Nightshades

by Melissa F. Olson

  Alex nodded. “Shade and human blood samples are similar all the way down to the DNA code, and that can take days to run.” Since Ambrose’s capture the previous year, every DNA lab in the country was backlogged.

  Tymer smiled, pleased. “Exactly. Our labs just aren’t fast enough, and my advisors say it’ll be a couple of years yet before we can put together an instant blood test. We spent the first six months trying to develop a high-tech test,” he explained as he held his badge and ID up to the first technician. “Something that could work at the speed we needed. Finally I realized we were overthinking it.” He paused, turning back to face Alex and Chase. “Are you aware of how we feed Ambrose?” he asked abruptly.

  Alex knew, but he tilted his body a little, indicating that Chase should step forward and join the conversation. “Blind donation from a bloodmobile,” Chase said, and Tymer gave him a pleased nod as if he were a star pupil at Quantico. Really, anyone with a newspaper would know how Ambrose was fed, because it had sparked quite the public debate a few months earlier. When biologists had finally confirmed that yes, Subject A did require human blood in order to survive, thousands of weirdos had rushed forward with offers to donate, hoping to be personally fed on by a vampire. At the same time, thousands of protestors had come forward claiming that there was no way in hell their tax dollars should do anything to help the evil filth survive. The BPI and a special police task force racked up overtime trying to get the two sides to calm down, while working on the thorny ethical issue of drawing blood from a free citizen and giving it to a federal prisoner.

  The quandary was eventually solved by the Red Cross, of all things. The company’s spokeswoman came forward and suggested that a permanent blood drive location could be set up specifically for the vampire groupies. From that supply, Ambrose would receive his minimal nutritional requirements, and the rest would be donated to the many good causes for which the Red Cross provided blood. The BPI decided to give it a three-month trial run, and the Red Cross reported exponential gains in blood donation, enough to nearly meet blood requirements at East Coast hospitals, for the first time in the history of the organization. These results eventually reduced the anti-vampire brigade to grumbles and mutters, which was a hell of a lot better than the street riots that had previously been threatened.

  “In every donation scenario,” Tymer went on, “there is a certain percentage of blood that simply can’t be used, because of the donor’s illness, health risks, and so on.” He smiled smugly. “We take possession of that excess, and use it for the simplest test imaginable.” He waved toward the lab tech, who pressed on one of the large containers, which was roughly the size and shape of a small copy machine. A door panel popped out, and she reached in and pulled out what looked like an especially high-quality Tupperware container, completely transparent. Inside, Alex could see a thick red liquid sloshing around, and his stomach churned just a little. Blood. He wasn’t one of those people who fainted at the sight of it, but he wasn’t an enormous fan, either.

  The second tech handed the first woman what looked like a gas mask with a long tube running out of the bottom. The first tech connected it to a valve in the top of the container. She handed it to Tymer, who donned the mask with practiced motions. When it was secured on the back of his head, he took a deep breath, in and out, which the first tech followed on a handheld monitoring device. After the breath, the second tech leaned over the table with a flashlight, shining it at Tymer’s eyes while he stood there complacently. Both techs nodded, and Tymer peeled the gas mask off.

  “That’s it?” Alex said, incredulous. “You just inhale . . . what, blood fumes?”

  Tymer grinned. “That’s it. We got the lawyer’s permission to try this on Ambrose—which was a huge pain in the ass from a security standpoint, by the way—and every single time, he exhibits the stimulation response.” He motioned to his own eyes to indicate what the press loved to call “vamping out,” when blood drained into a shade’s irises and pupils to indicate their awakened blood hunger. Ambrose had done it a couple of times on national television. “We’ve tested different amounts of blood, using control substances instead of human blood, trying him at different times of day, everything our scientists could think of. We’ve tinkered enough to get this thing damn near perfect—if you’ve got about three liters of human blood lying around. It will withstand a certain amount of refrigeration, although we’ve found that after about a month it loses some of its . . . allure. That’s why we keep getting the fresh stuff.”

