Black Market Blood

by Francis Gideon

  “Come with me.”

  “What?”

  “Come with me. I’m not going to be able to stay in my apartment. Imogen has gotten me a safe house. I have Athena as my lawyer. Apparently I’m a guinea pig now. The headline trial with all of this press. If they change the status of victim, using my story, then it will be the first step to legalizing sex work. And everything will be fine.”

  “Whoa, slow down, Atlas. That’s a lot of pressure.”

  “But it’s good pressure. It seems so otherworldly, but it’s happening. And I want you here. I want you with me. And safe.”

  “I’m safe here with Artie. I always have been. And even when I was here, you still disappeared.”

  “I know. I disappeared. I never want to do that again, though. I never want to leave anyone behind. So come with me.”

  “But I can’t just leave. I have a job.”

  “I know. I can pay you, if you want, or—”

  “You’ll pay me. Just like that? Is that all it really is?”

  Chaz furrowed his brows. Sully’s tone was harsh. Brisk. “What?”

  Sully sighed on the line. “Is that all this is? You’re just going to pay me and expect stuff goes away?”

  “What stuff?”

  “I said I loved you. I want to be a part of your life, but you can’t expect me to drop mine to follow you. And you certainly can’t throw money at it.”

  “No. Shit. This came out all wrong. I’m just… so much has happened.” Chaz shoved his hoodie off his head and ran his fingers over his hair. Hair that Sully had cut. “I just need to know you’re okay. The cops are going to come by and try to break my alibi with you.”

  “What? You sent the cops here?”

  “No, I just said that I was with you when Ramirez died. They already figured out your degree and about John, an—”

  “Shit.” It sounded like Sully dropped or slammed the phone. Chaz said his name a couple of times, when he came on again. “Calm down. I’m here. I’m just… how could you say where I was?”

  “They already knew, Sully. The way they talked… whoever talked about me also spilled about you. You’re my alibi. You were at a crime scene. You know I didn’t do this—”

  “Yeah, yeah. But… let me have some time to think?”

  “I don’t have a lot of time, Sully. I have to go to a safe house. I need to leave—”

  “And I need to stay. This is my home, Chaz. And if you can’t accept that, then I don’t know what to say.”

  “I thought your home was with me? I thought it could be….” Emotion swelled in Chaz’s voice. He thought of the synagogue, the music in bed, the shaving. Everything had been perfect. But it was only when they were alone. Being out in public, as vampire and sex worker, came with another set of issues and problems. He thought of when they kissed against the side of the church. He worried they’d burst into flames, but they didn’t. They were safe.

  Or maybe that had been where their stories fell apart. That had been where their backgrounds were dug up. God, what did Imogen say about staying underground for so long? You needed purpose. You had to become something more, because being happy just wouldn’t cut it.

  Chaz tried to explain this to Sully, but he got even more upset.

  “I never wanted any of that. You can be a headline case, Chaz. Change the laws. I will support you. But I will always be here, at the end of the day, making my way on my own. It’s the only thing I know how to do well. And my body is the only thing I’ll ever own completely.”

  “That’s not true,” Chaz said. “You’re good at so many other things. Languages. Baking cake. I… I only want you to be safe.”

  “Then your job is done. Because I am.”

  Chaz wanted to say something more. He wanted to reach out and grab Sully through the phone and hold him close. He saw Nat in his mind again, in his car sleeping after they’d made love. Then he saw Nat looking at Chaz through the back window as he drove away. Only Sully was the one inside the car this time and he was the one driving away.

  “Okay, then. I’m glad you’re safe. I’ll call you later.”

  “Sure, whatever.” Sully hung up the phone with another disdainful sigh.

  Chaz slumped in his seat. Maybe it would be easier when the case was over. Maybe, like when he’d met Nat again, he’d get a second chance. He didn’t have much time to dwell, because Imogen came back into the diner. She was red in the face, probably from the night chill, and held a file folder under her arm.

