This wasn’t science.
I had no illusions. In the name of science, the worst atrocities and inhumanities have been carried out: the strong upon the weak. Isn’t that always the way? Good intentions or the greatest good. Grand speeches paving the way to abuse of power and genocide.
But this was…revenge. I’d tasted it enough to know. I just didn’t have a clue why.
“Prick,” I threw back. When you have nothing but words, they become your weapons.
Ivor smiled, but his eyes were dark, with something even darker lurking in their depths, as he clutched the lamp. The angelic light was once more burning. “Having taken a look at the first burn site, we need a second test.”
“Are you certain? It appeared conclusive.” Shah was gripping my hand; her fingernails bit bleeding crescents.
“I’m certain. It needs to be on something more sensitive like…” Ivor lowered the bulb towards my cock.
I panted, fixated on the path of the lamp. I hadn’t meant prick literally.
Shah, however, caught Ivor’s arm. “Don’t you need that intact for your tests later tonight?”
Ivor’s beaming smile terrified me.
Clatter — there went the wankering torch.
Ivor rubbed his spindly hands together, as if anticipating his delayed treat. Then he nodded at Shah, before sweeping out of the cell in his short lab coat and stained cord trousers, which were rubbed bare at the knee. I watched him potter off down the metallic corridor like he’d just left off working on his grandkid’s science experiment in the shed, rather than brutally torturing another species for a secret wing of the military or Government (I hadn’t worked out which yet).
That Blood Lifers would be discovered by First Lifers had always been Ruby’s secret fear and mine too. With these First Lifers, it was clear that they didn’t intend a partnership, joy, or celebration. They saw Blood Lifers as another animal to be exploited and experimented on.
Maybe we were a weapon? Or maybe the First Lifers were attempting to drive us to extinction, like every other apex predator on this planet?
Either way, the test subject always ends up dead. Autopsied and stuffed on display. It was only a matter of time.
But here’s the thing: I wasn’t ready to take my place mounted next to the gorilla behind the glass in the Museum of Death, as my Author Ruby had once prophesied.
I was Light and I wasn’t going down without a fight.
“You shouldn’t antagonize him, you know.” Shah held a straw to my lips.
Surprised, I sucked.
Water.
I drank quickly, trusting that Shah could read the gratitude in my eyes. She gave me this awkward half-smile, so I reckoned that she could. All too soon, she took away the straw. I guessed that she didn’t want anyone to witness her small kindness to a subject.
“Cheers.” I swiped my tongue along my lips.
Shah patted my arm in her habitual absentminded gesture. “Just so you know? There’s nothing average about you.”
For the first time, I smiled. What bloke doesn’t need that ego boost? “You’re different to the others.”
“Excuse me?”
My gaze met hers. “You see me. You’re bleeding talking to me for starters, not like I’m a rat to be cut up. How about an e-cig or nicotine patch? Help a bloke out?”
She shook her head. “Contaminates.”
I tilted my head. “Why do you even work here?” Startled, Shah snatched up her steel clipboard, as if suddenly busy, before scanning through her notes. Yet she wasn’t reading a word. “Because the rest of them are sadistic bastards. Call this research? You could take my blood, a saliva swab, or brain scan. These lot prefer Nazi regime methods. You don’t seem the type.”
“And you,” Shah’s brunette hair was wildly escaping from her ponytail; it swept across my cheek, as she whispered low and fierce into my ear, “need to keep quiet and stop pissing them off, or this will only get worse.”
Shah took a deep breath, before rushing in a furious shuffle out into the beetle-guts corridor.
I blinked. How much worse could it get that even Shah was frightened for me?
Finally, I’d almost manged to drift into an uncomfortable knackered kip, when (with a predator’s instinct), I became aware that I was being scrutinized.
“Take a photo, Fernando, it’ll last longer.”
A furious hiss (because what bloke likes to be caught out watching another bloke sleep?), followed by footsteps away, the squeal of the office chair wheeled back, and the click, click, click of angry typing.
I smiled as I opened my eyes.
Bloody hell, I needed to stretch.
