Blood Red Roulette

by Jana Denardo

  Luc couldn’t think about what that meant to him now. Terror gripped him. He remembered Arrigo saying they didn’t have to kill, should never kill, but he still had to suck someone’s blood. Luc didn’t want to do this. He doubted there was a choice other than to end himself. He wasn’t sure he wanted to commit a really bad sin. He couldn’t quite understand his new life yet, but it was too soon to quit.

  He dressed sans underpants, then gathered up his nasty clothes. He didn’t want them back, but he couldn’t leave them there. Stepping out into the hall, he asked, “Where should I throw these? They’re too bloody to save.”

  Arrigo pointed to the garbage can in the kitchen. Once he tossed the clothes out, Luc sat on the couch, which was more comfortable than it looked. Siobhan was off in the kitchen, doing something.

  Arrigo sat next to him. “Feeling better?”

  “Yeah. Thanks. And thanks for helping me, especially after I was so mean to you the last time we talked.” Luc bit his lower lip.

  “I don’t blame you.” Arrigo brushed Luc’s hair back off his forehead, his dark eyes gentle. Luc didn’t like how much he wanted Arrigo’s touch. He wanted to be angry still for all of this, but he wasn’t, not deeply at any rate. “I deserved it, at least from your point of view. You did see Siobhan and me kissing.”

  “But there is something you don’t know about it, Luc, unless Arri told you last night.” Siobhan came out with a mug. She set it on the table in front of Luc. “Go on, drink. It’s warm.”

  Luc didn’t have to lean closer to smell the blood. The scent had tickled his nose from the moment she entered the room with the mug. It captured his senses, making his stomach rumble. But how could he drink it?

  He had to know something first. “Where did the blood come from?”

  “This one is butcher’s blood, pig or cow. I’m not sure. Whatever Arrigo picked up.” She smiled gently. “They have subtly different tastes.”

  “That’s okay?” Luc felt a flare of hope. It wasn’t like he’d been a vegetarian. He’d been hunting since he was little, deer, gator, nutria, that swamp rat pest. Blood from a butcher would be fine.

  “Blood is blood, at least as far as mammalian blood goes.” Arrigo shrugged. “Once you get older, you’ll be able to tell the subtle differences even between blood types, but that takes centuries.”

  “You are how old then?” Luc cocked his head, trying to find signs of age in Arrigo’s face. He had thought Arrigo was even younger than him. It was one of the reasons he had doubted Arrigo had money, doubts that had been firmly crushed by his home. There—the age was in Arrigo’s dark eyes. How had he missed that before? Luc wrinkled his nose. “You can tell the differences between the blood, can’t you?”

  “Old enough,” Arrigo replied, cagey as an old gator.

  What secrets could he still have? If he was really old, the answer was probably thousands. Luc didn’t like that.

  Arrigo’s face brightened. “Oh, you can tell illnesses, though, right from the start.”

  “You can usually smell it long before you take a taste,” Siobhan added, gesturing to the cup Luc held. “Go on, drink. It’s awful when it’s cold.”

  Luc made a face. “I can’t. I’ll spill it on the white couch.”

  “Drink it like you would coffee. You don’t normally drool all over yourself, do you?” Arrigo nudged him.

  Luc chuckled. “No, point taken.” He took the mug, sipping some of it. The taste excited something in him. He drained the rest of it in a few long swallows. The heaviness left him, the great gnawing hunger in the center of him quieted. Luc set the mug down, licking his lips. “Thank you. It made me feel better.”

  “Good. That much should hold you over for a while. Vampires don’t need to eat too much. It’s not like the movies make it look. You fledglings do need a lot more, though. A bloodlust can come over you, which is dangerous. It can turn you into a killer, which is why most fledglings are closely monitored, though some slip through the cracks if their sire abandons them. Ones like Eleni enjoy doing that just to watch the chaos.” Siobhan came to roost in a soft-looking chair near the window. It sat near one of the massive silver pillars that angled up to the ceiling. A marble face hung from the pillar, and Luc wondered if it was Roman, a goddess maybe.