  “You okay?” she asked, sliding into the booth. She pushed the rest of her pie toward him. “Here. Sugar makes people feel better. It’s science.”

  “Thanks. I’m fine. Just Sully.”

  “Didn’t want to come?”

  Chaz shook his head. “How’d you know?”

  “It’s hard to get people to leave their homes. I had to hound Gabe for years before he would change his name and consider going into hiding. And even then, he only did it when he had Nat.”

  Chaz nodded. He didn’t want to tell Imogen that he’d already suggested they run together to Sully, and he still rejected him. “Can I ask your advice?”

  Imogen made a face. “Maybe.”

  “What do you think happened? Between me and Sully? Why wouldn’t he go?”

  “Other than his home? Well…. You were turned at fifteen, right?”

  “Um, yeah. Why do you say turned, though? Most people say infected.”

  “Well, I refuse to say you became a vampire because it implies choice. At fifteen, you have no choice, especially since the person who turned you was over twenty. So you were in a passive position. And infected implies that being a vampire is a nasty thing. It’s not. It’s just another way of existing.”

  Chaz didn’t say anything, so she went on.

  “And I think that you look for people to love who are like you at that age. Nat was abused by Atticus for years. Sully, though he’s in charge of himself now, was also abused. You find men who remind you of yourself when you were fifteen, thinking you can save them because no one saved you.”

  The words hit Chaz like a bullet—no, an arrow—to his chest. Repeat the scene of the crime. Always, always. “So why did I fuck up with Nat? And why, when I try to save Sully, does he push me away?”

  “Because you’re missing the point. Atticus abused you too when he made you watch Nat. He preyed on your vulnerabilities. You became a victim in that instance, and any decision you made, though it hurt Nat, was not your own.”

  “We should have killed him,” Chaz said. “Atticus should be gone.”

  “No.”

  “Because death isn’t the answer?”

  “No, because no one deserves to make that choice. That’s why we have the goddesses now. That’s why we have the law. Because some concepts are too big for humans to handle.”

  Chaz nodded. “So what about Sully, then? I tried to save him, to be the good person, and he still ran away.”

  “You’re missing the point again. Atticus abused you and you responded by giving him what he wanted, since it was how you knew to survive. So now, when you see Sully, you try to do the opposite. You want to save him like you wanted to save Nat, like you wanted someone to save yourself. But saving someone, just like killing someone, is a huge responsibility. Moreover, you can’t save Sully because he doesn’t need to be redeemed in any way. No one can be redeemed because none of us are broken. Abused, yeah, but it’s not your fault. It’s never been your fault.”

  Chaz fought back tears. When Imogen touched his hand, he didn’t bother to push her away. He thought of nothing but Sully. Sully loved him—and Chaz loved him back. He missed him. He needed him back. But he couldn’t barge into Artie’s and save the day, because Sully wasn’t broken.

  “So what do I do?”

  “You come to the house with me. We work this out. You send Sully messages and tell him you love him, but you let him make his own decision.”

  “And what if he doesn’t come?”

&nbs
p; “I don’t know him. I can’t say for sure what he’ll do. But just because you lose someone doesn’t mean you stop loving them either. But you move on.”

  Chaz swallowed back his grief. He didn’t want to lose Sully, but he also knew Imogen was right. Sully would make his own decision, and Chaz would be there waiting for him when the time came.

  “You’ll be okay.” Imogen smiled. “You know, I’m always worried about Tansy when I go away on missions like this. Not because I’m worried she’ll leave or fall out of love, but because I mistake love for worry. You know? Sometimes we ask silly questions of the people we care about because we don’t know how else to express affection. We think we need to fix something so we can be useful. But sometimes, doing nothing is the best thing.” Imogen paused to bite her lip. “It’s late, but I hope that made sense.”

  “It did,” Chaz said, thinking of the Sabbath he and Sully spent together. “It really did.”

