The man smiled knowingly and nodded. “And so you shall.”
Scabby Eddie didn’t notice when the lupine figures that had been crouched over Amos surrounded him. One of them snarled as its taloned fingers tore away the hoodie he wore and denim shirt beneath it. All Scabby Eddie saw were the man’s eyes, and in them, his mother looking back at him.
2
Claudia had been right. Sharon wasn’t totally pissed with Acheson, but she wasn’t happy with his tardiness. Her sister, brother-in-law, and baby niece were fast asleep by the time he arrived home at ten minutes of eleven. All were worn out from their trip from Detroit. Sharon accepted Acheson’s murmured apologies, and didn’t fight over things that could not be changed.
They made love in the quiet house on the hilltop overlooking the sparkling lights of Los Angeles. They were in many ways a perfect complement for each other; natural competitors, their sex life was a fast and furious one, fueled by living on the fine line between life and death. That he was white and she was black added fuel to the fire; both remained intrigued and attracted by their racial differences.
The alarm went off at 6:45AM, and Acheson had no qualms about slapping the snooze bar a few times. After the second time, Sharon practically shoved him out of the bed.
“You hit the snooze one more time I’m gonna shoot you,” she said.
Acheson tossed aside the covers and rolled out of bed. Despite his time in the Army, he was not really a morning person. He half-walked, half-staggered to the bathroom and took a shower. When he stepped back into the master suite, Sharon was sitting up in bed, waiting for him.
“Anything new on the job?” she asked.
Acheson told her of Claudia’s episode in the elevator bay. Sharon considered it for a few moments as she leaned back against the padded king-size headrest. She didn’t bother to pull the sheet up to cover her breasts. Acheson smiled. He never got tired of seeing her naked, and he jumped back into bed and kissed her cheek again. Sharon looked past him at the clock on the nightstand.
“Don’t get all excited, big boy. It’s getting late, and I’d better get some breakfast going for our guests.” She looked him in the eye. “What are the chances of you making it home at a decent hour tonight?”
“Uh… good?”
Sharon cocked one perfect brow. We will see, was the unspoken response.
Acheson dressed as Sharon rose and brushed her teeth. He pulled on a crisp white shirt and a charcoal-colored double-breasted suit, offset by a red tie. He secured his SIG P220 in its kidney holster and had slipped on his shoes when Sharon rejoined him. She pulled on a pair of faded jeans and a long-sleeve Henley top, and swept open the drapes.
“Babe, does this pistol make me look fat?”
Sharon smiled distantly as she walked to the dresser and brushed her long, curly hair. She had enough of a mixed heritage to endow her with cocoa-colored skin but hair that was naturally curly when it grew past her shoulders. She looked great, he thought, watching her in the orange-tinted sunlight filtering through the windows. But something was bugging her.
“You look stressed.” Acheson walked up behind her and put his arms around her waist. “What’s up?”
She fiddled with her hair for a moment longer, then leaned back into him. “My sister wants to know why I’m with a white man.”
“Is that a big deal?” he asked.
“In some black families, it’s a major deal.”
“You never mentioned this before.”
She turned in his arms and looked up at him. “That’s because I didn’t think we’d last.” She paused. “Are we going to last, Mark?”
Acheson frowned. “Uh, where is this coming from?”
She hugged him and kissed his neck. “I really dig being with you, Mark. I really do. And I was wondering… if you might consider making it a permanent arrangement?”
“How permanent, exactly?”
“I’m not the kind of woman to go for a Hollywood marriage. You’re no Kurt Russell, and I’m no Goldie Hawn, that’s for damn sure.”
Acheson pulled away a bit and raised her face toward his so he could look into her dark eyes.
“So we’re talking marriage here?” he asked, a little shocked.
“Doesn’t sound good to you,” she said flatly. He felt her stiffen a little in his arms.
“Not what I meant. It’s just that…”
When he didn’t continue, she asked, “Just what?”
