Sins of the Blood: A Vampire Novel

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Ben's hands were trembling and his throat had gone dry. The erection was gone. He didn't like the way this man saw him. No one should be able to see that clearly.

  Mikos turned. "I'm right, aren't I?"

  "Is that what happened to you?"

  Mikos rested against the arm of the chair, his eyes sparkling. "You're good, boy. Very good. And no, that's not what happened to me. I met a woman nearly fifty years ago who, as I look back, must have been a virgin. She nearly drained me of blood and left me for dead without sealing my wounds. As you will learn, that turns some humans. It turned me. Now I feed off of other blood to live."

  "Vampires?" Ben whispered the words. Vampires were derelicts with a taste for blood. Skinny, pathetic people who couldn't hold jobs and who barely had the strength to find an evening meal. Young vampires quit their jobs and hung out in bars, like Steve, unable to control their impulses, sucking the blood from willing victims. Vampires didn't have homes. They didn't have families. They didn't go to college. They were weak people who had been seduced by other weak people.

  No one had sucked his blood. No one had ever touched him—until today.

  Vampires. He had not let that word into his mind since he had arrived. In fact, he had been avoiding it since he last saw Candyce.

  He couldn't be a vampire. He was young. He was smart. He was strong.

  And he loved the taste of blood.

  "All of us here are vampires," Mikos said. "Except the people on the mats. They were merely—dessert—until you came along. After they've been cows for a while, they get a sweet high. It makes them completely sexual, and completely passive. We stimulate their pleasure centers better than any synthetic drug, and if they lose their will, well, they would lose it on more dangerous drugs also."

  "I've never been drained by anyone. I've never been left for dead," Ben said.

  "No." Mikos' eyes had a brightness that Ben had never seen in anyone's eyes before. They were compelling. Ben couldn't look away. "You are a rare creature. You are a hereditary vampire, with a taste for blood from birth. Only since you've become sexual have you felt the need."

  "My parents aren't vampires."

  "Oh?" Mikos sat in the chair and stuck his feet out like Ben did. "Then how do you explain that little incident in the other room? No human can do that. It sickens them. But you. You couldn't get enough."

  Ben looked at his hands. If he closed his eyes, he could feel the woman's body beneath his. She had tasted so good…

  He kept his eyes open. "Human beings can do that."

  Mikos laughed. "Ah, denial." He leaned forward. "Yes, human beings can probably do that, and some of them may even enjoy it. But it does not fall into the DSM-IV's category of normal human responses. That's the first item under the DSM-IV's category for vampire."

  "DSM-IV?"

  "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Number Four, which is, unless I'm mistaken, the current volume psychiatrists use to diagnose mental and psychological aberration."

  Ben sat up straight. His feet were getting too hot. "You're saying I'm aberrant?"

  "They say you're aberrant. For a human." Mikos stood and paced around his chair. He pushed up his sweatshirt sleeves, then rubbed his hands together. "But I'm saying you're not and never have been human. You've been a vampire your entire life, and for a vampire, at least one who has been trying to live with the very thing it eats, you've been surprisingly normal."

  "I never heard of hereditary vampirism."

  "Of course not," Mikos said. He crossed his arms. "You have believed the TV movies of the week[C&F39] about the vampire plague among the homeless. The sick, weak-minded creatures that prey on children. The pathetic vampire, mouth covered with blood, staggering with the weight of its evening meal. The discussions on Donahue and Oprah about the men who were once loving and who have become violent, hateful people who only go out at night. The women who don black mini-skirts and cruise the street, coming home at dawn with bloodstains on their lips. If vampires were that stupid, we would not survive for centuries, Ben. A few cows become the chosen, like I did, but most can't handle it. Society deals with them. It rarely finds the successful chosen. I have enough money to live the way I want and not be questioned. I do not let my addictions interfere with my desires. And if you listen to me, neither will you."

  Ben moved his feet away from the fireplace. Sweat ran down his back. This was too much for him. People did not suddenly become vampires.