  “Good. You know, I talked to her outside. I think we’re gonna get those twins after all. Why wait?”

  Chaz smiled. He was happy for them. He really was, but the happiness was almost making him sick. He picked up the file—his file—Imogen had handed him. There were so many names written between the graphs that charted the way supernatural blood interacted with other supernatural blood. Seeing all the data up close, he noticed how it was similar enough to DNA that matches could be made, only it was a more long-term history of his blood profile.

  “Do you need any help?” Imogen asked. “I’ve been around it enough to explain the basics.”

  “I think I get it.” Chaz pointed to the first few dips on the beginning of his profile. “That’s the point where I became a vamp. My blood chemistry changed. And then there—” He pointed to the other two dips that were similar to his own. “—is me changing someone else.”

  “Yes. If we can get names, that would be great.”

  “Vanessa Meyer is the first one. Veronica AuCoin, Lenny DiMarco, Jessica Hugh, and Samuel Sundeep are the ones I turned. Their cases were never tried. Adriana Cassidy wasn’t turned when I bit her, so she had a consent case against me. That’s on the record.”

  “Okay, I’ve made note. I know your interaction with Nat is on the graph too, since he’s elemental and you’re vampire. You don’t change each other, but all supernaturals interactions will leave a mark. Especially vamps and elementals. See?”

  She pointed to a dot that expanded outward, almost like an explosion. He stared at it for a while, transfixed by the past, before moving on. There were more blips and dots on his chart. Trinity was there, closest to the end, but the rest made Chaz draw a blank.

  “I think a lot of these other marks are sex,” Chaz said. “But not every sex partner. Only those I didn’t use condoms for and who were also supernaturals.”

  “Okay, that makes sense. Why do you seem confused, though?”

  “When I count up from Trinity to Nat, I’m hitting one more than I thought I had.”

  “So you’re missing someone? Just one?”

  “Yeah. I mean. I was with a werewolf, so I figure that’s one bar here. And I was with a wizard too, so even though we didn’t share blood, he’s there. Then there’s still one more.”

  “Maybe you didn’t know they were a supernatural? You were passing as human for a long time. It’s possible you could have run into someone else who was the same. Would you be comfortable writing down everyone you’ve been with? I can run their names and keep their privacy intact, but we can still be aware of the trajectory of your interactions.”

  Chaz was already writing down the names on a blank sheet of paper. He wrote down the easy ones first, then focused in on the gaps between Nat and Trinity. The werewolf was Steven, Frank the wizard, but who else? He closed his eyes and remembered the hazy smoke of the back lounge area of most blue diners. The haze in the air. Drinking and…

  Declan. The week before the police academy. Chaz looked at his blood panel again. The blip was there, no denying it. Declan the former sex addict turned good-boy cop was a supernatural.

  “Oh no,” Chaz said.

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “We have to go to Artie’s right now, Imogen. I know who the killer is.”

  Part Five: Saint Michael

  Chapter 40

  SULLY TOSSED his fountain pen across the room. Okay, that was probably not the best way to deal with being unable to translate a Slovak idiom, but when the pen hit the closet mirror and cracked a corner, he felt better. Like his actions mattered and amounted to something. Once his breathing caught up with his thoughts, he realized Artie would be mad at him. A few other workers had once trashed their rooms after a really bad night, and Artie had to sit them down to talk out their problems.

  People never destroy something for no reason. If someone is acting ridiculous, you’re merely missing the context. Figure out the logic, even if it’s faulty, and everyone’s actions make sense.

  Sully sighed. He supposed the same was true for translating. By understanding the context the idiom was used in, and the random bundle of words in the sentence no longer seemed out of context. Understand the comparison between the situation, the verbs, nouns, and suddenly idiom makes sense.

  More or less, anyway.