I wiggled my arse on the table. My smile exploded into a grin, when Fernando’s clicking stumbled.
“Little man,” Fernando warned, “concentrating.”
“Alpha Geek, not bloody caring.”
Fernando’s shirt wasn’t as pristine today. There were sweat patches, and his sleeves were turned back to the elbows. The bottom button looked like it’d been ripped off.
The venom had worn off Sun then…
Fernando stiffened like the long-suffering martyr. “What the frak? You’re not getting this; I hold your life in my—”
I sniffed. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before.” Fernando stiffly reached up — here it came — but he only twisted the aluminum blades of the light, which hung over the desk like a striking cobra. Repressed rage was never healthy for a bloke. “The thing I can’t figure is: you’re a hacker. You should hate all these Government types, yet here you are in bed with them.”
“That’s what happens when you say hack unencrypted,” Fernando growled. “Not so paranoid much now, huh?”
Fernando was breathing hard and still fiddling with the LED lamp, casting the lab through a rainbow of colors: endlessly adaptable. Yet these First Lifers couldn’t see it in us….or the good.
When I rattled my chains, Fernando jumped, leaving us under a scarlet light. “You know, I reckon that you’re a prisoner here, the same as me, and that makes you Subject Three.”
“Being with Grayse Cain herself has taught you to be a drama queen too,” Fernando sneered. “Only one of us is tied to a table, scheduled to have his…precious…stolen.’
“My…what…?”
I tried to control my panted breaths, but I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t understand what he’d meant because I remembered what Shah and Ivor had said about the tests later tonight.
Now it was Fernando’s turn to grin. In the crimson light, his crooked teeth were devilish. “Hey, don’t look so scared. Your dick will grow back…won’t it?”
“Why are you doing this? I mean, I get me. I hated your guts way back. And as soon as you knew that I was something else, you’ve always looked like you were imagining me in your lab all trussed up. But Sun...? That’s a bleeding crime because you two were like family.”
“Grayse was my family, not Sun,” Fernando howled, launching himself at me. The swivel chair smashed backwards, slamming against the wall. Smack — his arms caged me in; his forearms were matted gorilla hairy. “Grayse was mine. But she’s dead. Sun? I don’t know who the frak she is.”
“You’re wrong.” Yet even as I whispered it, I knew that he wasn’t.
Fernando straightened as he shrugged. “This is my field of study. A whole new parasitic species who are evolved through their venom. An infection—”
“I take offense at that.”
In the hell red, Fernando gave his goofy smile as he pointed at me like I was the prize in a game show. “Little man, you’re heaven sent.”
Later that night, I learned in graphic detail just how my precious would be stolen.
I lay in stunned silence, having listened to Ivor chatting to Shah about the procedure, as if hacking off my cock was as humdrum as sticking in a needle for a blood sample.
Shah clutched my hand, as if it was her privates (rather than mine), which were for the chop. Ivor took his time sliding on the
latex gloves, relishing the limelight, anticipation…and my terror. Then he got up and personal: my body was no longer mine. I was nothing. A subject. Flesh. To be cut and sliced. Harvested and studied.
I wondered how long these First Lifers intended to keep me here because on this IV of blood, it’d take a sodding long time to regenerate my cock.
If I even could.
It wasn’t the kind of thing we Blood Lifers shared. Oi, last time you were emasculated, grew back, did it?
“Ivor, please…let’s take something else. I mean, we talked about a finger?” Shah glanced at me apologetically. “Or an internal organ? The liver perhaps?”
Ivor dropped my cock with a thwap.
One way to humiliate a bloke? Don’t even bother to drop his cock so that it lies straight.
If I had to watch the whole procedure in the glass — touching, carving, and removing — then at least let my last memory for months be of my bollocks and cock looking decent.
“Are you squeamish?” Ivor sighed. “I can do this procedure alone. You go and take a look at Subject Two.”
Shah’s hand tightened around mine.
I was filled with a surge of hope. Maybe she wouldn’t let go of my hand? Please, please, please…
“Ivor,” Shah’s gaze darted between mine and Ivor’s. “I really think—”
“Don’t be daft.” Ivor’s rebuke was sharp and hard. “Stop dilly-dallying and go.”