  “Okay.” He looked into the blood-slicked mug. “Mais, what if I get hungry again soon?”

  “I keep blood here, some from the butcher, some old stuff from the blood banks. We will teach you all about this,” Arrigo said. “We’re more like oxpeckers or vampire finches than vampire bats.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know what those are.”

  “Birds. They eat all the usual things, like insects, but as they pull off things like ticks, they go for the blood too. Sometimes they just go for the blood alone. And since my favorite sciences are physics and astronomy, I’m going to let Siobhan explain the rest of this to you.” Arrigo made a sweeping gesture toward her. “She’s the one with the love of biology.”

  “In one respect, we are like vampire bats in that we have multiple genetic adaptations and we can actually use the blood we drink. However, Sanguivory presents problems too. Blood is mostly water and protein and very few carbohydrates and fats, so we do in fact have to eat other things in order to remain healthy. All that water means our kidneys work overtime and our water-balance hormones have been altered to keep up with it. We kind of have to pee a lot.” She made a face. “Sort of like diabetics with high blood sugars.”

  “Who are actually pretty tasty.”

  “Arrigo! Anyhow, one of the mutations is our saliva, which now contains Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1, a substance that is an anticoagulant to help us feed. However, the sublingual gland, the one under your tongue, has been modified to make a coagulant so we can stop the bleeding when we’re done. There are other genetic adaptations. We can use all that iron we take in. Our immune systems are so highly tuned that blood pathogens have no effect, like hepatitis and HIV. And we have enzymes that can actually metabolize the blood. This virus that turns us into what we are is quite amazing, but I can see I’m overwhelming you with this.”

  “Yeah I don’t know much science, but I kinda get what you’re saying,” he lied. He barely followed any of it, but he figured he’d learn as he went. “Not to change the subject but you said there was something I didn’t know about you and Arrigo, Siobhan What did you mean?” He remembered vaguely Arrigo saying something about it.

  “We knew Eleni was coming after Arrigo. Eleni knew about you and a young lady in a nearby diner.”

  “That was why Hanako showed up at the bar, isn’t it? She got killed protecting me.” Luc shuddered. He didn’t want it to be true, but neither Arrigo nor Siobhan had to say a word.

  A shadow fell over Arrigo’s face. “She was there keeping an eye on you, but she made the choice to try to fight Eleni alone.”

  Luc balled up his fist, not knowing what to say. He settled for “I’m sorry about your friend.”

  “Thank you. Honestly, I barely knew Hanako. She was a coworker, though, and deserved better than to be cut down,” Arrigo replied.

  “Vampires work?” Luc couldn’t believe how ludicrous that sounded.

  Arrigo laughed and gestured to his penthouse view. “What do you think? I killed the rightful owner and moved in?”

  There was no way of answering without being offensive, so Luc almost let the question slide. Might as well speak his mind, even if he was new to the concept. “Kinda, yeah.”

  Arrigo’s jaw clenched. “Eleni would.”

  “I’m sure she did here. She had to be lying low in a house. She wouldn’t have dared take Luc back to a hotel room and convert him,” Siobhan said.

  “It was a house,” Luc said. “And I know you told me we didn’t have to kill, but it’s a little hard to know what to believe.”

  “Fair enough. We haven’t been killers for a very long time, in spite of what literature and myth would tell you. We have always policed ourselves, to he
lp keep ourselves hidden. The Chiaroscuro is the name of the current incarnation of the policing organization. We’re here to stop Supernaturals like Eleni, not that we did a bang-up job this time.”

  “It’s not even easy to drink enough to kill a person. Usually when a vampire kills, it’s not because they sucked a victim dry.” Siobhan made a face.

  “Always did wonder how Hollywood thought we’d die after about two seconds of getting our blood sucked. I hunted a lot growing up in the bayou. There is a whole lot of blood in critters.” Luc thought about what they had said for a moment, then asked, “You knew I was in danger, didn’t you?”