  “What if he holds his breath?” Chase asked. “Fakes breathing?”

  In answer, the first tech held up her monitoring device. “I’ll see that here. We can monitor the air pressure in the tube.”

  “Smart,” Chase said approvingly.

  “Jesus,” Alex blurted. “If the private sector finds out about that . . .”

  Tymer’s face turned grave. “I know. The world’s most secure corporations are already requiring DNA tests from new employees. If this gets out they could create a whole new market for selling blood, which is desperately needed by hospitals already. That’s why we’re keeping it quiet.” He motioned for Alex and Chase to step forward, and each took a turn breathing into the mask. When they had passed the test, the two women waved them through the narrow space between the wall and the table.

  Chase eyed the simple setup. “No offense, but the checkpoint doesn’t look all that imposing,” he commented.

  “It’s not supposed to. We want one of these assholes to take a run at springing Ambrose, so we can have another specimen. Aw, hell. Let me show you.” He nodded at the female tech, who must have pressed some sort of silent alarm, though Alex barely saw her arm twitch. A siren blared, and Alex looked up to see lights flashing in the ceiling. By the time his eyes moved down again, he was looking down the barrel of a Micro Desert Eagle wielded by the woman who’d gotten the blood out of the cooler. Adrenaline spiking, Alex raised his hands, and Chase did the same beside him. He was dimly aware of the sound of running behind him, and realized there were several armed agents there as well. They were trapped.

  “These aren’t technicians,” Tymer said proudly, motioning to the woman in front of Alex. “Rebecca here is my finest marksman.” He shot her an apologetic glance. “Er, markswoman. Sorry, Bex.”

  The woman gave a good-natured eye roll and holstered the sidearm, reaching up with her free hand to pull down the surgical mask, exposing a grin. She peeled off her surgical glove and held out her hand. “Agent Rebecca Lanver, sir. Good to meet you.”

  Alex shook, introducing himself and then Chase. Seeing the opportunity to talk to someone other than Tymer, he asked Lanver how often they ran the agents through the test.

  “Every day. The process is so simple that every agent in the pod can administer it,” she answered. “We test each other every single morning, and when we have someone coming in to see the subject, we take turns on checkpoint duty.”

  “Not bad, right?” Tymer grinned proudly, and Alex and Chase exchanged a glance. Alex was pretty sure Chase was thinking what he was—could they replicate the test in Chicago? It was definitely something to think about.

  It took a few minutes to de-escalate the false alarm, and then Tymer walked them through the third and final checkpoint, where Alex and Chase surrendered their guns and badges. “We had an agent last year who was one of those Champions of Humanity assholes,” Tymer said, rolling his eyes at the mention of the anti-shade religious lobbyists. “Got right past all our background checks somehow. He actually snuck in there with his gun and got a couple of shots at Ambrose. The idiot failed to realize that three-inch plexiglass can keep bullets out as well as it keeps the shade in. Got himself right in the kneecap with the ricochet.”

  “I didn’t hear about that,” Alex said, surprised.

  “You wouldn’t have. The powers that be hushed it up but good. BPI’s got enough media problems without them finding out one of our own was a wing nut.” He motioned for them to keep emptying
their pockets, until Alex had given up his phone, wallet, and even spare change. He raised his eyebrows at Tymer.

  “He’ll try to mesmerize you right away,” the older agent explained. “He should need the saliva, but we’ve discovered that about one in every hundred people is just naturally susceptible to it, enough that he can get you on visual cues alone. There’s no way to break him out from this side, but if he gets you to pass any of your stuff through the airlock he’ll make a pest of himself so we have to come in and take it away.”

  He let them keep their belts and shoelaces—“Your spotter would see you taking that stuff off in time to stop you”—and the three of them went through the final door into Camp Vamp.

