by Lili Zander
Saber glances at the screen. A vampire woman is dancing in front of an Oensi tank. He blinks in confusion. “I have no idea,” he says. “Nero picked the channel.”
Nero chuckles, unfazed. “It’s called Forbidden Love,” he says. “It’s the third most popular soap in the Empire. Last week, the tabloids speculated that the show was secretly being produced by Equality Pact and is subversive propaganda. Patrik Kevis made a speech in Council denouncing this kind of degenerate programming.”
Zeke looks up. “Is any of that true?”
Nero smirks. “Not a clue. It’s a fun show to watch.”
Tomas rolls his eyes. “As if Equality Pact has the vision to do something like this. No, Ragnar’s bankrolling Forbidden Love.”
None of the vampires look surprised by this. “Speaking of Ragnar’s secrets,” Zeke says. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about something. Unless you’re Imperial Army, Merin’s a gun-free world. The drone networks monitor all weapons usage. That’s why Marya and her crew attacked with swords.”
That’s interesting. I knew, like every human on Boarus 4, that the drone network did constant surveillance, but I didn’t realize that that’s how planets enforced their gun bans.
“It’s not easy to hack into the drone network,” Zeke continues. “As soon as it detects it’s been attacked, it will launch countermeasures. There are only five people in the Empire who can break in. I’m one of them. But Jowth infosec is light-years ahead of ours.”
Tomas grins. “You’re wondering how we shut down Antaras Seven’s drone network.”
“Exactly. Lin Perscule thought I could do it, but he was wrong. I’ve tried for years to break into the Constellation, and I’ve always failed.”
“We got lucky,” Tomas admits. “One of the Constellation’s programmers did some work for Ragnar. He was very good at what he did, but he’d get sloppy from time to time. Hardcode his constants, use the default password, that kind of thing.” He looks rueful. “We found a way in. A one-time weakness. The instant the Jowth found out they’d been compromised, they would have closed the security hole. We could have accessed the Celestial One’s data. Instead, we spent it on Antaras Seven.”
“You didn’t have to shut down the drone network,” Nero says. “There were five of you, and only two of us, Raven and I. You could have taken us.”
“You would have fought to the death to protect Raven. Ragnar wanted to avoid casualties.” He sighed. “That didn’t happen. Robert Abimbola died when Gerra Clay’s mercenaries attacked. This week has been hell. Robert’s funeral, six thousand dead soldiers on Deina, a race to find the missing boarium before Levitan can sabotage us once more…” He sighs. “Poor Ragnar. You could give me all the money in the world, and I wouldn’t want his job.”
I sip my drink. Something’s nagging at me, and it takes me a couple of minutes to realize what it is. I turn to Saber. “Why was Marya surprised when she saw your sword?”
The corner of his mouth tips up into a smile. “I’ll tell you later.”
Argh. Aggravating man.
Ivar Karling finishes his call and sits down across from us, his face wearing a look of frustration. Nero cooperatively pushes the bottle of slenti over to him. “Bad news?”
“We’re not making a lot of headway with developing a cure.” He gulps down the drink like it’s water. “I have to remind myself that in my field, progress isn’t linear.”
“Do you need more of my blood?” I ask him. “Ragnar only took two vials.”
The scientist shakes his head. “No, we have plenty. Humans are immune to the effects of the disease, but they're very effective carriers. The virus is incredibly contagious.”
Tomas shudders. “No offense, Raven, but remind me to stay away from you.”
“You mean you don’t want to be a walking cesspool of destruction?” I ask, not hiding the sarcasm in my voice. “You don’t want to be hunted halfway across the galaxy? What a surprise.”
Everyone hears the sarcasm, but my vampires catch the hurt underneath. Nero puts his arm around my shoulder, wordlessly offering comfort.
Tomas’ reaction makes me realize something. Nero, Zeke, and Saber have never treated me as if I was a walking plague. They’ve treated my blood with caution and respect, but not fear. Saber dressed my wounds when I cut myself. So has Zeke. Saber and Nero have spent hours teaching me how to fight with an extremely sharp sword.