  “I thought you might be. I don’t have too many human friends here. I hang out with mostly Supernaturals, which is what the bar you saw us in caters to. Taabu was already hurt as you know, since I asked you to help out with the shop. Eleni had texted me photos of you and some of my other friends. That’s why I gave you the story about her being my ex and gave you her picture.”

  “Didn’t you recognize her? Has she changed her appearance radically?” Siobhan seemed worried by that possibility.

  “My idiot brother and his couillon friends took the pictures the moment you left and destroyed hers. I was going to ask more about Eleni when I came to Taabu’s the first time, but uh, you know how that went.” Warmth rose all the way to Luc’s scalp.

  Siobhan narrowed her eyes at Arrigo. “Really? In the office?”

  “Shut it.” Arrigo squirmed on the couch.

  “Older than dirt, and still a sex-starved teen.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Technically I am one, forever.” Arrigo shrugged. “Or close enough to it.”

  That caught Luc’s attention, but something else consumed his brain. “I did get another picture from Hanako, but Eleni was tanned with tatt sleeves and blue hair. That was a wig.”

  “You can buy fake tatts on Amazon, wigs too. The internet is making it so much easier to change your appearance,” Siobhan replied.

  “But why target me? Or Lily. I know her. She’s my friend. I’m not sure you know that. Why target either of us? I can understand Taabu. She’s your partner.”

  “Centuries ago I killed Eleni’s lover, Dario Pena. Since then she crops up and tries to make life miserable for those she deems responsible. Once, she killed my wife.” Arrigo squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath.

  “Wait, you’re how old?” Luc’s jaw dropped. That hadn’t sounded real to him. How could it be true?

  “And then some.” Siobhan grinned.

  “You don’t sound like you’re hundreds of years old,” Luc said.

  “Of course not. Old vampires have to blend in. That cutesy crap where the immortal doesn’t know what Facebook or a cell phone is that plays for laughs on TV shows would get us in trouble in the real world. Yes, there are some of us who can’t keep up with the technology, but they start to stand out. If you look twentysomething, you want to keep up on what they’re into. It’s exhausting, especially in the last few decades. For me the hardest part to keep up with is the way language changes. I do get looks about that often enough. The Normals don’t know about the Supernaturals, Luc, and they can’t. It’s safer this way. If I look twenty and go around talking about things from fifty years ago like I was there… well, you get the point.” Arrigo shrugged.

  Luc nodded. “Yeah, I never thought about it. I’d have thought you were nuts if you talked about the first time TV was a thing.”

  “Exactly. Love TV, though. It was magical that first time.” Arrigo smiled, obviously thinking back. “My favorite invention, though, is a battle between electricity and indoor plumbing with toilet paper. Sure as fuck beats the communal sponge on a stick in my day.”

  Luc blinked. “Wait, what?”

  Arrigo waved him off. “Later.”

  Luc shook his head. Maybe he was in a coma from Eleni’s attack, and this was all a dream. That would make as much sense as any of this did. “But I still don’t get it. What do I have to do with any of this?”

  “She thinks I’m in love with you.”

  “But you’re not, right?” Even though Luc knew he wasn’t sure if this was love yet, it still felt like a blow to the kidneys.

  Arrigo’s eyes darkened, hooded. “I think it’s too soon to be saying I-love-yous. We’re just getting to know each other. I do care about you, and obviously I’m attracted to you. She wanted to take my all friends away from me. This huge thing that happened to you is all my fault.”

  Luc touched his cheek again, feeling no pain even though he knew it should still hurt. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “Is it really a bad thing? I mean you two seem happy. And I healed up. I mean, Da busted my face up that night after I ran away from you. Broke bone and gave me a concussion. Guess that’s why I was dumb enough to go away with a stranger who said she could help.” He shuddered. “We can heal fast, can’t we? You said so.”

  “Yes, which is why it’s hard to kill one of us. Remember what I told you last night? The whole stake-to-the-heart thing works, but you can forget about holy water. It has no effect.”

  Hadn’t Arrigo said that last night? An icy wave washed up over Luc. “Why? Is there no God?”