  The door opened onto a short entryway with bright fluorescent lighting. Just inside the door was a desk with ten monitors—nine of them dark—and a spotter’s chair, positioned so the occupant could see both the monitor and the short corridor of plexiglass cells beyond. The basement had been renovated for this purpose shortly after Ambrose’s second escape attempt, when he’d managed to spit shade saliva through cell bars in a guard’s eyes.

  There were five cells on each side of the hallway, with Ambrose as the only occupant. “He’s in the fourth cell on the left,” Tymer said quietly. “The rooms are soundproofed, but we don’t quite trust it, given how little we know about their enhanced senses. Anything you don’t want him to know, don’t say. We’ve got a one-way mirror in front of the plexiglass, but we can turn it on and off so the prisoner can see out.” He nodded to a control panel on the wall near the door. “When Alex gets down there I’ll hit the control, so Ambrose can see him. We’ve got audio here”—he handed Chase a set of headphones, picking up a second pair for himself—“and we’ll be recording as well, just in case. If the spotter sees anything off, or either of us thinks you’re getting mesmerized, I’ll hit the control and he’ll have a one-way mirror again. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” Alex held up the folder. “And this?”

  “Right. I’d advise you to just hold it up to the plexiglass if you can, but he’ll want you to send it through the airlock. That’s fine—let him have a win—but know that anything you give him, he’s not giving back. We’ll have to retrieve it on his next scheduled cell cleaning.” He clapped Alex on the shoulder and handed him a plastic folding chair. “Good luck, son.”

  Alex didn’t like that son, but he managed to resist shrugging the other man’s hand off as he took the lightweight chair. He was suddenly nervous. Chase gave him a nod of encouragement. “If the guy says anything about fava beans or Chianti, get out of there,” he advised solemnly. Alex made a face and turned to walk down the hallway to face the vampire.

  The cells on either side of Alex were sparse: a small bed, a metal toilet, and an airlock for sending materials back and forth. Before he’d passed the first pair he felt unnerved by the quiet. He had visited a number of prisons, and every single one of them had been cacophonous. This place was clean, new looking, brightly lit, and completely silent. It was creepy as hell.

  He reached Ambrose’s cell with images from The Silence of the Lambs still at the forefront of his mind, thanks to Chase. When he turned to face the shade he was surprised to find the occupied cell just as bare as the three he’d already passed. No artwork, no photos, no stacks of mail. No sharp edges anywhere. Everything had been taken away. As a punishment? Or had Ambrose not wanted anything in there with him?

  Alex’s eyes automatically scanned for any movement, which was how he missed Ambrose on the first pass. He had to look through the room a second time before he saw the man standing absolutely still in the back corner, leaning against the beige walls as if he were painted with camouflage. Which he might as well have been: Ambrose was dressed in an off-white jumpsuit, his small square features perfectly still and blank. The shade was average height; he had brown hair and a face that was sort of blandly pleasant rather than handsome or homely. Other than the stillness, Ambrose just looked like any normal guy you’d see at a bar or a business meeting. Alex had seen photos, of course, but he realized in that moment that he’d been expecting the shade to give off an otherworldly vibe in person: some sort of alien quality that immediately identified him as nonhuman. It was a stupid idea, really. The shades would never have made it this long without being able to blend in perfectly. There might have been a hint of predator about him, but no more than you’d see with Wall Street assholes aggressively hitting on women at a bar.

  Tymer must have flicked the switch for the mirror, because suddenly the fluorescent lighting in Ambrose’s cell shifted, and the shade gave a sudden blink, looking around as if he’d been caught in a daydream, until his raptor eyes landed on Alex. There was a sudden blur of motion, and then the shade was just there, standing directly in front of Alex on the other side of the plexiglass. Alex couldn’t help but give a little start, nearly dropping the chair, and he saw the shade smirk with triumph.

  “So sorry about that, Agent,” he said. “I didn’t meant to startle you.”

  “Sure you did.” Alex said easily. “But that’s fine. I’d probably be looking for entertainment, too, if I had to be in that cell all day.”

  The shade frowned, looking Alex up and down. “I thought they were done with sending new people to test me.”