Maybe because they care about you? Like they’ve been saying for days?
Ivar Karling leans forward. “While you were showering, we contacted the hospital,” he says. “Things are ready. As soon as I wake from slumber tomorrow evening, I will do the transfusion.” He pats my hand. “This is a heavy burden for one so young, but it will end soon, Raven.”
I really hope he’s right. I’m ready. We’re a bô. I want to drink from my vampires, and I want them to drink from me.
22
Raven
The hospital is in an industrial part of town, smack dab in the middle of a junkyard. Abandoned shipping crates litter the landscape. Rusting debris covers the ground. Tall piles of precariously balanced engine parts rise from the ground at random intervals. A hot wind whistles through everything, bringing with it the scent of rotting food, burning plasteel and decomposing dicar.
“The hospital is here?”
Nero chuckles at my expression. He parks our skimmer next to a lopsided stack of containers and jumps out. If his shoulder is bothering him, he doesn’t give any sign of it. “Sure,” he says, gesturing to the ramshackle tower. “It’s in there.”
Ivar Karling gets out of the skimmer and looks at the hodgepodge building with an expression of dismay. “Nero, I thought I made my requirements clear. We need a sterile, sanitary, operating room. This is a wreck. I know we’re not on Starra, but I’d have thought…”
His voice trails off. Nero’s punched in a code into a keypad on the wall of the container tower. The wall slides open in a whisper of sound, revealing the gleaming white lobby hidden inside. “Welcome to the Florence Nightingale Center of Healing,” Nero says with a grin. “In honor of the humans who set it up, it’s named after an Old Earth healer. The operating rooms are on the higher levels. Shall we?”
I close my mouth and follow him inside. Saber shakes his head. “Let me guess,” he says dryly. “The Merin Underground uses this place when they have injuries they don’t want reported to the authorities.”
“Exactly. The doctors here knew better than to ask questions. Ah, I’ve missed this place. I used to get hurt all the time when I was a teenager. I’ve spent more nights here than I can count.”
“To the surprise of no one,” Zeke quips. “Shall we?”
We make our way to an operating room. It is, like the lobby, spotless. There’s a waiting room adjacent to it, with a large glassed window that lets people see what’s going on in surgery, and Dr. Karling gestures for us to go into it.
“How come the hospital is empty?” I ask curiously. “The Merin Underground isn’t actively at war with the Empire, I know, but shouldn’t there be someone here?”
“Not today,” Ivar Karling replies soberly. “Given how contagious this virus is, I asked for the building to be evacuated. No need to take any unnecessary risks.” He glares at Saber. “I suggested that your men stay at home, but of course, they didn’t listen. Somehow, they seem to think they know more about communicable diseases than me.”
“That’s not true, and you know it,” Saber replies calmly. “I recognize you’re the expert. We’re just not letting Raven do this alone.”
I squeeze his hand. As much as I’d like to lecture them about the risk, I’m secretly glad they’re here. I’m far more nervous than I want to admit.
“You okay?” Nero asks softly. “You look really queasy.”
“I’ve never liked hospitals much,” I confess. “In the re-education camps, the doctor in charge loved to inflict pain on us. He was doing some kind of medical research, and he would use us as test
subjects.” I haven’t thought of Dr. Josef Sand in years.
Nero's expression darkens. “What's his name?” he asks in a deceptively calm voice.
A little over a week ago, Nero beat a man to death with his bare hands.
“Don't worry, he's dead. He left a syringe containing his latest experimental ‘treatment’ lying around and Asha Kulkarni stabbed him with it.” I bare my teeth in a smile. “The guards thought he died of natural causes.”
“Good.”
Ivar Karling clears his throat, and I turn my attention to him. “I’m going to try to explain today’s procedure without getting too technical,” he says. “Human blood has four components—plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Levitan’s creation attacks white blood cells. But the virus doesn’t appear to have an adverse effect on humans, just vampires.”
“You’re basing this off a sample size of one,” Zeke argues. “The only person you know with the virus is Raven.”
