Bad to the Bone

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  I sit down hard on the edge of the leather chair.

  Dad rubs his nose and says, “I missed you on Thanksgiving. If only I could spend one more holiday with you.” He gives a nervous chuckle. “Remember how we’d always do Fourth of July with your aunt Lori? Those were such special times.” His gaze suddenly intensifies, and his speech quickens. “Ciara, I don’t know what they want, but don’t risk your life for me. I’m not worth it.” He glances to the side of the camera, then flinches as if someone’s about to hit him. He looks at me again and turns his voice monotonous, like he’s reading a prepared statement. “Do what they ask. They just want justice, like all of us. I know better than anyone the scourge of vampires. I lived with them for two years. Please, do whatever you can to help the Fortress.” He puts his palm to his chest. “Remember, I’m your father.”

  The sound cuts off, and the video freezes his face, eyes open and pleading.

  I look up at Ned. “That’s it? What does it mean? Where is he?” I struggle to hide how much my mind is whirling with fear; no doubt someone is watching my reaction through the closed - circuit camera.

  “I can’t tell you where he is,” Ned says. “But we have him, obviously.”

  “Since when?”

  “I can’t tell you that either.” Ned puts a hand on my shoulder. “My brother will explain everything when he arrives.”

  “Is this a blackmail or a ransom? Does he want money?”

  Ned laughs. “Money is the last thing he needs.”

  “And what’s the first thing?”

  He gives a sly smile—an expression I’ve never seen on his face—and leans over to whisper in my ear.

  “Vengeance.”

  My cell phone rings, startling Ned into jumping back and slamming his hip bone against the desk.

  I cram my hand into my other pocket and fumble for my phone, almost dropping it. “Hello?”

  Lori’s voice squeaks from the earpiece, tight with tears. “Ciara . . . help.”

  Police cars line the main street of Frederick’s downtown historic district. The patrol vehicles’ red and blue flashers blend with the white Christmas lights on the trees lining the road.

  My car drifts past a tavern where patrons are gathered outside, many of them huddling without coats, breath steaming the air. They gawk at a man spread - eagled against a police car—Kevin from the Bitten meetings.

  Two officers appear to be interviewing bystanders, who point down the street in the direction I’m heading, no doubt indicating the trajectory of the “acid splashing” victim.

  I check the sign at the next intersection. Two more streets. I keep my speed slow to avoid attracting attention, but I’ve got to find Lori and Travis before the cops do.

  I turn down a side street and park the car in a deserted lot reserved for a closed stationery store.

  Before I get out of the car, I punch Lori’s cell number to make sure they haven’t moved.

  “Where are you?” she whispers.

  “Church Street and”—I crane my neck to see the little green sign at the corner—”Coppersmith Lane.”

  I get out of the car and try to look casual as I hurry down the street, following her directions. Most of the shops are closed, but their cheery Christmas window displays seem to watch me, condemning my holiday horror.

  Lori pops out of an alley ahead. Her blond hair glistens in the white streetlight as she waves her arms in a frantic gesture.

  I run to her. She grabs my hand and tugs me down the alley.

  “A whole bucket.” Tears soak her reddened face. “Kevin had a whole bucket of holy water.” The front of her coat is soaking wet. “How could he do this?”

  We turn down a smaller alley, and I see a pair of sneakered feet sticking out from behind a big cardboard box. The chill air carries moans of agony.

  When I reach Travis, he turns away and buries his face in his arms, then howls with pain.

  I touch his hand gently. “Let me see.”

  Travis starts to lower his arms, and Lori whimpers.

  “Ciara, it’s real bad,” she says.

  “I’m sure I’ve seen— Oh God!” I leap back at the sight of Travis’s face.

  It’s melted. His eyes are nothing but pools of red - and -white goop, and his nose looks like liquid Silly Putty. His lips are, well, gone.

  “Go ‘way,” he slurs around his fangs. “Le’ ‘e alone.”

  Lori drags me a few feet down the alley. “He wants to die,” she whispers, as if he can’t hear her. “He wants us to leave him here and let the sun burn him.” She clutches my arm. “We can’t do that, can we?”