  —His fist connected with little Tommy Stonner's face. Pain ran from his knuckles to his wrist. Blood spurted from Tommy's nose and the crowd of boys on the playground cheered. Mrs. Deely grabbed Tommy and pulled him away. Ben licked his fist. Tommy's blood was sweet —

  "That woman wanted me to do that," Ben said, banishing the childhood memory.

  "Of course she did," Mikos said. "She got the most exquisite sexual high of her life."

  "Why do you always have an answer for me?"

  "And why do you try to minimize what you just did?" Mikos asked. "You're rested now. If I gave you any of the others, the women, the men, you would react the same way you did in front of all my friends. You would shred the neck, and drain the blood if you could."

  Ben clasped his hands tightly over his lap. The lust was back. Jesus, did they drug him? "No, I wouldn't," he said. "This is just hormones. I'm only twenty-two—"

  Mikos closed the distance between them faster than Ben had ever seen anyone move. He grabbed Ben's arms and shoved his hands aside. Ben's erection popped through the kimono, and before Ben could move, Mikos went down on it, nipping at the base.

  Ben cried out and tried to twist away. Mikos grabbed him and held him in place, and sucked. It felt good. It felt too good. Mikos was male. Ben leaned forward to push Mikos away. The cords in Mikos'[C&F40] neck stood out, and without a second's hesitation, Ben stuck his head in Mikos' neck and bit.

  Mikos' blood was thinner than anything Ben had ever tasted before, but it had a sparkle to it like a fine champagne. Mikos'[C&F41] mouth was warm and wet over Ben's penis. Ben arched into Mikos, letting the sensation take him. He drank and drank, and then another orgasm—better than the first—rippled through him. Mikos pulled away from Ben's lap, mouth bloody, forcing Ben to sit up.

  "Why deny what you are?" Mikos asked, running his tongue over the blood. "If you accept yourself,[C&F42] you have so much more control."

  Ben swallowed the last of Mikos' bubbly blood. His heart was pounding faster than it ever had before, and his body felt stronger. If he got up, he could run across half of Seattle and not get tired. "Control?"

  Mikos nodded and stood. The fire played against his thin face. "Control. Of yourself, of your body, and of others. The vampires the humans see have lost control. They are pathetic victims of their blood lust. You could join them, or you could determine when you would feed, instead of letting your body choose for you."

  "Control," Ben said. Think of it. He could choose when to have that delicious experience. He could do it every hour or every week, depending on his mood.

  "Control," Mikos said, "is the beginning of power."

  Ben frowned. He hadn't expected that. "What would I want with power?"

  Mikos smiled. His teeth were stained with Ben's blood. "Ah, my boy. Someday you will crave it. Someday you will crave it more than the blood. And unless you control it, you will do anything for it. Just like tonight, when you did anything I wanted to get blood."

  Ben froze. Mikos had steered him since Ben had arrived in the apartment. Ben had not questioned a thing. He had done what he was told. He had never been like that before. "That's not how it's done?"

  Mikos shrugged. "Does it matter how most of us do it? Right now, I could bring you a real cow, with four feet and hooves, and you would hump it and try to suck its blood. Virgins have no control at all."

  "Then why are you interested in me?"

  "Because your friend Steve sent you to us without explanation. If you had been his protégé, he would have kept you as a young c
ow until you completely turned. But you are turning on your own. I told you that hereditary vampires are rare. They also have the capability of being the most powerful among us." Mikos bowed at the waist, his expression mocking. "It suits me, Master Ben Sadler, to serve you."

  Chapter Five

  i

  That night Cammie dreamed:

  She was lying across her bed, reading. Forbidden sunlight warmed her feet, her back. She didn't dare make any noise. Daddy was sleeping. He hated to be disturbed while he slept, especially after a night out. Lately he had been insisting that she sleep in the daylight too. She hated it. Sometimes she would fall asleep near Daddy, and he would get angry. He wanted his children on the same schedule that he was on. That way he could spend more time with them. But what he called time was mostly watching television, sipping wine and waiting for him to go out on his nightly food run. He always came back with groceries and cooked them a large dinner that[C&F43] he never ate. Once she asked him why he didn't like food. He had smiled and said the wine was enough.