“That’s a valid observation,” Dr. Karling agrees. “Nonetheless, I have a reasonable degree of confidence in my assertion. Vampires and humans have similar genetic material, but we’ve never seen a disease that affected both species. Any other questions?”
He sounds like he’s in a classroom. I nod at him to continue. “Today, we’re going to give you a transfusion of healthy white blood cells. Normally, blood transfusions have no effect on white blood cells. However, this virus is an exception.”
I squash the urge to ask him why. He’ll give me an answer, but much of it will go above my head. I don’t need to know how it works; I just need to know that it will.
“The transfusion is a multi-step procedure,” he says. “First, I’ll extract approximately four pints of blood from Raven. That’s the maximum I can extract without risking organ failure. Second, I’ll inject her full of blockers that will put the virus in a dormant state.”
“Hang on,” Zeke interrupts. “A blocker can be used as a vaccine, can’t it? Why not just distribute the vaccine while you find a cure?”
“Unfortunately, the blockers have no effect on vampires,” Karling replies. “They only work on human blood. Back to the procedure. The blockers will temporarily put the virus in a dormant state. The final step is to replace her lost blood with donor blood.”
“Seems simple,” Saber comments. “What’s the catch?”
Dr. Karling frowns. “The virus is highly contagious. The blockers only work for ten minutes. We’re going to repeat the procedure multiple times to lower its concentration in Raven’s blood. The whole thing should take six to eight hours.”
That doesn’t sound confidence-inducing. “But you think it’ll work?” I press the scientist. “I’ll be rid of this disease?”
“Anything can happen,” he replies. Thanks, Doctor. That’s reassuring. “But there’s no reason it shouldn’t work. Raven, I’ll be placing you under sedation for the next few hours. Gentlemen, I’ll give you a few minutes alone, and then we’ll get started.”
He leaves the waiting room, shutting the door behind him. I give my vampires a tremulous smile. “If all goes well,” I tell them, “You’ll get dinner at the end of this. Fresh blood from one newly de-virused human. Me.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” Nero demands, his lips twitching. “Because it’s terrible.”
Saber hugs me tight. “Dr. Karling is an expert,” he murmurs, his voice muffled in my hair. “You’re going to beat this thing.”
“You are.” Once Saber frees me from his bear hug, Zeke brushes his lips over mine. “You’re the strongest person I know. Stop worrying; you’ve got this.”
Nero hugs me too. “When you get out, we can work on your comedic timing,” he says. His expression turns serious. “We’re going to be right here. We’re not going anywhere.”
I give them one last set of hugs, soak in the power of their encouraging smiles and their unwavering support, and then step outside. Dr. Karling is waiting for me outside the operating room. He’s dressed in a containment suit. “Your blood is going to be everywhere,” he says, the words emerging from his face mask with a sibilant hiss. “Can’t take any chances. Ready?”
I've been ready for this ever since I saw Olaf Vander die on the ice deserts of Glacis. Since Adam Masev warned me that my blood could cause genocide. Since Ma Kaila wanted me to poison every last vampire on Boarus 4. “Let’s do this.”
Dr. Karling makes me lie down on the table. “First things first.” He pokes the tip of my finger with a needle and presses a drop of blood into a test tube. To it, he adds a clear liquid from a beaker. For a half-second, nothing happens, and then the liquid thickens and starts to smoke. The color changes. It goes from a pale pink to a blood red, and then, almost before I can register the change, to a virulent green. “The virus doing its job,” Dr. Karling explains. “Let’s try this again, this time with the blocker.”
He pricks my middle finger—ouch!—and collects a drop of my blood in a second test tube. This time, before he adds the clear liquid, he carefully adds an ounce of the purple-hued blocker. “Now watch,” he says.
I wait. The seconds tick by, but the liquid in the test tube remains purple. “Dormant,” Dr. Karling announces.
“Ta-dah,” I quip.
He chuckles. Filtered through the bio-mask, it sounds a little creepy. “Exactly.” He hangs a bag of blood on a stand to my right, and a bag of the purple blocker on a stand to my left. “It’s time to go bye-bye.”
