Bad to the Bone

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “It’s—” Jeremy cuts himself off as his eyes go wide. Then he blurts, “It’s Fall Out Boy.”

  “Oh. Well, I don’t care. It was too weird for me.” Luann locks the trap door and stands up. “I’ll be back in a couple hours to draw your blood,” she tells Jeremy. “Now eat, and drink your whole glass of orange juice.”

  He nods quickly. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.” He seems eager for her to leave.

  She keeps a careful eye on Wallace as she returns to the stairs. Then she dashes up and slams the door behind her.

  Jeremy whirls to face me. “Ciara, that song.”

  “ ‘Jet Black New Year’? I don’t know it. Why would he play that for me?”

  “He didn’t. He played it for me.” Jeremy taps his chest. “He knows it’s one of my favorite songs. The lyrics inspired two of my tattoos.” He rolls up his sleeve and displays the slit -wrist tattoo, then turns his arm over to show me a small black heart on the back of his hand.

  I gasp. “So Shane knows you’re here. Which means our second message got through, and last night’s song wasn’t a coincidence.” I point to the listening device under the cot. “The song was a signal that they heard us.”

  “That’s not all.” Jeremy grabs my shoulders. “I lied to Luann. Fall Out Boy didn’t do that song. It’s by a band called Thursday.”

  I stare at him for a moment, wondering if I’m supposed to have heard of them. Then my jaw drops. “Today is Thursday. They’re coming today to rescue us!” I hop up and down on my toes and struggle to keep my voice to a whisper. “But when? How? Are there clues in the lyrics?”

  “Let me think.” Jeremy lets go of me and starts to pace, mumbling under his breath. He stops suddenly. “Shit. The first verse talks about cyanide in the air.”

  I put a hand to my chest. “They’re going to gas the place?”

  “Shh.” Jeremy goes to the far corner of our cage, muttering to himself.

  I leave him alone and pick up my glass of juice. My mouth is dry as sand. From the corner of my eye, I see Jeremy strum an air guitar to jog his memory.

  Wallace watches him with the cold, unblinking stare of a snake. While not exactly on our side, he must know that a raid on the Fortress is his only hope for survival. By going back to Control custody, he can at least live out his days in a safe place with decent meals and a complete lack of being staked.

  Jeremy stops, smacks his palms together, and looks at me, his eyes gleaming. “Ten seconds to midnight.”

  December 20, one of the shortest days of the year, feels to me and Jeremy like the longest of our lives. In what we think is the late morning, Luann collects Jeremy’s blood under the watchful eye of a well - muscled Fortress thug who could probably break both our necks in the middle of his own nap.

  Then nothing happens for so long, we run out of small talk and are forced to move to Big Talk.

  “You and Shane are pretty serious, huh?” Jeremy asks from the other end of the cot, where we lie head - to - foot under the fuzzy yellow blanket.

  “I guess so.”

  “You guess so? You live with the guy.”

  “That’s temporary, while—uh, while I’m apartment - sitting for the station’s owner until she gets back in the country.” I’m definitely not sharing my identity theft with a reporter, in case we do make it out alive.

  “What about long term?” he asks. “Are you going to have him turn you into a vampire?”

  “No way! I’d miss food and sunshine.” I tug the blanket up a few inches to cover my shoulders. “Besides, he wouldn’t do it even if I asked.”

  “But if you stay human, your love is intrinsically tragic.”

  “Only in the extreme long term. How can I think about twenty years from now when I don’t know if I’ll survive the week?”

  “It’s times like this when you should think about it, figure out what’s important.” Jeremy shifts his weight under the blanket, pulling it in his direction. “Let’s say the Fortress locks us away somewhere forever to keep their secret. What would you be most loath to leave behind?”

  “Shane, of course.” Though Dexter is becoming a close second.

  “But as you age, you will leave him behind. You’ll change, but he’ll stay the same. He’ll, uh—what’s the word you used?”

  “Fade,” I whisper, pulling the blanket up to my chin. “He’ll fade.”

  “So why not become a vampire and fade with him? It’d be like growing old and crotchety together, like humans do. Kind of romantic.”