Shah nodded. Reluctantly, her fingers loosened around mine. Crushed, I couldn’t meet her gaze. My eyes stung with tears, but I held them back from falling. I wouldn’t give Ivor the bloody satisfaction.
Suddenly, there was icy slam of the clipboard on my chest, as Shah leant over me, flipping through her papers.
But underneath? Hidden by the clipboard? Shah was loosening the chains around my left wrist.
I struggled not to react, keeping my gaze forward and my breathing steady.
Yet inside, I was predator roaring.
Now I simply had to wait.
Shah’s fingers curled around mine just for a moment. She hadn’t let go, after all. I squeezed her hand and hoped, even in that fleeting contact, that I’d translated my thanks. She’d betrayed everything to save another species, and I knew how that felt.
I used to know which was predator and which the prey. But now…?
We’re all capable of being both predator and prey. It’s a choice. Sometimes we need to be one or the other. We just have to make the right decision at the right time. It makes you think: would you?
Then Shah snatched up her clipboard as she hurried out of the cell.
“Maids.” Ivor shook his head in contempt. He pushed the tray with its regimented scalpels, saws, and gauze next to me. I noticed Will’s bracelet buried beneath the metal. Then Ivor sprawled on a stool, so that he was at a perfect height to separate me from my precious.
I raised my eyebrow. “I may be dreaming here, but no anesthetic?”
Ivor only picked up my cock like he bloody owned it. My eyelashes were matted wet, my breath was ragged, and even though I was bleeding willing myself to close my eyes, I couldn’t. Look. Away.
“I remember you.” Ivor hadn’t spoken directly to me before: about me but not to me. He was still staring at my cock in his hand but he’d said you, not it.
I eyed him warily. “Yeah?”
“You swaggered around like James Dean. You don’t look all that now.”
I snorted. “Try being the monkey, instead of the scientist. I wager that you wouldn’t look your best either.”
Ivor’s hand tightened around my cock.
Buggering hell…
“Do you remember me?” Ivor asked casually.
I half-considered inventing a comical voice for my cock, seeing as Ivor still hadn’t lifted his gaze to my actual face. Still, winding up the bloke who has his fingers squeezing your cock…?
Even I’m not that much of a daft git.
Well, maybe just a tad…
I smirked. “Supposed to, am I, mate?”
Ivor’s face paled. Then I hissed, as he slapped my cock to the side. I could see the pink impressions of his fingers like a branding. At least there was still something there to see.
“Professor Silverman: I bet that you remember him? He was a genius, folks said.” I jerked. Silverman had been the leonine scientist on a pirate radio ship of hidden horrors. I remembered the flames reflected on the night sea, the cold stench of the burning…and my nightmares. You don’t forget saving the world but you bloody wish that you could. Ivor stared at me for the first time. Demanding, cold, and triumphant. “I’m Doctor Ivor Glasse: Silverman’s research assistant. I did all his chores in the ‘60s, even though it was me who worked out the separation of the venom: paralysis in half and pure death in the other. Silverman was amazed. Then we had to test on humans. It’s why they had me working with the Blood Lifers because this crossed the species. But Aralt…? The fool wouldn’t allow the next step: testing on Blood Lifers.” So, there had been some lines that Aralt wouldn’t cross, not many but some. Ivor? He’d already crossed every line. “Silverman was given all the credit, but then he burned on that ship…not me.”
“I’d have happily toasted you, if you’d been on the ship.”
Ivor’s shoulders relaxed. “Kind of you to say.”
I tilted my head. “Not to be the one to mention it, but you’re not young. Did you just decide to mess around for half a century then because you couldn’t be bothered to solve it? Or couldn’t you figure it out on your own without the genius by your side?”
Me and my big mouth.
Ivor snatched up a scalpel. It glistened in the light. Then Ivor yanked my flaccid cock straight.
Good luck on getting that hard.
I sneakily tested the chain on my left wrist. It bit into my skin, but if I coiled it around and then yanked…
I glanced at Ivor from underneath my eyelashes.