“What we do for a living isn’t exactly conducive to raising a family.”
“And who says we’re going to be in this line of work forever?”
“Sharon… the life we lead doesn’t leave us a lot of time to think about anything other than what happens between dusk and dawn.”
“So I should take that as a no, then?”
“You should take it as a ‘we’ll discuss this later.’“
Sharon smiled. “Feeling trapped?”
“Not one bit,” he said, hiding the lie behind his smile and hating himself for it. “I want to hear what you have to say, but…” He stretched out his arm and checked his watch. “Duty calls.”
Sharon cocked her head to one side, listening. “No problem… because I think our guests are up.”
She pulled away from him. Acheson rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. How to handle this?
“I really do want to talk about this, babe. But just a word of warning… I doubt Washington would go for it. A husband-and-wife duo leading a team of vampire killers? Not exactly within the official guidelines.”
Sharon glanced over her shoulder as she walked toward the bedroom door. “You’re the top dog. Check it out.”
“I will.”
“Good. Now let’s get you introduced.” She opened the door and stepped out into the carpeted hallway. Acheson followed.
Sharon was right. Her family was up and had already gathered in the kitchen. Acheson met Sharon’s sister, Rose, her husband, Derek, and their baby daughter, a beautiful child named Keisha. Derek was a tall man with broad shoulders and an expressive face dominated by a pair of glasses that he compulsively nudged back into place on his broad nose. He was an executive with one of the Big Three in Detroit, and Acheson was surprised to find that he had worked at one time for GM on the Tahoe design team. Acheson, a proud truck owner, thanked him for a job well done.
Rose was another story, as Sharon had indicated. Outwardly she was polite and gregarious, but Acheson felt it was something of an act. She was a few years older than Sharon, still plump from delivering her eight-month-old. Acheson didn’t hold anything against her. After all, Sharon was her sister, and one way or another he would have to win Rose over.
He spent fifteen minutes chatting with them while Sharon brewed some coffee and Rose fed Keisha from a bottle. Acheson glanced at his watch. It was time he left.
“Well, I hate to seem rude, but I’ve got to hit the road with about 50,000 of my closest friends,” he said. “And this time, I’ll be home by eight-thirty, at the latest,” he added, for Sharon’s benefit.
“Work really has you going, huh?” Derek said.
“Absolutely. All number-crunching right now, because the quarterly reports are coming due. A lot of financial crap that I don’t like but have to steer around anyway.”
Derek smiled and shook his head. “You don’t look the accountant type,” he said.
Acheson laughed. “Believe me, I’m not. I just have to look at everything and make sure it at least looks correct.”
“The best part is he can’t even do simple division in his head,” Sharon commented dryly.
“Thanks for that, I appreciate it.” Acheson rolled his eyes.
Sharon smiled back at him thinly. “Coffee for the road?”
“No, thanks. The last thing I need is to be caught between exits with a full bladder.” Acheson picked up his briefcase and shook Derek’s hand, and nodded to Rose. “Hope you folks enjoy the day.”
“You too,” Rose said. The smile she o
ffered didn’t quite reach her eyes. Acheson smiled back anyway.
***
The bug was a fascinating one. For years, it had commanded Dr. Andrew Kerr’s attention and provided him with the most challenging pursuit of his clinical career. It was only seven-thirty in the morning, and he was already examining the object via a monitor connected to a powerful microscope in “the Zone,” the clean room where biologicals were isolated and studied. Shaped like a double-headed cane with a crook at each end, Kerr knew its configuration by heart. Comprised of eight strands of RNA containing the virus’s genetic code, at either end of the crooks were four curled structures that housed separate proteins. The function of the protein structures wasn’t fully understood by Kerr, his staff, or his colleagues at Fort Dietrick, Maryland, where the U.S. Army’s biological research was conducted. Kerr knew the proteins were the key. Map out what they did and how they did it and they would know how to beat it.