  “Kind of depressing.” I think of Jeremy’s suicidal tattoos. “But I guess that’s your specialty, huh?”

  “I don’t run from life’s pain.”

  “No, you sprint right into its arms.” Frustrated with my efforts to get comfortable, I sit up, keeping the blanket over my legs. “What about you? Planning to trade in this nice warm skin?”

  “I’d love to,” he says, with no apparent irony or embarrassment. “It’d be the story of a lifetime. A story I’d only tell myself, of course.”

  “You realize it’s a one - way trip, right? Eternal night, monotonous diet—”

  “It’d be worth it.” He folds his hands behind his head. “I bet they’re more alive than we are.”

  “Regina said that once.”

  Jeremy’s eyes light up. “She’d probably turn me.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it.” I explain my theory about Sara and the whole personal nature of Benjamin and the Fortress’s vendetta against the station.

  “Jeez.” He takes off his glasses and rubs his bloodshot eyes. “I had no idea.”

  “Bringing a new vampire into the world is a huge responsibility. You have to feed them, shelter them, protect them. You leave behind families who mourn them, and sometimes lovers who want to avenge them, like Benjamin.” I look at Wallace, who lies curled up at the back of his cage. Asleep, his ruddy face is smooth and slack, almost childlike. For the first time, I wonder what he was like before Gideon turned him. “I’d never ask Shane to do it. He’d have to kill me, and I wouldn’t want that on his conscience.”

  “But it’s not taking life,” Jeremy says, “it’s giving life, especially between lovers. The way I see it, you and Shane can’t make it in the long run unless you’re the same. Right now, he’s human enough that you can pretend he’s like you, that he’s not a monster.”

  “He’s not a monster.”

  “See? It’s working.”

  “Shut up.” I press what I hope is a smelly foot into his face.

  “My point is, he can’t become like you. That option’s off the table.” He smooths the swoop of blond hair out of his eyes. “But you can become like him. If that’s what you really want.”

  “I just want things to be simple.”

  “Then you’ve got the wrong guy.”

  I groan and slump back on the cot. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe you love him because you know it can’t last forever. He’s got temporariness built in. When you finally break up someday, you can blame it on the human - vampire thing instead of your inability to commit.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “I know the type.”

  “Why? Because you think you dated someone like me once? Someone who ditched you or just wasn’t perfect enough? The person you think of whenever you listen to that sad, pathetic music?” I jab his ankle with my good elbow. “I just want to be happy, and you think that’s pathological because all you want is to be miserable. Which one of us is more fucked up?”

  Jeremy utters a tight sigh, and his leg tenses beside me. I can tell he wants to shift away, and I do, too, but we need the warmth. So we lie there pressed together, our bodies close but our minds a million miles apart. I wonder if we’ll ever be friends after all this is over.

  The door opens suddenly, and Benjamin walks briskly down the stairs, followed by Luann, who proceeds slowly, carrying a large tray laden with plates and glasses.

  We sit up, and Jeremy t
akes my hand, though whether it’s to comfort me or himself, I’m not sure. I check our captors’ wrists—no watches. It could be near midnight, or it could be five o’clock.

  Benjamin claps once. “Dinner is served!”

  Luann sets the tray carefully on the floor and opens the hatch in our cage. Before she pushes it through, Benjamin takes off two red plastic straw - cups, then goes to the closet and unlocks it.

  He reappears holding what looks like a three - foot - long metal forceps. He uses it to set one of the cups just outside Wallace’s cage while standing back at a safe distance.

  The vampire lunges forward and grabs the tool. A sizzling sound, followed by his scream, makes us all jump. He jerks back his hand, which is scorched, like he just grabbed a hot poker.

  “Coated with holy water. Can’t have you seizing our weapons.” Benjamin points the tool at the cup on the floor. “Drink that. It’ll make you feel better.”

  The vampire gives him a suspicious look, then uses his un-injured hand to reach through the bars and pick up the cup. He sniffs the edge of the lid, and his eyes roll up in ecstasy.