  “Of course not.” The cops would find him long before morning. They’d take him to the hospital, where he’d combust in public.

  “Then you’ll help him?” Lori wipes her eyes and swallows a sob. “Give him your magic blood?”

  I look back at the oozing maw of Travis’s mouth. “This isn’t just a burn, like with Shane. His face is gone.”

  “I can see that!” Her whisper verges on hysteria. “We have to try.” She digs her nails into my wrist. “I know it’s gross here in the alley, but David can give you antibiotics.”

  Travis expels a gurgling cry. His breath rattles, sounding like it might be one of his last. My skin crawls as I wonder what happens when a vampire dies slowly.

  “Ciara, please.” Lori’s voice pitches up. “He won’t even make it to sunrise if we don’t do something.”

  She’s right. Travis might not be one of my favorite people, but Lori is. I can’t watch her watch him die.

  Before I lose my nerve, I march over to him, peeling off my coat. “I can’t believe I’m saving you again,” I mutter. “I don’t even like you.”

  I shove up my right sleeve, lean over, and cram my forearm against his mouth.

  Pain spikes through the tender flesh, just below my elbow. I suck in a hard breath and claw the brick wall in front of me to keep from screaming. It’s a hundred times worse than Shane’s bite, a hundred million times worse than Noah’s. It feels like my veins are being yanked out through my skin.

  Hot, thick liquid streams down my arm and through my fingers. It’s too much. I try to pull away, but his grip on my elbow tightens, and his other hand slides up to grab my shoulder. He pulls me down against him until I’m slumped over his back, feeling him quake beneath me.

  “No . . .’’ My voice sounds faint and feeble under the approaching sirens. Lori crouches on the other side of Travis, all of us hidden behind the giant box.

  One block over, the sirens pass and start to fade. The alley falls quiet again, except for the sound of Travis slurping and gulping. With every swallow, a new wave of pain washes over me.

  My head gets heavy, like a riptide is dragging me out to sea. I struggle to force out words:

  “Lori . . . make . . . stop.”

  She speaks to him in an urgent voice. My mind pitches too hard to decipher anything beyond her pleading tone.

  At last he releases me, but I’m stuck draped over his back, unable to move. Lori takes my shoulder and eases me off him.

  “Oh God,” she says. “Oh God. Ciara, I’m so sorry.”

  “What?” I want to examine my arm, but I can’t lift it, and anyway, my vision has gone all swimmy. “Is Travis . . . does Travis have a face yet?”

  Silence, then a soft, “Holy shit.” Travis’s voice, not the least bit slurred.

  “Good sign,” I whisper, as the world goes black.

  I wake in the backseat of a car. I think it’s mine, based on the smell of the upholstery crushed against my nose. There’s a lot of lurching.

  A white light shines in the darkness. I open my eyes to see upside - down block letters through the back windshield. Several of them are E’s.

  Lori speaks, louder than necessary. “Ciara, can you walk, or do you want me to have them bring out a wheelchair?”

  “Where’s Travis?”

  “Right here.”

  I blink and try to focus on his f
ace. He reaches up and turns on the cabin light.

  His skin shows no burns, not even a scar. His eyes are once again round and back in their sockets. His lips are, well, there.

  I did that. Or something bigger did it through me.

  “I can’t come in with you,” he says. “If any of the people who were there tonight see me like this—”

  “Go. Shane’ll pick us up. Just get out of here.”

  Lori opens the back door, then steadies me as I get out of the car. “Are you sure you don’t want a wheelchair?”

  I look up at the Emergency Room sign, then ahead at the double automatic doors. “It’s not that far.” I take a few steps, then a few more.

  My right arm throbs. I look down to see it wrapped tightly in Lori’s dark red scarf.

  Wait. Her scarf was pale green.

  My knees buckle. “Wheelchair.”

  22

  Gotta Serve Somebody

  My vision blurs and swirls, a little less with each minute. Sunlight creeps through the gaps between my eyelashes. To my left, a mechanical hum and intermittent boops create a soothing background for a pair of male voices.