  Sully rose from the bed and picked up his pen. After his conversation with Chaz, he’d been furious. He couldn’t figure out why, after being outed as a vamp, Chaz couldn’t just come to see Sully. Even if he now had to contend with charges against him, he obviously didn’t do anything. And with Athena, a literal goddess on his side, wouldn’t it all be taken care of? But Chaz had made it sound like he was never coming back. Ever. Why couldn’t all of this go back to normal? Chaz didn’t have to pretend to be a human anymore, so why couldn’t they fuck around and have fun? Maybe they could be in a relationship, whatever that meant. Sully had never had one before. How were they supposed to go? Dates were out of the question and they’d already had sex and discovered a body together. What else was there to do?

  Sully thought of Tom’s words again. If they buy you now, they’re always going to think they can. Sully went over all their former conversations and realized everything had been a goddamn exchange. You do this, I do that. Suddenly, Chaz’s offer to pay Sully for coming with him to a safe house made sense.

  And so does my anger about leaving. We were both acting within the proper context. We were both acting how we’ve always acted. Only Sully didn’t want to be part of an exchange anymore. He wanted something more, and the wanting was far more painful than realizing he’d been bought once again.

  Sully struggled to remember the other half of the conversation Artie had had when workers destroyed their room.

  I understand your rage. This is how you dealt with anger before now. But in my house, I want you to find new ways to express anger. You can talk. Use your words. Count to ten. Even better, you can be vulnerable. I know vulnerability was often linked with violence in your past. It takes a long time to unlearn it; it is almost in your blood. But I assure you, it is possible to be vulnerable without it being a bad thing.

  Sully retraced his steps with Chaz over and over again, trying to find those vulnerable moments and how they expressed them. But Sully only saw the present. He couldn’t envision a future, at least not one where Chaz dragged him along like a sidekick, like someone he kept in a room that he locked every night. He wanted to be partners, where his Czech knowledge and listening to a Slovak opera was something he shared because Chaz wanted to hear about it, not because he was using Sully as a means to an end.

  Sully flopped on his bed. Artie said he didn’t have to work tonight if he didn’t want to because he’d been visibly shaken up when Chaz’s image had been splashed all across the news. The TV in one of the worker’s rooms had been blasting the story all night. Sully had ridden the elevator up and down, trying to drown out the words, until he felt safe enough to go into his room. Now he turned back to the novel to try to give this translation a second shot.

/>   On the page the author talked about the sun and flowers. Happy, pretty things. And yet this idiom seemed so dark and came out of nowhere. Hovoriť piate cez deviate. The literal English was “speak five over nines.” What does that even mean? Sully was so determined to not use an online dictionary, because they missed the nuances of the language, especially the older version of Slovak he was using. Instead he went to his CD player and put on the opera. Each time he played it and rolled the words over in his mind, the more it became his own. Gradually, as he worked through the opera in his head, he realized a different context for the verb he was struggling with in the novel’s version of this scene. He wrote out the new line—and it all made sense. Speak five over nines was when someone said a story in a rush, scrambling it, and rambling on so it made no sense. With the idiom on place, the scene fell together. He was done. He did something.

  And there was no one around to share it with. Sully closed his book and slid it under his bed before going to the elevator again. When he got off on the second floor, he went right to Trinity’s room. She was Trina, still dressed in her same outfit from earlier, but now she smacked gum between her pink lips and gave Sully a sympathetic smile.

  “Oh, sweetie. What’s up?”

  “You busy?”

  “No, not at all. Someone was just leaving.”

  An older man with curly gray hair did up his fly as he waddled to the doorway. He kissed Trina on the cheek. Out of his view, she rolled her eyes. She waited until the man was in the elevator before she huffed.

  “Good. Thanks for scaring away Mr. Bad Back Hair.”

  “Not at all.”

  “So what’s up?” Trina leaned back on her messy sheets. A few new posters hung around her bed, all with Lisa Frank designs and neon colors. Makes her think of the 1980s. A nostalgia trip. She changed the posters when she wanted to be Tom, usually to 1950s cars and movie stars like Marlon Brando.