all.

  I wanted to stomp on his throat.

  The morphine faded from my system as quickly as a sparkler burns out.

  Erik swiped his long hair back from his face, but his hands were bloody. Fresh red streaks painted his white locks and he didn't notice. Private thoughts made his rosy eyes dim. While I stewed, he planned. He was not the sort of man to let this go unanswered. For once, I was glad.

  I wanted someone to pay. “What are you going to do about this?”

  “I did mention they were vampires, yes? Only the Church can authorize the death of a bloodsucker.”

  “And?”

  “I'll find myself a pastor.”

  “A priest,” I corrected. “What if he refuses to give you the writ?”

  “Oh, I know he'll refuse, but that's not the point. The priest will undoubtedly try to protect his precious vampire icons. When he warns them of my intentions, he will unwittingly lead me to the guilty party.”

  “How will you know which vampires actually killed her?”

  “I smell four of them on her jacket, and each vamp stinks different. I'll remember, I'll find them, and then I'll learn what vampire flesh tastes like.” He licked his lips, a pink tongue on pale skin.

  “Let me help. There must be a smarter way.”

  “Craven is kennel business. Has nothing to do with you, Rainer.”

  “Yet she's in my safe house.”

  “And you tried to save her. Consider your work done.”

  “If you do this the wrong way, you'll bring hell down on the kennel. If a house of vampires realizes that a mutt killed four of their kind, regardless of whet
her or not it's justified, this could start a bloody public war.”

  “No vampire will start a war in Sigurd's city.”

  The ancient's name gave me goose bumps. “You better be right. What if you try to kill a vampire and fail? We'll lose you. What happens to your kennel?”

  “The beasts aren't holy, Rainer. Not any more than we are. God does not protect them. I will not fail.”

  “But—”

  “And they aren't eternal. They bleed, therefore they can die. More easily than they want us to know.”

  He wouldn't be talked down. When it came to protecting his kennel, when he got an idea in his head, there was no changing it. I could only hope that he wouldn't destroy everyone I knew in the process.

  Looking at Craven's cavernous body, I wanted to punish the monsters responsible. As civilized as I tried to be, my heart desired revenge. Base, animal instinct. I'd never ever see Craven smile again, and that wasn't fair.

  “Life isn't fair,” Erik said, leaving me to wonder if I had spoken aloud. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, drawing a scarlet streak over his brow. His shirt was ruined with Craven's blood.

  “What about the body?”

  “You know what.”

  My stomach churned. “I wish you'd find another way to keep their memory.”

  “I'll light a candle at the church when I'm visiting the priest.” He winced, his only sign of remorse. “I don't think a candle will cover it, do you?”

  Not even close.

  “I need to use a changing room,” he said.

  “There's plenty of pork in the freezer.”

  I stared at Craven. Hers was not the first body I'd seen, but there weren't a lot of female mutts in the city. They go mad. I don't know why. Erik thinks women can't deal with raw strength, that when the disease gives power to someone accustomed to a victim-mentality, they go crazy-hostile. Of course, Erik is the kind of guy who sees all women as victims.

  I don't know what to think.

  He tossed a side of pork over his shoulder.

  “Wish we could keep the bitches alive,” he said.

  I clenched my fists and turned with a snarl.

  He threw up a pale hand. “Just saying.”

  Panting, I drew myself in. Forced my breathing into a calm state I didn't feel.

  “Someday,” he dreamed, “the kennel will be big enough and strong enough to keep us all safe.”

  I wanted to believe him.

  I stared at Craven's meat and my tongue ached to lick my swollen lips. My gums tingled with hunger. I hated myself. We were monsters who needed to be locked up. Maybe not hunted and killed, but definitely confined. Erik was a monster, too, as dangerous as any other, and he would make everything worse.

  He took two sides of pork, muscles bunching as he hefted the massive slabs over each shoulder. The creature had an appetite. He disappeared into the changing room and the door slid shut behind him.

  I felt his control slip. His rage quaked through the compound, a dangerous temptation. The room stiffened, shrank, and boiled as he began his change. More than anyone else, his power called to my beast. Magic scratched inside me, wanting to come out and play. The crisp pop of his bones reached my acute senses. His virile odor dropped me to my knees. A vortex of longing, like heaven and pain, rushed through my blood. The animal thrashed inside me, teeth bearing down on my flesh. My body itched from head to toe. Agony sliced through my skull.

  My skin split, making way for bigger bones.

  For the beast.

  Distended teeth knifed along my jaw. My flat tongue hit the roof of my mouth and found engorged bones and blood. All my misshapen pieces hurt.

  If Shohreh could see me now, she'd think I was the devil.

  I fumbled for another shot of morphine and pumped a syringe-full into my veins. It punched through my overheated blood, dizzying me, and spent itself. A moment of clarity followed the drug’s trail. I shook my head and touched my tender gums.

  Erik crunched noisily on the pork. I remained on my knees and glanced tiredly at Craven's body.

  No more playing around.

  No more games.

  The war was real for us, it lurked on every front, and we needed allies.

  Chapter 20

  Kaidlyn

  Contrell called. I sighed, presuming he wanted to talk about the poacher case. Sarakas told me to keep my nose out of it, so I prepared a statement to let the detective down easy.