  Wallace turns to me. “This won’t be the last of you I taste.” He wraps his tongue around the straw and takes a deep gulp. A long sigh escapes him.

  He lifts his hand, whole and healed again. His laughter booms out, echoing against the stone walls.

  “Shut up and finish it,” Benjamin says. “When you’re done, give it back, and you can have another.”

  Wallace hurries to drink the rest of my blood, slurping loudly at the bottom of the cup. I resist the urge to plug my ears, knowing my disgust would just enhance the taste.

  He tosses the cup through the bars and lets out a gut -rippling belch. Benjamin uses the long forceps to set the second cup outside the cage.

  Wallace waits for him to withdraw the contraption, then seizes the second cup. He sniffs it first and frowns.

  “Not from her.” His hungry gaze alights on Jeremy. “The new one, yes?” He lifts the cup to Jeremy in a toast, then takes a long sip.

  In the corner of my eye, Benjamin steps forward. I turn to see Luann backing away and covering her face. What the hell are they—

  “Urgh!”

  Wallace drops the cup. The lid pops off, and blood splashes across the floor into our cage. Eyes bulging, the vampire clutches his throat. It looks like he’s trying to scream.

  Then his tongue protrudes, black and steaming. Burned.

  One of Wallace’s hands slides down his shirt to his stomach, and his face crumples in agony—eyes popping wide, mouth contorting into a crooked red slash.

  Jeremy squeezes my arm hard enough to leave a bruise. His face has turned chalk white. “My blood’s not poison,” he says. “None of the other vampires—”

  “Of course it’s not poison,” Benjamin cuts in. “Unlike Ciara, you’re nothing special.”

  Wallace collapses onto the floor and curls into the fetal position, choking and gasping.

  I untangle my own tongue to ask Benjamin, “What did you give him?”

  He puts his hands behind his back in a professorial posture. “We’ve secretly replaced the plasma in each of your blood samples with holy water.” He points his chin in Wallace’s direction. “I think he noticed the difference.”

  “You monster,” I spit out.

  “Me?” He laughs. “Lord, the perversity. This is the same vampire who’d love to rip off your head and use your carotid artery as a drinking fountain.”

  I step back, my face twisting at the image. “If he tried, I’d kill him if I had a weapon. But this is cruel. If you think humans are so superior, then show some humanity.”

  “How?” Benjamin’s deep blue eyes flash at me. “Put him out of his misery? Stake him? Burn him?”

  “What are you talking about?” Jeremy’s voice verges on hysteria. “He’s burning up right now, from the inside!”

  “Holy water doesn’t kill like fire,” Benjamin tells him. “It just burns and leaves permanent scars.” He glares at me. “ ‘Permanent’ until you came along.” He steps up to the bars of Wallace’s cage. “How are you feeling there, li’l fella?”

  Wallace spins and surges to his feet. Benjamin lurches back just in time to avoid becoming the aforementioned fountain. Wallace’s arm strains through the bars, fingers stretched toward his captor’s throat.

  Benjamin straightens his shirt and rubs his neck. “Heh. Not nearly dead yet.”

  Wallace’s heaving breath carries the stench of singed flesh. I cover my nose and realize that he has yet to make a sound louder than a gasp.

  “His throat’s burned out, isn’t it?” I ask Benjamin.

  Luann answers. “His stomach, too, I bet.”

  “So you’re going to let him starve?”

  Benjamin nods. “Once he’s weak enough to be handled, we’ll use an endoscope to see the extent of the internal damage.” He rests his hands on his hips, assessing Wallace’s tortured form as if he were a stalled car. “A fascinating coda to a worthy experiment. I’m glad we’ll get good use out of him before the next ritual.”

  I realize the implication of his words. “If he can’t feed, then you don’t need us anymore. We can go home, right?”

  He snorts. “Of course. Because I can trust you to keep your mouths shut about everything you’ve seen.” He pulls out his cell phone and places a call. “The prisoners are ready for transfer.” He hangs up.

  I look at Luann, who’s twisting her hands together, staring wild - eyed at the floor like it’s going to bite her.