Ivor had pulled back the foreskin and was holding the scalpel next to the red head like a threat. “It’s some cruel decision: do I cut it off all at once at the base? Quick. Or slowly slice by slice?”
I struggled to keep my breathing even, as I worked my arm back. The chain slipped. I just needed to keep narcissist distracted and talking about himself long enough to free myself and save my cock. “So, this pure death...?”
I’d reckoned that Silverman’s research had burned and then sunk to the bottom of the sea in the ‘60s, but I’d missed Professor Glasse. Now along with the Government, Fernando, and whoever else was mixed up in this unholy alliance, Ivor was developing something so bloody terrifying and world transforming that it made me shake.
“Silverman never tested. He was too squeamish, unlike me. No one misses the homeless. They have no family, homes, or jobs. Of course, we can also feed you Blood Lifers off them.”
Ivor glanced at the IV.
My IV was Will’s blood.
When I retched, Ivor chuckled.
Everything was transformed to red. I battled to remain still and not to tear off the chains, sink in my fangs, and make the bastard squeal.
Ivor pressed the scalpel into my cock’s slit. Scarlet beaded. He gazed at it thoughtfully. “I was invisible back with Silverman. You don’t remember me? You’ll know me now.”
I slid my left hand silently free but then froze.
Two uniformed figures were pushing a gurney through the tunnel.
There was a black body bag on the gurney. It was small. Just the right size for…
Then everything was crimson. Shrieking. Death.
When I came to…? Sirens were whirring in furious panic. And the lab was painted a brilliant shade of Ivor. And yeah, I’d chosen to pull off his cock at the base. So…quick.
I was buzzing. My freed muscles were bunched, tensed for a fight. Adrenaline surged. I couldn’t allow myself to think about that body on the gurney: Will.
I howled.
My venom had killed Will; I’d killed him. The boy who
my Soul sang was meant to be born from my fangs, instead died at them. Just as his blood had healed and given me life.
I was bloody toxic. Yet Will had held faith in me in a way that no one ever had. Will had believed that I could save him. And I’d let him die.
I wailed, clutching my arms over my eyes. Ivor had chosen Will because he’d reckoned that he was a worthless outsider, but all I could see was a tumble of curls.
No one would miss Will? Then I was no one because I felt like I’d never be complete again.
Through the blur of tears, I caught a glimpse of Will’s snake bracelet beneath the bloodied tray of torture devices. Of course, this time, it wasn’t my blood…
It was Blood Lifer vengeance — justice — and all I wished was that Fernando had been part of the show.
I brushed Ivor’s remains aside, gently pulling out the bracelet. It’d been snipped off my wrist, breaking the eternal loop, but I crushed it hard in my palm like it was a charm or magic
If I prayed hard enough, maybe Will would be alive again.
Like I truly was a bloody angel.
I truly wished that I believed in the comforting opiate of heaven. But this world? It was too real, and I had to rescue Sun.
I snatched Ivor’s security thingy, before stumbling to the cell door: naked, sobbing, and scarlet. I was a sodding sight as I staggered down the corridor, only to be bowled — clang — into the freezing metal by a dynamo covered head-to-toe in camouflage green, except for gold haloed amber eyes and bow lips.
Soft lips I discovered, when the…bloke…snogged me.
I tried to pull back but I couldn’t. He was slight but with his arm wrapped around me, the Blood Lifer was steel.
He was a Long-lived. Maybe even a Magnificoe?
I couldn’t help the way that I melted into his strength, after the horror and loss at the hands of the First Lifers. The passionate kiss was gentled with intimacy. The Blood Lifer cocooned me in the scent of ripened oranges with a hint of cypress, like we were lovers under an Italian sun.
Yet here’s the thing: once in those ‘60s tripped out days Donovan had snogged me, and it’d been like he and Ruby had learned from the same lover…and I recognized that lover now.
When at last the Magnificoe drew back, I didn’t know whether to clout him or haul him back in for a second snog. “Plantagenet?” I whispered.
Rebel Vampires: The Complete Series Page 67