  Arrigo snorted. “I have no idea. What I do know is we’re changed, unaging, and hard to kill, but I doubt it has anything to do with demons. I’ve seen demons, and they’re nothing like us.”

  “If I don’t age and die, guess I’ll never get to see Jesus, then.” Luc stared down at his shaking hands. He knew his chances of heaven had been poor, but this was something beyond his wildest fears. “Not that he’d probably want me anyhow.”

  “Don’t.” Siobhan reached over and swatted his knee. “What I hate about religion is when they make you feel unwanted because of who you love or if you want to befriend someone of another faith or any of that nonsense. I know a lot of vampires of many different faiths. Chiaroscuro scientists believe we’ve been altered at a cellular level by a prion or virus or something like that. If it’s natural, what would any god care?”

  Luc mulled at over, staring back into his mug again. He wanted to believe that. On the other hand, what did it matter if he lived forever? Arrigo’s cat popped up on the cushion next to him, rubbing on his arm. He stroked it, distracted.

  “Yeah, okay. I get it. That helps, thanks.”

  “And you can die,” Arrigo said. “Remember sunlight will kill a fledgling.” He scowled, resting a hand on Luc’s leg. “Many fledglings choose the sun in the end.”

  Luc swallowed hard. If that was true, there had to be so much hardship Arrigo and Siobhan hadn’t told him yet. As if he hadn’t already had enough of that shit in his life. “Yeah, you said. Is this life so hard?”

  “For some because it often means giving up your family and joining a new one.” Siobhan pointed to herself.

  “Ain’t gonna be a problem for me. I’ve always wanted away from my da, but I’m too dumb to manage it on my own.” Luc gritted his teeth.

  “I don’t think you’re dumb.” She took the mug away from him and carried it back into the kitchen.

  Luc snorted, rolling his eyes. “You don’t know me. I’m a couillon.”

  Siobhan sauntered back into the room. “Maybe so, but it doesn’t mean you’re stupid. You do speak two languages after all.”

  Luc snorted. “Yeah, barely literate in either.”

  “Didn’t you tell me you didn’t get to go to school much?” Arrigo put in.

  “Like not at all. Da made us drop out when we were kids. Back in the bayou, it was hard to find us and make us go to school. Once Mom was gone, that was it for me and Henri. We didn’t go to school much longer. Once we were supposed to go to middle school, Da pulled us out. I don’t even read so good.” Luc stared at the floor, his face hot.

  “There’s a difference between uneducated and dumb,” Siobhan said.

  “You sound like him.” Luc tapped Arrigo’s hand. “That difference don’t matter to employers, and I haven’t got one anymore. I can’t
go back to working for Da. It’s all a mal pris.”

  “You most certainly cannot. You don’t need to worry about it for now. Fledglings normally can’t work right away. You’re my responsibility,” Arrigo said vehemently.

  Luc made a face. Could that possibly work out? He’d be a burden, wouldn’t he? “Like that won’t be awkward.”

  Arrigo widened his eyes as if surprised. “Probably, but nothing we can’t work through, or we can go with my initial suggestion of Siobhan mentoring you since she’s far more experienced than I.”

  Luc shook his head without thinking about it. “Nah, it’ll be okay. I mean you already like me. Guess I’m afraid you won’t once you get to know me.”

  “Or he could love you like no one else in the world,” Siobhan countered.

  Luc thought about it, then smiled. “Yeah, that could be too. I want to stay here. I can always go elsewhere if it don’t work out, right?” What choice did he have, after all? He couldn’t be a vampire on his own. He wouldn’t know where to start. If he was to have a relationship with Arrigo, being here might help or it might rush things. Luc couldn’t decide which, but he had no money, nowhere else to go, so he might as well try to be happy about this. There were worse fates than having to stay with a man he cared so much about.

  “Of course,” Arrigo replied. “But keep in mind, I warned you. I’m impatient and crappy at mentoring, and Siobhan is better. You’re not choosing the best option.”

  “I don’t care. I want you.” A darker thought crossed Luc’s mind. He gritted his teeth. “And Eleni is probably still here. We ain’t letting her get away with this, are we?”