  She sat bolt upright in her bed, arms wrapped around herself. Her heart was pounding as if she had awakened from a nightmare, but the dream itself had not been frightening. She even knew the dream's cause—the vampire and his little girl.

  The bedroom was dark, hot, and too small. A thin light filtered through the blinds onto the hardwood floor. She had bought white blinds—the better to see shadows—and never kept them fully closed.

  She sighed and threw back the covers. Maybe she should have gone with DeeDee to take her mind off that little girl. That breathless little cry. Daddy. Even now Cammie didn't want to acknowledge the pain.

  The floor was cool against her bare feet. She slipped on her ancient terrycloth[C&F44] robe as she walked to the window and peeked through the blinds. The streetlight guarded her window like a sentinel. Cars lined the curb on the street below. The ranch houses across the street were dark except for that of Mr. Simmons, whom she had already had the center check out. He was an elderly man with a sleeping disorder he had acquired in the war.

  Night terrors. Seems he saw vampires whenever he closed his eyes.

  Cammie let the blind drop. It rattled against the window frame. Poor Mr. Simmons. No one had believed him when he came back from Germany. But Germany, Rumania, Russia—all of Eastern Europe and most of Northern Europe—[C&F45] had vampire problems. Recent studies had shown that Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler had both had vampiric family members, and were probably vampires themselves. Stalin had trained a special force of vampiric ghouls to carry out most of his more bloodthirsty orders. Vampires had run the POW camps in World War II. Mr. Simmons had been among the troops liberating those camps, and he had seen things that Cammie didn't even want to guess at.

  No wonder he stayed awake at night.

  Just like she did.

  Her throat was dry and her hands were shaking. The heat in the room made the garlic even more pungent. She flicked on the hall light and turned down the thermostat.

  In the thin light of a sixty-watt bulb, her hall looked like something out of a bad horror movie. Dust bunnies floated across the hardwood, a testament more to her mental state than her cleaning abilities. The light bulb hung from a cord, and no pictures covered her white walls. The tiny bathroom barely had enough room for her in it, and she had not cleaned it since she moved in. The bedroom was small, but the living room/dining room was big, and the kitchen was an extra room, a luxury in an apartment as old as this one.

  She didn't get paid enough for the work she did. The Center ran on a limited budget, financed by a mysterious source of Anita's, donations from various organizations, and private funds. Once, the Center had made its money on its rehabilitation program, but since that failed, Anita had had to find more creative ways to keep the Center alive. Underpaying its staff was one of those ways.

  Cammie could have had a better-paying job out of college, but she had owed the Center. They had given her a $1000 scholarship to attend the U.W. back when $1000 had been a year's tuition. The Center chose only about ten likely candidates a year to give scholarships too, with the recipients guaranteeing that they would work for the Center for at least a year after graduation. Cammie, like most, had stayed on.

  Maybe now though, she should move on to another job where she would make more money. She struggled to make the rent on this place, and each month she tried to set a little aside to buy a new piece of furniture or even a nice item of clothing. So far, it had not worked.

  The living room carpet needed vacuuming. She padded across it, noting that nothing had disturbed the strands of garlic hanging around each window. Despite the Center's insistence, she did not hang crosses in her home, although she had them stashed in case of emergency. The Center's history suggested that vampires would try to kill eradication teams, but the last such attempt occurred in the ’70s[C&F46] . Still, Cammie couldn't be too cautious.

  She flicked on the fluorescent light in the kitchen. It crackled and spit, something that made her very nervous, especially since the accident last year. Her upstairs neighbor, a college student at the UW, had gone to bed drunk, leaving the water running in his sink. It flooded the floor and eventually caved in part of Cammie's drywall ceiling, making her wake up screaming and grabbing in her top drawer for the squirt gun filled with holy water. The new plastering job was makeshift, done by her landlord's brother. It had taken him two weeks and two complaints to the Housing Authority before she had a kitchen again.