  “Transfer to where?” I ask Benjamin, though I’m not sure I want the answer.

  “Truth? I don’t know.” He slips the phone back into his pants pocket. “I prefer to stay out of the loop on matters of disposal.”

  My fingers turn to ice. “Disposal?” Please, midnight, get here fast.

  “Though I’d like to study the qualities of your blood, we can’t take the chance of letting a vampire healer survive. Not one with friends and allies looking for her.” He shrugs. “Besides, we have your father.”

  My heart pounds. Even if my dad thinks he’s in league with the Fortress, they might still take his blood, lock him up forever in a lab. “My father can’t heal holy-water burns.”

  “Are you sure?” He gives me a long, penetrating gaze, then shifts his regard to Jeremy. “You’re normal, but still a witness.”

  “You can’t do this.” I flail for an argument to stall. “I thought you liked humans.”

  “Human?” Benjamin’s handsome features twist into an ugly mask. “You’re less than human. Vampires are what they are—evil creatures who feed off us—but they have no choice. They’re just doing what comes natural.” He takes another step closer. “Vampire lovers, on the other hand, make a very unnatural choice. What deer would lie down for the cougar, what rabbit would hop into the fox’s mouth? None. But you people, you willingly bare your throats for these monsters. You’re a traitor to your species.”

  “That’s bullshit.” I stalk toward him. “We’re not animals. Besides, donors save human lives. Without volunteers, vampires would be forced to hunt.”

  “Yes, and then be hunted by the righteous. That’s the old way. The way of nature. The way of God.”

  “What kind of god wants more death and misery?”

  “The one true God. The God of blood and sacrifice.”

  “What would the Bible say about your rituals?” I scrape my mind for the old memories. “Paul would call them ‘deeds of darkness,’ and—and, Deuteronomy says they’re ‘detestable to the Lord.’ “ At least, I think it says that.

  “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” He tilts his head. “Merchant of Venice,” he adds piously, as if a footnote makes it all better.

  Benjamin glances at the ceiling. “Where are they?” He checks his naked wrist, forgetting he’s not wearing a watch, then opens his phone. “Figures. Midnight shift change.”

  I look at Jeremy, who stares at me as he puts his ha
nd over his nose and mouth and rubs in what looks like a deliberate gesture. A signal? He removes his jacket and drapes it over his arm. Ah, yes. I take off my coat.

  Benjamin dials the phone again, muttering to himself. Luann glances anxiously among me and Jeremy and Wallace. The vampire stands frozen against the bars, his eyes distant in an expression of absolute vigilance.

  Suddenly Wallace’s gaze darts to the ceiling. For a moment I hear nothing. Then a dull thud, from a room not directly above us, maybe the living room. The moment stretches on, taut and brittle as cold taffy.

  Another thud, this one in the foyer right above us.

  Benjamin looks up. “What the—”

  The door at the top of the stairs slams open. Splinters of wood fly down the steps, followed by a clanging, hissing metal canister. A white cloud pours out as it bounces end over end.

  “Ciara, hold your breath!” Jeremy shoves his coat against his face. I follow suit, jamming the rough wool against my nostrils.

  Luann screams. “It’s poison gas!”

  Benjamin grabs her and drags her toward the open weapons closet. He shoves her inside, hurries to follow, then slams the door shut behind them.

  A tall figure in flannel appears through the white cloud.

  Shane.

  He shoves two gas masks through the bars. Jeremy grabs both, then straps one over my head before securing his own.

  Two more men in black Control uniforms streak down the stairs—vampires, obviously, since they have no masks.

  “Look out!” I point to the closet, my eyes already burning from the gas. “They have weapons. A man and a woman.”

  Jeremy tightens the straps on my mask, since it’s a job for two hands. “How are we getting out of here?” he yells to Shane.

  Shane puts his finger to his lips and kneels in front of the lock with a short thin metal instrument.

  Through the thickening cloud of gas, I see the two Control vampires open the closet. In another moment, they enter and disappear.

  “Got it.” Shane jerks open the door, reaches in, and pulls me out. We leave Wallace in the capable hands of the other agents and make our way upstairs.