  “Durant, get over here, now! Quickly.”

  My heart paused. “If it's an emergency, hang up and dial 911.”

  “You need to see these bodies before the Church gets here.”

  “Church? Bodies? Consider my interest piqued. Where?”

  He told me. “Are you driving yet? I don't hear you driving. Get here now, now, now!”

  I hopped into the truck and navigated west on the freeway. Open space was a welcome sight despite the debris of abandoned cars, trash, and a multitude of rustic graves along the road.

  A large black canopy cast the crime scene in heavy shadow.

  “Four bodies,” Contrell said. “Check it out. As soon as we realized what they were, we popped up the canopy. Luckily, we got to it before the sun rose.”

  He was energetic. Excited. Four sheet-covered corpses laid on the ground. Small crimson blots appeared on each white cloth. Barely enough blood to make a stain.

  “What are they?”

  “Give me a bullet.”

  Confused, I thumbed one from a spare mag. He took it between index and thumb and went to the nearest body. I watched suspiciously while he ran the bullet along the victim's open grin. The head rocked and I realized it wasn't attached to the body. Contrell returned and handed me the borrowed bullet. I felt a notch. With one swipe, the victim's teeth had sawed into the casing. I fingered the small cleft.

  “Shit. Vampires.”

  He pulled back the sheet. An open cavern of a chest glared at me. Ribs were broken through. Pink and red flesh, edges like burnt lace. Hollow inside. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Something was very wrong with that meat. Like, the heart was completely gone. Torn remnants of the vena cava hung like wet tissue paper.

  “Holy crap,” I whispered.

  “It's the same with all of them.”

  I removed each white sheet and saw four open corpses, hearts eaten. Odd, crispy edges marked each wound. The flesh was curly and brittle like burned hair. I pointed.

  “What's with that?”

  “Sun damage.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “They're all vampires,” he said.

  I squatted to get a closer look. Smelled like burnt paper. Fantastically sharp teeth were mere inches from my face.

  The vampire had a tattoo of Skippy, a cartoon pirate, on its collar bone.

  “I've never seen a vampire this close before,” I said. “Or dead, for that matter.”

  “I know!” he said, about to hyperventilate. “Say the Church’s estimates regarding the number of resident vampires are accurate. If there are only a dozen vampires in the city, one third of Phoenix's vamp population was murdered last night. I mean, holy shit! Imagine if someone killed off Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.”

  I crouched by a victim and nudged the head. Mutt tooth marks circled the back of the head, neck, and upper shoulders. The murderer had reset his bite a few times before finally chomping through the neck. The marks struck me as odd.

  “Weird,” I said, without knowing why.

  “What?” Contrell said. I shrugged but he expected more.

  “The mutt took the vampire by the back of its neck, probably shook it like a terrier would. Snapped its spine. Paralyzed it, which is why there aren’t many indications of struggle. The vamp was powerless by the time the mutt got to its heart.”

  “A mutt kill, right? I knew it!”

  “I suppose. Mutts don't usually eat hearts first. There are softer, easier to access bulks of flesh. Legs, hindquarters, throat, underbelly. Mutts don't i
mmediately eat through the ribs. I guess the bones get stuck in their teeth.”

  “God, that's disgusting, Durant. But it was a mutt. Went through here when the irrigation sprinklers that ran last night. Here—” he pointed at a muddy footprint “—and here—” a bloody footprint. “And you know what? All the prints are the same size. One mutt killed four vamps. Broke the necks and legs so they couldn't run. Dragged them together. Ate their hearts while they were still alive.”

  “That's not normal.”

  “You think? How did it overpower them? How did it know to break the head and hearts?”

  “How do you know that? Because I didn't.”

  “Old hunter stories. Legend goes, mutts avoid vampires the way demons avoid churches. Hell's hounds cower in fear of the superior vampire. So the dichotomy claims, but—and I'm coming uncomfortably close to blasphemy here—but how did a beast get it in its animal brain to take on four vamps at once? To eat the hearts? How could it succeed if vampires are truly God's creatures?”

  “Take a breath, Contrell.”

  “This here, this is history, Durant. Capital H, history. Never happened before. Perhaps we’re giving this beast too much credit. Maybe the mutt had grandiose ideas and took a page from old fairy tales. Don't werewolves traditionally eat the hearts of their victims?”

  “They also dress up like granny to coax young girls into bed.”

  “Look at the pattern of that bite,” he said. “Big, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe. Might be a big mutt or one with a disproportionately large skull. Speaking of proportions, that’s what’s weird about this print. It’s, like, perfect. Mutated skulls often have wacky tooth patterns and odd angles. This bite is completely in line with a perfect skull-set. Classic wolf teeth, straight from the text books.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I don’t know that it means anything.”

  Black vans pulled up. Men wearing the black and red robes of the Devoted exited the vehicle.

  “Uh-oh. The disciples have arrived,” I said.

  They walked in a procession as if heading down the aisle to Mass.

  “Fathers,” Contrell said. I didn't say anything. I knew who my daddy was. I also remember a part in that book of theirs about calling no man father.