  The stained brown kettle still had some plaster dents. She poured the water out of it, filled it, and turned on her top burner. At moments like this, she wanted a microwave, just a small one, to heat water and TV dinners. A small one would cost about a hundred dollars. Maybe, after this child thing had blown over, she would ask Anita for a raise.

  Cammie put the teakettle[C&F47] on the burner, pulled a mug off the rack, and stuck a peppermint teabag inside. Then she pushed newspapers aside on her kitchen table and sat down to wait for the water.

  Nightmares. One step beneath night terrors. The report on Simmons said that he couldn't sleep more than a few hours without waking up screaming. Two wives had divorced him because they couldn't sleep—even in separate bedrooms. Years of V.A. sponsored counseling only seemed to make it worse.

  All because Simmons wouldn't discuss what he had seen over there. It was too awful. He had refused to give himself permission to remember.

  Cammie put her head on her arms. The little girl—Janie—she would remember. And even if she didn't, Cammie would. That soft, plaintive Daddy would haunt her for the rest of her days.

  ii

  Cammie managed to get three hours of sleep before her appointment with Anita. Still, as she walked through the front door of the Westrina Center, she felt as if someone had dumped two tons of sand in her eyes.

  "I hope to hell it was a guy," DeeDee said as she looked up from her desk at Reception. This morning, she had her hair pulled back in a big red bow that matched the candy-striped shirt she wore. She had redone her nails in red and white stripes to match.

  "Only if you count Zolton Tor. Thirty-nine, built, blonde curls—"

  "And the hero of that Katherine Neville book I gave you for Christmas. Jesus, Cammie, you weren't up all night reading?"

  "Nope. I was up all night pacing. I started reading after the sun came up."

  "Such an exciting life," DeeDee said. "The Crash Test Dummies were worth it."

  "Yeah. Now I'm sorry I missed them."

  "Me, too." DeeDee leaned back in her chair. "Anita's waiting for you. She actually beeped down a few minutes ago to see if you were here. Something heavy is happening, isn't it?"

  "I don't know," Cammie said. "You're the only other person who thinks something out of the ordinary is happening."

  DeeDee nodded. "Well, you hang in there, girl, and if you need anything, you just call me. I may not be able to talk to you about it, but I can at least fund your entertainment."

  "Reception doesn't get paid more th
an Eradication."

  "That's right," DeeDee said, "but we know how to manage it better."

  Cammie rolled her eyes and started down the hall. Strange how her good moods would evaporate after she left DeeDee. Cammie brushed a strand of hair from her face. This morning she had been so tired she had left her hair loose. Now she regretted it. The hair constantly tumbling over her eyes made her feel like more of a mess than she was.

  Most of the doors in the administration wing were closed—Thursdays were field days—but Anita's stood open. Her office's fresh,[C&F48] minty scent covered the chalky metallic scent that normally filled the hallway. Plants hung around the door, and more hung inside, giving Anita's office a humid, jungle-like interior. The carpet and curtains were forest green, and the overstuffed furniture matched, from the long couch squeezed beneath the bookshelf to the four easy chairs scattered around the room. Anita had her desk to one side, so that it was unobtrusive: she preferred her office to be more like a room than a place of power. Tiny statues peeked out of the plants, adding a touch of whimsy, and anatomically correct cloth dolls rested on a pillow.

  Anita was sitting on the window seat. She was a heavy woman who looked even more solid because of the dark tunics she wore. Her salt-and-pepper hair was swept back in a bun, giving her the look of a dowager duchess from an era gone by.

  The window seat was one of Anita's favorite spots in the complex. She usually sat there when she was working. She had had it specially designed when the Administration wing was added. Plants stood on a sill that rested about shoulder height. In the dip, beneath the plants, a cushioned seat whose print[C&F49] matched that of the other furniture provided a comfortable, cozy, and warm seating area. Cammie had sat on it once when Anita was out of the room.