  “I’m Alex,” he said. “You mind if I sit down?” He held up the plastic folding chair, and Ambrose shrugged. “Thanks.” Alex unfolded the seat and settled himself into it, giving Ambrose a moment to look him over. The shade remained standing on the other side of the plexiglass with an unreadable expression. Alex made sure his own face was relaxed, though it felt surreal to sit across from the vampire, like something out of a bad horror movie.

  “If you don’t mind, Mr. Ambrose, I’d like to ask you a few questions about your culture,” he began. “Are the shades organized? Do they have a central leader? Can you communicate with each other?”

  Ambrose just stared at him silently, his arms hanging a little loose from his body. “You’ve been asked all that before, huh?” Alex said with a smile. “That must get annoying.”

  The shade just cocked an eyebrow and looked pointedly at the file in Alex’s hand. “Oh, this?” Alex said. “These are some photos. Shade murders, or so we think. I was hoping you might help me figure out who did it.” Without waiting for a reply, he stood up and began laying out photos and documents on the floor, right up against the plexiglass. Ambrose glanced down at them with reluctance, as though he wanted to resist but couldn’t help himself. The color photos caught his eye, and he soon began moving along the wall on his side, studying the images.

  “That one,” he said abruptly, his finger jabbing at a color photo of the pile of dead BPI agents in the cornfield. “Send me that one.”

  There was a small airlock fixed into the plexiglass at waist height, along the right side of the cell. It was about the size and width of a ream of paper. Alex went over and opened the door on his side of the plexiglass, placing the photo inside. Ambrose’s hand darted for his own door, but it wouldn’t open until Alex closed his. He waited until the shade met his eyes. “Why that shot?” he asked quietly. “You just looking to add to the spank bank?”

  Ambrose licked his lips. “Maybe. Or maybe I recognize the work.”

  Alex shut his side of the airlock door and let the shade have the picture. He ripped it out, examining it from three inches away. Alex saw a faint reddish cast come over Ambrose’s eyes. He was . . . stimulated.

  Time for an experiment. “Giselle,” Alex said softly.

  Ambrose looked up, startled. Realizing he’d already given himself away, the shade nodded. “She identified herself to you?”

  “Not me,” Alex replied. “The surviving agent.”

  Ambrose’s eyebrows rose a fraction. “She left a survivor? Interesting. He must have impressed her.”

  To Alex’s surprise, Ambrose jammed the photo back in the airlock and slammed his door closed, sending it back. “I can’t help you,” he said with fi
nality.

  “Just tell me a little more about Giselle.”

  “No.”

  “I can make your stay here easier,” Alex offered. “Reading material, maybe a television. I might even be able to talk them into increasing your feeding schedule.”

  Ambrose eyes flickered at the last suggestion, but he shook his head hard. “I have been in this box for ten months,” he said, anger in his voice. “Do you think you’re the first one to come in here and offer that? Or even the sixth? Nothing you can offer would be worth that.”

  He put the slightest emphasis on the word that, and Alex went still. Why would information about Giselle be more valuable than any other? On a hunch, he asked, “Who does she work for?”

  Ambrose immediately turned his back and stalked over to the bed, lying down facing the wall. He almost seemed . . . scared.

  “Okay, fine,” Alex said. “Don’t tell me about Giselle, or her boss. Give me someone else. A name. Another shade I can push instead.”

  No response. Ambrose didn’t even lift his head. Alex glanced to left, to where Tymer and Chase were watching. Chase gave a little shrug: Now what? Tymer looked as if this was exactly what he’d expected. He made a little motion for Alex to come back to the door.

  But Alex turned back to the plexiglass, thinking. They needed this. They needed something, anyway. He couldn’t touch Ambrose, certainly couldn’t torture him. There was nothing to threaten him with, either, and any offered bribe would be just a promise, at this point. What was the promise of future reward against something that Ambrose seemed to be actively afraid of, even in here? Alex glanced at the plexiglass barrier, the airlock. He had an idea, God help him.