  “Please tell your agents to be careful,” says David. “We don’t want any more trouble than we already have.”

  My tongue tastes like salty sandpaper. I summon all my strength to whimper the word, “water.”

  “Ciara, it’s me.” David steps into my blurred view. “Sorry, they said you can’t drink so soon after the surgery.” A cool wet surface, maybe a paper towel, caresses my dry lips. “Better?”

  I blink as hard as I can. “Muh.”

  David wipes my eyes with the damp cloth. “I met your surgeon. Nice guy.” He draws a dry washcloth over my face. “Did you know he also treats the Ravens? The scalpel he used on you might have once been inside Steve McNair.”

  Several fumble - related jokes come to mind, but I just smile up at David’s face, which is a lot less foggy without my eye gunk. Then I look past him at the other man. “Uh - oh.”

  “Ms. Griffin, good to see you again.” Colonel Lanham steps forward so that David has to move out of the way. Even Lanham’s civilian clothes are solid black, setting off the stark paleness of his smooth scalp under the ultrashort buzz cut. His footsteps are silent and deliberate, and his movements speak of a coiled power, completely under Control.

  By now he must know what I did for Travis, what I can do for all vampires. My life is over.

  “Wha’ you want?” I ask him, trying to sound defiant despite the opium cloud that makes me want to agree with everyone about everything.

  “We heard about what happened to Travis Tucker. I called David and offered to intervene on your behalf.”

  “I’m sorry, Ciara.” Standing at the end of my bed, David touches my foot. “There was a Control agent at the bar last night where Travis got burned. Another one spied him later. Between your injury and Travis’s recovery, they put two and two together about your powers. Colonel Lanham said he would broker a deal to let you keep as much of your personal liberty as possible.”

  I send the colonel a foggy glare. “Let me? ‘S a free country.”

  Lanham gives a slight shrug, as if the Bill of Rights were a pesky technicality. “We’ve been monitoring these Fortress people for years, suspecting that they were a latter - day Citadel movement. One of our agents was shadowing that particular man.”

  “Holy-water guy?”

  “Yes.” He pulls out a small notepad and flips the pages. “Kevin Tarquinio, age twenty - nine. One of the Fortress’s top lieutenants.”

  A dark object moves in my peripheral vision. A strapping but unfamiliar young man in a black sweater stands just outside my door. My bodyguard. Or my warden.

  Colonel Lanham follows my gaze. “He’s FBI, as far as the hospital knows. We have an agreement with the Bureau to let our agents use their forms of identification for cases like this.”

  I squint at my right arm and see it swaddled in bandages. A tube drains red goop near my elbow. I stop looking at it.

  “Now what?” I ask Colonel Lanham. “I get to be your lab rat?” The morphine tangles up my lips so “lab rat” comes out “wabbit.”

  He shakes his head emphatically, making the window’s daylight dance off his scalp. “All we ask is a pint every six weeks, the same as if you were giving to the Red Cross.”

  “I don’t give to the Red Cross.”

  “I assure you we’ll make it worth your while.”

  I reach for the wet paper towel, pretending my lips are too dry to speak. If they’re willing to pay me or trade for something I want, I should wait for them to up the offer.

  Lanham folds his hands in front of him in a pious military gesture. “More important, Ms. Griffin, you’d be helping vampires in need.”

  I give the towel another suck. “Go back to the part about making it worth my while.”

  Colonel Lanham smiles—for the first time I’ve ever seen— then pulls up a chair. “The next time a vampire is burned with holy water, your blood could be administered without you having to be injured.”

  “Bullshit. You’ll use it to build new weapons, not protect vampires from the ones already out there.”

  A petite dark - haired nurse strides in on sneakered feet. “How are we feeling?” she asks me with a smile.

  “Zoomy.”

  She laughs. “I don’t know what that means, but it sounds good.” She waves the men away from my bed. “Step back, fan club, while I take this lady’s blood pressure.”

  I hold out my good arm. “Do I have to stay over?”