When I wake up eight hours later, I’ll be clear of the virus. And Saber, Zeke, Nero and I can turn the page and go onto the next chapter of our lives, whatever that might look like.
Dr. Karling puts a breathing mask over my face. I take a deep breath and fall into darkness.
“It’s done.”
I blink the haze out of my eyes. Dr. Karling has changed out of his containment suit back into his normal clothes. He beams down at me. “Congratulations, Raven. You’re clear.”
“I am?” I sit up, and the room spins around me. Guess I’m not going anywhere for a while. “Really?”
“Yes, really. I’ve tested your blood. It took six full flushes, seven gallons of donor blood, and eight hours, but you’re free of the virus. Stop fiddling with your bandages.”
I drop my hand guiltily. Both my wrists have medicated adhesive strips where the IV bit into my skin. “The guys are still here?”
“They’re in the waiting room. Do you want to see them now?”
It’s really over. Shouldn’t I feel different somehow? I don’t. I guess that’s not surprising. After all, as Dr. Karling has pointed out, the virus wasn’t designed to work on humans. “Yes please.”
The door opens, and Nero enters the room, a big smile on his face. Saber and Zeke are only a half-step behind. “How are you feeling?”
Like something’s wrong. “I’m fine.” I lift my wrist up to Nero. “Free and clear.”
“Mmm.” He takes a deep breath and winks at me. “Sweet and dangerous. Just like you.”
His fangs drop. The feeling of wrongness intensifies. “No,” I yelp, scrambling back. “Test it again.” I’m aware that I sound hysterical, but I don’t care. “One more time.”
“Raven, I assure you…” Dr. Karling starts, his tone patronizing.
“Do as she says, Dr. Karling.” Saber’s voice cracks like a whip. “Nero, retract your fangs.”
“The Empire preserve me from amateurs,” the scientist gripes. “Raven, do you think I’d leave something so important to chance? I’ve tested your blood three times. It’s clear.” He moves toward me with a needle. I bite my lip as the metal pinches my skin. He draws my blood into the barrel. “One more time.” He presses the plunger, and a drop of blood falls into the waiting test tube. He adds a splash of clear liquid from the beaker. “See?” he says, a long-suffering expression on his face. “Nothing to worry about.”
I stare at the glass tube. I can’t take my eyes off it. The liquid remains stubbornly pink, and I exhale in relie
f. Poor Dr. Karling. While I’ve been sedated, he’s been working. He must be exhausted.
I open my mouth to apologize and tell him he was right. That’s when the liquid in the test tube starts to smoke. As we watch, it thickens, turns blood red for a split second, and then the green taint spreads through it.
The transfusion didn’t work. The virus is still in my blood.
23
Raven
We’re all very quiet as we make our way back to our safe house. All of us except for Ivar Karling, who spends his time wondering out loud why his procedure didn't work. “Maybe I need to increase the number of transfusions next time,” he muses. “Or maybe we need to develop a better blocker.”
I keep quiet and let him talk. He's a scientist. To him, I'm an interesting experiment, a puzzle to be solved. Today's procedure was Version One. Dr. Karling is already thinking about what he’d change in Version Two.
But I'm not a science puzzle. I'm a person, and right now, I’m just numb. I’m drained to a husk. My emotions are flat. Though I warned myself not to, I had let myself hope.
But the instant that the blood in the test tube turned green, my hopes had been swiftly, thoroughly crushed.
Saber’s driving the skimmer. Dr. Karling sits next to him in the front. I sit in the back, Nero, and Zeke on either side of me, solid and reassuring,
Concern emanates in waves off my vampires. It seems impossible to believe we’ve known each other for less than a month. In just a few short weeks, I’ve come to care for them so much.
It’s more than caring. I've fallen in love with all three of them. If I had to leave them, my heart would be shredded into a million jagged little pieces.
But do I really have any other choice?
Ragnar wants Saber to sit on the Ruling Council. How is that going to be possible with me in the picture? I will have to mix and mingle with the elite of Starra, but my blood is a dead giveaway that there's something very wrong about me. One cut and every vampire will know the truth. If I’m menstruating, every vampire will discover who I really am.