The samples Kerr examined came from the last vampire sanctioned by Acheson’s team. He compared it with specimens taken almost two decades earlier, and the match was identical. This was not unusual; viruses of the same classification tended to mirror one another almost exactly at the genetic level. There was no sign of mutation, little change even in the shape of the virus or how it responded to various tests. For that, Kerr was thankful. A virus resistant to mutation was easier to defeat.
Still, it was confounding. A virus wasn’t even technically alive. In order for it to be classified as an organism, it needed both RNA and DNA, but a virus had only one or the other. How it worked—in theory, of course—was that it lay dormant until it came into contact with something that possessed a measure of either RNA or DNA, say the cells of a living host. Once that contact occurred, the virus animated like some murderous monster. In the case of this virus, its incubation period was only three to five days. The changes to the host brought about by that incubation were still mysterious. Of course, it transformed an infected human into a vampire, even if that human was clinically dead. In this case, they also knew that a day or so before the transformation was complete, the bodies would begin to exhibit some signs of life. Brain activity and minor muscle spasms could be detected. But the real changes occurred deep inside the body, where infected cells grew at a phenomenal rate, essentially rearranging the entire digestive tract. Organs such as the spleen were devoured by the new cellular growths, as if attacked by cancer. More intriguing was that fact that if the body had been eviscerated by a mortician, the changes happened anyway. The phenomenon was quite unusual, and utterly mystifying.
It was called Rex Mortis Articuli, “King of the Living Dead”. The acronym was RMA, a fitting counterpoint to the DNA and RNA that gave life. Elegant in a simplistic way, RMA was also very, very tiny. Several hundred thousand particles laid end-to-end would scarcely fill up an inch of space. This is how they were so easily dispersed through the host. A few beats of the failing heart would transmit them throughout the entire body, where they nestled into cellular structures and began their work. Essentially, the virus attached itself to a cellular wall, where two of the proteins changed in composition. What they changed into had been mapped but remained mysterious.
Once bound, other presumed protein changes commenced the actual infection of the cells. The infected cells emitted even more viral particles, allowing the infection to spread rapidly through cellular walls themselves. Kerr determined a key component of combating RMA involved preventing it from adhering to as many cells as possible. He learned that a common inhibitor found in several widely used medications did in fact serve to prevent mass attachment in laboratory studies. Of course, the problem was in administering the pseudo-vaccine to the patient almost immediately, otherwise the spread would be too great. And it was hardly a cure. The turning process could still continue, albeit at a greatly reduced rate.
What happened next was another unanswered question. It might prove useful in the laboratory, but it would be of little benefit to the victim. A turning was a turning, and the end result was a bloodsucker that had to be killed. Kerr’s only hope was that he might have the opportunity to study a specimen with a slower conversion process. His ultimate hope was that such observations would give rise to a retrovirus that could halt the process entirely. Which would mean the end of the vampire race.
And that was what Dr. Andrew Kerr was paid for.
***
“You’re shitting me,” Winston said. He gripped the armrests of his chair with white-knuckled hands. “You are absolutely shitting me!”
Schwimmer didn’t even blink. “No. I’m not. I want the plant closed by five this evening.”
Winston released his grip on the chair and eased back. “You’re firing us? All of us?”
“Everyone gets a severance check that will equate to a full year’s salary, plus bonus. And full matching on the 401k, plus an additional two percent. And medical coverage for the rest of the year,” Schwimmer intoned.
David Winston looked at his boss. The shock had started to wear off, and anger began to mount.
“You’re selling the company,” he said. “After all of these years, you’re selling the company? How come I didn’t know about this sooner? I’m the fucking plant manager!”
“Was,” Schwimmer interjected. “As of five o’clock this evening, you’re free to find other work.”
At thirty-seven, Winston was accustomed to a decent income, earning a gross salary of 106,000 dollars plus bonus. He and the rest of the workers in the manufacturing complex turned out decent work, and the sales had been consistently brisk. Schwimmer’s little southern California coffin empire was cash-rich, without much in the way of debt. How could the old man just walk away from it? It was what he lived for!