  “I’m afraid so.” She wraps the cuff and starts to pump. “But you’re in luck. Tonight’s our monthly non – Salisbury steak dinner.” She glances at my bedside table. “Which one of these gentlemen callers brought the flowers?”

  “I did.” David puts his hands in his pockets. “But they’re from Shane.”

  The nurse raises her eyebrows. “You have three men?”

  Stoned, I giggle. “Not counting the one at the door.”

  The room falls silent as she assesses the pressure of my precious blood. I sleepily admire the dozen red roses sitting next to a scrubs - wearing teddy bear that Lori brought an hour ago, right after I got out of surgery.

  Finally the nurse nods and rips off the cuff. She holds up a device that looks like a remedial remote control, with one red button. “To call the nurse’s station.” She gives me a balloon -looking thing. “For more pain meds.”

  “Cool.”

  “The young ones always say that.” She slips around the other side of the bed and checks my IV setup. “You can have chipped ice now. I could have the nursing assistant bring it, but it’ll be faster if one of your friends gets it from the vending area.”

  “I’ll do it.” David gives me and the colonel a nervous glance, then follows the nurse out.

  Alone with Lanham, I become fascinated with the stitching on the crisp white bedsheet.

  He eases his chair closer. “You’re probably wondering what’s in store for you.”

  “I’m wondering if I have a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.” He leans his elbows on my bed railing, steeples his fingers, and rests his chin on his thumbs. “Your father made a choice.”

  I glance at an imaginary watch. “Wow, almost five minutes without bringing that up. Your restraint is admirable.” Or “ammable,” if one hears it phonetically.

  Another piece of brain wakes up and tells me I shouldn’t squander this chance to speak with him alone. “Am I the only one you know of with this power?”

  “Yes. But I only have the second - highest security clearance. There could be others like you that I don’t know about.”

  “Others, locked up in an underground lab somewhere.”

  “Is that what you fear?”

  “You’re the guys who created vampire ferrets. But I can be more useful to you outside.”

  He gives a single nod. “Infiltrating the Fortress.”


  “If I help you destroy them, will you leave me and my blood alone?”

  His thin lips tighten into an almost imperceptible line. “I don’t understand why you’re not amenable to a periodic donation.”

  “Because it’s not my choice. I should have control over what happens to my own body.” I shift my feet under the sheet. “Plus, losing blood makes me woozy.”

  “We can minimize that reaction. If necessary to protect your health, we’ll take less than a pint at a time, and at first we’d need no more than a few vials to study your blood’s qualities.” He stands, almost looming. “It is your choice. I hope we can come to some mutually beneficial arrangement.” His eyes glint with a brief bitterness. “As for your father, you will be notified when we locate him.” Lanham turns crisply and heads for the door. “As his next of kin.”

  I wake to the press of Shane’s kiss. At least, I hope it’s his.

  I open my eyes and smile up at him.

  “The nurse asked me to wake you for dinner.” Shane pats his stomach. “I said no thanks, I’m full.”

  “That’s tasteless, considering why I’m in the hospital.”

  “Speaking of tasty.” He whips out a box of chocolates from behind his back. “You like them dark, right?”

  “Dark and bittersweet, like the soul of my man.” I grab the box and tear off the ribbon one - handed. Shane catches the teddy bear as it falls off my lap, then lowers the blaring volume on my wall-mounted TV set.

  He pulls a chair up close to my bedside. “So what happened? You weren’t very coherent in the ER last night. Lori told me about Travis, but you were mumbling something about the Fortress and your dad.”

  I describe my preempted encounter with Ned’s brother “B,” including the video of my captured father.

  “Where do you think he could be?” Shane asks.

  “No idea. He was in this totally blank room.” I shut my eyes. “He sounded so scared. I don’t think they were treating him well. He said the usual hostage stuff, like you see on the news.” A memory knocks on the inside of my skull, and I open my eyes. “But something weird, too, about spending Fourth of July with my aunt Lori. I don’t have an aunt Lori, and we never spent holidays with other family members.”