“This doesn’t make any sense. You’ve been approached with buyouts before, and you’ve always sent them packing. Why now?”
“I’m old,” Schwimmer said. “I’m tired. I want to sell the company and be done with it, with a full inventory, with the shelves fully stocked.”
“You have a buyer already?”
“Yes, I do.” Schwimmer slowly leaned back in his high-backed leather office chair. The old man didn’t look well to Winston. His normally tan skin was pale and a sheen of sweat covered his forehead. He wore a wrinkled suit for the first time Winston could remember. Upon closer inspection, Winston realized it was the same suit Schwimmer had worn yesterday.
“Who?” Winston asked.
“That’s none of your affair,” Schwimmer responded stonily. “You know what I want, now see to it. That is, if you want the year’s pay and bonus,” he added.
Damn… the old guy’s a real sweetheart, Winston thought.
“The union won’t go for it—”
“This is a privately-held company,” Schwimmer said. “I own everything. If I want the union out of here, I’m within my rights to do it. Now, get the word out. I want a memo in everyone’s mailbox by lunch break.”
Shit! “If that’s what you want.”
“It is,” Schwimmer confirmed. “Now get to it.”
***
The session was a bust. Under Dr. Kerr and Julia McGuiness, Claudia Nero had been induced into a state of hypnosis on the leather sofa in Acheson’s darkened office. Even when in such a vulnerable state, she was unable to specify what it was that had captivated her for almost 20 minutes the previous night. She could remember everything that had happened before and after her Seeing—she even described in great detail how the clutch in her Audi was sticking—but could recall nothing of what she had actually Seen.
“Guess I didn’t deliver the goods,” Claudia said when Kerr brought her back to reality. “I see it on Mark’s face.”
“Well.” Acheson rose from his chair. “I guess the method acting lessons didn’t take too well. Doctor, can I…?” Acheson waved toward the closed vertical blinds covering the windows. Kerr nodded. Acheson opened the blinds. Warm California sunlight spilled into the office. Claudia blinked as she sat up on the couch.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Nothing to apologize for,” Acheson said.
“But you’re disappointed.”
Acheson shrugged and returned to his chair. “Something strange may be going on, and I like as much advance warning as I can get. But you’re not our only source. If you were, then we probably wouldn’t have intel analysts sitting here twenty-four seven.”
Claudia smiled wanly. “Thanks for that.”
“Free of charge.” Acheson looked at Julia and Kerr. “I guess we’re done here?”
“Looks like,” Julia said.
“Then I’ll get back to the lab.” Kerr rose ponderously, and adjusted his suspenders before he slipped on his jacket.
“There might be something else,” Claudia said suddenly. “It’s probably nothing, but…”
“What is it?” Julia asked.
“I’ve been having unusual… well, dreams lately.”
“What’s unusual about them?” Acheson took a pull off his Starbucks. It was cold. He tried not to make a face.
“I’ve been dreaming about a black man,” Claudia said after a pause.
Julia laughed. “Good God, tell me it’s not Cecil!”
Claudia shook her head. “No, no, sorry, not an African-American man. Just a… black man. With a lot of power. Not physical power, though he has that, but another kind of power. A power I can feel.”
“How often have you had these dreams?” Kerr asked.
“Often,” Claudia said.
“For how long?”
“The past several days,” she admitted.
“Interesting. Why didn’t you mention them earlier?”
Claudia looked away. “They’re just dreams. And they’re… very sexual.”
“But your orientation is not heterosexual,” Kerr said, his voice mild yet clinical. “Correct?”
Claudia blushed and looked at the floor. “Correct. Look, I’m sure it’s nothing—”
“Claudia,” Acheson said. “Where you’re concerned, we have to take everything seriously and with an open mind.”
“Have you ever had sexually oriented dreams involving men before?” Julia asked.
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